Powerful and Effective Prayer

Transcript

Rob McFarlane 0:29

A message entitled Powerful and Effective Prayer. Please read with me from James chapter 5, verse 16 through to verse 18. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it didn't rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. Our prayer is powerful and effective. And it uses as a part of its example Elijah. And it's referring to his confrontation with King Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Now let's just give a little bit of background to this story, and you could read it in 1 Kings chapter 18. Why don't you turn across there with me? 1 Kings chapter 18 and uh and let's have a look together at this instance, what took place it at this time in history. King Ahab was an evil king. He married Jezebel, and they set up worship to Baal, who was a false god in Israel. As a result, God sent Elijah his prophet to say that he would pray that there would be a drought, no rain, no Jew for three and a half years. King Ahab and Jezebel killed people who served God. There was a great persecution that arose. And this culminated and resulted in a confrontation between Elijah, King Ahab, and the 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in front of the whole nation of Israel. Let's pick it up in 1 Kings chapter 18 and verse 24. He says to King Ahab, this is Elijah talking to King Ahab, then you call on the name of your God, and I will call on the name of the Lord, the God who answers by fire, He is God. Then all the people said, What you say is good. Now the result was they both brought a sacrifice. And uh and we see from verse 20 to verse 29 that when the prophets of Baal brought their sacrifice and tried to call down fire, nothing happened. And Elijah begins to mock them. In fact, in verse 27 in the living Bible, it says, he says, Has your God gone to the toilet? He said, Where is your God? How come he's not answering? And they did all sorts of stuff to try and get their God to answer, that false God, Baal. And then we see Elijah offered a sacrifice, and the fire fell from heaven and consumed the sacrifice. And as a result, the people turned back to God. Let's look at verse 38 and verse 39. Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil. It also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, The Lord He is God. The Lord He is God. This certainly was a powerful and effective prayer. It was a prayer that changed a nation. Now I'd like to look at four things from this event of what took place that will help us understand something about powerful and effective prayer. The first we have to understand is that we see in 1 Kings chapter 18, verse 22, that Elijah was outnumbered 450 to 1, but God was with him. In verse 22 it reads, Then Elijah said to them, I'm the only one of the Lord's prophets left. But Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Do you ever feel like the odds are stacked up against you? Do you ever feel like you're playing against a stacked deck? And uh and and you say, Well, is there any hope? It seems hopeless in the natural. Well, we have to understand that we have confidence that if God is with us, who can be against us? You might be facing impossible odds. But if God is with you, who can be against you? I love the way Jesus said in Mark chapter 10, verse 27, with man this is impossible, but not with God. With God all things are possible. And we have to understand that even though Elijah was outnumbered 450 to 1, he was actually the majority because it was Elijah with God on his side. And you might feel like you're on your own, you might feel like you're isolated, you're a long way from other people, you might feel like I'm working hard and getting nowhere, but I want to tell you if God is with you, you can have confidence that uh that you can overcome. The second thing we see is Elijah started to make preparations by rebuilding the altar. Let's read verse 30 through to verse 32. It says in verse 30, then Elijah said to all the people, Come here to me. They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Your name shall be Israel. With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. Building an altar is symbolic of us starting to have a daily devotion time with the Lord. Build that altar in your life, a place of meeting with God, a time and a place where you spend time with the Lord. If you're not spending time with God yourself, if you're not spending time with him and in his word and in prayer, it's very difficult for you to actually minister effectively to others. In John 15, verse 4 and 5, Jesus said, Apart from me you can do nothing. And then in verse 8 and verse 16 of John 15, he says, He says that He's called us and appointed us to bear much and lasting fruit. Now we can have a fruitful ministry if we have an altar in our lives. Times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord. And I want to encourage you, spend time in his presence, come out of that time in his presence and begin to minister to others. Our ministry is simply an overflow of our relationship with God. The third thing we see is Elijah prayed and gave generously to God. Let's read in verse 32 through to verse 35. In verse 32, it says, With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. He dug a trench around it, large enough to hold two sealers of seed. He arranged the wood, he cut the bull into pieces, laid it on the wood, and then he said to them, Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood. Isn't it interesting, just to pause there, that he said, Fill these jars with water. Now they had just come out of a season of three and a half years of drought. So possibly the most precious commodity they had was water. But he said, Pour four large jars on the sacrifice. Continues in verse 34 and verse 35, he says, Do it again. They did it again. Do it a third time, he ordered, and they did it a third time. The water ran down from the altar and even filled the trench. Now we need to understand that two things get God's attention prayer and generosity. They use twelve jars of water during a time of drought. And when we come to God with generous hearts and generous hands, it's amazing what God can do. In Acts chapter 10 and verse 4, we read about Cornelius, the first Gentile believer. And what got God's attention about Cornelius? It was his generosity and his devotion to God. It says that he prayed and he gave alms, he gave gifts. Because he was generous hearted, he got God's attention, and he was chosen as the first Gentile believer. We want to see God move in our lives. If we want to see our prayer and we want to see our our uh our the the effect of our ministry being powerful and effective and changing things around us, then I want to encourage you to be generous-hearted and be generous with your hands, with your time, with your talents, with the resources that God has given you. And finally, the fourth thing that we see is Elijah prayed until he had a breakthrough. Now he did all of this, and uh God answered by fire. And then let's go down to verse 41 and read through to verse 45. And Elijah said to Ahab, Go eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain. So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed up on the top of Mount Carmel, bent down to the ground, and put his face between his knees. He got himself in a posture of prayer. Go and look towards the sea, he told his servant. He went up and looked. There's nothing there. Seven times Elijah said, Go back. The seventh time the servant reported, A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea. So Elijah said, Go and tell Ahab, Hitch up your chariot, go down before the rain stops you. Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, and a heavy rain started to fall, and Ahab rode off. Persistence makes a difference in prayer. Elijah prayed until he had a breakthrough. He didn't just pray once, it says he prayed seven times. Let's not have the attitude, well, I tried that once. Jesus said in Luke chapter 18 and uh verse 1, he said we should pray and never give up. Uh pray without ceasing, the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians. It says, pray without ceasing, keep on praying, pray until something happens. He wasn't discouraged by the small changes. When his servant came back and said, I just see the a cloud the size of a man's hand, he didn't say, Oh, well, what's the point? Let me just give up. No, he continued to pray, and we need to keep praying until we see a breakthrough. So today we've been talking about powerful and effective prayer. And my encouragement to you is to pray and not give up. You might feel like you're outnumbered, you might feel like the odds are stacked against you, you might be facing an impossible situation. Well, I want to tell you today that in situations like that, God delights to use ordinary people. We saw James chapter 5 and verse 17, it says, Elijah was a man just like us. God loves to use ordinary people in extraordinary ways in uh in impossible situations. That's the recipe for God to come through. And intervention by God in the ordinary course of nature. That's what God wants to do in your life, in your situation. He made preparations, he made sure he was getting the basics right, he built the altar in his life. Why don't you start doing that? Why don't you start building the altar in your life, making sure that you're building a strong foundation, spending time in the word, spending time in worship, spending time in prayer, getting the basics right? He gave sacrificially, he took what was precious to him. You know, if you're a busy person, time might be your most precious commodity. Why don't you start to invest more time in the kingdom? As you begin to pour that out in service to the Lord, you'll be amazed at how God can multiply that and how he can use that in order to uh to do amazing things. Finally, don't give up. Keep praying until you see a breakthrough. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you use ordinary people like us. Ordinary people in extraordinary ways. We want to see you use us powerfully and effectively. Our prayer, our lives, the way we live to influence and affect people around us. Thank you for what you're doing in our lives. And we trust you, Lord, for more. In Jesus' name. Amen.