Andrew Fountain - Improving our Prayer Lives

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Improving our Prayer Lives

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Full sermon notes - Motivations to Pray Fervently and Persistently

Fervent Prayer

Fervent Prayer

Image source: Leila Darwish

  • I want to talk about fervency and persistence in prayer
  • If we really believe something will work, then we will persist in it.
    (e.g. Dan: 20 calls to Julie in Pakistan)
  • But if we don’t believe it will work, then we won’t even try ()
  • Do we really believe that God takes notice of prayer?
    • How sure are we?
    • If we are not absolutely sure, then it will weaken our prayer.
    • If we were utterly convinced then we would pray an awful lot more.
  • Everything we do is motivated by our beliefs—we are logical thinking beings.
  • If I want to urge you to pray more,
    • I can plead with you as much as I like
    • I can reprimand you as much
    • I can scold you, I can encourage you, I can threaten you, I can beg you
  • but you will take no notice, unless I actually convince you that it will work.
    • So this morning I want to talk about persisting in prayer

Problems in Prayer

  1. We don’t understand how prayer works:
  2. In these days, nothing really remarkable will happen through prayer, at least not my prayers
  3. Prayer is only for ‘spiritual’ things
  4. Does our own “fervency” affect God’s answer, or should we just state our requests?

1. We don’t understand how prayer works

  1. God has decided everything already, so prayer can’t actually change anything.
  • “Have you not heard that I determined it long ago?
    I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass,
    that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins 2 Kings 19:25

Isaiah 46:9-11

  1. Remember what I accomplished in antiquity!
    Truly I am God, and there is no other;
    I am God, and there is none like me,
  2. who announces the end from the beginning
    and reveals beforehand what has not yet occurred,
    who says, ‘My plan will be realized,
    I will accomplish what I desire,’
  3. who summons an eagle from the east,
    from a distant land, one who carries out my plan.
    Yes, I have decreed, yes, I will bring it to pass;
    I have formulated a plan, yes, I will carry it out.

1. We don’t understand how prayer works

  1. God has decided everything already, so prayer can’t actually change anything.
  2. God has limited himself to only doing what we pray for
  • Read The God who Hears p.54
    • Has been a very strong motivator for prayer
    • But is it true?
  • we end up with a God who is powerless without our prayers
    • There is no Biblical support: Who was praying for Abraham to be called?
    • What about Saul—nobody believed he could be saved

Ezekiel 36

  1. will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries; then I will bring you to your land.
  2. I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.
  3. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.
  4. I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations.
  5. Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
  • Israel has been sent into exile for their terrible behaviour
  • But God wants to restore them
  • But he wants to do it in answer to prayer

Ezekiel 36 cont’d

  1. They will say, “This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; the ruined, desolate, and destroyed cities are now fortified and inhabited.”
  2. Then the nations which remain around you will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruins and replanted what was desolate. I, the LORD, have spoken — and I will do it!’
  3. “This is what the sovereign LORD says: I will allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them: I will multiply their people like sheep.
  4. Like the sheep for offerings, like the sheep of Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

1. We don’t understand how prayer works

  1. God has decided everything already, so prayer can’t actually change anything.
  2. God has limited himself to only doing what we pray for
  3. Tension: God is sovereign, but we have a real part to play
  • Are we just puppets then?

kitten

kitten

Image source: Margo Akermark

monkey

monkey

Image source: R & S Levy

  • Law of cause and effect:
    If I let go of a book, it will fall. God has decreed this in spiritual things: Luke 11:9,10
    “Hasn’t God planned it?” what about the day you will die?
    pray—>answer
    if God wants to bless, he will cause us to freely choose
    • Understand that we live in a universe of “cause and effect”, and prayer is just as much part of it as gravity!

Problems in Prayer

  1. We don’t understand how prayer works:
  2. In these days, nothing really remarkable will happen through prayer, at least not my prayers
  3. Prayer is only for ‘spiritual’ things
  4. Does our own “fervency” affect God’s answer, or should we just state our requests?
  • Problem 2 —maybe we have been disappointed in prayer
    • I am convinced that we tend to forget the answers and remember the disappointments!
    • Artin
  • Problem 3 “Prayer is only for ‘spiritual’ things”
    • James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your pleasures”
    • But God has promised to meet our needs — Take no thought for tomorrow. eat, drink, wear
  • Problem 4 “does our own fervency affect God’s answer, or should we just state our requests?”
    • Parable of persistent widow
    • This raises a question: is God the sort of God we can wear down? reluctant? needs persuading, only answers us because he is annoyed at us constantly asking? Obviously not.
    • so why persist?????
    • because he is developing a relationship w us (Bingham Hunter & his son p.79f)
  • Someone to whom you can tell everything
    • Our lives are full of surface relationships
    • We long for friendships where we can be totally open, honest and are completely understood
      • We don’t have to pretend, but can share our deepest thoughts and feelings
    • God wants us to be like that with him
      • We can be absolutely honest with him, and tell him exactly how we feel
      • He won’t be shocked by our failures
      • He will understand us totally and be our closest friend
  • So, to sum up, In order to be persistent and fervent in prayer, you have to believe that
    • God is listening and will hear your prayer, and will make a difference
      • Do you believe that?
    • God is the person we can be totally real with

Super-powered prayer

“What I want to know is this:

What sort of an extra-special, super-powered prayer is needed to make everything turn out the way you want it”

HIS Magazine, WWII

  • More about this next week!

Two things to remember this week:

  1. God wants you to treat him like your closest friend, be totally honest and open with him.
    You can do that!
  2. Cause and effect. Prayer is just as much how this world works as the law of gravity.
    Your prayers this week will count

Updated on 2014-08-10 by Andrew Fountain