Standing In Prayer

Thank you for joining us on the CCW podcast.

Make sure you connect with us on social media to stay up to date on ministries and events happening at CCW.

We hope you're encouraged, inspired, and motivated by today's message.

To find out how to connect with us, keep listening after the message ends.

Wasn't it beautiful this morning to get a glimpse of uh CCW Kids' ministry and seeing all these kids across this stage?

I don't know if you were able to check this out.

There were some still sitting in the audience and some in the back.

On the average week right now, there's about a hundred over in that building.

And so praise God for that work.

And uh if anybody's interested in uh expending some energy on Sundays, there's openings, Eli has told me, and uh he needs you.

So praise the Lord.

We uh are celebrating sanctity of Life Sunday, and it is a response to the Roe v.

Decision 40 years ago, and we take a stand here at CCW on life and believe in the beauty of life.

Can we I get an amen this morning?

We believe in it.

Psalms 139.

If you need a reminder about the importance of your life, God said before you ever in your mother's womb, he had a plan for you, every life.

And so we thank God for that.

Turn your Bibles this morning, 1 Kings chapter 17, continuing our Stand on the Mountain series.

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

As you see this picture, it's of John Smith.

You can uh see more about this in the movie Breakthrough, but in 2015, John Smith and some friends went out on to a frozen lake in Missouri.

They were playing around, doing some hockey, and suddenly the ice broke.

John Smith fell and frantically began to try to grasp at slippery ice and fell in, plunged beneath the water, and was submerged for what was said over 15 minutes in that body of water.

His body was eventually pulled from the lake, but over 55 minutes passed without a pulse in his body.

I want you to hold on to that.

We're gonna revisit it in just a little bit.

Pray with me.

Father, we love you, and we thank you, God, uh, for your goodness to us.

We thank you, God.

Lord, we sang it.

You are so good to us.

We can't even believe it.

We can't even fathom how good you are.

Lord, you're not enough, you're more than enough.

Lord, and we just praise you for being with us this morning in this place.

We pray, God, that your word uh would be open to our hearts.

I pray for the person coming in here today, just jaded, tired, weary, and in need.

God, I pray for a person that needs a boost in their life.

I pray for a person coming in that God needs a touch of you.

And Lord, I pray that you would do that.

Fall on us.

Lord, we want we don't want to leave here the same as we came.

We love you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

1 Kings chapter 17.

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

I want you to look at verses 8 through 10.

And the first point this morning, this, a needful trail.

You could interchange that word with trial, trail or trial, but it says in 1 Kings 17, 8 through 10, then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon and dwell there.

See have a commanded a widow there to provide for you.

So he arose and went to Zarephath.

This is a needful trail.

Everything that we learned last week was Elijah was at a drying brook at Kerith.

It dried up.

And we learned from the word and there was a lot of history here.

It says that God, right here, then, then from what?

Well, the history there was he was at the drying brook and he was waiting on the Lord.

He was watching the brook dry up.

And then God is on time.

He's not on our time, but he's never late.

And God says at the right time as the brook dries up, and says, the word of the Lord said, Arise.

Remember our southern word?

And get.

He says it again.

He says, Arise and get.

He directs him to a new trail.

Letter A is this the word of the Lord directs.

I want to give you some stuff for the quiz later.

Alright, these are important things to remember as we get to where we're going.

But remember the name Elijah.

El-I-Jah is the breakdown.

Okay?

God is Jehovah.

God is my God, is what Elijah's name means.

Elijah from Tishbi for the quiz.

Tishbi means a dweller.

And Gilead, which was the province, a heap of stone.

So Elijah, God is my God, is a dweller, from the mountains.

Remember our series, Stand on the Mountain.

And he went to Kareeth last week, a place where God told him he'd be cut off.

The word Kareth means cut off.

And now this week, God, the word of the Lord comes to him and tells him to go to a place.

He went from cut off to Zarephath.

Words mean something in the scripture.

The word Zarephath means smelting furnace.

Say, God, when is this gonna get any good?

Elijah went from cut off to the furnace.

Well, a smelting furnace, you should know, uses fire and chemicals to reduce the pollutants off of rocks or metals and they refine.

It's a refining process.

Zarephath was a place in history here where idols were manufactured.

It was a smelting furnace, and so that was where God told him, go from cutoff to the place where they're manufacturing idols.

If Karah was a place of solitude and mental adversity, that Elijah day after day waiting, nobody just waiting, watching God, solitude, mental anguish, then Zarephath, the smelting furnace, is physical adversity.

And God directs him to that place.

Well, something interesting you should know about Zarephath, it's about eight miles from the home, the birthplace of Jezebel, the one that is out to get every prophet of God.

God says, march down through Jezebel's land.

In fact, her father, Eth Baal, what a name.

B-A-A-L, Ethbaal, is the king of the region.

And God says, that's from cut off, you're going to Zarephath.

So he travels a hundred miles, a marked man.

If there was ever a time when Elijah might have questioned God, it might be from the drying brook to the smelting furnace.

So simple what it says here, though.

The word of the Lord came, Elijah arose and went.

What is missing so often in this century's church is the word of the Lord came and they arose and went.

A lot of times the word of the Lord comes and they do like Jonah did.

They go the opposite direction, or the word of the Lord comes, and they're apathetic.

And the word of the Lord comes and they meander back and forth.

And the word of the Lord comes and they do nothing but 24 church, I hope, that you see could be the year of your needed trail.

But you can miss it.

The word of the Lord can come and you can miss it.

But Elijah knew God's voice.

That's important.

He was a man of prayer in Kareth, the practicing there quietly in solitude, there, watching God, ravens, bread.

God came day and night.

He watched God, and so he was a man that communed day by day.

And so when the word of the Lord came, Elijah didn't have to get a list and start marking the pros and cons of going to Zarephath.

He didn't start marking all the reasons.

Wow, oh, that's Jezebel's daddy's land.

Oh, that's the smelting furnace, home of idols.

No, he knew the voice of God.

And so when the voice of God came, if it said give, Elijah gave.

If it said serve, Elijah served.

If it said go, Elijah went.

If it said stay.

And I want you to know today the word of the Lord is to be our director.

Are you directed by the word of the Lord in your life?

Well, let's look, letter B, at the widow of Zarephath's difficulties.

Elijah processes through, takes his hundred-mile hike, arrives in the land, and God told him some things about what would happen.

Look at verses 10 through the first part of verse 12.

It says, So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, indeed, a widow was there gathering sticks.

And he called to her and said, Please bring me a little water in a cup that I might drink it.

And she said, I was going to get it, and he called to her and said, Please, bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.

So she said, As the Lord, interesting, your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar.

And see, I'm gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we should eat it and die.

Remember, the plight of the land, they're still in famine.

Elijah comes upon this widow who's got some difficulties.

And you hear his initial demand.

Elijah asks her for water, and then he makes what seems like a brutal demand.

Right?

It seems a little bit cold-blooded.

He says to her, Go ahead, get me some water and a cake.

And she said, But I don't hardly have anything left.

And what I'm what I have, I'm preparing so that me and my son can die.

And Elijah, without movement, basically says, Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but go ahead and get me some cake.

Go ahead first and get me cake.

Make your death meal, but first get me some cake.

Lady, you're gonna die.

I know it.

Your son's gonna die, I know, but I need cake.

Anyone here need cake?

Now, listen, don't be so hard on Elijah.

He traveled a hundred miles, I'm sure he was starved.

God said, A widow will sustain you there, and he says, Can a brother just get some cake?

So she went and did it.

The widow, I believe, here, was being tested.

As she was preparing for a funeral, there was a test.

You ever been following God, but things around you felt doomed?

You're making good, right choices, but it seemed like things around you weren't happening according to plan.

Sometimes I think God asks us to do the unthinkable so that we can see the impossible.

We look and see what the lady's eyes were on.

You see, as you go through the scripture, we're gonna see Elijah's response, but her eye was on the barrel, the jar, her eye was on that barrel and seeing what was left.

And oftentimes I think we think in terms of what isn't or what hasn't happened for us instead of what could happen.

And so her eye was on this barrel of meal, and Elijah wanted some cake.

When I was growing up, my sister would take the cereal in the house and she'd hide it in her bedroom.

And I wanted some cereal too.

I wanted some fruity pebbles, and I wanted some golden grams, and she would hide them behind her bed.

Her eye wasn't on her poor malnourished brother.

I could tell you that.

She didn't care, she wanted her part, and it's like her eye was on this barrel, but I want you to see what Elijah how he responds to the barrel.

The widow has her eye on this emptying barrel, and Elijah responds, Well, this is what God says.

There's a lot in that response.

There's a difference in what we see and in what God says.

Hear me, church.

There's a difference.

2 Corinthians 4.18 says, We look not on things which are seen, but the things which are unseen.

What is seen is temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal.

You see, her eye was on the barrel, but she was talking to a preacher, and the preacher had to say what preachers say.

She said, But this is what God says.

He doesn't speak to the condition of the barrel.

He doesn't speak to her circumstances currently.

He speaks to this is what God says.

And so there is a difference I want you to know in what we see, church, and what God says.

So many times we're looking at just what's in front of us, and we can't understand that God is well past our circumstance right here.

Well, let's continue on.

Let's read verse 14 through 16.

See what happens.

She went and she did as Elijah asked.

For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.

So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah.

And she and he and her household ate for many days.

The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Elijah.

So she does this act.

She goes back the next day, we'll say it's Monday, and she looks down, and the jar is full on Monday.

They eat, they have cakes, cupcakes, pancakes.

I don't know what they have, but they had some cakes and they woke up Tuesday, and guess what?

The jar was full on Tuesday, and she said, Wow, look at this.

And she made some more stuff, and they had some more good eating, and she woke up Wednesday and she said, We have cake! Can you believe this?

I want you to understand.

Church, it's a substantive malady today.

Many an eye is stuck on the jar.

Many an eye is stuck on the sustenance of life and not on the sustainer of life.

Where's our eyes?

Well, the trials continue.

It doesn't stop there.

She's able to see this miracle, but look down at verse 17.

It goes from bad to worse quickly.

Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick.

And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him.

So she said to Elijah, What have I to do with you?

O man of God, have you come to bring my sin to remembrance and to kill my son?

So here is from bad to worse.

This is the impossible.

Her son, it says, is out of breath, and she elicits this response.

Did you come to kill us?

So my question, my thought is how to respond in Xeraph when you're being refined by God, and some of you you're in the midst of that now.

When there's refining going on, how do you respond?

You see, the widow saw God do a miracle, then disaster hit.

And I think most people probably would respond the way that the widow responds.

She's standing there, her son is lifeless, probably tears rolling down her cheeks.

As would you.

This is her child.

This is not a bin of flower.

This is her child.

And she says to Elijah, angry, broken, is this what you've come for?

Elijah?

Well, I want you to look at verse 19.

Second point this morning is a narrow trust.

The difference here in the widow and the prophet is a narrow trust.

Matthew 7, 13 and 14 says that narrow is the way that leads to life.

Broad is the way that many will find.

Broad is the road to destruction.

The narrow way.

When it comes to the Bible, I hope that you feel like me.

I'm pretty narrow.

When it comes to this book, I'm pretty narrow.

And if somebody wants to call me narrow-minded, if it's about this book, I'm okay with that.

I'm John 14, 6 narrow.

The Bible says there is one way, one truth, one life.

And that's narrow.

That is not broad.

It's not a broad road to God.

I want you to hear me.

There's a lot of people believing there's a whole lot of ways to God, there's one way.

Through the blood of Jesus Christ, I'm narrow.

There's a lot of people saying a whole lot of broad things, and they're wrong.

Elijah had a narrow trust.

So what did he do when the widow poses this question?

Letter A, he carried on.

Look at verse 19.

And he said to her, Give me your son.

So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and he laid him on his bed.

He carried on.

Listen, he doesn't argue with her about her feelings.

Hear me.

When somebody's going through hardship, arguing the theology of what's going on isn't the best thing to do.

By the way, sometimes when someone's going through their worst day, like the best thing you can do is just be there and bear any part of the burden that you can bear.

Don't feel like words have to fix things.

Don't try to fix people.

You're not a fixer.

Men hear me, husbands.

We're not fixers of our wives.

I have learned this.

Okay.

The best thing that you can do is listen and bear any part of the burden you can do.

Maybe pick up on all the other burdens like the laundry.

Do something.

Elijah so far has moved when God said move.

Now, after all this preparation in Gilead and then going to the careth, the cutoff and being a man of prayer.

Now is the furnace.

The refining.

What happens to the prophet when he's called into action?

Does he give up the lady?

He said to me, Have I come to kill her?

God, does he run?

Does he hide?

No, he carries on.

It's time to carry the load.

And guess what?

Elijah is ready.

Four strong words here that show his trust, his narrow trust are this.

He says, Give me your son.

The widow at this point seems like she's given up to the idea.

Elijah conversely carries on.

And I want to tell you, when you get a bad report, church, what do you do?

You carry on.

You don't give up when you get a bad report, you carry on.

You don't stop when you get a bad report, you carry on.

You don't quit when things are bad, you carry on.

When you get a bad health report, you carry on.

You continue.

The Bible says the righteous fall seven times, but they get back up again.

You carry on.

Like, I don't have enough money.

Well, you carry on.

Well, let me say something to that.

If you lost your job, I want to tell you what I would do.

I've told Heather this.

If things get bad, I'm going to Publix in three minutes to take an applications.

I will work at Publix.

Y'all will see me after church serving you some salsa.

Maybe you don't like money enough.

I like money just enough that I'm willing to do about anything, and I'm too impatient to wait while applications go out, and there's 500 people hiring.

You carry on, you continue.

And in that waiting, I met a man, he he lost his insurance business, went in and was searching for ways to get back, ended up in his 50s serving steak at a restaurant, met a guy there, and the guy said, I want to hire you for my work.

He's doing better now than he was ever before in insurance.

Why?

Because he carried on.

He didn't pout, he didn't wait, he took the next step.

We got to carry on.

So you know what Elijah did?

He put the boy on his shoulders and he took a step.

He started up the steps.

He didn't stare up the stairs.

He stepped up a step.

And then the next.

And then the next.

He carried on.

All the difference in the world between the widow's thought process and the prophet is this narrow trust in God here.

Narrow not meaning small, meaning singular.

One focus.

One voice.

The problem for many households in America today is we got a whole lot of voices that are controlling the next step.

He said, one voice.

One focus.

It was narrow.

He believed in Jesus Christ.

And I believe he believed that Jesus could give the boy his life back.

So he threw him on his shoulders and he took the next step.

He carried on.

It's time for some today in this church to take the next step.

Life gets hard.

Your carry shows your trust.

Are you carrying on?

Well, let's look at verse 20.

What does he do?

He gets up the steps and he cries out.

Look at verse 20.

Then he cried out to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord my God, have you also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge by killing her son?

And he stretched out himself on the child.

It says he stretched out three times.

He cried out to God three times in prayer.

Prayer, someone said this before, is our air spiritually.

You ever seen somebody gasping for air?

Sort of looks like someone drowning above water.

You ever watched your kids lose their breath?

It's a really sad experience, especially if they haven't had it before.

The first time they lose their breath and they don't know what's happening.

They go, right?

And you're watching them, and you know any second it's all gonna come out, and then ah finally.

Or you hear it upstairs, you're downstairs, and you hear your kid hit something, and you're like, wait for it.

It's coming.

Some of you parents, you've been parenting long enough, four or five kids, it doesn't bother you no more.

You're like, oh, wait, just a second.

And you know the types of cries, you're like, ah, they're probably okay.

Right?

And so, but they get out of that air, and all of a sudden it comes back.

The boy was not, hear me.

The boy was not out of breath.

He was out of air.

No air means you're out of life.

He was out of life.

So Elijah says in scripture there, he loads him on his donkey and takes him to Zarephath Medical Center.

No, it does not.

It says he put him on his shoulder and he took him where?

To the prayer room.

I believe this is the place where Elijah had already been doing work with God.

Do you have a place where you meet with God?

Now hear me, the place isn't magical, but the priority of a place means something.

It's a place where you meet with God.

Do you have priority?

So Elijah in the prayer room postures himself in prayer and offers an unthinkable and audacious prayer to a big God.

Look at verse 21.

Let's see about the prayer.

It says this.

He stretched himself out on the child three times and cries to the Lord God and said, Oh, Lord my God, I pray, let this child's soul come back to him.

Three times.

Picture it with me.

Elijah, deep gasp.

All the refining, all the praying before the drying brook in this moment of refining.

This is a huge, audacious ask.

I'm telling you, if anyone here asks for someone that's dead to come back to life and we see it, look, you're gonna be my friend forever.

This is a huge ask to a huge God.

But Elijah's putting a lot on the line as he carried him up.

And he gets there, and in prayer it says in James that Elijah knew how to fervently, effectually pray.

It says that the stance, the posture of his prayer, he'd put his head between his knees like the stance of a lady having labor.

He would just bear down and fervently pray.

And Elijah says, deep gasp, Lord my God.

I believe maybe in that first prayer, he's seen miracles.

Ravens.

Bread.

God, day after day.

You brought to me there in that brook ravens, brought bread and meat.

I know that a miracle working, God he says, God, bring the soul back.

So as he said it a second time, deep.

God, bring the soul of the child back.

And maybe he saw that second time.

Jar full of oil.

Been full of flour.

God did it in the little things.

Jar, flour.

You've always been the sustainer of life.

I lived for how long in the drought at a brook?

I come a hundred miles, they could have taken my life in Jezebel's territory.

He said, God, bring this child's soul back.

And a third time.

He says, God, would you bring back the soul of this child?

And I think in a moment, hear me, don't miss this, of clarity.

Elijah believed in something that some all of the people in history had never seen.

In this moment, he believed in the thing that would save all of our souls.

Elijah believed in this moment in a resurrection.

Nobody had ever seen a resurrection.

Nobody thought of this resurrection.

Elijah believed in just this moment.

He says, Bring the soul of this child back.

My God.

He could have thought a lot of things when he was praying.

My God, this is irrational.

My God, this is illogical.

My God, this widow.

My God, you have to.

My God, my God.

But he said, My God, I believe.

Elijah believed nothing is impossible with my God.

You see, Elijah went up the stairs with a mess in his hands, and he walked back down with a miracle in his hands.

It was a my God miracle.

This was the refining of refining.

I want you to see the third point this morning, the last thing, a new testimony.

Got three new testimonies the prophet, the boy, and the widow.

Look at verse 22 and 23, look what it says.

Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and says, My sheep know me, and I know them.

And the soul of the child came back to him and he revived.

And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother.

And Elijah said, See, your son lives.

Imagine this moment.

Letter eight is this.

He went from dead weight to divine wonder.

It says there that the Lord heard his voice.

Church, hear me.

In order for God to hear your voice, you've got to talk to him.

Does God know your voice?

Does he say, there he is again?

Like the persistent widow, there she is again.

She's at my door again, praying for that prodigal child again, praying for that wayward person again, praying again for those needs.

Just praying.

There they are.

I know that voice.

I tell you what, the Lord heard Elijah's voice and it says a remarkable thing.

And the soul of the child was revived.

Church, this is the first record of resurrection.

Can you imagine the boy with a new life sharing his testimony after this?

Hanging out with his friends.

Imagine throwing rocks by the river, and he said, Hey guys, you remember that one day when I died?

Mic dropped.

Who's got a better story than that guy?

You remember when I died?

Didn't last.

Look at me here.

Remember that?

One day, I hope in heaven that I get to see the boy from Zarephath because I want to know.

I wish scripture I searched.

I want to know who he is.

I want to know what his story was after that.

But can you imagine?

Think about this.

I bet the boy didn't act sick after that.

It'd been strange if you'd have seen him, and after that, he was just sitting around whining and crying.

If he was just saying, I can't, you guys, I died.

Can you believe it?

I'm so sad I lost my life.

I got really, really sick and I died.

I'm so sad that I died.

I lost all my air.

I guarantee you, he didn't act like he lost his air anymore.

I bet he made every day from there on count.

He had a new testimony.

But why is it, church, that some people have been given new life and they're walking around like spiritual zombies?

Oh, I've got another hardship, Pastor.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know what I'm gonna do.

I mean, God got me to this point, but it's so sad.

Prayers are air spiritually.

Maybe you need to pray so you'd be filled back up and you have something to speak on.

John 10 10 says that Jesus came to give you life and life more abundant.

He didn't want you to be walking around like you're missing all that air.

You ever see somebody who loses a lung and they've got to carry oxygen?

I watched this and some family before.

It's really sad to watch what takes place.

And they might get somewhere walking through a mall or something like this, and they gotta stop.

Spiritually speaking, we have all of the sustenance of life, all of the air, all of the abilities to live an abundant life.

But many, many are missing all that prayer in the walk.

I don't know why life is so sad.

I don't understand.

I just so bad.

We need to pray.

We need to pray.

I'm sure the boy from Zarephath had a new lease on life.

His testimony was like never before.

What about you?

What's your testimony?

If you know the Lord today, I want to tell you what your testimony is.

Ephesians 2:1 said this.

Ephesians 2:1

And you, he made alive, who were dead in our trespasses and sin.

He's given you new life.

Can I get an amen, church?

We don't have to act like sinner Satan is one.

He's given us all a new lease if we know him.

If you're here this morning, you might not know him as Savior.

I want to tell you that abundant life is absolutely 100% for you.

Jesus died, giving his all his very last breath, so that you could have this abundant life.

But it comes to repentance of my sin and accepting him as my Savior, living that life following him.

It says, Come to me, all you who are weak and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

If you take his yoke upon you, you'll live this new exciting life.

But living in the yoke of bondage that the world gives you will drag you down and make you tired and make you tense and make you feel like you gotta keep up with all the Joneses, and you'll get to the end of your day and wonder what is the purpose?

This was divine wonder, not dead weight.

If you're not dead, church, then why not live?

Well, it went from letter B, it went from prayer to proof.

Look at verse 23 and 24.

Last part of 23 and 24, it says, And Elijah said, See, your son lives.

Then the woman said to Elijah, now by this, I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth and its truth.

She said, By this, I know that you're a man of God.

Well, I guess so.

Her child just came back to life.

Now, by this, Brother Elijah, I perceive you are a prophet.

Yes, that is correct.

But I thought about that.

I cannot consider any greater a testimony.

Hear me.

Than that my prayer is something that makes my family go, his words are truth.

That I am a man of God, and that by my prayers the word that I preach is truth.

The great legitimizer of your claims is the way that you lean into God in prayer.

I'm gonna tell you, a lot of people can come and get behind a podium and speak motivational truths.

But what gives credence, what gives value to the words you say is who you are with God alone.

She said, By this, I know that you're a man of God because your prayer was answered.

You prayed.

I want to ask you a question.

Who is praying for your family if you're not?

Who is praying for the prodigal in your family if you're not?

Who is praying for your wayward father?

If you're not?

Who's praying for your co-worker?

Who's praying for your neighbor if you're not?

Who is praying for this community if the church of Chelsea Westover is not?

Who's praying for the president if you're not?

Students, who's praying for your classmates and teammates if you're not?

Your prayer is proof that what you say about this book is real.

Martin Luther said, To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breath.

The widow said, By this, I know you're a man of God.

Unequivocally, she accepted the truth that Elijah had been speaking because he pressed in prayer.

God sent Elijah to this refiner's furnace of adversity and it turned his faith, it could have turned him sour, cold, he could have run, but it turned Elijah's faith into fire.

And we're gonna see in another week, oh, it just legitimized who he believed God was and who it was to him.

And if we're gonna stand on the mountain in 24 for the glory, voice, and touch of God, we've got to be refined in prayer.

We've been going through 21 days of prayer.

Hear me, church.

It's not magical.

You've been here and read the Bible, pray, and go to church your whole life.

The formula's not, but the people who do it find it to be.

A lot of people here.

Man, can we compare our scroll time to our prayer time?

John Smith, I pictured at the beginning, was rushed to the hospital.

It'd been now over an hour since there'd been a pulse in his body since he'd fallen into the ice.

And if you watch this movie, there's a scene.

His mother Joyce comes to see her son's body.

And his doctors believed at that point to say her goodbyes.

In utter disbelief of that prognosis in that moment, Joyce cries out loudly in prayer, come now, please, Holy Spirit, and give back the breath of life to my son.

And here's a picture of John Smith today.

Suddenly, at the end of her prayer, with witnesses there, after an hour of no pulse, the heart monitor began to go beep, beep.

Maybe the sweetest sound a mother ever heard.

Beep.

I bet she said this.

See, my son lives.

Y'all come see about it.

Hear his pulse, my son lives.

That went from prayer to proof.

Well, Mark 16 says that Mary and Martha went to go about the tomb.

And they went in, there was a man in white raiment, and the stone was gone.

And the man said this to him: Don't worry about this place.

The one who is here is not here anymore.

He has risen.

Amen.

It says he died and resurrected, and yet he lives.

And I want to tell you, church, know where he is right now?

He's interceding at the right hand of the Father, receiving our prayer.

Our prayer is the proof.

Heads bowed and eyes closed this morning.

I want to ask you to stand to your feet.

I don't know about you, church, but I need more air in my spiritual life.

I need more prayer.

And I want to invite you this morning.

The Holy Spirit spoken to you.

Maybe you're in the refiner's furnace.

Maybe you're going through a situation.

Maybe you just say, I just know I need to get a little closer to the face of God.

And that happens in prayer.

Say, Pastor, I know that that is the need of my life.

I want to invite you this morning.

This altar is open.

I want to invite you to a season of prayer.

Don't walk out of here living spiritually when he came to give you abundant life.

Leave here full and filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

With a new lease, a new testimony.

Prayer is the proof.

I'm going to pray and then I'm going to invite you to this altar.

To make a commitment between you and God 24, I'm going to stand on the mountain.

And one way I know I'm going to do it is in prayer, God.

We're going to do it through prayer.

We're going pray for my family, I'm going to pray for my kids.

We'll pray for my community, my co-workers, whatever it is.

God, I'm yours in prayer.

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

Our heart is to connect with others in our community, to grow with one another, and build a bigger kingdom.

If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.

Take a moment and text CCW Connect to 94,000.

Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.

We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.