Becoming a House of Prayer | Breakthrough - Seeking Spiritual Breakthrough

Today's a big day for us. We are beginning a journey of 21 days of prayer and fasting. I encourage you, if you haven't registered for fast yet, do that, we'd love to be able to pray for you and give you the resources for that. But we're beginning this journey, and one of the things that we've done, the elders met on a number of occasions, prayed together, took some time away praying alone, and then meeting again, and we've established six breakthrough prayers, six prayers that we are asking you, as the body of Christ, to join us in. So we're not just asking for personal breakthrough, but corporate church body breakthrough. Let me just walk you through those really quickly. You're gonna receive those, you've already received a pamphlet last week, it'll be on our resource page, but let me just walk you through each of these and show you what it is that we're asking you to pray for. Here's the first one. The first thing is we're asking God to reveal and remove any sinful action, attitude, or stronghold, individually, that's for me or you, or collectively, within us, that would grieve the Holy Spirit. We recognize that sin can hinder the work of the Holy Spirit, so what we're saying is,

God, if there's anything that's hindering you from moving in our midst, whether it's personal sin or corporate sin, would you reveal that and remove that, and here's why, so that we can experience a fresh outpouring of His manifest presence that would ignite revival. Anybody want revival in the church? Amen, we want revival. And we wanna see a spiritual awakening in the community. Revival is when God shows up and brings His people back to repentance and trusting in Him. A spiritual awakening is what is the byproduct of a church when it experiences revival. It means now in the community, we see people come to faith in Christ like we've never seen, because God's people's heart have returned to Him. That's what we're asking God to do. Show us what would keep us from that. Here's the second. Number two is this. Ask the Lord to empower every believer to become spirit-filled disciple who faithfully and courageously shares the gospel. The Great Commission Church is not just given to the preachers, it's given to every disciple, amen? And so what we're saying is, look, we're asking God to show up.

In the book of Acts, He says, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be what? My witnesses. This is a message for every believer. And so if we're not sharing our faith, it could be because we're not walking as spirit-filled disciples who are walking in the courage that only He can give. But we're asking God to do that, and here's why. So that we can experience a harvest of salvations and baptisms in 2025, unlike anything we've ever seen at New Beginnings. Here's what we just come to believe as we pray through this as the elders. We believe the greatest movement of God that's going to happen through our church is not gonna be on Sunday morning. We believe it's gonna be through you and office buildings and neighborhoods and ballparks and gymnasiums or wherever God takes you of as you were. You live, work, and play, living on mission, but we need the courage and the power of the Holy Spirit to do it. Here's the next. Ask the Holy Spirit to impart and reveal the spiritual gifts He has given every believer at New Beginnings.

Ask for wisdom to use them in an edifying way. The Bible teaches us, if you wanna go back and look up our sermon series on the Holy Spirit, we believe that God has gifted the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We believe that God still uses them. And what we're saying is, God, would you show us the gifts that you've given us or gifts that you wanna give us and then show us how to use them in a way that brings glory to you and builds one another up in love. The spiritual gifts are given so that the body of Christ can flourish in the way that He desires. It's not just man-made ability, it's divine supernatural ability. And you have spiritual gifts, I have spiritual gifts. And when we operate in our spiritual gifts, the church flourishes to what God wants it to become. Amen? We're asking God, show us what that looks like here. Here's the next one. We were asking God to transform us into a church that reflects His radical generosity, the generosity of Jesus, moving us to give sacrificially of our finances and serve faithfully with our time.

And here's why. We wanna see our church be able to make and mobilize more disciples than ever before to advance the mission of God. And let me just throw this out there at you. Jesus, the Bible says, did not just give us 10% of Himself. He gave what? He gave all of Himself, everything, all of who He was, poured Himself out, His very life for us. Jesus says this about His own ministry. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to what? But to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. And here's what we're saying. Jesus, would you make us look like you as a church? Now, here's the reality. We did a survey this year and it revealed when it comes to generosity, only about 5% of those who call New Beginnings Church home actually tithe to the local church. We need God to give us a breakthrough in this area. There are some volunteers that serve at everything we do, and here's why, because there's not enough people willing to serve to do all the ministry God's called us to do. That's a spiritual barrier in our church that we need the Holy Spirit to break through, moving in our life so that we become generous like Jesus with our finances and generous like Jesus with our time.

Let's ask the Holy Spirit for that. Here's the next one. Ask the Lord for his supernatural provision and unexplainable open doors. Here's why. So that we can expand our current campuses and birth future campuses in Kilgore and Halsa. Let me just say two things with this. One, we're asking God, like the opportunities that we believe God's calling us to, we need his divine supernatural provision for it. Like just open doors that when you look at it, you go, man, there's no explanation other than God just opened that door. The prison campus is one of those moments. Hey, we're gonna go host some services. And then when the prison says, will you come start a church? That's an open door only God can open, right? We're asking him to do that. And here's why. Our current campuses need expansion. You know, our Gilmore campus, by the way, three weeks ago in the 11 o'clock service, they have about 340 seats and they had about 420 people. We are out of space. So we're needing to build a worship center, remodel facilities, life groups. They have no room. Every life group is maxed out at every hour.

We have groups meeting at homes, which is great. We're gonna continue to do that. Our kids ministry building, by the way, is exploding. Praise God for that. That building, yes, we can applaud our kids ministry team. That building is designed to comfortably house about 350 kids through three services. We have about 550 kids between our three services. We need about 10,000 square feet added to this. And so we're just saying, God, would you provide supernaturally for us? And then we believe God's calling us to Kilgore and Hallsville and here's why. God is sending people from Kilgore and Hallsville here. And our model, our heartbeat is for us to have people that leave communities that we can eventually send back and start campuses so that where they live, work, and play, they can reach their neighborhoods for Jesus. That's why the Gilmore campus is existence. Because people came here and we go, man, we got so many people coming here, let's just go there. And now that 200 people that were coming here is now about 1,000 people that meet every week. And we believe God wants to do that in Kilgore and Hallsville. Here's the last one. Ask the Holy Spirit to break every demonic stronghold in our church and enable us to stand firm in the armor of God against the attacks of the enemy. Whenever we get on God's mission,

you better believe the enemy is going to be on his mission as well. And I have friends say it like this. When you get the applause of heaven, you can expect the assault of hell. And so we wanna be a place where people experience deliverance and spiritual freedom. We're already seeing God do that. And we're asking God to do is would you make this a place of spiritual freedom and that God would give supernatural deliverance to people as they come and encounter the ministries here at New Beginnings. So these are the six petitions we're asking you to pray for every day. The scripture verses that are on there to give you reference points. Pray the word of God over these. Ask the Holy Spirit how to pray for them. I've already spent days lifting these before the Lord and I'm asking you to join in on that as well. And here's why. Here's what we're gonna talk about today. Grab your Bibles, Luke chapter 19. And I'm gonna fly through this the fastest I can because we wanna practice what we're gonna preach today. Amen? So Luke 19, what we're gonna see is what our desire is is to become a house of prayer. The title of the sermon is Becoming a House of Prayer. Several years ago when God did a work in my heart,

one of the commitments that I made to the Lord and to you is this, is that as long as you allow me to be your pastor, I promise you two things. I will be a pastor of prayer, not a pastor that prays, a pastor of prayer, and I will lead us to become a church of prayer. In other words, a house of prayer. And by God's grace, we are becoming a house of prayer. We're not there yet. We're a work in progress. But what I wanna do this morning is show you why this must be a central mission of us as the body of Christ to become a house of prayer. We see this in Luke chapter 19. If you're there, say the Bible is true. Two verses, very brief. It says, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of what? A prayer. But you made it into a den of robbers. Now listen, this is one of the most amazing and interesting and shocking really moments in the life of Jesus through the Gospels. Jesus goes into the temple, a place that was busy, a place, especially this time of the season, the ministry, the Passover season. A lot of people, people in the temple.

He goes in and it looks like he just kind of throws this fit and just runs everyone out. In fact, in Matthew's account and Mark's account, it says that he goes in and is flipping tables, like not small tables, I'm talking about big massive tables, just flipping these tables, turning this over, scattering the money of the people that were there, blocking the hallways, telling people you can't come back through there. And by the way, this is not the first time Jesus did this, it's actually the second. At the beginning of his ministry and his first trip to the temple in John chapter two, Jesus does the very same thing, except for John's account of the first experience, he says that Jesus actually took some cords and made a whip and were whipping people out of the temple. Like I don't know about you, like this picture of Jesus is not a picture that comes easily for us, like as we like the meek and mild, I'm gonna touch the leper, I'm gonna raise the dead, I'm gonna be the one that weeps over the city, this compassionate, soft, gentle Jesus, all of a sudden, the picture in my mind, if you've ever watched Dude Perfect, like the rage monster moment in Dude Perfect, except for it's not rage, it's righteous indignation. And the question we need to ask ourselves is this, what triggered Jesus in this moment? What was happening in this moment that was so egregious

that he would respond in this way, flipping tables, whipping people, throwing their money out, casting them out, like blockading the hallway, saying you can't come back through here? Here's the backdrop, this was a busy place, a lot of people coming in and out of the temple and a lot of animals brought in and out of the temple because it was a place of sacrifice, that was not the issue. The issue is is that there were people in the temple that had began to leverage what the temple was supposed to be for and distort it into something it was not supposed to be for, and so what they would do is that these unrighteous religious people would come in and set up these tables and these systems to where they could make a profit and make a buck, that was kind of an unethical dollar, off of the people coming in. So here's what they would do, travelers from a long distance, if they were poor, would bring the best animal that they had and then these unrighteous religious people would look at their animal and go, ah, no, it's not gonna meet the standard, but we can sell you one at an inflated price. And they would go, okay, let us buy one. Well, your money is not good here, you need temple currency. But your dollar is only worth 50 cents here. And so what's happening is is this inflation and this exchange rate was robbing the people

and they had turned it into a circus, they created programs that interrupted what it was really supposed to be about. And Jesus says to them, it is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you've made it into a den of robbers. And this, Jesus is actually quoting two Old Testament passages. We're only gonna look at one. It was Isaiah and Jeremiah, but listen to what Isaiah says about the temple. He says this in 56 verse seven. He says, these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of what? Prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of what? For who? For all the peoples. A house of prayer for all the peoples. See, what Isaiah is showing us, this is that God's desire for the temple was for the temple to be a house of prayer. A place where people could draw near to God and commune with him to experience and encounter his presence. And everything, by the way, in the temple was about getting people into the presence of God. Let me explain to you what I mean.

There was a lot of areas in the temple, but let me show you three of them. There was one area called the court of the priest. The court of the priest was a big altar, and this is where the sacrifices would burn and they would be offered continually for the sins of the people. And so all around the temple, it's amazing, you would smell the aroma of sacrifices burning continually. And what was happening is, is that as the people would draw near to the presence of God there was a reminder that the presence of God, you have access to it, but the access to the presence of God comes by mean of atonement through a substitutionary sacrifice. A sacrifice has to be made for the sins to be atoned for you to have access. And so there was this area that was reminding the people that there was a sacrifice that had to be made, the sins had to be atoned for. Now, ultimately, we know this is fulfilled in who? In Jesus. The second area is called the holy place. This was an area where there were three symbols there, three items. One was called the bread of presence. The other was this candle, this menorah that was lit. These candles would burn. Day and night, continually, part of the priestly job

was to make sure that the candles never burn out and they were there as a reminder of God's constant presence. He is the light of the people. And then there was an altar called the Altar of Incense. And on the Altar of Incense, these incense would be burned. Watch this, day and night without ending and it represented, don't miss this, the prayers of the people. That these were a reminder that the prayers of the people, God's people drawing near to him, communing with him, that his prayers were rising to the heavens like the fragrance of these incense. In fact, in Revelation, we get this picture in heaven, it talks about a bowl was brought out and the bowl was filled with the incense, the prayers of the saints. In other words, there's something so special to God about prayer that in heaven, somehow, he's keeping the prayer of the saints somehow, he's keeping all of the prayers of the people because he sees it as beautiful as an act of worship to him. And then the third area was the Holy of Holies. This is where the Ark of the Covenant of God was there, the representation of God's manifest presence. And what Jesus is saying is this, all of this, all of this activity from the sacrifices that you offer to the bread of presence and the candles that are lit

and the incense that's burning to the Holy of Holies, all of this, he's describing, this is prayer. That this place is about communing and experiencing the presence of the living God. What is prayer? Let me tell you what prayer is. Prayer is encountering the presence of God and in his presence, communing with him. And Jesus says, this is what it's supposed to be about. And the reason he is so overwhelmed with this righteous indignation is because his house has become something it was never intended to be. All of the activities distracted people from the one activity that was most essential and that was encountering the presence of God and communing with him in prayer. This was to be a place of praise and petition and intercession and worship offered to God by his people where his presence could be felt and known. You know what I find interesting? That when God describes his house, he doesn't say, my house will be called a house of preaching. He doesn't say, my house will be called a house of singing. He doesn't say, my house will be called a house of community or Bible study. He says, no, no, no, no, my house will be called a house of prayer, why? Because the greatest activity,

what is central to the people of God is prayer, communing with him. You know why? Here's why it's important. You know what good preaching is supposed to do? Escort God's people into the presence of God where they can commune with him. You know what true worship is supposed to be? Not singing songs, but actually singing prayers and communing and exalting Christ away. This is why when we design worship services, one of the things we pray about is what is gonna bring us into the presence of God, why? Because it's not about the music, it's about the presence. You know what good community is? It's not just accountability and fellowships and social and Bible studies. Good community is about learning how to walk in God's presence together so that I'm praying for you and you're praying for me and we're praying together. That's what community is about. We, listen, we're called to be a house of prayer. Now, the question you might be asking is this, but that's the Old Testament. Jesus is talking about the temple. What in the world, how does that connect with the church today? Let me explain this to you and let me show you what the Bible says about this and make the connection here. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16, this is what Paul writes.

He says this, he says, do you not know that you are God's what? God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you. So what's the significance of the temple? God's spirit dwells in the temple. And when he says you are, this is not singular, this is plural, he's talking about the church, the body of Christ, that we are now the temple of God. Not the building, not just the church service, but the people are now the temple of God. Look what he says in Ephesians chapter two, verse 22. It says, in him, in Christ, you also are being built together into a dwelling place. What's another name for dwelling place? Temple. temple for God by the Spirit. So here's what Paul is teaching us. When we come to the final sacrifice for the atonement of sin, which is Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, and we by faith embrace him, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, made alive in him, and when that happens, we now, he says this in Ephesians chapter five, he says your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and then we collectively, as the individual temples of the Holy Spirit, make the temple of the Holy Spirit as the body of Christ, that we now, through Jesus' death, have access into the presence of God, and we now turn into a living, active, breathing temple. Now why is that important?

I want you to let this sink in for a minute. Every covenant God made with his people throughout the Old Testament, leading to the ultimate covenant, which fulfilled all the covenants, which is the covenant with Jesus, every covenant, what you find in it is God's promise, and I will dwell among you. You will be my people, I will be your God, and I will dwell among you. So every covenant was bringing us into his presence until you get to Jesus, and Jesus says this, my presence just won't dwell among you, it will dwell in you. Now think about what the temple was in its particular day. The only place, eyes right here for a second, the only place on planet Earth that God's manifest presence dwelled was in the temple. And so for the peoples of the world, there was this recognition, man, there's something about this people over here called the people of God that's significant, why? Because their God dwells among them, and there's no God like that. We now, as the people of God, God's manifest presence, we as the body of Christ on planet Earth, the presence of the living God dwells among us. And then Jesus says this, and just like my father's house, the temple was to be a house of prayer,

this new temple that I've established is to be a house of prayer as well. And what's interesting, you see this, and what's interesting, you see this, Jim Simbala says it like this, he's a pastor out of New York, he says the thread of the house of prayer runs all through the New Testament. In fact, here's what you find in the book of Acts, I'm actually gonna preach this a little bit in a couple of weeks, but in Acts chapter one, you find Jesus has ascended, the church has not been born yet. What do they do? They go to an upper room and they gather in a corporate prayer meeting, the people of God gathering together. And they do what? They pray, and they pray day and night for 10 straight days. Could you imagine that prayer meeting? 10 straight days, you're like, man, that's a long prayer meeting. Why did they pray for 10 days? It's because that's how long it took for the Holy Spirit to show up. They'd have prayed for 30 days had he not shown up till day 30. And what happens is on the 10th day, Pentecost occurs, the Holy Spirit falls,

fills them, then they run out on mission, preach the gospel, 3,000 people are saved and baptized, and the church of Jesus is born. Why is that significant? Because the church was not born in a preaching service, singing service, or a community group, it was born out of a prayer meeting. Because what God was creating when he created the church is a house of what? Of prayer. And this is the way the church operated throughout the book of Acts. You see them in Acts chapter two, they prioritize this. In Acts chapter four, when persecution comes, they gather and they pray throughout the book of Acts, 26 times in 28 chapters, as Luke is unfolding the story of the early church. 26 times in 28 chapters, here's what you find. The people of God praying, not individually, but together collectively. Why? Because what God was creating was a house of prayer. When they were sick, they prayed. When they needed a miracle, they prayed. When they were persecuted, they prayed. When somebody was put in prison, they prayed. When they needed to know what to do next on the mission of God, they prayed. Prayer was the central activity.

In fact, this is what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter two, verse one. In chapter two, he is giving, actually, throughout the rest of Timothy, he's laying out in an organized way, here's what a healthy church does. Here's how you appoint elders, here's how you appoint healthy deacons, here's how you operate with finances, here's how the family should look in the local church. He's given all of this, but listen to what he says is the activity of most importance. Look what he says in verse one. He says, first of all, then. In other words, there's gonna be a second of all, and a third of all, and a fourth of all. Before we get to any of those. Those things, before I get to elders and deacons and finances and all of that, organizationally, here's what the church should be about first. I urge you that supplications and prayers and intercessions and Thanksgiving be made for who? For all the people. You know what Paul is saying here? You want a healthy church, become a house of prayer. You see, here's the thing, church, Jesus is the center of our preaching. Everyone should say amen to that. Jesus is the center of our preaching, but prayer must be the center of our activity.

Jesus is the center of our preaching, prayer must be the center of our practice. Becoming a house of prayer. This is so crucial. And this is why, by the way, the early church was so powerful and we are so powerless. I mean, they had no political clout, no resources. Most of these people were cast out of their community and yet, the early church had this supernatural power with no influence whatsoever from an earthly posture. But they understood, God moved when we called on his name and because of that, they walked with a divine power and they turned the known world on its head. But we're not seeing this today. We're seeing a culture in decline. We're seeing more people watch this turn to fentanyl than to faith in our culture. We're seeing more people get their life shaped by social media than the word of God. We're seeing, on Sundays, ballparks filled and church houses empty. Why is this? It's because we've committed the same sin as the people in the early temple. We created a bunch of stuff in the temple that distracted us from the main focus of the temple, which is to find and seek and experience the power of God in our lives. We created a temple which is to find and seek and experience the presence of the living God.

This is what Charles Spurgeon, great preacher, this is what he says about this. He says, if a church is to be what it ought to be for the purpose of God, we must train it in the holy art of prayer. Churches without prayer meetings are grievously common. Even if there were only one such, it would be one to weep over. In many churches, the prayer meeting is only the skeleton of a gathering. The form is kept up, but the people do not come. There is no interest, no power in connection with the meeting. Oh, my brothers, let it not be so with you. Do train the people to continually meet together in prayer. Rouse them to incessant supplication. Believe me, if a church does not pray, it is dead. Instead of putting united prayer last, put it first. Everything will hinge upon the power of prayer in the church. And this was where the shift came for us several years ago. Some of you brand new to church, 2020 was a crossroads for us. And I know it was a crisis for our nation, and I hate the hardship that so many went through, but I'm gonna tell you, for New Beginnings Baptist Church, that season was the one of the greatest gifts he's ever given our church, and here's why. That season, God used COVID and all the crazy stuff from social unrest

to reveal what New Beginnings had become. And I'll just tell you this, in that season, Jesus came in, and I know I can say this from my own heart, my own family, Jesus came in and started turning tables over. And I've got the memory of a court of whips he put together from my backside. And God revealed to me in that season that I had become a prayerless pastor, not because I stopped praying, but because I wasn't a man of prayer. And that we'd become a prayerless church, and because of that, we had all the programs a church could ever want. Our church was growing, but the power of God was not here. And can I just tell you, a growing church without Jesus is not a church. And God brought us to our knees and started the process and the journey. We just said, we're gonna make prayer central. It's what God, God just said, look, you're gonna become a pastor of prayer, not a pastor that prays, and you're gonna lead this church to become a church of prayer, not just a church that prays, a house of prayer. We've been on that journey ever since. And the difference it has made in me personally and us corporately together, I can't explain.

God graciously took us to the mat. And I believe he's still turning tables over. Praise God for that, amen? Because on the other side of that is just more of him, clearer access to his throne room. And this is where we begin to see the movement of God. Not in the gifting of a preacher or the cleverness of a staff and the creativity and all of the stuff, it's not in the buildings, it's not in any of that. It's the presence of God. When God shows up, everything changes. And this is, by the way, the story of revival. You can see it through the Old Testament. When God's people cried out to him, he heard and he answered and he showed up and he revived them. We see this in our own country. And just listen to this for a moment. The great awakening of 1730, 1730s really, this revival swept across our country, experienced in much of the world. It was birth, listen to this, in a call to corporate prayer. Churches began to have prayer meetings again. Denominations were coming together and saying, let's put our differences apart. And here's the one thing we have in common. We need a move of God and God showed up. In the 1800s, the second great awakening, by the way,

which most historians would say, that is the singular event that has impacted American history more than anything else before or after. The effect of that is still happening today. It was birthed in prayer meetings. In 1857 and 58, there was a man by the name of Jeremiah Lanphier. He was a businessman who got burdened by the spiritual condition of New York City. And he posted all over town, noonday prayer meeting. The first prayer meeting was six people showed up. But he says, we're gonna continue to pray in the next week, 12, and then 20, and then 30. And within just a few months, 50,000 people were praying every day in the area of New York City alone. Hundreds of thousands all over America began to pray. You know what God did? He opened up the floodgates of heaven and in our country, in one year's time, over a million people came to faith in Christ. There was one season where they were seeing 10,000 people a week coming to faith in Christ in New York City alone. 1904, 1905, the Welsh Revival started in a prayer meeting. People were praying all over that God would send revival. And then there was a one young man, a college student, and there's something about, we've got college students in the room. If you trace revivals,

there's always a link to college students. Not that it eliminates us from being used or that God has to do that. But in 1904, he began to stir in the heart of a man by the name of Robert Evans, Evan Roberts. He'd wake him up at 1 a.m. and drive him to his knees. And he would cry out to the Lord where God gave him a message. He preached the first time to 17 people and revival broke out within weeks. There were thousands of people all over the country. And in nine months, 100,000 people came to faith in Christ. We see this in the Jesus Movement, prayer meetings, Asbury, listen to this. I got a chance to be on a call with the preacher that started the Asbury Revival. By the way, one year ago, three days ago, was the two year anniversary of that. He preached a message for 25 minutes, walked off stage, sat down, texted his wife and said, just laid a stinker. It's a true story. 20 college students went to the altar and they said, we're not leaving until the love of God fills our hearts. Three hours later, he texted his wife and said, something's doing, get the kids, get here. It turned into 16 days of unceasing prayer and worship. And over 70,000 people were forever changed. Prayer matters.

You wanna see revival? And that's as well, I'll just tell you unapologetically, the most important service of the week for us is Wednesday night. As we go in this new ministry, journey of 21 days, I'm asking you to prioritize the prayer meeting. Jesus says, where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be. There's something about God's presence that shows up when we're together that we don't experience when we're not. And here's what the Bible says, I just wanna remind you, here's the invitation. Call unto me and I will answer you. Draw near to me and I will draw near to you. If you seek me, you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart. If my people who are called by name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their sin, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins and heal their land. Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it'll be open to you. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly beyond all we can ask or imagine. This is the invitation. Why would we not pray?

What are the breakthroughs in your life? Let me ask you this, what tables need to be turned over in your heart that's interrupted you from being a house of prayer? What does Jesus wanna whip out of your life and say, you've made your life about something it's not supposed to be? Do you need a fresh wind of God to blow in your life? Let me just tell you, God can answer prayers. You believe God can answer prayers? What we're gonna do is we're gonna move into a time where we're gonna, we're just gonna call on his name. Let me just give you some encouragement. Jim Semble has been leading a prayer movement in New York City for 40 years. And in the 90s, his daughter Chrissy, when she was 15 years old, in the middle of God's movement, decided that she was gonna walk away from the family, begin to live a reckless lifestyle, end up leaving the home. And this broke Pastor Jim and his wife to the point of which they were literally on their face pleading with God. He said, there were days that would drive to work to try to minister to people, realizing I can't even reach my own daughter. He said, there was months that we didn't hear from her, didn't know if she was dead or alive, didn't know where she was.

He said, we were just crushed. He said, to the point of which, he says, my wife finally at a breaking moment in our life and marriage, she looks at me and she says, I'm done. I'm not living in this city any longer. She says, the enemy's already taken one of my children. He's not getting the other two. And if we stay here, he's gonna steal them as well. She was ready to walk away from it all. She says, you can come with me or not, but I'm out. He says, every day I would just cry out to God, God, would you intervene? One night, he says, at our prayer meeting, my heart is broken, my wife didn't come. Someone passes me a note that says, Pastor, I feel like the Holy Spirit has told me that we gotta pray for Chrissy right now. So he turned the room over and said, this is what Chrissy's adding. He said, the church began to pray, he said, but something shifted in the room. He said, it turned from a prayer meeting to a, he said, it was like we were in a labor and delivery unit. There was so much travail from God's people on behalf of Chrissy, weeping and crying and begging God to bring her home. And he says, and there was this peace that swept over me. He says, I got home that night and I walk and I told my wife, he says, it's over.

She said, what's over? He said, Chrissy's coming home. I don't know when, but God's people prayed in a way I've never heard or seen. He said, the next morning he was shaving and he hears a yell from downstairs. His wife says, Jim, you gotta get down here now. When he runs downstairs, he sees Chrissy on the floor in the kitchen, she's weeping. Grabs his pant leg, dad, I've sinned against you, I've sinned against God, forgive me. I've made a mess of my life. I wanna return to you, I wanna return to Jesus. And he said, I got down, I picked her up. He said, I just embraced her. And she pushed away and she looked at me and she says, I've gotta know who it was. He said, who, what was? He said, who, what was? I gotta know who was praying for me last night. She says, daddy, tell me who was praying. And he says, the people of God at prayer meeting. And she says, dad, God gave me a vision and the vision was darkness and an abyss and I was heading there unless I went home. And I knew in that moment that somebody was calling on the Lord on my behalf and that's why I'm here today. That's why I'm here today. That's breakthrough prayer. Months and months and months of labor until delivery.

What are you broken for? I'm gonna ask you to do something, I'm gonna ask our... Prayer partners if you would go ahead and get in position and what we're gonna do with the next few months, and I'm asking you listen God wants to move in your life. Do you believe that? God wants to move in your life. He wants us to become a house of prayer Some of you need breakthrough you need God to come through like only he can come through some of you need tables overturned in your life and for God to Remove things that have interrupted your relationship to bring a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit Listen, he can start today as well as he can start any day. Amen But will you humble yourself before him? Like he wants to do it Humble yourself and believe like he wants to me So what we're gonna do is we're just gonna in a moment stand this altar is gonna be open Prayer people are able to intercede for you. What do you need breakthrough in what tables need to be overturned? Listen, if God wants to bring revival, why not start right now? He can bring a fresh wind into your life right now if you'll let him Jesus we devote this time to you Move as only you can in Jesus name