APR 13 2014 | Praying For Your Elephant Passion Week S1E1 | Day 1

Sea Change Church · Praying For Your Elephant Passion Week S1E1 · "Day 1" · Adam Stadtmiller · April 13, 2014
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Let us never forget to pray. God lives. He's near. He's real. And he's not only aware of us, but he cares for us. He's our father and he's accessible to all those who seek him. Gordon Hinckley. Hey, it's day one of the Praying for Your Elephant Passion Week prayer podcast, and that is a lesson in alliteration if you've ever heard one. It's great to be here with you today, back riding the elephant, back leading the migration. It's been about seven, eight weeks since our last migration, and it's been amazing to watch all of you continue to pray, continue to care for each other, continue to join the herd and be a part of the herd.

I want to welcome all you that are brand new to the elephant. It's great to have you here and to be a part. A lot of you have joined since we started or after we started, and you've never been on one of these migrations. And so I'm going to tell you a little bit about those in a moment and how they work, but they're pretty straightforward. They're pretty simple, and if you just stick around, you'll figure it out.

You know, the entire podcast is being put up on our social media page, Praying for Your Elephant, on the Facebook page, and that's probably where you have seen it. It's also going to be on my new church website, which is the church that I'm at. It's La Jolla Christian Fellowship. We'll be hosting it from there from now on, but then posting it.

And then eventually we're going to be getting a Praying for Your Elephant website of our own and be posting there. So all those things are coming, and I can talk about that more as we go through this podcast. I want to give you the ground rules for this. I guess they're not ground rules, but I just want to show you the map of the safari that we're going to be taking through the high grass of prayer.

This is going to be an eight-day podcast, and then I'm going to have a 40-day challenge after it that I will be a part of, and putting up different podcasts and scriptures and encouragement. But for eight days, we are going to be journeying with Jesus to the cross. We're going to start with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and talking about some different scriptures and during the time that he was in Jerusalem and preparing to take on the sin of all mankind that we might be reconciled to him.

But some very unique things happened in that time and some things that I really want to highlight as we pray. Once again, this podcast is a podcast about asking prayer, and it starts as kind of a base, a premise, to just speak to God. But then there's so many other elements that come out of that. In the past, we've had times of silent prayer where we've done a weak detox of just listening to God.

There's contemplative prayer. There's all types of prayer. But praying for your elephant, I feel the calling on at least this little season of my life, is to help people identify the things, the big elephants in their lives, the prayers that are game changers, but then little prayers as well, that if they came to fruition, if God answered those, if he responded to those, that it would really be, like I said, a game changer in your life.

And so there's always a sense of organizing your prayer life, not for the sake of legalization, as we've said, for the sake of really pressing in and chasing after God. And I believe this is a special time. This week, these eight days, is a time when Christians around the world are bombarding the throne of heaven with prayer requests. God is very attentive.

I know he's attentive all the time, and he's God, and he knows about everything. But in the scripture, it does talk about him turning his attention to us. And prayer is a megaphone that turns the attention of God towards us. He has a special relationship with prayer. It's the common language of heaven. And so one of the things we want to do is join with all these other believers around the world this week as God turns his attention.

And I do believe there are seasons of the calendar and days, and while every day is Resurrection Sunday in the lives of a believer, you know, I appreciate Easter Resurrection Sunday. I appreciate all those different days and the High Holy Days. And I think, but every day is the resurrection lived out in our hearts. So I get that. But at the same time, I do feel like there's certain times and seasons where God is particularly attentive.

And I believe when we're gathering together in unity as a migration in this journey, that God is doing that. So let me just begin there. Many of you have been on this journey before, and I would tell you, pull out the old prayer list or make a new one. Right now, my girls and I have got a prayer box where every Saturday morning we're adding prayers to a box, and then we pull them out and we look at them, and it's getting more and more full.

God already answered some of them this week. So I want to encourage you to go back to your list and begin to write down, begin to organize your prayers, the people you pray for, the things you pray for. And then what I want to do is really help guide you through this Passion Week in really beginning to not just pray for the things you want to see happen, but to really experience Jesus, to really walk with Him, to really reflect on His journey.

We know that according, at least to the layout of the book of John, that it was during this Passion Week where Jesus praises High Priestly Prayer in John 17, and that's going to be the text that we're really going to dig into over this eight days, and then begin to use that to structure the 40 days that follow. In that 40 days to follow, I'm going to have a real challenge for you, and it's going to be to pray aloud with another believer at least five minutes per day.

It could be your husband, your wife, your best friend, your children, somebody at work, but five minutes committed to prayer, praying for the things in their life that matter, and for you that matter. And so to find a friend, so you'll have a week to go find this friend, this person, or multiple people that you can call and say, hey, you're my Monday friend, I'm going to call, and I'm going to pray for the things that are on your heart, and begin to pray for one another and to pray in community.

And so this is going to be an exercise. I want to encourage you through the entire 40 days afterwards as we go towards Pentecost, which is the time of the Holy Spirit where he falls on the believers after the death of Christ, that you really begin to press in with God and with other believers. So that's going to be the challenge, and we're going to be looking at John, the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, and that's where we're going.

So with that said, I want to begin this week, this first podcast, with Jesus riding in as King to Jerusalem. And the question and the context is, just picture in your head, as I read this, of Jesus riding into your heart. And how do you welcome him into your heart? I think it's a key question on Palm Sunday. How do we welcome Jesus into our heart?

And do we lay down the palm fronds? And when he comes and he makes demands of us afterwards, like he did of people after he rode in, do we continue to welcome him with that? So I'm going to read out of John chapter 12, starting with verse 12. The next day, the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.

And they took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the King of Israel. And Jesus found a young donkey, and he sat on it. As it is written, Do not be afraid, daughter Zion. See, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt. At first, his disciples did not understand all this.

Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him, and these things had been done to him. Now the crowd that was with him, when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him.

And the Pharisees said to one another, See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him. So this is a really powerful text. And the one thing that I think that I already mentioned that I wanted you to do today in prayer, tonight as you hear this, you're going to be hearing it on Palm Sunday, is to prepare the way. To prepare the way for Jesus, and not be afraid.

Not be afraid to ask for things. You know, this week I've been dealing with the issue of fear, and I went and saw a movie. I can talk more about that later. But, you know, one of the things I was thinking about praying is, Lord, I pray that I would not fear. There'd be no fear in me at all. And I was afraid to pray it, because I thought, well, if I pray that, then God's going to give me cancer, or he's going to do this, you know, like God is in the business of giving people cancer, and, you know, just because he wants to.

Because a fun little thing for him, you know, just so he can, you know, purify us. And I was afraid to pray it. And I think it says here, don't be afraid. I love that, you know, as you look at that scripture, and as it said that in John chapter 12, is to not be afraid. And so what are the things that you would pray for that maybe in the past you wouldn't, because you're afraid?

This is part of our list of the things that we would pray for. What are you willing to ask for in Jesus' name? So sit, take 15 minutes, turn some worship music on, take a half hour and go sit at the beach. Take some time away from the TV, or whatever that thing is that, you know, takes its place in your life. And prepare the way for Jesus for this week.

It's going to be a powerful week. I'm believing in an incredible week. So bless you guys. I love you. And we will see you here tomorrow at Praying for Your Elephant.