Not My Will, But Yours Series

Dangerous Prayers Part 1. Not My Will, But Yours Be Done, By Pastor Rob Ketterling.

Well, we are starting a new series called Dangerous Prayers, and I do want to let you know I'm not exactly sure how long the sermon will last because I just moved to 14 font size. As I age, I refuse to wear bifocals and reading glasses, and I moved from 10 to 12 to 13 to 14. So a little personal just revelation there. Man, if I have to go like this (holding notes) we're in trouble.

But anyway, I'm excited for this series, Dangerous Prayers. And we called it that, and after we named it Dangerous Prayers we realized it would be dangerous not to pray these prayers. These prayers are prayers you need to pray. And even though we are calling the series Dangerous Prayers, I think we can call them adventurous prayers. Maybe we are using reverse psychology, thinking that if it's dangerous, you'll actually pray it. I don't know what we were thinking there. But these are prayers you need to pray. And as we look at this series, my hope and prayer is our prayer level will increase and we will pray these dangerous prayers.

There will be one week, however, one week in the series that it really is a dangerous prayer. It's for husbands, and the Bible talks about if you're praying this way, it's a dangerous prayer and you're in trouble, and you need to realize that you need to wake up. So that week I'll let you know. Wives will be sure to get all their our husbands here for that one. But the rest of them are going to be ones that we should be praying.

But my prayer is that our prayer level will go up at River Valley Church. We are known for a lot of things, but we're not known as a church of prayer. Okay, not that we don't pray. But that's not one of the defining things. People say River Valley Church; relevant teaching, kids ministry, youth ministry, Kingdom Builders, worship. There is a lot of things; missions, global. There is a lot of things they talk about, but this is not one of them. Again, it doesn't mean it is not being done, but it is something we need to increase. And in my prayer for depth in this year, this is something that I want to see us add more depth. I want to see us have more of an emphasis on prayer, more of a desire to pray. And I think because things are going so good in our church, sometimes we have a tendency not to be as urgent with prayer because things are going so well. And because it is going well, let's not ease up on it. Let's not ease up and let off the throttle of prayer and realizing that God is doing all this anyways, and we need ask for his help and his guidance and his hand on this. Let's not ease up and start running on empty and then need to get to a spot where we are in trouble and then ask God for help. Let's keep asking God for more. Let's keep asking God for help. Let's keep asking him to increase our prayer. Let's give him the thanks and praise that he deserves, and let's grow as a church. Kind of reminds me of Change Before You Have To. Let's not wait for a crisis to change. Let's do it now. So let's add to all the things that we are known for, let's add prayer. Let's just decide right now we are going to be known as a place that believes in prayer, is a place of prayer, encourages prayer.

I'm praying for a greater anointing in our prayer teams at the end of service. And I will tell you this, if there is one thing we could do, I pray that we'll take advantage of our prayer teams in this series. We should be doing it all the time. But let's let it reawaken within us the desire to pray with prayer team members, that they are here ready to pray with people. I would just encourage you, if you come with a need, here and at all of our campuses, pray with the prayer team members. I don't want to walk by them and say, "Hey, thanks for being faithful. If they came for prayer, you were ready." I'd rather have them with lines of people waiting for them to pray for, and us taking advantage of that. Even after service at all of our campuses, just take that moment to pray. Seal with whatever God is going in your life and make sure prayer is part of your life.