Pray Like a Champion - Week 2

Hello, Go Church family. I'm Lara and I'm with Pastor Matt Haraba.

Hey everybody.

And Gilbert.

Hey Lara.

Hi.

Excellent.

We did this in the first take this time.

Yes.

Praise God.

We're excited to be back with you and we're digging deeper into our series called

Pray Like a Champion.

What a great study. What a great series. I'm really enjoying this.

Me too.

I'm enjoying this too. I'm excited to keep going deeper and deeper in the subject.

And it's really enriching because it's something like most of what we do, very applicable, right?

It's something that we can see what we've been doing or what we haven't been doing to a certain

degree and just apply it further. And like we said, and you know, I keep going back to this,

we want to keep going further and further on this trail of faith that the Lord put us on.

And of course our minds matter. You know, this is what we've been talking about last month.

And to be spiritually minded is life and peace. And we keep experiencing life and peace to a

greater measure. But if we really want to keep going further on this walk, on the right trail

that the Lord is taking us on, we need to stay connected to Him. We need to have the right

communication and we need to be able to hear Him when we want to go further. So

mentioning that, I want to say that this is week two of our podcast series and there's going to be

week two of our Grow Groups as well. So far we've been talking about pray like a champion. Last

week we really looked at the subject of what is a champion's prayer? You know, what does a

champion's prayer look like? And we talked about what is prayer and why do I have to pray?

And we also had some fun discussions in our Grow Groups. Hopefully we got to see ourselves

in the illustration and see where we want to go and how we can go further. And this week

we're actually going to talk about the Grow element of this series, which is how we can become

champion prayers or like Pastor Matt says, champions who pray, right? Just to make it easier.

And before we do that, I'm going to ask Pastor Matt to head to Luke chapter 18. We're going to

Luke 18 · chapter mention

read our key scripture, which is in Luke chapter 18 and we're going to go a little further.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Yeah, Luke 18, Luke 18 verse one is our key scripture. And Jesus speak a parable to them,

the disciples, to this end, that men should always pray and not faint. We've read that from a couple

of different translations. The Amplified says not lose heart. But we haven't, we've, we've

haven't dug deeper into the chapter. I want to jump down to verse 10.

And I want to look at this picture of prayer together. Verse 10, two men went up into the

temple to pray. The one a Pharisee and the other a publican. Okay, so probably a more modern

translation would say a tax collector. The Pharisee here is the most strict follower

of the first five books of the Bible. So the Pharisees were very strict in their application

of the first five books of the Bible. And then they were proponents of or, or

they were, let's say the, the doctors of the law. They were very aware of everything to do with

God's commandments, not just the 10 commandments, but the 660 some commandments that make up the

Old Testament. So this is a parable. This is a story that Jesus is using to illustrate a point.

And he says, there's two people that are going into the temple for the purpose to pray. The one

is a Pharisee. And when he says Pharisee, we know that this is someone that knows what the Old

Testament scriptures say. So perceived as really religious. Perceived as very religious. Yeah,

very, very much a doer, a practicer. And then we have a tax collector. And he says,

very much a doer, a practicer. And then we have a tax collector and a tax collector is the very

bottom of society. This is someone that has absolute, he's, he's living without a moral

compass at all because he's participating with Rome in occupying the, the, the, the land and

subjugating people to pay taxes to the oppressor, to pay taxes to the oppressor. Yeah. And, but,

but this is an oppressed person who has bought their own freedom by helping the oppressor.

So that's the contrast, right? Two ends of the spectrum. Of course, everything that I just said

is on purpose judging from outward appearance. Right? So this is how people would see it.

Verse 11 says, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. I love the way this is the King James

Bible that I'm reading. And I just love the way it's phrased. The Pharisee stood and prayed

and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank you that I am not as other men are extortioners,

unjust adulterers, or even as this tax collector. Imagine the scene. The Pharisee dressed very nice,

has a great speaking voice, raises his voice and says, God, I'm so thankful that I am not like,

and then lists a bunch of sins or sinners, and then points to this, this actual person.

I'm glad, I'm glad I'm not like these people. I'm not like these people. I'm not like these people,

and I'm not like this guy. This is the Pharisee praying with himself. I love that phrase.

Because is he really praying that God is not involved? Right?

Verse 12, I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. So the Pharisee is now listing

what he's not like and what he does. Verse 13, and the publican standing afar off. So the publican is

the tax collector. Sorry. Yeah. The tax collector is standing afar off. So he's off by himself,

would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven. And he hit his chest and he says, God, be merciful

to me, a sinner. Verse 14, Jesus said, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified

rather than the Pharisee. For everyone who exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles

himself shall be exalted. This parable is actually about pride and humility. But in it, we see Jesus

uses these two vignettes, these two pictures of prayer. And the sin consciousness of the tax

collector is not helping him. Right? We have to base our identity on who we are in Christ. But

the religious man, his version of prayer wasn't about God at all. It wasn't what we talked about

what we talked about last week. Prayer is communicating with God, talking to him,

having a conversation with our loving father. This is him. Really, he's talking to everybody

around him. And I kind of wanted to draw attention to that, because when we talk about being a

champion prayer, one who prays, we don't mean that you sound really good when you pray, that you

have a really great articulation, that you impress people. Wow, he really knows how to pray. She

really knows how to pray. Being a champion prayer isn't about how we look to those around us. It is

the connection we make with him. It is how we take his will and bring it to him in prayer,

in a time of talking to him, in a time of communication with him, and release his power

from his word into the now, into our situation. Yeah, that's really good. Honestly, as you're

reading that, I'm thinking about what we've been talking about last week and what we're about to

talk about this week. To be honest, what I see is the Pharisee talking and the tax collector talking,

but what I also see is a man who knows about God, but he doesn't know God. Because if we're going

to be champion prayer, so we've been talking about being a champion, and of course it's not the winner,

or of course we want to pray as victors from a place of victory, but what really stands out to me

about the word champion is we want to pray by aligning, but by being the person that the Lord

relies upon to champion a cause. We want to be the champions of a cause, so we want to carry

a purpose that is greater than ourselves and run with it. That is also the definition, or the second

definition of the word champion. In order to do that, in order for me to align myself with the cause,

it's so much more effective if I align myself with the character of the one whose cause I'm

believing in. If you look at in the natural, great leaders are defined by

how they make their followers feel about them, and how they allow someone to not buy into the person

necessarily, but to buy into the cause. If I look at this from that perspective, I see that

the Pharisee really doesn't align himself with the heart of God. He's saying, first of all,

he's displaying pride. That is, this is who I am, this is what I've done, I thank you that I'm able

to see myself that way. That's not really prayer, that's kind of gloating at some point, that's

bragging. A second thing is that if he knew God's heart, he would know that God desires mercy and

not sacrifice. This is what Jesus says. The Lord is merciful, He cares about people. His whole

purpose is based around people. Everything that he does through Jesus is for people.

Here we have the Pharisee talking about, I'm so thankful I'm not like this person, and that person,

and that person, and look at this guy right here, this tax collector, I'm so glad I'm not like him.

But at least the tax collector is understanding the heart of God. He's like, I thank you, you're

merciful. I'm sorry I'm not this person who I could be, but I'm relying on your mercy. I'm coming

to you in prayer, knowing that you're merciful. That is actually the heart of Scripture. The

Pharisee, supposedly knowing the Scripture, should know that the Lord made a covenant with these

people because of his mercy. Covenant faithfulness is literally the definition of mercy in the Bible.

It's just so important to align ourselves with the heart of God so that we can effectively carry

out the purposes of God. That is really what we wanted to talk about this week, which is,

how do I become a champion in prayer? How do I become a champion in prayer?

How can I develop myself to go there? There are really two things that I'm going to say to that.

Number one is what we just said, which is we have to align ourselves with the cause that we are

championing over our own cause. We need to become or embody the cause that we are championing over

our own cause. We need to embody the cause that we are pushing forward, which is the Lord's things.

Number two is we have to develop certain character traits to become more effective in our prayer

lives. Of course, everything we're going to talk about is based in Scripture. We're going to look

at tons of Scripture. There are four character traits that we're going to cover today. Number one

is we need to be connected to the word of God. If we want to become champion prayers, we need to be

connected to the word of God. Let's read John chapter 15 verses seven and eight together.

John 15 · chapter mention

It says this, if you abide in me, in my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it

shall be done for you. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will

be my disciples. What do we take from this? Jesus is saying that if you abide in me, he is the word

of God, right? He is the word made flesh. That is what Scripture says. Then he says, if my words abide

in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. He's basically hinting at

how to be effective in prayer. If my words abide in you, then you can be effective in prayer.

To me, that looks in a sense like if you understand my will, if you really receive who I am

in you and you understand my words, you understand what I'm about, you understand what I've said,

you understand the context and the nature of my words, then you can be effective in your prayer

life. Our desires will match his desires. Yes, that's good. It's also worth noting there, this is

it starts with relationship. He says, if you abide in me, there's a difference between

abiding in something, that means to live, to dwell, to make your home and visiting.

There are places that I have visited before, but then there's a place that I live. It is the place

where all my stuff is. It's the place where my wife has three Christmas trees. It is the place

where the pictures of our kids are all over the walls. It's where my books are. It's where I abide.

We cannot expect to be champion prayers if we visit him. We need to live in him. That's why

what we talked about last week is so important, is developing that relationship where we become

confident in who he is and understand that we should get acquainted with and frequently spend

time with talking to our loving, living Father. Yeah, so good. I really like what Laura just said

and it reminds me of the verse in James chapter four, verse three. James is pretty direct. I like

this epistle and he says this, you ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may

spend it on your pleasures. Motives matter. It sure does. Motives matter. It's true, we have to

understand the heart of God or the nature of God in order to be effective. If we're connected to

his word and we're aware, it enriches our prayer life. I can talk about that personally for myself

where I've asked the Lord for answers in my life or I've asked him for certain things and he points

me to scripture. This is like, oh yeah, first Peter chapter three, verse seven. It's like, what?

What's this? Start going through the Bible and there are other times where just his words are

just floating in me. So this is the process of meditation. Sometimes I've had conversations

with a few people and they say, oh, how come you just memorized all these verses? It's like,

I didn't memorize these verses. I just value what my Father tells me. And that's like, so it's in me.

It's like sometimes you remember this very inspiring quote that someone says, but the fact is

the word of God, like the word of my Father lives in me. So it's like a reference point in my life.

So if I'm wondering what he wants or what he's thinking or what he's asking for, I can just pull

that word out of my heart. And I know that's his nature. So I know that I can be confident in my

prayer. So that like connected, being connected to the word of God really helps us develop our

prayer. The primary way the Lord is going to lead us is through his word. That's the first and

primary way. And that's how we know his will. And we need to build his word in on the inside of us.

So we abide in him and his words take up residence in us. We learned that at Rehma.

That's right. That's good. The second character trait that I wanted to move onto is the,

is on the subject of righteousness and being aware that we are righteous. So let me,

let me read this verse in James chapter five, verse 16. Again, James says,

confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. So he talks about the effective

fervent prayer of a righteous man and that avails much. So what does he mean by righteous?

Yes. So, um, second Corinthians chapter five, verse 21 says that God made Jesus to be sin

for me, for you, so that we would become the righteousness of God in Christ. And what that

means is every promise you can find in the word of God about righteous people applies to me,

applies to you. And when we come to this verse in James,

I'm a righteous person. Yep. And so if I'm a righteous person, when I pray, I, my prayer

avails much in English. That's like, okay, what does that mean? But in the, in the language that

that was written in, it says that my prayer makes tremendous power available. Yep. When we read this

verse as with, through the lens of God has made us righteous. That means that when I pray,

I'm not hoping for something. I'm not wishing for something. I'm making tremendous power available

and applying it to a situation. Yep. So I want to quote what you were just quoting,

which is the amplified classic translation of this verse. It says the earnest heartfelt continued

prayer. So that's, that's what we've been talking about praying like a champion, right? So the,

the earnest heartfelt continued prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available,

dynamic in its working. Yeah. That's so good. That's so big. So if I'm aware that I'm righteous,

then I, I'm also aware that this word is true, that the earnest, effective, constant, continuous

champion prayer that I deliver or that I make works active, dynamic power in the world, in my life.

So if I'm aware that I'm righteous, that enables my prayer. So maintaining a, an awareness or

an understanding of my nature. So it's beyond character. It's nature at this point that I'm

righteous helps me be confident that my prayers are being met by the Lord. So the, this, this verse,

I want to read in, in first John chapter three, it says this verse 20, for if our hearts condemn

us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us,

we have confidence towards God and whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his

commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. So if my heart doesn't condemn me,

so if I'm not constantly thinking I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner, I've done this wrong. If I come to,

to God, you know, and I ask him for something, he's going to lecture me or bash me about something

else in my life. But the fact is when I'm confident towards God, I can do what pastor Matt said in,

in the introduction week, which is I can boldly come before God and ask for what I want. And I

know that I'm righteous and I know that because I have this relationship with him, because I have

this right standing with him, that my prayers are being answered, that I can be confident in that

answer. You know why that's key is if you, if you have that question about, well, I don't know,

I don't know, because I, I just haven't been, I haven't been as faithful as I should. I haven't

read my Bible like I should have. If you start condemning yourself, you'll be slow to go to him.

You'll be slow to come bold, you won't come boldly. You'll, you'll like stand outside,

stand outside, maybe I'll wait for a good time or I'll go ask, you know, and maybe Laura will

pray for me because, you know, God always hears her when she prays. But the, this is, this is the way,

this is the way the devil lies to people and keeps them out of champion like prayer because

it has to be based in confidence and that confidence can't be rooted in my works. It has to be

rooted in God's righteousness, which he has made me. Yeah. Praise God. I like the NLT version. Can

I read? Yes. Just the last part. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power

and produces wonderful results. That's right. Wonderful results. That's what we keep going back

to this whole month. Prayer is supposed to bring results as the reason for our prayer.

Oh, that's amazing. So we, we talked about two character traits so far. So being connected to

the word of God and being aware of our right standing or righteousness before God. So being

aware that we have this direct open, perfect relationship, perfect union with him. And that

means that he hears us. So what is the third one? These, these things might not seem like they're

important or what does this have in connection to our prayer life, but we'll keep looking at it.

We'll keep talking about it and you'll see how much this matters. Number three is walking in love

and forgiveness. It's so important. It's so, so important. And actually, let me, let me read this

scripture in Mark chapter 11. There are no people that are close to Jesus who were holding

Mark 11 · chapter mention

unforgiveness. That's right. He's not like that. Yeah. First John chapter four says that he is

love and when we abide in love, we abide in God and he's with us. But what's the difference?

But what's the opposite of that? If we're not in love, we're not in God. Yeah. And he's not with

us. Yeah. Cause he can't be in a place where there is strife and unforgiveness and bitterness and,

and just division because that's not his nature. He has nothing to do with it. He can't be in it.

He can't be in it. So Mark 11 24 through to 26 is really a scripture that is, is so important to

look at because a lot of the time when we study prayer, the prayer faith, applying faith, we look

at Mark 11 23 and 24 and they're, they're, they're amazing. They're so powerful and honestly, they,

they contain so much value and so much power, but they're not disconnected from 25 and 26. And it

says this. So verse 24, therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe

that you receive them and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, you notice that's

verse 25, it says, and it starts with and, is this is connected. And whenever you stand praying,

if you have anything against anyone, forgive him that your father in heaven may also forgive you

your trespasses. But if you do not forgive neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses.

Why, why are they connected? How is this so that my prayers are hindered by unforgiveness?

Well, it's, it's simple. It goes back to what Laura was saying, right? That we have to align

ourselves with the nature of the heart of God. How can I effectively pray and expect results if I

don't align myself with his heart? You know, I can, I can align myself with his will, but I can also

align myself with his heart. Yeah. And you, you can't receive from God in the place of unforgiveness.

It's the, it's as simple as like, if you went to Cyprus, if you went to Larnaca today, you can't

be in, in Lebanon because you're not here. You're there. If you're in the, if you're in unforgiveness,

then you are not in the place of receiving. You are in the place of unforgiveness. And that is the,

that is where you cannot receive because it is, it is foreign. It is distance. It is far from him.

He's not like that. Yeah, that's right. You know, you can't expect to be effective in prayer if you

don't align yourself with his heart. And this is demonstrated in Matthew chapter five, verse 44.

And Jesus is saying this, and this is a big word. I mean, if you, if you're ever, it's easy to hear

it until you really have an enemy, right? Or you really have someone who doesn't like you and

you're dealing with them. And he says this, I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse

you, do good, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute

you so that you may be sons of your father in heaven. So he's saying, pray for those who

spitefully use you. So how could I align myself with the prayer mentality or the prayer heart,

the God wants for me if I don't align myself with the love of God? It's practically impossible.

It's kind of, if you take the idea of disconnecting yourself from his heart and you try to pray,

you know, you start, you start finding yourself praying selfish prayers that might harm other

people. Obviously you can't do that. You know, this is, this is, um, it's kind of an obvious example,

but that's, that's the heart of God in every prayer that you make. It has to be rooted in his

nature, rooted in his cause, rooted in his commandment towards us. What is his commandment

towards us that we love one another as he has loved us. And that is the nature that we are

supposed to adopt. I have the, I have a personal, you know, illustration of the nature of the

heart. I have a personal, you know, illustration about this, which I've shared in the past. And

this is a time when, you know, there's a period of time when I was having really bad dreams,

like terrible, terrible, terrible dreams. And like, it was beyond like the, you know, I had too much

like garlic for dinner kind of dreams. This is way beyond that. And it was really disturbing me for

like, I was up in terrors at night and it would just be so vivid and so, um, so tormenting, you

know, that I don't know what, what word it is. And at some point I got sick of it. I'm like, I woke

up in the morning, I'm, I started talking to the Lord, you know, like, listen, um, what's going on?

I need an answer. How do I deal with this? What do I do? What do I do? And it was one of those times

when I was in that situation. And he talked to me in scriptures, he mentioned 1st Peter chapter three,

verse seven. I'm like, what? Okay, I started reading it and I really don't recall what it was.

And I read it and it says, husbands likewise dwell with them. So wives with understanding, giving

honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life,

be hindered. I remember at that point in time during that period I was honestly

having a lot of arguments with my wife and I wasn't being a very pleasant

person. Not gonna comment on what she was or wasn't. My job is me you know and

I know that on my part I could have done a lot better in the sense that I could

have not engaged in confrontation, engaged in division, invited strife into

my life or caused bitterness between us and the fact is I did at that moment and

it's so funny because I'm talking to him about bad dreams that are keeping me up

at night and he's talking to me about all these arguments I've been having

with my wife and it made zero sense to me but the fact is they were connected

and my heart at that moment in time is full of bitterness and division and he

can't work, he simply cannot work in your life if you have an open door to the

devil in your life and scripture tells you that you know don't let the

sun go down on your wrath neither give place to the devil. Like your anger, your

ideas of bitterness towards other people, your unforgiveness is an open door to

the devil in your life. It is a position of strife so you are taking yourself out

of the right place like Pastor Matt was describing it and putting yourself in

the wrong place and that is all too real when you are trying to get something

done in prayer and your prayers are getting hindered and hindered and

hindered. That's because you know well I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm saying

the opposite way if you are an unforgiveness that will hinder your

prayers. Absolutely. Well that's that's a lot to think about but I want to

mention the fourth trait or the fourth idea so I've been calling a character

traits and I don't think it quite fits but the fourth element of a champion

prayer is this so one who prays like a champion is this. It's being dependent

upon the Holy Spirit. That's right. So the the Bible tells us that well let me

rather than rather than butcher this paraphrase I will just read scripture

which is Romans chapter 8 verse 26. Likewise the spirit also helps in our

Romans 8:26

weaknesses for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought but the

spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Now he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the spirit is because he

makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So a lot of

the time you know we know what we want to pray for we know the will of God we

know the plan and a certain situation. Pastor Matt was mentioning last week

that a lot of the time when we pray and we're asking for an answer we're

expecting it to come through a certain channel or in a certain way and the fact

is why limit God? Right. Why limit him to say well okay I need this resource in my

life so of course obviously the only way is that you bring me money right? Right?

But there are so many other ways to do it. I mean someone could just hand you

what you need rather than the money. There you know there could be a situation

where this whole scenario changes and the whole need is just it disappears.

Like there's so many ways he can work but a lot of the time we are limited to

what we think we know. So we're praying and then we look not at him but we start

looking at a situation that hasn't changed. You know we pray expecting the

doctor's report to be you know negative for something and it's not negative for

something we completely lose heart. We pray by sight you mean. That's right yeah

that's really good. That's really well put yeah so a lot of the time we are

praying but then we're limiting God and a lot of the time we we don't know what

we don't know and that's where being dependent on the Holy Spirit can really

enrich our prayer life. Absolutely.

So this is this is something that you know Pastor Matt and I actually talked

about and there's something that the Lord kind of put in my heart and it's

something that just stuck with me which is when the Lord reveals his word to you

you should say it but when he reveals his heart to you you should pray it.

Which is so well said and I will tell you that this will this will help you

this will help you grow and it'll help you hear more if you'll if you'll do

that because as you pray especially when you start moving beyond yourself in

prayer praying for others sometimes the Lord will will reveal something to you

and you think I'm I should go say this I I need to I need to call this person and

I need to I need to tell them what the Lord told me and then you do that and

hey I just you know I was praying for you and I really got this in my heart

that the Lord really loves you. Okay thanks and the whatever you share with

them the person is like they it doesn't impact them the way it's impacted you.

Oftentimes that's because they're not in a position to hear it and I don't mean

just hey the Lord loved you I'm using that as an example but this is maybe what

needs to change in someone's life and you can't instigate that change but you

can help the Lord get access to them by praying for them. So oftentimes the Lord

will show me something about someone and I won't say anything to them I mean I'm

thinking one example it was a year before I said anything to them I just

prayed about it I prayed that thing about them or for them and that's you

know that the way you phrase it is so helpful to me to have that language of

this is the Lord's heart we're gonna pray the Lord's heart and then sometimes

we get a word a specific word and we want to share that word with them. Yeah

you know and other times it's it seems like this so being dependent on the Holy

Spirit or or having the Lord share his heart with you can sometimes feel a

little negative like feel like I don't I want to be careful with my words that's

the wrong word it's not feeling negative but feeling like a burden you know

feeling heavy-hearted for someone because you just feel there's a lot more

that the Lord has for them than they're doing or they're seeing or they're

receiving right now and that's not a cue for you to complain about them or

complain about the situation or nag about it or look down at them that's

your cue to pray for them. No I think that that is that's an honest portrayal

of kind of the impact on your soul your mind your will and emotions that picking

up the Father's heart for people can have because if people are out of God's

will if they are missing something that he has for them that hurts him and so

you know we want to pray into a place of victory from a place of victory. Yeah

praise God. So let me recap on these four traits or these four points which help

you become more effective in your in your prayer life. Number one being

connected to the Word of God being aware that you are righteous and you have a

perfect relationship with God. Number three walking in love and forgiveness

number four is being dependent on God being dependent on the Holy Spirit to

make your prayer life more effective to supercharge your prayer life and in

closing this week's podcast session that we're just having right now we're gonna

talk about the Bible illustration that we want to share this this week in our

grow groups and we want to talk about and that is in Acts chapter 16 verses 16

Acts 16:16

through to 34 and that is the story of Paul and Silas in prison. We've talked

about this and we've we've used this illustration many times but it's worthy

of using many times in the beautiful story. The reason we go through these

same scriptural illustrations is because in our grow groups we want you to work

with verses and passages that you already are familiar with and where we

can dig into these stories you already have some context you already know them

and we can see these truths outlined for us. Yeah that's right so the context of

this illustration real quick is this that Paul and Silas were were cast into

prison because Paul cast a demon out of a a what was that woman the young woman

that was basically possessed by a demon who was fortune-telling right and the

person who was who was taking advantage of the situation who was making money

off this fortune teller now lost the ability to make money off this fortune

teller that really annoyed him and you know he pulled his strings and he he

played played these cards where he got Paul and Silas thrown into prison and

they got beaten they got bound very embarrassing very very you know sub you

know substandard very very not not the ideal position to be in and you find

this at that at that moment in time that Paul and Silas were praying in the

prison singing hymns to God and all the prisoners were were there and listening

to them and and then we see miraculous situation happen where where they

miraculously get loosed from these change and loosed the prison doors come

wide open and the story goes on a little further up to verse 34 but what we're

really gonna focus on is this story from the perspective of the character traits

that we see in Paul and Silas throughout the situation you know do we recognize

these four traits that we've been we've been talking about today do you

recognize the the elements of walking in love or forgiveness you know and I could

say that straight up that the fact that they were singing you know the fact that

they were joyful in a jail cell when they got beaten by certain people you

can tell they weren't like bitter and huffing and puffing and grumpy and and

and dealing with things in a certain way they were singing hymns in the middle of

the night when they were beaten probably exhausted and just embarrassed and and

all that but we go on to see other traits you know I will say that we see

these traits beyond the story in Acts chapter 16 but we see this in other

Acts 16 · chapter mention

examples in Paul's life so for example Paul was connected to the Word of God

connected to the Holy Spirit and and and those two elements sometimes work

together and and the example is that there are times when the Holy Spirit

forbid him to go into certain places to preach the gospel instead led him into

other places you know we see that Paul was had the constant revelation of his

righteousness a hint of that is the fact that he he says or he calls himself a

citizen of heaven yeah in Philippians chapter 3 verse 20 and so he lived with

Philippians 3:20

with these character traits but what we're really gonna talk about during the

girl groups is where do we see those character traits manifest themselves in

this story what I like about this you know when says that they were praying

Paul is in prison he's praying but look his answer affected everyone hmm when

you look at the story everyone including the person responsible for the jail was

affected by the answer to Paul's prayer yeah and they even reminds me of the

story in Acts 27 where they were on they were in the storm right yes well we're

out of time what we're gonna do is is Laura's gonna read out the week to

action that we're gonna carry through our girl groups and through our week so

this week we will write down three verses to pray over you pick the the

listeners a person or a number of people and pray for them so if anyone has a

need in your life we can pick three verses out and pray those verses

intentionally pray for others that's good awesome well if no one told you

yet today we love you we are praying for you and we'll see you next time

thank you for listening to this message we want everyone to experience the

unconditional love of God growing his love and go with his love to the rest of

their world we invite you to connect with us at one of our groups for our

next gathering and if no one told you yet today we love you and believe God's

very best for you