Revelation 2:1-7 Pastor Bob explains how important prayer is in the life of the church. Setting Your Church Free
“Prayer Action Plan Introduction” Rev. 2:1-7 Intro – Today I begin a 6 week sermon series entitled Setting Your Church Free. You’ve heard me mention it a few times over the past several months. Let me remind you what Setting Your Church Free is. In the fall of 2013, the pastors and LC members heard a clear word from God at our leadership retreat…and that word was “freedom”…God spoke the word “freedom” to us indicating that He wants to bring greater freedom to our Church both corporately and individually…freedom from anything that holds us back from following God fully with faith and obedience…He wants to set us free from any sinful patterns or obstacles or issues that Satan could use to keep us bound, defeated and spiritually unhealthy… So in obedience to this word from God, we as leaders made plans to go through the Setting Your Church Free weekend retreat that is offered by the Freedom in Christ Ministry based in Sask. In preparation for this retreat, each of the pastors and LC members read the book, Setting Your Church Free by Neil Anderson. We went through the personal steps to freedom, making sure that there were no issues in our life that Satan could use to bring defeat to our lives and through us, to our church…the Bible teaches that a church’s spiritual leaders need to be right with God and not give the devil a foothold in our lives so he can then gain a foothold in the life of a church… Then we had the Setting Your Church Free weekend last Sept, with Clay Bergen who does this ministry full-time, as our facilitator. You may remember Clay spoke in our church the Sunday of that weekend last Sept. It was a challenging, intense and powerful weekend. Clay led us through various steps. 1. First of all, we listed the many strengths of our church: Here’s a partial list: Strengths of NBC - Multigenerational - Multicultural - Truth of God’s word is preached and taught - Welcoming of New People - ESL - Loving people who help and serve others - Generous church - strong Missions focus – short & long term - great church staff, committed leadership and stable members - one name says it all: Marlene! - great youth and children’s ministry - knowledgeable and wise seniors - financially stable - Great army of volunteers – Gifted servant hearts - Staff unity - great prayer warriors - growing prayer ministry - vision for community outreach - great musicians/worship - lots of programs for a variety of people - partnership with village in Marare, Uganda * would you add anything? 2. Secondly, we celebrated the highlights of our 45 year history…those milestones of God’s blessing that we can look back on with gratitude for how good God has been to us… 3. Then we made a list of our church’s weaknesses…every church has them; we are no exception… 4. then we remembered our painful memories…actually did a wonderful thing: we wrote them on poster paper… …and after we had done that, we prayed over them and destroyed the paper, declaring that the past is done and whatever happened in the past is covered by the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ… 5. then we did something very challenging. We asked God to show us our church’s corporate sins; those deeply rooted sinful patterns that we need to acknowledge and repent of so they can be broken in order for us to find true freedom… -you’ll be hearing more about this as the series unfolds… 6. finally we wrote up the draft of a Prayer Action Plan, which is basically a Biblical declaration of what God wants for our church…an affirmation of the Biblical call to godly living, and a corresponding recognition of how we have fallen short of that standard, confessing our need for repentance and a declaration of our willingness to commit to a new course of obedience that will help us walk in freedom not only as individuals but as a church body… “Prayer action plan”…the name says it all: a God-given, strategically crafted prayer plan that leads to action… It is the prayer action plan that I am going to be speaking on for the next 6 weeks… Letters to the Churches in Rev. 2 and 3 -it’s important for me to point out to you that we see this very process taught in the Bible, in particular in the letters to the seven churches in Rev. 2 and 3… In the letters to the churches in Rev. 2 and 3, Jesus does a setting your church free process: the general pattern of the letters is: • He starts with a declaration of Who He is… • He continues with an affirmation of their strengths and qualities: what He appreciates about the church… • then He goes on to point out the sins and short-comings of the church…those things they need to repent of… • then He calls them to a specific step of obedience • finally He gives them a promise of blessing and hope For example, look at the first letter in Rev. 2 to the church at Ephesus…read 2:1-7… So this is the pattern we followed in the Setting Your Church Free weekend…asking that if God were to write a letter to Northgate based on this pattern from Rev. 2 and 3, what might He say? We asked God to give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to our church…And He did… Since last Sept, we leaders have been working and re-working the PAP, crafting it, revising it and praying through it…as a matter of fact, we have just finished praying through this prayer action plan daily for the last 40 days… …so that we as spiritual leaders make it our own, we embrace it, we live it, we let God shape and form us…before we ask anything of you…that we repent of those things that God wants to deal with in our lives and we begin to call out to the Lord on behalf of our church… And what we (sp. leaders) are asking you to do now, is to join us in praying this prayer for our church…so that many voices will be added to this corporate prayer and that God will indeed bless us and make us spiritually healthy and set us free from anything that might be holding us back from following God with freedom and joy and seeing God do amazing things in and through us… eg. just like a church in Wpg, when breaking ground for a building project…old fashioned plow in ground with big long rope attached…pastor only tried to pull – nothing…elder board joined him – nothing…few other people added – nothing…until whole congregation pulled together… You all know that we are in a season of corporate prayer as a church…we are asking God to make Northgate into a House of Prayer… …and this is one of the ways He wants to do that…by cleansing the house…by inviting us to deal with any sin and barriers that would prevent this place from becoming a powerful house of prayer…and a force for God’s kingdom… Cleansing the Temple -you remember that when Jesus said those words in the gospels, “My house will be a house of prayer for all nations”? Important to remember why He was saying them…He was saying them in the temple area having just turned over the tables of the money changers and cleansing the temple for God’s purposes, because it had become a “den of thieves”… a place of commerce that was taking advantage of people charging exorbident prices for temple sacrifices… Jesus wouldn’t stand for it…the place of worship that was supposed to be dedicated to God for holy purposes had become corrupt and defiled and so Jesus called His people to return to a place of honest and true worship… …that’s what He wants to do here at Northgate and in His whole church world-wide… So I am saying that this prayer action plan fits in perfectly with the current call to prayer God has upon our church… Because we are learning about the amazing power there is in corporate prayer…we want to call out to God with one heart and one voice and ask Him to make Northgate the great church He has destined us to be…for His glory and His kingdom… * God’s great heart and vision for Northgate… Will you join me and your spiritual leaders in praying this prayer action plan?… Season of Lent By the way, another reason why the timing of this is really good is because the season of Lent begins this week… Lent is a period of 40 days leading up to Easter in which Christians are invited to a time of self-examination, self-denial and repentance of anything that keeps us distant from God. In our evangelical tradition we have not typically focused on Lent. But there is such Biblical value in asking the questions posed by Lent. Questions such as: “Where am I at in my walk with God? Where do I need to be? How will I repent and return to God with all my heart?” Typically people fast or give up something they enjoy during Lent for the purpose of increasing their hunger and desire for God. The discipline of self-denial helps us break the hold that our sin patterns have on us so we can let go of our attachments to anything that robs our heart of supreme love and devotion to Jesus. Ps. 139:23-24 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. As serious as the Lenten season is, it is also a time of great hope and joy as we experience God’s boundless love for us, even in the midst of whatever sin we are acknowledging. In the reality of Christ’s cross and impending resurrection we are assured that there is forgiveness and cleansing for all who turn to him. * Jesus’ Blood Cleanses us From all Sin… So as we work our way through this six part prayer action plan, and are challenged to repent of sin both corporately and individually, I am certain that God is going to speak to each one of us and point out other things in our life He would love to have us deal with… …the more we pray, the closer we get to Jesus in prayer, the more clearly we see the true condition of our life…we see things that should not be there…so we are compelled to cry along with Isaiah in ch 6:5… Is. 6:5… “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty. …and as God’s Spirit gently convicts us of these things, then we are able to confess them, repent of them, experience God’s forgiveness for them and move forward into greater freedom and joy in the life lived with Christ everyday… Please don’t be afraid of this…or unwilling to let God speak to us about what needs to be made right in our life or in our church…don’t numb or harden your heart to this process… * remember: when God does this He always does it out of His love for us…He does this with kindness, compassion, grace and mercy…God does not point out our sin to condemn us or get angry with us… Ps. 103:8-13 - The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; -you can feel safe and secure in this process…knowing that on the other side of repentance is life, freedom and joy… So we are going to begin next Sunday with the first point of the prayer action plan, but for today, I want to invite all of us to pray a prayer together for God to guide us in this process… -it’s in your bulletin and up on the screen… House of Prayer Response Dear Heavenly Father. Open our eyes to see Your truth and our ears to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to our church. We acknowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of our church, and we renounce any claim of ownership on our part. This is Your church, not ours, and You are the Head. You are light and in You there is no darkness at all. We choose to walk in the light in order to have fellowship with You and with one another. We ask You to fill us with Your Holy Spirit and guide us through these steps to our church’s freedom. Set us free to fulfill Your purpose for our being here. We invite the Holy Spirit to cleanse us, renew us, fill us and lead us into all truth. Cause us to obey Your truth so that our church will be set free. We gladly submit to You, Heavenly Father, and obey Your command to resist the devil. We take our stand against the evil one and all his forces. We ask You to ban the adversary from our presence so that we will be free to know Your will and choose to obey it. We thank You for the cleansing power of Jesus’ blood. Thank You for Your love for our church. Thank You for Your mercy and grace over us. In Jesus’ precious Name we pray, Amen Pastor Bob explains that when believers pray together fervently, that God answers prayer. He relates some personal examples of God's amazing answer to prayer. However, we need to guard against unbelief when God does not answer our prayers immediately or the way we want.
Pastor Bob tells us that God answers some prayers before we even ask, while other people pray for long periods of time before God answers. Nevertheless, we are encouraged to continue to pray for our needs, and to intercede on behalf of others. John 11:1-14
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