Well, it's good to see each one of you here today. We're going to go ahead and get started. And glad you could be with us in the House of the Lord as we come together and praise and worship our Heavenly Father here this morning. As far as announcements go, as we begin here this morning, we do have a deacon and elders board meeting tomorrow night. That's at 7 PM. So those of you who that pertains to, be aware of that. You should know that already. But that's tomorrow night, deacon and elder board meeting, budget meeting. And then next Sunday night, we have an opportunity to come together in preparation for giving thanks to the Lord. And to kick off Thanksgiving week, we like to have a time where we can come together as a family and participate in praising the Lord. together, and so if you would like to be part of that, and I would encourage really each of you to be part of that if you can come next Sunday night, what we're asking is you simply prepare maybe something with your family or maybe you individually, perhaps something that you've read pertaining to Thanksgiving to our God. It could be a poem, a passage of scripture, some type of a Thanksgiving selection that maybe has blessed your heart. over the years. If you have musical talent, this is a great opportunity for us to praise the Lord with you and for you to drive our hearts to the cross. And so, if you would like to sing a song together as a family or play something, I would encourage you to do that as well. What I would like you to do, if you can participate, and we encourage, like I said, everyone who can to do this, is there's a sign-up sheet in the back I'll go ahead and just sign up your name there, and then I'll be in contact with you this week. Now, if I don't get enough people to sign up, I told Pastor yesterday, I'm going to come knocking on your door, all right? So if I know that you're a good speaker or have a good musical talent, or maybe if you aren't, I just need people, I'm going to call you. So make sure you take the initiative there and sign up for that. Children, by the way, are welcome to participate with this, we would encourage that to happen. So if your child thinks, you know, I would really love to be involved in some type of upfront ministry, whether it be a musical ministry or even just reading something, or maybe your children as a group want to read something, we would encourage them to do that as well, a passage of scripture maybe they memorized and so forth. In regard to that as well, we will have a fellowship afterwards, next Sunday evening, so if you could bring some finger foods, some desserts, something to share with each of us, we're gonna have that as well after the evening praise service next Sunday night. So that'd be next Sunday night, and once again, sign up on the back on the way out here this morning. We have a baptismal service this evening and looking forward to that. And if it's not too late, if you would like to be baptized, you can see Pastor Jim or myself on that. And we will talk to you about that after the service here this morning. And then just one other note here. We do have the, actually two other notes. The elders have some constitutional changes they would like to enact. Those are on the back table. Make sure you pick up a copy of those and read that over. for our annual business meeting coming up, I believe, the second Sunday in December. And then, teens, we do have a youth snack tonight. That's going to be at our house. So, teens, be aware of that snack tonight at my house after the evening service. I think that's it. That's a lot of announcements, but we're so glad you could be with us as we praise the Lord here. Let's turn our minds to the Lord and his word this morning. Psalm 100 says, serve the Lord with gladness, come into his presence with singing. And we're going to do that. We're going to give you an opportunity to do that. But as we do that, we need the Lord's help, right? We need his grace, his loving kindness working through us as we seek to worship him in an appropriate, God-honoring way. If you have sin that you need to confess, or I would just encourage you to take a moment. We're gonna give you that opportunity. Or simply I would encourage you to just reflect on the goodness of God in your own life and the transforming power of his grace in your own heart. And we're gonna take 60 seconds and take a time of meditation and confession here to prepare our hearts for worship. Let's all stand together as we sing all praise to him. All praise to him, the God of light, who formed the mountains by his might. All praise to him who named the stars that sing his praises night. All praise to Him whose love is King May Christ the Son, the Son of King Who left behind His glorious throne To pay the ransom for His sins All praise to him who honoured the king, To bear our song of sin and shame, Who lives in time, who died to rise, He our sufficient sacrifice. The love of God within our hearts. The spirit of all truth and peace. The fount of joy and holiness. Our wills we vow to you the Trident God we raise, with loving hearts our song of praise. To Father's promise we give it now, our souls to raise. Our wills we vow to you the Trident God we raise, with loving hearts our song of praise. Our next song is a hymn called We Have a Story to Tell the Nations, a song about the Great Commission and our part in that. We've a story to tell to the nations that shall turn their hearts to the right. A story of truth and mercy. A story of peace and light. A story of peace and light. We've a song to each son to the nations that shall bear their hearts to the Lord. A song that shall conquer evil and shatter the spirit's sword. And shatter the spirit's sword. For the darkness shall turn to dawning, and the dawning to new day bright. And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth, the kingdom of love and light. ♪ We've a message to give to the nations ♪ ♪ That the Lord, who we love ♪ ♪ Has sent us a son to save us ♪ ♪ And show us that God is love ♪ ♪ And show us that God is love ♪ ♪ We've a Savior to show to the nations ♪ through the path of sorrows drawn, that all of the world's great peoples might come to the truth of God, might come to the truth of God. ♪ Where the darkness shall turn to dawning ♪ ♪ And the dawning to new day bright ♪ ♪ And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth ♪ ♪ The kingdom of love and light ♪ ♪ And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth ♪ ♪ The kingdom of love and light ♪ We submit our hearts to God's rule in our own lives here this morning. And as we do so, we want to continue to the Lord and give him thanks for this opportunity to worship him in our giving. And as we do that, we are remembering this morning one of our missionaries, Joanna Greenstreet, ministering in France, missions to military there. So be in prayer for Joanna this week. And this morning, we're praying for our Vice President Kamala Harris as well. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, as we come before you, we acknowledge that you are the great I am. the great God of heaven and earth, the creator of all. Father, we praise you because even as our creator, Father, you have chosen to love us, to send your love in the form of your son, Jesus Christ, to give us eternal hope. Father, we look to the day when one day we will reign with you forever. Father, as we submit our hearts to your rule in our own lives here this morning, we look forward to that future time when we will forever rule with you and under you. And Father, that time of perfect peace, our hearts yearn and long for that time when we will see you face to face. Father, I think this morning of Joanna Greenstreet and of the ministry that she has ministering the gospel to the people there in France. And Father, I ask that you would continue to help her this week to have opportunities of making disciples there. As she interacts with co-workers and friends and the culture there, I ask that you would shower your grace upon her life. As we come before you this Sunday, we come before you in this nation acknowledging that this is a nation that you have chosen to bring forth. brought forth this nation and you have placed the leaders in which you will, they should be there. And one of them would be our Vice President, Kamala Harris. And so, Father, this morning we do ask that you would take your word and that you would apply it to her heart and her life. And that you would allow her to have an opportunity to be confronted with the truth, the reality of the living God. and that that would in turn affect her decision making as she even advises our president. Father, as we come before you, we have an opportunity this morning to praise you in our giving. And I ask this morning that you would help us to give in a way that is sacrificial, that is loving, and that is reflective of the incredible salvation, the transformation, that you have given to us in our own hearts and lives. And we ask these things in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. Beautiful arrangement of a beautiful hymn. Let's stand together and continue praising God with Christ Exalted Is Our Song. Christ exalted is our song ♪ Our anthem through eternity ♪ ♪ Praises rise and wake the dawn ♪ ♪ Heralding His majesty ♪ ♪ Christ without a rival reigns ♪ ♪ Over all creation ♪ ♪ Name above all other names ♪ ♪ Enthroned in adoration ♪ ♪ Christ exalted in thy song ♪ ♪ The sun ran over everything ♪ ♪ Left his glorious throne beyond ♪ ♪ Stamped into our suffering ♪ ♪ The hands that shamed the heavens' flames ♪ ♪ Reached and healed the very ♪ ♪ Mighty God in needless pain ♪ ♪ To thee this body I tremble ♪ ♪ Christ exalted is our song ♪ ♪ No man of sorrows mocked and tried ♪ ♪ Borne the judgment for our wrongs ♪ ♪ For our sins was crucified ♪ ♪ Hear the Lord in his regret ♪ ♪ Fall and please forgive him ♪ ♪ As he lay the bitter weight of guilt and condemnation ♪ Christ exalted is our song, every blood in faith we bring. The kings of death and life belong to the firstborn crown we bring. Glory, glory to the King, crowned with health and strength. Christ exalted we will sing. ♪ Without an end in danger ♪ ♪ Glory, glory to our King ♪ ♪ Who helped break helpless cages ♪ ♪ Christ exalted we will sing ♪ ♪ Without an end in danger ♪ All right, one more hymn to sing. It's called, So Send I You. It's based on John 20, 21. Does anyone know that one? As the father had sent me, so send I you. So we'll actually sing that line at the end of the song, but each verse kind of like lays out like what that means for us. When Christ said, so send I you, all four verses of the song is gonna tell you what that means. But I'd like to point out verse two, since we're specifically talking about missions lately. So send I you to take to souls in bondage the word of truth that sets the captive free. To break the bonds of sin, to loose death's fetters, so send I you to bring the lost to me. So let's sing together, so send I you. So send I you, by grace made strong to triumph, O'er halls of hell, o'er darkness' heaven-sent My name to bear and that name to conquer. So send I you my victory to win. So send I you to take to soul and content the word of truth that sets the captive free. ♪ To break the bonds, lost and to lose just matters ♪ ♪ So send I you to break the bonds to me ♪ ♪ So send I you my strength to knowing weakness ♪ ♪ My joy in grief, my perfect peace in pain ♪ ♪ To prove my love, I raise my promise present ♪ ♪ So send I you eternal fruit to gain ♪ ♪ So send I you to bear my cross with patience ♪ ♪ And then one day, which joy to then entail ♪ Oh, hear my voice once again, my faithless friend. Oh, share my throne, my kingdom, and my crown. As the Father and Son do. You understand that that message from our Lord to send us is for all of us and not just a few of us. We're all called to go and share that gospel of eternity. Let's pray together. Father, it is with great joy to know that you desire for us to go, not just to go and show our presence, Father, but to go and speak forth the gospel, the good news, that which you've entrusted to us. And Father, as we focus these days on missions, and this morning specifically as we focus on the prayer of missions, It is my desire, Father, that each of us would understand that we were all, in a sense, missionaries, because we're all called to take the gospel to our families, to our neighbors, to our coworkers, to our fellow students. Father, as we think about this, we pray that you will help us to understand the importance of prayer this morning in the light of the calling that you have placed into our lives. So Father, thank you for that. I pray now that you will continue to guide and direct us through the ministry of your word. Help me, Father, as your servant for this hour, not to interfere with what you would want to be laid upon the hearts of people. Help me, Father, to speak forth that with boldness that I need to speak forth with, but also, Father, not to say anything that would contradict your word. I pray, Father, that I would always rightly divide the word of truth to guide my heart, and may I myself be submissive to your spirit's leading through this hour. But as well for the listener, I pray that each person here would allow your spirit to guide their hearts through the truths of your word, that we may not only become better prayer warriors, but Father, we might also understand that we may be the answer to our own prayers. So thank you, Father, for all that you do and for all that you will do. Guide us and direct us now for the rest of this morning, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Well, good morning. It is good to see you all here this morning. It's good to be here, obviously. I want to remind you that we do know, and I want to just make comment of the fact that yesterday, obviously, was Veterans Day. And so I want to congratulate and say all of our veterans. I've got a couple brothers, if any of you are on Facebook, who are in the Navy. But I know there are several veterans here this morning, and so we haven't acknowledged you, but I will say to you, thank you. It is something that is becoming more and more apparent to us as a country, how important you are to us. And I mean that sincerely. I'm not just blowing smoke. I mean that. We are living in a very difficult culture and a very difficult world. And this world is rapidly changing. And I know with all the events going on in the Middle East with Israel, a lot of folks are anticipating the trumpets to sound at any moment. I trust that the events of Israel has just now not waken you to those trumpets that they've always been prepared to sound. And they could have always sounded at any moment, at any time. And they could sound even now before I finish this message. I know that's your prayer. I will get through this, if the Lord willing, if that doesn't happen. But just continue to pray for veterans, continue to pray for those in the military presently, especially taking nothing away from any of our other military folks, but especially those that are serving over there in the Middle East right now, because they're living in a really powder keg, and it's tough over there. And so I hope you understand the sacrifice that they are making for us, if you will. So pray for them as well. And we appreciate that so much. One other point I want to make, this is a moot point. I just, I do this, so forgive me. We sing a wonderful song. We have a story to tell to the nations. It's a, it's a great song. And yet in that song, just to make note of this, this is therapy for me. There's one word I always like to change. It's important. You know, we talk all the time about how important words are, right? Words are really important. I really like to take this word and change it. I think it's a chorus that says, when the darkness turns to dawning and the dawning of the new day bright, and Christ's great kingdom will come on earth. Take that word and and change it to the word when. I think it better fits our theology. When Christ's kingdom comes to earth, those things happen. So, no big point. Just thought I'd get that out of my system. I feel better now. I hope you do. We are here to continue our series on missions. We've been talking about missions. As you know, we started out this series talking about the motivation of missions. We looked at the proper motivation would be a proper understanding of God, understanding that he is not only our God who judges us, he's also our God who rewards us. And there's great reward from him as well. So I think the motivation of mission is to understand God and who he is, as well as understanding our goals. Our goals are people, right? I think as we look at missions, whether we deal with our own mission field or other missionaries on their mission field, it's about people. It's about the lost. And that's our goal is to glorify God as we share the gospel of Jesus Christ and hopefully obtain fruit for our ministry. Then we went to what I call the machinery, if you will, of the missions, which is we dealt with the person. Obviously, the person of missions is an appointed person. And that was all of us, right? I think we're all understanding that we're all appointed to missions. Maybe the word missions doesn't communicate. Maybe I should actually say we're all appointed to evangelize, but that's who we are. That's what we're doing. Sometimes I think, I'm not sure about us, but I think across the globe sometimes Christians believe that the job of the work of ministering, evangelizing the gospel, the work of ministering to the lost is only for those who have been called to go. Okay? And again, I know through my 40-some years of ministry, people have said to me, well, Pastor, isn't that your job? Well, it is. I mean, Paul told Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, right? But it's not mine alone. It's yours as well. I don't know your neighbors as well as you do. I remember I was in a church where a new pastor came, and it was his first Sunday, and he was reminding them, you know everybody, I know nobody, so you get out there and share the gospel. And as I begin to know people, I will as well. But the bottom line is, we're all called, so we need to understand that the right mechanics, if you will, machinery of the missions is the appointed person. Also, anointed preaching. I think we understand the true gospel and what we're to minister to, the gospel witnessing the gospel of mission is not come come go with me to church although I don't have any problem with that that's not the mission that's not the message if you will the message is the death burial and resurrection of Christ and to confirm that as well and then we looked at the person and the preaching we're gonna look this morning at the praying of missions how do we pray for missions how do you pray for missions this is the key that I want to deal with and I want to remind you and I'm always subject to recanting can prove me wrong, I'm happy with that but you have to do the Word of God, take the Word of God to prove me wrong. But I don't find any command in Scripture where we are commanded to pray for the lost. Now, hear me out. There's nothing wrong with praying for the lost. After all, Romans 10, Paul says, I would that all of Israel would get saved. So, he prayed for their salvation. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with praying for provision for missionaries. We see that the churches in the book of Acts took care of each other and there were provisions provided. So there's nothing wrong with that. I'm talking about a command in scripture and in the context of missions is to pray for laborers, not the lost. But there are other things that I want to share with us this morning as we look at this idea of praying. and why we pray for missions and this kind of an idea. I think someone said that a relationship with God cannot exist without communication. And I think we sometimes understand, again, I use this illustration a lot, so forgive me if I'm being too redundant, but if you ever have a phone call with somebody and you're on the phone and they don't talk, does that drive you nuts like it does me? Maybe I should be careful here, But you know, you get this phone call, and I get people sometimes who'll call me to check on me. How are you doing, Pastor? Fine. I'm just doing great. And there's nothing. Well, in order to have proper, successful communication, you've got to complete the cycle. And with our Lord, He communicates to us by His Word. We must communicate back by prayer. And that completes that cycle of communication. So prayer is vitally important for our relationship with the Lord. I get that. If you will, to put it in another illustration, think about married couples who don't talk to each other. Some of you are looking at each other like, that's us. No, it's not. But the bottom line is married couples who don't talk to each other end up having a really bad relationship. It doesn't go well when they don't communicate with each other. This is our relationship with God. This is prayer for us in the sense that we need to understand that a good relationship with our God involves a very powerful prayer life, and a consistent prayer life. We're told to pray without ceasing and I get that. But my question for us this morning as we get into this is, why do we pray? Prayer is one of the things, and I confess to you as your pastor, I struggle with this a little bit because it's like, why do I need to pray when God already knows who I'm going to pray for and he's going to do his will anyway? I'm not going to, you know, am I praying to change his mind? But you know, scripture really gives us kind of two reasons for this. In fact, I pray to glorify God. But I also pray, and I think Piper mentions this as well, but I also pray for our joy in knowing that God cares and answers our prayer. And so the idea of praying is a very powerful idea, but prayer is not to inform God of our needs. Sometimes when we pray, we're just like, we're like needy people and we just start rattling off everything we want. Prayer is not to inform God of our needs. Prayer is really to conform to his will. And we need to understand that. That was a quote from Ray Stedman, and we need to understand that prayer doesn't change God, prayer changes us. And that's really important to get that in the context of where we are this morning, in the context of missions, and in the context of praying. So the question is, why do we pray? Why do you pray? Well, when it comes to the harvest, in terms of the mission field, and we've been looking at, we started this conversation, if you will, In Matthew chapter 9, you can turn there if you want. You're probably familiar with the verses. I've used two verses there just to use as a springboard text. And Christ says to his disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. He says, therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest. That's the text we've been using in the context of where we are. But when it comes to the harvest, we must saturate it with prayer. That's the verse. But we pray for laborers. It's interesting, he doesn't say to his disciples, the harvest is truly plentiful, so pray that we gather it all in. He doesn't say that. What he's saying is, there's enough out there, we just need people to go. That's really what he is saying, so we should be praying for laborers. Again, as I said, there's nothing wrong with other prayers. Please, please don't misunderstand me. But I think what we wanna do this morning is I wanna show you some areas in scripture where prayer was prayed for in a kind of an evangelistic idea, and to give you the context for these things, because if I am not concerned with results, if I'm not to be focused upon results, if I'm not to be focused on how much fruit I gather in, or harvest I gather in, if you will, We need to understand that I think we need to pray for other things, and I think we need to pray for the laborers. So that begs the question, what do we pray for for the laborers? Obviously, he's already told us to pray for more laborers. We're gonna look at that in a little bit. But in terms of missions, men and women who are already out there doing that, what do we pray for for them? How do we pray for them? What should we be praying for our missionaries? And for that, I wanna take you first of all to Acts chapter four. In Acts chapter 4, we're really dealing with the aftermath, if you will, of healing a lame man. Peter and John have healed this lame man. And as we've seen, as you've all studied scriptures and you've seen this in the gospel, sometimes there is often healing performed, whether in the life of Christ, he performed healing, or the disciples perform healing. And they don't get concerned. It seems like there's no excitement over the healing in terms of that. There's just more of this residual. Why did you do it on this day? Or why did you do it? Or who are you? And that kind of thing. And they forget the miracle that took place. Well, what happened here in Acts chapter four, we have just been dealing with the aftermath of the healing of a lame man by Peter and John, to which they were arrested and which they were put into prison again. Earlier in this chapter we saw a restriction put upon these guys, specifically Peter and John. They were ordered not to speak about Jesus anymore at all. I think it's interesting but they were basically commanded stop speaking. If you look earlier in the text in chapter 4 of Acts verse 18, they called them and commanded them to not speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. So, Peter and John said, okay, we'll go. We'll keep our mouth shut. Well, you know better than that obviously. But it's interesting they say whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge for we cannot but speak which we have seen and heard. And so, I think that one of the things that we need to understand is these guys are under threat of death. They are under threat of imprisonment. ordered not to speak about Jesus anymore. I find it interesting if you will that the early believers were ordered not to speak about Jesus. Whereas in our culture today we are almost commanded that we need to get forth and we need to almost be ordered to speak about Jesus. There is a huge difference in our culture today than here. We don't suffer the threats of imprisonment or death and they are commanded not to speak and we have to be commanded to speak sometimes. It's kind of interesting. But what do they pray for? Well, they're in prison. Remember that as you look at the text. I want to pick it up in Acts 4 verse 23 to get our context. They are let go until they went to their own companions, their own fellowship and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. And so when they heard that they raised their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord You are God who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them. Who by the mouth of your servant David has said, Psalm 2, why did the nations rage? And the people plot vain things. the kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ. Verse 27, for truly against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done. Now here's their prayer watch this verse 29, now Lord look on their threats and and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word. By stretching out your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Let's stop there a second. They are being threatened with imprisonment. They are being threatened with death. They have all of this negativity around them, and yet when they come together, remember when they're released, they go back to the church, the church gathers together to pray, and instead of praying, Lord, take care of the threats, relieve our enemies, give rid of enemies, their prayer is, Lord, give us more boldness to speak the truth of the gospel. I mean the leaders here in terms of the Jewish leaders had no alternative. I mean what are they going to do? Arrest them again? Imprison them for healing and amen? That wasn't going to work anyway. But they're concerned so that when they release them Peter and John do that which we understand was very common. They went back to the church where they knew people were praying. I wonder, just curious, If any of our people here would be threatened with anything or need that kind of stuff, if they would know to come back here for prayer, if they thought we were a church that prayed. I'm not sure how we would respond if we were Peter and John. We might make excuses. Well, maybe we'll go to another town. Maybe we'll move some other direction. Maybe we'll leave, and maybe what we should do, and I can hear people in the church saying this today, not to be too negative, but I can hear them say, maybe what we should do, just calm down a little bit. Let's just stay in the background a little bit. Let this thing cool down a little bit. And maybe it'll go away. Then maybe we can get back at it. And the question is, these guys go back to the church, and instead of praying for all that, they pray for boldness. And that's what they pray for. They pray for strength, they pray for boldness, that they might continue to do the right thing. They could have, if you will, taken the lead from King Hezekiah. They knew their scriptures. In Isaiah 37, he prayed, O Lord, our God, save us from his hand. That's a reference to the Assyrian King Sennacherib. He says, save us from his hand, that all the kings of the earth may know that you are the Lord, you alone. And so what they do is they pray for boldness. Interestingly enough, if I break this text down just a little bit for us, verse 24, so when they heard that they raised their voice to God. Notice their prayer says Lord, it starts out Lord. It's really, it's a despot, it's really a Greek term that means king or ruler. This is the word, it's a despot. It's the idea that this Lord means one with absolute power, one with absolute authority. they're saying Lord that's who they're praying to. They understand who their God is. In fact this word is used ten times in the New Testament and only five of those it's used to refer to God. And it's an interesting thing because they know that they are serving the God, the Lord, the mighty powerful God, the ruler of all. They understand that and they refer to Him because they realize that their only hope Their only chance, in the mid of all this controversy, in the mid of all this threats, in the mid of all this danger, is to go to the Lord who is in control of all things. He's the one that will take care of this. They clearly, folks, in this text here, they clearly are not intimidated at all. And so their prayer continues, as I said, in verses 27 and 28. And they clearly understand who the enemy is. They clearly understand what the enemy is attempting to do. They clearly understand that the enemy opposes Jesus. And they clearly understood that it was not personal. Seriously, this is about Christ. They referenced Herod. They referenced Pilate. They referenced the Romans. They referenced the Jewish leadership. All of them had a goal of ending the teaching of Jesus to stop this movement. All of them. And yet, they pray for more boldness. They realize that Jesus was rejected by these folks. Now they are being rejected by these folks, but it doesn't affect them. It doesn't faze them. It doesn't cause fear in them. It doesn't intimidate them. They just keep on keeping on. So clearly God is orchestrating all of this. They don't ask for protection. Again, a place to hide or any of that. That word boldness there, In our text, as you look at that word in verse 29, that word means give us the freedom of speech. Give us unreserved utterance. That's the word. These guys, Peter and John, specifically had defied the Sanhedrin earlier. Now they pray for courage and for boldness to continue. But I want you to note something. Have you ever prayed and had your prayers immediately answered? I'm sure many of you have. Maybe many of you have prayed, not sure when the answer was going to come. But I think it's interesting when we read on, notice what they pray in verse 29 and 30. And then verse 31 says, when they prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God with boldness. And God immediately answers their prayer and gives them that boldness to go forth with the Word of God. Now we may be sitting here saying, well, great for them, wonderful. You've got to understand the threats here and the culture they lived in. We don't understand that. but we have missionaries that we support in this church. We have one particular missionary I'm thinking of, won't mention his name, but we have one particular missionary, but we've got others who are in countries that are very hostile to Christianity, that are killing Christians, and they can't really speak out. In fact, you know, it's one of those situations, we joke about it a lot, but one of our missionaries, if he really told us where he was and what he was doing, he'd have to kill us. Because he can't do that without risk of danger in his own life. But that does not make him lack boldness. He is there in the threats of all of that, sharing the gospel because God has given him the boldness to do that. And that's how we need to pray for missionaries. But listen, most of us aren't even bold enough to go to our next door neighbor. I'm not trying to be critical of us. I'm not trying to be mean. Some of you do very well. In fact, I think this church does very well, to be honest with you. But the problem is the church today seems to be more saturated for what's in the walls rather than what's outside the walls. And we need to pray for boldness. We need to pray for strength to go forth and to talk to our neighbors. Well, my neighbor may never talk to me again. Really? That's what's scaring you? My boss may not give me my promotion. Really? That's what's scaring you? Well, you know, I may be made fun of at school. Really? After all, our Lord went through for this and we can't pray for boldness that we might have the boldness to speak the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's something to be said for that. But as we pray for our missionaries, pray for boldness for them. I look again, I could say this throughout all of this. Some of you know my background, but I was a missionary. I was a missionary for about 10 years, as I served and planted a church in Indiana. I put out newsletters, and I understand, seriously. And I know some of you, most of you do too, but I understand. It wasn't so much that I sent out a newsletter to get money for support. I needed the prayers of people. I was in a culture that really was kind of negative towards us. And I needed boldness to speak the gospel. These folks pray for boldness. And when they prayed, the place became shaken, and they spoke with boldness. Oh, I pray that we could do that as well. Take your Bibles. Let's go to our next understanding of how to pray for our missionaries. If you'll go to Colossians chapter 4, and look at verse 3. Not only should we pray for our missionaries to have boldness to open their mouth and speak the gospel, But in Colossians chapter 4, Paul is just in chapter 3 and the end of chapter 3, chapter 4, just finished this family matter, if you will. He talked about husbands, he talked about wives, and the character of how that operates within the home. He talks about the business world or your workplace in verse 1 of chapter 4, masters and bond servants. And we talked more about employees, employers, but however that works. But he deals with all those. characteristics of the home and the workplace. And then he goes in verse 2 of chapter 4 and he says, continuing earnestly in prayer being vigilant in it with thanksgiving or by thanksgiving. But meanwhile he says, praying also for us missionaries that God would open to us a door for the Word to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in chains. What? You are in prison and you are praying for more opportunities to share the Gospel? that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. Paul here is saying to them that we need the application for us. When we pray for our missionaries, and we pray for ourselves as missionaries, we need to pray for opportunities. Lord, give us opportunities. I think as well, more specifically, maybe to notice or recognize the opportunities when God gives them to us. Because I think God gives us opportunities, we don't necessarily see them or recognize them at times when they come along. First of all, Paul tells them to be faithful in their prayer life. He says to continue earnestly. That's a compound word, by the way, in Greek, which means to hold fast to and not let go. In other words, simply put, just be devoted to your prayer life. He told the church at Rome in Romans 12 to continue steadfastly in your prayers. So that's the idea, just have a continual devoted prayer life. He then tells them to be watchful in their prayer, verse, the end of verse two. He says to them, being vigilant in it with all thanksgiving. King James, I think, uses the word watch, but the new King James I'm using this morning uses the word vigilant, and it means to be on guard or be alert or to be aware of. I think the literal sense means collect one's faculties. It's really the most basic sense of just stay awake. This is the problem the disciples had when Jesus took them into the garden the night he was betrayed. They couldn't stay awake. And yet, many people teach, there are several who teach, that maybe if Peter that night would have stayed awake and he would have just prayed with the Lord like God, like Jesus had commanded them to do, told them to do, and not went to sleep, he might not have had the problem in the courtyard by denying Christ. Prayer is that important. And here Paul tells the church at Colossae, just stay awake when you pray. Stay vigilant. Understand what you're doing here. There's also a sense here that we should not just pray dull, boring, listless prayers. Sometimes we get in a habit of praying and it just becomes words that just roll out of our mouth with not much thought. We have to be careful with that. Again, from my background, I prayed a number of prayers as a teenager and a young man. I prayed a lot of prayers. Seriously, I had no idea what I was praying. I rattled off words because they were memorized prayers, and I just rattled them off. I somewhat jokingly, although it's sad, but I would go to confession every two weeks because I was a good boy. You know, who didn't? And every time I was given penance to say so many Our Fathers, which was the Lord's Prayer, what we call the Lord's Prayer, and so many Hail Marys, which were prayers to Mary, But it was always a Saturday morning that I had to go. For some reason, it was always a Saturday morning. Do you know what a young man does on a Saturday morning when it's bright and sunny outside and it's beautiful and all your friends are out running around? You get to that pew and you rattle off these prayers quicker than you can ever get to them. You're finishing, you're starting the second prayer before you finish the first prayer and you just kind of rattle them on, they just kind of all roll together and you just get out of there. That's the way some people pray today. We sit down together as family. Hopefully, you pray before as a family. Hopefully, you pray together. You sit there and go, well, I think you're a lot. Man, I'm hungry. I can't get enough of my food. How do we think about that time? It's just that's the idea here. We need to pray with thoughtfulness. We need to pray with vigilance. We need to pray understanding. We need to be alert of what we're praying. So we need to be watchful in our prayer. So Paul, first of all, tells them to be faithful. need to be faithful in the context of our message this morning. Be faithful for our missionaries. That's not the context here but that's the context I'm going with. Also we need to know what we are praying for. We need to watch what we need to be vigilant in our prayer life for our missionaries. Finally in verse 2 he tells them to be thankful when we communicate to God. It's interesting if you study the Scriptures long enough you'll find that a description of the last days which many of which we are in, a description of the last day is an unthankful heart. Amazing. I find it amazing, and I don't mean to be too critical with this, we have to donate, donate, designate a one day out of the whole year to be thankful. Hopefully that never applies to us. Hopefully we're every day. But a lack of thankfulness really describes the last days. But the implication here is every time I pray I should be thankful. Asking without thankfulness is really a selfish prayer. So he says that we should do those things, but I wanna pick it up in verse three of Colossians four. When we finally get to the request, notice he says, continue in prayer, being vigilant with the thanksgiving. Meanwhile, praying also for us. And here comes the prayer request. The prayer request is that God would open to us a door for the word. What Paul is doing here is actually praying, I think as well, requesting prayer for himself. We need to learn, obviously, to pray for each other. It's a vital thing. And I think that I don't want to get too far out of the context of what I'm dealing with here, but I think we need to understand how important it is to pray for each other as well. And I think what Paul is saying here, one of the things that through the years, people have always, pastors specifically, have always talked about the low attendance on Wednesday nights. There's always these things they say about the Wednesday night low attendance. I think just because folks are not here on Wednesday night does not mean they're not praying. But I think it does mean that maybe we don't understand the importance of collective praying, that we pray together as a group. Prayer is very important. Wednesday nights here, while the youth and the Olympians are meeting in the other building, we have a small group of adults We have a Bible study and we pray. I prefer more prayer than less Bible study, but we just need to understand that's an important part of our ministry. But this text in Colossians 4, we wanna look specifically how Paul instructs these people to pray for him. And what he's praying for seems to be, at least on the surface, a rather strange request, at least on the surface, especially considering his present circumstances, right? Remember, Paul's in prison here. He's sitting in prison, yet he's praying, pray for me that I would have opportunities to share the mysteries of Christ. Who are you going to share that with? The rats? The mice? Well, he had prison guards. He had people that were around him. Paul was never sitting, soaking in his own problems, feeling sorry for himself. He was always sitting thinking, you know, there's a guy in the next cell, there's a prisoner, there's a guard that's coming to me, there's this person, that person, who can I share the gospel? Pray for me that I would have opportunity, that God would open those doors of opportunities for me. And I want you to understand in this text that's before us in Colossians 4, there's really that only one request here. As he sits in prison, he's only making the one request. I can't get the word out. That God would open for us a door for the word. I think that King James says a door of utterance, same idea. Again, I find this a remarkable request. If this is something Paul needed for himself, how much more our missionaries need that? How much more we need that prayer for us, that God would open a door? And I think as well, as I said just a moment ago, I think as well, I think we need to be careful that not only do we pray for God to open a door of opportunity, but that we recognize that door when it's opened. The door here obviously represents opportunity. So this is not a general request. I think it's a specific request. He tells the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians, he says, furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, he said a door was opened to me by the Lord. We have that Philadelphia church in Revelation 3, where the Lord says to them, I know your work. See, I have set before you an open door. No one can shut it for you have little strength. And so the idea is these are doors of opportunity. This is opportunity. We need to seek those opportunities. We need to ask the Lord for those opportunities. We need to look for those opportunities. We need to take and capture those moments that God gives us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we need to pray that for our missionaries. We have several occurrences in the Bible where Paul is arrested, we know that. And yet, he uses his time in prison to share the gospel, rather than feeling sorry for himself. It's interesting, if you go back to the book of Acts with me and to the last chapter, chapter 28, I find this interesting in how the book of Acts ends. chapter x 28 and verse pick it just pick it up in verse 30 these the last two verses of the book of Acts the book of Acts as many of you know we went through that book several while back but it's just an account of the birth of the church from x2 and it just shows the progress of the establishment of churches throughout the book of Acts we find out how we define missionaries because missionaries in the book of Acts were those who were out planting churches gathering believers together in one location that's what a missionary is we've talked about that before and But here as the book ends, he says, Luke says, and Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house and received all who came to him. He was under house arrest, if you will, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him. So Paul was always looking for opportunities to share the gospel. Are we? Do I? Do we look for those opportunities? Do we capture those moments? I think we may understand that one of the greatest prayers we can pray, other than for boldness, is that, God, help me to see the opportunities you place before me. Help me to capture those moments. Help me to take the moments that you give me. I remember one time I was standing in line at Walmart. That's when you had checkout ladies at Walmart. You weren't doing the checkout yourself. That was the old days. But I was standing in line. It was a little bit of a line. And it was a long line. And it was a slow line. boring line and it just wasn't moving. Am I making my point? And the lady turned around to me in front of me, she turned around to me and she said, you know, I think we could just die in this line. Wow. So if you die, ma'am, where are you going? If we were to die in this line, what's going to happen to you? Opportunities. That's the point. And sometimes we see those opportunities and we're like, She's speaking to me, I don't want to talk to anybody. Because all I've got in my mind is to get through the line. I've been there, I've done that, I get that. We need to pray, God, give us opportunities. Open that door of opportunity. Open the door so that the word of God can advance. So we need to pray for boldness for our missionaries and for ourselves. We also need to pray for opportunities. Finally, back to the text that we started with, we'll go to Luke chapter 10 for this one. We need to pray for laborers. If you'll look at Luke 10. Verse 1 and 2 is where I am on this. It says, after these things the Lord appointed 70 others also. And he sent them out two by two before his face into every city and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. You know, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I find that fascinating, that he's sending these 70 out to evangelize, to share the gospel, but basically saying to them, pray that more will go. Pray for laborers. The context is he's 70 going out, but it's a fascinating context, as I said. Listen, folks, get the point. There is no lack of harvest. There is no lack of people. There is no lack of unsaved. That's not the problem. The problem is there's not enough people to go to tell them, and we need to pray for the Lord to send forth laborers into the harvest. That may mean some, God may be calling some of you to the mission field. I was part of a missionary organization at one time that said, I think, and I may have the age somewhat wrong, but I'm not too far off, somewhere around 50 or 55, after that age, come home, because you're not worth anything. Just come home. You can't go after that age. I'm like, what? Really? Seriously? That was their philosophy. You are not too young and you are not too old to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are not too young and you're not too old to go. And we need to understand that we need to pray for laborers. And there's just no lack of people out there. There is always more to accomplish. And we need more to do the work. We're really lacking in that area. The harvest, obviously, and we get this as he talks in his text, and I hope you don't misunderstand the text. The harvest is truly the people. That's the harvest. This may be that more folks who become disciples, more folks there is to work. Maybe the idea there. But folks, we need to understand we have the greatest message of all. We just need to. We just need to go and share that message. We need to pray God to bring forth labors. There are a lot of mission fields that are lacking people. There are a lot of unreached people. in this country, in this culture on the globe that need to hear the gospel. There's just not a lot of people willing to go. In fact, I've said this before, and forgive me if I keep saying this again, but it just grieves my heart that missions is so shifting to where it's no longer I'm going to the mission field and staying there and live with them and evangelize them. I'll go maybe once or twice a year. I'll live here in my comfort in the States. I'm not giving all that up, but I'll go maybe once or twice and maybe sleep in a slum or on a dirt floor to share the gospel, but don't ask me to do that for all of my life, because that's uncomfortable. That's not what missions is. Some of you might remember, soon after I got here, I had the privilege of going to Peru. I had no idea what was going on there, except I was supposed to teach in a Bible class, teaching a bunch of pastors, and they sent me way up in northern Peru, up in these mountains. They took me to my bedroom, which was a dirt floor. My shower was a spigot that came out of the ground. About three days into that, one guy came to me and said, you do know there's a shower around the corner? I said, no, I didn't. He said, yeah. So I go over there and open up the shower door. I am not exaggerating. There was a hornet's nest in that thing about like that. I thought you could take a shower in there. I'm not. But it was like, it was an amazing thing. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying, that's the way some of our missionaries actually live day by day, just to share the gospel. And yet we're lacking laborers because people don't want to give up the comfort of their home. Young people are not being encouraged to go to the mission field. Parents are not willing to give up their children to go. They want them close. They wanted to have grandchildren. I mean, I don't have any problem with any of that. Don't misunderstand me, please. I'm just saying, are we willing to let our kids go? We need to pray for laborers. One more point in this, and I've used this illustration a lot. We, you know, in church planning, we had what I call the catch 22. We had a little small group of people gathering, and it was really hard to build that church because nobody was there. And nobody came because nobody was there, but nobody was there because nobody would come. It was this kind of catch-22. You just had to do this one-on-one discipleship and one-on-one evangelizing to get the church to grow. But the problem is, folks, sometimes we pray for that person to go or that person to go. All the time, the Lord is saying, but what about you? Why aren't you going? You may be the answer to your prayer. Do you remember the little girl whose brother was trapping birds? I've shared this before. You ever make that box with a stick on it and tie a string on it? Put a piece of bread in there and you take the string and hide behind a bush and wait for a bird to go in there to get the bread and you pull the string and the stick falls and the box falls on the bird? You ever see that happen? I used to do that as a kid. I could not catch a bird for life. anything. But we did that. And this little girl was watching her brother do that day after day. And she would pray, Lord, please stop my brother. I don't want those birds captured. Please, Lord. And she got so frustrated because the Lord was not answering her prayer. She went out there and she tore up the box, broke the stick, threw it all away. And then all of a sudden, she realized, I just took care of it. I was the answer to my own prayer. See folks, sometimes we're praying for the Lord to send forth laborers when the Lord is saying, I want to send you. Remember the song we sang. And we need to understand that we should be the answer to our prayer. It just takes one person in the church telling someone outside the church and making disciples. And it's on me because it's my ministry and we need to take it personally. One scholar stated that the 12 and the 70 that were sent out by the Lord were answers to the prayers that were thus prescribed, sent forth laborers. But here's the deal, folks. How do you pray for missions? Why do you pray for missions? We need to pray for our missionaries that they would have boldness. We need to pray for our missionaries that they would indeed have strength and courage to go. We need to pray for our missionaries to have opportunities open up before them. We need to pray for our missionaries, and we need to pray for God to send more. We have, in my humble opinion, a great mission program here. We support some wonderful missionaries, but we could always support others. But the point, folks, is we need to understand that as we pray for missions, We need to pray specifically for them. They covet our prayers more than they covet our money. I guarantee you that. Now they need the money. I get that. But they covet our prayers more. So I challenge us this morning, individually, how often do you pray for our missionaries? I don't pray for them near as much as I should. I'll give you that much. We have a list that we put out of everybody in the church that you pray for daily. We've added missionaries to that list. Do you even know who our missionaries are? Do you even know how to pray for them by name? Do you even know how to pray for them by their needs and what they need and what's going on with them? Do you even know where they are? If we're going to be mission-minded, giving money is not it. Praying is. I want to finish, take you to 2 Thessalonians. I'll finish with this. Chapter 3. And this kind of just summarizes everything we've talked about this morning, if you will. In 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 1, I encourage you to make this a verse that you study and make it part of you, where he says, finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified just as it is with you. That should be our prayer for our missions. That should be our prayer for each of us. that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified. Let's pray. Father, we recognize for this text, for the word of God to run swiftly to even be accomplished, taking nothing away from your sovereignty and taking nothing away from your power. But we recognize for that to happen, we need more laborers. Oh, Father, we do pray that you would send forth laborers into the harvest. But Father, as we pray that, may we as individuals and as we as a church remember to pray that internally as well. Not just for you to send others, but Father, that you might send us. There may be even one gathered here with us this morning that is being challenged to go to the mission field, to leave the comforts of home, to spend time with another culture, may not have to cross a body of water. We can do that here in the States. But Father, pray that you would challenge our hearts, that you would challenge individuals. Start with me, Lord, and work through the congregation. And may we be challenged to share the gospel of Jesus Christ wherever we are. Though, Father, we take your command to make disciples seriously. Help us to fulfill that command in our own individual life and be obedient to that as you give us the boldness, as you give us opportunities, as you send out laborers. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Pastor. Let's stand together and sing for the cause of Christ. The words of Christ the King, we give our lives in honoring, till all the earth resounds with songs of praise to the sun. To the God of Christ we go, with joy to sing, with faith to show, as many sing, and many push their trust in the sun. Christ, we proclaim the name above everything. For all creation, every nation, God's foundation through the sun. Let it be my life's refrain, to live is Christ, to die is gain. Deny myself, take up my cross, and follow the sun. Let it be my life's refrain, to live is Christ, to die is gain. Deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Christ we proclaim the name of love every day. For all creation, every nation, God's salvation through His blood. Christ we proclaim the name of love every day. you