Powerful Prayer that Moves Heaven

Introduction

The power of a praying church member story...

That story illustrates something that is absolutely vital for a church to strive in a community: powerful prayer.

In fact, I believe four things are vital for a church to strive:

Expository preaching of God’s Word along with a commitment to learning God’s Word by the people;

Men committed to fulfilling their God-ordained roles as the spiritual leader within the church and their family.

An atmosphere where people are loved and cared for, even if they don’t have it all together.

But, probably most important, a people who are committed to corporate, small group, and private prayer.

James 5:13–16 ESV

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

The greatest spiritual discipline we have in the church and in our Christian life is prayer. And yet, it is one of the most neglected of all spiritual disciplines. But, look again at the last part of James 5:16

James 5:16 (ESV)

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

But, I’m not a righteous person!

True. There isn’t one person who is righteous by his or her own merits in this church, or any other church, including the church that James was writing to. But, as believers, we understand the most vital of truths of all truths: we are not made righteous by our merits, but Jesus Christ’s righteousness has been gifted to us when we put our faith in Him. Thus, if you’ve put your faith in Christ, you are righteous in God’s eyes because He is perfectly righteous in God’s eyes and in our place.

This brings us to Daniel 9. (Read verses 1-2)

Huh? Daniel tells us here that in the early days of the Persian Empire, after Babylon had fallen, he was studying the book of Jeremiah, and came to the section that said that the Babylonian Exile would only last seventy years.

Jeremiah 29:10 ESV

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

Daniel recognizes that they are on the precipice of this, so he cries out to God on behalf of his people.

Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 is a wonderful OT example of a powerful prayer that we would be wise to apply to our own prayer lives.

This morning we are going to approach the text a little different than my typical sermons, in that I’m going to heavily emphasize the practical side of examining Daniel’s prayer, looking at the major aspects of his prayer and considering two key elements of Daniel’s prayer that we would be wise to apply to our own prayer life.

This is applicable if you are are seasoned prayer warrior, a novice when it comes to prayer, or someone who is getting kind of uncomfortable right now because you know you should pray more but struggle in that area (and let’s be honest, most of us either have been there, or are currently there and we just don’t want anyone to know it.)

Body

Powerful prayer is humble prayer (vv. 3-15).

Humble prayer starts with genuine godly awe.

(v. 3) Fasting, sackcloth, ashes...

Awe = genuine reverence of God resulting in both fear and wonder.

Humble prayer demands that we recognize God’s position, especially in correlation to ours.

Humble prayer stems from a belief that God always fulfills His promises.

(v. 4) Recognition that God is the covenant keeper and the hesed lover...

God made multiple covenants with Israel, but the important one here is that they would be His people, and He would be their God...

God’s hesed love...

I like this definition I found: the consistent, ever-faithful, relentless, constantly-pursuing, lavish, extravagant, unrestrained, furious love of our Father God!

Humble prayer leads to confessing sin and accepting responsibility.

(v. 5) Why does Daniel say “we”?

Communal guilt is hard for Americans to wrap our minds around because we are committed individualists…this was not the case for the ancients and it’s still not the case for many throughout the world.

But, if the entire community is suffering, then it doesn’t really matter whether I as an individual are directly responsible for it. I have a duty to my community to do my part to make it better.

Additionally, true leadership doesn’t point the finger at those who came before. True leadership recognizes that the responsibility for doing what it takes to right-the-ship falls to the leaders, regardless of that persons culpability.

(v. 8) “To us, O LORD, belongs open shame...” Why?

Because, they refused to obey His voice and follow His commands.

They broke His covenant…(I will be your God, and you will be my people…)

If the Western church is going to strive in the difficult days ahead, we must turn away from cheap grace and embrace true, biblical discipleship.

Cheap grace = German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined this term in his classic work, The Cost of Discipleship. He defined it as, “...the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

If we are going to truly accept responsibility for sin and embrace true biblical discipleship we must practice:

Honest self-reflection

True confession

Sincere repentance

Consistent accountability

Powerful prayer is earnest prayer (vv. 16-19)

What do I mean by earnest prayer?

Earnest means showing sincere and intense conviction.

What does it look like?

Praying like we believe that prayer matters.

Look at Jeremiah 29:11-14

Jeremiah 29:11–14 ESV

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

But that was for Israel! True. But, is it also not true of God’s people today? Does God have plans for His people today? Are they good plans? Will He hear His people when we pray? If we seek Him, will we find Him when we seek Him with all our heart?

See, the same God who made this promise to Israel long ago through the prophet Jeremiah, is the God of His people today, the church. But, do we believe that our prayers really matter?

Here in Daniel 9, we see an example of a man who truly believed that prayer mattered. And sneak ahead to see the response from heaven (since I titled this sermon the audacious title of “Powerful Prayer that Moves Heaven,” let me show you why… (Read Daniel 9:20-23)

Praying like desperate people.

Verse 19...

Prayer requests...

Praying according to God’s will.

Verse 17-18...

Praying God’s will calls for us to be people who know the difference between God’s will and our wants.

Many prayers don’t seem to get an answer because they are more about our wants and desires that God’s will. They are more about convincing or even manipulating God into doing what we want.

But, when we pray God’s will, we are aligning our hearts with Heaven…at that point, amazing things happen!

The only way to get there is a steady diet of God’s Word...

Not simply saying, “…if it be your will...” at the end of our prayers...

It means learning what godly men and women in Scripture prayed for and about and following their example...

Daniel is just one example of many in God’s Word.

Notice that Daniel prays for God’s people, for God’s glory to shine, for His forgiveness and mercy, for God’s promises to be fulfilled...