WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.540 Say one for me Vic. Happens quite a bit really. It's a huge privilege in praying for someone 00:00:09.540 --> 00:00:14.380 and being asked for prayer for their own situation. What are you praying for earnestly 00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:20.019 at the moment that isn't about yourself? Praying for others is hugely powerful. 00:00:20.879 --> 00:00:26.440 Many years ago I was part of a group of guys from Christchurch who went to a men's worship event 00:00:26.440 --> 00:00:32.480 in Belfast. Perhaps you're one of those guys that's watching it now. If it hadn't been for my diet 00:00:32.480 --> 00:00:37.880 I'd have joined in with the pints of Guinness at Bristol airport that were being consumed before 00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:46.659 we left. It was a great start to an amazing prayer filled weekend with good Christian men over 2,000 00:00:46.659 --> 00:00:53.820 of them. Anyway if you were around in the 70s and 80s or know your history you would know that Belfast 00:00:53.820 --> 00:01:01.439 was a pretty turbulent place. Bombs, shootings, riots, paramilitaries, businesses being disrupted 00:01:01.439 --> 00:01:09.099 and British soldiers on the street. Some of the front lines in that time were the Crumlin Road, 00:01:09.460 --> 00:01:17.260 the Shank Hill and the Falls Road. Yet here we were just a few years later a group of men from 00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:25.960 Christchurch in Clevedon in an open top bus travelling up the Crumlin Road. Stopping at the Crumlin Road 00:01:25.960 --> 00:01:33.760 jail and then later pausing outside the Sinn Féin headquarters to take pictures. It was sobering but 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:42.600 also it was a huge answer to prayer. Because if you'd asked me a few years before in the 80s if I ever 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:49.159 thought it would be possible in my lifetime to experience such a transition and freedom to do 00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:58.579 that I'd probably have doubted your motives. But in amongst that situation had been prayer. 00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:05.139 In amongst the politics there had been prayer. In amongst the Good Friday Agreement there had been 00:02:05.140 --> 00:02:13.539 prayer that brought a new freedom to this place. There was a huge wave of prayer on both sides of 00:02:13.539 --> 00:02:20.379 the divide and the peace was borne out through the hearts and desires of many and especially the praying 00:02:20.379 --> 00:02:28.360 women of Northern Ireland. Prayer won through and peace came. Look through history across the world 00:02:28.360 --> 00:02:35.320 where prayer has changed a nation. You know South Africa with all its horrors and the past of apartheid. 00:02:35.660 --> 00:02:40.960 The demolishing of the Berlin War and the fall of communism in that place. You know I think it was 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:47.160 one communist leader said after that great day you know we planned for everything but we didn't plan for 00:02:47.160 --> 00:02:55.500 prayer and candles. There is something powerful when we pray and intercede. And with the recent 00:02:55.500 --> 00:03:03.419 spotlight again being shown into the dark places of our time and our community and culture this morning's 00:03:03.419 --> 00:03:11.840 reading from Philippians is so powerful. You see we can align ourselves with the character and heart of 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:20.180 Jesus who himself was the subject of injustice brutality and murder. He knows these things firsthand 00:03:20.180 --> 00:03:26.860 and is now with the father interceding for us and with us and if we are in relationship with Jesus 00:03:26.860 --> 00:03:35.819 then we will know that flow of grace and love humility and power that comes from the father as we intercede. 00:03:37.420 --> 00:03:45.480 Now intercession can be quite a churchy word and intercessory prayer is basically asking God for the needs of 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:54.019 other people and other situations. It's that simple. It's being like-minded with Jesus, having the same 00:03:54.019 --> 00:04:01.000 love, being it one in spirit and one in mind, doing nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, 00:04:01.459 --> 00:04:09.539 rather in humility, valuing others above ourselves, not looking to our own interests but each of us to the 00:04:09.539 --> 00:04:16.180 interests of others. It's looking outside of ourselves with humility as we pray for others in their 00:04:16.180 --> 00:04:24.319 situations, joining in with Jesus and his concerns. You know but I can hear maybe somebody asking well 00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:34.439 why pray? Surely Jesus knows already about the needs of the world and he does. But I guess it's that 00:04:34.439 --> 00:04:41.420 relational thing where he says, do you know what, great, I'm really glad Clive that you're praying 00:04:41.420 --> 00:04:49.579 about this. What should we do about it together? Because often he calls us to be partners and agents 00:04:49.579 --> 00:04:59.699 of change through prayer and frankly that's awesome and powerful. The hinge is prayer and we are called 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:06.319 to intercede. Why? Maybe because we took our eye off the ball. You know maybe we stopped caring about 00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:12.980 our planet, our country, my neighbourhood, my work colleagues and my friends, my neighbours and in 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:19.459 every move of God in this land and especially in revival it has come through people praying for a 00:05:19.459 --> 00:05:27.639 situation where they brought those desires and needs to him and cried out, Lord heal our land. 00:05:29.699 --> 00:05:34.579 The Welsh revivals at the end of the last century in the beginning of this, do you know what, those 00:05:34.579 --> 00:05:42.779 stories grip me. Pictures of lights burning in miners cottages at night because people like you and me 00:05:42.779 --> 00:05:50.000 were awake praying. They were praying for revival, praying for their friends and neighbours and families 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:58.060 to come into a living relationship with Jesus and they did in their hundreds. People just spilling out 00:05:58.060 --> 00:06:04.319 into local chapels, people giving their life to Christ in their hundreds, in open air meetings, in their 00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:15.620 workplaces. Intercessory prayer is powerful. But how do I do that? Well Pete Gregg in his prayer toolkit 00:06:15.620 --> 00:06:25.000 has four points and the first point is one get informed. Maybe learn the facts by checking the news or 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:31.319 updates about the people or situations that we're praying for. God calls us to be active and informed 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:39.959 and certainly not passive. Two, get inspired. What is God saying about this? Invite the Holy Spirit to speak 00:06:39.959 --> 00:06:49.000 into the situations you're interceding for. There may be a specific area or a significant thing that the 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:56.680 Spirit is saying. Press into that in prayer so it becomes more personal than what can sometimes maybe 00:06:56.680 --> 00:07:06.920 just feel like a shopping list. Get indignant. You know, this is wrong Lord. There is injustice in this. It 00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:14.920 doesn't feel good. It's not right. There's a situation at the moment that I'm praying about and 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:21.319 I sense a real lack of justice and care. I sense God's not happy and neither am I. 00:07:23.080 --> 00:07:30.340 And for you and for us all that maybe could be a world situation like COVID. You know, God knows it's 00:07:30.340 --> 00:07:37.500 wrong and that can get a bit noisy sometimes in prayer. And why not? As we express our frustration 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:45.779 and passion about the situation, we are sharing. Engage your own heart and allow yourself to think and 00:07:45.779 --> 00:07:55.839 feel honestly as you pray passionately and purposefully. And number four is get in sync. 00:07:56.939 --> 00:08:03.279 Engage together. Where two or three are gathered together, it says you might like to engage prayer with 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:10.179 others online, on paper, in your family. There may be a specific area on the prayer sheet that Gene 00:08:10.179 --> 00:08:16.279 distributes where it sort of leaps out at you and together with people in your household or others in 00:08:16.279 --> 00:08:24.099 your home group that you can be in sync and pray. Maybe that's on a worldwide issue where you pray 00:08:24.099 --> 00:08:31.619 together. It's good to know that there is a wave of prayer that sweeps and flows across this land. 00:08:31.620 --> 00:08:40.039 If people ask where I am on the prayer spectrum, my heart beats with the heart of evangelism. 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:45.600 I long to see others and pray for them to come into relationship with Jesus. And that's why 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:51.620 intercessory prayer is so important in my life and ministry and for the people that I pray for each day. 00:08:52.419 --> 00:09:00.379 There was a man called Rodney Gypsy Smith. He was a remarkable English evangelist. He was the son 00:09:00.379 --> 00:09:08.740 of traveller parents and he was radically saved at the age of 16 and in time became a fervent travelling 00:09:08.740 --> 00:09:18.340 evangelist. His prayer life was marked by one simple activity which became his trademark. And he would 00:09:18.340 --> 00:09:26.960 start by taking some chalk and he would draw it around himself and pray inside that circle. 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:34.580 When asked what was needed for successful revival, he replied to people, 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:43.580 go home, lock yourself in your room, kneel down in the middle of the floor and with a piece of chalk, 00:09:43.920 --> 00:09:54.759 draw a circle around yourself. There on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a 00:09:54.759 --> 00:10:03.740 revival within that chalk circle. You see, that passion needs to break out in us first. 00:10:05.139 --> 00:10:11.639 His evangelistic crusades saw hundreds and thousands of people come to Christ. 00:10:11.639 --> 00:10:19.639 This week, whether you choose to draw a chalk circle on your hardwood flooring, 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:27.699 please ask somebody for permission before you do it, or paint a mental picture of a circle in your mind 00:10:27.699 --> 00:10:33.539 around yourself whenever you pray. I encourage you this week to intercede. 00:10:33.539 --> 00:10:46.019 Get informed, get inspired, get indignant and get in sync with the power and purposes of the Holy Spirit 00:10:46.019 --> 00:10:51.279 that dwells in you. Let's pray together. 00:10:51.279 --> 00:11:04.779 Come Holy Spirit, show us what to pray. Inform us, inspire us and may we stamp on injustice in your name. 00:11:06.539 --> 00:11:14.159 And may our hearts beat as one with yours so that a whole nation, a whole world may be healed. 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:24.519 Lord, your kingdom come. Lord, your kingdom come. Amen.