Transform Your Life and Ministry

Crossing Church, I want to welcome you joining from all of

our different locations, those of you watching online and of

course, those of you who are part of the crossing inside

family. And I also want to welcome those

of you who are new here, whether it's your first time or your

first time in a long time, we believe that you being here

today is no accident. Why do we believe this?

Well, because Jesus actually has some words that were recorded by

John in chapter 6, verse 44. And this what Jesus said, No one

can come to me, that's Jesus, unless the Father who sent me

draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.

Why am I telling you this? You are here today on purpose

and you are here today for a purpose.

For some of you, it might be your routine.

This is just what you do. Great.

For others of you, you might be here today because you are going

through something and you're looking for some help and maybe

you're looking for some hope. Others of you, you might be

looking for something new, something different.

You're just checking things out. No matter what brought you in

today, I know who drew you in today.

And that is the fact that God wants every single one of you to

find an intimate personal relationship with him.

And my hope today is really, really simple is that every

single one of you today would leave with the desire to connect

more with God. In prayer.

We talk a lot about the spiritual spectrum.

We'll put that up on the wall. So here's the spiritual

spectrum. And if we were to use the

spiritual spectrum to talk about prayer, where would you put

yourself on the spectrum if you were to give yourself a number?

Let me give you some context. Let's say a -, 5 is I don't ever

pray. I don't see the need.

Let's say a - 3 is somebody. I'm I pray, but I'm hurt.

I pray, but I'm frustrated. I pray, but there's some

baggage. I pray and there's a lot of

frustration because I've been banging on heaven's door and it

doesn't seem to be doing a bit of good.

You're -3 let's say A0. If somebody's like, yeah, I, I

want to pray. I just don't know how.

Like, I'm just taking baby steps.

I don't know enough to get mad at God yet about prayer.

I'm just at a zero. That's great.

Love to have you. Let's say a + 1 is you pray

before meals and to get out of tickets.

OK, You're like, you know, I don't pray a lot, but when I see

when I see those sirens, I'm like, dear Jesus up in heaven,

give this cop diarrhea like Jesus, please.

I need AI need a special move of God right now.

OK, A+ Those of you OK, all right, stop, stay OK, plus

threes or you're going. You know what?

My prayer life could use some improvement.

I'm praying more than maybe I've ever prayed before.

But I got to be honest with you. There's there's a gap between

where I'm praying and what kind of prayer I want to be.

And let's say you're a + 5. This might be a couple plus

fives out there. My prayer life has never been

better. For just a second.

I want you to think, where would you put yourself on that

spectrum? What number would you give?

And I'm going to ask you do something kind of crazy.

You don't have to say it out loud, but I would love for you

if you came with somebody on your way home to go.

Hey, I just want to, I just want to tell you, this is kind of

where the number I would give myself now, I'm OK with whatever

number you give as long as it's an honest answer.

Now that you think about what you've kind of thought about,

what number you would give yourself, I just want to tell

you what my goal is, is that this year would be the best year

of prayer for you. That your number would not stay

that number that you would take a step moving from left to

right. As you guys have heard me say

100 times. Our mission is to help people

find an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And we have a big audacious goal that we want to make this region

where we do life and ministry the hardest place on planet

earth to get to hell from. Now, as we're trying to do that,

as we're trying to help people find Jesus, we're trying to make

this region the hardest place on planet earth to get the help

from. There has to be a place.

And I think that place is here. And I believe that time is now,

and I think it's with us. There has to be a place that

gives people time to hear about God.

There has to be a place that gives people an opportunity to

hear about God for the very first time.

And there has to be a place that gives hope to the hopeless and

points people to the peace that surpasses all understanding.

And there has to be a place that tells people that they can be

made new in Christ. And there has to be a place

that's committed to reaching people who are far from Jesus.

But here is an uncomfortable truth.

We cannot create the place we want to create unless we

createspace to become the people that God created us to become.

Last week I talked about how we got to make space in our lives

for spending time in the Word of God.

How on earth can we tell people about Jesus if we don't know

him? How can we talk to them about

who they can become in Christ if we don't know who we are in

Christ? How on planet earth can we talk

to people? How can we create a space, how a

place for people to find Jesus if we don't spend time in our

word? So what we talked about is we

need a place to read the Bible. We need a time to read our Bible

and then we need to do something crazy.

We actually need to do what the Bible says because if you just

spend time reading the Bible, you'll be deceived.

And we don't want to be deceived.

People. These aren't my words.

These are the words of the Bible.

Look what it says in James. This is Jesus brother James 1/22

Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.

Do what it says. All right, listen, I would

rather you read your Bible. Start there.

But what God is after is not you just reading the Bible, but you

doing what the Bible says. You do not get fit having a

Planet Fitness membership. If that were the case, I would

be a super skinny guy. It is when you do what it says.

And the way we move from left to right on the spiritual spectrum,

the way we go from a -, 5 to a -, 4, from A1 to A2 is through

faith and obedience. And our faith and our obedience

are connected. Your faith will never outrun

your obedience. Your obedience will never outrun

your faith. They are connected, they move at

the same speed. And if we are going to become

the people that God created us to become, we have to

createspace in our lives for prayer.

Many of you guys know about Billy Graham.

Billy Graham is the most successful evangelist in

history. He preached to over 215 million

people in 185 countries across the globe.

From his humble beginnings on a farm in Charlotte, NC, to his

travels around the world speaking in stadiums filled to

capacity, he pursued 1 singular vision to share the love of

Jesus Christ with anybody who would listen.

And Billy Graham's message never changed.

It's a super simple message. You've heard me talk about it

all the time, but it came straight from God's Word.

Here was his message for God's love, the world that he gave His

one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not

perish out of John, chapter 3, verse 16.

John 3:16

And when it comes to prayer, Billy Graham had a lot of really

great insights about prayer. So I just wanted to give you a

chance to kind of hear from him. This is what he said.

People would ask him, how do you have such an evangelistic

outreach? And he'd say the most important

steps to preparing for an evangelistic outreach are

prayer, prayer and prayer. That's his strategy.

If we're going, we want to make this region the hardest place on

planet earth to get the help from.

Billy Graham would tell us best strategy is prayer, prayer and

prayer. He also said this.

Have you ever said, well, all we can do now is pray?

Well, when we come to the end of ourselves, we come to the

beginning of God. How many of us?

We try all kinds of human things and they're like, all right,

well, that none of those worked out.

Let me start with God. What if we just started with God

1st? Instead of making God like our

last choice, we made him our first choice.

He also said this, We are to pray in times of adversity lest

we become faithless and unbelieving.

We are to pray in times of prosperity lest we become

boastful and proud. We are to pray in times of

danger lest we become fearful and doubting.

We are to pray in times of security lest we become

self-sufficient. We are to use our prayers to

create a dependency on God. He also went on to say that

heaven is full of answers to prayers which people never

bothered to pray. Now I'm going to tell you about

another famous evangelist. His name is John Wesley.

He was a traveling preacher that he would he traveled every year

4000 miles by horse in the 1700s.

It is said that during his lifetime he would have circled

the globe 10 times by horse. It is also said that he preached

over 40 1000 sermons and at his death he left almost nothing

behind other than the group of four that he started with in the

Holy Club numbered 135,000 members.

He had raised up 541 preachers and a church called the

Methodist Church. And he said this about prayer.

He said prayer is where the action is.

He also said God does nothing except in response to believing

in prayer. He said when you proceed with

much prayer, your way will be made plain or your way will be

made clear. This is the one that got me the

most though. I have so much to do that I

spend hours in prayer before I am able to do it.

Too many of us, we're going. I am just way too busy to pray.

And John Wesley said I have so much to do, there is no way I'm

going to get it done unless I spend some hours in prayer with

God. If you and I are going to be

going to be a part of creating the place that we desperately

want to see happen in our region, then you and I must

createspace in our lives for prayer.

So today I want to do something really simple.

I want to give you some tips to improve your prayer life.

First thing I want to give you, first tip is start your day in

prayer. The very first thing you do.

I've been trying to do this for a while now.

And the weird part is I totally didn't do it today.

So I kind of like I had to do it.

I was like, are you kidding me? I already wrote this in my

sermon. And I was like, how did this

happen? But listen, we all fail.

OK, Here's what I've been trying to do.

When my alarm goes off, before I do anything, before I hit

snooze, before I tell Jennifer stop giving me a kiss, before

any of that stuff happens, the very first thing is I want to

spend a little bit of time in prayer.

And here's my prayer. It's not like a crazy long

prayer because I'll go right back to sleep and listen.

Sometimes that's OK. If you were to like just pray

until your alarm goes back off and you just keep that up,

that'd be a great start to a prayer life.

Here's what I pray for. God, give me wisdom and

direction for the day. I don't want to do anything you

don't want me to do. I don't want to say anything you

don't want me to say. Now do I still fail fall short

of that prayer all the time, 100%, but I'm starting my very

day in reverence, submission to God, saying I want to be your

man. I'm going to do what you want me

to do. I want to say what you want me

to say before I start doing anything, before I'm yelling at

the kids, before I'm letting the dog outside, before I'm whatever

I'm I just want to start there. Second thing I want to encourage

you to do is I want you to have a place of prayer.

I want you to have a place in your life where you spend some

special time. I am in prayer for me.

I do this at my desk after I get done reading my Bible.

So I will pray in bed and then I'll go when I spend time in the

Word, I'll spend a little bit of time praying before I read it.

And then after I read my Bible, I'll spend a little bit of time

in prayer and I'm making a list of the things I'm praying for.

I've never done this before where like I'm keeping track of

my prayers, but I know that there are times when I get

frustrated and let's, well, let's just do this.

How many of you have ever been frustrated that God has not

answered a prayer the way you wanted him to answer it?

Yeah. Just so you know, I got both

hands up and both feet there. OK, so here's what I've been

doing. OK, I got, I got this little,

you know, whatever you call it. And in the, in the back of it

this year, I am writing down my prayer list.

And what I'm doing is, is I'm going to, I'm just going to keep

our track record of all the areas where he did come through.

And so while I am still struggling over the some of the

prayers that he hasn't answered the way that I wanted him to

answer, I'm also going to have a track record of all the ways

that he has come through in ways I never thought possible.

Can I let you in on some of my prayers?

I've been praying for Weaver to be a Church of 300.

I've been praying since my boys were born for them to be

baptized. I remember praying for my for

Jennifer, who was not my wife, and I was just praying for her

to be baptized. In fact, before the McComb

campus started, a lady who was a part of the Quincy campus sent

me a message and she said I'm going to be bringing two people

to church on your opening Sunday.

Would you start praying for them?

And so I was praying for a lady named Carrie and a lady named

Jennifer. Little did I know that one day

Jennifer would become a prayer request for me to have her for

her to get baptized. And little did I know that

eventually she'd be the one that I would marry.

And little did I know that she'd create the two boys that I've

been praying for, that they would get baptized.

I remember when the Macomb campus was just a prayer

request. I remember praying for 100

things. But this year, I'm going to keep

track of all of the things that I'm praying for so I can see how

God has been moving and how God has been faithful.

Because if you get discouraged in your prayer life, you will

give up sometimes on your prayer life and Satan gets the victory.

But if I can see where God has been faithful in ways I did not

see possible, it's going to keep me motivated to pray for the

things that I have not yet seen how He has answered.

Make a habit. Here's tip #3 Make a habit of

praying before you step into new things.

Here's what I mean by praying before you step into new things.

How many of you don't like all the people you work with?

If you came with your coworker, OK, we've got something to talk

about. What if before you went into

work you said, Hey God, I can't. I don't know everything that's

going to happen today, but I want to be a light in my

workplace today. How would that change how you

entered into the workplace? I'm getting ready to step into a

new thing. Before you get into a meeting,

just stopping yourself and saying, you know what?

I'm just going to pray that in this meeting I behave the way

you'd want me to behave. I add value in the areas where

you want me to add value. I keep my mouth shut in all the

places you want me to keep my mouth shut before taking a phone

call. God help this phone call for me

to leave being an encouragement to this particular person Before

I step into a new thing, I'm praying.

Here's a great one for dads or for for women too, if you have a

what I would call a stressful job.

That's a high octane job and it makes a lot of demands on you.

Sometimes we give our very best in the workplace and we give our

leftovers at home. And you would never want to say

that out loud that you are giving your kids leftovers, but

your kids already know that you do.

What would happen if before you went home, you parked in the

driveway and you gave yourself like a couple minutes and said,

God, I'm about to go in and it's 530 and the kids are going to

bed at 8:30. I need your strength and I need

your power to be the very best dad that somebody can be.

For the next three hours, things have been tense at home with you

and your spouse. And what if you went in and

said, listen, I want to go in there and I want to ascribe as

much value as I possibly can to my spouse.

And I'm relying on your strength and your wisdom.

God, you know I'm zapped. You know that my patience is

running thin. I'm going to need you to be my

patients before I step into the home.

What if you prayed before you had a difficult conversation?

God, I'm about ready to step into some waters that I'd be

honest with you. I don't want to walk in.

And I'm going to ask that you just give me the confidence that

your words will be the words that come out of my mouth.

Praying in faith and being obedient.

Praying before reacting to a situation.

How many of you? Everything's gone really great

when you've been reactive. Yeah, me neither.

So what if instead of before we react like your kids do

something stupid, They went to the bathroom, they took all the

stupid pills and before you like flew off the handle, you went

God, I'm about to I'm about to act like a parent here and

they're going to get their view of God by the way that I handle

this. And God, you're the most perfect

parent that ever lived. Could you give me some wisdom,

insight, quick prayer that could have massive impact?

What if you were to start praying that you'd be a Jesus

person? What would you, what would

happen if you started praying for God to open up doors for

Jesus to take crown or take ground in your sphere of

influence? What if you were to pray for

opportunities to talk to people about Jesus?

I was golfing with a guy and it was we were in a tournament and

we were playing with different people.

And this guy named Eric who goes where church, great guy.

He just said let's just start praying for him.

So while we're driving to the holes, which takes a while for

us to get to where we're going because my yeah, God has not

answered the prayer that I've become a better golfer yet.

And while we are praying, we are praying for the different people

that we're going to golf with. I remember praying with for for

all the families before a basketball team that was getting

started with my boys. Like, I want to be the kind of

coach. I want to be the kind of person

that helps people find a relationship with you.

What would happen if you started praying for wisdom and boldness?

What if you started praying for you to do your part before you

prayed for other people to do their part?

God, would you just make my wife less cantankerous and would you

make her sweeter? What if you stop praying that

prayer and said, God help me to endure any situation and any

circumstance, Help me to repay hardship with kindness and

sweetness. What if we were to start praying

for like for God to do a serious work in us before we were

begging him to do a work in somebody else?

Recently I was I had an old friend from from elementary

school and junior high and high school.

It was actually a person that had baptized me at a youth event

and for the last period of years, like I've just not seen

any movement in his life spiritually and had a broken

heart. And I'm thinking, man, how do I

engage in this conversation? So before I go into the

restaurant, I was like, God, I'm going to open my mouth about

this. I've pre decided I'm talking to

you or talking to him about you today.

When I get ready to do that, I'm just asking that every word that

comes out is the right word so I don't have to spend any time

going, did I do it right? Did I do it wrong?

I'm just in faith and in obedience.

I'm just asking for you to show up, and even when things aren't

going your way, I want us to keep praying because God's

timeline is not our timeline. Here's a perfect example of

this. For years it was a goal for

there to one day be a church in Burlington and a church in Fort

Madison. Just wanted that desperately.

I had it on a little postcard that I wrote all the names of

like towns where there are people that I knew that I wanted

to reach and I want our church to be a part of it.

And lots of people in our church were wanting those things to

happen. And people from our Kia Cook

location were going who, who lived in Burlington, Fort

Madison and go, would you please?

But in God's timing, he gives us a building that we don't have to

buy in the middle of both of those areas.

Well, we don't have the staff for two campus pastors.

We don't have the staff for two worship people, but we can

actually have a building given to us.

And then he raises up the right person and the right team.

So we just have to have one team that can minister to both

communities. If God had answered the prayer

10 years ago, we'd have had a dumpster fire on our hands.

But in his timing, He creates something that we wouldn't have

even thought being possible. I'd also tell you don't stop

praying just because you don't understand.

Sometimes our prayers are personal and hard and we don't

understand why this is happening.

And hear me, when things are not going your way, in prayer, in

faith, and in obedience, we keep praying.

In fact, you might be exercising the most faith and the most

obedience when you are praying and it looks like nothing is

going your way. The most faithful person might

not be the person who has every prayer being answered the way

they want it answered. The most faithful prayer is

going God, I don't see you doing any of the things that are on my

heart, but your word says to pray.

And so I'm going to keep praying.

And when you're praying, here is that here is the the attitude I

want you to have that when you're praying, you're praying

in submission to God because at the end of the day, you only

want what he wants. If you could have any choice, a

lot of us would go God, I'll be honest with you.

I want my will more than I want your will.

But I'll be honest with you, even though your will might be a

good idea, it's not nearly as good as his.

And Jesus, he's like the best Christian who ever lived.

When he was praying in the garden, God didn't answer his

prayer the way he wanted. And Jesus ends his prayer and he

goes, not my will but yours be done.

If Jesus knows that God's will is better than his own, then we

should know that too. We want God's will to be done in

our lives. At the end of the day, we don't

want anything that was manufactured by us.

We only want the things that are from Him.

And the idea of you and I living to the fullest without our lives

being covered in prayer is absolutely foreign to scripture.

For you and I to live the life that Jesus called us to live,

that God designed us to live, and not having it covered and

bathed and saturated in prayer is completely foreign to

scripture. So we will never become the

people we want to become and we will never create the place that

we desperately want to create unless we are deeply committed

to prayer. In fact, prayer shows up 165

times in the New Testament in all 27 books.

There's only four books of the, I said 3-4 books of the Bible

that don't specifically mention prayer.

That's Galatians, Titus, second Peter, and 2nd John.

But when you start reading through the New Testament, what

you're going to realize is God has a lot to say about prayers.

How many of you have people that don't like you?

Raise your hand. OK, great.

How many of you have people that you don't like?

Matthew 544 says love your enemies and pray for those who

persecute you. How many of us are prayer list

is dominated by the people we don't like and that don't like

us? Jesus says pray for those

people. How many of you you'd like to

sin less this year? Those of you who didn't raise

your hand, you're like, listen, I'm, I'm getting a master's

degree in sin this year. Watch out, OK?

If you want to sin less, look what it says in Matthew chapter

or Mark chapter 14. Watch and pray so that you will

Mark 14 · chapter mention

not fall into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the

flesh is weak. If you're asked people what do

you want to do? Like in their heart, they want

to do great things for God. The problem is the flesh gets in

the way. Jesus says if you want to sin

less, you're going to you're every time before you sin, there

is a temptation to step into that sin.

How do we guard ourselves against the temptation which

leads us into the sin that Jesus tells us?

Prayer, God, I don't want to be a person who's unfaithful to my

wife. I don't want to be a person

who's caught in sin. God, would you guard me?

Would you watch over me? Would you protect me?

Jesus told his disciples in Luke chapter 18 to keep praying and

Luke 18 · chapter mention

to never give up. In John 17 verses 15 it says

John 17:15

Jesus says this. My prayer is not that you would

take them out of the world, but that you would protect him,

protect them from the evil. 1 How many of us want to be

removed from every painful and sticky situation that we're in?

And Jesus says, I'm not praying to take you out them or to take

us out of the situation. I'm praying that they would

remain in the situation and be a difference maker.

Acts chapter 4, verse 29. This is what these people were

Acts 4:29

praying in the book of Acts, which if you want to read about

the explosive power of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts or in

the Bible, you read the book of Acts.

That's what it says in Acts 429. Now, Lord, consider their

threats and enable Your servants to speak Your Word with great

boldness. That was their prayer.

Not that the persecutions would stop, not that God would make it

easy, but God give us boldness. And You know what happened next.

The place was shaken, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and

they spoke the Word of God boldly.

Romans chapter 8 verse 26 has this to say about prayer.

Romans 8:26

In the same way, the Spirit, this is the Holy Spirit helps us

in our weakness. We don't know what we ought to

pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us.

This is a completely acceptable prayer.

God, I have no clue what to pray.

Holy Spirit, pray on my behalf. If the I were to make AI got I

do I got time. Imagine this is a really long

table. I've done this teaching before.

Imagine this is a really, really long table and this really,

really long table was my prayer life and I were to lift, trying

to lift this table. Well, if I'm, if I can only lift

on this side, I can't lift my prayer.

I can't do it on my own. The Bible uses the word, the

spirit helps. The Greek word is synthol,

syntholombonomy. It is a long side opposite of.

So the Holy Spirit when it comes to your prayer life comes

alongside of you on the opposite side.

And so if this hand is Clayton and this hand is the Holy

Spirit, now I can lift the prayer.

The Holy Spirit helps us and our weakness.

When I have a prayer that I can't pray on my own, when I got

to pray, that's too hard. God, I have a hard time praying

for my enemies. Holy Spirit, would you pray on

my behalf? That's the only person that

we're actually directed or allowed to actually participate

in our prayers. You don't when you're praying,

you don't go. You know, you just allow the

Holy Spirit to pray. First Corinthians Chapter 7 says

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

at times that we should abstain from sex to be devoted in

prayer. Some of you are like we're doing

a great job at the abstaining, but we haven't been doing the

praying. But it also says this don't

abstain for too long, otherwise Satan may tempt you.

But there was a group of people that were going listen, we want

to be so, so devoted in prayer that we're going to say no to

sex for a while just so we can focus on the Lord.

Is that us? How many people have that to

marriage? My wife and my husband, my

husband's just been just been seeking the Lord so long in

prayer. We just haven't had sex.

But the people in First Corinthians he was writing to

them. He says, listen, how serious is

prayer? It's serious enough that

sometimes you could just say no to sex, that we could pray

Second Corinthians. He says that you help people

with your prayers. In Ephesians.

He says that people that we were to pray that people would be

strengthened and that they'd experienced the power of the

Holy Spirit in our inner being. In Philippians chapter one,

verse 9, it says we are to spend time in prayer so that our love

may abound. How many of you ever feel like

your love tank is running low? In prayer we get our love to

abound and our knowledge and insight of the Lord increases.

How in prayer? Philippians 4 verse 6 has this

Philippians 4:6

to say about prayer. Do not be anxious about anything

but in every situation. Remember earlier I was talking

about all the different things you're going to step into in

every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving,

present your requests to God. This is what Paul is telling the

Philippians. There is not a single instance

that you are getting ready to step into that you should not

cover in prayer. And when you pray, you're

operating in faith and in obedience.

In Colossians chapter 4, we're told that prayer opens doors for

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

ministry. God, today as I step into my

workplace, would you open doors for ministry?

First Thessalonians chapter 3 tells us to pray earnestly.

1 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

First Thessalonians chapter 5 says that we're supposed to pray

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

continually. Second Thessalonians says that

pray that the name of Jesus would be glorified in your life.

That after people get done interacting with you, they would

go, man, Jesus is up to something.

I can see it in their life. 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 says

that we were supposed to pray that the message of God would

spread rapidly. What would happen if the people

who called the crossing home were to just pray the prayer

that the message of Jesus Christ would spread rapidly in our

homes and our communities and in our region?

First Timothy chapter 2 says we are to pray for all people.

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

There's not a single person who is not worthy of your prayers.

Second Timothy chapter one, verse 3 says that we are to pray

that God would raise up fellow laborers in the gospel.

Finally, in chapter 1, verse 6 says that effective ministry and

a deepening of understanding take place when we spend time in

prayer and that we endure the good thing or we endure the

hardships that come with the gospel.

In Hebrews chapter 5, it says that Jesus's prayers were heard

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

because of his reverence submission.

I wonder sometimes if our prayers are not heard because we

are not willing to submit to God's plan.

But James 5 verse 16 has this to say about prayer, that the

James 5:16

prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective, that God

moves when a person who is committed to Him and committed

to His cause go to their knees in prayer.

First, Peter chapter 3 says the ears of the Lord are attentive

to a righteous person. First, John 5 verse 16 says that

John 5:16

we are to pray for brothers and sisters who are struggling in

sin. What if instead of gossiping

about the stupid thing that they're doing, what about

telling everybody else about the sin that they've committed?

What about instead of watching passively?

When we saw somebody struggling in sin, our first thought was

not to shame them, but to pray for them.

Third, John says pray that we would enjoy good health so we

can expand the ministry. Jude 120 tells us to pray in the

Spirit, and then Revelation chapter 8 says that when we

Revelation 8 · chapter mention

pray, our prayers rise like an incense, like smoke from a fire,

like a fine perfume to the noses of those in heaven.

In the 1940s, Doctor Orr took a group of his students on a field

trip to see the famous religious historical sites that dotted

England. And one of the stops was the

place where John Wesley had lived.

And they walked around the house and eventually they made their

way up to the bedroom where the students noticed that beside the

bed were two worn spots in the carpet where John Wesley spent

those hours in prayer. And the students were all

impacted as they observed it. Once they were done, they left

to go get in the bus. And Doctor Orr hopped on the bus

and he started to take attendance and he noticed that

one of the students was missing. So he went back into the house,

and he found a student on his knees praying in the spot where

John Wesley had spent hours in prayer, and he heard the student

praying. Do it again, Lord.

Lord, would you do it again, and would you do it again in me?

Doctor Orr touched the student on the shoulder and indicated

that was time to go. And with that, Billy Graham

stood up and join the rest of the students on the bus.

And the rest is history. Heavenly Father, would you do it

again? Would you do it again in US?

Would you do it again here? Would you, for your glory and

for your name, do a mighty thing in our midst?

Would you make Your name great? Would you help us to seek and

save the lost? Would you help us make this

region the hardest place on planet Earth to get to hell

from? And am I praying?

Amen. We're moving to a time of

decision. To those of you who don't have

an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ,

this church has been praying for you.

You've been the subject of many prayers, and right now heaven is

peering down from the clouds wondering if today will be the

day you're finally obedient to Him.

Satan has been trying to keep you from this moment.

He's been trying to keep you from moving in the direction of

Jesus. Don't let him win today.

Romans chapter 10, verse 13 says this.

Romans 10:13

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And today you can call on him. And in just a few moments, the

people around the room, they're going to start singing where

they're at and standing and others that are going to come to

the steps and pray. And I want to encourage you to

cry out to him. And then would you come over

there underneath that screen next to the baptistry and talk

to somebody about how to start a relationship with you or with

him? If you're watching online, would

you click on that box that gives you an opportunity to go into a

private chat to be able to start talking to people about how to

begin your intimate, personal relationship with Jesus?

Don't put it off any longer. And to those of you in this room

that do you have an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

Christ, I want to be very careful that I don't script your

prayers. But would you please spend a

little bit of time on your knees begging God to do it again and

to do it again in us, To do something that only He can do in

ways that only He can do it? Would you stand with me?

God, you know every hurt and hang up when it that we have

when it comes to prayer. You know the number we said and

the number we really are. You know how often we do it and

you know how often we mean it and you know how serious we are

about it. Nothing is hidden from you but

God. Would you stir our hearts?

Stir our hearts to have a reverent submission to you where

we only want what you're willing to give us?

That we only want to do the things that you direct and that

you empower? That we would develop a

reputation of being Jesus, people who yearn to spend time

with you and God in our flesh. We have such a hard time doing

it, but in our spirit we want that.

So God, would you allow your spirit in us to win over our

weak flesh? In your name I pray.

Amen.