Prayer Outline/Notes from Sunday Seminary
Below is the outline and notes (and quotes) from Sunday Seminary on the topic of prayer. Again, this was not an exhaustive study, more of a encouragement to continue on in prayer and some helps for prayer (also, the teaching I referred to that Pastor Emilio taught on prayer is here):
Prayer – is simply personal communication with God
- Purposes of Prayer:
- Not so God can find out what we need [Matt. 6:8]
- For God’s glory [John 14:13]
- Our full joy [John 16:24 | John 15:11]
- Getting help from God thereby glorifying Him [Psalm 50:15]
- “God and the praying man take shares… First here is your share: ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble.’ Secondly, here is God’s share: ‘I will deliver thee.’ Again, you take a share – for you shall be delivered [by God.] And then again it is the Lord’s turn – ‘Thou shalt glorify me.’ Here is a compact, a covenant that God enters into with you who pray to Him, and whom He helps. He says, ‘You shall have the deliverance, but I must have the glory…’ Here is a delightful partnership: we obtain that which we so greatly need, and all that God getteth is the glory which is due unto His name.” (Charles Spurgeon, Sermon: “Robinson Crusoe’s Text”)
- Bearing fruit for God’s glory [John 15:1-8]
- “In John 15:5 Jesus says, ‘I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.’ So we really are paralyzed. Without Christ, we are capable of no good. As Paul says in Romans 7:18, ‘Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.’ But according to John 15:5, God intends for us to do something good- namely, bear fruit… He promises to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. How then do we glorify Him? Jesus gives the answer in John 15:7: ‘If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.’ We pray! We ask God to do for us through Christ what we can’t do for ourselves- bear fruit. Verse 8 gives the result: ‘By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.’ So how is God glorified by prayer? Prayer is open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy.” (John Piper, Desiring God, 161)
- Means of grace [Heb. 4:16]
- Changing people’s will [Rom. 15:30-31]
- Paul met a hostile city as expected, they planned on killing him but that was stopped [Acts 22-28] and Paul was delivered from the unbelievers in Jerusalem just the way he asked for prayer in Rom. 15:30-31. And the saints received him [Acts 21:17-20; 24:17].
- “As God must be sought unto for the restraining of the ill will of our enemies, so also for the preserving and increasing of the good will of our friends; for God has the hearts both of the one and the other in His hands.” (Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible)
- Don’t pray…
- Like a hypocrite (for man glory) [Matt. 6:5 | Luke 20:46-47]
- Like the Gentiles (using meaningless repetition) [Matt. 6:7]
- Like an adulteress (wrong motives, for ungodly pleasures) [James 4:3-5]
- “[James] pictures the church as the wife of God. God has made us for Himself and has given Himself to us for our enjoyment. Therefore, it is adultery when we try to be ‘friends’ with the world. If we seek from the world the pleasures we should seek in God, we are unfaithful to our marriage vows. And, what’s worse, when we go to heavenly Husband and actually pray for the resources with which to commit adultery with the world, it is a very wicked thing. It is as though we would ask our husband for money to hire male prostitutes to provide the pleasure we don’t find in him!” (John Piper, Desiring God, 164)
- Pray…
- All sorts of prayers for all sorts of people [1 Tim. 2:1-2]
- For wisdom [James 1:5]
- For anyone among you suffering [James 5:13] or sick [James 5:14]
- To avoid sin [Matt. 6:13; 26:41 | Mark 14:38 | Luke 11:4; 22:40, 46 | 1 Cor. 10:13]
- “There can be no question where the blame must be placed for our spiritual poverty. Every sin problem reveals a prayer problem. There is no sin that the Christian will ever commit that could not have been avoided by prayer.” (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 973)
- With faith [Matt. 21:22 | Heb. 11:1 | James 1:6 | Mark 11:24]
- Confessing your sins [Matt. 6:12 | 1 John 1:9 | Psalm 19:12 | James 5:16]
- God’s will [1 John 5:14-15 | Matt. 6:10 | John 15:7]
- “If we are to ask for anything ‘according to His will’ (1 John 5:14), then we must refer to His will as revealed in His Word. Faith in prayer is not what we dream up but is engendered by hearing the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). This principle of God’s Word prior to our prayer is amply illustrated in some biblical passages. David’s prayer in 2 Sam. 7:18-29 is essentially to ask God to do the very things He has just promised to do (vv. 9-16). Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the temple centers on the request that God would do what He had promised to do for David (1 Kings 8:22-26). Jeremiah’s letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon (Jer. 29:1-17) explains the logic of prayer in vv. 10-14. First, God tells them what He will do; then they will pray that He will do it; the outcome is that God will do it. Ezekiel is similarly specific in saying that God will let the exiles pray for what He reveals He will do (Ezek. 36:37).” (Graeme Goldsworthy, A Biblical-Theological Perspective on Prayer)
- Another example: God makes a promise to Jacob [Gen. 31:3] and later Jacob prays and reminds God: “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’…For You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.’” – Gen. 32.9-12
- “If we are to ask for anything ‘according to His will’ (1 John 5:14), then we must refer to His will as revealed in His Word. Faith in prayer is not what we dream up but is engendered by hearing the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). This principle of God’s Word prior to our prayer is amply illustrated in some biblical passages. David’s prayer in 2 Sam. 7:18-29 is essentially to ask God to do the very things He has just promised to do (vv. 9-16). Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the temple centers on the request that God would do what He had promised to do for David (1 Kings 8:22-26). Jeremiah’s letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon (Jer. 29:1-17) explains the logic of prayer in vv. 10-14. First, God tells them what He will do; then they will pray that He will do it; the outcome is that God will do it. Ezekiel is similarly specific in saying that God will let the exiles pray for what He reveals He will do (Ezek. 36:37).” (Graeme Goldsworthy, A Biblical-Theological Perspective on Prayer)
- Because “You do not have, because you do not ask God” [James 4:2 | Matt. 6:5-13 | Matt. 7:7-11 | John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:23-26 | Eph. 3:20 | James 1:5-8 | 1 John 3:21-22; 5:14-15]
- “…some Christians have contended that to pray conditionally, that is, to say to God, ‘if it be Your will,’ is incompatible with the prayer of faith, but this is a mistake: ‘We… ask in faith, when we submit to the Word of God and acquiesce [agree/comply] in His will, and pray to be heard according to the good pleasure of our Heavenly Father. For faith submits itself to every word and desire of God.’ (Zanchius, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, 624)…
- “…some Christians think that prayer is incompatible with the sovereignty of God: If He has already ordained everything, then why pray? But this is to overlook the fact that God ordains not only ends but all means to those end as well. Prayer, simply put, is one of the means He has ordained that His children should use to receive blessing from Him. If this is problematic, ‘this is not a problem unique to prayer’… Charles Hodge seeks to demonstrate: ‘It is certain Scriptures teach both fore-ordination and the efficacy of prayer. The two, therefore, cannot be inconsistent. God has not determined to accomplish His purposes without the use of means; and among those means, the prayers of His people have their appropriate place. If the objection to prayer, founded on fore-ordination of events be valid, it is valid against the use of means in any case. If it be unreasonable to say, ‘If it be fore-ordination that I should live, it is not necessary for me to eat,’ it is no less unreasonable for me to say, ‘If it be fore-ordination that I should receive any good, it is not necessary for me to ask for it.’ If God has fore-ordained to bless us, He has fore-ordained that we should seek His blessing. Prayer has the same causal relation to the good bestowed, as any other means has to the end with which it is connected.’ (Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:169)” (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 975)
- Prayers are not always granted [2 Cor. 12:8-9]
- Paul’s experience highlights the simple yet profound truth that prayer is not the means by which we get from God what we want. Rather, “prayer is a means God uses to give us what He wants.” (W. Bingham Hunter, The God Who Hears, 12)
- Biblical prayers for the church [Eph. 1:17-23; 3:14-21 | Col. 1:9-14 | Phil. 1:9-11 | 1 Thes. 3:11-13; 5:23-24 | 2 Thes. 1:11-12; 2:16-17]