Speaker: To Psalm 119, for example, uh, verse 33, we just
recently covered this passage.
The psalmist says, "Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes,
and I will keep it to the end."
In, in fact, this whole section, "Give me understanding.
Lead me in the path of your commandments.
Incline my heart to your testimonies.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things."
What is the psalmist doing here?
What is he doing?
He's talking to God.
What do we call that?
This is not a trick question, y'all.
He's praying.
Psalm 119, so much of it is a prayer.
Verse 65, "You have dealt well with your servant."
Who's he talking to?
Come on.
God.
We're gonna get into this thing this morning, church.
We're gonna have some fun.
We're gonna study God's Word.
He's talking to the Lord.
And what's he doing there?
He's, he's praying, right?
He's communicating to God.
And so as we see in Psalm 119 so many different times, there are all of these,
these sections where he is praying to the Lord, where he is going to the
Lord, where he is beseeching the Lord and requesting things of the Lord.
And so if we are gonna get the most out of Psalm 119, we need to understand
that we have to be a prayerful people.
Uh, Psalm 119:133, "Keep steady my steps according to your promise.
And let no iniquity, let no sin get dominion, get mastery,
get, get lordship over me."
That's a prayer I think all of us would wanna pray, r- right?
We would wanna say, "Lord, keep steady my steps according to your Word.
I, I wanna walk faithfully in the path that you've called me to walk.
And Lord, I don't, I don't want any sin to get mastery over my life."
That's a great prayer to bring to the Lord.
But I want us to talk about prayer in general this morning.
Uh, prayer is, is something that can be so powerful, and you'll notice, uh, the,
the title for this sermon is "Prayers that Change the World," and you might
think that that's rather ambitious.
And maybe you're looking for some quotes from E.M.
Bounds or f- some quotes from Charles Spurgeon or s- some quotes from Amy
Carmichael or George Müller or some people like that, that you know about because you
know that they were people, men and women of great prayers, and they were men and
women who did in fact change the world.
But what I want to suggest to you this morning is that prayers
that change the world are often prayed by people who won't.
Meaning, they're often prayed by people like you and me.
I don't mean to offend you.
Maybe you'll change the world.
But generally speaking, I think the majority n- of us in this room are,
are gonna live our lives, hopefully faithfully walking with the Lord, we're
gonna die, and then in a couple of generations we're gonna be forgotten.
But in the meantime, while we're here, if we pray to the God of creation,
the one that we just sang about, if we pray to that God, that what, what
we'll find is that we can indeed pray prayers that can change the world.
Back in 2007, my mom got me a Kindle, and it was the first Kindle
edition that was ever released.
A- and my mom is not the most techy person on the face of the
planet, and so she was out in front of the tech curve on this one.
I had not heard of what this thing was.
I remember opening it and looking at it and thinking, "What in the world is this?
It looks like a, a weird-looking PDA," if you remember PDAs back in the day.
I'm dating myself there, too.
Uh, but, but here's the thing.
I didn't realize what I had.
A- and so that first Kindle that I had, I really didn't use it.
Uh, y- you probably have the Kindle app on your phone now.
In fact, Amanda and I were flying back from California yesterday, and this sweet
lady was sitting next to us on the plane.
And Amanda had the actual Kindle device that she has, and she was reading that,
and this lady leaned over to her and she said, "Can I ask you a personal question?"
Which is always great to get on the plane, right?
What is this gonna be about?
And she says, "What is that?"
And she points at the Kindle.
And Amanda said, "I- it, it's a Kindle."
And she goes, "Oh, I have that on my phone.
I have the Kind…"
She had the, uh, the Southern, most Southern accent we,
I've heard in a long time.
"I, I have that on my phone."
And Amanda was like, "Yeah."
And she, she was like, "Well, th- so that's just the Kindle."
And Amanda said, "Yeah, that's, that's actually how it started."
And she said, "Well, I'm adding that to my Christmas list."
So hopefully she's gonna get a Kindle.
But I didn't know what I had.
I didn't realize the, the, the power that was there in that singular
device, that I could store thousands of books right there at my fingertips.
And so what happened is I just didn't use it.
Y'all, that is prayer in the lives of so many Christians today.
The most powerful resource, i- perhaps the most powerful resource that
God has given you as a Christian is prayer, and yet we just don't use it
Think about it.
Prayer has access to a God who is all-powerful, who can do anything,
who is omniscient and all-knowing and all-wise, and yet so often
we just leave it on the shelf
Listen, y'all, if we're gonna pray prayers that change the world, we have
to begin by understanding why we need prayer in the first place, and that's
what I wanna show us this morning from somebody who may have been the one that
wrote Psalm 119, and that is King David.
So take your Bibles over to 2 Samuel chapter 5.
2 Samuel chapter 5
2 Samuel chapter 5, David has just become the king of Israel.
He was the king of Judah, but remember Ishbosheth had his
little two-year rebellion there.
Well, Ishbosheth was assassinated and all of Israel has just come together
and they have made David their king.
And so David is now king, but David's not gonna have a long honeymoon
period as the king of Israel because pick up with me in verse 17.
Verse 17 it says this in chapter 5, "When the Philistines heard that David had
been anointed king over Israel, all the Philistines went up to search for David.
But David heard of it and went down to the stronghold.
Now the Philistines had come out and spread out in the valley of Rephaim.
And David inquired of the Lord, 'Shall I go up against the Philistines?
Will you give them into my hand?'"
And so here's what's happening.
David has taken the throne.
He's king over all Israel, and the Philistines, they knew King David.
How did they know King David?
Well, recall that when David was running from Saul, one of the places that David
sought refuge was with the Philistines.
You remember that.
In fact, him and his men lived amongst the Philistines for a while
in Ziklag, and they were going out and they were winning battles.
And, and so the Philistines knew David's leadership power, and they
also knew his military prowess.
And so David takes over as the king of all Israel now, and the Philistines are
thinking to themselves, "We have to put this new king and this new nation that
he's ruling down before they get too powerful because we know who David is."
And so the Philistines come and they draw up for battle, it says
here, in the valley of Rephaim.
A- and so even while he's still settling in, he's still getting the, the wallpaper
up on the, the walls of his palace, trying to figure out how he wants to arrange
his office, which is a super important thing, by the way, to figure that out and
maybe rearrange it once or, or 100 times depending on your, your spirit there.
David is just still settling into the kingship and here come the Philistines.
What did David do?
Did he throw up his hands in frustration and say, "God,
are you kidding me right now?
Can't a guy catch a break?
After all, y- you anointed me with Samuel, and then all I've been doing
is running from Saul, and then Saul finally dies, and then here's this
Ishbosheth guy, and now the Philistines.
Come on, God.
Can't I just get a break, please?"
All right, he doesn't do that.
Does he get angry?
Does he lose heart?
Does he just grow discouraged and say, "Okay, I quit.
I'm not gonna be king.
I don't wanna do this anymore.
This life is too hard.
I've been facing just opposition after opposition after opposition.
This life is so hard.
God must not really love me, because all I'm facing is trials, so I'm
just going to pout and sit in the corner with my arms crossed."
All right, he doesn't do that either.
What does he do?
It says in the text that he sought the Lord.
It says, "Shall I go up against the Philistines?
Will you give them into my hand?"
King David sees the enemy draw up for battle in front of him, and he
assesses the situation and realizes the threat that's posed by them.
And make no mistake, the, the Philistines were not a pushover.
And so David sees the Philistine army draw up for battle against him and
against Israel, and he sits there and he assesses the threat and he realizes
there is an enemy that exists out there, and David says, "I need the Lord."
You and I have an enemy, not the Philistines, but it's the enemy that we
talked about not long ago in 1 Peter 5:8.
You and I have an enemy that's prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking
someone to devour, and you're on the menu.
And hey, if you're not gonna pray, you are going to be beset.
You are going to be attacked.
You are going to be oppressed.
You are gonna be sidelined by this enemy who wants nothing more than
to hinder your walk with Christ.
So one of the first reasons we have to be desperate to pray prayers that change the
world is because we have a real enemy.
Rely on prayer to overcome a real enemy.
Rely on prayer to overcome a real enemy
We, we talked about this back in 1 Peter 5:8, but let me just
remind you did Satan go after Job?
Yes.
Yes, he did.
Did Satan go after Peter?
Yes, he did.
"Peter, Satan has demanded to have you, to sift you."
Did, did Satan go after Paul?
What did Paul say?
"I have a thorn in the flesh, which is a messenger from Satan," right?
Yes.
Did, did Satan go after Joshua, the high priest, back in Zechariah?
That one may be a little bit more obscure, but yes, he did.
He was accusing Zechariah.
A- and then in Luke chapter 13, we find the woman who was
bound by Satan for 18 years.
In Revelation, Satan is called the accuser of the brethren.
Your brethren, by the way.
I know we don't use that language, but the accuser of the brothers and sisters, the
accuser of the, the faithful, the saints.
And I talked about it back then, but y- you may not have Satan specifically
targeting you, but I, I wouldn't be surprised to, to find out that, that one
of his demons is targeting you, that he's been assigned you to study you, to know
your weaknesses, and to come after you.
You have a real enemy.
You have a roaring, ravenous lion, and you're on the menu, and if you're not
praying, then you're a sitting duck.
And so what does David do when he sees the enemy draw up?
He turns to the Lord.
He inquires of the Lord, and that's a principle that his
predecessor Saul had abandoned.
In fact, listen to how 1 Chronicles 10:14 describes the reign of Saul.
"He," Saul, "did not seek guidance from the Lord; therefore,
the Lord put him to death."
He did not seek guidance from the Lord; therefore, the Lord put him to death.
Saul failed to remain dependent on the Lord in the face of enemies, in
the face of opposition, in the face of trials, and David knew that he couldn't
afford to make the same mistake.
Maybe you're here this morning and prayer just isn't a high priority on your list.
It's not up there.
You're not doing much of it.
It's that thing that when you hear a sermon on prayer, y- you,
you feel a little bit guilty.
You feel like, "I wish I'd known the pastor was gonna preach on
prayer because I would've gone somewhere else this morning."
And maybe that's where you're at this morning and I wanna suggest one of
the reasons you might be there this morning is because you have been lulled
into a sense of forgetfulness that you have an enemy that hates you and
hates your Savior and wants to see you sidelined in your walk with Christ.
In fact, not just sidelined, but wants you not to progress in sanctification,
but to regress in sanctification.
And you have to remember that he exists if you're going to be prayerful.
You've been lulled into a peacetime mentality when the reality is God's
Word is clear that you have an enemy that hates you and hates your Savior.
That should make us desperate to pray to the Lord.
But maybe there's another reason that you're not really praying as much as, as
you wish you were praying or as much as we should be praying, and that's because
y- you have this false sense of security that says, "I can do it by myself."
Th- th- that you have this pull myself up by my own bootstraps approach to life
that says, "I- God, I've got this one.
Thanks.
You can go help people that really need you."
And so you, you wake up, and you get in the Word of God, and, and you listen to
your podcasts, and you listen to your sermons while you're working out or
on your commute, and you listen to the Audible books with all the Christian
bestsellers that are out there, and you've got your scripture memory apps, and
you're memorizing the Word of God, a- a- and you're doing all of this, and yet at
the end, if you're not praying, all that that amounts to is self-righteousness,
and you're trying to do it by yourself
That has to be accompanied by prayer.
Because all of those things that you're doing, if you're not praying,
you're doing all of that and ignoring your relationship with God.
And so don't be fooled into thinking, "God, I've got this because I'm doing
my daily Bible reading on a consistent basis, and I'm listening to the right
things, and I'm memorizing the Bible, and I'm showing up at community group
prepared with the questions answered."
But if you're not praying, then you're just trusting in your
own works and your own efforts.
And that's not gonna work against the enemy.
Why?
Because he's stronger than you are
In Ephesians chapter 6, verses 13 through 18, the Apostle Paul says
this, "Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able
to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm.
Therefore stand having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the
breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the
readiness given by the gospel of peace.
In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish
all the flaming darts of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God."
And then we stop, right?
And then we stop and we say, "Well, there's the armor of God.
I'm ready to go.
I'm, I'm, I'm suited up.
I got it all.
Let's go.
Let's go do battle."
But what does Paul say right after that?
And we, we I wish we just kept going one more verse, because
what does he say in verse 18?
He says, "Praying at all times in the Spirit with prayer and supplication."
Prayer is as much a part of the armor of God as the sword of the Spirit or the
breastplate of righteousness or the shield of faith or the helmet of salvation.
Not praying is like going into battle without your comms
to your commanding officers.
Not praying is like being cut off completely.
You may have the best military equipment that you can possibly
have, but you've got no one there to help give you guidance as to what's
coming or the threat that, that's out there or to resupply your needs.
And so we have to be not just suited up in the armor of God,
but also praying, because prayer is a part of the armor of God.
Because why?
Because you've got an enemy out there, and your enemy's not gonna stop.
Your enemy's not gonna give up.
Your enemy's not gonna sign a peace treaty with you.
He's going to keep coming over and over and over again.
This is why the Bible says, "Rejoice in hope.
Be patient in tribulation.
Be constant in prayer," Romans 12:12.
Or Colossians 4:2, "Continue steadfastly in prayer, being
watchful in it with thanksgiving."
Or 1 Thess 5:17, "Pray without ceasing."
And so we have to rely on prayer because we have a real enemy.
And so here's some of the prayers that you should be praying right now at church.
You should be praying for your own spiritual wellbeing against that enemy.
That, that should be a, a prayer every single day.
Lord, I need you to help me stand firm today.
I'm gonna take up the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit.
I'm gonna remember that the, the righteousness of Christ
is what guards me in my life.
I'm gonna put on the helmet of salvation that's gonna remind me of my future
and my thinking and everything else.
But Lord, I, I need to be praying.
You need to help me today.
I need you to make it through the day because I've got an enemy
that's out there that's real that's gonna come after me today.
Pray that for your brothers and sisters in Christ too.
Pray for them that they will be protected from the enemy.
Pray for your church.
Pray for this place right here.
Pray that God will further the mission of the church, that we would
be about reaching people for Christ and teaching people to be like Christ
and training people to serve Christ.
Pray that we will be effective in that and not just content to say,
"Well, we've got two services and it's comfortable and I kinda like the
size, so let's just be what we are."
Pray that the enemy will not stop what we're trying to do here in North Texas.
Pray for the church at large, the Church, big C.
Pray that God will raise up more faithful lampstands that are
obeying the Word of God, that are preaching the biblical gospel, that
are doing the work of the mission.
Pray that the church will have success.
Why?
Because we have a real enemy and we have to rely on prayer.
And if we start praying that way, these are prayers that are going
to change the world And you might think, "But does my prayer matter?"
Yeah, it does.
Prayers that change the world are often prayed by people that won't.
Because your prayers that do change the world are, are less
about who you are and more about the God that you are praying to.
And that's where we go next, because David not only saw the enemy and
turned to the Lord, but the reason he turned to the Lord is because he
knew the Lord was able to deliver him.
Look in the next por- part of our passage here in 2 Samuel 5:19.
"And the Lord said to David, 'Go up, for I will certainly give
the Philistines into your hand.'
And David came to Baal Perazim, and David defeated them there.
And he said, 'The Lord has broken through my enemies before
me like a breaking flood.'
Therefore the name of that place is called Baal Perazim.
And the Philistines left their idols there, and David and
his men carried them away."
Uh, th- he experienced something similar to this back in 1 Samuel chapter 30
when he was with the Philistines.
You probably remember that.
The Amalekites came, and they came to Ziklag, and they, they conquered
Ziklag, and they took captive all of David's, uh, and all of his men's wives
and families and all their possessions.
You remember that?
And, and the men were really angry at David.
And it says, "David strengthened himself in the Lord and asked
the Lord, 'Should I go?'
And the Lord said, 'Yeah, you should go.
I'll, I'll, I'll give them into your hand.'"
Well, that's similar to what's happening here.
The Lord said to David, "I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand."
He says it literally in the Hebrew.
It's giving, I will give them to you.
So he's doubling down on the word there to emphasize this is a done deal, David.
That's why it says, "I will surely," "I will, I will certainly
give them into your hand."
See, David went to the Lord in prayer when the enemy drew up for battle
in front of him, not only because he needed it, but, but, but because he
knew that God was greater in strength than the enemy that drew up against him.
They were strong, but God was stronger.
A genuine reliance on prayer recognizes that we have a, a need
in the face of a great enemy and turns for help to a greater God.
Second point this morning along those lines is this: we have to rely on
prayer that beseeches a sovereign God.
To beseech is to request, to ask of.
And so we rely on prayer that beseeches a sovereign God.
See, what drove David was that he knew who God is.
That's one of the reasons why as we're studying Psalm 119 as Summer in the
Word, and we're emphasizing and stressing being in God's Word daily, one of the
reasons why is because the more you are in the Word of God and the more you
come to know the God of the Word, the more you will pray to Him because the
more of His character you will know.
A- and when something happens in your life, you won't be as quick to hit the
panic button or the a- anxious button.
Y- you will say, "Wait a minute.
I'm gonna hit the prayer button because I know who God is.
I know God's bigger than what I'm facing right now.
I know God is the God of peace and God of all comfort.
I know God is sovereign.
I know God is ruling.
I know God is on the throne, and nothing can change that."
David had his resources at this point in time.
He had his mighty men.
He had his military prowess.
He had Joab.
Joab was a pretty good commander.
That guy was, was pretty sharp.
He had the past promises of God.
After all, he had been anointed by Samuel.
"You're gonna be the king of Israel someday."
He's just now taken the throne.
He probably could have rationalized things in his head to go, "You know what?
I can just go handle them because God promised me I'm gonna be the king of
Israel, not just for a couple of months.
I, I, I've got a long reign in front of me.
I'm sure of it, so let me just go out and handle this."
Things were looking up for David.
The nation was coming together.
He had every reason.
It would have been easy for him to ride all of that momentum out into
battle without ever going to the Lord
If you're anything like me, you know that temptation.
That temptation to say, "It's okay, God, I got it."
That temptation to, to say, "I, I need to…
I, I'm facing a trial, uh, w- w- how do I get out of this?
W- w- what can I do to bring myself out of this trial as quickly as possible?"
Or, "I'm facing a challenge.
H- how can I use my intellect, how can I use my experience to overcome this?"
Or, "Who do I know that can help me with this?
Let me call this person.
Let me call Mom and Dad.
Let me call this person over here."
W- w- we're often so quick to either rely on ourselves or turn
to other people way before we ever go to God with our requests.
The F-22 is a pretty spectacular machine.
I, I, I, I don't know a lot about fighter jets other than I think they're
really cool, and Top Gun: Maverick is the greatest movie ever made.
I know those two things, okay?
And I know we've advanced past the F-22, but the F-22 is still considered the king
of the skies when it comes to dogfights.
It can reach speeds a- above Mach 2.
Uh, it, it, it can get past the speed of sound without even
kicking on its afterburner.
It's designed even…
The, the physical design of the plane is such that it doesn't
show up on most radars out there.
And so when it comes to air superiority, the F-22 puts us
above anyone else in the world.
But imagine how foolish it would be to go to war where you're going to
war against another nation who also has some pretty advanced fighter
jet technology, though not the F-22.
Imagine going to war against them and thinking to yourselves,
"I've got a fleet of F-22s.
I'm not gonna use them.
I'm gonna use older technology.
I'm gonna use surface-to-air missiles.
I'm going to use tanks to take out planes in the sky that fly really fast."
You stood there and you said, "Well, that, that would be insane."
Kinda like going into a battle against an enemy without praying
to the God of the universe.
Kinda like facing a, a trial or opposition that you're walking through
without praying and asking God for help.
Kinda like going through cancer without saying, "God, can you please
remove this cancer from my body?"
See, w-when we don't beseech our sovereign God in prayer when facing a
trial or a temptation or a challenge, whatever the challenge may be, we're not
employing our greatest weapon in battle
The greatest weapon David had is the weapon that he turned to first, and that
is the God of the universe, the sovereign God, the Lord of lords, the King of kings.
Going to Him saying, "Lord, I need help."
And there's, here, three aspects of God's sovereignty that should
drive your prayer life, okay?
Three aspects here.
The first is this: because God is sovereign, our prayers
really do change the world.
They really do change the world.
They change things.
And, and you may push back at this point and say, "But, but Pastor,
doesn't that kinda undermine this whole idea of God's sovereignty?
Isn't it right there in the point that, that He's sovereign?
If God is sovereign and has decreed the end from the beginning," which
I would a- agree, that I, I believe He has, "then why bother praying?
Why bother praying?
He's declared it, after all.
He's ordained it.
Does my prayer really change the world?
You're telling me it does because God is sovereign, our prayers
really do change the world.
But it doesn't seem like that would fit together if He's sovereign.
It seems like He's gonna do what He's gonna do."
This is a tension that's long e- existed.
Uh, but I wanna in- introduce a, a little bit of a different spin,
a different perspective on it.
And let me ask this.
What if, in His sovereignty, God ordained that an outcome would occur,
occur in answer to your prayers?
What if in the working out of his plan that he has ordained from the
beginning of time, God ordained that your prayer would bring about
this circumstance, this outcome
Last week you guys got to hear my, my daughter give her
testimony and then get baptized.
Um, her mom and I were praying for her salvation from the time that she was born.
Now, does scripture tell us that God had written her name in the Lamb's Book of
Life before the foundation of the world?
Yes.
And did God answer our prayers that she would be saved?
Yes A-a-and so the fact that God is sovereign, that's why
you can pray with any hope that anything's gonna happen at all.
If God's not sovereign, that's when why bother praying?
I-if, if God's not able to bring about a, a, a solution or bring about
some, some event in life, that's when we would say, "Why bother praying?"
L-let me give you an e-example from Paul's life here from the New Testament.
Uh, 2 Thessalonians 3.
2 Thessalonians 3 beginning in verse one.
Paul says this: "Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of
the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as has happened among you."
Now, did Paul believe in the sovereignty of God?
North-south on that one.
Yes, right?
Come on, Paul wrote Romans 8, okay?
Uh, that is like the magnum opus of God's sovereignty.
So Paul believed in the sovereignty of God, and yet what is Paul doing here?
He's saying, "Hey, I want you to pray that the word of the Lord may speed ahead
and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked
and evil men, for not all have faith.
But the Lord is faithful.
He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
And we have confidence in the Lord about you that you're doing good and
will do the things that we command.
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to
the steadfastness of Christ."
Notice Paul didn't say, "I would ask you to pray for us, but God's
sovereign, so why bother praying?
What's gonna happen is gonna happen."
No, rather because God is sovereign, Paul is saying this, "Hey, will you
pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored,
as it has happened amongst you?"
Why was Paul praying that?
Because Paul knew that those prayers were gonna go to a sovereign
God who could make that happen.
So just because we believe in the sovereignty of God and that He has
ordained all things, doesn't mean that God doesn't use your prayer
to accomplish His purpose in life.
And so you can pray to a sovereign God, and you can, can have a, a confidence that
because He is sovereign, He will answer.
Because God is sovereign, your prayers really do change the world.
The second thing is because God is sovereign, you can trust
Him to answer your prayers.
Again, it's if God is not sovereign, that's when we should say,
"What's the point in praying?"
But because He is, we can trust that He will.
In our daily Bible reading, we're in Nehemiah.
And, and, and Nehemiah, Nehemiah being the cupbearer of the king, he goes into
the king's presence a-and he's just heard about Jerusalem, that it's in ruins,
and he's k- he, he's not doing well.
And King Art, King Artaxerxes says, "Why so glum, chum?"
And, and that's in the Hebrew.
And Nehemiah looks at King Art and says, and, and before he answers him, he throws
a prayer up to God really quick Asking for mercy from this man, King Artaxerxes,
who could kill him for being in a bad mood when he's the king's cupbearer, right?
Uh, uh, back before Amanda and I got to, to California, we were in
Arizona, and we were in a tough spot.
Uh, our church was…
There were just some, some difficult things happening there.
We were praying.
We didn't know what God was doing.
"Lord, we're, we're here.
We believe that You led us here for a purpose, uh, but we're, we're
not sure what's happening right now and where You want us to be."
In the meantime, I decided to start pursuing my Doctor of
Ministry at, at Master's Seminary.
And so I was there, and the Master's Seminary brought in this guy, this guy
named Pastor Mike Fabarez, to teach one of the DMIN preaching courses there.
And I remember his book because I, I'd seen it back on the bookshelf of a guy
that I knew from, from seminary days, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, Mike Fabarez.
That's cool."
And I, I listened to him as he was teaching this DMIN class, and I
tho- I sat there and I thought to myself, "Man, it would be so cool
to go work at a church like that someday, but that's not gonna happen."
Well, Pastor Mike Fabarez's wife, Carlyn, was sitting in the room with him because
they were getting ready to go on vacation.
So she's sitting in the back of there in, in Compass Bible Church, which is
the church that Pastor Mike Fabarez pastors, so maybe now you're starting
to put together some of the pieces here.
Uh, Compass Bible Church was in need of more staff pastors because they were
growing and God was doing work there.
And so Carlyn, his wife, is sitting in the back.
I'm sitting there praying about my current situation at the church in
Arizona going, "God, I don't know what You're doing, but, but we're just…
We don't know what's going on, but we trust You."
Carlyn's in the back of the room saying, "God, we, we need
more pastors at our church."
And she was praying, "Maybe there's somebody in this room who's going
through a difficult situation in the church that they're in, and maybe
You would bring them to come be a part of our church someday and serve
with us at Compass Bible Church."
Y'all, it was a year later that I was introduced as a staff
pastor at Compass Bible Church.
I- Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that that would happen.
God did.
Why?
Because God is sovereign.
So I'm praying, Carlyn's praying, and God is answering the prayer,
and we had no clue as He's moving all these chess pieces.
Why?
Because God is sovereign.
You can trust Him to answer your prayers.
Daniel did.
You remember when, when King Neb, when, when he was there and he, he had this
dream, and he told his, his, uh, his sycophantic, his suck-up, uh, wise
men, "Hey, I'm not gonna tell you what my dream is because I know your game.
I want you to tell me the dream and its interpretation, and if you
don't, I'm just gonna kill you all."
And they were like, "This is impossible."
And he goes, "Great.
I'm gonna kill you."
Daniel finds out.
Daniel gets Rack, Shack, and Benny together and, and they go before the Lord
and they say, "Lord, uh, we need You."
And God doesn't say, "Sorry about you.
I don't know what He's thinking."
The sovereign God said, "Daniel, here's his dream and here's the interpretation."
And Daniel went back in to King Nebuchadnezzar and said, "Hold on.
Stop the killing.
Here's your dream and here's the interpretation."
Because God is sovereign, you can trust Him to answer your prayers.
And finally, because God is sovereign, you can pray big prayers.
You can pray big prayers.
David asks for guidance before battle.
Nehemiah asked for mercy before King Artaxerxes.
Daniel asked God to give him the wisdom to interpret the king's
dream and to know the king's dream.
These are big prayers.
Yes, we should pray for small things, but don't be afraid to pray for big things
because the God that you pray to is able.
And so pray for the salvation of your children.
Pray for the salvation of your spouse.
Pray for your marriage to be reconciled.
Pray for the, the health of your, your family.
Pray for infertility to be overcome.
Pray about moving across country and then don't stay here.
Uh, pray and ask God for revival in our nation.
Pray and ask God for peace and a just end to war.
Pray for God to put an end to wickedness and evil, things like abortion.
Ask God for big things.
Why?
Because God is able, because God is sovereign.
Pray prayers that can change the world.
Just because you may not, doesn't mean that your prayers won't
Don't leave your greatest asset on the shelf.
Pray to the God who can.
Rely on prayer that beseeches a sovereign God.
But then finally, as our passage continues, we find that David prayed,
uh, because God was able, and also because God was able to provide him
a wisdom that he desperately needed.
Look back at our text in verse 22.
It says this: "And the Philistines came up yet again and spread
out in the valley of Rephaim.
And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, 'You shall not go up.
Go around to their rear and come against them opposite the balsam trees.
And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then
rouse yourself, for then the Lord has gone out before you to strike
down the army of the Philistines.'
And David did as the Lord commanded him, and struck down the
Philistines from Geba to Gezer."
Now, y- you can hear the e-brakes in the, the, the Israeli troops
as David says, "Hold on a second!
Wait a minute."
Why?
Because the Philistines are back, same song, new verse.
But they're back in the same spot, and we're meant to see that in the text.
There's a reason why we-- it, it says in the text, "They came out and spread
out again in the valley of Rephaim."
Because it's meant for us to say, "Oh, we know how this is gonna go.
We know what this is gonna be like."
And King David could have had that approach.
"Oh, well, I've already sought the Lord once in this situation, and
this is the exact same situation that I'm up against again, so why not?
Let's just go out and do the same thing again."
But that's not what David did.
That's not what he did.
Instead, David went to the Lord, and the Lord said, "You shall not go up."
Why?
Why did God change the approach with David?
Why did he alter things?
They had the upper hand.
They had the momentum.
They had seen this thing before.
God could have easily just have done the, the, the same thing
as he had done previously.
But I think it was because God was teaching David a lesson that he would
have to have, and learn, and know, and own throughout-- for his entire
reign over the, the nation of Israel.
It's a lesson that you and I need as well, and that is that our wisdom isn't enough.
That we always need to remember humbly that we need the wisdom of God.
And so God presents the same situation to David, and then says, "David,
I'm gonna give you a wisdom to do things differently this time."
And so God wanted David to come back to him and rely on prayer because David's
wisdom was limited, and so is ours.
Third and final point this morning is this: Rely on prayer
because our wisdom is limited.
Our wisdom is limited.
I believe if David had just gone out the way that he had gone out the
first time, Israel would have lost.
But God was affirming in, in showing something to David, that David had an
understanding, a, a keen understanding, that his understanding wasn't enough.
That he needed God, that he needed the wisdom of God.
And so if we're gonna pray world-changing prayers, we have
to start by realizing we're not sufficient in and our-- of ourselves
to change the world by ourselves.
We need the wisdom of God to effect the change in the things that we're gonna
ask him to do, 'cause we can't do it Let's just start, let me just start
with something very simple right now.
Can you save anyone?
No.
You need God.
You need His wisdom.
You need Him to do these things.
And so when, when you come to the Lord, when you pray to the Lord, when
you bring your plans to the Lord, let me encourage you this, pray like
you really need to hear from Him
Praying to the Lord is about hearing from Him more than it is Him hearing from you
Sometimes when we pray, we like to pray and inform God.
"God, I'm, I'm gonna go do this, and so I, I'm, I'd like you to bless
this endeavor that I'm setting out on, because this is what I'm doing."
Or sometimes we pray like God is, is the client, and we're trying to close
the deal, and we forget that He's omniscient, that He knows all things.
And so we pray to God, and we try to slant the details.
Like, "God, I think this would be a really good idea for me and my family
if we did this, and so I'm praying that you'll open these doors over here for
us, because it would be a really good…
Think of all the good we could do for you, God."
As though God's up there going, "You know what?
You're right.
I'd never considered that.
Okay.
Well then, we're gonna go do that.
Let's go.
Thanks for letting me know."
No, y'all, when we pray world-changing prayers, we have to come to God and
say, "God, I, I, I need you, because I may not know what's best here."
And so we pray, and we pray with open hands.
We pray like we need to hear from the Lord.
A great step in achieving the right posture before the Lord is to readily
admit that we don't know what's best, and we don't know what's next.
We're gonna get there in, in James when we study the Book of James next
fall, but James Chapter 4 says, "Hey, instead of saying, 'This is what I'm
gonna do,' you need to say, 'Lord willing, this is what I'm gonna do.'"
And that's what we need to do with our prayers as well.
So pray like you need to hear from the Lord, and coming alongside that
and with that is this: pray humbly.
Pray humbly.
Imagine David telling God, "God, it, you know what?
It's okay.
I got it.
Why don't you deal with more important things?
I'll handle this one."
See, sometimes we, we can have that mentality in our lives.
We think it's humble for us not to bring things before the Lord, because
we feel like we don't wanna bother God.
"Well, I, I'm sure God doesn't really care about this business
meeting that I'm about to have, so I, I, I don't wanna bother Him.
I don't wanna use…
I don't wanna take up His time or His, His prayer, you know,
bandwidth," as though He has that.
Or, "You know what?
This medical situation that's going, it, it's pretty minimal.
I don't wanna bother God with this."
And that seems like humility, but that's a false humility, 'cause that's
saying, "God, I don't need you right now," instead of saying, "God, I need
you right now, and so I'm asking for wisdom to be able to navigate this.
I'm asking you to lead me.
I'm asking you to guide me."
Proverbs Chapter 2 verses 1 through 6, "My son, if you receive my words and
treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom,
inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and
raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for
it as, as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the
Lord and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding."
If you find that you need wisdom, and who among us doesn't, the, the writer
of Proverbs, King Solomon, is saying right there, "The Lord gives wisdom.
The Lord gives wisdom."
We rely on prayer because our wisdom is limited.
Even in circumstances when you feel like you know what's best, it's good still to
bring those plans open-handed to the Lord.
In fact, here's a pray to prayer, a, a pray to prayer, a prayer to pray.
When you come before the Lord and you feel confident that you know what
to do, ask Him to, to, to change it.
You feel like this is an open door that's as open as it could ever be, say, "Lord,
if this isn't your will, shut the door."
You've got desires that you feel like are the right desires.
"Lord, change my desires if they're not in keeping with your will right now
This can be the hardest of all, especially when we're praying for God to do something
we're convinced is the right thing
God save my loved one, bring peace to that region, so forth and so on.
It's hard to bring requests like that with an open hand, but that's our job because
God's wisdom is better than our wisdom.
So what do you do in the meantime?
Is it just a let go and let God thing and say, "Well, I guess I just
sit around and wait for an answer"?
You may wait, and you may wait a long time for an answer, but in the
meantime, you keep doing what you know you should be doing, what's
clearly laid out for you in scripture.
You walk faithful to the Lord.
It's like Joab and Abishai in 2 Samuel chapter 10.
Joab and Abishai, they, they're, they're facing an enemy.
There's another battle situation.
Joab says to his brother, "Abishai, you go over there with your troops.
I'm gonna hang out over here with my troops, and if you
need help, I'll come to you.
If I need help, you come to me."
And then they say this in verse 12, and he says, "Let us be of, of good
courage, and let us be courageous for our people and for the cities of our
God," and here it is, "and may the Lord do what seems, seems good to Him."
Joab didn't say, "May the Lord do what seems good to Him, so let's
just sit and wait and find out."
No.
They planned.
They, they, they, they strategized, and they trusted that the Lord
would continue to guide them.
So as you wait, wait in active obedience to the Lord, and the Lord will honor that
Yeah, we, we, we don't see the whole picture
If you've watched any F1 racing
I-i-interesting 'cause they've got these, these spotters that are
watching everything going on on the track, and the driver is the
one that's controlling the car.
But without the spotter, the driver's toast.
In fact, I was watching something where a guy who was a former spotter and he
was fired, and he was, he was there and he was, he was watching the race on
his TV and he's like, "I feel blind."
Because all he saw was what the driver saw
If an F1 driver went out there and tried to win a race without
a spotter, he would never succeed
He needs not only his, his skills to be able to navigate the course, but
more than that, he needs the wisdom of the spotter to be able to say,
"Here's what you need to be doing.
Yeah, it's time to pass.
It's time to pit.
This is how your car is doing."
As we try to navigate this world, we need the wisdom of God.
He sees the whole picture, and so we need to bring our requests before Him.
We need to rely on prayer because His wisdom is greater than our wisdom,
because our wisdom is limited.
We don't understand the full picture, and He does.
So we can rely on that wisdom, and we can pray these prayers, and
what we'll find is we are praying prayers that do change the world
Prayers that change the world, again, are often prayed by people who won't.
And, and here's the thing, as we're about to now turn to, to communion, the
reason why you can pray and pray these prayers that, that change the world in
the first place is because what Jesus did that changed the world for us.
When Jesus went to the cross and He died on the cross for your sins so that
your sins could be forgiven, then He rose from the dead three days later
so that you can live with Him forever.
And if you will repent from your sins and put your trust in Him that He's done
that, uh, then what happens is, as you're saved, you have the Spirit of God come to
dwell within you, and that's what gives us access to be able to pray these prayers.
That's what allows us to come before the God of the universe, the sovereign
God that I was preaching about earlier.
That's what does it, is the fact that you are now in Christ
and have the Spirit of God.
And what that comes back to is that comes back to this.
That comes back to the cross.
That comes back to these elements, the broken body of Christ and the
blood of Christ, as the blood of Christ was shed for you and His body
was broken for you on the cross.
Because of that, you and I can pray and can bring these prayers to Him
And so again, as, as you think about communion this morning, I want you to,
to remember that this is something that is for believers, it's for Christians.
If you would sit here and say with confidence, "I know that I'm not saved,"
let me just encourage you, let these, these elements pass as they come by you.
Let me also encourage you to be thoughtful about this.
If, if, if you're feeling distant from the Lord, if you've got unconfessed sin
with the Lord, if, if, if you're here this morning for whatever reason and
you are angry or you are bitter in soul
During the time that the elements are being passed, let me encourage you to do
business with the Lord, to, to get right with Him, to repent from sin, to bring
that before Him, to lay that before Him.
And then finally
Use this time to, to, to think and to dwell and to reflect.
It's to be done in memory of Christ
And so the elements are gonna be passed as the music is played here, and then
we'll come up, back up together, and we'll all take it as, as a church.
So we're thinking about prayer.
Hebrews chapter seven tells us that we have someone praying for us right now,
and that is our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Talk about world-changing prayers.
He's praying for us because of this sacrifice that we're
about to remember together.
He's constantly bringing that before the Father, praying for our endurance, our
perseverance as followers of Christ, and because of that, we know that we're going
to enter into the presence of God someday.
We're gonna be with Him.
And so it's with great sobriety and, and seriousness that we remember the death
of Christ, but it's also with a joy, an abiding joy for what this means for us.
The Apostle Paul said this: "For I received from the Lord what I also
delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night He was betrayed
took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This
is my body, f- which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.'"
In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup
is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until he comes.
Let's pray
God, we thank you for prayer.
We thank you that you have given us a line of, of communication
that is direct and, and to you.
We thank you that if you have not just left us to pool our, our minds and
use our collective wisdom to try to navigate and, and figure out how to
make our way to you, but you've given us the ability to draw near to you,
to come before the throne, to find mercy and grace to help in time of need
What as I was talking about earlier this morning, it's that thing that
all of us would say we, we wanna be more faithful or better at or do more.
It's the greatest asset that any of us have, and yet so
often it's left on the shelf.
God, I pray that you'd make us a, a praying church, a church that would
say, "I, I could never think about going a day, let alone even think about a,
a minute or an hour or a week without a, a, a posture, a mindset of prayer."
Lord, we know that one day we'll, we'll live in uninterrupted
fellowship with you forever and ever
And yet here we, we live in a world that is hard.
Trials, temptations, challenges, sickness, disease
And you haven't said, "See you later.
Good luck."
But you've said, "I, I want you to talk to me.
I want you to ask me.
I want you to seek.
I want you to knock, and I'm gonna respond."
So Lord, we know it's, it's not a blank check.
We know that there are things that we may be praying for, that we may ask
for, that according to your perfect and sovereign plan, you may not give us.
And so increase our faith in those times, Lord, to trust you.
But God, I also pray that we wouldn't be those that sit there and you
would look at us and say, "You don't have because you don't ask."
And so God, make us a prayerful people.
Make us a church that prays prayers that change the world even if we won't.
We know you do.
We pray this all in Jesus' name.
Amen.