What Will God Do Through Our Prayers?

Family Blog, February 2025

Brian Van Doren

At Second Baptist Church Angleton we are spending this year emphasizing 7 specific prayers for our church. Those prayers are as follows:

1. Lord, please multiply disciples through us by putting at least 4 people on each one of our hearts who need the gospel, and help us commit to share the gospel with each of them and pray for them this year.

2. Lord, please multiply disciples by saving people and calling them to walk in the obedience of believer’s baptism here at Second Baptist Church so that we can glorify You as You save the lost.

3. Lord, please bring your people back who have fallen out of the practice of regular church attendance and grow them through regular fellowship and discipleship with your Church.

4. Lord, please equip each one of us to be mature, disciple-making Christians through Relational Discipleship (D-Groups) and develop more church leaders as a result.

5. Lord, please create supernatural gospel unity and an atmosphere of belonging in our church through our Small Groups and help us to truly do life together with those people.

6. Lord, please help us disciple the next generation through Family Discipleship in our church.

7. Lord, please bring healing and gospel peace to our families by saving lost family members and bringing repentance and resolution to family conflicts.

I want to answer two questions about these prayer emphases: First, why are we organizing our whole church to pray through these for a whole year? And second, what do we anticipate God will do in response to these prayers?

The first question is easy… we are praying for these things because we believe they are biblical, they would bring glory to God, and because we really want to see these things happen! 

The second question is a little harder… in one sense, we don’t really know exactly what God is going to do or how He is going to answer these prayers. The way He answers prayers is completely His prerogative. But there are some things for us to consider about prayer that help us know a little more about what we can expect to happen. 

We know that when we pray in sincere faith with right motives in the name of Christ for things that are in God’s will, He will give us what we ask (James 1:6-8; John 14:13). Now, there is a lot to unpack in that one sentence, but when all those qualifiers are properly understood and applied, then we have much confidence that God will do what we ask. It might not look exactly like what we think, but He will do His holy will in our lives especially when we are asking Him to.

We also know that God works powerfully through the prayers of His saints. James 5:16 says “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” This tells us that when we are in a right relationship with God, not hiding sin in our lives, we can know that He will work powerfully through our prayers to bring about His will. 

Lastly, we notice from above that God always does His will. Our prayers are powerful and effective when they are according to His will. And so what we find about prayer is that one of the most beautiful things that God does through our prayers is change our wills to match His. C. S. Lewis said it perfectly when he said “Prayer does not change God; it changes me.” 

So what do we expect God to do through our prayers? We expect God to change our hearts to His will. We expect that God will give us a heart for those who are lost in their sin and need Jesus. We expect that God will save people. We expect that God will grow us in our faith and build more love and unity in our church than ever before. We expect that God will prepare the next generation of believers and unite families together in their faith. We expect God will do His holy will and accomplish things that only He can do. And we expect to praise Him for His glory in response. 

To see God do what only He can do, we simply need to pray humbly and consistently for His will in these things with sincere faith and right motives in the name of Christ. If you want your desires to become more like God’s desires, and you want to see God’s glory on display, then you should make prayer a high priority in your life. 

Will you commit to pray with me?