 How's everybody doing? A big shout out of congratulations to Portage who crushed Gull Lake this last Friday night in their homecoming football game. A little ouch for Richland, but a big hurray for the Portage campus. And many of you may not even know that because you're not football fans. If you're not used to losing, just watch the Lions this Sunday. You'll get more used to it. Ouch, that one hurt. You don't have to worry about the Packers, you just have to defeat the refs, right? That's kind of how it goes. So, hey, if everybody has your Bible, open them with me to 1st Timothy, chapter two, 1st Timothy, chapter two. And we're gonna continue in this series, our fall series really, most of October and into November, we're gonna stay on this theme of what we've entitled the battle where we're talking about the spiritual battle that every believer is engaged in. And as we've said almost every single week, the Christian life is not like a battle. The Christian life is a battle, but it's not a battle against flesh and blood. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter six, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. What's Paul saying? Paul's saying that people are not our enemy. We are not in a battle against people that are different from us. We are not in a battle with people that don't believe like us. We're not in a battle with people that live across the seas. We are in a spiritual battle, and that spiritual battle begins not externally, but internally. Who wins the battle for the affections and the allegiance of our heart? That's the first battlefield. And then there are real enemies. There is a real devil. There are real demons. There is a spiritual dimension in which we are engaged as children of God on a daily basis. And over the last couple of weeks, we've been emphasizing different weapons of our spiritual arsenal. We talked about worship. We talked about the word, and over the last couple of weeks, we've been zeroing in on prayer. And tonight we're going to continue in this theme of prayer. The title of this installment is called, Standing in the Gap. So look with me here at First Timothy chapter two. We're going to read a few verses here. Paul says this beginning in verse number one. First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this, this is Paul, for this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. And I am telling you the truth. I am not lying a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. So Paul's talking about prayer as a priority. You'll notice in verse number one, he says it. He says, first of all, in other words, in order of priority, the very first thing that he wanted to teach and emphasize to Timothy and also to the church at Ephesus, that's who he's writing to. He says, before you do anything else, I want you to make sure that prayer is at the top of your priority list. Individually and also corporately. And then he lists off these four kinds of prayer. He says, I want there to be supplications. What's that? Supplication means making requests. So we're petitioning God, we're making requests from God, the things that we need, the things that other people need. And then he says, not only do I want you to offer supplications, but prayers. Well, that kind of seems general, doesn't it? It's like, well, if all of these are different kinds of prayer, there's devotional prayer, there's supplications, which is another word for petition where we're asking God for things. Why in the world would Paul include this word, prayers there? And it's because that word prayers, just in a plural sense there, the word that he uses is talking about gatherings where people come together to pray together. In other words, let's put it in our language, prayer meetings. He says, it's great that you pray at home in your secret place. You need to do that. But we also need to come together and we need to pray together. How many of you know there's power when we pray together? There's power that when God's people come together, Jesus said if there's two or three, that's a prayer meeting. We can call it whatever you want. You can call it coffee, you can call it a small group, you can call it family, you can call it a dinner. But when God's people, two or three of the most come together, or at the least come together and we pray, that is a prayer meeting and Jesus walks into the midst of our prayer meetings. So he says, supplications, prayers, and then two other things. He says, intercessions. We're gonna zero in on that word, intercessions tonight because that's a word that oftentimes we'll use in church language, but a lot of people don't get. It's like, what does it mean? What does it mean, intercession, or to intercede? It literally means to stand in the middle or stand along someone else and to stand in between two individuals and plead the case of one to the other. And Paul says, I want there to be intercessions. And then ultimately, I want there to be thanksgivings for all men, for all people, kings and those in high positions, rulers and all men. Why? It's because, and it gives a few verses down, he says because God desires that all, everybody say all, would come to repentance. God wants everybody to be saved. And the role of prayer for us as the church is to be people of intercession, which means to stand in the gap. Now, if you've never heard that phrase, that's because you don't live in the UK. In the UK, they have a phrase because they take trains everywhere, subway systems, and the phrase that they use is, mind the gap. Mind the gap, you see there's, when trains come, the rails are electrified. And so you wanna be careful that you don't get hit by a train that's coming, or that you fall down into the gap, or that somebody else maybe trips over you. So there's a constant, there's signs everywhere in the UK and throughout Europe that say, mind the gap, mind the gap. Because the gap is the most dangerous place when it comes to engaging with trains and subway system. The gap is also the place that we need to intentionally mind in our own lives on a daily basis for other people. Because the gap is the place between God and the people that God loves. How many know that God loves the whole world so much so that he gave his only begotten son? Come on, that's ABC Christianity, right? For God so loved Kalamazoo, right? Well, he didn't just love Kalamazoo. How about the United States? Notice it doesn't say God so loved America that he gave his only begotten son. Now it says he loved the whole, say it, come on, say it loud. When you see through your little lens, just your existence in your little world, you might love the people that are in your view. But God has this amazing ability to see the whole world past, present, and future. Every single human being who's ever lived is ever alive or will ever live. And he knows them intimately and he loves them. And his desire is that the things that are breaking them, hindering them, putting them into bondage, stripping them of their divine purpose, their beauty, their connection with him as their heavenly father, that those things would be removed. And the only way for that to take place was him becoming a man and going to the cross. Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, and paying a price that none of us could afford to pay and none of us thought we were ever going to be capable of doing. He steps into our place and he pays that price and he dies our death, pays for our sins, and then God vindicates him, raises him up from the dead, and he is the Lord of all. What was Jesus doing at the cross? I'll tell you exactly what he's doing. He was minding the gap. He was minding the gap because the gap is where all of us are without Jesus. The gap is where all of us are where we stand in our own sinfulness, in our own brokenness. The gap is where we stand in our own pride and selfishness. The gap is where we are vulnerable because in the gap our pride rises up and tells us that we're just fine without God, that we don't need to acknowledge him, we don't need to submit our life, we don't need a savior, and it's in the gap that the enemy whispers in our ear all the lies, all the deceptions, wait for another time, you're doing just fine, you're not as bad as so and so. The gap is where we are most vulnerable. And Jesus is God in the flesh who stepped down into the gap of our existence and interceded for us so that we could be made right with God. And the only reason why we stand here in the presence of God worshiping him today is not because any of us are better than others. Listen, if you've been convinced that somehow God got a really good deal when he got you on his team, you've missed the whole point. I've had people tell me, oh, I'm not really cut out for the church thing. Well, join the club because we all come to the cross on bloody knees. And none of us get in because we've somehow earned it because, I don't know how you remember, grade school, but I remember in grade school, they would pick teams for sports. Anybody remember this where it's like, oh, you be a captain and you be a captain and they would always start out with, oh, take Greg, dude, he's a stud, come on, high five, you know, whatever. And then it's like, well, I'll take Billy and then the first two, they'd divvy up. And by the end, if you're one of the last three kind of standing, it's like, oh, man, come on, somebody pick me. It's like, well, like, I'll tell you what, and you've always got one odd guy out and it's always like, I'll tell you what, you can have Steve and you can have Lee for free. Take him. He's bonus. Anybody ever felt like that? It's like, great, I'm so happy to be on your team. But I remember Billy's over here going, yeah, we're gonna crush him. Listen, if our attitude is that we deserve to be on the team, then we've missed the power of what it means for Jesus to stand in the gap for us. But if we see ourselves as the one that was unlikely, that was selected and chosen, because that's what God does, He chooses us, He loves us, and He willingly stepped into our gap to rescue us. What does He want us to do? He wants us to be people that are minding the gap, standing in the gap for others. What does that mean to do? Intercede. One of the greatest ways that we can intercede for those that God loves is to be people of prayer. Intercessory prayer means to pray on behalf of others, to recognize their gap, to recognize that they are lost and far away from God, to recognize that the place that you were vulnerable, that you've been rescued out of is now the place that other people find themselves vulnerable on. Maybe it's out of ignorance. Maybe it's out of pride. Maybe it's out of their own choices. It doesn't matter, they're in the gap. And God is looking for you and I to partner with Him by stepping into the gap with them in the place of prayer. And that's hard for us to fathom sometimes that somehow our prayers move God. That somehow there are some things in people's lives, in circumstances in the world, in the spiritual climate of the city and the generation that we live in that are affected and impacted by our prayers. I mean, I don't think anybody scoffs who believes in God to think, oh, God can do anything. But where we really struggle is to come to grips with the fact that there's some things that for whatever reason God has decided He will only do if we'll get into the gap with people and in prayer put our arm around them and say, God, move in their life. God, break through into their reality. God, would you open their eyes like you've opened my eyes? God, they're broken, they're lost. I know that you love them and you sent Jesus to save them. Lord, here's all the barriers that are keeping them from you for whatever. Lord, would you move in their life? God, you see what they need. You see how the enemy has taken them captive. You've seen the lies that they believe. You've seen the way how broken the world is and how day after day, month after month, generation after generation, decade after decade in their life. There's been all these layers of hurts and wounds that have now built kind of like a mummy carcassophus around them and they can't see you for who you really are. God, would you strip all those things down? I'm standing in the gap with them as if it was me here and I'm saying, God, remember who you are. Remember the price you paid. Would you move in their life? That's what intercession is. And it's a calling for all of us. Paul says, first of all, first of all of first importance. Why is that significant? Because we try, here's what we try and do so very often. We try and do everything before that. We get busy, we get distracted, we rely on our own intellect. We're just happy that we're fine. And yet the invitation to intercede on behalf of others the way Jesus interceded for us is hanging out there and then ultimately thanksgiving. God wants us to give him thanks for all people. God wants us to be thankful. He wants us to offer up praise to him, appreciation. In other words, he wants us to see the beauty in every single person in our lives. Our enemies, those that are different from us, those who we have massive differences with. God wants us to live in a constant state of attitude when we're looking through the veneers and we're seeing the beauty and the order in which God created in every human being even when they're in their gap or their broken condition and to give thanks for not just what he wants to do in their life, but actually prophesy over their life what God wants to do, to give thanks for them. God, I thank you for my neighbors. God, I thank you for that guy who Moses Lawn at 6.30 a.m. when I'm trying to sleep in on Saturday. God, I just give you thanks for that guy. Lord, I give you thanks for the guy who cuts me off on the highway. God, I give you thanks for the people that are in my city that are challenging me. It's not because we're thankful. It's kind of the same thing when Paul says, count it all joy or James says, count it all joy. It's not that it is joyful. It's just that we're supposed to consider it joyful. It's not that everything in their life makes us happy. It's that we can actually see the image of God in every human being and actually give thanks to him for that. Something about that pulls back the veneer off of their heart. Something about that moves the hand of God in their direction. And something about that keeps our heart pure. Isn't that beautiful? That in a world that is so jaded, has anybody figured out that our world is jaded? If you don't know that, all you need to do is go scroll through Facebook for about 10 minutes. And you will see how cynical, jaded, just violently, aggressively angry and accusatory people are. And it doesn't matter which side of the aisle, what faith you subscribe to, where you live, it's part of the human condition. And how do we as followers of Jesus Christ keep our hearts right in the middle of that kind of world by giving thanks for people? By giving thanks to what God wants to do in their lives. So what does it mean for you and I to stand in the gap? Let me just give you a couple of things that I think are really significant about intercession. And we're talking about prayer. This is one of the most powerful places that you as a believer can stand because of how it shifts cultures, how it shifts people's lives, how it affects circumstances. To be a person of prayer, an intercessory prayer, it changes things and it changes circumstances because here's the first thing you need to know. God is looking for us to partner with him in seeing what he desires to come to pass. He wants us to partner, that's what intercession is. It's saying, God, I know what you want more than anything and I'm gonna stand in the place of prayer with you as your regent on the earth, agreeing with what you've said in heaven will come to pass, not just in people's lives in general, but in specific circumstances. What does God want more than anything else? I'll tell you what he wants more than anything else for every single person to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants everybody, he wants every single person to come to repentance. In other words, to change their mind about who he is, to be softened in their heart. How many know the Holy Spirit moves on people's lives? Jesus said that no man coming to the Father unless God draws him. Jesus also said about the Holy Spirit, he'll convict the world of sin, righteousness and of judgment. So what you and I can't see with our natural eyes is that God is always moving on every individual's lives throughout all eight billion people on the planet, maneuvering and working, trying to draw them to himself. But then what he wants is his children to pray specifically and intercede for those that are on God's heart that on top of the Holy Spirit moving in their lives that our lives would intersect with their lives and we would actually get in the gap and put our arms around them in a place of prayer and pray specific prayers so that God would get what he wants most. You know what Christian maturity is? Christian maturity is when you and I come to a place where we're more concerned about God getting what he wants than we are about us getting what we want. It's easy for us to be consumed with us getting what we want. Anybody in this place want something, desire something? Great, and nobody? Okay, you guys have all turned Buddhist. You've extinguished all your desire whatsoever, okay. Anybody want anything right now? Anybody want something really bad? Have you ever wanted something so bad that you would cash in almost everything else to get it? Do you know that that's what God did? Sending his son Jesus was the equivalent of bankrupting heaven for one thing. People that he loves. Intercession is God inviting you and I who have already been moved by God to partner with him and what he wants. To partner with the heart of God. Let me read you this quote from Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon, probably the greatest preacher who's ever lived said this. He said, earnest intercession will be sure to bring love with it. I do not believe you can hate a man whom you habitually pray for. If you dislike any brother Christian, pray for him doubly, not only for his sake, but for your own, that you may be cured of prejudice and saved from all unkind feelings. So if God loves people and he wants us to love people, part of the process of intercession is not just that God changes the circumstance or the person, but God actually changes us. It's hard to hate people that you pray for. Maybe that's why God calls us to do it. So the next time somebody tells you, I've been praying like two hours a day for you, you'll know they probably hate you. I'm kidding, kidding. But really think about that. What do we normally do with people that we hate? And by the way, we never say we hate anybody. We just strongly disagree, dislike people. We put categories on them because we know that it's morally and ethically wrong to say that we hate somebody. But hate, by the way, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. Hate is a strong passion, and the line between hate and love is a really fine line. Indifference, when you just don't care, is actually the opposite of love. And when you pray for somebody who hates you or somebody that is an enemy, that's, remember Jesus said, you've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, he says, but I say to you, love your neighbor, pray for those who persecute you. Love your enemies, pray for your enemies. What happens when we pray for people? I'll tell you what happens. When you pray for people who have injured you, when you pray for people who don't like you, when you pray for people who disagree with you, when you do that, you offer them up to God, you stand in the gap with them, something begins to change on the inside of you. You begin to look like your father who's in heaven. Aren't we glad that God didn't wait for the world to invite him to come and save us before he moved? While we were yet sinners, Romans chapter five says, when we were without strength in due time, God sent forth his son. He did it before we loved him. He interceded for us before we were worthy. He interceded for us before we loved him. He didn't wait for us to love him before he loved us. In the world, what we do is we retaliate. In the world, we just go one up on them. We try and dismantle them. And we try and, in our worst case, we try and destroy. We're vengeful. But the way of Jesus is not like that. The way of Jesus is to pray for all men everywhere and to partner with God in his heart to see what God wants to happen in their life. Man, I'll tell you what, if we could ever get to that place, what would happen if instead of like the world, we just look like the world and we retaliate and we get angry? What if we prayed for people and interceded for people? I'll tell you what would happen. At least what I've experienced is your heart begins to change. What if we wanted the same things that God wants? What if our desires could be conformed to his desires? What if we could see people the way he sees them? What if instead of seeing all the surface arguments and people as obstacles that keep us from getting what we want, what if we could see them with the value and the worth that Jesus did when he went to the cross to redeem every single one of them? That's difficult to do sometimes. I don't stand up here on the stage tonight telling you, oh, I love all people and everybody makes me happy and I never have wicked, evil thoughts or retaliation because that would be a lie. There's times where I'm hurt. There's times where people retaliate or say things or accuse us, accuse me or put labels on things. Labels on me and my first reaction is to defend myself. Fun is being honest, my first reaction is to defend myself. You know what my prayer is becoming? God, I'm gonna pray for these people and I'm gonna trust that in the process, maybe you'll move in their life, but I know you'll move in mine. I know you'll change me as I pray for them. Number one, we're called to partner with God so that we partner with his heart and his heart becomes ours. Number two, we recognize that God is looking for intercessors. Oswald Chambers says this. He says, Jesus Christ carries on intercession right now in heaven. The Holy Spirit carries on intercession in us on the earth and we the saints have to carry on intercession for all men. See, God's an intercessor. The Holy Spirit is an intercessor. Jesus is our high priest, our intercessor. We're called to be like our God which is to stand in the gap on behalf of others. We're called to be intercessors. Our prayers matter. You might just think to yourself, well, when I pray, it's just a good formal exercise that changes me. No, that's true, but your prayers actually change circumstances. Change spiritual climates, change people's lives. You have no idea the difference your prayers make in the life of somebody else. I don't know all the prayers that were prayed over my life, but I know that I had godly grandparents who prayed over my life for many, many years, and I'm grateful for that. There are people that are in our lives. Jane and I prayed for years and years and years. You've heard Pastor John share the story, but there were years and years and years where Jane prayed for her brother who was far away from Christ. And then in 1998, he gave his heart in this very church. He received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. I'm so grateful today that my wife never stopped praying for her brother. 1996. In 1996, my dad, who has gone home to be with the Lord, but if you had met my dad prior to 1996, my dad went through all, I mean, you name it. He was a drug addict at one time. He went through three divorces. He built businesses, lost it all, became a guru and new age, traveled around, did conferences and seminars. When I was a 17-year-old kid, he told me, you can come in my house, but your Bible doesn't come with you. Because I don't believe in any of that hogwash. You're just like your grandparents, so you decide. You're gonna bring your Bible, take it someplace else, or you can come in my house. And the greatest conflict that my dad had was over that issue. He was so antagonistic towards any Christian that he ever met. And I prayed. I was a 17-year-old kid. I prayed for my dad, prayed for my dad. My grandparents prayed for my dad, prayed for my dad. 1996, the year that we planted Radiant Church had a promise from the Lord. He said, if you'll build my house, I'll build yours. And so we continued to pray for my dad. I would love to tell you that every single day that I ever prayed for my dad, that I was moved with massive amounts of faith. But there were times where I'm like, this is never gonna happen. And I'll never forget the phone call that I got from my dad. He called me and he said, hey, what are you doing, son? I said, oh, we just got back from church. And he goes, well, that's funny. I went to church today too. And in my mind, I'm thinking, what kind of church? Like First Church of McDonald's or what, I don't know. That's weird. He would always try all these different religious experiences. So I'm like, oh, really? I was guarded. And he said, yeah. And he mentioned the church that he went to. And I'm like, really? You went to Mount Zion? And he goes, yeah. And he says, and I want you to know that at the end of the service I walked to the front and I got Christianed. I said, you Christianed? And she goes, yeah, like I asked Jesus into my heart. And I'll tell you what, man, it was one of the happiest days of my life. I didn't even know how to respond to my dad on the phone. It took me like two years to even figure out how to have a conversation with my dad after that. He ended up going to Bible's college. He ended up going through ministry training in his local church. He became a counselor in the church. And in the last years of his life, he was a grandfather to our kids. And I saw him serve the Lord all the way up into the day that he went home to be with the Lord. You know how many people were interceding for him? I don't know, but he does. And I know that those prayers went up for him. I wish we could see what goes on in the spirit realm when we pray. I wish. I can only imagine what it must be. I don't know how the currency exchange rate works between earth and heaven. I haven't figured that out yet, but here's what I know, is God knows. And he tells us to pray, to intercede with his heart for what he wants more than anything else. Our prayers, our intercessions matter. Isaiah chapter 59 says, justice turned back and righteousness stands far away for truth has stumbled in the public square and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no justice. And then he saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede. In other words, things began to break down in culture. Things in Israel began to degenerate. Things that were wrong became right and right became wrong. And God looked at it and he said, there's nobody interceding. Why, where are the intercessors? Where's the one who will stand in the gap like Ezekiel says? Looking for a man who would rebuild the walls, who would stand in the gap. That's what God wants. He wants somebody who's gonna partner with him and stand in the gap. You know, somebody, I know there's been buzz about us going downtown and buying a building downtown and there's all kinds of people trying to figure out why we're going down there and what we're gonna do. Can I just tell you why we're gonna do it? Because radiant church is called to be a people of worship and prayer. And we're going to intercede for our city. The primary purpose is to be a people of prayer from the heart of the city, interceding for our city, to pray for the peace, to pray for the righteousness, to pray for a move of God in our city. And I won't ever back down from that. We are gonna see a move of God that sweeps across our city, not so that it can be a political movement, but because the heart of God is towards every man, woman and child in this entire city and this generation. And he's like, look, truth has fallen down in the streets. Nobody cares, culture has turned into a big political smackdown. But where are my people? Will my people who are moved by what's on my heart take the place in the gap and pray for every single one of them? Will we pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven? That means we gotta pray. Means we don't complain, we're not gonna protest. Means we're gonna be people of prayer. You know, the two things that the devil hates more than anything else in the Bible, worship and prayer. Moses says to Pharaoh, let my people go so we can go worship in the wilderness. All they wanted to do was go worship. He says, nope, not gonna do it. Daniel's living in Babylon and what did Nebuchadnezzar say? You better not pray. And what did the children of Israel do when they left Egypt? They went to the mountain of the Lord and they worshiped. What did Daniel do when it was illegal to pray? Can you imagine it being illegal to pray? What did Daniel do? Daniel goes right up, opens up his window, turns on the light, bows down towards Jerusalem like he's done every single day of his life. And he says, you can do whatever you want. You can put me in a lion's den. You can put me in the fire. But nobody's gonna tell me that I can't pray because this is what I was called to do. Called to be a person of prayer. And you know that entire nation shifted on the prayers of one man. You're one prayer that you pray for your generation, for your relative, for your city, for the people that you work with, your neighbors, the people that hate you, the people that post about you, the people that flip you off on the highway, whatever the case might be. When you pray for them, you might think, well, my prayers don't matter. Oh, your prayers move heaven and earth. Your prayers partner with God in what he already wants to do. You might just look in the mirror and think that you're insignificant, but hell shudders and shakes when the people of God begin to take their knees. Let me read to you one more thing here. Acts chapter 12. In Acts chapter 12, there's this great story that, that's not a great story. It's great because we know the ending of it. How many know? There's a lot of Bible stories like that. We know the ending of them, so they're great. But if it wasn't for what we know on the other side of it, it would have been a tragedy. Peter's in prison for preaching the gospel. And he's in prison, and while he's in prison, the church gathers in praise. And an angel shows up, tells him, get out, put your coat on, puts his coat on. He thinks he's having a dream, but also, and he's walking through gates, gates begin to swing open as he leaves prison. And he realizes, this isn't a vision. This is real. And he gets out of, I mean, this is, he, get out of jail free. He gets out, the gates open, and he's just like, all right, where do I go? He knows that there's a prayer meeting going on at one of the people's homes, and in verse number 12, it says, and he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when they knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer, recognizing Peter's voice in her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. It's like, hello, let me in first before you freak out. And they said to her, oh, no, you're out of your mind. And she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, it's his angel, but Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw that it was him, and they were amazed. Now, this is a snapshot of a prayer meeting in the early church. One of their own is arrested, thrown in jail for preaching the gospel, and the rest of them are gathering in their homes for a prayer meeting. I wish that supplications, prayers, prayer meetings, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men. And they're gathering together, supplicating, praying, interceding. In unbeknownst to them, God answers their prayers. And the answer to their prayer came and knocked on the door, and they were so shocked that God answered the prayer that they ignored the answer to the prayer, and went back to the prayer meeting. Because sometimes we're so conditioned to not expect our prayers to be answered, that we just get caught up in the action of prayer that we're actually shocked when God does something with our prayers. But God's the God who loves to shock us and surprise us by breaking in, breaking through, and breaking out. He's the God who sends angels in response to a few people gathered in a woman's living room praying. I'll tell you what, if God will do that, then he will do it now. There are people that are living behind prison doors, people that have been shackled by chains, people that are bound by sin. They're blinded spiritually. Their heart is hard. The spirit of this age and of this world has literally made them a captive. And God is saying, listen, you might just think it's a dull little prayer meeting. Nothing's happening. You're saying your little prayers, but God says angels are moving, heaven is moving. And if you'll continue to pray, I'm gonna bust people. There's gonna be a jailbreak in the kingdom of God. When God's people pray, will we stand in the gap and be intercessors? That's the question. God is calling each and every one of us to number one, stand in the gap with thankfulness in our hearts for what he's done in us. And then to intercede for the rest of the people that are in our world. People that are on his heart and on his mind. I want you to stand up with me right now if you would all across here, portage as well. And I wanna invite you right now to buy your heads with me and to ask God, Lord, who do you wanna put on my mind? To intercede and pray for. If you'll ask him, he'll give you somebody. He'll lay it on your heart. Who can you pray for? Might be somebody that you've been praying for for many, many years. Might be somebody that you haven't thought of in a long time. But God, who's on your heart tonight? That you wanna put on our heart so that we can partner with you. That we can stand in the gap so that you get what you want which is sons and daughters. That you get what you want. Captives set free. Lord, forgive us for not being moved the way that you're moved. Lord, would you strip down like layers of varnish off of our hearts, strip down right to the wood, back down to the core of our hearts so that we can be moved to action, moved to prayer. That we don't live indifferently. Lord, there's people all over the world right now that are on your heart and on your mind. Who do you wanna put on our hearts? Who are you fighting for right now? Lord of hosts, tonight Lord, would you deposit that inside of us with your heads bowed and your eyes closed? This is just a holy moment. How many would say a name, a face, somebody has just come up into my heart in the last few moments that I know I'm called to pray for. Just raise your hand if that's you. Then I'll remind you of this. First of all, first of all, make it a priority. Put it in order. Guys, let's pray for those people. Lord, we pray for those that you've put on our hearts and on our minds tonight. Lord, we intercede on our behalf. We don't know how it works. We don't know how our words matter to you. But Lord, we stand in faith knowing your heart, knowing your desire, knowing what you've done, how far you've gone to win the lost and to bring them to you, to meet every one of their needs, God, and we stand in the gap tonight. We stand in the gap tonight for those that are on your heart. Lord, would you move in their lives? Would you reveal yourself? Would you encounter them, God, in a way that they can not deny that you're at work in their lives, Lord? Encounter them, Lord. Take down every barrier, every limitation that keeps them from you. Make us a people of prayer and intercession. Lord, help us to move beyond indifference to passion for the things that you're passionate about, to be a people of prayer. Well, your heads are still bowed tonight. I wanna ask one more thing tonight. It may be that you came to church on a Saturday night. And the truth is, you really don't have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. You just don't. I'm not saying you don't believe in God. I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm just saying, you have never had a moment where you've accepted this incredible free gift that God has made available to every single one of us that we can be made right to God, right with God, reconciled to him, not by the things that we do, but by his grace. Just freely, we receive it. He forgives us. He cleanses us. You say, well, how do I get this gift? You have to receive it tonight. You have to, it's believing that Jesus is your substitute, that he died in your place and raised from the dead. If you'll do that and you'll invite him tonight, he'll come in and be your Lord and Savior. Tonight you're here and you don't have a right relationship with God. He loves you. He's interceding for you right now. And he wants to become your Lord and your Savior. If you'd say tonight, I know I'm not right with God. Maybe you've prayed that at some point in the past, but you've walked away from that down a different path and you know that tonight you need to come home. Doesn't matter which one of those two it is, you just know you're not right with God and you want to say tonight, I want to get right with God. Pray for me. Pray for me, pastor Lee. If that's you, I just want you to raise your hand up and we're gonna pray together in just a moment. God's gonna save you. Yes, I see your hand all the way in the back. Yes, who else? Thank you, I see that hand. Scanning the room, if that's you, the tenderness of the Lord is here for you. Just raise your hand. He wants to redeem you, save you. I want everyone in the room together to pray this with me out loud. And if you raised your hand, this is just you talking to God. This isn't a magic formula. This is you inviting him in. Say this with me, say, Heavenly Father. I come in Jesus' name and I confess that I've lived for myself, I'm broken, and I can't fix myself. I want to know you. I believe in you, Jesus, that you died for me, paid my sin's price, and that you were raised from the dead, victorious in Lord of all. Tonight I surrender, I give you every part of me. I hold nothing back. Lord, come into my heart and be my Savior, be my Lord. Thank you for loving me and saving me in Jesus' name. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer, welcome to the family of God.