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*The Power of Prayer - Jeremiah 33.3*
November 30, 2008
/Pastor Oesterwind/
*Introduction*: Phil didn’t know what to say when his young children asked if Mommy was going to die.
His wife, Ramona, suffered horrible seizures.
Hundreds of friends and relatives prayed, but Ramona’s weight eventually slipped to 90 pounds.
Medical specialists tried everything, but by the fall, the seizures were occurring daily, sometimes hourly.
Phil rarely left Ramona’s side.
He wondered if she would even make it to her 30th birthday.
One evening, when things looked utterly hopeless, Phil paced in his dark back yard.
When everything seems stacked against us and all hope is lost, we begin to think that we are so utterly alone.
We’ve tried everything we can think of and still we come up empty.
It is precisely at times like these that we must prevail in prayer for great and mighty things.
Jeremiah was commanded to pray for great and mighty things from the confinement of prison.
A rebellious king named Zedekiah attempted to stifle the prophet’s convicting pronouncements about the doom of Judah.
This king would be the last before Babylon took the nation captive.
The LORD would command Jeremiah to pray and then back the command with His creative power (v.
2).
Nothing is too hard for the LORD who made heaven and earth and everything that dwells therein.
The LORD commands Jeremiah…
/Jeremiah 33:3// “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”/
*We must pray because God has the power to deliver what He promises!
*
*Transition*: There is power in God’s position as Creator.
This is why it is so necessary to obey His command to call upon Him.
So, we see first…
*1. ** The Power of His Position: “Call to Me!” *
*Explanation*: When the Lord thinks about you and me, He thinks thoughts of peace and not of evil (Jer 29.11a).
He seeks to give us a future and a hope (Jer 29.11b).
This knowledge assists our prayer effort.
When we call upon our LORD and pray to Him, He will listen to us (Jer 29.12).
Seek Him and He will be found if you search with all your heart (Jer 29.13; Deut 4.29).
As with Israel, is there any other nation that has had God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us in America?
For /whatever/ reason we may call upon the LORD our God at any time (Deut 4.7)!
You may think that we have fallen from the grace of God as a nation of prayer.
That may be true to a large extent.
Yet we may come to ourselves even as Judah did and return from our own captivity and realize the promises of God.
We are still able to repent and call to the LORD.
We may even obey the admonition Solomon gave to Israel and say, “We have sinned and done wrong, we have committed wickedness” (1 Ki 8.47).
God will hear and forgive us.
That’s why He commands us to call.
He will grant us compassion and listen to us whenever we call to Him (1 Ki 8.52).
Call upon the LORD in the day of trouble; He will deliver and cause us once more to glorify Him (Ps 50.15).
The Psalmist stated, “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and [the LORD] shall hear my voice” (Ps 55.17).
God is “abundant in mercy to all those who call upon [Him]” (Ps 86.5).
“In the day of trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me” (Ps 86.7).
“He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation” (Psalm 91.15-16).
“The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Ps 145.18).
“Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa 55.6-7).
There is power in this command because of the position of our God.
He alone is God, Creator of everything.
Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11.9-10).
“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4.16).
The power of His position is behind His command to pray.
So, it natural for us to ask why we don’t do something that is so sensible.
This can be answered in a myriad of different ways.
Let me suggest three…
*Application*:
· We cannot experience the power of prayer because of our preoccupation with this world.
Spurgeon wrote that we have hours for the world and only moments for Christ.
We measure our prayer time in minutes because of the allure of this present arrangement of things.
· We cannot experience the power of prayer because of our perception of ourselves.
We feel so polluted with sin that we can hardly believe that God would want to hear from us.
We feel traitorous.
We weep with Peter as we betray the Lord with our denials.
We well remember that we are false and full of sin, but forget that He is full of truth and grace!
· We cannot experience the power of prayer because of our persistence in unbelief.
God commands us to call, He promises an answer.
Yet we say, “I can hardly believe that this will make that much of a difference.”
We don’t believe that God will do what He said He would do.
Perhaps we’re afraid of His will or we’re too determined to do our own will.
It’s pretty sad when as Christians we believe we know what is best for us.
*Transition*: The power in God’s position as Creator gives authority to His command to call upon Him.
We must pray because God has the power to deliver what He promises!
Second, notice…
*2. **The Power of His Promise: “I will answer you!” *
*Explanation*: It is one thing when another person says that he will do something for us; it is quite another when God says that He will do something for us.
God always makes good on His promises to us.
“By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation, You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of the far-off seas” (Ps 65.5).
Two main lines of thought provide clarification and reinforcement here.
*Application*:
· When we obey the command to pray, the character of God provides confidence that He will answer.
Romans 8.32 is just but one example: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
God loves us and desires that none of us be lost and alone.
He is merciful.
His justice demanded payment for our sin, so He spared not His own Son.
The love of God meets the justice of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
· When we obey the command to pray, our experience with God in the past provides confidence that He will answer us.
o I was assured of Heaven by God because my uncle and the church he pastors were burdened to pray for me.
o I am preaching today because I prayed for God’s wisdom and direction, for Him to order my steps and direct my paths.
o My sons are in church today because of a burden for many to pray.
It is beyond me why we don’t obey the command to pray when the answer is assured!
It goes to show you how powerful a weapon it is.
*Transition*: Let’s summarize where we’ve been.
The power of His /position/ issues forth an admonition to call upon Him.
The power of His /promise/ assures that He will answer.
We must pray because God has the power to deliver what He promises!
There is also a third and final facet to this admonition to pray…
*3. **The Power of His Persuasion - “I will show you…”*
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