Sermon Tone Analysis

Title: Petitions for the Next Generation

Theme: Praying With Authority for Our Children

Series: Girding up the Church

Prayer for our next generation

There is a battle for the minds, hearts and souls of our kids.

Anyone who enters this battle seriously spends many hours thinking up ways to have the greatest influence possible on their children and grandchildren.

These influences take many forms.

A couple of those influences are athletic gyms are open at 6:00 a.m. and close 9:30 p.m. at night most days of the school year.

Also, there is a great deal of money spent offering our generation the highest quality of education possible around the world.

I would propose to you that prayer for our next generation is needed more today than ever before as we live in the last days of the return of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.

On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

(2 Corinthians 10:4)

Just how can we pray with true authority for our children and grandchildren?

The church is always exhorting the Body of Christ to pray, but too often the leadership of the church fails to equip the people of God for the most powerful ministry in the world.

That is a ministry led of the sword of the Spirit that will have the greatest influence regarding the eternal future of children, the ministry of prayer.

The ministry of prayer could enable parents, grandparents and the true church to rejoice as the apostle John did when he wrote 2 John 1:1-4, “The elder.

To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth--and not I only, but also all who know the truth--because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love.

It has given me great joy…” catch that, great joy, “…to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us.”

(2 John 1:1-4)

It is my conviction that this passage of Scripture has a dual application covering individuals and the whole Body of Christ who love the truth and serve the Lord in sacrificial love.

Those to whom it is written were ordinary people, such as any church is made up of ordinary people today and generations to come.

Therefore, there is great assurance in this passage of Scripture for all Christians who will show true love by sacrificing time and energy to pray according to Biblical truth for their children and grandchildren, because we will see some of them living according to God’s Word.

We must enter His presence with praise

Petitions for the next generation begin with faith that God loves us and He will take care of us.

We must enter His presence with praise.

Psalm 100:3-5 says, “Know that the LORD is God.

It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.

For the LORD is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”

(Psalm 100:3-5)

Take time to thank God for every child by name, then ask for forgiveness for anything the Holy Spirit brings to mind about your attitude or treatment to His children.

As we enter the presence of God in Christ’s name we are to be thankful for the work He has already done in the lives of our children and the blessings He has bestowed upon them.

Holy Spirit revelation

After you have enjoyed the Holy Spirit’s bringing to remembrance of all the Lord has done for your children you can then pray for Holy Spirit revelation for them.

Ephesians 3:16-19 says, “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:16-19)

The most important prayer that you can pray for your children and grandchildren is that God would send His Holy Spirit into their spiritual hearts to reveal Christ.

That they be truly born again and live in the fullness and the abundant life promised in Christ.

Christian parents and grandparents can pray as the Apostle Paul prayed, that Jesus Christ would be made so real in the lives of their children and grandchildren and His love for them made so real that Christ would be allowed to be Savior and Lord, not treated as a tolerated authority in their lives.

We can ask God to make it known to our children and grandchildren what it really means to have Christ dwell in their hearts.

The word “dwell” (katoikeo) here means to allow Christ to take up full residence by His Spirit in their spiritual hearts so that He might have full control over their lives.

So Jesus Christ might use them fully as He wishes for His Father’s purposes.

The application is that our children and grandchildren will truly be full of the Holy Ghost responding joyfully to His promptings as He makes God’s Word so real to them.

Hungry to live according to God’s good purposes

The church that is girded up for the future has offspring with Divine revelation of Christ and they are hungry to live according to God’s good purposes.

Philippians 2:12-13 says, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.”

(Philippians 2:12-13)

Pray that our children and grandchildren will have hearts to obey the Lord and be involved in the things of God even when they are not in our presence.

Pray also that they will walk in a true fear of the Lord and that they will have hearts that will ask the Lord to do His work in their lives.

Pray that God would bring them to a condition in their spiritual heart that says, “Make me hungry to do your will.”

The church needs Christians who understand that it is God who is at work in them and only He can enable them to want and do His will.

The word “works” (energeo) means that the Lord is the one who energies us to have the desire to seek His will and He provides enablement for Christians to do the Lord’s will.

Our children must be partners with God in the work of the gospel of Christ.

Lives in confidence before the Lord and the world

The church that is girded up has Christians who are partners with the Lord and she is a Body of Christ that lives in confidence before the Lord and the world. 2 Timothy 3:14-15 says, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

(2 Timothy 3:14-15)

Pray that our children and grand-children will become convinced that what they have learned is true because they have seen the lives of those they have learned it from.

The Christian life they have been exposed to will produce fruit that is pleasing to God.

They will be made wise and live a life that expresses the salvation of Christ within them.

Powerful thirst and hunger for the Word of God

The church that is girded up has Christians who are convinced of Biblical truth and are made wise in the living out their faith in Christ.

She also has Christians who have a powerful thirst and hunger for the Word of God.

Psalm 119:1 says, “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD.

Blessed are they who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their heart.”

(Psalm 119:1)

Christians can literally ask the Lord to give their offspring a hunger and thirst for the Word of God and that they will seek Him with all their mind, heart and strength.

That they will seek to learn the Word of God and will desire in their hearts to obey and live what the Bible tells them to do.

Jesus said, "…It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' " (Matthew 4:4)

Christians who hate evil

The church that is girded up has Christians who are joyfully into the Word of God and she has Christians who hate evil.

Psalm 97:10 says, “Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for He guards the lives of His faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.”

(Psalm 97:10)

Christians can ask the Lord to fill their children and grand-children with the Holy Spirit so they will not find delight in any kind of evil.

The word “hate” (sane) can mean to be unwilling to be exposed to or apart of something.

They will have the heart of the Psalmist who wrote, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

(Psalm 139:23-24) They would look at the Word of God as a mirror and the key source to determine what He calls sin.

Just a few months ago I had the privilege to visit with a young man who had parents who prayed often for the Lord to do this very thing.

This young man told me that he was exposed to a situation that was not holy and pleasing to God and he said, “All I wanted to do was just get away from that place and go home.”

Get victory over their anger

The church that is girded up has Christians who find no delight is that which would break the heart of God and she has Christians who trust in the Lord to help them get victory in their anger.

Ephesians 4:26 says, "In your anger do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26) Pray and ask the Lord to enable our children and grand-children not to sin when they become angry and they will surrender everything over to the Lord, literally letting Him fight all battles they face.

Christians that express Holy Spirit fruit

The church that is girded up has Christians who let the Lord fight their battles and she has Christians that express Holy Spirit fruit.

Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Against such things there is no law.”

(Galatians 5:22-23) It is imperative that our children and grandchildren will feed their spiritual hearts the Word of God and be led of the Holy Spirit so they may produce the fruit that should be seen in a Christian’s life.

My boys know that there are certain boys they are not to run with and others they can because of the fruit those boys express in their lives.

It is not I but God’s Word that says, “Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right.”

(Proverbs 20:11) The greatest hindrance or help to a youth ministry is the fruit that is expressed from the lives of the youth who are leaders in the youth group.

Walk in a life of obedience

The church that is girded up has Christians that produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit and she has children and grandchildren who walk in a life of obedience.

Colossians 3:20 says, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

(Colossians 3:20) God’s wisdom offers this advice, “Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.

They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.”

(Proverbs 1:8-9) Pray that our children and grand-children will obey their parents in the Lord and they will be eager to get direction from their godly parents so that it will go well for them and their children.

Christians who do not despise the Lord’s discipline

The church that is girded up has obedient children and she has Christians who do not despise the Lord’s discipline.

Proverbs 3:11-12 says, “My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent His rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in.” (Proverbs 3:11-12) “Do not withhold discipline from a child, if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.”