Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 7 - Stand for Good By Praying Against Evil
42 Plays4 months ago
Match broken situations that you see to the message from Jesus in Luke 18:1-8. Stand for good by praying against evil.
Central Ohio Youth for Christ: www.coyfc.org
One of our ministries, Gracehaven, serves minor survivors of human trafficking in Ohio. Learn more at: www.gracehavenohio.org
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Motivation
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Brian, your host, and seeing how God answers prayer is one of the main things that's kept me going spiritually.
Sharing Stories of Prayer
00:00:17
Speaker
That's why I want to share stories of God answering specific prayers with real people inside and outside of the context of Youth for Christ.
00:00:26
Speaker
That's how we get a picture of who God is and what he's like, and we couple that with truth from the Bible.
Connecting with God Through Prayer
00:00:32
Speaker
If you're a follower of Jesus but need encouragement or helpful ideas on how to connect with God, I'm super glad you're here.
00:00:39
Speaker
If you're wondering about how to connect with God in the first place, you can pray and call out to God.
God's Desire for Relationship
00:00:45
Speaker
The God of the Bible is personal, wants a real relationship with you. Jesus says, whoever is seeking, you're going to find.
00:00:53
Speaker
Whoever is knocking, the door will be opened. And in another verse in Revelation 3, Jesus says, I'm standing at the door of your heart knocking. If you open the door, I'm
The Role of Prayer in God's Work
00:01:04
Speaker
going to come in. We're going to share a meal as friends.
00:01:07
Speaker
call out to God, ask Him to show Himself to you, and you can open your heart to God and begin a relationship with Him. I'm glad you're here. hope you're going pray more.
Practical Prayer Tools
00:01:19
Speaker
You're going pray with joy and expectation because you're learning things about God and how to think about prayer differently.
00:01:26
Speaker
Prayer is the inroad to get involved in what God is up to. And we can pray for students, neighborhoods, schools, families. There's a great way to join in and get a sense of what God cares about.
Prayer as Rebellion Against Evil
00:01:38
Speaker
Over the past few episodes, we looked at two tools, a prayer calendar to add some structure and format, as well as bringing to our mind who to pray for, and incorporating reading and praying through content from the Psalms to focus our thinking.
00:01:55
Speaker
We're going to look at a different idea today that will hopefully change how you think about prayer. Let's pray and see what God does. Pray along with me. God, not a day goes by where I'm not reminded of how a lot of things are messed up.
00:02:11
Speaker
Watching the news, going online, any update, both nationally, internationally, there's a lot of brokenness and a lot of evil all around. You stand for good, Lord, but there's so much evil in the world.
00:02:24
Speaker
I see this in the lives of young people. I see it even in my own life, in my own heart. You want to rescue people from that, including me. Would you remind me that you stand for good, that you're not silent in the face of evil and brokenness, and help me to think about prayer in the ways you do.
Prayer Against Injustice
00:02:42
Speaker
Amen. Today's idea is stand for good by praying against evil. Stand for good by praying against evil.
00:02:54
Speaker
One person describes prayer as its rebellion against the state of brokenness in the world, or it's a call to justice in the face of injustice.
00:03:06
Speaker
You the reality is we're not only praying about positive things or trying to get a positive vibe. Prayer is about connecting with God on who he is. And who he is is the same in a good situation and a bad situation.
00:03:20
Speaker
What he's doing, bringing his kingdom. He cares about things that are broken. He wants his love and forgiveness to transform people, even in the midst of bad situations.
Personal Stories of Hardship
00:03:29
Speaker
We don't need to feel a certain way.
00:03:31
Speaker
You don't need to de-stress. You don't need to calm down or get rid of your anger in order to pray. When you have a relationship with God through Jesus, you can pray to him at any time, even about things that are broken and messed up.
00:03:44
Speaker
One teenage student, Michael, his dad was shot and murdered, and he's faced with navigating teenage life and growing up without a dad in the face of violence.
00:03:57
Speaker
That's not an okay situation.
00:04:01
Speaker
During the pandemic, One detention facility was closed to any outside visitor. Family, our juvenile justice ministry team going in to connect with young people and give them words
Persistence in Prayer for Justice
00:04:14
Speaker
of hope.
00:04:14
Speaker
No one was allowed in. Horrible. That is not okay. Recently, ah teen mom in our parent life ministry, her house caught on fire and she lost almost everything.
00:04:26
Speaker
Thankfully, her and her kid, is they're okay, but the situation is bad. God invites us to pray for these things that are broken, big ticket items and parts of life that aren't right.
00:04:40
Speaker
We can stand for good by praying against evil. Listen to this passage in Luke 18. Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and not give up.
00:04:55
Speaker
It's easy to want to give up when we don't see an answer that we're waiting for in prayer. This is why Jesus told his followers this story. Here it is. He said, For some time, the judge refused, finally to himself,
00:05:10
Speaker
there was a widow in the town who kept coming to him with the plea grant me justice against my adversary for some time ah judge refused but finally said to himself Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see she gets justice, so she eventually won't come and attack me.
00:05:32
Speaker
The Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
00:05:42
Speaker
I tell you, he will see they get justice and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? In the story, the widow is helpless but has justice on
Refusal to Accept Brokenness
00:05:53
Speaker
her side.
00:05:54
Speaker
But she's not accepting what is broken and and she's not accepting injustice. We shouldn't either. Followers of Jesus should refuse to accept the brokenness and corruption in the world.
00:06:07
Speaker
And despite discouragement, the widow persisted in pleading her case. This is what we can do in the practice of prayer. Jesus isn't saying in this story that God is the same as a corrupt, unrighteous, uncaring judge.
00:06:21
Speaker
He's using a how much more argument, like if a wicked, unjust person as a judge will sometimes do good, even for bad reasons, how much more will God do good and right?
00:06:35
Speaker
This is a part of what prayer is. It's rebelling against the state of the world and how broken it is. It's refusing to accept as normal what is actually abnormal.
00:06:47
Speaker
We're not saying that evil is some variation of good, that it's all the same, but there are things you can look at that are messed up and genuinely agree with God and say, this is wrong that these things are happening.
00:07:00
Speaker
We don't want to accept evil to resign and give up or accept life as it is, meaning there's nothing I can do to change things.
Standing for Good Against Evil
00:07:08
Speaker
If you're stirred up by things that are evil or unjust, you can change things by praying and asking God who hears your prayers to move.
00:07:19
Speaker
He can actually change things. In an earlier episode, we looked at God changes them, other people, to link our prayers with God's ability and power to change people's lives.
00:07:33
Speaker
Because our prayers actually matter. In this case, our prayers matter too. You can stand for good by praying against evil. Do you see problems, but you feel paralyzed? you paralyzed?
00:07:45
Speaker
like you don't know how to solve the problems of injustice, prayer is a part of God's cause for justice because it can go to the places we can't. God can go to the places we can't.
00:07:59
Speaker
Because of the news cycle and media circulating, we see and oftentimes can feel frozen by injustice all over the world, right? And you may even think something like, okay, do my prayers really matter?
00:08:12
Speaker
Yes, Jesus is saying they do. Knowing and following Jesus means we get to be on his rescue mission to bring the goodness, wholeness, and healing of God into really broken places.
The Impact of Prayer on Injustice
00:08:25
Speaker
So my challenge to you today is pray against the evil that you see. Stand for good by praying against evil. God doesn't close his eyes to evil and brokenness. He wants to do something about it.
00:08:38
Speaker
Think for a minute about what's broken around you. Could be a family situation, something in your neighborhood. I don't know. What bothers you and stirs your heart for justice?
00:08:50
Speaker
What is it? Tell God, God, now I know that my prayers actually matter about this stuff. I believe you're going to do something about this.
00:09:01
Speaker
I want to pray against the evil that I see. And God, I'm praying out of faith and trust that you've heard me and you're going to do something about it.
Encouragement and Connection
00:09:11
Speaker
Well,
00:09:12
Speaker
We not only want to learn prayer techniques or tools, but we want to learn how to think differently. Because if we think differently about prayer, it will motivate us to want to pray and to stick with it, to pray and not lose heart.
00:09:26
Speaker
I hope you join us next time to dive more into this topic. If you want to connect and learn more about starting a prayer group for one of our Youth for Christ ministries, shoot an email to pray at C-O-Y-F-C dot org.