A few extra copies of the lesson for tonight.
Does anybody need a copy of that?
There he is. You're my lesson Pastor Robert.
Anybody needs going to raise your hand.
He'll he'll get you and raise it high.
He's a little short. All right, I'm going to have you
turn to two places tonight and we are on page 57 if you are
looking for that in your book. And that is the lesson on
prayer. And it's short, but boy, I tell
you what, there's so much that we could talk about.
We could literally spend a night on every one or two points.
But turn to Matthew chapter 6 and Luke Chapter 11.
We have a lot of verses that we're going to look at tonight.
But if you have a bookmark or a ribbon in your Bible, then put
those put put those in Matthew 6 and Luke 11.
Those are the ones that we're going to be kind of in the most.
So anybody else need a copy of the lesson?
Good. All right, Chuck, got a couple
over here since you have some extra ones.
Macy, there you go. Everybody got one that needs
one. All right, Lily and Tori, we got
a few extras. So all right, very, very, very
important topic. And obviously this is a
discipleship course. We are learning the importance
of the, the order of things in the Christian life and the
things that that are that really matter.
And we've talked a lot about obviously, that the most
important thing in the Christian life is salvation and making
sure that you know that you're saved.
And of course, the eternal security that comes along with
that, the baptism that comes after that to show people that
you are saved. And then, of course, the the
next steps is what we're going to be doing for the rest of our
lives. And that is our Christian walk,
that is, that is walking in our faith, walking and, and growing
in our spirituality, growing in our, in our, in our relationship
with Christ. And we talked a lot about those
different things, But one of the huge aspects that's going to
help us and, and really Christian growth and spiritual
victory. Those are the four lessons that
we went over. And there was so much in there.
And, and honestly, we could call the rest of this book Christian
growth and spiritual victory because that's what all of it
is, you know, so these are just different aspects of that.
How do you have victory in your Christian life?
You've got to pray. You've got to pray.
How do you grow in your Christian life?
You've got to pray. But there's a lot of things in
our lives that are hindrances to prayer.
There are a lot of things, obviously, that keep us from
doing that because the devil, the last thing that he wants is
for us to be talking to our Heavenly Father.
The last thing that he wants is for us to come boldly before the
throne of grace and bring those requests for help with our
Christian walk and our spiritual victory.
And those are all things that we can do in prayer.
Nothing in the Christian life is more important than prayer.
There are more than 500 references to prayer in the
Bible, which is why I say that we could spend, we could spend
weeks talking about this and we could, we could spend a whole
year preaching messages on prayer and we still would not
exhaust everything that there is in the Bible about prayer.
Prayer changes things and nothing is changed.
Without prayer, no one will be saved, no sermon will be
blessed, no marriage will be victorious.
No child is going to turn out right.
No church is going to stay in God's will.
And you could add 100 other things to that list without
prayer. It's, it is the key.
It is the key that unlocks everything in God's Word.
It's the key that unlocks the the door to that spiritual
victory in our lives. You can measure your spiritual
state, if you will, by how much you pray.
And only you know that really only you really know how much
you pray. But you can measure where you
are spiritually by how much you pray.
And you might consider yourself to be a spiritual person, you
might consider yourself to be right with God, and you might
have some spiritual victories from time to time in your life.
And you may not have spiritual failures the way that maybe you
used to have them. But you measure your spiritual
growth, you measure your Christianity by how much you
pray. And so we have to learn to pray.
Luke Chapter 11. Well, let's, let's, let's go
there first and, and we're going to be back and forth, like I
said, between Luke 11 and Matthew 6.
It came to pass as he was praying in a certain place.
Who is the he there? Jesus, right?
If anybody didn't need to pray, it would be Jesus.
He's God, right? He, he know, he knew what he was
going to pray and he knew what the answer to his prayer was
going to be before he prayed it. He was God, right?
If anybody did not need to pray, it was Jesus.
The purpose of prayer is not to get things from God.
If the purpose of prayer was to get things from God, Jesus never
would have needed to do it right.
If the purpose of prayer was to ask for God's blessing and to
get it, if it was to ask for God's power and to get it, then
why did Jesus need to pray? He had all of those things
already. He was 100% God, and yet he
still prayed and not just prayed a couple times.
He prayed in agony. He prayed all night.
He he prayed in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights.
He fasted and prayed in the wilderness.
If if Jesus needed to pray, how much more do we need to pray?
And I've said this many times that that prayer logically
doesn't really make all that much sense if you're looking at
prayer as something that you do only to get things from God,
right? Prayer, the, the, the, the
blessing of prayer is not that we get a lot of things from God
when we pray. It's that we're made very
different people when we pray. That's the blessing of prayer.
And prayer is, yes, part of that is asking God for things.
We need his power, we need his his presence.
We need the, the things that he can provide for us.
And, and we're going to look at that.
I mean, give us this day, Our Daily Bread is asking for a
request from God, right? But prayer is a relationship
with God, and prayer is a conversation with God.
And prayer is something that we do not just because we're trying
to get things from him, but because we're trying to
fellowship with him. And that's the difference.
It came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place, when
he seized, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to
pray as John also taught his disciples.
I think that's very interesting, but we have to learn to pray.
Prayer is acknowledging our inability and casting ourselves
upon God. It is obtaining mercy and
finding grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16 says that that we may come boldly
before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. That's Hebrews 416.
So to be effective, prayer needs to have the following simple but
essential elements. And there's probably more that
could be added to this list. We're given 9 things in this
list here, and these are the ones that we're going to look at
and discuss tonight. So #1 prayer must be Worshipful.
We just read Luke Chapter 11 and verse #1 And so Jesus after the
disciples asked him how to pray, teach us to pray.
He says this. He said unto them, when ye pray,
say our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come, thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth.
Now if you go back to Matthew chapter 6, we have almost the
exact it's not the exact same words, but it's the same prayer.
And, and, and this was the idea of prayer being a Worshipful was
emphasized by Jesus in the model prayer.
Now I don't like to call it the Lord's Prayer.
This is the model prayer. He's not saying and, and how
many people, you know, they sit down and they, they clasp their
hands together like this and they say, our Father, which art
in heaven hallowed be. But it wasn't that Jesus was
saying pray these words when you pray.
It's not, it's not the Lord's Prayer that he says pray this
prayer. He is teaching us how to pray.
And if you look in, in Luke Chapter 11, that's exactly what
they asked him to do. Lord teach us to pray.
And so he teaches them to pray. And there's a lot of elements in
in this prayer. But I noticed this in Matthew
chapter 6 and verse #5 And when thou prayest, he doesn't say.
If he says, when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the
hypocrites are. For they love to pray standing
in the synagogue and in the corners of the streets, that
they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you that they
have their reward. But what thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret, And thy Father
would see us in secret, shall reward thee openly.
There's a place of prayer. You have to have a place, you
have to have a place where you pray and it could be in your
office, it could be at the couch when the kids are at school,
could be in the car. Because many times, you know,
people have a commute and they have an opportunity and a time
when they can pray and they're alone with God.
And hopefully you're awake and hopefully you're not falling
asleep. You know, I mean, that's, that's
one way to stay awake while you pray is to drive while you're
doing it, right? Either that or it puts you to
sleep while you're driving. So I don't know which ones
worse, but The thing is you have to have a place to pray and if
you if you want to be a willing Co worker with God, then you
must pray. But notice this prayer must be
Worshipful. And if you go back to Luke
Chapter 11, he says, our Father, which art in heaven hallowed be
thy name. Now obviously God is is in
heaven. It's it's where he came from and
where he went back to. That's where Jesus is AT.
And we pray in Jesus name because those are things that we
believe that that, that, that God the father.
And that's what the Bible says that we may come boldly before
the throne of grace to obtain help, to obtain mercy and find
help in time of need. But our Father, which art in
heaven now obviously that that automatically assumes that
you're his child, right. If I regard iniquity in my
heart, the Lord will not hear me.
Somebody who is not saved has iniquity in their heart that has
never been forgiven. God cannot hear the prayer of
somebody who is not his child and it's it's not an act
everyone. I don't want to take time to go
through the entire thing tonight.
But and this what I'm saying, there's so much that we could
talk about when it comes to prayer, but this is the model.
This is the model prayer. These are these are all elements
that we should have when we pray our Father, that's relationship.
Our Father, that's a relationship that we have with
him. Which art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name. That's reverence.
That is that is beginning our
prayer with worship. Hallowed means holy, our Father,
which art in heaven, holy is your name, right?
That is giving God the reverence that is due to him.
That's praising God for who he is.
That is exalting God for who he is and and what he's done for
us, right? But that's that's reverence.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth.
Give us this day or give us day by day, Our Daily Bread.
That's a little bit different in Matthew, but that's that's a
request, right? And forgive us our sins.
That's repentance, for we also forgive everyone that is
indebted to us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us
from evil. That's restoration.
There's so much. There's so much in that prayer.
There's so many things there that we can that we can pull out
and that we can that we can look at when it comes to what our
prayers should be structured like.
And when you come to God, you recognize God for who He is.
You recognize yourself for who you are, boy, A whole lot could
be accomplished if we would put God in the place that He belongs
in, and we'd put ourselves in the place that we belong in.
Many times we have far too low a view of God, and many times we
have far too high of a view of ourselves.
And we show up to pray, demanding that God give us these
things. You know, all these things that
people are declaring. I declare this, I declare that.
Who are you to declare what God is supposed to do and what God
should do for you? We can ask Him, but we ask in
reference, we ask with, with the idea that this is the holy God
that we are coming to. Which, by the way, you ought not
to make a joke about prayer, right?
Prayer is not a joke. You are coming before the holy
God, the God of the universe, the thrice holy God, and you're
coming to ask him for things and, and, and, and tell him
about things. But I think all of our prayers
should start off with Thanksgiving, right?
It should start off with recognizing who God is and
telling God that we understand who we are.
Right. I mean, you would never.
And we use the the idea of the president of the United States
because many times we look at him as the most important
person, at least in the US, if not in the world.
How would you approach him if you were going to ask him for
something, You know, if you had a request, if you had something
that was very serious and something that was very
important to you and something that was very necessary.
I've got to have this answer. Well, I've got to see this come
through. And if it, the only way that
this is going to work is if the president of the United States
come through and answers this request.
Do you think you're going to show up and just be half hearted
about it, falling asleep while you're talking to him?
Do you think you're going to joke about his position and who
he is and all of those things? No, you're, you're going to
approach him and you're going to say you're the president of the
United States and you're the only one that can do this for me
right now. And I need you to do this.
Please understand that I, I cannot, we cannot make this
happen without you, right? I mean, that's what you would do
if you're approaching the president of the United States,
right? And yet we approach the God of
the universe. And many times we demand things
from God. God, do this for me.
You're God do this for me, right?
Or again, we just show up half awake.
Not, you know, not, not not engaged mentally or physically,
right when we approach God, prayer must be Worshipful.
But then #2 prayer must be confessional.
Psalm 6618, somebody quote it. If I, the Lord will not hear me
right, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear
me. That's prayer must be
confessional. Let's turn over to 1st John
chapter 3. Now you know, first John 19.
Let's quote first John 19. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. Now that's a great verse.
It doesn't necessarily talk about prayer or our prayers
being hindered, but first John chapter 3 does.
So first John chapter 3, and I know you got a notebook in your
hand and a pen, but turn to as many of these verses as you can.
First John chapter 3 and verse #20 For if our heart condemn us,
God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then we have count.
Then have we confidence toward God, and whatsoever we ask, we
receive of Him. What is that prayer, right?
Whatsoever we ask, we receive, because we keep His commandments
and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
So how do you get the things that you want from God through
prayer? How do you get them?
What does this verse say? Keep His commandments and do the
things that are pleasing to Him, right?
That is doing right. And so if we're going to do
right, then obviously that means we have to confess the things
that we've done wrong if we're going to approach God.
Luke Chapter 11. Hopefully you have a bookmark
there and you can turn back to it quickly.
Look at this is one of the elements of the model prayer,
right? Verse #4 what does He say?
And forgive us our sins, right? That is one of the aspects of
the model prayer. We ought, man.
What's the point of praying if God cannot even hear your
prayers? You could spend an hour on your
knees. You could be alert.
You can be awake and you can be engaged, and you can be serious,
and you can be begging God for things, and you can feel like
you're having a great conversation with God.
And if you have iniquity in your heart, guess what we say it
bounces off the ceiling. What we mean by that is it's
just the echo and that's it, right?
It's only as far as your voice can travel.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear
me. So that's why this is one of the
aspects of the model prayer. And forgive us our sins.
God, I want to be clean. I want to be right.
I want my prayer to be effective.
So I'm coming to you and I'm asking you for these things, but
I want you to know that I want my heart to be right with you
while I'm doing it. So we come to God through
confession of our sins. By this means we obtain mercy
and we can pray with a good conscience and our prayers can
have free course with God. This is such a huge aspect of
prayer. Yes, we have to come recognizing
who God is and who we're talking to, but we have to be clean
before Him. Could you imagine if you're a
kid stole something right in front of you and you call them
out on it and you punished them for it and they didn't feel bad
about it. They turned around and they
stole something out of the, you know, stole something right in
front of you again. And then they come and they have
the audacity to ask you for something, right.
Maybe I shouldn't tell you this story, but I'm going to anyway.
We had a, we used to, we used to sell candy and as a fundraiser
for our school and, and we used to get out during school.
We, they would give us a couple weeks of candy sale.
And as long as you were selling candy, you didn't have to be to
school. So guess what?
Everybody did, at least they said they were selling candy.
I don't know if they did, but most of them did.
And so we had, we had partners and we would go, you know, we
would go out in groups with the teachers and things and they
would take us out. And some of the guys were less
than honest, let's just put it that way.
But one, one of the one of my friends that was, he went into
an office and we used to go into office complexes and we would,
you know, talk to the receptionist and, you know, see
if she would be willing to go ask anybody else if they wanted
to buy some candy. And so, you know, a lot of these
places and you go in and you see them, they have a little candy
jar sitting there on the on the counter.
And so he asked the lady if she wanted to buy some candy.
And I don't know if she bought any candy or not, but he said,
would you be willing to just go back there and ask if anybody
else wants to buy some? And she said, yeah, I'll go back
there and ask. So she turns around and goes to
the back. And he took the candy dish and
dumped the entire thing in his bag and left two pieces in the
jar. And she came back out and she
said, yeah, unfortunately, nobody else wants to buy any
candy. And he said, would you mind if I
have a piece of candy out of that bowl?
That's exactly what this is like.
Right, You're going to sin and then you're going to come back
and ask God for something. And I mean, we laugh because
it's kind of a funny story, but it's wrong, you know?
And then to have the audacity after you just stole everything
to ask them for something else, right?
But that's what we do with God when we come to God with sin in
our hearts, we sin, we sin, we sin.
And then we say, oh, I know we did that, but would you mind
giving me this? This is something that I really
need. This is something that I've got
to have. Can you please give that to me?
Well, God knows that you took all of it already, right?
God knows that you have sin in your heart.
And he already said, if you have iniquity, I'm not going to hear
you. And yet we have the audacity to
pretend that we can bring our request before God and he's
going to listen to them. The audacity that we have to, to
presume upon God in that way. And so one of the huge aspects
of prayer is that we must come to God confessing our sins #3
prayer must be earnest. James chapter 5 and verse 16.
What is the last half of that verse say?
The effectual, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much the effectual what prayer?
Fervent prayer. Let's turn over to Colossians
chapter 4. Colossians chapter 4.
See, This is why it's important for you to memorize Bible
verses. Colossians chapter 4 verse #12
Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you.
Here's the here's the key here. Always laboring fervently for
you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in
all the will of God. What does laboring fervently
mean? That's agonizing in prayer,
isn't it? Earnest, hasty, half hearted,
distracted. Praying is not very effective.
Do you know that the devil is going to do everything he can to
distract you while you're praying?
He's going to make you think about everything that you have
to do today. He's going to make you think
about everything that happened yesterday.
He's going to do everything that he can to distract you while
you're talking to God. So what do you do?
Prepare for it, Prepare for it. You know he's going to do it.
Be prepared for the distractions, right?
One of the ways that or one of the things that I do when I
pray, I have AI have a piece of paper with a pen right there,
because I've had it happen way too many times where I I'm
praying and I think, oh man, I completely forgot about that.
I've got to do that right now or I'm going to forget again,
right? No, I don't have to do it right
now. I'm having a conversation with
the God of the universe. What I can do right now is just
take that pen, write it down real quick and completely forget
about it and keep going because now I know they're not going to
forget it again. I don't have to do it right this
minute. I'm talking to God.
All right, could you imagine? Again, let's use the president
of the United States. You finally get an audience with
him and you're sitting there talking to him and you say, oh,
you know what? I completely excuse me, I got to
send an e-mail real quick. I'll be right back, right?
You're not going to do that to the president of the United
States while you're sitting there with him.
You've got an audience with the president, right?
And yet somehow we have such a low view of God that we don't
have any problem interrupting our conversations with him.
And we'll send an e-mail if we have to send an e-mail, or we'll
start looking through different things that we need to look
through, or we'll go do this, or we'll go do that.
And, well, I'll get to my praying later.
And usually what happens is you never get back to it.
The devil is going to try to distract you.
Prepare for it. Whatever distractions you have
while you pray, you know what those distractions are.
That's the biggest distraction that I have is remembering
things that I've got to do. So prepare for it.
Put a pen and a piece of paper there and just write it down and
come back to it when your prayer time is done, right.
So to be effective in prayer, that prayer must be earnest.
And it's hard to have an earnest prayer if we allow ourselves to
be distracted over and over and over and over and over while we
pray #4 prayer must be regular. Let's turn over to Romans
chapter 1, Romans chapter 1. And this is, this is obviously
Paul talking. And there's a lot of verses that
we're going to look at here that are, that are all verses that
are Paul asking for intercessory prayer, basically.
But Romans chapter 1 and verse #9 For God is my witness, whom I
serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without
ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers.
This is the Church at Rome, right?
Do you think that he only did that for the Church at Rome, or
do you think he did that for all the other churches?
Well, I know he did because he told them He prayed for them.
And do you think he's just saying it?
Do you think he says, oh, I'm praying for you and then didn't
actually pray for them? No, he said very plainly.
I am making mention of you always in my prayers.
I'm praying for you without ceasing.
That is regular prayer. And so the believer needs to
establish a daily prayer time during which he meets with the
Lord and prays for himself and others.
Intercessory prayer is praying for others.
Paul did it so often, right? You ought to have people on your
prayer list that you pray for every single day.
People that you know, need to be saved, people that you know need
to be strengthened, people that you know need that, that are,
that are, that are even doing what's right and just, you know,
the devil is going to attack them.
You know, the devil's coming after them.
Pray for him. I have a list of of pastors, a
list of churches that I pray for almost every day because I know
the devil's coming after him. And we don't need less churches.
It doesn't make me happy to find out that another pastor fell.
You know, there's a lot of a lot of people who love the gossip
side of that thing. Oh, did you hear what happened
to this guy? I can't believe he did that.
And they love the fact that somebody fell because it gives
them something else to talk about that doesn't help the
cause of Christ. Pray for them that they don't
fall, right? That's it's so important.
And, and by the way, when you say that you're going to pray
for somebody, you better do it. Hey, I'll be praying for you or
Hey, I've been praying for you. How many times people say that
and never breathe the word and pray for that person.
It's just a phrase that we say. It's a, it's a good Christian
phrase to use. I'll be praying for you.
All right. How many times have you said
that and then not prayed for the person you said you were going
to pray for, All right? Or how many times have you told
somebody, oh, I've been praying for you and you never prayed for
them. You just lied to them because
you're trying to make them feel good.
All right. But that's what intercessory
prayer is. It's regular prayer for
yourself, but for others. And that's what Paul is saying.
I cease not to pray for you, always making mention of you in
my prayers. That is regular prayer and
that's effective prayer, right? That's that's prayer that's
going to be effective. Turn over to Ephesians chapter 6
because #5 prayer must be watchful.
Prayer must be watchful. Ephesians chapter 6 is the, is
the chapter about what the armor of God Chapter 6 talks about
that a little bit at the beginning.
Chapter 5 really is more about family.
It moves into children in the beginning, but the armor of God,
right? That's that's put on the whole
armor of God, that you can stand against the Wiles of the devil
and stand against the fiery darts of the wicked and
everything else. But later on in that passage in
verse #18 right after it gets done, talking about all the
armor, he says this praying always with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all
perseverance and supplication for the Saints.
So prayer must be watchful. And again, it's kind of the same
point as what we just talked about in #4 but that refers to
intercessory prayer because by prayer we can watch over the
spiritual lives of others. You ought to be praying for your
wife. You ought to be praying for your
husband. You ought to be praying for your
children. You think that your kids are
just going to grow up and magically live for the Lord
because you're a great parent, because you have all the answers
and you know how to do it. I don't.
They're only going to live for the Lord if you're praying for
them and praying with them. We, we get together every
morning before the, before the kids walk out the door and we
stand together in a circle and we pray together and we do it at
night in our in our, in our family devotions.
And many times it's my wife that's leading those because I'm
doing other things and I'm not there.
It's, it's the wife has to do it when the husband is not there.
But you're, you're working together and you're praying
together with your, with your spouse.
You're praying together with your children, you're praying
for those things. That's the only way that we're
going to see God's blessing on those things.
You know, it's just not going to happen by accident.
So we have to be watchful in prayer.
And that that means that's referring to intercessory
prayer. And that's the exact term that
Paul uses, watching thereunto with all perseverance and
supplication for All Saints. So then right along with that is
that prayer must be persistent. What is First Thessalonians 517?
Pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing.
Let's turn over to Colossians chapter 4.
What is pray without ceasing mean?
And I know we, we, you know, we kind of make a little joke about
it. And does that mean you got to
walk around on your knees all the time and, and your eyes have
to be closed all the time because you're praying and you
don't stop praying? Not exactly.
But a form of that, you ought to be having a conversation all day
long with God, right? We do it all day long with
ourselves. You talk to yourself all day
long, right? And sometimes you get caught.
Most of the times you hope and you don't.
You say something out loud and you start looking around to see
if anybody heard you, right? But that's what praying without
ceasing is. That's having that conversation
with God. Everything that comes up in your
life, you ought to be praying about it.
Everybody that God brings to mind, you ought to be praying
for them. It's, it's, it's a habit that
you have to develop. It's, it's not something, again,
it's not something that's just going to happen by accident,
right? The same way that you don't even
have to think about how to tie your shoes anymore because
you've done it so many times, right?
There's a lot of things that you do that you get done and you
just, you think, I don't even remember doing that, right?
You ever been driving down the road and you realize that you're
pulling into your driveway and you don't even remember how you
got there, right? Because you've done that so many
times that you don't even have to think about it anymore.
You can space out a little bit and you still end up where
you're supposed to be, right? That's the way that praying
ought to be with us. Not, not that you're spacing out
and don't even realize you're doing it, but that it should be.
It should be something that you do so often that you don't even
think about it, right? You just bring it to God, right?
And, and how many times do do you have things that come up
during the day that you worry about?
Just give it to God, right? It's it.
You're his, you're his child. He's promised that all things
are going to work together for good to them that love God to
them who are the called according to his purpose.
Why are you spending time worrying about it?
You wake up in the middle of the night and you start thinking
about all the things that you have to do or all the things
that are crashing down on you give it to God and go to sleep.
It's his right? I mean, and it is their habits
that have to be developed. You wake up in the middle of the
night and you should start praying.
All right, That's the easiest way to fall back asleep.
Pray. I mean, it sounds funny, but
that's, I mean, I do it all the time.
I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm, I'm, I'm laying
there, I'm wide awake and I'm like, why am I wide awake?
I don't know. I'm just going to start praying
for things that God brings to mind.
And the next thing you know, I'm waking up in the morning.
You know, I don't know, I don't even remember falling asleep.
I fell back asleep praying. All right, That's, that's,
that's what praying without ceasing is.
It's it's a habit that you form over the course of really of a
lifetime. But just bringing everything to
God, God brings your kids to mind, you pray for them.
God brings a person in the church to mind, you pray for
them. God brings a Co worker to mind.
That's not saved. You pray for them.
God, somebody comes to you and, and needs some help and need
some advice. And as they're talking, you're
praying, you're asking God to give you wisdom.
And the best way to answer this person that's talking to you
about whatever it is, I mean, that is what praying without
ceasing is. You should be in a constant
conversation with God. And that's that's what we're
talking about when we say that prayer must be persistent.
Colossians chapter 4 and verse 2 continue in prayer and watching
the same with Thanksgiving. It's one of the most important
aspects of effectual prayer and it's often emphasized in the
Scripture. And Jesus taught 2 parables to
emphasize the importance of persistence in prayer.
One is the unjust judge in Luke chapter 18.
And, and we'll skip that one for tonight just for the sake of
time, but let's go back to Luke 11.
You should be close to that because you have a bookmark
there. So right after Jesus gets done
telling them the model prayer and what it should be, he moves
into this story here and tells him of a parable.
He said unto them, verse #5 Which of you shall have a
friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him,
Friend, lend ME3 loaves. For a friend of mine in his
journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.
And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not.
The door is now shut, and my children are in bed.
Are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give thee, I
say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is
his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and
give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, ask, and it
shall be given unto you, seek, and ye shall find knock, and it
shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh
receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, unto him that knocketh,
it shall be opened. That is what is importunity.
It's persistence. It's just continually coming
over and over and over and over to God.
He says, you know you, you, you go and knock on the door at your
friend's house and you say, Hey, I need some bread.
I've got a friend that I wasn't expecting and all the stores are
closed and I need some bread. He said, man, it's midnight, I'm
sleeping, come back later. He said he's not going to
necessarily give you the bread because he's your friend.
He's going to give you the bread because you keep knocking and
he's tired of hearing you knock and he's going to finally say
take all the bread you want, right?
Just leave me alone. I'm sleeping.
But it's the importunity, right? I've said that to my kids
before. They keep asking me and asking
me, dad, can I have this? Can I have this?
Fine, Eat it and eat the box
that it's in too. I mean, take it all whatever
right, because of importunity, right?
And, and and this is Jesus saying that exact same thing.
He's given the illustration of keep coming.
He's telling you how it come to him, right?
You ask and you knock and you seek and you keep coming and you
keep coming. That's how you get what you want
from God, the same way that that's how you get what you want
from your friend. Keep coming to him and keep
asking him. Keep begging him.
That's what God wants from us. And how many times we pray once
or twice or three times and we don't see an answer.
We say God doesn't care about me.
God doesn't even he's probably not even listening to me.
He doesn't even know that I'm going through this.
He doesn't even care. No, he's waiting for you to be
persistent and keep coming and keep coming and keep coming.
And many times we probably stop the day before he was going to
give us the answer, but we stopped.
We gave up. You know, you've heard the
stories of of praying hide. Now he's known for his prayer.
He prayed for somebody for 50 years to be saved.
And that guy that he prayed for got saved at his funeral.
Isn't that an amazing thing? Don't give up.
Don't don't give up. For everyone that asketh
receiveth. And he that seeketh findeth unto
him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
Make it a habit as much as breathing.
Wake up in the middle of the night, pray you find yourself
with some time in the middle of the day, pray, talk to someone
about something that's going on in their life.
You pray, you ask God. That's what persistent prayer is
number 7 and this is important and we could I, I would love to
preach an entire message on this, but first Peter chapter 3
because this is so important. First Peter, chapter 3.
Prayer must flow from a sound husband and wife relationship.
When a marriage is not working. And sometimes, probably many
times, most people don't even know if the marriage is working
or not, right? Because you're able to keep it
behind closed doors. You're able to hide it from
everybody else. Sometimes it's out in the open
and everybody knows that your marriage is not good.
But when you have a husband and wife relationship that is not
working, I can promise you that one or both are not praying.
You're not praying because this is exactly what the Bible says.
First, Peter chapter 3 and verse #7 likewise he husbands.
And by the way, the responsibility to get all of
these things right falls on the husband.
Now the wife has to respond, but it's, it's the responsibility of
the husband to be the one that reaches out first, right?
You're at an impasse. Well, I'm not doing this.
Well, I'm not doing that either. So I guess we're just going to
agree to disagree and we're just going to go on with our life.
And when neither one of us will pray and our relationship will
not be right and nothing's going to be right, right, Who's who,
Who's the first one to crack? Who's the first one to to to to
say chicken right should be the husband.
It's a husband's responsibility to lead his wife.
Likewise he husbands and this is given to husbands.
Now to talk about all the first Peter chapter 3.
This is all about wives submitting themselves to their
husbands. The whole 1st 1st 6 verses,
right? Verse 6 even as Sarah obeyed
Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as you
do well and are not afraid with any amazement.
But that's all about wives and, and how they handle themselves
and, and verse #1 says that wife should be in subjection to their
own husband. So it goes both ways, right?
It's it goes both ways. The wife should be in subjection
to her husband. The husband says this is what
we're going to do. The wife does not say no, this
is not what we're going to do. I'm going to do this right?
That's that. And that's why when you said
your marriage vows, if you had a pastor who was who actually had
a little bit of a backbone, he put to love, honor, cherish and
obey till death do us part, right?
There's I've seen videos of people who have done that before
to love, to honor, to cherish, to love, to honor, cherish and
to obey. I'm not saying that right, but
that's, that's the job of the wife, right?
And that's exactly what the Bible says.
So verse 7 though, is 2 husbands, likewise you husbands
dwell with them, your wife according to knowledge, giving
honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being
heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not
hindered. That's important.
You don't have the right husband and wife relationship.
And you think that you're just going to waltz into the presence
of God and ask him for things and think that God's going to
answer those prayers. Think again.
The wife should be in subjection to the husband.
The husband should treat the wife with honor and respect or
their praise are going to be hindered.
And that's an important, important part of it.
The husband that does not treat his wife right after a godly
fashion will not have power with God in prayer.
And I can say this, he is probably almost 100% not praying
at all. Not only is he not going to have
power with God in prayer, he's probably not praying at all.
We could talk a lot about that. That's a very, very important
thing. But we'll move on to #8 prayer
should be in association with others.
And we'll just, we'll run through these verses quickly.
Romans chapter 15 and verse #30 and these are all, these are
all. I might skip a couple of these
because they're all essentially the same type of verse.
Philippians chapter 15 and verse #30 Now I beseech you, brethren,
for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love of the Spirit,
that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.
And 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 11, Colossians 4,
three First Thessalonians 525, Second Thessalonians 31, they
all are very similar to this verse.
Paul constantly was asking other believers to pray for him if
he's, if he saw the need for that, being an apostle and
having seen the Lord face to face, how much more do we need
it? He said, brethren, pray for us.
That's what one of those verses says.
Brethren, pray for us. In her conversations with me
about prayer, my grandmother emphasized that having others
pray with you about special needs is effectual.
Why do you think we have a prayer list on Wednesday night?
It's so that other people can pray for the needs that we have,
right? Why?
Why is it important when you're struggling spiritually to pull
somebody aside and say, hey, would you pray with me?
I'm having the I'm struggling with this, or I have this issue,
or these are some things that I'm dealing with in my family.
Would you pray with me about these things?
Because there is power. There is power in, in mutual
prayer, people praying together about those things.
Turn over to Matthew chapter 6 and we'll be done #9 Prayer
should be combined with fasting at times.
And most of you, if you've been here for any length of time,
have taken part in that. There's some things that that
we're going to do in the area of prayer that I think are going to
be very helpful for us. Some things that I'm going to
introduce to you, but one of the one of the things that we can
and should be doing a whole lot more of is fasting and praying
and, and Jesus is Matthew chapter 6 is what somebody tell
me what Matthew chapter 6 is in Sermon on the Mount, right?
Matthew 5-6 and seven. Jesus is just hitting almost
every topic you can think of, right?
He's just, it's like a shotgun sermon.
It's, it's everything. Oh, and by the way, and oh, by
the way, and by the way, and he comes to verse #16 and he says,
moreover, when you fast, because obviously Matthew chapter 6, we
were just, we just read some of those verses 5 through 15 is
basically all part of the model prayer.
And he says, oh, and by the way, moreover, when you fast, be not
as hypocrites. And now notice what He says He
didn't say. If he says when, he just
automatically assumes that you're going to do it when you
fast. Be not as the hypocrites of a
sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they
may appear on the men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. We'll read those verses in a
minute. But this reminds me when we were
working on this building and Josh was actually in the middle
of doing the, the keto diet and he lost a lot of weight doing
it, but everybody knew that he was on the keto diet.
We were, we had a bunch of snacks out here that we were
eating M&M's and animal cracker. I mean, we're here at 12:00,
1/2, 3:00 in the morning working on this building because we only
had a certain amount of time and, and I was Josh here, eat
something. You're making me feel, you know,
like, like, like I'm weak because he's walking around like
this. It was 2:00 in the morning.
He's like, I have no energy. Yeah.
And he wasn't fasting because he was praying, but but he was
fasting doing the keto. This.
That's that's what the Bible is talking about.
When you, when you're fasting because you're praying, you
don't walk around and let everybody know.
Oh, I'm so hungry. I'm fasting right now because
I'm having some things that I need to pray about, but I'm so
hungry. I would love to eat something
right now. Oh, that hamburger looks so
good. I would love to eat that, but
I'm fasting right now, right? And that's that's you're not
doing it because you're trying to get attention.
You're doing it because you're trying to get God's attention,
right. And that's that's part of the
when you enter your closet and you pray, do those things in
secret and you leave it up to God to reward you openly if
that's what he wants to do right.
But then he says this verse 17 But thou, when thou fastest
anoint thine head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto
men to fast, but unto thy father which is in secret, and thy
father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
Boy, fasting is something that is so underutilized, I think in
Christianity. Part of it is because we're so
fat that we can't skip a meal, you know, and we're so wrapped
up in food that we can't skip a meal to pray.
But this is what God is saying. You want to get God's attention,
you go into your closet and you fast and you pray, and God will
reward you openly. He'll give you the things that
you're asking for. Now we skip a couple of verses
up to Matthew chapter 17 and verse #21 Jesus is talking to
and the Bible says verse #14 A certain man came and said, he
don't have mercy on my son. He's he's a lunatic.
He's fallen in the fire, He's fallen in the water, all these
different things. And Jesus cast the demons out of
him. And his disciples came to him
afterwards and they said, what did you do different?
We tried he, this guy came to us and we tried to cast the demons
out of we couldn't cast the demons out of this guy.
What, what did you do? Verse #21 Now actually verse 20
Jesus tells them, If you have faith as a grain of a mustard
seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to Yonder
place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto
you. Verse 21 Howbeit this kind goeth
not out, but by prayer and fasting.
There are some things, some answers, that we are only going
to get from God when we fast and pray.
And it takes a lot. It takes a lot to fast and pray
instead of eating, you're on your knees begging God for
whatever it is. You know, you, you have some
kids that that may not be living for the Lord you, you have some
some things that you're dealing with in your own life.
Fasting and praying is sometimes the only way that you're going
to see an answer to that. And he tells a story here.
My maternal grandmother, Julia Pollack, was the first person
that ever talked to me about fasting, referring to Matthew
617 and 18. She told me that she had proven
this promise several times in her life.
On one occasion, her husband, who was a Deacon in a Baptist
Church and who had not taken a drink of liquor since before
their marriage, got a job working on a roof with one of
his old drinking buddies. He eventually allowed himself to
be talking to having just one drink.
The one drink turned into many and they got so RIP roaring
drunk that they began singing loudly and throwing tools off
the roof. The police were called in and
they were hauled off to jail. Julia had to get Deacon Pollock
out of the slammer. He was deeply remorseful and
promised her that he would never do it again, and he stood before
the church and apologized profusely and was forgiven by
the congregation. She was deeply shocked by this
event, though, and was afraid that he might fall again,
remembering that both her father and her husband's father were
drunkards. So she determined to fast and
pray until she was assured of his complete victory over this
evil. I don't think she told me how
long she fasted, but it was many days.
She would cook her delicious meals and when it was time for
breakfast, lunch or supper, Monroe would say to her, come
on, Juliet, let's eat a mouthful.
And she would reply, don't worry about me, Monroe.
Finally she had peace in her heart that God was going to give
him the victory. And she ended her fast and he
never touched a drop of liquor again in his life.
None of her boys ever drank either.
That's one of those things that cometh not out but by prayer and
fasting, right? I think it's one of the things
that that American Christianity has missed out on so much
because we, we've gotten so comfortable with, with American
Christianity that we can just, you know, we don't need God
unless we want him and we don't need answers to prayer unless we
want it because we have everything.
You know, some of these people in, in, in these foreign
countries that don't have much that I'll tell you, they know
how to pray and you hear them get up and you can't even tell
what they're saying because they're speaking a different
language a lot of times. But they are you can tell
they're getting a hold of God. And it's, it's the people who
have learned these things, these principles that really know how
to pray. Boy, I tell you just just just
over the next couple weeks, right.
And the whole purpose of preaching is to is to not just
say that we were here and that we talked about something and
move on. It's to move you into action.
It's to try to get you to do something better, to do
something different in your life, right?
So how about let's take one of these aspects a day or one of
these aspects every couple days and over the next few weeks, try
to incorporate these things into your praying, right?
It must be Worshipful. When's the last time you said in
your prayer, God, you're a great God and I'm so thankful that I
have the privilege of being able to serve you as the God of the
universe. I know who you are and I know
who I am. When's the last time you prayed
like that and went on about how wonderful and how, how majestic
and, and how holy God is, right? Add that to your praying.
Put that in there. Do it.
Do it over the next couple days. Confessional.
When's the last time? I mean, it ought to be a habit
when you get down to pray. God, please forgive me for the
things that I did yesterday. I don't want to do those things.
I don't want to. I don't want to lose my temper.
I don't want to think those things.
I don't want to do those things. Whatever it happens to be, God,
please forgive me. I want my heart to be right with
you before I even begin to pray. Earnest, regular, watchful,
persistent husband and wife relationship and in association
with others. When's the last time you pulled
somebody aside and asked them to pray together with you?
You know, I almost never, I almost never have a meeting with
somebody without ending in prayer.
I can't say never because I'm sure it happens, but I almost
never have a meeting without ending in prayer and asking God
to, to help the person that I'm talking to or to, to to bless
the conversation that we had or to answer the things that we're
talking about in that, in that conversation, right?
Those that that's what, that's what getting somebody else
together. What does the Bible say about
two or three being gathered together in his name there?
Am I in the midst, right? I mean, you can have two people,
two people get together and kneel down next to a chair and
pray together and God's right there in the midst of him,
right? It's an amazing thing and it
should be combined with fasting at times.
You know, how about in the next couple weeks, how about in the
next couple weeks you fast and pray about something that's on
your heart. Fast and pray for your kids.
Fast and pray for your marriage. Fast and pray for this church.
Fast and pray for souls. There's so many things that are
of absolute importance that we need to be fasting and praying
over. Even if it's just a meal.
Skip lunch and pray. Skip breakfast and pray.
Skip dinner and pray. Skip all three of them and pray.
Those are things that if we are serious about it, why do you
fast? Because it shows God that you're
serious, right? We need to eat.
We like to eat, but we need to eat, right?
And when you skip something that you like and need to do to show
God that you're serious about the things you're asking for,
That's why these things cometh not out but by prayer and
fasting, because some things need to show God that we're a
little bit more serious about it than just being persistent or
just showing up to pray about it in our regular prayer time.
But at the very least, just get consistent in your prayer, man.
If you have to make a checklist and put a check mark next to it
every single day and see if you can put seven check marks next
to it, right? That's that's one of the things
I think that we underutilize the most.
We don't pray, we don't pray. If we had a whole church full of
praying people, we could, we could reach the World.
We really could because God would know that we're serious
and God would like this. Keep coming.
I'm going to have to answer it. Ask and seek and knock.
Keep knocking at the door at Jesus feet.
All right. I mean, we sing that song.
It's it's not just words, it's come straight from God's word.
It's important. And we if we could grasp this
idea of prayer, it would give us it would it would help so much
with our Christian growth. It would help so much with our
spiritual victory. It would help so much with our
our progression in our relationship with Christ.
I mean, you, you're, you can't not get to know somebody when
you're having a conversation with them all the time, right?
I mean, one of the best ways to get to know somebody is to go
with him on a trip somewhere and you're just constantly together,
right? You want to know Christ that I
may know him. Pray without ceasing.
You have a constant conversation with him.
Guess what's going to happen? You're going to get to know him
pretty well. You're going to have the
relationship with him that he wants to have with you.
So are you, are you, where are you at?
Where, where is your spiritual level?
Zero to 100. I'll tell you exactly where it's
at. It's wherever your level of
prayer is. Because when you're right with
God and when your spirituality is where it should be, you will
be in an attitude of prayer constantly.
And praying is not something that you're just going to do
when you sit down to eat. It's not going to do something
that you do when you get put on the spot in the church service
and I ask you to pray. It's something that you're going
to do constantly. You want to know if you're a
spiritual person or not What's your prayer life like?
That'll tell you, that'll tell you.
And it's it's hard sometimes to come to grips with the fact that
you know what, maybe I'm not really spiritual as I think I am
because my prayer life is not where it should be.
But these are aspects. These are things that that are
one through 9 things that you can do to help you develop a
prayer life that you should have because 500 references to prayer
is enough that we ought to take it seriously.
It's enough that we ought to take it seriously.
Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness to us. Thank you for the opportunity we
have to to go through these things and understand the
importance of our walk with you and understand the importance of
a prayer time with you and God. May we be people of prayer.
May you help us. May you help us to be what we
should be in prayer, that we have the power with you that you
want us to have because we've been in the prayer closet.
And God, may you help us to grow in this area.
Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.