Intercession, What Does That Mean?

Say one for me Vic. Happens quite a bit really. It's a huge privilege in praying for someone

and being asked for prayer for their own situation. What are you praying for earnestly

at the moment that isn't about yourself? Praying for others is hugely powerful.

Many years ago I was part of a group of guys from Christchurch who went to a men's worship event

in Belfast. Perhaps you're one of those guys that's watching it now. If it hadn't been for my diet

I'd have joined in with the pints of Guinness at Bristol airport that were being consumed before

we left. It was a great start to an amazing prayer filled weekend with good Christian men over 2,000

of them. Anyway if you were around in the 70s and 80s or know your history you would know that Belfast

was a pretty turbulent place. Bombs, shootings, riots, paramilitaries, businesses being disrupted

and British soldiers on the street. Some of the front lines in that time were the Crumlin Road,

the Shank Hill and the Falls Road. Yet here we were just a few years later a group of men from

Christchurch in Clevedon in an open top bus travelling up the Crumlin Road. Stopping at the Crumlin Road

jail and then later pausing outside the Sinn Féin headquarters to take pictures. It was sobering but

also it was a huge answer to prayer. Because if you'd asked me a few years before in the 80s if I ever

thought it would be possible in my lifetime to experience such a transition and freedom to do

that I'd probably have doubted your motives. But in amongst that situation had been prayer.

In amongst the politics there had been prayer. In amongst the Good Friday Agreement there had been

prayer that brought a new freedom to this place. There was a huge wave of prayer on both sides of

the divide and the peace was borne out through the hearts and desires of many and especially the praying

women of Northern Ireland. Prayer won through and peace came. Look through history across the world

where prayer has changed a nation. You know South Africa with all its horrors and the past of apartheid.

The demolishing of the Berlin War and the fall of communism in that place. You know I think it was

one communist leader said after that great day you know we planned for everything but we didn't plan for

prayer and candles. There is something powerful when we pray and intercede. And with the recent

spotlight again being shown into the dark places of our time and our community and culture this morning's

reading from Philippians is so powerful. You see we can align ourselves with the character and heart of

Jesus who himself was the subject of injustice brutality and murder. He knows these things firsthand

and is now with the father interceding for us and with us and if we are in relationship with Jesus

then we will know that flow of grace and love humility and power that comes from the father as we intercede.

Now intercession can be quite a churchy word and intercessory prayer is basically asking God for the needs of

other people and other situations. It's that simple. It's being like-minded with Jesus, having the same

love, being it one in spirit and one in mind, doing nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,

rather in humility, valuing others above ourselves, not looking to our own interests but each of us to the

interests of others. It's looking outside of ourselves with humility as we pray for others in their

situations, joining in with Jesus and his concerns. You know but I can hear maybe somebody asking well

why pray? Surely Jesus knows already about the needs of the world and he does. But I guess it's that

relational thing where he says, do you know what, great, I'm really glad Clive that you're praying

about this. What should we do about it together? Because often he calls us to be partners and agents

of change through prayer and frankly that's awesome and powerful. The hinge is prayer and we are called

to intercede. Why? Maybe because we took our eye off the ball. You know maybe we stopped caring about

our planet, our country, my neighbourhood, my work colleagues and my friends, my neighbours and in

every move of God in this land and especially in revival it has come through people praying for a

situation where they brought those desires and needs to him and cried out, Lord heal our land.

The Welsh revivals at the end of the last century in the beginning of this, do you know what, those

stories grip me. Pictures of lights burning in miners cottages at night because people like you and me

were awake praying. They were praying for revival, praying for their friends and neighbours and families

to come into a living relationship with Jesus and they did in their hundreds. People just spilling out

into local chapels, people giving their life to Christ in their hundreds, in open air meetings, in their

workplaces. Intercessory prayer is powerful. But how do I do that? Well Pete Gregg in his prayer toolkit

has four points and the first point is one get informed. Maybe learn the facts by checking the news or

updates about the people or situations that we're praying for. God calls us to be active and informed

and certainly not passive. Two, get inspired. What is God saying about this? Invite the Holy Spirit to speak

into the situations you're interceding for. There may be a specific area or a significant thing that the

Spirit is saying. Press into that in prayer so it becomes more personal than what can sometimes maybe

just feel like a shopping list. Get indignant. You know, this is wrong Lord. There is injustice in this. It

doesn't feel good. It's not right. There's a situation at the moment that I'm praying about and

I sense a real lack of justice and care. I sense God's not happy and neither am I.

And for you and for us all that maybe could be a world situation like COVID. You know, God knows it's

wrong and that can get a bit noisy sometimes in prayer. And why not? As we express our frustration

and passion about the situation, we are sharing. Engage your own heart and allow yourself to think and

feel honestly as you pray passionately and purposefully. And number four is get in sync.

Engage together. Where two or three are gathered together, it says you might like to engage prayer with

others online, on paper, in your family. There may be a specific area on the prayer sheet that Gene

distributes where it sort of leaps out at you and together with people in your household or others in

your home group that you can be in sync and pray. Maybe that's on a worldwide issue where you pray

together. It's good to know that there is a wave of prayer that sweeps and flows across this land.

If people ask where I am on the prayer spectrum, my heart beats with the heart of evangelism.

I long to see others and pray for them to come into relationship with Jesus. And that's why

intercessory prayer is so important in my life and ministry and for the people that I pray for each day.

There was a man called Rodney Gypsy Smith. He was a remarkable English evangelist. He was the son

of traveller parents and he was radically saved at the age of 16 and in time became a fervent travelling

evangelist. His prayer life was marked by one simple activity which became his trademark. And he would

start by taking some chalk and he would draw it around himself and pray inside that circle.

When asked what was needed for successful revival, he replied to people,

go home, lock yourself in your room, kneel down in the middle of the floor and with a piece of chalk,

draw a circle around yourself. There on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a

revival within that chalk circle. You see, that passion needs to break out in us first.

His evangelistic crusades saw hundreds and thousands of people come to Christ.

This week, whether you choose to draw a chalk circle on your hardwood flooring,

please ask somebody for permission before you do it, or paint a mental picture of a circle in your mind

around yourself whenever you pray. I encourage you this week to intercede.

Get informed, get inspired, get indignant and get in sync with the power and purposes of the Holy Spirit

that dwells in you. Let's pray together.

Come Holy Spirit, show us what to pray. Inform us, inspire us and may we stamp on injustice in your name.

And may our hearts beat as one with yours so that a whole nation, a whole world may be healed.

Lord, your kingdom come. Lord, your kingdom come. Amen.