Praying to Your Father

The scripture reading comes from Matthew, chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Please follow along in your bulletins or on the screen.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites,

for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues

and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.

Truly, I say to you, they have received a reward.

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door

and pray to your Father who is in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do,

for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Pray then like this.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

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

For if you forgive others their trespasses,

your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses,

neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

This is the word of God.

Thank you, Pui.

Welcome again.

My name is Chris.

I'm one of the leaders here.

If you don't know me, it's just exciting to welcome you this morning.

We're continuing in our series in the Sermon on the Mount.

And if you've been following along, Jesus has been saying,

He's not looking, God's not looking for us to have an outward religion in our lives.

He's looking not for a religion that just obeys the rules and does the right thing on the outside,

but he's looking for a religion from the heart.

And Kevin last week said,

outward religion leads to a situation like a parent who has told his child to sit at the dinner table for repeated attempts,

and finally manages to get them sitting down.

And the child then says to them,

I'm sitting down, but I'm standing up on the inside.

And Jesus says, religion like that is dead religion.

I want to transform your heart to love me from the inside out.

And so in Matthew 5, Jesus has been applying this principle of the heart to anger, to lust, to many areas in life.

And today he's going to come to the area of prayer.

And as we did when we looked at salt and light and evangelism,

we're actually going to camp out on the idea of prayer for the next four weeks.

Because this is, we want to really get deep into what Jesus is actually talking to us about.

Because this is important.

And so we're going to talk about prayer.

How many of you feel like you are good at praying?

Overwhelming response.

You know, I think that's where most of us are.

You know, Fiona and I, my wife and I, we pray usually just briefly before we go to bed.

And I remember one time I started praying.

And then I realized I was dozing off.

Only to hear myself at one point saying,

Father, would you bless Mickey Mouse?

I don't know why I was praying for Mickey Mouse.

But the whole thing is prayer is difficult.

You lose concentration.

You get distracted.

There's Facebook.

There's food.

There's sleep.

Whatever it is, it all seeks to draw us away from prayer.

And we live in an age where we've got to be productive.

And doesn't it feel like if you've got 15 emails to do right now,

or the choice to pray for the next 15 minutes,

what seems to be more productive?

Because prayer sometimes feels like you're not really doing anything.

And we also live in an age of entertainment where we have to have instant gratification.

So then you have a choice.

I either look at YouTube or I pray.

And YouTube normally wins, right, if we're honest.

And prayer is hard work because we want instant things.

If your prayers were answered within 30 seconds of you asking for them,

I reckon all of us would be constantly on our knees in prayer.

But it doesn't.

And so we don't pray as much as we should.

And the Bible continually calls us and says prayer is vital,

is totally about spiritual vitality.

It's like what oxygen is to breathing.

You may believe in your head that God loves you,

but you'll not experience the depth of his love

if you do not talk to him and pray.

You know, Jesus in this passage, he says,

when you pray, he didn't say if you pray.

Jesus says he expects Christians to pray.

But you know, in Hong Kong, we're like a diver

that's often starved of oxygen,

who's drowning and gasping for air,

seeking to find rest in our holidays, in yoga,

in meditation, in whatever,

when we don't realize that there is an oxygen tank available for us,

which is called prayer.

Tim Keller says this,

prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge.

It's also the main way we experience deep change,

the reordering of our loves.

Prayer is how God gives us so many

of the unimaginable things he has for us.

Indeed, prayer makes it safe for God to give us

many of the things we desire.

It's the way we know God.

It's the way we finally treat God as God.

Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do

and be in life.

Wow.

So how's our prayer life?

Because if we're honest,

most of us actually feel a little bit guilty about prayer.

We know we should pray,

but we know that our hearts often choose other things

rather than spending time with the God of the universe.

And some of us,

if we're actually honest,

we're actually a little cynical

that prayer really makes any difference anyway.

Sometimes it feels like you're praying to the ceiling.

That's why as a church,

we need to talk about prayer

for these next four weeks.

Because the whole spiritual vitality of Watermark

depends on it.

It depends.

If this church is to be a place

filled with God's power and his love and his presence,

presence,

both individually and corporately,

then prayer is the key

which opens the door to invite God

to come in in power to us.

So we're going to look at prayer today.

Are you ready?

Okay, three people.

Great.

So to get an understanding of prayer,

we need to understand what it is to pray rightly.

And to do that,

Jesus is going to show us how not to pray,

and then he's going to show us

how gospel praying reorients our prayers

to God, to others,

and to our need for him.

Okay?

So if you've got the passage with you,

we're just going to go through a little bit,

and we're really just going to go through

the first few verses together.

We're not going to do the whole thing today.

So how not to pray.

And when you pray,

Jesus says,

you must not be like the hypocrites,

for they love to stand and pray

in the synagogues and at the street corners,

that they may be seen by others.

Jesus says,

one of the wrong ways to pray

is to pray like a hypocrite.

A hypocrite literally means

someone who puts on a mask

in their lives.

Hypocrites are more worried

about what others think about them

than what God thinks about them.

You know, in Jewish culture at the time,

if you prayed beautiful, eloquent prayers,

everyone would be amazed

at how holy you were.

That had street cred.

And so the Pharisees,

the religious people,

they prayed long,

they prayed loud,

they prayed so everyone could see.

But their prayers were more about

what other people thought about them

than actually what God thought about them.

You know, I had a friend.

He was a great guy.

He was a godly guy.

But he would never pray in public.

In our community group,

he would never pray.

He'd serve,

he'd do anything else

except pray.

And one day I asked him about it

and he said,

I'm just not very good at praying.

He said,

my words kind of come out wrong

and everyone else

kind of prays these amazing prayers

and then I just feel like

I'll look stupid if I pray

because I don't know how to say it.

And I challenged him

because I asked him,

who's at the center of your idea about prayer?

Because it's how other people will see him.

You see, the Pharisees,

you can wear a mask,

you can be like a mask wearing prayer

by praying very eloquently

all the beautiful words.

Or you can be a mask wearing prayer

by not praying at all.

But the focus in both of them is the same.

You're both worried about

what everyone else will think

rather than what God will think.

Anyone like that?

And Jesus says to us

who struggle with that,

he says,

what you need to do

is to shut the door

and pray in a secret place.

What he doesn't mean

is that the only place you can pray

is in your room.

Because he's talking about

where your reward is in prayer.

Whose eyes count for you?

Is it God's or other people's?

That's what he's saying.

And so we need to be those

who learn how to shut the door in prayer.

So when we come to pray,

whether it's praying together

with other people

or by yourself,

you shut the door

so you actually stop thinking

about what everyone else is thinking.

You shut the door of other people.

Forget about that.

You shut the door

and forget about yourself,

about constructing beautiful sentences.

And then you focus on talking

to your heavenly father.

And others may overhear

and be encouraged by that.

But our focus is on his eyes,

not everyone else's.

That's the first wrong way to pray.

The second wrong way to pray,

and this really actually fills

a lot of Christian books on prayer,

is to think that prayer

is like a sales pitch.

Okay?

It's like God is your potential customer

and you've got to kind of

come up with the right technique

to persuade him

to get the deal

to give you what you want.

You know, the Gentiles

had this special kind of formula.

They kind of had magic words

that they would repeat many times,

kind of like abracadabra,

abracadabra, abracadabra.

And they would say that

and they thought

if they prayed long enough

or they prayed hard enough,

then their God

was surely going to listen to them.

You know, when Christian pray,

sometimes we can do

exactly the same thing.

Have you ever noticed

that Christians sometimes

change their tone of voice

when they start praying?

Kind of very holy.

And then sometimes, you know,

we start using a whole lot

of very spiritual kind of language

which you never use any other time.

And then there's other times

where some people say

you can only pray in Jesus' name

if you didn't say in Jesus' name

it's not a real prayer.

Or some others, it's like

you have to get very loud

and emotional

because the more emotional

and loud you are

then God's going to hear you more.

Now emotion's good.

You should get excited about prayer.

But that's not what

actually makes God hear you.

God's not interested

in how great your presentation is.

You know, if a two-year-old child says

go toilet,

the parent doesn't stand back

and say

I'm not taking you anywhere

until your grammar improves.

No, they want to hear.

It says

your father already knows

what you need.

God calls us to pray

because he's inviting us

into relationship with himself.

Tim Keller again says this

the power of our prayers

lies not primarily

in our effort

and striving

or in any technique

but rather

in our knowledge of God.

Rather in our knowledge

of who we're praying to.

And so what you see

is in the Lord's Prayer

you'll see the first half

of the Lord's Prayer

is actually all focused

upwards on God.

You notice that?

It's about your name,

your kingdom,

your will.

And then the second half

is focused on us.

Our daily bread,

our sins,

lead us not,

deliver us.

You see the order

that he puts it in?

And what Jesus is doing

he's not giving a magic formula

to repeat.

He's looking internally

at our hearts

and he's wanting to reshape

not just our prayer list

but our loves

of who we want

the priority in our life.

Because prayer

is always a personal conversation

where we respond

to who God really is.

So we're going to focus

on the first line

of that prayer

and see how that reorients us

in our lives.

So here's my second point.

That's how not to pray.

We don't pray

by just praying to be seen.

We don't pray

by trying to get

a special technique

to God hear us.

But we pray,

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Our Father in heaven.

You know when you hear

the word Father,

I don't know what comes

into your minds.

I had a good Chinese friend

of mine say to me once,

My boss is like a father to me.

Every time I make a mistake,

he shouts at me

and points out

all the things

that I was doing wrong.

And I listened to that

and I thought,

that's not the image

I get of a father

when I hear that.

And so what I realized

is that we need

to understand

what Jesus means

by the word Father.

Otherwise,

we're going to project

our own fathers,

whether they're good or bad,

onto God

and we're going to miss

completely

what he wants to see

of who God truly is.

You see,

when Jesus was praying

Father

and calls us

to pray Father,

he's telling us

that God

is the source,

the sovereign source

of our life.

You see,

Deuteronomy 32,

6 says this,

Is he,

is God

not your Father

who created you,

who made you

and established you?

He's your maker.

He's your sustainer.

Every facet of your life

is in his hands.

He's sovereign.

That's why we pray to him,

not anyone else.

He's not like

our earthly father

because he's our father

in heaven.

What that means is

he sits at the control center

of the entire universe.

I don't know if you know

in the Old Testament,

kings were often called

the father

of the nation.

Sometimes they still are today.

But the kings

had the power

of life

and death

in their hands.

If someone said,

if they said

someone dies,

they died.

If they said

someone lives,

they lived.

They had power

and authority.

When we say

Father in heaven,

we're talking to the one

who has ultimate power

to determine

and to change lives

and to change everything

in this world.

We don't pray

because he's like

a therapist

who cannot really

change our situations

but it's just nice

to get things

off your chest.

Prayer is not a crutch

to make yourself

feel better.

No, in prayer,

we come before

the one who has

the resources

to make the global

autonomy tick,

the one who has

your marriage,

your singlehood,

your grades,

the conversation

you've got to have

with your boss

tomorrow

all in his hands.

And so when we pray,

we remind ourselves

that the source

of our life

isn't on getting

our to-do lists done.

It's not in getting

in our holidays.

The source of our real life

is God himself.

That's why we pray

our Father.

And you know,

if as a church

we don't pray,

we're also saying

functionally,

our hard work,

our organization,

all the other things,

the busyness that we do,

that's really where

our life comes from,

not God.

And do you know

in a church

that's the road

to spiritual death?

That's the diver

holding a breath

and refusing to put

on the oxygen mask.

But prayer recognizes

the sufficiency of God

in every situation.

That's the first thing

that prayer,

that Father means.

He's the sovereign source

of our life.

But it's not just that.

It also means

that he is the close

and personal.

He's not distant

and detached.

You know the word

Father in Aramaic,

which is what Jesus

would have spoken,

is the word

Abba.

Abba.

He uses it

in the Garden

of Gethsemane.

It's this very

personal word.

For a Jewish boy,

and actually,

if you ever see

Ethan running around

here,

he's a Jewish boy.

When he calls out

for his dad

and to come to him

from the other side

of the room,

do you know

what he says?

He says,

Abba.

Abba.

And when he's

in trouble,

it's Abba.

When he's suffering,

Abba.

Abba.

It's Abba.

And do you know

what happened?

His Abba,

even from the opposite

side of the room,

even if it may be noisy,

when he hears his voice,

do you know what?

His ears are tuned

to his son

because he's his Abba.

And so he comes to him

and he picks him up

and he walks with him.

You know,

Romans 8 says,

you have received,

if you're in Christ,

you have received

the spirit of adoption

as sons

by whom we cry

to the God of the universe,

Abba,

Father.

You know,

in prayer,

we come as the adopted children

of the one

who is sovereignly

over everything.

I don't know

if you realize

how incredible that is.

like,

if a stranger

walks into my parents' house,

goes up to the fridge

and starts trying

to help themselves

to some dessert

from the fridge,

do you know

what's going to happen?

They're going to either

experience the wrath

of my mom

or she's going to

call the police

because strangers

can't just walk in.

But if I,

as their son,

walk right into the house,

walk right up

to the fridge,

my mom will call out

to me from the back.

She'll say,

hey,

I left you some extra dessert

at the back of the fridge.

Help yourself.

How can I do that?

I can only do that

because I am a son.

I am part of the family.

I belong.

I have access.

You know,

no one gets

the president's ear

like their child does.

No one has access

like a son or a daughter

of the king does.

You know,

at the heart

of the gospel message

is the idea

that you and me

are just like

those hypocrites

and Gentiles

that we talked about

at the beginning.

We make life

all about ourselves

and we actually

have no right,

no access

into God's presence.

No human being,

listen to this,

no human being

has any right

to ever be heard

by God in prayer.

Did you know that?

We have no right

at all

because our performance

does not merit

an audience

with the king.

We don't have

righteousness enough

to enter.

Now,

God is so gracious

that sometimes

he allows the prayers

of non-believers

to kind of pass

through security

but actually

there's no right

for him to hear them

automatically.

But if you are

a believer

here in Christ,

what you have

is God

through Christ

coming to die

on the cross

for you,

he has made a way

that you have access

into his presence

like no one else does.

We say Christianity

is not a religion,

it's a relationship.

Right?

So where is that

relationship

with our Father

to be expressed?

In prayer.

In prayer.

Can I put it like this?

Jesus died for you

so that you can pray.

Jesus died for you

so that you can come in

and you can cry to God,

Abba,

and he will hear you.

That is not just a duty

that we have to do,

that is a privilege

of sons and daughters

of the living God.

Isn't that amazing?

But sometimes

we forget that,

right?

Which is why

practically before we pray,

Martin Lloyd-Jones,

he said this,

if you want to make

contact with God

and if you want to feel

his everlasting arms

around you,

before you pray,

put your hand

upon your mouth

for a moment.

Recollection.

Just stop for a moment

and remind yourself

of what you're about

to do.

We can put it

in a phrase.

Do you realize

the true essence

of prayer

is found

in the two words

in verse 9,

our Father.

So before you even

come to prayer,

remind yourself

of whose presence

you're coming into.

I'm coming into

the one

who controls

the universe.

I'm coming to

the one

who loves me

so much

that Christ died

that I could enter

into his presence

and I can come

with confidence

to the throne

of grace

to receive mercy

and grace

in my time of need.

Prayer reorients us

to the presence

of God

right in the midst

of our busyness.

Next,

prayer reorients us

to God.

Prayer reorients us

also to others.

You know,

did you notice

there are two words

in prayer

in the first line?

Our Father.

You notice

he didn't say

my Father,

right?

He said

our Father.

You see,

intrinsic

in the idea

of prayer

is that

when we pray

through Jesus

and that the Father

has made us

his children,

when he did that

he also made us

brothers and sisters.

He gave us

brothers and sisters

the church.

You know,

prayer can be done

in groups

or by yourself

but it's never

individualistic.

Do you know,

a church that doesn't pray

is a church

that doesn't love.

Do you know that?

Because if we do pray,

if you're like me,

my natural tendency

is actually

to be wrapped up

in myself

because my prayer

revealed my priorities

and most of my priorities

about me.

But when we say

our Father,

we're instantly reminded

of our responsibility

towards each other,

our brothers and sisters.

You know,

Hong Kong

is incredibly busy.

I get so distracted

by so many things.

I know I'm supposed

to love people

but when it comes

to pray,

I need to have

something

which will remind me

of how to pray

for people.

I need a prayer list.

I actually have

one on my phone.

So if I have a minute

waiting for the bus

or the MTI,

I can open it up

and I can see,

oh,

there's Archie

or there's Theo

or whoever it is

and I can pray for them.

And so when I start

to pray,

do you know what it does?

It actually reminds me

of them.

Most of the time

I forget about

everyone else

except me.

But you see,

what happens

is when you start

doing that,

then you think,

oh,

maybe I can send them

a text

and see how they're doing

and how can I pray for them.

And then when you send

them a text

and they tell you

about stuff that's

going on in your lives

then it gives you

an opportunity to think,

how can I love them?

How can I encourage them?

Maybe I can meet up

for them for coffee.

And when you do that,

then what happens is

you realize

very quickly

that you often

don't have the resources

to love them

as you should.

And so what it does

it fuels you

to pray for them again

because you realize

that only our sovereign

Abba who cares

for that person

has enough

to truly change

their life

and change

their circumstances.

And so what you see

is that prayer

is the fuel for love

and love

is the fuel for prayer

and it's this cycle.

And if we don't pray

for our church family

we won't love

our church family

with God's resources

as he calls us to.

You know,

when we don't pray

we just get centered

on our own little worlds,

our own little tiny

narrow little concerns

for others.

But a church

that is constantly praying

our Father

will radiate

God's Father's,

His fatherly love

and care

for each other.

Do you see?

Prayer orients us

not to just who God is.

It reorients us

to each other.

Thirdly,

prayer reorients us

to see

our own need

for God.

You know,

one of the problems

when we pray,

when Jesus says,

when you pray,

pray our Father,

what does that make us?

That makes us children,

right?

Generally.

Okay,

one person agrees.

Okay,

we might have to have

a conversation about this.

Yeah,

children.

Now,

just like we mentioned

about sheep

a few weeks ago,

the images

that Jesus uses

for human beings

are not flattering.

They're actually

about weakness

and humbleness

and dependence.

How much

we're in need.

Someone said it

like this,

helplessness

is the real secret

and the impelling

power of prayer.

Nothing so furthers

our prayer life

as the feeling

of our own helplessness.

Some of you know

what that's like.

Jesus knew

what that was like.

You know,

in John 5,

he says,

I can do nothing,

nothing by myself.

The Son can do

nothing by himself,

but only what I see

my Father doing.

The guy,

Paul Miller,

puts it like this.

He says,

if you had a 35-year-old man

who came and said

that to you,

I only do what I see

my dad doing,

you would think

he had some boundary

issues with his dad.

Right?

You'd think he needs

to get a little bit

of independence there,

probably.

Because that's just

like a child,

right?

But we're so adult

that we don't want

to be children.

We don't want

to feel helpless.

We don't want

to feel like

we can't do it.

We want to feel

like we're in control.

That's why we often

only pray

when we're desperate,

like before your exam

or before that job interview,

because you feel

helpless then,

right?

It's amazing

how your prayer life

just takes off

at those moments.

But if we're children,

and I'm going to embarrass

her this morning,

but we went to Turkey

last year with Rhoda.

And one of the things

that really struck me

during our trip

is that every while

we'd be looking for something

like a car park space.

And I'd be kind of,

I'd be stressing out

because someone just got

in that parking space

just before we get there.

I'm like, oh, that's just

the one we needed.

And Rhoda would be going,

help us, Father.

Help us, Father.

Help us, Father.

And I'd be going, oh,

like this.

And we'd be going

further along,

and then finally

we'd get into

like a car parking space

and we'd be going,

oh, it's so annoying.

It's like 200 meters away

from where we were before.

I can't believe it.

And she'd be going,

thank you, Father.

Thank you, Father.

Just kind of,

she was calm.

I was stressed.

And you know,

what I realized,

I realized how little

I pray as a child.

Because a child comes

to their father

about the most minute

details of their life.

They're bothering them

all the time.

That's why if you're parents,

you just get so annoyed

by like,

are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

You know,

that's what children are like.

But in their messiness

and in their self-centeredness,

they keep coming

to their parents,

to every little thing.

But I don't think

God would be that interested

in the little things.

I think he's,

I'm kind of more adult

than that.

And you know what adults do?

We do what men do

when they're driving

and they're lost.

And we don't want

to admit it.

We go,

oh, do you need help?

And we go,

no, I'm fine.

I'm going to fix this

by myself.

Thank you.

And then we kind of

desperately trying to make sure

we can navigate

our way all the way

to the end.

And you know,

in that process,

we're hardly the most loving,

kind, gracious people

on the way.

And even if we do make it

to the end,

we've been stressed

the whole way.

And isn't that exactly

like most of us

are in life?

That much of our stress

in Hong Kong

is due to us

trying to figure out

our lives

by ourselves.

The big things

and the little things.

Just look at your stress

over the last week

and then look at

your prayer life

and see if there isn't

a direct correlation

between your stress levels

and your prayerlessness.

Because we have

this oxygen tank

that God is wanting

to give us

and our whole city

is drowning

in stress

and anxiety

because it doesn't know

that we have a father,

an Abba,

who knows what we need,

who cares for us

and he wants to be present

with us

in the midst

of every little thing.

Whether it's even

you just can't find

your iPhone cable

or whether it's

you can't find

your car parking spot

or whether it's

your kids' education,

whatever it is,

he wants to be involved

in our lives

because he's our father.

The old hymn says,

Oh, what peace

we often forfeit.

Oh, what needless pains

we bear.

All because we do not

carry everything

to God in prayer.

Isn't that so true?

And so like with little children,

little children don't give up

until they get an answer.

Are we there yet

doesn't stop

until you're actually there.

But that's how

our father wants us

to pray to him

again and again.

And some of us

get disillusioned

because we've been waiting

a long time

for our prayers

to be answered.

And one of the things

that is amazing

in our prayer

is

can children pray

with selfish motives?

The answer is yes.

In fact,

we pray all the time

with kind of mixed motives.

So if you're waiting

to have a pure motive

before you pray

for something,

you're going to wait

a very long time.

but that's why

Jesus,

when he tells us to pray,

he puts this little

safety valve.

You know,

like on a gun,

you have a little safety catch

to stop it kind of just

causing chaos.

In the safety catch,

he says,

hallowed be your name.

Hallowed means holy.

It means may your name

be made holy.

May you be glorified

in my life.

So as children,

you come with any

kind of requests

and then with the safety valve

you say,

but Lord,

I want you to get glory

more than I even want

to get this thing.

With all of my life.

So it doesn't matter.

If you get more glory

from answering this immediately,

that's great, God.

I want you to do that.

Please do that right now.

But,

if you get even more glory,

by me having to wait

or you answering

in a different way,

then Father,

even though that's kind of

not exactly what I'd like

right now,

I know I can trust you

because I know

that you are my Abba.

And you love me more

than I can ever imagine.

Do you know,

sometimes God gets more glory

by making us wait.

You know,

I've had,

I've prayed for jobs

and got nothing

for month after month

after month.

And just as I was giving up hope,

totally out of the blue,

I received job offers

from jobs

I've never even applied for.

It's true.

And then,

you know,

it's only God

who's done it.

It's not my hard work.

He gets the glory.

Some of you

have had family members,

family members recently,

you've been praying

for years for them.

And you've wondered,

when could they ever come?

You've just got no hope

and then God has just

broken through

into their lives

and you've seen their lives

just turn around you

like it's only God.

Because then he gets the glory.

A good parent

will never give their children

everything they ask for.

If you're parents,

you know that is true.

But God gives us

everything that we would pray for

if we knew everything

that he knows.

And so,

the opposite of a praying church

is a self-reliant,

busy planning,

organizing church

with lots of programs

and just prays for God

to bless our plans.

But it doesn't have

a desperate sense

of our own need

of God as his children.

Tim Keller said this,

to fail to pray

is not to merely

break some religious rule.

It is a failure

to treat God as God.

It is a sin

against his glory.

It is to say,

I don't need you.

But our Abba

wants us to come to him

with everything

of our lives.

For our church,

for us individually.

if we see

what Christ

in the gospel

has done

for us

to make his children,

what would that mean

for us as watermark

if we started praying

as children

of our Father,

not as hypocrites,

not as Gentiles?

Well,

I think many of us

struggle in prayer

as we've seen.

Many of us feel like

we actually really,

if we're honest,

we don't have any real desire

to pray.

We've tried

and it just didn't seem

to work

and so we've given up.

There's plenty of other things

we want to do.

And so I think

the place where we need

to start as a church

is actually to repent

of our prayerlessness.

It's actually to come

and say,

God,

we've been self-sufficient.

It's actually to say,

I think I've been religious

in my praying.

Maybe I've prayed,

but I haven't prayed

with you as my Father.

I've prayed with you

as my genie

just to get stuff from you.

That God has called us

into relationship

with himself,

but I've just wanted

his stuff

and I haven't wanted him.

And so we start

by asking God

to make us desperate

for him.

God,

let us want you

more than I even want

that job offer

or whatever else it is.

Change my heart.

That's where we start

in prayer.

That's where I want us

to start this morning.

And then I think

we make a plan to pray.

This is the final thing.

Don Carson said,

the facts remains

that unless we plan

to pray,

we will not pray.

The reason we pray

so little

is that we do not

plan to pray.

Wise planning

will ensure

that we devote ourselves

to prayer often,

even if for brief periods.

It is better to pray

often with brevity

than rarely at length.

I know that's true.

If you don't plan

your prayer,

you have all the greatest

intentions in the world

to pray,

but it never happens.

I know that is so true.

There are so many,

there's so many great

YouTube videos out there

to distract you.

But that's why

as a church,

at 10.05,

on a Sunday morning,

we have a time

where we come together

to pray.

It's not just something

we do because we're Christians

and Christians should pray.

This is oxygen tank time.

This is spiritual vitality time.

This is awaken the dead bones

and bring us to lifetime.

This is the time

where we say,

God, we need you.

We need your spirit

to awaken us.

We will not have

your spirit's presence

as you want to bring it

unless you come

in your power.

So we're asking Abba,

thank you for this privilege

we can pray.

Now please come

and be manifested amongst us.

So come and join us

at 10.05.

It may mean you wake up early,

but that's okay.

And in your own life,

set a time to pray.

Read scripture.

Remind yourself

of whose presence

you're entering.

The one who loves you so much

that he died

that you could enter.

And remember,

above all,

Jesus died

that you could say,

our Father,

our Abba

in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Let us pray that

as a church.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

Abba, Father.

Father, we just admit

that sometimes prayer,

we find prayer difficult.

Sometimes our hearts

are just,

we kind of know

we should pray,

but we kind of don't,

and then we feel guilty

that we should,

but that never motivates us

to come to you.

Show us how amazing

your generosity is

towards us.

Show us that you are

both the one

who is all sufficient

for us,

but you are the one

who is so tender

and close to us.

Show us that you're

at Abba.

I pray as a church

that you'd help us

to be a church

that prays.

A church that knows

our need of you.

A church that's going

to love each other

by praying

for each other regularly.

A church that doesn't

just plan all the other

things in our lives,

the things that we find

important in our lives,

and forgets to plan

to pray,

to pray for each other,

to pray for your kingdom,

to pray for those around us,

to pray with our children,

to pray, Lord,

because we know

we need you.

Would you just fill us

again with your spirit?

Would you open our eyes

to see the privilege

that it is

to pray to you?

In Jesus' name,

Amen.