Praying in Power
- May 8
- 37 min read
Updated: May 13
Pastor Stan Mons
Sermon Transcription:
We are going into the next session in our series, Discipleship Essentials. Discipleship Essentials is a series that the Lord has been putting on my heart that really contains, just like it is named, the very essential things for discipleship. If I would only have one opportunity to teach you guys a series that is supposed to contribute to your ability to be a disciple of Jesus in this world, it is just these teachings. These are the discipleship essentials. There’s much more good stuff and many more handy and equipping things that we will teach here in this church. But when you boil it back down to what do you need to follow Jesus effectively into your call, we’ve boiled it down to Discipleship Essentials.
Tonight we’re going to talk about prayer: praying in power. Praying in power. If you don’t have a note sheet yet, make sure that you have your note sheet so that you can follow along with the notes and write down what you need to take home into your life in order for you to grow in your ability to follow Jesus. Praying in power. Prayer is probably one of the most frustrating Christian areas of life. Whether you want to call it a spiritual discipline, a spiritual gift, a spiritual privilege, whatever you like to define it as, it is one of the most frustrating aspects for people in the Christian walk, as much as one of the most anticipated and desired aspects in the Christian walk. But then it’s also one of the most idolized things in the Christian walk. We’ll get to that in a moment in this teaching. But today, I want to talk to you about praying in power.
Because when you pray in power, you don’t have to exaggerate it. When you pray in power, you won’t struggle with doubt or disappointment. And when you pray in power, that means your prayer is causing things beyond yourself, greater than yourself. There’s a power in your prayer that begins to affect the lives of others beyond your own life.
Let me read to you Luke 11:1. I’m going to read it to you from the NIV version. Luke 11:1, praying in power. "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” So here we have Jews following Jesus, disciples of Jesus. Jesus is praying in their presence. And the moment Jesus is done praying, they go, “Yo, can you teach us to pray like that?” That’s what happened. They had been praying people their entire life; they weren’t saying, “Hey, we’ve never prayed yet. How does this thing work? What is prayer? Would you show us how to pray?” No, they had been praying people their entire life. But when they heard Jesus pray, they were like, “Yo, this is different. This is different. Teach us to pray. You have something.” That’s what happens when you ask someone to teach you: you realize this person has something or understands something that I don’t have, but I really need or I really want. And so they saw something in the prayer life of Jesus that they said, whatever that is, that’s what I need. That’s what I need to understand. That’s what I need to walk in. And so I want to talk with you for a moment about prayer baggage, because the disciples would have had prayer baggage. They never prayed in the name of Jesus. There was no such thing as praying in the name of Jesus. They prayed in their own name.
You came before God with your lonesome self, and maybe a lamb or a dove or something maybe to be sacrificed in the temple on your behalf. But you came before God with your own name, in your own name, asking your own thing, standing before God as your own self. And so the disciples watch Jesus pray and it’s different, and they realize something about prayer. You can have prayer baggage. In other words, there’s things you have picked up in your life that now you carry with you into the place of prayer, and you realize my prayer life is not like the prayer life of Jesus. And so there could be things that need to be unpacked from your life. Just like in the lives of the disciples, you may remember the scripture where Jesus turns to the disciples and he says, “Up until now, you have never asked anything in my name yet.” He was about to unpack some of their baggage and begin to teach them that they don’t need to pray in their own name once they walk with Jesus. They can begin to pray in the name of Jesus.
Which means none of their past, none of their baggage, none of the good things they have done and none of the bad things they have done will ever affect the way that the Father listens to you or answers you. You now get to pray in the name of Jesus. But prayer baggage can be picked up by you. It can be brought into your life by other people. I will give examples.
You may have unintentionally picked up the belief that a good prayer is loud, that a deep prayer is long, that an intense prayer always has tears, that when the Spirit teaches you to pray you always speak in tongues. You may have picked up those beliefs that are not in the Bible that have been brought into your life by a person. All of these things could happen when you pray. But that doesn’t mean, if they happen, it doesn’t mean you have been praying. You may have just been very emotional. You may doubt everything about God. That’s why you’re crying in prayer. That’s why you’re tearing up in prayer. You may doubt whether you’re forgiven or not. You’re not walking even in faith. That’s why you’re praying. You’re praying because of your unbelief.
You can pick up a lot of prayer baggage that you carry to the place of prayer. And the place of prayer, instead of being a place of power, can become burdensome, boring, heavy, and really a place for good Christians. And you don’t feel like one. Let me read to you Matthew 6:5–8. Jesus unpacking some of the baggage. Verse 5: And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. If you translate that word hypocrites from the original text, it means pretender.
And that word “pretender” in that time was used for people that wanted to be king but didn’t have the lineage to be king. So they would have to fight their way into a kingdom, overthrow and possibly even kill a king to then take that king’s place, take up his mantle by force and become king. They didn’t have the royal bloodline, so they had to work up their way to become king. That man that had done that was called a pretender. That’s where that word comes from. And that word here is translated to hypocrite, a pretender.
So think of that definition. And then Jesus says, “And when you pray, you will not be like the pretender. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. Assuredly I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, don’t be like them, for your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” So here Jesus begins to unpack some of the prayer baggage that his disciples were carrying. He says you will not be like the hypocrites, you shall not be like the pretender who had no right, no bloodline to get into the royal family. He says you will not be like the pretender. Don’t worry. You can just go into the secret place and you can dine with the King. You can sit down with the Father and the Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
You won’t have to puff yourself up in prayer, make sure people hear you. You don’t have to yell loud and fight your way to somehow belong like the pretender does. You don’t need to be like that. He’s comforting them. You don’t have to work it up. He says you shut the door, you get into private with the Father and He will reward you openly. And then He says don’t behave like the heathen. Their gods don’t answer. So that’s why they keep coming back talking to their fake god about the same thing time and time again and they labor in prayer and they stay there so long and they keep asking and crying out for the same thing. He said don’t do that. Don’t be like the heathen. Your God actually answers. So you don’t need to ask a lot for your needs at all. Your Father knows what you need and He loves you. He’s going to provide for you. He’s going to make a way for you. He’s going to give you what He knows you need. You can come to prayer to sit down with the King who by the way you are by blood actually related to. You get to spend time in prayer. That’s not a place of work for you. That’s not a place of earning something, proving something, or making something happen.
He begins to address a lot of the major issues that the disciples would have looked up to. That’s a real prayer life. And Jesus goes, that’s for the ones that are not on the inside with the Father. That’s how they pray. But when you know the Father, you can stop being a pretender. You can stop forcing your way into something that honestly you will never be a part of until I have introduced you to the Father. He says, go into your room. That implies a dedicated place for solitude. Solitude is getting away from people to be alone with Jesus, to be alone with God. Isolation is getting away from people to be with myself. They can look very similar. Trust me, the fruit and the outcome is very different. Isolation means a person is always 100% of the time in sin. That’s why people isolate. When they isolate, they love darkness. The moment you bring eyes into the situation, even the eyes of a person, you now feel the light burn. There’s certain things you don’t want to be seen doing. There’s certain things you don’t want to be heard saying. And that my flesh don’t like that. My flesh wants to do whatever it wants to do, and I can only do it when nobody’s watching. So I want to isolate. That’s isolation.
Solitude is getting away from people and shutting the door behind me to sit down with the King because Jesus has made me royalty. Isolation we do because of sin and solitude we do because sin has been washed away. He says, “Pray to the Father who is in the secret place. That’s where He sees. That’s where He pays attention. He will reward openly. Those rewards come to find you beyond the secret place. There’s an incredible reward in spending alone time with the Lord—the intimacy, the joy, experiencing His manifest presence when you come to talk to Him. There’s nothing that makes you feel like a child of the living God as when He shows up when you come to sit down and talk to Him. But the word tells us that the reward will go beyond the secret place. He will openly reward beyond that. And then so important, and we can so easily do it, He says don’t rely on repetition to get an answer. That’s what He tells them. Faith can bring you back to the same place and you can even ask for the same thing. Faith can do that.
But it’s a matter of the heart’s position. Am I asking because of insecurity? Am I asking because I’m not so sure if God wants to answer my prayer? If He’s willing to answer my prayer? If pastor would be asking, it’d be different. But it’s me coming. Do I feel like that towards God? Is that my heart’s posture? Is that my heart’s view of what the Father is like? Or do I come to Him because I know He’s going to answer and I need it again? That’s very different. And he says, “Do not believe that repetition will get you the answer.” Says, “The Father knows what you need before you ask.” And what he’s really showing his disciples is all you need to do is get the heart right. Pray as a response to truth. Jesus came to tell them the truth. The Father loves you. The Father has sent the Son. The Father has sent the Son to pay for your sins so that you can come. Father, I’m here because Jesus told me I could come. That’s why I’m here to pray. A response to truth.
Here’s a note that is important to me. Prayer is a position given to us because we believe the gospel. And a lot of true biblical prayer comes about without words. That is a note to myself.
Spending time with God doesn’t mean I’m always talking. Spending time with God doesn’t mean I’m always hearing Him speak things word for word. When someone is going through a very hard time or perhaps even grieving, at times sitting next to that person, saying nothing and just being there is all that needs to happen in that relationship at that point. And I think one of the things in my life that the Father desires perhaps more than other things that I love to do spending time with Him is to sit together without a plan so to speak, without me having a purpose other than to spend time with Him. And it is those times that He often shares some of the things that grieve Him. And He’s not asking me to say anything. He just wants me to sit with Him in some of His grief.
Some of the things that are hurting Him today. Some of the things that are hurting Him about the condition of the church. Some of the things that are hurting Him in this world. And all these things are part of prayer. James Montgomery wrote a poem that I really love. I still haven’t fully memorized it, but I will read it to you: Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed, The motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast. Prayer is a burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, The upward glancing of an eye when none but God is near. Prayer can really not be put in a box. Yet, we are called to explore it more every single year. That’s really personally my question to you to ask yourself for a moment. Has my prayer life grown every year? And I’m not talking about more hours, bigger tears. That’s not what I mean when I say that. We have young kids. I am so excited to take William out of our house to the park because his whole life happens at home and at church. But then when we take him to the park, it’s like the world is huge and there’s grass and he doesn’t like it in the beginning. So he doesn’t move. But then there’s birds and then I remember Lenie being little and she would lay under trees and watch them sometimes for a whole hour. And I love to see their world open up. That’s what I mean.
Has your prayer life grown? Has your world been opening up every year in your prayer life where you realize God is willing to do more, willing to make you understand more? And you’re like, “Whoa, there’s a whole bigger world out there than I thought there was. Prayer is so much bigger, so much more grand, meaningful. There’s so many more things that get done in prayer.”
Are you following what I’m saying? Does your vision enlarge yearly in prayer because your relationship grows? Because that is really I believe the Lord’s desire for your life as he begins to unpack that baggage and deal with it. The key here is the Father desires that you come to Him and shut the door. That’s what Jesus begins to teach.
Let’s go to 1 Samuel 1: 12–13. "As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in the heart and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk." Here you have one of the religious leaders of his time. Yet he did not recognize a prayer that would change the whole nation. Remember what she prayed about? Yes, she prayed about Samuel. What did she tell the Lord? Yes, I will give him into the service of the Lord. And that was the prophet Samuel who came from Hannah and came into that same temple just a handful of years later. So here we have a prayer that changed the entire direction of a nation. But the religious leader right there did not recognize that as or understood that as being proper prayer. But in the same way, you can be praying in a way that a religious leader approves of and understands that you are faithful in prayer and yet never pray.
I believe it was Leonard Ravenhill who said, “I often say my prayers, but do I ever really pray?” And I found in my life that the only time I realized I have prayed is when I see God respond clearly now in God’s opinion. I have prayed because he answered and the Bible tells me when I call you answer, when I come to the Father he is near. He is there. And there are times where I have been confused because I thought I was praying but there was no answer. There was no clarity. There was no presence. All kinds of things were wrong. Now I'm not talking about a season of waiting on the Lord. Those are different things. And he will bear witness to that. I'm talking about those days. And you've heard many people say that heaven feels like breath. Your prayers don't get beyond the ceiling or the window or anywhere else. There's many times that we say our prayers, but we didn't pray.
There's many times that we say in the name of Jesus at the end of a prayer, but we were not praying in the name of Jesus Christ. We were approaching God as ourself while we ended the prayer with saying religiously in the name of Jesus, amen. While we felt the weight of our wrongs, while we doubted how God was feeling about us in the moment where we were not sure if he actually answers, when I pray in total unbelief with all of my sin baggage under my arms while I say at the end of a prayer in the name of Jesus, that's not a magical thing, a trick, a spell that is being cast that I just say a whole bunch of stuff and then I sign it with in the name of Jesus. Now it's a prayer. Send it to heaven and it just checks out. That's not how prayer works. You have to pray in the name of Jesus. That means something. When you speak, you should be speaking in the name of Jesus. When you serve people, you should be serving people in the name of Jesus. When you go to work, you should be doing it in the name of Jesus. In other words, I now live this life unto the Son of God who has given himself for me. And when I speak to the Father, I do it in the name of Jesus, the Son of God who has given his life so that I can come to the Father any time.
It is a heart’s attitude of faith and understanding and confidence in the cross that places us in the name of Jesus when we approach the Father. It’s not a couple of words at the end of a bunch of words that came from who knows what place of the heart that then is just stamped a prayer and it works. Very often it doesn’t work. Amen? Amen, Because it wasn’t a prayer. Sometimes it’s more wishful thinking than prayer. Sometimes it’s more begging than prayer. Amen? Amen. You can live a life where it is very clear that in God’s opinion you have a prayer life. You can live a life where it is very clear in God’s opinion that you have a prayer life. How does that work? He answers. That’s how you know that God says, “You have a prayer life now. My Son has given it to you.” A true prayer does not have a timeline. You can go to God and believe him for all kinds of stuff that he never promised. That’s not praying. You are genuine in your approach to God. You genuinely believe that he can do this thing. He just never said he would. And here there’s no answer. And people get all confused and worked up. And sometimes they’re ready to shipwreck in the faith right then and there. And it’s painful. And I’ve seen it many times.
I cannot tell you how many people have come to my wife or I and begin to tear up. They can’t say a word. And they begin to explain, “My mom, my dad passed away from cancer. I believed God would heal them. They believed they would be healed. They told me I was eight years old and I prayed and I believed with all of my heart. Nothing went well. It was a terrible journey. Dad died and it’s been hard for me to know how to pray for healing. As a matter of fact, when somebody prays for healing, I feel uncomfortable. I don’t like it anymore.” I’ve heard so many stories that were all based upon people believing things God never said. But there’s this thing that has crept into Christianity that says, “If I genuinely believe something about God, then he responds.” That’s the activating coin into the machine. If I genuinely believe him, then I hit the spot and he responds and does it. No. God does what he promises.
God promises that one day there will not be any sickness anymore, any pain anymore, any death anymore. Healing has been promised. We leave it up to God’s integrity as to when and how he does some healing on this side of eternity because he wants to convince people that he can heal the greatest sickness of all sin. But we let him use that incredible miracle as he sees fit. It’s not that big of a problem whether we get healed or not because even death has been conquered. So, we’re going to get our healing. God, use my sickness on this side of eternity to spread the gospel however you seem fit. If not, bring me home quick. It’s not that complicated. But when you believe the wrong things about God, what is attacked? It is the prayer life. Now I get confused in prayer or hurt in prayer or I don’t want to anymore or I feel uncomfortable with praying for healing. I don’t know how God’s going to respond to me. A true prayer does not have a timeline in the heart. And that is so important before we approach the Father. We cannot say deep down in our heart and we don’t rehearse this but I’m sure you’ve been there. I know I have.
We come to God in prayer. We’ve been there now for three months. We’ve offered him up the prayer. Perhaps you’ve returned in prayer, thinking that if you pray it more, he will answer. But you’ve genuinely come before him, and you’ve prayed about something he told us to pray about. You’ve prayed about something that he promised. You’ve given it to him. Now you’ve been waiting three months, three years, maybe 30. And then there’s a person, if they struggle with this timeline thing, that they go, “Well, I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried everything. I read, I went to church, I went to Bible school, I prayed, I waited. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work.” The only reason people come to that conclusion is because they had a timeline hidden away secretly in their heart that said, “If God is real, if he keeps his word, and if I pray, then it would probably play out like this roughly.” And well, it’s God, so it may take a little longer, maybe even a little longer, but it wouldn’t take this long.
When, in all reality, most of the promises Abraham got went into fulfillment miraculously after his death. God kept his promises. But when Abraham began to doubt God after roughly 20-odd years, he was rebuked like you would not believe it. Because after 20 years of getting the promise, Abraham thought, “You know what? I think God needs my help. I think I know how he’s going to do it.” Church, never make that mistake. Every time I’ve thought, “I think I know how God’s going to do it,” every single time he taught me that I do not know. I have never been right yet. Never. We have been in really you know financial—we have done financial gymnastics for years—and sometimes there’s been times, literally, where there was zero in every account. We’ve never been a dollar in debt, but we’ve had days where there was zero in every account.
There was nothing. It was always only for one day, but we had to trust the Lord. And we never went out to make anything happen. But there was many a time where something would arise in my heart—a rich friend or a wealthy family member or something—and I’m like, “Oh, Lord’s probably going to speak to them in prayer, and he’s going to make a way.” And never has it ever been remotely close to how I thought God was going to answer a prayer or fill a need. So, I’ve just stopped. And this timeline thing works the same way. People pray, “God, give me a wife.” I’m not looking at anybody, but people pray that, I’ve been told. But they have this timeline, and then they reach 37, and they say, “Well, I mean, I prayed. I tried it in the church. I mean, there’s just not the right people,” or whatever it is. “God didn’t answer my prayer. I’m going to download an app. Surely God can use it.” Right? And, in all reality, what begins to happen is we say, “God, I trusted you. I believed in you. I prayed to you, but you didn’t meet the timeline, and now I’m a little worried that if I don’t do the work, it’s not gonna get done.” And we know how that went with Abraham. He did find somebody, and there is still trouble because of it.
A true prayer does not have a timeline in the heart. Your prayers may be answered after you die. Remember how David asked the Lord, “I just desire to build you a house.” And the Lord said, “Well, that house, that’s a great prayer. That house will be there. You just won’t see it.” And sometimes we have to realize that our prayers are going to be answered, but you may be in heaven hearing about it or watching it. However, we may not be able to know anything about what is going on on earth. We don’t know. The word doesn’t tell us that. But in every case, the Lord may send an angel your way and say, “Hey, remember you asked me for that? I know it’s now 943 years later. Thank you for praying that. It’s fulfilled now at the right time.” Your prayers need to be prayed in confidence and trust, releasing it into the hands of the Father, not putting a timeline that works for my life. And that’s hard, but it’s very good to know. Amen?
Now, why do we pray? Ask yourself for a moment, why do I pray? What is my personal motivation? Do I pray so that my wife sees me praying because I want my wife to see that I’m a praying man? Do I pray because I’ve sinned again? Do I pray because I’m worried that if I don’t pray, that I will fall out of love with my Bible? And if I don’t pray, then I will not be as good a person on the job, and I won’t be used by God in the ministry? And if I don’t pray, am I praying out of worry, concern, and fear? Am I praying because I just want to spend time with my heavenly Father? Don’t really know what to talk about. I just want to spend time with him. He may just talk about something. Why do you pray? You don’t have to start yet. Um, why do we pray? What is your personal motivation? Do you love to take on the position of prayer because the Father always hears you, always answers you? Or do you love to pray because you hope that something will change in your life when you pray?
In other words, if I can only persuade God to deliver me, then I will be delivered. If I can only persuade God to hear me and to bring about change, then change will come. Listen, all true prayer is rooted in the power of the cross. That’s why God himself answers it. All true prayer is rooted in the power of the cross. We get to pray in the name of Jesus, the one who paid for the sins of the world, the one who loves without measure, the one who is present at all times in everyone’s life because of the cross there is power in your prayer life. It’s not because of the way you pray. It’s not because of who taught you to pray. It’s not because of how long you pray. It’s not even because you pray out loud or you pray quietly in your heart. True prayer, the Father always hears. He always answers it because it comes before him in the power of the cross. This prayer was paid for. Like, you have to understand that when you go to prayer, that the Father goes, “This prayer was paid for. Let’s bring it to the top of all the priority list. This prayer has been paid for.” No one has to pay. No one has to become good. No one has to change their life. This prayer has already been paid for. Jesus wanted you to be able to pray in his name in the presence of the Father. Come to him. Not work anything up. All true prayer is rooted in the power of the cross. That’s why God himself answers it.
Now, it’s no secret by now that we’re also talking about the fact that a lot of talking is mistakenly called prayer. And it is witnessed to by the fact that it goes unanswered. Now, no is an answer. Amen? We don’t all like that answer, but no is an answer. I’m not saying you pray, God always does what you want, but he will answer. And when we don’t come before the Father because we believe, we come before him because we are not sure if he’s going to do what he has said. And here’s maybe the biggest point in that that may shock some of you, and there’s no condemnation for those that are in Christ. Amen. But a Christian does not believe in prayer. I hear people say it all the time. “Oh, I believe in prayer.” Oh, I don’t. I believe in Jesus. That’s why I pray. But I do not believe in prayer. Prayer is not a person. Prayer didn’t die for me on the cross. Prayer doesn’t answer me when I come to it. I do not believe in prayer. I believe in Jesus. He has given me prayer, and I’m using it. I don’t believe in prayer. I believe in Jesus. A Christian believes in the Christ of God. And when God saw that little bit of faith in your heart, that you believe in the Christ, God gave you now a prayer life. It’s a gift. He’s given it to you.
A person that has received a prayer life has received intimate communication with God in their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and words. It is the intimate relationship that Jesus gave up and cried out, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?” What Jesus gave up, he has given to you and I: communication with the Father. Intimate communication with the Father in our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and words. You can bring any of those things to the Father.
He’s not offended with any of the difficult ones you bring to Him. He wanted you to be able to access Him in prayer the way nobody can access the king. You get to go into the secret place where the king is, and you get to sit down with Him, and He will care for you, and He will reward you openly. You can bring any thought. You can tell Him what you do not like about Him, even though you realize maybe you misunderstand things about Him. You can tell Him how you feel. You can tell Him about your emotions. He can relate. Jesus became fully human. He understands the emotions. He understands the feelings. He understands the struggles. And He has been in—He knows words. He knows how they can wound you and hurt you. Even though people maybe didn’t mean it, you can come to Him and talk to Him, communicate with Him intimately.
True Christians are simply in communion with the Father, and he is in communion with them. He seeks to spend time with them. He responds to them. Words by volume or time or length of talking do not prove true prayer. You can have beautiful prayers; that doesn’t mean it was prayer. You can have long prayers, loud prayers, quiet prayers, praying-in-tongues prayers. You can have all kinds of prayer. You make it up. You can pray. That doesn’t make it prayer. True prayer is witnessed to in power by the way the Father responds to you. Remember, no response means you really prayed. Amen? Amen. Remember Elijah and the prophets of Baal? The prophets of Baal, I mean, they were shouting to the heavens. They were cutting themselves. They were using many words, repetition. They were praying literally their entire life away. They were really praying. And Elijah makes fun of them, literally makes a parody out of them, throws oil in the fire, and says, “Well, maybe you should—maybe he’s on vacation.” He’s making fun of them. And some of us pray more like the prophets of Baal than someone like Elijah. And then some of us really do pray like Elijah, which he did the day after this victorious battle with the prophets of Baal, because Elijah did receive fire from heaven upon the altar. A day later, he’s on his knees praying like some of us pray, “Lord, I don’t know what to do anymore. You may as well kill me. I’m ready to give up. Just bring me home, Lord. Just take me home.”
The prophet’s been there, too. You can really tell God what you’re going through. He has to be so much more than a best friend to you, the first person you want to tell good news, the first person you want to come to in distress, the first person you want to share something with, because he has become the closest to you in the power of the cross. Let me talk to you about prayer dos and don'ts. I'm going to give you six prayer dos and don'ts. Let me read to you Matthew 7:21-23. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”Many will say to me that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?”Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.” Says, “I never knew you.”
Here is your first point. Do not—it’s a do not. Do not pursue a public prayer life until you have a private one. What did he tell them? “I never knew you.” That word “knew” is the word you and I today in our language would use for dating. That’s what he said. Well, you may have done all of that public ministry in front of people while people were watching, but you were never coming to see me the way one does when they are in love. That’s what he really tells them. I never knew we weren’t seeing each other like that. You weren’t coming to me like that. So, what do we learn? Do not pursue a public prayer life until you have a private one. Sounds logical. Many do it. Seek first a private relationship with Jesus before you want to figure out all the following stuff. Zechariah 7:13. “ When I called, they did not listen. So when they called, I would not listen, says the Lord Almighty.” Number two, when Jesus makes something clear to you, do it. That’s number two of the prayer dos and don’ts. When Jesus makes something clear to you, do it.
I cannot tell you, church, how many times I’ve encountered people that the Lord has put something on their heart or spoken something to them in a sermon or in a teaching, and they’re talking to me about it and they say, “Yeah, yeah, you know, I’m, I’m praying about it.” And I go, “Huh? What do you mean you’re praying about it? You should be doing it. Why are you praying? God has already given you direction. God has already given you conviction. God already showed you what is missing in your life. God already showed you what needs to go out of your life. God already showed you where you have to go on a mission trip. God already told you to go to a Bible school. God already made it clear to you. What are you now praying about? What is there to pray about? You can give him thanks, but you can’t stay in this place and stay obedient at the same time. You already know what to do. And there’s a lot of people that love to hear from God, but they are not that eager to just go and do it, because then you really have to trust him. And then there’s people that think they have a good idea, and they go do what they think God would like them to do, and then they realize they never heard from him and they ran ahead of him.
Neither option is very, very great. But when Jesus makes something clear to you, and you’ll know that he made you, it’ll be clear like glass. There will not be a person in the world that can convince you otherwise, that will be able to persuade you otherwise. When Jesus has spoken to your heart, he knows how to do it in a way that you hear him clearly. No one will be able to talk you into it or out of it. When he makes something clear, do it. 1 Corinthians 14:4, “Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.” Then verse 16, “Otherwise, when you are praising God in the Spirit, how can someone else who is now put in the position of an inquirer say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving since they don’t know what you’re saying?” Here’s number three: pray in tongues to build yourself up. Pray in tongues to build yourself up. If you receive a gift from God, use it.
Some of you, you’ve gotten gifts for your birthday and you smiled and you grinned. You weren’t that happy with it. You’ve never used it. And some of you have kind of done that with the Lord.
But trust me, when God gives you a gift, he’s the one that was right. Amen? If God gives you a gift, use it. But use it for what it is for. It is to build yourself up. So do it in your quiet time. Do it in the secret place. Build up yourself as you pray in the gifting of tongues. Now, if there’s a gifting of interpretation, there may be tongues as well in a place where there’s a service or a meeting or any of those kinds of places. But in general, the reason God gave that gift to you is so that you can pray when you don’t know what to pray and you end up built up anyways. Amen? Amen.
First Peter 3:7. Husbands, here it comes. In the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Here’s number four: treat your wife with respect. And the way I like to remind myself is I try to—and I don’t do it great, but this is my pursuit—I try to treat my wife as if she’s more expensive than me. That’s just, as a man, like simply how I do it, like to cherish a woman. That word implies that the vessel is more fragile. And usually the more fragile things are, the more beautiful things are, and the more beautiful things are, the more expensive things are. And that’s why all the Slavic people in the room had a grandma with a beautiful wooden closet with a glass door in front of it. And there was all kinds of dishes and bowls and glasses in it that we never used because they were the expensive stuff. They were being cherished and presented, and they didn’t need to do anything. We got like usable dishes, and we have that. And we are the usable dishes, and then we have that. So that’s always how I try to remind myself to treat my wife as if she’s more expensive than I am. And in some ways she is. Amen? Amen. Treat your wife with respect. James 4:3. “When you ask, you don’t receive because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
Here’s number five: do not idolize yourself and your desires in prayer. Remember what Jesus said: your Father knows what you need before you ask. So you don’t need to come and ask for what you think you should be needing and God should be bringing into your life. He’ll do that. He knows what you need. You go ahead and you pray about somebody else. You go ahead and you spend time with Jesus. You go ahead and you minister unto the Lord. He will reward you openly. He already loves you. He’s a better parent than you can ever teach him to be. He’s a better teacher than you could ever invite Him to be in your life. He will give you what you need. Don’t you worry. He’s better than that. You spend your prayer time on something else than yourself. And then Mark 11:25. “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Now, I can’t hammer this enough. When you stand praying—in other words, we do this daily, and there’s times that I’m sure you come to the Lord all kinds of times in the day, and maybe you talk to him in the mind regularly throughout the day—but there’s those special times where we close that door behind us and we get alone with the Father in solitude. And that’s where this scripture applies. When you stand praying, when you come to the Father and there is anything you have against anyone, leave, stop, go forgive them so that the Father in heaven may forgive your sins. Number six: don’t expect God to communicate when you hold something against someone. Somebody may be here that says, “Listen, it looks scripturally like I’ve been really trying and I’ve been doing stuff right.”
Have you been holding something against someone? You may not be steaming with anger. You may not be backbiting. You just no longer really talk to that person. They’re just unpleasant. And there can be things in our heart that we hold on to and we say, “Well, that person, I’m going to let them live their life and I’ll do me, you do you.” Don’t expect God to communicate when you hold something against someone. Now, in closing, I want to talk to you about a prayer life, a prayer life. Prayer is done differently in different countries, different cultures. On the outside, it may sound or look a little different, but there’s really only two groups in this entire world. There’s people that pray to a God they know, and there’s prayers offered up by people who do not know God. There’s two groups. There’s people that pray that know God. Remember what that word knowing means. There’s people that pray that have heard His voice. There’s people that pray that have received from the Spirit understanding and revelation of what God has done to their sin and to their cleanliness and to their justification and to their heart and their mind. And some of it may look like a work in progress, but you already have received the word clearly from God in your heart.
You’ve gotten to know Him, how he already looks at you, even though you still see, “Well, I have a hard time seeing it.” But that sounds awesome. Is that what Jesus did? People that know God and pray and people that don’t know Him and pray, they may know a lot about Him. There’s praying because I will receive. That’s what Jesus told me. And there’s praying out of insecurity. I really need God to move, so I should pray. Maybe he will. That’s praying out of unbelief. That’s praying out of insecurity. Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in my name, this you will receive. Whatever you ask according to the will of the Father, you can know his will. It’s all here. You can know what the Father wants. You can know what the Father wants in your marriage. You can know what the Father wants for your kids. You can know what the Father wants with your life. You can know what the Father wants to do through your mouth. You can know what the Father wants to do through finances. You can know what the Father wants to do. It’s all written down so that you would know. And He says, ‘Whatever you begin to pray according to what I told you, according to my will, according to what I desire, it will be done.’”
Do we believe and approach God because he will answer, or do we doubt if he answers so we want to pray more to somehow unlock it—whatever that means? What motivates us? Do we pray because we’ve been made righteous, or do we run to prayer because we sinned again?
Why do we show up? Why do you show up in prayer? Do we pray because God hears us, or do we pray because we hope that maybe if we pray enough, we can get through to Him? You have been given—it’s a gift. You’ve been given. Somebody else paid for it. You’ve been given. Somebody delivered it to you. You’ve been given a prayer life that didn’t exist under the Old Covenant. I’m not saying Old Testament. Somebody can believe in God and live under the Old Covenant today. That simply means that you still believe that when you do wrong, God looks different at you than when you do things right. If you still believe that, you are under the Old Covenant. The New Covenant, the Bible explains to us very, very clearly.
One of the prophets says it this way, I give you, speaking about Jesus, the Father speaking to Jesus, I give you as a covenant to the people. When we are in the New Covenant, we are in the name of Jesus. When we are in the New Covenant, what I do well or what I do wrong doesn’t affect my standing with the Father anymore. It doesn’t change the way he looks at me. It doesn’t change the way he hears me. It doesn’t change the way he treats me. I’m in the name of Jesus now. It’s not a covenant of what I do well and what I do not do well, and then God responds. It is a covenant now, a new one that is a person. I am in Jesus, a part of his body. He is the head. And whether the head comes before the Father or the arms and the knees come before the Father, the Father responds the same to the body as he responds to the head. We have been made one with Christ. You can pray now in the name of Jesus. There’s no longer baggage that you need to bring into the place of prayer that makes it heavier or more challenging or, well, you explain what you carried into this place. Hello. We’ve been given a prayer life so we can spend time with him. So we can bless him.
You understand that God gave you a gift that makes you able to take time and go bless Him?
You understand that you can make God feel blessed? That God’s emotions and understanding is touched when you decide to not take your time and go do this, that, or the other thing, but you take some of your time and say, “I’m going to go to the place of prayer Jesus bought me, and I’m just here. Lord, I’m just here. I got nothing to talk about. There’s nothing I need, Lord, but I’m just here to bless you. You’re so great, Lord. You’re so kind. You’re so patient with me. You always treat me according to Jesus. You always show up when I least expect it. You always remind me to read the Word when I’m in a rush and I want to get out the door. You always help me to know what’s right. I just want to bless you. You are the most amazing God I’ve ever met. I’m just here to bless you.”
Prayer is a place that God has created through the cross for you and I so we could be intimate with him even before he brings us home. That’s what the cross has done. Through the cross, God has created a miraculous place where you and I can be intimate with the Father even before He brings us home. That’s where God loves to spend time with you. If He needs to teach you to pray, He’ll do it there. If He needs to ask you to pray for something that is on His heart, He’ll tell you there. If He needs to talk to you about something you’ve been running away from Him from, He’ll do it there. Sometimes He just wants to share what’s hurting in His heart, and He just delights for His bride to be there by his side as He’s dealing with sin, as He’s dealing with spreading salvation through this world. Sometimes He’s going to tell you, “Okay, it’s time now for you to go and do something.” He’s going to tell you exactly what to do with your life.
Every time God spoke to in our ear word for word what nation to go to, what ministry to plant, what person to go and talk to, what would happen in the future, you name it, every single time we were in the place of prayer praying about something completely different. We were—we never—God always changed the conversation on us.
But He always did it in the place of prayer. That’s how we ended up here in Portland. I have no idea what I was praying about. I was on the floor on my knees—and it happens like that usually. It’s, you know, between you and I, it’s rude, but in prayer it is the most exciting experience that I’ve ever experienced is when the Holy Spirit cuts me off. In other words, I’m talking too much. And He cuts me off right there on the floor in Maine. And that’s when he said, “I’m going to send you to the city on fire.” I was not praying about getting out of there. We did not delight in going to Portland. We didn’t want to live here. We didn’t want to raise our kids here. I didn’t know how also amazing this place is. I had a lot of the negatives on my mind. But it was always the place of prayer, that special place God made possible through the cross so that I can have intimate time with Him even though I’m still far from home. It was always when I was in that place. I remember when the Lord very clearly, very clearly told me about this church and every thing that may still be to come in the future. I was in the country of Norway.
Tiny prayer cabin. You couldn’t stand straight up in it. And I have a lot of back pain, so I wasn’t standing much. I was always on my knees. And I was on my knees on these rugged old planks. That thing was over a hundred years old. It was windy inside. It was windy outside. But I loved that place. And I remember being on my knees just praying. I have no idea about what.
And God came in the room, and all I could do was lay, lay, lay flat on my face, and a weight came into the room that I have a hard time describing to people, but it was literally as if I was being pressed into the floor harder than just by my own weight. And the Lord spoke clearly and said, “Whatever you ask of me, this I will do for you.” And I was in that place of prayer, just spending time with Jesus, that the Holy Spirit cried out in a way that I’ve only experienced a few times. The instant God spoke, I didn’t have a split second to think. I’d never thought these things ever in my life. I learned them as they came out of my mouth. The moment God said, “Whatever you ask of me, this I will do for you,” I screamed on the top of my lungs, “God, I want a safe house for your people. I want a place where people can be clothed literally and spiritually.
A place where they can learn to testify in such a way that the enemy has been put away out of their life and the lives of their loved ones. God, I want a safe house for your people.” What I want you to understand is please don’t make a plan for your prayer life. God doesn’t need you to make a plan. But He has no deeper invitation since you’ve gotten saved. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that there is a deeper invitation in the heart of God but for you to show up in that place, that special place that he has made so that you and Him can be intimate even though you are still on this earth. And I’m telling you, when you start showing up to that place, when you make time to be in that place, God is the one that will make that place of prayer a place of power. He will make that the place where you know that God started things. He will make that the place where you know that God gave it for free to you. He will make that the place where you will know that it wasn’t because of your much reading and much time in prayer. It was him showing up because of the cross. And He teaches you deeper than I could ever make you understand.
Do not forsake that place of prayer. He loves you and he desires to build you in that place. Would you allow me to pray with you tonight as we finish up this topic of praying in power?
Father, praying in power starts with you alone. And Father, the times that I’ve truly prayed alone with you in that place, that miraculous place that you made where your presence is manifest and we spend time together, Lord, every single time I’ve lost complete track of time, Lord. Lord, you’ve taught me things from your heart. Lord God, you’ve shown me things that no man could teach me. But Father, you’ve always done it in that place made by the cross, paid for by the cross, where there’s no motive but being near to you, where there’s no motive but spending time with you. And Lord, it was always you speaking that changed my life. It was never my prayers, Lord God.
Lord, I thank you that we get to unload to you whatever, Lord God. But I really thank you, Lord, that you meet us when we come to the place of prayer. Father, I ask you, God, that you rekindle, Lord, a love for getting away from people, to be alone with you in all of our hearts. Father, I pray that you rekindle a faith, a knowing faith that knows that if I get away from people, God is going to show up. If I get away from people, God is going to show me what he delights in teaching me today. If I get away from people, God is going to lift off of me what needs to go in my life. If I get away from people to be alone with him, he shows up every single time. That’s what the cross has bought.
-Pastor Stan Mons
