TEXT: Numbers 11
TITLE: Praying with Excellence - small people…BIG PRAYERS!
SERIES: Being the Church with Excellence
TOPIC: Prayer
OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church, March 10, 2013
PROP.: As a circle maker, it’s important that we are praying BIG prayers, because we serve a BIG God!
INTRODUCTION: Good morning! Please open your Bible to Numbers 11. Being the Church with Excellence is the name of our sermon series. Our theme verses are on the wall. And we have learned that the early church was devoted to prayer. This was why they were excellent.
Here’s what we’ve learned so far in being excellent about prayer:
1. Lord teach us to pray - Luke 11:1
2. Becoming Circle Makers - Joshua 6 (walls of Jericho)
Trust God’s promises…
Be specific with your prayers. Generic prayers, produce generic results.
As we continue in our efforts to be a church that is striving for excellence in the area of prayer by continually being devoted to it, let me start off by asking you this question this morning:
“What is the BIGGEST prayer you’ve ever prayed?”
It’s time we right size God. Do you know what I mean?
Sometimes, we make ourselves seem so much bigger than God, that we think we can handle the problems we are facing on our own.
Other times, we enlarge the problems and difficulties we are facing so much that they seem larger than God!
Listen, God is BIGGER than your Cancer. God is BIGGER than the stubbornness of your child! God is bigger than the hardness of your spouse’s heart! God is bigger than your checking account!
Why is it, we forget how BIG God is???
ILLUSTRATION: It was said that Teddy Roosevelt would often times go outside at night with a friend and look up into the sky. After a period of silence and reflection, Teddy Roosevelt would say: “I think we feel small enough now. Let’s go to bed.”
If you are facing a problem and you haven’t right sized God, you need to get a better perspective on how BIG God is. Ephesians 3:20 reminds us that God is big enough to more than we possibly imagine. THAT is how BIG God is.
In Isaiah 55:8,9 we are reminded how far superior God is compared to us: “8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
One thing we’ve learned from Louie Giglio about the universe, is that it is big! It’s gargantuan! A light year is the measurement that is needed to get your way around in God’s universe! Light travels at 186,000 miles per second.
And a light year is the distance light can travel in a year. 5.88 trillion miles is the distance of a light year!
Here’s the deal…we don’t know how far the universe extends beyond the earth! Astrophysicists have discovered the edge of the visible universe is 93 BILLION light years away. That number is incomprehensible!
“As far as the heavens are from the earth, so is the distance between God’s thoughts and ways from our thoughts and ways.” Translation? Your best thought on your best day is far inferior to God’s thoughts and plans. God’s greatness and goodness is incomprehensible! Expect BIG things from a God who is BIG!
And so here is the ONLY point of this morning’s sermon:
I. Pray BIG!
That’s it. That’s the gist of this morning’s sermon in a single thought. PRAY BIG! How big are your prayers? When tragedy strikes…or difficulties come…PRAY BIG!
We just spent time reassuring you this morning that GOD. IS. BIG. So since you are praying to a big God…why are our prayers often times, so small? Shouldn’t we ask BIG things from a BIG God?
This morning, the Title of the sermon is: Small People…BIG PRAYERS! You see, I want to challenge you as an individual to pray BIG PRAYERS! God is a BIG God who can do BIG things!
And so I want to encourage you this morning in your prayer life to dream the impossible. To ask the improbable. To believe in the power of God who specializes in BIG.
The Bible is filled with small people who prayed big prayers!
Joshua prayed big. He was the leader of Israel and was engaged in a battle against the Amorites. In Joshua 10, Joshua prays a BIG prayer. You see, the sun was beginning to set, and Joshua didn’t want any of these Amorites to escape in the darkness…so he prayed big. In verses 12-14, Joshua prays for the sun and moon to stand still. That’s a BIG prayer. But you know what? God answered Joshua. The sun and moon stood still and Joshua was able to defeat the enemies of the Lord!
Elijah prayed big. Elijah is famous for a lot of amazing things. As Elijah’s story opens, we find him upset with the King Ahab’s actions. King Ahab had turned the Kingdom of Israel away from worship of God in favor of worship of Baal. So in order to turn King Ahab back to God, Elijah prayed for a drought to come upon the land. And God shut the heavens for 3 ½ years (James 5:17,18)
[James 5:17,18
17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.]
Fed by Ravens:
So Elijah hides from the King near a brook and there the Lord sends birds to bring him meat and bread.
Fed by a widow and her son:
Soon the brook dries up because of the drought, so he moves on to Zarephath and runs into a widow who is using the last of her flour and oil to make a meal for her and her son. God promises to never let her flour and oil run dry as long as she will fix food for Elijah and provide him with a place to live. She agrees. And our story of Elijah picks up in
1st Kings 17:17-22
17 Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. 18 She said to Elijah, "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"
19 "Give me your son," Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" 21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this boy's life return to him!"
22 The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived.
Talk about a BIG prayer! Talk about a BOLD prayer! Here’s where I think we get confused and then become timid with our prayers. We think that God is somehow offended and dishonored when we pray big, bold prayers.
QUITE THE OPPOSITE is true: Big, Bold prayers HONOR God! And in return, God honors big, bold prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren’t impossible to you, they are insulting to God because they don’t require divine intervention. But ask God to part the Red sea, or make the sun stand still or float an iron ax head, and God is moved to omnipotent action!
OPTION: Listen to what Mark Batterson says in his book “The Circle Maker” (pgs 13 & 14)
Well, let’s read our text for this morning, because I want to show you how generous, and miraculous God really is. Ok?
Numbers 11:1-15
1Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 The people therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord and the fire died out. 3 So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burned among them.
4 The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? 5 We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, 6 but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna.” (Wow. Those people were having a pity party… “Poor us…all we have to eat is miraculous bread from heaven…” Have you ever complained to God because of the blessings He gives? “This is it?!?!?”
So in verses 7-9, it describes what the manna was like…and I think Moses did us a favor by describing it…because aren’t you curious to know what manna from heaven looked like????)
7 Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium. 8 The people would go about and gather it and grind it between two millstones or beat it in the mortar, and boil it in the pot and make cakes with it; and its taste was as the taste of cakes baked with oil. 9 When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.
(I thought maybe a picture of what manna looked like might be helpful. Here is coriander seed and bdellium.
So here the Israelites were complaining about the menu. Did you ever notice that complaining is contagious? If you’re around a person who complains…pretty soon, you find yourself complaining. Well…the people complained to Moses…and what does Moses do? Complains to God! Verse 10)
The Complaint of Moses
10 Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased. 11 So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me? 12 Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat that we may eat!’ 14 I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me. 15 So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.”
So here we have God’s people…grown adults…acting like a bunch of spoiled brats. And Moses is like: God…kill me. Kill me now. Really? Get a grip, Moses!
But even in this moment…at their worst…God’s provision, supply and patience are monumental! So what does God do? Well, he provides some help for Moses…70 men to help Moses not feel so overwhelmed.
Then God says, “I will provide meat to eat for all the people for a month. They are gonna have so much meat that they will grow tired of this too…”
Moses then responds to God…verse 21 And he’s like: “Woah. God, that sounds great and all…but there are a lot of us…the men alone number 600,000. How are you going to feed all of us meat? There aren’t enough livestock to feed us meat for a month. And we could never catch enough fish! How do suppose to do this?”
21 But Moses said, “The people, among whom I am, are 600,000 on foot; yet You have said, ‘I will give them meat, so that they may eat for a whole month.’ 22 Should flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to be sufficient for them? Or should all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to be sufficient for them?”
And I LOVE God’s response to the request of His people…verse 23.
23 The Lord said to Moses, “Is the Lord’s power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not.”
So there is the request of God’s people. And it’s a BIG request! “Give us meat in the wilderness!” So what about you? What big prayers have YOU prayed?
T.S.: And as you pray big prayers, I want to tell you that three things may happen to you….
First, when you pray big prayers…
A. You may feel foolish
When you pray big prayers, you are taking a risk!
ILLUSTRATION: Remember the story of Honi the Circle Maker that I shared last week? Standing inside a circle and telling God that you are not going to leave the circle until He provides is a risky proposition. I mean it wasn’t a semi-circle; he drew a complete circle. There was no escape clause, no expiration date. Honi backed himself into a circle, and the only way out was a miracle!
Sometimes faith looks like foolishness, doesn’t it? Noah looked foolish building a boat. The Israelites looked foolish blowing trumpets to cause the walls of Jericho to tumble. David looked foolish fighting a giant! The wisemen looked foolish following a star to Timbuktu. Peter looked foolish getting out of a boat!
And when you ask for the impossible, it won’t make sense to a lot of people. When the doctors say “it’s terminal”…or when the bank says, “you don’t have the credit score”…or when your spouse says, “you won’t change…” it’s because in human terms, it doesn‘t add up.
Moses must have felt foolish commanding Pharoah to let the Israelites go. He must have felt foolish raising his staff to divide the red sea. He must have felt foolish promising meat to eat for the entire nation of Israel in the middle of the wilderness. Because it seemed not only unlikely…BUT IMPOSSIBLE!
But the people who use the word impossible haven’t put God’s power in the equation.
Listen to what Paul reminds the Corinthians when he wrote
1st Corinthians 1:27
“but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,”
God specializes in the underdog. He takes situations that look hopeless and brings victory. He triumph from tragedy. All for his FAME’S sake! That’s what the glory of God is all about!
This was never more true than nearly 2000 years ago as Jesus was dying on a cross. To the disciples who had abandoned Him, the crucifixion of Jesus looked like that was the end. The cross looked hopeless to those who looked on. The end appeared imminent.
But God’s power brought hope to that situation. It was all apart of God’s plan. And Jesus Christ died…but that wasn’t the end. Three days later, he rose back to life proving that God truly does have power over death. Demonstrating that God not only forgives sin…but removes sin from our lives with the blood working power of His one and only son.
And so whatever circumstances you are facing…pray God to do the impossible! His power is so great, that even the impossible is within grasp!
If you aren’t willing to ask for the impossible, you’ll never experience the miracle! If you aren’t willing to step out of the boat, you’ll never walk on water. If you aren’t willing to circle the city, the wall will never fall. If you aren’t willing to follow the star, you’ll miss out on the greatest adventure of your life!
And if you are praying small, tiny, “safe” prayers, (you know the kind of prayers that are safe, right? The ones that will come true even without God’s assistance…) If those are the kinds of prayers you are praying on a frequent basis…you will miss out!
TAKE A RISK…PRAY BIG PRAYERS…YOU MAY FEEL FOOLISH…but if you don’t, you will NEVER know that…
B. God provides in Dramatic fashion!
I want to return to our text for this morning. Numbers 11. I want you to see how God provides for His people…
Numbers 11:31
31 Now there went forth a wind from the Lord and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp
The Israelites were parked in the Desert of Paran, a region about 50 miles inland from Mediterranean Sea and fifty miles south-west of the dead sea. Didn’t know if you were aware or not, but quail tend to live by the water and they don’t fly long distances. If it hadn’t been for a supernatural wind from God, the quail would have never made it this far inland!
Listen to what Mark Batterson says about quail…
“When quail get tired, they dive-bomb. We’re not talking about a perfectly angled duck that makes a smooth landing on a watery run-way; quail were falling from the sky like huge pieces of hail! There had to be more than one bruised noggin’ on the day it rained quail.”
What a site it must have been! But they only received because they asked! They prayed big! And God gave the Israelites a glimpse of His power!
If you haven’t experienced God’s miraculous provision, then your prayers are small!
Because when God provides, He usually does so in a way that you KNOW it is God. There is no coincidence with God. God provides with a miracle that only HE can give!
That’s God.
God not only provides in Dramatic fashion…but
C. God provides in Dramatic proportion!
Returning to Numbers 11 verses 31-32
Numbers 11:31,32
31 Now there went forth a wind from the Lord and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits deep on the surface of the ground. 32 The people spent all day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers) and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp.
GOD PROVIDES IN DRAMATIC PORTIONS!
You can’t out-give God…right? Well God was MORE than generous with quail that day! Let me put this in perspective for you! According to the Hebrew system of measurement, a “day’s walk” approximately 15 miles in any one direction.
So here is a picture of hancock county. And so if Carthage was the center of the Israelite camp, that means that you would have quail that stretched as far as the circle in this picture!
Not only that…the pile of quail would be three deep thick! (show yard stick)
So the next time it snows 8 inches of snow…just say to your neighbor…”It could be worse…it could be quail!” How long do you suppose school would be cancelled?
It was quailmageddon!
And once the quail stopped falling, the Israelites started gathering. Each Israelite gathered no less than ten homers. No…not Homer Simpson. WHAT IS A HOMER?!?
A homer was equal to about 11 bushels. One bushel is approximately 4 gallons of corn.
How much quail was it? Well it was enough that it took 600,000 men all day and all night to gather the quail that fell! Rough estimates would be that each person gathering, gathered 176 5 gallon buckets worth of quail.
That’s a lot of quail.
God doesn’t just provide in dramatic fashion…but also in dramatic proportion!
Moses could have never anticipated this answer from God. It was unprecedented, but Moses had the guts to circle the promise anyway. And when you circle the promise that God makes, you never know how God will provide, but it’s always cloudy with a chance of quail!
You see, your job and mine is not to crunch the numbers and make sure that God’s will adds up. I promise you, God’s will WON’T add up! God’s ways and thoughts are far superior to yours and mine!
CONCLUSION: So how big are your prayers?
Explain PRAYER CIRCLES-
3 tables: 1. Jairus Churchill
2. Tony Newton
3. Our Church (leaders and direction)
