 Well, good morning, radiant, good weekend, radiant. How's everybody doing? You guys doing good? Come on, put your hands together if you're doing well. I don't even know where I am. Who am I? If you have your Bibles, take them out and open them with me to James chapter five. James chapter five this weekend. This is our final installment of the series we've been going through this summer, the book of James entitled Revolutionary Faith. And I just want to encourage you to make sure that on Sunday night, if you have not registered and you have served, volunteered or joined radiant, that you please join us for our virtual team radiant night. I know there's a lot of things going on, but there is nothing more pivotal than the hour that we are in as a church, poised and positioned for what I believe God wants to do in our city. And that's some of the things I wanna talk about on Sunday night just specifically to our volunteers and our members and our team. And we usually do this in person, but we're gonna take advantage of technology to be able to impact and reach everybody from where they're at because there's some people that are out of town. We have some members that don't even live in Kalamazoo. They live in other cities and other states. And so we want them to be able to join in. I'm gonna be sharing some really exciting things. And so sometimes in August, we can kind of have a casual approach to the things that are going on. This is not a time for us to be casual. This is a time for us to press in. So I'm inviting you to do that. And I think the things that lie ahead of us and the kingdom of God are really very exciting, but they're gonna require us to have a very diligent attitude about it. So I'm excited about that. Okay, James chapter five, begin reading here in verse number 13. It says, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. And therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working, time out. I memorized most of the scriptures in my formative years out of the New King James translation. And so when I read this out of the ESV, I know it's really good, but can I just go ahead and quote it out of the New King James? The fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much. That's how it ought to be written. Okay, verse number 17, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. And he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. And then he prayed again and the heavens gave rain and the earth bore its fruit. Verse number 19, it says, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. So in this very last section of this last chapter, James zeroes in on the subject of prayer. Really everything that he's saying in this particular section is encouraging believers not just to pray, but to be people of prayer. And I think that one of the most underestimated, undervalued, underutilized disciplines and realities is that as the church, as children of God, we are called to be people of prayer. We're not called to be people that pray. We're called to be people of prayer. And from the very beginning in 1996, when we planted Radiant Church, Jane and I moved down here with just a few friends and we set up camp in a small little office down in downtown Richland. The one thing that was a priority to us is that we were not going to just be a church that prayed, but we were going to be a praying church. Now let me tell you, we did not have a lot of the bells and whistles. We didn't have buildings. We didn't have members. That's important. We didn't have experience. We didn't have a lot of money, but the one thing that we had was a very clear conviction. And the conviction was that prayer is the foundation of everything that we will do, not because of what prayer is, but because of who prayer is to. And what happens when that connection is alive on the inside of us. And so one of the very first things that we did was we had a small little office area that set about 50 people. We called it the Ministry Center because on Wednesday nights, we would host Bible studies in there. But in that room, we put up a huge map of the world. It was like wallpaper, fill up the whole wall. And on Saturday mornings, before we ever had a church service, we had prayer meetings. And then when we did have church services, we continued to have Wednesday nights, Saturday prayer meetings. We, for 24 years, we've done a lot of things. The one thing that we have done and that we do today that we have done since the very beginning with really little change is prayer. And it's interesting that when COVID kicked in in March, I don't know if you've heard of this little thing called COVID-19, but it took the world by storm, literally. And when it did, on a Thursday afternoon, we all gathered in our conference room and said, okay, what do we do? Well, we can't do live services, so we're gonna go online. How are we going to follow up and care for the thousands of people who call Radiant Church? And we developed a plan. We didn't think it would take real long. And just by nature, one of the things that is part of my personality is I hate being told you can't. I hate the word can't, it just drives me crazy. Since I was a little kid, as soon as you tell me I can't, I did. And so we were sitting there and somebody says, well, we can't, we can't do this, can't do this. I stopped and I said, what, okay, let's stop, let's reframe this. We're not doing all these other things, but what's the one thing that we can do that we haven't done in the midst of this? Pastor Caleb Culver said, well, what if we were put a video camera up in our prayer room and capture the morning prayer meetings that we've been doing for years? And we've had a few people that would come to it in the mornings, mostly our staff and RSW students and things like this. But what if we captured it posted online so that people who are at home unlocked and can join us in prayer? I said, oh, that's a great idea. And Caleb's like, who should lead it? My first reaction was, you know, my mornings I have a routine in which I study and I prepare. But I really felt like in the midst of the storm, it was important that we pulled our church together around the one thing that we built it on from the very beginning, which is prayer. I said, I'm gonna lead it. And then I made a commitment to the Lord. I said, Lord, I will lead the morning prayer until the stay home order is lifted. I thought it was gonna be three or four weeks. And the Lord just kind of laughed at me in June. And he's like, are you still committed to that word? I'm like, oh, all right. So all the way up until July 4th weekend. And shortly after that, that was when the stay home order was lifted. And I, so for five and a half a week or five and a half months or however long that was, four and a half, three and a half months. I remember it was 15 weeks Monday through Friday led that prayer meeting. And I want you to know some people have asked me, Pastor Lee, why did you do that? And how did you do that? This has been something that has been a part of my relationship with God since I was 12 years old. And the reason why I can pray when you hear me pray, if you've ever heard me pray, especially on those morning prayer meetings is I'm praying scripture. I'm praying Bible. And for those of you who wonder how you memorize all that stuff the night before, you don't. What you do is you spend about 30 years reading 10 chapters of the Bible every single day, getting it on the inside of you because when pressure comes and you are squeezed, whatever is on the inside of you is what's going to come out of you. And that's not only true of me, that's true of all of our worship leaders and musicians and anybody that I've ever met that is a person of prayer. It's not something that you just, that you just decide one day I'm gonna jump into the fray here. It's something that for years and years and years has been a part of your foundations. And for me, that foundation began when I was 12 years old, 13 years old. I started going to a youth group and the youth group was on Wednesday nights. And so many of us grew up going to youth ministries like on Wednesday nights. But it wasn't the youth ministry on Wednesday nights that so radically changed me. It was our youth group met with some college age, college and career in high school in junior high were all pushed together. And so afterwards I noticed all these kids were leaving and going to this guy named Greg's house. I'm like, what are you guys doing at Greg's house? And they said, well, we have a prayer meeting. I'm like, really a prayer meeting? Really? More prayer? And they said, yeah, we, oh man, yeah, come to this prayer meeting. I'm like, tell me about it. He says, well, we all get in the basement, get in the circle, share testimonies. We put a Hosanna integrity tape in the boom box. Anybody remember those things? Hit play and we all just worship. And then we give words to each other and then we pray. We're praying for the loss. We're praying for our church. We're praying for our city. I'm like, can I come? And they said, yeah, I mean, it's all college kids, but you didn't come. 13 years old, I'm hitching a ride with college students going to a prayer meeting. The only time I got grounded in my teen years was coming home too late from a prayer meeting. My mom's like, I don't care who you're with and what you're doing. I gave you a 10 o'clock curfew. And I got grounded for that. And it became formative in my life. Why am I telling you about our prayer meetings? Why am I telling you about a teenage kid who grew up in that environment? It's because of this. It's because this is not meant to be the exception. Prayer is not meant to be the exception for a few Navy SEAL, really smart or people that have memorized huge swaths of scripture or, you know, our Billy Graham's or Mother Teresa's. Prayer is not meant to mark a few or an elite group of people. It's meant to be a defining description of the people of God. That's why James is writing here. He's like, pray if you, if he starts off, if you're suffering, what should you do? Pray. In the words of the great theologian MC Hammer, we got to pray just to make it today. We need to pray. Some of you are like, who's MC Hammer? Because you're still learning. You're still learning the best era of music on the planet, 80s and early 90s. After that, you're on your own. Anyone suffering, let them pray. Anyone cheerful, let them pray. Is anyone among you sick? Call for the elders in. Yeah. Verse number 16, confess your sins to one another and? And then he begins to talk about Elisha or Elijah as an example for us of prayer. Charles Spurgeon, who was one of the great preachers of the 1800s in England. In fact, tell you a little story about Charles Spurgeon. By the way, if you've heard of Charles Spurgeon before, raise your hand. Okay, most everybody in this room. Charles Spurgeon had the first podcast because he would preach. And number one, people would line up in front of Metropolitan Tabernacle on Thursdays for a lottery to get a number so that they would have a seat in church on Sunday. Because it only sat 5,000 people. And people wanted a seat so they would line up to get a ticket so that they could come to church. And he preached for an hour and a half. Come on, somebody. So they would pack it out. They would have newspaper people that would sit in the front row and transcribe his entire sermon word for word. Then they would take it, telegraph it to the New York Times in the United States, and they would publish it in Monday's edition. It was the first podcast. The whole nation, Chicago Tribune, would post it as well. The whole nation of Americans would read word for word this preacher's sermons. But it's interesting, people thought that the secret of what God was doing through Charles Spurgeon and Metropolitan Tabernacle was found in his preaching. One time a man from America was over there. He's a journalist. And he went to Metropolitan Tabernacle and he wanted to meet Mr. Spurgeon. And he met his assistant. And his assistant said, what can I show you? What would you like to see? He says, well, I wanna see the secret behind what is happening in this church. And his thought was it would be Pastor Spurgeon's office. But instead he said, well, let me show you the, I'll show you the engine room of what God is doing in this church. And he took him into the basement to a room where there was about 30 older women who were interceding and praying every single day. He said, this is the furnace room of this church. And everything that happens in the pulpit is fewed by what's happening in the prayer room. He was a person of prayer. He was a man of deep prayer. He was a great theologian, great scholar, amazing orator. But he was a man of prayer. And here's what Charles Spurgeon said. He who knows how to overcome with God in prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal. He who knows how to overcome with God in prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal. And it's not just for preachers. Listen, God's desire is for each and every one of us to be a people of prayer. Not just people that pray, because a lot of people pray. A lot of people say prayer changes things. Well, not all prayer changes things. Because you can pray a miss and you can pray to an alternative God and it's not the same. Prayer is not the thing that actually changes things. What changes things is the dynamic between a child of God who is confident in his relationship with Father God who comes into an agreement on the fulcrum of his word and it tips the scales in the favor of the child of God and the resources of heaven become a reality in the earth and it changes and it shifts realities. That's the difference. And listen, you don't have to be a preacher. You don't have to be a scholar. You don't even have to be loud in order to be an effective person of prayer. You just have to be aware and you have to be hungry. You have to have a burning heart for prayer and James is giving us some insight into prayer. So let me just share with you a couple things about prayer before I give you reasons why we don't pray as we ought. Because I think if I were to ask you in this room, let's do a little poll and those of you who are online, those of you who are watching today, raise your hand in response to this poll. How many of you would say that Christians should be people of prayer? Raise your hand. Put your hand up. How many would say second question? You believe that God's desire for you is for you to be a person that prioritizes prayer. Raise your hand. Put your hand up. How many of you struggle with prayer? Raise your hand. Isn't that interesting? The one thing that when you go back to Acts 242, describes the early church in the midst of revival that they were continually together in prayer. Go through the book of Acts, highlight how many times you see prayer in the church. Go back into the gospels and underline how many times you see Jesus departing and going to a desolate place to be alone with God in prayer. The son of the living God in the flesh needed to pray. Luke 517, Mark 135, he got away into the wilderness. He went into a desolate place and he prayed with God. John 519, I only do those things that I hear my Father saying and only do those things that I see my Father doing. He's working until now, therefore the Son is also working. I can do nothing of my own. We all know that we should be people of prayer, but let me tell you who else knows that you are supposed to be a person of prayer. The devil knows that. And all of the legions of hell know that you are marked to be in close intimate relationship with God and that prayer is the inhale and the exhale of that relationship. And so in a moment I'm gonna share with you some reasons why we don't pray, but let me just start off by sharing with you some things about what prayer is and is not. Number one, prayer should be our first response and not our last resort. And a lot of times when we think about prayer, it's not that we don't pray, it's just that we don't pray first. A lot of times we treat prayer like, I've done everything else and so now I should pray. Instead of prayer being our first response and not a reaction, not a last resort. You see, Jesus commanded us to pray without ceasing. To live a lifestyle of prayer without ceasing. And Luke 18 verse one, he told them a parable to this effect, and I love these words, that men ought to always pray and not lose heart. Always pray, which means there should be no beginning and there should be no ending of our prayer lifestyle. It should not be our last resort. Sometimes it's how we treat it though. It's like, well, I've tried to figure this out on my own. I've tried to resolve the issue. I've worried, I've stressed out about it. Anybody ever been stressed out about a situation? And then all of a sudden go, I should probably pray about that. It's more fun to worry about it. I'm gonna think through all of the different ways this could be the end of me. And I'm going to let the emotions rise up on the inside of me. And we forget what Paul said in Philippians. And he said, bring all things with prayer and supplications. Make a request known unto the Lord and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and mind. Do not be anxious about anything he says. But in all things with prayer and supplication. Well, I pray, but after I've done everything, what would change in our lives if we looked at prayer, not as our last resort, but our first response? Second thing is this, effective prayer or prayer in general is not an invent. It's a lifestyle. Prayer is not an invent. We got to stop thinking about prayer as an event. You know, one of the things I love is over the years, going to people's homes for dinner. So especially in the earlier years when church was small and we would meet new people as they were coming in, you know, we would have them over for dinner or they would have us over for dinner. And it's great because you get to meet people and some of the meals were incredible. Some of them were, and it's always interesting though as a pastor, when you go to somebody's home and they put dinner on the table, it's like, pastor, would you like to pray? It's like, my answer typically is no. It's like, I'm not like, I pray all the time. I want to hear you pray because you can tell the spiritual health of a household when people pray. Prayer is not an event. It's not even a prayer meeting. I love prayer meetings. I've been in a lot of prayer meetings. Let a lot of prayer meetings. I've been some terrible prayer meetings. When I say, and by the way, no prayer meeting is terrible but I'm just saying sometimes they can be slow. And when you say prayer meeting, Leonard Ravenhill used to say, you can judge the health of a church not by the attendance on Sunday, but the attendance and engagement of the prayer meeting on Wednesday. And I've been to some prayer meetings that, I know God was there but it's only by faith because it's, how many have ever been to a prayer meeting where somebody goes, I have an unspoken request? Unspoken request. It's like, by the time you get around you have 20 unspoken requests. It's like, I don't even know what to pray for. Let's just unspoke. We're all just unspoken. The whole point is we're supposed to speak it. But listen, prayer meetings are awesome but prayer is a lifestyle. It's the way we live. It's not just an event that we go to or a one-time prayer that we pray. It's meant to be a lifestyle. Pray without ceasing. That's what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians, chapter five. He says, pray without ceasing. Give it all you got. Live a lifestyle. A prayer. My great-grandmother, Wilma Norton, I've talked about her I think before, but she was in her 80s, 89 when she passed away but I was about 15-year-old kid and I was in the formative years of really growing as a believer and so I would go to my great-grandmother's house and she couldn't get up and walk. She had one of those chairs with a button on it that would lift her up out of her seat and to her walker but what she did was she spent hours in her chair praying. She had a steno notebook that just was full of prayer requests from people and she didn't just write prayer requests down and tell people that she was gonna pray for them. She prayed, she lived a lifestyle of prayer. She would wake up in the mornings and I remember she would get up and when I would stay at her house she would walk into the kitchen, thank you, thank you. Thank you. I'm like, grandma, what are you doing? I'm just thanking God. I'm just thanking God. He says, give thanks. He said to give thanks. Man, that convicted me so much because easier to just walk around your house, not ceaselessly praying but ceaselessly complaining. You see the default setting of your heart is revealed in the default words that flow out of your mouth and if what's automatically coming out of our mouth is complaining, then something's wrong with our heart. But if what's flowing out of our mouths, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks is thanksgiving, it speaks to the health of our heart. Okay, moving right along. Number three, effective prayer is not dependent upon your nature but on God's. It says right here in verse number 17, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently. In other words, we can look at Elijah and we can think, wow, Elijah's the guy that called down fire. Elijah's the guy that squared off with the prophets of Baal and the prophets of Asherah. Elijah's the one who took out Jezebel. Elijah, I mean, he's powerful but yet he was also a human being, a man just like you and I and he got depressed and he ran and he got intimidated when things were difficult, when things were hard. He was hungry and so God said, I have a widow who's gonna take care of you for the duration. Think about it, Elijah's like, God, I did your will. I called the rain to stop and now there's a famine in the land and guess what, I'm doing your will and I don't have any food. And God's like, don't worry, I got a widow. Then he had to go to the widow of Zeraphath's house. He goes over to her house and says, make me a cake and she says, I don't have anything. I got a little bit of oil, a little bit of flour. I'm about to make a little cake, eat it and then me and my son are gonna die. Positive mental attitude. Elijah could have just gotten angry, but he didn't. He said, well, make me a cake first. He had confidence in who his God was, but yeah, he was a man with a nature just like ours. A lot of times we can think, I've gotta be super spiritual to live a lifestyle of prayer. I gotta be Mike Bickel or I gotta be, you know, Billy Graham or I gotta be Christine Cain to live a lifestyle of prayer. But no, it's not about your nature that makes prayer effective. It's about the nature and the character of the God that we serve. In fact, I believe this, real prayer doesn't begin until you've run out of knowing how to pray. A lot of times we think we know what we're supposed to pray for and then you get to that moment where it's just like, I don't know, I don't even know what to say, I don't know what to do, but what comes after that is actually out of your gut and out of your spirit and then the Holy Spirit partners with that. It's one of the reasons why in Romans chapter eight when it talks about the Holy Spirit, it says, when we don't know how to pray as we ought to, the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf with groanings and utterances, praying in the spirit. Part of my daily relationship and communication, communion with God is I pray in the spirit in a spiritual language, I pray in tongues. Somebody's like, are pastor prays in tongues? Yeah, so did all the writers of the New Testament. So if you don't like that, tear that part of your Bible out. It's not weird. I'm not frothing at the mouth, rolling on the ground. It's the Holy Spirit who dwells on the inside of me. Says, are you at the end of yourself? And I'm like, yep. He says, now let me pray for you. Because it's his character. He knows the will of God. He knows the heart of God. The Bible says in first Corinthians, he searches out the deep things of God and he knows how to pray with me. And sometimes all you have is a sense or a feel, but it's based on the character of God. So many times we get discouraged in prayer because we think, well, I'm not praying effectively. I mean, I don't know the right scripture or the right formula and I don't have a huh in the midst of my prayer. And is God really gonna hear, huh, when I say, huh, oh Lord, I need you to answer me. We don't have that in our prayer oftentimes. Sometimes it's just a, oh God, help. Sometimes it's just tears. Sometimes it's just Thanksgiving, but it's his character. Now, let me tell you some reasons why we don't pray as we ought to. Because we all feel this way. And here's what I know about how our human nature works in relationship to prayer, in relationship to God, generally, is we are incredibly insecure for two reasons. Number one is we're insecure because of shame and guilt and not understanding our identity in Christ. So we think, I've done so many rotten things, God's not gonna listen to me. Or God's angry with me. I used to think that when I was growing up, I used to think I'm gonna set my alarm and I'm gonna pray at five a.m. because all holy people get up at five a.m. and pray, so I'd set my alarm back when you had like alarm clocks on your nightstand, not your phone, and I'd set that thing. Five o'clock, I'd hit it, snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze. And then I'd totally miss it. I had to get up and go to school. I felt rotten that whole day because I had let God down. And I was hearing the words of an old Keith Green songs, if you can't come to me every day, then don't bother coming at all. And I remember thinking, oh, God's mad at me. And I had this idea that I can't pray effectively and it produced guilt and shame and condemnation in my relationship with God. That's one of the reasons that we get hung up on not praying. The other reason is because we don't really believe that God's listening or that he cares because we just kind of believe God's gonna do whatever God's gonna do. We're fatalistic, which is actually closer to Hinduism than it is to Judeo-Christian understanding of who God is. So why don't we pray as we ought to? If we know that this is who we're called to be, why don't we pray as we ought to? Well, number one, we underestimate what we can do. We overestimate what we can do in our own strength. We put far too much confidence in ourselves to resolve issues, to handle issues, to carry the burden, to carry the weight of things that we're going through when we see a problem in a friend's life or in a family's situation, we search out all kinds of other things in our own strength. But listen to what God says in Jeremiah 17, verse five. It says, this is what the Lord said. Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. We overestimate what we can do in our own strength. It's one of the reasons why we don't pray fervently and effectively the way that James tells us our prayers are. I want you to hear me, Saint of God. Your prayers before God, the fervent effectual, which means passionate, faith-filled prayers before God are effective. They are powerful. Hell trembles when the weakest saint prays. But I'll tell you, he wants to do everything in his power to keep you dependent on your own strength and not turning to the Lord and his strength. Paul writes in Ephesians 6, now therefore be strong in the Lord and then the power of his might. How many times do we engage in spiritual warfare in the power of our own might? And that's when we're overwhelmed. But it's one of the reasons why we don't pray as we ought to. We overestimate what we can do in our own strength. And what is that? That's pride. I can do this. We don't see through the eyes of faith, but we rely on the arm of the flesh. And we're used to operating out of our own intellect and we're used to operating out of our own strength because the flesh or the sinful nature is our default setting. And let's be honest, we've got lots of practice in it because I don't know what age you came into the faith as a follower of Jesus and we're born again, but up until that point, you were trained in self survival and to operate according to the flesh based on what you see, based on your five senses. You engaged, you appraised and you either manipulated or you confronted or you just worked harder. We've got all these mechanisms that are flesh oriented and there's times where God just said, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. In other words, see through the eyes of faith, know that God's at work and that when we pray, he hears us. Second reason why we don't pray as we ought to is we underestimate what God will do if we do pray. We underestimate what God will do if we, well, do you really think God's gonna do anything if I've prayed before and God hasn't done it? Here's what I can tell you, you ready? This is profound. 100% of the prayers that you don't pray will not be answered. 100% of the prayers that you don't pray will not be answered. If you are going for consistency, just don't pray. But if you wanna partner with this wild Holy Spirit and the God of the universe, his will is so much greater than ours and his wisdom is so much more unfathomable than ours, then I dare you to pray some dangerous prayers because God is not, God is not intimidated by the audacity of our prayers. God's not in heaven going, wow, that's gonna be tough. Jesus, what's this guy praying for? I mean, can he just be happy? He's praying for a generation to be saved. He's praying for a building downtown Kalamazoo. Doesn't he know you can't get buildings downtown Kalamazoo? Who's that crazy guy down there with a bunch of people who go to church on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings? Who are these people praying? Don't they know that that's too hard? Listen, is anything too difficult for the Lord? God's not in heaven going, whoa, God's in heaven going, come on, ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. When did we become convinced that the goal of being a Christian was to live nice, safe, soft lives and arrive safely at death? You were created to be irratical, to pray bold, audacious, earth-shaking, nation-taking, generation-changing prayers. But we underestimate what God will do. We underestimate what prayer is. Prayer is a weapon in the arsenal of every believer. Second Corinthians 10 says, we walk in the flesh but we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they are mighty in God to the pulling down of strongholds. A couple of weeks ago I was driving down Gull Road and pulled up to a stoplight right in front of Myers and looked over and it had to be the 16-year-old kid. He's driving a Porsche Carrera, had to be dad's car. Maybe not, I don't know. But I'm looking over at him and this kid, I mean, he could just tell he's like 16 years old, maybe 17 and he's waiting out the light and I'm there with my Jeep. I'm just looking over at him and it's like, I wonder what this kid's gonna do as soon as that light turns green. I mean, just in the back end, you can tell it's got a stabilizer kid that back end. He was showing off for the kid that was on the other side of him. And I just thought, that's exactly how you should drive a Porsche. That is how a Porsche was meant to be driven. Now, a minivan, you just go nice and slow, nice and easy, it's comfortable, but not a Porsche Carrera. You floor that thing, you shift, you pop that clutch, you hold on for dear life. Here we are as the people of God, we've got this 450 horsepower engine under the hood of our faith called prayer. We're driving around with minivan faith. We're praying minivan prayers. Cause you know that's good. All right, so, so we underestimate what God will do. Let me give you the last three real quickly. Number one, we feel unqualified to pray, that's one of the reasons why we don't pray as we ought to. We feel disqualified or unqualified. Well, who am I to ask God? I'll tell you who you are. Colossians 112 says, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. You know what the inheritance of the saints is? Romans says that we are co-heirs with Christ, which means everything that is Jesus's to inherit the nations, the resources of heaven, we're equally rightful inheritors of those things. Who's qualified us? The Father has qualified us. You can't qualify yourself. If it were up to you, you would be disqualified, but it's not about you. Jesus's blood has qualified you to approach the mercy seat and to not just call him God, call him Father and to ask him for whatever you desire. Number four, the reason why we don't pray is because we pray once and then we give up. We're not persistent in our prayer, but Jesus said, ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find. Knock in the door, we'll be open unto you. That is a continual sense. Ask and ask and ask and ask and you shall receive. Seek and seek and seek and you shall find. Knock and knock and knock and the door will be opened unto you. Don't ask one time, but keep asking. Be diligent, just like Jesus said, because when he tells the parable about the friend who comes next door to ask for bread in the middle of the night, it says because of his impudence or his shamelessness, he will rise and give the neighbor what he's asking for. And in the same way, God's looking for persistence. How many times do you have to ask? Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. And then the last one is this, reason why we don't pray and this is huge. It's because we allow our lives to get distracted. We get distracted. Listen to what Jesus said in the parable of Matthew 13. As for what was sown among the thorns, the seed, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke it out. And it becomes unfruitful. This can be about salvation, but it can also be about prayer because what happens is we get distracted and our focus gets off of what's really important. This is what happens. Listen, the enemy, if he can't keep you from praying, if he can't keep you from being saved, he wants to keep you from being victorious. And the way that he keeps you from being victorious and fulfilling God's purpose in your life is to keep you distracted. Because if you're distracted, you won't ever read this. And if you never read this, then you'll never pray. And if you never pray, nothing changes. But Jesus is the one who said, ask anything in my name and it will be done for you. In your name, in his name doesn't mean, listen, this is so important. Because sometimes we get discouraged thinking, well, I prayed and nothing happened. When Jesus said, if you ask anything in my name, he's not saying that you tag on his name to the end of your prayer. It's not a formula that you get to go in Jesus' name. In his name means in union with him, fully aware of what his will is and in agreement with him. In my name, it's like if a dad were to give you his credit card and say, I want you to go shopping and I want you to spend this much and I want you to get this. And you go and do those things, that credit card will work. It's your dad's credit card, but you're doing it based on his permission, his will and his parameters. But you keep doing that in your desire and eventually dad's gonna shut off the credit card. But as long as you do it within the parameters that dad gave you, dad's paying the bill. That's what Jesus meant. But so many of us spend so much of our life distracted that we don't pray. Well, I'm busy. The things we get busy with will not last for eternity. The prayers we pray will. You know, in just a few weeks, radiant is stepping into a season called seek. We did it in January. We do it for 21 days in January. We do it for 10 days in September. And this year, we're going to be able to do it, at least some of it, in our brand new upper room prayer room in downtown Kalamazoo because we're a people of prayer. Somebody asked, but what do you pray so much? Why does the church got a prayer meeting every day? Why do we have Seek January and September? It's because prayer shapes history. And can I tell you what else it shapes? Shapes us. Shapes us. If we want to live revolutionary lives as followers of Jesus, then we need to revolt against status quo and become undistracted seekers of His presence. People of His word, people of prayer, this is what defined the church from the very beginning and it's what needs to define us here at the end. I want to invite you to stand with me wherever you're at. God's so good. Just thinking about my grandma. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can we just take a minute and just thank God? Right where you are, just by your heads. Just between you and the Lord today. Just thank Him. Find something to thank Him for. It's counter-intuitive because we take things that are good in our lives for granted and we obsess about the things that are not good. And what we ought to do is we ought to obsess about the things that are good. And we ought to have holy confidence in God about the things that are not. Come on, I just want you to take a moment, 30 seconds. I want you to find something right now to verbally just thank God for. And just watch what happens. Watch what happens when you open up your mouth with something on your heart that right now you give thanksgiving to God for. Wherever you're at, even in line at home, just say thank you. And just feel the flood of His presence. Enter into His courts with thanksgiving in your heart and into His gates with thanksgiving in your heart, into His courts with praise. Praise and thanksgiving is access. What I want to do before we close today is this. I just want to ask God to anoint us to pray. I want to ask God to anoint us to pray. Because some of us still believe the lie. I'm not cut out to be first in prayer. It's now, you were, this is like in, it's like saying, I'm not meant to breathe. The way you're designed physically is to inhale and exhale. The way that you are designed spiritually is to inhale His word and it's to exhale His praise and prayer. That's how you're designed. I just want to ask God to anoint us because there is an anointing to pray. When we're hungry, God responds to that. And if today the desire of your heart is God, I want a grace and an anointing on my life to pray. I'm sorry for the times I've been distracted. Today I'm making a decision I want to live my life as a person, as a people of prayer. God, would you anoint me for prayer? If that's you, I just want you to raise your hand right wherever you're at, even at home. Just say, God, I want an anointing to pray. I want the kind of prayers that when I pray, you hear them. I want the kind of prayers that when I pray, they shake things, change things. I want to partner with you and what you're doing in the earth. I don't want to become so micro and so distracted that I live my life in my own strength of power. I want to be a person of prayer. God, anoint me to pray. If you've not raised your hand, raise it right now. And we're going to pray God's about to anoint people to pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, because I know it's your will. I know it's how you've designed us. Lord, I'm praying today for a revelation, our eyes to be open, to see, to understand the secret place, to see you waiting for us, that you love us, you're for us, and that we have audience with the God of the universe. With all the strength and the power of heaven, would you right now anoint those with their hands raised? Who are reaching out to you saying, God, here I am, I want to be anointed as a person of prayer. I want to be anointed in the way that I commune with you. And Lord, you know all the reasons why we're distracted and we don't pray. But right now, God, it doesn't matter. What matters is one moment in your presence changes everything. And I'm asking Holy Spirit to send and anoint to pray, intercessors in Jesus' name, warriors in Jesus' name, healings in Jesus' name, words of knowledge, words of wisdom in Jesus' name, the ability to pray scripture in Jesus' name, an anointing that actually stirs up a famishing in our soul for your presence, God, that we will never be satisfied with the cares of this world or the work of our flesh or the deceitfulness of riches. But Lord, we will be captivated by the unfathomable depths of your presence and the beauty and the treasure of your promises. Your presence, God. Marcus, we pray as a people of prayer in Jesus' name. Amen, and amen. Come on, if you believe that, let's put our hands together and thank God. One last thing before we go. What did James say to do? Any of you is suffering, pray. If anybody has something to give thanks for, praise. And it said, pray for one another that you might be healed. Before we go, this room is a giant prayer meeting. It's what I love about church. We are, whenever two or three are gathered, we're a prayer meeting, with every head up and every eye looking around. Doesn't matter what it is, but if you need God to heal you, body, soul, or spirit, or you're going through a battle, and you need God to move on your behalf, or tonight, if anxiety and fear and depression have gripped your heart, and you wanna be free from it. Any of those, I just want you to raise your hand right now. You're not alone. I want you to hear me say that. You are not in this battle alone. Jesus is with you, we're with you, and the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous church avails much. So right now, raise your hand back up. If you raised it the first time, everybody else right now, join me. We're gonna pray. I just want you to point towards them with your hands. If you wanna do that, just direct your focus and your attention at them. This is us inviting the Lord today to come in and break chains, set people free. Right now, in the name of Jesus, Lord, I stand in the authority of the name of Jesus. And I pray right now, Father, for healing in Jesus' name, whatever sickness, infirmity, disease, people came in here with, Lord, we drop it and we're leaving without it. I just speak to sickness, disease, and infirmity of the body, cancer, lung disease, spinal issues, thyroid issues, joints, arthritis, eye problems, ear problems, TMJ, in the name of Jesus, bow your knee to the name of Jesus. He is the God that heals us. So right now, Lord, release healing into these bodies. Holy spirit right now, move up and down every row and every aisle, touch everybody. We declare healing in Lord, I break the power of depression and anxiety and the spirit of fear that has gripped your people right now, fear, go, holy spirit, come. Depression, like a heavy blanket, be lifted off and I decry a spirit of praise and worship, an anointing of worship to replace it in the name of Jesus. Darkness, go in the name of Jesus. You file demonic spirits of oppression in the name of Jesus, we break your power and we declare the kingdom of God is here right now in Jesus' name. Broken hearts, Jesus, you said you came to bind up the broken hearted Lord, I'm praying for healing of the emotions right now in Jesus' name. Thank you, Father, for your goodness, your nearness and your heart towards us in Jesus' name. Amen, and amen.