GROWING PART 3

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

INTRODUCTION

Good Evening Southpointe! We are ending this series on Growing tonight.

Basically, We have been talking about what every growing Christian needs to to know.

I personally think that a sign of spiritual growth is a recognition you need to spiritually grow. Because you grow the more you realize you have a long ways to go.

When you somehow, think you have arrived or reached some plateau where you don’t need to do the Christians basics anymore than you are in a dangerous place.

And we all know people that started out following the Lord that have fallen away.

How many of you know someone that made a profession of faith in Christ and have fallen away?

So the question is: Why does that happen? Why do some go on to great things serving the Lord and others they just crash and burn?

Well I think the answer is because of choices that they make. You see we make our choices, then our choices makes us.

It comes down to discipline. Not a popular word in our day and age. Everybody is always looking for the shortcut.

You know we want to lose weight but we don’t want to cut back our eating.

And we certainly don’t want to exercise. Is there some special little pill I can take that will make the pounds melt away?

But we know that we just have to get out there and discipline ourselves. Discipline is a combination of things: 1) Turning away from what would hurt you spiritually and embracing what would help you.

2) Cutting loose of anything that would slow you down and taking hold of anything that would speed you up.

There was this concert violinist in New Your’s Carnegie Hall and she was asked how she became so skilled.

She said, It was planned neglect. She planned to neglect anything that was not related to her goal.

I think we could all use a little planned neglect. Not only should we make time for the things of God but we should also neglect other things that we know can harm us spiritually.

Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

Soldiers don't get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them.

And athletes cannot win the prize unless they follow the rules.

So what do I need to do to grow spiritually? If you want to grow spiritually you must read, study, serve and love the Word of God.

And you must remember, repent, and repeat.

Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

But I want to get to the main theme for tonight message.

To be a growing Christian you must have a prayer life. Let’s understand Prayer: Prayer is communicating with and listening to God.

Our text tonight is:

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

We use the word prayer a lot. It is a general term. you can pray publicly, you can pray privately. You can pray verbally. You can pray silently. You can pray kneeling, standing, sitting, lying down, or even driving.

You can pray with your eyes open, or your eyes closed. There is not one method or one posture that is better than the other. The main thing is to pray.

I think sometimes we think God hears us better and move more quickly when we are praying in the church sanctuary.

But that is not really true at all. We find Daniel praying in a lion’s den, David praying in a field. Peter praying as he walked on the water and then a few moments later while he was going under the water, Lord help me.

Jonah’s prayer was even down deeper, in the belly of the fish. So surely God will hear your prayer no matter where you are.

The main thing is you are praying always.

Pray without ceasing.

And if look at our text:

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion.

This speaks of how much we should pray. “At all times and on every occasion.

This means do it in the morning, it means do it in the afternoon, Do it in the evening. Do it when you rise. do it before you go to bed at night.

The Bible says you are to pray without ceasing. So we are to constantly praying and bringing your needs before God. There is no getting around this.

I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.

These people who didn’t like him were trying to find a skeleton in his closet.

Example:

So they

Daniel

Tell the story of Daniel:

a. The law was passed,

We are all in agreement—we administrators, officials, high officers, advisers, and governors—that the king should make a law that will be strictly enforced. Give orders that for the next thirty days any person who prays to anyone, divine or human—except to you, Your Majesty—will be thrown into the den of lions.

And now, Your Majesty, issue and sign this law so it cannot be changed, an official law of the Medes and Persians that cannot be revoked."

So King Darius signed the law.

But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God.

Daniel knew that this law was passed, but he got down and he prayed and gave thanks to the Lord.

This is what I want you to see, Daniel didn’t pray God help me, get me out of this mess.

But instead Daniel’s prayer was one of thanksgiving. When we acknowledging the glory and the greatest of God and we worship and honor Him things start to come in perspective for us.

We begin to see God for who He is and our challenges, our problems, our needs we begin to see them for what they are.

If you have a big God then you have small problems. and if you have big problems then you have a small god.

Daniel was thinking Lord, you are in control. You know if you want to get eaten by lions and if you want to spare my life, then I will be here and I will serve You. It is really up to You.

Second thing is this: We should pray because prayer is God’s appointed way for us to obtain things from Him.

Nehemiah was the king’s cupbearer. He tasted all of the king’s food for him. So if someone was trying to poison the king it would go through the guinea pig, the cupbearer, Nehemiah.

You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it.

but He was more than that to the King, He was a counselor to the king so Nehemiah had a position of Power and influence.

You might be sick but you never ask God to heal you. You might have a financial need and you never ask God to bless you.Your marriage might be mess up and you need God to heal it but you never ask God to heal it.

But Nehemiah was a Jew and he heard about how the walls of Jerusalem were burned and were laying in ruins.

Maybe you have a prodigal son or daughter and you have try to get them to come back to the Lord, but you have never cry out to God to intervene.

You have not because you ask not.

That doesn’t mean that God will always answer your prayers the way you pray them. but it does mean many times He will.

Third thing is: A prayer is the way by which God helps us to overcome our anxiety and worry.

Life is full of troubles and we have all kinds of concerns every single day about our health, our safety, our family, our finances.

It has been said if your knees are shaking kneel on them.

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.

Worrying does not help anything. Worry is a complete waste of time.

Did you know that the word worry comes from an old English word that means to strangle or to choke.

It is kinda hard to breathe when you are getting choked. But that is what worry does. it chokes you, it cuts the air off. There is no good in it.

It is like sitting in a rocking chair but you are never getting anywhere.

Don’t worry just Pray.

Praying is so important that the disciples came up to Jesus

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As He finished, one of His disciples came to Him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

And Jesus also prayed:

One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and He prayed to God all night.

God wants us to grow and our growing begin in read, study, serve and love the Word of God and praying. But grow only comes by discipline ourselves.