URGENT PRAYER // The PURPOSE for Prayer // Pastor Richie Fike

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.

All right, good morning, good morning, good morning. How are

we doing? Guys? All right, everybody good, Welcome to the

Movement Church. Glad you're with us today. You guys were

singing awesome today. We are kind of transitioning out of

our Urgent Care series into urgent prayer. That is our

next part of this series. We've been dealing with the

most urgent relationships in our life, and of course, the

most urgent relationship in your life is the one between

you and God. And that's where prayer comes in. If

I were to start this sermon, this series, this little

four week section with phrases like this, Prayer changes things.

Prayer moves mountains, Prayer unlocks the power of God. Prayer

brings heaven to earth. How many of you would get

excited about that kind of stuff. Anybody here who believes this,

anybody here believe this today in church? Okay? Cool? The

way we say it here at Movement Church, our prayer

team in particular, as we say that we pray until

something changes. And by the way, just as a plug.

And I'm going to do this all four weeks. If

you don't yet know the phone number the prayer line

for the Movement Church, please put it in your phone.

You can put it in your contact list as pray.

But the number is seven one nine eight hundred. Pray,

And I promise you when you send in a prayer request,

our prayer team loves it. They get so excited to

get to pray for and with you until something changes.

If I were to start this terment series by telling

you that your devotion to praying more, worrying less, and

living exclusively by faith will result in a dynamic difference

in your quality of life and what you desire will

become manifest in your life, wouldn't you be thrilled? Wouldn't

you be excited? Wouldn't it be cool? If I could

guarantee you that I promise you? If I could figure

out how to guarantee you that I would have a

six figure book deal right now? Right? But prayer's mysterious,

isn't it. We're saying, just moments ago, I sought the

Lord and he heard and he answered, and that's why

I trust in him. Sometimes God doesn't answer the way

we want him to, but he answers always. Right, we're

talking about prayer. We're talking about this idea that prayer

change and of course we know that that's true. We

know that prayer changes things because we also know that

all the best prayer warriors in the world live in Kansas.

That's why all the mountains have been moved. They've moved

all the mountains like here in Colorado. We don't pray enough, right,

I mean, this is our problem. We know that prayer

changes things. But let me ask you, if you were

to evaluate your personal prayer life, how would you rate yourself?

How would you grade yourself? Is your prayer life dynamic?

Is it consistent? Is it effective? Are you approaching the

concept of prayer biblically and what does that even mean?

What is the biblical concept of prayer? Prayer is not

an accessory for Christianity. It's a necessity for Christianity, and

yet so many of us really don't know how, when, where,

or why to do it. And that's why this top

is urgent. Talking about prayer is urgent. Last year, at

one of our staff meetings, Steve White, our local prayer emissary,

was with us and he had this moment where he

had this tearful expression. It was like a tearful dream

that he had for our church, that we would be

known in this community as a praying church. The people

in this community would know the Movement Church. Say what

you want to say about the Movement Church, but those

people pray. And I believe that that wasn't just Steve's

tearful dream. I think that's the Lord's tearful dream. And

that's why it's urgent. That's why it matters. So we're

going to talk about these four topics in these next

four weeks. The purpose of prayer, the practice of prayer,

the power of prayer, and the product of prayer. You're welcome.

I've given you peace. You can't forget them. That's what

preachers do. We think if we give you the same letter,

then you will never forget. Right. You're very welcome. But

today We're going to talk about the purpose of prayer,

and even more intentionally, we're going to talk about God's

purpose for prayer. How many of you know that your

purpose for prayer might not be God's purpose for prayer? Right,

So we're gonna talk about God's purpose for prayer. What

is it? Why did God invent it? What's his purpose?

And if God could construct your prayer life, what would

it look like? What would it look like? Now? I

want to ask you guys a really simple yes or

no question, and we have to we're taking a vote, Okay,

so don't be bashful. Okay, it's a real simple question.

It's a yes or no question. Some people are gonna

vote yes, some people are going to vote no. Are

you ready? Am I ready? Here's the question. It's an

easy question. Does God command Christians to pray? How many

say yes? Raise your hand? If you say God commands

you to pray? Okay? How many of you say no,

God does not command you to pray? How many are

afraid to vote? Right? Does God command you to pray?

This is an interesting question because God commands us to

obey him. He commands us no murder, no theft, no idolatry, right,

no coveting. He also commands us to rest. But does

God command us to pray? Is prayer something that God

demands from us? Or is it something that He has

provided for us? It's an interesting way to think about it.

How many of you feel like I'm teeter tottering on

heresy right now? Anybody I understand that? Why did God

invent prayer? What's his purpose for prayer? What if we

looked at it this way? I'm going to kind of

spoil the whole sermon for you right now. Okay, you're ready.

Here's the only point. I'm going to kind of iterate

on this point throughout the sermon. But here's the answer

to the question what is God's purpose for prayer? Here?

It is. God's purpose for prayer is relational connectivity. Relational connectivity.

God doesn't demand a relationship with you, He invites it. Okay.

A couple of weeks ago, Justice and I went and

saw a movie called Obsession. Has anyone here seen this

movie besides me? Am I the only center in the room?

You saw it? Okay? Good? All right? I feel better. Okay,

this movie has done something in the last four weeks

that no movie. Since et has done, it has increased

in box office sales every week since it's come out.

It is an internet phenomenon. What's happening with this movie?

They filmed it for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

They've grossed two hundred and forty million dollars in four weeks.

It is the number one movie in America. It has

been for the last month. Now here's the story. Here's

what happens in this movie. This guy Bear, they call

him Bear. His name is Barry, but they call him

Bear is kind of a sad, sack loser type of guy,

and he is deeply infatuated with this girl named Nicki,

and he wants Niki to love him the way he

loves her, and she doesn't. She has friend zoned my

guy Bear. Anybody ever been friend zoned in the house.

It's painful. Oh, it was painful. But Bear got friend zoned.

And so they have this interaction where she asked him

straight up do you like me? And he kind of punts.

He gets afraid of the moment, afraid of her, afraid

of rejection, and so he says, let's just be friends.

She walks to her house and he has this little

wish thing, and he makes this wish, and here's the

wish he wishes, I wish for Niki to love me

more than anybody else in the whole world. And as

soon as he makes that wish, she comes running up

to the car, and she loves him, and she's like

infatuated with him. He's all she cares about. And the

rest of the movie. You would think that a movie

about wishing for someone who you love to love you

back would be a rom com. It's not. It is

a horror film. And the reason is because Nikki is

she's aware of a couple things. She is trapped in

her own body, her actual feelings about this young man,

which is indifference, and the feelings that she's been forced

to feel because of his self important wish. And what

becomes apparent as the movie goes on is that he

didn't really love her. He obviously didn't love her more

than anything, or he'd never have forced her to love

him in the first place. And so the movie just

kind of unfolds and unfolds in this way that gets

harder and harder to watch. But the point of it

is love is a choice, and God gives us the

choice to love him. So it's now The writers aren't

thinking about God. I don't think when they're writing this,

but I couldn't help but think about how that metaphor works.

I also thought about this guy. Anybody know this guy?

This is from the musical Hamilton. This is King George

the Third. He has found out in the point of

this musical that America is leaving him, and like a

you know, a scorned lover, he sings a song that

shows us what love shouldn't feel like. What's this.

You say?

The price of my love is not a price that.

You're willing to pay.

You cry in your.

Tea which you heard in the sea when you see

me go by, I Sue said. Remember we made an arrangement.

When you went to it.

Now you're making me mad. Remember despite art estrangement, I'm

your man.

You'll be back soon. You see you.

You remember you belong to me. You will be back

time to tell you remember that I served you. Will

oceans rise, empirestpot.

We have seen each other through its old and.

When push comes to shove, I will sender fully armed battalion.

You remind you of my love.

Da da da da da da da da da dada

da da da da dada God da dadadada da da

da da dam.

You say a love is draining and you.

Can't go, you'll be the all complaining when I am gone.

Now, don't change the subjects, because you are my favorite

subjects in my sweet submissive subjects. That's my loyal b

loyal subjects forever.

And ever.

And ever and ever and eb.

Yeah, the people watching this on YouTube will never know

how great that was. Well, we just experienced praise God

for a lot and come on, give it up for

a lot and one more time. Okay. The point of that,

the point of watching that is that this is evidence

that our culture that we live in the human spirit

knows that that's not love. But that's not how it works, right,

Real love and forced devotion are two separate things. It's

a horror show. If God commanded us to relate to him,

if he commanded us to love him, then it would

not be a rom com. It would be a horror show.

So let me repeat the question, does God command his

people to pray? Think about it. I did a deep

dive in the Old Testament to look for some scripture.

I was like, there's got to be a scripture where

God just comes right out and says, Okay, listen, you

must pray to me. I couldn't find one. I looked

all throughout the Old Testament to find a passage that

shows God himself speaking to his people. You will pray. Now.

There are some passages that give some commands related to prayer,

and God, of course gives detailed regulations for sacrifices, festival, sabbath,

priest and offerings. And God tells us what will happen

when and if we pray. Maybe the most famous is

Second Chronicles. If my people right, If my people who

bear my name humble themselves pray and seek my face

and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear

from Heaven forgive their sin and heal their land. What's

the most important word in this entire scripture? If if

my people will pray? He doesn't say you must pray

and then I will forgive. No, if you pray, here's

what's going to happen. The Old Testament gives us story

after story of people voluntarily relating to God. It's as

though God assumes that people who know him will naturally

want to talk to him. Right prayer is modeled, it's assumed,

it's encouraged, it's invited, it's promised. The Bible spends surprisingly

little time legislating prayer an enormous time depicting it. We

see people like Abraham talking to God, Moses arguing with God.

Do you know my brother Aaron, Hannah weeping before God,

David pouring his heart out before God, Jeremiah complaining to God,

Elijah crying out to God. We see this, and I

looked through literally hundreds of scriptures about prayer looking for

God to tell me fight, just pray. I thus saith

the Lord pray. Here's the closest too that I could find,

Jeremiah twenty nine. Now this is a very famous this

is a hobby lobby verse twenty nine to eleven. Right,

we all know this one, but look at the context

from ten to twelve. Jeremiah twenty nine ten says, for

this is what the Lord says, when seventy years for

Babylon are complete, I will attend to you. So seventy

years from now, I'm going to attend to you, and

I'll confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to

this place. Here's what's important for I know the plans

that I have for you, and we all say, oh,

praise God, that's awesome. He says, plans for your well being,

not for disaster, to give you future and a hope.

Now listen to twelve. You will call to me and

come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when when you

search for me with all your heart. Is this a

commandment or is this a prediction? He's prophesying in seventy years.

This is gonna happen. So here's what's gonna happen. You're

gonna call to me in good news. I'm gonna answer.

You're gonna search for me with all your heart, and

I'm gonna be found. Okay. So this is as close

as I could find to almost a commandment. Now, this

is Isaiah fifty five. Isaiah fifty five. This is God

speaking one through five, and then we're gonna see Isaiah

speaking six. He says, come, everyone who is thirsty, God speaking,

come to the water. You without silver, come buy and eat.

Come buy wine and milk without silver and without cost.

Why do you spend silver on what is not food?

And your wages on what does not satisfy. Listen carefully

to me. That feels commandy. Right, Listen to me and

eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest

of foods. I love the choicest of foods. Verse three,

Pay attention and come to me. Listen, so that you

will live. I will make a permanent covenant with you

on the basis of the faithful kindness of David. He

goes on to explain what the covenant looks like, and

then in verse six, Isaiah speaks and he says, so listen,

now that we've heard what God just said about coming

to him and being in relationship with him, here's what

I want to tell you. Seek the Lord while he

may be found, Call to him while he is near. Now.

Isaiah doesn't have any authority. He's a prophet, so he

can't really tell us to do anything, but he is

encouraging us. He is exhorting us to seek the Lord. Wow.

Why because he's available to us right now and he's good.

This is as close as I could find in the

Old Testament to a commandment. God is imploring us to pray,

and he's exhorting us with a sense of urgency. He

is urging you to make prayer a part of your life,

to make a relationship with God a part of your life.

God's purpose for prayer is relational connectivity, not religious behavior.

And this is where I think prayer crosses the line

for a lot of us. We wake up in the

morning and we want to do our quiet time and

we want to have good time with the Lord. Okay,

well I must pray, and so I'm going to get

seven minutes of prayer in and I'm going to get

it all in. Right. We're very litigious about our prayers

and we're very religious about the experience. And God's like,

I just want to know you. I just want you

to come to me. Okay. So that's the Old Testament. Now,

if you are a Bible scholar, you're probably floating some

verses in your head so that you can argue with me.

And that's okay, I want you to do that. Let

me go ahead and make the argument for you. Here's

what Paul says in the New Testament. He says, pray

without ceasing sounds commandy. He says, devote yourselves to prayer.

He says, pray in the spirit on all occasions. Now

we're going to come back to this list. I promise

I'm not going to yachtie out of this. But somewhere

between the Old Testament and the Apostolic verses in the

New Testament, there's an important figure, an important voice that

we should pay attention to. Who is it? Come on,

every Sunday school kid knows the answer to this question.

It's Jesus. You ever noticed that? That's how kids answer

every question. Who was alive in the belly of the well?

Is it Jesus? No? But I love your heart? Right? Okay?

Here the answer is Jesus. Right, So listen, let's think

about did Jesus ever command us to pray? Is there

a passage of scripture that depicts our savior Jesus commanding

us to pray? We've talked a lot about what it

means to be a disciple. A disciple of Jesus Christ

is a person who looks at everything that Jesus taught

and modeled and then tries to live it out. Our

language for that is a person who grows in groups,

serves in sincerity, gives in generosity, and practices God's presence.

And there's one more. At our last Wisdom Table meeting,

and we've had this language for three years now. At

our last wisdom table meeting, Chico Lynch, who's on our

wisdom table, said, you know all of our language about

you know this whole what it means to be a disciple.

It's all alliteration right gg ssggpp. But the last one

isn't do anybody know what it is? The last one?

Anybody know? Okay, I have failed you that the last

one is lives on mission. That's not alliteration. So he said,

what if we changed it and we have two moves

on mission? And I was like, ooh, that's awesome. I

love that because I like alliteration. I like a lot

of alliteration. I just did it. But anyway, so this

is what a disciple is. Now, this part right here

is the part that I want you to pay attention to.

Jesus taught us to practice God's presence. He prays before

major decisions, before major miracles, before and after major successes.

He prays doing grief. He prays while he's under temptation,

he prays while he's suffering. He prays on the way

to the cross. He prays on across Jesus modeled for

us what it looks like to pray a lot. When

Jesus taught about prayer, he never once addressed it as

a command. There's not a single verse in your Bible

where Jesus says, by the way, they weren't clear about

this in the Torus, so let me make it clear

you must pray. It's not there he talks about prayer.

In fact, there's some really really good ditches that he

tells us to avoid. I'm going to just give you

five of these just so you can kind of get

a picture of this. In Matthew six, he says, don't

pray to impress people. And by know some people that

when they pray it seems like they're trying to impress

everybody that's around, like they're using eleven dollars words. Then

you've never heard them say these words before ever, Right,

Don't pray to impress people. Pray from a sincere heart.

Don't pray to impress people. Don't pray for attention, applause,

a reputation, but instead find a quiet place to commune

with God. Prayer is relational. It's not a performance. Amen.

This is what Jesus taught us about prayer. He also

says in the next verses seven through eight, don't use

empty words, don't use big eleven dollar words, and don't

use useless empty words either. He teaches us not to

heap up empty phrases to the Lord. Why because your

father already knows what you need. It's not about information.

You are not informing the Lord of the fact that

you can't pay your bill. He knows. But what is

happening is you're coming to him, and he is transforming

your heart in the process. So he also famously says

in Matthew seven, Okay, ask and you will find. Seek

or sorry, ask and what is it? Ask and you

will receive, Seek and you will find. Knock and the

door will be open to you. Okay. Is that a declaration?

Is he telling you you must do this? No, it's

the same thing as if my people will pray. If

you ask, you will receive, If you seek, you will find,

If you knock, the door will be open to you.

So it's all these conditional ideas, And what he's telling

us is your father is approachable. He's not inaccessible. Speak

to him, open your heart to him, ask, seek, knock.

In John seventeen, we have the longest prayer of Jesus

in the whole Bible. It's called the High Priestly Prayer.

It's worthy of a read this week. Go read it.

Go read What Jesus prayed for you. John seventeen is awesome,

and in that Jesus emphasizes the glory of God, the

unity of his Church, genuine relationships with each other and

with him, an understanding of the presence, the spiritual presence

of God. And then my favorite is John fifteen. We

covered this a couple of weeks ago. Abide in me

and I will abide in you. Apart from me, you

can do nothing right, So stay connected to me. And

then there's this incredible little promise in there where he says,

if you abide in me and I abiden you and

your abiding in my word, then ask me for anything

you want and it will be yours. And the purpose

of that moment is to tell us that when we're

connected to him, our prayers sound like his heart. When

we're connected to him, we pray for the things that

he already wants for us. Now, when we're disconnected from him,

we tend to ask for things that don't sound like

him at all. You with me, that's my favorite reality

about prayer is that if you connect to him, you're

going to get whatever you are inspired to ask of him,

because he's the one that's inspiring you to ask. So anyway,

all of this is to say that Jesus does not

declare a new commandment about prayer. He doesn't reinforce an

old commandment because there isn't one. He talks about how, when, where,

what and why to pray. And yet there was something

extraordinary about this Jesus and his prayer life. He's hanging

around with about twelve or so. There's larger crowd seventy

two and then you know the crowds, but there's twelve

or so guys that are following him around, watching everything

he does. They're young Jewish guys who've grown up in

the synagogue. They know kind of the culture of Judaism.

They understand the Torah to a certain degree. They grew

up in it their church kids, and they're watching Jesus

and this incredible thing happens in Luca Levin and it's

our core text for the day. It's what we'll be

looking at in our growth groups this week. This happens

in Luca Levin. It's incredible. Jesus was praying in a

certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples

said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us

to pray, just as John also taught his disciples. Now

think of this. They watched Jesus do a ton of

cool stuff, right. They watched them heal the sick, touch lepers,

they watched him wake the dead. They didn't ask him

any of these questions. Lord teach us to preach. Lord

teach us to suffer, Lord teach us to make disciples,

teach us to do miracles. If I was around, this

would have been my question. Teach us how to turn

water into wine? I saw you do it. Seems like

a useful trick. You're not gonna be here forever. I'd

like to know how to do it. But they don't

ask him that. They ask him teach us to pray.

And that's the right question, because what they saw was

Jesus would go away, spend time with the Father, come

back and do incredible things. He would go away and

spend time with the Father, come back and preach. I

mean the thunder of heaven. Crowds would be drawn people

who were so curious about this God and this Father.

They watched him go away and come back and do

incredible things, and they said, wait a minute, teach us

how to pray. I want to know how to do that.

What is that thing you're doing. I've never heard anyone

pray the way you pray. I've never seen anyone do

it the way you do it. Teach us to pray. Now,

this is famous. You should know this. If you've grown

up anywhere adjacent to church, you probably know the Lord's prayer.

And I'm gonna give it to you in the King

James version because this is how most of us learned it. Right.

So look, let's look at this King James version of

Luke eleven two. Teach us to pray, he said, unto them,

when you pray, say this, by the way, you notice

that when you pray, there's an assumption in there. If

you're going to know the Father, guess what you're going

to need to do. You're gonna need to pray. So

when you pray, here's what I want you to say.

Our Father, which aren't in heaven, hollow it be thy

name the Kingdom Come. That will be done on earth

as it is in heaven. Give us to stay our

daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we also

forgive everyone that is indebted to us, and lead us

not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Next week

we're to talk about the practice of prayer, so the

kind of how and what it looks like practically to pray.

But we're still going to stick with this purpose of prayer.

And I think what Jesus is telling us right off

the bat is it. God's purpose for prayer is relational connectivity.

And it matters who you pray to. It matters who

you pray to. Who is Jesus advocating that we pray

to the Father. That was a trick question, you thought,

is it? Jesus like, no, it's not set you up

for the No. The answer, of course is the Father.

Jesus is saying, when you pray, start with him. By

the way he says our father. He's not exclusively my father,

he's not exclusively your father, but he's our father. So

right off the bat, Jesus is telling us it's about relationship,

It's about connectivity. Make sure you know who you're praying to.

Jesus came to reunite God's children with their heavenly father,

sin had separated them. Only a sinless savior could rectify

the situation. This moment where Jesus has asked teach us

how to pray and he starts with, well, say our father,

is such a vivid expression of Jesus's mission. He was

moving on this mission to reunite the father with his children.

That's us. So we ought to thank God for that.

Jesus wants you to know the father, his father, our father.

So can I just make a gentle correction for a moment?

How many of you have heard You don't have to

confess that you've done it, because a lot of us

get confused about this stuff. But how many of you

have heard someone start a prayer by saying, dear Lord Jesus?

Is that what Jesus told us to do? Of course not.

He says, pray to the father. And yet many of

us are ricky, Bobby, you know, dear Lord eight pounds

six ounce, tiny baby Jesus, I like the Christmas Jesus.

Isn't that what he says? Right? Like? No, Jesus is

telling us I didn't come so that you would pray

to me. I came so that you would know him,

so talk to him. He's your father and he sent

me to reunite the two of you together. So when

you pray, make sure you know who you're talking to. Now,

there are some occasions in the New Testament where people

speak sort of directly to Jesus, and I think each

of these are weird anomalies. Like, for example, when Stephen

the Young Disciple gets martyred, he stands up and preaches

a sermon and they kill him for it, and right

as he's dying, he looks up and he says, Jesus, Lord,

Jesus received my spirit. I think he was seeing Jesus.

I think he was experiencing Jesus in that moment and

speaking directly to him. I don't think he was teaching

us to pray to Jesus. When John the Revelator, towards

the end of Revelations sees Jesus at the center of

it all thousands of people worshiping him in this moment,

he says directly to Jesus, Come, Lord Jesus, Come, I

want that moment that I'm seeing that's going to happen

one day. I want it right now, Come Lord Jesus.

There's a lot of argument about Paul because Paul uses

the phrase of the lord a lot at an eye

a lot, And there's people that think that maybe he

was talking to Jesus. But God, the Father, is the

lord of all, so he was talking to the Father

when Jesus asked us. When Jesus is asked how to pray,

he tells us who to pray, To pray to our Father.

And by the way, some other Christian traditions will encourage us,

some of us to ask another person to pray for us.

I'm not going to get deep into that right now,

but do you know what I'm talking about? Tell this

person to talk to this person who's then going to

talk to God. You don't have to do that. You

can talk directly to your Father. You ought to say amen,

that's good news. So the young church fathers it took

him about two hundred in the Creed to figure out

how to articulate this after Jesus left there, like, WHOA,

what is Christianity? What is this revolution this kingdom that

Jesus told us about, and how does it work functionally?

And this is the language Christians pray to the Father

through the Son by the Holy Spirit, to the Father,

through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. So functionally, here's

what that looks like. Talk directly to God the Father.

Why are you allowed to talk to God, to God

the Father because of what Jesus did for you. Otherwise

you can't talk to him, you're separated. But because you

receive Him as Lord and Savior, you can now talk

directly to the Father. Now, how do you know what

to say? You don't except by the motivation and animation

of the Holy Spirit living within you. So you talk

to the Father through the Son by the Spirit with me.

I know that's a little heady, but that's kind of

the way it works functionally. And the point of all

this is to say that God's purpose for relationship, or

God's purpose for prayer is relational connectivity. And it matters

who you pray to the whole Lord's prayer is relational,

every bit of it. Our Father, who are in heaven,

hallowed be thy name. Jesus does not want you to

think of God as your homeboy. He doesn't want you

to think of God as this like pocket version of

a deity that lives with you. You need to know

that this is the highest name that has ever been.

This is a holy God, a worthy God, one of one,

king of kings, Lord of Lord, hallowed Holy God. So

when you talk to him, yes he's your father, and

yes he is the King of all kings and the

Lord of all lords. Hallowed be thy name. Don't ever

ever try to fit God into your pocket. You fit

into his Amen. Jesus wants you to know who you're

talking to. That's relational, he says, Your kingdom come, Your

will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

How often do we come to prayer saying, Lord, my

will be done on earth right this moment versus you

know what, God. I got a lot of concerns, I

got a lot of questions. There's a lot going on.

I think it ought to go like this. But you

know what, Your will be done, Your kingdom come. That

is relational because you are surrendering to what God says

is best. How many of you know that's hard, that's

really hard. Maybe the hardest part of prayer is this

right here, your kingdom not my kingdom, your will not

my will. That means you've got a surrender to the

lordship of your father. That's hard, but it's relational, he says,

give us this day our daily bread. Don't give us

the Sam's Club version, right, don't give us the cost

co version, like, don't give us enough food to last

us two months, So we don't have to talk to

you until we need food again today. Every day, each day,

I'm coming to you saying, Lord, if you don't feed me,

I won't eat. If you don't fill me, I'll be empty.

Give me this day what you have to offer me.

That is relational because you have to rely upon him. Amen,

give us this day. And then he says, forgive us

our sins as we forgive our debtors. What's that about.

It's relationships, not just the relationship between you and God,

but the relationship with you and other people. Don't come

to God and say, Lord, I got some things to

talk to you about. When you haven't forgiven people in

your life, when you're holding onto debt that people owe you,

no release all that stuff, come empty handed before the Lord.

That's what he's saying. That is relational. He says, lead

us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I

think this is the most interesting part of the Lord's prayer.

Lead us not into temptation. Wait a minute, if I

don't pray this. Is he going to lead me into temptation? No,

thank you. I'm a pray this every day. I don't

want temptation. No thank you. What is this about? It's

the most important words? Or lead us, Lead me God,

I will go where you send me. I will follow

you wherever you take me. Please don't take me into temptation.

Interesting that Jesus would prescribe this as part of our

prayer to him. All of this is relational. God's purpose

for prayer is relational connectivity. Pray for that purpose. What

if instead of praying that you would get your way,

what if instead of praying that God would meet all

of your needs? What if instead of praying that all

the things that you think ought to happen the way

you think the aught to happen. What if instead of

bringing all that to him, you just said, Okay, Well, God,

if your purpose for prayer is just to be with me,

is to be connected to me and for me to

be connected to you, then I'm going to make that

my purpose for prayer too. I'm going to approach prayer

through the lens of relational connectivity. Period whatever else happens.

Praise God. If that is what your perspective was. We've

been talking about these relationships, these urgent relationships, married couple's friendships, parents, children, dating,

and what they all have in common, every single one

of them, is this. They won't last without connection, they

won't function without communication, and they won't work if they're

practiced transactionally. But when they're operating healthily, relationships are absolutely transformational.

Haven't you found that you can have a best friend

that can speak something to you that will absolutely change

the trajectory of your life right those meaningful moments. But

have you ever had a conversation with someone who you

thought was a friend and it turned out that this

was more of a kind of a business relationship. Like

it feels like every time we get together, we're kind

of measuring one another, checking each other's boxes, realigning constantly

to a common goal. What if your prayer life was

like that? How would it feel if prayer life was

where you inform God of all the anxiousness of your life?

Hey God, I just want to let you know all

the stuff that's going on down here. What if every

prayer sounded like that, where where you lay out your

desires for him to uphold, just so you know, this

is my expectations of you, God, where you exclusively express

your disappointments and his performance. You didn't do what I

asked you to do. God, I asked you specifically for

a raise and I got demoted. What is going on? God?

But what if that was your relationship where you tell him,

where you tell him what help you believe you need

from him? God? Just so you know, I already see

the answer to my problem. So if you will just

give me what I see as the answer to my problem,

will be good. What if it was that? What if

it was where you tell him what you're willing to

do for him, if and only if he will uphold

his part of the equation. Yeah, I'm willing to follow

you if you do everything the way I want you

to do it. That's a business relationship. That's not a

prayer life. It's a business meeting. And guess what. God

doesn't work for you, and he doesn't really want you

to work for him. He just wants to know you.

He doesn't want a business relationship with you. God doesn't

need anything from you. Do you know that he has

the cattle on a thousand hills. He's the alpha and Omega,

the beginning and the end before one day was knew

them all to be. He is complete. He's not up

in heaven going, oh, I'm missing something. I'm missing Isaiah,

I'm missing Beth. I'm not complete until they pray to me. No,

that's codependency, and God doesn't think that way. He doesn't

operate that way. He is complete, He is full. You

need him. Thank you, Thank you. This is why Obsession

is a horror film and not a rom com. Why

King George's love feels like tyranny. God's love doesn't feel

like tyranny. It's not supposed to. God didn't make puppets.

He made people that are specific and unique and beautiful

and broken and hilarious. How fun was that to hear

Lot and saying just moments ago. God made people, not puppets.

Free will, choice, agency, the ability to choose to love God.

God's desire for humanity is not and has never been compliance.

It's communion. He wants to be in relationship with you.

So God's purpose for prayer is relational connectivity. He wants

that for you, not from you. God doesn't function in

the way we do. One of the ugliest elements I

think of this whole AI revolution that we're all reckoning

with on one level or another. Is the fact that

the people who design these AI bots, these engines have

figured you out, They figured me out, they figured us out.

And you know what they figured out You don't want

to be challenged. And so all of the AI engines

are built to agree with you. They're built to comply

with you. They're built to say, oh, that's a great idea,

your idiotic business idea that's going to put your whole business,

you know, your whole family into bankruptcy. AI is like

love it, do it, go for it. This is the

way that the world has figured us out, human beings.

We just want people to comply with us. That's not

who God is. God doesn't want blind loyalty from you.

He wants you to know him. He wants he wants

you to love him. And he does not demand love.

He does not demand prayer. He commends it, he implores it,

he invites it, he instructs it. He wants you to

know him and he wants to know you. So what

I would encourage you to do, the big thought of

today is this, don't pray to get or to give

things to God. Don't pray to strike deals with God.

Quit pro No, don't do it, Okay, just pray to

be connected with God. That's his heart's desire. Listen, I

know that a lot of you in this room have

prayed for things that you didn't get the answer that

you wanted. You've been praying for a long time, and

the answer that you want hasn't come. A healing, a reconciliation,

a child, a job, an answer. All of us have

something like that in our life. Where we go God,

this is how I see it. Why won't you see

it the way I see it? All of us wrestle

with that, and now listen. This is why this is important,

because if prayer is only about the outcomes, then disappointment

will eventually drive you away from God. But if prayer

is about communion, then no matter the outcome, it can

still draw you closer to the Father. Amen. I used

to be such a business minded prayer warrior. I would

get up in the morning. I'm very much like an accomplisher,

a doer like I want to get a lot of

stuff done in my day. So I would get up,

I'd read a passage of Scripture, i would pray and

I would say, Lord, I want you to bless all

the things I've decided to do, and I'll talk to

you tomorrow. Seriously, that was like my attitude about prayer.

I would get up in the morning and spend quality

time with the Lord, listen to some worship songs, worship him,

read some scripture, pray some prayers, Bless what I'm going

to do. Thank you Lord, Amen. And I was watching

an LSU football game and we had gotten a new

we LSU. That's right, we had gotten a new offensive coordinator.

And this guy had a totally different approach to calling

the plays than anything I'd ever seen. So basically what

he would do was he was up on the upper

deck level and so he could see down to the

field and he's calling the plays in to the people

on the you know, the bench, and they're calling the

plays into the quarterback. They get in the huddle, they

call the play, they break, they come up to the line,

and they would get set for the play and it

was about twenty seconds left in the shop clock or

the play clock, and they're they're sitting there and they're

looking like they're gonna call the play, and then they

would all just relax, and they would look to the sideline.

And what was happening was the offensive coordinator from on

high was looking down at the play and seeing how

the defense was lining up against the play that he

had called, and he would either audible or not. So basically,

if he looks at the defense and feels like, ha ha,

we got him, then no audible needed run the play.

But if it looks like we're gonna run up the

middle and they got three linebackers in the middle, guess

what we're not gonna do. We're not gonna run up

the middle. And so he would call that audible, they

would look to him and would change the play. And

God spoke something really clear to me after I was

watching this for about a quarter and a half. He said,

I wish you were more like that with me. I

wish you would check in with me. I wish you

would come up to the line. You know, we called

the play, by the way, I'd rather if you let

me call the play, then you called the play. Fight,

but listen to the play, come up to the line,

and then just relax and look to him and go, God,

is this still the play? Is this still what we're doing? No? No, no. See,

what you don't know is this opposition is coming. So

I'm gonna audible. I wish you would check in with

me more. I wish you would be relationally connected to

me more. And this is where those passages in the

New Testament, those Apostolic ideas of pray without ceasing, devote

yourselves to prayer, pray in the spirit on all occasions.

This is where that comes into play. Paul's not telling

you you must pray. He's saying, if you're going to pray,

when you pray, don't pray in the morning and then

leave it alone for the rest of the day. Pray

all day in the spirit, stay connected to the Father,

have a heart that is prayerful all day long. You

with me, That's what he's saying. God doesn't want to

do business with you. He wants relational connectivity. All of

us have had a moment with someone, a relationship where

we've had that one night where there was no agenda

and we just hung out all night. Right. You know

that one friend, that one person in your life that

you just love to spend time with, And when you

spend time with them, something meaningful almost always happens. One

meaningful conversation with an intimate friend or fam a member

can set the pace for the next few months of

your life. They absolutely can. A significant insight, a word

of encouragement, a loving pushback, one incredible night of laughter.

When's the last time you had a great night of laughter?

Anybody had one of those recently? Oh? Man, go find

somebody you can laugh with. It will change you. Think

about this. There's no prayer in the garden of Eden.

Nobody's praying. Why Because God and his creation are united.

They're connected. There's no separation. God doesn't have to tell

them by the way you must talk to me. He's

not doing that. They're just connected. And then sin happens

and prayer becomes necessary because sin has disrupted intimacy. This

is my favorite quote of the sermon. Prayer is what

communion sounds like outside of Eden. Prayer is what communion

connectedness sounds like outside of the garden of Eden. The

whole story of Scripture is God inviting his people back

into his presence. So this is what the disciples saw

in Jesus. That's what led them to ask the question,

teach us to pray because they saw in his prayers

that they weren't religious, they were relational, they weren't wrote,

they were real, they weren't buttoned up and stiff, they

weren't you know, these eleven dollars words. It was just

Jesus opening his heart up to the Father, and they said,

I want to know how to do that. And then

they would watch him come from those moments and he'd

be healing the sick, challenging the religious, waking the dead,

moving the mountains, confounding the impossible, stepping into suffering with

peace and with confidence. And they said, we don't know

how to do any of those things, So teach us

how to pray. Teach us how to pray. It's the

right question. And Jesus answer was relationship. Relationship. So I

want to give you a challenge this week and then

we'll be done. Okay, this week for seven days, for

the next seven days until we get back together next Sunday.

I want you to approach your quiet time in the

morning with the Lord a little differently than you ever have.

I want you to just wake up, open a passage

of scripture, and then maybe journal about what you're hearing

from him, and then for the rest of the time

that you spend with the Lord. Maybe set a timer

for ten minutes. This doesn't have to be really long,

but just spend time and hang out with God. Just

hang out with him. Just choose to be with him.

No agenda, no wish list, no urgent deals that you

need to make with him. Don't have a business meeting

with God. Have a relational hang with him this week.

Try it for seven days and talk to him. Talk

to him about what's going on in your heart. Talk

to him about your kids, talk to him about your marriage,

talk to him about your job, talk to him about

your anxieties and your fears. But not so that you

can get something from him, just because you want to

know him and you want him to know you. Hang

out with God this week because God's purpose for prayer

is relational connectivity, and let's let that be the answer

to our first week as we look into prayer. If

you are approaching prayer for any other purpose than this,

then you're just a little left of sinner and God

wants for you to have the same purpose for prayer

that he does, connected to him. Amen. Amen, let's pray.

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 like to contribute financially

to our ministry.

You can text the amount you'd like to get 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 followup. God bless you, and remember God

is for you, and so are we.