The God Who Hears

``And so, we pray to him. He is our mediator. And Paul says, he gave himself up for us. In that context, it was Jews and Greeks. Today, we can read that a little bit easier. Jesus gave himself up for the moral and the immoral. He gave himself up for male and female, black and white. He gave himself up for insiders and outsiders. He gave himself up for everyone. Why? So that we could find a way to heaven. [00:44:29] (50 seconds)  #JesusForEveryone

This text becomes really the gasoline for our mission. You see, God is not neutral, God is not reluctant, and God is not waiting to be convinced of anything. Simply, God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. I'm gonna keep stressing this because we need to hear it in our culture. Our culture wants to divide us. It's working so hard to divide this country right now. Yet, everywhere in scripture that I read, there's one word that is universal and is always there, all. All people. [00:40:11] (47 seconds)  #GodDesiresAll

Now, what I didn't know then that I know now, there's actually a name for that kind of prayer. It's called an intercessory prayer. And what that really means is that an intercessory prayer is a prayer that's offered to God on behalf of another person, seeking God's intervention, mercy, or saving work in their life. That's an intercessory prayer. [00:34:25] (26 seconds)  #IntercessoryPrayer

See, last week, we talked about the God who seeks. In other words, the God that sees souls. There's such an emphasis on that last week. What we're teaching you now is that God hears. Those prayers, those intercessory prayers are so important because Christ died for us. And when we start developing that mentality, when we start developing heaven's heart, we start offering up intercessory prayers. We're aligning our heart with heaven's heart saying, yes, I will pray for the lost. I see them. I don't judge them, I see them, and I'm pray for them because I so desperately want them to be saved. [00:45:19] (61 seconds)  #PrayForTheLost

When I say that we are becoming an evangelistic church, here's what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that we are going to evangelize. I'm not saying that anyone is becoming an evangelist. What I mean is that becoming an evangelistic church is that we have a heart like Christ for the world around us, and because of that, we engage with the world around us. And so, I'm gonna be really honest. Listen, when I hear the word evangelism, I tremble. I'm an introvert. Right? I I don't I'm comfortable around me, myself, and I. [00:27:10] (39 seconds)  #EvangelisticHeart

Paul's first command to this young pastor is pray. But you need to understand the context. He's not telling to pray as if it's a pastoral obligation, a pastoral duty, like this is okay. Here's your checklist. This is what you gotta do. No. This is a heart condition. He's saying you need to pray for people. This is the first strategy, if you will, of the church, that we must be engaged with our father if we're going to lead the church. [00:37:49] (39 seconds)  #PrayFromTheHeart

we began by looking at seeking lost. Right? To see souls instead of just people who may or may not look like us, agree with us, be anything like us. Alright? I ended with a very dramatic point last week, and my point was this. So often, we become divided in this world, in this country, but are we seeing souls? Do we have a heart like Christ? Right? We're trying to develop heaven's heart here. And so, as we press harder into this, what we're really talking about is developing spiritual disciplines. [00:28:09] (43 seconds)  #SeeSoulsNotSides

This is why God hears our prayers. When you start praying for the salvation of others, moves it from an us a me centered condition to a you centered condition. Right? I actually care about other people. I'm gonna pray for them. I'm gonna spend intentional time praying for them. And God hears those prayers, and we can be assured God hears those prayers. [00:46:20] (34 seconds)  #OtherCenteredPrayer