Just Ask!

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Just Ask, how we simplify, break down what prayer is, speaking to our Father, Abba Father like Romans 8 says. Stay tuned for this special podcast with J.D. Greer on the power of prayer and his brand new book, Just Ask.

Had a great time visiting with J.D. I hope you enjoy this, hope you're encouraged, and hope you'll share this with everybody you know and spend time with God, praying. So what's that one thing in the Christian life that you just can't do enough? It comes up every time the preacher gets up and preaches about revival. You're sitting around in a small group and someone brings this spiritual activity up that we all know is tantamount. That many of us say is the most important thing you can do as a Christian. That Paul the Apostle tells us to do this without ceasing. To always be doing this.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the power of prayer, and a friend of mine, a pastor, an author, a guy I've known for a long time, probably too long, is on the line right now. He just wrote a book called Just Ask, a book about prayer, and I'm so honored to welcome him. I'm Stu Epperson, hosting today from my buddy Steve, and with me on the line, let's bring him in. Front and center is the pastor, the Reverend J.D.

Greer. Sir, it's good to be talking to you here. Man, it's great to be on. I was just thinking when you gave that awesome intro, how long we have known each other.

Do you know how many years? I always tease you about my first introduction to you was cutting the grass for your dad, and then realizing that I was doing your job for you, because we live not that far from each other. I don't remember back that far, I don't remember that happening. That might have been my twin brother, Uncle Efe. I remember pushing the lawnmower, looking into the house, thinking, why are all those guys in there having fun, and I'm not here doing his job for him. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Well, I just left a celebration of life at the Memorial Park for Dr. Roland, Dr. John Roland. Remember the Roland's at Salem Baptist for years?

And their sons? And of course, David and I were good buddies, and so Dr. Gary Chapman gave a powerful message about Christ, and he read Thessalonians, you know, Christ is coming back, the dead in Christ shall rise first. But I thought about, wow, and I saw some Salem Baptist folks, and some other Calvary Baptist folks in there, and I thought, wow, this is, I probably wouldn't, you know, mention that name on the national show, other than it's awesome to mention the name of a saint, you know, that has been such a godly example to, you and I were just little whippersnappers running around that little Salem Baptist church with Mickey McManus and other characters. And man, I'll just aside, we have a lot of shared legacy, and your whole family's had a big impact on mine, just in helping us know and love Jesus, so I'm grateful.

Thanks for having me on. Well, yes sir, it's great to have you on, and I really want to get into this whole prayer thing. You know, really, this book, you know, of course you're probably getting a little jab from some folks, another book about prayer. Tell us your passion about this, tell us what, because there's some real energy coming out of your ministry, and a lot of folks are buzzing about this book. It's turned out to be not just another book about prayer, but J.D., what drove this in your heart to write this book?

Yeah, I appreciate you asking it that way. You know, one is, you actually alluded to it there in the opening, and that is that I've been a pastor now for 20 years, and before that I was a missionary overseas in a Muslim country, and the reason I bring that up is because I'm, you know, rubbing shoulders with kind of the special forces, so to speak, of the Christian church, and, you know, did a master's and PhD at one of the best seminaries in the country, and I share all that because, you know, in being around some of the most well-trained, advanced Christians in the world, many of them still kind of confess secretly. I have trouble developing a prayer life.

That's the one thing they're most disappointed in. DA Carson says, if you want to embarrass the average Christian, you know, just ask them to tell you about their daily prayer habits, and you'll find them kind of shelf on their feet and wishing they could do things differently, and what I found is that it was a whole list of reasons. Some of them had to do with self-discipline, of course.

Some of them had to do with some theological objections. I just don't understand why, if God knows everything, why I'm praying. I don't understand, you know, does prayer actually change the mind of God? Sometimes I pray and things happen. Sometimes I don't pray, and, you know, they happen.

Sometimes I forget to pray, and the thing that I should have prayed for happens anyway, and how does this all work? Sometimes it's practical things, like my mind wanders when I pray, and I end up, you know, saying the same five things to God every prayer time, and I can't see that being fulfilling for Him or for me, and so I just, you know, every book that I've written has always been written for the church that I pastor. I'm privileged to pastor the Summit Church, and this one started out as just an attempt to help them develop a daily robust prayer time.

That's one reason. The second reason, and you also alluded to this in your introduction, is God really has done a work on my heart through COVID and put some things back onto, you know, like many pastors, I'm kind of relaunching our church, because after being at home for so long and as we're regathering, and just said, okay, let's lay everything back on the table and say, what kind of church, what kind of church do you want? And what kept standing out to me, Stu, was these phrases that Jesus, you know, would say, like, my house is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations. That's what should characterize the church, and I thought, you know, how would you describe the Summit Church?

A house of preaching, a house of great worship, a house of creative outreach, great web presence, you know, I mean, all those things, yeah, but are we known as a place where people pray to God and see these answers to prayer? And so it's just been a big renewed emphasis in my life as a pastor. It's also for me just as a dad. I mean, there's nothing that makes you start praying like having teenage, well, in my case, daughters.

You know, I joke that my daughters are, I call them my North Koreans, because now they're smart enough to make nuclear bombs and not mature enough to handle them. So, you know, it's like it's driven me to a new dependence on prayer. So anyway, all those things kind of combine for, well, I felt like this was a Kairos moment for that. No, amen. And you hear many cliches about prayer, the power of prayer. You hear the good old, well, we'll show up for a ballgame, or we'll show up for a big concert, you know, but when it's Wednesday night prayer meeting, you know, two or three folks show up.

You hear the famous one is, prayer is not just a last resort, but should be a first response, you know, stop, drop, and pray, the power of knee mail, etc., etc. But J.D., can we tackle some of these tough questions when we get back from this break? Well, we can try.

You can throw the ball, I don't know if I'll catch it. Well, why don't we pray to begin with? You may have a question for Pastor J.D.

Greer. He's written a new book called Just Ask. The toll free number is 866-34-TRUTH. More on prayer, more of your questions. Why pray to begin with?

Hey, how has the power of prayer changed your life? I got him back, J.D., I kind of read the cover. Now, J.D., we're talking about this book on prayer. Now, what is the name of the book? Just Ask. Okay, well that's what I'm kind of trying to do here, that's why you're on the show. The title of the book on prayer that you wrote, can you just throw the name out at us? Well, Just Ask.

Okay, J.D., look, we've been over this territory. If I can't get the name of your book on this national radio show, I can't actually ask you about it more. Just Ask is the name of the book. I'm not giving you a command to ask me, it's the name of the book. Well, why did you just say so?

Unbelievable! I tell you what, these authors nowadays. So I had to have fun with you. I should have known better. People like you exist in the world, I should have known better than to come up with that title. But I love it, it's punchy, it's provocative, and I just had some fun in the lobby. We produced Michael Zwick, you've been on his show, now he wants to have you on for this book. I went back and forth with him, little Abbott and Costello for our younger listeners who haven't ever seen Who's On First, just Google it, you'll have some fun.

But J.D. Greer, you're very gracious, you humored me, but I'm pumped about this book, because if there's anything you need more of, maybe we need a hundred more books on prayer, J.D. Is it really something that you can write enough about? Yeah, well, so prayer—most Christians feel like not praying enough is—they do that for the same reason they don't eat enough alfalfa sprouts or, you know, exercise enough, it's a lack of discipline. But at its core, how you pray is maybe the best reflection of how you perceive your relationship with God, it's the best indicator light of the health of your relationship with God. Ultimately, prayerlessness is the result of pride, it's pride in thinking that given enough time and resources, you can accomplish everything you need to accomplish, and it's also the result—prayerlessness is the result of unbelief, of not really perceiving how good and how willing your heavenly Father is to help you. And so it's not a self-discipline thing, it's ultimately the gospel has to reshape your heart, and when it does, prayer becomes as instinctive as breathing.

That was one of the analogies I kind of really chased out in the book, is like, even the most—the least self-disciplined of us, whoever's listening, and you're like, I'm the least self-disciplined person listening to this program right now. You breathe consistently every day. You don't have accountability partners, somebody calls you up and says, Hey man, I just want to check in, are you breathing today? Do you remember to breathe?

Your body craves the air. When the gospel—when you really understand how desperate you are for God's help and how only He can supply what you need, whether it's in parenting, overcoming an addiction, seeing a friend come to Christ, or discovering His will for your life, when you understand that His power is the only thing that can guide you to those and how willing He is to give it, then you begin to pray as instinctively as you breathe, without self-discipline and without reading a hundred books, just because your soul craves it. He has written a book on prayer, and I got to read the subtitle to you because I really like it.

It just kind of covers everything. The book is Just Ask, author is J.D. Greer, who's a pastor and author, and just recently transitioned out of being president of the SBC. So this is the subtitle, The Joy of Confident, Bold, Patient, Relentless, Shameless, Dependent, Grateful, Powerful, Expectant Prayer, is the subtitle of this book, which, quite frankly, each one of those nuggets could be unpacked and dealt with, but basically, you know, he says a lot of cool things. One thing he says is so basic about prayer, there's a lot of ways approaching God is different than my kids approaching me.

But we need to recover that sense of relationship and ease and simplicity, and if you feel stuck on where to start, just be just like my kids! Just start! Just ask.

So I want to go a little different direction. If you want to call J.D. and you want to ask a question about prayer, we have a few more minutes with him.

The toll-free number is 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I'm Stu Everson, hosting today for Steve Noble, and it's an honor to have J.D. on.

J.D., there's a lot of tough deals. Tough prayer in the sovereignty of God, there's Why Do You Pray? You tackle all this in your book, Just Ask, which is, you know, this brand new book on prayer. I guess what I'd like to ask you to do is take us to the basic prayer 101. This seems like something that we just complicate, and even how we pray can be awkward. You know, we say the Lord's name a bunch, and we have to pray with our heads bowed, but it swings both ways.

We get legalistic, you know? So can you take us to just, what is prayer, and just what are our appetites for it? Which is what I think you're trying to do in the book to begin with. Well, that's right, I'm trying to put the cookies on the bottom shelf, just because that's all I prefer to get them.

Yeah, you know, so the title, Just Ask. That really is, it comes from studying all the things that Jesus said about prayer, and realizing that the through line of what he taught was that the posture you take is of a child coming to a father. Paul Miller, who wrote the foreword for the book, he wrote a book called A Praying Life that really was instrumental and kind of helped me think through this, and I cite him several times in the book and try to develop some of the thoughts. But one thing is that when kids come to their parents, they don't spend a lot of time trying to make sure they get the right words. They're not even that concerned about, you know, what's going on in their hearts. Are they asking for the right reasons, and do they have the right theological understanding of what they're asking? They just ask.

I mean, they come and say, I have a need. And what you'll see is that, yes, theology is important, the posture of your heart is important, I talk about all that, but ultimately it's children coming into the bedroom of their father in the middle of the night saying, I'm thirsty, and I'm scared, or I don't know quite what to do. And the father responds in a way that no other human being would ever respond to anybody else.

The father gets up and does what the child needs because he loves the child and he knows how dependent that child is upon him. And that's what God has been doing. That's what he's teaching throughout the scriptures. So yes, we need to have good theology, we need to think deeply about this stuff, but what we mainly need to do is just learn to see God like our loving daddy. J. I. Packer says you can understand somebody's entire grasp of Christianity based on how well and how deeply they understand the concept of God as Father.

Mm, wow. Then there's this whole idea, this whole truth about the power of prayer, and the missions. You talk a lot about missions. I love your books about missions, about sending people out, and just calling on the Lord, interceding. You know the old saying, you should talk about, before you talk to man about God, talk to God about man. You know, these great revivalists who just prayed for souls. J.D., what is this power plant of prayer that taps into God's heart and that accesses his throne? What's so critical for Christians to know about that and what God wants to do?

Yeah, great question. Andrew Murray says the man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization and history. He says, you know, if you go through the New Testament, you see, where's the first missions movement? Where was it birthed out of? It wasn't out of a missions conference or a book. It came out of an Acts 13 prayer meeting with God raised up our gospel. Get the book, Just Ask. The book, Just Ask. J.D. Greer, J.D., that kept prepping on us. God bless you, man. Thank you. This is the Truth Network.