Pastor Will Stoll Northwest Church
January 29, 2012
Series: 40 Days of Prayer
Sermon: Why Pray?
Scripture Reference: Psalm 34:4-8

Thank you for coming out to join us for 40 Days of Prayer. Those of you who are visiting with us, you are our special guests, and we are just so happy that you are here. Did you all get a book when you came in? You don’t need to bring that back every week, but I do hope you will read it every day.

The grounds crew at the Lincoln Memorial began to notice a few years ago that the stone foundation Lincoln was sitting on was beginning to deteriorate. If the problem were to continue, it would get to the point where they would have to move Lincoln and it would be a real disaster. So they began to ask the question: Why? Why would this stone foundation begin to deteriorate? It should have lasted much, much longer. Well after they stepped back and asked the question, the answer was pretty obvious. It was because of the bi-weekly washings of the monument with a chemical that could cause corrosion, especially in materials like stone.

So they stepped back a second time and asked the question: Why? Why were these bi-weekly washings necessary? And the answer to that question was also pretty obvious. There were a lot of birds around there and lots of birds make lots of droppings. They didn’t want to deface the monument and disgrace Lincoln, so they had to wash it all the time. So – they had to step back again and ask a third “why.” Why are there so many birds around the Lincoln Memorial? Well, the answer to that question took some time to research. What they discovered was that there was a particular bug that really liked to frequent the Monument, and they attracted all these birds that eat the bugs, then produce what they produce.

So, again, they had to ask: Why? Why are these bugs so pre-dominant around the Lincoln Memorial? Well, the answer to that question was that they were attracted to the lights that were put up around the Monument. So, a fifth time, they had to step back and ask the question: Why? Why are these bugs more attracted to this Monument than other monuments, or other places in Washington D.C.? A\

It was with this fifth “why” that they got their ultimate answer. What they determined was that the lights for the Lincoln Memorial are turned on two hours before sunset and are left on until two hours after sunrise. When they changed the lighting, the problem began to go away.

Why is an ultimate question. It’s a question that gets down to the heart of everything. And it seems like the only people who understand this are three years old. If you have a three-year-old, you know what I’m talking about. They are always asking, “Why? Why? Why?” Always trying to get to the heart of the matter.

But if you don’t start with “why,” you end up in the wrong place. So we are going to start this 40 Days of Prayer by asking: “Why? Why should we pray?” Otherwise, we are going to pray for the wrong reason – “I should pray; I feel bad if I don’t pray; it’s a good habit to pray.” No. Why should we pray? And I want to look at three reasons, right from the Bible, about why we should pray. Why we should embark on a 40-day journey of prayer.

If you have your Bible, turn to Psalm Chapter 34. David wrote this, and the first answer to this question, “Why pray?” is number one God Answers Prayer.

In verse 4, the Bible says:

I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.

Fears are a terrible thing – the horrible experiences of life; the dread of the unknown. But David says, “He delivered me from those things.”

Let’s look at this in three ways. Number one, God answered prayer. All throughout scripture, you see examples of God answering prayer. Most specifically, God answered David’s prayer. He says it right here: “He answered my prayers!” Probably one of the big prayers that David could look back on that God answered was when, one day, David was supposed to take a lunch out to his brothers. He had seven brothers out there fighting on the front lines – well, not really fighting. They were watching this big guy named Goliath taunt God. No one wants to go out there and challenge Goliath because he is 9’9” tall. And David says, “I’ll do it!” They were like, “What are you talking about? Even the king won’t go!” So David goes to the king and says, “Hey, I’ll challenge him.” King Saul, who is said to be the tallest guy in Israel, the logical to fight Goliath, says, “Okay, why don’t you do it? You’re 17, you look like you can handle it. Here’s my armor.” This armor won’t even fit David! He’s such a scrawny kid that he can’t even carry the armor! So, the king says, “Okay, you go fight him.” And David goes out there with his shepherd clothes and a slingshot – and a prayer: “Lord, if You were ever with me, now is the day I need You. I’ve killed a bear with You; I’ve killed a lion with You; now, together, let’s go kill a giant!” And God answered David’s prayer.

He prayed again after being anointed king by this prophet, and Saul should not be king anymore. So, now Saul is trying to kill David. He’s doing all kinds of things – throws spears at David; chases him down with an army. Over and over in the book of Samuel, you see David crying out to God, “God, You have to deliver me! He wants to kill me!” And God delivers David again and again and again.

But my favorite prayer of David is none of those. My favorite prayer of deliverance from David came one day when David was king and was at home when he was supposed to be at war. He goes to his rooftop and sees this lady named Bathsheba. He says to his servants, “I know it’s wrong, but go get her for me.” They know they shouldn’t do it, but David insisted, “Go get her for me.” He commits adultery with Bathsheba. He sins. Not only does he sin, but it will get found out because she is pregnant. He invites her husband, Uriah, home from the front lines to have relations with her, but he refuses, saying, “No. I’m not going to go and be happy at home! I should be on the front lines with my men!” And he refuses to have any contact with her. So David sends Uriah back to the front lines, to be killed – he murders Uriah. So he figures he has covered up the whole thing. One day a prophet named Nathan comes to David and says, “You have committed murder; you have committed adultery; you have sinned.” David says, “I have.” Then he prays a prayer, and this is my favorite prayer of David:

Psalm 51: 1 says:

“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!”

In every way you can ask to be cleansed from sin, David asks God for that! This is my favorite prayer and the one we will start with in 40 Days of Prayer. Here’s why: Because a lot of you walked in here this morning, thinking, “Prayer, hmmmm. Yes, God can probably answer some people’s prayers; probably people in the Bible; probably some super-spiritual people. But God will not answer my prayer – because of what I’ve done; because of who I am; and I’m not that special. Why would God answer my prayer?”

God put this in the Bible to show us that no matter what you have done. You may have committed murder; may have committed adultery; may have lied about things; may have been awful – but God still hears and answers prayer.

There was a preacher from 150 years ago by the name of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and this is what he says: “May we seek God, even when we have sinned. If sin could blockade the mercy seat, it would be all over for us. But the mercy is that there are gifts even for the rebellious, and an advocate for men who sin.” So – if you are wondering this morning, “Is this for me?” The answer is, “Absolutely, yes!” God answered prayer and He answered the prayer of a guy with prays with no self-sufficiency. He says, “Lord, I’m nothing! I’ve sinned. I need your forgiveness.” God answered even that prayer.

Let’s go a step further. Not only did God answer prayer; He still answers prayer. I’m looking at my own life. I remember when I graduated from college, was 22 years old, and in a college where there were 6,000 students – half guys and half girls. I went four years and never really had a serious dating relationship. So – now I’m in seminary and there are about 300 in my seminary and not one girl! I’m also involved in a church where I’m working about 40 hours a week and full-time in seminary and working with the youth group – and the church is about 200 people, with no one my age who is a girl! So I began to think, “Lord, I’m in trouble.” The odds were great over there, but now the odds are terrible! So, what’s going to happen?

I was in a class, my first year in seminary, called Prayer. I thought, “Well, this is probably the guy I need to talk to.” So I talked to the professor – because he prayed for all the students – and he said, “How can I pray for you?” I said, “I’ve got one for you. I need to find the right girl I’m supposed to marry because I’m having this problem. I’m in a church with no girls; in a school with absolutely no girls.” He began to pray and through a strange series of circumstances, God brought a girl from Pennsylvania over to California, and we would meet. God brought my wife and I together – He answered prayer.

If you take that 40 Days of Prayer book this week, I hope you will read the Introduction today, then tomorrow you will start with Day 1 – so Monday, you start with Day 1. But in the Introduction, I talk about how God miraculously saves our baby, Abagail, back in August. In the most miraculous way, and I’m telling you, I will never be the same after that answer to prayer. That’s in the Introduction.

About six months ago, my daughter Reilly, who is six years old, began to pray. She was having a hard time with her attitude; she was irritable and grumpy all the time. She had these sores on her legs that persisted and had been there for six or eight months. The doctor had given her ointments and creams – nothing worked! Actually, going back about three years ago, when we lived in Arizona, she had developed this problem when she would sleep. Her breathing was just not good and she would wake up and have to breathe through her mouth. It was kind of scary, as a parent, to watch her like that when she was asleep – just to stop breathing.

We didn’t know what was going on. We had tried all kinds of things; we had gone to the doctors – nothing really worked. But about six months ago, when Reilly, had been praying about this a lot, someone out of the blue gave us this book called How To Live Gluten Free. We wondered why we would need that and put it on the shelf. Then, a couple of weeks later, I had gotten my I-Pad out to download a book called Jump Start Your Brain, kind of like a brain-teaser kind of book. I need to get my brain jump-started sometimes. When I put in “Jump Start,” the first thing I saw was Jump Start Your Gluten Free Diet. I thought, that’s interesting – someone had just given us that other book. And on the I-Pad, you can get a sample of the book, actually 20% of the book, free – so I decided to just take a look at it. I looked at about 300 symptoms of celiac disease – or someone allergic to gluten or have a wheat allergy – and Reilly had so many of these symptoms! I was sitting next to my wife in bed and I said, “Can you believe this?”

So the next day we decided to put her on a gluten-free diet. We had never tried anything like that, and within a week her breathing had changed and the sores on her leg that had been there for so many months, were gone; her attitude began to change; and within a month my six-year-old daughter had lost ten pounds – because of the inflammation all throughout her body! It was the most amazing thing. Her attitude was different, she went from sleeping only six to six and a half hours a night, to as many as ten hours! Her whole life changed, but it began when a little girl, six years old, began to pray every night for God to answer her prayers. God answers prayer – He still does.

Let’s look at a third way: God will answer prayer. He promises to do it. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus says:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

We will look at this verse in more detail in the book, actually. In John 16:24, Jesus put it this way:

“Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

He says, “You haven’t asked, and you haven’t received!”

In James 4:2, again, the Bible says:

“You do not have, because you do not ask.”

We must ask. And this is what 40 Days of Prayer is really all about – us having the opportunity to ask God for what is really on our minds and hearts.

So, the first reason we should pray is because God Answers Prayer.

Secondly, God’s Answers Change Us. Look at verse 5 of Psalm 34:

Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

You know, your face tells the story of your life. Little kids are great at this. When my little girls turned two and three years old, their faces told the story of what they had just done – or not done. Now, we have a little one-year-old, Abby, she is just one – her face is perfect, angelic, she has never done anything wrong – so that doesn’t really work. But for Natalie, Layla and Reilly, if they had done something wrong, I could tell it on their face. I would look at them and they would not look me in the eye. They would be kind of looking all over, have a worried expression, their lips are kind of pursed because they don’t want the truth to slip out. And I could just tell – because faces tell the story.

There’s a guy from Bangladesh named GMB Akash who wrote a book called Faces Tell Stories. In his book of photography he has faces and these faces tell many stories. There is an elderly lady in the book who solemnly stares back at the lens of the camera. The wrinkles tell you that she has lived a long life, one of great difficulty, filled with stress and anxiety. The seriousness of her face gives you the story of her experience and tells you that she is wise because of her many years on the Earth.
But the Psalmist says here that your face will be radiant when you get the answer to your prayer. What does it mean to be “radiant?” Moses was radiant. He went up on Mt. Sinai, met with God to get the Ten Commandments, comes down and he has to wear a veil over his face because his face is radiating the glory of God. That still happens today. When we spend time with God, it changes our face. We begin to radiate. I looked at this during the week and I wondered if maybe there was another way to get a radiant face. I began to look at radiation and saw that if you spent time in the presence of radiation if you would glow a little bit – in the movies, that’s how it happens. What I discovered is that doesn’t work. Actually, if you spend time with radiation, you just get dead! If you are hanging around the spent nuclear rods around Chernobyl, even for a few seconds, you just die! There is really no other way – you must spend time in the presence of God to radiate.

Now, do you remember as a kid, catching fireflies? Those warm summer nights when those things were all buzzing around and when they had their glow light on, it was captivating – before they were captured. You tried to put them in a jar, because things that radiate, they attract you. No kid goes around capturing a moth and saving it because they’re kind of ugly. In fact, the fireflies is also pretty ugly during the day time, but when it glows, it’s amazing!

Things that radiate also affect everything around them. Name the number one source of radiation in our world today. The sun. when you get out there in the sun, what happens? Does that sun affect you? Yes. It begins to turn your skin brown. Then it turns red, then it begins to peel and your nose begins to hurt a lot – because when you are around things that radiate, it does affect you. And when you radiate God’s glory, it affects everyone around you.

So why is it that God’s answers to prayer cause us to radiate? Why does it cause us to change our face? Change our appearance? Change our insides? Why do we begin to radiate? Well, here’s why – because we get it.

Number one, I get that the object of my faith is real. Instead of God being some thing out there that we can never have much contact with, we have a concrete answer to our prayer. As I go home every day, and I look at my baby, Abagail, I see in her face – God’s glory. I see an answer to my prayer every single day. As you pray for family members in your life, and you see God answer prayer in them, you are going to see the same thing. You see a concrete God who literally meets your needs – God is real.

The second thing you get is that God is personal and present. God is not this impersonal force like, “May the force be with you,” in Star Wars. He is not the God of your Dad, or the God or your Mom, or the God of your church, or the God of your pastor – He is your God! He is your Savior! He becomes real and personal.

Why do we radiate? Because we get that “God loves me!” Do you remember the first time your sweetheart said, “I love you”? Your boyfriend or your girlfriend? I remember I was with Katie when we were dating and I was standing outside the door of her apartment, and for the first time she told me that she loved me. I can remember going home that night – I only lived a couple of blocks away – so I walked home and I was overwhelmed. I thought to myself, I have to keep this up; I have to keep looking cool, and smelling really good and saying smart things and stuff! But with God, when you realize He loves you – He loves you no matter what you are.

You get that you don’t have to keep it up. He loved you when you were His enemy! He loves you. You know it because He heard you when you prayed. And He answered your prayer and you realize, “You love me! You did that for me! You were hearing me – that wasn’t me just jabbering – You heard me and You did something because I prayed. And I’m overwhelmed. I feel Your hug; I feel Your kiss; I feel Your love.” You realize He loves you.

Fourth – I get that I don’t need to be ashamed. He says in Psalm 34:6:

“This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.”

God heard me; I don’t need to be ashamed!

In India, there are a number of girls named Nakusha or Nakushi. Literally, that name means “unwanted.” Now, it’s already pretty tough in India to be born a female because they don’t have the same class as men do in that culture. It’s not right, but that’s just the way it is there. Now, you are born into a family that didn’t want you! And then to make matters even worse, they named you “Unwanted.” Recently, there was a day in India when all the girls with the name of Nakusha or Nakushi got together and they had a special day they called a “Name-Changing Day.” They had a ceremony and all these girls got a new name. And many of them picked names from “Bali-wood” – names you wouldn’t understand or I couldn’t say – but they got to change their name.

God is in the name-changing business. He changes your character and He changes who you are. He took Abram, which meant “father” and called him Abraham, “father of many.” He took Jacob, whose name meant “deceiver,” and called him Israel, which meant “prince with God.” He took Saul and called him “Paul.” He changes who we are, and we don’t have to be ashamed.

David said, “This poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and delivered him.” You know what I’m thinking? If God heard my prayer, if God thinks enough of me to answer my prayer, what do I care what anyone else thinks about me? Why would I ever be ashamed? If I can show my face to God, I can show my face to anybody! You are going to get the same thing when you pray and God hears you and God answers you and God delivers you – you are going to be able to stick you chest out and say, “If God likes me, what do I care what anyone else thinks about me? His opinion matters more than the whole world! After all, He created it. If God loves me, I’m not ashamed.”

Well, there is a fifth reason why we become radiant, and this is not in your notes. I did these notes on Thursday and that was really “so Thursday.” Now it’s Sunday and there is another reason: I don’t need to ¬fear. I get radiant because I don’t need to fear anymore! David says in verse 4:

“I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.”

I have to tell you – that is bigger than the answer to prayer. Because the thing that was coming at me could just hit me in my body and hurt me. But fear – long before it got here, it had already gripped my soul, my spirit; it was torturing me. Fear is torment, isn’t it? It is what keeps you up night; it’s what you wake up thinking about; it’s what causes all kinds of problems in our body. God says, “Oh, yeah, I deliver you from that, too.” And your face is radiant. Your insides are changed and your face glows to the outside.

Third reason – Why Pray? God Invites Us To Taste. Look at verse 8:

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

Now, we just got back from Indonesia. We have a seminary there that we support called STK and they send church planters out all over Indonesia. There are 17,000 islands in Indonesia, so there are a lot of places that need churches. There are a thousand students in our seminary there. Every few years, those guys are going out and planting churches, and those churches are planting churches, it’s an amazing factory of church plants. This is my second time over there, and each time they have wanted me to try this fruit called durian. Now durian has a horrible smell. It is so foul that it is illegal to open it in the public transport systems! Now, what they tell you is that it smells bad, but tastes really good. I have never tried it because I have explained that I am a pastor and not a missionary. Missionaries have to eat it! And I went this time with some missionaries and they ate some of the durian, and the reason I know it isn’t true that the taste is different from the smell is that I watched their faces – and they are not radiant! It’s horrible! So I’ve never tried the durian, but it is because of my experience watching it.

Now, with God, it is something different. When you see someone who has tasted God, what do you see? Radiance. You say, “Wow! That must be good!” God invites you, He says, “Just taste; just a little bit; just see enough of Me to know if you want to go further.” And that’s what 40 Days of Prayer is really all about – us tasting to see is God reliable? Can I entrust Him with the big things in my life?

My challenge to you during 40 Days of Prayer is to entrust one thing to God. I want all of you to entrust the same thing to Him. Now it won’t be the same for any one two people in this room – in fact, it will be something as different as the people in here are different. But here’s one thing I want you to ask God to do during 40 Days of Prayer. I want you to ask God to move the mountain in your life.

Jesus said, “If you have faith as much as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Be cast in the sea,’ and it will happen.” How many times in scripture did that happen? How many times did the prophet Elijah say, “Mountain, you are in my way!”? How many times did Jesus say that? Not even once! And the reason that never happened at all is because there was never a mountain in the way that needed to be moved.

What Jesus is talking about is not a physical mountain. There is not a single person in this room who needs Mt. Whitney moved! But everybody in this room has a “mountain” in your life that you cannot move – something you have tried, you have struggled with, you have worried about, talked about – but it’s still there. What is that one thing in your life that just keeps knocking you down? Keeps knocking you down. What is that big request – if you could say, “God, there is one thing I want You to do, it’s this.” What would that “mountain” be? That is the thing I want to encourage you to entrust to God during 40 Days of Prayer – to “taste and see” is God good? Can God meet me in this?

I’d like to pray with you. Close your eyes and bow your heads. I want to pray for you about this mountain, then we’ll have our time of invitation.

Father, we come into Your presence; and as many folks as there are in this room, there are that many mountains You see. Every heart, every problem, every challenge. You know every fear. I pray that as each person in this room commits that to You, You would be even better than Your word says You are. That as we taste, we would know You are great! You do answer prayer! That we would have just enough faith to reach out and say, “Lord, this is what I need; please answer my prayer. We pray this, Lord, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.