Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Good morning everybody. This is Sean Copeland. Today is Sunday,
April the twenty seventh, and welcome to another brand new,
life changing edition of the ninety four x Kingdom Driven CEO.
Thank you, thank you, so I'm so happy to be
with you all today. We had a big week. It
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was really highlighted by on Thursday. We had our board meeting,
we had our shareholder meeting, we had our VIP client meeting,
and all of our clients are VIPs, but we only
have so much space, so we had to limit to
kind of a certain size of clients for this particular event.
And at this event, we announced our very first acquisition
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of a group of banks in Florida called DLP Bank.
We're going to be merging them in to our holding company.
So it's super super exciting. But on Friday, after that
crazy day on Thursday, I took half a day and
went up to Warlake House just north here of Tulsa,
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and my friend Jeff Hagar joined me. We're going to
spend some time in Bible study and in prayer, and
he was telling me a couple of stories that I
want to share with you, and they really got me
thinking about the power of prayer. And here's kind of
how it all began. I was talking with him about,
you know, our entire goal here on this earth is
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to bring people more people to Jesus Christ. There really
is no other goal. And I told him that a
lot of times, when you think about people that are
really busy and really really heavily scheduled like yours, truly
they do not feel spiritual and it's I don't know
if it's because they're too busy. And as we were
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talking about it, he said, you know, I think the
most spiritual people, his spiritual heroes in his life were
all very, very dedicated to prayer, and the reason that
they didn't seem quite so hurried and crazy busy is
that they would spend a lot of time in prayer
and then be really guided by God in their lives.
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And so he was telling me a little bit about
Benny Hen many of us will remember, and some of
us think, you know, he was a little flamboyant, but
the truth is he brought millions and millions of people
to Jesus one million at one particular crusade in India.
And Jeff said that a friend of his headed security
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for Benny Hen And he asked him how much did
Benny pray on an average day, and he said, you know,
it would depend on a lot of different things, but
on average he would pray for six hours per day. Now,
this is a person that is in a different nation
every day, doing an event every day. And he said
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before his services, he would go alone in a room
where he couldn't be interrupted, and he would pray for
hours in that room, and the presence of the Holy
Spirit was so strong that multiple security staff were saved
in the next room because they could feel the presence
of God. And he told me about his personal spiritual
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hebro his name was Pastor Frank Barnes, and he said
Frank would pray three times per day, he would fast
two times per day. And he said every conversation or
phone call would he always started with Praise the Lord.
That was just how everything you would say, he would
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open up with praise the Lord before he even said hello.
He said he couldn't remember this man ever having any
bad days. And he said, one day, a couple of
stories about Frank that I think you'll love. He said,
one day he got a phone call and there was
he said, praise the Lord, and there was silence on
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the other end of the phone, and he was sensing
that there was someone there who Neededd ministering to, and
so he immediately began to pray for this individual on
the other end of the phone. And what had happened
is the man on the other end ultimately came on
the phone and told him that he was about to
commit suicide. And before he pulled the trigger on the gun,
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this series of numbers kind of audibly came to him.
He just heard this set of numbers, and he wrote
the numbers down and they seemed to make up a
phone number. So he called that phone number and it
was Pastor Frank's phone, and Frank answered and prayed with
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the man and obviously saved his life. He sent on
a different day, he was in prayer and the Lord
told Frank to go just kind of like he did
to Abraham, and he said, Frank, I just started driving.
And he said he drove all day. When he would
come to a stop sign, he would ask God, you know, left,
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right or straight, and he just kept going and he
kept going in Ultimately, he ended up all the way
in New Mexico in the parking lot of a small
church and he walked inside. God told him to walk inside,
and he walked in the door and there was a
man there crying. And the man inside said, your license
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plate is blank? Correct? And Frank said, yes, that's my
license plate. And the man said, I've been praying for
you and you're supposed to lead a revival here. So
he just stayed there for three weeks straight and led
a revival in that church. Isn't that remarkable? So it
really got me thinking about prayer and do I spend
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enough time in prayer? And you know how prayer is
so so important. So today we're just going to talk
about why is prayer so important. We're going to look
at some examples from the Bible, and I'm going to
give you just a few keys to powerful prayer and
we'll get off of here in plenty of time. You know,
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prayer isn't just a religious duty. It's a relationship builder.
Think of it this way. If the only time your
best friend reached out to you was when they needed
to borrow your lawnmower, you'd start letting their calls go
to voicemail, right, But if you're talking, laughing and sharing
life together, that is friendship. It's the same with God.
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God isn't a vending machine. He's a father who loves
hearing from his kids, whether we need help, want to
say thank you, or even when we just want to
vent about rush hour traffic. First, Thessalonians five p. Seventeen says,
pray without ceasing, not because God needs constant updates on
our lives. He knows what's going on, but because we
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need constant connection to Him. There are many examples of
amazing prayer in the Bible, and I'm just going to
give you a few. Elijah and the Fire from Heaven
and One Kings eighteen. Elijah challenges the prophets of Bail
to a contest. Whichever God could send fire from heaven
would be the true God. After Bale's prophets danced and
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shouted all day with no result, Elijah prayed a simple prayer.
And here's what happened. He said, Answer me, O Lord,
answer me that this people may know that you, o Lord,
are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.
Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the
burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust,
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and licked up the water that was in the trench man.
Imagine hosting a barbecue and God lights the grill all
by himself. That's amazing. And then Hannah prayed for a son,
and first Samuel. Hannah praised desperately for a child. She
prayed so passionately that Eli the priest thinks that she's
been drinking. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the
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Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said,
Oh Lord of Host, if you will indeed look on
the affliction of your servant and remember me, and not
forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son,
then I will give him to the Lord all the
days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.
Got hurt her prayer and gave her a son, Samuel,
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who we know was very very powerful, particularly in the
life of David and Saul. And then Jonah prayed inside
a fish. Jonah made some really bad choices, didn't want
to go preach at Nineveh. He ended up getting swallowed
inside the belly of a big fish. And guess what
he did next. He prayed. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord,
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his God from the belly of the fish. Saying I
called out to the Lord out of my distress, and
he answered me out of the belly of shiol I cried,
and you heard my voice. God heard Jonah from inside
a fish. If he can hear Jonah underwater, he can
definitely hear me and you at our cubicle or in traffic. Now,
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let's get practical. So praying can be hard and feel unnatural.
So how can we pray in a way that is
powerful and that is life changing. So I spent a
lot of time yesterday studying these and I'm going to
give you four keys to effective prayer before we close today.
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So Number one, be honest. Guy's not shocked by our feelings.
We're not going to pray and hear God say WHOA,
I didn't see that one coming. If you're mad, say so,
if you're scared, tell him. David prayed brutally, honest prayers,
sometimes sounding more like a diary entry than a Bible verse.
Psalm sixty two, verse eight says pour out your hearts
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to him. Sometimes he plead for forgiveness. Psalm twenty five
eighteen says forgive all my sins, Oh God. Sometimes he
requested God's presence. One thing I have asked of the
Lord that I will seek after that I may dwell
in the house of the Lord all the days of
my life. Sometimes he expressed his gratitude. I will give
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thanks to you, O Lord, because you have answered me
and have listened to my prayer. Sometimes he confessed his faith.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Sometimes
he seek God's protection. Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for I cry to you daily. So he is. I mean,
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what we see is that David spoke very, very real
prayers to God. Sometimes the petition for strength and goide.
It's lead me in your truth and teach me for
you or the God who saves me. So number one,
we need to just be real and be honest, just
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talk to him. Number two, we need to be specific.
Pastor Rick Renner says his son Joel, but always pray
the same prayer, regardless of the place, event, or time
of the day. Joel always prayed, Heavenly Father, please bless
my parents, bless my brothers, bless my grandparents, bless the
whole world, and please give us a good day. I
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pray this in Jesus' name. And he said the only
variation that ever occurred in his prayer was when he
occasionally threw in a request for God to bless the
family dog. God bless everybody is nice, But God help
me have patience with my coworker Todd, who microwaves fish
in the break room every day. Now, that is specific.
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Specific prayers lead to specific, noticeable answers. One John five
fourteen says, this is the confidence we have in approaching
God that if we ask anything according to his will,
he hears us. And if we know that he hears
us whatever we ask, we are sure that He will
give us what we ask for. So God needs us
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to be specific. Number three, we need to be persistent.
Sometimes God answers yes right away. Sometimes it's not yet.
Sometimes it's I love you too much to say yes.
But we have to keep praying and trusting in God's timing.
In Luke eighteen, Jesus told the disciples are parable, so
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they would always pray and not give up. Then Jesus
told his disciples are parable to show them that they
should always pray and not give up. He said, in
a certain town, there was a judge who neither feared
God nor cared what people thought. And there was a
widow in that town who kept coming to him with
the plea, grant me justice against my adversary. For some
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time he refused, but finally he said to himself, even
though I don't fear God or care what people think,
yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see
that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come
and attack me. And the Lord said, listen to what
the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about
justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him
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day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I
tell you he will see that they get justice and quickly. However,
when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith
on the earth. So we want to be persistent, and finally,
we want to be listening. Prayer is a two way conversation.
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Sometimes the most powerful part of prayer isn't what you say,
it's what you hear in the quiet moments afterwards. So
it's important. I want to close with the importance of solitude.
It's hard to hear God when Netflix is auto playing
the next episode and your phone is buzzing every three minutes.
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Jesus often withdrew to quiet places to pray and Luke's
five sixteen, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
There are a lot of scripture about the importance of listening.
Eli said to Samuel, speak, Lord, for your servants is listening.
So I'm forty six'. Ten be still and know THAT
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i Am. God solitude isn't. Punishment it is a. Gift
it's in solitude that we, recharge, reset and. Reconnect it's
like that spinning well on your. Computer it download faster
by opening more. TABS i have a good friend who
went on our journey prayer retreat where we had no,
phone no, laptop NO. Tv at, first he said it
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was like withdrawal symptoms from, caffeine only. Worse but by
the end he Heard god speak clearly about some big
decisions in his. Life, today he credits that time of
solitude with saving his, ma marriage and is. Sanity so
as we, close let's remember that prayer is. Powerful it changes,
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situations but more, importantly it changes. Us it's not about
using fancy words or getting everything. Right it's about showing,
up being real and trusting that The god who lit
the fire For, elijah who Heard hannah's, sobs and who
Comforted jesus himself is still the Same god who is listening.
Today so say bold, prayers pray honest, prayers Because god
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is not just, Stable he's excited to hear from. You and,
remember if you can Trust siri to listen on your,
iPhone you can definitely Trust god to hear your. Voice
let's pray as we. Close, father thank you for the
incredible gift of. Prayer thank you that we don't have
to use fancy words or being a perfect mood to
come to. You you just want us, messy distract the,
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tired reel. Us help us to pray, bold honestly and.
Often teach us to hear your voice in the quiet,
moments and trust your answers even when they come in surprising.
Ways give us hearts that seek solitude with, you ears that,
listen and faith that keeps, asking seeking and. Knocking And,
lord if anyone here is praying for a parking spot after,
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church bless them. Abundantly we love you so much In jesus'. Name.
Amen so thank you all so much for joining this
edition of the ninety four Ex Kingdom DRIVEN. Ceo and
let's really commit to prayer this. Week thank you all so,
much have a great. Day