Sermon Info
Summary
Oswald Chambers notably says, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” We often hear the word prayer and think this is something that prepares us for the next step, or prayer is merely an opportunity to come before God and ask Him for things. In reality, prayer is so much more! Prayer is direct communion with God. The same God who holds the stars in place and who knew me before I was born, yearns to hear from me and wants to be known. Through prayer, I see my own neediness and how God is always at work. Seek to grow in your commitment to prayer today! Incredible things happen in our lives when we commit to being men and women of prayer.
Content
Prayer Changes Everything
Prayer has the power to change things. Prayer is our way of praising God, lamenting loss, confessing sin, and asking Him for what we desire. Prayer is at the core of all that we do as the Church, and we believe that God works in mighty ways when we come to Him in prayer.
Throughout this series, we have been engaging in the foundations of the Christian faith, and the final one that we'll be hitting on this weekend is prayer – because it's through prayer that we grow in our intimacy with Christ and see God work miracles.
What the Bible Says about Prayer
Scripture tells us, 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 (James 5:16) God calls us to pray for many reasons, and that’s why throughout Scripture we read of Christ followers coming to God in prayer, asking Him for what they need, praising Him, begging for forgiveness. Prayer is scriptural, and it’s us coming to the living God. It’s personal and communal.
Throughout different stages of our lives, we may have experienced different forms of prayer, including silence, praise, lament, petition, intercession, confession, and contemplation. Scripture is littered with examples of these kinds of prayers, especially in the Psalms. We read of people like King David who came to God with his heart’s deepest cry, regardless of the season that he was walking through.
That’s what God desires and why He instructs us in this way: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7). God longs to hear us – both in the darkest seasons and in the best seasons of our lives. He’s our Good Father, our Constant Companion, and our True Friend, and beyond just receiving answers from Him, when we pray, we are building intimacy and connection with Him. Prayer grows us and grows our relationship with God.
The commitment to Being a Person of Prayer
“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” - Oswald Chambers
We oftentimes pray because we are requesting something from God or think that prayer is preparing us for what’s coming next. But, what we miss when we view prayer in that way is just what Chambers’ quote says: prayer is the greater work. Prayer is our direct opportunity to talk with God, the Creator of the universe. How special is it that He wants to commune with us – His children. The same God who holds the earth, sun, and stars in motion wants to talk with us. He wants to know us. He loves us just that much.
It’s through prayer that we see our own neediness and see that God is the One at work in our lives. He is in all things, and it’s through Him that all things work together. So, let’s engage in prayer. Let’s be men and women of prayer – Christ-followers who devote ourselves to trusting God with all things in our lives, big and small. Let’s allow prayer to cover us each and every day of our lives. And let’s start now.
