Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - The Priority of Prayer

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

In this episode, Jonny Ardavanis discusses the priority and privilege of prayer. In doing so, he highlights the A.C.T.S. formula of prayer: Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. When we go to God in prayer, we pray not only with our grocery list of "gets," but with an understanding of the privilege we share in being able to approach God as our Father. Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial-In. In this episode, I'm going to be talking about the ever-important subject of prayer. If you listened to my interview last week with Dr. Joel Beeky, in that episode, he highlighted the ACTS formula for prayer, which is adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. We're going to be talking about that and more as we talk about not only why we need to pray, but why we ought to want to pray, knowing that prayer is powerful in the life of a believer. With that being said, let's dial in. In this episode, I want to focus on the why, the how, and the when of prayer. If you want to experience the power of God, the peace of God. If you want to experience the power of God,

the peace of God, if you want to know the presence of God in your life, and if you want God to conform you into the image of his son, Jesus Christ, to wipe away your worries and to kill the dragon of your lust, then you must pray. If you want to actually understand

what the psalmist is saying when he says that God is his refuge and his strength and not just be uttering some Christian mumbo-jumbo, then you need to be a praying person. First of all, I want to look with you at why we pray. Number one, prayer is a command. Prayer is not an optional suggestion for a Christian. It is a God-given ordinance. Far from prayer being some options that Christians can take a hold of, prayer is an expression of our total dependence on God, and Jesus assumes that we pray. Jesus begins his instruction on prayer by saying, when you pray, not if you pray or you should pray. He is assuming that everyone here is on the same page.

Prayer is a duty. In it, we exalt the glory of God, we express our dependence on God, and we plead for the will of God to be done and for his kingdom to come. Prayer is not for super spiritual people. It's not for grandmas, pastors, and super saint soccer moms. It is for the everyday child of God. But I don't want to just focus here on prayer being a command. Secondly, prayer is a privilege. The stars do not pray. The oceans cannot pray. The mountains cannot pray. The grizzly bear cannot pray. Why? Because they are not made in the image of God. But a human being, a person, you listening, you can pray because you are worth far more than all of the stars,

mountains, animals, and trees in the world combined. Sadly, this privilege is often neglected. People enter lotteries to meet their favorite celebrities. They pay thousands and hundreds of dollars to attend a concert or a sporting event, but they neglect the profound privilege they have of prayer. It's probably a general statement, but I fear a true one, that the average professing Christian man spends more time watching football on a single Sunday afternoon than he does in prayer for the full year combined. We have lost sight of the profound and immense privilege of prayer and have relegated prayer to the peripheral corners of our lives. It's just an appendix chapter that we have attached to the end of our book. But how has the privilege of prayer been secured? Well, we could talk about

this at length, but privileges are typically granted, not earned. And such is the case when we come to the reality of prayer. Jesus Christ, by his obedience, by his death, by his resurrection, has purchased the privilege that those who believe in him shall have their prayers heard. To pray with intimacy to God as father is not a human right, but a spiritual privilege. First John 1 12 says, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, to them he gave the right to become children of God. Maybe you're wondering, why should we pray if God is sovereign? Well, first of all, because prayer is a duty. God commands us to pray. Secondly, because prayer is a privilege. This is what we're talking about right now.

You get to, in prayer, commune with the creator of all things. And if you want to experience a real intimate fellowship with God, then you must be a praying person. But not only that, thirdly, God ordains the means as well as the ends. God does not need rain to water the earth, nor does he need the sun, nor does he need the clouds, but he uses those things to accomplish his purposes, and he uses prayer to accomplish his will. But not only is prayer a duty, not only is prayer a privilege, prayer is powerful. It says in James that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and yet it says he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the earth for three and a half years. He turned the sky to brass.

Moses was a man who lacked fluidity of speech. He was afraid at the prospect of facing Pharaoh. And yet he prayed and God split the Red Sea wide open. Jonah had many flaws and imperfections, and yet he prayed, and the great fish spat him up on dry land. Hezekiah was timid, and he fell on his face before the Lord and prayed to God, and the angel of the Lord wiped out 185,000 Assyrians. David was a sinful man, yet he prayed and God delivered him. Daniel prayed and God shut the lion's mouth. Joshua prayed and the walls of Jericho came down. The people prayed and Peter was released from prison. In the 16th century, Mary, Queen of Scots, hated those who were preaching and proclaiming Jesus Christ. She burned over 280 individuals at the stake.

And yet, here is what this powerful, menacing woman said of the preacher and pastor, John Knox. She said, I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of 10,000 men. Prayer is powerful because when we pray, we pray to a God who really hears. I remember when I was in Kathmandu, Nepal, and we went to a Buddhist temple and there they were spinning their prayer wheels over and over again, thinking that when the prayer is written and then attached to the wheel and then spun, it multiplies their merit and multiplies their prayer to Buddha. Turning or spinning the Buddhist prayer wheels is considered so powerful that it is compared with the prayers of 100 monks praying for their entire lifetime. But it availeth nothing because Buddha is dead. He died 2,700 years ago.

He cannot hear them. He does not and cannot answer prayer. But our God is alive. He hears, he listens, and answers our prayers. And because of that, prayer is powerful. Let me just ask you while you're listening, do you actually pray? You are your prayer life. Robert Murray McShane, who died when he was about my age, said that when a man is alone on his knees, that is who he is and nothing more. Do you want God to use your life? Then you must understand the power of prayer. Corrie ten Boom says, the devil smiles when we make plans. He laughs when we get too busy, but he trembles when we pray. Why? Why does the devil tremble when we pray? Well, because we've been discussing it. Prayer is powerful. So that's the why we pray.

Prayer is a duty. It's a privilege and prayer is powerful. Now I want to come to the question, how do we pray? Jesus didn't instruct his disciples in exegesis, nor did he instruct them in exorcism, but he did instruct them in prayer because this is the hardest and most necessary thing to learn as a Christian. We call the model of prayer that he instructs his disciples in the Lord's prayer, but it's not a prayer that Jesus would have ever offered because he asked for God to forgive us of our sins, but Jesus didn't sin. So it should be called a model prayer. And I want to just use that as a framework for us as we talk through this Acts formula in prayer, which is adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

First, I want to look with you at when we pray, the element of adoration. Jesus teaches us to pray by beginning with our father. When we go to prayer, we run to the refuge that is God. We flee to the strength that he provides, but our refuge is not an impersonal force or a withdrawn wall. He is a loving and tender father. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray in this way, our father. Sadly, this introduction has become so normal to us that we have become numb to the preciousness within it. Today, we often teach children that God is father before we teach them that God is a judge and a holy king. Therefore, they value neither realities.

But only 15 times in the Old Testament was this element of fatherhood or the fatherhood of God used in a religious sense. But in the New Testament, it's used 245 times. It is a term of endearment, of affection. If you're a Christian, the rock to which you run, the fortress that protects you is a God and father who wraps you in his arms. This would have seemed wildly presumptuous to the Jews, and yet this is what Jesus ingrains within the disciples' thinking over and over

again as he teaches them to pray in Matthew 6. In fact, in John 20, verse 17, after his resurrection, Jesus tells the disciples, tell the brethren, I am going to my father and to your father. This is stunning. If you're a Christian, God is not only your refuge, he is your father. First John 3, 1 says, see what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are, it says. John Calvin says, prayer is when I climb up in my father's lap and whisper my needs into his ears. When you pray, you pray not man to man, but father to son and father to daughter. So we pray our father and then Jesus instructs us to pray who art in heaven. The reality is while we can rush into our father's presence and cry out,

Father, the location of where our father dwells reminds us that we can enter boldly because of the blood of Jesus Christ, but not flippantly. Our understanding of prayer's privilege is dependent upon understanding where our father dwells. And Jesus tells us that our father dwells in heaven. J.A. Packer in his book on the Lord's Prayer says, Drab thoughts of God, make prayer dull. And if your vision of God is small, then your prayer life is going to be dull. But when the kids sing and adults believe that our God is so big, he's so strong and so mighty,

there's nothing our God cannot do. And then we can also sing the mountains are his, the rivers are his, the skies are his handiwork too, that nations do his bidding. The king's heart does his will. And yet this powerful king is also our loving father who is interested in the nuts and bolts of our life. So in prayer, we come to adore God and it means to lift up his name. Jesus says, hallowed be your name. Now, it's good to run to God as a refuge, but our prayer life should not be isolated to states of emergency. Only running to God in prayer when we are in trouble would be like using a cell phone

only when you needed the dial 911. But Jesus tells us to pray in a certain manner, and it's beginning with adoring God and exalting God. It says, hallowed be your name, which means to lift up. Psalm 9, verse 10 says, those who know your name put their trust in you. Jesus says in John 17, 6, I have manifested your name. Meaning what? Well, God's name in the scripture is consummate and representative of his character, his person,

and nature. And when we say, hallowed be your name, God, it means that we come to prayer first and foremost with the primary objective of exalting God. And then Jesus instructs us to pray, your kingdom come and your will be done. Much of our prayer life is anemic because when we come to God, we come with a grocery list of gets, as A.W. Tozer refers to them. But when we start with the promotion and advancement of God's kingdom, all of our other needs and wants are put in perspective because the greatest desire of our heart is God's kingdom. When was the last time, I mean, think about this,

when was the last time you prayed, God, bring the light of your truth into this dark world. God, would your kingdom come? Would your will be done? And then J.I. Packer teaches us that we must also say, and God, would your will be done? And then start with me, God. Make me do your will. This world is full of individuals

who may or may not obey you and do your will, but me, God, oh me, God, Psalm 86, 11, please, oh Lord, unite my heart to fear your name, to obey you. When we come to God, we first make great who he is, our father. We've been granted that privilege because of the blood of Jesus Christ. And then we say, who art in heaven, you're not just one of us. You are a God who dwells on heaven's throne. And then we say, your will be done. Because we come to prayer not to bend or coerce God's arm as a reluctant father, but we come to primarily ask God for his will to be done on this earth and in our life. So that's adoration, but it's A-C-T-S. Letter C would be confession.

As a Christian, we do not fear condemnation, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We have already been justified through faith, but when we sin, we still feel the prick of our conscience, and our fellowship with God can be thrown off. Our sin also grieves God as our Father. When we sin, our justification is not reversed, but we should still feel guilty and feel true remorse for disrupting and fracturing fellowship with God. We ask him for forgiveness and confess specifically and honestly our sin, not to be justified once again, but because we want the joy and peace of a clean conscience and for the fellowship and communion with our Father to be restored.

So we confess our sins. God, I've done this. Specifically, Lord, we've done these things. I need help and forgiveness in this way. And what's the promise? Well, 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And then what's the result of confessing our sin? Well, not only are our sins forgiven, it says in Psalm 130 verse 4, with you, there is forgiveness of sin that you may be feared. So we confess our sin. Then we are thankful. It says thanksgiving, adoration, confession, thanksgiving. Prayer and praise in the Bible are twins. One of the reasons that Christians ought to be so thankful is that we come to God and we remind ourselves in prayer that he's our father. That should stimulate our gratitude. Then we confess our sins and then we're so thankful that he forgives us our sins. And we often forget this in our prayer life. We just ask God for things and maybe we say,

Lord, thank you for this day. But it doesn't really go beyond that. One of the reasons why so many people worry today is because they are so ungrateful. We don't thank God enough. And because our lives are short on praise, our lives are often short on peace. But gratitude is the very garment of prayer. It's not just for when God answers our prayers, but rather thankfulness and gratitude is to characterize the very act of our praying. We enter into his gates, Psalm 100 says, with thanksgiving. And if we don't come thankfully to God in prayer, we are in danger

of coming greedily to God. A.W. Tozer says, prayer among evangelical Christians is always in danger of degenerating into a glorified gold rush. Remember when Jesus heals the 10 lepers, the Samaritan lepers, that there was only one who came back to say thank you. There was only one out of the 10 who wanted more than cleansing from leprosy. They wanted to know the Savior. And so often people today, they come with what they want and never return with anything more than just to get what they want or what they need, but never come really to know God in prayer. And so we are to be thankful people.

And it says that we are to be those who supplicate in the formula. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Jesus teaches us to pray. Give us this day our daily bread. This is an expression of our daily dependence upon God. This isn't a mindless ritual. It's a confession that the economy can tank. Jobs are not impenetrable. Your scholarship can go away because ACLs can tear and global peace can dissipate. Our lives are often much more fragile than we think. So each day we come to God with a renewed expression of our dependence upon him.

Do you remember in the wilderness, God gave the Israelites manna one day at a time so that they would learn to come to him each and every day in dependence and trust. And that's what we must do. When we worry about our needs for tomorrow, we are living in tomorrow today. But God only gives us strength and grace one day at a time. That's why we say, give us today our daily bread. When we worry or get anxious about the future, we are also doubting the very character of our heavenly father. Doubt is the opposite of childlike dependence. It is defiance. It is defamation of the character of God when we doubt

that he is going to provide our every need. So we just come to him every single day and say, God, provide for me what I need today. But when we worry, we are saying, Father, you are not sovereign. Father, you are not wise. Father, you are not loving. And so we make supplication of God. We make requests of God because we live in a world of trouble and pain. And the reality is we as Christians experience the peace of God, but the peace of God does not come from denying our trouble, but it comes from bringing our trouble to God in prayer. And when we do so, we again are not trying to coerce a reluctant God, but we're coming to a loving father. Therefore, when we run to God

with our needs and desires, we do so not as our last resort, but as our initial response. If we only run to God after we have already run everywhere else, we have failed to express our dependence on Him and have robbed ourselves of the peace that He alone can provide. Furthermore, I think it needs to be said that when we make supplication of God, that we also need to name other names in our prayer, meaning that we don't just come to God and ask him to meet our needs. We also pray for the needs of those around us.

J.C. Ryle in his book, A Call to Prayer says, they love me best who love me in their prayers. So we talked about the why we pray, that's the how we pray, and then just briefly, when should we pray? Well, it says in 2 Thessalonians 5 17 that we are to pray without ceasing and everything give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do you want to know God's will for your life? It's to live your life with a God consciousness, that you experience constant communion with him in prayer. Paul says in Colossians 4 to devote yourself to prayer. Jesus says in Luke 18 one men ought to always pray. And we need to pray in our prayers until we are actually praying, meaning this,

that it is possible to really go just through the motions of prayer. It's possible to pray with formalism and platitudes without ever experiencing communion with God. Listen, you cannot live a single moment of faithfulness to Jesus Christ in your own strength. Jesus says, apart from me, you can do what? Nothing. Therefore, we need moment by moment help from God. And if the incarnate God made prayer his priority on earth, how much more should we as his children pray? This is the front lines of spiritual warfare. You must pray. If you're a Christian, you have a great privilege of running to God in prayer. You have the opportunity to experience God's power in your life when you flee to him as a hearing God. And furthermore, when you pray, you begin to experience actual intimacy and communion with your heavenly father.

It says in the Psalms that he is intimate with the upright. I know that this is an area I want to grow in. And it's likely that as you think about your prayer life, this is an area where you also want to grow. And so we must ask for God, even in our prayers, to help us to pray. And I'm so thankful that when we approach God in prayer, it says in Hebrews 7, verse 25, that Jesus Christ ever lives to make intercession for us.

It says in Romans 8 that when we pray that the Holy Spirit is interceding on our behalf with groanings too deep for words. Maybe you think, man, I don't even know where to start. I don't even really know how to pray. Well, the truth of the matter is no one really does. Paul says in Romans 8, for we do not know how to pray as we should, meaning that even righteous people that do not have the Spirit of God, their prayers are worth nothing. But the promise of a God who cannot lie is that He takes our imperfect, pitiful prayers to the throne of grace because Jesus lives to make intercession for His own, and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. I'm so thankful for

this truth, as are you. Stay dialed in.