Prayers of The Priesthood Pt. 2 | Pastor Jake Sweetman

Join us for an insightful sermon as we continue our exploration into the "Prayers of the Priesthood," a two-part message delving into the profound role of prayer in our lives as believers. In this installment, we seek to answer a fundamental question: Why do we pray?

Drawing from key scriptural passages, we examine our identity as a royal priesthood and how this shapes our understanding and practice of prayer. Discover how prayer serves as both communion with God and participation in His mission, empowering us for the high-stakes, significant lives we are called to lead.

Explore the themes of sending and being sent, as exemplified in the book of Acts, and learn how anointing through prayer prepares us for God's work. Whether formal or informal, these moments of laying on hands and invoking God's blessing are powerful acts of participation in His mission.

Finally, we delve into the role of prayer in overcoming life's challenges, recognizing that prayer is the vehicle through which God provides power to face problems. With practical applications for everyday life, this message encourages us to reclaim the significance of prayer, reminding us that we are a sent and sending people equipped by God for His kingdom activity.

Tune in and be inspired to embrace your priestly calling, enriched by the depth and power of prayer.

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Transcript

 Continuing today a two-part message that I began a few weeks ago called prayers of the priesthood and Just honestly some very simple thoughts to share with you today as we continue unpacking this idea of what it means to pray as a priest and The whole point is really about helping us to answer a very simple question If you guys could pop that question up on the screen, maybe you want to jot this down in your notes Why do we pray?

 That's what I'm trying to help us answer as we look at the subject of prayer in the scriptures.

Why do we pray?

Knowing how to pray is important, but God accepts imperfect prayers, and most of our prayers are imperfect, yeah?

I will say every now and then I get finished with a prayer, and I'm like, man, I nailed that.

Every syllable, every word, it was a flawless prayer.

Most of the time when I pray, I feel like I'm like offering up breadcrumbs to God, you know, like...

 God thinks my prayers are endearing and cute, and yet he accepts them anyway.

Knowing how to pray is important.

Really learning how to pray is more caught than taught, as they say.

It's something we learn over a lifetime as we pray together.

That's something we talked about as I began this message a few weeks ago.

But knowing why we pray, that is absolutely vital.

Knowing why we pray is what will help us to sustain a lifetime of prayer.

 If you don't know why you're praying, then your prayer life will dry up before it even begins.

You'll give up on prayer before you even bear fruit.

But if you can cling to the why of prayer, that will sustain you in prayer even as you figure out how to pray.

 And that's where our identity as priests comes in.

There's a couple of scriptures I want us to look at.

1 Peter 2, verses 4 and 5.

We looked at these last time.

They're foundational to this concept that I'm talking about today, prayers of the priesthood.

The apostle Peter says this, as you come to him, the him there is Jesus, the living stone.

Listen to this language.

I love this.

Rejected by humans, but chosen by God.

I love that.

Did you know that God chooses what humans reject?

 rejected by humans, but chosen by God.

In fact, not just chosen, but precious to God.

That's true of Jesus, and as we're about to see in a moment, that's true of his people as well.

You may have been rejected by people, but you're chosen by God, not out of obligation, but because you are precious to him.

You are precious to God.

So you also, like living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.

Everybody say priesthood.

Priesthood.

 offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And then jumping down to verse 9, same chapter, the apostle Peter says this, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

So very clearly here we see in these handful of verses that Christians are priests.

And these two verses show us that the ministry of a priest is both, how many remember, upward and

 Yeah, upward and outward.

That's the two-directional ministry of priests, that we worship upward to God through worship, through intercession, and we also minister for God to the world, as the Scripture said in verse 9, declaring His praises, making His presence known.

And this two-fold pattern is not new.

It's rooted in Scripture's whole storyline.

 And Eve, the first priests, are placed in the garden to worship God, but also to work, to tend the garden and to expand sacred space throughout the earth.

Israel, the nation, were called by God to worship him, but also to shine his light to the surrounding nations.

It's up and it's out.

And then, of course, Jesus fulfills this up and out calling perfectly, loving the Father in obedience and loving the world through sacrifice.

And now you and I as the church, the ongoing sacrifice,

 And so what does that priestly ministry actually look like in our daily lives?

Well, it looks like a lot of things.

It's certainly not just prayer, but one of the clearest answers in the New Testament in terms of what our ministry looks like is prayer.

Prayer.

 In the book of Acts, we see the early church living out this priestly calling, and prayer is one of the main ways that upward and outward ministry takes shape.

And in the book of Acts, we see that prayer is this two-directional ministry.

If you guys could put that slide up.

Prayer is both communion with God in his presence.

Remember we talked about that last time?

Prayer is communion.

In other words, we pray just because.

Just to be with God.

 Which is what your relationship with the Lord is founded upon.

Not prayer always because you have an agenda.

But prayer just to be with Him.

Not prayer just because neighborhood group is coming around and you need a word from the Lord to teach to the people when they're coming over to your house.

But prayer just to be with God.

And then prayer is also participation with God in His mission.

 The way I would describe that is like prayer because something is on the line.

Prayer because something is hanging in the balance.

Every time the church prays in the book of Acts, it fits in one or both of those patterns.

And that's what we've been exploring.

Not just how to pray, but why we pray as priests.

Last time we looked at upward prayer.

Today we'll look at outward prayer as participation in the mission of God.

This kind of prayer is often situational.

 It's because something, whether that something be urgent or important, is on the line.

And I think that what we're going to find is that this aspect of prayer is an answer to the longing that we all have for that kind of life.

For the kind of life where the stakes are high, for the kind of life where it feels like that we're living beyond just our own personal desires being fulfilled.

The kind of life that we long for that...

 involves significance beyond our own selves.

That's the life that we long for.

I don't know if you know this about yourself, but that's the life that you long for, whether or not that's the life that you live in constant pursuit of.

That's kind of how we are.

We often settle for comfort, but that doesn't mean that we want comfort.

Some of the most anxious people are the most comfortable people.

 So those anxious people are Western people.

There are people in far worse circumstances than us that are far less anxious than us.

So comfort does not equal peace.

You don't long for comfort, even though you settle for comfort a lot of the time.

You don't gravitate toward the comfort of the shores.

You actually gravitate towards the expanse of the sea.

 priests are not called to the shores.

 priests are called to the chaos, which they are meant to subdue with the creative power of God and make fruitful for God's glory.

That is participation in God's mission.

And the book of Acts tells us that the way we participate is through prayer.

Let's start by reading a few moments from Acts that highlight our first theme for today.

I'm going to read a lot of scripture in this message, so I hope you like that.

It's probably going to be at like 50% scripture and 50% me, which means it'll be at least 50% good.

 Acts chapter 6.

Go ahead and turn in the book of Acts.

You'll be ready just to flip all throughout that book.

Acts chapter 6, verses 3 to 6.

This passage has come up a bunch over the last several weeks.

I just want to pull one brief thing out of it.

Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.

We will turn this responsibility, that is the responsibility of feeding the poor widows among them, over to these seven men.

We'll give our attention to prayer.

This is the apostles talking in the ministry of the Word.

This proposal pleased the whole group.

They chose these seven guys.

And it says then in the

 that they presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them.

Laid their hands on them.

That's significant.

Look at Acts 8, verses 14 to 17.

 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria.

When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them.

They had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

So they've come to saving faith in Christ, but for one reason or another, they hadn't received the Holy Spirit yet.

This is kind of a unique moment in the narrative of the book of Acts.

 This is a passage that Pentecostals would cling to a lot of the time in terms of talking about the reception of the Spirit as a second-fold blessing of coming to faith in Christ.

I can kind of get convinced either way, honestly.

I just know I need more of the Holy Spirit.

So pray for me as many times as you want.

I'll take as much of Him as I can get.

Then Peter and John placed their hands on them.

There's that phrase again.

Placed their hands on them.

They're praying for them.

And they received the Holy Spirit.

Flip over a few more chapters to Acts chapter 13.

 Acts 13, verses 1 to 3.

I love the sound of the turning of the pages.

It says this, Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers.

Barnabas, Simon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul, that is Paul.

And while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

So after they had fasted and prayed, everyone say prayed.

Prayed.

 They placed their hands on them and sent them off.

One more, Acts 14, verses 21 to 23.

This is now Paul and Barnabas who have began their missionary journey that they've just been sent off into.

This is probably...

 Somewhere between 12 and 24 months into that journey, coming towards the end of their first one.

They preached the gospel in that city.

They won a large number of disciples.

Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch.

That's a different Antioch than the one that they were sent out from.

Strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith.

We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

That's good news right there.

I don't know if you knew that about being a Christian, but we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

 They said, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders that as pastors for them in each church and with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord in whom they had put their trust.

So four different passages here.

The connective tissue between all these passages is that they all involve some kind of ordination.

 some kind of consecration, some kind of setting apart.

We might use the word, as charismatics love to use, we might use the word anointing.

Some kind of anointing for activity.

That's the first point today as to why we pray as priests in the mission of God.

We pray to anoint one another for activity in God's mission.

God intends that you and I be anointed through prayer to

 for mission and ministry.

You are a priest, which means that you need to be anointed for the work that God has for you.

So you must begin with understanding your identity as a priest, because if you don't understand that you are a priest, then you'll relegate yourself to the sidelines and resist God's desire to anoint you for activity in his kingdom.

That's what's happening in each of these texts in various ways.

The first example is a group who are anointed for a leadership role within the church at

 The second group are anointed with the Holy Spirit for the first time in order to be fully empowered into the mission of God in Samaria.

That's my understanding of Luke's paradigm of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, by the way.

A lot of people think that they read the epistles of Paul and they read the book of Acts by Luke and they see what both of them have to say about the Holy Spirit.

 And it seems like they're focusing on, it seems like what they're focusing on are in disagreement with one another.

It's my view that Luke's paradigm for the Holy Spirit in Acts, the reason he talks about it as somewhat of a distinct blessing apart from salvation, is not because he's trying to make a salvific point, it's because he wants you to understand that the Spirit of God comes upon people to anoint them, to empower them for mission, to empower them for ministry.

And that's what we see happening there in Samaria.

 The third example is Paul and Barnabas being anointed for their spirit-prompted missionary calling.

And then the fourth are the churches at Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch, where they had previously planted churches.

And with prayer, they've now come back through these cities.

Now they've anointed some elders, and then they've committed these churches to the Lord.

And what's significant for us today is that each one of these occasions, as people stepped into the mission of God, at various stages of their walk with Christ, whether at the beginning or later,

 a ways down the track, each time prayer is featured every time.

And three of the four occasions involve the laying on of hands.

Though I'm sure that as Paul and Barnabas committed these churches to the Lord, that also involved the laying on of hands as well.

And that's important because the laying on of hands was often associated with anointing and with consecrating someone for a task and invoking the blessing of God upon that person as they were sent out to perform that task.

You have a task.

Right.

 You are a priest.

You are to be sent.

You are to be anointed for that task.

This whole picture of anointing prayer is very priestly.

Let's look at some Old Testament background in Numbers chapter 8 verses 9 to 11.

Moses says this, bring the Levites to the front of the tent of meeting and assemble the whole Israelite community, the whole people of God, the whole church.

You're to bring the Levites who are the priestly tribe of Israel before the Lord.

And the Israelites are to lay their hands on them.

 And Aaron is to present the Levites before the Lord as a wave offering from the Israelites so that they may be ready to do the work of the Lord.

Well, just as priests were set apart for tabernacle and temple service in the Old Testament through the laying on of hands, so now Christians, God's priests under the new covenant, are set apart for God's temple work, his eschatological temple, building up the church.

And so what that tells us is that the prayers that are being prayed in these moments are not casual prayers.

They are prayers of blessing.

 The word is benediction.

They're like prayers of impartation, asking God to give his full strength, his full support to these people as they stepped into new developments of mission and ministry.

And I love that they laid hands on people to anoint them for those tasks, because what that tells us is that prayer was how they participated in God's call for one another.

 Rather than just observing God's call for one another.

Or envying God's call for another.

Now rather than envying one another's calls, they laid hands on each other and they invoked the blessing of God upon each other for the call that he had for them.

And this gives shape to our identity as priests and the longing that we have to live beyond ourselves.

That we are not just a sent people, we are a sending people.

 Jesus said in John 20, 21, peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

So Christians are a people sent by God into the world.

That's why we participate in the mission of God, because we've been sent by Jesus to participate in the mission of God, growing the garden, making disciples.

And this idea of being sent seems to have informed the early church's understanding of why we pray.

We pray in order to participate in God's sending.

Amen.

 Whether it was Peter and John laying hands on the Samaritans or the leaders in Antioch laying hands on Paul and Barnabas and resending them out on a new mission.

So also Christians are not just to send people, they are a sending people.

We're to pray, lay hands on one another, to send and resend each other into the world with the mission of God.

And how many of you know we need...

 constant reminder of that, that we are a sent people.

If you don't remember that you're sent, then you kick back into just existence rather than constantly living on mission.

And God has designed the body of Christ so that we can constantly remind one another, hey, you are sent.

 McGarren and Yasmin, you're not just coming to Los Angeles.

You are sent to Los Angeles in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You're not coming just to live in a new geographical area.

You are coming because God sends you to this place.

See, now I put my Holy Spirit in you and upon you.

The Lord says, stand up.

The Lord says, be strong and...

 courageous I give you the territory underneath your feet and so lift your hands we bless you in the name of the Lord South Bay Nashville pray with us we bless you in the name of the Lord we thank you that these people this couple are not just relocating no they're being sent by the power of the Holy Spirit to come to this land to be a blessing to the bride of Christ and to reach out in mission to

 to the greater Los Angeles area, to see many souls come to faith in the Lord Jesus, to lay hands on the sick, see them recovered, to drive out demonic spirits that are at work in this realm, and to be used by the hand of God in this place.

We bless them in Jesus' name.

The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make His face shine upon you, be gracious to you.

The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.

We thank you, Lord, for McGarren and Jasmine in the name of Jesus.

This is anointing

 for activity.

We are a sent people, and therefore we are to participate in the work of God in being a sending people.

Yeah, this anointing for activity happened in moments throughout the book of Acts that certainly feel more formal, but it also happened in informal moments as well that were relational and pastoral.

Fast forwarding into the storyline of the narrative of Acts, Paul is

 making his way back towards jerusalem with an offering for the church there to give them financial support and on his way to jerusalem he's visiting groups of friends along the way and those friends are warning paul not to go to jerusalem because they sense that trouble awaits in there and they were right what they sensed in the spirit was right when paul arrived in jerusalem he was arrested

 That wasn't the end of the story.

It was actually through that arrest that Paul ended up being able to go to Rome and live out his dream of preaching the gospel in the capital of the empire.

But as he made his way, he begins saying his emotional goodbyes to churches that he deeply loved.

 In Acts 20, he meets with the elders from Ephesus and he reminds them of his example, how he worked with his hands, how he served sacrificially.

He tells them he's going to Jerusalem, fully aware suffering is ahead, and he urges them to care for the church in his absence.

And then in a moment of deep love and spiritual weight, Luke describes this scene as they're saying their goodbyes in Acts 20 and verse 36.

It says, when Paul had finished speaking, he knelt down with all of them and he prayed.

 It's a priestly moment of surrender.

Paul goes on in his journeys, continuing, arriving at the city of Tyre.

He finds a group of disciples there.

They, in the Spirit, plead with Paul not to go to Jerusalem, sensing what lies ahead for him.

But when it's time to leave, once again, Luke tells us in Acts 21 and verse 5, just a few verses down, that all of them, including wives and children, accompanied us out of the city.

Imagine all these families walking Paul out of the city of Tyre, and then they come to a beach,

 And they knelt to pray.

What an amazing picture.

Two churches, two cities, one pattern.

Prayerful sending.

These aren't just heartfelt farewells.

These are acts of spirit-led intercession.

A priestly prayer of entrusting one another to the mission of God with their prayers.

It'd be so easy to read these occasions as just

 Moments where Christians pray as they often do.

But I think it's more than that.

I think that they were committing one another into the hands of God.

They're not just saying goodbye.

They're sending.

 into their respective context for mission.

Paul to Jerusalem and these Christians back to their cities where they're meant to live as witnesses to the gospel of Jesus.

They're sending one another in blessing and the support of God, especially given the dangerous circumstances that Paul was heading into in Jerusalem.

And here's what's really powerful.

God honored their sending prayers of Paul.

Paul did go to Jerusalem.

He did get arrested.

He did find himself in a lot of trouble, but that arrest led to a deep fulfillment of his desire to preach the gospel in Rome.

God honored their sending prayers to bless him

 It's the power of ascending prayer.

Of anointing one another for activity in the kingdom of God.

Now this is a simple little point, isn't it?

But it holds powerful application for us as a church as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ in Los Angeles and in Nashville.

Here's what I mean.

We don't have to be in Antioch to send.

We don't have to be kneeling on a beach somewhere to send.

We can be kneeling in one another's living rooms at the end of a neighborhood group.

 We can be saying goodbye to one another at dinner together.

We can lay hands on each other and send one another out into the world freshly empowered for the mission that lays ahead in everyday life.

 Recently, Nicole has had a really strong conviction that when we have people over to our home for dinner, that we should pray for them as they're leaving our house at the end of the night.

It's not a tradition that I grew up with in my home at all.

And it seems kind of obvious and kind of basic, but it's just not something we've ever really practiced.

But she's had this really strong conviction.

Hey, when we say goodbye, let's lay hands on these people that we're meeting with and let's send them out into the world.

And I've kind of just been going along with it like a good husband, you know?

 But as I was studying these passages this week and this theme of sending prayer emerged, I realized, my gosh, as always, she's right.

We should be laying hands on people and sending them out in the world.

Why?

Because everyday mission warrants an everyday sending.

Otherwise, we forget.

We should invoke the blessing of God upon one another through our prayers, reminding each other of our sentness.

Paul did this all the time.

 We call them benedictions.

1 Thessalonians 5, verses 23 and 24.

May God himself.

 The God of peace sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who calls you as faithful, and he will do it.

That's a prayer of blessing.

2 Thessalonians 2, verses 16 and 17.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good thing.

 deed and word chapter 3 and verse 16 now may the lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way the lord be with all of you like imagine breaking one of these bad boys out as you wrap up a coffee date with somebody and they've just shared with you about how they're they're going to start a new job this upcoming week like we can read these texts these prayers of blessing they seem kind of lofty to us almost like it'd be unusual to use one of them in an everyday context like to us it's first thessalonians to paul it was thursday

 And he just wants to pray the blessing of God upon these people.

Do you long for the people in this church to be blessed by God?

I know oftentimes we get so easily caught up in our own lies and our own concerns, our own worries, and we long for people to pray a prayer of blessing over us.

Well, you reap what you sow.

So you go first.

Take it upon yourself to lay hands on one another.

 Pray God's blessing upon each other.

As we are sent, so let's send.

Into the office the next day after a meal, into the demands of parenthood after a play date, into a job interview, into the school week.

 Parents, what if we laid hands on our little ones each morning before seeing them off to school?

I wonder what kind of school year our little ones would have this upcoming year if we committed to lay hands on them and pray for them as we sent them, not just as children, but sent them as ambassadors of the kingdom of God into their schools.

I understand many of us, we did not grow up in environments, in home environments that took the presence of the Lord seriously.

 seriously in our upbringing, but let's change the trajectory of our kids' lives and let's be parents who bless our children in the name of the Lord and send them out into the world as ambassadors for the kingdom of God.

I want their paradigm to be different than the paradigm I grew up with.

 I don't want them going to school.

I want them living on mission at the school that God has placed them in to be used by God.

Come on, there is no junior Holy Spirit.

That's just the Holy Spirit who fills the young and the old and we are all sent on.

Say, I am a priest.

Say, I am sent.

You and I are called by God and we're to remind each other of that reality as often as we possibly can to send each other out with the blessing of the Lord.

So helpful, yeah?

 Let's look at a few more scriptures that highlight a second theme.

I'll have to do this point justice in the second service, but I'll give you guys just a little taste.

Acts chapter 4, verses 23 and 24.

On their release, Peter and John, so they've just been taken into custody by the Jewish authorities, by the Sanhedrin.

And on their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

 talking about the threats that they'd received, when they heard this, when the church heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer.

When they heard this, the moment they heard this, right at that time, they raised their voices together in prayer to God.

Jumping down to verse 31, after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God boldly.

When they were threatened, they prayed.

It was their very, very first response.

 Acts chapter nine, verses 36 to 40.

In Joppa, there was a disciple named Tabitha.

In Greek, her name is Dorcas.

She was always doing good and helping the poor.

About that time, she became sick and died.

Her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.

Lydda was near Joppa.

So when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and they urged him, please come at once.

Peter went with them.

The widows are showing all the clothing that Dorcas had made.

And Peter sent them all out of the room, verse 40.

Then he got down, listen to this.

He got down on his knees and he prayed.

 Then turning toward the dead woman, he said, Tabitha, get up.

I really like that connection there.

Peter did not pray for the dead woman.

He prayed and then he turned to the dead woman and commanded her to come alive.

Something similar in Acts 28 verses 7 to 9.

 This is about the Apostle Paul.

There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island.

He welcomed us to his home and showed us generous hospitality for three days.

His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery.

Paul went in to see him and after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him.

When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured.

 Another occasion, Peter gets locked up in prison after James had been arrested and executed.

Peter then gets arrested.

But the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

 And then, of course, many of us know the story of Paul and Silas locked up in the jail, their feet fastened in stocks in the innermost dungeon, but they're singing hymns and they're praying, and then God sends an earthquake and liberates them.

Instead of worrying, they pray.

Each of these occasions shows that one of the early church's fundamental understandings of why we pray is that prayer is the means through which God gives power to overcome problems.

 And the scripture wants you to recognize the connection is that prayer is the reason the problems are overcome.

They had a high view of God's sovereignty that God was in charge.

But they still prayed like their prayers made a difference.

 That prayer was the vehicle through which God would provide power to overcome their problems.

You and I, we face many problems in the mission and the work of God because there is an enemy.

We face resistance from Satan and his demonic forces.

The garden doesn't grow without the chaos monster pushing back.

 We face all kinds of problems as we journey throughout the wilderness of this present age, from temptations to grow discouraged, temptations to compromise, with health problems, with pushback from the world against our loyalty to Christ.

The first church faced all these same problems and more, and in the face of every single one of these problems, they prayed.

It wasn't something they eventually learned to do, it was something they immediately knew to do.

 Because Jesus himself had been their example.

He had been their model.

So in Acts chapter 4, after being threatened for the first time by the Jewish authorities, Peter and John, they gather the members of the church in Jerusalem and they pray for boldness.

And as a result, they're filled with boldness.

They continue to share the gospel.

In that moment, on that day, the church got bigger.

I don't mean numerically.

I mean that they got bigger in themselves as they responded to their problem with the power of prayer.

 There was a man who attempted to climb Mount Everest twice, and twice he failed.

The third time he came back to the mountain, he said, you are not bigger, but I am.

That's like the early church in response to the pressure that they faced, in response to the persecution that they faced.

They, through prayer, got bigger spiritually so that the church then grew and got bigger numerically.

But it had to happen in them first.

Right.

 And that's what problems are.

Problems are an invitation from God for you to get bigger.

Problems are an invitation from God for you to grow in your spirit as you trust the Lord and as you depend upon Him no matter what comes your way.

And through you and I getting bigger as the church, we will get bigger as the church.

Because we don't shrink back in fear of the problems that are presented to us.

 Rather, we rise to them.

We ascend with our prayers to God.

We grow as a church as we enter into the heavenly throne room through the power of our prayers.

And God enlarges our capacity so that we can continue to walk through the problems that we face.

I watch this happen in our weekly prayer meetings.

By the end of our time together, there's always a noticeable shift.

There's more joy.

Boldness grows.

Faith is alive in the room.

The problems that we walked in with may still be there.

 but somehow they don't hold us in the same way.

We may not leave with less problems, but our problems leave with less of us.

And that is the power that God provides in our prayers.

Sometimes God gives power to sustain you in your problems.

Sometimes God gives power to solve your problem.

Either way, God provides power and the vehicle, the means that he uses, that he's called us to use is the vehicle of prayer.

 The most moving of these examples, and I'll finish with this team, you guys can come.

The most moving of these examples to me is the account of Peter's arrest and the church's prayer for his release.

It moves me so deeply because the story literally starts out by telling us that James, the brother of John, one of the 12, was arrested and executed by King Herod.

 Now, do you think that when the apostle James got arrested that the church gave themselves to prayer?

Well, absolutely they did.

They would have prayed for James to be released just as they pray for Peter to be released in this occasion.

But God does not answer their prayer the way that they hoped he would answer their prayer.

James did not get out because God did not release him.

James died.

 And then in the very next verse, we learn that Peter is arrested.

That he's held in jail under the guard of 16 soldiers.

And he's awaiting the same fate as James.

And yet, the text says that the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

Immediately on the heels, this is for somebody, immediately on the heels of a massive letdown.

 the church gave themselves to prayer.

In the face of deep discouragement, looming doubts, God, where were you?

God, why did you?

God, why didn't you?

In the face of that, the church still prayed for Peter to be set free.

There's mothers here who have lost children, facing extreme discouragement.

 doubts the Lord is inviting you to pray to call out to the Lord it's not that God gives power for one problem not another it's just that he gives power sometimes to sustain power at other times to solve either way dependence upon him is the goal

 perhaps some of you here have faced incredibly dire financial times sense even that perhaps even gone through or up against the reality of bankruptcy God is inviting you to pray to him as provider again on the heels of disappointment to give yourself to prayer

 A friend of mine told me way back in 2020 that his church in the wake of 2020 was running out of money.

And for six months, he cried out to the Lord to provide for them financially.

Their church had greatly dwindled and they were in a very, very difficult position at that time.

And for six months, he cried out to the Lord to provide.

And for six months, they just barely scraped by.

 And then one Sunday after service, he was out in the foyer, he was talking to guests, and some stranger walked into the foyer of the church, walked up to one of their staff members, handed him an envelope full of $20,000, and says, tell your pastor that God hears his prayers.

Not on the timing I think he would have preferred, but in the perfect way to communicate, God hears.

 God provides.

 Sometimes power comes to sustain us in the struggle.

Sometimes power comes to deliver us from it.

And that's exactly what happened with Peter, much to the surprise of the church who were praying for him.

You go on to read the story.

Peter's in the jail.

He's awakened by an angel in the middle of a night.

He's let out of the prison as the church are in a home in Jerusalem praying throughout the night.

And then Peter, he escapes.

He comes to the house.

He knocks on the door.

The girl, Rhoda, who answers the door, literally closes the door on Peter because she can't believe it's him.

 She runs back to the people who are praying in the house.

She says, I think Peter's outside.

They're like, no, no, no.

It's probably his angel.

Like that's how little faith they had in their prayers being answered after their experience with James is that they would more quickly believe that it was an angel knocking at the door than it was Peter.

And yet their prayers, which they had offered up with, I'm sure, all kinds of fragility were heard by the Lord.

 Because when we pray, God gives power for our problems.

That's why we pray.

Because we have a lot of problems.

The point is that whatever the problem, we must pray.

Whatever the setbacks, we must continue to pray.

Problems are an invitation.

Prayer when you feel stuck.

When a loved one is sick.

 When you're misunderstood, when you're persecuted, when you're suffering unjustly, when the next step feels impossible, if it's too big for you, it's the perfect size for prayer.

In the book of Acts, when the mission hit a wall, prayer opens a door.

It's the power of the simple gift that God has given us, that we would call out to him and receive power for the problems that we face.

Let's all stand our feet.

 I'm going to pray a benediction over us.

If it feels appropriate.

Maybe we should add these to our service flow every now and again, Pastor James.

Let's tack on a benediction.

Being a benedictive people.

Let me close your eyes, lift your hands.

 Hebrews chapter 13, verses 20 and 21, says, Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will.

And may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

 Father, we thank you for the gift of prayer.

We thank you, Lord, that through prayer we are anointed for spiritual kingdom activity, that we are reminded afresh of the fact that we are a sent people and a sending people.

I pray that as we gather this week throughout our neighborhood groups, Lord, that we would lay hands on each other and pray for each other and send one another out into the world, not to exist, but to live for the glory of God.

 And may courage uprise in our church, Lord, as we pray and lay hands, as we are reminded of the life that we are called to.

And Lord, I ask also that you would beckon us back to faith, to believe you, Lord, even on the heels of disappointment, that you still give power for the problems that we encounter.

 Even today, even today, Lord, I ask, would you give power for the problems that are present here in this room?

Just lift your hands across all locations.

Ask the Lord, say, God, would you give power for the problems that we're facing right now?

We need you, Lord.

We need you, Lord.

We're dependent upon you.

We're dependent upon you.

In Jesus' name.