A Vessel of Honor in the Ministry of Prayer

Please turn with me this morning to the Epistle of James, chapter 5. Going to begin in verse 16 and read a couple verses. This is God’s holy inherent Word.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.

Let me ask God to bless this reading of his word and we’re going to look at this passage and a few others this morning as we consider what it takes to have an effective ministry of prayer, to be blessed with a ministry of prayer. What makes our prayers effective? So let’s look and ask for God’s blessing.

Father, we are thankful to you for such rich passage of scripture and especially Father for such rich promises to us. We pray Lord that you help us understand the nature of prayer better and what it would mean to have an effective ministry of prayer. We pray Lord that you show us mercy today and bless us and I pray father that you stir our hearts to seek you and father that in every each of us, every one of us, that our prayer life would be strengthened and blessed through the things which we study. We recognize such grace to come before the throne of God to lift up our cares and requests to you, to come to you with praise and adoration. Father, we pray that you help us to appreciate that privilege and to use it. And Father, we pray for effectiveness in our prayers. We ask Lord for guidance from your word and for wisdom and for you to teach us today. Bless us in these ways. We ask in the name of our savior. Amen.

I. The Effective Prayer of a Righteous Man Can Accomplish Much

I made that my very first point. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Effectual prayers. The word effectual or effective means it accomplishes its purpose. It actually produces something that affects the world. There are certain people who’ve been blessed in unique ways in church history and probably in every age, probably gifted at least in pretty much every church, every true church of God to have the kind of faith that brings great blessing and accomplishes great results.

A. A Unique Ministry

From time to time, we’ve talked about certain men of the faith and people of faith in church history. A few months ago, we talked about George Müller’s ministry. He was a man of faith and prayer exactly like what I’m talking about today. He began to pray for blessing for orphans. His principle was to never ask a human being for anything but only lift up the request to the Lord to meet his own needs, but not just his own needs, but for the needs of those whom he was praying.

And so he began to pray for these orphans that was in his care. And God blessed, met need after need, literally answering about a million needs and throughout his life, a million requests in remarkable ways. Incredible man of prayer. Not just those few orphans, he ended up supporting thousands of orphans through prayer and meeting their needs, being met through the prayers that he prayed. God would hear the prayer, answer it, and that was only one of the ministries. He also began a missions work there. It’s hard to imagine what God accomplished using George Müller in his prayers.

And there’s another man about that time at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century. His name was John Nelson Hyde. I doubt if as many of you know of Hyde. He was a man of prayer. He was a missionary. He never married. He died at an early age. He was probably about 48 when he died. He had a powerful ministry of prayer. It was extraordinary.

The Lord called him as a missionary to India and he ministered in India for most of his life, for the majority of his adult life. Very gifted man in so many ways but one of his failings was that he was partially deaf and if you try to learn a language and you’re partially deaf, especially one that has the kind of nuances of the languages in India, well that was very difficult for him. And so he wasn’t successful at that to begin with. As a missionary, he spent most of his time studying scripture and praying. And that didn’t go well with the mission board, at first especially.

He prayed for the people. He loved them. And he began to develop enough fluency with the language that he could share the gospel with people. He could communicate basically with them. But his primary ministry was praying for them. And God used him in amazing ways through his prayer ministry. He prayed for people and he led missionaries in prayer.

At one time when the mission was concerned about him spending so much time studying, praying and not actually ministering in a direct way, they threatened to send him home. The people there interceded for him. They said, “He might not be able to speak our language, but he speaks the language of our heart.” And so they kept him on the field. And it’s a good thing they did. A few years later, you know, not many people came to faith in that difficult work initially, but at one missions conference, he led in prayer and he prayed that in the next year he would see 400 people come to faith, one a day at least.

Well, he prayed for one a day. And what happened was 400 people came to faith pretty much directly through his ministry. An incredible thing, incredible answers to prayer. That’s just one. He prayed so much. He would literally spend nights in prayer. He would start praying and he would spend the whole night in prayer. He would pray all the time. He became an expert with prayer. He was a man gifted in faith to pray and God blessed his prayers.

There was a preacher about that time in England. And when John Nelson Hyde became ill, he went back to England for I guess the last part of his life. And while he was there, Chapman had started an evangelistic meeting in England and he was holding these meetings and it started out and it wasn’t going well at all. He was really disappointed with the people who turned out and when he preached it seemed like everything he said fell flat. The people were expressionless and then this man John Hyde came. He didn’t come to the meetings. He told them at the beginning, “I’m not coming to any of your meetings, but I will be praying for you.”

And so he began to pray. The very next night, the meeting house was packed out and 50 people came to faith that night. That’s a true story. I mean, it’s repeated. There’s countless accounts of it. And later Chapman asked Hyde to pray for him and so he met with him. He met with him in his office and he said the prayer, he said he had never experienced anything like it. I don’t remember, I have it written down somewhere roughly the contents of the prayer, but I remember this to start off with: for at least five minutes Hyde didn’t pray at all. It was just complete silence. And Chapman looked up and his face was just filled with joy. And he’s waiting and all of a sudden he says, “Oh God.”

And then it was another five minutes before he said anything else. And then he offered the most incredible blessing to Pastor Chapman and for his ministry. And Chapman said, “That was the night when I learned how to pray.” He said, “That was the night when I began to understand what our Lord’s prayers might have been like.”

Some people are uniquely gifted in a unique way, special ways to pray and to have a ministry of prayer. In Ephesians chapter 4, it tells us that God gifts his church with people. And he gifts them with different gifts, different capacities. In 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, it lists those gifts that God gives his children, his people. And among those is a gift of faith. Certain people have gifts of faith. I believe George Müller had such a gift. But I believe that most every church is given the gifts that it needs. How many times are people gifted with something and it’s never really truly developed?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a George Müller or a John Nelson Hyde that you could come to and give your prayer requests to? Wouldn’t that be an incredible privilege? And if you were connected with someone like that, wouldn’t that improve your faith and improve your prayer life?

When God gives a gift to the church like someone like these, the reason that he gives them, it tells us in Ephesians 4, is for the building up of the body, building up of the church. It’s for the edification and building them up. Not just that they benefit from the prayers of such a one, but that they also gain in strength as prayer warriors themselves. And so we get blessed in that way.

Now, I had planned on starting a book series where I do exposition and I had planned on starting that this week and I got derailed last week and ended up doing this. Last Sunday after the service, a lady came to me after the service and spoke with me and said, “I’ve been thinking about my unique situation.” She says, “I have more time than most people probably to devote to the Lord.” And she wanted strength to be strengthened in her prayer and devotional life. And for a second, I thought that was it. But then she said, “I was thinking I’d love to have a few people that I could take my prayer requests to knowing that they’re the kind of people whose prayers are answered.” And then she said, “I thought, I want to be that kind of person.“

You know what? I want both of those things. I want both of those things. I want to have people like that that I can come to who I know will lift up those prayers to the throne of God’s grace. And they are in a such a relationship with God that God hears their prayers. And even more than that, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a ministry like that of prayer? The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. It’s effective. These are the kinds of people who alter history.

You know, the appearance to us is that these people, the prayers of their heart shake the heavens and move the hand of God. Now that’s the language of appearance. I know God’s will and plan is perfect and is really not altered. It’s like we see the sun rise and go across the sky and set in the evening and we think well the sun circles the earth but it doesn’t does it? The sun doesn’t circle the earth, the earth rotates and sun stays steady. Well it’s true what this passage says that these prayers are effectual and that is because God works that way he plans the person plans their prayer. He loves to answer the prayer. When they pray and lift up something to God, those prayers become part of his history. Their prayers are effectual.

B. Consider the Promises of God

So, we are to think about this and think about the promises that God has given us. Consider these promises:

• 1 John 3:22: “Whatever we ask we receive from him.”

• John 15:7: “Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”

• Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he’ll give you the desires of your heart.”

Now, those verses stretch us a bit, don’t they? And I wonder if we believe them. In one of R.A. Torrey’s books, he tells about his first ministry during his first pastorate. There was a woman who attended his church who wasn’t a member. She came occasionally and Torrey asked her about that. She said that she wasn’t a member because she didn’t believe the Bible. And Torrey said, “Why don’t you believe the Bible?” And she said, “Because I’ve tried its promises and found them untrue.”

Torrey asked her to give her one of the promises which she had found to be untrue. And she said, “The promise that says, ‘Whatever things you desire when you pray, believe and you’ll receive them that you will receive them and you shall have them.’ Once I prayed for something very earnestly. But I didn’t receive it. It isn’t true.” She says, “Isn’t it true that that promise failed?”

And Torrey said, “No, it’s not true at all.” And she says, “Well, doesn’t it say that you receive whatever you ask if you believe it?” And Torrey says, “Well, yes, it does say something like that. But,” he says, “First, you got to ask yourself if you’re one of the you.”

And she said she didn’t know what he was talking about. So he said again, “Are you one of the people to whom the promise is made?” That’s pretty important. You see, the promises aren’t made to everyone. She said, “Isn’t it made to every professing Christian?” And Torrey said, “Certainly not. God defines very clearly in his word just to whom his promises to answer prayer are made.” When asked to see the verse, he took her to this last verse which they’ve been studying: “Whatever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” That’s First John. The prayers that God answers are made by believers in Jesus Christ to keep his commandments. Torrey says, “Do you keep his commandments?” and she said no.

And later she did return to the Lord and became very active and useful in church.

II. What Is That Person Like Who Seems to Have the Ear of God?

So you know it’s an interesting thing. What is a person like who seems to have the ear of God? Who are the “you’s”? What’s necessary in order to be able to come before God and know that he will hear your prayers, that your prayers will be answered?

A. A Child of God

Well, one thing that is certain is that you must be a child of God. You must be a person whose trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ who’s been transformed and given new birth, become a new creation in him. You have to be in the family of God for him to hear your prayers. You have to be a child.

Romans 8:14 says, “For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” John 1:11 tells us that he came to his own and his own did not receive him. John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God, children of God.”

You see, when Jesus was teaching people how to pray, he began his prayer with “Our Father,” our father who is in heaven. You have to be a child of God in order to be able to address God as your father. And that makes everything different in the relationship. Just like a father wishes to do the desires of his child, you have to have a relationship that begins with God. That comes about by the power of the spirit of God, a regeneration, life in God, and then you have access to the throne of God to his seat.

B. A Vessel of Honor

Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Even as a Christian, you can come to the Lord and as we can often do, and in a hypocritical way, still be protecting ourselves and our little pet sins and the things that we desire and want that have to be repented of and set aside if God is going to have the kind of relationship with God that God will hear us so that we can have an effective ministry at all, let alone like men like Müller or Hyde. If we’re to have any ministry at all, we have to be what 2 Timothy 2:21 calls a vessel of honor.

Now, let’s go ahead and look at that section in 2 Timothy 2:21. What does it mean to be a vessel of honor? The illustration that Paul is using with Timothy who has a ministry—he’s a pastor of the church in Ephesus, he’s an excellent minister—and Paul is reminding him of this. He says:

“Now in a large house, they’re not only vessels of gold and silver, but also vessels of wood and earthenware, and some to honor, some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work.”

And it goes on to say, now flee from youthful lust and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. You see, it’s talking about having an effective ministry, and that’s having a pure heart so that you can call on the name of the Lord.

Now, I want to step back a second and point out that I’m not saying that if you live your life right, if you make yourself righteous, if you pursue all these things and practice them and you’re good enough, then God will hear your prayers. That’s not what I’m saying. You will never ever be able to merit God’s grace. You’ll never be able to merit an answer to prayer from the Lord. That will never happen because as it tells us in Isaiah, all our righteousness is like filthy rags. We can never do it. We can never rise to that standard.

But there was one person who did. There’s one exception. One person whose prayers were answered because of his personal merit and righteousness. If you look at Hebrews chapter 5, beginning in verse 5, tells us who he was. Those first few verses I’m reading just so that you know we’re talking about our Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 5:5 says, “So also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest. But he who said of him, ‘You’re my son. Today I’ve begotten you.'” Just as he says also in another passage, “You’re a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

Notice verse 7: “In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his piety.” He was heard because of his sinlessness. He was heard because he had kept perfectly the righteous standard of God. He was heard because he always did the will of his father. That’s what he said. He was heard because there was never a time in his life that he didn’t bring Glory to God, to the glory to the father. If you want to have a prayer life that’s based on your righteousness, that’s what it takes. It takes that kind of righteousness.

So then, how can we pray? When we go back to James, the effectual prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. How can we ever have a prayer like that? It’s received by God. Do we are we righteous? Well, not in ourselves. Not in ourselves. But we can pray as righteous men and women if our righteousness is received. If the righteousness that we have is the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, we receive that when we put our trust in him. Not only is our sins taken and on and placed on the cross to be paid for, but his righteousness is given over to us.

So we come to the father not in any righteousness of our own, but in the perfect righteousness of our savior, the Lord Jesus. And when we pray, our Lord Jesus with his perfect righteousness carries our prayers to the father so that they will be heard. We have that promise, that we have that reality. That’s what it means for Christ to be our mediator. He’s perfect. He’s perfectly righteous. And his prayers are always heard, always answered. And when we pray in his name, when we pray with his righteousness, God will hear our prayers. And that’s the only way we can come. We have to be in Christ. We have to have a relationship with him. We have to be faithful to plead his righteousness and ask for his mercy.

C. Who Seeks God’s Glory

You know, when we come to God, we should come confessing. You have those different things, those little patterns for prayer that people use. ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. And sometimes CATS: Confession, Adoration, Thanksgiving, Supplication. Maybe it’d be better for us to begin with confession, to make our heart right with God, to come to him, confessing our sins, pleading the mercy of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, so that we’re washed and made perfect before him. So that our relationship with God is restored, right?

So that then we can offer praise to him and thanksgiving for the salvation we have and then our supplications that we lift up for people. And the Lord’s Prayer begins seeking God’s glory. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” long before it seeks personal requests such as the bread for the day, the forgiveness of sins. Even this to seek the glory of God is paramount in our prayers and to pray in his name in the righteousness of Christ and to plead for mercy.

Psalm 86 says, “Have mercy on me, oh Lord, for I call on you all day long.” The whole psalm really, but let me read a few of the verses just skipping around from Psalm 86. “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and listen to my cry for mercy” (Verse 6). Verse 16 pleads, “Turn to me and have mercy on me. Grant your strength to your servant and save the son of your maid servant.”

You know, there’s nothing more important to sinful people than being able to find mercy with God. So, you should pray for that. The basis of our prayer life is that we’re seeking God’s mercy. We come to him as sinners. God is perfect and righteous and holy and we are sinners on this side. And it’s only through the work of Christ who mediates for us through his work of redeeming us and perfecting us that we have any access at all to the throne of grace.

And so we come to him and we come to him seeking him with a pure heart because we love him. We want to be like him. We want to live for him. We want to hear his commandments and obey them. Not because some prayer might be answered or so that we can earn merit, but because we want to please him. We love him. That’s a different thing. You know, it’s a far cry from a cry for mercy—”Oh God, have mercy on me, the sinner”—than it is to say, “You know, I’ve been teaching Sunday school for 33 years. I’ve been faithful, you know, ministering, sacrificing to people for all these years. I’ve done all these great things for God, and so surely he’s going to hear me when I pray.” Now, that’s an arrogant prayer. That’s a self-righteous prayer. We don’t merit God’s blessing.

No, we come to God though as children of God who benefit from the spirit of God and who God is by his abundant grace is sanctifying and blessing, making us more like our savior, the Lord Jesus, and working so that we do become vessels of honor.

So let’s think about those promises one last time.

• John 15:7: “If you abide in me, my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” We want the last part of that prayer, don’t we? Well, that prayer goes to the person who is in Christ. The picture that he gives just before that is that he’s the vine and we’re the branches. The life of God flows from him and to us. We’re connected to the vine. We are abiding in him. If we’re abiding in him, then we’re seeking his blessings. It’s about him. George Müller’s purpose in all his prayers was the ultimate glory of God, even more than the blessing on the orphans. He wanted to see God glorified. Abide in me and my words in you. So if you abide in him, your will becomes his will. It’s the other way around. God’s will becomes your will. What you want is what he wants. That’s melded together.

• 1 John 3:22: “And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.” That’s the heart of a believer, to hear the commandments of God, to do them, to love God, and to love your brothers and sisters in the Lord. It’s the work of the spirit of God in you. And we receive that and do it in some measure. And so, if we’re doing that, we’re demonstrating our relationship with God.

• Psalm 37: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he’ll give you the desires of your heart.” What are you delighting in? The Lord and his work? John Nelson Hyde was all about people coming to faith, in India especially but everywhere. He prayed for the expansion of the kingdom of God and for the blessing of people coming to faith in Christ. And he prayed earnestly and regularly and faithfully and with great fervency and God heard his prayers. It was about God’s kingdom. It wasn’t about selfish needs.

So my purpose over the next few weeks is to explore these things that have to do with making our prayer life effective. I want to have some people that I can go to who are the kind of people that when they pray God hears their prayers and I want to be a person like that. That’s my prayer. Let me pray for us now.

Father, we thank you for this picture of powerful prayer warriors, people who sacrifice in such deep ways for just this wonderful ministry of being used by you in such remarkable ways that their prayers are answered, that you work through them, that you bring change because of the prayers that are offered. Father, we recognize you do that. Yes, you are sovereign. God works in such ways. We thank you, Lord, as we picture this and as we think about our own life, we can live a purposeless life, so easy to do, all for ourselves and meaning nothing at all, amounting to nothing. Or Father you give each of us opportunities to be used for eternal glory that you would be glorified through us and through the work you do through us. Lord, that’s the kind of people we want to be. Father, help us to see how important this is. And Father, change your hearts where it needs to be changed. Thank you, Father, for the words of scripture that I’ve read today. I pray, Lord, that by the power of your spirit, you apply them to our hearts, that we receive them, and that we’re changed through them. Make us the people of God you want us to be. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.