Prayer that marveled Jesus| Pastor Brodie Kalaman | 21 Days of Prayer

Thank you for joining us on this 21 Days of Prayer series here at KCC.

And as we go into September, it's a fresh start here.

We've been meeting in the morning, Monday to Wednesday, 8 a.m.

to 9 a.m.

to pray together and just believe God to make a change in ourselves and in our community and in our nation and in the globe.

And so we're believing God, and you can join with us on Instagram and Facebook.

Every day there is a new devotion and a post and a prayer that you can participate in, whether you're at the beach, or you're at home, or you're traveling, or getting ready to go to school.

As I know some students are traveling and getting ready, they're doing some shopping, getting things all set up for school.

Join us.

We just want you to participate along with us as best you can during the season.

As we close this 21 Days of Prayer, it'll be closed on September 13th.

And that's a really important day for you to know.

September 13th is a day where we will be moving to a time where we're warming the house, we're warming KCC with bodies.

We're coming to church.

We're hosting two services on Sunday mornings, 9:15 and 10:30.

There'll be one-hour services.

And we're inviting up to 50 people.

You're gonna have to pre-register to come, but we're inviting 50 people to come and gather for a live in-person message.

Now, the the recording, the live stream will still go out regularly at our regular time on Sunday mornings, 9.15.

But for those of you who would like to gather and have missed that opportunity of gathering together, come on out September 13th.

We'll be launching our Connect groups as well that day and join with us.

We are so excited to just be able to continue to see our fresh faces and old faces and be able to see everyone together.

So keep the date, September 13th.

Save that date.

And we love church on Sunday, we love big church, but Monday through Saturday is so important, especially what I've experienced as a pastor in this city in the last little while.

The value of the small groups, the value of groups to be able to help support families and marriages and children and difficult times where people have gone through really difficult experiences.

Small groups and our connect groups have really stood in the gap and supported families.

So be there and just join with us.

So go on the website and learn what it's all about.

We hope to see you then.

Now, so that date safe.

Remember what it is, September 13th, right?

Right.

All right.

So just a quick announcement.

That was just a quick announcement.

But before we begin, I'm going to ask you to take a moment, just rally a few people around you.

If you're at home, grab that coffee, that notebook, grab your Bible.

We're just going to jump into this message today.

And we believe that this message will actually help encourage you as you prepare to start this next season.

We want to be able to engage with as many people as we can.

So go ahead and share the stream, go ahead and text someone, tell them church is live.

We also want to say thank you for all your continued support and faithful support.

We know that so many of you are continuing to support us and the church at this time.

And we also want to let you know that over 33 countries are tuning in regularly to actually watch the live stream.

And it's incredible to see everywhere from the United Arab Emirates all the way to Iceland.

They're coming, they're just joining in, they're commenting, they're talking about the message.

So we couldn't be doing this without you.

Our missionaries couldn't be on the field without you.

Thank you for your continued giving.

So today the message is called The Prayer That Marveled Jesus.

A prayer that marveled Jesus.

Incredible title.

I believe you can connect with this man, and maybe you can find even more power in your prayer as we look to this centurion whose servant Jesus healed.

And we're going to engage together in this portion of Scripture in Matthew chapter 8, and then a portion in Luke.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

So starting in Matthew, let me just read it, and you can read along yourself at home here.

Matthew chapter 8, verse 5 to 13.

Matthew 8:5–13

As Jesus entered the village of Capernaum, a Roman captain came up in a panic.

And he said, Master, my servant is sick.

He can't walk.

He's in terrible pain.

And Jesus says, I'll go, I'll come and I'll heal him.

And he and the captain said, Oh no, I don't want to put you into all that trouble.

Just give the order and my servant will be fine.

I'm a man who takes orders and gives orders.

I tell one soldier, go, he goes, to another come, and he comes to my slave, do this, and he does it.

Taken aback, Jesus said, I have yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel.

The very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works.

And this man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions, streaming in from the east, pouring in from the west, sitting down at God's kingdom banquet alongside of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then those who grew up in faith, but had no faith, will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.

Then Jesus turned to the centurion captain and said, Go, what you believed could happen has happened.

At that moment, his servant became well.

What an incredible story in the life of Jesus, and especially incredible for the centurion soldier whose prayers were answered that day.

This centurion was a special, uh rare breed of person.

It was not normal for him, number one, just to be favored with the Jews, and it certainly wasn't normal for a Jew to favor a Roman, but this Roman had favor at this point with not only the Jewish community, but with Jesus.

And a prayer was answered, and there was something about him that made him different.

There was something about him that allowed Jesus and caused Jesus to marvel.

My grandpa used to say, marvelous.

It's like a marvel, something that is astounding, something that's just out of this world, something that is not of the norm.

And if there's any kind of prayer I want to pray, I want to pray the prayer that marvels God, that makes God think.

So I have a picture here of a centurion.

I'm hoping the media team is able to put it up.

Just to give you an idea of what a centurion is.

Centurion was a soldier, and he was oftentimes a gentile.

This centurion was a gentile, which means he just was not a Jew.

He was uh he was a pagan.

He often he probably came from a pagan upbringing, his education, his livelihood, his study was pagan.

Uh he was he was a Roman.

He was stationed in Israel on the emperor's behalf to enforce the emperor's rule of law.

He was a man of war, a man who understood war, and he achieved the way the rank centurion by establishing himself above others in the arena of the Roman martial arts.

So this man was physically strong, he was a man of martial arts, he was a man of war, he was a soldier, he was a commander, he was like the Sylvester Stallone or the or the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the day.

And he came to Jesus and pleaded and humbled himself before a Jew asking for his servant to be healed.

A rare breed, someone who didn't have quite the resume that you would expect of Jesus to go, wow, this guy's incredible.

This man, he was, this isn't the resume that would you'd consider someone who would be can considered in scripture a hero of faith, someone who would have got the attention of Jesus.

But Jesus had was was attracted to him.

And Jesus, it was the centurion who attra who caught the attention of Jesus.

But what made him exceptional and what made Jesus marvel so much so that his request was immediately answered by Jesus.

Well, we'll see that he's a man of generosity, he's a man of rare humility, he's a man of simple faith.

In fact, his faith was greater than those who had actually grown up in the faith.

It was just a simple man.

In fact, Luke gives us a little bit more of the story of this individual, the centurion.

In Luke chapter 7, verse 3 to 5, it says, The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant.

Luke 7:3–5

And when they came to Jesus, the Jews pleaded with him and said, This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.

So we see that this centurion was a kingdom builder.

He built their meeting place, he built the synagogue of faith.

He supported their cause.

He was an ally of the Jews.

And this is a reminder to me that God notices, but also other people notice what you build and what you give to and what you support and what we prioritize in our lives.

He was definitely a rare person, but the people understood that he was a person who favored through his resources, through his attention, he favored the Jewish people, building their church or their synagogue and building their meeting place.

I pray that that's some of the same spirit that we carry as a church, that I carry as a pastor and as a Christian.

Because I know that you can't earn the grace of God, but there is something about catching the attention of Jesus through your sacrifice.

And I've grown up in Kelowna Christian Center, and I've experienced incredible sacrifice.

From the time I was really young, I observed it, I watched as people gave into the cause, gave to the mission of Jesus and supported the cause for our missionaries, for church plants, for uh for incredible projects that we did around the world and here at home.

And now we see what we have, and I believe it's it's a lot of it is in part because of the great sacrifice and great generosity of our people.

Matthew 8, verse 5 says this.

Matthew 8:5

It says the scripture says he was a leader.

Now, a centurion means sent, sent in that name.

He was a soldier of a hundred.

And more than likely, he was a soldier of a hundred leaders or captains that were soldiers of hundreds.

And he was this leader, and it's very unlikely, and I'm not sure how unusual or how usual it actually is for leaders of this caliber to throw themselves before someone and be desperate and show vulnerability and show leadership and plead for a servant.

Not even a son, but a servant.

Someone who he wouldn't gain any advantage of seeing made well, other than it would benefit his own home.

But this man was in pain and his servant was in pain and couldn't walk, and so he, in his his title, with his title and with his accolades and with his persona, he put himself in front of Jesus and he pleaded with Jesus for his servant.

This man knew how to humble himself.

And that's really powerful.

You don't see people finding ways to humble themselves, but when we go to God in prayer, we don't go to God with our title or our accolades.

We go to God humble.

Because the humble and the contrite man, and the humble and the contrite request is the request that God doesn't deny.

And this particular person was an amazing person, an example to us of how we should approach God, particularly in this 21 days of prayer.

How are we approaching God?

Are we approaching Him with humility?

In the lives of Christians and in the church, there are those people who are making a difference, and they just and they're doing a great job, but it's public.

But we never want to get to the place, and it's wonderful what people are doing, but we never want to get to the place where we aren't humble enough to get down low before God.

And how low can you go?

How low can we go in response to when God moves, we respond.

And may we never become so uh uh uh so comfortable with our blessing that it becomes an obstacle in our approach to God.

That we stand in church or we sit at home or we stand at home and we we think that we're something.

When I go to God, I want to make sure I'm going to God as someone who's humble before Him.

Coming to God is the way the centurion did, with an energy and an intention to say, I want everything that you have for me, and I'm willing to do what you need me to do.

And I see that when people lay down their title and they lay down their position, I see it as the start of revival.

And I've been fortunate enough to be in places where revival has happened, and revival is happening now.

And I I've sat with millionaires, and I've sat with people who are just sitting at home and and uh at times you know who wouldn't seem to have that much advantage in their life.

And I'm sitting with the both, and both of them are crying out to God the same.

And that's the revival, that's the spirit of revival that's in the air when the church rallies together, and no one sees themselves as too important or too self-important.

Instead, it's the first mentality.

And it's the first mentality that says, I'm gonna be the first to respond to the altar call.

I'm gonna be the first when the live stream goes live.

I'm gonna be the first to raise my hands at home.

I'm gonna be the first to respond in prayer.

I'm gonna be the first to cry out to God.

I'm gonna be the first to dance, I'm gonna be the first to shout, I'm gonna be the first to respond with an amen to the word.

I want to be the first.

The scriptures say this in 2 Chronicles 16.9, it says, the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

The eyes of God are searching for those who are going to put him first.

2 Chronicles 7.14 says, if my people will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Humility is such an important part to our approach to God when we approach God.

The centurion, he was not only humble, but he was empathic to his servant.

I think we know what it means to experience a difficulty in your own home, to get desperate for God when something is directly affecting you.

I remember in my life when my wife was pregnant, uh, I believe it was with our second child.

We only have three, so I should know, but the second, I believe it was.

And the uh a point in the pregnancy where there was a lot of bleeding and there was a real concern that the baby would be lost.

And I remember I went to God in prayer, and I I remember feeling that urgency as a husband and as a father of this child.

And I remember going to God in prayer and saying, Lord, this is what I expect, this is what I want, this is my request to you, this is the word, this is the promises I'm holding before you.

And I went to God that way.

And when your spouse is sick or your children are struggling in their faith, and when your marriage is in trouble or your finances are in trouble, it's something, it's easier to fight that battle.

But it's another thing when you adopt the challenges of another individual, and you adopt them like the centurion adopted this servant.

The scripture says this servant was dear to his heart.

And you adopt someone else's challenges, and you plead and you pray with that same intensity and passion.

So I begin to pray, and I I've been in places where you begin to pray, and I've even experienced it myself where I'm like, well, I don't know if I have too much to pray for.

I don't know if I have things that I really need to carry, but there are other things that other people are carrying, and we can carry them to the Lord in prayer.

So even during this 21 days of prayer, your environment, your life might be doing really, you might be doing really well, and that's wonderful.

But don't forget about our community, don't forget about our city, don't forget about the neighbors on our streets that are having challenges and and or don't know Christ themselves, and begin to pray for them and begin to carry them to the Lord.

This is what the centurion did.

He cared beyond his world.

He looked beyond his world and he began to care for the things that were outside of his world.

He was humble in that he cared for more beyond himself.

In other words, we're we're praying for things that we realize that the world is bigger than our little world.

And it's bigger than the things that directly affect us.

So we begin to pray for them.

Galatians 6.2 says this.

It says, carry each other's burden.

And the way, the same way, you'll fulfill the law of Christ.

It's our role as believers to carry one another's burdens.

And that's why the church is so important.

The ecclesia of God is so important.

It's so important that we're gathering together.

And it may be part of the reason why we're experiencing such turmoil in civil society.

Because the church hasn't been there as prevalent as it needs to be to carry the burdens of our community.

We've been told to go isolate, we've been told to distance ourselves, where we really need to find creative ways to get involved and get connected and find out what issues people are carrying so that we can carry those burdens for them.

My day should be full of ways where I'm supporting and strengthening and encouraging people around me.

We're part of something bigger.

And my prayers that my prayers that we would just begin to pray as if we were at risk, just like others are at risk.

Pray for our other individuals, the way I would be praying for my own children.

If they were losing their faith, I'm going to pray for your children who are losing their faith.

And I'm going to chase God down.

I'm going to be passionate in my prayer and fervent in my prayer for them.

Let's be like the centurion that looked beyond our world.

In verse 7, it says, Jesus said, I'll come and I'll heal him.

And the captain said, No, no, no.

I don't want to put you into all that trouble.

Just give the order, and my servant will be fine.

And it's a rare display of this extreme humility.

There wasn't a spirit of, hey, I'm worthy.

I'm a centurion.

Come to my house.

I deserve you to come.

You're a Jew and I'm a Roman and you're going to do what I tell you to do.

I'm entitled to it.

In fact, he was exactly the opposite.

He actually didn't recognize that title.

And he he said, no, no, I'm not worthy.

Just say the word.

I'm a man who understands authority.

Just say the word and it'll be done.

And as I look through scripture, I see Paul, he said the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15 9.

He said, I am the least of the apostles.

In fact, I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God's church.

There was John the Baptist who said, Hey, this is my message.

There's one who's coming after me, and I'm not even fit to tie up his sandals, to touch his sandals.

I'm not worthy to stoop down and do up the straps on his shoes.

It's not a I'm not worthy spirit, like I don't, I'm I'm a worm or I'm s I'm nothing.

It's as or where you put yourself down, it's a spirit that says, hey, if it wasn't for the grace of God, then I wouldn't be here.

And I am who I am because it's the grace of God that allows me to be who I am.

And I have what I have because of the grace of God.

I have uh what he's allowed me to have, and I'm doing what I'm doing because of the grace of God.

That he's allowed me to do the things I'm doing, and my future is bright because of his grace.

It's not what I deserve, it's not what I'm worthy of from my own activity and my own behavior and my own actions.

I'm worthy because of his grace.

He's made me worthy.

And that's so incredible.

And it was attractive to Jesus in his prayer.

He said, I'm not gonna come to you saying that I'm worthy.

In fact, I'm coming to you saying, Lord, thank you for everything you've done that have made me a recipient of all the grace that can be offered to me.

It was a boasting.

The scripture says, if you're gonna boast in anything, you boast in the Lord, you boast in what he has done.

And that's what the centurion did.

He said, I see you and I see you as a man of authority, and I know that if you say the word, it'll happen.

He had this rare faith.

And I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof.

Just say the word, just speak a word, and it'll get done.

He didn't say, Hey Jesus, you know, I'm I need I need you to come over and I'm gonna set up a scheduled time with you.

He said, just say the word.

And I love that that was just a word, was all he needed.

Just the word.

Jesus, you just need to say the word.

That's what faith sounds like.

Jesus, just say the word.

I trust you.

I know you can do it.

You just say the word.

I know you've got the authority to do it.

It's that type of raw faith, real faith that was evident in him.

You just speak the word and it'll get done.

It'll it'll change your life.

And and Lord, I just want that to be enough.

It's something that I want.

I I look at the scripture and I see all the examples of the woman who was bleeding with an issue of blood.

Twelve years she's bleeding uncontrollably, going to doctors, testing and trying to find out different uh cures for her ailment.

And she comes to a place where people are surrounding Jesus.

The disciples are trying to keep people back from Jesus.

And she reaches through the crowd and touches the bottom of his garment.

And the Bible says that Jesus felt virtue flow through him and from him.

And he stopped and he asked his disciples, who touched me?

And they said, Everyone's touching you, Jesus.

Everyone's around you.

They're just pressing up against you.

He said, No, someone touched me.

Who touched me?

And the woman came forward and she said, I touched you.

And she said, he said to her, He said, Daughter, your faith has healed you.

Go in peace.

The word, the word healed her.

The word healed her.

One word healed her.

And it was so incredible.

The Bible says her bleeding immediately stopped.

It stopped that moment.

Twelve years working, working, working.

One word, done.

That's Jesus.

He just spoke a word.

When we pray, when we come before God, we say, Lord, just speak the word.

I think about this whole uh season we're in.

It seemed like it was so quick that it just flipped on its head.

The whole world turned upside down.

And I'm just believing God, and I know that one word can turn the world again.

And where one word, coronavirus, COVID-19, turn the world into fear, one word can turn the world into faith, can turn the world over into an incredible faith where we see an incredible return to Christ, harvest of souls, miracles, presence of God in our streets and in our schools and in our government and in our churches and in our city and in our businesses.

One word.

I love that the woman who's caught in adultery, she came before Jesus, and Jesus demonstrated incredible grace and truth with her.

And he, after everyone who had left who was condemning her, he spoke to her.

He says, Listen, I don't condemn you.

And he spoke to her, he said, Your sins are forgiven.

Go and sin no more.

And she came into the picture, an adulterer.

She came onto the scene, a woman who was doing immoral things.

And a moment, in a moment with Jesus, she walked away with a fresh new start and a fresh new beginning.

One word from Jesus turned her life around, gave her a new beginning.

You don't have to live that life anymore.

I'm giving you a new beginning.

One word of Jesus can start can start that change.

One word of Jesus can make that change.

We wait on God that way.

There was incredible authority in his word.

And the centurion knew it.

He wasn't the only one.

Peter and John, when Jesus said, Drop your nets and follow me, they dropped their nets and they followed him.

When Jesus saw Zacchaeus in a tree, he said, Zacchaeus, come down.

I'm going to your house for supper.

And Zacchaeus comes down out of the tree.

I don't know if if someone just imposed an invitation on me that way, I'd be a little questionable.

But Jesus said, I'm coming to your house, and there was a power, there was an authority in his word.

There was something that he knew to be true.

And if I could encourage you today, and everyone who's listening today, that despite what the situation might look like, despite what the world may look like today, that we would come back and we would respond and contend with a spirit of faith that God is going to bless our work in this city, that God is going to bless our work in this church, and that one word could change our culture and change the season we're living in.

One word can shift everything, and that's our prayer.

This is why we are in the 21 days of prayer.

We're saying, Lord, give us your word.

Lord, plant your word in our heart.

Plant your word in this city, plant your word in this church.

Lord, we humbly come to you.

We believe you have all authority in heaven and on earth.

It comes, it's in you, and you can make a difference at this moment.

See, the centurion understood that he was submitted to this word.

He was submitted to Jesus.

He was in submission.

He was a man under the mission of Jesus.

And there are a lot of people who come with a lot of missions, a lot of personal missions.

But the best place to be is to align yourself to the mission of Jesus and walk that walk every day.

When you get up, say, Lord, what is your mission for me?

I want to be in submission to your mission.

And when you do that, and when the church does it collectively, if we could understand our part to play, imagine the force that the church could be.

Imagine the impact the church would have.

I'm approaching September with a real faith and a real expectation and not just a hope, but a trust and a vision that God is going to do incredible things this year.

In our church, in Kelowna, in Lake Country, in our churches around the globe, with our missional groups, God is going to do incredible things.

In verse 10 to 12, he said, Jesus said to him, I've traveled and I've never seen this simple trust in Israel like I found in you.

Very few people know how God works, and you know how God works.

And the centurion, the secret of that prayer, the secret of this marvel in Jesus, this marvel, like that's a marvelous prayer.

That kind of a prayer was in the heart of a centurion.

He went to heaven, he went to Jesus, a Gentile.

He went to Jesus with.