1 John 5:13-21c

Hanging on the wall in the office is a world map from Operation World. The map is intended to be a reminder to pray for missions around the world. At the bottom of the map is this simple phrase: “When we pray, God works.” Is this a true statement? If this is not a true statement, we better not pray, because we are wasting our time. If our prayers don’t have any impact on the future or don’t move God to do anything, then we are the most miserable of all creatures. I don’t think any Christian is willing to say this is not true. But if it is a true statement—that “when we pray, God works,” then in what sense is it true? We have to be very careful how we answer this question, because the premise alone is quite amazing. Think about what we are saying here. When we pray, God does something in response to our prayer. When we pray, God works, or, when I pray, God works. This means that something I do—namely prayer—has an effect on God’s specific actions. When I pray, God acts. In that sense, my prayer causes God to act.

Do you see how this truth is at the same time wildly wonderful and also amazingly dangerous? The very fact that God is willing to listen to our prayers and even potentially respond in some kind of action is beyond amazing. To think that the Creator of the universe would even listen to us—let alone act in response to something we did. Do you remember when President Bush went through Viroqua the first time in 2004 and he stopped at Culvers for some ice cream? What if I would have been in Culvers at the time and had the opportunity to shake his hand. Imagine further if I tried to give him some quick advice while I was shaking his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. President. I think the IRS is an overblown, failed bureaucracy and I would like you to institute the fair tax.” Then imagine the next day I see President Bush on the TV holding a press conference announcing that he was going to do immediately initiate legislation to reform the IRS and institute the fair tax. In this scenario, not only did I get to meet the president, I also got the chance to ask him to do something. Not only did I get to ask him to do something, but he actually did what I asked. What are the chances of this scenario ever coming true? The odds would be something like 100 trillion to one, right? Yet through prayer, we are not only granted an audience with the Creator, but we are also allowed to make requests of him and very often, he grants our requests. In all of this we do not need to go groveling before the Lord but John tells us that we can have confidence in approaching God.

This phrase is indeed true—when we pray, God works. But obviously we don’t want to fall into the trap of believing we are harnessing some kind of power or force to command at our disposal. Prayer is not like holding the ring of power that will enable us to defeat our enemies and bring us success. Prayer is not like a magic lamp that we rub and have our wildest wishes come true. And prayer is most certainly not like a vending machine where through persistence we will be rewarded with an answer to our prayer that goes down like a cold can of coke. Under the right circumstances, we can even approach God with confidence. You may remember a description of a proper prayer attitude that I gave over a year ago. I used the term respectful impudence to describe this attitude. Respectful impudence is like boldness, but it is stronger than boldness. Impudence by itself would be rude and demanding, but when you combine respect and impudence, I think you get a Biblical description of an attitude of prayer. God wants to give good gifts to his children but he waits for us to ask him, because asking is a sign of our dependency upon him. Therefore, our boldness—or even our respectful impudence—is an appeal to the character of God. When we are in need of bread or fish, God will not give us a stone or a snake. He gives good gifts to those who boldly appeal to his good and just character to meet our daily needs.

There was a time when I was developing this respectful impudence in prayer, but lately I have noticed that I am not as bold or as confident as I once was. I am becoming the very opposite of what John said we can be—confident. I have noticed that I am less, not more confident in my prayer life. I am pretty sure I know the main reason why this has happened. Watch this short video and then I’ll explain more. Watch Prosperity Praise

When these kinds of people say, “When we pray—God works,” they mean something entirely different from what you and I mean. This satirical commercial is obviously way over the top, but it in an extreme way it highlights the problem in my prayer life, namely, prosperity theology. I believe the “name-it/claim-it” wealth-driven, money-grubbing motives of so many prosperity preachers has made me less confident in my prayer life because I have over-reacted to their disrespectful impudence. I truly despise their theology, which has made God into not just a spiritual vending machine that dispenses a cold drink when you need it, but prosperity theology has turned God into a high stakes slot machine that just happens to pay out every time you pull the handle. Why do people stand for hours at a time to put money into a slot machine? Because the machine is programmed to keep paying out a certain amount of money that is just enough to keep the person dropping in more money. If you are putting in quarters, every so often you get a clinkety-clink of quarters dropping into the money tray. I have never played one myself, but I have read that these small payouts are like smoking a puff of crack cocaine—each time it happens you get a little high so that you keep putting in more and more money. All gambling is addictive, but the slot machines are a particularly powerful tool for addiction. Prosperity theology is like the addictive power of slot machines. Our prayers—which are more like demands—are like pulling the arm of the slot machine. Prosperity theology expects a payout, so the people keep pulling down the arm in an addictive, repetitive pattern while a bunch of small payouts are given and while they wait until the big payola comes.

If you don’t think this is true, look at this advertisement for one prosperity teacher. This was posted on a secular financial seminar and could not be more clear.

I don’t need to tell you how much I hate this theological heresy which dethrones God and turns him into an object for personal gain. I hate it. It is an unbiblical, hideous distortion of the gospel, which at its core is a false gospel. I hate it. Please understand that what I hate most about prosperity theology are the prosperity preachers and proponents. We probably all know some Christians who are caught up in prosperity theology. I would not say that all of them are heretics because most of them are innocently being led astray by a false prophet. But I also blame prosperity theology for decreasing the confidence in my own prayer life. It’s not so much the fault of the heresy of demanding prayer, but more my own over-reaction to their demanding prayer.

When prosperity teachers the phrase, “When we pray, God works,” they mean something completely different from what you and I mean. They believe that they are able to harness the power of God and use it for our personal gain. Is this any different than the new age folks who believe they can gather their energy force together and become more powerful? It’s no different at all. In both cases, God has become a depersonalized power force that we can manipulate for personal gain. You have not only depersonalized God, but you have stripped him of his power. If we are controlling God through our prayers, then we are actually more powerful than God himself.

But God is not a force to be manipulated; he is a person to be obeyed. He is the sovereign over all things. I have reacted so strongly to the false conceptions of prosperity teachers that I have swung too far the other way. Everything hinges on the original phrase—when we pray, God works. If we cannot manipulate God by our prayers then in what sense does God work in response to our prayers? This is why I said this truth is both wildly wonderful and amazingly dangerous. It’s wonderful because God does listen to our specific prayers and he does answer our specific prayers, but it is dangerous if we think we can manipulate God. Do you see why I think I have lost a little confidence in my prayers? I have such a repulsion toward the idea that my prayers can manipulate God that I wonder what effect they do have. For me, God is so completely sovereign over all things and so perfectly good that I trust him to do the right thing. Sometimes I doubt if I am praying for the right thing, so I begin to lose confidence in my prayers. I have lost some of the boldness in my prayers, not because I don’t trust God to do the right thing, but precisely because I do no trust myself to pray the right prayers. Does this make sense?

There is so much more that could be said about prayer, but I want to stay focused on 1 John 5. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

The confidence in our prayers is based upon prayers that are made according to God’s will. If I pray according to God’s will, he will hear me and answer my prayer. Last week I said that praying according to God’s will is praying according to his revealed will. It’s not so much a matter of guessing the secret will of God as it is praying according to the revealed word of God in the Scriptures. But last week I may have slightly overstated my case, because this passage includes praying according to both God’s revealed will and his secret will.

Let’s use our old friend “Uncle Jim” as an example. Let’s say that Uncle Jim is not a Christian. Should I pray for Uncle Jim’s salvation? What does Scripture say about praying for another person’s salvation? I could not think of a single verse that speaks clearly about praying for another person’s salvation. But I do have several examples that instruct us in this area. In Romans 9 Paul wrote; I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. He wrote something similar in 2 Timothy 2. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. Later in the same chapter he wrote; Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth. In Acts 16, Luke records the conversion of Lydia. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. In Ephesians six, Paul asked for prayer for himself. Pray that I may declare [the gospel] fearlessly, as I should.

None of these are specifically a prayer for another person’s salvation, but you could easily turn these into prayers.

All of these prayers look to the power and sufficiency of God to bring salvation. So would we say that according to the revealed will of God we should pray for the salvation of unbelievers? Yes, absolutely! So when we pray according to God’s will to bring salvation to Uncle Jim, are we guaranteed the answer that we want? God may bring salvation to Uncle Jim and he may not. The ultimate decision on this is a part of God’s secret will. The result is that we pray with boldness according to the revealed word of God and submit with thankfulness according to the secret will of God. Prayer is a reflection of what we believe about God, so the more we learn about God, the more our prayers will be according to his will. It is this balance between confidence and submission that will form into a healthy, Biblical payer life.

I like what John Stott said about prayer. “Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or for bending his will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his.”[1] C.S. Lewis hit also hit the nail on the head when he said, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’”[2]

One of the goals of this of these two messages on prayer is to apply them to our Building a Legacy of Grace campaign. How should we be praying about this? What kinds of prayers should we be praying? First of all I would say that I don’t want to limit your prayers by giving you some kind of pre-ordained list of right and wrong ways to pray. There are probably endless ways you could pray, but there are also wrong ways to pray. I don’t want to limit the good prayers but only eliminate the bad ones. In all of your prayers, pray with bold confidence in regard to the revealed will of God and with full submission in regard to his secret will.

We can pray with the greatest confidence about things which God has commanded. To make disciples…

Pray for provision of funds. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and we need to ask him to sell a couple head and send us the money.

Pray about the future ministry in the building. What we will we do once we have our new facility?

[1] John Stott, The Letters of John, Intervarsity Press, 1992, p. 188.

[2] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/c_s_lewis.html