Prayer
Notes
Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen!
Scripture Reference: Jeremiah 29:13
13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Context
Context
As we continue on in our series titled, “Experiencing God!”, we move on now to the second of the spiritual disciplines, which is prayer.
Prayer is second only to the intake of God’s Word. Its purpose and its power transcends everything else in life. Outside of the Word of God, nothing else in existence even comes close to its ability to open the windows of Heaven, connect our hearts to the Father, and bring about His will in our lives.
It is the most available, yet underutilized, power that God has granted unto us as His children, His heirs, and even His ambassadors.
Today, we are gong to dig into the understanding of prayer and why it carries so much power. We need to understand exactly how prayer helps us to “Experience God!”
Let’s Pray!
Content
Content
To start with:
What Is Prayer?
What Is Prayer?
In the simplest of terms, we oftentimes boil prayer down and say that it is just “Talking With God!” And in one sense, that is not wrong. In the most basic of definitions, that is what you are doing in prayer… you are talking to God. But if we leave it at that, we fail to grasp or embrace the fullness of what prayer is.
To define it more accurately:
Prayer is an open and honest moment with God to where one removes all barriers, disarms all defenses, and reveals the true nature of their heart to Him.
Notice that we are not even calling prayer a conversation. It can be, but it isn’t always. If we truly come into the presence of God completely open and honest, there are times when our flesh cannot even find the strength to speak.
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Unfortunately, many of us rarely experience this. The reason we rarely experience this, is because we have inadvertently and unknowingly placed barriers between us and God. That was not our intentions, but it is the result nonetheless.
These so-called defenses were put in place because of the brokenness that we have experienced. We have all been hit with overwhelming things in life, and in those moments, we began to shore up our hearts. We built structures around our hearts to keep them from absolutely shattering. We did it not to distance ourselves, but to simply hold ourselves together.
It was the only way we could face the world. It was the only way for us to keep some glimpse of sanity. It was the only way for us to move and operate at work, at home, when we were with our friends, when we were with our families, or even when we were all alone. Without these structures in place, it felt as if we were literally going to explode, and none of us like to be in that place.
It is a place of vulnerability. It is a place of brokenness. Without these defenses, we feel naked, ashamed, and all alone. It is as if we are the ones hanging on the cross, exalted above the crowds, completely stripped of all dignity, pride, and self-worth.
But listen to me… this sense of brokenness… this sense of vulnerability… this sense of being at rock bottom, is exactly how we are supposed to come into the presence of God.
The problem is, by building these defenses around our heart, not only have we cut off some portion of our reality from the world, we have also cut it off from God. In our attempt to shut out the world, we have also shut out our Heavenly Father.
And because our prayers are not genuine, we see no power in them. And because we see no power in them, we see no use in doing it. And because we so no use in doing it, we simply don’t pray. And because we don’t pray, we rarely come into the presence of God. And because we rarely come into the presence of God, our hearts have grown cold and indifferent to the point that we don’t even know how to be broken anymore.
Don’t you see it. We do everything in the world to keep others from seeing our weaknesses. We refuse to let others see us cry. We refuse to share our burdens and our struggles with one another. We refuse to admit that we are lost, confused, and completely clueless. Instead we smile and we nod and we tell others and we tell ourselves that everything is going to be ok, but deep down we’re not really sure if it will be or not.
Now listen to me… I’m not saying that we should go around being a victim all the time. I’m not saying that we should have this woe is me mentality all the time. Truth is, as children of God, we are blessed and highly favored, and we have something to live for that the world cannot even comprehend.
But I am saying that when life crumbles around us, we cannot shut God out. We have to come before Him openly and honestly in prayer, whatever that may look like.
1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
3 When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long.
4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah
5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
6 For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You In a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters They shall not come near him.
“Yea, but that’s talking about when we have committed sin. What about when it is something else and we haven’t done anything wrong?”
No… this same principle applies to every area of our lives.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
A Psalm of Thanksgiving.
1 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.
3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.
We have to make sure that whatever restrictions we place on our hearts for the world’s sake come off whenever we come into the presence of God.
If we are broken, let us be completely broken. If we are filled to max and overflowing, let us praise His Holy name without reserve. Whatever state we are in, true prayer is coming into His presence fully embracing that state.
But watch this...it gets even better. Not only is prayer coming into His presence, it is also a source of power.
We have talked about this before, but it has always amazed me that of all the requests that the disciples could have made of Jesus, the one they chose was:
1 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
They could have asked Him to teach them how to perform miracles, how to walk on water, how read other people’s minds, how to know the future, or even how to disappear and reappear. Instead, they said, teach us to pray.
They had spent enough time with Jesus to know that prayer was a means for Him to accomplish all the things He did. Jesus would remove Himself from them for a period of time, and then when He came back, He would do all these amazing things. They saw it time and time again. They knew that there was power in prayer. So that is what they asked Jesus to teach them how to do.
As we look throughout the Scriptures, we see this idea of power in prayer proven over and over.
Hannah was barren until she prayed to the Lord and then she was able to bare a son.
Elijah called fire down from heaven through prayer.
Elijah also prayed and it didn’t rain for 3 1/2 years. Then he prayed again and it rained.
Moses performed miracles through prayer.
Paul and Silas were freed from prison through prayer.
Peter was freed from prison through prayer.
Daniel received visions of heaven and the future through prayer.
15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Prayer is conduit in which God’s blessings flow. As we genuinely pray, we open the doors of heaven so that God’s will can be accomplished on earth. That is some kind of power.
This is why we are told over and over through the Scriptures to pray:
17 pray without ceasing,
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
2 Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving;
18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Over, and over, and over we are encouraged to pray, because God knows how important it is. He wants us to be blessed. He wants us to experience the fullness of His blessings, but He also wants us to believe and depend upon Him for those same things. So He tells us to pray, and seek His face.
So now let’s answer the question that everyone is already thinking: “If prayer is so wonderful and powerful, why don’t people pray more, and why don’t people see their prayers answered more often?”
They don’t truly believe
24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
Scripture teaches us that we must believe what we pray if we really want to see it come to pass.
They pray selfishly
2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
I don’t who coined this phrase, but it says, “Prayer is not about accomplishing the will of man in Heaven, it is about accomplishing the will of God on earth.”
When we pray, we are to pray in His will, and if we pray in His will, then we will no doubt believe that it will happen, because it is indeed what He want’s to happen in the first place.
They are living in sin
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear.
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.
Its funny how when things don’t turn out the way we want them, God is always the first one we blame. Notice here that it says God hasn’t changed. God is still the miracle-working, all-powerful God He always was. If things went sideways, its not His fault, but ours. It says that when we are living in sin, it brings up a barrier between us and Him, causing Him not to be able to hear us.
And there are tons of verses that say the exact same thing:
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear.
31 Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.
At some point throughout the history of the church, the power of prayer was sacrificed for sinful living. As a result of that, we look around today and see what seems to be a powerless church. People have quit believing that prayer works, and many others simply treat prayer like leaving God a voicemail: short and sweet and straight to the point.
They refuse to pray with the church
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way we lost the meaning of the altar. Today, we look at the time of invitation and this thought of coming forward to pray as a time for the lost, or maybe for those who are severely struggling with something big in their lives.
But let me ask you a question, where in Scripture did Jesus bring a lost person to the synagogue to pray and be saved? It’s not there. A person can be saved anywhere, and yes, they can be saved at the altar. The church building is for the church to gather, and the church altar is for the church to pray.
We are told to come together, share our sins, our struggles, our worries with one another, and then join together in prayer yet Sunday after Sunday these altars are empty.
I say the time for this weak hearted prayer approach is no more. It is time we seek the face of God once again. It is time we intentionally set apart a certain amount of time out of our days for prayer, like it matters. It is time we unshackle our hearts and lay prostrate before Him, seeking His will in our lives.
Commitment
Commitment
