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Today is the final Sunday of a six week sermon series called, Delighting in the Divine. This series is about prayer. The aim is for all of us to go deeper in our prayer lives. That all of us will have taken steps forward or even leaps in our prayer life. I hope that our prayer life is much richer than when we started this series on Sunday Funday which was Sunday, September 8. Weve done a lot in this series. The first week I shared some of my own prayer story. When I graduated from college I wanted to change the world, but I never thought that prayer would be part of that change. I shared how that transformation in my own life about prayer came to be. In prayer we intentionally abide in God. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. When we pray we connect to a wonderful spiritual energyGod. The second week we looked at the Lords Prayer. I encouraged you to end the Lords Prayer by saying, Its all yours. When we say that we acknowledge that everything we have belongs to God. We can let go of our prayers to God who has our best interest at heart. The third week we did an Open Microphone sermon. We broke up into groups and you came up with some very challenging questions about prayer. The conversation was wonderful. The fourth week we got practical and I shared seven ways to pray. I hope youve been using them. Last week Sarah Parker preached on prayer. We learned that we can worship without a computer. Today Im sharing a vision for prayer. During this series weve had prayer partners. 28 of you have shared your prayer lives with another person and prayed with that person. Youve told me that the conversations youve had with your prayer partner have been fruitful. Weve shared a lot of resources on prayer. I plan in the next few weeks to pull them all together and give them to you. One of the resources has been this weekly brochure. In the

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middle is a devotion. Last week in the devotion I shared prayers from the Old Testament. This week Ive shared prayers from the New Testament. In the middle you have a place to take notes. I believe God might say something to you that youll want to write down. On the back is a listing of prayer requests. Today were looking at a vision for prayer. A vision is something that we live into in the future. The vision that I want to share today is simple. I encourage you to write it down. SLIDE I believe our vision is that Chain of Lakes is a community of prayer. A vision is something we work into. Were not there yet. We pray at Chain of Lakes, but are we a community of prayer? Probably not yet. I think one way to get there is through conversation. I want to ask you to talk to your neighbor for a couple minutes. I have three questions that I think can help us move forward in this vision. Here they are: SLIDE In what specific ways is Chain of Lakes a community of prayer? In what specific ways can we grow at Chain of Lakes in being a community of prayer? In what specific ways can you grow in your own prayer life? Mepeople pray Growpray together The Apostle Paul was a man of deep prayer. In the last chapter of the letter that we call 1 Thessalonians he had advice for a group of people who lived in the village of Thessalonica. Look again at what he said. SLIDE Be at peace among yourselves Admonish the idlers Encourage the fainthearted Help the weak Be patient with all of them See that none of you repays evil for evil Always seek to do good to one another and to all.

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SLIDE Rejoice always, Pray without ceasing Give thanks in all circumstances Do not quench the Spirit Do not despise the words of prophets Test everything Hold fast to what is good Abstain from every form of evil. He concluded by writing the words, Beloved, pray for us. These are powerful words of advice. Its worth knowing the context behind these words for it reveals the power behind them. You can read the complete story in Acts 16 & 17. Before coming to the village of Thessalonica Paul and his companion Silas had been in the village of Philippi. They healed a slave woman from an evil spirit. When the owner of the woman discovered what happened he went after Paul and Silas. The two were brought before the leaders of the city to explain what they had done. A crowd attacked them. They were stripped of their clothes and beaten with rods. They were then flogged which means they were whipped. Then they were thrown in jail. While they were in jail an earthquake then struck Philippi. Paul and Silas were able to escape. They then traveled to the village of Thessalonica. SLIDE Heres a map Im sure their bodies still bore the bruises and scars from their whippings when they got to Thessalonica. On the Sabbath Paul went to the synagogue and shared with the people that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Just like in Philippi a group in Thessalonica was offended. Again Paul & Silas were persecuted. Paul and Silas had stayed in the house of a man by the name of Jason. A crowd went to Jasons house. When they didnt find Paul & Silas they dragged Jason out of the house and brought him before the leaders of the city.

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SLIDE These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also they are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus. I was trying to think of a comparable story that helped us understand what Paul & Silas experienced. The best example that came to my mind was the Civil Rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and many of his followers were beaten and killed when they confronted racism. They suffered terrible persecution. The same happened to Paul. Later on Paul wrote a letter to the followers of Jesus in Thessalonica. We know that letter as 1 Thessalonians. If you had been beaten with rods, whipped, thrown in jail because you were sharing that Jesus was raised from the dead, how would you feel towards the people who were persecuting you. SLIDE See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:15-17 Question I have is what leads a person to submit to severe physical punishment and then go to another village and risk the same physical punishment and then respond in love to the peole who are doing the persecution. What leads a person to respond in love to people who were persecuting them? Undoubtedly there was a supernatural power that was lifting Paul up. Paul was operating at the highest level of his humanity. He was who God wanted him to be. It was extraordinary. I dont think they could have been extraordinary without prayer. Prayer was the foundation of their amazing story. Pauls relationship to God which was centered on prayer led him to do these extraordinary things.

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I believe that you and I can do extraordinary things. Im not saying that were called to be whipped or thrown in jail. But I am saying that I believe that we can do things and be the type of people whom we could never imagine. With prayer we can be those type of people. Prayer leads us to do things and be people that we could never dream. Paul couldnt have done this without prayer. We cant live full lives without prayer. Prayer is the leaven of the spiritual bread we receive from God Prayer is the breath that animates our own spirit Prayer is the blood that pulses through our spiritual beings. Without prayer we might live, but we cant live as full disciples of Christ. Without prayer we fall short as people. Its like we are breathing with one lung or only having half of a heart. We miss so much unless were a community of prayer. I have another question for you. This time you dont have to talk to your neighbor. Id like you to think about it and then we can have some conversation. The question is this: SLIDE Take away prayer and what is a church?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I had a little more time than you to think about this question. I have two responses. First without prayer a church is a service organization. This is not a knock on service organizations. I joined the Rotary Club and enjoy my participation. Jesus didnt come to establish service organizations. Jesus came to establish communities of people who are directed by God to change the world.

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Second without prayer we are much more anxious people. Let me share a personal story. When I interviewed for this job at Chain of Lakes I was asked the question, how do I manage setbacks? The people interviewing me knew that starting a church was hard and that setbacks would happen. My answer was simple. I shared with them that I have a very rich prayer life. My greatest source of strength is God. If I didnt spend 20-30 minutes every morning reading Scripture and praying I would be a nervous wreck. Through prayer I experience the peace that surpasses understanding. That stays with me. I still experience anxiety and confusion and bewilderment. Through prayer Ive learned to let them go. I dont know what the amount of money Americans spend on anti-anxiety medicine every year. I know it would be a lot less if we prayed more. The vision for us then is to be a community of prayer. Let me start to wrap up this sermon is by sharing two parts of that vision. What I mean is these parts can help us be a community of prayer. The first part is we know that prayer is personal but not private. Prayer is personal because we share our most intimate thoughts with God. When were honest with God through prayer we have to confront ourselvesour limitations and our strengths. When we pray we can be nakedwere laid bare before God. Prayer is not private. The value of a community is we can help each other. An image Ive been working with this week is a workout center. Were all working out or praying and were sharing with each other how its going. If I was at a workout center and I was training for a race Id ask people how is it going, whats happening, whats working. In the church the same thing should happen with prayer. We should be asking each other, hows your prayer life going,

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whats working, what obstacles are you facing. When we ask these questions we dont ask them out of judgment.. Our motivation is not to point our finger and say, did you pray this week? Thats the furthest thing from our mind. We want to be a community where we help each other in our prayer lives. When we share we learn from each other. This past Thursday night at our Steering Committee we talked about our prayer lives. It was a wonderful conversation. We authentically shared what was going well in our prayer lives and our struggles. We all know that we can do better. We also know that God accepts us where we are in our prayer life. One of the Core Values of Chain of Lakes is acceptance. SLIDE We accept people without judgment, regardless of what has happened in their lives or where they are on their faith journeys We can learn so much about prayer when we share our prayer lives with each other. One challenge I have is Im going to challenge each of our teams to open up our meetings with a conversation about our prayer life. Lets get in the habit of sharing what is going well, what obstacles we are facing. If we arent praying, were not embarrassed to say that. If something is going well, well share that too. Prayer is personal, but not private. The second element of being a prayerful congregation is were constantly seeking Gods direction. This comes back to our Core Value of Gods church. Were always praying for Gods direction in everything we do. We have some exciting ministries coming up. Next week we are starting our stewardship drive. This drive is the most important stewardship drive weve ever done. Its very important that we do well. To be a community of prayer means we will be praying this week about our

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stewardship drive. I want to be directed by God in our stewardship drive. Two weeks from today we have one of the best church strategic planners in the United States coming to Chain of Lakes to an afternoon with us. This is such an opportunity for us. He is going to help us develop our strategic plan for 2014. To be a community of prayer means we will be praying over this retreat. Two weeks from Wednesday we are offering a Trunk or Treat ministry for the community. We are decorating our trunks and then having kids from the neighborhood come. This is an amazing opportunity for the children around our property to be touched by the grace of the people at Chain of Lakes. To be a community of prayer means we are praying over this event. To be a community of prayer means we pray over everything. Some of you have shared with me the question why we havent had faster growth in numbers of people at Chain of Lakes. We have had excellent growth this past year, but we all would like to see more. The question I have is how passionate are we praying to grow. How many of us are asking God to direct us to share our message with the community so people will connect with Christ through our congregation. What would happen if all of us prayed for 15 minutes every day for a month asking for Gods direction in leading us forward. When we are a community of prayer we are constantly seeking Gods direction. We are sold out to finding what God wants with us and how god is directing us. We understand that our future depends on our prayers. I have one more. To be a community of prayer means we are authentic. The worst thing for me is to come across a pious Christian. A person who wants you to know how much they pray or worship or how holy they are. Yuck. There is a very fine line between sharing our spiritual lives and being pious. The dividing line is authenticity. A pious person wants to

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impress you; an authentic person wants to share with honesty. When we can be authentic in our prayer lives something magical will happen. Who wants to live into this vision of a community of prayer? Say Yay, God Who wants to be in a community where: Prayer is personal not private We pray over everything We are authentic We share with each other what is going on

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