Prayer

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.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention Luke 11 · chapter mention

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

Luke 11 · chapter mention

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

Hebrews 4:16

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

Luke 11 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

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

Luke 11 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

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

Luke 11 · chapter mention

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'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

John 3 · chapter mention

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.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

So first John chapter 3, and I know you got a notebook in your

1 John 3 · chapter mention

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,

1 John 3 · chapter mention

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

Luke 11 · chapter mention

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.

James 5 · chapter mention

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

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4. Colossians chapter 4.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

See, This is why it's important for you to memorize Bible

verses. Colossians chapter 4 verse #12

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

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

Romans 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1, Romans chapter 1. And this is, this is obviously

Romans 1 · chapter mention

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

Romans 1 · chapter mention

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

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

because #5 prayer must be watchful.

Prayer must be watchful. Ephesians chapter 6 is the, is

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

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.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

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

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

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.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

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?

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

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

because this is so important. First Peter, chapter 3.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

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.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

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

Romans 15 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

me what Matthew chapter 6 is in Sermon on the Mount, right?

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

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.