To Sow For Awakening

Welcome to the Gas Street podcast. Our vision as a church is to be liked for the city. We really hope you enjoy this message. Well, good evening, Gas Street. It's so good to be with you. It was wonderful this morning and great to be with you tonight. And I would like to talk with you tonight about your life of prayer and let's just start with the obvious. Your life of prayer is the most important thing about you. Your life of prayer is your direct connection with God. And it's really from our direct connection with Him that we draw everything of any ultimate significance to us. Our love, our hope, our wisdom, our worldview, our reckoning with our past, our guidance into the future, everything of ultimate significance for us up and underneath everything else in life. It comes from our direct connection with God, which is prayer. It's the most important thing you'll ever learn to do. It's the most important thing about Gas Street. If we could put the thermometer in the mouth of this body and pull it out to measure the health of Gas Street, it would be what is the temperature of prayer? What is the temperature of the relationship of the church to God in prayer? And tonight I'd love for us to take a look at that. From the perspective of a particular manner of prayer, the prayer of hunger, the prayer of awakening. I'm so inspired by the way that prayer is rising here. Really not only at Gas Street, but across the diocese. And this I think we're seeing all across the West. The whole water table of prayer is rising. As we're coming to terms with our desperation, our need for God, we're watching this prayer of hunger, the prayer of awakening. It's how we come to terms with what Jesus was saying, what he was meaning when he spoke in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are the hungry, for they will be filled." Hunger, which of course for us is something usually we try to avoid or remedy as quickly as possible. We feel a little hungry. We'll just drive through and get some fast food or something. It's something we want to get away from, to satiate, to move away from as quickly as we can. But not in the kingdom of God. It's sort of upside down. Here, Jesus is saying no to be hungry is blessed. Blessed is hunger. Blessed are the hungry. Hunger is life. It's telling us this morning about my mother passed away, still a little over two years ago from dementia. She had Alzheimer's disease. And she had been declining for a number of years, very, very gradually, almost undetectably, until those last few months when she was just like, she really went off the edge and was declining very quickly. And in the last weeks, she was no longer able to speak. And I was there. She was very close in a home near us. So I was there every day. And she began to not want to eat. And so I would go out to find anything I thought she might like. A milkshake, a cheeseburger. Anything that would just dim you a little bit of appetite. And she would just turn her head away. So it came down to water. We would give her just sips of water. She would turn away. A syringe in the corner of her mouth to get a few drops in there. She would begin to pull away. We would put ice chips inside of her lips to melt. And she would just begin to not want that. Down to finally a damp cloth on her lips. And she would begin to turn away from that. It was just so sad. It was just troubling me so much that she was not receiving any nutrition or hydration at all. And I was just like, what do we do? I was asking the staff and they said, listen, when the body is needing to die, the brain just shuts down appetite. It just sort of, the body is needing to go. And I began to realize hunger is life. Whatever isn't hungry is dying. We treasure hunger. Hunger is life for us at Gastrey. Hunger, we want to steward hunger. Our discontent, our dissatisfaction. This is the primal move of our awakening hopes. In many ways, aren't we simply that just a gathering of thirsty Christians, a fellowship of the frustrated, not finger pointing, blaming frustrated? But people who just know, I know there's more than what we have. I know Jesus died for more than this. That there is this church worthy of the life of Jesus. Christ loved the church and gave His life for it. And then there is this church of our Western eyes, compromised, sort of cultural thing we then herited. So weak. Literally they used to say that there's nothing worse than a sick church in a dying world. This church that we're with and this church that is radiant in our hopes, we've come into love in the Bible. And aren't we just simply a fellowship of people wanting to step into that gap and pray until Jesus closes that gap? We're a fellowship of the frustrated. We've learned to steward our hunger, to organize around it, to embrace it, to hold it, to build for it, to understand it, even to choose it. For us as Western Christians, I mean we think about it. We all look fine. We have full tummies. We've come in here in an ice building, climate controlled, everything. There's very little circumstantial need, desperation that we feel right now. For us as Western Christians, we have to sort of cut through, pierce through all the circumstantial satisfaction that buffers us from truth, from the reality, and actually choose hunger. In many ways, I kind of feel like that fasting is the sacrament of our desperation. It's this willful act to just sort of create and cause and choose a hunger that speaks to our spirits and now this is the truth. This is actually the reality that I'm after. We're here to defy the white water current of all that is just, this is our, we have endless intake. We're bookshelf overloaded, overloaded, podcast obese. We are so full of content coming our way all the time. For us to just reach a point, this is what we're considering tonight. How to steward, how to hold, how to build on, how to choose hunger. Which I believe is what, I was experiencing that in the worship a moment ago. That was hungry worship, longing after more of Jesus. This is the posture, this is the prayer of awakening. Which of course is not a biblical word, awakening, revival. This is a word we would hear in the scriptures. Which is those moments when there is this, this, an outpouring of the spirit that leads to many coming to faith, many being renewed. Sort of a refreshment of zeal in a church that can touch a city and move out. That is all prompted from a corporate encounter with the Holy Spirit. This is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, another sort of biblical vision and concept. This is kind of what happened at Pentecost. Outpoint can lead to revival, which when extended over time and in multiple locations, even unto decades or even generations, can lead to an awakening movement. Where there is a whole redemption of a society's trajectory. So much life transformation of deep wholeness in people, renewal of the church, evangelization of a generation, transformation of society. Awakening in many ways is just simply becoming the answer to the prayer Jesus taught us to pray that the kingdom would come on earth as in heaven, the kingdom in Birmingham as in heaven. Jesus wouldn't have taught us to pray that if it weren't possible. I know some of this can sound, oh my goodness, that's such an audacious vision to believe that a whole society can be transferred would be too much to believe possible. We're not for the fact that it has happened in history. And if it has happened before, it could happen again. And if it could happen again, it could happen in Birmingham. It could happen at Gas Street. It could happen in your family and in you. I say this often whenever I have the chance to be in the UK, that you walk on ground that is as saturated if not more with awakening hope and awakening tears as much as any place on the planet. The stories, the layers and levels of profound encounter with God in this nation are the ones that have inspired my entire life. And this is our awakening hopes. In many ways, awakening is just sort of shorthand for honesty. We're just honest Christians to admit that we are broken beyond repair. There is a level of deterioration that now has so much momentum in it. And we will never ideate, whenever whiteboard, whenever ingenuity and energy are way out of it. If that were the case, we would be in global revival tonight. We're the best resource Christians who have ever lived. We're just honest to admit that bigger budgets and more tech and talent, more polish and production, we won't stop that. We'll keep giving Jesus our best, but we no longer trust our best. Human excellence is too small a thing. We know, we're honest. We cannot, we will not just sort of cut a deal with it. So, well, I guess that's, we're just going to have to survive it, hunker down, try to protect our kids and get through it. No, we're just saying, no, we're honest to admit we have to have something from the hand of God. It has happened before. We're going to organize our lives around this hunger, around this deep desire. I don't think it's an exaggeration to use the word desperation, which is a heavily-fraided word. We wouldn't throw it around lightly. But I believe this is more and why I see it in my context. I saw it as I was walking up from the train. station to the Nova Teller in the corner yesterday. Just in the atmosphere, in the faces, in the people. But I think I saw it most that I've ever known in my life three and a half years ago in what Tim was referring to in this outpouring that happened at Azbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. Now, Kentucky is probably a place that, very few, if any of you all have been to, it's sort of a drive-through flyover kind of place in the United States, and Wilmore is tiny little town. Two stoplights, one grocery store, one subway sandwich shop. But a Christian university there that has had chapel, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10 a.m. for decades. This particular Wednesday at 10, February the 8th, 2023, the pastor ended abruptly, some students, he just said, if you want to stay and pray about what? I know you need to get to class, but I'm out of time. If you want to stay, some did, lingered. That afternoon, maybe 60 students in a room that sees 1500. There was a young woman at the altar, she was kneeling, she stood up, turned around, and sat on the altar rail, and shouted into the room. I know I have been mean to all of you, but my parents are getting a divorce, and they're both alcoholics, and I'm so afraid I'm going to grow up and become just like them. So last week, I went to Highbridge, an old derelict rail bridge nearby. I went to Highbridge to jump. I got a phone call and I didn't. But I'm a ghost on this campus. No one knows me. And in that moment, I thought, David Payton should, right there, you're hearing the voice of Ginze. Anxious, depressed, suicidal, alone. And then a young woman, another student, and there was in the back corner, and she shouted back to this girl, "Well, we want to know you." And she got up and started walking forward, and as she did, the room kind of peeled forward with her. And I watched that these students just came to the front, and they just took a swan dive into honesty in the presence of Jesus. It was Jesus. My life doesn't work. I don't know where else to go. Someone picked up, one of the students picked up a guitar, and they just kept, it was honesty in the presence of Jesus, this prayer of hunger, this prayer of desperation. That continued on through the night, Thursday, through the night, Friday, another chapel, a missionary from India was there to speak. She told stories of answer prayers like throwing logs on the fire, kept building, to the point that by Wednesday, every road in Wilmore was lined with cars. That little grocery store out of food, subway shop out of food. The queue waiting to get in was a six to 10 hour standing wait. The car queue, the car's lining to get into the town, stretched out over four kilometers, about two and a half miles, to the point that the mayor of Wilmore closed the town. You had to show a Wilmore address on your driver's license to get into the town. They put a big flashing sign out on the road that said, "Revival over capacity." I've become convinced we don't live in a time of spiritual hunger. I think we're living in a time of spiritual starvation. That people will literally do anything to get into a room where Jesus is real and working. It may seem like Birmingham is just sort of racing by you. But just beneath the surface, there is this profound spiritual hunger and what that opened up was an outpouring of the presence of Jesus. That's what happened. I'd read about this in revival history and didn't think I would ever see it. But this room became a throne room for 16 glorious days and nights. It was not stopping. Jesus held the room. It was the thinnest of thin places. It was a sort of no detectable line between earth and heaven. Jesus could do anything in this room that he wanted. It was simply an encounter, an unbroken, unmitigated, unmistakable encounter with the presence of Jesus. I always tell this story as an illustration of it. The altar, the people were coming all the time. It was just all the time. People were coming for anything, whatever was going on. At one point, I was there praying with people. And a young woman came forward. It was obviously from India. Face wet with tears. She knelt in front of me and in broken English. Her first words were, "I am Hindu." And I have met him. And he is beautiful. He is so great. And I knew what had happened. And I said, yes, he is. He is. And I am sure you would want to know him. Is there anything you would want to repent of? And she put her hands out in front of her. And she said, everything, all of me. And we prayed and she received Jesus. And there had been no preaching, no invitation. It was like cutting soft butter with a hot knife. Fruit just literally falling into our hands. I have said, these were the 16 most demanding days of my life. But by far, the easiest work I have ever done. Because his yoke is easy. His burden is light. I had so many times I just heard Jesus whispering to me, David. You and your Western Christians. And all of your publishing and all of your production and talent and all of it, it's wonderful. But I have done just about all I can with that. I want you to look in here and see what I can do when you just give me the room. It was the increase, the outpouring of the presence of Jesus. And ever since then, I've just thought, man, this is the great need of our cultural moment. There would be the outpouring, this promise of blessed of the hungry for they will be filled. So this is what we're thinking about tonight. How do we steward? How do we organize around? How do we choose the prayer of awakening? This posture of heart cry and anticipation for the outpouring, the increase of the presence of Jesus. The great need. So for this, I'd love for us to look at a passage of scripture. It's six verses very brief, but Psalm 126. So if you will, open your eyes and ears. Open your hearts to hear the word of God, Psalm 126. Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder's labor in vain. Unless the Lord, our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the negative. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go outweeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them. And here verse five again. These words are true and they can be trusted. Will you buy your hearts with me? I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you, O my soul rejoice. Take joy, my king, and what you hear. And let it be a sweet sound in your ear. Amen. This posture of the prayer of awakening, choosing, stewarding, building on, this gift, this hunger, Jesus has promised to fill. I took some curiosity around that as a part of a post-grad project to try to understand it to a very unlikely place. I've been reading revival history, and I'd come across this book called "Sounds from Heaven," which is, in many ways, I think kind of the best account of the Hebridian revival. I don't know if you've heard of this, but up in the far northwest of Scotland, in the Hebrides, the outer Hebrides, on two little islands, Louis and Harris. In 1949, 1952, there was an outpouring of God's presence that some historians believe was the last real awakening in the Western world. And I was curious about this book written by Colin and Mary Peckham, who were converted in that revival. I'd gotten to know their daughter, and she had sort of corroborated the story. And I just was interested in knowing about it. And in the back of the book, there was a kind of a big appendix that described 23 eyewitness accounts. There were 23 people who just verbatim accounts of what they had observed. So I was able to take a bit of my grant money and make a trip there. And by God's grace, I was able to meet 11 of those 23. And I sat in the little church of Barba Scotland and asked them, "Tell me all about this. What was it like to live under an open heaven?" Was it the preaching of Duncan Campbell? It was a great evangelist in the Gaelic language. And was it the model of ministry they had morning meetings, evening meetings, and went into the people's homes late into the night? Was it the singing? I'd heard so much about the legendaries worship and singing. They would just sing the Psalms, acapella, to just almost blow the roof off. And they said, "Yeah, Psalms." All of that, that was all part of it, but to a person, these people now in their 80s who had experienced this in their teens, said there was something deeper. They said, "We remember the experience of being awakened in the night by the sound of our parents crying." That was unsettling to us as kids. And we got up and we would look over the stairwell and look down and we saw our mom and her dead on the floor, face down, and they were sobbing out the names of our brother and his friends, who'd gone off to World War II and the horrors of war had shredded the simple faith they had in Barva, Scotland, and they were just crying out for them. And they said, "We remember the sound of our granddad shouting. We were out in the yard playing, and we never heard grandfather shout, but it was coming from the barn, and we went over and looked through the cracks of the barn, and we saw him on his knees as arms upstretched with a couple of other older men, and they were praying something like, "Oh God, we know you're a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. We hold you to your covenant. We must have our grandsons. Our honor is at stake. We will not let go of you without this." These older men and women were the first people that I'd ever heard refer to "traveling prayer." This, like in Galatians 4.19, where Paul says, "I travail as if in the pain of childbirth that Christ might be formed in you." And gastrate every sense I looked into the eyes of these older men and women who once saw what we so long to see in Birmingham. I've become convinced that it's just still preparing. It's still theory until more of us allow our hearts to be plowed up to receive this seed of travail, those who sow with tears. Now, that prayer precedes the great work of God. This is not a new idea, of course. We know that prayer is what comes first, but this manner of prayer, which is so familiar in the awakening story of the UK, and it's good to be reminded that this really is the heart and language of prayer in the majority church, the global south, where the Christian movement is really advancing and gaining this prayer, this is the native soil of what God is doing there. But in the West, I have wondered at times if we have just sort of lost our voice. But this was the prayer of the Hebrews who groaned in their slavery. And Exodus 2 says that God, that the Lord heard their groaning and remembered his covenant. And this was the prayer of Hannah for a baby. Cry out for this to a point that the priest thought she was drunk. First time you went 15. Oh, no, I've not been drinking wine or beer. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. And this is the prayer of the prophets that we give God no rest, Isaiah 62, that we cling to God like a belt clings to a person's waist. There's that little detail in first Kings where Elijah was praying for relief from drought. And the Bible says that he got down and put his head between his knees. He didn't set his squad. He put his head down between his knees. And historians have said that in ancient times. That was the posture of a woman in childbirth Elijah knew what he was doing. This is the prayer of the Psalms. Tears flow from my eyes for your law is not obeyed, Psalm 119. Psalm 88, "Day and night I cry out to you, Lord, turn your ear to my cry." See, we know this is the children of God that for us, prayer for us tears are liquid words. God hears tears. They are language to us, language to him, there are those times when our need, our heart cried, transcends what English will give us. And all we have is the deep groan of our love. This uncontainable love that just finds its expression in sort of a deep venting cry or tears. And when I say this, I'm not, I know some of us are more emotional than others. I'm not talking about sort of emotionalism that we need to sort of work up some sort of emotional expression as though more emotion and drama and volume and prayer will somehow ring God's bell and get something from him. But I am saying that this is the prayer of emotional honesty. That we have to, it has to touch us. Nothing happens in the kingdom of God until someone hurts for it. Prayer is the language of the hurting heart. It's got to wound us. This is where our compassion comes from. It's where our empathy comes from. Jesus was moved with compassion as he helped and served and healed. This was the prayer of Jesus who cried with loud sobs and tears to the one who could save him. Hebrews says, "When he saw Jerusalem, he looked over the city, he wept over it." Those miracle stories that we see in the gospels, those moments when Jesus is encountering someone directly, they are coming to him directly for a need. That for us, those interactions or pictures of prayer, that's what we're doing in prayer. And it's interesting to see how so many of them are people who are insistent on Jesus, who will just sort of elbow up to him. They have to have his attention, who know that it is not irreverent to be obstinate in his presence to come. I must, you must hear me. I must reach you. And there is no deeper look into the heart of Jesus than Gethsemane, where it was the agony of prayer that drew the first blood of the atonement. And this is the prayer of the early church, cleaving to one another before Pentecost. They all joined together constantly in prayer, Acts 114 says, "They were praying earnestly for Peter's release from prison. This is the prayer of Paul, Romans 1530. I beg you to join me in my struggle." There were there as literally agonized with me by praying to God for me. He commended a paffness to the Colossians as always wrestling in prayer for you, like Jacob wrestling for the blessing. This is the prayer of the Holy Spirit. When we don't know how to pray, the Bible teaches that the Spirit prays for us. And when the Spirit prays, He prays with unutterable groans. This depth of prayer that is coming out beyond just mind and observation, just heart and feeling, but from this uncontainable place in the canyon of our gut, that just is caught to this groan. We need everything, the third person of Trinity has given us to assist in prayer. Faith, revelation, wisdom, knowledge, healing, tongues, all of it. But we need not just Spirit assisted prayer, we need the prayer of the Holy Spirit. One of the best things we can ever do is not just pray, but pray for our prayer. God give me your heart, help me to see Birmingham like you do. Give me the prayer of the Holy Spirit. I will give it utterance. We'll add our faith to it. We'll wrap our unity around it and we'll watch you go to work. I've become more and more convinced that when God hears his heart in our voice, He moves. And the only recorded prayer of the Holy Spirit is the urgent cry, come, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, which when united with the church beckons Jesus promised three times. I come quickly. When I got back from that trip to Scotland, I got one of those one-year Bibles that divides the Bible into 365 readings and I just read through it for a year with this lens on. And it was like, okay, how in the world have I missed this? That the Bible seems utterly unfamiliar with casual prayer, prayer of the mouth and not the heart. It's this kind of burdened, focused, pressing that seems so much closer to the heart of prayer and scripture. Now, when I say all this, I wonder if it sounds like a lot, like whoa, Travelling Prayer. I guess I'm not praying at all then. And I don't know anybody who doesn't know, I know I need to be praying more. I know I need to be praying better. And to speak of Travelling Prayer is not to give anybody a guilt trip. I find that guilt is a very short-lived, ineffective incentive for prayer. But it is to ask, is there anyone at Gastrieve who would be willing to say, I want prayer to become decidedly less casual for me. This is the most important thing about me. And I think it's time for it to begin to look more like that in my life. The revival leaders used to speak of how the spirit would brood over a city or over a church as he did over chaos and creation conceiving life. But they believed it was the church's calling to pray that life into reality. They called the church the mother of the converted. And that prayer could sound like a woman in labor. Charles Finney, the second great awaken, used to say, you know I don't know whether you will bring someone to our preaching meetings, but don't come to the prayer meetings without someone who does not believe, because if they come in and they hear us pray, they hear the people of God desiring, the movement of God, they will have to ask, okay wait, that is that what you say, that's how God feels about me, the sound of the Christian's praying, that is how God loves me, in the revivals prayer was an apologetic, it was proof of the love of God for people, all through the revival, the history of it, it's amazing, the way in which this, but it's so important to remind ourselves that none of this audacity and tenacity and courage and faith in prayer is something that we can sort of muscle up, we don't manufacture this, this is a ministry of the Holy Spirit operating as the spirit of prayer, giving to us the faith and the energy and the very breath and the groan for the seeds of awakening, that's how that's how love prayer can surge up like a spiritual geyser, just coming flowing up out of us, holy love for God and for this world he died to save, that really is if you remember nothing else about tonight, that's a traveling prayer is Gethsemane love, Finnie, sometime he wrote this, sometimes the conduct of the wicked drives Christians to prayer, breaks them down, makes them sorrowful and tenderhearted, so that they can weep day and night, and instead of scolding the wicked, they pray earnestly for them, then you may expect a revival, he said, indeed it has begun already, so this is this is the question I think, guestry, is there anyone here tonight who would say that's that's me, that's that's the call, that is the this term is new, you're entering into a new ministry, you have a vision night coming up soon, to say yes this year, this is the move that I know I want to take, this is the direction I want to go, just one final story and then an invitation, I was telling Tim and Rachel, James and Beckett lunch today, this story of from the Second Great Awakening of Charles Finnie, who was the great voice of the Second Great Awakening, was here in the UK a lot, he the sort of the epicenter of leadership in the Second Great Awakening was this little college called Oberlin College, it was carved out of the frontier, is the largest brick building in just sort of in the in the thickets of the westward expansion across the continent, the tradition at that time was for the preacher to preach on a Sunday, he would preach in the morning, have lunch and then preach in the afternoon, and this particular Sunday Finnie was preaching, and he was preaching on the family, and he came and preached that morning, took the lunch interval, and then came back to preach in the afternoon, and he people said I witnessed this, said that he came in, he came to the lectern, it was very somber, and he said I cannot preach this afternoon, I can't continue, I cannot preach on the family knowing that not one of my six children profess his faith in Jesus today, and with that Finnie knelt behind that pulpit and began to travail, you know you can be leading a great awakening, but if things are not secure at home, there was just no joy, no relief, and he began to sob undignified, just cry out the names of those six young adult kids, to the point that the whole room began to join with him, it became like a labor and delivery ward, people just traveling, calling out for these children, until finally Finnie was finished, he sort of stood up, composed himself, and went out of the room. Every one of those six kids came to faith, but not in Finnie's lifetime, he didn't see it, and I'm just wondering if Gastry would be a church that would say Jesus, I don't have to see it, but I have to pray for it, I'm going to step into the ring of this blessed struggle and I'm going to die in this ring. We need some tough as nails, mums, we need some warrior dads, we need some students, secondary, university students, who will see your friends down on the mat with addiction and anxiety, and you will say here listen, you tap me, I'll get in this ring and fight for you until you can get back up on your feet, we need some grandmothers and grandfathers who would say, I don't know how much I've got left in this life, but I just know it's so long as there's breath in these lungs, Father, you will be hearing about my grandchildren and their friends. I'm just wondering, is this a moment that Gastry would say, the prayer of hunger, the promise Jesus makes to hunger that we will be filled, those who show with tears will reap with songs of joy, is that for anyone here, is there any form one for whom you would say, that yes, this is now that I want my life a prayer to become the most important thing about me. I think it comes down simply to this invitation, is there anybody that would say, Jesus, make me one of your three friends and get symphony. I cannot go to as far as to where you went, only the unblemished Lamb of God, but Jesus, I would love to be that close to you. I would love for our church to be like that with you, for your presence, and your person to be known, we want to be that near to you. I would love to be one of your three friends that would you would call upon to come in your neediest time. You know the desperate need of to forget symphony and end up Birmingham. I want to be near to you for that. In Jesus, I will not fall asleep. Those who show with tears will reap with songs of joy. Thanks for listening to hear more messages like this one. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out. If you want to find out more, visit our website Gastric.org or follow us on Instagram @GastricChurch.