Directing God’s Hand

Prayer is so important because it allows us to delight in God’s presence, discern His heart, and depend on His power. But prayer is so powerful because it actually directs God’s hand. When we pray, prayer moves our heart and will to align with God’s heart and will. But it also moves God’s hand to directly interfere into the affairs of humanity. And yet few of us actually believe this. Some of us fall into the trap of fatalism, falsely believing God has already set the future and our prayers won’t actually change anything. Others of us fall into the trap of naturalism, falsely believing that prayer is less important than action. But throughout the scriptures, God does change his mind in response to his peoples’ prayers. In Exodus 32, after receiving the 10 Commandments, Moses prays on behalf of the Israelites and God relents. In 2 Kings 6, Elisha prays for the eyes of his servant to be opened to the reality of God’s power through prayer. If you track the theme of prayer throughout the biblical story, one thing becomes abundantly clear: prayer moves the hand of God to action. It’s our prayers, usually on behalf of others, by which God advances His Kingdom to push back the darkness in the world around us. Put simply, God responds when we pray. By praying bold prayers that just might move God’s hand to action, we practice turning our inward-focused minds, hearts, and bodies into outward-acting agents of God’s kingdom.

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

 no matter how your week went, I want you to know that God the Father loves you. That Jesus Christ is sufficient and supreme, and the Holy Spirit can transform your life from the inside out if you let him. Let’s read Matthew chapter six, starting in verse nine. Therefore, you should pray like this.

Our father in heaven, your name, be honored as holy. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Let’s pray. Father, son, and Holy Spirit, we ask that you use this passage same way you’ve used it the last 2000 years.

It’s drawing people to yourself. Lord, it’s encouraging us to walk in the way and to begin to change the future through the power of prayer. God, we give you our distractions. We give you our despair. Would you meet us in this moment? In Jesus name, everybody says Amen. Amen. You may take a seat. Prayer works if you work it.

At the beginning of this month, we started to rally around this idea, really this dream that our church would be known as a praying church. Not just a church who happens to pray but is animated by the practice of prayer. That it would be normal for us to encounter the voice of God and the power of God, both in our homes and in the sanctuary.

That we would linger before service and after service to pray over each other, not just the pastor praying for people, but that we would all pray for one another. That Passion Creek Church throughout the city would be praying in closets and in kitchens and in neighborhoods throughout the valley with the sound of prayer that we, passion Creek would boldly pray for healing, for wisdom, and for revival.

And here’s what we found In just a month’s time, God has been at work. And I think it’s because we’ve asked him to. We’ve been hearing all sorts of stories this month. Uh, one of my favorites is one, uh, couple really felt like they needed to seek the presence of God after week one. And so they stayed up past midnight to encounter the presence of God.

And they said they didn’t hear a voice, but they sure felt his presence. Others have come forward saying, I didn’t understand why I even moved here to Arizona, but through prayer and discerning the heart of God, I know I’m right where I need to be. Others are even gaining clarity on what’s next on their life because of the practice of prayer.

We’ve also seen, and I’m so happy to report this, uh, some partial healing, some people gradual healing. We’ve seen medical miracles. Even yesterday we had the prayer room for healing and someone came up this morning and said, Hey, I have been healed of the thing we prayed for. I was able to have a full night’s sleep.

We’ve seen holy moments on Saturdays and Sundays and in groups throughout the week, and I really feel like the God that that God’s presence has been among us. And honestly, I’m not surprised. I prayer works if you work it. And all month we’ve been saying, okay, maybe some of us don’t put it to work because we don’t know the framework.

So mainly we’ve been looking at Luke chapter 11. This is the Lord’s Prayer, or what other traditions call the Our Father. What we just read was the other rendition in Matthew chapter six of the Lord’s Prayer. And from this prayer, we developed our own working definition of the practice all month, and it should be on the screen.

Prayer is the sacred practice of delighting in God’s presence, discerning God’s heart, depending on God’s power and directing God’s hand. By the end of today. My hope is that we would boldly and humbly step into our role of honestly directing God’s hand. I know it feels a bit severe, it feels like who are we to tell God what to do?

But I hope to convince you today one of our chief roles as Christians is to ask God to change the future. For his glory, but also for our joy. And I hope you’ve also noticed this has been a progression. Uh, we really kind have kind of seen this as the stages of prayer. It’s not perfectly linear. You can totally be new to prayer and already jump to week four and direct God’s hand in some place.

But there is this sense of progression. In other words, it’s really hard to do week two. It’s really hard to discern God’s heart if you’ve never really spent time delighting in his presence. So we believe one comes before the other and the same way, it’s nearly impossible. Again, it’s not impossible, but it’s nearly impossible to truly in faith direct God’s hand if you’ve never spent any time depending on his power.

And so we hope that you have been deepening your prayer life with us, and that we as a church continue to take this on in the months, years, and decades to come. But if prayer works when we work it, why don’t we work it more often? Right? Like, why do we easily fall back into self-reliance and anxiety? How is it possible to see God answer a prayer and then we just stop praying?

This is a problem. This happens all the time. And I think part of it is learning the framework. We’ve been arguing all week, um, all week, all month that this, all the order of the prayer matters. We need to start with looking up to heaven. And after we enjoy him and discern his heart, then God empowers us to begin to pray around here on earth.

So framework’s a huge part of why maybe some of us stop praying. But here’s what struck me this week in studying Matthew’s Gospel, his version of the Lord’s Prayer. Before Jesus teaches the framework of prayer, Jesus addresses the faith work of prayer. So I want us to look again at Matthew chapter six, but I want us to move up a few verses and actually start in verse five.

Verse five. These are the words of Jesus. He says the following, whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

I have to note before we continue, uh, it’s really easy to misinterpret the heart of what Jesus is saying here. I remember I was on a road trip to Texas and we were in that long, boring part called New Mexico. I’m sorry if you’re from there, but it’s just like a whole lot of nothing. And I remember we were driving, I was with my youth pastor and there was this hitchhiker.

So we pull over and see what his needs are. And, uh, he actually, uh, we, he wanted to go the other direction, but we still talk to him. And so we asked him some questions. Then we said, Hey, can we pray for you? And he got so angry. He’s like, don’t you know the scriptures? We’re not in a private room. We’re not in a closet.

You cannot pray for me. I think that’s a perfect example of missing the point of what Jesus is saying here. It is totally okay for us to pray in public Jesus. Uh, Paul says, to pray without ceasing. The context here is for the people who are only praying to be seen. The best way to combat that terrible motive is to learn how to pray in the quiet learning that you’re just coming to the Father to get the Father not to get credit.

Does that make sense? So it’s helpful to interpret scripture, to interpret scripture. Okay? But let’s go now to verse seven. There’s another group of people that pray incorrectly. Verse seven, when you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Think about even a few weeks ago we talked about the story of Elijah.

And the Pagans in this time. It still happens today. The Pagans in One Kings 18, they thought that Baal would answer their prayer if they cut themselves and yelled all sorts of chants over and over and over again. And God is saying, Jesus is saying, that’s not how this heavenly relationship works. Verse eight, don’t be like them because your father knows the things you need before you ask him what Jesus is doing here.

Before he gives us the framework of prayer, he’s exposing two heart conditions that poison the purpose of prayer. One, Jesus labels his hypocrisy using prayer to be seen by others rather than to be seen by God. And two is babbling, treating prayer, essentially like a formula or a vending machine, rather than an intimate conversation with a loving father.

Now, in our modern age, we face additional assumptions. That poison, the purpose and power of prayer. I wanna talk about two cultural ideologies that honestly discourage us, that have discouraged me from confidently praying what Jesus says to pray in verse 10. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And the first ideology or assumption that we need to fight is fatalism. Fatalism is a philosophical term. It’s essentially a distorted doctrine that says the following, the future’s already set. So prayer won’t change anything. So if we’re gonna talk about directing God’s hand. We will not do that if we fall for the lie.

The fatalism, I believe fatalism is deeply ingrained for some reason into the American psyche, in my opinion. Uh, fatalism is our subconscious attempt to erase our anxiety, but all it actually does is erode our agency. In other words, when we get overwhelmed with everything happening in life, we try to find comfort in the fact that, well, whatever’s gonna happen was always gonna happen.

It makes us lose our agency. Like, Hey, I, I, there’s nothing I could have changed. There’s nothing I can do. It is what it is, and it makes us feel like maybe this will be okay, but in reality, it leads us super hopeless. You hear it in phrases all the time. Like again, it is what it is that’s fatalism at work.

Another one that Christians say, and I know there’s a right place to say this, but hear me out. I think it’s very fatalistic to say everything happens for a reason. Sounds super spiritual, faith-filled. I’ve said this on many occasions, but you don’t truly see that attitude in scriptures. Now, if you know your Bible, you may be thinking, hold on, Trey Romans 8 28, brother, God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes.

And I of course, would say yes and amen. But that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to sit back and spectate, especially if sin and injustice is gaining ground. We’re not supposed to have a lazy, pessimistic attitude. It is what it is. Oh, well, that bad things happening. Everything happens for a reason. No. In the scriptures you see that God is looking for people who will intercede, who will stand in the gap and participate in changing the future.

We’ll take a look with me. Open up your Bibles if you can. If not, it’s on the screen to Exodus chapter 32. This is a classic example of. The people of God, uh, really messing up and Moses though interceding in order to change the future. So as you’re turning there to Exodus 32, here’s some context, Moses, he’s on Mount Sinai.

He’s receiving the 10 Commandments while the people at the bottom of the mountain are making golden calf and they’re falling into idolatry, they’re saying this golden calf is what delivered them from the Egyptians. And it’s just full out debauchery. Lot of wickedness, lot of sin. They deserve judgment.

So now let’s hop into the story starting in verse nine, how God responds to all of this debauchery. Verse nine, the Lord also said to Moses, I have seen this people and they are indeed a stiff-necked people Now leave me alone so that my anger can burn against them, and I can destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.

And Moses responds, it is what it is. No verse 11. But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God, Lord. Why does your anger burn against your people? You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand? Why should the Egyptians say notice he’s reasoning with God? It’s fascinating. He brought them out with an evil intent to kill them in the mountains and eliminate them from the face of the earth.

Turn from your fierce anger. Notice the directing language. It’s pretty insane. Turn your fierce anger and relent concerning this disaster plan for your people. Then he appeals to the covenant. Look at verse 13. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. What’s Israel’s other name? Anybody know Jacob?

Okay. You swore to them by yourself and declared, I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and will give your offspring all this land that I have promised, and they will inherit it forever. So he’s using God’s word to talk to God to keep his word. Pretty incredible. Verse 14. So. The Lord relented concerning the disaster he had said he would bring on his people again.

How does Moses reply to this idea that God’s gonna wipe out those people? God’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. No, he pleads with God. He reasons with them. He talks about his reputation. God, you are a good God. The people need to know how good you are. He appeals to his mercy and his covenant. But then verse 14 is astonishing ’cause it says that he relents this Hebrew word relent when referring to humans.

If you see the same exact phrase in the Old Testament, if it’s referring to humans, often the translators actually use the word repent. Isn’t that a fascinating idea? How could God repent? Well, he relents it seems as if God changes his mind. Now we’re having a theological tension here, so stay with me. Let me be clear.

The theological phrase here, it’s very important. It’s called the immutability of God, his unchanging nature. In other words, he does not hear me. God does not change his character. He does not change his nature. He does not change his overarching ultimate purposes for humanity. That’s foundational to our theology.

That’s orthodox. I personally find a lot of comfort in the sovereignty of God, but I would argue we have absorbed more theology from Aristotle than we have the apostles. When we treat God as the unmoved mover, God is not the unmoved mover. Dallas Willard actually says he’s the most moved mover ’cause God is looking for us to ask.

Let me also be clear. Our future is already secure for those who are in Christ Jesus, but. If we believe the future’s already set, what’s the point of prayer? If everything’s gonna happen already, no matter what, why would we pray? And honestly, that’s why many of us don’t. There’s this guy named Dallas Willard and, uh, hope you’ve heard of him before.

He put it this way. I think it’s really, really helpful. He says the following God’s response to our prayers is not a charade. He does not pretend that he is answering our prayer when he is only doing what he was going to anyway. Our requests really do make a difference to what God does or does not do.  📍

The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does, regardless of whether we pray or not, is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. I love this line. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best. And of course. God does not respond to this.

You wouldn’t either.  What am I saying? Prayer works if you work it. One reason you and I don’t work it is we’ve fallen for the lie of fatalism, seeped into our souls. The futures already set. Why even pray for a different outcome? The scriptures are pretty clear. You can and should pray for different outcomes.

If I had more time, I would share more stories, including Hezekiah. Maybe we’ll talk about it on the podcast this week. The second assumption why you and I often don’t pray to direct God’s hands, is this idea of naturalism. Naturalism is this false belief that the present is fully seen. So prayer is just wishful thinking.

Here’s what natural naturalism does. It teaches us, we can only trust what we can see and observe. So if I can’t clearly measure it or weigh it or see it, it’s not real. And that’s everywhere in our culture today. You’ll hear this in phrases like, okay, cool, but be realistic, or, we don’t need your prayers.

We need your action. Naturalism is honestly, I mean, seeped into everything. It’s the very air that we breathe in our modern post enlightenment world, and it’s fascinating too because a lot of the theologians, the dead ones that I enjoy that were like writing in the eight hundreds and the 12 hundreds, they didn’t deal with naturalism nearly as much as you and I do today.

In our modern world, naturalism is the lens that pervades everything. So we think if I can’t see a way for God to do this, there’s no way God would do it. Well, that’s simply not how God works. He’s not confined to naturalism. Naturalism’s really important for us to address because naturalism paralyzes our prayers in one of two ways.

The first way is it makes us underestimate the problem. For example, we are gospel people. We believe we should share the gospel to the whole world. Naturalism will have you say, Hey, that person over there who doesn’t know God, he seems happy. There’s no reason for you to share the gospel to him. He’s not gonna accept it.

He doesn’t need it. His family seems good, he has the right finances, he’s fine. He doesn’t need Jesus. Some of us fall for that lie, ’cause it looks on the outside like they’re okay. Or naturalism would say, Hey, my marriage isn’t that bad. I don’t need to pray about it. I think everything’s going to be okay.

No, we need prayer. The second thing it does, so sometimes it makes us underestimate the problem. We think everything’s fine. The second thing it does that makes us overestimate the problem and the same way that we look at things and think, okay, they don’t need Jesus. They seem fine. Other times we see no, they, they are so broken, they, they’re so, my life is so ruined.

Prayer’s not gonna help anything at all. There’s no way I can get out of this situation. So either underestimate the problem or overestimate it. It, but here’s the reality. Prayer doesn’t ignore reality. It sees through it. This is why I love the story in two Kings, chapter six, it’ll be on the screen. I recognize I’m asking you to flip your pages too often in this sermon, but there’s this great story in two Kings, chapter six, that I think is an example of how many of us live in fear and in naturalism in the world today.

Two kings, chapter six. This is the prophet Eisha. Now, we learned a couple weeks ago about Elijah. He passes the mantle off to Elijah. He’s often called the man of God in two kings, and here is what it says. Verse 15, when the servants of the man of God got up early and went out, he discovered an army with horses and chariots surrounding the city.

So he asked Elisha, oh my master, what are we to do? Imagine it’s just you two and this huge army. There’s no winning this battle. Verse 16. Elisha said, don’t be afraid. For those who are with us, outnumber those who are with them. That’s just a faith-filled line. That’s a pretty great, that’s pretty good.

Highlight verse 17. Then Elisha prayed. Lord, please open his eyes and let him see. So the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw that the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha, that’s what prayer does. It enables us to actually see the unseen realm. There is more going on than you can ever think or imagine.

This is why, honestly, I’m a fan of the Matrix. Now there’s all sorts of theological errors, but essentially that idea that there’s more happening than meets the eye is a scriptural thing. Hey, there is more happening in the spiritual realm than you know. If that is true, we can say no to naturalism and believe God is working even when it looks like it’s not working at all.

We ask for eyes of faith. Now, let me also give a caveat here. This doesn’t mean we ignore reality. Like I think like the pushback, like some Christians would say, okay, naturalism, bad’s all science bad. We’re not saying that. We’re also saying some of we just need to be responsible. So it’s not like either pray or act.

No, we actually do both. A good example of that is Nehemiah four, nine. Look what Nehemiah says. So we pray to our God. So they heard about bad news, so we prayed. ’cause that’s our ultimate hope, and we station a guard because of them day and night. It’s a good example. We know our ultimate hope’s in God, but we’re also not irresponsible, lazy people.

We’re putting a guard up day and night. This is how we are to walk in the way of Jesus. So please hear me. Prayer works if you work it. I think for many of us we haven’t even tried because of those two assumptions that poison the purpose of prayer, fatalism and naturalism. But what about those times you did pray?

And your prayers didn’t work. I know for me, I’m gonna be honest, I’ve had plenty of prayers in my lifetime that weren’t answered the way I wanted them to be. And I think I had the faith I needed. I think I was asking for God’s will. And to be honest, I still struggle. I still grieve about many of them, of those prayers that were left unanswered.

And one resource that’s been really helpful for me is Pete Greg. He wrote a book called God on Mute, and in it he outlines towards the end of the book, he gives 15 reasons why some prayers go unanswered, which I think was really helpful. He groups them into three broad categories, the God’s world, God’s will, and God’s war.

I encourage you, if this next 10 minutes really intrigues you, go get this book. I’m just gonna give a few of those highlights ’cause I think it’s really helpful. Okay, so why do some prayers go unanswered? Well, first of all, under the category of God’s world, Pete, Greg argues sometimes it’s because of common sense.

Some prayers. Go ahead on the next screen, please. Some prayers aren’t answered. This is a direct quote from him just because they’re plain stupid. Okay. I love that. Sometimes that was just a really dumb prayer to pray. Uh, one example he gives, I think is really helpful. He says, like, let’s say anybody else, like you don’t plan ahead for the, you know, trips and so you’re running low end on gas and you pray for like a, you’ve done this ride like a million times.

You’re just praying for a gas station to just magically appear right in the middle of nowhere so that your car can keep going. It’s a silly prayer. God’s not going to just plop down this brand new gas station because you were irresponsible, didn’t plan ahead. That’s just common sense. It just can’t happen.

Some prayers, honestly, it’s okay. Just keep asking them. What’s that whole note? No question is stupid. No prayer is stupid, I guess, but sometimes it’s because it was a dumb. Dumb prayer. The second reason he argues is contradiction. This one’s fascinating to think about. Some aren’t answer because they contradict other people’s prayers.

Like when you came in this morning, right? What if you prayed for a hum parking spot? What if that other person was praying for the parking spot? Which one will God answer? Or more realistic? The prayer of a bride prays for sunshine on her wedding day while the neighboring farmer prays desperately for rain.

Who will God answer? The bride or the farmer? There are contradictory prayers that’s just neighbors. Imagine the city and the world. We’re all praying different prayers. If God says he can’t say yes to all of them, they contradict. The third one I think is really helpful that he mentions is the laws of nature.

He says some prayers aren’t answer because they would be detrimental to the world and to the lives of others. Like laws of natures are, are for our good. Constantly changing it. To answer our prayers would lead to a world of chaos. For example, let’s say I think about this every year because of the great beautiful movie, home Alone.

Two, you see a brick falling down onto your head, you might be praying either probably a smarter prayer, God gimme the wisdom. Just to step aside, isn’t that so bothersome in that movie? You’re just looking at it. You could move to the right, but anyways, but you could be praying, Lord, turn off gravity. Like make it where this doesn’t hurt me as much, and what a beautiful prayer.

But if you tell the Lord to turn off gravity, imagine all the other consequences in that area if gravity was turned off even for a few seconds, right? The laws of nature are for our good. It creates a healthy. Wholesome, uh, like a good society where it’s not in just utter chaos all the time. I’m reminded of that movie, and I said this in the first service, I’m a pastor, so of course I’ve never seen this.

I’ve seen it multiple times, especially ’cause it’s Jim Carrey. Anybody ever seen Bruce Almighty, you guys with me, right? Where if he, because he has to answer yes, like it’s just absolute chaos, just think about that next time you pray. Okay? There’s laws of nature, there’s contradiction and there’s common sense.

Then he moves on in his book to talk about God’s will. This is really helpful. Maybe this is why God isn’t answering some of your prayers. It’s God’s best. I would just summarize this as that classic Garth Brooks song. Anybody know that one? Right? Like, thank you for not saying yes to that girl. ’cause now I got the best girl.

You know? What’s that song called? Is it not even Garth Brooks? Prayers answer to prayers, unanswered prayers. Anyways, so I totally love country music, so I should have known that. Uh, but God’s best. In other words, some prayers aren’t answered ’cause God has something better for you. I know you think you want it, but you actually want something better.

A great pastor theologian, PT Forsyth put it this way. He says, we shall come one day to a heaven where we shall gratefully know that God’s great refusals were sometimes the true answers to our truest prayers. God knows what’s best for you. Trust him when he tells you no. The second category, again, he has 15, I’m only highlighting seven altogether is motive.

Some prayers aren’t answered because they’re selfishly motivated. Last week we talked about unasked prayers. So we said, James four, two says, you have not ’cause you asked, not. Verse three then says, when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spin what you get on your pleasures.

So often when God doesn’t say no, it’s ’cause we have the wrong intent. And, and, and that’s actually a good thing. If we have the wrong intent, that gift will quickly spoil into a curse, a not a good thing. It will hurt us. It’ll also hurt those that we love. So oftentimes he withholds it until our motives are in the right place.

So that’s God’s world. God’s will Last category that is very helpful is God’s war. Uh, this is a helpful paradigm for me and understanding why sometimes my prayers aren’t answered and sometimes we just have to admit it. It’s satanic opposition. Some prayers aren’t answered because God’s will is being directly opposed and contested by what Paul says in Ephesians six 12.

The spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. There’s a whole sermon series on that. We’ve touched on it in the past. We’ll touch on it again. You may think, oh, that’s strange. Why were we talking about Satan? But also look at the world. There’s clearly evil. There is an originator of that there.

There is Satanic opposition and the other category he mentions, and again, I’ve left out quite a few, so go look at that book. If this fascinates you, is faith. He says, some prayers aren’t answered ’cause we just don’t believe that they will be answered. Now that’s heavy because a really insensitive, I don’t think a pastoral response would be if someone is sick or dying and they say, well, if you just had enough faith, sometimes that is the category.

Matthew 21, 22, for example, Jesus himself says, and if you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. There is something I actually love that I love that invitation, that if I have faith, I’m getting to partner with God to see a new reality. It’s a beautiful invitation, but it can so easily be misused and abused and to bring condemnation on people.

And so just because God said no, doesn’t mean you lacked faith. Look at all the other reasons we just mentioned. Life’s very complex and in our anxiety we try to oversimplify to feel better, but it winds up actually not being biblical, and it makes this actually feel worse now. So I was thinking about this.

I think it was really helpful to give you this paradigm, why he doesn’t answer it. But then I thought right before like it this morning, as I was looking at my sermon notes, I’m like, they’re gonna like think then why pray? You know, like I’m telling you, pray and then guys, I mean, there’s like a million reasons why he’ll tell you no.

So I hope this doesn’t discourage you from praying. But actually for me, in a weird way, it encourages me. ’cause I don’t know what God’s doing behind the scenes. There could be so many things, factors at play. My job is to partner with God and ask for a different future. And so that’s our challenge. It’s what we’ve been leading up to as a congregation all month.

We want to challenge Passion Creek Church to begin praying like Moses, Hezekiah, Elijah Abraham and so many others. Their ordinary people who dared to believe that their prayers could shape history. And it did. They didn’t just accept the world as it was based on the promises and character of God. They cried out for what could be.

And these heroes interceded for their people. And the beautiful news is that Jesus intercedes for us still. Hebrews 7 25. It says that he quote, always lives to intercede for them. We believe in the good news of the gospel, that he lived the perfect life. He was born of a virgin fully, God, fully man lived the perfect life.

When he died, he took on the sins of humanity. When he rose again, it was a vindication, victory and fool. He has been resurrected and he offers that resurrection to you and to me. And after he was with his disciples, he ascended into heaven at the right hand of God. And ever since then, daily, he intercedes for you and for me.

He stands in the gap and he asks on behalf of us for these prayers to be answered. And what we’re supposed to do to be like Jesus is to also direct God’s hand like Jesus. We too are called to say to the Father, may your kingdom come. May your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. And that’ll be the focus this week, this week’s practice, which is in your guide.

Also be on our website and formed by jesus.com/prayer. Also encourage you, it’s not too late if you have children, to get the family guide at the checkout booth on your way out, but we’re gonna talk about practicing intercession. The base practice we’re hoping everybody tries is called intercessory prayer.

It’s just a fancy Christian word for saying, praying for others. It’s a biblical word. Paul says it in second Timothy two. Two. We are called to pray for others. Richard Foster, I think, defines it perfectly. He says, if we truly love people, we will desire for them far more than it is within our power to give them.

And this will lead us to prayer intercession. Is a way of loving others. So we’re just challenging you as a family individual to begin to pray for others. This isn’t just personal growth, it’s kingdom advancement. We praying for the darkness to be dispelled, for people’s addictions, to be, for them to be made free for those who are are broken, that they be made whole, that those who need forgiveness, experience redemption in Christ Jesus.

We’re praying for those things. And again, we believe according to scripture, we get a part to play in that. And so one way quickly how I do intercessory prayer is I do the concentric circle method. Essentially it’s this, it’s so simple. Even my 10-year-old daughter uses it. Uh, it’s where you start with yourself.

You think about yourself, okay? I’m just gonna pray for me. Okay, now who’s in my next inner circle? I pray for my family. I mention all of their needs, and then I go outside of that, okay, God, I pray for my church, and then I begin to pray for my neighbors and my friends. I pray for those who are far from God.

I pray for our city. I pray for our world, and the circle gets larger and larger. I love to pray that way. It helps me focus my mind as I’m continuing to look more and more outward facing. Another thing quickly, me and my wife do, I think I’ve mentioned this a couple times. I love those expo markers on mirrors.

So we have on the left hand side, we have prayer. We have prayer for people, specific people. We’re asking God to deliver, to save. We’re asking God for building and land. All of this stuff on the left hand side and on the right hand side we have praise. And so we mention all the ways God has actually already answered those prayers, stirs up our faith and makes us thank God for what he’s already done, gives us courage that he’s going to continue to do it.

I really encourage you to figure out a way to step into intercessory prayer this week, the reach practice, which will be difficult because it takes a lot of intentionality, but it’s gonna be so life giving if you try. It is prayer cards. We mentioned Paul e Miller’s Praying Life as a recommended read.

This is his tactic. I think it’s super helpful. Let me explain it real quick. Number one, you find, well, you find a a little note card like three by five. You write down the name of the person you’re praying for. Then you write down a passage of scripture that comes to mind. So it’s a great way to think about them and pray scripture over that person.

Then you write down their specific need, what you’re asking God to answer for in their life, and then you just carry it around your back pocket. And when you’re in line, when you’re bored in line at fries, instead of going on your phone, you just pull out the card and you get through as many of those prayers as you can while you wait and then check out and move on.

This is how we become a praying church. These little intentional methods partnering with God to do what only he can do. So that’s the end of the teaching, but I pray that this is just the beginning of the practice. May we be a people truly formed by prayer. Let’s stand to respond.

We wanna be a responsive church. Jesus warns constantly in the gospels. Against those who hear the word and not do it. So I’d love for us even just to give a moment to hear from God and and to see what he is calling us to do next. So if you can just with me, close your eyes, take in a deep breath in and a deep breath out,

and ask God, what are you calling me to do?