Transcript – Praying with Faith

Text: Luke 5:17-26

Summary: Our greatest need is to receive forgiveness for our sins. For every other request, let’s pray with faith that God can do extraordinary things.

Father, we come before you, and we humbly surrender. We lay all of our burdens at your feet, Lord Jesus. Life is hard and so we bring all of our burdens to you. Lord, I pray a special prayer for the Ohs as they are seeking consultation about Micah and whether or not he has autism. Father, we know this is a difficult thing. But we know that nothing is impossible with you. And so we bring Dongyoon to you, we bring Elaine to you, we bring Micah to you, we bring Lilianna to you. Every one of us we bring, especially our children, we bring and lay them at your feet, Lord Jesus. We know that the most important thing that they need is salvation.

And so before asking for any other thing, we ask for salvation for all of our children, and all of our loved ones. Lord, all these requests, for Micah’s healing, for other requests, for other needs, for other emergencies, we lay it at your feet. And we have full faith, Lord Jesus, that you can do anything. Nothing is impossible with you. I pray that all of us here would have faith on behalf of the Ohs, that nothing is impossible. We believe that you will heal, that you will restore, you will redeem. And the people of God gathered here will fulfill every purpose that you have for us. Every good work, we pray that we may do it for your glory. Thank you, Lord Jesus. In Jesus Name, Amen

This week I was meditating all week on Luke 6. And I had a case of spiritual constipation. I just couldn’t get anything out of the text and I wasn’t sure. And then 3am this morning, I went back a chapter and finally, God confirmed, it is Luke 5. What we learn from this account, it says in v.17, on one of those days as he was teaching Pharisees and the teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea from Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him to heal.

The first thing I want to point out is that, of course, Jesus can heal anytime, anywhere, in any situation. But for whatever reason, the detail is given here that on this day, the power to heal was upon Him. And of course, Jesus is fully God. He is the Son of God. He has the power to heal. At the same time, He is humbly surrendered before His Heavenly Father. And because on this day, the Father says, you’re going to heal, the Father gave Him power to heal for this day. And on other days, there was no healing, it was not necessary for God to bestow His Son with power. And on this day, there was power to heal.

And it says in v. 18, and behold some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed, through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when He saw their faith, He said, man, your sins are forgiven you. And what great friends this man has. What great friends. If you have an emergency in your life, it may suck all of the faith out of you. Because we have faith on good days. We have faith when we feel strong, but when there’s an emergency that crashes into your life unexpectedly, and many times in many cases, people’s faith are sucked out of them. And that is natural.

But thankfully, this man who was paralyzed has friends who have faith on his behalf. And for every one of our needs personally, collectively, when we are going through heartache, when we’re going through difficulty, we may be on a mat. We may not have the faith to believe that God can take care of this situation, but we bring the request, we make it known the request to the family of God, to the friends of Jesus, and we as friends, bring that person and this situation to the feet of Jesus. And so whatever it takes, I pray that we will learn to go to Jesus and ask for forgiveness. Because before asking for healing, do you notice that Jesus first forgive this man of sins?

And so what is our greatest need for a paralyzed man? We would say his greatest need is to be healed from paralysis. We think he should just start walking. Isn’t that what he needs? And we bring all of our requests of our loved ones, and we think that is the greatest thing. They need healing. They need deliverance. We need provision. They need a job, they need money, they need whatever requests we bring before the Lord.

And it is clear here the greatest need of your soul, of my soul, of our loved ones, the greatest need is for forgiveness of sin. Salvation and forgiveness of sins. That is our greatest need. And so when we see loved ones who are struggling or suffering, we may ask for that suffering to be taken away, and may be suffering for us to see them in this position. But let’s remember, the priority always is to bring our loved ones before Jesus and ask for salvation and forgiveness. Likewise, our greatest need is not a job. It’s not for health. It’s not for deliverance. Our greatest need is to be forgiven of our sins.

And so whatever it takes, like these friends who did not stop, they were not deterred by the crowd or a ceiling . Whatever it takes, bring yourself to the Lord Jesus, that you may be forgiven of your sins. Bring your loved ones before the Lord Jesus and ask for them to be forgiven of their sins and saved.

And now for every other kind of request. After we lay ourselves before the feet of Jesus, after we lay our loved ones before the feet of Jesus for salvation and forgiveness of sins, Then we bring all of our other requests. See, the order is important. We start with salvation and forgiveness of sins, and then secondarily, because it is clearly second, we bring all of our other requests before Jesus. And we lay it at His feet.

And these friends were such great friends. This man could not even if he wanted to bring himself to Jesus. He was paralyzed. And so our loved ones who don’t know Jesus, they are not bringing themselves before Jesus. They are paralyzed, you could say in a sense. But every time we pray, we are carrying them on a mat, we’re laying them before King Jesus. And we’re saying, Jesus, heal my mother, heal my father, heal my uncle, heal my child. We’re bringing every relative, every loved one, our friends before Jesus and they are paralyzed. They don’t even know they need Jesus. They’re not even asking, and they’re not even coming to Jesus. But because we know Jesus, and we know He is the only answer, we carry them on a mat, we lay them down at Jesus’s feet. And we ask for Jesus to save them and forgive them of their sins.

And then every other request comes next. We don’t know exactly what the order or the priority was for the friends. I think, of course they wanted salvation for their friend, of course they wanted forgiveness of sins. But maybe they were disappointed at first that the forgiveness of sins came and then there was no healing. And I think God is reorienting and reprioritizing our prayers. He wants us to know clearly our greatest need is salvation and forgiveness of sins, and then everything else is secondary.

And so the secondary need of this man’s healing is of course on the minds of everyone. And so we bring our request to Jesus. And why was this man healed? It says in v. 20, when Jesus saw the faith of the friends, He said, man, your sins are forgiven you. This is where the body of Christ comes in, that when people among us do not have faith, we are friends of Jesus who bring our friends to the feet of Jesus and ask for these secondary requests.

Notice the key factor here in the healing of this man is the faith of the friends. And we know that faith, even as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. Jesus is not asking for a mountain of faith. He’s asking for a mustard seed size of faith. We might think we need a mountain. No, Jesus is so generous. He’s just looking for a little seed of faith, a small but a sincere amount of faith. And if that faith is sincere, if it’s the size of a mustard seed, if He can see it, if He can detect it, based on that faith, Jesus will do supernatural things.

It says here in v.26, we have seen extraordinary things. So as people of faith, we bring all of our requests to Jesus. Of course, the primary request is for salvation and the forgiveness of sins for ourselves and for our loved ones. But we also bring all of the difficult situations and requests and secondary things to the Lord Jesus. And all it takes is a mustard seed size of faith. You may not have it, but please surround yourself with friends who have. There are times that we will not have it because the crisis is too great. But thankfully, we have the body of Christ, we have friends who will have faith on our behalf, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of faith. Collectively, if there is just a mustard seed size of faith, we will see extraordinary things.

I don’t know God’s purpose of why difficult things happen or health situations we face, for ourselves and our loved ones. I don’t know why we go through specific trials. I don’t know why God allows us to be tempted and it sometimes feels beyond what we can bear. But one thing I do know is that I have a God and I serve a God who does extraordinary things. We have a God who does extraordinary things.

These friends were not bringing their friend just to have his sins forgiven. I don’t think that’s the extent of their faith, they must have had full faith that not only will this man be forgiven of his sins, that goes without saying if you meet Jesus. But I think they fully expected this man who is paralyzed to walk out of the room with them. They fully expected this. And seeing that kind of faith, even if it was a mustard seed size, mountains were moved on this day. Extraordinary things were witnessed on this day.

And so I pray that we bring our loved ones and ourselves primarily to the Lord Jesus to ask to meet Him and for our sins to be forgiven. That is the primary need for ourselves, and the primary need for our loved ones. But all the other requests, all the other needs, all the secondary things, all the emergencies, all the trials, all the tragedies, all the sicknesses, all the job needs, the financial needs, the burdens, everything that we have, we bring each of them to the Lord Jesus. We know He will forgive us of our sins. We have faith for that.

But do we have faith that He will move a mountain and heal somebody? Do we have a faith that God can do extraordinary things? We think it’s par for the course that He will forgive sins because He is so forgiving. We think that’s assumed, but because we don’t have a mustard seed size of faith, we don’t assume that He will move a mountain for us. We don’t assume that we can witness an extraordinary thing before our eyes. And let’s pray on behalf of all of us, for ourselves and all the rest, let’s pray for a mustard seed size of faith to be to be planted in all of our hearts.

So that no matter how long it takes, our faith doesn’t waver. And if it’s one day, if it’s one year, one decade, if it’s many decades, we’re waiting, and our faith is not wavering because it’s sincere. It’s a size that Jesus can detect, it’s the real thing. It’s not counterfeit. It doesn’t have to be a large amount. It just has to be sincere. You just have to sincerely believe in your heart that Jesus and Heavenly Father will move mountains on our behalf. That we will witness signs and wonders, and extraordinary things. It just takes one of us in our midst to have that faith, and collectively we will witness it.

This man might not have had faith because Jesus doesn’t mention the faith of this man who was paralyzed. And this paralyzed man was probably the last one in the room who would have faith to believe that he could walk. But his friends believed. And so even if one of us in our midst has that sincere faith, I think collectively, we will see signs and wonders and impossible things, extraordinary things. Okay, let’s pray.

Father, our greatest need is to be forgiven of our sin. So before we pray for any other requests, we humbly bow down and surrender before you. We bring our sins to the Lord Jesus. We ask you to forgive us. Jesus bore the sins in His body. And every time we partake in the Lord’s Supper, we are remembering His sacrifice. Lord, because you are wounded, we are healed of our sins. And so we bring our greatest sickness to you, it is our sin. We bring before you all of our loved ones who don’t know you. The greatest need is for them to meet you, to be saved and to have their sins forgiven. Sin is the greatest sickness of our loved ones. Help us to believe this, Lord. Help us to get the order right when we pray. It is not the secondary need. It is the primary need for our sins to be forgiven.

Now we bring all of our secondary needs before you. I pray that you would work in planting a faith in us, even as small as a mustard seed. It doesn’t have to be great. You’re not looking through a microscope, Lord, you see even a mustard seed size of faith from heaven. You see it if it’s real. You see it. We don’t have to flaunt it and act like we have a larger amount of faith than we actually have. As long as it’s sincere, as long as it’s real, as long as it’s not counterfeit. You see it all the way from heaven. And Jesus when you come back to Earth in your second coming, the only thing you will ask is, will there be faith on earth? We pray that you start building in us and watering the seed of our faith. Start growing it so that it becomes a real faith.

Now we bring our secondary requests to you. Lord, we bring Dongyoon to you. We bring Elaine to you. We bring Lilianna to you. We bring Micah to you. We pray for Dongyoon and Elaine, for their faith to not waver. I pray that you establish in them more and more faith. Help them not to be disappointed. Help them not to be discouraged. I pray that you lift up their spirits. Even in this moment, I pray that you meet them and minister to them and lift up their spirits. Lord, when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer. When one part rejoices, we all rejoice. And right now we’re all suffering with them. We’re all going through this with them. And so Lord Jesus, as friends of Jesus, we bring the Oh family to the feet of Jesus. Even if they don’t have the faith, we have faith on their behalf. We bring them to the Lord Jesus.

Lord, now we bring Micah to you. We add all of our children. Our children’s greatest need is not physical, it is spiritual. We ask that you save all of our children, from Timothy all the way to Lilianna the youngest. We pray that you save all of our children, one by one, that you would meet them in your perfect time, in your perfect way, that you would forgive them of their sins, that you would show them how much they’re loved, and you would put them on a narrow road of knowing Jesus and knowing you. That is our greatest need, Lord Jesus.

We pray that you would forgive Micah of his sins, that you would meet him and save him. That is his greatest need. And Lord, now we bring the secondary needs before you. We bring Micah’s diagnosis, we’re not sure. We just have a hunch, whatever it is, we know that nothing is impossible with you. Whether he’s on the spectrum or not, we know that it is not a hard thing for you. We bring Micah to you. We have full faith. And like this paralyzed man who walked on that day because Jesus was anointed with power to heal, we pray on this day, or whatever day that you have already purposed in your perfect way, we pray that on a specific day, that you would meet Micah, and that you would cover him with your blood, that you would heal him of all of his sickness. And that you will make all of his cells from head to toe new and cleansed.

We pray especially for his head area, we pray that you’ll put your own nail-pierced hands on his head. We pray that you would cleanse him, Oh Lord. That you would fix whatever was broken, whatever toxins or pathogens or whatever it is, we don’t know the cause, but Lord, we know that you know the cause and we pray that you fix it, and cast it out of his body. We pray that you rewire whatever is broken, that you would heal his gut, whatever is causing this issue, Lord, the food allergies, the eating problems, we pray that you would heal him, Lord Jesus. We pray that you heal him, Lord Jesus.

We’re going to pray this for as long as it’s needed, and we fully expect Lord Jesus, like this paralyzed man to walk, we pray that he will walk in the fullness of life, not hindered in any way, that he would know you, he would love you, he would serve you in his generation. We pray that nothing would be lost. We pray that whatever the enemy is trying to take from this young generation, that you would restore, you would redeem. Whatever the enemy’s doing, we hide our children behind the shield of faith, Jesus Christ, and all the flaming arrows of the evil one will be distinguished in Jesus Name.

I pray that you’ll save us from the youngest, all the way to do the oldest. Please save each one of us. That is our greatest need. Every other need we lay at your feet. It’s too heavy, these are burdens too heavy for us to carry. And so we lay them at your feet. We pray for wisdom, step by step. Thank you, Lord. We pray that you minister to us in the partaking of the Lord’s Supper. We pray that you would meet all of us, especially the Ohs, in a special way. Minister to them. Encourage them. Lift up their spirits. Thank you, Lord Jesus. In Jesus Name, Amen