Back to the Basics: The Foundation of Prayer

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A brand new series entitled Back to the Basics.

Someone once said, when we work, we work, but when we pray, God works.

In order for us to have a movement of God in our church, our community,

and our lives, we must become people of prayer, and that's our topic today.

So grab your pen and your Bible as we listen to week one of Back to the Basics,

a foundation of prayer. And now here's today's message.

I don't know about you, but I love football season. I love it,

all right? Come on, right?

Vikings are going to be dominating your Bears and your Packers and the Hawkeyes. Well, yeah.

But I think one of the things that I love about fall is that,

and I think I'm speaking for my wife, too, is that school is back in session, amen? Woo-hoo!

Not that we don't love our kids. We love our four kids.

But there's this thing that happens in the fall, kind of like New Year's, where we get this reset.

The football team comes out. One of our sons is playing football.

Didn't have a first game. I mean, didn't have a good first game. The first game is rough.

And when I say rough, I mean, it was painful. And when I say painful. I mean, it was 58 to zero.

That's painful. I hear grumbling. Oh, wow.

So the ride home from last week's football game was, can I go to a different school?

We're not going to win any games. This is terrible. I hate this.

This week, they won by like 20.

And so they had to go back. And this is something that they do when so many

times in our lives, when things aren't going

right you have to get rid of a brian ferentz and you have to reset and you have

to go that's the offensive coordinator that was long overdue to to get out of

there for the hawkeyes but you have to reset and it's time to go back to the basics okay.

This morning, with our walk, I want to challenge you over the next four weeks.

Because it's probably up here in your head. You know that we're supposed to

pray. You know we're supposed to be in the Word of God.

We know that we're supposed to be having our quiet times and reading.

We know we're supposed to be witnessing and practicing, you know, confession.

And I don't mean like confession, like going to confession. Like confessing

your sins before the Lord.

1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just. to forgive us our

sins and cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness.

And then a big part of Generations Church has been over the last year and will always be serving.

We want to be the hands and the feet of Jesus.

And so over the next four weeks, we're going to talk about prayer,

scripture, confession, and service.

If you fail to keep your eyes on the basics, you're going to experience something called mission drift.

Have you ever heard of mission drift, right?

Whether it's in business or in school or church, everybody has a mission.

They have a vision. They have a set of principles and morals and values that

they live by in order to reach the goal at hand.

When you do not adhere to the basics of your vision, you end up in a completely

different spot. Let me give you an example.

I want you to, I'm going to put this mission statement up here, or maybe I'm not.

Is there a mission statement slide, the next one, the one after that?

Okay, yep, this is it. So I put them out of order. earth. That's my bad.

Here's a mission statement. Tell me what this sounds like, okay?

Everyone shall consider as the main end of his life and studies to know God

and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life.

That's an incredible mission statement, isn't it?

What, do you think that's a church? Maybe a Christian university? We're getting closer?

In other words, we exist so that the goal of our life and the goal of our studies

at this institution will result in you knowing God, glorifying God,

and having eternal life.

That is the original mission statement for Harvard University.

Harvard University. Now, fast forward to today.

A poll was taken a few years ago of incoming freshmen who claim to have any

sort of religious affiliation. So that could be in a cult, okay?

It could be outside of Christianity. Any kind of religious affiliation with

any of the religions of the world,

and only 24% identified with any type of religion at all. So what happened?

How did they end up where they are? How did that mission statement turn into

one of the most liberal anti-American institutions in the world?

They forgot the basics.

They took their eyes off the goal, off the mission.

So we return this morning to the basics of Christianity. Would you pray with me?

Father we're here together and we want

to meet with you it does us no good if we come together

we gather together we seek you

but you don't move you don't convict us holy spirit through the illuminating

of our minds and as we read the word of god we know that it always accomplishes

its purpose so speak through your spirit speak through the word speak through

your servant this morning.

We love you. We want to leave this place differently than the way that we came in this morning.

Change us. Convict us. Give us

a passion to chase hard after you and to glorify you in everything we do.

In Jesus' name, amen.

It was exactly 12 noon. You can put that perfect. It It was exactly 12 noon

on September 23rd, 1857.

It's 167 years ago when a tall, middle-aged former businessman climbed to the

third story of an old church building in the heart of lower New York City.

He entered an empty room, pulled out his pocket watch, and he sat down to wait.

The placard outside the room read this.

Prayer meeting from 12 to 1 o'clock.

Stop for 5, 10, 15, or 20 minutes, or even the whole hour, as your time permits.

It looked like no one had the time as the minutes ticked by.

The solitary waiter wondered if he'd made a mistake. mistake would anyone come to seek God's heart.

Jeremiah C. Lanphier was a merchant who had no experience whatsoever in church

work and at age 49 gave up his trade position to knock on doors for a salary

of less than a thousand dollars a year.

The going was slow and only a few families came to his church.

Often he returned to his room at the church weary and discouraged.

At such time he would spread out his sorrows before the Lord and he never failed

to draw new strength from his time of prayer.

While going his rounds of visitation, the idea occurred to him that businessmen

might like to get away for a short period of prayer once a week while offices were closed at noon.

So Lanphier passed out handbills and put up the placard.

When the first meeting came, he was the only one on hand for it.

He waited 10 minutes, then 10 more.

The minute hand of his watch pointed to 1230 when at last he heard a step on the stairs.

One man came in, then another, and another until there were six.

After a few minutes of prayer, the meeting was dismissed with the decision that

another meeting would be held the following Wednesday.

That small meeting was in no way extraordinary. There was no great outpouring of the Spirit of God.

However, Lamphere continued on. He had no way of knowing that it was the beginning

of the greatest national revival, which would sweep an estimated one million

persons into the kingdom of God.

He did not know about such things. All he knew was that men stood in need of prayer.

Twenty men came to the second noon hour meeting. The following Wednesday,

40. So he decided to make the meeting a daily event in a larger room.

That very week, on Wednesday, October 14th, the nation was staggered by the

worst financial panic in its history.

Banks closed. People were out of work. Families went hungry.

And the crash no doubt had something to do with the astonishing growth of Lamphere's

noon meeting, now called the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting. Google it.

In a short time, the Fulton Street meeting had taken over the whole building

with crowds more than 3,000 people.

Lawyers and physicians, merchants, clerks and bankers and brokers,

manufacturers, mechanics, porters, messenger boys, everyone came.

They would drive up to the curb, tie up their horses, and come in for a few minutes.

There were so many people that they had to post rules that said,

please adhere to the five-minute rule.

Can you imagine? We have prayer meeting on Wednesday night, and we have to put

a placard outside that, please, please only stay for five minutes because there's too many people here.

Within six months, 10,000 businessmen out of a total population of 800,000 were

gathering daily in New York City for prayer.

In January 1858, there were at least 20 other prayer meetings going full tilt in the city.

By the summer of 1858, news of the prayer meetings had now crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

In August, two Presbyterian ministers from Ireland came to see what this was all about.

They said, we've been connected with our 500 sister churches here in the U.S.

And we have a strong desire that the same gracious dispensation which has blessed

you here be also bestowed on our churches back home.

They asked for prayers of the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting.

Revival rolled on into 1859 and 1860.

There's no telling how long it might have lasted if the Civil War had not broken out.

Some writers say that it carried right through the war.

It was maintained that an estimated 150,000 Confederate soldiers were converted.

And the number who joined churches was almost 10% of the country's total population.

If the estimated of, I'm sorry, that's wrong. And the number who joined the

churches in 1858 amounted to almost 10% of the country's total church membership.

It's estimated of one million converts, one-thirtieth of the total United States population.

So one-thirtieth of the U.S. population were Christians at that time.

What was this incredible thing that was happening? What spurred it on? What started it?

Was it having incredible band and haze and smoke machines and all this?

You know no it was one faithful man who knew that people were in need of prayer,

and asked people to come pray you should have been handed a sheet a half sheet

with notes on it if you don't have a a note sheet would you just raise your

hand and we'll be sure to get you one we

want you to write things down okay when i listen to preachers i gotta write

because i'm so add otherwise i'm like counting ceiling tiles unfortunately there's

no tiles but there are wood planks, so maybe let us know how many of those there are.

But what is it? It's prayer.

Every time you see a move of God, you find a remnant of a praying people.

Praying people. Have you ever wondered how Jesus was able to accomplish all

that he was able to accomplish in just three short years?

What was his secret to his ministry?

Absolutely, prayer.

Jesus had the benefit of being God's son, but another part of Jesus' life here

on earth was that he prayed, not just once.

It was a regular conversation with his father, a regular communion with his father.

And when you read through the gospel accounts in Matthew, Mark,

Luke, and John, you'll find that Jesus kept a regular rhythm of prayer throughout his life.

And so here's the big idea that I want you to take away with you.

I want you to hold on to this week.

If prayer was a foundational part of Jesus's life, the only son of God, then guess what?

It needs to be a foundational part of our lives too.

It's got to be the foundation for everything that we do as disciples of Christ.

We weren't just saved to sit soaking sour on a pew somewhere.

No, he came that we may have life. And we want to reflect his glory and we want to be obedient.

And we are called to make disciples.

That's why I'm starting a new 10-week discipleship journey. It's called The

Rooted Experience. experience.

If you want to come, go sign up on the Welcome Center. But let me warn you,

it's not for the average church person.

There's going to be prayer. There's going to be readings every day, scripture readings.

There's going to be a prayer experience in week three where we have to pray for 45 minutes.

I promise you, when you disciple, when you get discipled, it's going to change

you. It's going to change everything.

Prayer has to be the foundation for everything we do.

And so in order to make prayer a foundational part of your life,

the first thing we have to do, number one, there is pray constantly.

If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I want you to turn to the book

of 1 Thessalonians with me. We're going to be in chapter 5 for just a minute.

We're going to be jumping around a lot this morning. But follow along with me

as I read 1 Thessalonians 5, 16-18. It says, Rejoice always.

Help me out. Pray constantly.

Constantly. Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

You want to know what God's will is for your life? Do these things.

Rejoice always. Pray constantly. Give thanks in everything. This is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

There aren't many places in scripture where we're told exactly what God's will is for us.

And so Paul gives us this plain and simple, right? The problem is,

is most of the time it's not as easy.

We have schedules to keep and

classes that we go to and homework and girlfriends or boyfriends or jobs.

Maybe you're working two jobs and going to school. I don't know.

And yet, in the midst of all of our distractions and frustrations and temptations

in life, we have to remain in constant communication with the Lord.

Think about that just for a moment. it, the creator of the universe,

the very God who spoke creation into existence, longs to hear from you.

No matter how big or how small or meaningless you feel that it is,

God wants to hear from you.

I love what Warren Wiersbe said. He's a pastor.

He's going on to to be with the Lord a couple years ago, but he said,

prayer is not something that I do.

Prayer is something that I am.

It's constant. When you live a life of prayer, it becomes something you are

rather than something to.

So if you want to make prayer a foundational part of your life,

first, pray constantly, but then secondly, you've got to pray boldly.

It's something I've learned through the years is that it takes practice and

time and consistency and a depth to your relationship to ask bold prayers.

You know, so much in scripture, we're supposed to come to him in awe,

right? We come to him with complete humility.

Yet, and those things are true, true yet

here's what Hebrews 4 says therefore since

we have a great high priest who has passed through the

heavens Jesus the son of God let us

hold fast to our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to

sympathize with our weakness but one who has been tempted in every way as we

are yet without sin aren't you glad that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are every way.

He knows and understands what you're going through.

Everything. Verse 16 says, so let us approach the throne of grace with,

there it is, boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

We can have confidence and be bold when we approach the throne of God because

of what Jesus Christ has already done for us on the cross.

He was fully God, fully humid. He was tempted just like we are, yet never sinned.

So when you're offering your prayer to the Lord, you can trust that he understands

what you're going through.

That brings me comfort to know that the Lord understands my situation.

It should you too. Boldness in prayer begins by understanding that through Jesus,

you have direct access to God.

You don't have to go to some priest. You don't have to go to me to talk to your heavenly father.

No, you cry out wherever you're at, wherever you are.

He wants you to come. He wants you.

Listen, God can handle your needs no matter how big they are,

No matter how small they are?

Oh, but Pastor Jeff, you don't understand. I need a serious miracle in my life.

Good. Then you're in the right spot to pray and ask boldly.

Ephesians 3.20.

I love this verse. Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we

ask or think according to whose power is it? Is it my power?

No. According to the power that works in us.

He's telling us you can pray all these things because the God that I pray to, guess what?

He's able. You hear me, church? It's a little quiet in here.

He's able to do more than you

could ever dream ask think or imagine and he

loves you he cares about you but we

have to get back to the basics you may

be in a situation right now that looks hopeless let me

tell you prayer can change it you

may think your marriage is unsavable prayer

can revive it you may

feel like your situation is a

dead end but nothing absolutely nothing

is beyond the reach of prayer and our god is able to do it some of you you're

tired you've been trying and trying and trying and you're not getting any traction

because you're relying on your power.

Come back to the basics.

Pray constantly. Pray boldly.

1 John 5.14 says this.

This is the confidence we have before him. Say confidence.

Confidence. This is the confidence we have before him.

If we ask anything, and if you have your Bible, I would underline this,

circle it, highlight it, do something.

But here's the premise. Here's the stipulation for our prayers.

If we ask anything according to what? His will.

God, I need a new boat. It would be awesome.

Besides, I'm working for you, Lord. We could have quiet times together.

I could make it get an evangelistic outreach. I'll bring my people at the church to go fishing with me.

If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

So when you pray and seek God's purposes, you can be confident that he will act.

God's purpose. If you want to make prayer a foundational part of your life,

you have to pray constantly, you have to pray boldly, and then thirdly,

you have to surrender the outcome to God.

Late Thursday night, I was in my office working on my message.

I think it was around 10.30 and I got a text message from a friend saying that

one of our mutual friend's father was in the hospital and it wasn't looking well.

I said, okay, I'll head over there in just a minute.

We went over there and I'm working on this message and I just get done on reading

that we're supposed to be praying bold prayers.

And I get there, and my friend Adam, he says, man, he's not good. It's pretty hopeless.

And the doctors weren't giving a good outlook. And I told him that.

We walked out into the hallway.

I said, you know, I just was reading these verses.

I don't know what God's going to do, but I know that I'm going to pray boldly.

And we're going to give your dad to the Lord. It's in his situation.

It's in his hands, but we're going to ask boldly.

And so we boldly prayed in the hallway and we asked God to raise him up.

And we believe that if it was God's will, he would do that.

And we had faith that he can do it. Have you ever heard someone say,

well, you just don't have enough faith? No, it's not that.

We prayed. And guess what? 45 minutes after I left the hospital in the middle

of the night, he passed away and went home to be with the Lord.

But we prayed boldly, but we left it in God's hands.

When you pray according to God's will, it does something in you.

Yes. Do we want him to live? Absolutely. With all our heart,

with all our being, with everything.

But for some reason, God had a different plan. We have to pray,

trusting in God's sovereignty.

Pray, trusting in God's sovereignty.

Jesus modeled this in Gethsemane. He said, Father, if you're willing to take

this cup away from me, take it.

But nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

Jesus, being both God and man, he knew, he knew what was coming and the hours

to come and God's own son just about ready to be arrested,

to be beaten and flogged and embarrassed and stripped and a crown of thorns on his head,

and because he loves you and because he loves me he said God father if there's

any other way please take it from me.

But if this is the only way that

we can save mankind, if we can save these kids, then your will be done.

I submit to you completely.

Jesus knew what he was about to go through. He didn't want to die in that way,

but he said, I will submit to the will of my Father. Father,

your will be done in my life.

One of the things that I really was journaling about and praying about this

week is this, and it's in your notes there, but prayer often changes us more

than our circumstances.

Prayer changes us. Prayer aligns our hearts with God's will.

Prayer helps us let go of our own agendas and to trust that God has a perfect plan.

Prayer deepens our relationship with God. It fosters intimacy with him.

The more time we spend in his presence, the more we grow in understanding his

character and his love for us and his purposes.

Prayer changes our hearts, doesn't it? That's why we pray for our enemies, right?

It changes our hearts. it changes our perspective it makes us more sensitive

to his leading and to obeying him prayer builds our faith it develops patience and perseverance and,

It's a process that builds character and endurance in our lives.

Are you struggling with anxiety this morning? Pray. Pray gives you peace.

Philippians 4, 6, 7 says, reminds us, it reminds us that peace comes.

At times, you won't even understand how you can have peace because it passes

everything you can ever imagine.

It's only a peace that comes from God. it humbles us it transforms us our attitudes

it strengthens us it fills us with joy and gratitude,

prayer is not just about changing our circumstances it's about allowing god to change us.

Now i'm gonna ask lisa to come and play and we're gonna close in just a minute

because kickoffs i I know kickoff's at noon for some of you guys,

and you guys gotta be there.

I was very convicted this week about this next verse.

Matthew 21, 13 says this, and this is Jesus talking.

He said, it is written, my house will be called a house of prayer.

Prayer, our house, Generations Church should be known as a house of prayer.

Let me ask you a question. When

people drive by Generations Church or when they come for the first time,

do they look at you and me and the people that are in this doing this church?

Do they say, hey, I want to go there because I know they talk to God.

I want to go there because God listens to them.

I want to go there because that's a place where people, their lives are being

changed because something's going on in their hearts and something's going on.

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Popular a church is by who comes to it on Sunday, you can tell how popular Jesus.

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Is by who comes to prayer meeting.

Oh, but I'm busy. Yeah, me too. Priorities.

Now, please hear me. I'm not saying if you don't come to Wednesday night prayer

meeting, you don't love Jesus.

That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if you want to grow and

become more like Jesus, if you want to see this church grow.

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And have a bigger impact on the Cedar Valley, on Waterloo, on Cedar Falls,

yeah, we're a baby church. That's fine.

But it's time that we make this place a house of prayer because as Dr.

Falwell used to tell us at Liberty University where I went, if you want anything

to be accomplished in the physical realm, it has to be accomplished in the spiritual realm first.

If we want to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's got to take hold of us first.

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We've got to pray those people in here.

We've got to pray.

I love Charles Spurgeon. Can't wait to meet him in heaven someday.

He was a bold, bold preacher.

But he said this. Prayer is the breath of faith.

And prayer meetings, they are the lungs of the church.

You shall never see much change for better in our churches in general until

the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians,

listen to me every Wednesday night,

Adam's in here and he brings a short devotional and we share prayer requests and we pray.

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And Lisa, who's an incredible worship leader, leads us in like two songs.

It's 45 minutes of your week, maybe an hour.

The most powerful hour of the week for me this week wasn't my worship times,

wasn't watching my kid do great in the football game or being with my family,

which I love being with my family.

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Adrenaline or something, you walk out and you just know, you just know that

you were in the presence of Jesus.

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I want to invite you.

I want to invite you, regardless of who you are, what age you are, what you do for a living.

I want to invite you. Over the next four weeks, I want to challenge you to be here.

Students will be here at 6.30 p.m. anyway.

Bring your students, let them be in youth group, and you come in here and mark my words.

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Your life will change. You'll be empowered.

And you'll have an intimacy that you haven't known before.

We've got to get back to being a praying church would you bow your head close your eyes.

God I'm so grateful and thankful and overwhelmed really that you cared enough

about us that you sent Jesus to die for us to take our penalty,

to be crucified and then three days later who rose and conquered death and sin,

fulfilling my debt and paying my penalty the debt that I owed that I could never

pay and now I have new life,

thank you for that thank you that you long for us,

to be in prayer to be speaking to you constantly to ask boldly and to align

our wills with your will.

Would you help us do that?

God, we love you.

But I also want to give anyone who's here an opportunity.

If you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, maybe you don't know what it's all about.

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When we launched this church last year, we said we always want to give people

an opportunity to come to you.

That it's all about the gospel, the good news.

And I like to say it's as easy as ABC. Admit that you're a sinner.

Believe that Jesus died for your sins, that he is truly God.

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You've been listening to the Generations Church podcast. Be sure to check back

next week as Pastor Jeff continues our study on the book of James.

If you'd like more information about Generations Church, feel free to get in

touch with us at info at generationschurch.us or head over to our website,

generationschurch.us.

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