Transforming Prayer
SUNDAY WORSHIP SERVICE: August 13, 2023
Rev. Charles Lee
1. In transforming prayer we pour out our heart.
a. O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. (Jeremiah 20:7, ESV)
b. Then I hear whispering behind my back: “There goes old ‘Danger-Everywhere.’ Shut him up! Report him!” Old friends watch, hoping I’ll fall flat on my face: “One misstep and we’ll have him. We’ll get rid of him for good!” (Jeremiah 20:10, MSG)
c. Curse the day I was born! The day my mother bore me— a curse on it, I say! And curse the man who delivered the news to my father: “You’ve got a new baby—a boy baby!” (How happy it made him.) Let that birth notice be blacked out, deleted from the records, And the man who brought it haunted to his death with the bad news he brought. He should have killed me before I was born, with that womb as my tomb, My mother pregnant for the rest of her life with a baby dead in her womb. Why, oh why, did I ever leave that womb? Life’s been nothing but trouble and tears, and what’s coming is more of the same. (Jeremiah 20:14-18, MSG)
2. In transforming prayer we cling to God’s promises.
a. But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten. LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have committed my cause. (Jeremiah 20:11-12, NIV)
b. “The best praying man is the man who is most believingly familiar with the promises of God. After all, prayer is nothing but taking God’s promises to Him and saying, ‘Do as You have said.’ You put your finger down upon the very lines of the Bible and say, ‘Do as you have said.’ This is the best praying in all the Word of God. So be filled with God’s Word, and you will be a master in the art of prayer.” (Charles Spurgeon).
c. Sing to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked. (Jeremiah 20:13, NIV)
Sing to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked. Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! (Jeremiah 20:13-14, NIV)