Unceasing Prayer Ephesians 6:18 Nov 13 2016 Mike Armstrong

Alright, well, good morning, Harvest.

Love to see this room full and you guys singing and praising and uh worshiping the Lord.

Hey, if you would, would you turn your Bibles now to uh Ephesians uh chapter 6?

We're gonna read through a bunch of the verses, but we're gonna be spending really the bulk of our time this morning uh in verse uh 18.

Verse 18.

Now, as you're doing that, um take a look um at the screen here because uh I really believe that this picture kind of describes how we often feel about our prayer lives.

Would you agree with that?

This guy is like, I have been vanquished.

Right?

You get I mean I think that's how we feel.

We can very easily um feel um weak and defeated about the entire concept uh of prayer, which leads us to this place of uh discouragement and and and disillusionment about the entire thing, and and it can even um cause us to kind of give up on it, at least to some degree.

We sort of throw in the towel, and you're like, I don't know, this whole prayer thing, it's it's it's just not really, it doesn't seem to be working for me, and I'm and I'm struggling with it.

Um so sometimes we just wanna we just want to give up.

But you know, we read the scriptures and we look all through the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we definitely get the sense that prayer is to be a vital part of every Christ follower's life.

And so we kind of see that, we read that, but then we kind of compare it with our own experience, and we're left sort of sort of perplexed about all of this and and and frustrated and sort of asking the question you know, how how can I get to the place where prayer is like that for me?

Where prayer really is awesome and it really is powerful and it's it's it's great.

Well, today we are gonna be diving into our third pillar.

We've got four pillars as a church.

It really described the DNA, who we are as a family and as uh the followers of Jesus Christ at Harvest Bible Chapel.

And so our third pillar is believing firmly uh in the power of prayer.

Believing firmly in the power of prayer.

Now, if you like uh short forms to all of that, it's it's unceasing prayer, unceasing prayer.

And so the question is, you know, how can we become a church that truly embraces this pillar and embraces this concept that we see here?

And, you know, a group of people as imperfect as we all are.

Did you censor imperfection this week?

I know I did.

You know, a group of people like that, though, who are who are all in when it comes to prayer, all in when it when it comes to pressing into the Lord Jesus Christ uh in this way.

And and experiencing prayer that is that is powerful, that is, that is effective, that is, that is faith-filled, that it is a joy to participate in, and not just drudgery, but prayer that is is pleasing to God.

You know, I hope that that's your heart.

I hope that you want this all-important aspect of your life uh to truly honor Him and bring joy to the Lord.

And so that's what we are getting into uh here today, and what we are committed to as uh as a church.

And so hopefully you're in Ephesians uh chapter uh chapter six.

We're gonna start uh just reading in uh verse ten.

If you would actually stand with me as we do this, that's just one way that we can uh honor the Lord as we uh as we read his word.

Okay, verse ten to eighteen.

It says, Finally, okay, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor 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.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to sta 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 one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and then focus in on this.

This is where we're spending our time.

It 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.

Lord, we do come before you right now, and in an area uh as crucial as prayer, Lord, we we all feel the gap.

We feel the gap between uh kind of who we are and who we need to be.

And so, God, I pray that you would breathe life into our into our prayer uh here this morning, Lord.

I pray that as we um as we dive into this now and unpack this verse, Lord, we pray, I pray that our church would become a church uh that prays boldly, Lord, where where power infuses our prayer.

It's power from you, Lord, and that you would answer our prayers as we learn to pray with joy and with might.

And so, God, help us today, as, again, we are weak, Lord.

We admit that.

Lord, we need you.

Help us now, we cry.

In Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, you can uh take your seat.

All right, well, unceasing prayer.

Unceasing prayer.

That is what, that is one of the things that brings God's glory down on this place.

And that's what we're fired up about uh here at Harvest Bible Chapel.

We are excited for that.

We want the Lord to be present here each and every week, every time that we gather together here on Sunday mornings.

Uh, we want Him to be here.

We want the Lord uh to attend our church because that is what makes us special.

That's what makes the church uh incredible.

Okay, so you ready to get after it today?

If you're ready, say go.

Alright, here we go.

Love that.

Well, here we go.

Six things.

All right, six things.

Our church prays with power when we first seize every opportunity.

We seize every opportunity.

Now take a look at the verse again, verse 18.

Uh, what does he say?

That first part he says, praying at at all times.

Praying at all times.

Now, uh, this might remind you of 1 Thessalonians 5.17, where he says, uh, pray without ceasing.

Pray without ceasing.

Now, uh, your first thought as you hear that, or perhaps you've read it in scripture yourself, your first thought is like, is that even possible?

Right?

How on earth could I possibly pray without ceasing?

Does that mean I need to pray every second of every single day?

Does that mean, I mean, I'm pretty sure that I have to also have conversations with other people?

And I think it's also vital that uh I get some sleep, right?

So what is this, what is this talking about?

Or what's he getting at?

Okay, well, be encouraged.

Understand this.

This isn't saying, again, pray literally every second of every moment.

Um, when he says praying at all times, he means at every opportunity.

At every opportunity, when the moment presents itself, pray.

Right?

Seize the moment.

And of course, we all would all know that there are just countless opportunities for us to come to the Lord in prayer.

The list really uh never ends.

Um, but of course, the context of this passage, we already read it, and it's pretty obvious.

The context here is spiritual warfare.

Spiritual warfare.

Verse 10, I'm gonna read it again.

He says, Finally, be strong, right?

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

He says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand.

He says, stand a bunch of times throughout this.

Stand against the schemes of the devil.

Okay, so what's this telling us, church?

Well, it's telling us that we're at war.

We are at war.

Okay, Satan and his forces are are prowling around looking to pick a fight with you.

Do you realize that?

He's looking to pick a fight.

He's coming after you.

It says, the days are evil.

The days are evil.

You know, we as Christians, we are caught up in this intense, this fierce spiritual battle that's going on between goodness and evil, between light and dark, between God's forces and Satan's forces.

We're in the middle of all of that.

Okay, here's the thing, though.

Here's the thing.

We seem to be completely oblivious to it.

Have you noticed that?

We seem to be completely unaware.

You know, often for for us and and for the church in general in this area of the world, we sort of live in this peacetime mentality, don't we?

We kind of act as though as though everything should just be easy.

And we're sort of in relaxation mode as the church, and you know, and and and hardship is surprising to us.

You know, we don't understand that that Satan's out there like legolas, right?

And he's just like, he's like picking us off.

Right?

He is.

And we're just like doot doo-doo.

We just walk around taking it.

We're getting smoked.

Okay, we're at war.

And the church, hey, we need a wake-up call.

We need to wake up.

We need to pray at all times.

We need to realize that we need to engage in this.

You know, we we don't we don't see the spiritual warfare that we are like neck deep in as opportunities to come to our protector God who delights in being our refuge and being our strength.

I love Psalm 46, verse 1.

Psalms 46:1

It says that God is a very present help in times of trouble.

That's our God.

Right?

God wants to, he wants to give us the tools, he wants to even fight on our behalf and allow us, give us the strength so that we can be strong, as the passage says, uh in Him, so that we can stand against the schemes of the devil.

So, hey, you want your prayer to be powerful.

Well, it begins with an understanding that we need to completely shift gears on our mindset.

We need a new mindset.

That when that when opportunities present themselves to pray, we actually pray.

Do you catch that?

We don't just we don't just let those opportunities pass us by.

Okay, we pray.

Instead of the alternatives, now you might be wondering, what are the alternatives?

Well, we got a few of them on the screen for you.

This is by no means exhaustive, but you can jot these down uh if you like.

Okay, the first one here, the first alternative to prayer that we often engage in is just kind of seeing prayer as a hassle.

Right?

It's a hassle.

You know, I've already got a busy life, and I've got so many other things that I need to do.

And you mean I've got to like wedge this shoehorn prayer into my life as well?

You know, it's it's not that enjoyable.

And and this is it's a hassle.

It's a hassle to me.

That's the first one.

The second one, we ignore the problem.

We ignore the problem.

We know that things are going on.

We have this concept of spiritual warfare, but we we kind of think, you know, out of sight, out of mind.

And so we ignore it.

Maybe the whole thing will just go away if I do nothing.

Right?

How does that how does that end up for us?

Not so good.

Not so good.

Third one.

Third one, we complain.

We complain bitterly.

You know, life is difficult, and and Satan's waging war on you, and and the Lord, he also brings trials into our life, and and sometimes our alternative to prayer is just to complain.

Just to just to whine about it.

Hey, what is what has complaining ever gotten you?

Nothing.

Right?

Nothing good.

All it does is harden your heart and drive a wedge between you and the Lord.

Complaining is is useless.

It's useless.

But we like to do that.

We like to get ourselves nice and bitter and worked up and riled up.

Okay, how about this one, the fourth one?

Control the play.

Control the play.

Okay, this is pretty related, I guess, to number two.

Uh, but sometimes when life gets difficult and we assent and we sense like we're tired and you know the enemy's been picking on us, and and you know, he's he he's shooting arrows and darts at us and all of that, we like to try and kind of in our own strength uh try and control things.

And you know, I I'm I'm gonna do a better job of fixing the problem myself.

And and it's kind of this control mentality, this this control freak mindset.

We control the play.

How about this one?

Fifth one.

We medicate.

We medicate.

Spiritual warfare is happening and and life's tough, and so we medicate.

Some of us, I mean, there's all kinds of ways that we can medicate.

So for some of us, it's it's an actual drug, right?

It might be alcohol or something like that.

For others of us, it's more of a you know, a culturally okay thing to do, like like throwing ourselves into TV or movies or social media as a way to kind of numb ourselves and escape the pain.

I just I just want some pleasure, I want something, so I'm gonna go to that instead of doing the hard work of praying.

You know, in what ways do you do you medicate?

Okay, the last one there is despair.

Sometimes that's our play.

We we just we just despair.

You know, this is brutal, and I don't know what to do, and I'm getting discouraged, and you know what, I guess I'm just gonna throw my hands up and and and nothing's ever gonna get good.

And listen, that can be tough, that can be a dark place.

It really can.

And I think part of it in in those moments is really just a failure to understand that God is great, that God wants to help you, that He is there, He's present in times of trouble, and He wants to He wants to come to your rescue.

Okay, so think about it.

What are you know, one of these six things?

Is that is that one of my go-to moves?

Is that one of the alternatives that I give into instead of instead of praying?

Well, listen, I think or I hope that we're all hungry to have prayer lives that grow stronger and and they will, as we learn, to seize every opportunity.

And we jump on that.

It doesn't have to be an hour-long prayer on your knees, you know, in silence.

It can be like a two-second thing.

Lord, Lord, I need help.

I need help in this moment.

You'll sense the power in that for sure as you grow.

Okay, our church prays with power.

And when we tap into the spirit's power, that's the second one.

Okay, verse 18 again, it says, praying at all times uh in the spirit.

Praying at all times in the spirit.

Now that means praying in the spirit means uh to pray in harmony uh with his will.

Pray in harmony with his will.

It also echoes Ephesians chapter 5, which Paul had just been teaching uh this church earlier, 518, where we're to be filled with the spirit, he says.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Listen, listen, our our prayers will continue to be uh frustrating and have this powerless aspect to it if we're always pushing our agenda on God.

Do you ever do that in your prayer?

You know, where we we try to force him to do what we want him to do.

Right?

And we're maybe trying to pray hard, but it's really about us.

A powerful prayer happens as we surrender ourselves to him and to his master plan and what he wants is to be praying about and giving our lives to.

When we give way to his way, when our agenda, all of that, that takes a back seat.

Instead, we're we're all about him, we're all about what he wants, and we begin to pray those things.

Okay, that's when we tap into the spirit's power, and that's when he meets us, and that's when he injects his power, that's when he injects his spirit into our prayers, and they become amazing and life-giving and transformative.

That's when things really start to happen.

You know, and all of a sudden we find him giving us, you know, might.

We find him giving us strength where we lacked it.

Uh we find him giving us wisdom when we just didn't know how to act, we didn't know where to go in that life decision or in that situation.

But Lord, we're praying for your will be done.

He's gonna meet you in those prayers for sure.

He's gonna give you courage when you're fearful, when you're weak, when you're anxious.

He's gonna give you all of those things.

Why?

Because he wants you to stand firm.

Right?

And as the Spirit meets you in your prayers, that's when you're gonna find victory over the sin that up to this point has just been pinning you to the mat and sucking the life and the joy out of you.

That's when we find new joy that we've we've never experienced before.

And we're like, wow, I didn't know that life could be like this.

It's because the spirit himself is emboldening your prayers.

You're not you're not pushing against him anymore.

You're walking, you're walking with him, you're walking in step with him.

I mean, watch out what happens in this church as we begin to do that.

That's all I have to say.

You start to get in step with the Spirit, you start praying in line with him.

Wow, it's gonna be crazy in here.

I can't wait.

I can't wait to see.

And I think we're on our way.

We're working towards it.

I mean, it's gonna astound us what the Lord does here over the next months and years.

It's gonna be special.

All right, our church prays with power when we tap into the Spirit's power, okay?

Also, when we engage in all types.

We engage in all types.

Verse 18 again says, praying at all times in the Spirit, and in this part, with all prayer and supplication.

Okay, so this is referring to um all different kinds and types of prayer.

These are these are just general requests and and very specific prayers as well.

And the fact that Paul uses both words here in this verse suggests that he's trying to encourage us in all different forms and types of prayer.

You know, so we can pray in all different ways.

We can pray standing up, we can pray sitting down, we can pray laying down, we can pray kneeling, we can pray when we're scared and stressed and concerned and angry even.

We can pray on the flip side of that when we're excited and we're thankful and we're joyful and we're glad when life is up and when life is down.

We can pray for others, or we can pray for ourselves.

In all moods and in all seasons of life, we are to pray.

We are to pray with all prayer and supplication, it says.

So the question is for you then.

Do you?

Right?

Do you do that?

Or do you only pray sometimes and for some things?

Do you only pray when you're at the end of your rope?

Do you only pray when you're at your wit's end or when you're fearful?

Do you only pray when life's hard and difficult and challenging, but not when life's good?

Do you only pray alone?

Or are you learning to pray uh you know in more of a public way, out loud?

Maybe it's just to start with your family.

Are you praying with your husband?

Are you praying with your wife?

Are you leading your children uh in what it means uh to pray?

Do you pray silently?

Or do you pray out loud?

Maybe for you, like the only time you really pray is is at the dinner table.

And it's that same worn-out, tired prayer over and over again that you're like three-year-old knows off by heart.

Right?

No wonder there's no power in that.

Right?

Do you pray in in all kinds of different ways?

Are you varying it?

Right?

So, so important.

Here's another one.

Do you pray for the lost?

Do you pray for the lost?

Do you do you pray that people would come to the knowledge and saving faith in Jesus Christ?

Do you pray that people, as we invite them to church and as you get to know people, that they would come to realize that Jesus Christ is incredible, that Jesus went to the cross for their sins.

He went to He went and did all of that for us so that our sins can be forgiven and that we can experience new life in Him.

Do you pray for people?

Are you praying for your neighbors?

Are you praying for those in your family who are lost?

Or do you just pray for yourself all the time?

Well, hey, God wants to give us, He wants to give our prayer lives a real shot in the arm.

Okay, but we need to realize that we're really short-siding ourselves if we don't pray for all kinds of things in all kinds of ways.

You know, and I would encourage you just this week, you can even start uh today, to commit to praying for two or three different things that you don't normally pray for, and do those two or three different things in two or three different ways.

Okay, and so so maybe you're gonna pray for the guy at work that drives you crazy.

Maybe you're gonna pray for your mother-in-law that drives you nuts.

Right?

Maybe you're gonna thank God for all the ways that He has blessed you.

You don't normally do that.

And then instead of doing that in the last like 30 seconds after your head hits the pillow and you fall asleep, you're like, hey, I'm gonna do that in the car on the way to work.

I'm gonna turn off the radio or the music or whatever it is.

I'm gonna maybe uh commit to waking up early and doing this and starting my day off that way.

Maybe it's engaging the family in prayer time before bed.

Commit to that.

Think about how you can expand.

The different ways that you pray and the different things that you pray for.

And then they should ask the Lord, Lord, meet me in this.

Encourage me.

Breathe power and life into my prayers as I do this.

Okay, you want more of God's blessing, and I trust that you do.

Well, we engage in all types of prayer.

We'll see it happen.

Okay, fourth thing.

Our church prays with power when we watch for oncoming threats.

We watch for oncoming threats.

Verse 18 again, partway through it, he says this.

He says, To that end, keep alert.

To that end, keep alert.

You know that the context here is spiritual warfare.

It's a pretty clear signal to us that what Satan wants to do to you is he wants to pour gasoline on your life and light a match.

He hates you.

He hates you.

Do you realize that?

Or do you treat him as kind of like he's just giving these playful jabs at me?

No, it's way more bleak.

It's way more awful than that.

He would kill us if he could.

I'm not being extreme.

That's just the reality.

Okay, he wants to destroy the church.

That is his mission.

That is his goal in life.

To render Christians useless and ineffective.

And hey, you better believe that he wants to do that to you.

He wants to do that to us.

He wants to do that to our church.

Prayer is a key weapon in us standing firm and being strong.

Okay, Paul tells us here, he says, keep alert.

It means be uh vigilant.

Uh watch, watch out, be ready for attacks and employ prayer.

Just like a soldier would make use of the weapons that he has been given him to fight the enemies.

Like we need to do the same thing as well.

We are soldiers in all of this.

Now, here at our church, here at Harvest, we try, we try to pray a lot.

We try and do that a lot around here.

And a big part of that is we're trying to be alert.

We're trying to keep in mind that, yeah, Satan does want to disrupt all of this.

Satan does uh want to wreck all of this.

And so we're like, the way I like to try and view all of us is that we're like sentries on guard.

We're watching and we're waiting.

And so our various ministry teams that are serving here on a Sunday morning, uh, they gather before the service ever starts and they they pray.

Uh it is happening upstairs in Harvest Kids with our servants.

It happens with our welcome team when our worship team is done rehearsal.

They go out into the green room out there and they pray.

And they pray for protection.

They pray that God would have uh his way and that that he would fight and we'd be able to stand against the devil's schemes.

I mean, another thing that we do here is we we pray actually in our ministries.

So, of course, we have prayed a number of times already in this service.

We pray and harvest kids because we want to we want to model that to them.

We want them to understand the importance of prayer.

We do that in our in our midweek meetings.

Harvest youth is doing that.

Our small groups are doing that as we as we gather, we pray.

We pray.

One of the most important things that we do, and God is just giving me such a burden, a conviction about, is having prayer nights together outside of Sunday, where we just gather as the church and just cry out to the Lord.

And we've done that kind of like a once-a-month thing, and and uh, you know, I'm excited about that.

I love that, and I trust that I pray that you would grow excited about that uh as well.

You know, and typically speaking, across the spectrum of churches, our prayer nights are the least attended things that we do.

They really are, because our prayer is challenging.

And my prayer is that we would catch fire on this and recognize the importance of praying and standing guard against what the devil is trying to do here.

Right, you're like, why do we do this?

Hopefully it's it's getting more and more obvious.

It's because we recognize the need to be watchful, we need to be alert.

We know that that church and life is not this, you know, stroll in the park.

It's it's a war zone.

And prayer is how we stay alert and how we be ready.

And it's prayer that that ushers in the power of God.

If we fail to pray, we don't expect God's power to be here on display.

Right?

It's what we want, it's what we're hungry for, it's what our church is committed to.

We want it, we're going after it badly.

Okay.

Here's the fifth thing.

Our church prays with power when we refuse to give up.

Ever.

Ever.

Okay, verse 18 again, it says, uh, to that end, keep alert with perseverance.

Okay, to persevere, I like that word.

It means to have like a sense of a sense of grit, you know, like a sense of determination and persistence in this.

And so think about it for your own your own life and and for us as a church.

Would you say that we've got that mentality?

That we've got this perseverance attitude?

Listen, listen, I've alluded to it, we've kind of talked about it, but but prayer is hard.

Right?

I I could have said it uh even earlier, but prayer is difficult.

You know, I don't think um any of us should feel like it's supposed to be easy.

I don't think it is.

I mean, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray, and a lot of that comes out of their failure to pray, their failure to pray well, their failure to even stay awake in prayer.

So prayer is tough.

And I think that it can be just really helpful to us if we sort of let ourselves off the hook a little bit about it and stop the like flogging, like, I need to be better.

Right?

No, it's it's tough.

You know, and I think for some of us we have this kind of picture in our minds of that, you know, everyone has that friend or that person that they know, it's like the prayer warrior, and they're like incredible at it, and we're like, that's how everyone should be.

Well, no, I think God's gifted some people to be like that, but for for the masses, for the majority, uh, it's gonna be tough.

It may maybe it always will be.

And I think it can just be kind of helpful to admit that.

Okay, but I think we probably also know that quitting on prayer isn't the answer either.

Yeah, it's tough, but giving up isn't the way to go.

Now I love Luke 18, 1 to 8.

You don't need to turn there, I'll just kind of tell you a little bit about it.

But in that, in that section, uh, Jesus tells a parable.

And he tells a parable about a widow who has this problem against somebody, against some adversary, and she comes to this judge and she brings her problem to him, and now he is kind of this like mean and crusty kind of kind of guy, and he doesn't care about this woman, and he doesn't fear the Lord, and he doesn't give her what she wants.

But it describes her as persistent, and she keeps coming at him, and and I, and I need help in this, and and and I'm not gonna give up, and and you know the story.

You know what he did?

He's like, fine, like I'm just gonna, I'm gonna give in.

He's like, I don't really care about you, I don't care, I don't fear the Lord, but I'm gonna give in.

Why did Jesus tell this?

He tells it to his disciples, and and he tells it to us because he's trying to teach us to pray and not give up.

And he's trying to show us that if this kind of mean old judge would give in and get the give the woman what she wants, how much more am I, the God of the universe, gonna bless you and answer your prayers?

Right?

I love you.

I love that.

And I think sometimes our prayer, it lacks power because we just give up too easily, too quickly.

We quit on it.

You know, and sometimes I wonder, you know, how our lives or even our church might be missing something amazing, something that the Lord wants to give us, and He's been holding back and wanting to bless us with, but we're missing it because we quit on prayer.

I wonder if that's true for us.

So we lack perseverance.

Again, remember who you're praying to.

Remember the love and the incredible grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Remember that he wants to give us everything that we need for life and godliness.

We just have to understand that it's not gonna come necessarily the second that we ask.

It'll come when we need it.

And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself knows when we need it.

We think we know when we needed it, and it's like yesterday.

Right?

God says, No, I want you to, you know, sometimes when he delays in prayer, he's like, I want to see how hard you want this.

How bad do you want it?

Are you gonna keep asking me?

Are you gonna throw your hands up in defeat because you don't get it the second that you think you need to?

He wants to generously give us all things, but what he requires from us, what he wants from us, what he wants to develop in us is this no-quit mindset.

I'm not, I'm not gonna give up ever in prayer.

Ever.

Our church prays with power.

Last thing.

When we focus on the needs of our own.

We focus on the needs of our own.

Okay, Ephesians 6, uh, verse 18.

I'm just gonna read uh the all the entire thing again.

It says this.

It says, praying at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance.

And then here's the part here making supplication for all the saints.

Making supplication.

That's that's praying for each other, that's making requests on the behalf of other people.

Now, I don't think there's any question that the spectrum of things that we are to be praying about and praying for is wide.

Right?

We can be praying for all kinds of different things.

But what's also really clear as you read through the scriptures and you read through uh the New Testament is this is this special focus that comes out in the verses that we are to have on each other.

We are to care for other believers.

We're to care for and pray for the church in kind of a unique and special way.

Galatians 6, verse 10 says this.

Galatians 6:10

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone.

Okay, so everyone means all people.

But then it says this, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

So you see this special focus on our own, on our on our own team, on those who know and love Christ.

Okay, one of the reasons that that God created the church and came up with this concept is so that we would have a way to rally together, to lean into each other.

And there are strength in numbers, and that's sort of the idea here, that we would come together and encourage each other, that we would at times challenge each other and uh bless each other.

Okay, people who who claim to love Jesus Christ but are like out on the church, they just don't get it.

They don't understand that Jesus loves the church.

That's why he died.

He died for us.

We are the church.

Christ has big time love for us.

And one of the ways that church becomes this amazing, incredible place and entity is when we're committed to authentic, heartfelt, powerful prayer for each other.

So let me ask you this.

Is that happening here?

Is that happening here?

Do you care enough about the people who you're sitting next to this morning to pray for them?

Do you care enough about them to get to know them and to hear their hearts and and hear where they're struggling and join yourself in prayer for them to the Lord uh Jesus Christ?

Is that happening here?

Do you pray for your church?

Now, without question, prayer is like my favorite part probably of small groups.

You know, our small group meets on Tuesday nights uh at our house, and we have a time where we kind of discuss some questions that are pertaining to the message uh here on Sundays, but then after that time, we kind of uh break off, men and women and the guys, we go downstairs and we pray for each other.

We get to know like where are you at, man, and how are things going?

And you know, how did that how did the Lord come through this week and that thing you were going through?

And did you experience victory over this area of your life?

And we we just lean into the Lord and we we pray for each other and we're texting each other through the week.

And hey man, I'm just praying for you because I know you need it, and you you were asking for that, and the Lord is good.

Don't be discouraged, don't give up.

We focus on the needs of each other.

We we need it.

There's something just so special, I think, when when we start to get our focus kind of turned out from this inward, you know, me focused, me-centric thing to others.

Have you ever experienced that in your walk where you're like, man, I got a really a real heart for that person, and the Lord keeps bringing up things throughout the week about that person you talked to on Sunday, and you're praying for them, and you like want to send them an email, you want to get together with them for coffee, and you want to find out how how are things going?

But I love that.

That's the Lord, that's the Lord doing something.

That's the Lord infusing power uh into our into our church and into our prayer.

I hope your I hope your heart beats with mine as you hear these things uh this morning.

You know, and my heart is that our church would not continue to or or in any way uh limp through life with with weak and anemic and and powerless, ineffective prayer.

This feeling defeated all the time.

And this, like, man, like what's what's the use?

You know, I I I trust that your heart is starting to catch fire with this, like, man, I want to experience God here.

And and I'm excited about what he's doing, and I want to I want to join him in that.

And and prayer is a huge way that I tap into the Lord and gain strength from him and see his kingdom move forward in this place.

And that we would do that constantly.

As we do that, that's you committing here.

That's that's you being all in, which is which is what this series is all about.

I want to help carry forward the mission of the church.

I want to believe firmly in the power of prayer.

So do you.

Do you do that?

Do you believe firmly in that?

Are you with us in that pursuit?

Well, something that we're gonna do right now is I'm gonna have the worship team uh come on up.

And uh, before we get to worship and responding in that, we're actually going to give you guys an opportunity uh to pray.

To just pray about what you've been hearing uh here this morning, to be praying for the church, be praying that prayer would be an integral part of our culture here as Harvest Bible Chapel.

That it wouldn't just be something like, I guess we gotta do it.

No, it's something we want to do.

We look forward to this.

And so this is maybe unique to some of you, but what we're gonna do is we're just gonna give you a few moments, just with the person next to you, the person that you came with, to just pray.

And I want to encourage you to just pray out loud.

Now, for some of you, this is like a huge step out of your comfort zone, and I get it.

And if this is not, this is not for you and you just can't quite get there, don't worry about it.

Just pray on your own, and you can pray silently.

But for those of us who are used to this and our leaders in the church, let's lead, let's let's do this, let's pray for the church.

Let's pray for our own lives, that our hearts would be captured by this.

Okay, so what the worship team is gonna do is they're gonna play uh really silently.

We're gonna give you guys just a few moments.

You can kind of turn around to the person with you and uh have courage in this, have boldness in this.

I think the Lord really wants to bless it.

I think we'll really be blessed by the sound of us lifting high our voices in prayer to our God.

So you can do that.

You can turn, you can do that now.

When that time is done, I'm gonna get up and close us off.