Nation, It's Time to Pray

Be seated, please. I want to bring closure this morning by just asking us to think for a moment. What would God have us do as we leave here today? In your notes is just a little hint of an outline that I threw together after seeing this presentation and thinking about what God would say to us. You know, I could spend the first 20 minutes of a message detailing the evidences in America that we are in the midst of a moral and spiritual decline, not unlike what happened in Europe during what was called the period of the Enlightenment in the 19th century. I could quote statistics on abortion and violence and drug use and broken homes, so all of which are categories that we lead the world in occurrences. But friends, most of these kinds of things would just sort of roll off of us, and I'll tell you why, there's two reasons. Number one, unless it personally affects us, we don't care all that much. And number two, because the economy just seems to be rolling along and folks have jobs and a little money in their pocket. All these other things just seem to fall into the shadows, but I want you to know they're not lost on the eyes of God. And we've created in America, I believe, a false sense of security these days. The only image that could come to my mind or did come to my mind when I was thinking about this was of an ocean liner. It was constructed in the early 1900s and was called to be unsinkable. And on its maiden voyage, it was traveling across the North Atlantic from Great Britain to America. And that great ocean liner, the people enjoyed all the luxuries and were partying and having the festivities associated with the maiden voyage, unknowing that just in a few short hours, 1,500 of them would lose their lives when that ship struck an iceberg. The so-called unsinkable Titanic went down in flames. Friends, it's fair to say that just ahead of this nation are some icebergs, if you will, of economic and moral justice that God has seemingly withheld for no explanation other than just His mercy. We're in a window of great peace and favor and blessing, no doubt about it, but to a fairly significant degree, the church has taken that as a cue to basically drop back and follow the culture rather than set the standards for it. Never in my 23 years of ministry have I seen a more difficult landscape in which to work because people basically don't believe that they need God. People say, I can do it on my own until, of course, some kind of crisis falls in their life. And so I want to say as a church today, what should we do? If we sense the darkness is encroaching upon our land, even though we're oblivious to it, what should the church do? Let me give you three quick things. Number one, focus. If you're taking notes, put it there. Number one, focus. Paul says in 2 Timothy 1, or 2, 4 rather, I urge then, first of all, first of all, bring focus. Make this your priority. Request prayers intercession and thanksgiving. Be made to God. You know, even as I speak to you today, there's 20 of our North Way church family members standing in the city of Hong Kong on the eve of the turning over of that huge city for the communist Chinese. With hundreds of billions of dollars of business at stake and millions of lives, we chose to send our people over to China to pray on this day. Why? Because we believe that prayer in the heavenlies affects what happens in the seen realm. And I just want to submit to you that if we take that someone's to pray, first of all, seriously for our nation, if we pray for our freedoms and our abundance and our spiritual opportunities, if we pray in confessing our sin and our failures and our weakness, if we call out to God for this nation, God will move behind the scenes to set the course of this nation back on track. Friends, we have so much to be thankful for. I want to urge you that, first of all, thanksgiving be the thing that comes out of your mouth when you come before the Lord. I don't know about you, but I find it easy to complain, don't you? Every time there's a traffic tie-up because of somebody's construction, every time the government does something I disagree with, I find it easy to complain. But you know what? I've asked God to give me a spirit of thanksgiving. And I tried a little experiment. Two months ago, I did something. I exercised the freedom that I had and I turned off talk radio. And you know what I found? Everything just seemed a little bit brighter. Less criticism, less fault finding. I want to urge you, do something to replace your criticisms and your negativity with thanksgiving to God. How many believe you have something to be thankful for before God, what he's provided? Let's allow that to be the first thing. And Paul says there'll be two specific results. Number one, there'll be peace in your life. And number two, it will open the door of salvation for others. I just want to urge you, let's make 4th of July sort of an early thanksgiving. I know it sounds just a bit weird, but instead of hot dogs and hamburgers, why not cook a turkey for the 4th of July and give thanks to God. Number two is faith. If there's going to be hope for America, we need to pray with faith. The most oft quoted verse, you've heard it today, over the last 25 years, all the way back to Jimmy and Carol Owens in 1973, was this verse. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. We sung it. We proclaimed it. We've claimed it. But you know what, friends? If I'm really honest with myself, and I wonder if this is true about you, I'm not sure how much we've really believed it. In fact, I would have to say that in many ways, it seems to me that doubt is encroached in a lot of our lives. I'm not sure that many of us believe the promises about healing at all, whether it be healing for physical bodies or healing for relationships, let alone healing for the nations. If it's just by the sheer weight of delay, many of us have given up hope. And I want to say, rather than become passive toward the promises, it's time that some of us take seriously once again what God has said in his word. And if we as a church allowed a corporate conviction to rise that if no one else will pray, if we just pray and hold onto the word of God, he will answer our prayer. He will come in and touch our land. And I want to be one of the ones that holds onto God and his promises until there's breakthrough. How about you? Let me be the one is not just a song, it's a statement of conviction. That's the reason, by the way, behind things like the upcoming promise keepers rally, men banding together to say, I'm going to stand until God comes through. That's why they're going to join in the nation's capital on October 4th and proclaim by faith that we as the church are responsible before God. You see, we've been given the seed of faith. We are the children of Abraham, our father, the Bible says, of faith. We not only have the power to beget life biologically, we have the power to beget life spiritually speaking, if we'll have faith, if we'll believe God's promises. And third, the Bible says that what we need today is force. The greatest force, dear ones in the world today is not evil, it's not darkness, it's not the despicable things that we see around us. The greatest force in the world today is the force of love. Look at Jesus says in Matthew 5, you've heard that it was said, I love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. If there's a single reason why God has not brought about a national revival that some have been praying for, if there's a single reason why God has not brought about a citywide revival that many of us have been working for for years, and if there's a single reason why God has not yet heard the prayer of bringing about a revival within our church family, I believe, friends, this is that reason. It's because God is looking for a motivation, for a heart of love and of unity. And unfortunately, many of us are so easily distracted by the weaknesses, the shortcomings, the blindness, the failures of others. We don't motivate our prayers by love, but rather by the desire to prove that we were right, that God wanted to do it this way, or that God wanted to come because we, the righteous ones, believe that he should, rather than someone else who we don't believe is righteous. Friends, I can't imagine a better place to begin than to examine our hearts and repent. And if there's a weakness in you towards some other Christian, or any judgment in you toward another church, or the way they do things, or any kind of distance because you're just tired of other people not getting it, can I just say, God, give me a heart, a soft heart of love, because you will not pray for long for someone that you don't first love. Let me say that again. You will not pray for long for someone that you don't first love. If you don't love them, it won't be long before you'll just forget about them, or you'll pass judgment on them. In our nation, there are many people that it's difficult for me to love, how about you? Many groups that just kind of cause me to bristle with anger. In our city, I've tried for four years to be part of a movement that would bring renewal into our city. It's been very difficult, a lot of unresponsiveness. Even within our church, I find I have to work to not judge others who don't do it exactly how I would want it to be done. But friends, how many believe that if we move in love and in unity, God will hear our prayer? He'll bring the renewal, he'll bring the revival, he'll bring the restoration that we're praying for. We need the Holy Spirit to fill us afresh with love. Is there hope for America? I believe there's great hope if we take seriously this need. And I want to give you one takeaway. What can you do about this as you leave here today? Well, you can bring focus, the focus of prayer, you can bring your faith as a believer, and you can bring the force of your love to this church and to this city and this nation. And I'm gonna challenge you to pray for this five minutes a day, just five minutes a day. And in fact, I want you to pray, if you would, at a specific time. I'm gonna be pretty bold about this. I want you to pray at 7.14 every day, taken from 2 Chronicles 7.14. You say, well, wait a minute, Jay, I'm in the shower at 7.14. Hey, God hears shower prayers, I pray them all night. Well, I'm driving down on Interstate 279. That's all right, God'll hear you in your car. Well, I'm already at work. Well, just slip something aside, or even if you can't, pray in the Spirit for five minutes. Pray for this nation, pray for this church, pray for our city. You say, well, what if I just forget? Well, you know what? God'll give you another chance at 7.14 p.m. Five minutes a day. Jay, do you really believe five minutes a day will change this church? You know what? I believe if all 2,000 of us prayed five minutes a day, we would have a great impact. And so I'm gonna ask today, how many of you will be the one? You'll pray five minutes a day for this next week. Say, Lord, touch our nation, touch our city, touch our church, let me be the one. Friends, it's time to pray. God says, if we pray, if we have faith, if we move in love, he will hear our prayer. Amen.