Matthew/The Way of The Mustard Seed/17v14-21

[Music] hi and welcome to bridgetown online my name is christoph we haven't met i want to read a passage from isaiah 40 before we begin have you never heard have you never understood the lord is the everlasting god the creator of all the earth he never grows weak or weary no one can measure the depths of his understanding he gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless even the youth will become weak and tired and young men will fall in exhaustion but those who trust in the lord will find new strength they will soar high on wings like eagles they will run and not grow weary they will walk and not faint so today let's praise the creator of the universe one who understands us and never grows tired the one who is worthy of all of our praises let's sing yeah jesus we bless your name we praise your name pray that the light the joy the peace for the name of god would just fill the room but fill our minds fill our hearts as we worship you today we pray this in your name amen well hello everyone thank you so much for worshiping with us and gathering with us at this time with if you're with friends or family say hi to them if you're not don't worry you're not alone we're with you we love you [Music] hey everybody for the next part of our gathering we're going to have a moment for generosity if we haven't met yet my name is bethany i want you to know that 10 of every dollar you give goes to those who are vulnerable or in need in our city and around the world so we want to invite you to give even now you can do that at bridgetown.church or through a push pay app hey bridgetown it is my joy to introduce you to my dear friend tyler staton who is a guest teacher for today tyler is the lead pastor of trinity grace church in brooklyn new york he is a dear friend of mine we're in a little circle of brothers that kind of spend a week together every single spring and just kind of help each other pastor well he's a man that i love and i respect and we had him on the teaching schedule months and months and months ago to come out in our summer teaching series and to teach and to deposit into our staff and then covet hit and we decided you know what he's from brooklyn he's been on lockdown in manhattan why don't you or not manhattan but in new york why don't you just come out anyway with your family get out of town and let's spend a little time together as families we had a great kind of couple of days together went over the beach and spent time in the pacific northwest and he was with our staff and our elders and it's just really a gift of his deposit this is a a leader that i really love and respect as well as a good friend and partner in the work of the kingdom of god so please welcome tyler staton to continue our series through the gospel of matthew hey bridgetown so good to be with you if you would turn with me in your bible to matthew chapter 17. i'm going to catch up with you there in just a second i want to start with this i have a vivid memory of standing in front of my apartment door keys in my hand with no intention of actually opening the door and i was startled then when my wife suddenly threw it open and said tyler what are you doing i was so lost in prayer it was one of those moments when the actual world faded into a blurry background and this one phrase i was holding before god was in focus and only that why couldn't i drive it out i didn't ask it in those exact words but that was the general sentiment a few minutes before i had discovered an 18 year old kid exchanging needles with a group of older homeless men on a park bench andres was a kid in my youth ministry that i led at that time i had personally discipled him i'd spent plenty of early mornings with him before school i talked to him about girls and grades and weekend plans and jesus on those very park benches and then one day a couple of years prior to this he was just gone he was arrested and taken to juvie but i could never get accurate information about which facility he was at and it was a couple hours outside of the city but not even in what direction and then on this one cold gray february day somewhere around 24 months since i had last seen him i'm walking through the park and there he is staring at an old shattered cell phone screen living homeless dre dre is that you we end up having a slice of pizza at this shop around the corner and i invite him back to my apartment i offer my couch for him to sleep on a place for him to shower i'm even trying to give him a spare key but he doesn't want any of it he's happy to see me but he's not at all interested in my help and so there i am standing in front of my apartment door holding my keys in my hand but frozen time completely standing still as i'm muttering this prayer under my breath why god i mean he's just a kid how could you watch this happen are you even there god because you've got a lot of explaining to do on this one if you are why couldn't i help him i tried everything i knew why couldn't i drive it out matthew 17 starting in verse 14. when they came to the crowd a man approached jesus and knelt before him lord have mercy on my son he said he has seen your seizures and is suffering greatly he often falls into the fire or into the water i brought him to your disciples but they could not heal him you unbelieving and perverse generation jesus replied how long shall i stay with you how long shall i put up with you bring the boy here to me jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of the boy and he was healed at that moment then the disciples came to jesus in private and asked why couldn't we drive it out he then replied because you have so little faith truly i tell you if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move nothing will be impossible for you why couldn't i drive it out maybe you know what it's like to ask that question it's not primarily a philosophical or a theological question it's a personal one and if we're going to understand this strange story in matthew chapter 17 then we're going to have to cut through all the distance between us and them because they weren't in a signs and wonders workshop with some questions for the instructor about healing and deliverance they were looking at a boy just a kid suffering how could a loving god watch this happen we're laying hands on him we're asking all the right questions we're praying all the right words but none of it's working how could god stand by and watch this happen or as they phrased it why couldn't we drive it out now there's a few key players in the story there's the boy who has seizures some translations get more specific and diagnose it as epilepsy there's the father who's desperate to see his son's disease relieved and then of course there's jesus but the story is about the disciples matthew as an author includes only two miraculous healing stories after jesus's galilean ministry he's essentially broken his gospel up into three major parts there's part one which is the miraculous conception that's mary and joseph and the manger and all that stuff then there's part two the galilean ministry this is the core of jesus teaching which is often accompanied by signs and wonders and then finally there's part three when jesus begins preparing for the end this is when he suddenly stops talking about a kingdom and starts talking very cryptically about his death it's when he begins preparing his disciples to carry on the kingdom when he is no longer present with them in body and right there in the middle of part three there's another story of miraculous healing now matthew's editor would have had him move this story back into part two with all of the others it's creative writing 101 this is a great story matthew but it's out of place unless the story is not about the healing and there are clues i mean we get almost nothing about the crowd's reaction the father's response we don't even know about the boy's condition after he was healed we get your disciples couldn't cast it out jesus can and then the next scene cuts to him alone with his disciples breaking down the tape and explaining the mechanics the story almost like dislike any of the other miracle stories isn't something that we read to learn about jesus identity or his power but it's a story we read to learn something about discipleship about what it means to follow jesus and to share in his mission why couldn't we drive it out and the answer is hidden in such a minor detail that most will overlook so look really closely at your bible and you'll notice something interesting there is no matthew 17 verse 21. it skips right from verse 20 and then immediately to verse 22 and that's not a typo or a printer mishap it's because some of the recovered manuscripts of matthew's gospel include verse 21 and some don't and so the publishers of most modern scholarly translations add it as a footnote for instance i'm reading from the niv and if you're reading from the niv you just cut to the bottom and you can see verse 21 there added as a footnote in fine print but mark's gospel which was written before matthews includes verse 21 in the actual copy so whether you think this was in matthew's original manuscript or not we can be sure that it was a part of the story and something that jesus actually said because mark 9 29 and matthew 17 21 read this this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting martin lloyd jones called that the key verse for unlocking revival across the western world and so i want to talk to you today about the way of the mustard seed prayer and fasting what is it about the combination of something as weak and feeble as mumbling to god about my worries and skipping a meal or two how could this really be the key that unlocks supernatural power well let's begin with prayer i was walking to the gate in or to my gate in the airport to fly here and on the way my wife said to me i feel like we've forgotten something and then she paused for a minute and went kevin which of course is a reference to home alone now she actually did think we had forgotten something but when she said that line in that environment this whole plot came into her imagination and when she said that very common name in that tone in that environment that whole plot rushed into my imagination and even if you have never met her in your life when i said that it came into your imagination isn't that fascinating that just the saying of a name given the context can bring a whole story to your mind jesus is doing the exact same thing here when they came to the crowd now if you heard john mark's teaching from last week you know who they are and where they are coming from they are coming down a mountain from an encounter with the manifest presence of god and they discover that the others who waited for them at the bottom have gotten caught up in a spiritual scuffle that they don't know their way out of this is the reenactment of a famous scene moses came down from a mountain from meeting with god carrying two stone tablets with the ten commandments chiseled on them and there he discovers israel at the bottom has built an altar and is worshipping a golden calf in his absence they have gotten themselves into a spiritual scuffle that they don't know the way out of that's exodus 32. now exodus is the story that the hebrew children would have been steeped in since preschool it's a famous movie scene that or i mean i'm sorry a famous movie scene barely scratches the surface of the familiarity that every israelite would have immediately had when they put the pieces of the scene together matthew hammers this home for his readers by pointing out that on that mountain jesus and his core three were meeting with god elijah and moses so he made sure that for every reader all the bells would be ringing matthew sets the scene and that's enough said this is the frame that this story has to be interpreted within so jesus comes off a mountain reenacting moses famous scene to say something about prayer what does moses have to do with them well moses knew god in prayer like no one else did exodus 33 says that he spoke to god like a friend and yet in the very same chapter moses asked to see god's face to come unrestricted unveiled into his presence and the request is denied you cannot see my face for no one can see me and live exodus 33 20. no one can see the face of god and live to tell the tale that's the story that moses told them jesus reenacts the same scene to deliver an update to the message i'm making a way for you to experience even what moses was denied a way for you to stand unrestricted in god's presence and it's called prayer thomas kelly in his little book a testament of devotion has this fascinating insight he says that in the old testament no one could stand before god and live and then after resurrection the same thing is true only it's the outer man the false self that dies the false self in the presence of god falls to its knees and cannot live i love the story brennan manning tells about his 20-day silent retreat to a cabin in colorado nothing to distract himself with nothing to look forward to just alone and present before god for 20 days sounds terrifying but he and god were pretty familiar with each other i mean they'd been through a lot together manning was an alcoholic with a story so wild that it was a miracle he was still alive and he journeyed his way out of the grip of addiction through prayer but that was a long time ago at this point he's 18 years into a newfound calling as a franciscan priest he's a sought-after speaker and a renowned author and he an accomplished professional christian alone and undistracted before god confesses that he can't help but notice this wide gap between all of his intellectual theory and his actual lived experience these are the words from his own journal on that retreat the great divorce between my head and my heart had endured throughout my ministry for 18 years i proclaimed the good news of god's passionate unconditional love utterly convicted in my head but not feeling it in my heart i never felt loved he carried a false view of himself first into alcoholism and secondly into religion he had played both the younger and the older brother in the prodigal son story and now finally alone on a mountain with no one to become and no one to impress god was inviting him to shed the false self and let himself be loved brennan manning always believed in the love of god he studied it illustrated it wrote about it spoke about it counseled people toward it but then stripped of all of his distraction all of his activity all of his busyness and his doing with nothing to dress himself up with that's where he knew the love of god in the place of prayer belief becomes knowledge in english we typically understand belief to be deeper and more personal than knowledge knowledge is purely intellectual belief is gut level conviction knowledge is the language of the head belief is the language of the heart but that's not the hebrew understanding the hebrew word for knowledge is yadah and it refers to a relational knowing it's even used as a euphemism for sex that's why people refer to knowing someone in the biblical sense and in the hebrew understanding until you had personal relational experiential evidence all you had was theory and that's belief so most people believe that it's a bad idea to touch a hot stove some people know it's a bad idea to touch a hot stove because they've actually set their hand down on the red burner and probably still have rings on their palm to prove it they have experiential knowledge of what most of us just believe let me bring that a little bit closer if you were to ask me tyler how do you know your wife loves you i'd begin to explain to you all the ways that our relationship works all the times that she's chosen my company freely all the times that she stuck with me when i was lost or wrong or difficult all the occasions she's been a rock of support all the fun evenings we've had of laughter all the meals we've shared all the times we've enjoyed of just complete nothingness together now what is all of that it's relational knowledge i've experienced her love that's how i know so many of us are disenchanted or disillusioned when it comes to our experience in the christian life we love the ideas i mean grace hope power great on paper but when they come off the page and into my flesh and bones the weight of my guilt still feels stronger than my understanding of grace or circumstances outside of my control still so easily crush my hope and the power through prayer sounds amazing but then there was that one time when i gritted my teeth and actually believed with the mustard seed of faith and then he still died or she still just became callous towards god or i still ran into andres on a park bench living homeless we've all got our own versions of that story so many of us are all in on the theory but we don't live like it's true here now today because our experience in the christian life is hollow when it's held up against the promises of jesus it was marshall mcluhan who said everyone i know who ceases to believe begins by ceasing to pray and in my pastoral experience that's true because without prayer belief becomes agonizing i mean prayer is meant to be the hydration of the spiritual life run the race but to run the race of faith without prayer is like trying to run a marathon without water it is agony spiritual knowledge has to be inhabited belief is buying into a theory knowing is to personally vulnerably trust the theory that you already believe in i love these words from frederick beekner for what we need to know of course is not just that god exists not just the beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going but that there is a god right here in the thick of our day-to-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world it is not objective proof of god's existence that we want but the experience of god's presence that is the miracle we are really after and that is also i think the miracle we really get it's not enough to believe in the love of god we have to allow god to love us exactly as we are naked and unashamed to borrow a phrase and the way that we allow that love in is prayer as we pray the blinding light of god's love seeps into every crack in our inner world and the spirit opens our eyes to discover ourselves as we really are fixed in the firm gaze of god that's the invitation of prayer i believe in the love of the father prayer is the experience of that love i believe in the friendship of the son prayer is the experience of that friendship i believe in the supernatural power of the spirit prayer is the experience of that power and the yadah the relational experiential kind of knowledge it doesn't always happen in the moment of prayer in fact most of the time the prayer feels quite normal but it then infuses our otherwise ordinary lives with the miracle of god's presence i'll let manning say it himself what if the hour you spend in the prayer room is when you refocus on jesus so you can carry his presence with you into the other 23 hours of the day with a heightened awareness that he is with you that he is for you that he likes you that he hears your thoughts you start to pray in real time you instinctively lift situations to the lord in the actual moment you experience them while you are watching that distressing news report or hearing about your friend's latest crisis you're no longer deferring all your prayers to some later holier moment because your whole life is becoming that holier moment prayer is not a business meeting where you let god in on the items of your agenda and then sort out an adequate timeline it is the space you make so that the blinding light of his unbreakable love can shine into every crack until the fragile false self is shattered no one can glimpse the face of god and live that's what moses told them jesus updates the offer come freely into god's presence but all those false forms of worth that you dress yourself up with out there in the world all the ways you present yourself all the fragile crutches that you prop yourself up with all the ways that you trick him or her or them or maybe even yourself into a value of your own making they fall apart in god's presence god wants to break you why because he wants to see you face to face intimacy see there's this pattern in church history every great move of god can be traced back to a few humble people with their heads bowed prayer movements always precede revival movements and that's because in the place of prayer god heals us of our insecurity our broken thought patterns our hidden sin our stubborn cynicism in the intimacy of prayer god peels away the imprisonment of our false self and reveals our belovedness and it's only when we come to terms with our own belovedness that we can behold the belovedness in others and draw it to the surface that's why revival always starts with prayer it all comes down to love to really knowing the things you've spent so much time merely believing why couldn't we cast it out well the smallest seed of faith fertilized with prayer glo grows and blooms out of the inner life in supernatural power in this chaotic world what you were dealing with back there you need prayer for that but jesus didn't stop at prayer he says prayer and fasting fasting what good is that gonna do we're trying to do an exorcism here not start a monastery well fasting is actually about spiritual authority until now i've been able to avoid the stickiest part of the passage verse 17. you unbelieving and perverse generation jesus replied how long shall i stay with you how long shall i put up with you bring the boy here to me come on jesus that's a bit much i know you're probably hangry from the hike but relax again we have to remember the frame that the story is in moses coming down the mountain in exodus jesus is not being original here he's quoting moses critique of the israelites in deuteronomy 32. so to a crowd that would have known the torah like the back of their hand jesus quotes the torah dragging the ancient exodus story into the current moment most people know the broad strokes of the exodus story god miraculously frees israel from egyptian slavery and then through a series of miracles gets them through the desert to the promised land but nt wright says this there are two journeys of liberation in exodus the journey out of egypt and the journey to get egypt out of them the journey out of slavery and the journey to get slavery out of themselves and the second liberation journey that's a road paved by fasting why couldn't we drive it out he replied because you have so little faith and the english little faith is the greek oligopistia and you won't find it anywhere else in the bible it's an interesting word because it doesn't refer to a total lack of faith it refers to a person whose beliefs aren't expressed in a way that distinguishes them from the common life of the unbeliever so it's a passive kind of faith that means a different world view but a common life truly i tell you if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move nothing will be impossible for you so the mustard seed analogy is one of jesus favorites this quote is infamous but and i hate to out him like this it wasn't original to jesus this was a hyperbole that was common within the rabbinic tradition it's found in the sanhedrin before it's found in the gospels paul who trained as a pharisee uses the exact same metaphor in first corinthians so it's not meant to be literal it was a figure of speech these aren't instructions jesus is given for re-landscaping the earth if you just believe hard enough it was a common way to say the smallest seed of faith accomplishes the impossible when your faith is expressed in a way that distinguishes you that makes you uncommon there's power but you're trying to express faith and you have no authority so there's no power and i'm not sure what comes to your mind when i say authority but in the context of jesus spiritual authority is just the the ability to make the kingdom of god visible where it's lacking so think of healing or justice or the most common example the one that we have the most familiarity with is probably something like preaching some people preach technically great sermons other people preach and there's power suddenly the kingdom of god becomes visible where it was lacking just a few minutes ago there's spiritual fruit produced in an obvious and clear way that's authority the kingdom becomes visible where a minute ago it was invisible why couldn't we drive it out because your beliefs aren't distinguishing you from anybody else you're trying to exercise authority but you've neglected the means to grow in that authority fasting a few years ago i heard the penetrating whisper of the spirit say to me if you want to minister to the people of brooklyn you have to overcome the idols of brooklyn and that was the culminating moment of a theme that god had been putting his finger on on in my life for a while and it unraveled me i mean i wept the way you do when you know it's god and you know it's for you and no matter what the cost the answer is yes so i made a list of the idols of the land in new york city and that list included the categories of indulgence materialism appearance indulgence i gave up alcohol materialism i i went a period of time not buying myself anything apart from food and appearance i stopped cutting my hair all together why because i thought that if i did all of that maybe god would do what i want him to do a bit more no because i thought if i did all that god would listen to me more notice me more maybe even like me a touch more no none of that fasting has absolutely nothing to do with legalism and absolutely everything to do with authority because i was an accidental conformist i was trying to lead a church in new york but my life was shaped probably more but at least as much by the city as it was by the way of jesus because i had little faith distinguished beliefs and a common life fasting is not about legalism it's about growing in authority and i lived that fast for 320 days and here's what i discovered fasting starts with renunciation but it ends in joy see there's something that we see in children that we were never supposed to lose joy unaided by consumption when you're a kid all you need is uninterrupted time and space if you just give a kid a patch of grass and a little bit of time step back and watch them be dazzled with wonder at everything they'll discover and i began to realize that that feeling that i had when when i was a kid with just open space and time i could now only access through a burger a beer and maybe a movie afterward because over time we tend to trade in joy unaided by consumption for escape always aided by consumption and that almost works almost song of songs chapter 1 says for your love is more delightful than wine i like wine i worked as a server at a wine bar in the east village in manhattan for a little while and so in a blind taste test i think i could pick out the difference between the charles shaw merlot from trader joe's and something fancy like if you gave me a taste test between a three dollar bottle and a 30 bottle i think i could pick out the difference but if you gave me a taste test between a 30 bottle and a 300 bottle i'm not so sure i could tell you the expensive one and that's not because there isn't a difference there certainly is it's because i haven't trained my pallet so i can't appreciate it god's love is like the finest wine it's complex and robust and smooth and intoxicating and because god's love is like the finest wine it goes unappreciated on most palettes sommelier has trained for years to savor the tasting notes in a single sip of wine it's i'm getting pomegranates is that pomegranate and something acidic it's tomato no no sun-dried tomato with a hint of black pepper and i'm thinking really i was getting wine above average red wine life is not about gaining the palate of a sommelier you had it at first it's just about keeping it but we spend our lives making tiny little exchanges none of them a big deal all on their own but they add up shopping to cure my boredom alcohol to trigger rest from responsibility entertainment and distraction for my every idle moment these simple pleasures good things what the bible calls appetites of the flesh dull our taste buds until all we crave is the cheap stuff joy unaided by consumption is traded in for escape always aided by consumption unless you change and become like little children ordinary joy you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven that was jesus let's take it out of biblical language and put it in the language of psychology for a moment uh dr vincent felide says this it's hard to give up something that almost works now he's a doctor talking about the power of addiction but the ripples of truth go so much further than that he's saying the almost things they just dull our palate it's hard to give up something that almost works an escape aided by consumption almost works but it doesn't work and we know that it doesn't and i was finally admitting that it doesn't so here's the pathway back to true ordinary joy fasting fasting is the risk of surrendering the almost things you can control to receive the promised things you can't control and the promised things are infinitely better but they can only be received and they can never be controlled such a compelling invitation but it's a terrifying journey to get there because the joy of fasting always feels like starving at first that's why fasting may end in joy but it always has to begin with renunciation that's the word that the ancients use for this self-inflicted kind of starving of an appetite that isn't delivering medieval philosophy has a dictum that says every choice is a renunciation and in other words forever yes there is an implied no a yes to sleeping in is a no to watching the sun rise a yes to a cup of coffee comes with an implied no to a cup of tea but ronald rollheiser updated that idea and he says no no every choice is a thousand renunciations the decision to commit to one romantic relationship is the decision to say no to a thousand other romantic possibilities the decision to commit to one career path is a no to a thousand other hypothetical career paths and the decision to say yes to having kids is a saying no to essentially the remainder of your life from that point he concludes this we want to be a saint but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners we want to be innocent and pure but we also want to be experienced and taste all of life we want to serve the poor and have a simple lifestyle but we also want all the comforts of the rich we want to have the depth afforded by solitude but we also don't want to miss out on anything we want to pray but we also want to watch television read talk to friends and go out much of the modern christian life is an attempt to reconstruct christianity without renunciation and the unexpected casualty of that is spiritual authority so a month or two after those 320 days of fasting from the idols of brooklyn i was no longer losing something for spiritual reasons i was gaining something that i wasn't willing to go on living without and once you experience this even just a little bit you start to notice that it's a theme peppered all over the scripture it was hidden right there in plain sight the entire time it's what david calls being without want in psalm 23. and in psalm 4 david pray something similar fill my heart with joy when their grain and wine abound i love eugene peterson's paraphrase of that he writes why is everyone hungry for more more and more they say more more i have gods more than enough more joy and one ordinary day than they get in all their shopping sprees first timothy chapter six my personal favorite says but godliness with contentment is great gain see you become dangerous you become a threat to the principalities and powers of this world when you are so detached from the appetites of this world that you carry authority to bring the kingdom of god where it lacks so what are those almost things that have this city by both hands that have your friends that have your industry what are the almost things that your world tries to make into ultimate things and are you free from the hold of those things if you want to minister to the people of portland you have to free yourself from the idols of portland what if the spectacle of supernatural power is tied to the hiddenness of fasting of course god would do it that way right the god who gives his kingdom into the hands of little children the only kingdom that lasts the one that will live past all the others entrusted to the humble thomas kelly once again says self-renunciation means god possession the being possessed by god out of utter humility and self-forgetfulness comes the thunder of the prophets how do i go after authority you starve your almost things your cheaper substitutes all the means of escape that you use to cope that don't produce true joy the only way is to feel like you're starving until you learn to live without what almost works fasting is the refining of your spiritual palate and the overflow of that is supernatural power why couldn't we drive it out there's that question again the one that we started with truly i tell you if you have faith as small as a mustard seed nothing will be impossible for you so i'll close with this picture in gene edwards brilliant little book a tale of three kings he opens with an allegory of the angel gabriel offering two destinies to one person the first is to be clothed by the armor of divine power but that power will also reveal the true inner condition of anyone who wears it the second destiny is just a tiny seed of divine love that will be planted deep within and yet over time seasoned by pain and sorrow and the shifting circumstances of life in an uncertain world it will grow and grow until it fills the inner person and then blossoms outwardly in supernatural power he goes from there to tell the stories of king saul and king david saul who wore power but of course that power was just a thin veneer over his insecurity and fragility that was eventually exposed in his downfall it was just armor to protect his fragile false self and then david who turned down saul's armor when offered it and had a really rough go of it in the early days but eventually became the most revered leader in israel's history and the line of the messiah prayer and fasting those are the humble hidden ways that we choose the seed of divine love over the suit of armor and in the upside down kingdom of god divine love grows until it blossoms in a force of divine power i'll give the last words to nt right god and jesus don't do what they do by blasting through all the opposition they do it by working with the grain of the cosmos by planting seeds that grow secretly by calling human beings to be co-creators let me pray for you i know that everyone will be watching this on some little screen within their home but if there's anything that has been said that's resonated with you that you felt like oh that hit me right in the chest in the best way it hit me like an invitation then you just open up your hands and i want to pray that that would be a seed that would be planted that would grow and would flourish and so heavenly father i want to pray that bridgetown church would be a people of prayer and fasting that they would know the joy and ease of spiritual authority because they would live detached from the appetites of the world around them and that they would know the freedom and hope and life of divine love because the false self would be shattered again and again and again as many times as it takes so that they could be fully alive naked and unashamed in the presence of god and of one another and so lord for anyone who you're speaking to i want to pray that the fruit of today's talk wouldn't happen in this moment but would come in all the ordinary moments after this one the people would find themselves praying and that like manning describes it would feel quite ordinary in the moment but it would become expressed in that their whole lives become a holy moment and i want to pray god that this church would become detached from the idols of this city so that they could speak a better word and tell a better story right in the midst of the one being told all around them all the time and so we just ask holy spirit for blessing that you had blessed the people of this community that you would work in their lives and pull them along by the hand in the same way that jesus did to his disciples and that you would teach us what it means to be entrusted with your kingdom and to allow you to bring it to life from within us in jesus name we pray amen lord we take a moment we bow our lives before you at your feet we take all that we are all our thoughts all our ambition everything we think we've made ourselves to be and we put it at your feet this morning we love you amen thank you again for gathering with us online we love all of you thank you to tyler for that beautiful teaching on prayer and fasting two things on that one if you're new to our church we have an entire practice on fasting that's three weeks long it's available at practicingtheway.org fasting if you want to explore more of kind of tyler's vision and two just a reminder that every single tuesday we set aside in our rule of life as a church for prayer and fasting we invite you to skip breakfast and lunch and fast through the day and either break your fast with your community as the lord's supper meal that night or however your evening routine is and we pray at 7am and at noon right now on instagram live even if you don't have instagram which is great by the way we invite you to just join us for prayer and for fasting on tuesdays also make sure you follow the weekly update video because we're hard at work right now to open up our building a little bit and in theory start running morning prayer gatherings of 25 people to just come together and kind of seed the ground as we move forward to the fall and hope to open our new building up soon we just want to immerse this building and ourself in prayer as we head into whatever god has for us next we love you so much you

Channel: Brian Bull

Views: 1,153

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Faithfulness (Quotation Subject), Religion (TV Genre), Solid Rock, Solid Rock A Jesus Church, The Bridge, A Jesus Church, Bridgetown, Bridgetown Church, Gospel, John Mark Comer, Portland, dominic done, Oregon, Sermon, Church, Pastor, Calling, identity, jesus, transformation, sermon, John, bible, kingdom of god, kingdom, bible dominic done, yahweh elohim, god has a name, author, westside a jesus church. Matthew, Gospel of Luke., Bethany Allen, Bridgetown Daily, gospel of matthew

Id: 4kZXLTc69H0

Length: 47min 21sec (2841 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020