Services | Don’t Stop Praying

Bulletin

Hymn # 200 “Without Him”
SCRIPTURE READING – Psalm 1
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate

Praise and Worship
“Forever Holy” ​​
“Love Is War”
“Overcome”


Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“Don’t Stop Praying”

PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours)”
“Praise You Anywhere”



Sermon Notes
1 Thessalonians 5:17 & 18 Do not stop praying
James 4:3 Don’t get because ask with wrong motives
Romans 8:26 & 27When we do not know how to pray the Spirit does it for us because it intercedes according to the will of God
Matthew 6:9 – 13 The Lord’s teaching on prayer

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Scritpures

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Transcript of Service

When public prayer and private prayer was removed from public school, many religious people's response was, "There will always be prayer in school as long as there are tests." The reason for that is that people usually pray when there's a felt need, and the stronger the felt need, the more fervent the prayer. So for instance, even in a combat situation when it gets hot and heavy, many agnostics or even atheists who are unsure or convinced there's no God will reach out and pray that God might save them or keep them from harm.

We tend to pray with there is felt needs. However, the Bible suggests that we pray more than that, and it also tells us how to be effective in that prayer and how God helps us. So I would ask you to come and listen to what the Bible says about prayer and how to be effective.

But now we're going to follow up on the second verse that gives an instruction with a very simple way to remember this.

Pray without ceasing.

So if you have your Bibles, and you should, turn to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 17 and 18. We're going to move around a little bit.

But we are told to pray without ceasing.

Now I'm going to kind of do this message in, if you will, two parts. The first part is about prayer. The second part is about how to. And the first part, I'm going to, in essence, give you a challenge, a commitment, and then we'll talk about the second part, second. But it says pray without ceasing. Now some of you will practically say, "Well, how can we pray without ceasing, without stopping?" Well, we're always very proud of being able to multitask until it comes to spiritual things and somehow we can only do one thing at a time. And so one of the ways I might encourage you to do that is to do this. Whenever you're having a conversation with a friend, a loved one, a spouse, a employer, whomever it may be, just assume that God is part of conversation.

I bet your conversation will be slightly different because you are including the Lord in your conversation. And in essence, that's what prayer is all about. Prayer is communicating to God something and God hopefully communicating back to you something. Now most of us, let's be honest, we give God His marching orders, "I want this, that, and the other thing, and oh yeah, bless whoever." And then we sanctify it and think that God's going to therefore have to compel by saying, "In Jesus' name," that's the magic words, "Amen."

So I'm going to say to you, since I'm not expecting you to pray without ceasing in that way, let me give you another way, a challenge to do.

The next time you pray, and let's face it, unfortunately people pray usually only when there's a felt need.

And the greater the felt need, the more passionate our prayer may become. So for instance, if we are a loved one, has the potential of diagnosis of a serious illness or disease, cancer, something like that, all of a sudden we start fervently praying that God would intervene and either heal or it not be that terrible disease.

And then usually what happens is once God has either answered or in our thoughts not answered and the situation finishes, we stop praying.

So my challenge is this, the next time you have a this felt need, I'm going to pray because,

and then you start praying that you ask yourself every 24 hours have I prayed.

And then you will not stop praying because you will continually pray even after the situation has resolved itself. So I'm going to challenge you to say I'm going to pray within a 24 hour period after I start praying so that I don't stop praying.

Now the reason why I encourage this is if we go on in those verses that we have, "And everything give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

It is God's will that we pray.

Yeah, but He knows what we need. Didn't say whether He knew or didn't know. He said it is His will that we pray and that we don't stop praying. That even though He's God of it all and knows it all and whatever, He has still told us to pray. Well why? Well I'll give you a couple of reasons. One is because if we pray we then see His hand at work.

And then we can also when we pray, when He answers, give Him thanks as we are also told to do, that's God's will. So we have all the more reason to be in God's will. We rejoice always. We pray without ceasing or stopping. And we give thanks because this is God's will.

Yeah, but I want God's will to be that I'm rich and successful and powerful and everybody likes me and all those things and that God continually blesses me all the time and all the time.

Well how do you expect God's will to be that in your life if you don't do what He's clearly said? You rejoice always to pray without ceasing and to always give thanks for this is His will.

So again, so my challenge to you is that you not stop praying, not in the sense that you pray 24 seven every moment of the day. I'm going to challenge you to say I'm going to pray every day that I will not stop praying that if I notice that I have not prayed in any 24 hour period that I will.

I don't think that's really difficult to ask since we all want to be to heaven.

And that's where He is.

You can't spend a few moments in prayer, commuting with Him.

Now in a moment I'm going to have you turn in your Bibles to James chapter 4 verse 3. But before that you won't have to turn to it, but in James chapter 5, James gives us

a reminder of an incident that happened in Elijah's life. And I am very grateful for this passage of scripture because Elijah was a prophet.

And Elijah performed many miracles. He fed people, he raised people from the dead, he did all kinds of awesome things.

But in James chapter 5 it reminds us of 1 Kings chapter 17 when Elijah, because of God's word, prays that it does not rain on the earth and it does not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Then it says, which in James it skips by a whole bunch of stuff, and says, "And then Elijah prayed earnestly or fervently and it rained again and the earth produced its fruit."

But James tells us that Elijah is a man with a nature like ours.

I find that so comforting. Even though he was a prophet and even though he performed all kinds of miracles, he was just a man with a nature like you and me.

I mean what James doesn't tell us is after this great victory over the enemies of God and there's this contest where they're going to the 450 priests of Baal attempt to call fire down based on their God and Elijah says it makes all kinds of fun of them and criticizes them. Then when it's his turn, not only does he get ready, but he has them pour all kinds of water on the altar so much so that it's standing water. Now I want you to remember this is in a drought, but he's taking all this water to make sure that they understand that it's not instantaneous combustion.

That he then calls the fire down and consumes not only the offering, but the opposition as well. And then Elijah takes a very unusual position of prayer.

If you're not over 65, you might want to try it. But he takes this unusual position of prayer and he prays. He doesn't just pray once, he prays until his servant says, "There's a cloud about the size of a man's fist."

He goes, "Take off. It's going to rain."

And the interesting thing was he tells the king and he gets in a chariot and he takes off and he gets a head start.

Then we see at the end of the story that Elijah outruns the chariot with a head start.

But then Elijah, as we see later, is all depressed because he thinks he's all alone serving God.

He has a nature like ours. So God doesn't expect us to be perfect when we pray. He doesn't expect us to be super holy. He knows who we are. He knows who we are but dust. He understands our position.

Like Elijah, we have a nature like that. So the fact of our lack of holiness is not something that should hold us back from prayer. If nothing else, it should be compelling us to prayer.

And so I want you now to turn to James chapter 4.

It says this, "You do not ask and you do not receive."

Well, you see, but I thought God knew all that we needed, but he goes, "Yeah, but you're supposed to ask. You have not asked, so you don't receive.

You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your own pleasures."

So the two problems that we have oftentimes in our prayer life is either we don't ask

or we ask because it suits our will and our pleasures and our desires rather than God.

You know, I and all of us, I'm going to assume all of us, maybe if you're super holy or not, all of us have thought, "Boy, if I could only win the lottery."

I give 90percent to the church, liar. But let's say you mean it. But what is it? You still want the 10percent because that means your life is set. You don't have to rely on anybody including God.

You see, we ask for our wrong motives.

Instead of saying, "God, what will advance your kingdom?

God, what is your will?" We ask it all about ourselves.

And so even though God says, "I understand who you are," understanding who you are, make sure that you ask, but make sure you ask with correct motives.

So therefore, how is it that we can be more effective in our prayer life?

Seek God's will.

And we start by that, by rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, and always giving thanks, God's will. So if we seek God's will and we do God's will, we're going to then seek God's will and do God's will and seek God's will and do God's will. And it will increase. And so that when we do these things, we will see being effective in prayer.

Not because, again, like Elijah, not because Elijah was a prophet, but because he prayed according to God's will, even though his nature was just like ours.

Now I want you to turn to Romans chapter 8.

If you haven't guessed, I've told you in the past, and if you haven't guessed it by now and by next week, I consider Romans chapter 8 a very fundamental chapter in the Scriptures.

If you're not sure about something, turn to Romans chapter 8 first. If you can't find it there, then you can look elsewhere. But oftentimes you'll find what you're looking for in Romans chapter 8. The Romans chapter 8 verses 26 through 27 will say this.

In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself enters seeds for us with groanings too deep for work.

There are times when life seems very complex. Do I pray for this or do I pray for that?

Give you kind of an example, although we live in a city.

In farmland, one farmer may need it to rain, and another farmer may need it not to rain just yet.

Well, which prayer does God answer?

And we're not sure which prayer God ought to answer. So in those situations, God, I don't know what's right.

You do.

So I'm just going to pray, and the Spirit helps our weaknesses, helps our lack of understanding, helps us with the fact that we're not sure how we should be praying that the Spirit,

God Himself, enters seeds for us.

So when we pray, "God, may I win the lottery and I'll give you 90percent and I'll keep 10percent?" The Spirit will say, "Lord, He's lying. Don't grant it," because He just wants to spin it on His own self. So this is what I want you to do. I want you to show Him that you are sustaining Him day by day by day, that I can trust Him. And so God Himself prays and enters seeds for us when we mess up and don't know how to pray or pray the wrong thing.

That's awesome.

Just like taking a test and you can't give the wrong answer.

You know, multiple choice, A, B, C, and all of the above, and so we check all of the above, and God erases it and checks A.

In the next one, we check B and He races it and checks all of the above. He changes what our prayer requests are so that it will comport with His will.

That gives you great freedom.

You can pray, "God, I want this to happen.

I really, really, really want this to happen."

But that's why it's so important to say, "But not my will, but Your will be done."

Now you're praying according to the will of God.

And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because He intercedes

for the saints according to the will of God.

He's interceding. He's going, "God, bless this person this way."

Because He knows the mind of the Spirit.

He knows what the will of God is. He knows what is best for us. He knows what will be a true blessing and not a curse because we're no longer asking with wrong motives. We're no longer seeking our own, but God is changing those prayers into His will.

So the disciples follow Jesus around early in His ministry. They notice that Jesus goes off and prays by Himself. And then they notice when He does pray, and Jesus being Jesus, He's an effective prayer.

He prays for somebody to be well and to become well. He prays for demons to be cast out and demons are cast out. He prays all these things and they see His effective prayer.

So they go, "Hey, Lord, teach us how to pray." So unfortunately this has been given the title of the Lord's Prayer.

It's not the Lord's Prayer. At the best Lord's Prayer, if you want, you should take a look at John chapter 17 through.

That's the Lord's Prayer.

This is His teaching the disciples how to pray. And so this is the second part. So we know because the Scriptures have told us we're supposed to pray without stopping.

We're supposed to not ask with wrong motives. We're supposed to ask. We're supposed to understand that when we mess up and what it is we want, that God intercedes and changes it for His will. But then this is the teaching. And so this is a perfect outline, if you will, on how to pray. Now, I think it's good that we recite this prayer. It's good we even sing it and whatever. It's a good model prayer.

But I would encourage you to take the model and change it. So I'm going to show you what I mean. So it goes, "Pray then in this way. Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name."

So first off, He says, "We have a relationship."

And to translate it, Father, it's kind of a little more intimate than that. It's more our Daddy, Abba, Father. And so, you can say, "First, when you speak to God, there should be a relationship."

It's not, "Hey, God, if you're there."

Those who are agnostic and those who are atheists and unfortunately some Christians, because they felt God so far away, they say, "Well, I don't know if there is a God, but God, if there is one, and if you're hearing my prayer, hey, this is what I want."

Jesus' model prayer says, "I have a relationship. He's my Father.

He's the one who protects me. He's the one who provides for me. He's the one who caused me to be born again.

And He's not my earthly father. He's my heavenly Father. He's in heaven.

He's on His throne. He is sovereign. He is awesome. He is powerful. He's all-knowing. He's there. And so I acknowledge my relationship with Him and where He is and that His name is hallowed. It is holy.

Unfortunately, most of us use the name more in a cursing faction than in a holy faction.

You see, even the Ten Commandments talk about that we are to treat the name of God holy.

The Jews so much did it that they wouldn't even say the name of God. And even when they wrote it, they would say, like, "G-D," because they were so afraid to violate this passage.

You treat God's name with reverence and awe and holiness. His name is holy. So when in this model prayer, you don't have to recite these words. You can say, "My Father, in heaven, you're high and lifted up. You're awesome. Your name is holy." The angels constantly saying, "Holy, holy, holy, and I recognize that you are holy."

Your kingdom come.

Notice this prayer is different than how we handle things.

I'll give you an example.

You haven't heard from somebody in a while and they call you up.

And usually they start the conversation as, "How you doing?"

Then you tell them, "I'm fine."

"How are the kids?"

"Oh, one just got a promotion, the other one is a jerk."

And then usually the third request is, "Can I borrow a thousand dollars?"

You see, the third reason that they called is the real reason they called.

Notice this prayer starts, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So the very first request is, "God, what's important to you?

May your kingdom come." And what did Jesus say? "Seek ye the kingdom of God and then all these things will be added to you." You see, God and Jesus, they don't just haphazardly do things. They are consistent. And in His teaching of prayer, He's saying, "Make sure you understand my teaching. Seek the kingdom of God first." And so the first question and the first request isn't, "Hey God, can you give me a thousand bucks? It's may your will be done, may your kingdom advance. It's not that important about me."

So the first request is His name. And so again, we would follow up and say, "God, may your kingdom come. I'm seeking first your kingdom.

Is there something I can do to advance it?

And that I want your will to be done exactly like it's done because let's face it, here on earth, oftentimes not even the church is doing God's will, let alone the rest of the culture.

So may your will be done on earth similar like it is in heaven. If God says X, it happens.

So if God were to say X on earth, then it should happen.

Now it says, "Give us this day our daily bread."

So now we come to the point where we're asking for ourselves. Now notice it's unlike the, "Lord, may I win the lottery and I'll give you 90percent?" Because it's saying, "No, no." It didn't say, "Give me a week's worth of bread.

Give me this day our daily bread."

Which should remind us all the way back to the children of Israel as they were going through the wilderness and God would feed them manna and how did he feed them manna? A day at a time, except for Friday. And he said, "Collect it for two days because you're not supposed to work on Saturday, the Sabbath and whatever." So consistent with God's showing his people, "You rely on me. You depend on me." He says, "Give us this day." So we're supposed to say, "God, sustain me today." However your words are to just help me get through, maybe you're having a really bad day. Then, "Lord, help me just get through today.

Just need today because tomorrow has enough problems of its own just today.

And forgive us our debts."

So again, "Lord, I understand. I'm a believer. I'm a Christian. But you know, I mess up. Just like Elijah, I have this nature that just has this tendency to sin.

Not supposed to. Your word says I'm not supposed to. So let's be dead to sin and alive to you and whatever. But you know, I just not there yet."

So God forgive me.

And maybe if we did this more often than every time we felt a need, that we'd have a lot more freedom and a lot less guilt.

Because we would have prayed, "God, forgive me of my debt." But then here's the key.

As we have also forgiven our debtors.

If we expect to be forgiven, then the people who have wronged us, we're supposed to forgive.

As we have. So God, your forgiveness of me is dependent upon me forgiving others.

I don't like that. Tough.

Jesus has given parables about how the Lord would forgive this person a massive amount of debt and then the person who was forgiven debt refused to give a minor amount of debt and what the result of that was. And so we're reminded that in our Christian responsibility, not only do we seek forgiveness, but we're to give forgiveness. So in our prayer we should say, "God, even if I'm not sure what my sins may have been, I ask you to forgive me of my debts because they're horrendous.

But if I have something against a brother or somebody, God, I'm forgiving them right now.

I'm not carrying it another day forward. And not only am I forgiving, I am forgetting.

Now I've used this example before and I'll use it again because it's out of the world. Because let's face it, wives, you tend to do this.

Your husbands mess up and we mess up.

And finally the husband kind of gets his act together and goes, "Wife, forgive me."

And she says she does. And you think, "Whew, okay, good." Then three years and six months later you do something. "Remember, I thought you forgave me.

Boy, women, elephants have nothing on your memory.

You remember.

So we are to forgive and forget."

And then Jesus goes on to tell us, "And do not lead us into temptation because Lord knows I can do that on my own."

I use the example of chocolate.

"Hey, Lord, I know the chocolate store is on Main Street and I could go down First Street, but I'm strong. I'll go down Main Street. And oh, the smell of that chocolate. I'll just smell the chocolate. I won't eat any of it." And then, "Well, I'll just go into the store and then you buy eight pounds and 12 ounces and you eat it all that afternoon."

So he's saying, "Okay, Lord, I have a problem with temptation as is. Lord, leave me somewhere other than temptation, but deliver us from evil or the evil one."

Basic outline of prayer.

"God, this is who you are to me.

This is where you are and you are home and you are gracious and you're forgiving and you're merciful and you're all those things that you can talk about who God is. Then you can start asking God for His will to be done and then start asking for our own needs. Rather than forgive us of, I mean, give us our daily bread, we might insert, "Lord, my mother-in-law is facing a potential cancer. Lord, I pray that that not be the case."

Whatever it is that that felt need is, that's where it goes.

Speak God's kingdom first.

He knows what you have need of.

And maybe your mother-in-law is supposed to be cured of cancer or not ever have it and God will hear it or God will say, "I'm going to pray according to my will because this is what's best for all concerned."

But you make your needs remembered.

Then you say, "Here's the spiritual, I'm going to forgive those after you have forgiven me and be my shepherd. Lead me in the paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

Be my shepherd. Be the guardian of my soul." Do those things.

And deliver me from evil and it's probably more the evil one. Deliver me from Satan because he may not be after me but he may send his minions and I don't need them.

So deliver me from that guy because I have enough problems on my own.

Now the Catholics end the prayer there and we Protestants continue on. And if you see in your Bibles, there's a bracket which means in many of the manuscripts this falling part isn't there.

And I don't know if it belongs there or not. Usually I don't teach when you see a bracket. But in this situation, if it's not there, I don't think it's contrary to God's will.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Yours is the kingdom. The one that I've been praying for that you advance. It's yours. It's not mine. It's yours.

And you have all power.

You know, it's interesting we always want power. Even when it comes to the "great commission," we will hear Jesus will say, "All authority has been given to me." Then he tells us to be witnesses.

So we call that the great commission.

I don't see anywhere where he empowers us to be special.

We're not generals in witnessing. We're not colonels. We're not majors.

He has the authority. Since he has the authority, he tells us to do it, and we do it.

I don't do it because I have authority. I do it because the one who has authority told me to do it.

So all power and the glory.

We pastors have a problem with this.

Because the way to be a successful pastor is you get called to whatever sized church that you can get called to, depends on how far out of seminary you are and how significant you are.

And you take that church and you grow it.

You do another building and you whatever. And another church who just lost their pastor looking, they go, "This guy's successful." So they call that person out of that church to another church. So we'll say small church to a medium-sized church. And then you build another building and you increase the attendance. And then a bigger church says, "Oh, this guy's successful. Let's call him to be our pastor so that he'll be successful here." And he does that. And eventually he gets to be in a mega church.

And he goes, "Look how wonderful I am. I've taken church after church and I've grown it and I've written books and everybody thinks I'm awesome."

You don't steal God's glory.

If the church grew genuinely, then God caused the growth.

If you caused the growth, it won't last.

But if God caused the growth, then why are you taking credit for God's doing?

Lest anyone should boast.

Our attitude as pastor should be like everybody else. As Jesus said, "I am just an unprofitable servant. I've only done what you've told me to do."

It's His power hits glory. So when we're praying, let's make sure that our attitude is that it's the advancement of God and not us.

I think this is an excellent model of prayer.

And that we should take it, and yes, at times quote it verbatim.

But we should not be limited to quoting it verbatim. We should adopt the model prayer as our prayer in the sense of, because let's face it, I've been around long enough. We copy what we think is spiritual or successful.

So you'll hear some guy that you're significantly impressed with, and that person may say, "Lord, Father God."

So then everybody else says, "Lord, Father God."

Or we, because we think, and unfortunately we've made it magic, we end our prayers with in the name of Jesus.

Because we see in the scriptures that it talks about if we ask anything in His name, He'll give it to us. If we use the magic words, and because we've heard other spiritual people say in Jesus' name, then we ought to say in Jesus' name and whatever. But notice that's not how Jesus ended His prayer.

You be the glory.

It's about you.

How to be an effective prayer.

Understand who you are. Understand who God is. Give Him the appropriate glory.

Make your request known to Him.

Your unselfish motives, knowing that He'll clean up the mess when you pray.

And after you've prayed, give Him thanks.

And I will God's people say.