Prayer Review

Prayer Review
Passages April 28, 2019
I. Introduction:
A. E. M. Bounds in his book “The Power of Prayer” says this, “The Church is
looking for better methods; God is looking for better men and women.” “What the
Church needs today is not more or better machinery, not new organizations or
more and fresh methods, but men and women whom the Holy Ghost can use –
men and women of prayer, mighty in prayer."
1. The power of prayer should not be underestimated. Listen to James 5:16-18
2. Over the past 3 months, MVC has taken prayer very seriously! We not only
preached about this on Sundays but we also studied and discussed it in small
groups and practiced it over 21 days!
• We started this series by
II. Review
A. Learning a foundational principle of prayer: God has established asking as the
means of receiving in His kingdom
1. Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive.”
2. James 4 says, “You have not because you ask not!”
B. Then we learned in John 15 that our attitude in prayer should be humble desperate
dependence upon Jesus rather than a complacent self-sufficiency we saw in the
church in Revelation 3
1. One says, “I can do nothing apart from Jesus” The other says, “I have need of
nothing.”
2. One “God, I need You for this” The other says, “I can handle this”
C. Then we learned that the true motive in prayer is to bring glory to God
1. Remember this quote:
“Too often our prayers are intended to inform God of what we believe He
needs to do to structure the universe in compliance with our desires for a
happy and comfortable life. Because most of us have been taught that the
primary purpose of prayer is to ask God to meet our temporal needs, we
continue in this routine without the thought of something greater and more
powerful.” Daniel Henderson
D. Then we learned that to pray in Jesus’ name actually has three aspects to it.
1. Access to God through Jesus
2. Ambassador – ask what Jesus would ask
3. Authority – the legal right to ask for that with all of power of Jesus to back up
His name
E. Then we took two weeks to answer the question, “What should we pray about
other than God meet my needs and bless my family?”
1. We learned from the Lord’s Prayer that we should pray first and foremost for
God’s agenda (His glory, His kingdom and His will) along with our personal
and spiritual needs.
2. We learned from Paul’s prayers that he prayed kingdom focused prayers for
the spiritual needs of the church at large.
3. We learned from Timothy Keller’s research on revival that one of the
primary means God has used to bring about revival was corporate prayer for
kingdom centered needs. That is the kind of praying we learned from Jesus
and Paul
F. Then we learned that there is no simple answer to unanswered prayer and we need
to be careful about giving nickel answers to million dollar questions for people
who are struggling deeply with unanswered prayers
1. We learned sometimes it is a matter of not now
2. We also learned there could be a variety of different reasons why God would
say no. And they should be prayerfully considered when no answer is
received.
3. And sometimes the best answer is I do not know – as we learned from Job
that sometimes it is a mystery bigger than I am smart!
G. Then we saw one reason we should persistent in prayer is because God uses
prayer to change us as we pray. We saw at Jesus’ baptism that as He prayed Holy
Spirit came upon Him, at the transfiguration as He prayed He was transfigured
and in the garden as He prayed angels ministered to Him. All this happened as he
prayed!
H. Then finally we learned about the priority of God’s Word in prayer as we learned
the simple and life changing method of Martin Luther
1. Capture the heart of the text
2. Praise, thank, and worship God from the text
3. Admit/confess sin from the text
4. Petition/ask God to do for you in light of the text
I. The most important part of the series was when we sought to put into practice the
things we learned in 21 days of prayer
1. We learned in Hebrews 11:6 that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him
2. I was so moved to see a church full of over 100 people come out for 21 days
at 6:00am in the morning to seek God in an hour of prayer.
3. I not only heard of answers to prayer but of many people who said they were
changed as they prayed these three weeks!
II. Celebrate
III.Going Forward
A. An old preacher Samuel Chadwick said this, “The one concern of the Devil is to
keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless work and
prayerless religion! He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles
when we pray!
B. MVC has no desire for prayerless work and wisdom. We want prayer to become
a part of the DNA of MVC and the people of MVC.