Keion Henderson - How to Get a Prayer Through

I just want to talk on this subject: how to get a prayer through. That 's all I want to discuss- how to get a prayer through. Let 's pray:

God, now in the name of Jesus, I pray as we begin to share this message with Your people that You will speak to our hearts, Holy Spirit, and give us a message that will bring new life. In the name of Jesus, we pray, hallelujah and amen.

So, this is a very familiar passage of scripture, and I don’t want to get into the minutia of an introduction. I want to jump right into the text because our nation is in need of prayer. Whether it’s the advent of the bloodiest Memorial Day in Chicago, with all of the people who were shot and killed, or whether it is the killing of unarmed black men, or whether it is the pandemic that is causing so much economic and socio-economic discomfort, we are in a state of emergency-not just in the nation, but in our world.

You know, I was asked the question not too long ago: Which one is more problematic, the public pain or the private pain? Here 's the truth: with all of the stuff that’s going on in the nation-with wars and rumors of wars — some things are not even being reported because the media is so inundated with headlines that they can’t report all of the news. There are so many things happening off-camera, so many things happening off headlines. In personal households, 40 million people are unemployed. People are not only dying from COVID- 19; they are still dying from heart disease, still dying from cancer, still dying from car accidents, still dying from cirrhosis. People are still sick, and there are so many issues. People are still victimized by human sex trafficking, and people are still being abused, whether it’s domestically or in a slave manner. Other countries are still deprived economically; people in Africa are still starving. All of these things are happening while all of our focus is on what is in front of us. This world is still spinning, spinning out of control.

And you know, I am a Christian; I am a believer. When I don’t have answers, when I am sterile from a cognitive conclusion, when I don’t have solutions, and when I don’t know what to say, I always know how to say, «Father, I stretch my hands to Thee.» Prayer is always in order. The Bible says men should always pray, and not only does it say that, but it also says that men should never cease. This suggests that we should never allow what is happening in the world to keep us from sending our petitions to the heavens. What has been loosed in the heavens has been loosed on the earth, and what has been bound in the heavens has already been bound on the earth.

The scripture says here very clearly: «Again I say to you.» That " again» means that He has already said it before. He says, «Again I say to you that if two of you-two of you, not one but two of you at the minimum-this is not the number, this is the minimum; at least two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.»

That word «prayer» is broken down into two syllables. It is a Greek word. «Sum» is the prefix (S-U-M), and it means, watch this, it gives the idea of sound. The second part of the Greek word gives the idea, watch this, of agreement. So the Greek word for prayer means, watch this, it’s compound sound and agreement. I want you to write that down: it is sound and it is agreement. Say it again with me: it is sound and it is agreement.

Now, when you take those two words and put them together, it is where we get our English word «symphony.» I won’t be long, but this is going to be strong because I’m getting ready to show you how to get a prayer through. It is where we get our English word «symphony.» Here is the amazing thing: this word, this English word «symphony,» is actually in and of itself a Greek word. Now this is amazing! I love words. I love words. I love words. I love the word of God. I love what it does for us. But this is something that we rarely discuss.

Normally, when we discuss our syntax, our exposition, our etymology, when we discuss the word of God, we typically-at least in my structure of preaching-I go to the original language and then point us back to the English language, because the scripture was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. But watch this: we go back and look in the Greek to get the original context, and it is «symphonia,» which is sound agreement — where we get our English word symphony. But the English word symphony is derived from the Greek. So now we go back to Greek, go to English, but English points us back to Greek. This lets us know that we cannot interpret this in any other way than the way God wanted us to.