Everything By Prayer - Philippians 4:6-7

Philippians chapter 4 verse six and seven and nine I told Scott Isis Scott don't worry about the time I'm going to just sort of use the time that I talked to you out of my quiet time as part of the message so you know that's just going to have to be that way because I've got to share it and so I'm going to fast forward you guys follow me up there on outlines and stuff you're going to see I'm going to move way into the message because I want to give the heart of what Jesus is teaching me and and what he's teaching us in his word this morning stand with me if you will because I believe his word the Bible is the Word of God it is the absolute moral truth it speaks to every area of life and I just praise God for it and Philippians 4 verse 6 be anxious for nothing that is don't worry about anything wow what a big statement anybody here ever worried about anything but in everything by prayer that's what I'm talking about everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests look at those words prayer supplication request Thanksgiving let it be made known to God he already knows it Matthew six eight but when we involve him it speaks of our dependence and Submission he loves for us to talk to him the peace of God which passes all understanding here's what he's saying you go to prayer time with the heaviest heart and there times you will leave as light as a feather because God will come with peace in your time of prayer and you'll roll that load over on him the peace of God is surpasses all understanding I'm told that soo young bloods here this morning she's written in my journal because she was in my prayer journal where I prayed for her dear precious husband RC and the Lord called him home did his funeral and she's back for a first service that's what we've prayed over and over again for you sweet Sue and others of you that are struggling or lost loved ones but it says he will guard as the word garrison you remember when Adam and Eve was kicked out of the garden remember God put angels there to keep people out he will garrison angels garrison the Spirit of God the peace of God God Himself around your mind to protect your heart and your mind your feelings and your thinking and he'll do it through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ father honor thy word for Christ's sake amen you may be seated I'm gonna say that I'm gonna say that I'm going to say bad and I'm going to start this morning and just dive right in on verse 6 and I want to pick up on that phrase in everything by prayer so what we're going to talk about in the little bit of time that I've left myself because of all that I wanted to talk to you about already is in everything by prayer here's a good one liner prayer does not always change the situation and make it better but prayer always changes us and makes us better in this text I saw two things I saw the Apostle Paul being led by the Holy Spirit and gave us prayers description he said here's how I would describe prayer and then he came back and talked about prayers delivery prayer delivers something in your life if you will commit to a time of intimacy of take a Bible lay all the other books aside take the Word of God read a small portion and if God speaks to you just one word jumps out stay there don't even go to the next verse and ask God to speak in your heart and reveal what he wants you to know I will guarantee you your time in intimacy will grow you will find yourself getting up earlier and earlier and you'll find it's not enough time and you do whatever you have to so prayers description begins with the word prayer it would have been so easy to read this and jump over it and say it like this and in everything by prayer and and go ahead and talk about supplication but I want to talk about prayer the word that is used there carries the idea that in God's presence there is adoration devotion and worship the word worship means to bow when the Bible says do not bow before other idols in the Ten Commandments as we read in Deuteronomy 5 this morning as well as Exodus 20 when it says don't bow before another Idol what it's saying is don't worship so the word worship means the bend or the bow so I bow in his presence in order to bring my devotion to him I'm a devoted husband but I want to be a devoted child of God and a time of adoration and then I just wrote these statements I'm going to say them every way I can say them till we get them until I really have them is the DNA in my life I adore him because I am coming to know him and I'm coming to know him better by spending quality time in his presence number 2 the better I get to know him the more I love him that's not just true that Jesus first and foremost but that's also true with Janet 41 years of marriage I'm just telling you when you get married you don't think you can love anybody more than you did when you said yes at the wedding altar but I have got to know her so much better and I love her more the more I love him the more I trust him as he entrusts me with things I'm finding it easier to keep my hand open to whatever he wants to do with my life whatever he wants to do with my resources what everyone's to do with my time and the more I trust him the more I am so if we could leave here today personalizing those four statements and then every struggle in our life say in this area of my life do I really know God and this air of my life do I really love God do I really trust God in this area of my life and am i obeying God so I found that troubles trials disappointments heartaches draw us to God in prayer they were to do man there are times that God will heal you in you don't know what all's going on in your life but it's really God just trying to get you back to himself and sometimes we go everywhere but to God we're like the woman with the issue of blood we spend all and then we come to the Lord and He would like for us to get to the point that he's the first stop instead of the last but whether it's the first or last thank God you finally came to your senses and I came to my senses and I got there one of my friends I've been telling some of the staff when before I became your pastor and I was back at longleaf Baptist Church in my early days and I went there in 81 and I stayed there for six years and while I was there I called this minister of music and he came to me from Memphis he would agent Rodgers luncheons collide Cranford was a soloist most people preferred to hear him sing acapella instead of with the piano cuz he had such a rich melodious voice a lot like your pastor but nonetheless he um boy he could sing but but I was immature and there were even more room for development my life Den and Clyde used to tell me pastor Johnny directing your choir I'm singing these solos but that's not my heart my passion is to disciple people and lead them into Jesus and in my end maturity I just never could get ahold of him it was like I kind of argued marking my spirit but he just don't he just don't get it but no I didn't get it a few years after we separated I came here and he went somewhere else and we kind of lost track of each other Janet always loved Clyde he never got married and he was a rather big man is that a good way to say it a bit he bought a Honda and I'll never forget a little red Honda and our question was do you get in that or do you just wear it I mean he was as big as the car and we just he was a big ol loving teddy bear everybody loved Clyde Clyde passed away in 2000 alga STUV 2000 but he had been riding out of seven years of de cycling men and he deciphered them in the context of knowing and loving God and his books entitled because we love him Henry Blackaby took the manuscripts and put it together and had it published that says something Henry Blackaby experienced in God but listen what my friend Clyde Cranford said the simple way to gain victory over these trials and disappoints and heartaches and all other issues sin is simply to spend time with God nothing sets apart from the world more than daily loving communication with God and nothing is more holy than obedience as an expression of love and trust the kind of obedience is the manifestation of practical holiness and then Charles Spurgeon listened to the question he answered years ago if anyone should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion I should say it is the one word prayer if I should be asked what will take in the whole of Christian experience I should answer prayer a man must be convinced of sin before he could pray he must have had some hope that there was mercy for him before he could pray all the Christian virtues are locked up in that one word pray in trouble sometimes our best communion with God will be carried by supplication tell him by case search out his promise and then plead plead it with holy boldness this is the best the surest and speediest way of relief wow what a word so the word prayer denotes the petitioners attitude of mind as worshipful so the word has to do with approaching God and it gives the sense of worship and reverence so the word here does not speak of the words we use when we pray but the spirit would which we break us sometimes we don't have words and the Bible says in Romans 8:26 in those times when you don't know how to praise you all the holy spirit prays for you the Holy Spirit tells Jesus what you don't have the capacity did you ever just felt like God only no ask if just so burden I don't know what you want to do in me I don't you to know what you do in a situation but he does so prayer never begins with words it begins with heart confession begins with words but prayer begins with the heart that's a good word I just shared confession bring words of confession so it begins with the heart with a humble attitude toward God and in Luke 18:1 Jesus said man I'll always to pray and don't lose heart that means don't give up the word this use there means don't unstrained a bone I look at this American Indian a bows not very powerful without a string all I could do is hit you with it but if I've got my bring on it I'll put an arrow in there and put you to flight don't lose heart how many how many covers are pulled over professing Christians this morning because they did not pray they lost heart and they're out of the battle first thessalonians 5:17 it's those one sentence the board is a great sermon and they're one sentence and it says pray without ceasing it means you just remain in the attitude of prayer I can't say that I do that all the time but there are some days I'm so overwhelmed by the responsibilities of day that I just live in the atmosphere of prayer I'm just constantly it's like as I breathe as I breathe out I'm acknowledging my need is I take a deep breath in I'm receiving what God has for me so really Paul is saying don't worry about anything but by prayer and pray but pray about everything don't worry about anything pray about every pray about everything well let me give you two words that's all I have time for the first word is supplication when I'm supplicating it's an earnest sharing of needs and problems and burdens it means entreaty it pictures the petitioner as the subject who comes humbly to his master with a need that we really feel needs to be met God may show us that that need don't need to be met but we've got deeper needs in our life that need to be met and when God meets those needs the other needs no longer concern us so literally it means the worst supplicate means to won't I'm here before you Father because I won't it's a petition for necessities for you or someone the Lord has burdened you for the word describes the sharing of problems and needs with God vans Hafner put it this way prayer may not get us what we want but it will teach us to want what we need so prayer has the ability to bring together the family of God to a common ground of fellowship with others in prayer now I hope they've got this on the screens I should have told them to make sure they got it but I'm telling you some words captured my heart this week from a hymn by John Peterson please listen these words i'ma read a statement again and then I want to drive something home I'm telling you this has the power to put us to praying listen carefully prayer has the ability to bring together the family of God to a common ground of fellowship with others in prayer here it is there is a place where spirits blend where friends hope fellowship with friends those sundered far by fate they meet around one common mercy seat how many of you believe that we have friends this morning that are five seven nine thousand miles from us I know what I'm getting ready to saying I swanee I'm about to have a fit even thinking about saying it how many of you believe that we know people five seven nine thousand miles maybe you live here and there over an Alabama 300 miles but and you haven't seen them in some time but you can you can meet them at the mercy seat how many of you know that email went out this week from Africa in a very dark distant dusty land where a couple by the name of David and Carmen said Sara is sick she won't quit vomiting she's running a high fever we are hours and hours away from like a major hospital we've got our own clinic here the moms are nurse but we're not sure we need somebody I said we I said we need somebody to go to the mercy seat and I was able to track all getting fired up 7,000 miles and just you ever going down to the airport to catch a plane and realize that the planes going to land before it takes off I was going to fly to Birmingham one time and they said the flight leaves at 12:35 and it arrived at 12:15 sunnite they said you want to ticket I said I just want to see that joke or take off what you saying that's fast what I'm trying to tell you listen this will get you in your prayer closet to believe that I I didn't go where they were in Africa or did I but I got on my knees and I begin the crowd and my wife joined me I said Janet look at this email and she was doing something we came together in believing prayer along with hundreds of others of you and we took that to the throne of God and we fellowship at the mercy seat on her behalf and what a joy it was to receive an email late last night that the fever is broken she's not throwing up - somebody went to the mercy seat and you're doing your dead-level best to work all of it on your own when he's just sitting up there saying what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer everything who that notebook hurt no he'll come on in please heat up some fuel let's talk look out look up brother Johnny at 7:00 a.m. this morning I was in prayer one of my prayer partners a part-time missionary to Jerusalem Israel was here helping me with some office crisis she and I had been in prayer for about half an hour and we're drawing to a close suddenly God brought you to my heart and I began to pray for God's protection over you I pray the heads of thorns and a wall of fire around you I perceived a huge pitfall stumbling block directly in front of you and someone was suddenly leading you right into it both my prayer pardon and I instantly broke out in goosebumps as the presence of the Spirit of God punctuated the urgent prayer over all our entire beating beings God began to bear down on us an incredibly succinct manner I felt as if the very breath was being pressed out of me here's what I wrote in this letter because I called him I wrote warfare something's going on in the heavenlies and Jesus has informed a prayer warrior there is someone in your close proximity that the enemy has strategically positioned to in essence blind you so that you'll be deceived we ask God to open your spiritual eyes like night vision to see the pitfall in front of you this letter came right at a time where God was really we were for lack of terminologies I feel like Jacob but oh we were wrestling yet the throne of God God was calling me am i trying to get into that tonight I tried to get to it last week and if you weren't here last Sunday night you're to go online I'm telling you God he cleared out a spot and showed himself here last week last Sunday night God also said that your greatest days of ministry are yet ahead of you hallelujah for that glory to God he said but Satan desires to sift you as wheat why should we be shocked the daddy did the same thing for Simon Peter and I've never felt that I was as great a Christian as he is I was as big as sinners he was I carried a knife and cussed and would fight got what most of the time but Jesus has prayed for you and the Bible says he ever lives to pray for us if if Satan can bring you personally down then a shadow will be cast over every work God has accomplished through you I will continue to stand in the gap for you this has been coming into my heart for two to three months but this morning it all came together and burst forth into prayer force like Niagara Falls dear friend set your face toward Jesus unmovable abounding in the grace he will bring you safely across to the other side a few other encouraging words when you're sentencing God's really stirring your spirit and you start getting letters like that and he's stirring other people's spirits we said why do you share it with us because I shared that with me because they deeply loved me and I deeply love you that they want to see me walk in victory do you I desire the same for you I want you to really know God I want you to love Jesus what I would like to think you came to worship today not because you had to somebody been hounding to fire out of you I'd like to believe you got up today because you know God and just wanted to come and worship me I'd like to believe it you came because the bottom line is it would be enough demons and hell to keep you away you just love Jesus you just got where you're trusting him you just can't you realize you can't take another breath without him and you just come just out of obedience because he talks about being faithful yeah when the church assembles and the reason we came together is not just to worship God but he sent you here to encourage others he and not just me because I'm the public speaker to encourage you but God wants to use you to encourage others to exhort others into good works and so he put him put him to praying so did you did you catch all of what I just said not about that now is there anything you'd like to ask us to do for you pastor first of all let me say that's you're so thoughtful there is overwhelm my office tomorrow with calls saying I want you to put me on pastor Johnny's prayer email I want to say something is humbly dependently submissively as I can I need your prayers if you want me to be a better leader pray for me you're going to be a godly leader pray for me you can be a godly ER man pray for me that I don't know of anything under heaven you could do for me more at Christmas I wish thanked I hope you got to thank you note for me some of the stuff y'all did I went to took Starbucks there they to put the cards on my one card that y'all gave and I'm ashamed of how much money's on my card call me if you want to Starbucks thank you for Starbucks cards let me tell you something I need worse I need you to pray please every one of you would you pray everybody watching by internet I would love to be on your prayer list I want the next 10 years to count more for God's kingdom than any timeline only give you couple more things I got a hurry and I gotta quit I gotta get to the next service and all that stuff listen this the third word in there is intercessions where's that come from it comes from request I'm just going to be simple I'll pick up on it again later it stands for particular items on your prayer list intercession is I will hey will you pray for me yes I will intercede for you so I've got a prayer list Jim law really helped coach me in this through the years and that's all myself buddy the other one is appreciation he says and let your request be made known with Thanksgiving all prayer is to be accompanied with Thanksgiving listen to this first Thessalonians 5:17 18 pray without ceasing and everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you this demonstrates the attitude that prayer is being offered from a submissive heart an attitude of gratitude God I'm grateful that you've made it possible for me to come in to your presence it makes my heart grateful to realize that God is concerned about everything that concerns me did you what I just said it makes my heart grateful to know that God concerns himself with everything that concerns me so certainly the father enjoys hearing his children say thank you how do you know that are too close with the story Luke 17 11 through 19 remember the story ten lepers nine healed one came to say thank you or wait a minute let's let's understand leprosy for just a moment I have no way this is this is a sanctified speculation I just know what ultimately happens with leprosy I don't know what their degree was leprosy makes you an outcast you cannot live inside the city and every time somebody comes near you based on Leviticus law you stand up the Bible puts it this way cup your hand overtop your mouth and every time somebody prays to hey unclean unclean unclean it's one thing to be unclean something have to announce that you're an outcast ten outcasts some of them undoubtedly had already started losing outward extremities some had lost fingers some may have lost their entire hand without a doubt one of the ways we have known that they had leprosy is there would be pus pockets all over every account we have in the Bible of where the Word of God describes what you look like when you're touched by Jesus when you've got leprosy as the Bible says their skin became like a little child you got it how under heaven how under heaven could somebody be touched and never come back to say thank you Jesus even said when he came back and fell down to thank him said were there not ten but only you Oh underline it and God please I pray that one day my name might be circled there you're one of the only use I want to be one of the only use if nobody else ever comes back to say thank you God help me to be thankful help me to never get beyond what it meant to get touched when I had leprosy that calls me to be an outcast from heaven here's what I wrote I said this is the original and then I changed my mind but i'ma tell you what I wrote this is the original ultimate spirit of entitlement you can actually feel you did get touched by the way I'm getting ready to make a statement who hears a statement you can be healed of leprosy and not be saved oh no but we don't have leprosy in America's let me say something else you can be healed of cancer and not be saved salvation is not a prerequisite for healing the one when he came back and bowed down jesus said this has made you whole and the word he uses there's a little word pronounced so slow it's soc Oh which means totally made whole cleansed and say nine of them never knew today we would have a much bigger line of people that could get physical healing instead of really coming to know God when the ultimate purpose is to know God to know God to know God and while we're at it and I love to see God heal people but if that was his ultimate purpose it only stands to reason that when he did heal you you'd never die and if you have been healed you will die and you all fit into this category because we've all been healed I've been sick before and this morning I feel incredible why did another nine come back they deserved it hey I went to Jesus and bowed down and man he touched me again this time really made me whole well I don't think I've got to go to where he is to be a Christian by the way if you want to know who the ultimate who is the absolute first original ultimate person with the spirit of entitlement God showed me this cane I'll do it when I want to and the way I want to god said sin lies at your door you can't bring the fruit of your garden you got to bring something that's been sacrificed and at every opportunity God in His mercy God in His grace because got such a loving God gate cane every opportunity is ever given anybody in canes that I'll do it my way or not do it at all Frank Sinatra may have written it Elvis Presley may have sang it and Frank Sinatra sang saying it but when you come to Jesus Christ ladies and gentlemen hear your pastor you don't do it your way you come God's Way where we ought to be thankful have you bowed lately to thank him oh god there's so much more heavenly father speak into our hearts

Channel: First Baptist Woodstock

Views: 11,439

Rating: 4.7704916 out of 5

Keywords: Jan, 15, AM

Id: cDc9_0hwkzE

Length: 31min 42sec (1902 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 23 2012