How To Pray More Powerfully In 14 Days (Pt. 2)

How To Pray More Powerfully In 14 days (Part II)

Luke 11:5-8 May 4, 2003 Chester, IL Chester FBC Mike Fogerson, Speaker

INTRODUCTION:

1 Ten Ways To Know You Picked The Wrong Church.

10 When you enter, the ushers ask if you want smoking or non.

9 No cover charge, but communion is a two-drink minimum.

8 Services are B.Y.O.S. (Bring your own snakes)

7 They have a karaoke worship time.

6 The guy who records the minutes at the business meetings votes against everything because he can’t spell `unanimously’.

5 The only song the organist knows is "Free Bird"

4 The church van has a gun rack.

3 The Bible used is the Dr. Suess Version

2 They have an ATM in the lobby

1 The minister is able to use you to illustrate the breaking of 9 out of 10 commandments.

Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.

One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile.

A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch.

Amazed, the men asked him how he found it.

"I closed the door," the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking."

Often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough, and quiet enough, to hear. 2 We are finishing the second week of learning how to pray more powerfully.

(Briefly describe Three Step Strategy to Prayer Ministry)

A Jesus disciples didn’t ask "How" to raise the dead, heal the sick, make the blind to see, make five loaves/2 fish feed 5,000. They said , "Lord, teach us how to pray."

a Luke 11:5-8

5 Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, [6] because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 "Then the one inside answers, `Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ [8] I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.

b Jesus taught His followers how to pray with power. (ETS)

B Prayer opens the door for God himself to do his work in us. (ESS)

a I hope you’ll commit yourself to participating in the power behind church growth. (Objective)

b What missing building blocks are stopping you from building a powerful prayer life? (Probing Question)

T.S.: Let’s look at the first three building blocks that make for powerful prayer.

IV The fourth building block that makes powerful prayer is....FAITH IN PRAYER. (vv:5&6)

A Faith was what got the man to the neighbors house.

(A willing love got the guy out of bed, but faith got him to the neighbors door)

a He was sure, confident, certain that if only he asked the neighbor for some bread...he would get it.

b He went fully believing His request would be answered.

(I don’t think he would have went if he didn’t believe his request would be answered.)

B Faithlessness will take power from your prayers.

a If don’t expect/believe that God is going to answer your prayer...why pray? *Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

*James 5:15a "And the prayer offered in faith will make a sick person well; the Lord will raise him up....."

And the prayer offered in faith well....

*make a sick marriage well.. *make a sick attitude well

*make a sick church well..

b Faithlessness shows unbelief. What does surprise show? (Unbelief)

*When God answers your prayer and your shocked...you may have unbelief.

C How do we develop faith? (Not a class, seminar, sermon)

a We’ve already got a head start as believers.

*A. W. Tozer eloquently described the unusual characteristics of a Christian who lives by faith. "A real Christian is an odd number anyway.

*He feels supreme love for one whom he has never seen,