I hope this series has encouraged you to make room for God in your life. So many people measure the value of things in terms of immediate “results.” I’m just speaking transparently here. Throughout my Christian life, 95% of the prayers I’ve seen people doing, has centered on physical health or healing. In every church, there is a list of stubborn health concerns. I say “stubborn” because there are things we pray about for which there doesn’t appear to be any movement.
In 2 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul talks about a stubborn thorn he experienced in his flesh. People speculate whether it was a physical ailment or something else. Paul refers to it as a “messenger of Satan.” Well, your charismatic folks say it’s always 100% God’s will that you be physically healed—and that if you just have enough faith—you will be healed. But if you don’t have enough faith… Anyhow you’d be hard pressed to say the Apostle Paul didn’t have enough faith so of course his thorn couldn’t have been a physical illness, or health matter. Should our theology (our conclusion) be that everyone who has some stubborn health crisis, or worse a terminal health crisis, simply haven’t or didn’t believe hard enough?
I’ve had some experience with chronic pain. From the age of 20 I began experiencing extreme bouts of pain. At first, I had a swollen ankle, it came and went. Then later swollen toe joints... it would be my left foot, then my right foot next day. The pain would be so intense I couldn’t put even a sheet over my toe, or a sock, and definitely not a shoe! I had a dreaded blue shoe I’d wear many weeks, often to church, and I always had crutches on hand. It was irrational pain. Everyday I woke up I didn’t know whether it would be a good day or bad day. Whenever I’d break out the crutches Lara would groan and our dogs would hide.
The doctors told me I just needed to eat better, or exercise. They told me to take Advil. One medicine that seemed to help made me violently ill, I had allergic reaction to it. I followed all the rules. I could manage the foot pain—but when the gout spread into my knees I found myself literally screaming in pain. A grown man screaming in pain, wailing at times. Lara left the house one day just to take a break. I had to ask her dad to preach for me to avoid becoming a spectacle. But as I would cry out—and it was always to God—I asked for healing. I prayed, “Lord, I believe help my unbelief.” But one night I said to God, “I’m stuck. I simply don’t know how to believe any harder, or deeper.” Despair started to set in. Was this a messenger of Satan? Was God playing some game with me? Was God punishing me, disciplining me, teaching me some lesson? Could (or did) this preacher with a limp have any credibility?
I’d caution you against evaluating the “effectiveness of prayer” based on physical healing alone. Now, should we pray for our collective health and well-being? Absolutely yes! As I prayed, God sent a number of people my way to pray for me. That was humbling. But others pointed me toward a specific health clinic—and after visiting that clinic the thorn, the blue shoe, the crutches were no more. What was that whole ordeal about? I think of righteous Job. God never told righteous Job the “why”. I think of the apostle Paul—full of apostolic faith—he doesn’t explain “why” but he does express how God used his crisis to teach him humility, and the sufficiency of God’s grace.
95% of the praying we do centers exclusively on health matters, right? But I noticed in my Bible, 95% of the prayers Old Testament and New Testament are not centered on health at all. I am NOT telling you to stop praying for your health. But if we’re only praying for health matters, we’re missing out on vast, overwhelming, unexplored 95% of space where (in my opinion) prayer nearly always brings immediate, tangible, “results.”
1. Learn to Pray for Wisdom. On countless occasions, I’ve found myself stuck in life, paralyzed with fear. One of those times was when I was an 18-year-old man. These enormous choices about life, college, career, work loomed large. The reality of being an adult, and making adult choices with lifelong ramifications were setting in.
Someone pointed me toward James 1:2-6, “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him.”
Mature? Complete? Lacking Nothing? Up to that moment I hadn’t even considered that God might also have a plan or agenda for my life. The reason I didn’t have peace was because it never once crossed my mind to seek counsel of God! I was a fleshly, unspiritual, self-centered, unhappy, ungrateful young man but God’s Word says none of that matters because God gives wisdom generously and ungrudingly and I only need to ask. And so, I did. Isn’t it amazing how you go to God praying whether to take the red pill or blue pill, some binary option A or B… but then God shows you there is a purple pill, or an option C or D or E. . .
As I was writing this sermon at coffee shop a man just now walked up to a group of high school girls at nearby table and quoted Proverbs 3:5-8, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. Don’t be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. This will be healing for your body.” I don’t believe in coincidences. God wants someone listening to make room for God. Your problem isn’t for you to solve. Stop relying on your own understanding. Stop being wise in your own eyes. Make room for God to solve, for God to speak, for God to show you the better, smoother path. This will be healing for your body? !!!!!
2. Pray for Knowledge. Do ever pray just to get to know God better? Do you ever find yourself wrestling with some Bible text, or matter of theology? Do you ever struggle to discern what is the good and pleasing will of God? Have you ever been derailed by some objection raised to your Christian faith? I pray this ALL the time, and I get immediately results every time I do.
Colossians 2:3 says “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ.” If this is true—that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ—then what is prayer if not a great and glorious treasure hunt! Romans 11:34-35, “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” Yet in prayer God opens up the treasure troves of knowledge! In 1 Corinthians 1 Paul says we have the mind of Christ!
Ephesians 1:17-19, Apostle Paul, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.”
3. Pray for Holiness. Romans 8:28-30 says, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.” A lot of people are obsessed with just “who” God predestines, calls, justifies, and eventually glorifies. What I notice is “why” God wants to have absolutely any business with humans in the first place. What is this great “good” that is the business of God? What is the chief aim or purpose of God—his reason for my being? It’s right there smack dab in the middle of the passage. Verse 29—that we would “be conformed to the image of his Son.” In everything God’s chief and first desire is that I’d become like Jesus! His will is 100% always for holiness.
In 1 John 1:5-10 says, “This is the message we have heard from him [Jesus] and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. 6 If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
If you ask forgiveness in Jesus name, forgiveness is the immediate result. But even more, if you confess God will cleanse you of from “ALL” unrighteousness. How often do you pray for God to destroy the works of the flesh, the darkness, all the unrighteousness in your life… how often do you pray for God to forgive, to cleanse, yes… to cause you to produce the fruit of his Spirit. If you say prayer doesn’t work, I can guarantee you haven’t prayed for wisdom, knowledge, holiness.
4. Pray for Kingdom. The whole world is going to hell in a hand basket! The end is near! Lord Jesus come quickly and evacuate us all. Jesus didn’t teach us to pray for mass evacuation. He taught us to pray, Matthew 6, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” John 17:15-18, “I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”
Matthew 9:35-38, “Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.” When was the last time you earnestly prayed for God to raise up workers? When have you prayed for God to open up a great and effective door for gospel? When have you prayed for God to use you… to give you the words… to show you what you might do? God’s not interested in evacuating you, he is interested in sending you into the heart of the harvest, needs, darkness, world to be salt and light.
5. Pray for Strength. 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.” The Bible doesn’t promise we will not receive more than “we” can bear alone. It says we will not receive more than we can bear together with God. God is faithful. God enables. God provides way out. God gives strength. My invitation is that, YES, you pray for those stubborn thorns, in those often mysterious matters of life. But it’s that you also make room for God to work in the other vast 95% of areas of his counsel!
This sermon is hardly exhaustive. You only need to begin cataloging the prayers of the Bible yourself and you’ll see this could be a 95 point sermon not just a five point sermon. In the next few weeks were going to hear from some other voices on what it looks like to Make Room for God…