Friday, July 27, 2007

Prayer and the Purpose of God

Last Sunday I preached a sermon on 2 Kings 20:1-11 entitled, "One Call, That's All." It should be available to hear online at this location soon. The following is an excerpt from that sermon:

"All prayers, offered up in the will of God and according to his desire will be answered in the affirmative. For the Christian, this is not a restriction to his prayers but a delight; for, he delights in the will of the Lord. Therefore, we should not hesitate to ask for the new job, the new car, or extra money. However, in our limited knowledge, we do not know how to pray as we ought. Thus, the Spirit takes our prayers and plucks the sin out of them as Martin Luther said. So since God is working everything to our good and his glory as Romans 8:28 says, there are times when the gift will be to best of the child and times when it will not be. That’s why the Spirit’s role is so essential in interceding for us and enabling us to pray in accordance with the will of God. Because of this, we can think of our prayers in terms of a bullet-both upwards to heaven and outwards to the enemy. Our desires are like that of gun powder. On its own it is useless. But when the Holy Spirit comes and encases our desires as the lead shell encases the powder, our prayers actually penetrate Heaven’s domain and become powerful projectiles that can be launched in the face of the enemy."

2 comments:

Seth Fuller said...

Hey Trevor, I don't think the link to your sermon is right bro. You might want to check it out.

Brenda said...

"So since God is working everything to our good and his glory as Romans 8:28 says, there are times when the gift will be to best of the child and times when it will not be."

Could you elaborate on, or perhaps give an example of, the last line of this statement? (The link didn't work for me.)

I'm not sure I understand how this could be so, in light of the fact that God is working everything to our good and His glory.

Looking forward to your reply. Thanks!