Teach us to Pray - Part 6

We're doing a series on pray and we thought it did finish, but

it's not. And I thought all I want to do

is just going to do another one or two weeks.

This is my prayer book. I just want to, over the next

two weeks, I just want to read the prayers that I pray over you

every day. I pray 13 prayers over you every

day of my life. And they're just normal prayers,

but I pray them just little prayers over a long period of

time. And so I want to pray.

And then we're going to watch a quick video of a guy who tells

the story of a past and a cat. And, and then hopefully at the

end of this, we're going to learn how to pray.

We're not, we're not saying we're experts in prayer.

We're saying we ask God to teach us how to pray.

And that's what we're asking God for.

So this is just, if you could just close your eyes, you know

this so well, but this is one of the prayers I pray over you.

The Lord bless you, 3CI. And the Lord keep you, 3 CI.

Keep you strong, keep you healthy, keep you safe, keep you

generous, keep you free, keep you counting.

The Lord make His face sign upon you. 3CI May God's favor and his

radiance affect every part of your bodies and of your lives.

And May God be gracious to you. 3 CI Where you have grown up

under rules and regulations and you've been hurt by

institutional religion or entrapped by sinful patterns of

behavior or destructive patterns.

I pray that the Lord may be gracious to you, deeply

gracious, extremely gracious where you toss and turn at night

and don't know how to get rid of some of the things that you've

done. May the Lord be gracious to you

and may the Lord turn His face towards you in an argument many

times that we do, as we turn our face away from people, May God

turn his face towards you and may He give you peace.

Shalom, wholeness, Wellness, health, victory, thriving.

I pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Let's watch this little video

together. There was this pastor with his

family one hot, sunny Saturday afternoon and they they had just

got a kitten and they were trying to give the kitten a bit

of confidence. So they put the kitten up on a

tree and it just ran along a branch and it slipped off the

branch, but it was hanging on the branch, but it didn't have

the body weight to flick itself back up onto the branch.

And they tried to get to the little kitten, but they couldn't

get to the kitten. And the father, being a pastor,

always came up with great ideas. He said don't worry, I know what

to do. I'll get my car, I'll get a

rope, I'll tie the rope around the tree, I'll tie on the car

and I'll drive a bit. That will bring down that really

big branch and we'll be able to manoeuvre and get the little

Pussycat down. Everyone said Daddy to the

rescue. Daddy gets the car, gets the

rope, ties the rope round the tree, ties it onto the car, gets

in. The car begins to drive slowly,

slowly. The tree's bending, bending.

The car's moving, moving. The tree's bending.

Poof, the rope snapped. As the rope snapped, the tree

flung. The Pussycat went flying out in

the opposite direction. That's the end of the story.

Not every story has a happy ending.

Two weeks later, the pastor was visiting.

A member of his congregation knocks on the door.

Door opens. The lady says pastor, come in.

He walked in there in the hallway there was his little

Pussycat. It was obvious but he didn't

want to say that's my little kitten.

So he said that's a lovely little kitten you've got.

Have you had her long? She said pastor you are not

going to believe this. It was two weeks ago and I was

in my garden with my little son Johnny.

And Johnny said, Mummy, please can we have a kitten?

I said, no, we are not having a kitten.

But he, he pestered me, pestered me.

The only thing I could think of doing was to say, I tell you

what, Johnny, let's kneel down in the garden.

Let's pray to the Lord Jesus. And if the Lord Jesus want you

to have a kitten, he'll send you a kitten.

Pastor, you are not going to believe this.

Listen. When we pray, coincidences

happen, and when we don't, they don't.

When we pray, coincidences happen and when we don't, they

don't. So listen.

Let's become more intentional in praying.

And so this morning we are looking at a verse of the the

Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, say that with me

thy Kingdom come. And you know, I was reading a

little verse of Scripture in, in Ephesians 3.

I don't know if we've got it up, but in Ephesians 3 it says this,

I am the least of God's people. Paul is talking about himself,

this great apostle. He said, I'm the least of God's

people, but it has been given to me to proclaim the unsearchable

riches of Christ. And I looked at it, I thought, I

feel a bit like that sometimes. I'm the least of God's people,

but every Sunday I get the privilege of standing up here

and proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Say unsearchable. We have got 2 1/2 thousand with

the overflow nearly 3000 people on this property today.

We'll have another couple of nearly 2000 tonight.

And we can spend the next 30 years studying the Bible and we

will not scratch the surface of the character and nature of

Christ. And I'm so concerned at times

when we go into institutional Christianity and it becomes the

trend to go to church that we almost have a decaf Jesus.

You know, when you go and have decaf, it has no effect on you.

You're going to have coffee and it's decaf.

You can have 10 decafs and you can walk out the coffee shop.

I want you to have triple espressos when you come here.

That, that, that when we talk about Christ and his nature.

So when you talk about the Kingdom, So I, I was just

thinking because today we're going to study a part of God's

Kingdom and it's the gentleness of God's Kingdom.

It's Jesus the gentle king. And immediately as I start to

study Jesus the gentle King, my mind goes to Revelation chapter

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

1. And it's Jesus the powerful

king. And the Bible says his eyes are

blazing like fire, and he's got the sash around his chest, and

his feet are like burnished bronze.

And out of his mouth comes a double edged sword.

And we're going to talk about money today.

And every time the church talks about money, it seems like they

use the Jesus of Revelation. But what about the gentle Jesus?

We're going to talk about money today.

Can I tell you about Jesus the King who's gentle?

And so we have these unbelievable different aspects

of Jesus. Have you talked?

Have you thought about Jesus the friend?

What about Jesus reading in John 13?

Jesus has said he'll be with us till the last to the very end.

Can you imagine with you sitting and you're thinking your life is

coming to an end? I'm just telling you here, the

riches of the Christ that I serve says he will be with you

right to the end. You don't have to give up.

You don't have to be scared and one of the words you would look

at today is this word salvation. I read it.

I just jumped off the page with me and I thought Jesus never

came to help me. Jesus came to save me.

I was dead in my transgressions. I was dead and he made me alive.

He is not some self help manual that makes you have a better

life. He is a Christ who resurrects

you and then he kills your nature so that you can serve

your wife properly. Amen.

And so so let's study this Jesus and so the Kingdom come.

And then we read a little verse of Scripture in in John.

And there's a quote in John that comes from Zechariah.

It's about Jesus coming when they cut the palm branches and

he's riding on a donkey, gentleman riding on the donkey.

That quote comes from Zechariah. And Clint was saying, what

scripture are we going to preach from?

If you go to the book of Ezra, they're busy building the temple

and there's a lot of opposition against the building of the

temple. And if Ezra chapter 4 says, and

Ezra 4 · chapter mention

the temple came to a standstill, like some of your lives have

come to a standstill, and then it says then Haggai the prophet

and Zechariah the prophet started prophesying.

And so when you open the book of Zechariah, it's actually to get

you going again, to start building the Kingdom, to trust

God again for miracles and victories, etcetera.

Amen. So you're there, you're with me.

So let's study Jesus today. And as you're reading, you

think, Rory, But the other parts of Christ, yes, they are.

And we're going to spend the next 30 years together working

them out. We're not experts on these

things. We are learning about Jesus.

So we're going to go to Zechariah 9.

We're preaching the Kingdom come.

And I want to show you how the Kingdom comes and some of these

things. This is a quote from John 12 and

from Ezra. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of

Zion. Say that Rejoice greatly, O

daughter of Zion. Let's try, let's, let's do it

like we read it like let's try it again. 123 Rejoice greatly, O

daughter of Zion. That's not how you behave at

Loftus. And I'll tell you what, when I

saw Clint behave last night, Clint's going to have to stand

up and rejoice greatly at CEO Khaleesi scoring a try and

rejoice greatly at the church. Let's try it again. 123.

So one of the great things about what we did today, and I want to

thank our staff, we turned the colour of the inside of the

building. We changed everything because

actually the word over our Church of the season is rejoice.

Not your circumstance, not your marriage scenario, not your

finances, not your business. Our salvation is rejoice.

We're going to rejoice. We're going to enter into a

season of spring in God as a church.

We're going to rejoice. We're going to ask God's Kingdom

to come. And we're going to start by

saying rejoice. And I've read the Scripture

maybe 50 times in the last two weeks because I was meant to

preach on it two weeks ago. And yesterday when I opened it

up, I just saw daughter was in capital letters.

And then it says, shout, let's say it, let's try it again.

Can you imagine what my life and my study is like all by myself

late at night? Well, I say, you're right, no

fun. I'm just reading Zechariah.

So can I help you now? It's fine, It's fine.

That's how I read the Bible. And I just looked at this and I

thought, daughter both times I've got capital letters.

I've got two daughters, my natural daughter and the one who

married my son. And in our family group

yesterday, with tears pouring down my face, I just put in our

family group. Hey girls, I've just read this

in Zechariah. I just want to say a family, our

daughters get capital DS in our family.

So it's got nothing to do with the preach I saw last night when

they're having dinner with this family.

They've got a daughter and I watched out her dad and her mum

treated her with a capital D. They honored her every time they

walked past this stroked her shoulder, gave her a hug,

honored her publicly spoke words of life over.

I want to tell a young lady or old lady, if you had not been

treated as a daughter with a capital DI pray if we preach the

gospel properly and we say our Father art in heaven, let your

Kingdom come. I pray God will take your D

whether it's a hidden D, whether it's a dark D, whether it's a

broken D and he'll make it a capital D even this morning in

Jesus name, Amen. See your king comes to you, say

King comes our Father art in heaven hallowed be your name,

thy Kingdom come. The Kingdom comes righteous,

righteous and hanging over our nation is parlour parlour and a

20 year thing of our previous. And we just got 1 government

concern after the next one court case after the next.

We have got corruption in every department of everything.

And we sang Lord God may your Kingdom come, may your Kingdom

come, may your righteousness come into our nation.

Lord God, may your Kingdom come and having salvation, say

salvation gentle and riding on a donkey on a cult, the foal of a

donkey. So this is an amazing picture of

Jesus. Just to put up Luke 19, please,

if you don't mind, Luke 19. That's what happens in Luke 19.

Go to the village ahead of you and as you enter it you'll find

a cult tide there which no one has ever written.

Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you why are you

untying it, tell him the Lord needs it.

You see the Kingdom come is not just a prayer.

Many times it's got a very practical outworking.

Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as they had

told them. As they were untying the cult,

the owners say owners with a small O asked them why are you

untying the cult? They replied the Lord capital

letter needs it. In Greek that word owner and

Lord is exactly the same word. So when the owner with the

little O asks you why you untying the cult, tell them the

big O needs it. So the Kingdom doesn't just come

somehow pie in the sky. It comes when we untie our

resources and our resources just a donkey.

We don't worship our resources. I'll tell you about a man here

called Stefan. Stefan means crown.

He had a Audi quattro low profile wheels.

None of you would even recognize him if I called him up here.

He's a very successful businessman, but he zoots around

and he's fancy Audi Quattro and and and drives fast.

And then God says your Audi Quattro has got absolutely no

value in but in Mozambique. So sell your Audi Quattro and

buy an Amarok 4 by 4 so you can go on the beach and it's got fat

tires and you can make your car available.

Untie your donkey so that people can jump into your donkey so you

can take the Kingdom of God to Mozambique.

So he did that. You've got to untie the vehicle

and the church often comes up. He says you've got to untie your

money. Untie your money so the Kingdom

can come. Friends, not with fiery eyes,

just gentle Jesus say, hey, will you make your resources

available? Amen.

So that I can actually ride my Kingdom into people's houses.

Yes, Amen. Amen.

And it's sometimes very practical.

I've got one of my children that needed specialist attention last

week, and I prayed every week for the last weeks.

Lord Jesus, our Father, art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,

thy Kingdom come, thy Kingdom come.

Lord God, I need help for one of my kids. 7:30 Sunday night last

week after church. Hey Rory, can I come to your

house? Yes, please come into my house.

7:30 at night. Untie his vehicle.

His vehicle is a speciality and he needs to go to bed early on

Sunday because on Monday he has to exercise his speciality.

That's where he makes his money. And when I arrived home, he was

sitting on the couch with one of my children who needed

specialist intervention. And for two hours he sat on that

couch. You see, Kingdom come sometimes

in our minds, we don't know what it is.

Is it, is it, is it fire? Is it rain?

Is it sometimes it's just giving up two hours on a Sunday night,

you know, in in Pretoria, Hay specific is when the past is

meant to go to somebody's house. But I felt like on Sunday

somebody came to my house. It was like I've got pursuit.

And I just said that I thought the Kingdom has come.

The Kingdom has come Amen. It's practical.

It's practical. The Kingdom has come.

Gentle, gentle. I had the privilege of marrying

those two people, this beautiful young couple.

Two weeks ago I married them and I came to Pretoria.

That guy, that guy that Afrikaana calls me bad.

Hey, bad. He's loved me, him and his wife.

He just loved me, just love me. And then if SMS me, can you

marry my son? Of course I can marry your son.

For 11 years you've been loving my family.

And I said to him, young man, in front of his family and friends.

I said, young man, when you speak to that girl, you must

speak gently, must speak gently. I believed, you know, the Bible

says forceful men lay hold of the Kingdom and the Kingdom and,

and, and part of it is that. But but if I had a choice of the

35 years of being in the church, it's that when people came to

the church, they found a gentle Saviour, powerful, forceful,

strong, blazing eyes. But gentle, gentle.

Be gentle with your family, gentle you with me on a cult to

fall over donkey. I will take away the Chariots

from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem, and the battle

bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the

nation, say peace. One of the great ways that the

Kingdom of God comes as peace, that there's a beautiful Hebrew

word, Shalom. You would greet each other,

peace be with you, and it becomes a religious thing.

I grew up in the Anglican Church.

You would turn around and say, peace be with you.

No, turn around and say and peace be with you too.

But it lost its meaning. It basically means may the

Shalom of God, the wholeness of God, the vitality of God, the

flourishing nature of God, the victory of God, everything that

God has, May that peace come into your heart.

May it invade you. Friends, I sit as a pastor and

people choose anxiety over peace all their lives.

And my boys will laugh at you because we've been going through

the the definitions of this. And I say this to the anxious

person. What do I say to the anxious

person, Thomas? What do I say?

Say they say what? What do it?

This is what the Bible says to the anxious people here.

To the anxious people, I say this, I'm not just praying.

May the Kingdom come and hope nothing's happened.

I am praying that God gets under your anxiety.

He gets underneath your anxiety because people here are anxious.

This nation, it makes people anxious.

The future makes us anxious. The financial markets makes us

anxious. But I am saved.

And this is what I say to anxious people.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by

pray, say pray, by pray and petition with Thanksgiving.

Present your requests to God, and that say it.

The Shalom of God, the well-being, the flourishing, the

wholehearted nature of God, and the peace of God, which

transcends understanding, which goes against your mind and your

fun, which transcends understanding, will guard your

heart, your feelings, and your mind in the knowledge of Christ.

And when we pray, friends, Jesus comes with an AK47 in his hand,

with a knife in his mouth and with hand grenades in his hand.

And he stands in front of my head and he stands in front of

my heart. So that when I lie in bed at

night, my feelings don't speak to my thoughts and my thoughts

to my feelings, and I get myself in an absolute mess and I crash.

We should have be at peace. Every one of us should be at

peace. And when we pray thy Kingdom

come, it means anxiety must leave.

And the Kingdom comes and rules and peace is one of those

unbelievable processes. Absolute peace.

And I pray to you, stop. Stop allowing anxiety to rule

your life. We have been given an

inheritance in Christ that can make us live at peace.

Amen. Amen.

His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the

ends of the earth. You know what happens?

Many times as I've watched people, the Kingdom of God works

like this. They're parts of God that are

very spacious and they're parts of God that are very confining.

So when you talk about the rule of God, it's not just spaces,

part of it is confining. So if God says I want to be the

king of your money, that doesn't mean I can just do whatever I

like with my money. He wants to rule my money.

And so that's confining to me. So I can't do what I like.

I remember as a young Christian, understanding, trying to

understand God, I was driving into Toronto.

I was preaching at a conference and there are 10 lanes going

into Toronto and there are 10 lanes coming out of Toronto and

it was peak out traffic and there was just this action.

There were lights on and there were fly offs and there were fly

overs and there intersections. And and I just remember going

through all these lanes and activities and options and I

said but God I feel like I'm stuck on a dirt Rd. with a big

truck in front of me and I'm stuck behind it and I can't

pass. And God said, because my rule is

coming in your life because I need to teach you right now, you

don't have options right now, you're stuck behind the truck

because I need to get to the bottom of your heart.

But I can't just preach that because God's not like that.

And then one day I was sitting in a conference in Australia and

I felt God say, OK, now let's just move this truck out the way

and you can go a little bit faster and then the lanes

increase again. And now you've got a couple of

options. And and that's what happens when

God's rule comes. Sometimes it gives me space and

sometimes it shuts me down. You must go with that, friends.

We have to learn that. You know what I see in the

church with young people? It's like God has given me space

in my emotions, peace, joy, love, patience, kindness,

gentleness, and He's given me restrictions in my sexuality.

What young people end up doing is they take the width in their

sexuality and then the devil throws on restriction in their

emotions. It's the other way around.

So when you say Kingdom come, you've got to know God is doing

very deep things in every single part of our lives.

Are you with me, guys? As for you, because of the blood

of my covenant with you, say that because of the blood of my

covenant with you. Say it again.

Because of the blood of my covenant with you.

Why don't you stand, Stefanus? Stefanus, you're absolutely and

utterly free from all the sin that you've ever performed in

the past and in the future. Why?

Because of the blood of the covenant with me.

Forgotten your name, Sir Johan, why don't you stand?

How many years have you been here now?

About 3-2. But every Sunday you cry.

You know what? Because of the blood of the

covenant of God with you. It's taken 2 years to get down

to the bottom of your heart because of the blood of the

covenant with you and because you've been so hard on yourself

and because you've beaten yourself up so much because you

thought that it was activity that made God happy with you.

But you realize now that it's God's grace.

And because of that, every seller you just sit here with

tears. Big, strong Afrikaans man with

tears pouring down your face because of the blood of the

covenant with me, friends, I've been here for 11 years.

Last night we were talking about can we wear short pants to

church or not? No, no, listen to me, listen to

me, listen to me. And the man said, he said, Rory,

it is so difficult for me to put on a pair of short pants.

And he said when I get dressed and my son comes out with

shorts, I want to say to him, put on long pants.

Friends, we are here for one reason alone.

Because of the blood of the covenant with me.

You can wear short pants. You can wear long pants.

Men, you're just not allowed to wear dresses.

The other churches for you, not this one.

And for those guys who wear their wives T-shirts to church,

wear your wife's pants as well because we see your calves are

not as big as your biceps. Say this because of the blood of

the covenant with me. Why can't I stand up here?

Why can't you stand up here? Why can't we worship?

Why can't we? Because of the blood of the

covenant with me, friends, I want you to study the Scripture

over and over again. It's one of the ways that the

Kingdom comes. I will free you prisoners from

the waterless. But say free come, Gemma.

Then look, look that way. Come salmon, stand up, stand up

straight, say free, free. 11 years, friends, I've been

preaching this in this church. 11 years I've been preaching

this and I know it's hard to get, but this is what is

presented. This is me, this is you, this is

the church, this is the law, this is sin.

And we enter into a yoke with this thing.

And this girl has not got a chance.

If this guy goes right, she goes right.

If this guy goes left, she goes left.

If this guy sits down, she sits down.

She's got absolutely no choice because she doesn't have the

strength to fight him. But Galatians 5 says it is for

freedom's sake that Christ has set you free.

Do not let yourselves be yoked again by the bondage, or don't

let yourself be fought again by the yoke, by the yoke, by the

bondage of slavery. So Jesus, whose shoulders are

higher than mine, higher than Simon's, he comes underneath.

We said it, remember last time we preached it.

He comes on this side and he puts out this hand towards law

and he puts out this hand towards sin.

And he comes and he says, he says, he says you are say it,

you're free. And this guy, this guy over

time, this guy comes knocking back at the door and says Gemma.

And you say no, no, no, Zechariah Nah and says Zechariah

Nah and says the Kingdom has come.

I'm free. And eventually this guy

disappears out of your life and the Spirit of God comes up

inside of you like this. And you start to think, what

must I do with my money? The rules and regulations?

No, you're not under rules and regulations.

God starts to govern your life from inside by His Spirit.

Thank you. Return to your fortress.

So prisoners of hope, 95% of the people that I deal with are

dealing with their past. Jesus is dealing with our

future. His blood dealt with our past.

We are prisoners of hope. We are prisoners of hope.

We are future based. You are prisoners of hope.

That means you can live in this nation with hope in your heart.

Even now. I will announce that I will

restore, say restore. I know some of you know this

story, but my grandfather had a table that was the same table

that is on the Britannica yacht, the Queen of England.

He gave that table to my dad and I grew up around that dining

room table. When I came of age, I inherited

the dining room table. It was really ugly.

It had like suede chairs, but because my dad gave it to me and

he got it from his dad, I felt like, and because the queen had

it, I felt like I should use it. So I had this really house that

I was trying to make modern and I had the Queen's dining room

table, which is now 75 years down through our family history.

And I went to go and preach in Holland and the elder who was

lead is staying at our house, took a lasagna out of the oven

and he put it on one end and he took a 2 litre ask him and he

put it on the other end and he burnt the table.

So when my dad picked me up at the airport, I said hey dad,

how's it? I got hello.

I said hey ma'am, what's wrong with him?

Said you must see the dining room table.

I got home and I saw this burnt heirloom, so I opened the Yellow

Pages and it you don't worry, don't worry.

Yellow Vietni but owns Vietnam. Let the fingers do The Walking

through now. You won't understand if you're

born after you won't. You won't understand Gen.

Z, don't worry about it. The other pages were something

we used the last century and and I realized that there were two

pages of restorers. Their jobs was to restore and I

remember choosing Gordon restorer.

I said, Gordon, can you come and fix and and he fixed the dining

table. Every time I looked at that

dining table, I thought of the two Yellow Pages.

But then I started to look at my Bible and I realized the

unsearchable riches of Christ is that he can restore people who

are deaf, and he can restore people who are blind, and he can

restore people who are broken, and he can store relationships

that are long gone, and he can restore historical hurt, and he

can. And I realized that Jesus is a

master restorer. And so I want to pray this

prayer over you. 3 CR close your eyes if you don't mind.

Every daughter in this house I pray.

Lord God, a capital little D May your Kingdom come righteous and

salvation. Spaciousness, gentleness.

I pray over your people. Lord God, I pray peace.

I pray your authority. I pray your blood.

I pray your freedom. I pray your hope and I pray your

restoration. May your Kingdom come.

Amen.