Sermon Notes: Obstacles in Praying Part II
Fire up your prayer’s life series (IV)

This is a sermon note translated from my church’s Sunday sermon about Prayer life some time ago. This is the fourth series of the “Fire up your prayer’s life”.

OBSTACLES IN PRAYING (part II):

(1) NO PERSISTENCE

Read Luke 11:5-9
Motivation: Luke 11:13.
God wants to teach us to keep praying continually and depends solely upon Him. It’s wrong if you pray continually because you want God to “give up” and just give you what you want! The point is that He knows what’s best for us, but we have to keep on knocking at His door and seeking Him.

Persistence: continuous, determined.

Luke 22:44 – And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly. And His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground (NKJV).
“”..more earnestly”" is to extend (make longer, lengthen)
Jesus was praying in Gethsemane for hours (note: “midnight” until “dawn”, when the soliders came)

Hebrews 5:7 – “”For Jesus , in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryings and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared..”"

Acts 1:10-14, Acts:12:5, James 5:17-18 (1King 18 – notice how Elijah prayed)

Persistence in Prayer means committed to pray and wait for His perfect timing. And waiting is not easy!

In Hebrews:
a) Dumyah (Psalms 62:2)
b) Chakah  (Psalms 33:20)
c) Qayah (Isaiah 40:31)

How long should we pray?
(a) Until you know it is not God’s Will (example: David prayed until his son died)
(b) Until God answers your prayer
(c) Until God releases you (when we have a huge burden, that means until God takes out that burden from us). Example: Nehemia.

(2) UNREPENTED HEART

Psalms 66:18, Isaiah 59:1-3.

Sinning is a choice that we do in our life to fight the standard morality of God.

In Psalms 66:18, RA’AH, to enjoy, to approve, to have experience, respect.
There is no way you can live continually in sin and respect God at the same time!

Symptoms of unrepented heart:
- Keep sinning
- Ignore God’s convicting Spirit about the sin
- Turns into a hard heart
- Is more interested in learning how to manage sin effectively than learning how to overcome sin or bad habits victorously
- Have a tendency to be self righteous & blame people

This is a sermon note translated from my church’s Sunday sermon about Prayer life sometimes ago. This is the third series of the “Fire up your prayer’s life”.

Our God always wants to hear our prayer. However, most of the time, we have to do some “housekeeping” in our lives first, so that we can pray better.

Read 1 Peter 3:7
“Hinder” or egkopto (from the original language), from military: to break up a road/road block so that enemy armies can’t get through.
This word is being used in a Prayer, meaning that sometimes our prayers are not answered by God because of the obstacles that we created ourselves.

OBSTACLES IN PRAYING
1) IMPROPER MOTIVE / WRONG MOTIVATION
Read James 4:3
• Wrong motives (NIV)
• Spend (NIV)
• Pleasures (NIV)
Motivation is crucial in our life. It’s what drives us forward. The question “Why do we do what we are doing?” has to be asked by ourselves continually.

Spend.
What we spend the most, that’s us. If you like to spend your money on shoes, that means you love shoes very much.

Pleasures (Lust, Hedone; Hedonism)
Often we are focusing on a request to satisfy our own pleasure!

When we pray, we learn not to be self-centered. God sees through our motivations and our hearts.
Read Hebrews 4:13, 1 Chronicles 28:9

How to build the right motivation when praying? When you pray, ask yourself:
a. Why am I asking God for this?

Do I need this? Why would I want this for?
b. Am I willing to lay aside my will so that God’s will can be done?
When the answer to the prayer is “No”, are we ready & believe that He knows what’s best for us?

c. Is it my concern that God gets the glory for it?

(2) Broken Relationships
Matthew 6:14-15, Mark 11:24-26, 1 Peter 3:7 (in the context of praying)

Broken relationships (both horizontally to other human beings and vertically to God) will hinder our prayer’s life!
When we are having relationship problems with our wife, our husband, our friends, our brothers & sisters in Christ, our relationship with God will be affected too.
Remember that the Devil is smart to make use of your current situation! (Ephesians 4)

Before you start praying, start asking for forgiveness. Ask for restoration from God (admit that we are angry, full of hatred, an urge for a revenge, then let go of our rights to judge people). Then, ask God to restore us, to heal us. Let His love heals you and then take a step to forgive & love the person.

Forgiveness is a process. The devil won’t stand still! Read Rome 5:17.

Take out your hindrances in praying RIGHT NOW and have a more effective prayer’s life!