A Different Kind of Prayer

Kingdom Authority For Everyday Miracles

Recap: Butchers to Lambs

All are priests

Participate through service and death to self.

Different Kind of sacrifice, a living sacrifice.

“Medieval Christians believed that the church was part of a celestial hierarchy where everything in the heavens and earth had its place in a great chain of being. The great chain begins with God, then archangels, and angels; this heavenly hierarchy finds its earthly parallel through the sacraments, those who are inspired by God to comprehend them, and those initiated by them. God passes his knowledge and grace down the chain to the angels, who in turn invest this information in the sacraments, and those who administer the sacraments (priests), who then give them to the laity. Salvation chiefly comes through the sacraments and the priests who administer them, and the priests are a unique class of individual who have been gifted by God to contemplate the things of God. They are of a higher order than ordinary people who have no capacity for such sublime truth. This view of a hierarchy prevailed in the church through the middle ages until the 16th century Protestant Reformation. Luther challenged this prevailing notion because he rejected the church’s claims; he believed the church rested its idea of the unique priestly class on tradition rather than the authority of Scripture. Luther instead believed that offering the sacrifice of the mass did not make one a priest but rather anyone who had faith in Christ, our great high priest, was indeed a priest of God. In Luther’s typical pithy manner, he claimed: “Faith alone is the true priestly office.” Luther’s idea of the priesthood of all believers versus the priesthood of only a select few rests in the priestly office of Christ and in the believer’s blessing to share in all that Christ is through union with him.”

We all have special places as people called to be the means of grace to the world.

Like serving communion last week....but your whole life is meant to be serving as priests mediating between God and creation.

Like Romans 12 says

New Living Translation Chapter 12

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

We talked about the different roles of priests, to understand what peter meant when he called us a kingdom of Priests.

Today we are talking about Priests interceding on our behalf.

King Hezekiah and The Temple

2Chron Ch 29:

Hezekiah comes to power after a bunch of bad kings, ending with Ahaz closing the temple:

In this way, he followed the detestable practices of the pagan nations the Lord had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites. 4 He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the pagan shrines and on the hills and under every green tree.

Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015), 2 Ch 28:3–4.

Civil War with the northern tribes.

Ahaz closes the temple after he asks Assyria for help to defeat the northern tribes....Tiglath Pileser comes, takes stuff from the temple the palace and the royals as tribute....he offers sacrifices to the Gods of Damascus because he lost to them....and to get under the good graces of Tiglath.

New Living Translation Chapter 28

22 Even during this time of trouble, King Ahaz continued to reject the LORD. 23 He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus who had defeated him, for he said, “Since these gods helped the kings of Aram, they will help me, too, if I sacrifice to them.” But instead, they led to his ruin and the ruin of all Judah.

24 The king took the various articles from the Temple of God and broke them into pieces. He shut the doors of the LORD’s Temple so that no one could worship there, and he set up altars to pagan gods in every corner of Jerusalem. 25 He made pagan shrines in all the towns of Judah for offering sacrifices to other gods. In this way, he aroused the anger of the LORD, the God of his ancestors.

Then Hezekiah is born and becomes King at age 25

But he was a good king.

Reopens the temple and repaired them.

purifies the temple and the Levites.

Took 16 days to clear out all the objects that didn’t belong in the temple.

We have been talking about the church as the Temple and we the people as the priests in the new Kingdom of Jesus.

But in a lot of ways we’re just like the temple and the levites.

we as Jesus people, the church don’t look like the dwelling place of God. The whole church is full of idols that we have built to try to replace God and find power in this world.

idolatry is always about power.

-control

-self

-politics

-money

-safety

-conservation

-Vision

-Abuse

-Authority

It would take a long time to clean out our church

some of your lives are in the same shape:

--Sex

-Autonomy

-Individualism

-Money

-politics

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But I love this story, because after a long line of terrible kings, it just takes one to transform Judah into God’s people.

Thats the way it is with families and people too.

Generational sin transformed by one righteous. (Fraziers)

Some of you are bucking generations of sin, of abuse, or philandering, or poverty, or drugs, or alcohol, or unemployment, or abusive mouths, terrible marriages, divorce.

-You said, I want something different and you took a different path. You have to imagine the pressure Hezekiah felt.

Same with People. It only takes one decision to take your life and be transformed. You say, I am not going to go that path anymore. I am going to choose marriage counseling, I am going to choose recovery, I am going to choose therapy, I am going to choose community, I am going to choose walking with God today.....and it transforms the trajectory of your life.

With one fell swoop hezekiah transforms a generation of Jews.

-they cleanse the temple

-they offer the offerings required to purify them for service in the temple

-They offer a sacrifice for the sins of Israel (inclusive of N and S)

-They offer a huge sacrifice (so many that all the levites have to help prepare the meat.

And they weren’t clean enough to enter into worship but Hezekiah does something powerful:

New Living Translation Chapter 30

17 Since many of the people had not purified themselves, the Levites had to slaughter their Passover lamb for them, to set them apart for the LORD. 18 Most of those who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not purified themselves. But King Hezekiah prayed for them, and they were allowed to eat the Passover meal anyway, even though this was contrary to the requirements of the Law. For Hezekiah said, “May the LORD, who is good, pardon those 19 who decide to follow the LORD, the God of their ancestors, even though they are not properly cleansed for the ceremony.” 20 And the LORD listened to Hezekiah’s prayer and healed the people.

Grace.

Hezekiah prays for God’s grace instead of God’s judgment, instead of the law. Some of you have been living in God’s judgment and you need GOd’s grace.

you start by receiving it…showing up on Sundays and remembering that although you are a mess, Jesus took on the cost of all our sin, as a sin offering, as a blood sacrifice, as a scape goat for our sin.

Then you give it away to a world hoping there is grace.

-Cancel culture

-Judgment

-self-righteousness

-virtue signaling

The priests lead the people in worship by mediating between the people and God through prayer and worship.

We do the same thing as God’s people. We pray for people and we say, God this person is no where near you. They are so far that they shouldn’t even come into your presence..so because we ahve been cleansed by the blood of Jesus, we enter in for them and intercede on their behalf.

New Living Translation Chapter 29

27 Then Hezekiah ordered that the burnt offering be placed on the altar. As the burnt offering was presented, songs of praise to the LORD were begun, accompanied by the trumpets and other instruments of David, the former king of Israel. 28 The entire assembly worshiped the LORD as the singers sang and the trumpets blew, until all the burnt offerings were finished. 29 Then the king and everyone with him bowed down in worship. 30 King Hezekiah and the officials ordered the Levites to praise the LORD with the psalms written by David and by Asaph the seer. So they offered joyous praise and bowed down in worship.

sang psalms, bowed down in worship: right posture....and God shows up in a big way.

they celebrate passover all together in Jerusalem. It was such an amazing time that they stayed another 7 days. an extra week of passover because they were so hungry for God’s presence.

This is the world we live in. desperate for the real thing of God’s presence. And just like the priests who were consecrated by the offerings and prayers of Hezekiah became conduits to God’s blessing and incredible true worship of repentance and praise....

That is what happens to this Royal Priesthood of all believers when we join God’s family.

We consecrate our lives through Grace and community: Participation with God in the death of Jesus.....

But one of our most important roles is to intercede for one another, for the world.

New Living Translation (Chapter 30)

25 The entire assembly of Judah rejoiced, including the priests, the Levites, all who came from the land of Israel, the foreigners who came to the festival, and all those who lived in Judah. 26 There was great joy in the city, for Jerusalem had not seen a celebration like this one since the days of Solomon, King David’s son. 27 Then the priests and Levites stood and blessed the people, and God heard their prayer from his holy dwelling in heaven.

Then we give grace away to the world around us by going between the world and God.

That is: we pray and we consecrate our community through our faithful presence and God creates Holy places and Holy People that bring a temple experience to everyday life.

STORY: praying with preschool teachers

-We give blessing away by praying and encouraging

STORY: Friends kid that I’ve prayed for for years comes to Wyldlife

-We pray people into God’s kingdom, before they even have a desire for it.

STORY: Praying for healing and laying hands on unbelievers

-Is this weird, can I pray and lay hands on your body and ask God to heal you?

STORY: Becca and her neighborhood

-We pray for the long haul and we act on it.

It’s not just about holiness....it is about power.

Great commission: ALl power has been given to me....so I send you

Acts 2 ---you will have power when the holy spirit comes upon you.

Galatians 3:14 NLT

Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.

Revelation 5:10 NLT

And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth.”

Matthew 18:20 NLT

For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”

You and me....we are mediators, conduits of God’s power, grace, and presence in the world.

So when are we going to start taking seriously our work and calling as God’s priests?

When are we going to let the flood of God’s presence loose in the world as His Imago: Representatives (statues), its why we get rid of idols

When are we going to be a blessing force in the world?

-It requires our identity to be formed as priests,

-why we learn the way of Jesus

-take serious real spiritual authority

It starts with repentance

Then it moves to prayer

Then celebration

-we’re going to do it now.

-preparation for communion: prayer of repentance

-recognize the idols

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