TCA 06May24 - Prayer - Pastor Josie Sithole

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Father, Father, Father Spirit, Spirit, Spirit Let Your living water flow over my soul Let Your Holy Spirit come and take control Of every situation that has troubled my mind All my cares and burdens unto You I know Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Sing to the Father, Father, Father, Father Spirit, Spirit, Spirit Come now Holy Spirit and take control Hold me in Your loving arms and take me home Wipe away all doubt and fears and take my pride Draw me to Your love and be my purest guide Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Sing to the Father, Father, Father, Father Spirit, Spirit, Spirit Give your life to Jesus, let Him fill your soul Let Him take you in His arms and make you whole As you give your life to Him, He'll set you free You will live and reign with Him eternally Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Sing to the Father, Father, Father, Father Spirit, Spirit, Spirit Let Your living water flow over my soul Let Your Holy Spirit come and take control Of every situation that has troubled my mind All my cares and burdens unto You I know All my cares and burdens unto You I know Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Amen, Amen, All my cares and burdens And welcome to this week's prayer As we continue in the subject of prayer We had a powerful time last week Where we were taught about praying And the fact that when we pray, we pray such that We don't enter into temptation I believe that we were blessed And strengthened by the word that we read last week Let us continue as we start Allow me to start with a word of prayer As you prepare to read Romans 15 verse 30 Let us pray Father in the name of Jesus Thank You for the time that You have given us again this morning As we start a new week We say oh God thank You for allowing us to start it in Your presence Help us help our families as we start Help us in every situation where we find ourselves We pray oh God that You are going to be with us Help us to start this day and the days to come Knowing that You are our God In everything we do in Jesus name, Amen Amen Amen Amen Yes We are continuing with the subject of prayer And as we see the book of Romans 15 verse 30 As we see it in the King James Version Where it says I beg you brethren through the Lord Jesus Christ And through the love of the Spirit That you strive together with me in prayers to God for me That you strive together with me in prayers for me This is the Apostle Paul writing to the Romans And begging them He says I beg you through the Lord Jesus Christ And through the love of the Spirit That you strive together with me in prayers to God Together with me in prayers for me Here we see several things First Paul was a man of God Who was a leader of the churches that he was writing to But he was in this instance begging them To strive together with him In prayers to God for him So this tells us that prayer is a battle Prayer, normally we hear people talking about prayer warriors And when you look throughout the whole Bible You will never meet a term that says a prayer warrior But why do we say prayer warrior? Why do we say prayer warriors? It is because prayer is a battle When Apostle Paul says I pray that you strive together with me That word strive It means to join in a struggle It means to strive together with someone Or to help someone in their strive or in their struggle So prayer is not something that comes naturally to us Prayer is not a gift of the Spirit It is something that we have to do by faith It is something that we can master by faith We have a lot of people both in the Bible And in history or in our current situation Whom we know they are prayer warriors Or are people of prayer Let us know that they don't pray because they are different from us They don't always stay in prayer Because God has given them the spirit of prayer Because prayer is not one of the gifts of the Spirit There is no way in the Bible where we read of people who are gifted in prayer It is something that we have to strive to do It is a struggle So that word that Apostle Paul used to say I pray that you strive together with me It is a Greek word that says sunoguzimai In other words you join me together as we strive So for Paul as a man of God Paul as a great Apostle To beg the brethren To beg people with no names To beg people who are not even maybe in the five folds Ordinary people on the pew To say join me in the struggle Join me in the struggle In prayer to God for me Now it is difficult for us to go to God in prayer for ourselves It is even more difficult to join somebody And strive together with them To God for them Especially when we know it is a person that we look up to But Paul says join me in the struggle Strive with me it is a battle May you please as we speak open Colossians chapter 4 verse 12 So as we continue to say that When we look at all the people who prayed to God Some of the prayers are recorded Some are not recorded But we realize that prayer is a struggle I am waiting yes thank you so much So we look at people we see people in the Bible Some of them we don't even know them They are not famous They are not well known But they prayed Some of them their prayers are recorded Some of them their prayers are not recorded But we just hear of their results One such example is Leah in Genesis 29.33 You don't have to open it Leah when she gives birth To her third child She says God heard that I am unloved In other words the fact that she was an unloved wife Was such a burden to her That she took it to God in prayer That is why when she gave birth to her third son She says God heard that I am an unloved woman In other words as much as we do not know her prayers The Bible does not record Leah's prayers But it is obvious that it was a battle for her It was pain that she brought to God in prayer And indeed God heard that It means she would go to God and pray And say Lord I am unloved Lord my husband does not love me Lord my husband prefers my sister better than me And it was a struggle It was a battle It was a type of prayer that you cannot pray in public It is a prayer that you can only pray in your own corner Where you know it is only God who hears And she says God heard that I am unloved And she named him Simeon Now there is another man Epaphras That Apostle Paul is talking about He says in Colossians 4.12 Epaphras who is one of you A born servant of Christ Greets you always laboring fervently for you in prayers That you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God So the Bible tells us that there is a man Who prayed for the Colossians But his prayer was not just an ordinary prayer It was a prayer of labor He was laboring fervently Because prayer is a struggle Apostle Paul says Epaphras prayed for the Colossians Laboring fervently for them in prayers That they may stand perfect and complete It is not easy to stand perfect and complete In all the will of God In our lives because of all the problems that we come across But Epaphras labored Not just you know It was enough for Paul to say laboring for you But he says laboring fervently for you In other words this labor is intense So imagine someone who enters a prayer closet And starts laboring It is a heavy duty It is something that a person does with a struggle Because prayer indeed is a struggle That is why prayer needs courage Prayer needs courage Hebrews 4 verse 16 It says we must approach God boldly It needs you to be bold To come to God and talk to Him knowing that you are not perfect It needs you to be bold To come to God and ask for things you know you don't deserve It takes courage and boldness To approach God and speak to a holy God While you know that you are a person with failures You are a person with weaknesses For you to approach a holy God It takes courage But the Bible The Holy Spirit through the Bible The Holy Spirit that inspired the writing of the Bible Says we must approach God with boldness In other words You approach God boldly With courage Do not look at what you cannot do Do not look at your failures How many times you have failed God You approach Him boldly So that you obtain mercy and grace So that in your needs God can look at you with mercy and grace And meet that need Not because you qualify Not because you have everything in order But because you are bold enough to come before God The God of grace The throne of grace To say Lord, mercy, mercy, mercy So we approach God with courage Because prayer is a struggle Secondly We have to come before God consistently Constantly Like we see in the book of Luke 2.37 Don't open that, go to Romans 12.12 But in Luke 2.37 We see a woman Who was widowed at a very young age And the Bible says She consistently worshipped God in prayer In the temple In other words When all other young people of her age Were enjoying their lives She gave herself consistently to prayer And she prayed constantly Until she was 84 years old When we meet her she is already 84 But the Bible says she was only married for 7 years So many many decades she spent her time in prayer And she was consistent And she was constantly praying So the book of Romans Says we have to rejoice in hope Patient in tribulation As we continue steadfastly in prayer The word steadfast means To be constant, to hold on Not to be moved in prayer We have to continue unmoved in our prayers Even when we go through tribulation Even when we are rejoicing in the hope Of what God is promising We have to be steadfast in our prayers That is the second thing The third thing about prayer Because it is a struggle It needs us to be persistent And when you are persistent in prayer It means It takes a lot of courage As we have started with courage But you have to be persistent Persistence means You pray even when you don't see answers Or you don't experience a breakthrough You persist in prayer We see that in the book of 1 Kings Chapter 18 verse 33 to 44 Where Elijah keeps on praying We must remember that it is God Who had promised Elijah That he will bring rain But we can wonder Why does God not answer It's 43 verse 43 Verse 43 to 44 We can wonder why God does not answer Elijah instantly Because he is the one Who started this whole thing It's 1 Kings 18 verse 43 He said to his servant Go up, look towards the sea So he went up and looked And he said there is nothing So we pray even after God has Convinced us Or the Holy Spirit has convicted us About a certain matter That he is going to do for us So even when you go to God With that promise With that knowledge That God is going to do it Sometimes he will not answer it instantly That is where we need to be persistent When we are persistent We are saying to God We trust you We trust that the word that you gave us Is true So as we persist in prayer Even when we see nothing We are saying to God We have faith in you We have faith in you Let's see verse 44 We have faith in you And it came to pass that The seventh time he said There is a cloud As small as a man's hand Rising out of the sea So he said Go up, say to Ahab Prepare your chariot And go down before the rain stops you We see persistent prayer From a man whom God trusted With the power to even change the weather The power to change natural elements But we don't see him Having a smooth ride in prayer The Bible says in the book of James Elijah was a man like us But he prayed So this man Elijah Whom God had gifted differently From other people in Israel He continues to pray Even after God sent him To go and tell Ahab That it is now going to rain He prays for the first time And God is saying nothing He prays again the second time And you must remember He is praying in the presence of Naseus He is praying in the presence of the prophet of Baal He is praying in the presence of Ahab Who is against the faith of Jehovah He is praying against people who are saying God is not as powerful as our God He is praying in the presence of people Who have no faith in what he is doing He prays for the third time And still there is nothing He still goes on and prays for the fourth time Knowing that it is God who sent me to this place He continues praying The fourth time The fifth time Fifth time Only on the seventh time Does he see a small indication That something is about to happen He does not wait for the clouds To fill the sky To pronounce to Ahab That you must run before the rain stops you Even with that little indication That God is about to do something He starts pronouncing to Ahab Run before the rain stops you So it is persistent people Who are able to continue steadfastly in prayer And also start to speak About the things that God is going to do Even before God starts doing them We pray that We do that as an act of faith Persistence is not an act of lack of faith But it is a sign That you believe That as Apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians Pray without ceasing Pray without ceasing In other words pray until you see What God has promised you come to pass Again we see the fourth requirement for prayer Because it is a struggle It requires perseverance Perseverance means You are constant You continue even when you get negative results from your prayer You still continue You persevere In other words You pray Perseverance means that you pray painfully It is painful Everything in you screams stop But you persevere, you continue In the book of Mark chapter 7 from 24 to 30 We see a Canaanite woman who comes to Jesus with a prayer And Jesus calls her a dog And This woman The Bible says When Jesus went to this area He wanted to remain hidden He didn't want anyone to know he was there But this woman of Tyre Sidon She goes and searches for him She goes and prays to him Even after he calls her a dog She still persists So prayer According to this woman The Bible says She persisted She persevered In prayer So prayer needs perseverance Even when Jesus said to her I cannot give you what you are asking for Because this food is for the children And not for dogs She says I'm a dog But I can eat from what falls from the table of the children Whatever it is that the children Are letting to fall from their table Allow me to have that So it means Perseverance Takes us to even what does not belong to us Even what is meant for other people When God sees us to persevere He allows us to have a portion of things that were not meant for us Number five Prayer needs determination We see Jacob Praying And struggling and fighting Until His hip was dislocated Sometimes You pray That is found in Genesis 32 Verse 26 Sometimes you pray until it hurts The Bible says He prayed And he fought He struggled He was Fighting Until The angel that he was fighting with Dislocated His hip And he started walking with a limp Sometimes we pray And our problems Are so visible that even the people that see us They can see the limp In our walk But we need not stop Like Jacob We need not stop until God blesses us He says I will not let you go Until you bless me So we have to hold on to God Knowing that our blessings come from Him We must hold on to Him Jesus once said to His disciples Why don't you all go away Why don't you leave me Like the others who left me And they said where can we go Because it is It is only from you Where we can get life So we continue With God in prayer We don't leave Him and go and try other things But we are determined Like Jacob In 32, 26 Genesis Where he says I will not let you go Unless you bless me So we continue with determination Because prayer is a struggle It needs courage It needs consistency and constancy It needs us to be persistent It needs us to persevere And be determined Jacob Was determined to be blessed His determination Was that I want God to bless me He had a goal He had When he was struggling in prayer For the whole night Struggling with the angels For the whole night His determination was I want a blessing And indeed God gave him what he asked for Number six Prayer needs us to be earnest Colossians 4 verse 2 Earnestness means being genuine Pray to God Earnestly Be earnest Don't go to God half-heartedly You go to God because you know everything that you are praying for You depend upon Him with everything There is nothing else That you are hoping for from outside Him You go to Him earnestly Because you know He is the only one with the answers that you need You have to be vigilant And you have to be earnest With thanksgiving And when we pray, number seven We have to have the strong faith Like that woman in Matthew 9 Who said If I can only hold the hem of His garment I will be healed Let us have that strong faith That if I can do this Some people do a lot of things Sometimes they will say If I can fast for three days Or if I can fast for a day Or if I can plant a seed Towards this need Or if I am just a man who has the same need as I am God will answer me That is strong faith Where you act upon your conviction To say If I do this God will hear me If I do this God will hear me So we need strong faith And lastly Let us know that Prayer When we say you are a prayer warrior Because we say prayer is a struggle Prayer is war Prayer is a battle If you have to be a warrior If you have to be a soldier Who is fighting in prayer It does not mean that you always know what to pray for Or how to pray Romans 8 26 and 27 Shows us that Sometimes even when we have needs You are so overwhelmed by your needs Or you have prayed so many times Without seeing anything You have prayed so persistently You have prayed so constantly And you see nothing Such that when you come before God Maybe on the sixth time or fifth time Or whatever time You no longer know how to pray You no longer know what You should say to God When you pray But The Holy Spirit himself Will make intercession For you With the groanings that cannot be uttered So sometimes you go to God Not knowing how to say things that you need to say Because you feel you have said everything That you needed to say to him Or you have done everything That you need to be said But God Who knows your heart The Holy Spirit who knows Your heart He also knows the mind of the Spirit Therefore He is able to reconcile Your needs And the will of God As you pray in the Spirit As you pray in the Holy Spirit He is now praying through you Helping you To vocalize Your prayer to God In a way That God Will accept it In a way That God Needs you to say it Because He knows the mind of the Spirit He knows your heart As you come to him With all your failures With all your needs With all your unanswered prayers Because The greatest prophet Elijah The Bible says he prayed And there was nothing In other words there was no answer There was nothing The seventh golden says There is nothing So even with unanswered prayers God With the knowledge that The Holy Spirit Will Will pray Through us He will give us Words to say to God Even as we groan before him Not knowing what we say He knows our heart He searches our heart He searches our spirit And he intercedes More than anything He intercedes For us According to the will of God Because sometimes we do not know the will of God But he searches The heart Or our heart And because he knows the mind Of God He makes intercession for us So as you go to the prayer closet As you As we are saying that prayer Is a battle There is a commander Of the battles In our battlefield We need to spend more time With him We have to spend more time In prayer As we pray to God As we say to God We are coming to you In the spirit And we pray And he is the one And it is what I like about this whole thing The Bible says Jesus lives To make intercession for us And here We are taught that The Holy Spirit himself Also makes intercession for us So when you enter your prayer closet You must know you are not alone You have Jesus You have the Holy Spirit Who is helping you To take your prayer So because the commander Of the army is with you He commands you As how to engage In this warfare of prayer So you are able To pray according to the will of God And as you pray According to the will of God You are bound to get answers According to the will Of God I am going to request That we take this few moments And pray And indeed say Lord we know that prayer Is a struggle But Give us that spirit To approach you boldly Give us that spirit To be consistent And persistent Persevering Even when we get negative responses To be determined For a particular Answer That we need Let us go to God And say Lord We are coming before you Earnestly And we have faith in you That you will be able To help us I just want to encourage you to say Prayer is not just A mental exercise It is not something that we just do With our minds But it is also An emotional exercise When you come to God Even your emotions When I was growing up Our church The full gospel was known They would say It is the church Because people would Come to God Unashamedly so Pray to God To the point of tears Today when we come before God We are so worried About people That we don't Resolve our emotions When we come before Him So when you go before Him Go with everything That you have If it means you must cry before Him Do so If whatever it is That you feel like doing before Him Do it And as you pray You must keep your eyes on God And not on your problems God bless you Amen Praise God I put my fears and burdens Onto You I rose Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah