A Church of Prayer…It is part of our foundation that we are a praying church. When we are here speaking and worshipping we have people praying all the time for what is going on. They are asking God for His blessing, anointing and staying the hand of the enemy.

We want to dedicate this weekend to pray for our city. We never want to ever drop that priority of being a praying people.

People Who Pray:

God has always loved cities, He cares about them because that is where people live, work and either get influenced or swayed. The first city we hear about is the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Immorality became unbridled under the guise of freedom. When God said that He was going to destroy the city, Abraham stopped Him and asked the Lord that if there was only fifty, then forty-five, then thirty, then twenty, and then finally only ten righteous people there, would the Lord still destroy the cities? The Lord relented and said no. But the people were not righteous. God even sent angels to try and turn them back toward God, but the population rejected them and so the end of the cities came quickly.

As we pray over our city today, we want to pray for the righteous within our market place and businesses that we are righteous not only on Sunday but Monday’s and thereafter. We want to stand and be counted in Christ without fear or shame. We want nothing but the name of Christ be what motivates us - not money, power, prestige and the myth of more that has stolen so much of each of us, our families and our ministries.

The second city is Nineveh. God sent a very stubborn prophet named Jonah. God asked Jonah to go to the city and turn them back toward God. But Jonah actually went to the dock and caught a ship going the opposite direction.

Has God asked you to do something but you purposely did the opposite? We all have at some time. God captured Jonah going in the wrong direction. The Bible says, “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:  ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’” (Jonah 3: 1) Did you catch that, the Lord asking a second time? Have you ever needed that? Sometimes we don’t listen but His grace is so merciful that instead of tossing us aside, the Word comes to you a third or even a fourth time. Jonah spent three days marinating in the belly of the whale with seaweed wrapped around his head until God turned the whale around and had him vomit Jonah out on dry land. So Jonah went into the city and told the people to repent. The church grew to a hundred twenty thousand that week.

God loves cities and is still sending prophets. God may have given some of you the voice of a prophet to be bold or appropriately unashamed on how you run your business with God as your CEO and with the sole propose of influencing the city for Christ. Pray for the prophets who will stand and be the Jonah’s of today. For you Christians, this could be the day the Lord is coming a second or a third time to you.

So let us hear Him, we don’t have unlimited years and what we may lose, we may never gain again.

The third city is Jerusalem, and the Bible tells us in Luke 13: 34, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” It is also written, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.  They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.’”(Luke 19:41-44)

The first city God sent angels, to the second he sent a prophet. Can anyone comprehend how grievous our sins must have been in the scope of eternity that our Heavenly Father sensed the need to come personally to the third city in order to redeem us on that day in Jerusalem. He sent his only begotten son. He loved us so much that he took off his crown and glory and put aside his regal robe and stepped out of eternity and into our city. God extended such magnificent grace. Today as we pray over our city, we pray for the righteous that we live as such and not hide when God counts us. I pray for all you gentle prophets to never forget who you are on Monday.

Our city is relying on your influence for a word or invitation. How many of our lives have been eternally changed because one neighbor invites another to church for a Bible study or lunch. We pray today over our city to ask the son of God to bless this collection of people yearning to breathe something of the eternal while being held by their own humanity. That we carry not just a philosophy of religion but the very son of God who will be seen as we walk among the city and pray that the redeemer will be the God of this city. Jews tried to make Him into a book of law. The Greeks made Him a philosopher. The Europeans made Him into a culture and we in America tried to make him into a sub culture. But today, we appeal to the person of Jesus Christ. He entered life from a virgins womb and left from an empty tomb. He is the Lord over all the earth and the God of the city.

Let us pray for our city. Without money and weapons, God, you conquered more millions than Alexander the Great and all the world wars combined. Without science and learning, you shed more light on things human and divine. Without writing a single line you set more pens in motion and furnished more themes, discussions in books, songs and praise than all the great artists and musicians of ancient and modern times collected. We appeal to you and pray over this city that you will once again turn your grace towards us - not your justice - for indeed we would fall like other cities. We pray for good and wise leaders to rule over our city. We pray for the righteous among us and prophets within our midst that they will not recede and go the other way, but instead be ambassadors that you asked us to be and influence our cities toward good. We know that we have sinned here in the city and we pray for mercy before we pray for blessing. When you do arrive and speak to our hearts may we be like the low and humble shepherd to run and recognize you, like the wise men who brought you gifts and be more like the angels that sang Hosea. Lord, forgive our simpleness and grant us the two gifts we ask for this Christmas - your mercy and your grace. Be the God of our city, in Hawaii and every where believers are gathering around your throne as we are doing today. Be the God of our city we pray. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen, Amen and Amen

Questions to Ponder:

1) What has God told you to do that you have refused? Why??

2) How can you remember to be a true Christian even after Sundays?