Five Things God Does When People Pray

Pray is the series that we're in the third week of right now, and let me open with a story. Derek Redmond was one of the greatest sprinters in Olympic history, but he'll be forever remembered for what happened in the semi-finals of the Olympics in Barcelona. He was widely expected to not only win this race but to win the gold medal. To the stadium packed with 65,000 fans, Derek roars to the lead. But down the backstretched last leg of the race, suddenly he hears a pop in his right hamstring, and he pulls up lame like he's been shot. He was in to make the finals, but he falls lame.

Then, in a moment that'll live forever, he starts hobbling down the track, and then Derek's dad, Jim, comes running out of the stands, brushes aside the security people, and puts his arm around his son. He says, "I'm here, son. We'll finish together." Together, arm in arm, father and son walk down the track. You know, almost no one remembers who won that race, but no one who was watching will ever forget this scene when 65,000 people got on their feet and gave a standing ovation to the guy who came in last. Isn't that an awesome story and an awesome example for us all?

To me, that right there is a visual metaphor of what you can do as you help other people through your prayers. Through your prayers, you can help people because life is tough. Life will injure people; life will wound people. But through your prayers, you can play the role of Derek Redmond's dad. You can put an arm around them, lifting them up when otherwise they would not be able to finish the race.

Now, I have to be very honest with you. I know this from personal experience because I have been depressed and discouraged and down at times in my life when the only thing that has kept me going in the race has been people I love who kind of come out of the stands, who've left what they were doing to tell me specifically, "René, I am praying for you." I said thank you because those were often moments when I didn't feel like I had the strength or even the faith to pray for myself. Some of you know this; there are times that life has had you so hobbled that you didn't know if you could finish the race. Maybe you feel that right now, and the only thing that helps is when people who love you run beside you and lift you up together.

And I just want you to know if you feel like that right now, today you are surrounded by probably 1,100 to 1,200 people in this room right now who will be lifting you up in prayer. Today you can make it; you can finish the race because we gather together, as Trent said, as a church to lift one another up as one. You know, this is what we want to talk about today, what the Bible calls intercession or intercessory prayer, but I just call it praying together for one another.

This is something I have to admit, to my shame, that we don't talk about a lot here at Twin Lakes Church. Intercessory prayer, and I don't know why we don't talk about it, but honestly, it's a failure because we need to kind of juice up that part of our church life. It is so important. You know who, to me, is one of the people who's Derek Redmond's dad to me, who surrounds me and lifts me up in prayer? There is a gentleman here today named Todd; he's right back there. I love everything about Todd except for the fact that he wears a New York Yankees cap every single weekend.

But Todd is brought here from a nursing home where he lives as a result of disabilities he's experiencing because of a stroke, and because of the stroke, Todd is difficultly walking and speaking. But Todd comes up to me every single weekend, and he gives me a list of people that he's been praying for all week long, and it's a little different every week. He always gives me a copy; he has somebody there at Pleasant Care make a copy of his list, and my name and my wife's name are always at or near the top. I counted this list today; there are 93 names on it in his scrawl, and he has a check mark beside each name where he has gone through and he's prayed for them all week long.

After the service, Todd always gives me one of his bottles of water—that's part of his allotment at Pleasant Care. You talk about somebody who you might look at and say he can't do much. Jesus said pray for one another and give each other cups of water, and you'll hear, "Well done, that good and faithful servant." There are a lot of you who do it, but Todd's one of my heroes. Give it up for Todd; he's awesome, and I'll grab that water after the service.

Now, this makes a difference. This isn't just sentimental; this is something Jesus told us to do. This is something I want to improve intercessory prayer in my own life. Why? There's a great story in chapter nine of the book of Mark about this. It's fascinating because in this story, Jesus takes three of his disciples—Peter, James, and John—and he goes on a little trip, and he leaves the other nine disciples by themselves. They're just sort of trying not to mess things up too bad while Jesus is away with the good disciples, you know, Peter, James, and John.

The Bible says they're sort of trying to stay out of trouble when a great crowd recognizes them from the other side of the lake, and they say, "Look, there are some of the disciples of that guy Jesus," and they all start crowding around the other nine disciples—the ones whose names you and I always forget, Nathaniel and Matthias and all these guys. It says they're feeling a little bit awkward about all this; they're doing the best they can until a young father fights his way through the crowd, and he's brought with him his little son. He says, "My son is demon-possessed," which gets everybody's attention.

The way he describes the symptoms, it sounds like the son is experiencing something like epileptic seizures, fits. Suddenly, the father says, "We'll throw the son onto the ground," and he says, "At night, when we're around the fire warming ourselves as a family, sometimes he'll leap into the fire, and we drag him out and put out the fire that's burning his clothes. We don't know what to do. Can you stop it? Can you heal him?" The Bible says the disciples don't know what to do, and you can tell they're kind of going, "Wow, Jesus isn't here, nor Peter, James, nor John. Um, demon possession? Rod, Nathaniel, take it; that's yours." Nathaniel says, "Oh no, insist you go first; it's your turn." They're feeling awkward; they try some stuff; it doesn't work, and the guy's son isn't healed.

The man's a little bit disappointed, and the crowd's like, "Wow, these guys are a no-show." It says just at that moment, Jesus shows back up. He returns from his trip. "What's going on?" They hear it explained to him, and the Bible says he stops and he prays for the man and his son, and the son's fits stop, and he's healed. It says the disciples kind of nod about this, and then when the crowds go away, the nine disciples quickly say, "Jesus, now that the crowds are gone, what just happened there? Why couldn't we do anything for that man's son?"

And Jesus says something interesting in answer to that. He says, "This kind can come out only by what? By prayer." The lesson there is simple: there are some things that only happen when we pray. Now, he's not saying there are some things that only happen when we only pray. I'm not saying you should only pray and not get medicine. I'm not saying you should only pray and not get vaccinations. I'm not saying you should only pray and never wear your seat belts and never wear helmets when you ride your bike. But there are some things that only happen when prayer is also a necessary ingredient.

When prayer is a part of things, there are remarkable things that can happen. There are all sorts of new studies that are coming out that are showing the effect of praying for others. I put just a couple of those in your notes, but I could have put dozens more. Look at some of these. Some researchers found, according to a news report, patients who had been prayed for tended to recover with fewer complications than those who received standard treatment without prayer. In another similar study presented at the National Institutes of Health conference one year, patients in a chaplain prayer group had an average two-day shorter post-operation hospitalization, resulting incidentally in cost savings of $4,200 per patient. You know, so your insurance company will probably give you discounts if you pray. Now, I don't know, but it's remarkable. You can help yourself out when you ask other people to pray for you.

The Bible talks a lot about the effects of praying for others. Today, I just quickly want to look at five things that happen, five things that God does through you when you pray for others, and then we're going to do it. We're going to take a few minutes to just pray for others during some music at the end of the service. But jot these five things down, and these aren't the only things in the Bible, but these are just five of the things the Bible says God does when I pray for others.

Number one: my prayers can help set people free. Set people free. Quite literally, sometimes in Acts 12, the apostle Peter's been tossed into prison for preaching. It says, "So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him." Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. "Quick, get up," he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists. Chains fell off. Why? The church was earnestly praying to God for him. Listen, are there any Christians in any prison cells that are currently in chains because of their faith? Absolutely, all over the world, more now than ever in the history of the Christian church.

I mean, the eyes of the world are on Syria today, right? My wife forwarded me this email; it's the prayer of a pastor in Syria, and it really gives insight into the suffering of our brothers and sisters there right now this morning. You wonder, why don't they all just leave? Right, just go somewhere safe. Listen to what this guy says: "I weep for my country. I'm so sad and speechless. Everybody advises me to leave, but I respond by saying I'm staying that the message of Jesus may remain a light guiding those who are afraid right now. I'm staying because the harvest is plentiful right now, and the suffering is huge. I'm staying right now to follow in the footsteps of my master." But then he adds, "But do pray for us. Pray that the cup of war be taken away from our country. Pray that the Lord may give us to speak with great boldness and souls return to Christ. And pray that the Lord may send more food, support, medication, and healing for the wounded and the sick and our children who are now disabled as a result of these attacks." He concludes, "Oh Lord, hear and answer our prayers." And we're going to give you a chance to pray for those brothers and sisters of yours in Syria in just a minute.

And also in Egypt, there are many pastors and Christians in Egypt who are going through the same thing. We need to pray for that. Through our prayers today, we can run out of our stands and not just observe, but spiritually come alongside of them and lift them up in prayer. Thanks to the internet, so many of these pastors and Christians know that Christians all over the world are praying for them, are holding them up when they feel like they can't finish the race. And not only overseas, many people here in Santa Cruz, here in this room right now, are in chains—different kinds of chains—but chains because of addiction, chains because of sin, chains because of disease. And we can run alongside of them and pray for them and help them to finish the race. Your prayers can really help set people free.

Number two: your prayers can help bring peace. They can actually help bring peace. I want you to show you some amazing verses here in Jeremiah 29. For example, God says to the captured Jews in Babylon, verse 7: "Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers, you too will prosper." This is a fascinating verse because he's talking about Babylon, where these Jews had been ripped from their homes in Jerusalem, and they were in forced manual labor, many of them here in Babylon. God says, "Don't pray against the city. Pray that it prospers and has peace because if it prospers and has peace, then you will too." And that applies to us.

So many Christians that I meet, and sometimes I feel like this, are mad at the situation in Santa Cruz or Salinas or Watsonville. There's crime, and there's gangs, and there's drugs, and they're angry that they feel like more hasn't been done about it. They're giving up hope. They're like, "I've had it; I'm writing off Santa Cruz. I'm writing off Watsonville. I'm writing off Salinas. It's a joke." God doesn't say to write it off and say it's a joke. He says, "Pray for it. Pray for the peace and prosperity." There’s a sociologist, Rodney Stark, who says this is in fact how early Christians gained a hearing in ancient Rome. Ancient Rome for the first three centuries was just pounding on them for much of the time, and yet the Christians relentlessly sought to bless Rome and seek its peace and prosperity through all kinds of different ways and finally gained a hearing about their faith.

Similarly, Paul writes these words to Timothy: "I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession"—remember that's the fancy word for pray for each other—"and thanksgiving be made for everyone." If you have a pencil or pen, underline or circle and star "everyone." Everyone. He's saying when you pray, don't make it along party lines. When you pray, don't make it just about who you voted for. When you pray, don't make it just about the people you like. When you pray, pray for everyone. When you pray, include those political figures who may be secretly behind closed doors become the butt of jokes by Christians. Pray for kings and all those in authority. And what's the goal? That we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

Now, before you flip over to the second page, let me just give you one example of how this can work because you might be going, "So I don't get it. So we pray for our country. How does that benefit?" Do you realize you're living in a country right now that has benefited from that? Twin Lakes Church is pretty old; we were started in 1890. In fact, there's a new history display of some of the history of Twin Lakes, including our old model of this campus when this was just somebody's imagination. That's all at a new history display out in the lobby. I hope you check that out.

We were started in 1890, almost 125 years old, and that means we've got a lot of boxes in our basement and attic and so on that nobody ever goes through that are full of junk and a few little hidden treasures, probably like you have right in your attic. It's a once-in-a-while we decide to go through those boxes and go, "All right, we better throw this away. Oh, I gotta keep that; toss this stuff." We were doing this one day, and I open up a box, and it's got a whole bunch of VHS videotapes. Anybody here remember VHS videos? This is back in like the Flintstone age, right? Okay. None of these are professional videos; they're all like TDK and Maxell videotapes that somebody bought at the store, and they're labeled with pencil markings that are like "Good one" and things like that. I don't even know what this means.

One of them has a pencil scrawl, "J. Edwin Orr." And so I'm thinking, "Oh, yeah, that's—I remember that guy. He was an evangelist back in the day, the only evangelist that I know of who had two earned doctorates, including a PhD from Oxford in history." And so this guy's an evangelist and this brain about history. So I'm thinking, "Well, this might be interesting." So we find a VHS machine, dust it off, plug it into a TV, and I pop in the tape, and I am riveted because he starts telling a true story that I had never heard before about the country we live in. He says this:

"Not many people realize that in the wake of the American Revolution, there was a moral slump. Drunkenness became epidemic. Out of a population of just 5,300,000, there were confirmed alcoholics, and that's by the loose standards of the day. One historian estimates that during the 1770s, the average adult male may have consumed as much as three pints of rum weekly in addition to his ale, wine, and whiskey diet. For the first time in the history of America, women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies and riots were a daily occurrence. What about all the churches in all this mayhem? Well, Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. In a typical congregational church in Massachusetts, in 16 years, they had not taken one new person into fellowship. The Episcopal bishop of New York quit because his church had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work. Thomas Paine said Christianity will be forgotten in 30 years. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, said the church is too far gone to ever be redeemed. A poll taken at Harvard discovered not one believer in the entire student body—not one. They took a poll at Princeton, a much more evangelical place, where they discovered two believers in the entire student body and only five that did not belong to the so-called filthy speech movement of the day, where college students tried to inject as much profanity and blasphemy as they possibly could into their everyday conversation. That was an actual movement, and I think it's making a comeback right now by my observation. But students rioted against Christians, forced the resignation of the Christian president of Harvard, took a Bible out of a local church in New Jersey, and burned it in a public bonfire demonstrating against Christianity. Christians were so few on campus in the 1790s at Princeton that they had to meet in secret like a communist cell and keep their minutes in code so that no one would find out who they were and attack them. This is not an alternate reality America; this is the way it was here from about the 1770s to the 1790s. How did the situation change?

Well, in New England, there was a man named Isaac Baccus, a Baptist pastor who in 1794 mailed a letter that was an urgent plea for prayer for revival to the pastor of every different Christian denomination and church that he could find in the entire United States if he had their mailing address. He mailed them this letter; most pastors ignored it. But there was a Presbyterian minister in Kentucky named James McGready whose chief claim to fame was that he was so ugly that he attracted attention. I am not making this up. He was the pastor of a tiny church in Kentucky, and he promoted the idea of a concert of prayer. He called it on the first Monday of every month. First Monday, nobody comes, then five, then ten, then a room full. And in the summer of 1800, 11,000 people come to one of his prayer services, and that event started a revival out of which came the whole modern missionary movement. Out of it came the abolition of slavery. Out of it came popular education, Bible societies, Sunday schools, and many other social benefits. All of American society was affected to this day because people prayed.

Now, at the end of this service, we're going to pray. Saturday morning, we're having a church prayer day, and I wonder what we might be starting when we pray together because your prayers can help set people free. They can bring peace and prosperity. And third, my prayers can open my eyes to the needs of others. Open my eyes to the needs of others. In Isaiah 58, God says about his people, "Day after day, they seek me out. They ask me for just decisions, but is this the kind of fast I have chosen? Only a day for a man to humble himself?" So these people are having their own day of prayer here, and God says, "Get your eyes off yourself because praying also involves opening your eyes to the needs of others." God goes on in this passage and says, "Is not this the kind of fast I have chosen to share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter? And when you see the naked, to clothe him?"

There's a story of a woman at our church named Barbara Taylor who found these verses happening to her. Here's what happened: Barbara was praying for kids who live in poverty. Do you ever do that? When you pray, you just pray, "God, help those poor children who are living in poverty." I do. And she was praying, and Barbara said that she was just going, "God, I want to do more than pray. I want to help. How can I help them?" And God showed her an amazing ministry idea called "Dress a Girl Around the World." Barbara thought it was a great idea. She just started it on June 1st here at Twin Lakes Church, and already over 160 volunteers aged from 13 to 98 from Twin Lakes Church donate their time to make dresses for kids around the world who otherwise would not have nice clothes to go to school in and so on. They send these to different children's homes that we support all around the world—in Africa, India, and so on—and they send the dresses with Bibles and their written prayers for these girls.

And get this: they have just sent—and now they just started this summer—they have just sent out their 500th dress, and they have orders around the world for 700 more. I want to show you here are some girls from Zambia this summer wearing dresses that Barbara and her Twin Lakes volunteers have made. Don't you guys love this? Check this out. Barbara tells me that we have requests pending from Sri Lanka, Mexico, India, Tanzania, Grand Bahama, Nicaragua, and Ecuador. And here's Barbara and one of her volunteers, Lisa Fuentes. Our community's getting into it. I have to give a shout-out to Beverly's Fabrics; they provided us with kind of our starting inventory of cloth. But listen to what Barbara emailed me. She says, "Dress a Girl is a great example of learning through prayer, how God is moving your heart and then learning what God is doing for that need and then getting on board. It started with prayer; it continues with prayer." Here's a picture, in fact, of the Dress a Girl volunteers praying right before they sent out their last shipment.

Now, if you want to be part of that team, you can go to their Facebook page, search for "Dress a Girl Around the World Santa Cruz California" on Facebook, and you'll be able to get in touch with them. But this kind of thing is exactly what this verse is talking about. You pray for others, and it opens your eyes, and it opens your heart to needs. You pray for others, and suddenly you'll be like, "I need to go to the hospital to visit that person. I want to call that person. I want to text them, tell them I'm praying for them." It motivates you into motion, and that's exactly what God says.

And then fourth, my prayers can strengthen the faith of leaders. Strengthen the faith of leaders. Jesus did this for Peter. This verse has always fascinated me. As Jesus went through his final days, he brings Simon Peter aside, and he says, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat, but I've prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." We know this prayer was answered, but what is amazing to be here is that Peter, even though Jesus prayed for him, still went through a time of struggle. He still denies Jesus; he still does it three times; he still gets discouraged. But when that was over, Peter comes back and loves Jesus like never before.

And I'm asking you, please pray for leaders, volunteer and staff leaders at Twin Lakes and churches all around the world whom Satan wants to sift like wheat. But pray that when that trial is over, they would return and strengthen other people. Pray for the strength of ministry leaders. And then finally, number five: prayers increase ministry impact. You say, "All right, yeah, I guess theoretically, okay." No, check this out. About 18 years ago, I had the huge privilege of meeting a pastor who's legendary among pastors now. His name is David Yonggi Cho; he's from Seoul, Korea. I met him down in Southern California at a pastor's conference. If you don't know his story, in the 60s, he wanted to impact South Korea. Christian church growth wasn't really happening there at the time, and so he decides to start a church in his friend's living room, right? So that little church starts to grow; they decided they should pitch a tent in his friend's front yard. Well, they outgrew the tent and had to rent some buildings. By 1965, that church had 3,000 people in an area that had been very resistant to the gospel. So the church keeps exploding; by '72, they have 10,000 people; by '79, they have 100,000 people; by 1984, the church had grown to 400,000. And if you go to South Korea today, you'll discover that the Yoido Full Gospel Church has 800,000 people that attend services there every single weekend. It's the largest church on planet Earth.

Well, a friend of mine who's a pastor in Southern California visited that church, and he said he met with some of the pastors and just said, "What's your secret?" Right? "What's your secret? What are you guys doing that the church is kind of going crazy like this?" And every one of them said the same thing. They said, "It's the furnace room." The what? "Our furnace room." He said, "Furnace room? What are you talking about?" They said, "Why don't you come back at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, and we'll show you the furnace room." So he goes, "All right." And so he sets his alarm; he gets up kind of groggy; he's got sleep in his eyes, and they take him to one of the big buildings on campus, and there's double doors that say "Furnace Room" on them in Korean, English, and some other languages. He said, "This is interesting." And they open the doors, and inside the doors are between 8,000 and 10,000 people praying for the church. This is at 5 in the morning. I don't even believe in God before 6 in the morning. All right, this is so astounding to me that this would happen, right? But this church isn't just doing that, you know, once a week or once a year; they do it every single day of the week.

This is biblical. The Apostle Paul was constantly asking for prayer. In Romans 15, he says, "Pray for me that I might be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem would be acceptable to the saints there." I have to tell you, I sensed this earlier this year. I was asked—it was a huge privilege to be asked to be part of the memorial services for the two officers who were tragically slain here in San Jose. Keep praying for their families and SCPD and all those involved. But I mentioned to you that the weekend before, I said, "Please pray for me because I want to do right by the slain officers and their families." And as a Christian pastor, it's also my responsibility too, as the Bible says, to share the reason for the hope that I have with gentleness and respect, right? And you prayed for me, and I have to tell you, I felt buoyed up by your prayers, just like somebody injected helium into my bloodstream or something. I just felt such peace and such focus on that day. And I learned the power of all of you going, "Well, this is going to be really hard for René. Let's pray, pray, pray."

And I'm asking you to do that again, to not stop, to keep praying for me, for Mark, that we may be effective. Pray for Dan as he makes his transition. Pray for Gary as he retires. Pray for Trent as he starts. Pray for all of the pastors here in church. Pray that their ministry to the saints would be acceptable and successful. Show of hands: how many of you will promise to pray for your pastors and your leaders here? Can I see that? We would appreciate that so much because it makes a difference. One of the ways we want to get this kind of kick-started is this coming Saturday. We're having an all-church prayer day. It's going to be a prayer walk, and that's going to come up from 9:30 to 12:30. Next, you'll notice I'm not starting this at five; I am not a morning person. It starts at 9:30. But this is sort of maybe the beginning of our own furnace room, and I want to invite you to come on out. We're going to meet right in here at 9:30. We're going to break into groups and walk around the campus and pray for it because your prayers really can increase our ministry impact.

You know, this fall we're asking people to pray about how they might contribute to reenvisioning our campus, and there's buildings we hope to build and ministries we hope to start. But it shouldn't be about our own strength and what quote-unquote we can do; it has to start with prayer. Now, let me just say this: maybe you're thinking, "Why would God even listen to my prayers? That's great, René, but you know, you don't know about my background; God wouldn't ever listen to my prayers." You know, there's a verse in the Bible in the book of James that says, "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective," right? I used to read that verse and think, "Great, now all I have to do is find a righteous person because I know I'm not righteous, so I need to find like some Christian monk, like some spiritual Jedi knight, you know, up on a mountaintop somewhere, and then his prayers are going to be powerful." Well, as I continue to study the Bible, I realized he's not talking about somebody out there on a mountaintop; he's talking about you and me.

Because Romans 3:22 puts it this way: "We are made righteous in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins." That's good news. Do you get what makes us righteous? It's not that we do everything right; it's that we've been made righteous when we trust in Jesus Christ. When we have a relationship with him, there are going to be scores of people celebrating that today at the beach baptism. But you can celebrate that too because here's one of the implications: jump back to that verse in James 5. The prayer of a righteous person—a righteous man or woman—that's you and me if you have trusted in Christ and you desire to walk in step with his Spirit. That's you. He's saying your prayers are powerful and effective.

The big idea is it makes a difference when I pray. And you're going to be making a difference right now in the lives of some of your friends—friends who you know are limping or hobbling right now—in prayer. You can run alongside of them and lift them up. Would you bow in prayer with me? With our heads bowed, let me just explain: here's what we're going to do. You're going to get a chance to do what we've been talking about. We're going to sing a couple of response songs, and I'm going to invite you to pray for others during this time. Some people God is putting on your heart right now. Who do you want to pray for? Who's hobbling on that track right now? Just think of those names. Just think of those faces.

Father in heaven, we love you. Thank you that it's because you first loved us. Thank you that you do hear our prayers because you've made us righteous through Christ. And we bring you in prayer right now those who are hurting, suffering, dying, in chains. Open our eyes to the ways we can help. Thank you for all your blessings, by your grace, in Jesus' name. Amen.