Persevere In Prayer
One Off Sermons • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 3 viewsNotes
Transcript
(*)
- So next week we are going to be starting our Advent series that will lead us into Christmas and our Christmas Eve service together.
- But this morning, similar to what we did last week, I would like us to look ahead to after Christmas, into our 2025 year of prayer.
- Last week we had a time where I shared some of the reason and vision and plans for next year, and so I would really love it if you would catch up on our Facebook page if you missed that.
- But, for this week, I would like to give a simple encouragement with regards to prayer, that I hope will carry us through 2025, but the good news is that we can start doing this today.
- Today I want us to talk about what it means to do this, and some practical ideas for how we can actually do this…
- And the “this” I’m talking about is…
(*)
- Persevere in prayer.
(*)
- 1 Thessalonians 5:17
o Never stop praying.
(*)
- Colossians 4:2
o Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.
(*)
- Romans 12:12
o Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.
- For some people (regardless of whether we follow Jesus or not), we pray when we have something to say.
- We pray when we need something.
- We pray when something is going wrong.
- We pray when we want to.
- We pray when we think about it.
- We pray when we realize that it’s been way too long since we’ve prayed and we are feeling guilty about not praying more.
- Whatever the case might be, I know that I personally struggle with actually persevering in prayer.
(*)
- It is hard to “never stop praying”.
- It is difficult to be “devoted” to prayer.
- It is challenging to “keep on praying”.
- As I said last week, I want to be better at this.
- And, even during the times when I don’t really want to, I want to want it.
- I don’t just want to be a follower of Jesus who prays more. I want to be a follower of Jesus who actually wants to pray more.
- So this morning I would like to share a very practical way that I have put this into practice.
- I stole this from David Platt’s “Secret Church” simulcast on prayer (which we will be doing as a training on prayer a couple of times over 2025), but I found this to be very helpful for me when I want to persevere in prayer, I want to keep on praying, I want to be more devoted to prayer.
- And so, this is what it looks like.
(*)
- You start by taking each day of your week, and deciding the things that you want to “persevere in prayer” for.
- What is it that you want to keep on praying for?
(*)
- So, for me, I chose my wife.
- My kids.
- My extended family.
- Global workers that my family supports (or we help support through this church).
- Our sponsored kids.
- And our church family.
- So now, one by one, I think of 7 different things that I want to be praying for each of these.
- So I start with Chantelle.
(*)
- On Sunday I pray that she would hear God’s voice.
- That she would know God’s will for her and follow where He is leading her to go.
(*)
- On Monday I pray for her career as a teacher.
- I pray for her relationships with fellow staff members, students, and parents.
- I pray for her ability to shine the Light of Jesus in the schools that she is in.
(*)
- On Tuesday, I pray for her friendships with other Christians.
- I pray for her to have people who love Jesus surrounding her with love and support, with Godly wisdom and advice.
- For friendships that draw her closer to Jesus (some of you have been, and will continue to be, an answer to this prayer).
(*)
- On Wednesday, I pray for her friendships with those who don’t know Jesus.
- I pray for her witness in our neighbourhood, and for God to help her build friendships and relationships with people who she can help draw closer to Jesus.
(*)
- On Thursday I pray for her role as a mother to our kids.
- I pray for patience, wisdom, understanding, and discernment to parent our kids well.
- To discipline, teach, and raise them in both grace and truth.
- I pray that she would lead our kids with the Truth of Jesus, in the Love of Jesus, in a Gospel fluent way.
(*)
- On Friday I pray for her passion and love for God.
- I pray that she would love Jesus more today than she did yesterday.
- I pray that she would love Jesus more tomorrow than she does today.
- I pray that she never gets complacent or apathetic in her faith, but is passionate about following Jesus wherever He leads her.
(*)
- And, on Saturday, I pray for her to have a continual and fresh understanding of the Good News Gospel message of Jesus.
- I pray that the Gospel never stops being Good News to her, and that it never stops flowing through her to be Good News into the lives of others.
- I pray that she would be able to speak the Truth of Jesus, in the Love of Jesus, into the everyday stuff of her own life, and then into the lives of others.
- Then we move to my kids.
- Now, there is a good amount of overlap here, as you’ll see.
(*)
- On Sunday I pray that my kids would hear God’s voice.
- Maybe during kids church right now.
- Maybe during a song.
- Maybe over lunch or at any point throughout the week.
- That they would hear God’s voice, recognize it to be God’s voice (be sheep who recognize their Shepherd’s voice), understand what God is saying, and then remember what God has said to them.
(*)
- On Monday I pray for my kids to be raised properly into the things of God.
- I pray for them by praying for Chantelle and I as parents, to reflect God, to model Jesus well, and to raise them the way that He wants us to.
- After all, they are first and foremost His kids, I’m just lucky enough that He’s included me in their lives.
(*)
- On Tuesday I pray for my kids to have good Christian friendships.
- That they would have friends (maybe with your kids and grandkids) who would lead them closer to Jesus.
(*)
- On Wednesday I pray for my kids to have good non-Christian friendships.
- I pray that they would be kind, loving, accepting, welcoming, and understanding of kids regardless of whatever they believe or don’t believe.
- I pray that my kids would be a positive influence that would draw others closer to Jesus.
- I pray that God would not take them out of the world, but protect them from the evil one.
(*)
- On Thursday I pray for God’s calling on their lives.
- I pray for whatever God has in store for them.
- Maybe when they graduate.
- Maybe when they get a little older.
- Maybe tomorrow.
- I pray that God’s Kingdom would come, and that His will would be done, in their lives as it is in heaven.
(*)
- On Friday I pray for their passion and love for God.
- That they would not just come to church because we make them.
- That they would not just say they are a Christian because it was how they were raised.
- I pray that they would truly love Jesus, with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
(*)
- And then on Saturday I pray for their understanding of the Gospel message.
- I pray for them to be Gospel fluent, each and every day of their lives.
- No matter where they go.
- No matter who they are with.
- I pray they would know that the Gospel of Jesus is Good News for them, and then I pray that they would share that Good News with as many people as they can.
- So, we now move onto my extended family.
(*)
- On Sunday I pray for my mom and dad, as well as for my oldest niece.
- Anything that comes to mind for them, if it’s a sentence or two, or a few minutes, or whatever. I just pray for them however I can today.
- If I know something they’re going through, or something that is coming up, or if I don’t. I just pray.
(*)
- On Monday I pray for my mother-in-law and my oldest two nephews.
(*)
- On Tuesday, I pray for my sister Michelle, her husband John, and their two kids.
(*)
- On Wednesday, I pray for my sister Kathryn, her husband Fuel, and their youngest daughter (because I’ve already prayed for their other three kids!)
(*)
- On Thursday, I pray for Chantelle’s brother Bryce, his wife Megan, and their two kids.
(*)
- On Friday, I pray for Chantelle’s other brother Brady, his wife Monica, and their son.
(*)
- And on Saturday, I pray for my own aunts and uncles.
- Then we jump over to global workers.
(*)
- On Sunday I pray for Pastor Vijay and the BSS ministry in India.
- Again, whether I know of something specific to be praying for, or if I don’t. I take some time to pray.
- In this category, or in any category, sometimes it gets repetitive, sometimes I repeat things for weeks, other times I have something specific or current to pray for.
- Doesn’t have to be long, but I want to pray for God’s Kingdom advancing around the world each and every day.
(*)
- On Monday I pray for Shawna and Murray and their ministry in Asia.
(*)
- On Tuesday I pray for the RAN Network and their leader who I’ve been connected with for many years.
(*)
- On Wednesday I pray for workers that our family supports who I’ll call J&D doing important work to reach out to an unreached area of the world that I can’t say anything more about because this is being livestreamed.
(*)
- On Thursday I pray for another family we support, we’ll call TIMS who I used to pastor and is now sharing the message of Jesus in a very difficult area of the world.
(*)
- On Friday I pray for Stan and Doreen, another couple I used to pastor who work and serve followers of Jesus in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(*)
- And on Saturday I pray for global workers I’ve recently met through e-mail and Zoom the last couple of months, and I hope our paths will cross someday soon, Cal and Chrissy, who do work in Quebec and I hope my family (and perhaps our church family) will be able to partner with them, and take a trip to see them someday.
- Then I move onto our sponsored kids.
(*)
- Simply, we have three sponsored kids, so I pray for each of them twice a week, and then all of them on Saturday.
- And then finally, everyday I want to take some time to pray for our church family.
(*)
- On Sunday I pray for our service together, for those who come in person and those who watch online.
(*)
- On Monday I pray for our church “family” relationships.
- I pray that we would truly grow closer to one another as a family.
- Brothers and sisters in Christ.
- That you wouldn’t just know what the back of each other’s heads look like, and that I wouldn’t just know your face from up on the stage.
- I pray that we would get together outside of Sunday morning, and that we would actually enjoy spending time with one another.
(*)
- On Tuesday I pray for our different groups.
- Our women’s group, our men’s group, our kids ministry, our youth group, and other things we have going on.
(*)
- On Wednesday I pray for our ability to serve our community.
- That we would have regular opportunities to meet real, tangible needs for those in our community, and to display the love of God to those who need some help.
(*)
- On Thursday I pray for our opportunities to spread the Gospel.
- Where we work, where we go to school, where we live.
- I pray for our ability to reach into our own families, and the lives of our loved ones.
(*)
- On Friday I pray for vision and direction for our leadership.
- Our Pastor’s Council, the leadership of different ministries and areas.
- I pray for God to guide all of us, in unity, towards His purposes for us as a church family.
(*)
- And on Saturday, I pray that we would be a multiplying movement.
- I pray that people would leave our church, to plant other churches.
- I pray that people would go out from our doors, and get on a plane to the ends of the earth.
- I pray that the money that we give we would use as best as we can to advance the Kingdom of God, in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada, and to the ends of the earth.
- I pray that we would complete the Great Commission.
- So, this just one practical idea that I’ve found helpful.
- I’ve found this to be a helpful tool to guide me in “persevering” in prayer.
- Because I know I want to pray for my wife and kids everyday, but sometimes (can I admit this?) I forget.
- I get busy.
- I just don’t feel like it.
- And sometimes, even when I want to pray, I come to do it, and I can’t think of anything to say.
- This helps me have something to say (even if it’s just a couple of sentences) each and every day.
- And of course, I am not bound to this.
- If something comes up on Friday with Chantelle and her work, it’s not that “I guess I’ll pray about that on Monday, because that’s when I pray for her career as a teacher.”
- But this just helps me always have an idea of something to pray about, each and every day, for the things I want to persevere in prayer for.
- I no longer need to worry, when I come to pray “I wonder what I should pray for”.
- I keep this as a note file on my phone, so it’s with me wherever I go.
- And so please, if this is helpful to you, then take it, adapt it.
- Put in different things you want to pray for everyday.
- Take out other ones that don’t apply.
- Starting by thinking about the things you want to pray for each and every day, and then break it up into 7 different ways to pray for each of these things, one per day.
- Make it work for you.
- But this is an idea of what it might look like to persevere in prayer.
- Now, before we go any further, I would like us to turn to the communion table together.
- Each week we take the time to remember the broken body and shed blood of Jesus.
- To remember His death that brings us life.
- To remember His life that conquers our death.
- And today, as we think about praying, as we think about maybe some practical ideas to help us pray, I think it would be good to remember that we are only able to approach God at all, because we go through Jesus.
- Jesus makes us right with God.
- Jesus allowed His body to be broken and His blood to be shed.
- Jesus said “it is finished” on the cross, and the curtain in the Temple, the curtain that kept the Holy of Holies separate was torn in two.
- Because the separation between us and God, was forever dealt with, through Jesus’ sacrifice.
- And so even now, as we think about this and talk about this, and maybe some of us are feeling guilty about all the things we don’t pray for enough and all of the distractions we continue to give more time to than God.
- No matter what, even right now at this very moment, we can turn to God and call out to Him, because of what Jesus has done for us.
- And if that’s something you want to do today, for the first time or the first time in a long time (whether you are here or watching online), you are welcome to take communion as a way to remember Jesus, and how His sacrifice makes you right with God, and allows you to pray so freely to Him whenever and however you want.
- ***Take communion
- Now, as we think about persevering in prayer, there’s one more thing I’d like to say/announce this morning.
(*)
- Isaiah 62:6-7
o O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls;
o they will pray day and night, continually.
o Take no rest, all you who pray to the Lord.
o Give the Lord no rest until he completes his work,
o until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth.
- Now, if you know me, you might know that I think that churches (and pastors) have a bad habit of taking verses that are for ancient Israel and pretending like they are about them.
- And so let’s properly set the stage here.
- Isaiah is a prophet of ancient Israel who had two main parts to his message:
- Judgement, and hope.
- God would judge Israel for their sin and rebellion.
- But, there was hope that God would ultimately fulfill all of His covenant promises (that he made to Abraham generations before).
- And this chapter, Isaiah 62, is near the end of one of the longest books in the Bible.
- And it is squarely in the “hope” side of the message that Isaiah is bringing to Israel from God.
- Isaiah’s message here repeatedly talks about a “new Jerusalem”, being a metaphor for a “new creation”, that will be enjoyed by all of God’s servants who are made right with God through the suffering servant (the one Isaiah famously writes about in Isaiah 53).
- And so then we get to these words, as a part of a prayer Isaiah had for Jerusalem, and there is this picture of persevering prayer.
(*)
- Praying day and night.
(*)
- Continually.
(*)
- Taking no rest in our prayers.
- And then, there’s this picture here, and this is what I want to really draw our attention to for just a couple of minutes this morning.
(*)
- “Give the Lord no rest.”
- Isn’t that a beautiful picture?
- Not just taking no rest ourselves, but also not giving God any rest from our constant prayers.
- As if God needed any rest to begin with, but if we ever prayed for so long that even God said “ok, ok ok, let’s just take a break for a minute” and we said “No! We want to keep talking to You!”
- It makes me think of a parable that Jesus once told to His followers:
(*)
- Luke 18:1-8
o One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’
(*)
o The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”
(*)
o Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end.
o So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly!”
(*)
- “God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night”
- I don’t know about you, but maybe the reason why I struggle with prayer, maybe the reason I don’t see some of my prayers being answered, is because I am not crying out day and night.
- I pray about it once, and then it moves on from my mind.
- I pray about it a few times, and then something else takes centre stage for the rest of my month.
- What would happen, if we cried out day and night?
- What might change, in our lives and in our community, if we gave the Lord no rest?
- I don’t know about you, but I intend to find out.
- And so, this morning, we are officially announcing that to start our year of prayer in 2025, we will be having one full week of 24/7 prayer here at Life Centre.
(*)
- Starting Sunday, January 5th, at 11am immediately following our worship service, our prayer room will open (right back here).
- And someone will be praying in it (here, on location), every single hour, 24/7, until the following Sunday, January 12, at 10am when our next worship service begins.
- We have a team that is going to put together a prayer room that engages all five senses.
- You are welcome to come and pray silently.
- You are welcome to come and sing loudly.
- You are welcome to draw a picture, write a poem, take communion, read the Bible, or do whatever you want (and there will be plenty of ideas and things for you to do so that you don’t have to think of it yourself if you don’t want to).
- And we want to give all of you the chance to participate.
(*)
- You can sign up, now, online, to book your spot (although just listen to me for a couple more minutes before you pick your time please, because I do have some requests for you to consider as you pick your days and times).
- When you sign up, you can reserve the room just to yourself, or you can sign up and allow others to sign up at the same time as you.
- Let me say that it is actually encouraged that you do book the room yourself as much as is appropriate (because we want each hour to be filled, not for everyone to come at the same time).
- But, if you wanted to gather a group together to pray together at the same time, that would be the goal of that.
- You can sign up for one hour, two hours, you can sign up for one hour a day, you can sign up for 4 hours twice a day.
- You can sign up for as little (or as much) as you want.
- As I said last week, how you make this work for your schedule is totally up to you.
- Although, also as I mentioned last week, we would really love to see as many people participate in this as possible.
- Even if all you can do is give one hour out of the 167 hours that this will be running, I hope you will do that.
- If you’re away that week, then I hope you’ll participate from wherever you are (although please don’t reserve the room to yourself, because we do really want someone to be in the prayer room, giving God no rest for the entire week). But I know there are some who will be joining us in prayer this week from other places.
- Now, I do want to make one little request as we unveil this and start allowing people to sign up.
- Here is what I think would be ideal.
- First, starting right now, if you are someone who has a pretty busy schedule,
- If you are someone who works, you’ve got kids, your kids have numerous extra curricular activities, or whatever the case might be,
- If that is you, and your current stage of life gives you less flexibility with your hours in a day, then I would love to invite you to sign up right away (do it right now if you can).
- If you are someone who knows “I am free for one hour on Thursday at lunch”, then I would love to see you get to take that one hour Thursday at lunch before someone else takes it.
- So please, look ahead at your calendar, find the time that works best for you (even if it means you might do something late at night or early in the morning, again, this is 24/7, so we are asking someone to sign up at 2am and every other hour for every day that week.
- But get a time booked that works for your schedule, before someone else gets it.
- Then, secondly, if you are here and you have a little more flexibility in your schedule.
- Maybe you are retired.
- Maybe you are an empty-nester.
- Maybe you are a teenager who is busy for school and that’s about it.
- Maybe you have some more free time during the days, or you could adjust your schedule to wake up and come to pray for an hour in the middle of the night without it totally ruining your workday the next day.
- If that’s you, then I would ask that you hold off on signing up, for just a few days (you might still want to scan this code and save the link on your browser so you have it).
- Let’s allow those who are busier and have less flexibility in their schedules get the times that they need to make it work for them, and then you will have freedom to take the next spots.
- Then, following that (maybe in just over a week or so) we are going to open it up to other churches in Weyburn and allow them to sign up with whatever times are left.
- And then we will also promote it on Facebook and allow anyone, regardless of whether they are a part of a church or not, whether they even believe in Jesus or not, to come and pray if they want to.
- In our planning for the 2025 year of prayer, we first planned to build some momentum into this (to wait a few months before announcing this).
- But then we thought, what would be a better way to start?
- What would be a greater way to kick off the year and jumpstart a year of prayer, than us giving God no rest, crying out day and night?
- And we chose a week because we think that it might be a little bit of a stretch for us.
- A weekend seemed too short and too easy, too much like a sure thing.
- But a week is a lot of hours (167 hours is how long this will run).
- If all of us signed up for 1 hour, that would still leave over 100 hours needing to be filled (so, if you are someone who wants to take an hour or two a day, at a consistent time that works best for you, please do it! You don’t need to leave empty space on the calendar, there will be plenty of open spots for everyone).
- And so we’ve already got some people ready to take leadership for this, to be on-call for days and nights at a time, so that if there is an empty hour, if someone doesn’t show up for their scheduled prayer shift, or whatever the case might be, these people will drop whatever they are doing and come over to pray.
- And so this week is going to require sacrifice.
- We can’t do everything we always fill our weeks doing and still have 24/7 prayer for this week.
- We can’t sleep as much as we like to usually sleep and keep this time of prayer going non-stop.
- We can’t binge watch into the early hours of the morning, if we are going to make this week a success.
- This is meant to be done in person, to make our back room here a non-stop prayer room for one week (and so while we should all still be praying throughout our days no matter where we are, signing up for this is saying we will come here in person and pray).
- To give an idea of why this matters and what this looks like (and then I’m wrapping up, I promise, I know this is longer than normal), but here is a quick quote from one of the books by the guy who founded the whole 24/7 movement Pete Greig:
o “When a church in the town of Bluffton, Indiana, launched a 24-7 prayer room, they had little idea just how powerfully God was about to use them to impact the lives of students at the local university, just across the state line in Ohio. A few weeks into their season of prayer, a girl called Aimee was chatting to her friend John at the university when she realised that her slot in the prayer room was looming. “Oh, I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ve got an appointment with God!” Noticing John’s understandable surprise, she plucked up the courage to ask if he would like to join her. And so, a little later that day, John found himself stepping into a place of continual prayer. He was blown away completely and unexpectedly by the presence of God. “During that hour,” he wrote, “I accepted Christ and I cannot tell you how life‐changing the experience has been for me.” John began to return regularly to the prayer room, and the Holy Spirit started to work deeply in his life.”
- And so, for this specific week, we hope that we will create an atmosphere right back here, where God’s presence is so powerfully experienced, that lives will forever be changed (including our own).
- And so, thinking ahead to January 5-12, what can you sacrifice?
- What time can you give?
- Whatever it is, I hope you will plan to join us, from January 5-12, as we cry out to God day and night.
- As we give the Lord no rest.
- As we pray without ceasing.
- As we persevere in prayer.
- And next week, we will begin our Advent series as we head into the Christmas series (and I promise to be shorter next week!)
- Close in prayer
- (*) Now What
- Benediction: Philippians 4:6-7
o Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Scripture:
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
- Colossians 4:2
- Romans 12:12
- Isaiah 62:1-12
- Luke 18:1-8
Prayer:
- Pray that God would grow a stronger desire for prayer in your heart. Pray that you would be a follower of Jesus who not only prays, but actually wants to pray.
- Pray for God to help you grow in perseverance in prayer. Pray that God would give you the will and strength to keep calling out to Him for the things that are most important to you day and night.
Discussion/Reflection:
- What are some of the people/things you want to persevere in prayer for? Create a note file on your phone, or get out an actual pen and paper, and make a daily list of the things you want to be praying for.
- When it comes to your prayer life, would you use words like “persevering” or “devoted” to describe the way that you pray? Why or why not?
- What would it look like for you to “give God no rest” in your prayers, calling out to Him “day and night”? Given your regular weekly schedule and to-do list, how could you make a more intentional effort to do this?
- Will you sign up to pray for the January 5-12 week of prayer? The link to sign up is: https://signup.24-7prayer.com/signup/dca68d You can sign up alone, but you are also encouraged to talk as families or with some friends (a small or large group) and reserve some time(s) when you can come together and pray. Please commit to whatever you are able to, but as much as possible to help us “give God no rest” as a church family on this week.
Now What:
- Same as last week (year of prayer pre-sermon)
