Becoming the most powerful influential people on earth! Part 2

Who do you think are the most powerful influential people on earth? (Review from last week)

 

Politicians

Entertainers

Businessmen

Athletes

Scientist

 

Who? Each of these are influential in their own way but I believe there is another group of people who are the most influential people in the world.

 

Those who prayed and

 

– the iron curtain came down

– Isis was stopped

– Hitler was stopped

– the Mon Valley will be changed

 

Prayer is one of the keys to life for a Christian but for many, it becomes a drudgery or an exercise in futility

 

During the sermon on the mount, the disciples had often noticed Jesus praying they recognized the impact of His prayers and asked, “Teach us how to do what you do when you pray”

 

Luke 11:1-4

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

On earth, as it is in heaven.

3 Give us day by day our daily bread.

4 And forgive us our sins,

For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

And do not lead us into temptation,

 But deliver us from the evil one.”

This is a beautiful prayer but meant to be a pattern rather than a rote prayer and teaches us to understand how to see the mountains moved.

 

Last week we talked about to have an effective prayer we must understand

 

– God as Father

– have honor and respect for who he is

– we have to live and be Kingdom minded – we have to move from a self-centered mindset to a God-centered mindset and in the process, God will meet all of our needs as we are focused on Hid Kingdom needs

 

Today we need to visit this part of the prayer

 

Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth, as it is in heaven.

 

To become the most influential people we must live God’s Kingdom as we pray for it…we must “do” God’s Kingdom

 

When the world says, “What does the Kingdom of God look like?” they should be able to look at the church and say, “Oh that’s what it looks like!”

 

So what are we to model Romans 14:17

“for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

 

It is righteousness first, apart from righteousness there can be no peace or no joy.

 

Think about it many organizations march for peace, but bring none. many try to find happiness (joy) in so many things but find none

 

There can be no peace, no joy without righteousness first.

 

In fact, one of the signs of the anti-Christ will be that he will proclaim “peace and safety” 1 Thessalonians 5:3

 

“For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.”

 

There can be no real peace without righteousness.  The world needs an example of righteousness….if the world does not see an example of righteousness they can never come to Christ, they will have no hope, they have no opportunity to truly come to freedom…this is not how God works….I have said this many times but there are still multiple voices out there that do not read their Bible but they say “look at the signs of this and that” but Jesus said these are going to come but this is not the end…the end will only come after the whole world will have had the opportunity to accept or reject Christ…that will only happen if they can see Jesus in us and apart from righteousness they will not see Him.Matthew 24:14

 

So when we are praying for the Kingdom we need to realize we must have right thinking (thinking like Jesus) right actions (acting like Jesus) and right language (talking like Jesus) to change the world we need the Kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven but that happens only by the world seeing Jesus in our thinking, actions, and language.

 

How do we develop that?Simply reading God’s word, living God’s word, and praying God’s word

 

The Bible is the love letter of truth and freedom to the world. The world thinks they know what the Bible says. Many Christians believe they know what the Bible says but in most cases it has not been read let alone studied

 

You can not live righteously and allow bitterness, laziness, guilt, fear, prejudice, anger, greed, hatred, bondage control you

 

His truth causes us to be ambassadors of hope, love, joy, peace, grace, and freedom but we must walk in the Kingdom truth to bring it

 

So when you pray, “Your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’…it is not this nebulous prayer it is us acting on God’s word living the Kingdom, righteousness, peace, and joy

 

This is a key reason many Christian’s prayer life is anemic and many prayers go unanswered.

 

It is simply getting real with our walk of faith.

 

We should never be surprised that the world system is getting worse and worse that corruption grows greater every day, that sin is more rampant that mindsets are so anti God

 

If you read your Bible this has all been stated and prophesied BUT

 

We are called to be light, salt and the city set on the hill

 

Isaiah 60:2,3

Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth, but the glory of the Lord rises and appears over you. 3 All nations will come to your light; mighty kings will come to see your radiance.

 

No matter how dark the earth becomes it is not a negative thing for those of us in faith because that is where the light shines the brightest people can see the hope, joy, love, and freedom more clearly

 

Romans 5:20, 21

God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us righteousness, right standing, with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Sin is going to grow more and more, brokenness will cause more and more sin. We see it in families all of the time but where there is more and more sin, God’s grace is even greater but notice it is once again righteousness that makes the difference

 

The kingdom of God we are praying for is, righteousness that can then allow peace and joy that is real and the darkness is overcome.

 

Where are you today?

 

Can you pray His Kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven and expect it to happen in your life? Do you have areas in your life where your influence is limited because of a lack of right thinking, right actions, and right language?

God’s heart is that you walk in the light that personally you have hope, joy, peace, love, and freedom always and are then able to bring others to the same.

 

God wants you to walk this way…most of our lack of walking in righteous is because of pain, rejection hurts from our past..allow the Lord to embrace you and bring healing to you

 

 

 

Becoming the most powerful influential people on earth

Who do you think are the most powerful influential people on earth?

 

Politicians

Entertainers

Businessmen

Athletes

Scientist

 

Who? Each of these are influential in their own way but I believe there is another group of people who are the most influential people in the world.

 

Those who prayed and

 

– the iron curtain came down

– Isis was stopped

– Hitler was stopped

– the Mon Valley will be changed

 

Prayer is one of the keys to life for a Christian but for many, it becomes a drudgery or an exercise in futility

 

During the sermon on the mount, the disciples had often noticed Jesus praying they recognized the impact of His prayers and asked, “Teach us how to do what you do when you pray”

 

Luke 11:1-4

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

On earth, as it is in heaven.

3 Give us day by day our daily bread.

4 And forgive us our sins,

For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

And do not lead us into temptation,

But deliver us from the evil one.”

This is a beautiful prayer but meant to be a pattern rather than a rote prayer and teaches us to understand how to see the mountains moved.

 

It all begins with what do you believe about your relationship to God? If we are speaking to someone to whom we are unfamiliar how do we know our request will even be heard? How do we know if heard that it will be taken seriously?

 

Until this moment in time God was known as “I AM, God the provider, protector, judge,” but Jesus showed us the Father

 

John 14:10,11

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”

 

John 15:15

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

 

It is the relationship first that causes prayer to work so Jesus teaches us to pray by saying

 

“Our Father”

 

He is not just any Father but He is our Father. There is an intimacy, in that we believe He truly knows and loves us as “our Father” He adores us as His children…we are the same DNA it is seen in the fruit of the Spirit.

 

We recognize how much He loved us because of the sacrifice He made of His own Son!

 

So when we are preparing to come to him and we want to see the world changed it must be to a person who really knows us and that we truly know…we have His heartbeat and He has ours…seeing things happen is easy because of relationship and expectation of things happening is natural because of relationship.

 

We have a genuine Father and the real power behind Him is His love!

 

Once we recognize Him as our loving heavenly Father we have to take another step if we want to come to a place of answered prayer and changing the world

 

“Hallowed be your name”

 

I know this is an odd and archaic phraseology. However, as know we are loved by God and he is our Father we must recognize a reverence and respect for him…If a president, (pick your favorite one) walked into this room would you keep chatting, would you ignore him, would you go up to him with a snarky comment? Would you go to him with your list of demands or would you be quiet, wait for him to speak, would you want to hear what he had to say, would you be willing to discuss with him your needs and listen to his response….would you honor him….Moses took off his shoes…a centurion felt unworthy for Jesus to come to his home. It is not really about actions as much as it is heart….but our actions reveal our heart…when you are coming to the Lord are you recognizing that He is your Lord, in other words, are you in His word, do you honor him with the way you talk, your actions toward others, daily working on your stuff to become more like Him

 

Colossians 3:17

“And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.”

 

When we honor God we recognize his role in our lives, that He really is Lord and we reflect that in all we do. So when we come to him in prayer our hearts are already in a position to share His heart for the world, our communities, our families, and our lives….as we honor the Lord he hears and answers our prayers and at the same time as we live a life that honors the Lord we see our prayers being answered as we have grown to have His heart for every situation in our lives

 

Next are two types of requests the first being

 

Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 

You have heard me share about this verse recently. We are the ones who live and love in such a way to bring to release the Kingdom in the lives of others all around….His Kingdom brings love joy, peace, hope, freedom and so much more and we have it in our hearts.

Jesus’ purpose in telling us to pray His kingdom come first is a faith walk.

 

Matthew 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. NKJV

 

When mankind fell we went from being “God-relationship” centered to being self-centered….seeking God’s kingdom first does a couple of critical things

 

  • It shows the Lord we are returning to God-centeredness
  • It shows the Lord that we trust him with all the stuff we need

 

When we are praying God’s Kingdom come we are asking for the hope, the love, the joy, the peace all the things man tries to create but is unable to….God’s Kingdom established will ultimately meet every need of every person

 

Most of what we think we need is only a poor substitute for what God already has for us in the Kingdom

 

– His kingdom will supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory

– His Kingdom brings right relationships through real love…God is love

– His kingdom allows us to have the fullness of days and success because he placed his dreams and visions in us to fulfill.

 

We serve in social service ways to meet the needs of people and this shows our love of both God and man but when we are talking about the Kingdom we are talking about changing the hearts of mankind Let me give you an example of what I mean….before I say this I am not against a strong defense, our military or police but this gives you a different take

 

25,000 children on average die every week from malnourishment and poor sanitation yet if even a portion of the money spent on armaments were to be available for proper water, hospitals, and sanitation we could put an end to these needless deaths

 

I am by no means promoting disarmament but it is fear, greed, and hatred that cause the spending of this disproportionate amount of funds…If the Kingdom were established in our world; peace, love, joy would replace greed, fear, and hatred.

 

No one can solve the problems of this world as believer’s we can bring the solution to this world….as we pray then take action and watch God take action the Kingdom of God will be established

 

See it needs to begin in our hearts first…we can’t change a world if these things don’t live in our hearts…so when we come to God we must come first with our hearts in line with His Kingdom if so we will change the world….more on this next week

 

Today do you know him as loving, caring Father?

 

Is your heart in line with His heart in living like you honor Him?

 

Is your heart in line with the Kingdom or are you still living in fear, bitterness, jealousy, envy, hatred, and anger? Today lets get it right let’s make your prayers and your life world changing

 

 

 

 

Start small dream big!

Start small but dream big!

WE are so caught up in this election but I want to encourage you that there is something more important than this election, a more important power shift than president, and Jesus talked about it

Matthew 13:31,32

Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.”

The whole time Jesus walked the earth His mind was set on the Kingdom, the people loved to hear about the Kingdom.

Here is the prophesy about Jesus beginning.

Isaiah 53:2

 Like a young plant or a root that sprouts in dry ground, the servant grew up obeying the Lord. He wasn’t some handsome king. Nothing about the way he looked made him attractive to us.

God loves to take small insignificant things or moments and turn them into something powerful.

– That chance meeting,

– a short conversation,

– a word of encouragement.

, God can take people the world looks at as insignificant and turn them into something amazing

– Charles Haddon Spurgeon the greatest theologian and preacher in England in the 19th century was rejected by Regents college as not being someone of value for ministry.

– Walt Disney was fired from a local newspaper for not having an adequate imagination.

– Michael Jordan was cut from his High school basketball team

BTW both men claim faith in Christ.

This is part of the purpose of this parable to show that God can take the most insignificant event, or most insignificant person and make it or them, something amazing in the Kingdom.

Jesus said

Matthew 18:3,4

Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

A child is innocent, trusting and obedient to the Father

Matthew 20:25-27

But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 26 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.

The servant isn’t worried about accolades, the servant sees a need and meets it but God sees the heart and the need being met

The mustard seed like a child is small and insignificant but the only way to be effective in the Kingdom is to recognize your greatness only through Him.

Paul said this about the early church

1 Corinthians 1:26-30

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,

It’s not that God can use the powerful or wealthy but they are a rare breed who can humble themselves to serve the Body of Christ and the Lord

Romans 8:28 says

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

It is not we, ourselves, that cause the growth but when we are submitted to God serving Him He cause all things to work together for good

What are you dreams today?

You have placed yourself into the greatest Kingdom ever and your dreams are only limited to what God can do

120 people changed the world.

Our nation was founded on the principles of Jesus

This great tree is not only to be a blessing to you, but to reach the world.

Jesus uses this to further emphasize and reflect, the prophetic word that Ezekiel gave in chapter 17: 22,23

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take a branch from the top of a tall cedar, and I will plant it on the top of Israel’s highest mountain. 23 It will become a majestic cedar, sending forth its branches and producing seed. Birds of every sort will nest in it, finding shelter in the shade of its branches.

Our walking and living in the kingdom by Kingdom principles will enable:

  1. Insignificant events and people to become significant
  2. Us to allow God to do amazing work through us
  3. Great dreams to be created and fulfilled, things we could not do in ourselves
  4. As we see in Ezekiel vision that Jesus was pointing to, the birds are other nations, other people, people outside our comfort zones that will be impacted by our walking in Kingdom principles

What are those principles?

  1. Become as a child, innocent trusting surrendering to the love and authority of the Father
  2. Want to be great become a better servant of God, see a need meet the need