Louie Giglio - Alignment and Authority
Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about authority—praying and living with authority. This is how God is inviting you and me to live. I know it’s said a lot, but I think so many times in this cultural climate we take on a victim mentality, and we’re living sort of upside down in our thinking. But we are sons and daughters of the King of Kings. We’ve come into the blessing of blessings, and we have the ability to move through life with authority. But how do you get authority? How do you live in authority? How do you pray in authority? You live in authority and pray in authority by not being over people but by being under authority. That’s how you get authority. You can walk into certain situations, and when you say things, people do them—not because you’re over them but because you’re under them. Being under them gives you authority as you walk through life.
So the simplest thing about today is that God is going to invite us to be under Him so that then we can move through life with authority—not ruling over people or anything at all, honestly; it’s recognizing that He rules over people and everything and that He’s over my life. My life is under His life; therefore, I can move through life with authority, and I can pray with authority. I’m not just praying prayers, hoping they make it past the ceiling; I’m praying bold prayers that I know have the authority of God in them and on them.
It all begins with aligning with God. Aligning with God in prayer is a process where I get on God’s page, not the other way around. Prayer is me being in awe of God, worshiping God, falling in love with God, and submitting my life to His will and ways. It’s a process where, as I see Him, I’m moved by Him and I stand in awe of Him. I fall in love with Him and gladly join my life with what He’s doing on Earth. We’ve talked about this two messages ago. I’m not assuming everyone has heard all the messages yet, so just reaching back to make sure we see it one more time.
The word for prayer that Jesus used is two words joined together. The beginning of the word means «toward» or «to exchange.» The main word means «to wish» or «to pray,» so when you put these words together, the word for prayer means «properly to exchange wishes.» What an amazing thought! It doesn’t mean to wish we get something from God; it means to exchange wishes with God. It literally means to interact with the Lord by switching our human wishes or ideas for His wishes. As He imparts faith, He works in us by divine persuasion. You might think, «I don’t want to do that, Louie! I want to tell God what I need and need Him to do it for me. I need to let God know about my situation and need Him to come through.»
I don’t want to do any exchanging of wishes; I just want God to get on board with my plan. I’m telling you those kinds of prayers don’t work. They’re not bold; they don’t move heaven; they don’t move Earth. Those kinds of prayers lead us to frustration because more often than not—can I get an amen? —God doesn’t do exactly what we tell Him to do.
Anyone ever felt that way? He didn’t do it when we told Him to, and we told Him exactly when to do it—by 3:30 Central Time—and He didn’t. We told Him we needed it by Tuesday, and He didn’t do it on Tuesday. We told Him it was $5,486; He did not do it. So we get frustrated, and we lose heart. At the end of the day, we throw up our hands and say, «You know what? I don’t really know how all this works, so I’m just going to do my best and figure that You’re doing something too.» And that’s exactly where the enemy wants you to be.
But God’s inviting you back in today. He’s inviting you back into the process of being in relationship with Him, whereby you can exchange your will for His. You can get on board with His purposes by aligning your life with God. When you do that, I’m telling you, your prayers are going to change, they’re going to be powerful, and they’re going to have authority.
Notice the text with me today is from First John chapter 4. I’m just going to break it down a little bit line by line, but this is what John writes to us in verse 14: This is the confidence we have in approaching God. Does anyone need a little more confidence today in approaching God? Has anyone lost some of their confidence with God? Maybe circumstances have caused some of that confidence to dwindle a bit. He says, «I want you to have confidence when you come to God that if we ask anything according to His will"—there’s our alignment factor—"He hears us.» And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, according to His will, we know that we have what we have asked of Him.
So let’s break it down a little bit. God wants to give you confidence, and He’s already given you confidence to come boldly to Him through Jesus Christ, amen? That’s what the writer of Hebrews said: we can come boldly to the throne of grace. How can we do that? People like you and me, who’ve messed up our lives. We can do that because Jesus has made a way through His perfect life and perfect death, that we—whoever we are, wherever we have been—can come through Jesus' grace into the very presence of Almighty God. Can we just think about that for a moment? We have the opportunity to come right to the throne of God and not die! That’s how powerful grace is. And God says, «I want you to come boldly. I don’t want you to come with your head down. I don’t want you to try to slip in the side door; I don’t want you to shuffle in over here and hope nobody sees you.» You’re a son of God; if you’re in Christ, you’re a daughter of the King. If you’re in Christ, I want you to come to Me knowing that Yahweh is my Abba, and I can come to His throne.
When you come, I want you to have confidence that what we’re going to share together is going to shake things up; it’s going to be powerful when we share together. I want you to come in confidence. Then He says that if we ask anything. Now, I know what He’s saying there, but it should just say when we ask, because obviously we know that if we have the opportunity to come to the throne of God, we are going to live at the throne of God, and we are going to be in communion with God. We are going to be exercising our ability to call on Heaven all the time. Oh, no, that’s not the way it works, is it? He said if we ask, knowing that a lot of times we won’t ask.
Will anyone admit they worried this week? No? Amazing! Okay, now we’re breaking through. Now you’re like, «Oh, he can see us.» Yes, I can see you. Did anyone worry this week? Did anyone fret this week? It’s all the same thing. But let’s keep going. Did anyone try to control the situation this week? Did anyone take the wheel, shift gears, push some people out of the car? Is the person you pushed out of the car here? Did you pray about it? Let me tell you, I haven’t gotten that bed yet, but when it gets down to where I don’t have any more options left, like I can’t manage it, I can’t control it, I can’t change it, apparently my worrying isn’t going to work, then I’m going to say, «You know what, God? We’re running out of options here; we’re going to have to pray.» We got to that point where we thought, «Man, this has escalated; this is big-time; we have to pray.» And God’s saying, «Why didn’t you start with prayer?»
My friend says, «Pray first.» In other words, before you think about option B, C, D, E, or F, lean on option A: I can call on Heaven right now! The line I do not want to be in Heaven is the line of people who have not because they ask not. James said that we have not because we asked not. But he added to it that the reason why we don’t get what we ask for is because our motives are wrong. Then you know what he goes on to say in that text in James 4? That our motives are about us getting what we want versus us getting on board with what God wants. He said that’s why you’re not getting what you’re asking for: you’re asking for what you want and not aligning with what God wants. I want to pray, and I don’t want to be in the line of people who don’t have a miracle from God because they didn’t ask of God and call on Heaven.
But then He says, «Ask anything according to His will.» So far, it’s pretty crazy! We can have confidence as we come to God; we can know that if we ask of God, that He hears us. How crazy is that—that God hears us? Sometimes we don’t even know if He knows we’re on the planet, but He’s saying, «Oh, not only do I know you’re here; you have the opportunity to come into a relationship with Me and I will actually hear you.» That doesn’t mean that He’s going to do what we need Him to do when we tell Him to do it. It just means that our prayer is going to reach the heart of God. When it reaches the heart of our Father, things happen.
We don’t know what happens when we pray. We don’t normally see a million percent of what God is doing; we might see one tiny percent over here, but God’s working in a million ways, and we could only possibly see one or two, but God is always at work. Our prayers always reach Him when they are prayed in accordance with His will. You and I can set Heaven in motion today by our prayers. That’s why we say around here if we could see what happens when we pray we would never cease to pray. One of the shortest verses in the Bible, First Thessalonians 5:17, says «Pray continually,» and we would pray continually if we knew that God hears our prayers, that our prayers dispatch angels, and that they move things in Heaven. We pray about everything.
We pray when we wake up; we pray all through the day; we pray into the night. We would ask God to watch over us in the night and maybe even let us pray somehow in the Spirit at night. We would wake up again the next day calling on Heaven, and we would stay in constant communication with God because every time we’re praying in His name and in His will, things are moving. You and I have the potential in Christ to move things, and the enemy would be happy if we just worried more, talked to our friends more, fretted more, had more consternation in our lives, and didn’t actually see the throne of God and call on Heaven.
How do we call on Heaven? We call on Heaven by aligning with God. Prayer is aligning with God. It’s me learning how to get on God’s page—not me continually trying to get God on my page. It’s me wanting to be available to God. A simple prayer to wake up in the morning is, «God, I love You and I worship You. I want to be available to You today; I want to be useful to You today. I want to be in step with You today,» in Jesus' name, amen. Conversely, waking up in the morning might communicate, «God, I need You to be useful to me today. I need You to be available to me today, and I need You to get in step with me today. If You’ll do that, hallelujah, I will worship You because that’s what I need.»
So how do we shift this? How do we change it? We need to understand God’s will. That’s the model prayer: «Your will be done; Your kingdom come, and Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.» Notice the phrase, «Your will be done.» In other words, «What is the master plan that You want to accomplish on Earth?» That’s what I want to lean into. I think sometimes we want to make a whole theology out of that phrase, and the whole theology is, «On Earth as it is in Heaven; therefore, nobody’s going to die; there’s going to be no pain, no sorrow, no sickness, and no death.» It’s going to be «on Earth as it is in Heaven.» But I don’t think that’s what Jesus was trying to get us to wrap our hearts around in the model prayer.
I think He was wanting us to see the exchange: «Whatever it is that You want to do on Earth, that’s what I want to do on Earth. What are You doing on Earth? That’s what I want to do on Earth.» Knowing that on a broken planet, we’re not going to get out without sorrow. Does anyone here have a life without sorrow? Anyone gotten out of life without grief? Without death? Without mourning? No? And we’re not going to. Does that mean we shouldn’t pray for healing? Of course we should pray for healing! Does God heal? Of course He heals! Should we pray that God will do the miraculous? Absolutely.
But at the end of the day, we’re all going to die. Only in Heaven will there be no more death, and that’s the beauty of Heaven: There is no more death; there are no more tears; there is no more mourning; there is no more grief because the old order of things has passed away and the new order of things has come. So Jesus isn’t saying we’re going to turn this broken world into a dream of what we’re all headed for. He says what we’re believing for is that on this broken planet, God’s will can be done. I’m going to lean in with everything I’ve got to align myself with God’s will on Earth as it is in Heaven.
What is God’s will? Well, how do we know? We get into His word. We get into His word to figure out what His will is, what God has said, what He wants, and what He has already promised to do. Put that in your prayer. We’ve talked about this prayer several times already, but I keep going back to it because it is the perfect example of everything we have been discussing. In Acts chapter 4, we looked at it last week, and the week before, and we might look at it again after this.
Peter and John have been arrested— we talked about that before. Someone got healed, and they got called into question by the religious leaders—one of the leaders wanted the Jesus story to die down a bit— and they told them, «You’ve got to pipe down; stop talking about Jesus.» They said, «Hey, I’m sorry, but we can’t stop talking about what we’ve seen and heard.» They got threatened by those guys, and eventually, they were released. They went back to their fellow believers. Let’s just read it one more time.
On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them. When the people heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God and said, «Sovereign Lord,» they said, «You made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them.» That’s just framing it again. Remember, you spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David. This is what You said: «Why do the nations rage and the people’s plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one.»
You’re like, «I have no idea what that meant. Why did they pull in that text? That doesn’t seem to fit anywhere to me.» Well, two things you need to notice about this, or that we need to notice: Number one, they’re praying God’s word back to God, and as they’re praying God’s word back to God, they’re moving in authority. They don’t even realize it because they’re brand new Spirit-filled believers, but they’re already moving in authority, and they’re already showing us how to move in authority. They did not go, «Oh my goodness, God, did You hear that? They threatened them. If they’re threatening them, that means they’re threatening us, so You need to help us.»
They went, «Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute! I know this one! You said that the kings of the earth will take their stand and rulers will gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one.» We know what’s going on here! This is not about Peter and John and it is not about us. These guys are not against Peter and John, and ultimately, they are not against us. These guys are against Your anointed one. You said they were going to be against Your anointed one, and come to find out You were right!
When you start putting God’s word in your prayers to God, your prayers are going to go to a whole new level because you are not informing God based on your viewpoint; you are agreeing with God based on what He has already said. You’re not telling God what needs to happen based on your limited understanding of the situation; you’re agreeing with what God has already said is going to happen, and you are aligning with Him. That’s why they could go on and pray this prayer. They said, «Here’s the example by the way of what You said You were going to do already in the Psalms.»
Indeed, it just like You said, «Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against not us but against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.» You said they were going to come against the anointed one, and this is the one You anointed. And just like You said, they came against Him. What is our prayer? «Your kingdom come; Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.»
What am I trying to do? I’m trying to get on God’s page and not get God on my page. I’m trying to understand what has God said, what does God want, and what has God already promised to do, because I want to start praying into that and I want to put my life into that because that is going to happen, and I want to be a part of it with my prayers and my life.
Keep that in mind. Verse 28 says, «They,» meaning Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, «did what Your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.» Your kingdom come; Your will be done! Thank you, Pilate. Thank you, Herod. Thank you, mob. Thank you, Gentiles. Thank you to all the people of Israel—you just did what God had determined in Heaven would be done on Earth.
So they’re confident now! They just saw it doesn’t matter what it looks like from Earth’s point of view. You’re doing exactly what You planned to do! Does that mean that Pilate had no choice but to free Jesus? No, he had a choice, but he made the wrong choice. Yet God knew what choice he was going to make and wrote his wrong choice into His story.
Did that mean that Herod didn’t have a choice? No, he had a choice. Did the mob have a choice? The mob had a choice. Everybody had a choice in it. But God was over it all, because as the prayer started, He is the Sovereign Lord. Then they come down and say, «Okay, here comes the ask. We’ve just sort of worshiped You; we’ve spoken Your word back to You; we’ve understood that You’re Sovereign and in control. So, here’s our ask, here we’re going to go for it: Consider their threats.»
We’ve said it so many times already: «Enable Your servants to speak Your word with great boldness.» In other words, we want to be in the plan, but we’re going to need Your power. What’s the plan? The plan was right here: Jesus' words—"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.» They said, «We already know what the plan is; we already know what Your will is!» So they’re aligning themselves with God’s will and purpose.
So we’re not praying for an opt-out; we’re not praying for a bail-out; we’re not praying that you’ll squash the religious leaders and all their threats. We’re praying that You will enable us to align with Your will. Do you see how they’re putting themselves under the authority of the mandate of God to spread the gospel to the world, knowing that it might cost them everything? But at the end of the day, it will gain them more.
When they moved into that position, God moved. They asked Him, «Enable us to speak Your word with boldness; stretch out Your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.» That was the ask, and after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. They were just as they had asked—filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God boldly. A bold prayer got a bold answer! Aligning with God gave them authority in the name of God, and they moved out from this place with authority on their lives—even in the face of death, in the face of persecution, in the face of hardship—they had authority everywhere they went. They walked in the authority and the power of Jesus Christ. Why? Because they had submitted themselves to the purpose, plan, and will of God, and He said, «I will fill you with power as you move out for Me.»
It’s moving in step with God, calling on Heaven for the deliverance of all people. When we started Passion 25 years ago, I heard a woman speaking in England. She was part of a church; she was a pastor at a church in the north of England, and their church was in a college town. She talked about how there had been an epidemic of students taking their lives in that particular town. It’s more common now, 25 years later, but it wasn’t as common then.
She talked about how there was a particular building on campus that many, many students would go to and take their lives from the top of that building. As a pastor in that town, obviously, she was concerned. But at some point, their team took a step to say, «God, we want to take authority over our town and this campus.» Access was a lot easier back then, especially for campus ministers and student workers.
She said, «We started going to the dorms on the campus, and we’d go long after midnight, after all the studying had wound down, and the kids had finally gone to sleep. We’d go at two in the morning, three in the morning, four in the morning, and we’d go floor by floor, door by door.» Every door had names on it—the students who lived in that room—and we’d pray over every name; we’d pray over every door. We’d put our hands on every door in Jesus' name and we would proclaim the will of God over that room.
Then we’d go to the next room and we would pray over the names in that room. We prayed the will of God over that room, and we would go floor by floor, door by door. They hadn’t asked anyone’s permission to pray for them because you know what? You don’t have to ask people for permission to pray for them! You already have permission from God to pray for them and access to the throne of grace. So they began to pray.
Some time passed—a year or so—and she said, «After a few weeks, or maybe it was a month of us praying door by door, floor by floor, night after night, we realized that not one person had taken their life from the roof of that building.» Because they stepped in and aligned with God and called on Heaven for the deliverance of people. They weren’t praying for themselves; they weren’t looking for any benefit for themselves; they weren’t asking God to do anything about their circumstances. They were calling on Heaven to do something about other people. Why? Because they knew that Jesus had come to give sight to the blind—that’s what God said He was going to do; He had come to lift up those who’d been run over by life—that’s what He said He came to do; He had come to set the prisoner free and give relief to the captive. This is what He said He came to do, so they just went door by door and agreed with Jesus to set the captives free, bring sight to the blind, and lift up those who’ve been run over by life.
We declare, like You said, that You came to bring the favorable year of our God! We are not doing it with loud words because that doesn’t make prayers bold. We’re not doing it with super long prayers. This one in Acts barely lasts two minutes. We’re doing it because we are here as servants of God, aligned with God, in the name of God, for the glory of God. We are going to stand in the gap and walk in the authority we have by being aligned with Yahweh in this moment in time.
I thought about it this morning—it’s like pulling out of our neighborhood. You’re pulling out of your neighborhood; we’re all hustling to get to church on time. But what a different mindset if we are coming down the street in our neighborhood and we go, «God, the Thompsons, they don’t know you! I know they don’t know You, and they’ve never gone out of those doors on a Sunday—they’ve never gone into worship! They don’t even know there’s a song to sing; they don’t know the freedom that comes. I pray over their family today. I call them all by name. I speak Jesus over their house today and pray for a spirit of revelation and sight in their lives today for Your glory, God.»
And the Cooks—Lord, I pray for them today—you’re like, «Oh, not the Cooks!» No, God, I pray for the Cooks, in Jesus' name. I pray, «God, that You would do what You said You came to do, give sight to the blind!» In Jesus' name, I pray for the Robinsons today, the Tailors. In Jesus' name, God, I pray for my cul-de-sac; I pray for my street in Jesus' name!
God, I speak the name of Jesus over our neighborhood! I speak the name of Jesus over my floor in the office. God, I speak the name of Jesus over every cubicle on my floor; I speak the name of Jesus over every person on the assembly line where I work. I speak the name of Jesus over every office in this building; I speak the name of Jesus over every desk in every classroom that I teach! I speak the name of Jesus over my school. God, I come aligned with You, God, submitted to You, God, surrendering to Your will and Your purpose. I’m going to constantly be thinking of ways that I can speak out the name of Jesus on every life I come in contact with.
God, I pray for this wonderful lady checking me out at the Publix! In Jesus' name, God, I pray that You touch her heart, give her revelation, sight. I don’t know if anybody prayed for her today, but I am! God, You sent me on an assignment to a country where the gospel really can’t be preached as a business leader, and here I am, sitting in a business meeting with people who don’t even know Jesus. I’m going to go around the room one by one, and in my heart, I’m going to call on Heaven for every single one of them by name.
I’m going back to my condominium or my hotel tonight; I’m going to get down on my knees and I’m going to proclaim and call out the blood of Jesus over every single one of their lives today, because maybe I’m the only person who’s ever prayed for them in their life! And I want to pray a bold prayer—God, be glorified in them; God, save them by the blood of Jesus so that Jesus can get glory in them! And then I’m going to leave the results to God.
You say, «But Louie, in our case it didn’t happen. We prayed for our loved one and it didn’t work out like it did in the story that you told.» Honestly, I don’t know how to explain that. I know that a lot of the things our family has prayed for in life have miraculously happened, and many of them didn’t happen the way we hoped they would. But God has been gracious in it all to show us that, just like that moment where Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and all the people of Israel killed His son, somehow, some way, God was still on His throne, and that’s enough for me to keep coming with confidence knowing that if I ask in His name according to His will, He’s going to move.
When all of this becomes clear, I’m going to see what God has done. I can’t resolve the tension today, but I can point us to the cross today, and I can invite you—no matter what the story has been— to rekindle your confidence and continue to come to God and pray bold prayers to Heaven knowing that He hears and is moving, that He is good and that He is powerful, that He can and that He does, that He will, even if we don’t see it, He will answer us!
I wonder who or what is waiting today for us to step forward in faith and pray a bold prayer to Heaven in Jesus' name. We’ve tried everything else; why not call on Heaven? It begins right now with us moving from, «I need you to do it for me the way I need you to do it for me,» to, «I want to be available to You to do whatever You want to do in this life.»