The Power of Prayer - How to Bring God's Power into Your Impossible Situation

Let me ask you something. What's the most difficult situation you're facing right now? I mean, what is it that's so far out there it would take a miracle to fix?

I mean, maybe it's your marriage, a problem with one of your kids, a situation with your boss, a health issue. I don't know what it is. But we're going to talk today about how to bring God's supernatural power into your impossible situation. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.

I'm Dave Drewy. And in just a minute, we'll begin Chip's series called The Power of Prayer. Over the next several programs, you're going to learn how to pray with confidence and make a deeper connection with God. If your prayers feel dry or weak, this series will help you bring God's supernatural power directly into your life. Oh, with that, if you have a Bible, open it now to Acts chapter 12 for Chip's message, How to Bring God's Power into Your Impossible Situation. I'd like you to think of a mental chalkboard in your mind, and I'd like you to think for a second, what's the most impossible situation I would like to see God change? What relationship?

What finances? What about me that you can't change, you've tried to change, it hasn't happened? It's impossible. Well, just jot that on the chalkboard of your mind, will you?

You got it? Because I want you to read this passage and hear what God's going to say on the basis of him actually wanting to move in, in that impossible situation. Now granted, sometimes God says no, and I understand all that.

But what I'd like to suggest is that God would like to say yes a lot more than any of us would ever dream. Let's pick up the situation in Acts chapter 12 verses 1 through 19. It was about that time that King Herod arrested some who belong to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword, and when he saw that that pleased the Jews, he proceeded also to seize Peter. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and after arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each, 16 guys to guard one guy. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. That's the situation. Verse 5, so Peter was kept in prison.

Sounds pretty impossible, doesn't it? You're a brand new multiplying church. You're against the entire Roman army, the fighting force of the land that controls the known world. And they have 16 soldiers surrounding your leader, and we're going to find at night they put him in a cell, and they have one man on one side and one on the other and they have him chained.

They don't want this fella getting away. So Peter was kept in prison, but how did the church respond? The church was earnestly praying unto God for him. They didn't have any weapons.

They didn't have any armies. They said, we have an impossible situation. He's a beloved leader, greatly used by God. We will earnestly pray specifically for Peter unto God for his deliverance.

Let's find out if God hears the prayers of people when the church gathers. That night before Herod was to bring him to trial, the night before his execution, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentry stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. Quick, get up, he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists. Then the angel said to him, put on your clothes and sandals, and Peter did so. Wrap your cloak around you and follow me, the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea what the angel was doing was really happening.

He's a little groggy right now. He thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and the second guards. They came to an iron gate leading to the city.

It opened for them by itself and they went through it. When they walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself.

You can almost see him rubbing his eyes, the cold air hits his face. Now, Peter, first of all, observation, how many of us would be asleep on the night before our execution? This guy's resting in Christ. Secondly, how many of us, if there was a crisis in this church, how many of us in the middle of the night, 2 a.m., 3 a.m., would think to themselves, oh, if I'm here, I'm sure there's a prayer meeting going on, praying for me. You see, the early church was built around an absolute commitment to corporate prayer. Crisis, problem, need, prayer.

It's all through the Scriptures. And so Peter ends up meeting where a large group is already praying. He knocks on the outer entrance and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized his voice, she gets so excited and overjoyed, she runs back without opening it and exclaims, Peter's at the door.

You're out of your mind, they told her. When she kept insisting it was so, they said, well, it must be his angel. But Peter kept on knocking and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.

God had done the impossible. Peter motioned with his hands for them to be quiet and then he described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. And then he told him, tell James and the brothers about this and he left for another place. An impossible situation, the church responds in prayer, God responds through sending an angel for deliverance, the faith of those people I bet grew a little bit that night. Just so it could be in the annals of history, the author Luke writes, in the morning there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.

Kind of epilogue, you know, back at the ranch, what happened at prison? After Herod had a thorough search made for him and didn't find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed for a while. It's a pretty simple story, isn't it? And by the way, this isn't about signs and wonders, this isn't about apostolic issues, this isn't about gifts, this isn't about things that may have happened in the first century that don't necessarily normatively happen today. This is about an impossible situation and a group of people who took it seriously and prayed. Now what I'd like to suggest is that there's four key principles we can learn from the early church so that we can bring God's power into our impossible situation. And all four of those, I think, are found in verse 5. Flip back the page or look in your Bible.

Notice the impossible situation is Peter in prison. But now look at these four phrases. But here's the first phrase. Number one, the church, the gathering of God's people. Number two, was earnestly praying.

It's continuous action. And that word is a very specific word that we'll look at. Number three, they prayed unto God. And number four, they prayed for him.

Now I'd like to take these in order of, I think, priority. Not as they're here, but in priority of learning how to pray to bring God's power, supernatural power, into your impossible situation. The first thing I think we learn is that we must learn to pray unto God. The little word to or unto, it's a little preposition in Greek. It means before or before the face of God.

It means motion towards, access to, or nearness at something. Now, some of you at this point are saying, Chip, who do you think we're praying to? I mean, we pray to God.

What do you mean? We must learn to pray unto God. You know what I'd like to suggest? This has been the most profound difference that I've learned in my own prayer life. I'd like to suggest that maybe 50 to 75% of the time in your prayers and mine, we don't really pray unto God. Now, I don't mean you're praying to some false god, but I'd like to suggest that most of the time when we're really not conscious, that when we pray, our focus is on our words. Our focus is on what we are saying. Our focus is on other people in the room and how they might think about what we are saying. Or our focus is on pure autopilot. Have you listened to your kids and selves pray in groups, how these little phrases keep popping up? Oh, Lord, keep us safe, protect all those, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.

You know? What I mean, and I think what this passage means that the early church did when they prayed unto God is they came and they knew and were conscious of, and the very presence of God and their focus was on to whom they were speaking and they were absolutely certain that they were talking to Him. Now, think of the difference.

Think of the difference instead of bowing your head and just letting your mouth start to go. If you stopped and somehow, like the picture in Revelation 5 or Isaiah 6, you realize here's the throne room of God and there's Seraphim flying holy, holy, holy, and he's an unapproachable light and he's all powerful. And then combined with that, the Lamb of God and His goodness and His tenderness and His love and His desire to bless and draw you near, what if in your mind before you said a word you realized who God really was?

I tell you it will transform your prayer life. When you consciously become aware and take time to focus on who it is you're speaking to, all of a sudden the size of your problems begin to shrink and your emotional struggles begin to shrink because it's like bringing penny and nickel and dime issues to a multi, multi-billionaire. Can he change a relationship? Like that. Can he heal a body? Like that.

Can he turn a situation around at work? Like that. Praying unto God is coming unto God with an awareness of who He really is before you say a word and then being certain that you're actually talking to Him.

R.A. Torrey writes in his book, and I wrote down a quote, We should never utter one syllable of prayer, either in public or in private, until we are definitely conscious that we have come into the presence of God and we are really speaking to Him. Can you imagine if you will, regardless of your political persuasion, if the President of the United States, all the heads of Europe, all the heads of the entire world, the top 10 or 12 nations came and formed a tribunal. They have the power to push buttons.

They have all the control of all the resources. And they said, We are going to give you an audience with the leaders of the top 12 countries in the world. You can ask whatever you want for, no guarantees of how long you'll be allowed to talk, but these people have the power to do anything you want. How would you prepare for that meeting? Would you just flippantly walk in and say, Well, gosh, hi, guys. I'm sure glad you kind of let me come talk to you. And, you know, I don't know what I really need, but, you know, it's just sort of, I'll tell you what, I'd think carefully about every word that's going to come out of my mouth before those people.

And if they gave me a chance to ask for something, I would have pondered what's the most important thing I really want from them. And if we would do that before humans, how much more do we need to come before God recognizing who He really is and really aware that you're speaking to Him? That will transform your prayer life.

I've really been trying to practice this. And, you know, I try and ponder his attributes. And I remember reading about Martin Luther and how he would read through carefully the Lord's Prayer and then recite the Ten Commandments and a number of things just to remember who God was.

And, you know, my heart, I just, you ever get where you can't kind of get it jump-started? I just couldn't kind of get close to God. And my Bible was open, and it wasn't where I was normally reading. And Psalm 121 was open, and I thought maybe I'll just glance at a psalm before I pray. I need to remember who God is.

I glanced down and it says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He won't let your foot slip. He who watches over you never slumbers nor sleeps. And it goes on and talks about His goodness and He'll be your shade at your right hand and how He longs for you to come in and He'll protect you and love you. And all of a sudden, the lights came on and I realized God wants me to talk to Him.

This is a safe place. This is one who's holy and infinite and powerful. And yet He desires Chip Ingram to come today and talk.

And it's like the heavens opened. Let me ask you, are you praying unto God? Are you really aware of who you're speaking to? And are you certain that as you speak, you're really talking to Him?

That raises a couple questions, doesn't it? Some of you might say, well, gosh, maybe God just works this way for people like Chip or for pastors or missionaries or whoever else. How could I know that I could come into God's presence and then how can I know for sure that God is really going to hear me? Let me give you the assurance. It has nothing to do with your status.

It has nothing to do with your merit. The basis of our assurance before God's throne is the work of Christ on the cross. The way that you can know and I can know and every single person on this earth who knows Jesus in a personal saving way that when you come before God, you have access before the very throne room of God. Look at the verse I put down, Hebrews 10, 19. It says, Therefore, brothers, we have confidence to enter the most holy place or the holy of holies where God's power is, where the most intimate expression of His person is.

And how do you get there? By the blood of Jesus. Your merit, your absolute guarantee that you can come into the presence of the Almighty Creator of the universe isn't because you've been a good boy or a good girl today. It's by the blood of Christ. The problem that keeps me from God is my sin. And when He died on the cross, He paid for your sin. When He rose from the dead and seated at the right hand of God, He pioneered a trail so that you and I have absolute confidence right before the throne of God on the basis of not your spirituality but on the basis of His finished work on the cross.

That's powerful, people. You can know for sure. Well, the second question that may come up is, what if there's some issues in my life that need to be taken care of? Great, 1 John 1, 9. 1 John teaches that not only did He do that once and for all, but the blood of Christ keeps on cleansing. If there's an issue between you and another person or God, confess your sin, and He says He'll cleanse you and forgive you, and then He'll draw you near.

The second issue is, well, that's how we have basis, but how does it actually work? You know and I know, at least in our experience, some of those of you that have walked with the Lord for a while, there's times where you pray, and I can't explain it, but there's times of such intimacy with God, with your eyes shut, I feel like I could almost reach out and touch you. And there's other times when I pray that I'm trying as hard as I can try. Have you been there? And it's like, bing. I'm not sure my prayers make it to the ceiling.

You know what I'm talking about? And I don't have any desire to pray, and I feel dry, and I know I ought to, and I know I should, but I don't want to. And I don't feel close to God, and I have these vague, dry feelings. And what do you do then? How can we know, and how can we break through?

What's the means of access? The Scripture is very clear here. The means of access into God's presence 24 hours a day is by His Spirit. You see, the Scripture teaches we pray to the Father, we pray on the basis or through the Son, and we pray in the Spirit. It's the Spirit's ministry. You know what His ministry is? His ministry and prayer is to take you by the hand and me by the hand and personally escort us to the very throne room of God to make God's presence real in our hearts and in our experiences.

It's true in reality. There's no barriers between us and God because of the work of the cross. But in our experience, often that doesn't jive out. And so it's the work of the Spirit to do that. There's a verse here from Ephesians 2.18. It says, for through Him, Christ, we have access, and that word means introduction into God's presence, to the Father, how?

By one Spirit. The other day I was praying, and I'm trying to apply this to my life, and I had one of those bounce off the ceiling times. So what do you do? You just say, you know what I've often done?

Can I be candid with you? I've prayed a few generic prayers and said, well, I guess I'm just not into it too much today, and I'll pray more later today, which I usually don't do, or I'll pray tomorrow harder, which I usually don't do. That's when you need to pray the most. And you know what the Spirit's ministry, you know what the promise is? The promise is that you can sit quietly and say, Lord, I know that I can't pray apart from the Holy Spirit's ministry, and you promise that He will lead me by the hand and take me to the very throne room of God and make God real in my experience. And so you can sit quietly and say, God the Holy Spirit, will you please right now take me to the throne room of God and make the experience and the reality of God real in my heart? And then sit quietly, believe and expect that God will do that. And you know what?

He will. It took me about 10 or 12, maybe 15 minutes, and I struggled and I struggled, and then I finally prayed that and I sat quietly. And you know in all the old books, the old books about people who really prayed, they have a little phrase you don't hear much. It's called breaking through or praying through. There's many a time it may take 10, 15 minutes, maybe even a little bit more to kind of break through, and most of us quit before we break through, until heaven opens up and the Spirit of God ushers you in. And God wants to do that, and he wants us to pray unto God. And the majority of this message is on this, because if we don't do this, the rest of the things don't matter much, do they? Believing first who it is that we're talking to, and being assured that we're actually talking to him.

The basis is the blood of Christ. The means of access is the Holy Spirit. And I would encourage you before you utter a syllable in prayer, either publicly or privately, that you stop and say, God, I want to remember who you are, and I want to make sure that I'm speaking to you, not to the people I'm praying, or not just to get my prayers done.

You will experience a radical transformation in your life. The second thing he says that we need to do is that we need to pray earnestly. The word earnestly here is a compound word. It has two parts, the first ek meaning out, and the second half of this word means stretched. The idea of our English word, we get the word for tension. It's translated in 1 Peter 1-22 as deeply or fervently.

It's a word used in Luke 22-44 where Jesus is praying, and then he sees the disciples, and he goes back to pray, and it says, therefore, in agony, he prayed more earnestly as he was doing battle. The idea here is focused intent and passion. It's coming to God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind saying, God, I need business. I want what I'm asking of you.

I'm not going through the motions. Those of you that have had children, do you remember a time when one of your little children, when the temperature went to 102, and then the temperature went to about 103, and then it went to 104, and how your prayers changed, huh? You ever sat there with a tiny little baby that's burning up, or one of your little kids, I'll tell you what, you don't pray any of those, well, Lord, we would really like, if it's in your will, according to your sovereign plan, to bless this child according to your divine purposes, baloney. You hear a mom or a dad next to that baby, oh, God, God save my child.

That's what he's saying. He's saying that we need to come to God like we mean it, and we need to come to who we're really talking to, and then earnestly, the word means to be stretched out. Your soul needs to be stretched out before God and say, God, hear our cry. And you know the evidence of when you really mean business?

The level of your perseverance. The third thing we need to learn to do is we need to pray corporately. We need to pray unto God.

We need to pray earnestly, and we need to pray corporately. I get that from the little phrase, the church earnestly prayed unto God for him. The church, the meaning of the word of the church means the assembly or the gathered ones, the ecclesia. The church was born, it grew, and it exploded in the context of a commitment and belief that the body of Christ gathered for intercession is the most powerful force on the earth. I dare you to read through the book of Acts and prove me wrong. The early church believed that the most powerful force on this earth, so when the body of Christ gathered and approached Jesus and the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, and they asked in unity.

And if you don't believe me, do a quick sketch. The early church was born where? Out of a prayer meeting, chapter 1 of Acts, when Jesus ascended, he said, hey, you go wait and go pray, right? Chapter 2, Pentecost came during what? They were praying. Chapter 3, the first miracle, where were Peter and John on their way to? Peter and John are on their way to a prayer meeting when they do the miracle. Chapter 4, they get beat up, thrown into prison, then they get let out, and they come back to the church and what do they say?

Who are we to get to suffer like this for Christ? And then they prayed for more effectiveness and the ground shook. By chapter 6, the whole structure of the church changed. They had elders and deacons, why?

One simple reason, because the leadership said we must give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. What was Cornelius doing when God revealed himself to him? He was praying. What was Peter doing when God revealed himself in chapter 10 to go talk to Cornelius? He was praying. Where did the first missionaries come from?

Acts 13, what were they doing when they called Paul and Barnabas out? They're praying. Historically and globally, you'll find every great movement of God is tied with people who begin to lay hold of what's true about prayer.

You can look at the Wesley brothers, Jonathan Edwards. You can go back to the Reformation, or you can go over to Korea today where God is moving marvelously, and you'll find in the churches 4 in the morning, 5 in the morning, 6 in the morning, hundreds of thousands of people pray daily, corporately. Application. I think we pray as a church. But you know, in terms of real corporate priority coming together to pray, we're weak. But it would seem to me if our church believed in prayer and we had the kind of crisis, there'd be about 300 people there on Tuesday night for corporate prayer instead of 30. Now, if you've got a commitment and it's God's will, don't come. But if you want to see God work in a supernatural way, then I'll check you on Tuesday and let's get before God and let's believe what the New Testament says and let's call out to Him, and you'll be a part of the work of God and you'll see things happen. The final point, not only is it unto God and earnestly and corporately, we must pray specifically. Did you notice?

It's for Him. I think that we pray a lot of vague generalities about God's will, working out all things and however you want to work it, and I know you're sovereign. And, you know, that's true.

I think we're bailing out. Oh, God, whatever you want to happen, what do you want to happen? As a father or a parent, how if your kids said, oh, mother and father, whatever you want for dinner is fine with me, it's just great. Whatever you want to give me for my birthday, as a parent, what do you want to know? Hey, son, daughter, what do you want? What brings specific joy to your heart?

And as a parent, you want to do it, don't you? You'll never see God's power until you start praying specifically. I put my top 14 things, specific things impossible, in the life of members of my family and for my life and for this church. Write specific things down and put them before the throne of God and see if the eternal God of the universe doesn't want to bring His power into your impossible situation. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, How to Bring God's Power into Your Impossible Situation from his series, The Power of Prayer. Whether you're a new Christian or a seasoned follower of Christ, prayer is absolutely essential to our relationship with God. It's how we communicate with Him. And as His children, we are given free access anytime, anywhere.

But how does that actually work? In this series, you'll discover the steps to developing a dynamic prayer life, how to remove common roadblocks to answered prayer, and what it means to pray with confidence. For a limited time, the resources for The Power of Prayer are discounted and the MP3s are always free. For additional ordering and pricing details, visit livingontheedge.org or give us a call at 888-333-6003.

Atlas Nurse taps special offers. You know, Chip, power in our prayers is something we hear about or read about, but most of us hardly ever experience it. Now, you were kind of in that same boat, I remember, until you came across a book that really changed your perspective.

Could you take a minute and talk about that? Well, Dave, I have to confess, I am one of those Christians, even as a pastor, that I aspired. You know, I read this passage in Acts and, you know, all through the Bible, it's just God's power. I mean, one of my professors, his great line was, power falls where prayer prevails.

Hmm. And I believe that. I've seen it happen, but it was very intermittent in my life, to be very honest. And I remember it was a season as a pastor and, boy, the needs got overwhelming and I felt so deeply inadequate and I happened to have a little break. And my wife and I would often go up to a little cabin some friends had on Lake Donner and I would sit out on this little dock near the water and I was just asking God, Lord, we need your power.

I'm the pastor and I'm in desperate need of the kind of power that I'm reading about. And my wife had told me, probably for a year, Chip, you ought to really read this book. Chip, you ought to really read this book. Chip, you ought to really read this book.

Well, yeah, yeah, honey, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It was an old, old book by a man named R.A. Torrey called The Power of Prayer. And for some of you, that name is like, oh, yeah, that was the guy that worked with D.L. Moody and helped launch Moody Bible Institute and traveled around the world. And for many of you, R.A. Torrey, as you've never heard that in your life, it was a very old book on The Power of Prayer. And my wife, I won't embarrass her too much, she prays like no one that I know. I don't mean that she prays more or better than other people. I'm sure there are others that pray more deeply and longer and more powerfully than her.

I've just never met them. And I've lived with this person who prays at a level and sees answers at a level that my whole life, I've just wanted to be more like her. So finally, I'm on this doc and I say to myself, you know, maybe I should listen to her. And so I read this book and it was like, oh, my.

I mean, I just got nailed, but I got nailed in a good way. It was like, oh, this is how you do it. This is how it works. This is how to experience the supernatural power of God in prayer for regular people like you and me who wish that we prayed deeper and longer and better and saw more answers. This series is for us.

I think you're going to love it. Thanks for that, Chip. Well, we do hope you'll make plans to be with us for this entire series as we unpack what it means to pray with power. And if you happen to miss a program, you can always listen on the Chip Ingram app or at livingontheedge.org.

Okay, Chip, let's get to that application. As we close today's program, I want you to lean back wherever you are and I want you to really ask yourself what is the most impossible situation you're facing? I find sometimes, even as followers of the Lord Jesus, we just assume, well, that's impossible.

It'll never change. And yet, all through the New Testament, we see God work in miraculous ways. I'm not saying he's always going to do a miracle in every situation, but he has.

And he may just want to intervene in a way for you. And sometimes I think, well, I've prayed about that. I've asked. Nothing happened. And so let's just pause for a moment.

I want you to really think what we learned today. First, are you really praying unto God? You know, we all get tired and we just say words. Are you really recognizing who, in fact, you're praying to?

His power, his majesty, his love. Second, are you praying earnestly? I know with me, there's times where I hear words coming out of my mouth, but there's not an earnestness.

There's not a passion. There's not a sense of, oh, God, I really want this from you and I really mean it. And third, have you brought people into your life to pray with you? There's amazing power all through the New Testament and church history, movements of God. Have you asked two or three people or even the whole church to say, let's come together and ask God to intervene? And then finally, are you praying specifically? One of the big ah-has in my entire life was stop praying, oh, Lord, bless so-and-so or help my kids to turn out right or would you give me a better marriage? And I started praying very specific things and I got to see God do very specific answers. So let's go on a journey together and really learn how to get answered prayer a reality in our lives. You know, a couple of the points that Chip just made are right off his message notes. Go to livingontheedge.org and click the broadcasts tab.

App listeners, tap fill in notes. Just before we close, I want to say thank you to those who make this program possible through your generous financial support. Now, if you found today's program helpful but have never supported us financially, there's never been a better time than right now. When you give a gift to Living on the Edge, it'll be matched dollar for dollar thanks to some very generous friends of the ministry. Making a donation is easy. Just go to livingontheedge.org, tap donate on the app or give us a call at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003. On behalf of Chip and everyone here, thank you in advance for your generosity. Well, until next time, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.