Please open to 2 Chronicles Chapter 7 and be prepared to stand and read this passage together. 
2 Chron 7:12-14, Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 
You may take your seats.
As we have made very evident, we are using material adapted from The Battle Plan for Prayer Bible Study Curriculum, developed by Stephen and Alex Kendrick. We have spent several months looking at various practical aspects of prayer as the means of our spiritual growth. 
	Last time we began to look at what it means to pray in the faith that God will answer our every prayer. We were concentrating on how that faith is developed in us by the Lord. We considered that we need to begin our every prayer with a thankful heart and the earnest expression of gratitude unto God for Who He is and all that He has done. When we recount to Him and to ourselves His faithful work in our lives and thank Him for it, we will remind ourselves of His goodness and His awesomeness. 
The next element in this course of building our assurance in God’s response to prayer is that He is Our Loving Heavenly Father Who wants to meet our every need. In line with that knowledge is the truth that He does love us and He cares about us, down to even the smallest detail of our every day life. We need to recognize that He is able to do all that He has promised to do and so much more. 
We ended with the truth that He is aware of what we are going through and how to best meet our every need. In this certainty, we were looking at the fact that we often have to wait upon God’s answer to our requests because He knows best when and how to answer our prayers. He very often puts all the elements of His answer into place long before we have even asked. He then uses that time of our waiting on Him to build our character and our trust in Him.
	This is where we will pick up this morning, the matter of waiting on the Lord for His perfect will and His perfect timing in answering our prayers. We read the following from the Prophet Isaiah in Isa 40:30+31. Isa 40:30+31, Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. 
The initial question before us today is how do we spend our time waiting upon the Lord? To wait on The Lord is not just a matter of voicing a prayer and then going on with business as usual, with the ho-hum attitude that God will answer at some point. Sadly we will often just sit around saying that we are waiting for His response while we spend our time watching television, or reading a book, or checking out our favorite sports team, acting as if we had never even prayed in the first place. So many Christians make statements along the lines of doing nothing while they are waiting on the Lord to move them here or there. They are lost in their inactivity, floating through life as in a rowboat, without oars being tossed to and fro by the tides and currents. They are going nowhere and learning nothing in the lazy course of just floating through life with no intensity of purpose or determination to know God to the ever increasing depths of His fullness. 
	The truth is that waiting on the Lord is a very vigorous and intense activity of spiritual growth. God answers as we sincerely look to Him, study His Word, continue to talk with Him in our prayers of earnest desire for His response, and open our hearts and minds to Him. Actively waiting on the Lord is an intensely dynamic study of the Lord and His ways with solemn and serious anticipation of what He would have us do. 
	 The picture is that of the feudal lords who had attendants in waiting in their courts. These attendants in waiting did not just lean themselves against the wall, discuss political and social niceties ignoring what was taking place in the presence of their feudal responsibilities. They had to be instantly alert and very actively waiting to meet the every need of their lords. These were those servants who knew their masters and watched their every action, ready to do whatever task was required without so much as a nod or word having to be spoken. They so well knew their lords that they could anticipate what was needed. It would be sufficient to see how things were playing out throughout the day as to what their masters would require at any given moment. They knew their masters and they knew their master’s wishes and desires.
	How do we actively wait upon Our Lord? What kind of time do we spend in His Word, studying it, asking the Holy Spirit to make us more and more aware of Who God is and what He has done and what He has promised? How much more time are we in prayer after that which is our concern, that which we have on our hearts in the needs and the requirements and the struggles and the testings and the trials and the tribulations of ourselves and others whom we are lifting up in prayer? Do we think it is enough to just voice our prayers once and that is it? Or, do we come unto the Lord over and over again, beseeching Him to respond and searching for His way and His will as we wait? Do we read back to Him His very Word in the course of our prayers with the determination to not stop until we have prayed ourselves out for the day, but ready to lift up that prayer again on the morrow? 
As is evident, this actively waiting on the Lord is far from idleness. It is infused with that relentless passion to know more and more about Our God and His ways and His Word. We are those attendants in waiting, instantly ready to do that which is required of us by the Lord.  
Sometimes this waiting on the Lord is the hardest element of our struggling faith in prayer. The thoughts surge forth with those questions like has He really heard us? Is He even listening to our prayers? Has He forgotten us? Why is God so quiet and why can’t I hear from Him? 
In the waiting, if we continue to seek Him, if we continue to pray, if we continue to study His Word, and continue to press forward in our desire to know Him all the more and to the greater depths of our being, if we will not be discouraged nor dismayed, we will find that the journey, that season of stillness and silence before the Lord teaches us more about God and our relationship with Him than any instant answer would have done. Our trust with and in Him will be more concrete and driven into the core of very essence. Our fellowship with and our worship unto Him will abound to levels never before imagined, if we will actively wait upon Him. This waiting time is our vigorous opportunity to be fully engaged in our living relationship with Him as no other time may afford. 
The next reality that works to our increased faith that God will answer our every prayer is if we will remember that God prompts us to pray. We are told in many passages and through many examples that we are to pray. Consider Eph 6:18. Eph 6:18, With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints… 
Also recall the very concise command of 1 Thess 5:17. 1 Thess 5:17, pray without ceasing… God is not going to tell us to pray and then deny our prayers. As He guides our prayers and prompts them, He will be faithful to answer them.
    	He is the One, in fact, Who puts our requests of Him upon our hearts and He then intercedes when we do not even know how to pray, as detailed in Rom 8:26+27. Rom 8:26+27, And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 
If He so prompts our prayers and makes known the need for prayer and He is the means of intercession on behalf of those prayers, why would He then deny them? On this basis alone, we can confidently be assured and have it worked into our minds and hearts that faith in the fact that God will answer our every prayer. 
This, then, leads us to our last point in this building up of our faith that God will not only hear but will answer our prayers in His precise and awesome manner. It is the consistent and accurate reality of God’s perfect track record. God is and always has been Jehovah Jirah. From even before the creation of all that has been created, God knew exactly what was needed and necessary to fulfill His perfect plan and purpose. 
As Jehovah Jirah, He created time and all that is part and parcel of that which we acknowledge as His creation. Everything was formed and fashioned to His exacting requirements to sustain human life on this earth. At every turn of human history, God has been the One Who has ruled and overruled according to His will and His Omnipotence and His Omniscience and His Lovingkindness. Every need of His people has been perfectly met by His grace and His mercy.  
 The Psalmist threw himself into this knowledge of the perfect will and provision of God throughout the Psalms. Let us read a few of them together as we highlight just how fully God has worked to this point in the lives of His chosen people.
We will begin with Ps 34:8-10, if you would please open to it. Herein is declared the fact that the people of God will never be forsaken by God in the provision of all that is needed. Ps 34:8-10, O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! O fear the Lord, you His saints; For to those who fear Him, there is no want. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing. 
    	Our next Psalm is Ps 46, wherein we can rest in the truth that God is our refuge and our strength and our help. No matter what may be happening in the world around us, we can take refuge in Him and He will sustain us. 
Ps 46, God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. Selah. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered; He raised His voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. Come, behold the works of the Lord, Who has wrought desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire. "Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. 
    	Our final psalm, highlighting the trust that we can have in the maintaining power and glory of the Lord is Ps 100. Ps 100, Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations. 
The fact is that God will protect His name’s sake. He is ever true to His Nature and His Being of Faithfulness and Lovingkindness. What He has promised in His Word stands forever! He is not going to ruin His reputation as the Lord God Almighty, Jehovah Jirah on you or me. He will provide everything that is needed and necessary for His people as He has been doing and will continue to do forever and forever. On that truth, we can have absolute faith in Him to respond to the every prayer of His beloved adopted children.
Accordingly, we can trust Him and we can pray boldly in our faith in Him to do everything that He has promised to do as He has done from the very beginning of time to the very end of time. No fear, no doubt, no hesitation in our complete reliance upon Him to make every provision necessary to do and to complete His perfect work in you and in me!
Lord willing, our time together in this study of effective prayer has opened our hearts and minds to the need of the church to pray after the will of God. Much of what we have reinforced may not be new to us, while other aspects and details may have never before crossed our thoughts or our conscious awareness. Lord willing we are now alert to the urgent need for prayer, effective and earnest prayer in obedience unto the Lord God Almighty. 
In whatever manner the Lord chooses to work in us, individually and corporately, please take the time and the energy and the commitment and practice, with determination and dedication, all that is necessary for the Lord to teach us to pray after His heart as His people. Our nation and His Church on earth is in a desperate time which can only be dealt with as we will humble ourselves, seek His face, turn from our wicked ways and pray for His will to be done. It is critical at this time in our history to have Him heal our land. There is no other way than to so come before Him in humbleness of heart and spirit, praying earnestly for Him to rule and to overrule as He so deems necessary. So be it! 
Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Amen.

		

This morning’s benediction is Ps 100:4+5. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations. Amen.