Philippians 4:6-7 The Meaning of Prayer

 

These two verses are an exceptionally fine statement of the Christian doctrine of prayer. What is prayer? Prayer is talking with God, and the place to begin in any definition of prayer is with the fact that prayer is for believers only. Paul did not write his words about prayer to the pagan world at Philippi or to the world at large. He wrote them “to the saints in Christ Jesus” at Philippi. This means that prayer is exclusively for Christians. It is the means by which an empty soul that has been touched by Jesus Christ can be thrust beneath the life-giving fountain of God’s grace, can bask in God’s goodness, and can be supernaturally refreshed for life’s tasks. Prayer is the Christian’s antidote for anxiety.

I know something called prayer is offered a billion times daily by millions of people who are not Christians, but this is not prayer in any real sense. Scores of non-Christian people in the East spend the better part of a day spinning prayer wheels. Savages chant prayers in many jungle clearings. New Agers finger prayer beads. Many poor souls cry out a prayer in the midst of some calamity. Many non-Christians give themselves to a life of meditation. But this is not true prayer, if the person involved is not a Christian. Prayer is talking to God, and the only prayer that God hears and answers is one that is made through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone provides access to His presence.

This truth was taught by Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Jesus did not say that He was one of several ways to come to God, that He was a prophet who pointed out the ways to God; He said that He was the way to come to God, and He added, lest anyone misunderstand Him, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” This means that no prayer offered to God apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has ever reached God his heavenly Father. There are more passages in the Bible that tell when God will not answer prayer than there are passages in which He promises to do it, and God definitely says He will not answer the prayer  of anyone who does not come through faith in His Son.

Have you ever tried to pray and found God distant and unreal? Have you gone away without any real hope that God has heard you? It may be that you have never done the first thing God requires. Your sin divides you like a wall from God’s presence. It will only be removed by Jesus Christ. You need to come to Him. You need to say, “Lord Jesus Christ, I recognize that I am separated from you by my sin; but I believe you died for me to remove that sin forever. Remove it now, and accept me as your child. Amen.” If you do that, God will remove your sin, and He will accept you as His child forever. Now we must also add that although it is true that God does not hear the prayer of non-Christians, it is also true that He does not hear prayers offered by many Christians. In fact, the Bible says that God will never hear a Christian’s prayer so long as the Christian is clinging to some sin in his heart. If this describes you, you must confess your sin openly and frankly, knowing that God “is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We can only pray if our lives are open books before Him.

Everything that has been noted up to this point has ourselves as the center; but if you know what prayer is, you know also that prayer necessarily involves other people. The Bible calls such prayer “intercession” (1 Tim 2:1). As we meet with God in prayer – at the beginning of a day, at its end, or in any moment throughout it – these concerns should also be a part of our conversation with Him. We should have great boldness as we present the concerns of others.

There is one other point about prayer that comes directly from this passage. Prayer is not only talking with God, nor is it only intercession for others. Prayer is also an opportunity to present our requests to Him. Paul calls them petitions. God invites us to place our earnest requests before Him. This is God’s cure for anxiety. Christians are troubled about many things. You may be troubled about your work, your family, the future, money, sex, or happiness. God invites you to place your request about these things before Him. The promise of the verse is that the peace of God will keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 Reflection Questions:

Are you clinging to some sin in your heart? Repent now!

What type of relationship with God would you say you have?

What is your definition of “praying without ceasing?”

How did God answer Paul’s prayer while in chains in Rome? Did he get peace?

Isaiah 26:1-27:1 Waiting for the Glory that shall be

 

We have seen Isaiah depressed by the painful realities of the present and the exultant at the glorious prospect of the future. But between these extremes lies the settled disposition of patient trustful waiting to which the people of God must return again and again. It is to be their hallmark as they live out their lives in the world as it is. This note was struck in 25:9, is now developed at some length in a song which captures beautifully the tension between the promise of the “then” and the pain of the “now”. It begins with anticipatory celebration (vv. 1-6), turns back to reflect on the pain of waiting (vv. 7-19), and concludes with an oracle which confirms the final victory (vv. 26:20-27:1).

The formula “in that day” runs like a refrain through these chapters, and it is full of the certainty born of faith. No matter how perplexing or painful the present might be, Isaiah was confident that the whole of human history was converging on a single point which had been determined by God in advance. And then God’s people would have much to celebrate. The first stanza (26:1-6) is about two cities. The strong city of verse 1 is the new Zion, the city of God of the future that will rise above the ruins of the lofty city (v. 5), the human city which God will have destroyed by His judgment. He will destroy the false only to raise up the true. While this city is in the land of Judah, it should not be understood in narrowly nationalistic terms, for its gates are open (v. 2), and the one qualification for entrance is a steadfast trust in the Lord (vv. 3-4). This truth is gloriously filled out for us in the New Testament. We, as the people of the new covenant, have already become citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem which will one day become an earthly reality. The righteous nation of verse 2 is in fact a new people of God drawn from all over the earth. They are the oppressed and the poor whose righteousness consists simply in this: they have cast themselves wholly upon the Lord for their salvation.

The keynote for reflection which follows the song is struck in verse 8: Lord…we wait for you. While they wait for the final day to dawn, the righteous are perplexed by the perversity and blindness of the wicked who surround them on every hand (vv. 10-11). Such people do not understand kindness; the longer the Lord delays the worse they get, hence the longing for Him to act decisively to establish righteousness (vv. 9, 11b).

More perplexing, however, is the apparent harshness with which the Lord treats the very ones who are looking to Him to save them. He chastises them so severely that they twist and turn likes a woman in labor (vv. 16-17). Their commitment to the Lord brings them nothing but frustration and a sense of complete failure (18b). There is surely an acute crisis of faith here which must issue in either despair or a breakthrough to a new understanding of God’s ways. It is a testimony to the resilience of Old Testament faith that such crises always do, in fact, turn out to be occasions for fresh light to breakthrough, and that is certainly the case here.

The Lord has come to the rescue of His people time and again in the past (vv. 13-14) and He will certainly do so again (v. 15). But there is one further perplexity to be faced before the breakthrough can come, and it is implicit in verse 19. What about those who die in the time of waiting, who have put their trust in the Lord but experienced no fulfillment? Will they suffer the same fate as the wicked, described in verse 14, and miss out on the triumph to come? Verse 19 issues a resounding “No!” Their waiting will not be in vain. They will be raised from death to share in the final victory. Here again is that victory over death already glimpsed in 25:8. The short oracle of 26:20-27:1 adds the capstone to the theme of waiting in language that recalls the experience of the Israelites in Egypt.

Isaiah’s contemporaries could not put the world right any more than their ancestors could, nor were they expected to do so. All the Lord required was trustful waiting. To them the wait seemed long; to Him it was only a little while (v. 20). So too for us. The truths which break through the clouds in this chapter are trumpeted from the housetops in the New Testament. There the certainty of our own resurrection is signed and sealed by the resurrection of Jesus, and we are encouraged to count the troubles of the waiting time as nothing compared with the glory that awaits us.

Isaiah 26:1-27:1 Reflection Questions:

What is your patience (waiting) level? When you finally gave in and patiently waited for God what was the result or blessing you received? What can you learn from that?

What can help you deal with the “In between time”?

Do you have a steadfast trust in the Lord?

Have you cast yourself wholly upon the Lord Jesus for your salvation?

What is the main message you gain from this study?