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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.
Then he continues in verse 3.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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