Catch The Fire Church Raleigh
The Importance of Prayer | Aaron Ninaber
Pastor Aaron brought a beautifully convicting message this week on the power and importance of prayer. As we communicate with God through prayer, we are co-laboring with Him and there is power in our words to change worlds. Our prayers do not fall on deaf ears, He is actively listening and responding to our prayers. This week, shift from any mindsets that say you have to pray- you GET to pray and spend time with He who is worthy.
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Catch the Fire Church podcast. We're so glad you're joining us and we hope you're encouraged by this message. - All right, stay standing. That way I don't have to do the awkward thing we have to keep doing where we say, "I'll get back up." Where this is the time we're gonna pray in faith over our ties and offerings. Can I get an amen? Amen, I'm in a good mood. God's in a good mood today. Did you know that? He's alive, he's well. As Rachelle was sharing at the end of worship about surrender, the Lord reminded me in first service about a dream that Ash Smith, the lead pastor, is a few years ago here as she had, in which she was waving the flag of surrender and the Lord took the flag off of the pole. Yes, I say flag, we're 'cause I'm Canadian. Took the flag off of the pole and he turned it into a tent and said it's not just a momentary thing, but it's a place of surrender and habitation. Then there is something about the act of faith in the tithe and the gift where the Lord actually says, "Test me in this." It's so powerful where we're saying, "Lord, all that I have belongs to you. "All that I have is yours." And so we're a church who unashamedly believes that we return a tenth of what we have to the Lord. If you are new, if this is not your home church, please, you can sow an offering if you want, but feel under no obligation. But we pray on Sundays over it, not because we're just trying to create some sort of liturgy, but actually because we believe that our prayers into our tithe and offerings create realities, that we are actually praying and sowing seeds of faith into all that we do. So would you pray with us. Lord, we thank you for your goodness. Your incredible goodness, your incredible kindness that we can't outdo you. We can't outdo you in any way. And Lord, we are asking right now, as we step out in faith and we give to you, we return to you what belongs to you, that you would shower favor and blessing and increase upon every individual in this church. Come on, just put your faith together with mine and pray for the person in here who needs a financial breakthrough by the end of the week or something drastic is going to happen to their life. Lord, we pray for an increase of financial signs and wonders and miracles. We pray for checks in the mail. We pray for bills to be paid off. We pray for debts to be paid off unheard of things. Lord, would you do it here and now in the mighty name of Jesus in the church said amen. Amen, you may be seated. I'm excited today. I just got back from Boston with Jess, Boston, Boston. And we spent some time with some dear friends, Julian and Kaltia Adams. And I just feel, I feel super charged. I feel ready to go. Before we left for this trip, I began to ask the Lord and I said, Lord, what do you want to do this weekend? What do you want to do on Sunday? And I felt the Lord very quickly, quick in my spirit and say, Aaron, I want us to go for prayer today. So unashamedly, we're going after prayer, the importance of prayer. And I actually felt the Lord say that we're not just to talk about prayer, but we're actually supposed to actively participate in prayer today. So I'm going to teach on prayer for a little and then we are going to participate in prayer as the body. Tell somebody next to you, get ready. Get ready, get ready. It is so important how we respond as believers in moments of global hardship that we don't simply fall into temptation to only engage in cultural conversations that require no faith and never have to partner with what God says about a situation. It's important when these things are happening around the world, when there's an upcoming election, when there's a president that gets in that you would rather have not get the ballot. Like in these moments that we don't just engage in the discourse of hatred or we don't engage in the discourse of simply having conversations, but we actually engage with the Lord in prayer. And we partner, what does heaven say about this situation? We can sigh with two counts. We can partner with heaven's voice or we can partner with the enemy's voice, the world. And if there's a part of you that's tempted even a little bit to tune out this morning, I would challenge you that it was prayer that preceded the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit and acts to you that the world has ever seen. That it was a prayer meeting. It was a gathering in the upper room where their disciples were gathered to prayer where the Holy Spirit came and poured out His manifest presence on all flesh. Open your Bibles if needed, Matthew 21. As you're turning there, I just wanna say prayer is simply put in its most biblical definition. It is to converse with the Lord. It is to speak with the Lord. It's that place in which we communicate our thoughts, our needs, our desires. We present our supplications or our requests to the Lord. It's the place in which we get to share with Him our deepest feelings. And it's also a place in which it's not just a one-way street, but He's actually designed it to be a two-way conversation where we get to listen and hear His voice. We get to seek Him and His guidance for our lives. And most importantly, we get to seek Him, the person and His presence. How many know the person is better than the answered promise? That actually getting to spend time with Him is better than having an answered prayer. We don't always feel it. We don't always believe it in our flesh, but it's true. It's like, Lord, to be with you is better than any answered promise. And this prayer is the doorway to heartfelt connection with Him, a place in which we express our faith and our dependence. And it's seen hundreds and hundreds of times throughout the Old and the New Testament. And Jesus Himself was found praying. So Matthew 21, this is the moment we're gonna be celebrating soon as a church Palm Sunday where Jesus is coming into the city of Jerusalem. And they're fine. He's riding into the city on the back of a donkey. And the people gathered are filled with such excitement and wonder they're finding palm leaves and they're laying them down at the feet of Jesus. And they're taking off their outer garments, their coats, and they're laying them down at the feet of Jesus. And they're saying, "Hosanna in the highest." And He's coming to the city. And Jesus finishes that approach and He approaches the temple. And in Matthew 21, verse 12, it says this. It says Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there, saying He drove out all. Come on, try that again. He drove out all who were buying and selling. It says He overturned the tables of the money changers. He overturned them. And the benches of those selling doves, verse 13, it is written, He said to them. These are the words of Christ in this moment. My house will be called a house of prayer. Amen. But you are making it a den of robbers. Or den of thieves, some translations say exactly. This man knows his word. If y'all like Antoine knows his word, y'all. Jesus, He comes to the temple, undoubtedly knowing all that is to come. In this glorious moment, but the tribulation, the trial, that's to come. And He is grieved. He sees the state of the temple. He sees those that would profit off the needs of the people to sacrifice, for the forgiveness of their sins. He sees the merchants. He sees all of it and He is grieved. And this isn't some tender moment in the scripture where Jesus sits down like our Western idea of a pastor and He sits down kindly beside them and teaches them like, hey, there's a better way. Now this is Jesus filled with righteous anger and He actually overturns the tables and begins to cast them out of the house of the Lord and says, you are making this into a den of thieves. Like this should be almost shocking to us as we read it that Jesus is acting in this manner. Like Jesus, this has moved Him so greatly, so deeply. And He quotes Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah from Isaiah 56 verse seven and He says, my house will be called a house of prayer. This isn't some new idea that Jesus is introducing in this moment. This is an idea that the Father had been whispering to the prophets of old, even in the Old Testament. And Jesus is here, He's reinforcing this idea that my house, my temple, will be a place of prayer. A place that's meant for genuine communion and fellowship with God. And instead you've turned it into a sales event. And I've been kind of coming face to face with this verse and as the Lord told me this week to preach on prayer and I'm like, there are hundreds of verses on prayer that I've left out today 'cause I just, man, we could just read all like five, six hundred of them. But I'm coming face to face with the importance of prayer as believers. Like it's there, it's all through scripture, it's undeniable. And as I'm reading it and I'm hearing sermons on it and I'm like, Lord, the response of my heart has been, Lord, would you teach me what this looks like for us? Would you teach me what it looks like for me so I can model it? And would you teach us what this looks like to be a people of prayer? How many want to say that prayer today? Come on, say it to him, Lord, would you teach me what that looks like to be a person of prayer? It's so easy in our Western mindset of go, go, go, go, go, go, go, to say the words, I'll pray for you and forget about it five minutes later. And I'm actually moved with conviction like to be a man of my word and if I say that I'm gonna pray for someone or something, I must. It's like there's no other way. And this is the biblical invitation for us to fortify our minds and our hearts and be a people of prayer. How many know somebody they consider a prayer warrior? Raise your hand, like an intercessor, a prayer warrior. I got one right there, my mom, mom, why don't you stand up? Just gonna embarrass you a little bit, I know you hate this. This is my mom. They moved here from Canada. This, I don't know, in the last year and so great to have y'all. My mom is a prayer warrior and I am so grateful for the impact she's had in my life. She's prayed my wife in. She prayed harm away from us and she prayed in a good wife, she did good, I think. And I'm grateful for her. But if we're not careful in our western mindset of kingdom, we will reserve that type of prayer and intercession for the elite or the unique and not recognize that it's for all believers. That it's not simply this unique gift. There are those that are called and feel called in different ways to dedicate every moment of every day. Please don't hear me diminishing that. But what I am saying in our western mindset of Christianity, we can sometimes think, oh, that's for them and not for me. But this is actually the call of all believers to be a people of prayer. He said, my house will be called a house of prayer and we are the house of God. We are the stones. He is the cornerstone, but we are the stones of the house. We are the stones of the temple. And it's almost like the job description of that house is to be a house of prayer, if you will. Are you with me? We need to divorce this idea in the evangelical faith that meaningful prayer, a meaningful prayer lift, prayer life is only for the select. Turn your Bibles to Matthew six. Matthew six, the Lord's Prayer, verse five, Jesus is teaching, and he says this. We're gonna read a few verses at a time and then talk about it. Verse five, Jesus says, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the street corners, to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. Not in part, in full. But when you pray, verse six, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen. Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Firstly, I wanna say, watch your motive when you pray. Are we praying to simply be heard? Do we only have a prayer life that's been cultivated when people are watching? Or do we have a prayer life that's cultivated when nobody's watching? Because the truth of the message is that the onlookers, the people watching you pray, is the only reward you're gonna get. That's the full reward for you, if that is the simplicity of your prayer life. But there's this invitation here that if you pray in secret, if you close the door and pray to my father who is unseen, he will reward you. He will reward you. It's not to say that we don't pray in corporate settings. Like, come on, I'm not saying that. There are too many biblical examples of corporate prayer. But I am saying, if the motive of our heart is we will only engage in corporate prayer and we lack any prayer life outside when nobody is watching, we are missing it. (audience murmurs) We need to desire genuine communion with him, with God. If we desire him, then no amount of prayer will ever be wasted. - Who's there? - Verse seven, he carries on and he says, "When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans. For they think they will be heard because of their many words." Say many words. (audience laughs) Do not be like them. For your father knows what you need before you ask him. Point number two, don't fall into the belief that it's a certain number of repetitions that move the heart of God. When we do that, we are reducing God to a slot machine that if I can pull the handle enough times, I might just win the lottery. And we are missing and misjudging the heart and the character of God. When he's like, will you actually draw near and enter genuine communion with me and co-labor with me and speak with me because in that place, we get to, there's such beauty to be found when you meet with Jesus in that place. It's not a number of times. We can get real with him. It's not, I don't think this verse is to say that, like if your heart is heavy and you're speaking with God about something a lot that he's like, "Whoa, man, that's a bit too much." But it is to say, don't enter the place that your belief is rooted in your repetition. Your belief needs to be rooted in God and his faithfulness to answer promises. Even when we don't feel it, we have to stand on the truth that God is listening. He is listening. It's not always an emotion, but it's a truth. Help us, Jesus. Jesus carries on in verse nine and says, "This then is how you should pray. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Probably about a month ago, I love how Justin Reif shared about this passage, the Lord's Prayer, and he pulled out that truth in the Our Father. And if you missed it, it's so beautiful just how it's not in this prayer, it's not My Father, but it's actually this idea as we are praying to the Lord that of Our Father. It's this recognition and acknowledgement that because of what Christ has done, because of the Father sending His One and Only Son to die and across for our sins and being raised to life, that we have entered something that is far greater than ourselves. And it's getting ourselves out of the mindset that this is for me and myself and I alone, and that he is our Father. We are part of something so much greater than we could think, ask, or imagine. We've been given a new last name. And then it's hallowed be your name. Hallowed is to honor as holy. Saying, Lord, you are holy. It's the acknowledgement of His holiness. How great He is, how there's nobody like Him. There's no perspectives like His. There's no dreams like His. There's no ideas like His like He alone. Everything that He has to offer is holy and worthy and great. And it's better than anything we could think or imagine up. And almost as like a natural progression and response in the prayer when we see His holiness, it's as if Jesus is saying when He prays before He goes to the cross, not My will, but Yours, when we see the holiness of God, we no longer long for our will, but we long for His will. Because it's like you're our Father, you are holy. There's nobody like you. How could I want anything apart from Your will in my life, from Your kingdom come? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Because any will that I could want would just be a small taste of what you could dream, think, and imagine. His ideas are so much better. Then He says, "Give us today our daily bread "and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors." I love the daily here, our daily bread. It's like don't rely on yesterday's man and we've all probably heard that statement at one time or another. Don't rely on yesterday's bread, but this daily encounter of going before the Lord and saying, "Lord, what You gave me yesterday "was beautiful and amazing and I'm so grateful for, "but would You fill me in new today "for what You have for me?" And it is this acknowledgement of dependence on Him that, Lord, I need Your bread today. I need You to show up today. I need Your goodness today. I need Your faith today. Would You sustain me? Would You provide for me? And in this similar line, it's also saying that prayer daily, Lord, forgive me. With the presupposition that we've already forgiven those who have wronged us. And saying, "Lord, as I have forgiven those "who've wronged me, Lord, would You forgive me of my debts?" Again, the cross is not a once and done kind of thing. It is in Your salvation, but the cross is something we go back to daily and say, "Lord, would You forgive me "where I've missed the mark, where I've sinned?" In this last prayer, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And I was just thinking about this speaking personal. I'm like, how often do I pray that prayer? Do I wake up and do I say, Lord, would You deliver me from the enemy? Would You lead me away from temptation? But there's an invitation, a truth there. If Jesus said it, we should probably listen to like pray. Lord, as I go through this day, as I go through my day, would You lead me far from temptation and deliver me from the evil one? And this is such a powerful model of prayer, to acknowledge Him as Father, to acknowledge His holiness, to seek His will, to ask for His daily provision and the forgiving forgiveness of our debts and to seek deliverance from temptation and the enemy. And we know in scripture that prayer is more than simply an attitude. There's something about what Paul says about praying at all times without ceasing. And whilst I believe that there's something there to be discovered, that it's still a mystery to me, like what does that look like? There are still too many biblical examples of the spiritual act and discipline of prayer to ignore, where Jesus would actually remove Himself from a crowd and go and engage in prayer. And where the disciples would be gathered in certain places and would be found praying together. That there is this actual physical act of gathering and praying. And incredibly beautiful things happen when we pray. How many know that? First John 5, 14 says, this is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything, say anything, according to His will, He hears us. That part's important. According to His will, He hears us. Matthew 7, 7, 8, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you for everyone who asks, receives, the one who seeks, finds and the one who knocks, the door will be opened. It's not, it might be opened. It's, it will be opened. Listen, when we pray, heaven is listening. Woo, that is meat to chew on. That is something that we have probably overlooked since Sunday school, if you grew up in church. Now we're like, yeah, God listens. No, the great I am, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the one who defeated death on a cross and was raised to life, he listens. When you speak, like, ugh. How many religions are speaking to dead stones, to dead idols, to dead statues and it's just reverberating back at them, but you have a God who is meticulously listening to your every request, to your every ask, to all of your heart poured out before Him. Like what a beautiful, beautiful gift we've been given. Thank you, Jesus. Matthew nine, Jesus's disciples are unable to deliver a demon out of this boy who'd been plagued with this demonic spirit, so much of his life, come over him, try to kill this kid, it's all there in Mark nine, sorry. And the disciples are troubled, like they are not able to cast this spirit out. They've been able to cast out spirits before, but for whatever reason, they can't. And they're troubled by this. Jesus says some things that are probably hard for them to hear, you all gotta go read it yourself for time. And Jesus cast the spirit out of this boy and they come to Him later, almost it seems like in private and they're troubled by this and they say, "Lord, why were we unable to cast this spirit out?" And Jesus says this in verse 29. He says, "This kind can only come out by prayer." And some manuscripts say and fasting, exactly. Bill Johnson has a great teaching on this, that there's no recording of Jesus actively doing what we probably would in our Western Christian mindset, which is to separate ourselves and to pray and fast for that instant specific specifically, but that Jesus, more likely he'd had a lifestyle of prayer and fasting that unlocked a level of authority that he could walk in and operate. And there is something accessible. It's here in Scripture, I don't understand it, but I know that those who honor God in the secret place, he honors in the public place, that he gives authority and power and pours out almost like another measure on those who will honor Him in prayer and fasting when nobody's looking. It's just there. You can't ignore it. And when we see somebody that's anointed, we can be convinced that they've paid a price for it. So there's so many different types of prayer we can offer, right? Prayers of faith, prayers of healing. Where James talks about in James 5, 15, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise them up. If they have sin, they will be forgiven, therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Let us be a church that prays for the sick, that unashamedly prays for the sick. It's in the scripture. We don't understand sometimes. We'll pass the earth one another through disappointment when it doesn't happen, but we will always unashamedly go after the laying on of hands in the healing of sick. We have seen, I believe, no, I know for certain, we've seen two people that have been radically healed of cancer in the last 12 months. Yes. (audience applauding) And yet we have another who's clinging on, struggling with a battle for cancer. And I'm like, Lord, I don't understand, but I'm gonna keep going after this, and I'm gonna become even more unsatisfied and ask all the more, Lord, that you would move in great power, and we would see the greater things here and now. We offer prayers of adoration, of worship and love. Like, ah, Revelations 8-3 says, another angel who had a golden censer came and stood at the altar, and he was given much incense to offer and catch this with the prayers of all God's people on the golden altar in front of the throne. There is something so valuable about our prayers that they have made it to the inmost chamber with the Lord. That they are so valuable, they're sitting there with the incense arising before his throne. Like, they're mixed in. And I'm reading, I'm not coming to you as like a prayer expert this morning. I'm reading these scriptures, and I'm probably sitting there like you, oh, Lord, help me, Jesus. Like, help me to take this on, help me to be a person of prayer, to follow your word, your scripture, even better. But there is, there's those prayers of adoration, of lavishing all of our love on him. Similarly, there's prayers of thanksgiving. We're entering his courts with thanksgiving. It's like mini-manuscript, the fastest way, the greatest way to enter his courts with thanksgiving. Where we're just telling him, thank you. And we just, like, there's no other agenda, it's just thanking him for who he is, for what he's done. Psalm 37 verse four says, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, "and he shall give you the desires of your heart." Again, we read this, and there is something here, if you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart. It's not like, like, the prerequisite is delight yourself in him, knows that delight themselves in the Lord, he shall give you the desires of your heart. And when we delight in him with thanksgiving, he is moved, he is attracted, heaven is attracted to our prayers. We offer prayers of petition. Philippians 4.6 says, "Do not be anxious about anything, "but in every situation by prayer and petition "with thanksgiving, present your bequest to God." We offer prayers of intercession. 1 Timothy 2.1, I urge then, 1st of all, that petitions, prayers, and intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people, say all people. Jesus interceded for his disciples in John 17. We offer prayers of consecration, like Hannah prayed, over Samuel. And lastly, I wanna linger here for a moment, we offer prayers of the Holy Spirit. That there are moments where we don't actually have a vocabulary for the things that we have to say to him. And he's so kind that he's actually given us, that's like legal, and there's an option for that. And it says this, in Romans 8.26, in the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Hey, y'all, Rabasul. And he's, who searches our hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. There's something that happens when we bring our groaning before the Lord. It unlocks the Holy Spirit to intercede on our behalf. When we come before, and when we bear, and it's often, it's very, what's the word? Just, it makes you feel very naked when you come before the Lord with your groaning. And you're like, Lord, I have nothing else to give you. I know nothing what to say. But I'll come before you and I will groan and allow you to intercede through my groaning. It's like he sees, and he hears, and he listens, and he is working on your behalf. Along these similar lines, we pray in the Spirit, we pray in tongues. We are unashamedly a Spirit-filled church. One thing that I loved, my friend Julian Adams said, in Boston, when he was being called as a prophet, he realized that if he was really gonna go for what the Lord was calling him to, he had to be willing to lose his reputation. And that just kind of stuck out with me this week. And I'm just, I'm come before you, and I'm like, Lord, I was just kind of saying this prayer in that moment when that convicted me. And I'm like, Lord, in the South, if there's any way that even we as a church have tried to make the message of your Spirit palatable, would you forgive us? Would you just, we are unashamedly about you. The fact that you sent your Holy Spirit to come and dwell on flesh. And so I would say to you, if you've not received your heavenly language, if you haven't spoken tongue to not lose heart, to not lose faith, that we will stand and believe with you, that the Holy Spirit will give you the gift. The word says, I'm just gonna preach the Bible. In Acts two, when the Holy Spirit comes in power, that up rooms filled, Peter preaches an incredible sermon. Thousands are added to their number, it says to the believers. In verse 42, it says this. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, into prayer. I love this, and I just want to lay this before you, for you to think on and consider that we too, should be people that love biblical, godly teaching, that is filled with the Spirit, that love to fellowship with one another as believers, and to partake of the body and blood of Jesus, and to devote ourselves to prayer. When we pray, we're not merely speaking words, but there is authority and power on our tongue, on our voices. The Bible says that death and life is in the tongue. Have you ever spoken a judgment and reaped that exact thing? Anyone in the room are just me. I have learned the hard way to stop speaking judgments, because I've seen too many times myself reap the exact thing I judged. And instead, I'm like, I need to learn what you've taught us to do Jesus, which is to pray for those, and bless those who curse me, and my enemies. That's the invitation of Scripture, not to just enter the cultural discourse of the day, of this or that or whatever, but to actually pray for those who think differently. Mark 11, 23, Jesus says, if you ask this mountain to be cast into the sea, it shall be done for you. Again, I don't, I want to see even more of this, as that verse should propel you to hunger for the greater things, that we get to co-labor with Him, and we get to see heaven come here and now. Our words have power. Come on, tell somebody, your words have power. And I felt strongly today that we are to shift the narrative of the Western church that we have to pray, and to accept the narrative that we get to pray. - Yeah. - You don't have to. He's not, he's really not gonna make you, but you get to. We get to. We get to speak healing into sick bodies. We get to command life into dead things. We get to speak hope into hopelessness. Just last year, Roe v. Wade was overturned in our nation. Something that many thought was impossible, and I believe largely was the prayers of the saints, that were going before the Lord, and no matter what you believe politically, we were saying, Lord, this is where we draw the line. We won't stand for the diminishment of your life. Our prayers are powerful. James 5, 16 puts it like this, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful, and effective. And flip that with me for a moment. The prayer of an unrighteous person is weak and ineffective. But praise God, you've been made righteous through the blood of Jesus, and his spirit now dwells in you. There is no Christian walk without the spirit. There is no power without the spirit. There is no authority without the spirit. There is no church without the spirit. I'm sorry if you're new here today, and I'm just offending you. Well, I'm not really sorry, to be honest. But there is no church without the spirit, as if we could be so prideful to think that we could do the Christian walk without God dwelling in us. That somehow we could engage our minds hard enough and have enough spiritual discipline to somehow be a good Christian. They've already tried it, it was called the Old Testament, and Jesus had to come and fulfill it in order to create a new way for you and I. And then give himself his spirit in all flesh for you and I. And this prayer, this peace is a godly partnership and outworking of that relationship. It's co-laboring with Heaven's will on earth, saying you are holy, you're will, not mine. Heaven come, you will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. So that's just what we're gonna do today. We're gonna go a little longer 'cause I felt as we approached today, as I was sitting with the Lord at a coffee shop, blessed coffee shops Lord, all the preachers that prepare messages at coffee shops, thank you Jesus. And so many of them are Christian, so, you know, it's a good prayer. And I felt we're to not just talk about it, but we're meant to actively participate in it today. So if this makes you uncomfortable, no worries. It's good to be stretched. Blessed are the flexible for they will not be bent out of shape, as Heidi loves to say. Matthew 18 says, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. So I'm gonna ask you to stand. I'm gonna ask you to turn around and to find maybe like five to seven people to form a group around. And I'm just gonna give you one, I'm gonna give the groups one topic at a time to engage in prayer. And if you, I wanna say this, I didn't say this in first service, but I feel the Lord on this. If you have never prayed out loud in a group before, do not leave this place without praying in your group. I know that might be challenging, but I wanna stretch you, and I wanna encourage you. You are anointed. So firstly, I'm gonna ask that we take a moment and we pray for, you may have seen it in the news, depending on what you follow, but in Tanzania, there was a YWAM mission strip, and there was a major car accident. And there was 11 YWAM missionaries that lost their life, 25 people in total. I believe there was 21 injured and eight YWAM missionaries were injured. I'm imagining that most of these were young adults from families who were, these kids are fresh out of high school, going to YWAM, going to the mission field, and now their families are grappling with the loss of their kids' lives. And so I want us just to take a moment and begin to pray for those families, those that have lost loved ones, those that are still injured, for the Shalom of God to hover on them, to bring healing to those that are injured, to bring comfort to those that have lost loved ones, just go for it, pray. (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) (gentle music) (people chattering) I want just another minute or so and then we'll move on to the next thing. We want to take a moment next and we want to pray for what's been happening in northern Mozambique. Northern Mozambique with Iris Ministries, Heidi has herself asked people to pray. There have been villages through terrorism that are being burned, people being murdered. They've had churches, even recently three churches burned down. They've had pastors beheaded, so let us just begin to pray. Heidi said this, "Pray for safety, pray for an end to the violence, and pray for those who have lost loved ones." So come on let's just lift up our voices for northern Mozambique. For these pastors, these dear brothers and sisters. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Take a moment and begin to pray for just global unrest. Pray for the war in Ukraine and Russia, for swift justice. Pray for the war in Israel, for the justice of the Lord. Pray for the innocent Palestinians, for the Israelis, just pray for the for God to come and bring His justice and end to the war. In Jesus' name, Shayah, rah, bah, bah, bah, so. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Now take a moment and begin to pray for our nation. For the upcoming election, don't make it about your opinion. Just pray that the will of God would be done in our nation. As kingdom would come, as will would be done in our nation. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. [Music] [Music] [Music] And lastly before we close, just pray for this body. Pray that offense, the spirit of offense, the spirit of division would be cast out of this place, that we would not divide over things that are not strong scriptural convictions, but that we would continue to pursue one another, that the enemy would not get a foothold of offense and division. Pray for an increase in signs and wonders. Pray for our dear sister, Denise Wade, that her body would be rid of cancer. Just come on, just begin to pray for the body. [Music] [Music] [Music] Lord, we thank you for what you're doing in our nation, what you're doing around the globe. We say yes in amen. Lord, I ask that you would enrich in our life of prayer. You would fortify our prayer life with you, Jesus. Challenge us. Speak to us in the mighty name of Jesus. We love you, Lord. [Music] Thank you so much for joining us. There are so many opportunities to grow, connect, and be encouraged. To learn more, visit TTFRolly.com and follow us on social media. Thank you so much for being part of the family. We are so thankful for you. [Music]