About two and a half weeks ago, a department store in Seoul, Korea collapsed into a pile of rubble. While we are glad for the 16 or so people who have been saved out of that rubble, one as recently as two days ago, more than 600 people were killed in that terrible tragedy. And one aspect of the story that I've only heard reported once is that there was an employee of that department store who saw the walls crumbling hours before the building fell, but who said nothing. Can you imagine that?
Would you not think that someone who saw the building in imminent danger would have said something to spare the lives of those hundreds of people? I certainly would have, and I'm sure you would have. And yet, it's possible for us to be aware that there is corrosion going on in our own lives and to be aware that if our lives were to collapse, we would embarrass ourselves, our families, our church, our community, and to do nothing.
That's why this summer I've wanted to talk about those things that are necessary, especially for us as believers in Jesus Christ, to firm up our foundations. And today I want to talk about one of the most important aspects to the foundation of our Christian lives, and that is prayer. Prayer is one of those invisible areas of our lives where the foundation can waste away and erode, and most people will not be aware of it. That's why it's so dangerous.
That's why it's so important that we see the problem and do something about it before there is a collapse, and many are endangered. Someone has said if you want to humble a saint of God, don't ask him about his involvement in ministry. Don't ask him about how much he gives to the church. Don't ask him about his willingness to witness. If you want to humble a saint of God, ask him about his prayer life. Many of us, if not most of us, can identify with that.
I'd like you to open your Bible with me to the book of Colossians and the fourth chapter. As he begins to bring his epistle to a close, the apostle says to these beloved people whom he had never met face to face in Colossae. Chapter 4 verse 2, devote yourselves to prayer. Devote yourselves to prayer.
Keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well, that God may open up to us a door for the Word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I have also been imprisoned, in order that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. No life will stand strong and prevail that is not cemented together by faithful prayer.
As we think about the importance of prayer in our lives, there are three perspectives that I want to talk about that arise to my attention from this text. First I want to talk about the design for prayer that we observe. The word prayer here is the very broadest of the words used in the New Testament. It refers to prayer in all of its aspects, but the important idea behind it is that it is a communication with God.
Now before I go further, I need to back up and say something regarding the practice of prayer. Prayer is a mystery. There are many things about prayer that we do not understand. How is it that one little human being can kneel beside a chair on planet earth and touch the heart of the living God in heaven? How is it that the words of a mere mortal can cause the hand of the eternal God to move and to work in history? I don't understand that, but it's true.
And we need to remind ourselves that prayer is the privilege of the child of God. Now all people may pray. Indeed prayer is written into the very heart of all people, for even the pagans create idols of wood or stone to which to offer up prayers. But prayer to the living and true God is the unique privilege of the child of God. The Bible teaches us that before becoming children of God we were separated from God, we were alienated from God, we were hostile toward God.
That God through the death of his Son reconciled us and brought us to himself and established a relationship with us. Back in Colossians chapter 1 it says, And through Christ, verse 20, to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his that is Christ's cross.
And through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven, and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death. And so it is because of this wonderful work of God in reconciling us to himself through Jesus Christ that we may pray.
If you are a person who is still today separated from God because of sin, I want you to know that God has made the provision through Jesus Christ for your sin issue to be settled. He has made it possible for you to turn from your sin and to repent of it, to believe on Jesus Christ that he died for your sin and rose again so that you might be reconciled to God and enter into this privilege of prayer that we're talking about. Now I want to talk about the design of prayer.
First let's notice that prayer reminds us of our dependence. We human beings like to think that we are rather independent and self-sufficient. But prayer reminds us that we are not that, we are dependent upon God, and that's why he says that we are to pray with thanksgiving. If I'm responsible for my own blessings and my own good things, then I don't need to thank anybody but me. But prayer reminds us that we are not the source of our blessings, we are not the source of the good things about us.
God is. And therefore when we pray we are to offer up appropriate thanksgiving to God. I appreciated Bill this morning after he played. And while we applauded in saying thank you to him and praise to the Lord, for that's what that means, he pointed up to God. Because I believe that's an indication he recognizes that the good gift of music that God has given him is not found as his own, it's a gift from God. And he's saying thanks to God. Prayer reminds us that we are dependent.
Secondly, prayer results in life change. Prayer results in life change. Back in chapter 1 of Colossians, Paul says in verse 9, for this reason since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with all the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and understanding so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Paul says we are praying for you because we know that our prayers will result in your life change.
You will walk worthy of God, he says, because prayer results in life change. Not only for those that we pray for, but ourselves as well. Soren Kierkegaard is not a man that I would agree with entirely, but he did say this very fine statement, prayer does not change God, but it does change him who prays. You remember the old statement, prayer changes things, it does. But also prayer changes people and above all prayer changes me when I pray. Prayer results in life change.
That's part of the design of God in prayer. Thirdly, prayer releases God's power. Here in Colossians 1 the apostle goes on to say that he's praying for them that they may be strengthened with all power according to his, God's, glorious might for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience. He is praying because it releases the power of God in the lives of the people he's praying for. If you and I want to see the power of God released in our church, it will come through prayer.
And I believe that one of the reasons that God has chosen to bless the movement we've been talking about that was here this weekend is because so many people are praying for it. Indeed, while there were 61,000 people in the dome this weekend, there were literally hundreds of people all around the Twin Cities and undoubtedly other places, but hundreds in the Twin Cities who were meeting in churches to pray for God's blessing on the surface.
Prayer releases the power of God, and if we are experiencing little power in our lives, perhaps it's because this part of our lives is being corrupted and eroded away. And if we want that power back, it comes back as we begin to pray. Then finally, prayer requests God's intervention. That's part of God's design for it. And Paul prays here in chapter 4. Pray for us that we may speak, that God would open a door of opportunity, that we may speak as we ought to speak.
At least five times in the New Testament, the apostle Paul invites, he asks others to pray for him, most often in connection with his ministry, because he knows that prayer requests God's intervention and brings it about. Now the reason Paul knew that is because he had experienced it like many of us have. Do you remember the time when he and Silas were in jail in Philippi? And the Bible says that at midnight, they began to sing praises to God and to pray.
And it says the prisoners heard all of this. And what happened as a result of the prayer? God intervened. He opened the prison doors and they were released. I don't mean to imply that God always intervenes just as we ask him to. I'm not even sure that night that Paul and Silas were asking God to open the door. That's how he chose to answer.
I'm not saying that God always intervenes with the healing that we ask for or with the provision that we ask for, but let me tell you, when we pray, it always causes God to act in some way, a perfect way according to his divine plan and purpose. And so prayer, by its design, requests God's intervention and gets it. And so are you experiencing God's design for prayer in your life? Is it reminding you of your dependence upon God? Is it resulting in life change in you and in others?
Is it releasing God's power in your life, in your witness, in your church, in your family? Is prayer requesting the intervention of God? Are you seeing God move in answer to your prayers? Those are questions we have to ask ourselves because that's God's design for it. And I remind you that no Christian's life will stand strong and prevail. That is not cemented together by faithful prayer.
Now there's a second perspective I want to talk about regarding prayer and that is the difficulties that we face. Paul seems to imply that here, doesn't he? Look at verse 2. Where he says, devote yourselves to prayer keeping alert. Keeping alert. Literally, he says, staying awake. There are difficulties in prayer. Let me mention three of them. One is spiritual illiteracy. What I mean here is that there are some who don't know how to pray. They've never learned to pray.
Now that's nothing to be ashamed of. But to stay illiterate is something to be ashamed of. If we don't know how to pray then we ought to equip ourselves, we ought to learn how to pray. But there are those who face the difficulty in praying. I don't know how to do this. And that's fine. Just don't stay in that uninformed place. Even the disciples felt that. And so when they heard Jesus pray they said, Lord teach us to pray. And his response was, well here's how you pray.
Our Father who art in heaven, we heard that tune played a few moments ago. Teach us to pray. And then a second difficulty in praying is that of fleshly weakness. That really seems to be the thrust of what Paul says here. And he says staying awake in prayer. Fleshly weakness. I think of the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. Only Luke gives us the insight that Jesus said to them, I want you to come up to the mountain with me to pray. He invited them to a prayer meeting.
Only three of the twelve went. That's not unusual is it? Only three went up to pray. Just those of the three he asked. And then when they got there it says they fell asleep. I remember the first time in my life I ever went to a prayer meeting. The Little Baptist Church where I was saved in Kansas did not have prayer meetings. They preached the gospel there for a couple of years during the time I got saved. And then a liberal pastor came who didn't know the Bible, didn't teach the Bible.
And I guess we didn't need prayer meetings in that church or something. But during a period of time in my youth I stayed for a week or two with a neighbor family, neighborhood family. And they belonged to another Little Baptist Church in our town. Every little town all over the Midwest has at least two Baptist churches, right? And so we went to the other Little Baptist Church. They had a prayer meeting and they always went to Wednesday night prayer meeting. And I went for the first time.
I don't know how old I was. I was probably ten or eleven years of age. And after taking some requests they divided up. The women went one way and the men stayed in the auditorium to pray. And I remember waking up after the men had prayed. And my hair must have been disheveled and my eyes full of sleep because I remember some of the girls who were just a little older than I pointing at me and laughing because they saw I had been asleep in prayer.
The apostle says that there are fleshly weaknesses that we have. And we all face them, don't we? When we're too tired to pray, too weary to pray, when we lack the discipline to pray. And then there is another area of difficulty and that is satanic opposition because if Satan can prevent us from praying, he's won the battle already. He doesn't care how much witnessing you and I do. He doesn't care how active we are in ministry as long as we don't pray about it.
Because it is prayer that brings the victory and he knows that. You have experienced as I have undoubtedly those times when you're praying and it just seems like there's a wall there. Have you ever experienced that? Or those times when you're praying and there are foreign thoughts that just come to your mind, sometimes even impure and lewd thoughts come to your mind as you're trying to pray. Where are these things coming from, brethren?
It is satanic opposition seeking to distract us, seeking to get our minds on something else. Don't you discover that you never remember so many details of things you need to do until you get down to pray. That's why when I'm going through those kinds of struggles, I usually take a pad with me and a pen and when those things come to mind I just write them down and go on so I don't try to retain them in my mind and can concentrate on praying.
There are difficulties that we face in prayer, but Paul says here we are to be alert with prayer. We're to stay awake. We're not to go to sleep. Paul, we're on guard and we are on guard. We're not to go to sleep in the midst of a battle and it is a battle. So acknowledging the difficulties, let's not use them as excuses for not praying. Let's recognize them and get beyond them and pray. That brings me to my third perspective and that is the dedication we need for prayer.
Because the apostle says here we are to devote ourselves to prayer. Literally this word devote means to endure toward. It's a verb with a preposition on the front side of it as a prefix which intensifies it and gives it direction. What it's saying here is that we need to endure in this and move ahead. We are to devote ourselves to prayer and this is a word in the New Testament that is used of prayer several times.
In Acts 1, 14, in Acts 2, 42, and in Acts 6, 4, you see the historical record of the church devoting itself to prayer. Now Paul says in Romans 12 and verse 12 that we are to be devoting ourselves to prayer and here again he says devote yourselves to prayer. In chapter 4 of Colossians in verse 12 he talks about Epiphras. Who is one of your number, he says. That is he's from Colossae, a bond slave of Jesus Christ.
He's with Paul and Paul says he sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers. Laboring, agonizing earnestly with intensity and fervor that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. Here is how the church grows. Here's how the saints of God grow when we agonize in prayer, when we labor in prayer as Epiphras did. Oh, that God would raise up an army of people like Epiphras in Grace Church, Roosevelt.
People who will engage in prayer, who will busily devote themselves to prayer with intensity and faithfulness. There's the story about a fisherman who was a Christian and went out to sea with some of his godly companions. While they were out at sea a storm came up. His friends knew that this man was a Christian, but he also knew that he had been out of fellowship with God for years. They said to him, pray for us, pray for us that God will spare us.
He said to them, well it's been a long time since I've done that or even entered a church. Yet they said, pray for us. And so finally he did and this is what he prayed, oh Lord, I haven't asked anything of you for 15 years and if you help us now and bring us safely to land I promise I won't bother you for another 15 years. That's not what you call devoting yourself to prayer. You know frankly the need that most of us have is not to come to church and hear another sermon on prayer.
The need that most of us have is to go home and to practice prayer. To put to use what we already know about this subject and it's important that we do so. I think I've told you before about a dear friend of mine who was a pastor for many years and toward the end of his ministry as a senior man he came to join our staff in Covington, Kentucky where I was pastoring. And when I left there Jim was still on staff and shortly thereafter it was discovered he had cancer and not long to live.
And so on a trip back to Kentucky I went to see Jim in the hospital as he was dying and I said Jim as you look back over your life do you have any regrets? And he thought for a moment and he said this, just one sentence, and he was a man who preached powerfully, he was a man who studied the Bible, he was a man who read literally hundreds of books every year. He could read as fast as anybody I've ever met in my life and comprehended.
But here's what he said when I asked him that question, he said Galen I wish that I had prayed more. That's an honest confession isn't it? And you know something if I were to stand before you this morning and be honest I would say the same thing about my ministry. And I've got a hunch that there are a lot of us who would say if we knew that we were about to meet the Lord like Jim we would say I wish I had prayed more.
Now if we think that that's what we would say, if we were about to meet the Lord then why don't we do something about it so that when we come to that point be it tomorrow or in ten years or whenever that won't be a regret. You say how much is enough prayer? I don't know the answer to that but I do believe that when we have prayed enough God will satisfy our hearts. How is this area of your life? What is the foundation like?
Andrew Bonar was a man who loved God, a man of great devotion to the Lord and who wrote down his thoughts in a diary which is still published today though he died in the last century. This is what he wrote on one evening. Tonight I gave myself to a time of waiting upon the Lord. I had not been much in the spirit of prayer but now several things have become clear to me. I realize I have not communed enough with the Lord nor come to him as often as I should.
Little forethought has been given to the requests I have made. There has been much conversing and outward engagement with men but I have not been occupied enough with God himself. I also realize that a closeness to him gives abundant strength and is like sunlight shining through the clouds on a gloomy day. Do you feel like Bonar? William Cooper was a man who had many cloudy days. He wrote hymns that we sing. William Cooper was a man who struggled all of his life with serious depression.
But listen to some words that he wrote about the blessing of prayer. About various hindrances we meet in coming to the mercy seat. Yet, who that knows the worth of prayer but wishes to be often there? Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw. Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw, gives exercise to faith and love, brings every blessing from above. Restraining prayer, we cease to fight. Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright and Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.
Were half the breath that's vainly spent to heaven in supplication be sent, our cheerful song would often be, Hear what the Lord has done for me. I think I have told you too about a woman in my own life who was a prayer saint, a prayer warrior. Her name was Mrs. Wills. I still remember sitting in her living room where she and her husband George were and telling her and him that I had been accepted as a student at Moody Bible Institute. How thrilled she was.
She was a woman who knew how to pray because she had prayed for her husband for 55 years before he became a Christian. This was now 10 years after that. She said to me, Galen, I'm going to pray for you every day. I knew that she prayed for me. The years went by and I graduated from Moody and had a year of youth ministry which I got very old quickly. Then went back to college and had two years and finished up my bachelor's degree.
During my senior year in 1969, you've got to understand she's in her upper 80s by this point. During that senior year I went to my home church to be ordained. Mrs. Wills was shut in. But that night they were able to get her into a wheelchair and she came. She sat there and she watched me as we went through that memorable evening of the ordination. Afterward she gave me a big hug, reminded me that she had been praying for me. She said, Galen, now I'm ready to go home.
You know it wasn't but a few months later that the Lord took her home and I missed her prayers. There was a woman who knew what it was to devote herself to prayer for a struggling young man going into the ministry. Do you know what it means to devote yourself to prayer? See that's what it takes to get young people into the ministry. That's what it takes for our kids to grow up and to be godly young adults with all the pressures in today's world.
That's what it takes for your grandkids to do that. That's what it takes for your marriage to come together. That's what it takes for God's work to be done, for people to come to Christ. It takes people who are devoted to prayer. Will you today say before God, like Andrew Bonar confessed, I have not spent in recent days much time with the Lord, but I give myself to renewed prayer and will by God's grace be devoted in prayer. Will you? Let's pray.
Father, I give thanks to you for those examples that you have given me in my life, like Mrs. Wills. And I confess before you that I have not followed her example as I wish I had. And there may be many others here this morning, I don't know, who will want to say today as they examine the foundation of their lives that they want to firm up this part and become a man, a woman of prayer, be devoted to it.
Would you so move upon our hearts, I pray, for the sake of your kingdom, for the sake of our lives, if that would be the desire of your heart, the decision of your heart to say, God, I will devote myself to prayer. I wonder if you'd be willing to stand just where you are to say that to God.
Now you may already be that way, and if you don't feel like you should stand because of it, that's fine, or certainly don't be dishonest about it, but if you would say, I want to be devoted to prayer, and will be by God's grace, feel free to stand before him now. God bless you.
Lord, I pray that you will honor the commitment and the harsh desire of all of us who stand before you, so that when we come before you on that day and see you face to face, we will not be grieved because we have prayed too little, but rather we'll be glad to arrive home because we have already been for so many days and years living in the light of home in prayer.
Lord, may the minutes that some of us have spent in prayer become more than that, even extended to the sweet hours of prayer of which we have sung this morning. Now let's all stand together with our heads bowed. Let's sing God Answers Prayer in the morning, at noon, in the evening. Therefore let's keep our hearts in tune. God answers prayer in the morning. God answers prayer at noon. God answers prayer in the evening. So keep your heart in tune. Lord, thank you for the tune-up job this morning.
And now may you be honored as we busily engage ourselves in this wonderful privilege that you've given. Please stand.