Effective Prayer

Last week we looked at what it will look like on a personal level when we focus attention on seeking things that are above, where Christ is. Paul delineated some of those characteristics in chapter three, and I read it again for emphasis:

 

“Consider the members of your earthly body as dead to [sexual] immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience . . . But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices . . . [But] put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another and forgiving each other . . . just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity . . . Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (Colossians 3:5-17)

 

In other words: Immorality, greed, anger, slander, and so forth have no place in the heart of the Christian. Rather, the Christian must be compassionate, kind, gentle, patient, and so forth. And we dare not overlook forgiving each other their offenses against us.

 

It you’ve ever read lists like this one slowly and thoughtfully . . . well, it should be enough to cause some melancholy in the honest heart – maybe even some despair because if we think we can in our own strength live up to the things Paul writes about here, we ought to realize we are doomed to failure. More than that, we put ourselves at risk of experiencing a dreary hopelessness that we will ever ‘measure up’ to God’s standard. And don’t be surprised if the thought drops into your mind: What’s left but to give it all up?

 

I almost did that myself many years ago – give up my faith. I’d been saved only a few months, and, because of my deficient understanding of Scripture, I thought I could never live the Christian life. Standing on the edge of a pier, waves lapping against the wood stanchions, I came within MOMENTS of throwing my Bible into the water, and with it, my faith. If God had not intervened at the last moment, I don’t believe I’d be standing before you today.

 

Beware of a similar danger for yourself, because a sense of hopelessness resulting from failure to live up to God’s standards. A sense of hopelessness can lead us to do one of three things: Either water-down His commandments so we feel more comfortable with them, or rationalize His commandments so as to believe they don’t apply to us and our situations, or, as almost happened to me, we’ll throw away our faith.

 

Martin Luther, likely speaking from personal experience, wrote words that we’d all do well to reflect on: “Did we get our own strength confide our striving would be losing; Were not the right Man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same, and He must win the battle.”

Christian, get it out of your head that you can ever in your own strength live fully up to God’s commandments. We are in a moment-by-moment supernatural war, and our weapons of this warfare are NOT inherent in ourselves. “For though we walk in the flesh,” Scripture warns us, “we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4)

 

Listen again to God’s warning: “For our fight is not against any physical enemy: it is against organizations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil.” (Ephesians 6:12 Philips).

 

All this is why I caution us – No one in their own power will ever consistently live up to the traits Paul lists of those who seek what is above. Our sin nature simply will not rest quietly while we strive to keep seeking Christ. As Paul reminded the Christians at Rome: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.  (Romans 8:5-7)

 

Well, all of what I have said thus far brings us now to our text for today: After Paul describes the marks of the Christan who seeks what is above, he then tells them: “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.” (Colossians 4:2)

 

Prayer is one of the essential elements of Christian faith that will enable us to consistently seek Christ, for how else can they – or we – ever hope to live the life of a Christian? And this text in Colossians is not the only time the apostle speaks of prayer. More than 40 times in his 11 letters he talks about the necessity of Christian prayer as part of our supernatural warfare.

 

Surely, if we are ever to be more victorious in living the Christian life, if we hope to be more consistent in seeking the things above where Christ is, then prayer is a fundamental component of an intimate walk with Jesus.

 

For most of my Christian life, I rarely spent more than a few minutes in prayer. I seemed to always run out of things to say – which, in retrospect, seems quite silly to me now. Yet, all the while, I knew intuitively there was more to prayer than my experience to that point. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says it as well as anything else I have found in my research about the necessity of prayer in our spiritual battles:

 

Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort . . . Prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. . . . The "spiritual battle" of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer.”

 

So, how might we overcome through prayer the “wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn” us away from prayer? What can we who want an effective and powerful prayer life – what can we do for prayer to become a more integral part of our life and draw us to consistently desire to be more like Jesus?

 

Well, of prime importance, let me state this incontrovertible truth: Whatever the methods of prayer we use – whether prayer lists, or praying the Psalms back to God, or the lyrics of hymns – whatever our method  -- there are two absolute prerequisites for effective prayer: Confession and the forgiveness. One is useless without the other, and without either, we ought not to expect our prayers to get higher than the ceiling.  As the Psalmist wrote: “If I hold on to sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” (See Psalm 66:18)

 

Scripture so often links effective prayer with confession that it is impossible to miss the connection with even a cursory reading of the Old and New Testaments. For example: “He who conceals his sins prospers not, but he who confesses and forsakes them obtains mercy (Proverbs 28:13). And “As long as I kept silent [about my sin], my bones wasted away; I groaned all the day . . . Then I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said, "I confess my faults to the Lord," and you took away the guilt of my sin.” (Psalms 32:3-5)

There’s not a Christian who has ever wanted to be more like Jesus who did not beseech God along this thought: “Examine me, O God, and know my mind; test me and discover my thoughts. Find out if there is any evil in me and guide me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:23-24, GNT)

 

Before we even begin our daily time of prayer to God, we ought to first ask Him to reveal the things in our life for which we need to confess as sin. That includes sin in our thought life as much as it includes sin in our actions. Don’t neglect or minimize this step. It’s a true maxim: “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” (Emerson)

 

The other prerequisite for effective prayer is ‘forgiveness of others.’ Scripture makes it unmistakable: God’s forgiveness of us is inextricably linked to our forgiveness of others. Perhaps the clearest example of this principle is found in the verses just after the “Our Father” in which Jesus warns, “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

 

Think that one through for a moment. Aren’t you amazed by God’s amazing grace, that He saved a wretch like you? And I ought to add, if any Christian does NOT think of himself or herself as being wretched before coming to Christ, then they likely have an entirely insufficient understanding of the cost of – or the reason for – the cross. May it never be that any of us hear the Lord say to us at the Judgement what He said to those in the church of Laodicea: “Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:16-17)

 

Forgiveness of others is serious stuff – and make no mistake, forgiveness of others for their sins against us is a choice. It’s an act of the will and independent of our “feelings” of forgiveness. It’s the choice Jesus made when He asked the Father to forgive those who mocked and crucified Him – even though they had not asked for forgiveness. It’s the same choice St. Stephen made when, as he was dying at the hands of the mob stoning him, he asked the Father to not hold that sin against them – even though they had not asked for forgiveness.

 

Let me add this caution before I go further: Forgiveness does NOT mean we put ourselves back into a dangerous or painful situation. It doesn’t mean we tolerate harm done to us, nor does it mean we are obligated to make up with the person who harmed us. But it does mean we consistently ask God to help us let go of anger, hatred, and thoughts of revenge against the one who harmed us.

 

You may remember reading in Matthew’s gospel when Peter asked the Lord, “How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” If you remember the story, you know how the Lord answered: “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” 

 

In other words, God requires of us repeated forgiveness, time after time.

 

To illustrate His point, the Lord spoke a parable about a slave who owed his master an impossibly enormous amount of money – more than he could have repaid in many, many lifetimes. So, because he could not repay the debt, his master commanded that he, his wife, children and all that he had to be sold. But when the slave begged for mercy, the master had a change of heart and forgave the entire debt.

 

The. Entire. Debt.

But the story doesn’t end there. Having been forgiven, the slave went home and found a fellow slave who owed him a few months’ worth of wages. When his fellow slave begged him to be patient, he was unwilling and tossed him into prison until he repaid what he owed. But when the master discovered what the slave had done, he had him brought back to him and said: ‘You wicked slave. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.”

 

The Lord concluded with this ominous warning: “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

 

Until we catch a glimpse of the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth of our own sins – the big ones, the little ones, the in-between ones – unless the Holy Spirit shows us how wretched and miserable and blind and naked we were – or are – without Christ, then we will never arrive at the place which is absolutely necessary to be if we hope to grow in intimacy with Christ.

 

Until we catch of glimpse of how much God has been merciful to us despite our sins – egregious and utterly damnable as they are – how can we ever be merciful to those who sin against us?

 

Some of you know the lyrics, “He paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay, I needed someone to wash my sins away; And now I sing a brand-new song, “Amazing Grace,” Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.”

 

Please, hear it once again: Jesus was serious when He said: “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.

 

I started today’s message with this text from Paul’s letter to the Christians at Colossae: “Consider the members of your earthly body as dead to [sexual] immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed . . . anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech . . [But] put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another and forgiving each other.

 

Let me repeat myself again for emphasis: Without the help and the protection of the Holy Spirit, we can’t consistently live up to God’s standards. Our sin nature is stronger than we realize – BUT God’s grace is stronger still. So, when we fail, repent, get up, dust ourselves off, and get back to seeking Christ. Our confession and repentance give us once again a completely clean slate. Every time. Time after time. Seventy times seven times. Perfect forgiveness.

 

As I bring this message to a close, please hear these several promises of God to those who seek Him. I cite only four of the hundreds of similar texts – promises of great encouragement to all who want to keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is.

 

God tells us through Moses: If you seek Him, you WILL find Him, “If you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.”  (Deuteronomy 4:29) He says the same thing through Jeremiah: You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13.

 

Through the apostle Paul, God tells us: Philippians 1:6 “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”  And once more: 2 Corinthians 3:18 “But all of us who are Christians . . . are transfigured by the Spirit of the Lord in ever-increasing splendor into His own image.” (Phillips)

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don’t dwell on your failures. And hold on to this promise: “The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,
because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.” (Psalm 37:23-24)

Since you want to be more like Him, then ask Him to make you more like Him. Since you want to seek Him, ask Him to change your heart to earnestly do so.

 

He will not fail to answer those prayers.