House of Prayer - Week 3

Always makes me rest a little easier.

But I want to continue talking about prayer today, building

a house of prayer in your life and in your home.

If you got a Bible, go to James chapter five.

James Chapter five. We're going to start reading in verse sixteen.

If you're there, say amen. If you're not, Oh my,

the o mis We're gonna put on the screen just

for y'all. James Chapter five, Verse sixteen. It says, confess

your trespasses to one another and pray for one another

that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of

a righteous man avails much.

Let's pray. Father.

We thank you for your word. It's the only change

agent on the face of this planet. And I asked

that today, Lord, you stir something at the very fabric

of our being. Lord, that you mold us and shape

us into your image. Lord, give us a deeper understanding,

a communication with you, that thing we call prayer.

Lord. I love you, I praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

You know this passage of scripture. It's I've heard this

quoted and read so many times. The effective fervent prayers

of a righteous man avail much, but normally we just

quote it this way. The prayers of a righteous man

avails much. That's the way we normally quote it, and

then we get confused when things don't happen. So I

want to look at this passage of scripture and spend

most of our time looking at this passage of scripture

and start with the part that we never quote, confess

your trespasses to one another and pray for one another.

That you may be healed.

And uh that there's a lot of erroneous theology that

has been formed and bright here through through this one

line of scripture where basically we think that we have

to have someone that we come to and that we

confess our sins to.

And there's entire.

Sex of the faith that are built around that principle

that we need a mediator, that we need someone to

stand between us and God. But the reality is is

Jesus is our high Priest, that we no longer need

anyone between us and God. He tore the veil between

the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies to show

that we have access into the Holy of Holies and

that we can go boldly before the Throne of Grace,

that we can go straight to Him and we can

have communication with him. What this is pointing to is

it is pointing to to something that we read last

week that we're going to talk about a little more,

and that is that's forgiveness. You know, one of the things,

one of the the engines, the fuel of the kingdom

is forgiveness. So many times we live in a constant

state of bitterness.

In some way. We feel that.

God hasn't treated us right, and there's a little bit

of bitterness. We feel that people haven't treated us right,

and there's bitterness we just feel that happenstance and if

we just call it luck, that luck hasn't treated us right.

I've played the lotto.

Every week for fourteen years and I've never had more

than one number, and bless God, I'm mad.

And this bitterness grows.

And when we have a bitter root in our heart,

it produces bitter fruit in our lives.

And when we're specifically talking.

About prayer, it says, listen, we need to get to

the bottom of some things. We need to get rid

of the hostilities and the hurt that we hold towards

other people and flow freely into the kingdom. Because the

truth about it is is that our vertical relationship will

match our horizontal relationships, and our horizontal relationships will match

our vertical relationship. The more I love Jesus, the more

I love people, and the more I love people, the

more I'll.

Fall in love with Jesus.

Those things are reciprocals of each other. It's cyclical, and

when we have that relationship not right, then this relationship

and prayer is all about communication and relationship with God.

It's not a list of wants, it's not a list

of needs.

It's two way communication with the Lord.

In Mark, chapter eleven, verse twenty five, it says, and

whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone,

forgive him.

This is pointed directly at prayer.

He say, listen, when you pray, if you got something

against somebody, you need to forget him. That your father

in heaven may also forget. Now listen to the language.

Listen to the wording that your father in heaven may

also forgive you your trespasses. Not so he will, not

so he will forgive you, but so he may also

forgive you.

That there is a spiritual rule.

Come on, somebody, there is a spiritual rule that when

we operated when we don't operate in forgiveness, we don't

operate in forgiveness. That when we don't give forgiveness, we

don't also receive forgiveness.

It's just one of those rules.

And listen, God doesn't have to check with me about

his rules. God doesn't have to check with me why

he does things.

He created me.

He knows the psychology of every human brain. He understands

that if we don't have forgiveness, we can't receive forgiveness.

There's something that happens at the mind level.

Of who we are, that there's always some guilt and

there's always something that's happening on the inside of us

that doesn't allow that forgiveness to flow if we're not

also giving forgiveness.

And he says, listen, if.

You got something against somebody, go and ask for forgiveness. Now, listen,

let me tell you what spiritual forgiveness means. Because we

think we've been taught we hear usually.

From the people, usually from the people.

That hurt us, right, we think that what that means

is we have to give them permission and say that

what they did was okay.

But that's not what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is breaking the power that that trauma or that

hurt holds over us.

That's what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is simply saying, listen, you did what you did,

but it can't have.

Power over me anymore.

You did what you did and what you did was

not okay, but I'm not going to continue to live

in it anymore. It's not gonna hold me a prisoner anymore.

I'm breaking free from that and I'm going to operate

as if I am free from it.

And when I get around.

You, I'm not going to cower down anymore because I'm

free from that thing that had a hold over me.

It's coming out of bondage and stepping into freedom.

That's what forgiveness is.

Listen, what somebody did to you, if it was wrong,

it was wrong, and we think, oh, we're supposed to forgive,

and then we go to let them do the same

thing again.

That's insanity.

Forgiveness is saying, hey, I'm not going to put myself

in that position anymore, and I'm I'm not going to

continue to wake up every day and worry about that

thing anymore. I'm operating in forgiveness, and now God can

apply forgiveness, and I can receive forgiveness from the Father

because I know what that street feels like. Come on, somebody,

Because each and every day God holds us accountable to

the rules and the laws of the kingdom. Do we

live in grace, yes, but there are also still laws

and rules of the kingdom. And when we violate those things,

God doesn't just simply look at us and say that's okay,

no big deal, it's all right. He says things like this, Hey,

I forgive you, but go and send no more. We

must come to the place where we break out of bitterness,

because bitterness robs us of a true interaction and deep

relationship with the Father. So if you got somebody against,

if you got something against somebody, forgive them first and foremost.

When we enter into prayer. We need to enter into

prayer without any hint of bitterness in our lives. So

he says, listen, confess your trespasses to one another, get

rid of that unforgiveness, and pray for one another that

you may be healed, that those bonds that are broken,

that reconciliation can come.

And then he.

Says the effective to break it down word by word,

The effective fervent. Prayer of a righteous man avails much fervent, effective,

effective fervort. What does effective mean? You know, Pastor Gary

said something the other day, and I knew this was coming,

so I listened. When somebody with wisdom speaks, I listen, Amen,

when I especially when I know I got to talk

about it, I listen so that I can sound as

smart as they are.

Amen.

You know, everywhere else in the world when you copy

something of somebody else's plagiarism, in the Kingdom, we call

it research.

Amen.

Uh so uh he said, listen, he said. There's a

difference between praying and saying prayers. There's a difference between

saying a prayer and praying. Now, there are times where

I say prayers and prayers they're they're.

Kind of like the uh, hey, how you doing, how's

your mom? In them.

It's kind of that that that just surface level interaction

that we have. You know, it's ay, it did a

beautiful day to day, or boy, it's it's cold. I

thought I was looking at my weather. I think it's

gonna be warm again. It's that introduction. It's the small

talk that happens before you go deep into building relationship.

You know, I pray every single Sunday or every single

time I take a stage to speak.

In this building.

I walk right over there in that corner and I

pray the exact same thing.

And it's a prayer. I'm not praying. I'm setting myself.

I'm entering into the familiarity of the Father and the Kingdom.

With the words that I say and use, I'm positioning myself.

I'm not positioning God. Come on, somebody, and I pray

this simple thing. I say, Father, anoint my feet or

your word says, beautiful er the feet of heat that

carries the Gospel. Father, annoint my knees that they would

stay bent and humble submission to you.

Father. Anoint my hands with the anointing of healing and me.

Miracles created me a clean heart and a steadfast spirit.

Let me hear what nobody else hears. Let me see

what nobody else sees. Give me the mind of Christ,

and allow me to speak your word boldly with no

fear of the repercussions of man.

I'm not praying. I'm saying a prayer.

What I'm saying is what I'm reminding myself, especially with

that last one.

Is You've given me some truth to speak.

And when I look out there and some people look

like they've been sucking on persimmons, come on, somebody say

it anyway. Just cause somebody gets their underwear bunched up

doesn't mean I shouldn't say the truth.

Amen.

And that's and I'm recentering myself. I'm not going deep

with God and to be honest with you, when I pray,

I don't want to be around a microphone. I don't

want to be around you. I don't want to be

around to anybody because me and Jesus are going to

talk about some stuff. Come on, now, see an effective prayer,

when we really pray, effectiveness is when we go past

those those limitations, when it's not surface level anymore, when

it's not now I lay me down to sleep, But

when I go deep into my own heart, and deep

calls out into deep, and I'm going into the deep

things of God, and I'm talking to him about how

I messed up, and I'm talking to him about how

you messed up. And I'm talking to him about how

maybe I don't think things are fair. But if you

don't want to take this cup from me, that's okay.

If it's your will, let it be done.

See, effective prayer is not eloquent words. Effective prayer is

the moment our heart begins to break open and we

realize the limitations of humanity and that we can't do

what we need to be done. That's when we move

from prayers to pray. That's when we begin to see

things happen in the kingdom. And that is an effective prayer.

And it says, hey, the effective an effective prayer not

just saying something from rote memory, but laying ourselves.

Before the throne room.

Of God and saying, God, I've come to you that

I may find help. I'm lifting my eyes to you

because you are the only place my help comes from.

Effective.

So we we first of all, we're getting we're living

in forgiveness, and now we're moving out of surface level

communication with God and we're digging deep the effective.

Fervent.

You know, there's so much misunderstanding around fervent praying because

I have people ask me all the time, hey, is

it okay to pray the same thing over and over again?

Is it wrong for me to pray the same thing

over and again? And I had a teenager one time

when I was a youth pastor that he had lunch

one day and he sat down to lunch and he

prayed over his food, and what he said in that

prayer was, Lord, I pray that you bless my food.

I pray that you blessed this meal and every meal

I eat in the future. So now, any time I've

ever sat down and ate with him, he just starts

eating when the food comes.

And I pray, and he's like, no, no, no, no.

If I pray again, that means I didn't have faith

the first time. It's a lack of faith because I

prayed for him to bless all my meals for the

rest of my life, and that would just be repetition.

So I'm not gonna pray. I'm not gonna pray again.

And I listen, he means it, and I believe he

had faith.

I believe.

I mean, it's something he may do it a little

bit to be funny, but I think it's probably something

that he believes deep on the inside of him. But

he's convinced that. You know, repeating those things are a

bad thing. But I want you to understand that fervent

prayer means you're digging in and not giving up. That

you pray, and when nothing happens, you pray again, and

when nothing happens, you pray again. My Grandmama, she used

to tell me all the time. She would say, hey,

do you know why it always rains when the Indians

do an Indian rain dance. I'd say, no, grand Now,

I don't know, and she would say, because they dance

until it rains. But what we do is we pray

with no faith. We just throw a good intention into

the air, just so we can blame God if things

don't go our way, just so it takes the responsibility

off of us. But the reality is, fervent prayer means

that we dig in and we refuse.

To give up.

We refuse to allow the enemy to discourage us. We

refuse to allow people's opinions to matter more than what

the word of God says. In Matthew chapter seven, verse seven,

it says, ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you'll find it.

Knock and it will be open for everyone who asks received,

and him who seeks finds, and to him who knocks

it will be opened. You know, there's a there's there's

a a one of those English problems that we have

this passage of Scripture. I call some of the things

English problems, because there's certain things, there's certain principles, certain

grammatic principles in the original language that we don't have

those same principles in English. And here when we read this,

it seems like, well, if I ask, it happens. If

I knock it, it's open. If I seek, I find it.

But literally, what it's saying is ask and keep asking

and you'll get it. Knock and keep knocking until it's opened.

Seek and keep seeking until it's found that it's a

forever in the future, until it's the way I like

to explain it, forever into the future.

Until in other words, I'm.

Going to keep on asking, I'm going to keep on pressing,

I'm going to keep on going. I'm not gonna say

if listen, if it's not an important enough fact or

an important enough need in your life that you only

need to.

Talk about it once, it's not very important.

I've got things I've been asking God for since the

day I was saved. I got family members that I'm

still asking God to save.

I'm still asking God to do it. And just because He.

Hasn't done it, it doesn't mean he didn't hear me.

It doesn't mean he's not going to do it. All

it means is he hasn't done it yet, because that

place in eternity hasn't caught up with the timeline yet.

That's all that means.

And I'm gonna knock and kid, listen.

I know some of y'all have been to somebody's house,

and you know they when you pulled in the driveway,

you saw him turn the lights off. They saw your car,

and they turn the lights off, and you go knock

on the door and.

You can hear no, don't say nothing, be quiet.

And you knock again, and you knock again because they

owe you money. Right, that's the only reason you show

up to their house when they're not expecting it. So

only time you should show up to my house when

I'm not expecting you is if I owe you money

and you knock, ssh.

I can hear you in there. Open this door and

bring me what's mine.

You just keep knocking because what's on the other side

of that door is too vital and you can't allow

a door to stand between you and what's yours.

Keep knocking, keep going.

Understand that it's time to rise up and be who

God has called us to be, and refuse to allow

the enemy putting the halocort door in between us and

our blessing, and say, oh the knob didn't turn.

Time for me to do something else. Keep knocking and keep.

Seeking, keep chasing, says the effective, fervent prayer of a

righteous man avails much. This word righteous, it's one of

those big spiritual words that we throw out. There was

so righteous righteousness, righteousness, Oh, that's the righteous thing to do, bro,

And nobody really understands what it means.

We understand a portion of what it means, and we know.

Somehow it's connected to what Jesus did for us on

the cross, because you know, we've heard that said enough

that oh, with the blood of Jesus washes us clean,

makes us righteous. That word righteous is a contractual term.

It's a business term.

It means in right standing is all it means.

It means that if a contract was righteous, that there

were certain rights granted by each party, that I'm going

to pay you a certain amount of money for a

certain service rendered righteous living in right standing, I like

to and some of you've heard me explain it this way.

You know, I'm paying for my house, you know, I mean,

it's not mine yet, it's mine, and some folks amen.

But I'm making the payment, and I have a contract

that says it's mine that I can enjoy the house.

Now.

I can choose to only live in the feyer if

I want to. I can choose to wake up every day,

use a bedpan, go to the bathroom in the fourer,

get a Coleman stove and cook in the fourier. Put

me a palette down and take a nap in the fourier.

And that's the only room I ever go in. I

can do that. But my contract says that I can

enjoy the whole house. I can sleep in my bedroom.

I can use the master bathroom. I can fill the

bathtub up with water that my belly still sticks out

this far because I'm just not as far as it

used to, but still, you know, it still won't.

Cover me in water. I can use it.

I can go in the backyard. I can go in

the front yard. I can enjoy everything because the contract

says I.

Can enjoy it.

And the effective fervent prayers of someone.

In right standing avail much.

But the problem is we don't really know what we

have rights to a lot of times, and we feel

ridiculous talking about some of those rights and saying some

of those rights because they're not a current reality in

the invisible world when we look around. But when we

know what Jesus did on Calvary, the things he appropriated

to us on Calvary, then our prayers are different because

then it's not asking for something we don't know if

we should have. It's about taking something back that we

know is rightfully ours that the enemy has tried to confiscate.

But it's already yours because he's given you a contract

for it. He's given you a contract for your healing.

He's given you a contract for provision. He's given you

a contract for peace. He's given you a contract for love.

He's given you a contract. And you can boldly take

and claim all those things that he says you have.

And it's not ridiculous for you to feel like you're

on your way through healing, but then not say I'm healed,

because the Bible says you're healed. Now, your circumstance may

not look like it, but you are. I'm broke, but

the Bible says he provides, So it's okay for you

to say, listen, everything's okay. And people think when you

talk like this that you're embracing that prosperity Gospel message,

but there's nothing further from that, because the prosperity Gospel

message says that I have things that maybe are not

rights for me, that anything I say, I can have.

But it's not about anything you say. It's about the effective,

fervent things that are guided by righteousness and me understanding

my contract and that I can apply.

Those things to my life.

When we know those things, when we embrace those things,

we pray differently.

Pastor Clay, you guys can come and get ready.

I'm going to stand and I'm going to understand that

when I operate in forgiveness and I begin to pray

effectively and fervently, standing in the will of God, knowing

that I already have the contract that those things will

be done by my Father in Heaven.

I want you to.

Pray Kingdom prayers. I want you to pray shall be prayers,

not maybe prayers. Maybe you will, maybe he won't. He

will because he can, and he wants to transform your

prayer life and may make your house a house of prayer,

not wishful thinking, not good energy into the universe. I

literally heard a pastor say from the pulpit just the

other day, let's all just let's all just broadcast.

Good energy out into the universe.

I'm thinking, man, you might want to keep your good

energy because if you keep saying that, you might need it,

because they may not keep you around very long.

It's not about good.

Energy into the universe. It's about Jesus who lives in

my heart that is appropriated, a life that draws the

attention of people around me because of the way I

handleose situations and circumstances.

You know, righteousness.

Is everything. Righteousness means that our position has changed. In

on Peter chapter two, verse nine, it says, but you're

a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own,

special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him

who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light,

who were once not a people, but are now the

people of God.

Who have not who had not obtained.

Mercy, but now have obtained mercy, translated out of darkness

and into light, moved from not being the people of

God to the people of God, salvation, the genesis of righteousness.

And if you're here today and you're not sure, you're

not sure that if you died today you.

Would meet Jesus in heaven. You don't have the assurance

of knowing that that you're a partaker of that contract

that we talked about. That means that you're part of

the kingdom of darkness. It doesn't mean you're evil. It

means you haven't yet seen to light that you're not

a people that you can be the people of God.

And it happens in an instant, in a moment, every

head bout, every eye closed. Today you haven't asked Jesus

to forgive you of your sins and be the lord

of your life. If you're here today and you prayed

that prayer one time, but now you've had sin and circumstance,

the situation come between you and him, and you're not

sure you're standing with God. But you want to know

things are right between you and him. If that's you,

just slip your hand, I say that's me, Pastor, and

pray for me. I want to know that, I know that,

I know. I want to know that things are right

between me and God. I want to give my life

to him today.

Amen. Amen.

Everybody's staying with me all over the building, say this prayer.

Say Father, thank you for loving me.

When I was unlovable. Today, I come to you knowing

you want the best for me.

Use me, mold me, shape me, energize me towards my purpose.

I come to you and I need you to meet

me at my point of need. I love you, Lord

in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen, Past Klayless Sa