Prayer that Works Week 1: The Prayer of a Righteous Man

Music.

Pastor Jeff unpacks the prayer of the righteous and reveals how you,

too, can cultivate a bold, effective, and powerful prayer life.

And now, here's Pastor Jeff.

Came across the story of a sales team. You've been listening to the Generations Church podcast.

If you'd like more information about Generations Church, feel free to get in

touch with us at info at Generations Church. they needed to give at the board

meeting. Or head over to our website, www.generationchurch.us.

And he says, my coworker and I were making a sales call to this church.

We gave our presentation to the church committee and then the group's chairman,

walked to the altar and knelt down.

Take note of this. I love this.

He knelt down and after a minute of silent prayer, he returned and announced

in a solemn tone, The Lord tells me we should wait on this purchase.

So my colleague responded by walking to the altar and also kneeling down himself.

Then he returned to the table, looked at the chairman of the board and declared,

he says he wants to talk with you again.

Come on, guys. Now, I'm not sure either man was actually praying,

but I found it interesting that both men saw prayer as a way to get what they wanted.

How many times do we think that prayer is kind of like God is in a genie bottle,

and if we rub it, we get three wishes, and we can just send up our wishes to

God, and maybe he'll answer them.

But that's not how prayer works. And if there's one area of the Christian life

that I think most of us wrestle with and wrestle over, I think it's oftentimes prayer.

We pray when we're in need. We pray when we're thankful. We pray when we want something.

We pray when we get desperate. We pray when we get bad news.

We pray at the bedside of a dying loved one who's getting ready to pass from

this life to the next life.

All of these things are times when we pray, and those times are right to pray,

but there's so much more than just approaching God in our desperation.

Now, don't get me wrong. God wants us to approach Him in our desperation,

but there's so much more to living a life of prayer.

And I really do believe everyone that's in here, we all desire to have a better prayer life.

We all desire to experience a deeper, more enriching, more meaningful prayer life. I know I do.

We want to see the results of prayer. We want to see our prayers answered.

And so over the next few weeks, we're going to be taking a look at the topic of prayer.

As I was studying this week, I put together a list of the things that prayer

can accomplish in the lives of the believers. And there's so many of them.

I wanted to put them up here, but they're so small. Hopefully you can read them.

In 1 John 1, the forgiveness of sins, deeper intimacy with God,

James 4, replaces anxiety with peace. Amen.

Philippians 4, prayer reveals God's will for our lives. Proverbs 3,

provides strength in our trials.

Isaiah 41. And I could have put 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 verses for each one of these.

Opens the doors for miracles.

Transforms our hearts and aligns our desires with God's desires.

That's important. We'll talk more about that.

Brings healing physically and emotionally and spiritually.

Encourages others, blesses others, and strengthen others.

It engages us in spiritual warfare and is a powerful weapon against the enemy.

There's strength that is found when we pray, Scripture says.

Psalm says it invites God's presence. It brings revival, we're told.

It strengthens humility and our dependence on God. Isn't that so true?

You cannot come to God in prayer with a prideful heart. We come to him bowed

in prayer, knowing who he is and our utter dependence on him.

Acts says it unites believers, that it gives us wisdom for decisions,

that it changes our circumstances.

It gives us perseverance through trials. It breaks strongholds and spiritual bondage.

It brings divine protection and it helps us overcome sin.

And there's so much more, yet many of us don't regularly spend time in prayer.

Why is that? When we see the benefits and the reality of what prayer does in

the life of the believer.

Here's the big idea I want you to take away this morning. It's in your notes.

If you didn't receive one of those when you walked in, just slip your hand up

and we'll be sure to get you one.

But it's this, when you perceive the power of prayer, you will prioritize and

practice it in your daily life.

You will prioritize and practice it in your daily life.

I don't think We understand the benefits and the power of prayer in the life

of a believer, because if we did, it would be a priority in our life.

It would be part of what we do every day.

You'll want to make it part of your daily routine. This morning,

if you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to turn to James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

We're going to be in Scripture a

lot this morning, and I love it because there's power in the Word of God.

There is a purpose that God wants to do something in your life when it comes

to your prayer life. And here's what it says.

James is talking about this topic of prayer in James chapter 5,

James 5 · chapter mention

and I'm reading in verse 13.

It said, is anyone among you suffering?

Anyone in here suffering?

Spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally? He should pray.

Is anyone cheerful? You should pray.

You should sing praises. You know, when we're worshiping, it's prayer.

We're worshiping God. Is anyone among you sick?

Pray. Call for the elders of the church and they're to pray over him,

anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

The prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will raise him up.

If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Therefore, because of all these things, that's what therefore means,

because of all this that we've just read, confess your sins to one another and

pray for one another so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.

Then he points back to the Old Testament. He says, Elijah was a human being

as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain.

And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the land.

Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its fruit.

How many of you believe that God answers prayer? Let me see.

Right. Most all of us are hands up. We believe that God answers prayer,

that we're to pray in every situation.

We're to pray about all things. And then James makes an incredible statement in verse 16.

He says, the prayer of the righteous person is effectual.

It's the righteous person that sees things happen in their prayer life.

There was a professor and he asked his class, does God answer prayers?

And the class erupted. Of course. Yes, he always does.

Well, then why don't we pray more often? He said, there was a long,

uncomfortable silence in the room, but then he began, they began to open up

and their answers came down to two different things.

We don't know how to pray and we don't know what to say. How many of you find

yourself so often? What am I supposed to say?

What, what, what is, what is it? I don't know how to pray. And I don't know what to say.

It's interesting, the disciples, as you read in the Gospels,

they said, Lord, teach us how to pray.

We don't know how to pray, so teach us how to pray.

It's common for many of us to feel like we don't know how to pray or we don't

know what to say, and James understood that.

And so he gives us this example, and he says, Elijah was a man just like us.

I don't know about you, but that gives me comfort. If this guy that prayed and

miracles happened, prayed and God listened to him, then maybe God will listen

to me because it says Elijah was a man.

He was a righteous man.

Should encourage you. It should remind you that just as he had access to the

throne of God, you and I have access to the very throne of God, and he has his ear.

You have his ear.

Sometimes I get ahead of myself. It says, Elijah prayed earnestly that it would

not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

Again, he prayed, and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops.

In other words, what James is saying is, if you want a good model of how to pray, look at Elijah.

Look and see how Elijah prayed. And so that's what we're going to do this morning.

We're going to turn back to the Old Testament, back to 1 Kings 18.

And before we read this passage, I want to give you some background on the story.

See, at the time of 1 Kings 18, the king of Israel was a man named Ahab,

and he was married to a Philistine woman who became famous or infamous because of her wickedness.

Maybe you've heard the phrase, ah, she's a Jezebel. Yeah, that's who they're

talking about. Ahab's wife was Jezebel.

She had a reputation, not a good one. but it was partly because of Jezebel's

evil influence on Ahab that the nation of Israel had fallen into this kind of hybrid paganism.

They still prayed to God when it was convenient, but they also worshiped Baal and Asherah.

And because of their disobedience, God sent Elijah to King Ahab to tell him

and to tell the nation of Israel that they would be punished with the drought,

that there would be no rain, that there'd be no dew.

And this ended up lasting for three and a half years. Can you imagine?

That's a drought. At the end of those three and a half years,

God sent Elijah back to the king and he offers a challenge.

And if you grew up in Sunday school, if you grew up in church,

you probably heard this.

It was Elijah versus the prophets of Baal and Asherah on Mount Carmel, right?

All of Israel gathered at the foot of the mountain and they heard Elijah confront

them with these words. And this is in verse 21.

Elijah approached all the people and said, how long will you waver between two opinions?

I want to stop there before we continue. And I just want to pose the question.

Maybe you're here today and, and you're trying to be a God seeker,

but you're also holding on to some other stuff.

And the Lord is saying to you, how long will you waver between two or between three?

I am the Lord. I am God. He says between two opinions, if the Lord is God, follow him.

But if Baal, then follow him. But the people didn't answer him a word and they knew they were cooked.

They knew that the Lord God was their God, yet they still had divided hearts.

Now listen as the challenge begins in verse 22. It says, Then Elijah said to

the people, I am the only remaining prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men.

Let two bowls be given to us. They are to choose one bowl for themselves,

cut it into pieces, and place it on the wood, and not light the fire.

I will prepare the other bowl and place it on the wood, but not light the fire as well.

Then you call on the name of your God, and I will call on the name of the Lord.

The God who answers with fire, he is God.

That's a gutsy prayer. That's a gutsy challenge.

All the people answered, that's fine. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal,

since you are so numerous, choose for yourselves one bowl and prepare it first,

then call on the name of your God, but don't light the fire.

So they took the bowl that he gave them, prepared it, called on the name of

Baal from morning until noon, saying, Baal, answer us.

But there was no sound. No one

answered. Then they danced around the altar that they had made at noon.

I like Elijah. I think I probably would be a little bit like Elijah in this sense.

He mocks him. He says, shout loudly for he's a God. Maybe he's thinking it over.

Maybe he's wandered away. Maybe he's on a trip. Maybe he's on the road.

Perhaps he's sleeping and will wake up.

So they shouted loudly and cut themselves with knives and spears according to

their custom until blood gushed all over them.

All afternoon, they kept on raving until the offering of the evening sacrifice.

So now it's been all morning, it's been all afternoon, and now they're reaching evening.

There was no sound. No one answered. No one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, come near me.

So all the people approached him, and then he repaired the Lord's altar that had been torn down.

Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob,

to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel will be your name.

And he built an altar with the stones in the name of the Lord.

And then he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold about four gallons.

Next, he arranged the wood, cut up the bowl and placed it on the wood.

He said, fill four water pots with water and pour it on the offering to be burned and on the wood.

Then he said a second time, and they did it a second time. Then he said a third

time, and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar.

He even filled the trench with water.

I would say that his offering is soaked.

It's absolutely soaked. At the time for offering the evening sacrifice,

the prophet Elijah approached the altar and said, Lord,

the God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel.

Today, let it be known that you are God in Israel And I am your servant And

that at your word, I have done all these things,

Answer me, Lord Answer me so that this people will know that you,

the Lord, are God And that you have turned their hearts back,

Here's God's answer Then the Lord's fire fell and consumed the burnt offering,

the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it looked up the water that was in the trench.

When all the people saw it, they fell face down and said, The Lord,

he is God. The Lord, he is God.

Then Elijah ordered them, Seize the prophets of Baal. Do not let even one of

them escape. So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon

and slaughtered them there.

And so here we see the prophet of God pray.

And then we see this incredible miracle when fire falls from heaven and it consumes

everything and everyone so that the people recognize and proclaim that the Lord,

that he is the one true God.

Let me just give you a side note, not in my message, not in my notes.

There is one God. There is not a mountain with people with different religions going up it.

There is one true God. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

The only way to heaven is through Christ.

He's the one true God. And as incredible as what we just read is all about,

like that was an amazing true story, right?

And James could have used that as his example, but James doesn't use this as.

His example for prayer. He uses the following verses in 41-46 6.

Let's see what was so special about this prayer. Elijah said to Ahab,

go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a rainstorm.

Listen, they're in the middle of a drought.

There's no sound of a rainstorm. There's no evidence of a rainstorm coming.

This is a prayer he's praying in faith.

He says, go up, eat and drink, for there's the sound of a rainstorm.

He believed it was coming. And so Ahab went to eat and drink,

but Elijah went up to the summit of Carmel.

He bent down on the ground and put his face between his knees.

Then he said to his servant, go up and look toward the sea. So he went up,

looked up and said, there's nothing.

He prayed and there was no answer.

Says seven times. Elijah said, go back.

And on the seventh time, he reported, there's a cloud as small as a man's hand coming from the sea.

Then Elijah said, go and tell Ahab, get your chariot ready and go down so the

rain doesn't stop you. It's getting ready to pour, y'all.

You're going to get soaked. There's going to be so much rain.

In a little while, the sky grew dark with clouds and wind, and there was a downpour.

So Ahab got in his chariot and went to Jezreel. The power of the Lord was on

Elijah, and he tucked his mantle under his belt and ran ahead of Ahab to the

entrance of Jezreel. That's a whole other miraculous story.

But what is it about this specific prayer that James points us back to as an example for us today?

The first thing I want you to see is that Elijah prayed with faith, expecting the outcome.

He expected it. In verse 41, before Elijah prayed, he tells King Ahab,

go up and drink for the sound of a rainstorm is here. It's coming.

Before Elijah prayed, he told Ahab, hey, go ahead, drink, eat.

Celebrate good times. Come on.

We're going to celebrate now. That's what's going on here. He's going to celebrate

before the miracle even happens.

And so when we go to the Lord in prayer, I have a question for you.

Do you go to him in faith expecting an answer?

Do you have faith? Do you have a great expectation that he's going to come through?

I wonder what would happen in our lives or in our families and in our church

if we began to pray with great faith and great expectation.

So Elijah prays with incredible faith. Secondly, Elijah worked at his prayer.

Notice the position of how he prays. He prays sitting down.

He gets down and he puts his head between his knees.

There have been times that I have knelt on the ground and I put my head and

faced between my knees in prayer. And let me tell you something.

It hurts. It's uncomfortable.

You got to stretch a little bit. You strain a little bit.

Hopefully you do this in your prayer closet so you don't embarrass yourself.

But prayer is work. It was uncomfortable.

And there's something to be said about Elijah's position as he bows face down,

because it's an utter surrender and an utter dependence.

He knows, God, if you don't come through on what you've said you're going to do, I'm in trouble.

Where do you find yourself at today in your life? Are you praying with faith, with expectancy?

Are you working at your prayer? Are you in utter dependence and utter humility

when you come to the Lord and you bow before him and say god if you don't move

it's over there's a desperation,

that's found in the prayer of the effective righteous man there was no rain he kept praying,

notice he he didn't just pray once and there it was he prayed once,

go see if it's raining. Nope. No raining. Hey, is it raining? Nope. Seven times.

He prayed. He kept praying and he kept praying.

And on the seventh time, the servant runs back and he says, Hey.

It's like this big, but it's over there.

It's over there. I see it. It's this big, but it's over there.

The answer's coming. The answer's coming.

Can I just say, keep praying.

The answer's coming. Keep praying.

The answer is on its way. Don't give up.

Don't give up in your prayers. God can give you in a moment what you've been

praying for your whole life.

Let me say that again. God can give you in a moment.

In one moment, he can give you everything you've prayed for your entire life.

The answer is coming. Don't give up.

One of my favorite preachers from yesteryear, C.H.

Spurgeon, I love Charles Spurgeon, he said this about prayer.

Prayer pulls the rope down below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God.

Some scarcely stir the bell, for they

pray so languidly others give

only an occasional jerk at the rope but he said but he who communicates with

heaven is the man or woman who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously

with all of their might and some of you you go to god when you're in in trouble and.

Now you are supposed to grab on to prayer and work at it with all your might

and ring the bells of heaven consistently and constantly and fervently and humbly,

It's not like you're waiting at a bank teller. Ding, ding.

No. Why should it matter to God? Why should it matter that we work at our prayers?

Why should he care that we're pulling the rope of heaven, as Charles Spurgeon says?

Because when we work at our prayers, it shows God the answer matters.

If your answer matters, then work and don't give up.

Don't stop praying for that family member that still doesn't know the Lord.

Don't stop praying for that dream that God's given you that you're supposed

to accomplish in his name.

Don't quit.

Work at your prayers. Elijah worked at his prayers.

This morning we want to give you

a tool to help you work in

your prayer life and we put together this

prayer journal and it says prayer journal prayer

that works sermon series and you can put your name on it in the day and the

guys are going to come and they're going to pass them out to every single person

in here and we want to give you this tool to work at your prayer life we want

you to place it somewhere in your home where you'll see it often,

maybe on your nightstand or on your coffee table or whatever.

Wherever you'll see it, we're going to talk more about it in just a second.

But thirdly, Elijah was specific in his prayers.

Elijah was specific in his prayers. He simply didn't ask God to bless Israel, did he?

He was asking for rain. He was asking for a specific answer in response to his prayer.

Now, inside this little short journal, you'll see it says on the left,

and I started putting my prayer requests in early this morning,

some very specific ones.

And we don't want you to be like, bless Johnny today at school.

Okay, that's a great thing to pray, but you can't track that.

We want you to put specific prayer requests in here.

Write the date that you started praying in that left column.

And then there's a space. Write your specific prayer request in there.

And you pray and you work through your prayers every day.

And you're going to begin to see that right column where it says date answered.

You're going to see that begin to get filled out as you are consistent in your prayer life.

A few years ago, we've had several dryers go out over the years.

Being in ministry, I don't know that we've ever bought a new dryer.

We continually get new hand-me-downs, which is great. The Lord just provides for that.

But a few years, I think it was like four years ago, we were in the process

of planting Generations Church.

We had a used dryer that we had gotten from the pastor, pastor's wife in Philadelphia,

which was before, yeah, that was before, like Mason was two or three years old. We got this free dryer.

It has lasted us that long. Four years ago, it goes out.

Generations Church is just an idea at that point.

It's been planted in our hearts. We're beginning to pray about it. We have no money.

I'm leading worship part-time at a local church here.

And we just prayed, God, we need a dryer.

Specifically, today, we got wet clothes that need dried, and we need a dryer. And we prayed.

I kid you not, a couple hours later, I get a phone call, and this is what I

hear. Yo, what's up, Jay? hey, I got a weird question for you.

Do you know anyone that needs a dryer?

Can't make it up. I was like, in fact, we do.

Our dryer just went out this morning and we just prayed for a dryer.

He said, well, we're moving to Indiana and we just found out that the place

that we're renting from has a wash and dryer in it. So we need to get rid of our dryer.

We've already given our washer away, but it's yours if you want to.

I said, absolutely. Thank you, Lord. I'll be over.

I went over. I drove to Hudson where they were living, put it in my van,

put it back home. It was the same connector that we needed. It was same everything.

And we saw God answer that.

Specifically. Pray specifics. Write it down in your prayer journal and pray over it during the week.

Pray over it in the week. Now, was that just a freaky coincidence that my friend

was moving to Indiana and had a dryer that was perfect for us? No.

The very God who spoke creation, the God who spoke the universe,

cared about a specific need of my family.

And he cares about your specific needs as well.

The fourth thing we see about Elijah's prayer is that Elijah prayed in accordance with God's will.

Accordance with God's will. In other words, Elijah prayed for something he knew God wanted to do.

Well, how do you know he wanted to do that? Well, that's what scripture says.

1 Kings 18.1, it says, after a long time, the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year.

Go and present yourself to Ahab. And here's what God said. I will send rain

on the surface of the land.

See, God wanted to send rain on Israel.

That's the whole reason why Elijah came back. And if you look at some of the

more powerful scriptures in prayer,

you find that they mention either a specific promise that God has made or a

goal that God is known to favor or how answering this prayer would result in praise and glory to God.

And here we see that God's, this answer prayer would affect how they would be witnesses.

When we pray, we need to think about why God would want to answer this prayer.

That's what Jesus meant when he told his disciples in John 14,

14, if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Now you can't just, well, I'd like a new recording deal next week.

If you could hook me up with that. Boom.

And I ask it in Jesus' name. Yes, Lord. I also need a new fishing boat in Jesus' name.

That's not what he means. To ask for something in Jesus' name means you're asking

God for something that aligns with his will that he would want to do.

It means asking in alignment with his character and glory that is consistent

with scripture and God's purposes.

Asking with the desire to see his will accomplished on earth.

When you use this prayer journal, use it consistently, but use it specifically.

Lastly, Elijah prayed with the hope that his prayer would be a witness.

Notice that before Elijah prayed, he told Ahab, go sit down and eat.

Why do that? The challenge on the mountaintop was over, and this prayer was

just a preliminary before the rain came.

Ahab could have gone home, but I believe Elijah's prayer was also a witness to the king of Israel.

Ahab would have been sitting close to Elijah. He would have been watching as Elijah prayed.

He would have been watching as his servant ran to see the answer and come back

and no answer and continued prayer and no answer.

He watched all of these things.

The purpose of the drought and the confrontation on Mount Carmel and now the

purpose of this prayer was to change the hearts of the people.

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One of the things you're going to see over the next few weeks is that yes,

prayer changes circumstances yes, prayer meets needs prayer results in so much,

but prayer aligns our hearts,

to fall in line with the desires of God's heart.

The purpose was to change the hearts of the people and to change the heart of Ahab.

Because as wicked as King Ahab was, God still cared about his salvation.

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Mentioned this during worship earlier. She didn't know this.

James 5.16 says, the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.

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Other versions, the effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

You see, there are conditions that we're going to be talking about in the weeks to come.

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That align us and put us in a place where our prayers will be more powerful.

And it begins with righteousness.

The righteous just means those who align with God's will.

They're obedient to him. Their lives are yielded to him.

They submit to the word of God.

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It is those who earnestly strive to live according to God's purposes in God's

word and complete submission to it.

That their prayers move mountains.

If you want to have powerful prayers that are answered, some of you need to

find yourself in a place where you need to realign.

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Would you bow your head and close your eyes? We're going to do something after

the service that nobody knows about.

I just decided we're going to do it.

Team's going to come, and we're going to sing. They're going to sing a song.

But after the service, if you need prayer, if you have just a need,

we're going to come together we're going to circle up some chairs and if you

need prayer and you want to stay for prayer Bob's going to put on some soft

instrumental music and we're just going to pray,

and we're going to bring those specific prayers to God and I want to challenge

you this week, whatever you're praying for,

don't give up,

don't give up what you've been praying for a whole lifetime God can deliver

in one moment Heavenly Father,

I know there are so many needs in this place financial needs,

emotional needs, spiritual needs physical needs.

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But there's no need greater in our lives than to submit to you and if you've

never done that I just want to tell you what that means.

I like to say it's as easy as ABC. It's admitting that you're a sinner,

that your works are not good enough.

The Bible says not by works of righteousness, which you've done,

but only according to the blood of Jesus.

There is nothing you can do to win eternal life in heaven with Christ.

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