THE MAKING OF A PRAYING PERSON

Reference

James 5:17-18

Living Ready: Faith that Works to the Finish

THE MAKING OF A PRAYING PERSON

James 5:17-18

Intro: James is coming to the end of his letter. He has talked about trials. Temptation. The tongue. Favoritism. Worldliness. Patience. Prayer for the sick. Confession of sins. Now, with his final illustration, he reaches back hundreds of years into Israel's history and says,

James 5:17–18 "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit."

James assumes his readers know Elijah's story. Most of us know only pieces of it. So let me catch you up.

Picture Israel during one of its darkest seasons. King Ahab has abandoned the Lord, and his wife, Jezebel, has filled the nation with the worship of Baal—the false god who supposedly controlled the rain and the harvest. Then an unknown prophet walks into the king's palace. No introduction. No résumé. No entourage. He simply announces, "There will be no rain until the Lord says so." Then he disappears. God hides him beside the Brook Cherith, where ravens bring him food. When the brook dries up, God sends him to a poor widow whose flour and oil never run out. Then her only son dies. Elijah prays, and God restores the boy's life. Three years later, Elijah stands alone on Mount Carmel against hundreds of prophets of Baal. One simple prayer. Fire falls from heaven. The nation cries, "The LORD, He is God!" Then Elijah bows before the Lord and prays again. His servant looks toward the sea. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Seven times. Finally, "I see a cloud...about the size of a man's hand." Within hours the heavens open. The rain falls. The drought is over.

That's the story James has in mind. But here's what James wants us to see. He doesn't say, "Pray like Elijah." He says, "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours."

James wants us to know that God delights in doing extraordinary things through ordinary people who learn to trust Him.

So how does God make a praying person? Let's walk back through Elijah's life and find out.

GOD USES ORDINARY PEOPLE.

Before James says a word about Elijah's prayers...he tells us what kind of man Elijah was.

James 5:17 "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours..."

That's an interesting way to introduce one of the greatest prophets in the Bible. James could have written, "Elijah was a mighty prophet." Or, "Elijah was a man of great faith." Or, "Elijah was the prophet who called fire down from heaven."

Instead, before he tells us anything Elijah did, he reminds us who Elijah was.

He was a man just like us. In fact, Elijah was a walking contradiction.

Fearless one day. Fearful the next. Powerful before kings. Exhausted under a broom tree. He outran Ahab's chariot. Then ran away from Jezebel. He called fire from heaven. Then asked God to let him die. He stood alone before hundreds of false prophets. Then believed he was the only faithful believer left.

James knew every one of those stories. That's why he says that Elijah was just as human as we are.

James isn't diminishing Elijah. He's lifting us.

He's saying, "Don't put Elijah on a pedestal. Don't imagine God used him because he was made of different material. The same God who worked through Elijah delights in working through ordinary people."

Too many Christians quietly disqualify themselves before God ever does.

"I'm not bold enough. I'm not gifted enough. I don't know the Scriptures very well. I've failed too many times. I'm not the praying type."

But look at the people God chose throughout Scripture: Abraham lied. Jacob deceived. Moses argued with God. Gideon hid. David fell into terrible sin. Peter denied Jesus. Thomas doubted. Paul persecuted the church.

Over and over, God accomplished extraordinary things through ordinary people. And when He does...He gets the glory.

James reminds us that God's power has never depended on extraordinary people. It has always depended on an extraordinary God.

God isn't looking for exceptional personalities. He's looking for ordinary people who will trust Him.

So, before we ever talk about Elijah's prayers...settle this truth. Elijah wasn't extraordinary. God was.

That raises the next question. If Elijah wasn't extraordinary...how did an ordinary man develop such extraordinary confidence in God?

James expects us to go back to 1 Kings.

GOD PREPARES ORDINARY PEOPLE TO TRUST HIM.

Nobody wakes up one morning with the kind of confidence Elijah had on Mount Carmel. Confidence in God isn't manufactured. It's cultivated. It's learned by walking with God.

After announcing the drought to King Ahab, God immediately gave Elijah unexpected instructions.

1 Kings 17:3–4 "Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith... You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there."

Think about that. Elijah has just preached one of the boldest sermons in Israel's history: “I’m a servant of the living LORD, the God of Israel. And I swear in his name that it won’t rain until I say so. There won’t even be any dew on the ground.”

You expect God to say, "Now go preach to the nation." Instead He says, "Go hide." The nation needed Elijah. But Elijah needed to know God better. So, God took him to Cherith.

No crowds. No applause. No public ministry. Just one man...one brook...and one faithful God. Morning came. The ravens arrived. Evening came. The ravens returned. Every day Elijah learned the same lesson: God keeps His word.

The ravens weren't Elijah's source. The brook wasn't Elijah's source. God was.

We often make the same mistake. We trust the paycheck instead of the Provider; the diagnosis instead of the Lord who heals; the savings account instead of the Father who has promised to care for us.

God has always been the source. Everything else is simply one of His ways of providing. Then the brook dried up. Had God forgotten Elijah? No. God was preparing him for the next lesson.

Sometimes God allows one resource to disappear so we discover that He has never stopped being the Source.

Have you ever had a brook dry up? A job. A relationship. Your health. A dream. Our first instinct is to think, "God has abandoned me."

But that wasn't true for Elijah. The brook dried up. God did not.

Then God sent Elijah to a poor widow. She had enough flour and oil for one final meal. Yet every morning there was flour. Every evening there was oil. Not enough for the year. Just enough for today. Doesn't that sound familiar?

Matt 6:11 "Give us this day our daily bread."

Then came the greatest test. The widow's son died. Elijah cried out to the Lord. And God restored the child's life.

Now look at what God had been doing all along.

At Cherith...God taught Elijah, "I can provide." At Zarephath..."I can sustain." In the widow's home..."Nothing is beyond My power."

God wasn't simply performing miracles around Elijah. He was building confidence inside Elijah.

Before God trusted Elijah publicly...He trained him privately. Before Mount Carmel...there was Cherith. Before the fire...there were ravens. Before the rain...there was a dried-up brook.

Maybe that's where you are today. Your brook is getting smaller. Or you're wondering how one handful of flour can possibly be enough. Don't despise that season.

Before God does something extraordinary through us...He almost always does something extraordinary in us.

GOD WORKS THROUGH ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO LEARN TO TRUST HIM.

Now James brings us back to where we started.

By the time Elijah stood on Mount Carmel...he had spent years watching God prove Himself faithful.

God had provided at Cherith. He had sustained him in the widow's house. He had even raised the widow's son back to life.

When Elijah prayed...his confidence wasn't in himself. It wasn't in his prayers. His confidence was in the God he had come to know.

That's why James points us to Elijah. Not because Elijah discovered a secret to answered prayer. But because Elijah learned that God could be trusted.

Listen to Elijah's prayer on Mount Carmel.

1 Kings 18:37 "Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that You are the LORD God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again."

That prayer tells us everything.

Elijah wasn't trying to make a name for himself. He wanted people to know the Lord. And God heard.

James skips the fire and goes straight to the rain because his concern isn't the miracle. It's the God who answered.

The God who proved Himself faithful to Elijah...is still faithful today. So don't admire Elijah. Trust Elijah's God.

Conclusion: James leaves us with one unforgettable sentence: "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours."

Maybe today you're beside a drying brook. Maybe you're wondering where tomorrow's provision will come from. Maybe you're still waiting for rain.

Keep walking with the Lord. God still delights in doing extraordinary things through ordinary people who learn to trust Him.

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Speaking of small groups, my wife and I are overseeing those and we are adding three brand new small groups for the August September term. And there's one for you. Did you know that we have a small group that's only for ladies? And then in August, in our next term, we'll have a small group that's only for men. So if you've been looking for a ladies group or a men's group and you want to be in those, would you mark that on your ministry card today?
Help me find a small group and put on their hat. I'd like to be in a ladies group. Like to be in a men's group. We are not unclear about gender here. Amen.
So if you're a guy, you can only be in the men's group. That's how that goes. Also, we had 15 small groups. Now we're starting three brand new ones. So there is room for you and they are powerful and people are signing up for small groups every week or every other week.
And we want you to be a part of that. This Wednesday is Convergence Night and we're going to meet up here and practice the gifts of the Spirit and pray and hear salvation testimony and do some awesome things together in the Lord. And so I want to invite you to that. If you need childcare, it's necessary for you to register childcare today or tomorrow. But as we prepare for Convergence Night this Wednesday church, I'd like to invite our whole church to seek the Lord together in a special way.
Please hear me carefully from Monday, that's tomorrow through Wednesday. I'm asking you to consider fasting from breakfast and lunch and then breaking the fast together at supper if possible, on Monday and Tuesday and then Wednesday during those meal times. Let's ask God to send revival in our church to revive our hearts, to fill us again with His Spirit, and to prepare us for what he wants us to do when we gather Wednesday night for Convergence Night. Convergence is the coming together of the Word and the Spirit. So if fasting from food is not wise or practical for you, consider fasting from something else.
Social media, scrolling on your phone, television, what other kinds of entertainment and use that time, breakfast and lunch, to pray instead and seek the Lord. Be sure you stay hydrated with water, juice or other healthy drinks during those times that we're not eating. And listen, this is not about earning God's favor. We don't fast and then God has to do something. It's simply about making room to seek him together and saying, lord, I'm willing to give something up to get you, to get more of you in my life.
So I'm looking forward to seeing what the Lord will do. So please consider that. Number two, the battle against biblical illiteracy continues. This week we're going to be reading Genesis 7 through 12. Just going to stay in Genesis for a little while.
Last week was Genesis 1 to 6. This week, Genesis 7:12. And the best time to sign up for small groups is now. So remember that now. Find James 5 in your Bibles when we have two more of these messages for our summer series, verse by verse through James Chapter five, we are winding down the whole book.
And today's verses are verses 17 and 18 of James chapter 5. Our summer series has been called Living Ready Faith that Works to the Finish. And we can see the finish line of the book of James from here. Today I want to talk to you about the making of a praying person. James is coming to the end of his letter.
We've walked through it for over a year. He's talked about trials, he's talked about temptations, he's talked about the tongue. And then the rest of the list doesn't start with the letter T for some reason. He talks about favoritism. He talks about worldliness and patience.
And in the last three weeks, prayer for the sick and also confession of sins. And they go together. And now James with his final illustration, reaches back hundreds of years into Israel's history. And here's what he says in verses 17 and 18. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
And he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain on the land for. For three years, six months. And he prayed again. And the heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit.
Let's pray together, Father. Feed a hungry church the truth of your word today. God, give us by the power of the Spirit of God, the ability to pay attention for a few minutes, to hear from you. God, make us hunger and thirst for righteousness. Save souls today.
Feed your sheep in Jesus name. And everybody said, all right. So we come to verses 17 and 18. James hasn't been talking about Elijah, so he assumes that his readers Know Elijah's story? Well, I would say that most of us only know pieces of it.
So let me catch you up. I want you to picture Israel during one of its darkest seasons. King Ahab, the leader, has abandoned the Lord. His wife Jezebel has filled the nation with unbelief and perversion in the worship of baal. BAAL was a false Canaanite God who supposedly controlled the rain and the harvest.
Then all of a sudden, an unknown prophet walks into the king's palace. There are no introductions, there are no resumes offered. There's no entourage with this prophet. He just appears out of nowhere. And here's what he announces.
There will be no rain until Yahweh says so. Well, that's an affront to baal. And then that same prophet just disappears. He walks out of the palace and nobody sees him for a long time. God hides him beside the brook Cherith, where the ravens bring him food.
And when the brook dries up, God sends him to a poor widow whose flour and oil miraculously never run out. Then her only son dies. And Elijah prays and God restores the boy's life. A resurrection miracle. And then three years later, Elijah stands alone on Mount Carmel against hundreds of prophets of baal.
And he prays one simple prayer and fire falls from heaven onto the altar. And everybody watching the thousands in the nation, cry out, yahweh, he is God. Yahweh, he is God. They had been worshiping baal. Then Elijah bows before the Lord and prays again a few sometime later.
And he prays that there would be rain. They've been in a drought. His servant looks toward the sea and all he sees is blue skies. Nothing. Elijah prays again.
He asks the servant, what do you see? The servant says, nothing. He does it seven times and. And finally breaking the blue sky on the horizon in the distance, Elijah's servant says, I see a cloud about the size of a man's hand. There hadn't been clouds in Israel in three and a half years.
And within hours of Elijah praying, the heavens open and the rain falls and the drought is over and BAAL is defeated.
That's the story James has in mind. But here's what James wants us to see. You know what he doesn't say? He doesn't say, pray like Elijah. He says, elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
I hope in my sermon today I can make you really believe that. James wants us to know that God delights in doing extraordinary things through regular people who trust him. So how does God make a praying person. Well, let's walk back through Elijah's life and find out. Let me give you three truths today.
Truth number one, God uses ordinary people. And I'm preaching to a room full of. Full of us. Amen. So this is for us.
Before James says a word about Elijah's prayers, he tells us what kind of man Elijah was. He says in James 5:17, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. I got to tell you, that's an interesting way to introduce one of the most powerful prophets of God in the Old Testament. He was just like us. I mean, James could have written, elijah was a mighty prophet.
And we would go, yes, he could have written Elijah, what a great man of faith. And we would say, indeed. He could have said Elijah was the prophet who called fire down from heaven. And we would go, what a story. Instead, before he tells us anything about.
About what Elijah did, God reminds us who Elijah was. Look at me. The NIV says, he was a man just like us.
In fact, here's how like us he was. Elijah was a walking contradiction. Follow this. He is fearless one day, he's fearful the next. He is powerful before kings in the palace.
And then we find him hiding and exhausted under a broom tree. Somehow he outran Elijah's chariot. He's the fastest man in history. And then he ran away from Jezebel, and that's pathetic. He called fire down from heaven.
That is triumphant. And then he asked God to let him die. And that is pitiful. He stood alone before hundreds of false prophets. And then he had the audacity later to say to God, I'm the only believer left.
God says, no, I got 7,000 hidden in caves that haven't bowed the knee to Baal. James knew every one of those stories, and that's why he says that Elijah was just as human as we are. Now, here's what I want you to think about. James is not diminishing Elijah. He is lifting us.
God's saying, if I can do it in him, I can do it in you. He's saying, don't put Elijah on a pedestal. Don't imagine God used Elijah because he was made of different material. The same God who worked through Elijah delights in working through ordinary people. Listen to me.
Too many Christians quietly disqualify themselves before God ever does. Well, how do they do that, preacher? Because we prophesy against ourselves. We say, I'm not bold enough. I'm not gifted enough.
I don't know the Scriptures very well. I've failed too Many times. I'm not the praying type. And you've cursed yourself when you said that in your own heart. And I want to remind you of the people that God used throughout Scripture.
Just tell me when I'm off. Abraham lied, Jacob deceived, Moses argued with God, Gideon hid. David fell into all kinds of horrible sins.
Peter denied Jesus when Jesus needed him the most. Thomas doubted post resurrection and Paul persecuted the church. I bet you're not worse than them.
Over and over, God accomplished unexpected things through ordinary people. And when he does, who gets the glory? He does. James reminds us that God's power has never depended on remarkable people. It's always depended on almighty God.
God is not looking for exceptional personalities. That's truth number one. God uses ordinary people. Now we're ready for truth number two. If God isn't looking for exceptional personalities, what is he looking for?
Number two, God prepares ordinary people to trust him.
Hey, let's be clear. Nobody wakes up one morning, but with the kind of confidence that Elijah had on Mount Carmel, you don't skip the Christian life of preparation from God to get to that. Confidence in God is not manufactured. It is cultivated. It's learned by walking with God.
So after Elijah busts into the king's palace and announces the drought to King Ahab, God immediately gives Elijah listen very surprising directions. We're supposed to go back to 1 Kings now because James mentions Elijah. So let's do it first. Kings 17, 3, 4. Here are the instructions God gave Elijah after Elijah told the king, your false God is false.
You, your false God doesn't control the weather and the rain or any fertility. Yahweh does. And then God says, get away from here and turn eastward and what's the next word? Hide. And hide by the brook.
Chereth, you shall drink from the brook. And I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. I want you to think about that. Elijah has just preached one of the boldest sermons in Israel's history. We didn't read the verse.
Let me paraphrase it for you. He says to King Ahab, I am a servant of the living Lord, the God of Israel, and I swear in his name that it won't rain until I say so. There won't even be any dew on the ground. Those are the first words recorded in the Bible that Ahab heard from God's prophet. You expect God to say, you're off to a pretty good start.
That was a pretty bold sermon, Elijah. Now go preach to the nation.
Instead he says, why don't you go hide the Nation needed Elijah, but Elijah needed to know God better. So God took him to a quiet stream in the wilderness called Kerith. And listen. You know what? You know what?
There wasn't at the brook, Kerith. There were no crowds. There was no applause. There was no public ministry. There was just one man and one brook.
And hallelujah, one faithful God.
So morning came at the brook, and the ravens arrived, and they brought breakfast, and Elijah ate and they left. And then evening came and the ravens returned, and they brought Elijah dinner, and he ate and they left. And every day, Elijah learned the same lesson. God keeps his word. I've commanded the ravens to feed you.
The ravens were not Elijah's source. The brook was not Elijah's source. Can I tell you? God was.
And we often make the same mistake. Follow me. We trust the paycheck. Often instead of the provider, we believe the diagnosis truth. Instead of the Lord who heals, we depend on the savings account.
Instead of the Father whose promise to care for us and meet every one of our financial needs. In Christ Jesus, my brothers and my sisters, God has always been the source. Everything else, all the details are simply ways that he provides.
Well, guess what happened then? The brook dried up. How many of you know you can't live very long without water? Sometimes God allows one resource to disappear. So we discover that he never stopped being the source.
There's a difference between the resource and the source. I want to ask you a question. Have you ever had a brook dry up?
It was your job. And you lost was a relationship, and it stabbed you in the back. It was your health. It failed. It was a life goal, and you missed it.
All of us have had that. Our first instinct is to think. We don't say it out loud because it's not spiritual, but our first instinct is to think. God has abandoned me. But that wasn't true for Elijah.
The brook dried up, but God did not. Then God sent Elijah somewhere else. He sent him not to a wealthy family who had enough supplied in their storage barns for the famine. He sent Elijah to a poor widow who had enough meal and oil left for one measly little hors d' oeuvre snack appetizer. And she and her son were going to eat it and wait to die.
That's where God sent Elijah next. And yet every morning, because Elijah said she should trust God, there was flour. And every evening, incredibly, somehow, there was oil. Now look at me. Not enough for a year.
Just enough for the day. Does that sound familiar to you? Jesus said in the sermon on the mount Matthew 6, verse 11. Give us this day our say it daily bread.
Well, if that wasn't enough, then came the greatest test. The widow's son died. Elijah picks him up, carries him upstairs, tells the widow to stay downstairs. He stretches himself out across this guy, this kid's body. Maybe that was Elisha.
Elijah cries out to the Lord in that upper room and God restores that child's life. A miracle of resurrecting, really resuscitation.
I want you to look at what God had been doing all along with Elijah. You see, at the brook, Cherith, God taught Elijah, see, I can provide for you. And then in Zarephath, God teaches Elijah, see, I can sustain you. And then in the widow's home in that upper room, God teaches Elijah, see, nothing is beyond my power. God wasn't simply performing miracles around Elijah.
God was building confidence and faith inside Elijah. There's a plant that reminds me of Elijah's life, the Chinese bamboo tree. You know what the pandas eat?
The Chinese bamboo tree is unusual because for years after it's planted, almost nothing appears above ground. The farmer keeps watering it and he keeps caring for it. One of my neighbors in the far side of my neighborhood planted some bamboo. And then it started shooting up and it was kind of thin. Now you can't walk through it.
It's a wall after some years. But year after year nothing seems to happen. And then in the fifth year, suddenly it shoots upward out of the ground dozens of feet, sometimes 80ft in a year.
But listen, friends, the bamboo didn't really grow in a few weeks. It had been growing underground all along and developing roots underground that was needed to support what everybody would eventually see with their eyes. Can I tell you, this is how God often works in us. Before Mount Carmel, there was the brook Kerith. Before the fire that came down from heaven, the raven showed up.
Before the rain came and revived the earth again, there was this dried up brook. All of that was below ground for Elijah's life. And by the time it was time for Elijah to stand before the nation on Mount Carmel, the confidence and faith that everybody admired had already been growing for years in Elijah in places nobody else saw. I wonder how many God's preparing in this room like that right now.
See, God prepares ordinary people to trust him. Truth number three. Finally, today, God works through ordinary people who learn to trust him.
Now James brings us back to where we started, verses 17 and 18. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit. Brothers and sisters, by the time Elijah stood on Mount Carmel, he had spent years watching God prove himself faithful.
You know, history gives us a beautiful picture of this same truth. The year was 1872. The preacher was Dwight L. Moody from Chicago. He had traveled to England hoping for a little rest and not expecting to do any preaching. He had no plans to minister while he was on the other side of the pond.
But while he was there, wouldn't you know it, a pastor invited him to speak one Sunday. And Moody did. And the whole service was deader than a hammer. It was lifeless. He couldn't get his sermon off the ground.
People were nodding off, going to sleep. It was dull and dry and seemingly meaningless. The people were cold and unmoved. Later on, Moody said that he wished he had never accepted the invitation that day. But they asked him to come back and preach on a Sunday night.
It was a Baptist church, and that evening he preached the gospel and invited anyone ready to trust in Christ to stand. And to his amazement, basically the whole room stood up. And Moody thought, I must not have been very clear. He had everybody else sit back down. He goes, let me explain to you what I'm asking, and let's try it again.
So he gives the invitation to receive Christ. The whole room stands up again.
In the weeks that followed, about 400 people joined that little church. Well, this blew Moody's mind, and he wanted to know what had changed between the morning service and the evening service. He eventually discovered the answer. The answer was a bedridden young girl named Mary Ann Adlard. Mary Ann Adelard had heard about the preacher in Chicago in the US and how God was using him.
And she had been praying every day that God would send Moody to her church. When her sister came home from the disappointing morning service and said, oh, it was your guy. Moody preaching. Mary Ann said, everybody, leave me alone. Do not disturb me.
And she went into her room, and she spent the rest of the day praying that God would move in power in the evening service. And he heard her, and he did. Mary Ann Adlard never became famous, but you may have heard of the Moody Bible Institute and now Moody Memorial College. Most Christians have never heard her name, but James, the Lord's brother, would have understood her life perfectly. She was an ordinary believer who trusted an extraordinary God.
She prayed and God answered. That's exactly the kind of praying person that James says Elijah was. And that God delights to use. I want you to listen to Elijah's prayer on Mount Carmel that day. First Kings 18:37.
Hear me, O Yahweh, Hear me that this people may know that you are Yahweh, the Lord God, and that you have turned their hearts back to you again. Who did Elijah pray about?
He prayed about God and the nation. Knowing him, that prayer tells us everything. Elijah wasn't trying to make a name for himself. He wanted people to know the Lord and God heard that prayer. It's interesting to me in James 5, 17, 18 that Elijah skips the fire falling from heaven which is probably the most dynamic of the miracles and he goes straight for the water and the rain.
Because James Concern is not the miracle. James Concern is the God who answers in normal everyday needs like rain falling on a dry ground.
The God who proved himself faithful to Elijah, still faithful today. So listen to me. Don't admire Elijah, Trust Elijah's God. In conclusion, James leaves us with one unforgettable sentence. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
You know, maybe today you're beside a drying out brook or you're wondering where tomorrow's meal is going to come from or tomorrow's provision. Or maybe you're still waiting for the rain to fall.
Can I tell you, James will say to you, don't despise that season.
Keep walking with the Lord. Because God still delights in doing extraordinary things through ordinary people who learn to trust him. I wonder, do you receive that word today? Let's bow in prayer.
Prayer team well, I pray you can come to the front. We'll open the prayer lines after the service.
Father, would you make us believe that what you did in Elijah's life you can do in us by faith? Would you make us believe the verse that Elijah really was a man with a nature like ours and not some super spiritual saint that we could never be like God? Would you take our ordinary church and do extraordinary things in our midst and for our community?
God, would you save the souls in this room today that are lost and don't know Christ?
Would you glorify your son?
Would you help your people? This is our prayer. In Jesus name, Amen. Would you stand with me today?
Church, remember that announcement I made about inviting you to fast and pray with me on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for Convergence night. I just want to remind you in case you forgot the last 20 minutes. Are you glad that you came today? I'm glad that you did too. Now to the mission field you go.
We are dismissed. The prayer lines are open.

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Join us this Sunday at Great Commission Church for a welcoming and uplifting worship experience. If you’ve been searching for a church near you, you’ll discover a warm, authentic church family ready to help you grow in faith.

We are a family-friendly, non-denominational Christian church in Olive Branch, serving individuals and families throughout DeSoto County and the greater Mid-South. People looking for Christian churches in Olive Branch often discover a vibrant community where faith comes alive and lives are transformed through the Gospel.

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