Prayer

Debbie Currie · Tidal Church Moncton · April 30, 2023 · Spirit series

Debbie Currie explores the purpose, power and practice of prayer, drawing on Ephesians, the Prodigal Son and Peter walking on water. Prayer is relationship, not recipe: through the Holy Spirit, God invites us into constant, faith-filled conversation with Him.

More from Debbie Currie · The Spirit series

Topics: Faith, Prayer, Holy Spirit

Transcript

[0:00] Amen, good morning. Church family. What about those baptisms? Was that wonderful? Oh, it just does warm my heart. Well, it's an honor and a privilege to be here to share with you today. And to continue this amazing Spirit series today. We're going to talk about prayer. Now, this is not going to be an exhaustive discussion. Okay, there are hundreds of books written about prayer, not to mention the podcasts, the YouTube videos, the YouVersion devotionals. And after today, I just might write my own book with all the things I don't have time to tell you today. But for now, we're going to focus our prayer discussion on the purpose of prayer, the power of prayer, and the practice of prayer. And if Pastor B's in the room, that's his influence.

[0:58] So, what is the purpose of prayer? Well, the purpose of prayer is relationship. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 1, and it says, "And when you believed in Christ, He identified you as His own by giving you the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God's guarantee that He will give us the inheritance He promised, and that He has purchased us to be His own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify Him." God gave us. Holy Spirit to mark us as His own. Every aspect of our relationship with God involves interaction with the Holy Spirit. It is because we have the Holy Spirit in us that we can even have this relationship that allows us to come to Him in prayer.

[1:53] Let's continue on now in Ephesians. "Ever since I first heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God's people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know Him better." In this text we see that Paul is addressing Christians of strong faith, and yet he is in constant prayer for them, on their behalf, asking Father to give them wisdom and revelation from Holy Spirit to know Him better, to go deeper in relationship. Now, if Paul is investing this much time and energy into praying this for others, does it not make sense that we would pray this for ourselves?

[2:59] The Holy Spirit is in us to help us go deeper with God. Now, I know the series is about the Spirit, but the Trinity is inseparable. Today, we're going to do a walk through a relational journey with the Trinity, understanding that whether I'm talking about God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, our connection to them all on this earth is through the Spirit, but all three are always at work. Okay, back to prayer. Prayer is a dialogue, a conversation we have with God, and just as we build all our valued relationships, conversation and communication are the main ingredients to going deeper in relationship. So we have to keep talking, we have to keep the conversation going.

[4:03] But also, like our intimate relationships, the conversation must be in person, face to face. Basically, what I'm saying is prayer is about relationship, not recipe. Religion says, when you pray, use this recipe, use this format, pray these words. But relationship says God knows your every thought. He knows your heart, but He loves to be in conversation with you. Anyway, to hear what's on your heart. He knows your every need, and yet He loves to hear your ask.

[4:51] He wants to be with you. He wants to be with you in conversation. He wants you to know His heart. Jesus is a real person. He is real, He's alive and well and reigning in heaven at the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit is a person. God our Father is a person, and together they are the Trinity. The point is, you can't have a relationship with an idea, only with a person. We need to know His love. We need to hear His voice. We need to see His power.

[5:39] We need to feel His presence. This is the reality of Jesus. This is what relationship looks like. As a dialogue, prayer is a back and forth conversation between two persons. God has His part, and we have our part. Prayer is a partnership. We see this in the story of the Prodigal Son. Let's look at Luke chapter 15. Jesus told them this story. A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, "I want my share of your estate now, before you die." So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. And a few days later, the younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve.

[6:45] He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the farmer sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him, but no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, "At home, even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger. I will go home to my father and say, 'Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.'" So he returned home to his father. And while he was a long way off, I get, this gets me every time, his father saw him coming and, filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son. He embraced him, and he kissed him.

[7:46] Now, this is a parable. It's not an actual event. So we don't have a clear timeline of what happened here. But with the events, we can guesstimate that from the time he left home until he decided to come back home was, had to be at least months, maybe even up to a couple of years, and yet. This Father is looking for the return of his son. Every day. This is what prayer looks like. The Father sees us from afar, and He runs to us. He restores relationship. He spans the gap, not because I deserve it, but because I am His child. Intimacy does not start with me.

[8:34] The relationship between Father God, Jesus the Son, and Holy Spirit has been perfectly complete since before time began, literally. Intimacy of relationships started with the Trinity, but through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit in us, God welcomes us into His personal space, of everything He is. That is God's part, and that is our inheritance. Our part in the prayer equation is to show up, to enter into His presence, to understand that there is a difference between God is everywhere and God is in here.

[9:27] To know the power of God will never leave me or turn His back on me. My part involves getting to know Him, loving Him, trusting Him, receiving from Him. Maybe for some of us, prayer begins by asking God to remove any hindrance to His love. So the purpose of prayer can be met in relationship. In Matthew 7 we read, on the day of judgment many will say to me, Lord, Lord, don't you remember us? Didn't we prophesy in Your name? Didn't we cast out demons and do many miracles in Your name?

[10:16] But I will say to them, Go away from me. I've never been joined to you. These verses are about using the name of Jesus as a recipe without relationship. We're, Brian and I were married, our dating was pretty simple. It's usually McDonald's. Things were really different back then. We would walk up to the counter, and every time he would ask me, What would you like? And every time I would say, A Big Mac and fries, oh, and a milkshake, please. And every time he would say, Are you sure you can eat all that?

[11:02] And every time I bat my eyes and smile and say, Yes. And he just shrugged, placed the order, and paid for it. Well, today is different. We have our 45th wedding anniversary coming up in August. We've known each other for over 48 years, and today he knows me inside out. He knows what I want even before I ask, and he still pays, but his wallet is usually in my purse. Why is that? Well, the main reason is he hates to carry it in his back pocket. But the other reason, the truth, is that, because what's mine is his and what's his is mine. We know each other, we trust each other. We have pushed through the hard times. We have put in the time and effort.

[12:05] Do I need to say that again? We've put in the time and effort to build a meaningful relationship. We finish each other's sentences. We are one. I bear his name, and I am marked as his. Jesus said, You can ask for anything in My name. But this is not a recipe or a formula. Prayer is not saying a few words and tacking the name of Jesus on the end as a security blanket. Praying in His name is about relationship. It's the intimacy of bearing His name, of being marked by the Holy Spirit, being sealed as His.

[12:56] Prayer is about knowing Him first as Savior and Redeemer, and then as we go deeper, to know Him as Lord, as Healer, as Provider, as Protector, as Shepherd, as all the wondrous things His name represents. Jesus is enough. And He is everything. This is truth, but for it to be truth, we trust, we must know Him. That is the purpose of prayer. What about the power? Bless you. What about the power of prayer? Well, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. Why do you suppose that is? I think probably because they saw Jesus go by Himself, be a way off from the others and spend hours and hours in intimate conversation with His Father and then come away from that filled with strength and power.

[14:08] Holy Spirit is our source of power for all things, including prayer, and faith is the currency of Heaven that moves the Holy Spirit. Now, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, we have the same power in us that raised Jesus from the dead. But we also have to talk about how faith activates power in prayer because without faith it is impossible to please God. That's about relationship. Because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists, and that's about relationship, and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Again, that's about relationship.

[14:56] Without faith, it is impossible to have relationship, and without relationship, it is impossible to have faith. Now, we're all given a portion of faith. But just like getting a piece of pie, the whole pie is always better. So how do we grow our faith? In Romans 10 we read, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So faith comes by hearing the word of God. But let's not forget that Jesus is the Word. Jesus is the Word made flesh. So faith comes by the word of God as we build relationship with Jesus.

[15:47] How do we know that this is important to our faith? Because Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. Okay. So how much faith do we need? Jesus said faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. But let's look at Matthew 14. This is the account of Jesus walking on the water. Now, it's the very same day He fed the 5,000. He's been preaching and teaching and doing miracles, and He's tired, and He really wants some alone time with His Father. So He says to the 12 disciples, "You guys get in the boat. Take it back across the lake. I will meet you on the other side," and He goes up the hill to pray, and He's been praying for hours, but in the middle of the night, He looks out over the lake and He sees a storm has come up, and the disciples are in trouble. The waves are billowing and crashing over the boat. The wind is blowing. The rain is pouring wet. They're cold, they're scared.

[16:58] And so Jesus comes to them, walking on the water, just as the father of the Prodigal Son came, walked, running to him when he was in need. Jesus comes to us in all our storms. And Peter recognized that Jesus was walking on the water, and he said, "Master, if that's You, call to me that I would come to You." And Jesus said, "Come." And so Peter gets out of the boat, looking at Jesus, he steps and walks on the water, but he gets distracted. He takes his eyes off Jesus. He looks at the storm and he begins to sink.

[17:46] So Jesus picks him up and gathers him to Himself, gets him back in the boat, while saying, "Oh, ye of little faith. Why did you doubt?" Excuse me. Little faith. I want to suggest that just standing up in the boat was mustard-sized faith. I mean, the boat's rocking, the winds are blowing, the waves are crashing. He's tired. Anybody who stands up in that boat's going over in a flash, like, they, you know, right? But he has the faith to not only get up, but he probably sits on the side, puts one leg over, right, and then the other leg, and he's walking on the water, man. Like, that's watermelon-sized faith.

[18:38] I don't even mean watermelon seed. I mean watermelon-sized faith. But Jesus said, "Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt?" And that's the answer. Peter had watermelon-sized faith, but as soon as he got distracted, as soon as he took his eyes off Jesus, now, we don't know what made him doubt. We know he got distracted. He was watching the waves and the wind. Maybe it was fear that caused him to doubt. Maybe he saw a wave coming and crashing over him, and he thought he was going to drown. Or maybe he felt unworthiness.

[19:24] Maybe he thought to himself, there's 12 other guys in that boat who have never rocked the boat as much as I have. I don't deserve this intimate moment with Jesus. But whatever it was, Peter dropped his faith and picked up doubt. And he began to sink. Now, we don't have to have watermelon-sized faith like Peter. We can have mustard seed-sized faith like the father of the young epileptic who cried out, "Jesus, Lord, I do believe, but help my unbelief." But whatever faith we have, we must hold on to it.

[20:13] In James 1 we read, "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy." How many of you always love this verse? Like, you know, all right, but we're counted all joy, for you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." What kind of storms in your life test your faith? Maybe it's health or finances or relationships.

[21:02] Peter's faith in the boat wasn't perfect and it wasn't complete. He didn't endure. But I guarantee you that after the resurrection and the Holy Spirit moved into Peter and lived inside of Peter, that all the storms and all the failed tests in his life grew a faith so complete that he endured his own crucifixion. Peter held on to faith even in death. But we, we are blessed. We start our faith journey with the Holy Spirit in us.

[21:48] Every storm we face is an opportunity for great joy. Every test is an opportunity to hold on to faith, faith to partner with the Holy Spirit and not let go, so that we may be perfect and complete, needing nothing, because He is everything. When our endurance is fully developed, we are in perfect oneness with Jesus, and we read in Colossians 2 that God has made us complete in Christ. This is supernatural living. Now, I know we don't like this word.

[22:35] Even sometimes fraudulent, even fake. But the dictionary meaning of supernatural is a manifestation or event attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. We are called to live in the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, to be in step with the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit. We are to put the flesh to death, all the things of this world, and live in the realities of heaven. Definitely beyond scientific understanding. In Colossians 3 we read, "Since you have been raised to new life." How do we do that?

[23:24] Well, it sounds like a resurrection to me. So first we have to die. We have to die to self so that we can be raised to new life with Jesus. Then we set our sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. We are to think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life. And your real life? Did you hear me? Did you hear that? Are you reading that and seeing it? It's your real life that's hidden with Christ in God. Definitely supernatural. Amen. And prayer, supernatural prayer, is a dialogue with God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit. We're talking to the Creator of all things, the Ruler of the universe, the High King of Heaven. Definitely supernatural, way beyond the realms of this world.

[24:28] The Spirit lives in me, in you, in each of us who belongs to Christ Jesus, and because we belong to Him, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly realms. We have access to all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We can call to Him and He will answer us and tell us great and mighty things that are way above our pay grade. And in prayer, He continually, we experience the immeasurable greatness of God's power and made available to us through faith. Then our lives will be a flashing billboard of this immense power as it works through us.

[25:18] Because our effective, fervent prayers powered by the Holy Spirit avail much. Now, you'll notice it says the effect of fervent prayer of a righteous man, and there are none of us who are righteous. There is no righteous man, no righteous woman. It's only Jesus who makes us righteous. It's being in relationship with Him that He becomes our righteousness, and effective prayer is steeped in relationship and faith. A fervent prayer is steeped in relationship and faith.

[26:03] It's by the power of the Spirit in us that our prayers avail much. So we've talked about the purpose of prayer and the power of prayer, but how do we engage in the practice of prayer? I'd like to suggest that the doing of prayer is very much connected to the being in prayer. And yes, I'm still talking about relationship. Like any conversation, prayer starts with focus, not on what we want to say, but on the One we want to say it to. Every real conversation starts with looking the person in the eyes. Not always easy. Loads of times, it's very uncomfortable, but a productive, meaningful, relationship-building conversation only happens when we get rid of distractions and offer up our full attention.

[27:11] So it is with prayer. That is why prayer grows out of the secret place. If you want your prayers to be full of purpose and power, if you want your prayers to be effective and fervent, then we have to spend time in the secret place. Your secret place is where you go to be alone with Jesus, free of distractions, a place where you can give Him your full attention. It's not the shower or the car, although those are really great places to pray. The secret place is where you read the Word, you worship, and you pray. This is where Holy Spirit makes Jesus real to you.

[28:03] This is where you hear His voice, you see His face, and you feel His presence. Relationship is established in the secret place because to know Him better, we must give Him our full attention. Then the experience of the secret place carries with you to your abiding place, that place where we live and work and play and shower and make decisions and face challenges. The abiding place is your everyday life. I remember as a young mom of four going to bed exhausted and asking myself, did I even do my devotions today? I don't even remember thinking about God today.

[28:58] This was the beginning of my journey for more of Him. I wanted to feel His presence with me all day long, regardless of the hurry, worry, or scurry of the day. Today my secret place moments take me deeper and deeper into His presence and power. It has been a journey, and our journeys are all different because we are different. We are unique. But my journey into His presence has been a lot like labor, bearing down in the trenches of seeking and finding. But Brian has an anointing that fell on him in a moment, and he carries it with grace and humility.

[29:50] Brian literally burns with the power and presence of God in his secret place, and it rises up in him throughout the day, keeping him in constant communication with the Spirit of God. This is praying without ceasing. What is your journey been like? Do you feel God chasing you like He does Brian, or maybe you're like me and you're still trying to get out of your own way and out of your own head to receive the fullness of God that Jesus died to give you? Are you where you want to be? Do you feel the presence of Holy Spirit throughout your day? Do you engage with Holy Spirit throughout your day? And maybe that's not even what you want, and that's okay.

[30:39] Jesus died for your free will. It's your choice. But it's very important that you understand, it's what God wants. God wants to be in constant fellowship with you. That's why He put Holy Spirit in you. He lives in you to be forever present with you. He fills you with desires that give honor and glory to His name. He fills you with His love, and His love is overwhelming. So when you're overwhelmed by the cares of this world, pray to Holy Spirit and ask Him to overwhelm you with His love.

[31:29] It's a great exchange. When you are overwhelmed with fear, pray for Holy Spirit to overwhelm you with His presence. When you are overwhelmed with anxiety, pray for Holy Spirit to overwhelm you with His peace. Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world." Whatever trouble is overwhelming you, pray. Jesus has made provision for you. It's a great exchange. Jesus is the answer.

[32:15] So to engage in the practice of prayer. When do we pray? Always. What do we pray for? Everything. Where do we pray? Everywhere. Why do we pray? To fulfill His purpose in us and to the world around us. And how do we pray? We pray effectively, fervently, with His power to fulfill His purpose. Oh, that sounds overwhelming. But how many of us know that being overwhelmed by the cares of this world is the total opposite of being overwhelmed by God?

[33:00] God does not want you to be overwhelmed by this world. He wants to do the overwhelming. He wants to overwhelm you with His love and grace and mercy. He wants to overwhelm you with His righteousness and peace and joy. He wants to overwhelm you with His purpose and His power. Now, I have a question. But before I ask the question, and as the prayer team or the worship team comes, I'd like you to stand. Would you stand with me, please? So here's the question.

[33:47] The question is, are you ready to pray? If you don't know Him, are you ready to begin your journey to pray to Jesus and for your salvation? If you do know Him, are you ready to pray to know Jesus as a person? Are you ready to pray for wisdom and revelation to know Him better? Are you ready to pray for the power and the desire to do what pleases Him? Are you ready to pray? Then I ask you to come. If you want more, I ask you to come to the front, come to the altar, come and bow before the Father who delights in you, and He calls you His own. Come and see the One who promises to be found.

[34:45] Come and meet the person of Jesus. Would you come? And as you come, I'm going to ask the prayer team to come in behind you, and they will come up and pray with you and for you. But now, would you come as we sing together?