5/5/13 DESIGN FOR LIFE

HEALTHY CHURCH - PRAYING TOGETHER

    We really do need friends.  Life is so much better with healthy relationships.  No one wants to end like this.
May 2011
    Actress Yvette Vickers died, and no one knew it.  Her uncollected mail gathered cobwebs outside her dilapidated Los Angeles home.  Finally acting on a neighbor’s tip, police discovered her mummified remains.
    Vickers was 82 and had long been a recluse.  The coroner said she could have been dead for as long as a year.  She died of heart disease.  She was married and divorced twice with no children.  She had one brother who was notified of her death.  She kept to herself in her later years.
    Vickers was born in Kansas City, Mo., to jazz-musician parents Charles and Iola Vedder. Entering UCLA at the age of 16, she studied journalism but left school to seek an acting career.
    What a sad ending, no friends, family.  No one even knew she was gone.
    Friendship.  How many activities do people do with the goal of friendship, fellowship, comradery?  Even some things that can have negative side effects draw people because they long for the sense of involvement and belonging they desire. 
    Many civic organizations flourish, in part, from a desire people have to be close to people and be accepted.  We all need a sense of connection and acceptance.
    This is one of the aspects of the church that we must continue to develop.  What brings us closer together and more effective for God?  There are many activities that accomplish that.  One of them, and a very important part of our spiritual life and growth is prayer.  And, praying together is an effective way of increasing our prayer life and fellowship with believers.  Praying together, bearing one another’s burdens, is very powerful.
    Let’s look at this concept of:  bearing one another’s burdens.  If we have not developed strong Christian relationships, we will probably not be open to it.  We will just suffer alone in silence.  We will be too ashamed to admit we have a need.
    Prayer together - Praying and being draw closer to God because we are drawn closer to each other in our desire to pray and engage in the spiritual battle.  Prayer is the battle.  We are all in the spiritual battle and we need one another to win.  We must carry the burdens and fight the spiritual battles together.
    A healthy church prays together and sees God accomplish His purpose.
    A quick history lesson, setting the foundation for our study.
1 Kings 16:29-33 NIV
29 In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years. 30 Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. 31 He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. 32 He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. 33 Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.
1 Kings 17:1 NIV
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
    Things were drying up in the land because there was no rain.  Verse 7 tells us that.  In the mean time God is showing His power to overcome all problems and issues.  God used Elijah in may miraculous ways, including the resurrection of a dead boy.  The longer the drought lasted the worse the famine became.
    After three years God told Elijah to go to king Ahab and then the rain would come.
1 Kings 18 NIV
1 After a long time, in the third year, the word of the LORD came to Elijah: “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.” 2 So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria,
15 Elijah said, “As the LORD Almighty lives, whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today.” 16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. 17 When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the LORD’s commands and have followed the Baals.”
21 Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.
23 “Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it.  24 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.”
    As the prophets of Baal prayed:
28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.
    Then Elijah prepared an altar with the sacrifice.  He had twelve barrels of water poured over it.
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.  37 Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
38 Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
45 Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came on and Ahab rode off to Jezreel.
    King Ahab was a sinner, and proud of it.  He did whatever he wanted.  He was destroying the nation of Israel.  God used Elijah to show him and the nation God’s power and righteousness.  It was a strong battle, but God won.  In Elijah we see faithfulness, prayer, faith and complete confidence in God.
Effective Praying
    Basically, prayer is communication with God.  All humanity has a natural instinct to reach out to God, to talk with Him, to rely on and know Him.  This is because God made us this way.  This is why you see people in every culture seeking God.
    Prayer is the necessary connection that helps us get to know and understand God’s plans for our lives, to receive God’s blessings and to experience his fulfilled promises. It connects us to God’s power and purpose.
    The early church understood that they needed to gather in prayer.  There was the time when Peter and John were arrested.  They boldly proclaimed the message of Jesus.  After they were threatened and released, they got together with the believers and had a prayer meeting.  They prayed intensely for the Holy Spirit to give them boldness and impact to talk about Jesus.
    Their prayer ended with:
Acts 4:29-30 NIV
29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
The results:  Acts 4:31 NIV
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
There were real RESULTS when they prayed with all they had.
    The missionary work of the early church was covered with prayer.  Paul, in his letters to the churches, frequently asked people to pray for him. He knew his ministry would not be successful without prayer support from the churches.
    Jesus told the church to pray for workers.
Matthew 9:36-38 NIV
36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
    Footnote from Fire Bible:
This verse expresses one of God’s most important spiritual principles about our actions and our part in his plans. Our part in the work is necessary because before God takes action, he usually inspires his people to pray. Only after they have prayed does God respond and finish what he desires to happen. What it means is that God has limited himself, choosing to accomplish his plans through the prayers of his faithful people.
    We are called to pray for workers.  We must do that.  Workers that will do what God has empowered them to do.
    Any good thing that happens is because God did it.  We are called to pray and trust God for the results.
    What have we seen today?  Let’s discuss:
**We really do need each other and will be effective spiritually as we focus together on the spiritual battle.
**God showed His power over sin and evil even when the leadership and the nation had turned their backs on Him.
**God will pour out His power, His Spirit on the church.
**We must pray for workers.  This is not just for a foreign land, but for this area as well, for Cornerstone.  Lord, help us have the workers we need to get everything done we must do for You.