Teach Us To Pray - Good Gifts

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiple Church Podcast.

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If you grab your seat, turn to your neighbor and say good gifts.

Turn to your neighbor and say good gifts, your other neighbor.

That's the title of my message today.

I've been so excited to get into this series.

Teach us to pray.

There's a lot leading up to it.

What's the best gift that you've ever been given?

Was it something physical?

Or is the best gift given to us?

Is it something that's spiritual?

Apart from salvation itself, what if our greatest gift is the ability to communicate with the God of the universe?

See, Jesus had a lot to say about how we approach God in prayer.

How we do it and gives us instruction, but he also tells us how we shouldn't do it and how not to approach him.

And today, as we open up God's word that is going to lead into the next four weeks of this series, teach us to pray as we talk about healing prayer and compassion and God's justice and the concept of altar in the New Testament and where we lay our hearts before God in worship and in prayer.

We want to dive into Jesus' teaching to us about what it looks like to pray and how we should pray.

Because there's ways that we should do it, and there's also ways that he tells us not to do it.

I had one of those uh experiences of a not so good way as a teenager and a very irreverent teenage story that um in youth ministry and youth group growing up, there was uh a bunch of us that went down during the summer to this beach camp.

And it was a powerful week, and there was worship, and one of the nights after the worship, they had our churches all get together, and so there was about a hundred of us that crammed into this little room after the worship service, and guys, it was hot.

It was Florida, it was a summer, we were melting in there, and somebody, the youth pastor, got up and spoke, and he was talking about things, and there was worship, and then it ended with the intern that was in the youth ministry who was in seminary at the time, the was asked to close in prayer.

And he must have just thought like this was his moment, okay?

So mind you, it's like 11 o'clock, 11:30, midnight.

He starts praying 15 minutes later, after he had given all these big words that he had learned in all his seminary classes and all kinds of Greek vocabulary and droned on and on.

Not one of us teenagers were still praying with him at that point.

We were all just looking at each other, sweating, looking across the room, making faces, making hand gestures, and about 15 minutes in, this big middle school boy just ripped a loud one, so loud that the room erupted and everyone bolted out of the room.

That's how you don't pray, okay?

We're gonna dig into how we should pray, and I want to compare that nonsense with the understanding that James, the half-brother of Jesus, gives us about prayer.

And we have looked at some of these verses over the last few weeks, so God is obviously trying to get us to learn from them.

In James chapter 5, verse 13, the scripture says, Are any of you suffering hardship, you should pray.

James 5:13

Or any of you happy, you should sing praises.

Are any of you sick, you should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.

Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well.

And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.

Verse 16, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Elijah was a human as we are.

And yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years, then when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crop.

Verse 19, my brothers, my dear brothers and sisters, if some among you wander away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.

There's power in prayer, there's healing power in prayer.

There's power as we go to the throne, and what I want to just and just a little side note to share with you here is that when you look at this passage and it talks about the prayers of the righteous, and if you're sick, that you should come to the leaders of the church, that you should be prayed for, and that the prayer of the righteous would be powerful and produce fruit.

But notice that it doesn't say the prayer of the person that's sick or the faith of the person that's sick, but the prayer and the faith of those who are praying for them.

There is a false teaching that if you just had enough faith that you would be healed.

If you just believed more, that you would be healed.

No, it's a this is showing us what it means to be in the relationship of God and his body in the church, that you would have people come around you who are fully in faith to pray so that it would move the heart of God, that you would be healed in this life and in the next.

And so we come to God with with a full faith, not divided in our minds, but with the truth of the gospel, and that if anybody's to wander away, that we would be the ones to bring them back to the truth and get this, save them from death, and to bring about the forgiveness of sins.

See, I I'm convinced that so often now prayer is just seen as this exercise that we do instead of an experience with God as He intended.

It's just something that we do is very just commonplace, or we think about the rules of man or what prayer should be or comparison.

You think, oh, well, I if I pray, I need a sound this way, which is just a performance mindset.

You think, oh, I need to sound spiritual.

When God really wants you to speak honestly to him.

We're focused on folded hands and bowed heads instead of intimacy and authenticity with our God, in proximity with him.

And so are you allowing Jesus to teach you to pray and are you truly praying in faith?

See, Jesus is asked by his disciples how to pray.

And he gives them an example and then he tells a story with more instructions for us to follow today.

So we're gonna go through two big passages of scripture.

I want you to follow along with me.

If you've got your Bible, turn to Luke chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

If you've got your phone with your Bible app, I want you to highlight these verses.

You can pull that out.

Luke chapter 11, starting in verse 1.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

It's also gonna be on the screen.

Let's dive in.

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying, as he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray.

Just as John taught his disciples, and Jesus said, This is how you should pray.

Father, may your name be kept holy.

May your kingdom come soon.

Give us each day the food we need and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us, and don't let us yield to temptation.

Verse 5, then teaching more about prayer, he used this story.

Suppose you went to a friend's house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread.

You say to him, A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.

And suppose he calls out from this bedroom, don't bother me.

The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed.

I can't help you.

But I tell you this, though he won't do it for friendship's sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and get you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.

Everybody say persistence.

Verse 9.

And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for.

Keep on seeking and you will find.

Keep on knocking, and the door will be open to you.

For everyone who asks receives.

Everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be open.

And then look at verse 11.

Look at this.

You fathers, if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion?

Of course not.

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

Matthew's account of this conversation ends this way in Matthew 7.11.

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good gifts to those who ask him?

You know, sometimes I question if what's happening to me in my life is for my good.

Because I ask God for something and he doesn't give me the answer that I wanted in the time frame that I wanted.

And maybe you have felt the pain of disappointment of an unanswered prayer.

Can I tell you in this passage, Matthew, he he names the good gifts that come from the Father, but Luke, Luke goes upstream to the source of the good giver, the spring, the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to give you more of himself.

You've got to go for the spring more than the stream.

That's my first point.

You're going upstream.

We ask for things from God.

And what he wants to give to us is more of himself.

He wants to give you more of his Holy Spirit.

He wants to answer those prayers.

And maybe you've thought before, well, you know, if I just prayed better words, then things would happen.

Or if I just prayed longer, maybe it would have enough.

If I just had more excitement and hype.

Jesus is the one who taught us just to pray, and he said, start with Father.

And some of you in the house, your earthly father hasn't been the greatest representation of your heavenly father.

And maybe some of you need to start in your prayers.

You just need to say, Father, father, father, father, over and over and over again until you believe in God's closeness to you.

That if you're in Christ, that you are a son or daughter of the one true King.

And that He has good gifts for you.

Now, my little girls, if they ask their dad for something, I'm gonna give it to them if it's good for them or if it's some sweet gift.

But if I gave my children everything they have asked for, they would have died of a sugar coma a long time ago.

Even though we think we want something, God is only going to give it if it is in accordance with his good will for your life.

See, we have a part to play in prayer, to align us with God's will.

As we get an answer for him, that sometimes yes, sometimes it's no, sometimes it's not yet.

But God cares about how we ask, and he cares about how we come to him in prayer, even so much that Jesus tells us not to pray like hypocrites.

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is giving more instruction on prayer in verse 5.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He says, 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 their reward.

But if you go, if 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.

Don't be like them.

For your father knows what you need before you ask him.

Now I I wish I could tell you that that next day at the beach camp, I didn't go up to that intern and tell him to read Matthew 6, 7.

But I did, okay.

Don't go on babbling like the Gentiles do.

Because God already knows what you need.

See, maybe you've been avoiding prayer because you think you're bad at it because you don't have all the words.

Do you know that God wants to meet you in the secret place?

He's not impressed by the language and you haven't all the right spiritual words.

He wants you in the secret place to share your heart with him.

And not for show, but so that you will meet with him in intimacy, so that you will get to know him and that you'll have this personal relationship with God.

That you're able to share with him the secrets that are going on because he already knows what's going on in your heart and what you need, so you might as well just tell him.

You can't hide, you might as well just speak it out.

And so we want to be in the secret place over the show.

Now, obviously, we're talking about the personal prayer life, and obviously, when we're here as the body, we pray together as the body of Christ.

But I know this anybody who prays from this stage, this isn't the first time they're praying during the week.

People on this platform who pray are ones who are seeking after God and having a love relationship with him throughout the week, not just for show, but in the secret place.

Now it's a personal conversation that you're having with God.

You don't have to have all the right words, you need to pursue him in relationship, and so I want you to pursue that relationship over the ramble.

The God of the universe will meet you in secret.

There's a passage that just has three words that has meant a lot to me over the last few years.

1 Thessalonians 5.17, it says this pray without ceasing.

This continual conversation that you have with God all day long.

See, there's a time like Jesus did as he retreated and went in solitude and in prayer, sometimes all night long, to seek after the heart of God in secret.

But we also are asked to walk in relationship and the power of the Holy Spirit and pursuing God's will for our life and for us to be having this continual conversation with God all day long, this praying without ceasing.

And that means that you just you pray about small things that you feel like don't even matter.

And you pray them all day long.

Now, this has been something that God has taught me over the last few years in church planting, of trying to remain submitted to Him and just praying about just the most mundane of details.

There's rarely a text message that I send that I don't pray about before I send it.

There's rarely a conversation that I'm having with somebody that in my mind I'm praying, God, give me the words, give me the words to say.

There's rarely a day that I don't get up and get out of bed and I pray to the Lord of what clothes I should wear that day.

And to be in a continual conversation of submission to God, even in the most mundane small things, because then it puts my heart in the right posture for the big ones.

Also, as of late, the Lord has been teaching me to open up my mouth and declare that there's sinful thoughts that come into my mind.

I say, I rebuke those thoughts in Jesus' name.

I have the mind of Christ.

I'm sober-minded in Christ.

These thoughts away from me in Jesus' name.

You have to open up your mouth.

And so I want you to open up your mouth and pray to God.

And maybe you have to pray under your breath because you're at your desk at work or you're with your coworker, but you you open up your mouth and be in a constant state of praying to God as your day goes on.

Just running in the background the whole time.

And what that does, it moves you from a place of anxiety into trust.

Philippians tells us that if you have anxiety, that you should pray.

And when anxiety wells up in your heart, it should be a trigger, it should be a flag for you to begin to pray and to seek after God's heart and to let him know what's going on because he already knows what's going on.

And allow you to align yourself with his will and pray the peace of God into your heart and proclaim it.

Anxiety away from me in the name of Jesus, fear away from me in the name of Jesus.

Because prayer isn't just about getting from God, it's about getting more of God.

More of him.

Just pray.

And then Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer.

And I learned it in King James growing up.

Verse 9.

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.

See, prayer, it's not about earning, it's about receiving from Him.

And I learned at a young age what it looks like to pray to God and how we should come to Him and ask Him from this prayer of the Lord's Prayer, and Jesus gives us this example.

And he's faithful to give us more of the Holy Spirit if we'll ask and more of him.

And I wonder if you would ask the Father for more of him in your life, what would he multiply in your life?

Can I give you a great idea, a great suggestion?

Would you like one?

Open up the book of Psalms and begin to read and pray to the Psalms because the Psalms give you the language to speak to God.

Because the Psalms and the Psalms, David and other psalmists, they're pouring out their heart to God.

Yes, there's worship, yes, there's adoration, yes, there's praise, but there's also lament.

And there's depression and there's hardship.

As they're pouring out their heart towards God and giving you the words to say, when I was young, I was taught this very simple acrostic of Acts of how to pray.

It's very simplistic, but something I still use.

It's starting our prayers off with adoration.

Just like the Lord's prayer, our Father, hallowed be thy name, holy is your name.

Starting your prayers, not with just the laundry list of all your requests, but starting, telling God how amazing He is in a moment of worship.

That you can say, God, you're on high, you're the off of the Omega, there's you're the healer, you're the great healer.

There's so many names of God that you can proclaim to him before you come to him asking for things, worship him of who he is in your life and the good things that he's given to you.

And then move into confession.

Forgive us, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil moment to pray and ask God to forgive you of your sins, to cleanse your heart, to cleanse your mind.

And then it leads into thanksgiving.

The gratitude of the power, the glory, the everlasting forever that God is, the good gifts that He's given to us.

And then lastly, supplication.

Give us this day the requests.

See, because when we come to God, we're not just coming to God like we're making an Amazon list, wish list.

We're coming to him to be in relationship with him, for him to make us more like his son Jesus.

And so I want to end in a way that I don't normally end, and I want to end in a time of personal prayer corporately right now.

And so what I'd like for you to do is bow your heads, and we're gonna walk through this together right now as I lead you.

If you bow your head, I want you right now to take a moment to give adoration to God in your mind and your heart.

Pray to him, worship him, tell him who he is to you.

In your own words.

Now turn to searching your heart and confession of sin.

Anything that's holding you back right now that's outside of God's will and his word.

Look for anything that's holding you back or rebellious against God.

Confess it.

Young person, confess it.

Mother, confess it.

Father, confess it.

Ask for his forgiveness.

And now turn to Thanksgiving.

Thanking God for the good gifts.

From the breath in your lungs.

To the friends that are around you, your family.

Those that love you.

The gas in your car, the food in your fridge.

Thank him.

And then now in full undivided faith, ask for what it is that you need.

More than what you want, but what you need before God.

Maybe it's a financial provision.

Maybe it's the salvation of a friend or a coworker.

Maybe it's having more of God in your life every day.

And now, head bowed, in a room this size, there's some of you in this place that there's a barrier, there's a block between you and God because you've not yet given your heart to Christ and you've not received his salvation on the cross to forgive you.

And so you haven't received yet the forgiveness of Christ because you've not yet given your life to him.

And today is the day of your salvation for you to give your life to Christ the first time.

And so if that's you, I want you right now to pray, Jesus, save me.

And your heart and mind, save me.

I believe that you're the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sins, and that you walked out of the grave.

Forgive me, cleanse me.

So I can be in heaven with you one day.

I give you my life as you gave yours for mine.

Thank you for saving me.

We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message.

At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone.

If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey.

Visit multiplyky.com to let us know.

We love you and we'll see you again soon.