Sermon Tone Analysis

Ever find yourself saying “Prayer is the least I can do for you”?

Or shared your heart out with someone and they reply with well “I will pray for you”.

Your thinking I poured my heart out and told you all about my struggles and all you got for me is I will pray for you and for some of you your saying you didn’t even put the I will in there all you wrote back is praying.

You’re thinking come on are you kidding me.

Wives you ever find yourself pouring your heart out to your husband and telling him how bad you feel and he responds with I will pray for you?

You’re thinking I was not going there with that conversation I just wanted some sympathy and I just wanted someone to understand what I am going through and their response is I will pray for you.

You ever find yourself listening to someone else’s story and you are not sure how to respond and so you resort to, well “I will pray for you”.

I wish I could have done something but that was so overwhelming that I didn’t know what to say.

Acts 6

According to the standard of: His Glorious riches

Strength: be strong to overcome resistance

Power: Dynamic living power

inner man: Believers innermost beings

The reason fr the strength and power in the inner man through His Spirit is that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Dwell: That Christ might literally, “be at home in” your hearts through faith.

This idea of be at home in your hearts.

Imagine with me this morning if we came to your home and in your house we decorated it with all the things that you hate.

If you are a Cardinals fan we, then we decided to put Cubs stuff up everywhere.

Or if you are a Cubs fan, we decided to put up Cardinals stuff all over the house.

Perhaps you love Fords and we went throughout your house and decorated it with Chevy stuff everywhere.

Maybe you are a Harley guy and we came in and put up Honda parts and decor one everything.

It would be very hard to feel at home in this environment.

Paul prays that the Messiah may dwell or literally be at home in your hearts through faith.

If your heart is full of hate, bitterness, anger, unforgiveness then Christ is not literally at home in your hearts.

Paul is praying that Christ might literally be at home in their hearts.

This would mean that he is at home in your hearts all the time.

This not just a Sunday a thing.

This is all the time.

For Christ to dwell in your hearts, our hearts would be full of love, forgiveness, patience, kindness, gentleness, joy, peace, faithfulness and self-control.

This would be always present in our lives.

What Paul is praying for is a deeper experience between Christ and His people.

He yearns for Christ to settle down and feel at home in their hearts—not a surface relationship, but an ever-deepening fellowship

What would life look like if we made a conscience effort to make our hearts a place that Christ can be at home in?

This is not a soft prayer.

He is praying that Christ would dwell or be made at home in their hearts.

I pray that you...

He continues to pray that Christ be the center of the believers lives.

He uses two words rooted and established.

These participles are in perfect tense, indicating past action with continuing results.

(break this down)

Rooted: Tree must get its rots deep into the soil for it to have nourishment and stability

If there is to be power in the Christian life, then there must be depth.

The roots must go deeper and deeper into the love of Christ.

Tomato plants in the summer watering them too much verses me letting them go down and get rooted on their own.

Don’t let church and Sundays be the only source for being rooted in Jesus.

We must search for depth on our own.

Firmly Established/Grounded: Architectural term; it refers to the foundations on which we build.

The most important part of the building is the foundation.

It the foundation is week the rest of the building will not stand.

In order to build high you must go deep into the ground.

It is essential that we ground ourselves in Christ.

That in Christ we establish a firm foundation in love.

Comprehend: to grasp or to lay ahold of something for yourself.

This means to not only understand it but to understand it to the point of making it your own.

The prayers of saintly leaders do much in making saints of those who follow them.

-E.M. Bounds

I have a confession to make that in the first 11 years prayer has not been to this extent for me as a leader.

I am working to change this.

So I had to ask myself how in the world have we accomplished so much and the Lord done so much through us in 11 years?

I was reminded of all the people that over the years have talked to me, called, written letters, sent emails, text messages and said we are praying for you.

I 100% believe this ministry has been sustained by the prayers of the people.

Prayer is not a last resort.

Prayer is the first response.

Church what if we heard the words that I will pray with you and we said THANK YOU because we believe this is the most someone could do.

What if relationships and marriages were strengthened because daily we heard the words I prayed for you.

Imagine church if we took this serious and when we heard someone say they have been praying for us that we would stop and see the power of someone praying and when we tell someone we will pray for them that we grasp and understand being sacred holiness of God and praying for the saints.