Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:07] So we're in a series on prayer and I've been really interested in this series because prayer has become very important in my life. And I'm going to share you a little bit, like, why hasn't. Why wasn't it before?
[00:00:20] But over 40 days, we're inviting you to join us to step out of the anxious space of social media and talking heads. Anybody feeling anxious? I mean, we got less than two weeks people, you know, and instead of having this anxious posture to lean into a posture of prayer where we become a non anxious presence that stands in stark contrast, I think, to the anger and the fear, even hatred, that divides our nation and our communities, our families, even our churches. And so I'm hoping you're leaning in to this. It's an important season for Westside.
[00:01:06] For years, prayer was difficult for me. I don't know how many of you have experienced this, but I mean, I would pray, but when I needed something, like when I was desperate, you know, like, oh no, if God doesn't come through, I'm through kind of moments, right? And excuse me, but a regular rhythm of prayer kind of eluded me. And I was pastoring even at the time, and it was just like prayer was so hard to grasp, like, why do we do it? Like, what's important about it? And then I met a pastor a few years ago who became, what I can say, the most influential person in my life regarding prayer in my entire life. And his name is Brian Zahn. And during COVID I attended an online prayer school that he has at his church in Missouri. And this online prayer school kind of refocused me and gave me tools to help me have a daily rhythm of prayer. And then a few years back, Ben, Pastor Ben and Pastor Evan and I went to St. Joseph and attended the same prayer school in person. And he gave us a way to pray that I've been praying, I can say weekly, consistently for over almost three years now, maybe three and a half years, like consistently. And I've never been that consistent in prayer. There will be seasons where I'm more consistent, but three years where I have had this consistent, regular rhythm of prayer. And it has deepened my faith.
[00:02:38] A regular rhythm of prayer, of connecting with God has deepened my faith. And I. And I. And it makes me wonder if part of the purpose of prayer is less about getting God to do what we need him to do and more about God forming me more into his image.
[00:02:55] That prayer is actually more about what God is doing in me more often than what I want him and need him to do outside of me.
[00:03:05] Deepening our faith.
[00:03:08] Brian Zahn. He preached a message last year in 2023 that really struck at my DEs to deepen my faith and. Or what he called re enchanting the Christian soul. Fascinating message. And I don't know about you, but I want a deeper faith. I want a faith that is not dependent upon what happens in two weeks.
[00:03:32] I want a faith that isn't dependent on whether bad things happen to me or to you, or whether good things happen, for that matter. A faith that is not based upon our circumstances, but upon who God is.
[00:03:47] Because we live in a cynical, secular world that is filled with fear, it's filled with anger, it's not filled with faith.
[00:03:58] And in this role, as I oversee.
[00:04:01] I left Westside as one of the three senior pastors a little over a year ago, and I've been overseeing about 300 churches. And I've been going to all these churches, and I see so much fear that has crept into our Christianity, so much uncertainty.
[00:04:21] And it makes me wonder, where's our faith?
[00:04:27] Who's our faith in?
[00:04:29] And it just caused me to really question and wonder in my own life. Do I believe that God has got this world and my world and your world in his hands?
[00:04:42] Can I trust that?
[00:04:45] So today, what I want to do is I want to reinvigorate your faith as it relates to praying. And to do that, I want to do for you what Brian Zahn did for me a year or so ago. I want to re enchant your soul toward God. Let's pray.
[00:05:05] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:05:12] Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:05:21] Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
[00:05:31] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:05:36] For Thine is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever.
[00:05:41] Amen.
[00:05:42] Praying in faith is an interesting concept, isn't it? I mean, think about it. Praying in faith. We pray to an invisible God who we hope will do something extraordinary or supernatural to intervene in our lives. There's this great story where Jesus went up to a mountain to pray. It was actually the Mount of Transfigurations where he ended up being transfigured. He took up Peter, James, and John with him, but he left his rest of his disciples down at the bottom of this mountain. And this man brought his Son who had severe seizures to these disciples at the bottom of the mountain. And they couldn't heal him.
[00:06:17] They couldn't deliver him. And then Jesus came back down, and he recognized that this boy had been. That these seizures were caused by the demonic. And so he cast out the demon and healed the boy. And then the disciples later asked Jesus. Asked Jesus this important question, why could we not drive the demon out? And look at what Jesus said recorded in Matthew 17.
[00:06:40] Because you have so little faith.
[00:06:45] And we can all go. Been there, felt that. Sometimes I don't feel like I have a lot of faith because you have so little faith. Truly. I tell you, he goes on, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, put your hands out like this. You see that? Can you see that? That's about the size of a mustard seed. You can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
[00:07:12] As I was thinking about this, evidently there is something smaller than a mustard seed, because these guys didn't even have that much faith.
[00:07:20] And I've realized in my own life that I sometimes don't either.
[00:07:24] That's why a message like this, to reinvigorate our faith is so important.
[00:07:31] And listen, I've read this passage so many times. I grew up in the church as a little boy when I came to know Jesus. And I've wondered my whole life, is this actually possible?
[00:07:42] Anybody ever wonder, could prayer in faith, with this little, tiny little faith, that kind of a prayer, could it move a mountain?
[00:07:55] I mean, I wasn't gonna tell you this. It's not in my notes. It's come to me every single time. And so I think I'm supposed to. I tried to move the moon one time.
[00:08:03] I really did. I was at the coast. And, like, you're laughing at me, but I was, like, serious. I was like, I'm gonna pray with every bit of faith that I can muster.
[00:08:13] I don't think it moved. I mean, I don't think. It didn't look like it moved to me. And I was like, oh, well, keep working on that faith thing.
[00:08:22] But we think. What we think is that Jesus is probably just being metaphorical, you know, or using hyperbole.
[00:08:29] But just for a moment, would you just, like, sit with it, just this idea for a moment, and ask yourself to seriously contemplate the possibility.
[00:08:41] Was Jesus being metaphorical or hyperbolic? Or was he being serious?
[00:08:48] Say these words. What if?
[00:08:52] Same again.
[00:08:57] Let me encourage you that where we start sometimes in praying in faith is with the what ifs?
[00:09:04] And even if Jesus was being metaphorical, his next words were not.
[00:09:10] Nothing will be impossible for you.
[00:09:16] Okay? We've just left the world of the real and the natural and entered into a world of the supernatural and in a real way.
[00:09:27] I don't think that you will believe these words of Jesus unless your faith has been re. Enchanted.
[00:09:34] Well, you don't hear that word enchantment in church at all. I never heard it before. Zahn's message, and it's more like a Disney word. I gotta be honest. Enchanted. You know, I can't find it in the Bible.
[00:09:47] My wife uses the word magical fairly often. We go on a date and we'll go drive it home and she says, that was magical. I'm like, wow, how do I do that again? That sounds amazing.
[00:09:59] Magical.
[00:10:01] You know, it could be a sunrise or a sunset and she'll just throw that word out every once in a while. I just love it. You know, we don't hear that word often in church either. God is so magical. No, of course not.
[00:10:13] But maybe you're more comfortable with the word mystery.
[00:10:17] The mysteries of God.
[00:10:20] I believe to pray. Prayers of faith. We must believe in the mystery.
[00:10:28] We may not know how it works, but as James wrote, the prayer of faith will make the sick person well.
[00:10:37] There are things we cannot see.
[00:10:41] There is a world, another world right here at hand that means as much, if not more than the world we can see with our physical eyes.
[00:10:53] And re. Enchanting the Christian soul happens in how we interact with that other world, how we embrace it and see into it and. And wonder about it. Jesus told us that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:11:12] And what that means is it's right here.
[00:11:15] It's among you.
[00:11:17] It's not some far off, distant universe somewhere out there that you can look at it through a telescope. You're just not going to see it. It's right here. It's in front of you.
[00:11:29] It's among us. Yet how many of us have you know? Have you ever met someone who you would say, they're so heavenly minded, they are of no earthly good. And you remember that phrase, I grew up. I would hear that they are just out to lunch. That's what it means. It's like these people are not grounded. They see things that are not as though they were. And it's like, who are these people? Right? And their head's always in the clouds. They have, some might argue, they have a. A lot of faith.
[00:12:04] Listen, listen. We need a faith that is grounded in the here and now I'm not proposing that we all start to, you know, levitate and like, you know, everything's great, you know. We need a faith that works here right now that is obvious and evident in the way that we live our lives and the way that we pray. But I become increasingly convinced that we also need a little more head in the clouds, a little more wonder, a little more mystery, a little more what ifs.
[00:12:34] Paul told us to set our mind on things above, not on things below. And I think we're more in danger of being stuck in the here and now than of being too heavenly minded.
[00:12:50] We've constructed a materialistic roof above our heads. We only believe in what we can see, what we can touch, what we can smell, what we can prove.
[00:13:02] CS Lewis said the following in a sermon he preached. Remember your fairy tales.
[00:13:11] He goes on. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.
[00:13:27] We're caught. We're stuck with believing in only what we can see and only what we can touch and only what we can taste, what we can prove. We live in a materialistic world. This is all there is. That's how we think.
[00:13:44] See, our problem with praying prayers of faith is that we have become so earthly minded that we've lost our belief in the sun, in the eternal.
[00:14:00] So when that spell comes upon you and you are tempted to believe that there is no God, that there is no heaven, this is all there is. Heaven and God must just be projections of things in this world. When that spell begins to come upon you, just remember, there's Jesus, there's Jesus, there's always been Jesus.
[00:14:27] See, one main reason that I believe in God and heaven and the spiritual and the eternal is because Jesus did whatever Jesus believed, I've chosen to just believe it. Listen to what Jesus said. He said, you are from below, I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.
[00:14:48] Another word for heaven is that word eternal. It doesn't have a beginning or an end. God is the eternal. And Paul encouraged us to do this. Fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
[00:15:07] So what organ do we use to see the eternal?
[00:15:11] How do we fix our eyes if it's not our eyes, our physical eyes that can see into the eternal? How do we see if it's the unseen that we long for, that our soul yearns for.
[00:15:24] Well, there's over 700 verses in the Bible about heaven. And so we're going to just go through each one real briefly. Yeah, no, no, we're going to. We're going to look at five of them very quickly. But. But here's the first one.
[00:15:37] The prodigal Son In Luke, chapter 15 is a story of a son who takes what is owed him by his father and leaves his house. And he ends up just wasting it all. And with the pigs, eating with the pigs. I mean, he's hit bottom. And this is what he says. I have sinned against heaven. That's an interesting phrase. He could have said anything. I've sinned against my father. I've sinned against my family. But he says, I've sinned against heaven. So what does that mean? And I think what Jesus is trying to get at is that heaven is the world as it should be.
[00:16:15] Heaven is the world as it should be. Your kingdom come. Your kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:16:22] What we want here on earth is to experience something of heaven. And so when we sin, we miss the mark. We don't live up to what we were created for. We don't live into our eternal realities. The earth doesn't. And so, in a sense, we're not staying true to what the world is supposed to be or what. Or what or who we're supposed to be. We've missed the mark. And I think praying in faith is asking for God to help us become who we're supposed to be, to help us live into this reality that we recognize the earth and ourselves are not every everything we've been designed to be. And so God, would you come Right now, I'm praying in faith that your kingdom would come here on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:17:18] Another scripture, Jesus says to Peter, so this is interesting. In Matthew 16, Jesus turns to his disciples and say, who do you say that I am? Because there's been rumors about who Jesus is. There's a lot of talk in the community. Who is this guy? And so he turns to his disciples, and, who do you say that I am? And Peter. Peter responds to Jesus and says, you are the Messiah. You are the Christ. You are the son of the living God. And then. And this is what Jesus says to Peter in that moment, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. There are some things you cannot see in the natural.
[00:17:56] But my Father in heaven, he's shown this to you, he's revealed this to you. And in a sense, revelation is information that comes from heaven, not from earth.
[00:18:07] And Jesus asks, who do you say that I am? You are the Christ. I mean, flesh and blood has not shown this to you. Heaven has broken through to you. And praying and faith is giving space for heaven to break through, for Jesus to come in, in those moments where you quiet your heart and you try to just like, clear your mind. And father in heaven, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come, your will be done. And you pause and you wait and you listen.
[00:18:45] A similar one to this is in Acts 9. 3. And Saul, who was persecuting Christians, he would later become known as Paul, he's on the Damascus road. And it says in Acts 9, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And so revelation is given to Peter, right? And we just read that. And then now revelation is given here to Saul. And Saul had set his mind against the idea of Jesus being the son of God. He was very much operating in the natural.
[00:19:17] And then this revelation happens. This, like this information from heaven, right, communicated to his heart like rips through time and space and comes right into Saul to his heart.
[00:19:32] And sometimes we have to realize that praying in faith sometimes doesn't make sense to the rational mind.
[00:19:40] And listen, I'm a reasonable person. I mean, those of you that know me, I've got my. Both. My feet are solidly on the ground.
[00:19:47] Sometimes maybe a little too much, in my opinion. But I believe in reason. I use it every day in all kinds of decisions. But there are times, not all the time, but there are times now and then when praying in faith means I hear the voice of God.
[00:20:08] That's irrational.
[00:20:11] And it's not like an audible. These ears don't hear it. These ears hear what's in the physical realm.
[00:20:17] It's the ears of my heart attuned to the voice of God. And there are times, not all the time, but there are times when I quiet my soul and I wait in his presence and I hear very clearly his voice talking to me.
[00:20:33] And he wants to talk to you.
[00:20:36] But you see, if all we believe in is what we can see with our natural eyes, what we can hear with our natural ears, then praying in faith becomes impossible.
[00:20:49] Here's another one.
[00:20:51] This is about Stephen. Stephen was the first Christian martyr recorded in Scripture. And he was being stoned to death.
[00:21:01] And it says that he gazed into heaven, his eyes were. His eyes of his spirit were turned towards heaven, and he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. See, Stephen didn't have a telescope. He wasn't looking out into the universe to try to find heaven. It was right. It's right here. It's at hand. It's nearer than you think.
[00:21:31] Most of the time we don't encounter heaven, but occasionally the veil parts and we can see.
[00:21:36] Some people might call it a near death experience where, you know, where people have shared stories about, you know, the veil between this earth and heaven is torn and you see a glimpse, you know, and the point of those is this, that I think we think that this world is the real world.
[00:21:55] We think this world is the substantial and firm and enduring world. And that other world, the heaven, is wispy and hard to reach and hard to connect with. But I think it's actually supposed to be the other way around. We're living in the wispy material world that's destined to pass away. And what is enduring and lasting is that other realm.
[00:22:18] And our prayers of faith help us tap into the heavenlies where Jesus. Listen, where Jesus is standing right now at the right hand of God with all authority and all power. And so when we come to him in faith, we can have assurance that not only he hears us, but that he will respond to us.
[00:22:39] And he has all authority so he can say, listen, listen. Nothing will be impossible for you because I'm standing at the right hand of God. And when you come to me with a pure heart and with the integrity of your soul and you just say, God, I need you, he hears and he responds to prayers of faith, says that faith pleases God. He loves us. He loves it when we have faith. He's like, I'm so happy.
[00:23:04] You make me happy. When you come to me in faith, you can ask him for anything.
[00:23:16] What if.
[00:23:18] Say it again. What if. Last one. Our citizenship is in heaven. This is Paul writing to the church in Philippi. And he says our citizenship is in heaven. And this should have important political implications for us as Christians because we are ambassadors, not politicians. We should be concerned about politics. So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned about that because there's implications, there's implications in the political world that we live in on bringing good to the earth, on making this a better place, the kind of place, that kind of people that God wants us to become and the kind of earth that he wants it to become. But we don't engage in politics like this world is all there is.
[00:24:05] And if we don't get this right in November, then everything is lost.
[00:24:12] What God do you believe in?
[00:24:15] I mean, come on.
[00:24:18] I mean, I'm concerned. I am engaged. I'm going to vote. I'm going to be a part of the process. But I'm not worried because the last time I checked in my times of prayer is that Jesus is still at the right hand of the Father and he ain't going anywhere, anywhere.
[00:24:38] And we.
[00:24:39] And we can have confidence.
[00:24:42] And also Paul reminds us that he's the one who puts people in charge in this earthly realm. So I'm like, God, this is on you.
[00:24:52] We're going to engage. But Lord, I trust you see, when we don't engage in, if we engage in kind of the political arena like this world is all there is, we betray our true citizenship.
[00:25:07] Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews says that we have no enduring city here. We have no enduring city.
[00:25:14] So, yes, we will advocate for the common good, but we don't put our faith in that. We are citizens of heaven. We are sent from heaven as ambassadors to this earth. And so we pray prayers of faith asking for God, kingdom to come, his will to be done. And when we act politically, we act as ambassadors from another land, overworld, come down to underworld to set people free from the spell they're under.
[00:25:46] There's this great quote from Albert Brumley, and we'll finish with this and go into a time of communion.
[00:25:54] This world he wrote, and this was, by the way, just published a few years after Lewis death. See us lose his death, he wrote. This world is not my home.
[00:26:04] I'm just passing through.
[00:26:07] My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven's open door. And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.
[00:26:18] So how do we re enchant our souls? How do we pray prayers of faith.
[00:26:25] Set our mind on things above, not on things below. Focus our eyes on Jesus.
[00:26:37] Because when it's all said and done, there's Jesus.
[00:26:41] When evil tries to make its way into our hearts and into our land, there's Jesus.
[00:26:46] When sickness invades our bodies, there's Jesus.
[00:26:52] There's Jesus.
[00:26:56] See, when this world starts to creep in and put an enchantment on you that tells you that this is all there is, that God doesn't care about you, that God is inactive, that God is asleep. Would you just say these words? Jesus.
[00:27:10] Jesus. You see, Jesus came and he started setting the world right.
[00:27:16] He healed the sick. Prayer of faith. He raised the dead. Prayer of faith. He calmed the storm. Prayer of faith. He gave sight to the blind. Prayer of faith. He kicked death in the teeth. Prayer of faith.
[00:27:30] Jesus brought heaven to earth, didn't he? Not completely, but in small ways and sometimes big ways. And we can, through the power of Jesus name, do the same things. And Jesus promised even greater things than these will you do.
[00:27:47] Do you see it?
[00:27:50] We are not of this world, are we?
[00:27:54] We belong to another.
[00:27:58] And in that world, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father with all power and authority. And he lives in me and he lives in you.
[00:28:07] So I want to encourage you, as I've been doing for some time, to pray what if prayers.
[00:28:15] I want you to pray that God's kingdom would come here and now in your life and in your family's life and in your church and in your community and in your country.
[00:28:24] Not to set up a political kingdom, but a spiritual one in our hearts.
[00:28:31] So before we take communion together, I want to remind you that there's a couple things that I don't know if we've been doing it. Maybe this is the first Sunday, but we have prayer cards, like little note cards that you can write prayers. This is something special that we're doing during this series. You can write your what if prayers. You're like in prayer and faith. I'm believing God for this. And write it on a note card. There's cards over there at the prayer wall. And then you can just put it on the wall. You can pin it into the wall. It'd be great just to have that wall covered in the prayers of faith of God's people.
[00:29:03] And for those of you that are not yet Christ followers, why don't you test God in this? Why don't you just. You have a prayer. I know you do. We all do. But you ask him for something, see what he might do.
[00:29:17] So there's some prayers that you can write on the wall. There's another thing. During communion, you'll see these little note cards. They're at all of the communion tables. And it's a prayer of faith. And we want you to take this.
[00:29:30] And I would encourage you to pray this every morning. Just have it somewhere, maybe on the fridge someplace that you'll see it on. The coffee pot from my wife would be the best place for her to see it.
[00:29:41] It's adapted from St. Teresa of Avila and it's Avila. How do you say it? And I want us to read this together. Not read it.
[00:29:52] Just because prayers are written doesn't mean we read them. We always pray them. Prayers are always meant to be prayed.
[00:29:58] And so would you. Just right where you're at. Would you pray this out loud with me? Oh God. We believe that you can do all things.
[00:30:09] Increase our faith to trust in your limitless power and hope in your boundless mercy. We believe in you. Help our unbelief on days of doubt and fear. May we trust that nothing is impossible for you.
[00:30:27] Grant us faith to ask for what we need, knowing that you are a God who is willing and able to act on our behalf. Give us the courage to believe beyond what we can see and the strength to persist when we feel weak. You are a good father who gives good gifts to those who ask for with you all things are possible.
