Pray About Everything - Part 2
April 14, 2024      |     By: Jonathan Brickley      |      Category: Sermons      |      Location: El Dorado
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Jonathan continues his teaching from last week on Prayer. This week, he focuses in on warfare against prayer - specifically “Fullness” (Revelation 3:17) and “Dullness” (1 Peter 4:7).

Matthew 7:7-11 (NIV)
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Psalm 2:7-8 (NIV)
7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father.
8 Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.

Isaiah 64:4 (NIV)
4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Key Problem in Prayer: NOT discipline, but Overconfidence

Becoming like Jesus in prayer is becoming more childlike in prayer

Pray about Every Thing - Philippians 4:4-7

Philippians 4:4-7 (NIV)
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Prayer Is Asking
- Solomon - wisdom
- Hannah - A son (Samuel - “because I asked the Lord for him”)
- Esther - A meal (2x) then her life & that of the Jewish People
- Blind Bartimaeus - I want to See!
- Demon Boy’s Father - Belief
- Peter - HELP!!

Prayer Is Asking With Thanksgiving

Colossians 4:2 (NIV)
2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

James 4:2 (NIV)
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

Great Commission: Go
- Make Disciples
- Baptizing Them
- Teaching Them

- How do we make Disciples? We must GO!
- How/Where do we Go? Where we are SENT (“Eklabo”)
- How are we Sent ? We Pray/Ask/Beseech The Lord of the Harvest

Wisdom on Prayer
1) “God is beckoning us into our share of the running of the universe [through prayer].” – John Piper
2) We must begin to believe that God, in the mystery of prayer, has entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world, and can bring its power down to earth. - Andrew Murray
3) Prayer is the way we work our way out of the comfortable but cramped world of self and into the spacious world of God. - Eugene Peterson
4) “As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours.” - Oswald Chambers
5) “Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray.” - Oswald chambers
6) You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. - S.D. Gordon
7) Prayer is the true gauge of spiritual health. - Charles Spurgeon
8) The power of the Church truly to bless rests on intercession — asking and receiving heavenly gifts to carry to men. - E.M. Bounds
9) Short prayers are long enough….Not length but strength is desirable. A sense of need is a mighty teacher of brevity. If our prayers had less of the tail feathers of pride and more wing they would be all the better. Verbiage is to devotion as chaff to the wheat. - Charles Spurgeon
10) Prayer is Measured in Weight, not Length. - Charles Spurgeon
11) Jesus taught that perseverance is the essential element in prayer. - E.M. Bounds
12) Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts. - Eugene Peterson
13) Our prayers lay the track down which God’s power can come. - Watchman Nee
14) The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel. - Thomas Watson
15) Prayer turns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God. - Samuel Chadwick
16) If you are strangers to prayer you are strangers to power. - Billy Sunday
17) Nothing brings such leanness into a Christian's soul, as lack of prayer. - Charles Spurgeon

Warfare against Prayer
1) Fullness - Revelation 3:17, Proverbs 27:7, Proverbs 28:11, Luke 1:52-53
Revelation 3:17 (NIV)
17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

Proverbs 27:7 (NIV)
7 One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.

Proverbs 28:11 (NIV)
11 The rich are wise in their own eyes; one who is poor and discerning sees how deluded they are.

Luke 1:52-53 (NIV)
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

2) Dullness - 1 Peter 4:7, Luke 21:34-36 
1 Peter 4:7 (NIV)
11 The rich are wise in their own eyes; one who is poor and discerning sees how deluded they are.

Luke 21:34-36 (NIV)
34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.
35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth.
36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

Reality of Prayer

Waiting is God’s ordained way
Isaiah 64:4 (NIV)
4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you,  who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

It is hard work and requires endurance.