Persistent in Prayer

Intro- reflect back on the vision

Our vision is to be a church community rooted in Jesus, who is persistent in prayer, gracious in love, radical in generosity, eager to serve, committed to community, and focused on His Kingdom as we seek to love people and lead them to new life in Christ.

Tell the story of Dr. Lucas’s prayer

What is prayer?

Prayer simply is communication and communion with God.

Asking

thanking

confessing

praising

listening

Reasons we don’t pray or stop praying

We Get Distracted

-Our attention is under attack and we are pulled in so many ways

We Get Discouraged

-We live in a world that wants microwave results when God tends work in a crockpot speed.

-God answers every prayer but he don’t give us everything we want

We Get Demotivated

-does this matter

-do I care?

We Get Disconnected

-sometimes it take a while to realize this

Persistent in Prayer

We believe that prayer is the lifeblood of a believer’s life  and The Church’s life. Prayer is simply, communication and communion with God. We believe prayer changes things, especially us. So as we see a world that is inconsistent in many areas of life, we want to be consistent in what matters most, especially prayer.

Paul in taught us to pray without ceasing and to be devoted to steadfast prayer...,

In the Psalms we see that David shows us how to be honest and intimate with God

Daniel gave us an example of continuing to seek the Lord even when it was costly

Jesus taught and modeled for us this idea of praying being about intimacy.

The primary purpose of prayer is relationship with God.

Matthew

The New International Version (Chapter 6)

5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Matthew

The New International Version (Chapter 6)

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:“ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.11 Give us today our daily bread.12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

The point of prayer is not to things from God, its to get more of God.

Relationships tend to end when pursuit has stopped.

Luke

New Living Translation (Chapter 11)

5 Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8 But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.

God honors bold and persistent prayers.

New Living Translation (Chapter 11)

9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? 12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Luke

New Living Translation (Chapter 18)

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’ ”6 Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”

Three reasons to persist in prayer

Praying with persistence gives us the chance to see who and what God does.

Praying with persistence keeps us in God presence.

Pray with persistence grows in us an intimacy and faith in God nothing else can give us.

In prayer we often must persist with patience to see the promise of God.

A prayer that is worth praying is worth continuing to pray for and about.

Prayer without relationship is fairly unfruitful.

4 Pro-tips for Prayer...

Set time(s)

Create spaces and places

Create structure and rhythms

Find and keep partners in prayer

Don’t give up on God because He will never give up on you.

Ephesians

New Living Translation (Chapter 6)

18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

Prayer won’t always change our circumstances but it can always change our hearts. Keep pressing in, He is with you.

If all you get out of prayer is God, could that be enough?

“Prayer is not begging God to do something for us that he doesn’t know about, or begging God to do something for us that he is reluctant to do, or begging God to do something that he hasn’t time for,” writes Eugene Peterson. “In prayer we persistently, faithfully, trustingly come before God, submitting ourselves to his sovereignty, confident that he is acting, right now, on our behalf.”

Staton, Tyler. Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools (p. 176). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.