Prayer ACTS James 5:13-18

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1 Prayer ACTS James 5:13-18 Rev. Michael D. Halley June 29, 2014 Suffolk Christian Church Suffolk, Virginia Third Sunday After Pentecost **************************************************************************************************** One evening in the South Pacific, a passing ship s lookout noticed smoke coming from one of three huts on a deserted island. The captain of the ship immediately dispatched a boat to go and investigate. When the crew arrived at the island, they were met by a shipwreck survivor who told them he had been living all by himself on that island for five years. One of the crew asked, If you have been alone for five years, why are there three huts? Well, explained the survivor, I live in one and I go to church in the other. Then, what about the third hut? they asked. That s where I used to go to church, he replied. i I want to speak to you this morning about prayer. Prayer, of course, is central to who we are and what we do as Christians. Prayer is conversation with God, prayer is direction from God, and 1

2 prayer is the meshing of our hearts with the heart of God. A famous Bible teacher once said, If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God. ii This morning I want to revisit a little diagram I have used for several years and which you may also know about. It is an acrostic, a sort of memory aid. I find it very helpful in my own prayers. It is ACTS... Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication (or Petition). First, Adoration. A former missionary teacher in Africa tells the following story. iii In his first week teaching secondary school in Kenya in 1977, he had some business with the headmaster. So, he walked into his office, saw that he was busy, and just blurted out his request for additional math books for his students. The headmaster looked slightly pained, then asked the teacher, So how are you this morning? Are you settling in well? And your parents, have you heard from your parents? How are they? Those questions were a polite reprimand to the teacher, for in most of Africa it is exceptionally rude to make a request of a person as soon as you enter their presence. You must first greet the person, ask about their family and children (and their grandparents and their neighbors!) and only after all these preliminaries are completed can you make any request. The idea behind this custom is that the two of you have a relationship, and that relationship is more important than anything you might need from each other. You care about each other, you are concerned for each other first and foremost. Once you have 2

3 established that caring relationship through your greeting, then you can make a request. 3 In similar fashion, so should our prayers be. We should not approach God immediately making requests, but our prayers should begin with adoration and praise. This pattern is apparent in the Bible. Almost every one of the prayers of great men of faith recorded in the Bible begins with adoration. For example: When Daniel prays to God out of concern for his nation, he begins like this: Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments... (Daniel 9:4, NASB) When King Hezekiah iv confronts the almost certain destruction of his nation, as the most powerful military force in the world is about to attack, he begins his prayer like this: O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. (2 Kings 19:15) These prayers do not have long adorations, but they do begin by acknowledging who God is and reminding the person doing the praying of some of the characteristics of the God they are addressing. They also, like that African custom, establish the relationship between the speaker and God. Our prayers should do the same. Now, I realize and recognize there might be times when you truly do not have the time for adoration, such as in a dire emergency, but otherwise, we need to recognize God for who He is when we pray.

4 4 And, adoration itself is a worthy theme for an entire prayer. There could be times in our private prayer time that we focus entirely on adoring the God who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. These prayers might focus on one characteristic of God, such as: God s faithfulness, as we think of how God has revealed his faithfulness in the Bible, and then thinking of examples in biblical history, national history, and your personal history. God s power, as we think through the mighty power of God as that we see in His creation. Speaking of God s power, a young man figured out that if all the stars were divided up among all the people on earth, each one of us would receive two trillion v (3) stars... for every man, woman, and child. That is the kind of God we have -- a God of unimaginable power, a God who has created unimaginable wealth. Here are a few suggested phrases you could use to adore God as you begin your prayer: O Lord, maker of the universe, almighty and all-powerful God,... Dear God, You are a loving God and a forgiving God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Giver of the Holy Spirit... Father, You alone are to be praised in all the earth... You can find great inspiration for your adoration of God in the Psalms. Begin your prayer with adoration. Next, Confession.

5 5 Adoration is remembering who God is; confession is remembering who we are and how weak we are. Confession, I am sure, is the most difficult part of praying. I don t like to admit my failings, do you? I don t like to admit that I have done things wrong in God s sight, even though everyone else around me seems to be doing the same thing. My confession, by the way, is not about them, it is about me. If our confession is to be authentic, we should first and foremost acknowledge our specific failures to live a life worthy of our calling. Did you notice I said specific? We need to speak our sins and failings in a specific way. In addition to confessing our personal sins, we also need to confess sins committed by groups with which we are identified. For example, if you continue reading Daniel s prayer, mentioned earlier, you will find that he is confessing the sins of the Jewish people, even though he was not personally guilty of those sins. We, too, need to be aware of the sins committed by our families, our nation, our race, and, yes, even our church. And, confession is something even more. We also need to confess before God our inability to accomplish anything without Him. We need to confess our lack of power to accomplish anything on our own. It is our way of saying, God, You were right about me and my weakness and my inability to do anything without Your power. Then comes Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving would suggest that we are thinking of the blessings God has given us, such as our salvation, our families, our friends, our material possessions, etc. And, of course, we should thank God for all of these.

6 6 But did you know that according to the Bible we should also thank God for the trials and difficulties we face? Remember what James the Apostle said at the beginning of his book? Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. (James 1:2-4, NLT vi ) Consider it an opportunity for joy when you face trials. Wow! Is James serious? Do you consider your trials to be a joy? James is not saying here that we should jump up and down and cheer. Rather, he is saying that we should have a quiet confidence that God will use these trials for our benefit, and the benefit of others who see us encounter trials with this attitude. Anyone can be thankful and joyful when things are going well; but when we are thankful and joyful even in the midst of trials and difficulties, we stand out from the world around us and we are letting our light of Christian witness shine. A pastor once challenged his congregation in this way: Commit yourself right now to thanking God for the next five disagreeable things that happen to you. By the way, did you know there is a web site called You can find some great suggestions and quotes to help you be thankful. Be thankful and be specific when you thank God for all His abundant blessings and mercies. Finally, there is Supplication. Now, let s all fess up: Most of our prayers are dominated by

7 7 asking God for stuff. We probably don t need a lot of instruction concerning this form of prayer. It has been said that God answers our supplications in one of three ways: Yes, No, or Not Yet. In asking God for specific things to happen, we probably need to all acknowledge that No might be the best answer for some of our petitions. Amy Carmichael vii spent over fifty years as a missionary to India. Amy s mother had taught her about prayer when she was three years old, and Amy believed with a child s simple faith that all her prayers would be answered. Now, the desire of her heart was to have beautiful blue eyes instead of her own deep brown eyes. So she prayed one night, Oh, Lord, please, make my eyes blue tonight! And she went to sleep with full confidence that her eyes would be blue in the morning. When she woke up, she immediately ran to the mirror to look at her pretty blue eyes. She looked -- and was devastated. God had let her down. Now, in many cases we never know why God says No. But sometimes we find out. Amy believed in her later years that she knew why she had to have a dark complexion and the brown eyes. In India, with brown eyes she was able to dress like the locals and walk through the city streets without calling attention to herself. That would have been impossible had she been blonde and blue-eyed. So, when we get no for an answer, we should thank God, and believe that He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him. (See Romans 8:28) Prayer can be dangerous. Did you know that? We all know

8 8 that prayer changes things, but did you know that the number one thing that prayer changes is YOU?? So, be prepared that as a result of your prayer life, your intimate communion with God, that God will change your mind, your heart, your habits, your attitudes, and your behaviour. Prayer is your time with your Father. A pastor told a story about his three-year-old son Joel. Joel, he says, will sit on his mother s lap, reach up with his hands, put one hand on each of her cheeks, turn her face toward him, look dreamily into her eyes and say, I wuv you, Mommy. Joel seeks her face, he longs to just look into her eyes. viii We are to do the same with our God. Finally, let me say that the first prayer we must say, before any others we might eventually pray, is a prayer to join the family of God. Call it a prayer of confession of faith, if you will. And I would like to lead one right now, and if you have never prayed to ask God to forgive you and bring you into His family, then pray this with me: O God, I am a sinner. I fall short of Your glory in every way possible. I need Your love and Your forgiveness and I claim Your promise that I may have forgiveness through the finished work of Your Son Jesus, who died to pay for my sins. Fill me with Your Spirit, O God, that I might be strengthened to be Your disciple. I pray this in Your Name -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- one God forever and ever, Amen. Amen. +==+==+==+==+==+==+

9 9 Sunday Sermons from Suffolk Christian Church are intended for the private devotional use of i. From World s Greatest members Collection and of friends Church Jokes, of the Paul church. M. Miller, ed., Barbour Publishing Co., Inc., 2003, Please p. 40. do not print or publish. ii. E. Stanley Jones, Liberating Thank you. Ministry Suggestions From The Success for Syndrome, Tyndale Publishers, 1988, p. 73. sermon Quoted topics at are always welcome! iii. He is Dr. Coty Pinckney, currently pastor of Desiring God Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. His web page is iv. Hezekiah was the 12th king of the Kingdom of Judah. His reign has been dated from BC. v. One trillion is 1,000,000,000,000. vi. Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. vii. Amy Wilson Carmichael ( ) was a Christian missionary in India who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur. She served in India for fifty-five years without furlough and authored many books about the missionary work there. viii. Joel is the son of Beth and Coty Pinckney.