DON'T CANCEL YOUR APPOINTMENT

Sermon Series: DON'T CANCEL YOUR APPOINTMENT

Sermon: “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW”

Jeremiah 31:1-9

Date: 7 February 2021

INTRODUCTION. BMC Medicine published an article on 11 January 2019,

highlighting a link between missed appointments and the increase of pre-mature

deaths and increased sickness. They state that people with one or more long-term

conditions (cancers, mental illness, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart issues, or

HIV) who fail to attend appointments may be at risk for premature death.”

ABC News health day news by Steven Reinberg built upon this

argument with information from a leading research doctor, Dr. Christopher

B. Forrest, from the department of pediatrics at Children's Hospital of

Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Using Dr Forrest research, 132 patients were polled and surveyed on why

they missed their appointments. 47.5% said, the medical situation resolved itself.

37.3 stated that they did not have time and 26.5% stated that they disagreed with

their doctor’s advice.

To complicate matters for patients who needed referrals, patients who

did not have health insurance were less likely to be referred at all," Forrest

said. "If they were referred, they had more difficulty finding a specialist who

would give them an appointment.

Yet, in the final analysis, Dr. Christopher B. Forrest, that “He agreed that

communication between doctor and patient is key.” I believe that when there is a

conversation between the one who is in need and the one who can provide the

need, you will get to your expected outcome, your expected season, when you

don’t miss your appointment.

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We increase our chances of failure, we prolong our suffering, we make the

wrong decisions, get hooked up with the wrong people, and distort our hope when

we neglect or miss our appointments with God.

Yet, when slip into our secret closet in the morning, find an empty office

in the noon day, or even sit in our car quietly in the evening, you make a

conscious effort to attend your appointments with God.

When you do, you find a heading for your journey, you find hope in your

storm, you find help in your chaos, and you find healing for your soul.

When you keep your appointments with God, you find out that those who

trust in the Lord, and not their own understanding, he will not forsake them that

seek him.

Too keep an appointment with God, to make an appointment with God, and

to attend an appointment with God, you must be in communication with God.

To be in communication with God, you must pray. The definition of

prayer is request for help or expression of thanks to God. Simply put, prayer

is talking to God.

LET’S LEARN FAMILY.

In the Bible, there is one word in the English Bible means prayer, but when

you look into the Greek Bible, the original version, you will find out there are two

words.

Luke 5 Chapter, Peter, an expert fisherman, one of Jesus Disciples, just

came back from a failed and empty night of fishing. In the 3 verse, Jesus got into

the boat and the Bible said that Jesus prayed Peter to push the boat away from the

shore.

EDD-ROH-TAHOE (erotao)to ask, inquire. To ask, with an of person and

also of thing, or other adjunct. When people pray to people and stones and woods

and trinkets, they are asking for something or something to be done. If my

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daughters ask me to for $10 dollars or do I have $10 dollars, or to not take away

their phones, they are using this form or prayer, a simple ask.

This is not the prayer I am talking about. I am talking a prayer to God.

Luke 5:16 states, after the miracle, she withdrew to a lonely place and prayed.

Now, Jesus is praying to His Father.

PRAS-OOH-KA-MY (proseuchomai) to pray to God, to ask God as an act

of worship. It means I recognize my limitations, my fragility, my need, and my

ability of what I cannot change. It is your recognition of your humanity and your

connection to a power greater than yourself.

When I PRAS-OOH-KA-MY //or pray to God//, I know the heavens will

shift, the atmosphere will change, and I know that I will get an answer from

God. The answer might be YES, NO, OR NOT YET. But because I had the

audacity to ask God, to pray to God, I will get the right answer every time.

I am going to keep my appointment with OR I AM going to pray to God.

If we know God and the power of God, then we ought to be in constant

prayer or have a daily prayer life. That’s keeping an appointment.

Yet, I believe in this season, people have missed their appointments and

shifted away from praying to God to being entertain by the devil.

We are too distracted by the problems of the world, kissing the ring of

people to stay in their favor, distracted because of our lack of progress,

distracted by what is not going right, or even depressed by our sickness.

Could it be that we have missed our appointment with God?

Or, because of our lifestyle, we have taken our eye off of God, and focus on

getting millions, focus on getting a husband, focus on living comfortably, taking

vacays and staycations, instead of taking a spoon to fill an empty cup of homeless

child?

Could it be that we have missed our appointment with God?

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Could this be the reason we face so much hardship? Could this be the

reason we have an opioid crisis? A Black Lives Matter Crisis? A healthcare

crisis? A mental illness crisis? An abuse crisis? Or a What God Do You Serve

Crisis?

Could it be that we have missed our appointment with God?

PRAS-OOH-KA-MY (proseuchomai) to pray to God, to ask God as an act

of worship.

Yet, I believe that when you pray to God, God is near and victory will be

won. When you pray, strength comes to your weakness, healing comes to your

sickness, blinded eyes are open. Let me make it plain.

When you pray, I believe God gives you the courage to be a good

husband to your wife; Gives you happiness when you have gone through a

break ups and divorces; Gives you smile after being burden with deaths and

sickness and the stress of co-workers; Prayer works.

As I learned at Pleasant Hill RZUA Church, 4143 Marengo Road, LaCrosse,

Va and in the Home of Shirley and Doris Thomas, I learned and saw and now I can

testify that prayer changes things.

I know it is earlier, but can I get 10-12 witnesses who can declare that

prayer changes things. When I was between a rock and a hard place, I kept

my appointment with God and prayer saved me.

When I was sick and the doctor told me I would not survive, I kept my

appointment with God prayer changed things.

It is when you keep your appointments with God, there will be a change

coming to your life. PRAS-OOH-KA-MY (proseuchomai) or to prayers to God

works.

INTO THE TEXT.

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In this pericope, as Jeremiah puts pen to paper, quill to parchment, Jeremiah

shows us God’s glorious plan to build and to plan his people forevermore.

The previous chapters were filled with uprooting and destruction due to the

faithlessness, their missed appointments with God.

Yet, the weeping prophet, the one who was called before His mother

knew Him, was ordained and appointed by God to offer consolation for this

distressed nation.

Though they were scattered, hitched and hooked in slavery, beat down from

the desert dry winds of oppression, God says I will bring my people to Zion. In that

great gathering the distressed of the earth would not be overlooked.

God says, I am not sending a nation, I am not sending a prophet, I am

not sending a military, but I will be the one do it.

The “blind, the lame, the woman with child” would be included because I

have prescribed my love to cure all tears of the heart. Yes, based on your

diagnosis, I have the cure, and all you have to do is to make your appointment.

II Chronicles states that “if my people, which are called by my name,

shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked

ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their

land.”

There is a prescription in your appointment. You have looked all over. You

have search high and low and could not find anybody who could save you like me,

who could love you like me, who even cares like me. He says, I am God and I

change not.

Don’t miss your appointment.

THERE ARE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRAYERS. Petition/Supplication; Thanks

and Praise; Intercessory Prayers; Consecration Prayers, and Spiritual Warfare.

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The first in this series I want to discuss is Petition. Petitions are personal

prayers of need. Supplication and Petition mean the same.

They are prayers that you personally pray for yourself. Every time you

tell God your issue and how you need healing, direction, or whatever it is, that

is petition. It is asking God FOR what you think..you need for your situation.

I say think, because we think we know what is best for our situation. I have

prayed for somethings and I did not get it.

That does not mean that God does not love me or care for me. It means

that He knows what is best for me.

I was looking for one thing, but God gave me something else that was better

for me than what I could have wanted for myself.

So, we must ask, and God will release what you need because the Bible says,

“for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

INTO THE TEXT. Here it is in Jeremiah 31:9, he states, “They shall come with

weeping,” or come with humble spirit.

POINT (1) | THE CONDITION OF YOUR HEART MUST BE TENDER.

After knowing Who God is and the reservoir of his blessings, the Israelites

were overflowing with a sense of awe, amazement, and humility. Their hearts of

stubbornness begin to turn into a tender heart that beats love again.

After all//they have done, all //they have experience, God was still willing to

listen and to bless them.

The reason some people are the way that they are, boastful, prideful,

can’t give them any advice or help them, is because of the condition of their

heart. They trust themselves above God. The reason people are stuck where

they are is because of the condition of their hearts.

If you keep opening your heart to the wrong things, you will get the wrong

results. Pride, setbacks, and disappointments can cause your heart to be harden.

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But Until you release that prideful spirit, gone into a dimension of

forgiveness, and long for the heart of God, you cannot have restoration or get the

peace you need.

Yet, when you have an open heart for God, you will have full life.

This is the reason you have to guard your heart above everything else.

You cannot give your heart to anyone or any man or any woman. It

determines the course of your life.

So many people have trusted in others, thinking that this person or that

person, this preacher or that preacher, this co-worker or church member will never

hurt me.

Yet, when it happens, you build a wall around your life and tell yourself, I

will not let this happen again. You start saying things like, all I have in this life is

me myself and I.

I understand it because you did not like the place where pain carried

you too. It tossed you, it scared you, it made you feel vulnerable. You were

attacked and violated.

So you build boundaries and walls and developed language of

resistance.

So much so that you have unconsciously, or sometimes consciously

block out God.

When you have been hurt too many times, you develop a form of resistance

and instincts to any help that comes your way and now it seems that your faith has

been stripped away.

Now, you are missing appointments with God.

I know some of you are there right now, but I want you to know that we

serve a patient God.

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Watch this, God has patience to love someone that has never been loved

right before. So God says, I am in reach for you let go of your pain. I am in reach

so that you rest from your struggles.

I am in reach because the only reason you are surviving is because I had

my hand on you. I have prepared your breakthrough.

I have stuck with you when you made the wrong decisions, when you

abandon Me, when you followed your own desires, but when you came to

yourself, God says, I am still there.

I will not cancel your appointment. I will not cancel your insurance. I will

not cancel your prescription. God says, I want you to know that I am still here.

Let go of the pride. Let go of the unforgiveness. Let go of your past

mistakes. Let go of that pain you are holding inside. Can you let go so that make

our appointment? Can you let go to have a new beginning?

Prayer will give you access to what you have been missing and it starts

with changing your heart. You can’t get what you are missing from a job.

You cannot get what you are missing from a person. God says, I am

your provider and when you have a heart FOR God, YOU WALK in authority,

YOU WALK with head lifted; Everything must clear out of the way and you will

find out that what should have taken you out could not come close to you. The

condition of your heart will change your life.

INTO THE TEXT.

Jeremiah now deals with prayers. He says, They shall come with weeping,

and with supplications.”

POINT (2) | THE CONDITION OF YOUR NEEDS MUST OUTWEIGH

YOUR WANTS. Supplications. Asking God. This let’s us know they have

started keeping their appointments with God. They begin to pray. They wanted to

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be out of slavery, but they needed God. They wanted to be whole, but they needed

God. They wanted to be a restored to family, they needed God. It is not matter of

what you want, but it does matter what you need.

Prayer is not just something left to the women in the church. Prayer not

something left for the older generation of the church. Praying is everyone’s

responsibility. From the time they can talk to the time they rest from the

labor unto reward.

It is sad that the average choir rehearsal is attended more than a prayer

meeting.

More people will show up for a Rainbow Tea, a Dedication Ceremony, or an

Anniversary than a prayer meeting. If you don’t believe me set up a prayer line,

set up a prayer meeting and watch how many people show up.

What does this say about our belief in prayer? We gossip and complain

about how things stay the same, but we will not take a step of faith to pray

about it.

We want things to shift in our life, but until we start behaving like what

we believe, nothing will change in your life.

Yet, when you align your prayers to your needs, get ready for a shift in your

life. You have to make space in you so you can let God meet you there. You

cannot be conflicted and divided on where prayer fits in your life. Either it’s a

priority or it is not. Either you believe what prayer can do, or you act churchy

enough on Sunday to fool the people around you.

You can tell whether people have a prayer life or not. Let trouble rise

up in their life and see what they do. Let something don’t go their way and

see what they do.

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If you want to be powerful in the kingdom of God, it takes a conversation

with God. Our life is too important to allow the enemy to control us when God has

put us here for a purpose.

You are carrying the Spirit of the Living God in you so you have enough to

rise to the top and prayer life to God raise everything around us.

ILLUSTRATION.

I have heard people talk about how the tide goes out and if you are patient it

will come back in.

We know this to be the case as science lets us know that the gravitational

pull of the moon is responsible for the changes in the tide.

We hear about high tide and low tide and the tide going in and the tide

going out. I notice that the tide affects everything that is on it. I

t does not matter how big or how small the boats are in the water, if the

tides goes out, all of the boats go down.

Yet, when the tides come back in, all boats will rise.

And your life might have been in a low tide. You wanted a lot of things that

were not good for you. You asked for the pleasures of the world and failed to ask

for God. Where you seemed to be stuck, no one could go out, nothing could come

in.

Yet, when you pray to God about your need, you bring in a high tide. It will

lift everything around you. Your marriage will be better. Your children will be

filled with laughter. Your hurts will turn into hope.

He said, I will turn your weakness into strength. I will fill you with my

power to take authority over your life and tear down strongholds that stopped

you from going forward.

When the high tide comes in, nothing will be able separated you from the

love of God.

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When you prioritize prayer in your life, everything else will rise up.

Get back in position and don’t miss your appointment.

INTO THE TEXT.

Finally, Jeremiah gives us the details and results of their prayer life. Verse

9, “They shall come with weeping (heart), and with supplications (need) will I

lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way,

wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my

firstborn.”

POINT (3) | THE CONDITION OF YOUR DELIVERANCE DEPENDS ON

YOUR DELIVERER.

• This the scene where the Israelites are moving into a place God had prepared

for them.

• They will be freed from the trials of the first Exodus and just like Moses, it

would also be the personal hand of God that will deliver them from it.

• The problem with the Moses Generation is that they wanted to go back

to Egypt because things got tough. Things were hard. They were not

use to life outside of slavery. They had become comfortable with a place

that oppressed them. They have become comfortable with a place that

abused them.

• It took them 40 years to get to a place where they trusted God fully. IT was

not until the Joshua Generation that God allowed them to enter into the

promise land.

• It was not until the faithless was gone and the faithful were enough to get

them through it.

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• You want to go back to what was, but God is planning a place for you//

because of what He declared over your life //it was going to be. So let the

redeemed of the Lord say So.

• God says, I will walk with you through your valleys and I will bring water

into the dry deserts of your life. I will hold your hand and I will not cause

you to stumble.

• What is your decision? Who are you going to believe?

• The prophet raised the question, “Whose report are you going to

believe?”

o If you believe God's Word, which says you are healed, then live

like a person who will not die.

o If you believe the doctor's report that says you are sick, then your

lifestyle we be that of a sick person.

• You must decide once and for all that you are going to believe the report of

the Lord, because circumstances change, but God's Word never changes.

• You have will to rise up and break that generational curse off of your family.

For when you had to go through it, //you realize the decision you made //to

let go and let God, //the decision to keep appointments constant prayer, you//

knew that they will never have to go through //what you went through.

• Because you knew that God was a deliver.

• It is because you kept your appointment with God through prayer. You

detoxed your mind from the lies they told you.

• You reverse the course of your future because you kept your

appointment with your deliverer.

• It was in the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus had an appointment with the

Father. He had a petition, He had a need, He had a humble heart and prayed

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to Him. In the midst of it all, he asked God to remove the impending work

Satan upon his life. Remove this cup from. Yet, Jesus yielded to the will of

God. He said, Not my Will, but Thy Will. Not my Want, but Your Will be

Done.

• He went to God in prayer, but had to go through it. For what God had on the

otherside was better than the suffering he went through. For the Bible said,

he hung bled and died after being crucified. After being whipped with 39

lashes from a cat-o-nine tail. After carrying the cross, He died for your sins

and my sins.

• Yet, He was buried in a borrowed tomb on Friday. But because of

God’s Will. Because He kept an appointment with God. Because God

was His deliverer, the Bible said he got up with all power in his hand.

• He is seated now at the right hand God in all glory, power, and majesty.

• Don’t miss your appointments with God.

According to a 2012 report from the Society of Automotive Engineers, 48 percent of drivers

failed to use a signal to change lanes or turn the signal off when they did. One in four even failed

to use a signal when making a turn. Forty-two percent of the drivers who failed to use a signal

said that they did not have time, and 23 percent of them said that they were too lazy to do it.

Richard Ponziani, the author of the report, said that neglected or improper use of turn signals

cause 2 million car accidents in the U.S. per year

Prayer is not something for seniors or the older people in the church.

Prayer says I am limited. Prayer says that I am no enough handle my situation. Prayer is and admission that you are human. Yet, I balance that with that Prayer is an acknowledgement of who you can trust.

Prayer is not just something left to the women in the church. 99% of prayers, intercessory prayers, etc. are recorded as men in the church. I believe if we get men back in their rightful place as priest of the homes and commit to prayer, we can change our society.

The reason our society is the way it is, partly, because men have forgotten to pray. Men have left their position, left it so, and the women had to carry the torch to keep stability in the homes. Stability in the church. Stability in the world.

Yet, God has called men and women to pray. You relinquish power when you fail to pray. I am not talking about something you learned when you were younger. But, an open communication with God. God will lead us down a path with power. We know that God has a plan for our lives. We know that there is provision for us, so why pray? It is because when you are in tune with God, the plan he has for you will not be wasted. We get excited when God has a plan for us, but we are not prepared for it when it shows up. God had a plan for the Children of Israel. It would have taken them less than a month to possess the promise land. Because they have been out of sync with God, their faith was limited based on what they saw rather than what they believe.

Prayer helps you to take a leap of faith when it all looks bad around you. Prayer focuses you on possibilities of what can and will be rather than living with no hope based on what you see.

Prayer is a function of your relationship with God. I know people say they have their own relationship with God and use it as an excuse to defend their lack of prayer and engagement with the church. No matter where you are at in the life, you are recipient of that person’s prayer life. We have to learn how to reconnect with God. The closer we get to God, the more we get an understanding and find comfort in Him when things do not go our way. We get mad at God when things we do not like happen to us and around us. Prophet of ole knew that destruction was coming and they stood as intercessors on behalf of people who loved God with their lips, but their hearts were far from God.

What needs to change? In a world filled with hate, discontent, confusion, and strife? Prayer and understanding. In all thy getting, get an understanding. When you pray in truth, power is released. When you pray in the name of Jesus, a shift will happen either in you or your situation. The conduct of prayer connects us a bottomless well of strength.

INTO LIFE. There are days where I want to give up. There are days where I do not feel like dealing with life. There are days when the struggle I face hits me more than I can dodge, bob, and weave. It is amazing that I while I am broken, I am disappointed, I am frustrated, sick, and even unhappy, prayer transports my needs to the throne room of God and he releases his sustaining power that prepares me for my winning season.

WORDS OF PRAYER. I would walk into my grandmother’s room when I was younger and I would see my grandmother in a prayer posture, knees bent, head bowed, hands clasp together praying to God. It is an image that is forever burned in my memory. I don’t know what she was saying, but since I am still here, I knew what she said had to be powerful. We get in to debate on who can and cannot pray. We have our own criteria and measurement based on the vocabulary, intonation, scriptures, and

Our actions reveal our belief(s) about a thing. If I believe that working out will benefit me, then I’ll make time to do it. If I believe that eating right will help me live longer, then I’ll do it. We make time and priortize what benefits us more than expressing our love to one we are in relation to. Are too in touch with our own want instead of in touch with the one who can deliver my needs.

PETITIONS. Sometimes when we ask God for something, we sometimes get it and sometimes we don’t. If you don’t get what you think you need, God has something better for you. For the Bible says, He knows my need even before I ask for it. God has prepared your breakthrough even before you ask for what you think you need to get through it. Too many people give up on God because of the past relationships they have been in. He was in church, but he beat me up. She was in church, but she cheated on me. We judge God based on what we went through rather than what He has walked through us with. God stuck with you when you made the wrong decisions, when you abandon him, when you followed your own desires, but when you came to yourself, God as still there. When you ask God for something, it ought to be with what is needed. It is a personal request.