Fellowship with God in Prayer (Luke 18:1-8)

Good morning again. It really is a delight to be

with you. Some of you might remember my

wife and I worshipped with you this past summer while I was on

sabbatical. We wanted to be at a church

where we could be edified, and we chose you.

We trusted your doctrine, we knew we would be edified by your

pulpit, and it was a delight to be with you this past summer.

The other reason I felt attracted to you was I learned

that Michael Abraham was going to be here, and he and I have

one thing in common. We are both half Indian.

And then I learned that one of your elders is half Indian.

And so in this room about 3% of the men are half Indian, and

that might be a record. It's one thing to go to the

Gospel Coalition Conference in with 6000 people, but this is

amazing. Is there anybody else out there

who is half Indian? All right, wonderful.

We have 1.5 Indians in this room.

At least turn with me to Luke 18, one through 8.

I chose this passage because I preached it probably 5 weeks ago

at the Bible Church. So it was pre prepared so that

that's that. But I wanted to choose a passage

that was basic. I love the adage that Alistair

Begg often says do the most important things most of the

time as best you can by God's grace.

So our church started our year with a four part series on the

basics. The basics that comprise

fellowship, fellowship ultimately with God and

fellowship with each other as the church.

I believe in the basics and I thought that would be good for

you in this season, not to get fancy, but to consider the

basics. And prayer is one of those

things. So I want to read our passage,

Luke 18 one through 8. And can I have you stand for the

reading of God's Word? Luke 18, one through 8.

And he, that is Jesus, told them a parable to the effect that

they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

And he said, in a certain city there was a judge who neither

feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that

city who kept coming to him and saying, Give me justice against

my adversary. For a while he refused, but

afterward he said to himself, Though I neither fear God nor

respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will

give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her

continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the

unrighteous judge says, And will not God give justice to his

elect, who cried to him day and night?

Will He delay long over them? I tell you He will give justice

to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of

Man comes, will we find faith on the earth?

This is the word of God, it is true, and it is given out of His

love. Let me pray, Father, I am a mere

mortal, finite and fallen, and so I come up here, presuming

upon Your power and grace, to work through me to deliver Your

word. Help me to be faithful to this

passage and to get it across. And I pray for anybody in

particular that truly and peculiarly needs this truth in

this passage. Would you open their hearts?

May they be transformed. In fact, I pray that we would

leave this room not merely informed but transformed by the

word Lord, we trust you to do this.

We thank you in advance. We pray this in Christ's name,

Amen. Please be seated.

So as I said, our our theme for the opening of this year at the

Bible Church was fellowship. Now we ordinarily preach through

whole books of the Bible, expository preaching.

This will be an exposition, but I wanted to hit these basics and

there's no greater fellowship, I think, in this life then prayer.

Prayer is fellowship. Prayer is intimacy with God.

Prayer is talking with the real God as the real you and vastly

important. I love this.

We do not seek God in texts over your phone or emails or any

other direct way. But God has given us the gift of

face to face fellowship with Him through prayer.

Think about that. Only Moses had that access in

the Old Covenant. Now, because of the finished

work of Christ, we are invited to the holy place to fellowship

with God through prayer. So what is our goal this

morning? That we pray more.

Yes, for us to pray with increased depth.

Yes, for us to pray biblically, for sure.

But the ultimate goal, my ultimate goal is for you to

desire God Himself and that will be key to your prayer life.

You see, the glory of heaven is God.

Not perfect weather, not perennially cut lawns, but God

Himself. I I want you to know that and

feel that as we begin this morning in Luke 18, we will see

that prayer and history are connected.

As we look at context, there is this time orientation that Jesus

is speaking within. It is a urgent and mission

critical time, and already and not yet.

And we pray in the midst of that tension, that crisis time, that

waiting, that hoping, that loving, that steadiness, that

time of fellowship that is critical with God in prayer.

So along with what time is it, we will look at who is God?

As you think about what Jesus says there at the end, what will

the Son of Man find? What kind of faith he is really

talking about? Who will the people of God

believe God is according to his promises?

So we must know the time, we must know the character of God,

and ultimately we must desire God Himself.

So one thing I learned about your preaching the summer is you

love to get the main idea right out on the front.

So here it is. And then the rest of you can

tune out. All right, here it is.

Faithful fellowship with the generous God through prayer

strengthens the believer's heart.

Faithful fellowship with the generous God through prayer

strengthens the believer's heart.

And at the end, we're going to get very practical on how to

apply that to our lives. So go with me back to the

passage. Little bit of context.

We are in the journey to Jerusalem, the big middle

section of the Gospel of Luke, 9 to 19.

In Luke prayer is mentioned 20 times in our section, kind of

the bulk of chapters around us, we have a prevailing question,

how can one enter the Kingdom of God.

So chapter 18 in many ways is answering that with our passage

about faithful prayer, followed by humble prayer, followed by

childlike dependency and then finally forsaking all for

Christ, including our earthly treasure.

Jesus in our passage uses a parable.

Now things, the thing about parable is often they are taught

as Jesus likes to use stories because humans perk up when we

hear a story. And that's true.

There's something powerful about a story connecting truth to the

heart. But if you read the purpose of

parables like going back to Mark 5, that's not really the point.

A parable is purposely obscure. It's a test.

It's a sieve. Jesus says if you have ears to

hear, then you're going to move into the parable to try and

figure it out. But if you don't have ears to

hear, you're going to get frustrated and move on.

So take that into account. Jesus is using a parable which

goes with this question of will the Son of Man find faith?

Will you apply that to this actual parable?

So the parable is a test. Do we hunger for the Son of Man

to come again? Do we groan for redemption?

Do we believe in the grace and love of God in this moment of

crisis? And so that will help us define

faith and prayer because earnest faith erupts in honest prayer.

So here's the structure this morning we will look at an

urgent time, then a bad judge, and then finally a true God, an

urgent time, a bad judge and a true God.

So first an urgent time. We need to understand the

purpose of this parable and I love it.

Jesus just tells us right there in verse 1.

He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to

pray and not lose heart. OK, so I want you guys, my

disciples, to always pray and not lose heart.

But we also need to understand the greater context.

This is really important. We got to go back to chapter 17

where five times Jesus mentions the Son of Man in verse 222426

and 30, and then again right at the end of our passage.

This Son of Man title is coming from Daniel 7 and 8.

That was a crisis time. Daniel is a key figure.

The people of God are hungering for justice.

So this divine figure, the Son of Man, brings justice to God's

praying people who are in exile. Right at the end of chapter 17,

Jesus talks about the end times, and he looks at the unfaithful

person at the end times and the faithful person at the end

times. Again, this is verse 8.

Tying back to that. What will the Son of Man find?

So the days will come. The Son of Man must suffer.

Jesus says followers will long for his appearing, so prayer in

this parable is about praying urgently in an urgent time for

God's righteousness to be known in the waiting period and the

mission critical period. This woman is not representing

our desires for our car to start in the morning OK, or our flu to

go away. This is about God being faithful

to His church to fulfill its gospel mission.

However, in contrast to that, often today, especially as

modern Christians in America, our temptation is to live in the

ever present. Now we are weighed down, we are

even hurt often things by by things in the past, distracted

and often numbed in the present with little vision of the

redemption and healing power of the ultimate future.

So if as Christians we are not to be bound by the ever present

now what then? Well, we've already seen it in

chapter 17, and it is implied in our passage here in this

parable. We are in this already and not

yet in the middle of that. Some of God's promises have been

fulfilled big time, but many of them are yet to be fulfilled.

And so we wait, and we must live by faith.

We are in the delay of the fullness of the Kingdom.

So what is God that doing? One day soon Jesus will be

lifted up in the book of Acts. After he has been lifted up, we

are seeing the disciples trust him as he's gone back to the

Father and he sent his Spirit in the waiting time and the mission

critical time. They are trusting in the

promises of Jesus and so they pray.

They cling to those promises through prayer without losing

heart. They applied this parable.

So key in laying out your foundation for prayer is twofold

#1 believer, get your true clock out.

Look around the time is coming, the headlines.

See it all in Peter's prayer this morning.

All the distress and anguish of these final days.

Now I, I get it back in a moment where most of you cannot

remember because you were not born yet, the 70s and the 80s,

there was a lot of thinking about the end times and there

was charts and they were color-coded and it got a little

bit wacky. And you don't need to worry.

I'm, I'm not saying we should go back to that.

However, the pendulum has swung so far to the other side that

many modern Christians do not consider that we are in the

final days and consequently, they are not hopeful and they're

not hungering for the Lord to return.

But this is all over the New Testament.

That was the mindset, that was the clock, if you will, of the

early church. So it's not about charge.

It's not about speculation. It's not out opting out of

engaging this world. No, to be on mission well and

empowered in this world is the hunger for the Son of Man to

return, to restore, to bring heaven.

That needs to be the object of our prayer life.

So get your clock out. Number two, pray heaven to

earth. So Jesus is starting way up here

in the cosmic realities, like our time orientation needs to

take eternity and the future into account.

So prayer should start with the top down.

We prayed the Lord's Prayer this morning.

I love it. It's a great model, starting

with the Kingdom and the glory of God and then working your way

down there, praying heaven down to earth for the Son of man to

come. And then you can talk about your

term paper with the Lord or your cold or your stressful day.

Start with the cosmic reality in in light of the time we're in.

But if you are still struggling with prayer, one more aspect.

We see it in the next passage. I'm I'm not going to exposit

that, but quickly. Prayer is also fueled by grace.

We have two people also compared in that passage. 1A

self-righteous religious leader and another a tax collector who

understands that he is a Sinner. It is a contrast of self

righteousness versus humility and grace.

And Jesus says self-righteous prayers are not heard because

they are not in fact prayers. They're false beliefs put to

words. Humility is a massive part of a

rich prayer life. So we need to know the time.

We need to know the time, but we also need to know the real God.

And so that's where we're going to have this comparison between

a bad judge and a true God. So will you turn with me then to

verses 2 through 5, A bad judge, a bad judge.

We have the cast of characters. It's it's simple.

We have this judge and we have a widow.

The judge is clearly ungodly. He is transdressing the word of

God. I think Second Chronicles 19,

six through 7 might be the background of this teaching.

There we have King Jehoshaphat, who's been rebuked, and now he

is ready to repent and live correctly before God.

And so he exhorts, he is exhorted to serve the Lord, and

he appoints judges throughout the land, and he commissions

them with these words. Second Chronicles 19, six and

seven. Consider what you do for you

judge not for man, but for the Lord.

He is with you in giving judgement.

Now then, let the fear of the Lord be upon you.

Be careful what you do, for there's no justice with the Lord

our God, or partiality or taking bribes.

There's no injustice, I should say, with the Lord our God or

partiality or taking bribes. I, I think the language of this

parable goes right along with that.

And so Jesus is saying the judge in this parable is unlike those

judges. In fact, there's all this

teaching and Exodus and Deuteronomy and other places

about taking care of the widow and the orphan.

This judge is very ungodly. But then we have this widow.

She is one of the most vulnerable people in the ancient

Near East, legally, economically, relationally.

In this passage, she is a victim.

And she, as we'll talk about in a second, I think represents us,

the church. The judge is supposed to look

out for her. But perhaps he is more immoral

than her oppressor. He finally acts after the button

of self-interest is pushed enough.

He literally says in the passage, I feel like she's just

going to punch me in the face, so I'm just going to get on with

it and give her justice. There is no love in his wake.

There's no guarantee of future grace.

I think the judge represents the fallen leaders of God's people,

other authorities that should have aided God's people, the

Pharisees, fallen shepherds. In fact, this morning, right

now, I would like some of you to insert that Christian leader,

that pastor, that denomination, that theological camp, that

parent or that household that has let you down, that was

supposed to point you to Christ. Is your view of God more defined

by that human or that institution rather than God

himself? The point of this parable, the

point that gets us to pray continually and not lose heart,

is this doctrinal truth. God is not like this judge.

God is not like this judge. So what is the real God like?

I am so glad you asked. That brings us to our Third

Point, a true God, a true God. Let me read verses 6 through 8

again. And the Lord said, hear what the

unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to

his elect, who cried to him day and night?

Will he delay long over them? I tell you, He will give justice

to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of

Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

OK, we have a shocking contrast here.

We have the shocking contrast between verses 6 and seven and I

missed it the first time. I preach this.

So everybody 15 years old and younger, I get it, 6-7.

All right, we got that done. Moving on.

Listen to the unrighteous judge. He is self-serving, beaten down,

wanting his own relief. And Pastor Jesus this morning is

asking us, is that the way you kind of think about God?

Is that the way you kind of think about God?

So will the real God stand up? And so from this passage,

especially these verses, they're two powerful truths to believe

about God #1 the real God gives justice to his elect, His elect,

His people, His chosen people. Elect is not a word to fear.

It is not a word to qualify to death or to disown as an

embarrassing word sometimes found in the Bible.

But election is so important to our understanding of God's

loyalty to us. Brothers and sisters, before the

foundations of the world, God set His love upon you.

God did not mock you by inviting a stone to believe, but God gave

you a heart of flesh, opened your eyes, unstopped your ears

so you could see the glory of Christ as it was shining in your

heart. Therefore, you are a child of

God. God is a perfect Father, or let

me put it this way, God has attached His glory to your good.

God has attached His glory to your good.

Do you believe that when you cry out to Him, you do not need to

fear that you were barely hanging on by a thread to God's

good graces? No, He is attached His glory to

your good, for you are one of His chosen sons or daughters.

The real God gives justice to His elect.

But #2 the real God is always on time.

The real God is always on time. Did you see that?

He will not delay. He will speedily give justice.

Friends, here is an axiom you can put in your back pocket.

God is never late, but he won't show up early either.

God is always on time. Backed up to the Red Sea and the

Egyptian army in the rearview on time.

Jesus waiting two days, then traveling for two days after he

hears about Lazarus such that Lazarus has been dead for four

days by the time he gets to Bethany.

On time. Jesus crying out to the Father.

If it is your will, make this cup pass for me.

What is the answer? You will go to the cross and you

will die upon it. And then on the third day, I

will raise you from the dead on time, child of God.

Do you fear God is tarrying? Do you feel he is late?

Do you fear that he is not caring for you?

We sang it this morning. What a friend we have in Jesus.

All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry

everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit.

Oh, what needless pain to we bear, all because we do not

carry everything to God in prayer.

Do you believe that God has other favorites?

That you are the runt of the litter?

Oh believer, all of us are his favorites.

So have we trials and temptations.

Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged.

Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful

who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness,

so take it to the Lord in prayer.

And so here we come to verse 8. The bottom line of faith.

Faith is not some abstract thing out there.

It is not some muscle we flex. Faith is clearly defined in the

Scriptures as taking God at His word, taking God at His word.

And so as Jesus says in conclusion, when the Son of Man

comes, will he find faith on the earth?

He is asking us, his people, are you trusting the revealed word

of God, the promises of God? OK, context is key.

Again, go with me to the very end of chapter 17.

Jesus is talking about the end times and those who trust Him

and those who don't, OK, those who have faith and those who

don't. And look at verse 33 of chapter

17. Whoever seeks to preserve his

life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

That is what the believer must abide in.

In the final days, the crisis days, the already not yet days,

will we take God at His word because we desperately need His

promises to live the life of loss, to really believe that the

life of gain beyond our wildest imagination is awaiting us in

the world to come. We need to be like Jesus because

that is exactly the beliefs in the pattern of Jesus.

Back to the Garden of Gethsemane, which I would argue

is the new garden of the New Covenant to restore Eden.

Jesus is there praying in desperation to His Father, but

He is not praying out of unbelief.

He was standing on belief. He was the man of faith, and He

took His Father at His word. I believe Jesus was trusting in

the clear, revealed promises of God, places like Psalm 62.

For God alone my soul waits in silence.

From Him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock, and my

salvation my fortress. I shall not be greatly shaken,

or Joel chapter 225. I will restore to you the years

that the swarming locusts has eaten.

He believes the Father, that his death for the sins of the world

would bring salvation to God's people.

That he would be raised on the third day, That he would be

glorified before the nations, a victor over sin, death, and the

devil. That he would be seated in

heaven at the right hand, ruling over heaven and earth.

He believed that, so he went to the cross.

So we follow the Savior. We follow in the pattern of

losing in this life for His name because we trust in the greater

gain in the world to come. And so again, looking back at

verse 8, when he says the Son of Man comes, you see that is the

crisis of faith. We sometimes wonder, will he

come? And Jesus says it right there in

verse 8. He is going to come.

He's going to restore. He's going to usher in the

Kingdom. That is a done deal.

So the question then for the disciple for Trinity Baptist

Church this morning is, do you believe it?

And if God will bring ultimate justice, will you trust him at

every step along the way? God is never late, He's never

early, He's always on perfect time.

Then if we believe this, maybe, just maybe, you and I will spend

far less energy and time on fear or managing our life in the

flesh and instead we trust God and enjoy praying because it is

fellowship with Him. Remember Luke 7/17/21?

Go there with me. Jesus is talking about where do

you find the Kingdom of God? He says, nor will they say, look

here it is, we're there. But behold, the Kingdom of God

is in the midst of you. What does he mean when he says

that the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you?

You don't need to be going looking for it.

What does he mean? He's the Kingdom, He's it.

Are you hungering for justice? Are you, are you hungering for

the ailments of this world to be done, for the tears to be wiped

away? You're hungering for the

Kingdom, yes, but in doing so, you're ultimately hungering for

Jesus. And Jesus has given of himself

in full. He is our desire.

So do you know the time? Do you believe in the real God?

And do you want God himself? So I want to take this then from

this passage from theology to the shoe leather reality of our

lives. And I don't usually do this.

I I did this during the series, but I'm going to ask a series of

questions that bring application from this passage to us.

So here is the first question. What is the starting point for

rich prayer life? I don't want to assume all of

you have been walking with the Lord for decades.

Some of you might be fairly new Christians, So what is a

starting point for a rich prayer life in light of the vision of

this passage? First, I think it is important

to acknowledge the brush that must be cleared.

Like Jesus is teaching on money and other idols, Growing in a

rich prayer life is looking at your heart and looking at what

it may trust more than God right now.

What are the root issues that are replacing what prayer should

be in the Christian life? Are you converted but

functionally depend upon your own talents and time and

creativity and money to get through?

I I think you like the Bible Church are full of really gifted

people. That's wonderful used for the

Kingdom of God, but it can be dangerous at the same time.

Are you medicating and finding resolve in food and drink and

technology and maybe sexual pleasure or other toxins rather

than going to God in prayer? Or by contrast, do you have an

unrighteous judge, quite frankly, in your brain that you

pray to? Maybe not as exaggerated as a

judge in this parable, but something kind of like that in

your mind when you think about God, and thus you've become

discouraged or even embittered toward prayer.

Then here is the question of questions.

Do you want God for God's sake? Prayer is not technique, it is

not a tool. Prayer is intimacy with God.

Parents, if they haven't asked you already, eventually your

children, especially in a family with big God theology, is going

to ask you if God knows the future and he knows everything

you need and you don't need to tell him, and you're not going

to manipulate God, God is going to do what he's going to do.

Why do we need the prayer and ask him, Pray and ask him for

things and he, so here's the answer for free.

You're welcome. We pray because God wants to use

our prayers in the context of intimacy with us and fellowship

with us to do his work. And I think that's going to be

very satisfying to your children.

By the way, there's a bunch of young couples in this room.

You haven't had kids yet. Don't wait too long.

Start by the minivan and they will come.

All right, so get, get going. I love that.

I love that God can do what he wants to do without us.

So why pray? Because prayer forms us in

Christ as we fellowship with the triune God in prayer.

God, God can drop cash from heaven, He can bring justice,

healing, sanctification, provide and bless without our prayers,

but He chooses to use our prayers so that His answers are

never void of a love relationship with Him.

I think that is very attractive to the human heart.

Into prayer #2 this is new to me.

How do I start? Again, some of you might be very

young Christians, but I found that this has been helpful for

me, and I've been a Christian since I think I was 5.

If this is a Baptist Church. So I'm going to alliterate.

All right, there you go. Number one, start, start, end of

point #2 structure. Have some structure to your

prayer life. I I do believe morning is a good

time. Praying at the end of the day,

great, but I do think it's really good.

Start your day with some extended time in morning prayer.

One thing that might help you is getting a piece of paper or

three by 5 card and just begin to jot out the needs.

The needs in your own life, the needs in your family life, the

needs in your friend's life, the needs of Trinity Baptist Church

right now. That helps give some structure.

I think there's some really helpful books out there on just

the beauty of of prayer. These are both by Paul Miller

and they've been helpful for me. The 1st is a praying life, a

praying life, and the second is a praying church by Paul Miller.

So start, have some structure. 3 spontaneous.

I do think it's really good just to talk with God throughout the

day. Pray throughout the day in short

bursts as things come to your mind.

Pray. Pray out loud in the car. 30

years ago you looked crazy. Now people think you're just

talking to somebody over Bluetooth.

So young people, it's so much easier.

Talk to God throughout the day. You are friends with the living

God. You are a lover of Christ,

filled with the Holy Spirit, invited into his throne room

throughout the day. Pray to him.

So start structure, spontaneous and finally serious.

Be serious about the power of prayer.

And this morning, may I touch on temptation.

Prayer in temptation is a canvas for God to paint His power and

His glory. And may I get personal with you

this morning. I am an outside pastor.

I am not your pastor, but sometimes you can hear it

differently from an outside voice.

Brothers and maybe some sisters, some of you are besieged with

bondage to pornography. Beloved, in the moment of

temptation, stop and pray. Ask for God to arrive and

deliver. Ask for a holy mind.

In the moment, I believe he will do it.

He will do it. There's a famous story in our

family's life that I have a child who hated vegetables and

fruit, and to this day he hates vegetables and fruit.

So one morning when he was much younger, I was driving him to

school. I won't name him, but I I said,

O child of mine, why don't you just pray that the Lord will

give you an appetite for fruits and vegetables?

And immediately he said no. I said, why?

Because then he would answer the prayer and I don't want to like

fruits and vegetables. He has no guile to this day.

And I think it is the truth when it comes to temptation of all

sorts, not least sexual temptation, it is a test.

Do we really want to obey the Lord if you ask him?

In fact, there's a scriptural promise.

First Corinthians 10/13 When you are tempted, no temptation is

seized you except what is common to man.

God will always provide a way out.

Will you take Him up on that? He will remove the temptation in

that moment and then for the long term over the big war, not

just the battle. Definitely be praying for a new

character, new affections, a love for Christ that drives out

loves that drive sexual sin, which by the way, has a hundred

other things often attached to it.

Be serious about the power of prayer.

Third question, how do I make sure prayer is not just a

vending machine approach to God? So that's one ditch that we

don't want to fall into. God is a vending machine.

Yet another ditch is that we do not actually ask boldly because

we lack faith in a God who can do anything.

So we need to live between those two ditches of treating God like

a vending machine, but also not going to God enough, trusting in

his mighty power. So my friends, look at the

Scriptures. Look at the scriptures, jot down

every time you see prayer, and take note.

Our church has been challenged to memorize Ephesians 314 to 21.

I've been memorizing it. I've been praying over myself,

my family, my church, going to the Father from whom every

family on heaven and earth has been named, asking for His

strength, believing He can do far more than we ask or think by

the power at work within us. Do you believe that kind of

stuff? Do you pray like that?

And then coupled with wanting God for God's sake in prayer,

going to prayer because it's fellowship with God, you stick

beautifully between the two poles of treating God like a

vending machine and not going boldly to the God who can do

everything. I would encourage you as you

read Scripture to pray over the passage.

That's one of the things that helps me focus in the morning,

not just getting through the content, but praying that God

would conform me to the truth of that passage.

That if there is a promise in that passage, I would believe

that promise that day. I would also encourage you to do

that with strong Christian books.

I am rereading JC Ryles Holiness right now and as I read it, I am

asking God to conform me to the truths of that book.

Pray in the middle Rd. trusting in the bigness of God and

wanting prayer because it's fellowship with God #4 #4 if

prayer is fellowship with God, but also fellowship with his

people. How does prayer connect us to

the body of Christ? Well, it is essential for

Christian community, not least the local church.

I love it that you have Sunday evenings set aside for a prayer

service if there's something else you want to pray for.

The Bible church is that we will grow in prayer.

Tonight we actually have a prayer service.

But you need to keep growing and connecting with each other by

means of praying to God like the individual.

Churches should start, have structure, be spontaneous, and

be utterly serious. Two quick applications.

This is something I've been starting to do in the last

couple of years. When someone asks me to pray for

them, I actually stop and pray for them.

It just takes a minute. Often we say, Oh yes, I'll pray

for your brother, I'll pray for your sister.

We might pray later. Often we forget.

If someone asks you to pray, stop right then and there.

Take a minute, pray for them and then pray for a praying church.

One of the things that stuck with me in Paul Miller's book,

as he said, before you do a prayer campaign, pastor before

you get that out there and start structures and have leaflets to

hand out, start to pray that you would have a praying church.

I meet with my assistant once a week.

We talked about, you know, some of the operational stuff, but

then we prayed together and she prayed something that really hit

home with me. She would, she prayed that our

church would be known as a praying church.

It's so interesting. Outside of Spurgeon's

Metropolitan Tabernacle in Victorian London, I have

actually never heard of a church described as a praying church.

I sometimes hear churches described as big or strong

pulpit or great music, or rich programming, or evangelistic or

justice oriented. We're multiethnic, and all of

those are wonderful, but I've never heard of a church marked

by prayer. Oh, that God would meet you and

the Bible church in that way. In terms of the unity and

mission. Churches that pray together for

the glory of God and the advance of the gospel are often

protected from spiritual attack, sinful fracturing, cultural

swaying. And distractions by lesser

things. So I know you're a praying

church. Keep doing that, especially in

this season. Pray all the more so that God

would strengthen you and protect you in this moment of

transition. And then I haven't even touched

on how prayer effects marriages. We're families, we're

workplaces. My mom would often struggle with

sleeping at night, and she said rather than just trying to count

sheep, she just decided to pray for her children.

Both of us are walking with the Lord.

That would encourage you. Parents, pray for them,

especially when you lose sleep over them.

By the way, you young families, you never stop worrying.

You're welcome. Pray, pray, pray.

Beloved, isn't it such sweet news that we never have to

repeat a request because we think that the quality of a

prayer is dependent on the quantity of words?

We never have to repeat a request because we think that

God is ignorant and needs to be informed, or not ignorant, at

least He is, but he is unconcerned and therefore needs

to be aroused. We never have to repeat our

prayers because we believe that God is unwilling to answer and

we must prevail upon Him somehow, transforming a hard

hearted God into a compassionate, loving one.

We never have to repeat a petition because we think that

God will be swayed in His decision by our putting on a

show of zeal and piety, as if God cannot see through the thin

veil of our hypocrisy. No, we come to God on the basis

of our election with Him, that He is our Father who loves to be

with us, to listen to us, to use our prayers as the vehicle of

His glorious work. So beloved are we weak and heavy

laden, cumbered with a load of care.

Precious Savior, still our refuge.

Take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise forsake

thee. Take it to the Lord in prayer.

In His arms He'll take and shield thee.

Thou wilt find a solace there. Indeed Thou will find a solace

there. Will you pray with me?

So, Father, we pray for praying. We pray for our own hearts to be

mined, that Your word would continue to do its work.

The preaching of the word is often just the planting of the

seed, but starting tomorrow it must grow.

And I pray that the seed would have met receptive soil today,

that your teaching on prayer would grow a crop 3060 and a

hundredfold. And the brothers and sisters

here in Trinity Baptist Church and I pray for answered prayer,

yes, for fruitfulness, yes. For conversions, yes, for

spiritual growth, yes. But ultimately that my brothers

and sisters would have greater joy with you, greater desire for

you to hunger and thirst for a Kingdom where you are the King.

I ask this in Christ's name. Amen.