Bill Johnson - Making Prayer Powerful
He doesn’t give us the exercise of prayer to keep us busy; he gives us the assignment to pray because of his intention to fulfill the prayers that we pray. Thank you, thank you, thanks, thanks. By the way, Ben Fitz and I think three or four of his team are going into Ukraine to preach the gospel. So, they run towards the fight; it’s like war horses, you know? If you’ve ever read about war horses, they’re literally trained for war, and when they hear battle, they run towards it. There are actually stories of them standing next to a burning building, and even though they’re getting burned by the fires, if they’ve been told to hold still, they hold still. So, alright, bad conclusion to a good point. Oh well, oh well. Thanks so much for all your prayers for Benny. She has had a couple of good nights of sleep, which is great progress. I’m really thankful. We have the important doctor’s appointment this week, so we will have more information for you, but just thank you. I understand there are over ten thousand people who just signed up for the weekly slots, and they couldn’t all fit; so there are more praying, but that’s a whole bunch. That’s impressive.
A pastor had dinner at the home of a couple in his church. After he left, the wife said to the husband, «I think he stole our spoon.» This bothered her for a whole year. A year later, the couple had the pastor over for dinner again. Unable to resist, the wife asked, «Did you steal our spoon last year?» The pastor replied, «No, I put it inside your Bible.» That’s my favorite all-time story right there. That’s an anointed joke; it carries the anointing right there. My grandpa told me he got to see the Titanic, and from the beginning, he told them not to get on board because he knew it was going to sink. But no one listened. He repeatedly told them until the minute he got kicked out of the movie theater. That’s just dumb. I’m going to follow down with dumber, dumb and dumber. One more: my wife tells me I have two major faults. I don’t listen and something else.
Open your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6. Actually, yesterday I was thinking and praying about this, and I kept feeling my heart pulled towards the whole thing with the new Ukrainian people. By the way, how many of you went to the Festival of Cultures last night? I loved that event so much! There was a table there with our Ukrainian students. I don’t know if any of them are in the room, but I got to talk with some of them about their contact with their family members. One of them said, «Yeah, in our town they dropped bombs in the city, but they didn’t explode; they’re just unexploded bombs.» So, it kind of fits the story that was told a minute ago. So, we’re thankful, but I’ve just been feeling that you have to be almost brain dead to not be moved by some of these crises and these stories. But oftentimes, we don’t really know what to do. I mean, we know to pray, but can I say this without being accusatory—just honest? Sometimes our prayers are token prayers to make us feel better about responding to crisis, and they’re not necessarily prayers to make a difference. The Lord has actually called us and positioned us to make a difference in our co-laboring relationship through prayer.
To me, one of the greatest mysteries in the Bible is the fact that we were designed to co-labor with God, and it fascinates me almost every day of my life. Prayer is one of those moments where we see it the clearest. I want to talk to you about prayer today, but most of what I’m going to do is review things we’ve heard and said amen to. I feel like, for at least a few of us, some of the things I’m going to talk about have been put on the back burner, and they need to be on the front burner; they need to be right up front because of the moment that we live in. You were designed to be alive at this moment. Honestly, if that phrase in Esther, «for such a time as this,» ever applied to anybody, it applies to you right now. You’ve had many opportunities to die, and you’re still here; it’s the truth.
Let’s be honest: every time you drive down the road, someone could have a heart attack and pull in front of you, and that’s it. The point is, God has strategically arranged for you, as a representative of his world, to be positioned here to make a difference. When he gave us the assignment to pray, he never told us to pray to keep us busy. He did not create prayer as a Christian activity to occupy our time or thoughts or engage us emotionally, knowing that we’ll never see the fulfillment of what we’re praying. It’s just to keep us hopeful until we die or Jesus returns. It’s an insult to the design of prayer. The design of prayer comes out of this place where he says, «Come up here.» It’s an engagement with the heart of the Father.
Here’s what the scripture says: number one, I have been blessed. Ephesians 1:3: I have, past tense, been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ in heavenly places. It is all in my account. Warning: it’s null; it’s not all in my possession. The Christian life is learning to make withdrawals. Many people boast that they have everything, but they can’t display anything. What I just said is that he’s positioned us in this co-laboring role to partner with the Father because the Father is looking for someone who will stand in a place of influence through prayer—not by your title, but by your assignment—to stand before a righteous Father and contend on behalf of those who are in crisis or in need. You are alive for such a time as this. I want to give you about a 45-minute sermon in five minutes, so don’t pack your bags yet; you’re not getting off that easy. Honestly, I want to set the stage for something that, for me anyway, was one of the great mysteries of prayer. Hopefully, this will bring clarification so we can build.
We’re going to actually look at the Lord’s Prayer today. As we’ve said so many times, I don’t think «The Lord’s Prayer» is a good title. I mean, it works because we know where it is, but it wasn’t his prayer because in the prayer there’s a confession of sin, and he had no sin. It was a model prayer. Personally, I like to refer to it as an apostolic prayer because the apostolic mandate is to get the blueprint of heaven and implement it here on earth until this world reflects the nature of that one. That’s the apostolic mandate, and that is the essence of this prayer that God has given us to pray. I’m sorry; I need to ramble a minute longer—maybe two or three. I was watching «The Chosen,» I don’t remember now, three weeks ago. I love «The Chosen,» and I was watching this segment where Jesus, I think, sat on the edge of his bed or was caught or something, and he went through a Hebrew prayer, and then I saw the disciples do it. I thought, «I like that.» Something clicked in my heart; it may not have in yours, but it clicked in my heart. I thought the discipline of a repeated prayer that you refuse to reduce to repetition—yet you keep it alive—there is power in that prayer.
So, I have taken it on in the last few weeks just to pray this Lord’s Prayer when I get up in the morning and to pray it when I go to bed at night. Now, I don’t think Jesus gave us that prayer to be prayed verbatim; I believe it’s a pattern prayer; it’s an outline prayer. But when I pray it, every phrase is pregnant with meaning, so it’s more than just a rote prayer. Instead, it is packed with heart that says «Our Father.» It starts with an engagement with the Almighty God, who has invited me to co-labor with him and make a difference on earth. You are alive to make a difference on this planet, and our prayers are to count; they are to have effect.
Now, one more comment in this regard—maybe one or possibly two or three more comments, and then we’ll start with Sermon One. When he invites us into this place to pray, it’s not as though I’ve been assigned to persuade him; I’ve been assigned to engage with him. We’ll talk about that a little more later. For such a time as this, he doesn’t give us the exercise of prayer to keep us busy. He gives us the assignment to pray because of his intention to fulfill the prayers that we pray. There are two basic kinds of prayers that I want to take a quick look at, and we’ll do that and then see if we can make sense of this.
Go to Matthew chapter 6, and let’s start with verse 7. This is the five-minute sermon that starts right now. Oh boy, I better hurry. Alright, when you pray, do not use vain repetition as the heathen do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them, for your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask. I love that he says, «When you pray, don’t repeat your prayer over and over and over again.» The heathen pray that way because they think that by praying a prayer over and over again, they can earn the answer. They engage with God, who gives them points for repeated prayers. Don’t do that; that’s what the heathen do. The reasoning behind that is that he says, «Your Father knows what you have need of.»
To come before my Father does not remove my responsibility to pray for my daily needs. Here it says, «Give us this day our daily bread.» So, the very next verse gives the assignment to pray for our daily needs. It’s not that he knows what you need, so don’t pray. He doesn’t say that; he says he knows what you need, so come before him as a Father who does not need to be persuaded to take care of his children. Be a part of the ever-evolving economy of heaven, where in your partnership, you make agreement to see the release of his supply and his abundance. This comes from the heart of a Father who’s looking for the needs of his children. He’s not the manager of an orphanage—the caretaker of an orphanage making sure you have three meals and a cot to sleep on, a coat to wear in the winter. He’s not someone who just takes care of your needs; your wants are something else. That’s not the way he is. He is a Father who cares for your needs, so bring it before him, and because you know he’s a loving Father, you know you don’t need to pray that prayer a hundred times because he heard you the first time. «Give us this day our daily bread.» If you belabor the prayer, it doesn’t mean he won’t provide; it just comes out of a misunderstanding of who he is as your Father.
It was better than your response, I know that much for sure. Alright, now I’ll go to Matthew 7 and we’ll take the other part of this. Verse 7 says, «Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.» The original language here says, «Ask and continue asking.» Alright, in Chapter 6, don’t continue asking; in Chapter 7, continue asking. I love these conflicts in scripture because they’re all invitations. Many people take the conflicting thoughts and get rid of one and just give all their weight behind the one they agree with or understand. These two work together. What is it? Number one, he says in Matthew 6—and I’ll get it one of the guys said it and we read it—your Father knows what you have neither, don’t do that repeated prayer thing. But by the time we get to Chapter 7, he says knock, continue knocking; seek, continue seeking, and ask, continue asking. Why? Verse 11: If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
Chapter 6 is needs; Chapter 7 is dreams. Chapter 6 is your basic needs; Chapter 7 is the good gifts that our Father awards his children with. What’s the difference? The one-time prayer of Chapter 6 for daily prayer for provision is because of who he is as a Father. The repeated prayer changes me. It’s not a prayer that persuades God; it’s a prayer that transforms me as one who continually stays before him with the same issue on my heart day after day. It transforms me so that I become a person who can properly steward the answer that I’m contending for. The dreams that fill this room right here were birthed in your heart by God, but many of us lack the confidence to stay before him in prayer because we feel sometimes like, «Well, he didn’t answer the first time we prayed, so it must not be his will,» or, «I fasted three days; nothing happened,» so we sacrificed the very thing he birthed in us. He put in us, and he gives us the assignment to knock and continue knocking because something changes in me where I engage with him. The more you engage with God over a given subject, the more he transforms you into the person necessary to be a proper steward of that answer.
Alright, first one’s over. Let’s go to the Lord’s Prayer. Verse 9, Matthew—even though many of you can quote it, I do encourage you, please look at it in your Bible. There’s something about seeing it and saying it. Verse 9, Chapter 6 of Matthew: «In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come; your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.»
Go back to Verse 9: «Our Father.» The Western church has fashioned the gospel in such a way that the primary emphasis is on individual fulfillment: the fulfillment of my call, the fulfillment of my dreams, the fulfillment of what I want to see from my family and my family life. There is a place for that because God has no grandchildren; everyone must come into personal relationship with him and place their faith in Christ for their salvation. So there is the individual, but listen to me: some prayers are so large they cannot be answered for the individual; they can only be answered as a whole, for a body, for a church family, even a spiritual nation. «Our Father,» not «my Father.»
«Our Father who art in heaven.» The scripture says that I am seated with him in heavenly places. This kind of a prayer is not me in the middle of a problem shouting out to God, who I hope hears me, so that he can come and rescue me; instead, it is me, one who has been raised up in the resurrected Christ, to be with him and to engage with him to see his purposes, his plans, his desires fulfilled on the planet. What is his will? «On earth as it is in heaven.» That is the mandate we’ve been given. Everything is measured by that mandate. So we start with «Our Father.»
One of the things that’s very hard for us to deal with in the Western world, specifically the Western church, is this thought that one person can sin and have it affect somebody else’s life. Well, that just isn’t right, but it’s true; it’s a reality. It doesn’t mean we are merciless at the hand of other people’s choices, but it does mean we are affected. When Cain killed Abel, God showed up and said, «Where’s your brother?» His response was, «Am I my brother’s keeper?» and the answer is, «Yes, actually you are.» What we don’t always understand is that we are actually members of one another. This thumb is alive because this hand is alive. If the hand dies, the thumb goes with it. Do you understand? There’s something about there is an aspect of the Christian life, of this walk with Christ, that is completely dependent on one another. It’s not the part that is emphasized a lot, but it is true. Achan, in the scripture, when he sinned, many Israeli soldiers that had obeyed God the day before died in the next battle because of Achan’s sin.
Injustice, when you’re family, there are certain things that happen when you understand that we actually are members of one another. So this prayer, while it is an apostolic prayer, the blueprint of heaven implemented here on earth, is a prayer for a family. «Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed, revered, honored, feared is your name.» Praying prayers, understanding the fear of God doesn’t weaken your prayer; it intensifies it. It takes a broad prayer and turns it into a laser beam in its effectiveness because the fear of God is the qualifier of everything effective in the Christian life. «Hallowed be your name.» Many people take the Lord’s name in vain. I remember working in a police station once; I was cleaning City Hall and the police department. I was a custodial engineer—janitor. Yeah. I remember I was in City Hall, and a guy blurted out, «Jesus Christ!» I said, «Man, if you just knew him, you wouldn’t use his name like that.»
It grates me to hear that, whether it’s on TV or with another person. I don’t feel the need to try to correct everybody, but it happens occasionally. That same night, I was in the police department, and the dispatcher did the same thing. I said, «Man, if you knew him, you wouldn’t use his name like that.» He said, «I am so sorry; that’s disrespecting the name.» But the more common way the name is respected when his name is used in vain is by believers who say, «God told me,» when he didn’t. «Hallowed be your name.»
The name of the Lord is a strong tower. It’s interesting; this scripture teaches us that the name of the Lord is a hiding place. But that hiding place puts you out of reach, not out of sight. That hiding place puts you out of reach; the enemy cannot reach you, but he is forced to look at your victory. He is forced to look at your safety. He is forced to look at the power of the name Jesus, that completely covers you; that Jesus so unselfishly gave to you for you to use at your disposal for his purposes. «Hallowed be your name.» «Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.» Jack Taylor, a number of years ago, helped us understand this verse; he helped me understand it quite a bit better because of the verb tense, which is a bit above my pay grade. I just have to point to Jack and say he knows, especially now that he’s in heaven.
He said the verb tense here—"Your kingdom come; your will be done"—can actually be quoted like this: «Will of God, be done; kingdom of God, come; will of God, be done.» It’s actually a command; it’s a command. It’s not a command aimed at God; he has already made agreement. He has already created within his system of prayer to fulfill that cry of his people. So he invites us into that place of heavenly place conversation where we make the decree, we see the heart of the Father, we feel the compassion of the Lord for a given situation, and we stand with the Father in the name of Jesus. We see a problem, and we declare, «Kingdom of God, come; will of God, be done.»
The greatest definition for me in the Bible of the will of God is «on earth as it is in heaven.» It’s such a broad, general prayer that it’s easy to pray it and not be able to monitor your answers. Does this make sense to you? Answers to prayer are what strengthen you for more prayer. Answers to prayer strengthen you for more prayer; it actually gives you the motivation, the impetus, to contend for even more because we saw answers to prayer. Well, a prayer like that, «Kingdom of God, come; will of God, be done,» is a pretty large prayer. If you don’t know how it’s answered, you won’t be encouraged by its answers. What does it look like for the kingdom of God to come? Every time you have a depressed friend that you’re able to encourage, the kingdom came. You have that suicidal neighbor that you’re able to talk with, pray with, over a period of a week or two, and at the end of two weeks, that thing’s broken off and you no longer have that drive. Guess what? That deliverance happened because the kingdom came. That migraine headache that torments that person you work with at the office, that you prayed for but hasn’t had one in three weeks? The kingdom came. If you don’t understand that that’s the fulfillment of this cry that we’ve been positioned to make—kingdom of God, come; will of God, be done. Our life is implementing the reality of that world and releasing it into this one. That’s life; that’s prayer.
But hear me, don’t pray it if you’re not going to follow with obedience. Don’t pray, «Oh, kingdom of God come,» if you’re going to do nothing that he can say amen to because it is our obedience that gives him the target to strike. I thought that was a pretty good point myself; I’m working hard, anyway, I know that much.
«Give us this day our daily bread.» Notice this prayer: «Give us this day.» This prayer is not a prayer for my provision; it’s a prayer for our provision. I’m sure you’ve done that, but I have my doubts that most of our prayers for provision have been about the whole; it’s been more about the me. «Give us this day our daily bread.» He leads into this prayer with saying your Father knows what you have need of before you ask, but then he says, «Ask.» The mere posture of asking shows, number one, my obedience, and number two, my understanding of how this system works. I stand; I request; he responds.
I found a couple translations I think three yesterday; I’ve got one here. Let me read you, I think this is William Barclay. He said, «Give us today our bread for the coming day.» Another translation says, «Give us today tomorrow’s bread.» Many of us are accustomed to God answering prayers at 11:59, but that may not be by his design; it may be because that’s when we pray best. Many of us have created a theology around the God who comes in at the last moment, but this prayer says, «Give me today tomorrow’s bread.» To me, that’s a prayer of unusual abundance.
And here’s the problem with the way many of us have done life: we have felt that our promotions, our blessings, our answers to prayer, our breakthroughs are for us—realizing that the breakthrough has to benefit the people around me or it was misused. When you pray, «Oh God, increase the anointing for healing in my life,» who is it for? It’s measured by the other people you touch. The whole point is that when we pray «Our Father,» we’re saying, «God, do something in me, in us, that benefits the whole.» The moment my contending for breakthrough hits a place where I think it’s about me, the breakthrough levels off. There is no limit to what God would release over an individual if the breakthrough is released upon them to benefit the people around them.
«Give us today tomorrow’s bread.» I’d like to suggest that in maturity, the Lord is bringing us to a place where he can trust us with more than we need for now because we’re already engaged in «Give us this day.» It’s about us. The early church, there was not one person who lacked anything because they understood the «us.» «Give us this day our daily bread.»
«And forgive us our debts, our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.» Once again, this translation I saw yesterday, I really liked: «Forgive us our failures in our duty to you as we have forgiven those who have failed in their duty to us.» I don’t know if you’re seeing this—the prayer for provision is a daily responsibility. Number two, the repentance, the need to confess sin of the slightest attitude that was off—it’s not a guilt, shame game; it’s a sensitivity to the heart of God that is so constant that I don’t want to end any day with an attitude that was wrong, or a careless word that was spoken, for it to be undealt with.
We know the scripture says, «Don’t let the sun go down on your anger; don’t go to bed mad.» Why? Because if you do, that thing will foul, fester in your heart, set down roots, and begin to affect your personality. It becomes very deeply rooted, and this is a lifestyle of repentance and forgiveness that is to be maintained every single day: «Forgive us our sins, us, as we forgive those who sin against us.»
«Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.» This is another one of those conflict ideas in the Bible, which I like so much. I quote often for you the Proverbs passage; it says, «Don’t answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.» The very next verse says, «Answer a fool according to his folly.» Yeah, let’s see, «be wise in his own eyes.» I misquoted it: «Don’t answer a fool according to his folly for some good reason.»
So, here we have, ask God not to lead you into temptation, yet James says it’s impossible for him to lead you into temptation, so why pray it? I think it’s important for us not to live in shame from our past, but to live in the realization that we can fail, and there’s something about that. I call it a poor spirit—again, not shame, not beating ourselves up; that’s not humility; that’s a subtle form of pride. But coming to the Lord, realizing I too can fall. Galatians talks about this: «You who are trying to restore a brother who has fallen, remember, you too can fall.» In other words, do it with gentleness. If you do it with arrogance, thinking you’re something, you’re creating a failure of your own.
So this posture of humility before the Lord, «Lead me not into temptation.» But the way I like to look at this story a little better: Let’s say that I’m really struggling financially, Chris, and I go out to lunch. I’m going to make him the hero of my story again, so he likes it the first time. Let’s say I’m really struggling, and we sit down at the table. He excuses himself—we just get there, and I sit down, and he goes to the restroom. I look in between the salt and pepper shaker, and there’s a hundred-dollar bill folded up there that the waitress obviously didn’t see when she cleaned the table. I’m looking at the hundred-dollar bill, recognizing my need, thinking, «Jehovah Jireh, God has provided for me in mysterious ways!»
Then I realize, of course, that’s the spirit of stupid. I’m not gonna do that. I rebuke that thing; there’s no way. I get over, and I don’t take the money. Chris comes back from the restroom, sits down, and for the first time, notices the money sitting there between the salt and pepper shaker. He grabs it and says, «Man, somebody left a good tip.» He gets the waitress’s attention and gives her the hundred dollars. Neither of us took the money, but it was appealing to one of us.
Sometimes it’s the condition of your heart that makes a normal circumstance appealing to do wrong. God didn’t create the desire to do wrong. Does that make any sense at all? There’s a difference here. So this prayer, «Lead us not to temptation,» is basically, «God, as you lead me today, take my stupidity into your consideration. You know things about me I’ve never seen, I don’t know about, and probably a bunch I’m not even willing to admit to.
But please, as you lead me today, I only want to honor you.» Does that make any sense? «Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.» Paul gives a warning in Ephesians 4: Don’t give place to the devil. It was written to, what I think anyway, historically, was the most mature church, at least of its time, the church at Ephesus. There was not one correction in there; it’s the only epistle that didn’t have a word of correction. Yet in them, he warned them: «Don’t give place to the devil,» because it’s possible for a believer to give the enemy a legal opportunity to kill, steal, and destroy. So, this prayer is important prayer, but please notice again, it’s not just a prayer of me praying for me; it’s me praying for us: «Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.»
Go ahead and stand. I want to end with one more point. If you stand, I have to end. Okay? Just hold tight, please, if you would. Here’s what I want you to notice: how does this prayer start? «Our Father.» How does it end? «For thine is the kingdom.» You can go through the whole prayer and miss the main point. Every bit of information in conversation about the kingdom of God is about family: «Our Father.» «For thine is the kingdom.» All kingdom issues are family issues.
And you may say, «Well, I come from a broken home; I don’t know how that could apply.» Listen, if everybody in the room had the most perfect family on the planet, it still wouldn’t apply directly to you. It would apply to us as the family of God. The family on earth is a shadow of what God has made us to be together. «For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory.» The whole point is this: we are not part of an institution; we’re not part of some kind of religious organization. We are living family members of one another, and when we talk about seeking first the kingdom, we’re actually talking about the privilege of fighting on behalf of another person to taste the beauty and the wonder of God’s will in their life at a level they’ve never seen before.
This is about us! I’m hoping that from today, yes, pray for Ukraine; there are specific ways we can pray because of what we’ve shared today, but I’m hoping it goes beyond the immediate crisis, and it goes into the way we approach the Father. We start praying more intentionally for that other business to prosper as well, for that other family to conceive and have a child. For that other family, there’s somebody right over here that is asking to give to be able to conceive, and you’ve not been able to, and I believe it’s the word of the Lord to release that gift to you; that’s right over there.
So, the Lord is releasing that grace, I believe, over this church family to also pray the «us» prayers, the «we» prayers, the «our» prayers. Our Father, I pray for this family, for our online family, that you would teach us how to pray. Thanks, teach us. He’s assigned us to shape the course of history through prayer—prayer that shapes the course of history, that’s our assignment. So teach us to engage so deeply with your heart that what we pray matters. Amen. One last thing I want to know: is there anyone here who has never made a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ? You’ve never committed your life to him; you’ve never done what the Bible calls being born again. You don’t know what it is to be forgiven, to be brought into a family, but you’d want to say today, «I don’t want to leave the building until I know I have truly found peace with God, that I’ve been forgiven of sin.» If that’s you, put a hand up real quick, right where you are. I want to give opportunity for everyone. If you’re online doing this, please, we have pastors online that will talk and pray with you. Alright, it looks like everybody’s in. Alright, bless you, bless you, bless you.