Our Only Way Forward - September 27, 2020

how many of you remember when you were growing up ever taking a road trip with your dad behind the wheel or how many of you women out there could give a testimony about taking road trip with your husband and you had the unfortunate experience of getting lost and everybody in the car realized that that we were lost but the dad just wouldn't admit it it's just a fact that men i don't know what it is maybe it's their pride they they just refuse to admit they're lost and they need god's divine intervention to make them pull over and ask for directions about 10 years ago on abcnews.com there was actually a fun article that i remember reading some time ago and the title of the article is male drivers lost longer than women it was published on october 26 2010 but it says the old stereotype might be true men really don't like to ask for directions and are willing to circle around aimlessly forever or at least a lot longer than women listen to this the article says the average male drives an extra 276 miles every year as a result of being lost the equivalent to a journey from cincinnati to nashville more than one out of four men 26 wait at least half an hour before asking for directions with a stubborn 12 percent refusing to ask a stranger for help at all no wonder they rack up all those extra miles our research not only reveals that men aren't quite as confident behind the wheel as they make out when it comes to navigation but also that women are in control when it comes to modern motoring noted jackie brown of sheila's wheels a british car insurance company the study did not address which gender is more likely to get lost just which sex is more likely to ask for directions but it's not just wasted time sheila's wheels estimated the cost of gas used by each man driving around lost and reluctant to ask for help could add up to thousands of dollars over a lifetime wow this reminds me of the song by the village people macho man said anne fleming of womendrivers.com a site that reviews female-friendly car dealerships with more stay-at-home dads today has much really changed as it relates to the machismo in the past 40 years for women it's almost the exact opposite almost three-quarters of women 74 percent have no qualms about asking for directions with 37 admitting to pulling over as soon as they realize they are lost compared to just 30 percent of men now i know if we had time it would be hilarious if i invited you to send me your story of being on a trip with a man who refused to stop and ask for directions well i want to share something with you today i've been guilty of refusing to admit i was lost refusing to stop and ask for directions but this is a time in my life when i don't want to commit that same sin again i want to admit before god i am lost and i need your direction you see we are facing a time i am in my life you are in your life we are as a church and we are as a country where we need to stop and get directions there is no sense in us trying to fake it till we make it there's no sense in us beating our chest and acting like we know where we're going this is a time when god wants us to stop and seek him and the way we do that is through earnest sincere passionate desperate prayer and i want to share with you a message today about prayer because prayer is our only way forward and that's the title of the message this morning our only way forward we are going to stop and ask for directions now it's going to be a little bit of an unusual kind of message because i'm not going to camp out in one particular passage in fact i'm going to share a lot of different verses about prayer verses that have meant a lot to me through the years and verses that have come to mean more to me in recent weeks than perhaps at any other time in my life we've got only one way forward and that is by talking to god here's some things i want to do i want to give you some characteristics of prayer and for each of these points there will be a corresponding verse and you can just jot the point down and the verse reference but the first one is this prayer must be intentional it means that prayer has got to be on purpose in colossians chapter 4 and verse 2 paul said devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart see what he says devote yourselves to prayer and what this means is that if prayer is going to have the place in our lives that it should have we have to be intentional about it we have to press pause and say a priority of my life is to spend time talking to god because if you don't make time for prayer something else will take time from prayer there are all kinds of competing forces that are vying for our energy our attention our focus and god wants us to understand like colossians says there in the fourth chapter we've got to devote ourselves to it we've got to say i am going to pray and so the question i would ask you this morning is are you and i intentional about prayer do we make it our habit do we make it our discipline do we make it an on-purpose activity of our lives not just sometimes but every single day prayer must be intentional but there's something else that i want to say about prayer and we get this from the bible prayer must be continual i know that many of you have heard this very simple three word verse from the bible first thessalonians 5 17. why don't you read it out loud with me pray without ceasing say it again pray without ceasing this is a reminder from paul's letter to the thessalonians that prayer must be continual ongoing so we must be intentional meaning that we deliberately set aside time for prayer but we also know that prayer is not just confined for those deliberate times in what we would call a devotional time or a quiet time but prayer is a way of life i'm talking to the lord when i'm walking through the house when i'm out in the yard with the dogs i'm walking around the block when i'm driving down the street i'm talking to the lord while i'm in the grocery store i'm talking to the lord when i when i'm taking a trip somewhere i'm talking to the lord when i'm spending time with friends or family there's this ongoing conversation with jesus and i just picked up wherever i left off last it's an an ongoing continual relationship we have in prayer and i know you agree with that because this has been your experience for years many of you so prayer has got to be intentional i'm going to make it a priority i'm going to do it prayer needs to be continual that we have this ongoing relationship with god that we talk to him throughout the day and even when we wake up in the middle of the night we whisper a prayer to him but here's the third thing that i want you to write down prayer should be directional that's an unusual word isn't it directional well i want you to to look at that scripture that i've listed it's it's a prayer of david of israel in psalm 25 and verse 4. he said show me the right path oh lord point out the road for me to follow lead me by your truth and teach me for you are the god who saves me and all day long i put my hope in you i hope you you wrote that verse down because his prayer is a sincere prayer it is a very genuine cry dear god i need you to show me the way dear lord i need you to show me the path that i am to take it's an acknowledgement that i don't know the way i should go i'm not smart enough to figure all of this out and what a great example those verses give us that when we can humble ourselves and say lord i'm not sure about this i don't know what the next step is i don't know which way to go we can turn to him and he's been waiting all along for us to turn to him and he says in response i'm glad i have your attention now let me show you the way in which you should go prayer is directional and by that i mean we can literally get our directions from god in prayer god will show us the direction in which we should go so i i've been thinking a lot about prayer lately and doing a lot of it as well and let me ask you a question what are some of the benefits that a christian can expect to get from prayer and there are too many for us to outline in a message over a live stream books have been written about it there are too many verses to even list from the pages of the bible that talk about the benefits of prayer but i thought what i could do is just share a few with you five to be exact number one i get provision when i'm in need when i have a need and i go to god in prayer god will meet my needs as i present those needs to him this is one of the the greatest reassurances that we can have because all of us will go through times of need in our lives sometimes i even believe that god orchestrates seasons of need because he knows that those times of need will cause us to turn to him and so a time of need becomes a great gift from god jesus even taught us in that prayer we call the lord's prayer to ask god to meet our needs it's a real simple sentence where he said in matthew chapter 6 and verse 11 give us this day our daily bread i'm sure you've prayed that hundreds of times in your life as you've recited the lord's prayer but i want you to think about the literal meaning of that jesus wanted us to be aware of the fact that every morsel of food that we eat every provision that we require to live our lives jesus wanted us to have it built into our prayer life not because god needs to be reminded to meet our needs but because we need to be reminded that he's the one who meets our needs so we can expect provision when we're need here's another thing i can expect from prayer i get strength when i'm weak that is one of the most powerful promises that prayer delivers is strength in times of weakness and all of us go through weakness those are the moments when we need to pray the hardest is when we feel the weakest in the recorded prayer that paul prayed for the ephesian christians in ephesians 3 and verse 16 he said i pray that from god's glorious unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit so see the connection there there is a connection between the power of prayer and the imparted inner strength on the inside of who we are by the holy spirit that through prayer not only our prayer but when others are praying for us there will be a strength that wells up within us that sometimes defies our understanding i'm getting through this but i don't know how i'm weathering this storm but i thought i was going to give up but you didn't and it's because you kept on praying and god kept on strengthening you you know another benefit of prayer in the life of a christian is through prayer i can get protection when i'm being attacked now i want to know can i get a witness out here of anybody who's ever been attacked you've been attacked by an enemy you've been attacked by someone you loved and trusted you've been attacked by satan whoever all of us go through times of attack being attacked is one of the inevitable realities of life and it is especially true of those of us who know jesus because when you trust christ and when you live for christ you are inviting assault into your life and in psalm 50 and verse 15 god says call upon me in the day of trouble i will deliver you and you shall glorify me look at that promise call upon me in the day of trouble i will deliver you and you shall glorify me so god tells us through prayer we can call upon him in a day of trouble are we in a day of trouble you better believe we're in a day of trouble i can't tell you how many people i have heard say these words especially older people who have said we've never experienced anything like what we're seeing and feeling in in our society i'm not convinced that these are the worst times that we've ever felt in history i don't know that these times are worse than the civil war when so many people were being killed by fellow citizens of the same country but but what i can tell you is this it is a time of trouble and god says if you'll call on me in your time of trouble i'll deliver you see we can call on god in prayer and he will protect us when we are under attack let me tell you something else we can expect from prayer you ready for this i can get wisdom when i'm confused i can get wisdom when i'm confused in the book of james it talks about what to do when you're going through what he calls various kinds of trials and you can't figure out what's going on have you ever gone through various kinds of trials and you wonder what else could happen which by the way i'm learning don't ever ask that question because something else could always happen but we've all been so overcome by anxiety and things happening around us that we feel stunned and we feel shell-shocked and we have nothing but questions what is going on in my life what is going on in our world and in the book of james he he said when you're going through a time like that and you're confused because of trials because of adversity in chapter 1 and verse 5 this is what he says if any of you lacks wisdom and and the context here is during a time of confusion because of adversity if any of you lacks wisdom when you're going through a crazy time what should you do he says let that person ask of god who gives to all liberally and without reproach and that wisdom will be given to the one who asks will be given to him you know i claim a lot of promises romans 8 28 is one of the biggest of course first john 1 9 ranks right up there if we confess our sins he is faithful and just but let me tell you james 1 5 i have camped out at james 1 5 many times many many many many many times james 1 5 oh god i am so bewildered i am so perplexed i am so confused i feel so disoriented i do not understand but you said if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of god and god will give him wisdom i not only claim it but i share that verse with so many people through the years all right so we can get wisdom when we're confused all of these things come through prayer through prayer here's another benefit a christian can get through prayer i get peace when i'm distressed peace when i'm distressed and we all need the gift of god's peace but how do we get that oh a very very familiar passage to every believer who studied the bible for any length of time you've read in that final chapter of philippians paul's words to some perplexed distressed christians he says in chapter 4 and verse 6 be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication did he say through counseling through medication through finding a shoulder to cry on through venting all your foot no he says by prayer talking to god he says with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god so when you pray you pour it out to god the promise is that the peace of god which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through christ jesus so here we are this is just a handful of the the personal benefits that every child of god can claim through prayer right here from the pages of god's holy word but what i want to do for a moment i want us to shift the focus right those are things those are just a few of the things that you and i as personal believers can expect but my question is this what can a church expect to come through prayer well i want to share five things that every church can expect for god to give it as a church through prayer and i want to tell you this not only can a church expect god to give these blessings through prayer but i want to tell you that prayer is the only way by which a church can expect these things are you ready for them here's the first one a church gets power for its ministry through prayer power for its ministry see a church that takes prayer seriously a church that cries out to god is a church that will have the power of the living god all over it now i want you to know something listen to me from a humble heart you and i both know the difference between a church that just has church and a church that has the power of the holy spirit all over it i can't tell you how many people i have met through the years that i have been here as the associate pastor who will say to me when i walked into the building i felt the presence of god when i walked into the worship center i felt i was on holy ground can i just tell you what that is that's not some accident that doesn't just happen by chance that happens because this church has an army of prayer warriors back before the church was closed for this pandemic every single week we had this group of ladies this godly band of of senior sisters and they would come in here and pray over every single seat in this house we have a group of men and and they're called under the pulpit and they used to gather under this stage because there's production space under the platform where dr stanley has preached for so many years and these men gathered for years and years right under the pulpit literally lifting him up in prayer from underneath his feet on their knees and now because they've outgrown the space they've moved into one of the rooms off to the side the point i'm making is this that a church can can have church a church can do ministry but in the day and time in which we live who wants to try to have church and do ministry without the power of god we need the power of god on our church and in acts chapter 4 and verse 31 the bible says when they had prayed the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were all filled with the holy spirit and they spoke the word of god with boldness this was just after peter and john had been released from prison for preaching the gospel and the church had a prayer meeting and it says the prayer meeting was so powerful by the church there in jerusalem that the ground rumbled underneath them because of prayer can you imagine that and they left there filled with the spirit of god so a church gets power for its ministry i want to tell you something else that a church gets through prayer a church gets freedom for those who lead it and in this case i i'll say freedom for the pastor you know the bible teaches that after peter and john were released from prison there in acts chapter 4 that herod imprisoned simon peter several chapters later and simon peter was thrown into jail because he was the pastor of the church he was leading and preaching and and shepherding god's sheep and sharing christ with the unsaved and in acts chapter 12 and verse 5 it says peter was kept in prison but look what happened constant prayer say it constant prayer was offered to god for him by the church so what we see there is that that this spiritual leader the apostle peter was thrown into jail but the church was lifting him up in prayer to god the church was bombarding heaven with their intercessory prayer with their combat prayers with their warfare prayers oh i'm getting excited about it today the church stayed in prayer while the pastor was in the prison and do you know what god did god heard the cries of the church god answered the prayers of his people and in verse number seven of that chapter it says behold an angel of the lord stood by peter and a light shone in the prison and he struck peter on the side and he raised him up and said get up arise quickly and his chains fell off his hands and do you know what this happened literally this happened literally the chains fell off and the preacher walked out of the jail but what i want you to understand that whether you go to this church or any church do you know what a pastor needs more from his church than anything else a pastor needs the people to pray for him because as god's people pray they can ward off the attack that will come against the spiritual leader and just as literal chains fell off of peter's hands because the church was praying for him so all kinds of change and and hindrances and things that obstruct what god wants that pastor to do can be swept aside as god's people move god to action on behalf of their pastor what a what an indescribably powerful reality that is blessed is a pastor who has engaged the congregation to pray on his behalf what a humbling thought a church gets freedom for its leaders here's something else a church can expect a church gets unity for its members unity now churches throughout all time have faced internal division squabbles fight sometimes they're just little quarrels on the playground and other times they are knocked down drag out mud slinging fights and depending on how many churches you have been a part of you might have seen disagreements and divisions across the spectrum it was true of the early church the earliest churches that were founded were plagued with strife and division that they had to overcome in fact many of the epistles of the new testament were written to believers encouraging them to be unified and you know a lot of people don't realize that that the way for a church to be unified is through prayer prayer can tear down the barriers that divide fellow christians in in the the passage of scripture that describes what the disciples did after jesus went back to heaven in acts chapter 1. verse 14 it says they all met together and were constantly look at this united in prayer please look at that they were united in prayer along with mary the mother of jesus several other women and the brothers of jesus now if you learn this the way i did in the king james acts chapter 1 verse 14 talks about and they were all in one accord they were in that upper room and they were in one accord the new living says united in prayer we understand that language and and i am here to say to our church today that to the extent that we commit to pray as a church god will drive away the forces of division that would drive splinters and fractures between us in this wonderful fellowship called god's church through prayer a church can call on god to bring unity to its members i want to tell you something else a church can expect through prayer a church can get workers for its mission workers for now workers is an old-fashioned word a lot of churches you know they're updating all of their vocabulary to use cool words and throw out all of the outdated churchy kind of words so a lot of churches you know they come up with real fun and creative names i'm all for that but you know i'm kind of an old-fashioned guy and the fact of the matter is if you serve in ministry at a church you are a worker because what we do at church is hard work not just the people who are paid to work at the church but the volunteers who serve and give freely of their time they work just as hard in many instances as those who are paid to work at the church and you say what does prayer have to do with getting people to work in the church it has everything to do you know who else used the word workers jesus did the bible says he looked out across the city and he saw so many people who needed to be saved and he spoke of those who need to be saved as a great harvest like going into the field and gathering in a harvest of wheat and he says in matthew 9 and verse 38 since the harvest is so great pray to the lord who is in charge of that harvest and ask him to send more workers out into the fields what i want you to understand with me is that every need that we will face in our future will require someone to stand in and meet that need as a worker in god's field and jesus said not just that you should have campaigns and promotions and recognitions and appreciation banquets jesus said the way you recruit more workers is to pray to the one who's in charge of the harvest and ask god to move in people's hearts and give them a calling to work in the field so every need that we will have that will be met by someone who will be a worker in this church will be provided as we pray together as god's church here's something else a church can expect you ready for this a church can expect favor from god through prayer favor oh say it with me favor the favor of god is what a church needs above everything else the favor i want it on my life and and in whatever church i've ever been a part of and now this church i want to know that we are basking in the favor in the goodness in the overflow and the outpouring of the richness of god's blessing there in that fourth chapter of acts again verse 33 it says with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the lord jesus and great grace was upon them all you know what that means it grace simply means god's favor so you could paraphrase that this praying church these early disciples constituting the first congregation in history in jerusalem because they humbly cried out to god in prayer because they were intentional because it was continual and because it was directional god show us the way god gave them favor to those of you who are members of this church i know that you join me today in asking god to show us his favor oh he has shown us his favor since 1848 when this church was founded but the favor of yesterday is not good enough to sustain us today and the favor of today will not be sufficient for tomorrow my prayer is that our church will live every day today and every day hereafter receiving the favor of god you see our way forward is through prayer our church's future is through prayer and our only assurance of all that god wants us to have and all that god is willing to give us it will only be because we pray you know this is a this is a weird time we're going through we say it all the time in fact i don't like using the word unprecedented because it's in every news report that you hear and it's in every conversation unprecedented but it really is unprecedented at least in my lifetime when the pandemic first started you know i'm in touch with other pastors and and we talk about what god is doing in different churches and i heard about several churches that were without pastors and i remember thinking to myself this would be a weird time to be looking for a pastor when the churches are closed and and if you found a pastor that you wanted to put in front of the people he'd have to come preach over live stream because nobody can get into the church and and i remember one day i thought you know as weird as it would be to be a church looking for pastor this would really be a weird time for a man to become a pastor of a church well and then it happened to me there have been many times when i wish god would have let me be more involved in the timing of things this is not the time that i would have picked to go through this transition not at all but it wasn't up to me it was up to god and through the years that i've been here especially recently you know i've always known that it could be possible that i would one day be the pastor but i never wanted to let my mind go there because as you think in your heart so you become and i never wanted to get ahead of myself because if i started thinking like the pastor i would forget that i was here to serve the pastor so i always try to keep my my imagination and my thoughts and my vision casting i always try to keep that in check in the role that i previously occupied but here's something that several people have asked me especially in recent years anthony what's the first thing you would do if you became the pastor of first baptist atlanta now here's what i think they were implying by asking the question i think they were saying what's the first thing you would change i i'm not trying to read motives here but that's kind of the feel that i got and i can tell you to everyone who has ever asked me that question this is what i've always said the first thing i would do if i ever became the pastor of first baptist atlanta is i would drop to my knees and ask god for help i wouldn't try to change anything i would drop to my knees and ask god for help because i always knew if the baton were ever handed off if the torch were ever passed i would need god more in that moment than i have ever needed him before in all of my life and do you know what i did just that and i've done it every single day i've dropped to my knees and i have said god i need you to show me the way but it is not just enough for me to do that i need you to do that with me today i am launching a five-week campaign of prayer it's called forward in prayer and even while you're watching now many of you should have received an email in your inbox inviting you to register and be part of this five-week journey as you think about the number five and there being five weeks of prayer that we're setting aside five carries a lot of biblical significance perhaps most importantly the number five is the number of books in the first section of our bible called the law or the torah and that number five represents god's law and god's character it also is the foundation for all the other books that come after it those first five everything rests upon them and when i think about the number five symbolizing god's law i want you to think about a law that jesus made as he was beginning to share a parable in luke chapter 18 and verse one luke tells us that jesus spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart i want you to look at that jesus said that men always ought to pray so do you see what i'm talking about there i want us to adopt that statement as the law of jesus that we should always pray law number one for our future is that we should always pray how this works is number five is a part of every aspect of it five minutes a day five days in the week monday through friday for five consecutive weeks starting tomorrow morning and focusing on five specific areas of concern that'll be repeated each week across the five on mondays we're going to focus on our personal walk with god on tuesdays we're going to focus on those in our family and our circle of close friends on wednesday we're going to focus on praying for our church on thursday we're going to focus each week for the next five weeks on praying for our country our country needs god and every friday for the next five weeks we're going to aim our prayers for the needs of our world so that's how it will flow every single week and many of you who have gotten that list can register from the email that you received in your inbox but there are others of you who are not on our email list and if you want to be part of this with us we're displaying on the screen now the information that you will need that you can either text prayer to the number you see on your screen or you can actually go to our church's website fba.org and you can click on the slide that says forward in prayer and you can register by clicking that on our website and then the way this this will work is at five o'clock every sunday afternoon starting today you will receive in your email the upcoming week's prayer guide it'll be refreshed and updated every single week so it'll start at five you'll need to get registered before five today now five minutes is what it'll take to read through and pray and read that scripture every single day but i know many of you are going to want to pray longer than five minutes and i hope you'll feel the freedom to do that i also want to ask you to consider partnering with another believer to go through this journey of prayer with them and maybe you can get on the phone or set up a zoom prayer meeting and walk through these prayers i want to encourage every sunday school teacher in our church to lead your class to sign up to register to participate in this forward in prayer emphasis on seeking god for the future of our lives and for the future of our church and for the future of our nation and our world you see our future is very bright i really believe that and i refuse to accept negativity and pessimism to convince me otherwise but if our future is to be bright prayer it's not a good way forward prayer is not even the best way forward prayer is our only way forward father how i pray that your spirit will move in the hearts of your people to participate in these five weeks of focused prayer i'm asking you to change our hearts to align our thoughts with yours and to give us a passionate desire to know you more and to share you more boldly with others we lift our church and its future to you and we trust that by putting this foundation of prayer in place we can expect all of those blessings that you have reserved only for churches that pray may we always and forever be a praying church in jesus name amen

Channel: FirstBaptistAtlanta

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Length: 42min 49sec (2569 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 28 2020