A New Par-A-Digm For 93

That's where, for those of you who aren't football fans, the NFC champion plays the AFC champion. It's been that way for quite a number of years. And though they espouse parody up there in the NFL front offices, the truth of the matter is that the NFC has dominated the Super Bowl, winning, and the purest among us can tell me this is true, I think seven of the last ten years. Two different leagues, one just seems to be a little sharper than the other, a little more dominant. I'm increasingly convinced that there are basically two leagues of believers in Christ these days, an NFC and an AFC. Are you ready for what it stands for? Unfortunately, the NFC is also the dominant league as I see it among believers, clearly the majority in my opinion. The NFC are those who are, here we go, neutral for Christ. Not a good word. Now these are people that are born again, spirit sensitive maybe to some degree at least, understand that whole area, attuned somewhat or attending in worship. They like church, they go as often as they can, they're faithful relatively, but they have very little impact with their lives when it comes to the things of the Kingdom of God. In terms of being a force for Christ, it just hasn't been happening. There's little to show in the past year for what differences they made in someone else because of their walk with God. They can't point to people and say, that individual was changed because I was there and God used me. The other league is something different, the AFC. These are people who are in touch with the purposes of God. They have a burden for the lost among them, around them. They're aware of needs of people, and they are in touch with the possibilities of God in their lives that could break loose simply because the Lord inhabits them. They're AFC believers. You ready for this one? They're aggressors for Christ. A person came up last night and said, you should have said animals for Christ. No. These are people who believe that God has made in them an authority that He brings in by His presence. They're alive, if you will, for Christ, if you prefer. You see, NFC Christians are usually a bit fatalistic. You know, God's got it under control. I've got my life to attend to. I can't worry about people around me. It's just the way it's going to be. Or maybe even a bit chancy. Well, you know, it's the old God is sovereign doctrine. Que sera, sera. On the other hand, AFC Christians believe that God has intended for them through the exercise of prayer with faith to make a difference in the circumstances that attend their lives. They know that the world is full of sin. They know that man has fallen short of the glory of God. They know that problems seem to mount up everywhere, but they don't believe that those things are the final word. They don't believe that that was God's ultimate intention in the creation of mankind. And they do believe, on the other hand, that God has invested in them a way in which those things can be changed, that the kingdom of God is at hand. Of course, the first step in becoming alive for Christ, an aggressor for Christ, is to receive the Lord Jesus. Most of you here, of course, have done that. Some of you have not yet done that. If you've not entered into a personal relationship with Him, what I'm going to say today doesn't make a lot of sense. But beyond that, God says, now I give you the awesome privilege of partnering with me in bringing my rule, my authority to bear on the world around. And folks, let's be real honest about it. Most of us can't make much of a difference in the world on our own. I mean, we just have our little niche. We have our job. We have our families. But how about this place that we call, you know, Pittsburgh? How many of you think you're making a difference in Pittsburgh to change the city for Christ, let alone the United States, let alone the world? God has determined by His own decree that He will limit His activity in the world today. And don't ask me why. This is a mystery theologically to me. But God has determined that He will only move in response to believing prayer. It's only when you and I take seriously the mandate to pray that God then says, that's an invitation that I won't resist, and I'll enter in and I'll begin to make a difference in the lives of people around you. It's His power, but it's our prayer. Those things are inexorably linked. AFC believers take this seriously and act upon it. NFC believers may know it. Now listen, they may know it up here, but it never translates to any action in their life. Here in Daniel, I want us to see a perfect illustration of an AFC believer. And as we enter into the new year, and how many of you are glad for a new year? I mean, aren't you glad we closed the book in 92? I love what Oswald Chambers said in his final devotional, December 31, let the past rest, but let it rest on the bosom of Christ. Let go of the irreparable past and reach out and embrace the irresistible future. 92 is history, praise God. 93 is a year of opportunity, a new beginning for many of us. Daniel, you see, was the epitome of a 90s kind of believer. I mean, he was a devoted, strong, uncompromising individual living in a culture that thought him to be out of touch, weird, and even a little bit of a threat to the establishment. How many of you think people look at you that way? Or do they just say, well, there's, you know, a nice person? Interesting thought. And yet it's because of Daniel's prayer that we're going to read right now that Psalm 126 was written. Now let's read that, Psalm 126. When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. And then it was said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us. And we are filled with joy. I want to be a person for 1993 filled with joy. How many want to just agree with me with that? I want to be filled with joy. I do not want to walk through 93 with this heavy like, oh, you know, the whole world. I want to be a person of joy. The captives returned from exile full of joy, but they did so because of a man who prayed, a man by the name of Daniel. Very briefly, let me look at three components of an AFC kind of person. Number one, back to Daniel. Let's look and keep your Bibles open. We're going to refer to this throughout the message. I want you to see the parallels between Daniel's prayer and ours, shall we? Let's read first of all. Daniel 9, verse 2. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years. In other words, hey, Daniel was reading his Bible as it was, such as it was, all right? He was reading his scripture. His quiet time had begun. I've got to stop right there and ask you a question this morning. How many of you have already started reading through the Bible? How many of you have used your Bible plan? You've gotten serious. It's the 3rd of January, right? How many are already behind? Whoops, huh? You see, get this, would you? Daniel was just reading through the scriptures and God spoke to him. I want to say something very clearly here today. If you don't hear the Lord for your life, if you're not receiving words from God, it may well be because you are not opening yourself to the Word of God. The foundation of receiving revelation, how many of you say, oh, I'd like to receive a revelation from the Lord? The foundation of that is to be in the Word of God. I would that I could, you know, walk out and sit down with you and say, let's start reading together, but I can't do that. You have to be responsible, mature enough to say, I'll do some reading on my own. We make this little booklet available. Many, hundreds of us use it. Why don't you pick one up today? And you know what? In about 25 or 30 minutes, you can be caught up. We read about the flood today, Genesis 6. How many read the flood? I thought maybe we're going to live in it here recently, right? There's so much wisdom, get in the book, and maybe God will use that to speak to you. In fact, I know He will. Daniel was just reading, and he read about God's intent for a group of people, and he realized that there was a whole group of people out there that was living outside of God's best for their life. How many of you know one person living outside of God's best? Hello? How many of you know somebody who's living underneath the will of God for themselves? I would say that's the story of humanity. Life is not meant to be just a series of sort of as happenings and circumstances and, and you know, just sort of hanging on. But God, as John said very articulately, he said, God has a plan for you. Jeremiah wrote about it. Daniel read it. And dear ones, I want to proclaim to you today that God has a plan for your life for this year. A plan of blessing, a plan of purpose, but you've got to be alive to Christ. You've got to be an aggressor. How many of you are looking into this new year and wondering, will things be different? Or will I just scrape, claw my way through and hang on and make it one more time? How many of you know someone that you would say is an exile? Someone who's outside of God's promises for their life. You know, the word exile, what the exiles were back in those days, they weren't slaves in chains. They were people who'd been carried off, but then they were permitted to start rebuilding their lives in another place. In fact, the exiles, if you study it, the Jewish exiles, the ones who were carried off by the Babylonians were foreigners, but they were not captive in the sense of they had no freedom and privilege. In fact, many of them had businesses and so forth, but they were not in fulfillment. And I believe God wants His people, He wants you and me to live fulfilled lives. In fact, they were told, why don't you sing us some of the songs of Zion? And they write in one of the later Psalms, how can we sing the songs of Zion? When we're captives and exiles in a land that's not our own. The beginning point of being an AFC kind of believer is to learn to get in touch with the cares of other exiles. And church, I look around here today, and please receive my heart in this. We need as a church to recognize that God is filling up, He's filling up the North Hills with people who are exiles. People who are pursuing something less than God's will for their life. People outside of God's best. I don't care how much money they make, or where they live, or what kind of car they drive, who they work for, or what the title is behind their name. It doesn't matter. They're exiles. And I look in this place, and I recognize that many of us have lost touch with the needs of people. We're not burdened by the fact that the folks that fill those malls, the folks that fill those streets so full you can't even get into the grocery store, most of them are exiles. And it may never ever bother you until you get into the book and begin to read what God's plan is. But it should. God is looking for someone to partner with Him, to invite His life into the situation of another. Let's look, number two, at what kind of person would that be? There's a parallel, but then there's a person. What is this paradigm person? What does he look like? Well, the scriptures teach us that God's nature is one of interceding. Now, that's a scriptural word, isn't it? Intercession. Who knows what it means? Probably a number of you. Let me give you just a very familiar application. A while back, our next-door neighbor has a little two-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son or so. And they came over, and we had our little gas fireplace cooking. Boy, it's such a perfect fire. I do such a good job with that. And our little neighbor girl came over, and she walked right up to the fireplace. See, in their home, they have a stove, so it's always enclosed. She walked right up and was headed right in to stick her finger into this fire because it was fascinating to her. And just as I saw this happening and whisked myself over there and stepped kind of in between Alyssa and the fireplace. That's a definition of interceding. I stepped between the person and a serious problem. Interestingly, I didn't intercede when my cat got near that thing. I thought I needed to learn a lesson. It has these, now the ends of its whiskers are all gnarled. Have you ever seen it like that? I've been hanging out with Scott too long. Anyhow, intercession, it means to stand in the gap, to stand between someone and harm or danger or judgment. The nature of God is to be an intercessor. Do you understand? That's who He is. In fact, the Bible says that Jesus not only interceded for us on the cross by hanging there for our sin, taking our place, standing between us and God's judgment on the cross. The Bible says in Hebrews 7.25 that He ever lives to make intercession for us. And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is interceding for you and you and you right now, Romans 8.26, with groans too deep even to utter. It's the nature of God to intercede. But God, the Bible says, scratches His head in Isaiah 59.16 and says that He is mystified because He can't find any men to intercede for another. Church, you will not become an AFC kind of person until you begin to get in touch with the nature of God, which is to give your life for someone else. Who's going to say, Lord, I'll make myself available to pray. I don't know how to fix someone else's problem. I don't know what to do about it. But I will be available to you to begin to pray for them. And before I make any kind of a personal or family application, let me just talk about interceding for a nation. Let me just talk about some social concerns that I have. Let me say that we are called as a church to be an intercessory church. Would you please put up the scripture of 1 Timothy chapter 2? Here's what the New Testament says we're to do. And would you read it with me as we put it up here on the overhead together? Read it out loud with me, would you? I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God, our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. You see, Paul writes to Timothy, he says, first of all, then I want you to be a power prayer. First of all, then I want you to be an intercessor. And if the church of Jesus Christ does not take this seriously, let me just say what I'm going to tell you about 1993. We as a nation will slip further along down the timeline of decadence, closer to the destruction and judgment that I know God could not withhold on a nation that no longer honors Him as the Lord. Dear ones, I don't mean to be pessimistic. I don't want to be depressive. I don't want to make you feel bad. I just want to tell you what I believe is the truth. Did you know, if you study history, and many of you have, you'll know there's not one culture, not one civilization, not one nation in the history of mankind that embraced abortion and a homosexual lifestyle and promiscuity. You won't find any nation that survived more than 200 years that did that. The greatest, most prolific military powers of human history failed when they let their human values drop below that common denominator. And it's not to say that there isn't a pastoral heart of compassion to some young women who may be facing an unwanted pregnancy. We have a ministry that reaches out to you. We care about you. It's not to say that those of you who are struggling with a homosexual orientation, whose life is right now upside down because you're dealing with feelings you don't know what to do with. We care about you. But it is to say that having those kinds of problems does not mean the way to solve them is to legalize them and condone them. And if the church of Jesus doesn't wake up and get on its knees, I want to tell you we are headed down the direction, rapidly, where those things will be legalized and commonplace everywhere we go. And we won't live peaceful and godly lives. We won't have the liberty to bring the gospel as we once have had. I'm concerned about it. I don't know if you are, but I sure am. And I think the only organization on the face of the planet that can make a difference now, it's not the government. We've said that all along. It doesn't matter who's in the White House. I'm not politicking here for, you know, well, we got to get back and get a Christian candidate back. No, I don't. That doesn't. What matters is that the church is on its knees. And if I have a passion this morning, and I do, using Pastor Jeff's word from his excellent teaching last week, which I want you to get a tape of if you haven't heard it. If I have a passion this morning, it's directed toward those of you, and it's not a small number in this service, who've walked with Christ for a lot of years, and who know down inside that what I'm saying is true, but you've allowed yourself to become an NFC believer. Whether by weariness, by hurt, disappointment, by struggle, by personal circumstances, it doesn't matter. All I know, and you know, is that you're really out of the game right now. And God is calling you to get your life back online, to make a difference. What could happen if we took seriously the summons to intercede together? What might happen if we got out of our chairs and went into our neighborhoods, where we all live, some of us in expensive plans and developments, some of us in very basic little studio apartments, but we took seriously the power God's put in us to pray and to intercede for our neighbors and friends, to stand in the gap, to see them as exiles? What might happen? We've got to shake off this smoggy-minded mentality that, well, you know, maybe prayer works and maybe it doesn't. And I don't know, God. I've tried it, and you know, I just get kind of tired of it, and I don't know if it works anyhow. I don't know if really you can do anything, God. Can I tell you, dear ones, nothing is too difficult for the Lord. Nothing is beyond His power to change. The story of Jonah is one of someone who was sent to a city who basically had told God to get lost, and one man called him to repentance, and they changed. You say, yeah, but I pray, and I feel like my prayers don't go anywhere. There's a little term that's used in basketball these days, changing analogy just a bit, when a player's out there and shoots the ball kind of hard against the glass, and it tears them off, and they, you know, sometimes whack the front of the rim. What's that called? Who knows? A brick. Yeah, it's called a brick. Well, that was a brick. I go to both of my sons' basketball games, and I say that on occasion. Well, that was a brick. How many of you feel like some of your prayers are bricks, you know? They get about four inches out from your lips and go, boom. Yeah, I feel that way sometimes. Like, you know, that got nowhere. That made no difference. Can I tell you what your prayer has in terms of its impact has nothing to do with how you feel about it. It has everything to do with the fact that you did do it. For God is the one who said that if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, then I will hear from them and forgive their sin and heal their land. And I just want to submit to you, church, we've done some wonderful things. Last year, we had prayer platoons. They were wonderful. We've had some great prayer meetings. Can I say to you, this has not been a prayerless church, but we must take seriously the call on this congregation to intercede. And we need many of you who have become NFC to get back in the game. And I believe if we will, God's going to do exceedingly abundantly beyond that, which we've been able to ask or think just quickly, what kind of prayer should we have? And we're going to pray in a minute together. Number three, what's the process of being an AFC kind of player? Well, look at this Daniel chapter nine, verses four, seven, nine, and 15. The first thing you do is to acknowledge the glory of God. Now take notes on this, because I'm going to ask you to pray this way. Are you ready? Acknowledge the glory of God. I love this. Look at Daniel. He says, Oh Lord, the great and awesome God. Verse four, verse seven, Lord, you are righteous. Verse nine, God, you're merciful and forgiving. Verse 15, Lord, you brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The first thing we're to do when we come to a time of interceding is to acknowledge the glory of God. You know, we pray together every Tuesday, Tuesday and Friday for an hour here at 6 a.m. What do we do the first 20 minutes? Almost every time we praise him, don't we? We glorify God. That's not because we don't know what to pray for. It's because that's the focal point. If you don't have that focus, you'll never be able to go on and do number two, which is to identify with the sin of the people around you. Look at verse five. Lord, we've sinned and done wrong. Verse eight, verse nine, verse 11, all says the same thing. The beginning point is acknowledging God. The second point is to identify with the sin. And listen, believers, we have a tendency, we have a propensity to look at sinners around us and say, God, thank you that I'm not like them. Thank you that I'm not involved, that I haven't had an abortion, that I'm not a party animal, that I'm not as caught up with material things as they are. Can I help you understand something? When prayer is going to begin to be effectual is when you and I weep for the sins of people because we identify with them. Daniel is the one who said here, Lord, we, we, verse five, we have been wicked. Daniel, the mighty man of God, the one delivered from the fiery furnace, the one who God had used so powerfully, we have sinned. Then number three is you begin to do that. You exalt God in his mercy. And you see down in verse 17 through 19, God, you're merciful. God, you've wonderfully showed that you'll forgive. When you do those things, the Bible says God begins to hear and God begins to change things. At that moment, it starts to happen. Time's almost gone, but I want to say this. Look in chapter 10, because what we see is that God answered the prayer. And here's what he says. Look at verse 12 of chapter 10. Flip it over in your Bible. Look at it with me. Then he continued. Do not be afraid, Daniel, since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come in response to them. Now, church, listen to what I'm going to say to you, please. There are times when you and I will pray and we'll seek to intercede and we'll say, God, well, I raised up my prayer or I went to that meeting or I did this and nothing happened. And I want you to hear what the word of the Lord was to Daniel. Daniel, from the moment you set yourself to pray, I heard you and the answer was on its way. But look what took place. Verse 13, the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me 21 days. And that's a whole teaching in and of itself. Maybe we'll get into it this coming week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night. But I want you to know that there is the time from when you give your prayer, your intercession to when God breaks in and answers the prayer. That time in the spirit realm is when we do what's called spiritual warfare. It's when we wait upon God to bring about the fulfillment of his answer. And it may be 21 days, 21 weeks, 21 months, or 21 years. All I know is that God will be faithful if we don't give up. And the sad thing is that far too many of us have given up. We've become NFC players. Let me end with a story that illustrates this as powerfully as anything I know. It's written in Dick Eastman's book, Love on Its Knees. He talks in that book about a person by the name of Mark, who was going to travel with him over in the far, in the Eastern Europe area, and they were going to meet in Poland. And so Mark said to Dick, Dick, I'm going to meet you there, but I need to stop in the Soviet Union because the Holy Spirit has directed me to pray, because God's going to shake the Soviet Union. This was in April of 1986. Now follow the details of this story. So Mark traveled some in what was then the Soviet Union. In April of 86, he ended up in Kiev, and his sole purpose was just to pray, to eat her seed, like we've described here this morning. He was sitting in the city square in Kiev on his fourth day of prayer. All he did, he went out and sat on a bench right in the middle of the public square, had a book. Inside of it he had what was a prayer map, sort of showing the areas of the city he was praying for. He was not drawing attention to himself, not handing out leaflets, not doing anything in violation of the law, just sitting there. On the fourth day of his prayer, at 11.58 a.m., Mark wrote in his journal, the Lord spoke to me, begin to praise me, the work is done. And Mark felt such a surge of faith right at that moment that he stood up and noticed in the public square this huge statue of Lenin, and he said this not with pride or any kind of human arrogance. He said, Lenin, in the name of Jesus, your history. He continued on from there, went out to Poland, where he met Dick Eastman. Let me tell you, if I may, what was written in the Washington Post of April of 1980, or 1991, a little over a year ago. Front page, talking about the demise of the Soviet Union, here's what's written. Chernobyl is increasingly seen as the culminating moment of a cruel system doomed to failure. You see, the Chernobyl disaster, the article goes on to say, was Gorbachev's leverage to come against the established strength of the political hardliners so that perestroika and glasnost could be introduced. Without Chernobyl, the article went on to say, not much would have happened for quite a while, but Chernobyl opened the eyes of the people to see that the system was crumbling. What Mark didn't know was that on the day that he stood and the Lord had told him, you can praise me now, it was on that day, at that moment, that a worker at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant went in and flipped the wrong switch and caused a power surge to increase the flow 75% into the reactor and caused it to melt down. He wouldn't know this for several months, but what he found out nearly a year later was it was at that very moment that God set in motion, or allowed to be set in motion, the circumstances that led to the demise of a system that does not honor God. I'm not saying to you that it was Mark's prayer alone by any means, but I believe it shows the linkage. And one interesting little side note, Mark said, Lord, give me a sign that my mission is really accomplished here in prayer, that you really did speak to me. Well, at 12 noon, in fact, at every quarter hour, right there in the city square in Kiev, a huge clock had timed the quarter hour. It had happened for decades. Two minutes after Mark wrote in his journal, the Lord said, praise me now, 12 noon on that day in April 1986, the clock didn't chime. And do you know now that six years later, according to those who've contacted Mark and Dick Eastman since then, the clock has never chimed since Chernobyl. What makes this story so profoundly interesting to me is the Mark that I'm talking about is Mark Geppert, who's been a friend and actually on the staff of this congregation years past who we support in his mission effort. And what makes it even more interesting was I was supposed to be on that trip with him. What I see is a perfect illustration. Some five years later, the Soviet Union came tumbling down. Mark couldn't have looked back and said, well, I did this and that happened. But now you see, with the perspective of history, we can see that prayer was effectual. God had made a difference. I want to ask a question today. Will we be able to say, God, in 1993, we moved from being neutral to being alive, to being aggressors for Christ. And something happened this year that set in motion a revival in this city, a change in the neighborhoods that we inhabit, an impact in the lives of people that we care about and love. Are you an AFC player? Are you still drifting along in the NFC? I think the time's at hand for us to make a decision. I'm going to ask you to respond this morning by praying together. And in fact, I think Sherry Ift is here this morning. We want to be praying for Sherry as she goes back into Eastern Europe to establish children's ministries. But we want to be praying more than that for your arena of intercession, for where you're going to be, your neighborhood, your place of employment, your family. How many are with a family member that's in exile over the holidays? Let's be praying for them. Would you stand, please? And I'm going to invite you in these closing moments to turn into a small prayer group of three or four people. And if you'll put up those three points, please, of the process of praying. I want you to acknowledge God. I want you to identify with their need. And I want you to praise Him for His mercy. Would you take about four minutes and pray as an intercessor this morning for someone that you care about? Go ahead. Invite someone into your prayer circle and pray for three or four minutes for someone that you care about.