“For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel have made this revelation to Your servants saying, ‘I will build you a house.’ Therefore, Your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to You. And now, Lord God, You are God and Your words are true and You have promised this good thing to Your servant. Now, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of Your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For You, O Lord God has spoken and with Your blessing shall the house of Your servant be blessed forever.”
– 2 Samuel 7:27–29
Did you hear it? Like David in this prayer that he’s praying to God says, “You said, ‘God, I will build you a house. Therefore, I have courage to pray this to You.” He starts to pray for God’s blessing on his house based on God’s promise to him about his house. See the relationship here between God’s promises and prayer. When we pray, we lean on God’s promises. When we pray, we can have courage based on God’s promises. Basically asking God to be faithful to His promises. You just look throughout all scripture. Think about all the Bible and all the different promises of God. What we’re seeing here in 2 Samuel 7:27–29 is that when we see promises from God to His people, we can pray boldly and courageously for God to answer those promises.
Trusting in the Word of the Lord
Lord, help us to trust Your promises as we learn to pray with boldness, courage, and faith according to Your Word.
Think Matthew 28, 19 and 20 Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” Then he says, “I will be with you always to the end of the age.” That’s a promise that as we go out and make disciples, Jesus has promised to be with us like supernatural presence and power with us to make disciples, so we can boldly pray, “God, use us to make disciples today. By the power of Your presence with us, we’re going to ask for that. God, we pray You’d show the power of Your presence with us, so that we might proclaim the Gospel, so that disciples might be made.” We can pray that with courage.
2 Samuel 7:27–29 Thanks God for His Power to Resist Temptation
We think about circumstances we walk through where we are tempted. We know God promises we will not be tempted beyond what we can bear. God provides a way out, so we pray boldly. “God, I know, I know when I face this temptation, You have given me the power to overcome that temptation, so I’m trying to stay in Your promise. I’m asking for help to resist that temptation. I’m believing in Your power to resist that temptation,” like pray boldly, courageously like that.
When we walked through grief, we think about God’s promises to comfort us. When we walk through decisions that we need to make, we think about God’s promise to give wisdom whenever we ask. Oh, they’re just situations all over our lives where we have promises of God that we can go to and ask God to be faithful to.
Now that means we’ve got to be men and women of the word. We’ve got to know God’s word. We’ve got to have it hidden in our hearts, so that we can bring these promises to bear on our prayer lives. In all of this, we’re just compelled then to pray for God to show Himself faithful to His promises. We can pray that with confidence that He will.
This Verse Prays for Growth in the Understanding of God’s Promises
God, we pray right now that You would help us to grow in our understanding of Your promises and our knowledge of your promises to us. God, we pray that You would fill our hearts and minds with Your promises, so that as we pray, as we walk through life, those promises might come to bear on the circumstances of the situations we are facing and that You would give us faith to pray and believe, to trust that you are going to be faithful to Your promises. You are going to answer our prayers that we ask according to your word. This whole podcast, Pray the Word. The whole point, God, we want to learn to pray according to Your word. We know Your promise in John 15, Jesus, that when we ask for things according to Your word, it will be given us.
God, we pray. Teach us to pray Your word. Teach us to trust Your promises and to pray with courage, boldness, and faith based upon Your word. God, even as we pray that, we think about Your promise. We pray this often on this podcast together, Your promise that one day, every nation, tribe, tongue and people will gather around Your throne singing Your praises.
2 Samuel 7:27–29 Prays for Bold Hearts that Proclaim God’s Promises
I’m thinking about Nepali people today, particularly I pray for Tibetan Buddhists in Nepal scattered throughout the Himalayas. God, so many of these people groups yet to be reached with the Gospel in these remote regions, so we know that every single one of those people groups based on Your promise, is going to be gathered on your throne that day. We’re asking right now, be faithful to Your promise. Bring about salvation among all those people groups.
I, we want to pray boldly, courageously for that right now. We want to say what David said. You said this. You said, O God, that Your glory would be made known among all of these people groups. We’re saying, God, may it please you to bless Your church, to send out missionaries, may it please You to cause those people groups to hear the Gospel and believe the Gospel and praise Your name.
God, we pray right now based on Your promise to save all the people groups, nations, languages in the world. God, we pray for the spread of Your salvation to all those people groups. We believe as we pray that we believe that You will bring it about. God, we pray. We pray that You will bring it about soon. God, we ask these things according to Your word. We ask for so many things in our lives, the world around us, according to Your word with courageous faith that you will be faithful to all that You have promised. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
