Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is.
Moving in your life.
Enjoy the message. Hey, why don't you look at your neighbor real quick? Let them know how good they look. Let them know how good they look. I hope you pick the right partner right there. Put it in the chat. How you feeling in the chat? Hey, I want you to open up your Bibles to Mark chapter five. Everyone say Mark chapter five, verse twenty one. If you don't
know who I am, my name is sim Summers. I'm the next gen pastor here at Elevation and today I'm excited to be able to bring the word as you're finding Mark five twenty one.
I got an honor our pastor.
I'd love to do. This is arguably one of my favorite things to do when on this stage, and I just want to honor specifically this ghost writer series that seven weeks was absolutely was a beneficial for you. I'm seeing snaps right now right Hey, just absolute fire preaching from both of our pastors, and if you missed it, you need to do everything you gotta do to get on YouTube and get that entire series. Okay, here's what I understand about fire. When you reach scripture. The prophet
Moses was called by fire. Elijah called down fire, Elisha made a fire, Micah prophesied fire. John the Baptist cried that you'll be baptized by fire. Jesus said, I've come to send fire on the earth. Right. Fire is something that God always referenced and used in Scripture. And one thing I know about my old sinful nature is it may dodge the water, Baptist, but it will be destroyed in the fire Baptism. Come on, somebody, can I get
an amen? So here's what I know. I'm grateful for a pastor that understands the power of the Holy Ghost fire that both destroys, purifies, worms, attracts, and empowers Amen. And what they did, the way they surgically preached that Holy Ghost series, let me tell you something was absolutely astounding. So what I want to do just for those seven weeks. We could go a lot longer, but just for those seven weeks, can we give it up for our pastors,
Pastor Stephen and hollyfordit we love you. We hope you're getting rest and refreshment. We think the world of you. Thank you for preaching the Bible. It means the world has changed my life, and I know it's changed thousands and millions of people across the world. Okay, have you found Mark five? Okay, well you can find you a way to you see y'all all excited. I know it's okay, Mark five. It's a lot of verses, so I wouldn't want to do that to you, Mark five twenty one.
This is what it says, is that when Jesus had again crossed over by the boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders named Gyrius came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. Everyone say come, and he pleaded earnestly with him, My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will
be healed and live. And Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the many cares of doctors and has spent all she had, Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. And when she heard about Jesus, she came, everyone say, come behind him in the crowd, and touched his clothes because she thought, if I just touched his clothes.
I will be healed. And immediately her bleeding.
Stopped, and she felt in her body that she.
Was freed from her suffering.
And at once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around the court in the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes? And the disciples are like, what are you talking about?
Who touched me?
There's no way we could tell, but Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. And then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came everyone say come, and fell at his feet, and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be free from your suffering. And while Jesus was still speaking, some people came, everyone say, come from the house of Gyros. The synagogue leader, your
daughter is dead, they said, why bother Jesus anymore. Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, don't be afraid, just believe. And he did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John. And when they came, everyone say, come to the home of the synagogue leader. Jesus sought commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly.
He went in and said to them, why all this commotion.
The child is not dead but asleep. They laughed at him, and after he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who are with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her to lead the coop, which means little girl, I say to you, get up, And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around. At this they were completely astonished, and he gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told
them to give her something to eat. I'm going to title the conversation that I'm just having with God while you're in the room the room where it happens. The room where it happens. Everyone say, the room, the room where it happens, who the room where it happens. You know, as I get older, I've realized that there are a lot of important rooms in my life. Oftentimes those rooms are not the rooms that I thought would be so important.
Can I get an amen? I've realized I've labeled some rooms wrongly and would never think that some rooms are that as important as I never thought hospital room would be so important to me. Let me put a picture up real quick of the hospital room. This is when we had our first girl. And I'll never forget that hospital room. I'll also never forget that green, crappy chair that I have to lay in. Come on, Dad's you know what I'm talking about. Do No matter how small
you are, that thing is not comfortable. That thing is not comfortable. But the hospital room, man, I'll never forget about that room. But a hospital room, man, I just never thought that that would be such an important room to me. Let me show you another picture. This room is special to me. This is the room you're in it right now, Lake Norman. This is the Lake Norman Auditorium.
This is the room where I came for just twenty four hours eight years ago for inside elevation In fact, if you zoom in real, real close, right on the right, you can see this little blonde patch of hair.
Yep, that's still me.
And I'll never forget that room because that was the room where I was called and formed and evident that I would be formed to this vision and called to this church and called to our pastors. But I didn't think that room was going to be that important. Let's check this other room out. This room, this is an interesting room. I want to show you the room. This is the actual room right here, the cafeteria of a campgrounds in Oklahoma. I know you can't, I say, you tell that, but that's true.
I'm not lying.
But we actually found it right there, and we were sitting in chairs like that, And little did I know that I would be sitting next to the person that I would eat meals with for the rest of my life. This is where I met my wife. And let me tell you something. I didn't think I'll be meeting my wife in a room like that Oklahoma campground. All right, let me show you the other room, this last room right here, this is the first time that I met
my son, Brodie. He was eight years old. I don't know if you can tell first time, but his legs are already on my legs. He loved me from the beginning. Oh man, And that is a room, a a living room and Oklahoma still water, Oklahoma. I never thought that that living room would be such an important room for me.
Never did I ever. Maybe you could think about.
Some rooms right now that have importance to you that you would have never thought. Oh, never thought this would be so important. I can't help but to think about this passage because Peter, James and John have been brought into a room right. In fact, there were some of the only ones that got in to the room. And here's what I think is interesting. Because Gyrus is in there right, the mother's in there obviously, the child's in there. Oh, we need that. But to bring the three disciples in?
And I always thought, very interesting why them? And I began to think about this, just maybe Peter, James and John, if you don't know, these are the closest disciples to Jesus. Oh, ain't that interesting? I wonder if that's why they were invited to the room. Maybe they hadn't been in previous rooms with Jesus, so it allowed the opportunity for them to get into the room where the miracle would happen. Right this is this is This is very interesting to me because what I know is this is a special
room right here. This is a special room right here. And if you're online, you're watching, you're in the room, if you're out of campus, right now, these are special rooms where God begins to move. This is a room where a lot of things can begin to happen in your life. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, pastors said, don't leave Jesus in this room. That was a word for somebody you missed three weeks ago. Don't leave Jesus.
In the room.
Why Because Jesus goes wherever faith puts him. Jesus goes wherever faith puts him. What rooms are you putting Jesus in? You think that this room is special and it just is always like this. Let me tell you something about this room. There are people praying over this room all week, all week. Jerry Sumner walking down every aisle. This morning at seven in the morning, I watched them. There is
again walking praying for you. I don't know why this room is special because there's a different kind of faith in the room. There's a different kind of expectation that was set in the room before you leave and got in the room. This is something we've got to understand. Like, man, every time I get into the elevation doors, that's just something different. Yeah, it doesn't just happen, right, it doesn't just happen. And when you show up and you feel
this faith rise, what is that, ma'am? There's people praying for miracles. There's people that are sitting next to you that need a miracle in their business and they're saying, I only got today. There's people next to you this day, I need a miracle in my marriage. And you know what, this is the last time I'm going to church. So this is it. I hope God does something. I hope he shows up. I hope he begins to move in this room and they're praying and they're prepping, they're having
these conversations with God. It doesn't just happen. But what you've got to understand is that whatever room you invite Jesus into, miracles can begin to happen. I don't care if it's this room with that room, the conference room, the breakroom, the living room, the waiting room, it don't matter whatever room. Look at your neighbors, say make room. But if we aren't careful, we'll never make any more room than the ninety minutes on a Sunday each week.
If we aren't careful, we'll think, Oh, I'm doing everything I need to do. God right here, bless me, bless me. I'm here, I'm waiting. Gyrius didn't even have a room. He began to make room for Jesus. In this passage, verse twenty two, it says he came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, and he pleaded.
Earnestly with him.
Oh, I want to lift up that earnest word real quick, all right, I want to say earnestly. Well, okay, put on Hebrews eleven six, real quick, that's yeah. Hebrews eleven six, it says, And without faith, or want to say, faith, is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him, those who diligently seek him, those who consistently and persistently are praying and having conversations.
We've got those who have that relationships, that intimacy with the holy spirits, that closeness that you.
Can only feel, and you begin to describe it.
They have been with Jesus. What is different about them? They have been with Jesus. What do you do when you see Jesus? I've asked this question before in a sermon in this very room. I think it's vital to ask again, what do you do when you see Jesus? Let me ask you something. When's the last time you fell at his feet? I think it's interesting because it says he came to Jesus and fell at his tea seven times. In this twenty one scripture passage seven times,
it says he came and went. There was a journey, he came and went. There was a journey, he came and went. There was this there was this rhythm almost coming and going. He came to Jesus and he fell at his feet. And I think, I want to I want to sit on this for a little bit because I think we can look at this and go, Yeah, he came, he fell at his feet. But what's interesting is later with the sick woman, and she comes and
falls at his feet. I thought, okay, so both of them come and fall at the feet of Jesus.
What are they doing? What are they doing?
What do they do? What do they doing? That they're they're earnestly seeking after him, they're pleading their begging, right, Because what you gotta understand about Gyrus is Gyrus has a history with God. He's a synagogue leader, so he knows, right, and he's aware of Jesus, right, and so he knows and he understands some of these some of these customs. But but, but what we've got to understand is that
Gyros more than likely has some sort of rhythm established. Right, So when he comes to Jesus, more than likely he had already been in some private rooms with God. And he begins to plead with Jesus. And I think it's interesting, he says, he falls at his feet. So let me ask you again, how are you coming to Jesus. There is a humility presented when you fall at the feet of Jesus. There's a humility that is presented. Well, there's a humility that's presented when you come to the end
of yourself. There's a humility that's presented when you come to yourself. Isn't it interesting that what we've done as as a church, Big c Church. Is we've gone like this, Hey God, prayer, Lord you deserve Oh Lord, you next Sunday, Hey Lord, prayer is a Lord? You deserve a Lord.
That's not how Jirous came.
If we're not careful, what we'll see is that every Sunday pray. It's like, well, that's not my personality. Tim, I know what you're about to say, because Gyrus went like this, Lord, no help me, bless me. I need you. I'm desperate. My daughter is dying. Okay, okay, And here's what here's what I know, here's what I know. I ask for my personality, Tim, Well, guess what personality goes out the window when desperation walks through the door. We
gotta be really, really careful. Now we don't sing his praise and shun his person He said, no, no, no, no, Jesus, I come to you. I fall at your feet. Don't get a big head, chumps, I fall at your feet. There's a there's a humility that is resented from both of these subjects. I don't want you to miss it because at the end, when I start talking to you men, you gotta understand where where are your kids watching you? Be humble. He's like, I can't do it. It's just
not my thing. It's just not my thing. I want to see my kids understand that I love the Lord and I need him more than anything else. There's nothing else. I don't care how stupid I look. I don't care how stupid I feel. I'm gonna get up at five in the morning and I'm gonna pray before you. I'm gonna fall at your feet. I'm coming to you, Lord God. I don't know what you have for me this week, but man, I need you. So you tell me, Lord, you know, show me. We gotta come to Jesus. And
I'm just saying, we gotta follow this feet. Okay, maybe it is to change your posture. Change your posture. Work at it, change your posture. The lie of the enemy is that you have to hit rock bottom to become hungry for the things of God. Do not wait until a dying child to come to the Lord. Every day, his mercies are new every morning. That means his grace is new every morning. His strength is new every morning, his confidence is new every morning. His direction is new
every morning, his vision is new every morning. This just cannot be a Sunday faith. What would it look like. What would this room look like if the rhythm was established with Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit in private before we got into the public Once I said this before Sunday church is meant to be a confirmation and affirmation of what God has already told you throughout the week. That's it. So some of you are walking
in and I've done this, I've done this. I've walked in like, oh Lord, please, I hope he worth speaking a pastor because I really need a word. And he looked at me and said, I've been trying to speak to you, and you know how good God is. He'll still speak through pastor to me, even in the midst of my arrogance, even in the midst of my ignorance and ignoring him throughout the week, He's still does it. That's how good our God is. She got to get a rhythm. You gotta get a rhythm. You gotta get
a rhythm, I would say, rhythm. So then it goes on to say, my little daughter is dying, Please come and put your hands on her so that she'll be healed. And Jesus went with them, and a large crowd followed and pressed around him. And then a woman who was there who've been subject to bleeding for twelve years, and she suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and spend all she had, Yet instead of getting better,
she grew worse. And when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. So an interruption comes for Gyrus, but an opportunity comes for this woman who an opportunity presents itself.
For this sick woman.
How many of you have kids, didn't want to have kids, didn't want to have kids? You got kids, be fruitful and multiply amens. What the Lord said but he didn't talk to me about was all the interruptions I was gonna get right. Oh, but how many times when you just like really take a breath and take a pause, and.
You go, it's probably not that big of an interruption, and.
You start focusing on your son, you start focusing on your daughter, and you realize, ooh, I'm glad I didn't misset opportunity. If your parents you know exactly what I'm talking about.
But there's this opportunity.
She's been sick for twelve years, and she's thinking to herself, there might be a little room for me. It's just a little walk by opportunity in essence, When we would look at that, we might say there's no time at all for her to get her healing. But God can do in one minute, well we couldn't do in an hour of time. What I really believe is that when it talks about verse twenty eight says because she thought,
if I just touched his clothes, I'll be healed. Immediately, her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body there she'd be free from her suffering. And at once Jesus realized that power had.
Gone out from him.
When you leave a moment of prayer with Jesus, how much power have you taken from him? When you leave a conversation with Jesus, a moment with Jesus, how much have you been filled with this power? Is it enough for Jesus to notice? Because it sure was enough for him to notice the power had left this body. I'm here to tell you be selfish with this power. How many selfish people in the room? I got you all the single people that the other way, we got to
be selfish with this power. But now here's what I said.
What do I mean by that?
Be careful? Be careful because I'm not talking about let's be transactional with this power. That's that's that's not what I'm here for. That's a slippery slope that we can get into. What I mean is that God has all that you need. He is all sufficient, and I can't operate with this power each in every day. And what I want to remind you is that the only power that God yields to is that of prayer and faith. Think about that the power left because all she.
Was doing was praying. Maybe this is my moment, Maybe this is there was.
Some faith when you begin to have that conversation with God and raise the faith. Ooh, God begins to notice, He begins to look back, he begins to wonder and go wait, wait, wait, wait, someone's praying, someone's trying to get my attention, someone's bothering me. He turned around in the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes? You see the people cried in against you. Yet you can ask who's touching. But Jesus kept looking around to see who
had done it. And then the woman, knowing what had happened, to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, and told him the whole truth. And this is where we see it again. She comes to Jesus and she falls at his feet. What is different than Gyros because Gyros begins to list out the requests and says, can you lay your hand on my daughter and heal? But this woman, she doesn't do that. She comes to Jesus, she falls at his feet because the only prerequisite to
come me to Jesus is humility. He comes to Jesus, falls at his feet, but she doesn't begin to list out request. She begins to tremble with fear, a reverence, knowing how holy this man is, and she begins to open up.
They want to say, open up. Oh, I want to say, open up.
Woo. All the introverts don't like that. Open up. You want me to be honest, You want me to be real, You want me to be transparent and wrong who you want me to open up? Yeah, to Jesus, please, because you're doing it too much to people. But if you begin to do it with Jesus, Ooh, what begins to happen is you begin to start making some room for God to move. He said to her daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from
your suffering. And while Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jedis your daughter's dead. Why bother the teacher anymore? Could you imagine being gyrous in this moment a relief. I'm thinking, man, it's about to happen, she's about to get healed. We on the way, we gucci, I prayed, and I'm feeling really good about it. I'm feeling a supernatural amount of peace. Have you ever experienced
this before? Right, there's like a little breath of hope, and then all of a sudden, the interruption, right, and then the crew comes around friends and starts telling you, hey, starts giving you the news, and it's like, hey, your prayers didn't work. Sorry, she's dead. Hey, I know you were hoping it was gonna be this way, but guess what. Too late, Too bad, it's not gonna work. In fact, don't even bother Jesus anymore, That's what they said.
Yeah, yeah, like, why bother the teacher anymore?
WHOA, I'm gonna stay here right here, because sometimes we go and pray to yuh we feel that peace, we feel that hope, and we get around the wrong people and they start saying, yeah, I just don't think it's gonna work. Why bother? Why bother? Why bother the teacher anymore? Why bother? What do you mean? Why bother? That crew was not in the room when Gyros came to Jesus and fell at his feet. No one was there, not
that crew. They don't know what's been happening. Gyros has something different because he was in a room with Jesus before, he's in a room with this crew. Do you see the value? That's why he ain't sweating it. I mean, I don't know.
I don't know. Maybe he was sweating it. It's a pretty big deal.
But like, could you imagine, like what do you feel like Givers was feeling. Do you feel like he was feeling like doubt? Or is there kind of like a swagger about of him? You know what I'm saying, like doubt, Like oh, oh really she did? That's probably what I would feel. I'd be like, oh darn right. But maybe he had a swagger. Maybe he had a swagger about him, Like yeah, yeah, no, for sure, I get it. But Jesus is on the way, and so I'm moving with him.
I'm going with him. I already pray were good. We already had a conversation. He said he was coming my way. We're in it. We gotta be real careful. We got to stop inviting people into situations where the answer is only found in a private room with Jesus.
I don't know about you, but what I do know what I do know what drivers did.
I don't know if he felled doubt. I'm sure he did. I don't know if he had a swagger. But what I do know he did. So he kept moving with Jesus. He kept moving with Jesus. Everyone say move, Oh, how do you make room? Everyone say keep moving? Ooh.
Pastor says in his book, do the new you.
I'm not stuck unless I stop, do not keep going. Jesus is on the way. Well it don't look like it don't matter. We don't look at external sources. We look at Jesus. We look at the word of God. We've got hope. We understand he's on the way, and he can do something absolutely incredible. He can turn it around. A miracle is on the way. As long as we keep moving, just like Jyrus did, so team put up my put up my title real quick, because now it says in verse thirty seven, Jesus begins to get.
The room ready.
He says this. He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John, the brother of James.
So what is that right that closest there's a rhythm.
There's a rhythm. I already got a rhythm with these three guys. I'm gonna make sure that they're in the room. Then verse thirty eight, when they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw commotion with people crying and willing loudly, and he went in and said to them, why aren't this commotion and willing? The child's not dead but asleep. He saw an opportunity right there, here we go. I'm about to make a miracle happen. But they laughed
at him. After he put them all out right, he took the child's father and mother, Oh right, he had to get real honest with them. He said, oh, you're gonna laugh. Okay, I need you you you you, you get out. I need you to get out right there, right, So what's Jesus doing. He's opening up right he's being honest, he's being real, he's being transparent. Okay, he said, hey, you can't be in this room, takes her by the hand and says to her to lead the coom, which means,
little girl, I say to you, get up. Move. Immediately the girl stood up and began to move, and at this they were completely astonished.
Let me tell you something. This is the room that I want to be in.
This is the room where it all happens, the room where Jesus and I are having a conversation. Some of you have a prayer room. Some of you don't have a prayer room. Either way, I'm not here to tell.
You that you got to be like the Shootamite woman and you got.
To build another room. I ain't saying that. What I am saying is you need to make room for prayer. You need to make room for a relationship with Jesus. You need to make room for a relationship with the Holy Spirit. You need to make room with a relationship with the Father. All three of those relationships are very,
very important. And here's what you got to understand is that is that I believe you got to make room so that you can have room to come to Jesus, so that you can fall at his feet, so that you can humble your so that you can begin to request things and ask things of him, so that you can begin to be honest with him and open with him and transparent with him, so that you can experience that moment of what trembling with reverent fear actually feels like.
All of the spiritual work is done in prayer. That's it, that intimacy with the Holy Spirit, that spirit you like, I need you, Lord, pray, I want you, Lord Great pray. Let him speak to you, let him reveal things to you. We gotta start getting in the room with someone who can actually do something about my situation. We can't rely on all these external sources. We gotta go to the one who can make the miracle happened. It's the room where Jesus is. And here's the deal. I get the tension.
I know what the tensions are. I just feel like prayers a little too complicated. No, come to them, done, come to them, he said, yea yeah, yeah, but like but like does it even work? Oh no, pray, No, I'm just kidding. I do know, yes it works. It's like, oh, well, God's sovereign, Like, oh, God sovereign, He'll take care of it. Yeah, But you know what, I want God to do something
through me. I don't want him to have to go to the next person because I didn't listen, because I didn't take the moment, because I wasn't humble, because I let pride and arrogance get in the way, because I didn't want to do this and say, Lord, come tell me what you need me to do. It's not about my agendey, it's yours. When God gave Pastor the vision of this church, see what God can do through you? Do you think it was all just about serving? Do
you think it was all just about joining a group? Hey, we want to see what God can do through you. Do you think it was all about just giving of your first fruits and your tithes? No, that's the surface. That's just that's like a minimum. That's just like the beginning. That's just like that's like step one. Yay. No, see what God can do through you? Man, I want you to pray so you can watch healing happen in your family.
That's what's Seeing what God can do through you really means when you walking to a room like this thousands of people in an auditorium. When God downloads something in your spirit and they highlight someone over therences, I need a prophesy to that person right there. That's what God can do through you. Oh, that's what I want to experience. I'm not limiting God to just serving at the church,
which I think is amazing, but don't limit it. Whoo. No, man, I'm telling you God can begin to move in your life and speak to you, and you could go over to someone and start praying for them and encourage them to lift them up, and then they, you know, two weeks later like that's exactly what I.
Needed in that very moment.
They don't remember that sermon that day, but they remember you coming to them. That's what's Seeing what God can do through you means this is huge. God asked me a question on March twenty nine, twenty twenty three, Do you want more of me? I said yes, He goes, then I need more room than she said. I need more room because I need you to wake up at five in the morning, and you give me the first first hour of every day.
Let me tell you something. I don't wake up at five in the morning.
No, I don't. I don't do it. It's not me. It's not my personality. But if you don't listen to God, that's stupid. She's as playing as I can get on the youth pastor. So she's like, that's what I would say to teenager, Like, no, you have to listen to God or it isn't going to make sense. He's said, wake up at five am. Start praying to me, worshiping me, asking me, requesting things of me. And I began to pray, and then I realized, Man, I don't need to just
pray to the Son. I need to pray to the Father. And then I said, I don't need to pray to the five. I need to pray to the Holy Spirit. I began to realize, Oh, I got three relationships I got to work with over here, I'm busy at five in the morning. Let me tell you something. Yeah. No, but I'm not saying that to ooh look at me. I'm saying that to go It could be as simple
as that for you. I'm saying that I had to get outside of my personality in my mind, like I no, no, I'll see God on the you know, in the other half of the moon.
Right, like, I'll see him at night time. It'll be good.
It's great. I still got the word in it right. But when you read scripture, it talks about how Moses gets up before the sun gets up. Jesus got away with the Father before the sun came up. David got away in the morning early before the sun came up. And I see, you know what, I'm done with the excuses, Okay, five am. He began to unlock something in my life. And what I've just realized that is that I had to be completely stripped by the Holy Spirit so that
at the same time he could completely strengthen me. You know, Scripture says that he is our daily bread, but he also asks for a daily death. I said, I said daily death. So he's gonna feed me, but I also got to die to myself. He's going to take care of me, but I also got to think. You know what, I'm moving the distractions aside. I don't need it anymore. I want to end with this. Leonard Ravenhill said this. He said, prayer grasps eternity. No man is greater than
his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shop window to display talents, with the prayer closet allows no showing off. We have many organizers, but few agonizers, many players and payers, but few prayers. Many singers, few clingers, lots of pastors, few wrestlers, many fears, tears, much fashion, little passion, many interferers, a few intercessors, many writers,
but few fighters. Failing here we fail everywhere in the place of prayer. The two prerequisites to successful Christian living our vision and passion, in both of which are born in and maintained by prayer. The ministry of prayer is the highest ministry of all human offices, and it's open to all. God is not prodigal with this power, but to be much for God, we must be much with him. The secret of praying is praying in secret. A sinning man will stop praying, and a praying man will stop sinning.
We are beggared and bankrupt, but not broken nor even bent. Prayer is profoundly simple and simply profound in the matter of the New Testament, spirit inspired Hell's shaking world breaking prayer. Never has so much been let by so many to so few for this kind of prayer. There is no substitute. We do it or we die. Today with everyone in the room, in the campuses, I just want you to stand up, even online. I want you to stay engaged because you're getting a glimpse.
Into this room.
I'm going to ask the staff and the leaders, the prayer team to come forward and just surround this altar.
Here's what I know.
I pray that we never eliminate the groaning at the altar, never let us put the power of the Holy Spirit and just raising our hand and leave Jesus in this room as we live our life for the rest of the week. Today's a moment that if you need prayer, whatever it may be big, small, children dying, needing healing, needing hope. However big, however small, it could be a headache,
it could be a self esteem issue. What we want to do is just open up the altars to pray, to believe, to raise the faith, and to raise the expectation of who God is and how he sees moment like this, this is what it's like to just make I saw we're doing starting a rhythm right now, seeing an opportunity right now for the next few moments, and here's the deal.
I'm gonna ask you.
To move because for some of you, that right there will kill the pride, that right there. And I keep saying it because I had to do it too. I'm there with you, and if not, it's gonna be a thing I have to do every single day. You know what, maybe I do need to get a little uncomfortable, like this sick woman pushing through the crowd, just to touch his cloak, just to get a prayer, just to.
Get a moment with Jesus.
What I know is this the world is not waiting for a new definition of the Gospel, but a new demonstration of the power.
Of the Gospel. Thank you for joining us.
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God bless you