Again, let me say that it's a real
pleasure to be here with you for this
Labor Day Conference.
We're really looking forward to the Lord speaking
to us in the power of the Spirit.
I'd like to have a request as we
begin each session, and that is that we
begin each session with just a moment of
silent prayer.
And there are two specific prayer requests that
I have during that period of silent prayer,
and that is that you would pray, firstly,
that I would be filled with the Holy
Spirit of God, because I can say the
words and I can stand up here and
go over the material, but if the Holy
Spirit of God does not speak through me,
then nothing will happen of any good spiritual
nature.
The second request I have is that each
of our hearts, including mine, would really be
open to the message that the Lord would
lay on us this morning.
So could we pray those two things silently,
and then we'll begin.
Father, we do ask that you would speak
to us in the power of the Holy
Spirit, into the glory of Christ, and we
pray that each of our hearts will be
open to the message that you have for
us.
So we pray it in His name.
Amen.
I'd like to have you open your Bibles,
if you will, to Matthew chapter 6.
Matthew chapter 6.
I talked a little bit last night about
the theme of the conference, which is prayer,
and how we can experience a powerful, effective
prayer life.
I find that as I studied for this
material, that I had a lot of misconceptions
about prayer, and I think that it's very
good that periodically we go back to the
Scriptures to see what we can learn about
what the Bible teaches us about this very
important privilege that we have called prayer.
Everybody should have been given one of these
blue booklets.
If you did not receive one, perhaps you'd
like to put up your hand, and I'm
sure that one of the men would be
glad to get it to you.
These booklets contain skeletal outlines for each of
the four messages.
If you'd like to take notes, there is
room for taking notes.
If not, it will give you a record
of some of the things that we've talked
about.
Let me begin by saying that sometimes we
think of prayer as a vehicle to gain
spirituality.
And I think if we look into Scripture,
we find that rather than being a means
towards spirituality, that prayer is really an outgrowth
of spirituality.
And it's as we are walking in a
proper relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ that
we begin to experience the real power that
He's given us through prayer.
Towards that end, we'll find that if we
want to experience the real power of prayer
and have a really effective prayer life, a
lot of that depends on our relationship.
And this morning, Lord willing, we'd like to
talk about our relationship to the Lord Himself
and also our relationship to others, and also
how our prayer life depends on our spiritual
condition, those two things.
So if you'll turn in your outlines to
session one, in the first page, I'd like
to just read a couple key verses from
the book of Matthew to show you the
basic premise upon which we will be building.
Matthew 6, verse 33 is a very familiar
verse that most of you have probably memorized.
We're going to read Matthew 6, 33, and
then we're going to move to Matthew 7,
verse 7.
Matthew 6, 33 says, But seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
all these things shall be added unto you.
And then Matthew 7, verse 7, Ask and
it shall be given you, seek and ye
shall find, knock and it shall be opened
unto you.
Now at first we don't realize, but there's
a real relationship between these two verses.
The intervening verses are, of course, extremely important,
or the Lord wouldn't have put them there,
but they are verses that explain the relationship
between these two verses.
The reason I'm bringing them together is to
show the basic connection from which we want
to proceed.
The promise that we like to claim, ask
and it will be given to you, is
in the context of seeking first His kingdom
and His righteousness.
And so there's a condition for the fulfillment
of that promise.
And if we want to claim the promise
that if we ask something it will be
given us, then we have to fulfill the
condition in Matthew 6, 33 that we're seeking
first the kingdom of God.
Now as many of you know, the word
kingdom there can also be translated kingship.
And we could say, seek ye first the
kingship of God.
In several of the hymns that we've talked
about this morning, and several of the comments
that have been made as we've worshipped the
Lord together, the concept of king has come
across.
King of my life I crown you now.
The idea is that if we make the
Lord Jesus king of our life, if we
put Him on the throne of our life,
if He's really in control of our life,
we're seeking first His kingship in our own
lives and His righteousness, then we can claim
the promise, ask and it shall be given
to you.
And so the premise from which we want
to proceed this morning is that prayer, effective,
powerful prayer, something that I know we all
seek, results from a proper spiritual relationship.
It results from having Jesus Christ being really
on the throne of our lives, being our
king and being our Lord.
And we'll find that because of that, prayer
is not an activity, but rather prayer is
a way of life.
You see, as our whole life is consumed
with seeking the kingship of Jesus Christ, our
whole life is consumed with putting Him on
the throne, the supreme desire of our life
is to serve Him and to please Him,
that's a way of life and effective prayer
grows out of that.
And so prayer really becomes a way of
life, a constant communion with the living Christ
and not just an activity that we engage
in.
Sometimes we almost make prayer a ritual and
we'd like to discover this morning that prayer
is not a ritual, but prayer is a
relationship with the Holy Spirit of God, because
it's only as we are filled with the
Spirit of God and controlled by the Spirit
of God that we can abide in Jesus
Christ and that we can seek His kingship
or His control in our lives.
And so the relationship that we have with
the Holy Spirit is a dynamic one, it's
a real one and out of that relationship
grows what prayer really is, that is a
way of life.
Now I'd like to point out that again,
the real power of prayer comes based on
our relationships.
And first of all, as per the outline,
we'd like to talk about our relationship to
God Himself.
Now I'm going to break it down to
the three members of the Godhead, Father, Son
and Spirit, because the Scripture tells different responsibilities
that each of the members of the Godhead
has regarding prayer.
I'm not trying to divide up the Lord,
but Scripture teaches that He is one God
manifesting Himself in three divine persons and each
of those persons has their own function or
role as regards prayer.
If you're still open to Matthew 6, we'll
proceed with our relationship to God the Father.
And there are several things that we notice
in Scripture relating to God the Father in
our prayer life.
The first is found in Matthew 6, verse
6, But thou, when thou prayest, enter into
thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which is in
secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly.
The first thing that we need to reflect
on this morning is the fact that there's
a tremendous privilege of being alone in the
presence of the Father, alone in secret.
And in the hustle and bustle of our
lives, our lives get increasingly more complicated, we
need to realize that we need to take
time to just be in His living presence,
to be totally alone with the Lord, to
have all the sounds and all the things
of the world away from us, cut off,
to be hidden from the carnal eye, to
be withdrawn in secret before the Lord, and
to spend time with Him listening to His
voice.
What a beautiful thing it is to have
silent communion with the Lord and to be
alone with Him.
And I think sometimes we overlook that.
We overlook the importance of just being in
His presence alone and just having our total
thoughts and our total hearts focused on our
Father.
And then secondly, if you would look over
at Matthew 7 in verses 9 through 11,
I won't read all of them, but this
is the portion that tells us that God
is our loving Father and He has our
best interests in view.
And a good earthly father is not going
to give his child a snake if he
asks for an egg, he's not going to
give him a rock if he asks for
a loaf.
And we need to refresh our minds to
the fact that God is our loving, holy
Father.
He loves us and He always has our
best interests at heart.
And so as we pray, we should realize
that He's our loving Father who's there to
answer, who's there to grant whatever is best
for our lives.
Sometimes we sort of look at the Lord
as someone who is unwilling.
We wouldn't say this out loud, but we
look at Him as someone who is unwilling
to grant us what we want.
And that's really not a very good perception
of the Lord, is it?
Because prayer is not overcoming the reluctance of
God.
Prayer is really laying hold of His willingness
to grant us the blessings that He wants
us to have.
And so we should have a heart filled
with love for God is our holy Father,
a Father that we can call Father, a
Father that we can be related to in
a personal way and enjoy what He has
for us.
And then John 14, 13 would teach us
regarding the Father that the chief end of
our prayer should be that the Father be
glorified.
Let me repeat that.
The chief end of our prayer should be
that the Father be glorified.
This is what Jesus taught in John 14,
13.
You know, desiring that the Father be glorified
is not something that we turn on and
off when we go to pray.
In other words, as we go through our
lives and we say, oh, it's time to
pray now and my motive should be that
the Father be glorified.
Our whole lives should be dedicated to the
glorification of the Father, shouldn't they?
Every move that I make, every breath that
I take, every word that I say, every
thought that I have should be geared to
glorify the Father.
And therefore, when I engage in prayer, there's
no difference from the rest of my life
because my whole life should be to glorify
the Father and therefore I can pray to
the glory of the Father.
You see this whole concept again, that it's
a way of life.
It's only when my life is given to
the glory of the Father that I can
truly pray to the glory of the Father.
How hypocritical it is to pray to the
glory of the Father, but to live for
the glory of myself.
You see, we need to live for the
glory of the Father moment by moment, day
by day and then we can pray to
the glory of the Father as well.
In 1 John 5, we find another thing
in relation to the Father and that is
that we need to identify with the will
of the Father.
We need to identify with His desire, with
His will.
And here again, by living the will of
God and by doing the will of God,
then I can pray in the will of
God.
How hypocritical it is to pray in the
will of God when I don't live in
the will of God.
When I don't serve Him as I should
day by day.
And so the picture is here that if
I'm walking with Jesus Christ moment by moment
and day by day, if I'm living the
will of God and I'm doing the will
of God, then a natural outgrowth of that
is that I will have the power to
pray in the will of God.
And so we should never pray in the
will of God when we don't live in
the will of God, when we're not interested
in doing the will of God.
It's so hypocritical to turn it on and
off.
The last thing that I would mention in
relation to the Father is found in Luke
1 37 and that is a recognition that
with God all things are possible.
I don't know about you, but I know
I have a tendency to make God too
small.
I have a tendency to think that God's
powers are limited.
Now, I would never say that.
I know that the Bible teaches differently, but
in my own mind, I have a tendency
to limit Him.
Maybe there are things that I shouldn't ask
because subconsciously I'm afraid He cannot do it,
even though I know from Scripture that He
can.
And sometimes we miss out on the great
blessings of God because we make Him too
small.
We don't realize that God can do everything,
that He's omnipotent.
We know that in our head, but when
we go to pray, we limit Him and
we're afraid to ask for certain things because
in our own mind we've made our God
too small.
What a mistake that is.
We need to recognize that the Father is
all-powerful and with Him nothing is impossible.
Now, also our prayer life is dependent upon
our relationship to the Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ.
The first thing I'll mention in relation to
the Son is found in John chapter 15
and verse 7.
I'd like to have you turn to that,
please.
John's Gospel chapter 15 and verse 7.
This is perhaps the all-inclusive condition, if
there is such a thing, for an effective
prayer life.
John 15 and verse 7.
Jesus is speaking here and He says, If
ye abide in Me and My words abide
in you, ye shall ask what ye will
and it shall be done unto you.
If ye abide in Me and My words
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye
will and it shall be done to you.
You see, we like the last part of
that verse, don't we?
That whatever we ask will be done, but
we forget the condition in the first part.
There's a two-fold condition, that we abide
in the Lord Jesus and that His words
abide in us.
And the all-inclusive condition for an effective,
powerful prayer life is that we abide in
Jesus Christ.
That we abide in Him.
And that means that we walk with Him
hand in hand, moment by moment, day by
day.
That we live in Him.
That we're obedient to Him.
It's a union that we have.
We all have by position, when we receive
Christ as Savior, a union with Jesus Christ.
There's a difference between union and communion.
Communion is that constant day by day interaction
with Him.
That constant day by day walking with Him.
Where we're hand in hand with Him.
And when we abide in Jesus Christ, when
our heart is occupied with Jesus Christ, when
we are abiding in Him, when we've got
Him by the hand and He's got us
by the hand, and we walk with Him,
then we will have the kind of prayer
life that we're all after.
It's that walk of obedience.
It's that walk of trust that gives us
the power to really pray.
Abiding in Christ is not some sort of
vain struggle that we have to live right.
But it's really a walk with Him.
It's an abiding in Him.
And to be in Jesus Christ, to abide
in Him, that's the way to have our
prayers answered.
And I must say, with a great deal
of sadness, that I believe that the impotence
that we see in the church today, as
far as prayer goes, is largely due to
the fact that we, as individuals and as
bodies of Christians, fail to abide in Jesus
Christ.
If all of us were to abide in
Jesus day by day, moment by moment, what
a changed world we would have.
What a changed prayer power we would have.
And the impotence that we see around us
is due to our failure and our refusal,
as Christians, to abide in Jesus Christ.
And I would say that, conversely, that you
could look into a fellowship, a group of
believers, and you could use the answers to
prayer that they receive as a fellowship as
an indicator of the reality of their walk
with Christ.
In other words, if there is a group
of people who are truly abiding in Jesus
Christ, they're going to see answered prayer.
And if you look at a group and
there's no answered prayer, then perhaps it's an
indicator that many are not really abiding with
the Lord.
You see, when you abide with Jesus Christ
and you abide in Him, you expect to
see great things.
Because when you're abiding, you feel the power
of walking with Christ and you know that
He can do great things.
And we miss out on so many things
because we fail to abide.
Now, also in relation to the Son, we
find that Scripture teaches that we are to
pray in His name.
And as I go various places, I find
that there's a tremendous misunderstanding about what this
phrase means.
We find it in John 14, 13 and
14.
It says that we are to pray in
His name.
And many, many Christians, even mature Christians, think
that praying in His name is simply adding
on that phrase at the end of our
prayers, in Jesus' name or in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's almost like they think it's some magic
words that you put on the end, but
that's not what it means.
Praying in Jesus' name means to pray in
accordance with all that He is.
It means to pray in submission to His
will and to His authority.
It means to pray in unity with Him
and in sympathy with His desire.
It means to pray in His righteousness.
You see, to pray in the name of
the Lord Jesus means that I am identifying
with all that He is and all that
He wants.
So, to pray in the name of the
Lord Jesus means that I'm praying the way
He would pray.
You see, in total submission to the will
of the Father.
And when the name of Jesus Christ, when
the name of Jesus Christ has become the
power that rules my life, then I will
experience that power in prayer to the Father.
In other words, the power that the name
of Jesus Christ has on my life is
the power that it will have in my
prayer.
That's another way of stating our basic premise,
isn't it?
If the name of Jesus Christ is that
name upon which I function, it's that name
which controls me, it's that name which I
live to glorify, then I'm going to experience
the power of that name in my prayer.
But if I tack His name onto the
end of my prayers and think that's praying
in Jesus' name and the power of the
name of Jesus Christ does not touch the
way I live, I'm not going to experience
the power.
The power that His name has on my
life, day by day, is the degree of
power that I'm going to experience in my
prayer.
And as we bear that name, that precious
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we
bear that name before men, we will have
the power to use it before God in
prayer.
And really our prayer rises or falls with
the quality of our relationship to Jesus Christ.
Another very interesting aspect of our relationship to
the Son, all of us know that 1
Thessalonians 5.18 teaches us to pray without
ceasing.
And I always thought that was kind of
an ideal, it's something that we should sort
of shoot for, but I never could understand
how it was quite possible, pray without ceasing.
But if we look at Hebrews, you don't
need to turn to it, you're familiar with
it.
The Hebrews 7.25 teaches that Jesus Christ
is our intercessor whoever intercedes for us.
And the Lord Jesus Christ is always praying
for us, He's always interceding for us.
And to pray without ceasing means that we
identify with the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, He always is praying, He prays
without ceasing.
And it's as we identify with the Lord
Jesus Christ that we can experience this idea
of prayer without ceasing.
He draws us into unison with Him.
He draws us into this beauty of praying
for other people.
And so we need to identify with the
Lord Jesus Christ and His intercession.
As He prays for us without ceasing, so
we should enter into that by identifying ourselves
with the Lord Jesus and we are praying
without ceasing because of it.
Another thing is that you find in the
story of Gethsemane, Mark 14.36, we need
to identify with the Lord Jesus in the
surrender of our will.
The Lord Jesus said, not my will but
thine be done.
How many of us can truly say that
when we pray?
How many of us truly surrender our will
to the Lord Jesus?
How many of us are praying for the
will of the Father and not for our
own will?
That brings us to our relationship to the
Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit.
I'd like to have you turn with me
to the book of Ephesians.
We'll be looking at some verses in Ephesians
5 and also Ephesians 6.
What does our relationship with the Holy Spirit
need to be in order that we might
really experience a powerful prayer life?
Look at Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 18.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance
and supplication for all saints.
Ephesians 5.18 Also, And be not drunk
with wine wherein is excess, but be filled
with the Holy Spirit.
The one necessity, the one necessity for every
need of the spiritual life is the Holy
Spirit of God.
If we are really to be able to
abide as a child of God, if we're
really to be able to abide in Jesus
Christ, we need to be filled with the
Spirit of God.
Now, I think that one of the interesting,
actually it's a tragic thing that I've observed
as I've gone different places to share from
the Word of God, is because of the
charismatic abuses that we see all around us
and because of the improper abuse of the
gifts of the Spirit and so on and
so forth, I feel that in many cases
we have overreacted and we've become afraid and
when someone talks about the Holy Spirit, we
almost get shaky for fear that they're going
to say or do something that we feel
uncomfortable with.
And this is a tragic overreaction and in
many places it's so pronounced that the Holy
Spirit has almost become a second-class citizen
and people are afraid to talk about Him
and they're afraid to teach about Him.
And, you know, really if we had done
our job in many cases and taught properly
about the Holy Spirit in the beginning, we
wouldn't have so much misunderstanding.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit of God
is not a charismatic phrase.
It's from the Word of God, Ephesians 5
.18. And in fact, in the literal translation
it says, keep on being filled with the
Spirit.
At the moment that you and I received
Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the
Spirit of God came to dwell in us.
And He does dwell in us and we
possess Him as He lives in us and
through us.
But we need to be continually filled from
within with His power to go about our
daily lives.
And the one necessity for every need of
the spiritual life is to be filled with
the Holy Spirit of God.
He is the one who awakens us.
He is the one who increases our desire
and our need to pray.
We need to be controlled.
That's why it says, do not be drunk
with wine, but be filled with the Holy
Spirit.
When someone is drunk with wine, they're controlled.
They're under the influence of that wine.
And this passage is saying, be controlled by
the Holy Spirit.
Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Be under the mastery of the Holy Spirit.
And it's only when we are truly filled
with and controlled by the Holy Spirit of
God that we can really pray in a
powerful way.
I wonder how many of us actually ask
to be filled with the Spirit of God
before we pray.
We can't pray effectively unless the Spirit prays
for us.
Unless we're filled with the Spirit.
And I know myself that so many times
I launch out on my own and I
try to pray in my own power.
And you know, that's really no better than
trying to preach in your own power, is
it?
We need the power of the Spirit of
God.
We need to be under His control.
We need to be filled by the Spirit.
Because it's the Spirit of God who draws
us in to that great stream of Christ's
intercessory ministry.
Romans 8.26 implies that the Holy Spirit
of God teaches us how to pray and
what to pray and when to pray.
And oftentimes the Holy Spirit will bring things
to our memory that need to be prayed
for.
He teaches us to pray in the will
of God.
And what our prayer accomplishes really depends on
what our life is.
If we live in the Spirit, we will
be able to pray in the Spirit.
Don't expect to be able to pray in
the Spirit when you live in your flesh
all week long.
You see?
You can only pray in the Spirit as
you live in the Spirit.
And I can only pray in the Spirit
as I'm controlled by the Holy Spirit day
by day and moment by moment.
And if I grieve Him in thought and
word and deed, then there's a loss of
power.
Prayer is this relationship to the Holy Spirit
of God.
And if I grieve Him or if I
break that relationship, I will not experience the
power in prayer that He wants me to
have.
He wants me to be able to pray
in the Spirit.
And in order to do that, I must
be willing to live in the Spirit all
the time.
And much of the spiritual weakness that we
have, whether it be in prayer or other
kinds of spiritual weakness, is because we don't
have the communion and the fellowship with the
Holy Spirit of God that's spoken about in
2 Corinthians 13 and verse 14.
Communion with the Holy Spirit of God.
Fellowship with Him.
That's what gives us the power for the
Christian life.
And so we find that real prayer power,
real effective prayer is dependent upon our relationship
to God.
God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Spirit.
You know, we also find out from Scripture
that our prayer power is also dependent on
our relationship to others.
And I've listed here secondly on your outline
to our spouses.
And probably most of you are familiar with
the Scripture that I've cited there.
1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7.
And I'll just read it to you.
It says, "...Likewise ye husbands, dwell with them,"
that is your wives, "...according to knowledge, giving
honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker
vessel, and as being heirs together of the
grace of life, that your prayer be not
hindered."
Now that's pretty clear.
That if we don't have the proper relationship
to our husband or to our wife, our
prayer life will be hindered.
It says there in black and white.
And many people like to overlook that.
Many people think that they can still have
an effective prayer life when things are not
right with their spouse.
That's contrary to the Word of God.
The Word of God clearly teaches here that
if we are not in the proper relationship
with our spouse, that our prayer life will
be hindered.
And notice there, husbands, it says that we
should live with our wives according to knowledge.
Another way to translate that would be in
an understanding way.
We are to protect them and provide for
them.
And it says we are to honor them,
husbands.
That means that we are to put them
above ourselves.
We are to put them first.
It means that we are to sacrifice for
their well-being.
Isn't that how Christ loved the church?
Christ loved the church.
He gave everything he had for the well
-being of his bride.
And you and I as husbands, men, our
responsibility is to sacrificially give for the well
-being of our wives, regardless of what it
costs us.
I think we forget that.
We like to have our wives be in
submission.
We like to have them follow our leadership.
But we forget that our responsibility is oh
so sober.
That is that we are to love them
as Christ loved the church, giving everything we
have for their well-being.
Wives are to follow their husbands, to be
in submission, as you know.
I'm not going to belabor these points, but
I want to make it very clear that
the Word of God teaches that we will
not have the prayer power that we should
have if things are not right between us
as husband and wife.
And I would encourage any of you who
are here this morning, who are having some
kind of difficulty with your spouse, make it
right before the Lord so that your prayers
would not be hindered.
A wife or a husband who is not
in right relationship to their spouse cannot be
in a right relationship to God.
God reminds me of this many, many times
in my own life.
Seeing as that I'm in full-time work
and I have my office in the home,
sometimes I have a tendency to be hanging
around the kitchen when my wife's trying to
get something done.
And I might be in her way a
little bit from time to time.
And maybe we'll have a little spat and
we'll have a little bit of dispute.
And I'll huff and puff and I'll go
out in a huff and go down to
my office.
And I'll get and I'll open the Word
and I'll start to pray.
And it's almost as if the Lord audibly
says, what are you doing here?
Of course, He doesn't.
But the point is, what am I doing
there?
I have no business coming before the altar
of the Lord in prayer when things are
not right with my wife.
And it's as if the Lord says to
me, what are you doing here?
You go make it right with your wife
and then you can come to the altar.
That's what the Word of God says.
That's why I'll go up and make things
right and then I'll be able to return
to prayer.
The point is, we're kidding ourselves if we
think that we can have something wrong in
our marriage relationship and still have prayer power.
And of course, let me emphasize the importance
of praying together with our spouses.
Now, it also is very interesting to note
from Scripture that our prayer effectiveness is also
related to our relationship to others.
And I've listed three areas there.
There are probably more.
But the first one is giving.
And I think this is probably one of
the least known requirements for an effective prayer
life.
I'd like to have you turn to Proverbs
21, verse 13.
It's very interesting that Scripture teaches that if
we are to have an effective prayer life,
then we must have generous giving spirit.
And I would suggest to you that one
of the reasons that Abraham had such a
powerful prayer life, especially when he interceded for
Sodom, was because of his generosity with his
nephew Lot.
It's not that we deserve it, but it's
God working in our lives saying, if you
have a giving, loving spirit, then you can
have powerful prayer.
Proverbs 21, verse 13.
It says, If whoso stoppeth his ears at
the cry of the poor, he also shall
cry himself, but shall not be heard.
We have no right to expect to receive
from the hand of God if we are
unwilling to give what God has given us
for the good of the body, for the
good of others, for even the good of
the unsaved.
And I'm not merely talking about money here.
I'm talking about time, effort, and talent.
If we are stingy, if we are greedy,
if we are unwilling to fully give of
ourselves and our resources for the good of
others, then what right do we have to
expect to receive from the hand of God?
It's not that we earn it by giving
and then God gives us.
I'm not trying to imply that.
I'm trying to show how hypocritical it is
for us to want to receive from the
hand of God when we refuse to be
willing to give from that which he has
imparted to us.
And that goes for our time and our
strength as well as our resources.
You will find, and we don't have time
to go into it this morning, that you
will find that all the verses that we
like to talk about the most, about God
giving to us, you will find that every
single one of them is a conditional promise
within the context of being a generous giver.
For instance, 2 Corinthians 9 and 8.
Maybe that's a promise that many of you
have claimed many times.
2 Corinthians 9 and verse 8.
It reads as such.
It says, And God is able to make
all grace abound towards you, that you, always
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound
to every good work.
We like to talk about that, but that
is in the context of being a cheerful
giver, verse 7.
1 John 3.22 talks about God giving
to us if we do what's pleasing in
his sight.
And if you read that in context, it's
loving the brethren and giving to the poor,
in verses 17 and 18.
Philippians 4.19. Anybody who has ever lived
on faith knows Philippians 4.19. That God
is able to supply all our needs according
to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.
But that's in the context of people who
had sacrificially given to the Lord's work.
The point I'm trying to make is this,
that if we expect to receive from the
hand of God, we must be willing to
give of our time and our talents and
our treasures in order to serve the Lord's
people and to do his work.
And then there's the whole matter of forgiving.
Mark chapter 11, verses 25 and 26.
Mark 11.25 and 26.
It says, And when ye stand praying, forgive,
if ye have ought against any, that your
Father also which is in heaven may forgive
you your trespasses.
But if ye do not forgive, neither will
your Father which is in heaven forgive your
trespasses.
You know, when you and I refuse to
forgive, we set up a roadblock in our
prayer life.
There's no way to get around it.
That's what the Word of God says.
There's a roadblock set up in our prayer
life when we refuse to forgive.
If we're holding grudges, if we've taken offense,
if we've let things simmer over years and
years, we've let bitterness encompass us over years,
our prayer life is blocked.
And I would suggest that if anyone is
here this morning and you're puzzled as to
why you don't seem to have power in
prayer, that's a good place to start.
Do you have something against a brother or
sister?
Have you refused to forgive?
Have you been encompassed by bitterness?
Have you held a grudge over many years?
It's amazing as I go around to different
places, how many people are holding a grudge
or taking offense against a brother or sister
for many years away and wondering why their
prayer life is hindered.
If you refuse to forgive, your prayer life
will be blocked.
There's just no doubt about it.
If you were to take Matthew chapter 5
and Matthew chapter 18, you will see that
it doesn't matter whether you are right or
wrong.
It doesn't matter whether you are the offender
or the offendee.
You have the responsibility, according to those two
passages, to go to one another and make
it right.
And only then can you proceed to the
altar of God.
And so I would encourage you, if you're
here this morning and you're at odds with
a brother or sister, there's an offense taken,
there's a block there, it's blocking your prayer
life, I would encourage you from the Word
of God to make it right, to patch
up that strife or division so that you'll
have powerful prayers once again.
We'll end this morning's session with our responsibility
to others in the way of intercession.
Praying for others.
You know, if we're not praying constantly and
consistently and regularly and fervently for others, we're
missing the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because the Lord Jesus is ever making intercession
for us.
And He desires that we make intercession for
others.
And He teaches us to be persistent and
regular in that particular ministry.
We like to talk about the priesthood of
believers.
And I praise the Lord that each of
us who knows Christ as Savior, each of
us is a priest.
Well, one of the ministries of a priest
is intercession.
One of the ministries of a priest is
intercession.
What a glorious responsibility it is.
So, we close out this morning's session.
We didn't get quite as far as I'd
like, but I'm sure the Lord will make
up the time.
We close it out with the idea that
in order to have an effective, powerful, dynamic
prayer life, we need to be rightly related
to Jesus Christ.
We need to be controlled by the Spirit
of God.
We need to be abiding in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
We need to be existing for the glory
of the Father and living in the will
of the Father.
We need to be seeking His kingship in
our lives.
We need to make Jesus Christ the supreme
desire of our hearts and His will the
controlling factor of our lives.
And then and only then will we experience
the kind of prayer life that He wants
us to have.
And He challenges us further to our relationship
to our spouses, our relationship to other people.
If it's not right, our prayer life will
be hindered.
May each of us before the Lord this
morning truly and honestly examine our hearts to
see if Jesus Christ is king in our
own lives.
To see if we're abiding.
To see if we're being controlled by the
Spirit.
So that we might have the kind of
prayer life that Jesus Christ died to give
us.
May it be true for His namesake.
Heavenly Father, we praise You for the privilege
that we have of being in Your family,
for being related to You as Father.
We know that it costs a tremendous price
the gift of Your Son.
Lord, we thank You for the privilege of
prayer.
We realize from Your Word that the power
and effectiveness of our prayer depends on the
degree of our abiding in You.
We ask that through the power of Your
Spirit that we would be controlled, that we
would abide in the Lord Jesus, that we
would live daily in the power of the
Spirit, that we would be constantly seeking Your
kingship in our lives, that our greatest desire
would be to live for You and to
please You and to do Your will day
by day, moment by moment as we walk
hand in hand with the living Christ.
Father, we pray that as this happens, as
we experience it, that we will be truly
grateful for the wonderful blessing of prayer.
Help us to exercise its power as we
walk day by day with our blessed Savior.
For we pray it in His name, Amen.