Supernatural Breakthrough #1:
Redigging the Wells of Prayer
TRANSCRIPT
REDIGGING THE WELLS
“And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called them by the names which his father had called them.” (Genesis 26:18).
Over the last couple of weeks, this Scripture has been burning in my heart. Quite often, what was in the natural in the Old Testament, has a spiritual significance and implication to our lives today in the New Testament. This story shows us how in the natural there were wells that Abraham had dug - a source of refreshing water and life for the people. The people in that generation had enjoyed the refreshing of those wells. But their enemies had come along and stopped up those wells and filled them with dirt so that they couldn’t access the water any longer. But later, Abraham’s son Isaac began to redig those wells. He recognized that there was a place of refreshing there, and redug the wells from the days of his father. And what I believe God is calling us to do is redig some of the wells of the early church.
WE NEED THE POWER OF GOD TODAY
If you’ve ever read the Book of Acts in your Bible, you’ve probably noticed that there are a lot of differences between what they did back then and there, and what we’re seeing in the church today. If you go back to the book of Acts, you see a powerful and a glorious church. You see people getting saved, delivered and healed - lives being touched and set free by the power and person of Jesus Christ. And yet in so many churches today, the power is not there. The presence of God is not there. And the question we need to ask ourselves is: why? What’s different about the church today? And some people would say, "The gifts of the Spirit - the power of God - that’s been done away with. We don’t need that in the church anymore today." And I would like to propose to you that we do need the gifts of the Spirit, we do need the power of God in the church today. Because if anything, people are more broken - lives are more fractured, life doesn’t make sense for people in this 21st Century. How much more do we need the reality of the power of God that can change people’s lives today.
THE DAYS OF GREATER GLORY
A prophet in the Old Testament, Haggai, made this declaration: “The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Haggai 2:9). What is Haggai saying? In the last days, before Jesus comes back to the church to take us back to Heaven to live with Him forever, the glory of the latter house - the church - will be greater than the former. But we’ve bought into the idea that, although the book of Acts was a supernatural, glorious church, the church is getting weaker and smaller, and we’re just sitting around and letting the devil beat our brains out until one day Jesus is going to come back to the earth and rescue us. But the reality is, that Jesus has promised that the latter days church is going to be more glorious than it was in the book of Acts. And you say, "What will that look like?" I don’t know because we haven’t seen it yet. But I don’t believe for a minute that we just have to sit back and be content with being religious. No! Let’s go back to the Bible, and redig the wells in the book of Acts, and see what they did to get what they had. Let’s contend for that.
A YOUTH GROUP HUNGRY FOR REVIVAL
For ten years, I was a youth pastor at Bible Fellowship Foursquare Church in Surrey, BC, and one of the things that we did there was contend for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We wanted to see the reality of God touching and changing people’s lives. We were so hungry and desperate to see a move of God that every Wednesday night before our youth meetings we would pray and say, "God, we want you to move. If you don’t come tonight, if you don’t show up, then let’s just go home and shut the whole thing down." And an amazing thing happened as we got hungry and desperate for more of God. We knew that the Lord said, "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13), and if we would draw near to God, He would draw near to us (James 4:8), so we started doing that. We said, "God, we want to know you in a very real and a personal way where our lives are changed." And one of the things that started happening, was the Holy Spirit started moving in our midst, in a group of teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18 years old who said, "We want a real relationship with God. We don’t just want to be religious. We don’t want to just sit in a pew on Sunday morning and go through the motions.” They said, "If God is real, we want to know Him." So one of the things we saw happen, as the Holy Spirit was poured out in our midst, was times where literally every person was laid out, laid down on the floor in the presence of God, just because of the sense of the overwhelming reality that God is in our midst. We would see young people run up to the front altar - not in response to preaching or an altar call - but convicted by the Holy Spirit, they would cry out, "We need to get right with God!" We started just saying, "Lord, we want more!"
A GOD ENCOUNTER AT JOEL’S ARMY
There was a time in November of 2003 when I went to a Joel’s Army youth conference in Portland, Oregon with one of our youth leaders - Mark - and a few students from our youth group; David, Freddy and Andrew. There was a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit there. During a worship session on the morning of Nov. 21st, I was saying, "God, I want more of you," and I was just lying down on the floor and saying, "God, please come. Do something new in my life. Do something fresh in my life." And during that time, I had a vision where the Lord opened my eyes to see into the spirit realm where I saw an angel of the Lord that stood before me. This angel touched my ears and touched my eyes in this vision, and I didn’t know what was happening. But I heard the Lord speak this Scripture to me: Matthew Thirteen. But I didn’t know what was in this chapter of the Bible. So as I was laying there on the floor, I opened up my Bible and started reading Matthew chapter thirteen, where Jesus said, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven...But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear." (v. 11,16). And I understood the significance of what the angel had done in that vision, and during that season of my life the Lord began to open up my understanding to some of the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
THE MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOM
And we started teaching the mysteries of the Kingdom to our youth group. "These signs will follow those who believe, they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover." Jesus said, "And as you go, preach, saying, ’The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:7-8). And as we started teaching these truths from the Bible, these 12-18 year old teenagers said, "If that’s what the Bible says, we’re going to go and do it." We had a couple of youth leaders in our youth group - Geoff and Spencer - who had opportunities during this season to pray for people to be raised from the dead! Geoff worked at Shell gas station - pumping gas for Jesus - and he was working one day and there was a guy who was sitting in a car in the parking lot who had died of a drug overdose, and they were freaking out - this guy was dead! - and Geoff started praying that the life of God would come into that man, that he would be raised from the dead, and it happened!
WE’RE GOING TO SEE MIRACULOUS THINGS HAPPEN
And I realize that some of you hearing these stories are saying, "Come on Pastor Chris, surely you’re joking - you’re just making this all up." But I’m telling you the truth, that the power of Jesus Christ has not changed. And if we’re not seeing it in the church today, it’s not because Jesus has changed - that He’s stopped healing the sick and raising the dead. If we’re not seeing it, it’s because we’re not seeking it. We’re not contending for it. We’re not believing God for it. The church is not yet all that it will be one day. I believe that as God starts stirring up our hearts to see the reality of the power of God in our midst that we’re going to see it - we’re going to see miraculous things happen. But - how’s it going to happen? When we start redigging the wells of the church in the Book of Acts. When we start redigging the wells of our Foursquare Church that was birthed at the turn of the 20th Century in signs and wonders and healing and miracles. Those are our roots, and its time to return to our foundations.
BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING
Being a Christian is not just so that I can be blessed, blessed, blessed. Thank God He blesses us. But we need to remember that we are blessed to be a blessing. Freely we have received so that we can freely give. And we can’t keep it a secret any longer. We have to share what we have with others.
A HOUSE OF PRAYER
"Then Jesus taught, saying to them, "Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’?” (Mark 11:17). You see, there are a lot of different things that happen in the church. We have praise and worship. We have preaching. But notice that Jesus did not say that my house will be a house of praise and worship or a house of preaching, although those things are good and important and a part of the picture. Jesus said first and foremost my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. So if we want to see a supernatural breakthrough of the power of God into our midst, then we need to redig the wells of prayer. Why was the church in the book of Acts powerful? Why did they see lives changed? Because they prayed.
THE BIG IDEA: If we want to see the same power – signs, wonders, healings and miracles – as the church in the book of Acts, then we must have the same priority of prayer as they did.
COULD YOU NOT TARRY WITH ME FOR ONE HOUR?
See, when we have a church service on Sunday morning, people will come to worship, to listen to the teaching, to be with other believers. We’ll go to home groups for the fellowship and to drink coffee together. But if you want to see where people’s hunger and passion is for more of God in their lives, look at the prayer meeting. In most churches, the prayer meeting is the least attended meeting in the church. People will come for worship, fellowship or discipleship, but prayer meetings? "No, I don’t have a desire to pray, I don’t have time to pray. Prayer is boring." We need to change that idea that prayer is a boring thing - something that we have to do. We need to realize that God answers prayer, and prayer is an opportunity to connect with the power of God in our lives. Why aren’t we seeing more of the power of God in our midst? We’re not praying for it. James 4:2 b says, "You have not because you ask not." Ask, and you will receive.
LOOK AT THE FOUNDATION OF PRAYER IN ACTS
Let’s take a look at the emphasis on prayer in the book of Acts. When Jesus started His church, He said, "My house will be called a house of prayer." By prayer, he means blessing and ministry. The church is to be a place where we pray for people and see people touched and changed by the power of God.
1:14 These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer. (Notice that they were continually devoting themselves to prayer. Prayer was not a side issue).
1:24 And they prayed… (for wisdom and direction from the Lord)
2:1-4 And they were all with one accord (they were praying together) … and they were all filled with the Spirit. (This was the birth of church on the day of Pentecost).
2:42 They were continually devoting themselves to…teaching, fellowship…and prayer. (Four times in just the first two chapters of the book of Acts, we see the church praying).
ALPHA HOLY SPIRIT DAY
This past weekend we had seven people receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit at our Alpha Course. One of the neatest things for me that day was watching as everyone broke up into small groups around the room and started praying for one another, and seeing the presence of God come upon people. They were weeping and shaking as the power of God came upon them. We saw the gifts of the Holy Spirit in operation - people shared prophetic words and words of wisdom with one another. It was great seeing people praying and ministering to and blessing one another - that’s what church is all about.
A LOOK AT THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH IN ACTS
There are three things that were foundational keys to the original church –the blueprint that God gave us. This is what I want to see us contend for. That word ‘contend’ simply means to ‘fight for’. Let’s make these a reality in our midst.
1. The Presence of God. In Matthew 28:20, when Jesus commissioned those first disciples, He said, that as they went into the world, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The reality of the manifested presence of God. The early believers expected the manifested presence of Jesus through the Holy Spirit to be with them each time they gathered. If we ever come to a place in this church where we’re just singing the songs and hearing the stories about what God did yesterday, and there’s no life in it, then its time to get on our knees and cry out, “God, revive us again!” Lord, don’t let us ever get to that place where it’s just ‘church as usual’. A revival preacher Leonard Ravenhill wrote, “There was a time when people came to church to meet with God. Now they come to sing songs about Him.” I want to challenge you – whenever you go to church or get together with other believers, let’s have that expectancy that we are going to meet with God. Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:19). When we gather together at church, He is there with us. And if He is the same yesterday, today and forever, then let’s believe that He can touch our hearts and renew and refresh us today.
2. The Power of God. The early believers expected the supernatural power of God to be expressed in their midst when they gathered. In Mark 16:15-20, when Jesus gave His disciples the great commission, “He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature… And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons…they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” We need to contend for this, and see this in the church. People are hurting and broken in the world today, and I don’t just meant physically, but also mentally and emotionally. People are devastated, they are hurting, and we’ve got the answer. The answer is Jesus, who heals the broken-hearted, comforts those who mourn, and sets at liberty those who are in bondage. That’s why our Overcomers Outreach is so important. People who come into the church who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and sexual perversion and anger – they can be set free from that. You don’t have to be that way for the rest of your life – Jesus can set you free!
3. Participation by all. The early believers came to their gathering anticipating that each one would have something to contribute as the Holy Spirit led. We’ll talk about this a little more next week when we look at unleashing the gifts of the Spirit. But in First Corinthians 14:26, Paul wrote: “How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.” We need to change our mentality that says, “I’m coming to church to be a spectator.” We all have something to give. What’s your gift? What has God gifted YOU to do? Are you using your gifts for His glory? But you might say, “I can’t preach. I can’t sing. I can’t play an instrument. I don’t like working with children or teenagers.” But what can you do? Do you know that craftsmanship is one of the spiritual gifts from God? Your gift might be drywall or painting or serving and cleaning the church. Whatever your gift is, are you using it to build the kingdom of God and bless people? But you might say, “I don’t know what my gifts are.” Check out our teaching on “Unleashing the Gifts of the Spirit.” It’s not the pastor’s job to do the work of the ministry. In Ephesians 4:12, it says the job of the pastor is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” Every member is a minister!
(Concepts from Church at its Simplest – Tom Wymore – www.churchplanting.ca)
THE BIBLE STORY PART #1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE EARLY CHURCH
“1 Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple; 3 who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms. 4 And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, "Look at us." 5 So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. 6 Then Peter said, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." 7 And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. 8 So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them--walking, leaping, and praising God. 9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God. 10 Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. 11 Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed.” (Acts 3:1-11).
Picture this: Here’s a man who was born crippled, and for over forty years of his life could not walk. And then all of a sudden, one day, he had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and through the power in the name of Jesus, he was healed. He didn’t just stand up and say, “Oh that’s cool, I’m feeling much better now, thanks for that.” No! He started jumping up and down and shouting, leaping and praising God - twirling around. He was so excited about the difference that Jesus had made in his life. And it’s time for us in the church to get a little bit happy about our salvation! But you might say, “But God hasn’t done anything for me. He’s never healed my physical body. He’s never delivered me from any kind of addictions.” But are you saved? Have you been born again? Have you been adopted into the family of God? Once you were on the road to hell, but now you’re on the road to Heaven. Once you were a child of the devil, but now you’re a child of God, and Heaven is your eternal home. That you’re going to live forever with Him. That’s something to get excited about! And if we’d just get a little bit happier about our salvation, we’d see more people coming to Jesus. Instead of walking around with sad depressed looks on our faces moaning, “Would you like to meet Jesus? Come to church with me and you can be just as depressed and miserable as I am.” I don’t think so – no! The joy of the Lord needs to be our strength, and that happens as we spend time in the presence of the Lord. That’s why I love going to church on Sunday mornings! Home groups are great, Alpha’s great, Overcomers Outreach is great. Youth group is great. But I love Sunday morning because when we gather together and worship God, as we come into His presence together, there is fullness of joy, and at His right hand there are pleasures forever more (Psalm 16:11).
Our Bible story says that when this miracle happened, they were greatly amazed. It’s time for us in the church to amaze people again, through the reality of the power of Jesus Christ working in and through our lives.
WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM THIS STORY?
a) We need to make prayer our priority. Notice it doesn’t say that Peter and John went to church on Sunday morning for the worship service. “They went to the temple at the hour of prayer.” Jesus said, “My house will be called a house of prayer.” It’s time to get serious about praying!
b) We need to stir up our expectation for God to do something. You see - you’ll get what you expect. If you come to church on Sunday morning and expect that we’re going to sing some songs and learn some facts, guess what you’re going to walk away with? But let’s have an expectancy in our spirit that says, “I’m going to church to meet with God.” Receive everything that God has for you. Did you notice what happened with this lam man? The man “gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them.” He didn’t walk away and say, “No thanks, not interested.” No! He said, “Come on – you’ve got something for me, I want it!” He expected to receive. We need to have an atmosphere of faith that says, “God, we believe that you’re going to move. Maybe today’s the day where the Holy Spirit will fall in our midst, and we’ll see amazing things happen in the presence of the Lord.” It will happen when we start expecting it.
c) We need to get the power of God first before we can give it. Peter said, “What I do have I give you… the name of Jesus.” Peter knew that he had something. If he didn’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the power of God was in his life, he wouldn’t have grabbed this crippled man and stood him up on his feet. That would have been awkward, wouldn’t it? No! Peter knew that when he pulled that man to his feet that there was something inside of him, and that Jesus would heal him. You see, Peter knew that Jesus had said, “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8), but we need to receive first. We need to get the power of God so we can give the power of God.
THE BIBLE STORY PART #2
The second part of this story takes place in Acts 4. Peter and John walked into the temple with this crippled man, a crowd gathered around, and Peter started preaching Jesus to them. He told them that they could encounter Jesus and their lives could be changed as well. Two thousand more people gave their lives to Jesus, but the religious leaders of this day got upset that they were stirring things up. The religious leaders wanted to settle for the status quo – they wanted things to stay the same. They wanted a nice quiet little church. And so they threw Peter and John in prison and beat them up and said, “Stop preaching about Jesus!” Peter said, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” And one of the things that’s going to happen in our church when we start contending for a supernatural breakthrough in our midst, persecution is going to come. There will be people – and there may even be other churches in town – that may persecute us. But we want to see the power of God changing people’s lives. Well, what happened next in the story?
“23 And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: "Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them… 29 Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 30 by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus." 31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:23-24,29-31).
WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM THIS PRAYER?
Do you want to learn how to pray? Study the prayers of the Bible. There are so many prayers in the Bible that we can pray. When I pray for our church family, there is a list of prayers that I pray on a regular basis, and these are great Scriptures to pray for yourself and your family: Ephesians 1:17-19; Ephesians 3:14-21; Philippians 1:9-11; Colossians 1:9-11; Psalm 23; Psalm 91; Psalm 103 and Isaiah 57.
a) We need to pray together as a church. The Bible says, “they raised their voice to God with one accord.” This Greek word helps us understand the uniqueness of the Christian community. It is a compound of two words meaning to "rush along" and "in unison". The image is almost musical; a number of notes are sounded which, while different, harmonize in pitch and tone. As the instruments of a great concert under the direction of a concert-master, so the Holy Spirit blends together the lives of members of Christ’s church. (Strong’s Concordance). In other words, God’s desire for the church is that we would be like a musical symphony, where each of us does the part that God has called us to play, and we become a beautiful sounding and wonderful expression of Jesus to the earth. Let’s seek the Lord together in prayer. Let’s contend for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our midst. Let’s seek His face, and see Him move. Let’s draw near to God, knowing that He will draw near to us.
b) We need to remind ourselves of who God is and what He has done. When they prayed, they said, “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth…” Why would they pray that back to the Lord? God knows who He is. The reason they were reminding themselves of who God was, was for their own benefit. And when we pray, we need to remind ourselves of all the times that God has answered our prayers in the past. That’s the power of a testimony. We need to share testimonies and stories of what God is doing in our lives to stir up our faith. If God did it yesterday, He can do it again today.
c) We need to ask God to give us boldness to speak His Word. We’re living in an ungodly society. And if Peter and John needed to pray for more boldness – after having just performed a mighty miracle in the name of the Lord – how much more do we? As you go into your workplaces and schools, say, “Lord, give me boldness. I need a fresh outpouring of your Holy Spirit in my life.”
d) We need to ask God to perform signs and wonders. The church prayed that God would stretch out His hand to heal, and that signs and wonders would be done through the name of Jesus. We need to see signs and wonders in the church today. And the thing about a sign is it has one purpose – to point towards something. When you’re coming back to town and you see the “Beausejour – one kilometer” sign, you don’t camp at the sign and say, “Oh wow, what a beautiful sign that is.” No – the purpose of the sign is to point you towards something. And when we see a healing or a miracle, the purpose is to point people to Jesus. It’s so that people can put their faith in Jesus. It’s not just for the sake of the supernatural experience. They’re called signs and wonders. Why are they called wonders? Because when God moves in a miraculous way, when He does something impossible in the natural realm, it causes people to wonder. It causes non-Christians to say, “How could that happen?”
e) We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit anew and a fresh. Our Scripture says that, “when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Now we know that they had already been filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter two, and a little while later, Peter was filled with the Spirit again. And here they were filled with the Spirit a third time. You see, as human beings – we are leaky containers. We get filled up with the Holy Spirit, but we need to be refilled every day. We need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit every day. “I shall be anointed with fresh oil!” That’s what we need to cry out for in our lives.
CLOSING CHALLENGE – RETURN TO YOUR FIRST LOVE
In Revelation 2:4, Jesus said, “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” I believe that God is calling us as a church to begin to redig the wells of prayer. To return to our first love, and do the first things first. In the midst of all of the busyness of the work of the ministry, let’s not neglect to spend that time at the feet of Jesus, getting into the secret place. Getting alone until we’re not alone anymore, and allowing God to fill us up with His power, His boldness, His love and compassion, that we would have the heart of Jesus to be able to reach our generation. So Father I thank you for a new and fresh outpouring of your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, amen!
www.beausejourchurch.ca
