Living on a Prayer: Week 3 - Prayer as Hope • Ps Maree de Jong • LIFE Central

Welcome to the Life Podcast.

So glad that you are joining us for another Hopefield message.

And our prayer is that you are encouraged by this powerful Sunday Zoom.

Welcome to everybody that's watching online and north and south and wherever you're watching

this morning.

Now I just love and have been love hearing over the last few weeks these messages on prayer.

I personally have to watch online because I've been sick for the last few weeks.

But one of the reasons I love this series that we've been in is because I know how much the enemy hates it.

It's like disturbing a hornet's nest.

Have you ever had a hornet's nest in your property?

We've had one in a little bush that we had off our deck once.

And we needed one of those big power spray cans with the big nozzle on the end,

spray the bush and disturb the nest, all the bees or the hornets or whatever you call them,

come rushing out, trying to sting.

But how many know when we pray the enemy has no sting?

You know, I don't know about you what's been going on in the probably the last month or so.

There's been so much going on in our family personally, friends and friends, the family of friends around us

that has needed supernatural intervention.

Not just little things that we've needed to pray for, but things that have actually needed supernatural intervention.

And I don't think it's any cold incidents that we're in this series on prayer.

Because like I said, the enemy doesn't like it because it takes his power and he's sting away.

Thomas Watson, who's a preacher in the 1600, said this,

the angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.

I love that. When we pray, we pray to a all-powerful, almighty God.

We don't just pray void words. We pray to the one who can shut the enemy down.

And what Thomas Watson was referring to in that statement was when Peter was bound in prison

and he was about to face execution the next day.

But some prayer warriors got on the case.

And it says in Acts 12-5, so Peter was kept in prison, but fervent and persistent prayer for him

was being made to God by the church.

And then in verse 7 it says, suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared.

A light shone in the cell, chains fell off, and Peter walked out free.

I love that our prayer has the power to bring us suddenly into our situation but others' situation as well.

But suddenly just doesn't happen. It happens because of fervent prayer on behalf of others.

Prayer brings the supernatural into the picture. Do you believe that church?

It's not just a word or a word from a book. It's actually a connection. It's a conduit to the power of heaven.

We have that access as Christians to access the throne room of heaven with our prayer.

And Pastor Luke started off this series, if you remember in week 1, talking about prayer, the focus of prayer being our out of our love, out of our relationship with God.

It's an overflow of our heart when we pray for our out of our love.

Second week we looked at Luke 18-1-8 and the focus of prayer being an expression of our faith and our trust in him.

And today we're going to look at John 11-17-26 and this is going to be a focus on the hope.

Prayer being our hope, not just a natural hope, but our eternal hope in our Father.

In 1 Corinthians 13, it says in this life, we only see part, but one day we will see clearly when we come face to face with Jesus.

But in the meantime, three things remain and these three things are what we've been focusing on over the past three weeks and that's faith, hope, and love.

Hope is the oxygen for our now and our forever.

I like how Pastor Paul put it in a message some time ago about hope being like an umbilical cord, which is a lifeline.

Our lifeline, when we lose hope, we lose life.

But hope is our umbilical cord, that lifeline to the throne room of heaven.

I'm going to read today from John 11. I'll take it up from verse 20-26.

This is from the Amplified. So when when Mary heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him while when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him while Mary remained sitting in the house.

Martha then said to Jesus, Master, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.

And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, he will grant it to you.

And Jesus said to her, your brother shall rise again. Martha replied, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

But Jesus said to her, I am myself, the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in adheres to trust in and relies on me, although he may die, he shall live.

And whoever continues to live and believe in and has faith in, cleaths to and relies on me.

This is a girl's version. They're amplified by lots of words.

Believes I may shall never actually die at all. Do you believe this?

She said to him, yes, Lord, I have believed, I do believe that you are the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, the Son of God, even he who was to come into the world.

It is for you're coming that the world has waited.

In those verses, we see our attention at place. Attention of our hope for now and our hope yet to come, an eternal hope.

And when Lazarus died, it was a shock to his sisters, Mary and Martha, that he had died so quickly.

And their hope went from believing if Jesus could only have been there, he would have been able to heal him to now being hopeless because he's been in a grave for four days.

And although Mary acknowledges that Jesus, he's authority, that if he was there, he could have healed him.

Jesus came back at her and acknowledges her faith, but says to her, Mary, your faith is in the wrong place.

I am the hope that you're looking for. I am the resurrection and the life.

The current predicament they were in was not out of Jesus's hand. He is the one that could heal, and he did heal him. He rose him from the dead.

But he said anyone who believes in him is promised unending eternal life.

He is the hope without an expiry date. He is an eternal hope.

And we were reminded in this account, no matter what circumstances we face, whatever the season we are in, that he is our hope and we can trust in him.

But in our now, how do we keep this hope alive? We live in this tension like I said over the now that the natural things around us, but our hope for what is to come.

And one of the first things we can do is invite God's presence in.

This may seem basic, it may seem obvious, but we don't always do it.

We worry first. We talk to others first. We deem it impossible before we go to God.

We've already deemed it a hopeless situation. How could God get us out of this?

But one of the most powerful weapons and gifts that we have been given is our ability to enter into the courts of God.

To enter the courts of heaven with our prayer and invite him in to our circumstances.

And invite him into our natural and say, God, I need your supernatural presence. I need you.

And I want to exchange my natural for your supernatural intervention.

What a pretty cool exchange, A. To have the Almighty all-powerful God be able to come into our situation.

Charles Spurgeon, who's known as the Prince of Preaches in the 1800s.

He said, if man can but pray, he can do anything.

He who knows how to overcome with God in prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal.

He who knows how to overcome with God in prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal.

Like I said, we live in this kingdom tension. I call it the tightrope of faith where we see what's around us, but God is higher.

We look up to the hope that we have that is not yet our eternal hope, the supernatural hope that is fully alive.

Hebrews 6, 18 to 19 says this.

And now we have run into his heart to hide ourselves in his faithfulness.

This is where we find his strength and comfort.

For he empowers us to seize what has already been established ahead of time and unshakable hope.

We have this certain hope like a strong, unbreakable anchor holding our souls to God himself.

Our anchor of hope is fastened to the mercy seat in the heavenly realm beyond the sacred threshold.

I love that. Fastened to the mercy seat.

And where Jesus our forerunner has gone in before us.

He is now and forever our royal priest like Melchizedek.

When we hide himself in him rather than hiding from him.

So often we find ourselves in a predicament where we need God but we hide from him.

Rather than running into him and hiding ourselves in his presence and allowing his presence to overshadow us.

When we hide ourselves in him we invoke hope beyond our natural circumstances.

And then the second thing to do is to remember where your help comes from.

After inviting his presence and remember where your help comes from.

Psalm 121 says, I lift up my eyes, where does my help come from?

If we were to ask ourselves the question this morning, where are our eyes in whatever it is you're facing?

Where are your eyes? Are they fixed on the king?

Are they fixed on where your help can come from?

Or are they down where your circumstances are?

Where the enemy wants you to look, where he wants to take your hope away to make you feel hopeless.

But when we lift up our eyes that's where our hope comes from.

Jesus showed Mary and Martha that he cared about their outcome.

He cared about their brother, he loved their brother, he loved them.

But he wanted them to know that there was a hope greater than just an outcome that he had to offer.

A hope greater that was going to outlast an outcome.

You know, outcomes come and go. But he remains forever.

And it was teaching them to give them an opportunity to put their hope in him.

As a young girl, my father died when I was 10 years old.

And I had all my eggs in one basket. I absolutely adored my father.

And he was my hope.

He was my everything at that time as a young 10-year-old girl.

And I remember as a young Christian, I was working on a staff in Australia, in a church.

And they had this lady with a prophetic gift that came through and prayed for all the staff.

And I didn't realize what a stronghold this hope was still holding in my heart toward my dad.

Because I was afraid of losing the memory of who he was as I grew older.

So I held onto that hope in my heart.

And the issue with that is it was holding at bay.

I didn't even realize at the time others and also God because I didn't want anyone else to take that place.

Trouble was I had all my hope in the wrong place.

And this lady pointed it out to me and she said, I feel like God is asking you to walk away Marie.

To let go of that hope.

And visually I saw myself holding on to the hand of Jesus and walking away and putting my hope in him.

And putting my trust in him and putting my eggs in the right basket, so to speak.

But it was a very hard thing to do.

It didn't just happen easily.

I was crying and I was like, I don't know if I can do that.

It's as hard.

But eventually when I let go, that's when real hope filled my heart and anchored itself and was what my future in him has been built on.

But many times people put their hope in outcomes.

I've done it myself.

And when things don't happen the way they think they should.

They lose hope.

And worse still they throw God out.

They walk away when he is our only true hope.

Jesus was both encouraging Mary and Martha.

To trust in him.

Put their hope in him.

And not just an outcome that they desired.

Although we cared about the outcome.

He is greater than the outcome.

Some 18 verses 30 to 36 says,

All your promises have proven true.

What a secure shelter for all those who turn to hide themselves in you.

You are the wraparound God giving grace to me.

Could there be any other God like you?

You are the only God to be worshiped for there is not a more secure foundation to build my life upon than you.

You have wrapped me in power and now you've shared with me your perfection.

Through you I ascend to the highest peaks of your glory to stand in the heavenly places.

Strong, secure in you.

You've trained me with the weapons of warfare worship.

Now I'll descend into battle with power to chase and conquer my foes.

You empower me for victory with your wraparound presence.

Your power within makes me strong to subdue and by stooping down in gentleness you strengthen me and made me great.

You've set me free from captivity and now I'm standing complete ready to fight some more.

I love that.

How powerful is that scripture?

Verse 32 says something very powerful that you've wrapped me in power and now you've shared with me your perfection.

The perfection is Jesus Christ and what He did at the cross.

And you know that power is available to you and I today in our now in our impossible situation in whatever it is we're facing.

Because of Jesus we can have hope.

We can have personal hope because of what the complete work of the cross has done.

Verse 33 says through you I ascend to the highest peaks of your glory to stand in heavenly places.

Strong, secure in you.

That speaks of that personal hope that we have.

Personal hope in him.

And then verse 34 says you've trained me with the weapons of warfare worship.

The power of coming into his presence and allowing the supernatural as we surrender to him.

We have that exchange or powerful Almighty God on our side.

And then thirdly after we've firstly mental block invited his presence in.

Remembered where our help come from.

We need to commit to inner surrender.

And I say commit to it because it's ongoing because we're going to face another thing tomorrow.

So we need to commit to that.

Do you notice the word surrender means to give up completely.

Not a little bit, not some.

I trust you with that but not that it's like everything on the line completely.

And when we come to the throne room of heaven in prayer with our worship,

I love that the weapon of worship, worship weapon.

We surrender our lies, surrender our needs to our Father.

We acknowledge his power.

We acknowledge the power of the cross.

We acknowledge that he is greater than anything that we face.

We give recognition to the complete and final authority and say God our hope is in you.

We yield our natural in exchange for his supernatural power.

A few weeks ago I was at home sick with pneumonia and some other bacteria rolling around in my body.

And I got to a place where I literally was never been that sick before.

I had no physical energy.

Very, very little reserve emotionally.

You know how that happens when you get to that place where you just lay poor.

And I put instrumental worship on because I felt like I can't even read my Bible.

I just got no energy.

So I put this instrumental worship on to replace the noises and my head and heart that happened when you feel depleted.

I had this experience as I lay on my bed listening to this instrumental worship where I just felt just such an incredible peace.

In amongst the noise of what had been I just felt this peace come over me and I just thought how peaceful heaven is and will be.

I also had a bit of a carnal thought of no more driving lessons from past to poor.

How peaceful would that be?

I'm a better driver because of you.

But as I lay there all seriousness, I felt the embrace of the tender love of a father.

There were no words just the instrumental worship and my bare surrendered and a much needed hug from my father, my heavenly father.

You know I was tears streamed down my face if you know me you'll know I'm a cryer.

I was also reminded and just so grateful for God's kindness and the hope that we have in him.

It's a sure foundation.

And all I could do and that's all that he needed was say I need you God, I surrender.

I was reminded again of a similar encounter while Paul was going for his first surgery when we first found out that he had stayed for terminal cancer, he was going in for an operation.

And we had said as a family what could have been our last goodbyes at home before he went into hospital, we had no guarantees of what was going to happen.

And I was just reminded of that situation, how what we did as a family was surrender, Paul to God.

As a wife I just remember feeling just God, we just need you in this situation.

We need your peace, we need your power, we are surrendering to you God because we know and acknowledge the power of the cross.

The power of the cross that happened for our situation right now, to be in our now, to be in our circumstance, not just ours but whatever you're facing today, the power of the cross carried it all on our behalf.

Whatever it is, Jesus has carried it, he's carried our burden, he's carried our sickness and he's not only the hope of the world church, he's our personal hope.

And in that moment I felt hope arise in my heart as I surrendered to the only one that had the power to do anything in that situation.

He is our personal hope.

I said to Paul after I was relaying what had happened to him, minus the driving and structuring joke, that how much God carried us.

You know there were two years where it was so hectic and hectic for our family but more so for Paul who had to go through so much.

Yet we knew and in that moment I was reminded again, hope carried us in that situation or was beyond natural, it was supernatural.

And that's the hope that we can have personally today.

In a moment I'm going to ask you if you would like to stand church, that'd be great.

But you know it's often the simple yet our most difficult response is to surrender.

It's not easy to do but you can fear, can hold, stop you, you can be holding on because you don't want to let go of whatever it is you're facing.

Maybe today you've come into this auditorium, you'll come into whatever auditorium you're in online.

And you think your situation is hopeless.

You're coming into this place not filled with hope but feeling hopeless.

Maybe today you're personally carrying things that we were never meant to carry.

Holding on to stuff that could be like a burden, disappointment, sickness, a prognosis, guilt, shame, anxiety for loved ones that may be away from Jesus.

Whatever it is, fears, fear is what was good, try and hold us back.

But the Bible says, love overcast, over shadow's fear.

And He's loves here for us today.

And I just know that God wants to feel hearts today.

So I'm going to pray over you.

I'm going to ask you to do something, maybe be a little uncomfortable with some but come down the front as an illustration say, God I am surrendering this situation to you.

Whatever it is and I'm going to lay it down and I'm going to pray that hope will fill your heart.

And we are going to exchange our natural circumstances and call down heaven supernaturally to come and fill your heart again.

And then I've asked the team, they're going to come in.

First, it's just going to be instrumental and we're going to give God time to just work.

So I'm going to ask you, don't hold back as the team lead us.

Jesus be the name, the song is, but we're not going to have words first.

Come and declare Jesus, I need you. That's all He needs.

I surrender, I need you. Come into my circumstance.

Thank you, team.

Jesus.

Lord, I just pray for every person in this room today.

Lord, as they come forward, I pray a supernatural exchange will take place.

Lord, you know personally what's going on.

What we can't see, God, you see, you see each need, you see each impossibility.

A God, I thank you that you are our hope.

And I pray, God, as hearts respond to you that your supernatural presence will come to this altar and fill hearts, God.

Not only fill hearts, but God, we pray for miracles to take place.

Whether we're standing on behalf of somebody else, we have a need in our own life.

God, whatever it is, we thank you that you're a miracle working God.

That you are our personal hope today.

So God, I pray you meet with each person personally as they surrender to you, God.

As we worship, as we just be in your presence.

It's going to stay a few more moments without words.

Jesus, be the name over my circumstance.

Come on church, if you're going to come, why don't you come forward?

And in a moment, the team are going to come.

A minister over us.

Thank you, Jesus.

I'm just going to give you one moment, people are coming.

Thank you, Jesus.

Lord, we thank you that your name is above all names.

We invite you today to do what only you can do.

If Jesus be the name, thank you to you.

Thank you for listening to this podcast.

I trust you're encouraged by this incredibly powerful word.

You know, you've always got a place to call home here at life.

And I want to encourage you to join us in one of our campuses in Auckland or Todonga.

Or why don't you join us at church online.

To find out more about life and to stay connected with us, why don't you visit LifeNZ.org.