Prayer, Fasting, and the Laying on of Hands
Notes
Transcript
Last week Mike preached from Acts 13:1-3 and he talked about the church in Antioch; how they were a gospel centered church. Today were going back over those verses to see some of the practices of that church that made them so successful.
In the church that was at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius the Cyrenian, Manaen, a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
As they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work I have called them to.” Then after they had fasted, prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them off.
Fasting
Fasting is an interesting subject. When people think of fasting what comes to mind is not eating; not technically wrong. But there is more to it. If your version of fasting is just not eating, you’re doing something wrong.
There are two (main) reasons people fasted in the bible. One reason was for mourning and repentance. Probably the most well known instance of this is David. You can find the story in 2 Samuel 12. David committed adultery with Bathsheba, she gets pregnant, and David eventually ends up killing Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah. When David is confronted by the prophet Nathan, David is convicted and confesses his sins; but God is still going to punish him.
David responded to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Then Nathan replied to David, “The Lord has taken away your sin; you will not die. However, because you treated the Lord with such contempt in this matter, the son born to you will die.” Then Nathan went home.
The Lord struck the baby that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted, went home, and spent the night lying on the ground. The elders of his house stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them.
On the seventh day the baby died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him the baby was dead. They said, “Look, while the baby was alive, we spoke to him, and he wouldn’t listen to us. So how can we tell him the baby is dead? He may do something desperate.”
When David saw that his servants were whispering to each other, he guessed that the baby was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the baby dead?”
“He is dead,” they replied.
Then David got up from the ground. He washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, went to the Lord’s house, and worshiped. Then he went home and requested something to eat. So they served him food, and he ate.
His servants asked him, “What did you just do? While the baby was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate food.”
He answered, “While the baby was alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let him live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I’ll go to him, but he will never return to me.”
Why did David fast while his son was dying? Was it because he was so sick to his stomach that he couldn’t think of food? Was it because God asked him to? David fasted because he wanted to give all of his time to humbling himself before God and pleading for his son’s life.
I cant imagine what it would be like to be David at this moment in his life. Knowing that your son was going to pay the price for your sins. David did the only thing he could do. Spent all of his time, face down on the floor begging for his son’s life. David was fasting in repentance; remorse for wrongdoing.
The other main reason people fasted was as a spiritual discipline. This is the type of fasting most common today. Fasting can be a very healthy spiritual discipline in the life of a Christian. On the surface it usually looks like abstaining from food for a certain amount of time. But it doesn’t have to just be food: it can be coffee, social media, sports, television, exercising, etc. Something that happens regularly in your life.
This is just one part of fasting though. Giving up something
My first time fasting
I did not fast properly. Actually I didn’t even fast; all I did was not eat for 24 hours. I completely missed the point.
Yes giving something up for a time is one part of fasting, but the other part of fasting is just as important; devoting yourself to the Lord in that time, typically in prayer. Fasting is giving up something in your life to free up more time to be devoted to God, to be devoted to prayer, to be devoted to spiritual growth. And that’s not all: giving up something to give more time to God develops in you a reliance on him!
I’m not going to rely on food, I’m going to rely on my Father! I’m not going to rely on sports or social media, I’m going to rely on my father! I’m not going to rely on my spouse, I’m going to rely on my father! Fasting reminds us of who we really need.
Fasting is important in the lives of Christians because doing so devotes us to the Lord, and makes us rely on him.
Prayer
Prayer is one of the most important things we will do as Christians. The sad thing is in our culture prayer is seriously downplayed. Now I know that many of you in this congregation are prayer warriors, and I am so thankful for you. Your prayers are so important to the ministry being done here in superior. But Church, I’m going to tell you right now, that if you have decided to follow Jesus and have made him Lord of your life, but you aren’t very serious about prayer, you NEED to be.
Prayer should be intentional. Set aside a time for prayer. Whether that is a time every day that you pray, or looking at your schedule and picking a time that you will stop what you are doing to pray.
Taking time out of your day to pray intentionally is important in your life, but the way we pray also makes a big difference.
There is nothing wrong with saying little “in the moment” prayers; thanking God for the little things; asking him for help in the moment. Those things are good. But there is so much more to prayer that if you just stick to thanking God when something good happens, or asking him to bless our meal and help us travel safe, you’re going to miss out on a beautiful thing.
I’m going to go over a helpful “template” for prayer. You may have heard of this already; it’s a four step prayer guide: A.C.T.S.
Adoration: Remember who we are coming before. God is our loving Father, but he is also our King; the creator of the universe!
Confession: Confession can be easy to forgo. It is easy to think this is unnecessary because God already knows your shortcomings. But confessing our sins to God is important; God tells us to! 1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we we are willing to come humbly to the throne and confess our failures, our sins to God, we have this promise that he will forgive.
Do you ever feel like you are trapped in your mistakes. Things that you have done that still haunt you with guilt? Have you taken those things to God? God I have done this. Please forgive me and make me clean. He will. Sometimes, praying that prayer of confession is all it takes to break down the walls, remove the guilt that has been eating away at you, and sometimes it is the beginning of a healing process. Either way, it’s a promise. Bring it to God, and he will forgive.
Thanksgiving: This part of prayer is probably the most fun. Looking at your life and seeing all the ways God has blessed you; remembering the prayers He has answered, and the gifts he has given, and thanking him. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 “Give thanks in everything, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” You always have something to be thankful for; give God glory for the things he has done.
Supplication: This is where most people spend their time in prayer; asking God to do things. But too often, we don’t do this with the right heart. Our prayers of supplication end up being self-centered and small.
Why are we so afraid to pray bold prayers church?!
Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.
God want’s us to come to him with a fear of being rejected. He won’t turn us away when we pray to Him. He hears our prayers, and when we pray in faith He answers!
Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. An indecisive man is unstable in all his ways.
“Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What man among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Now this is the confidence we have before Him: Whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for.
When we ask in faith, God will answer! And if we are asking for something according to his will he will give it to us. He is our Good Father; he gives us the good things we pray for. But he also knows better than to just give us whatever we pray for. When we ask for a fish, God doesn’t give us a serpent, but haven’t we all asked for a serpent and our Father has said no? When we make our requests known to God, He will answer with our best interests in mind! So we can come to the throne of God with boldness, knowing that we are his children and he will hear us. We also can bring bold prayers to God!
Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will restore him to health; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit.
Elijah prayed bold prayers. Joshua prayed bold prayers. David prayed bold prayers, Moses prayed bold prayers. We can pray for big things yall! Pray for healing because there is nothing that our Great God cannot heal! Pray for peace because there is no turmoil that our Almighty father cannot fix! Pray for an awakening in our nation because there is sleep that our Holy God cannot shake us from!
Church if we are serious about seeing a change in our community, about seeing the hearts of our neighbors turn to God, we need to be on our knees.
A Gospel centered Church is a praying Church
Laying on of hands
Why is this a thing? It seems unnecessary. But every time we see something important about to happen in the church, people are laying their hands on others and praying over them! Why?! There is something divinely unifying about it. When God’s people gather together to place their hands on someone and pray, whether that person is sick, hurting and in need of comfort, or they are being commissioned to a certain work God has for them, they are in that moment showing that they are a unified front against the powers of this world. That they are all working together through the Spirit of God
The church in Antioch knew what was going on. They wanted to be in tune with the Spirit, so they fasted to place their reliance on God and to give themselves more time to be devoted to prayer and serving the Lord. They prayed a lot; adoring God, confessing their sins, giving thanks in all circumstances and praying bold prayers that change the world. And they were unified in the spirit. They knew that there is divine power when God’s people laid hands on one another to pray.
This body of believers changed the world! Paul and Barnabas, the men who the church is laying their hands on and praying over are getting ready to do something that has not yet been done: they’re going on a missionary journey to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. That is my prayer for us! That is what our church leadership prays for us! That here at harvest, we are a unified body of believers who can come together and devote ourselves to prayer; who can listen to the Spirit of God and obey his voice; a body of believer who will go out into our community, to our nation, to the ends of the earth, as a unified front and let God work through us; let God do what only He can do!