Matthew 6:5-15

Hello, I am Anthony Garcia.

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Amen.

Good singing this morning.

Thank you, music team.

Thank you, Brother Phillip.

Like I said, be praying for uh Pastor Anthony as he is uh over in Toledo.

Like I said, he'll be coming back in the next few days.

So just be praying for him.

Uh thankful for Pastor and the opportunity uh that I have to uh fill in for him while he's gone.

And I'm thankful to all of you uh for in my past few months here um just being gracious to me and uh accepting me with open arms.

And I love being here and I'm grateful for all of you uh very much.

But if you've been here the past few weeks or past many weeks, you know that we've been going through the book of James.

Um today actually was supposed to be the day that we were gonna start in back in Genesis.

We wanted to go through James chapter one, and then we're gonna jump back into Genesis, and we'll be going back and forth like that for a while.

Um, but it just so landed that uh we had just finished James chapter one, and so we were gonna go into Genesis, but Pastor said he'll he'll do that next week, and he doesn't want me messing it up for him, I guess, or something like that.

But uh so today we'll be uh taking a break from our James and Genesis series.

This morning we're gonna look in Matthew chapter six.

If you want to take your Bibles, turn to Matthew chapter six.

Here in Matthew 6, Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount.

Takes place over uh Matthew 5, 6, and 7, if I'm uh if I believe correctly.

Um and so this little excerpt that we're looking at from the Sermon on the Mount is just a little piece of it.

Um and I forgot all of the kiddos can get going now, all the kiddos.

If you are in the nursery, you can head back to the nursery and all the kiddos can get going.

Meet Miss Olivia there in the back.

Man, I almost kept you guys.

But Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is giving the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

If you've all had your uh Bibles there to Matthew 6, if you would stand with me, Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

We'll start in verse 5, they're in Matthew, Matthew 6, 5.

It says, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

But 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 which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him.

After this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

Verse 15 says, But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer one more time this morning.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.

Thank you for the opportunity to open your word, Lord, and look at the truth inside of it.

God, I pray that you would uh be with all of us this morning.

I pray that we would all have open hearts, Lord.

Uh I thank you for how this passage is already spoken to me, Lord.

I pray that it would even continue to speak to me.

Lord, I pray that it would speak to these people, Lord, and your truth would penetrate their hearts.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you again for the opportunity to meet here in church this morning.

In your precious name I pray.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Unfortunately, in our generation, in our church today, not, I'm not saying our individual church, right?

Beacon Baptist Church, but the church as a whole, the church of our generation, it has unfortunately become prayerless.

In 2007, research was done to ask Christians how often they pray.

At that time, roughly 58% of Christians said that they would pray every day.

In a more recent study, that number has dropped down to 44%.

But still, with 44% of the Christians of the world praying every day, you might hope that our world and our country might be in a little bit better shape.

Yet it's not.

But why?

Prayer is a direct line to receive the power of God.

It's a direct line to our Heavenly Father.

And there is power in prayer.

The Welsh preacher Joseph Jenkins began to be burdened one day by his own spiritual walk.

He was a preacher there, a pastor at a church, and he had just uh he had felt that he had gotten into a rut.

This was many years ago.

He felt that he had gotten into a rut and he began to be burdened about his own spiritual walk.

In fact, even another preacher came to him one day and um in a loving manner critiqued him and said, Hey, I believe you might be backsliding a little bit.

And Jenkins knew in his heart that it was true.

And God began to get a hold of Joseph Jenkins' heart, and he began to pray.

He began to pray for revival in his own heart, in the heart of his church, in the heart of God's people.

He began to pray for revival.

His wife could be stated to have said that he would stay up into the late hours of the night praying and reading God's word tirelessly.

Oh, to become convicted like that.

What would happen in our society if we could get some Christians to become convicted for prayer like Joseph Jenkins did?

When what if we became prayer, uh people of prayer like he did?

This morning, as we examine Matthew chapter six, I want to show you three aspects of prayer that we must see in our own life.

This morning, the first one we're gonna look at is the posture of prayer, the posture of prayer.

Look there in Matthew chapter six.

Again, go down to verse one.

It says, Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them.

Otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in heaven.

Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they might have glory of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

But 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 which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Jump down to verse sixteen with me.

Verse sixteen says, Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.

Verily I say unto you, they have the reward.

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.

Right off the bat, if we're looking at the passage here, we can see the core contention that Jesus is trying to teach.

If you look with me, he's critiquing.

Specifically, he's critiquing the Jewish higher-ups.

What problem are we noticing here in the passage?

Look at the passage.

What problem are we noticing that Jesus is continually bringing out?

He's drawing up with drawing out that this is a big problem that they're facing.

The problem that he's showing, if you see there, it's that they, these Pharisees, these scribes, these Jewish higher-ups, they have no humility.

Everything they do had to be glorified.

Everything they do is uh so that everybody can see them in their prayer, in their almsgiving, in their fasting.

Alms giving would be basically like giving to the poor, right?

Whatever they did, all of these religious acts, they did so that everybody saw them.

Who were they doing it for?

They were not doing it for God.

These religious acts that are supposed to be done for the glory of God, they were instead doing it for the glory of who?

themselves.

And this is what Jesus is critiquing, he's teaching about.

Here, as he teaches the Sermon on the Mount, he instructs his followers, his disciples, that they should not be like these Pharisees.

When the Pharisees prayed, they did it for themselves.

When they gave alms, they did it for themselves, for the glory of themselves.

When they fasted, they made sure everybody knew they were fasting.

They did it for the glory of themselves.

You see, it was quite normal during this time period.

The religious people of this day, they would often do this because it made them look more pious, more religious, more holy.

And in that day and age, the more religious or pious or holy or popular that you were, the more honor that you had.

Jesus teaches here that they would give their alms to the poor in the streets, where everybody could see them, where everybody knew what they were doing.

He says when they prayed, they would stand in the corner of the streets in a public place and in the synagogues where everyone would see them.

When they would fast, he says, Jesus teaches that they would distort their faces and they would make themselves look like they're they're in pain or they're struggling so that everybody knew they were what?

Fasting.

I would imagine that if the Pharisees were around today, they would have been probably posting everything they did, right?

Back then they were just doing it in public places.

But can you imagine maybe a Pharisee, they give to the poor and they're wait, wait, wait, let me let me take a picture with you and then post it, right?

Or they they go to spend some time in prayer.

Wait, let me let me prop my phone up before I spend some time so I can get a video of it, right?

That's what I imagine they would have been doing.

But right, they did everything for their own glory.

They they wanted everybody to see what they were doing.

You see, all these things that the Pharisees were doing, in essence, weren't bad things, they were religious acts.

Giving alms, giving to the poor, that would have been a good act, a religious act.

Um, uh praying, of course, that's a religious act.

Fasting, that's a religious act.

On paper, these were all good deeds.

But just as so many other things in life, these good deeds didn't carry any weight with the Lord because their hearts weren't in the right places.

So here, Jesus, he contrasts, he makes a uh a contrast.

Do you see how how he contrasts here?

Look at the verses.

He contrasts everything that they did with everything that should actually be done that is right.

He says, Don't give alms so everyone can see you, like the Pharisees do.

Instead, do it in secret.

He says, Don't pray in the most public places you can.

Instead, enter your prayer closet.

And why prayer closet?

That would have just been in that time everybody lived, right?

Uh, their homes wouldn't have had a bunch of like maybe different rooms.

They maybe have some, but not quite like we think.

It just would have meant to be find a quiet place.

And I think that can apply to us today, right?

When we pray like this, like Jesus is teaching here, we shouldn't pray just for the glory of others, but when we enter into our prayer closet, it just means to find a private place.

I also want to mention that I I don't, I'm not teaching here or preaching that public prayer is wrong.

Jesus prayed publicly.

They did it in the early church in Acts.

You can see public prayer in the Bible.

But the problem that Jesus is pointing out here is not so much public prayer, but it's the fact that they were doing it so that everybody could see how holy they were.

They would, uh, there were accounts that they would often pray for long times.

And the more, the longer your prayer was, the more holy that you were considered.

But he says, Don't uh don't pray just in the most public place you can so everybody sees you.

Enter your prayer closet, get alone with God.

He says, Don't announce to everyone that you're fasting by distorting your face and making yourself look miserable.

Instead, keep it between you and God.

It says, Wash your face, make yourself still look pleasant.

The main point that Jesus is getting at in this whole section of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 is that we may do religious things, but if we aren't doing them for the glory of God, they are in vain.

But let's bring it down from big picture, right?

We got the big idea of what this passage is about, this little section of the Sermon on the Mount.

We figured out what it's about.

Let's bring it down and let's focus it a little bit more.

Jesus spends the most time in this section of his teaching talking about what?

Prayer.

Jesus spends 11 verses of our passage today teaching on prayer.

He is emphasizing the same point though.

He's still emphasizing to be humble in our prayer.

When praying to our Heavenly Father, we need to approach him with humility.

We shouldn't be like the Pharisees that pray out in public just so everybody can hear us, just so everybody can see how holy we are.

Rather, we can pray in secret.

Jesus says, God knows all of your requests, anyways.

There's no need to be in the streets yelling them out for everybody to hear.

God knows all of our requests, anyways.

When we pray to the one God in heaven, to the creator of the universe, we need to remember who we're talking to.

I think that's the key to humility in prayer.

The key to humility in prayer is to recognize who we are talking to.

Isaiah chapter 6, verses 1 through 5.

Isaiah 6:1–5

If you want to turn your Bibles over there, Isaiah 6.

Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

Look in verse 1.

It says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

Above it stood the seraphims.

Each one had six wings, with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

Verse 5 says, Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

Do I have any big NBA fans in here?

Any big NBA fans?

No big NBA fans.

I like the NBA, right?

I'm not the biggest NBA fan in the world, but I I like the NBA.

Now, for years I've heard this debate, all right?

Who is the GOAT?

Who's the greatest of all time?

Is it Michael Jordan or is it LeBron?

Now I'm sure we could get into that this morning, all right?

In the dorms when I was in college, it was a common topic to talk about.

And the guys seem pretty 50-50 on it.

There are some guys that no, LeBron is absolutely better.

No, Michael Jordan is absolutely better.

And for my safety, I'm not gonna share with you what I think this morning.

I don't want to walk out of here and get mugged after this morning's service.

But for sake of the argument, all right, I know I'm gonna make some people mad.

We're just gonna say Michael Jordan is the GOAT.

We're gonna say that, all right?

Now, I played basketball in uh in high school.

I played basketball for a couple years, even in college.

So, yeah, I mean, look at me, right?

I won't tell you, I will I'll leave the part out how it was a small little Bible college, but we'll leave that part out.

But right, I played basketball in high school in Bible college.

Now, if I ever were to meet Michael Jordan, would it be foolish of me to go and smack talk Michael Jordan?

Because I've played for a couple years in college, I played in high school.

It would be pretty foolish of me.

Hey man, what's up?

You stink, I'm I'm better than you.

Let's let me let's play, right?

It would be pretty foolish of me to do that, all right?

Even however old he is, he could probably destroy me, okay?

So it would be pretty foolish of me to talk like that.

I would even go as far to say, it would be pretty foolish of me to even think that.

No, what I would probably be thinking if I got to meet Michael Jordan or LeBron, right?

Was what I get to meet Michael Jordan?

Like, man, he he's one of the or the greatest player of all time.

Like, man, I get to meet him, I get to shake his hand, I get to take a picture with him.

That is probably what I would be thinking.

Why is that?

Because I have a respect for Michael Jordan.

Because he was the greatest, or one of the greatest at very least, of what he did, right?

I would have a respect for him.

Yet, when we approach God, often it's half-hearted, it's without reverence.

Hey, you want humility in your prayer life?

Let's get a good idea, let's get a grip on who we are talking to.

Let's remind ourselves of who we are talking to.

There in verse 5 of Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

Isaiah has just had heaven opened up, he's just had a glimpse into heaven, and he his response is, Then said I, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

Isaiah had the privilege of physically seeing our Lord, but I would go as far to say that he probably had a pretty good idea in his mind at that point of who he was talking to.

Of course, it would be amazing and impossible for us to even fathom of what it would like to see heaven, but in his mind he knew, man, I am talking to the Lord that created this world.

Hey, do you want humility in your prayer life?

You want power in your prayer life, prayer life?

Remember who you're praying to.

The God that spoke you and me into existence.

The God that created all of the things that we marvel at with his words.

We look up into the night sky and we see the stars and we say, Wow, that is beautiful.

That is beyond my understanding, my comprehension.

It stretches further than I could ever know.

God created that with his words.

The weather that were, man, this is beautiful weather.

Or the great storms that come through.

God spoke those into existence.

This beautiful planet.

We get to go and see places like the Grand Canyon, or we get to go and see these many different places that we marvel at here on our earth.

God created those with just his words.

That is who we get to pray to.

The God that loved us so much that he took on flesh and he came to this earth and died a gruesome death for your sins and for mine.

That is who we pray to.

And we need to remind ourselves of that when we go to him in prayer.

Jesus knows we need to remind ourselves.

He knows we are finite creatures that are forgetful.

He knows we need to remind ourselves.

So he goes on and he gives us further instruction.

He doesn't just stop at, hey, don't be like the Pharisees.

Instead, he says, Do this.

He gives us our second point this morning.

The pattern of prayer.

The pattern of prayer.

Look in verse 9.

Matthew 6.

You can head back to Matthew, sorry.

Matthew chapter 6, verse 9.

Matthew 6:9

It says, after this manner, therefore pray ye, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

Jesus knows his creation.

He knows us humans.

He knows we're forgetful by nature.

He knows we need to be reminded when we pray of who we talk to.

So he gives us a recipe.

He gives us all the components that should be in a prayer.

Now, this prayer that's given by Jesus, many call the Lord's prayer.

It was a prayer given by Jesus, but never prayed by Jesus because it includes forgiveness of sins.

And we know our Lord never sinned.

So this is the Lord's prayer because he gave it.

I also don't believe that this prayer is a prayer that should be memorized or uh and just repeated just because the Lord said we should pray it, so I'm gonna pray it exactly.

I don't believe that's how God intended.

I think that opens up the door to become almost mindless in our prayer.

And if anybody has done that, I'm not in any way uh uh trying to dog on you, right?

But I am saying I think the Lord gave us this prayer as a pattern, as a recipe.

He he gave us all of the components that should be in a prayer so that we can implement them into our prayers.

So let's look at this prayer and determine a practical, a practical pattern of prayer.

And so I mean for this part to be pretty practical, okay?

This isn't gonna be super right preachy.

I would rather this be a little bit more teachy, like almost step by step.

This is what Jesus is giving, and that's what I want to try to portray here this morning.

Look at verse 9.

The first part of our prayers that they should include, it says, after this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

The first aspect this morning is worship.

Worship.

The Bible there says, hallowed be thy name.

This word hallowed, it means to acknowledge, it means to separate from vain things, to set apart, to sanctify.

So when we need to separate, so we need to, in our prayer, separate ourselves from God.

We can't go to the Lord in prayer thinking we are high and mighty, right?

Like I can't go to Michael Jordan thinking I'm the best basketball player in the world when in reality I'm talking to the best basketball player in the world.

Okay?

So when we go to God, we must separate ourselves from him.

We have to have a humble spirit, and we can do this through worshiping him.

We can go to him and we can praise him for the things he's done in our life.

Oh Lord, thank you for saving me.

Thank you for this creation that you've given me.

Thank you for this and for that.

Thank you for being who you are.

God is all-powerful, he's infinite, all-knowing, all-present, eternal, holy, sovereign.

All of these things are things that benefit us in some way.

And they are things that we can praise him for.

So first we need to worship God in our prayers.

Look at verse 10.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done as it is in heaven.

We need to pray, secondly, for his will to be done, for his will to be done in our life and in the life of uh of this world, of the earth.

We want for his will to be done in the way that we can pray for the salvation of souls.

I think that's the Lord's will, right?

The salvation of souls, revival in his church.

We can pray for revival.

We can pray for the willingness of his believers, the willingness to surrender, to go and tell others about him so that souls can be saved and that revival can come.

All of these things are things that ultimately, as he says in there, will bring in his kingdom.

Thy uh, as uh what is it?

Sorry, thy kingdom come, thy will be done as it is in heaven.

Number three, we can pray for sustaining sustenance or our personal need.

Look at verse 11.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Just like when God provided for the Israelites and literally sent them their daily bread, their daily manna, God will provide for our needs every day too.

We can pray for his strength, we can pray for his power to get through our day.

When we're tired and we can't move on, we can pray to God and ask him for his strength.

We can pray for the filling of his spirit, we can pray for our personal needs.

We all have them.

God already knows them.

We can pray for our personal needs because he will sustain us.

Verse 12 says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Forgiveness of sins, and for us to do likewise.

That's what another thing we can pray for.

Forgiveness of sins is a crucial part of prayer in any relationship.

If there's problems between the two parties, there's they're not gonna have as good of a relationship.

When we are in sin and we have unconfessed sin between us and our Lord, it creates a gap.

How can we walk closely with God?

How can we receive his will and his wisdom and his strength and his power if we have things in between us?

If we have unconfessed sin that is causing a gap between us and the Lord.

So confession of sins and asking for forgiveness is another one here in this passage that's huge.

But also, we can't stop there.

We need to do the same for others.

We need to pray that the Lord will give us merciful hearts so that we can show the same love to others that Christ shows to us.

And then the last one we see here in our passage is deliverance from temptation.

Verse 13, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

To think that we can get through a day, to think that you and I can walk through a day without having the Lord's help is foolish.

We will never walk the Christian life wholly as he requires us to, unless we have the help of the Holy Spirit.

And listen, he wants to help us.

He is waiting to give us his spirit to fill us with his spirit so that he can help us.

We should pray for the help of the Holy Spirit, whether it's for his strength or whether it is to get over that sin.

I promise if you ask the Lord to deliver you from your anger, from your lust, from your bad spending habits, from your pride, he will help you.

I promise our Lord wants to deliver us from temptation.

We just have to be humble enough to ask his help.

On Wednesday nights, we've been going over what we preach on on Sunday, and we've been going over them in a little bit more depth and getting to look at them a little bit closely.

And so Wednesday night, if you're able to come back Wednesday night, I want to talk about all of these a little bit more in depth and look at some cross-references.

I didn't spend a ton of time on it today.

But Wednesday night, if you're able to come back, I want to look at a lot of these in some more depth.

But we've talked about the how of prayer.

We talked about our hard posture when we go to the Lord in prayer, and we've talked about the pattern of prayer, the components that should be in our prayer.

But why should you care?

What good does prayer do you?

Maybe you're here this morning and you've never seen prayer work in your life.

Maybe you've heard stories of it working for other people, but you haven't seen it work in your own personal life.

Our final point this morning: the power of prayer.

The power of prayer.

Why do we pray?

This morning, I would like to look at three reasons that we pray.

Look at uh chapter six there, Matthew 6, verse 5.

Matthew 6:5

And when thou and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

But 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 which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Verse 7 says, But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Is anything is anybody noticing anything about the first phrase of these three verses?

What is the first phrase of verses five, six, and seven imply?

When thou.

Read it with me in verse five, the first phrase it says, and when thou prayest.

What about verse six?

But thou when thou prayest.

Verse seven says, but when ye pray.

Here we see the first reason that we pray.

Jesus, he never tells us to pray, he expects it.

He expects it of all of his followers to pray.

He expects all of his disciples to pray.

It is a non-negotiable for a follower of Jesus, for a disciple of Jesus to pray.

He never says if you pray, he says when you pray.

We as followers of Jesus have to realize that prayer is not an option.

It isn't a choice that we have.

We signed up to be people of prayer when we accepted Christ as our Savior.

Prayer is a non-negotiable for the Christian, it is an expectation.

The second reason we pray this morning is it is because it is how we develop a relationship with Christ, with our Savior.

Look at verse 6.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.

And when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy who?

Look at verse 8.

Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask them.

Verse 9, after this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Our Father knows our needs.

We pray to our Father.

Listen, when we pray, we aren't going to some far-off, careless deity.

We are praying to someone that we can have a close, intimate relationship with.

We are praying to someone who loves us beyond degree, someone that cares for us beyond what we can even imagine.

We are praying to our Father, someone we have a close relationship with.

But just as any relationship is, it's a two-way street.

We must allow him to speak to us just as you are all now.

He speaks to us through his word.

And you are all now receiving him.

You're allowing him to speak to you through not my words, but his word.

That's how he speaks to us.

But just as he speaks to us, we can also and we should speak to him.

How do we do that?

Through prayer.

I imagine all of you who are married would understand this concept, correct?

Um, if you sat there and listened to your spouse talk and talk and talk, I'm sure they would be pretty appreciative of that.

And I'm sure some of you have experienced that, right?

But I'm sure they would be appreciative of that.

But if you never said anything, or if you rarely ever responded to them, or if you maybe gave them some response every once in a while, that relationship wouldn't be doing too good, right?

It's crucial in every relationship, whether down here on earth or our relationship with our Heavenly Father, that it is a two-way street.

We can let him receive, we have to let him uh speak to us through his word, but we also should be speaking to him, bringing him our requests, glorifying him through prayer.

Prayer is our direct communication link to our Savior.

It is crucial to our relationship with him.

Finally, this morning, there is power in prayer because he can answer our requests.

As Joseph Jenkins labored in prayer in his own heart, as he spent every night staying up late praying and reading God's word, the Lord began to work in his heart.

The Lord began to start a revival in his heart, just as he had been praying for.

God began to work.

Joseph Jenkins, he began to hold some small sessions with uh some of his younger folks at his church after the services.

One day he asked a young girl in one of these sessions, he said, What does Jesus mean to you?

And she said, While it may seem like a to us, maybe a simple response, or oh, she's just looking for uh for not attention, but she's just looking to sound holy.

She said, I love Jesus with all my heart.

And when the other people in that room heard it, it affected their hearts as well.

So Joseph Jenkins, he's been he's been praying for revival in his own heart, in the hearts of his people, in the hearts of his of his uh of the church, and he sees revival in his own heart.

He's starting to see it in his church, and eventually the city of Wales, it was in complete revival.

So revival spread throughout all of Wales.

Today it is known as the Great Welsh Revival.

But before there was revival, there was a man who was dedicated in his life to prayer.

Before there was a revival, there was a man who realized that the only thing he could do to bring a revival to his own heart into his people was pray.

What if he had stopped?

What if he had stopped one prayer before God was gonna answer it?

I heard a quote that said, The word of God affects the heart of people, it moves the heart of people, but prayer moves the heart of God.

Consider a scale this morning.

I was gonna bring in an actual scale this morning, but I wasn't able to.

But consider a scale with two ways, and you have your request, and you're you're asking for whatever it may be, and you put it on one side, and this the scale weighs down, and then you have you have some little pebbles or some coins, or imagine what you'd want.

And you take one at a time.

Lord, answer this request.

Bring a revival, have this, have this soul be saved, and you put it down and it doesn't do anything.

And you take another one and you put it on the scale and it doesn't really do anything.

You take another one and another one and another one, and you pray, and you pray, and you pray, and you put another one, and after a while, maybe it starts to move, but it hasn't, it hasn't really done much.

And then eventually, all it takes is that last one.

That last one, and the sides flip.

And this side is now weighed down while this side it lifts up.

Joseph Jenkins, day after day, night after night, was putting a pebble on the scale, another pebble on the scale.

Lord, bring revival in my own heart, Lord, bring revival to my church, to my people.

Day after day.

One stone, one stone, one pebble, one pebble.

And finally, God answered.

Listen, the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5 17, pray without ceasing.

Listen, Christian, God can answer your prayers, but if we faint in our prayer life, if we don't pray without ceasing, we may never see our our prayer request answered.

And I hope you understand this morning that when we go to the Lord and prayer, we can't treat him as our personal genie.

I know you've heard it probably many times.

We can't treat him as our own personal genie and oh Lord, I really want a Lamborghini.

Can you give me a Lamborghini, Lord?

Or oh Lord, help me to get rich.

Help me to get rich, Lord.

That's not how God works, right?

That's not how God works.

The Bible says we need to pray in his will.

The only way we can pray in his will is by staying in his word, by letting him speak to us, by being at church and being under the word of God, by spending time praying every day.

We need to pray according to his will.

And I also don't want you, I don't want to uh come across like I'm teaching that it always takes X amount of prayers before God answers our prayer requests, right?

It takes exactly 10 pebbles and then God will answer our request.

Or it takes exactly 100 prayer requests.

That's not what I'm trying to communicate to you today.

Today I'm I'm here to tell you that we don't know God's timetable.

God doesn't work on our timetable and we don't know his timetable.

But what I do know is that the Bible says, pray without ceasing.

Listen, God can answer your prayers, but we can't let our prayer life faint.

Are you praying for revival?

Are you praying for the salvation of that coworker, of that family member?

Are you praying for uh the Lord to provide for your needs?

Are you praying are you praying for that job opening?

Are you praying for the Lord to grow you?

Are you praying to get over that sin problem?

Are you praying for your family member to come back to you?

These are all things that the Lord wants to help us with.

But we have to come to Him in prayer, and we cannot faint in our prayers.

You could be at 99, 99 pebbles, 99 prayers on that scale, and on the 100th one, God was gonna answer it.

But if you faint on 99, you never saw your prayer request answered.

This is why the Bible says, pray without ceasing.

We have to come to Him in prayer for Him to answer our requests, and we cannot faint.

Hey, I don't know what other requests you may have, but why not bring them to God?

The word of God moves the heart of man, but prayer moves the heart of God.

That relationship you've been longing for with that family member, the need you've been asking for, the thing that you've been praying for, it will come.

The salvation of that of that soul you've been asking for, the strength to keep pressing on that you've been praying for, these things they will come.

The word of God moves the heart of people, but prayer moves the heart of God.

God cares about what you care about.

Hebrews 4 15.

For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

We serve a Savior that knows the problems we go through.

He knows because he came to earth and he experienced them.

He suffered on earth just like we do.

He knows the problems we face because he experienced it.

He can relate with us.

We may never know what God has planned for us if we allow our prayer lives to faint.

But if we continue to labor in our prayers, he can answer our prayers.

Here in this passage, Jesus is confronting his followers, he's confronting his disciples, his people, people that have made a decision to follow him.

I imagine that many of us here in this room, we may fall under that same position.

Many of us have made the decision to follow Jesus and to trust him as our Savior.

But I imagine this morning that there may be some here in the crowd that are not yet followers of Jesus.

People that maybe haven't made a decision to trust in Jesus as their one true Savior.

If you're here this morning, and that's you, if you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus, you too can pray.

The prayer I've been talking about this morning is for Christians, for us who have decided to follow Jesus.

But if you're here this morning and you've never made that decision, I'm here to tell you, you too can pray.

But there's a different prayer for you.

You see, 2,000 years ago, Jesus came down to earth.

He lived perfectly, he taught countless other teachings, as the one we read about today.

He was perfectly sinless.

He never sinned.

Yet he left his throne in heaven to come down to our imperfect little world.

Why?

Because he loves us.

Well, what does that have to do with anything?

You and I, we have a problem.

You and I, unlike Jesus, we are not perfect.

We have not sinned.

And because of that, the moment we first sinned, we punched a one-way ticket to a horrible, horrible place called hell.

The Bible describes hell as a place of lake of fire.

You and I, because of our sin, we deserve to go there.

Jesus came and after living a perfect, sinless, holy life, he was nailed to a cross after being tortured and beaten.

And he allowed the people that hated him to kill him, even though he was dying for them, for their sins.

And because of their sins, because of your sins, because of my sins, Jesus died on the cross.

Well, how does that help us?

How does that help the modern day uh person?

How does that keep me from going to hell?

When Jesus died on the cross, he didn't just die.

He took on your sins and my sins, and our sins, they died with him.

When Jesus died on the cross, he became like a judge in a court of law.

And he, as a merciful judge, he looks at us, at all of the sins we've ever committed, and he says, You are not guilty.

He says, I deem you not guilty of the punishment that you deserve for your sins.

We got the good end of the deal.

We don't have to go to that horrible place called hell.

We don't have to because Jesus deemed us not guilty to go there.

And he did it out of a gift of his love.

But the thing with any gift is that you have to receive a gift, you have to take a gift.

And I'm here to tell you this morning that you can accept the gift that he is offering today.

Remember the prayer I was talking about earlier?

For us, for the Christians, we pray the Lord's prayer, right?

This prayer I'm talking about now is the sinner's prayer.

First, you must ask forgiveness of your sins.

You have to admit you're a sinner and confess your sins.

And then you just have to ask Jesus to forgive them and he will.

Second, you must ask Jesus to save you.

You must recognize that he did save you, and it takes a little bit of faith.

But what if you say, I don't have faith?

I don't, I don't believe that Jesus really did that for me.

I don't, I don't know if I can believe that that really happened.

Well, let me tell you that the Bible, the most historically accurate and preserved text in the world that never contradicts itself, it says that Jesus rose again from the day, the grave, three days after his death.

If that isn't someone worth putting your faith in, then I don't know who is.

If you're here today and you want to pray that prayer, you want to make that decision, you can do that today.

But for the rest of us, for those who have decided to follow Jesus, how is our prayer life?

Do we have a good posture when we pray?

Do we have a humble posture?

Are we going to the Lord humbly and recognizing who we're talking to?

What about our pattern of prayer?

Have you been praying all of these things that the Lord He instructs us to pray about?

What will you implement in your prayer life maybe this week?

And finally, have we fainted in our prayer life?

Have we seen the power of God in our prayer life?

And let me encourage you, if you haven't, do not faint in your prayer life.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, Lord.

We love you.

We thank you for all that you've given us.

We thank you for dying on the cross for our sins, Lord.

We thank you for salvation and that the love that that took and that gift that you offer us, Lord.

We thank you for your word and the truth that is in it.

Lord, we love you so much.

We thank you for all the things that you've given us.

Thank you for a good service this morning.

I pray that you would give us a good remainder of our evening and uh bring us back here this evening, Lord.

In your precious name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you all for listening.

If you have any questions about becoming a disciple of Jesus, you can ask, um, you can ask me about sir after service, come to me, and I would love to talk to you about that.

I'd just like to remind you that uh this evening we have a um combined service.

I hope this message was a blessing to you.

If you are in the Phoenix area, we would love to have you come in for a visit.

We're located on Indian School on 23rd Avenue.

If we can be a help to you in any other way, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

I would love to answer any questions that you had about the sermon, or maybe a question that you have about eternal life and a relationship with God.

We're here to serve you and to point you to Jesus Christ.

Thank you so much for watching this message.