SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm Steve Holt, the senior pastor of The Road at Chapel Hills.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Road Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: My heart is to empower you to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this message impacts you.
SPEAKER_00: So let's turn in our Bibles to Ephesians 6.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to finish up Ephesians today.
SPEAKER_00: So we've been in Ephesians for, I think this might be my 27th message in Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: And we're talking about the invisible war.
SPEAKER_00: We've been through the armor of God.
SPEAKER_00: And now Paul is concluding this great letter with a flurry of actions.
SPEAKER_00: As I said before, the first part of the book is about kind of the theological perspective of who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second half of the book is about what we do because we're in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's going to talk about prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm calling it the war room.
SPEAKER_00: To me, prayer is a war room.
SPEAKER_00: For many people, prayer is a devotional time, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: But if your prayers get no further than a devotional life, you're missing out on a lot of what the Bible teaches about prayer and what Jesus specifically commanded us to do in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And so look at Ephesians 6, and we'll pick it up at verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Praying always, praying always.
SPEAKER_00: So there's something about the spirit of prayer that permeates our whole life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you pray always unless prayer is actually a part of who you are.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when you're in your car and you're driving, you're praying.
SPEAKER_00: And so in your inadequacy, you lift it up to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm not capable of this task.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have what it takes to do what needs to be done, but you do.
SPEAKER_00: Being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
SPEAKER_00: And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.
SPEAKER_00: So remember, when he's writing Ephesians, he's in prison, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21, but that you also may know my affairs and how I'm doing, Tychekus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you, whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs and that he may comfort your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Peace to the brethren in love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Grace be with you all and to those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to tell you about this war room idea of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's more than sharing our heart with God.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually believing that God can do something when we pray and that he actually wants to do something.
SPEAKER_00: That we have a God who sincerely wants you to live in the miraculous.
SPEAKER_00: He really does.
SPEAKER_00: It should be a regular part of our lives that we are seeing signs and wonders that could not happen without God showing up because we have committed ourselves intentionally and sincerely to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: That when the people of God pray, things happen.
SPEAKER_00: And when the people don't pray, things don't happen.
SPEAKER_00: So if things aren't happening in your life, it might be because God's called you to be here this morning, to hear this message, to challenge you, that God wants to answer your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: That he is a prayer, the scriptures say in Isaiah 60 that he is a prayer answering God.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually, that's actually a name for God, is that he's a prayer answering God.
SPEAKER_00: So let's go back to verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So it seems that there must be prayer that's not in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't be saying pray in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: If he's saying pray in the spirit, then the opposite must be true that you can pray in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone here prayed in the flesh?
SPEAKER_00: I pray in the flesh more than I pray in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's true.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm your pastor, so I know that's true for you guys, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I get paid to pray.
SPEAKER_00: You don't, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So here's the deal is that a lot of times I get in there to pray, and it is like, it is like bad, man.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I don't know what to pray.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what, I mean, I know that there's a million problems in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And yet I come in there and I struggle and I battle, and I like this quote by Martin Lloyd Jones, the great preacher from England, his book Living Water.
SPEAKER_00: We all know what it is to feel deadness in prayer, difficulty in prayer, to be tongue-tied with nothing to say, as it were, having to force ourselves to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Well, to the extent that is true of us, we're not praying in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now I agree with that, but here's what I want to say is that I don't think you, most of the time, when you go into prayer, that you are starting off in the spirit, most of the time.
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we go into prayer in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean is you're you're dedicated to it, you believe in it, but you have no emotion behind it.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're not sure if God's hearing you.
SPEAKER_00: All the things that Martin Louis Jones just said, but you can get to in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: You can get to in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So, so sometimes when we step in, it's in the flesh, but as we stay on, it gets in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we need each other, guys.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have noonday prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It might only be two or three of us.
SPEAKER_00: It might be five or six on a given day, but when we come in there and we pray Monday through Friday for noonday prayer, and I leave Wednesday.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm there on Wednesday, sometimes it's B-O-R I-N-G.
SPEAKER_00: And part of it's because I'm leading it.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not a great prayer leader.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is, I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: But it's boring.
SPEAKER_00: But then something happens because we're there.
SPEAKER_00: We show up.
SPEAKER_00: And when we show up, God comes.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you battle because you don't show up.
SPEAKER_00: And then you wonder, where's God?
SPEAKER_00: Where's God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, God's right there.
SPEAKER_00: He's waiting on you to show up, even if it's in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Because when he comes and you meet him, he'll breathe on it and turn it into the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But you gotta show up.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, praying always, and then he talks about supplication.
SPEAKER_00: What are the words here?
SPEAKER_00: He says, supplication in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Supplication is the idea of asking.
SPEAKER_00: Asking for something.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus described prayer this way: Ask.
SPEAKER_00: Ask.
SPEAKER_00: And it will be given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Seek and you shall find.
SPEAKER_00: Knock.
SPEAKER_00: And the door shall be opened.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like Jesus saying, Well, I'm not sure if they understand about seek.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe they'll understand about ask.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they don't know about asking and seeking, so we'll use knocking.
SPEAKER_00: So three times he's saying, Come to me, and I'll help you out.
SPEAKER_00: It's who I am.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how he continues Ask and it'll be given to you, seek, and you shall find knock, and the door will be open to you.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who asks receives.
SPEAKER_00: He who seeks finds.
SPEAKER_00: To him who knocks, it will be opened.
SPEAKER_00: Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone.
SPEAKER_00: Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a serpent.
SPEAKER_00: So one time I was fly fishing with my brother in 11 Mile Canyon.
SPEAKER_00: And he's from the East Coast, Southeast, and they fish out of boats.
SPEAKER_00: And have little swivel chairs.
SPEAKER_00: And little worms, little wiggly things, little spinning things.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody can do that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, seriously.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do a YouTube on it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're fly fishing, that takes skill.
SPEAKER_00: And we're out in the rocks, and he's like a stumbling around, and I see this snake.
SPEAKER_00: I go, come on, baby.
SPEAKER_00: So I get that snake and I grab it about that long.
SPEAKER_00: I grab it and I say, David! He turns around and goes, I caught a big one.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Really?
SPEAKER_00: I said, get over here, man.
SPEAKER_00: Get over here.
SPEAKER_00: And I threw the snake on him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then the snake is just slithering around, so I grabbed it again.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Josh, come over here.
SPEAKER_00: I said, David, what will you pay Josh to bite off its head?
SPEAKER_00: 50 bucks.
SPEAKER_00: I said, nice.
SPEAKER_00: So Josh is bit off its head, man.
SPEAKER_00: 50 bucks.
SPEAKER_00: I think Ryan threw in fifty.
SPEAKER_00: Where's Ryan?
SPEAKER_00: Is he in here?
SPEAKER_00: He already leaves.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so I think Ryan threw in fifty.
SPEAKER_00: He got a hundred bucks with one bite.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Steve would give my brother a serpent, but God would give him a fish.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta remember who you're asking stuff from, okay?
SPEAKER_00: If you then, being evil, like me, know how to give good gifts or even bad gifts to your children, how much more?
SPEAKER_00: You got a hundred bucks.
SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty good gift.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
SPEAKER_00: So God doesn't throw a snake at us.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to bless us.
SPEAKER_00: You hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: But you gotta ask, you gotta seek, you gotta not.
SPEAKER_00: So there's no doubt that war room prayer is you gotta put in the time.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a set time, I challenge you to get a set time where you pray.
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, it's prayer walking.
SPEAKER_00: You like you'd rather walk than sit.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for some of you come out of a tradition where you kneel by your bed.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter the position of the body, it's the attitude of your heart and the level of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: And that's only developed over time.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't happen overnight.
SPEAKER_00: But we're missing out on the boldness, tenacity, innovation, wisdom, and creativity that could be happening in our life if we don't make prayer a big part of our life.
SPEAKER_00: So years ago, when Liz and I were grappling with this issue of prayer while we were in Japan, we were back in the United States.
SPEAKER_00: We got invited to a church, a church of God in Atlanta called Mount Perrin Church of God.
SPEAKER_00: And at that time, the pastor, one of the largest churches in the country at that time, was Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Walker.
SPEAKER_00: And we were on an elevator to go see someone at the church when we, this pastor came on the elevator, and he, you know, you can tell when a pastor is or someone's asking you a lot of questions and has that empathetic look that it's the pastor of counseling, because that's what they do, right?
SPEAKER_00: So he heard our story while we were there.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You need to listen to this video series by Larry Lee.
SPEAKER_00: And so we listened to that series so many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: This would be in the 80s.
SPEAKER_00: And he said something I've never forgotten, and yet you should write these down.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I think is the progression of the war room, or the prog, he didn't say war room back then, but he said the progression of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is desire to pray that leads to discipline to pray, that leads to delight in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So, desire is the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: So, my job today as a pastor, I think, is to at least present to you a convincing argument that God desires that you pray so that you start having a desire to pray because you want miracles in your life.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: It can't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: It has to lead to discipline in your life.
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't discipline your life to take time to pray, you're never gonna get to the delight of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You know what the delight of prayer is?
SPEAKER_00: The delight of prayer is communion with God and answers.
SPEAKER_00: It's communion with God and seeing your prayers answered.
SPEAKER_00: So if we're not seeing prayers answered, it's our fault.
SPEAKER_00: It's not God's fault.
SPEAKER_00: It's our fault.
SPEAKER_00: And pastors aren't supposed to say that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're supposed to say, oh, it's just, it's just, you know, we just, it's just a mystery.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't know why we don't see more answer to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And Martin Luther said, and John Calvin said, no, the reason you don't see answers to prayer is because of you.
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is not to be condemnatory, but to say that the promises of God are always that he wants to answer prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So the challenge before us, and it's I'm looking in the mirror, you guys, is that what is it in me that hinders God from showing up in miracle working power?
SPEAKER_00: And for me, it's it's these three areas it's desire, it's discipline, it's delight.
SPEAKER_00: And so I challenge you in your life, set aside time, starting tomorrow, it's Memorial Day, set in most of you are off work, set aside time to pray about what's on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: What is God allowing in your life that's super hard right now?
SPEAKER_00: That he's letting the enemy actually, you guys understand that Satan is a stooge of God?
SPEAKER_00: That everything Satan does, God already knows, and that God's using him for his greater purposes.
SPEAKER_00: And so God uses the enemy, even in our life, to train us and to equip us toward prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Because our natural bent since Adam has always been we're gonna figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna connive, we're gonna strategize, we're gonna figure out the tax, and by the way, there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, except that I think you need to begin with prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Because God's ways are not, they're not.
SPEAKER_00: Why are God's ways not our ways?
SPEAKER_00: Because God wants you to start learning to move and act and live in His ways.
SPEAKER_00: And prayer is the key to that.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is the bridge into the ways of God and the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have not seen things happen in our family.
SPEAKER_00: Healing, salvation, deliverance, because God's waiting on you to ask Him every day for Him to do something so that He gets all the glory.
SPEAKER_00: Then He says, be watchful.
SPEAKER_00: He says, be watchful to this end.
SPEAKER_00: With all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, stay on the alert, be like a watchman over your prayers, believing.
SPEAKER_00: That's some people make a prayer list.
SPEAKER_00: They have a prayer list, but they're watchful over those prayers, have perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time it doesn't happen quickly.
SPEAKER_00: God is, it's almost like we're building up prayers, almost like a pitcher or like a water wheel that starts to tip.
SPEAKER_00: It's like there's a tipping point where he answers our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: But he calls us to perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus in Luke 18 gives us this beautiful parable.
SPEAKER_00: Then he spoke a parable of them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying, There was a certain city, a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.
SPEAKER_00: Now there was a widow in that city.
SPEAKER_00: And she came to him saying, Get justice for me for my adversary.
SPEAKER_00: And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, Though I do not fear God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continually coming she wear me out.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said, and shall God not avenge his own elect and cry out who cry out day and night to him?
SPEAKER_00: Though he bears long with them, I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's four things I note about this.
SPEAKER_00: Number one is Jesus is telling us, don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: Church, don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, we look at the news and you want to lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: You look at it, sometimes what's happening in our schools, you want to lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying the antidote to not losing heart is to pray more.
SPEAKER_00: Not less, more.
SPEAKER_00: Not a little bit, a lot.
SPEAKER_00: To start crying out, seeking, asking, knocking.
SPEAKER_00: It's a 2 Chronicles 7.14 moment in America.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know what that is, write it down and look it up.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Chronicles 7.14.
SPEAKER_00: If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my face and pray and repent.
SPEAKER_00: I will hear from heaven, I will come and heal the land.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God wants to do in a family.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God wants to do in your family.
SPEAKER_00: There's stuff happening in our families.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't you know this is true?
SPEAKER_00: The enemy wants to destroy your family.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to wreck your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You got to fight for your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You got to fight for your family.
SPEAKER_00: And the greatest weapon you have is prayer because there's spiritual forces involved.
SPEAKER_00: There's principalities and powers out to take your kids out.
SPEAKER_00: To take your spouse out.
SPEAKER_00: They're malevolent, they're evil, and they're strong.
SPEAKER_00: You have this great weapon.
SPEAKER_00: You put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, and you put on the belt of truth.
SPEAKER_00: You shod your feet with the gospel of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Take up the shield of faith, you take up the sword of spirit, which is the word of God, but then he concludes with praying.
SPEAKER_00: A war room, armor, battling in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So first, don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: Second, he uses a widow as a protagonist in the parable.
SPEAKER_00: A widow was the lowest of the low in an Israeli town.
SPEAKER_00: If she's a widow, she has no money, she has no protector, she has no husband, she probably has no family.
SPEAKER_00: She has No resources.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how you begin prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And most of the time, if you're smart, you realize my resources won't cut it on this one.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care how much money you have, or how big a house you live in, or what kind of car you drive, the resources needed for the kind of stuff that's happening in our world today is only found in the power of spirit-anointed prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And anybody can pray.
SPEAKER_00: A widow.
SPEAKER_00: The point is here's a judge, an unjust who fears, who doesn't fear anybody, and a little old widow, and something happens, and she gets justice.
SPEAKER_00: God can use any of you in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let anybody tell you differently.
SPEAKER_00: You may have just come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You may not even know if you're a Christian yet.
SPEAKER_00: You're still walking with so many issues in your life that you're battling through.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Start praying.
SPEAKER_00: Watch what God will do.
SPEAKER_00: Just start where you're at.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, third thing you notice is this judge doesn't give a rip about anybody.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care about God.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care about men.
SPEAKER_00: He it's an impossible situation.
SPEAKER_00: This little old widow comes up to this judge who's got a courtroom.
SPEAKER_00: She can't even pay the fees, and she comes, it's an impossible situation.
SPEAKER_00: And then fourthly, what I love about it is a miracle happens.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because she cries out not just day, but day and night.
SPEAKER_00: She cries.
SPEAKER_00: So she's not even sleeping at night.
SPEAKER_00: She's bugging this guy.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: If he's got, like, in the village there, he's got maybe a wall around his house, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_00: She's like shouting over the wall.
SPEAKER_00: And she's saying, get me justice.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, man.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to sleep tonight until you get me justice.
SPEAKER_00: Get me justice tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care about her next day.
SPEAKER_00: Get me justice.
SPEAKER_00: It's 3 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: Get me justice.
SPEAKER_00: Get the guards, boys.
SPEAKER_00: Get this lady out of here.
SPEAKER_00: And then she sneaks back in.
SPEAKER_00: And she comes up to his window and says, get me justice.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: You know this is right.
SPEAKER_00: Get out of your stupid bed.
SPEAKER_00: Go down there and get me justice.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: If millions of people who call themselves believers started crying out to God for a great move of the Spirit in America, in our churches, in our cities.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine if in the days ahead, this church alone, maybe nobody else, just our church alone, some whatever we are, you know, 1,500, 2,000 people, we started daily committing ourselves to praying for a move of God in El Paso County, we would see a move of God in El Paso County.
SPEAKER_00: If you, on an individual level, took time every day to make a war room somewhere in your house, and you started praying for your family, God's gonna show up with miracle working power.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of God we serve, that's the kind of God we worship, and that's the kind of God who answers prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Jesus of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So then he says something interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
SPEAKER_00: So the prayer is for boldness.
SPEAKER_00: Now write this down.
SPEAKER_00: This is good stuff right here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking notes on myself.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote down a good line here.
SPEAKER_00: Write this down.
SPEAKER_00: Bold spirit empowered prayer leads to bold spirit-empowered action.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: Bold spirit-empowered prayer leads to bold spirit-empowered action.
SPEAKER_00: If our prayers aren't releasing action in our steps, then you're just speaking to the air.
SPEAKER_00: So God calls us to pray, God, take my prayer coming forth from my heart and my mouth and turn it into action in my feet and in my hands.
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of prayers that we're praying, God's called you to be the answer to that prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Not gonna be somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be you.
SPEAKER_00: So you're praying about the school system, or you're praying about something that's happening in the school, or you're praying about something that's happening in your family.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God will start to give you a boldness, because of your prayers, to do something about it.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Now, you guys, you're at this church, and this church is an action-oriented church.
SPEAKER_00: We we do stuff.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just talk about it, we do it.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes in our lives, the tendency is we'd rather complain than pray.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'd rather pray than do anything.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, quit complaining, and we're not big into complaining around here.
SPEAKER_00: Complainers, go to an, I said go haunt another church.
SPEAKER_00: We're not into complainers, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So you are gonna be used by God into action steps if you become a man or a woman of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And women do this better than men.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason he doesn't use a widower.
SPEAKER_00: Because that guy would probably just go get another job and he'd be fine.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: There's something about the power of women in prayer that I love.
SPEAKER_00: You women are mighty in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You are.
SPEAKER_00: So the challenge before us, and we talk about it on Tuesday morning for wholehearted men with 400 men there, is how to make men into prayer warriors.
SPEAKER_00: Because we need men and we need women united together in powerful prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So the greatest prayer meeting in the Bible is found in Acts chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: So look at Acts chapter 4, and this is the best example I know of of the kind of war room that we want at this church in the days ahead.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where Peter and John got arrested, you know, messed with a little bit, they kick them out, they don't preach Jesus, they come back, and the church comes together around them, and we get this incredible picture of a powerful prayer meeting.
SPEAKER_00: And this to me is the model of a war room at a church.
SPEAKER_00: Because these people are up against the wall, they don't know what to do, and then they pray, and and Luke captures it so well.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many principles here.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 23, Acts 4, 23.
SPEAKER_00: And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported that the chief priests and elders had said to them, what the chief preachers and elders had said to them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Lord, you are God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing about a war room, whether it's a couple, whether it's a small group, a community group, or it's some of the prayer meetings we have around here, is it needs to be in one accord.
SPEAKER_00: It needs to be united.
SPEAKER_00: And I've been in a lot of prayer meetings where it's not very united.
SPEAKER_00: It's like 15-chord prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So you're praying, and everybody's got their pet thing they want to pray about.
SPEAKER_00: And they're not flowing in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We're not flowing with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, I want to pray about this, I don't want to pray about.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll be praying about something, man.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, spirit's here.
SPEAKER_00: God's moving.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're praying about this.
SPEAKER_00: And then this person over here will like bring up, I don't know, like Russia.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, what's Russia got to do, you know, with the abortion debate?
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I don't say anything because I'm a nice guy and and I, you know, I'm just glad they're there, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, but it's like, dude, that's like so like, that's like, where did that come from?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I like Russia.
SPEAKER_00: Russia's okay, it's cool, everything.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to pray about Russia right now.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I want to pray about this.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're trying to pray about that.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you guys, if you come to noonday prayer, if you're part of a prayer meeting, whoever, if you're guiding a prayer meeting, hear from God and then lead it.
SPEAKER_00: And then don't say amen to these other prayers that people pray.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, try to keep it on task.
SPEAKER_00: I know it sounds really mean and everything, but it's got to be one accord.
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you only come to one prayer meeting a year, then I guess you just you're just full of stuff that you haven't prayed about in like a hundred years.
SPEAKER_00: And so you just got and it all just comes out, and you're like, oh man, go to your own closet and do that, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But but when you come to our prayer meeting, it needs to be one accord.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't think that these people who came to this prayer meeting had some issues?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they probably had a ton of issues.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're probably in there, they come in there and and, you know, Abraham, the father of Maria, was late from work and didn't pick up the fish at the market.
SPEAKER_00: But they come and they pray in one accord.
SPEAKER_00: Leave that stuff behind.
SPEAKER_00: What's God saying now?
SPEAKER_00: What's God saying in your family now?
SPEAKER_00: Pray in one accord.
SPEAKER_00: And who?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25, by the mouth of your servant David has said, Why do the nations rage and the people plot vain things?
SPEAKER_00: And the kings of the earth, they take their stand, and the rulers are gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They're quoting Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_00: So first, pray in unity.
SPEAKER_00: Second, pray the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Pray the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know how to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Then open the word.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start in the Psalms next week.
SPEAKER_00: Summer in the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take us through the Psalms this summer.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not all of them, there's 150 of them, but we're gonna take some key Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna love the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: By August, you're gonna be so fired up about the Psalms, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But this is a Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: They took Psalm 2, and they, and this was a prayer, kind of crying out by David about why there's so much turmoil in all of the world.
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, Psalm 2 is a great psalm to pray today.
SPEAKER_00: Because of COVID, the great reset, all the stuff that's going on.
SPEAKER_00: The shooting, why do the nations rage?
SPEAKER_00: So they turn this psalm into a prayer about the current situation in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So, first, pray in one accord.
SPEAKER_00: Second, they pray the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Third, for truly against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles, the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Lord, look on the threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness we may speak your word.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, pray for boldness.
SPEAKER_00: When we come into prayer, pray for boldness in your life because we're not bold.
SPEAKER_00: That's not who we are.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us here are not bold.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us are passive.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us in this room are passive in most things.
SPEAKER_00: I'm passive in most things.
SPEAKER_00: I am.
SPEAKER_00: And if I don't pray for boldness, I won't have any boldness.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many times I'm in situations that I've been in over the last year, I want to be anywhere but where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's go fishing, let's go hiking.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be with these people.
SPEAKER_00: They don't like me, and I don't like them.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have people in your life you don't like?
SPEAKER_00: All right, good.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: How many don't like you because you stand for Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the party.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way it is.
SPEAKER_00: Get over it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let it bother you.
SPEAKER_00: But don't be arrogant.
SPEAKER_00: Arrogant Christians is an epoxymoron.
SPEAKER_00: We say humble, we say merciful, we say loving, we say kind, but you can still be bold.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So bold, they pray for boldness.
SPEAKER_00: Praying for boldness is biblical.
SPEAKER_00: It's right here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: Stretch out your hand to heal, that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for miracles.
SPEAKER_00: Ask God to do miracle stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So Liz and I were in Okinawa years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We got to know this young man who was just at a ferocious, bold evangelist all over.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody in Okinawa in the Christian church knew him.
SPEAKER_00: He also had this invalid child that he carried around, had no muscle tissue, and just was could smile with a cleft palate, and just if they didn't carry that child, if they didn't constantly take care of that child, that child would die.
SPEAKER_00: It was helpless.
SPEAKER_00: And she went in for a sonogram, rudimentary sonograms that they had back then, and it showed that in the pregnancy that she had again, she was gonna have another child like that.
SPEAKER_00: So we went into 40 days of fasting and prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to be fair, none of us fasted and prayed the entire 40 days, but we broke it up, and somebody was fasting and praying during that 40 days, and when that birth came, that child was healed.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes, sometimes there's, does God always answer that way?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: But I think here's what I here, I'll just tell you a little secret.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't pray for miracles, you hardly ever have them.
SPEAKER_00: If you pray for miracles, you do get more than the guy who doesn't pray.
SPEAKER_00: So I say pray for miracles.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe God wants to make the road a miracle center, a place where we regularly see God do miracles because we become a people of faith who believe God for miracles because he's a miracle-working God.
SPEAKER_00: Then it says, look at verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: Bold prayer leads to bold action.
SPEAKER_00: So if we as a church become a people of bold prayer, we will become a church of more and more bold action.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what prayer is supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer should energize us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of times it doesn't, and it's not your fault.
SPEAKER_00: It's because it's the nature of what we call perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: So, perseverant prayer, we just keep doing it and we keep doing it, we keep believing God, we do it together, and it appears that God will answer our prayers if we won't give up.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So we had a pretty big family, seven kids, and there was a period in our life where things were really, really tight, and we had to keep food on the table, the mortgage, all the stuff.
SPEAKER_00: We're planting a church, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, man, I don't want to offend anybody here, but well, actually I probably will.
SPEAKER_00: Um but we had a Plymouth Voyager.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was a 1982 version of Plymouth Voyager, and it had this thing called a vapor lock.
SPEAKER_00: And every time we went on a trip anywhere in the mountains, that sucker would just break down.
SPEAKER_00: The timing was perfect.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it was Hoosier Pass or whatever pass we went to in Colorado, that thing would break down on the middle of the road.
SPEAKER_00: We'd just flat over the road.
SPEAKER_00: So we brought games, we brought food, we brought crackers, we brought anything we could, and everybody just planned it.
SPEAKER_00: If it was a trip that took two hours, we would leave three hours early because we knew for at least one hour we're gonna be on the side of the road with vapor lock from that Plymouth Voyager.
SPEAKER_00: So things were tight.
SPEAKER_00: That was our life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's some things that you can get away with in life, and they're luxuries, but a septic is not a luxury.
SPEAKER_00: You need a septic if you're living out in the country, and our septic tank broke.
SPEAKER_00: And so we began to pray, and Liz and I would go up and down the road there, and we'd cry out to God, and our prayer went something like this: Okay, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Since I was 18, I have given 10% of my income to you.
SPEAKER_00: I've never missed.
SPEAKER_00: I've always given my tithe, my 10%.
SPEAKER_00: That's a whole lot of deposits in your bank account up there, okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's my bank account too.
SPEAKER_00: So, okay, my name's on it, but you got it up there.
SPEAKER_00: I need a cash withdrawal right now.
SPEAKER_00: And you owe me.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know that's not theologically accurate to say that.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to be very thankful to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, I could be bold in my prayer because I had been bold in my actions.
SPEAKER_00: He knew, and he knows, our money is from him, and he protects it because we follow what he tells us to do.
SPEAKER_00: So we cried out to him day after day.
SPEAKER_00: And one day the doorbell rings, and this lady who's a neighbor on our road comes up, and let me just tell you, the money we needed for the septic was$5,100.
SPEAKER_00: That was rounded up, about$5,100.
SPEAKER_00: That was it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we were praying.
SPEAKER_00: We need$5,100, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Doorbell rings, lady comes to our door, she says, God told me to write this check to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in this envelope and it's from God, and here it is.
SPEAKER_00: And then she left, and we opened it up, and it was$5,100.
SPEAKER_00: So we have a miracle working God, and I think God calls us to learn how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Would you not make a place in your home somewhere for a war room?
SPEAKER_00: Would you make a time each day for a war room?
SPEAKER_00: Would you quit complaining about the people that don't like you or the problems that you have and start giving it to God instead of telling everybody else about it?
SPEAKER_00: Watch what God will do if you'll discipline your life that way.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for listening to the Road Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: It's been my joy to be a part of your life today.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's part of what we do here at The Road, and this is what I do in having this Road Podcast, is to empower people to change their world.
SPEAKER_00: My passion and desire is that you would take God's word through the power of the Holy Spirit and make that relevant for your life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the reality is that God has placed your life here on this earth to make a difference.
SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like more information about how to grow in Christ, if you need prayer, if you want more equipping in different areas of your life, go to the road.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.