The Power of a Devoted Prayer Life

of our actions, Father, that we would glorify you. And Father, we know that we are sinners. I'm a sinner, Father, forgive me where I failed you. Forgive me of my selfishness. Forgive me of the time that I robbed from you, Father, where I don't spend time abiding in you. Forgive me, Father. I thank you for a church who loves you and cares deeply about you and wants to make an impact in this community. We thank you for all the blessings, how this wonderful building, those wonderful leaders. Lord, we are thankful. Thank you, thank you. Now, Father, we have brought our needs to you for Houston and for all the others that we've listed, Lord. And I know we all have prayer requests. So Father, teach us how to pray that we can communicate with you and have access to you, Holy Father. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Colossians chapter four, verse two through four. You can read it on the screen. You can read it in your notes. I would prefer that you read it in your Bible. So if you have a Bible, please turn there, read it, make notes in it. If you are one of those who make notes in your Bible, but you can follow along as we read Colossians chapter four, verses two through four. Paul is writing to the church of Colossae and he says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it. With thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Our author that we have been reading said something that really hit me. He said, prayer reinforces what we believe. And I started thinking about that. If I have a personal relationship to God, prayer reinforces the fact that I have that personal relationship with God because it is the way that I communicate and he communicates with me through that time of prayer. Not only that, if I have salvation, it initiated because I have asked God to forgive me of my sin of unbelief and that I've asked him to come into my life and I receive him as the resurrected living Christ all through that avenue of communication that we call prayer. So prayer reinforces what we believe. If I have but one point today, it is simply this, that as believers, people of faith, people who trust in God, we are to seek a powerful prayer life. How do we do that? How do we have a powerful prayer life? And as a believer, are you seeking a powerful prayer life? The first point this morning that we have here is found right at the beginning. It says, continue steadfastly in prayer. You are to be devoted to prayer. That word steadfastly can also be translated to devoted. Devoted, what does that mean to us? Basically what it means is that I've already alluded to is that prayer is a time to grow in that relationship with God. If you do not have that close personal relationship with God, then you're not communicating with him and you're not praying with him. You're not spending time with him. When I ask people why they do not pray, they give me several reasons. Number one, they don't know how. Well, we're gonna fix that today. We're gonna teach you how to pray. But let me just simply ask you, how many in this room can talk? Rusty, you can't talk? With the exception of Rusty, he can talk. Trust me, I've already talked to him today. If you can talk, you can talk to God. It's just that simple. It's on a relationship. It's like talking to one another. Some people think that it's ritualistic, full of legalism and it's the, I lay me down to sleep kind of prayer life, something that's wrote, something that's written down. Nothing wrong with reading prayers. I encourage you to read the prayers of others and to read prayers out loud. Nothing wrong with reading a prayer. But it's more than that. It's that relationship. Some other people just simply tell me, I don't think prayer works. Well, the reason they don't think prayer works is because they probably don't have a relationship with God. If you have a relationship with God, you're gonna know that prayer works. Now, what if I told my wife that I'm gonna spend five quality minutes with you every day at breakfast and that's it? If I told her that that's the only time that we will ever converse, that we would ever talk, what do you think my wife would say to me? Go away. Go away. Probably so. Probably so. In other words, that's not a relationship, is it? And yet we spend that short amount of time and sometimes less than that talking to God on a daily basis. We are not devoted to spending time alone with God. Listen, Jesus didn't spend every minute of every hour of every day praying. He did other things. But he would pray in the morning. He would pray in the evening. During the day, he would pray as he was going. He would pray. We need to be devoted to having a prayer life. And we need to have much time with God before we attempt to work with God. Now, leaders, hear me on this, because as a leader in a church for over so many years, I'm guilty of this. It's easy as a leader in church to do things in the name of God, to work in the name of God, but not spend time with God. You ever done that? I have. Sometimes I just wake up, hit the floor going, and I don't quit. And then 11 o'clock at night, I realize I didn't have my time with God today. I've been going on my own power. And I do not like that. I like to start my day in prayer, in worship, and reading, and praying, and hearing from God in the mornings. But we've all had those moments. I think it's one of the problems we have in churches today, not only in church, but in our life as general, as we work through our days, we as leaders are so busy working that we forget to spend time with God. John 15, five, Jesus kind of addresses this, not in a matter of prayer, but this matter of abiding in Him. He said, I am the vine, you are the branch, which whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much. Everybody say that word with me. Much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Folks, this first part of abiding in God and devoting our prayer life to God means that we abide in Jesus. It is so important that you grab a hold of that. What it means to be devoted in prayer is mean that we abide in Jesus. And we're so, so connected to Jesus that we don't have problems making decisions, and knowing, and earning, and discerning the will of God in our lives. I remember this story. It's been about 30 years ago. I heard Chuck Swindoll. This was when Christian radio was just starting to be something pretty big, and I was in Denver working. And so on the way from my motel to the place, the field office that I was working at, I heard Chuck Swindoll at the Denver Christian College. They had a radio station there. And he was talking to a young family that was trying to discern God's will for their life. They were fixing to make a major decision on where they were going to move, and a career change in their lives. And it was a big deal. And Chuck Swindoll, he simply asked them, said, well, are you praying every day and abiding with Jesus? Well, not every day. Well, are you reading God's word on a daily basis and getting into his word? They said, well, no, we'd read a little bit, but not every day. Well, are you going to church? Well, when we can. Do you tithe? No, we really can't afford to tithe. And I remember these words. It's just like it was yesterday. Chuck Swindoll told them, he said, how in the world can you know the unrevealed will of God when you're not doing the revealed will of God? Prayer is the will of God in your life. Jesus talks about it. Jesus modeled it for us. More than just once, we see Jesus on his knees. We see Jesus crying out, father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me. And he went back and talked to the disciples. Then he came back and he asked it again, father, if it'd be your will, take this cup away from me. He repeated that request to God. And it was not God's will. It was God's will that he continue on with the plan of atonement, the process of dying on the cross, that we might have freedom. It's okay to repeat and to ask yourself, ask God to work in and speak in our lives. But it's important that we are completely devoted to prayer because God asked us to pray. So believers seeking a powerful prayer life will be devoted knowing that, but number two, they will be vigilant with a consistent and committed time to be alone with God. Notice what the scripture says. Continue steadfastly, be devoted in prayer, being watchful in it. Being watchful, in other words, making sure that you spend time and being vigilant about a consistent, committed prayer life. Jesus would say it like this, Matthew 6, 6. But when you pray, go into your room. Some translations say it's closet. And shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. And your father who sees you in secret will reward you. No person, no believer can develop a powerful prayer life without regularly spending time alone with God, without distractions. It's important, folks, that we find that place where we can exclude ourselves from all the things of this world because the world, I guarantee you, wants to bombard you with its issues, right? We all have those kinds of problems. Whatever it takes to guard your time with God, do it. If you have to put it on a calendar and say, this is my time, protect me, I'm gonna do that. Whatever it takes, guard your time with God alone in prayer. Now, let me share something with you. And I don't want to be legalistic about it. Trust me, I don't. And if three to four minutes is all you have, take that three to four minutes. It's not near enough in my mind. We need to spend time alone with God. Do we really wanna be a part of this spiritual renewal, this spiritual revival? Because when God's people get together, and I've seen this happen even at camp, at youth camp one year, I saw all day, it was amazing, people were dropping to their knees at the lake, at the cafeteria, in the chapel, in the dorm rooms, people just spontaneously dropping to their knees and asking God to send a revival, to do something spectacular at camp. And I saw amazing things begin to happen as students begin to get saved, as a revival broke out at camp, and we didn't even make it through the old talent show time. One girl began to sing and an invitation broke out, and God began to move again, and people were just repentant, praying salvation. It's the closest thing I've been to a spiritual revival, renewal that I've ever seen in my life. But it all was preceded because people were on their knees, praying out, crying out to God for revival and renewal. Do we really wanna be on that kind of a prayer team? Do we really wanna be on something that we're gonna see God move in a mighty way? I hope so. I pray for spiritual renewal. Do you pray for spiritual awakening on a daily basis? I pray that God would send a renewal and revival. That is the only thing that's gonna save our world, folks. Not political pundits, not systems. It is the word of God. It is our prayer life, spending time with God. You know, when I was in the sixth grade, I was a chunky little thing. Now I'm a chunky big thing. But when I was in the sixth grade, I was smaller, obviously. But the seventh grade team in Stinnett, Texas didn't have enough football players to play football. And so they asked some of us sixth graders if we would try out, and I think they just wanted somebody that was kind of a roly-poly kind of guy to get in the way of some of the defensive linemen, you know, kind of a thing, and that's what they were looking at me for because I had the size that they were wanting. I was one of the bigger boys at that time, for whatever reason. Well, they told us to come after school to try out. Well, I didn't have any way to communicate with my mother that I was gonna work out, so I left and went down to the football field, walked down there, and I always walked to school during the nice pretty days and walked home, and my home was a mile and a half away from the school, and that's just what we did in small-town America back in those days. And so it was five o'clock, and they still hadn't tried us out yet. So I knew my mother was worried about me, and so I thought it would be best if I started heading home so that I didn't incur the wrath of my mother as bad as it could be, so I left before they ever tried me out. I didn't get to make the team. I didn't get to see what I could do and see whether they wanted me on the team. And the next day, the coach said, well, I thought you were gonna try out. I said, coach, I was there, but I had to leave. I just felt like I had to be with my mom. And so I didn't make the team. I didn't get to make the team because I didn't try out. It's kind of like somebody that says, coach, I wanna play football, and he's big size. The coach looks at him and says, man, we would love to have you on the football team. Come to work out today. We'll get you all you need, and we'll get you started. And he doesn't show up. Three day later, he come up and he says, coach, I still want to play football. I said, well, you need to show up for a workout and to be a part of the team, and we'll put you on the team. About five, six days later, he comes back and says, coach, I still wanna be on the team. And the coach looked at him and said, no, you don't. No, you don't. You don't wanna be a part of the team. If you're gonna be a part of the team, you need to participate with the team. Are you on God's team? Are you a prayer warrior? God seeks out those who call out to him and who are vigilant, consistent, committed to prayer life. He wants us to be on his team, and he wants us to cry out to him. The psalmist is the best example. I don't know if you've ever done this or not, but I would encourage you, just pick a psalm, any psalm, and pray it. Personalize it and pray it. It will enrich your prayer life. All the psalms basically are a lot of prayers and songs to God. A great time of worship, a great time to pray. But God would say to Jeremiah, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. That passage of scripture in John 15, five again, and a little bit, I wanna read a little bit more of it, but if he is the vine and we are the branches, and if we abide in him, he'll abide in us. And verse six says, if anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you by this. My father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Now, I wanna make sure you hear me carefully this morning. There's some key things in this passage of scripture. I don't believe in this prosper kind of theology that you sometimes hear on TV, but here's what I do believe in. If we're abiding in Jesus Christ, we will know God's will so much readily easier in our life. That when we ask, we are asking because we understand it to be God's will, that I have the freedom to ask. And the result of that is my father will be glorified. Regardless of the circumstances, Jesus prayed, Jesus died on the cross. Is God not glorified in that? Amen, that's where you can say amen, amen. But be careful, if you're not abiding in him, you're thrown away. Now, what does that mean? What that literally means is this, that you lose contact. You're not in relationship, you're separated. You're not in relationship with God. You're in relationship with your father, your father is God, and you're separated. Therefore it's hard to discern and understand God's will in your life if you don't have a relationship through prayer and abiding in him in faith. Prayer is important folks, and you will bear much fruit. The first part of your life will be devoted, it will be vigilant, and third, they will have a balanced practice that sees effective results. Notice the last part of our text this morning. We pray with thanksgiving, verse three, at the same time, pray also for us that God may open us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I'm in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. When we commit with praying, and we know how to pray, and we commit to praying, God will give us discernment. Indeed, he will give us strength, he will give us courage to share the good news of Jesus Christ. He'll give us exactly what we need to say, how we need to say it, when we need to say it. We need not worry because we're so in tune with him through our prayer life. I want to give you something very simple. Some of you already know this, please forgive me, but it's good to review. It was good for me to even review it, but I want to give you a balanced practice on how to pray. And if you're struggling and you say, I don't know how to pray, after this portion that I'm about to give you, you'll have no excuse. You will know how to pray by using this model. The first, and I'm gonna use the acronym ACTS, A-C-T-S. The first word that we want you to see is adoration. In Psalms chapter 68, 35, it says, praise be to God. I often start my prayers, if you listen to me carefully enough when I pray. The first thing that comes out of my mouth most of the time, God, we are grateful that you are God. We are thankful that you are here. We adore you, we love you. I want to make sure that I spend the proper amount of time, just loving on God, because He's certainly loving on me a lot more than I deserve. I want to praise His holy name. I want to know that He is full of mercy and grace, and I want to say, thank you. I want to praise God for His mercy and grace. In Psalms 63, 66, three, it says, how awesome are your deeds? Oh God, I just want to praise you for all that you've done, all that you're doing, and all that you're going to do. The second part of our prayer life needs to be confession. First John 1, 9 says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He will forgive us, He will cleanse us. Folks, I will tell you this, if you have a prayer life that is short and simple and not one full of power, it's because you have not dealt with your sin in your life. You have not confessed it. You need to research and look back and say, God, is there any unconfessed sin in my life? If there is, I need to come before you and confess that sin. Tell Him where you have fallen short. Be specific, thank Him for the forgiveness that occurs in your life. Ask Him to help you through any temptations that might come that tend to recur, reoccur in your life on a daily basis. Ask God for help, and I guarantee you it will help. Confess your sin, tell Him where you've fallen short, ask Him to help you through those temptations. The third thing this morning is thanksgiving. Psalm 69, 30, always glorify Him with thanksgiving. My son and I used to fish about the only place you could fish in Southwest Kansas at Mead Lake. Not really a lake, it should be called Mead Pond, but it's where we would fish. And we would stretch it as long as we could. And sometimes we wouldn't come home to midnight, but most of the time we tried to make it home. If we wanted our mother and wife to talk to us, we would be home by dark. But we oftentimes would not take food with us. We were so anxious to get out and fish for the few short hours we had after school or after work. And as we would go home, we'd always pass by Burger King, and I would drive through and get my son a water. And my son on this particular occasion, which he would often do, but this occasion was different for me, he said, thank you, Dad, for the burger. Now, my son is grateful for all the food that he eats, trust me, but this time, it was something there that was heartfelt. And when he said, thank you, Dad, my heart began to swell. And I began to think if I felt so honored that my son would tell me thank you for the food that I provided for him, how grateful and how honored is our God when we say thank you for providing for us. I would be willing to say that everyone in this room has been blessed by God some way. Have you told him thanks? Have you said, thanks, Dad, thanks for what you've done in my life? I hope so. And the last thing. is the one that we normally pray. This is the easiest one and it's supplication. So many times we come to God asking him to meet our needs. In fact, it's okay to do that. He wants us to do that. But normally we jump right straight to this because we always seem to be in crisis. Oh God, help me make my next month payment. Oh God, help me do this. Help me through that. And that's the only time we ever call on him is when we need something. Now, he said, call on me. In fact, in Philippians chapter four, verse six, listen to this. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. We should do that. It should be part of our prayer life. And in fact, we study today how Gideon called out to God, how Hezekiah prayed out to God, how Jesus himself cried out to God. We should be making our requests known to God. Now, let me give you one other small, simple thing on how you can do supplication and how to pray. And I still do this to this day. I will pray this way. Let me show, let's show the next step. Use your hand. And in fact, everybody just do this for a minute. Turn your hand like this where the thumb is facing you. All right? Okay, you can put them down now. Now, here's what I want you to do. The first sign is your thumb. You pray for those who are, when you're going to a prayer of supplication, you pray for those who are closest to you. I pray for my mom and dad, my wife, my children, their children, my grandchildren. I pray for my sister, my brother-in-law. I pray for my sister-in-law and her husband who, praise God, over the years, we've been praying for Steve to come to know Lord. He's gonna be baptized soon. And that's a great victory, a great answer to prayer that God is seeing. And it's because we have continually, and his children, and his wife, and his sister-in-law, my wife, have prayed for Steve. The first finger, it is the pointing finger. We pray for those who teach, who instruct, who are doctors, who are those kind of leaders. If we have, and we do have a lot of teachers and administrators in this building today, we should be praying for them. I pray for my wife as a school teacher. I pray for her students. I pray for all of our teachers. They have such an impact in our lives. We need to pray for those kind of peoples, for those kind of people, to support them in wisdom and in the right direction, keep them in your prayers. The tallest finger, it reminds me to pray for my leaders. I don't care what political persuasion you are. If you're not praying for the leaders of this country, shame on you. Pray for our president, pray for our congressman, pray for our governor, pray for your local leaders here in our community. We should be praying for our leaders that they would be listening intently to God. The fourth finger is sometimes called the weakest finger. They say that piano teachers will teach that this is the weakest finger. This is when we begin to pray for those who are ill, those who are weak, those who need sustenance, those who need support in some way, we pray for them. And last but not least is the fifth one there. You pray the one that's the furthest away from you. You pray for yourself, that God would heal you and help you and grow you whatever way He needs to grow you. Folks, it's time for me to stop this morning. This sermon is primarily for believers. If you don't know Christ as your Lord and Savior, it begins with a prayer. You need to pray the sin of unbelief for forgiveness of that sin of unbelief by not accepting Christ. You need to simply say, dear Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. Come into my life. I accept you as the resurrected living Christ. Please save me today. Your life as a believer begins with the prayer and I would encourage you to do that. By and large, most of you here today are believers. So if you wanna be a powerful in your prayer life, please be devoted to prayer. Please be vigilant and consistent and committed with your time alone with God. And third, please have a consistent practice, a balanced practice of praying for those who in need. I would continue that you don't have to pray for these every day, but that during the week, you might wanna do it just one a day and spend more quality time praying. There's nothing magical about ACTS. You might just wanna spend some time adoring God. One of the things I love to do is put on some worship music and just spend time saying, yes, thank you, Lord. I love you, Lord. And I just have a wonderful time of talking and worshiping God. And so if you ever come up the office and you see me there looking weird, you know that I'm worshiping, okay? I love to do that. And there's sometimes I just wanna spend the time in thanks. And sometimes I just need to cry out to him because I hurt. And I just wanna ask him for some things in my life. The important thing this morning is that you be committed to prayer. I'm excited about the journey we're about to enter in on. We're gonna go into a time of invitation. Here's the invitation. If you're lost, I would invite you to come forward. If you're a believer, would you simply pray today? At the altar, where you're seated, as you're standing, I want you to have a new, fresh commitment to prayer. Would you do that today? Would you do that? Father, we submit to you. Lead us, direct us. In Jesus' name, amen. You stand, you respond as God would have you during this time of invitation. Please stand. ♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ ♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ ♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ ♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ ♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for having prayerful hearts. I hope you are excited about this journey. I know Nancy and I are excited about it in the prayer team. So I'm excited about what God is doing in this church and what he's gonna do. God bless you. May you have a wonderful day. Hope to see you back at our business meeting as we close out with our last song. ♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ ♪ Make the name of Jesus ever as a shield from every snare ♪ ♪ If temptations round you gather ♪ ♪ Breathe that holy name in fair ♪ ♪ Bring from us sweet hope of earth and joy of heaven ♪ ♪ Precious name, oh how sweet hope of earth and joy of heaven ♪