What Does The Bible Say About Prayer?

— Sherlon Atkins

Hi, I'm Sherlon and today I want to talk about a subject I'm really passionate about. I hope by the end of this talk that you'll get excited about prayer, and that you'll start to pray more.

Now growing up I was surrounded by prayer. My Mum would pray about anything and everything. Coming from a West-Indian background that was totally natural because prayer and church were like the fabric of life. Going to university, my prayer life took off. It went ballistic. I would go to early morning prayer meetings, I'd go to late night prayer meetings, I'd go to all night prayer meetings. That term, "going on a night out", for me, wasn't just about going to clubs. So I got really excited about prayer.

Now today I want to look at a few questions. First, I want to look at,

Does God Hear The Prayers Of Sinners?

When I say "sinners", I mean people who are not yet Christians. Now I'm a religious studies teacher in secondary school, and sometimes my students will ask when we're talking about prayer, "Sir, if I ask God for a new laptop, or a new iPhone, or a new Playstation, or if I ask God if I was going to win the lottery, would God answer my prayers?" I say to them that God is not Santa Claus. God is not a slot machine. He doesn't give away freebies. There is more to prayer than just asking. God is more interested in relationship with us than He is in just giving us what we ask for.

I've got two amazing daughters. Evie's six and Hope's four. During halftime, we were in Calderstones Park and it was freezing. But my daughters wanted ice cream. So I thought to myself, you know what, I'll buy them the ice cream. They asked. Prayer is asking. They asked, so I bought them the ice cream and I bought one for myself as well. Why'd I do that? Well, I did that because they're my children. They asked. I love them. I have relationship with them.

Okay, now, the thing is, if they just wanted ice cream or if they just asked me for things all the time, and never wanted to spend any time with me at all, that wouldn't be a very healthy relationship as a parent. But God does want to answer our prayers. God does care about the prayers of people who are not Christians, people who may be seen as sinners.

In the Bible, it says that,

“While we were still sinners (while we were not yet Christians) Christ died us. ”

-- Romans 5:8 (ESV)

Christ died for the ungodly, for sinners. Now if Jesus Christ died for your sins and for my sins then he's more than willing to answer your prayers and my prayers.

There's a story in the book of Matthew, where a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus. Now the Canaanites were outcast. They were seen as unclean. They were like Gentiles. When Jesus came initially, he came to the people who were Jewish. He didn't come to the Gentiles, to the Canaanites. And she starts to pray to God, she has a conversation. You know prayer is conversation. Her son is sick. It says in the Bible, he was demon possessed. She asks God to heal Him. God says I haven't come to the Canaanites (Gentiles), I've only come for the Jews. And she pleads, she prays. She says that, even dogs eat the crumbs off the table. You know, even the people who aren't Jews are believing what you are saying. God, Jesus hears her prayer.

God hears the prayers of sinners because we are all made with His DNA. Every human being on this planet has the DNA of God inside of them, whether they recognise that or not. But God is interested in more than just answering everything we ask for. God is interested in relationship.

What Does the Bible Say About Relationship?

What does it say about communication? What does it say about friendship? In the Old Testament, there's a guy called Abram, or Abraham. The other day I was teaching, and one of my students was doing an exam question. The question said, Why is Abraham significant to Judaism and Christianity? This student wrote down, "because he was the first one who spoke with God. And then God made a promise with him. And that word promise is called covenant." So prayer is a relationship. God spoke with not to Abraham. Prayer isn't a dictatorship. It's a relationship. It's a two way conversation.

The story of Abraham talks about how one day God wants to destroy a city. Abraham prays, he pleads with God. He has this conversation. If there are five people who are worthy, will you not destroy it for five people? And he pleads and he pleads and God says this, and Abraham says that, and God listens to Abraham, and Abraham listens to God. They have a conversation. That's what prayer is about. It's about a friendship. It's about relationship. It's about getting to know someone.

Further on in the Old Testament, there's a bloke called Moses. And Moses led 2000 Israelites out of Egypt in the Exodus. And it says of Moses that God would speak to Moses as a man speaks with his friend. That's relationship.

I'm married. And if I just spoke to my wife all the time, and I never let her speak, or never listened, that wouldn't be much of a relationship. So prayer at it's heart is a two way conversation.

What Does Jesus Say About Prayer?

Jesus says an awful lot about prayer. Firstly, it says that we to have become like little children. What does that mean, "little children"? Well, my four year old, Hope. She's not in at the moment, but if she was, she might barge in the door and give me a hug, or ask for something. Little children. They always ask for things. And they come to their parents, and they think their parents can give them anything they ask for. They think their parents are all powerful. I'm not. But in the same way, we are God's children. God is our Heavenly Father. He wants us to come to Him with that kind of reckless abandonment, that kind of boldness that kids have. They haven't got any airs and graces. They don't think, should I ask my daddy for that? When they're four years old, they just ask. God wants us to come to him with that type of boldness. We can't do it but God's so much bigger than us. He possibly could.

Okay, what does Jesus say about prayer? Well, the Lord's Prayer is an amazing template for prayer. And it starts off with "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be your name". So, Jesus says that we should recognise who God is, how great he is, how big He is, that He's the God who created the Heavens and the Earth. He can answer prayers. But also, we should give him adoration. We should give him worship. We should thank him for who He is, and for what He can do.

It goes on to say about "your kingdom come". So when we pray, we can pray God's kingdom. What does that mean? It means that we can pray for good things to come into our communities, into our homes, into our schools. Places where we live, places where we work, the places where we socialise. We can pray for love, for joy, for peace, for gentleness, for kindness, for forgiveness, for honesty, for truth, for love. We can pray for God's kingdom, for Christian values to permeate our society. Your kingdom come.

Then it goes on to say, "give us this day, our daily bread", our needs. A few years back, I was unemployed, out of work, and we were struggling financially. The church that I go to, we've got a community, a group of Christians who meet together on a regular basis and we prayed. We prayed that God would give me my daily bread, would give us as a family our bread, who'd meet our needs. And over the course of those six weeks, we saw over 2 and half thousands pounds come in. After those six weeks, I was able to get another teaching job, a new job. Now God does want to meet our needs. Not always what we want, He's not Santa, He's not a slot machine, but he wants to meet our needs. And if we don't express that in prayer, then it won't get met.

So what does the Bible say that Jesus says about prayer? He says that we should ask for what we need. It goes on to say that we should "forgive those who sin against us" because God forgave us. I'm always moved when I read the story of Gee Walker. You know, Gee Walker is the mother of Anthony Walker who was murdered in a racist attack in Knowsley, in Huyton in 2005. And she forgave the two men who murdered her son, and she said that she forgave them because God forgave her. Her daughter, Dominique, Anthony's sister, said the Bible said you forgive someone 70 x 7 times. The Bible says 70 x 7. You should always forgive people. And I think Gee and Dominique did that because they know that when you forgive, it doesn't mean that you forget. But it means that you don't allow bitterness to rob you of the rest of your life. You forgive because, yes, it makes you feel better, and it means the person who did what they did, if they don't change it doesn't matter, but if you forgive, you're doing what Jesus told you to do. And you forgive because Jesus forgave you. When he died on cross he forgave all our sins. So we forgive. So Jesus says in prayer, we should forgive others.

And then he goes on to say about how we should steer clear of evil, "deliver us from evil". God can help us to stay away from evil and deal with evil if we pray.

What Does the Bible Say About Guidance?

Now I am a fervent Liverpool fan. I love Liverpool. And I was intrigued to read the story of Fabinho. Fabinho is a midfield player from Brazil. He joined Liverpool in 2019. He basically joined Liverpool because God said that he could. So I just want to read a bit of the story. Fabinho is a Christian. Fabinho decided to join Liverpool because he consulted God over the decision, according to his friends. The article goes on to say, Fabinho only made the move to Liverpool because the man upstairs said it was the right thing to do. Before agreeing to a £40 million transfer, Fabinho sent a message to a WhatsApp group of childhood friends, to pray for God's guidance about joining the reds. The article ends. The move to Liverpool was a no brainer. It's everything he ever wanted. But even so he wouldn't have signed if God did not want him to. When we ask and pray for guidance, like Fabinho, God will give us a sense of peace, that this is the right thing to do. A sense of unease may mean that it's the wrong thing to do. When we pray to God for guidance, we're saying that we're interdependent on God.

When you're young, when you're a baby, you're dependent upon your parents for everything. As you grow older, you become more independent. But as Christians, when we pray, we show God that we are dependent, interdependent upon him. Prayer is about living with and walking with God in relationship. Prayer is a sign that we are not number one. Prayer is a sign that our ego is not in control.

“For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

-- Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

God has plans for us. God has plans for our life. Our life can be an adventure. If we invite God into our lives through prayer, if we see prayer as something we habitually do, all the time, every day, then life will be an adventure, and we'll walk through it with God by our side.

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