Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Prayer doesn't come naturally. That's why Jesus had to even teach the disciples how to pray. And today on Telling the Truth, Stuart Briscoe shares Christ's powerful lesson on prayer with you too. But before he begins, the generosity of friends like you keeps broadcasts like this one going out around the world, so you and others can experience life through the biblical teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

As thanks for your gift today, we'll send you "Powerful and Effective Prayer," a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill that will give you timeless wisdom on the subject of prayer and help you build a more consistent and inspired prayer life. So call today to request yours at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's Stuart Briscoe with his message, "How Disciples Pray."

Stuart Briscoe: I was in South Korea on one occasion speaking to groups of students. Before every session, they took me into a room with about 100 students in it, and they were all kneeling on a hard floor. This was in South Korea, and the South Korean church is a praying church. They would blow the average Western church's mind the way they go about praying.

They got me to kneel down on the hard floor with them. I wasn't very good at that. My old, creaky knees were not too excited about it. Then they clapped hands on various parts of my anatomy, and somebody rang a little bell. The moment they rang that little bell, the whole place erupted in sound. 100 South Koreans praying, everyone praying aloud, everybody praying aloud at the top of their voice. The cacophony of noise was unbelievable.

My interpreter whispered in my ear during the prayer, "South Korean Christians suspect the Almighty is slightly hard of hearing." No, He is not hard of hearing and needs our prayers cranked up. And He is not reluctant and needs persuading. I was at a wedding on one occasion, and the grandfather of the bride was asked to say a prayer before the beautiful hot meal that had been provided for us. By the time he finished, we sat down to a pretty mediocre cold meal because he had worked his way through the Bible to every reference on marriage and weddings.

Our prayers are not a matter of trying to persuade a reluctant God. Neither are they efforts to inform an ignorant God. Well, what are they? Our prayers are entry into the presence of God, who invites us into His presence. And this is what He says: we are to pray to our Father. Now, one of the unique things about Jesus was that when He came and began to minister among people, they watched Him pray. This is one reason they asked Him to teach them to pray—they watched Him pray.

And when they watched Him pray and they heard Him praying, He prayed to God in a very intimate way and called Him Father. What could be more intimate? And don't, if you had trouble with your dad, don't look at your troubled relationship with your dad and then balloon it up to divine size and get a picture of God who is a reluctant, bad-tempered old alcoholic or whatever you think your dad was.

That's not the way to do it. You look at the Father as He's revealed in Scripture as the loving, caring one, and we model our human fathering on Him. We don't look at human fathering and balloon it up to get a picture of God. And the idea is that Jesus is teaching the disciples: you can approach God on an intimate basis, and you can come boldly like a little child coming to his dad.

But always remember this: that He is the Father in heaven. So whilst you come as a little child to his dad, you've got the deepest respect for your Father. He is the Father in the heavens. Now, what are our concerns? Our concerns are first of all that Your name might be hallowed. I remember Jill telling me the story about one of the kids in her class in school in England. He was praying, "Our Father who art in heaven, Harold be Thy name."

That was an understandable mistake because at that time our prime minister was called Harold Wilson. And Harold Wilson used to get confused between himself and the Almighty at times. But it doesn't say Harold be Thy name, hallowed. What's hallowed mean? How many times have we prayed it? Hallowed be Thy name. What's Halloween?

Well, Halloween is the evening before All Hallows' Day. What is All Hallows' Day? A commemoration of the saints. What do saints and hallow have to do with each other? Hallowed means holy, or a set-apart one, or a saint. What does hallowed mean? I want Your name to be regarded as holy. What's so great about His name?

His name, demonstrated to us in many, many ways, is descriptive of who He is. What is my focus? Oh Father, Heavenly Father, I come before You, and I tell You what really bothers me: this world in which I live, You are not regarded the way You ought to be regarded, and it tears me up. And I want to see people recognizing You for who You are. That's the focus.

"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come." The kingdom has come, the rule of God has come in Christ, but it hasn't fully come. There are regions in which I live and move and have my being where God is clearly not ruled. He is ignored. He is blasphemed. The only time they mention His name is in a curse.

It tears me up, God. Oh Father, I am praying. I'm praying about Your glory, which is so lacking in our world and the recognition of it. I want Your name to be honored, and I want Your kingdom to fully come. And I want Your will to be done on earth the way it's done in heaven. Now, that only makes sense when you know how it's done in heaven.

How is His will, how are His purposes worked out in heaven? Well, here's an example: we know that in heaven there's an archangel called Gabriel. I guess Gabriel kind of likes it up there; it's a pretty good job he's got. One day God said to him, "I want you to go down to earth." I can imagine Gabriel saying, "I don't like it down there. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to go to Nazareth. That is the pits. Everybody knows Nazareth is the pits. Why do you want me to go there?" "I want you to talk to a young woman. I don't talk to young women. I don't like them. What am I supposed to say to her?" "You're supposed to tell her some news she doesn't want to hear. Great. So you want me to leave my great number here, you want me to go down there, I don't like it, you want me to go to the absolute pits, you want me to talk to people I don't like, and you want me to tell them stuff they don't want to hear. Great."

Is that how he reacted? No. What did he do? When he was told to go, he went. And he went immediately, and he went joyfully, and he did it thoroughly. And that's how His will is done in heaven. This is what I want to see: I want to see it done down here like it is up there, starting with me.

This is how you pray. You don't pray as a performance. You don't pray just babbling a lot of incoherent words. This is how you pray. Then, of course, you can get into your personal needs. But the important thing about this is when you begin to address your personal needs, it isn't just my daily bread and my trespasses, etc. It's ours.

So we pray for each other. And what we do is we look at all the areas of our practical lives and we bring them before the Lord and relate them to Him. So what does He say? Give us this day our daily bread. Practical physical needs. What else does He say? Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. What's that? Relational needs.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. What's that? Spiritual needs. That about covers it, doesn't it? Our physical needs, our relational needs, our spiritual needs. And we bring them all before the Lord, and we relate them to Him. We pray for our daily bread. Literally, the situation when Jesus lived was this: guys would get a day's work, and at the end of the day they're paid their day's wages.

If they've had a day's work, they've got a day's wages. If they've got a day's wages, they've got enough money to buy bread for the next day. That was how they lived, hand to mouth. So the prayer is very simple: we're just asking, Lord, that our physical needs will be met so that we have enough.

Guest (Male): When you support Telling the Truth, you make it possible for people all over the world to hear God's word and experience life in Christ. In fact, you're helping people just like Jimmy, who wrote in and told us, "I look forward to listening. I appreciate your biblically-based teaching and the sharing of your experiences, as well as the variety of topics. Your ministry has been very helpful to me. Thanks for sharing."

Do you ever feel like your prayers are bouncing off the walls instead of landing in the presence of God? Or do you pray more out of obligation than relationship? Maybe you recognize a lack of passion in your voice even as you pray, and you're left to wonder, "Does God even hear my prayers, or will He answer them?" We'd love to help lead you toward a more inspired and vibrant prayer life by sending you a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill called "Powerful and Effective Prayer."

This collection of messages can help you uncover the secret to a more vibrant prayer life, one where you lose yourself in the presence of God and have confidence that your prayers are rising and making a difference. You'll gain wisdom and insight on prayer from Stuart and Jill's decades of ministry. "Powerful and Effective Prayer" comes as our thanks for your gift to help more people fix their eyes on eternity through the truths of God's word shared through Telling the Truth.

Your support enables countless people across the globe to stand strong in the unchanging truth of Scripture. And we're so grateful for friends like you. So be sure to request your copy when you give a gift today. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Okay, let's get back to Stuart with today's message from the Briscoe series, "More Effective Prayer."

Stuart Briscoe: Then we want to pray about our relational needs. Now, this is difficult, this one: "Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors." That almost sounds—in fact, the verse that explains it a little further on in verses 14 and 15 makes it look as if being forgiven is dependent on us forgiving. Well, there's a problem with that because the Scriptures teach in the broader picture that our salvation is not dependent on what we do. We don't earn our salvation.

So, in other words, forgiveness is not a meritorious response to the fact that we have been very forgiving people. But be careful here. When Jesus said the kingdom has arrived, the first thing He said after that was, "Repent." What does that mean? Change your mind. About what? About God, and about yourself, and your relationship to God, and be willing to have Him change your attitude. Repent.

That's part of it. And it's repentance that opens the door to forgiveness. That's what we need to pray about. We need to pray about our physical needs, we need to pray about our relational needs, and then finally we need to pray about our spiritual needs. Our spiritual needs are, in a nutshell, this: we understand that there is an enormous evidence for the fact of a great and loving and wonderful God in our world.

And at the same time, there is evidence for a malevolent evil force in our world. They're both there. And there's an enormous struggle going on between the two, and you and I live right in the middle of it because the arena of this struggle is where we live. That means if we're not careful, we can get ourselves chewed up. And here's the strange thing about it: God is God, and the evil one is not.

The evil one is potentially defeated already. Jesus already did it. If you like, he's dead but he won't lie down. He's defeated. God's got him on a chain, but it's a short leash, but he's still around. And he's a force to be reckoned with. Why in the world does God let him still operate? Because He knows that His people just need a little pressure at times.

Because if they don't have a little pressure at times, guess what? They can get very casual, they can get very laid back, they can take it easy, and they become flabby. So He allows just enough pressure, just enough testing—not to solicit us to evil, God would never do that—but He allows enough to make sure that there is enough to keep us on our toes and on our knees.

So what's our prayer? Our prayer is, "Lord, this tempting thing is a solicitation to evil. You don't do that. I know You don't do that. But You do allow testings, which give us an opportunity to go right. And it's funny; one set of circumstances can become a solicitation to evil to go wrong or an opportunity to do right. It's amazing. Same thing. It's your response that makes the difference.

Now, our prayer is, "God, I know how weak and vulnerable I am. I know how powerful the enemy of my soul really is. So I ask You, Lord, if You're going to lead me into a testing, please, please make sure that that evil one doesn't get his teeth into me and rip me apart." Lead us not into testing, but deliver us out of the clutches of the evil one.

First Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13: "There is no testing that has come your way that is not common to man. But God is faithful. Even in the testing, God is faithful. And He will not allow you to be tempted above your ability to cope, but will with the test also make a way of escape—not so that you can get out of it, but so that you can stand up strong and faithful in it."

That never made much sense to me until a friend of mine called Alan Redpath, a great preacher in England, explained it to me one day. He said, "If you have got an engine that is driven by steam, you need a boiler. And the key to that boiler is you've got to build up pressure—enough pressure. But if you get too much pressure, it'll blow the machine up. So we put a thing on it called a safety valve, set so that you won't get too much pressure and blow the machine up."

But it also makes sure you do get enough pressure so the thing drives. And God's your safety valve. No temptation has come your way that isn't common to all people. But God is faithful and won't allow you to be tempted above your ability, but will with the way of tempting, testing, make a way of escape.

I had some good friends down in the Delta of Mississippi. They used to grow cotton on a big plantation. Then that business, the bottom fell out of that, so they tried to grow rice. That didn't work. Then somebody hit on a good idea: they had a lot of heavy loam soil, and they figured if they dug out deep into it, they could fill it with water and it would be watertight and the water would sit there.

So they dug big tanks, and they began to breed catfish. Catfish. And they fed the catfish. And then they were so successful that they built a big factory to process the catfish. And tankers would come in and suck in the catfish and into big tankers they'd go and they'd take them to the factory and they'd spew it all out. And the poor old catfish were taken into a machine and within half an hour they were packaged and ready for shipping. Fresh catfish. That's where fresh catfish comes from.

But then they had a problem. Do you know what they discovered? They discovered that the catfish kind of liked it because they were being force-fed, and all the food was coming. They were just gorging and gorging and gorging and gorging. And the quality of meat was declining and declining and declining. And they didn't know what to do because they were just getting too lazy.

And then somebody hit on a good idea. Do you know what they did? They put one baby barracuda in each tank. And it worked wonders. This baby barracuda stirred things up a little bit. And the old catfish got a little bit disturbed with this thing. But you know what it did for them? It made better meat out of them. And that's what your Heavenly Father is doing. And that's how we pray.

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth. You're listening to Stuart Briscoe. We'll be right back with some answers from Stuart about today's message. But first: "I'll pray for you. Just pray about it. Prayer changes things." You've probably heard statements like these from other Christians or said them yourself. But if you ask most believers how prayer works, the answers are likely to be all over the map.

So how does God want to use prayer in our lives? Is He listening to every single request, and can prayer really make a difference? To help answer questions like these, we've put together Stuart and Jill's five-message teaching series, "Powerful and Effective Prayer." This collection of messages can help you uncover the secret to a more vibrant prayer life, one where you lose yourself in the presence of God and have confidence that your prayers are rising and making a difference.

You'll gain wisdom and insight on prayer from Stuart and Jill's decades of ministry. "Powerful and Effective Prayer" comes as our thanks for your gift to help more people fix their eyes on eternity through the truths of God's word shared through Telling the Truth. Your support enables countless people across the globe to stand strong in the unchanging truth of Scripture. And we're so grateful for friends like you. So be sure to request your copy when you give a gift today.

Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here are Stuart's answers to some questions about his message and about prayer. Stuart, you said today the phrase "hallowed be Thy name" is all about the holiness of God. What is so great about the name of God, and how should we incorporate it into our prayers?

Stuart Briscoe: Yes, when we start out the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," that's a statement that many people have made, I'm sure on many, many occasions, but they may not necessarily understand what they're actually saying, what they're actually praying. To be hallowed means to be holy, or to be set apart, or to be honored, or to be respected.

By name—God reveals Himself. He is Spirit; He is invisible. He reveals Himself to us in many, many ways, including in His names. Shakespeare said, "What's in a name?" Well, the answer as far as God is concerned is a whole lot. For when we look at the names whereby God has revealed himself to human beings, we realize that His names speak volumes about His character, about His being, about His purposes.

So you put all that together and you say, "God, I want Your name, which reveals who You are, to be honored." Or in other words, I want who You are to be deeply honored in our world. That should be a heart cry of all of us.

Guest (Male): As you mentioned today, Stuart, we're pretty good at praying for our physical needs. But according to Jesus, it's just as important to pray for our relational and spiritual needs too, right?

Stuart Briscoe: Yes, in the Lord's Prayer, he not only has said that we should pray give us today our necessary bread, or enough bread for the day, but in addition to that, he said that we should be concerned about experiencing forgiveness and that would be related to our willingness to forgive other people. In other words, that was bringing up the relational issues.

But then, in addition to that, he said, "And please don't lead us into temptation." Well, that's dealing with the spiritual dimension of our lives. And it's a serious mistake for us to be so wrapped up in the physical material dimensions of life to the exclusion of the relational and the spiritual dimensions of life. Realistically speaking, where do most of our problems occur? I would suggest to you in our relationships.

Let me ask you another question: where would we say that we are most lacking in our development: physically, or relationally, or spiritually? I submit to you it is probably spiritually. We need to be praying about all three areas, as the Lord's Prayer instructs us.

Guest (Male): Thanks so much, Stuart. We hope today's message encouraged you. Before we go, remember that when you give today to help keep Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one going out, we'll send you Powerful and Effective Prayer. A newly curated collection of five messages from Stuart and Jill that can help you start moving from a mundane prayer life to one that's rich and vibrant.

So call now to give and request Powerful and Effective Prayer with our thanks. 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for listening today. Come back next time for more bold truth to help you experience life. We'll see you then right here on Telling the Truth.