iShare 2017: His Power

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Ignite Your Prayer Life!

Jerry Page

Janet Page

1. Prayer and Thriving Relationships

God, we don't understand why you want us so much, but we sure are happy and glad about it.

Thank you for pursuing us, for having your mission to seek and save those of us that are lost.

In this time, you know, Janet and I just want to be used by you, get us out of the way.

I want Jesus to be lifted up and glorified, and how to commune with him, how to have good relationships, how to really intercede, how to practically have a living experience with you.

So please speak to our hearts, Jesus, and help us.

Well, I am so thankful God gave me Janet, Amen?

What a powerful person she is and I don't know all what she's going to share with you today, but I know that along the way, I wasn't as sensitive, a husband, busy in ministry, and being successful, church was growing, and then the conference, then a conference president, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I was not very sensitive to what was going on in her life, spiritually, and God had to jerk us up and change us, and we're so thankful for that.

And so I think she may share a little of that sometime, what happened in her own life.

But when Janet had her major change, and the Holy Spirit touched her and brought her alive again, She was just so on fire.

And some ladies, it was about the time the walls came down in Russia, and some ladies in North America, maybe some of you know Ruthie Jacobson and some others that were really into prayer, asked Janet if she would go with them over to Russia and help teach the ladies over there specifically how to really know Jesus, how to have a prayer life, how to have a devotional life, because they'd been living under communism.

They really didn't know many of these things very well.

And so she came to me and she said, well, what do you think?

It'll help you grow and you'll be a blessing to them.

Problem was I didn't know what I didn't know about being Mr.

And Janet did an awful lot of things all through those years that I didn't realize she was doing.

But anyway, she left us some food in the freezer and did her best to prepare and off she went.

And things were going fairly well for about 2 weeks.

But after about 2 weeks I was getting very grouchy.

I was tired of taking care of kids and trying to be a president and do all this stuff too.

And of course, Zach, you see him in the back.

But he was at the table, we were having supper, he and Tyson, we were eating spaghetti.

And at the supper table, Tyson, I mean Zach, was playing airplane with his spaghetti, do you know what I mean?

And I said, Zach, will you sit up to the table?

You want to spill spaghetti sauce on your pants?

So Tyson and Zach both go, oh, daddy's going off.

Then I decided to go heat up the tomato sauce and took the glass jar out to the kitchen, put it in the microwave and heated it up.

Took it out of the microwave, didn't realize being a man and a preacher how hot it would really be.

So I grabbed a glass jar for about a split second, and I went, ah!

Spaghetti sauce went all over the kitchen.

And I've never heard Zach and Tyson laugh so hard in my whole life.

Oh dear, dad, he's telling us, sit up to the table, you might spill a little spaghetti sauce.

Paints the whole kitchen with spaghetti sauce.

And I've discovered that when I start to get on my high horse, and I start getting critical of others, and I start pointing my finger and telling them what they're doing wrong, and acting holier than thou and everything, God has his way.

His way to humble us, his way to put a mirror in front of us and say, hey, you've got the same problem, buddy.

And when I spend time with Jesus, he can often fix those relationships.

It gives him the time to tell me what my problems are, what's going on.

He was a preacher like we heard this morning.

When I had gone to Andrews, I'd just gotten converted.

I was coming out of drugs, preacher's kid.

Went back to take theology at Andrews and he had a week of prayer, it was powerful.

And I remember him saying in that week of prayer, 1 time, I pray, when I pray about humility, he said, I'm very careful how I pray.

I pray, God, humble me privately, so I won't have to be humiliated publicly.

Lift ourselves up, you'll have to put us down.

That is true in relationships, I've discovered.

If we're trying to lift ourselves up, if we're trying to make ourselves look good, if we're trying to drag anybody else down, God has his way of evening the ground, helping us.

And so that's a basic principle at the very beginning.

I really believe humility, selflessness, and agape love are the real key to all relationships.

As we begin this afternoon, I'm gonna take the first 20 minutes or so here, and then Janet will take the last part.

So if you're discouraged with me and go to sleep, that's okay, but wake up for her, because that'll be real good.

But I want you to think of something in your mind as we start.

Would you picture the person in your mind that you have the most trouble getting along with or you like the least, the person that you'd rather not be around.

You'd rather not be around them, or they hurt you perhaps, all of that.

Precious Jesus, when he came to this earth, had a couple purposes.

1 was to make the way home for us, right?

To reconcile us to the Father, to take care of the sin problem so we could go home and live forever with him.

Break down all the barriers, Ephesians says.

2. Powerful Intercessory Prayer!

You are the whole reason we're here together.

We are so, so grateful for a God like You.

And Lord, I feel extremely inadequate right now in sharing and and There's so much that could be shared, but so little time and Lord You know what each 1 needs to really pray for the right words of what you want shared father And we just pray even if it's not what I share, that Your Holy Spirit will speak to every heart.

Give them just what You know they need right now, that they'll go home knowing that You spoke to them, Lord.

And we thank You, Father, for blessing each 1 in their lives.

Talking before about dating, relationship, how to find the right person.

I know With my sons it was easy Which I never realized this till I had sons that that it was a problem.

I know it's a problem for girls But they can easily get led into the wrong relationship by a very outgoing girl if they tend to be shy.

And to encourage you to read Proverbs, to read it over and over and over again.

Proverbs really Helps you to not just know the the right kind of person to marry But just about all of life how to live life and how to deal with your finances and and on and on In your handouts, you know a Lot of people ask and say, you know share how you do your devotional times.

I don't know if that's an Interest if you struggle with your devotional time, but there was a pastor In our conference a few years ago, And he was very active for God.

He was seeing many people 1 to Jesus but yet he was a different man when he was at home than he was at the church and He was depressed and grouchy irritable and 1 of his family members said to him 1 day You know, you're so happy at church and smiling at home.

You're depressed and grouchy What's up with that?

It does you know it doesn't fit together and he?

Took it to heart and Started praying about it.

It was at a time when his church was doing 10 days of prayer I don't know if any of you do the 10 days of prayers with us that we Have from at the GC we produce materials every year that are really beautiful We have a couple that write them for us and that really pray over them and they're life-changing And we did a whole in all of these series are on our website on revival and Reformation org our handout this is a condensed version of the bigger handout that's on there and But there's a lot of resources on That website that you might want to look at that could be a blessing to you.

There's ebooks that you can download also and so he Told the 10-day the people the church members that came out for the 10 days, he said, would you pray for me?

And they said, yeah, we will pray for you.

And so they really started praying for him and he started praying and he decided instead of using his devotional time to prepare his sermon, he usually would prepare his sermon, he decided he was going to use it instead just to spend time with God.

He started saying, God, help me to love you.

And I don't know how it is for you, but I went through years ago a hard time in my life, and then God started pushing on me to spend time with him and this was What 30 years ago this happened it, but it was Amazing how God does not give up on us.

I don't care where you go or what you do in your life, but God will keep pursuing you.

And whatever you get involved in, it can be bad because it leaves scars and things you will regret the rest of your life.

He will continue to pursue you I remember I I don't know if you were there this morning, but I was sharing about Bible promises and other things Do you know this this woman came up to me in a?

Evangelistic meeting down here in the Southern Cal somewhere and it was a evangelistic training seminar.

She said to me, she said, I went to Loma Linda and I was wanting to live the worldly life, but my girls dean kept trying to reach out to me.

And before I graduated, when I was graduating, she gave me a Bible as a gift.

And in that Bible, she had highlighted all of these promises from God.

And of course, I was not interested in the Bible, but she says I kept it.

She had my name engraved on it She'd written a special note to me in it and she said I kept it because I loved this Dean You know, she loved me and and it meant something to me, but I didn't want to read it She went her worldly way and life got really, really bad.

And she was absolutely desperate and did not know what to do.

And at that time is when she saw the Bible and pulled it out.

She still did not have a relationship with God.

She hadn't even asked God to have a relationship.

She didn't know if she wanted him, but she started in her desperation to take that Bible and to claim the promises in it because she was in financial trouble and marriage, relationship troubles, all kinds.

And she said to me, she said, you know, I didn't know God, I wasn't living for him, but I Claim pray these promises and God kept blessing and working things out for me We serve an amazing God And Do you know out of that she did become converted and became on fire for God became kind of a lay evangelist?

The gods weren't powerful and what he wants to do for us So this guy he starts spending time with God every day and out of that He is life change, but what he learned was it's not just about spending time with Jesus Every day and that's another thing, you know, maybe you're not a morning person Maybe you try to get up You ask God to wake you up, but you still don't get up.

Satan overcomes you with sleep, tries to get you to sleep, and then you oversleep, you don't have that time, you're rushing off to go to school or to work, and then you're kicking yourself all day long because you didn't do it.

I would like to encourage you just find some time and do it.

Even if it's only 2 minutes, 3 minutes, spend whatever you can do with Jesus.

Just spend that time, if it's only reading 1 Bible verse and just praying a little bit and just saying God help me to know you help me Lord just spend a little bit if you keep doing that it will grow it'll grow and grow as you do it and so What Dale found though was it isn't just about spending that time, but it's about abiding in Jesus all day long.

And God started teaching him how to do that, to abide in Jesus all day.

Well, his life changed so much that he goes to Jerry.

Jerry at that time was the conference president and he said he asked Jerry could I share at camp meeting my testimony of what God's done and so Jerry said sure and so he comes to camp meeting and shares and ends up doing a seminar on it And so in your handout on page 11 are just some steps that God led him to.

And you know, these were things God had already led me to do, but I had never, you know, written them down.

And I just found it good, so we've copied it and put it in this booklet.

But it says, dedicate the first hour to making yourself emotionally available to Jesus.

Now, you may say, I don't have a whole hour.

Well, whatever time you got, Just dedicate that time as much as you can to making yourself emotionally available to G.

It's just somehow whether whether you go for a walk whether you're you sit on your bed or you're lying on the floor whatever Just saying God.

Will you speak to me through your word and you see Dale writes here number 2?

He used the gospel of John see this is for somebody who's just beginning the experience with Jesus You know how to do this but use the gospel of John or desire of ages or the Psalms or 1 of Ellen White's devotional books or Andrew Murray's book abide in Christ.

I don't know if you've ever read that, but it's very, very helpful.

It's something that you can read and reread and reread.

And, but in doing this, when I first started trying to spend this time with God, for me, it was just, you know, I'm not getting much out of this.

And I'd think now is this God or is this not God?

You pick up your Bible and you start getting these thoughts.

I don't have much time And I need lots of time.

There's so much to read and to study to really understand.

And I'm so sinful, I need to read the whole book for it to help me.

And there's not enough time this morning.

And besides that, it's boring reading the book.

I want you to know many people get those thoughts and they're coming from Satan.

It's not you that's thinking these things.

You start getting those thoughts, press all the more to read God's Word.

God can do more with 1 verse than if you read chapters and chapters.

If you will meditate and let God come in and change your life with that 1 verse.

And the third 1 is have no agenda such as reading through the Bible, study a presentation, completing a book, but only to seek and experience His love.

You know, I found God to lead me in different ways with this.

3. Practical Helps for Igniting Your Prayer Experience

Thank you, Father, for answering these prayers as we ask for the Holy Spirit to speak to us, to convict us, to encourage us, comfort us, and instruct us in this time.

May each of us just hear you speaking to our hearts, we pray, and be able to have a thriving set of relationships in our lives, to know how to intercede and how to praise you and also to just have a lot of practical ways that we can keep it a living experience with you.

Think to begin, if you take your hand up for a minute, I just want to go to the first main page after the table of contents.

And share some of these statements with you.

I'm sure as student literature evangelists and Christians who'd be here at iShare, you've found that God does answer prayer.

But I really believe as I go around the world, we find so many of our pastors and leaders and everybody else, as we talk about the importance of prayer in the Great Controversy and how it unleashes God's power when we pray earnestly, claiming promises, and even when we pray unitedly, where there's a greater power, people go, wow, yeah, that's true.

In other words, most everybody is saying, we believe in prayer, we preach about it, talk about it in Sabbath school, but why are we still here in 2017 when Jesus wanted to come back in the 1800s?

And I think I said this in a prayer the other day, but I sometimes talk longer on this and I won't today, but Let me just ask you, if the President of the United States, we wouldn't want this to happen, but if he were assassinated today, how long would it take for the whole world to know that?

Asked that in Tanzania several years ago, and 1 man said, 2 days, and they laughed at it.

No, no, no, 1 day, no, hours in Africa with pygmies and villages and bad roads in the Congo because we're such a connected world anymore, aren't we?

And so if Jesus wanted to come back in the 1800s and hasn't come back yet.

If with 1 big miracle, had an Aisha, somebody raised from the dead, some massive thing in your town or your church could have people talking about Adventists and what we believe next week, why doesn't he do it?

I mean, the Protestant, all the signs have been fulfilled.

Protestants are reaching across to the Catholics, even in this year of the Reformation.

Political upheaval, religious, false Christ all over the world.

I believe with all my heart, he's waiting for Joel 2.

He said, before the great and terrible day of the Lord, you're gonna have terrible things happening.

And no tithe coming in, it'll be, the enemy will be looked there, the local street and everything.

He says, basically, call the people together.

Pray, plead, elders, pastors, stay up in the night and weep for your people, for your communities.

And to not just talk about repentance, but to be weeping and letting it happen and really turning from our sins.

Those are the things as you look at the upper room that was happening.

And I believe God is calling us again in the upper room.

Jesus said, wait in the upper room for the baptism before you go anywhere.

Because John 15, without me you can do how much?

I know how you say that in Spanish, right?

Yeah, I do that in every language and people like that, oh nada, yeah nada.

We say that but then we rush out and we do it in our own power.

I think it's because we don't really believe that this is a great war going on and that God has set up some rules in the war.

And 1 of those rules is, I can only do some things if you call on me.

It's 1 of the rules of the war, 1 of the rules of engagement.

And so, anyway, I wanna just look at this sheet for a minute.

Several of our favorite statements on this kind of thing.

At the top, it says, this is my own words, but I believe inspired writings and experience make it clear that 2 principles must be applied for all our ministries to be most fully used and empowered by the spirit, much personal and united prayer and much lay member involvement.

Those are 2 things that God is still waiting on his people on, but he isn't gonna wait much longer.

Communication's there, it can happen like this, a few good miracles.

And he said, when the Protestants reach their hand across the Gulf, you know the Lutherans are signing a major agreement with the Catholics right on this 500th anniversary, October 31.

It's no longer, we need unity now with the Catholics.

But Ellen White said when that happens, the next thing, Satan's miracles begin to fall.

And then after Satan's miracles begin to fall, what happens?

So how do we be sure we have oil in our lamps?

And when the last call for the bridegroom goes forth, we're not without oil.

Okay, number 1, what the Lord did for his people in that time, the early church, is just as essential and more so he do for his people today.

All that the apostles did, every church, are you listening?

Raise the dead, took the gospel to the world in 25 years, whole cities were converted.

You read the book of Acts, it's like putting your hand in a light socket.

Miracle after miracle, power, power, because they were baptized with the Holy Spirit.

They weren't educated, they didn't have money, they didn't have theological degrees, but they had the Holy Spirit, they had been with Jesus.

So God is wanting something a little more than we have today.

1 author said, John Maxwell, a church growth guy said, in the early days of the church in Acts, they prayed for 10 days, they preached for 10 minutes, and thousands were converted.

Today we tend to preach for 10 days, 10 weeks, and pray for 10 minutes, and we don't give much.

North America, we don't win many souls that are not immigrants to this country.

So anyway, another man said 95% of what The church does today, the Christian church, A.W.

Tozer said it, would continue if the Holy Spirit was withdrawn.

But in the days of Acts, 95% of what they did would have stopped immediately if the Holy Spirit wasn't there.

See it over and over in the book of Acts.

You have an outfall of persecution, some opportunity for the gospel.

Every time, the first thing they did was call the believers and pray like crazy and fast.

Secondly, in the passage, the thing that happens, the Holy Spirit shows up, Acts 4, Acts 2.

And then the next thing that happens, the Word of God goes forth with power.

The next thing, the church grows dramatically.

This is a cycle over and over in the Book of Acts.

So we need the upper room, confession of sin, the oneness of heart, the much praise, much prayer, the word of God, and prayer for mission.

Those are the simple things we need in our small groups, our churches, our homes.

When we see that, we'll see the power again.

Number 2, you know the statement so well, it's like the message is a revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and the most urgent of all our needs.

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Series

Ignite Your Prayer Life!

1. Prayer and Thriving Relationships

Transcript

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Parts

1. Prayer and Thriving Relationships

36m

2. Powerful Intercessory Prayer!

46m

3. Practical Helps for Igniting Your Prayer Experience

36m

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