Dr. Tony Evans reminds us that prayer is a vital part of God’s will and highlights its significance in accessing what God wants to do. Join him for this look at the importance of prayer as a means of bringing heaven into earthly circumstances. SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/drtonyev… If you would like to download two encouraging, FREE full-length MP3s of Tony’s popular sermons: “The Sovereignty of God” and “How to Handle a Crisis,” you can do so by clicking on this link: https://share.hsforms.com/1atT9MJvXQN…
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Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually. #tonyevans #tonyevanssermon #Prayer
the goal of prayer is to draw from
Heaven into history to get eternity to
make a statement in time it is to make
Heaven visible on Earth it is to get God
to touch Humanity the goal of prayer is
that up there might do something fix
something or change something down here
before a major sporting event
they will often play the national anthem
now the national anthem has absolutely
nothing to do with what’s getting ready
to happen on the field
it doesn’t affect the football game it
doesn’t affect the baseball game it
doesn’t affect
points scored in the basketball game but
it is put there as a place of National
Honor
but totally unrelated to what you came
there for
you don’t go there for the national
anthem that’s an add-on
for many of us
prayer is light the national anthem
before a sporting event
it gets it started but has absolutely no
connection
to what’s happening in our lives
we do it because it’s tradition
we’re supposed to
it’s paying homage
while being totally disconnected
from the field of play of Our Lives
and yet
it is one of the dominant themes of
scripture
and as you saw when I read each verse In
this passage
it is the dominant theme of James
in verses 13 through 18 you see the word
pray or prayer in every verse
so for James this is a big deal
I hope to explain to us today why
God has a conditional will
and an unconditional will
God’s will is what he determines to
happen
but it can happen in one of two ways
it can happen unconditionally or
conditionally
God’s unconditional will
is when he determines what will happen
irrespective of what anybody else does
that is it’s not conditioned on us or
anybody else because he’s going to
decide that it happens and he’s going to
cause it to happen without any human
involvement
that is his unconditional will it’s not
conditioned on our actions or
non-actions because he’s The Sovereign
he sovereignly decided to make it come
to pass all by himself that is his
unconditional will
but God’s conditional will is different
there are many things he’s decided to
not let happen until he gets cooperation
from Earth
there are many things that he’s decided
he will not bring from Heaven into
history unless there is human
cooperation with his desire and design
for example
the Bible says God desires all men to be
saved
yet men only get saved when they believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation
so he has a will but it’s tied to a
condition
many things in your life in my life are
tied to God’s conditional will
so things happen or don’t happen based
not on God’s decision but on our
cooperation or lack thereof
one of the primary mechanisms
that God has established
to determine much of what he does on
Earth
and in your life and in my life is
conditioned by the absence or presence
of Prayer
James says in chapter 1 verses 1 Chapter
4 verses one to three you have not
because you ask not
or when you ask you ask with wrong
motives
he says I wanted to give it to you but
you never came to me for it so you don’t
have it
it wasn’t because I didn’t want to give
it it was because you didn’t cooperate
with getting it
because it was part of my conditional
will
prayer is relational communication with
God
and the goal of Prayer
is to draw from heaven
into history the gold of prayer is to
get eternity to make a statement in time
it is to make heaven
visible on Earth it is to get God to
touch Humanity the gold of prayer is
that up there might do something fix
something or change something down here
when God makes a big deal about prayer
which he does throughout all of
scripture
we are asking God to release
his will
from Heaven to Earth
we’re giving him an okay because we’re
cooperating
because it is part of his conditional
will
now the problem is you don’t always know
what’s conditional and what’s
unconditional
some things are clear but other things
you’re not sure
that’s why Paul says in first
Thessalonians 5 17 you better pray
without a ceasing
you better bring it all to God so you’ll
miss nothing
because all the time it’s not clear
which way God is operating from
in the mind of the Bible prayer is a
lifestyle and not merely an event
if I were to say to you breathe without
ceasing
you would understand what I meant
because if you cease breathing you’d
cease
so if I said breathe without ceasing you
know that’s just got to be how you roll
that’s got to be how you roll so when
Paul says pray without ceasing he’s
talking about this is how you roll
this is how you wrote that it is a
lifestyle not merely an event
when you go into another country
they’re going to ask you to show a
Passport
the passport gives you permission
to go into this new realm this new
locality this new country it is
permission
God has given every believer a toll-free
number you got an 800 number
it’s toll-free
and it is designed to give you
permission
to leave Earth and into the sphere of
Heaven through the mechanism of Prayer
so prayer is not just saying some word
it’s changing locations
When you pray as we will describe in a
moment you leave the physical and you
have now entered the spiritual
without prayer you become limited to the
physical
but the only reason you pray is to get
the spiritual God to enter into the
physical the passport to leave the
physical and into the spiritual
is in one word in Scripture
and that word is
prayer
now
let me explain
prayer does not get God to do something
he doesn’t want to do
because you can’t make God do something
but what prayer does
is access what he already wants to do
that he has conditioned on your
participation and mine
I love Isaiah 65 verse 24.
Isaiah 65 24 says before you call I have
answered
oh did you follow that before you prayed
I have already answered the prayer
so you are not praying to get God to do
something but to pull down something
he’s already predetermined to do
because if he’s already done it before
you ask for it then why don’t I have it
because it has to be pulled down
pull from Heaven into history and that
is done
through prayer
this concept of Prayer
is Distributing
eternity in the time you remember when
the disciples were asked by Jesus how
are we going to feed five thousand men
not counting women and children 15 to 20
000 people and they said we don’t know
but they found a little boy with
two fish
five barley loaves of bread they brought
him to Jesus
because there’s a problem how we gonna
feed all these people
the Bible says Jesus looked up to heaven
and he prayed
and he invited God into the problem
when everybody opened up their eyes Moby
Dick is laying on the beach
or could a killer whale somehow there
was Supernatural Vision so that the
scripture says everybody ate till then
until they were full and there were 12
baskets filled
12 baskets filled with leftovers for
them
and the disciples distributed the food
to all that were gathered
Jesus Christ
Got Heaven to enter history
but he prayed for that to take place
which answered the problem
and all men did was distribute what the
supernatural had provided
so help me out
if Jesus had to pray
to get his Heavenly Father
to do something up there to change
something down here how much do you and
I need to pray to get God to do
something up there that we need him to
do down here