Living on the Edge

Dave Drouin: Today on Living on the Edge, Chip welcomes guest pastor John Dickerson.

John Dickerson: You can learn this week to pray with power that shakes the gates of hell and advances Christ's kingdom in your family, in your workplace, in your city. And if you set out to be part of revival and you don't have a spiritual discipline of prayer, you will get really discouraged.

Dave Drouin: Welcome to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drouin. We're in a series called Hearts on Fire, how God sparks revival. And Chip has invited his friend, pastor and author John Dickerson, to teach these opening messages. Last time, John took us to an ancient battlefield where Moses held up his hands in prayer while Israel fought in the valley below. Today, he picks up right where he left off with a question many of us quietly wonder about. Does that kind of prayer still work for ordinary people like us? And if it does, what's holding us back?

Well, here's John continuing his message titled Prayer that Brings Revival.

John Dickerson: Three observations about revival prayer. First is that revival prayer is passionate. You see this all throughout scripture. Nehemiah, when he brings revival to the city of Jerusalem, it begins with him weeping in prayer, Nehemiah chapter 1. And such prayer is God's desire for you. If you think prevailing prayer was only for the super Christians or the heroes of the Bible, well, scripture says otherwise. Scripture says that prayers that moved nations were prayed by people just like you and me. I want to show you a passage of scripture that was written by James. James, the disciple, those inner three, Peter, who we talked about last week, James and John.

James describes Elijah, the prophet in the Old Testament, praying to change the climate of his nation. Elijah actually prayed for a drought. Elijah had an insight that the only way there would be revival was that the people would have to hurt a little bit. I'm not suggesting you pray this way unless God leads you to, but look at James 5:16. It says this, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. How would you like for your prayers to be powerful? How would you like for your prayers to be effective? Think about this. What if God said yes to everything you prayed these next 7 days?

How different would the world be? Now, I'm not guaranteeing that God's going to do it in a week or on our timeline, but he tells us this is a promise breathed by the Holy Spirit, inspired into scripture, a promise we can claim that the effective and fervent prayer of the righteous person availeth much or accomplishes much. Who's the righteous person? Well, the righteous person very simply, first, you it's the person who's believed in Christ's death for the forgiveness of their sins, salvation by faith. That makes you positionally righteous in God's eyes after you place your faith in Jesus.

He looks at you and he sees the righteousness of Jesus. But secondly, just like we learned last week, it's a believer who has confessed the sins that you're aware of in your life. That gives you practical righteousness or relational righteousness. And and this is backed up right in the text. If you study James 5:16 says we need to confess our sins. The Lord's prayer begins with forgive us our trespasses. Our prayer becomes powerful when we've confessed our sins. That's why in the revival sequence we get urgent and dependent. We repent. Now, we can pray. As you're practicing repentance for a relationship, you're now qualified to pray powerful prayers because the flow between you and God is not blocked.

His power is going to surge into your life. And then James, inspired by the Holy Spirit, perhaps knew that we would read a verse like this and say, well, maybe that was true for heroes in the Bible, but what about me? And so he continues and he says Elijah was a human being just like you, even as we are. Elijah prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And as a result of his prayers, it did not rain on the land for 3 and 1/2 years. This is called climate change. Elijah changed the climate with prayer, but Elijah's heart was this.

He knew that the nation was headed into judgment. They weren't repenting. And he knew they were so comfortable. They were so complacent that they almost needed an economic downturn to shake them awake. Here's the reality. Our choice as the remnant of God's people in this nation, we can choose to turn to God while things are still good or we can wait for things to get worse. And I'm not suggesting like Elijah that we need to pray that things get worse. That was how God led him to pray. But then get this. 3 years later, it had worked.

And the people of God repented and they turned to God. And Elijah said, man, I don't know if I can do this again, but I prayed once and God closed the clouds. Maybe now if I pray with passion, God will open the clouds. James 5:18. Again, he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops. One man prayed earnestly and it changed not only a nation's physical climate, but its spiritual climate. And the whole point back in verse 16 was this, you can pray that way. The same power of prayer is available to you.

You guys, believers just like you whose prayers brought revival and rescued their nation from peril, the list is long. Here's just a few of them. Moses prayed and it changed his nation. Elijah prayed and it changed his nation. Esther prayed. Esther said, everyone, we've all got to fast and pray. Only God could deliver us, and he did. David prayed and it rescued his nation. Nehemiah wept and prayed and it brought revival to his nation. John Wesley and those who led the first great awakening wept and prayed. And these colonies in North America before they were called the United States of America, there was this battle between the slave traders and the profiteers and very evil people and Puritans and pastors and very good people.

And it was the prayers of the revival leaders that let the church overrun at least enough that our constitution was enshrined by biblical principles. Charles Finney in the second great awakening. And if you look from the second great awakening to the third, it was the Christian abolitionists who wanted to abolish slavery. Why? Because the Bible says so. And they gave everything they had for it. Many gave their lives like the Reverend Elijah Lovejoy, who was a journalist and a pastor and died by a mob who said, stop using the Bible to tell us to free our slaves.

And then the civil war happened because of the prayers and the lifestyles of revival Christians, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other fourth great awakening leaders. None of these did it alone, but they all did it in partnership with God and through the power of prayer and the power of his word. They all had groups. Revival prayer happens best in groups. It's kind of a both and. Jesus often prayed alone. You should have a vibrant personal alone relationship with God in prayer, but there is something that will happen for you. Actually, a lot of what you'll learn about how to pray is when you're with other believers.

And maybe someone who's a little further down the road in their walk, um they you will learn by example or maybe someone who's a brand new Christian. You've been a Christian for a while and you'll hear the emotion of their prayer and it'll wake you up. There's something that happens when like Moses you pray with other believers as Esther asked the whole nation to pray. You guys, it's time for our families to begin regular times of prayer. When I study these great awakenings in American history, one of the norms is that you've got a family, you have family prayer time.

And I want to challenge you. I if your family is just, you know, just husband and wife, be praying together every day. It's going to help your marriage. But be praying above. Pray for your marriage and your earthly needs, but then pray for your city, pray for this church. If you've got kids, you've got to be praying together and teaching them how to pray. If you're in a small group, this is going to be the week you guys Our groups are going to graduate to another level of prayer. No more taking prayer requests for 20 minutes and then one person prays for two.

How about instead we just pray for 20 minutes? What if we just go straight into prayer because if you just share your prayer requests to God, everyone else in the group will hear it. This is it's time for us to grow up and pray some revival prayers as a movement. I want to encourage you this week, let the spirit lead you. As you walk through scripture and as you give God your heart, let the spirit lead you. He's going to lead some of you to start a prayer group at your school. He's going to lead some of you to start a prayer group at your place of work.

He's going to lead some of you to start leading prayer for your home. And dad, you're going to actually become a spiritual leader. He's going to lead some of you to start initiating prayer with your spouse every day. He's going to lead some of you when you show up at your small group to say, hey, remember pastor John said we're not going to take prayer requests for 20 minutes and pray for two. We're just going to jump right in and we're going to start praying. You guys, let the spirit ask the spirit to lead you.

He will guide you in all truth. He will counsel you. What does this look like? Just tell God, God, I want to learn to pray revival prayers. I know it it might sound intimidating and I apologize if it does. We have the rest of our lives to learn this, but we're going to get there by just saying, God, what can I learn this week? Surprise me. Surprise me with the prayer groups that you start. Let let the prayer times be spirit led. Doesn't need to be a bunch of teaching, but it's just Christ centered. It's humble.

Some of you will want to kneel. Some of you will want to walk around and pace. Just let it be scripture centered, Christ centered, God honoring. Jesus escaped to prayer as his power. And you can learn to do the same.

Dave Drouin: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and his friend, guest teacher John Dickerson. We'll return to today's message in just a moment. But first, life doesn't always let you sit by the radio at the same time every day. That's why there's the Chip Ingram app. Today's program plus video teachings and so much more all in one place whenever and wherever you're ready. Just search for the Chip Ingram app in your app store. Well, now here's John continuing today 's message.

John Dickerson: You can learn to pray for your loved ones, for lost souls, even if you've never experienced the kind of power and prayer that we're talking about this week, you can learn it this week if you'll just say, God, teach me. And that's exactly what the disciples asked Jesus. They walked with him for a while and they saw irrefutably the power of God. He's raising people from the dead. He's opening the eyes of the blind. He's encountering demons and casting them out. And so they finally realize his power comes through prayer. And they say in Luke chapter 11, Lord, master, teach us to pray like you.

We want to learn to pray like you, Jesus, because we want that kind of power in our lives. And he said to them, when you pray, start this way. Our Father in heaven, everything in my life is under the umbrella of the Father. There's no political party, there's no economic possibility, there's no threat to me because my father is that big. Hallowed be his name. And then here's your center, your kingdom come. When you pray this daily, you're rearranging the U-Haul trailer for your life. Okay, God, I I'm grateful for my job and my retirement account, my home, apartment, whatever else, but that's not ultimately what I'm living for.

I'm living for your kingdom. And those other things are in the trailer behind me. They're not what drives me. Now, we don't have time to unpack it, but Jesus mentions one physical earthly need in the Lord's prayer. Give us today our daily bread. And then he mentions six or seven eternal matters. Father, kingdom, forgive us as we forgive others. Deliver us from evil. Yours is the kingdom, yours is the power, yours is the glory. So there's this ratio. For every one earthly need, there's six or seven supernatural needs. What are earthly needs? Job promotion, surgery, health.

Dog is sick, test at school, circumstances. Do these things matter? Yes. Does God care about them? Yes. Do we in the American church pray almost entirely here and completely neglect praying for the kingdom and for souls, for salvations, for forgiveness, for deliverance, for spiritual power? Yes, we do. And and we will not see revival power in our lives until we get this balance right. And I know it's going to be hard, but I'm telling you guys, there is so much power available to you that you're just walking right past every day. And it's my biggest prayer for you this week that we would become a church that prays eternally significant prayers.

And yes, do pray for healing from cancer, do pray for the job promotion. Those things are fine, but don't let your prayer end there. Give us today our daily bread and then God hears the eternal things. Here's the supernatural things that we're praying for. If every believer in our church began to pray this way and then we go out into our schools and our workplaces in our cities, in our community, seeing everyone through spiritual eyes. Oh, that person at the gym, that teacher, that classmate, that coworker. Do they know Christ? Oh, they I don't know.

God, help me to understand. I pray for their salvation or I pray that you help me know if they're a believer. You start praying that way and then you start to God opens doors. All of a sudden you're talking with this person you've been praying for and you're realizing, wow, I get to invite them to church. Here's my point. Revival prayer rises above earthly needs into eternal matters, into souls, salvations, spiritual territory. And my challenge for your group prayer times, my challenge for your family prayer, especially for your small groups. First of all, just way to go that you are praying in a group.

Some of you you don't have a group yet. If you're not yet in a group, get in a group or just start one. Get two or three friends and say, I need to be praying with other believers on a regular basis. So be in a group. That's step one. I don't want to berate those of you who are in a group. If you are in a group, way to go. But here's my challenge. For sure for this weekend, I would love it for kind of this year. Make it a a goal as a group and as a family to say, I want to graduate from just praying for job promotion, surgeries, health and circumstance.

Nothing wrong with that. But I want to graduate that that's a small percentage of the time I spend praying. Keep praying as much time as you are, but now add praying for salvations, for souls, for spiritual dominion of the kingdom of God where we live. Here's God's promise. He says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves repentance and pray what we're learning this week. If they will seek my face, that's praying with passion, and if they will turn from their wicked ways, that's repentance for relationship, then I will hear from heaven.

I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. Let me close with just one story to encourage you guys that this works today, here and now. This is our Carmel location. It's a little bit of a before and after. On the left is when it was called Lighthouse Tabernacle. On the right is the remodel of it that we've made. Some of you might not know this backstory. We didn't know anyone at Lighthouse Tabernacle. We didn't have any relationship there, but Hamilton County, the people of Carmel had been on my heart for 10 years.

And I would drive around Carmel looking at different buildings. We did not have money to buy a building in Carmel. They're very expensive. That building, just the land worth about $9 million. We didn't have that. And as I would drive around and look at churches, I would just pray just the way that we're learning, not perfect, but emotional. And I would march around that building. And my first conversation with someone from Lighthouse ended with a dear elderly woman of God who's now with the Lord saying, we're never selling to anyone ever. And I just thought, well, you don't know who I know.

She does know who I know. She just didn't know what his plan was. I would go to that building. I would march around it in prayers. Thank God, we're a middle class congregation in Brownsburg. We don't have money to go to Carmel, but I know there's people that you have there for us to reach. And I would pray over and over again emotionally, persistently. And I invited friends to pray with me. One day, one of those friends sent me a Bible verse. And the gist of it was this. It was something about like throwing a stick in the water and it floated and it was kind of one of these weird Old Testament passages, but I was like, God, I don't even understand this, but I believe it.

So I I went I was in my pajamas. It was my day off. And it was winter. I just threw on an overcoat. I drove there and I picked up these sticks. And I read the verse out loud. And then I went to each door of the building. And I just kneeled. And I just prayed. You see my pajama sweatpants there. Friend lives out of town, so I texted him these pictures of just saying like, hey, I I'm just claiming this building for God. God took it from there. I'm it wasn't without struggle. It wasn't without difficulty, but it opened at Easter.

Now, every weekend hundreds of people connect with God there. God answered those impossible prayers. This last Sunday night we heard from Nancy who's right here. Nancy lived in Carmel, didn't have a church. And when she heard about connection point coming to Carmel, she said, I want to be part of it. She signed up and became part of the launch team. She'd been praying and praying for a group of women in her life to follow Jesus with. And she finally found that at connection point Carmel. Well, what Nancy didn't know and how God was providing is that Nancy 's husband passed away this last September.

And the day he passed away, it was those women from connection point Carmel who all showed up at her house who've been there with her every step of the way. They've made meals. They she said they they've they've been closer to her than family. And when I look at someone like Nancy and I hear how God has used the body of Christ to love a grieving widow, my God, I'm so glad I didn't give up praying when it looked impossible. Because Nancy her story is dramatic, but it's just one of hundreds of people at Carmel.

And that's one of three different churches, Avon, Carmel and Fishers, where with each of them we didn't have a big budget or a big plan, but we just said, God, if you could use us to revive a church, he used us to revive a church in Avon, to revive a church in Carmel, to revive a church in Fishers. Not without a struggle, not without obstacles, but the God of Moses, the God of Elijah, he answers our prayers today. If we will get up above our earthly needs really start to have kingdom vision and pray kingdom prayers.

Dave Drouin: You've been listening to John Dickerson on Living on the Edge as he wrapped up his message Prayer that Brings Revival. It's part of our series Hearts on Fire, how God sparks revival. To learn more about what John just shared including a small group video study and more, go to the revivalproject.org/livingontheedge. John challenged us today to let our prayers rise above our everyday needs to the things that matter for eternity. For a help building that kind of prayer life, Chip Ingram's Growing Deeper in Christ, a 365-day journey to true discipleship is a wonderful place to start.

This month, it's also available in a new leather bound edition. And right now, we're offering special pricing on both. With Christmas just a few weeks away, either one makes a meaningful gift for someone you pray with or someone you've been praying for. Every copy also helps fund the ministry that makes resources like this possible. Pick up your copies of Growing Deeper in Christ today at livingontheedge.org/offers. John told us about praying for years over a building that looked out of reach and watching God answer. When you give to Living on the Edge, you help that kind of hope reach people who have nearly given up on prayer.

Give online at livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. If you'd like to give by mail, our address is Living on the Edge, P.O. Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia 30024. Want to go through the series with a prayer partner? Share any episode from the Living on the Edge podcast. Well, now here's Chip Ingram.

Chip Ingram: Thanks, Dave. You know, as I listened to today's message, it made me remember why I like John Dickerson so much, but even more, why I wanted you to hear this series. Uh John is living this out. He's he's living this out with an entire church. And you know, we talk some about this revival moment of what's happening with young people. And and John and his church and multiple churches around the U.S. are going through this together. And I think one of the things that as John and I were talking just last week, this idea of really praying, but praying together, there's something very powerful when two or three gather together.

And here's the application. I like you to think about who's a brother or sister in Christ, someone you feel safe with that you could say, you know, I probably can't do this long term. I've tried it a million times, but hey, for the next 30 days, would you meet with me once a week or could we even like 5 minutes in the morning before our day starts? Could we pray together about two or three things that we know for sure is the will of God in our families, in our lives or in our churches? And I think as you would do that, you would see as iron sharpens iron, so one man or one woman will sharpen another.

Let me encourage you. Who do you know? Ask God to bring them to mind that you could pray with and then make a covenant and a commitment. Do it for 30 days and see what God does.

Dave Drouin: Next time, John Dickerson begins a new message Brokenhearted Boldness with a true story of a delivery driver, a house on fire, and a choice she made in a matter of seconds. Don't miss it right here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.