The Content and Consequence of Prayer (Part 2)

Introduction

The Conduit Boulevard is a road in New York that links travel between the Nassau County boarder of Long Island to the Atlantic Avenue side of Brooklyn, passing through Queens. It was a road that was open to all vehicles, cars, buses, trucks, motor bikes. I knew this form of travel well because it is the road we took every week to journey from our home on Long Island to our church in Brooklyn. I began to memorize where certain streets along the Conduit were as we passed through Queens. Streets like Farmer’s Boulevard and Guy R Brewer became markers of my journey to let me know where we were. When there was traffic on the highway you could get off and take the Conduit and still get to your destination. Yes, there were stop lights on the Conduit, but it still got you to the destination. Conduits are important. They bridge chasms and provide opportunity and purpose. We have interpersonal conduits as well. Tapping that last nerve or triggering that person is a conduit to their frustration and anger. Speaking their love language and stroking that part of their ego is a conduit to their happiness. We also have conduits with God. Passageways that allow us access to God’s heart, mind, and will for us. Study of God’s word is a conduit. Obedience is a conduit. Prayer is also a conduit.

Focus: This text displays prayer’s ability to be used a conduit of God’s power to transform problems, and unify God’s people to execute God’s plan.

Function: We should leave out time together today, inspired to join with one another in the conduit of prayer in order that we might heal the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Big Idea: When the content of prayer has power, the consequence of prayer will be power.

The Creation of Powerful Prayer

Vocally: It is certainly possible to pray silently in our minds, but we focus our thoughts more effectively when we speak out in prayer.

from Eric Ravenscraft’s article in the NY Times:

In reality, your brain and body get a lot out of talking.

When you are feeling very intense feelings — especially fear, aggression or anxiety — your amygdala is running the show. This is the part of the brain that, among other things, handles your fight or flight response. It is the job of the amygdala, and your limbic system as a whole, to figure out if something is a threat, devise a response to that threat if necessary, and store the information in your memory so you can recognize the threat later. When you get stressed or overwhelmed, this part of your brain can take control and even override more logical thought processes.

Research from U.C.L.A. suggests that putting your feelings into words — a process called “affect labeling” — can diminish the response of the amygdala when you encounter things that are upsetting. This is how, over time, you can become less stressed over something that bothers you. For example, if you got in a car accident, even being in a car immediately afterward could overwhelm you emotionally. But as you talk through your experience, put your feelings into words and process what happened, you can get back in the car without having the same emotional reaction.

When opposition to the gospel arises, God’s people need to become vocal. God needs to hear your prayers, and YOU need to hear your prayers!

Unity: Ephesians 2:18 “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

Transition to next point with this: Along the conduit there were stops I recognized that helped me to know were I was in the journey. Prayer has some stops that are recognizable that contribute to the effectiveness of our journey of communication with God. For the sake of our discourse we’ve called them the contents of prayer.

The Content of Powerful Prayer

Adoration v.24 (who) “Master, you are the one who made the heave, then earth, and the sea, and everything in them.” Acknowledging who God is can remind you of how God can.

Recitation v.25-26 (why) Psalm 2 David’s influence is at its peak as the king of Isreal and there are nations that want to break away. A coalition of world powers is formed but the problem is to go against Israel and David is to go against God. If God wont let nations come against God’s man, God wont let the nations come against God’s Son. The coalition of the Jews and Gentiles in the gospels that reflected the coalition of the world powers in the Psalms resulted in the same things…Davis as rescued, Jesus as resurrected, and God as reigning victorious!

Ephesians 5:19 “speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord,”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Prayerbook of the Bible says “ How is it that human being and Jesus Christ pray the Psalter simultaneously? It is the incarnate Son of God, who has borne all human weakness in his own flesh, who here pours out the heart of all humanity before God…Therefore it is the prayer of human nature assumed by Christ that comes before God here. It is really our prayer. But since the Son of God knows us better than we know ourselves, and was truly human for our sake, it is also really the Son’s prayer. It can become our prayer only because it was his prayer. (pg 160)

The potency of praying the Psalm here is that it is an act of the incarnate Christ being in their midst attributed to the words penned by King David, a Christ-type in the Old Testament.

We need to pray God’s past performance, to acknowledge God’s present power!

Supplication v.29-30 (what) What we ask for divulges what we believe we need for our situation. The wrong request can produce the wrong result. For example, if i’m in an argument I don’t need to ask for an amplifier to be heard more, I need to ask for patience and clarity for understanding. The church asks for...

boldness - to speak against the oppression

healing - to recover from the oppression

signs and wonders - to witness in the oppression

Philippians 4:6 “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Allocation v.30b (in whom) Jesus paid for the right for us to use His name. John 14:13 “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

The name of Jesus is not to be abused as an admission ticket to our selfish carnal desires. Rather, it is to be proclaimed as a stamp of approval on God’s already predestined will for our lives, revealed in time spent with Him. You don’t get to use my name if you don’t have relationship with me!

Tell story of being able to get free food from Dickeys because of the name you walked in with (Damarcus and Chiketa Williams)

The Consequence of Powerful Prayer

Shaking (salueo) riot. In an article by USA Today a seismologist recently discovered that fans attending Swift's recent concert in Seattle on July 22 and 23 danced so hard that, combined with the sound system, they caused seismic activity that could potentially be compared to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. The praise of Taylor Swift at a concert pales in comparison to what prayer to our God can do.

Filling (plēroō: to provide full or give full meaning) We dont have full meaning in Christ until we are filled with the Holy Spirit. It is not a matter of the gift of speaking in tongues, but rather a gift of sharing the gospel.

Pouring: we can only pour from what has been deposited in us. We have to be filled before we can pour.

Romans 15:13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Luke 6:45 “A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.”

The Consequences of the Consequence of Powerful Prayer

Unity

Generosity

Closing

Tell story of the Old Woman Praying https://moralstories26.com/prayer-answered-stories-old-woman-doctor/

Once a very well known doctor named Dr. Stephen was on his way to medical conference, where he was to be given an award for his medical research, he had done recently.

Dr. Stephen was very excited to attend conference and wanted to reach conference as soon as possible.

However, hours after the flight took off the pilot made an announcement that there was a problem with the plane and they were going to make an emergency landing at the nearest airport. Dr. Stephen became afraid because he may not be able to make his conference in time.

He went to the help desk and asked about the immediate next flight to his destination. The woman at the desk told him the next flight was in 10 hours and suggested that he rent a car and drive down to the city because it was only three hours away.

Having no other choice, he agreed to the idea, rented a car and began his journey. However, as he left the weather suddenly changed and a heavy storm began. Heavy rain made it extremely difficult to see causing the doctor to miss the turn he was supposed to take.

After two hours of driving, he knew he was lost. Driving in heavy rain and deserting the road made the doctor frustrated, tired, and hungry.

Frantically, he began to look for any sign of civilization. After some time, he came across a tatters house.

Desperate, he got out of his car and knocked on the door. An old woman opened the door. The doctor explained his situation to her and asked her if he could use her telephone to make a call.

The woman told him there was no electricity, nor did she have any phone, but welcomes him inside for some food and warm drink. Hungry and exhausted, the doctor accepted her offer and walked in.

The woman gave him some food and hot tea and then excused herself to finish her prayer.

Sitting at the table sipping his tea, the doctor watched as the woman in the dim light of the candles prayer next to what appeared to be a small baby crib.

Every time she finished a prayer, she would start another one. The doctor saw this and thought that she might need help. He soon seized the opportunity to speak to her as soon as she finished a prayer and asked if there was something he could help her with. She smiled and said “God has answered all my prayers except one.” She didn’t understand why God hadn’t answered this specific prayer and figured it may have been because of her weak faith.

The doctor asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing her prayer request to which the woman replied “In this crib is my grandson who has a very rare type of cancer and all the doctors who have seen him were unable to treat him. I have been told there is a doctor who specializes in this type of cancer, but there is no way for me to get to him as he lives very far away.”

She proceeded to tell the doctor that because she cant reach him she had been spending her days and nights praying to God to help her find a way to get to Dr. Stephen…the doctor who could help her grandson.

Upon hearing her words, tears began to flow down the doctor’s cheeks and he said “God is great. There was a malfunction in the plane I was on. I needed to rent a car and on the way a thunderstorm him and I lost my way and ended up here. God did not just answer your prayer by helping you find a way to Dr. Stephen, he brought Dr. Stephen to your house. I am Dr. Stephen. Tears began streaming down her cheeks.

Both the woman and the doctor has opposition. One had plane trouble and a storm as the opposition. The other had distance as the opposition. But we learn by the end of the story that the plane’s malfunction and the car stuck in the storm were conduits to get the doctor to a praying grandmother who opened her mouth and prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and her answer heard her. And when her answer heard her, her answer unified with her and the tears began to flow. I believe the tears flowed because there was a vocal prayer to an able God who shook up their hearts...

Growth work: Using the contents of prayer discussed in this sermon, draft your own prayer and pray it everyday this week.