Myth 3 and 4: Prayer doesn't change anything.  Prayer changes everything.

Praying for soccer games . . . 

I went to high school at Humble High School and where I was an all-district soccer player.  I tell you that not to brag, but so that every week when you have to struggle through listening to me preach, now you can know that I missed my real calling which was to play soccer.  Now I grew up going to church, but at this time in my life, I hadn’t really gotten serious about my relationship with God and I certainly had not turned my life over to Jesus.  My junior year, our team had made the play-offs for the first time in school history and we had every expectation that we would do the same our senior year as well.  And we were having a pretty good year, but we had lost a couple of games and tied a game in district so when we came to the last game of the season, we had to win if we wanted to win district and move on.  If we lost or tied, no playoffs.

We were playing Aldine and they were not having a very good season so we expected to win this game.  And we played like it.  We got near the end of the second half and they were beating us 1-0.  We were exhausted but knew we had to score or our season was over.  There was about 10 minutes left and I asked the coach to take me out, which I never did.  And I wanted to get a brief rest before one last big push.  And I don’t know why, but I went over to the bench and I knelt down and I prayed “God, I don’t know if you do soccer games … (I mean I felt silly even as I was saying it)… and I know that you love everyone on the other team just as much as you love everyone on this team. . . but if you do soccer games, we should could use some help here.  If you’ll help us win this game, I’ll know that you’re really out there and you really answer prayers.  At that moment, I got chills all over my body and I stood up feeling like God had answered my prayer.  

And then I went up to the coach and I said, put me in at forward (which wasn’t my position).  I’m going to score.  There was a stoppage in play and he put me in at forward.  There was immediate foul and we got a free kick from way about midfield and I went up to the guys who was taking the kick and I said, if you put that ball on my chest, I’m going to score.  He kicked the ball in the air directly to me.  I played it off my chest to the ground and shot the ball in the upper right hand corner of the goal.  If I am lying, I am dying!  So now we’re tied.  If we tie, still no playoofs.  But there were just a couple of minutes left.  They walked the ball back up to midfield and kicked off, one of my teammates stole it and went up the field and there player kicked the ball out the end line for a corner kick.  Now there were just seconds left.  We were all kind of jogging up there knowing that this was probably our last good chance.  So we were all trying to get into place for the corner kick.  We had one last chance to make this happen.  But before we could, our player grabs the ball and runs to the corner, takes two steps back and goes and kicks the ball directly to the goalie.  I was so mad.  I was screaming to get the guy to stop, but it was too late.  He kicked the ball right to the goalie.  The goalie tried to catch it and in the process, he dropped the ball into the goal.  2-1 we’re ahead.  As soon as the ball goes in, the referee blows the whistle and the game was over.          

I don’t know if God was at work that day, but I am quite sure that he could have been.  That was the first day that God really got my attention.  And for all I know, God could have been getting someone else’s attention on the other team or in the stands.  For all I know God, could have been working in the lives of every single person in both stands and on both fields.  He’s God, isn’t He?

Prayer is a mystery that none of us fully understand.  It is not a product.  It is not a magical formula to get what you want.  It is about relationship and dependence on God and all kinds of stuff like that.  We hear all these stories about miraculous prayers being answered, marriages being healed, the sick being cured.  But we also hear of prayers not being answered.  People praying for days, weeks, months and years without the desired out come happening.  And it leads us to begin believing one of two myths depending on our experience with prayer.

The first myth is the myth that prayer doesn’t change anything – and it’s the myth that we sometimes buy into when we look around and see all these bad things happening in a world where people are praying.  Or more significantly, its something we do because of our own experience of prayer.  We prayed for something big or small and we prayed hard for it and it didn’t happen.  And so we get lulled into this idea that prayer doesn’t matter.  That prayer doesn’t change anything.  That God already knows what he is going to do and our prayer doesn’t change any outcomes; that miracles don’t happen. 

But this morning, we’re going to look at some scriptures that remind us that this is not true.  There are actually places in the Bible where prayer changes God’s mind!!  Hear that again.  There are places in scripture where prayer seems to change God’s mind.  Let’s look at some of them . . .

Scriptural examples . . . After the Golden calf incident of Exodus 3Moses to God, don’t destroy the people; Moses to God, you said you would go with us; Abraham to God, don’t destroy Sodom if he can find even one righteous man.  Jesus told us that whatever you ask for in my name, it will be given to you.  Jesus prayed and asked for protection of His disciples, for God to protect them;  Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God right now interceding for you (being your defense attorney, being your advocate) . . . why?  

So you can see, this is definitely a myth.  Prayer can change outcomes.  I don’t know how or why.  There’s no science to it.  I believe God is the only One who knows the logic to it.  God seems occasionally to change God’s mind . .  does that mean that it really changed His mind or that He just wanted the person to communicate?  We don’t know.  But I think it is fair to take the scripture at face value and say that God allows us to participate in the building of his kingdom in every way, including through making our desires known.

So why is it important to know that . . . because it suggests that the world as it exists now would change if more people were praying.  It suggests that prayer could literally change the world if we took it seriously.

We’re starting a prayer ministry right now and I want you to know that someone prayed for you this morning.  They prayed for this space.  They prayed over the chair that you’re sitting in . . . meaning they prayed for you!  They prayed for you to be receptive to God this morning.  They prayed for God to strengthen and your family.  And do you know what was driving that?  The belief that God might really do that.  Now there’s no magic to it.  This is not Disney and you have not been enchanted with Pixie dust this morning in some  magical way.  But we believe God might do something really cool in your life precisely because we asked him to.  That’s why we pray.  

Myth 4 - Prayer changes everything!  . . . Paul praying to remove the thorn in his flesh, but it didn’t happen.  Jesus praying for another way than the cross, but it didn’t happen.  

How do we know when it will change something or not?

You don’t.

Remember that prayer always changes something.  Even if all it changes is you, it has still changed something.  2 Cor. 12:8.  God taught Paul something while he was pleading for this thorn in the flesh to be taken away.  It didn’t change Paul’s circumstance.  It did change Paul.

Pray with urgency as if everything depended on it.

   Pray specifically and in faith that things can change.  Pray as if your life depended on it.  2 Cor 12:9.  Paul pleads with God to take away the thorn in his flesh.  Do we pray with that sense of urgency?

Pray trusting God is God.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” Matthew 6:10.

Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane - God honors our prayer of dependence .  Matthew 26:36-39 – Jesus three times says not my will, but your be done.  No matter what happens, we can pray trusting that God is God and that He is good.  He has plans to prosper us and not to harm us Jeremiah 29:11.

So why pray?  Because Jesus did and He told us to.  Prayer is not a device that either works or doesn’t.  It is not a product to be captured in a bottle or a magic mantra to getting everything that you want.  

Supporting scriptures:

 ⁷To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. ¹⁰That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. ⁸ They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.' 

 ⁹ "I have seen these people," the LORD said to Moses, "and they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation." 

 ¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. "O LORD," he said, "why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. ¹³ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: 'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.' " ¹⁴ Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. 

Exodus 32:7-14