Voice of the Nazarene 7-14-24

I'm coming to you from North Central Ohio, we share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We joined our Pastor Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

We started a little series about the manual, which is this book here, I'm talking about God's manual. And I want you to turn with me to the book of Acts. Back in college days, they call it a church training series for Acts A C T S A, church training series. Somebody else called it the acts of the Holy Spirit. But it's the history of the early church, the book that begins with a great introduction, tells all the happenings and it's the only book in the Bible without a conclusion. Because the church hasn't ended, we're a part of the church we're writing history. I hope it's a good chapter that we're writing. Turn with me to chapter one. And this is following the ascension of Christ. He told them to go to that upstairs room and stay and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter two hadn't happened quite yet. And it begins like this, then return they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem, a Sabbath days journey. And when they were coming in, they went up into that upper room where both Peter, James and John and Andrew and Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the brother of James, this is what I want you to see. These all continued with one accord in prayer, and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brother. What an incredible privilege that we have called prayer. Joseph he lived in Ireland, and was of Irish descent. He's a very unusual particular character, God really used him. He was young and he had met what he thought was a beautiful girl.

And they were engaged to be married and the day before the wedding the day before. She's riding a horse along the river and the horse threw her she hit her head and she drowned. Now, he was devastated. He was heartbroken his whole world and come to a screeching halt. He liquidated everything that he had and came across the waters and came to Canada. Those that know a little bit about him said that he just served people.

You'd see him with a saw in one hand and a saw horse in the other. Anything he could do to make life better for others, that's what he did. Word got around that you couldn't hire him because he wouldn't take any pay. And time passed and he met another girl and they were engaged to be married. Her name was Eliza Rice. Somewhere along the way about two weeks before their wedding, she developed pneumonia and she died, devastated again. And then the one last woman left in his life was his mother and she became very ill and very sick. She went into a depression and and Scriven was so concerned about his mother that he sat down in order to encourage her and he wrote a poem to her, a poem. It was a poem that he only wrote for her eyes, not for anyone else. He didn't intend for any of you to read it or see it. He wrote in for his mother. And the poem goes like this, What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear, What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit! Oh, what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry, Everything to God in prayer. I kind of like some of those songs that they wrote before they were paying all these royalties. They just wrote them because it came out of their heart. It came out of their pain and came out of their hurt. And I'm not against any song of any time. Please don't I get on one of those rampages this morning. I like music, but I like some of those songs because I don't know about you sometimes I hurt. And it's good to have a song that somebody else hurt and you can kind of sing along and it kind of lifts you out of your pain. But I especially like that line where he says, What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Our highest priority is this thing called prayer it's something that God allows all of us to do. Now, before Jesus has ascended to heaven, he's told His disciples, I want you to go to Jerusalem. And I want you to wait for the promise. And ladies and gentlemen, they went to Jerusalem, they waited for the promise. And it said, they continued, with one accord in prayer. They didn't just wait, they prayed. And they were in agreement. Can you imagine two being in agreement? If you can get 120 people all in one mind and one accord and in agreement, I'm telling you, it could shake the world. If we could get enough people in one service to get in total agreement, and really begin to pray before God, I'm wondering what God would be able to do. And I want you to notice quickly, just four things primarily from out of this text.

I see, first of all, and it really stands out to me the place of prayer. Jesus was on the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives was the highest point in all of that area of the country. On the Mount of Olives, you could look out over the city of Jerusalem, you could look out across the plains, you could see in all directions. And incidentally, when Jesus comes back, he's coming back to the Mount of Olives. So his disciples, now he had already ascended to heaven, and his disciples have traveled two thirds of a mile. It's the Sabbath day, you were not allowed to travel more than one mile, or it constituted work, and you'd be punished. So they wouldn't go full mile, they wouldn't take a chance on that, because of all the legalism.

They only traveled about two thirds of a mile and according to the law. And the Bible said they came to the upper room.

It's believed to be that the upper room was the house of Mary, the sister to Barabbas.

And she's the mother of John Mark.

And they were a wealthy family, she probably had the largest place of anybody and all of those early scriptures when you come into the book of Acts, and they would meet probably in that upper room, probably the entire upstairs was one large room. And it was called the upper room.

And according to Luke 22, this is where Jesus had a meeting and brought his 12 disciples together and they have the Lord's Last Supper, in that upper room. This is where Judas would get up angry and walk out and go and commit suicide. He got caught. This is before his hand was caught in the till and stealing from the little church and their money bag. So this is also the room where Jesus took a basin and a towel and he knelt down and he began to wash the disciples feet, this room, this very room. This is the same room in which after the resurrection, Jesus came through the wall without coming through a door, the doors were all locked, the windows were locked, and he comes through the wall and he meets with them and he says Peace give I unto thee not as the world gives. I know you're all shook up and I want to give you peace, when it looks like your lives are being threatened.

This is also the very room according to Acts chapter 12, verse 22, where the early church would meet and have their services. This is the very room in which the Holy Ghost would suddenly come on the day of Pentecost sweep through that room. It sounded like a rushing mighty wind. And he would feel every last one of them with His Spirit and with his power and with his presence. Now, if there would have been a first church, this was their meeting place.

Acts 12:22

This upper room is the place where they would meet if there was a First Christian Church and would have been in that upper room. Do you remember what Jesus said? My house shall be called, not a house for preaching. He said my house it's not called a concert hall, I like music. But it should be called what, a house of prayer? I'm trying to talk to you about the privilege of prayer and there is a place and he's reminding us that when we meet together in his house, it's to be a house of prayer.

Charles Spurgeon said I would rather teach one man how to pray than 10 men how to preach.

Samuel Chadwick said, the one concern the devil has is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from Prayerless studies and Prayerless work and Prayerless religion. He laughes at our toils, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray. Andrew Murray says the man or the woman who mobilizes Christians to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelism and history. So I want you to see that the first church their emphasis, it wasn't even on worship. You know, if we're not careful, we can almost worship worship. We're to worship God, it didn't just get into some kind of a phobia high, where to worship God. And the foundation it wasn't even on preaching, the foundation was prayer. And there's that place of prayer, the source of power in your life, and in my life, is this thing called prayer. And then I want you to notice, just real quick, like, the period of prayer, and this is what it said, Jesus said, don't do anything, until you be endued with power. Don't get up and preach, don't get up and teach, don't try to go out somewhere and try to witness don't put your little song together, don't do anything without my power without my touch without my anointing. You see, we need the Holy Spirit more than we need anything else. Somebody said the average church starts at 11 o'clock sharp, and ends at 12 o'clock dull. And the only difference between the liturgical church that has everything printed on the bulletin, and to the charismatic crowd, they've got it memorized.

I want you to know something without any planned and without any productions without any programs or anything else we just need to invite the Holy Spirit to show up in our lives, the person of the Holy Spirit.

Now, this early church, they had a decision to make a decision to make. They didn't just call a board together. And thank God for boards and committees we need them. Good thing is when the church is flowing in the Holy Spirit and things are working together, you're hardly even need a committee meeting.

Sometimes you don't even need a board meeting. I mean, if things aren't working well, we need a board meeting, we need to clean the house and everybody needs to share their agenda. And we need to get perturbed and disturbed.

But innit wonderful when we're all in one accord and everything's going in the right direction. It's more about just God showing up and we show up to be in the presence of God, and share with God. So they had this decision. They had this guy, one of the apostles, his name was Judas. Judas had gone bad. Judas actually betrayed his Lord. He not only stole money from out of the Treasury, but he sold Christ out for 30 pieces of silver. He walked out and committed suicide and he had stolen the money, they didn't have any money to build a building with. And so they're dealing with the problem. We've got to replace Judas. And what are we going to do? They had two names come up one of us Matthias and guess what they did. Now, they'd already been praying for 10 days. But when it came time to make a decision on this, they stopped everything and said, It's time to pray. We need to pray we got a decision to make.

Now did you ever think about this Luke did. So where do they get this concept? Where do they get this idea that when you don't know what to do and you got a decision to make, then you ought to pray, whoever come up with that idea? Well, if you read over here in Luke six verse 12, and 13 before Jesus chose his disciples he prayed all night long. And if Jesus needed to pray all night long about who to choose. I would say that when we're praying and there's decisions to be made, we need to get alone with God and talk to him. Find out what's on his mind and what mood he's in. And what is he considered? What does he think? You say, Well, how long should you pray? Well, the early church prayed to they got an answer. So I guess you pray till you get an answer. Well, what about this situation? Well, you need to pray about that till you get the answer for that situation. Well, how does God answer, pastor? Well sometimes God gives us a direct answer. He just says, go, go. Scripture says here in Isaiah 65, verse 24, And it shall come to pass before they call, I shall answer. And while they are speaking, I will hear sometimes it's just immediately, I was reading about Peter, you've heard me talk about Simon Peter, when he was on the boat, and he saw Jesus coming and he got out of the boat, and started walking on the water, he forgot it wasn't pavement, and he got his eyes off of Jesus and started to go down. And you can criticize him, I've said it before. I'd rather be a wet water walker than a dry boat talker. At least he tried. I'd rather try to do something great for God and fail than to do nothing and succeed.

Isaiah 65:24

We got a lot of folks sitting around doing nothing, and they're very successful at it.

And they sure want to make a call on what you do if you do fail. And all that Peter said, when he started to go under, you talk about a short prayer, but he got a direct answer. He said, Lord save me. Lord save me. It doesn't take a long prayer sometimes. And the Lord did. But you know, not every time does he answer that way. Sometimes there's a denied answer, not just a direct answer, but a denied answer. Sometimes you pray, and God doesn't say go, he says, No. Ruth Graham said that she was glad that sometimes God said no, because if he said, Yes, she would have married the wrong man three different times.

And here's what I know, folks, if God says no, he's got a better yes. Mary and Martha, their brother Lazarus died. And they had sent word you better get here, your friend, and our friend, my brother, he's going to die. And Jesus didn't show up for four days. And Lazarus died and they were very accusatory.

They said, If you'd been here our brother had not died. They were wanting a healing but Jesus wanted to resurrection that's a whole lot better answer, is it not? And then sometimes it's a delayed answer. Sometimes God says slow the timings not just right yet. You ever had it in your life where you needed everything right? And it wasn't right. And the timing was off.

Do you know the only difference between a salad and trash is timing. Timing. You ladies you do any cooking. You got to keep your mind on the time all the time. Because you let food spoil right there in the refrigerator if you don't know when to use it at the right time it becomes trash. I heard about a lady they build a tavern next door to her and it really upset her they were going all night and playing music and loud and drunks would stumble out and she was upset.

And she said God burn that tavern down. 15 years went by it didn't burn down and she was complaining to another Christian lady about that tavern. I've been praying said why don't you join me and let's let's pray together that God will burn the tavern down not kill anybody.

Not letting anybody be in it.

But burn the tavern down. A couple days after she got her friend to join with her in prayer. The tavern burned to the ground she heard the fire engines coming. And she said I prayed for 15 years and said you only prayed a couple days.

What's the difference? She said, Well, I I put matches to my prayer. And I'm not saying we need to put matches to our prayer. But I am simply trying to say that whatever you do have a prayer life. Sometimes God says go. Sometimes God says no.

Sometimes God says slow and there's other times when God says it's time to grow. It's time to grow. Sometimes it's not the timing that's not right.

Sometimes you and I are not right. If you had a five year old boy would you put a 3030 rifle in their hand and tell them to go out hunting? You send them out the door. No you wouldn't. Why? Timings not right, they're not mature.

They're just a little child. You know, I'm saying and you know, around the church sometimes somebody gets saved, and they're just a brand new Christian, and they're just a babe in Christ and they still have a bib on.

Can I just tell you, it's alright for a little baby to have a bib on. And it's alright for young Christians to kind of have a bib on. My kids when they were little. They just say mine, mine mine. And Renee was perfect until Roger came along. And suddenly there was jealousy. She had never had that before she was in the limelight. And then it became a real struggle of mine, mine mine. And sometimes we who have been around for years, it's mine, mine mine, she's fine, mine, mine, mine, are you here. And we haven't matured, we haven't grown up.

And God is saying it's time to get the bib off, that maybe you need to trade in the bib for a towel and begin to serve others and begin to make a difference in other people's life. Here's the third thing I want you to see from this passage. I want you to see the people prayer.

Now this is interesting. Verse 13, you have 11 of the apostles were there and then as I was reading to you a little earlier, suddenly, I noticed that Mary's name was mentioned. And if you look over in Luke eight, verse two and three talking about this same gathering, it mentions, Mary Magdalene is speaking about Susanna it's talking about Joanna, who was taking substances and other things to help feed Jesus and his disciples. And they were sharing. And then it speaks about Jesus's four brothers. And what's interesting, they all prayed. They all prayed. We can't all sing. We can't all preach. We can't all teach. We can't all administrate. We can't all drive the church van. But we can all pray. Is my mic on? Are you not hearing me? We can all pray. Fact of the matter, it's the people prayer. And did you know that nobody can pray for your family, for your neighbors like you can because you care.

And you know them. And they're a part of who you are. They're in your limelight or in your side and you need to be a person of prayer. And I believe that he was strategically mentioning these women's name and mentioning these men's names because we're all meant to pray.

Folk, we've got about enough of everything around the church.

But prayer. The average Christian worker in Korea prays three hours a day. The average Christian worker in America they say, is from eight to nine minutes a day. Now this morning, when I got up, the sun was already up. I didn't have to stay up all night to pray that the sun would come up. One guy set up all night wondering where the sun went when it set, and it was the next morning before it dawned on him.

And whether I prayed or I didn't pray, didn't have anything to do with whether the sun came up, and incidentally it's going to come up in the morning.

Colossians says that God holds all things together. I don't have to pray about it. Here in Genesis nine though Lots family were in trouble. And Abraham prayed for them and God spared them. And the Scripture, it never says that God remembered Lot. It didn't say that God remembered Lot's family. It said that God remembered Abraham.

Why? Because he was the man that prayed. And in Genesis 18 it says Abraham stood yet before the Lord and God spared Lot and his family. Why? Because Abraham stood in the gap. Can I just say to you who are grandparents, and maybe your hair is turned to another color? And maybe you don't feel like you're as important as you need to be. Can I just say this much to you, Grandmother? You've got a responsibility just like grandfather does. That's to pray. You've got children that need to be prayed for. You've got grandkids that need to be prayed for. When I Hannah had a baby the Bible said that she prayed. And the Bible said God remembered, Hannah. It tells me that God sees every one of us when we are in prayer, and God remembers, God remembers, don't quit praying. I want to end on this thought the power of prayer. D.L Moody said God does nothing by prayer and everything with it. Now, they prayed for 10 days. And according to Acts, chapter two, verse one, when the day of Pentecost was fully calm, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly, there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were setting. Do you know what the churches in America need? We needed a sudden, suddenly experience, nothing programmed, nothing plotted, nothing planned. But just suddenly, God shows up. I'm not talking about something crazy, the Holy Spirit doesn't operate like that. They prayed and the Holy Spirit came.

So I got interested this last week, and I begin to run a correlation between Acts and the book of Luke. They're in Acts when they pray, the Holy Spirit came. So I ran over into the book of Luke to see what he had to say. And look at chapter three, verse 21. And when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, and the heavens were open. And the Holy Ghost ascended. When they prayed, he showed up there when they prayed in the book of Acts, again, the Holy Spirit came, you know, we don't have to work up anything. We need to just simply pray him down. We need to pray God into our services. And they never got over what happened in that upper room. And if you read in Acts, chapter 12, they went back to that room again. And before we get hung up and just make it the upper room, and somebody else criticized, well, we needed an upper room and not a supper room, they use that upper room for a supper room. So let's get off of all our all of our tangents. But before we get hung up, when we make that the place, the upper room was never mentioned again after Pentecost.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

But they went back to that room.

And you feel remember, Peter was in prison, we're all this talk.

The church needs to have more influence. We need influence in government, and we need influence in Washington. It's almost like our hope is in Washington, and it's not listen.

Our early church didn't even have enough influence to keep Peter out of prison. But they had enough power to pray him out of prison. And Peters in chain chains, and they prayed, and he was miraculously delivered. And I thought some of you have family members and loved ones and they're in bondage, and they're in chains, and they're in addictions. And you came this morning and on the back of your mind, you're carrying this thing about what what about my boy, and what's going to happen to my girl and what's happening to our family. And it just seemed like the devil slipping in here and grabbing this one and putting in another one, our hope for answers through prayer. God can do more in 10 seconds than we can do in 10,000 years if we just pray. Prayer is the secret.

There's a power source. And we need it in our preaching. We need it in our singing. We need it in our worship. Our foundation is prayer. And when they had prayed, the Holy Spirit came. Don't underestimate the power of prayer. You say, Pastor, what would I pray for? I just close with this. We need to pray for our graduates. They're leaving high school, they're leaving college. And now is one of the most important time in all of their lives, where they're going to find where they're going in life. Don't just congratulate them. Take it on as a matter of prayer. I'm asking all of you to pray for our graduates. It's a big time.

The devil wants to take all that they've had in their past and just squandered and try to get him diverted to another direction. I'm saying let's pray for our graduates. We need to pray for some of our own people who've lost their loved one just this last week. We need to make it a matter of prayer. It doesn't hurt to get on the phone and give them a call to let them know the church is there for them. May I also add that we've got people in the hospital.

We've got people that have just gotten out of the hospital one of our men had fallen from one of those ladders and he's got weeks and weeks to try to recover. Milly Jordan just got out of the hospital. These are tough days for her. We've got people that we need to be remembering in prayers they try to recover. If I can say so without dividing our congregation this morning, we need to pray for America. We need to pray for America. The news media has so vilified certain candidates. And we've seen violence and for people to get their way. It's not about violence it's not who we can vilify. The American people are have a right to just make a vote without everybody trying to influence the votes and see what God can do. But I think the answer is going to be in prayer.

I think it's going to be in prayer. And I can get up here and tell you to go to the ballot box and all that but America needs prayer. Without it we're in deep deep trouble.

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene.

Visit us every Sunday at 9am with BNC's Pastor Ray LaSalle.

For more information regarding BNC, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org.