Pursuit as Preparation

Pour Over Nights begin tonight!

I want to share my heart about what I’m praying for in pour over nights and get us in position to receive what God is going to do this morning, but also tonight at the first Pour Over Night.

Pour Over Vision Reminder: Pour Over Nights are not about hype or performance; they are about pursuing, preparing, and praying until God pours out His Spirit on us and through us.

Pour over nights aren’t about big lights or chasing a moment.

We’re not here to manufacture a move of God. We’re here to prepare for it — to get our hearts low, our faith stretched, and our vessels emptied of every prideful thing that might block the flow.

If there’s anything religious, stale, or self-made in us — it gets laid on the altar.

Just like Elijah stood on Mount Carmel, we’re here to slay the false things and call down the fire that only God can send.

Why “Pour Over”?

Because we’re not asking God for a sprinkle — we’re asking for a soaking. I believe God wants to saturate dry places, quench thirsty spirits, and renew a hunger for righteousness…

We aren’t looking to come in as consumers, hoping God will fill us up… No we are entering as vessels for God to pour out on us and in us until we pour over…

Pour Over nights isn’t just about what God can do for us, but through us…

These nights are simple — but weighty:

We pursue His presence. We worship until we’re undone — not to fill time, but to make space. No hype, just hunger.

There’s no script for what happens — but there is a pattern: we worship, we wait, we dig, we pray, and we trust Him to send the rain. This is what we’re after — not just a spark on Sunday but an overflow that spills into our homes, our city, our everyday lives.

Pour Over nights are us leaning in together… full participation in pursuit… no spectators, no consumers, no commercials, no fluff…

Just worship with abandon, pursuit without restraint..

Just us in pursuit of His presence…

In His presence is fullness of Joy… In His Presence is freedom forevermore… In His presence is supernatural healing and deliverance… In His presence is transformation…

This is what Pour Over nights are about…

Season Review:

We have been in this season of pursuit for going on 8 weeks now in preparation for what we believe God is going to do starting today…

But here’s what we have seen… As we prepare, there is a momentum that has begun to build…

There’s an expectation that has begun to rise…

God is pulling together a people in pursuit of Him and although we are looking forward to what is happening tonight, I can’t help but praise God for what He’s already started doing over the last few weeks…

We’ve seen unity on the rise, prayer become more urgent, worship flowing in the anointing…

We’ve seen a greater connection between believers, a pattern of prioritization of spiritual matters in the lives of those who have been here, and an evident moving of the Spirit in situations outside this room…

The feeling I get from that is that what we are seeing is small sprays of water starting to come through just before the bursting of the dam where God pours out on us until we Pour Over…

Because I sense this coming wave, I want us to dedicate today as a day of preparation for what’s happening tonight.

We need to prepare our hearts and minds, our priorities and our schedules…

Tonight, I will be preaching about an outpouring of rain that came after a drought at the word of a man named Elijah…

But before we can get to the rain, we first must prepare for the fire…

1 Kings 18:30–35 NASB95

30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord which had been torn down. 31 Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” 32 So with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold two measures of seed. 33 Then he arranged the wood and cut the ox in pieces and laid it on the wood. 34 And he said, “Fill four pitchers with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. 35 The water flowed around the altar and he also filled the trench with water.

Provide context: prophets of Baal: Who was Baal?

Baal was the most prominent of all the gods worshipped in the Land of Canaan at the time of this text…

He was a storm and fertility God… The fertility of the land depends on the rain he supplies.

In one hand he wields lightning and thunder in the other…

Baal was considered the most powerful of all the gods, controlling the weather, fertility, and thus the success of his worshippers.

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Baal (Deity)

Reading the OT, it becomes clear that it was the Baal cult that provided the greatest and most enduring threat to the development of exclusive Yahweh worship within ancient Israel.

The fact that the Israelites were settled among the Canaanites, for whom the worship of Baal was so important, and that Palestine is a land utterly dependent for its fertility upon the rain,

which was held to be Baal’s special realm of influence, accounts for the tempting nature of this cult as well as the strength of the OT polemic against it.

In the time recorded in 1 Kings 18, Baal worship is at it’s height, with full support of the King Ahab…

But Elijah shows up on the scene with a word from the Lord and a challenge for the people…

There will not be rain or dew except at my word…

In other words, the very thing that Baal is supposed to control, I’m shutting down just to show you which God is God.

Then Elijah waits… He waits until the streams start to dry up… He waits until there’s famine in the land… He waits until water has become a precious commodity, then he gives the priests of Baal a challenge…

If Baal can’t control the rain like he said, at least he may control the fire… If he is indeed the storm God, let’s see him light the sacrifice on fire. Send lightning, send a spark, send something and burn up a sacrifice…

The priests of Baal were known for appealed to their god in rites of wild abandon which included loud, ecstatic cries and self inflicted injury…

On the day they were challenged by Elijah, their behavior is no different…

They shout and cry and cut themselves until they had broken down the altar of sacrifice…

1 Kings 18:28–29 NASB95

28 So they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them. 29 When midday was past, they raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice; but there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.

1 Kings 18:30–32 NASB95

30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord which had been torn down. 31 Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” 32 So with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord…

The first way I want us to pull from Elijah’s preparation for the fire is that the altar had to be repaired…

I. REPAIR THE ALTAR

“He repaired the altar of the Lord which had been torn down…”

- Elijah rebuilt what had been torn down by people trying to manufacture a move of God.

- Some of us need to prepare an altar for something new, but

- Many of you need to repair the places where faith has been broken by disappointment, pride, or manipulation by those who came before trying to manufacture a move of God.

- Revival starts when you build your own altar — a place of surrender, not show.

If you want God to pour out into you until you pour over, you have to repair the altar in your heart that someone else broke…

The second thing that Elijah had to prepare was the trench…

1 Kings 18:32 NASB95

32 …and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold two measures of seed.

II. PREPARE THE TRENCH

“…and he made a trench around the altar…”

1 Kings 18:32b

If I had time, I would talk about the size of the trench… the two measures of seed and the seed Elijah puts in it to reap a harvest of rain…

Because with the same measure you give…

But I don’t have time…

- Elijah dug a trench — a detail no one before him had done.

- He positioned the altar for an unprecedented move.

- In prayer, we must ask for more than “Do it again, Lord” — we must ask Him to do it in ways that break our paradigms.

Do it in ways that upset our religiosity…

Do it in ways that make us uncomfortable…

Do it in ways that outgrows the box in our minds…

- By digging the trench, he was setting the stage for God to do something unprecedented

- Dig the trench: make room for God to pour out in ways that disrupt religion and tradition.

III. PREPARE THE SACRIFICE

1 Kings 18:33–35 NASB95

33 Then he arranged the wood and cut the ox in pieces and laid it on the wood. 34 And he said, “Fill four pitchers with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. 35 The water flowed around the altar and he also filled the trench with water.

If we were going to set the stage for God to move, we would make it as easy as possible for God to show up in the expected way.

Prepare wood & tinder in large clear glass bowl while saying:

Rather than pour water on it, we would want to make sure the wood was dry and there was plenty of tender there to make a quick flame.

Strike Flint at word “Spark”

Ideally, the fat from the bull would be spread on the sticks and rocks so that any little spark would burst into immediate flame. 

Strike Flint at word “little”

Often our "preparation" is not a preparation of us to rely on God, but us trying to set the right "atmosphere" or circumstance for God to move just a little so that something will catch. 

Strike Flint at word “Spark”

We do everything we can to set the stage, but it's not because we are honoring God, it's because we only have faith for a spark when we ask God to answer by fire.

So we prepare for the spark rather than the inferno.

Call Worship Team

Elijah did the opposite — he poured precious water on the altar.

Use 3 pitchers and pour each one as if it is the four pitchers being poured at the command of Elijah onto the prepared wood in bowl:

Do it again (pitcher 2)

Do it again (pitcher 3)

Don’t worry if it overflows, that’s the point and it’s just water. It will dry.

1 Kings 18:34–35 NASB95

34 And he said, “Fill four pitchers with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. 35 The water flowed around the altar and he also filled the trench with water.

This ensured no one could claim it was a trick or hype.

In our pour over nights, I don’t want trick or hype, emotionalism or manufactured experience…

We need what’s real and authentic… We need God to move supernaturally!

True preparation in prayer is not about helping God perform — it’s about removing our trust in our own efforts.

In pour over nights, in prayer and in preparation, we are not trying to manufacture; we are not trying to "help God;" and we are not trying to "create an atmosphere."

Rather, we are posturing ourselves as the sacrifice laid on the altar, separated by a trench from the manufactured experiences that came before, drenched in the water of the Spirit, looking toward heaven, and asking God to send the fire... 

CLOSING CHARGE: Altar Call

- What altar do you need to repair? (What has been torn down in your heart?)

- Where do you need to dig a trench to make room for more? (Where is your memory stronger than your vision?)

- In what areas are you trying to help God rather than allow yourself to be drenched in submission to His Spirit and leading?

Where do I need to get out of the way and let God move?”

- Pray for Pour Over Tonight: “God, don’t let us hype it up — let us be the sacrifice You send fire on.”

We aren’t here to manufacture a move — we’re here to prepare the altar, dig the trench, and lay the sacrifice in faith for His fire and His rain…