Hindrances to Prayer

Introduction

I realized something this week. And well, it’s about time, right? I realized several things, but I realize I don’t preach on prayer very much. I think we almost treat prayer like it’s a given in the lives of Christians. The lesson this morning and the lesson this evening really go hand in hand in a lot of ways. As we ask the question, why don’t we pray more to such an awesome giver? And the reasons that we gave about God being invisible, our affluence, doubt. I think all of those things enter into the problems that we experience with prayer. We know the verses, right? Pray without ceasing. Very good, class. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 17. Do you know it’s companion in Romans 12? Be devoted to prayer.

Or continuing instant, I think the old King James Version says there. So we know those passages say that. And we try to explain away 1 Thessalonians 5.17, I think, by saying that means we need to have a prayerful attitude. You know, I don’t know what that is. You know, just a what how do you live with a prayerful attitude? I think it’s saying pray without ceasing. That’s what it’s saying. And obviously that’s hyperbole because you can’t do that. You’re going to go to sleep tonight, and I’m pretty sure if you’re praying before you go to bed, you’re going to stop at some point when you fall asleep. I’ve never found praying to work very well while I sleep. But it is hyperbole suggesting that prayer ought to be a constant in our lives, like Romans 12 and verse 10 is saying.

And yet I would say most Christians would acknowledge. I’m pretty sure I don’t pray enough.

So I didn’t ask for a show of hands. Are you going to put your hand up? I don’t know. Look around. Okay, I’ll put my hand up. Yes, I don’t pray as often as I probably should. So we need to be talking more about prayer than I think we’ve done, at least here, and that’s partly my fault or the elders not telling me, hey, you need to preach on prayer. And so tonight, as been announced, I want to preach on hindrances to prayer. Found this graphic. First thing that I caught in this is shouldn’t the God rock be bigger than the other two? And then I thought more about the graphic, and I thought, no, what they’re saying is that prayer to God to be successful absolutely requires faith.

Without faith, there’s no connection. And so I’m okay with the faith rock being bigger, if that’s the idea. Faith is all about God anyway. Let’s look at James chapter 1. We’re not going to be looking at many texts of scripture. We’ve referenced a few. We’re going to talk about making application of these texts tonight. We’ll be looking at a psalm momentarily. Familiar probably, but let’s read it. But if any of you lacks wisdom, that is the ability to take what we know and to successfully implement it in our lives. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, tying in what he will say in verse 17 about every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above.

And it will be given to him. God is going to respond to this request. But let him ask in faith, without any doubting. For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Old Testament verse.

Old Testament or New Testament. Probably Old Testament, you really get extra credit if you can tell me in which book of the Old Testament you’ve got one out of thirty-nine where we can find such a statement. Okay, that might be too hard. How about the context? The occasion in which we find these words. I love little tests like this. The wheels are turning. I see it. What if I were to tell you that it relates to God’s glory filling the temple? Second Chronicles chapter 7 and verse 14 is where you’ll find this statement about the importance of prayer, about the importance of seeking intimacy with God through prayer, and making coinciding with that, turning to the Lord in terms of our thinking and conduct. I want to look at a powerful but perhaps neglected Psalm.

Psalm 66. I said this was anonymous Psalm Day. We looked at Psalm 105 this morning, Psalm 66 tonight. Psalm 66 is a Thanksgiving Psalm that has an interesting transition from corporate praise, that is a call to the group corporately, even those outside of Israel, to praise God for his redeeming work, and then it moves to individual devotion. Shout joyfully to God, all the earth, seeing the glory of his name. Say to God, how awesome are thy works because of the greatness of thy power. Thine enemies will give feigned obedience to thee. Come and see the works of God, verse 5, who is awesome in his deeds toward the sons of men, who keeps us in life, verse 9, and does not allow our feet to slip.

For thou hast tried us, O God, thou hast refined us as silver is refined. And then this, you have brought us to an abundant place. The land of rich fulfillment, one version says, or to a wealthy place. But then he moves into a more personal tone toward the end. Come and hear all who fear God, and I will tell of what he has done for my soul. What has God done for your soul? I cried to him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I regard wickedness in my heart, then the Lord will not hear. But certainly God has heard.

Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor his loving kindness from me. Do you have that kind of confidence about your approach to the throne of God? Are you telling others? Are you telling him how thankful you are for what he has done for your soul? Are you crying out to him, praising him with your tongue? Do not regard wickedness in your heart. If you want to enjoy all the privileges and blessings that result from the communication of prayer to God. So, what are the hindrances? I found this. Little chart. Hindrances to prayer, wrong motives, unforgiveness in our hearts. I don’t use the term unforgiveness, but I guess that just means not forgiving. Unresolved conflict, unconfessed sins. I would say something similar to Psalm 66.

Praying against God’s will. I mean, wanting your own will. Praying with doubt or unbelief, discord in the home or improper treatment of spouse. Certainly in 1 Peter 3 and verse 7, it says, if you don’t deal with your wife in an understanding way, your prayers will be hindered. Refusing to listen to God and heed his correction and direction and turning away from God’s law. Well, there may be some helpful things there. But I’m not sure that those are really hindrances to the practice of prayer as much as those things are hindrances to the results that we might want when we pray. That is to have effective prayers.

But more importantly, I need to make sure that when I’m praying, I’m actually being heard. That God is actually responding to my prayer. That’s really the critical thing. The critical thing is not to have a checklist and say, prayed four times on Monday, prayed five times on Tuesday. Prayed 70 times this week. Well, how many of those did God hear? You know, the number is not as important as the connection with God. Once the connection is there, may I suggest there may be hundreds, if not thousands of prayers. Or as we’ve sung, a sweet hour of prayer. How long has it been? The reason for the sermon, a Facebook post by my namesake, Dylan Adams. I don’t know why they gave him the name Anthony II, but poor guy stuck with it.

I baptized his dad back in the late 80s. Mark Adams is a preacher of the gospel. I didn’t do much. I mean, he had already been taught his good wife now, she’s the one that did all the work. I just happened to be the one that was there to teach him once or twice, and I got to baptize him, but it meant a lot to him. And he talks about that all the time. But his son Dylan queried on Facebook what are some reasons why Christians don’t have a good prayer life? So I looked at some of the responses coming in, and I put a response, and that seemed to resonate with some people. So I said, you know, I’m just going to preach that. I’m going to preach what I responded as to the reasons people are hindered in prayer.

1. Not Convinced That Prayer Changes Anything

And I want to give you three basic problems. Three basic hindrances to prayer. And hopefully we can get to a better place in our connection with God. I think one of the reasons why folks don’t pray is that we’re not really convinced that it changes anything.

Now, James 1 says, if we ask for wisdom, God wants to respond to that prayer. We know that verse right in James 5, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Do you believe that consistently praying to God in your life will change circumstances for the better? If you don’t believe that, you might not pray very often. The Bible, the New Testament clearly says that things will result from prayer that otherwise would not have resulted unless we pray. Paul prayed that his thorn might depart, prayed three times before God finally said, okay, in this case, I’m not going to give you what you request. You can serve me faithfully is the implication. You can serve me faithfully, even with this thorn. But he let him pray about it three times before he responded and said, the answer this time is going to be no.

And so it is important that we learn from that we need to make requests about things in our lives that trouble us and concern us, even if the answer for that particular thing is negatory.

2. Prayer Is a Key to Godliness and Transformation

We may not get things as we want them. But prayer does indeed change things. And I guess perhaps we look at the things that we pray for, and we’ll look at somebody who’s sick that we’ve been praying for, who gets better, and we say, okay, God has answered our prayers, but I’m not really sure if we’re convinced on a personal level that God is responding to me, and things are changing because I am praying to God. Are we asking in faith? What about the doubting individual that we read about in James chapter 1? Let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord. We’re going to talk about prayer specifics at the end tonight. I think that’s one of the great problems. Another is not only do we struggle perhaps to see changes or to think that God is actually responding to my prayers and changing things, but I think sometimes we don’t see how prayer is a vehicle and a key to two things that are important in our lives, and that is godliness and transformation.

What is worldliness? That’s bad, right? Worldliness is being focused on the world. Godliness is being focused on God. And if prayer doesn’t do anything else, and it does, we see that in point number one in James chapter one, James chapter five. But a thing that prayer absolutely accomplishes is makes you godly. It makes you focused on God and not on this world. It humbles you as you recognize there is someone greater than yourself that you need. And thus, it not only produces godliness, but helps to produce the other qualities that make us more like our Savior, who constantly spent time in prayer. Isn’t it interesting? The disciples did not say, Lord, would you teach us how to preach a sermon? You’re a master teacher. We want to teach like you.

We want to preach like you. Would you teach me how to be a preacher? Instead, they ask what? Lord, teach us to pray. Probably need to learn to pray before you need to learn to preach. You probably need to learn to pray before you start teaching.

So perhaps we don’t see what God intends prayer for us to do. It’s beyond just getting the things that we request, because everything we do in prayer is not a request, it’s not a petition. Some parts of prayer is simply extolling God, as we saw in Psalm 66. That’s not about asking God for anything. But when we extol God, we understand our place, his place, and the fact that we will one day answer to him. And this is beneficial in choices and decisions that we make in life. It’s more than about what we get from prayer, it’s how prayer changes us. We need to pray to mold ourselves into the likeness of Jesus. Don’t get so focused on point number one that you miss number two.

3. Thinking Private Prayer Should Be Like Public Prayer

But I think this is perhaps the greatest hindrance. We think public prayer, we think private prayer should be like public prayer. And it has to have all these parts. It has to start with a formal address of God and flowery speech, and all of that’s well and good, and then we have to end at the end with forgive us of our sins, a short confession at the end. Forgive us of our sins and amen. Does a prayer have to have an amen? Public it does, or else we won’t know when he’s done. Does your private prayer have to have an amen? Let’s all shake our heads like this. How long does it have to be?

I don’t read that. And pray without ceasing would suggest that’s not the case at all. Prayer is simply a humble appeal to God. Be anxious for nothing. Are you anxious about something? You probably are. Most people are anxious a little bit. We have cares in this world. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication. Now wait a minute. I’m going to ask God for I’m having a struggle with this particular thing. I’m anxious about it. With thanksgiving. Perhaps there should always be a little bit of a counting of what’s good in our lives when we’re appealing to God about what isn’t. Because a lot is good. I’m looking at some good to be thankful for. I’m thankful for just our singing here. It’s a good thing.

So many things about this is good. So many things about our lives are good. Instead of focusing on the negative with thanksgiving. Make your supplication. Make your request known to God. Just speak to God. Acknowledge. I need you. You may not even know what to pray at times. Paul talks about that in Romans chapter 8. Just tell God that. I don’t know what to pray. I’m struggling to say to you what I need to say. I need your help. Is that a prayer? Just going to the throne of God and saying, I’m having a rough time here. I need your help. Abraham was the friend of God. I would like to think that the reason that is because of the close communion he had with God.

God was his friend. I want to sing this song.

The second line is really high for me. So if I stop singing, you keep going. Dino, take over.

Two tremendous benefits come from seeking God in prayer and friendship with Him. As I mentioned, godliness, it keeps us focused on His presence. And it keeps our minds focused on our greater purpose here. And it is so easy to become distracted by all the events of our world and all the hustle and bustle of our lives to forget what it means to be God’s child and be light in our world. I found this that prayer is the key to heaven and faith unlocks the door.

Suggest that the sinner’s prayer gives us salvation, because that’s not the biblical terms of coming into a right relationship with God. But certainly the response of faith unlocks the door to our relationship with God. I want you to consider Matthew 6, verse 13, where in the model prayer, as we call it of the disciples’ prayer, Jesus says, pray that we not be led into temptation. Again, we’re asking God for assistance to steer us away from temptation’s lure. How often have we prayed that precisely? Or as he says to the disciples in the garden as we’re about to study on Sunday morning in Luke 22 and verse 40, he comes back to them and finds them sluggish and sleeping, and he says, pray that you may not enter into temptation.

Perhaps if we’re struggling with a particular sin and shortcoming in our lives, it’s because we’ve allowed prayer to not become central in our lives like it needs to be.

Prayer is a key, and faith unlocks the door. Our God is active and he is powerful. Not just in the past, but in 2018.

Conclusion

If we could only see into heaven. More next week. I said I’m going to preach on this, what it really means to walk by faith. But if we could peer into heaven and see God and see what is happening in heaven that relates to what’s happening on earth, it would probably blow our minds away. If we could know how God has responded to our praying, your praying, my praying, and see the results that have been accomplished through prayer, it would probably be more than we could fathom. Let’s pray together. As we have this period of worship tonight, our God, we are talking about our communion with you, and so we come before you now. For those of us who have been cleansed in the precious blood, we come now to seek your favor and your grace that affords us this access.

And we come to you, our God, acknowledging that we need you. We need you in our lives every day. We need your guidance so desperately. We need you to lead us to heavenly glory. We know our God that with your help we can come to your presence eternally. And so we ask you, God, to go with us. We pray for those who are within earshot and who see our lives that they might be influenced to make the decision that we did to become Christians. Help them to see the value of making that choice of choosing a life of service to you and to be engaged with your people. Our God, we pray for this church. At times we encounter difficulty and some struggle in faith and behavior, and we pray, our God, that you would help us each to persevere.

We pray for our elders as they shepherd us and guide us. Give them great wisdom. Help them to lead very effectively for the sake of our souls. Strengthen them. We thank you for them. We thank you for each other. Help us all to have humble hearts, servant hearts, that we might assist others in the journey. We pray about our growth. We pray that you would see us to the decisions that we need to make about our building and the place where we come for worship. We know that you can guide us and help us in everything. Our God, as we conclude our worship today, help us as we leave this place to not forget our purpose. To live holy lives each day. If the sun comes up tomorrow, we pray, our God, that you would help us to realize our mission.

To spend time walking with you.

Give us that eternal home with you. Be with our families and loved ones. Thank you. Thank you, thank you for hearing our prayers in the great name of our Savior. Amen.

Pray specifically. And you don’t have to do this all at the same time. But pray specifically for your own salvation. I know we taste of it now, but pray about your eternal salvation. I know there’s concerns about whether I’m going to be saved in the end. So pray about your salvation. Pray about this work as we’ve done tonight. Pray for your leaders as we’ve done tonight as well. Pray for your children. Precious gifts. She’s asleep on Daddy’s lap. How precious is that. Pray for every member, as I suggested to you a couple of weeks ago. Specifically. Go around the room as you see where people sit in the auditorium and pray for each one. Pray for your family. Not just your immediate family, but extended family that you love and care about and pray for those who are outside the body of Christ.

There is plenty to pray about. Young people, you need prayer too. It’ll help you in your transformation to become what Jesus calls you to be. It’ll help you overcome temptation and the struggles, the specific struggles that young people face. You’re in this audience tonight, not a Christian. You need this access. The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears attend to their prayers.

But you must first come to Him on His terms to have such wonderful access. And then, once you have it, enjoy each day the privilege of being able to communicate so intimately with a perfect and holy God. What an extraordinary gift our Savior has given us. If you need to respond, we’ll stay the same.