Maintaining Intimacy

The Christian Privilege of Prayer
(1 John 5:13-15)

Prayer is communion with the Creator of the universe. It should be a privilege and a joy. Yet so often we make it a burden – or worse, a bore. In this sermon on the New Testament letter of 1 John, Rob Yule encourages us to recover the wonder and opportunity of prayer, as God's invitation to us to enter a life of free cooperation with him for the realisation of his purposes on earth. Rob gave this message at Greyfriars' Classical Service on 10 December 2006.

Philip Yancey is perhaps America's most important contemporary Christian author. Reacting against a constrictive church upbringing, he explores issues with an honesty and frankness that makes for refreshing reading.

So when Philip Yancey writes a book on prayer, it's a notable event. He spots the easy targets. 'When I listened to public prayers in evangelical churches,' he writes, 'I heard people telling God what to do, combined with thinly veiled hints on how others should behave. When I listened to prayers in more liberal churches, I heard calls to action, as if prayer were something to get past so we can do the real work of God's kingdom.' (Prayer: Does it make any Difference? [London, Hodder & Stoughton, 2006], p. 6).

But Yancey doesn't leave it with the stereotypes. He tackles the fundamental problem all of us have with prayer in the modern world: the gap between the theoretical importance we attach to prayer, and how little praying we actually do. 'In theory, prayer is the essential human act, a priceless point of contact with the God of the universe. In practice, prayer is often confusing and fraught with frustration.' (p. 7).

Great Christian leaders like Martin Luther used to pray two or three hours a day. Susannah Wesley, a busy mother with no privacy, used to sit in a rocking chair with an apron over her head praying for John and Charles and her large family. Charles Simeon, the great eighteenth century evangelical leader in Cambridge, England, would rise at 4 a.m. and pray till 8 o'clock. The devout seventeenth century Anglican bishop Lancelot Andrewes allotted five hours a day to prayer.

What spiritual pygmies we are by comparison. Prayer is the breath of the Christian. Yet we start squirming after five or ten minutes praying, distracted by thoughts that buzz like flies around the grey matter in our skulls. The scepticism of our scientific age erodes prayer. So does prosperity. So, especially, does the busyness and superficiality of modern life.

These three simple verses in 1 John invite us to reconsider the place of prayer in our lives.

Prayer as Invitation

John wrote this letter so that believers might know that they have eternal life (1 John 5:13). There's only one place we can get eternal life – from God. God alone is eternal. Prayer is a relationship with the living God, the source of eternal life, who alone is immortal, 'the Eternal' – as James Moffat called God in his Bible translation.

Prayer is an invitation to enter into a relationship with the Creator and Proprietor of the universe – only Sovereign of the universe. Prayer is an invitation to enter the throne room, the control room of the universe.

When a number of us started the Greyfriars' Wednesday morning prayer meeting in the church a couple of years ago, we had an unexpected experience. As we sat together in the front pew, facing the chancel, we became aware of a presence, gently chiding us:

'Welcome friends. Lovely to have your company. Why so long coming? I'm wanting to do stuff in Greyfriars. I could do it all by myself, but I want to do it in partnership with you. I want you to share in my plans, in what I'm about to do in this church. I don't want you to miss out.'

The sense of God's presence there in the chancel, waiting for us, welcoming us, chastising us, inviting us to share in his plans, was palpable. Prayer is an invitation to enjoy God's presence and share in his purposes.

Prayer as Cooperation

Prayer is not just something we do, any more than God's purposes are something God alone does. God wants to realise his purposes through us. Prayer is a partnership between us and God. We're invited to be God's partners, God's co-workers. Prayer is a cooperation between ourselves and God – for the realisation of God's purposes on earth.

God created the universe alone and unaided. Creation is his sovereign activity. But once God has brought into existence free beings, all his subsequent actions in human history he does with our cooperation. 'If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.' (1 John 5:14b).

This cooperation has been beautifully expressed by the great Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel, in his master work The Prophets: 'The universe is done. The greater masterpiece, still undone, still in the process of being created, is history. For accomplishing his great design God needs the help of man.' Having created free beings, God seeks and desires our partnership.

I think many Christians undervalue this privilege. John encourages us, saying we can approach God with 'confidence'. 'This is the confidence we have in approaching God' (1 John 5:14a). The Greek word he uses is parresia, which refers especially to 'boldness' or 'fearlessness' in the presence of persons of high rank. It's the opposite of obsequiousness – all that fawning and bowing and scraping that goes on in the presence of celebrities and influential people. Parresia is the confidence to approach God in a straightforward, unembarrassed manner.

This is amazing. You and I, in prayer, are encouraged to bring our requests to the Ruler of the universe. Forgiven and granted access by the death of God's own Son, we don't need to be timid or embarrassed in God's presence, or approach him in a flattering or fawning manner, but come to him calmly and confidently. This echoes what John said earlier: 'Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask…' (1 John 3:21-22).

Prayer as Coordination

Confidence before God must never be presumption. For there to be a cooperation between ourselves and God, there has to be a coordination or alignment of our wills with God's will. We can't expect the Ruler of the universe to rubber stamp all our requests, however selfish or banal. There's a condition attached to our asking – that it be according to God's will. 'If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.' (1 John 5:14b). If we align ourselves with God's will, our prayers will be answered. This is the main condition for our prayers being answered.

In his book on prayer, Philip Yancey says that most struggles in the Christian life 'circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.' (p. 9).

The key to our prayers being answered is the coordination of our wills with God's will. That's no light matter. We've a lot of unlearning to do – aligning ourselves with God's will means letting go of our selfishness, prejudices, love of comfort, lack of trust. We've a lot of learning to do – coordinating our lives with God means learning about his character, his providence, his patience, his timing, his grace, his mercy, his opportunities, his surprises.

Prayer as Communication

People sometimes think that prayer is a one-way street. Our part is asking, God's part is answering. The New International translation of this passage seems to encourage that misunderstanding. 'If we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.' (1 John 5:15).

But New Testament scholar C. H. Dodd translates this verse: 'If we know that he hears us whenever we ask his will – and we certainly do know this – then we may also know with equal certainty that we possess the requests we have made the moment we have prayed.'

Prayer is a two-way street. Think of Job. Job didn't stop his bluster and begin to worship till God began to ask him questions and he had to provide some answers!

God: 'Who is this who darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?... 'Where were you when I laid earth's foundations?' (Job 38:1, 4).

Job: 'I know that you can do all things: no plan of yours can be thwarted…. Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.' (Job 42:2-3).

Prayer is abiding rather than asking. Prayer is communication. Sometimes there has to be some argy-bargy before there can be real communication. Real communication is communion – a communing of our hearts with God's heart, deep speaking unto deep, like two lovers enjoying one another's company.

Lovers don't always agree. Like Job and God, lovers sometimes argue and fight. But essentially prayer is a relationship. It's not a monologue, but a dialogue, not a one-way street, but a two-way street, not a striving or pleading with God – but an assured confidence in God's presence, communing as a friend with a friend. That's when we find God delights to answer our prayers.

Rob Yule, 10 December 2006
© 2006, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church