Pillars of the Church: A Message on Prayer
Hey, let’s get into the message. We’ve been talking about the pillars of the church. I’ve got more than I thought. I went to bed last night telling my wife, “I always over-prepare. There’s no way I’m going to get through everything I have tomorrow,” but I just can’t help it. I get excited putting things together, and so we may go until about one-ish, you know, somewhere around there. I got one excited. The rest of you are like, “Absolutely not! The Super Bowl’s not till later. There’s no other games on. You got nothing better to do than to listen to what the Lord has to say to you.” I’m just kidding.
Hey, we love our Bibles here at The Roads Church. We like to give a lot of scripture because we don’t want you believing in theories—we want you believing in scriptures. So, we love the Bible. We get excited when we open them up here. So, if you got your Bibles, come on, open them up to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. I’m going to start reading in verse 40. We’re going to go a little fast—you know, when you listen to an audiobook and you put it on about 1.25 or 1.5 so you can kind of keep up? That’s the way I want you to listen. I want you to listen about 1.25. I’m going to talk about 1.75. I’m just kidding. I am probably going to talk about that fast, but I’ll try to be understandable.
Acts 2:40-47
Acts chapter 2, look at verse 40. This is our launching scripture:
“And with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation.’ Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added. The Spirit’s inner man, the inner being, if you will, spirits were born again, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, both of those together, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”
Prayer Over the Word
Let’s pray over the word. Father, I just thank you for your scriptures that are truth and life to us. Lord, I pray that you sanctify us today by your truth. Your word is truth. I pray it will be a living word into our hearts—not just words from an individual’s mouth, but God, I pray it be spirit and life that you speak into us. Something that exhorts us, convicts us, changes us, molds us, God. Uh, encourages us to continue to pursue you further. So, Lord, I just pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit to remove burdens, destroy yolks, and connect us with you and what you have for us today. In Jesus’ name, everybody say, “Amen.”
The Early Church
Alright, we’ve got, in this passage, we’ve been talking about the first church. Again, the sermon notes are available on your Bible app (I forgot to tell you that if you’d like to download them). Got a lot of notes in there—worked very hard on those, so I hope you enjoy them.
Acts chapter 2, verse 41. We’re talking about how 3,000 souls were added into the Kingdom. So, they had 120 people in the upper room, and then 3,000 people came into Christ after this message that Peter had preached. There was prayer for 10 days, then a sermon by Peter. So now, we go from a church of 120 people to 3,000 people.
We’ve been talking about what the ones who walked with Jesus did with this initial church. How did they grow this initial church? They walked with Jesus. They were the first disciples, right? So, my thought process was this: What did the first disciples do to make the next disciples? They were taught by the best—by Jesus. So, the ones who were taught by Jesus, what did they do when God handed them 3,000 new souls?
It was important, I thought, for me to pay attention to this: What did the next layer down do? So, you know, when you get further away from the source, it’s easy for things to get watered down. Jesus was the best, and so now He’s got the disciples under Him, and now we have the next group of disciples. If you’re not careful, the message can get watered down—kind of like the telephone game. That’s too old for some of you. They’re like, “Telephone? What is a telephone? It had a cord?” Never mind. But anyway, you had to stand close to it. There was no texting.
Let me get back to the point. Focus, Chad. What did they do with these new souls? Let’s look at verse 42. They continued steadfastly. The word “continued steadfastly” means to constantly be diligent, to adhere closely to, to persevere. So, what did they do to make disciples? What do we want to do to make disciples? Number one: they continued steadfastly. They were diligent with it. They held closely to it, and they persevered through four things. Are you ready?
- Apostles’ Doctrine – The right doctrine, the teaching of the apostles. That was the first thing.
- Fellowship – Fellowship, or “koinonia”—getting together, gathering. Vertical fellowship and horizontal fellowship. This is where we want to encourage you to go past just attending on Sunday mornings and get koinonia with the body of Christ. It’s one thing to attend on Sunday, but it’s another thing to be a part of the body, a part of the family. I believe everyone should serve in their local church. We’ve got lots of ways to get involved, and Dain did a great job talking about our Roads Crew. I believe everyone should serve. God’s given us gifts and talents, and we should serve in the family.
- Breaking of Bread – They continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread. Communion, studying the word of God, and eating together. Verse 46 talks about how they broke bread from house to house and ate together. Just like we’re doing with Wednesday night services and other ways in groups.
- Prayers – The fourth thing they continued steadfastly with was prayers. Everybody say, “Prayers.” Look at your neighbor and say, “Your prayers matter.”
The Importance of Prayer
The first church was committed—committed to steadfastly continuing in prayer. Remember, that word “presently” or “continued steadfastly” is a present active term. It’s not just a past tense thing, not just a one-time thing. They continued to pray. They were active. It was a present-tense prayer—ongoing. They were constantly diligent in prayer. They adhered closely to prayer. They were devoted to prayer, and they persevered in prayer.
So, why do people… Here’s the question I thought about: Why do people not continue steadfastly in prayer? If we simply say in general, “Hey, we need to pray more,” I don’t know of many people that would disagree with that statement. A lot of people say, “Hey, I just don’t pray like I should. I need to. I need to pray more.” We could always pray more, right? That’s a common phrase. So, if most people agree we should pray more, why are we not praying more?
We can only say “should have, could have, would have” so often until, at some point, there has to be a realization that what I should do is what I do. Do you know what I’m saying? It’s like, what I should do is one thing, but what I’m actually doing is another, right?
Reasons Why We Don’t Pray
So, here are some reasons why we don’t pray more.
- Maybe We Don’t Know How: A lot of people would say they don’t know how to pray. They’re intimidated, they’re afraid, and they don’t want to say something wrong, so they don’t pray.
- Laziness: Just lazy. Don’t want to pray, don’t want to put in the time or effort. It’s a lot easier to sit here and scroll for minutes or hours than it is to kneel beside our bed with our Bible and pray to the Creator of the universe. Just lazy.
- Independence: Here’s something you need to think about. Pridefulness won’t pray, but humility prays. Pridefulness won’t pray because it does not need God. Humility prays because it is dependent on God. A marker of how much pride I have in my life is directly correlated to how much I don’t pray.
- We Don’t Believe It’s Making a Difference: People don’t pray because they don’t think it matters that much. This is largely due to incorrect teaching of scripture about the sovereignty of God. People hear things like, “I’m thankful that God is in control of every detail of my life,” but that’s unscriptural. God is sovereign, but sovereignty does not mean God is controlling every single detail in our lives. Sovereignty means there’s no one above Him.
Sovereignty and Prayer
If God is in control of everything, how are babies being aborted every day? How are young children getting sex trafficked? How are so many women victims of domestic abuse? How are so many people murdered every day? How are there so many drug overdoses? How are there so many deaths from drunk driving?
We could go on and on. If God is in control of everything and prayer doesn’t matter, then why are these things happening? Why would the early church—the ones who walked with Jesus—continue steadfastly in prayer?
Prayer Makes a Difference
If they didn’t think it would make a difference, let’s look at our first scripture. Go to Luke 22:45. Luke 22:45—We’re going to look at several scriptures, so I need you to engage, put it in gear, and put your foot on the long pedal on the side. Take it off the rectangle. Luke 22:45, are you ready?
This is talking about Jesus when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane. Let me give you a little bit of context. Jesus took the 12 disciples into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He left off nine of them—well, eight of them because Judas wasn’t with Him at this time—and then He took three: Peter, James, and John, and took them a little bit further. Then He, Jesus, went on further than the three and knelt down to start praying. He said, “Father, if it’s Your will, take this cup away from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Yours be done.”
Then He started to sweat, like drops of blood, falling down to the ground. Verse 45 says, “So then He goes to find His brothers that are supporting Him in prayer because He called a prayer meeting in the garden.” It’s late at night, and He’s calling an all-nighter.
He rose up from prayer. So Jesus, the Son of God, was doing what? He was praying. If Jesus, the Son of God, needs to pray, how much more do we need to pray? He got up from prayer, came to His disciples, and He found them… what? He found them interceding and praying in tongues? No, not yet—it’s not Acts chapter 2. He found them sleeping, found them sleeping from sorrow.
What did He say in verse 46? He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and do what? Rise and pray, lest”—I’m reading out of the New King James Version—“lest you enter into temptation.” Why do you sleep? Rise, get up, and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
Now, the word lest is a Greek word. It’s a negative adverb particle, and it means literally “not.” It’s a negative statement, just means not. So, we could read it back this way in the Bible: that Jesus was saying to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray so that you will not enter into temptation.”
Not so, if He’s saying, “If you will pray, you will not enter into temptation,” then what will happen if you don’t pray? You will enter into temptation. The converse of that is, so is praying making a difference in an outcome? Come on, you’ve got to follow with me.
Jesus said this. This isn’t my theology; this is Jesus. He said, “Pray, lest you enter into temptation.” So prayer is going to keep you from having this outcome. If you don’t pray, this will be your outcome. Does prayer make a difference? Yes, according to Jesus.
Maybe Peter wouldn’t have cut off the ear of the guard if he’d have prayed. Maybe he wouldn’t have denied Jesus three times if he would have prayed. Maybe the other disciples wouldn’t have abandoned Jesus and left Him hanging high and dry if they would have prayed. Because they didn’t pray, they were sleeping, they entered into temptation, and Peter ends up denying Jesus three times.
James 5:16-18
Prayer makes a difference. James chapter 5 says, “Confess your trespasses to one another” (verse 16), “and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of righteous people avails much.” I’ll come back to that.
Verse 17: “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly. He was a man with a nature like ours. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it didn’t rain on the land for three and a half years. He prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.”
Notice what it says: Elijah was a man just like us, with a nature just like ours. He’s just a man, but he prayed earnestly, and it didn’t rain for three and a half years. He prayed again, and it rained.
What is this “effective fervent prayer”? What does it mean for us? The word effective fervent—are you ready for this? In the Greek language, the Greek word energo is where we get our word energy. So the effective, fervent prayer here’s what it means: to be active, to work, or to function.
Come on, God’s getting ready to drop something on us. He’s telling us: Your effective, fervent prayer is the one that’s active, the one that’s working, and the one that’s functioning. It’s not the superpowered prayer by the prophet. The prophet was a natural man, just like us, but he prayed earnestly.
And he’s saying the active, operative, functioning prayer avails much. What is it saying? Just put your prayers to work. Just make them active. Just give them some energy. We’ve got energy to do everything else—put our energy into prayer. What does that mean? Just start working it. Just put it into practice. Just function in it.
I’m just praying. How do I know this is effective fervent prayer? Because I’m doing it. I’m functioning in prayer. How do I know it’s making a difference? Because the Bible tells me so. It says it avails much. In other words, it’s enough to get the job done.
You may not be the prophet Elijah, but I’m telling you, you’ve got a prayer on the inside of you that will avail much. You’ve got to keep praying. It’s making a difference, brothers; it’s making a difference, sisters. Just go a little bit. Just put some energy into it. Just work and function in it. Just do it. Just show up and pray.
You’re not always going to feel it. You’re not always going to feel like the paint’s melting off the walls with your prayers. But I’m telling you, it’s making a difference. Just work it, baby. Just work it.
Prayers in Heaven
Our prayers are making a difference in heaven. I gave you this last week, but I want to interject it again quickly in Revelation chapter 8. I want you to see this picture. Maybe you weren’t here last week, but you need to see this picture. This helped me so much as a reminder when I was studying this.
How do I know my prayers are making a difference? When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
Remember, there’s a golden altar before the throne of God in heaven. Get this in your mind. Get this picture. Upon the golden altar, which was before the throne, the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.
Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.
So when we’re praying, we have to understand that our prayers are filling up bowls. Every time I pray, I’m filling up bowls in heaven. You might say, “I don’t believe that.” Well, I’m going to believe John the Revelator over someone else. And John looked into heaven and he saw my prayers—the prayers of the saints. He saw them being poured out on the altar, and these prayers ascended up to God, up to His nostrils.
Then what was the response? When this ascended up to heaven, up to God, He directed the angel to take the censer, fill it with fire from the altar, and throw it to the earth. There were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and earthquakes.
Here’s how I see that. Here’s how it plays out in my mind. It may not be that way for you, but just…
Filling Up Bowls with Prayers
Humor me for just a moment. I can imagine, as I keep praying, filling up bowls. I want to fill up bowls—just keep filling up bowls with prayers, that the names of my children keep going before the Lord, that I keep calling them out by name. I say, “Lord, I thank you that all my children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be the peace of my children. In righteousness, they’ll be established; they’ll be far from oppression, for they shall not fear.”
I thank you, Lord, that I’ll train up my kids in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart. So, my angel comes in with bowls filled with my kids’ names on them, and he pours them on the altar. It comes up before the Lord, and he says, “I’ve got to do something with what I’m smelling.”
The response from Heaven is for an angel to take the censer, filled with fire, and throw it back to the earth. There are thunderings, lightnings, and earthquakes. What’s going on? God is responding to my prayers on the earth. I’m seeing it, and now I’m filling up bowls—praying for the church, praying for people, praying for family, praying for my marriage, praying for my own spirit to stay true to God, to walk in integrity.
I’m praying for people and family members, and now I’m seeing bowls being poured out. I’m just waiting for the lightning. I’m waiting for the response from Heaven. You’ve got to pray like you’re expecting a response. You’ve got to pray like that bowl’s being poured out. Every time you’re praying and you feel like, “I don’t know if this is going any higher than Heaven,” pray because you’re filling up bowls. Angels are pouring your prayers on the altar, and it’s going up before God. I’m just looking because thunder and lightnings are going to be happening because of my prayers.
Man, it encourages me! I’m going to keep praying and filling up bowls.
Luke 11: Encouraging Someone to Keep Praying
So now, let’s look at my last scripture. Do you guys want to fill up bowls? I thought you might be more excited about that! Let’s go to Luke chapter 11. I want to encourage somebody to keep praying. I want to encourage somebody—you’re filling up bowls in Heaven. You’re filling up bowls. Come on, it’s making a difference. It’s making a difference!
Go to Luke 11. I’ve got to get on this long pedal, Chad. Long pedal! This is Jesus talking in Luke 11. You with me, Mount Carmel? You guys good? Luke chapter 11. Effingham, you got it? You there? All right, let’s go with it.
Jesus’ Teachings on Prayer
Now, it came to pass as He was praying in a certain place. So, what was He doing? He was—Jesus is praying. Again, if Jesus needs to pray, how much more do we need to pray? He was praying in a certain place, and when He ceased, when He got done, they recognized when He was done. One of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. The word “teach” there means to impart skills or knowledge, to provide instruction or to educate. So, can prayer be taught? Yes, it can be taught. Can I learn prayer? Yes, it can be learned. Because they asked Jesus to teach them, there must have been something about Jesus’s prayers that marked them and said, “Wait a minute. I need to pray like that. I need to pray more like that.”
We need to be searching for God to teach us to pray. You may not be able to hear Him pray in the garden, but you can still ask Him to teach you to pray. I encourage you, ask the Lord to teach you to pray. I’m not talking about the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer. I’m talking about learning how to engage the Father in Heaven, how to take scriptures and begin to pray these scriptures—throwing them up before the altar of incense and watching thunders and lightnings be the response to the Word of God because He watches over His Word to perform it.
Be careful not to teach your kids to pray scriptural prayers. Help them navigate. Your children are never too young to pray the Word of God. They’re never too young to know that. Let’s read this scripture and let’s pray it to God. Well, I just want them to pray that we’ll all have a good day tomorrow. That’s wonderful! Take them to the Word and pray, “This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.”
Let’s have a good day because that prayer is going to be poured. Oh, come on, let me go on. Long pedal! Long pedal! I was getting ready to go off on a tangent here.
How to Begin Our Prayers
Luke 11, teach us to pray. So He said, “When you pray, do this.” Look at verse 2. Everybody all right? Am I all right? The question is, you guys are wonderful, I’m the one that’s iffy! All right, how do we begin our prayers? How do we begin our prayers? What does He say? The first words out of His mouth:
“Our Father.”
When you pray, understand you’re talking to your Father—your Father in Heaven. I don’t know the condition, I don’t know the situation about your father—whether you even knew who your father was, or if your father was good to you or not. It does not matter. What we need to understand in prayer is that we’re talking to our Father who’s in Heaven, and He is a good Father. He is good! He’s not an agnostic, angry God—distant and who doesn’t care about the details of our life. He is a personal Father. He’s a close Father. He’s a hugging Father. He’s a snuggle Father. He’s a good, comforting Father. He’s a loving Father. That’s who we’re talking to—our Father.
Understanding Our Father in Heaven
Begin by talking to a Father. He’s good. He’s good. Matthew 7:11, Jeremiah 29— I give you those scriptures in your notes; you can read over those.
Our Father in Heaven — Where is our Father? Why does that matter? Why did Jesus say that? Jesus did not say any of this prayer just because He had a purpose behind every word. “Our Father who’s in where?” He’s in Heaven.
Where is Heaven? Heaven is above the Earth. We need to know the status of the One we’re talking to. He’s not Joe Cool down the street. He’s not our buddy from here or there. He is in Heaven. What’s that tell me? He’s far above all principalities and powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. He’s far above all my fears. He’s far above all political problems. He’s far above anything else that I could be afraid of on this earth. He’s above it all.
I’m talking to the God in Heaven. He created the Earth by speaking to dirt. He said, “Light, be.” 186,000 miles per second, millions of galaxies created. He’s sitting up there above the galaxies. I’m talking to the One who took dirt, made it into a human body, breathed into my nostrils, and I became a living spirit. Yes, that’s who I’m talking to. He’s in Heaven. He’s in Heaven.
So when you get discouraged about what’s happening on the Earth, go talk to someone who’s above it. Take it to a higher court. And remember, while you’re praying, not only is He far above, but Ephesians 2:6 says He’s raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. So now I’m praying, sitting with Him.
Come on, I know we don’t always feel that. I’m not going to act like I’m immune to the same issues. There are times I don’t feel that way. But I’ve got to remind myself—when I’m praying, I’m not praying from a place at the same level of demons. I’m praying from a seated position, above them, in Christ Jesus.
The Lord’s Prayer
We didn’t get very far! “Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” Holy. “Hallowed” means holy. Everybody say holy. His name is holy. Can I give you a few names of the Lord, who’s holy? This is how we start out prayer. Notice it doesn’t start out with our requests. We’re talking to our Father, my Daddy in Heaven. You’re above all this junk, and holy is Your name. Let me just focus on Jesus in prayer first, before we focus on ourselves.
Teaching how to pray—don’t start with me. Start with He. Come on, I’m rapping. Holy is Your name.
Here’s a couple of names: Yahweh or Jehovah, the self-existent One; Adoni, Elohim, Jehovah Makadesh, my sanctifier; Jehovah Rohi, the Lord, my shepherd; Jehovah Shama, the Lord, who’s present; Jehovah Rafa, the Lord, our healer; Jehovah Sidu, the Lord, our righteousness; Jehovah Gyra, the Lord, my provider; Jehovah Nissi, the Lord, my banner and my military victory; Jehovah Shalom, the Lord, our peace. We can go on and on. Holy is Your name.
Praying for His Kingdom and Will
When I was praying, I pulled out my phone and I just began to walk here in the dark. I just began to declare the names of the Lord. When I’m focusing on Him, I can’t focus on me. Holy is Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done.
Whose kingdom? His. Whose will? His. So wait a minute—who’s teaching us to pray here? Jesus. And what does He say to pray? He says to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.”
Now, hang on. Theological conundrum: If God’s will is always done, why is He telling us to pray for it to be done? If His kingdom is going to come when He wants it to, then why is He telling us to pray for it to come? There is a partnership with us in prayer.
What did Jesus do in the garden? Jesus, in His own prayer, said, “Lord, if there’s any other way than through this cross, I’m down for it. Right? Nevertheless, not my will, but Your will be done.”
There was partnership. Could Jesus have nixed it and said, “I ain’t doing it”? He could have said, “I ain’t going to that cross. We’ve got to find another way.” He had a will because He said, “Not my will.”
Did you catch that? He said, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” Part of our prayer life has to be to God: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, not mine.”
The Goal In Our Prayers
The goal in our prayer life is not to convince God to do what we want Him to do. Our goal is to align our hearts with His. The goal in prayer is not to say, “How can I pray so that God will do what I want?” Our goal in prayer is to align our hearts so that we know even what to pray. We don’t even know what to pray for sometimes. We have limited cognitive abilities about our situation.
So we go to God, and we tell Him what we think ought to happen. We need to spend more time praying, saying, “God, show me what to pray for,” instead of trying to convince Him of something that we really don’t want Him to do.
Has anybody else sung that song? Plug here: Thank God for unanswered prayers. There have been times I prayed for things that I’m thankful He didn’t do. I could go into detail, but there’s no need for that.
Praying for Our Daily Needs and Forgiveness
“Give us day by day our daily bread.” Give us day by day. So, now, not until this point in the prayer do we start praying for our own needs. We’ve talked to our Father in Heaven. We’ve said, “Holy is Your name.” We’ve prayed for His kingdom to come and His will to be done. Notice, we don’t pray for our needs until after we pray for His kingdom and His will to be done.
You know why that is? Because we need perspective from Heaven before we pray for our own things. We don’t even know. We start throwing, “Lord, would You just tell my husband? Will You get him to do this? Will You get my wife to do this? Will You need to do this to my kid? Lord, if You’d just do this.” If that person at work, “If You’ll do this, if You’d just get them fired…”
We need to spend some time saying, “Your will be done.” Get that in my heart. “Your will, not mine.” Now I can pray from that perspective: “Give me this day my daily bread.” Give me, Lord, meet my needs according to Your riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.
Forgiveness and Deliverance from Evil
Look at the next part: “And forgive us our sins.” Forgive us our sins. Part of our prayer life needs to be repentance and asking God to forgive us of our sins. The word “forgive” there is a Greek word that means to send away, dismiss, depart from, or leave behind. How many know it’s easy to pray, “God, dismiss my sins. Send my sin away. Leave my sins behind me”?
Forgiving Others
Lord, that’s a great prayer! Look at the next line though: “For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” Who’s indebted to us? What’s indebted mean? Indebted means they owe us something. Like they owe me payment. There’s a debt. So, we forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
Another way of saying that: We forgive everyone, and they don’t owe me anything. No one owes me an apology. No one owes you an apology.
“Oh yes, they do!”
Forgive those who are indebted to us. Someone who owes you an apology? Forgive them. “Well, I can’t just forgive them.” Got to get some jaws shaking in there over that one. If I just forgive them, they’re just going to think it’s okay what they did to me.
Remember, friends, forgiveness is never about changing them. Forgiveness is always about changing me. I’m the one who’s captive when I don’t release forgiveness. I don’t know what’s going to happen between them and Jesus, but we forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and we say, “You don’t owe me a thing.”
Next time I see you, I’m not waiting for you to say—come on. I’m trying to help us. Some of you are putting the brakes on in the spirit right now. You’ve got the emergency brake on, and we are smoking down the roadway.
Conclusion: The Power of Prayer
When we say, “You don’t owe me anything,” I’m not waiting on you to do it before I do it. We’ll go up, we’ll just see what they say. “I’m going to show up for the family gathering, and if they have an apology for me, then we’ll just see how things go from there. But if they don’t, I’m turning around and walking right out.” We forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
Is that easy? No, it is not. Matter of fact, it’s very difficult. Matter of fact, it’s crucifying to our flesh. It’s painful. It’s vulnerable. It’s putting yourself out there.
Oh, wait a minute. Does that sound like what Jesus did?
Let me close with this: “And do not lead us into temptation.” Jesus never leads us into temptation. He leads us into triumph. You can trust praying to God because He will never lead you into something that’s going to trip you up. He’s going to lead you into something that’s going to cause you to go to victory.
But deliver us from the evil one. Deliver us from the evil one. Deliver us from the evil one.
I want to read this scripture and that’s where I’m going to stop. Colossians 1:12, “Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness…” Come on, hear this part: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness.”
I’m going to say it again because it needs to get into your spirit: He has delivered us from the power of darkness.
I feel the presence of God as He’s telling us the Gospel—that He’s delivered us from the power of darkness, and He’s transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, where there’s forgiveness of sins and redemption through Jesus’s blood.
I’m telling you, for people here under the sound of my voice today, you need to know that you’ve been delivered from the power of darkness. You may not have been delivered from the influence of darkness, but you’ve been delivered from the power of darkness. Their temptations are still going to be there. I’m still going to have voices that are speaking into my head that are not from God, but I am delivered from their power.
Come on, I want to help myself and help you—that we are delivered from the power and authority of darkness. We are transferred into the Kingdom of the Son of His love.
We hope you enjoyed this message today and that you connected with Jesus. If this message has changed your life and you accepted Jesus as your Savior,