Jesus Prays Through You: Why Every Believer Is an Intercessor

Sermon outline

Every born-again believer is an intercessor, because God has given His people legal authority on the earth and the Holy Spirit prays through their bodies, their voices and their words.

1. Pray from within: you and God are one

   A robust believer is conscious of being one with God, not standing outside trying to get His attention. Such a believer does not pray 'if it be Your will' in a crisis but prays with God-kind confidence that God must hear. God sometimes takes you through ups and downs to strip away what hinders you until He is first above career, money and friends.

   Illustration: Every believer carries the Christian badge the way every vehicle on the road is a car, but at Gateway he admired a red Ferrari: a car above cars. Some believers distinguish themselves like that.

   “Your internal status really determines, at the end of the day, your external status.”

   • 2 Timothy 2:15
   • Philippians 1:23-24

2. Abraham the negotiator: plead your case with His Word

   Do not be afraid to plead your case with God, as long as you have a scripture to back it up, because God watches over His word to perform it and His integrity is at stake. Never 'try' in the kingdom: His will is His word, so the more you know His word, the more you know His will and the more answers you receive. Abraham's boldness made God halt and adjust His plan, even though Sodom was finally destroyed.

   Illustration: He says that in about 25 years they have not had one prayer go unanswered, especially the prayers they wrote down, and God remembered even the ones they forgot.

   “The more you know his word, the more you know his will.”

   • Genesis 18:17-33
   • Jeremiah 1:12
   • Ezekiel 22:30
   • Isaiah 53

3. Moses the mediator: God knows you by name

   Moses stood between Israel and God as a mediator, and God spoke with him face to face as a friend. God told Moses He knew him by name and that he had found grace, and if that was true in the Old Covenant it is true of New Covenant believers. God promised His presence and rest: victory by God's power, not Moses' toil. Joshua, a young man, would not leave the tabernacle, which shows the reward of loving God's house.

   Illustration: God told him, 'If you take care of My family, I'll take care of your family.' He calls God the chartered accountant of accountants, who always balances the books and gives you more when people take advantage of your service.

   “God is the most accurate accountant.”

   • Exodus 33:9-14
   • Psalm 75:6-7

4. "I have pardoned according to thy word": God responds to your words

   When God wanted to destroy Israel for unbelief, Moses reminded God of His reputation among the nations and of His own nature, long-suffering and of great mercy, and asked Him to pardon. God answered that He had pardoned according to Moses' words, not sentiment or a dream. God is waiting on what you say: speak belief over your situations and over unsaved people, and be willing to put your reputation at stake for His Word.

   Illustration: He made an offer well below the asking price on a house and declared, from Joshua, that since his feet had trodden there no one else could buy it. When selling his previous house he sowed a seed in front of a friend and waited eight months with his reputation at stake until it sold. Early in ministry he was slandered after a man he had vouched for ran off with a large loan; God reminded him that Jesus made Himself of no reputation, and later restored more than he had lost.

   “He didn't pardon Moses because of sentiments. He didn't pardon Moses because of a dream. He pardoned Moses because of his words.”

   • Numbers 14:11-20
   • Joshua 1:3
   • Philippians 2:7
   • 2 Corinthians 11:23-25
   • Jeremiah 29:11

5. When the enemy comes in, like a flood the Spirit lifts up a standard

   Isaiah 59 describes the Old Covenant with no justice and no intercessor, then points to the Messiah. He reads verse 19 with the comma moved: when the enemy comes in, like a flood the Spirit of the Lord raises a standard against him. The Spirit-filled believer carries rivers, not a stream, of living water that cannot be contained, and when the enemy attacks it is the Spirit, not you, who fights. The more you give out to others, the more God replenishes you.

   Illustration: He calls his son Adrian up to play the enemy with fingers raised 'like Dracula', showing the Spirit flowing out of the believer like a flood. He likens it to the Red Sea, where the pursuing army drowned, and reads a note in his Bible picturing the Spirit as an electrified force field that floods the enemy with light.

   “So no man can contain you. No person can contain you.”

   • Isaiah 59:10-19
   • John 7:37-39
   • Acts 20:35
   • Matthew 10:8

6. The Spirit makes intercession through you

   There is no elite group of intercessors: every believer is one. The Spirit helps our weaknesses, praying through us with groanings that cannot be uttered, just as Jesus groaned in the spirit at Lazarus' tomb. Sometimes you weep or groan without knowing why, and God is using your body and faculties to pray a perfect prayer for your family, church or someone you do not know.

   Illustration: A preacher flying a small Cessna in the United States hit freezing rain, lost his instruments and was put on hold by air traffic control. At that moment an older woman elsewhere was moved to pray in tongues for him by name; he came through the storm, and when she later wrote to him, he replied that he would have died without her prayer.

   “Jesus cannot legally pray for you. He can legally pray through you.”

   • Romans 8:25-27
   • John 11:33
   • 1 Corinthians 14:2

7. You are God's legal agent on the earth

   God gave mankind dominion in Genesis 1, Adam handed the lease to Satan, and God will not break that lease early, so He works through people with bodies. Satan is a spirit without a body and operates illegally; Jesus came legally, born of a woman, and now in a glorified body represents us in heaven while we represent Him on earth. The keys to bind and loose, and the prayer of agreement, are given to believers, and Pentecost placed the Spirit of Christ in earthly bodies with a legal right to act, so you can simply tell the devil to go.

   Illustration: He once asked the Lord what happens if there are not two to agree; the Lord answered that he had Him, the Holy Spirit and himself, which made three. He says he has had more prayers answered through the prayer of agreement than any other prayer.

   “So Jesus represents us in heaven, and we represent him on the earth.”

   • Genesis 1:26-28
   • Matthew 16:19
   • Matthew 18:19-20
   • Luke 10:19
   • 1 Corinthians 2:14-16
   • 2 Peter 1:19
   • Hebrews 9:24
   • Ephesians 2:6
   • John 17:21-23
   • Ephesians 1:20-23
   • Genesis 3:15
   • Luke 1:28-31
   • Ephesians 2:2
   • John 20:17
   • Acts 2:1-17
   • Joel 2:28

8. The Old Covenant is finished: draw near with boldness

   Jesus is our forerunner and high priest, and His one sacrifice ended the Old Covenant, which is why He cried 'It is finished'. He reads 'a body hast Thou prepared Me' as pointing to the body of Christ, the church. New Testament believers therefore have boldness to enter the holiest by His blood and must hold fast their confession without wavering. He ends the teaching at Hebrews 7:25, that Jesus ever lives to make intercession, promising after the break to show how He does it through us.

   “The new covenant starts from the book of Acts, when the Spirit of God was poured out.”

   • Hebrews 6:19-20
   • Hebrews 10:1-23
   • John 19:30
   • Hebrews 7:22-25