We Believe Prayer Really Changes Things, Part 2

Whenever I’ve traveled overseas, particularly to places where an open Christian witness is not welcomed, I’ve had to practice what I’m going to say at passport control. I know they are going to ask me the purpose of my visit, what I plan to do while I’m in the country, where I’m going to be staying, etc. And the people who specialize in training individuals for short term mission trips tell them you have to come up with a Simple Truthful Statement. Something concise, easy to remember, that everyone in your group can agree on and memorize, and will not be hard for people who speak another language to understand. A Simple, Truthful Statement. I’m here as a tourist. We are going to see the sites. I am meeting up with some friends from the States who live here. Simple Truthful Statements.

But intercession, much harder. Because now, I'm not focused on myself. Now, I'm not even focused on God. Now, I'm focused on you. And I'm not as much invested in your situation as my situation. So to pray for you and your needs is much harder. In fact, it is labor. In Colossians Chapter 4, Paul speaks of Epaphras, and he says to the church, "He is laboring fervently for you in prayer, laboring fervently for you in prayer." I'll be honest with you. When I pray for others, I get distracted very easily. So I need to do something about that. So let me just tell you a little hack, a little spiritual hack. This is just me. This is what I've done.

James 5:15 ESV

15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

So what I do is, I check my email. I check Facebook. Admit it— lots of you do that first thing anyway, right? And that is literally how I build my prayer list [PITCH ECHO HERE]

When I'm interceding for people, I discover that prayer is a battle. I told you about distractions and disturbances. Just try this sometime. Sit down and start praying for other people, and see if your phone doesn't ring, if somebody doesn't knock at your front door, if somebody doesn't try to text you a message or you hear a bing, email on the computer. And why is that? Why when you pray do you get distracted? I'm just letting the question linger a minute before I answer it. Here's why. Because when you pray, you just brought a gun to a knife fight. [LAUGHTER] Get the picture? A knife fight. Satan just wants you to hold on to that knife. I'll fight you, devil. I'll rebuke you. I'll talk to you. Really? Just pull out the big gun. You're in a knife fight, pull out a gun. I'm not saying that you should go home and pull out a gun. You understand, please, the context of this illustration. You just called on the God of heaven and earth. That's the big gun. [APPLAUSE] You ask God to get involved in the battle instead of fighting it on your own. That's the deciding factor. Samuel Chadwick said, "The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray!" So if there is a God in heaven and if that God in heaven invites us to call on him-- and he does, Jeremiah 33:3-- and if that God in heaven who invites us to call on him promises us that he will act in some fashion when we call on him, why are we not doing that? And could that be the reason that some of us lack power? You know the song. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything, everything, everything to God in prayer. But the request was, show us to do it. Help us do it. Teach us to be praying. And when prayer comes up, we might even flag the notion with several excuses, like, look, I'd like to do that. You don't understand my schedule. I just don't have enough time to develop a quality, meaningful, lengthy prayer life. I get that. I understand the pressures we face as a modern society. I would simply ask you back a series of questions. Do you have enough time to binge watch a series on Netflix? Do you have enough time to go get a good workout at the gym? Do you have time to go play a round of golf? Do you have time to go shopping? Do you have time to practice a musical instrument? Do you have time to look at messages on Instagram? Et cetera, Et cetera. The average person spends 40 minutes a day on the phone-- that, is talking in conversations on the phone. The average person spends four hours and 37 minutes looking at the screen of their phone. Isn't that amazing? Four hours, 37 minutes, average person. We spend, the average person, one hour a day in the bathroom, three hours a day watching television, one hour a day eating and drinking. The average Christian will spend less than 10 minutes a day in prayer. And that's even being generous. According to the Barna Research Institute, they say one minute, one minute per day. Near the end of his life, Billy Graham was being interviewed, and they said, Dr. Graham, if you could do it all over again, would you change anything about your life? He said, yes, I would study the Bible more, and I would have prayed more. I would have said yes less to speaking engagements. I would have traveled less. I would have spent more time in the word and in prayer. I do not want to guilt you into praying. I do want to guide you into praying, so much so that prayer becomes just the natural instinctive response to everything in life. In everything, give thanks. Pray without ceasing. It just becomes a natural part of us. Most of us do struggle in this area.

Do you remember the very first time that you ever prayed? Many of you probably don't. It's probably when you were young. But if you're a newer believer, maybe you remember the first time you prayed. Or perhaps you remember the first time that you had an answered prayer. Anyone remember the first time God answered one of your prayers and how exciting that was, how much that filled you with faith? How about this? Does anyone remember the very first time you prayed publicly? Anyone remember that? A few of you, you're like, yeah, I still have nightmares about it. That first time, it could be even in a small setting, like with your small group. And they're like, hey, why don't you close in prayer? And you're like, me? Wait, no, not me. And then you start praying, and you're secretly hoping for a few amens in the crowd that make you feel like you're praying a good prayer in that nerve-wracking moment. Maybe you remember a time, and this could maybe hit a little bit closer to home, where there's been something you've prayed for specifically for a really, really long time, something you prayed for over and over and over again, and you never got your prayer answered. Anyone remember a time like that in their lives? Or perhaps you got the answer but the answer was no, and you just didn't like the answer, so you just told yourself that it was an unanswered prayer because you didn't want to receive the answer no. And some of us, in the times of our lives when we've had unanswered prayers, those things we're praying for over and over again and they don't come to pass, we stop praying. We get discouraged. And this is very common in people's lives. Sometimes, most often, it happens because of calamity. Someone they love dies, or they are diagnosed with a sickness. Or again, something they've prayed for a long time doesn't come to pass. And so they come to a place where they say, what's the point of praying if I'm not going to get what I want? What's the point of talking to God if God doesn't talk back to me, if He doesn't respond to me? Is there any point to praying? And so some people in that quest stop praying entirely. But Jesus tells us men ought always to pray and to not grow faint. I love that verse, not grow faint, not be discouraged. We're going to see in our story today somebody who had to wait three and a half years for a promise they felt God spoke to them come to pass. And I promise you, there's probably times in that three and a half years where he felt like growing faint. He felt discouraged. And he had to keep his eyes on the promise and trust God and keep praying. Pray without ceasing for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus concerning you. Or maybe you're here and you pray on a regular basis, but recently, you feel like your prayers never seem to be responded to. It seems like all you receive is icy silence from Heaven. We can end up feeling like those men who wanted their disabled friend to come into contact with Jesus. Remember that story? We know that God is real. We believe that God is real. But getting access to Him can feel like a problem sometimes. One thing that certainly stands out in the pages of scripture is the fact that prayer can and always does dramatically change situations, people, and sometimes even the course of nature. And I want you to take that away from this message right now. We're going to talk about it later on. But I want you to know this. Every time you pray, you can have a 100% guarantee that that prayer is going to change something. Now, it might not be what you want. It might not be the thing that you're praying for to change. But every single time we pray, we can be confident that something is going to change. So we're going to look at this message, the most powerful weapon. We're going to see three things. Number one, we're going to see what it is. Number two, we're going to see who can use it. And number 3, we're going to see what's the impact. Let's look at our first point. What is it? Let's look at verse 16 in James chapter 5. It says this. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. So we see here in this first verse what this weapon we have is, what the most powerful weapon is. It is the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man. And we're going to dig deep into this because this is one of those verses where every single word is important. Effective, fervent, righteous, all of these things have to do with having your prayers answered. So my first question is, what is effective, fervent prayer? Because if you're like me, you can just look at prayer and say, well, isn't all prayer prayer? What makes prayer effective and fervent? And is that the secret to having prayers answered? And is it possible to have the simple prayers we pray every day around the dinner table or the prayers we pray over our kids when they're going to bed? Can those prayers be effective, fervent prayers? What is effective and fervent prayer? One thing is clear in scripture, and that is that God speaks to His children. To some like Moses, He spoke audibly. To others, like Elijah, He spoke quietly. Jesus said when standing before Pilate, everyone that is of the truth hears my voice. In John 10, He said, His sheep hear, know, and follow His voice. And as we dig into this idea of effective, fervent prayer, I think one reason we don't hear God's voice is simply because we're not listening. We're not listening. There's a lot of noise in this world today, isn't there? There's a lot of noise in culture. And that noise so often distracts us from the voice of God. That noise so often drowns out the voice of God. Every one of us has in our pockets-- I don't have mine in my pocket right now because I don't want it to make annoying noise when I'm on stage-- these little electronic devices. And I really think that these little electronic devices we all carry are one of the worst things that have ever happened to society because it creates this constant noise that distracts us from the most important things in life. And I'm not just talking about the annoying ringtones people have that go off in movie theaters and airplanes. But I'm talking about the actual noise that clouds the voice of God-- the social media apps, the messages, the stupid games that we love to play on our devices, the financial and stock market apps, the news, the Safari apps where we're always searching things and everyone's always looking at their phone. There's all this noise that we have to compete with. And not just that. Take it outside of that. There's just a lot of noise in the world. We're in an election season right now. And there's so much noise we're getting constantly. Is anyone else just sick of the election season already? It's like, can we just be done with this now at this point? There's so much noise. And even when you go outside of an election season, there's always just this noise that the world brings. And it so easily clouds us from hearing the voice of God. We're not hearing God because so many of us aren't listening to God. We're not hearing God because instead of spending time in His word, we're spending time on our phones. We're not hearing God because instead of fellowshipping with other believers, we're distracted by other things. Undoubtedly, there is some confusion about prayer. A major news magazine did an article on prayer among Americans, and it said this. The majority of people interviewed prayed but doing so in a rather superficial manner. Prayers were usually prayers of petition rather than prayers of thanksgiving, intercession, or seeking forgiveness. God, for some, is viewed as a divine Santa Claus. And that's so true. Many people just have the list of things that they want from God. Martin Luther said this, though. By our praying, we are instructing ourselves more than we're instructing Him. I love that. We're instructing ourselves more than we're instructing Him. And this is so important. And this is one of the reasons why I love praying scripture. Anyone else pray scripture in your lives? I love praying scripture. Sometimes when I'm going through something really profound, really difficult, and I don't know what to pray, I don't know what to say to God, I'll just turn to the psalms, and I'll just pray scripture. I'll just repeat back to God the things He's already said to me because we believe that God's word is his literal inspired word. It is what he has shared with us. And so sometimes the best thing to do is just pray the words of God back to God. It's just repeating back to the Lord what He's already said to you. Why? Because it's the inspired word of God. Why? Because it's true. You know that when you're praying it, you're not going to be praying anything that is against God's will because it is His inspired will and word. You know you're not going to be asking for something that you shouldn't get or that God doesn't want you to have because, you're praying His word. In marriage counseling, sometimes they'll teach you this exercise. And it's called the mirroring exercise. Anyone ever done the mirroring exercise before? It's an incredible exercise, but it makes you feel really stupid when you're doing it. Basically, the mirroring exercise is created because we can have in our relationships this violent disagreement. So often, it's because we're not really listening to each other. We're just hearing what someone says and giving them excuses as to why we are the way that we are. But we're never really validating their feelings or the things that they're saying. But the mirroring exercise is a great way to make that better. I'm going to pick on somebody. I'm going to pick on Antonio. Mirroring exercise would be me and Antonio having a conversation and Antonio coming to me and saying, Nate, I think you're a really great pastor. I think that you are a great teacher, but I think the clothes you wear are just really stupid, and they are really distracting. And I really hate that jacket that you have because it looks like you're a chef, and I wish you wouldn't wear a chef jacket on stage. The mirroring exercise would be me responding to Antonio. Instead of me saying, well, I like my jacket, and I don't know why you don't like that. And why are you picking on me? And why are you fighting me? Mirroring exercise would be me saying, hey, so what I hear you saying is you think I'm a good pastor, you think I'm a good teacher, but you think that maybe the way that I dress causes unneeded distractions. And you think I would be a more effective pastor if I didn't wear my stupid chef jacket. And then I would ask Antonio, is that correct? And he would either say, yes, that's correct. Or no, there's something more. And he would go on. And it's a great way to have communication, this mirroring exercise, because it shows that you're really listening to what someone else is saying. All that to say is that praying scripture and talking to God, using the things that he's already said to us, is like the mirroring exercise. It's acknowledging the things that God has already told us. And sometimes, if we want to hear what God has to say, we have to say back to God the things He's already said to us. So we begin talking to Him. We begin communicating to Him with things from His inspired word. And what it does is those things begin changing us and affecting us. The prayers that we're praying aren't changing God. They're changing us. They're changing the way we view things. They're changing our hearts. They're changing our souls. They're settling and bringing peace within our lives. Look, the idea is that God already knows what you need anyways, right? God already knows every need and every want, every desire that you have. And scripture tells us that He knows and cares for every hair on your head. And if He cares for the birds of the field, how much more does He care for you? And that He knows what you need. And that He's going to provide and give you what you need. And so if He already knows what we need, then why don't we shift our prayers from what we need to praising God for who He is and allowing Him to give us what we need or what we don't know we need? It shifts our prayers from giving God a wish list to praying scripture. This is important because God only answers the requests that He inspires. Jesus gave us an incredible promise on how to have answered prayer. John 15:7 says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, then you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you. Now, a lot of Christians love repeating the second half of that verse. Ask whatever you desire, and it will be given unto you. Right? Christians love that verse. But prayer is not some weird blank check that we get to give God and say, here, give me what I want. I want that new house. I want that new car. I want that new relationship conquest. It's predicated-- the entire idea of getting what we desire is predicated on if you abide in me and my words abide in you. Literally, if you abide in me and my commandment, my words abide in you, then I command you at once to ask for yourselves whatsoever you desire. It's yours. If we abide in Jesus, we will automatically know God's will, and thus we will ask for it. The focus and the emphasis needs to be on abiding, needs to be on staying and being planted in God's word and God's will. And if we're abiding in that will, then the things that we will be asking for will naturally be the things that God desires for us because that is all that is filling us. And I don't know about you, but I never want to ask for something that God doesn't want me to have. Why? Because I trust God. Because I trust that His plans, I trust that His future, I trust that the things that He wants for me are better than the things that I want for myself. And this truth, Christian, could revolutionize your prayer life. The secret of prayer isn't the petition, but it's the position. The secret of prayer isn't in what you're saying, but it's where you're staying. It's where you're staying, where your position is. Are you staying in, are you abiding in, are you dwelling in the presence and the will of God? If you are, it doesn't matter the things that you're saying, because your heart is in the right place. So the things that you're going to be saying will be the will of God. But this adversely means that we can say the right things over and over and over again. But if we aren't staying in the presence of God, that prayer is useless. So maybe you can say I've been praying the right prayers. I've been praying the right things. Why haven't they been coming to pass? Well, it might not be what you're saying, but it's been where you're staying. To abide means that we are maintaining a living and continual fellowship with Jesus Christ. The imagery is like two friends who are comfortable in each other's presence. When you have a best friend, someone you love hanging out with, you're not uncomfortable spending time with them, are you? You're not looking forward to getting away from them. You're not looking at your watch, like, how much longer is this message going to last with my friend? How much longer is this time going to last with my friend? No, you want to be with him. You enjoy being with him. You want to hear what they have to say. Notice that it says the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Again, prayer isn't just a blank check for anyone to cash. Our prayers being answered is predicated on our holiness and our proximity to God. So we need to realize, our prayers cannot be divorced from our lifestyles. They flow out of a close walk with God. So if your life is not pleasing to God, that means that your prayer life is going to be practically nonexistent for a couple of reasons. Number one, if you're not walking close with the Lord, if your life's not right with God, you're probably not going to be praying much anyways. Because I find that when we're not walking with the Lord, what happens is we stop doing the things we should be doing, and we start doing the things we shouldn't be doing. And we just kind of drift. But even if you are talking to God, even if you are praying to God, but you're not living for Him, your prayer life is still going to be a struggle because scripture tells us, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. The first place to start with your struggling prayer life-- if you're struggling right now with unanswered prayer, you feel like God has not been responding to you, that you've been getting icy silence from Heaven, your prayer life feels dry, the first thing that you need to do if you've been asking for something over and over again and not getting it, is asking, is there sin in my heart that I've not repented of? The first question to ask-- the first question to ask isn't, is this the wrong prayer? The first question isn't to ask, why is God silent? Or is God real? The first question to ask is, is there sin in my life? Am I regarding iniquity in my heart? Because if I am, God's not going to hear me. So the first thing to do is do some soul work, do some hard work, and examine yourself and discover that before you go and start praying again, first examine your own heart and repent of your own sin. Because obedience to God plays a huge part in answered prayers. First John 3:22 says, whatever we ask, we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. If we give a listening ear to God, all of God's commands to us, God will give a listening ear to all of our prayers to Him. How you respond to what God has to say affects how God will respond to what you have to pray. How you respond to God affects how God responds to you. Now, if you're not doing what God has told you to do, and yet you're coming to God, saying, Lord, tell me what to do, reveal your will to me, sometimes God looks at us and he says, I've already told you what to do, and you're not doing it. So why would I tell you something else, bro? I've got nothing for you. It's almost like God's responding to us, do what I told you to do the first time, and then come back to me and ask me what to do the second time, and I'll give you that word. It's just like kids with chores. Anyone here have kids with chores, where you tell them something to do, and they spend three hours and they come back and say, hey, can I go do this? And you're like, well, did you do what I asked you to do before? What'd you ask me to do? I asked you like 10 times to clean your room or clean the dog poops or do something, and you haven't done that. So don't come to me and ask me what to do next when you haven't done what I told you to do the first time. The answer is still do what I told you to do last time. I have got nothing for you until you do what I told you to do the first time. Approaching God through prayer is one of the most important lessons we can learn. Rowland Hill said, "Prayer is the breath of the newborn soul, and there can be no Christian life without it." One of my favorite stories in the Bible that I think perfectly illustrates this is the story of King Jehoshaphat. Anyone know the story of King Jehoshaphat? Jehoshaphat was one of the good kings of Israel. There's a lot of bad kings. There's a lot of good kings. Jehoshaphat was one of the good kings. He did everything right in the eyes of the Lord. He was upright. He was righteous. He led righteously. He was a good guy. And then, suddenly, as often is the case in our lives, without warning, the bottom drops out. And by the way, why is it that we only think this should happen to bad people? Be honest. We really do, don't we? If you're walking with God, if you're following God, you're honoring him, you're doing what is right, aren't you a little bit surprised when something bad happens? You're like, I thought bad things were only supposed to happen to bad people. Why is this happening to me? But it happens. And He receives a frightening report. It says, a vast army is coming against you. In alarm, Jehoshaphat stops everything that he is doing, and he does one thing. You know what he does? He prays. And I think this is remarkable because Jehoshaphat is the king of Israel. This is the guy responsible for the protection of the people, the protection of the walls. He controls the armies. He controls the storehouses, the economy. And we would look at this and say, Jehoshaphat, is that really the most prudent thing to do when you hear there's an army? If my president hears that Russia's going to invade, I'm hoping that president's getting on the line and talking to the generals and getting in the war room and figuring out how to defend the country. And yet the very first thing that Jehoshaphat does is he gets on his knees because Jehoshaphat realized the most powerful weapon that he had wasn't his armies, wasn't his walls. It wasn't his economy or his storehouses. The most powerful weapon he had was prayer. And so instead of worrying, King Jehoshaphat did what Philippians says, don't worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And Jehoshaphat prays this. O, our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do. But our eyes are upon you. When our eyes are upon Jesus, there's no army on Earth or in hell that can defeat us. And God responded powerfully and answered the prayer of the king and His people. The first thing we always need to do when there is an army that is attacking us is to turn and cast our problems upon Jesus. And it doesn't just have to be a physical army. It could be the army of your health. It could be the army of your finances. It could be the army of your relationships. And these armies are attacking you. And so often, our first inclination when there's a big calamity that happens is to feel anxiety and think in our minds, what can I do? What can I do to fix this? Who do I need to call? What money do I need to move around? What do I need to sell? Where do I need to go? Who can help me? And we start thinking of all the ways we can fix our problems. But the best thing to do when an army is attacking us is to get on our knees. Do not worry about anything but in everything with prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Christian, prayer isn't preparation for the battle. Prayer is the battle. So often, we think it's preparation for the battle. Lord, give me strength before I go into this battle. No. Prayer is the battle because we battle not against flesh and blood but against spirits and principalities. When Mary and Martha saw their beloved brother Lazarus was sick, they immediately sent word to the Lord. He that you love is sick. When the people griped and complained about Moses's leadership, he cried unto the Lord. When Hezekiah received a threatening letter from a king who threatened his life, he spread it before the Lord. When John the Baptist was beheaded, his disciples went and told Jesus. Christian, you do not serve a God who is disinterested in your life. He wants you to run to Him. He wants you to bring it to Him and submit it to Him in His will. He is compassionate. He is caring. He is concerned, and He wants to help. So we've seen what it is. Number two, let's look at who can use it. Look at verse 17. It tells us about who can use it, who this man was. It says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. So James references someone we should all be familiar with, Elijah. And I think this is important because God always has His representatives on this Earth, no matter how dark the times are. In the days when man was continually wicked and violent, there was Enoch and Noah. When the Jews were in slavery, there was Moses. When the future of the Jews was at stake, there was Esther. When God was ready to send His own son to this Earth in a little city known for its immorality, there was a pure young girl named Mary. And in this wicked time, there was Elijah. Now, when we think of Elijah, what do we immediately think of? We immediately think of his powerful miracles, the incredible things he did. And he did some incredible things. He ran for days at a time at super speed. He called fire down from Heaven. In this passage, we read that he prayed that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't rain. And then he prays again that it would rain. He was bold. He was courageous. He was full of faith. And the Bible is full of stories like this. A woman named Hannah is unable to have a child. She prays, and she has a baby named Samuel, A baby who would one day become one of Israel's greatest prophets. Samson prays, and in spite of his previous disobedience, God gives him his strength back. Paul and Silas are imprisoned for their faith. They pray, and in a moment's notice, an earthquake comes, and they're free. Peter is in prison. The church prays, and in hours, he's released. Elijah here prays. Rain stops. He prays again. It returns. He prays even again, and fire comes down from Heaven. And we look at these men and women, and we say, well, these are the great men and women of faith in the Bible. I'm not one of those guys. I'm not one of those girls. They were super spiritual. We might look at them and say, what good is it to look at people like that? What principles could I possibly learn to apply to my own life? They were superhuman. But what does James say about him? A man with a nature like ours. The King James version translates that as Elijah was a man subject to the same passions we are. The NLT translates it as Elijah was as human as you and me. Or more simply, Elijah was a man just like us. He was afraid. He was cowardly. And at one point, he was so despondent that he even wanted to die and asked God to kill him. His story is recorded here to remind us once again that God can and does and chooses to use imperfect people, that it's possible to live godly in an ungodly world, even if it seems like we're all alone. And now we finally see the secret of his power, the secret of his faith, the secret of his boldness. It wasn't him. It was God. It wasn't his courage. It was God's courage. It wasn't his faith. It was God's faith. It wasn't his strength. It was God's strength. And sometimes we think that unless we're perfect, God won't use us. We look at our lives, we look at the things we've done, and we say, we can't possibly be used by God because of what we've done, who we are. We believe that the sins, the struggles that plague our lives somehow disqualify us from spiritual use. But I want you to pause for a moment and look at some of the people that God used in scripture. Abraham was a liar who was willing to let a king sleep with his wife. Noah was a drunk. Elijah struggled with depression and asked God to take his life. David had sex with another man's wife after he pulled the most major creeper move ever and spied on her taking a bath. If that doesn't disqualify you, I don't know what does. Samson sacrificed his strength and witness for a booty call. Peter denied that he had ever met Jesus and cursed out a crowd. So don't tell me you can't be used. Don't tell me God only uses perfect people. God has a history throughout the entirety of scripture of using anything but perfect people. Imperfect tools in the hands of a perfect God, that's the principle. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, an imperfect tool in the hands of a perfect God. And look what God used him to do. Christian, your shortcomings and your mistakes are not proof that God can't use you. They're proof that God can use you. See, there's no room for people who think that they've got it all together, who think that they are perfect and they're God's gift to mankind. People who think they're perfect are often the cruelest and most judgmental people, just like the Pharisees. But those people who were flawed, sinful people have the ability to show the love and the grace of Jesus because they themselves have experienced that same grace and love. First Corinthians 1:26 to 27 puts it this way. Think of what you were when you were called. Christian, do this right now. Think of what you were before you became a Christian. Think of your life prior to Christ. Think of what you were before you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose to use the weak things of the world to shame the strong. Christian, can we just take a moment and thank God for that truth, that reality? That He has chosen the weak things, the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise. I'm so thankful that God doesn't look at us with human eyes, that it's not like an elementary school kickball game in the park and we're choosing teams, and God's like, give me that kid, he's really big and looks like he's in college. He's definitely taking steroids. I want that kid on my team. God doesn't look with human eyes. He's not looking for the strongest or the biggest or the wisest. He's just looking for an imperfect tool who's willing to submit themselves to a perfect God. Your objections are God's qualifications. When the oversized Philistine Goliath was taunting Israel, no one would step up and answer the call, not the sizable, powerful King Saul or the standout brother of David, Eliab. The only person who did was a little shepherd boy with a big God. Israel was living in fear of their enemies, the Midianites. And God finds their leader Gideon where? Hiding from the enemies. The point is that God can do a lot with a little. And God is looking for availability, not ability. That leads us to our third point. That's, what's the impact? So now we know what the weapon is. We know who can use it. Now let's see what the impact of the weapon is. The last part of our text says this. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. So what's the impact? What does prayer do? Well, simply, prayer always does something. Prayer always changes things. Sometimes it's visible. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's spiritual. Sometimes it's physical. Sometimes it changes our circumstances. Sometimes prayer is just there, Christian, to change us. I love that song that we've been singing sometimes called "That's the Thing About Praise." There's a line in it that says, that's the thing about prayer, is praise. It doesn't always fix your problems. Sometimes it just shows you how small they are. It doesn't always move your mountains. Sometimes it just gives you the strength to walk up the mountains. That's the thing about praise. That's the thing about prayer. It always changes something. It just isn't always the thing that you want. We don't know what it will change. We don't know what the impact of it will be, but we know that it will change things. Now, I want to point out, in this story, that doesn't mean it's going to happen today. The battles we fight through prayer today might not be won until tomorrow. The battles we fight today through prayer might not be won until next year or 10 years from now. But we know that prayer changes things. I talked about that idea that some of us have a hard time with God because not only do we view God as a divine Santa Claus, but we also don't want to wait till Christmas. We're like, God, give me what we want, but I want it now. I don't want to wait till the 25th. I want it today. I want to open all my presents right now. It's like Burger King, have it your way. We want it where we want it, when we want it. And when God says, hey, no or, hey, wait, we have a problem with that. For Elijah, the wait was three and a half years from when he got the promise to when he saw it answered. Now, I want you to think about this because we read this text, and it's one verse. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain for three and a half years. And then it rained. And we're like, oh, what a sweet story. Three and a half years Elijah waited for the promise. In your own time, read First Kings 17, 18, and 19. You'll see this story. And you'll see that in those three and a half years, it wasn't smooth sailing. Elijah was hated. He was running from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. He was going from village to village to some people that were being affected by the drought that probably looked at Elijah, and, hey, you're the guy who made the rain stop, right? We hate you. Get out of here. And this entire time, Elijah was going to and fro, waiting on the promise of God. And by the way, it says here in this verse that he prayed it wouldn't rain, it didn't rain. Then he prayed again, and it would rain. But the First Kings actually tells us that God came to Elijah and told Elijah he was going to make the rain stop. So Elijah prayed the rain would stop. And then God says, I'll tell you when the rain is going to start again. So Elijah's prayer was predicated on Elijah listening to God to tell him when the right time to pray was. And he had to wait those three and a half years on the promise, keeping his eyes not on the pain but on the promise, keeping his eyes not on the situations but on the promise, on Jesus, on scripture. Elijah had to train his eyes to look ahead to the promise not to the pain. He had to wait, and he had to have faith. And he had to have trust, much like Noah, who received a promise from God. Hey, a flood is going to come. The world's going to be destroyed. Go build the boat. OK, God. Decades later, the rain still hadn't come. God, why am I still building? Don't you think he was being mocked? He was. It tells us he was mocked by people. Where's the storm? Where's the rain? Noah was like, well, God told me to build a boat and the water would come, but we're in the desert. He had to have faith. He had to have trust. He had to keep his eyes on the promise not on the pain. We need to pray in accordance to his will, but we also need to pray in accordance to his timing. When you come to the Lord and you ask Him for things, pray Lord, this is what I need, but if this is not your will, Lord, don't give it to me because I don't want it, but also, Lord, this needs to be in your timing. Give this to me when I need this, not before and not after. And I want to let you know, if you're here today and you feel like God's given you a promise-- maybe you felt like a long time ago God spoke to you audibly and gave you this promise, and you've been carrying this promise, and it hasn't come to pass, you haven't seen the fruition of this promise, and you're starting to doubt, and you're holding on to this promise, and you're having a hard time trusting, you're having a hard time believing because it hasn't happened yet, can I challenge you, stop looking at the situation, Christian, and keep looking at the promise. Keep trusting God. Keep trusting His timing and His plans for you, knowing that all things work together for the good of those who are called according to His purpose. And if you don't have it yet, it's because you don't need it yet, and you shouldn't have it yet, and God's going to give it to you when you need it for the people in your life who need it for you. God has His timing. He has His plan, and you have to trust His process. This is where a lot of people have trouble with God. They grow impatient with Him. Lord, when are you going to open this door for ministry? Lord, when are you going to introduce me to my husband or wife? Lord, are you going to keep letting these wicked people get away with all the things they're doing? Lord, when are you going to judge the world and come back for us? But His delays are not necessarily his denials, because sometimes He doesn't give us what we ask for-- get this-- sometimes He doesn't give us what we ask for because He wants to give you something way better at a later time. Life's pain will always point to the Lord's promise. And the point is that even though we can't see how the situation will end or why it's come upon us, we can know that it flows from the love of God and it's controlled by Him. Christian, when God doesn't do it the way that you think He should do it, will you still trust Him. Often, I find the reason Jesus works this way in the Bible and within our lives is because God wants to do something way better than the thing that we've been asking Him for. This is incredible if you think about this. Again, the verse where we get this idea is God says, I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans of good, not evil, plans to give you a future and a hope. And sometimes we can be asking God for something. And God, meanwhile, is saying, I know you want this, but I'm not going to give this to you, because if you wait just a little bit longer, I'm going to give you something way better down the road. And if I give you this now, I can't give that to you later. And if I give this to you now but you realize what I have for you later, you would tell me, Lord, wait. I can wait. I can be patient. And God has these plans. He has this future that He wants to bring into your life. And He doesn't want the things that you're asking for now to derail your life from the things that He wants to bring you. And so the question is, do you trust God more than you trust yourself for the things that you need and the things that you want? Do you trust God's plan for you more than the plans that you have for yourself? Do you want what God has for you? Or do you want what you have for you? And sometimes we can be praying for things that we want, but we don't even realize that they're small prayers. And God's not going to give you that because he says, I have something better for you later. Mary and Martha wanted healing, but God wanted to do better than that. He wanted a resurrection. Abraham and Sarah wanted a son, but God wanted to do better than that. He wanted a nation. Joseph wanted out of a pit. But God wanted to do better than that. He wanted him sitting next to kings. The disciples wanted a lunch break, but God wanted to do better than that. He wanted a feast. Moses wanted a way around the sea. But God wanted to do better than that. He wanted a way through the sea. So maybe your prayer is too small. Perhaps you want healing. But God wants resurrection. Maybe you want something good, but God wants something great. So you need to come to the realization that your expectation is your limitation. Your expectation of who God is and what He can do is your limitation because you have this expectation, and it stops. And there's way more that God could do, but you just don't think He can do it. So stop limiting yourself with your expectation because I believe that when God makes us a promise, that promise extends as far as our faith allows. Peter took as many steps as his faith would let him. The children of Israel took as much land as their faith would let them. Abraham bargained for as many lives as his faith would let him. And His ability is always greater than your capacity. So start praying that God would extend your capacity so you're ready for His ability. By the way, you only feel crazy when you're preparing for blessing not when you're experiencing it. Noah only felt crazy when he was building the ark and people were mocking him. But when he was on that ark and they were all in the water, he didn't feel crazy anymore. He was experiencing the blessing. You only feel crazy, you only have doubts when you're preparing and waiting for the blessing. So look ahead. Keep your eyes on the blessing. Keep your eyes on the promise. And trust that in the waiting, God is preparing you for the blessing. What armies are you facing right now? We started out by asking you what armies you might be facing. We are in this war with culture, this war with the world. Maybe it's not a physical army, but maybe it's an army at work. Maybe it's an army in your finances. Maybe it's an army in your relationships. Maybe it's an army within your health. Maybe it's an army in the sin that you're battling or the temptation that you're experiencing. If you're battling an army today, I encourage you to do what Jehoshaphat did. Stop what you're doing, and pray. When we don't know what to do, when we don't know where to go, when we don't know which direction to turn, the most clear instruction we can have is to place our eyes upon Jesus and to pray. Because, Christian, in light of Jesus, in light of what He's done for us, in light of what He is going to do for us, it's incredible how the problems, how the pain, how the armies that are coming against us suddenly become really small. They become small. You need to have tunnel vision. We're bringing this to a close, but can I challenge you to be like a pigeon? What? A pigeon? I hate pigeons. Have you ever watched how a pigeon walks. It's really weird, right? They do like this. And you're, like, what are you doing, bro? Like, what's happening? I actually found out why they do that. Pigeons do that because they don't have the best vision. Pigeons are actually really smart, but they don't have the best eyes. And so a pigeon has to constantly bring his head up to look and remember where he's going and then look down and tell his feet to move. And he's got to do this constantly. Where am I going? Keep going. Keep going. Just keep moving. They've got to constantly remind themselves. Christians, we need to have eyes like pigeons that when we don't know what's happening, we just look at the cross, we look at Jesus, and we look at our feet, and say, just take two more steps. I know you feel like you can't do it. Just take two more steps. Look at the cross. There it is. There's Jesus. There's the promise. There's the blessing. There's what I'm looking forward to. There's what He's leading me to. Two more steps. Two more steps. We need to just keep taking those faith steps. Don't get drawn and distracted by the world and what's happening. Just take two more steps and look at the cross. Just take two more steps and look at the cross. Because we realize the army and the battle that is ahead. Jesus Christ has already won that. And we don't have to fight that battle. Jesus is going to fight that battle for us. Jesus is going ahead of us. And we know that no matter what the outcome of the battle is, the war is already over. And Christ is victorious. Christian, we don't fight for victory. We fight from victory. When Jesus was on the cross and he rose from the dead, he soundly defeated Satan as he stomped the head of that serpent. And we live in the victory that he has. The cross doesn't just carry the penalty for our sin. It carries the weight of our burdens. So instead of collapsing under the weight, start rising under his strength. Lord, we look at this world, we look at the assault on morality, on the Bible, and on Christians. And Lord, we don't know what to do. We have armies that are attacking us in our own personal lives, armies of sickness and finances and relationships and all these other things. Lord, we don't know what to do. But our eyes are on you. So, Lord, we humble ourselves. We repent. We see you, Lord. Heal our land, Lord Jesus. Help us to utilize the most powerful weapon that we have, and that is the power of prayer. Help us realize that it is accessible to us, that the same power that rose Jesus from the dead is alive in us today. And help us access that. Help us to live righteous lives. Help us to remove sinfulness and the things that can block our prayers from being heard. And help us to cling to that which is good, to Jesus Christ. It's in your name that we pray and all God's people said. Amen. Amen. Amen. God bless you, church. We love you. We'll see you next weekend.