Sermon Tone Analysis

*Prayer: The Conversation of Faith (Luke 6:12-16)*

*Intro: *It seems these three ministers were talking about prayer in general and the appropriate and effective positions for prayer.

As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background.

One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands.

He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship.

The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees.

The third suggested that they both had it wrong -- the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.

By this time the phone man couldn't stay out of the conversation any longer.

He interjected:  "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended 40 feet above the ground."

*Give Background.

*In the three historical accounts prior to the selection of the Twelve Apostles, were all filled with controversy and opposition.

One might conclude that all Jesus received was opposition, yet today we see in our passage in Luke that Jesus had many disciples.

We are not told the exact number, but many people were disciples~/ Followers of Christ and those who learned from Christ.

It is out of these many disciples that Jesus selects Twelve whom Luke calls Apostles.

*Read Luke 6:12-16*

·         The topic of prayer must always begin with this clear teaching that the prayer we are speaking of today is the prayer of a believer in Christ.

If you are here today and you do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior; If you have never received the gift of salvation through Christ; Then the only prayer you can pray that God will receive and answer is the prayer of a sinner coming Christ by faith.

·         Only the prayer of faith can bring the lost person closer to God.

The fact that sin separates the unbeliever from God is no more apparent than in the topic of prayer.

Jesus came to bring people close to God.

Jesus came that a lost person may gain access to God.

Jesus died on the cross to bridge the gap that sin made.

Jesus lived a perfect life and died a perfect death so we might truly know God.

If you do not know Jesus today, turn to him by faith.

Leave your sin behind and follow Jesus alone.

/Give the free gospel offer./

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*1.        **Prayer brings us closer to God (12)*

·         Jesus spent extended time in prayer to the Father.

Jesus drew close to the Father through prayer.

If Jesus needed to do this, it is not strange that we need to do this also.

The importance of prayer is underscored in this verse by the fact that prayer is mentioned twice and also by the following method Jesus used to pray:

                    i.

Jesus went – Withdrew from normal hum, drum of life.

ii.  Jesus went out to the mountain – This meant Jesus had to get away to a secluded place.

Not only did he have to make an adjustment to his schedule, but He made an adjustment to His location.

/Note: Jesus regular practice – Luke 5:16 “He often withdrew to the wilderness to pray./

                 iii.  Jesus continued all night in prayer to God – Jesus not only left his normal routine and His location, but He was away in prayer for an extended period of time.

*ILL**: Relationships grow in the midst of ongoing communication.

We grow close through conversation.

Sara and I as we dated.

Talking and listening: conversing.*

*App: *Since prayer brings us closer to God, shouldn’t we pray.

We should have regular times of prayer.

But, we should also have special days and seasons of prayer in our lives.

Perhaps you would commit yourself today to having a regular time of prayer each day.

And then to take it one step further would you add a day or season of prayer to your life in the next month.

You may wonder how you are to know when to do this.

Let’s look to verse thirteen.

*2.

**Prayer helps us make important decisions (13)*

·         Jesus drew close to God, the Father, in prayer because Jesus knew that He was at a crucial point in His life and ministry.

The reason Jesus had this night of prayer on a mountain was because Jesus was about to select the twelve apostles.

·         The actions of Jesus after the night of prayer reveal that decisions had been made in the midst of prayer.

The agenda of that all important day was drawn out of time in prayer.

·         Here’s the point.

Some of you have decisions to make or will have decisions to make in the near future that need a night of prayer on the mountain.

In one sense every decision we make should be committed to prayer.

But, the decision Jesus was making was so crucial that it needed extra time in prayer.

·         How many times have we made life-changing decisions without this extended season of prayer?

How many of us are reaping the fruit of key decisions made without any real effort on our part to truly discern with confidence what God’s will is.

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*ILL**: * In the book /Directions/, James Hamilton tells the following story:  "Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food.

Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door.

In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust.

Often the ice would last well into the summer.

One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse.

He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn't find it.

His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile.

A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch.

Amazed, the men asked him how he found it.

`I closed the door,' the boy replied, `lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still.

Soon I heard the watch ticking.'"

Often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough, and quiet enough, to hear.

-- Philip Gunter; Los Alamos, NM

 

*App: The problem is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are in a position to hear and ready to listen to Him. *Is there a decision you are facing that needs this season of prayer?

Maybe it isn’t all night.

Maybe it is all day, all afternoon, all morning.

Maybe it isn’t a mountain.

Maybe it is a walk in the park.

Maybe it is a prayer closet.

Maybe it is a commute to work.

Don’t make that decision without God.

God knows way more about what you need than you do.*

He may not give you the answer in concerning your decision in an audible voice, but He will reveal what you need to do has you draw close to Him in prayer.

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*Prayer helps us make important decisions because prayer leads us to choose God’s will instead of our own will.*

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*3.        **Prayer leads us to choose god’s will instead of our own will (14-16)*

·         Just think of the variety of men that Jesus chose to be his twelve apostles.

·         First, think of the task Jesus was calling these men to.

The church would be formed and catapulted into existence through these men.

Would you or I have picked fishermen, a tax collector, a political revolutionary, a skeptic, a future traitor?

Probably not.

But Jesus did.

The twelve were not rich, uneducated, and not well known.

·         The question to think about is WHY?

Why did Jesus choose these men?

It was God’s will.

God’s will was discerned by Jesus as He prayed to the Heavenly Father.

Jesus was in complete communion and conversation with God the Father.

There was no dissention between them.

Jesus, the Son, came to do the will of the Father.

There will was one.

·         Prayer provides the place in which our will can be united to God’s will.