Inland Empire: Riverside
The Power of Prayer - Audio
First of all, I just want to thank Terrence and all the guys involved with our worship service for just the environment that they set to help us worship. I love being able to come in here because there's a lot of effort that's put into creating an atmosphere that's conducive for you and I to be able to come in and worship God. There's incredible amount of not only thought and time put into the rehearsals, people getting here. There are so many people that work so hard for us to be able to come here and to participate in worship in a way that really will lift our spirits and honor God. I hope that we appreciate them and we need to encourage them. Take the woods and all that they do to just try to enhance the worship service and the brothers and sisters that are in our Kingdom kids classes and all the people that come together. I hope that we appreciate that, but part of appreciating that is learning to support that and to follow that as well and I do want to say something. We want people to worship. We want you to feel the freedom to express worship, but we also want to let the worship leaders lead the worship and sometimes when we're singing songs sometimes they've got a theme or a direction they're going and out of our enthusiasm in the audience we can kind of take it in a different direction. I appreciate everybody's desire to worship, but I also believe there's a part of orderly worship that God calls us to and that includes letting the worship leaders lead the worship and not just having everybody else decide what we're going to do when, amen. So just to encourage you, I really do appreciate the spirit. I think it's been a great worship service. It was great to see Rafael up here and I'm so excited about how proud he is of his family and it should be that way. All of us should be able to look at our families and find different things that we can encourage each other and lift each other up and I thought it was so awesome that he was talking about his kids and the AAs that they were getting in their classes. I believe my kids got an A and the truth is I am incredibly grateful for my whole family and I have spent a lot of time over the last several months just really praying about that and thinking about it because we're in a very different place than we were a year ago. We're in a very different place as a family than we were two years ago and three years ago, three years ago, I wasn't sure that my life was going to live and I was concerned that Scott wasn't going to survive spiritually or even physically and yet today we're in a very different place and as a church we're in a very different place than we were even a year ago. God is with us and he is working in powerful and dramatic ways and we need to recognize that and appreciate that all the time. This world is a bizarre and ugly and empty place. Our kids have been barded all day long in school. They have been barded all day long at work. On the way to church this morning I was listening to one of the Christian radio stations and they were talking about the amount of time that our kids spend in school, that they literally spend more time in school with ungodly influences than they do around their own families so often and sometimes it's hard for us to even conceive of how do you counteract that? How do you counteract the time that you spend at work, the time that we spend all week long literally surrounded by godless influence? We live in a country that used to have as our theme in God we trust but that is absolutely not the case anymore, that the movement to remove God from any semblance of our government has become so strong that even in a military today they are getting to a point where they're not going to allow public prayer anymore so that our soldiers who are going into war to defend our country are going to have a difficult time finding a place where they can collectively come together to pray for God's help and God's guidance. This world is ugly and we get caught up in it and we get swept away in it and literally the church can be so influenced by the world that sometimes it's hard to recognize a real significant difference between us and the people in the world. I am so grateful to be a part of a church that has the dynamic that we have, that there's a spirit of faith and confidence that God is with us and God is leading us and to see how hard so many people were. Nick earlier in his offering talk was talking about the special and I hope that you're getting excited about the special because it is an opportunity for us to do something that very few churches anywhere in the world would even conceive of doing to take up an offering as substantial as we're taking up, not for our own benefit but primarily to benefit churches and many of us will never see. That's an extraordinary thing and I commend you for your participation in that. Nick was saying though if there's a will there's a way and I believe that's true but implicit in that is also the concept that if we need something, if we work hard enough then we'll get it and I believe in working hard, I think we need to apply ourselves and have the kind of character that when we set our minds to do something we do it but one of the things that I get concerned about and I've recognized this in my own life is that it is very easy for me to start depending on my talents which are considerable to depend on my intelligence which is monumental and to depend on my experience which is questionable rather than to depend on God and yet part of being men and women of God means that we let God guide us and direct us, I was so excited to hear about Todd and Jessica, finally going steady or dating or whatever we call it now, coming out of the closet is how I would refer to it. I remember the first few weeks that Jessica came out when living my life and pointed her out to me and I was just watching the interaction with her and Todd and I pulled Steve Simon and said I think those two like each other, Steve said oh no they reassured me that they're they're just friends and I said aha and for five years they've held to that story. I'm just grateful that God opens the eyes of our hearts to see the plans that he has for us because sometimes we can even resist something that God wants to use as an expression of his joy in our lives. God is around us, he's in us, he's with us, he loves us, he just wants us to connect with him. A wise man once said that Satan laughs at our toiling, he mocks at our wisdom but he trembles at the sound of our prayers. Name of my lesson today is the power of prayer and I know that we claim to believe in it but I'm not sure that our lives really play that out and we're going to talk about a lot of different aspects of prayer but I want to take you back to Genesis chapter four because God started his relationship with men with daily quiet times, they walked together in the garden and God communicated very specifically with Adam and with Adam and Eve but when Adam no longer trusted in God and relied in God and instead trusted in his own instincts and his own thinking about how he should go about things, it didn't take very long for that to create a separation between Ian God that affected the rest of Adam's life, it affected his children and so the consequence of him not trusting, not relying in God, even led to one of his sons murdering another son. After that took place in Genesis chapter four and verse 26 it says in verse 25 that little Eve bore Adam another son and his name was Enosh and I love what it says because in verse 26 of Genesis chapter four it says at that time men began to call on the name of the Lord. After so much tragedy and after the pain, can you imagine having one of your children rise up and because of some petty bitterness or jealousy murders the other one and then finally you have another child and it's at that moment with all that you've seen happen when people don't turn to God that it says men began to turn to God again and that's what God wants from us, God wants a communicative relationship with us. In Genesis chapter 12 in verse eight you've got the story literally of Abram going on his journey of faith, the journey to develop his faith in God and in chapter 12 in verse eight it says, "From there he went on towards the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tanny, went up into the mountains, pitched the tent with Bethel on the west and on east very built and altered the Lord and called on the name of the Lord." By the time when Abram was struggling to have faith to really believe in the vision that God had for him he had the date time to get up by himself, to get up in the mountains and to call on the name of God too, connect with God to help him get where he need to be. It's the story of a man's walk with God. In Luke chapter 11 in verse one and a time when Jesus had been with the disciples and they were with the son of God every single day and in being with him they got to see what true communication with God was like and their observation was that there was a difference between how Jesus not only connected with God but how he relied with God even though he was by nature God himself, Jesus didn't think that way and he knew that there needed to be a unified one spirit between he and God. And coming to him in Luke chapter 11 in verse one says one day Jesus was praying in a certain place, when he finished one of his disciples said to him, "Lord teach us to pray." Now this disciple had been praying every day of his life, they were Jewish, they were raised from the time they were children with set times of prayer, even set things to pray about. There were seasons of prayer. That wasn't what he was referring to. He wasn't referring to, "Hey, let's just recite a liturgical, repetitive prayer." He literally came to Jesus and said, "Will you teach me how you communicate with God? Teach me to pray." I believe that's a prayer and a question and a desire that each and every one of us needs to have today. No matter where you feel like you are in your relationship with God, we are nowhere near where Jesus was in the way that he relied on God. Did he work hard to you back? Did he have incredible talent, incredible skills, gifts that we can't even begin to imagine? Yes, but what he depended on, what he relied on, what he turned to all the time was prayer. I don't think that people could say that about me. I'm not sure whether they could say that about you, but I believe with all that we're trying to see accomplished, with everything that we have opposing us and facing us, we need to be a people of prayer, amen? Today, one of my nephews is getting married in Spokane, Washington. And I remember after I became a Christian praying for my brother Pat to become a Christian. And part of the reason I was praying so desperately for Pat was because like me he had gone to an academy, he had graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy, and he'd gone out on his first assignment, his first job, and it took him way away from any spiritual influence. And I couldn't help but remember how I'd become a Christian. And it wasn't just by the effort of some extraordinary men who reached out to me. It was because my sister was so concerned about who I was and where I was going that she began to pray for me daily. And she would cry out to God with tears, unbeknownst to me. And when I went to go to the academy, she prayed that on that day that someone would meet me that could introduce me to God in a way that I would be open to. And that literally happened the first day I was there. Now I didn't know them, I didn't know who they were, but they met me. And for whatever reason they kind of targeted me, and from June 28, when I first got there to July 4th, they continued to pray about me. And on July 4th, after the first week or so of being at the academy, and it was not a Cub Scout camp, it was not fun. We had the first opportunity to get off of base for the 4th of July. They gave us a half a day to go out and have business. Well they had arranged a church picnic and brought me out to that, I didn't even know it was a church picnic. It was just free food and a way to get off base. And the Jesus freaks surrounded me and they came at me with fun and with food and with love. And they didn't reveal themselves to me. There was a shadow conspiracy to lure me in to disarm me and to take me down. I didn't realize that until a week later when one of them came to ask me to church. And I was not happy because I felt like they had come at me under false pretense. And I felt invaded and I spent in his face and I had a few choice things to say to him. Well I didn't know that they were in communication with my sister and she and her nasty little friends all got together and they began to pray. And the next day I know there were all kinds of people praying for me, this prayer project. I will never forget the day that I was baptized because that weekend most of the people in the campus ministry fasted and prayed for me for three days because I was stinking prideful. And it was about six-thirty in the morning on Labor Day in 1977 when God finally broke through to my heart. And there was a lot of effort put in but it was the power of prayer. I wonder if we pray for people like that today. People teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples and you know how John taught them to pray? He prayed with them. He said to them, "When you pray, say Father, how would be your name? Your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who sins against us and lead us not into temptation." He's not saying repeat this prayer, he's giving them a pattern of prayer and there are six specific things in this prayer that he talks about. Now he's not saying this is the only way to pray. He's just trying to teach them an understanding of what communication with God should be like. And the first thing he starts off with, how would be your name? Praising God, recognizing God is an awesome God. That the God we serve is the Alpha of the Omega, the creator of the universe, the God knows you, loves you and he cares about you. And so Jesus is saying that when you pray, first recognize who it is you're praying to. Then when he says, "Let your kingdom be praised in this world, in this country our nation was founded on a belief of freedom to worship." It's the very fiber of our foundation and yet we have moved so far away from that that you can't even have a representation to honor the birth of Christ on public property anymore. And so he says, recognize who it is you're praying, but also pray that the world, the people around you will honor him as you honor him. Then he says, implicit in that and Matthew even talks about it more specifically, Matthew says you will be done. He's talking about praying for us to be obedient. Sometimes we assume that because we are Christians, because we come to church and we dress up nice for the most part and we come out to worship, that means we're obedient to God. It doesn't. Obedience is not a part of our nature. Also our country was built on a declaration of independence. So there is a two sides to our foundation. There's one, the recognition and we need God and only by God can we survive. And then there's the others that I am my own man. And so in this prayer he's saying not only recognize how awesome God is and the need to acknowledge and recognize God, but let's be obedient to God. Then and only then does he change to give us our bread, give us the things that we need and God wants to hear those prayers of supplication, he wants to hear the desires of our heart. Now he knows them, but he wants us to communicate them. Why? Because he wants that relationship with us. He doesn't want to just be with a silent partner. He wants a deep abiding, reliant relationship. The fifth thing he talks about is forgive us as we forgive others. That's also a conditional clause. And the Bible says God will never forgive us more than we're willing to forgive other people. So when we hold bitterness and we hold grudges, God will not give us more grace than we're giving other people. So we've got to recognize our own need of God's grace and God's mercy that it's not because we've earned enough spiritual merit badges that we have the right to be here. It is only by what Raphael talked about that God so loved the world that he gave us one and only son while we were still sinners. Today, even tomorrow while we're still sinners, Jesus continues to lay down his life for us. Why? Because that's the greatest way to display love. But then the last part of that is the prayer to keep us from sin. Protect us from the temptations that are surrounding us and they are everywhere. A few days ago, I was going to the grocery store and I watched a bunch of young girls come dressing by, walking by and the way they were dressed, I thought what mother would allow her child to go like that. And then I got into the grocery store, I was walking down an aisle, I saw a mother and a daughter coming and I mean, the way they were dressed, they were just alike. It was a miniature mirror of the mother and as we got by, I said, "Why don't you cover up?" They both just kind of looked at me and I'm sitting there going, "Did I do that again?" We didn't meet anymore in the aisles. It's all around us, you can't avoid it, coming to church, you better have blinders on because of billboards, we'll try to seduce us. We need to be praying for God to help us to overcome the temptations. Mark chapter 1 verse 35 says, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went off to a solitary place where He prayed." Now that doesn't mean you have to get up every morning early but I can tell you this, to be forewarned, to be prepared before you have to interact, that's just common sense. Before worship services on Sunday, I like to get up really early because the time that we come together, worship is usually at the very busy weeks and we're all a little tired and in our country, the weekends typically are for a time of rest and yet we're coming in here, not to rest, we're coming in here to get recharged. To do that, when there's so many people around you that are coming at you, I don't like being cuddled in a crowd real well and I have to really prepare my mind, not that, "Wow!" You know, go postal on somebody. You people creep me out sometimes or I sneak it up and grab it and poke it and stop. And so I need extra time just to get my heart and my mind where they need to be. I'm not talking about just praying in the car all the way over. I wonder how many of us got up this morning and really connected with God to cry out so that when we came here, our batteries would be recharged more completely and quicker than if we didn't do that. How many of us think about praying for the worship service that God will use it in a specific way to help move something in our hearts? How many of us just show up, sit down and shut up rather than lifting our hands up, which is what worship is all about. It's to kiss our hands towards God, it's to connect with God. Well, that connection starts well before we start seeing or at least it should. Matthew chapter 21, Jesus taught a lot about prayer, not just in what he did but in what he said in verse 21, "Jesus, why do I tell you the truth if you have faith and do not doubt?" Not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, go throw yourself in the sea and it will be done if you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. He's literally saying to the power that we have at our disposal is staggering. Now I understand the concept if there's a will there's a way, but God's will is better than our will. God wants us to work as if it's dependent on him, but he wants us to play as if it's all on God. And what Jesus said is that there's nothing that's impossible, that doesn't mean we'll get our way, it just means the possibility exists that if we can get God to hear our cries and hear our prayers, sometimes God changes his mind simply because we talk to him, the parable, the persistent widow. Sometimes nagging God saying the same prayer over and over, that will finally get the job done. So many years ago I had the opportunity to reach out and to study with my best friend from childhood growing up, I had prayed for him for 26 years, almost every single day. And the reality is I got into a place where I was just praying, I don't know that I even believed it would ever happen because he was so stinking prideful, unlike me who was so ready to be saved. But circumstances changed in his life and all of a sudden almost overnight he got himself into some sin that came out publicly and it was devastating and he turned to the one place that he knew he could turn to for help and that was me. And I flew out there, moved into their house, stayed with them 24 hours a day for eight days, studied with he and his wife all day long, prayed all day long and they were baptized at the end of that time and their children have become Christians since then. Now they're struggling, they're having some issues but I believe prayer is maybe the best thing I can do for them. It worked before, it worked for me, it worked for Todd and Jessica. Maybe it could even work for you. John had a very special relationship with Jesus. He humbly describes himself as the apostle that Jesus loved and I don't think that's a statement of pride, I think it's a recognition. It's being a teenager, Jesus believed in faith-based ministries, he had faith in people that nobody else did. And John connected with that, it meant the world to him, that God so loved him. That's what John 3, 16 is, it's his expression of how much that faith, that belief in him, meant to him. And in 1st John 3, 21 he says, "Dear friends, if our hearts not condemned us, we have confidence before God and received from him anything we ask because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." He's saying if we would just please God, why because God so loves us, then what'll happen is our lives will be so much better, so much richer, but we think no, let's compromise our conviction to God and instead give that conviction to our work or to our children's activities or to whatever else we put ahead of God and ahead of worshiping God and yet what over and over and over they're trying to get through this is God loves us, trusts God, God's with us, walk with God, surrender to God, trust in God and we're all in the Garden of Eden, we've got to learn to make better choices, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, a right relationship with him, above your desire, your thoughts, your will, let God's will reign. And what John could say with conviction towards the end of his life is that if we'll just do that and trust him, our life will be better. When I was a young Christian, I found a book called The Kneeling Christian, it's written by an ending of the author, it's a little bitty book and it was a really powerful book for me because it opened my eyes to the potential of prayer and then if there's a line it talks about a man named Horace Bushnell that someone was present with him when he prayed and this is what they said, said there came over him a wonderful sense of God's nearness. He says when Horace Bushnell buried his face in his hands and prayed, I was afraid to stretch up my hand in the darkness lest I should touch God. And when I read that, I thought I watched so desperately to have that relationship with God where I can be at peace because God's with me that I don't have to try to prove anything because God is there and I knew that I didn't know how to pray and so I looked around in my campus ministry to find the guys who I thought were the most spiritual guys and one of them stood out to me because of his prayers, I listened to him pray publicly and I thought I need what he's got and I remember asking him if he would pray with me and he was a spiritual guy and he said sure and I said well I really need, I really need someone to teach me how to pray and he said I'll pray with you, I said would you do it every day? And he said yeah I do it every day, I said it has to be at 5.30 because I have to be at school at 6.30 and he had just gotten married but how do you say no to this? Is someone so desperate? Someone who wants so badly to not be worldly and humanistic in what he relies in. I was a mess but at least I was a mess that knew I was a mess and I didn't want to be a mess and I knew I needed help and for someone like me to humble themselves and come and say I need you to teach me how to pray moved in his heart and he met with me every morning at 5.30 every day rain, snow, shine we'd be sitting out on the swing set between marriage student housing 5.30 in the morning praying. His name was Scott Ryan Kennedy that's who my youngest son is named after. The reason I chose to name him after Scott was because Scott taught me to talk to God and through the darkest days of Scott's life when I felt so helpless I remembered what Scott Kennedy taught me, talk to God. In chapter 14, 15, 16 and 17 there is recorded the last prayer of Jesus' life on earth. And it's interesting as you go down through it in John chapter 14 verse 1 it says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled, why would he tell me because he knows trouble's coming? So comes my way, trust in God." But then he says something else, he says, "Trust also in me." He knows he's going to die. He knows they don't understand it even though he's been communicating it, has to happen this way. And so at the darkest hour when their faith is going to be assaulted he's saying, "Trust God, but trust also in me." In my father's house or many rooms, if it were not so I would have told you, I am going there to prepare a place for you what I'm doing. I'm doing in preparation for you, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. This was turning down the bed sheets. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. No matter what you see, trust in me, I will be back. And take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. Where is he in the bosom of God? Totally trusting, totally reliant. You know the way to the place where I'm going. Thomas said to Lord, "We don't know where you're going. So how can we know the way Jesus answered, "I am the way. The way I live, this is the way. It is the truth. It is the life." And no one comes to the Father by a different way except through me. And if you really knew me, if you understood me, if you had learned what you asked me to teach you, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him, and you've seen him. How? Because you've seen me. To have someone say of me what they said of horse Bushnell, that when that man prayed, you felt the presence of God. That when that man taught, you felt the presence of God. You couldn't be around Jesus and not know about God, because everything he did was about God. Why? That's what worship is. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's not about numbers. It's about God. How can you say, "Show us the Father." Don't you believe that I'm in the Father and that he is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own, rather it is the Father living in me. It is my recognition, my acknowledge, my surrender, my submission, my reliance on him. Everything you've seen in me is directing you to God. Or at least believing the evidence of the miracles themselves. If you don't see it, then figure this out. How do we raise people from the dead? There are evidences all around us of God's presence. If the Word of God and being in the presence of people of God isn't enough, then look at what God has done for us, to us and through us. Do we really believe this is the magic of man and not the hand of God? I tell you the truth. Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I interceded. I am going to the Father and I will do whatever you ask in my name seven times in three chapters he reiterates this simple promise. He's saying God in our one, I don't do anything that isn't within the will of God. You know God because you know me, ask me and anything that you ask in my name, in my spirit, in my desire. But you're well, but to please God, it will be done. What an incredible, powerful passage that's repeated in John 15, 79, and John 15, 10 through 16, John 16, 22, through 24, and Ephesians chapter three, Paul, who later on began to be the one that championed the same cause, told the church in Ephesus in verse 20 and 21. Now to him it was measurably, who was able to do a measurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that isn't work within us. It's God's power working in us that allows us to do more than we could ever even have imagined being able to do before. To him, be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever a man. Do you remember the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, standing up to all the prophets of Baal, mono and mono, one man against multitudes. You know how he won the victory? Chapter 18, verse 24 of 1 Kings says he called that to God, and God did the rest. In Acts chapter 7, verse 59, when Stephen was being stoned to death, you know what Stephen did, and he turned to God. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, not block the rocks, not my will, you will be done, take my soul, and he fell on his knees and cried out. Father do not hold this sin against them, when he had said this, he fell asleep. He remembered that phrase because it's what Jesus prayed on the cross, Father forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Becoming like Christ, becoming a Christian in Christ, like Christ. Little Jesus means that we should reflect his glory. His glory was his reliance in communication and dependence on God, not his own power or talent. In his letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, verse 22, Paul tells Timothy to flee the evil desires of youth, pursue righteousness. Forget the things that you worry about as a kid, having a lot of money, having a lot of Jesus, forget all this of pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart. God knows our needs. He knows what we want, what he wants is our hearts. In his first public sermon, talking to a bunch of hard-hearted Pharisees who had gotten so far away from God that they didn't even recognize a Messiah when he came, in that sermon, in Matthew 7, verses 7 through 11, he says, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek, pursue long after and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, he who seeks finds and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." He started and he finished with the same thing. Turn to God, cry out to him and he'll open the door. Each of you, if your son asks for bread or give him a star, or if he asks for fish or give him a snake, if you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask them? God wants a relationship with you and he wants a relationship with me. He doesn't want a payment. He wants us to believe he's God, that his love for us transcends all of our sins, that as he's forgiven us, we can forgive each other because he knows that we don't know what we're doing and so Jesus chose to die to prove the point that God so loves this world that he gave his one and only son just to have a relationship with you and with me. If we want to do much for God, and that even includes what we're doing next week, then we've got to ask much of God and we've got to learn to become men and women of prayer if no one on earth prayed any more than you pray, how much prayer would there be? Would it have been enough to convert a prideful, arrogant, hard-hearted guy like me? Would it be enough to convert someone like you? We're going to take some time out here at the finish of this lesson to just pray and I've asked some brothers and sisters to come up and I want to encourage you to, if you feel like it, get down on your knees and I've asked them to pray in the pattern that Jesus gave us to pray from the Lord's Prayer. So if you guys could come on up and go ahead and let's close out the service with prayer. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Prayer is more powerful then we give it credit. The bible gives great examples of people who pray to overcome.