Sermon Notes

If My People…
Experiencing the Power of God through Prayer (Week 1)
“So Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s palace, and successfully completed everything that he had planned on doing in the house of the Lord and in his palace. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” - 2 CHRONICLES 7:11-14

“Part of the blame lies at our door. If we do our part, God will do His. Around us is a world lost in sin, above us is a God willing and able to save; it is ours to build the bridge that links heaven and earth, and prayer is the mighty instrument that does the work.” E. M. Bounds

 

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”—Ephesians 2:10

“God rules the world and His church through the prayers of His people. That God should have made the extension of His kingdom to such a large extent dependent on the faithfulness of His people in prayer is a stupendous mystery and yet an absolute certainty. God calls for intercessors: in His grace He has made His work dependent on them. He waits for them.”—Andrew Murray (The Secret of Intercession, p.17)

“and My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” - 2 CHRONICLES 7:14

 

I. HOW DO GOD’S PEOPLE NEED TO PRAY?

“The greatest workings of God come by corporate prayer, and we will not see the power of God in sufficient measure to transform the world around us until we pray together…God in His sovereignty has determined that something happens when we pray together that transcends praying separately.”—John Franklin (And the Place was Shaken: How to Lead a Powerful Prayer Meeting, p.41, 43 on iBooks)

“…My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”—Mark 11:17b

 

A. God, I submit to you—“humble themselves”

“And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”—Luke 22:41-42

“Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or for bending His will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to His. It is by prayer that we seek God’s will, embrace it and align ourselves with it. Every true prayer is a variation of the theme ‘Your will be done.’”—John Stott (Tyndale NT Commetary, The Letters of John, p.185)

B. God, I need you—“pray”

“Apart from Me you can do nothing.”—John 15:5b

“Ordinarily we would rather do anything than pray. But it is only when we wait before God in desperate, believing, fervent, unhurried prayer that the reviving, energizing power of the Spirit of God is poured out.”—William MacDonald (Believers Bible Commentary)

C. God, I want you—“seek My face”

 

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”—Psalm 73:25-26

D. God, I choose you—“turn from their wicked ways”

II. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GOD’S PEOPLE PRAY?

 

A. He will Hear

 

“This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”—1 John 5:14-15

B.    He will Restore

 

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”—1 John 1:9

 

C.    He will Heal

“The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.”—E.M. Bounds