Setting Our Sights On Prayer

And appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. I want to read that verse again. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you this I command you to love one another. There are many wonderful things that God is doing in our midst in Northwest Christian community. If you were here Friday night, you had a chance to share in a really kind of special evening of fellowship and fun together in the Lord. I think it's an important dimension of our life that we can do something together outside of our homes. Coming together, enjoying a meal. Some of you had an opportunity to learn patience and did so very well. Others of you, as Ike was sharing, had an opportunity to really be blessed by the music ministry. And it's just. It's going to be sort of a neat thing to, every time we meet, add some more chairs. We don't have room. But I'll tell you, on the other side of that truth of God's blessing is the fact that our responsibility as a people is also multiplying. And I want you to know that it's no small thing to wrestle before God with what He. He is most concerned about for us. And we have spent a great deal of time in the servants council and others in the community as well, in wrestling with, well, what should we be doing? Should we be giving our energies and devoting our lives to establishing these home groups? What about the youth ministry that we're going to be entering into? What about teaching the children? What about missions? And the list goes on and on, and it's a heavy weight that we really as men and women, cannot bear. But I was asking the Lord, Father, what is most important to you for us as a community, as we are inaugurating life together here? The Lord didn't say to me fellowship, and he didn't say to me youth work. You didn't say outreach. But he said in my heart, through the reading of the Word, that prayer is our priority. Prayer is our priority. Now, when I stand here before you to speak about prayer, it's kind of like speaking about seat belts. The media has done everything they can through the AAA and all the other different automobile associations to get you to wear your seatbelt. You know, they've shown you pictures of accidents where people have lost their lives because they have their seatbelt on. And then the industry was taking the task to make it more to facilitate your wearing a seatbelt. And so they put buzzers in the car. And, you know, man, just like we are, we don't want to be told what to do. So instead of putting a seatbelt on to put the buzzer, this one was in 73 and 74. Those buzzers didn't go off unless you put the seatbelt on. How many of you were like my dad and took the time to go under the seat and disconnect the buzzer? Right. Because you weren't gonna wear that seatbelt? And then recently, they've come up with this passive restraint system where you open the door and the belt's there and you can't get in the car unless you get out of the belt. Right. Well, prayer is just like that. We've had this tremendous campaign by preachers and teachers and everyone you can imagine saying, you ought to pray. You ought to put on your prayer belt, you ought to get up a little bit early, you ought to go to bed a little bit late, you ought to take time off at lunch. We got pins and placards and buttons. Pray now, pray later, pray all the time. And we're told in every imaginable way that we ought to be praying. Now, I haven't resorted to putting a buzzer under my bed yet so that if I get in without having prayed, the buzzer goes off. And I haven't devised a passive prayer system so that when I get up out of bed in the morning, you know, I step into my prayer closet or something automatically. We can't quite manipulate it that bad that far. But, you know, it's true that we've heard it all when it comes to prayer. But just like the only people who wear a seat belt are the ones who've been in an accident, the only ones who pray are the ones who have become desperate enough to be brothers and sisters. It ought not to be that way. What I want to try to do for you this morning through the Scriptures is to lay before you some of the whys and wherefores of prayer. There's no way in one teaching that we can begin to cover all that the Bible has to say about prayer. It's an enormous subject, and yet God has spoken to my heart that unless we become a praying people, that this community will rise up and glow like an ember. But then it'll fade away. And if we're to be established for the long run, until Jesus comes back, it's going to be because we have committed ourselves to being a people of prayer. Now there's several barriers right away when we think of prayer. We've got to get around. The first one is this. When it comes to prayer, all, all of us, without exception, I would say, deem ourselves a failure. We've all made promises to God about prayer that we haven't kept. And the first hurdle we've got to get around is the hurdle of condemnation that you said to God. I'm going to pray, Lord, half an hour a day and you've done it for a week and then suddenly you miss a day, go a few days, miss a day or two and within three weeks you're done. And all of us brothers and sisters are susceptible to the condemnation of Satan to say that we have a lousy prayer life. We always have and we always will. God is not in the business of squashing people and making them feel guilty for what they're not able to do. He's in the business of enabling them to do what he calls them to do. And so if you're here, how many of you, let's just get the record straight by raising your hand, would say you've been a failure at prayer? Okay, couple hands didn't go up. Would you like the mic? I know that all of us have felt that way. Maybe some of you feel it heavily today when I read the autobiographies of George Mueller or the book Reese Howell's Intercessor, or some of these unbelievable testimonies of these men who would spend four hours before breakfast, go through their 10 hour a day job, come home, eat dinner and spend four more hours in prayer and say, Lord, I mean, for me it's a major thing to spend an undisturbed hour. At times we all try that. But brothers and sisters, we're not to compare ourselves. Why waste your time comparing yourself to other people? We want to come into an enabling of prayer today. Let's lift this condemnation. Let's just wipe the slate clean this morning and say as of 11 o' clock on Sunday, April 26, I'm going to recommit my life in prayer and God is going to enable it to happen. The second hurdle that we need to get around in our thinking right off the bat is unanswered prayer. Unanswered prayer. The obstacle that we have of not praying because we don't know if God's going to answer. And I'm not going to give you an answer for unanswered prayer. I'm not going to explain to you this morning why it seems sometimes that God doesn't answer your prayer. I do want to say this, that if prayer seems to be an answer, the reason for that distance between you and what God is doing is not because God isn't willing, but because God is wise and he knows what's best for us. At some future point, I'd like to spend a whole morning in talking about unanswered prayer. And what seems to be unanswered so many times is simply God's way of working it out in a different fashion. Brothers and sisters, quick testimony on that, real quick. Six weeks ago, Jay McCain and I traveled this Route 19, six or seven times, looking for places to meet. We finally find a place to come and repair it. There was a big room upstairs and we thought, hey, that would be great. And it was just about the size of this ring light, maybe a little smaller, not as wide. And we prayed about it and we asked the Lord and some brothers fasted and we sought the Lord for it. And after two or three weeks of dickering back and forth, the Lord closed that door. And as it were, we didn't have a place to meet. It seemed like, well, the Lord didn't answer our prayer. Two weeks later, Bradley's noise. And now, as of last Sunday, when we had that amazing turnout of people, and as of the other night when we had that tremendous dinner here, I see why God didn't answer that prayer. Because he had something better. And many, many times when your prayer doesn't seem to be answered in the way you expect, it's because God has something better for you. The third Please don't leave. If you're new and you don't know what the prayer circles are, it's just a simple expression of life together. But let's set those obstacles to the side for a few moments and look at some of the other things about prayer that will enable us and free us to go forth. God is calling us as a people to pray, not as a few individuals, not as a little committee, but as a people, as a community to come before him. And the reason why prayer is at the top of God's priority list is, as John Wesley said, God will do nothing except in answer to prayer. Would you say that with me? God will do nothing except in answer? You say, well, that was John Wesley. He's not my God. Jesus said in John 15, for apart from me, you can do nothing. Would you say those words? For apart from me you can do nothing. What is Jesus talking About there, does he mean you can't eat your meals and you can't put your clothes on, you can't have. No, obviously we can do all those things. What Jesus was saying was that apart from him, we can do nothing of eternal significance. We can do nothing to change the course of human history. We can do nothing that will last in the eyes of God for eternity. Nothing. Apart from him, we can do nothing. And we can work up all kinds of emotion, and we can get all excited about our programs. We can organize to the hilt, but apart from Jesus and his life, we can do nothing. The Bible says, those words pierced my heart a few years back because we were going through all the motions and we had a lot of things happening. And I'll tell you, this may come as a shock to some of you, but pastors can be just as busy as anyone else keeping all the programs going and meeting with all the people who have needs, needs and reading this and doing that and outlining this. And I began to see that we had this tremendous wheel of activity, but that Jesus was standing back from it a bit and saying, apart from me, you can do nothing. And I pray that the Lord will never speak that word to the Northway Christian community. So much of activity, the activity we see in churches today, is just simply a fleshly expression of godliness. That's all it is. And God is just going to wipe it clean. It originates in the hearts of man. It comes out of the mind of man, and it pleases the ego of man. Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. Abiding fruit is what God is all about, folks. John 15. Check that verse, would you? John 15, verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, that your fruit should abide. And look at the link there. So that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. Abiding fruit comes from abiding lives and abiding lives, that is, lives that are hidden in Christ, come forth through prayer. There's a link there that you cannot break. And if we are to raise up abiding fruit at Northway Christian Community, it's to be through prayer and abiding in the Son. Why do we want to do this? Jesus said it so that my Father might be glorified. Verse 8. And you might prove to be my disciples. I don't think there's two greater destinies in the world than to glorify God and to be his disciple. There's A temptation, I think, among us to be real excited about the fact that God's brought a large number of people together in the early stages of a ministry. There's a sense in which we're excited when someone comes to Christ, and while we should be. But do you know that the thing that God calls us to goes beyond just gathering here? It goes beyond leading people to a commitment to Christ. What did Jesus say that we were to do? We were to make disciples? Something that's burning in my heart as a pastor is that we need to be about the business of making disciples, that we need to find ourselves coming to the point of bringing people beyond the initial stages of faith and into a maturity of life that enables them to be a channel of life. God can do more through one person wholly yielded to him than through a hundred who just call on the name of Christ and are saved. Today God's looking for the one or the two that might be here that are saying, I want to be the one that's wholly yielded to Christ, available to his purpose. And brothers and sisters, think of what could happen if this was a community filled with people surrendered and yielded to Jesus. Well, you say, what should I do? Many times people will say to me, what can I do to help? And I'll say, nine times out of 10, we really need you to pray. And the response is typically something like, well, I know that, but what else can I do? And that's really. Well, I mean, I received that love and the intention there. But really what they're saying is, is there anything better I can do than just pray? Just pray. And you see, that's where we fall apart. Just pray. Just touch God. Just bring down heaven's power into our life. Oh, Lord, make us a community that learns how to pray, to seek the Lord. How many of you know that we can fill up our activity, our week's activities with all kinds of good things, but that hour of prayer, that communion with the Father, is so difficult. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that hour of prayer is probably the most difficult hour you have to spend every day? Why? Because Satan knows that if he can keep you from your knees, he's going to keep you from bearing fruit that abides. And if he can do that, then though you may be a person in the kingdom, you'll be inhibited and impeded in becoming what God wants you to be. I believe that if Satan can keep you from your knees, next to keeping you out of the kingdom, he's done his greatest work until he did. And we all struggle with it. I mean, there is nothing about seminary, in case you're wondering, and probably you're not. There's nothing about seminary that makes you a man of prayer. There's nothing about Bible school that makes you a man or woman of prayer. Anyone here can learn to be a man or woman of prayer, but it takes the commitment of a yielded heart to say, lord, make me. Make me that vessel. Make me that vessel. And so it is essentially, brothers and sisters, a matter of priorities. I want to list for you three things that need to happen if in order to see prayer become this energizing power in our community. Three attitudes that one must take. And if you. If you have pencil and paper, you might want to jot these down. I want to urge you to do this. This is a good time for me to say it. I've been wanting to say it, and I keep forgetting. You will not be singled out if you are not willing to jot down some of the things that you're learning. But I want to say that you'll find that you'll be able to leave here a whole lot more equipped to live your life in the Lord from the teaching that comes forth from whomever is teaching if you're willing to jot down some of the things that God speaks to your heart. How many of you know that experts say that you remember, I'm going to lose the figures on this. I think it's 60% of what you write down and only 25% of what you just hear. And though I appreciate the eye contact and I appreciate seeing that you're with me, I appreciate that very much because it bears witness to my heart. I also want you. The most important thing to me is that you walk out of here able to meditate on what God has done. You say, well, I can get the tapes. Well, you can get the tapes, but that's not enough. Go out with all you can and then let the tapes augment it later if that's what you want to do. Three attitudes that we need to develop if prayer is to come alive in our midst. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11, rather verse 1, Hebrews 11:1 3. Follow along with me. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Let me read it again. Still getting there. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the men of old received divine approval. By faith, we understand that the world was created by the word of God so that what is seen was made out of things which did not appear. Before. Prayer will ever work where you can see it. You've got to believe it's going to work where you can't see it. Let me say that again. Before prayer will ever work where you can see it. You've got to believe it's going to work where you can't see it. The greatest cause of prayerlessness among the people of God today is they don't believe it works. It's a lack of faith in the integrity of the word of God. They don't believe it's going to work. Why should I do something that's not going to work? And not only do we need to believe that it works, but we need to believe that the unseen realm is ruling the seen. That that which we do not perceive with our eyes rules that which we can see and touch and feel. Look at verse three. That the world which is seen was made out of things which were not seen. If that what we see here was created out of that which we do not see, which is the greater thing? What's the greater thing? That which we do not see. In 2nd Corinthians 4:18, you don't need to turn there, but you might want to jot that down. There's a beautiful scripture that says, because we do not look at the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, passing away, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Beloved, if there was no other verse of scripture but that one that told you the priorities of unseen versus seen, that wouldn't be enough to say, it's the unseen things that are eternal. It's the unseen things that matter. And you've got to believe that that's true. Or prayer is never going to be what you hope it will be. It'll never affect your life if you don't believe that it works in the unseen realm. We in this culture of ours are so pragmatic, you know, we take such pride in what we can achieve, what we can touch, what we can see and what we can feel. Man has made his empires out of the things that he can put his hands around. We want evidence and scientific proof for everything. Radio is red hot because it works. It's got to work in order for us to buy it in this culture. And even if we're willing somewhat to acknowledge the reality of the spiritual realm, we don't see any link between the spirit and matter. Right? Some people will say, well, yeah, I believe there's A God and there's a spiritual world and all that. And love is real. But that is not nothing to do with life right there. It has nothing to do with matter. They'll say. I mean, prayer can't have any impact on my job and my boss or my wife or my son. And so we've built this dualistic system. Matter and the things that we can touch and feel here and spirit and those things over here. But you see, there is no such dualism. God, the Bible says in Colossians 1. I think we need to turn there. Look at this verse, Colossians 1, 17. For in him, brothers, verse 17, he is before all things, and in him all things. Say those words with me. Hold together or cohere or are sustained. Listen, if God withdrew his life, matter would be no more. The illustration that most helped me is matter is like chunks of ice in the sea. By the spirit of matter is just one expression of the life of God. Matter is just that one thing that God has used to express the reality that he is who he said he is. Don't ever think that matter and spirit are unrelated. Don't ever separate secular and spiritual, as though they don't have any link together. You say, well, I can take a chair and I can feel it. I can put my hands around the legs and I can sit on it. I know it's real. But you know something? As you begin to study physics, you know that the atom, the smallest of the building blocks of God's nature, are made up of neutrons and protons and electrons that spin around. And you know that some scientists are finding that really matter itself is literally just energy that's been compressed into a solid state. It's just simply a matter of forces that have cohesed. And if you took the force away, things would disappear. What do you think an atomic explosion is? It's the splitting of that atom. It's the taking away of that energy. And what happens when atomic explosion, it's devastating. You see, really, when you get right down to it, matter is simply energy. It's not something you grab a hold of and God is in that matter. Wait a minute. Are you saying, Jay, that sounds like animism to me, that God is in everything, that God is in the trees, God is in the animals, God's in the rocks. Jesus spoke to waves. Jesus spoke to fevers, he spoke to fig trees. Jesus said, if you don't praise me, the rocks will cry out. There's the light of God in everything. I was so thrilled when I was studying for this message and I saw how God in the end is going to vindicate himself before all men and all of creation will rise up in liberty to express the life that he has in him. Look at Romans chapter eight with me, would you? Romans eight awkward. And we can reach out to them and make them feel comfortable and included in a part of it and allow God to embrace that person in love through us. On a Sunday morning, ask God to give you a Danish ministry. Okay, no more sharers. Here's one. You can stand up to. Say it. I think a lot of times in the context of society, people don't know from their jobs and they think their house is a little tactful or they throw themselves out to the world. They feel they can be safe and something to be who they really are at their home and invest in there. Sam. Beginning in verse 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing. JB Phillips translate that on tiptoes for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation that was subjected to futility not of its own will, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. Creation is waiting for man to come into redemption so that it might be set free from the curse of Adam's fall. And somehow the life of God is going to come forth from creation in a way we've never known. I believe that matter and spirit are intimately related. And you need to believe that if you're going to believe that prayer works. I just get excited to know that Jesus talked to inanimate things and they listened to him. Jesus talked to irrational things and they obeyed him. Science is beginning to buy this, folks. George Washington Carver talked to peanuts. How many of you talk to your plants? Put your hands up so we can see the clips. I didn't do. There have been books written about talking to plants. I read recently and I'm willing to stand corrected here that somewhere in the neighborhood of 40% of all disease the doctors treat is considered psychosomatic. How much is a population? I stand correct. 80%. 80%. The relationship between spirit and matter is very real. And one day all of creation will give testimony to the fact that God lives by his spirit in all things. And we and all things are in Him. And that is the realm which we need to move if we're to See prayer become effective in our life. So the first attitude that we need to develop is to see the reality of the unseen realm. And second thing then is we need to come to the point of seeing that the power of prayer is the power to affect the unseen. Now, here's where I want to drop back a little bit and give a definition of prayer. In our home group a few weeks ago, when we were talking about prayer, one of the brothers asked, what is prayer? Have you ever had anyone ask you what is prayer? And try to define it? A few words. One of the definitions that to me makes the most sense is Revelations 3. 21. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me. The expression of communion. You see, prayer is opening your heart to Jesus. Prayer is opening your heart to Jesus. It's not some mindless wandering and hoping, wishing upon a star. Prayer is communion with God. It can be very simple. It can be very profound. But it begins by opening your heart to Jesus. Well, you say, I did that six weeks ago. Ten years ago, I came forward. No, I mean, prayer is stopping in your day and consciously opening your heart to Jesus. Prayer is sitting behind the wheel of your car, opening your heart to Jesus. Prayer is looking across the room at your boss and opening your heart to Jesus. Prayer is letting God come in where you are and having fellowship with him. Prayers that cry of a helpless one. You know, people who feel like they don't know how to pray are closer to prayer than they think. Because, you see, nothing pleases the ears of God more than for someone to say, help me, God. The greatest obstacle that God's moving in the world today is people say, God, I don't need you. But a person will say, God, teach me to pray. That person is close. They're coming into the life of what God wants. You know, all of us who've had babies know that a little infant doesn't know the right words to say. But he sure can get your attention. How does he do it? Not by elaborate systems of calling out. He just wails. And this daddy really responded right away, Carol, the baby's coming. But that baby knows how to get Dad's attention. And brothers and sisters, beloved ones, you can get the attention of God if you just cry and say, lord, help me in this. You don't have to be elaborate. You don't have to come up with some flowery prayer. Who God wants to come into your heart? You just need to ask him to do that. And so that's a whole realm of prayer, which really would merit a long teaching of its own. But it's the area of communion, the area of intimacy. But there's another side of prayer. Here's a few other words that the Bible uses when it comes to prayer. Wrestling in Ephesians 6:12, striving, persevering in Colossians 4:2, driving out in Mark 9:29, weapons in Second Corinthians 10:4. And there's a powerful side of prayer that those who have walked with the Lord can begin to enter into, where prayer becomes a partnership with God. Prayer becomes a partnership with God. One of the things that I expect will turn out at the end to be one of the grand tours of all of eternity is that God wants to be a partner with you. Can you imagine the reality of saying, here's my partner, the living God. But that's what he's saying, that he wants to partner, that he wants to join with you in the redemption of this earth and of the universe. The idea of partnership to me came alive when. And I realized that it's as though God had taken a blank check. We have a system in our community here. It's called co signing. Where our checks, they're big ones too. You have a lot of those around you, those big checks, and two brothers have to sign them so that not one of us can make a crucial decision in error, nor can one of us take credit if we get a great deal. Two people, right? Well, so it is with God. It's as though he wrote the check and put his name on it by the blood of Jesus and said, I have released toward you everything necessary for eternal life and to enforce the victory of my son in Calvary. And all you need to do is by faith, sign your name underneath mine and beloved. There's something that just breaks loose in me, gets so excited when I can think that God says, jim, Mike, Bruce, Kathy, sign your name down here and partner with me in seeing this happen. And he calls each one of us and he says, join with me in prayer to see that lost one saved, to see that sick one healed. You see that that broken one put back together. What does prayer do? Prayer reverses the ravages of sin. First John 4, verse 8. The Bible says that Jesus came to destroy the works of Satan. How many of you believe Jesus was successful in destroying the works of Satan? If that is so, what does it take for that victory to be worked out right here among us? We need to partner with God. When we're willing by faith in prayer to say, lord, your victory was sufficient for this situation and for that situation, for this person and that person. Then we begin to see God at work, releasing that life among us. Testimony after testimony of people who have been willing to say to God, I believe you and your word in prayer more than I believe my circumstance and my failure. We've seen God come through and do that which he said he would do. And it happens. First, beloved, in the unseen, and then in the seen. The greatest illustration I can give of that right now is Northwood Christian community itself. For six months, believers met every day to pray for God to raise up a ministry of life. We're praying for revival in our own church. I know other people around this whole part of the Pittsburgh area were praying also. And we met daily to pray and to seek the Lord. And nothing seemed to happen. Things got worse. Finally, it seemed that God was saying that I was to leave. And the believers that were remaining behind didn't know what to do in the sense that it seemed that rather than answering their prayers, God was just causing everything to be spread out, separate, but in the unseen realm. You see, God was bringing together the threads. God was speaking to other people. God was preparing other people's hearts. And then when the fullness of time came, God said, this is what I have for you. And every argument that people can throw up as to why we shouldn't be here pales in the significance that God said it would be so. And that's where I stand in my confidence. I trust the Lord will be our defender because he brought it forth. Prayer that works in the unseen realm works itself out in the scene realm. This is one reason why Jesus went to so many lengths to tell us that whatever we ask in prayer and faith, he would give us those promises. Blow me away. How about you? John 14:13. We read one today in John 15:7. If you abide in me, my word advises and you ask whatever you will, and it will be done for you. You see, God wrote the blank check and signed his name. And all that he asks is that we be in him. Partnering in prayer Once again, we could take a tangent and go off and what does it mean to power prayer? What does it mean to agree with God? I just want to stir you up a little bit to see the possibilities and in prayer are unbelievable. They're staggering, is a better word, the final attitude that we need to develop if we're to see prayer come forth in our midst. The first is the reality of the unseen. The second is that prayer has its work, its power in that realm first, and then down here where we are. The third attitude is that we need to see prayer as a priority. Turn with me to First Timothy, chapter two. First Timothy, chapter two. Read it out loud and together with me, the first part of that verse. First of all, then let's try it again. Ready? First of all, then I urge that supplication, supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men. Prayer needs to come first. As Grant said on Friday night, Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God. You see, in so doing, by coming to God first, first with our best energies, with our best minds, with our best talents, our best resources, we are saying, lord, it's more important for us to surrender ourselves to you than it is to try to work the problem out. You see, it's just pride that says, hey, I'm going to work it out, God, you come with me and bless me. How many of you find yourself into a situation where you get inside of something, you get into a mess, and you say, yeah, I wish I prayed about that. We get into those situations, but prayer needs to come first. It needs to establish the way, because it's a way of surrender, giving God access to our lives. It puts us at his disposal and not saying to him, God, would you come to my disposal