Courage to Pray
Notes
Transcript
A lot of you know this but probably 7 years ago I did an internship at a church in Green Bay, Wisconsin and this church was in the process of planting another church
and so long story short what they did is they bought this closed old beat down bar and they were in the process of turning it into a church
And so I got to help with starting a new church which was neat.
And It was a good internship I learned what to do and sometimes what not to do,
but one thing that was a little rough is they did not always have enough for me to do.
So one thing they would have me do is work on simple things around the bar to help fix it up before they started the church there
and it usually meant I would be on a ladder (Pull out ladder) working on things typically around once a week.
So throughout the internship I ended up spending a lot of time on the ladder working on things
But what was so neat was that the ladder became a special place for me because after awhile I would start praying while I was on the ladder working on things.
And so each week while I would be working on the ladder I would pray for the church, friends, family, the neighbor hood
and its kind of funny but it became a special place of prayer for me
But one thing that was so neat was we would
where God would lay things on my heart
sometimes things that were small other things that were Big
But you know if you have ever prayed before God there are probably times where
But I was able to respond to these things on the ladder
But you know today we are talking about when God lays something big on our heart how do we respond?
So turn to
Because as I mentioned if you have been with us the past few weeks we have been in our series David and we have been going through Davids life.
And he has been through a lot!
He has gone from a Shepard to a hero overnight
He has been hunted by the king of Israel and last week we saw David confront him.
and now leading into the passage we are in today Saul has passed away, and David has been made the new king of Israel.
and so things are finally starting to get better for David
and something neat happens because early in Davids kingship God lays it on Davids heart to build a temple for God. (which actually doesn’t end up happening because of something that David does which we will talk about next week)
but then God also tells David through a guy named Nathan that Davids kingdom is going to last forever (which David probably did not understand that this meant eventually Jesus (the messiah) was going to come out of his family line)
But David knew that it was something really special.
So today in the passage we are in it takes place right after God has laid really these two huge things on Davids heart and now David is responding to what God has laid on his heart.
and David is not always perfect but in this case he lays out a good example for how we should respond when God lays something on our heart.
So once again we are in and it says:
18 Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said: “Who am I, Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And as if this were not enough in your sight, Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant—and this decree, Sovereign Lord, is for a mere human! 20 “What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, Sovereign Lord. 21 For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant. 22 “How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. 23 And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? 24 You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, Lord, have become their God. 25 “And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, 26 so that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The Lord Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of your servant David will be established in your sight. 27 “Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. 28 Sovereign Lord, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant.
(CROSS OUT VERSE 28)
So as I mentioned David has these huge things that God has laid on his heart and this is the first thing David does:
And its going to be up on the screen so read it with me because the very first thing that it says is “Then King David went in and sat before the Lord”
The first thing David does after God lays something on his heart is he goes before God in prayer.
because David recognizes that he cannot do what God has laid on his heart unless God is part of it.
It would be like if you had a bathtub that you were trying to get a stain out of and you spent hours of man power trying to get that stain out and you have that feeling where your wrist hurts from it, and its just not a fun feeling.
and I love what is says he actually does because he continues says who am I?
and you venting to your friend and they finally ask you if you tried using bleach.
and I spent probably an hour trying to remove that stain and finally I called Arika (we were just dating at that time) but I was so frustrated and I was telling her about it and she mentioned did you try this cleaner)
Well you use the bleach and the stain comes right out with in a minute.
But you know a lot of times our lives and even the church will look like that.
Because God lays on our heart something huge and we like to just get scrubbing and working,
and we try to do God’s work without God.
and I think David he knew that if what God laid on his heart was going to happen it had to start with God.
Because the passage continues and David says “who am I that you have brought me this far and that you would lay something like this on my heart ”
He is thankful, but he is also humble and realizes that he will do his part to serve, but more importantly if God doesn’t move here its not going to happen.
He realizes his unworthiness to do this task and his drastic dependence on God.
In fact if you read this section of scripture David realizes this so much that just in this short passage he calls himself God’s servant 10 times and calls God, Sovereign God, because he realizes God is the one who he depends on
You know at my internship God was the one who was going to start that church I was just the one up on the ladder working on the church.
Even in my current role I am just speaking and if God is not part of it, then we are not going to be where God wants us.
Whatever role we are doing we need God.
We need to have drastic dependence on God if we are to accomplish what He wants in our life.
But look at what David says next because in verse 23 he starts to talk about how God has moved in the past.
He talks about how God brought his people out of Egypt (which if you are unfirmilure with that story basically all you need to know is it was a powerful way that God moved early on in the Bible)
but by Him doing this in a way he is recalling all the ways that God has been faithful from the past to the present to His people.
and even where we already were where he says who am I that you have brought me this far.
He is recalling how God has moved in his life.
and this is what I want you to catch because he is not just going that is awesome and praising God (even though thats part of it)
But he is recognizing that God has been faithful in the past and he recognizes that there is no way god will not be faithful in the future.
I know football season just ended and looking into next season a lot of people can already tell who the good teams are going to be, because of looking at how they have been in years past.
The Ravens had a great year (which I am happy about since I am from Maryland), but if you ever pay attention to the Ravens they shoot up and do amazing for one year, and then after that year they fall apart.
So we can probably guess they will fall apart byh next years season.
But the Patriots even though I hate to say this… They are amazing every year so we know that they are probably going to be good next year.
But if we can do that with football teams its pretty safe to say we can do that with our God.
Thats part of why we read the Bible and why a lot of people will even journal about how God is moving in their life.
Because especially when you are doubting in what God can do
Because when you can look back and see how God has moved since the beginning of creation,
and how He continues to move in your life today,
it is easy to say that I trust how God is going to move now.
Can someone say Amen to that?
Well look at this last point and I am just going to read it because David is wrapping up his prayer in verse 27 and he says:
Because
because verse 27 says this:
“Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.
“Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.
I love that last part because Davids excited about building God’s temple, he prays thankfully, he prays recognizing how big God is, he prays recalling how God has moved in the past,
but at the end I think David started to realize just how big of a task this was,
And it says that David actually needed courage to pray that prayer.
Which implies he is actually a little scared to accept what God has laid on his heart.
and it took courage to say lets do this.
Can I ask us a question this morning? When was the last time that God laid something so big on your heart that you needed courage to even pray about it?
Because God will lay different things on our hearts and some of them are things that do not seem too crazy.
And these are things that often times are easy for us to follow
you know Its easy for us to follow God when its something we can easily do.
Its something that does not require a ton of faith for.
But a lot of times when God lays something huge on our heart we won’t even do the first part which is just saying “Yes.”
You know our church leadership last year we were praying where God wants us in the future and we were creating Goals that God has laid on our heart as a church of where he wants us.
And if you are interested they are in the back in the area where you first enter the church,
But you know I look at some of those goals and I go I have no idea how we are going to do that.
How are we going to do that in the next 5 years?
And can I tell you the truth (that is a good place to be) because that is the place where we say unless God has his hand on our church we can’t do it.
It is a place where we have full dependence on God.
I want to end on this question is there a place in your life where God is calling you where logically you are going I cannot do that, but the only way it will get done is I have full dependence of God.
It could be to do something in the church,
it could be something in your personal life
It could even be a call to enter into full time ministry of some sort
I don’t know what He could be calling you to, but I know at some point in your life God will probably call you
But what would happen today if you had the courage to say yes to that call?
And I am going to ask us to do something a little different this morning, because if thats you during this last song I am going to ask you to do something that requires a little courage.
because we have alters up front and there is nothing special about the alter, but it is an amazing place to make our outward position, match the position of our heart.
Kneeling down before God, saying God this is all you. Use me.
So maybe this morning you have this thing on your heart thats so big it might take some courage to pray about it.
I want to invite you during this last song to respond by kneeling up front at the alter.
As a way or saying God lets do this! I am laying down comfort and I am saying YES!
Will You pray with me?