Prayer 101, Part 1

1 Kings 18: 21-26
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On today’s programme, we’re delving deep into the true essence of Christian praying. Pastor Colin emphasizes that the goal of such prayer is not to achieve relaxation of the body – it’s far more profound.

As we explore this spiritual practice, we must understand that biblical prayer entails engaging the mind, focusing thoughts, and communing with God. A stark contrast to certain forms of mysticism that encourage an empty mind, Christian prayer invites us to fill our mind with God’s presence. With the guidance of an open Bible, prayer becomes a dynamic and meaningful dialogue.

For those feeling uncertain about prayer, this broadcast is your stepping-stone – a primer, if you will, on initiating a prayerful life. Pastor Colin shares seven practical pointers on effective prayer, each beginning with the letter ‘P’, derived from the life and prayers of the prophet Elijah, a man whose prayers were met with divine responses.

Let me say to you as clearly as I can, because this is very important, the aim of Christian praying is not the relaxation of the body. The aim of Christian praying is not the relaxation of the body. If you’re into the relaxation of the body, you’re into something totally different. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick. And Colin, what is the aim of prayer? Yeah, well, in the quote there, I’m trying to distinguish between a mysticism that is all about emptying your mind and biblical prayer, which involves a filling of your mind. It’s the focusing of thought and attention on God and communing with God in the light of that. That’s why the best praying is done with an open Bible and certainly never with an empty mind. So these are two different things that have to be distinguished. For the Christian who says, I can see prayer is important for the life of a Christian, but I’m so intimidated with it, I don’t even know how to get started. You are listening to the right program today because we are going to look at prayer 101, how to get started in praying. And we don’t often have alliteration, but we’ve got seven Ps on effective prayer. So seven very practical things that you can pursue, and they’re all drawn directly from the example of Elijah and his remarkable prayer. You know, God answered prayer in Elijah’s life in such a wonderful way that he’s held out in the New Testament as one of the great examples. The prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much, the Bible says in the book of James. Well, we’re going to learn from the prayer of this righteous man, and it’s a great way to get started. So we’re looking today at the first book of Kings, chapter 18, and verses 21 to 26. So I hope you’ll be able to join us with your Bible open as we begin the message, Prayer 101. Here’s Colin. Well, we’re going to look at Elijah’s ministry of intercession, and we read about it in two places in the Bible. One is first Kings in chapter 18 that has just been read for us. The other is in the New Testament, and that is in James in chapter 5, verses 17 and 18. And I draw your attention just to these two verses now because we’ll be touching on them. We’re told there that Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours. He prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. And then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. Now putting these two scriptures together, I want to offer to you today seven observations from this story. And unusually, we don’t usually do it this way, but they happen all to begin with the letter P. We don’t often have an alliterative outline for a message we do today. So here are seven Ps of effective prayer, and I put them into a sentence that I hope might be useful to you. And it’s simply this, position yourself in private to pray what God has promised with precision and with passion and with persistence. And I know some of you are going through counting up. There are indeed seven words that begin with the letter P in that sentence. We’ll touch on all of them, though not in the same order. Let’s begin here. Position yourself in private to pray. And I draw that from 1 Kings chapter 18 and verse 42, where we’re told that Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel, and there he prayed. Now think about what has happened. Elijah had just called down fire from heaven. The people have said, the Lord, he is God. Elijah is now the proclaimed hero of the people. He would have been regarded by them like a sports star or a sports team would after winning a great trophy. If he had stayed with the people, they would have carried him on their shoulders all the way back home. But instead of allowing himself to become a celebrity, Elijah deliberately withdraws from the crowd, goes back up the mountain, and apart from his servant, he’s completely alone. And there he gets with God to pray. You read this, you think about the Lord Jesus. You remember at the beginning of his ministry, Mark chapter one, we’re told that he heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. Word gets around the town. And the next thing they bring all the sick and all the oppressed, Mark says, so that the whole town was gathered outside the door. And Jesus healed many. The next morning, the crowd is back, all these needs, and they’re looking for Jesus. He’s not there. Where is he? He’s gone up on the mountainside. He’s on his own. He’s with his father, and he has withdrawn from the crowd in order to pray. This is what Elijah does here, and it is the example of our Lord. Now from this, I want to derive this principle. Praying with other people is important, but there is a kind of praying that you can only do on your own. Lovers like to be alone together, and God is the great lover of your soul, and he desires time alone with you. Every happily married couple, every courting couple knows this. It’s great to be with other folks, but it’s very special when it’s just the two of us. And God, the great lover of your soul, has that regard for you. He delights when his children come together, but he seeks time one-on-one alone in fellowship with you. That is why Jesus said, when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, Jesus said, and pray to your Father who is in secret. This is intimate. This is you and God, and there’s a kind of praying that can only be done on your own. Now I’m simply asking you this question. What do you know about this in your life? Your Lord, Jesus Christ, if you’re a Christian, he says to you, go into your room. This isn’t an option. This is a command. Close the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. When do you do that? What is your pattern for this in your life that Jesus Christ has called you to do? This is important for all Christians, and it is especially important for Christian leaders. Elijah calls down fire in the presence of many people, but he also prays for rain when he’s completely alone. The apostles said we must give ourselves publicly to the ministry of the Word of God, but they also give themselves privately to the ministry of prayer. The public work of proclamation must be followed by the private work of intercession. That’s how the ministry of the Word of God and of the church moves forward. So I’m giving to you this encouragement and this challenge for all of us that it is of great importance that we position ourselves in private to pray. How are you going to build that into your life this week? Will you do that? Second, position yourself in private to pray. Now draw your attention here to verse 42 of 1 Kings 18, Elijah bowed himself down to the earth and put his face between his knees. This is very interesting that the scripture does not record what Elijah said when he prayed, but it does record the posture that he adopted when he came before God in prayer. God always speaks with intent and always speaks with precision, and the Holy Spirit has preserved this vivid description of Elijah’s posture. Picture him with me, will you? He is kneeling on the ground and his head is all the way forward, touching the ground in front of his knees. And again, this makes us think about the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re told by Matthew that when he came to the garden of Gethsemane that Jesus fell on his face and he prayed. In all probability, if you think of a great rock, Jesus draping himself, his entire body over this rock and with great sweat pouring himself out in intercession before the Father. Now the Bible does not give to us any one commanded posture for prayer. There are different postures that are appropriate for different situations. You can pray when you’re walking. It’s a good thing to do. You can pray while you’re driving, but make sure you do it with your eyes well and truly open. The Bible does not give to us any one posture for prayer. We are given great liberty in this regard, but it does record the posture that people adopted in particular times, and that surely, therefore, has some significance. We talk today about the subject of body language, which simply means this, that the posture of your body says a great deal about what is going on in your mind. So that even as I speak and even as you are engaged in active listening, the posture of the speaker and the posture of those who listen, this says something. This communicates something about how engaged each of us is, and this is part of normal life. I was in an extremely long meeting not so long ago, and afterwards someone said to me, a dear friend said to me, you know Colin, I was watching you in that meeting and I can read you like a book. He said it’s fascinating. You come in and you go out and you lean forward when you’re engaged and interested in what’s being said and then you sort of lean back when you’re losing interest. He said it’s fascinating. He wasn’t listening to anything that I said. He was just watching. He said, you know, you’re looking at the clock. And I thought, I’ve got to watch that. I can read you like a book. Well, it’s true, isn’t it? The posture of the body says a great deal about what is going on in the mind and heart. Now what does the posture of Elijah’s body say about what is going on in his mind and his heart here? Surely as you picture this great prophet, and now he’s rolled up like a little ball on the ground before Almighty God. What is that saying? What’s going on? He’s surely confessing in that body language his total dependence upon God. His intense seriousness before God. People have been dying because of this drought. It’s been going on three and a half years. This is not a casual request of God that he can say, kind of wandering around on a sunny day on the top of the mountain. No, he kneels to the ground. He puts his face between his knees. Oh God, I’m serious. I’ll tell you one of the great blessings to me at the end of our church board meetings is it has become a pattern for all of the members of the church board to get on their knees out in the conference room there and to pray for the blessing of God on this congregation and on the life and the ministry of the church. There’s something incredibly moving and powerful about that. Our sense of dependence upon God, our sense of serious desire that the blessing of God will fall in greater measure. Now, in as much as you are able, and sometimes in particular, you may find this to be very helpful to you, to come before God on your knees. It’s a way of saying, oh God, here I am again, and I feel the weight of who you are, and I feel the weight of what I am now bringing to you. The Listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message Prayer 101, part of our series, The Surprising Influence of a Godly Life. And if you ever miss the message or if you join late and want to catch up or go back and listen to any of our earlier messages, why don’t you come online to openthebible.org.uk. There you can download any of the previous messages directly from our website. You can also find us as a podcast on any of your favorite podcasting sites. Just search for Open the Bible UK. Let’s get back to the message now. We’re in 1 Kings chapter 18. Here’s Colin. By the way, and this is very important, some Christians have become completely confused between Christian praying and Eastern mysticism. You know, you see all over the place these days images of someone adopting a posture that is to relax the mind and to relax the body, and the language of spirituality is always flowing over all of this stuff. And it’s very easy, particularly for young Christians, to look at this and to see this and to say, well now, oh, this must be just another version of what praying is, this kind of moving into a kind of relaxation mode and so forth and so on. Let me say to you as clearly as I can, because this is very important, the aim of Christian praying is not the relaxation of the body. The aim of Christian praying is not the relaxation of the body. If you’re into the relaxation of the body, you’re into something totally different. Totally different. The aim of Christian praying is not to send your mind to sleep, it is to waken it up. This is not to get in touch with some kind of inner self. This is Elijah doing the intense, holy work of pleading with Almighty God and what he finds appropriate as a posture there is not some expression of relaxation, it is to curl himself up like a ball and say, oh God, I am utterly dependent on you. There’s all the difference in the world, do you see that? So position yourself. No one posture that’s commanded in the Bible, so use many in different appropriate settings, but learn from Elijah because his body language is saying something important here. Number three, position yourself in private to pray what God has promised. There’s the third P I want just to focus on for a moment. Now when Elijah prayed for rain, he was clearly praying for something that God had already promised. We know that from 1 Kings 18 and verse 1, where the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, I will send rain upon the earth. So when Elijah prays for rain, he is praying for something that God has promised to do for the revealed will of God. Now again, this is important. I want to be practical and helpful in encouraging us all in our prayers here today. Remember that prayer and faith in prayer is never a matter of sort of trying to muster up the self-belief that something that you want to happen will happen. That’s called auto-suggestion, and it has no part in Christian praying. The power doesn’t reside within you. Faith is not convincing myself that something I want to happen is going to happen. Faith is a believing response to the word of God, right? So praying with faith has the same character. It has the character of a believing response to the word of God. Now this is very important when we bring our requests to God, because God has given us the wonderful freedom, the invitation to ask anything that we want from him. But the freedom to ask anything does not come with a commitment from God to give everything that we ask. Prayer is never a means of manipulating God into doing something he did not intend or plan. Prayer is not some way in which you could kind of, as it were, strong-arm God into doing something that was counter to his will. How would that ever be possible? That would be the worst kind of idolatry even to be thinking like that. And this is important because many of you will have friends, and some of you will have had this experience. I think of someone who I love dearly who was very, very ill, and then some Christian came and said to this lady, if you had more faith you would be healed. That is devastating. That added insult to injury. There’s something wrong with you and your faith that you have not been healed, you see. And it comes from this assumption that somehow faith is a way of producing this strong-arming of God and that we can get anything that we want. That is not the promise of Scripture. We are invited to ask what we will, but God is God, and we are not the ones who command him. So Elijah prayed for what God had said he would do. And there’s a principle here that we can apply to our own prayers, and it’s simply this, to cultivate the practice of praying what God has promised. I want to encourage you in that today, to cultivate the practice of praying for what God has promised. And here’s how you do that. You use the Bible to fuel your prayers. When you go into your room and you close the door, take your Bible with you. Pray with an open Bible. And as you read the Bible, turn what you are reading in the Bible, what God is saying to you, turn it back to him in your prayers. You will find this wonderfully refreshing for your prayer life. So I’ll give you an example. I was reading from Daniel and chapter 12 and verse 3. Just this verse in reading through a few verses from Daniel, those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness shall be like the stars forever and forever. So that little verse that just popped out of the first part of Daniel in chapter 12, reading these few verses, is telling me a couple of very important things. That God wants his people to be wise, and that God wants his people to turn many to righteousness, for them to have influence. There are two things that I can pray in regards to myself, because I can think immediately of situations in which I really need wisdom, and I can think of situations in which I long to be an influence in helping someone find the right path. I can see ways in which I need that in my own life. Then I begin to pray for others. I think of some missionaries, I think of folks within the family, I think of others who are on my prayer list at a particular time, and here are two things that are going to apply in all kinds of different ways into their sphere and give me something fresh to pray. And then tomorrow or the next day, as I pray for some folks again, there’s something else in the scripture that I read, and it provides fresh fuel for prayer. To begin to pray fresh things in relation to the word of God, to pray back what God has said. See, otherwise, how do you pray for people faithfully for 20 years, just saying, God bless them, God bless them, God bless them? You run dry, don’t you? You need fuel, and the word of God is going to be the fuel for your prayers. Think of it this way, engines run better when there is fuel in the tank, right? You think about starting up one of your small engines, make sure there is fuel in the tank before you start the engine. The fuel of the engine of prayer is the word of God, put the fuel of the word of God in the tank before you crank up the engine of prayer, and it will help you, and it will refresh your prayer, and it will give you a way of responding to the word of God as you bring it back to him in prayer. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message Prayer 101, part of our series, The Surprising Influence of a Godly Life, and really practical advice there about how to make your prayer life more effective. Many Christians feel that their prayer life isn’t what they want it to be, and if that’s you, I hope you’ll take the time to go back and listen to the message again. You can do that on our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners, that’s people like you, and if you’re able to set up a new regular monthly donation to the work of Open the Bible, we’d love to thank you by sending you a free copy of the book, The Fight, written by John White. Colin, what can we expect to get out of reading this book? Well, you know, every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow, and that came home to me freshly when I was visiting a friend at another church, a senior pastor who’s a friend of mine. I was waiting for him after the service. I got into a conversation with someone who was on the security team in the church. I asked him, how long have you been in this church and how did you come here? And he said to me, well, you know, every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And he said, in our last church, my wife and I weren’t growing, but, you know, since we’ve been here, we’ve been growing and we’ll be here for as long as we continue to grow. Now, that brother was exactly right. Every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And you know, early in my Christian life, God used this book, The Fight, by John White, to help me get growing as a Christian believer. It’s still on my shelf. The pages are really, really worn because it’s a book that I’ve gone back to many, many times. And it just is a practical encouragement on living the Christian life, how to grow as a Christian. My edition is years and decades old and delighted that there’s a new edition and that we’re able to share it with friends who listen to Open Bible this month. Well, the book is called The Fight, and it’s our gift to you if you’re able to set up a new monthly donation to the work of Open the Bible for £5 or more each month. Go to our website for details, openthebible.org.uk. Many people who begin to pray find it difficult to continue in prayer and to pray with feeling and conviction. Find out why next time on Open the Bible.

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Colin Smith

Trustee / Founder and Teaching Pastor

Colin Smith is the Senior Pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He has authored a number of books, including Heaven, How I Got Here and Heaven, So Near – So Far. Colin is the Founder and Teaching Pastor for Open the Bible. Follow him on X formerly Twitter.

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