Praying Under Pressure | Pastor Micah Berteau | The House Fort Worth

Feel like he's in the room anybody appreciate our worship team. I love house worship, man. You love house worship We pulled out a banger. You had to worship. How great is our God? Y'all be like, yeah, I've been church in a minute, but I know this one. I know this one Hey, we're grateful to have you in the house today. If you're a visitor We'd love to meet you and have you stop your church shopping, you know That's usually what it is your church shopping, but stop the hop if you will and stay right here We would love to have you we have an amazing fall planned for you starting with next week turn your neighbor tell them next week Is there somebody in the room is it my alone is a turn your neighbor tell next week I'm gonna see you at church But at a different time Haha, these are our new service times. We're moving the 1130 to Why would we do that? Because we are jammed in between The 10 and the current today 1130 and we need a little bit more breathing room Breathing room for two things if you want to show up early and the 10 a.m. Wants to leave a little later That's okay our service times like as far as how long they run those aren't gonna shift a whole lot but we need to get the parking lot clear because some of y'all be driving into the parking lot and You were saved and you got to our parking lot and you need to get resaved By the end of my message because of what happened in the parking lot. And so we are totally back in fall mode Maybe it's early anointing Sunday was amazing last week and that really launched us into fall mode But it was such a joy to pray over everybody. But would you mark that down that it's 1145 now if you get here at 1130, that's okay Because here's why you'll actually see that there's things to do in our lobby Sign up for a group buy some merch free coffee do what you got to do and Make friends, you know all that kind of stuff until we get a bigger building I know it's gonna be tight in that lobby for a minute But God's doing great things and we would love for you to be a part of what God's doing this fall So next week, that's 1145 if you want to do the one we're gonna move it to 115 as well so we can be Okay in the dismissal time the 1145 So this is all an effort to help us with the traffic a little bit and also kids ministry So everybody can get out in a normal manner also next week. Not only just to add to it We have baptisms next week and it's gonna be a filled up Sunday

It's gonna be awesome. So all of you that I know there's many that are probably getting baptized already and already signed up But I would encourage you if you haven't taken the next step do it next week Here it is right in front of you. Grab the link at least save it for later If it's like man, there's something I want to do. Let me let me figure it out tonight Just grab that link have it open on your phone just so you at least have it but sign up We would love to baptize you next Sunday How many are ready for the Word of God? I love the Bible. I love the Word of God. I think it's I Just think it's so good for your soul to get to church get into worship and hear the Word of God It's just so good for you so it launches you into the week in the right mentality So we're in a series called talk to God. We started with anointing Sunday last week again. I hope you came So many testimonies from last Sunday. It was just amazing So we're going we're in this series called talk to God got this week and then I got next week It's all about prayer. Where am I gonna go today? I'm gonna go to a unique spot today I'm not gonna tell you like prayer 101 or anything like that. God really challenged me He brought me to Nehemiah Nehemiah if you ever heard of Nehemiah, Nehemiah is a builder he rebuilt the city of God as Rebuilt the temple Nehemiah rebuilt the city and how many know if you choose to build for God? There's gonna be opposition That comes against you. How many know there's a difference between a good thing and a God thing You could do a good thing and it's easy. You could do a God thing and it gets really hard So, how do you know it's a God thing because there's somebody else or something else or all of hell hates what you're doing and That's a God thing. And so Nehemiah is doing a God thing and he meets opposition Let's see what happens in Nehemiah 4. I'm gonna read you the first 9 verses of Nehemiah 4 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall. He became angry and raged He mocked the Jews saying in the presence of his associates in the army of Samaria again He's mocking Nehemiah and the people that are doing good. They're building What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore things themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the pile of rubble? Even though they are burned

to buy the Ammonite decided to weigh in on the Conversation as well who is beside and he added if even a fox climbs up on whatever they build Their wall of stones will crumble. We gotta work on our talk back game a little bit. My man, that was pretty weak, but that was trash talk right there. If you ever wanted to know trash talk in the Bible, that's it. I think we gotta work on it a little bit, but how do you respond when the devil trash talks, when your flesh trash talks to you? How do you respond? I love their response. They started with, listen, God. That is so mature and solid and good to say, you know what? Do I really need to respond to every contradicting voice in my life? Or do I need to talk to God about the contradicting voices in my life? The things that are coming against me, the spiritual attacks that are happening. Listen, God, look what they say. We are despised. Turn their insults to us back on their heads and make them like plunder in a captive land. Don't forgive their iniquity or blot out their sins from your sides. They have thrown insults at the builders. Here's what's really funny.

That was a little bit of a gangster prayer. I really gave them praise for being mature, but how many ever just pray your feelings? You ever just pray that, like your whole prayer life is just your feels, how you feel in that moment? That's just what happened. He said, God, I don't know what to do with them. Just kill them. Just remove them. You know what I'm saying? So this is, so it was good. It was a good first step. Part two, we got to work on refining their prayer life a little bit. But look at this. They said, we continue to build the wall and it was joined together and it reached half of its attendant height because the people were eager to work. But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, Ammonites, and the people of Ashdod heard that the work on the walls was progressing and the gaps were being closed, they got angry and they got angry again. Because when you do things for God, you're not just gonna have one spiritual attack. They gonna keep coming. The longer you go, the longer they're gonna come. They plotted together and they come fight

against Jerusalem and they created a disturbance here. We're gonna end right here. Look at this. So we prayed. What a response. Didn't fight back with words. We fought back with prayer. So we prayed to our God and we set a guard as protection against them day and night. That when you pray, you ever hear, I'm gonna pray ahead your protection. My mom always used to say that. I'm gonna pray ahead your protection around you. Which is funny, a hedge is just a bush. You know what I'm saying? My God, mom, pray something better than a bush. But what is she trying to say? We're gonna pray a surrounding of protection around you. A surrounding of protection. So this says, we pray to our God and set a guard. Some of y'all don't even know the areas you're being attacked in are unprayed areas. I haven't really, well, I prayed like a side of my mouth. I prayed a little prayer. You prayed a little prayer for a big attack? May the size of our prayer be bigger than the attack we're facing. Set a bigger guard. The enemy's only gonna attack what's valuable. So you need to pray big prayers

over what you know the enemy's after. Your kids, your family, your future, your mentality, your thinking life, your business that you build, the things that you do, the things that you got. Pray protection. So we pray, because there will be opposition. But here's what 2 Corinthians 4, eight says. We are pressed on every side, but we are not crushed. Come on, is there anybody's testimony in here? You've been pressed, but you're not crushed. Here's my title. We're gonna talk just for a few minutes on this title. Praying Under Pressure. Praying Under Pressure. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the opening of your word. God, I pray it divides between bone and marrow, between spirit and soul, God, that you speak to us so clearly that when we walk out of here, it is so concise that we understand exactly the things that you want us to know. That God, we don't live a prayerless life, but God, we're prayerful at every step of the way. That when pressures come, we pray. We pray all of this in the mighty name of Jesus. Everybody say amen. Amen. Amen, praying under pressure, praying under pressure.

What I do know is this, that every single one of us has felt pressure in life. Now, how you felt it, where you felt it come from is different, because like, if you're gonna stand on a stage and do public speaking, some people are deathly afraid of that. There's a different pressure. But I actually wanna submit to you that there's actually smaller daily pressures that we might be ignoring that happen all the time. Now, I have to go back some years for this one, but when Beckham was born, he's 10 years old now. Again, it's one thing, where's all my parents at? Where's all my parents at? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got a lot of parents in there. All right, so here's the deal. You have like, we have four boys, right? By the time you have the fourth one, you're like, we could lose him. He's gonna come back. He's a boomerang. You know what I'm saying? Three and four boomerang kids. Like they just go, they run off, but they gonna come back. They know where their resource comes from. But the first one, did you remember going from, I'm trying to get my own life together to, wow, I have another life I have to take care of.

I can barely raise me. I gotta raise this. Like to go from not parent to, it's a wild jump. That one shook me. I didn't know the pressures that would come along with having that first baby. So I'm thinking about the day and the years that we had Beckham and I wasn't ready for it. I just wasn't ready. I don't think you ever really are ready. You could be as ready as you wanna be, but when you hold, I didn't even know how to hold a baby. We had Beckham and they're like, do you wanna hold your son? I'm like, yeah, but how? How do you do this? Just everything was so new. And so we eventually, cause there's pressure. And then I'm like taking steps and I feel pressure to even walk with them. And then I remember, you remember this, driving home? There is not one person that's a bad, nobody's a good, everybody's a bad driver that day. You can't believe how bad of a driver they are. You can't believe how inconsiderate they are that they would pull in front of you. You have a newborn in your car.

How dare them? And so what, you're on pins and needles. You have pressure just driving home and then you get home and it's a different world. Now, my wife was a boss. She handled that first year so well, but I will tell you, we had some great advice. Maybe some of those that are kind of getting into this world, I'll give you some advice. Somebody told me, they said, hey, look, it's your wife's job to keep the baby alive. It's your job to keep your wife alive. Hey, write that down. That's gonna be good for somebody. And I was like, that's actually really good because the mom is really a lot of the sustenance of what a baby needs in that first year. And so you almost, as men, we kind of feel helpless a little bit at times and I did wanna help and I wanted to be a part, but also I was really bad at it at the same time. So I wanted to get out of her way, but there was moments and then, you know, they sleep in the bassinet, they sleep with you. So Beckham's sleeping next to us for the first few months, but eventually got to the day where he was, you know, months later, months later, of course, he got his own crib and we got to put him in his crib. All right, big day. And this is a day also where Lindsay's like,

all right, you put him in the bassinet. I put him in the bassinet before, he's falling asleep on me, but I had never put him in the crib before. This is a different experience for all of my parents and all of my people that have never done this to try to drop a baby in a crib. I don't know what it is. I thought it was easy. This is day one. I'm just, this is therapy. I need to talk to you about this. I got to relive this. And so I remember having Beckham and I'm holding him and he's a few months old at this point. And so he's sleeping because Lindsay's like, I need you to put him down. And I was like, man, this is going to be a tough night. You know what I'm saying? He's probably not going to go to sleep. I'm not good at this. You know, there's just some things you're gifted. I ain't gifted at this. And I was like, I'll do my best, right? I'll do my best. And how many know when you're putting a baby down, it's a little bit kind of like an atomic bomb, right? If you move one wrong way and baby wakes up, you ain't sleeping that night. You ain't sleeping, baby's back in the bed with you, game over.

So I knew that night's sleep was riding on my performance. I got it, I got it. So I got to crush this. And so I remember he finally fell asleep in my arms, but the problem is my wife has like a really, have you ever met her? She has like the longest wingspan in the world. Her arms are so long and it's amazing because our kids like, you know, athletics, it's like their wingspan's awesome. I have normal arms. So I didn't realize she bought some like cool looking crib that had some higher walls on it. And I thought my bend over drop game was gonna be just fine. But I got up and you don't know, because you don't go up and practice to a crib, right? You don't go up and like, let me just practice. Yeah, oh, I totally got it. No, you don't bend over a crib until you have to bend over a crib. So I'm having, I'm holding Beckham, he's asleep, but every move matters. Every move matters. And so I get to the crib and I'm like, all right, I'm bending over. And I realized I can't go any further. And there ain't nothing I can do to get lower. And my arms are not touching his bed, which means I have a decision to make.

Oh, you know that decision. He can either be pulled back up. I can, you know, bring him back to our bed or it's drop zone, baby. We about to drop him. I just, I don't, you know, we're going to release him to the Lord right now. I'm just, I don't know what's going to happen. This is real. And so I got as low and I tried to go back a couple of times. I'm like, what's wrong with me? Like, why can't I do this? And I could only get so far. I think it was this high walls, low bed. I don't know what it was. And I was about a foot away from the bed. I'm like, you know what? I'll take my chances. And I'm bending over. So I'm like, all right. How many of y'all, it's a good time to pray. Jesus, help him. And then I just pray he sleeps and I just let go. Boom. And I just ran out of that joint. You know what I'm saying? I was out. Let him go. Dropped him. He's fine.

He's fine. He's 10 now. He's totally normal. And here's what's funny. It's like, I would have never chalked up all of those many pressures just to put a child to sleep at night. How about the first time? I can't even get into all the stories. How about the first time years ago, Lindsey said, you go pick the kids up. I'm like, sure, that's fine. What did you just pull up and pick the kids up? No, there's a line. What do you mean there's a line? Yeah, there's a pickup line, but make sure you don't get in the wrong line. There's multiple. There's a wrong line and a right line. And so don't drive over the cones. You'll get kicked back to the back end of the line. I'm like, what's going on here? I just want to get my child. I can't tell you, but yes, I went on the wrong side of the cones. I had to start over. I had to go back to go. It was just one of those things. There's pressures. I would have never thought.

Here's what's funny about me. I grew up in a big ministry family, big church. I learned to preach in front of 2000 people, learned. So this is riding a bike. Me talking to you, we're hanging out, giving you the word of the Lord. I love studying. I love doing this. So pressures came in that sense. I played sports. How many of you play sports? There's pressures, especially if you're one of the players that the team relies on. You feel that, man, okay, they really need me to perform well. But then there's other pressures. I'm not after those pressures that I was just talking about because those are platform pressures. I think those are only pressures that are the big moments in life. I got the big interview, but typically daily, you wouldn't have a big interview every single day. You would have like one and every whatever. So like you get like the realization, like maybe pressure is just made for certain big, elaborative, significant moments. I'd actually submit to you

that it's made for every moment. That if we don't manage our daily pressures well, you will become someone that is further from God than you could ever imagine. Because if you do not confront your pressures, your pressures will shape who you become. Your pressures will talk to you. The stress will get to you. And be like, I don't even know why I'm having anxiety attack. Because you let too many pressures run your life. Man, I don't know why I still deal with alcoholism. Because you think you can numb the pressures away. And you have these things in your life, you're like, man, I can drink it away. You can't. Numbing is not a good freedom. Like you can't just numb your way to freedom. You can't ignore your way to freedom. You can't overlook some of these things in your life. You're gonna have to confront it and say, man, I got some things going on in my life. Now I got a family. Man, I have a job. Man, I gotta take care of my family. Moms, I gotta uphold a household. Whatever it is, you feel the heaviness and the weight of that thing. But you cannot let the pressures of life pause your prayer life.

Because if you do, you will stop praying and you'll start being controlled by the pressure you feel. Can we talk about a real pressure that we feel every day? It's the pressure of personal disappointment. Ooh, this one's gonna be all up in your kitchen. You know what personal disappointment is? This age, I should be doing this thing, making this much money, married like this with this many kids. I'm 30-something now and I should. I'm 40-something now and I'm 50-something and I'm 60. I should. And we get this crazy mentality that we're not where we should be. Who told you that? At what point did you subscribe to a life where you were constantly gonna be disappointed because you thought God wasn't doing enough in your life? You only prayed for him to do things and never prayed to get his heart. And so now you're left with a life that you think is a failure. Now you're left with a life that you think is not good enough. And you should be further. And you should be further down the road of success. And you should have built and you should have done. And you, really? Who told you all that?

Maybe you got on social media, okay? Maybe you have a social media theology. and you watch somebody else's life. But friend, didn't God say you run your own race? You don't run at their pace. So now you're out here watching somebody else's life unfold, wishing it was yours? That's crazy. You should desire the fullness of God in your life more than the social media highlights of theirs. You know, I don't want what they have. God, thank you for giving them what they have. But God, I want everything that my name is attached to. I want everything that my family is attached, I want everything that's in my heritage and in my legacy. I want generational blessings, not generational curses. And I have this personal disappointment. You live with personal disappointment. You go to coffee and somehow you can't even talk about how your week went. It just leads back to, I don't know, I'm 24 and I should be married and I'm on all the apps. And that's probably the problem. Get off the apps and stop ordering the apps. You know what I'm saying? Stop going to Applebee's, order the app, you know what I'm saying? Y'all didn't catch it. I'm trying to help you get your fall body ready. Is that even a thing?

I don't know. But here we are, just out here, swiping right and eating right. You know what I'm saying? We're doing both. Just God, I'm just, I trust you. I trust you with my spouse. He's cute. Trust has become nothing but a vernacular to you. I trust God. No, your prayer life is your source to the living God. But you have this personal disappointment thing going on in your life. I should be further. Can I just bust that whole thought in your life? You shouldn't be further. Here's why. You're in church at noon. You're not at lunch. Maybe you already ate. You know what you did last year, last week, three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. You know what your past consists of. And you in the house of God. And you were singing that song, worshiping. And now you're leaning into the word of God. And now you're doing your best to hear from God. To say that you should be further is to tell God he's not doing his job. In fact, reality would say you should be further back.

You shouldn't even be this far. But for the grace of God, he stepped in. But for the hand of God, he intervened. He jumped in and said, no, not on my watch. You have a plan. You have a purpose. If you're still breathing, he's got something for you. So I know you wanna be further, but trust me, if you're walking with God, he's got you right where he wants you. So every time we tell God, I should be further along, I pray God reminds you of where you came from. And what you used to do. And what kind of life you used to live. Even if it wasn't Christian life, you used to live a Christian watered down life. And now you're doing your best to be alive in Christ. Now you're doing your best to stay fired up for Christ. And live on the edge of your purpose. And live on the edge of the calling of God that's on your life. Now you're doing a little bit. So yes, I know we all have an innate desire to do more, but do not let that desire steal your contentment for what God is doing in the present. For he is working great things into your life right now. He's gonna take all the ingredients of every bad decision you've ever made. I promise you, he'll turn it for your good. He will take all those ingredients.

Everything that you're rehearsing over and over and over again, God is using as ingredients. So I wanna lean into what God is doing. And how do I do that? I don't let pressures shape me. I don't let spiritual attacks shape me. Why are we making permanent decisions while facing temporary battles? You're acting as if this battle, spiritual attack thing that's coming against you is always gonna be there. It comes and goes, friends. Your prayer life should not come and go. Your prayer life should be stable, a force to be reckoned with. This is what Nehemiah did. He said, man, I'm tasked to be a builder. I'm gonna build for God. I'm gonna go for God. That's what you're doing. You're saying yes to God with your life. You can relate with Nehemiah in a lot of ways. God, here's my life. Take me forward. Do great things through my life. And by the way, the moment you pray, do great things with my life, God, pressure is inevitable because pressure reveals what's in you.

It doesn't just take from you. It actually reveals you. So if God really needs to figure out you really made of, well, let's put gold into the fire and let's figure out if the gold's real. Let's put your faith into the fire and figure out was your faith lip service or was it a life commitment? It's the difference. We don't want that kind of faith because it means I have to go through some things. And I don't want to go through things either. I'm in the same boat with you, but here's what I know. You're going to go through it, but it's not forever. There's another side. God's writing a story. Don't take the pen from his hand. Let him still be the author and the finisher. Let him still be the alpha and the omega. Let him still be the beginning and the end. And he knows everything in between. Let God keep writing. How do I do that? You got to pray. Because when you pray, you're talking to God. You're learning who God is. This is exactly what Nehemiah did. They started kind of the pressure coming against him. I'm doing things for God. Shouldn't this be easy? No.

Welcome to having a target on your back. Welcome to every turn that you make with God, something coming against you. The first year that we planted this church, I was telling somebody the other day, I was like, these days, I do pretty well with health. I stay pretty healthy. The first year, I was sick like 98 times. It was crazy. I didn't even know what it was, whether it was food poisoning, whether it was a virus, whether it was something going on. It was this crazy thing. And so what happened was the devil tried to stop us from moving here by doing everything else. He says, I've run out of things. Now I'm just going to make them sick. I said, fine, that's fine with me. Let me get some Dayquil and I'm still going to preach. Because at some time, you got to figure out in your life, I'm going to be persistent. I'm going to pray down heaven and I'm going to pray protection over my life. I started to figure out, if you want to attack my health devil, guess how I'm going to start praying. I'm going to pray for a healthy family. I'm going to pray for a healthy body. I'm going to pray for a healthy mind and pray protection. At some point, you got to get that kind of fire

to say, you know what? If I don't pray about it, we're going to get attacked in that area. May attacks not be the revelation we need to pray. Some of y'all didn't pray until you were attacked. God says, would you pray before it ever happens? Because I want to keep you. God wants to sustain you. God knows you. God loves you. God's got a plan for you. But he knows, have you ever seen this happen? He knows that spiritual attacks make humans kind of quirky sometimes. It gets you off your path. Somebody that was completely spiritually normal, all of a sudden is kind of spiritually kooky. You're like, what happened to you? Oh, I went through some things. It's like, what things did you go through, man? I don't want to go through them, you know? We have to pray. Which was crazy is I don't have a relationship with my wife just because we said I do at the altar, right? Like that's called a covenant. Covenant, we went to the altar, we said I do before God, before men. That's a covenant. You know where the relational factor comes in? When we communicate.

It's a covenant because we said I do. It's a relationship because we talk. When Christ gave his blood on the cross for you and me, that's a covenant. When you got saved, raise your hand, you prayed the prayer, whatever you did, and however you got saved and arrived at salvation, that's a covenant. Just because you've walked into covenant with God doesn't mean you have a relationship with God. You gotta open your mouth. You gotta tell him what's on your heart. Well, he knows everything. Yeah, but you don't, and you need to talk to the one who knows everything. Open your life to him. It's not just gonna happen magically. It's gonna happen prayerfully. I wonder what we don't have in our life because we fail to pray about those things. Talk to him. Tell him what you feel. Didn't they do that in Nehemiah? They said, hey, you know what these haters, God? Lightning bolt them all. Strike them. Insults back on their heads. Did God interrupt their prayer? He let them get their feelings out. Why?

Because at least they're processing in the right place. Man, we run into bad outlets to get right information. We're trying to post on Instagram to get people to pity about what we're going through. Don't complain, pray. Don't gossip, pray. Don't talk to more people, pray. But if you're gonna do all that, if you're gonna talk to others, that's fine. Have a community, pray first. You know, I used to have meetings and they would come in my office and they have so many problems. Whether they were interns back in the day. What else you've been is whatever they'd have so many problems Pastor what do I do? I need advice for all nine problems. You just Heard from me and I'm like fantastic. Your life's going great. Here's what I think Did you pray about any of them? Well, I kind of said God help me. No, no, no, no, not like praying over your Taco Bell because you ate the lettuce like And that's exactly whatever you don't say you got warned you still ate it and then you pray to get healed like what are we doing? Prayer comes first. You would have never went to the drive-thru. You know I'm saying That's a good word right there There are some drive-thrus. They all just be driving through because you didn't pray first and I'm not talking about fast food anymore so anyways At some point You're gonna have to pray first Then process second Big word big word we Let's be honest process first

Out loud too, by the way. Oh, oh we want everybody to hear my processing. I need you to know I need you to hear I need you to see on my gram My Facebook and my myspace here it is I Changed my profile song to an emo song. I'm sad myspace. Yeah. Yeah We're like, I wonder how Timmy's doing check his myspace. Ooh That's a that's a rough one And and we process then we pray What are we doing? pray and Then you'll realize when you pray God helps you process And then by the way when you pray not only will you process with God you actually get some wisdom in the process Well, like man, I would have never thought to do that. This is the whole typical situation of don't take the job pray first Just because you got offered doesn't mean it's God Even good things can be a distraction to the kingdom of God So I have to take everything and submit it to God first Instead of the other way, which is let me just go for it It looks like it's a good thing for my career then when I get into trouble God I need you to save me from the decision. I didn't I didn't bring you in on Months ago when I probably should have asked you So I've had this over and over so the girl who had like all these problems. I said, did you even pray? No Not really everything got to bring it to God the pressures you feel the valley you're in the struggles you're going through the Diagnosis that you either have might get you got to bring it to God in prayer Because it's not talking it's not gonna do anything to a talk is cheap Some of y'all just got to learn a statement. You know what the statement is in the name of Jesus You got to get your pointer finger out for that one too in the name y'all got to stop pointing it at your spouse to in In the name of Jesus

Move that mountain in the name of Jesus open that door Before you plead with God plead the blood over it Plead with you. No, I plead the blood Why he's already bought it. He already gave it. It's on your side in the name of Jesus I love this so Nehemiah they get to the bottom of it and says so we prayed love that statement It's a beautiful story of opposition in the face of you doing exactly what you were called to do which was build You're a builder. You're a builder Did you know that when you are a builder for God? Which is you're a mover you're a shaker things are gonna happen because you're gonna at least take a step forward God's gonna direct your steps, you know when when when you are that You are on hell's greatest hit list Because Hell can take sitting Christians, but ones that have faith to move forward You won't have some things happen So here's what I love but when you pray because Nehemiah heard you can actually read it in Nehemiah 1 4 He heard that the city was in ruins And he could have said you know what? It's not my problem Your problem It actually said it moved him so deeply that the city of God was in ruins That he wept Then after he wept He got up, he fasted, and he prayed. There's two different decisions you can make. One, you might weep over it no matter what, but you can stay sitting, or you can rise and pray. There are things that you're gonna go through that are gonna cause you to cry, but you've been crying for five years about the same thing.

You're gonna weep over it, I know. There are things that, this is life, friends. This is life. We are all going to cry over something. We're all gonna be hurt. We're all gonna get moved by something we didn't wanna get moved by. But those pressures do not need to reshape who you are. Bring them to God, rise and pray. You know what moved him? Not his will to be great. Prayer moved him. Prayer moved him. Prayer doesn't move God to you. It moves you to God. You think prayer is some manipulation tool? We gotta stop using it like that, friends. It is not your spare tire that you need when you run out of gas and you ran over a nail, now you're out of a tire. God, I need you. No, it's my first response, not my last resort. I go to God often, all the time. I don't go to God in moments, by the way. Praying over food and then praying over a problem and then praying over, my prayer life is always open. So you get to the end of Nehemiah 4, 1 through 9, 4-9, it says, so we prayed. Some of y'all don't even know what else to do, pray. You're at the end of the road, pray.

I have no human, earthly wisdom left in this scenario. Fast, pray. You tell me to fast in the fall? Yep, right in the fall, right before the Cowboys start, get skinny. You won't eat a lot of nachos, I'm sure when they start playing anyways, and then you're gonna stress eat anyway. Not this year. You know what? Were you at last service? You know what I said last service, it's so funny? I said, I wish I could preach like Cowboys fans. And now you get it, now you gonna get it too, because she decided to crack open the egg. So here we go. I said, you know why? Cause you Cowboys fans, right here. You got your hat and your t-shirt on. Right, stand up for us, right, well, watch this, watch this. You won a pre-season game and you came logoed out. All right, shut up, sit down. Why do I want to preach like a Cowboys fan? Because have you ever talked to one? Delusionally hope-filled, that's how I want to preach. I'm delusional, but I got hope. How you feel about the, it's our year. Every year, it's our year. Don't talk to me at game seven, talk to me now. Oh, don't start shouting your teams,

we're not gonna do that. But here's the deal, like there's a reality to that. Fasting and praying. Like, it's setting your life aside and say, you know what God, am I just complaining about this area? Or am I praying about this area? That's a big deal. Cause a lot of people think their complaint life is synonymous to a prayer life. They think because they complain out loud, God just, oh yeah, that's a prayer. No, prayer is a petition to where you go to God. Well, I prayed about it once, but the Bible says, keep knocking, keep seeking, keep looking, keep asking, and watch what's gonna happen. Also, the Bible says, you know what my dad taught me one of my favorite scriptures? You have not because you ask not. Have not, not because of your lifestyle. That's what's funny, it's not you have not because everything that you thought you did in life and that's disqualified you. God's up there like, no, you have not cause you ask not. There are some things my kids keep asking, I just give it to them because they get annoying. I'm like, y'all gotta stop asking me, oh my goodness. Just take the banana, whatever you gotta do, get out of here. And so at some point, when is that gonna happen? When's that trigger gonna happen? When are you gonna get that persistent again?

Here's what I love, let me end with this thought because we got to, you know, Nehemiah 4, 9, right? Where it says, so we prayed. Well, what happened? Let's go to a few verses later, Nehemiah 4, 14. Post-prayer, look what happens to their perspective post-prayer, Nehemiah 4, 14. Then as I looked. the situation. It's coming up, I promise. It's happening. In the name of Jesus, touch the screen. Don't be like the cowboys and disappear. Okay. I can do that all day. I can get a rise out of y'all, get you so angry, and then you got to pray for forgiveness. Then as I looked over the situation, this is post-prayer, post-prayer, not pre, post-prayer. As I looked over the situation, because a lot of you only look over the situation in your own carnal mind and on your own thinking and your own finite wisdom. After praying, they looked over the situation. I called together everybody, the rest of the people, and they said to them, don't be afraid of the enemy. Remember the Lord who is great and glorious and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, your homes. After prayer, they said, hey, I've seen God. I know how to process now. Now that I've seen him, don't be afraid of the enemy. This is part one that you'll see. When you pray, your fear is eliminated. You're not afraid of whatever the enemy can bring. Also, it says, remember the Lord. It reminds you of who God is, who is great and glorious. Then I love this last part. Fight for what's yours. It gives you a fight. Prayer gives you a little bit of a fight in your bones. You've been laying down recently. You've been letting the enemy push you around, but I need some people to become what my mom always used to call a prayer warrior, to rise up and say, not in my house, not in this season, devil. You are not going to win in my purpose. There is something better coming for me. I believe my best days are my next days. I believe you're about to do a miracle. I need some faith-filled speech in the room, but it only comes through a prayer life. A prayer life that says, I feel the pressure, but I'm going to pray anyway. Amen. I'm going to pray for you. Can you stand to your feet? In Jesus' name. Come on. In the name of Jesus. We've got to start using that more often. In the name of Jesus. Can you bow your heads?

I feel like God is going to ignite something in you this morning. God, would you ignite a passion for prayer? Sometimes it gets tired. If I can be honest, sometimes you just get tired. Do I really need to pray about this one? Do I really need to set aside a time, time aside for this one? And God, I pray that we have such a heart for prayer, that we will realize it's not what we want from you. We just want you. Prayer brings us to you. So God, we're sorry for, for almost diminishing prayer, almost out of our lives and just living without it until we need it. God, prayer is the lifeline for our souls today. Our spirits need it. Our minds need it. Our families need us prayerful. And God, today I join my brothers and sisters and we pray protection around our lives, around our family, around our work, around our business, around the next decisions we're about to make. God, we need your clarity. We need to pray again. So when we leave this place, I pray you ignite a prayer life that every time that we feel pressure may be the great reminder that you are the one who handles all pressure and that we will pray just like in the garden to Gethsemane, when you were under heavy pressure, Jesus, you prayed, may we be more like you and choose to pray at all times. So God, we give it to you right now. That's what we're going to do. We're going to give it to you right now. We're giving it to you. Every miracle, every need, every problem, we give it to you in the name of Jesus. We're not going to stress about it anymore. We're not going to worry about it anymore. We're not going to have anxiety attacks about it anymore. We're not going to get depressed about it anymore. We're not going to have personal disappointment. God, free us from personal disappointment in the name of Jesus. I pray, God, you lift the burden off the room and we will walk free and light and we will see how good you are. Now, if you're in this room, I got one more question for you. Are you right with Jesus Christ? Before we leave and we run out of here and you go continue your life, I want to make sure that you understand time is not promised to us. We need to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior. And if you don't know where you would spend eternity, let's make sure right now. And if you want to pray this prayer, when I get to three, would you lift your hands and confess your father before man? Ready? One, as hands are already going up two, if you want to get saved and pray this prayer three, would you lift your hands if that's you? Thank you. That's amazing. Amazing, amazing. I see all of your hands. I see so many hands.

Praise God for you. Praise God for your yes. Let's pray this together. Simple prayer, but powerful one. Say, Jesus, save me. Heal me. Restore me. Resurrect me. I believe in you. I believe in your cross. And I believe you rose again. Today, give me new life. In Jesus' name. Come on, a big amen. Come on, all my prayer warriors, all my people that are not gonna give into pressure this week. Jesus' name. Man, I love what God's doing in our house. Every week, God's doing incredible work in our souls. If you need prayer, come on down. But before you run out of here, why don't we read this declaration together? And just a reminder, 11.45 next Sunday. Let's read this. I believe what God has spoken over my life. His word will not return void. This year, we'll reveal his faithfulness. This year, we'll produce fruit. This year, we'll be filled with miracles.

In his timing and by his power. Come on. God's gonna do it. We love you. 11.45 next Sunday. Baptisms next Sunday. And the best is yet to come.