Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

PRAY Like Never Before

Darrel Le Roux

01 PRAY Like Never Before

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in Heaven, the joy that you are going to bring into our hearts because of who you are we thank you for.

Thank you that we can experience all that you are in our personal lives and in our collective body of Christ.

Forgive us for the times that we have neglected, pressing together at the throne of grace.

And teach us now how to let the Holy Spirit fill us and guide and lead us as we place our lives in Jesus' nail-pierced hands.

Praying brings the heart into immediate contact with the wellspring of life and strengthens the sinews and muscles of the religious experience.

I really want to invite you, if you're going to pray for 2 things, pray for the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts and lives.

I was sharing with some folk this morning that you are designed and created to have relationship with God.

Not just because He's your owner and and creator, but he's created you as the temple of the Holy Spirit your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit you compatible with God and he wants his presence inside of your life the devil doesn't want it So he wants you to believe that you're not designed or you're not worthy or you're whatever.

But God has created and made you into being a temple of the Holy Spirit.

So believe that because when you pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit, you want to pray in harmony with how He's created you and designed you.

So pray for the Holy Spirit's presence in your life.

In fact, it's the greatest gift you can give yourself and anyone else is when the Holy Spirit fills your life with love, joy, joy, joy, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and all the others.

I'm emphasizing joy because I tell you 1 of the worst things that we do is say I am Christian and then walk around as if Christianity is such a horrible experience when we sad and moping and you know.

Ellen White actually writes about some of those experiences says we become false witnesses of God's character when You misrepresent him in the way you live.

I'm a Christian and yes, it should have joy because the presence of Jesus is an untouchable joy.

And if it's an untouchable joy, then praises should reflect in my face, in my eyes, in my life.

I hope we're going to get to some of these concepts as we go through.

So when you ask for the Holy Spirit, because Jesus said, how much more?

Know how to give good gifts to your children.

If you ask for a stone, do you give them a scorpion?

Doesn't your father want to give the Holy Spirit?

So when you pray and you are designed and compatible with the Holy Spirit, pray for that which God wants to give.

Pray for a spirit of joy, a powerful experience.

Prayer is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven's storehouse where are treasured the boundless resource of omnipotence.

There is such a bountiful joy and experience God wants to give us that He stored up in heaven for us.

So when you connect with heaven's resource through faith, prayer is gonna unlock the resources God already wants to give us through and in the Holy Spirit.

The reason I add pray like never before is because we're entering times like never before.

And we'll talk about that as we go through.

Today I'm going to just give the introduction to PRAY.

As you can see on my shirt, Praise, Repent, Ask and yield is a simple way.

It's a way for me to remember to include aspects of what God wants in my life.

So why don't I pray those things that He wants already?

1 of the simplest understanding of, and by the way, prayer is the breath of the soul, right?

So if it's a breath of the soul, I'm not an expert on prayer.

And I think that's how we as Christians should be.

We're just his disciples and fellow breathers, right?

Every breath should be a prayer in that sense as we make constant contact with God.

But the bookmarks that's been handed out is also just a way of helping to remember some of the concepts that we're sharing here.

1 of the core concepts is if you understand God's attributes, then your human attitude aligns itself better.

But when you don't think of God and you come to prayer and you're just thinking about yourself, then your attitude is just selfish.

But when you begin to think just of who he is and what he wants, then our attitudes change because we acknowledge his presence.

And so we come into his presence with a better attitude when we think of his attributes.

And some of those attributes could be a number of things besides His faithfulness.

So as we launch into these core concepts, 1 of the...

P for praise, R for repent, A for ask, and Y for yield.

When we put this into practice which of these do we do the most.

But we're going to find out that when we ask and we focused on ourselves, we ask Him us.

And so, yes, asking is part, it's a biblical concept, but That's not the only concept.

When you go to the Psalms, there is much praise in the Psalms.

And when you go to the Psalms in Psalm 51 especially, there's a lot of repentance.

And so There are these expressions of more than just asking.

And so we spend most of our time in prayer asking, and I believe we need to change, and you're gonna see why, some of our more balanced prayers.

If you wanna balance your prayers, it's not all about asking or it's not all about asking what you want.

So we say that with our mind, but as we go through this, This is a typical experience that many of us go through.

Prayer is just praying when you're in emergency, right?

So you just, I'm in emergency so God I'm going to pour out my heart.

I don't need to pray so much anymore you see what we're doing in our souls and our souls we we pour out our lies God take this pain away now yeah 9-11 many people went to church.

Years later today, the churches are emptying again.

02 Vine Praying

Father in Heaven, thank you for this hot day.

Thank you for the water that you give us to be hydrated.

Thank you for so many things that are uncomfortable in life that we can remind ourselves that comparing glory with the suffering we have is not worth it.

And as we turn to You once more, may Your Spirit dwell with us and guide us in every way.

We are people that are prone to complain.

If it's too cold, If things are not going smoothly, it's like even when the food was fantastic in the cafeteria, the dorm kids still had to complain.

It's like we're so used to complaining that when it goes right, we still have to say something about it.

We forget we're involved in a real struggle.

God has never given us anything that is not best for us, including when He cursed this world.

And then the blessing comes from the curse.

Do you know that you would not be as close to Christ if we had never sinned?

We are closer to Christ than if we never sinned, not because of sin, because sin separates us from Him, but because He came closer to us and became a human being and was part of us.

Therefore, He is the older brother of our race.

So when you want to focus on something, don't focus on sin, because that separates.

Focus on the love of God that comes and comes closer than anything that can separate us.

And so I'm giving you this introduction because I know that in our asking and in our connecting with Him, it's like I wonder how to connect with God.

And spending that time in prayer, We're told that every breath should be a prayer, practicing God's presence all the time in that sense.

Yeah, it was in the previous title called Vine Praying.

Vine praying is connecting like never before.

And it comes really from this passage in John.

And we're going to apply this in the last 2 things that I'll try to cover yesterday and we never got to, And that's the asking and the yielding.

But the vine praying is how to connect in such a way that you can ask whatever you desire.

Anyone is welcome to come in still, but it will help us focus a little bit.

And it might be a little repetitive in the slides that I have, but I want you to really understand this point that praying Vine prayers is critical to preparing for Christ's coming.

It's the same as saying, your kingdom come, your will be done.

So we were told yesterday that in repentance Jesus started to say, repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand, right?

Well, if you want to really go through the kingdom of heaven in P-R-A-Y, in praise, repent, ask, yield, you can say the kingdom of heaven.

God's kingdom was usurped by Satan, but he reclaimed it through Jesus Christ.

Praise God that his kingdom is going to be established here, and not just established here, It is actually going to be the center of the universe because Jesus is going to dwell here Because that's how close he's going to be with us forever Praise and then Jesus himself said repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Let God reclaim control over our lives so that His kingdom can have its rightful place, not just in our lives, but in this world through us.

You designed for the Holy Spirit to fill your temple, which is your body.

And that is His presence in this world through you.

By the way, what is the most important task or 1 of the most important tasks of the Holy Spirit?

So there are many tasks of the Holy Spirit.

Convict your sin, guide you, He's the helper, He's the comforter, He's all these things.

The most important task that I understand from Scripture is to bring you to Jesus.

Without Jesus, there is no way you're going to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so, Jesus' prayer is, Father, make us 1, like you and I are 1, make us 1 with these disciples, those that are going to believe in my name.

And the only way you can be 1 is through the Holy Spirit.

He's the 1 that unifies us with Jesus, with the Father.

So the father sent the son, which means that the son was equal, it was Philippians 2, and yet he made himself of no reputation, entered himself and became a, what's the word?

Now I want you to really understand this because when we get to how we are to connect with heaven, how Christ has connected with heaven is no different than how we ought to connect with heaven.

If he became a bond servant and emptied himself and became obedient even to the point of death.

When we come to this experience of praying in the vine and we talk about on your bookmarks, You're going to see that it takes you from servant to child to friend.

And we're going to talk about that today because it's a critical relationship, I believe, that we need to understand in the journey of how to connect with heaven.

So here we start in John 15 and let's take it from verse 4.

It says, Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

So he's using the vine as an example of how to connect and stay connected with Him, right?

He who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit.

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch, and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

Why is it that every time I ask for something I don't get it?

That's the basic complaint that just doesn't happen.

Let's go through this in a little more detail.

So we said that if you want power in prayer, it's not praying ER, emergency prayers.

It's prayer as connected with heaven and the Holy Spirit.

03 Sanctuary Praying

Father in heaven, once again, who you are astounds us and we are amazed that you even want to connect with sinful human beings like us.

Thank you that we have the privilege to surrender all, and that you want all, and that you want to transform our lives.

Thank you for your Holy Spirit that wants to teach us, Comfort us, guide us, instruct us, convict and convert us.

Thank you that we can again yield our lives to you and ask you just to guide us as we open your word up in our minds.

I'm not sure where I'm going to fit in what I said yesterday about going back, but we are going to move to a few concepts.

I said something about repentance, and if it comes to me I'll include it.

If not, at the end, ask me about that again.

Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

He uses illustration to say how to connect with him.

So in that context of he is the vine, we are just the branches, our focus is not producing fruit, but staying connected to the vine who produces the fruit.

And he cuts things out of our lives that is siphoning the energy of producing the fruit he wants so that we will produce more fruit.

But he's in charge because he is the 1 that's going to be the vine and we are just the branches.

So this core concept of staying connected, 1 of the easiest ways of connecting with heaven is praising God for who He is and then letting Him reclaim control and then asking once you understand who He is for what He wants and then letting him have his aspect and his presence in our lives.

We went through this and said that we ask the most and God will not give us everything we ask for because it's not going to be good for us.

The things that we should ask for clearly is what He wants to give us.

And there's a few things like angels, forgiveness, protection, heaven, the Holy Spirit.

And we're going to talk about that in just a minute because we ended last time by saying that the journey of wanting to have a relationship with God as a friendship does not start with friendship.

It starts with servanthood, being a servant and he is a master.

If you don't get to that, if he's never your master, you will never be friends.

And I've got some biblical things I'm going to share with you today.

And then we said, if he is your master, how do we ask as a master?

It's very different than as we ask as a child, Right?

And we said if we are children, we would also want to ask him to discipline us and to retrain our thinking, our minds, our whole life.

And that's part of the pruning of the Holy Spirit.

That's part of the energy of producing fruit that we experience.

So, we went through this and I think we stopped right here in the third part of the asking as friend.

And it's this part that I want to just reemphasize.

How does He have access to actually be friendship with you?

If there's no humility like a servant, you might not be walking with him.

If there's no awe and wonder as a child, a little child to a father, you might not walk with him.

It's placing God in the rightful place where he actually is.

And so John 15 verse 14 and 15 is what I want to do pick up.

And I want to just remind you that asking to be a friend is pretty serious because you want to hear God's heart and if you hear God's heart you're gonna hear things like, Abraham you're my friend, take your son and sacrifice him.

And Abraham when you do that you're gonna hear my heart because I'm gonna sacrifice my son.

My children you're coming to the end of the world.

There's going to be a time of trouble like there's never been before, and the Holy Spirit is groaning with groanings that cannot be uttered like ever before.

Listen to my heart of pain, because this world, Satan is going to be given a moment of complete control.

I have sent the Holy Spirit to seal you that you will be preserved even in that time, that you will remain standing.

The time of trouble like you've never had before.

Don't train yourself to focus on trouble.

I wish I had time to take you through Revelation, the first chapter.

So I'm going to ask you to talk to the Holy Spirit about it.

If you really want to understand triumph, before he talks in the messages of chapter 2, 3, and all the rest, and before he gets to the mark of the beast, and before he gets to the millennium and the people, the wicca being destroyed, before he goes through all those horrible experiences that lie ahead.

Such glory, such victory, that John falls down in front of him as if he's dead.

Why would Jesus show himself to John in such a way that he makes his beloved disciple fall down like dead in front of him.

Because the word fearless has this definition that I like.

If you fear God the most, you will fear everything else less, which makes you fearless.

Fearing God the most and everything else less.

And so, John, before you experience the mark of the beast and the beast's triumph and the beast's wars, experience my glory, my victory.

And when you experience my glorious, victorious presence, you will fear me first and know who I am, triumphant, that everything else you will fear less." If you understand that, you begin to understand how to have a peace that goes beyond understanding, to have a love that removes all fear, starting with death, going to life and principalities and powers and nothing can separate us from His love.

Verse 14 says, You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.

It's interesting, Jesus moved his disciples from just being servants and just obeying him to becoming friends.

I'm not sure which day, it might be tomorrow, because I'm running out of days, I'm a little bit behind.

But if we talk about this, listen to why he calls them friends.

Verse 14, you are my friends if you do whatever I ask you, no longer do I call you servants.

Now, he had called them little children and he had called them his children and so on.

But here he says, I'm moving you from servants to friends.

And he says there, I no longer call you servants for a servant does not know what his master is doing.

But I have called you friends for all things that I heard from my father, I have made known to you.

In other words, he moves us from not knowing what's happening to knowing what's happening.

Especially in this time, God wants us to have a friendship, But if we want to be his friends, we were servants first.

And then we know what a child is to be disciplined.

When Jesus looks at Peter and says, You my disciple, get behind me, Satan, if you have his attitude, he disciplines him.

So, this process of connecting with heaven, of becoming friends, has to do with connecting with the heart of God and is going to show his heart to us of what is going to take place, what is going to happen.

And as a privileged Seventh-day Adventist Church we have such incredible, incredible insight into so much called spirit of prophecy.

And Ellen White, as a prophetess, has, and she never took that title on her own, By the way, she just said she's the servant of the Lord, a lesser light and so on.

And if we are friends with God, we will use what has been revealed to our friendship of connecting with the heart of God.

So, I'm gonna say this about the Spirit of Prophecy now.

Just as John the Baptist was sent to prepare for Christ's first coming, the Spirit of Prophecy and Ellen White has been sent to prepare us for the second coming.

You don't have a book called John the Baptist book, do you?

But John the Baptist had the spirit of Elijah.

04 Prophetic Praying

Father in heaven, once more we understand clearly from your Word that we are to anticipate a world that is going to come to an end, and we also to anticipate your kingdom to be ushered in.

Teach us how to understand these things through your word and your sanctuary, and may we find strength and joy as we live in anticipation and preparing for your coming.

We are planning, according to prophecy, to enter into a world that will become uninhabitable.

So, contrary to many people's hopes and dreams that this world is going to be heading for prosperity, it says this world is going to be destroyed.

So an interesting historical fact is that when William Miller started to proclaim that Jesus was coming, it wasn't a new concept.

Series

PRAY Like Never Before

02 Vine Praying

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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