Praying and Waiting For God's Timing
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 127 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
All of us live in houses that have been wired for electricity. Electricity is the power that is sent through the wires so that we enjoy the privelages of being blessed through the appliances we use, the lights we turn on. Through our heat and AC, the stove, the refrigerator. or all the other things the electricity provides the power for us to do.
Few of us could imagine life without electricity, cause we know electricity gives us power. But that power that the electricity provides needs a point of contact. You have to flip a switch to turn on a light, or pull a chain. so that the power that is there can be released. electricity is there but there has to be a point of contact.
There has to be a point of contact between us and God if we want to experience His power. God has already provided what His will has declared. But without a point of contact you will never know what the blessing is that god has already decreed.
If you don’t turn on the light switch it doesnt mean you have no electricity its a contact problem. There are alot of people who believe in God’s power but who are not seeing it play out in thier own lives because they don’t understand the place of contact. Were not making contact so we are not experiencing the fullness of provision god has for us and we think that there is no power.
But the reality is there is no contact.
One of the major things missing in the lives of Christians today is bold prayers. PRayer is the one thing God has given to make contact with Him. Where there is no prayer there is no power.
We see in the book of Acts on the day of pentecost, that right before the Holy Spirit fell upon Peter and the apostles they were all gathered together praying and waiting on the Lord. Then God pours out His will in power on His servants and they make history.
What were going to see tonight from Elijah is that as God shows you His power through your obedience and faith, it should develop within you an expectancy for God to show up which leads to more bold declarations of faith.
(God calls Elijah)
(God commands Elijah to flee)
(God provides for Elijahs needs)
(God commands ELijah to go to Zerephath..)
(God commands the widow to feed him)
(miracles occur)
(Elijah raises her son from the dead)
(god commands elijah to confront the prophets of baal)
(Elijah obeys)
(God provides and miracles occur)
All the while Elijahs faith is being strengthened and he is getting bolder and bolder. To understand why prayer is neccesarry you have to understand God’s will for man.
prayer is the mechanism God has decreed that is absolutely neccesary for Him to release what He desires to do. Prayer doesn’t make God do what He doesn’t want to do, prayer simply releases God to do what He has already said He would do according to His will.
In God says before you call I will answer.... That sounds strange doesn’t it?
In other words the answer had already been made its just waiting on the call. God has already decreed what He is going to do, and He did it before you ever talked with Him about it. So it’s like someone putting a deposit in your bank but telling you, you must withdraw it.
It’s sitting there, but it can sit there for the rest of your life if you never withdraw it. God has already decreed the plan for your life and all He plans to do before you call on it.
So when you call on it He will give it as long as it is within His will. Prayer pulls down the will of God from Heaven and brings it down to Earth.
THY KINGDOM COME THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
Now let’s look at a couple of verse let’s look back at how this all started with Elijah.
Now Elijah the Tishbite, from the Gilead settlers, said to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, I stand before Him, and there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!”
Understanding this w
So Elijah tells Ahab its not gonna rain anymore
After a long time, the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year: “Go and present yourself to Ahab. I will send rain on the surface of the land.”
So in 17 verse 1 he says its not gonna rain
in 18 verse 1 he says its getting ready to rain
In 17 verse 1 God says Im closing Heaven
in 18 verse 1 God says Im gonna open Heaven
Both of those were made by Elijah, now let me tell you why this happened in the first place in God says in the day that you worship idols I will close up heaven so it wont rain. if You choose other gods I’m no longer gonna bless your crops or your planting, and the sky will dry up if you turn to other gods. But he says if you turn away from other gods then I will open up heaven that rain can then fall again on the Earth.
So the whole reason Elijah is praying is based on Gods word that was declared years earlier to Moses. So Elijah reaches back to what was said long ago and uses it many years later to the situation we find him in and 18.
HIS PRAYER WAS TIED TO GODS WORD
Because God’s word has to be the foundation of your prayer. This is why it is so important to pray the scriptures or principles from scripture.
There are things in scripture that deal with our current situations that we need to use in our prayers in order to call down what Gods will might be for that situation.
Now after he has prayed something God declared back to God things get interesting.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.
James 5:16
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land.
Elijah was a man just like
Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit.
God said its not gone rain, then God said it is gonna rain. Theres a gap of 3 1/2 years between when he said there would be no rain, and when He said there would be rain. The change with the rain only came when the idolatry was addressed. As long as there was idolatry there would be no rain. Many people want showers of blessing in thier lives without wanting God to change thier lives. they want God to do something for them while they continue to remain idol worshippers.
Idolatry is anything that you look to to meet your needs, an idol is any person, place, or thing that you look to other than God to meet your needs. So what god has is people who worship God on Sundays and date idols all week long. As long as there was idolatry God would not shift from no rain, to rain, and there are people right now who want god to bless them as long as He wont mess with their comfort zone.
So they wonder why it wont rain, but God is not going to send blessings to someone who is going to use it on our idols.
God said its not gonna rain then 3 1/2 years later it is gonna rain, but notice when you read James it said that he prayed that it would not rain, and then that Elijah prayed hat it would rain. But wait a minute we already saw in deuteronomy that God had already said that it wouldn’t rain and when it would rain again, so if God had already said it then why did Elijah have to pray about it?
Because what God has declared needs a point of contact before it is delivered. IN other words God wasn’t gonna stop the rain until he prayed, and god wasn’t bringing the rain back until he prayed again. So God’s command had to wait for someone to ask for it.
So God has certain things for our lives and its waiting to be delivered at the proper time, the time when we believe HIs words and ask for it. So you could have 25 years of something God is holding on to, for your life but He will not send it because He has not yet seen the point of contact.
Even though God declared it it didnt happen until Elijah called for it.
JAMES SAID: THE EFFECTUAL FERVENT PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN AVAILETH MUCH.
Now we know how Elijah prayed.
Effectual-
Fervent-
So that means if we understand effectual fervent prayer as mentioned by James and seen in the life of Elijah you and I cann effect Heaven opening, and closing. We can effect it just like James says. WHY?
Elijah was of like nature as us, he didn’t have super powers He did not have special prayers because he was a man of God. He was just a man, and he wants you to know that there is no difference between Elijah and you.The only difference between Elijah and you is that Elijah trusted Gods word to ask for the impossible.
EFFECTUAL FERVENT RIGHTEOUS PRAYER
That was the prayer that opened Heaven up and closed Heaven up.
So if you want to see revival.... then you must be an effectual fervent righteous prayer. If you want your relatives to come to faith you must have fervent, effectual righteous prayer life.
So what does this look like? What does a fervent effectual righteous prayer look like?
The Prayer that sees the result before anything happens
The Prayer that sees the result before anything happens
Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a rainstorm.”
1 Kings
Elijah says “I hear a thunderstorm.” but wait a minute in the verses that follow there is no storm yet. In fact you gonna see in a moment that there aint even a cloud in the sky yet, in fact you gonna see in a moment that nobody hears this sound but Elijah.
because Elijah has to tell Ahab that a storm is coming because no one could see or hear it except Elijah.
Your proximity to God determines what you hear see if you aint close to God you wont hear the will of God applied to you. youll be like ahab deaf…
One of our biggest problems is we wanna hear from God while keeping our distance from God. That aint how it works, Elijah already knew what the word of God said and then He believed it enough to know when it was coming because god gave him ears to hear His will before anybody else.
you cannot keep a long distance relationship with God and still hear the thunder that nobody else can hear. That’s why prayer is relational communicaiton with God not ritual prayer. If God is our only god then we must draw close to Him in relationship in order that His Holy Spirit living within us speaks to us about the application of scripture God is bringing to our lives.
So Ahab went to eat and drink, but Elijah went up to the summit of Carmel. He bowed down on the ground and put his face between his knees.
Elijah goes up the mountain, he sends Ahab away, and then he goes up the mountain he seperates himself, and gets alone with God. in other words what he was getting ready to ask for was so big, that he needed an undistracted environment for his prayer. Do you have a place you can go a closet a room, someplace you can go where you can be intentional in your prayer life.
Because whether or not we mean to or not our prayers in public are different from our prayers in private, some of yall if you heard other people when they pray alone would be in shock and disbelief that they prayed that way. Because there is no distractions.
you see were distracted all the time, we pray on the run, but when you need rain, and its been dry for 3 1/2 years thats not the time for distractions. WE MUST HAVE A QUIET PLACE TO GO DAILY TO BE ALONE WITH OUR HEAVENLY FATHER.
Look what he did: HE BENT DOWN PUT HIS HEAD BETWEEN HIS KNEES
The position of obedience humility
Trevail
He labored
He pushed HE pushed and He prayed and prayed
Some of the reason we havent seen God work a miracle yet is because we have not labored in prayer.
Then he said to his servant, “Go up and look toward the sea.”
So he went up, looked, and said, “There’s nothing.”
Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.”
He prayed and nothing happened anybody know that feeling?
Seven is the number of completion
in other words servant i know what the word said deuteronomy 7 and I heard it inside and I go into labor and nothing happens yet, Im gonna keep praying until it comes down.
It is so easy for us to give up before God gets ready to answer our prayers. We pray and pray, but the larger the request often times the more difficult the labor. We have to wrestle against our fleshly desires to give up.
YOU DONT QUIT YOU KEEP PRAYING BECAUSE AN ANSWER IS COMING IN DUE SEASON.
He is persistent
until God releases the answer
On the seventh time, he reported, “There’s a cloud as small as a man’s hand coming from the sea.”
Then Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Get your chariot ready and go down so the rain doesn’t stop you.’ ”
Ok we have gone from seeing nothing, to seeing a cloud this big as a hand.
He prayed expectantly but what he saw wasn’t much…
But sometimes the little clouds are God’s way of saying i hear you.
So you pray diligently for your spouse and nothing happens for years you pray and nothing happens, but every so often you see little glimpses.... don’t stop praying keep at it harder than you prayed at first!
In a little while, the sky grew dark with clouds and wind, and there was a downpour. So Ahab got in his chariot and went to Jezreel.
1 Kings 18:
Now if this wasn’t miracle enough for Ahab to see that Elijah’s god was the true God how about the next miracle that happened?
The power of the Lord was on Elijah, and he tucked his mantle under his belt and ran ahead of Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
The old man outran the chariot of the great king.