Classroom of Prayer Series Pt. 3 - Pastor Greg Addison - September 7, 2025

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Maverick, and praise team.

And uh hope you got a chance to see our new yard signs.

We are on a march now towards September the 28th and our Chaffee Campus launch.

There are so many man hours going into things that are going on now.

We are uh work we had chairs delivered this week.

Uh Jacob and uh uh Maverick and Bobby Dyer and an incredible amount of that team.

They are working, dialing in all the systems and all of that.

Uh and so we are very excited.

We're really moving towards that.

So I want to encourage you, uh, especially if you live in that area, but even if you don't, it's good.

We want the community to know that First Baptist Church, we are going to be sharing Jesus in two locations starting on September the 28th.

And so if you'll pick up a yard sign, this one is mine, it will go in my yard as soon as I get home.

I want to encourage you to get those.

I want to encourage you to start praying.

Now you'll notice on this sign, it gives uh the address.

It's at the Festivity Event Center, which is on Mazard, Mazard.

We're taking votes on how you're supposed to say that.

Mazard.

Everybody, Mazard, raise your hand.

Everyone, Mazard, raise your hand.

See, Mazard wins, alright?

So Mazard Road.

It's uh it's right across from the uh entrance to the Game and Fish office.

It's uh if you keep going down Mazard from Rogers towards Chad Collie, you'll uh right before you get to the fire station, right before you get to the restaurant on the other side of the road, it's right before you get to that Chad Collie intersection.

It's great for us as a church because it is uh just on the other side of uh the I-49 Mazard intersection there, uh, exit exchange is the property that very soon we'll be beginning uh working on the utility planning there.

So we are excited about that.

And we are really excited about going into the Chaffee area.

You know, I I this week I shot a new entrance for our television program talking about it.

And one of the things we talked about was this we've been here preaching the gospel in this location since 1857.

Is that awesome?

Give the Lord a hand for that.

Since 1857.

Some of you were here for that service, that first service.

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

Matt told me to say that.

I didn't want to say it, but he made me.

Um but since that time, First Baptist Church has been doing an incredible amount of creative things to spread the gospel around the River Valley.

We started a radio program in the 1940s.

Our television broadcast has been on continuously since 1953.

First Baptist Church has planted other churches all around the River Valley, in addition to all the missions things that we've been doing through the generations.

And so this is one more of those things that is the heart and DNA of First Baptist Church to take the gospel to the River Valley.

And so we are so excited.

You have given, you've been praying.

We feel like God has led us to do this as a church.

We have an incredible plant team that is going with us.

If you're on the plant team, would you stand up for just a moment?

Stand up for just a moment.

Some of them are serving in the nursery, some are all around.

These folks right here, they are going with us and some others.

Uh, and so next week, we will actually, y'all can sit down.

I won't embarrass you, I promise.

Next week, we will all be there at 8:30.

Uh, the praise team, Maverick is leading the praise team.

Abigail, you saw, is a part of that praise team, which also gives us a student ministry connection in that campus.

They will be there at 8 and they'll be getting ready.

And so next week, we'll start organizing and rehearsing for church.

And so we're excited about that.

Uh I will be preaching live at both campuses as we start.

As you know, we are searching for and praying for a campus pastor who would also help out there.

But God's timing is fine and whenever he brings that person.

But we have a great staff and we have plenty of help and our leaders and all of that.

So I'll be preaching out there live.

Uh the church the service will go from 9 15 to 1015.

So somewhere between 10 and 1015, I will leave out there and come here and uh be ready here.

So I'll have the morning there before the service, and then I'll have the morning here and after the service to greet folks and share and talk and all of that.

So I'm excited about that.

Preaching twice is really good.

Uh so it uh the preaching here will get much better because I'll have a practice run at Chaffee.

Isn't that right?

I'm also having to practice getting shorter.

Thank you for not amening right there.

You blessed your pastor this morning.

And so we'll have plenty of time.

I've been telling folks uh when we get finished out there and we come out here, I don't really take the pulpit till 11 o'clock here, so I have time to stop off and get donuts and coffee between campuses because I am a Baptist preacher, right?

And so I went around Sunday school this morning, and the amount of donuts consumed at First Baptist Church this morning is a blessing to the GDP of the nation.

Let me tell you, it was incredible.

So we're excited about that.

I want you to join with me in prayer this morning, and let's pray, and we'll start praying as we work towards that campus.

So pray with me this morning.

Lord, we thank you.

We thank you that we are allowed to be a part of a church family that has been sharing the gospel for almost 200 years.

It's just overwhelming to think about the men of God who have been preaching the gospel since 1857 in this church.

It's incredible to think about all of the people who have taught Sunday school, who have taught the Bible in students and to youth and to children, to think about all the people who have taught the Bible to men and women, lay Sunday school teachers, mentors, deacons.

Just to think about the volume of Bible messages that have been taught in this church since 1857.

Thank you for letting all of us be a part of that heritage and being a part of continuing that future.

Lord, I thank you for our church that has been so supportive in seeking this vision for you.

From Brother Dale and leaders who brought the property out there more than 13 years ago, and they cast the eyes of the church on that part of our city and the river valley.

I thank you for the folks who have given to buy that property and now have given to help us begin to plan and do utilities and all of that.

But I thank you, Lord, that our heart as a church is to plant churches, not build buildings.

And I thank you that you have led us to go reach people first.

And so next week, as we go begin working towards September the 28th, I pray that you will use this time to stir an openness in the community just to come and see, to come and hear about Jesus, to come and worship, come meet folks from First Baptist Church who love people with the love of Jesus.

I thank you for our plant team, and we raise them up to you, and we ask, Father, that you will excite them, and I pray that you will empower their ministry in this plant, and that we will see more boys and girls, men and women, students come to faith in Christ.

That you'll grow us as a church, and so we we stand with a footprint in both locations, and that you help us stand strongly across the River Valley.

Lord, we pray and ask you for that first Sunday where we baptize in both campuses.

Lord, that's the vision that we have that we believe you have birthed in our hearts, and Father, we ask you for open, effective doors for the gospel so that we can see those days when we're baptizing in both locations.

Preaching Jesus, seeing people respond to the good news of the gospel.

Lord, this is our prayer.

We pray it in the name of Jesus and all God's people set.

Amen.

Thank you, church family.

Get your yard signs and let's get rolling.

Be praying for us.

If you haven't noticed, we have billboards at 540 and Rogers on a digital billboard there.

A digital billboard at Mazard and uh and uh Phoenix right there over the Jiffy Lube and across from the Hideaway Pizza.

And so be watching for those.

We're advertising on the radio.

We've got social media ads going out.

When you see those on your feed, well, you boost those and bump those out to your friends.

We've talked about the television broadcast and putting in intro on that very soon.

We'll be on Roku television with ads.

We're going to send out some direct mail pieces.

We're really excited.

But listen, all of that happens when God's people are praying for God's church and for God's power to be shown in his people.

And that's what we're going to be talking about this week in our next week of sermon series on our in the classroom of prayer.

And so turn with me and your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6, and while you're there, I want to remind you about our prayer booklets.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

This has been a guide that we're using to pray together as a church family and to help us build a prayer time.

This is a very practical series we're working on trying to help you build an effective prayer time.

I don't know how long it I'd been in church until I was an adult before somebody really sat down and said, Here's what you do in your prayer time to be effective.

Here's how you build that.

So over the last couple of weeks, we've been brewing verses each day as a church family.

Now, this week we've added a wrinkle.

Last week, we walked through what a prayer time looks like and how you build a prayer time in an organized way and a prayer list.

This week, you're going to be doing the same thing, doing a brew of a prayer verse each week.

But in the back, we have added something new.

We have added an outline of a simple, of a sample prayer time.

This is a sample outline in the back of the booklet.

And so it'll literally walk you through the elements that we talked about and the categories of prayer.

Now it's not a legalistic thing, it's just an example.

And as God leads you through your prayers this week, you're going to write and morph and make it fit your life.

But we are trying to be so practical, we wanted to give you just a way, a pattern to begin your prayer time.

And then as you walk your way through that, then you'll begin to adjust.

You'll hear God speak to you and you'll work through that.

I want to thank so many folks who have talked about what God said on this day or that day.

And I want to encourage you as you go through it to encourage each other.

Share with somebody a truth that God taught you from your word as you brood your passage.

Now, today it's important that we start there, and it's great that we have planned today as we start praying for our Chaffee Campus in earnest, because today we're going to talk about the serious matter of praying for your church family.

The serious responsibility of praying for your church family.

All throughout Scripture, God teaches, commands praying for the body of Christ.

Paul models that.

So it doesn't take long, but if you'll do that, you'll get a context where you will see in this moment how Paul talks and teaches about the responsibility of praying for your church.

Now, you're there in Ephesians chapter 6, and I'd like uh and I'd like for you to just look at the key verses that we have here today.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Now, these are a very easy to understand.

This is a command.

It comes on the context of the praying, put on the whole armor of God, stand against the wiles of the devil, how we pray.

And he says, Once you're armored up, here's what you do.

Chapter 6, verse 18, the Bible says, pray at all times in the Spirit, with every prayer and every request.

And stay alert in this command, in this praying at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request.

Stay alert in this command with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

And they says in the next verse, pray also for me, Paul the preacher, and he's extending that to their pastors and the pastors in the church, but he uses himself as an example.

Pray also for me that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

So right there you have a very easy, understandable, clear command.

There's not a lot of difficulty, there's not a lot of big words or deep spiritual concepts that I have to unpack or whatever right there.

Paul brings it down and he puts it right at your kitchen table.

I mean, this is the command and how it works.

Now, when we talk about application, a lot of times when we're teaching how to study your Bible, we talk about application.

We tell you, here's what application is.

The Bible will tell us what to do, but because God loves us, He's equipping us, He's helping us understand this.

He tells us why we're supposed to do it and how we're supposed to do it.

So application in Scripture is always taught in that fashion what we're supposed to do.

We have that command right here, what we're supposed to do.

But today we're going to look a little bit about the why.

And the how is what we're doing in our booklets as we're equipping each other and walking through these journeys together, right?

So here's just a couple of truths I want you to see in this scripture this morning.

First of all, this is a serious responsibility.

It is a serious responsibility.

I want you to just see six times he uses all and every.

Look at what it says again in verse 18.

Pray at all times.

And then he says, with every prayer and request, and grammatically that every modifies both.

It supports both.

So it's pray at all times, with every prayer and every request.

And then he says, Stay alert.

That's a powerful word and concept we'll talk about in a moment.

With all perseverance, and then again, you would use this word to modify or support the other word, with all perseverance and all intercession.

And then he says, for all the saints.

So I mean, he is making it very clear how serious this is.

Now, God doesn't deal in hyperbole, God deals in truth.

Especially when he's dealing with a command, he's going to tell us exactly what he expects and exactly what he wants to do.

Now, I'll sometimes get up here and repeat myself because I've been distracted or I'm thinking about donuts that y'all didn't share, and it just kind of goes on.

I told somebody the other day it'd be scary if y'all knew what went on in my brain while I'm doing this, right?

It's really kind of a terrifying thing sometimes.

But I'm trying to like think was my next point, and oh, rats, I forgot the screen, or oh, I skipped a screen, and Charlene's freaking out in the booth, and I gotta come back and catch what the screen was.

You know, all that kind of all this stuff's going on in my head.

I'm searching and I'll repeat for words.

God does not have that problem.

If God repeats himself, it's on purpose.

It was a chosen word that he selected with great intentionality.

God is the creator God of the universe, but also the author of every single word of Scripture.

If God repeats himself six times in one verse, he is trying to grab our attention and get us to understand the seriousness or significance of what he's trying to say in this command.

Six times, he says, all and every.

One of the most serious things that we do as a family of God is praying for each other, and not just corporately here, but in our individual prayer times, praying for the people around us in the church, praying for your teacher, praying for people in your small group, praying for people that you serve with, praying for the congregation that you are a part of.

And Paul says to us that this is our most important action for who should to each of us be our most important people.

Sometimes in modern culture, with all the distractions and everything else going on, sometimes we forget how vitally important our church family is to us.

I grew up in church, and I grew up hearing things like this from my pastor.

When you are in church today, you made two statements with your behavior.

The first one, you told Jesus that you love him with all your heart.

Because if you love Jesus, you'll love what Jesus loves, and Jesus loves the church and died for the church.

And so by being in the church, you are telling the Lord Jesus, I love you, and I love your body.

And when you are in church, you are telling the rest of us in the church family that you love us and that we are a priority and are important in your life.

This is not an organization that we just happen to be a part of or connected to.

This is a family, and we are linked with spiritual responsibility to each other.

One of the things that the Bible teaches about Scripture, and it teaches it all through the book of Ephesians, is that God visits his power in his body and he reveals his power through his people.

Multiple times it says that here in the book of Ephesians.

And so here's the question: how does a church surrender itself so that we are so connected to the Lord and to each other that he literally can reflect his power through us to the community around us?

The most significant way that happens is when we are praying together and individually we are praying for each other.

Let me just show you a couple of places in just this one book.

I'm not going to go through the whole, you know, all of the old New Testament.

We could do that.

But here's what?

Just look at a couple of these.

Just listen.

You can turn if you want to, you don't have to.

Here's what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 1, when he opens the book, he shares the gospel, and then he says this in verse 15.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

This is why, since I have heard about your faith, church family, your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints.

You see how he affirms that?

Their love for the saints?

I, Paul, never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.

And then he models what the prayer is.

I pray that God of our Lord, the Father of our Lord Jesus.

Christ would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

Now that's a prayer.

What happens to the body of Christ when we are walking in the wisdom of God and we are revealing the Christ that has been revealed to us?

I pray that the perception of your mind may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling?

What are the glorious riches of his inheritance among the saints?

And what is the immeasurable power, the great, immeasurable greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his vast strength.

Now, when's the last time that you prayed?

God, I want you to show our church family the immeasurable greatness of your power.

God, will you allow our church family to reveal your vast strength to the lives and families and homes of the people around the river valley?

God, do that in our body, your church.

God, this is your church.

Jesus died for this church.

It is his church.

He promised he would build his church.

And so, God, I'm praying that you let all of our people come together in a way that they sense your revelation and they reflect the immeasurable greatness of your power.

Just imagine what God can do.

If just a hundred more people, a few minutes a day, but with a commitment to never miss, prayed that for our church family.

Paul goes in again.

He goes in at chapter 3, and he's talked about the church and he's talked about the gospel and all of that, but he goes in again in verse 14.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named, and I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner man through his Holy Spirit.

And that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith.

I pray that you, church family, being rooted in love and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the other saints in your church family that all of you together would be able to comprehend what is the length and width and height and depth of God's love and to know the Messiah's love that surpasses all knowledge.

So that you, church family, may be filled with the fullness of God.

Paul says, I kneel before the God of heaven and pray this for you as a church.

Man, this is how we pray for each other.

This is actually what a normal church should look like.

Pastor Rodgers used to say this all the time, and I'm not even sure I can say it.

The normal Christian is so subnormal that a normal Christian would look abnormal to normal Christians.

Did you get that?

The normal Christian is so subnormal.

In other words, the normal Christian is a standard that God has set, and the standard is right here to reflect the fullness of the knowledge of God, to reflect the wisdom and revelation of Christ, to be the conduit of the power of God Himself.

Listen, you say, Pastor, you're overstating that.

No, I'm not.

In chapter 4, here's what he says.

He says he's given some to be apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers for the training of the saints and the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all, every one of us, reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fullness.

The standard for a normal Christian is to look like Jesus.

I mean, full on, look like Jesus.

The goal for the church and for every Christian as we're praying for each other is to look like the fullness of Christ.

That's why Paul says in that last passage in chapter 3, I am praying for you that you would know the knowledge of God, the height, breadth, width, and depth of his power and his love, so that you would reflect the fullness of Christ.

That's what a normal Christian looks like.

But if we're not praying for each other that way, if we're not standing before God, then we become a subnormal version of what a normal Christian should be.

And a person who's a normal Christian sort of stands out as abnormal and weird because they look like Jesus and the rest of us don't.

When this is what our prayer is for each other.

And we are doing it in the context of Ephesians chapter 6, where he says this put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the devil.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

That is why you must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.

You take your stand in your life, and we take a stand for each other to pick each other up and to carry each other forward and to pray each other into that moment.

This is the picture of the Roman army.

We did a study not too far back where we did, we studied this passage in the armor of God and all that.

We talked about how the Romans and they link themselves together and they create this phalanx and they move forward with these shields and this pattern, and they're strong because they're all together and they're all standing armored and they're all standing behind these shields, and they move forward and they advance and they just walk right through any enemy that stood in that day.

It's an awesome picture that Paul's giving.

And so here's what he's saying.

I am praying that y'all get this.

I'm praying that you pray with all in every prayer for every saint all the time, staying alert with all perseverance, and you keep plowing, and whatever's happening, you keep plowing and you keep praying, and we keep praying so that God will be reflected in who we are as a church family.

It's important every day, but it's especially important in times like this.

When we're praying for our schools and for God to open doors for the gospel.

When we are praying for a new campus and an opportunity to spread our influence and sharing Jesus around the river valley, that we are praying for each other and we're lifting each other up when we're encouraging each other.

It is a serious responsibility, it is a standard that we have to elevate in our minds so that we are not subnormal Christians, but we become normal Christians.

Truth number two, it is a serious matter.

All throughout the book of Ephesians, the way he's talking about the church reflecting the power of Jesus and how important it is, and he prays for us to do that, he also warns us that we are in a lost world that is controlled by aspects of it or controlled by Satan and by his demons, and that we are constantly in a state of spiritual warfare, and we are constantly fighting against spiritual warfare.

That's why he says, listen, you are praying every prayer at all times in the spirit because you have to stay alert.

I mean, this comes right on the heels of put on the armor of God, that you stand against the tactics of the devil.

That we are fighting spiritual battles against, he says in verse 12, spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

Pastor, you really believe that?

You better believe I believe that.

I've been in ministry long enough now where I've been in spiritual batter after spiritual battle, and I've seen the attacks of Satan.

And if you just want to see, man, there are churches and there are struggles and there are families, and the roadway of life is littered with the roadkill of Satan's battles.

And here's the deal.

I love, y'all know I love studying World War II history and all that kind of stuff.

And we talk about, even today in our culture, we talk about, you know, inadvertent civilian casualties that were not intended by battle or whatever.

Let me tell you what, Satan intends every casualty of battle.

He does not fight fair.

He fights with evil motive and intent.

The Bible says that we are to be alert for Satan because he is like a roaring lion roaming to and fro, seeking whom he may devour.

Don't think that Satan is excited about all the times First Baptist Church has stepped out and spread the gospel around the river valley.

Using radio waves or television waves or planning other churches or going to schools and sharing Jesus or prayer walking our community or going to another campus, don't think in any way, shape, or form we are not on a battle plan and radar somewhere.

That's what he does.

That's who he is.

And we need not to be afraid of him, but we need to have a healthy understanding that prayer is what defeats him.

And that's why when Paul says you are armor yourself up to take a stand, then the first command, once you are armored up, is to get on your knees and pray.

With every prayer request, but being alert and with perseverance.

Prayer is not a one-time praying for something.

Prayer is a consistently knocking on the doors of heaven.

It is constantly praying.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned this.

I find myself now more and more saying this phrase.

That's why we pray over stuff.

We'll have something in the church that goes well.

God opens a door.

That's why we pray over stuff.

Somebody will get a bad doctor's report.

Well, that's why we're praying for each other because sickness and illness happens.

Then we get a positive report.

Praise God.

That's why we prayed over us, while we pray over stuff.

Something difficulty, something breaks down, something happens in the church, there's an issue.

That's why we pray over stuff.

We needed to be praying before it happened, and now we need to be praying through it.

And after it's over, we need to be praying because the next one's coming.

Listen, we are in a world that it is difficult to be a Christian and to be a church that is out in unity, impacting the gospel and impacting the world for the gospel.

On top of that, here's what the Bible says in chapter 14.

I read to you what the standard of the normal Christian was, but in chapter 4, here's what it says.

Here's the danger.

If we are standing measured by the fullness of Christ, then we avoid this struggle.

Verse 14, we will no longer be children tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

We live in a world where people are lying and people are struggling, and there are so many things that seek to distract us from Jesus, and there are so many things that would seek to redefine who we are and how we do what we do and everything else.

It's just stunning.

It's just incredible.

Sometimes if I'll sit down and watch television or listen to a podcast or something with the eyes of Jesus on it, which we should really do.

I mean, you just got to do this.

If you'll hone in every now and then, you you we have natural filters, right?

We can watch stuff and we just learn, and the Holy Spirit helps us to filter things, hopefully, so they don't impact us.

And so a lot of times we don't really remember.

I remember when our kids were little, and we're going through this now with Killian as he gets to be older, and he starts to watch a little bit of television.

Not much, but a little bit.

Bluey.

Praise the Lord for blueie.

We had Barney when my kids were young.

Praise the Lord for Blueie, okay?

So you I remember when our kids got a little older and we started watching television.

We go, Oh, we're so excited about this.

We need our kids to see this movie.

This is such a clean movie.

This is so good.

And we watch the movie, and I mean in the first five minutes, there are probably four cuss words, and somebody's hanging out of their clothes and some other thing is happening, and Janet and I are going, oh, I didn't remember all that.

You know why?

Because here's what happens: God gives you a filter that protects us as we're walking around the world if you've been in the Word.

But every now and then, when you take the blinders off and you ask God, really show me how evil all this stuff is, it is stunning and heartbreaking.

When we'd show our kids that movie, all of a sudden we're paying attention in a different way, a responsible way.

And it's incredible how much stuff we had filtered out that is real and is in the midst of that.

And I'm telling you, that stuff is everywhere.

It's in every news thing you show, it's in every show that you show, it's in every ad and every football game, it's in every it's everywhere.

It's in every commercial.

It is stunning the amount of that.

I have a whole list of those things I'd love to rail on, and I'm just not going to do it.

Because I don't want to talk about a commercial, and then y'all go, and then you think about the commercial, and what I describe to you is in your brain again.

Y'all are mature enough to pay attention and understand those things, and we've got to realize that that stuff is impacting all of us, and we need to be praying with a persevere and a perseverance and an alertness.

Keep our children away from this stuff.

Keep our students away from this stuff.

God, please help our young parents to see and hear with your ears.

God, I need you to constantly be invading their minds and hearts and take away those filters that they have used to protect themselves and let them see with your eyes and let them see with your ears so they can protect their children and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

A church family that is serious about reaching young families means that the people who have raised their kids who know how this works are on their knees with perseverance, praying for the young families in our church.

Who cares what kind of music we sing if we are not on our knees kneeling before the Father, praying for God's wisdom and Jesus' revelation to show up in the families of our church.

There is nothing more serious for us as a church family than to be praying with that seriousness and that responsibility for our young families.

There's two other things I want you to see in this serious matter.

We don't have time to go into them all, but I just want you to see.

First of all, spiritual formation.

You heard in those prayers how Paul is praying for their maturity and their wisdom and their revelation of Christ so that they become the full measure of the stature of Christ, and he's praying all those things for them.

And he lists those prayers and he repeats those prayers.

So when he tells that church family, I am kneeling before the Heavenly Father praying for you, and he repeats those prayers, they go, I can picture Paul doing that, and he's serious about it.

The pastor I grew up used to say all the time, it was far more important the prayer time that he spent talking to God about us as the church than the time he spent talking to us about God.

That's true for every Sunday school treacher, it's true for every deacon, it's true for every children's worker, it's true for every person who serves with Miss Jonna, loving our little kids.

That's what's important.

And spiritual formation happens in a spiritual setting.

Spiritual formation happens when God's people are seeking God and they're praying for God and we're praying for each other, and everybody is praying and everybody's being prayed for, and we're all pursuing God, and we're all have that prayer.

Jesus, reveal yourself to us, and he's revealing himself to us, and that's when spiritual formation occurs.

It happens when we all spend 15 minutes in the morning praying for each other.

That's when it happens.

It's awesome.

We'll have times of prayer, and the church is praying, and people will come up to me and say, Boy, Pastor, that's the best sermon you preached.

It didn't have anything to do with what I did.

It had to do with the fact that the church was praying.

The church was praying.

We impact together the freedom of the Holy Spirit to move.

Anybody can quench the Holy Spirit.

But all of us can surrender ourselves to where he has the freedom to move and move in power and speak to hearts.

And we're praying for the spiritual mission.

We'll talk about this next week.

But Paul made it very clear: look, folks, this is about this is about preaching the gospel.

People are dying and going to hell.

People in the river valley are dying and going to hell.

People in the river valley are dying every day in judgment and spend and will spend an eternity burning in the lake of fire, separated from the presence of Jesus and God's grace with no hope forever.

Some people preach this idea that once you're gone, it's over.

Like judgment is just you're annihilated and you're gone.

The Bible does not teach that.

Bible teaches in the great judgment, we are separated.

And those who don't know Christ as their Savior and have not proclaimed Him will spend an eternity separated from Him in anguish over the lack of God's grace and presence.

Why do we pray for open doors for people to be saved?

Because people are dying and going to hell every day.

Did you know that more than 80% of our community is not in church this morning?

80%.

We need to start this campus and three more.

I mean, we need to do whatever we can do.

We need to get busy.

I mean, people are dying and going to hell.

And you know what?

We have the good news.

Jesus saves.

And he will remove that sin burden, and he will remove that sin barrier, and he will forgive their sins, and he will walk with them through this life, and he will walk with them for eternity, and they will spend the rest of eternity in the presence of Jesus and in the presence of his grace.

We want to share that.

Amen.

We want to tell people how they can be saved.

Spiritual mission.

Finally, truth number three.

We have a serious power.

Look at what the Bible says.

You're praying at all times for all the saints with all these requests in the Spirit.

When you surrender to the Holy Spirit, and you just say, Lord, I am here this morning to show up and pray.

You cannot mess that up.

And you will access into the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresence of God Himself through the Holy Spirit in your life, and he will empower your prayers and guide your prayers.

And Pastor, you're just making that up.

Romans 8 says, the Spirit joins us to help us in our weakness when we do not know how to pray.

If you say that the Holy Spirit can't help you, you are standing against the plain teaching of God's word.

And when you show up and you say, God, teach me how to pray, and God, here I'm going to pray these, I'm going to start here, and you guide me and you help me because you promised, I'm telling you, you are now standing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

There's no magic to that.

Ephesians again says, if you will allow yourself to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that's all you got to do.

You have to show up and surrender and follow when he leads.

Church family, if we learn to pray like this for each other, you better strap on your seatbelts because God is going to move.

Because when the Holy Spirit empowers our prayers for each other, look out, Satan.

River Valley, here we come.

Why don't you bow your heads?

As we close this morning.

Listen, that's what it means to be a believer.

If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, you get the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

You get to be in a church family where folks are praying for you and all of that, your sins are forgiven, and you avoid that hell and you spend an eternity with heaven, but you have to give your life to Jesus Christ.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I'm going to invite you to come.

Our pastors will be here.

Our people will be singing a testimony.

They'll be singing with joy to let you know that what we're saying is real.

You come and you give your life to Christ.

If you're looking for a church home, we don't talk about this a lot, but I should.

If you're looking for a church home, let me tell you what.

This is a church that prays for each other.

You heard the amens when I was talking about that.

That means this church believes in praying for each other like I'm talking about.

We have a heritage of that.

If you want to be in a church family that prays and you want to be in a group of people that pray for each other, and you want brothers and sisters in Christ to lift you up, then you come join our church.

You come.

Lord, we thank you in Jesus' name for the teaching of your word.

We thank you for the clarity that you made this for us to be able to see.

And I pray, Father, that you'll stir our hearts as a church.

Help us to pray for our schools in this way.

But really help us come and pray for each other that you will raise up out of our midst prayer warriors for the schools and people to invest in students and children and young families.

Help us to pray for each other in the way you've commanded.

This is our prayer.

Together we pray this morning in the name of Jesus and all God's people said.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.