December 31, 2001

Colossians 4:2

Midnight New Year’s Eve Service Message

"Pray Hard!"

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – From Homiletics Online: Years ago an American minister visited Charles Spurgeon's church in London. When the visitor noted there was little heat in the sanctuary, he asked Spurgeon if he had a heating plant. Spurgeon led his guest to a large basement room. He explained that before every service, 400 members met there to pray for their pastor and the salvation of the lost. Spurgeon concluded, "This is the church's real heating plant."
2. Context – Spurgeon understood the difference between knowing about prayer, and actually praying. Tonight, we’re going to try to capture a little bit of that understanding, and to put our knowledge about prayer into practice.

1. Scripture Passage

1. Colossians 4:2 – Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

1. Our Primary Focus

1. There are many passages in Scripture that focus on prayer. There aren’t any simple tricks; there are no gimmicks. Some folks have systems that help them pray, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The most important thing we can do in 2002 and beyond is pray.
2. In fact, if I could label our focus in 2002, it would be focused prayer. The verse over the sanctuary doors is still true: I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. There are two main ways to know Christ: Bible study and prayer. We tend to do fairly well on the Bible study end. But I am convinced that this church will make no significant impact for Christ in this community until we devote ourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. You’ve heard of the movie "Die Hard." Well, we need to "Pray Hard."
3. Until we as a body of believers decide that we are going to do the hard work of groaning prayer for the people of our area who don’t know Jesus, we’ll have no lasting or significant impact. So I’m calling for a commitment from all those who are here tonight. A commitment to pray, pray hard, pray until it hurts, pray until you sing, pray until you cry, to just pray. Pray for our church. Pray for our communities. Pray for our world. In the words of Nike, "Just Pray It."

1. Conclusion

1. As I said a minute ago, I’m calling for a commitment to pray from all of you here tonight. It’s what God is requiring of us. How are you going to respond to this challenge? What are you going to do about it?
2. If you’re serious about praying hard each day for however long God puts it on your heart to pray, you need to take physical action to seal that commitment. If you want to make this commitment tonight, this is what you need to do. Take a key and a tack. The key symbolizes the key to your prayer closet. Put the key on the cross. There’s lots of room around the keys that are there. Putting the key to your prayer closet on the cross means that you are giving Jesus access to it anytime He chooses for any length of time He chooses for any topic He chooses. In other words, you’re telling Jesus that He can call you to prayer anytime for any amount of time about anything. It also means you are committing yourself to spend time in that closet daily praying about the stuff Jesus cares about – the life of His church and the lost souls who need Him so desperately. If you want to make this commitment tonight, come and symbolically nail the key to your prayer closet to the cross.
3. Let’s pray.