Prayer Series 1.The Importance of Prayer
Prayer Series
Pastor E. Keith Hassell
“The Importance of Prayer”
Luke 11:1 (NKJV) “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.’”
“The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray.” –E. M. Bounds
I. Prayer is communion with God
A. Matthew 6:6 (NKJV) “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
B. “I’m not ‘into’ prayer. I seem to have missed the religious gene or whatever it is that makes people enjoy the act of praying. It’s not my nature to pray. I’m not into prayer, I am into God! I thirst and hunger for God, I ache for God. Without his everlasting arms holding me up, I will fall. So I must pray.”[1]
C. How awesome it is to be invited into the presence of Almighty God, the Creator of the entire universe!”
II. Prayer is our first priority
A. Mark 1:35 (NKJV) “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.”
B. “When once asked what his plans for the following day were, Martin Luther answered, ‘Work, work, from early until late. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” (E.M. Bounds on Prayer, p. 19)
C. “I have so much to do that I must spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.” John Wesley
D. “No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is straying…poverty stricken as the church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.” –Leonard Ravenhill
III. Prayer is essential for personal victory
A. Matthew 26:41 (NKJV) “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
B. “Be sure you look to your secret duty; kept that up whatever you do. The soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it. Apostasy generally begins at the closet door. Be much in secret fellowship with God. It is secret trading that enriches the Christian. Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt at night. The best way to fight against sin is to fight it on our knees.” –Philip Henry (E.M. Bounds on Prayer, p. 46)
C. “Prayer is an unnatural activity. From birth we have been learning the rules of self-reliance as we strain and struggle to achieve self-sufficiency. Prayer flies in the face of those deep-seated values. It is an assault on human autonomy, an indictment of independent living. To people in the fast lane, determined to make it on their own, prayer is an embarrassing interruption.” (Too Busy Not To Pray, p. 9)
IV. Prayer is partnership with God
A. Matthew 6:9-10 (NKJV) “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
B. Revelation 5:1-8; 8:1-5
C. “Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom. ‘Ask, and ye shall receive’ (John 16:24). It is a rule that never will be altered in anybody’s case. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the elder brother of the family, but God has not relaxed the rule even for Him. Remember this text: Jehovah says to His own Son, ‘Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Psalm 2:8). If the royal and divine Son of God cannot be exempted from the rule of asking that He may have, you and I cannot expect the rule to be relaxed in our favor. Why should it be?” –Charles Spurgeon
D. “The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on His great work upon the earth.” –E. M. Bounds
V. Prayer is the primary work of the church
A. Matthew 21:13 (NKJV) “And He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of thieves.’”
B. God’s house will be called a house of prayer. Is that true here at this church?
C. If not, then we are guilty of making it something else.
D. We do not plan and then pray. We are to pray and then plan.
E. We are not to work and then pray. We are to pray and then work.
F. “The life of the church is the highest life, and its office is to pray. Its prayer life is the highest life, the most fragrant, the most conspicuous. When God’s house on the earth is a house of prayer, then God’s house in heaven is busy and powerful in its plans and movements. “For mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:7), says our God. Then, His earthly armies are clothed with the triumphs and spoils of victory, and His enemies are defeated on every hand.” –E.M. Bounds
VI. Prayer is the key to success with God
A. Matthew 7:7-8 (NKJV) “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.”
B. “It seems God is limited by our prayer life—that He can do nothing for humanity unless someone asks Him.” –John Wesley
C. “Someone has said that when we work, we work; but when we pray, God works.” (Bill Hybels
D. “God once said to me, ‘Whatever is accomplished here at Grace Fellowship will come as the result of prayer.” –E. Keith Hassell
E. “The mightiest successes that come to God’s cause are created and carried on by prayer in God’s day of power. When God’s church comes into its mightiest inheritance of the mightiest faith and mightiest prayer, the angelic days of powerful activity occur. God’s conquering days are when the saints have given themselves to mightiest prayer.” –E. M. Bounds
VII. Prayer is pursuing God’s will
A. James 4:2-3 (NKJV) “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your own pleasures.”
B. What about unanswered prayer?
1. If the request is wrong, God says “No.” If the timing is wrong, God says “Slow.” If you are wrong, God says “Grow.” If the request is right, the timing is right, and you are right, God says “Go!” “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” –Dr. A. J. Gordon (E.M. Bounds on Prayer, p. 18)
C. 1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV) “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”
D. What is God’s will? God’s word is His will!
VIII. Prayer is eternal
A. Revelation 5:8 (NKJV) “Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”
B. What’s in those bowls? The prayers of mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, pastors, the persecuted, and of the saints who have gone before us.
C. “Prayer puts God in full force in the world. To a prayerful man, God is present in realized force. The man who has prayed many acceptable prayers has done the truest and greatest service to the incoming generation. To a prayerful church, God is present in glorious power. The prayers of God’s saints strengthen the unborn generation against the desolating waves of sin and evil. Woe to the generation of sons who find their own censers empty of the rich incense of prayer, whose fathers have been too busy or too unbelieving to pray, and who have inexpressible perils and untold consequences for their heritage! They whose fathers and mothers have left them a wealthy legacy of prayer are very fortunate, indeed.” –E.M. Bounds
IX. Prayer is the key to revival
A. 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV) “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
B. “Revivals are born in prayer. When Wesley prayed, England was revived; when Knox prayed, Scotland was refreshed; when the Sunday school teachers of Tannybrook prayed, eleven thousand young people were added to the church in a year. Whole nights of prayer have always been succeeded by whole days of soulwinning.” –Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman
C. “All revivals are dependent upon God; but, in revivals, as in other things, He invites and requires the assistance of man, and the full result is obtained when there is cooperation between the divine and the human. In other words, to employ a familiar phrase, ‘God alone can save the world, but God cannot save the world alone.’ God and man unite for the task; the response of the Divine Being is invariably in proportion to human effort and desire.” –E.M. Bounds
X. Response to the Word
A. Repent for prayerlessness in your life
B. Ask for a new hunger and thirst for God
C. Make prayer a priority
D. Make prayer a daily habit
E. Pray with others regularly
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[1]Patterson, B., & Goetz, D. L. (1999). Vol. 7: Deepening your conversation with God. The pastor's soul series ;; Library of leadership development. Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers.