We can see that elders are celebrating because this song is for elders; elders in the house shout a big hallelujah! Today is the grand finale of the Elders Congress and today we are going to be thanking God and we have started, thank you choir for that ministration, God bless you in Jesus name.
Let us pray: our Father and our God, we thank You for today, thank You for bringing us to the very last Sunday in the month of May, the month of abundant grace; thank You Father Lord for how far You have helped us from the beginning of this month even up until now, we are very grateful, accept our thanksgiving in Jesus name.
Father thank You for Your elders, thank You Father Lord for giving us the grace, thank You Lord for health, thank You for strength, thank You for family, thank You Father Lord because it has only been by Your help and Your mercy, accept our thanksgiving in Jesus name.
Father we thank You for the Explosive Growth Drive of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, the Vision 2032; thank You for how far You are helping us in Christ the Lord Parish, we are very grateful, accept our thanksgiving in Jesus name.
Father Lord, today we want to look at the position and the power of intercession and prayers in the growth drive, Father we pray that You give us a heart of intercession in the name of Jesus; make us intercessors, Father help us to pray according to Your heart and Your desire in the name of Jesus. Thank You our Father and our God, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Welcome to church! I want to thank God for today and I want to thank our father in the Lord for this opportunity to minister this morning on the Explosive Growth Drive, the topic like I mentioned is that we are going to be looking at “The Power of Intercession”, how prayers can drive church growth, how prayers can also drive the Vision 2032 and not only for Vision 2032, also for our individual lives.
This morning when we had our workers session, one of the ways that we can grow the church is through prayers, we cannot underestimate the power of prayers, not only for church growth, in our personal lives because we have come to realize that many of us pray selfish prayers, it’s only about me, mine and mine, we are not bothered about the other person, so today we want to awaken in us the zeal, the power, the grace for intercession, may the Lord help us in Jesus name.
I’m going to take my Bible reading, (it’s a rather long one, please bear with me), but I want us to look at somebody who understood what intercession meant and how he went about intercession; I’m going to be reading from Genesis 18: 16 – 19, 23 – 33; “And the men rose up from thence, and looked towards Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. 17And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.
23And Abraham drew near, and said, wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 25That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from thee: shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 26And the Lord said, if I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 27And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: 28Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, if I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.
29And he spake unto him yet again, and said, peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake. 30And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 31And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. 32And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but this once: peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. 33And the Lord went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place, praise the Lord!
From this Bible passage you can see that Abraham was not praying about himself, already God said I know Abraham, I know he’s going to command his household after him, so he was as far as God was concerned a righteous man, but when he heard that Sodom was about to be destroyed and he knew that his nephew was in Sodom, Lot, was living in Sodom with his family, he began to intercede for Sodom, he began to pray that God will not destroy the whole land for the sake of the righteous within the land, and what is that telling us, that we as children of God we also should be intercessors.
We need to pray not only for Nigeria, we should also pray for our family members, our loved ones, we should pray that all of them will come to the saving knowledge of the Lord and God will find us faithful in the mighty name of Jesus.
1Timothy 2: 1 & 2 says I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks, be made for all men: 2for kings and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. So from that verse two you can see the different types of prayers that we can pray; we can pray prayers of supplication, that is we are making appeal, we are begging God to do something for us; we can make prayers, we can do intercessions and giving of thanks, and you can see what Paul said there, he said these prayers, this intercession should be for all men first of all.
So when you are praying for your family members who are yet to be saved, when you are interceding for them, when you are telling God to have mercy on them, to save their souls, to save your town, to save your village, to save where you come from, what you are doing is you are praying prayer of intercession, praise the Lord!
So we are to pray for all men, then we are to pray for those in authority, we are to pray for our government; when you curse Nigeria every day instead of interceding for Nigeria, instead of interceding like Abraham did to say ‘Lord have mercy upon Nigeria, we know we are sinners, we know we’ve sinned against You, we are killers, we are murderers, we are this we are that, please have mercy on Nigeria’; rather than intercede for Nigeria every day we curse Nigeria, this is not what Abraham did, the Lord is looking for intercessors, may He find us faithful in the name of Jesus.
Maybe somebody is here and saying what is the meaning of intercession, what is intercession? Intercession is standing in the gap, you are standing in the gap for somebody or for a nation. Ezekiel 22:30, (this is God looking for intercessors), He says I looked for someone among them, who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land but that I should not destroy it, but I found none. God was looking for somebody to stand in the gap to take up the edge for the land but He said He found none, He will find us this morning in the name of Jesus.
So intercession is standing before God on behalf of someone else or standing before God on behalf of a nation, on behalf of those who are yet to know the Lord, that is what intercession is all about.
So why do we need to intercede for the lost? Number one reason is because the heart of God is after the lost; if you look at those parables in Luke 15, the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, the parable of the lost son, God’s heart is after the lost, He does not want anyone to perish, He wants all to come to repentance, so God is looking for intercessors because His heart is after the lost.
Number two reason is because heaven is real and hell is real; eternal damnation is waiting for unbelievers. Those family members that you love so much on this side of eternity, you love them and you don’t want them to go to hellfire but what are you doing to make sure they don’t go to hellfire, what you can do apart from preaching to them is to intercede for them; it’s not the first day I heard the gospel that I gave my life to Christ, somebody has been praying, somebody has been interceding for us until one day when altar call was made, we came out, so sometimes when we make altar call here and nobody comes out, it’s not because the message was not powerful, what it means is that we need to do more intercession, the next time the person will go somewhere or come here the person will come out, why, because we sow the seed, God waters the seed, then one day God will bring the increase, our job is to pray, our job is to preach, our job is to encourage and God will bring the increase in the name of Jesus.
So what are the barriers to intercessory prayers? Why are we not praying intercessory prayers? Why are we selfish in our praying? Number one thing is spiritual apathy or distraction, many of us are indifferent or we lack interest in spiritual matters or some of us are too selfish, we are only concerned about ourselves.
In Hosea 4: 17, this man called Ephraim became a worldly man, his heart strayed away from God and Bible says Ephraim has joined himself to idols: leave him alone, may God not leave us alone in the name of Jesus. In 2 Timothy 4:10, another man whose heart strayed away, he was working with Paul, they went on missionary journeys together but one day he said “I’m tired of all this going here going there, I want to do my own thing.” And Paul said “For Demas has forsaken me, (he has forsaken this journey) having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica, he went back.
I don’t know if you have been on social media in the last few days, this song that is trending ‘I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back’, ‘no turning back’ is an old song but the way they sang it, it says ‘it’s already too late, it’s too late’…
[Music]
So that song says ‘it’s already too late’, where am I going to, it is too late’, is that your confession that is too late, you are not turning back, we will not turn back in the name of Jesus. As we are not turning back, what of the people that have not even started at all, it is our duty to intercede for them so that they also can be on this journey so that they will not go to hellfire, may God find us worthy intercessors in the mighty name of Jesus.
So who and what can we pray for? We can pray for the lost like I said; we can pray for more laborers in the harvest; in our intercession we can ask God to send more laborers for people to have burden for souls; we can pray for the gospel to penetrate the heart of sinners, when you are praying, this morning Father as we go to church, all those that will come for the first time, all those that will attend church today, if there is any heart that is hardened, Father let their heart be softened today, as the word of God is coming let the word find place in their heart, break every stony heart, what am I doing? I’m praying prayer of intercession so that all those who have come to heart with their mind made up, no matter what you say they will not hear but when intercession has gone ahead their heart will become soft and they can hear and receive the word of God, praise the Lord!
What can we do? We can pray for the move of the Holy Spirit in our services so that sinners can be convicted and converted; we can pray prayer of intercession for the move of the Holy Spirit because it’s the Holy Spirit that brings conviction for sin; we can pray for ministers to have utterance and boldness to speak the mind of God, that is what we should be praying for, we should be doing more of intercession, we should pray for the minister that will bring the word that Father today, the minister that will bring the word, the choir that will minister, all those that will take one part in one thing or the other in the service, Father let the Holy Spirit move through them so that at the end of the service souls will be brought to the kingdom of God, that is what God is requiring from us.
We can pray for the safety, the health, protection of our ministers, of our pastors; in the last few days if you have been following Baba Adeboye, he has been to South Korea, he has been to Japan, he’s going all over the world, what is our duty, we can only intercede for safety, for protection, for health, for strength for him as he goes all over the world lighting up the nations, the Lord will hear us as we pray in the name of Jesus.
So what are the resources that we need to carry out this mandate? We need the word of God; when we are praying we should not pray soulish prayers, emotional prayers, we should pray prayers that are based on the word of God. We should also use the name of Jesus because the name of Jesus is a strong tower, the righteous run into the name of Jesus and they are saved.
What also should we do, we should desire the baptism of the Holy Spirit, when we have the baptism of the Holy Spirit then it is easy for us to pray; Bible says we don’t know what we need to pray for, but the Spirit of God makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; He helps us to pray according to the will of God, that is what the Holy Spirit does, that is who He is, He helps us in the place of prayer, so if you have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit you need to covert and desire the baptism so that you can pray appropriately and the Lord will hear us as we pray in the mighty name of Jesus.
So what is the call for action in this Vision 2032, what are we to do? Number one, create a personal intercession list for unsaved family and friends. Look at your family, I know my family, you know your family, create a list of those in your family or your friends that are yet to know the Lord, create a family list and say Father, I want to determine from today, these people are on my intercession list for them to be saved; begin to pray, mention them in your prayers every day for God to encounter them, for them to be saved, you will not know, very soon you just find that all your family members are already saved, so shall it be in the name of Jesus.
Number two thing we can do, we can commit to regular fasting and prayer; we can fast, our fasting should not only be for me and my family, we can fast and when we say we have heart of intercession, you can look at the church, you can take a family, they don’t even need to know that you are praying for them and say ‘Father, this Monday I want to pray for this family, I want to pray for two families, I want to pray for the singles who are yet to marry in CTL, I want to take today to pray for those who are looking for the fruit of the womb’, you are standing in the gap as intercessors, you have seen a need in the body and you want to meet that need by praying, they don’t need to know that you are praying for them, just continue to stand in the gap for other people and the Lord will hear and answer us in the name of Jesus.
Number three thing we can do is that you can join prayer groups that are focused on evangelism and the lost. There are many prayer groups that you can join, we have prayer chain here, there are many other groups in our school sets, we belong to many Christian groups that we can join them to pray, praise the Lord!
Many of us have left all those social clubs, all those clubs that we used to attend, why don’t you organize your friends into prayer groups? I have friends that we pray online, thank God for technology, thank God for WhatsApp, you don’t even need to do zoom, just WhatsApp call – the group call and all of you can pray for 15 minutes, you just have intercession for 15 minutes, you have intercession for 30 minutes and you find that these connections go a long way to grow the church, the Lord will help us in Jesus mighty name.
Number four thing we can do is to ask God to give us a heart, His heart for the lost, we should have compassion. What drives evangelism, what drives intercession for other people is compassion, when you have compassion for other people, for the lost, you find that your heart will be yearning towards them, your heart will be praying for them, it is easy for you to bring them up in your prayers and the Lord will help us as we do so in the mighty name of Jesus.
How many of us are going to commit to prayers to intercession for other people from today? Say ‘God helping me, I will pray, I will intercede for the lost, for souls, for my family members, for my village, for my town, for my siblings, I will intercede for them to be saved’, and they shall be saved in the mighty name of Jesus. You know many of us came from villages, towns where idolatry is still rife, where they still worship all kinds of things, what is our duty, our duty is to intercede, some of us don’t go to our villages again, we have run away, I’m not saying you should go but what I’m saying is that you can send your prayers, you can pray that God will deliver your land, that God will deliver your city, you intercede for your city and the Lord will hear in the name of Jesus.
I know our elder here, the chairman of the elders council, he mentioned to me one time that all those people from Ile-Ife, that they have intercession for their town, he said they meet and they pray for Ile-Ife because that is the cradle of Yoruba land, may the Lord hear and answer all our prayers in the name of Jesus.
Because we said we are going to be praying, we are not just here for theory, we are going to practicalize it this morning by the grace of God, but before we do that I’m going to take a song, let’s rise up on our feet, we are going to take a hymn and then we are going to start interceding this morning, the hymn is ‘what a friend we have in Jesus’, we are just going to take the first stanza and then we start to intercede in the name of Jesus.
[Music]
Say Father, help us to stand in the gap for those who do not know You; break our hearts for the lost, use us to be the bridge between heaven and the earth so that Your will will be done on earth as it is being done in heaven. Go ahead and begin to pray, say Father, let me be an intercessor, give me the heart for the lost, give me a heart for those who are lost, help me to be the bridge between heaven and the earth so that Your will will be done on earth as Your will is being done in heaven in the name of Jesus.
Father help me Lord to pray, to intercede, to groan in the place of prayer for my lost family members, for my lost loved ones, help me to intercede for them in the name of Jesus, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
We are going to intercede now for the singles in our midst who are yet to find the bone of their bone and the flesh of their flesh, we are going to say Father in the name of Jesus, visit all the youths and the singles who are ready for marriage, give them bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, wherever their partners are on the face of this earth, let there be a divine connection in the name of Jesus.
Father we pray that they will find the bone of their bone and the flesh of their flesh; pray for them now, Father, all our singles, all our youths who are ready for marriage, prepare them for marriage, prepare them spiritually, prepare them emotionally, prepare them physically, prepare them oh Lord for marriage and let their partners arise, let their partners come wherever they may be on the face of this earth, let there be a divine connection in the name of Jesus. Pray for all our singles in the name of Jesus, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Let us pray for all those who are looking for fruit of the womb; all those who are married and are looking for fruit of the womb that the Almighty God in this season will remember them, will visit their wombs. Begin to pray, say Father, visit all those who are married who are waiting on You for the fruit of the womb, visit them oh Lord, visit the men, visit the women, visit their wombs in the name of Jesus.
Pray for all those you know, mention their names to God, say Father, visit all those who are waiting for fruit of the womb in the name of Jesus; none shall be barren among us oh Lord, none shall be barren in the name of Jesus. Father we say thank You Lord, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
We are going to pray for ministers of God, we are going to use our Daddy G.O as a point of contact for God to protect them, shield them, cover all ministers of God. We are going to say Father, all our Pastors, our General Overseer, all those who minister to us, Father protect them, shield them, meet them at the point of their needs in the name of Jesus; as they water us water them also, in their personal lives meet them at the point of their needs in the name of Jesus.
Pray for your pastors, pray for our pastor here, Pastor Tunde Netufo, pray for him, pray for his family. In the name of Jesus, Father we pray for our pastors, we pray for our ministers, Father let there be great testimonies in their houses, in our homes in the name of Jesus; Father we say thank You, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
We are going to pray for elders, this is our weekend, we are going to pray for elders that our elders will never bury their children, that we will never know the graveyard of our children, that bad news from home, from abroad, we will never hear. Go ahead and begin to pray for all elders; Father in the name of Jesus, Father we pray for all our elders, keep us till old age, till gray hairs, keep us in good health, keep us in sound mind, keep us in sound body; all our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren, all over the world, Father preserve them, we will not hear bad news, nobody will come and greet us for condolence in the name of Jesus.
Father Lord in our old age, we will not sorrow, we will not mourn, we will not cry in the name of Jesus; they will not send the coffin of our children home from abroad in the name of Jesus. Pray for all elders, in Jesus name we have prayed.
You know some elders, after some time they say they have dementia, their child will sit beside them and they will not even know the name of the child, that will not be our portion; say Father in the name of Jesus, in our old age we will have sound mind and sound body in the name of Jesus; we will not lose our memory, we will not lose our mind. Pray for all elders, as you are praying for elders you are praying for your father, you are praying for your mother; your mother is an elder, your father is an elder, pray for your parents; in the name of Jesus we will not lose our memory, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Are you here today and you are yet to know Jesus, we have been interceding for you, we have been praying for you that you will know and enjoy what we are enjoying, Jesus is sweet, it’s so sweet to serve Jesus but you are not enjoying this sweetness in your life and it’s because you don’t know Jesus, when you know Jesus your life will become sweet, you will enjoy peace that passes all understanding.
So are you here this morning and you want to come into the fold, you want to become a child of God, you want to become a son of God, you want to become a daughter of God, you want to surrender to Jesus this morning, you want to become a member of the family of God. God said to Abraham, I know Abraham, I know him, he will command his family after me; you want to be saved and you want your family to be saved…
[Altar call]
Finally I want you to pray for yourself, we can intercede for other people, other people may be interceding for us but there’s something that you need to pray for, for yourself, there’s something that you need from God so seriously and desperately, go ahead and begin to pray for yourself now and say Father, remember me for good. Pray for yourself now, Father remember me, for Vision 2032, help me to be a partaker, help me to win souls for You, I will not come before You empty-handed, I will not appear before You on that day empty-handed in the name of Jesus.
The grace to come before You with souls, Father Lord give to me in the mighty name of Jesus; Father this week, do much more for me than I can ever imagine in the name of Jesus; Father we say thank You, glory be to Your holy name, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Our Father and our God we thank You, that song says that You leave the 99 and You go looking for one; the Bible says there is rejoicing in heaven over one soul that repents, so our mission, our vision, our assignment is to go after one soul, and as many of us that go after one soul per time, Father we pray give us the grace, give them the grace to receive the gospel in the name of Jesus.
And Father, before we even go out to win souls, give us the heart of intercession in the name of Jesus, so that when we go out for soul winning, You have already worked on the hearts of all those that should be saved, Father Lord give us the heart of intercession in the name of Jesus.
Father we pray and stand in the gap for one another, we carry one another’s burden, we pray for each other, we show love in our prayer, in our prayer closet, give us the grace to do so in the name of Jesus. And for all elders in the house, Father we pray that this time next year when we are celebrating another elders congress weekend, my Father and my God, none of our elders will be in the graveyard in the name of Jesus, keep us alive and keep us well, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
