Prayer (10 of 10 Non-Negotiable Elements of a Healthy Church)

All right, so today we're going to do something a little bit different.

As you can tell, today is very different. I want to be sure as we prepare these services that we don't fall into routine, that we don't fall into traditions that are unnecessary.

I want to be sure that we as a people come and are refreshed, that we can come into the household of faith 10, 20 years from now and we know that, hey, we're going to meet the

Lord there. And it may look different than it did last week, and it may look different than it did a month ago, and it may look different than it did 10 years ago, but it's okay.

Because as you see, Kelly, can you put up our order of service? I want you to see in the corner, we always put this up here,

I've mentioned it before. These are the key elements of what we desire, what we think the

Bible teaches us when we gather for worship on Sunday. We read the word, right?

Which we've already done this morning, amen? We've read the word and we'll continue to read the word here in just a moment.

We also pray the word. That's something we've been doing, we've prayed in front of the church this morning, we pray in a prayer of adoration, acknowledging the truths that we see in scripture about God back to him, and we pray the word.

We preach the word, which is essentially what I'm going to be doing right now, teaching a proclamation of what

God's word is saying. We sing the word, grace on top of grace, that is a biblical truth, amen?

We sing this beautiful, because God has called us and set us apart and he's just pouring grace after grace after grace upon us.

And then lastly, we see the word, and we do that through the ordinances, through baptism, we see the word represented through that, we see it through the

Lord's Supper every single week. And so, as long as these five things, that's five, right, yeah, it's five things, as long as these five things are present, we have gathered as a church to worship, amen?

I know I'm saying that a lot, I want to get some response, I like interaction here. But, this is also the closing of our series that we've been going through.

Over the past nine weeks, we have identified one essential non -negotiable element that will be present within any healthy church after another.

We've been walking through one at a time, and we've seen how each of these, each of them play a strategic role in creating and maintaining a healthy church.

And I'm going to do a brief recap, so bear with me, I just want us to keep this fresh in our minds.

We've seen how expositional preaching teaches and equips us in what God has called us to be and to do, right?

We have to have teaching, we have to have that expositional preaching as a habit, as a continual in our lives to be drawn back to God's word, to see what

God's word says. We've seen how gospel doctrine and gospel culture shows us that we are actually living out what

God's called us to be and to do. It's not just in word, but it's also in deed.

And if we have the gospel truth and we have gospel culture that's playing out in our lives, that that expositional preaching is pointing you to truth that's applying in your life.

And then we saw from Pastor Jeremiah, biblical theology, and that was extremely helpful in showing us that we are applying those truths properly, that everything leads back to Christ.

This is God's grand plan of redemption in his word. And if all roads lead to Rome, all passages lead to Christ at some level, and we see scripture through the lens of that.

We see a proper view of conversion, and this proper view of conversion, it helps restrain us from unbiblical man -made ministry philosophies, such as pragmatism and things that God has not called us to do as a church.

Then we led into evangelism, and this always flows out of a proper practice of the previous four, doesn't it?

If expositional preaching is a diet in your life just constantly as a church, and you have a good view of the gospel and you're living it out, and then you have this biblical theology that you see scripture through, you can't help but evangelize.

Like that just pours out of you. It always leads to this, and a healthy church will always have a fervent desire for evangelism.

We talked about church membership. Now church membership is less of a country club and more of a unified body, right?

It's less of a sporting club or some other club that you might join, pay your dues, and be a part of, and it's more of a family, which led us into church discipline.

Church discipline, that was a hard one, wasn't it? But we saw how it's such a beautiful and biblical protection for all of us.

If a church doesn't practice church discipline, they're leaving the church and its people in harm's way.

Because if we're a body, then what does a body do when a virus hits, when a disease hits it?

When something comes to harm that body, it deals with it, doesn't it? Or that body will die.

And so just like with the church, church discipline is such a beautiful part of God's prescribed means for the church.

Then Brother Keith talked to us about church leadership and how church leadership is very specific and God -ordained.

God has structured it very specifically for very unique and specific purposes.

And then last week, we saw discipleship. I like how

Pastor Jeremiah kept putting it, deep discipleship, real discipleship. And we saw how it is both making disciples of all nations, but then teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded us to do, and how it is best applied within the context of the local church.

So we've seen all of these nine very methodically as we've walked through each one of them.

However, without this tenth and final element that we're going to talk about and practice today, those other nine are just organizational structures.

They're just good practices and accurate information. I can tell some of you are like, whoa, wait a second, what do you mean?

Those are great truths. They are. But without this last one, there's not much to them.

If all of those other nine make up, let's say a steam train, say we have a steam train right here.

It's engineered well. It's put together well. All the pieces fit. All the parts are exactly the way that the engineer prescribed it to be.

And it makes up this local church's steam train, then this last element would be the coal that fuels this giant powerful machine.

And we, the people that are a part of it, have a responsibility to feed and fan the flames of that coal.

Without it, this steam train would sit idle and go nowhere. All it's perfect, tidy, engineered structure would be nothing more than a giant paperweight.

We can get all the leadership right. We can have all the doctrine right. We can have all the structures right.

We can carry out church discipline properly. We can preach expositionally. We can do all the things meticulously and perfectly.

And they go nowhere without this last and tenth element.

Because this last one is the very means that God has prescribed for fueling the work that he's preordained and sovereignly called us to.

The work of bringing about his kingdom here on earth. And that means is prayer.

Prayer. Without this, all this structure, all this doctrine, it doesn't go anywhere.

Now I can tell you right now that's probably rubbing some of you the wrong way. Here in our circle of the reformed world, we think of preaching as the preeminent thing.

And it is. Preaching is of utter importance. And without it, you're unhealthy.

You have to have preaching of the word. We've already covered that. But we think of it sometimes to the point where we take prayer and we relegate it to the back seat.

It's like, okay, I'm going to pray. I know that prayer is important. Let's pray for five minutes and then preach for an hour.

You see how we value it? Pray for five minutes, preach for an hour. That's not how the apostles saw it.

I can't help but think back in Acts 6. If you're familiar with that passage, we've mentioned it in one of the sermons recently.

But there at the beginning of the church, there's an issue with the Hellenistic Jews not being cared for properly.

And the apostles are running around trying to care for everyone as best they can, all the needs that need to be met.

And they're running around and they're wasting so much time that the apostles decide to appoint what we consider to be the first deacons.

So that those men could go and serve the tables, could help with the needs, the physical needs of the body.

And then in verse 4 of chapter 6, there's a purpose. So that they, who the apostles, could devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

You see how they put those two together? To prayer and the ministry of the word. That's how important the apostles saw this.

And they didn't just arbitrarily come up with that and say, you know what, we don't want to do all the other things, we're gonna, we just want to pray and read the word, and teach the word.

Read the word and teach the word. They didn't come up with that. This is, this was taught to them, isn't it, by Jesus himself.

Jesus spent as much or more time praying than he did preaching. Jesus. You would think he's like, hey,

I've had eternity with the father, and I have perfect unity with him. I can just preach while I'm here on earth, but he doesn't.

What does he do? He spends such a vast majority of his time going and communing with the father in prayer.

Partly as an example for us. As an example for the apostles.

And so the apostles took this serious. They were like, listen, it's not right for us to go and fix the widow's roof.

We need to be praying and reading the word and teaching the word. Like that's what we're called to.

This is of utmost importance, because this is what Jesus did. And they saw this in him, so much so that his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, didn't he?

They come to him and they're like, teach us. They see that prayer in him.

They're like, teach us how to do that. And we have seen that just a few months ago. If you were with us, we just recently went through the

Sermon on the Mount where we came to the section of the Lord's Prayer where he is teaching us how to pray.

And if you weren't here during that time, I encourage you to go back. I just went back this week to remember how many sermons we preached.

We preached six sermons on prayer during the Sermon on the Mount. So if you want to hear those, how to pray, go back and take a look at those.

And you can listen to those. But because we've just recently covered how to pray, we're not going to be talking about how to pray today.

I don't think that's necessary for us. We've already covered that as a church. Today, I would like for us to see the importance that the early church put on corporate prayer.

I want to see how important prayer is to the saints at the very onset of the church from the apostle's example and then carried on through that.

I'm reminded, as a matter of fact, go ahead and open your copy of God's Word to Acts 2. Acts 2, starting in verse 41.

But I'm reminded of, you know, we're using the Nine Marks Ministry books, which, by the way, are back there, all on a table.

If you want to go back and look at those after the service, you can, which ones you want to dive in a little bit deeper in.

But the guy that runs that ministry, Mark Dever, he's a pastor, he made a comment. I'm going to paraphrase it for you, but he made the comment that we, as a church, should pray so much in our service that it makes unbelievers uncomfortable.

I was like, that's an interesting observation. So much, but the church today doesn't like to do that, do we?

We're like, well, what if guests come in? They're not going to want to pray for 30 minutes, you know? But that's his point, that this is what the church has done.

So Acts 2, starting in verse 41, what's led up to this is now the beginning of the church, the saints have gone and they're gathered to pray, waiting on the

Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit has come down upon the people, and a great movement of God is working in their hearts and souls.

They're speaking in tongues that others around them understand, other languages, so the gospel can go forward.

And then Peter stands up and preaches this famous sermon at Pentecost. And as he finishes this sermon, starting in verse 41, it says, so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls.

Wow, 3 ,000 souls added to the church, added to the church at Jerusalem.

And what did those souls do? Look at verse 42, it says, and they devoted themselves.

If you write in your Bible or underline that word devoted, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

Oh, we love that one, don't we? We're like, yes, preaching. They devoted themselves to teaching, teaching, teaching.

And it goes on. And the fellowship, they devoted themselves to fellowship. They devoted themselves to be together, and to not just sit around and talk about the game from the previous day.

No, real fellowship, real community, real communion. Says, to the breaking of bread,

I think this can apply to setting down and having lunch together, because the early church did that.

Remember, I mentioned a few weeks ago, or maybe last week, they had every single week, the church had what they called the love feast, and where they'd sit and eat, just like we do.

Our Koinonia feast is the exact same thing. But I think what he's mentioning here is, I think he's mentioning the ordinance of the

Lord's Supper, because we have the apostles teaching, we have the fellowship, we have the

Lord's Supper being taken. They devoted themselves to this. And then there's a fourth here, into the prayers.

They devoted themselves to the prayers. All four of these are communal.

He didn't just mention three things that you do community -wise, and then throws in a fourth private thing.

He's talking about what the church does when they gather. And I want you to see also what happened as a result of this, because the church, in verse 42, devoted themselves to teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread, and the prayers.

Look at verse 43. It says, and all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings, and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together, and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising

God and having favor with all people. And the Lord added their number day by day, those who were being saved.

Oh, how I long to see God work like that again. Don't you? Do you long for that?

We don't need the signs and wonders anymore, because we have everything we need for life and godliness and God's word.

We have more than the early church had. We have both the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit, and we have all of God's words to his people for life and godliness.

They didn't have that. They were still waiting on some of those letters. And so they needed the signs and wonders.

But we have everything we need. But oh, how we long for the church to act like the church again, to act like the church again.

The early church understood the importance of prayer, both private prayer and corporate prayer.

Corporate prayer is actually mentioned seven times in the book of Acts. This is the account of the early church, right?

Seven times they talk about praying together as a church. We see there in verse 42 that they devoted themselves to it.

I'm not saying to the neglect of the others. Teaching is absolutely essential.

Fellowship, absolutely essential. Breaking of bread and community and the ordinances, absolutely essential.

But so is the prayers together. And today's church has relegated this.

They've relegated it to essentially a corporate time filler, a transitional point in the service.

I know that because I've fallen prey to this in my life. I've been scheduling and planning services for decades now, and there are many times where I'm like, ah, we need the praise team to exit the stage.

Let's put a prayer there. We need to give the pastor time to get up into the pulpit.

Let's put a prayer there. That's our prayer time. See, we prayed. We prayed as a church.

That's corporate prayer, right? And you can use those things. Don't hear me wrong.

You can place them strategically, but it's heart matter. Because I think most of the time prayer for us as a people is used as a last resort.

Let's be honest. How many of you pray more when things get hard?

Right? I'm guilty of it. I can't tell you the weight I felt over the past three weeks about that.

I have felt tremendous conviction on my heart to the point where I can't sleep. Like I wake up in the middle of the night,

I'm like, I need to go pray. I need to pray because things are going well right now. What a better time to pray.

And I'm feeling the weight of that, and I think we should feel the weight of that as a people and as a church. Because whenever we show that when things get hard, that's when we pray, we're using it as a last resort.

Has it come to this? I guess all we can do now is pray. Instead of preempting everything and going, hey, guess what?

All we can do is pray, period. You can make your plans, but God's going to direct your steps and guess how he's going to do it?

By the means that he's prescribed. And one of those means is through prayer, diligent prayer of his saints, calling out to him, coming before him, not only individually, that's absolutely essential, but also corporately.

But let me tell you what corporate prayer struggles from, a lack of private prayer.

This church doesn't pray enough because I don't pray enough. And I'm asking for forgiveness.

I've pleaded with God to forgive me for this, and I'm asking you to forgive me. I don't pray enough.

And because of that, this church doesn't pray enough. And I'm sorry. And I want to do better.

Please pray for me that I would pray more. We need that.

But that's what it's going to take is all of us in our private prayer, longing and knowing the importance of prayer.

We saw that in the Lord's Prayer when we walked through, just seeing how we're to pray and walk through that.

And if you need a remembrance of that, I think it's on the YouTube channel. Go back and find those sermons. Again, there's six of them.

And let's focus our attention, but we need to pray corporately. We don't pray, and then we wonder why we don't see

God moving the way that he did in the early church. 3 ,000 souls were added to the church that day.

3 ,000 souls. God uses means.

God uses prayer to accomplish his purposes. There's a pastor by the name of Mark Jones.

He wrote this. I thought this was very good and very pointed to a congregation like us.

He said, people are functional hyper -Calvinists. I'm going to say that again.

People are functional hyper -Calvinists. They don't really understand that the

God who ordained the ends has also ordained the means to accomplish those ends. Prayer is one of those means.

If we do not ask, we will not receive. Can you feel that in your own heart in life, a functional hyper -Calvinist?

God's got this. God's sovereign. God's going to save who he wants to save.

God's going to do what he wants to do. He's got this covered. I can just sit back and relax and binge watch my television show.

I can avoid seeking him and asking for his will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

I can avoid this. I don't have to intercede. But we see nothing like that in the

New Testament. The early church, they knew that the

God who has ordained the ends ordains the means, and he calls his people to intercede.

He calls his people to pray to him, both individually and corporately.

And so today, I want us to spend some time in prayer as a church. I want us to spend some time praying specifically, if need be.

I'm not putting this on any one individual. I had to place it on myself. But a prayer of repentance for not praying as we ought.

Now you, you may have a fervent prayer life. Praise God. Pray for your other brothers and sisters in here that may be struggling in that area.

I'm not placing this guilt on any one person, but I am placing it on us as a church because we don't pray enough. And I want us to spend time now praying together.

You can group up as a family. You can group up as friends. You can pray alone, however you want to.

Move these seats however you want. And we're going to pray for just a few moments. We're going to intercede for our brothers and sisters.

We're going to pray a prayer of repentance as a church that we would see the need to pray as the early church did and see

God move in mighty ways. And then we'll come back together.

We'll sing. We'll open His word again. And we're going to just continue to repeat this process today until we run out of time.

Does that sound good to y 'all? That sound good? Let me pray for us at first, and then you guys gather.

Gather as you desire, and let us pray. And you pray out loud in your groups.

Pray silently. Whatever you're comfortable with, you pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you this morning, and we ask that you would work in our hearts.

Now, we long to be obedient to you, and we give you lip service so often.

But then the actions of our lives do not match our words, and they are just vain words.

Oh, Father, forgive us. God, forgive us.

Well, we talk about a mighty work here in Jonesboro and northeast Arkansas and the world being done by you, and then we just sit here at times, and we have small prayers.

We have small ask. We have small vision, because we don't see the immensity of your power and how you desire to save the lost and how you desire to work and how your

Holy Spirit moves and you use the means of prayer as we see the early church. God, help us,

Father. Help me. Help the individuals here that may be struggling with praying to you and seeing the great benefit of doing so, interceding and coming to their

Father. God, help us. Help us, Lord.

Lord, bring repentance into our hearts. Bring repentance into this church as a whole that we would be a mighty praying church,

God. Lord, convict us. Help us. Lord, I pray that we would lay aside any laziness or indifference or pragmatism or any of the other things that we think we should do and that we would set our affection and our focus on what you've called us to do to look to you, pray to you, to ask.

We don't see a movement happening because we don't ask. We're your children,

God, and we can come into your throne room and ask anything if it be according to your will.

So, Father, I pray that you help us as a people restore prayer in our lives and as a church in Christ's name.

Welcome together. Pray. Spend a few moments before we come back together and sing. Praise the

Lord. His mercy is more.

Stronger than darkness. New every morn. Our sins, they are many.

His mercy is more. What love could remember.

What is all knowing.

He counts not their sum. Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore.

Mercy is more. Praise the Lord. Mercy is more.

New every morn. Our sins, they are many.

His mercy is more. Patience would wait as we constantly roam.

What Father so tender is calling us home.

He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor.

Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.

Praise the Lord. Mercy is more.

Stronger than darkness. New every morn. Our sins, they are many.

His mercy is more. What riches of kindness.

What riches of kindness He lavished on us.

His blood was the payment. His life was the cost.

We stood neath the debt we could never afford.

Our sins, they are many. But His mercy is more.

Praise the Lord. His mercy is more.

Stronger than darkness. New every morn.

Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.

Praise the Lord. Stronger than darkness.

New every morn. Our sins, they are many.

But His mercy is more. Amen. Amen.

What a beautiful truth. And even though we fail, even though we may not pray as we ought, we don't read our

Bibles as we ought, that we do not praise as we ought to, that we do not serve the

Lord as we ought, even in our frailty and our failure, His mercy is more.

He did not fail. Everything was perfect. He prayed perfectly.

He taught perfectly. He lived perfectly so that we can stand in His righteousness.

What a great truth. And that frees us, doesn't it? That frees us. We don't have to feel the guilt.

We don't have to feel the weight and say, okay, I didn't pray enough. It incites in me a desire to get up tomorrow and go, oh,

Jesus, I want to pray to You because of what You've done for me. And it's no longer begrudgingly or a work or a duty.

It's a desire. That's the key. That's what we mean by gospel -centered.

Look to Christ and let Him give you the desire and His perfection. Amen. Well, you can go ahead and be seated.

Catholic Church this morning, set, stand, set, stand, right? Turn your

Bibles to 1 Timothy 2, 1

Timothy 2. We're going to look at the first two verses there. This is one of what's called the pastoral epistles.

This is Paul writing to his protege, Timothy, talking to him and telling him all the things that need to be present for him, establishing churches and growing mature churches.

And as we get to this section here in chapter 2, verse 1, Paul says, first of all, then

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Now remember, this is a pastoral epistle. That's what Paul's getting at. First of all, then

I urge you that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people. This isn't a corporate thought process.

This is the church as we gather. You know, we desperately want to see change in our culture, don't we?

I feel like every single week, somebody, one of you comes up and tells me of some atrocity that is happening in our culture that can feel overwhelming, and we just want it to change.

We just want things to slow down in their progression towards wickedness.

We want our government to practice righteousness, and so on.

But how often do we as a church pray for that change, as Paul has commanded Timothy to establish in the churches?

Making supplications and prayers and thanksgiving for all people, kings, those in high positions.

I think it's a good opportunity for us, as we're talking about it today, let's quit talking and start doing.

We can talk until we're blue in the face. I could preach you a whole hour sermon on how we should pray for our leaders, and then go on to never pray for our leaders.

Couldn't I? I think a lot of times we do that. Now, I say this, and the caveat here is we get ready to pray for the leaders.

They may not be our leaders. I keep saying our leaders. We're foreigners here. I don't have a president.

I have a king, and his name is Jesus. I just happen to be a sojourner in a land that has a president. Amen? That's the

Christian life. But we can still pray for them for the sake of our neighbors, right? We should pray for them for the sake of our neighbors.

We should be praying for our neighbors. We should be praying for those out in the world, and we should be praying for their salvation.

We should pray that these leaders would rule well. And the only way they can rule well is if they follow

Christ, right? It's the only way they can see righteousness. So we need to pray that God would work in the midst of the president of this country, the senators, the people that are tasked to lead.

We need to pray for our neighbors. We need to pray for those that God brings to your mind that God would work in them, they would rule well, that they would ultimately follow

Christ. So that's what I want us to do right now. I want us to spend some time, again, gather with a different group of people if you want.

Gather as a family again. However you desire to pray together, pray together. But let's pray specifically for the kings and the rulers, those in high places.

Time to practice what we preach, right? Let's do it. Let's just pray.

So I'm going to pray now. As a matter of fact, actually, Pastor Jeremiah, could you come up here and lead us off with a prayer?

I'm not going to keep doing all the praying here. Pastor Jeremiah, if you don't mind, I'm putting him on the spot.

He had no idea what we were doing today, did you? No. And as he prays, then we'll gather together.

Let's spend some time in prayer again before we come back. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time of corporately being able to come together as a body.

And, God, we do want to lift up our country. God, there are so many things that happen in our life that are outside of our control.

But, God, you are sovereign. Your word tells us that we should be submissive to the authorities above us because that you've ordained them to be there.

So, Lord, we pray that you would conform their hearts, God, to Christ.

We do pray for the salvation of our governors, our leaders, people that you have ordained.

Lord, we first pray for their salvation. God, I pray that in light of men and women being saved, that they would choose the way of righteousness, to implement your law in its proper setting, to give you glory in all these things.

So, Lord, we do thank you for being able to allow us to be in a country that is free, to be able to freely preach the gospel, and to be able to gather together to worship you,

God. Like Pastor Nathan said, we are but sojourners. So, Lord, please strengthen us,

God, to just love our neighbors and our governors and authorities and intercede with prayer,

God. Not only in Thanksgiving for the things that you've given us, but, God, we just pray for salvation for those people that you've put around us in our lives.

We pray these things in your name, Jesus. Amen. My God, my

Savior, has ransomed me.

And like a flood, His mercy reigns.

Unending love, amazing grace.

Amazing grace, how that saved me.

Grace that taught my heart to fear. Grace that taught my heart peace.

My fears relieved. Just in that, my chains are gone.

I've been set free.

My God, my Savior, has ransomed me. And like a flood,

His mercy reigns. Amazing grace, how that saved me.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow.

The sun forbear to shine.

But God who called me here below will be forever.

My chains are gone. I've been set free.

My God, my Savior, has ransomed me.

And like a flood, His mercy reigns.

Unending love, amazing grace.

Let's sing that first verse with just our voices out. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now

I'm found. Was blind, but now

I see. And you may be seated.

Well, in Acts 12, King Herod, he kills

James. Puts him to death. Imprisons him and kills him. And he sees how this pleases the religious leaders.

So much so that he thinks, oh man, we can do this again. So he goes and he arrests Peter. He arrests

Peter and, of course, planning to do the same to him. And as we get into verse 6 of chapter 12.

As a matter of fact, you can turn there. I see some of you already turning. Acts chapter 12. As we get into verse 6, it says,

Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and centuries before the door were guarding the prison.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell.

He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, Get up quickly. And the chains fell off his hands.

And the angel said to him, Dress yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him,

Wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out and followed him.

He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.

When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city.

It opened for them on its own accord. And they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him.

When Peter came to himself, he said, Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the

Jewish people were expecting. When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was

Mark, where many were gathered together. Guess what they were doing?

They were praying. These saints were praying. They were no doubt there, gathered through the night praying for Peter, knowing

James has been executed and Peter is next. And so the saints gathered to pray together.

And once again, God uses the prayer of His saints to accomplish His will.

For it wasn't Peter's time, but He used the saints gathering to pray.

And we have brothers and sisters in here that could, some that cannot make it, some that are suffering.

And we have others all over the world right now that are suffering. Persecution that we know nothing of.

They're suffering. And God uses means to pray for them, right?

God uses means for us to come together as a people and intercede for our brothers and sisters.

So I want us to take a moment. Can I get one of the gentlemen in the church that would like to come up here and lead us in that prayer?

We're not going to break into groups and pray on this one at this moment, but I'd like to get one of the men of the church to come up and pray a prayer of intercession for our brothers and sisters all over the world that are suffering right now.

Who's willing? Don, come on up. Let's pray together with Don as he leads us in this prayer for our brothers and sisters all over the world.

Lord, you say that we should pray for our brothers who are in need, although in prison with them, so we do come to you right now.

Destitute, tormented, afflicted people who the world's not worthy of, grant to these a better resurrection, those who stand to the end and endure.

Give them Scripture promises of yourself, Lord. Bring back these memories that sustain them in the darkest hour.

And like you and your first martyr Stephen, may they cry out as they fall asleep in you. Lay not this sin against their charge, for they don't know what they're doing.

And for some of their murders and tortures, like Paul, it will be hard to kick against the goats of Constance, and they themselves will turn and be saved.

Lord, be with the widowers and widows and orphans left behind in martyrdom, and may the church take them up.

And may these see that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy of the glory that should be revealed to them.

That endure to the end. And Lord, where these people are in prison, may they do so much damage to the kingdom of darkness that those in front of the bars for the first time will come under conviction of sin and righteousness and judgment.

So much so that the wicked men and women that run these torture palaces against your elect ones will cry out themselves, saying, we must get these

Christians out of here before even our guards become Christians. And when some of these are released, they won't shrink back.

And they will be released in many places of the world where the fields are white for harvest. And again to other men's labors, they labor not some 30, 60, 100 -fold.

Be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path. As they do this, Lord, to fight the good fight of faith, having finished the course, having kept the faith.

And help us in America to overcome like these that turn the whole world upside down. The first century, who overcame by the blood of the

Lamb, the word of the testimony, and not loving their lives even unto death. Just like it says in Hebrews, who were released through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to the bondage.

Until we all are in your presence in glory forever, from you and through you, and to you all.

Thanks. Amen. Thank you, Don. It's moving.

In Acts 13, this is our last text that we're going to go to before we get ready to go to the

Lord's Supper. In Acts 13, the leaders of the church of Antioch are gathered together.

And while they were worshiping, in verse 2, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the

Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which

I have called them. Then after fasting and prayer, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

This is the pattern of the church. The church fasted and prayed before they made any big decisions.

They waited on the Holy Spirit to prompt them and to move them. We often make decisions and then pray that God would bless our efforts, don't we?

That's not how the church did it. The church knew, Hey, if we want to see something work, if we want to see something move, we've got to pray.

We've got to fast. We have to intercede. We have to wait on the Lord, be still and know that I am

God and wait on Him. That's what we're called to do. It doesn't mean that we don't ever take action.

We take action as we believe the Holy Spirit is prompting us through the means of us praying together.

And we as a church, only being a couple of years old, I say it all the time, we're an infant church.

We are in a dangerous place. We're in a dangerous place as a church.

The enemy can come in and wreak havoc as he pleases at times. And we desperately need guidance.

We're trying to structure things as biblically as we can. I say it all the time. The church and ministry and all of this, we're taking our blueprint, the

Word of God, and we're building a sailboat out of it. It's got a perfect example of how to build a really good sailboat and we're building it.

But guess what? The Holy Spirit's got to be the wind to move it. We can follow the design exactly to the

T and that's what we're seeking to do here. But unless the Holy Spirit moves it, we're dead in the water.

And this ministry, this church, will never produce a thing. Yeah, we'll come in and we'll gather.

We'll go out and live our lives without the Spirit moving. And I think we've already affirmed through some of these other passages the

Spirit moves when His people pray. The God that has ordained the ends ordains the means and He uses

His people to do so. So as a church, we need to be praying for guidance, for opportunities, for wisdom.

We need to pray that God will work in each one of our hearts. Right? So let's spend a few moments praying for our church.

Praying that God would give us that wisdom, that direction. God would allow us to be putting the structures in place properly so that when

His Spirit moves, we're ready. And God does mighty things.

Look at what God did with Paul and Barnabas. And that small church there in Antioch, just sitting there, fasting, praying.

What's next, God? What's next? And God says, oh, guess what? I'm going to change the world by two of those insignificant men sitting in your midst.

Send them out. This is how God works, right?

So let's pray that God would give us a heart of prayer, a heart of intercession, a heart to fast, to serve the

Lord. See, those guys, they're ready to pray. They're back there. They're making a joyful noise to the Lord. Praise God for that.

Hey, I don't know about y 'all, but I am so grateful for the kids in this service, right? It's not,

I love the life that God is bringing in the midst. It's awesome. But we need to pray that God will work in our midst.

Can I get a man to come up and pray, lead us in prayer for that, and then we will break up and pray together as we've been doing.

Adam, here you go. Let's pray together as Adam prays for us, leads us in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today and I stepped up to pray because I am a weak prayer.

My prayer life is not plentiful, but my prayer is boastful, boastful in Christ and what

He's accomplished not only in my life, but the life of my wife and those that expand out from there.

And it's because of 12 .5, the church that you are building here in this community here at Jonesboro, a church that stands on your word.

As we go through this 9 March, Pastor Nathan and Pastor Jeremiah have been a big influence on us and they're only an influence on us because they stand on your word.

They preach your word. They teach your word. They stand on the essentials of a biblical and holy church and we are that way because of you,

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are just so grateful for the work that you're doing here.

I just pray for everybody here at 12 .5 that they are touched by the

Holy Spirit, that they are encouraged and strengthened by your word. We all fail and fall short or else

Paul wouldn't have put it there in Romans 3 that we all fall short of your glory and praise

God. Jesus came, fulfilled the law so that we may have a right standing in you with imputed righteousness, a righteousness that is not of our own.

So, Father, I'm just so grateful because I know the man that I was and I can kind of echo what

Paul sang. I see my sin because you have shown me my sin for what it is and it's what separated me from you.

So, Father, let people here at 12 .5, your children, see sin for how you see it.

That's what separates us from you. So, we have reconciliation because of Jesus Christ and what he accomplished on the cross.

So, Father, I just thank you. I thank you. Words can't express, so let our lives express our gratitude as we go out the rest of this week into this world that we should be light and salt in this world.

Father, give us the strength to do that. Let us not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind according to your word.

So, Father, I just thank you again for the work you're doing here at 12 .5. In Jesus Christ's name, amen.

Thank you, Brother Adam. So, let's take a moment. Let's pray. Let's pray for our church. If you feel led to go pray over a brother or sister, please do so.

If you feel like, I just want to go put my hands on this brother or sister and pray over them,

I've been actually walking around and doing some of that and that's been a blessing to my heart. If you feel led to do that, do that.

Ain't nobody in this room going to be like, that's weird, they're praying over me. Right? We accept that.

But we want to pray for each other but pray that God would work in our lives and work in our church. Let's pray together for a few moments.

Be doers of the word, not hearers only. We're not interested in some superficial show -up -to -church

Christianity, are we? We desire that God would move in our midst.

We want to be a praying people. I encourage you this week, as you go about your day, let's pray without ceasing.

Being constant communion with the Father. Sometimes it's more intentional on your knees and your closet, sometimes it's just in your car, communing with God.

Interceding for each other, praying for God's will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

We desire for God to move in our hearts. Pray for me. Pray that God would incite a desire to pray deeper and deeper and deeper and a fervency to carry it out.

I long to pray more. I know many of you do too. We pray for each other to do so.

See how it's cyclical? We're praying for each other to want to pray more, and we continue on.

I praise God for His work in our hearts. Thank you for bearing with me today. I had a sermon prepared and I thought, nope,

I'm not going to preach that today. I can say all the words, but let's see if we're ready for action.

And I'll be honest with you, when I made that decision last night, my heart was unsettled.

You can ask my wife. I don't think I slept last night. I fought a spiritual battle last night knowing that God uses these means and something didn't want us to do that, and I didn't sleep.

And I spent the night praying back and forth, and so I'm encouraged that God is working in our hearts, right?

Let's prepare now to go to the Lord's Supper, the table, so that we may see the Word, see the sacrifice of our

Savior represented in these elements. So let's pray now for that time.

Lord, I pray that You would be honored in our time of going to Your table as You have prescribed for us,

Lord, that we may see Your Word, that we may see it in a tangible way, that we may be reminded of the blood that was shed on our behalf,

Your body that was given for us. God, I pray that...

I pray that You would set our affections, our hearts, and our attention upon You as we go to this table, sensing the unity that we have together as a body.