Prayer 2003 a Grace Odessy.
To boldly Grow in a unique way like no one has ever grown before.
I recently heard that we are not physical beings with a spiritual life rather we are spiritual beings with a Physical life.
To me that rung profoundly true - particuarily when you consider that at the dawn of creation in Genesis when God created us he created our physical self out of the dust but spiritually he breathed into the man and out of the breath of God came the life force that is human life.
In relation to us:-
An elephant is stronger - an eagle can fly - a fish can live in the water a Monkey can climb trees a tuatara can live longer a worm can live below the ground a spider has eight legs
A caterpiller can change into a fly and an egg can change into a chicken but only a man or a woman has the breath of God in them.
Because the Spirit of God is in us we have within us a deep an unquenchable desire and that deep and unqueenchable desire is to commune with God.
You see when Adam was created he used to walk in the garden and he would commune with God and in that blessed place of deep communication God and Adam shared at a profound level that even the best poet or writer in the world would struggle to comprehend.
But you know after that time was that event that became known as the fall and the fall meant that direct and complete communication with the living God was damaged and apparantly the perfect union between humans and God was irritrievebly damaged forever.
What was Eden the perfect paradise became earth the dust with form but somewhat devoid of the spirit of God a place where the ruling rebelious spirits of the universe reigned and where communication with the living God was replaced with the thoughts and ideologies and dreams of a broken and lost humanity.
An earth that was meant to be like heaven became a living hell and a place of distress and torment for the majority.
Here we need to cut a long story short.
It is true that God continued to build a people for Himself and communicated with those who turned to him and they with Him.
But the significant moment for communication with God is that moment 2000 odd years ago when Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world.
In that Spiritually significant act he restored the possiblity of a full relationship with God.
If medical science is eventually succesful in being able to reconnect the spinal cord of a quaraplegic it will be nothing compared to the miracle of restored communication with God that was achieved through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If a spinal cord refusion was achieved endless nerves and all manner of connections would need to be made so that the body will respond to the will of the mind.
But when Jesus died proper communication was restored between millions and millions of christians - through, so far 20 centuries of christianity.
the midst of a fallen world - restored people called christians can bring before God their personal prayers of Adoration - confession - thanksgiving and requests and each of these billions of prayers will be processed individually by a loving and personal God - if you can really comprehend it it makes the most complex human technology look like lego to a rocket scientist. .
Of course prayer existed before Jesus - but it is only after the cross that the possibility of prayer by a fully restored humanity becomes possible.
Prayer then becomes the most significant agent for change in the world.
Let me give you an example:- Rees Howells dedicated His life to be an example to all, of what can be achieved by prayer and faith alone. It is safe to trust God’s Word and His promises he taught. During the World War Two, Rees Howells led his Bible College in intercession to see the breaking of the dictators that would hinder the work of world evangelism. They laid down their lives in intercession, just like the young men who were on the front lines of battle. Rees Howells challenged them to be living martyrs.
They prayed through the situations in Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, D-Day, and the involvement of Russia in the war and for many other situations including for the establishment of the State of Israel.
Principles of intercession by Rees Howells.
Identification As the crucifixion of self proceeds, intercession begins. The Holy Spirit can take the intercessor into extremes to fulfil the intercession. Like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea, who are some of the great intercessors of the Bible. Agony in intercession. "if it dies, it brings forth much fruit" -Jesus. Authority. The intercessor find a prevailing place of prayer with God. The gained position of intercession, can be used in other prayer situations. Entering the "grace of faith". The measureless realms of God’s grace is open for the intercessor to prevail upon.
More teaching from Rees Howell’s College about intercession
Intercession for many is a word that is hard to understand, it seems a mystical to them. But, really it is quite simple:
God gives you a prayer that your are responsible to pray through.
When the Lord shows you the prayer, you are committed to it, whatever the cost is and for how ever long it takes.
Intercession is completely voluntary. You are never forced into prayer. The intercessor needs to be willing to enter into a new place of intercession.
The intercessor loves God so much that they want to obey. They will pay the price because of their love for the Saviour.
The intercessor will discover wave upon wave of evil as they prevail upon God to see the spiritual systems that have held millions of people in bondage for centuries broken.
There is death involved in intercession. But the focus is never just death. The Spirit of God is gaining ground all the time. You will gain tremendous power over the enemy.
Intercession in many ways is hidden. The world does not see the prayer until it is completed. Jesus, The Intercessor, was misunderstood in His intercession. Not until after the resurrection did the disciples begin to understand why He came. Only after His ascension did they begin to understand His work as the, great High Priest, who entered into death to destroy it.
Tonight I would like to talk about three ways in which prayer can transform a church and encourage you that it will set you off on a grace odeysey which will transform your life.
James S Stewart once said If we ever forget our basic charter -"My house is a house of prayer" we might as well shut the church doors forever. For if we lose that emphasis, all the rest - the dynamic of our corporate witness, the impact on our society, the outreach existentiallyt into the lives of people will soon rot and wither and die.
The first point I would like to make is one of those great points that you need to internalise but you don’t have to do anything about.
The point is that Jesus is praying for your church!!!!!!!!
Romans chapter 8:34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
The first thing to remember is that you are not starting from scratch - Jesus is praying for your church god is on your side. Sometimes we can have a pitiful understanding of our own vulnerability and we can think that we are building a work of prayer from the ground up. This is not the case - Jesus has already begun the work.
What we are doing in our churches is entering into partnership with a work in progress. Jesus has already begun the work of praying for the church at Lumsden we are simply joining with him. What is more we need to disown the thought that we are bothering god or that He doesn’t have time for our prayers.
One of the reasons I called Prayer a grace odeysey
Is infact that it begins with Jes
Us
LK 11:2 He said to them, "When you pray, say:
" `Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
LK 11:3 Give us each day our daily bread.
LK 11:4 Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation. ’ "
LK 11:5 Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’
LK 11:7 "Then the one inside answers, `Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
LK 11:9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
LK 11:11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
The thing we need to note is pray is not so much an audacity for the Christian but an absolute necessity that was invented by God. We are entering into partnership with Jesus who has already began the work of praying for the church in this place.
The second thing is that prayer is firstly an individual thing. Good corporate prayer is normally comprised of good individual prayer lives.
Our Lord both by his examples and by his teaching emphasised individual prayer and the importance of it.
Indeed wherever the church is doing well and is strong you can be sure that you will be able to trace it’s strength to praying individuals.
Luke chapter 5: verse 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
MT 6:5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This is not a teaching about individual prayer versus corporate prayer - both are encouraged in the New Testament and in the teaching Of Jesus but it is a very clear teaching about the importance of individual prayer and how to go about it.
Prayer on your own with God is about relationship we don’t need big lists God must get as bored by them as we do - what He is looking for is relationship.
Out of that relationship comes the provision of our needs and the answer to our prayers.
Teresa of Avila the great catholic contemplative nun once said:e are always in the presence of God, yet it seems to me that those who pray are in his presence in a very different sense.
It is alonde in the presence of God that we are able to confess our sins - expose our hearts and come into that special place with him that will then allow us to take our place in his body the church. It always involves the reception of grace from God to us. Because we constantly need the washing that comes from Jesus that renews our faith journey with him.
Thirdly is the corporate nature of our prayer life.
Jesus tells us that when we pray together there is a special sense of the presence of God.
MT 18:19 "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
This is, of course a very well known verse but our familiarity with it may cause us to gloss over the depth of what Jesus is saying to us through it.
I cannot possibly do an indepth study with you here tonight on these words but I do want to extract some componants that are essential if we are to have a meaningful corporate prayer life.
The first thing is to come together understanding that our first point about Jesus and our second point about our corporate prayer life need to be sorted out first.
How can we come together as Christians if we are not personally in good relationship with God. When this is the case it might be better to go to different corners of the church and get sorted with God first - individually.
You see in this passage there is a very strong emphasis on Grace and a very strong emphasis on unity.
Grace because we can’t come together in jesus name without entering into the grace that Jesus gives. Secondly unity because the whole passage is on about unity - comeing together and so on.
When we get these two sorted then great things will happen.
It was as the result of a prayer meeting in Acts chapter two that pentecost happenned later on in the book of Acts the Apostle peter is locked in prison and is released when he comes to the home of one of the believers we read.:-
.
AC 12:11 Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating."
AC 12:12 When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!"
AC 12:15 "You’re out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."
The people were gathered and were praying.
You know we need to think carefully about the content of our prayer meetings.
Are they exciting wonderful events or are they dry and boring to god as well as to those who attend -
Jesus who has listened to countless prayers through the centuries almost seems to groan these words at us - do not keep on babbling like the pagans.
God wants our prayer meetings to be genuine - profoundly deep and sincere and dare I say it exciting.
At each of these stages.
The stage where Jesus is praying for us.
The stage where we are praying on our own out of sight.
And the stage where we are corporately praying - God is somehow enabled to release His power and glory into our church and into our community.
Can you imagine what God would be able to release into our world if churches corporately prayed.
Well lets dream these dreams and pray those prayers because when we pray like that Jesus will build his church.
Lets pray
