Chris Hodges - Worship and Prayer
Praise the Lord. Does anybody love Jesus, at first Wednesday? Amen. We have dedicated tonight as a night of prayer and worship for our nation and for God to move in a powerful way at Easter time. Can I hear a good "Amen," everybody? And so I'm gonna speak for just a few minutes, just to give you a little rest, to sit down, and also to stir your faith for prayer. But why don't you give your neighbor a high five, everybody, and then you can find your seats. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Stay with me, Tyler. Do you want to? Stay with me? Just stay with me. I need you, Tyler. I told him he could take a little break, but he just got to play for an hour and a half. I'm so sorry. You all give it up for Tyler back there. And the team, and everybody else. Big hello to all the campuses that are now joining us. I know we've had a powerful time of worship here tonight. God's presence is here, amen, everybody? It really is. And it's just awesome.
I wanna thank you for coming to invest... you never spend time in prayer, you only invest time in prayer. And I wanna thank you for coming. I really feel like the Lord spoke to me about 2 weeks ago that we were to change our plans. We actually had a speaker for tonight and all of that, and it wasn't me. And I just, I feel like we were just supposed to have a night where we were supposed to pray for our nation and just seek after God with all of our hearts. In fact, it was right after the Nashville shooting that I just felt prompted in my spirit that we needed to pray. And you know, Jesus said that two things are gonna happen simultaneously, and that is this outpouring of his Spirit and it's really this attack of the enemy at the same time. They're gonna happen at the same time. And I believe it's 'cause the devil knows his hour's up. Can I hear a good "Amen," everybody?
I really do. And so I don't think we should ever operate in any fear or intimidation. I mean, we have the words of life, we have the name of Jesus. We have the authority of the Word of God. We have the awesome power of the blood of Jesus and the cross. And I've read the last chapter. We win, everybody, amen? But I do think it's important for us to take some time and just to really pray and I wanna kind of direct your hearts toward that. Of course, this weekend, it is Easter. We're doing 108 services, and I'll speak 6 live myself, 1 Friday, 2 Saturday, 3 Sunday, and it takes a lot of energy by the team and, honestly, again, if I told you all the stories of the stuff that happens. I've been doing this long enough, you know, you'd almost call it coincidence after the first few years, but after you've been doing it for 40 years, you're just like, "Well, okay, here we go". 'Cause the enemy, I think the ultimate defeat of the enemy was not only the cross of Jesus, but that he got up out of that grave, amen, everybody? He's alive. Our God's alive.
And to celebrate Easter, just celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, is, I think one of the most powerful things that the church does. God's moving. God is moving in a very unique way and that's not an opinion, and that's not just a preacher comment. God is moving right now. Jesus is moving in our generation like I haven't seen since I've been in ministry, to be honest with you. Recently, there was a survey done by the basically the Christian version of the Gallup Poll is a guy named George Barna who does all this Christian research. It's very, very solid research, and in October of 2022, he said that 74% of all Americans say they need to grow spiritually. Almost 3 out of 4 people say they need to grow spiritually, and 44% say they are more open to God right now than they ever have been in their entire life. And I'm seeing, I believe it's true. C'mon, give God praise if you really think that's awesome. I think it's awesome. And I've studied revivals. They come, they do come in waves and cycles, and I believe we're in a season of revival.
You know, the last great revival that swept the whole nation was in the early 1970s, the Jesus Movement, and it's 50 years ago. And I even wondered, I don't know if this is true or not, I'm just speculating, but I've wondered, if I look back, they occur just about every 50 years. And you know, God said this year of jubilee that every 50 years he would give everybody a do-over, like, cancel all your debts and I've just wondered if God isn't ready just to bring a year of jubilee, c'mon, everybody, to our nation and to our world. I think most of you know this, that the producers and the directors of that "The Jesus Revolution" film, I hope you've seen it. If you haven't, you need to go see it. It's a powerful story. But those guys are from our church. Jon and Andy Erwin, the Erwin brothers, they call 'em, were the producers and directors of this film.
So I've been on the phone with them a lot and talking about, you know, it's so funny 'cause Hollywood told them that it wasn't gonna work, you know, that you might not... you probably won't even reach your budget of the movie, and all of this kind of stuff. And how many of you all know God did something great. It's already, like, six times what they spent on the movie, and it's broadening everybody's minds. And it's breaking box office projections in every way. But they were telling me this story, how they hired a bunch of actors, basically just to be a part of the baptism scene there in California. I think it's called Paradise Cove, or something like that. Is that it?
Okay, and so they needed a bunch of... they just got actors off the street just to, you know, would y'all let us baptize you? 'Course, they paid 'em, you know. They were paid actors, but he was telling me this story, how dozens of them come up out of the water bawling, crying, and had God touch them and they came to the beach and asked all these guys that were creating the movie to lead them to Jesus. So they got baptized, then they got saved. They kind of did it the other way around, then. And all these people getting baptized, even many of the actors on the movie gave their lives to Jesus in this film. All that to say I really believe something's happening. And I personally believe it's a result of prayer. I think we had more people, I'm not talking about Highlands. We had more people in America involved in 21 Days of Prayer and seeking God this past January than ever. And something's happening. And at the same time, the devil's madder than he's ever been before. You've got to kind of... the more craziness I've... it grieves me.
Are you all grieved when you see the violence, you see just the condition that our government is in, when you see this blatant sexual revolution. They're trying to indoctrinate and destroy the innocence of our little children. Just the ultra hatred of the institution of marriage and the family and the Word of God. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, you know, everybody says, "What do we do? What do we do"? And I'm not against laws and people trying to pass things but laws don't change hearts. Only God does. And I'm for it, I really am. I'm for it. But the solution is that people's hearts have to change. Now, every one of you remember growing up in your house, that your heart changed when you got in trouble, like, why did... I was motivated to change. My dad used to call it the Board of Education on the Seat of Learning, c'mon, somebody, right? And I just, all of a sudden, I thought, "Wow, I don't think I wanna do that anymore. I'm not gonna do that again".
And it does take, it does oftentimes take us getting in desperate situations, and so I don't think God causes it. That's not my theology. I don't think God causes, only good... every good and perfect gift comes from above. But I do believe God uses tragedies, he uses pain and uses the things that we go through. I don't think he creates it. And what is he doing? He's trying to get us to say, "I don't think I ought to do that anymore". And even in our hearts, I believe God is looking for people who are hungry for him and desire him. And when we do that, we humble ourselves, we come before the Lord, say, "Lord, we need you". I always say, "If you don't humble, it's either humility or humiliation". And so, we humble ourselves and come before God. And I was just thinking about revival and I was asking the Lord in prayer, I was praying for the prayer meeting and just saying, "Lord, what should we really be praying for"?
And I kept getting this one word over and over and over again, and I wanna just give it to you before we start praying. And that is just hunger. I'm hungry for something else. I don't like the direction I'm headed. I'm talking about the world. I don't wanna go in that way anymore. I'm hungry. I'm just hungry. I need something else. I have a dissatisfaction with what the world is offering me. I'm hungry. And I think it's the right posture for Christians as well. If you already know the Lord and you love him, praise God for that. But I think we need to hunger for God, hunger for more of God. And the Lord brought me to this verse in Psalm 107. It says this. It says: "For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things". In fact, I wanna say it this way, and that is that people always say, "What is revival"? Revival is God's response to hunger. When we get hungry enough or desperate enough, we go after God. Jesus himself I the Beatitudes says: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled".
Now I know that's how you feel. I know you hunger and thirst for righteousness, but the lost, the world, doesn't. They're hunger and thirsting for everything but the things that are righteous. And that's why there are time to time that we'll get in a place and we've all had it happen ourselves when we go our own way, that it stings. Life will sting. That's why I really never get nervous. I don't like it, but I never get real nervous about how the world tends to drift, because it doesn't work. It'll ultimately lead them to a bad place, and then they get a hunger or a desire for something else and then God brings them right back. He always offers you that opportunity. And my last verse I wanna share with you, I was thinking about the prodigal son. Everybody knows this story of the prodigal son who did the most ungodly thing and that is took his inheritance while his dad was still alive. You weren't ever supposed to take your inheritance until your father passed away. He had the audacity to come to his dad and say, "I want it now. I..."
In other words, I wish you were dead, 'cause if you were dead I could spend the money now. And the dad broke, really, the tradition. He broke what takes place, and says, "Okay, I'll let you have that. I'll let you have your inheritance". And of course, this prodigal left the father's house and he went out to live this ungodly, unrighteous, riotous living, the Bible calls it. And I wanna pick up the story in verse 14. It says: "And after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in the whole country," hunger. Everybody's hungry again, but for the different reason: because there is no food, there is no God. You've walked away from him. "And he began to be in need.
So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs". And by the way, he noticed that the pigs were eating better than him. "And he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything". Now watch this. This is what we're gonna be praying for tonight. "And when he came to his senses..." Y'all do know that's what's gotta happen, right, everybody? I mean, America, our neighbors, our family members, the world, ultimate, they gotta get, unfortunately, they're gonna get so far into that righteous place, that ungodly place, where it gets them to this pig pen type of scenario of life, and they come to their senses, and look what he said. He said, "How many of my father's hired servants have food," so in other words, it was his hunger that drove him back to God. "They have food to spare, and here I am starving to death"!
I have asked God. I don't think I've ever prayed for this before. I have asked God, "Cause America to starve to death". I mean, I'm not talking about physically, like where the grocery shelves aren't full. I'm talking about spiritually. Wouldn't it be great if all of America all of a sudden just starving to death, realizing that everything they're eating is just not working? And now, look what happens, last verse. He says, "And I will set out and go back to my father and say to my father: Father, I have sinned against heaven and you," repentance. And that's what we need. We need hunger. Everybody say "hunger". And then we need repentance. Everybody say "repentance". And that's what we're praying for tonight. God, make us hungry again. Make the church hungry again. And God... and what do we do? We repent. "Lord, we're so sorry that we filled our lives with something other than you". And then I'm asking God to stir up a hunger in the hearts, in the lives, of the people of America. C'mon, y'all, would you wanna believe God with me that 4000 people get saved this weekend? Hungry souls, looking for something, amen?
Let's stand up on our feet. Let's begin to pray. C'mon, band, c'mon, team. We're gonna begin just go after God right now and just worship him and I'm gonna lead us, and then we're gonna turn it back over to the campuses in about 20 minutes, I would guess. I'm just gonna keep praying till I'm done praying. And then we're gonna let every campus have times of prayer just for yourselves. We close the night praying for your needs, every campus led by your worship teams and your campus pastors. It's gonna be a powerful night. Let's lift up our hands and just begin to magnify our mighty God.
Lord, we love you today. And God, we begin our prayer time putting our eyes on you. We fix our eyes on the author and the perfecter of our faith. We declare you're a great God. We declare you're an amazing God. We declare that you are the one true living God, and we worship you and praise you. Thank you, Lord God, for being our righteousness. Thank you for being my sanctifier and my healer. Thank you, Lord God, for being my peace. You are my banner of victory over the devil. Lord, we thank you, Lord God, you are my healer. You are my provider and I worship you. C'mon, just begin to call out the names of God. We praise you with all of our heart, Lord Jesus. We seek your face today, and we honor you with all of our heart. We praise your mighty name.