Praying In A Spiritual Shake-Up II, Dangerous Prayers

I just want you to know I'm excited about being a believer today, aren't you? It's just great. A bit more of the mystery will unfold as we get along in our path today. Let's turn in our Bibles once again to Acts chapter 4. I want to encourage you to take the notes out of your North Way notes and fill them in. It will help you as you consider this message after you leave here today. Acts chapter 4, and we'll just read a couple of verses here, picking up where we were last week, beginning in verse 29. This is the prayer of the church, Acts 4, 29. And now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Well, we all know what safe prayers are, don't we? Ones like most of us prayed already this morning, Lord, protect me as I travel to church. Or how about the safe prayers that we always pray over our meals? Lord, thank you for this food and bless it to our bodies and us to thy service. And everyone said, Amen. All the safe prayers, Lord, protect us. Lord, watch over us. Lord, help us to be better, and so on and so on. People will say, and Lord, the safe kind of prayers that we know God already said, I'm going to take care of you even if you don't ask me. Like, be my father and so on, things like that. But before we can even begin to expect a holy shake-up like we talked about last week in our corporate life, and before I share with you some of the basic principles of agreement for power praying, which I intend to do next week, as relates to our prayer platoons and husbands and wives and so on, I sense that the Lord would have us to examine how we are praying personally. How we can begin to have a personal shake-up through prayer. And how we can move away from praying just safe prayers in our lives to praying some, what I'm going to call this morning, dangerous prayers. Prayers that will explode the status quo of our lives if we have the courage to pray them and invite dynamic change to take place. Frankly, dear ones, listen carefully. I'm not convinced that too many of us are praying these kinds of prayers. I wonder how many of you, when I'm done today, would be able to say honestly before God, that's the way I'm praying. Dangerous prayers, life-changing prayers. By the way, this has nothing to do with whether or not you're a young or brand-new Christian or someone who's known the Lord for 30 years. We need to be praying dangerous prayers. Let me give you five little bite-sized prayers. This obviously isn't just what you say. These are the prayers in capsule form. All right, here's the first one. In your outline, the first prayer to pray is, Search me. God, search me. Holy Spirit, aim the searchlight of your brilliant holiness on the inner recesses of my soul and expose whatever is down in there. Search me. I have a little refrigerator in my office that someone gave me a couple of years ago, a pint-sized guy. I keep it there for cold drinks and so on, so I don't have to go running out all the time. Last week, I reached in there to get a cold drink, reached way in the back, and there was this dead sandwich that I'd left in there from who knows when. And behind that was this Yoplait yogurt that had been in there since World War II, I think. Unthinkable stuff lived inside there. I know, and as I reached in there, pulled that stuff out, the Lord kind of impressed me with that. You know, your heart's like that. I mean, the stuff that you're using all the time is pretty fresh, but you've got some stuff in there that's sour and maybe a little bit on the spoiled side. And some of you, it's as cold-hearted as the freezer compartment, which I couldn't even open because it was so encrusted with ice. Dear ones, I'm telling you here today that search me prayers are dangerous. Think about someone in the Bible who prayed a search me prayer. Who is it? Who comes to mind? King David, right? Back in the Psalms. Let's flash Psalm 139 up on the screen, please. Verses 23 and 24. If you want to turn there in your Bibles just to make sure I'm reading it correctly, you can do that. Here's what it says, David praying. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. You see, David in the context of that psalm was praying about the greatness of God. It's such a wonderful psalm. If you haven't read it recently, this would be a great time to do that because it is in there where he talks about the fact that he's been fearfully and wonderfully made. He's calling out to the Lord and saying, Lord, you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. He extols the fact that God sees him in the secret places. God's omnipresent everywhere he goes. And David's going on and on. In this same psalm, his eyes are open. And then he says this. He looks around and sees people who are mocking God and rejecting God and rebelling. And he says, if only you would slay the wicked, O God. Away from me, you bloodthirsty men. You speak evil of our God. And your adversaries misuse your name, O Lord. Do I not hate those who hate you? And on and on he goes. And you see, he's coming to God's defense in the face of those who hate God. And then he says these words. It's almost like a light goes on. And then he says, search me. What is he saying? He's saying, God, in all of your greatness and all of your wonder, I see people who hate you and ignore you and rebel against you. But, God, there just might be something in me that's like that. Have you ever observed some people in the marketplace who seem to just rebel against God or ignore him or misuse his name? How many times did you hear someone misuse God's name? How many of you heard someone take God's name publicly in vain, making a mockery of the name of Jesus? And you look at those people and you say, boy, you know, God, you ought to just come down on those people. And then the thought enters your mind, that's just who I am. Without the grace of God, that's just who I am. I'm just like them. That's what I'm like inside. And David realized that. And, dear ones, we need to realize it, too, that there just may be in us a little bit of darkness yet. You know, it takes a lot of humility for a person to pray a search me prayer and really mean it. It takes the wisdom that knows that maybe just because you've been a Christian for 15 or 20 years, God might still want to uncover something inside your heart. Some people think that they've got it all figured out. You know, I've experienced it all. I know it all. I can do it all. And God wants you to know that if he shines the searchlight of his holiness, you'll see some attitudes in there. You'll see some thoughts in there, some actions in there, perhaps, blatantly, that God would want to deal with. And when the Holy Spirit reveals it, you know, something happens to me. I wonder if it happens to you. As soon as I hear this thing and the Lord shows me something about myself, I had this little dark-suited attorney that walks out of my heart and into my head. And this little attorney just takes up my defense and says, wait a minute now. You're not all that bad. Lighten up on yourself. And he starts to defend me to God. And I have to willfully tell the attorney to go back to sleep because God is right. And once you've prayed the first dangerous prayer, then you need to pray the second one, which is, break me. Break me. Believers need to come to the place where once the Spirit has searched out their hearts, we're willing to say, God, now break up the fallow ground. Break up the old patterns and the old compromises and the old attitudes and bring forth new ones. You see, there's a strong outer husk of personality around every single one of us. And unless God has the permission to come in and break it, dear ones, it just simply holds you captive to your old life. People say, you know, Satan is doing this and Satan is doing that in my life and Satan is stopping me and, you know, they see Satan and everything. I want you to know that most of our problems are just us. They're just us. They're just the old nature, yours and mine, raising its ugly head and getting in God's way. A while back, our golden retriever, Morgan, was laying in the family room floor, kind of paused out this way, sort of watching everyone run crazily through the house. And then things settled down a bit. And then she started barking, just that stranger kind of barking, sort of the deep thing. And there was no one at the door and there was no one else in the house but the family. I knew that she sensed something. And then she got up and I noticed that her head was looking up, barking, barking. I said, Morgan, what are you doing? And I looked up, walked to where she was, and right above her in one of the skylights in the family room, she was seeing her reflection. She thought another dog was in the house, right? So she's barking. And I said, Morgan, you're so dumb, you know. You're an enemy. There's just a reflection of you. Bingo. Our greatest enemy many times is just a reflection of us. Our pride, our hard-heartedness, our sinful attitudes. And we need to have the courage to pray, Lord, break me prayers. Break the sinful habits in us, Lord. You know, back in the Gospel of John, a woman was caught in the act of adultery. You all know the story in John chapter 8. Caught in the act, brought before the Lord Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes said, now we're going to see just how righteous he is. What should we do to her? Moses' law says to condemn her and stone her. Jesus said what? Well, the one of you that's without sin, you cast the first stone. And they all were holding the rocks to be, you know, on board to stone this woman caught in sin. And they all dropped their rocks one at a time and walked away. And remember what Jesus said? He said, woman, where are your accusers? He said, Lord, they've all left. And Jesus said, well, neither do I condemn you. But what? Go and sin no more. Break the old pattern because it's going to destroy your life. And it will keep you from enjoying eternity. Lord, break me of any dependence other than you that I might have. You know, after 20 years of ministry, dear ones, you start to get just a little bit dependent on things that you do. And I want to say today, I'm praying break me prayers from even old dependencies on styles and forms. And say, Lord, I want to be dependent on you in everything that I do. There might be some other things that you need to have broken in your life. Maybe there's fear that's really gotten itself around you. Men stop me all the time and say, you don't know how much stress I'm under in my job. And I sense underneath that a spirit of fear that if they fail somehow that they're going to fall down and, you know, lose everything. And fear will just creep in. When I started the church with the other men, other couples that were here, I remember thinking, you know, we're leaving the security of a major denomination. And whatever particular recognition went along with being an ordained pastor and all that stuff of another larger denomination. And there was a fear that kind of was over me, like maybe I'm making a big mistake here. I had people telling me that. I mean, you're walking away from all that to start this no-name, no-nothing church out there in Wexford? And that fear just kind of followed me along until I made the decision. And then God broke the spirit of fear. Now, ten years later, when God's blessing the church so richly, what do you think wants to just kind of get around me now? Pride, that's right. And I have to pray, Lord, break me of the spirit of pride kind of prayers. And I want you to know God will use anything he needs to if you pray that prayer. It's a dangerous prayer, dear one. You see, Satan fears virtue. He's terrified of humility and of those who are willing to give Jesus Christ control of everything in their lives. And that's why when you say, you know, Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. How does it go? Melt me, mold me, fill me and use me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. If you do that, that's a dangerous prayer. Can you identify one thing in your life today that maybe God would desire to break? Fear, pleasure, pride, apathy, self-contentment, lust. What might it be for you? Once he shows you that and you pray a break me prayer, it might happen today. I mean, he just might break it. I had a man say to me, I pray that God would break me free from the habit of smoking. And God took away the desire of that moment. I haven't picked up a cigarette. He told me that two weeks ago. And I've had other people say, Lord, I prayed for the break me prayer from cigarette smoking. And it's just been torturous. Don't know. But he's hanging in there. Third prayer you can pray. Challenge me. God, I'm no longer satisfied with just doing laps in my Christian life. I'm made to do more than just go in circles. I'm created for something better. Lord, I'm not designed just to be stuck. I'm fashioned to run with the wind of your spirit. Remember Eric Little in the movie Chariots of Fire? The one scene sticks in my mind. And he said, God's created me with a tender heart, but he's also created me fast. And when I run, I sense his pleasure. Remember that neat little phrase? When I run, I sense God's pleasure because I'm fulfilling the way God created me to be. Nicodemus was challenged to seek out Jesus Christ. He was a keeper of the law, a Pharisee, one who obeyed all the commandments. But he was willing to pray a challenge me prayer. And so he sought Jesus out in the safety of night time. Went out when no one could see him and found the Lord Jesus. And he said to him, Lord, what is this stuff about the kingdom of God? What is this stuff about the wind blowing and being born again? Jesus said to him, Nicodemus, it's a good thing that you're willing to pray the prayer. Challenge me. Because if you hadn't, you might have missed heaven. You might have been left out of the purposes of God. Nicodemus, you need to receive grace and salvation and the free gift of eternal life. And I wonder how many here today just might miss heaven. Because you've grown up with a sort of self-styled idea of what it means to be a godly person. Something that you have decided is right. You believe you're right because it's what you have come up with. Or maybe you believe the party line that you grew up with in a certain kind of a church or denomination. And you think, well, if I do all these things, then I'll go to heaven. Dear ones, pray a challenge me prayer. Because you just might not be right. Put your faith to the test. Maybe your personal doctrines are false. I had a person tell me last week after discovering the Way Banquet. They said, I never knew what I'd been missing as a person until I received Christ on his terms. And some of us who are here today need to pray another kind of challenge me prayer. The kind that Peter prayed in Matthew 14. Flip over there. Here's a challenge me kind of prayer. Look at this one. Matthew 14. Jesus is walking in the water after his prayer time. I love this story because I can just imagine what's going on in their minds. They've been rowing all night and, you know, they're not making much progress. The wind and the sea are raging. And they see Jesus kind of just, you know, having a little stroll across the top of the water. This is so incredible. Verse 27. As they see him, they say, it's a ghost. And Jesus says to them, take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid. Here's Peter's prayer. Here's Peter's challenge me prayer. Verse 28. Lord, if it's you, Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water. Now, that's a challenge me prayer, isn't it? And I love Jesus' answer. Just one word. Okay, big guy. Come. Peter got out of the boat, walked in the water, and came toward Jesus. You know, he's just trucking along, making great progress. And then he makes one little fatal mistake. What's he do? He takes a look around him just to kind of see the scenery. Whitecaps, wind raging. And then this verse that always sticks in my mind. Here's what it says. Verse 30, it says, and he began to sink. How does a person begin to sink? I mean, when I sink, I just sink, sink, right? Peter went right down the chute. And, you know, his gurgling gasp, he says, Lord, save me. And, of course, Jesus answers that prayer and does so. How many of us are willing today to say, Lord, if that's you, bid me to come. If that's you giving me that new vision for my life, if that's you calling me to start this ministry, if that's you that's sending me out in the mission field, then bid me to come. Stretch me, Lord. It's a dangerous prayer. God just might answer it. And when the church, in Acts 4.29, please, if we could put that in the overhead, when they prayed that simple prayer, Lord, enable your servants to speak your word with boldness. God answered that prayer. And you know where it landed the church? Where? Well, it landed them in the Colosseum with a lot of visitors and guests and a pack of lions. Some years ago, I stood in the center of the Colosseum in Rome where Christians had been fed regularly to lions. And I'll never forget the thought that I had then, because I was a younger Christian, of course, and I was thinking, wouldn't it be awesome to have a challenge me prayer literally be life or death? And I often ask myself here in this church, if it meant life or death, how many of us would have the courage to pray a challenge me prayer, if it really meant that our life was on the line? Challenge me, Lord, in my career and in my marriage and in my ministry and in my future. Stretch me. Fourth kind of prayer, dangerous prayer is lead me. Lead me in the way everlasting, David said, Psalm 139. Talk about a dangerous prayer. If you have the courage to say, Lord Jesus, take all my resources, all my talents, all my energies, all my faith and lead my life, dear ones, hang on. When I was a young college student, I didn't have the faith or the wisdom to pray that prayer. And God sent a man into my life, another student. I told you about him. His name is John White. And John introduced me to Jesus Christ, not just as my Savior, but as my Lord. And that was quite a long process, which I've told you about in times past. And I remember when John said, you know, you've got to give God everything, not just your, you know, salvation issues, but your whole life. And I remember I said, well, I got along with God once. I said, God, I'm going to make a deal with you. Some of you prefer the word covenant maybe. I mean, it's a little more spiritual. I'll make a covenant. But actually, it was a deal. I said, Lord, I'll give you my life and let you lead my life just as long as it doesn't get boring or useless. Then I'm going to take it back. And I discovered something. When I gave God my entire life, it's been the most incredible ride that I could imagine. I've never had a boring moment in the 24 or so years since I prayed that prayer. I had no idea how great God's plan would be for my life. And forgive me, I'm not boasting in me at all. It's in God because I gave Him my life. You know, He's the one that's stewarding my life for me and kind of investing it. But from the point that I made that decision as a college student, I mean, He opened so many doors and blessed me. Gave me favor on my college campus, you know. I'm praising the student body and all that kind of stuff and gave me a place to speak the gospel even in front of college students. And then when I left that, I, you know, He opened doors in terms of career and then said, but no, that's not where I'm leading you. I want you to go to seminary. And when I say seminary, some of you think, you know, long gray robes with, like, hair on the inside and some... Seminary's not being a monk. You know, it's going to get yourself kind of, like, immersed in the Word of God and with good teachers and training. That was out in California. And then I prayed another lead me prayer. I said, Lord, you know, lead me somewhere like Carmel would be nice. You know, we interviewed at a church there. Up there by... No, the Lord said, no, I'm going to lead you back to Pittsburgh. God, that can't be you. No. No, and that's what He did. Prayed another lead me prayer. The Lord led me out of a denomination to start this church and to be with you people. And I often think, Lord, if I hadn't prayed those lead me prayers, I really might have missed this. I might have missed all of you. I might have missed the joy of seeing your lives change and all that's happening here and in our city. God probably would have used someone else. And some of you are missing God's best today because you haven't had the courage to pray a lead me prayer. You're afraid to pray that prayer because you think that somehow if God got control of your whole life, He'd mess part of it up. And I'm serious. And the reason you believe that is because you're convinced that, you know, this is all kind of not that real. This isn't the real world. You don't know what I'm going through. Dear ones, God knows everything you're going through. He's a man of sorrows, acquainted with your griefs. He knows the problems that you face. And when you think that God wouldn't bless your life and give you fullness and fulfillment and joy, you're shortchanging His character. His character is to bless you. His character is to open doors for you, to favor you. That's why Jeremiah 29, 11 says so clearly, I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future and a hope. That's the plans that God has for you. You have to pray the lead me prayers. Can I tell you? Honestly, I'm praying those lead me prayers today, 1992, because I don't think God's done leading me yet. I'm in a very intense time of saying, Lord, show me the next step. I'm not sure about the future, but I know it's going to be exciting. Might even mean some other kind of crazy changes, but that's what happens when you pray a lead me prayer. You know, it's dangerous to pray. Can I say something to you, brothers and sisters in Christ? It's more dangerous not to pray. The final kind of dangerous prayer is the use me prayer. Lord, use me. Use me to touch your life. Use me to meet a need. Use me to do something great or something small. Use me to heal a hurt or to give a cup of cold water in your name. You know, it's not always in the ways you might think. Maybe it's not in the ways you're most prepared. I'll walk off this platform from time to time, and I'll rejoice when someone comes up and says, well, thanks for that message. It really ministered to me, and I know the Lord's used me, and I'm humbled by that. But some of the greatest moments of my life are the spontaneous times that we all have, times when you don't know why, but God chooses to use you to shape a life. Have you had those recently? Have you? Flying back in a plane from Denver a while back, I prayed the use me prayer as I was getting on the plane. I said, Lord, just use me here. Now, you know what I really wanted to do? Cuddle up on the side near the window and read a book. But I prayed a dangerous prayer. I said, Lord, use me. There was a lot of people in that plane, and it was real crowded, and this younger fellow with a, you know, he had a starched shirt and a cowboy hat on. He sat down and kind of plopped down next to me. He was a young guy in his probably late 20s. And, you know, on domestic flights, there's no smoking these days. But he pulled out his smokeless chew and stuck it in between his teeth and gums and got out his little white cup. I'm not exaggerating. I'm telling you the truth, okay? I said, Lord, can I retract that use me prayer? I said, this is not real, right? So all the way, three-hour flight from Denver, he sat there until the meal came out. Never mind. I'm getting too aggressive. The whole thing. But along the way, we began to talk. And usually, people ask me what do I do and all that. And as soon as I say I'm a pastor and minister, the conversation, like, stops, just like the air conditioner. No. But he never asked me that. And so I had a chance to just naturally and genuinely share with him about some things that would really minister to his life. And the great thing was I was able to put him in touch with a pastor friend back in Denver, where he could come for some marital counseling and some contacts. And it was a great time. And I got off the plane thinking, Lord, I never would have thought about it, you know, some tobacco-chewing cowboy, but you used me. And I rejoiced in it, and thank you. And there's some things, dear ones, that you never know when God's just going to plug you in. It's kind of like he has this radar wand going all around the earth, and all these needs are shining, and he's just looking for one of his saints to put there to meet that need. 2 Chronicles 16, I said it's that the Spirit of God goes to and fro over all the earth looking for those whose hearts are pure, that he might plug them in. Could you pray that prayer today? Could you be the one who would say, Lord, use me, even if it costs me, you know, missing the Super Bowl, or something else that we might just cherish as our right? Praying dangerously isn't easy. And many times we need the assurance that we're not alone. But what adventures we go on when we have the courage to pray those prayers. Let me end with this little story. 20 years ago, at the end of my college days, I coupled up with two young men, and we agreed together to pray dangerous prayers about our lives. We were very tight, but we had no idea the impact that our lives would have on the community where we had gone to school, and even after that. I got an article that was sent to me from the Lexington News-Gazette. This is just last December. And it was written by one of the young people that was in my youth group back then. I hadn't heard from him in 20 years. In fact, his father married Carol and myself. Here's what it says. Some of my most cherished memories involved my interaction with several students during the years I was in high school. Three men stand out in my memory, Bob Gunner Gehring, Jay Passovan, and Bob Monkey Munson. Monkey Munson was a wrestler, college wrestler, stocky little guy, but probably the softest-hearted guy you could ever want to meet. All three worked tirelessly with interdenominational church youth groups during their college years. What was so endearing to us who knew them was how they reconciled normal activities, normal in quotes, while espousing and practicing continual spiritual growth. Gehring was an electric personality and a great basketball player with whom I and others shared such moments of mischief, what he's saying here, in the context of their youth group. As a spur of the moment trip to Florida, this is from Virginia to Florida, where we met a man who carved birds from balsa wood. Well, can you imagine saying, hey, what did you do in youth group tonight? Oh, we drove to Florida. Passovan, who's a minister today, I probably ought to leave this out, loved to drive fast. Only once... It gets better. Only once in my life have I been in an automobile that was going over 100 miles per hour. He's exaggerating this. And Gehring, who married a high school classmate of mine, and Passovan, I'm sure, continued their work with spiritual growth to this day. Bob Munson was one of the most selfless, giving persons I've ever known. He wasn't as fortunate. And one of those events that causes young hearts and minds to ache in confusion, Monkey died of leukemia the summer after his graduation. And today, whenever I see men and women working with children, I see their faces, and they flash before my eyes. Their spirit lives on in a wide assortment of big and small contributions that our college students make to our community. I believe these men would be pleased and certainly proud to know that so many students continue in their spirit of selfless giving that they and others like them quietly established so many years ago. You see, because three guys prayed some dangerous prayers, his life was indelibly changed. And who knows how many others? Dear ones, it's the same with you. Have the courage to pray. Believe God, and your life will count for something. That's what you really want, isn't it? Pray some dangerous prayers. Let's stand together. Holy Spirit, I sense your presence here today.