Powerful Prayer (February 11th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

You can take your seats.

And you can also grab your Bible at the same time and get it turned over to Acts chapter four.

And as you're sort of getting yourself all laid out there, I got a question for you.

Pretty simple question, I think, but probably a question that you've asked or thought or wondered or whatever.

But the question is simply this.

Why is prayer so difficult?

Why is prayer so difficult?

I mean, you ever feel like it is?

Of course.

Right?

Every single person feels like that.

I heard somebody say once, and you've heard me say it multiple times, I'm sure.

Uh, prayer is the hardest thing we do.

Right?

You think it is?

I thought I think that's probably true and accurate.

I mean, we find it, we find it difficult to pray, don't we?

We find it difficult to pray with uh with regularity.

We find it difficult to pray with uh passion.

Uh a lot of us find it difficult to pray with other people.

It's like, oh, this is awkward, right?

I don't like to pray in groups, I don't want to pray out loud.

I, you know, some of us have a hard time just praying, period, praying alone, praying by ourselves.

As Christ followers, if we're brutally honest with ourselves, and you know, we encourage that kind of thing around here, right?

If we're brutally honest, we can often feel uh like our prayers are just flat out ineffective.

Right?

They're they're they're powerless.

And so I think it's probably safe to say, if you're feeling anything uh like me, uh we could all use uh a boost, uh a little bit more power in our prayer lives.

Would you agree with that?

Now here's the thing, okay?

Here's the thing.

I'm not at all interested in making us feel terrible about this.

All right?

So can we just like uh concede that right now?

I I think that you know, that guilt tripping you about your prayer needs, okay, condemnation, the you know, the guilt, the shame tactics, all of that stuff, none of that is helpful.

I don't believe any of that uh is from the Lord.

It doesn't, it doesn't promote lasting growth, it doesn't inspire anybody for any length of time.

All right?

So listen, if you want to grow in this area, and I hope that you do, I know that I want to uh for sure.

Let's let's really just do two things here, all right?

Right off the top, let's do two things.

Let's first of all concede that, hey, yeah, prayer's hard.

Prayer's difficult.

Okay, but then on top of that, let's uh let's humbly and and intentionally just kind of bring our shortcomings and and bring our weaknesses in this uh extremely important area of life uh just to the Lord.

Let's just let's just bring it to him because again, it does it does no good to you know admit that prayer is a challenge and then just do nothing.

Right?

It does no good to do that, but you know, because yeah, prayer prayer is hard.

Prayer is is tough and all of that.

But let's be honest, it's not impossible.

Right?

It's not it's not out of reach for for any of us in you know, in the power of God and all of that.

Right?

It's an area that God can absolutely and wants to turn into an area of strength in your life.

You're like, I can't imagine that.

My prayer life feels so weak, I can't even imagine that uh being a strength.

Well, yeah, we're gonna see it today in the scriptures.

You know, and let's let's get the you know our Bibles open if they're not already to this amazing you know passage of God's word.

Let's look intently at this now uh with some hunger and with some fervency here.

And Lord, Lord, do this uh in me.

You know, and simply just simply trust that what the Lord does here uh in these uh disciples, in his church, as it was literally beginning and starting.

Listen, what he did with these folks, he can do the exact same thing uh with us.

All right, he really can.

So let's uh let's read this here, Acts chapter 4, uh starting in verse 23 and uh reading down to 31, follow along with me here.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

This is what it says.

It says, When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

And when they heard it, listen, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, Why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Father, we we come before you as your people, as we do every Sunday, with you know just outstretched hands.

Lord, we are children in need of a word, we're in need of rescue, we're in need of encouragement from you, Lord.

We know that as our church, one of our four pillars is believing firmly in the power of prayer.

And God, this is a tough area for us, Lord.

It really is.

But hey, none of that surprises you.

That doesn't catch you off guard.

And you're not, you know, anywhere condemning us or anything like that, Lord.

I pray that that we would instead just come before you and ask you humbly to move in us, Lord, stir us up, a passion and a desire to pray.

Pray for all kinds of things, Lord.

But to pray ultimately that your will be done, your kingdom be established and advanced.

So, Lord, help your church today.

Lord, encourage us through your word.

We pray all these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

So, why a message on prayer?

Okay, why a message on prayer?

Well, because it's such a measuring stick.

All right, it's such a measuring stick regarding the health of our relationship with God.

Right?

It really is.

Um, I love you know, Charles Spurgeon, of course.

He's a quote machine, and uh I love this.

He says, I know of no better thermometer to your spiritual temperature than this, the measure of the intensity of your prayer.

Right, and I think that's just so bang on.

Okay, so prayer should be powerful, it should be awesome.

We should be seeing the Lord move powerfully as we pray.

Maybe not immediately, maybe not in the exact same way that we would love it to all happen, okay, but we should be seeing God move powerfully.

We should be, as we grow in Christ, quicker to get on our knees.

As we grow in the Lord Jesus Christ, bringing him more things, surrendering our pride, praying for other people.

It's not just about us, praying for others, praying for his church, praying for his will to be done, all of that.

All right, so here we go.

I will have a prayer, powerful prayer life as I first thing here, become desperate for more of God's power in my life.

You desperate for that?

Take a look at verse 23 here, as uh again we begin to work our way through this.

I love this passage.

This thing's so great.

Here we go, though.

It says, when they were released.

Okay, when they were released, so so obviously you read that and you're like, hold on a second, we're kind of joining the story like partway through here, right?

Like we, you know, what's the backstory here?

Well, let me give you some of that here and give you a good sense as to you know what's been happening in Acts so far.

Okay, in chapter one, and in chapter one, we know this.

If you've read this before, uh, we see Jesus ascend to heaven to be with his father.

And so he leaves his disciples with uh with a mission to make more disciples.

We see that also in uh Matthew chapter 28, and he says uh in Acts chapter 1, you will be my witnesses.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention Acts 1 · chapter mention

Okay, you will be my witnesses.

First of all, he says, in in Jerusalem, all right, Jerusalem was like their home base, their their hometown in Jerusalem, and then uh in all Judea and Samaria, so kind of the surrounding areas, and then he says, Where?

To the ends of the earth.

Right?

So start at home and work our way outwards here, and uh we're gonna take over the world for the Lord Jesus Christ and his mission to make disciples.

Okay, and so that's where uh we start off in the book of Acts with that, and then in in chapter two, of course, we see that the Holy Spirit falls on his believers, on the early church here in uh this incredible display of power.

It's it's intense, and and God begins immediately to have this transformational impact uh on Christ's followers here, and he just unleashes them uh to proclaim Jesus Christ.

And so what ends up happening here is Peter ends up uh preaching uh one of the most in-your-face sermons ever.

Okay, like the opposite of a seeker-sensitive sermon.

All right, he's talking to uh the very people who are responsible for putting Jesus on the cross.

And he's not like, oh, I'm gonna dance around this.

This is kind of awkward.

He's like, no, you who crucified Christ and who had him killed.

Right?

He speaks straight up because he's filled with the Holy Spirit and he and he has to deliver truth and he goes through this, and at the end of all this, because the Spirit is moving, they are, it says, cut to the heart.

And they're like, what should we do about this?

He says, repent, repent and be saved.

And the just the wild thing there is 3,000 people get saved on that day.

The church begins.

This is how it starts.

Okay, there's nothing subtle about any of this.

It's this amazing experience.

And then, you know, right away there in chapter three, uh, we know the story of the lame beggar, right?

And and Paul and John, you know, interact with him, and the Lord heals this man, and he and he gets up and he walks and he and he celebrates, and that of course draws a crowd, and you know, everyone's you know trying to figure out what's going on here.

And so Peter has a another chance, another opportunity to preach the same kind of message that he that he just did.

Only uh what ends up happening is the religious leaders uh of the day uh they hear about this, of course.

You know, there's quite the stirring that's going on here, and this is all happening in public spaces, and of course, uh they don't like it, right?

And they're they're kind of rattled about all of this, and they get their back up about it and all of that.

And so what they do is they end up arresting uh Peter and John and keeping them in custody uh overnight.

And so then they drag them out in front of this religious council, okay, the council of the Jews, and and they harass them and they interrogate them and they they threaten them ultimately uh before releasing them.

They're like they're like, don't talk about Jesus anymore.

We're not interested in this.

And they're like, yeah, tough luck.

We cannot but help but speak of what we have seen and heard.

Right?

You look at that incredible boldness because of what the Spirit uh was doing.

And all of that really brings us to verse 23 now, the verse that we just read.

All right.

So he says, when they were released, okay, when they were released from all of that, okay, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and and the elders had had said to them.

All right, so just put yourself at the scene here.

It's so helpful to think about what's going on here and picture the sights and the smells and all of that.

I mean, Peter and John, they just had this wildly intense experience.

The Lord used these guys, I think it's pretty safe to say.

Right?

He used them powerfully.

These guys were, you know, regular Joblo fishermen.

Right?

These guys weren't religious leaders.

I mean, it wasn't all that long ago.

What was Peter doing when Jesus was being led away to the cross?

He's cowering, saying he doesn't even, he doesn't know him.

I don't know this man, and of course the rooster crows, and he's he's weeping.

I mean, this is uh this is a guy who had so much fear, and he was he was governed by all of that, and now the Lord's got a hold of him, and he's got a hold of this early church, and thousands are coming to Christ.

And and so you've got this incredible moment that's happening here in early church history, but but rather than than these guys being able to just kind of enjoy this, and let's kind of think about you know the next thing and just enjoy this entire moment and experience this happening, uh, they're you know, they come up immediately against some persecution, right?

They're harassed by these very powerful and intimidating religious leaders.

I mean, the disciples, they knew because Jesus just told them that their job was to go, you know, make disciples, right?

Make more disciples, multiply yourselves, proclaim Jesus Christ.

And they were very driven to do that now because the Spirit of God was driving them uh to do all of that.

But now, of course, they kind of hit a wall.

And things are getting difficult and things are getting hard.

Their situation was desperate.

Right?

It was.

They they knew it.

And what did it do?

It drove them to prayer.

It drove them to prayer.

We're gonna see that here in a second as we go.

And prayer, of course, is exactly how we tap in to the power of God.

Now we just sang that that chorus here, Lord, I need you.

Right?

I love how how you, I love how our church sings that song.

Right, Lord, I need you.

Every hour I need you.

I hope that's more than you know just a song that, you know, we like the music and we like the arrangement and all of that, but I hope that that we really believe that that's true.

Do you believe that?

Do you believe that you truly, I really need the Lord every single hour I need you.

Are you aware of how desperately you need God?

You need the Lord, you need his power.

Are you aware of that?

Some of you are absolutely there.

You're like, yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, for sure.

Right?

You're going through something, something heavy right now, which is which has made your weaknesses and your limitations abundantly clear.

Right?

You you know you can't dig yourself out of this one.

You know, it's uh it's a debilitating health crisis.

And you're like, I can't, I can't fix this.

I I'm weak, I'm uh I'm desperate.

It's it's some kind of family conflict, and rather than this thing just getting better over time, it appears to be getting worse, and and bitterness and jaded hearts and criticism and and distance, that's all happening in our family, and you know, I I can't fix this.

I've tried, I can't do it.

Maybe for you it's uncertainty about your career, it's uncertainty about your your finances, or you've had some kind of crisis in that area, or or maybe it's like Peter and John, and it's just straight up persecution.

You've taken a stand for Jesus Christ, you've been bold about all of this, and now you're taking flack for it.

And maybe it's again, it's something at work, or it's friends, or it's family, or it's whatever it is.

But you don't need any convincing.

You're like, I need the Lord here, I need his power in my life.

And so it's in those moments that you may be fine that I you pray like never before.

Have you sensed that?

The Lord puts us through those kinds of situations so that we will pray.

I love this quote by J.D.

Greer.

Uh, it's up on the screen here for you.

I love this.

He says the core of effective prayer isn't discipline.

I gotta try harder, and you know, that's all secondary.

Okay, the core of effective prayer isn't discipline, it's desperation.

So if you're feeling overwhelmed, defeated, weak, or insufficient, there's good news.

You're in the perfect spot to pray.

In prayer, all you need is nothing.

All you need is need.

That's so good.

Okay, don't don't ever hate that you're desperate.

Okay, desperation is a good thing.

Instead, appreciate that that it's that it's your desperation that that drives you to prayer, which is really to say that it drives you to the one who is all powerful.

That's what desperation is.

Don't don't wish your desperation away.

Your desperation actually might be a gift from God.

But hey, how about how about when life doesn't feel so desperate?

Right?

Like, what about when when life's good or when life is, you know, when life is calm and all of that?

Think about this.

Do we do we really need the Lord any less in those times?

Right?

Of course not.

And I'm sure all of us would would agree, we know the right answer to all of that.

We could get that right on a test and everything.

But practically speaking, isn't it kind of interesting how when life is not difficult, okay, we kind of behave as though we're not as desperate for the Lord.

You find yourself living that way?

I was thinking about that for myself this week.

And how interesting is it that, you know, on Sermon Writing Day or on Saturday evening or on Sunday morning, oh, my desperation is abundant.

Abundantly clear.

Where I'm like, Lord, I need you.

But how sometimes for me, just personally, it's like on a Sunday afternoon or on a Monday, I'm like, I'm good.

I'm good, I don't feel my desperation as much.

Listen, you probably go through those kinds of experiences as well.

And maybe there's different patterns throughout the week that you're noticing where you tend to be a little bit too self-sufficient and act like you don't really lead the Lord as much.

And so guess what happens when we when we kind of live that way and we go through those experiences?

Well, our prayer life lags, doesn't it?

Our prayer life kind of goes into the toilet and it becomes, you know, very infrequent and and it becomes surface-y, and we're just praying about like kind of you know, nothingness, it seems, and you know, there's no real urgency in any of this.

It's like, ah, get to it if I feel like it.

You know, again, it feels powerless.

I'm not sensing the Lord moving here, and I don't even really care if I think about it and if I'm honest.

Again, because we feel like we're not desperate when when in reality we are.

We always are.

So are you aware that no matter your circumstances, it might be the worst day ever.

You might have had the worst week, it might have been the best week.

You need Christ.

You need his power immensely.

We need him for things like like wisdom, just an everyday living.

Think about parenting.

Right?

Doesn't parenting just feel like a huge gong show?

Right?

It does.

You got little kids?

Right?

I used to have this like overly simplistic understanding of parenting when I, you know, before I had kids.

You know, you know how when you you know before you have kids, you kind of look sideways at other parents and you're like, I could I could crush that.

I used to think, honestly, I used to think that if you know if you just discipline your kid, they turn out.

Get on it, parents.

Like that's what I used to think.

And then you have a kid, right?

And you try to discipline them.

And then what do you need to do?

You need to do it again and again until Jesus returns, right?

And and they still don't change.

Right?

Or or you do it, but you start to sense, okay, they're just kind of behaving.

I I can get them to sort of behave in a way, but I can tell their heart's not there.

And you realize I have zero control over this little human being.

I've got nothing.

I have no power to get after their heart.

I have no power to go after my heart.

And so, hey, do we need the Lord's power in those moments?

Do we need his wisdom?

Absolutely.

Think about marriage.

We don't need any help there, right?

No, we're good.

We need so much of God's power.

We need so much wisdom in marriage.

Wives, this is i it's hard, right?

If your if your husband is critical, if he's if he's emotionally distant, if he's not engaged, if he's not doing those things, it's hard, right?

How do I love?

How do I respect this man?

How do I submit to his his his spiritual leadership and all of these things?

You can't do this, you're gonna get frustrated, you're gonna burn out.

You need the Lord and you need his power, you're desperate for it.

We need his power to protect our minds, we need his power to protect our our our you know, capture our attention and our and our desires and our uh our affections, our heart, right?

From from wandering into other things, right?

Wandering into areas where they shouldn't, from bowing down to to other idols.

I love how John Calvin says our hearts are idol factories.

We need the Lord.

We need him.

We're desperate every single second.

On my Monday morning, I need him as much as I do right now in this moment.

I need him, we all do.

Okay, we need the we need his power through the gospel to constantly, daily, moment by moment, remind ourselves that he is our righteousness, right?

This was Galatians, this is the whole thing.

Right?

We don't earn that.

We don't perform in way, you know, in a way, we don't get involved in religious duties to to somehow perfect ourselves, make ourselves acceptable before him.

We don't we don't earn it through works, we don't earn it through good behavior.

He is our righteousness.

We need his power to remind us.

We need his power to transform our hearts so that we live according to that.

Listen, when we recognize how desperately we need the Lord at every single moment, every single day, guess what's gonna happen?

Happen.

You will pray.

We will.

We will be a praying church.

And guess what?

Those prayers won't be dry.

Those prayers won't be infrequent.

Those prayers won't be self-centered.

They will be powerful, powerful prayers.

Why?

Because we are in a position of humility.

We're a position of humility.

And I love James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

I've been studying this passage over the last week, and it says there that God gives grace to the, you can finish that for me.

To the humble.

Right?

God gives grace to the humble.

God's grace at work is what makes prayer powerful.

It's not about you being more powerful.

It's not about you praying louder, more guttural prayers.

It's about the Lord doing it in you and through you.

It's God exhibiting his power.

That's what makes prayer powerful.

That's what makes prayer awesome.

I will have a powerful prayer life.

Second thing here, as I gain confidence that he is in control no matter what.

He's in control.

Verse 24.

Take a look.

It says, and when they heard it, okay, so when Peter and John's friends heard their report about how everything went with the religious leaders and being dragged before the council and you know kept detained overnight, what does it say?

It says they lifted their voices together to God.

Okay, you notice that their first reaction is to pray.

Don't you love that?

I love how they're not like, hmm, we should like stop and think about this, or you know, we should, you know, we should do a poll to see what other people think, or or we should consult the greatest leader among us and come up with a strategy that you know that would help us in this persecution and and in this plan to evangelize.

No, they're not, they don't do any of that stuff.

They go immediately to the Lord, right?

To the Lord, and they bring, they bring their concerns, they bring their needs to him.

Oh, that we would pray early and often.

I love that example here.

So they lift their voices together, they're unified to God, and they say this sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our Father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, and then they quote Psalm 2 here, and they say, Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

Okay, so they go to the Word of God.

They look to the Word of God for direction and wisdom and encouragement.

Again, just like setting the key example for us.

I love it.

And then they continue in their prayer for their situation.

Here it is.

For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever they wanted to do in destroying Jesus and destroying the church.

You notice how it doesn't say that?

Okay, what does it say?

It says, to do whatever your hand and your plan predestined to take place.

That is a powerful line.

That is awesome.

Hey, listen, according to these verses, who's in control?

Who's in control of the universe?

Who's in control of everything that takes place in it?

Spoiler alert.

Not you.

Okay, not me.

It's not kings, it's not queens, it's not armies, it's not governments, it's not your family, it's not any person, it's not any other force.

It is it is God, it is the Lord Almighty.

It says there in verse 24, I love that word, sovereign.

It says he is sovereign.

He is the predominant, supreme, self-determining, independent, absolute being.

He created absolutely everything.

Nothing happens and never has happened and never will happen without his express oversight, his direction, his consent.

Think about that.

Think about that in regards to your week this past seven days and the things that you have gone through, the things that have been a hassle to you, the how life has gone off the rails maybe in the last month or two or this past year.

Listen, the Lord is sovereign.

Verse 28, listen to this.

Verse 28 gets at how even the death of Christ was predestined.

It was predestined.

He's predetermined everything that takes place.

Listen, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the doctrine of predestination or what your immediate feelings are about it.

Um around here, again, we don't care too much about feelings.

I try to say that sensitively.

Um we care about what the Word of God says.

Um I'm not sure what your thoughts are there, but but listen, don't reject the doctrine of predestination just because uh you don't fully understand it.

Um I don't fully understand it.

I don't fully comprehend how awesome it is.

It's it's an amazing thing that we are to glory in.

Listen, neither are we to you know try and you know do verbal gymnastics to try and you know explain predestination a certain way so that you know so that we feel a little bit more comfortable with the illusion that you know we're really the ones in control, God.

Right?

We shouldn't be doing that either.

Okay?

We're not in control.

Right?

We really aren't.

Okay, at the at the end of the day, either God is in control or he isn't.

Think about that.

At the end of the day, he's in control or he isn't.

And listen, the Bible makes it clear that that he is.

Our passage is just one of many that show us that.

And listen, our experience, if we really think about it too, our experience makes it clear that we're not in control.

We're not.

Right?

So our job is what?

Our job is to believe the holy word of God and then live like we believe it too.

You know, again, don't just put up with predestination, don't just grudgingly, all right, fine, but I'm gonna focus on other things about salvation or about the scriptures or about the Lord.

No, instead embrace this amazing doctrine.

Embrace it, grow, grow to love it, rejoice in it.

Right?

You worship a God who's got this.

He's got it.

He is in control no matter what.

No matter what, no matter what your family situation is like, no matter what disease is ravishing your body, no matter how much or how little you understand of the purposes and uh about all of that in this exact moment, listen, he is in control.

And the scriptures tell us uh that he has good in store for you.

He wants to use these things, he wants to use these awful trials and tragedies, he wants to use the little minor annoyances to shape us, to change us, to again help us realize and recognize, yeah, we're not in control.

I don't know if you've noticed it about yourself, I noticed this about myself, and I think this is probably true for every person.

We're all kind of control freaks.

We all we all want to be in control, we all want to order our lives in such a way that everything goes the way we want it to go.

Listen, it just doesn't happen.

We need constant reminders of all of that.

And the disciples, as we see here, they they they get it.

They understood it.

Their prayer here is a recognition that life was totally, you know, their lives were totally up in the air.

I mean, they literally didn't know if, you know, the same soldiers that dragged them away or were gonna come and kick their door in and drag them away again.

They didn't know if they were gonna end up dead, beaten, mocked, tortured.

They didn't know any of that stuff, right?

But they knew that God, that nothing was happening outside of God's loving plan.

They knew it.

And listen, there's there's just nothing like prayer when you have confidence that God is in control of everything.

Okay, we've got this up on the screen for you here.

Why?

Because you can relax.

You can trust the Lord, you can have peace.

That's the first thing.

Right?

You can relax when you believe that the Lord is in control and you rest in him and you trust that he is good, and you trust that that whatever the problems are and whatever the situation is, he's doing it ultimately to do good things, and he's doing it because he's got a plan that you may not understand or you may not see all the details of all of that right now.

But when you trust the Lord, you can relax.

You can you can trust him, you can have peace.

That that anxiety that that you maybe carry with you constantly, that fear, that worry that you know, maybe it's constantly coming out of you, and you're just a very anxious person in the way that you speak and the way you talk about things.

Maybe it's more of a kind of an undercurrent of your life where you have a hard time sleeping at night because it's anxiety.

Maybe there's fear that drives you.

Maybe it's doubt about everything.

Okay, as we trust, as we have confidence that God is in control of everything, all of that disappears.

Here's another thing that happens when we have confidence that God's in control of everything.

We we pray big, bold, and dangerous prayers.

When we believe that the Lord's in control, he's got this, nothing is gonna happen to us outside of his plan.

Guess what?

We stop praying those safe prayers.

We stop praying those me-centered prayers.

We start praying for something that's way bigger and beyond us, and that is him, that is his kingdom, that is his mission.

All right, because he's got limitless power.

And so we don't hold back anymore.

Like, all right, Lord, I'm I'm on board with you.

Let's do this.

All right, when I have confidence that God is in control of everything, I can give him all the glory when he comes through.

Give him all the glory.

You trust that it's the Lord, you trust that he's got his hands on everything.

When the Lord does answer prayer and when he does uh show forth his power in your life, you're not gonna be like, all right, I'm awesome.

Right?

It's because of me, it's because of what I did.

No, you know, it's because of the Lord.

And so you're quick to give him glory because you've been praying for him to move, and when he moves, you're like, that's him.

He's he gets the glory, he deserves all of the glory.

I don't deserve it.

It's not about me.

I will have a powerful prayer life, last thing here, as I care less about my comfort and go all in for the mission.

Verse 29.

Verse 29 says this, and now, Lord, okay, and now, Lord, this is what they pray together, unified as the church.

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal.

And signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And when they had prayed, don't miss this, and when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was what?

Shaken.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and then quit.

No, they continued, right?

They continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Okay, what I love about this, one of the things that I love about these verses here, is what they do not ask for.

Do you notice that?

Notice how they don't ask God for the safe and easy life.

How many times do we go through something difficult and we're like, God, take it away?

Right?

Make my life easy again.

Lord, make my life about my glory and about me being exalted.

Take away the pain, remove all of the difficult circumstances in my life.

They don't pray for that.

They're not praying for that at all.

They don't say, Lord, take away the problems, take away the persecution, Lord, give me comfort.

No, they don't say that.

They ask for boldness.

Boldness to keep going.

Lord, make us more faithful as your church.

Lord, give us greater passion.

God, give us greater courage, greater courage to carry out your plan.

Lord, use us to do more.

That's unreal.

And listen, this is the sweet spot of prayer.

That's the sweet spot right there.

When you're so kingdom-focused, when you are so mission-minded that you just want to engage further.

There's nothing in you anymore that's saying, oh, I've had enough, I gotta go back, I'm I'm done.

I've got to disengage from serving, I gotta disengage from the church, I gotta have more me time and all of that.

No, it's like I want to do more.

Lord, you've done so much already.

I want to see you do even more.

Lord, would you do it?

Give me, give me boldness.

Give me courage to have that hard conversation with somebody.

Give me greater capacity to serve more.

Give me a heart that loves people.

Lord, help me with all of this.

Right?

Let's get after it.

That was the early church for sure.

So I think the big question is, is that us?

Is that us?

Is that you as an individual?

Is that us as a church?

You know, as you think about the temperature and you know, the boldness and the power of your prayer, do you realize, and this is so crucial, do you realize that being all in for God's mission is what drives a powerful prayer life?

Think about that.

I'm gonna say it again.

Being all in for God's mission is what drives a powerful prayer life.

And vice versa, of course.

Hey, the disciples' prayer lives, they were fired up.

They were bold, they didn't back down.

God moved powerfully.

Why?

Because they were consumed with the mission.

They had given their lives to it.

Like it doesn't matter what happens to me, it matters what the Lord is doing here.

It's about making disciples.

That's it.

That's the thrust, that's everything.

And listen, I think uh a bulk of the reason why the church's, you know, in general, okay, the church's prayers are so anemic and so sporadic, infrequent, surfacey, powerless, is because we are so utterly consumed with ourselves.

All we want is comfort.

Do you recognize that in your heart?

Do you see that?

I feel like the Lord is just pushing me on this constantly, more and more, as he sanctifies me.

James 4, I told you I've been studying this, and it's amazing how some of these verses just apply so much to what we're talking about here today.

Verse 3 says, you do not, rather it says you ask and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

Is that us?

Is that us?

Okay, we're consumed with ourselves.

We're consumed with our with our comfort, not the Lord, not his plan, not his mission, not his kingdom.

Okay, put it this way, put it this way.

Your prayer life, it'll always be lame, it'll always be ineffective, boring, void of power, if your heart's deepest desire is anything less than his kingdom, his priorities, his mission.

That's what it is.

So, hey, don't be surprised, okay?

Don't be surprised if you essentially pray for your kingdom anytime that you pray to the Lord.

Don't be surprised if you pray for your kingdom and then it doesn't happen.

It doesn't come.

Because God will never bless those prayers.

He doesn't care about your kingdom.

It's not about your kingdom, it's about his.

You want God's power in your life.

You want him to bless your prayers.

You want prayers to be powerful and effective and awesome and very acts for, like we're seeing here.

We need to get on board with God's mission.

We need to get on board with his game plan.

It needs to be about him thoroughly and totally.

So I think as we think about these things and as we look at these verses, these words here, we gotta ask ourselves some piercing questions.

Okay, is my is my weak prayer life again, it's it's not about pouring out guilt.

You're not being condemned for this.

The Lord's not condemning you.

The Lord wants to encourage you here, He wants to show you what's up, He wants to reorient the focus of your heart.

But we gotta ask ourselves, is my weak prayer life at least partly to blame because I'm not all in for the for the mission of God to make disciples.

Am I not all in on that?

Is it you know, if if someone were to, if you were to ask somebody, hey, what do you think my life is all about?

What am I most excited about?

What would be what would be their answer?

Is it the mission of God?

Are you all in for that?

I mean it starts in the home.

You know it starts in the home, right?

Husbands?

Are you discipling?

Are you leading your wives?

Do you do you love them?

Do you do you care for her?

Do you point her in the right direction?

Are you patient?

Are you gentle?

Are you kind?

Are you or are you disengaged?

Could you care less?

Do you think it's somebody else's job to disciple your wife?

It's not, it's yours.

Are you engaged in the mission in our church?

We've got so many people serving.

I love it, it's awesome.

It's incredible.

Are you engaged in that?

Are you are you all about it?

Are you fired up about it?

For you has it become a routine?

Has it become just a job?

Are you punching a clock?

Is that the idea?

Is that the mentality?

Or when you come to church, do you recognize that the part you're playing, even if it seems small to you, the part you are playing is is is a part of the rest of the team putting forth this mission to make disciples?

That's why we are here today.

That's why we meet as small groups throughout the week.

That's why Harvest Youth gathers.

That's why we have coffee with each other throughout the week.

It's not just to get to know people, that's all great, but it's to disciple, it's to encourage each other.

It's to carry out the mission.

Are you engaged with that in your home?

Are you engaged with that in the church?

Are you engaged with that in your community and the different relationships that you have?

When you go to the grocery store, are you looking for opportunities to share Christ?

Are you praying for God?

Give me, you know, lead red apples to me.

People who are so ripe for the gospel, who want to hear it.

And then give me boldness and courage to share it.

Are you all in for the mission?

If not, we need to ask ourselves another question.

If not, why not?

Right?

Why?

Why am I not all in for the mission?

Is it because I'm lazy?

Is laziness the problem?

In North America, of course, we love our comfort.

We love it.

You know, what's how does your heart search for comfort?

Has it become an idol?

Because listen, comfort is a is a prayer and mission killer.

It really is.

And we've got to surrender that.

We've got to bring that before the Lord as well.

What's making you lazy if laziness is your problem?

Is it too much time in front of media, whether that's TV, computer, phone?

Right?

My all my affections are in that.

Every spare second I have is that, and it's it's killing you.

It doesn't feel like it.

That sounds a little extreme, Pastor.

No, it's it's got your heart.

And that's why your heart's not about the mission to make disciples, because something else has got it, it's captured it.

And so you become lazy about all of that.

You don't care about it.

Maybe it's video games.

You're a grown man and you spend more hours in video games than kids do.

Is that the problem?

Is it your hobby?

Your hobby's got you, it's taking you away from what God cares about most, really?

Do you want to stand before him at the end of the day and say, I spent way more time on the golf course than at church, than spending time with God's people?

Listen, I love golf.

I love it.

It's one of my favorites ever.

But do you want to do you want to spend the you know the rest of your life giving into that?

There's too much at stake.

The mission, God has given us a mission.

We've got a job to do here.

Let's not be lazy about all of this.

Some of the guys here were at um Free indeed, the men's conference on Friday night and Saturday night.

We all had such a great time.

And on the Friday night, Pastor Paul Tripp spoke and he went off after an area of our hearts, an idol of our hearts that none of us want to talk about.

Food.

Right?

Is food an area where you just throw yourself into it because it's a comfort thing?

You eat way too much, right?

You eat way too much, you eat completely unhealthy.

Oh come on, pastor.

No.

Food.

Food's an acceptable sin.

It's gluttonous.

I'm not saying never eat a pizza.

I'm not okay.

Okay, can you hear me on that?

But maybe that's something that's got your heart, right?

And it's comfort.

How about this one?

If it's not laziness, maybe it's that you're too busy, maybe it's the other end of the spectrum.

I'm too busy, I'm involved in too many things.

And it's this, that, or the other thing, and it's with my kids, or it's just me.

And listen, that's that's a tough one to work through, but are you gonna ignore it or are you gonna work through it?

Are we gonna reprioritize our lives?

Because again, the mission and and my prayer life, they're taking a hit here because I'm just too busy.

And I don't have time and the energy and the and the focus and the heart for the things that God cares more about most about.

Okay, maybe it's laziness, maybe you're too busy, maybe you're not sure how.

I don't know how to do this.

I don't know how to have a fired up prayer life.

I don't know how to be about the mission.

I don't know these things.

Well, that's fine.

Talk to somebody about it.

Talk to somebody, ask somebody who you know, somebody that you trust.

Come, you know, send me an email.

Have a, you know, we'll grab a coffee or whatever.

We can talk about these things.

Talk to somebody, try, you know, maybe it's try serving somewhere, maybe you're not serving anywhere, I don't know.

You know, you don't know where to serve, start somewhere.

You'll figure out whether or not that's a good fit for you.

Okay?

Start praying in that direction.

Okay, maybe for you, you're not all in for the mission because of something very fundamental.

So you don't know Jesus.

Why would you be about the mission?

You don't know him as Savior.

And so fundamentally, before any of all of this happens, you need to know him.

You need to understand that your God loves you.

God who created you, he made the heavens and the earth.

You have to understand, though, that through the sins of our original parents, Adam and Eve, and then through the sins of every single person, including you, our sins have separated us from a holy, powerful, righteous, loving God.

And because of that, we deserve death.

We deserve separation from God forever.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that God made a way.

He made a way for you to know him, he made a way for you to be forgiven.

He made a way for you to actually find true change and transformation in your life.

He made a way for you to have heaven as your final destination.

And that was by sending his son Jesus on the cross.

And many of you have maybe heard that before.

That was for you.

That was for you.

So that you would recognize that Jesus paid the price.

Trust him today.

Just admit your brokenness, admit your fallenness.

I'm not standing here again, like I've said before, I'm not standing here thinking that I'm above you or anything like that.

No, I'm below you.

I'm probably worse than you.

I'm just forgiven.

Because that's what Christ did.

Trust in Jesus Christ today for salvation.

Do that.

And you'll begin to see the things we've been talking about all morning start to take shape over the course of your life as the Lord grabs your heart.

He's going to start doing some awesome things.

And of course, as we've been talking about over the last couple of months, it always comes back to the gospel, doesn't it?

It always does.

You know, as our hearts grasp how awesome our God is and how incredible our salvation is, the grace of our God, how urgent the mission is, the result will be powerful prayer.

You will pray, and you will pray powerfully.

Let's do that now.

God thank you.

Thank you, Lord, that you're not shaking your head in disappointment at us because we haven't somehow figured all of this out.

We haven't somehow perfected ourselves.

We haven't somehow put together all of the pieces.

We are incapable of putting together all the pieces.

And yet you love us anyways.

And you are here, you are real, you are loving, and you are powerful enough to change us.

God, I pray that.

I pray that our chase our church would grow in intensity in our prayer, Lord.

I pray that when people think of Harvest Bible Chapel, they would think, wow, that's a church that prays boldly.

That's a church that's that's on mission.

That's a church that loves people, that's a church that loves to gather to pray.

Lord, we're all in different stages of all of this.

And so, God, again, as we have stated from the beginning, we will continue to state, Lord, help us.

Lord, show us our need.

Bring glory to Jesus through you at work in us, God.

Do it.

We pray this in your name.

Amen.