Pastor Ken…
Welcome everyone in the chapel this morning. So good to see you.
We were created for intimacy with our Heavenly Father…
Prayer is where we touch the heart of God, and we receive from the heart of God. We were created for connection, after all, right? We were created for intimacy with our Heavenly Father. That’s what this thing is all about. And the rest is just details. If you get this right, if you get the pursuit and understanding of your Heavenly Father and growing and ongoing and personal relationship and knowledge and intimacy with Him is what it’s all about. This life journey that is… that everything else will fall into place. Maybe not overnight. There may be some challenges. There’ll be some things you need to walk through and grow through, as I say. But He’s a good, loving, gracious, forgiving, always granting a fresh start Heavenly Father. And He wants to not only get involved in our lives, but He also wants to flow through us.
Heaven isn’t just a place. It’s a flow…
I just was reflecting as we were worshiping how amazing the work of redemption is and what Jesus did in the eons of ancient past, Jesus stood up in the midst of the Trinity and volunteered, “I will go and I will be for them what they can’t be. I will make a way. I will bring heaven to earth.” That’s why I say that heaven isn’t just a place. It is a flow. It’s a flow to your heart, through your heart, into your life, into your circumstances through us collectively today as we pray. And so Jesus came to bring heaven to earth, to make it personal and available for us to draw upon, for us in prayer to yield to that. It would flow through us the inspiration of the Father.
Jesus is the Rock…
In fact, I was thinking about the Old Testament and something I read a number of years ago and how Bible archeologists have discovered a two- to four-story rock in the middle of the Sinai wilderness. It is very odd and remarkable, because on this two- to four-story multiple outsized rock … There’s the pattern of water weathering or water that has run over it. Only the water patterns aren’t sideways or down, but they flow “up” on this rock. There’s even a picture of it. And I don’t know all the backstory and all the scientific research and the vetting of this and why they think this is symbolic and significant biblical rock. But I believe them. Because it’s right about the spot where we read the account in scripture where Moses was in the process of leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. And they were in this desert place where there was no supply of water. And what was needed to sustain a company of probably two million Israelites who had just come out of an urban center in Egypt. Here they are. And God begins to work with Moses.
And as you know, the story says that God gives instruction to Moses to strike the rock and water would flow. And you must know that this water isn’t just like a little trickle like you see in your backyard after it rains or a creek. We’re talking about two million plus Israelites in the middle of the wilderness needing to be replenished with water. Bodies like yours and mine that consist of what 60 to 70% water… along with their cattle and any stuff that they had with them.
And so Moses struck the rock as the narrative of the Old Testament goes and water issued fourth, and it wasn’t just a trickle. It probably was something similar to the Mississippi River springing up from the deep of the earth from this rock, hence maybe the water marks that seem to go upward. And then God gives Moses instruction. After that, he said, “Moses thereafter, you don’t have to strike the rock,” cuz as you know… or if you don’t, here’s a word for the day… that Moses striking the rock is symbolic of Jesus being struck to bring heaven’s flow to earth into your doorstep in your daily life.
Striking the rock was a foreshadowing…
And then as we read the scripture, God gives Moses instruction that thereafter, it would only be necessary to strike the rock and water would flow. But then thereafter, every time you need water, every time you need refreshing, every night time you need supply, God just instructs Moses to simply speak to the rock. That’s a prophetic foreshadowing of how we’re to live today. We just have to speak to the rock. Just open our voice and worship Him. Open our mouths and speak out in our heavenly prayer language. Jesus Himself said in John7:38, “Out of your heart would flow rivers of living water.” Do you know that when He said those words, He was in the temple during the feast of Tabernacles. He walked into the temple and at the moment He walked in, the priest had just gone out through the water gate with a pitcher and dipped in a reservoir outside the sanctuary temple there, filled it full of water, and walked in. And as people were worshiping and singing and praying and when it reached a fever pitch, the priest was about to pour water from that pitcher onto the altar as a sacrifice as an act of worship unto God.
And in that moment, Jesus steps into the fray and says these words. He said “On the last day…” that’s what I just referred to. “That great day of the feast. Jesus stood and cried out saying, if anyone thirst let him come to Me and drink.” What a concept. We know how to drink water, right? But we need to drink spiritually. If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart, out of his belly, the King James says, will flow rivers of living water. “But this he spoke concerning the spirit whom those believing in him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.” In other words, that was to come not many days hence.
Personal testimony…
So, we talked a little bit yesterday about refreshing and being renewed and feeling parched and dry spiritually, feeling stuck in a rut maybe, needing to be resupplied. And it’s as simple as drinking and drawing on heaven’s flow.
I remember when I was in high school… Actually even before that, when I was 12 years old. I got born again by going forward at an All Faiths Crusade in my high school in Minnesota. I received Jesus for the first time. I don’t even know how I got up there to the altar. I felt like I was transported to that altar. I gave my life to Jesus.
Well, the next night Lowell Lundstrom shared about this marvelous gift of being baptized in the Holy Spirit with the opportunity to speak in another language. And again, I found myself at the altar. I don’t even remember getting there, but I remember being at the altar in the front of the stage being prayed for. And while I didn’t pray out in my heavenly language in that moment of that crusade, I went home that night, laid on my bed, thinking about what they said and put my hand on my belly and I just opened my mouth with the first thing that came to my mind and spoke out. (speaking in tongues) I remember my little 12-year-old self sitting up at a hot summer night laying there not able to get to sleep, I just prayed out in that one word or sentence that I had. I remember experiencing that river for the first time. And I remember thinking to myself, “Whoa, this is cool.” That was my 12-year-old self.
Fast forward a number years later and I was 17 or 18. And I recall remembering being baptized in the Holy Spirit and thinking, “I haven’t really prayed a whole lot in the spirit in that prayer language.” I felt God dare me to pray more consistently. So that week that He kind of talked to me about that, I did. I prayed a little more consistently in my prayer language.
Praying in tongues is the refreshing…
You see, praying in the Spirit is the refreshing. We read that yesterday, right? Isaiah 28:11. “With stammering lips in another tongue will I speak to this people to whom I said, this is the rest.” This is the place of repose or refreshing. Even physically because everything God wants to deliver to you comes through your spirit.
Proverbs 4:23
I want to read to this morning Proverbs 4:23. It says, “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.” One translation says, “flow the forces that have the potential to create your life.” So from here, if you will prioritize your spirit, like I did all those years back then when I chose to pray a little more consistently and it probably wasn’t a lot, but it was a lot for me at the time. And I just remembered how it made a difference, how my life improved.
The Holy Spirit energizes us…
Remember we read in Jude 20 yesterday, how praying in the spirit energizes you, charges you, that you will rise like an edifice higher and higher. You’ll advance, in other words, when you take hold of the refreshing. You must prioritize your spirit. That’s what Proverbs 4 is saying here. And let it dominate in your life. Even when your physical being is weary, you can be well rested physically. You can sleep extra. You can sleep 14 hours tomorrow and still be tired in your soul, in your emotions, in your mind. Many people aren’t tired physically. They’re tired soullessly cuz they’re constantly working, working, working in their minds, processing trying to figure it out.
Doubt and fear, anxiety, all of that is very weary kind of stuff. That’s why the Bible challenges us to enter into faith rest. Hebrews 4. It says, “be determined to enter into a faith rest,” the Passion translation says. Faith is rest. It’s leaning into Him. I should say faith or rest doesn’t mean you don’t do anything. It means you do the main thing. That’s relationship. Amen. That’s taking time to pray in the spirit to prioritize your inner life. Because flowing out of your inner life, if you will prioritize it, will be the sustenance that you need.
