Prayer and a Forgotten Pair of Air Jordans, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with JD Greer. 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. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovitch and I am so glad that you joined us today to learn more about prayer. 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 it demonstrates why prayer is so important. It's part of our series titled Shining in Babylon so grab your Bible and a pen and let's get started 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 280 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 and all the craziness that is going on with COVID and lockdown and all the confusion and we're trying to figure out what in the world is next, 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 ask. 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 and the nations. God, do it now because you said you wanted to do it. I want to say this as nicely to you as possible but read the Bible for yourself. I cannot mine all of these promises for you. I love teaching you the Bible every weekend but I cannot spoon feed all this to 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. I can just guide you to it.

That's it, okay? Let me give you another great definition of prayer while we're talking about this. Effective prayer perceives the gap between where something is and where God wants it to be. Effective prayer perceives the gap between where something is and where God wants it 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 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 rereading this biography recently. 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'd said he wanted that in his word. So Patton went, he resigned his church, he went. His ministry there, you should read a 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.

And by the way, if you're younger and you're starting out your life, if I could just... Listen, we think that becoming something in life is dreaming these great dreams. It's a couple of small decisions that you make early on.

That's what it goes back to. 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 was a capable judge of character, anyone who was wise enough to choose his own co-workers, it would have been Jesus. 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 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 going to 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, 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 fooled. He's like, hey, could you not even watch and pray with me for an hour? And 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. Number three, number three, quickly, don't give up in year 69. Don't give up in year 69. Did 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 whooptail 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 pray for 20 days. No answer. Keep praying.

Help is on the way. You pray 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 right into his barber 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. 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 any time 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 kept praying. 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 because I'm worthy of it.

I'm asking you to supply this out of the rich storehouse of your grace. So my church, listen, the longer that 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. You know, when I first started out in ministry, I was pretty confident. I'm like, you know what, if I just explain to these people the right way, and then with the force of my personality and 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 anymore to God like, hey God, I've done my work, now you bless it.

Because I'm like, God, it's all like filthy rags. So usually 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 Gospels who comes to Jesus to ask for healing for her daughter. She was a Gentile, right? Not a Jew. And 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 well that never runs dry.

That is something you could 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 at 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 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, neglected by so many. Let's not miss the blessings that God has for us through prayer. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. We're in a teaching series through the book of Daniel titled Shining in Babylon.

If you joined us late, you can listen again online, or as always, you can download the free unedited message transcript at jdgreer.com. We only have a couple days left in this teaching series, so Pastor J.D., help us see the big picture. What would you say is the theme of Daniel? Oh, Molly, you're asking me a reflection question.

I would say in one sentence, it is this. If you want to make a difference in Babylon, then you're going to have to be different. You've got to be distinct from Babylon in the right ways. In many ways, Daniel is going to take on the culture of Babylon, but he's going to be so different because he lives for a different kingdom by different sets of values to honor a God that is totally unknown in Babylon. Daniel and his friends, you're going to see them resolved to be guided by the Bible, and in many ways swim against the stream there in Babylon. And when that happens in our lives, when we are shaped by the Bible, then we start to become strange and offensive, not because we're just weirdos.

And I know that there are a lot of Christian weirdos, but because we're living by an entirely different set of kingdom rules. If you'll walk through this book of the Bible with us, listening to these messages, and then also if you can get one of these Bible studies we're providing as a companion study, it'll show you through nine sessions what study in the scripture looks like to press into these timeless and timely truths of Daniel that really can transform your life and show you what it means to be different, to be like Jesus in 21st century America, if that's where you're listening to this, to show you what it looks like to be different in a way that makes a difference. You can reserve your copy of this Bible study that'll help take you deeper at jdgrier.com. Don't miss out on getting your copy today. Request this Bible study through the book of Daniel when you donate to Summit Life.

The suggested donation amount of $35 or more helps to fuel this ministry so others have the opportunity to dive deeper into the gospel with us each day. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgrier.com. That's jd-g-r-e-e-a-r.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us Friday as Pastor JD encourages us that though things are dark and they are likely to only get darker, we don't despair.

It's all a part of the plan. That's Friday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.