DEC 8 2024 | Shopping for Hope…Finding Faith S1E2 | The Right Side of History

Sea Change Church · DEC 8 2024 | Shopping for Hope...Finding Faith - S1E2: The Right Side of History
Luke 1:5-17
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared. This is the word of the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Right on. Welcome to Rockefeller Center.

It does sound like Rockefeller Center, doesn't it? If you have your Bibles, open up to Luke 1, 5-17. Just so, something I want to be remembered is, today is the day after Pearl Harbor Day. And it's funny, like when September 11th happened, it was like, never forget, right? Never forget. And I intentionally opened up the paper and the news and stuff on September 11th.

It's like buried. And it's something I don't want to forget. People that have gone before us, and many of you have served in here, and I'm thankful for that. I just want to take a moment of silence. I've studied a great deal about Pearl Harbor and the things that happen afterwards. I just want to take a moment of silence just to remember that. So let's just take a moment if we would.

Lord, I want to thank you, God, for how you've just sent people in harm's way, that we can be free. And it is for freedom that you have set us free. And you sent your son at great harm to die in our state. And so, Lord, we ask that you would just bless those that are serving today, and we remember the fallen. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So, as you know, I have a special place in my heart for my children.

God has a spirit of fatherhood on me. And I have spiritual children as well. It's weird. I have 40-year-olds come up to me now and say, like, hey, you're like my spiritual dad. You're my spiritual, you know, father and things like that. And I have a special place for that. It is kind of weird when you become that person, though, you know what I mean?

Like, no, I'm, like, cool young guy. I'm not dad. You're 40, you know. But I'm really blessed by that. So that's what you see there. I take it very seriously. And I love and especially have a heart for dads and doing that. We're in this incredible passage. We're looking at angels today, some of the main characters in this narrative, in the nativity narrative throughout the Scripture.

And I want to look at the importance of them, what they mean, what God is saying through them. But then also juxtapose those with your position in Christ, right? It's easy in a Western world to kind of view angels like you, you know, think of the Smurfs. You know, they're just something that's kind of a fantasy world. They're not blue. But they're, you know, just kind of this thing, right, that we don't really think about.

And the Bible's clear that angels are a part of God's heavenly army. They're in the Old Testament. They're in the New Testament. They're in the book of Revelation. They're at the announcement of Jesus here. Angels are a deal in the Bible. They're not the biggest deal, but they're the real deal. And I want to talk about them and how we interact with them, what the place is supposed to be, as we look at the different characters in the narrative, we're going to dive right into that.

You have a main point. Now, if you don't have your notes, that's my fault. For the first time ever, I finished, I literally finished my message Sunday morning, which was like, I got up at 5, and I'm like, man. And then I sent it to the team, and if you did not get your notes, I was in deep prayer, and that's what was happening. But if you don't have those, we'll have notes on the back.

You can get those on the way out so you can follow up. But you can still, there's a note section you can just write stuff. We do have a bunch of scriptures here as well. Here's the main point. Prayer is a fuel. Let me just start right there. We're going to repeat that. Prayer is a fuel. Let's say that. Prayer is a fuel. One more time. Prayer is a fuel.

One more time. Prayer is a fuel. I find the third time, you know, maybe that's why Jesus rose on the third day, but the third time we say it is like what I'm going for. Prayer is a fuel that propels God's people into God's plans. The entire narrative of the nativity and the narrative of God's work on the earth has been fueled by prayerful people.

God's going to do what he's going to do, but for some reason, he has allowed himself to be tethered to the prayers of mankind, the prayers of human beings. And this is a passage that is filled with prayer. This passage, while we're going to talk about angels, and I love talking about angels. Angels, I find angels like really interesting, like super, really, really interesting.

The thing that is most interesting, though, is his son. We're going to look at angels today, but I also want to look at how to activate you into prayer, that heaven moves. I put prayer as a fuel that propels God's people into God's plans. If you want to see God's plans come to fruition, if you want to see heaven take attention to your words, which is odd, right?

Heaven doesn't do that to angels' words, but to the people's words. When we pray, as we saw here, Gabriel says to Zechariah, God heard your prayer, right? And there was a group of people that were also praying outside the temple that day, and they were wailing for the Messiah. They were wailing for God to rescue them. God had given them a dose of what they wanted, 400 years of silence.

There hadn't been a prophet. There had been false prophets, but not a true prophet since Malachi. That was 400 years earlier. That's a long time. That's longer than this nation has been around. It had been silence. They were under Roman oppression. There was evil in a lot of the priesthood, and they had broken many of the customs. And then something starts to happen.

Something begins to stir. And you can imagine that many weeks before, years before, Zechariah, as one of the 24 divisions of priests who would take care of the temple, it was his time to take care. And I'm sure he'd gone there before and it'd been empty. The sacrifices were going on. They were killing the bulls, something they don't need to do anymore because Jesus has died on the cross and because of his blood.

But he would have seen that. He would have seen the incense. It would have all been rote. It would have all just something that we just do, right? But this time was different. This time as he walked through, there was this multitude that were outside praying. Go to verse 10. And the whole multitude of people were outside praying at the hour of incense.

Circle hour of incense. That's important. That timing is important. We're going to look at it in just a second. But he walked by this time and something was different. The people had begun to stir. Where two or more are gathered, Jesus is there. When one person prays, two people pray together, God hears. Zechariah was an individual with his wife just praying for a son, not knowing that God would answer bigger than they were praying.

He usually does that. He usually gives a little tip to our prayers, I have found. I want something, but he gives me more than I've ever asked. Because in Ephesians 3.20, it says he will give or do more than we can ever hope, dream, or imagine. So our prayers are always insufficient. Zechariah and Elizabeth were praying for a son. They got the son that was the precursor to the Messiah and the beginning of the new age of Christ, the new dawn of Christ in the world.

And so they began to pray. And a multitude is praying. And so when individuals pray, it matters. When you pray, it matters. It shows that, you know, we're going to look at Daniel here in a second. One person praying, it matters. But when a multitude prays, it matters in a different way. I'm not going to say it's more. But God has something to, because God is a unified God, he likes unity.

And he blesses unity. That's why Satan wants to break your marriage apart. He wants to break your family apart. Now, Zechariah has a son here, eventually. His name is John the Baptist, right? John the Baptist comes. He comes in the spirit of Elijah. We spoke about this last week. You would think if you come in the spirit of Elijah, you're throwing Holy Spirit fireballs, right?

You're like, boom! You're the spirit of Elijah. Bring it. I don't know if John ever did a miracle. What John did do was baptize a bunch of people, get them ready for repentance, was a joy to his parents, and return the hearts of the children to their fathers. If you return it to the father, it's going to be returned to the entire family, because they were the head of the family at that point.

You saw it was a spirit of Elijah that was no longer about Holy Spirit fireballs. It was about restoration of the family, restoration of a nation. The people were praying. Prayer activates heaven. You have the ability to change heaven when you pray. God listens to you. If you want, heaven's doing what they're doing right now. Elders are bowing down, throwing the crowns, 24 elders.

They're doing their thing, right? If you want to mess the schedule up a little bit, pray. Because God will say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've got a prayer coming in here from Chicago. I've got a prayer coming in from La Jolla, from Wind and Sea. I've got to get to business. He might even send an angel. We'll see. We'll just look at that in just a second.

We're going to look at the angel's involvement here. But before we get too crazy about angels, like I chat GPT'd a lot. I know. Don't be afraid. Well, be afraid, but not in the way that, yeah, nonetheless. I chat GPT'd a bunch about angels. I was down. And the nice thing now is it sources it now so you can actually go to the source and say, oh, where did that come from?

You didn't just make that up. So then I would go look at the sources and read the sources. Angels are cool. I love angels. I think angels are so cool. So I had one experience where I've actually seen angels in my life. Just one time when God saved my life. I saw demons and angels at the same time. It was during a really difficult period. And I won't go into that whole story, but it just happened one time.

Now, most of us would say, man, I'd like to see some angels because we think they're these like fat little babies, right, little cherubic babies. Angels are terrifying. That's why when these prophets of old see an angel because they're so holy, they usually fall down. And the angel's like, come on, little buddy. Even if it was John, the best friend of Jesus, come on, get up.

It's okay, little buddy. You'll be fine. Angels are terrifying, right? That one that sits in front of Eden with its flaming sword that you have there. We see this. But before we get too into angels, I just want to frame up all the angel stuff into Colossians 2.18. It says, Paul, Paul's beginning, let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism.

That means being too legalistically holy. Like, oh, you ate that meat? Well, that kind of thing. Don't let anyone disqualify you, insisting on asceticism. And worship of angels, going on in detail about their visions, puffed up without reason by their sensuous minds. There was a thing in the first century. They were really into angels. They were really into the genealogies of angels.

Who's connected to this angel? Because if you know in the book of Genesis, there was angels that walked the earth, and they cohabitated with women, and they had children, which became the Nephilim. Can't go into all of that. You can go study it yourself. But there was these half angel, half human beings walking on the earth. That sounds trippy. It is definitely trippy.

You can go spend the next week reading on through that. But we had people in the first century that was all about angels. Paul said, enough about the angels. Angels have a business. They do what they do. But the pearl of great price is Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. So let me frame that before we talk about these really important characters in the nativity scene.

Because there's a lot of angels around the nativity scene, right? Jesus could have showed up himself, or the Holy Spirit, or God himself, or could have shown up, or however it is. But he sends angels. Here's the first one. Gabriel announces the birth of Jesus to John the Baptist. That's one. Gabriel is one of three angels mentioned in the Bible. There's three mentioned in the Bible.

Now there's two others that are in the Apocrypha. Apocrypha are books alongside the Bible. They ain't the Bible. Very interesting. You can get a lot of goodness from them. I don't live my life according to the Apocrypha. I live my life according to the Bible. But I find them really interesting. And even the book of Jude and some other New Testament books mention some things that are in the Apocrypha.

So here's those angels. First one, Michael. Michael is an archangel, right? He's different than Gabriel. Michael different, okay? Michael goes to war. He commands. When you think of Psalm 91 about him, you know, sending his angels to protect you. We'll read that in a second. That's Michael. Michael is the one who's arguing with Satan for the body of Moses.

He's the one that's at the end times. He's fighting the final battle. He's doing all. So angels are important. They're getting some business done in the spirit realm. What's interesting is oftentimes because of people's prayers, God sends angels. We'll see that in Daniel in a moment. So don't be afraid to pray that God would intervene with his angels.

So we see the first one is Michael. Then we have Gabriel. He's a messenger. We talked about him. You know who the third angel mentioned in the Bible by name is? Satan. Yeah, the Satan. He is an angel that fell away. Those are the only three angels mentioned in the Bible. The other two, one in the book of Tobit, which is apocryphal, and one in the book of Enoch, which is fascinating.

I love the book of Enoch. Really interesting. Are Uriel and Raphael. So I won't go any more into them. Here's some other things in the nativity. Gabriel announces the conception of Jesus to Mary. Now, I went to the church of the nativity. I went to the place where Mary, they actually know. When you go to Israel, it's like, well, we are 100% sure that this is maybe the place that might have been the place where maybe we're 100% sure of maybe the place where Jesus did this.

Like, that's all of it, right? This is one spot where, like, no, we sure. We actually know. We have, like, all dating back to the fruit right after Jesus was born. We have Roman. Like, you know Mary lived there. I got to say, I have never been to a place that felt as holy as the church of the nativity. When I got there, I was like, and I went to all the other places.

And I like the garden tomb, and there's a bunch of places. Garden tomb was pretty special as well. But when I went over to the West Bank and went into there, I was like, angels are here. There are angels in this. I could feel it. They actually, it says that there has been a Christian on site there since the moment that Mary was announced. Now, we know that the baby was announced to Mary, that there's been a Christian there that hasn't left, somebody that knows the Lord.

And so we know that God stations angels. He stations them at Eden, right? He says, don't come into Eden. I always thought that would have been an amazing, like, sequel to Indiana Jones, like, go back to the Garden of Eden. That was like, I wanted to write that, but nonetheless. We know that he stations them. And it says in the Scripture that the Lord encamps his angels around the righteous.

If you want to pray, I want to encourage you, put this in your prayer. Lord, send your angels to encamp them around. We pray every Tuesday that God sets angels around this building. We pray around your houses. We pray around our own houses. We pray for a hedge of protection, like we saw with Job. We continue to pray. So that's one thing that you can do.

Put that in your notes. Number three, angel reassures Joseph to take Mary as his wife. That's interesting. Angels proclaim Jesus' birth to the shepherd. Now, this is a host of angels. A whole bunch of them show up. I don't know if they're singing or what it was like. It was awesome. I was sitting up here about six months ago. I know. If you're not a believer or you're really scientific, then this will probably sound like I'm crazy.

But nonetheless, I'm willing to take the risk. And I was sitting here, and I thought to myself, I just felt the presence of God. I felt it again today. I felt this real strong presence. And I thought, there's an angel on stage, and he's sitting right there. And I just thought it to myself. And I looked over at Drea, and I said, Drea, I think there's an angel here today.

And I didn't tell you. Okay, I'm telling you now. But I'm not going to hype it all up or whatever. I just think that. As soon as it was over, our friend Bishop Collins from Nigeria walked up to me right after the service. Maybe you've met the bishop from Nigeria. He goes, Adam. I can't do his Nigerian accent. I love it, though. He goes, I want you to know, there were angels in the service today.

And I was like, oh, let's go. I knew it. And I didn't see them, but I knew it. So he does send angels places. And they like to hang out. They like to worship and do their things. And we have prayed, God, let this be a way station for your messengers. Like, do your thing. I know. Right. If you're super scientific and you're all science-y, this is not going to make sense to you.

But if you're a person of faith and you believe the Scripture, that's something we can pray. An angel warns Joseph to flee to Egypt. An angel instructs Joseph to return to Israel. An angel directs Joseph to settle in Nazareth. Angels, angels, angels. Now, there was a guy who wrote a book. His name was Billy Graham. And it was by that title. That was the name of the book.

Angels, angels, angels. In case you didn't know what it was about, it was about angels because he said it three times. I thought angels would have been sufficient, but it was angels, angels, angels. Go to verse 10 if you were to verse 11. I want to look at this because this is where it concerns you. Prayer activates heaven. And the whole multitude of people were praying outside at the hour of incense.

It said multitude, hour of incense, circle hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side, circle right side of the altar of incense. Circle, altar of incense. I don't think it's a mistake that verse 10 precedes verse 11. I just don't think it's a mistake. I don't think there's a lot of mistakes in Scripture.

I think that Scripture is perfectly created by God to do what it's called to do. And I don't think it would, you know, they could have added a lot of context there. But let's look at verse 10. And the whole multitude of people were praying outside at the hour of incense. Boom. Verse 11. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord. There's a connection between a whole multitude of praying and heaven activating.

I want to encourage you, if you don't have a multitude, find your multitude. Three, four, five, six. I have multiple multitudes. Okay? I, you know, just with Devin and Eden, they're in a group of people that are in my, they're one of the multitudes. I have a family who prays. I have a mom and she has all of her friends who pray. That's another multitude.

I have my best friends who I spend time with and they are a multitude as well. Find yourself a multitude because when we are in the multitude, when you have a multitude, you see that heaven activates. And there's not a mistake there. Heaven will move according to our prayers. If you don't believe it, then you could go to a fun little verse, 2 Chronicles 7, 19.

And it shows us, 2 Chronicles 7, 19, if you don't have the notes, write that down. It says, if, I love that, that's if. Those conjunctions, man, those are sticky, right? Those ifs in our life. If. No, God's in charge. He's going to do whatever he wants. Well, then why does he use the word if? You know, sometimes that if, you know, it's hard to get through.

God said, if you do this, if you do this. We don't want ifs. We want God, just do your thing. I'm going to do what I want. I'm going to be the driver. You be the co-pilot. But God's saying if, you know. It says, if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves, I love it, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then, oh, then, if, then.

God doesn't do if-thens. He's God. He doesn't do if-thens. Well, obviously he does. Sometimes it's, you know, if I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and I will heal their land. If my people, not if all the non-Christians who don't know God get their stuff together, if they just got saved, if they stopped. No, he says, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, get rid of their wicked ways and pray, he goes on to say I will heal their land.

You see, when the multitude unites, heaven activates. Find a multitude. Find people that will pray with you and for you. The next thing I said is the hour of incense was during the, so if you look at the hour, go to verse 11. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing at the right side. We'll get to the right side in a second because that's important.

But the altar of incense. The altar of incense was inside the Holy of Holies. It's where only the priest who was sent in could go. And so imagine Zechariah, he's one of those 24 divisions of priest that he gets the lot. It isn't by chance. My daughter, she always gets upset with me. She goes, Dad, what do you think the odds are that that happened?

I say 100%. Or zero. With God, I think it's like 100% or zero. She hates that. No, there's nuance in the middle of it. I'm like, well, maybe I'm just too pragmatic, okay? But there's that altar of incense. First of all, to know that the altar of incense dwells within the Holy of Holies. And when God talks about incense, there's a lot of reasons he talks about incense.

But one of the metaphors for incense is that it is prayers. It is the prayers of the people. And so incense, when it goes before God, burns like the prayers of the people. If you go to the book of Revelation, it says there's this massive bowl, right? So God's up there kicking on his throne. You've got Jesus at the right hand there. You've got this bowl.

And when people pray incense of prayerful incense, like incense are your prayers, gets thrown into that bowl, and it begins to burn before God. If you want to know what God smells like, he smells like the incense of your prayers. I want to say that prayer bowl is not just filled with the prayers of Mother Teresa, of St. Augustine, of Hippo, of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but it's also filled with the plumber who's a believer that came to your house, and while he was just fixing your stuff, you didn't know it.

He was just there praying. It's filled with the prayers of the hotel worker I heard who was walking past our hotel this last week, and he had the Spanish radio on, and I thought to myself, I think he's listening to someone preaching. And I hear, del Dios! And I hear, you know, as he's going, I'm like, yes, of God. It's filled with those prayers.

And you know who else's prayers can be filled with? Yours. What's interesting is in Revelation, it says at the end times that this angel, I believe it's Michael, I believe it's Michael, I could be wrong, it could just be an angel, but I think it's Michael, takes a censer, and he goes to that altar, and he has a fiery censer. A censer is what you have for, I don't know, if you grew up in a smells and bells church like me, they have these metal things with chains on them, and they fill it full of incense.

I really want to do it here, but I'm afraid that, like, the sprinkler system will go on. And they begin to walk around, and you can smell the incense. This scares Protestants, I apologize. And so they're going around. So when we were at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, different denominations get to be in charge for, like, four hours at a time.

One of them are the Eastern Orthodox. Do not get in the way of the Eastern Orthodox at incense time. My man in his black outfit was like a ninja turtle throwing that thing around. I don't care if you're 90 years old, if you're in the way, you're getting an elbow, you know, and he's just hitting that, you know, that incense. Incense is the prayers of the people.

It is not surprising to me that the answer comes at the hour of incense, because the hour of incense is the same time that the sacrifice goes on daily in the temple. It happens twice a day in the morning and in the evening. And while the sacrifice was happening, while the incense was happening, the people were praying at the same time outside, and God answers.

It doesn't surprise me that God activates heaven to change the world when we are in the, what might seem the commonality of our routines that are God's things, that are holiness, that are prayer, that are these things. We'll talk about the while in just a moment, then we'll close down. But that's the other thing. It was the hour of incense, and that happened two times a day.

Talk a little bit more about just the angels, their messengers, their worshipers. We see that in Revelation 5. Revelation 5, excuse me. There's only one Revelation. Their protectors, their ministers and servants. This protector one I mentioned, I kind of gave you a little bit of a hint at the beginning. Write down Psalm 91.11. This is one of my favorite verses.

Love Psalm 91.11. If you don't pray this, I encourage you to pray it. So good. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all of your ways. Whoa! What happened? Look at that. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. That applies to you if you're a follower of Christ. Isn't that amazing? God's going to command his angels?

Why would he command his angels? For me. I'm just little old me. You're the same one that he sent his son to die on a cross for, to be tortured for your sins, to bleed his blood so that you wouldn't have to. Of course he would obviously send his angels to protect your ways. And so I am praying on a regular basis that God sends his angels to protect our trips and to protect the unity of our church.

And God, just do whatever you can to work and move and hustle. God's, you know what I mean? Those angels are always hustling as God's people pray. The next thing I think it's interesting, he appears as, like I said, the people pray. Gabriel is a messenger. We know that when Gabriel spoke, he shows up during this time of prayer. He's also, he showed up not only to Mary, so he was the one that spoke to Mary at the place that I told you about.

He's the one that spoke to Zechariah. But he's also the one that spoke to Daniel. Daniel is phenomenal. Daniel is a rabbit's warrant. Like the first, you know, nine chapters of Daniel, you're like, oh, cool story, you know. Lion's dens and all that good stuff. And then it just starts going like, revelation, woo! It's like beyond me. I'm like, I think I could only preach to like Daniel 9.

And then I'd have to tap out and let like Pastor Jim or Elliot or Joe or somebody take over. A little intimidating to me. But what I think is really interesting with Daniel is that he is an angel who stands in the presence of God. He says that in verse 19 a little bit later on. So two verses past this passage. And I understand that many of your notes, the wrong passages in your notes.

We're just trying to keep you on your toes. But if you go to Luke 119, which is a few verses past where I was going to preach. I was going to preach to verse 17. Luke 119 says, and the angel answered him, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. And I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. Now angels, when they come, they can bring good news.

Not so good news, right? Sodom and Gomorrah, not so good news, right? When an angel is at the right hand, it means it is a message of favor. The right hand of a king, the right hand of God is a place of favor. It is a place of addressing the needs of the people. It is a place of protection and favor. And so when he shows up on the right hand, it's really important that he's there and that he's standing.

The other thing that I think that's interesting is that he is standing at the right hand of the Father. Now, when the Bible speaks about Jesus and the Bible speaks about humankind, David speaking out of the Psalms, it says that it gives human beings and Jesus a different position. I want to read these to you. First of all, in Hebrews 1, 3 through 5, you can write that down.

So that was a little bit about that controversy that was going on about angels and Jesus. It says that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father. David, when he was speaking himself, when he was speaking in the Psalms in Psalm 110, 1, says, The Lord says to my Lord, This is something that Jesus actually quoted as well in an argument with the Pharisees.

The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. When you are sitting at the right hand of the Father, you are in a place of relaxation. You are in a place of rest. You are in a place of authority. You know that who sits on the throne is in charge and you can be at rest. You are not actively moving. You are in a place of authority at the right hand of the Father.

You will never see an angel sit at the right hand of the Father. We can be at the right hand of the Father. Not in the same way Jesus is. It would be like Jesus and then we'd be on that side. But we can rest. We can come boldly before the throne of God. But look what it says. Go back up to verse, Let's go back up to verse 10. Actually verse 11. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

You see, angels are meant to be employed. Angels are a created being. But they will never be like us. Now, I forgot this last sermon and someone brought it up and I appreciated it. They said, well, we're not better than the angels. The scripture says we're a little bit lower than the angels. Only when you're on earth. When we die. First of all, the angels are not children of God.

They do not indwell the spirit of God within them. They are not called children of God. And one day the scripture says that human beings who are in Christ will judge the nations and we will judge the angels. But for now, we're just a little bit lower. Just a little bit. Just a little bit lower than the angels. I'm going to finish with this. Really powerful.

There was a word in the passage. I want you to go back to verse 8. Go back to verse 8. The little words like if, and, but, these little conjunctions, I always get stuck on them. But I find them so interesting. So in verse 8 it says, now while, circle. While he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty. Once again, he's just doing the normal stuff.

He's showing up. He's praying. It's Zechariah. He's showing up. He's praying. He's going to the altar when he should. He's burning incense when he should. But while, in the midst of that, God shows up. Now I told you he shows up with Gabriel. I went back and I read that Gabriel passage. You know what funny word I found? Wow. And I thought, wow. I was like, wow, wow.

Two W's. Let me just read it for you. This is Daniel 9.20. Because Gabriel, hundreds of years earlier, shows up to Daniel. It's the same guy. Same angel. Daniel says this. I was speaking and praying. Okay. I want to read. I do this all the time. I start reading the verse and then I stop. I was speaking and praying. He was praying. He was in the midst of it.

Just like we talked about. Confessing my sin. That sounds like the 2 Chronicles passage. My sin and the sin of the people of Israel. And presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God. That ends up being Jerusalem. That's Jerusalem. Wow. Wow. Circle wow. Verse 22. Excuse me. 21. While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first, came to me in swift flight at the time of what?

The evening sacrifice. Interesting. Same time. Evening sacrifice. What happens during the sacrifice? One of them, there's a sacrifice. Two. Incense is being burned. Prayers are being prayed. He was praying. Just while. Just while we're doing stuff. We have got to stop diminishing the importance of faithful duty. To pray. To be available. God shows up in the monotony over and over again.

It says that he came to me in swift flight. He's in a hurry. I love this. And he made me understand speaking to me and saying, Oh Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. And then verse 23. One of my favorite, one of my most favorite Bible verses. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy. At the beginning. A word went out. And I have come to tell it to you.

For you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision. At the beginning of your pleas of mercy. Right? You usually think, I got to get warmed up in my prayer. Remember. Maybe if I get an hour in. Once I get in an hour. Then God will start listening. At the beginning. God immediately. Daniel's like, well Lord. I just want. God's like, go.

Little fat baby don't show up. His angel with wings. Maybe. It doesn't say they have wings. I think he has wings. They show up in swift flight. Because they're about to get some business done. He's going to come give messages. It was just while he was doing something. It was just at the altar of prayer. But he put himself in the right place at the right time.

Put yourself in the right place. You did it today. Put yourself in church. Put yourself in prayer in the morning. Put yourself in the word of God. Put yourself into worship. And then I just love this. He says, a word went out I've come to tell you. For you are greatly loved. Man. Because you're Daniel and you're amazing. Because you got an important thing I want you to do.

Because God, I can't get this done unless we do it together. I need you to really do this for me, Daniel. No. Why did I send this angel? Why am I giving you this message? Why have I spoken to you? Because you're greatly loved. What a message. Do you need to bathe in that message today? You are greatly loved. That is a core truth. That is a core truth.

And what the enemy wants to do is say, you are rejected. You are an orphan. And it is not true. You are greatly loved. And heaven hears. And heaven shakes. And heaven commands. When we pray. When we call out to our God. And we go boldly before the throne of God. Just going to finish with this last verse. I'll give you one little hint. I went too long today.

Whoa. Way too long. I'm out. Okay. I'm going to tap out. Romans 8.11. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. Through his spirit that dwells in you. I want you to pray. I want you to know that you can wake up heaven. I want you to know that you can cause God.

When you pray, you can cause God to react and command. I'm going to tell you the secret sauce of prayer. I'm going to give you the secret to prayer. I've got to tell you. This is better than anything Augustine wrote. Any of them. Okay. The key ingredient. The secret ingredient to prayer. It's praying. That's it. It's praying. It's not a whole bunch of lectures.

It's actually showing up and praying. Beginning to talk to God. That will change your life and cause heaven to react. I've got one little thing. I'm just going to show you this. One thing I do. I went to Michael's. And I was all sheepish looking at the other guys. And Michael's. I'll just hear it with my wife, bro. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I see you. I see you.

Okay. So I went. I got myself a mason jar. I got a couple of mason jars. And I got these beads. Okay. And I did what these old monks used to do. Okay. Somebody told me this after the service. I didn't know. I just started doing it. But I put these on this side at the beginning of the week. I don't know. Somebody said, how many are in there? A grip. I don't know.

A bunch. And there's nothing holy about these. There's nothing that, like, spiritual. There's nothing magical about them. But they make me sit down longer and pray more. And I have this other thing. And I do this. Lord, I just want to thank you for my daughter. And I'm just going to pray for my kids for a while. And I just feel it. And by the end of the week, I try to empty this every week.

I don't often finish it. And I start over again. And I actually haven't had a week yet where I finished it. So I don't want to seem too cool. But do whatever you can to spend time in the while. Spend time. Find the while. If we can binge watch nine hours of The Crown. Okay, I'm guilty. We can pray. And with that said, activate heaven with your prayers.

This is the season. Amen? Let's stand if you would. Our prayer team is going to come forward. I'm going to bless you. If you need prayer today. If you don't know Jesus. If you want to know Jesus. He wants to know you. He loves you greatly. Come forward. We will pray for you and for your salvation. That you will spend eternity with him. These people will pray for you.

If you have a family matter. You need reconciliation. You need healing. We have oil. We'll pray that you be healed. Pastor Joshua and the team are here. And we will pray for you afterwards. Extend your hands if you would. And let me pray for you. Lord God, I want to bless your people today. We ask that you would just touch their lives. Knowing that heaven moves, God, when we pray.

That we become a praying people, God. That it's not about the angels or the story. The story is amazing. But it was so that you could send your son. That he might die on that cross for us. We love the cross, Jesus. We hate it for what it did. But we love it for what it did for us. Lord God, we thank you for the blood, Jesus. Nothing but the blood. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

God, we want more of you. We reject this world. We reject the things of this world, God. I pray for a blessing upon you that you want more of his goodness. You want more of his kindness. That you will spend the wiles of your life in the presence of the Father. And so I bless you today. I bless your families. From the top of your head to the bottom of your feet.

In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Come forward and give prayer. We love you. Members meeting soon. Bye, guys. I'm the one. I'm the one. I'm the one. I'm the one. I'm the one. I'm the one. ��