PRAYING WITH POWER
1 John 5:14-15
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: BE CAREFULL HOW YOU SAY IT
1. George Arnold says, "I'm not the easiest guy in the world to get along with. So when our anniversary rolled around, I wanted my wife to know how much I appreciated her tolerating me for the past 20 years.
2. I ordered flowers and told the florist to enclose a card that read, "Thanks for putting up with me so long."
3. When my wife got the delivery, she called me at work. "Where are you going?" She asked. "What do you mean?" I said.
4. She read the card aloud as the florist had written it: "Thanks for putting up with me. So long." (RD, 9/13)
B. IDEA & TITLE
1. I know that most of you are saved & born again and have been praying for years. However, Peter said he wanted to stir up their remembrance (2 Pet. 1:12-13; 3:1).
2. So God led me to share about the MOST TALKED ABOUT, but the LEAST PRACTICED thing in Christianity – PRAYER!
3. Prayer establishes a connection between you and God it ushers you into His presence. Prayer changes our view of GOD, changes our view of circumstances, and changes our view of ourselves and others.
4. One time, in the newspaper cartoon, Family Circus, someone asked what the greatest power in the world was. The little boy and girl envisioned rockets, waterfalls, and tornadoes. But the mother’s conception was more accurate: she saw her kids down on their knees!
5. So today we’re going to talk today about “Praying with Power.” This is answering the question, “How can I pray successfully?” First, let me outline some...
I. PREREQUISITES OF PRAYER
YOU MUST HAVE A...
A. A PLACE OF PRAYER
1. All the original pioneers of faith in the Bible had places where they prayed regularly. They picked places where they felt closer to God and built altars there.
2. The Lord Jesus told us to go into our prayer closet (Matt. 6:6 KJV). The Msg Trans. says, “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.”
3. One stay-at-home Mom chose her kitchen to pray in. She put a clothes-line across part of it and hung cards on it with people’s names, whom she prayed for. Her ministry was so effective that many people requested she “hang them on her line!” [Paul Tan, Encyclo. Of 7700 Illus., #4549]
B. A TIME OF PRAYER
1. Next you need to schedule a regular TIME to pray. If prayer is not scheduled we usually don’t pray, because our schedules are generally full.
2. The morning is best because that puts us into God’s Spirit for the rest of the day, but some people prefer to pray in the evening. Paul told us to “pray without ceasing” – that is, pray all through the day, wherever we are.
3. In one African dialect, Karre, the word “thankfulness” means to “sit down on the ground before” a person. No word needs to be spoken; when one of that country sits silently before someone, it’s understood to be gratitude. Likewise, we should come before God and get quiet and focus on Him. God, like the Karre, will understand our love and gratitude! [Roger W. Thomas]
C. A PLAN FOR PRAYER
1. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gave them the Lord’s prayer (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:1-4). He told them how to address God, to pray for His will to be done, to ask for earthly provisions, to seek forgiveness and to be delivered from temptation. Lastly, He told them to acknowledge God’s eternal power & glory.
2. So whenever we approach God, we should praise Him, confess & repent of our sins, pray for others & for the lost to be saved, etc. That’s a good plan for praying! Jesus knows best!
II. HOW TO PRAY WITH FAITH, BELIEVING?
A. YOU MUST HAVE CONFIDENCE WHEN PRAYING
1. In order to pray with faith, you must know that you’re right with God and that He accepts your prayer. If, when you pray, there are any sins in your life, the devil will stand at your elbow and accuse you.
2. This is pictured in Zech. 3:1; “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him” as he was trying to intercede. Satan will do the same to us to hinder us from praying.
3. There is a small, weasel-like animal called the Ichneumon (Africa & S. Europe). It’s expert in killing large venomous snakes, but it never attacks them until they pass near a certain plant whose leaves contain an antidote for snake bite. If bitten, the Ichneumon will go to the plant, eat its leaves, and after recovery, will renew its attack on the snake [7,700 Illus., #4637]. That’s how we should resort to prayer, which will heal our wounds from the world and the enemy!
4. If your sins are all under the blood of Jesus, then the enemy can’t find anything to accuse you of, nor hinder you that way. Then he resorts to distractions or keep you from focusing in prayer and “praying through,” that is, until you “touch God.”
5. The woman with the issue of blood “touched” Jesus as no one else in the crowd touched Him -- she touched Him in the spirit-realm of faith, while all others only superficially touched Him. That is the goal of prayer – to approach God and make a spiritual connection while praying. This connection gives you the assurance God has heard your prayer.
B. STAND ON THE PROMISES
1. To pray with power you must know that God is a God of His Word, a contractual God; He makes promises and is careful to fulfill His promises. So, if your request is based on a promise in God’s Word, you can pray with the expectation of supernatural intervention every time you pray.
2. Faith comes by hearing...the Word of God” Rom. 10:17. “And this is the confidence that we have in Him: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us, and if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we ask of Him” 1 John 5:14-15. What a wonderful promise!
3. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you HAVE (past tense) received it, and it WILL BE (future tense) yours” Mk. 11:24, NIV. We see this in the life of the prophet Daniel, who was told, “from the first day that you [began praying]...your words were heard; and I have come because of your words” Daniel 10:12. It still took 21 days until the angel got to Daniel, but from the moment he began praying THE ANSWER WAS ON THE WAY! We need to have that same assurance.
4. “Standing on the Promises” hymn. To “take your stand” means to be unmovable in your expectation. When Elijah prayed for rain, the first 6 times he prayed, God didn’t grant it, but Elijah never doubted that rain would come, because Israel had met the conditions for revival – repentance & destroying Idolatry.
5. In the parable of the “Friend at Midnight” (Lk. 11:5-9), Jesus told us to be persistent in knocking until the answer comes from God. God is pleased when we persist in prayer and even respectfully press God to fulfill His Word. Verses that speak of “receiving” from God also means to “take!” (the Greek word lambano; Mt. 21:22; Jam. 1:7; 1 John 3:22). Kind of like Jacob wrestling with God. That pleases God.
6. Moses “stood in the gap” in intercession between Israel & God so that God wouldn’t destroy Israel. God, the Judge, was pleased Moses acted as defense attorney asking for mercy, because it freed God from having to over-ride justice. Likewise, Abram (Gen. 18) pleaded for mercy for Lot and family in Sodom, reminding God of His need not to punish the innocent if any were there. Moses and Abram appeared to oppose God’s direction, but both were actually doing His will (Ezek. 22:30).
III. TO WALK IN THE FAITH OF ANSWERED PRAYER
A. PERSISTING TO GAIN YOUR VICTORY
1. JOKE. I heard about one minister who went to an attorney because there was some issue between his church and the city. After explaining the problem to the attorney, the Pastor asked how much it would cost to hire his services. The price the attorney named was exorbitant. The Pastor, after thinking said,
"Thank you, sir, but I believe I’ll just pray this one through."
2. Paul told us that “we wrestle NOT against principalities and powers, but against the forces of evil in high places.” Instead of depending on earthly resources for help, why don’t we go to our Heavenly Resource – God? What we really need is to pray through!
3. When we receive an answer from God, we still must persevere. The writer of Hebrews said, “You have need of patience that, after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise” (10:36). We need to do like the 10 lepers who, though NOT YET healed, began walking to the priests as if they had been healed. And “as they went,” trusting in God, they WERE healed.
4. The Bible says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed...Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead...and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised” Rom. 4:18-21.
5. When God created the universe, He “called those things that be not as though they were” Rom. 4:17. Once we have prayed through and touched the hem of His garment, it still remains that we hold fast and wait until the promise arrives.
6. You may feel unworthy, but IT’S AN HONOR FOR GOD TO GIVE LARGE GIFTS! Once when Caesar Augustus had bestowed a princely gift upon one whom he especially wished to honor, the recipient was so overcome with the gift’s magnitude that he exclaimed, “This is too great a gift for me to receive!” Caesar answered, “But it’s not too great a gift for me to give!” He was pleased with his own bounty [Paul Tan, Encyclo. Of 7700 Illus., # 2053].
B. ILLUS.: GOD REBUKED MOTHER IN A DREAM IN ANSWER TO PRAYER
1. A young Chinese man, Ling Wei, felt called by God to be an evangelist. His heart was burning with love for God and a desire for the salvation of his people. But his mother wasn’t a Christian and often persecuted him.
2. One night on his return home she met him at the door and told him that he could not go to church anymore & threatened him with severe punishments if he opposed her (in that culture, you can’t defy your parent’s wishes).
3. Poor Ling Wei was in trouble. He went to his room and lay down on his hard mat. "What shall I do?" he moaned. "My pastor will think I’ve gone back to my idols if I don’t go to church." Just then the door opened and Cheng, his friend in Christ, entered. "Why, what is the matter, Ling Wei?" he whispered. "You look so sad." "I am sad," Ling Wei answered. "My mother has told me I must give up the Jesus religion and she’s hidden my clothes so I cannot go to church tomorrow!"
4. Cheng said, “You can’t defy her, but we can pray and get help from Jesus. Let’s pray to Him!" The two friends interceded to God all that night. The next morning found them still weeping and calling to God to save Ling Wei’s mother.
5. Suddenly the door was opened and Ling Wei's mother stood in the doorway. "Oh, my dream! My dream!" she cried. "The True God you serve told me in a dream to let you alone or He would punish me. Here are your clothes. Dress and go to church. I will hinder you no more."
6. When the two friends entered the mission that day their hearts were very happy. Ling Wei was now able to follow God’s call to ministry! [Selected]
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. An oft told story is of the earliest converts to Christianity in Africa. The believers each picked a secluded spot in the jungle to pray.
2. Their prayers were so regular that each house had a worn trail out to their secluded spot, where they poured out their hearts to God.
3. When a believer’s devotions began to decline, it became obvious to all because the path to his/her secluded spot began to become overgrown again.
4. The other believers would gently encourage them by saying, “Brother, the grass is growing on your path again!” [Paul Tan, Ency. Of 7700 Illus., #4516] I love the hymn, “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” Peace and a fulfilled life come to those who commune with God!
B. THE CALL
1. How many of you need forgiveness of your sins? Everyone here has made this choice. How many would say, “Me too?”
2. We all must have a firm foundation in the Word. Are regularly reading it? If not, how many will commit to begin reading their Bibles every day?
3. How many have a serious prayer need that you need God to handle for you? Why don’t we stand up and all who need prayer please come to the front.
4. PRAYER.
