The Power of Intercession: Standing in the Gap

Thanks for joining the Heights Church podcast today. We hope that you enjoy the message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Galston

Road, Wandsby Heights, Sydney, Australia.

Tony's going to come in and read the Bible. You might like to have your device

open or a Bible in front of you, open to 1 Samuel chapter 11.

1 Samuel 11 · chapter mention

Then Samuel said to the people, Come, let us go to Gilgal, and there renew our

kingship. So all the people went to Gilgal and made Saul king in the presence of the Lord.

There they sacrificed fellowship offerings before the Lord.

And Saul and all the Israelites held a great celebration.

Samuel said to all Israel, I have listened to everything you said to me and have set a king over you.

Now you have a king as your leader. Peter, as for me, I am old and gray,

and my sons are here with you.

I have been your leader from my youth until this day. Here I stand.

Testify against me in the presence of the Lord and his anointed.

Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I pressed?

From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make me shut my eyes?

If I have done any of these things, I will make it right.

You have not cheated or oppressed me, they replied. You have not taken anything from anyone's hand.

Samuel said to them, The Lord is witness against you, and also he has anointed

his witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.

He is witness, they said.

Then Samuel said to the people, It is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron

and brought their assessors out of Egypt.

Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence before

the Lord as to all the righteous acts performed by the Lord for you and your ancestors.

And Jacob entered Egypt. After Jacob entered Egypt, they cried to the Lord for help.

And the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your ancestors out of Egypt and

settled them in this place.

But they forgot the Lord their God. So he sold them into the hand of Sisera,

the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Amoab,

who brought against them, who fought against them.

They cried out to the Lord and said, We have sinned.

We have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths,

but now deliver us from the hands of our enemies.

And we will serve you. Then the Lord sent Jerob Baal, Barak,

Jephthah, and Samuel, and he delivered you from the hands of our enemies all

around you, so that you lived in safety.

But when you saw that Nahash king of the Amorites was moving against you,

you said to me, No, we want the king to rule over us, even though the Lord your God was your king.

Now, here is the king you have chosen, the one you have asked for.

See, the Lord has set a king over you.

If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands,

and if you, both you and the king who reigns over you, follow the Lord your God, good.

But if you do not obey the Lord and if you rebel against his commands,

his hands will be against you as it was against your ancestors.

Now then, stand still and see the great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes.

Is it not wheat harvest now?

I will call on the Lord to send thunder and rain, and you will realize what

an evil thing you did in the eyes of the Lord, when you ask for a king.

Then Samuel called on the Lord, and that same day the Lord sent thunder and rain.

So all the people stood in awe of the Lord and of Samuel.

The people all said to Samuel, Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so

that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.

Do not be afraid, Samuel replied.

You have done all this evil, yet do not turn away from the Lord,

but serve the Lord with all your heart.

Do not turn away after useless idols.

They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.

For the sake of his great name, the Lord will not reject his people,

because the Lord was pleased to make you his own.

As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.

And I will teach you the way that is good and right.

But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart.

Consider what what great things he has done for you.

Yet, if you do persist in doing evil, both you and your king will perish.

Thanks, Tony. Let me pray for the youth and our kids as they're out in kids' church now.

Lord, as our youth go out this morning, I just pray for them,

and I pray, Lord, that you would teach them, teach them your word,

and allow your word to touch their heart.

And I pray that the Holy Spirit spirit who dwells in each one who believes.

I pray, Lord, that you would speak and you would give them not only ears that

would hear, but hearts that would understand and that you would equip them for

everything they need to follow you in this world.

And I pray that for our young kids, our little kids, our children that are out.

I pray, Lord, that you would give the teachers the words that they need to pass

on to our children so that they might understand you better and learn to grow and walk with you.

And I pray this in your name. Amen.

I'm going to invite Peter to come up. It's going to be interesting,

Peter, as no doubt you're going to look at that verse that says,

far be it for me to not sin, but pray for you.

I think that's probably a key verse. Could be wrong, but maybe it is.

You stole my thunder again, Mark. Good morning.

I'm feeling really old today. I tripped over a student school bag on Friday and twisted my knee.

20 years ago, I would have done three forward rolls and a pike at the end and stand up again.

But when you get a bit older, the fall is greater and I didn't want to fall

down and look embarrassed.

So I twisted my knee instead. dead. And so if I limp around, please forgive me.

You can intercede for me, actually, if you like. And that's a hint.

Israel had failed again with God.

They rebelled against God. God had drawn them out of slavery,

or before that, had chosen them as his people, had blessed Abraham and Isaac

and Jacob and Joseph all through the history.

And then they were in captivity, captivity in Egypt.

And by many plagues and great signs and wonders, he drew them out and they went

across the Red Sea and cut off from Egypt, cut off from slavery. Then they went into the.

They took about 10 days walk from the Red Sea to Israel or the Promised Land.

That took them 40 years because of their rebellion, their constant whinging and moaning.

And God had Moses there as an intercessor to stand in the gap for the people.

When they got to the Promised Land, they had Joshua and all the leaders,

and they just continued to rebel and sin.

Of course, we wouldn't do things like that to God. And, yeah, and then he sent judges,

Samson, Barak, and all those guys and girls to stand in the gap before God,

before the people and God.

And here we have, and they were told that God was their king.

They were under theocracy.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if Australia was under the bureaucracy of God?

God, a perfect judge, perfect king, perfect ruler, perfect father,

perfect everything. It'd be fantastic.

But Israel were meant to have that. Yes, they had leaders that the king had

appointed to lead them, but they wanted their own king.

They wanted to have a king just like the other nations around them.

And they whinged and they moaned and they groaned until God said,

okay, hey, if you want a king, you have a king.

Not because he was nagged into it.

He was going to show them what it was like not to have God as their king,

to come under a human rule.

But he had plans for further on.

And so here they are at Gilgal, going, we finally talked God into letting us

have a king. And they actually chose.

They didn't ask God who would be the best king. they actually chose their own

king, which was Saul, because he was handsome, tall, a mighty warrior, and all that.

I don't know how we would go. Some of us men will go in being selected by Israel.

If you're a great soccer player, maybe. I don't know. They would choose you.

But they chose Saul as their king, which God didn't choose.

God had chosen David to be the king in the right time. But they wanted a king

now, and they chose that.

And Samuel was the man that God used because he was angry with them.

God was angry with these people.

They rebuilt again against them.

They had chosen to have a human king as their ruler and not God.

And so God said, okay, you have it. See how you go.

He always has someone standing in the gap. And that's exactly why and ancestor.

What's the word? I've gone blank. I am all, I told you, intercessor to stand in the gap.

An intercessor is someone who stands in the gap when someone else can't do something.

I need an intercessor now as a crutch to walk straight, walk properly.

An intercessor is someone who stands there on behalf of someone else who can't

achieve what they need to achieve or they're lacking in ability,

lacking in some kind of thing they can't

do what they they're meant to do so an

intercessor comes along and helps them that's basically

what an intercessor is an intercessor and so Samuel was the intercessor he was

praying to God to spare his people to spare the people he said don't wipe them

out God I know you're angry with them they deserve it but don't dishonor your

name and in your covenant.

And as Mark said, that verse, have you ever read the Bible over and over again,

that all of a sudden a verse just hits you in the face?

And this happened with me when I was preparing this message.

And that one Samuel 12, 24 says, moreover, as for me, far be it from me that

I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.

If Samuel wasn't an intercessor, If he didn't stand there and pray to God,

ask for forgiveness, ask for help, ask God just to spare these people.

Samuel would have sinned because he was called to be their intercessor.

He was called to stand in the gap.

Israel were helpless. They had sinned against God. They had chosen their own king.

They weren't being the chosen people that they were meant to be.

They couldn't. It was not in their ability to do so.

So God raised up an intercessor, Samuel, and commanded him to be the intercessor.

So if he had disobeyed God, he was sinning against God by not doing that.

And also Samuel said to them, I'm going to intercede for you.

I'm going to stand in the gap for you.

I'm going to plead with God on your behalf, and I'll show you a sign that God

has listened to me, that God has answered my prayer for you.

And that was thunder and lightning.

Do we realize how powerful prayer is? Do we realize how powerful intercession is?

We'll see it a bit later too on someone else who prayed and interceded and did great, mighty wonders.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about we are the body of Christ.

We are the body. Jesus is the head, and we're all members of that body.

Now, I love biology. I'm a biologist at heart, and we all have different organs.

We all have different parts of our body, and they're all important to that body.

And if part of that body is in danger, if that part of a body is in pain,

if that part of a body that is not doing what it's meant to be doing because

of maybe some injury, maybe some disease,

maybe some kind of, it's just a thing I'm going to have a rest today, the body will –.

Concentrate on that. Right at this moment, I think this is a sign from God that

right at the moment, my body is concentrating on my knee, my left knee, because it's in pain.

It's not doing what it's meant to be doing.

I'm meant to be running 100 meters in 10 seconds.

I actually did the 100 meters in 7 seconds when I was at school. I knew a shortcut.

Thank you for laughing. Thank you for that. and there's many

more to come maybe but my knee is

is in pain it's not being able to do

what's meant to be doing because it's strained or something like

that so i can feel i can feel it right now because

the whole body is concentrating on that says you know we've got

a we've got a problem here and the body is concentrating on that and fixing

it up and paul talks about we're all members we're all members of the body of

christ jesus being our head so when there's one member that can't do or is not

able to do what it's meant to be doing,

the rest of the body concentrates on that and helps out, intercedes for it.

Now, being a biologist, I love

all the systems, and a great system of the body is the nervous system.

And that's why I said the title of this, the nervous system of the body is intercession,

because the nervous system communicates the whole body together.

It goes through the whole body. And if you stub your toe, your whole body knows about it.

If you hurt your knee, your whole body knows about it and sends information

to the head or the brain that says, we've got a problem here.

We need help. We need something to happen.

And the head of the body sends out all the messages, sends out all what's needed

to fix and correct the situation. Samuel pleaded to God.

And the members weren't doing what they were meant to be doing.

And here we have the body.

And it says in, when he was talking about the body, Paul, it says if someone,

if part of the body grieves, the whole grieves.

If someone rejoices, the whole members rejoice.

I do like playing football, playing soccer, not like some rugby league players

that I want to mention names.

And the team is a body. It's Groot.

And if someone scores the goal, who scores the goal?

The whole team. The whole body benefits from that.

We have one member of the team scoring, but the whole body wins.

I'm sure you're up at 5 o'clock watching the Champions League final this morning.

Anyone besides me? I see no hands. Well, if you're interested,

Real Madrid won again, the Champions League, 2-0.

Two people scored goals, but the whole team, the whole club won the championship.

And so there's a lot of rejoicing there.

And all the supporters, all the members, everybody who's with Real Madrid was

rejoicing because 11 players plus two more subs won the game.

So the whole place rejoiced so when someone

in in the body of christ succeeds is

achieving what they were meant to be doing the whole body

rejoices if someone in the body or member

of the body has is um hurting or in pain is not achieving what it's meant to

be achieving and then the whole body is in pain and sorrow as well and the way

we get communication through is through intercession We are called by God to intercede for the body.

Yes, there's gifts, different kinds of gifts. And I've met some people who are

just fantastic intercessors.

They can pray and pray and storm the gates of heaven, but that's their gifting.

We can say, well, just leave it to them. But the Bible makes it quite clear

that we are all called to pray, to intercede for the body.

Because all of us, you know, we have trials, we have pains, we're not achieving

what we're meant to be achieving.

We might have some sin in our life. We might have some sorrow in our life.

We might have things that just aren't working for us.

And it's really hard, isn't it, when you're in that position to actually achieve

what you're meant to be doing.

You're saying, yeah, God, I know I'm supposed to be doing this, but I just can't do it.

I haven't got the abilities. I haven't got the skills. I haven't got,

you know, I'm lost at the moment.

So God sends intercessors, part of the body, to intercess for us on our behalf,

to stay in that gap to the head of the body, Jesus Christ.

James 5 says, If anyone among you is suffering, let him pray.

If anyone is cheerful, let him sing praise. If anyone among you is sick,

let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him,

anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. In other words, he was just like us.

No one's special, no one greater. He was one of us.

And he prayed fervently that it may not rain for three years and six months.

And it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain.

That's how powerful intercession is.

That's how powerful praying for each other, that nervous system going through

the whole body, that's how powerful it is and what it can achieve.

It can stop rain for three and a half years.

It can save a sinner wandering off and can save their soul.

A challenge, have we ever confessed our sins to each other?

Have you found somebody who could go and say, look, I'm really struggling in

this area. I'm really struggling with this sin.

Can you pray for me? Without the fear of judgment, without the fear of condemnation

and asking someone to pray for you.

Have we ever, you know, have we gone to someone and say, look,

I'm really sick, I'm really struggling with this. Can you pray for me?

A prayer of faith can save. A prayer of faith can save.

Got two examples of how powerful intercession is. In the early 1940s,

two English women were missionaries in China.

They were working through a hospital in the countryside of China,

away from everything, bare essentials, but they had gone there to minister to the sick.

They had gone there to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.

They went to a large town, a bit of a day's travel, to get money to pay the

salaries, to pay the bills for the hospital.

And in those days, they didn't have FPOS or bank transfers, anything like that.

They just had cash. They had a big bag of money, and they had to walk back through

bandit-infested areas to get back to the hospital.

They were delayed that day, and they had to camp overnight with this huge bag

of money and lay down and camp through the night and continue their journeys next day,

which they did, and they got up, went back to the hospital.

About a month later, a feared bandit leader came in because he had been shot

in the gang wars, and these two missionary ladies looked after him and got him back on the mend.

When he was about to leave, he says, I know you two. and go,

well, how do you know me? How do you know us?

And he said, our gang were chasing you, following you back from the town.

We saw you go into the bank. We saw you had a big bag of money on you.

And we saw that you were camping overnight and we saw that we could come and

get a whole lot of money. We're going to rob you that night.

Ladies said, well, why didn't you? They said, because of the 27 soldiers that

were standing around you. They go, what do you mean?

There's 27 soldiers and we dare not go and fight them. So we left you alone.

This confused the ladies for a long time. They went back to England.

They returned back to their church on furlough and they were sharing this story.

And the church had their a meticulous secretary, and he recorded every meeting

they had, every service they had,

every prayer meeting they had, every video streaming they had,

if they had those in the 40s, and he would keep a record of how many attended.

He was very meticulous in that. And after these two ladies told the story to

the church, he went up to them and asked, what day was that?

They told him. He went back to his records. We said, that day we had a prayer

meeting, intercessors prayer meeting in the church, and the Lord laid upon us, you too.

We always pray for you, but this particular meeting, we really had a heart,

a burden for your protection. So we prayed.

Guess how many were in the prayer meeting that night? 27. 27,

the head of the body sent an angel each to protect those people, those couple.

Intercession is very powerful, very powerful.

What's the Lord put a burden on your heart for? Someone in the church,

maybe a missionary, maybe a leader, or just someone that you know,

your next door neighbor.

If God puts a burden on your heart, you need to intercede.

Second example is my own personal testimony. I grew up in church, mostly.

My parents were Presbyterian, and they were united, changed to uniting church.

I went along because that was the right thing to do.

I was actually a youth leader for three years in a row, mainly because I had

the best parties and I had the girl vote as well.

And I actually preached in church a few times and did services and all that.

I always believed in God, always had this belief that he was there.

And I thought I was a Christian, but I wasn't.

Early in my 20s, I got married to this woman, and it didn't last long,

two years in fact, short marriage, sort of like a Hollywood marriage.

And my parents had a fantastic marriage, probably the perfect marriage you can

see. I actually caught up with an old girlfriend when I turned 50 a few years ago.

And she said, I used to love coming around to your place because,

and I went, oh, yeah, good to see me.

She said, no, because your parents had such a beautiful marriage and you.

And the high school used to talk about my parents and their marriage.

So here I am trying to live up to my parents and what they had.

And here I am separated and getting divorced from my wife.

And I was devastated, absolutely devastated.

To work at McCrory University, at this time was working at McCrory University.

And one of the technicians opposite me in our prep room was Janet.

And Janet was a Christian.

And we were good friends and we chatted and talked and that kind of thing.

One day, actually it was March 22nd.

1983, I took the day off. I love the ocean.

I think God's best day of creation was when he you create the oceans and the seas.

Nothing personal about animals and things like that, or the sky and the stars.

But I love the ocean. I love the fish, love the dolphins, the whales.

And I went up to Womberl near Terrigal. My family have a holiday house at Terrigal

and I went up there and then I went for a walk along the beach and went to the Womberl rocks.

Rocks and I'm staying there at 11 o'clock

this morning on this particular morning and I

had I don't know if it was a vision or a dream whatever but I saw a big football

stadium over the ocean over the rocks and I went oh that's interesting must

be a football game must be Chelsea playing but then I realized it was a crusade

a Billy Graham kind of thing you know big stadium full full of people.

And I actually started preaching. I'm walking up and down the Womble Rocks,

preaching like this, fantastic preaching.

And I even had an altar call. And I said, if you have never repented from your

sin and never been baptized, now's your chance.

I thought, that's great preaching. And then I came to myself,

I went, I've never done that.

I've never repented I've never been baptized for the forgiveness of sins I'm

not really a Christian so I was my first convert that's pretty good isn't it

and I went back from those Wamba rocks completely changed.

Went into work next day, and Janet said, are you okay? Are you sick?

And I said, no, I just had a day off. You know, just I needed that time.

And she said, you look different. What's happened?

And I said, I think I became a Christian yesterday at the Rocks. And she started crying.

And she told me the story. She had gone to her church, French's Forest Baptist

Church. It's here for the Baptists.

She's just a few blocks away from the church. She actually went back to the

church and stood up and told the whole church about me and the situation I was going through.

And that whole church prayed for me. Never met me, didn't know who I was,

but they knew that someone was in pain, that someone needed to stand in the gap to this person.

I had a whole church praying for me. So I understand now why on those rocks,

God spoke through my mouth and told me the gospel.

Paul intercedes for people, for the churches that he visits.

I've got 10 things that he prays for. But intercession is not just saying,

God bless, God bless, God bless that country.

Intercession is very specific, finding out a very specific thing about something

and standing in that gap.

And Paul prayed for, he thanked God for each one of the people in the churches that he visited.

And that's most of the churches he visited. He prayed for their wisdom and knowledge

in Ephesians and Colossians.

He prayed that they would be filled with hope, Ephesians and Rome.

He prayed that they would live in peace and unity in Rome and Thessalonica.

He prayed they would be strengthened with spiritual power, Ephesians and Colossians.

He prayed that they would learn to abide in Christ, Ephesians.

Prayed that they will grow in love for others, Ephesians and Philippians.

Sounds like Ephesians need a lot of prayer. He prayed for their righteousness

and purity, Philippians, Colossia, Corinthia, and Thessalonians.

He prayed that it would overflow in praise and thanks to God,

Corinthians, Ephesians, and he prayed for opportunities to minister to them in Thessalonica.

He was very specific on those intercessions. He didn't just say,

God bless the church in Ephesus. Thank you. Amen.

He was very specific in how to pray.

Intercession is doing that. We can pray God bless the whole church of the heights.

God going, what do you want me to do?

I think it's more personal. It's more powerful when we find out certain situations,

certain people, and pray for them in a seed for that particular situation.

Paul asks for them to intercede for him. He says, pray that open doors for ministry.

Pray that the word of God will be effective when I preach it.

In all that I do, that he will act honorably.

So Paul's asking the churches that he's been to, to intercede for him.

You know, when we intercede for people in our church, I think most of us think

straight away, you know, praying for the sick, praying for people who are going

through struggles, going through trials.

And that's great that needs to be done that's much

intercession is much more than that and i was

thinking this morning about the way we can intercede do you know we are all

missionaries we are all called to be missionaries if you're a christian here

today you are a missionary for god a lot of people think missionaries are ones

who go overseas you know professionals they go overseas go to China,

go to India, go to Africa, whatever.

And they're sponsored. They're supported by the churches. Yes, they're missionaries.

That's their gifting. That's their calling that God's called them to.

But we are all missionaries. And you go, well, where's my mission field? It's at your workplace.

It's on your street. It's to your family.

It's on the football field. Wherever you are, you're a witness for God.

You're a missionary. you have the message of God.

If you work in a school, for example, you've got hundreds and hundreds of students there.

It's hard for me sometimes because I work at a Christian school,

so preaching to the teachers and staff is pretty hard.

But there's heaps of children there, students, that don't know Jesus.

It's not talking just Jesus, Jesus, Jesus all the time.

It's how how you react to them, how you, you know, how you do your job.

If you play football, if you play soccer, the rule game in heaven,

how do you react to your own team?

How do you react to the opposition? How do you react to the referee?

If you're at home, do all your family members know Jesus?

Wherever you work, do people know Jesus? We are called missionaries to be there.

And wouldn't it be great if we had missionaries on the board there in the workplaces,

the colleges, the schools,

the streets they live on, we all live on, that we're missionaries to that and

that we have a person or maybe a couple of people interceding for us.

We go, wherever we do, having that intercession or that people are interceding for us as we go forth.

The body of Jesus needs to be healthy. And the way we can do that is through

the nervous system of intercession to the head of the church, Jesus.

Say, Jesus, a member is not achieving.

A member is hurting. A member is in trouble. and we stand in the gap and ask

the head, the perfect king, the perfect one to help and rectify.

And as James says, the prayer of faith is very effective and very powerful.

Lord God, I thank you so much that you've called us here to be a body of Christ and Jesus as the head.

Each one of us has special abilities, special giftings, special talents,

a special place in your body.

And Lord, I pray that as we're all called to intercede for each other,

that you will lay upon us, Lord, burdens, people, certain people,

and that we can go out to them and say, may I pray for you, stand in the gap for you.

Lord, I know you want a beautiful bride, a perfect body, and you've included

us to make that bride perfect for your kingdom.

So Lord, right now, I intercede for this church and say, Lord, help us to pray.

Help us to intercede. Help us to support and uplift each other so we can become

a witness, a light to the neighborhood, to our land.