Purity And Unity In Revival Prayer

We're in Colorado Springs at the base of Pikes Peak. It's called America's Mountain, and at the summit of Pikes Peak, a mighty woman of God by the name of Catherine, she wrote the poem, Catherine Bates, which became known as America the Beautiful Song. And what a beautiful song it is to remind us of who God is and who we are in Him. And I guess I wear three ministry hats, but it's all connected. For the last 13 years, I've been working with others to gather intercessors on a conference called prayer, and we call our prayer call Prayer Surge Now. And so Dan was on it last week to promote what we're doing this weekend, and that's been amazing, praying with incredible intercessors across the nation for these 13 years. And then on Tuesday and Thursdays, I have another prayer call with a different number in code that I inherited from a ministry partner who went home to be with the Lord in December, and it's called Transform USA National Prayer Call. And we've been having a series since last August 11th. Every Tuesday, every Thursday, we are praying for spiritual awakening in a different region across America. And we're going to be doing this until Election Day, but we always remind one another that God wants us to enter into a spiritual awakening in Him. He wants to pour His Spirit upon us, and that elections ought not to be our priority. It is important that we pray for the elections and the next four years of America, but what we need more than anything else is a spiritual awakening in our land. And Dan, when we get to West Virginia, I'll call upon you and see if you could provide us with some prayer points for spiritual awakening in West Virginia. And then I also serve as a national prayer coordinator for Promise Keepers. And what's really interesting is that back in the late 70s, American Christians became desperate. We cried out to the Lord. The Lord extended the Jesus movement a few more years. He even gave us a great godly president by the name of Ronald Reagan. But in my estimation, the 80s was one of the greatest, we saw one of the greatest declines in the church. I think that the church went to sleep thinking that this godly president would take care of us, and we were wrong. He did his job, but by and large, the church went to sleep, which gave us a desperation for the rise of Promise Keepers. I'm not talking about the ministry of Promise Keepers, which was launched in 1990, but we saw the greatest men's movement in the 1990s. And Promise Keepers, in partnership with Jesus Christ, believes that in the 2020s, men are even more desperate. And we want to see millions of men transformed, not only in our nation, but around the world, with desperate cries for the Lord. And you know, throughout my life of ministries, I've been in huge prayer gatherings in stadiums. I've been in solemn assembly prayer gatherings in front of the Sacramento State Capitol with thousands of people. I've met incredible ministry leaders, and the Lord even gave me a brief, one-minute opportunity to converse with George W. Bush, the current governor of California. I've met some famous people. In fact, I'm in a relationship with people like Pierre Bynum, which many of you know, and he'll be, I think, presenting tomorrow. And just got off a prayer call with Alberta King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And as a YWAMer, I got to meet with the founder of the YWAM movement, Laura Cunningham. But you know, I have to tell you that the most memorable times of prayer have been with no-name intercessors, meaning God knows their name, but they're not on the news. They are broken before the throne. They understand what it means to engage in a daily solemn assembly. And yes, these stadium events like Promise Keepers of 95 and LA Coliseum, the call in Nashville on 777 with tens of thousands of people, and a huge gathering at the Rose Bowl on 11-11-11, they're memorable. But my most incredible times of prayer have also been with just one-on-one, praying with these seasoned intercessors. And there is no greater ministry on this side of heaven than the ministry of intercession. And you know, intercession, interestingly, doesn't mean prayer. Intercession means to act on behalf of, and it definitely includes prayer. But I love Reese Howe's definition in the book, Reese Howe's Intercessor. His definition of intercessor is someone who prays and chooses to be the answer to his prayers. So I want to welcome the intercessors on this call, whether you're on YouTube or Facebook or watching this later on in the recording. Let's just open up in a time of prayer and give this hour to the Lord. So Father, we come broken before your throne. Lord, some of us right now, including myself, I don't feel broken. But we understand our need to be broken, God. So Lord, would you break our hearts during this hour and throughout a call for Solomon 72 for that we would truly be broken before your throne, not just this weekend, but Lord, every time we approach your throne of grace. And Lord, I believe that this weekend is all about reminding us that we are called to live a life of solace. We'll live a life of repentance, of constantly returning to you so that you could give us what you really want, which is revival. So Lord, we choose repentance. We choose to return to you. And we will gladly embrace the revival that you have to offer to us. So Lord, we commit this hour and the rest of this weekend into your loving and powerful hands. In Jesus' name, amen. So I am used to facilitating prayer with a bunch of people on a prayer call or Zoom, and sometimes it's only a few. That's okay. But what we're going to do is we're going to try to be as interactive as possible. So there will be times when I'm going to pause and ask you to pray before the Lord and be proud to the Lord and to pray to him in silence. And there will be times that I'm going to be leading you in prayer as well. But here's a prerequisite, I believe. If we're going to be broken before the throne, here's the prerequisite. We need to embrace the following verses. That includes, as the Father, Jesus speaking to his original disciples and also speaking to us today. So right now we need to embrace John 15:9. And let's embrace it as Jesus speaking it to us. He is speaking this to us, and he wants us to embrace this. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love, which means make my love your home. Let's choose by faith to make the love of Jesus a home that will never depart from it. Let's do that. That is a key prerequisite. And then the other one is the first teaching that Jesus released in his resurrected body, in the upper room, John 20:21. And it's interesting because 20.21 is upon us. We're almost into September and soon it will be 20.21. And here's a 20.21 verse, John 20:21. Peace be with you, no matter what is happening around you, no matter what you see on the media, whether or not your city is under attack with riots and coronavirus or not. Regardless of how your marriage is right now, regardless of how your ministry is doing right now, regardless of how you're doing financially, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I sent you. So I call that John 15:9, embracing the Father heart of God through the words of Jesus. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. And then John 20:21 as the sending forth. We cannot fulfill the Great Commission. We cannot approach the throne of grace if we don't embrace the love and peace of Jesus Christ. And we must be willing to go in the likeness of Jesus. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. It's not a verse only for YWAM missionaries or any missionary. It's a verse for all believers today that we need to represent Christ's kingdom any place he sends us, beginning in our homes or our neighborhoods. So sandwiched between that to understand for us what it means for us to be broken before the throne, for us to live a solemn assembly lifestyle is the Beatitudes. So now we're going to shift to the book of Matthew. And we're going to just focus on one verse. The entire Beatitudes, which Matthew 5 begins with, is incredible. Every one of those verses is a lifetime pursuit. We're going to just focus on one this hour, which is Matthew 5:8. Blessed are the pure in heart that they shall see God. Blessed are the pure in heart that they shall see God. God wants to bless us right now. He wants us to intentionally to be pure before him. He wants us to have a pure heart so that we can see him. So that when we are truly broken before the throne, we can see God. So that when we are experiencing a lifestyle of solemn assembly, not just this weekend, but throughout our lives, we will live that sacred life that Jesus led us to. We'll be able to see God. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the word pure in that verse. Blessed are the pure in heart that they shall see God. And we're going to use the letters P-U-R-E to focus on what I believe we must engage in, we must embrace, we must pursue for us to be pure in heart so that we can see God. Any child of God longs to see God. We are distracted. We are confused. We're often fearful. And sometimes it's hard for us to discern. Is that God that we're seeing? Is that the voice of the Holy Spirit? Is that something else? So let's go through the word pure in Matthew 5. Blessed are the pure in heart that they shall see God. So P for pure is prayer. And prayer, as I define it, is being in God's presence. Prayer is the vehicle in which we get to experience intimate fellowship with God while understanding the fear of the Lord. By the way, that's the title of the great book by Joy Dawson, Intimate Friendship with God while Understanding the Fear of the Lord. Prayer of knowing the Father's presence and the love of our Savior. As Jesus spoke of in John 15:9, I went over that verse earlier. When we pray, it allows us to embrace as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. You remain in my love. Now, of course, there's more to it than that. But that is the main reason why we pray, to stay connected with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the vertical of the cross, right? It is that vertical relationship. And then in that place of intimacy with Jesus Christ, we could pause and hear this quiet, still voice of Jesus saying, I love you. Abide in me. I love you. Return to me. And we could even hear what Jesus is praying at the right hand of the Father. And when we simply pray in agreement with what Jesus is already praying right now, guess what? God will be blessed. So I want to pause right now and let's enter into a time of prayer. And feel free to get up, kneel down, feel free to pray. Pray out loud. Pray quietly. Maybe there's something that you need to repent of. So right now, let the words of Jesus, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now you remain in my love. Inspire you to pray with Jesus. So I'll give you a few minutes to spend this time praying with the Lord. I'll be praying silently. But you can pray out loud. And then in a few minutes, I'll do this in prayer. If there's any guilt or shame that you're feeling right now, speak to Jesus about it. He wants to forgive you. He wants to restore you. He wants to revive you. If you have doubts, if you're struggling with guilt, talk about it with Jesus. He wants to strengthen you. Tell Jesus how much you love him. Tell Jesus how grateful you are to embrace the Father, Heaven, and God right now. Let's spend another minute with Jesus. Father, I love prayers recorded in the Book of Psalms. The Book of Psalms. It seems like every other psalm that he wrote was filled with his doubts, filled with his insecurities, perhaps even anger towards you, saying, God, why have you abandoned me? Why have you forsaken me? But, Lord, in that place of honesty and sincerity, we also sense in that very psalm your ministry to me. And you would often add that you are God, you're loving and kind, and your mercy is everlasting. So help us to pray like David. Lord, just to be honest and sincere about our doubts, about our shortcomings, about our fears, and even asking you, God, why have you abandoned me? My enemies surround me, destroy me. Would you rescue me now, God? So I thank you, Lord, for prayer. And it keeps us connected to you. You are the source of life, a wellspring. And right now, Lord, whether we feel it or not, our heart is overflowing with your presence, which allows us to then intercede on behalf of others. But we cannot give what we don't have. So we continually embrace the father heart of God. In Jesus' name, all of God's people said, amen, amen. So we're going through the verse, just one verse in the Bible. Matthew 5a, blessed are the pure in heart. For this shall see God as part of the Beatitudes. Every verse, Matthew 8, verses 1 through 12, is incredible. And maybe if we have time, we'll read the whole thing at the end. But let's continue to focus on the word pure in God in Matthew 5a. So the second letter in the word pure, the first letter P is for prayer. The second letter U is unity. Unity with the Lord, the vertical, and the horizontal and the cross, which inspires us. Unity with fellow members of the body of Christ, as Jesus prayed in John 17, 21. That all of them, including us, Father, just as you are in me and I in you, that we would all be one with one another, that even as a father and son are one, so that the world may believe that you sent me. That's the prayer of Jesus. You know, he wasn't praying this when we get to heaven. He was literally praying for the 11 and every person who would call Jesus by name, that we would enter into a supernatural unity. And because Jesus prayed it with a pure heart, the Father answered this prayer. When did he answer it? In the garden. It was answered 2,000 years ago in the garden before he went to the cross. It was one of the last prayers that he released. Jesus gets what he prays. Whatever Jesus prays, he gets. Some things, Jesus is waiting for us to agree with them before the Father answers. So, my friend Jonathan Frizz, he has reminded me, have faith in what Jesus prays for, because he gets what he prays for, and Jesus prayed that we'd be one, even as the Father and Son of life. This is not a kumbaya, a good feeling unity. This is a supernatural unity, because we all share the same Holy Spirit. And this is the unity that will cause billions around the world, including your uncle, including your boss, including your child or grandchild, including your neighbor, including some of the politicians right now you have a hard time embracing, right? For them to see the cross as a willingness, and then have a fair chance to decide whether they want to follow Jesus or not. The biggest stumbling block for people coming to know Jesus Christ is brothers and sisters of Christ that's failing to act upon the answered prayer of Jesus. Jesus made a way to put us on a highway of holiness to walk in this supernatural unity. The way we know we embrace this unity is we don't judge people by the color of their skin. We don't judge by who their pastor is, what denomination they belong to. We know we're walking in this answered prayer of Jesus is when we intentionally approach people who are different than we are. It doesn't matter whether they're church or unchurch, saved or unsaved, what ethnic group, Jew or Gentile, male or female, but we embrace these individuals as precious people that God has made in their image. But beginning with the body of Christ, surely, right? That white pastors would intentionally befriend a black pastor and invite that black pastor to preach a sermon. That a Baptist pastor would intentionally seek out friendship with a charismatic pastor and say, wow, I love you. The spirit of God is upon you. Would you come and preach? And that charismatic pastor would not pray in tongues at a Baptist church. That we would truly honor the differences and the various streams of the body of Christ. So right now, let's pray for ourselves and for the body of Christ that we would enter into a new era. We would embrace the heaven on earth 2020 vision with this unity that Jesus prayed for and the Father has answered. But we need to intentionally walk in it by the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. So again, let's enter into a quiet time of prayer. I'm going to be silent, but you can cry out loud. You can pray silently. Let's spend time with the Lord, interceding for ourselves, interceding for the body of Christ, for the fulfillment of John 17, 21 in our lives. Unity with the Lord and fellow members of the body of Christ. Let's pray. Right now, the Lord is revealing to some of us, perhaps all of us, someone that we have a hard time connecting with. It may seem impossible for us to be in unity with our brother or sister. Pray for that person. Even if you don't feel the love or unity, pray for that brother or sister. Some of us, it could be a spiritual leader who we have sharp disagreements with. It could even be a pastor who is not preaching the word of God but really having a difficult time loving this person. Pray a blessing for this person. Let the feelings follow you. We need to display this unity in the highways and the byways, in big cities and small towns alike, throughout North America and beyond. Would you pray for that and ask what your role ought to be? I cannot see you, but you see me. You see the color of my skin. You see my facial features. Perhaps you have someone or a group of people that you have a hard time embracing because they look different. Pray for them. Perhaps some of you need to pray for the leadership of Antifa, the leadership of the Marxist organization called Black Lives Matter. I'm not talking about people like you and I. We all believe that black lives matter and all lives matter. Pray for them as well. Pray a blessing over them. Jesus, forgive us. We have read John 17, 21 over and over again. We heard messages on it. But yet, Lord, we have not embraced it. I identify with the sin of disunity in the body of Christ all around the world. Here in Colorado Springs, in the state of Colorado, in my nation, in our continent, all around the world. Lord, I pray that we embrace the answer, prayer of Jesus. That Jesus, that you, your death and resurrection crushed the walls of separation and you have made a way for us to be one even as you and the Father are one here and now. So Lord, show us how we can walk in the reality of what Jesus prayed for at God. Give us that passion for supernatural unity. In Jesus' name, amen. So, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God, Matthew 5, 8. And the word pure, P is for prayer, U is for unity, and R is for repentance. And repentance is not a one-time thing. It is a lifestyle and response to the Father's kindness. As Jesus admonished us in John 8, verse 11b, Jesus declared, now, go now and leave your life of sin. Repentance is a change of mindset that we would make that 180 degrees U-turn from sin. And you know, sometimes our hearts break when we repent, but other times it's like a lightbulb going off. Oh, that's what you meant, Jesus. Now I get it. Yes, I'll do this. I won't do this, and I'll start doing this. And you know, there's a similar word in the Bible. And the word repentance is similar to relent. This is when God relented in the book of Exodus from destroying the nation of Israel as Moses was coming down with the first set of Ten Commandments. God told him, look at your people. They betrayed me. They're in great sin. I'm going to destroy them. And you know what? God was not bluffing. I'm going to destroy them, but he was looking for an intercessor. And when Moses said, no, father, these are your people. You have made promises with them. Would you show mercy in it? And God relented. God made a U-turn. He was about to strike a judgment against the Hebrew people, and he made a U-turn. When we repent, God then will relent himself. When we, God wants us to repent, because he doesn't want to judge us. He doesn't want to destroy us. He wants to bless us. But he cannot continue to bless a child of God in sin. There will come a time in everyone's life and every nation where we may enter a point of no return, and for that person and for that nation, it's too late. So repentance, as an individual, as a nation, is a wonderful thing to do. There was a great repentance when a reluctant prophet by the name of Joel spoke judgment against the Ninevites. In 40 days, you'll be destroyed. And the Ninevites, the kings of Nineveh, chose repentance, and God gave the Ninevites another 100 years. So, let's make repentance a lifestyle in response to the Father's kindness. Even as Jesus spoke to the woman caught in the act of adultery. He said, does anyone condemn you? She said, no one, sir. As she saw these men dropping these huge rocks one by one and walking away, because they all recognized that they were also in need of repentance. And when Jesus saw what was in the heart of this woman, He declared, go now. Leave your life of sin. Live a life of holiness before me and before them. So, is there anything that you need to repent of right now? Let's not focus on anyone else. Let's not focus on our nation. Let's make it very personal. And again, let's spend a few minutes in prayer of repentance right now. Let us especially repent from the area of broken relationships, where you are waiting for the other party to come to you, asking for forgiveness. But right now, you are holding onto stones to stone this person. You're no different than those men who wanted to stone that woman to death. So let's repent by dropping those stones and not walking away, but walking into the loving arms of Jesus. And let's ask His help right now to forgive these individuals and ask God for forgiveness for harboring resentment, unforgiveness, and bitterness, and perhaps even hatred. And if Jesus says, after this hour, give that person a call, ask that person's forgiveness for harboring hatred. Let's do it. Repentance must lead to an act, a change of mindset that leads to an act. So let's continue to pray before the throne of Christ. Let's be broken before the throne. Father, we love because Jesus first loved us. And Father, we forgive because you first forgave us. And Lord, we embrace the words of Jesus. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. We embrace the admonition of your Son. If you do not forgive, then our Father in Heaven will not forgive you. And it is your desire to forgive us. So right now, we choose to forgive anyone that you bring to our mind. And we repent of our past unforgiveness. We choose to love these individuals by faith, not by feelings. Father, you have made all of us in God's image, in your image, to give us the strength, give us your passion, to love all, and to forgive all. In Jesus' name, Amen. We can also, in repentance, we can also identify with the sin of the Church and sin of our nation. And I'm going to read a portion of what Abraham Lincoln proclaimed as President of the United States. This was back in 1863. And this is one of the things that happened that changed the course of the Civil War. Prior to this, the Confederacy was on the verge of victory. They were out winning the Union Generals and winning battle after battle. But here was a turning point. And this wasn't Abraham Lincoln trying to manipulate God to have God do what he wanted God to do. But this was after Abraham Lincoln realized we must join God's side. Just like in Joshua chapter 5, when Joshua recognized I cannot try to get this warrior to join me. I must join him. So, I'm going to read a portion of Abraham Lincoln's proclamation. Proclamation appointing a national day of fasting and humiliation. This was April This was signed April 30, 1863. I'm going to read a portion of it. We have been the recipients of the choices bounties of heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us. And we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have been too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace. Too proud to pray to the God that made us. Doesn't that describe America in 2020? This was happening in 1863. No wonder why America was under judgment. The Civil War took out 600,000 Americans in a population of only 30 million. In fact, Civil War took out more American soldiers than all of the other conflicts, all the other wars combined. We are approaching a similar situation right now. We could have a Civil War. In November, we already have Civil War in some of the streets of the cities. So right now, let's identify with the sin of our nation and ask God to deliver us and place us on his destiny. Let's be broken before the throne on behalf of our continent of North America. Let's put Canada on that list as well. We are going in a wrong direction. So let's pray. I'll lead us and then I'll pause for you to pray as well. So Father, right now we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit on behalf of our cities, our states, our provinces, our nation of the United States and Canada and North America in particular, Lord. We have violated our covenant with you, Lord. The church has neglected to be the church. And then we wonder why our nation has become, our nations have become the way it has, especially here in America today. So Lord, would you have mercy upon us. Lord, right now, we are in your holy presence. This is a solemn assembly. We are broken before the throne on behalf of our cities, on behalf of our nations, Lord. Would you intervene right now or would you forgive the sin of the church neglecting the needs of the people, neglecting the preaching of the gospel, and then blaming the government, blaming the media, blaming certain political candidates for the mess that we have created, Lord. We recognize our nation is divided, but a nation is only as united as the unity in the church of the living God. So right now, I want to give you a few minutes to pray wherever you are, whatever posture, whatever way in which you approach the throne of grace. Would you cry out to the Lord, loud or silently, and let's identify with the sin of our cities and our nation, the sin of the church. We call this identification of repentance. Let's pray. Father, your word says in Malachi 3:7, Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from my ordinances, and I have not kept them. Return to me, and I'll return to you, says the Lord. Return to me, and I'll return to you, says the Lord. Lord, lead us in daily repentance for our sins, the sin of the church and sin of our nation, so that we can return to you. And without repentance, without returning, you cannot give us revival. What you want to give us, you want to release in our land the greatest awakening that will usher the return of the king, that we first must repent and do the acts necessary to return to you. Thank you, Lord, that you continue to desire to remind us. In Jesus' name, amen. So we have been going through a single verse in the Bible. It's in the Beatitudes of Jesus, Matthew 5:8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. So in the word pure, we see the letter P for prayer, U for unity, and R for repentance. But I would say for most Christians, E is where we have fallen the most. E is what we have neglected the most. Not engaging in E has brought darkness into our cities, into our neighborhoods, and into our homes. So let's focus on the letter E. The letter E stands for evangelism of proclaiming and demonstrating the gospel as Jesus commissioned us in John 20, 21. Again, Jesus said, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. You know, many of us call ourselves evangelical Christians. Are we kidding ourselves? Evangelical Christians? Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses are doing more evangelism than so-called evangelical Christians. Of all the groups of Americans, evangelical Christians are hiding in the closet. Everybody else is out of the closet. And some of us say, Well, I'm in my prayer closet. But shouldn't being in our prayer closets give us the strength to get out of our closets, to engage with the culture, the culture that has infiltrated into every fiber of society and even in the Church of the Living God and made it a den of thieves? If the Church of the Living God is truly the house of prayer for all nations, we pray and then we go. We must proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We must tell people about who Jesus is. And it doesn't mean that every one of us, we get a soapbox and we're like preaching in the street corners. No. You ask the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, how do I respond to you telling people about Jesus? And often when I meet homeless people, I have them sort of captivated because they want something from me. They want money. They want food. They want to ease their pain of hunger. In some cases, they might be tricking me because they want to get a few bucks from me so they can buy their drugs. That's a reality as well. But you know, the way I proclaim often when I meet a homeless person is they have faith in me. And every single time they say yes. Even if they don't mean it, by the end of the time I pray for them, they heard Jesus. They got touched by the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean they're ready to receive the Lord right at that moment. And sometimes it's a prodigal that God is calling them home. Or this is a Christian brother or sister walking with the Lord following up on times. So that's one example of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But I believe every child of God must proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you're not doing that, don't call yourself an evangelical Christian. Just say, I'm just a Christian in name only because I go to church and I pray. But honestly, I don't tell people about Jesus. So I'm not an evangelical Christian. Let's be honest. Okay? And, as important as proclaiming, we gotta demonstrate the Gospel. You know, when we pray for people, God will show us how to pray for people. Often, people don't want to hear what we have to say. They want to receive that acts of kindness and love. So after we pray, let the Holy Spirit show you how to proclaim the Gospel by caring for the person. And sometimes it's laying our hands and Holy Spirit healing. But often, it's providing a tangible need for a person. Mowing your next-door neighbor's backyard because you know that your neighbor has arthritis. That's caring. See, when we pray and we care, then God will give us opportunity to share the Gospel. Sometimes we go too quick into proclaiming and talking about Jesus. The person has no idea whether we care for them or not. So sometimes, the Lord will have you just meet this person for that one time only. And the Holy Spirit gives you the words to share and you talk about Jesus. But often, it's people that we have a relationship with. They don't want to hear about Jesus if you don't care for them. So let's be proclaimers and demonstrators of the power of the Gospel. Evangelism is proclaiming and demonstrating the Gospel of Jesus as Jesus commissioned us. He already commissioned us in John 20, 21. Again, Jesus said, Peace be with you, as the Father has said to you, I am sending you. And this is the 20, 21 verse. I believe God wants to prepare us in 20, 20 to go about it all, go all out in proclaiming and demonstrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we need to pray for each other. The devil will come against us every time, even when we have a thought. But don't you need to pray? Don't you need to listen to that audio message from David Wilkerson? You don't want to be proclaiming right now. You don't want to be demonstrating right now. You're hungry. You need to comfort yourself with some food. Why don't you take a nap? He will tempt us even with good things because he hates the power of the Gospel. Proclaim and demonstrate it in us. So we have a marching order in 20, 20. And it's the 20, 21 verse. Peace be with you. This is Jesus speaking to the disciples in the upper room in fear of the Jews and the Romans. Jesus appears in his resurrected body and his first teaching in his resurrected body is peace be with you as a fatherless son of God. So let's pray right now for anyone that God brings into your thoughts. People who need to hear the Gospel. But you're praying because you want the opportunity to care for this person. And you care for this person because you want to share with this person. You're not just praying that somebody else will lead them to Christ. If that happens, great. But you also want to be part of the chain that leads that person to the Lord Jesus Christ. And guess what? We don't do the same. Pressure is on us. We just need to obey the properties of the Holy Spirit. So right now let's pray for the person. I want to first pray for you. I want to pray for us and then I'm going to ask you to pray for someone that you want to care about and share the Gospel with. So Lord, right now I want to thank you for encouraging us to pray. Encouraging us to unite. Encouraging us to repent. But Lord, also giving us strength and a passion for evangelism. Lord, if there's no baptism happening in Baptist church then why call ourselves Baptists or Baptist Christians? Same thing, Lord. We call ourselves Evangelical Christians. But why if we're not engaging in confirmation and demonstration of the Gospel? Father, I pray that you give us your heart right now for the lost. It will help us to think beyond the things that we've seen growing up and how people conducted evangelism. Lord, didn't it look different? Every time. Just as when Paul evangelized in every city in the known world we look at that. He did it differently. He proclaimed you in different ways. But it was the same Gospel. So Lord, the pressure is on you to say, and you're good at that. But Lord, in this area of evangelism, Lord, help us right now to truly be Evangelical believers in Jesus Christ. That we would not just keep the treasure to ourselves but we would want to share it with others. So Father, right now would you bring to our remembrance individuals, loved ones, family members, people in other lands right now that you are burdening with us. For we are broken before the throne and our hearts break for the billions of people that are unsaved. Right now, Lord, we want to pray for specific individuals. Show us who they are as we pray. So right now, let's pray. Prayer is the beginning of evangelism. So let's pray for those individuals. We pray to you, the Lord of the harvest, for you clearly see that the harvest is comfortable and that you're sending us to the harvest field. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Anyone without Christ who's being harassed and spiritually molested by demonic forces. We want to set these people free. We want these individuals to repent and come to you, O Lord. So send us. Send us with a heart that cares into the harvest field. People that we just thank, O Lord. We want to proclaim and demonstrate the gospel to them. Show us what that looks like, Father. Lord, when we care, people will gladly want us to share. And Lord, give us listening ears. Let us not be so quick to talk but to listen. Because when we listen, then people want to hear us as well. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I want to just share some stories with you as we wrap up our time together. We're living in an incredible season of global history. There are more opportunities than ever. With the coronavirus, with the unrest in our streets, with the divided political climate in our nation, more people want to know that we care for them. And as we care for them, more and more people would want to know what we believe in. So we have some incredible opportunities. You know that right now, we're in the season of 75th anniversary of the ending of World War II. 75 years ago, months after Nazi Germany surrendered, on August 15th, 1945, Imperial Japan said, we will stand down. We don't want to fight anymore. And then on September 2nd, 1945, when USS Missouri, they signed the unconditional surrender. So when you look at V-J Day, which means Victory Japan Day, which was the ending of World War II, you get two different dates. August 15th, yes, no more fighting. And then September 2nd, which was the official end. Growing up in Seoul, Korea, in the 1960s, August 15th was the most important day in our calendar. August 15th was Korean Liberation Day. And we celebrated being liberated from Imperial Japan after 35 years of hostile takeover. And so I'm grateful for this nation. I'm grateful for the men who laid down their lives. I'm grateful for the many missionaries that North America sent, God sent from North America to Korea before the days of occupation. And so my father, who is now home with the Lord, during the last years of his life, he would tell me these stories of the excitement he felt. He heard that Japan no longer occupied Korea, but he wasn't sure until American forces arrived and paraded in downtown Seoul. Back then, it wasn't much of a downtown. And he saw American soldiers marching in uniform. And he then believed that truly, Korea has been liberated. It's not enough to declare victory. You got to occupy the land to show the people that victory has been secured. Right? I mean, let's say we have a certain outcome, November 3rd, presidential election. The proof of that person becoming the next president is that person is sworn in in January and then takes office. So the occupation started in early part of September by the United States Armed Forces in the South. And the Soviets took over the northern portion to make sure that the Japanese were gone. But of course, the division left to go to Korean War. But my father was nine years old when he saw the parade. And he said something kind of humorous. And as a nine-year-old boy, he's never seen people of lighter skin color. He never saw white folks before. He might have seen them in photographs, but he never seen white folks. And he said, you know, when I saw these soldiers parading in downtown Seoul, they all had big eyes, a big nose, and they all looked alike. And the only thing different was they were a different height. I guess it was not an integrated members of the Armed Forces that arrived in Korea. It was all white brothers. Anyway, but what happened a few days later was what turned his life around. A few days later, he and his friends were playing outside as any nine-year-old boys would want to do. And he heard this loud, joyful sound. And he and his friends ran towards this loud, joyful sound. And when they arrived, a friendly person invited them into the building. Well, he never heard a church bell in his life because under the Japanese occupation, Korean church could only stay, could remain, and have services if they kept it quiet, did it in Japanese, and also honored Emperor as God. It sounded a lot like the Roman Empire days. So anyway, the Japanese were gone, Americans occupied, and now the church were able to ring their church bell. And my father and his friends heard the gospel for the first time in his life. He didn't accept the Lord then, but he experienced both the proclamation and the demonstration of the gospel. Eventually, my father embraced Jesus Christ. And this is a powerful message to us. 75 years later, this is a powerful message to us. As these young men lay down their lives in Europe and in the Pacific to secure a physical victory, are we willing to lay down our lives in intercessory lifestyle of praying and proclaiming and demonstrating the gospel of Jesus Christ so that others could have what we have? There are billions yet to be saved. And today is also a very interesting day. Yesterday was the 57th anniversary of the I Have a Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And earlier today I was in a prayer call with Albedo King, his niece. But that was a prophetic message of heaven that God made all of us different on the outside and He wants all of us to be the same on the inside. But God loves people of all colors, all creeds, all ethnicities. He doesn't have a favorite denomination. But God wants us to display the content of His character unified in the highways and the byways of our nation. And here we are in 2020. Can we embrace the 2021 verse As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And throughout this year and beyond, let us encounter God's holy presence with one another, forsake our dependency upon the kingdoms and the systems of this world, and share the abundant life of Christ in us. With the lost sheep around us, let us embrace heaven's revelation of the pure heart. Let us pray, let us unite, let us repent. Let the evangelical Christians evangelize. Let us see our God as He really is and worship Him in spirit and in truth. And that's how we know if we have been broken before the throne, if we are engaged in solemn assembly, we will see Jesus and worship Him in spirit and in truth. And that message was not only for the Samaritan woman. That message was recorded for all of us to embrace. May the hope and the Holy Spirit in us is poised to guide our journey together, our personal transformation that will lead the way for a citywide and even national global transformation. Blessed are the pure in heart. For you shall be the voice of the King of Israel and the Ancient of Days. And as Isaiah 62 10 admonishes us, let us pass through, pass through the gates, prepare the way for the people, build up, build up the highway, remove the stones, raise the banner for the nations. So Father, we thank you for this weekend that you're preparing us for some difficult times to come for the rest of 2020. But in these challenging days, you are calling us to be your light. You're calling us to be your salt. You're calling us to be your evangelists, Lord. And even your apostles, representing your kingdom as your emissaries, as your ambassadors, Lord, to represent heaven on earth. Oh, Father, let us be Jesus' servants and followers. Thank you, Lord. For we are passionate about pursuing a pure heart so that we can see you. Thank you, Lord, for the gift of prayer. Thank you, Jesus, that when we pray for unity, that you already got it and made a way for us to unite. Thank you, Lord, that we can daily live a life of repentance that will allow us to always stay with you, Lord. Thank you, Father, for calling us to daily evangelism, beginning with prayer, that leads us to care, so that people would want us to share the hope and glory that is within us. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for your words.