“Prayer!!!”
By Robert J. Heirtzler
July 15th,
2012
Click here to download printable sermon
notes in pdf format.
Why
do we pray?
Open
my eyes…
Ephesians
1:17-18
…The eyes of your understanding being enlightened…
God has called every one of us here
to do something here in Lake County.
When I was younger, I prayed and asked God what life
was all about. I
wanted to know if it was just to grow up, get
married, have kids, and die. It
took ten
months for God to answer that prayer, and I went through a lot in those
ten months. I was
over a thousand miles from where I
prayed that prayer, I was in the Navy, and I got baptized in a horse
trough in
the basement of a church. God
let me
know that He was answering my prayer.
Acts
26:15-18 …To open
their eyes, and to turn them from
darkness to light…
The
same thing applies to us,
today. We have a
responsibility to
share. Apostle Paul
had an interesting
testimony. He was a
Pharisee named Saul,
and went around arresting Christians, before he got knocked off his
high
horse. Then he
asked the question, “Lord,
what would you have me to do?” God
sent Ananias
from Damascus, and told him to minister to Saul.
Ananias quickly reminded God, “Saul is the
kind of guy that kills guys like me.” God
sent him anyway, and Saul listened to
Ananias.
Maybe
you’re here today because you’re
seeking God. Maybe
you’ve been to church
all your life, and just want a closer relationship with God. There’s people like that
in the Bible, too.
Forgiveness
and repentance…
Psalms
51:10- …renew a right spirit
within me…
Then I can go teach others…
Maybe something from your past is still haunting
you. Maybe today is
the day that you let
it go, or start to let it go.
Healing
touch (our lives and other lives)…
In the Book of Acts, Peter prayed
for a woman named Tabitha, and she came back to life (Acts 9:36-40). In this drought that we’re
having, a lot of
things have turned brown, but when the rain comes, they’ll turn green
again. Maybe all
you need is to have
your spirit renewed, brought back to life.
It’s like when Jesus told the adulterous woman, “Go,
and sin no more.”
Anointing
in our life to share with others…
The Scripture is Isaiah 61:1-3 if
you’re taking notes, but let’s read:
Luke
4:17-21 …The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me…
I have a device in my bedroom that
glows in the dark and lets me know what time it is, and in the morning
makes an
annoying sound to wake me up. We
are the
time clock for these people.
Sometimes God sends people far away
to share with them. There’s
the story of
Phillip and the Eunuch (Acts 8:26-39).
God sent Phillip to talk to this eunuch, who was far
away from home
also, and the eunuch was reading a passage from Isaiah, and he asked
Philip
about it. Phillip
began at the same
Scripture, and taught him about Jesus.
Then,
in the middle of the desert, they came across some water, and the
eunuch asked
to be baptized.
We need to have that frame of mind
that, wherever we go, who are we going to share with.
Protection
Prayer…
Acts
4:24-31 …grant
unto thy servants, that with all
boldness they may speak thy word…
Peter and John were on their way to the
Temple to pray, and they came across a lame man.
Peter healed him, and he was leaping and
praising God, and the religious leaders tried to tell Peter and John
that they
shouldn’t be doing things like that.
Now, this was not a pray about, “Oh, woe is me, the
leaders told me to
stop doing what I was doing,” this was a prayer for boldness that they
could
continue to do God’s work.
Guidance,
Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge…
Isaiah
11:1-2 …wisdom
and understanding, the spirit of
counsel and might, …
That same spirit rests on us.
God’s given us tools, but we have to learn to
use the tools. A
lot of times it seems
the only way we learn is through trial and error.
Count
your blessings; they outnumber the
complaints. I have
complained, and God
has reminded me of my blessings, and when I tried to count my
blessings, I lost
count.
Right
Now Prayers…
Back
in December, one day when I went in
to work, it was very quiet. I
was
wondering what was going on, it was so quiet.
When I went to put my lunch in the fridge in the
breakroom, my
supervisor pulled me aside and told me that one of my co-workers had
been in a
car accident. She
asked me to contact
the church and have people pray for him.
I got on the phone and sent out text messages, and
people started
praying for him. He
had his eleven year
old twin sons in the car with him, and they took the sons to a
children’s hospital
and took him to another hospital.
The
next day, we got word that one of
the sons had passed, and the other son wasn’t doing too well, so I got
on the
phone again, because we needed those ‘right-now’ prayers. People started praying,
and the surviving son
opened his eyes and started wiggling his toes, so they knew there was
no spinal
damage. A week
later, they were both
released from the hospital. The
father
is not hugger, but
when he came back to
work, he gave me big old bear hug, and thanked me for the prayers.
Praising God…
Daniel
6:10-24
…prayed, and gave thanks before his
God, as he did aforetime…
Daniel prayed, even though he knew
it was against the king’s decree, because he knew it was the right
thing to do.
Sermon
notes by Pete Shepherd
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