Praying in Faith

Manuscript Template

Title:  Praying in Faith

Elevator Summary:  

Praying is hard because you can’t just pray like it depends on God; you also have to work like it depends on you. You can’t just be willing to pray about it; you also have to be willing to do something about it. And this is where many of us get stuck spiritually. We’re willing to pray right up to the point of inconvenience, but no further. Praying hard is uncomfortable and inconvenient, but that is when you know you’re getting close to a miracle!

James calls us to RESOLVE to pray BIG, pray HARD, and pray LONG.

Focus Statement:  

Righteous prayer is prayer that flows naturally and powerfully out of the depth of one’s relationship with God. Knowing God, we know His will, and, knowing His will, we pray in His name. That kind of prayer is effective and powerful.

Function Statement:  

Create a habit of prayer in your life.

Pray scripture

Pray the 1,3,2 Praying on Offense Method

Make a goals list, draw some circles, and pray BIG, HARD, and LONG for God’s will to be done in your life.

Tweetable Phrase:  

Pray like it depends on God; Work like it depends on you

Scripture:  James 5:13-20: John 15:1-2, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Daniel 6:6-10

Main Text:  James 5:13-20

Supporting Text:  John 15:1-2, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Daniel 6:6-10

Redemptive Closure (point to Jesus):  Matthew 7:7-12

Benediction:  Daniel 6:6-10

WELCOME

Good morning!!! My name is Ryan Hanson and I have the honor of serving here at The Light KC as the lead pastor. I’m so glad you’re here with us.

‌Welcome to those joining us online. We hope your doing well and hope to see you in person in the coming weeks.

And a special welcome to those joining us for the first time. We’re so glad you chose to be here.

ME/INTRO - Tension

So today is our last week in James.

AND...I think it may be the most important week.

So not to bury the lead, TODAY WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT PRAYER

And over the years of talking with people, PRAYER is one of the areas that a lot of people struggle.

I know I have always struggled with HOW to pray.

Most of us who grew up in a Christian home probably learned to pray through rhyming prayers at dinner.

I learned the staple

God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food, in Jesus name Amen.

Or this is one Andrea grew up with

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. May this food by you be blessed. Amen.

We had the kids go to a Christian summer camp in Michigan and they learned all kinds of mealtime prayers. Some of their favorite ones are:

Good food, good meat, Good God, let’s eat. Amen.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G...Thank you God for feeding me. Amen.

Thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the birds that sing, thank you God for everything. Amen.

And whereas there is nothing wrong with a rhyming prayer to get kids into the habit of talking to God, I think we can all agree there is much more to prayer than mealtime rhymes.

I attended a Christian college. One of the first things they had us do in religion class was talk about prayer. The first day of class they took us all out to the courtyard. Our instructions were to go off by ourselves, find a quiet place we could be alone with God, pray for 5 minutes, and then come back and report to the class what God told you. I have to be honest, the pressure to hear something from God has huge within a 5 minute time frame was huge. I remember sitting under a tree, praying, “God tell me something, anything. It’s the first day of class and I don’t want to be the only one who hears nothing. And I also don’t want to lie and make something up.” Needless to say, I heard nothing. And when we got back to the group all of the other, seemingly much more spiritual, people than me had something to report back. When it got to my turn, I breathed deep, and reported that I heard nothing. It turned out there were no academic consequences for not hearing from God that day, but it really got me thinking about prayer, how we’re supposed to pray, and the ways that God chooses to speak to us.

Over time, I’ve developed the working definition of prayer that we “typically” we hear God talk to us through His Word (the Bible) and through convictions and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that we talk to God through prayer.

Yet...

When I went to seminary, all my assumptions were aggressively challenged.

In seminary they had us read this book on Spiritual Disciplines.

[Spiritual Discipline Handbook picture]

In it, they list 17 types of prayer.

Breath

Centering

Contemplative

Conversational

Fasting

Fixed-Hour

Inner-Healing

Intercessory

Labyrinth

Listening

Liturgical

Lament

Partner

Reconciliation

Scripture

Walking

Welcoming

According to this book, sometimes

We should pray by literally thinking nothing and saying nothing, just sitting in and enjoying God’s presence.

We can pray by repeating short phrases over and over throughout the day while we breathe.

We can pray at certain hours of the day.

We can pray scripture.

We can pray with and for people.

We can pray while doing things like walking a labyrinth (maze) or being in nature.

Or many more.

Needless to say, prayer got very complicated, very regulated, and very structured.

I think the class messed me up more than it helped.

WE - Tension

So, what is your experience with prayer?

What is your current prayer life like?

Do you pray regularly?

How do you pray?

What do you pray about?

Do you believe that God hears your prayers and do you expect God to answer?

These are the questions that James is going to help us answer today as we finish our series on the Book of James called “RESOLVED”.

It doesn’t feel like its been that long to me, but over the last 8 weeks we’ve been journeying through the Book of James to learn from His very practical teachings and try to discern what God wants us to RESOLVE to do differently in 2025.

My prayer has been that over these 8 weeks, God has convicted you of at least one thing He wants to you DO differently in 2025 to take a step closer to HIM.

If you missed some of the previous messages, please feel free to catch up. They’re easy to find on our new and improved website!!!

TheLightKC.org

As as we begin, please turn with me to James 5:13-20

We’ll have the scripture on the screen, but if you have a Bible with you, or Bible app on your phone, I’d encourage you to turn to the passage and follow along. There is nothing that replaces having God’s word in your hand.

AND...if you don’t have a Bible, we have Bibles under the seats. If you don’t have a bible and would like one, please come see me after the service and I’ll get you one you can keep.

Lets dive in.

GOD - Text

WHAT TO PRAY FOR

Starting in CH5V13, James writes

James 5:13–16 NIV

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

It is here that James tells us WHAT we should be praying for.

If you remember back when we talked about reading the Bible and passed out these bookmarks.

[Bible reading plan bookmark picture]

The process we discussed was PRAY, READ, REFLECT, RESPOND, REVIEW, PRAY where the ending prayer followed the acronym P.R.A.Y.

P - PRAISE

R - REPENT

A - ASK

Y - YIELD

If you look at this passage in James, this is where this acronym comes from.

V13, James calls anyone who is happy to PRAISE

V15-16, James calls anyone who has sinned to REPENT

V13-14, James says that if we’re in trouble or sick we should ASK for help

And in V16, James say that the “prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” which means that we need to YIELD to God’s will, seek to discern what God wants and what lines up with God’s word and pray for that. To be righteous, we need to humble ourselves and submit to God’s will over our desires.

The Bible is full of prayers that follow this pattern...

Lamentations and Psalms are full of prayers that fall into each of these categories.

There are Psalms of praise.

Psalms and Lamentations are full of people asking / pleading for God to intervene.

There are Psalms of repentance, seeking God’s forgiveness for sins committed.

When it comes down to it, prayer is a conversation with God. Praise, Repentance, Asking, and Yielding are the suggested talking points, but at the end of the day God just wants to talk to you.

I imagine God listening to our prayers like I listen to the stories from my kids. Many times they have no logical flow, no point, are very redundant and meander all over the place...BUT

I love they they when they get excited about something they want to tell me

I love that they come to me with their problems, no matter how small they are

I love that when they mess up, they come to me for help to fix the problem and ask forgiveness for the choices they made

I love that they ask my advice and even when it differs from what they want, they generally follow it

I just love that they want to talk to me at all

AND GOD FEELS THE SAME WAY, WHEN YOU GO TO HIM IN PRAYER. We don’t need for follow a strict formula. We just need to talk to God about anything and everything that’s on our heart.

HOW TO PRAY

But that doesn’t really answer the question of HOW we should pray.

Do we need to cycle through all 17 methods of prayer in the Spiritual Discipline book?

Do we need to be on our knees in a prayer closet at pre-scheduled times of day?

Do we need to speak in King James old English using THUSs, THOWs, and THINEs?

Is there a set method to prayer at all?

James addresses the HOW of prayer very simply.

James 5:17 NIV

17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

James calls us to pray EARNESTLY. According to the dictionary that means “with sincere and intense conviction”

But what does that mean in relation to prayer. How do we pray with sincere and intense conviction?

I recently read a book on prayer called “The Circle Maker”

[The Circle Maker picture]

The book tells the story of a man named Honi, who lived in the time between the Old Testament and New Testament.

Here is a short summary of the story.

[Honi the Circle Maker Video] 0:04-1:53

Using Honi as an example, the book says we need to do three things to pray earnestly. We need to PRAY BIG, PRAY HARD, and PRAY LONG.

1. Pray Big

Ephesians 3:20 NIV

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

When we pray

We need to pray BIG PRAYERS, things so large there is no way they could happen without God’s involvement.

We need to be willing to take risks.

Because if we only pray small / safe prayers

We rob God of the opportunity to do a miracle

We rob non-believers of the opportunity to see God act

We rob God of the glory that He deserves

If we only pray for things that are small enough for us to do ourselves, we are only testifying to our own lack of faith

We need to pray prayers SO BIG / SO IMPOSSIBLE that without God’s direct intervention, we are guaranteed to fail

2. Pray HARD

Ephesians 6:18 MSG

18 In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

How many of us, if we’re honest, have boring prayer lives. We have a list of people that we pray for. We read down the list and ask for God’s help. And that’s it.

We need to pray like the writers of Psalms prayed.

We need to cry out until we lose our voice.

We need to pleade with God until our tears run dry.

We need to knock on the door until our knuckles are raw and bloody.

But praying HARD is not just praying with conviction.

Praying HARD means that we Pray like it depends on God, but Work like it depends on us.

I’m reminded of a song by Matthew West called “Do Something”

The opening verse says this.

I woke up this morning Saw a world full of trouble now, thought How'd we ever get so far down, and How's it ever gonna turn around So I turned my eyes to Heaven I thought, "God, why don't You do something?" Well, I just couldn't bear the thought of People living in poverty Children sold into slavery The thought disgusted me So, I shook my fist at Heaven Said, "God, why don't You do something?" He said, "I did, yeah, I created you"

Many times we have a righteous conviction about the injustices of the world, pray passionately for God to intervene, yet don’t do anything personally to solve the problem.

The Bible is full of stories of God partnering with people to accomplish His kingdom plans on earth. God can do miraculous things all by Himself if He chooses, but (from my experience) more often than not, God chooses to work through people to provide the miracle someone else needs.

God may have placed that Holy Discontent inside of you because He wants to use you to answer your own prayer.

Many of us get discouraged because we pray for something until it gets inconvenient for us. We pray, up until the point where we have to do something about the problem we’re praying about. And it is at that point that we think God has failed to answer our prayer and stop praying.

Praying Hard means that we pray earnestly to God with all we have, but at the same time, work with all we have to solve the problem we’re praying about.

God’s miracle may be the blessing that He puts over our efforts.

3. Pray LONG

Finally, praying long means that we have an eternal perspective.

2 Peter 3:8 NIV

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

We don’t think about ourselves, we think about our children and their children.

We look at prayer as a seed that we’re planing. They disappears for a while, and when the time is right, God will cause them to grow and bear fruit that blesses future generations.

How many of us have written down life goals for ourselves, for our marriages, for our families?

Science has shown that we are goal seeking organisms. Our brains are literally wired to accomplish goals.

It’s called the “Reticular Activating System”. Basically it means that every time we set a goal our brain starts noticing everything that will help us accomplish that goal. You’ve probably noticed then when you’re contemplating a big purchase. Last time we were shopping for a car, once we narrowed the list down to a few options, all we could see on the road were those cars. All of a sudden, out of no where, the very cars we were interested in were everywhere. In reality, they were always there, we just didn’t notice them until we set the goal of getting one for ourselves.

Prayer sanctifies your Reticular Activating System so that you start to notice everything God wants you to notice.

Your eyes start to see more and more like God’s eyes.

Your heart starts to align closer and closer to God’s heart.

Praying Long means that we set goals and keep praying for them expecting God to answer when the time is right.

YOU - Takeaway

So... how do we practically do this?

How do we draw prayer circles and pray BIG, pray HARD, and pray LONG?

Jeff Clark, the basketball coach at my alma mater, Indiana Wesleyan University, wrote a book called “Praying on Offense”

[Praying on Offense picture]

In it, he outlined a very simple method for praying, and it’s as simple as 1, 3, 2

1 - Pray for (1) Sphere of influence

3 - Pray for (3) people within that sphere

2 - Ask the Holy Spirit (2) things: what we need to (1) KNOW and what He wants us to (2) DO

What would happen, if we, as a church, each choose (1) area of your life to circle around in prayer and prayed earnestly for (3) people within that area, continually asking the Holy Spirits to guide your thoughts and direct our actions toward those people?

What would happen if we, individually and as a church, prayed prayers so BIG we needed miracles from God to even have a chance of success?

What would happen if we, didn’t just pray HARD, but put in the work, doing everything we can affect the changes we’ve discerned God wants to be made, and refuse to give up when things get tough?

What would happen if we didn’t just pray for ourselves, but set LONG goals, so large that they impact our children, and their children, and their children?

These are the kind of prayers that I believe honor God.

WE / JESUS

When I think of prayer in the Bible, I’m always drawn to Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus lived His life 100% aligned with God’s purpose. He regularly prayed to the Father, seeking direction and guidance.

John 14:31 NIV

31 I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

Jesus lived His entire life deeply connected to the Father, listening to what the Father wanted Him to do, and selflessly doing all He was asked.

At the very end of Jesus’ life we’re given a story about one of the final prayers Jesus prayed. Just before He was betrayed, arrested, and killed on a Cross, Jesus prayed to the Father. It reads...

Matthew 26:36–46 NIV

36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. 45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

This is the type of prayers we need to pray.

This is how we draw prayer circles around the areas that God is convicting us about.

Jesus knew what His goal was. God the Father, send Jesus the Son to earth to redeem it. Jesus goal was to be the atoning sacrifice that pays the debt we all owe because of our sin.

Jesus prayed earnestly, seeking God’s intervention, seeking another way, but submitting to God’s will.

And...Jesus did the work. Jesus did everything God called Him to do. Throughout His life, Jesus did everything God called Him to do.

Philippians 2:8 NIV

8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

We are called to follow Jesus example.

To seek God’s will

Earnestly pray for God’s help

and to obediently do whatever God calls us to do.

When I get stuck in a prayer rut, I remember how Jesus prayed. “your will be done”.

PRAYER

Will you join me...

SONG / COMMUNION

Today we’re going to observe communion as a way of remembering all that Jesus has done for us as He obediently sought the Father’s will and obediently did what the Father commanded.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 reads:

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 (NIV)

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

As part of the Wesleyan denomination we practice an open table. You don’t have be a member of the Wesleyan church to partake in communion here. You just have to have accepted Jesus as you LORD and savior, earnestly repent of your sin, and empowered by the Holy Spirit do everything you can to follow the commandments of God.

Children may partake at the discretion of their parents.

I encourage you to take some time during the next song, examine where you heart is at and pray for God to show you any areas in your life that you need to repent of.

When ready, the elements will be up front.

BENEDICTION 

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 NIV

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

This week let’s pray like Jesus prayed. Let’s seek God’s will, set BIG goals, pray like it depends on God, but let’s work like it depends on us. Let’s go out this week and take some ownership of our areas of influence, praying for the people God has placed around us, obediently doing whatever the Holy Spirit calls us to do.

Quick reminder...

Next week Time change, we’re springing ahead, so we lose an hour

Apache MVP training is Monday or Tuesday, if you want to volunteer at the school, you’ll have to go to one of them. Come see me for details.

If you’re new, please stop by our info desk, or see me. We’d love to say “hi” and get you know you a bit better.

I hope you have a great week.

Go in peace.

You are dismissed.

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