THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER
Prayer engages God, enables God's people, and enlarges His kingdom. Jesus said, "without Me, you can do nothing." Once we have prayed we are ready to do anything, until we have prayed we can do nothing, but once we have prayed we can accomplish anything.
1. PRAYER INVITES US INTO THE PRESENCE OF GOD.
Heb 4:16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
I love my children. For all of their lives they knew that no matter what I was doing, they could come to me with their problems and talk with me about it. And, it’s not that I merely tolerated these interruptions, I welcomed them. I greatly desired to be part of their lives, the highs and the lows. I want them to know that they are welcome any time. I want them to know that they are not a burden. Even today, when they need me, I will try to move heaven and earth to meet their needs. I didn’t dream this up myself. I simply try to be the Father to them that God has been to me.
** Your Heavenly Father loves you and He wants you to spend time with Him. He wants you to speak to Him about your hopes and dreams, your victories and also the fears and pain that you’re feeling.
* We are to “draw near with confidence” because we know that He loves us. And, this perfect love He has for us ought to remove fear from us. And, He offers us mercy when we have made our life a mess. And He offers us grace to empower us to live in victory.
Jesus gives us a promise about when His people pray together.
Mt 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
Notice that He invites us into His presence, but He also joins us when we are gathered together. This is why worship is so important.
We need regular encounters with Holy God. We need our time with each other to worship God and pray together for “God inhabits the praise and the prayers of His people.”
2. PRAYER RELEASES US FROM WORRY AND FEAR.
Phil 4:6-7 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
JOB LOSS- In 1996, God was doing amazing things in our lives. I was in my 1st semester of Seminary and managing a pharmacy in Jackson that I loved. Out of the blue, the VP of the company told me that our company was bought out and the new company would be closing our store in a few weeks. I was offered a job from a person that I had no business working for, but I was considering it. Lana desperately wanted me to turn down the offer, but wouldn’t tell me what to do, so she prayed every day that I would say “no”.
I was so burdened for that 2 weeks but, finally, on the last day my store was open, I called and turned down the job. I immediately called Lana and told her, and she said “thank God”. I reminded her I was now unemployed and things might get difficult, she said “that’s ok”. We committed to pray and not worry, but to trust God to provide a new job for me. And we went to bed that night with perfect peace. The next day, I made a phone call to a nearby pharmacy to see about some fill in work to get us by, and he asked me to come to work full time for him.
* We can spend weeks in worry and fear, but when we pray and give it to God, the peace of God comforts us.
3. PRAYER DEFENDS US FROM SATAN’S ATTACKS.
In Ephesians 5, Paul list our spiritual armor and he closed out with our most effective weapon in the arsenal, Prayer!
* And, when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, He specifically mentioned His protection for us.
Mt 6:13 Do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. (NKJ)
When your world is coming unraveled and Satan’s temptations are testing you strongly, Jesus says to you.... PRAY to Me to deliver you from the Evil one.
* His promise to you 2 Thess 3:3 the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
This world we live in is filled with problems, persecutions, and temptations. If Jesus needed to pray in the Wilderness when Satan tempted Him, even more so do we need to fervently pray for our physical and spiritual protection.
Dwight L. Moody on a trip across the Atlantic helped the crew and other volunteers put out a fire in the hold of the ship. A friend said to Moody as they stood in the bucket line, “Let’s go up to the other end of the ship and pray.” Moody, the common-sense evangelist, said, “No, sir, we will stand right here and pass buckets and pray hard all the time we are doing so.” Prayer and action go together. We all worked hard last Sunday delivering our 300 packages.
* Let’s commit to sharing hope with folks this week by inviting them to our Bible and BBQ event.... all the while fervently praying.
4. PRAYER ACHIEVES THE IMPOSSIBLE.
Picture this, like a Western showdown at high noon. Elijah, the Prophet of God faces off against 1000s of prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The goal was to prove whose God was the greatest. Each built an altar and prayed that their God would burn their offering. The Baal prophets went first. They prayed, danced, cutting themselves for their god, but no fire appeared. At Elijah’s turn, he told them to pour many barrels of water over his altar and offering.
1 Kings 18:36-38 36 At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word. 37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.” 38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
When we pray, the power of Almighty God is released into our situation. You don’t have to go thru it alone.
* In your times of travail, darkness seems to swallow you up. But, go to the Lord in prayer, Morning is but moments away and God can make any impossible situation extremely possible.
5. PRAYER ADVANCES THE KINGDOM.
In the model prayer, Jesus taught us to pray for the Kingdom. He said
Mt 6:10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
When our prayers become Kingdom oriented God moves in power! Why do we need God to intervene? Because there are many things that are impossible working in our own power and abilities.
Mk 10:27 Jesus *said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”
Jn 14:12-14 2 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
A young girl was very sick and not expected to recover. Because of her love for Jesus, she was troubled that she had not been able to do more for Him in her short life. Her pastor suggested that she make a list of people in their little town who needed Christ and pray that they might put their faith in Him. She took his advice, made a list, and prayed often for each person.
Some time later God began to stir a revival in the village. The girl heard of the people who were coming to Christ and prayed even more. As she heard reports, she checked off the names of those who had been led to the Lord.
After the girl died, a prayer list with the names of 56 people was found under her pillow. All had put their faith in Christ—the last one on the night before her death.
** CHURCH, this is how we need to be praying this week. Fervently praying for the lost. But we also need to be serving and witnessing as we are praying and inviting people to our Bible and BBQ event.
