The Legend of the Circle Maker
Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · September 8, 2024 · The Circle Maker series
Jeremy MacDonald opens The Circle Maker series with the stories of Honi drawing a circle to pray for rain and Israel marching around Jericho in Joshua 6. He invites us to trust our Heavenly Father and pray bold, specific prayers for the dreams He gives.
More from Jeremy MacDonald · The The Circle Maker series
Topics: Faith, Prayer, Holy Spirit
Transcript
[0:00] If you are persistent and pray to God, you'll see His dream come true. That was Janssen's words and his lived testimony, his experience of faith in a profound kind of way that he's experienced and lived out even here in our midst at this church. But I have to tell you, those words and that sentiment is challenging for me personally. They're challenging for me as we wade into a new teaching series that's based off this book, The Circle Maker, a pastor, in Washington, DC, that's written this book a number of years ago, that inspires people to think about prayer, kind of the same way that Janssen has experienced and Javier have experienced prayer and the dreams that God has placed in their hearts.
[0:47] And the reason it's challenging for me, I think, is just a part of my own faith journey, if we've not met before. My name's Jeremy. I've grown up here at Moncton Wesleyan. I've grown up here in this city. I've been a Christian pretty much my entire life. I came to faith when I was five years old, and I always like to remind people that before that I was just a completely broken mess, man. I was dangerous on the playground. God saved me from all sorts of, but, but the point is that I've just kinda lived this whole faith thing. Some of you that have come to faith later, or some of you that are skeptical now, you would look at my story and you would correctly assume I haven't really experienced things outside of this faith.
[1:34] And so part of that, it might be kind of interesting, at least it's interesting to me, that this idea of big prayer and bold prayer and like God promising you, it just makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable because it hasn't always been a part of my experience in my journey. Not because God hasn't wanted to do big and important things, but because I personally have just been a little hesitant or a little bit cautious. And so when I hear the stories of my friends, when I hear the stories of people from around the world and different parts of Christendom, I'm fully encapsulated by this idea that God might want to do miracles and profound things in my life, and maybe even in your life. In fact, said this way, and lots of people have said something similar to this.
[2:28] But there's this idea that if your prayers aren't intimidating to you, they might be dismissive of God. And at least for me, my prayers haven't always been that intimidating. Like my prayers growing up have a lot of, have been like, you know, God, would you bless this food? Like, what does that even mean? How would I ever know if God actually blessed that food and to begin with it's terrible food, it's Burger King or it's a McDonald's and like, God can't turn that into broccoli in my stomach, or is that what I'm asking for? Like, who knows? But so many of my prayers over the years have been really simple and kind of vague, and honestly almost impossible to know if God would even answer them. And yet when we pray bold, audacious, big prayers, praying into the dreams or the things that He's laid on our hearts, the experience of people like Javier, Janssen, and for even some of you, you've experienced this, you've seen God do profound things, but because you are clearly inviting Him to be a part of your life.
[3:35] And so for this series, what we want to do is we want to speak to me and maybe some of you that your prayers or your prayer life haven't really been that intimidating to anybody. And maybe for some of you, your prayers haven't been intimidating because you don't actually even really believe in this God, or you don't believe that the God of the universe would act in this kind of way. And so you're in this camp that you wouldn't have big, crazy, audacious prayers. But if you are in that camp, as haven't been in that camp personally, for us, we would find perhaps a kindred spirit to those that live just a generation before Jesus.
[4:23] You see, a generation before Jesus, the people of God, the Israelites, had been living out their faith but had been living it with this perhaps hesitation or lack of belief or maybe just a disenfranchised kind of spirit because for centuries, they hadn't heard from God in the way that they were used to. They were used to maybe prophets performing miraculous things in their midst, stories that we have in our Old Testament of of God's provision in profound kinds of ways. But it seemed like God perhaps had been silent for for hundreds of years, and a generation before Jesus, the people of God in the ancient, in the eastern world were experiencing drought.
[5:11] Now, drought for us obviously isn't that big of a deal in this part of the world. I think a couple of years ago here in Moncton, there was some news articles that maybe Turtle Creek was a little lower than it should be. And so I didn't get up and pray for Turtle Creek or rain, but in part because it doesn't necessarily hit us in the same kind of way as in other parts of the world. And in other seasons and times of human history, drought is profound because it can completely decimate a population. And in those days, drought meant that perhaps your crops wouldn't be growing, you didn't have drinking water, your life depended on the rain. And who brings the rain? Nobody but God. And so in those days, people were desperate for something to change in the weather and they went to a gentleman named Honi.
[6:06] And if you're following along with us in the book, The Circle Maker, you've already heard the story of Honi. I want to give it to you. For many of you who have perhaps not read the book, you can actually buy one today if you want in the lobby. But the story of Honi is fascinating because people came to him and asked him to pray because Honi still, it would seem, believed that the God of the universe was listening and that the God of the universe would answer prayers. And so they came and they asked him to pray. And this is what happened, recorded in one of the Talmuds, which you can certainly find online and you can track down. But this is an ancient story from, again, a generation before Jesus. What did Honi do? He drew a circle on the ground and stood inside it and said, before God, and certainly for anybody else watching, "Master of the universe, Your children have turned their faces towards me as I am like a member of Your household.
[7:12] Therefore, I take an oath by Your great name that I will not move from here until You have mercy upon Your children and answer their prayers for rain." What? Like if I was back in those days personally, I'd be like, it's a little gutsy. Like I don't know if that's how God works. Like you drew a circle. Like, what happens if He doesn't answer the prayer? Are you legitimately just staying in the circle? Honi, like, we're gonna know how big your faith is? Pretty shortly, it seems like you're a little bit like antagonistic towards God. And the truth is that the religious leaders of those days had the same hesitations about Honi, and they had the same hesitations even when they experienced what happened next.
[8:10] But the challenge that they had was exactly what happened next. You see, Honi had drawn that circle and stood inside of it and prayed before God. He had backed himself into a very important spot. There was no way he could move from that place unless God answered a really clear and specific prayer. And for Honi in that moment, I have no idea what he was thinking, but if I'm thinking anything, it's, I hope I heard right from God. 'Cause it'll be really awkward if not. But what happens is the rain, it begins to fall. Interestingly though, it actually falls really softly.
[8:58] And so Honi prays again and actually prays. He says, God, this isn't actually the rain I asked for. To which everybody's like, Ooh, getting sassy before God. Like, I dunno if you're allowed to do that either. Honi, come on. He's like, God, this is not the rain I asked for. We've got crops, we've got people that need water. We need more rain than just this. And sure enough, the rain comes, but now it's torrential downpour. It's torrential downpour, and it's kind of at the stage where you might experience flooding. It could actually be a little bit destructive. And so Honi goes again and says, Hey, God, this is not what I asked for. We need a rain that's in between. And sure enough, the rain slows down to be perhaps what we experienced yesterday here in Moncton.
[9:47] If you're in Moncton, it rained yesterday in Moncton, if you're watching online from somewhere else. The point is God answered His prayer in a miraculous kind of way that everyone knew it wasn't Honi's power, it was God's power, but He answered the miraculous prayer and request for a miracle. And when I read that and I hear that story, I'm like, that's a lot. Like, that's intimidating. That's an intimidating prayer. But I don't know if I could, like, I don't know if I would ever. I don't, I know I wouldn't have the guts to like draw a literal circle and pray for rain. Like my faith isn't that big and I get nervous about that. And for you, you get nervous about that too.
[10:35] Like legitimately, if you think back over the course of your life, have there been times when you've prayed that earnestly for anything? And some of you, yes, the answer's yes and that's great, but a lot of you know, right? Like for a lot of you, has there ever been a time where you've legitimately got on your knees or laid face down before God and cried out to Him verbally, requesting something that you believe so deeply He would want to respond to? Like, how many of you have prayed for something so specific that you would know if God actually answered it? Like you've thought about prayers.
[11:22] This is a classic like church thing, again, growing up in church, go to a prayer time with people. We talk about prayer and then we don't really pray. You know what I mean? Hey, we should pray about these things. Here's some prayer requests. Do we do the prayer thing? No, no. We just talk about it. We write it down maybe, I don't know, but like legitimately prayed before God, have you ever had a prayer request that you've specifically prayed for more than 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 times? Again, some of you, yes, but for a lot of you, the answer is no. Or it's hard to remember a time when you've been that audacious and earnest before God. And the reason I know that is because there's not that many examples in my life where I've been that earnest before God.
[12:11] Sure there's some, but when I look at this story, I feel intimidated because I don't know if my faith could be that large. And I wonder, is this what God is inviting us into? And I've wondered that as I've known about this series and about this book, because it's shaking my soul and my ideas around prayer. But it's forced me to go into some places in Scripture where I've realized perhaps I've been missing out and perhaps you've been missing out on the kind of audacious things that God wants to do in your life, in your life and in my life. And the reason for that is that when you go to the New Testament, when you go to the words of Jesus Himself, just this last summer here at this church, we've walked through the Sermon on the Mount.
[13:02] And if there's anything that's gonna spark your faith, gosh, it's the Sermon on the Mount. You've gotta make sure, if you haven't seen all of our conversations on that, check them out. But in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Himself speaks to this idea as He's teaching on prayer and talking about prayer and what it means to come towards your Heavenly Father. And this is what He says. He says, "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?" Of course, this is a little bit of a hyperbole. "Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?" Now, on the bread part, like, I have a son who asks for pizza a lot. And so just to be clear, if I was there with Jesus, I'd be like, Hey, can we just get some clarifiers?
[13:47] Because like pizza bread, like probably the close connection from the first century. And I often instead give him vegetables and meat and he kind of looks at them like a rock. So I just need clarification, Lord, in terms of my parenting, if I am eviler than I would've thought in my own spirit. 'Cause my son sometimes just is a little bit, you know, he says some mean things. That's all I'm just saying. He says some mean things, we're working it out, or he'll work it out in counseling. We'll figure it out. Okay? So the point is that as a father though, I wanna give good gifts to my children. And this is the point Jesus is making. If then though you are evil, and I know I am a little bit, and Jesus says it, so it's true, I'm working on it. I know how to give good gifts to my children. How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts, give good gifts?
[14:37] To who? To those who ask, to those who ask earnestly in prayer, actual conversation with your Heavenly Father, asking for the things, the good gifts. And what do you mean by good gifts? He means the good gifts of the kingdom, the things He wants to do in your life and in our world today. And we'll talk about what those can be. But the point is, for some of you, and for some of us, we have to reframe our understanding of our Heavenly Father. Don Carson writes specifically about this verse trying to help us understand. Because when Jesus talks about prayer, He's trying to, in the first century, reorganize people's understanding of what this conversation with God actually is.
[15:24] And this is what he writes. He says, God must not be thought of as a reluctant stranger who can be cajoled or bullied into bestowing His gifts. This is specifically coming out of the Lord's Prayer. And for some of you, you've thought of God as this reluctant stranger who's kind of far off and you need to use some magic words or something. Or if you don't know the right language, then surely God won't answer your prayers. That's not it. It's different than that as a malicious tyrant who takes vicious glee in the tricks that He plays. This is from the passage we just read. God is not a tyrant. He's not out to ruin your fun. He has something for you and it's good and they're good gifts.
[16:12] Or even as an indulgent grandfather who provides everything requested of Him, that's not God. Instead, Don Carson says, He's the heavenly Father, the God of the kingdom, who graciously and willingly bestows the good gifts of the kingdom in answer to prayer. This is what God has invited us into, that we would come to Him and request and ask. And when we don't ask, we miss the things that He might give to us. In The Circle Maker, there's so many different stories, and one of them comes from the Old Testament, this example of what it means to be specific, what it means for God to actually give you a vision and an understanding of what He wants you to be praying for, and inviting you to do things maybe even that you wouldn't have done otherwise.
[17:06] Because when you are listening to what God has for you, it actually adjusts and changes your path. And you might be called to do something in response to Him that is odd, or a place, or seems different. But that's okay because like how He drew a circle and stood inside of it, sometimes you look ridiculous as you pray for the miraculous. And so in Joshua 6, we get this story of the people of God drawing another kind of circle. Now this, the context is that they're, heading into this land that God had promised them, the Promised Land. And God has invited them to do a number of different things to claim that land for His purposes, for the purposes of being a blessing, not just to His people, but to all people.
[17:59] But there stood in the way a group of people that had built this fortified city that was incredibly fortified, well known in the region, walls that were five or six feet thick, this high tall center section of the city that is just impregnable. And so the idea was they came up to this city that God had promised them, but the gates of Jericho, Jericho being the place, were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. They weren't always, but they were now because they understood the nature of the God and how these Israelites had been serving and following His instructions. So no one was allowed to go out or in, but the Lord said to Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, I have given you Jericho, its king and all its strong warriors.
[18:47] There's the promise. Now God has promised things to you, but you might not have heard it because you might not have actually listened for it. And towards the end of this message, I want to give space for us to hear the promises that God has for you. And He has for me because it requires us to know those in order to be able to pray bigger prayers. But the Israelites knew this is the promise. And so this is what happened. You, God talking, and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days, to which Joshua says, hold up. The city is like locked in.
[19:33] The point is to kind of go in, so traditionally, God, we would probably get like some siege weapons. You know, we might get like some catapults. Maybe you can miraculously show up with like a big giant ball of fire to knock the wood. Like there's gotta be something a little bit different here. You want us to do what again? God's like, yeah, I want you to march around with all of your people, which is no small task. There's like kids kicking around and like, we're going in this direction. The kids are going in that direction, like it would've been complex to march around. And then He says, on top of that, at the end of the six days, on the seventh day, you are to march around the town seven times with the priests blowing the horns. Now, I'm not a priest, but I'm a religious person.
[20:20] Like I've been a pastor my whole working career. If you're going into battle, you don't want me. Now, there's a lot of reasons. But I'm a little timid, not exactly like, you know, fighting form. And so I don't know what the priests were like in those days. It's probably right that they're blowing horns and not carrying weapons, but like, not exactly terrifying in some ways. But this is the nature of the promise. God has said, I'm gonna give you this city, but you're gonna do what I say in order to receive that promise. And this is what He says in explanation. He said, when you hear the priests give one long blast on the ram's horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can, and then the walls of the town will collapse and the people can charge straight into the town.
[21:14] Now the point is that God gives this promise, but it comes with this invitation to trust Him in a pretty specific and terrifying kind of way. Like legitimately asking people to march around a fortified town I think would've been a little embarrassing and a little weird and a little shocking. And we should be cautious about inviting God to give us promises and things to pray for because He might ask us to do things that feel a little odd or out of place. But when we enter into prayer, we have to make sure that we're hearing clearly from God. In fact, Mark, in the book The Circle Maker, he says this about it. He says, I'm specifically thinking about this drawing.
[22:03] Prayer circles starts with discerning what God wants, what God wills. And until His sovereign will becomes your sanctified wish, your prayer life will be unplugged from its power supply. Like the idea is that the Spirit of God, the same Spirit that was with the Old Testament stories that did the miraculous things, the same Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead, is the Spirit of God that resides in the heart of every single Christian. And if you're here far from faith, you should know that when you invite and ask the Spirit of God to do something or to speak to you, it's a powerful, unbelievable thing. And you should be ready to, because that kind of power supply is the ultimate power.
[22:52] And so when we gather in this place, we don't actually gather in a sanctuary. This isn't a sanctuary, this is an auditorium. The sanctuary where God resides in this day is in the heart of every believer in Him. But we forget that. We forget that that power is right inside of us. We stamp it down and we don't tap into, we don't ask, we don't request, We don't make space to hear from the Spirit of God. It's not God's fault. We've tuned it out because of our own fear. But what happens when you're tuned in is what happened in Joshua's day. And this is what happened when the people heard the sound of the rams' horns.
[23:40] They shouted as loud as they could, and suddenly the walls of Jericho collapsed and the Israelites charged straight into the town and conquered it. And so my challenge to you and to me and to us is the challenge that a South Korean pastor would explain as they saw God move profoundly as their church grew to tens of thousands of people. And that's simply this, is that God does not answer vague prayers. He might, I don't know for sure, but it's hard to know if He does. You see, God is looking for specific, bold, audacious prayers. And the reason is actually pretty interesting. You know, Mark will write this about it specifically. He says, the more faith you have, the more specific your prayers will be, and the more specific your prayers are, the more glory God receives.
[24:32] Because then you know it's not your power. It's not coincidence, it's miraculous. It's God at work in your life. And so for you, it's obviously not a city where the walls need to come down. It actually could be a little bit different. In fact, your Jericho could be something very, very specific, but very different. You know, if you have cancer, it might be spelled healing, a circle that God has given to you to pray over and pray for or pray for someone. If your child is far from God, it's spelled salvation. And that is something you pray consistently and boldly and often and with others and out loud and before God.
[25:21] If your marriage is falling apart, it's spelled reconciliation because God is in the business of bringing dead things to life. And so if you're in the midst of a dead season, my gosh, the power of the Spirit can transform hearts, can change people from being evil to being good. If you have a vision beyond your resources, it's spelled provision, that God would actually show up and do something miraculous. And I promise you, it's odd, it's weird for me to even say, but there's been seasons in our life where we felt like God was inviting us into something, but the resources just weren't there. And it is odd when you pray for provision and walk outside and you find checks to the exact amount that you need.
[26:07] But it happens. For us, it was before we moved here, it was a weird thing. We moved without ever signing a job or having a clear plan in place and legitimately walked outside knowing that the costs of moving from Ontario to here was around $5,000 for the truck and the gas and the, and all the things that we would need to pick up along the way to make sure that we would get here safely and legitimately found a check for $5,000 on our windshield. I still have it 'cause it's the story of God's provision. And you never forget it, but you gotta pray for it. You gotta ask for it. And if you need to be surrounded by other people, you wanna be a part of this kind of movement.
[26:52] I want to invite you first off to a gathering. We want to be the kinds of people that do this kind of thing. And in just a few short weeks, we're gonna host a prayer vigil. So this is one way that you can be a part of it, but we'll also do it here in the service in just a moment. But on September the 28th, in particular for 24 hours as a church, this is a Saturday, this is a Sunday morning. We want to pray for 24 hours straight here in the atrium. And you can bring your big prayers and we can pray with them together and circle around them. We're gonna pray as a church for the things that we feel like God has called us into. And you can sign up to be a part of this at different times of the day and of the night as well. But just go into MW Church prayer vigil, sign up for that, come and be a part of it.
[27:39] But the point of all of this is that you would be inspired to pray a bigger prayer. And so in just a moment, what I want to do is actually we're gonna make some space just here in this room again in a couple minutes. In a couple minutes, I'm gonna ask you to stand, and what we'll do as a group is we're just gonna make some space because the space is often the thing that we've missed out on, making space for the Spirit of God to speak to us and to tell us to tell you what are those promises, those dreams, those miracles that He wants you to be praying for.
[28:25] And we'll make space in this room. And if you would be so bold again, I'll invite you in a minute to you'll stand in just taking an open posture sometimes with your hands open, just a physical way of showing God, I'm willing to hear from You. And even if you don't even believe in God, even if you're watching online or you're listening to this later on, I promise you, you don't have to even believe for the Holy Spirit to do something. If you just make the space, you might be surprised at what the Spirit of God would say to you. And we'll make that space and then the band will be able to play. And you can respond perhaps by singing if you want. You can respond by continuing to pray when the band starts in a moment.
[29:12] That the prayer team is actually gonna come, they'll be down here. If you want them to pray with you, just come up and tap them on the shoulder and they would love to pray with you. You can come and just pray on your own as the song sings or afterwards. The point is we have to make space for God to speak to us and then we have to start taking those bold steps and praying bigger prayers. Now, one caveat before we get into it. When you go through this book, The Circle Maker, there's the big stories and then there's the constant reminder of why and how this works. And so for example, when you look at the quotes, from Mark, I'll bo this, he says, drawing prayer circles isn't some magic trick to get what you want from God.
[29:57] God is not a genie in a bottle and His wish is not your command. This is really important. We're cautious on this, but it's not keeping us from stepping into it. We're cautious because we don't wanna be assuming that this is some kind of magical interaction. It's miraculous, but for a particular reason, His command in fact, is better than your wish. If it's not, you won't be drawing prayer circles, you'll end up walking in circles. You see, getting what you want isn't the goal. The goal is glorifying God by drawing circles around the promises, the miracles and the dreams that He wants for you. And so here's what we'll do.
[30:44] We're gonna make a little bit of space for perhaps the Spirit of God to speak to you, to speak to me. It'll be quiet for a few moments, and then at the end of that moment, I'll pray for us. But that is not the end. Hopefully it's just the beginning. And hopefully you could take this kind of practice into your week and into your rhythms and make space for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. So I'd invite you all to stand with me here just in this moment. And if you would be so bold, you don't have to, but just to set out your hands kind of open before God in this kind of way, and for just a few moments that we would be still before God.
[31:38] And I'm just gonna ask that He would speak to us. And like I said, we'll stand here silently for about a minute, and then I'll pray before we move into this song. So heavenly Father, we just ask that You would speak, that Your Spirit would put dreams and promises. Remind us of the things that Your Spirit would have for us, and in the stillness of this moment as we take a minute just to be calm before You, would You speak? Would You speak to Your children? Would You speak to the skeptics in the room? Would You speak to us all about what You would have for us and what You would have us ask for?
[32:24] And God, may they be wild things. Wild things that would bring You glory and remind us that the power of the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is at work today. And so God, speak to us over the next minute. Speak to our hearts.