Abiding in Prayer with Dependence and Anticipation | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Englewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. Well, good morning, Englewood.

How about that worship team? Amen.

Not that I want to do an infomercial for them, but they

have recorded ACD and you can get these in the bookstore.

You can also download these. And so all that information will

be over there. They'd love for you to, to get

about 4000 of those, share them with your closest friends

because I know some of you have 4000 close friends, but it's

just entitled worship and it will lead you to do that.

So thank you so much for being here.

If you're a guest, thank you. Let me just share a couple of

words and then I want to pray for us.

I want to thank first of all, there's a good crew that went

over to Tarboro yesterday and did a lot of hard work.

And so I appreciate very much those of you who were a part of

that team. And also a team is getting ready

to head out to Western North Carolina at the end of the week.

And there I think we pray they're, they're ready to start

building houses actually that they're beyond the clean out

phase and now they're actually going to start rebuilding some.

And for some people, it's just been a very hard and long time.

Obviously, I also want to pray about the weather coming up,

that our coastline will be safe and that what we see out in the

ocean will just stay right out there and bless the fishes and

not us. And also just take a take note

in your worship guide today. There's several things coming

up. The special needs ministry has a

table out there and some special training coming up.

So don't miss that as well, but I just wanted to pray for us

this morning as we think about his faithfulness and we praise

Him for that and we move forward together.

So would you stand with me and let's pray together?

Father, you are indeed faithful. And Father, I pray that that

sentence, as simple as it is, is never taken for granted.

You don't have to be to us. We don't deserve your

faithfulness. It's part of your nature to be

the same as part of your nature to be true.

And Father, we thank you that you allow that to touch us.

Father, thank you for what you're doing here.

Thank you for what you're doing in Tarboro.

We look forward to the launch on the 19th.

I pray, Father, that we'll help them as our church plant on the

11th. And thank you for the crew that

was there. I pray you'll bless the crew

going out to Western North Carolina.

Father, what a what a difficult time so many families are still

facing out there. And Father, I pray that you'll

keep us safe over the next few days.

I pray, Father, that the Father we might get the refreshing rain

that we need, but Father, we wouldn't get more then we need,

Father, and that You would keep the storms away and keep people

safe. Now, Father, please open our

hearts and minds to Your Word. We need this Word today.

I believe so, Father, help me to simply tell these people what

you've told me to tell them, and help His Father to understand

Your Word in Christ's name. Amen.

Well, I'd invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

You might want to buckle up just a little bit.

I got some news for you. You're in conflict.

You may not know that. You may not believe that, you

may not want that, but you are. You might even want to argue

with me. John, you have no idea what

you're talking about. Won't be the first time somebody

this week has said that. But you don't know what you're

talking about. And you might argue that you're

perfect piece right now, doing just fine amidst this thing

called life. When people say, how are you,

you, you give that perfunctory, I'm I'm fine.

Hope you are and just move right along.

But regardless of how you're really doing right now, you're

still in the middle of a conflict.

Fun, huh? Exciting, isn't that?

But you're not alone. We're all in the middle of a

conflict. So.

So let's talk about working through it together today

because this morning I'm going to continue in our sermon

series, Come Live the Church's vision, the seven essentials of

discipleship. I've shared already that as a

disciple of Jesus, we must engage the Bible with a humble

and teachable spirit. I've also shared that we must

unite in fellowship with hospitality and authenticity.

But I also need to share with you this morning that as

disciples of Jesus, we must commit to abiding in prayer with

dependence and anticipation. See, one of the essentials of

being a true disciple of Jesus is that we learn to constantly

abide with God in prayer. And that's harder than it might

sound. We need to submit to his, to to

his sovereignty and total dependence, to his authority.

And one way to do that is through prayer.

So we pray to one who is worthy of that submission.

We we pray to one that is above us.

We pray to the one who can because we cannot.

We're dependent upon that, or we should be.

We believe in who he is and and therefore we believe that prayer

matters and we and we anticipate prayer working.

Prayer is an act of humility. It's an act of recognition.

It's it's where we engage in dialogue with God.

Now you need to think about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, you need to think about

what I just said. You actually get to engage in

dialogue. What an incredible, incredible

privilege of engaging an actual conversation with the creator of

the universe. Don't take that lightly.

He's the Savior of all and you get to talk to him.

God cares about you so much. He wants you to bring and dump

that truck, truckload of life right on him.

He, he wants you to bring your fears, your worries, your, your

issues and your load right on him.

He wants you to bring it. So instead of spewing, spewing

forth, you're venting on somebody else, complaining about

things or arguing about things, go to Him because he loves us in

this way and we're given this opportunity.

No, we're given the command to abide with Him in prayer.

Now, does that really describe your daily existence?

Abiding in prayer with dependence and anticipation?

But I mentioned a conflict. There is one.

There's a conflict because we also have a real enemy who seeks

to stop you from doing this right.

He wants to weaken you. He wants you to collapse under

the weight of the truckload of your life right now.

He he does not want you to find true peace.

He doesn't want you to find true direction as a disciple.

And frankly, that makes me angry.

And he's been working overtime lately in our world and frankly

here been working overtime. It frustrates me that our enemy

is so good at what he does, so we must passionately embrace

true discipleship and abide in prayer with dependence and

anticipation. And it's very hard for some to

do that. It's very hard for some to admit

that life, as John Piper has said, that life is a

battleground, not a playground for some people.

For some people out there especially, the concept of

spiritual conflict or a spiritual enemy would just be

fantasy. Yet he does exist.

Let me tell you about him. His temporary existence is part

of this fallen world. We discussed that a few

Wednesday nights ago. Everything I'm doing ties

together. I wish you would be here all the

time. 100% participation in your opportunities.

The Bible calls him the wicked 1, the deceiver, the destroyer,

their adversary, the enemy of our souls.

Satan doesn't want you to have peace.

He wants you distracted. He wants you frustrated.

He wants you afraid. He wants you alone.

He doesn't want you to seek true discipleship.

He doesn't want you to love God and love people.

He doesn't want you to engage the Bible with a humble and

teachable spirit. He doesn't want you to unite in

fellowship through hospitality and authenticity.

Though our world around us, This culture desperately needs that

testimony. And he certainly doesn't want

you to join God's mission. So he would absolutely hate it

if you abided in prayer with dependence and anticipation.

He wants you to be overwhelmed by the burden of life.

I mean, can't you hear Him? Can't you hear His voice?

Live this life on your own. Try to fix your own life.

Try to deal with things by your own strength.

Live by your own truth. Be true to yourself.

Listen to the voice. Be so focused upon the issues of

this fallen world that you're too distracted to see the

Creator who seeks to redeem and sanctify you.

Keep yourself safe. Keep yourself comfortable.

Be a consumer, not a giver. Be a complainer instead of a

builder. Don't you hear him?

Listen, those are the words of the enemy, not of the Lord.

Let me tell you what I'm afraid of.

And I've quoted this often. I've shared this with staff.

I've probably said it from the pulpit 4 times or six times.

But you know, who cares? It's a quote by missionary

William Carey. And it, it bothers me because

this is what I'm afraid of. Here's what Carey said.

He said. I'm not afraid of failing.

I'm afraid of succeeding at things that just don't matter.

Mission drift. You know what you got to do to

drift? Absolutely nothing.

Just sit back and let Satan win because he doesn't care whether

you aimlessly drift along or not.

He'd be real happy with that. When I served with the Foreign

Mission Board, one of the things and everybody else who serves

with the Foreign Mission Board, we had some of our missionaries

here today. I was glad, great to see them.

And it was interesting because everything, you know, I imagine

everybody still does this. You took a personality inventory

test called the Myers Briggs Personality Inventory.

Some of you probably took it for other reasons.

It's one of those more in depth ones.

You know, it's not one of those dumb ones where you answer 5

questions and you're some kind of animal.

You know, it's, it's a real personality inventory and you

get tested out, you end up with a certain number of letter, you

get letters. So you're identified by these

letters that represent different parts of your personality.

And there were about 60 of us in the room and they said go stand

with the people and groups with the other people who share the

same letters as you do. And I was alone in the corner.

So I recognize that I have been officially tested to be

different. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

So maybe I do think differently because I assume Inglewood

Baptist Church, that you want to reach people and that you're

willing to sacrifice to do it. I believe that you'll put your

own concerns and needs aside to make true disciples, to see

people saved, to see God glorified.

I not only believe that I'm counting on it, because what God

wants to happen here will require sacrifice, and we need

to listen to His voice, not the voice of the enemy.

Listen to what the truth of the Lord says.

Ephesians 610 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength

of His might. Put on the whole armour of God,

that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the

devil. For we do not wrestle against

flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,

against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against

the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Just a few days ago, Pastors Jean and Jordan and I recorded a

podcast in our Walking in Prayer series concerning spiritual

warfare. And we discussed this passage,

parts that I won't necessarily go into detail about this

morning, but but I believe it was so important that I wanted

this message to dovetail with that podcast.

You need to listen to both of these.

Go and find the podcast about walking in warfare because let

me tell you something. Christ is already perfectly

victorious through the cross in the empty tomb.

No, no, wait a minute. No, no, no.

You don't get to do that this morning.

I said Christ is already perfectly victorious through the

cross and the empty tomb. Amen.

Yeah, you don't get to do that this morning.

And Satan is already ultimately defeated.

And I like saying that over and over again out loud because he

can hear me. But battles continue in this

life for now. That's not an option.

That's just reality. So if we're to fight

effectively, we need to be focused, we need to be well

equipped, we need to be dependent upon God's power.

We need to anticipate him working on our behalf because we

can't do this on our own. And so we know that our king has

a mission. We know that he has a vision for

our lives. But the enemy has a strategy

too. And you've really got to

understand what that word means. When you talk about the schemes

of the devil in verse 11, the word is Methodia in the Greek,

and I just want to read. Let me read carefully the

definitions of that Greek word. Listen to this.

The pursuit of an orderly and technical procedure, a cunning

device, trickery strategies, deliberate planning.

When it's used as a verb, the word means to go systematically,

to work, to pursue something methodically, to lie and wait,

to deceive and scheme. He has a well thought out,

detailed plan for your life and for the life of this church.

We got to pick which strategy we're going to follow.

The devil's leading opposing forces has sworn enemies of this

church seeking the best ways to deceive, the best ways to ambush

us. He hates this church and for

what? She stands, and he wants to stop

Inglewood rather than watch her continue to grow.

Let me tell you three things Satan's going to try to do to

you. He wants to discover your fears,

He wants to distract your focus, and he wants to destroy your

faith. Now you didn't get that.

Satan wants to discover your fears.

He wants to distract your focus and he wants to destroy your

faith. So if Satan has a strategy for

the fight, we better have a vision strategy for discipleship

in place to fulfill the mission of our King.

So as imperfect people say by grace, and that's what we all

are, Amen. That's what we all are.

As imperfect people say by grace and rooted in Christ.

We have to imitate Jesus and believe every one of us is quit

by the Holy Spirit to be a disciple.

So we need to hear the Holy Spirit.

Listen to him verse 10 again. Finally, be strong in the Lord

and in the strength of His mind. So let's talk about our strength

for a minute. Are our strengths not our own?

It's not. It's not found in us.

It's found in Him. We are absolutely dependent upon

Him. So we are victorious because our

strength is God's strength. The joy of the Lord is my

strength, because that which brings God joy strengthens me.

Right now, Satan's real and he rules a heavily armed Kingdom.

He has superhuman wisdom, He has superhuman power, but he is not

omnipotent, nor is he omniscient.

Now we studied about those attributes of God this past

Wednesday night and, and, and, and how he's truly strengthens

us. You need to study these things.

The devil's a fallen Angel who is condemned forever.

Let me just read that one again. Just because he's a fallen Angel

who's condemned forever, that's who he is.

That's all he is, right? But his current powers granted

and limited and can only go as far as the Father allows.

So God alone is sovereign and has allowed Satan some access

with some opportunity for some time.

You got to remember the study of the problem of evil we did

several Wednesday nights ago. Everything I'm doing ties

together. When a Muslim goes to Mecca on

their pilgrimage, they do several rituals if they can

normally, and some of the rituals include they kiss the

Blackstone, they drink from the Well of Hagar, and they throw

stones at 3 pillars which represent Satan.

I I often think of that and I think Satan must be more amused

than offended because if we want to battle with evil, we're going

to have to do a whole lot more than throw a few rocks at a

pillar. So how can we be strong and move

forward in the fight? We must abide, we must live in,

we must tent in, we must Tabernacle with, we must walk

alongside of, we must abide in God by devoting ourselves

corporately and individually to daily communicating with him.

See, the goal is not even that you would have a better prayer

life. The goal is that you would have

greater intimacy with God. Prayer is the means, not the

end. Spiritual disciplines are not

the goals. Spiritual disciplines are not

the are not the end game. They're means to an end.

They're the means for you to have intimacy with God and his

will because of who he is and what he's already done.

We can be strong enough to not simply survive.

We can thrive. We can grow.

That's why he writes in first John four.

He says, little children, you're from God and have overcome them.

For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Watchman Knee, who was a Chinese believer many years ago, who who

helped begin some of the underground church movements of

China, was later imprisoned for his faith, eventually died in

prison. Because of his faith.

He wrote several things, and one of the things he wrote was our

prayers. Lay the tract down upon which

God's power can come. Like a mighty locomotive.

His power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without

rails. So Christ's victory gives us the

strength and the hope we need for our victory and and the

ability to face and fight the darkness of this present age.

To take and cast my truckload of fear, my truckload of anger, my

truckload of confusion, or whatever it is at the foot of

the cross. And yet not only do we have the

strength, we also have to admit there's a struggle.

Look at verse 12. For we do not wrestle against

flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,

against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against

the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

And so though we fight from a position of strength and a

position of victory, the enemy still attacks and we still fight

in the middle of this created place.

But but be careful. Don't simply blame him for your

failures. It's true that he tempts you.

He might even create the circumstances around us that

tempt us. But when we fail, when we sin,

we and when we think or we say or we do something that's

contrary to God's word or contrary to God's will, we have

to bear the responsibility. It's our choice.

We can't simply blame the devil for all of our stumbling.

We must be God's disciples who abide in prayer corporately and

privately, to be dependent upon him in constant communication

with the commander. A soldier needs strength for the

struggle. John Piper wrote this.

He said prayer is meant to, is meant by God to be a wartime

walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom, not not for the

enhancement of our comforts, but for the enhancement and the

advancement of God, God's Kingdom.

We need faith for the fight. Paul wrote to the church at

Corinth in Second Corinthians chapter 10.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

He said for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war

according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare

are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy

strongholds. We destroy arguments in every

lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every

thought captive to obey Christ. We must destroy strongholds and

and the and the exciting thing about discipleship is you have

the ACT you have access to the tools to do that Spiritual

strongholds, strongholds. I can say that word Oklahoma

spiritual strongholds are sinful patterns.

These are sinful patterns of misdirected fear, misdirected

faith that we allow to become normal in our life.

And they provide Satan and opportunity.

They provide him a place to tempt, right?

And so we can't allow him an opportune time.

We can't allow him a weak spot. We can't allow him to dig in.

We can't allow him to build. We can't allow him to divide.

Long time ago, before American tourists were going there, I had

the opportunity to go into China and go to the Great Wall of

China along that trip. And it, you know, incredible

structure to see. But you know, the whole purpose

of the Great Wall of China was that were to keep enemies out.

That was the whole basic idea. We're going to keep the enemies

out by building this gigantic wall.

But you know, it completely failed in its purpose.

It never did succeed. It completely failed because all

the all the enemies did was bribe the guards and they just

opened the gates. We got to be careful that we

don't just open the gates. Our sin will give Satan a

stronghold. Our apathy will give him a place

to grow. Our complacency about true

discipleship allows an entry point, an advantage.

We're much more likely to fail when we allow ourselves to be

put into this type of stronghold.

We have to fight the false teachings of this world.

We have to take every thought captive for Christ, and we must

do this. No one else is going to do it.

We must do this. Look at the command verbs.

You must do this in your personal life, for you, for your

family. We acknowledge our struggle, but

we also acknowledge that we fight from a position of

strength and we have divine weaponry because that's the only

thing that's going to work here. My own ability is not going to

get it done, so I need these weapons.

The word weapons here, panoply it.

It's the image of all the equipment that a heavily armed

infantry man would carry in the day.

So carnal weapons are not going to bring victory.

Human ideas, human strategies, human methods are not enough.

Money can't buy it. Your brain and your willpower

are not enough. No matter what you think that

your own personal truth is or being true, that's not going to

get it done. There must be divine weaponry

undergirding and empowering you. So you've got to connect to

God's strength by abiding with Him in prayer.

We need to anticipate that He hears, that we anticipate that

He actually works, that this prayer thing is real and it

actually accomplishes. But we must also understand that

as we pray, we're not changing God's mind about circumstances.

We're allowing Him to align our thoughts with Him.

It's more about us. He's going to grow us as

disciples through prayer. But through prayer, God will

equip us. Then for third thing, our stand,

verse 11, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to

stand against the schemes of the devil.

We must put on the armor. Notice these verbs again.

This is not automatic. This is not even natural.

This is not some default setting.

You must put this on. These are imperative verbs in

the Greek language. You have to put on the whole

armor. As the one old preacher said,

don't go on the battle naked. Put on the whole armor of God.

Verse 13. Therefore take up the whole

armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil

day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having

put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for

your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of

peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with

which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil. 1 And

take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which

is the Word of God, Withstand, stand firm, stand.

Therefore, you think maybe the Holy Spirit's trying to get a

point across. Now you got to think about who

is reading this. The very first time these

Ephesians were surrounded by paganism, I mean huge temples.

You can still go there. Teresa and I were there not long

ago. We had the privilege of going

over to Ephesus and you can tour the ruins of Ephesus and there's

temple after temple. They were surrounded by Pagan

temples in false teaching. Think about it.

They were surrounded by paganism, by lostness, by

spiritual darkness, by false teaching.

I mean, I don't know about you, but does that sound like

anywhere else you know right now?

Sounds like Rocky Mountain, North Carolina to me.

One of the reasons why I often refer to our culture as pre

Christian. I think we're back in the same

boat. So we need to depend upon his

power to help us stand. The word stand is a military

term. It means to hold one's position.

Because the Army's design was that every, every single member

of the Army had the responsibility of holding so

many square feet. And if everybody held their

square feet, we all held our square feet together, we would

be undefeatable. So we put on the belt of truth,

the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of

peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and sword

of the spear. And we discussed these a whole

lot more in the podcast. I really do pray that you go

listen to Walking and warfare, but for today, I want us to move

on with great anticipation. Then we abide in our

supplication. Verse 18 Praying at all times in

the Spirit with all power and supplication to that end, keep

alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the

Saints. You think he's making a point?

All here's why we should pray. We should pray because it's a

weapon against the enemy. We should pray because his

disciples were dependent upon God to work.

We should pray because it focuses on us and and produces a

passion for the will of God. Focuses on not on us.

Focuses on and produces a passion for the will of God.

We pray because we believe prayer works and we anticipate

God working. We pray because it blesses

other. We pray because it benefits us.

We pray because it strengthens our faith.

We pray because it glorifies our God.

We pray because He commands us to do so.

We pray because we love God that much and we want to join Him in

his work. We've got to abide in prayer.

Glenn Martin and Diane Ginter wrote a really great book on

prayer and they and they and they said this.

The last thing Satan wants is a praying people.

He will do everything possible to intimidate and discourage

you, to make you feel overwhelmed by the task.

The powerful church is 1 in which prayer is positioned

theoretically and practically at the center of all the church

does. It is seen as being as important

as evangelism, discipleship, and missions.

Or from the Chinese church many years ago, Little prayer, little

power, no prayer, no power. So how do we abide in prayer?

With dependence and anticipation.

How do we do this? Well, the Bible tells us first

of all, we pray continually. We're praying at all times.

Prayer is our first thought. It's our last request.

Reminds you of what Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica in

First Thessalonians chapter 5, where he says pray without

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.

What a statement we're to give thanks in all circumstances.

For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus, for you do not

quench the Spirit. And a couple of Wednesday nights

from now, this Wednesday night, I don't want to talk about the

Trinity because I figured why not, you know, describe the

entire Trinity in about an hour and a half.

And so come back Wednesday night.

But then in a couple of weeks, I'm going to actually talk about

sins against God. I'm going to talk about what

does blasphemy against the Holy Spirit even mean?

What does it mean to quench the Spirit, Abide, live in it,

Develop a regular private prayer habit that incorporates praising

God for who he is, repenting of sin, giving thanks for his

blessing, and humbly asking for his provision.

Again, I just, I, I know I'm a broken record, but I want you to

see how these things connect. I want you to listen to another

of our Walking in Prayer podcast simply called Walking in Prayer

that Pastor Charles and I did at the very beginning where we just

walked through these categories of prayer because Jesus didn't

say if churches have dynamic leadership, the finest

facilities, the perfect programming, and the latest

methodology, they would bear much fruit.

It's not what he said. Only if we abide in Him and He

in US can true abundance be found, because without Him we

can do what, huh? Therefore, not only must we pray

at all times, but we must pray in the Spirit.

Secondly, prayer is both warfare and worship.

Again, we pray to the one who is higher.

We cannot, but we believe, and we know He can, and we

anticipate that He will, and that's prayer.

So prayer is humbly acknowledging who God is.

We're dependent upon the Holy Spirit to reveal to us for what

we must pray and to convict us of our sin when we don't, and to

give us the proper words in the proper season to draw others to

salvation and to help us to understand God's Word and God's

will. Henry Blackaby once said this.

He says genuine prayer does not lead to an encounter with God.

It is an encounter with God. Prayer is designed more to

adjust you to God than to adjust God to you.

God doesn't need your prayers, but He wants you to pray.

You need to pray because of what God wants to do in and through

your life during your praying. The writer of Hebrews very

familiar verse in Hebrews 4 says this.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,

that we we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of

need. So we come with confidence.

Another translation would say we come boldly and that the the

wording here, and I've shared this with you before, the word

here means total transparency. The word here means complete

honesty. In other words, we can't hide

anything from God. We can tell God everything.

We can bring him everything. He already knows it anyway, but

He wants us to come to him. And I just need you to stop and

to imagine that for a minute that the creator God of the

universe calls us to come. And he'll give you all the time

you need and he'll give you his, his, his undivided attention.

And he wants to listen to you. He wants to dialogue with you.

He wants you to bring that truckload to him.

And it's quite amazing. Mike and Debbie Rogers also

wrote in the area of prayer. They said prayer is an

invitation to the nurse center of the universe.

There in God's throne room, you can Orient yourself to what God

is doing to redeem the world. Or, as John Piper says, I've

quoted Piper more today than I have in 10 years.

Life is war. That's not all it is, but it is

always that we are on this earth to press back the forces of

darkness, and we are given access to headquarters by prayer

to advance this cause. So #3 we also have to pray

persistently. Verse 18 says praying at all

times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication to that

end. Keep alert with all

perseverance, making supplication for all the Saints.

Sometime you ought to read Luke 18.

Read the whole chapter. God answers prayer in His way

and in His time, and we must anticipate His answering, but

but we also have to do so while remaining thankful for no matter

what His answer might be, because His motive is always

perfect and He knows all things. Therefore #4 we also pray for

one another. Verse 18.

Again, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and

supplication to that end. Keep alert with all

perseverance, making supplication for all the Saints

and also for me that words may be given to me and opening my

mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

Are you praying for one another? The strength of the prayer

component in the REACH strategy and our Connect groups is where

prayer leaders are reaching out week each week to seek prayer

needs not only from us but from our community.

Are you praying that we would be strong, that we would stand?

Are you praying that we would fight well from a position and

perspective of victory, that we would grow in the essentials of

discipleship? Are you praying for your

leaders? Are you praying for me?

But also #5 we pray for a bold witness.

We can't neglect what he says in verse 19.

And he says, and also for me, that words may be given to me,

and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the

gospel for which I'm an ambassador in chains, that I may

declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

So Paul's in chains when he's asking the church at Ephesus to

pray this way. If they're reflected often about

the fact that if the apostle Paul, the apostle Paul doesn't

think he's bold enough and he's asking for prayer, for boldness,

how should we be praying for one another?

Are you doing that? Are you praying that we would be

bold in a in our marriages, in our families, in our community

to reach out to people? Are you in a Connect group that

does that? When people intercede for one

another in the unchurched, their hearts become sensitive to God's

desire to see people save. Burden begins to develop.

In fact, an Arkansas pastor who uses REACH in his church and has

for years wrote this to me. He said praying for the lost did

more to refocus our church than any single factor.

We became a church with an outward focus after being an

inwardly focused church for years.

Or my friend and mentor Tom Rayner, who said I could not

find one declining church that I visited over the past few years

that had an ongoing prayer ministry specifically for the

lost. Perhaps these dying churches

have not because they ask not, he adds.

Churches that are asking for souls are receiving evangelistic

harvest. One last writer, Arlene

Lawrence, said, Wouldn't it be great if your neighbors came and

asked you how they can have peace and hope through Jesus

Christ? Imagine a community where non

Christians became aware of God's existence, power and love and

come to you wanting to know about Jesus.

This can happen when you talk to God about your neighbors before

talking to your neighbors about God.

Our past reach experiences where we would see hundreds and

hundreds of prayer requests coming in from the community and

and we would be known for the church that prays for the soul

of the community and for the needs of the community.

So it's time for Inglewood to be the United spiritual force in

this community that God intends for her to be. 50,000 new people

coming in the next 10 years. What are we going to do about

that? We need to be the one that love

them as ourselves. As my doctoral chair in a a

missionary for many years, my doctoral chair Mark Terry once

said, he says we have the best of materials, media and methods,

but we lack spiritual power. Christians of the Apostolic era

had none of our advantages. They didn't even have the New

Testament. Still, they turned the Roman

Empire upside down. Not only were the apostles

empowered, their prayer for the lost souls were answered.

When Peter finished preaching, he gave an invitation and 3000

people responded. Notice that the wonderful

response followed 10 days of intense prayer and empowerment

by the Holy Spirit. The power of prayer and the

power of the Gospel combined as allies in the war against

lostness. In this present darkness, may we

pray in such a way that Satan and his demons know our names.

Charles Spurgeon once said Satan never kicks a dead horse.

When I say it is my prayer that the enemy can hear us coming and

believe and tremble, I pray the enemy thinks of us often and

tells his hordes to beware of this church.

So create a personal prayer vision.

Plan for yourself, for your family.

Make a daily appointment with God, a time and a place.

Commit to being a connect group and pray for and with one

another and for others to reach. Give back to God in prayer

through adoration and Thanksgiving.

Get back from God in prayer through confession and

supplication. You need to learn the wait

method. Wait stands for Why am I

talking? It's a good lesson for all of us

to often use the wait method. Sometimes you need to be quiet

and listen to God. Keep a prayer journal of

requests and answers. Listen to and apply or walking

in prayer podcasts. Share with others and apply what

you learn. Participate in corporate prayer

times during the worship service and special prayer services.

We're going to have another one on Wednesday nights.

In just a few weeks, you'll be hearing all about it.

Attend special upcoming prayer training sessions and don't give

up. Be persistent until you're

consistent. Billy Bain.

He didn't know I was going to call him out today.

Billy Bain had a Prime Timers dinner recently.

Shared words that have haunted me ever since.

Thanks, Billy. He said this.

The only reason you've been born is to be saved and to know him.

If you don't do that during this life, you've wasted the whole

reason you were born. Why are you here?

What do you seek to become this morning?

Who do you seek this morning? Understand that no great

spiritual awakening, the history of humanity, ever occurred

without God's people first falling before Him in prayer on

their faces. Why not us?

Why not right now? Why not right here?

Because I want to be able to declare Satan.

You lose. Christ has already beaten you,

and as his disciples, we're going to pray you out of this

church and pray you out of this city because we belong to Jesus.

Father, thank you for allowing us to belong to you.

Thank you for not only allowing us, but expecting us, commanding

us to speak with You. Father, forgive us when we do

not pray. It's so easy for us to be busy.

Satan will make sure we're busy. This world will make sure we're

busy. Our Father, forgive us when we

start to pray and our minds just wander all over the place and we

can't seem to remain focused. Fill us with your spirit.

Help us, Father, to actually recognize that we are talking

with you. How disrespectful it would be

for us to talk to someone so eminent, so incredible, and then

kind of wander off and not pay attention.

Father, I pray that we will be prayer warriors.

I thank you, Father, for those who are already doing that.

There's many in this church. I thank you for even for our

shut insurance right now who are getting our prayer requests

every week and and becoming a team, an army of prayer

warriors. Thank you for our prayer leaders

and our connect groups. Thank you for the way that we're

learning to pray in our family ministries.

Let's pray, Father, then we'll take it home that individually

we'll pray. But Father, before we can abide

in and with you, we have to know you.

And Father, there's probably somebody in this room right now

who's never trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

They don't know you, so none of this really makes sense.

So Father, right now I pray that you would make your presence so

real to them that it's undeniable that Father the Holy

Spirit would begin to convince them that you would remove the

spiritual fogginess, the darkness, the blindness, that

they would understand that this is truth, that Jesus is the only

one who can save them. I pray for believers here who

need to recommit themselves to discipleship.

They need to recommit themselves to prayer.

They need to recommit themselves to joining your mission.

And Father, I pray that we'll respond to you.

Lord, lead us as we worship you and as we respond in Christ's

name, Amen. They're going to be some pastors

here. You can come talk to one of us

if you want to. You don't have to.

There's a room right over there where people are going to be.

It's the next steps room. There are people who'd love you

and just love to have a conversation with you about what

God's doing in your heart. Maybe you just want to come and

kneel with these steps and pray all by yourself.

Whatever you feel the Lord leading you to do, let's stand

together. The worship team is going to

lead us and you respond. Thank you so much for listening

today. And I also hope that you'll go

to [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.