Made For Mission Week 4: Unlocking the Power of Prayer

Music.

This week, we're diving into something that is often overlooked but absolutely

essential to living on mission, prayer.

Have you ever wondered why your mission efforts feel powerless or why sharing

your faith can feel like pushing a boulder uphill?

Prayer isn't just what we do before the mission.

Prayer is the mission. It is the engine that fuels, guides, and advances God's mission through us.

So grab your Bible, a notebook, and let's lean in together as we continue to

discover what it means to be made for mission. And now, here's today's message.

Music.

As we're worshiping this morning through music, through giving,

I couldn't help but just sense the sweet spirit in what God's doing, what God's saying.

I just sensed that the Lord was saying a passage from Isaiah,

a bruised reed I will not break.

And it reminded me of just that the Lord is so gentle with us when we go through

incredibly hard times that He won't crush you,

that He is not a stranger to your hard times.

He's not unaware of where you find yourself this morning.

This morning, we are continuing our series made for mission,

and this is our fourth week.

Before we jump in, I just want to go to the Lord in prayer and ask for Him to continue to move.

Heavenly Father, we love You so much, and we thank You for being here with us.

I pray that You would continue what You're already doing in hearts and minds this morning.

As we look at prayer and its role in the fulfilling of the mission that you've

called us to, I pray that you would speak clearly to us. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Years ago, in a small village nestled in the mountains of Southeast Asia,

there was a young missionary whose name was Daniel, and he arrived with this

overwhelming burden to share the gospel with the people of Southeast Asia.

This village was deeply rooted in animistic traditions, and any mention of the

name of Jesus was quickly shut down quickly.

And Daniel tried everything. He tried preaching to no avail.

He worked on building relationships.

He worked at serving in acts of kindness, but the resistance remained strong. wrong.

Rejection after rejection began to chip away at his confidence for the calling

that God had put on his life to reach these people in Southeast Asia.

He grew discouraged and weary.

And so he decided to write to his home church back in the States,

and he asked them for one thing.

He asked them for prayer, prayer.

Word began to spread through the congregation and into the wider church network.

And soon dozens and then hundreds and then thousands of believers began to pray

and intercede for Daniel and the people of Southeast Asia.

And they prayed fervently daily for the Holy Spirit to touch that village.

Back in the mountains, Daniel didn't know about this sudden ocean of prayer

that was happening back in the States.

He just continually kept pressing on faithfully.

One day after nearly a full year since the letter, he'd still seen absolutely

no fruit. He'd seen absolutely no fruit.

The village elder fell sick and gravely ill. The local spiritualists tried everything.

They tried their voodoo and their spells and nothing worked.

Finally, in desperation, his family

asked Daniel if he could come and do something, do anything for him.

Daniel felt that the Holy Spirit had given him this opportunity that the Lord

was working in some way, although he didn't understand it.

And so Daniel went to this elder's hut in the village and he placed his hands

on the elder and he prayed in the name of Jesus and the elder recovered.

It was a miracle. And that miracle cracked the door open.

Weeks later, the elder invited Daniel to his home to share a message about what

Daniel believed that was so powerful that could move and heal him from this terrible sickness.

Within months, many people in the village began turning to Christ.

A small house church was planted. Years later, that village became a hub for

missionary outreach to the surrounding areas in Southeast Asia.

But it was prayer that watered and grew the mission of the gospel going forward successfully.

That's the power of prayer that you and I have at our fingertips.

And yet we fail to pray so often.

Prayer is the engine behind the mission that God has called us to.

And when we pray, we don't just prepare ourselves. We actually pave the way

for God to move in our own hearts and lives and in the lives of others that

we're taking the gospel to.

Prayer isn't just we do what we do before the work. Prayer is the work.

If you walk away with anything at all this morning, you need to know that prayer is the work.

And here's our big idea if you're taking notes this morning.

Prayer is not just preparation for the mission.

It is the power that fuels and that guides and that advances God's mission through us.

Because remember, God wants to use each and every one of us.

He's given you a purpose. We talked about last week that we're ambassadors. We represent him.

We're part of God's kingdom, and we represent him, and we plead with others,

be reconciled to Christ.

That's why we do what we do.

This morning, if you have your Bibles with you, I want to invite you to Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

In Jesus' deep into ministry, he had healed multiple people.

He'd given sight to two blind men. He'd brought back a young girl who had died.

And in verse 20, we see the lady who had been struggling with an issue of bleeding for years.

And do you remember that story where she just wanted to get close enough to

Jesus where she had this faith that said, if I can get close enough,

if I can reach out and grab the hem of his garment, I know I can be healed.

And there was incredible faith.

It's also in this chapter we find Jesus telling the Pharisees that it's not

those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick.

And Jesus told him that he did not come to call the righteous.

He came to call the sick. He came to call the sick.

Here's what it says. We pick up the story in verse 35.

Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their

synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness.

When he saw the crowds, and I'd underline this in my Bible, when he saw the

crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dejected

like sheep without a shepherd.

And then he said to his disciples, the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few.

Because of this, he says, therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send

out workers into his harvest.

I love this passage of scripture for a lot of reasons, but you know,

verse 38 is a pretty famous verse that we hear at all of the missions conferences,

and anytime we're talking about overseas missions, or we need more help,

we need more help, we need more help. So pray the Lord of the harvest sends workers.

And that is something that we pray.

But I want to highlight something before we move on, and that's this,

that the motivation for the mission was his compassion that he saw for people.

The motivation for the mission was and still is.

Christ, compassion, and love for people.

Isn't that really the epicenter of the gospel message?

That God so loved the world that he gave? It's what motivated God to send his

one and only son to the cross and to experience an agonizing death for you and for me.

It was his love and compassion and.

For mankind. I think one of the reasons so many of us are not actively pursuing

the mission that we're called to as Christians is because not all of us are

filled with the same compassion for the lost.

We don't necessarily have the same compassion for the broken.

We don't necessarily have the

same love for people who don't look like us or who don't smell like us.

But here the heart of Jesus was loving the distressed, loving the rejected and

dejected, and those people who were wandering with no direction or no purpose.

Not everyone possesses the compassion and love for others that they should.

And I'm not sure the disciples already, you know, that they always had that

same love in their hearts for people either.

And that's why Jesus turns to them and said, the harvest is abundant,

but the workers are few. Pray, pray.

Before Jesus sent anyone out on their mission, he first calls them to pray.

And this morning, I just wanna give you four things that prayer does when it

comes to the life of the believer in relationship to the work and the mission

that God has called us to.

Number one, prayer aligns us with the heart of God.

That's what it does. It prepares us. It gets us in the place that we're supposed to be.

When we pray and we confess and we live in constant communion with Christ,

it changes our hearts and it changes our desires and it aligns us with his purposes.

And it even gives us compassion to reach people that we wouldn't normally have

compassion and love for.

Why is it so important that our hearts align with God's heart?

What does the word of God say about the condition of our hearts?

This is really important.

Well, Jeremiah 17 says, The heart is more deceitful or wicked than anything else, and incurable.

Who can understand it? That's not a good start for mankind, that our hearts

are more deceitful than anything else.

I'd like to think I've got a lot of goodness in my heart.

I'd like to think I have a lot of compassion and love in my heart.

But scripture says more than I have compassion, more than I have love,

naturally as a man, I have more wickedness and deceitfulness than anything else in my heart,

which is why Ezekiel 36 is such incredible good news that God can deliver us

from that deceitful, wicked heart.

Ezekiel 36 says, I will give you a new heart, God says, and put a new spirit within you.

And I will remove your heart of stone and I'll give you a heart of flesh.

God gives us a new heart with new passions and new purposes that seeks out those

we wouldn't normally seek out without a new heart.

One more verse about the heart, Proverbs 4, 23, it says, guard your heart.

Above all else. More than your bank account, more than your health,

more than your diet, more than your relationships.

Guard your heart above all else. Why? For it is the source of life.

That's why it's so important that we establish a consistent personal prayer

life with the Lord, that our hearts can come into alignment with his heart.

With his heart. That's why we see that prayer reshapes our desires.

Prayer reshapes our desires, it reshapes our thoughts, and it reshapes our attitudes.

You see, the heart is the control center of our lives and everything we do spills out from our hearts.

Whether you know it or not, The way you and I live is from the overflow of what's in our heart.

And we will never be able to love people apart from a focused prayer that aligns

our hearts with God's heart.

See, prayer changes us before it changes others.

Prayer changes us before it changes others.

Have you ever noticed that when you pray for someone, maybe it's someone that

was rude to you or is consistently rude to you or is a jerk to you or that you're

just like, you're like, I just can't stand that person.

And so you're like, okay, God, I'm going to give it up to you.

And you start honestly seeking the Lord and praying for that person.

What happens? It changes us. That person might still be an idiot.

That person might still be a jerk to you, but he gives you the grace and the

mercy and the forgiveness and the love to be able to deal with them in a brand new way.

As we pray for our enemies like Jesus told us to do, it changes us, changes us.

So number one, prayer aligns us with the heart of God. But number two,

prayer opens doors for the gospel.

Prayer opens doors for the gospel.

The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Colossia, and listen to this strong instruction.

He said in chapter four, verse two through four, devote or commit yourself to prayer.

Paul isn't calling us to a casual prayer life, and we're all guilty of it, aren't we?

Our prayers get to be like, oh yeah, God, thanks for this cheeseburger.

It is helping not to be the cause of my heart attack.

We just throw up these prayers. Thanks for the yummy snack, God.

Oh, help me to get an A on this test, God. Oh, bless me, God.

And we approach prayer as it's just something that we throw up or we rub the

genie, you know, or we rub the, what is it? The lamp.

We rub the lamp and we get three wishes. That's not prayer. Paul says, devote yourselves.

The word devote means to dedicate yourself entirely to something.

And so Paul's instructing them to dedicate their entire lives to prayer.

It's part of our purpose. It's part of our daily activities.

We set aside ourselves to be dedicated to prayer and to praying.

Listen to what one commentary says about this phrase devoted to prayer that Paul used.

He said, this call is not just to a sporadic or lackluster practice,

but to a dedicated, resolute engagement with God.

Prayer is depicted as an integral part of the Christian life,

a spiritual exercise requiring perseverance and sincerity.

It is the wellspring of spiritual strength and guidance, essential for maintaining

a dynamic and personal relationship with God.

Believers are encouraged to pray with mental alertness, understanding that prayer

is not just a routine task, but a vital communication channel within the divine.

You and I must be committed to aligning our hearts to God's heart through prayer.

He continues, he says, stay alert in it with thanksgiving.

At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the word.

And I underline that in my Bible, because that's what he's praying here.

He's praying that God would open a door for us to speak to someone about the gospel,

to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains, so that I may make it known as I should.

One of the most incredible things about this verse is the fact that Paul is writing from prison.

And what does he pray for?

He prays that God would open a door to the word going forth to other prisoners

and to guards and to captains.

He's asking for divine opportunities to share the gospel.

Now, I love Jesus with all my heart.

But if it's me and I'm sitting there in a filthy, nasty Roman prison dungeon,

I'm not sure that would be my first request at the top of my prayer list when I have my quiet time.

I think most of us would be praying something like this.

Dear Lord, Father, get me out of here!

That's my requests. I'm in the dungeon. I'm in the pit.

Get me out of here. I got chains on. It's stinky. Food service is terrible.

I'm not comfortable. I'm cold.

It's wet. It's damp. It stinks. Have you smelled these guys down here?

But that's not what he prays.

He prays asking that he would have the strength and the boldness for a gospel

divine appointment with the people he's chained to.

Paul prayed that God would open doors for the gospel message to those he was in close proximity to.

You see, Paul understood that God orchestrates divine appointments through painful situations.

Write that down. God orchestrates divine appointments through painful situations.

What if Paul wasn't in prison by accident?

Just throwing that out there. We wouldn't have the book of Colossians.

What if God wanted to reach a prisoner or a captive or a prison guard,

and the only way that he could do that was to put someone in proximity to them

who could be him to them as an ambassador for Christ, making the plead,

be reconciled to God.

He uses people as ambassadors.

And some of you, we find ourselves in incredibly painful, smelly, bad, awful situations.

We're in a place of discomfort. We're in a place of pain that you never imagined you would ever be.

But what if instead of becoming angry at God for allowing us to visit the prison,

we began to look for God's purpose at the prison. We're in the prison.

I've received texts all week asking how my mom is doing.

Most of you know, and we've referred to it already today in the service,

but if you're listening online, my mom, Pauline, had a.

Stroke just over a week ago and is in a skilled nursing unit right now.

And I received a text from a lady. Some of you guys know her, Siong.

She goes to another church here in the area. And this is what she said.

This is from a lady who lost her husband, Bob, to cancer maybe a year and a half, two years ago.

She said, Jeff, please tell your mom I said, sometimes God puts us in a pit

we don't like so that we can show others his light, love, grace, hope, and salvation.

I hadn't told Siong anything about my mom's condition other than that she's

paralyzed on the right side.

She goes on, Bob evangelized to everyone, nurses, doctors, techs,

cleaning ladies, labs, everyone who walked in that room.

Two nurses received Christ.

One fell on her knees, cried like a baby, held his hand, and said the sinner's prayer.

And then she said, doctor, and she gave his name. It's a Muslim doctor in the area.

That doctor told Bob that Bob made him question his own faith and beliefs.

And then this lady said, tell her, praise him, praise him, praise him. He's faithful.

And then she said this, I learned through Bob's sickness, what bloom where you

are planted really meant.

Husband was a man who understood the sovereignty of God and God's divine appointments.

Remember, God orchestrates divine appointments through painful situations.

You may see your situation as just a prison, but God meant it to be a mission field.

And there's a purpose why you're at the place in your life you're at.

That open door may be a conversation with a co-worker or a nurse or a tech or

a doctor or someone at the unemployment office.

You don't know why you're in the prison you're in this morning,

but be assured that God is with you and that God has a plan and a purpose for

you in that pit and in that prison.

But the only way we get in line with the purposes of God is if we're in prayer, in prayer.

Prayer aligns us with God's word, number one. Prayer opens doors, number two.

And thirdly, prayer gives us boldness to speak.

In Acts chapter 4, we find Peter and John. They've been preaching the gospel to everyone and anyone.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

And in one case, it says 5,000 men came to Christ, not including their wives

or children or, you know, their entire families.

And the gospel is spreading like wildfire.

So of course, what happens? They're arrested and they're thrown into prison

because anytime the gospel goes forward, there's going to be opposition that originates.

Our unseen enemy. And so they faced incredible opposition.

They were brought out of prison and they were brought before the authorities

and the authorities threatened them and then they released them.

And that's where we pick up the story in verse 23. After they were released,

they went to their own people and reported everything the chief priest and the

elders had said to them. Verse 24.

When they heard this, they raised their voices to God and said,

Master, you are the one who made the heaven, the earth and the sea and everything in them.

You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David,

your servant, why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot futile things?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers assemble together against

the Lord and against his Messiah.

For in fact, in this city, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles

and the people of Israel assembled together against your holy servant,

Jesus, whom you anointed.

Verse 28, to do whatever your hand and your will had predestined to take place.

I circled that, underlined that, highlight that in my Bible.

Remind yourself that this prison that you're in, the situation you're in has

been predestined to happen.

It's been predestined to take place. And now, Lord,

consider their threats and grant that your servants may speak your word with

all boldness while you circle you,

while you stretch out your hand for healing and signs and wonders are performed

through the name of your holy servant, Jesus.

They're saying, grant us, God, There's a work to do. There's a job to be done.

Grant us to have boldness to speak

in every situation, in every area of opposition that we come up against.

And you do the work. It's your hand that heals. It's your miracles.

And then it says, when they had prayed, the place where they assembled was shaken

and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.

And the gospel and the mission of God, it went forward like only God can do.

Several things I want to pull out here. Verse 28, the trust and faith was in

God, that God is sovereign.

Trust God's sovereign plan.

I mean, you need to know this, that boldness comes when we recognize that God

is the one who does the work.

It's not us that's responsible for their decisions,

but it is us that's responsible to spread the gospel, to walk through Roman's

road, to walk through the bridge illustration, to invite someone to church,

to start meeting with an accountability partner.

It's our responsibility, but it's God who does the work.

And here's the thing about that. It should take the pressure off.

If I'm not responsible for how you respond to the gospel when I give it to you, then it's on you.

And if you're not responsible for the results when you share the gospel,

then it takes the pressure off you.

We have to be obedient and we leave the results to God.

You see, boldness isn't the absence of fear.

Praying for boldness doesn't mean you're not going to be any less afraid.

It just means that you believe and that you have faith in the work of Christ that outweighs fear.

Knowing that the work is Christ's and not Jeff's takes the pressure off me.

Great thing, you guys. We work hard, we pray hard, and the results are in his hands.

They didn't pray to escape persecution. They prayed for God to continue the

work that he was doing through them.

See, their prayers were focused on fulfilling God's will than it was on making

them comfortable in their situation. We pray for comfort, don't we? We like our comforts.

But what if we began to pray, God, in this discomfort, will you please move?

Give me boldness to represent you as an ambassador for God.

Are you hesitating to share because of fear?

Pray this simple prayer. Holy Spirit, give me boldness to speak the gospel clearly

and courageously. He hears you.

Ask for boldness. He'll give it to you.

God empowers those who seek him sincerely.

If you are humbly approaching the throne of God and you're asking him for boldness,

he will give you the boldness you need.

I've been a Christian long enough to know that I can do nothing without God working through me.

It's him that equips. It's him that does the work of the ministry.

Holy Spirit is a vital part of the mission of God, equipping believers with

boldness and authority.

Lastly, number four, prayer softens the hearts of others.

Prayer softens the heart of others. 1 Timothy 2, 1-4 says,

First of all, then I urge that petitions and prayers and intercessions and thanksgiving

be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority,

so that we may lead a tranquil.

Peaceful, quiet life in all godliness and dignity.

This is good, and it pleases God, our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved

and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Why would he tell us to continually pray, continually petition,

and make intercession for people, that it pleases God when we go to him and

intercede for lost people.

It's found in that last sentence there. It pleases God, our Savior,

who wants everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

You never have to wonder if God's desire is for someone to be saved.

Scripture teaches that God desires that all come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And it's God who works through the Holy Spirit and through the Word of God and

through ordinary people like you and me and you to bring people into the kingdom of God.

Paul was very clear about his heart's desire and his prayer.

He said in Romans 10, one, brothers and sisters, he's like, you wanna know what I bleed for?

You wanna know why I'm in prison? You wanna know why I'd rather seek divine

appointments than comfort?

Because my heart's desire and my prayer to God is not about my own comfort, right?

Concerning them and their salvation. And their salvation far outweighs any comfort I don't have.

And it's prayer that serves as a vital avenue through which every believer can

participate in God's redemptive work.

I want to store up treasures in heaven, y'all.

I want to be about the work of our Father.

I want to be about His will, not my will.

And that only happens as we spend time in prayer and we come into alignment with His heart.

And when His heart is our heart, we begin to love like He loves.

We have a boldness to reach people like He has.

And we begin seeing our life in every situation as a divine appointment,

a divine assignment where he's placed you to do his will, the work of the Father.

And the Holy Spirit through prayer will give

you boldness that you never dreamed you could have that will far outweigh the.

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Temporary pain and discomfort you might find yourself in today in whatever pit

or whatever prison you find yourself in.

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Guys, we have to prioritize prayer. It is the work, it is the engine that fuels the gospel message.

And if we're not a praying people, our hearts will not be compassionate for

those who need compassion.

We won't walk across the room because we're uncomfortable to say,

hey, have you ever heard that God loves you?

Or hey, do you go to church anywhere? I'd love to invite you to my church.

It's the power of God through us that will do that.

I want to close with this. I was just reading and reviewing this morning,

and I was reading the entire passage before and after Acts 4,

and I came across this in verse 19 and 20.

It's not on the slides because I just added it last minute.

John, they were ordered, right? Not to speak, not to do anything.

Not to talk about Jesus. And this was their answer.

It says, whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than God, you decide.

In other words, we know that we have to follow God rather than you. But it's up for you.

That's between you and God. But we know that we have to follow God regardless of what you say.

So whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than

to God, you decide. But we are unable.

We're unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.

Isn't that an incredibly bold statement?

I don't know about you, but that's going to be my statement. it.

I'm unable to stop speaking about what I've seen God do in my life and the life of others.

I will continue to be bold.

I will speak about what I've seen and what I've heard.

Boldness in the believer's life is born in the secret place of prayer where

confidence is built not on self, but on the presence and promises of God.

You can be a bold witness for Christ, but it will be birthed in your prayer life.

Don't expect to be bold for Christ and yet not have a consistent,

intimate, intentional prayer life. Let's pray.

Team's going to come, and they're going to sing I Believe, a song they introduced

earlier today. It's a new song.

But that bridge says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the

gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is the power to save.

It's the power to save. Guys, I just want to challenge you. We're all family in here today.

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Whatever you're going through, you're not there by mistake.

God's allowed it to happen, but he's there with you.

It might not be comfortable. It might really be an awful situation. It might stink.

You might find yourself in a place you've never been, or you just thought will

happen someday, and you find yourself there today,

there is a divine purpose for you being there.

Don't pray that it ends. Pray that you'll be faithful, that you'll be bold to.

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This divine appointment God has for you.

Father, I thank you for today.

I thank you that we can be here, that you're here, that you're working, that you're in control.

I know a lot of my friends and family are struggling.

They find themselves in hard, painful pits, hard places, prison type of places.

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They don't want to be there. I don't want them to be there. But there's purpose.

May they be an ambassador for you whether on the mountaintop or the prison,

pleading with people be reconciled with God may we come to you in prayer and

have our hearts aligned with your heart,

help us to carry forth the message that you so love the world that you sent

your only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish,

but have everlasting life.

Empower us for this mission you've called us to, and walk with us when we're in the pits.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You've been listening to the Generations Church Podcast. If you'd like more

information about Generations Church, feel free to get in touch with us at info

at generationchurch.us Or head over to our website,

www.generationchurch.org.

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