Sunday, May 21, 2017 - There’s Power In Prayer!
Pastor Roger C. Marcos
May 21, 2017
Introduction:
Any place is a place for prayer. Any time is a time for prayer. Prayer can be deeply personal, or one can joins hands with another to pray, or with a thousand others in praise and prayer.
George Muller of Bristol, England born on (1805-1897) he was a rebellious Prussian young man whom God saved in his twenties. Muller later founded an orphanage in Bristol, England. He was concerned about the needs of the many orphans whom he saw on the streets, of course. But his primary reason for founding the orphanage was to demonstrate that God is still a prayer-hearing God and that it is not in vain to trust in Him.
Muller and his new bride literally sold or gave away everything that they owned and gave the money to the Lord’s work. Then they set about praying for God to provide for their own needs and the needs of the orphans. Muller’s theme verse was Psalm 81:10, “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.” For over 60 years, he saw God faithfully provide for as many as 2,000 orphans at a time, all in response to secret prayer.
Muller never disclosed any needs to potential donors, even if they asked. He and his staff would pray and often see God provide the exact amount that they needed on the day they needed it. Muller gave God the glory by writing an annual narrative of how the Lord had provided, once the needs had already been met.
Text: James 5:13-18
NIV- 13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
If you have trusted in Christ as Savior, then you need to pray more. As with everything in life, motivation is the key. To motivate you to pray, James asserts the power of prayer and then illustrates it with the life of Elijah: The Qualification is being righteous with God righteousness.
James gives a very specific times that God invites us to come to Him in Prayer because there’s power on Prayer.
God Invites US to Pray When.
1. We Need Comfort and Strength. Psalms 86:1-7
1 Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me; For I am poor and needy.
2 Preserve my life, for I am holy; You are my God; Save your servant who trusts in you.
3 Be merciful to me, O Lord, For I cry to you all day long.
4 Rejoice the soul of Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you. 6 Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications.
7 In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, For You will answer me.
PRAYER- opens a channel from our emptiness to God's fullness.
It's the connecting link between Human Needs and Divine Resources.
2 "Preserve” my soul; for I am holy; You are my God.Save your servant who trust in you."
“Preserve" is to guard, to protect, to keep, to observe.
13 Is anyone among you in trouble/Sick? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you. - 1 Peter 5:7
God knows your situation, He understands the struggle, He wants to be involved in the suffering with you and to see you come through on the other side.
God cares about what happens to you - He is deeply concerned and He wants to give you the comfort and strength that you need.
The Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. - Romans 8:26
Abraham Lincoln
In times of suffering, God invites us to pray.
2. We Need Healing for Our Body.
Did you see on TV about the “FAITH HEALER”-millions of people go and spent a lots of money.
It’s so funny to watched them push people to the ground, supposedly curing them of their ailments.
Now when I see them, I have a different response - I get angry when I see these people abusing the Scripture and taking advantage of people by playing to their emotions and siphoning their money from their wallets.
Bible does it advise us to go to Faith Healers for Healing.
Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. And their prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make them well. - James 5:14-15
God’s resource for physical healing is prayer - He says that we are to call for the elders to pray and to anoint us with oil (symbolic of the Holy Spirit).
Obviously any Christian can pray for healing and God can respond, but here we are specifically told to call for the elders of the church to pray.
But why does God sometimes grant healing so this life will continue and other times He allows the person to die?
- I have absolutely no idea - I’ve gotten to the point that I’ve quit asking the question, I just continue to pray, and allow God to answer according to His will.
The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results. Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for the next three and a half years! Then he prayed for rain, and down it poured. The grass turned green, and the crops began to grow again. - James 5:16-18
- This is an absolutely amazing statement - Elijah prayed and the rain stopped and it did not rain for three and a half years.
- At the end of three and half years Elijah prayed and the rain began to fall.
- The beginning and ending of this change in the weather is contributed directly to God working miracles in connection with our prayer.
Conclusion:
The size of our prayers tells us a lot about the size of our God - if we believe that God is all-powerful then we will begin to pray prayers that demonstrate that power.
- What I am getting to is this - I believe that God is going to do great things in this church and in the individual lives of the members of this church - all He is waiting for is our earnest prayers offered in the belief that He will act.
There’s Power in Prayer!,,,, so Never Doubt
John 1:12
"But as many as received him, to them gave He authority to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in his name."