Praying for Our Loved Ones (Part One) | SERMON

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. How's it going? So good to see you this morning. I'm Pastor Dave Ahlman. I'm Pastor Tim Sennelon. It's a pleasure and privilege to be able to share with you the Word of God today.

[00:00:19] And we're going to be talking about today, the power of prayer and the ability that we have When things are way beyond our control and there's nothing we can do with the hurting people in our life, especially our children. There's something we can do to deal with it.

[00:00:37] Now I know in your life there are things that have happened in the life of your children or friends or people that you love that as I said before are way beyond your control.

[00:00:50] And the problem is the way you dealt with it was maybe to go to a bottle or a pill or to lose sleep or be anxiety-ridden or become worried or depressed or feeling overwhelmed. And none of those things worked.

[00:01:07] As I said this message is not just for you as parents who have kids at home, I used to think that once my kids broke away from the nest, all my worries and concerns about them would be over. Huh!

[00:01:20] It seems like because they're doing their own thing and you're really not in control, you worry and stress about them more when they're gone than when they're within the household, right?

[00:01:31] And so as a result of that we sometimes don't deal with things regarding things beyond our control with our loved ones, with our friends but especially with our kids, we don't deal with it very well,

[00:01:43] we don't deal with it very effectively and we sometimes don't know where to go, what to do or where to turn. So it was with this father in the text I'm about to read to you.

[00:01:59] This is founded the Book of Matthew chapter 17 and then I'll walk you through this a little bit after I read it. And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him kneeling before him and said, Lord, have mercy on my son.

[00:02:14] Reason I bleeped, it can be suffer as terribly. Ropping he falls into the fire and often into the water. And Lord, I brought him gear disciples and they couldn't heal him. And Jesus answered, oh, faithless and twisted generation, how long it might be with you,

[00:02:41] how long am I to bear with you, bring him here to me in Jesus' review of the demon and it came out of him and the boy was healed instantly. My heart goes out to this father. Mark tells us that this boy was born possessed by this demon.

[00:03:05] And we don't know exactly how old this boy was, maybe 10, maybe 15, maybe even 20 years old. For that long the father had dealt with this. The young boy would be thrown into seizures and as a result of that because was so oppressive

[00:03:20] and so overwhelming and this demon was so powerfully taking him over that he wanted to take his life. And so day in and day out, this young boy would throw himself into a fire that was outside the home or into a pool of water to take his life.

[00:03:36] And the father had to deal with it every time. He would see his son doing this and he didn't know what to do. And so he'd pull him out of the water, pull him out of the fire and it was overwhelmed and he had talked to friends

[00:03:54] and he had talked to doctors and he had talked to rabbis and folks around him who he thought could help and none of them could and none of them did. Finally he's at the end of his rope. He doesn't know what to do.

[00:04:08] And he's heard as we heard in the Gospel reading that there's this mysterious man from Galilee called Jesus of Nazareth, that very well could be the Son of God as a matter of fact this man was convinced he was. And so Jesus comes down the Mount of Transfiguration.

[00:04:25] And he comes to this town to town by the name of Copernam. And what happens? This man comes to Jesus and he falls down on his knees why because the grief that was feeling over his son was so real, so overwhelming.

[00:04:43] It drove him to his knees over and over and over again before the Lord before God and now to his son. And he said, most powerful prayer anyone could ever speak. You know what it was? Did you hear it in the text? Lord, have mercy on my son.

[00:05:07] How went to your disciples? They did nothing. I talked to other people. They could do nothing. I talked to doctors and friends. They could do nothing. I'm at the end of my rope. I don't know what else to do. I've heard you're the Christ.

[00:05:23] Lord, have mercy on my son. Let's take apart that statement. Lord, have mercy on my son. The word Lord means anointed one the Christ. He believed that Jesus was the promise Savior of the world and the Lord, the Christ the anointed one. And then he said, have mercy.

[00:05:41] What's the words? Have mercy on? Mean, it means this. The God would show that Jesus would show his undeserved favor upon this boy who've been struggling with this demon possession all his life. Lord, show your undeserved mercy upon my son. Now my friends, this applies to us today.

[00:06:02] Because you may have a son or daughter at home or a friend that you know or kids that are off to college and growing in God, but there's so much in their life that you're struggling with and you don't know what to do.

[00:06:16] Maybe they're struggling with an addiction or they have a difficult time focusing or they're autistic or they worry and they stress about things or they're bullied at school or they're struggling with their studies or they've lost their job or they've turned to an addiction

[00:06:34] or they're sick or they're lonely or they're depressed or they're divorced or they've wandered away from the faith heaven forbid, they've wandered away from the faith and you've tried everything. You've talked to people, you've talked to doctors. There's so much beyond your control

[00:06:52] and there's one powerful prayer you can say in their behalf. It's the same prayer this man uttered. And every time we pray it, the Lord will answer. As a matter of fact, every prayer we ever utter before the Lord, he always answers.

[00:07:10] It's just that we don't like two of them. Which is wait and no. Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Olman. Pastor Dave Olman is the pastor of Mount Ho Church in Boulder, Colorado. If you're led, would you consider giving to this ministry?

[00:07:30] Your text deductible donation helps us continue sharing the gospel with as many people as possible. Simply click the link in the description below. So come back tomorrow for your next Daily Truth.