The battle for prayer
Introduction-
I want to talk about prayer this morning and then I want us to pray together- that might bring fear to some hearts, guilt to others, and for some, a look like a deer in the head lights because they do not know what to do with that.
Most people don’t want to talk about prayer because they think it is a personal thing! The word prayer, pray, praying is mentioned in the bible around 375 times so it is important.
As a child, we are taught this prayer-
“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” (How many have prayed that prayer?)
Do you realize how scary of a prayer that is for a kid to pray?
If I die in my sleep, I pray that my soul will go be with the Lord.
Your child asking you…Mommy, is God nice?
Mommy…What is my soul that He will be taking from me while I sleep.
If giving them no answers… Now go to sleep Johnny! Then we wonder why Johnny can’t sleep.
If we are to pray that prayer to our kids, they also have to be taught;
That they can trust the Lord-
That He will be with them.
That being with the Lord is important and much needed. MODELED BY OUR ACTIONS THEY CAN SEE IN US.
Do you realize the weakness of that prayer for an adult to be praying for themselves? (Adult’s reciting a kid’s prayer)
Maybe the only time you pray is for the food that is before you and that prayer also a rehearse prayer)
You have got to understand that you are talking and having conversation with the God of the universe.
Grasping that it is a personal relationship that you are trying to establish and you are citing a children’s prayer and you have not gotten any closer to him as an adult.
As a believer, we are told to pray, but until the Lord shows you His presence while you are praying, and you begin to understand what prayer is, and what prayer is done for, I think they are just words.
Jesus Himself told us to pray
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'"
I believe most people do not know what to pray, how to pray, or the benefit of prayer.
Prayer-
This morning as we talk about prayer, may we be a praying body of believers, ones who believe in prayer and believer that in prayer, we will see you do some amazing things that we cannot do in ourselves. May we see that in prayer, we are inviting you Lord to do more than we can imagine or do in ourselves, but prayer is an invitation for you to be a part of our lives and have conversation with us and fellowship with us. In Jesus name amen.
In Jim Maxim book on prayer, he talks about a praying people having a breakthrough moment as they see the benefit and power of agreeing with the Lord on doing His will.
How many would love to see a breakthrough in their lives?
How many believe that the Lord still wants to answer prayers?
I think many things can happen as we are praying and seeking the Lord.
We can freely come to the Lord with our needs.
We can come desiring to do the will of God in our lives and allow the Lord to use us for His honor and glory.
We can be interceding in the lives of others and be a person in the gap of seeing answered prayer.
We can come thankfully to God for what He has already done and be offering up praise to Him
How many have seen the movie war room? Great movie on prayer-
I don’t want to give movie away cause if you haven’t seen it – rent it- great Christian film. But you have a now I lay me down to sleep person to pray and you have a lady of prayer that has designated a spot of her home for prayer and closes the door and gets serious with God on issues going on around her- which one do you think will see more answer to prayer?
Matthew chapter 5 is the called the Beatitudes- it is Jesus talking to his disciples (those who followed Him)
Matthew 5:1-12- Read from NIV Bible
Now let me read verse 1-2 from the message bible-
“When Jesus saw his ministry drawing high crowds, he climbed up a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions.”
Drop the Microphone! Jesus just nailed it!
If you want to see the miracles, the extra-ordinary, things that are far above what you can do in yourself- it will take us (those who want to be Jesus apprentice, those committed, and those who want to get to the quiet place of listening to what Jesus has to say and those who want Jesus in those times to talk to them)
He is looking for apprentices, committed believers to do some great things and walk with Jesus! Then we see all those blessed blessings happen in our lives and through our lives.
The challenge of prayer-
The challenge of prayer is that God’s people don’t take it as serious as Jesus did-
We say that we believe in prayer, God answers prayer, but don’t participate in prayer meetings?
We struggle finding time for God to do some amazing things-
The church was founded by prayer in the upper room.
Most People come to church on Sunday with little expectation that God will show up and do something different-
Can you imagine if we walked into this sanctuary every Sunday ready to worship and prayer and hear from God!
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chron. 7:14)
“Now this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to his will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we ask of him.” (1 John 5:14-15)
We believe in prayer but many don’t take the time to pray and we are missing what Great stuff God desires to do in our lives, our churches, our communities!
Prayer gets taken out of our day- we have good intentions of putting it there- but at the end of the day it was the thing that didn’t get done.
I am not hollering at you this morning, I am relaying what I believe the Lord has spoken to me- about the church universal and all those who call Jesus Lord-
Services get busy, we watch the clock, and if something needs to be trimmed, let’s cut down prayer- guilty!
If we want to see God do more, we need to spend more time in prayer- individually and corporately. Amen.
I have watched many pastors suffer burnout, some of my own colleagues… When the work of God rest on man’s shoulders instead of God’s, we don’t see kingdom power from the Holy spirit working in our lives, we see gifted men and women fall because their talents only take them so far.
It is true in every aspect of our lives from raising our kids to working our jobs- We are not God, we serve God!
We need him in everyday in our lives
Instead of our prayer time being pushed aside in our daily agenda- it must be a priority! We Intentionally must put time in our day to hear from the Lord.
On Thursday at our men’s meeting we talked about the condition of our heart- I taught them some big words, I won’t do that today but here is a principal that works.
You can know the right thing to do-
You can have all the right tools-
Your heart isn’t right with God- you are swimming in an ocean with no hope of surviving-
Words for prayer too
You can know you should pray
You can tell everyone you know how to pray
But if you do not pray- you are losing communication and relationship with the very person who can help you.
Prayer unlocks the wonders of heaven into your life
The Holy Spirit and prayer are the most powerful elements of warfare we have as believers to survive this world that will destroy us if we let them.
Prayer has no barriers-
You can pray at home by yourself
You can pray as a church
You can gather a group to pray
Osward Chambers said “Prayer does not fit us for the greater works’ prayer is the greater works.”
Prayer is intimacy with God-
Jesus himself promises us intimacy with him if we will take the time to enjoy it!
Fellowship with Christ comes with a lot of benefits!
As we close the service this morning… God is calling each one of us into a relationship with Him that is life-changing!
Prayer is time that God can speak to us
Prayer is the time that God reveals what we ought to be praying about.
Prayer does not come natural at first- it takes being intentional- in time prayerfully, it will become natural.
Prayer is taking the time to saturate our minds on Him. The battle ground begins in our minds- bring all our thoughts under the captivity of Christ.
Prayer is fellowship with God.
AJ Gordon
“You can do more than pray after you have prayed… but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”
A time of prayer-
Spirit of the living God fall fresh on us!
Forgive us, save us, transform us.
Protect us, keep us.
The first thing we need to decide is that we will pray- intentionally taking time each day- talk with a brother this week that gets up hours before he has to so he can pray. It is priority of his day.
We can pray in the woods, by ourselves… we need that! But we also need a good old fashion prayer meeting where we intentionally ask God to intervene in our lives! Corporately praying for the manifestation of God in our lives.
We need to not be afraid to pray for things in our lives- and we need to be praying and lifting up others needs to the Lord.
Can we bow our heads for a minute and just allow the Lord to speak to us? Then can we have a time of prayer that I will start and have some others give sentence prayers for God to be working in our lives. (Ask Mike) (Fred)
Amen.
