Stand in the Gap for the Church

Introduction

-(Numbers 14)

-In one of his books, Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, talks about how his daughter ran from God for a long time. Chrissy rebelled against God and her family, and was living as far away from the faith as she could. But one night, this teenager awoke with the distinct feeling that someone was praying for her. And someone was. The entire congregation of the Brooklyn Tabernacle was interceding to God on her behalf. During their weekly prayer meeting a member had suggested that everyone intercede for Chrissy. They spent the night crying out to God on her behalf, and two days later she came home. The first question she had for her startled father was, “Who was praying for me?” She begged forgiveness and recommitted her life to Christ.

-When someone strays from God and rebels against God and does not do right before God, they face the opposition of God and possibly the judgment of God. They could remain in their errant ways unless a person of God rises up to stand in the gap between God and the rebel to intercede on their behalf. But what if it is not merely an individual that is straying from God, rather it is an entire group of God’s own people that are not living for God, believing on God, or obeying God? Then that group also needs someone to stand in the gap and intercede on their behalf.

-The church of Christ in this world can be a glorious thing. It is the bride of Christ. It is the body of Christ. It is Christ’s unique people and possession. But the local assemblies of the church of God can go astray, live in rebellion and opposition to its bridegroom, and there can be grave consequences for that. Just consider the letters to the churches of revelation. Five out of the seven churches were not doing right, and they were threatened with their own extinction—their lamp would be snuffed out—due to their disobedience. If Christ did not spare the local assemblies that were soon planted after His death and resurrection, what makes you think that He will suffer long with rebellious churches 2000 years later? He won’t. And that is why they need someone, they need the people, to stand in the gap and intercede. Yes, even us at Harvest Baptist Church.

-To give you some context for the passage that we are studying today, God led His people Israel out of slavery from Egypt. He met with them at the mountain and established them as a nation, giving them a law that was reflective of His character. After getting them established and ready, God led them to the edge of the land that was promised to their forefathers. In preparation for their invasion, Moses sent 12 spies to check out the land and give a strategic report. When they returned 40 days later, the spies confirmed it was a good land, but 10 of the 12 spies described the people of the land in such a way that it discouraged the people from obeying God in taking over the land. The people heeded the words of these rebellious spies instead of heeding God’s words and joined them in their rebellion, refusing to go forward and take the land God has promised. Because of their disobedience, God would have destroyed them had not Moses stood in the gap and interceded in prayer on their behalf.

-And what we learn from this is that when the church is not living for the Lord that saved them, it needs its people to rise up, stand in the gap, and intercede on its behalf. Can we say that God is happy with the church in its present form? Is God happy with us? Will there be some who rise up and stand in the gap and intercede in prayer for it? Let’s look at the way Moses interceded for the people of God:

Numbers 14:11–20 ESV

11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” 13 But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, 14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, 16 ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ 17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, 18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ 19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.” 20 Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word.

-Let’s consider some facts about standing in the gap through interceding prayer for the people of God:

1) The need for intercession

-While it would be accurate to say that anybody and everybody has need for intercession, how much more do the people of God who have strayed from their God and are not living a walk of obedience that they are called to. Israel disobeyed, and the church made up of saved sinners also has periods of disobedience and straying. There are some specific forms of disobedience that are highlighted in our passage that were not only true of Israel, but can be true of the church as well.

a) Disrespect

-In v. 11 God asks HOW LONG WILL THIS PEOPLE DESPISE ME? The word for DESPISE has the connotation of holding someone or something in contempt. To reduce their significance in some way.

-God’s own people treated God as if He were some light thing—some mere afterthought. While they sat on the throne of the center of their own universe, God is set to the side like some sort of pet or plaything that can be pulled out at their own whim for their own usage and entertainment. This attitude is nothing short of utter disrespect and disregard for the person of God.

-Now, if you are familiar with the story of the Exodus from Egypt and God getting them to this point of entering the Promised Land, you see a habitual pattern of disrespect and disregard of God. They are happy and fine doing their own thing while things are going great, but when adversity comes they start grumbling and complaining against God. When things are going good, they take the credit themselves. When things are not going good, they are quick to put the blame on God or his ministers, as the Israelites did with Moses.

-This betrays an attitude reducing God to a mere servant of the wants and whims of the people. This betrays an attitude of reducing God to a genie who is there to cater to people’s every desire. As long as God does for me what I think He ought to do for me, then I will throw Him a bone. But the second that God does or allows something that I don’t like, of if I don’t think my ego is getting stroked enough, or if I’m not getting the attention that I think I deserve, then I’m going to throw a temper tantrum and make sure God and everybody else knows how mean God is.

-It would be easy to pass this attitude and theology off on the pastors and churches that we accuse of tickling the ears of the public, preaching nothing but positive pop psychology and personal possessive prosperity. And you know what, they are in the wrong and they do need for us to intercede on their behalf so that they would hear and believe and live the whole counsel of God. And honestly, if we would spend more time praying for those churches than we do complaining about them on social media we might see them change and get right.

-But they are not the only ones who so disrespect God. We conservative, Bible-believing, right theology churches do the same thing when all we think is that God and the church and the ministers exist for are to meet our needs and to make us feel good about ourselves. When we get offended because we didn’t get the attention that we think we are owed we are putting on full display our attitude that we are what life is all about, and God exists for me rather than the right way around WE EXIST FOR GOD. How disrespectful we have been, and we need to stand in the gap for ourselves and our church. But that’s not the only need, because there is also the sin of:

b) Unbelief

-God asks another question in v. 11: HOW LONG WILL THEY NOT BELIEVE IN ME, IN SPITE OF ALL THE SIGNS THAT I HAVE DONE AMONG THEM? That is a fair question. The Israelites saw God bring Egypt to its knees and destroy its army, and Egypt was probably the biggest powerhouse of the time. They saw God provide and lead and even heard His voice. And yet, when they are brought to the brink of what should have been their greatest victory, they begin to whine and complain and they don’t believe God can help them. Oh no, there’s giants in the land. Oh no, we’re nothing but grasshoppers in their sight. There’s no way we can beat them. God brought us here to die. {Seriously, did they really think God would have led them all that way, given them the law, invested in them as a people, just to bring them to destruction? But that’s the mindset of unbelief.}

-Unbelief causes you to think wrong thoughts about God. We begin to focus in on ourselves and our circumstances rather than focusing in on the God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere-present. And when we make ourselves and our problems to be giants, the smaller God gets in our eyes. We might could say that unbelief like this is the ultimate disrespect that we can show toward God. Because by our unbelief we are saying that God is not trustworthy, that God is not faithful, that God is not good. We’re saying that God is not really God.

-Imagine this—imagine that the person that you are closest to comes right out and tells you: You know what? I don’t think you’re faithful. I don’t think you’re trustworthy. I don’t think you’re good. I don’t think very highly of you. I think you’re a liar and a cheat and a fraud. That would skewer us. We would be hurt and angry.

-We might not say those words out loud, but our heart and our attitude and our actions speak volumes that this is exactly what we think about God when we do not believe Him or His Word. When we would rather let fear and anxiety make our decisions for us rather than obeying God, there lies a disconnect between our profession of faith and our living the faith. And we don’t only do it as individuals, we do it as a church when we allow the world, the flesh, and the devil to dictate what we will and will not do.

-There is a great need for intercession for our churches; but now I want us to look at:

2) The content of intercession

-So, in v. 11 God lays out the charges, then in v. 12 God hands down the verdict. He will judge this people who disrespect Him and don’t believe Him. God says that He is going to wipe out the Israelites and begin with a whole new group of people from the descendants of Moses. If you think about it, Moses was a descendant of Abraham so technically God could have done this and kept His covenant with Abraham. But Moses steps in to intercede for this people.

-Now, mind you, Moses was about as fed up with these people as God was. He could have easily have let God do it because they more than deserved it. But God had been developing Moses as a leader, and here we find him taking responsibility and ownership of these people, and he prayed to God on their behalf. There are just a few points within his intercessory prayer I want to note as they are good points for us to consider in our own intercessory prayers for the church. First, we base our prayers on:

a) God’s reputation

-Moses begins his intercession by praying that God would do amongst the people that which would give God the most fame and glory. By showing mercy to the people God’s reputation would flourish not only in the midst of the congregation of Israel, but also among the unbelieving nations. What would give God the most glory was sparing the people and bringing them into the Promised Land.

-Now, Moses kind of comes at an angle that is more negative. He says that if God destroyed Israel, the nations would say that it was because God wasn’t powerful enough to actually bring them into the Promised Land. But that has the same effect as the positive side of things—if the Lord spares the people and brings them into the Promised Land, then God’s name would be revered throughout the world. Moses appealed to God’s reputation.

-And that’s a great place to intercede for the church—that the church would repent and be revived and empowered so that the name and fame of Jesus Christ is known throughout the community and all around the world because of the work that God has done in their midst. This is what we want as a church and what we want for every church and ought to be a constant prayer on behalf of the church—make Christ known through His bride/body/church.

-And as we pray that, we have to really check our motivations. We need to do a real hard heart and gut check, asking ourselves that as we pray along these lines, is it really Christ’s reputation that we are concerned about, or is it our own. When we pray what we pray and do what we do, is it for the name of Christ or is it for the name of Harvest Baptist Church or is it for our own name? We might pray for the church, but we’re praying for the church’s reputation so that it enhances our own reputation as members of that church, and then we can go around and brag WELL, I’M A MEMBER OF SUCH AND SUCH A CHURCH, DON”T YOU THINK I’M SPECIAL BECAUSE OF THAT? God help us if we ever think that way.

-We can’t trust our motivations because our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. I have to check my motivations with any decision I make because I might be self-serving and not even know. And so we want to pray that we don’t want anything else for ourselves or the church than that the reputation of Christ be put on full display, and if you are going to intercede for our church or any church, that is part of what you pray. But I also want you to notice that Moses prayed according to:

b) God’s character

-In v. 17 Moses prays that the power of God would be great in the midst of His people, and the power that Moses prays for is according to the character of God that God Himself revealed. You notice that for Moses at this time he based this prayer on the facts given in v. 18: that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and forgives and is just. What Moses quotes in v. 18 is something that God revealed to Moses back in Exodus 34:6-7.

-Moses prays that based on the revealed character of God that God would be merciful and forgiving toward His people and would work in their midst and continue with them on the journey in spite of their sin, in spite of their bad attitudes, in spite of their unbelief, in spite of the way that they disrespected Him, because they are still His people and He is still their God.

-And we want God to work in power in the church based on these same character traits that God revealed, especially now through Jesus Christ. God is a merciful God and He is a loving God and He is faithful to His covenants and we want Him to work that way amongst His church. Yes, God is just. Yes, God by no means clears the guilty. Yes, God visits iniquities on people. But He is a God who pardons.

-And according to v. 20 God did pardon because of who He is and He has the character that He has. That doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be consequences for sin—Israel ended up wandering for 40 years and the generation that did not believe died in the wilderness, not entering the Promised Land. But the next generation of Israelites obeyed and entered in. And they were doing that because Moses appealed to God’s character, and God answered the prayer and worked in power among them. Our God is a merciful God, so let us approach Him in light of that.

Conclusion

-And God will pardon His church and will work with power in His church if there are people who would rise up, stand in the gap, and intercede on its behalf. We need a church full of Moses’ who sees the church in trouble and will pray and pray and pray for God to work in their midst according to His great mercy so that His name is made great in the community and around the globe. Are you that person to stand in the gap?

-Rob Chaffart writes about a time when he was a teacher, and there was this 8th grade student who was a real tough guy who nobody like, he had no friends, and he was completely unruly, and was sent to a special school for kids with behavior problems. Somehow Rob had befriended him and the kid said Rob was his best friend. Rob prayed for this student and prayed for this student. Rob stood in the gap and interceded before God on his behalf, and before the school year ended this kid’s behavior changed, his attitude changed, his grades changed—he was a completely new young man. All because someone stood in the gap and prayed to God for him.

-How much more does a church (God’s own people) need someone to stand in the gap. Is that you? Will you come to the altar today and stand in the gap for our church, for the American church, for the Ukrainian church, for the Russian church, and any other church you can think of that needs help. Christian, be one who stands in the gap.

-But maybe you are the one in need of intercession. Come forward today and let me or others pray for you.

-But maybe you are in need of a Savior. Jesus Christ died for you and rose again for you so that you can be saved. And the Bible says that Christ stands in the gap for us.

Hebrews 7:25 (ESV)

25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Romans 8:34 (ESV)

34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

-But you have to believe and be saved...