How to Pray When It Seems Like Nothing Is Going on Inside

That's Carter Conlin from the historic Times Square Church in New York City.

If you call upon Jesus Christ and He comes by His Holy Spirit after forgiving you to indwell your life, you will not be overcome by darkness. That is the promise of God. That's Carter Conlin with an insight to this week's program.

We're glad you're with us today on A Call to the Nation. In 1 Kings, Chapter 5, King Solomon begins to construct the first temple in Jerusalem. And in today's message, Carter will show you how God would use a church on the earth, but not a building. He will work in the temple of His chosen people.

Let's join Carter as he explains further. I've got a message from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 6, Verses 19 and 20, and it's called How to Pray When It Seems Like Nothing is Going on Inside. Paul says these words in Verses 19 and 20. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own?

You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. You see, it was God's plan from before the foundation of the world to redeem you and I and to indwell us as His temple on the earth.

Can you imagine? We are actually living something that the Old Testament saints could only dream about. The anointing of God, that specific anointing of God that empowered people to be more than they could be in their natural state. That anointing that came on Samson, for example, the anointing that obviously was on King David, the anointing that was on prophets of old. The prophet Joel made a statement one day that one day the Spirit of God is not going to come down just on a select few, but on all flesh. Everyone who turns to Christ, everyone who turns to God, the Holy Spirit is not just going to be outside of us in some physical cosmos or some building made with men's hands, but the Spirit of God is actually going to indwell us, our human body on this earth, and we're going to become the temple of God. So here we are, the fulfillment of a promise that in the Old Testament was only a dream. Can you imagine people reading in those days the book of the prophet Joel talking about an interior presence of God coming upon us in our ordinary humanity and making us extraordinary and giving us the strength that only a select few that they had ever known in their lifetime had ever had come upon them. This was God's plan.

Everything in the Old Testament was a type and pattern because this is what God had in his mind from before the creation of the world. He was going to have a bride, a people. That was going to be a bride for his son. God in the third person of his Godhead was going to indwell that bride by the power of his Holy Spirit. And Paul, the apostle in Colossians chapter one, let me just read this to you. He called it a mystery.

Chapter one verse 26 and 27, a mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to his saints. You see, we have what they could only dream about. Can you imagine that? You imagine if we were in that place where God is saying there's something coming for a people on a certain day and another time, but it's not for you.

Not right now. And how disheartening in some measure that would be. But here we are, the recipients in a sense of God indwelling our physical bodies where we become the physical dwelling place of God on the earth. Now, if that truly sinks in, something happens to you inside. If that truly sinks in, you begin to realize, oh God, I don't have to shout to you out in the cosmos to pray to you.

I don't have to get all fancy in my speech. You actually live with me all day. You walk with me. When I'm brushing my teeth, you're there in my temple. You're still God inside of me. When I'm drinking my coffee in the morning, you're God. When I'm on the bus, you're God. When I get up in the morning, you're God inside of me. When I go to bed at night, you're God.

I can talk to you anytime I want and you are doing your work inside of me. Whether I see it, whether I understand it, whether I know it, you are still God. You are still doing a work inside of me that if I could fully comprehend it, I would be on my face just shouting glory. As somebody said in a prayer today, we would just be shouting hallelujah.

We wouldn't even know what else to say. Glory to God. That's all we could do is just shout hallelujah. The mystery which has been hidden from ages and generations now revealed to his saints, to them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now, when you look up the word glory in the original text in the Greek, it's doxa, which means there's a lot of definitions. It goes almost a third of a page, but realistically, if you bring it down to a statement, it means something that catches the eye and draws attention to God. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

May I make it personal? Christ in you, Christ in me, doing something in me that causes people, it catches their eye and causes them to give glory to God. It causes them to be drawn to God because they see something going on inside this earthly temple that can only be attributed to God. It's not just the accumulation of knowledge. It's the transformation. It's the indwelling power. It's the creative power of God being, in a sense, released inside of our lives, polishing out the rough edges, removing the old foundations, recreating us, in a sense, into the image of God.

Yes, we've not attained, you haven't and neither have I, but as Paul the Apostle once said, we leave behind those things that need to be left behind and we move forward to this incredible high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You think of the original temple, that physical temple built by King Solomon, given to his father David by the pattern of the Holy Spirit. David gave it to Solomon and Solomon built it. It was a foreshadow. It was a type, in a sense, a physical type on the earth of God one day coming and indwelling a body, a people.

He was no longer going to live in a building. This was an event. It was a one-time thing, but it was so glorious. The scripture says the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings chapter 10, verses 4 and 5, tells us the Queen of Sheba, she walked in to the temple, this place that God had designed, God had built, God had given the pattern, God had given the tradesmen even inside the skill to do what they were doing. And when she saw how people moved, when she saw his pulses and then we live and move and have our big. And when she saw just the way people moved in the temple, when she saw how the cupbearers served, when she saw how the attendants gave heed to their duties, when she saw the throne of Solomon, when she just looked around and she knew, she was a queen. You see, she had all of this. She would have had some kind of heathen temple, I'm sure, in her kingdom. She would have had a palace. She had servants, but she didn't have this. And when she saw it, the scripture says there was no more breath in her. She saw something that this world can't produce. Now, the world can produce a fancy building, but the world cannot imitate the presence of God.

You see, the world can make itself look good even through religion, but this world cannot imitate the presence of God inside an earthen vessel. And if there ever was a cry in my life and in your life, it ought to be, oh, Jesus Christ, Son of God, bring glory to your name through my life. I yield to you, God. I yield the rights to my life. I yield my future. I yield my doubt. I yield my unbelief. I yield my struggles. I yield my failures. I yield my strengths. I yield my victories. I yield it all to you. And I'm asking you, God, rearrange it any way you want and glorify your name. Do something in me that causes me to say only God could have done this.

Only God. When somebody says, as Peter the apostle said, be ready to give an answer for those who ask you for a reason, for the hope that is in you. How much more in this generation, this hopeless, hopeless time in history that we're now entering into, which is, I believe, going to get darker and darker and darker as time goes on. What a time for the people of God to recognize that we're the temple of God, that God has chosen to dwell on the earth in us and express his glory through us. Oh, hallelujah. Oh, hallelujah.

Oh, hallelujah. Now, as we take a moment just to look at the building of this first temple that David gave the pattern to his son Solomon, and we look at it as a type and pattern of that which was to come, which is you and I. So I want you to look at it that way, just as we're not going to go through a lot of scripture.

I encourage you to go to 1 Kings and read chapter 5 and chapter 6 on your own when you have the time. And read it in the context of, God, you were showing a pattern. You had one thing in mind. It wasn't about building a physical building necessarily, as important as that was at the time. You had one thing in mind. You were going to have a church on the earth. You were going to have a people that you were going to indwell. Now, these people of this time couldn't have fully comprehended that.

You had them. You gave them a design of a physical building that you were going to literally have your glory indwell, that physical building. But it was a pattern.

It was a type of what you do. It was a pattern of how you establish a life and how you exhibit your glory through it. And so as we read it, what can we learn from it? Well, first of all, when God was about to build this temple where his glory was going to be housed, the first thing that they would have to do, realistically, is find a place and then clear out the rubble. And that's exactly what happens when you and I come to Christ.

Thank God. He finds us in our mess. Before the construction even begins, he declares us righteous. He cleanses us. He cleanses us from all iniquity. He clears out, in a sense, the rubble.

He destroys its power to occupy the place where he is now going to occupy. And we may not think it's cleared, but it is. Our sin is put away.

Our iniquity no longer has the right to govern our lives. The presence of God is now inside of us. And he has now determined to bring glory to his name through us. And so I see it in my mind's eye.

I've been there, actually. I've been in Israel and Jerusalem, and I've seen the location of this first temple. But you can see there were a lot of people assigned in this building. It says, King Solomon raised up, chapter 5, verse 13, a labor force out of all Israel. And the labor force was 30,000 men. In verse 15, he said he had 70,000 who carried burdens, 80,000 who quarried stone in the mountains.

Can you imagine? That's a lot of people. And the Bible tells us that we have a great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us. A great number of people have been involved in the work of God, in passing on as it is, the understanding, the history, all of what needs to happen in your life and in mine, in our generation.

And the stone squares went into the quarries, and they cut out these incredibly huge, absolutely monstrous stones, perfectly rectangular or square, whatever the case was. And they began to bring them in and lay the foundation of this temple. You know, in the New Testament, Paul says, we are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. In other words, in Christ, we are being built into a house that is standing on things that have been proven, standing on lives that trusted and were not let down. People have gone through flood and fire and trial and difficulty and mockings and scourgings and shipwrecks and whatever it was. And being part of that foundation that was built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ, they have triumphed. So we are part of a house, we are part of a temple that will not be overcome by the storms of life. We are built on the rock. We are not built on sand.

We're not built on just subjective religious experience, but we're built on the truth of God's word and we're built on the faithfulness of God through past generations. He kept his saints. Yes, they went to jail. Some of them died. Some were torn apart by lions.

Some finished out with a relatively easy walk. But nevertheless, whoever it was, he kept all of those that have gone before us because God is faithful. And Jesus Christ said, I'm building my church on this foundation and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Hallelujah. You will not be triumphed over. This is a great promise of God. As frail as you think you are, as flawed as you might think your life is, when you have put yourself on that foundation of trusting in God, you will not be overcome.

God has proven himself faithful over the generations. If you turn to trust in Jesus Christ for your future, if you call upon him and he comes by his Holy Spirit after forgiving you to indwell your life, you will not be overcome by darkness. That is the promise of God.

Trial and difficulty will come your way most likely, but it will not take you down. As the scripture says, you'll go through the flood, it won't drown you. You'll walk through the fire and it won't burn you.

And not even the smell of it will get upon you. God promises to be in you and to be with you. We look at the construction of this temple and we see after the stones, cedar wood was brought in and cedar wood covered the whole of the inside of the temple. And to the point where the stones were no longer visible, it was really just all about the cedar wood.

The stones were there, but the cedar wood covered, covered, covered the whole of the inside. And it speaks to me about a life that has come to Christ through the cross. And the cross and the victory of the cross and the triumph of God's Son on the cross is at the center core of our life. We trust that the sacrifice that he made for us is sufficient for our sin, for our trial, for our struggles. The inside of the temple is built and covered in the victory of another. The victory of the cross. It's not my victory that gets me to heaven, it's his victory. And it's my trust inside of my heart. I just, as I've been looking at this, I say, God, cover the inside of my heart with the wood of the cross again.

Don't let anything else be in there, but a trust in your victory. That you took captivity captive. You destroyed the power of hell. You paid the penalty for sin and you broke the cords of iniquity that felt they had a right to govern my life and my future and my eternity.

But you gave me the victory. And after the cedar wood had covered the inside of the temple, you'd think that would be good enough. And after that, all of it was covered with gold on the inside.

You'd imagine walking in. So we got stones, then we got cedar wood, then we got gold. Jesus Christ said to the church of Laodicea in Revelation, he says, I counsel you to buy me gold tried in the fire. And so that speaks of a life that's built on the foundation of God's faithfulness in Christ Jesus and how faithful he has been to all who have trusted in him through the generations. It's built on the not personal victory, but the victory of the cross. And then the gold represents the promises of God for the future.

It's a heart that says, well, I'm not what I ought to be yet, but I'm going to be different tomorrow than I am today. I'm going to grow in grace. My life, I am going to be changed from image to image and glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of God. Now go back to the temple with me just for a moment in Solomon's day. Now the scripture says inside of that temple, there were workers and they were skilled workers, obviously given their skill by God himself. And the workers were carving roses and flowers.

You see, there's a skilled worker inside of you right now called the Spirit of God. And he's anointed some of us to help in his work and carving the little roses in your life and the little cherubims and all of the things when you read it, this carving is going on inside the temple the whole time. And interior of the temple is being made beautiful. And an incredible thing in verse 7 of chapter 6, it says, in the temple when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built. So this incredible work is going on in the temple, but it's incredibly quiet at the same time. That would have taken, you could just imagine this magnificent dwelling place of God is being built, but when you walk in, you don't hear any hammering. There's no jackhammers, there's no chisels, there's no noise. Those huge stones are just being slid in and put into place.

The timber is being attached to the walls. There's people up on scaffolds and they're carving roses and they're carving emblems and the place is being made so beautiful, it's amazing. What really would have taken the stranger back who walked in is the absence of noise in the place. We in America are uncomfortable with silence. I used to teach cross-cultural communication on the police department before I left and I remember this one part of the teaching was that in traditional, traditional Japanese society, if it was an old-school, traditional Japanese person, if you ask them a question to show that they respect your question and they respect you as the questioner, a typical older Japanese person, if you ask them a question, will stand there, close their eyes, hold their hands, and sit quietly and stand there quietly for maybe two to three minutes just to show you that they respect you and they respect your question and they are thoughtfully pursuing an answer to your question. In Western society, we are uncomfortable with silence. So what happens when you have a traditional Asian person, Japanese person and a traditional Western American meet in an elevator, the Western American says, so are you enjoying your time here in New York City?

The Asian person or Japanese person closes their eyes and folds their hands and the American person says, I said, are you enjoying your time here in New York City? Did you hear what I said? Because we are not comfortable with silence. We haven't been raised with silence.

We don't understand the purpose of silence. In the Christian church, we made the mistake of thinking that for God to be working, there has to be noise. And God's people all over the Western world have been running for the last two decades to places to shake, to shout, to scream, whatever, everywhere or anywhere that there's noise because we're so unfamiliar with the way God actually works.

And we're so alienated from the presence and the Spirit of God. Remember in the book of Isaiah, I'm just going to read it to you please for time's sake. But in Isaiah chapter 30, here's what God said to his people.

And it was in a time of crisis. And he said, for thus says the Lord God, that's Isaiah 30 beginning at verse 15, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest you shall be saved in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. In coming back to me and simply resting in my faithfulness, this would be your strength. Then he says to the people, but you would not. You said, no, we'll flee on horses. He said, therefore you shall flee. In other words, we got to wait.

We know how this should be done. We have a plan. So we're going to go and we're going to do something with our own strength, by our own ingenuity. And he said, no, we'll flee on horses. He said, therefore you will flee. And they said, we will ride on swift horses. And then he said, therefore those who pursue you will be swift.

A thousand will flee at the threat of one and the threat of five you shall flee. Till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain and as a banner on a hill. In other words, if you want to do it your own way, God says, go ahead, do it your own way until there's nowhere else to go but to the high ground.

Until you have nowhere left to go but back to Calvary again, back to the place of the cross, back to where the real victory has been won. And he says, therefore the Lord will wait that he may be gracious to you. And therefore he will be exalted that he may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice and blessed are all those who wait for him. God says, okay, try it your own way. Do it your own way to find peace in the middle of your storm.

Run if you must run here, run there, do this, do that. I'll wait for you. I'll be at the place of victory. And when you have nowhere left to go but the cross, I will meet you there and I will show you mercy there.

Isn't that amazing? I thank God for that with all my heart. In Psalm 46, I'm going to close with this one thought. The Psalmist says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried in the midst of the sea, though the waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling. God is in the midst of her.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Come behold the works of the Lord who has made desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two.

He burns the chariot in the fire. Then he says at the end of Psalm 46, it's speaking of a time of global upheaval, really. He says, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our refuge. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Now we know there's a final day where he returns and sets everything back in its right order.

But until that day, he is exalted through his people. So the exhortation is be still, be still. How do I pray when nothing seems to be going on inside? Well, first of all, something is going on inside.

You just can't hear it. The carvers are carving. The painters are painting. The cedar boards are being put up.

The stones are being slid into place. But you see, you can't hear it because the work of God is done in times of quietness and confidence. The work of God is done in times of stillness. A hundred and fifty eight times in the Old Testament, God exhorts us to trust in him.

Trust me. Thank you for joining us this week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. You can count on a powerful message each week on A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.