Does Prayer Really Work?

This evening we’re beginning our series looking at what the Bible says about Big Questions people ask about the Christian faith. Tonight’s question is Does Prayer Really Work? Does asking God, does talking and listening to God really work? Does God hear us and answer us?

Well it partly depends on what you pray for. One guy after finishing his geography exam prayed, “Dear Lord please make the capital of New Zealand be Sydney”! Clearly that sort of prayer doesn’t work! But the Bible is emphatic that genuine believing prayer is heard and answered by God and is an amazing privilege. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross in our place the way to God is open. We can come to God the Father in prayer, through Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus died that we might know and be able to pray to his Father and yet do we make use of the privilege? Do we believe that prayer really works? One of my favourite passages in the Bible is 1 John 5:14-15:

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.

And as a church we’ve experienced many answers to prayer – our church plant HTG starting and growing to 250, hundreds coming to CE Taster Sessions, people being changed by the power of the gospel.

And that prayer has an effect has also been borne out in some studies that have asked, ‘Can prayer heal the sick?’ One published in Harvard Health found that patients in one intensive care unit recovered faster after prayers were said for them compared with those who did not have prayers said. This study involved 1,000 patients and neither the patients nor their doctors knew which patients had prayers said for them.

And in Luke 18, in the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge, Jesus is adamant that prayer really works. So much so that, v1;

Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

Christians should always pray and not give up. That’s the point of this parable and so it’s my one point too.


CHRISTIANS SHOULD ALWAYS PRAY AND NOT GIVE UP

Christians should always pray and not give up. Why does Jesus urge us to always pray and not give up? Why don't we always pray? Why do we give up so often? Well one reason why we give up is that when we see no sign of the answer we long for, it's easy for us to be discouraged. But Jesus tells this parable to show us that we must pray on and not give up.

The fact that I’m preaching tonight is testimony to the power of prayer. As some of you know when I was younger I didn’t want anything to do with the Christian faith. I thought Christians had two brains. One was out there and the other was out there looking for it! But unbeknown to me my grandmother always prayed and never gave up for 15 years for me to turn to Christ. Now all of my grandmother’s grandchildren are believers.

A family man called George McCluskey also decided to always pray and not give up for his family. He committed to praying one hour a day for them because he wanted his children to follow Christ. After a while, he expanded the scope of his prayers to include his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Every day between 11am and noon, he prayed for the next three generations. As the years went by, his two daughters committed their lives to Christ and married men who went into full time Christian ministry. The two couples produced four girls and one boy. Each of the girls married a minister, and the boy became a pastor. The first two children born to this generation were both boys. After leaving high school the two cousins chose the same university and became roommates. One of them felt called to be a pastor. The other didn't and instead pursued his interest in psychology. He gained a doctorate and eventually wrote books for parents that became bestsellers. He started a radio programme heard on many stations throughout the world each day. His name is James Dobson who ran Focus on the Family, an international Christian ministry, for many years and still works for them. Through his prayers, George McCluskey affected far more than one family.

Are we always praying for our family? Or have we given up? When I became a Christian my father was an atheist. He’s now going to church every week. We are to always pray and not give up. George Müller chronicled his persistence in prayer for 5 of his friends to turn to Christ:

In November 1844, I began to pray for the conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without a single intermission, whether sick or in health, on the land, on the sea, and whatever the pressure of my engagements might be. Eighteen months elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked God and prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was converted. I thanked God for the second, and prayed on for the other three. Day by day, I continued to pray for them, and six years passed before the third was converted. I thanked God for the three, and went on praying for the other two.

Thirty-six years later he wrote that the other two, sons of one of Müller's friends, were still not converted. He wrote, 'But I hope in God, I pray on, and look for the answer. They are not converted yet, but they will be.’

52 years after he began to pray for those two men, they were finally converted after Müller died. He always prayed and did not give up. Who are we always praying for? Have we given up already? Our God is a great God who hears and answers prayer. Do you have faith in a great God for whom nothing is impossible as Jesus goes on to say in v27 of Luke 18? In v8 of Luke 18 Jesus says that God will answer his chosen ones who cry to him day and night quickly, remembering, of course, that to God a thousand years is like a day (2 Peter 3:8). But he will answer in his perfect time.

Praying together is also important if we’re to pray and not give up. In v1 Luke tells us that Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up, which applies both as a group & individually. Often we need the encouragement of others to always pray and not give up. So will you be at the JPC Day of Prayer on Wednesday? You say but life is crazily busy! But what I’m discovering is that actually busyness is a lazy thing. It avoids the hardest work of all, which is prayer.

And at the Day of Prayer we begin to pray and not give up for places like the Sudan where Christians are still being regularly murdered – for there to be justice and peace to enable the spread of the gospel, as well as praying for this wayward nation. And for the vision that God has given us as a church – 5000 at JPC & 5000 in church plants, for it is God who gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:8).

Another reason why we don't always pray and not give up is that we can have a wrong view of God. We can think that he doesn't want to hear about our problems and needs, that they’re too small for him. Bill Hybels in his book 'Too Busy Not to Pray' says we often think like this:

God is busy keeping the cosmos in order. He doesn't want to hear about my little problems. God would think I was selfish if I prayed for my own needs. If I really love him, I'll put myself in last place. I know that 'the cattle on a thousand hills' belong to God, but that's just a figure of speech. He's not in the business of taking care of me, and I won't ask him to do it. Have you ever said things like these? If so you're not alone, but you're tragically mistaken. Those statements are all based on a lie straight from the devil - the lie that God doesn't care about his children.

He wants us to bring our needs to him. Jesus teaches us to do so daily in the Lord's Prayer. Remember what James says (4:2):

You do not have because you do not ask God.

But you say Jonathan I do ask him and he still doesn’t appear to answer. Well first perhaps you’ve not yet trusted Christ as your Saviour and Lord – why not do so tonight? Secondly we’re to examine our motives. James 4:3 says:

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

We're to ask with right motives – rather than with selfish or greedy ones - we're to want God's will to be done and for his name to be honoured and glorified. That's why it's good to pray with an open Bible, or after having read Scripture so that we're guided by his Word.

Thirdly God will not always answer our prayers in the way that we want or expect. Sometimes the answer will be yes, sometimes no and sometimes wait. But he will answer in the way that is best, for his will is good, pleasing and perfect says Romans 12:2. The answer to Jesus’ prayer for the cup of suffering to be taken from him was no but that led to the good news of the cross and resurrection without which we would not be able to be forgiven and know God. However, Jesus’ prayer to his Father was also ‘yet not my will, but yours be done’. A pattern for us too.

Back in Luke 11 Jesus says your heavenly Father will give what is good to those who ask him, namely the Holy Spirit You see a good Father does not give everything the child asks for. A Danish proverb notes, "Give to a pig when it grunts and a child when he cries, and you will have a fine pig and a bad child." God is raising children, not pigs. And part of that is teaching his children to pray according to his will. You see if I throw out a boat hook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.

We’re to ask our heavenly Father and persist in asking him – to always pray and not give up - not because he's deaf but precisely because he does hear us and loves to hear us and also knows that prayer changes us. All of which brings us to the actual parable here in v2-5 of Luke 18.

2…In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary'. 4For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!

The answer to the widow's request for justice against her adversary is eventually obtained through her persistence. The judge neither feared God nor cared about people. For a time he refused to grant the widow justice against her adversary. Only because the widow kept on bothering him did he make sure that she did get justice in the end, so that he wouldn't be worn out by her! He didn’t give it out of the goodness of his heart or because he wanted to see justice done but because of the widow's persistence or 'importunity' which means to harass and insist persistently.

Now Jesus, of course, is not likening God to the unjust judge. Rather Jesus intends a contrast. The judge is crooked, unrighteous, uncaring and selfish. God is righteous and just, holy and tender, responsive and sympathetic. Jesus says (v4) that the unjust judge refused the widow justice for some time despite her initial persistence. But God won't keep putting his chosen ones off who cry to him day and night… he will see that they get justice and quickly. Look at v6-8:

6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly.

The unjust judge says that he doesn't care about God or his fellow man, yet because the widow kept bothering him he would see that she got justice, so that she wouldn't wear him out. So if the callous judge can give out justice purely as a result of being worn down by a widow's persistence how much more will God, the righteous Judge, bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night, who insist persistently?

There’s also a contrast between those who follow Christ and the widow. She, as a widow in Jesus' day, is powerless, forgotten and abandoned. She has no relationship with the judge. But if we’re in Christ, if we’ve put our faith in him, if God has brought us out of darkness into his wonderful light, then we are not abandoned; we are God's adopted children. We are God's chosen ones says Jesus in v7. If we’re sons of God through faith in Christ then we are in God's family, and we matter to him. So we can approach him with confidence in prayer and keep on doing so. He is listening and answering.

So if the widow, who had no claim that the judge would recognise, succeeded in the end in getting what she wanted through sheer importunity, how much more shall God's people, who are his chosen ones, have our prayers answered by a God who is willing to see we get justice and quickly. And when Christ returns as Judge everything will be put right forever. So we are to pray as the Apostle John does in the penultimate verse of Revelation (Revelation 22:20):

Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

So to conclude, since even an unjust judge can sometimes do justice how much more must we expect that the righteous God will bring about justice for his chosen ones. His chosen ones cry to him day and night. They pray with unwearied persistence. These are important marks of a disciple of Jesus Christ. They realise that they are in great need and they recognise that their one hope is in God. They realise that earthly resources will not do. Apart from Christ we can do nothing. "However", Jesus concludes, "when the Son of Man [Jesus] comes, will he find faith on the earth." In other words will such faith in God, expressed in daily persistent prayer, be found to be our own daily experience 'when the Son of Man comes'?