Holy Saturday | Passion Week 2021

[Music] god bless y'all bethany family we we're so glad that you're joining us today and trust that this season is being a blessing to you and your loved ones wherever you may be we know that the apostle paul was not necessarily motivated by his love for people but through his love for god and because that love of god that he had the love of god was able to work through him in his love for people let that love that we know that he showed and that jesus showed when he was here emanate through each and every one of us not only during this season but always let us look to the lord in prayer dear lord we thank you for everything that this season represents we thank you for sending your son we thank you for the time that he was here but lord as we celebrate this season we thank you that he rose from the dead and because of that we have communion with you lord so we thank you lord and ask you that as we go through this holy season that we're in you know that folks have been praying folks are fasting folks are preparing their seed that we've come to go through to you in prayer lord and ask for those things that we need that ability to love one another like you loved us that ability to be able to stand in the midst of whatever it is that may be coming our way lord knowing that our faith is in you not knowing where we're going to be led but knowing because our faith is in you you are going to see us through so we thank you for that on this day lord ask you that those that may not be saved that what a wonderful season to be saved what other season could be more beautiful to be saved than that season where jesus rose from the dead lord but lord there's a special prayer because a lot of us have been dealing with all of us have been dealing and impacted by this pandemic in one way or another over this last year for a whole year we have been able to come together on resurrection sunday but we are together because you live in each and every one of us lord so we thank you for even though we're not able to come come together together personally the father we're able to come together because that indwelling of your spirit in us lord so we ask that you continue to keep us strong to continue to keep us steadfast continue to keep us full of that love that you showed us when you gave your son to us and when he died on calvary and rose again on the third day we thank you lord we praise you god bless everyone each and every one listening to this broadcast today in the precious name of jesus christ our lord and savior we pray amen where would i be if not for his grace somebody's already asked the question and you already know the answer so thank him in advance for what he's already done [Music] where would i be if not for your grace carrying me in every season where would i be if not for your grace came to my rescue and i want to thank you for your grace [Music] thank you god where would i be not for your grace carrying me in every season where would i be not for your grace i want to thank you what are you thankful for come on man [Music] grace to restore grace that repairs he's got a grace that releases releases you to worship come on lift your hands wherever you are it repairs visions and dreams everything is new for your grace [Music] your grace [Music] i wanna thank you for your grace [Music] hallelujah thank you god for what you're doing in advance i know that all things are working together for my good so i lift my hands and i give you glory this is the question where would i [Music] be [Music] oh [Music] where would i be [Music] we are so grateful for this resurrection season and this is a season of sacrifice where it has been proven to us over and over again how much jesus loves us because he sent his son to die for us this is a season because he got up because he died and rose again this is a season where we can be resurrected from anything that is going on in our lives there is no sin that god is holding against us because of the blood of jesus so we want to just take a moment to pray for you during this season father right now in the name of jesus i thank you for who you are in our lives i thank you that you are the one that sits high and looks low that you are the one that can deliver us and forgive us for all of our sins there is nobody outside your reach god so i thank you for your power i thank you for your blood i thank you for your love and god during this season have us not to take your love for granted because we don't know where we would be without your love so now god i pray that you bless us that you keep us that you protect us that you give us a mind to serve you and love you even greater during this season god bless those under the sound of my voice keep them and protect everything concerning them i thank you for the blood that covers our families that keeps us protected from all disease god we just are so grateful for what you have done on the cross and what you continue to do so god we thank you and we love you in jesus name we pray god we lift our hands to you in total praise thank you jesus [Music] lord i will my eyes [Music] to [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] peace [Music] my strength [Music] of my life [Music] is to you [Music] lord i will leave [Applause] my eyes [Music] to [Music] all of my help [Music] [Music] peace [Music] [Music] [Music] yes [Music] oh [Music] amen [Music] praise the lord y'all hello everyone how are you well thanks for joining us welcome to silent saturday yeah um we are going to do a little teaching on what happened on saturday tied in with prayer yeah we're going to pray for you this evening um i like how you're doing this oh thank you it was cool okay this is cool thank you thank you um as you guys have heard pastor prescott pray pastor rich prayed we're going to kind of do a close-out with some brief teaching and we're going to pray for you all uh usually the saturday before easter we come in we pray with prayer requests we have a corporate prayer service all that corporate prayer doing a virtue of course this year and um let's get into this please share if you can and then uh we want to be able to pray for you all at the end of this and believe god for you uh during this time yeah so holy saturday holy saturday some call it silent silence said and uh a lot of people find fear in silence yes some of us find comfort in silence it's a indicator of the amount of inner peace that you have because those that don't have much inner peace need some kind of distraction to keep them from thinking about themselves [Music] but when i have inner peace i don't need the stimulation of things from the outside yes you can actually sit in your living room by yourself and and nothing no tv a radio no no no phone you know because inner peace is evenly yoked with your environment yes okay absolutely okay and in that silent day uh the disciples did not have that piece so they're scurrying around hiding they were in a crisis in the crisis and uh they went into self-imposed quarantine if you call it that out of fear yeah um and let's look at it like this from his perspective the nation because the disciples were jews they prayed for their messiah and in their mind even though again the theme for tomorrow is did not tell you they prayed for messiah yeah god gave them a messiah the messiah told them i'm gonna die and on the third day i'm gonna get up and even in that to them it looked like their prayers failed well some things god says if i can be honest and no one has to really confirm this for me there's been a lot of things the lord has said to me [Music] that i don't care for you know and and especially when he uh shows me the full quilt of his will yep and part of that quilt is not to my liking yes you know i he's finally come and now you tell us god's going to take him away but is that not like the lord absolutely because it when you're right you actually right to the next point that prayer isn't always answered the way we want it to be answered the process isn't always going to be the way we say it often you and god can agree on the outcome he chooses the process every time he picks how you get there because we would avoid we we do the straight way oh please from a to z just no god says no no you're gonna have to spend your rough season you're gonna get to what i promised you but there's going to be some going through absolutely essential for us yeah because something in that process needs to be worked out in us can we say that to you yeah because i think part of the deception of the enemy is that we can get hung up on our own righteousness we can get hung up on our own strength yeah and we certainly can get hung up on our own wisdom yes yes and when that happens to us uh we are we are we are candidates for bondage you know i'm so righteous yeah problem right when jesus says all your righteousness that's filthy right god says and then my own wisdom and you know there's plenty of stuff about how wisdom man's wisdom is folly and foolishness right you don't let it then your own strength yeah and we have those things but when they're not managed well we can become vulnerable to the enemy absolutely yeah and there's nothing like a crisis to reveal your real faith your real strength your real wisdom crisis reveals crisis can crisis transforms but i believe it reveals the transform because it reveals character what's not exposed can't be transformed now they're not saying expose to the world but at least to you you see that flaw yeah now god says let's work on it so they didn't consider us a part of answered prayer and i don't know about y'all but in my experience silent the silence of god because that day was real eerie yeah it was real silent yeah the silence of god to me doesn't mean that god hasn't spoken it means he's already spoken and i just probably forgot what he said he didn't believe what he said didn't hold on to what he said he uses the word remember quite a bit because in silence we're supposed to remember what he said and contemplate on what he said because in the contemplation god is still speaking to you as you're meditating remembering what he said do you think it's safe to say that he does not repeat himself unnecessarily no no and when there's something to repeat he prophetically repeats himself to show you how important it is for you yes and how important it is to him so he says it twice already so perhaps you know he might get a little pauline attitude paul says in in the new testament he says i i told you twice and i don't have to tell you again yeah when i come this time oh man it's going to be different this time you know you act like you're not listening to me so god it reminds me the storm too jesus says let us pass to the other side he falls asleep they wake him up why are you waking me up didn't i tell you circumstances will make you forget did not tell you it's i didn't change what i said you changed what you believed that's absolutely true so so the season of silence y'all is a part of the resurrection process and the part of answered prayer too and that season of silence contemplation meditation as an act of prayer is powerful yes sir and i think we get so busy we just prayer prayer jesus name amen and get up and lose that contemplation side to allow god to really work on us am i saying it right yeah i think i think you're i think there's there's there's a dilemma in that a lot of our prayer life is more of a conversation rather than a dialogue okay dialogue being that that speech between two where both are revealing things about themselves and that sometimes conversation is more like actors in a play and maybe sometimes our prayer lives are so um disconnected from the relationship yeah or as we've been saying for the last couple years so transaction oriented that we have a script rather than a sanctification am i so we're saying things that we may have heard other people say or we may have said ourselves and god is not hearing our heart at the time right he's hearing our our vanity or our intelligence and it can sound like a prayer but sometimes i think prayer is something saints think they need to get out of the way yeah so they can say that i pray right yeah it's what i do yeah it's not a lifestyle it's just that it's part of it it's a resume item it becomes a ritual like communion yeah just something that we do because we're what we're supposed to do yes because it's obligation and not opportunity at that point absolutely yeah absolutely and and the scripture talks a lot about prayer and meditation prayer contemplation prayer and silence allowing yourself to be settled in your spirit to be able to hear from god get direction from him but in the silence the disciples panicked and they hid out of fear you know god wants us to find security in silence yeah not panic in silence yeah because again y'all if god isn't saying anything it's probably because he's already said something i'm sure and as they always say the teacher is always quiet during the test and the thing is we got an open book test too the hardest ones ever took their heart because it shows you that you know it takes time to take because you got to read read read i'm giving you the question and i'm handing you the answers your ability to find it is being tested yes and isn't that scripture yes it is and i think what we're going to talk about on communion sunday is that um when they're on the road of emmaus jesus comes to them and their reasoning in their hearts their disillusioned because of the events of calvary and they don't know it's jesus yeah and he says oh you fools and slow of heart didn't the scriptures tell you what was going to happen wow and he goes back to moses and starts teaching them from moses all the way through to remind that all the signs all the prophecies everything about the lord's coming and if they would have just searched the scriptures from moses all the way through they would have found their answer but when you live in fear when you live in when you're disillusioned and disappointed yeah oftentimes uh don't go to the scriptures the they would have had an issacharian moment where they understood the times and therefore knew what to do absolutely absolutely how do you starve with a loaf of bread under your arm i don't know the answers are all right there yeah so so so so god was silent jesus was in the grave during this time but interesting y'all we know this now they didn't know at the time when it was on the day of while god wasn't saying anything on earth he was working behind the scenes jesus goes down to hell and starts setting the captives free works in silence he's working in silence yes sir that's why i love the book of esther so much god's name is never mentioned in the book now you you never see the word god lord or ever in that book but you see him working behind the scenes absolutely you see him putting the events of life together you can see him managing the event to bring it all to bed yes sir it shall come to pass yeah there was no prophet that came and said ham is going to be defeated there was no preacher that came and said it it was god just bringing it all together so he was working when they didn't see him working yeah he was doing while they didn't see him doing preparing for this great resurrection yeah preparing for answered prayer and on sunday morning their answer rose from the dead and here's the crazy thing in the book of matthew it says that when he rose from the dead he showed them he showed himself to them i think it was a second time and it says some worship they they worship some believed in some doubting the prayer was answered physically there yeah while they saw answered prayer some of them still couldn't believe it isn't that what would have what would have really been tragic is they were quicker to believe it wasn't him than to believe it was that's tragic absolutely especially when you prayed for it and believed it but can you become so anxious [Music] that you missed the answer yes absolutely yeah and this shows me something wonderful about god's grace is that he knows us that even in our struggles to believe our struggles with doubt there are times where god's promise and his love is so strong that it overrides our inability to believe the way that we should absolutely how many times has god answered our prayer blessed us when our faith wasn't even working right that's one of the sweet things about grace man i'm trying to tell you something just how many prayers has he answered that had doubt weaved into him man as if he couldn't hear our hearts yeah we said all the right words yeah but our hearts were saying start saying something else man just and then he blessed us in spite of ourselves yes sir yeah and that's that's why i love we've been talking about intercession and bible study but we don't know how to pray as we ought to the holy ghost starts praying yes sir when we not doing right jesus starts praying so i can imagine even in our struggle to believe the holy ghost and jesus starts praying and god blesses us because of their prayers not because of ours what would happen if god answers a prayer with doubt in it how could we move heaven if we finally had a pure faith man lord increase our faith increase our faith yes sir because i don't know about y'all i confess it's easier for me to believe for other people absolutely than it is for me to believe by my for myself there's no skin in the game there's there's no skin in there no skin in the game i can believe for you all day long all day long oh yeah man man look i believe god for every miracle in your life yes sir but when it comes to a miracle we're like god are you sure you're going to do this are you sure yeah man you know unbelievable and that's real and that's what we're trying to teach you guys we understand the disciples perspective you know they went into a crisis and all of a sudden their faith was rattled they're more like us than we would like to believe yeah absolutely we have a lot in common with those people that are the villains yep not god loves them they love god but they have some issues yeah and we have a lot in common with those people absolutely and if the disciples aren't a composite church i don't know what it is absolutely seat seekers [Music] something come on man and you're right to me doubting thomas gets a bad rap we know we know him by one event and we base his whole life on one event like all of us aren't him from time to time and we distance ourselves from that reality yes but god put him in the group to show us that there's an element of each disciple in virtually every christian yep there's a peter in there oh yeah man there's a one that sticks for seats and not realizing that after it was all over thomas is one of the the apostles that evangelize most of what is known as india now turn the whole place upside down but we only know him by one part of scripture that he doubted that he doubted and i wonder why they made such a halo on him as a doubter when all of them doubted and judas betrayed him but but thomas is the one walks away with the label right yeah they don't call him this and this is no man the doubt the doubting dude i see i see thomas as the restored disciple because that's what jesus came to do okay he said i'll come put your fingers here put your hands there he restores him at that moment yeah and disciples says my psalmist says my lord and my god and his life is turned around because why god knows how when your faith isn't drawing him to you his love will drive him to you so did jesus purify his faith at that moment he said blessed are those who believe and don't see yeah i'm trying to teach you a lesson here i'm throwing them to you i just want to see you hit them that's all yeah he's i'm restoring this thing so your faith can be right now yeah because thomas i'm getting ready to leave again and i need y'all this time because next the next time jesus left when he was ascended they didn't go into a panic mode no they went into that upper room and god start moving and it and then you know peter shows us the extremes of a believer yeah you know he can have a great revelatory moment and then behave in such a way a few verses later that jesus calls him satan yep yep yeah that's amazing to me yeah but it shows the breath uh if you will of our uh change our changedness our our inability to maintain identity yeah but also after that he does great things after the betrayal he does great things yes absolutely preaches five thousand people get sick all these things happen you know what and that and he gives me hope if god can use him he could use it he could use me he's always giving me hope yes sir yes sir that's good so actually that'll be a good theme of our prayer tonight is praying for that restoration of faith um since we've been talking about it that comfort in that silence yeah how to be calm in the waiting period uh how to be relaxed and trust god in the moment how not to panic when it doesn't look like it's going to work out all of that plays into that whole didn't i tell you yup i told you and you're not managing the season well and believing that god will restore us like he restored his disciples yeah i love jesus after he rose from the dead he won a restoration campaign yeah he did restore just restore folk i know you left me but here let's just give you another chance to get it right my lord all right you ready to pray yeah the anxiety they must have felt believing they were going to lose him [Music] again must have been incredible because how do you how do you manage the physical representation of a comforter having been gone for a moment [Music] and now he's coming back to say i'll be around another month then i'm i'm out again you know and the anxiety must have been tremendous because they were i mean they used to walk and talk and eating sleeping with jesus for three years you know for three years and that you know and they followed him mm-hmm so the anxiety must have been through the roof yeah yet he he says peace to them so many times peace be unto you peace be unto you because he realizes something was disturbed by god's process yep yeah so what are we praying about tonight [Music] i guess that peace of mind that comforting people yeah that calm yeah that kingdom cool yeah you know yeah um when you feel yourself get being overwhelmed kind of yeah having a sense of calm in you yeah and i think that's some that's a that's a spiritual maturity also because it's one of the fruits of the spirit and it is one of those things that is uh strengthened over time yes it's learned over time yep um rarely do you have a brand new christian that has that sense of peace yeah have a portion of it but i think we grow to having uh what we call kingdom cool where you know okay god you got this yeah and and i think the difference is we have to learn how to immediately identify what's within our ability yeah and what god can hack and if we can identify immediately okay this is not my stuff that god you need us and get that off our plates quick enough i think that peace will come to us so you're saying relinquish control absolutely for a a culture of control freedom and and we we do i think what makes us anxious is not knowing we know that the thing is out of control but trying to control it yeah but if we can discern immediately okay this is a job for god yeah this is something i can handle i think it'll eliminate a whole lot of stress for a lot of people absolutely absolutely wow you want to close out you're going to be praying you pray i might hear the lord when you pray all right i'll i'll come and start and he'll come and clean up so thank you the lord we're gonna pray for you guys pray for your prayer request believe god for you this weekend and uh just trust the lord come on let's pray father we thank you for who you are and um we thank you that we can talk to you as always you know i just thank you so much because uh you allow us to come to you in prayer it's still such an amazing privilege to have a conversation with you that you allow us to come and talk to you i just thank you for that it's something that still blows my mind that you have so much grace and mercy and such a welcoming spirit to allow us to come to you in prayer and we give you thanks for that we praise you today because you are god you're our safe place you are our shelter you're our keeper you are a waymaker and we thank you this evening because you have been so good to us we look back over our lives and recognize that it's your hand that has been keeping us forgive us at this time for not recognizing that some of us are battling with emotional issues anxiety stress depression some other things that we're dealing with we pray that you would come in the situation and speak peace to us we pray that you would settle our hearts and minds that you would increase our faith that lord you would begin to let your presence overwhelm us so much that we would find comfort in you and god now we thank you because your presence when we ask for it can be tangible to us we thank you this evening that you're a god that draws near to us you said that if we would draw to you you would draw near to us we appreciate you today for this access into your throne of grace to seek the mercy and the help that we need in the time of need we thank you for being our refuge in the time of storm and a very present help in the time of need and now god i pray for those who are struggling in their faith increase our faith this evening we pray lord that you would help our unbelief that lord in this moment of silence in this moment of waiting in this moment of anticipating i pray that you would give us your endurance give us your strength to hold on i pray god that you would restore hearts and minds this evening that lord you would let your comforting hand be felt on us put your hands on us one more time again and i thank you for what you have been doing and i thank you that you overcome our doubts you overcome our fears and you still move in our lives anyway let your grace overshadow us your mercy flow through us in this season as we celebrate resurrection i pray that you would bring some things back to life our joy our peace some things we gave up on we pray for resurrection this evening we believe that you're able to do it we saw you do it before and we pray pray that you would do it again in jesus name amen lord you promised to keep my mind in perfect peace with the condition that my mind stays focused on you i realize that the enemy comes to distract to distort and to deceive but you promised in your word i will know the truth and the truth will make me free i give you praise right now because true to your word you cannot lie i thank you that your mercy always precedes your judgment that your grace always outruns my disobedience i thank you that you waited an eternity to save me and i give you praise that your divine patience is just one more act of love towards me i want to give you praise right now for jesus christ i want to thank you for that holy ghost i want to honor you for your word and how it works how it creates how it heals and how it soothes howard directs thank you for being that lamp and that light now god as we are in this season where we especially give glory for your resurrection yeah i want to thank you right now not just for how good you've been but how wonderful you've been now god i pray for all those thousands around the world who need your peace right now a trauma is complex we're dealing with so many of life balls juggling this and that lord and sometimes it gets frustrating but you've promised to give us strength release that strength on your people revive our understanding that we can do all things through you because you're willing to constantly give us strength to handle our assignments thank you for mothers and fathers as they seek to keep purpose together thank you for employment and businesses that despite the stress of the season [Music] your obvious hand of mercy and grace is upon thank you for favor thank you that you give salvation freely but favor has to be earned god by obedience thank you for a mind to follow you thank you for all those things you do for us now god in this season i pray for every prayer request yeah every financial need i speak philippians 4 13 and 4 19 over that request right now supply all the needs i speak strength to those that feel weak endurance to those that feel tired yeah lift up our heads so we can see you more clearly and i thank you for what you're doing right now yeah hear our petitions answer our prayers release some miracles in jesus name amen amen god bless you all um thank you for joining us this evening and receive that prayer worship god give him praise um expect god to move in your life and we'll see you tomorrow morning 8 a.m service did not tell you as we celebrate easter sunday here at bethany baptist church the transformation church bless you now see y'all later

Channel: Bishop David G. Evans

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Length: 43min 55sec (2635 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021