“Prayer Action Plan Part One”
Proverbs 3:5-6, Rev. 3:14-22
Intro – today we begin in earnest the six week series of the Prayer Action Plan that God has given to us as spiritual leaders of our church…
…if you were here last Sunday you will remember how I described the Setting Your Church Free process we as church leaders have worked through over the past several months…
…if you weren’t here, it would be important for you to review that sermon either by listening to it on our website or reading the manuscript that is also available on-line…
…simply stated, Setting Your Church Free is… hearing from God about where our church is at spiritually right now. Like the letters to churches in Revelation, we want to know God's assessment of our church's spiritual health and make right any areas that are lacking.
…we’re asking God to speak to us like He did to the churches in Rev. 2 and 3:
• what does He affirm and appreciate about us?
• what are our corporate sins that we need to recognize and repent of?
• what new course of action does He want us to commit to so we can walk in freedom and obedience?
…the aim of the Setting Your Church Free retreat was to develop a Prayer Action Plan…which we as leaders did… and then to pray through that plan on behalf of our church…
…which brings us to today…now it is time to invite the whole church to join us in praying this PAP…a prayer that could literally change the course of our church over time…change spiritual atmosphere…set us free from those things that keep us bound and unhealthy…
…as I mentioned last week, the Prayer Action Plan 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…
And now, we sp. leaders are asking you to join us in praying this prayer for our church…take this home and pray regularly, daily for our church during the 6 weeks of this series and beyond…pray it together in your small group gatherings…pray it with your spouse…
…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 Him with freedom and joy and seeing God do even greater things in us and through us…
So before we begin with part one, let us take some time to pray…Prayer…
Prayer Action Plan Part One
There are six points in our prayer action plan. Each of them follows the same outline: we affirm, we announce, we repent of and we will commit to…
Here is part one of the PAP:
We affirm that God calls us to seek Him in all things and to obey His wisdom and leading, to trust Him with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
We announce that our trust and dependency is in God alone.
We repent of our self-sufficiency.
We will commit ourselves to prayerful dependence on God’s wisdom, guidance and strength as our first response.
I Our starting point is the word of God…His truth as the standard…a declaration of what He wants for our church…and we begin with… We affirm that God calls us to seek Him in all things and to obey His wisdom and leading, to trust Him with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding. Pr.3:5-6.
Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Classic verse, loved verse, cherished by God’s people…if we really followed it our lives would be radically different…
II Growing out of this scripture then, We announce that our trust and dependency is in God alone.
You say, “No argument there. Where else would our trust and dependency be? After all we are Christians!”
To which I would say, if we’re honest, many of us live our real lives trusting and depending more on ourselves than we do on God. Trust and dependence on God are one of the great lip-service statements we easily say, but our practical reality is far from it…
…when it comes to living our lives and running our church, our first response is generally to figure it out on our own, to get it done on our own, to rely on ourselves or others for help…instead of first turning to God and seeking His wisdom, guidance and strength…
Which brings us to our third point and to the heart of this part of the prayer action plan:
III We repent of our self-sufficiency.
Self-sufficiency: a quality greatly admired by our western culture…a quality bred into us from infancy by our western culture…North America was pioneered by brave and independent settlers who despite untold hardship persevered to create a life in harsh and primitive conditions…
…it was great pioneers in science and industry that paved the way the for modern society that we enjoy today…it was their self-sufficiency, their hard work, ingenuity and individual strength, their unstoppable spirit and that paved the way for us to enjoy the comfortable life we have today… and while we’re grateful for all they did, that spirit lives on today…
In the spirit of self-sufficiency we are taught today to:
• follow your dreams • you can become anything you set your mind to • don’t let anything hold you back
We adopt the phrases of self-sufficiency:
• I can handle this myself • I’d rather go it alone
• I can take care of myself • I don’t need your help
• I don’t care what other people think
• if you want something done right, do it yourself
…you could add many more…but you get the idea…
The Origin of Self-Sufficiency
But self-sufficiency goes far deeper than just cultural influence…it’s part of our fallen nature as sinful human beings…self-sufficiency originated with Lucifer, God’s number one angel, as quoted in Is. 14:14 “I will make myself like the Most High”…in other words, I will be like God…talk about the height of self-sufficiency…that’s how Lucifer came to be Satan…
…this happened before the world was created…and ever since Satan convinced Adam and Eve to yield to the sin of self-sufficiency in the Garden…to act independently of God by disobeying His clear command about eating the forbidden fruit… this has become part of humanity’s inherited sinful nature…we’re all born with the notion that we can go it alone…we don’t need God…that we can manage by ourselves if we just try hard enough or do the right things…that we know better than God or anyone else..
What is so wrong with self-sufficiency and why would God call it a sin? and why is it a problem when it comes to our church being healthy and set free?
Let’s let God answer that in His own Word…
…Rev. 3:14-22…God speaks to the Laodecian church that is the epitomy of self-sufficiency…read…
There couldn’t be a more accurate description of the church today in North America…self-sufficient…we’ve got it together…we’re good…fine…things are going well…happy, comfortable, well provided for…and as v.17 says: “I do not need a thing…” including God!
-we’ve got so many resources and support systems and options and plan B’s that the reality is, we’ve added God to our smorgasboard of blessings…He’s there for us when and if we need Him…otherwise we’re just fine, thank-you…business as usual as we maintain the lukewarm status quo…
God won’t have anything to do with that kind of self-sufficiency! His word is clear and directly to the point:
v.19 “be earnest and repent…”
Symptoms of Self-Sufficiency
I am asking us all to let God show us the ways we are self-sufficient and agree with Him that those ways are sinful and be humble and open-hearted enough to confess those things and repent of them…turn away from them…
…we at Northgate do not want to be a self-sufficient church that is lukewarm…that God would say in v.16, “because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth…”
Here are some symptoms of self-sufficiency to recognize, confess and renounce:
• relying on human wisdom vs. God’s – Pr. 3:5-6
• placing our hope in material things – Mt. 6:25-33
• not relying on God’s people – I Cor. 12:21 “I don’t need you.”
• overwhelming anxiety, stress and worry – Phil. 4:6-7
• independent plan-making – Jm. 4:13-17
** Prayerlessness (symptomatic praying…)
-probably the greatest indication that we are self-sufficient, independent, that we don’t need God…that we can make it on our own…
Listen to the words Moses spoke to the people of Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land and had just received the ten commandments from the Lord…it’s so pertinent to us today…
Dt. 8:6-18…
What is the Cure for Self-Sufficiency?
-good question! the cure, (if that’s the right way to put it) for the sin of self-sufficiency is the same cure for any sin – there is only one cure – and it’s nothing we can do. We can’t modify our behavior to make ourselves more God-dependent instead of self-dependent…we can’t change our fallen, human nature on our own so that we learn to trust and obey God first, before we lean on our own understanding…
We can’t decide that we’ll work harder at recognizing self-sufficiency…and when we see it we’ll do a better job at choosing God-dependency instead of self-reliance…that would be trying to cure self-sufficiency with more self-sufficiency… …only this time it’s religious self-sufficiency…that we can somehow help God in fixing ourselves…
-we see this in folks who want to be saved through the self-atonement plan of the gospel…whereby I do enough good things so I can earn my way into heaven…
The cure for this sin and all sin is only and will only ever be the cross of Jesus Christ…
1 Pet. 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness…”
…the death and resurrection of JC…His work on the cross that broke the power and control of sin over our lives…that alone sets us free from anything that robs us of freedom in Christ…the only power in the universe that can transform us, renew us and change us from the inside out…
Practical Response
1. confess and repent of our self-sufficiency…
2. receive the cleansing of Christ’s atoning blood…
3. commit ourselves to a new obedience of freedom…which is the last point of our prayer action plan…the “we will’ section:
We will commit ourselves to prayerful dependence on God’s wisdom, guidance and strength as our first response.
Realize that the sin of self-sufficiency runs deep in our fallen sinful nature…we are not going to see an overnight transformation from self-dependency to God-dependency…it is going to be a life-long journey of growing in this new obedience…
-but a journey that could literally change the course of our church and set us free…
-let God’s Spirit bring to mind the scriptural truth that will renew our minds and our lives:
Pr. 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
John 15:5 “apart from Me you can do nothing.”
House of Prayer Response
-so let’s close the service by doing two things:
1. a moment of silent prayer in which we deal with the sin of self-sufficiency before God…confess, repent, renounce…
…acknowledge the all-sufficiency of our God…
2. a corporate prayer, praying together the first part of the prayer action plan that we’ve dealt with today…
Heavenly Father, we affirm that You call us to seek You in all things and to obey Your wisdom and leading, to trust You with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding.
We announce Lord, that our trust and dependency is in You alone.
We repent of our self-sufficiency.
Through the power of the cross of Jesus Christ, we will commit ourselves to prayerful dependence on Your wisdom, guidance and strength as our first response.
In the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray, Amen!
Take this prayer home with you and join us as sp. leaders in praying this for our church regularly, faithfully…the more we pray this prayer the deeper God will go with purifying and refining us of self-sufficiency…
Worship…