How to Pray Like a Righteous Man

Prayer That Works  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  37:04
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Today we begin a new series on Prayer called Prayer that Works. For the next several weeks we are going to look at different people that prayed in the Bible and look at the results they had.
I would guess that probably all of us have struggled with prayer at one time or another. I can see it now, you get down on your knees to pray and you, like many of us, just don’t know what to say. Your mind goes blank. You think that what you are going to say won’t make since. Most of the time we make a time of prayer a difficult thing.
Can I tell you that most of my time spent in prayer is when I’m doing other things. I spend time just having conversations with God. I have times in my office or in the sanctuary. There are times I talk to God in my car. Or when I’m doing things around the house. Prayer is not a difficult thing to do but we make it difficult.
Have you ever wondered why you don’t get what you are in need of? James tells us in chapter 4 verse 2.
James 4:2 NIV
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
Then he continues in verse 3.
James 4:3 NIV
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Many times God don’t answer our prayers because we come with the wrong attitude. We ask him with the wrong motivation. What is your intent when you come to God with a need?
James concludes his letter with a call to pray. If you have your Bibles today, go with me to the book of James chapter 5. We will read a few verses from here and then we will look at a righteous man that prayed named Elijah.
James 5:13–18 NIV
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
James begins this call to prayer by telling us that we should pray always. Whether we are in trouble or we are doing well.
You don’t have to raise your hand but how many of you pray when you are in trouble. I would bet that all of us do. Or we will tell someone, “Say a prayer for me.” But how often do we say, “Lord, I want to thank you for making this a wonderful day.” We tend to not think about God when things are going good. Why? Because we are not in trouble. The truth is we should talk to God no matter how our day is going. Praise to Him should always be on our lips.
James encourages us when we pray. He says in verse 16, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Then he mentions Elijah as being the righteous person that prayed and God answered. Let’s take a look at this story.
Go with me to the book of 1 Kings. I will begin reading at chapter 17, but the majority of my text will come from chapter 18.
1 Kings 17:1–7 NIV
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” 2 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” 5 So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. 7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
Let me give you a little bit of a backstory here. During this time, Ahab was King of Israel and he was married to a Philistine woman who is very well know for her wickedness. Does anyone know who that is? Jezebel.
Partly because of Jezebel’s evil influence, Ahab and the nation of Israel had fallen into a kind of part paganism and part serving God. They supposedly still prayed to Yahweh, but they also worshipped some wicked pagan gods: Baal and Asherah.
So, because of their disobedience, God sent Elijah to tell King Ahab that he and the nation of Israel would be punished with a drought. There would be no rain and no dew for 3 1/2 years. At the end of that 3 1/2 years, God sent Elijah back to King Ahab and offered a challenge. Elijah vs. the prophets of Baal and Asherah on Mt. Carmel. All of Isreal gathered at the foot of the mountain and they heard Elijah confront them with these words from 1 Kings 18:21
1 Kings 18:21 NIV
21 Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.
Then the challenge begins. The story starts at verse 22. Elijah gathers all the prophets of Baal. There was 450 of them in all. And he tells the people, “I’ll get two bulls and let the Baal prophets choose one and I will take the other one.” He tells them, “I’ll let them go first. We will do whatever we want to ask our god to call down fire and the god that answers by fire, He is God.”
So the Baal prophets they cut up their bull and they start calling on the name of Baal saying, “Baal, answer us!” This went on from morning till noon. And there was no answer so they started dancing around the altar. Still nothing.
So at noon time Elijah starts taunting them. He tells them, “Shout louder! Maybe he is deep in thought, or buy, or traveling.” One translation says, “Maybe he is on the toilet.”
But they shouted louder and they begin cutting themselves until blood flowed. And this continued until it was time for the evening sacrifice that night and still nothing. No response, no answer, no one paid attention.
So now it was Elijah’s turn. Elijah repairs the altar of the Lord because it had been torn down. He takes 12 stones that represented the 12 tribes of Jacob and built an altar. And then he digs a trench around it large enough to hold about 20 pounds of seeds. So, you can only imagine how big this trench was.
Then Elijah asked the people to fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood. He asked them to do this three times. There was so much water that it not only covered the altar but it even filled the trench.
Then Elijah said a simple prayer in verse 36.
1 Kings 18:36–37 NIV
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
Immediately the fire came down from Heaven and it consumed the entire sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil and it also consumed the water that was in the trench.
You talk about a revival. All the people fell on their face and cried out to God.
Then Elijah told the people to take all the Baal prophets and kill them.
But that’s not all. After all of this, then we read where Elijah goes to God again about the drought. Look at verse 41.
1 Kings 18:41–44 NIV
41 And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.” 42 So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. 43 “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.” 44 The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’ ”
Maybe you are thinking this morning, so what makes Elijah’s prayer such a good example for us to follow.

1. He Made a Plan

Elijah had a plan. It says that he got down on the ground and put his face between his knees. He made it a point to pray. He knew that he was not going to leave that spot until he heard from God.
He was going to take all the time he needed in order to reach Heaven.
How many times do we pray and then if we don’t hear an answer right away we give up and go on down the road. Oh well, I guess God didn’t want to answer my prayer. Maybe but did you ever stop to think maybe God was making some preparations and putting things in place in order to answer your prayer.
How many of you have determined that you aren’t going to move until God answers you?
It is time that we make a plan to have a time of prayer in our life.

2. He was Specific

Elijah didn’t simply ask God to “bless” Israel. He was asking for rain. He was asking for a “specific” answer in response to his prayer.
Today we are giving each of you a prayer journal for you to take home with you. I want you to get specific in your prayer time at home. Write down exactly what you are praying for. Use this journal only for prayer requests you can actually “measure” or see fulfilled.
Avoid things like “God bless” my son or daughter type prayers, because there is no way to determine if God has actually answered you.
If you need a financial miracle. Be specific in the amount that you are needing. If you are needing healing in your body, then make a plan to go to the doctor and prove that God has healed you. Let’s get specific and see what God is doing in each of your life and your family’s life over these next few weeks. Elijah was specific. He wanted God to send rain. You be specific. What is it that you want God to do?

3. He Prayed for Something he Knew God Wanted to do

1 Kings 18:1 NIV
1 After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.”
If you look at some of the powerful prayers in Scripture you’ll find that they all mention either a specific promise God had made, or a goal God was known to favor. You would also find God answering prayers that would result in praise to Him.
When we pray we need to think about why God should want to answer our prayers. That’s what Jesus meant when He told His disciples...
John 14:14 NIV
14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
To ask for something “in Jesus name” means you are asking God for something you believe He would want to do. Does God want us to be healed? Yes. Does God want us to prosper? Yes. If you don’t know if it is something that God wants, go to His word and look it up.

4. He Got Others Involved

Notice that Elijah sends his servant to look for rain. Elijah could have done that. But Elijah was involving someone else in his prayers.
Look at what Jesus said in Matthew 18:19
Matthew 18:19 NIV
19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
Remember what I read in James 5:15
James 5:14 NIV
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
Don’t pray for your specific needs alone. Ask others to pray with you.

5. He Acted Like a Man That Expected an Answer

There is a story about a western town that had experienced a hard drought. One of the local churches held an announced special prayer meeting one night to pray for rain. On that night, the church building was packed, but the preacher told them to all go back home. He said, “there won’t be a prayer meeting tonight.” Of course everyone had a look of disgust. Some were even heard saying, “Why not?” And the preacher explained to them that there would be no prayer meeting for rain because no one bothered to bring an umbrella.
Do you hear what I am saying?
If you are going to ask God for something, then shouldn’t you act like it is going to happen.
Look at what James says in chapter 1 beginning at verse 6.
James 1:6–8 NIV
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
If you look at the prayer journal I am giving you it has a place to put the date when your need is answered. We want you to pray and expect an answer.
So, here is your homework to do before next week.
Make plans to come back next week. We are going to look at Daniel’s prayer. I want to teach to be people that learn to pray persistently. There is power in persistent prayers.
Start using the prayer journal that I have given you. I want to see all the prayers that are answered.
Join us this Wednesday for Bible Study and let us pray with you for your specific prayers.
Let’s Pray
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