"In Good Conscience"
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22

Introduction: Illus.- In a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip Calvin is at home and calls his dad at work. “Hi, dad. It’s me, Calvin! How’s work going?…uh huh…pretty day out, isn’t it?…Yep….Are you bringing me home any presents tonight?…No? Well, just thought I’d ask….” And then in the last frame you see Calvin standing on the top of a ladder in the middle of the living room, with a wrench in his hand, water is all around him, and the water has almost reached the top of the ladder. And Calvin says to his dad: “Listen, I suppose you’re wondering why I called?”

When we do things wrong, we have the tendency to have a guilty conscience. Part of the guilty conscience comes from knowing that we have done wrong. But the other part is that we know that we have to go to God with our sin. It is tough to admit we have sin in our lives, and even tougher to humble ourselves before God. We want to do right. We want to be good. We want to make God proud!/ Yet, we don’t always do this. This morning I want us to look at the result of sin in Noah’s time, in Christ’s time, and in our time. On our second Sunday of Lent, I want us to understand that we are called to not only acknowledge our sin, and accept our sinfulness, but also turn to God all the more for forgiveness and direction.

I. In the time of Noah- (Genesis 6:5-6, Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:20)

a. The sin of people- In today’s world we can look around and see all

kinds of sin. Drug misuse. Alcoholism. Sex outside of marriage. People having affairs. People cheating on their taxes. Murder. Rape. And on and on it goes. It is quite a sinful world we live in. But we would be fooling ourselves if we think that people didn’t sin like this before our time. Back in Noah’s time it was quite sinful too. We read in Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” What a phrase: ‘every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil.’ These are the kind of people who sin, and don’t feel guilty in their conscience when they sin. They have become so hardened to sin, that it doesn’t seem wrong to them anymore.

God sees this sin, but even more sees the lack of remorse on the people’s part, and the scriptures tell us that “the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” People’s sin grieves God’s heart. Why? Because when we sin, we don’t just sin against other people, or sin against our environment; we sin against God! It is like one of my children being mean to the other; it doesn’t just hurt the other child, but it hurts me as a parent as well.

Side note here: this is one of the ways we can know that Jesus was God in the flesh, because when people came to Him, He forgave their sins. How did He have the right to forgive sins? Because He was God in the flesh, and the sins the people committed were sins against Him as well!!

So we see the wickedness of the people; we see how it breaks God’s heart. So what is the result? God decides to rid the earth of these sinful people. He is sorry He created them; He is sorry to see the way they are living; so He is going to wipe them out. But there is an out. God always gives us an out. God is going to have Noah and his family build an ark to protect them from the flood; Noah, who is considered a righteous man, because he walks with God, is going to help God. Noah is not righteous because he is sinless, but because he walks with God and seeks after God, and is forgiven by God for his wrongdoing.

b. A covenant and a sign- As we read in our scripture passage this

morning, after the flood has happened, God comes to Noah and affirms His relationship with His people in the form of a COVENANT and a SIGN. The covenant is God promising to never again destroy the world through a flood. The sign of this covenant will be a rainbow in the sky. A covenant and a sign. A covenant: a promise from God to not destroy people again. A visible, regular sign to remind us of this promise. This covenant and sign shows us God’s love and God’s commitment to restoring people to Himself.

Illus. (Amusing Grace, p. 361, #1233)- There is a story of a Sunday School teacher who was teaching one day on sin, and so she asked her class: “What are the sins of omission?” Thoughtfully a little girl answered: “They’re the sins we ought to have committed but haven’t thought of them yet.”

Sins of omission are actually sins that we don’t mention, or don’t try to

think about. They are sins we have committed, but try and forget or cover up.

Now, people might want to argue that God was not too loving when He brought the flood. But I believe that God actually gave people a chance. When Noah was building the ark, people asked Noah what he was doing. When Noah told them, these people could have repented, and joined in with Noah, and I believe that God would have made provision for them. But the people didn’t do that; they didn’t join in; they didn’t seek God; they didn’t feel guilt. They didn’t even remember their sins. And because of this, people were destroyed. The people got so caught up in their sin that they forgot to seek God. And the people were destroyed. All except those who sought God, and found God, and were saved by God.

II. In the time of Christ- (Psalm 51:1-12; 1 Peter 3:18-19, 21-22)

a. Sin continues- As time went on, sin continued. Even though Noah and

his family followed God, there again came a time when people started to stray away; there again came a time where people forgot about seeking God, and instead they sought after their sin. But even more, they forgot to come to God when they sinned; they no longer felt guilt in their conscience. And we know this to be true, because the Bible talks about it often.

You see, the difference in the Bible between those who find favor with God and those who don’t, are the ones who seek God for forgiveness when they sin. The ones who come to God to have their guilt removed are the ones who find favor with God, and whose guilt is not counted against them.

That is why we read these words in Psalm 51:1-12,

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to

your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. ⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. ⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. ⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. ⁹ Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

b. Christ comes- But there is a problem: the people started to rely too

much on the law; the law that was supposed to lead them to God almost became a God to them. They were so caught up in trying to follow the law that they made it difficult to find God. And so Jesus Christ came into the world. Jesus came into the world so that a perfect sacrifice could be made to cover our sins. Just as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:18- “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God…”/ Jesus came into the world to bring us to God by dying for our sins.

You see, our sinfulness separates us from God./ God, who is holy, can’t be in the presence of un-holiness. We can’t find God when we are in our sin. So we need someone to come and remove our un-holiness, remove our sinfulness so that we can come to God and find God. And that someone is Jesus Christ, the righteous. Through Jesus Christ we have our unrighteousness removed. We can be cleansed. We can have a new heart. We can have a good conscience. Because we know that when we sin, our sin leads us to the foot of the cross, where we can humble ourselves and seek forgiveness and cleansing.

And as 1 Peter 3:21 tells us- “And baptism, … now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”/ Anyone who has been baptized can be affirmed in knowing that in Jesus Christ, we have died to our sinful life, and been resurrected with Christ to a new life of forgiveness. It is not that the water washes away our sin, like water with dirt. The water is the sign (see here a sign again like the rainbow) a sign where God promises to covenant with us as His people. This is why you only have to be baptized once. The water is the sign of the promise. The work of God is done in and through the water by God.

III. In our time-

a. John Karmegan- STORY- “Belonging,” from Stories for the Heart, p. 23.

THERE is a true story about a man named John Karmegan. John Karmegan lived in Vellore, India, and John had leprosy. His leprosy was in an advanced stage. One day he came to the New Life Center, a Christian center for the ill in India. Because of his advanced stage of leprosy, he had facial paralysis on one side so he could not smile normally. When he tried to smile, the uneven distortion caused people to respond with a gasp or a gesture of fear. So John learned not to smile. John had grown to be paranoid of others, and it caused him great anger. This anger in fact showed itself in his becoming a troublemaker that included dishonesty and stealing. He not only treated outsiders cruelly, he treated patients cruelly as well, and tended to resist authority. People thought John was beyond rehabilitation./ But one day an older woman at the center befriended him, and told him about Jesus Christ, and about God’s love. Soon after, John became a Christian and was baptized in a cement tank on the grounds of the leprosarium./ At first his conversion didn’t change him much. He began to be nicer to the patients, but those outside the center he still was bitter against because of the years of mistreatment he had received./ One day John asked if he could go to the local church in Vellore. A leader from the center met with the minister and explained to him all about John and how his disease was not contagious at all. John was told that he could go to the church, and even drink from the communion cup with all the others./ The day he went to church for the first time was a very tense moment. How would others respond to him? Even one person showing him rejection could cause him to renounce his faith in God as being nothing but a sham. John was there with one of the leaders from the center, and they sat in the back. As they stood to sing the first hymn, one of the members turned around and saw John. His reaction? He smiled, and patted the chair next to him for John to come up and join him. And so John did./ That one smile and motion changed John’s life. In time John began to smile again, and John became an employee at the local factory. In fact, John got an award for the corporation’s all-India prize for the highest quality work.

b. Having a good conscience- Many who do not know Jesus Christ do

not have much of a conscience. They have hardened their hearts against God. This should cause us to want to share Christ with them as the woman shared Christ with John, and changed his life.

But what about Christians? Are they living changed lives like John Karmegan? Many Christians are not/ because they do not have a good conscience. They don’t feel like they belong. They allow their sin to make them feel as John Karmegan felt; like an outsider. They allow their sin to paralyze them with guilt, which causes them to feel like a leper./ But God longs for us to know that we are not outsiders; we are insiders. Through baptism, as a sign of the forgiveness we receive in Jesus Christ, we can know that we are loved, and we are forgiven, and we are accepted. Through communion we can know that Jesus has died for our sin and forgiven us. We can know that we belong in the kingdom of God!!

Conclusion: In a moment we will sing a hymn and then move to communion. If you have any sin in your life, don’t let it eat at you and make you feel guilty. Let your guilt be the vehicle that leads you to Christ, and know that because of His sacrifice on the cross, which was for you and for me, we receive forgiveness from all of our sins. And as we are forgiven, we are cleansed, and as we are cleansed, we are renewed, and as we are renewed, we are made pure and holy. Let the words of the hymn and the communion question and response prepare your heart and mind for the clean conscience God wants you to have. Don’t pass up this opportunity to have a good conscience. Come; let us be right with God, today and forever. Amen.

"Keep Circling"
Daniel 12:5-9
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Series: "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson

Introduction: A few years ago, after my dad died, my brother, sister, and I divided up many of his things. One thing that I took was his stationary bike with the thought that I’d someday use it. How many people have exercise equipment that they never use? Many, many people! The truth is, for a couple of years it just sat in my bedroom, unused. Then one day at a doctor’s visit my doctor told me I needed to get my heart-rate up for about 30 minutes a day. So, I decided to start riding the stationary bike. The next morning I got on the bike and started to ride. As I started to ride I found myself wondering if I could do this for thirty minutes. Three minutes into it I was already winded and wondering how I was going to make it for 30 minutes. Then I realized it was more in my head than in my body. I decided I would take it one minute at a time. And in that way I made it 30 minutes!

When we have a dream or a promise from God, it might seem impossible. But if we circle it, and take it one prayer at a time, we can live according to the words of Philippians 4:13: “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” With each prayer we are closer to the answer! Today we finish our series “The Circle Maker” talking about the need to keep circling.

I. God Answers Every Prayer-

a. In God’s timing- One of the great things about this series is that it has

reminded me that God doesn’t answer our prayers in our time frame. So often we want God to answer our prayers ASAP. That shouldn’t be our agenda, because quick answers could cause us to take God for granted and to mishandle the blessings. When the answers come too quickly, we often take the credit instead of giving God the glory. Even more, we need to understand that often times our prayer request doesn’t hit the bull’s-eye of God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will. So we must keep circling, and keep praying.

When you live by faith, it often feels like you are risking your reputation. What if you pray for something and God doesn’t come through? However, this is not you risking your reputation. This is you risking God’s reputation. It is about God’s faithfulness because God is the one who has made the promise. The battle doesn’t belong to you but to God. Since the battle is God’s, so is the glory.

Drawing prayer circles isn’t about proving yourself to God. It is about giving God the opportunity to prove Himself to you. I can’t promise that God will always give you the answer you want. I can’t promise He will answer you in your timeline. But I can promise that God will answer you every time, and He will keep His promises. That is who God is, and that is what God does!

Example- Many years ago there was an architect and visionary named Daniel Burnham who once said: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Daniel Burnham was the principal architect for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. He then set himself on the goal of Washington’s Grand Terminal.

It took an army of laborers an entire year, and four million cubic yards of fill dirt just to fill in the swamp that would become the foundation of what is now known as Union Station. Five years and $25 million dollars later, Burnham’s vision became a reality as the Baltimore Ohio Pittsburgh Express whistled into Union Station at 6:50 a.m. on October 27, 1907. He had made big plans, believed that this was what he was called to do, and he accomplished his big dream.

b. God is not surprised- Sometimes we act as though God is surprised by

the things that surprise us, but by definition, God, who is all-knowing cannot be surprised. God is always a step ahead, even when we feel like He’s a step behind. God has always got a holy surprise up His holy sleeve for you and me.

It is not unlike God to keep from answering our prayer for a time because not only does God want to take care of the situation, but He also wants to make sure we are prepared for the answer. In this time of waiting we can get discouraged. You might even be working like it depends on you and praying like it depends on God, and still God makes you wait. This is because God wants you to pray through; God wants you to trust in Him and pray with perseverance.

In these times of discouragement, we need to go back and analyze our motives. We need to look at our expectations. We need to analyze our timeline. We need to seek God for wisdom to see if our dream and prayer is in line with God’s will. We need to remind ourselves that God is not surprised by the fact that this is taking longer than we expected.

We should even put our situation into the proper perspective. What I mean by this is that if we have a dream, which has come out of our prayer time, and we circle this prayer, and we pray consistently, we can’t forget that we have now placed it in the hands of God. Once it is in the hands of God it will be taken care of by God in God’s own way. To get impatient, frustrated, or discouraged is really to try and take it back from God!

In these times I encourage you to remember a time when you prayed for something, and had to wait a long time for it to happen. As you think of this time you will then remember God’s faithfulness. As you remember God’s answer to you, you will then be able to rest in God’s peace knowing that all things will work out for the good!

II. Sealed Up to the End of Time- (Daniel 12:5-9; Genesis 1:3; Psalm 56:8; Luke 2:52; Psalm 84:11; Deuteronomy 33:16)

a. When the time comes- We see in our reading from Daniel, chapter 12

Daniel is experiencing this concept of thinking long, which we talked about last week. In this final vision that he has, he asks a question we all want an answer to: “My Lord, what will the outcome of all this be?” God gives Daniel an answer, but like God’s answers sometimes, it is a straight answer. Why is this? Sometimes it is far too complicated for our brains to understand, or maybe it is not for us to know.

So here is the answer that is given to Daniel: verse 9 says, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end.” God is basically saying to Daniel that when the time comes (the time of God, not the time of Daniel), the prayer will be unsealed and the answer revealed.

This leads us to understand that each prayer we pray is sealed and opened at the appropriate time. Our prayers never cease to exist because they aren’t subject to natural laws, but exist in the time frame and laws of God. The supernatural laws of prayer defy the natural laws of time and space. And even more, our prayers accumulate through eternity.

According to the Doppler Effect, our universe is still expanding. The significance is this: The four words that God spoke at the beginning of time, “Let there be light,” are still creating galaxies at the edge of the universe. If God can do that with four words, then what are we worried about? There is nothing that God cannot do. Don’t forget, God created everything out of nothing.

As God’s words never return void, so our prayers do not return void, especially when we pray the word of God and the will of God. The same God who hovered over the darkness and chaos of our planet at the beginning of time is hovering over your life and mine. The Lord is watching over His word to perform it.

So it doesn’t matter how long ago you prayed a prayer, God has not forgotten it. It doesn’t matter that you might have written it off long ago, if it is in God’s will, God will make it happen. This is the beauty of faith, and the beauty of prayer!

b. Collected tears- One of the most beautiful and powerful images in

Scripture is found in Psalm 56:8. It is one that begs us to circle it, and pray it, and not forget it. Let me read it to you from the New Living Translation: “You have collected all my tears in your bottle.”

There are many different kinds of tears that we cry. There are the tears shed by the mother of a sick child. There are the tears by the father who is getting ready to walk his daughter down the aisle of her wedding. There are the tears of the person who has just received notice that they have lost their job. There are the tears of a family who has just lost a loved one. Then there are the tears shed in prayer.

Each and every teardrop is precious to God. God does not take our tears lightly. They are eternal keepsakes to God. I have a folder where I keep all the cards and drawings my kids have given to me. God has a jar where He collects all of our tears. The day will come when He will wipe away every tear in heaven. Until then, God will move heaven and earth to honor every tear that has been shed. Not a single tear is lost on God.

SOMETIMES I STRUGGLE WITH FEAR.

My greatest fear is that my kids might someday walk away from the faith. I have learned to rebuke this fear because I can remember Luke 2:52, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” I can circle this verse and pray it for my kids.

SOMETIMES I STRUGGLE WITH DOUBT.

I struggle with the thought that I will mishandle the blessings of God. Then I remember Psalm 84:11, “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” All I have to do is stay humble and stay hungry.

SOMETIMES I STRUGGLE WITH FAITH.

I can be concerned that God is done doing miracles in my life. Thanks be to God for Deuteronomy 33:16 which tells me: “The favor of Him who dwelt in the burning bush” is upon me. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. Your life, and my life, and our church, is in the hands of God. Our prayers will be unsealed in God’s time, and He will answer them. All we have to do is to keep circling and keep praying.

III. It Only Takes One-

a. Honi- In the book Antiquities of the Jews, historian Josephus notes

the deeds of Honi the circle maker. He documents the first-century drought and points to Honi as Israel’s only hope. Josephus makes one statement that punctuates every turning point in history: “now there was one.” Josephus says,

“Now there was one, whose name was Onias (Honi), a righteous man

he was, and beloved of God, who, in a certain drought, prayed to God

to put and end to the intense heat, and whose prayers God had heard,

and had sent them rain.”

Honi stood alone. Then he knelt down in the circle he had drawn. And that is all it takes to change the course of history. Because at this point, Honi was the ONLY ONE who believed God would answer the prayer for rain. In the words of theologian Walter Wink, “History belongs to the intercessors.”

After the rain fell and the dust settled, Simeon ben Shatah, the ruling head of the Sanhedrin, who threatened excommunication, wrote to Honi:

“Were you not Honi, I should decree excommunication against you… But what can I do to you, for you act petulantly before the Omnipresent and He does whatever you want for you…A generation that was shrouded in darkness did you illuminate through your prayer…A generation that was sunk down you lifted up with your prayer…A generation that was humiliated by its sin you saved by your prayer.”

b. One Prayer Circle- Never underestimate the power of one person

praying. When you dream big, pray hard, and think long, there is nothing God cannot do. When you draw a circle and drop to your knees, you never know what God will do in and through your life. Prayer changes the forecast of your life. Prayer leads you to live out the will of God in your life.

You can’t overcome a fifty-foot wall, but you can march around Jericho. You can’t shut the mouths of lions, but you can drop to your knees and pray to the God who can. You can’t make it rain, but you can draw a circle in the sand and pray like it depends on God!

Don’t let what you cannot do keep you from doing what you can. Draw the circle. Don’t let who you are not keep you from being who you are. You are a child of God. You are beloved by God. You are the one Jesus died for on the cross. You are the one Jesus promised to never leave nor forsake. You are a circle maker!

You might ask, who me? I would answer, why not you? And even though one person can be a prayer warrior, it doesn’t hurt if you get others to pray with you. Israel had an army, so you can invite others to fight the battle with you through prayer. Together you can form a prayer circle.

At the end of our prayers we say, “Amen.” This means “so be it.” It signifies the end of a prayer. Don’t forget, the end of a prayer is the beginning of a dream. It is the beginning of a miracle. It is the beginning of a promise.

Conclusion: So we come to the end of our series. It has been a wonderful series. A reminder that prayer matters. A reminder that prayer is powerful. A reminder that God wants to tell us His dreams as we pray, and that He wants us to pray through these dreams. It has been a time of learning about what it means to dream big, pray hard, and think long. It has led us to understand that God is a big God, and wants us to prayer for things that are beyond us; beyond our resources; beyond our capabilities. It is the lesson that God calls for us to persevere in our prayers and to not give up until God has fulfilled His will in us. It has been a time where we are challenged to pray for things beyond our lifetime for the generations that follow us.

So, I hope that this series has challenged you in a way that leads you to pray for faithfully, more thoroughly, and with more intensity. I hope you will start seeking God’s will for your life and our church in and through your prayers. And I hope that it leads us to pray more as a church together. So let’s not forget:

DREAM BIG; PRAY HARD; THINK LONG. Amen.

"Think Long"
Daniel 9:1-6, 20-23
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Series: "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson

Introduction: In the last two weeks we have talked about dreaming big, and praying hard. We learned about how Honi the sage, who in a time of drought decided to draw a circle, kneel down in it, and pray for rain. He did not stop praying for rain until God brought them rain! We have talked about how when we pray within God’s will, God will answer. When we understand God’s promises, and pray for these in our lives, then God will respond. But we must not give up hope when we pray.

There is another story of Honi, who near the end of his life was walking down a dirt road, when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Curious of why the man was planting the tree he asked, “How long will it take this tree to bear fruit?” The man replied, “Seventy years.” Honi then asked, “Are you quite sure you will live another seventy years to eat its fruit?” The man responded, “Perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren…”

This encounter changed how Honi prayed. He realized that praying is like planting. Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. It will eventually bear fruit, if not for him, then for future generations. Our prayers will outlive us. That is what it means to “Think Long,” which is what we will be talking about today.

I. Thinking Ahead- (Daniel 9; Psalm 5:1-2)

Example- On the Swedish island Visingso, there is a mysterious forest of oak trees; mysterious because oak trees aren’t indigenous to the island. The origin of these oak trees was unknown for more than a century. Then in 1980, the Swedish Navy received a letter from the Forestry Department reporting that their requested ship lumber was ready. The Navy didn’t even know it had ordered lumber. It turns out that in 1829, the Swedish Parliament, recognizing that it takes oak trees 150 years to mature, and anticipating a shortage of lumber at the turn of the twenty-first century, ordered 20,000 oak trees planted on Visingso and protected for the Navy! THAT IS THINKING LONG.

a. The change of prayer- When it comes to prayer, we need to

understand that prayer doesn’t just change circumstances; more important it changes us. It alters both our external realities and our internal realities. It enables us to see beyond our circumstances, beyond ourselves, and beyond time!

Think about the prophet Daniel. Daniel was someone who was committed to prayer. In fact, even when prayer was outlawed, Daniel continued to pray. Three times a day Daniel would pray. Daniel even prayed with his windows open so that everyone could see him praying. Few people have prayed with more consistency or intensity than Daniel.

When we talk about thinking long, we see that Daniel was one who did just this. Daniel had a big dream of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Daniel understood that this dream would probably not be fulfilled during his lifetime. But he prayed for it just the same. When he prayed, he would make sure he was facing the city of Jerusalem, knowing that even though he wouldn’t see it with his physical eyes, yet he saw it with his spiritual eyes. Daniel knew all this because God had given him a prophecy that it would take “seventy years” for the desolation of Jerusalem to come to an end.

Daniel never stopped dreaming this dream, and never stopped praying this prayer. Daniel gives us a great example of thinking long. That is what prophets do, because the nature of their prophecies is that they will not happen until far into the future. Yet, Daniel had an even greater dream, and that was the second coming of Christ. Understand that I am not saying/ the first coming of Christ/ that we already know about, and talk about at Advent season. I am talking about the second coming of Christ, when Christ will come down from heaven and appear AGAIN! Daniel’s prayers and prophecies were about the blessings we will reap when Christ returns.

Hear the answer to Daniel’s prayer in Daniel, chapter 9. In verse 25 Daniel is told: “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’” In this verse Daniel is told about both the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the coming again of Christ, which will happen long into the future.

When we try and pray like Daniel, it can be seen as long and boring. You draw a prayer circle, you circle the promise of God, and you start to pray. But what if you are praying for something that won’t happen in your lifetime. How do you get excited about that? You get excited, because you know that God is a God of eternity, to whom time has a much different meaning. God hears our prayers now, and will answer them in the future. We get excited knowing that our prayer will change us inside, and will change the external reality in the future. It is simply about praying with faithfulness.

b. Praying on your knees- Daniel was one of the most brilliant

men of all time. Daniel was able to explain riddles and solve problems unlike anyone in his generation. Daniel had the most amazing dreams from God, and God gave him the gift to interpret dreams as well. But what really set Daniel apart was the fact that he would regularly humble himself before his God by getting down on his knees and praying! With his prayers he brought kings and kingdoms to their knees.

Daniel was not one to pray just when he needed God’s help. Daniel was one who prayed every day. I’m sure Daniel was praying when he was in the lion’s den, face to face with a hungry lion, but he approached every day and every prayer with the same intensity. Yet, it was his prayer posture, of getting down on his knees, that was the true power of his prayer.

Daniel was a person who in essence was a prisoner of war. Babylon came and besieged Jerusalem, and in doing so took many of the people back to Babylon; Daniel being one such person. But Daniel ultimately was placed in the position of Prime Minister. How does one move from captive, to Prime Minister? Only by God, and only through prayer.

Prayer invites God into the equation like no other act that we do. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. If you will humble yourself and get down on your knees to pray to God, then you never know what God will do in and through your life, or what you will do, or who you will meet.

While you can pray standing up, lying down, or walking, our posture sets the tone for our prayers. If your words are what you say in your prayer, your posture is how you say it. There is a reason that one of the postures the Bible talks about in prayer is kneeling. When we kneel, we help our heart and mind to understand the seriousness of prayer, and our status to God.

When I extend my hands in worship, it symbolizes my surrender to God. When we kneel down in prayer, we show that we desire to be humble before God, and that the only reason we can even come to God in prayer is because of the great work that Christ did for us on the cross!

Now don’t misunderstand me. There is nothing magical about kneeling in prayer. When you kneel it doesn’t make your prayers more powerful. But it is biblical, and it is helpful for our mental state. When we practice this prescribed posture, we are saying something to God about our hearts, and we are saying something to God about our faith.

The Bible is very clear that Daniel prayed three times a day, upstairs in his room, down on his knees. He opened the window to Jerusalem. He did this because Daniel was facing towards his dream. His physical posture matched his mental posture. It was his way of staying focused. And when we get on our knees, it helps us to stay focused.

It is also about developing a daily rhythm with God. As King David said in Psalm 5:1-2, “Give ear to my words O Lord. Consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my king and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation.” Every morning we should pray to God. During the day we should find time to pray to God. Before we end our day we should pray to God. Develop this daily rhythm, and like Daniel, you might try kneeling when you pray.

II. Our Goal List- (Mark 9:29)

a. The faith barrier- On October 14, 1947 a four-engine B-29

plane took off in the California desert. Attached to its belly was a Bell X-1 experimental plane piloted by Chuck Yeager. At 25,000 feet the X-1 dropped from the fuselage and its rocket engine fired up. It then ascended to 42,000 feet… As the plane approached Mach 1, it began to shake violently. As Yeager’s plane hit Mach .965 the speed indicator went haywire. At Mach .995 the g-force blurred his vision and turned his stomach. Then, just as it seemed the plane would disintegrate, there was a loud sonic boom followed by an almost instantaneous and eerie silence. As the plane crossed the sound barrier, 761 miles per hour, the air pressure shifted from the front of the plane to the back. Yeager reached Mach 1.07 before cutting his engines and coming back down to land the plane. The unbreakable sound barrier had been broken!

Just as there is a sound barrier, so there is a faith barrier. The only way to break the faith barrier is through prayer. You must “pray through”. As you get close to a breakthrough things might start to seem as if they are coming apart. If you allow your disappointments to create a drag, your doubts will nosedive your dreams. To break the faith barrier at these challenging times you must pray through!

Similar to that sonic boom that Chuck Yeager heard when he broke the sound barrier, we will experience a boom in our spirits when that moment comes, where we know God has answered our prayer. In that moment, frustration and confusion give way to quiet confidence. You are at peace and experiencing calm, because you know it is out of your hands and in the almighty hands of God.

There are times when we need something more than prayer to get past the faith barrier. This something is fasting. Jesus told His disciples, in Mark 9:29, in referring to how evil spirits can be cast out: “He replied, ‘This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting.’” Some miracles are only accessible by prayer AND fasting. It takes the combination of the two to unlock the spiritual power we need to accomplish the work of God in and through our lives. If you have never fasted, I encourage you to combine your prayer times with a time of fasting. It is wonderful to see how God works through the combination of these disciplines.

b. Life list- Have you ever made a life list? In 1940, a fifteen-

year-old named John Goddard did. He listed 127 life goals. This was no ordinary list. By the time he was 50 he had achieved 108 of his 127. Listen to some of what he accomplished: milk a poisonous snake; skin-dive to forty feet and hold breath two and a half minutes underwater; study primitive culture in Borneo; land on and take off from an aircraft carrier; light a match with a .22 rifle; circumnavigate the globe; and on and on his list goes!

The truth is, goal setting is a great way of doing what we have talked about thus far in our series: dreaming big, praying hard, and thinking long. Goals are the cause and effect of praying hard. The more you pray, the more God-sized goals you’ll be inspired to go after. But prayer doesn’t just inspire godly goals, it also ensures that you keep praying hard because the only way you’ll accomplish a God-sized goal is to pray! Prayers naturally turn into goals, and goals naturally turn into prayers. Goals give you a prayer target. As I have talked much about dreaming big, praying hard, and thinking long, let’s take the rest of our time to get practical…

1. Start with prayer. Your goals should come from your prayer time.

The reason for this is that through your prayer time God will direct you to the goals He wants you to have. And as we talked about before, it is when our goals are in line with God’s will that God will say “yes” to our dreams.

The other night I was praying and I felt God give me two dreams: grow the church with those who need Jesus; and that God would bring a family to the church that would be healed and strengthened through Him. I am now circling these goals and praying for them to happen!

2. Check your motives. If you set selfish goals, God is not going to give

them to you. You need to take a long, honest look in the mirror and make sure you’re going after your goals for the right reasons.

At the last Session meeting someone mentioned how we need more people in our church. I asked them why? They then said that we need to be fulfilling our mission statement of bringing people to know Jesus Christ. God will honor this goal. God doesn’t want us just to bring lots of people to church. God wants people to come to know Him and have their lives changed because of knowing Him!

3. Think in categories. This will help make sure your goals are balanced.

You might divide your goals into the categories of: family, those who you can influence; your physical well being; and your spiritual well being. Then have God lead you into what He wants for you in each of these categories.

4. Be specific. If a goal isn’t measurable, then there is no way of knowing

if you have accomplished it. For example, losing weight isn’t a goal, unless you will be satisfied with losing just one pound. List the specific amount you want to lose. Going back to my goal of growing the church with people who need Jesus, that should become more specific for me as I pray more about it so I know what God desires. Should it be 2 people, or 200 people? I need God to guide me in this.

5. Write it down. There is a good saying, which goes like this: “The

shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.” What this means is, that when you just try and remember it, it will easily leave your thoughts. But if you write it down and put it in a place where you see it regularly, then you will be constantly reminded of it and where you stand with it. This is then combined with the next one…

6. Include others. At some point it is important to verbalize your goals

with someone that you trust. Nothing cements a relationship like a shared goal. This person can encourage you in your goal, pray for you in your goal, and help to keep you accountable in your goal. This way, you will be less likely to forget about the goal and you will not give up so easily.

7. Celebrate along the way. This is what I like about our new “praise

report” sheets! These praise reports allow us to give thanks to God for answered prayer. It is always energizing to see the success that we have in achieving our goals. It is also helpful to our faith and our dreams when we see that God is leading us forward by achieving what He has placed on our hearts.

8. Dream big. Our dreams fall into the categories of both short-term and

long-term; small and big. It is important to make sure that you have some big dreams on your list. It isn’t a goal that is big/ for the sake of being big. It is a goal that is big because you know this is what God wants to accomplish through you!

9. Think long. Most of us overestimate what we can accomplish in the

next year, and in the next two years. If we want to dream big, then we have to think long. We have to have dreams that will take years to achieve, or might not be achieved until after we are gone. We might have dreams that start with us, where we just plant the seed and get it going.

10. Pray hard. Goal setting begins AND ENDS with prayer. God-

ordained goals are conceived in the context of prayer, and prayer is what brings them to full term. You need to keep circling your goals in prayer. As you circle your goals, it not only creates God-ordained opportunities, it also helps us to recognize God-ordained opportunities.

Conclusion: I love this thought of “thinking long.” I love it because like Honi, it has stretched my thinking about how I am called to dream and pray. If I don’t put this concept of thinking long into my life, then I will be fearful of having big dreams, because I won’t believe that my actions today will lead God to do a great work beyond my lifetime. I will lose the perspective that a seed planted today becomes fruit somewhere down the road. I hope you are challenged today to dream big, pray hard, and think long. Amen.

"Pray Hard"
Luke 18:1-8
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Series: "The Circle Maker," by Mark Batterson

Introduction: Today we are in week two of our 4 week series on Mark Batterson’s book “The Circle Maker.” Last week we talked about God wanting us to dream big, and pray big. However, we need to understand that the dreams that we have need to come from God to us. As we understand God’s will for our lives, and what God wants to do in and through our lives, we then pray for this believing that God will answer our prayers.

God wants us to believe that we can achieve big things, because we have a big God walking with us. God wants us to believe that we can accomplish whatever is within God’s will in spite of what might seem like limited resources. God wants to work in and through our lives for the purpose of bringing glory to His name.

Today we are going to look at how God wants us to pray hard!

I. Being Persistent- (Luke 18:1-8)

a. The habit of persistence- More than a decade ago a man named

Anders Ericsson and some of his colleagues at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music did a study with the musicians. They divided the violinists into three groups: worldclass soloists, good violinists, and those who were unlikely to play professionally. All of them started playing at roughly the same age and practiced about the same amount of time until the age of eight. At this point there was a divergence in their practice habits. The researchers found that by the age of twenty, the AVERAGE players had only put in about four thousand hours of practice time, the GOOD violinists totaled about eight thousand hours, and the elite performers practiced for ten thousand hours! While innate talent has something to do with it, effort had an even greater effect on making someone really good.

As Neurologist Daniel Levitin says: “The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again…No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time…”

Should prayer be any different? Should we expect to be expert prayers and yet not develop a habit of persistent prayer? Habits need to be cultivated and practiced. Prayer is no different. This is what we talked about last week when we talked about praying through. It isn’t about praying just once. It is about praying over and over again. Prayer is a discipline that needs to be developed; a skill to be practiced. The bigger the dream, the harder you must pray!

b. Persistently praying the promises of God- Take the widow we just

read about. Luke 18:1 says, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” This parable Jesus told is for the purpose of teaching us that prayer is something we should do with persistence. Jesus uses the example of a woman persistently bugging a judge to get justice against her adversary. Because of her persistence the judge granted her justice! She got what was right to come to her because of her persistence. Then Jesus says in verse 7: “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?”

Another example of this is Elijah. During the prophet Elijah’s life there was a drought. This drought lasted three years. Then the Lord promised Elijah that He would send rain, but it would require Elijah to pray. So Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel, fell on his face, and prayed for rain. Six times Elijah told his servant to look toward the sea, but each time there was no sign of rain! This is when most of us give up. We have prayed a few times, nothing seems to happen, we doubt God will act, and so we stop. But Elijah didn’t stop. He prayed a seventh time. In essence, Elijah was saying, “I will not move from here until God answers.” After the seventh time Elijah’s servant saw a small cloud.

What if Elijah had stopped after six times? The obvious answer is that Elijah and his people would not have experienced the miracle of rain. But Elijah did pray through, and God came through! The sky turned black and the raindrops fell for the first time in three years.

The reason many of us give up too soon is that we feel like we have failed if God doesn’t answer our prayer. That isn’t failure. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN FAIL IS IF YOU STOP PRAYING.

II. God’s Favor on us- (Psalm 84:11, 23:6)

a. Standing on the promises of God- The Bible tells us that the Lord is

watching over His word to perform it. There is nothing that God loves more than keeping His promises. He is actively watching and waiting for us to simply take Him at His word. He promises to forgive us when we confess, but we must pray. He promises to not leave us nor forsake us, but we must pray. He promises to take care of our needs, but we must pray.

Praying hard is standing on the promises of God. And when we stand on His word, God stands by His word. His word is His bond. We sometimes think that we are asking too much of God, but if it is in accordance to His will, it is never too much. As Psalm 84:11 says, “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” A good prayer to pray persistently is for us to walk uprightly.

Don’t think that God is holding out or holding back. It is not in God’s nature to withhold any good thing from us. He doesn’t bless us in our disobedience, but He will definitely bless us in our obedience! If we take God at His work, we will joyfully discover that God wants to bless us far more than we imagine. And God’s capacity to give is far greater than our capacity to receive.

Listen to the first half of Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life…” When we walk in a right relationship with God, God will make sure that His goodness and mercy will follow us; be ever upon us. How could we ever doubt God’s intentions once we really come to know who God is and what God wants to do? God reminds us time and time again of His promises; His promises which He wants to fulfill for you and me!!

b. The favor of God- I hope you agree with me that the greatest

moments in life, are the moments when God intervenes on our behalf, and blesses us way beyond what we expect or deserve. When this happens, it is a humble reminder of God’s sovereignty. It is when God bestows His favor on us.

As I was writing this, I stopped to think of one of these moments. The first thought that came to my mind was when Tami and I got pregnant with Tyler. We had been trying to get pregnant for about 2 years, with no success. Then, out of the blue, in the midst of moving to Colorado, setting up our house, getting established at my first pastoral ministry, in a time you would think would be very stressful, we found out Tami was pregnant. Tami and I immediately thanked God, because we knew that this was God’s favor bestowed on us!

When God’s favor comes upon us, it doesn’t mean that we won’t still go through challenging periods. It was very challenging to find out month after month Tami wasn’t pregnant. It took great perseverance to continue to pray for this in the midst of it not happening. But when you pray in this way you begin to pray like it depends on God. The more it doesn’t happen, the more we have to pray, and the harder we have to pray. And as we patiently wait, we will come to experience God’s miracles taking place.

III. The Promptings of the Holy Spirit- (Acts 12)

a. The answer as we pray- Sometimes we are led to pray, and while we

are praying God is working on the prayer to be answered. There is a great example of this in the book of Acts, chapter 12. In this chapter King Herod decided he was going to arrest many Christians, including Peter. The church started to pray for Peter’s release. The night before Herod was going to bring Peter to trial, while Peter was sleeping between 2 soldiers, an angel of the Lord appeared, woke Peter up, and caused the chains to fall off his wrists. The angel told Peter to follow him, which he did, but Peter didn’t know what was really happening. Peter thought he was just seeing a vision. Peter followed the angel past 2 guards and the angel then opened the iron gate leading to the city. At this Peter knew that this was all the Lord’s doing in answer to the church praying for him. Once he realized this he went to the house where the church would be praying. Let me pick it up for you in Acts 12:13, “Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. ¹⁴ When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!” ¹⁵ “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” ¹⁶ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. ¹⁷ Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison.”

While the church was still praying for Peter to be released from prison, Peter was standing at the door of the house where they were praying!! They had been prompted by the Spirit to pray, and the answer to their prayer came to them while they were still praying. They weren’t expecting God to answer in that way. They probably thought that Peter would go to trial, and there would be a long fight, and in time, Peter would be released.

In the Old Testament, when the people were hungry as they wandered in the wilderness, Moses prayed to God for food. What did God do? He provided manna for them. As God told Moses, the manna would come down from heaven at the start of each day, and they would have ‘just enough’ for that day. The manna was a daily reminder of their daily dependence on God./ We are prompted to pray, and God provides, but too often we don’t think that God provides enough, and because of this we miss that God has answered our prayer!

b. Prayer is hard- We are talking in today’s sermon about praying hard,

but we forget that prayer can be hard. It is hard to pray for something that doesn’t exist yet. It is hard to pray when there doesn’t seem to be any answers. It is hard to pray when things don’t make sense, or when your life isn’t working out very well.

One reason many people get frustrated spiritually is that they feel like it should get easier to do the will of God. The will of God does not get easier the longer you are a Christian. The reason it doesn’t get easier, is because the more you understand about God’s will, and prayer, and how they relate together, the more you realize you have to pray. You realize that you have to pray hard for God’s will to come about.

God will keep putting you in situations that stretch your faith, and as your faith stretches, so do your dreams. As God brings about each dream, you start to have bigger and bigger dreams. Therefore, the will of God actually gets harder and more complicated. But complications, and God’s answers to these complications are evidence of God’s blessings!

When you hear the word complication, what do you think? Many people think that complications are bad, but this is not always true. There are actually good complications. When Tami and I got married, our lives became more complicated, because we had to learn how to live together, and work together, and compromise our lives for each other. And when we had children our lives got even more complicated. But I would not trade these complications for anything!

This is true of our spiritual life as well. Blessings not only bless us, but they also complicate our lives. But they complicate our lives in ways that God wants our lives to be complicated. When I became pastor of this church, it was a blessing, but it also has its complications. When we pray for God’s will to happen, and it happens, that opens a door for God to use us all the more. So our prayer should be: “Lord, complicate my life.”

For example, I have recently had the conversation with a couple of people who told me they prayed to God for patience. We know that this is definitely in God’s will for our lives, because the Bible often talks about us needing patience; patience is a fruit of the Spirit. But, to grow in the ability to have patience means that you have to go through situations that will potentially cause you to be impatient. So this prayer, and the blessing of God giving us patience, actually complicates our life and makes it more challenging!

IV. Unanswered prayer is an answer- (Deuteronomy 29:29)

a. When God answers “no”- Some of the hardest moments in life are

when you’ve prayed hard, but the answer is no. Usually, if we don’t get what we pray for, we think God isn’t listening, or that God didn’t answer our prayer. But we have to remember that “no” is an answer. I know that I answer “no” to my kids’ requests all the time. Why do I answer no? Because it isn’t the right time for them, or it isn’t the right experience for them, or because they need to earn it, or because there is something else they need to be doing!

The question I have for you is this: Do you trust that God is for you even when He doesn’t give you what you ask for? Do you trust that God’s ways are better than your ways and God’s understanding better than yours?

Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” There are secret things, some mysteries in life that won’t be revealed to us until we get to heaven. I don’t understand why God won’t heal my back. I don’t understand why some people, who I think would be great parents, can’t get pregnant, while others who aren’t good parents do. There are many questions that come to us because of prayers that are answered “no” by God.

However, sometimes prayers that God answers “no” to, provide opportunities for God to answer “yes” to something else. Ruth Graham, the wife of the great evangelist Billy Graham, says that she almost got married twice before she said “yes” to Billy Graham. Both of them would agree that God’s answer of “no” to others, was in the end a great blessing!

b. Just in Time- All of us love miracles. However, we don’t like being in

situations where a miracle is needed. You don’t want to find yourself between an Egyptian army and the Red Sea. We want God to provide for our need before we even know we need it. But sometimes God tells us to “wait.” Sometimes God leads us to a place where we have nowhere to turn but to Him; our only option is to trust Him. So why does God wait until the very last second to make His move?

Praying hard is trusting that God will fight our battles for us. Praying hard means that we take our hands off the challenges we face and put them in the hands of God. Praying hard is believing that God can handle what we give to Him. And the truth is, He can! The hard thing is to keep our hands off of them once we have given them over to God.

We have a sanctuary that can hold over 200, but each Sunday we have 50-60 people. I can’t solve this problem on my own, I need you, and we all need God. We come up short about $2,000-$3000 in our collection every month. I can’t make up that difference. These are challenges that I must, we must hand over to God. But once we hand it over, we must PRAY HARD!

The exciting thing is to see God answer our prayers when we pray hard; when we pray persistently. Sometimes God needs to take us to the brink of death for us to admit we need Him. Sometimes God will close doors so that we have to trust Him to open the ones that need to be opened; doors we wouldn’t have even thought of opening had we not had the other doors close.

Conclusion: Remember the words of Daniel Levitin: “No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time (than 10,000 hours of practice).” How often do you pray? When you pray, do you pray with great energy and faith, or do you just go through the motions? Do you pray persistently, or do you give up easily? Do you allow the challenges of life to cause you to trust God all the more, or do you let them cause you to question and doubt God? I encourage you to pray persistently, pray with faith, PRAY HARD. Amen.