It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 1 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Program No. 1219 SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW Back in 1985, the movie Back to the Future was the biggest film of that year. It starred Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, and Christopher Lloyd as Doctor Emmett Brown. Steven Spielberg was one of the executive producers. Michael J. Fox s character is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, and he comes back to the future and goes back to the past getting himself into and out of all kinds of various tangles. The movie was so popular even President Ronald Reagan quoted from it in his State of the Union address in 1986. The movie s plot was built around a fascinating idea time travel the idea that a person might be able to go back and forward in time and affect the world and alter the way that lives play out. Of course, the idea of time travel wasn t originated by Hollywood. Charles Dickens 1843 novel A Christmas Carol had Ebenezer Scrooge traveling to Christmases in the past and in the future. And shortly before the turn of the 20th century, H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine. Not too hard to figure out what that might have been about. Well, just in case Michael J. Fox had you convinced, a group of physicists in Hong Kong recently stated that they have proven time travel is an impossibility. Discussion about time travel has been significant in various circles for some years, with some academics taking the position that time travel is possible. But now, the word is it isn t possible. So that s that, I guess. I know you re shocked. There you were, thinking that one day you might be able to go back to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and be part of history, or maybe go back to Pearl Harbor in 1941 and prevent the attack on December 7. But I have to confess that when I read the announcement from the Hong Kong scientists that time travel is impossible, I wasn t surprised. But I wonder if this would surprise you: There s something that is impossible for God. There s a prayer God cannot answer. In fact, it s the prayer God doesn t want you to pray.
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 2 Seriously. There s a prayer God doesn t want us praying a prayer He cannot answer. As impossible as time travel. So what s the prayer God doesn t want us to pray? The answer in a moment. BIBLE QUESTION I read in the Bible about God kicking Adam and Eve out of paradise just for eating some fruit. I mean, how bad can that be? If God was a cool guy, wouldn t he have given them a second chance or something? Well, the way God actually did handle Adam and Eve shows just what a cool guy God really is. Adam and Eve were created by God and given every opportunity and every blessing. God told them they could have it all in the Garden of Eden, except that they were not to eat from the fruit or of the fruit that grew on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were to learn obedience, or faithfulness. Or to put it another way, complete reliance on God. When they ate that fruit, they were doing more than just eating fruit. They were disobeying God. They were sinning. Now, I don t want to knock them or condemn them, but that s what they were doing. The Bible says, For whatsoever is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23) They weren t acting in faith in God. They were going their own way. You know, the Bible says that sin separates from God. That s us saying, No, Lord, at this moment I just want to do my own thing. Adam and Eve chose to step out of that special relationship they had with God and they said, We want to go our own way. The results of that were catastrophic. Just look at a world that has pretty much abandoned God. It hasn t worked well. Now, what about the second chance asked about in the question? That, in fact, is exactly what God gave them. When Adam and Eve rebelled, God could have just done away with them and He would have been justified in doing so. But here s where Adam and Eve s fall allowed us to see what God is really like. Instead of ditching Adam and Eve, or condemning them, God came to the Garden of Eden, looked for them, and told them that a Deliverer would come who would bring them victory in their battle with evil. Genesis 3:15 says, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. This was God saying that Jesus the Seed of the woman would come. This was God saying He was giving the gift of repentance to the human family. Adam and Eve the rebels could still have life, everlasting life, through the coming Messiah.
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 3 Seems to me that God was pretty cool. RETURN TO PROGRAM There are some things in this world that shouldn t be attempted. I mentioned a moment ago that scientists in Hong Kong claimed that they have proof that time travel is not possible. (Who dve thought?) So that being so, any attempts at traveling through time are probably not advisable. And there are other things you just shouldn t do: texting while driving. Not a good idea. I read about someone who climbed into the lion s enclosure at a zoo. They made it out alive, but it s really the sort of thing you don t want to do. When I saw someone had been killed in his act as a human cannonball, I have to confess I thought to myself, Probably wiser not to do that sort of thing... Well, there s a prayer a person should never pray. It shouldn t even be attempted. God can t possibly answer this prayer in the affirmative, and this prayer can ultimately be devastating to a person s faith. When my son was very young, we were praying together one night before he went to sleep, and he prayed the prayer a person should never pray. It s common for children to pray this prayer, although many adults pray this prayer as well and maybe the fact that children pray it so much is why it can be so damaging. While my son was praying, he prayed the usual things, God bless Mommy and Daddy and so on and then he prayed, And Lord, please help me to be good. And there it was. Please help me to be good. When I heard that, I knew I had to do SOMETHING before we had a real problem on our hands. So I said to him gently a moment later, Son, let me suggest something. When you pray, let s not pray that God would help you to be good. Now, he knew I wasn t going to suggest that maybe he should pray that God help him to be bad or help him not to be good, so I had his attention. So why in the world would a father tell his firstborn not to pray that God would help him to be good? There s a very good, very Biblical reason for that. I explained it to him. And I knew it was hugely important, because people who don t understand this point set themselves up for lives of spiritual misery. That s why I said to my son, Son, you don t want to pray that God would make you good, because the Bible says there is none that does good. There is nobody who is good, except for God. You re praying for an impossibility. God says that there s no one who is good. So when you re praying for God to make you good, you re praying that God would do something that according to the Bible God has said He s not able to do.
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 4 Understand me clearly here. If God has said that there is nobody who is good, why in the world would I or you want to ask God to make us good? We are sinners. Even the most righteous person on earth has sinned many times at some time during their lives. The Bible says there is none that doeth good. Not one. As sinful people, we cannot be made INHERENTLY good because the fact is we are inherently flawed. We do want to be RIGHTEOUS, and that s a different matter. You know something? I don t recall a single place in the Bible where God tells us that we should be good. I just don t think it s here. Now, He does tell us that we should be HOLY. That s for sure. But not good. Stay with me. Remember when the Rich Young Ruler came to Jesus and called Him Good Master? And what did Jesus say to him? There is none good, except for God. So I said to my son, Son, you don t want to pray that God would help you to be good. What you want to pray is that Jesus would live His life in you that Jesus would dwell in your heart. And when He does that, you re certainly not going to be bad. You re going to have Jesus righteousness. See, friend, that s the healthy way to approach it. I want you to see the difference here between two things. Human beings have sinned. They have lost their goodness. We are sinners sinful. But God wants us to be restored, to be at one with Him. He wants us to reflect His character. But how can we do that when we are fundamentally flawed? Certainly not by trying our hardest to be good. You know what happens to so many people? They have this idea that they re supposed to be good. And so they try and try. The swearer tries and tries to stop swearing, but realizes in the vast majority of cases that he or she cannot stop. The smoker tries desperately to quit smoking but finds she just can t do it. The person with lustful thoughts or a wandering eye does all he can to keep his mind pure, but he keeps on falling back into the same old habit patterns. The sinner wants to go straight, wants to be good, but doesn t have the ability to do so. So, what does he or she so often do? That person prays to God that God would help her or him to be good. But is that a reasonable prayer? No. Listen to what Jeremiah wrote, in Jeremiah 13:23: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Let s answer that: Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can a black man become a white man? I think we know the answer to that question.
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 5 Question for you. Did you ever see a leopard trade in his spots and start sporting stripes like a zebra? That doesn t happen very often, does it? So God poses the question to us, and there s only one answer: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? No. And then God follows that by saying this, Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil. Let s get this straight. God says it s as possible for someone doing evil to ON HIS OR HER OWN to start doing good, as it is for a black man to change his skin color or a leopard to start wearing a new style. So if being good is an impossibility, then why in the world would anyone want to ask God to help them to be good? You d be praying an impossible prayer, and asking God to do something that He cannot do. A key point is this: right living, right behavior, correct deportment is not something a person can produce in themselves. People have a problem that is within sin and they need help from above. If there was someone who needed to understand this, it was King David. King David messed things up big time. He fell into bad sin, stealing a man s wife and having the man killed. And then he covered up the whole affair. So when he needed to go straight, what did David ask God to do? Did David ask God to help him to be good? No, he did not. What did David do? David prayed a special prayer. We ll find out what that is in just a moment. Today, we re talking about the prayer you should never pray. You know, too many people pray and ask God to help them to be good. But the Bible says we are as capable of doing good as a leopard is of changing its spots. No doubt, God wants us to be righteous, he wants us to live right, but if we don t understand how that can happen in our life, we ll end up being very unhappy people. King David gave us a correct example in this. He had a series of terrible failings where he seriously made a mess of his life guilty of dishonestly, adultery and murder. David eventually went to God and pleaded with God to help him get back to where he needed to be. And what was his prayer? Did David pray, Lord, help me to be good? No, he didn t. David instead prayed the beautiful prayer found in Psalm 51. Here s what he prayed to God: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. David understood what he needed. His own goodness had been powerless to keep him out of the mud of shame and sin. What He needed was God s presence and power. He needed God s Spirit in his life.
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 6 He goes on to pray, Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. David was saying, What I need is not anything that comes from me; what I need is something that comes from you. I need YOU living your life in me. That s the way the Bible portrays Christian living. Paul wrote to the Colossians and he told them that the essence of the Gospel was Christ in you, the hope of glory. Not you being good, the hope of glory. But Christ in you Christ living His life in you. With Jesus in you, you can hardly be bad! If you ve never grasped this, if you ve never understood this, this concept will revolutionize your life! Writing to the Galatians, Paul wrote this in Galatians 2:20. Paul said, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. You can see Paul s repeated emphasis. What a person needs is Jesus living His life in him or her! And that s VERY different from saying, Lord, help ME to do something. Help ME to be something. Help me to be good. The right approach is to be is surrendered, made available to God, yielded to Him so that God can do the work He wants to do in your life. And you know what happens when we pray that God would help us to be good? Discouragement sets in. A disabling, destructive, disheartening discouragement. I ll tell you why. Let s say you ve got someone who is I don t know having issues with anger. A kid has an ager problem and knows that he shouldn t. And he s told that he ll be OK if he prays and asks God to help him to be good. As a teenager, he s still angry. But he s praying harder than ever that Jesus would help him to be good. He gets older, still praying, but very frustrated. Now, maybe there are now other sins that he s praying God would make him good enough to stop committing. You know what eventually happens? This person gets to the place where he or she says, It just doesn t work. I ve tried and tried and I ve prayed and prayed, and I m still angry, or whatever the sin might be. That person will eventually conclude and they will conclude correctly that God hasn t made him or her good. So he or she either says to himself or herself, I guess
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 7 I ll always be this way and stays in church miserable and defeated, or says, This doesn t work. I ve prayed so long for God to help me to be good. It isn t happening and I ve prayed, so therefore God is a myth, and this whole Bible thing doesn t work. Many people have done that. That person then turns his back on God. And that s a tragedy. What God offers us is this: God pledges to come into our lives and to bring His goodness. He brings His righteousness. I want to share a Bible verse with you that I am certain can absolutely change your life. You read it in Philippians 2:13, which says, For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Did you catch that? And did you see where the focus is? It is God who works in you... In terms of living a life for God, did you see where God puts the emphasis? It is God who works in you. So here s the key for successful living and a key for successful praying. What God is telling us is that when it comes to working in your life when it comes to getting out of your life what shouldn t be in and getting into your life what shouldn t be out God will do that work in you. That s what is meant when Paul wrote that we live by the faith of the Son of God. We let Christ live His life in us. So why is that so radical? Because if you re going to try to do the impossible in your own strength, you are doomed to fail. If you ve got an anger issue or a lust problem or a substance problem, you might try and try all you care to, and you re not going to be able to change, because TRUE change takes place in the heart. And there s not a person alive who can change his or her own heart. So instead, here s what you do. You pray, Lord, I want to be different, I want to get some things straightened out, I want to change, but I cannot change myself. So I need you to come into my life and do in me what I cannot do in myself. When you pray that prayer, God can t fail to answer. What you ll discover is that when you surrender to Him, God comes into your life and remakes you. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. A few years ago, I was with a group of ministerial workers in training, and I asked them a question. I said, Now, we know the Bible says that salvation comes by grace
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 8 through faith. But there s another verse that says we should strive to enter in to Heaven through the narrow gate. So I asked these ministerial trainees, What does that mean, strive to enter in through the narrow gate? No one offered an answer. But then a six-year-old boy said spoke up. Daddy, he said, I think I know. You know, there s an old saying that says, Bradshaws rush in where angels fear to tread. So there I was, hoping my little boy wasn t going to embarrass himself too badly. Daddy, I think I know. Okay, what is it, Son? I asked him in front of everybody, thinking to myself, Oh, this ll be interesting. Well, he said. I ve been listening to Christiana. (I don t know if you know this, but Christiana is the second part of the Pilgrim s Progress story, the great book written by John Bunyan. Christiana was the wife of Christian, and this second book was the story of HER journey to the Celestial City. My son had been listening to the story on tape or CD...) You ve been listening to Christiana, son... Yes, Dad. And on her way to the Celestial City she came across all kinds of hazards. There was Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and the Slough of Despond...all sorts of things. (I was wondering where this was going.) It could have been a disaster, Dad, but she was told she d be OK if she kept her eyes on the light. And Dad, that s what I think Jesus is telling us we should do. He s saying, We ll be okay, if we strive to keep our eyes on the light... And everyone in the room realized that a six-year-old had expertly answered the question that all of these students couldn t answer. Strive to keep your eyes on the light. Striving to be good is a loser s game. Jesus said there is none that does good. We re broken. Goodness isn t what we are. But Jesus can come into your life if you ask Him. He will live His life in you, and with Jesus in your life, there s nothing to stop Him from making you everything you want to be. Why pray to be good when you can pray that God would bring His goodness into your life and remake you completely? When He does that, everything in your life and everything about you will be just what God wants them to be. Let me pray with you that we ll both experience God s goodness in our lives.
It Is Written Script: 1219 The Prayer You Should Never Pray Page 9 PRAYER Our Father in Heaven, we thank you today for Jesus, the One who is good, and we pray now that you would send your Spirit into our lives in a great way. Let Christ live in us and bring His goodness into our lives so that, spiritually-speaking, we will not be failing, we would not be falling, but that we would be kept by your power and your grace and that the goodness of Jesus will be seen in us and help us strive to keep our eyes on the light. And this we pray in Jesus name, Amen. It Is Written Box O Thousand Oaks, CA 91359 USA Tel: (805) 433-0210 Fax: (805) 433-0218 www.itiswritten.com