A new commitment
Prayer: A new commitment • Sermon • Submitted
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· 17 viewsWhat is prayer and why do we need to pray as God's children? This teaching will help appreciate the need for prayer and why it helps build up our spiritual lives.
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Anyone Can Pray
Anyone Can Pray
1 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.
2 You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.
3 We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.
4 Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love,
5 he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us!
6 Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
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1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
vs 2: (NLT) Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
There are two extremes to cultural assimilation or defiance
Assimilation - All accepting
This is usually influenced by friends, media, FOMO informed cultural influence
All
Defiance - All rejecting
Example: Jonah, who clearly refused to learn of
Does God has a preference in the way we go about our lives?
How do we ensure that we are walking in the way that is pleasing to God? Or in a way that God prefers we should walk?
God may be accepting of all, but He has preferred ways He intends for us to act.
Prayer enables us to encounter God.
Prayer brings God into our everyday lives.
Prayer is a confession of my utter dependence on God.
on God.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
Elijah had a nature just like us. He was an ordinary man with extraordinary answers to his prayer. He prayed prayers
that stopped or brought rain.
Q. What answers to prayer have you experienced recently?
Q. What truths about prayer have you learned from the Word recently?
Q. What’s working well in your prayer life at the moment? In what ways would you like to see it move forward?
Leaders Tip: With this question, once everyone has answered, you may like to get people to give tips about prayer
that could help other group members’ gain the improvements they are after.
MYTHS ABOUT PRAYER
1. Prayer is about me and what I want or need.
Although prayer can be about you because it is communicating what is happening in your heart, it is essentially about communication with God. It is a fundamental way to develop your relationship with God. So, there are at least two people involved in your prayer - you and God. The number can only increase when you pray for other people or with other people.
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
1 Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves.
2 You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it. You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you?
3 And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.
7 So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper.
8 Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field.
7 So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper.
8 Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field.
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2. Prayer is a one-way traffic.
Like all communication, prayer is a dialogue. It is a conversation between two people. Mostly we find that we do all the talking, and you are too wound up to consider listening for a response from the other. When you stop to listen, you’ll find that God wants to talk to you, too. Hearing from God can happen in a number of ways:
by reminding you of a Bible verse or a few lines of a song,
bringing to mind a message you’ve heard,
placing a thought in your mind that lines up with Scripture,
maybe just surrounding you with unexplainable peace.
3. Prayer is just for tough times.
Actually, prayer is an appropriate response for any situation! It’s for thanking God for the good things in life, for asking for wisdom when you’re confused or uncertain, for expressing your emotions to the One who loves you unconditionally, and for asking for help when you just don’t know how you’re going to make it through.
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.
4 One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.
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4. Prayer is only for when all else fails - Last resort.
Maybe you’ve heard people say, “There’s nothing to do now but pray.” Instead of being a last resort, prayer is meant to be our first response in life. The moment you find yourself facing something tough, stop and pray before you do anything else. That simple act will help you remember that God is with you and actively at work in your situation. It will center your focus and trust on Him.
aybe you’ve heard people say, “There’s nothing to do now but pray.” Instead of being a last resort, prayer is meant to be our first response in life. The moment you find yourself facing something tough, stop and pray before you do anything else. That simple act will help you remember that God is with you and actively at work in your situation. It will center your focus and trust on Him.
A. The Form Prayer Takes
“There’s nothing boring or monotone about prayer and it is not a monologue.”
There are different forms of prayer
identified below.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
2. Asking
14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
3. Stillness
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
4. Meditation
48 I reach out for your commands, which I love, that I may meditate on your decrees.
5. A Desperate Cry
17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
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6. Prayer in the language of the Spirit
2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.
7. Worship
9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.
8. Prayer of Faith
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.
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Q. What forms of prayer do you use the most, and which one is the least? Why?
Activity Break up into pairs or small groups. Pick one of these forms of prayer. Read the scripture given above for
that form. Pray together using that form. Come back together as a whole group. Each pair then to report on:
• What they experienced or discovered whilst praying like that.
• What the benefit or power is of praying like that
• Whether they need to pray like that more in their personal walks with God.
2.
B. The characteristics of Effective Prayer
This passage gives us a number of keys to effective prayer that are within reach of ordinary people like us.
16 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.
17 Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years.
18 Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
ordinary people like us.
i. Transparent
Vs. 16: “confess your faults to each other...”
God’s church and He sees us where we are at. Not trying to pretend before God, but authentic.
We are not playing make-believe, not playing church. We are God’s church and He sees us where we are at. Not trying to pretend before God, but authentic.
ii. Unselfish
vs 16: “... pray for one another that you might be healed...”
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
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One of the ways to get God working in your own life is to pray for Him to move in other people’s lives.
life is to pray for Him to move in other people’s lives.
When Ordinary People Pray
iii. Knows its Authority
vs: 16 “...powerful...”
It’s not eloquence, but the name of Jesus that makes prayer effective. And we have this confidence that when we ask, He hears us.
iv. Fervent
Vs 16: “...fervent...”
Fervent means getting indignant about the enemy’s activity and plans against you and the ones you love.
ones you love.
v. The prayer of the Righteous
vs 16: “...The prayer of a righteous person...”
how good He is. Consider that righteousness is a gift according to the scripture and you are made righteous by what
Prayer is not based on how good we are but on how good He is. Consider that righteousness is a gift according to the bible and you are made righteous by what Jesus has done for us. ()
Jesus has done for us.
Q. How are each of these reflected in your prayer life at the moment?
why. What difference has it made?
Q. Is there one of these features in which your prayer life needs to grow? How might you go about that?
Q. What answers to prayer have you experienced recently?
Q. What truths about prayer have you learned from the Word today?
Q. What’s working well in your prayer life at the moment?
Leaders Tip: With this question, once everyone has answered, you may like to get people to give tips about prayer
that could help other group members’ gain the improvements they are after.