Praying In A Spiritual Shake-Up III

Once again, your notes should be in your outline, whether it should be in your notes or your bulletin, however you want to call it. That's our attempt to help you glean something from this message you can take with you. Acts chapter 20. You know, people ask all these questions about the Bible. I just sometimes man stumbles in his own wisdom. Time Magazine, January 20th. Any of you see it? This was the cover story. Why are men and women different and really big type? Here's a little small type. It isn't just upbringing. New studies show. They're born that way. Praise God for those new studies. You know, Time Magazine, this is it. I mean, this is all right. Acts chapter 20 and we're going to read verse 25 through the end of the chapter. Now I know that none of you among whom I've gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Paul speaking to the elders of Ephesus. Therefore I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men for I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will or counsel of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard. Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. And now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine has supplied my own needs and the needs of my companion. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work, we must help the weak. Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus himself, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Now catch the power of this next paragraph. And when he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed and they all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. And what grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. And then they accompanied him to the ship. Isn't that a powerful picture? I mean, these are grown men kneeling, weeping. These are the elders of the church. These are the warriors. I mean, these are the strength of the church on their faces, crying together, kissing, embracing, weeping. When was the last time you saw a grown man weeping out loud? Now you may see it tonight after the Redskins demolished the build, but every once in a while you'll see it on TV when, you know, an athlete only gets a $21 million contract instead of 25 or a man misses the putt to win the big tournament. But how many times, seriously, have you seen someone break down in the midst of a prayer gathering and begin to weep? Well, let me make it a little more personal. When was the last time you found yourself in such a prayer gathering and you found yourself so involved in the life, the needs of another person that you literally began to weep. Come on now, think. Was it this week? Was it this month that you were in that kind of prayer process? Was it this year? When was the last time you felt that deeply about one of your petitions, one of the requests that you brought? You see, something deep inside me resonates with what I read in these verses. I want that kind of camaraderie in my life. I want that kind of identification with another person and their need. I want that kind of deep loyalty and devotion to rise up inside of me to be in a setting where I don't have to control it all the time. But you know what? I rarely have it. I find myself far too often going through the endless sort of motions and routines of prayer. You know, prayer meetings here and there and prayer times here and there and prayer with staff and prayer with elders and prayer. But I wonder so often how come the passion isn't there? Now make no mistake. I'm not equating. And some of you are saying, you know, he's, you mean you have to be this intense for it to really matter. And you know, there are lots of illustrations in the Bible where, where passion isn't necessarily right. I mean, how many of you can have misguided passion? One of my favorite illustrations of that is in the book of first Kings where in chapter 18 Elijah is challenging the prophets of Baal. And it's just a, just to highlight the story. I mean, the prophets of Baal are saying, Hey, our God is the one who rules. And Elijah says, well, let's have a little test here. You cry out to your God in prayer and I'll cry out to my God. And so they put this big sacrifice on the altar and surrounded it with water. And you know the whole story. And here's what happened. So they prepared one of the young bulls and placed it on the altar and the prophets of Baal called out to him all morning long. Here's the word shouting, Oh Baal hear us. But there was no reply of any kind. And then he began to dance around the altar. I mean, they're getting emotional about noontime Elijah and he's watching this whole big scene. You know, talk about emotion here. He starts mocking them. You'll have to shut a little louder than that. He said, to catch the attention of your God, you better get really going. Perhaps he's talking to someone. Maybe he's out sitting on the toilet. It's a living Bible. Sorry. Or maybe he's away on a trip or asleep and needs to be awakened. And so they shouted louder and as was their custom, cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice. But there was no reply, no voice, no answer. Now, let me know that's emotional praying right there. It's just misguided. Okay. It's just the wrong direction. So I'm not equating emotional praying with the only kind that matters. But on the other hand, might I say, how many times do we really enter into the spirit of a moment, really enter into that spirit of expression of the inner resources and inner recesses of our hearts? Does anyone ever wept for you? Are there people out there that care so much that they would weep for your needs? You know, as most of you are aware, we're right in the midst of these days of assembling ourselves into what we're calling prayer platoon. This is a vital step for this church. It isn't a program. It is a step to mobilize the resources of prayer that are in this body of believers around the community and around the greater Pittsburgh area. You know, the concept of little groups or platoons isn't new. It's all the way through the scriptures. Paul had his little platoon of elders here at Ephesus all the way back in the old Testament. David had his little platoon of mighty men. In second Samuel chapter 23, you can read about it. Men that surrounded him. Jesus had his platoon of how many? How many? Come on. You all went to Sunday school. Well, very good. All right. And all throughout the book of Acts, the early church met from house to house and little platoons, but forming a platoon for the express purpose of praying and combining our faith in a mutually upbuilding way. That is a new thing for us. And my heart is to see each of these purpose is not just be a little kind of polite, little gathering. Well, let's all join hands and how can I pray for you and just go around and go home? My heart is to see these purpose becomes a powerful statement of the faith of God's people that tear down strongholds to make inroads in places where we haven't seen the gospel effective and to literally bring a holy shake up in this church, in this community. And somebody can say, well, that sounds good or amen or something. Thank you. You see one reason I believe that we don't pray this way is because we don't really believe it's all that serious. We will one day, we'll see what we could have been and then there will be weeping, but it won't be because of relationship. It'll be because we just realized what we missed. Sometimes it takes a crisis to see a platoon really come together. Doesn't it? That's the saddest thing of all. You know, it really is. It takes a crisis. And I look out here and some of you are young men, 15, 18, 20 years old, got the whole world in front of you figuring, Hey, I'm going to take it on rise to the top. Nothing's going to be in my way. And you remind me in some of your postures of young man, a family member of a family of our church, healthy guy, great guy, athlete, and was playing some club rugby a couple of years ago, just about now. I'll never forget that Saturday afternoon. I got a phone call about one o'clock saying there's been an accident. Can you come? And it's very serious. So I hopped in my car. I drove the 90 minutes to get there. No, I didn't say 90 miles an hour, 90 minutes to get to the hospital. And as I walked into the, to the trauma unit, they directed me up to the waiting room for the trauma unit. And I walked into this tiny little room that was set apart kind of as a chapel. And I'll never forget walking in there in the midst of a very grim situation. Cause what had happened was you see this young man playing rugby had, had been tackled and pulled down on his head and his neck didn't break, but a vessel going to his brain did. It literally was just torn out of place in the back of his brain. And the doctors at that point didn't know if he was going to make it or not. And it was so critical that all we could do was pray. They couldn't operate. There was nothing surgically that could be done. It was just praying. And I'll never forget that little prayer platoon that formed right there. I walked in and there was the mom and the dad. There was some friends from North Way already there. There was one of his fellow classmates there. And a couple of cases, uh, there were people there who weren't even believers, but they knew that all that they could do was pray. And that little group formed a prayer platoon. And every time over the succeeding weeks that I drove down there, I was impressed by what had happened as that little group galvanized itself. And likewise pockets of this student's friends made prayer platoons. And up here you made prayer platoons. And over the next months we called out to God together and we wept and something happened to me. I mean, I was so touched by the character that I saw come forth in those parents and in those people. And the best news is that God heard our prayer and what could have been a fatal situation or a situation of longterm paralysis and deficit has really been radically improved. God has answered prayer and things have gone extremely well. But you see, it doesn't have to take a crisis like that to form prayer. It shouldn't. How many of you want that? No. God says to us, hear the word of the Holy Spirit. Help me understand something. Why be part of a church? Why not just sit there and watch Robert Schiller? He was great this morning. Let's just do that. Why be part of a church unless you hear what the Holy Spirit is saying as a church and then start to do it. And I want to say very clearly today, this is what the Holy Spirit is saying for us to do, to get ourselves organized together to pray. God forbid that would take a crisis. You see, when I read through the book of Acts, this is just what they did. And one reason they did was because they were constantly aware that their next day was no guarantee. The problem with us is we think that the next day is a guarantee and it's not. I read through the book of Acts, you know, I mean, we could flip through there, I suppose, but every time you turn the page, Acts chapter two, verse one, when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place in prayer. Acts one 14, they all joined together constantly in prayer. We read Acts four last week about that meeting where they had the Holy shakeup. And how about this one? Peter was in jail. Here's what it says in verse 12 of chapter 12. And when, when this happened, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John called Mark, where many people had gathered together and were praying, praying, praying, praying everywhere they could praying. What an exciting thing because you see, then they saw the miracle hand of God at work. Sometimes the most exciting things I hear Christians talk about is their Scrabble game or Nazi or ice fishing. Now, come on, help me somebody. I read an article last week, the 10 most exciting things about ice fishing. It was one line long. Okay. I mean, that's it. I don't, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm sure some of you are devoted ice fishermen, but there's something that escapes me of the logic of that. I'm not sure about fishing period, let alone sitting out there in the middle of a Lake and not even knowing what's happening and freezing. And I mean, I'm trying to come to terms, but anyhow, there's gotta be more. Don't you, I mean, don't you sense that? There's gotta be a way in which we can enter into the fullness of what we read in this book. And I, I'm here to tell you, I don't have it all figured out and I know I'm not where this is, but I want to be closer to it. I don't think you'd be part of this church unless you did too. Now some of you are saying, well, Jay, I'm newer to all this and I get uncomfortable because I can't pray like you can or someone else out there. And I know that feeling and that's a legitimate thing. But listen, don't let that keep you from entering in. Every prayer platoon leader is going to be trained to let you know that you can come and just kind of learn and listen. And I have to tell you some of the most profound prayers I've ever heard were prayed by people who weren't all that educated, all that trained or whatever. I remember several years ago in Pittsburgh, I joined together with three pastors, the head of a large parachurch ministry, a very successful Christian businessman and one guy who was just a plain old street preacher. A lot of you know him. If I told you he was a mafia hit man, rough cut kind of guy. We got in praying, you know, and there's a seminary professor there. He started the prayer with this really theologically profound thing that goes on and on and on. Ooh, wow. You know, some of the pastors try to pump in there. But after seven or 10 minutes of this, this, this guy was no education. I don't think he finished high school or anything. He just said, Jesus, we need you here. And he started praying. I mean, from his heart. And that's all that needed to be said. I mean, he said it. It doesn't take any special degree. It just takes a willingness to enter into it. And I remember many, many times and days gone by, I've been part of these kinds of platoons and they've changed my life back in the seventies. As I led a youth ministry, we would meet sometimes twice a day to pray morning and evening calling out to the Lord. And you know what happens when you do that? You begin to change, write this down. The grace for character transformation is always found in a love relationship. The grace for character transformation is always found in a love relationship. The grace for character. If you're going to change that grace is found in a love relationship that helps you to change that little youth step. We prayed for each other all the time and we changed. We rubbed each other, iron sharpened iron, that whole thing. Our favorite course, you know what it was? Grind us together. Grind us together. What course? Grind us together with love. That's the way it was. We just, you know, but the fruit has remained over the years and we still do. Many of us have a bond of love together. Let me end the message by sharing quickly with you four specific things that are going to happen as you meet to pray. Four ways that you can be assured that God will hear your prayer and there'll be a difference. All right. Number one, pray in accordance with God's word. Verse 31. Look at this passage again in Acts. Look at it again, won't you? Acts chapter four or chapter 20 in verse 31. Let's make it 32. Now I commit you to God into the word of his grace, to the word of his grace. The first thing that's going to happen is to pray his word together. God's word is the basis of all confidence that we have that God hears our prayers. It's not our sincerity or earnestness. It's God's word, preaching God's word, praying God's word. Folks, if I ever stand up here and just give you my opinions, I recommend you go somewhere else. And if we ever just pray our opinions, we might as well go somewhere else. Look what it says here. Jesus speaking in John chapter 15 says, if you abide in me and my word abides in you, ask whatever you will and it will be given to you. Pray the word of God. Hebrews 10, 23, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he promised his faithful. His word will come to pass. Clearly there's something that happens in the word of God. And one thing that's exciting when you read it as a prayer platoon, you see, Dennis brings his knowledge of scripture to it. And Adam brings his knowledge and Mimi hers and Scott his. And you see, suddenly I've got three, four, five, six people all contributing their knowledge of scripture. And that becomes a powerful thing as we pray together. Now I know this morning that some of you are looking at a need that's breaking your heart. You really are a need. That's breaking your heart, a mountain out there. I've got a phone call this week. Someone said, I was told February one, I'm out of work. Oh, that's a heartbreak. Oh, another young person called me and said, I've been dating a girl for two years. She told me this week that it's over. I thought we were going to get married this summer. You see those kinds of things happen. Some of you here today are looking at a mountain, but prayer together helps you to get your focus off the mountain and onto the mountain mover gives you a focus and a vision and a sense of God's ability that on your own, you just may not have. Someone needs to pray with you and for you. As Ken is saying, I had that experience a couple of years in India. I'll never forget how God used prayers around me to instill me with hope and confidence. One of the things I didn't, and forgive me if I've shared this before with some of you, but it was a story that has touched me. One of the things that we had to do in traveling to some of these remote villages was we had to stand up there and speak to the people who came together through an interpreter, of course, and this one village, it was way out there and they had called together all the village leaders and all the people who were kind of anything in the village, many of them, non-believers, most of them Hindus. And I came on behalf of this, this specific group that was starting churches. And in some cases I was told I was the first white person I had ever seen. And so, you know, I'm starting to tabulate this all up. And this was an event, this was a life changing event for some of these people. They were coming to hear someone talk about Jesus Christ, a person they'd never seen before. What would you say to someone that didn't speak your language? I mean, any illustrations you could use would be totally irrelevant. And what are you going to tell them? Oh, tell them about your microwave and how it didn't work one day or something? Your humor. I mean, you know, how do you, how do you like interact with people? It's just real difficult. And so I'm getting increasingly aware of the fact that this is becoming a big deal in this village and I'm kind of it, you know, and so the service is gathering and they're playing these really strange instruments. I told you about this. I just, you know, it's so dissonant that I can't believe it. But the services and people are gathering and I walk off the platform around the back and here are these, my, my, uh, my host and one of the representative of the mission and another guy, all Indian guys and they're kneeling together back behind the cement wall. I know what they're praying for. I know who they're praying for. Oh God, help out a J, help out a J. Cause they, they see it. You know, they see, I'm a little anxious about this. And literally the future of that work in that particular village would rise and fall on what I did because I'd either be a discrediting influence or I'd bring a certain amount of credibility to what they were doing. And as I heard them pray, something happened to me. They began to pray prayers about God's will and God's sovereignty. You said, Lord, that you'd send forth your word and heal. And they began to quote the very same scriptures that you and I quote here. And I want you to know, Paul, when I heard that, and the music was weird. I did not know one chorus and the sitar, but I sure knew the scriptures of God that these men were quoting in their book. And it was powerful. And in that moment I realized that the same God that had walked with me 15 years before, as I stood and shared Christ with young people in the Northwest, that same God that was here every Wednesday and Sunday faithfully showing up, even if I didn't, that same God was with me there in India. And I could trust him. I walked back around the front and when time was right, you know, I really can't tell you what I preached that day. All I remember was I talked about the blood of Jesus Christ, how the fact that through the ages, the blood of Christ has been. And all I can tell you is something happened that God showed up in people's lives with Christ. I was certainly changed. My faith was lifted to a place that never been before. What's your mountain? What is it? What is it there that isn't moving for you? Get with a group of people that will come into agreement with you. Get ahold of God's word. Jesus said, the words that I give these words are spirit of their life. Know the word of God and pray. See that mountain. Number two, be very specific. One of the things that I fear that we do so often is to get just so general that we miss God's answers. We just don't know if he answered or not. And I don't want to get into a lot of detail here. Just simply to say this, why don't we pray specifically most often? Why are we afraid to say, Lord, provide this or do that or change this very specific many, many times because we're not sure if it's God's will, right? Or is it more because if he doesn't answer, then we're not going to, how can I, God, are you still there? So this is where corporate prayer is so good because if we come together, you see there's wisdom to being able to share. This is on my heart. What do you all think? Does it, does it sound right? And in a corporate setting, something very powerful can begin to happen. Jesus spared no expense in teaching about the need to be specific. We don't have time to turn there, but Mark down in your notes, Matthew chapter 11 verse five through eight is right there. Jesus very clearly says, ask specifically, believe specifically there. God can answer specifically as you ask with boldness. You can read about it. Luke 11, five through eight, number three, and then guard your heart. Check your zeal and your motivation. Call one of these dangers in verse 29. Look what he says. I know that after I leave, Acts 20 29 savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Guard your heart. There are dangers out there. Dear ones, more people than you know are being led slightly astray. It's interesting when Paul refers to savage wolves, you know how he defines it. Look at it just so you can note this for future reference. These are men who are arising and destroying the truth in order to draw away disciples after themselves. One thing that a prayer platoon will do, it will help you to perceive doctrinal error. It will help you to avoid pitfalls along the way. A sheep that wanders off on his or her own. That's the one that's going to get fucked. That's the one that the wolf's going to pick up. The one that's deeply committed to a group. That's the one that's going to stand the trial and the test. It may come or the savage attack. People are getting together. Little platoons have an added security that many others miss. And you know, listen now, just because you've made it this far, do you know that tomorrow something's not going to come along that's going to make you stop? There's a little thing going around right now in Christian circles, a little financial thing that everyone's jumping on. You better investigate those kinds of things and see where they really come from. Be very wise and discerning and don't think it's you. Get with some others and share. Get with the platoon that you can interact with. And that's the best thing I know to avoid. Heart attack, if you will, in your spirit. Finally come with a spirit of praise and thanksgiving. Every time our platoons meet, there's going to be a spirit of praise and thanksgiving there. You know, Paul, interestingly, some months later, now he's in prison as he prophesied he would be. He writes this in Ephesians one, he says, grace and peace to you. This is the church at Ephesus from God, our father, the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realm with every spiritual blessing. He said, and for this reason, verse 15, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I've not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. You see, praise and thanksgiving. How many parents are here? What is one of the things that most bugs you, that your kids do on a regular basis? They can do instead of being thankful and happy. They start doing what? Yeah. Complaining or moaning. Now hopefully none of you have that problem all the time, but boy, when it happens, you, you kind of want to say, come on, get with it here. I don't think God's that way. God wants to hear us be thankful. He doesn't want to hear us complaining and whining. No way. Praise brings the answers that we are yearning for. Let me end with this story. Oliver North, how many of you know who that is? Remember him in the, in the eighties, he became sort of the media whipping boy and media darling at the same time. An incredible story of how he got to where he was. And I've been reading his book, his new biography called Under Fire. And Oliver North was a very devoted Marine as, as you may know. In fact, it was promoted early and highly decorated. And when he retired from the Marine Corps because of all this, uh, this scandal and so here's what he writes in his book. He is, by the way, a born again believer and has been meeting with a little platoon of believers for the last 10 years, just in case you wonder. Here's what he said. He says, today I realized that it's not the Marine Corps that I miss. It's being with Marines. I love getting up in the morning and going off to work with a group of men who were all headed in the same direction. It was a very structured life, but it offered enormous responsibility and a full measure of adventure. I miss the camaraderie. I miss the hours of hard work and the company of tough, talented, motivated men. I miss drinking black coffee in the middle of the night and I miss being part of that society of risk takers. I want to say about following Jesus Christ. I don't miss Christianity, but when I don't have it, I miss being with Christian. I miss sharing those times of devoted pursuit. I miss getting up in the morning, having black coffee with people in prayer. I miss taking risks with people who are willing to say, if this is all it is, we'll just sit back and play church. It's an opportunity that's before us. I pray today that you take this summons of the Holy Spirit to heart and see the change that it could bring in your life and through your life for this world. Shall we stand?