December 8, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
For the firehouse church, I’ll just pray it. Set a fire, Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, set a fire. Give us a fresh filling tonight. Give us fresh fire tonight because you are good.
Make our lives a habitation for your presence. Give us an increased sensitivity and awareness of who you are and your goodness and love and desire to be in us, to work in us and through us.
You are a good father, you are a saving, wonderful son, and you are a spirit who imparts to us the very character of that son. And so we ask, Lord, that you would light fresh fires in us tonight. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. Amen.
Dear ones, God is good and he loves you. I believe that there is more to God’s love than we have an idea about. Well, maybe we have an idea, but it’s bigger. I think.
I really do believe this is a working theory here, one of my working theories that when you die and you have that face to face encounter with Jesus, if I’m wrong, we can talk about it in heaven saying, kevin, you weren’t right about that one, but otherwise in heaven you can come tell me I was right. I imagine even in heaven I like hearing that. So. But I think that when we have that face to face encounter, we will be overwhelmed by a depth of mercy and love that is huger than we could have imagined.
We will know that we were sinners, but the shame of that will shrink in comparison to the tsunami of the love and acceptance that we receive. I think that’s why he came to redeem us, to bring us back, to forgive us and to make us his children. I think that’s why he came. And so I think that’s good news. I think that’s good news. And we’re going to preach about hope.
And we’re going to preach about hope and prayer tonight. We’re going to look at some of the prayers of St. Paul.
Before I read the Scripture, here are a couple of presuppositions I’m working on. These aren’t new things; these are things that have been in my life for a long time. But you know, the Lord freshens things in your life at different seasons.
And one of the things, and for years I have prayed this prayer, the prayer of the disciples: Lord, teach us to pray. Lord, teach me to pray.
I want to be a better prayer. About a year ago, and I hadn’t been on that theme for a while in my life, but about a year ago, a little over a year ago, I heard somebody say this. He said, well, if your prayers aren’t being answered, pray different. I thought, well, okay, okay. And I went on that.
I realized there were a couple of things about my prayer life. One of them is my prayers. And this happens to us. Our prayers become more mechanical and less personal, right?
They become like, well, I got that in kind of like exercise. You know, I got that, and I got my workout in. I said my prayers, and, you know, even that’s not terrible. The fact that we have discipline to do something dutifully is kind of a good thing. But I do think God wants more than a dutiful prayer life. I think he wants connection. I think he wants love. He wants us to know that he loves us. And so I just made a commitment to make my prayers more personal.
And then the other thing is, I just went back to learning about how to pray from the Bible, because I have this, and I’m convinced of this one. I’m convinced that in our church culture, in the modern kind of American, Western, evangelical, charismatic culture, and I don’t know that this has been taught as much as it’s just kind of practiced and assumed that all prayer ought to arise out of our spontaneous felt need for God.
And we bring our requests to God. And what happens then is. And then we read these encouragements and hear these pastors tell us, well, you should pray 15 minutes a day, or half an hour a day, or an hour a day.
And then we try to pray for 15 minutes, or half an hour, or an hour that way, taking just our spontaneous feelings and emotions and thoughts and needs to God. For most of us, that doesn’t go for an hour, or a half an hour, or 15 minutes. It goes for about two or three minutes, and then our minds start to wander.
And what happens then? Does this sound familiar to anybody or is this just my experience? What happens then is we condemn ourselves or allow the devil to condemn us. That, oh, I’m not a very good Christian. I can’t pray very long. I’m just a bad prayer. And part of that’s true. You are a bad prayer because you’re not supposed to pray that way. You took bad advice somewhere.
And I just have realized afresh, as we’ve been reading through the Bible this year, how much the Bible is a great tool to pray, to teach us to pray.
And a year ago, when I got this fresh thing about, hey, if you’re not getting your prayers answered, pray different. I was in a heap of hurt at that time. A little over a year ago, I was grieving some things and feeling some pain. I remembered one preacher said, pray the Psalms, and when you find yourself, stay there. I found myself in Psalm 25, 26, and 27. I camped there, and I prayed those Psalms every day for like a month. And it helped.
And then after I kind of wore through those Psalms, I just decided I’m just going to start praying the Psalms.
For the last year, one of the things I’ve been doing is I’ve taken three Psalms a day, and I just pray through three Psalms a day. The only variation I make on that is Psalm 118, 119, and 120. I divide Psalm 119 into three days, but otherwise, I’ve just been praying three Psalms a day. And that’s been helpful.
And then a while back, as we’re going through the Bible, we got into the Lord’s Prayer and the disciples, Lord, teach us to pray. And it just dawned on me again. It wasn’t a new revelation. I’ve taught on this before, but it was fresh again. It came fresh again. It’s like, well, duh, teach us to pray. And Jesus says, okay, here’s how you pray. And then we don’t pray that way. I thought, my goodness. We have this great resource for prayer called the Lord’s Prayer.
And again, you can turn that thing and make it impersonal and just mumble. It wrote, we all know our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And I don’t think that’s what Jesus intended by that at all. In fact, he even says that. He says, don’t think you’ll be heard for your many words or your magic formulas.
But I do think the Lord’s Prayer is a tremendous prayer outline about the things that matter to God.
And I thought, if you want your prayers answered, maybe you should pray about the things that matter to God, the things that he inspired in his book instead of just taking to him our shopping list.
Now, having said that, let me say in the Lord’s Prayer, he gives us permission to bring the shopping list. I think give us this day our daily bread is big. I don’t think it just is at the restaurant. Sourdough, wheat, rye, biscuit. I don’t think it’s just about bread. I’m not a biblical literalist like that.
I think bread means what we need to live emotionally, physically, spiritually. I don’t think it’s wrong to pray for healing and health. I think it’s great. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it’s wrong to pray for a new job and for financial resources to meet our needs. I don’t think it’s wrong to pray for the right people to be in our lives if you’re single. Listen, it worked for me. I got so tired of being dumped, it was hard to sit down. And so finally. It’s about your age, Sophia.
But I was not nearly as together as you are. And I just said this prayer. I said, Lord, fine. You ever tell God, fine, fine, God, I’m not going to try anymore. I’m not going to look for a girl. If you want me to have a girlfriend, you get one for me. Fine.
And I was convinced he was going to give me some poor pathetic Christian girl who needed her self-esteem built up and I’d have to be the poor sucker to do it. That was my negative impression. But that’s not what happened.
God is better than that. Two weeks later, Jill called me up and asked me out. She asked me out. This little shy girl at McDonald’s asked me out. 44 years later, we’re still humming along. It was pretty fine. So you can pray the shopping list. There’s permission. But that’s not all prayer is. So I came under the conviction to kind of pray the prayers of the Bible. That’s how I got to the prayers of Paul. I want to say something else about answered and unanswered prayer.
The Bible tells us to seek, ask, and knock, and then gives us incredible promises. Seek and you will find. Ask and it will be given to you. Knock and the door will be opened.
Well, if you’re seeking, asking, and knocking and you don’t get answers, the Bible also tells you why. And we have a theology that is rampant in the church that may be in the Bible. I think you can make a case for it in some cases, but it’s not the primary thing that’s in the Bible.
When it comes to answering the question about unanswered prayer, here’s what we do with unanswered prayer almost every time. Well, God didn’t answer that prayer because it was in his sovereign will not to answer it.
Now, there may be truth to that. There may be times where it’s like that’s not in accordance with where God’s moving. Okay, I’ll grant you that, but I will say that’s never in Jesus’ ministry. He never says that.
I think I told you last week I was enamored. I’ve been enamored with the series The Chosen. I just think it’s been so wonderful. And they just. Man, I just got. Twice now they’ve done this. And it really bothers me, even though overall, I really like the series.
Twice now, a disciple of Jesus has come to Jesus with a request that they be healed or somebody that they love be healed. And twice now in the Chosen, Jesus has given a theological answer as to why he can’t heal that person.
Now, maybe there is a mystery out there to why some people get healed and some people don’t. But here’s what I’ll say.
If that mystery is out there, it’s not in the Gospels. It’s not in the Gospels. You cannot find me in the Gospels an instance where somebody comes to Jesus and requests a healing and he doesn’t heal them.
You say, well, Jesus didn’t heal everybody. Okay, okay. He didn’t empty out the pool of Bethesda. He only healed one man. But everybody who asked gets it. Even the Gentile woman who he calls a dog. Even back then, if you were a woman and a guy called you a dog, it wasn’t a good thing.
All right, go away, you dog. No, I’m going to stay here until I get the scraps from your table. And then he completely does a 180 and says, you’re awesome. You have great faith. Everything you want, all your prayers are going to be answered. Daughter’s delivered.
Now here’s the answers Jesus gives for unanswered prayer. And we don’t like this one either, but it’s the answer he gives: O you of little faith. And not to the person necessarily who was asking, but to his disciples. The boy with those epileptic symptoms who was demonized.
And his father comes to Jesus. Jesus is on the mountain of transfiguration with Peter, John, and James. The disciples can’t cast it out, and they say, this guy came to us and we couldn’t cast it out.
Jesus doesn’t look at the Father, at least not initially, and say, well, if you had faith. I don’t think that’s the thing. I don’t think it’s good to look at the sick person who’s not getting healed and say, well, if you just had more faith, you’d get healed.
I think that’s kicking a person when they’re down. But Jesus does look at his disciples and says, o you little faiths. Oh, you puny faiths. you’ve been with me for two years and you still don’t get it.
So I think one of the answers Jesus gives a lack of faith. James says that, by the way, little brother, little brother, he learned from his big brother. He says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously and without showing favoritism. Isn’t that a great promise?
He says, but let not that person be what, double minded? Then they’re just like something tossed by the waves of the sea, and they can expect to get nothing.
Why can they expect to get nothing? Because when you pray without faith, you’re expecting to get nothing, and you get what you expect.
Now, James gives another reason for unanswered prayer, and that is you didn’t get your prayer because you prayed selfishly.
All right? Lots of people have prayed to win the lottery and haven’t done it, all right? Winning the lottery is not daily bread.
Winning the lottery is daily bread for the rest of your life and the rest of your family’s life and way more bread than you need. You know, I heard this years ago. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard that one thing was consistently true for every lottery winner, and it’s something no American wants.
It’s that they all gained weight because they just started eating out and eating whatever. It’s like, I can afford it. Yay. They all gained weight. None of them bought gym memberships, or if they did, they didn’t use them.
They went to the restaurants. All right, let me read the Scriptures on Paul’s prayers, because I think the Bible can teach us to pray and to pray.
And here’s the premise I’m working on tonight. If the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul, this is not the only place he prays for churches. In Ephesians, and most of his letters, he prayed. Not all of them, but most of his letters. He writes out prayers for the churches.
If the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write those prayers, wouldn’t it seem logical to assume that maybe those are the kind of prayers God has a bent toward answering? You follow that. If the Holy Spirit inspired David to write the Psalms, wouldn’t that be an indication that maybe God has a bent to answering those prayers?
If Jesus the Son of God taught the disciples to pray the Lord’s Prayer, wouldn’t it be something to assume that, well, if I pray that way, the way God said to pray, you think God might be in that?
You follow me? So if you’re not getting your prayers answered, pray different. How should I pray different? Here’s a suggestion, and here’s tonight’s suggestion. Pray the prayers of the Bible.
So two prayers in Ephesians, it’s the only letter, I think, where Paul has two prayers. All the rest he has one. But I’m going to read two prayers and then I’m just going to go through the list of the things Paul prays for. And it’s a pretty amazing list.
So Ephesians 1:15.
Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people, who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe in Him. This is the same mighty power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.
15 Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, 16 I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. 18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. 19 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 1:15-20, NLT)
And then Ephesians 3:14. When I think of all this, I fall on my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven, on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit.
Then Christ will make his home in your hearts. As you trust in him, your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. And then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (Ephesians 3:14-19, NLT)
And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. All right, here we go. Things to pray for. It’s a list of things Paul prays for, and none of these are small. First thing that Paul does is he prays for huge things, and he prays for huge spiritual qualities.
In the church, we do not tend to pray for spiritual qualities. We tend to pray for felt needs. Again, not wrong to pray for felt needs, but definitely wrong to pray for felt needs exclusively.
Follow not wrong to pray for felt needs, but that ain’t all there is to prayer. If you’re going to pray for felt needs, you are dooming yourselves to two or three minute prayers and then frustration and failure unless you pray in tongues. And then maybe God will take some of these things on in tongues. But you can do them in English.
They’re listed here. They are. All right. Paul prays for the Ephesians to have in their spirit, by the Holy Spirit, wisdom that comes from revelation and knowledge. We’ve already talked about wisdom. James promises wisdom.
The Bible says wisdom is more important than gold and silver. And yet many of us pray in a way for gold and silver. We pray for financial needs to be met. I pray for financial needs to be met. And so we pray for gold and silver. If we had a sign on the front door and we could convince people that the sign was true, that if you come into this place and pray with us, God will give you abundant gold and silver, there would be more than 18 people here tonight.
There would be a line out the door if people actually believed it. That if you just go to that church and pray and have the preacher lay hands on you and pray for you. And this is kind of a message that gets preached sometimes. And God will make you rich, rich beyond your wildest dreams. People will be lined up at the door.
But the Bible says God will do that with something greater than gold and silver. He will generously give wisdom. Here’s what wisdom is. Wisdom is knowing God’s desire and plan for what to do with the revelation, information, and knowledge that you have. Let me explain.
There’s information. Well, there’s revelation that imparts information. There’s knowledge, and then there’s wisdom. The two great dreamers are dream interpreters of the Bible. Daniel and Joseph both illustrate this.
The king, the Pharaoh, comes to Joseph and says, I had a dream. You remember the cows, the sleek cows, the fat cows, the good wheat, the bad wheat. And then that’s the information. That’s the revelation. Except the revelation does no good to Pharaoh because he doesn’t know what it means. That’s the knowledge.
Here’s what this means. It means seven years of abundant harvest followed by seven years of drought. That’s what the dream means. But that still does Pharaoh no good. What am I supposed to do about that?
That’s where comes the greatest gift. Wisdom. And Joseph lays out a wise plan for Pharaoh to follow the next 14 years so that the people will be preserved and Pharaoh’s kingdom will be enriched. That’s wisdom.
We live in a day and age like no other. We live in a day and age of information. Gluttony. We have a glut. Gluttony of information. Five seconds away. Right, five seconds away.
I’m interested in college football. Today they selected the 12 teams that are going to make the playoffs and the seedings. I did not have to wait until tomorrow morning to read that in the newspaper. I don’t get a newspaper because I don’t need a newspaper. I got a phone, all right? I didn’t have to wait to go home and watch SportsCenter on TV.
Just had a 5 minute break when I wasn’t with anybody, and I could just look up on my phone, and boom, I knew where those 12 teams, those 12 teams are going to make the playoffs.
It’s a sad thing to me, it’s a grievous thing to me that I’m the only person in the room here that cares about that. But yet there it is. There it is.
Lord, send me just an abundant number of sports nerds. I love fellowshiping with you all, but you know, I get a little lonely once in a while.
My level of sports nerdom is so much higher than the rest of you who spend your time doing important things with your life. I have information. We live with information glut. We live with wisdom poverty. And yet God tells us to pray for wisdom.
Paul prays for the church at Ephesus for a spirit of wisdom. Dear ones, I can’t think of maybe faith, hope, and love would be the three things that maybe are of a greater benefit to you in this world than wisdom.
In fact, if you get wisdom, you’ll be wise enough to pursue faith, hope and love. And it’s promised. Isn’t that great? Any situation you find yourself in, I’ve told you this many times, pray, help. Well, you know what help is?
Many times help is a prayer that says wisdom. I’ve got this difficult situation at work. I’ve got a difficult situation with a child at home. I’ve got a tough financial decision to make. I’ve got a fight with my spouse that I’ve got to work out and reconcile.
Whatever it is, God, what is the practical, heavenly, godly counsel that I can apply to this situation? Sometimes you just know it right away. The Bible will tell you, right? The Bible will tell you. This is what you do in this situation. Well, I have somebody who hurt me really bad. God, should I hold onto my anger and pay them back or should I forgive them? All right, you don’t need a revelatory dream for that one. It’s in the book. Lots of times it’s real clear, get even. No, I mean forgive, forgive.
Pay those suckers back, then forgive them. No, just forgive. All right? Pray for wisdom. Pray for more revelation. You see, the more wisdom you have, the more revelation God can give you. It won’t be wasted or used poorly.
One of the dangerous things about information and even about knowledge is that if it gets in the wrong hands I mean, during World War II, some of the smartest, most informed, most knowledgeable scientists in the world worked for the Nazis.
CS Lewis says education, for all the good it does, if not given with moral instruction, if not given to moral people, seems to me to make only more clever devils. So you don’t want to be a clever devil.
But the more wisdom God gives you, the more revelation you can have and the more knowledge. And whenever the Bible says the word knowledge, think of the word experience. The more experience you can have of God’s life, goodness, wisdom, flowing through your life.
Paul says, pray for that. Pray for that. After you’re done praying, God guide the doctor’s hands or give you travel mercies. Not bad prayers, just not the only prayers. Pray for that or pray for that first. Pray for that first second, that your minds would be enlightened, that God would enlighten our minds.
the Spirit of this world is darkness. The wisdom of this world is darkness. The counsel of this world is darkness. Worldliness is darkness. And God says, pray that your minds will be enlightened. How many of you, when you came to Christ, experienced an enlightening of your minds?
I mean, I remember when I came to Christ, it was like, oh, my goodness. I just. Everything I began to look at in a different way, in a different what we even say it, right? In a different light. This is how old I am. It felt to me like my black and white TV just got turned into color. Not even high def. People just. It was like the world all of a sudden took on color. I had cataract surgery several years ago. And the thing with cataracts is you are slowly going blind.
So slowly you don’t realize it until your wife says, you know, you just drove past our street, and you say, oh, I didn’t really see the sign. It’s like, well, you saw that sign three or four years ago, and you don’t even realize it.
Then the cataract surgery is so immediate, the results are so immediate. When you take that patch off, those cataracts are gone. And all that film that had been growing over your eyes is gone.
I remember driving home from the ophthalmologist’s office, just going, I can see again. The colors are brighter, the birds are prettier, the sound is more beautiful. I can read street signs. Everything changed like that.
Pray that Christ would enlighten your mind, give new light to your spiritual vision, and then he prays for three things that your enlightened mind would grasp. The hope of your calling. The hope of your calling. The virtue of hope we just talked about the virtue of wisdom. The virtue of hope. This is the Christmas season. Christmas season is a time.
Advent is a time of hope where we celebrate the hope of Israel standing on its tippy toes, waiting for the Messiah. And we’re standing on our tippy toes, waiting for the consummation of the ages, when Messiah will return and put all things to right.
And so we have this hope and the hope of our calling. We have watered down the hope of our calling. And here’s how we’ve watered down the hope of our calling. Accept Jesus and He won’t let you go to the bad place. True, that’s not the hope of our calling.
That’s a parcel of the hope of our calling. Open your life up to the fullness of God, and you will be like him forever in his good and glorious kingdom. That’s the hope of our calling. That’s the hope of our calling. It’s not about you don’t go to the bad place and you go to the good place. It’s about you get the good God in your life and in your future. And he’s your Father and you are his daughter, you are His Son. And that lasts forever. And this broken world will be set to rights.
And there will be a new heavens and a new earth where there will be no more crime, no more death, no more suffering, no more pain, no more irreconcilable differences, no more arguments, no more wars, where all of our brokenness and sin and shame will be wiped away, and the blood will complete and finish its work.
And we will be satisfied and abundant and in the garden how human beings were meant to be. And that will last forever. And he will be our God and we will be his people.
And he will be with us, and we will be with Him. And it’s going to be beyond our imagination how good and glorious and right it is. And that is the hope of our calling. And here’s another piece of the hope of our calling. We don’t have to wait till we die. It starts now. I don’t know how much I’ve said this before, I don’t know how much of the kingdom of God we can get on earth, but I’ll bet we can get more. I’ll bet we can get more.
I’ll bet we can see more cancer disappear. I bet we can see more demons leave. I bet we can see more marriages reconciled. I bet we can see more prodigals come home.
And so Paul prays that we would have the hope of our calling and we would know that we are Jesus’ inheritance in the saints. Jesus died for you. We all believe that. We all say that. But here’s what that means. He died because he wants to be with you. He made you.
I told a group of church people the other night, I said, look it, I love you because I have to, but I like you too, right? I love you, you know, Love your enemies. I don’t like my enemies. There are people out there who confess Christ I don’t like hanging around with, all right? Because they just. They rub me the wrong way. I remember there were people. Not this church, but I pastored a much bigger church, so the odds were greater. There were people.
They were the whiners, the complainers, the grumblers, and, you know, Pastor, we need to talk. Oh, yeah. Yay. What 12 things are you telling me are wrong now that you’re not willing to lift a finger to fix? He says cynically.
But there are people like that, by the way. They just like to complain. So I’d see those people walking down a hall. I remember ducking, like, oh, here they come. I’m gonna go in a classroom here, like, I got business in here. I would do that. Now, I had to love those people, but I didn’t want to chat with them for 12 minutes in the hall.
I remember one time I said, man, God, we got some egrs here, extra grace required. And God said, yeah, and you duck away from him. I go, yeah, I kind of do. He says, do you ever think, Kevin, anybody ducks away from you? You ever think anybody ever sees you and goes, ooh, I’m going to moi. No, not little charming Mr. Sunshine here. You may be an EGR for some people.
All I’m saying is you don’t gotta like them, you gotta love them. But our inheritance, our Jesus inheritance, is us. And not only us, but that other one. And you’ll like them. you’ll like that person forever. You will. In fact, I have a hunch that the EGRs in this world are gonna be your next door neighbors in the kingdom that just maybe made you not want heaven as much. But it’ll be good. It’ll be good. All right?
So we would know that we are inherited because Jesus loves us, but actually desires to be with us and likes us. We will be welcomed there, not grudgingly let in, and we will experience his immeasurable power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Man, what would that be like? To just walk daily in the immeasurable power? It’s growing in you. Why not pray for it? Why not pray for it? I mean, there have been times in church history and there have been places of revival.
The early church is an example of this, where Paul and Barnabas would go into a town, and they would just have the incredible power of God to work so many wonders, signs, and miracles that the whole town would say, what do you got to tell us? What do you have to say to us? We’re listening.
I mean, read through the Book of Acts. Time and time again, they go into cities, they’d heal somebody, some miracle would take place that didn’t convert anybody, but it gained a hearing for the gospel.
And time and time again it says, Paul, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, did such and such. Well, what makes Paul more a better receptacle for the Holy Spirit than you? Nothing. He even says that, right. I was the worst. I was the worst.
Now don’t think being the worst makes you the best receptacle. Don’t go out and try to be the worst. So God will be good. All right?
But it does kind of work that way before people come to Christ because the worst are often more grateful and have experienced that power in their lives to such a degree that they believe it’s available for others.
But why not pray for the immeasurable power to be released in you? Say, well, Kevin, I can’t be another St. Paul. Why not? Paul didn’t know he could be a saint. Paul, those fishermen, one day those fishermen are just fishing by the Sea of Galilee. You know how normal that is?
You know how blue collar, normal, everyday that is a fisherman by the Sea of Galilee, then become 12 men who changed the world for all history.
You know what qualifies you for this immeasurable power? Just a simple, humble recognition that you’re not qualified. If you’re humble enough to say, God, I don’t deserve this, he says, I know, here it is.
If you think somehow you’ve earned it or deserved it, God’s like, yeah, no, I won’t share my glory. But if you just say, God, I’m your dime, spend me how you want.
He’ll say, no, you’re my million dollars and here’s how I’m going to spend you. All right? Pray for the immeasurable power. Are you getting bored yet? Hang in there. I’m one third of the way done.
Ephesians 3. God says, Paul prays that God would strengthen us inwardly. God would strengthen us inwardly. And we need to be strengthened inwardly, right? All of us need to be strengthened inwardly. One of our biggest problems, one of the things we complain about the most, is we’re not strong enough inwardly. All right. Pray to be strengthened inwardly.
God will strengthen you inwardly. He will make you able to stand against the wiles of the devil. He will give you victory over besetting sin. He will allow you to forgive those who have really hurt you. And all of that stuff is inside out.
We are like those icebergs, you know, those pictures of the icebergs that show the tip of the iceberg above the water, but then they show the underwater view of the iceberg and how 90% of that huge iceberg is under the water. And our world is obsessed with image.
We’re obsessed with how people view us. But dear ones, if we would allow God to strengthen us inwardly, that would grow. And what does that do? When that iceberg grows bigger under the water, it pushes more of it above the water, and our impact becomes greater, our witness becomes greater.
But it doesn’t come by being more flashy, more clever, more whatever, more popular. It comes from being strengthened inwardly. Paul prays for the Church. I want you to be strengthened inwardly. Let the hidden things be your Strength.
What matters, what makes a difference in the things that are seen for the Christian, is the things that are unseen. Sometimes the most important ethical decisions we ever make in our lives are the ones we make in complete secret.
You know, people will tell you this all the time: what you do when nobody else is looking. What you do when nobody else is looking.
Lord, strengthen us inwardly, that Messiah would live in our hearts through faith. My goodness, Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Okay, I will. Great. Hold on a second.
Hold on a second. The King of the universe who died on a cross for your sins and rose from the dead. The Messiah, the hope of the Jews, and according to the Jewish Scriptures, the hope of the world.
And he says, this is how that hope is going to be fulfilled. I’m going to take residence in an ICO and a Megan an Isaiah. I’m going to take residence one person at a time. And in that taking residence of one person at a time, I’m going to save the world, not the world.
Ephesians says the universe from the powers of the evil ones. And I’m going to restore all things to right now, okay?
Jesus, come into my life. Oh, good. My sins are forgiven. I get to go to heaven. No, don’t stop there. Jesus came into your life. The Holy Spirit set up residence in you. Come on, get excited about this, folks. I know it’s late. I know you’re tired, but this is great stuff. This is great stuff. I’m telling you, the Messiah lives in our heart. How? Well, we climbed every mountain. We did 32 great acts.
We fasted so many days, and we obeyed the Ten Commandments. No, through faith. He said, Jesus, come into my life. I trust you. I trust that you have mercy on this broken person and you want to come live in me. He goes, okay, I will. I want to live in you. I want to give you my spirit.
And once that happens, then we become rooted and grounded in love. And, dear ones, love is it. Of all the virtues, wisdom, hope, faith. What does Paul say? The greatest of these is? Love. You think Jesus reinforces that?
What are the two great commandments? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Here’s what love is again. It’s not warm, fuzzy feelings, though that helps when you all come into the room. I have warm, fuzzy feelings. All right. Alyssa, you came into the room. It’s like, oh, there she is. I love that purple hair. I just. I love her. I got. What? I’m such a warm and fuzzy person. Doesn’t matter. I’m warm and fuzzy toward you. Yeah. Hi. I’m warm and fuzzy toward you.
You’re very adorable. Yeah. Yeah. And confident. I like that. Yeah. Do you get your adorableness from your mommy or your daddy? Mama. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Good. And Grandma, of course. And Papa Choy. Oh, yeah. Papa. We have dads left out here, but. All right, we’re good. He’s not here. Yeah, My dad’s not here. Cause he went at home. Yeah. But he’s a wonderful. I love your daddy. Yeah. This is my wish. Yep. Good. All right. Back to warm and fuzzy. That was a nice, warm, fuzzy conversation. Thank you.
All right, so, I like your shirt. Oh, good. You should come more often. How do you feel about the sermons? All right. It’s risky to talk to kids, but this one’s turning out well. You should try being that nice to me. Megan, you like my shirt? Oh, man. That was slow. That was slow. All right. you’re good, though. We’re good. All right, so here’s the deal. Love is the unconditional commitment to the best of the other. I want God’s best for you.
And I have a commitment for that to be the case, and I will act on that commitment. I heard a great story, sad story, but also a powerful story. And it was told by a woman who, after the birth of her second child, her husband, her young husband, tragically and surprisingly died just kind of immediately. I don’t know if it was a heart attack or whatever, but he was in his 30s and he just died. And here this woman is left with these two children.
And about two or three weeks down the road from that, the second child was scheduled to be dedicated in the church.
She went to the pastor and she said, I don’t think I can do this. Just emotionally, I thought I’d be standing up there with my husband. I’m so overwhelmed right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do. You know, I just don’t think I can do this.
The pastor just looked at her and said, would you trust me on this? I think we should do it. Would you trust me? And she said, okay, I’ll trust you.
So they got to the point in the service where typically the pastor will ask the congregation a dedication service. They ask the parents to make promises. Will you raise this child of the Christian faith? Teach them the Scriptures, etc. etc. And then they typically, and I do this typically, I’ll ask the congregation, will you join this family in raising this child?
And he said, and now I’m going to address the congregation. And men, I’d like you to do what I’ve asked you to do.
And every man in that church got up. I’m old. I get teary. Every man in that church, Troy, all the grandpas, all the dads, the young men without children, they got up. Stubborn ots, they got up and they whipped and they stood with her.
And basically they said, we’re the church and we love you and we love your kids, and we’re going to. And you know, it’s easy to stand, but that means I’ll take him to Little League practice. I’ll be his coach. I’ll buy your groceries if you don’t have a job. I’ll pay your rent if you can’t afford it. But we are with you.
Let me tell you where love starts. It is so easy to love a stranger. Oh, here’s five dollars. Go get lunch. And that’s love. That’s good. Do it. But you know the school of love, right? your house, right? Marriage is the school of love.
I have a friend one time, and he’s a pretty confident fellow. And on his wedding day, he took his wife in his arms. And he was a preacher, so he had all these wise preacher sayings.
And he looked at his wife and said, Chris, marriage is the school of love. And I love. This is the perfect woman to be married to, this friend. And her response showed it. She said, that’s right. As long as you know you’re not the teacher.
But marriage, parenting, your neighborhood, the people you work with, that close circle, that’s where we learn love. That’s why God gave us those institutions. That’s why God gave us family. And those are the people that become the toughest ones to love.
Because those are the people who, you know, they’re not always, you know, you date somebody and they always smell their best, look their best, and dress their best. It’s like, yeah, they’re going to be different.
I always tell young people when they’re getting married, they’re going to be different. When you get married, all right, he’s not always going to be happy to see you. He’s not always going to smell this good. In fact, most of the time, never mind. This is the school of love.
And here’s what happens when Messiah, when we pray Messiah live in our hearts. God begins to root us and ground us in this greatest virtue of love, this self-sacrifice we make for the best outcome for the other.
And he says, how do we do this? And here’s the prayer that we would know. That is, experience the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The length, the breadth, the height, and the width. Even though it’s immeasurable, even though we can’t completely understand it, that we would know and experience God’s love.
How do we love others? Well, by being loved. Well, just be loved by God and pray that you would know. Experience his love, count your blessings, be grateful, spend time with him, worship him and know his goodness. Get out of your mind.
This angry, judgmental God, yes, he will judge sinners, but guess what? your sins are forgiven. How much do you love your kids? I mean, I love my kids so much. I love my grandkids so much. And they are little sinners. They are not perfect. You know, they’re little stinkers sometimes.
And yet I realized when I had children, it’s like, oh, you can love a less than perfect being. You can love something that makes your life miserable at times and is entirely selfish. And yet, oh, I would do whatever it took. I would do for my kids.
One of the things is, I would do whatever it took to get that out of them and get Jesus into them so they don’t live for all eternity like that. All right, dear ones, love doesn’t. This is a big mistake our culture makes. Love means being nice. That’s codependence.
Just giving people whatever they want so that they’re happy for the moment. If you’re a parent and your kid says, I want ice cream for dinner every night, love demands you say, what? No.
If you’re a grandparent and your grandchild says, I want ice cream for dinner, love demands that you say, what? Of course. Sure, go ahead. Not a problem. Mom and dad will come take care of it later.
I have a new job assignment. All right. That we would experience the love of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Here’s the last one.
I love this one. Paul prays that they would be filled with all the fullness of God. Well, there’s a little travel mercy prayer in there, isn’t there? God, give me travel mercies. Okay, what else would you like? I’d like to be filled with all the fullness of the power that created the universe.
Second. You know, that’d be good, too. Along with travel mercies. Along with. God, would you help me find my wallet? A totally legitimate prayer and much needed at times. God, would you help me find my wallet?
God, I want to be filled with all the fullness of God. I got to tell you something. I got a confession to make.
There was a church I was associate pastor in when I first got into ministry, and I would go through Paul’s prayers occasionally. Not always, but occasionally. And I would pray those prayers for the church. All right? And I just want to tell you that I haven’t done that faithfully.
I prayed for you. I have done that. Each of you have been. Trust me, each of you have been prayed for by name on more than one occasion. But this year, as I’m trying to re energize my prayer life through the prayers of the Bible, I really think I’m going to take a deep look at Paul’s prayers for the churches, and I’m going to pray these big prayers for us. I’m going to pray these big prayers for us. All right? You can hold me accountable to that. I just told my wife that I’m going to initiate praying with her at least twice a week. All right?
So that’s another one. You can hold me accountable. Listen, this is. We’re coming upon the New Year’s. I will make you this by God’s grace. I’m going to pray these prayers for the churches, Bremerton and Poulsbo, on a consistent basis. And I’m going to initiate prayer with my wife two times a week.
And here’s one more commitment I’m going to make to you. I am not going to make a New Year’s resolution to go to the gym. And I’m not going to go to the gym. I promise you that.
But I will do these two things. I will do these two things. If I end up going to the gym, that’ll just be an incredible miracle on top of it. But that ain’t on the list this year.
And I pray that God will give me grace to do this better than the few times I’ve made the commitment to go to the gym. And I think he will, because Paul even says. What? Not that this is the big subject. Paul says physical shape, physical conditioning is of what, some value. He doesn’t put it down.
He says it’s good to be in shape. But he says godliness, Godliness is of great value. So if you can’t do it, all godliness first.
Now, I will admit this. I know some of you, I’m not picking on exercise at all. Because some of you, actually, your exercise is very much a part of your godliness, that you pray better and you study better and you walk with God better. In fact, when you’re out there doing your thing, running, riding, that is a lot of you. That’s your time with God.
So I celebrate that I’m on your side. So you’re better than me. I’m not picking on that. I’m just saying I can only do so many things, weak man that I am. I want you to pray that I’d have grace to do those two things with my prayer life this 20, 25. Would you do that? All right, all right. See, I just made a commitment. Then I snuck one in for you. All right? So you can hold me accountable to mine.
And three months later, you say, Kevin, are you praying with your wife twice a week and saying these prayers for the church? And I go, no, I’m not. You know. Well, Kevin, you told us to hold you accountable. I said, well, how often have you prayed for me? I’ll hold you accountable. Fair enough.
All right, Sophia, you think I should finish? No. Oh, great. All right, well, let’s turn to Revelation.
All right, dear ones, these are huge prayers, but it just seems to me that God wouldn’t have put them in the Bible unless he planned to answer them, right? I mean, it doesn’t really say that directly. But doesn’t that just kind of make obvious sense that these are the kind of prayers that I think will help your prayer life?
So three things that will help your prayer life in the coming year. Realizing that you’re not a failure. If just praying spontaneously doesn’t give you these long, elaborate. That’s pretty normal.
And maybe God has some other avenues for you to enrich that time that you want to spend with him. Some of those are right in his book: the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, the prayers of Paul.
There are lots of others I’m not going to cover tonight, but there are lots of others. you’re just praying through the Scriptures and whatever.
I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you would enrich our relationship with you in the coming year through prayer.
And you would answer to us, the answer you gave your disciples in the first century. Lord, teach us to pray. There’s not a person in this room who doesn’t desire a close walk with you. I just know it. I know the people in this room, they all want you. They all want fellowship with you. But, Lord, you desire it even more.
And if that’s not happening on a level that we had hoped, maybe because we’re missing the mark, in some ways we’re doing it selfishly, or we’re doing it without faith, or we’re doing it in a way that is actually not even human. You didn’t design us to do it.
So teach us to pray. And teach us to pray big prayers, to not shy away from both the little need things that are so important. Lord, I need a new job. I need to find a shopping cart. Lord, you delight.
Just like any father would delight in answering those prayers for their children. But also, a father would delight in just investing in their child, in the big and huge things in life.
Make us both big and small prayers. Help us to do this in Jesus’ Name. God’s promises to you are yes and Amen. Communion is a sure sign of the yes and Amen of God.
God says on the night that the Bible says on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus said, this is going to look like bad news to you, but take heart, because this is my body and I’m giving it for you.
The devil’s not winning tonight. He’s losing. This is my blood and I’m pouring it out for you. The bad forces in the world are putting me to death, but it’s going to turn on them. And this blood will be shed for the forgiveness of sins and the New Covenant.
And I’m going to change the planet by this humble act of love on a cross. And so when you gather together, feed on that. Feed on my love. Feed on the food of heaven. Feed on the forgiveness of sins. Feed on thankfulness.
Holy Spirit, impart to us the benefits that were won for us on the cross of Christ as we come to this table believing and thankful. In Jesus’ Name we pray.
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