Cameron: 00:05

Good morning, church. How are you this morning? We are in a sermon series on prayer, as it is our main focus, not just for this year, but as, in our life together as a church. K? And, we have been talking about prayer.

Cameron: 00:26

If you're here this morning, and I I kind of I outlined the service or I detailed the service, the series, I'm sorry, at the beginning a couple weeks ago about what this series is about and what it's not about. What I wanna really try to avoid in this series on prayer is getting into the type of talks or sermons that are like, let me give you the five greatest hacks for upping your prayer life. Like, just tips, tricks, check boxes, facts. Because what everyone needs in this day and age is certainly more information. Right?

Cameron: 01:09

We don't have enough information about anything, and so what you need is for me to give you more because that's obviously where the gap is in the practice of prayer in our life. Right? You just don't know enough about it, and when you know more, then you'll do more.

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That's really just not the case. Right?

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What we what we don't need really is more tips, tricks, facts, hacks about prayer. What we need is we need a fresh invitation from the father to enter into a relationship of love and intimacy that then drives our prayer life towards intimacy. So rather than prayer being a a spiritual duty that we struggle to that we struggle to do or that relies on our motivation or whether we're tired or whether we, know the right things to say rather than it being a spiritual duty. Prayer now becomes the context for relationship lived in intimacy with the father. And when we are motivated by love, we do things for different reasons than when we are motivated by duty.

Cameron: 02:19

Right? So the purpose of this series is to get a heart of prayer inside of us rather than to just amass a bunch of facts about prayer. We're gonna talk about intercession today. And just like the basis of the series on prayer has been about developing an a a fresh intimacy with god the father, intercession

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is about the practice of love for other people. At its heart, intercession is an act of love. It's it's me getting a burden for someone else, something else, some place,

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and saying that burden that the lord has given to me comes from a heart of love and I'm so burdened towards it that I can't do anything else other than go to the father and pray about it. What happens in life often is that we, in the midst of our relationships with either people or places or just the fact that we are human and that we're looking at the world around us, recognizing that we have come to the end of the real of our own real estate as to what we have to offer to the people around us to help them in their pain, to help them in their loneliness, to help them in their sickness, to help them in the darkness of their own the the darkness of the night that they're in, to help them with their own soul. We get to a point in relationship with others, and we recognize that in our flesh, we have nothing left to offer them. We have done everything that we can to push them towards transformation. We have done everything that we can to get them from the point that they're at to the point where they need to be, and we now have a sobering We we come to the sobering reality that we are powerless without the power of God.

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It is that moment where intercession now becomes a burden of our heart for other people. It's no longer just about the spiritual duty to pray. It's now like a I have nothing in myself, in my flesh to give to this person, to help this person, to bring about the change of their life that they need. I must rely on the Lord. And in this way, intercession is about if you kinda want, like, a a picture in your mind of what intercession is, inter intercession is about standing in the proverbial gap between the person who has

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the need and the heavenly father who has the resource.

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That there is a a gap that exists often between the person, the place, the region that has the need, and the father who has the resource. And as a person who is taking on the role of intercessory prayer, I am saying I will stand in that gap for whatever reason that gap exists. Maybe that gap exists because this person who has the need just simply no longer has faith to believe that god is listening. They're tired. They're weary.

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They're beat down. They're in a period where they're like, I don't even know if the lord is listening to me. I don't know if I even believe in prayer or I have a need so large and so big I don't have faith enough to believe that the lord can actually heal me. And I, as an intercessor, can come alongside and say, okay. Listen.

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I see the gap that you're living in. Let me stand in between what you're experiencing and the promise of the father, and I will pray into faith what you need. I will be the person that prays in this moment. If your if your prayer is failing and if your faith is failing.

Cameron: 06:31

Excuse me.

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I wanna make it clear that when we talk about intercession, what we're not talking about is this other form of prayer called petition. Intercession and petition are two different things. They're two different forms or styles of prayer. Okay? Petition is when I am praying to the father for something that I need.

Cameron: 06:52

Maybe, you to use the same language for the gap in my own life. Lord, I need you to show up. Lord, I need healing. Lord, I need help. Lord, this is going wrong.

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Lord, I need you to come over here. Lord, it's it's about me. Lord, I have petitionary prayers. Great prayers. Gotta be a part of the prayer life, not down on petition.

Cameron: 07:12

Right? You have to like, we pray prayers of petition. God wants us to pray prayers prayers of of petition. God cares for us, loves us, wants to see the articulation of our heart out into the heavenly realms. God desires petitionary prayer, but that's not intercession.

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Intercession is I'm not praying for myself. I am standing in the gap for the other person and praying for them. Praying for it. Praying for that place. So to that this week, we're talking about intercession.

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The work and call that god has upon our lives as sons and daughters of him to be intercessors, co laborers, exercising the authority that he has given in us given to us in creation, to pray into reality things that can only be seen by faith. John Ortberg, pastor John Ortberg has this, he he said this. He says, anytime you see life flourishing, it's because it's receiving nourishment from outside of itself. I want to tell you here, I wanna as close to the beginning as we can as we can be, I wanna start out by saying that that

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that listen. We we conduit ministries are the product of other people interceding for a fresh move of God.

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We are here now because other people have prayed, have interceded, have stood in the gap of what the reality was and what the resources of God and desire of God was. Right? We have pastor Gordy and Jean over here who labored as pastors of this church for many years. Right? Who would regularly walk this sanctuary and walk these halls praying that the Lord would fill this church.

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The Lord would fill the church with children, with kids. We probably got probably 80 or 90 kids downstairs

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right now, I'm guessing, based on all y'all. Good work.

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But but but listen, we are here. Life is flourishing here. Not just because like, because it's been prayed into existence by intercessors who have come before us. It has been prayed into and listen, not just us as a community, but you as a son or a daughter are the result and the fruit of people who have prayed for you. Whether you know their names or not, there are there are people who have prayed that you would come to know the goodness of God in Jesus Christ, that you would submit your heart, your life to him, that you would surrender all that you would have, that you would turn to him in confession and repentance, and that you would receive the joy of your salvation, eternal life.

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We are the product of other people interceding for a fresh move of God. Now if we stay with this theme of prayer as an invitation to intimacy with the father, then, I wanna walk us down a little bit of a pathway here because I believe largely that the authority of intercession on a believer's life has has largely been lost in the church

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today. So here's my contention. Intercession as a form of prayer is the invitation to reclaim

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authority on earth and in the heavenly realms that God has designed for sons and daughters to have.

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That we have authority both in creation now and we have authority in the heavenly spiritual realms that at some point we have forgotten about, lost, or let go.

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The crazy thing about prayer and intercessory prayer in in, in specifically is the invitation that God gives to us to participate in the things that he's already doing. Pastor John Tyson said that for whatever reason, God has just decided in his sovereign economy to include us in the process of his effective will being implemented on earth.

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See, god has given his sons and daughters, those who

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have been adopted into his family by faith in Jesus. God has given us a type of authority in his creation that the rest of the creation does not have and has never possessed. For instance, God named god involved Adam and Eve in the naming of the other parts of creation as a way for them to participate in their dominion or their rule over creation. God's like, hey, Adam. What do you wanna name that?

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And what are we calling that? And what are we calling this? Okay. Yeah. Also, here's creation.

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You are to go and rule over it. Have dominion over it. I want you to work the land. I want you to eat of its fruits. Take of the garden and enjoy the bounty of life, woven into the very fabric of God's creation of all that there is was an invitation from God to co labor with him in maintaining, sustaining, and enjoying the fruit of creation.

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God gave us power and authority and dominion

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to not just receive something from him, but to be active participants in the thing that he started to do. It's an invitation to have a co laboring partnership in all of creation, both the things we can see and the things we cannot.

Cameron: 14:08

You know, the Hebrew language, which was is the language of the old testament, has a really, really, foot I mean, it's incredibly complex,

Cameron: 14:22

I guess, at least for me, but it's an incredibly complex language that has many different ways that it communicates its points just like any language has. And it has an aspect of language. Hebrew language has an aspect of language that illustrates this point, I think, really well. And it's called the middle voice. Now in, in Hebrew language, there are three just like we have, we have voices and tenses and verb tenses and different sentence structures in in English.

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Right? Hebrew has kind of like the same kind of components of language as it's developed. And it has these three different voices,

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that they're called. It has the active voice, it has the middle voice, and it has the passive voice. Now,

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what would be the difference between these three? Well, so the active voice would be like saying, I

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give advice. I am the one that is acting to give something to do something. There's no one on the receiving end. It's just me acting. The active voice.

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Then you have the passive voice, which is the other end of the active spectrum. Right? Is I'm not giving, I'm receiving it. I I have been I am given advice. So you have the active voice, which gives something, just gives something.

Cameron: 16:05

You have the passive voice that just receives something,

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but then you have this beautiful middle voice,

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which is a wonderful kind of like amalgamation of both of them. The middle voice says, I take

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it voice, advice. It essentially means this, I am an active participant, but the action did not begin with me. I am coming to join in on the action of another.

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Pastor Tyler Staton said this about the middle voice and prayer. He said the middle voice means I am an active participant, but the action began with another. We participate in the action, and we reap the benefits of the action, but we are not entirely active ourselves. God's action doesn't depend on our initiative, and neither are we entirely passive.

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God has freely chosen to act almost exclusively in partnership with

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people. When we pray, we both participate in God's action and benefit from God's action. We join God.

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All of our interaction with God in prayer happens here in this middle voice, the voice of participation.

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That our prayers, especially our prayers of intercession, are us partnering

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with God in and for the life of the other to stand in the gap to meet the need that exists. That

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that we are we are acting in the authority that god has given to us as sons and daughters to have authority in another's life and in the heavenly realms enough to say, hey, Lord. I'm praying, and I know that my prayers matter to you because you've given me authority and creation. You have called me a son. You have called me a daughter. And so I pray not as just some super righteous person or some super unrighteous person.

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I pray as one who has been given authority to join you and to participate in the work that you are doing. Now interestingly enough, the act of intercession does not begin with you and I. Meaning that we when we enter into a relationship with God, when we are a a participant with God in interceding for others, we are not the first ones to intercede for that person.

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When we inter intercede for others, we join the heavenly and eternal ministry of Jesus.

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We are not alone in intercession.

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Jesus is in the full time ministry of intercession.

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What we're gonna see here in a moment is that for all eternity minus the three years that he was on earth, Jesus was sitting at the right hand

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of God the father interceding for you and I. Interceding for all of creation.

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Meaning, imagine all of eternity Jesus coexistent with the father and the spirit has existed for all eternity. We see in scripture a little small three year blip

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of his earthly ministry. Right?

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But I want you to wrap your mind around the, like, the scales of how much ministry of intercession Jesus has been involved in in comparison to what we see in just redemption history in the gospels. Like, Jesus has been interceding in all throughout all of eternity minus three years of his ministry on earth in which he also interceded. Jesus is employed in this full time ministry of intercession. Well, where do we get that from? A few places, lots of places.

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We'll name a few. Paul reminds us of this in Romans chapter eight verse 34. He says who is he that condemns Christ Jesus who died more than that who was raised to life he is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us Where is Jesus right now? Jesus is at, right now, the right hand of God. What is Jesus doing right now?

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Jesus is interceding for us right now. The writer of Hebrews, of course, a very, well known passage on the intercession of Jesus, Hebrews seven twenty five. Therefore, it says, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them. Why does Jesus live always?

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He lives to intercede for those from who he has saved. He is this

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is the section of Hebrews where Jesus is labeled as the great high priest, the high priest of a better and new and higher covenant standing in the gap between our need for salvation and the resources of the father for redemption. Jesus is standing in that gap as an intercessor and high priest to make it so. This also should, bring us, like we should also have a, like, a keen sense of remembering here or at least awareness that the ministry of Jesus for interceding for us before the father is a necessary ministry given the reality of the enemy that we face. The enemy of our souls, Satan, the very definition of the name Satan means literally the accuser. And so say Satan's whole persona, his whole his whole, like, his whole job is to bring accusation

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against us to the father. Hey. Did you

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see what Cameron did? You see his heart? You see what he's done. You see what he's gonna do. You see all, like, You can't possibly you can't possibly be your son.

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Right? He speaks the he he speaks the lie of accusation even into my own life. Right? I can't believe you did that. You're so shameful.

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Call yourself a Christian. You call yourself a pastor. You're not a man. You're not a great father. Like, accusation, accusation, accusation, accusation, accusation.

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Right? And and and and so what happens? We live in this gap of accusation before the this is what we see in Job chapter one and two. Right? That whole scene is played out.

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Satan comes to the heavenly courts, says to the father, have you considered your man Job? He only serves you and praises you because you've made his life great. And I was like, okay. Let's test that theory. Right?

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So we see this kind of played out, but the rea but here here's the reality is that because we have an accuser, we have an intercessor. We have one that stands in accusation against us to the father, but we have one that sits at the right hand of God the father continually interceding for us. Probably most significantly illustrative of this point is, a conversation that Jesus had with Simon Peter right before Simon Peter denied him three times in Luke chapter 21. If you read here and I'm sorry. Luke chapter 22.

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You read here at the end of Luke chapter 22. Listen. I was reading this last night, and I was like, this is just crushing me. Like, I both for Pete from Peter's perspective, but also, you know, beginning to read myself into the story and being like, is this

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what this is what Jesus is doing for me right now? Because in Luke chapter 22,

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starting in verse one, Jesus says this, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. What?

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What'd you tell him? Right? Like, I mean, just, imagine this. Jesus walks up to you.

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Hey, Cameron. Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. So what are we doing about this? Jesus' response is incredible,

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But I have prayed for you. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

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And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. You know what's incredible about Jesus' intercession for Peter in this moment? Is that Jesus Jesus actually tells Peter again,

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hey. Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail, but I know your faith is gonna fail. You're gonna deny

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me three times in just the coming verses. But built into my prayers of intercession is the securing of your faith so that even in the moment of failure, you have a redemptive arc to come back and be the builder of my church. The intercessory prayers of Jesus, even in the midst of direct attack of the enemy are like, no, I will, I will secure you through the trial. I will secure you through the failure. Keep marching on because when you have turned back,

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you will strengthen your brothers.

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Jesus' interceding prayer for Peter secured him during the sifting process. And I just gotta believe

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that I am here because Jesus has prayed for me.

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I gotta believe that the enemy has come to Jesus at some point earlier. Like, hey. I'm gonna mind if I take a run at Cameron? Mind if I take a few runs?

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And I bet that's part of your story too. Hey. Mind if I

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take a run of him real quick?

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Cameron, I've prayed for you.

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Man, listen, you get Jesus praying for you.

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I don't care about your prayer. I mean, I'll be honest, like, if

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I get Jesus to pray for you, I don't need 500 other people to pray. Like I got Jesus praying for me. I mean, like, like, just grasp if you grasp onto nothing else this morning, have faith to believe that when you feel like all of life is falling out, the bottom of life is falling out, that you have one in heaven who sits at the right hand of God who is praying for you right now, that your faith may not

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fail. If we take a couple

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of quick looks at some other scriptures from quick. If we take another a if we take a couple long looks at, other instances of intercession in scripture, we'll see a few things here, and then we're gonna have a couple challenges at the end for our own intercessory prayer. Okay? Number one or three or five. I don't know.

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I'm not sure which one it is, but it's this. Like, listen. Intercession is a demonstration of intimacy with the father. Remember, all prayer is an invitation into intimacy with the father. Intercession is a demonstration of the of the extent to which the father invites you into intimate relationship with him.

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What do I mean by that? I have a kind of a principle that I live my life by to kind of live, like, outside of the fear of man and to keep my focus, and that's something that I call ranking my voices.

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So I've got I I rank the voices that get to speak in my life.

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Because, you know, you it's very easy to have a hundred different people tell you a hundred different things about what your life should be about, what you should do, how you should do it, what should be important, what shouldn't be important. Right? And the reality is is that different people's voices in your life should rank higher than others. Right? Why?

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Well, because different people have a different level of intimacy with you than others.

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Right? There's, like, there the other, like listen. I love you all. Right? But, my my wife's voice ranks the highest.

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It just does. It doesn't matter what you say to me, her voice ranks higher. That this is true. It's dead serious. Her voice is

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the highest voice in my life. Her voice ranks the highest. And so it wouldn't matter what you would say to me, the intimacy that we have developed in two decades of marriage has created a ranking of her voice so that when she speaks something into my life, it's unchallenged unless it's challenged by the Lord. And so why I'm not gonna rank someone's voice that I have no relationship with. There's no intimacy been, been built there.

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I'm not gonna rank someone else's voice higher just because it's louder.

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No. I rank my voices, and hers is at the top. K.

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When we step into an intercessory role that has been bathed in the consistent invitation of intimacy with the father, our the the ranking of our voice in the heavenly realms raises as we've developed an alignment between our heart and God's. So when we go to intercede, we are demonstrating that our voice ranks high in heaven.

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And the more we pray, and the more we accept the invitation to prayer from the Lord, and the greater intimacy that has developed with him, right, the higher the voice gets ranked.

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But even more extraordinary beyond this kind of co labor in creation is this incredible weight that God gives to our prayers when we stand in

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the spiritual gap for people.

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Probably the most significant example is that I can imagine besides Jesus himself is in Exodus chapter 32 where the, Israelite people where Moses goes up on the mountain to receive, the 10 commandments And the people at the base of the mountain, the Israelites, they get a little bit of they get a little impatient. Right? And so they go to Aaron and they say, hey hey, Aaron. We don't know where this Moses guy has gone, and he speaks for God. So since he and God aren't here, here's a bunch of gold make us an idol and before Moses even gets down the mountain to see what's going on in Exodus 32 verse nine the Lord's like

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hold on a second. He says this, verse

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nine of Exodus 32, I have seen these people, the lord said to Moses, and they are a stiff necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them, then

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I will make you into a great nation. The Lord's like, I see their wickedness.

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They are stiff necked and evil people. Just wanna let you know, Moses, my anger is gonna burn against them. I'm gonna destroy them, and then you and I will go start a great nation together.

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And I don't know the

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dynamics of intimacy between you and the father, but I would be hesitant in that moment to be like, well, god, are you sure?

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Have you considered maybe not doing that? But it's clear

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from Moses' response that he has developed a level of intimacy with the father that the voice is ranked really high. Because what does Moses say? Moses sought favor of the lord, his god. Oh, lord, he said, why should your anger burn against your people whom you brought out of Egypt with your great power and your mighty hand? What will the Egyptians say, lord?

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I gotta imagine I gotta imagine that that Moses was

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a little bit like, God, yeah, I kinda did it. They have been a little problematic for me too in my own leadership of them, but could we maybe for a moment stop and think about the implications of just destroying them?

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K?

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Turn from your fierce anger, verse 12, he says. Relent and do not bring disaster upon your people. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to whom you swore by your own self that you will make them descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them the land that you promised them, and it will

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be their inheritance forever. So Moses stands in the gap between

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the coming judgment for the people and God the father who's bringing the judgment, and he and and he says, would you would you possibly reconsider, Lord? Protect even, Lord, your own name and your own covenant promises. You've promised to do these things, Lord. You have promised to give them descendants in the land. You destroy them now, and that promise is paused.

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And how does the Lord respond to Moses' request? Bold intercessory request. Verse 14. Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. I don't know about you, but that's a shaky area of theology for me.

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Is God flaky? Seriously, is God a flake?

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No. Is God emotional

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in, like, an unstable way?

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No. What in the world happened then?

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Listen, our prayers matter to God. Not because God is rendered powerless without them or even unwilling or unable to act. Our prayers matter to God because we matter to God. And in relationship, God has sovereignly and mysteriously and graciously determined that he will work with us and through us in time to affect his own will on earth. God allows himself to be moved by our prayers.

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In the intimacy of relationship that has been developed in the furnace room of prayer. God says, I will rank your voice high. But the reality is, listen, if you wanna be an intercessor, if you wanna intercede in a mighty way, like Moses interceded for the Israelite people, You need to be aware of some things. K? Intercession is disruptive.

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Intercession, true intercession is disruptive. When you get a burden on your heart for someone else and your heart breaks, like God's heart breaks for them, then you refuse to be consoled, and that refusal drives you into continued prayer for them. When you when when God breaks your heart for someone or something, and you asked, Lord, Lord, make me an intercessor for those who need someone to stand in the gap. And he begun he be he be he brings brokenness into your heart for them, for that church, for that city, for this region, it disrupts the normal rhythm of our world and disrupts the normal rhythm of our soul that says, yeah, I'm just gonna keep going and doing my own thing with my own desires and my own purposes and my own vision. And the Lord's like, no.

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He's I'm breaking your heart to pray. I'm breaking your heart to pray. I'm breaking your heart to pray. Anyone ever been so overwhelmed with brokenness for someone else that it's difficult to to, like, focus on anything else in life? That's the heart of intercession is that you get so burdened for prayer that it seems next to impossible

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to get anything worldly done. Because you just need to be in the spirit and prayer. Right? Intercession is disruptive. It's it's beautiful.

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It is powerful, and breakthrough happens, but it's disruptive. Intercession is also difficult. It's wrestling. It's battle. It's standing in the

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authority and name of Jesus and battling the enemy as he tries to steal, kill, and

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destroy. Anyone know anyone know my man, Epaphras?

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Right. Not very famous at Conduit Ministries.

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But tell you what, an absolute legend in the church of Colossians.

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An absolute legend. Paul writes about him at the end of the letter to the Colossians. He says this, hey, your man, Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, he sends his greeter greetings. By the way, he is always wrestling in prayer for you that you may stand firm in the will of God, mature and fully assured, man. Let's raise up some epaphrasas in this place.

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Let's praise. Let's raise up some men and women who are like, I am going to wrestle in prayer for you. I'm going to battle in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in the will of God, mature and fully assured

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Intercession brings breakthrough. When the church gathers together in prayerful unity, heaven listens.

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In acts chapter 12 verse five, Peter is arrested for proclaiming once again that Jesus is the Messiah. And he's placed in jail. And the scripture says in Acts chapter 12 verse five, so Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. The church was earnestly praying to God for we're standing in this gap. Acts chapter 12.

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Right? What happens afterwards? Late at night an angel comes walking into the cell pokes Peter in the side to get him to wake up Peter's like, oh, what's going on? Chains fall off his hands, the prison door swings open, and he walks out of prison by escort, escort of angelic hosts, walks to the room where the church is praying, knock, knock, knock. Surprise.

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You prayed earnestly. Here I am. Listen. Intercept when the when the church intercedes and earnestly prays,

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the chains of bondage fall off of people,

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doors get opened, and people walk into their freedom.

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This is what happens when we intercede.

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So listen, I I I

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felt like we I needed, like, an intercessor's manifesto or, like, a credo, if you prefer that word, or a vision statement. Just something. Alright? Just bear with me here. So, like, smashing together all that we just learned and saw about intercession, it would say something like this, I will join with Jesus in the ministry of intercession.

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Because the father loves us, our prayers matter to him. As his sons and daughters, we have authority to pray on behalf of people, places, and the spiritual realm. We will disrupt our comfortable and apathetic lives by undertaking the difficult work of

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Here's

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Here's three ways that we can intercede.

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K. We can intercede for our people.

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Now people is just a general term to kind of talk about those who we are closest to. This is often what we describe as the list. You know? I have a list of people that I'm praying for, and I'm praying for the things that they are experiencing or dealing with. This person's sick.

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This person needs a new job. This person's having a problem at work. This person is this and this and this and this and this. This this person. Now everyone's people are different.

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Your people might be different than my kind of people. One of my people is my wife. One of my my five of my people are my kids. Right? I have family that I wanna pray for that are on my list.

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I have friends that I'm praying for. I have coworkers that I'm praying for. There's unsaved people in my life that I'm praying for. I'm interceding for people, individuals in my life. I'm trying to stand in that gap, and we need to we we need to stand in that gap for people.

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If you have relationship with those people, it's important to ask questions like,

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hey, how can I pray for you?

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Like like, not just spiritual conversation, chit chat, small talk. What is the gap in your life that I

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can stand in for you and pray in faith? What can I pray for for you? Right?

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And then stand in that gap. Listen. I I'm guilty of it. I've been asking the Lord to rid it of my life because I think it is it I think it hurts his heart when we tell people that we're gonna pray for them and then we don't. When we use, I'll pray for you as a way to end an uncomfortable conversation that we don't know how to get out of some other way, man, that's really tough.

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I'll pray for you. Have a great day. Listen, don't say that if you're not gonna pray for them. It hurts the heart of the Lord. Like, if you're gonna offer the intimacy of prayer, do not cut off the intimacy of prayer.

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What often happens is that when we intercede not

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just our little world, our world, my world, not just our little world, our world, my world, my little circle of influence,

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when we lift our vision beyond just our little world, intercession can begin to take a wider focus. What else can we intercede for? How about this? Since we see it in the scripture in the book of acts so much, why don't we begin to intercede for our church? Now I'm not just saying this because I benefit greatly from it, but I benefit greatly from this.

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And I'm asking you to intercede on behalf of your church, please. To stand in the gap on behalf of your church. You can pray things like this. Pray for your pastors and leaders that we would have wisdom in our decisions, that we would have boldness and be free from a fear of man so that we can live fully alive to the call of the gospel and upon our lives? How about that you would pray for protection for your pastors and leaders here, that the enemy might not succeed in sifting us like wheat?

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How about as we intercede for

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our church, we pray for increased hunger for

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the Lord, that we pray for increased seeking of the Lord, that we pray for increased prayer, that we pray for increased worship, that we pray for increased holiness, that the that the gaps that exist, lord, that we would stand in the gap. Lord, make your spirit come down and fall upon this place that we can do nothing else but pray and worship. How about an intercession for your church? We pray for fertile soil to receive the proclamation of the gospel. That in people's lives, their their their soul their their souls will be tilled up.

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So like the parable of the, of the soils that Jesus tells that we are given fertile soil so that when the church casts the seed of the gospel, it may find soil where

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it can take root and produce fruit. When is the last time that you have prayed that the ministry

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and the gospel proclamation that comes out of your church would find fertile soil and produce fruit?

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See, when intercession hits the church, spiritual obstacles to the reception of the gospel begin to come down. This is the pattern for the first couple books, chapters of the book of Acts. What's it say? All the people gathered together and prayed, and then Peter preached

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the gospel and 3,000 came to to know the

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Lord that day. And then all the people gathered and prayed. Right? And then, and then

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the gospel went out and 2,000 were added to their number that day. Right? It seems like the more the church prayed the more spiritual obstacles to the reception of the gospel came down. And so as a church, right? The act of intercession together brings spiritual obstacles down so that the gospel may go out and find fertile soil and produce fruit leading to repentance.

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Finally, interceding for our city and for our region. This is probably the thing that God has put on my heart most heavily with intercession. We are a regional church.

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We are not a city church, meaning a

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good bit of you don't live in the city of Jamestown. A lot of you live outside of the

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city and travel into the city. But we

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can intercede both for our city and for this region, recognizing issues and contending in the heavenly realms that whole geographical areas experience the breakthrough of God. This is what is known in Christian circles as revival. When the spirit and presence of God breaks through in whole regions and cities and people outside of churches and out in the in the public sphere get transformed by just becoming into encounter the spirit of God. How many of you have lived in this general area your whole life? A good bit of us.

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Right? And I would say that, my experience is that those of you those of us who have lived here our whole lives have the same experience over and over and over again. You hear people say or you yourself say or reflect, man, it's just that everyone's just so hopeless in this place. No one has, like, any vision for the future. No one really likes living here.

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Seems like there's everyone's depressed. Everyone's addicted. Everyone's mentally ill. Like, it's always so dark and dreary that dreariness seems to seep into everyone's bones and get in their attitude and there's just hopelessness and cynicism and relational and emotional and economic depression and addiction and sickness and spiritual apathy and all, we all recognize the spiritual condition of the area that we live in. We recognize that as reality and we kinda like, it's Jamestown.

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Right? Listen. Do you think

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that these are things that God wants to see here? I don't.

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Do you

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think that God's vision for this region is bigger than reality? I do. Do you think that God wants us to

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pray and co labor with him

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and participate in his redemptive purposes to turn these things around? To bring hope where there's hopelessness? To bring revival where there's only depression? To bring freedom where there is addiction? Where there's healing?

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Where there is sickness? Spiritual vitality where there's only spiritual apathy? Do you think God wants us to pray into those things? It's almost like Jesus came and taught his disciples to say to pray, your kingdom come,

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your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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It's almost like that's how God wants us to pray. Right? That the culture of heaven would come crashing

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to the culture of earth. That the

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kingdom of heaven would be like the key would would come crashing down into be like unto Jamestown, unto Chautauqua County, under Western Pennsylvania, into Warren, PA, wherever it is that from where you're from. Most of us have become so focused on building our lives that we have failed to see that God has called us to lose our lives and build his kingdom of righteousness here.

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Mark Patterson wrote this awesome little book on prayer called The Circle Maker, where you take

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a thing you wanna pray about and you draw a circle around it, and you don't stop you don't take that thing out of

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the circle until that that prayer has been answered. It's a great

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book. Now if I were to ask you the ideal structure or trajectory of your life, what do you want out of life? Most people would answer something similar to this. Well, be great if I had really good health for most of my life. I'd like to find someone that I, really love and am able to marry, have a fulfilling marriage with them.

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I'd I'd like to maybe have a few kids that they'd be healthy, that they get along with each other, that they'd be relatively well adjusted, that they'd be successful. I'd like

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to myself have a pretty fulfilling career to experience financial stability, to retire and be able to enjoy life, and then, honestly,

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I wanna die with lots of people saying nice things at my funeral.

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And that listen. When you ask someone what what's the ideal trajectory of

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your life, you get a similar answer.

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Who's in the center of that circle? Me.

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Our vision for the most fulfilling life that we can have is central to our individualistic needs. Ignoring the reality that Jesus is like, you wanna save your life, you better lose it and go build my kingdom. We have been discipled into a world that is so hyper individualistic that we have abandoned and ignored the radical idea that God calls for prayers of intercession outside of our own personal spheres of happiness, fulfillment, and prosperity. God is looking for a people who will take up a mantle of prayer and intercession for regions and for cities to bring an assault on the spiritual strongholds that keep people in bondage and darkness. The question

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is, will he find anyone like that here today?

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Yes. Cameron, can I say something real quick? Mhmm. This is Eric Craig. He has stated and I started doing circle makeup the first of the year, and we do it every single night after we how we eat dinner.

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And, I mean, we're almost the February. We've seen stuff happen, like, physically. And I don't even know how to do this with makeup. I mean, I feel crazy. I sit there and pretend I'm Joshua walking around Jericho, whatever.

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But both of my our sons have been estranged for nearly five years, and our son, in our village, came to our house to visit us on Thursday. And that was a huge intercessor for the week. And it would we've been praying. Mhmm. One day, I was praying for my son, Joshua, and in my heart, I heard the word say, there it is.

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Mhmm.

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I don't even know

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what that means. Like, I I learned something at that moment. Mhmm. He said, well, there it is. Now I can move.

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And two days later, our son showed up

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And keep praying.

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Just this week.

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Yes. Mhmm.

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So here's the last thing

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that I'm gonna last thing that I'm gonna kinda say. K? I'm praying for our city and praying for our region. Alright? This is a challenge.

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K? It's a challenge from your pastor to his congregation. K?

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Over the next few years, I feel like God is asking us the question, will I find anyone that will intercede for this region? Will I find anyone who will do it? And I wanna say I I wanna answer that call. I wanna say yes. To see spiritual strongholds come tumbling down, obstacles to the gospel being broken and crumble to the ground, people coming into freedom, chains coming off, doors being open, people walking into the freedom of their life because

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of people prayed.

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I'm gonna I'm gonna recommend something is that it's one of the only times that I kinda want you to take out your phone and download an app if you want. As we pray for our city and our region, I want you

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to consider this app. It's called Holy Ground. I was introduced to it at a conference that I recently went at. I've been playing around with it. It's super cool.

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It's a reputable ministry. Basically, what this app does is that it is similar to, like, a map on your phone, like a Google Maps or an Apple map or whatever. And, and you can download it, bring it

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to your phone, and then at the bottom of the page, it's gonna have something that says, like, start a prayer walk or start a walk or something like that. You press the button, start a walk, and it tracks everywhere that you walk in that, on those roads with a red line, wherever it is that you're walking. Right? The purpose of the app is to help spiritual communities and individuals track the extent of their intercession over cities and regions. So that when you look, you open the app and you zoom in on Jamestown and you'd be like, holy cow.

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Look at all the streets that have been prayed down. Look at all the businesses that have been prayed past. Look at them all the places where intercessors have gone into the community and said, we are pray. We are contending in the heavenly realms for God to move here in this place.

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So I'm gonna ask you, download this app, put it

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on your phone, and when you are driving to work, when you are walking through your town, where you when you are running, when you are biking, turn your music off, turn the audiobook off, turn the podcasts off, turn the app on, and begin to pray and contend that God would move in a mighty way in all the places that you're traveling. Can pray these things. Pray that God's presence would fill every space that you pass. Pray that every person you pass would come to experience, know, and receive the love of God in Jesus Christ for the salvation. Pray that the spiritual strongholds, generational sins, and bondage to the forces of evil would be broken in the name of Jesus and by the blood of Jesus.

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Most of you passed 10 churches to get

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to this one. Thank you.

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But as you pass by other churches, pray for their pastors. Pray for their ministries to bloom. Pray for fertile soil to be to be experienced in their ministry as well. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you know how and what to pray for as you pass through neighborhoods, communities, towns, cities, and regions. Here's what I wanna challenge us to as a community of faith.

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I believe I I believe

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that the spirit of God wants to bring waves of revival to this region. Waves. K? Pull can you pull that last picture of the app? The next one that has the map.

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This is the current this is the current view of this, like, kind of like the city of Jamestown. No red lines of prayer. Right. Here's the goal. Every street in Jamestown covered in prayer by the end of this calendar year, by the

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end of 2025, where I pull this back up at our family celebration at the end of the year, and and we're just gonna see a spider web of red lines throughout the whole city of Jamestown. Every street is covered. I'm in I'm envisioning someone being like, I feel the Lord calling me to pray today, but I've walked up and down my street 10 times. Let me go to the app and see what street hasn't been prayed for. We're driving there.

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We're getting out. We're walking the block seven times or whatever we gotta do. We're praying that the spirit of the Lord would come and visit this place. And since because we're not just a, a city church, we're a regional church,

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the bigger goal is that every street in Chautauqua County would be covered by prayer by the end of twenty twenty six.

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And that we would be able to track that in faithfulness to have an intentional plan to cover our region in prayer for the glory of the father. If you live in Warren, pray

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in Warren, if you live in Russell, pray in Russell, if you live in Climber, playing, praying, climber, right? Just pray. Go to the Lord. Stand in the gap. Bring breakthrough.

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Let's pray.

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Heavenly father, we thank you for the gift of intercession.

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We thank you, Lord, for the invitation to join you in the work that you are already doing in prayer. Lord, we thank you that it is out of love, Lord, that, hearts

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of prayer are hearts of prayer are developed and determined. Lord, I pray that you would give us an increasing heart to pray for those around us, to pray for the church, to pray for this city and region. Lord, that we would see an extraordinary, move of your spirit in this place. Lord, let us pray for the people in our lives. Let us pray for the church.

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Let us pray for this place, this city, this region, Lord, that we might experience your presence in Jesus' name. Amen. Lord, come in power. Lord, not for us. Not for our glory, lord.

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Not for our name. Lord, for your name. Lord, make your name great in this city. Make your great name great in this county. Lord, we commit our selves, partnering with you, co laboring with you, lord, as we intercede alongside Jesus for the people in our lives, for the church, and for the city and this region.

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Lord, build in us a continued heart of prayer. In Jesus' name, amen. Kind of it. You are loved. Have a great week.

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We will see you next time.