Prayer & Spirit (3)

Intro & Recap

Prayer is powerful: Lets pray for a minute

Prayer, My friend Pastor Tony Calvary from southern california has been in the ICU for over a week now and they are not sure he will make it

Yesterday My wife gave me a phone number of a woman who lives in Arizona her husband Tom is in the ICU with COVID and they are not sure he is going to make it. I called her and prayed with her but they are struggling this morning.

Hello REC, Today is the last day of this series that I am simply calling the “family of God. “

This is a series where I wanted you to get to know what I believe about the church and how we will thrive as a community. In actual reality, you wont here a lot of series like this from me. I usually teach through books of the Bible or I like to break down a theological theme.

Next week we begin a brand new series called “Embracing Exile”

So in case you have missed of of these 4 weeks, let me recap with you:

Week 1

The church is the most revolutionary family in the world, with the most revolutionary mission in the world

Two Points here:

1. In the shadow of the cross Jesus forged a whole new family. He told John his disciple, “behold your mother” Because in Jesus Christ, those of us who have no blood relation are now brothers and sisters in Christ. The Church is a whole new family that you are invited into

2. Jesus sent this new family on mission, to bring in more family members, to create communities that replicated the love of the trinity. This is the great commandment. Go teach people what it is like to live in God’s love all over the world…

So CHURCH: YOU ARE A REVOLUTION: You are family with every other church in the world. Also this community here is your family! DIG IN! INVEST IN YOUR COMMUNITY.

Invest in praying for your church family

Invest in giving to your church family

Invest in serving your church family!

Week 2:

The power of the church is remaining in God’s word

Literally God’s spirit wrote the Bible. The Bible is God himself speaking life to humanity

The book of Ezekiel reminds us that we need to eat the word of God and literally become God’s message…Do you spend the time in God’s word…Do you invest your time and life in God’s word so much so that your life is different?

Week 3:

Love is the currency of the church

Love is God’s core character. Love is the reason why God created you. You understand, God doesn’t need us. But we are here because he loves us! and when humanity failed in sin, God sent his only son Jesus to pay the price on your behalf.

Remember what we talked about last week.

Church: love is your currency…Walk around every day with a sense of obligation that you owe love to others!

Spend and be spent for the gospel.

Week 4:

Prayer is the language of the church & the Spirit is the breath of the church.

In the summer of 2003 I was a college student attending a church in, Huntington beach and the pastor that was preaching there did a sermon on the 10 most dangerous prayers that you can pray…I do not remember 9 of the 10.

The only prayer I remember was: “God use me”

For whatever reason I latched on to that prayer and prayed that daily.

I just felt like I wasn’t doing anything with my life…So whenever I thought of it I prayed ”God use me”

I remember my roommate started asking me about what I believed.

I gave him a bible and we read the sermon on the mount together…It was beautiful

I had the chance to share the gospel with many people and just a few weeks after praying that prayer, I was asked if I wanted to work at this little church in Covina....

I kept praying “God use me”

Within two weeks of working here as the skate park director

The pastor took me to Spaghetti Eddies and asked me to teach the bible to a few youth kids…just until they could find someone else...

I remember saying yes, I’ll do it for now, but you have to find someone else...

Oh and by the way…if you start praying God use me…There is an interesting side note on this…God opportunities will start coming your way that you have to say “Yes” to…I mean you prayed God use me and he is trying to use you…But you need to be open

Well that pastor in his wisdom saw that I loved teaching the Bible and he never never found someone else to lead the youth ministry...

And I am just this ordinary guy who way paying , “God use me” and he did.

And soon kids were coming to know Jesus.

Soon we were baptizing kids and we had a full youth worship band and we packed out the youth room with kids

I kept praying “God use me”

I went to Seminary…I met my wife at that church…God laid on our hearts to start an evening worship service for college students…and we did that..

Then my long term pastor, mentor and friend ended up abruptly passing away from a cancer related treatment…That church asked me to consider being their lead pastor...

So I prayed, “God use me”

Little did I know that prayer would change my life....

See when you pray “God, use me” you open yourself up to become an instrument of the lord. You open yourself up to His use and his purposes and not your own will or your own desires.

When you pray “God use me” You are making a declaration before the Lord: that these hands are his.

These feet are his...

This mouth is his tool to reach the world

Because prayer is coming before God and requesting something. It is literally approaching the throne room of the one who created the world and everything in it and begging God for something.

There is this wonderful picture of this prayer “God use me” in the life of Isaiah. flip with me to Isaiah 6.

Isaiah 6:1-8

The New International Version Chapter 6

6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

In an instant Isaiah is transported to the throne room of God and I imagine that his response before God is the same as our would be.

He recognizes in an instant that he is not nearly good enough to be there...

He sees the awe and the splendor of a Holy God...

He says I am a man of unclean lips …and my family is all screwed up just like me...

So God touches him and makes him clean

God removed Isaiah’s excuse

We are like this too aren’t we? We have a thousand reasons why we can not start, a thousand reasons why we can not serve…A thousand reasons why we can’t say, Here I am send me...

But I have found that when you really go to God and confess your stuff, he will remove your excuses. He will give you a new purpose...

And says…Ok Now who should I send? Who will go and give this message?

And Isaiah Says “Here am I. Send me”

Isaiah basically says “God use me”

And when Isaiah becomes open before God to be used by God everything changes for him.

He is used by God to proclaim when the messiah will come

That he will be born of a virgin

that he will be born in Bethlehem from the line of David

Isaiah was used by God to reveal what God’s big plan was for humanity, that a savior would come and make all things new!

Its all because he was before the Lord and he showed an openness too being used by God

I just can’t help but wonder what would come, if this church collectively started praying God use me.

Because I can tell you that God powerfully answers prayer

What if Just 10 of you started praying “God, use me”? what would happen

How many pastors would this church produce?

How many communities would be affected.

How many churches would be planted…if Just a couple of us started praying God use me?

But what if an entire church started praying this? What could happen?

The problem is... many of us treat prayer as if it is a Vegas slot machine…We pray one time…We throw a quarter in the good old Slot Machine of God and we are like dang! I didn’t hit the jackpot. Then we move on…Because the machine didn't pay out

Well this is not what God is like. This is not the character of God at all

Right after Jesus taught about the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11, this is what he said:

Luke 11:5-8

The New International Version (Chapter 11)

 ”5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

So first Jesus teaches the disciples the Lord’s prayer:

Then he gives the disciples this example about asking a friend for bread...

Notice what Jesus tells his disciples. He says the friend does not get up and give you the bread because your friends.

But he will get up and give you bread because of your shameless audacity.

Because you don’t give up and you always go back to

The friend is already in bed and he is like hey…The house is buttoned down for the night…and in these first century homes you are having to step over people and animals...

Jesus says…Keep knocking on your friends door!

Church:

Keep knocking on the door of God

Getting up to open the door was a huge ordeal...

I have often wondered why God wants us to keep knocking…Why doesn't he just answer the first time?

And I think the answer is something around this

The knocking shapes us

The daily knocking at the door of God forms habits within us

The waiting for God to answer breaks the power of hurry in our lives

The knocking on God’s door leads us to ask the question differently…it causes us to examine what we are asking

The daily knocking on the door of God is God’s way of pruning us and shaping us into new kinds of people.

And Jesus says just keep knocking on the door...

The way that Jesus says it

In prayer, be shameless and don’t give up

You should try to annoy God!

Prayer is a request, we live in a world where we request things from each other all the time.

God wants you to continue to request from him

He wants you to continue coming to him with shameless audacity because that is what relationships are.

I love at the end Jesus talking about prayer, Jesus equates prayer to a father and son relationship...

Luke 11:11-13

The New International Version (Chapter 11)

11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Like if your kid is hungry for a fish, would you give him a snake?

No! Because you love your kid!

And you want Good things for your kid...

That is what prayer is...

Prayer is coming regularly to the God of the universe and requesting that his will be done in your life and in your church.

And he is a good father! God actually wants and desires good things for you!

But don’t miss what Jesus says in verse 13

Luke 11:13

13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Did you catch that...

It’s like prayer is the language that God is training us to speak..

God trains the church to keep coming to the door of God and to keep knocking…If you don’t now what to pray, then Pray “GOD USE ME!”

But at the very end of his talk on prayer…Jesus says…You know…Prayer is really just the tool that is used to pour out the spirt of God!

Church!

Church, Prayer is not a gimmick or the next big thing in church, it has been and will always be the only thing.

Prayer is the language of the church & the Spirit is the breath of the church.

They go together!

You can not separate them

Jesus is saying that he is pleased to give the spirit out to all those who ask

Every Sunday that I have been here…It has been my prayer that God would pour his spirit on us and those watching at home. That will always be my prayer

Church…Knock on the door of God…Go to him with shameless audacity and ask that he pour his spirit out in your life!

The Spirit of God in the Hebrew is “Ruach” it means breath or wind…And it is literally God’s breath in our lives

Church we desperately need this and he is please to Give it to us...

The spirit of God is the same spirit that hovered over the waters of creation, it is the same spirit that was leading moses in the wilderness, it is the same spirit that was lead David as King of Israel and it is the same spirit that anointed Jesus in his baptism, the same spirit that fell on the church at pentacost

The Apostle Paul tells the church that you are a revolutionary bunch: He says

1 Corinthians 3:16

The New International Version Chapter 3

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?

It’s as if Paul is saying…don’t you get it?

God dwelt with man in the garden but then there was sin and God and man then separated

Then God dwelt in Israel in the Temple...

But only one guy, one time a year got to go into the presence of God

And now…You…and the you here is plural, he is not talking about a building any more..>He is saying your bodies are temples and God wants to dwell powerfully with each one of you

God wants you to live life with him every day

His spirit is available to you to work through your lives

This is the tangible presence of the Lord. God is please to give you his spirit. His moral character is made available to you.

By his spirit he guides and transforms

By his spirit he makes what is dead, alive again.

1. the most revolutionary family in the world, with the most revolutionary mission in the world

You are the family of God, filled with the spirit of God on the mission of God

And Church

remain in God’s word

Read the word!

And Church people are watching you: Act accordingly:

Love is the currency of the church

Spend and be spent for the gospel

Prayer is the language of the church & the Spirit is the breath of the church.

And church Pray.

Don’t stop knocking on the door of God

Its through prayer that God will pour out his spirit on this place.

It is through a community of people who are praying “God use me” that will transform this community!

Challenge

This morning if you are here and you are hearing what it is I am saying…I want to challenge you to pray “God use me”

With a community that is praying “God use me”…

I believe that the prayer, “God use me” can awaken the sleeping Giant of REC

So I want to give you a couple of opportunities:

1: I am just curious: Just by a show of hands. How many of you need to pray, “God use me”?

Ok: I want to encourage all of you to set an alarm, that goes off every day…8am, 8pm? 6am? whatever works for you and this will help you daily pray God use me:

2. Maybe you need a community to pray with:

We have a prayer team here that meets every Sunday at 9am to pray

They pray for me

They pray for this church

they pray for this country.

They meet at 9am in the family quiet room.

COMMUNION

Matthew 26:26-28

The New International Version Chapter 26

26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.