Sermon Tone Analysis

The Value of Repentant Prayer \\ \\

2 Chronicles 7:13-16, Psalm 66:18 \\ \\

January 14, 2007

 

 

Last Sunday, I opened my series of messages on prayer with a “Back to the Basics” teaching.

Today we are moving on to another prayer basic – repentance.

Repentance is a precursor to prayer.

This story will illustrate its importance: In 1968 Evelyn Christenson, a pastor’s wife, was national women’s chairperson for the Baptist General Conference in the U.S. Her task was to discover what happens when women pray.

She had started a prayer group with her two prayer partners in 1964.

Everything was going great in her church, yet the three of them sensed that there was a missing dimension.

They decided to meet once a week to pray – a noble idea they thought.

They agreed at the start to base their praying on a verse of Scripture and right away God gave them Psalm 66:18:  /“If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear.”/

Evelyn was confused as to why the Lord gave her that as their key verse.

She wanted to pray for her church.

But God continued to gently apply pressure.

/“If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear.”

/She, a pastors wife, regarding iniquity in her heart!?

But God didn’t release them to pray for other’s needs until they had cleaned up their own lives by confessing sins.

So they prayed and prayed and God kept bringing sins to their mind.

As their first prayer meeting came to a close, they thought, “Phew!

We got that over with, next week we can pray for our church.”

But the next week they couldn’t get beyond Psalm 66;18.

God kept bringing wrong priorities, thoughts, reactions, and attitudes to their minds.

It took the three of them six whole weeks to get out of Psalm 66:18 and into effectual, fervent prayer for their church.

You don’t have that many things to be cleaned up in your life do you?

She, a pastor’s wife did!

Evelyn made a list of the many sins she had to confess, then asked her prayer partners to add to the list.

The main one was their superior attitude concerning their spiritual status, the idea that they should pray for others.

God showed them that their attitude was sinful.

What other sins were on their two page list?

Divided motives, ego, self-fulfillment, self-satisfaction, desire to build up their own worth in the eyes of fellow church members.

Pretense – she wasn’t as spiritual as everyone thought she was.

And the biggie – pride.

“Look what I’ve done” would often come over her as she ran off her Sunday School lessons.

None of them had been practicing any of the “dirty dozen” sins, but God exposed one by one the “little Christian sins” which Peter could have been referring to when he wrote (in 1 Peter 3:12):

/”For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous/

/And His ears are open unto their prayers;/

/But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil”/

John categorized these worldly sins as /“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”/, in 1 John 2;16.

Let's read what the Word of God has to say about repentant prayer and its value in bring­ing healing and restoration to disobedient believers.

If you have your Bibles with you please turn to our key passage for today – 2 Chronicles 7:13-16 and follow along as I read:

/"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked //ways, /*then*/ will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever.

My eyes and my heart will always be there.”

//2 Chronicles 7:13-16/

 

A basic tenet of our faith regarding prayer is this: *God promises to relent from chastening his disobedient people, to hear their prayers, and restore them to his favor if they humbly repent of their sin and seek his face.*

*There is retribution*—God* *does* *chastens his sinful.

What did verse 13 say?

/"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,/

Why would a loving God do this?

Well, first and foremost, God hates sin.

The disasters and plagues mentioned in this verse are one kind of chastise­ment God brings on his people when they have sinned.

God does this to re-mind them of his displeasure with their sinful life and to bring them back to himself.

It works doesn’t it!

My own life is full of examples of God bringing me back to Himself because God hates sin.

God chose us to bring His message of hope to the world and He can’t use us when we are wallowing in sin.

He chose us to be fishers of men: we catch’em; He cleans’em.

But first He cleans us!

God so loves his own that he will chasten them in order to turn them back from their sinful ways and restore them to a right relationship with him.

The writer to the Hebrews gives this word of encouragement to children of God: /"Do not lose heart when [God] rebukes you, because the Lord disci­plines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son" (Heb.

12:5-6)./

The amazing thing about God is that while he will not tolerate sin, he will forgive it.

God's chastening is intended to drive believers to repentance so that he can forgive sin, blot it out of his sight, and restore the sinner to a state of grace. 1 John 1:9 says/, “//If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

/His forgiveness is instant, but cleansing may take much longer, like scrubbing out a persistent stain.

And we all need scrubbing since we won’t be perfect this side of heaven.

Like Paul in Romans chapter seven, we know that often /“how to perform what is good, I do not find.

For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice./”

As believers we do fail God, as Romans 3:23 says, we fall short.

*Believers do backslide*

To backslide is to slide back into sinful ways of life that were formerly dis­avowed.

Backsliding may be caused by three things.

Let’s look at them now.

The three things which cause us to backslide are prosperity, worldliness, and the influence of the ungodly.

Let’s look at what the Bible says about each.

First, prosperity (Deut.

6:10-12  says/: “When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, *be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery*/*.”* ), secondly,  worldli­ness /(2 Tim.

4:10 states: “for Demas, *because he loved this world, has deserted me* and has gone to Thessalonica.

Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.

“),/ or, finally,  the influence of people who do not know the Lord (1 Kings 11:4 says:  /“As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and *his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God*, as the heart of David his father had been.”

/).

Those who backslide are believers.

God addresses the Old Testa­ment believers in 2 Chronicles 7 as "my people, who are called by my name."

In other words believers who backslide do not lose their status as God's people.

They will lose the blessings of obedience and they will open themselves up to the harassment of the evil one, but they will not lose their salvation.

*Phew!! Thank God for His mercy!*

 

*Trials, however, are not always the result of sin.*

Trials may come in order to strengthen our faith.

Peter implores us to rejoice when we /"suffer grief in all kinds of trails" since "these have come so that your faith . . .

may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed"/ (1 Pet.

1:6-7).

Trials may come in order that the sufficiency of God's grace might be dem­onstrated and his power be made perfect in weakness.

This was the reality when /God decided not to remove Paul's " /thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor.

12:7-9) but to give him the grace to endure it.

Trials may simply come as part of the stress of serving the Lord ( In  2 Cor.

11:23-29 we read:  /“Are they servants of Christ?

(I am out of my mind to talk like this.)

I am more.

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move.

I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers.

I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches/