SPEAKER_00: Please turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking the next three weeks at a short series, a life of anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been with us for six months or longer, you know that we kicked off the new theme of anticipation in September.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that topic and considered different relevant applications of that to our lives, and we come back to it at the beginning of the new year.
SPEAKER_00: A life of anticipation this morning, what a life of anticipating, a life of growing, of speaking with God, of growing in our prayer life would look like.
SPEAKER_00: Next week we're going to look at a life, anticipating a life of service to God and to others.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last weekend, the same weekend that we have Randy Newman coming to speak on evangelism, we're going to look at a life of sharing the good news, the gift of eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're looking at prayer, and I went back and looked at some other notes from past years.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you remember when the theme was simplicity?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Removing the meaningless to make room for the meaningful.
SPEAKER_00: That was really the subtitle for us that year.
SPEAKER_00: God, how are you going to get rid of the meaningless things in our lives, the things that clutter us?
SPEAKER_00: Our minds, our schedules.
SPEAKER_00: I went back and looked at some notes.
SPEAKER_00: And Dallas Willard put it like this: the main thing that God gets out of your life is not the achievements that you accomplish, it's the person that you become.
SPEAKER_00: I found that refreshing to come back and to reconsider.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what you do, it's who you're becoming in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What clutters the soul does not mainly come from the outside, but from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: You believe that?
SPEAKER_00: What clutters the soul does not mainly come from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what happens to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not your circumstances, as troubling as they can be.
SPEAKER_00: It's what God does in our heart when those circumstances come.
SPEAKER_00: Simplicity.
SPEAKER_00: Simplicity is not so much about putting a schedule together as it is determining who you're trying to become.
SPEAKER_00: Not what you're trying to get done so much as deciding who you want to become.
SPEAKER_00: That's good, right?
SPEAKER_00: Who do I want to become in 2020?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to order my time, I'm going to order my life, I'm going to order my schedule around the person that I'm asking God to make me more into.
SPEAKER_00: And so we talk about that in the context of prayer as we should.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is a familiar story.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorite stories in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus met a very anxious father, a father that was scared.
SPEAKER_00: Really scared because he had a son he didn't know what to do with.
SPEAKER_00: This boy just suffered greatly.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus knew what to do with them.
SPEAKER_00: And so we read about that.
SPEAKER_00: And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.
SPEAKER_00: And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him.
SPEAKER_00: And he asked them, What are you arguing about with them?
SPEAKER_00: And someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute.
SPEAKER_00: And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.
SPEAKER_00: So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.
SPEAKER_00: And he answered them, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
SPEAKER_00: How long am I to bear with you?
SPEAKER_00: Bring him to me.
SPEAKER_00: And they brought the boy to him.
SPEAKER_00: And when the spirit saw him, he immediately convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus asked his father, How long has this been happening to him?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, From childhood.
SPEAKER_00: And it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him.
SPEAKER_00: But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, If you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, You mute and deaf spirit, I command you come out of him and never enter him again.
SPEAKER_00: And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, He's dead.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant word.
SPEAKER_00: Would you please pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Father, we are asking that your son's power be poured out in this sanctuary this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, just as on that occasion you rebuked, would you rebuke us where we need to be rebuked?
SPEAKER_00: And just as you challenge them, would you challenge us?
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, just as you poured out grace and power and healing, would you pour out grace and power and healing among us this morning?
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: The story is chilling, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine yourself the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And you can maybe many of us can fill in our own blanks.
SPEAKER_00: Your problem may not be his problem.
SPEAKER_00: It probably isn't.
SPEAKER_00: But you can put yourself in the Father's place.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that his only son, I'm struck at how many times in the Gospels, the Gospels tell us her only daughter, his only son.
SPEAKER_00: It happens quite often in the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: I don't confess to know all the reasons why that God chose these people, but it certainly brings my mind back to God's only son.
SPEAKER_00: God's only son was the only answer for the loss or the concern and the fears of many people for their only child, or for all of our children for that matter.
SPEAKER_00: The passage doesn't tell us how long this was going on, but it had been going on long enough, and I'm pretty sure that this was one discouraged, exasperated father.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to believe he spent a lot of time praying about it.
SPEAKER_00: He spent a lot of time thinking, he spent a lot of time researching.
SPEAKER_00: One difference, he wasn't all he wasn't up all night googling these diseases.
SPEAKER_00: That could be helpful, I think.
SPEAKER_00: But hear me.
SPEAKER_00: That's not your answer.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the ultimate answer.
SPEAKER_00: Do it if it's helpful.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the solution.
SPEAKER_00: He did everything he could to free his son of this possession, this evil possession that overtook him, that would try to literally kill him, throwing him in fire.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine seeing your son throwing himself into a fire?
SPEAKER_00: Or water?
SPEAKER_00: Or just this evil spirit was terrorizing him.
SPEAKER_00: We get it.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be your son.
SPEAKER_00: It may be.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be your daughter.
SPEAKER_00: It could be a spouse, it could be a friend, it could be your health, it could be your finances, it could be relational destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Look, the enemy has many options on his venue.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy comes against us in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: But what it all has in common is he wants to terrorize us.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to exasperate us.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to render us feeling useless and powerless, that there's nothing that we can do except worry.
SPEAKER_00: And accept and try other secondary and rely on secondary resources.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it has in common.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus has just been on the Mount of Transfiguration.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't read that.
SPEAKER_00: He was up there on the top of the James and John.
SPEAKER_00: And so I wonder, was the glory, because remember the glory of the Lord shone upon Jesus and it just enveloped Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Was some of that glory still shining on Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But they just came down from the mountain, just having heard the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the other nine disciples are left in the village with this father with this urgent need.
SPEAKER_00: And the father has come to the nine disciples, and he's pleading with them, please heal my son.
SPEAKER_00: I can't take this any longer.
SPEAKER_00: He can't.
SPEAKER_00: Did you catch how the father made the petition?
SPEAKER_00: Help what?
SPEAKER_00: Us.
SPEAKER_00: When you have that kind of a desperate condition for a loved one, it's always us, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because your heart is just wrapped up in that, like the other person that you're praying for.
SPEAKER_00: Help us.
SPEAKER_00: And we, you know, this is just, this doesn't require a lot of sanctified imagination, just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But the other nine, it's like, well, yeah, we can do this.
SPEAKER_00: Why do I say that?
SPEAKER_00: Because they had already been sent out on preaching missions by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus had already invested them with spiritual power to cast out demons.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's why they thought they could do it.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them spiritual authority to cast out demons.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them spiritual authority to heal diseases.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them spiritual authority to bring people to a knowledge of God for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember how Luke puts it in Luke chapter 10?
SPEAKER_00: They came back rejoicing because God's power flowed through them.
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember what Jesus said to them?
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice not that the demons submit to you.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice that your names are written in the book of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And so you see what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: They thought, well, no, we've done this before.
SPEAKER_00: We can do this.
SPEAKER_00: But they couldn't.
SPEAKER_00: And so now they're just really all bound up, like, why can't we exercise this demon from this boy?
SPEAKER_00: We've done it before.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, for a very simple reason.
SPEAKER_00: This kind doesn't come out by that kind of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: This kind of evil.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that there are different gradations of evil in this world?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that there were different satanic forces?
SPEAKER_00: When you get to the armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6, in the book of Ephesians, you have, for quite a while, you have the flesh in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is telling us how to battle the flesh, and he's telling us how to battle the world, but then you get into chapter 6, and he tells us more specifically how we battle satanic forces and demons.
SPEAKER_00: They're not all alike.
SPEAKER_00: They're all hard.
SPEAKER_00: Fighting the flesh is not easy, is it?
SPEAKER_00: Fighting the world is not easy.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's why, and some of you remember our series in the book of Ephesians a few years ago.
SPEAKER_00: That's why five times in the book of Ephesians, five times, the apostle Paul reminds us that we are not seated here on earth, our souls.
SPEAKER_00: Where are we seated right now, friends?
SPEAKER_00: In the heavenlies.
SPEAKER_00: That makes all the difference in the world to see where you are.
SPEAKER_00: Five times in the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul shows us, you may be sitting in a pew at 2405 Russell Road, Alexandria.
SPEAKER_00: You may be sitting here, physically, your body, but that's not where your heart is.
SPEAKER_00: That's not where your soul is.
SPEAKER_00: Your soul is seated in the heavenly courts with King Jesus in the mighty one that we were beholding at the beginning of this worship service.
SPEAKER_00: And if you lose sight of that, you're in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Do you fight your battles here looking up, or do you fight your battles from heaven, seated there in the heavenlies with Christ, looking down, aware of the heavenly spiritual resources that God has given you?
SPEAKER_00: Are we fighting these battles in our strength?
SPEAKER_00: Or are we fighting these battles in his?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says to his disciples afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: So again, we read the story, and Jesus has a conversation with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He says, How long has it been like this?
SPEAKER_00: Now, did Jesus know that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think Jesus probably knew that.
SPEAKER_00: Did Jesus have to engage in this conversation with the Father?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Father probably is just agonizing.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't talk.
SPEAKER_00: Heal.
SPEAKER_00: Please.
SPEAKER_00: Conversation later.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see he's trying to kill himself again by going to the fire?
SPEAKER_00: Please, just intervene.
SPEAKER_00: I think that probably would have been me.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus engages him in a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was out of sympathy and pity.
SPEAKER_00: I think Jesus was expressing his deep concern.
SPEAKER_00: I think Jesus was saying, I care.
SPEAKER_00: And tell me about it.
SPEAKER_00: Can you do that?
SPEAKER_00: I care.
SPEAKER_00: Please tell me about it.
SPEAKER_00: Can you tell them about it?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to go into the notes because of time.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've talked about this stuff before when I preach on this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to try it's easy to spiritualize this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to rationalize this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we do this stuff all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why pray?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem to help.
SPEAKER_00: Why pray?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure he does see what's going on in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure he really does care.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you this morning he does.
SPEAKER_00: You're not waiting on him.
SPEAKER_00: He's waiting on you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't rationalize away your pain.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritualize away your pain.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to be listening to what he has to say to this father.
SPEAKER_00: The father asked the question, if you can do anything about this, Father, Jesus, if you can do anything about this, would you please?
SPEAKER_00: And what does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_00: If you can, do you know who you're talking to?
SPEAKER_00: If I can?
SPEAKER_00: If you believe I can do all things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is clarifying.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is turning the dial so that the reception comes in clearer.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand who I really am.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand what I can really do before I heal your boy.
SPEAKER_00: All things are possible for the one who believes.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately the father of the child cried out.
SPEAKER_00: That's a strong verb.
SPEAKER_00: I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus saw the crowd coming together, a commotion starting, he says, okay, this is not going to be a circus.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to do that.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying, You mute and deaf spirit, I command you come out of him and never enter him again.
SPEAKER_00: And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out and the boy was like a corpse.
SPEAKER_00: The boy wasn't dead, it appeared to be dead.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up.
SPEAKER_00: That was a good day for that father.
SPEAKER_00: That was a good day for that son.
SPEAKER_00: What was it like as they had dinner together that night?
SPEAKER_00: What was it like as they were around the table together that night?
SPEAKER_00: Both of them knowing clearly that only Jesus could have done this, and Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: That was a good day.
SPEAKER_00: After a lot of bad days.
SPEAKER_00: So the nine disciples are now in a private room conversation with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: How come we couldn't heal him?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's two kinds.
SPEAKER_00: There is a kind of evil and oppression and misery.
SPEAKER_00: There is a kind that opposes us, that we see God deliver us from.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's another kind.
SPEAKER_00: There's another kind.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you what Jesus is saying to him.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't really learn how to pray, if you don't really learn how to pray, you're never going to see that kind come out.
SPEAKER_00: Are you okay with that?
SPEAKER_00: Are you okay being a Christian that says, no, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Give me the fifth tier below.
SPEAKER_00: But don't give me the first tier.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give me that.
SPEAKER_00: Give me the easy ones, God.
SPEAKER_00: Give me the ones that I can I give me the ones I can deal with.
SPEAKER_00: With a little bit of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you dare settle for that.
SPEAKER_00: You can.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my question.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you?
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna go through the rest of your life?
SPEAKER_00: Taking on the problems that you can deal with with a little bit of prayer?
SPEAKER_00: With a little bit of faith?
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther said about this text.
SPEAKER_00: When our faith is little, our prayer is little.
SPEAKER_00: He was right.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you settle?
SPEAKER_00: Why would I settle?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to settle.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to keep asking God to grow my faith.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to keep asking God to grow my belief in the power of the King that we sang to at the beginning of this service.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to keep asking God to grow my vision of the King of glory.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to continue to ask God to grow my faith in the power that flows from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to ask, I'm going to continue to ask God to grow my understanding that I'm seated in the heavenlies.
SPEAKER_00: I am.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not always easy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just being honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: There were a couple times this week when I was just really discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: There were a couple times this week when I just felt my heart just discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: And I prayed the other night in our Wednesday night prayer meeting.
SPEAKER_00: God forgive me for my anxious heart.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever ask God to forgive you for your anxious heart?
SPEAKER_00: He says, I just felt my heart was anxious.
SPEAKER_00: And I've seen God meet me this week.
SPEAKER_00: And I've seen God refresh me this week.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen God give me fresh faith this week.
SPEAKER_00: And he can do it for you too.
SPEAKER_01: This kind.
SPEAKER_00: This kind.
SPEAKER_00: You know, again, I went back to Ephesians chapter 6, and I was looking at the armor.
SPEAKER_00: Put on the whole armor of God, including the sword of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only offensive weapon in the armor that Paul talks about in putting on the whole armor of God.
SPEAKER_00: Put on the sword of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Strap it on your side, the sword of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It was a short sword.
SPEAKER_00: It was used for hand-to-hand combat in Paul's day.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you what that means, I think.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit cuts through our defenses.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit pricks our consciences.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit cuts to the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit takes the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God takes the Word of God and He makes thrust.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I both need those thrusts, dear ones.
SPEAKER_00: Because we can wrap ourselves around a lot of anxiety and fear and apathy and laziness, and just little faith.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit takes this word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you open up to Him, He's going to thrust.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what happened the day of Pentecost?
SPEAKER_00: 3,000 people were cut to the heart through the preaching of Peter because the Spirit of God used the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he still is doing that today.
SPEAKER_00: But you've got to offer up and you've got to open up.
SPEAKER_00: And you've got to invite him in to do his work.
SPEAKER_00: It's his sword, not yours, not mine.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says to the disciples, this kind only comes by prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Now some of you are used to your King James Bibles and other translations, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, I thought it said in fasting in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the oldest, most reliable manuscripts don't say and fasting, but so what?
SPEAKER_00: We all know that fasting is good.
SPEAKER_00: We all know that the Bible commends fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Just because it may not have said it here doesn't mean that it's not something that we should engage in.
SPEAKER_00: It's just this kind only comes by that kind of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Hallisby.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: This is a raising of hand Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember?
SPEAKER_00: How many got a copy of the book, Prayer, by O.
SPEAKER_00: Hallisby?
SPEAKER_00: You remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Not many of you.
SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend that prayer by O.
SPEAKER_00: Period Hallisby.
SPEAKER_00: We gave every person in this church a copy of that book.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, ten years ago.
SPEAKER_00: This is how he defines prayer.
SPEAKER_00: A cry in faith.
SPEAKER_00: This little Greek word that the Father used, help, guess what it means?
SPEAKER_00: Run?
SPEAKER_00: It's a compound word.
SPEAKER_00: To run to a cry.
SPEAKER_00: Will God run to your cry?
SPEAKER_00: This kind of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Hallisby said, prayer is the conduit through which power from heaven is brought to earth.
SPEAKER_00: The greater the volume of prayer to be transmitted from above, the stronger must be the prayer cable which unites the soul with God.
SPEAKER_01: Can I say that again?
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is the conduit through which power from heaven is brought to earth.
SPEAKER_00: The greater the volume of power to be transmitted from above, the stronger must be the prayer cable which unites the soul with God.
SPEAKER_00: Can you relate to the Father?
SPEAKER_00: I believe, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Does that resonate with you?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Would you give me more faith?
SPEAKER_00: Would you grow my faith?
SPEAKER_00: Would you clear my vision to the King and to His power and to His glory?
SPEAKER_00: May my faith be a prayer of faith.
SPEAKER_00: May my prayer be a prayer of repenting faith.
SPEAKER_00: I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: May my prayer be a prayer of persevering faith.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that it?
SPEAKER_00: Pick up that sword of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the Spirit to give you the sword of the Spirit and have it on your side, by your side, so that there will be some deep thrust in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And that will cut away the things in your life.
SPEAKER_00: To cut away our unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: To cut away our apathy.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm preaching, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you going to be here tonight?
SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you going to be here tonight if you're not coming?
SPEAKER_00: You know something powerful happens?
SPEAKER_00: When the people of God come together simply to pray.
SPEAKER_00: I think prayer is wonderful at CMG.
SPEAKER_00: I highly commend it.
SPEAKER_00: But when you come together with other people to pray, anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I pray.
SPEAKER_01: But God can.
SPEAKER_00: Come.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Where two or three are gathered in my name.
SPEAKER_00: There I am.
SPEAKER_00: There my power is unleashed.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say one thing in closing.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is always going to try to get you to focus on the battles that you've lost.
SPEAKER_00: Not the war that Jesus has won.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're coming to this table.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is always going to try to get you to focus on the battles that you've lost.
SPEAKER_00: You hear me?
SPEAKER_00: Can you see a lot of battles that you've lost?
SPEAKER_00: Why pray?
SPEAKER_00: Look at all the battles I've lost.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to, when you meet Jesus, he is always going to point you to the war he won more than the battles that you've lost.
SPEAKER_00: And what a privilege I have now to lead us to this table.
SPEAKER_00: This is the table that points to the victory that he won.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why our prayers are precious to him.
SPEAKER_00: Pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Father, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the saving, cleansing, healing power of your son.
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for the way that you healed that boy.
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for the glad reunion you gave that boy and his father.
SPEAKER_00: And I thank you, Jesus, that you're still healing and you're still saving and you're still cutting the hearts of your people as well as others.
SPEAKER_00: Cut, Lord Jesus, this day.
SPEAKER_00: You know what needs to be cut.
SPEAKER_00: You know where it needs to be cut.
SPEAKER_00: Cut.
SPEAKER_00: Heal.
SPEAKER_00: After the cutting comes the healing.
SPEAKER_00: Heal, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know what needs healing in us.
SPEAKER_00: Please heal.
SPEAKER_00: And please use our prayers in that process.
SPEAKER_00: We pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.