The School of Prayer Part 1: Pray

Welcome friends to the Line of Fire.

Michael Brown here to Infuse You with Faith and Truth and Courage to help you stand strong on the front lines. And we are beginning a brand new series. School is now in session.

Classes have begun. Today we go to the School of Prayer. You know, it sounds like a trite saying you never graduate from the School of Prayer, but it is absolutely true in this world.

And I am super excited about this new series for two reasons. One, I get to share these truths with you and I believe this is going to deepen your prayer life and thereby deepen your relationship with God and thereby deepen your effectiveness in God. The greatest ministry of all is the ministry of prayer. I'm also excited to teach it because I get to remind myself, I get to stir myself, I get to preach to myself as well.

So we together are going to the School of Prayer. If you miss any broadcast, remember this is the Courage in the Line of Fire podcast. So wherever you get your podcasts, go to Courage in the Line of Fire and look for it. You can listen to the series we just finished on getting to know the Holy Spirit.

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If you hit that bell, you will know as soon as something goes live. So, let us set our hearts, let us set our minds, let us open ourselves to God as we go to the School of Prayer. I want to lay out a number of statements first and then we're going to get into a lot of scripture. We're going to talk about what prayer is, how to deepen our prayer lives, aspects of prayer, intercession. I believe you're going to find this super helpful. If you've been pastoring for 40 years, I believe you're going to find this helpful. If you can't find it, you can't find it.

I believe you're going to find this helpful. If you came to know Jesus one month ago, you're going to find this helpful. So, let's go together and move forward. Consider this, that nothing of eternal value comes without prayer. Anything of eternal value is something that God does.

Human beings in and of themselves cannot do things of eternal value, but with Him and in Him, we can do things of eternal value. It ultimately comes out of prayer. Someone is praying somewhere. When God wants to move, when God wants to work, many Bible teachers, leaders have said this for centuries. When God wants to work, when He wants to move, He stirs His people to pray and He invites us to pray throughout scripture. Jesus urges us, ask and it shall be given to you.

Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you. In Matthew, the seventh chapter and in Luke, the eleventh chapter, we have these invitations to ask, to seek, to knock. To believe, to look to Him who is faithful. And the power of prayer is the power of God. In other words, this is where we as human beings ask Almighty God, the sovereign ruler of the universe, whose power and wisdom are infinitely beyond anything we can comprehend. This is when we ask God, you move, you act, you do what only you can do. And if you want to see change come, if you want to see lasting change come in your life and the lives of people you love, if you want to get through crises, if you want to have God's help in the midst of challenging times, if you want to see Him move in ways that can change whole nations, everything must flow out of prayer. So if you decide to change the world, if you have massive needs in your own life, there's nothing you need more than prayer.

It's not just desperation, just throwing things up and hoping something will stick. No, it is a child coming to the Heavenly Father. And Jesus said this, Matthew 7, Luke 11, He said, What man is there among you? If his son comes and asks for bread, we'll give him a stone. Daddy, I'm hungry, can I have some bread? Sure, son. Gives him a stone.

No, who would do that? Or if he asks for a fish, we'll say, Sure, boy, and give him a snake. No, He said, If you, being evil so human beings in themselves, if you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him? Throughout Scripture, God is inviting us to pray. He says through Jeremiah, Call to Me and I'll answer you and show you great and wondrous things that you do not know.

Throughout Scripture, there's an invitation. Pray. Get to know God. Share your burdens with Him. Talk to Him. Pour out your heart to Him. Cry out to Him.

Partner with Him in prayer. Leonard Ravenhill was the greatest man of prayer I ever knew. Most famous for his book, Why Revival Tarrys. He lived from 1907 to 1994. We became very close the last five years of his life.

So from from 89 to 94. He was 82 when we met. And praying with him was like nothing else I've ever experienced. Just the depth of his relationship with God and the burden of his heart and the passion and intimacy with which he prayed. But he made the statement, No man is greater than his prayer life. No man is greater than his prayer life.

We could say the same thing. No woman is greater than her prayer life. And I understand people can be very busy. Some of you are holding down several jobs, balancing home and work and ministry and other things. I'm not saying that most of us have unlimited hours to pray every single day. But prayer must be the foundation of our lives. Prayer must be at the bedrock. There was a leader died a few years ago. His ministry started just reaching a handful of people.

Then it went to dozens and scores and it went to hundreds and it went to thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and ultimately millions. He was known as a man of prayer. And he once said that when he realized that prayer was as important as eating and drinking and sleeping, then he realized he had time to pray. I want you to come at this from another angle for a moment and to think about a life of prayer. We talk about having a prayer life.

Is it really a life? Is it really foundational and fundamental to who we are, to how we think, to how we operate? We wouldn't leave our homes wearing our pajamas or worse still in our underwear. We get dressed first. Do we understand that spiritually getting dressed starts with prayer?

There are so many things. We eat. We're going to find time to sleep. We're going to find time for this or that.

Why can't we find time for prayer? I remember talking to a fellow in Italy one time. He was at a meeting where I was preaching under a big gospel tent. He was talking about the busyness of his schedule. He worked a really hard, demanding job. He heard me preach and he said, I want to pray.

I want to spend more time with God, but I simply don't have the time. He's speaking through a translator. He told me what his schedule was. He gets home and his wife and kids need him. I said, okay.

Just out of curiosity, do you read the newspaper? I don't want to condemn. Everything I'm saying here is an invitation.

Whatever feels like pressure, turn it around. It's an invitation from God. It's God Almighty.

It's our Heavenly Father who loves you and loves me dearly. Say, hey, come closer. Come nearer. I want to bless you. I want to touch you. I want to use you. I want to commune with you. I want to take you deeper.

I want to be glorified by answering your prayers. So I asked this fellow, just out of curiosity, did you read the newspaper? Every day he goes, yeah, basically from front to back.

Obviously not every article, but yeah, just every day I read the newspaper. I said, oh, okay. He said, I just need to wind down a little. Oh, okay. I said, do you watch TV at night? Oh, yeah, yeah. I sit with the family or I sit alone and I watch.

I was a couple of hours. It's like, hey, with all respect, sir, you have time to pray. You don't have to read the newspaper. There's no commandment in the Bible. You must read the newspaper or you must surf the net certain hours a day or you must respond to X amount of text every day or you must watch this amount of TV or no. But we are called to pray throughout Scripture, praying on all occasions, pray without ceasing.

You say, how? It's not possible to pray without ceasing. Oh, if that means 24 hours of every single day we are actively praying words of prayer.

No, of course not. But our life can be a life where not just times alone with God in prayer, but also times where just during the day, whatever pressures are on you, whatever's on your mind, there's a prayer lifted up. When you feel that anxiety hit, a prayer lifted up. When the bad news comes, a prayer lifted up. When you see an opportunity, a prayer lifted up. So it just becomes a lifestyle of communion with God. All right, we're just getting started in the school of prayer.

I want to take us deeper and deeper in the days ahead. Like I said, we'll look at a lot of Scripture together as well. We're going to look at the prayer life of Jesus, especially from the Gospel of Luke. We're going to look at the prayer life of Paul. We're going to look at promises to prayer. We're going to look at concepts of persevering in prayer. Why is it that sometimes it takes a long time for prayers to be answered? Are we praying in unbelief if we repeat a prayer? What about special prayers of faith? We'll get into all of this.

What's the difference between prayer and intercession? What does the Bible mean by travail or being in the pains of childbirth? What do those metaphors speak of? We're really going to dig deep, but at all times, I want to encourage you.

And I'm encouraging myself as well. Let's go deeper. Let's go deeper.

Let's go deeper. Our Heavenly Father is saying, pray, pray, pray. I want to meet with you. I want to answer you.

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And just click subscribe. We would love to connect to you and pour into you. That's why we're here. All right, we're continuing to teach on prayer this first day, just laying foundations. I want you to consider that there's a principle in the Bible about putting God first. The children of Israel, when they got the manna, they had to get up early in the morning before the sun, the melting heat was out. And this way, the manna was there.

They had to start their day with Him. The psalmist says in Psalm 63, Ashacharecha, which is literally I'll seek you early, which then becomes a metaphor for I will seek you earnestly. We're told, for example, in giving, Proverbs 3, honor the Lord with your firstfruits. Many of us live by that practice of the firstfruits of what we get, we give back to the Lord.

And then Jesus in Matthew 6 says, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And I don't know about you, but it's happened to me many a time that I feel an unusual burden to pray early in the day. Now, by nature, I'm a late night person. I keep trying to change my schedule.

It still hasn't worked, but I'm still working on it. That I, by nature, I'm a late night person. So over the decades, I've done a lot of prayer late at night, a lot of seeking of God late at night. And then in the morning, obviously commit the day to the Lord, but I don't pray as much in the morning as I do later in the day. Well, someday, and by the way, that's not the best habit. The best habit is to really start your day in a quality way with the Lord if you're able to. But some days I wake up and there's an unusual burden to pray and I think, okay, let me just do this one thing.

I just need to respond to this one time sensitive email. And the next thing it's midnight, I realized I didn't even stop and pray. The one thing became another thing, became another thing, became another thing. And then little by little, that unusual burden wasn't there.

And then it disappeared. Then I got caught up in the busyness of the moment and 10, 12, 15 hours later, I still haven't prayed. So there's a principle of seeking God first, putting prayer first. And I want you to consider some truths about prayer. The most fundamental concept is this, prayer puts us in direct contact with God. Prayer puts us in direct contact with God, meaning it puts us in contact with the unlimited resources of an unlimited God.

I went through a severe trial one time and I was just looking for wisdom from people or help from people or want to talk to people or plan things out and I was so convicted. Why are you looking at people to do what only God can do? And you get on your knees and you talk to God who controls the universe, who has resources beyond anything we can conceive and wisdom beyond anything we can conceive. We're inviting Him to get involved when we pray.

And look, a lot of us regret things in our past. We can't change that, but we can change the future through prayer. We can change our own lives through prayer.

And yes, the Word of God is essential, important in our lives. It's not either prayer or the Word. But think of Acts 6, the apostles, they said we can't get caught up waiting on tables and working out disputes between who gets what in our midst and so they raised up these helpers, these deacons.

You do that. Tell the people, you pick them, you put them to work. They said we've got to give ourselves to the ministry of prayer and the Word. That's even how they prioritized prayer and the Word. And think of this, regardless of your personal gifting, regardless of wealth, your appearance, popularity, anything, whether you have one social media follower or 20 million, whether you even know what social media is, whether you're healthy 20 years old or 90 years old and shut in, you can pray and change the world. You can have an effective ministry.

And let me say it again, there's no more effective ministry than the ministry of prayer because you are directly in contact with God. God can save that sinner. God can raise up that missionary. God can turn the tide of that disaster. God can intervene in a crisis.

People can only do so much. God can do anything. That's why the Scriptures reiterate all things are possible to the one who believes. All things are possible to the one who believes. Nothing is impossible with God. Nothing is too hard for the Lord to get us to really set our faith in Him. Friends, we sell God too short. We may make the professions. We may say the words.

He can do anything. All things are possible, but often we really don't believe it. And the way you can see we really don't believe it is to watch how little we pray. If you want prayer to make a difference, you've got to pray with focus. You can't just be doing 20 other things and think you're going to pray in an effective way. It doesn't work in any other area of life like that.

You're not going to build a quality relationship with someone while you're texting on the phone and surfing the net while talking to them. You're not going to be effective in your job. You're not going to be effective in anything, any pursuit in life if you're just distracted with everything else. And that's one of my challenges over the years. My mind is so easily distracted. Focus. Lord, you come first. I'm pulling away from other things.

I'm setting my heart on you. And it's day in, day out. It's day in, day out. And the more you pray, the more you love to pray. The more you spend time with God, the more you enjoy spending time with God, the more you can't live without quality time with God. And sometimes in prayer you just have to be persistent. There's a battle.

There's a wall. And I like to think of it like this, and we'll come back to this when we talk about persevering prayer. But I like to think of it like this.

Think of a massive giant tree, the largest tree that exists on the planet. And you've got to be involved in chopping that tree down. You've got a nice sharp ax.

You can keep sharpening it. But you're going to be involved in chopping that thing down. Each blow you think, I'm not doing anything. Nothing's happening. I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing anything.

Nothing's happening. But little by little, that tree starts to be affected. And then at a certain point, there's one more blow of the ax and the tree collapses.

The tree collapses. Your prayers, if you're praying in faith to God, and when we're in harmony with his will, those prayers make a difference. So God has just set things up in this world where he works through people. He works through people. In other words, it is not simply a matter of God decides to move. He's going to save someone, so he just saves them. No, he sends someone to preach to them.

And that's just how it works. He doesn't only move on his own. He moves through us and with us.

It's the way he set things up. You can make a difference for eternity based on your life in prayer. And everything will change. The weight that you carry that weighs you down, he can take it, he can carry it. He can give you peace and joy in the midst of the storm. The relationship with God we have is everything. And it flows out of prayer.

James, Jacob, chapter 5, verse 13. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray.

Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. There's trouble. There's a problem. Pray.

Go to God. Oh, I was so worried. Okay, we all get worried. We all get anxious.

But instead, go to God. God, I'm anxious. God, I'm worried. God, I feel pressure. God, I don't know what to do. I don't feel like you're not even caring. Talk to him.

Talk to him. James, Jacob, chapter 5, verse 16. After talking about the prayer from faith to make the sick person well, therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed.

And then look at this. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. And the beautiful thing is we are made righteous through the blood of Jesus. The beautiful thing is we are made righteous through the blood of Jesus. So we can come into God's holy presence.

Hebrews 10, the holiest place of all. We can come in through the blood and pray. And the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. The angel Gabriel told Daniel in the ninth chapter and he visits him.

While Daniel is in prayer, Gabriel comes and speaks to him. So we're going to dig in deep the next class. We're going to start going through Luke's gospel and looking at the importance of prayer in Luke's gospel.

And we're going to focus on the prayer life of Jesus in the gospel of Luke. Next class. Let me just take one minute with a special announcement. We are here to serve you and we'd love to serve others too. One of the best ways you can help us do that is by telling others about this message. If you're listening on radio, tell your friends, hey, tune in. If you're listening this time every day on this great station, tune in.

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