My friend, Rick Warren joined us for the recent Global Day of Prayer for the Jewish World, and brought some powerful teaching and encouragement to us all. We are pleased to bring the video and transcript of that teaching session that Brian Alarid and I hosted.  

Watch the video HERE  |  Download PDF

Dr Jason Hubbard:

Well, it's such an honor and privilege to have, one of our heroes of the faith, a true father in the church - Pastor Rick Warren.

He's going to come and he's going to share with us his heart as it relates to prayer.

Rick has been a man of prayer for literally 40, 50 years of his ministry and seen incredible fruit. So let's listen and learn from Pastor Rick Warren.

Rick Warren:

Hi everybody, I’m Pastor Rick Warren. This Pentecost is a very significant one because it's the first of eight that's leading us to Pentecost 2033, which will be the 2,000th birthday of Christianity. The 2,000th birthday of the Body of Christ. The 2,000th celebration of the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.

So, the next eight Pentecosts are going to be incredibly important, particularly with prayer power, as we are seeking to complete the Great Commission together in the next eight years.

Now, what I'd like to do, in my time with you, is talk to you about the importance of prayer for just a second, and then I want to lead you in a directed prayer together, during this time.

Okay. Now, Jesus said, we're to pray always and not faint or pray and don't get discouraged. I've discovered that in life, you're always doing one or the other. You're either getting discouraged or you're praying. If you're praying, you're not going to be discouraged. If you're discouraged, it means you're not praying.

So we are to pray always and not give up.

And this is an important part of prayer. The more Jesus saw his ministry grow, the more time he spent in prayer. He modeled for us what he wanted us to do, and that is to pray always and not give up.

Now, my model that I want to give us in this particular moment is the model of the calling of Isaiah. The Bible says that in the year that the king Uzziah died, Isaiah had a vision. And he said, I saw the Lord. And when God gives you a vision, there's going to be three parts to it.

And I call it woe, low and go, woe low and go!

First Isaiah saw a vision of his own, imperfection, his own sinfulness, his own brokenness. And so we start in prayer with confession, saying, ‘Lord, woe is me. I am a man undone. I have unclean lips.’ In other words, we want to serve the Lord, but we know there's some junk in our lives that God wants to clean up first.

God can use almost any kind of vessel. He can use a large vessel, a small vessel. He can use broken vessels. The one thing God cannot use is a dirty and unclean vessel.

So revival in my heart starts with cleansing.

Okay, that is ‘woe is me, for I am undone’. I need the cleansing of the confession of my own sin. From that confession, ‘woe is me that I am undone’, it says.

And lo, an angel came and touched my tongue with a burning censer. And he said, I was cleansed by the cleansing power of fire from that angel. Woe is me, for I am undone.

And lo, an angel came and touched my lips. Confession is followed by cleansing. And then he said, then the angel God says, who will I send?

Okay. He said, And Isaiah said, here am I, Lord, send me. This is a commissioning.

So we start with confession. We move to cleansing and then we move to commissioning.

That's what I'd like to lead you in a time of prayer right now in these three things.

So if , wherever you are around the world, there are literally thousands of prayer networks joining together this Pentecost to pray for revival in our hearts, to pray for the filling of the Holy Spirit.

It's Pentecost friends! We need Pentecost in our own lives. But, friends, in order to have Pentecost, we must pay the cost for Pentecost. And paying the cost is the cost of confession. Confession. And then cleansing. And then commissioning.

So what I want you to do is, wherever you are in the world right now, if you would just bow your heads and let's just take a moment and bow our heads for a moment of confessing prayer.

The Bible says in Psalm 139, search me. And so Psalm 119 also - search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

And so ask God right now. Say, Lord, is there anything that's between me and you? Is there any barrier to whatever it is? If it's a habit? Confess it. If it is a sin, confess it. If it is a person that's between you and the Lord, confess that. If it has been an idol, maybe, making more money was more important to you than God's power in your life. If it has been, being famous, being popular on the school campus, that was anything you idolize. Even good things can become idols.  When what should be number two and number three in your life becomes number one.

So with your head bowed, have a time of searching.

Search me, oh God. You say that in your heart right now - search me, oh, God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. Okay?

What thoughts, Lord, have I had that are displeasing to you? Okay.

Prideful thoughts. Confess that. Lustful thoughts. Confess that. Fearful thoughts. Confess that. Worried thoughts. Confess that. Doubtful thoughts. Whatever thoughts come into your mind that have been ugly thoughts. Thoughts of anger. Thoughts of resentment. Maybe jealous thoughts. Okay, maybe, Thoughts of wanting other people, your enemies to be hurt and things like that.

Just right now. Search me, Oh, God.

I'm going to just be quiet for a couple seconds and while I'm just talking to the Lord myself, you talk to the Lord yourself, and then we'll go to the next one.

Just say, God, what's between me and you and ask yourself - Has there ever been a time in my life when I felt closer to God than I do right now? If there has been, it means you need revival. You need repentance and revival in your life.

So say, Lord, I haven't been as close to you as I have been in the past. Confess that to God right now.

In this moment, just let God's Holy Spirit speak to you in confession. Help me Lord. Help me to know what is wrong in my life. What is broken in my life. Help me to know what's a barrier in my life to full fellowship with you. I don't want anything between me and you. I don't want any thing to stand between a clear view of the face of the father in my life.

Brian Alarid:

We're going to come back to Pastor Rick here in just a moment. But, why don't we pause right now? Reflect.

And, you know, the Bible teaches that unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin. God can't forgive what you won't confess. And I think sometimes we're afraid to confess because we're afraid of judgment. We're afraid that he might reject us. Hello! He already knows everything we've done anyway, right?

And so he knows it all. He sees it all. He loves us.

The Bible says it - Romans 2:4 the goodness of God, the kindness of God that brings us to repentance, it’s not the anger of God, it's the kindness of God. So let his kindness, let his love, let his grace overwhelm you.

The Bible says in Romans 5:20 -  where sin abounds, maybe there's an area of your life where sin has abounded.

There's been an abundance. It's been habitual. It's you get free and you fall back.

The Bible says where sin abounds, Romans 5:20 - God's grace that's much more super abound in your life.

So receive his forgiveness.

Receive his love, receive his grace. He already paid the price for every sin you could ever commit. It's just simple - Jesus, forgive me. Jesus, forgive me. The thief on the cross didn't have a deep experiential knowledge of the doctrine of repentance. He just said, hey, I'm a sinner. This guy's not - and he got in. So just receive with simple faith, hey, Jesus loves me. He's forgiven me.

Amen. Let's go back to Pastor Rick.

Rick Warren:

Let's go to the second step - Cleansing.

Woe is me comes within cleansing. Lo, an angel came and touched my lips. Cleansing means 1 John 1:6 - 8 and verse nine - if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and he's faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God is waiting to forgive you.

You're not waiting on him. He's waiting on you. We have confessed our sins. The Greek word for confession is homologia. Homo means same, like homogenized milk. It's all the same. Or homosexual. Homo means the same. Logia means to speak. So confess just means to agree with God, speak the same - ‘God, that was wrong.’ That was wrong. I'm sorry. That was wrong.

And now we come to cleansing. He's faithful and just to cleanse our sins. The Bible says that God does three things with our sins when we confess them. He puts them out of sight. He says, I will put them out behind my back, he says. And then he says, he puts them out of mind. Their sins and their wickedness I will remember no more. And then he puts them in the deepest part of the deepest sea, the Bible says, and he puts up a ‘no fishing’ sign.

And what God has forgiven and what God has forgotten, you should not bring it up again. If you confessed just a second ago some sin, and you were to die in the next second, and you were to go to heaven, and you say, now, Lord, about that sin, he'd say, what sin? Because you've already confessed it, and he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That doesn't mean you're going to be perfect. If this is an area of habitual sin, you'll be back there in a matter of time and you'll have to confess again. But God never gets tired of hearing your confession because he is willing. He is merciful. He's forgiving. He's graceful.

So right now, I want you to thank God for his forgiveness. Okay?

Just in this moment, I want you to thank him that all of the things you've ever done wrong is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. Do you realize that your sins were paid for 2000 years ago, before you even committed them? The payment for your sin was made on the cross. It's not ‘What can I do to get forgiveness?’ There's nothing you can do to get forgiveness. You just admit your sin and receive the forgiveness of on the cross. The Bible says he was chastised for our iniquities, okay?

And our sins were put upon him. He is the Lamb of God, the perfect Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. So right now, thank God that everything you've ever done wrong has been paid for on the cross.

Would you do that right now? Thank him for that forgiveness. Receive that cleansing.

You say, does God ever want me to be guilty? Maybe for a half a second. That's about how long it takes to confess it. But once it's confessed, any sin guilt you have after you've confessed it is not guilt from God. That's from the devil. It means you didn't really believe you were forgiven. So right now, say thank you.

Tell him in five different ways.

1. Thank you for forgiving my sin.
2. Thank you for cleansing my conscience.
3. Thank you for wiping the board clean.
4. Thank you for making me a new person inside.
5. Thank you that I don't carry that guilt anymore.

In this moment, in your own way, tell God how grateful you are for his forgiveness and his cleansing. You don't deserve it, but it's given to you by grace through faith.

You put your faith in his grace - and that's how you do it.

So in just a moment now, I want you to thank God for your forgiveness. Just do that right now. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you that I don't have to carry on and hold on to guilt and shame and regret that I can be free from all of the things I've ever done wrong.

That I can live with a clear conscience and without shame because you are my Savior. Thank you for saving me from my sin.

Dr Jason Hubbard:

We have so much to be thankful for that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus - that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Amen.

We receive God's mercy where we don't get what we deserve.
We receive God's grace where we get what we don't deserve.

He is so good. He is so kind.

I want to pray over us right now.

Just take a few moments with me as you bow your head. Father, I thank you. Lord. We're so grateful for the power of the blood of your son. The cleansing blood that washes us clean. We thank you that to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

Lord, we’re so grateful. We know that we're more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. But at the same time, in the gospel, we are more loved and accepted into Jesus Christ.

We have more hope in that today, and that's what we put our faith in. So we're grateful and we're thankful today. Lord, as you have washed us clean, we ask right now for a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit. Come right now, Holy Spirit, fill us up again from the inside out. Fill us up, we ask. We want to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So come right now. We give our hearts to you and we say, Lord, we are yours. Come and fill us. Come and empower us in the name of Jesus Christ and for your glory. Amen.

Let's go back to Pastor Rick and hear a few more words from him.

Rick Warren:

We go from confession to cleansing, from woe to low, to go.

And once Isaiah had been cleansed and forgiven, God is now looking for somebody to use.

And he says, who, who will I send? And Isaiah says, here am I, Lord, send me. And God sent him out as a prophet, not just to the nation of Israel, but he said, I'm going to make you a prophet to the whole world. God wants you to take the good news to the whole world.

So here's what I want you to do now. I want you to say the most dangerous prayer you can pray. It's only two words. Are you ready for it? It's two words.

Use me.

Pray that to the Lord. Use me, God, use me. Lord, use me for your purpose. Use me for, for your glory. Use me to change lives. Say this in your heart. Use me to share the good news. Use me to tell others.

At Pentecost they didn't just keep the good news to themselves. When the Holy Spirit fell in the upper room with the tongues of fire, the evidence of the Holy Spirit, they began to speak in other tongues, languages. And they went out and they started speaking to the world.

Pentecost starts in the heart with the fire of God's Spirit. But then we have to go outside of the upper room. We have to go out of the prayer closet. We have to go out of the place of prayer and go into the world.

We are now moving from confession and cleansing to commissioning.

Jesus said, As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And we have been given the Great Commission to go into all the world. And so now as they left the upper room where the Holy Spirit had fallen at Pentecost, and now all of a sudden everybody gets the Holy Spirit, not just some special people, but we, all of us receive God's Spirit into our lives for all time.

Now, what is the purpose of that? What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in your life? Just so you can feel good?

Know that he's close. That's part of it. But that's not all of it. Jesus said it like this. You will receive power. Power, power. What for?

When the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses. My witnesses in the whole world.

In Jerusalem, that's the city you live in.
And Judea, that's like the county, or province, around your city.
And Samaria, that means the people who are different culture than you, but live around you. And to the whole world. Every language, every ends of the earth and and all people everywhere.

So now we come and say, Lord, use me and say, Lord, give me somebody to tell about you. Give me someone to share my testimony, my story. To give the good news. Ask God right now while we're praying to put a name on your mind - someone you know who does not know the Lord.

Just say, Lord, give me the name of somebody I know who doesn't know you. Ask for God to give you that name. And then say, Lord, give me the courage and the love to tell that person about you. Give me the courage and the love. You know, the Bible says, love overcomes fear. Said there's no fear in love, but love casts out all fear.

If you see a house burning down, you overcome your fear of the fire to run in and save a life. Well, there are people out there who are so close to losing a lifetime into eternity without Christ into hell. And you pray, Lord, help me bring them to you before they go into eternity.

I'm going to close by praying for all of you on this cast around the world.

First I want to say as the Director of Finishing the Task and Great Commission allies, Thank you so much. We depend on prayer networks. We depend on you. I can tell you this, and I'm sure any other spiritual leader, pastor could tell you. I know when people are praying for  me, I can feel it. And I know when people are not praying for me because I can feel that too.

So pray for your pastor and pray for all leaders who are sharing the good news everywhere, in every language.

Pray for me and pray that together, we might finish the task of the Great Commission and complete it by the 2,000^th anniversary of the Church of Jesus Christ, which is just - it'll be eight more Pentecosts after this, all right. That it'll be the ninth Pentecost, including this one.

Let me pray for you, Father, thank you for the privilege of praying for people who pray. Thank you for prayer warriors. Thank you for prayer stalwarts. Thank you for prayer supporters. Thank you for people who understand that with little prayer we have little power, but with great prayer we have great power.

And as we celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to give us power, not to judge how high we jump, but how straight we walk and how well we talk, and power to be witnesses into the whole world.

I'm asking for you to bless every person who's praying here today. The fact that they're praying says they want your will. And so we're praying Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Thy will be done in my life as it is in Heaven. Give them physical ability, spiritual strength, supernatural gifts. Give them the tongue of the wise. In other words, to say things they didn't even know they knew. And Jesus had promised that we will say things that we don't know, but they'll give us the right word at the right time, as we tell others the good news of Jesus.

Thank you for everyone in this, prayer cast today and together from around the world in a million different places and different denominations, different nations, different congregations, different organizations, we join together saying, Jesus, we are yours, we are yours.

I pray this blessing on everyone in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God bless you everybody.

Brian Alarid:

Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you, Pastor Rick, I love that.

Say that prayer with me right now. Lord, use me. Lord, use me.

Maybe you're a high school student and God wants to use you to reach your friends, your classmates. Just got to open your mouth and share your story. Share what Christ has done in you.

My daughter Lauren was 11, she prayed for seven friends, so did a Bible study for them and five of her friends, 11 year olds, gave their life to Christ in our home. Use me. You're not too young. You're not too old. You're not too rich. You're not too poor to be used by God. God wants to use you.

Every believer is a witness. Every member is a ministry. You're a minister of the Gospel and God wants to use you. Maybe you're a nurse and God wants to use you right in your hospital, in your clinic. Maybe you're a school teacher, and God wants to use you to love on your kids and love on your fellow teachers.

My mom was a bilingual school teacher. And so it's not just pastors. There are people that Pastor Rick Warren and Doctor Billy Wilson and Christine Kane and Jensen Franklin can never reach, but you can reach them because they're in your circle of influence. So say, Lord, use me even this weekend.

And I love this - in John 4:39 it says, many of the people of Samaria believed in Jesus because of the testimony of the woman. Which woman? The woman at the well with five failed marriages. So it doesn't matter how bad you've blown it. If you accept Christ, you put your faith in him. You repent of your sins, he wants to use you. In the same day that she got saved, she brought her whole town to Christ and it says many of them believed because of her testimony.

She didn't understand the doctrine of grace or sovereignty of God. She hadn't been through member class. She didn't understand the Trinity. But the moment she got saved, she was being used by God. She's one of the most effective evangelists in the Bible with five failed marriages.

So maybe you’ve failed, maybe you've blown it, maybe you don't feel like a superstar preacher. You don't have to be. God uses ordinary people. So right now, where you're at in your house church, in a persecuted nation watching, you're in a house of prayer, watching through IPC, you're a pastor, you’re a leader, you’re a young person, you're an old person - Just say ‘God, use me’.

God wants to use you for his glory and his fame and to make an impact for eternity.

Use your life. You got one life, make it count,  - ‘Lord, use me’.

Watch the video of Rick’s Talk HERE
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