Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Pastor Heather…
So wake up, you living gateways. Lift up your heads, you doorways of eternity. Welcome the King of Glory, for He’s about to come through you. You ask, who is this King of Glory? Yahweh, armed and ready for battle. Yahweh, invincible in every way. So wake up, you living gateways and rejoice. Fling wide, you eternal doors. Here He comes, the King of Glory is ready to come in. You ask, who is this King of Glory? He is Yahweh, armed and ready for battle. The Mighty One, the Invincible Commander of Heaven’s Hosts. Yes, He is the King of Glory. Pause in His presence.
You are the King of Glory. And we welcome you in today. We open the gates and the doors of our hearts and we say come in, King of Glory, come in and have your way… the King of Glory, Yahweh, have your way.
It’s good to check on the pray-ers to see if there is peace in their hearts…
Well, I wanted to share something before we go into prayer. And we’re going to continue to pray for Israel. But this morning, I just had something on my heart. Because as we’re praying for peace for Israel, as we should, I think sometimes it’s good to check on the pray-ers. And make sure that there’s peace in your hearts, too. Because sometimes we can get weary in battle. We can get weary when we’re the ones praying and ministering and fighting if we don’t keep our eyes on Him.
When Jesus died, everything seemed so lost…
And so the thing that the Lord brought in my heart to speak about today was when Jesus was in the world, walking in the flesh, the climate was extremely volatile and dangerous at that time. Sometimes we read the Bible and we kind of sanitize it. Because we know what’s going to happen, and so it’s easier to not think of what it must have felt like for people living during that time, how scary it could have felt, how fearful it could have felt living in that kind of a climate. And so, Jesus comes and He brings His message of love and forgiveness into a really hostile environment at that time. And He rocked everyone’s theology. He turned everyone’s thinking upside down. His followers thought that He had come to be their king and to free them from oppression. And He did. He was. He is. But they literally thought He was coming to sit on a physical throne and be a ruler and a king over Israel. And then He was crucified. And when everything seemed lost and the situation was at its lowest, there was a bigger plan in place. But I just want everybody to think for a moment how hopeless the followers of Jesus must have felt at that moment after He was crucified. And when we read it, we read it knowing the end. So we kind of maybe bypass that or be like, “it’s going to be okay, because we know what’s going to happen. We know how the story ends.”
But just think in that moment, how hopeless that must have felt to them. They saw Jesus literally sitting on a throne and leading them. And now He’s in their minds dead and gone. John 20:19 in the Message says, “Later on that day, the disciples had gathered together, but fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, Peace to you. Then He showed Him His hands and His side.”
The disciples hid and locked themselves behind walls…
After Jesus was crucified, all hope seemed to be lost, and the disciples ran and hid and locked themselves up behind walls. I believe not just physical walls, but emotional walls too. They’re filled with unanswered questions and uncertainty about their future. Anytime something in our lives happens that we can’t understand, we tend to question God. And if we can’t find the answer to our question, we tend to put up walls. Walls around our heart to protect us from others, from ourselves, and sometimes we think from God.
But really, all these walls do is hinder us from experiencing His presence. The walls we put up cannot keep God away. He is always close. He never leaves us or forsakes us. But we can build walls around our heart that can make it difficult to fully experience His presence.
So here were the disciples, locked away behind walls, questioning what just happened and what would happen next. I can imagine the emotions they must have felt. The questions they must have had as they hid behind those walls. Grief, disappointment, confusion, shame. Some of them probably felt so much shame because they ran when their leader was being crucified. They were not there for Him in His time of need. Anger, fear, unbelief, maybe even jealousy. Well, why did Jesus talk to that person? Why did Jesus tell that person this? Or show Himself to this person? And the list goes on and on. And maybe you can identify with some of these emotions.
But what happened next?
John 20:19 in the Message says, “Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, Peace to you. And He showed them His hands and His side.” Have you ever thought about this moment or pictured this moment? Maybe you’re like me, when you read, you like to visually go there, close your eyes, or put yourself in the scene. It’s a good thing to do. I always thought that Jesus was more like a spirit when He walked through the walls. Like, you know, He became, like, transparent and went through the wall, right? How did He walk through a wall? But the Word says He was flesh and bone. They put their fingers in His scars and in His hands. So how did He walk through a wall? Physics teachers will tell you that an object that’s more dense than another object will always pass through the less dense object every time.
We’re going to get a little physics lesson this morning…
So picture a rock. Rocks are denser than water. In defining density, a teacher might use the words firm, solid, weighty. Density means how much stuff there is packed into an object. And because the laws of physics say that a more dense object always passes through a less dense object, the rock will always pass through the water. You can picture that. If you were to drop a rock into a deep bucket of water, it will sink or it will pass through the water on the way to the bottom, because the water doesn’t have the ability to stop the rock.
With Jesus, at first, it seems like the opposite occurred. John records that Jesus, only hours after His resurrection, passed through the walls into rooms with dead-bolted doors. It seemed like He defied the laws of density, but He didn’t. Jesus’ glorified body was now more dense, more weighty, more real than what we consider to be the densest of earth’s dense… a wall. He passed straight through the wall and into the room where the disciples were huddled. The more dense passed through the less dense. The wall didn’t have the ability to stop Jesus. It was not that He was vaporous and passed through. It’s that He’s weightier, denser, more solid, more real.
C.S. Lewis says in one of his books…
C. S. Lewis in one of his books writes about angelic beings who are able to pass through walls. He explained that these beings can do this not because they are less real than the brick wall, but more real. We perceive them as less real because of our perception bias. We think a brick wall is very solid, as solid as can be. But perhaps, to the angelic being, the brick wall is just as thin as a sheer curtain or even a bank of fog. Jesus is more real than any wall in our life, any situation that we might be up against or any barriers that we put around our heart. He can break through any wall. He is weightier than any situation that seems hopeless. He’s weightier than our fears, weightier than our shame, our broken heart, or any other emotion we might face. We just have to give Him permission to come in.
Charles Spurgeon quote…
Charles Spurgeon said, “Someone will say, He will not come here, for there are many barriers, and we are not in a condition to receive Him. But were there no difficulties then? The doors were shut, and the disciples were in fear. Whatever doors there may have been between my Lord and my soul, He could pass through them, or open them to get at my heart when it longs after Him. You have a fear upon you, which you cannot shake off. So did the disciples. Or they would not have closed the doors. But Jesus comes through. Sin encompasses us and doubts and fears and cares hang thick about our path. He comes as a dew which waiteth not for man. It’s not our walls that keep him out. It’s our wills. He won’t break in against our will. You have to invite Him in. And when He walks through our walls, He brings us peace into every situation and breathes life back into us.”
John 20:20–23, the disciples seeing the masters with their own eyes were exuberant. Jesus repeated His greeting: “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent Me, I send you.” And then He took a deep breath and He breathed into them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” He said. When He comes, He always brings exactly what you need at that moment.
Did you ever notice that when Jesus first encountered the disciples, He said peace? But when He first encountered the women, He said rejoice. Matthew 28:5–10. The women were breathless and terrified until the angel said to them, There is no reason to be afraid. I know you’re here looking for Jesus who was crucified. He isn’t here. He has risen victoriously, just as He said. Come inside the tomb and see the place where our Lord was lying. Then run and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead. I give you this message. I’m going ahead of you to Galilee, and you will see me there. They rushed quickly to tell the disciples, and their hearts were filled with fear, awe, and great joy all at the same time. Along the way, Jesus suddenly appeared in front of them.”
And this is before He walks through the walls.
“Rejoice,” He said. They were so overwhelmed by seeing Him that they bowed down and grasped His feet in adoring worship. Then Jesus said to them, throw off all your fears. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. They will find Me there.”
Charles Stanford quote…
Charles Stanford said that the women had been true and were only conscious of their grief. The men had not been true. And besides their grief, we’re conscious of deep agitation and burning shame. Jesus knows what we need more than we know ourselves and meets our needs in a personal and unique way.
Let Jesus walk through those walls…
So I just wanted to take some time and allow Him to walk through some walls. And with everything going on, as we pray, you can take this for a personal thing for your life, and we can be speaking this over Israel, too. He walks through walls. He walks through walls of situations. I think of the hostages right now. He can walk through those walls. And you know, the thing that the Lord has put big on my heart to pray is just divine encounters with Him.
And you think of even the terrorists, what could they say if Jesus appeared to them? It would change everything. It would change their world. It would change what they believe. And these terrorists, they think that they’re doing this for holy reasons, but they don’t know the God that they serve because they serve a smaller case “g” god.
Pray that they have encounters…
But I’ve just been praying that they are having an encounter. And you hear a lot of people in… you know, a lot of Muslims having these encounters where this man appears to them and says, “I’m Jesus.” And they’re having these conversion moments. And I just think of where we’re at in the timeline of the world. In the last days, He’ll pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. And so it’s time for those miracles to happen, because what would that look like on probably wouldn’t be on CNN, but on the news stations, that these people that are waging war against Israel are turning because this man, Jesus, is appearing to them… the Messiah.
What would that do?
So, that’s my little understanding. But we pray what God wants us to pray. We pray through the Holy Spirit because His ways are higher than our ways. But you pray as you’re led and we’re going to pray peace over our hearts as we pray for peace over Israel, peace over your lives, peace over your situations.
Prayed…
And so we thank you, Father. We come before you and we just thank you that you are the Prince of Peace. That you walk through every wall that we would put up, you walk through every situation that might seem more real and bigger than you in our minds, but you are bigger, you are more real, you are weightier, you are more dense than any situation or wall or fear or terror or war that would come. And so we speak peace to this situation. We speak peace over Israel in Jesus’ name. We speak peace over our hearts. We speak peace over the hearts of the Israelis.
Peace over the hearts of the hostages. Peace over the IDF. That they would know that they do not fight this battle alone, but that the very God, the Yahweh, the commander, and the host of the armies is in battle with them. No weapon formed against Israel shall prosper. They are the apple of God’s eye.
Thank you, Father, that you cover them with your wings. We speak peace to the borders of Israel. Shalom, peace. Nothing missing, nothing broken.
Thank you, Father. The stage is set for miracles, for wonders, for signs, for you to pour out your Spirit.
All the world is watching. All the world is waiting. So we thank you, Father, that you will move… That every eye will see. Every heart will know who you are. The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the commander of the armies, ready for battle, the King of glory.
