URGENT PRAYER // The PRACTICE of PRAYER // John Wilson

Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to

know that God is for you.

So you're about to.

Hear a sermon from one of our weekend services in

the twilights of southern Colorado. God is not a monument,

He's a movement. So we're praying that this message will

move you in a meaningful way. Listen closely after the

message for ways to get connection with us. God bless you.

Thanks for tuning in.

Good morning everyone. Yeah, what a pleasure. Thanks Josh, It's

great to see each of you. My name is John.

I'm a member of the teaching team here at the

Movement Church. It is a pleasure to worship Jesus, is

it not. Hey, did y'all enjoy Isaiah' sting in this morning?

Yeah?

Let's go, man, you got some pipes, bro. I'm just

saying anyway, I love that. I just wanted to share

first off, that I am a grateful follower of Jesus Christ.

Anybody else following Jesus here this morning? Amen? And I

mess it all up. I know, shocker, and Jesus makes

me new. He's renewed me from the inside out, and

I can just share with confidence this morning. He's a

good God. Life can be tough and rough, but he

is good? Is he not? And I just want to

tell you, if you don't know him this morning, if

you don't hear anything else that I say this morning,

hear me say this, Today'd be a great day to

follow Jesus would have not Today's about Him, and we're

going to walk through some great things that we're gonna

learn about today to have a conversation with Him on

an ongoing basis. But if you've never thought or you

are wrestling with the thought of following Jesus, I want

to challenge you, today would be a great day to

follow after Jesus. Today we are going to continue in

our urgent series focusing around prayer and answering this question

how do I pray? And like really practical, like who

do I pray to? When do I pray? And then

what do I actually say to him? You know, some

of you might be veterans and have prayed these opened

into prayers your entire life since you were a kid.

And then some of you may have never ever thought

about such a thing of praying to someone that you

can't see. But I want to just give us some

real practical things that will help us this morning. I

have a tradition that I really enjoy doing is standing

in honor of God's words. So if you're able, I

just want to invite you to stand to your feet

in honor of God's word. We're going to read what

Jesus taught us about praying right here in Matthew chapter six.

He says, this, then, is how you should pray our

Father in heaven. How it would be your name, your kingdom. Come,

You will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us

not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Let's pray together, Lord, you are God. Thank you that

we get to talk to you. We love you in

Jesus' name. Amen, you're welcome to have a seat. Thanks

so much for reading the Word of God with me today.

There's so many ways to pray, or there are so

many styles or approaches by which people approach God. I'm

sure some of you may have heard of this particular prayer.

But a few years ago, well maybe many years ago,

there is an invocation for a NASCAR race given by

a pastor Joe Nelms. Anybody knows recall what this is.

You may have seen this on social media eight years ago.

Thank you Ryan. He prayed something like this. He said,

Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for all your blessings.

We want to thank you for these mighty racing machines

that you've brought before us. We thank you for the Dodges,

for the Toyotas, We thank you for the Fords, and

we thank you for my smoking hot wife, and thank

you for Good Year tires, Sunooku Racing fuel. And may

they put on a performance worthy of this great track

in Jesus name. Boogety boogety boogety Amen, youybody heard this prayer? No, well,

google it or ai it or whatever you want to

call it today, because this guy was hilarious. His name's

Joe Nelms. You want to talk about a pastor that

is passionate about NASCAR racing, that's your guy right now.

That's a style or a passion for NASCAR. Another style

that I have loved over the years is from our

African American brothers and sisters. Now I'll tell you what

I had the pleasure I've had the pleasure of attending

a few services of some of my African American brothers

and sisters, and man, they make us look boring, y'all.

I'm just saying that right now. They say things like this.

You start your prayer.

Off, you say God, our Father, Lord of Lords, King

of Kings, Ruler of the universe, Alpha and Omega, beginning

in the end, bright and morning star.

Wow, I can hear a pin dropping here.

You're supposed to say, Amen, thank you our African American

brothers and sisters. Gosh, man, you just like want to

get up out of your chair and do something right

because there is passion.

Behind what they share, you know not. I mean, there's

no way you can be excited about talking to the

Almighty when you hang out with some of our friends. Now,

some of y'all may have grown up in more of

this kind of setting right everybody, you know, you put

down the nice kneel, You kneel, and then together with

the bishop or priest whoever is conducting it, you might say,

you may not be praying to God. You might be

saying this. You might know this very well if this

is your background. Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord

is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed

is the fruit of thy womb. Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother

of God, Pray for us sinners now at the hour

of our death. Amens. You might know this, do this

as a kid, Maybe still do it? Okay, Yeah, different, right,

You're not praying to God. You're praying to Mary to

intercede for you. Very solemn. Might be in like a

Gothic style church, depending on what it is, it's much

more reflective another kind of style. The compliments of my

mother in law, Miss Terry Jackson. You might see, like

some of our studentese or are Ugandan brothers and sisters.

You notice they pray out loud, all at the same time,

and they're all prayed about different things.

Like there isn't like.

You know, a uniform way in which they're connecting it.

They're just praying what they feel is on God's heart.

So you know, shameless plug, she's the leader of this

amazing organization on Mission Global, and if anybody wants to

go participate with these brothers and sisters, I'm sure she'd

signed you up. She visits periodically, so she'd probably signed

you up. For that right away if you like. But

there's a lot of different styles, you know, ways that

we approach, or you might be like this nothing. You

don't pray, you don't talk to God. In fact, you

don't really care. You don't really think it makes any

difference whether you talk to him or not, So why

should you even try? You know, or you've never even

thought about it until this morning, connecting to the Almighty,

And I just want to tell you, welcome. If that's

you this morning, you thought that for years and concealed it,

or been very open about it, or you've just never

really thought about it. Welcome. We're so glad you're here.

We're glad that you get the opportunity to just consider,

like what it could look like to have a connection

with God. And I just want to reiterate at this

point in the sermon, if you do not know Jesus,

today's a great day to get to know him. And

throughout this time together, we're going to talk about having

a great dialogue with God. And my hope for you

would just be that you begin a great dialogue with God.

Last week, Richie Ffeike our pastors, shared why we pray.

He went into this idea that God's purpose for prayer

is relational connectivity, and that God doesn't demand a relationship

with you, he invites it. I think that's real love.

That God could make you do anything, but he chooses

to allow you to choose him, and he wants you

to choose him. He seeks you out, he invites you,

He pursues you, he goes after you. And today I

want to dig into practically how we pray, and I

want to show you that anybody can pray. Doesn't have

to be real, put together, doesn't have to be perfect,

doesn't have to have to be recited in a certain way.

God wants to hear from you. And I want to

give you the tools today given by Jesus himself to

approach God. And the real question I think we start

with is who we pray too? You ever thought about

this like Hail Mary full of grace or Jesus or

Holy Spirit Father? Who am I talking to right now?

Who am I addressing like? When I speak about this?

So we serve a triune God. He is three in one,

not to be confused with three gods, but he's one

God in three forms. He expresses himself in these ways.

He as God, the Father, he is the provider, He's

the protector, He's the supplier of human needs. He's the architect,

thank you, Chris Tomdale, overseeing his purposes. He's orchestrating the

fulfillment of his will. Everything falls under the Father's governance.

And it's interesting. The Father holds priority in the Trinity,

but he doesn't hold superiority in the Trinity. He shares

one name, power, and identity in the Son, in the

Holy Spirit. He is one person, manifested the Father, and

as the Holy Spirit. He is the presence of God.

He is the power in you and in this world.

He in dwells us when we become a Christian. He

speaks words for us when we have no words to pray.

He brings order to our spiritual lives. He is often

the voice of God in us, whispering in our hearts.

He fulfills God's ability to be transcendent, to be present

everywhere at once. He guides, counsels, directs us toward the

will of the Father. He manifests the power of God

here and in the world in which we leave. That

is God manifested as the Holy Spirit. And then finally,

he is the Son he is Jesus. He is the intercessor.

He is the one who's stepped in for us. Can

I get an amen? He stepped in for us. He's

the one that took our sin. He's the one that

paid the payment that we owed so we can have

a relationship with God. He intercedes for us on an

ongoing basis to the Father, so we have full access

to God. That's the gospel, right, it's John through sixteen.

God so loved the world he gave his one and

only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish

but have everlasting life. He provided a way through Jesus.

Jesus was the answer that brought about relationship with God

for eternity. And again, like I said earlier, today be

a great day to follow Jesus. Whether you've said you've

been a Christian your whole life and realized in this

moment you're not, or you just discovered it in this moment, Today,

be a great day to follow Jesus. See this idea

of intercession, this idea of him being the intermediary for us,

we can therefore like this Hebrew's pastor says. It says,

let us then, because of Jesus approach God's throne of

grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and

find grace to help us in our time if need.

See this is a beautiful depiction of what the sacrifice

of Jesus did. Right before there was uncertainty, and now

there is confidence in the blood of Jesus in approaching them.

So who do we pray to? Jesus put it perfectly,

He said, this is how you should pray our Father

in heaven. How it would be your name. He designates

that the Father is who our prayers are directed toward.

And so it's kind of this flow based on what

I've shared with you already. We pray to the Father

through the Son because of his great sacrifice for us,

by the power of the Holy Spirit. You see the

flow there. We pray to the Father through the Son

for what He's done by the power of the Holy Spirit. See,

the Spirit often comes alongside you and you don't know

what to say to God. He gives you the words,

or sometimes you still don't have the words and he

says them for you. It's beautiful when you're praying in

the power of the Spirit. So who do we pray to?

Everybody the Father, right, Jesus said it our Father, our Father.

She says, you're awesome. There's this beginning point in the

conversation with the Father. We do that through the Son,

by the Holy Spirit. So now when do I pray?

So you've we've talked about who you pray to and

by whose power you do that, But when do you pray?

Do you pray at church? Do you do it when

you're kneeling at an altar? Do you do it at

your bedside? At night? Do you eat? Do you do

it when you're eating food? You do it when you struggle,

when you need something, you do it in the morning.

You do it at night, when you're happy, said mediocre,

when you fail, when you're dominating work, when you get

the promotion and the rays you really hope for, or

you make a really stupid decision in your life, yes, yes, right,

oh man, Like exactly. There are these moments in life

where there is massive celebration. There are moments in life

that are boring beyond all reason, and there are moments

in your life that are just in the depths of hell.

Like let's just say what it is. But God wants

to hear from you at every point throughout that there's

a verse of verse the Salonians five. It says to

pray continually. It doesn't really stop. It's this ongoing dialogue

that we have with God, and no matter how you

feel or where you are, what time it is, God

wants to hear from you. It could sound something like this, Father,

thank you for giving me wisdom and that conversation. I

had no idea what to say, and I could sense

you as I responded to that person. I had a

couple of instances this week with a few of my

customers that were like that. You could say, God, I'm

on cloud nine right now, wherever cloud nine is. I'm

so excited for what is to come with this promotion.

Thank you for the opportunity. I praise you in Jesus name.

Or you might say, God, I don't know what happened.

I was somewhere that I shouldn't have been, and I

made a mistake. Please forgive me, and I will go

and make it right with the person that I hurt.

See the dialogue all sorts of contexts, nothing really fancy conversation,

relational connectivity with God. You see what I'm getting at here.

It's constant, it's ongoing, it's continual, it's part of what

we do know. Jesus takes us further, even says, it's

kind of this like is this secretive game in some

regard like you? He says, but when you pray, go

into your room, close the door and pray to your

father who's unseen, and then your father, who sees what

has done in secret, will reward you. So prayer, is

it something that you need to pronounce to all the world.

Do we do it corporately? Of course we do. But

is it something everybody needs to know about?

No?

I mean I've known some people, and you've probably known

people in your life like this that they just have

this sense of connection with God. You have no idea

how much time it's been with him. They wouldn't tell

you either. They go in their room, close the door,

and they connect with God in a real way that

is available to everybody. Doesn't have to be a special person.

Somebody grew up in church their whole life. The Lord

is available to everyone, connecting intimately with you, and that

is the type of relationship that He wants with you.

So when do I pray.

Continually? I give you the answer continually ongoing all the time.

It's something that every point in your day can be

a great way to connect them. So let's talk about

how we actually pray now, Like I'm talking about the

actual words that we're to say to God, that we

can say to God. See, we have this. You know,

some people may feel that there's a formula that's needed here,

or there's some sort of structure that you have to

have with that, depending on your upbringing. I just want

to give you, like some insight that I think Jesus

just really laid out for us that make it very clear.

He says, just like we read. He says, this then,

is how you should pray our Father in Heaven, how

it would be your name, your kingdom. Come, Your will

be done on earth as it is in heaven. And

give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our

debts as we also have forgiven our debtters, and lead

us not in temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

There's a word that I learned as a kid. Some

of you might might know or might structure your prayer's offer.

I want to give it to you today as an acrostic.

I think our English majors Pastriphi might enjoy a good

acrostic in their lives. It's just a way for you

to remember, like a potential way in which you could

connect with God or structure your prayers. Now, I want

to say this right now, if you're intimidated about the

fact of like beginning a conversation with God out of

thin air, then copy Jesus like Jesus laid it out

in this passage, right. He said it very clearly. Hey,

this is a great way to pray. You could just

steal this and use this for a while. I don't

think there's anything wrong with copy of Jesus, do you.

So if you want to just steal this from him

and pray this for a while, all the power to you.

If you want to talk, like just with your own

words after that at some point, this is a great

way to kind of get it started. And it's this

acrostic of acts. Everybody say acts acts, right, just like

the Bible book acts. So we're gonna start with adoration.

This is how Jesus kind of kicked it off. He said,

hollow would be your name, your kingdom, Come, your will

be done. It's a way of saying to God, you

are Holy. It's a way of saying to God, you

are set apart, you are to be revered. You are God.

You are as our African American brothers and sisters would say,

Lord of lords and King of kings. Right. It is

a way to share deeply with Him that you understand

who he is and you are proclaiming who he is

when you address them. It reminds you of your place,

and it reminds you of God's place, reminds you who

he is. Like in the conversation, it helps you realize

that you are not God and he is God. Right.

It's a posture idea. He's not somebody that is responding

to every beck and call you have. He's the creator

of the universe. He's your God, but he is way

above you and has far more power than you could

ever have. It's a respect for him. So it might

sound something like this, Father, your Holy, you are good.

You are amazing. I am so blessed by you. You

are God and I am not. You see the posture there,

however you want to verbalize that is yours to structure.

But that's how you begin is understanding your connection to

God Almighty. All right, let's talk the second word, his confession. Confession.

It's the understanding or the agreement that you have with

God that you have fallen short, that you mess it

up all the time, got good namen? Anybody else mess

it up in here? Yes? It is just overwhelming how

you mess this up in your life with relationships, your

connection to God, your kids, whatever the situation is, you

are going to mess it up one hundred percent guaranteed.

This is the guarantee. So when you approach God, Jesus says,

forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

So there's this understanding that you are a need of

his forgiveness, that you need him to make you new,

to make it right. It's interesting like as much as

you need forgiveness from Him, you need to give it

to others as well. You see the connection when Jesus

spoke of that, it's this idea that you are asking

for forgiveness from God, but then you are turning around

right way and asking for forgiveness from others. There's this

difference and this understanding of your need for forgiveness from

God and from others. So it might sound something like this, Father,

You're holy, You're good, you are amazing. I am so

blessed by you. This is going to be said a lot,

by the way, so you'll start hearing a repeat here

your God, and I am not Please God, forgive me

for hurting my wife yesterday. I said some things that

I should not have, and I ask for your forgiveness.

I will apologize to her today and I will ask

for her forgiveness. You see the connection with forgiveness that

you have there. You're seeking forgiveness from God, but you're

also turning that out to others as you pray to him.

So think about next step is thanksgiving, and this is

you know, where we agree with God that there are

things in our life that we have continual gratitude for.

So this is, you know, right from Philippians where the

apostle Paul Like directs that we should offer our prayers

with thanksgiving to God, that there should be a posture

of gratitude for what God has done in our lives.

There's this connection to what God could do like in

the future, but there's an understanding of what He's done

in the past that we are really grateful for and

appreciative of. So thanksgiving and we go to my next

slide I hired to give you. The next one, which

I apologize is let me kind of finish this part is,

let me make sure I got this part right. Sorry, Thanksgiving,

I apologize, Mayor. I am thankful that you've given me

a wife whom I adore, and four amazing children that

are brilliant, strong, confident and will take this world by storm.

Thank you for giving me a job to support them

and the means to have amazing experiences with them at

their critical age. Thank you God. There's this understanding of

thanksgiving where you acknowledge that all that you have that

is good is from God. All of your wealth, all

of your relationships, all those good things come from Him.

He is the source of them. And when you express thanksgiving,

it's a way for you to share and articulate with

God that He has given them to you and you

are grateful for them. Makes sense. We're going with this

all right. Supplication got my slides goofed up there. Let's

talk about supplication. Supplication. Supplication is simply asking, And I

want to just tell you today, don't hold back with this.

Seriously and think about it. If you've come in this

manner to God already. I think your desires are going

to be pretty aligned with his by the time you

get to asking. Don't hold back. Jesus like says, you

don't have because you don't ask, and I would say,

just go for it. Think about the dreams that you

could have where God could do something powerful in your

life because you've asked him to do so. And so

when you ask, when you've gone through this, it could

sound something like this, Father, You're holy, You're good, You're amazing.

I am so blessed by you. You are God, and

I am not. Please God, forgive me for hurting my

wife yesterday. I said some things that I should not have,

and I asked that you forgive me. I will apologize

to her today and ask for her forgiveness. I'm thankful

that You've given me a wife whom I adore, and

four amazing children that are brilliant, strong, confident, and will

take this world by storm. Thank you for giving me

a job to support them and the means to have

amazing experiences with them at this critical age. Thank you God, God.

I don't know how to resolve this conflict with my coworker,

and it just seems like I cannot get through to

them and we fight over the smallest things. I need

your help. Would you help us work through the conflict?

Will you provide a way forward so I could have

a better work experience and resolve the issue with my coworker. Please, God,

I need your help show me how to do this

in Jesus' name. Amen, you see the flow. We're recognizing

who God is. We're acknowledging the obvious that we don't

have it all together. We're grateful for what only He

could provide, and we ask boldly for what we can't

do ourselves. You'll see how it works. Cool. So this

is a moment where it's kind of like meet and greet. Okay,

it's workshot time everybody. Are we ready? Did your teachers

do to this to you in school? Okay? Look to

your neighbor and then now we're going to do a

little activity together. Well that's what this is. So what

I want you to do is we're going to I'm

gonna put these up on the screen here like so

now again, if you want to just copy Jesus perfect, excellent,

Just pull it up on your phone. Matthew six boom,

right there, you got your prayer ready to roll this morning,

but want everybody to find two or three people. If

you're buy yourself perfect, like, just look around, make sure

everybody has one. All right, everybody stand up, find some

people ready to go. I know, I know this is

that part. Just look around, get you some people. We're

going to start all together. Don't worry.

If you're on YouTube, podcast whatever, buy yourself online, do

it too, like take take two or three minutes and

try this, or if you got somebody else in your house,

please do that as well.

Take this flow and practice it. You can use your

own words or steal Jesus's prayer which is fantastic, and practice.

I'm gonna give you two or three minutes. Ready, get set, go,

give you about one more minute here about ten seconds.

Everyone, Well done, everyone, Thank y'all for doing something a

little active this morning, a little participatory.

I want to challenge you this week to do this

at least once at some point during your week. Try it.

Just try it out. Maybe you pray all the time

and this is just part of your flow perfect do

it one extra time. Great, But if you don't do

it at all, or not very much at all, I

want to just challenge. You try it somewhere. You jump

in your car, put your seatbelt on, boom, looking at

the windshields. A great time to get it started and

doing that. Let's pray together, Father, we are just amazed

at you, so amazed at what you do in our lives.

I confess I messing up God, I get it wrong,

and I'm thankful in the name of Jesus, so you

give me life. We asked this morning in Jesus' name

that if anyone in this room is not given their

life to you, today would be the day we asked

for that Jesus name. Amen.

So what's God leading you to do next? And how

can we help? Send us an email to info at

Movementchurch dot co and tell us how we can pray

for you and help you to take the next step

in your spiritual journey.

If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, you

can text the amount you'd like to give to this

number A three three seven two five zero one three two.

That's A three three seven two five zero one three two,

or just look us up online.

At Movementchurch dot com. You can find the Movement Church

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give us a follow up. God bless you, and remember

God is for you, and so are we.