The Circle Maker: Praying Boldly (Josh. 6:1-16) This morning we begin a sermon series on prayer for the season of Lent called The Circle Maker, based on the book by Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. This book came my way through Wade Smith, our Student Minister, who had given it to Kathy Holler, our Minister for Special Ministries. I had seen it on Wade s desk, then saw it on Kathy s desk and during a staff meeting Kathy shared how the book had impacted her prayer life. I decided it might be a good idea to read it myself. I have read many books on prayer; ancient books, old books and recent books, but none of them have driven me to pray as this one. Does the book contain some secret method to assure God will answer every prayer just the way I want? No. Have I prayed for people to be healed and they were not? Yes. Have I prayed for a marriage to be saved and it wasn t? Yes. Have I prayed and it seems like God doesn t even care? Yes. Are there things in the book with which I may not agree? Yes. Yet, here is what I do know: I spend way too much time giving God excuses why he will not answer prayer than believing he can. Over the Lenten season and the next four Sundays we are going to be challenged to stop explaining why God can t answer our prayers and begin believing God longs to answer our prayers, especially the prayers we pray boldly. The Power of a Single Prayer: In the video you just saw, there is a timeless truth within this ancient Jewish legend of Honi, the circle maker: Bold prayers honor God and God honors bold prayers. The prayers we pray boldly don t offend God. If our prayers aren t impossible to us, they don t need God because he doesn t have to do anything. God loves responding to the bold prayers of his children because that is who he is and what he does. As we pray boldly, God gets more glory. The greatest moments in life are the miraculous moments when our inability and God s ability connect, and they connect when we, like Honi, draw a circle around the impossible situations in our lives and invite God to intervene. It s absolutely imperative at the outset to come to terms with this simple yet life-changing truth: God is for us. Paul said, If God is for us, who can ever be against us. (Rom. 8:31) The great proof of his being for us is the gift of his Son to us. Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won t he also give us everything else? (Romans 8:32) If we don t believe that, then we ll pray small timid prayers. If we do believe it, then we ll pray big bold prayers. One way or the other, our small timid prayers or big bold prayers will change the direction of our lives. Our prayers are the best predictors of our spiritual future. Who we become is determined by how we pray. Ultimately, our prayers become the pages in the book of our lives. The Jericho Miracle (Joshua 6:1-16): When Joshua and the nation of Israel saw Jericho, a wall encircled the twelve-acre city. It was six-feet wide and fifty-feet high, making the city appear impossible to destroy. God told the Israelite army to silently circle the city and he promised, after circling thirteen times over seven days, the wall would fall. (Josh. 6:1-5) It seemed like God had promised something impossible and his battle plan made no sense, Your entire army is to march around the city once a day for six days on the seventh day you are to march around the city seven times... (Joshua 6:3-4). Every soldier in the army probably wondered why. Why not use a battering ram? Why not scale the walls? Why not cut off the water supply or shoot flaming arrows over the walls? 1
The first time around, I wonder if the soldiers felt a little foolish but maybe with each circle, they grew more confident in God s plan and promise. On the seventh day, they started circling the city in silence, keeping God s command to not say a word for six days. Then the priests sounded their horns and a simultaneous shout followed. Thousands of Israelites raised a holy roar and the wall came down. Four hundred years before, when the Israelites were still slaves in Egypt, God had promised them the land of Canaan would be theirs. After seven days of circling Jericho, God delivered on that four-hundred-year-old promise. He proved, once again, his promises don t have expiration dates. Jericho stands, and falls, as a testament to this simple truth: if we keep circling God s promise by praying boldly, God will ultimately deliver on it. What Is Your Jericho? This miracle is a small-scale version of not only how God performed this particular miracle but also establishes a pattern for us to follow. It challenges us to confidently circle the promises God has given us by praying boldly. We need to ask ourselves: What is my Jericho? What promise, miracle or dream am I praying around boldly? Drawing prayer circles starts with identifying our Jericho. We ve got to define the promises God wants us to claim, the miracles God wants us to believe, and the dreams God wants us to pursue. Then we need to keep praying boldly until God gives what he wants and what he wills. Hear me say, keep praying boldly until God gives what he wants and what he wills not what I want or will. The problem is we ve never circled any of God s promises so most of us don t come close to knowing what we want or have a clue what God wants, simply because we haven t spent the time to discover it. Another Trip around Jericho (Mark 10:46-52): Last week, Tim retold the story of another miracle occurring in Jericho more than a thousand years after the first Jericho miracle. Jesus was on his way out of Jericho when a blind man called out: Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me! (Mark 10:47) Everyone around sees it as a human interruption but Jesus sees it as a divine moment. He stops and responds with a pointed question: What do you want me to do for you? (Mark 10:51) Is that question even necessary? Isn t it obvious what he wants? He s blind but Jesus forced him to define exactly what he wanted from him. Jesus made him define his desire not because he didn t know what he wanted. He wanted to make sure he knew what he wanted. That is where praying boldly, drawing prayer circles, starts: knowing what to circle. What if Jesus asked us the same question: what do you want Me to do for you? Would we be able to spell out all God has put in our heart? Many of us wouldn t know where to start because we have no idea what we want God to do for us. If we can t answer this question then we re as blind spiritually as the blind man was physically. While God is for us, most of us have no idea what we want God to do for us. Like the blind man outside Jericho, we need an encounter with the Son of God. We need an answer to the question he is still asking: What do you want Me to do for you? Obviously, because of the stages of our lives, the answer to this question changes over time but we have to start somewhere. Why not right here, right now by defining our desires. Last fall, shortly after I read The Circle Maker for the first time, Daniel, our North Carolina son-in-law, began to look for a new job. The job he had was good but because of his hours, coming home at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and leaving little quality time for family, something needed to change. Both Daniel and our daughter began to realize they were living in two separate worlds-his with work and hers with two kids and all the rest. So he found another job, but the promises made to him were not kept, resulting in the same exhausting routine and concerns. 2
As he began looking for still another job, he found one with a start-up business in the Raleigh area. The salary and benefits were better but the training was to be in other cities three and six hours away. It was during this stretch I began to apply the principles of The Circle Maker by praying boldly, drawing a circle around their need. I was concerned for him, his travel, the uncertainty of a start-up company and they had the same concerns. I prayed boldly, specifically defining before God what I wanted him to do, asking for God s intervention and supply of their need for employment, family and life, drawing prayer circles around my requests. On October 16, 2013, I wrote in my prayer journal, find Daniel a job that fulfills the gifts you have given him, provide for his family; let it be one that allows him to be with his children and our daughter, as the husband, father and man he wants to be. Oh God, give wisdom to his soul that he may do what is wise. There were days when it seemed nothing was changing and the realities of being away from home were getting harder and harder. Then God did what only God could do-his first company called, the one he left, and said, We need you back. Tell us what you need and we will make it happen. He told them the specific hours, salary, benefits, days off to be with his family and active in church and they matched every one of the requests. This time he was to work at another location of the business, right off the Duke University campus in Durham, N. C. In the middle of this transition I found out through the media his company had filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Yet, this time, rather than screaming, red alert, I prayed more boldly. Today his job is secure but two weeks ago they closed the business where he had worked for years. If he had not taken the steps to find another job, he would now be out of a job. Did all this happen because of only my prayer? No. They were praying, Kathy was praying, we were all praying. Here is what I learned: I got dead level serious with God in prayer, I told him specifically what I wanted him to do, when it seemed like things were going backwards I kept praying, I claimed Ephesians 4:20 over and over that God was able to accomplish infinitely more than I could ask or think and at the end when the prayers we all had prayed were answered, I asked myself, Why haven t you prayed like this before? Many of you know Lent is forty-day time before Easter to prepare us to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. One way we are inviting you to prepare is to use these forty days to identify something, someone, a need or situation for which you are going to pray daily. The goal isn t to force God s hand to make him answer your prayer in forty days but establish the habit of praying boldly, drawing prayer circles around your request. One way I have begun to do this is by keeping a prayer journal to define, as Jesus asked the blind man, what I want God to do. It helps me track what I see God doing in response to my prayer. If you take the challenge to pray boldly over the next forty days there will be times you see nothing happening and you will want to give up. Why not give up? Keep praying because God is a God who raises the dead, his dead Son, our dead life and prayers that seem dead. Resurrection is something God does daily not just Easter Sunday. Bold prayer has the power to resurrect dead dreams and give them new life. Today, I do not know the needs you have or what God wants to do but I challenge you to use these next forty days to circle your Jericho in bold prayer. Tell God exactly what you want, define your desires in a journal, stop being afraid to pray boldly. Before Joshua would be commanded by God to lead the army of Israel against Jericho, God chose to pay him a personal visit. (Joshua 5:13-15) As Joshua is looking at Jericho, knowing the impossible battle before him, he encounters a person, who he thinks is a man. The man has a sword drawn and Joshua 3
doesn t know if he is on their side or on the side of the enemy. The man tells him, I m not on anyone s side. I m the commander of the Lord s army. I didn t come to take sides but take over (Joshua 5:14). Joshua realized this wasn t a man but God and in response he fell on his face and worshipped the God who was before him. He asked what God wanted him to do and God s response was Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy (Joshua 5:15). Joshua did as he was told and yielded to the control of God. What I want all of us to understand is before we ever begin to pray boldly we must surrender fully to the authority of God s rule in our lives. That doesn t stop us from praying boldly, defining what we want God to do in our lives, it means before we pray we know who is in charge and it s not us! Jericho s defeat would never have happened without Joshua s full surrender. When we surrender to the Lord s will and power then we are ready to pray boldly. The size of our Jericho doesn t matter when we know God is in control because he is bigger than any Jericho we face. It s time to start now circling your Jericho by praying boldly! (This message is based on The Circle Maker, p. 11-41, and used with permission from Mark Batterson) Sunday, March 9, 2014 a.m. Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor First Baptist Church Jonesboro, Arkansas 4
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