EDUCATION - THE LORD'S CONCERN
"God's Kitchen ... Prayer!"
(APRIL 1999)
1 Timothy 1:18-2:4
A survey was taken a few years ago to try to determine what makes churches thrive and grow found that 71% of so-called "breakout churches" (formerly plateaued or declining churches now growing) report an increased emphasis on prayer in the past several years. Another survey taken about the same time by a completely different group found the same thing to be true: among rapidly growing churches, prayer was consistently pointed out as the "foundational ministry of the church."
In taking this into consideration God's Kitchen is prayer. Prayer not only brings growth to people but also to the church. The statistics confirm what God has been trying to tell us all along through his Word: The ministry, health, and growth of the church (and of the individuals making up the church) rise and fall on whether or not God's people are being faithful and frequent in prayer. The Book of Acts overflows with examples of the power of prayer to sustain and grow God's church:
Acts 4: When the Sanhedrin (the Jewish high court) threatened the Christians with imprisonment if they continued to speak the name of Jesus, the church responded by gathering together for unified prayer; and as a result, not only did they not bend under the threats, they actually attained even greater levels of boldness in their ministry and proclamation of Jesus as Lord.
Acts 12: When King Herod tried to shut the church down himself, not through simple threats but through outright persecution, the church once again united in prayer, and once again growth continued in spite of the obstacles.
Acts 12: Peter was rescued from prison by an angel as an answer to prayer--an event so miraculous that even the Christians who were actually doing the praying had a hard time believing it!
Prayer was the key element at work in transforming the early church, within the space of a single generation, from a small band of uncertain, frightened disciples into a worldwide force numbering in the tens of thousands and striking fear into the hearts of secular kings and governments. Nothing has changed. The same powerful results can be enjoyed by churches today as they tap into the power of prayer--a power which flows just as freely and wonderfully today as it did 2000 years ago.
One of the most important New Testament passages on the subject of prayer is 1 Timothy 1:18-2:4. Notice the way Paul begins chapter 2: "First of all ... I urge that prayers ... be made ..." That phrase, "first of all," literally means, "of supreme importance." Essentially, what Paul is saying here is: "If you do nothing else today ... Pray!" Get in God's Kitchen where the heat is. That may well be the most sound advice that we could receive as God's people today. Oh yes, we pray ... but do we pray with that kind of intensity, and do we make prayer that much of a priority, such that, if we did nothing else today, we'd pray? God will do great things in our midst, and God will do great things in our church, when we can answer "yes" to that question--and not a minute earlier.
We've gotten off track somewhere in the way we treat prayer. We spend more time praying to keep sick people out of heaven than we do praying lost people into heaven. I'm not saying we shouldn't pray for the sick--but if that's all the praying we do (or even if that accounts for most of the praying we do) we are missing the purpose and the point altogether.
Not only are we guilty of weakening the purpose of prayer, we're guilty of weakening the priority of prayer. At Pentecost they prayed 10 days, and preached 10 minutes, and 3000 were saved. We reverse it. We pray 10 minutes, preach 10 days, and of course, we don't have that kind of results. We can aim to be the strongest congregation in our area when it comes to "talking about God"--and we might even succeed--but if we don't become strong in "talking to God," then nothing will change.
Paul answers four important questions for us in this passage under consideration. First, he answers the question, "Why do we pray?" The passengers and crew of a ship awoke one night to discover that their ship was sinking. Everyone swarmed onto the deck as the crew began passing out life jackets. After a few minutes, it became apparent from the looks of consternation on the crew members' faces that something was not quite right. Finally, the ship's captain turned to the crowd of passengers and asked, "Does anyone here know how to pray?" Of course, that sent the passengers into a near-panic; but one man stepped forward and said, "Yes, I know how to pray. I am a Christian and I pray every day. Why?" The captain said, "Well, we're one life jacket short. The rest of us are getting out of here while you pray." Have we, too, bought into the worldly view of prayer as nothing more than a "last-resort" line of defense against emergencies and crises, something which is engaged out of desperation when all else fails?
That's not the primary purpose of prayer, Paul reminds us. In this passage we find the real reasons why we pray. Notice that in v. 1 we find the word "then" (or "therefore"), referring us back to the previous verses. In vv. 18-19 Paul lists three desires he has for his friend Timothy: He hopes that Timothy might "fight the good fight," that he might "have faith," and that he might have "a good conscience." The "then"/"therefore" in 2:1 tells us that the only way Timothy will be successful in fulfilling these intentions is if he is faithful in making prayer his top priority.
Why do we pray? First of all, so that we may fight "the good fight." Notice the timing here: We don't pray after the fight's already begun, as a last-resort effort to survive the battle; rather, we pray all the while--before, during, and after the battle--praying that we might always fight a fight that is "good," victorious, pleasing to God. In Ephesians 6, Paul lists the "armor of God." Most of the elements of that armor list are defensive weapons--the shield, the helmet, the breastplate. At the end of the list, though, Paul reminds us to "pray always." Prayer is the one offensive weapon that we have at our disposal! ...and when we use prayer only as a defensive weapon, trying to fight off troubles that are already attacking us, rather than using it as an offensive tool, breaking down troubles and obstacles before they even become visible, then we're missing out on a universe of power.
The second reason why we pray is so that we may have "good faith." Why "good" faith? Recall that in the book of James we are taught that "faith without works is dead;" or, in other words, that it's the things we do as believers that indicate that our faith in Christ is indeed genuine and "good." Prayer is one of those things! The constant presence of prayer in a Christian's life is a certain sign that real, genuine faith is alive in his or her life; not only that, the constant presence of prayer in your life gives you the power you need in order for your life to show forth all the other "good works" that point to a genuine faith. If you make prayer your top priority, your faith is indeed where it should be. By contrast, if a Christian doesn't treat prayer in this way, it's a good sign that something is definitely not right in his or her relationship of faith with Jesus Christ.
A third reason why we pray is so that we may have "a good conscience." Your conscience will not "sit well" within you if you neglect prayer. That's because we're commanded by God to pray, for one thing--but there's much more to it than that. Has your conscience ever bothered you because you looked at a person who was hurting and you realized that you hadn't done everything you could have possibly done to help that person? That's exactly what should and will happen when we as Christians neglect prayer as a regular part of our lives! We can never say we've done all we can do for the hurting, and we can never say that we've truly made an effort to love others as Christ loved us, until we've prayed for them, regularly and in earnest. "If you do nothing else today ... Pray." Get in God's Kitchen and turn on the heat of prayer.
A second question that is answered by Paul in this passage is: "How do we pray?" In 2:1 Paul uses several different words to refer to the act of praying; and these words are descriptive of the way that we should pray. For one thing, we pray by looking inward. That is, we examine our own lives, thoughts, attitudes, and goals. We are reminded in this verse to lift up "supplications" and "prayers." These two words have similar meanings: A "prayer" is simply an act of "asking God for something," while a "supplication" was "an urgent request based on an immediate, specific need." Notice that both of these words focus on the person doing the praying. As we pray for others, we must not neglect praying for ourselves--recognizing that that can be the most difficult part of praying, because it requires taking an honest, humble look at myself, and being willing to see myself through God's eyes, and being willing to single out those parts of my life that clearly are not pleasing to Him and submit those parts of my life back to Him. For prayer to be powerful (indeed, for prayer to even be heard by God) it must begin by looking inward. Scripture plainly tells us that the prayer offered up by the person who is harboring known sin in his or her life will not reach the ears of God!
We must also look outward as we pray. "Intercessions" are prayers which ask God to intervene in some way in the life of another. Intercession involves praying for the physical health of others as well as their spiritual, emotional, and mental well-being, their relationships, their service to God, their strength in times of trouble, and so forth. We must look outward and be willing to see the needs of others as God Himself sees them in order to pray with power.
We also look backward as we pray. "Thanksgivings" are an important part of prayer--looking back and recognizing what God has done in the past, and giving God full credit for the good things and the answered prayers that have come our way! Through the discipline of looking backward and offering thanksgivings up to God in our prayers, we become more grateful to God for his mercies, and more sensitive to the ways that He's working all around us. Finally, we look forward as we pray. In v. 3 Paul gives the reason why he's urging these prayers to be made: "...so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life." We'll look at that expression more in a minute; but what we notice right now is simply that Paul already had the end results in mind as he prayed! He expected something to happen as a direct result of his prayer. He didn't claim to know exactly how God would answer his prayer, but he had absolute confidence that some meaningful answer and action would come.
Remember the feeling of excitement you get when you walk by the Christmas tree a couple of weeks before Christmas and realize that there's a package wrapped up under there with your name on it that wasn't there the day before? You don't know exactly what's in it--but you know that it's there; and you know that it's something that you asked for. That's how Paul felt as he prayed--and it's how we ought to feel. We don't know exactly what the result will be; but we can have confidence as we pray that something concrete will happen as a direct result of our asking in faith. God's Kitchen has the ingredients that is needed to produce a finished product.
The third question which Paul answers for us is: "Whom do we pray for?" This one actually has the simplest answer--but we try to make it more complicated. The answer, simply, is "everyone"! The end of 2:1 says that these prayers should "be made for everyone." Paul then goes on to expand that statement by saying specifically that we should pray for "kings and all who are in high positions." The reason he expanded the statement in that way, I believe, is that the people of Timothy's day made the same mistake that we often make, that of picking and choosing who they'll pray for. They had decided somewhere along the line that, since the kings and governments generally were working against the church, these people weren't worthy of their prayers. Paul corrects that line of thought by emphasizing that "everyone" really does include everyone! Is there anyone, any group or class or race of people, any particular individuals, that you've decided aren't worthy of your prayers, so that you deliberately neglect to pray for these even though you're aware of their needs and circumstances? Will we, too, heed Paul's words and understand that "everyone" really does include everyone, with no exceptions? In God's Kitchen don't leave out anything or anybody. There is nothing worse than a missing ingredient in that which we are preparing.
The fourth question which Paul answers here is: "What do we pray for?" 2:3 says that we pray "so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity." That is, we pray for sickness and strife to give way to health and happiness. Here's where we pray for the sick--that is still important, even though it's not the most important part of prayer. Not only do we pray for the sick, we pray also for happiness to replace worry and strife in people's lives. It is definitely scriptural to pray for persons' happiness; the Hebrew word in the Old Testament which is normally translated as the pious-sounding "blessed" really means "happy." God wants his people to be happy and healthy; and we should pray accordingly.
Not only that, we pray for sinfulness to give way to salvation. Vv. 3-4 state that the desire of God is for "everyone to be saved." That, then, should be our heart's desire as well whenever we come before God in prayer! Certainly, no one would argue that we want lost people to come into our church. The question is: Do we want them here for their sakes or for our sakes? If we don't see the need to regularly, earnestly, and daily pray for their salvation and for their sensitivity to the Holy Spirit's conviction, then it should be obvious that we're not truly concerned about their eternal salvation, but that rather we're mostly concerned with our own status and success.
V. 4 also states that God desires for everyone "to come to the knowledge of the truth." In other words, God wants everyone to know the pure joy of a relationship with Christ that's characterized by obedience and service--that's what the "knowledge of the truth" is. That affects our prayer in three additional ways, because there are three things that prevent folks from coming to that knowledge and knowing that kind of joyful relationship with Christ. Either they're too stubborn, or they're too scared, or they're not sure if they know how. We pray, then, for all of these barriers to be broken down! We pray for stubbornness to give way to surrender; we pray for reluctance to give way to readiness; and we pray for confusion to give way to clarity, so that nothing in this world may stand as an obstacle preventing those who have received the salvation of Christ from experiencing the absolute fullness of that salvation and walking with Him in complete obedience and humble service.
"If You Do Nothing Else ... Get In God's Kitchen and Pray." We know clearly what God calls us to do with regard to pray. It will mean nothing, however, if we don't act on it. Who will stand with me? Who will decide that we must not, cannot, do anything else until we pray?
