"PRAYER" By Revd. Robert A. Gill. Readings: Psalm 86; Mark 11: 20-26

Transcription

1 "PRAYER" By Revd. Robert A. Gill Readings: Psalm 86; Mark 11: TEXT: Mark 11:24 Therefore I say to you, "Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them". One of the most important attributes in life is confidence. We see the need for confidence in many things. For example, in sport; we all know what happens to the golfer or the tennis player or the snooker player if they loose their confidence. If they loose confidence then their timing goes, their accuracy goes and their game beings to fall to pieces. And we sometimes see it happen on the television screen. As soon as their confidence returns, their game comes together again. Their shots are timed better, become more accurate. It all boils down to confidence. And of course, we need confidence in other things too. In meeting people, in getting on with people

2 we need confidence. In doing our job properly we need the confidence that we have the skill to do it. In meeting life's challenges we need confidence if we are to succeed. The work "confidence" comes from Latin and it basically means "with faith". With faith in ourselves; with faith in our own ability. To have confidence is to have faith that we can succeed. If we lack confidence, that is a kind of mental block that prevents us succeeding in the thing to which we are striving to accomplish. But just as we need confidence in ourselves, we also need confidence in other people. If you go to the doctor, it is to be hoped you have confidence in him. Because if you have no confidence in your doctor, your lack of confidence in him will almost certainly prevent his treatment really working. Again it is a block within yourself. And who would fly with a particular airline unless they had confidence in the staff, and particularly in the pilot of the aircraft. In a marriage, if the marriage is to succeed, each of the partners needs confidence in the other. So you see it is not just confidence in ourselves; in life we also need confidence in other people if we are to be able to go ahead and do things.

3 But surely, and most supremely, we need confidence in the Lord. Confidence that the Lord is there, confidence that he hears us when we pray, confidence in His power to help us and confidence in His will to help us. And so Jesus says, "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them". We must pray with confidence - with faith - we must pray in the belief that the Lord hears and will answer. And if we believe it - it will be so. But how so we get confidence in the Lord? How do we come to believe in Him and His power? Well how do we get confidence in anybody? Only by getting to know them over a period of time. Only by discovering that what they do can be trusted. It takes time to build up confidence in other people. And it takes time to build up faith and confidence in the Lord; it doesn't come in a flash. We gain confidence in the Lord through other people. We see what the Lord has done for other people. We see how other people have been strengthened and helped by their faith in the Lord. And that makes us realise that there is something here. We develop confidence in the Lord through our acts of worship. Through our prayers and praises

4 of the Lord. Through reading His Word and learning of Him. And above all else by obeying His Word and discovering that the teachings actually work. So gaining confidence in the Lord is something which takes time. It is developed slowly, gradually, little by little, as we go through life. Therefore I say to you, "Whatever things you ask for when you pray, believe that you will receive them, and you will have them". Now we shouldn't take these words too literally, because if we do they may disappoint. It might seem as though the Lord is saying, "Ask anything and I'll give it to you". But the Lord isn't quite saying that. The Lord isn't telling us to ask for anything, He is telling us to ask prayerfully. It's whatever thing you ask when you pray. And you see there is a difference between asking and asking prayerfully. It's not just playing with words. There is a very real difference between the two. If we could ask for anything, well we might indeed ask for anything. "Lord, send me a cheque for a thousand pounds in tomorrow's post". "Lord, I'm playing at Wimbledon this afternoon, let me win". "Lord, someone's offended me, let me get

5 my own back on them". You see we could ask for things which are utterly foolish and quite wrong. The Lord doesn't say that He will give us anything that we ask for. Think for example of a young child; if a two year old child asks you for a box of matches or a pair of scissors, would you give them? Well, of course not, because those things would be dangerous for the child. They might set the house on fire. So you don't give the young child the things which are bad and dangerous for the child. Neither can the Lord give us things which are trivial, foolish, selfish or dangerous; the Lord doesn't give anything we ask for. The Lord gives us the things we pray for. He gives us the things we have asked for prayerfully. Now the teachings of our Church tell us that prayer involves two things. Prayer involves a sense of worship and a sense of charity. Worship is to look to the Lord. Charity is to look to our neighbour. So you see prayer involves really the Two Great Commandments. Looking to the Lord - looking to the neighbour. Prayer reflects this Godly approach to life and all our asking, in prayer, should reflect these Two Great Commandments. What we ask for in our prayers should be consistent with loving the Lord and

6 loving the neighbour. What we ask for in prayer should be those things which will enable us to love the Lord more and love our neighbour better. And in prayer, we should not ask for easy answers, or the easy way. It is very tempting in prayer to ask for the easy option. "Lord, take this trouble away from me". "Lord, take this problem away". But you see the Lord Himself showed us that this is not the way to pray. Remember when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and He faced the awfulness of the cross. He prayed and He said, "Take this cup away from me, nevertheless not what I will, but what you will". And in those words Jesus showed us that in prayer, we shouldn't be asking for the easy option, the easy answer. Prayer is not taking difficult things away. Prayer is committing ourselves to do God's will. It is saying to the Lord, "Lord, here I am in all my weakness; help me to love you more; help me to serve my neighbour better". That is the essence of prayer, asking the Lord for the things which will sustain us, in living His way, in living by the Two Great Commandments. No, prayers do not take away our problems; they transform our problems. And they transform our problems by transforming us. They give us the strength and

7 the power and the enlightenment and the hope to cope with our problems, to face them and to triumph over them. Prayer gives us the power we do not have of ourselves, so that we can live through our problems, faithful to the Christian way. We can come through our problems, loving the Lord more, caring for our neighbour better. Prayer transforms our problems by transforming us. It enables us to triumph over it - to come through it a better, more angelic person. We might ask, "Why does the Lord not simply give us what we need without bothering to pray; surely the Lord knows what we need before we ask?" Of course He does. Why then does He not simply give it to us? Well, we read in the doctrines of our Church this principle, "It is a general thing in all Divine worship, that a man should first will, desire and pray; and that the Lord should then answer, inform and do." It is a Divine principle that we should first pray, and then that the Lord should give. You see if we didn't have to pray; if the Lord simply gave us what we needed without our asking, we might foolishly suppose that His gifts were our own. That they somehow came from

8 ourselves. That we didn't need Him. That we had the power of self, to live a good life. It is most important that we have to pray, because in praying we recognise our own weakness. We recognise our need for His gifts. And in that recognition, which is the prayerful recognition, there is a change of attitude within us. We come to lean more heavily upon the Lord. We realise more deeply our need of Him. And so we become more receptive to what He can give. And remember also that the Lord must also preserve in us free will. We must always be free to receive or reject what the Lord has on offer. That is part of our humanity. And prayer preserves free will. The Lord only gives us what we need, when we freely ask for it. So yes, we need to pray, because in that we learn and become more receptive. Prayer makes a difference. Believe me, prayer does make a difference. Not to the outward situation, because it won't change things outwardly at all. But it will change us inside. It will change us totally, and by changing us, it will enable us to cope with the outward situation and triumph over it. If we have come to know the Lord through His Word, through worship, through other people; if we have come to know and trust the Lord, then

9 He will answer all our prayers. All requests prayerfully asked, He will answer. He will answer our prayers by sustaining us, by strengthening us, by giving us a power we never knew we had. And so He will enable us to live the Christian life, no matter how difficult the trouble, no matter how great the problem. And He will keep before us the light of hope. Hope in everlasting life; hope in the truth and the victory of the Heavenly Kingdom. Therefore I say to you Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe you will receive them, and you will have them. Amen