Video 1: Jaxon’s story and struggle writes a new worship song for the church and The Kingdom of God: “Raise a Hallelujah” (11:00 min.)
We sang the song today in worship:
"Raise A Hallelujah" (performed by Jonathan David Helser & Melissa Helser)
Here are the words we sang if you did not notice:
I raise a hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies
I raise a hallelujah, louder than the unbelief
I raise a hallelujah, my weapon is a melody
I raise a hallelujah, Heaven comes to fight for me
I'm gonna sing, in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder, you're gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes, hope will arise
Death is defeated, the King is alive!
I raise a hallelujah, with everything inside of me
I raise a hallelujah, I will watch the darkness flee
I raise a hallelujah, in the middle of the mystery
I raise a hallelujah, fear you lost your hold on me!
I'm gonna sing, in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder, you're gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes, hope will arise
Death is defeated, the King is alive!
Sing a little louder (Sing a little louder)
Sing a little louder (Sing a little louder)
Sing a little louder (Sing a little louder)
Let's sing a little louder (Let's sing a little louder)
Sing a little louder (In the presence of my enemies)
Sing a little louder (Louder than the unbelief)
Sing a little louder (My weapon is a melody)
Sing a little louder (Heaven comes to fight for me)
Sing a little louder (In the presence of my enemies)
Sing a little louder (Louder than the unbelief)
Sing a little louder (My weapon is a melody)
Let's sing a little louder (Heaven comes to fight for me)
Sing a little louder!!
I'm gonna sing, in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder, you're gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes, hope will arise
Death is defeated, the King is alive!
Oh, I'm gonna sing, in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder, you're gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes, hope will arise
Death is defeated, the King is alive!
I raise a hallelujah
I raise a hallelujah
I raise a hallelujah
I raise a hallelujah!
Just begin to raise your own hallelujah
I can't do it for you
There's a song written on your heart only you can sing
And when you sing enemies flee
When you sing prison walls come falling down
When you sing Heaven invades the earth
So just begin to lift up your hallelujah
Raise it like a banner
Raise it like a flag
Raise it in the middle of the storm
Let it rise, let it rise
Like a symphony to the King
Everything to You, Jesus
We raise it all
Sing a little louder!!
I raise a hallelujah
I raise a hallelujah
I raise a hallelujah
I raise a hallelujah
I raise a hallelujah (In the presence of my enemies)
I raise a hallelujah (Louder than the unbelief)
I raise a hallelujah (My weapon is a melody)
I raise a hallelujah (Heaven comes to fight for me)
Series: Find Joy in The Journey Through Prayer
Thesis: Jesus was filled with joy and this inner joy came from His relationship with God the Father through prayer. Prayer and inner joy are linked together because prayer opens a door to the presence and guidance of the Lord. Prayer is connected with joy!
Scripture: Romans 12:12 “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
Summary:
Sermon 1: We observed some of the prayers of Jesus – to show us how He prayed.
Sermon 2: We studied the prayer Jesus gave us on - How to Pray called, “The Lord’s Prayer.”
Sermon 3: We studied last week “Why Pray?”
Sermon 4: We learned “Where should we pray?” The answer was Anywhere at anytime!
***1 Timothy 2:8 “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer…”
Sermon 5: What happens when we pray?
Thesis: Answer: Miracles happen! Seriously – people get healed, lives get set free, people get delivered, families find forgiveness and inner healing, relationships are mended, marriages restored, cities changed, communities changed and even countries are changed.
Introduction:
We need to start noticing what happens when we pray! We need to see and remember the answered prayers and celebrate them from the past and know God can do the same today!
The Story of George Mueller: from https://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/inspiring-stories/the-inspiring-life-of-george-m-ller
Night was falling over the harbor of Bristol, England, and in the orphanage founded by George Müller and his wife, the children were getting ready for bed. George was working in his study when his wife arrived with alarming news. “We’re out of milk,” she said. “There isn’t enough for the morning oatmeal.”
George laid aside his pen. This wasn’t the first time that money needed to buy food and other supplies was tight. The Müllers took in their first group of thirty girls in 1836, and their orphanage now housed over a hundred. From the first George remained resolved never to ask for funds from people or to borrow money. He went to God alone for every need, trusting wholly in the Lord’s faithfulness and provision.
The pastor rose from his desk and reached for his wife’s hand. “Mary,” he said, “let us pray.” Two orphanage employees joined them, and together they made their humble yet necessary request to God. Tiny, helpless mouths were depending on them for sustenance. “Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him and expect help from Him,” George reminded them afterwards, “He will never fail you.”
Someone knocked on the door. Mary hurried to answer, returning to the study a moment later. She handed her husband an envelope. “It’s a letter, George. Hurry up and open it.”
Enclosed was a sum of money, more than enough for the milk. Within minutes, two more letters arrived with money and pledges of support.
This immediate and abundant response to prayer had become a typical experience for Müller. After he came to faith and started meditating seriously on the Bible, he determined to simply trust God at His Word. As a pastor, he decided to live without a salary, relying only on money given to him. George learned to pray faithfully from his heart, asking His Father to move the hearts of men so that they would supply him and his family with what they needed to survive.
During just the last year of Mr. Mueller's life are recorded these gifts to feed and care for thousands of England's orphans.
7, 203 loaves of bread
5,222 buns
20 boxes of soap
9 tons of coal
26 haunches of venison
112 rabbits
312 pheasants
5 bags of oatmeal
26 cases of oranges
5 boxes of dates
4,013 pounds of meat
...hundreds of other essentials
Mr. Muller's faithful prayers brought into the orphan houses $2.5 million.
George Mueller was faithful.
Philippians 4:19 But my God shall supply all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
________________________________________
3 scenarios showing what happens when we pray from the book of Acts!
1. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost:
a. Acts 2:42-47: 42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
i. Prayer causes communion to become personal and intimate!
ii. Prayer causes us to want to connect more with God and others in the Family of God.
iii. Prayer brings an awe for God – For Jesus!
iv. Prayer sets in motion miracles which cause unity in the Body of Christ.
v. Prayer creates excitement and hope.
vi. Prayer causes people within the body of Christ to open their wallets and give to those in need and to ministry.
vii. Prayer causes us to want to meet together and worship and honor God in public and in our homes creating joy in our hearts.
viii. Prayer cause us to praise God more.
ix. Prayer and miracles along with unity draw people to Jesus and the Kingdom of God grows.
2. Peter was in prison and was impacted by the prayers of the saints in the house church: He was freed!
a. Acts 12:5-12: 5So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. 6The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7Suddenly 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. 8Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. 9Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. 11Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.” 12When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and where praying. 13Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!” 15“You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”
16But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. 17Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the brothers about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.
i. Pray releases people from prison literally – but it does so spiritually -physically - emotionally – mentally as well!
ii. Pray sets the captive free from demonic spirits.
iii. Prayer sets freedom into motion – prayer gets God attention to move in power and might.
iv. Prayer sets in motion jail breaks!
1. Calvin Hunt’s story at Brooklyn Tabernacle of being set free from drugs as the church prayed and interceded for him.
b. I don’t believe that God wants us to pray and expect quick fixes as many are in the habit of believing today. I honestly believe that prayer as described in the Bible is an act that takes effort.
i. I believe prayer is like the pioneers of old who pushed their way across the Dakotas through raging blizzards and cold to get to sunny California or Oregon. I have read many of their stories. Their adventure was filled with determination, set back, and a fortitude that drove them through the storms to their desired location of sun and surf.
ii. The Word of God exhorts us, charges us to pray through – to Pray, Until, Something, Happens. To pray through for the break out and breakthroughs.
1. When trials and tribulations come we need to P.U.S.H. through them with prayer.
a. PUSH means pray until something happens!
2. Peter and the church taught us about the importance of praying through (Acts 12:1-19).
a. Historical Background of this scenario: James is killed by a sword directed from Herod and Peter is arrested. The church is under attack and Herod inspired by the Jews and Satan is bent on wiping out the church.
i. The church at this point has a few options at its disposal to confront this injustice ( Idea here pulled from Cymbala’s book “Fresh Power “ pg.88,89).
1. They could start a demonstration – they could march on Washington and protest there are 5,000plus in the church. We are a voting block Herod you better take notice and give us what we demand.
2. They could storm Herod’s palace and slay him with the sword like he did James.
3. They could condemn James for not having enough faith because he was martyred.
4. They could have started confessing positively and saying this is all going to go away. Everything is fine James is not really dead. Peter is not going to be killed after Passover is over.
5. They could start a Newspaper to address the issues and inform the public of what’s going on.
6. They could have remembered all the past spiritual victories and rehashed them. They could live in the past and remember the way we were.
7. They could have turned tail and run.
8. They could have quit and given up on God because things where getting tough.
b. But they did none of the above- Instead they called a prayer meeting and started praying earnestly to God for a miracle.
i. Cymbala states, “Too many times when we are under stress or opposition, we hold strategy sessions, we ‘claim the promises’ in rote sort of way instead of praying them biblically. But God said we could ‘receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.’ Where? At ‘the throne of grace’ ( Hebrews 4:16).
ii. Abraham Lincoln wrote, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.”
iii. This is the attitude we need to have in the church today to see a determination to PUSH through in prayer and see lives transformed.
c. In this crisis of the church - They are doing this with passion and determination, they are PUSHing through the storm from Herod. The dangerous cold heartless storm of a man pleaser. The raging blowing wind of an enemy of the church and of Jesus Christ.
i. A storm that has already taken some lives and is hungry for more. They are pushing against it they are driving it away.
ii. They are PUSHING through the pain for the break out.
iii. They know where the power of God comes from it is unleashed by prayer.
1. The church needs to labor earnestly in prayer for our world and others so we can be a part of a miracle. So, we can see people set free from bondage!
3. What happened when Paul and Silas prayed and praised God from prison!
a. Acts 16:25-31: 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. 27The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” 29The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”
i. Prayer causes the earth to shake and places of bondages foundation to shake causing the doors of freedom to open.
ii. Prayer causes chains of bondage to fall off!
iii. Prayer causes the lost to say, “What must I do to be saved?”
iv. Prayer opens the eyes of the blind and people come to Jesus out of the move of the Holy Spirit.
v. Prayer moves through families opening their spiritual eyes and ears to Jesus.
Conclusion:
Prayer: What does it do – It unleashes miracles, healings, freedom, deliverance and transformation! Listen it really works – so do it and lets pray!
The story behind this sermon and inner leading of the Lord to pray for miracles today – SOKM Prayer team comes up - challenge to pray for a miracle – cry out to God!
Beth Leads the church in this song: “I raise a Hallelujah!”
Extra video if needed:
Video 2: The introduction of Raise a Hallelujah at Bethel Church (11:00 min)
