Teach Us To Pray - Come to the Altar

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast.

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Now, let's dive into this week's sermon.

The title of my message today is Come to the Altar.

And I don't know if you grew up in a church like I did where there was altar calls and there's an emphasis on walking the aisle and coming down front.

I did that as a kid.

I had to walk the aisle.

I gave my life to Christ to this revival, but I still had to walk the aisle to go down and talk to the pastor at the front to get baptized.

And then for some reason I had to go into his office that looked like a lawyer's office, which a bunch of books, when I was like eight years old, and it was super intimidating just to get baptized.

So I don't know if you grew up in that environment.

My pastor in South Carolina, Pastor Brandon, he talks about he walked the aisle to get saved when he was a kid so that he could get a Shoney's ice cream Sunday.

Because his sister had done the same thing and walked the aisle to get saved, and she got a shoney's ice cream sundae, and he wanted one too.

He actually ended up giving his life to Christ much later when he was in college.

I don't know if you grew up with this thought of the altar, but what is the altar anyway?

Is it somewhere where animals are sacrificed?

Is it the front of the church, the worship center, the sanctuary?

Is it even a physical place anymore?

One of my friends in college, Brad Bell, who was uh preparing to go to the mission field right after college, he had done all his preparations and then had to have his physical.

And so he went to get his physical, and at his physical, he learned that he had a hole in his heart and that they told him he would not be able to go to the mission field.

And so Brad's little country church in Monticello, Kentucky, all gathered around him in a worship service one night, and they prayed for God to heal his body.

He went back to the doctor and his heart was healed, and he went to Ethiopia for three years.

What is this altar?

What does it mean for us to come to the Lord in prayer and to bring a sacrifice to the Lord?

Because if Jesus ended the atoning sacrifices for sin by his blood on the cross 2,000 years ago, why do we still say come to the altar?

You know, there's a lot of holdovers and in church today and church traditions that can teach us a lot of things, but there's some things that are based more on English culture than they are from the scripture.

Like uh King's Thrones up on stage, that was a church I grew up in.

All the pastors sat in these big plush chairs.

That's nowhere in the scripture, that's just from English culture, pulpits, remembrance tables.

All these are holdovers of the temple system or a medieval church culture.

And so when we look to the scripture, what is prayer anyway?

Is it a performance?

Is it just strictly something personal that you do and in private?

So my goal today is for us to be having us thinking biblically about the altar before we step into having weekly prayer opportunities.

So that's my goal for today.

Because what is the New Testament altar anyway?

Well, it's our participation with Jesus and our response to Him in praise and repentance, obedience and intercession.

So we're gonna look through a lot of scripture today.

And we're gonna start by looking at the New Testament imagery of what the altar is.

If you haven't figured it out already, we're gonna go through a lot of scripture.

And so if you're a new believer today, I'm just I just want you to buckle up, okay?

A lot of times I'm thinking about you and I'm preparing messages, but today I'm just like, they're just gonna have to hold on because we're gonna go through a lot of scripture.

So take notes, look at this scripture, and we're gonna start in the New Testament book of Hebrews that's that was written specifically for this group of Hebrews that were coming out of this Old Testament, old covenant, old temple system, and into the new covenant of Christ's blood and the New Testament and what the thought was around how we pray and how we act together as the church.

And so we're gonna be in Hebrews chapter 13, starting in verse 10.

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

If you have your Bible, turn there with me.

If you get your phone, pull it out so you can highlight it.

It's gonna be on the screens as well.

We're gonna be in Hebrews several different times.

Hebrews chapter 13, starting in verse 10.

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

We have an altar for which the priests in the tabernacle have no right to eat.

Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the holy place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp.

So also Jesus suffered and bled outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood.

So let us go out to him outside the camp and bear the disgrace that he bore.

For this world is not our permanent home.

We are looking forward to a home yet to come.

Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name.

And don't forget to do good and to share with those in needs.

These those in need, these are the sacrifices that please God.

So we do have an altar today.

We have an altar of sharing with those who are in need and of good works and this altar of praise.

And what should our posture look like as we're coming to the throne of God in praise, in worship, collectively, corporately, as the body of Christ, and individually in our lives of worship and prayer?

Hebrews chapter 4, 16 says, so let us come boldly, or say boldly, let us come boldly to the throne of great of our gracious God.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

There we will receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

See, the the sacrifices in the Old Testament were in the shedding of blood of animals on the altar were the forgiveness of sins performed by priests.

But Jesus is the perfect Lamb of God.

And his sacrifice on the cross, which his pouring out and offering of his blood was final.

Jesus said on the cross, it is finished.

And so the sacrifices that we have today, they look different.

Even within within modern Judaism, because the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the animal sacrificial system, it's they don't even practice it anymore.

They're not even doing that.

So what are these sacrifices that we now bring to God and where do we bring them?

Well, we bring them to God with our weekly faithfulness and our worship personally and with the church collectively.

And so what I want to talk about for the next few minutes is what do we need to bring to the Lord when it comes to our sacrifices and comes to the altar.

I don't know about you, but it's so easy for me to get distracted in worship in church on Sundays.

Maybe it's just like my ADHD head.

I'm looking around, I'm seeing people that I want to say hi to, hadn't seen in a while, or just thinking about things.

I've got little problems that I'm thinking about or big problems.

And I have to force myself and I have this image that I think about like of Isaiah when he was transported in a vision into the throne room of God.

And God was seated on the throne, and angels are flying around, and the train of God's road filled the temple.

And Isaiah says that I'm a man of unclean lips, and then this worship, when I'm trying to focus in worship, I'm actively thinking about God seated on the throne, that he's worthy of my worship, and I have visualized Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father now in glory.

And that's the thought that I'm thinking of as I'm worshiping and as I'm praising.

And maybe for you, you've never really understood why in the world we sing these songs that we do together at church.

Well, we're bringing a sacrifice of praise to the Lord.

You don't like to sing?

That's why it's a sacrifice.

We bring to God an altar of praise.

A sacrifice of praise.

That's the first point.

A sacrifice of praise.

What makes it a sacrifice?

Well, it's because you're acknowledging God even when you don't feel like it.

Or when you're having a hard time trusting his word or his character.

You're proclaiming your allegiance to God when you open your mouth and worship.

But the world says, well, God just wants you to be comfortable.

God doesn't care if you go to church, worship, or not.

I heard somebody say this week, and I think it's true, the sign of a healthy church is singing men and crying babies in the nursery.

See, the foundations shook when in Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are praising God and singing hymns at midnight.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

They're literally singing in chains.

And God moves, and there's an earthquake, the foundations shake, the doors are open wide, the chains fall off, and they're free.

See, praise isn't dependent on our position in life.

I I have this visual that's been in my mind for a long, long time from growing up, where, and I've told you about this before, but Roger Wonderlich was one of my Sunday school teachers growing up, and he was a veterinarian in our community and was beloved.

And suddenly, out of the blue, uh, one day he had a blood clot go to his heart in his 40s and he passed away suddenly.

And his funeral, over a thousand people attended his funeral.

He was beloved, he served so many people.

And I I have this image in my head because at the graveside, as we were there at the funeral at the graveside, Jan, his wife, who I had seen lead worship on the worship team at our church hundreds of times, as the casket was being lowered, she just began to sing, It is well, it is well, it is well with my soul.

And I remember seeing his sons throwing dirt onto the casket as it was being lowered, and she's belting, it is well, it is well, it is well with my soul.

And we all started singing along with her because our praise isn't dependent on our position in life and our circumstances.

Can I encourage you to do some windshield worship, some time in the car?

For you to take some time when you're in the car and you may have a quiet moment, for you to turn on worship music on your phone, or if you're in 1999 by a CD.

Turn on some worship in your car and make it an altar of praise, and it's a perfect time because nobody's there to listen to you sing, so nobody can say anything about your singing voice.

What is our posture in worship and in prayer?

Well, Hebrews chapter 10 tells us what it should be, starting in verse 19.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's most holy place because of the blood of Jesus.

By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the most holy place.

And since we have a great high priest who rules over God's house, so let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting him.

For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Jesus is, he's on the cross, and he takes his last breath, and he says, It's finished.

The curtain that's in the temple.

When the earth shakes and there's darkness, and Jesus dies, the curtain in the temple is torn in two from top to bottom.

So then the Spirit of God would leave the temple and that we would then now, our bodies, be the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 12, 1 says, and so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.

Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, kind, the kind he will find acceptable.

This truly, this is truly the way to worship him.

Our bodies as the temple, as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

That now, what's left, the old temple in the old system, that now we are carriers of the Spirit of God that we would bring to him our whole heart.

I uh recently was worshiping on a trip.

Emily and I, we went out of town and we went to this big church and everything was perfect.

The facility was awesome, the music was perfect, it was at just the right volume somehow.

There was no bad notes played.

But the lady who was leading worship, I don't think that she smiled one time.

And this is kind of judgmental on my part.

This is judgmental on my part, so I I uh confess and repent that I I it just seemed kind of fake, kind of plastic, but that's kind of judgmental on my part because I don't know, one of her loved ones might have died that week, and it was a sacrifice of praise for her to be up there leading worship that week.

Or maybe she had too much Botox and she couldn't move her face this week that week.

I don't know if it was probably not that one, it was probably the one before.

But what does it mean for us to have a sincere heart before God?

And some of us need to tell our faces that we have the forgiveness, the love, the power, the joy in Christ that's residing inside of us if we're the ones who are the temple of God with the Holy Spirit.

And so we bring an altar of the heart, that we would come before God with a sincere heart, it's what the scripture tells us.

That we would come before him with a sin first 20 in verse 22, that we would uh that we would go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting him, that we would come before God and that the altar of our heart be tuned towards God.

And not just when things are going right in our life, but when things that even are happening that we don't want, we still come to the Father with a sincerity.

And I just am under the opinion that God just wants you to be honest with him and speak to him in prayer.

And so maybe for you, there's some of you in the room, and maybe you haven't talked to God in a while.

Or maybe there's some kind of barrier between you.

Would you just tell him, God, I really don't want to talk to you right now?

Just say it to him.

He already knows.

He he's got broad enough shoulders to carry whatever burden you're going through and whatever needs to be said and spoken to him.

God, I'm really upset about how this is going and and I can't really feel you right now.

I need you.

And God's going to speak to you through his word, through people, other believers in your life, and through his voice to show you that he's not far away.

He loves you.

But the world says, you know, well, well, just you know, as long as you go to church, like as long as I'm going to church on Sundays, I check the box, like everything's everything's good.

Like, I just, you know, check it off the list.

No, we're looking for sincerity, not a show.

I uh I I flew on a plane recently, and I always just get so paranoid when I go through TSA.

Maybe I'm the only one.

Maybe because I've just been patted down one too many times.

I just even when they say, like, oh, leave your belt on, I'm like, no, I'm taking this belt off, I'm taking my shoes, I'm taking this watch, I just don't even tell me to leave, I'm just taking everything out.

And I was in the airport recently, and I was getting up to to the TSA, and we were running a little late for the flight, and so I was trying to get everything done, and and my backpack goes through the machine and it comes out, and then it goes away.

It's flagged, and I'm just like my heart just sank.

Because as my backpack came up, I saw the bottle of water that I forgot to throw away in my book bag.

And naturally, the person who was getting their bag checked before me had the biggest bag of all time, and they were going through it slowly, and I'm getting more and more angry at myself for getting this bottle of water.

My face is getting red.

The thing was that I was carrying something that I should have left behind.

And for some of you, there's something right now that you're carrying that you need to leave behind so that you can have a sincere heart for God.

There's some something that's some bitterness, some unforgiveness, some sin, some entanglement, something that's holding you back and creating a barrier between you and God.

And you gotta leave that in the past so you can step towards him and with him in sincerity with a sincere heart.

We bring an altar of the heart to him.

Because we're his temple.

He dwells within us.

First Peter 2 5 says, You are living stones that God is building his spiritual temple.

What's more, you are his holy priests.

Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.

And Ephesians 6 18 says, pray in the spirit at all times on every occasion.

Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

For the first eight to ten years of my ministry, if I told you I was gonna pray for you, it's kind of a toss-up whether I did or not.

I know I'm confessing a lot right now.

But now, in order to that not to be the case, I just pray for people immediately.

If I get the text, somebody pray, I just I try my best to stop what I'm doing and pray right then.

And and there's a number of you that I've prayed for in the lobby or here at church that you come to us, pray, and I'm just like, we're gonna pray right now, so that I know that I'm I'm genuinely praying for, look, all believers everywhere.

God says pray in the spirit at all times, on every occasion, to stay alert, be persistent in your prayers for all believers.

And maybe you've been guilty of the same thing where you've said that you're gonna pray for somebody, but then you don't.

What we need to do is bring an altar, a sacrifice, an altar of intercession, which is a fancy word for prayer.

In 1 Peter 2, 5, it says that we should bring spiritual sacrifices.

What in the world are these spiritual sacrifices?

Well, there's they're the activity of the Holy Spirit and the behavior of the Holy Spirit that's transforming our human spirit in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, that as we're growing in Christ, that we're living out the life that God has before us in a verbal and nonverbal testimony to the world to see those move from dark to light, from dead to alive, and these spiritual sacrifices that we alter, we're altering, where we are offering them at the altar to the Lord so that we would be priests and functioning as priests.

There's this thing in the scripture, the priesthood of the believers.

Like we are now the priests of God, New Testament.

We're the ones who are the believers that are now bringing to God a sacrifice of praise and bringing before him a sacrifice of intercession, an altar of intercession before God.

But the world just says, well, you know, just prayers just personal, you know, it's private.

Don't talk about it.

So, you know, what is the altar anyway?

What is it?

It's our participation with Jesus and our response to him in praise and in repentance and obedience and intercession.

And where is this altar?

It's anywhere that believers are responding to God and in gathered worship of the front in the back.

And why does it matter?

It matters because it keeps us focused on the gospel and the finished work of Christ Jesus and not holding us back and tethering us back to old Testament, old temple system, but instead allowing us to carry the burdens.

Oh my goodness, people around us, you know, this are carrying burdens.

Of some sickness and some sin, of storms that are going on in their life without any support.

And as a church, we want to be stepping into intercession together every week for a prayer opportunity.

Here's what I know now our church has gotten to a size now that there's some weeks that somebody finds out that they're pregnant, somebody else in the church finds out that they loved or lost a loved one.

And somebody in our church loses a job, and somebody else in our church gets the financial breakthrough or the raise or the promotion.

Someone in our church finds freedom in Christ, and then someone else has a friend or a family member who's arrested.

And we want to be a church where we can bring it all to God.

Amen?

And where we can be a place where people can be prayed for and believed in Christ that God wants to do a mighty work and a powerful work in their life and to do something new in their life.

So, how do you just like start simply and small with this?

Let me just tell you add a worship song to your way to work this week.

Add it to the playlist.

Begin to have an altar of praise, a sacrifice of praise.

So that you're not only just worshiping in song just on Sundays.

And when you get asked to pray for somebody, have a pray right now mentality.

Whether that's you praying silently in your head for your coworker or for somebody who sends you a text of what's going on, or if you open your mouth and you say to somebody, let's pray right now, and have the boldness.

Have a pray right now mentality.

So you know, the next couple of weeks we're gonna start having people available for prayer during our worship services at different areas of the room.

Like last week, the altar was at the back of the room, as people were available to be prayed for and for you to be prayed for.

And sometimes it'll be at the front to the sides, we're figuring all that out.

But I want for our church to be a place where people are able to have somebody step into the gap and intercede on their behalf before God.

Now many of you already have that because you're in a small group or you're on a team and you have people already around you in your life that you knew if you asked them to pray for you that they actually would.

That's why I want all of you to get into a group and to and on a team.

But on for people who are stepping into Sundays and into worship, I want them to have the opportunity to be prayed for because we have seen God already do the miraculous.

This uh this picture means a lot to me because this is a picture of Dana being prayed for over a year ago when she uh found out that she was pregnant with baby Judah, she then pretty soon found out that there was a serious complication and that he had a cyst on his body that was life-threatening.

Um and a doctor in Lexington actually uh encouraged her to terminate the pregnancy and she instead asked for people to start praying.

And so on a Sunday in the back room here with people from her group and teens of ladies that circled around her and prayed for baby Judah for his healing.

And sometime later they went back to the doctor, and the doctor said we can't explain it, but this cyst is completely gone.

And in February, and in February, we celebrated baby Judah being born and celebrated his birth as he was healthy and healed in the name of Jesus.

Now we learned last week what Nate said about healing prayer, that doesn't happen for everybody.

But don't we want to be a church that will intercede on behalf of those that are in our church and outside of our church to believe that God would move in power in their life and step into the gap to pray to the Lord and to ask for him to move mightily.

And Nate and Dana were in the first service sitting over here, and baby Judah was in the nursery, and I just I just wonder like what would have happened if Caroline hadn't just asked Dana over and over and over and over and over again to come to church.

She did.

And she met Nate, and then this beautiful baby boy was healed.

I'm believing that this series, and maybe even this message would be a moment of leveling up of the faith of our church and us seeing God move empower in people's lives.

Maybe it's physical healing, maybe it's financial breakthrough, or a child that's walked away from the Lord, or maybe it's just something it's a bad week.

Tough things that people will be able to receive prayer.

And so I I ask those of you who've been believers now for a long time or decades, come to the altar.

Come to the altar with a sacrifice of praise.

Come to the altar with your whole heart and in sincerity towards God, knowing that that pleases God.

And prayers made in that kind of belief that God has a reward.

And for us to intercede.

Men, we need men in this church who will open up their mouths and sing to God and acknowledge Him before men that you are not God and He is.

Men, listen to me.

We need men in this church who will pray for other men in this church, who will say, Hey, you're struggling right now.

I know what's going on in your life.

Let me pray for you.

Let me care for you.

Let me love, let me encourage you, let me call you up.

Ladies, just like those ladies surrounding Dana, God's already moved miraculously.

Has already moved miraculously in the life of our church and in prayer through you.

Don't stop praying.

Come to the altar.

And if you're in the house today and you've not received the finished work of Jesus, not been saved.

Today is the day for you to be saved.

You've never been baptized, today is the day for you to make the decision to be baptized.

We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message.

At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone.

If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey.

Visit multiplyky.com to let us know.

We love you and we'll see you again soon.