Prayer Service

Scripture Texts: Acts 1:12-14, 21-26; Matthew 7:7-11

Introduction.

The greatest events on earth have come about as a result of asking in prayer.

The power of the prayers of godly, faithful men and women have turned back/appeased God’s wrath, driven away temptations and doubt, expelled demons and resisted and overcome the devil, it has called down from heaven the ministry of angels, subdued and quenched the violence of fire, extinguished wars, quieted the elements of nature, burst the chains of prison and death, opened the gates of heaven, cured sickness and disease, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stopped the sun in its course, and stayed the wheels of chariots, it has ruled over gods, shut up and opened up the storehouses of rain, stopped the mouths of lions and opened up closed wombs, reconciled enemies.  By it God has been pleased and glorified and has been moved to supply all our needs.  Prayer is an inexhaustible fountain, the mother of ten thousand blessings coming from the Father’s hand in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit (edited from John Chrysostom and Jeremy Taylor).

Scripture Texts:  Psalm 86:1-13

I cannot over emphasize how important prayer is in all our spiritual lives and in the life of our church.  Prayer is the fuel and the engine of our personal and corporate lives.  Everywhere in Scripture we are urged and pleaded with to offer up prayers of thanksgiving and intercession and petition to God.

The book of Psalms is called the hymn book of the Bible and it is also the prayer book of the Bible.  God gave us this book to teach us and give us wisdom for how to sing and how to pray in every kind of circumstance and situation.  There is no human experience that can’t be sung and prayed to God, our heavenly Father.

For everything we do we need tools, objects to help us accomplish a task.  Whether farming, cooking, learning, building, communicating, or getting from one place to another, we need tools.

Our most important work is spiritual, and the most important tool for our spiritual work is prayer.  And God’s gift to help us in this is the Book of Psalms.

This is God helping us have a conversation with Him that is free from the corruptions of our own minds and souls.  The Psalms get out of our ruts, out of our laziness in prayer, out of our repetition and triviality and mediocrity.  They help us find our words as we try to express our hearts and souls to God.

The overarching message in the Book of Psalms is twofold: (1) God is good, and (2) life is difficult.  The life of faith is lived between these two realities.

Brothers and sisters, a new school year and a new church year are before us.  We dare not begin without making an appeal to our God for His help.

This evening let’s take the message, meaning and method of Psalm 86 as our help and hope.  I title this meditation, The Blessing of Being Poor and Needy.

Passage: Acts 1:12-14, 21-26; Luke 6:12-26

Luke 6:12-16 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

The apostles had a problem, a big problem, they needed to replace Judas.  What did they do about the problem?  Complain, wring their hands, talk to each other, do nothing?

The path they chose was to glorify God by looking to Him for the answer.  And one way to glorify God is to magnify Him.  There are two ways to magnify something.  What is the difference between a microscope and a telescope?

A microscope or a magnifying glass looks at really small things and makes them appear bigger than they really are.  A telescope looks at things that look small, but are really huge, and brings them closer.  It makes things that seem small and insignificant begin to look as big as they really are.

So when David says, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together” (Psalm 34:3-5) he is not saying he wants to make a small God look bigger than He is.  He is saying he want to make a big God begin to look as big as He really is.

Most of us are pretty good at using a magnifying glass or a microscope.  We hold them over our problems and make our problems seem bigger than they really are.  We magnify our worries, fears, doubts, inadequacies, stresses, busyness, and in so doing we diminish God.

We need to change what instrument we are using.

Prayer is one of God’s best gifts for reducing trials, troubles, knocking difficulties down to size and for magnifying the greatness and goodness and power of God.  Prayer puts us in a position to see God for who He really is, to cause them to appear as great as He really is.

When we pray we magnify the power of God to work for us in any situation or circumstance.  Prayer reveals that nothing is too hard or too impossible for God.

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