Today on Summit Life with JD Greer. God gives certain things only in response to persistence in asking. You say, well, why does he do it that way? I don't know. Maybe it's the test art resolve.
Maybe it's to see how much we actually trust him or to see how quickly we'll turn away from him and pursue some other needs. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich, and I'm so glad that you joined us today because we're here to learn more about prayer.
So, have you ever wondered how prayer really works? Like, first of all, does it actually work? And if so, how? And why? And maybe most important, when?
Of course, we won't ever have all the details, but as Pastor JD continues teaching through the book of Daniel, chapter 9 gives us a behind the scenes look at how prayer works and demonstrates why prayer is so important. Remember you can always catch up on teaching you've missed by visiting our website, jdgreer.com. But for now, grab your Bible and a pen and let's rejoin Pastor JD in Daniel chapter 9. What has God said to you that you can pray back to him and put his reputation on the line? I give you just a few as an example that I'm praying right now in my own life.
Here's one. Jesus said, all authority is given to me in heaven and on earth, so go and make disciples of all the nations. Psalm 2.8 says, ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.
So when I pray for this church, I'm like, God, this is what you said.
So I'm here asking in all the craziness, I'm asking you to build your church like you promised you would. You promised that you would make your name known in our generation if we asked.
So I'm here asking you to do what you said you would do. Your reputation's on the line. God, make your name known in this generation as we think about the triangle of the nations. God, do it now because you said you wanted to do it. I wanna say this as nicely to you as possible, but read the Bible for yourself.
I cannot mine all of these promises for you. This book is here for you. And you've got to search it like for a pair of $20,000 Air Jordans in your closet. There are promises about forgiveness and restoration after sin, about joy and suffering, putting purpose in your life, having healed bodies and godly marriages and parenting and provision in time of need. Read it for yourself.
I can't do it all. Effective prayer perceives the gap between where something is. Where God wants you to be. And where do you learn? How God wants something to be.
The Bible. Again, the Bible is a book of promises. It's our job to find them and claim them. in the model prayer that people often sometimes refer to as the Lord's Prayer. The second phrase Jesus taught us to say, right, as we pray, your will be done on earth like it is in heaven.
I want to know what heaven wants here. Because I know it's going to be good. And when I pray, God, let your will be done in heaven here, I know that it's going to get the power of heaven behind it.
So I pray, for example, let it be in the summit church like it's desired in heaven. Let it be in the Greer family as you want it in heaven. Let it be in my marriage as it is in heaven.
Now, of course, that's got to be said with humility because we don't always know exactly what the full will of God is. But see, his word tells us a lot of it. Effective prayer perceives the gap between where something is and what God says he wants it to be. What this means practically is that the quality of your prayer life will be directly related to the quality of your knowledge of the Bible. Because the prayers that start in heaven are the ones that are heard by heaven.
That's why, when we read the Bible, we encourage you here to use what we call the HEAR method. H-E-A-R, H stands for highlight. E stands for examine, A stands for apply, R stands for respond. When I read the Bible, I see a promise or something that God indicates that He desires, and I highlight it. And then I pray it back to God.
That's how you should pray, also. It's the real secret, the power in prayer, catching God in his words. Truly amazing things happen when you do this. John Patton was a young Scottish pastor. in the 19th century, who was leading a very successful church.
But he grew increasingly burdened about a group of islands that he'd heard about out in the Pacific. that was inhabited by people who had never even heard the gospel. The problem was that these islands named the New Hebrides were filled with cannibals. Patton recorded in his diary, he said, I knew though that God Had said in his word that he desired all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. I knew that had to include the people of the New Hebrides.
And I knew that he therefore would make me successful over any opposition. And I was confident that if I went, no matter how bad the dangers were, that God would help me because he said he wanted that in his word.
So Patton went. He resided at his church. He went. His ministry there, you should read the biography, it was grueling. I mean, his wife, whom he loved dearly, died burying their first child there on that island.
He had to sleep on their graves, he said, for three to four nights to keep the cannibals from digging them up and eating them. He was under constant siege day and night, always on the lookout for his life. Eventually, though, because of his faithfulness and because of his prayer, after years of prayer, he saw a breakthrough. And a couple of the tribal leaders came to Christ, and that was followed by person after person. They say that when Patton arrived on that island of the New Hebrides in 1858, there was not a single Christian.
When he died 35 years later on that same island, there was not a single islander who had not professed faith in Jesus Christ. One of my favorite stories from his biography, though, is this one. It was right after one of the chiefs, the tribal leaders, came to Christ. The tribal leader asked him: He said, Hey, one question I've been meaning to ask you. When you first got here, Who was that army?
That army of men that guarded your hut every single night. And where did they go? You see, apparently, as he prayed each night, the angels of God surrounded his family to preserve this gospel witness. My point is, when you figure out something that God wants and you start to pray it, amazing things begin to happen when you take his purposes and you pray them into reality. The prayers that start in heaven are the ones that are heard by heaven and helped by heaven.
So again, where do you perceive a gap in what God's word says he wants and where it is right now? Where do you need to say in blank, in my family, in my life? in this community as it is in heaven. Number two. Number two, Daniel would say, make it a daily habit.
Make it a daily habit. This is going to be really the whole book of Daniel. We saw in Daniel 6 that for Daniel, prayer was a daily discipline. It was a routine. Daniel prayed three times a day.
Every day for 70 years. I've told you that Daniel's remarkable life all goes back to a couple of rather mundane decisions. that he made as a young man. Daniel's two big decisions were: first, he resolved. not to defile himself in the king's palace.
by eating the things that God had forbidden. He determined that he would not compromise. His convictions to get ahead in the palace. At several points, that resolve threatened his future career, but his refusal to compromise was the very place where God came through for him. The second of those decisions was his decision to pray daily, every day.
No matter what was going on, three times a day, he opened his window toward Jerusalem and he prayed. And from that daily time with God, he drew an enormous amount of wisdom. and strength. This discipline characterizes all great men and women of God, even Jesus. The Gospels tell us that whenever Jesus needed strength or wisdom.
He retreated off by himself to Pray. For example, Luke 6 tells us that before Jesus chose any of the 12 disciples. He spent all night Praying to God.
Now friend, I would suggest to you. That if there were ever anyone who who was a capable judge of character. Anyone who was wise enough to choose his own co-workers. it would have been Jesus. Yeah, before he chose a single one.
Before he chose a single one, he spent all night in prayer to God. How many big decisions have you rushed into? without taking time to seek God's direction. You think you're just more wise than Jesus and he needed it, but you don't? Or to come at it from another way, on the night before Jesus went to the crucifixion, he went out in the Garden of Gethsemane by himself to.
To what? To pray. to seek strength from God before this hour of trial. He took with him, he said, three of his closest disciples, at least on the first part. Peter, James, and John, he left them in a section of the garden and told them they should what?
Pray, pray, why? Pray lest you fall into temptation. What did they do? They fell asleep. Right, and I'm sure they felt like they had a good excuse.
Like, hey, in order to go through this, we're gonna have to have our strength, and the best thing we can do is get some sleep. And I'm also sure when Jesus woke them up, they gave some lame excuse, like, oh, no, no, I was just resting my eyes, or no, no, no, I really was praying. I've told you: if you ever get caught sleeping in church when somebody wakes you up, just say, In Jesus' name, or yes, Lord, let it be into me according to your word, or whatever. And they will think you are so spiritual, okay? But Jesus wasn't fold.
He's like, hey, what what Could you not even watch and pray with me for an hour? Jesus prayed, they slept. Later that night, what happened? All three of them caved in the hour of trial.
So here's my question. What if they had stayed awake for that hour of prayer? Jesus told them, pray that you would not enter into temptation. Had they done that, maybe they wouldn't have crumbled and made the greatest mistake of their lives that night. I fear that some of you may fall into temptation and make some terrible mistakes because you don't develop the habit of daily meeting with God.
And so, when the hour of trial comes upon you, which usually doesn't announce itself, you're not going to be prepared and you are going to make a humongous mistake. Be clear, this prayer time is not just for you to check a box. or a chance for you to dump information on God on things that he already knows. The point of this time is that you be with him. That you commune with him, that you have his spirit fill your mind and your heart with his wisdom and his strength.
strength for God, you see. comes only from time with God. There's no other way. The biggest practical difference between success and failure in some of your lives might be setting your alarm clock 30 minutes earlier.
So you can read the Bible and pray before the day. Here's my challenge. Try it. Set aside 10 minutes a day, either morning or night, for 21 days to pray. You say, why 21?
Because they say after you do something for 21 days, it's harder to stop than it was to start. 21 days. Wake up 10 minutes earlier or 10 minutes before you go to bed. Watch 10 minutes less of the latest Marvel movie episode. Which, by the way, the credits are like 19 minutes anyway, so just turn those off and spend that time praying.
Or, for that matter, do it in your car on your way to work. Pray about your life, your family. your kids, your job, your school, your neighbors.
Some of you can pray about your prayer life. Tell God that you just want to know him. Start with 10 minutes a day. And let's just cover our lives in prayer, okay? Let's do it.
You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. We'll return to our teaching in just a moment. You know, our mission here at Summit Life is very simple: to help people dive deeper into the gospel message every day. And then, once they've embraced it, to then spread it far and wide into the world.
You can join us in that mission today with a one-time gift or by joining with us as a regular monthly gospel partner. Gospel Partners are an integral part of our team, helping us boldly proclaim the gospel through our radio and TV ministry, as well as our online and print resources. They commit to a regular ongoing monthly gift, which helps immensely as we seek the Lord's direction for the future and plan accordingly. And if you sign up today as a monthly gospel partner for the first time, we'd like to send you a special welcome gift as well. It's Pastor JD's book titled Gospel.
You can become a partner today when you make your first ongoing monthly donation at jdgreer.com or by giving us a call at 866-335-5220.
Now let's return to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Number three, number three, quickly. Don't give up in year 69. Don't give up in year 69.
Do you notice verse 21? It says that when Gabriel arrived, Daniel was weary from praying. Weary. Of course he was. He'd been praying these requests faithfully for 70 years.
Here's a question. Would you pray for something for that long? How many years before you gave up and lost faith? Throughout the scriptures, God teaches us that some answers to prayer only come through persistence in asking. Jesus compared it to a neighbor who shows up at your house to borrow Pop-Tarts from you at 3 a.m.
And the only reason you get up and help them is because you know they're not going to leave you alone. And they're going to keep banging on the door. Or he compares effective praying to a woman who gets a settlement from a judge only because he knows that she is never going to stop coming. She's going to come unrelentingly day and night until he responds to her request. And Jesus said, That's how you should pray.
Persist in asking. Let me show you one other angle on this from Daniel's life that's even more fascinating. In the next chapter, chapter 10? Flip over one page. Daniel was praying about something else.
And this time he prayed for 21 days with no answer. And then On day 21, verse 10. Chapter 10, verse 10. Suddenly... While I'm praying, a hand touched me and set me shaking on my hands and knees.
He said to me, Daniel, you are a man greatly loved by God. There it is again. From the first day that you set your heart to humble yourself before God, your words were heard. And I have come because of your words. But...
The prince of Persia withstood me 21 days, and then Michael, one of the chief princes, had to come and help me. I have so many questions.
So, on the day that Daniel started to pray, God again dispatched an angel with an answer, probably Gabriel. But as Gabriel is flying through the air, he gets tangled up with the Prince of Persia, who is evidently a frisky demon who's up to no good in the Persian Empire, who is trying to thwart God's purposes.
So Gabriel and this Prince of Persia demon basically get into a cage match for about 21 days. And during all this time, Daniel keeps praying, thinking that he's not getting an answer.
So God dispatches another angel, Michael, who I guess is like the Chuck Norris of angels, who comes in and opens up a can of whoop tail on this demon, the Prince of Persia. You see, evidently, Gabriel is like the Nicholas cage of angels, silver-tongued and savvy, but in need of some help for a true extraterrestrial tumble.
So God sends in Michael, the Chuck Norris of angels, and just takes care of business. Again, I have so many questions. But the only point is who knows what's happening up there as you pray.
So you prayed for 20 days, no answer. Keep praying. Help is on the way. You've prayed for 69 years. No answer.
Keep praying because God gives certain things only in response to persistence and asking. You say, well, why does he do it that way? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's to test our resolve.
Maybe it's to see how much we actually trust him. Or to see how quickly we'll turn away from him and pursue some other means. Martin Luther, again, he compared it to the father who has something his kid wants. And he's got it in his hand, he won't let it go at first to test his child's resolve to see how bad his kid wants it. Maybe God, he says, is doing that with us, saying, hey, do you really trust me?
How quickly are you going to turn away from me to some other source? How much do you trust that I'm actually here and that I'm good? Don't give up. He promises never to turn you away. Y'all, I can't help but think here of the story of Joan.
and Tommy Swain in our church. Most of you don't know them. Sadly, but Joan really got on fire for God here about 30 years ago before I got here. But her husband, Tommy, didn't want any part of it.
So she came, he stayed at home.
So Joan prayed for him. And she prayed, and anytime you asked Joan, hey, what's going on in your life, she'd say, pray for Tommy. And she stayed with him? Eventually, he moved out on her. He left her for 20 years.
But she can't pray. And then in February of 2009, Through some pretty remarkable circumstances, God saved him. God brought him back. We baptized him here in the spring of 2009. I can still remember the joy of that moment.
And now they are Reunited to God, reunited to each other, and they served in our church every weekend from the spring of 2009 until they were medically unable. All this because a woman prayed faithfully for him for 20 years and did not give up. Do not give up on year 69. Who knows what's happening up there? Number four, number four, finally.
Daniel would say, Hope in God's mercy, not your goodness. Hope in God's mercy, not your goodness. When Daniel, what Daniel says in verse 18 might be. One of the most significant secrets if you will of prayer. We're not presenting our petitions.
to you, God, because of our righteous acts.
Well no. I'm presenting them based on your abundant compassion. God, I'm not asking you to give. This is because I'm worthy of it. I'm asking you to supply this out of the rich storehouse of your grace.
Some in church listen the longer But I walk with Jesus personally. The less confident I grow in my abilities to change people. Less confident I grow in my worthiness to demand anything from God. Yo, when I first started out in ministry, I was pretty confident. I'm like, you know what?
If I just explained to this to these people the right way. And then with the force of my personality and You know, apply it right and illustrate it right. I can change. These people. Y'all, I cannot even keep myself on the path of righteousness.
much less get somebody else there. I'm extremely kind man i don't ever say any more to god like hey god i've done my work now you bless it Because oh my god, it's all like filthy rags.
So you see. When I pray now, I'm saying things like, God, I'm not asking you to work in this person's life or. this kid's life or these people's lives because of my abilities. I'm certainly not asking you. To reward me because of my righteousness, because I don't really have any.
On my best of days, I'm still an unprofitable servant. No, I need you to give to them. and to me according to the abundant riches of Christ's mercy. According to the abundance of his capabilities. because that's a well that will never run dry.
I've often told you I use As my example, the story of the Syrophoenician woman and The Gospel is who comes to Jesus to ask for healing for her daughter. She was a Gentile. Right? Not at you. Jesus said to her when she asked for a miracle, he said, woman.
It's not proper to take the food intended for the children, the Jews. and give it to the dogs, Gentiles.
Now first. That sounds a little bit like a racial slur. But it's not. Jesus was testing this woman. The woman perceives That not to be a racial slur, but a description of her own personal unworthiness.
You see, when it comes to demanding anything of God, none of us is any more worthy than. A dog. And so she responds, she says, yes, Lord. But in a really wealthy man's house, There's so much food on the table But even the little dogs get to eat the stuff that just falls off. In other words, I do acknowledge that when it comes to worthiness, I'm a dog.
But I believe there is so much grace. abounding on your table. The table can't contain it and it just falls off. And that means there's enough for even an unworthy person like me. And Jesus stopped and he turned and he said, I've never seen faith like this in Israel.
Because her hope was not in the abundance of her goodness. Her hope was in the abundance of his mercy. Friend, that is a whale that never runs dry. That is something you can never hope too much in. You may have nothing to bring to God and that's okay because he has got so much grace on his table.
It just flows off so that every dog in the universe could feast until they were full. This is what we mean when we pray in Jesus' name. You understand that's not just a little verbal clue to God that we're about done. That's what many Christians think. You just kind of say, like, in conclusion, you say, in Jesus' name, that's not what it's there for.
When you say in Jesus' name, What you're actually saying is I know that I don't have the worthiness to demand this.
So I'm asking. Based on your compassion, not my worthiness. My hope is not in my righteousness or ability.
So I bring this prayer not in my name, I'm bringing it in your grace and power. In your name, I'm asking you to hear it because of how much worthiness is in your heart, not how much worthiness is in my life.
Some of the church, let me ask you. Over what area of your life do you need? to just come and throw yourself down at the mercy of Jesus. Where are you weary? Where are you exhausted?
Where do you need to say, I don't need to demand this anymore of God like I'm worthy. I just need to say, God, this is what you said. This is your. the grace on your table and I need help. Y'all teaching on prayer is great.
Reading about it is great. But the most important thing we can do is act on it. Don't get to the end of your life and wish that you had prayed more. Prayer is the most undervalued resource of the church and neglected by so many. Let's not miss the blessings God has for us through prayer.
You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. We only have a couple of days left in this teaching series.
So, Pastor JD, how can our new Bible study that we're giving away to our supporters help us navigate those same pressures Daniel faced, namely the tension between faith and culture? You know, one of the interesting things about Daniel is that he didn't withdraw from culture. He didn't go live in a little conclave, a little you know, Jewish, um, you know, special part of the city and just lob You know, grenades of condemnation at Babylon. But he also didn't conform to it. He didn't just become Babylonian, he lived as an exile.
One of the things we talk about in this series is that you can, when you're in a new country like this, you can try to be an immigrant, which means to become a citizen. You can stay perpetually a tourist where, you know, you live in your hotel and you sneak out, see some strange sights, go to Starbucks and try to find a McDonald's, and that's kind of your interaction with the culture. But what the Bible calls us is just something different, a third thing, and that is to live as an exile, where you actually make the new country, you make it in many ways your home. I mean, it's where you live. It's where you raise your family, but you do so recognizing that your true home and your true kingdom is somewhere else, and your real allegiance goes toward another kingdom altogether.
This study draws out the practical implications for how to live like that. What does it mean in difficult situations? What does it mean when you're asked to use your pronouns or you're asked to fly the pride flag? Or what's it mean in Babylon to serve Jesus faithfully? You're going to get some great reminders in here of how God is in control, how he has you here for a reason, and how he intends to use you like he did.
Daniel to shine like the stars in Babylon to bring people to faith in Jesus. I would love to give you this study. I'd love for you to be able to share it with others because it's digital and you can share it as much as you want. Take a look and allow us to get this to you. Just go to jdgreer.com.
Thank you, JD. Don't miss out on getting your copy today. Request this digital Bible study through the book of Daniel when you donate to Summit Life. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.
or give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich, inviting you to join us Friday as Pastor JD encourages us that though things are dark, and they are likely to get darker. We don't despair. It's all a part of the plan. That's Friday on Summit Life with JD Greer.
Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.
