House of Prayer - Week 1

Says we're two or three touching any one thing on

earth shall agree. It shall be done by our Father

in heaven. So we want to pray. I'm with a

united focus and see God moved mightily in our community

and in the lives of his people. Amen. Amen, So

go ahead and uh and hit that q R code

and sign up and uh. We we appreciate everything that

that you're doing and have done. We love you. Let's

pray Father, I pray right now that you bless every

seed that was sown in this offering today, that you

multiply ith, that you bring a harvest into people's lives. Lord,

we love you, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen, Amen,

and Amen. One other thing next Sunday will be one,

uh will be one one of the I think we

have three town halls scheduled. So next week is town hall.

If rayne, if you've never been here for town hall,

if you don't know what I'm talking about, raise your

n So. Town hall is where we're on the stage

and you bring your questions and we answer your questions

from the stage or whatever you have a question about.

Now listen, here's the rule. Though it's not let's try

to bring some theologically dense question to stump pastor. That's

not what town hall is. Okay, that's that's not what

it is. It's Hey, I've been I got this going

on in my life, and I you know, and I

don't really know how to to find my way through it.

And listen, If you've got it going on in your life,

chances are there somebody else that going through it too. Amen.

So you ask those questions and we answer those things

you can. You need to come with questions prepared. Don't

just think, oh, I'm gonna think of it in the moment.

As you go through your week and things are troubling you,

you have a question about something, you have a conversation

with somebody, write that down. The most spiritual thing I

will ever teach you is to write it down so

you don't forget it. If you don't remember it, it's

hard to have faith for it. Amen. So write it

down and uh and bring it and we're going to Uh,

we're gonna have town Everything else looks exactly the same,

but instead of preaching, we answer questions. So that's what

we're gonna be doing next week. And then it's not

just gonna be me. We're gonna bring like the panel back.

Pastor Gary's gonna be on stage with me. So I mean,

if you really want real good answers, next week is

the one because he's gonna be on the stage with us, amen,

and it won't just be me. And I think Pastor

Clay's gonna be up here too. But we know y'all

don't really have to ask him anything, but uh, but

he'll be up here. So if you got a Bible,

go to mark chapter eleven. We want to start a

brand new series UH today called the House of Prayer.

U going into this twenty one days of Prayer. Not

only do we want to pray, but we also want

to we want to understand prayer a little deeper. We

want to clear up some misconconceptions, some myths about prayer

because I think that there are probably people in here

that the reality is you have tried prayer and you

feel like it just doesn't work for you, and that's

not the truth of scripture. That's not what I said.

But I said that there are people here that you

have prayed, and you've tried prayer and you feel that

prayer doesn't work for you. I think that most spiritual

disciplines are that are like that, that we try these

things and we just come to the conclusion that it

just doesn't work for me. But the reality is a

lot of times we don't really understand the depth or

what that spiritual discipline is even designed to do in

our lives. When we think about prayer, most people think

about prayer is that we are petitioning God, that we're

asking God for something, that it's that it's a blessed

me time or a gives me time. But the reality

is prayer is communication and it's not just one way communication.

It's not just me talking to God, but it's also

God speaking to me. If you don't if you don't

have a communication relationship with someone, you don't really have

a relationship with them. That's how we exchange the information

that we need to exchange to carry our relationships to

a different level. And prayer is no different. Now, I

want to start today and we're going to talk about

that area of prayer that most of us think about

and most of us do, and that's the give me prayer.

So we're going to talk about petitioning God today. But

I wanted to preface it by saying that's not the

totality of prayer. Come on, somebody, that's not. As a

matter of fact, receiving a blessing is the lowest form

of the Christian expression. Being a blessing is the highest form.

So a lot of times we pray and we ask God,

me me.

Me me me me me me me me me me

me me me me.

Me me me me me me. But prayer is more

about God than it is about you. Let me say

that again. Prayer is more about God than it is

about you. It is to position ourselves in a place

where we can hear from and understand who He is

for us. Prayer is like that same experience of Moses

going up on the mountain and having an encounter with

the most High. Now, not all prayer times are like that.

I wish they were, but not all prayer times are

like that. You know, God speaks to me pretty plainly,

and it's not an audible voice that God speaks to

my heart. And the reason that He speaks to my

heart and not audibly is because I kind of understand,

you know, language from God in one way, and it's

pretty much when He just kind of really tells me

what he thinks. Amen. You know one of my most

intense experiences with God is we were pastoring a church

plant and we had like ten people in the church.

And you know, I wasn't very busy. Come on, somebody.

I mean, you know, when you're pastoring ten people, there's

not a lot going on, especially when eight of them

are in the same family. The only way there's real

Christ is if that family has something that happens. Amen.

And I remember I woke up. I was feeling particularly

holy this morning, Kaylee. I just you know, I was

just like and I remember looking at Angie and I said, Baby,

I'm going to the basement. I'm gonna pray all day.

Hold my casts. Nobody was calling me. Nobody called me,

but I'd heard somebody say that it sounded good. And

I remember going down into that basement and rolling around

on the floor. Oh God, I sounded holy. The neighbors

thought that I was really really doing something. Oh God,

Oh God, Oh God. I want you to feed the hungry,

Oh God. I want you to provide shelter for the homeless.

Oh God, clothe those that don't have warmth. Oh God.

And he let me go on for quite a while,

like this, and then black God often speaks to me.

He just says, shut up. That's kind of the excsion,

you know. It kind of took my breath and I'm like,

excuse me, sir, And he said, stop asking me to

do the things I've already told you to do. And

I said, WHOA, Now, not the way I thought this

thing worked. I thought I asked you and you did

whatever I wanted you to do. It was like taking

that lamp and rubbing the side of it, until Aladdin's

Genie popped out and said, ask anything you will, I'll

give you three. And then you know my third one

is always I want three more wishes. Amen, But prayers

not like that. Mark Chapter eleven, verse twenty two. It

says Jesus answered and said to them have faith in God.

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this

mountain be removed and cast and be cast into the sea,

and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that

those things he says will be done, he will have

whatever he says. Therefore, I say to you, whatever things

you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them,

and you will have them. Father, Thank you for your word.

It's the only change agent that we have on the

face of the planet. And Lord, I pray right now

that you move in our hearts and our minds and

give us a deeper understanding of prayer and communication with you. Lord.

If we're wrong, show us we're wrong. If we're right,

inpower like a catalyst, those areas of our life, they're

in alignment. Lord, we love you and we thank you

in Jesus' name. Amen, you're like well, Pastor. It says

right there that whatever I ask, if I believe that

He's gonna do it, whatever I ask, it's going to

happen in the Word. So it has to be true

because God cannot lie. Yes, you are right. And the

problem is not understanding that passage of scripture. The problem

is understanding what the prayer of faith looks like. See.

The problem is when we take these seemingly simple principles

and we rationalize them and we personalize them to fit

our own context, and we don't understand that it's not

our context, it's God's context. And the thing he says

about these things are really the way the kingdom functions.

And what God says in this passage is that when

we pray the prayer of faith that we don't doubt,

and we believe that we receive it, that God works

and moves and provides on our behalf. Hebrews chapter eleven,

Verse one. Now faith, if we're going to pray the

prayer of faith, let's look at faith. Let's talk about

what faith is, and then let's move that over into

our prayer life. Come on, somebody, Hebrews chapter eleven, Verse

one says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.

You got a paper bible, like an actual bible that opens.

Underline that, Now faith is the substance things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen. Underline that, for by

it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith, we

understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.

Underline that, so that the things which are seen were

not made of things which are visible. He says, Listen,

here's the first component of faith, hope. Now faith is

the substance of things hoped for. Hope is the blueprint

by which our faith works. Hope gives it the framework

to construct and to make things happen in our lives.

Hope comes not from some good ethereal feeling somewhere. But

hope comes from the word of God. Okay, let me

say that again. Hope comes from the word of God.

The word of God is our hope. Those promises are

our hope. It's not I hope you feel better. It's

by your stripes, by his stripes you were healed. It's

not oh, I hope you get a miracle. It is

My God shall supply all of your need according to

His riches in glory through Christ Jesus. That's hope. Hope

is the promise that tomorrow can be better than today.

Let me say that again. That's tweetable. Maybe hope is

the promise that tomorrow can be better than today. That's hope.

Now here's the reality. Though we only as human beings,

we take that to mean circumstantially that tomorrow is going

to be better because God's going to show up and

he's going to change my circumstance. He's going to he's

going to change the things that are happening. But that's

not the only way that tomorrow can be better. As

a matter of fact, I can stay in the same

situation and circumstance that I've been in it can still

be the same pressure, it can still be the same

whatever or fill in the blank. But God empowers me

to see it from a different perspective and to be

able to live in it in a peace that I

didn't have before. And then tomorrow is better than yesterday

because the thing that crushed me yesterday only knocks me

to my knees today, and then tomorrow it just kind

of wobbles me a little, and then the next day

it doesn't even cause me to break stride. Because here's

the thing. God doesn't promise in his word to bring

you out of anything, but he promises to bring you

through everything. He promises that he is a god right

in the middle of the storm, and does he choose

to bring you out sometimes yes, But we don't have

a promise. But he does promise to bring us through

it until we get to the other side. And Hope

says He's going to sustain us as we go through it,

so that we can handle it, and that people see

how we are handling the pressure and the weight and

all of those things that are happening in our lives.

And it becomes a testimony because they see how you

are handling it and that hope is the building block

of our faith. If I know God's word says by

those stripes, I'm healed, then it must be true and

I can grab hold of it because if God says it,

you can have it. If you can see it clearly,

you can possess it fully. Now, hope, hope is the

blueprint the evidence of things not seen. The evidence is

the part that we don't like. The evidence is when

we begin to move and operate and work before things

begin to happen, so we start living like it's done

before it's come on. Somebody, see, the reality of faith

is that we ask God, and we ask God and

we ask God, and then we get frustrated because things

don't happen. I prayed and I asked God. I prayed

and I asked God to make my wife stop fussing

at me. Now I probably should have said that the

other way, but it makes me look bad. I love you, baby,

I'm just kidding. I wish God God just speak to

my spi and just make them understand how hard my

life is. Let them have dinner on the table and

slippers by the door. And you get home and the

broom is by the door with a note that says,

sweep up the mud. You just tracked in, Come on, somebody,

And we think faith changes those things, and we get

frustrated with God because we ask and we ask, but

there's nothing different. We've asked and we've asked for God

to give us a I'm gonna meddle just a little

bit right here. I've asked, and I've asked God for

a promotion. I've asked and I've asked God for a raise.

I've asked him, and God hadn't shown up. God hadn't worked,

God hadn't moved. But you still come in late two

days a week or I've prayed and asked God. I've

prayed and prayed and prayed to lose weight. Oh God,

I've been praying for God to help me lose ten

pounds so that I can go to the beach and

wear a bikini. Never mind, I'm not even going to

talk about the fact that God doesn't anyway. And I

got on the scale this morning and not only did

I not lose weight, I'm up two pounds. So now

I got to change my prayer. Now I need to

lose twelve pounds. And God doesn't work for me. Because

when I asked him to do something, he just doesn't

do it. But what you neglect to talk about is

the fact that you ate two large pizzas last night.

Faith is not a bailout for our crazy living. Faith

is not a bailout for our failure to do the

things that we should. As a matter of fact, that

evidence that it's talking about here is an alignment of

our actions with the outcome that we want to see.

And we read this last week in James chapter two,

verse twenty six, it says four as the body without

the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead. Also,

let's let's die of just a just just below the

surface there. So faith is like the body without the spirit.

In other words, faith can look like a person that

pretends to be saved. Did you know somebody can pretend

to be saved. Somebody can look like they're doing the

right things, but not ever have an actual encounter. As

a matter of fact, when we really look at what

happens on the inside is when we have that grace collision,

when when we meet Christ and he absolutely flattens us

with his grace. It's an inward action with an outward

manifestation in other words, God does something so big on

the inside that you see it on the outside that

I don't quite look or act or do the same

things anymore. But when we are playing the game, we

can look that way, but not actually be born again,

but not actually have that regenerated spirit on the inside

of us, that our that are entered, that our spirit

man has not been quickened and made alive. Now you're

walking around and you look alive. And it's why we

can say things like, oh, I'm believing for a miracle,

I'm believing for God to do this. I'm believing for

God to do that. As a matter of fact, he

writes just a little bit earlier here he says, Hey,

what does it profit if you send someone away hungry

and tell them that it's gonna be okay? What does

it profit if you're only talking the talk but you're

not walking the walk. Because see, our faith requires us

not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk.

It's not just name it and claim it. Sometimes it's

chase it and grab it. And we have created a culture,

especially in the modern American church, where we think faith

is just about what we think. But faith is not

about what we think. Faith is evidence, so there has

to be some action that lines up. He says. Listen,

you can say you have faith, but just like a

person who acts, say that's not You can say you

have faith, but if you don't have works that line

up with what you say, it's dead. It's not real.

So you can say you believe it, but do your

actions show that you believe it. And we don't like that.

We don't like that because, after all, God should just

do it for us, but you don't. At the core

of your belief system, God doesn't allow you to believe that,

because if you believe that, you wouldn't get up and

go to work. Come on, somebody, if really, at the

core of who you are, you wouldn't even get up

and go to the refrigerator. You just ask God to

sustain you on the couch. We what we really mean

is God, I will do enough faith steps as long

as it doesn't make me feel uncomfortable, as long as

you don't stretch me past what I want to do. God,

I'm going to have faith actions as long as as

long as it doesn't require me to do something out

of the normal. I'm gonna just I'm just gonna blame

you for not having it God, and a lot of

our prayers are blaming God for what we don't have. God,

I need you to do this, God, I need you

to do that. God, I need you to do this.

And God's like, just show up to work on time.

I've been moving on your boss's heart for two years,

and every time he comes to have a conversation with

you to give you a raise, he can't find you

because you hadn't clocked in yet. Every time you ask

your wife to be a better wife, she has in

her heart she has planned an evening that's going to

express her love for you. And you at mud through

the floor and you complain, and you talk about how

tired you are, and you jump in a recliner and

you throw your socks on the floor and you go

to sleep. See it's easy to blame the fact that

we don't have things on God and that prayer doesn't work.

But the reality is our life and our action has

to line up with what we're asking God to do.

And listen, I've preached this for a long time.

You know, I've talked about, oh God, you do on

faith faith, But the reality is, you know, I got

to a place where I felt so bad every day

that I didn't even want to get out of bed.

My feet hurt, and my back hurt. My elbow I

don't even know why my elbows hurt, but they hurt.

I was like, Oh, my God, to be able to write.

And I thought, you know, God just just heal me.

God give me energy, God this, God, that God, God God.

And God finally just said, hey, quit drinking mountain dew.

Y'all think God don't say things like that. He did.

And then when I ignored it from God, he spoke

to my wife and she said, you got to stop

drinking mountain dew. And then I'm walking around house, you know,

try to do just basic things, and she's like, lose weight,

hold on now. And just like when somebody says something

to you, I'd go, wouldn't I, Babe? I just get

agitated and mad, like, wait, I'm beautiful just the way

God made me. I mean I would think that, and

I would think, there's just more of me to love.

And then God began to show me some things about

what he wanted to do and what God wanted to

how God wanted to expand ministry, and how he wanted

to expand some areas of my life and to fix

some broken things, and it all led back to one place.

My actions need to line up with my faith. And

I've been asking God for me to feel better, but

now my actions have to line up with that. So

I got to do somethings so that I can feel better,

and then God will come along beside it, and he

will partner with me, and he will collapse time frames,

and he'll remove obstacles and he'll do all those things.

But I've got to show that I actually have faith,

and that's bringing my actions into alignment of what I believe.

So you can say prayer doesn't work all you want

to say it, but until you start living the fact

that that's actually what you want to get, nothing is

going to change. Faith is the currency of the Kingdom.

Faith is what makes things happen, and you don't really

have faith until your actions back up what you're saying

and what you're believing. That's when it stops being just

belief in head and wishful thinking to actual faith that

moves things in the invisible realm, and all things are

made in the invisible realm. Your healing is already there.

It's just positioned in the invisible. Your provision is there.

It's just positioned in the invisible and moves it from

there to here when we begin to ask God for it,

and we begin to point our lives towards it, and

then God does something absolutely amazing. When we work like

everything's up to us and we pray like everything's up

to God, where those things meet, a miracle happens one

hundred percent of the time. I know that's hard to

clap for because it means that God's not the problem,

means that we are, means that I am, means that

I have to to start living in a way that

is uncomfortable. I start having to speak to the uncomfortable.

Jesus answered it and said to them back in March

chapter eleven, have faith in God. Assuredly. I say to you,

whoever says to this mountain be removed and cast into

the sea, and does not doubt in his heart have

faith His actions match what he's about to say. That

it's uprooted and cast into the sea. So that means

the mountains in the way. And I start speaking to

the mountain. But as I'm speaking to the mountain, I'm

also running towards the mountain with no rope. I'm running

towards the mountain, and if the mountain doesn't move, I'm

just going to run through the mountain because I know

my destiny is just on the other side of that incline.

I know that God's best is for me right on

the other side of that peak, and I refuse not

to get there. That's faith, and it's easy. It's just

like putting one foot in front of the other clay.

You guys can come and get ready. One of the

greatest displays of faith in all of Scripture. It's just

after Jesus has served that last Supper communion to his disciples,

and he finds himself in the garden of Gathseimone, and

he's there with his closest friends. He's there and he's

got a full understanding of the the insurmountable task that

lies ahead of him. And in Matthew twenty six, verse

thirty eight, it says, then he said to them, my

soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Stay here and

watch with me. He went a little farther and fell

on his face, and he prayed, saying, Father, this is

a son, leading to the father. Father, if it's possible,

and listen, listen, these are the words of Jesus. If

it's possible, if there's any other way, let this cup

pass from me. If there's any if there's any way,

do something else. But not as I will, but as

you will. And then the soldiers came into the garden

and Jesus surrendered himself. He said, listen, listen, Dad, I

don't want to I do not want to die the

brutal death that lies ahead of me. I don't want

to do it because I've already seen a glimpse. I've

already seen a glimpse of the rebellious like a day's ago,

lethargic people that I have to do this for. And

I don't want to. But if it's your will, Dad,

if it's your will, I will submit myself to this.

The only way for that to happen, the only way

for you and me to be born again, The only

way for us to have our sins washed away, was

for Jesus to put faith in action. Jesus is the advocate.

Jesus is pleading your case. But the Father is the judge.

The Father.

Will judge us redeemed or not, and Jesus, in a

complete faith moment, said I trust my Father to be

who he says he is, and he turned himself over

to die.

That's faith. That's faith that his actions lined up with

his words. And he did that for you, everybody's eyes

right here, He did that for you. He surrendered his life,

a brutal death so that you could be redeemed, so

that you could have access to the Throne room, so

that you could pray and line your actions up with

that prayer. So God will do anything you ask. He

died for your access to the Father. If you're here today,

you've never asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins.

You've never asked him to be the lord of your life.

Today is the day that you'll do that. What an

opportunity we have gathered here together, surrounded by all of

these people who want the best for us, to make

a decision to trust Jesus as our Lord and savior,

with every head bowed and every eye closed. If you're

here today and you don't know for sure that if

you died, you would go to heaven, but you want

to leave here knowing that slip your hand up and

say that's me, Pastor, pray for me. I want to

give my life to Jesus. Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen. So

anybody else gonna wait just a moment here, and you

know you've got sin in your life and you need

to make things right with Jesus, just slip your head

and say that's my pastor. Amen. Every I opened, every

head looking around. Here's the faith part of that right.

We're saved by grace through faith, Jesus says, confess me

before men. I'll confess you before my father in heaven.

But if you deny me, I'll deny you. So if

you've lifted your hand, here's that moment of faith for you.

I'm gonna count three. Everybody's stand. I'm gonna count to three.

Everybody's standing. I'm sorry, everybody's standing yet not. I'm gonna

count three, and now everybody stand. Everybody stand. I'm about

to count of three. And when I count to three,

if you raised your hand or now you've decided you

should have, but you didn't, when I count to three,

I want you to step out from where you are

and make your way to the front. That's faith. Don't

live around to see if anybody else is moving. This

may just be between you and God. But on the

count of three, I want you to step out and move.

Come find one of these men or women to pray

for you. You're about to experience the greatest miracle you could

ever experience, to be born again. On the count of three,

step out and move one, two, three, Step out and

move wherever you are. Come on, come on, come on.

If you raise your hand, come you raise your hand,

come you raise your Come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on, come on. The altars

are open, the band's gonna sing. But at any moment,

if you've decided to come, come, we're ready to pray

for you. Pastor Clayon