SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that was wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: They did it just like I told Jacob for them to do it.
SPEAKER_01: And so it was great.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, choir, and we're showing wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, y'all let me catch my breath just a second.
SPEAKER_01: I was uh downtown, we had a great morning at our chaffy campus, and I'm telling a young couple how easy it is to get from here to there.
SPEAKER_01: And Janet says, You're late, you better get in the truck and get to church.
SPEAKER_01: So we had a great morning there, and I know we're having a great morning here.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's great to see you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You know, as we move uh through the year, we've talked about uh uh at times all throughout the year how this year as a church we're wanting to move forward, and we've used that word, moving forward, and that image of moving forward as a church.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of ways we're doing that.
SPEAKER_01: The chronological Bible reading is one of those ways we're doing that as a church.
SPEAKER_01: We are uh elevating our discipleship together and really challenging us to know and be invested in God's word in a deeper way.
SPEAKER_01: And you guys are doing great.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we talk all the time about what a blessing it is for everyone to be talking about scripture together and what we're reading together.
SPEAKER_01: I want to brag on you guys.
SPEAKER_01: You guys have this week crossed over one-third of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: How awesome is that! And so uh we're really making progress.
SPEAKER_01: That's a part of that.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of other ways we're doing this moving forward.
SPEAKER_01: Uh when we started casting the vision for this idea, we also talked about moving forward in our prayers as a church and our prayer ministry and our prayer life as a church.
SPEAKER_01: And so today, what I want to talk to you about is moving forward through prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we've been reading chronologically, um, you know, we've gotten to that point in David's life and ministry now where we start to get some of the psalms in the in that book of Psalms, and those are being inserted in our readings in the type of place where that could have been used or written or introduced to the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So we have just recently hit this particular psalm, and I think it's an incredible one that helps us think about our prayer life as individuals and as a church and moving forward.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to read with me.
SPEAKER_01: You're in Psalm 84.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as you know, these uh this word psalm could be translated just as easily to the word song.
SPEAKER_01: This is a song book or a hymnal in the middle of scripture, and it teaches why uh songs are in worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's all a part of who we are as the church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and that beautiful song that the choir sang today comes from one of it gave voice to one of these songs.
SPEAKER_01: It comes out of a song in the book of Psalms or the book of songs.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you read one of these, it helps to get the context as we've seen, as we're reading through, and see when it would have applied and why they're uh writing or what this is their heart.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the other thing is music moves us like nothing else.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible the power of music.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why it's so special in worship services, and it's an integral part of what we do in church life.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh here in this time, we are looking at a song that is designed to stir the heart to worship.
SPEAKER_01: So it really helps also to be thinking not just about the context, but that this is musical.
SPEAKER_01: This is music.
SPEAKER_01: And in your head, you can take uh incredible rising music like that, moving music, as a background to reading this song and understanding it's designed to stir our heart through music.
SPEAKER_01: So, in that light, let's kind of read for a minute here.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it says in verse one How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_01: I long and yearn for the courts of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: My heart and flesh cry out for the living God.
SPEAKER_01: And then he uses this illustration.
SPEAKER_01: Even a sparrow finds a home, and a swallow a nest for herself where she places her young near your altars, Lord of armies, my king and my God, is kind of the idea, just like has happened here on occasion in most churches where birds make a nest in the rafters or something, and you know, he's giving that image that even that happens in the tabernacle and buildings.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's the case there, then why should that not be even more for us a place of belonging and a place where we long to meet with the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 4, how happy, and that word happy is a terrible I hate that word, it's a terrible translation.
SPEAKER_01: It's a much deeper, more beautiful word.
SPEAKER_01: Use the word blessed there.
SPEAKER_01: It's a much richer word than we think of as the word happy in our culture today.
SPEAKER_01: How blessed are those who reside in your house, who praise you continually.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed are the people whose strength is in you, Lord, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: And then it's going to use an illustration here.
SPEAKER_01: Uh as they pass through the valley of Bacah, they make it a source of spring water.
SPEAKER_01: Even the autumn rain will cover it with blessings.
SPEAKER_01: They go from strength to strength.
SPEAKER_01: Each appears before God in Zion.
SPEAKER_01: Now the Valley of Bacchah is a really kind of a desolate area, and it was an area you would have to traverse to get to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And so think about dry, flat, boring, no water, hot, miserable.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like driving through Mississippi.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Desolate place, right?
SPEAKER_01: You know, kind of deal.
SPEAKER_01: So you get that picture.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, even as we're traveling through that, the yearning for the presence of the Lord, knowing I'm going to be at the tabernacle, be in your presence, man, that fills me in the way that a spring would in the middle of this journey.
SPEAKER_01: Just knowing I'm going to be in the presence of God draws me to him and fills me and refreshes me in that journey.
SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible picture when you sort of get the geography of that.
SPEAKER_01: Then in verse 8, he says, this, Lord God of armies, or your version may say, Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer, listen, God of Jacob, Salah.
SPEAKER_01: And right there, it's both a musical note and a reference to when we would say amen and affirm something.
SPEAKER_01: So in your mind, as you're hearing this music play, you just came through this beautiful song, and you have some of those arising moments that stirs your heart, and you want to stand or you want to raise your hands.
SPEAKER_01: That's this moment right here.
SPEAKER_01: This beautiful idea of I am longing for the Lord, and to be in your presence is to be blessed.
SPEAKER_01: And even in a dry and desolate place, God's word is like a spring, and his presence fills me up.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, hear our prayer, God, and the music rises, and you have this amen and the crashing of cymbals, and it affirms the power of this moment.
SPEAKER_01: It's a linchpin right here in this psalm where he says, Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer, listen, God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: And he cries out to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Consider our shield, God, look on the face of your anointed one.
SPEAKER_01: Better a day in your courts than a thousand anywhere else.
SPEAKER_01: I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than live in the tents of wicked people.
SPEAKER_01: And there he's painting another word picture for us.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, It's better to be out here working and ministering in the outer parts of the temple than it is to be resting in these lavish tents.
SPEAKER_01: The word picture is there.
SPEAKER_01: These people who are traveling in there in this nomadic culture, and they have these beautiful tents.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've seen a movie with Arabs or Persian history or whatever, and these incredible tents and these tapestries, and they lay them on the floor, and you got these beds, and there's food there, and it's this tent of dwelling.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, it's better to be working in the menial tasks in the tabernacle than it is to live in some lavish tent of some evil person who's traveling around oppressing people or doing whatever they're doing.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just the juxtaposition of that is incredible.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, for the Lord God is a sun shield.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord grants honor and favor.
SPEAKER_01: He does not withhold good from those who live with integrity.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed is the person who trusts in you, Lord of armies.
SPEAKER_01: That Lord of hosts, Lord of armies, it's this powerful picture of victory and might and omnipotence.
SPEAKER_01: The word Lord is this word of God and who he is as our covenant God and our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And then this word hosts or armies, it's the idea that he is the commander over all of this.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when you read in commentaries and people or professors or studying or whatever, they have these theological debates about whether those are the angel armies or whether that's armies here and it's up for like the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01: It's all of them.
SPEAKER_01: God is over all of that.
SPEAKER_01: He is the power of the as of the army of the Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: He is the strong arm behind David and the armies and the victories that they have is because God is their is their uh leader and because God is the power behind them.
SPEAKER_01: Friday night we had Family Movie Night out at the Chaffee campus, and we watched the David, animated David movie, and it was an incredible movie.
SPEAKER_01: And to watch that as we've been reading this was really fun.
SPEAKER_01: And how many times David would tell them, look, this is God's battle.
SPEAKER_01: God is the strength, He's the leader of our army, He's the one leading, He's the one in charge.
SPEAKER_01: And to see that played out personally, that's this picture here.
SPEAKER_01: God is the God of all of that.
SPEAKER_01: He's the God of covenant and the God of all power.
SPEAKER_01: You see, this beautiful song is very much like the one we just sang.
SPEAKER_01: It's this whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: There are three themes I want you to see in this as we think about prayer, as you read through this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna pull these threads through it.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the first thing is yearning for the tangible presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord of armies.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's this beautiful picture of the power of God and being in his presence.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, I long and yearn for the courts of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: My heart and flesh cry out for the living God.
SPEAKER_01: My pastor growing up used to tell us all the time, I don't know how much Jesus you have, but you have all the Jesus that you want.
SPEAKER_01: Do our hearts yearn for the presence of God?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: He's the Alpha and the Omega.
SPEAKER_01: He was there with God at creation, and John 1 says, made through him.
SPEAKER_01: Bible says in the book of Colossians that the fullness of the Godhead rests bodily in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.
SPEAKER_01: He is a part of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: He is the living God, He is our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: You never run out of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He is far more full than we could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_01: We don't run out of Jesus to draw our attention.
SPEAKER_01: We run out of yearning for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We get distracted by the things of life.
SPEAKER_01: You think about how many times all of us go through periods of time where we can't, we get distracted and lose the habit of even having our quiet time.
SPEAKER_01: How is that yearning for the presence of God?
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's a little bit of an illustration here we need to work through for a moment because we're New Testament Christians and we're studying in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So understand, we know that in the New Testament, when we give our lives to Christ, He has fulfilled the gospel and he has fulfilled salvation that God had promised.
SPEAKER_01: All as we've been reading throughout the Old Testament, God had promised that He would send a Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus stepped out of heaven, he lived a sinless life, and then he voluntarily went to the cross, and there he died in our place so that his death could be a substitute for ours.
SPEAKER_01: Then he rose again, conquering death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: And when you give your life to Jesus, salvation, what that means is you recognize that you're a sinner and you can't fix your sin.
SPEAKER_01: You can't take away your guilt.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus went to the cross, and there he died a death that was free of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus never sinned as a man, so there was no attachment, no judgment attached to his death.
SPEAKER_01: So his death was free.
SPEAKER_01: And what that means is that you can come to him and say, I know I'm a sinner, but I believe that you died for my sins.
SPEAKER_01: And God, I am sorry for my sin, and I trust Jesus who paid the price for my sin.
SPEAKER_01: He took the full wrath and punishment of God, and I surrender my life to Jesus because he gave his life for me.
SPEAKER_01: And you place your faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You take your life, everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and you give it all to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then when you are saved and cleansed, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit comes and lives in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Our pastor used to explain the Trinity this way: you know, you have God the Father, and then Jesus is God for us on the cross, and the Holy Spirit is God in us.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are able to walk around in the presence of God through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in every moment of our lives.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I want you to see about this illustration.
SPEAKER_01: That wasn't the case in the Old Testament, and as you remember, as we read through that, what happened was as they went into the land of Canaan, God instructed them to build a tabernacle and he taught them how he would lead them as his people.
SPEAKER_01: And as we studied in the tabernacle, when they had finished and they dedicated it to the Lord, the presence of God descended on the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: And they could always look to the tabernacle and see there was a, if the presence of God was there, there was a cloud in the daytime.
SPEAKER_01: And at night that cloud was filled with a pillar of fire.
SPEAKER_01: And they always knew God's presence was there.
SPEAKER_01: And they would come there for their sacrifices, and they would come there for their worships, and they would come there when they needed advice or support from the priest because they knew that's where the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so in this Old Testament mindset, what he's saying is, I long to go to the tabernacle because God's presence is there, and I would give anything to be in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: They're traveling these long journeys through the Valley of Bacon, places like that, and it didn't matter how much work it took to get to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: You think about when you went to the Passover deal and you lived in North Jerusalem somewhere, it would take you a week or more to get to church.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, good grief.
SPEAKER_01: It's terrible for us if we have to drive 20 minutes to church.
SPEAKER_01: And they did it because they longed for the presence of God and they wanted to be there for the sacrifice and the Passover and they wanted to worship God for what He'd done for them, and they knew that that's where the presence of God was, and they yearned to be in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do we yearn to be in the presence of God?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like we're like Lord, I need you.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to be here.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to answer this question.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I just want to be in your presence.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have anything for you to do, God.
SPEAKER_01: I just, you have saved me and you have loved me and you've never forsaken me.
SPEAKER_01: And I just, I need to be in your presence.
SPEAKER_01: Do we yearn that way for the presence of God?
SPEAKER_01: Then he says this, this big culmination moment here in verse 8, when you get to this refrain and it's stirring and the music is going, and the response of yearning to be in the presence of God is what?
SPEAKER_01: Lord God of armies, hear my prayer, listen, God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: If you are yearning for the presence of God, you will be a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: When we are not consistently in prayer, what that really says is it's a reflection that we're not yearning to be in God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: When we're not praying, it means we sort of got life going on, or we're distracted, or we got this covered, or we're doing what we want to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's a reflection of our heart and our desire to be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, scripture is filled with these stories, and we've been reading them where the people of God cry out to the Lord, and that should be how we pray.
SPEAKER_01: That should be what prayer is for us.
SPEAKER_01: It is this expression of yarning to be with God.
SPEAKER_01: I am longing to be in his presence.
SPEAKER_01: I need to be with him.
SPEAKER_01: I love him.
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to be there.
SPEAKER_01: I need his direction.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I'm struggling.
SPEAKER_01: I need your presence.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: You have provided so much.
SPEAKER_01: I am overwhelmed with what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I can't believe your grace and your blessings.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I just want to be in your presence to thank you for all you've done in my life.
SPEAKER_01: And prayer is an expression of that yearning.
SPEAKER_01: It flows out of that yearning.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great indicator or thermometer in my life.
SPEAKER_01: How much do I want the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: I also believe this happened.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I believe in the conscience of the mirror.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you're looking in the mirror and you're fixing your hair, and some of us don't have to worry about that anymore.
SPEAKER_01: We're getting where it's not a problem.
SPEAKER_01: You're shaving or brushing your teeth or you're doing whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit says, Hey, we haven't prayed yet this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And you go, He's going to talk to me about that area I don't want to give him, and so I don't really want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: There's plenty of times we avoid prayer because we think God's gonna convict me of that, or he's gonna make me give that up, or he told me to go work in student ministry or children's ministry, and I don't really want to do that, and I know he's gonna ask me that again, and I don't want, so I'm just not gonna, I'm just gonna avoid that prayer time because I don't want to deal with that.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that the human experience that we have?
SPEAKER_01: And so that prayer is a reflection, it shows whether that yearning is there or not.
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, there's a faith expectation that God works.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Over and over in this yearning passage, one of the reasons that he yearns to be in the presence of God, because when God is there, God makes things happen.
SPEAKER_01: Stuff happens when you're in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: How lovely is your dwelling place.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Why is it lovely?
SPEAKER_01: Why does he want to be there?
SPEAKER_01: Why is he giving this expression of how incredible the dwelling place of God is and he longs to be there?
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he says in verse 4, how blessed are those who reside in your house.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, how blessed are the people whose strength is in you.
SPEAKER_01: God brings strength into our lives when he shows up.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he says they go from strength to strength.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Better is a day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because, verse 11, God is a son and a shield.
SPEAKER_01: There is protection, there is light, there is guidance, there is power in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 11, the Lord God grants favor and honor.
SPEAKER_01: He does not withhold any good thing from those who live with him in integrity.
SPEAKER_01: How blessed is the person who trusts in you.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to be in the presence of God because being in the presence of God means you're in the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: And if God is there, things happen when God is there.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, that's not presumptuous.
SPEAKER_01: We're not trying to do some weird, you know, name it, claim it sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and might have it more abundantly.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't that mean something?
SPEAKER_01: If the Lord God is a son and shield, if there's strength in his presence, if he does not withhold his blessings from his children, then doesn't it mean something that God's presence is there?
SPEAKER_01: If we don't believe that God's presence brings power and impact, then why are we here wasting our time?
SPEAKER_01: We're not here checking a box, we're here seeking the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And if we don't expect God to do something, why?
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing?
SPEAKER_01: It's probably a reflection of we're not desiring of his presence because we don't understand how lovely, how blessed, how powerful, how awesome it is to be in God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: But when God's presence is there, God can't help but do things.
SPEAKER_01: If He is omnipotent, how are things not going to happen when the person of God is revealing Himself there?
SPEAKER_01: That's the beauty and the power of this hymn.
SPEAKER_01: And that brings us to what is our prayer as a church and as individuals.
SPEAKER_01: What's happening in how we pray?
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's two things.
SPEAKER_01: One is new and one is just reinvigorating something that we do already.
SPEAKER_01: The first is our prayer time and a service.
SPEAKER_01: Now, listen, I love our church because we listen, we have the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: We feel the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: This is not some negative thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, who wants more of Jesus than people who are already in the presence of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that right?
SPEAKER_01: If you're seeing God work, you want more.
SPEAKER_01: If you're feeling how incredible God's blessings and graces, then you that much more want to be in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: So I think we're in a spot where, man, we know what it means and we're seeing God do things and it's wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: Just give an example.
SPEAKER_01: We're seeing things happen in people's lives.
SPEAKER_01: Man, our Wednesday night men's and women's discipleship things, man, God's doing stuff in there.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, He's like impacting lives in there.
SPEAKER_01: We're baptizing in both places.
SPEAKER_01: We've started this campus and God's moving and people are joining.
SPEAKER_01: We had another new member join today.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this stuff's happening.
SPEAKER_01: If you think about what's happening, listen, if you took last week in attendance versus last week in attendance last year, we didn't have the Chaffee campus last year, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so this year we sent 30, 40 people, or however many people out there attending, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so, by all rights, you would think, what's happening to this one if all those people were out there?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know last week, and this is common now, we have more people on this campus than last year.
SPEAKER_01: So we're growing here over the number of people we sent out there.
SPEAKER_01: We've grown greater than the number of people we sent out there.
SPEAKER_01: And then out there we're growing.
SPEAKER_01: So last week we were 90 something more in church than we were the year before.
SPEAKER_01: Now, listen, that doesn't happen because of the preaching or the music or anything else.
SPEAKER_01: That happens because God's presence is working in our midst.
SPEAKER_01: Anything that's good that happens in the church, it happens because Jesus did it.
SPEAKER_01: His presence makes things happen.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what we're going to do.
SPEAKER_01: We want to make sure that when we're praying in our services, and we do pray in our services, and we stop and we have times for pray.
SPEAKER_01: We've prayed for election times and politicians or whatever, and we've prayed for soldiers and airmen and sailors and I ran, and we've prayed for things happening in our community, and we've just prayed for God to work, and we prayed for mission team this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We pray as a church, and so that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: So this is not a negative thing.
SPEAKER_01: What it is is who should want more than the people who are in God's presence and feeling Jesus more.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And so what we're gonna do starting next week is we're gonna start each message time with a time of corporate prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So before we go into that message, we're gonna have two, three, four minutes.
SPEAKER_01: It'll be different each week.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it'll be the pastor that's preaching, leading everyone in prayer, and we'll ask you to kneel if you can or stand and you know, raise your hands and surrender to the Lord or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we'll have you get in groups of three or four wherever you are and pray out loud right there.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have a legitimate time of prayer, not just a not just a time of transition or focus or whatever, but we're gonna really, we're gonna build on this yearning for the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we'll have a time for two or three or four minutes where we'll just together, we'll just yearn for the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: We'll cry out as both individuals and corporately, and we'll ask God to move, and we'll tell him we want his presence, and we've just been celebrating him, we've just been worshiping him, and now we're calling out to him in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We're literally going to do what it says in this psalm.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to ask the Lord to hear our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to ask him to listen and we're going to call out to him.
SPEAKER_01: Why are we praying?
SPEAKER_01: Because we're stirring that yearning for the Lord, and we expect God to work.
SPEAKER_01: We need to see more people saved.
SPEAKER_01: We need to see more people dealing with the things God's dealing with in their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's happening.
SPEAKER_01: And praise the Lord, it's happening.
SPEAKER_01: But again, the more Jesus you get, the more you should want.
SPEAKER_01: And we can pray from a place of believing God works because we're seeing God work.
SPEAKER_01: But are we satisfied?
SPEAKER_01: Is it enough?
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not enough.
SPEAKER_01: We want more.
SPEAKER_01: Not because we're prideful or arrogant or whatever, but because we have a deep abiding faith in the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: And when God shows up, he doesn't check his power out in the parking lot.
SPEAKER_01: When God shows up, his power shows up, his influence shows up, his person shows up, conviction shows up, faith growing shows up.
SPEAKER_01: People stepping out in obedience shows up.
SPEAKER_01: People who are bringing their struggles to the Lord, it shows up.
SPEAKER_01: All of those things happen in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to take time to make sure that we understand as individuals and a church, that's why we're here.
SPEAKER_01: We're not here to check a box or we're not here for this message or that song or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: We are here because we long to be in the presence of God and we long for a move of God, and we believe that God moves when he shows.
SPEAKER_01: And we want to more than ever before yearn for the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the second thing we do is we we want to continue to grow our prayer force.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new with us or visiting, that's the name we've given to our to our prayer ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And we're using the illustration of a B-17 bomber to sort of show how we're doing this prayer deal.
SPEAKER_01: Now we use a bomber not because my granddad name is bomber.
SPEAKER_01: It's not why.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of cool, but it's not why.
SPEAKER_01: This is a beautiful picture of what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01: This this mission, we're on mission, and that speaks to us on mission, and we're an Air Force city, and we understand that.
SPEAKER_01: We understand mission, and we understand the mission of the Air Force.
SPEAKER_01: And a B-17 is kind of a cool illustration of that because it's got lots of people on it.
SPEAKER_01: It's got 10 people serve on the normal complement of a B-17.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've divided our prayer force leadership into three types of roles that that illustration makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: We have some pilots, people who are leaders, who just kind of help us guide that, and we're trying to grow that and deepen that leadership.
SPEAKER_01: So this is not a Pastor Greg thing or a Pastor Matt or a Pastor Dave thing.
SPEAKER_01: This is a church thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're trying to grow that part.
SPEAKER_01: So that's a little more, you know, pilots, man, they fly the plane.
SPEAKER_01: You rise and fall on the skill of that pilot.
SPEAKER_01: And stories are filled with, you know, from World War II, with heroic men who were wounded or injured or all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And they just through skill and courage get their plane home.
SPEAKER_01: And so those pilots are important for us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the navigators, that's in some ways the most important person on the plane.
SPEAKER_01: And our navigators for us are people, and you sign up for some time during the week where you commit to Tuesday at 1.30 in the afternoon or someone.
SPEAKER_01: Someone at the Chaffee campus today volunteered to pray at 3 o'clock on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: Like, praise God for that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not with them.
SPEAKER_01: A little bit after that, I'm praying on Sunday morning, but it's a bad morning if I'm up at 3 a.m., right?
SPEAKER_01: But she said, listen, if Jesus wakes you up at 3 a.m., it's because you're supposed to talk to him.
SPEAKER_01: I said, I can't argue with that.
SPEAKER_01: You yearn away at 3 a.m., sister, you have it.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but whatever it works for you, whatever time works, you just sign up for that.
SPEAKER_01: And so 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, what works for you.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: What we're trying to do is we're trying to fill the week with people who are constantly calling out to the Lord on behalf of our church and our ministry that we want to see God work because we believe He works.
SPEAKER_01: If you think about the navigator, the navigator is the person who kept the bomber on mission, got them to the destination and over the site where they were going to deliver their bombs.
SPEAKER_01: And again, there are stories all throughout World War II, if you read those things or interested about times when the navigators got them off and they were off in some other place or they dropped them in the wrong spot, or they didn't even, they couldn't even drop them, they just got off somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to remember, man, they're flying across the English Channel, and there's nothing but water.
SPEAKER_01: And most of those, man, you got Americans who've never been for France, and they're, you know, thousands of feet in the air, and they don't know where any of that is, and all they had was their sextant and their maps and the math and they're calculating the plane to land it where it is.
SPEAKER_01: They are trying to get the bomber to complete the mission, and that's who our navigators are.
SPEAKER_01: They keep us on track, they keep us seeking the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: They are praying for our ministries and guidance for committees and leaders and Sunday school teachers and pastors and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: They are covering our church.
SPEAKER_01: They are praying regularly for people to be saved, and they are the ones that keep us on track and help us accomplish our mission.
SPEAKER_01: And we need more navigators to fill slots.
SPEAKER_01: And again, we have folks in Chaffee campus who are filling slots.
SPEAKER_01: We have folks here.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for navigators who are faithfully praying for us.
SPEAKER_01: We have a set of prayer requests, we have a place on the website, we can get there and you're updated on those, and you know exactly how to pray for us.
SPEAKER_01: And then when that bomber gets in harm's way and all of a sudden you start seeing German fighters and everything else, man, all the gunners fill out the plane.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason they called that the Flying Fortress.
SPEAKER_01: Because it had machine guns everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: It was bristling with machine gunners.
SPEAKER_01: They were in the tail, they were in the turret, ball turret underneath, they were in the top, they were in the waist guns, they were in the nose, they were everywhere, and everybody's manning a machine gun to get that plane through.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, navigators, most of the time, when they got them there, they went and grabbed a machine gun.
SPEAKER_01: And they had assignments where they were defending the plane because they were going into battle and they were armed to the teeth to go to battle and accomplish their mission.
SPEAKER_01: And so, gunners, you can sign up to be a gunner, and what happens is when something's going on at church, maybe we have the youth event, or one of our student people, Abigail, is speaking at an FCA thing, and so we'll send out, hey, we need two hours of prayer to cover that moment.
SPEAKER_01: Mission team, this week, they're going to be gone all week, and our gunners are gonna be on duty at their machine guns, kneeling before the Lord, praying and praying us through until they get home.
SPEAKER_01: VBS, we send out a call to the gunners, and everybody mans a station, and we pray our way through VBS.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the gunners do.
SPEAKER_01: And we want you to sign up.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not engaged in one of those spots, sign up.
SPEAKER_01: If there's ever a ministry you ought to get involved in in the church, it's the prayer ministry.
SPEAKER_01: It reflects as a church how much pray we're praying, whether we're yearning for the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You yearn as an individual, but we need to yearn as a church and pray.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a sign-up sheet out there if you have questions about it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to go into more detail than that.
SPEAKER_01: We can help you.
SPEAKER_01: It's really that simple.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it really doesn't take any time but that to explain it.
SPEAKER_01: But it is vital to our mission.
SPEAKER_01: It's even more vital to our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: How lovely is your dwelling place.
SPEAKER_01: I yearn and long for the courts of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It reveals our heart.
SPEAKER_01: It stirs us to prayer.
SPEAKER_01: The result of how blessed are those who reside in your house, how blessed are the people whose strength is in you.
SPEAKER_01: They go from strength to strength.
SPEAKER_01: It results in Lord God of armies here.
SPEAKER_01: My prayer as the music crescendoes, and people shout, Amen, and hands are raised to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The yearning of being in his presence and the belief of power in his presence calls us to cry out to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, the first prayer that we cry out, the first prayer that we place our faith in the Lord to answer is when we cry out to Him to save us.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you're watching online or by television or here in the room, this is a beautiful picture of what it means to walk with God.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer becomes your birthright.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in the book of Hebrews that we can boldly come to the throne of grace in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: It's because of what Jesus did for us when he died on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: When we place our faith in him, it removes the sin barrier between us and God, and it gives us the privilege to live this life.
SPEAKER_01: Experiencing the presence and the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: The more we get, the more we want.
SPEAKER_01: That's the depth and beauty of that relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I can't think of a more beautiful picture of the blessing of salvation and the joy of being in relationship with the Lord than this hymn right here.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, Pastor Greg, how do we do that again?
SPEAKER_01: I shared it a minute ago.
SPEAKER_01: I want to share it again.
SPEAKER_01: It is a faith choice that you make to recognize I am a sinner, I have sinned, I am guilty, I can't fix that.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing I can do to fix my sin.
SPEAKER_01: And you cry out to Jesus because you know he did.
SPEAKER_01: He died on the cross for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: He rose again, conquering death and sin, and you come to him, and as a matter of faith, you say, Lord, I cannot do anything to fix this, but I believe that Jesus paid it all.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to trust in him as my Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And he will save you on the promise of God's word, and you will begin this journey of walking with him.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never accepted Christ, I want to invite you this morning to give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We have prayed for you today, and I believe God speaks.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've heard God's voice call you to salvation, I want to invite you to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been saved, but you've never been baptized, that's a critical, important matter of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: And we would love to walk that journey with you.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, if you want to come to the Lord, let's deal with these things.
SPEAKER_01: Don't back up from what God might want to do because you're afraid, concerned, embarrassed, or whatever it is that you haven't been baptized.
SPEAKER_01: Come and be baptized.
SPEAKER_01: If you need a church home, come pray with us.
SPEAKER_01: Come serve with us.
SPEAKER_01: Come experience the work of God with us.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you and we thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I just thank you for this hymn.
SPEAKER_01: I would never be able.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know I don't have the vocabulary to articulate these things, but you have written it right here for us in this incredible song.
SPEAKER_01: You've given us everything we need, every illustration, every truth, every promise, every picture that speaks to our souls and stirs our hearts that we need to be drawn to you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you for the living, powerful word of God and for this song you gave to us to draw us closer to you.
SPEAKER_01: So I pray, Father, you'll give us the freedom and the faith to draw closer to you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And if there's someone who needs to be saved, I pray they'll come.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, if there's someone who's dealing with something in their life, and as we talked about a minute ago, they are hesitant to come because they just don't want to deal with it.
SPEAKER_01: I pray you'll speak to them in your grace and show them your forgiveness and your love and that you want to remove what hurts them.
SPEAKER_01: You want to salve what wound is there, you want to give direction to a lack of direction or chaos.
SPEAKER_01: You want to give comfort in a place of difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: You want to bring light to a place of darkness, and I pray that you'll draw them to you.
SPEAKER_01: We yearn for you to work in the lives of people this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Give us a freedom to respond.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that you work in lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so we surrender ourselves to you in this moment and ask you to work.
SPEAKER_01: Give us the freedom and the faith to respond.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith at the First Baptist Church.