“Are You Devoted to Prayer?”
Introduction:
Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer
That calls me from a world of care
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known
In seasons of distress and grief
My soul has often found relief
And oft escaped the tempters snare
By thy return sweet hour of prayer
What awesome words to a song, and I hope you caught the words and do when we sing. I believe prayer is the greatest tool a Christian has. I also believe prayer is the most neglected and misunderstood aspect of Christians lives.
Many people feel that saying a prayer before their meals each day is enough prayer for the day. Many people feel that saying, “now I .ay me down to sleep, if I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take” is enough communication with God for the day. I have heard of grown adults who honestly that is the depth of their prayer life.
Prayer is more than what we say before we eat our meals, prayer is more than praying a quick prayer before bed; prayer is communication with Almighty God. Prayer is a privilege and it is something we should take seriously.
We can easily come to church and sing sweet hour of prayer, but most people don’t spend a sweet few minutes in prayer with the Lord.
As we can clearly see from the book of Acts, the early church was also devoted to prayer.
Over the past several times I have preached I have pointed out that the early church was devoted to the study of God’s Word, and to fellowship, they were also devoted to prayer. As one reads the stories and testimonies found in the book of Acts you can see prayer was a important part of every decision that was made, prayers were lifted up regularly for each other and for the lost. As I have preached this series of sermons of being devoted I have learned one thing and that is that we can try to implement all sorts of programs expecting growth, and sometimes those things are needed. There are times things need to change in the church to better reach a changing culture, but we do not change the message. The main thing that we must realize is that a church will grow when and only when the people who are a part of the church devote themselves to the study of God’s Word, to fellowshipping with one another and to praying. That is the best church growth advice I have found.
We as the church have a duty and an obligation to each individually devote ourselves to those things. I ask you this morning to do some self examination and ask are you devoted to prayer?
Text: Acts 2:42-47
I. Praying With the Right Attitude
It is important for us to remember that our attitude in prayer does matter. I believe that a lot of people come before God and they pray with the wrong attitude. This does not good. When we pray we need to make sure that our motives and attitudes are right before the Lord. I believe that each person who calls themselves a Christian has an obligation to spend time in prayer, but we should not pray simply out of obligation. Parents you would not want your children communicating things to you simply because they felt that they had to, and God does not want us to communicate to him because we have to, but because we want to. I don’t know about you, but I feel privileged that out God has given us a way to communicate with Him. Our God has given us a way to lift up our burdens and requests. When you pray make sure that you have the right attitude about coming before the Lord. Remember that coming into the presence of God is a scary thing, and that we need to have a healthy respect for God when we pray. I have heard people pray so casually as if they do not realize that they are in the presence of a Holy God and being in His presence deserves a healthy fear. We should not take it lightly, but we should make sure before we expect anything from God that we have the right attitude.
a. Humble – Matthew 6:5-8
We need to makes sure that when we pray we pray with humility. Jesus told a parable called the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus said, that one of them lifted his hands toward heaven and prayed, “I thank God I am not like this man a sinner”, and the other beat his chest and prayed, “Father have mercy on me, a sinner”. Jesus then asked which do you think left justified before God? We may think that we could not be like that now, and that is a bit extreme, but let me ask what attitude do you have when you pray for people living in sin? Do you pray, “God I pray for those sinners and thank you that I am not like them”. In some sense we can be thankful that we do not live a sinful life, but it is not our job to come before God and tell him who is right in his eyes and to glorify us, because we are all sinners fallen short of God’s glory. If you want to truly be devoted to prayer then you need to make sure that you have humility when you pray, considering others better than yourself. There is no such thing as a prayer that is pride-filled. Those prayers are not heard by God. Are you devoted to prayer?
b. Not Hypocritical
We also need to make sure that when we pray we are not hypocritical. My point is this that becoming devoted to prayer does not begin on your knees but it begins in your heart and in your every day life. God hears the prayers of the righteous and does not hear the prayers of the hypocrites. We need to make sure that we are not hypocrites when we pray. Hypocrisy is a huge sin, and God judges the hypocrites. The people in which Jesus least got along with during his life were the religious people. They were they people who prayed for three hours a day. He argued with and debated the Pharisees many times, and it was not because of their religious practices, that were commendable, but it was because of their hypocrisy. When you pray are you a hypocrite? The first step to being devoted to prayer is to get your life right before the Lord, so that you can come into His presence without a load of sin and offer up sincere prayers.
II. Praying For the Right People
When we pray it is important for us to remember other people. I think that people are often selfish in the way that they pray. They pray God bless me, do this for me, give this to me, Amen. Those people expect God to hear their requests. One neat thing about prayer is that is a very unselfish act. We pray for others. I think it is great that when we have difficulties among us we can tell our brothers and sisters and they can pray for us. Jesus left us an example of this, in John 17 when he was in the garden. First he prayed for himself and what he was about to do, then he prayed for the 12 disciples, and then he prayed for his future followers. Did you notice that Jesus prayed more for others than he did himself, there is a novel idea! Who are we to pray for though?
a. The Sick – James 5:14-16
I love this passage of scripture for many reasons. First, it shows that Jesus is the great physician. James asks this question, is anyone sick? He then tells them what to do, and that is pray. It is important for us to pray for those that are sick among us, if we do they may be healed if it is God’s will, but what we need is men and women devoted to prayer, who will spend time praying for our sick brother and sisters. We have this prayer list here on the back of the bulletin for a reason. It is not there for looks or to take up space, it is so that you will take that home and throughout the week lift up those names before God. I think often times the prayer requests that we mention in church go unmentioned until next week in church. That is not a good thing. We are brotherhood of believers and we help each other, the prayer of Christians are heard by God, it is important for us to remember those that are sick. One last point regarding this, would the frequency of your prayers be different if it was your name on the prayer list? Would you want others to pray for your wife if she had cancer, or would you want them to simply ignore praying for the sick? My how the tables turn when it is us or our loved ones who needs prayer.
b. The Lost
I hope that we all have an outward focus, that we look out and pray that more people would come to know Jesus. As I was out of the country this past week I saw one thing clearly and that is there are a lot of people who do not know Jesus. The prayer I prayed the most was for the Lord to somehow reveal the truth to them. I hope that we all want to see lost people come to Jesus. The reason the early church grew so much is because the always prayed for the gospel to spread. We need to be in prayer for the lost to come to Jesus. If anyone in your family is outside of Christ pray for them. I believe more people will come to Christ if those who are called by His name would pray for the lost.
c. The Workers – Matthew 9:37-38
I have emphasized this several times the importance of praying for workers to rise up to do the work of the Lord. I hope that people in the congregation have taken that seriously, because there is a need for more preachers, there is a need for more Biblical elders, and there is a need for hard workers in the church. Souls cannot come to Jesus without people willing to show the way. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, pray to the Lord of the Harvest to rise up more workers. Are you devoted to praying for workers to rise up? I hope so, that is a command from our Lord.
d. Yourself – James 1:5
It is ok to pray for yourself. You need to be devoted to praying for yourself to mature into the person that you need to be. If you are struggling with sin, pray that you may overcome. Remember Paul prayed in this very way, that the thorn in his flesh be removed. It is important for us to devote time in our prayer life praying for our spiritual needs. God promises to fill up anywhere we are lacking. Be sure to pray for yourself to mature into the godly person that you need to be, because you cannot without God’s help.
III. Praying The Right Amount
There is more to prayer than simply saying the right things. I believe that we need to make sure to pray for a certain amount of time. I do not believe that anywhere in scripture does it say how much we are to pray. There is not a formula for how long we should pray. The truth is we can never pray too much. I think that often times Christians take prayer like punching a time clock for work. They do just what they feel is expected of them and then they are done. Prayer however is not something that you can put time limits on.
I do believe that it is more important to have quality prayer time than it is to have long quantity. It is better for you to be sincere in five minutes of prayer than to babble in one hour of prayer. Therefore, God does not judge our spiritual dedication necessarily by how long we spend in prayer. However, I do think that every Christian should spend a good bit of time in prayer.
I Thessalonians 5:17
I believe this simply means that we are to be in constant communication with God. This means that we bring all things before God in prayer. When we get sick we should pray, when we want to thank God offer up a prayer of thanksgiving, when others have needs pray for them.
Here is my challenge for today. For three weeks set aside a time each day for you to pray alone. Spend at least a half an hour in prayer, communicating to God your feelings and struggles, pray for others, and for your family. I really think that you will see a few great things happen.
First you will see the Lord bless your life spiritually. As you spend more time communicating with God you will grow closer to him and you will understand him better and will become more like Him. You will also see that he answers your prayer requests. One thing I do that help this is write down what I pray for and the date I started and pray every day and then write down God’s response. After a few weeks you will see that God really does answer prayer.
Second, the Lord will bless you physically. As you pray for God’s help in your life ti meet your physical needs you will see that he answers you and you will feel better about life, and God will protect you. A few years ago a book came out in the Christian world which became very popular called the prayer of Jabez, and this book states that if you pray fro the Lord to increase your territory He will. This is a false teaching and take scripture out of context. The Lord does not always give to you physically, but Christians who frequently pray are physically blessed.
Third, you will see that thirty minutes is not enough time to communicate to God each day. Any relationship requires communication. The number one reason why relationships fail is lack of communication; it is the same in our spiritual lives. We cannot stay string with communication with God.
The truth of the matter is that we each need time alone with God. Church is great and is needed for spiritual growth, but time alone with God is needed for maturity. Even Jesus frequently withdrew from the crowds and went and prayed.
Prayer is so very important, please don’t take for granted the power and the importance of prayer in your life.
If you do not have a time alone with the Lord each day, make time. Wake up earlier, go to bed later, skip lunch, skip breakfast, sacrifice watching some television and spend time alone with the Lord and watch what happens to your life.
