My House Shall Be Called a House of Prayer for All Nations

Brad and Chris unpack Isaiah 56:7 and Jesus' call for God's people to become a house of prayer for all nations, rooted in the local church and simple, honest prayer.

Transcript

I'm talking about you that are feeling disqualified. I'm talking about you that say, "I don't have a big language for prayer." That's okay, right? That's okay. You start and you will develop a language. God will give us language, but you have to start somewhere. And sometimes all you have to pray is, "Lord, you are good. You are worthy." Start with that. "God, you are [clears throat] holy." [music] If you just start with that, you'll see. Welcome [music] to Prayer Stream, a podcast from the National House of Prayer in Ottawa. We're here [music] to have conversations with leaders and authors about prayer and how it intersects with the local church, politics and government, Israel, and

[music] anything else that might pop up in the news. Join me, your host Brad Fiddler, along with Chris Byberg, as we wade [music] into the prayer stream. All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Prayer Stream. I'm Brad, here with Chris from the National House of Prayer. And today, we're going to talk about Isaiah 56:7 in particular. So, I'm just going to read from verse 6 and verse 7 of Isaiah 56, where Isaiah says, "Everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my

house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." And you might recognize that last line there, Jesus quoted that in the temple, Matthew 21:13, saying it again, reiterating, bringing that forward to the New Testament, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." Just, you know, real briefly, speaking about, as far as physical structures go, speaking about the temple. And if you you look back at the tabernacle of Moses and then on into Solomon's temple and so on, you've got one of the key components of of the temple, of the holy place, is the the golden altar of incense, incense continually being offered. And we have other passages that they kind of

connect for us incense with prayer. Prayer was constant, constantly represented there in the in the in the in the holy place, right outside the the Holy of Holies. Yeah, with that being a common metaphor of prayer, it's this picture of there ought to be prayer going up all the time. My house is to be a house of prayer. And not just a house of prayer, but a house of prayer for all nations. So, and then with that, just to tie in one other thing, as we move into the the New Testament, you know, Jesus reiterated that, but then we get into into the epistles, Ephesians 2:21 and 22, 1 Peter 2:5, 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 17, we get this idea that we are the people of God, we are now the temple

of God. We are the the body of Christ is this living building of living stones being built as a habitation for his presence, for his spirit. We are now the temple essentially. So, Chris, let's let's jump into this. Let's let's unpack this a bit. Isaiah 56:7, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." What does that mean for us in Canada? So, when we look at this verse, often the first thing that comes to mind is that so often we think of being a house of prayer as a separate entity, separate from other things. So, what we've seen in Canada, like for example, National House of Prayer, everybody sees this, we see it as a house of prayer. Many

people, I find this kind of funny, many people think that because we're the National House of Prayer, like we're the king of all the houses of prayer in the nation, we flow from it. We are not that at all. We are a house of prayer, but we are a house of prayer that's working itself out of a job. That's what our job is. Our job is to work ourselves out of a job because the house of prayer needs to be rooted not in and and they're I'm not slighting any houses of prayer across the nation. They're wonderful. You are called, you are in the place that you're supposed to be, you're being that place of prayer because I'll tell you the truth, many local churches have

very, very, very, very little prayer going on. And that's a really concern. I would actually say one of the indictments against the church in Canada, and maybe that's a hard word, is that that many places are prayerless. Well, isn't that isn't that a number like something like 2% in most evangelical churches? It's like 2% uh respond to a call to prayer, so for example. That's exactly it. Look at your prayer meet prayer meetings. I'm talking to everybody here. Look at your local church. If you have a prayer meeting, and that's that's even if there's a big if. I've been to many places there where if or they do something like for 10 minutes before before a Sunday morning

service. Do you have that? >> I see that an awful lot. And that's and I'm not slighting that. That's good. We'll take prayer wherever we can get it. Yeah, that's it. That's good. Remember this whole thing about the last week we were talking about ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep living, right? So, it's good. We'll take it. But we we know that the heart of God that your house this house is a house of prayer for all nations. I was talking to a rabbi in Israel, Yehuda Glick, and he shared this. I love this. He said this, "My house will be a home of prayer for all nations." I love this. So, this is like it brings it home. It is where we're supposed to be. Our prayer life is home.

It is home. The whole thing about repentance in in the shoov, in the in the in the in the in Hebrew, it's it's shoov, repent means turn around, listen to this, and go home. Interesting. I love this. Go home. So, our house is a house of prayer. So, our job at the N HOP, National House of Prayer, is to to help release the home of prayer in your life. Right. That's right. That's our goal. It's not to build to build a big parachurch ministry. It's not to here, "This is the house of prayer, come here." But the body of Christ is supposed to be the house of prayer. Your local church is supposed to be a house of prayer. Doesn't mean it has to look like a ministry of a house of

prayer. It just needs to be a house of prayer. It needs to be a a house, a home where prayer is happening. And [clears throat] I want to say this, you are a house of prayer. You, too, are a house. And your where you live, where you inhabit, is a house of prayer. And right here, behold the tabernacle of God is with man. And he is dwelling here. Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water, and that comes out of a house. Yes. I love the So, that's the that's the kind of the first part about it. The second part is when we look at the the few verses leading up to verse 7. So, starting in verse 3, where Isaiah says, "Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the

Lord say, 'The Lord will surely separate me from his people.'" Right? He's going to he's going to keep me separate. He's he's not going to let me into the main throng. And let not the eunuch say, "Look, I'm just a dry tree." For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. There's this thing of, you know, Old Testament especially, Israel, it was it was very much Israel is the people of God and everyone else is not. But we

know, you know, fast forward to the new Now, even in the Old Testament, we see we see glimpses and hints of this. You got Rahab who joins, you got Ruth, you've got all these different examples of people who are not Israelites welcomed into the people of the community of God. And then obviously in the New Testament, the door gets swung open and the gospel goes to Cornelius and then goes shooting out through the rest of the Gentile world from there. So, we we know that, you know, this is kind of a hint towards what was coming. But the Lord's saying, even back there in Isaiah 56, "This is not just for the ones who say, 'We're the people of God.'" But the foreigner and the eunuch.

Eunuchs were disqualified for being in the temple as well. He's saying, "No, no, no. Come closer. Come closer. This is for you, too." That's the heart of God. The heart of God is that none should perish, right? And he has this invitation of come. Even those that are disqualified. Even when you think of Ruth, for example, she was a Moabite, right? And what the scripture says, when they were coming into the land and because Moab didn't really want them to come in and they were the Lord says, "Those guys, don't do anything with them. They're cut off." But yet, God's heart is still that none should perish, and he causes a Moabite to come into the lineage of Jesus, the king of glory.

>> That's right. So, so that's God's heart. His heart is that that whosoever will. If you will bow your knee to me, right? If you will keep my Sabbath, right? You can come. And and I just love that. He says, "Come to my house of prayer for everybody, for all nations." I love it. I love what you pointed out about Ruth there because it speaks to the thing of, you know, "Let not the eunuch say, 'I'm just a dry tree.'" Like it's this thing of don't like come in, but don't don't relegate yourself to the outskirts. Because even Ruth the Moabite is, like you said, is written into the Messiah's lineage, right? She's she's right in there. And and it's like, you know, the Lord is saying, you know,

those who join in, it's not like, well, the ones who've been walking with me for 20 years, they can be in my house of prayer. They can be in the Holy of Holies. Everybody else stay in the outer courts. Like it's it is this thing of no, no, no, no. The how the this thing of the house of prayer, this is for you, for the brand new ones, for the ones who think they're they're disqualified, for the ones who I'm just uh you know, I've just been saved for a couple years and I you know, I just work at a you know, I work 9:00 to 5:00. I'm no one special. No, no, no, the Lord is saying this is for you. You're supposed to be here in the house of prayer. And you know what?

A lot of times we we we've fallen for a trap that says this is prayer is not necessarily my strongest gifting. Or I might not be considered an intercessor, right? And this is not what the in the heart of God he'd set we all pray for everyone. 1 Timothy 1 Timothy 2, pray all kinds of prayers for everybody including intercession. So so often we say, well, I'm going to relegate this to the intercessors. I'm going to hand this off to the people with the spiritual gifting. I'm going to hand it off to those that are more powerful and what they perceive as more powerful in prayer. And I'll let them do it. They can do the heavy lifting and I'll just sit cuz I'm really not all

that skilled. I really don't have that and many times we may even feel disqualified. Right? And yet God's heart is his heart his house of prayer holds legacy. It's a legacy that is better than sons and daughters. He says this is even better than sons and daughters. You know, the priesthood, right? The the ironic priesthood, when they came into the land, the rest of the tribes, they got land, right? They got sections of Israel except the priesthood, they didn't get land because they got the Lord. They That was their inheritance. Their inheritance was the Lord. And which was better than land for than sons and daughters. Right, right. Well, so that's That's yeah, that's a big thing that

that's that's on our heart there. Like I find it interesting we we talk a little bit intercessors and and first of all, let's say this, like we love this. We believe there are people who are invited to pray, to seek the Lord, you know, as as a primary thing. I think of Anna. Um I think of um yeah, Anna especially in in Luke 2 there. That was her That was her invitation from the Lord to to seek him continuously. Um Yeah, I think sometimes the the the downside of that is is sometimes the rest of us think, oh, well, we'll let the ones who pray all the time. We'll just let them do it. Um and you know, sometimes it's a thing of like I don't know what to pray, I don't know

how to pray, I'm not comfortable praying, whatever it is. Whether that's in a corporate setting or in the personal set uh personal place, we tend to we Yeah, we don't want to let the professionals do all the praying. This is something that we're all invited into. I think that's kind of the heart of what's being said there in in Isaiah 56 from verse 3. This is a thing of this is for everyone. He wants everyone to draw near and come close, not just some. Exactly. I I'm just I'm just looking up here Song of Song of Solomon 2. And this this I just love this posture. When we see this, let me just slide down here, let me find it here. Yes, 2:13 I think is where where you're going with

that. That's I am. Here it is. Okay, here it is, 14. And this is this is the Lord speaking to you because you you you many times uh people say, I don't have I'm I don't have the language. I'm not as as as confident. I'll tell you one of my pet peeves that I have as I'm invited I love being invited on prayer calls and I I love being invited to pray. Many times I get called on to national calls, but my heart, really what makes my heart full is when everybody's praying. They don't rely on the professionals, right? Well, the professional guys can pray and so we can do this. No, no, no, no. I love to hear, especially if you're a newbie, I love it when Yes. I love it to hear their hearts. And this

is what the Lord says. So, my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face. This is the Lord speaking to you. Show me your face. And not only that, we see this in in Psalm Psalm 47 where he say where he says he says, seek my face. But God in turn says to you, show me your face. Let me see your face. Show up in the secret place. Come into that tent of meeting. Show me your face. Listen to this. Let me hear your voice for your voice is sweet. This is what the Lord says about you. Your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. I love this. This is This takes us out of this place of being the professional prayer guys, right? And we just realize that they

were bringing it home, right? We're bringing it home. Today is my son's birthday. Uh one of my son's birthday and I was reminiscing of the day he was born and I was saying and I sent him a text this morning. I remember what the doctor said when he first arrived and my heart was so glad and I loved his face. And today, guess what? I love to see his face. I love him in person even though he lives in Toronto now. Going to go see him on the weekend and we get to be This is what the Lord loves about us. He I just want to encourage you. Don't If you don't think you have enough, you don't have enough qualifications, you don't have enough skill, you don't have to show up with

your face. Show up with your voice. >> Yes. Yes. And even when you want to when you want to start overlapping that with things about the omniscience of God, he's all knowing, he's everywhere, he's omnipresent, these sorts of things, even when you overlap it with that, it's actually helpful cuz he already knows, you know, Psalm Psalm 139, he knows every word I'm going to speak before I even know I'm going to speak it. He already knows it. It's not about bringing him something, it's not about bringing him a prayer that will the words will impress him or give him an idea he hasn't already had. It's It's nothing about that. It's just that he wants us to make a practice of appearing

before him and lifting our voice to him. It's not about about a function to get him to do something or to change something. It's just about relationship. It's just he wants us to approach him. I like that you you know, you went there talking about your son. I always like when when talking about Song of Solomon 2:14, I always remember uh my where where this came home for me was I've got three sons. One of them when he was really young, one in particular was very very sociable, very always wanting to interact. And I remember he was like 9, 10 months old. He didn't have language yet, but he knew he wanted to communicate. And I remember for a few weeks there, I'd come home from work and

he'd be at the door. I remember he you know, it was summertime, it was hot, so he'd be like at the door in his diaper and uh really quick and and I would come in the door and he would go like just It's like he's trying to tell me about everything of his day and he doesn't know any language yet, right? And it just dawned on me, you know, later on just this thing of never once did it enter into my mind to be like, hey, stop it, knock it off, quit with the gibberish, come back when you have some good language. Like that never entered my mind and if I being evil know, you know, if I can have a response of love I got to my son who's just trying to communicate with me. I tell

you you so overwhelmed me with joy that my 9 or 10 month old son wanted so so eager just to communicate with me even though he couldn't communicate properly. If I had so much joy over that, how much more does our good heavenly Father, how much more is he overwhelmed, overcome, right? There's there's other there's other line of Song of Solomon where he says he says, you've ravished my heart with one look of your eyes. Like it's this thing of just the simple act of approaching him. We have no idea how deeply it moves his heart. And that's the purpose, right? That's that's what it's for. It's just It's just what I'm That's I love that you brought that up. I'll tell you a little story.

This is Marilyn's story, but I'm going to borrow it from her. We were in the House of Commons um a couple years ago and we're sitting up in the gallery cuz we often go in there and pray and while the proceedings are going on and and it's If you ever get a chance to come to Ottawa, I would suggest that one of the things you really really should do is go into the house when the house is being is sitting and go up in the gallery, even make plans to meet your member of parliament cuz they'll they'll be happy to meet you when you're here, right? And go up in the gallery and pray. And one day the prime minister came in and and Marilyn saw him coming in. He was

carrying two glasses of water and a big talking points binder and uh it's where all the talking points are. And Marilyn was looking at him and she just looked at him and then she felt the Lord say to him to her about him. She says, he ravished my heart. And Marilyn says, who? Him? Who? The prime minister? Really? Because that's God's heart for all of us. Mhm. That's his heart that God loved the world that he gave his son. That's how much. And just one look, he goes, just one look. That tells you about the mercy of God. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. And that he's his mercy flows so freely even to people we don't like. We don't like what they're doing.

You don't And still God's heart is this. When we feel like they are disqualified, right? They are disqualified. And he goes, no, you have to know where my heart is. And I'm not saying that that that You have to understand what I'm saying cuz some people are going to say, so you're really supporting evil. No, no, no, no, no, no. I want you to look inside the heart and this is the heart of God that none should perish. That's right. He wants him to become a beloved, right? You just have All you have to do is call call upon the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. It's amazing how simple that is. But again, just one look. So I'm talking about you that are feeling disqualified. I'm talking about

you that say, "I don't have a big language for prayer yet." That's okay. That's right. That's okay. You start and you will develop a language. I remember when we were praying on learning how to pray for Israel because we never had a language for this before. I knew how to pray for government. I knew how to pray for my family. Knew how to pray for local church. I I had developed language through the years. I had developed scripture verses cuz I like to pray the words and I knew where to look for those. And I had to learn a language on how to pray for Israel. I had to learn a language on how to pray for Israel. And that's the same thing for any part of our lives. God will give us language so

that we can pray. But you have to start somewhere. And sometimes all you have to pray is, "Lord, you are good." Right. "You are worthy." Start with that, right? "God, you are holy." If you just start with that, you'll see you'll bring it on and you develop this prayer language. You can pray in the spirit or you can pray with understanding. And you develop the understanding language. And that comes through being in the word, eating the word, having that word wash over you and into you. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah, just the even the I'm just thinking now of, you know, the wording there in Song of Solomon 2, the thing of let me see your face, let me hear your voice cuz your

voice is sweet. It's the sound of your voice more than what is actually being said. I mean, you can look at Isaiah 40. You can look at Job, like these things of who who has known the mind of the Lord or who has taught the Lord anything? Who has given him something he didn't already first have? There's nothing I can bring in the place of prayer that can add to his wisdom or to his knowledge or anything like that. It's My words aren't going to impress him. My My words themselves aren't going to move him. What moves him is just the sound of my voice. It's the It's just the sound of your voice, just presenting yourself and talking to him. That's what he's looking for. It sounds ridiculously

simple. It kind of is. But it's, you know, we I think we sometimes tend to complicate things. And he's really just looking for us to show him our face, just to let ourselves be seen by him. Like, yeah, he can see my face all the time. It's not about that he's trying to get us to come out of hiding or something, but it's this thing of I'm voluntarily presenting my face. Am I turning towards him? You know, like you said, I Psalm 27, "Seek my face." If I'm going to seek his face, I show him my face in the process, right? That's I think that's the thing. If he wants to see our face, he wants to hear our voice. Like that's That's the main thing. And again, it he's putting

this out to everyone, not just to the leaders. He didn't Isaiah 56 wasn't, you know, that first part there's not directed mostly at the priests. It's It's directed at the people. It's directed at the foreigners and the eunuchs even, right? It's This is for all of us to approach him, to show him our face, to let him hear our voice. That's what moves him. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's what moves him. You know, he gets to the to the priesthood and the the watchmen of Israel. Right? Later on we're going to get to get to that. But he's looking for just regular just I just loved the I love I love the simplicity of the gospel. And I love the simplicity of your walk with God. It's

>> simple. It's not really that complicated. And actually, learning to know the voice of the Lord through the scripture in the secret place, the prompts when Holy Spirit prompts you in your heart, you know, these are all part of This is They're not very difficult things to do, but you have to practice them. Yeah. That's right. You have to be in that place and you have to develop. Like if I if I only stayed at mama mama mama and all, I'd be missing out. I remember our daughter Lydia. She is the sweetest thing. She's going to be like 22, 23 this year. And we adopted her. >> [snorts] >> And she came into our house and we were foster parents. And she came into our house when she was 1 years old.

And eventually we When she arrived in our home, I felt the Lord say to us, "This one's going to be staying." I thought. And then And then I felt him say, "She can't lose another mother. She needs to stay." And so And already And as soon as she came in, I was very very very I said to Marilyn, "I think this one's staying." And then sure enough, within a couple years we ended up adopting her. Her parents actually asked the judge if we could adopt her. And they told us a lot of things. They said, "Well, Lydia had some some learning disabilities. She was She had a very rough birth. Her mother had substance abuse abuse issues and a bunch of things like that." And so when

we moving into the adoption, they said, "There's a good chance that she's not going to speak. There's a good chance she's never going to get a job. There's a good chance she's going to be dependent on you the whole of her life. She's not going to read." They told me all the things that she wasn't going to do. But we knew in our heart that she was supposed to be with us and we we said, "It's okay. We're going to walk with her." So speech was slow coming. In fact, when she started junior kindergarten, she had a 30-word vocabulary. So she didn't have a big vocabulary at all. And And then one day the vocabulary came. And it came all at once. Really? She came at 6 and all of a sudden she

was like And we I remember we're driving down to Myrtle Beach for summer vacation in the car and Lydia was talking the whole time. And her older brothers >> Wow. older brothers in the car were saying, "Lydia, can you speak up?" I'm talking. And she's going, "Lydia Lydia Lydia Lydia Lydia Lydia Lydia." And then my response to her was this, "No, sweetie, we've waited a long time for these words to come. You just keep going. Keep them coming. And you know what? She She I just want to just give glory and praise to God. You know, when she was in grade 10, she won an English award. Right. And when she when she graduated high school, she won the highest mark in her English class. And

these are the things they said she'd never do and God did. She went to a co-op and within 6 months they hired her from her co-op and she became a supervisor. So God was so faithful faithful faithful. And I just want to say this back to this. You know, you think you don't have a language, you don't have enough prayer, you're learning. Right. It's okay. Just keep practicing, keep going, keep learning. Show me your ways. Teach me your paths, O Lord. It's It's a learning journey. Right. And And that's how we are called ourselves. Yeah, so if language is what's holding you back, if you don't pray cuz you don't know what to pray, just start with the smallest things.

Language will come. Just keep praying. It's the sound of your voice he's listening for more than anything. You know, prayer is not You know, we we've kind of talked about this and wrestled through this a bit, like prayer is not mostly about coming up with the right combination of words to to get God in a submission hold and now he has to answer you. It's not about that. It's He just wants to hear the sound of your voice. And it's the it's the relationship. He just wants you to ask. He doesn't He doesn't want you going through life on your own power, right? Yeah, it's And it's it it gets it gets back to this whole relationship thing. He just wants to know you and see you and hear you.

You know, we talked in our uh our about uh you know, with prayer stream, the title of the podcast, prayer stream, and taking that from I Ezekiel 47 and this whole thing of looking at that river of God and like prayer is how we wade out into that river and encounter him. You know, so that's a common picture we use. We also like to use the picture of from John 15 of abiding in the vine. Like Jesus is saying it's it's really about abiding me and I and you. And in the same way he he talks about grafting, he talks about uh yeah, he he kind of he's drawing on this agricultural picture of grafting and it's pretty wild how um if you if you look into different grafting methods,

how how intimately two different plants are kind of spliced together. And these two plants can become one. You think that's the idea of prayer is just getting real close is just getting real close and just remaining there, remaining there. And you know, it's it's nice we can spend long periods of time in prayer, but if you can't, if life is busy, it's still even those even those 5, 10, 15-second moments in the day where you can pause and just with the eyes of your heart look at him and say something to him. That counts. And that's it's just abiding in him, abiding in the vine. That's the picture, right? Exactly. It's abiding. One of my favorite apostolic prayers comes out of Ephesians 1.

And it's this. So it's this. We're learning this language, right? Right. We're learning how to communicate. We're learning a dialogue. And that's essentially what it is. It's a dialogue. It's not just us rambling off and and going and just talking all the time. You know, I like to talk all the time. And He does, people. He does. Like seriously, if you want to have a talking contest, I'm a gold medalist. You just might as well move on. I love to talk, but I also have learned to listen. Right? And learning to listen. When we're in that place, learning to listen. And so one of the things I love about about many of the apostolic prayers, there's this theme that he talks about

wisdom and revelation. So that's your ability to perceive, your ability to know, Yeah. your ability to hear, right? This is one of the prayers of the Apostle Paul. He says, "I want to pray that you have the ability to see, the ability to hear, and then the ability to act." And that's what's so so important because it's good that we take in information, we dispense information, we dispense whatever, but the main thing is that we are responding to what the Father is speaking to us in that place of abiding. And we get this wisdom, revelation, and the knowledge of him, right? And this what I love about Let me just just I do not Let me just read this a little bit cuz it's such a good prayer. If

you've never prayed this prayer or didn't even know it was there, look at this cuz I pray this prayer often. I would use this as a This is like one of the the weapons that I pull out of my quiver. And my little quiver here, I pull out my thing and I I use this many times cuz it builds up and it builds my family up. I pray this over my family very very often. Real quick side note. Real quick side note. If you don't know what to pray, if language is a problem for you, pray the Bible. Literally, there's so many good prayers in here. We'll talk about it one day more specifically, but turn the Bible into conversation, into dialogue with God. But carry on, Chris. Well, so let

me just read this to you so that you you'll get this. And this is about being a part of the house, right? Being that house of prayer. For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints. I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Mhm. Having the eyes of your heart enlightened, opened, that you may know the hope to which you have been called. What the riches of his glorious inheritance again. You know, when you're part of a family, there's an

inheritance, right? There should be an inheritance. Many of you have children and you're going to leave your children an inheritance. You have parents, they're going to leave you an inheritance. Well, there's an inheritance being a part of the house, that house of God, that house of prayer. The inheritance is the house of prayer is hope. Listen to this. The hope to which he have called you, what the riches are in his glory and glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of his great might that worked that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him in

heavenly places. So, you get to have this This is the inheritance of being in the house of prayer. You become dispensers of hope cuz you're you realize the hope to which you have been called. You all have been called, just not Pastor Bob. Right? It's you. Yes. You are called. >> Yes. And you are called into this house of prayer to be dispensers of hope. To be dispensers of his might that we see in his death and his resurrection. Very cool. Very cool. I like two things I I like out of here. First of all, this thing of giving you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I love that first of all, we can sometimes hear spirit of revelation, he's going to give me

revelation. We think of all these things that it could be about that, you know, revelation of what's coming in the future or what someone's thinking or whatever, things like that. It's wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. It's to It's to know him. It's to reveal him. So, that's I love that first of all. It's primarily for us to grow in the knowledge of him, to grow in relationship with him. And the second part is, and this kind of gets back to what we were talking about with his, you know, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, is is the, you know, having your hearts enlightened to three things. You know, the first one was the hope of your calling. The second one though,

what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? Like we we quickly assume, you know, yes, I have an inheritance in him or whatever, things like that. But but he's Paul's actually saying that you would know the riches of his glorious inheritance in you, the saints. Meaning like we are Jesus' inheritance. And Paul calls it a glorious inheritance. What are the riches of that glorious inheritance? It's We don't realize the value and the worth that we that we carry to him. Like he's He is the thing he endured the cross for. He's, you know, that's the main thing he gained out of the cross is us being restored back to him, back to the Father and back to him, a bride

purchased for him. And so, I love that because it that speaks to the Why why would his heart move just at the sound of my voice? I don't understand. I'm his glorious inheritance. We are his glorious inheritance. And Paul's praying that they would get that, that your eye the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened so you'd get it how valuable you are to him. It's not about us, it's all about him. It's not to say it's all about us, but we we sometimes we we just completely miss just how valuable we are to his heart. And that's That's what he wants to reveal to us in prayer. But also, I'm I'm just sitting just sitting here listening to you talk, but also for

me to recognize the value of the inheritance in you. Right? Yes. Yes. And those that I'm walking with, in the people in my local church, those that I'm praying with in my houses of prayer, those that are in my family with Christ is dwelling in there. I recognize the value in them that God placed in them. This is why it's so important that you, you know, that we don't we're not quarrelsome and that our relationships are nice and clean with each other because so often we think of ourselves a little higher than the other. I don't think I want to do that. Do you Do you get to do that? And you go, "Ah, you know, Never. Never. Oh, I got more going on than that guy, right? No, don't think that way

because the inheritance of Christ is in there with that with your brothers and sisters, which is powerful. So powerful. So, this is Yeah, this is the whole thing of prayer. I hope you're you're kind of hearing this what we're getting at is is at the center of prayer is this thing of it's God wanting his people to approach him and to encounter him and the effect we have on him and and just that in that place of prayer, he wants our eyes to be open to see who he is, what he's like, how loving he is, and so on. But then, who we are in his eyes. And then also, like you're saying, Chris, those around us. So, those And you mentioned those in in our church, in our family, and so on. But I

would also add this then, like it's in that place of prayer when I see how he views me. Yeah. And then I look at neighbors who don't walk with him and realize how, you know, it's not that God just wants to build the biggest religion in the world. It's that he wants more He wants every heart to encounter him. He wants He wants every life restored to him. That's why he's desiring that none should perish. He wants every life restored to him. And that's again, it's I think that's where the world misses it is we could think it's that he's egomaniacal or that he he just wants to be the biggest or he just wants to demand everyone do what he says. And we miss it that at the core of

it is this longing heart of love that he wants men to draw men and women and people like people to draw close and to be near him. That's what he's after. And that's that's what prayer is about. That's what it's about. There you go. It's It's not that hard. And you know what? It's so enjoyable. You know, in his presence is is fullness of joy. And at his right hand are pleasures forevermore. And we think of that. And if if if prayer is a dirge or a drudge, I just I want to say I don't want to say you're doing it wrong. I don't want to say that, right? But it it is You're missing something. You're you're you're you're missing something. Because this is so enjoyable. I used to

say way back, like 30, 40 years ago, remember I preached this message at at the church I was in. I was a youth guy. And I And I said, "In his presence is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore." So, your prayer [snorts] life should be the most self-indulgent thing that you do. It is And it really is when you think about, you know, having a face-to-face with the king of glory, right? To to having a face-to-face with the lover of your soul, right? Right? And And saying, "I I'm going to I'm going to" It's like you're a sucker for punishment for not doing that. Right? You should be in this place because it is so wonderful. It is so glorious when you gaze upon the beauty

of his holiness. It transforms you. It does. It just transforms you. I heard this this this statement I think I forget who said this. You are who you look at. Right? When you are looking It's true. And if you're just focusing on on certain things, that's it. So, I want to have be transfixed on King Jesus. I want to be transfixed on the King of glory. I want to be looking in his face. So, that he changes. And it actually I think it was Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe Wardrobe. Who wrote that again? Yes, C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis said this. I don't pray to change God. When I pray, it changes me. Right. That's a paraphrase. I don't have exactly words, but that's the the crux of it. When I am

in his presence, from glory to glory >> Exactly. changing Yeah, it's just so good. Yep. And as you were talking there a minute ago, I thought of there's one verse that I think of. You know, so when you're talking about prayer, if it's if it's hard, if it's a drudgery, there's something missing. I I think of what comes to mind is Psalm 131 verse 2. Uh David says, "I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother is my soul within me." And just the So the first part there, there's a a calming and quieting. Like today with all our technology, all our media, all the stuff, to calm and quiet our souls takes a bit of work, right? There's just internal traffic, thought

processes all the time. There's so much information coming in. So taking time, being calm, being quiet, it's a big thing. And it takes it takes some work today. But I love this line, "Like a weaned child with its mother." I thought about that and like we think of newborn babies with their mother, right? But a newborn, you know, one that's not yet been weaned. Every time like not every time, but like mostly what when they're looking for their mother, it's in anxiety cuz they're hungry. And there's this urgent need to eat. And there's there's I don't want to call it fear, but there's urgency, there's something like that. But a weaned child, one who's now eating and drinking on its own,

when a weaned child is with its mother, it's it's from the place of delight and rest cuz they want to be with their mom. You know, unless they're doing something they're supposed not supposed to and the mom picked them up, right? And drag them off. But there's this thing of a weaned child is one when that child is with its mother, it's at peace. It's at rest. It's not Ah, quick, I need it's there's this thing of just resting and and delighting with their their mother. And that's that's kind of the That's where we want to get to in prayer is this thing of a calmed and quieted soul that's at peace and at rest in his presence. That's That's kind of the That's kind of the goal, right? That's

kind of the goal. So That's very good. Very good. I love this. >> So But here's where we'll where we'll wrap up. Um Isaiah 56 and we've we've kind of been highlighting this over and over again. Um "My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations." This thing of just drawing near to him, being close to him. The door's open to everyone. And we'll we'll re-emphasize this as we as we wrap up as you know, we've already said this. It's that his desire is that this is open to all, right? To the foreigner, the eunuch, and in in addition to the people. It's open to all. It's not just for the leaders. And and for us, you know, our heart is to encourage and equip regular, quote unquote, regular

Christians to grow in prayer. Um And actually it's it's interesting because, you know, at the time we're recording this, you know, in the last few weeks, there's been a huge shakeup in the in the church, especially in, you know, more charismatic, Pentecostal um regions of the church as far as just problems in leadership. And at the end of Isaiah 56, the last four verses, Isaiah really calls out the leaders of of the people of Israel for really being selfish, for being self-serving, for yeah, just self-serving, not shepherding the the flock, not shepherding the people, but just living off the perks of their of their roles and not not leading as, you know, not

leading as Jesus did, not laying their life down for the people. And I just we we kind of want to highlight this at the end just to say it's again, it's not all about the leaders. And in fact, leaders, pastors, leaders in prayer movements are our primary role is to equip people to pray. It's to get you in connection with with the Lord. I was sharing this a few weeks ago at our church. For me, you know, there's there's lots of great passages that you can look to for shape to shape how you view pastoral ministry. You know, you can look at the letters to Timothy or to Titus or different places. For me, John 3 is actually a really key one. Not where he's talking with

Nicodemus, but John the Baptist later. You know, he makes he makes a really key statement saying, you know, first it's when, you know, so Jesus has been baptized by John and now Jesus is starting to baptize people and starting to teach or his disciples are baptizing. And all these crowds that were following John the Baptist are now following Jesus. And John's disciples are like, "John, our ministry's shrinking. We got to get our people back, right?" And John says, "No, no, no, this is what's supposed to happen. I only get what heaven gives to me, right? So if the if the ministry grows, heaven gave it to me. If if the ministry's shrinking, that's fine. He's taking it." He He

points to Jesus and says, "He's the bride or the bridegroom. He gets the bride. I'm just the friend of the bridegroom. I'm just a groomsman." And for me, that's a that's a big one. Is that if you think of the wedding day, you know, of those three characters listed there, the bridegroom, the bride, and the friend of the bridegroom, the lowest on the totem pole is the friend of the bridegroom, right? The bridegroom and the bride are the two key figures. And John the Baptist's heart was to point people to the bridegroom. Say, "Go to him. He's the one you're supposed to follow." Even later in the Gospels, it said John sent some of his disciples to Jesus uh telling them to ask, "Are you

the Messiah or or should we look for someone else?" And I've heard that I've heard that interpreted in in one way that, you know, when we read it at face value, it sounds like John having doubts. And he's like, cuz John was in prison at the time, "Can you go find out for me if it's really him?" But, you know, in John 1, we see him very, very certain that is the Messiah. That's the one who's supposed to come. And so the other interpretation I've heard is that John John knows Jesus is the Messiah, but his disciples are sticking around with him and he's trying to get them to follow Jesus. He says, "You go ask him if he's the Messiah." Right? It's like he's sending them,

trying to get them to stick to Jesus. And so when it comes to this thing of prayer in that in that context, it's not mostly about the leaders and and about the prayer people praying. It's if you're if you're just a regular Christian who just goes to church whatever and you you just attend church and and you feel like that's all you have to offer, we want to tell you that, you know, John even said, "The friend of the bridegroom stands and hears his voice." And he and he says, "My joy is full because I hear him." And we want to point you to the bridegroom, to Jesus. He want to hear his voice and this thing like we've been talking about already, he wants to hear your voice.

The point is that you would be connected to him. You're the bride of Christ. If you're a Christian, you're the bride of Christ. And it's not about leaders coming and taking center stage when it comes to prayer. It's about you guys. Engage with Engage with the Lord in prayer. That's what he's after. He's after a body that knows him, not just a few leaders that know him. And when it's just the leaders doing it, we run into what Isaiah's talking about in these last four verses, turning to their own way, their own gain. Come, they say, "Let me get wine. Let us fill ourselves with strong drink." We don't It's easy for leaders to just when it's all about them to just assume it's all about us,

right? Like that's that's what happens with leaders sometimes. Our heart and our goal is to help every believer in Canada recognize their value before the Lord, that the Lord wants to see your face and hear your voice. And we want to see you become the house of prayer. You enter into the place of prayer. It's not about prayer ministries. It's not about prayer leaders. It's about body of Christ is to be a house of prayer for all nations. You want to add anything to that, Chris? Yeah, that's really great about appetites. It also mentions about great appetites. And you know what? We can have appetites. I I have appetites, right? I do. I I come Like there are certain foods I really

like to eat. And And so but it talks it's talking here about these great appetites. And these leaders, we can have appetites, appetites for uh notoriety, appetite for power, appetite It's for everything. But it's saying And it's saying to these these watchmen, you know, it's like you're blind. It's like you have no knowledge. And so this is why we want to be in that place of seeing the Lord, right? And only ourselves taste and see that the Lord is good. That's where the appetite needs to be. You know, the appetite needs to be there that we are become Ephesians 4, the fullness of God. That God fills us. That's where we want to be. That's where we want to be in that

place of being filled. Be being filled with the Holy Spirit. And it's not all about leaders. Leaders are essential. They are. Leaders lead and leaders help set, but it's about again, back to the fivefold ministry. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. That's not about hier- hierarchy. That's about equippers equipping the saints, you, to do the work of the ministry. It's not all about these all top leaders. Our jobs We're not coaches, right? Many times they go, "Oh, we're a coach." We're not the quarterback or the center ice person, right? We're the equipment manager on the team. We're the water boy. We're the one that says, "When your stick is broken, here's

another stick. Get in the game." Right? If your shoes are are broke, let me tie up your shoes and get back in the game. And that's the role that we see of of fivefold that fivefold ministry is to equip the saints to do. So many times I'll say this before we go. Many people say, "Well, I don't have this gifting. I don't have this gifting." I want to say this. Don't get trap trapped in the gifting trap. So often I see people come in, they teach about spiritual gifting, and then people say, "Well, I don't have that gift, so I'll just sit here on the couch." No. Your job is to go see what the Lord's doing, right? Hear what he's saying, look what he's doing, do what

he's doing, say what he's saying. It's irrelevant to gifting. It's about obedience. It's about courage. It's That's what it's about. Cuz you will be surprised because God loves to use the likely. He likes to use the small. He likes to use the weak things to confound the wise. So if you're thinking that it's you don't have it all together, that's okay. You're not supposed to. He has it all together and he give you what you need. Just be obedient and be specific. So Isaiah 56:7, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. If you're a Christian, if you're in the body of Christ, you are part of that temple that that spiritual house built of living

stones that Peter talked about in 1 Peter 2:5. You are the temple. You are a house of prayer. He wants the body of Christ, the whole thing to be a house of prayer and our heart is to do whatever we can to help encourage and stir that up in the church in Canada. So So be a house of prayer. Be Let that Let that grow in your life. >> [music] >> So thanks for joining with us for Prayer Stream. We will see you next time. Bye for now. Thanks for listening [music] to Prayer Stream, a podcast from the National House of Prayer. If you liked this episode, click the like button, [music] share, and subscribe to stay up to date on all our future episodes. For more information on upcoming events, prayer

resources, or the Canopy of Prayer, please visit us at www.nhop.ca. [music] See you next time.