A0305_Cinderella of the Church
Date: 15th April 2007 (Sunday PM) Ref: A0305
Place: Kambah P.S.
Title: Cinderella of the Church
Text: & Jude 20
Illust: The Cinderella of the church of today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel! – Leonard Ravenhill
I. Prayer Grasps Eternity
A. Vision and Passion
i. You will never be greater than your prayer life. – One author wrote: ~ All decay begins in the closet, no heart thrives without much secret converse with God, and nothing will make amends for the want of it. If you are going to live a successful Christian life there are 2 prerequisites: Vision & Passion
ii. Both of these are birthed in & maintained through prayer. This is why Satan will attack your desire to pray above all else. The devil is not too concerned about you coming to church. But he will rally the demons of hell to stop you coming to & then really focussing on praying
iii. When God’s people have prayed, really prayed, set themselves to praying, to lay a hold of God, the world is shaken.
Acts 4:31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. (NKJV)
Vision to see what God can do, to see what God wants to do in your life, to see cities & nations shaken is birthed in prayer, The passion to pursue the call of God is maintained through prayer. – To be much for God, we must be much with God.
B. No Heavenly Use
i. If we are to achieve the purposes of God for our lives then we need to be spiritually minded people. – You may have heard the warning that we don’t want to become so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly use. The problem is that much of the church world of this generation don’t have to worry about this, we are so earthly minded that we are of no heavenly use.
ii. George Deakin put it this way: A vision without a task makes a visionary; a task without a vision is drudgery; a vision with a task makes a missionary.
iii. We need to be eternally minded. The only place this is fostered is in the place of prayer. – In our text, Jude exhorts you to build up your faith, how through prayer & specifically prayer in the Holy Spirit.
Not baptised in the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues. – Pursue it in prayer.
Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (NKJV)
II. A Vision of Eternity
A. Eternal Damnation
i. Ravenhill wrote “Because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire, millions go to hell-fire” - We have movies like ‘Escape from Hell’& ‘M28’ that try to give the sinner a vision of hell to challenge them, but this may not be entirely the most effective way to reach them. Actually the sinner truly needs a vision of Calvary to see a suffering saviour pleading with him to repent.
ii. Maybe it’s us the church that need the vision of hell. William Booth of the Salvation Army is quoted as saying that if he could do it, he would have finalised the training of his soldiers with twenty-four hours hanging over hell to see its eternal torment.
iii. Globally according to figures prepared by the World Health Organisation; In the last 4 minutes aprox 21 people died of AIDS, 54 of Cancer, 126 of Cardiovascular diseases, 9 in traffic accidents, 8 of malaria, & 1 through war. ~ All up approximately 430 people passed into eternity. During this sermon about 3,762 people will pass into eternity
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, (NKJV)
Revelation 20:15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. (NKJV)
B. Revealed in Prayer
i. It is in the place of prayer that you are struck with the revelation of the Holiness of God, the majesty of Calvary and the sobering dread of hell. – Isaiah see’s God and realises exactly who he is and what he deserves before a Holy God.
Isaiah 6:1 1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. & 5 So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” (NKJV)
ii. As you pray, you touch God, as you touch God, you see who you really are, one author wrote: A sinning man will stop praying, and a praying man will stop sinning.
iii. The vision for the lost, the passion to even commence to fulfil the Great Commission comes through time spent in the secret place, the prayer closet. It is just you & God
III. The Essential Element
A. Praying Always
i. Three times in his letters Paul uses the phrase “praying always” and at other times he exhorts you & I to pray without ceasing
Ephesians 6:18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints (NKJV)
1 Thessalonians 5:17 pray without ceasing, (NKJV)
ii. A lifestyle of prayer. There are a lot of seemingly exciting and important things that we can pursue to occupy our time, but none so majestic and none with the most potential to alter eternity and the spiritual & temporal atmosphere of our city and nation.
iii. Like Cinderella the pre service prayer meeting & Morning Prayer are not glamorous; the picture is of an engaging in the unexciting labour of necessity but like Cinderella there is a hidden beauty a hidden majesty that is revealed as the King of Kings comes visiting. God will meet with the prayerful saint.
B. Give Yourself
i. Given the critical importance of prayer is it any wonder that the early church fathers put prayer as their number 1 priority.
Acts 6:4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (NKJV)
ii. Will you give yourself to what has been rightly called the ‘highest ministry of all human offices.’ The majesty of entering into the presence of God to lay before him the burdens, the petitions of your soul. The lives of loved ones, the moral decadence of our society, the desperate need of the sick & bound. To enter the Holy of Holies
Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (NKJV)
iii. Will you pray? – Make a commitment to be in the presence of the eternal, omnipotent God.
