I Don't Know How To Pray - November 16, 2025

Good morning. My name is Daniel.

I am the lead pastor here at Res Church.

Thanks for braving the rain. I know, I know in Bakersfield,

when it rains, I mean, literally if it even sprinkles, we all

flip out like it's a welcome to the hurricane of California.

You know, we're made of sugar and we're going to melt.

We're in week two of a series on prayer.

I'm excited that you're here today.

We are we're kind of walking through last week was the was

the why and and what of prayer. And then this week we're going

to talk a lot about the how for, for me.

Let me I have in my life, just in different moments, different

circumstances I have experienced just just gruelling moments in

a, in a emergency room, hospital room, just on on the floor of

the hospital, on my knees in a in a hospital gown, just

writhing in pain. By the way, hospital floors are

really gross. I, I, I just, just just just

crying out to God in, in just extreme pain.

I, I have poured my heart out to God asking him to explain why I

lost a child. I have, I have had moments where

I'm just up to here with frustration, feeling like God's

calling me towards something, but but not actually knowing

what it is that he's calling me toward and just kind of being

frustrated that I don't feel like he's being clear enough.

And, and I'm and I'm asking, but he's not answering.

I have felt spiritually dry at times where I just, I feel like,

man, there's nothing there. And yet intellectually I know

that my feelings don't match what I know to be true about

God. But I don't understand why I'm

feeling the way that I feel in all those seasons or moments in

my life. Are, are, are kind of those real

times where I think back to just overwhelming feelings of, of

powerlessness, like I'm not in control.

I can't fix a thing that's wrong or, or or ignorance or I just

don't understand or I don't know or feeling forgotten, feeling

lost, feeling taken advantage of.

And, and in every one of those scenarios, it is, it is reaching

back toward God, like, like reaching up toward God and

going, hi, I need you to move on my behalf.

Anybody else felt that way? Oh, just, I need you to move.

I need to experience God's presence, God's power, God's

move. And so here we are Week 2

talking about prayer. If you're, if you're here or

you're watching and maybe you're new to Christianity or you're

not a Christian and you're just kind of a skeptic, you're

checking it out. Someone invited you.

And, and look, I'm glad you're here.

In fact, if you're here and you don't understand prayer, man,

what a wonderful time to come to church.

We're going to talk a lot about this every one of those moments

of my life and maybe some of you can relate even if you're not

Christian have been these times where prayer for me prayer is

simply reaching out to God in hope of experiencing him.

And so in our in our sermon last week where we we came up kind of

a working definition of what is prayer and we said it this way.

Authentic prayer is encountering God's astonishing presence

meaning, but prayer, real prayer, is just looking toward

God and beginning to experience who he is, which changes us.

And so today what I want to do is I want to take a look at a

couple prayers in the Bible and and I want to see if from there

we can build a framework for the how to pray, not why to pray

that was last week, but the how to pray.

How do we go about this? So maybe prayer seems a little

intimidating to you and it, and it shouldn't, you shouldn't at

all. So we're going to look at a

couple texts today. The 1st is going to be in Luke

18 in in Luke 18, there's a point that Jesus wants to make

about us and, and, and about prayer.

In fact, he uses prayer to make the point.

And, and so Jesus made-up a lot of stories.

I don't know if you know that or not.

We call them parables to make it sound better.

But he's made his stories up to teach lessons.

And he, he made-up a story to teach a very specific lesson in

Luke 18. And I want you to see this.

Here's what it says. We're going to start in verse 9

if you're if you're in your text, Luke 18, verse 9, he this

Luke 18:9

is Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in

themselves that they were righteous and treated others

with contempt. Say me because every one of us

struggles with this right here at some point or another.

We think that we we're righteous and we treat others with

contempt. Sometimes it's we actually treat

others with contempt because we think they're being

self-righteous, which in that moment is ironic because we're

being self-righteous. Verse 10 two men went up to the

temple to pray. 1A Pharisee. Now listen, a Pharisee, you

don't have to know much about the Bible.

I'll explain. A Pharisee was a professional

religious person. They went pro at religion.

OK, a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

Now look, I know that we don't think much of the IRS, right?

We ain't got nothing on how they thought about tax collectors in

the 1st century. In 1st century in Jerusalem, a

tax collector was the worst of the worst of the worst, an

absolute traitor. I mean, you could be anything

other than a tax collector. You could be a prostitute, you

could be a murderer, you could be a Padres fan.

Worse than that, if you could even believe that was a tax

collector. A tax collector.

Verse 11, the Pharisee, the professional religious person

standing by himself, prayed thus.

God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners,

unjust adulterers. You can fill in the blank for

yourself, right? Those Republicans, those

Democrats, my neighbor, whatever, or even like this tax

collector, verse 12, I fast twice a week, I give tithes of

all that I get. Verse 13 but the tax collector

notice where he where he's at standing far off would not even

lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be

merciful to me a Sinner. I tell you, the man went down to

his house justified rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who

humbles himself will be exalted. Now this is Jesus example about

prayer. The professional prayer is

completely wrong and the amateur outcast is the honorable

example. Just consider that because today

what we're going to do is we're going to learn a framework for

prayer. A framework.

Now, it's not a formula, it's not a spell or any magic words.

It's just, it's just a way, a framework that we're going to

see from Jesus who actually teaches us how to pray.

And at the very center of this framework is this idea that it

needs to be a heart that is in need of God.

OK, and it what I here's what I mean by that.

Without a posture of humility, prayer is shallow.

Without a posture of humility, prayer is shallow.

In fact, our big idea, if we take nothing else out of today,

take this one concept. Prayer is a spiritual

chiropractor, it realigns the posture of our soul.

Prayer is a spiritual chiropractor, it realigns the

posture of our soul. My soul is constantly in need of

an adjustment. That's why I started talking

about all these seasons of my life that we're so desperate

because often times my heart is not humble, my life is not

desperate. And so I, I, I believe it to be

true that often times what God does is he steps back and he

allows us to experience this world and life without his hand

on us so that we can begin to realize like, oh man, this is

pretty terrible. I'm pretty hopeless.

I really need God's presence. Amen.

Let's just consider this. When are you most appreciative

of a life vest? When you're standing on the boat

and it's nice, it's sunny outside and, and, and you got

this big bulky thing on and it's actually making you kind of hot

and it's itching my neck. Like what do I got to wear this

thing? Or when the boat is capsized and

the waves are blotting out the horizon and you're just going

like, I would die right now if it weren't for this life vest,

man, I'm thinking about this life vest a whole lot

differently right now. Amen.

I I I asked myself this question about 10/10/12 years ago and it

is, it is just kind of haunted me for the last decade.

It's it's constantly on my mind. It comes back up in prayer all

the time. Here's the question.

How can I become desperate for Jesus even when things are going

well? Because look, I got no problem

being desperate for Jesus in the middle of a storm.

Amen man, none at all. I have a journal entry in my

prayer journal from the weeks right after my wife and I lost a

child. And it says essentially this,

Hey, godfather, whatever it is that I'm supposed to learn from

this storm right now, I'd like to learn it so I don't have to

go through this again. And I and I believe that the

primary thing that God has been teaching me over the course of

the last decade is how to desire his presence in my life even

when things are good. And in my experience, it's a

posture issue. Now that may not make sense.

You can posture issue. Let's go ahead say what?

See, thanks for asking when when I'm low, when I'm desperate,

when I'm screaming for God and I feel like life, life will only

be good if God shows up. But when I when I have that kind

of realization of how much I need him, then what in my life

would create that level of desperation to experience God

outside of a tragedy, apart from a crisis, apart from a disaster?

Let me just let me ask you here, we're going to do a little

survey. You ready?

Raise your hand if you would like to experience God's peace

and contentment. OK, now hold it up, Ray.

Now raise your other hand if you would like to experience that

without having to suffer tragedy in crisis.

Right. What if I could experience God's

goodness, but I'd not have to go through the crazy tragedy to get

there? And here's the crazy part, OK?

A guy named Daniel Henderson has written a number of books on

prayer. And in one of his his books, he

wrote this. He wrote this line.

It says this, most Christians pray out of a crisis or a

grocery list. See, either everything's going

wrong. So I could now I'll pray or I

gotta, you know, well, God pray for them and I want this right.

And we just checked the little boxes.

But but, but my question for you is like, what if, what if we

could change that? What if we could change that?

What if we experience God's goodness out apart from the

tragedy? What if we could experience

God's goodness all the time? And I believe, and this has been

the last decade of my life, I believe that it that if we will

begin to follow the framework for prayer in the Bible and we

will begin to actually get consistent with that framework,

consistently doing that, I actually think we will

experience God's presence in our life all the time, all the time.

That's my promise to you if you would just begin to do what

Scripture shows us to do when it comes to prayer, man, we it will

grow your faith in your pursuit of Christ like nothing else.

Let me just show you we're going to look at 1:00 central prayer

today. Jesus taught his disciples how

to pray. It's called the Lord's Prayer.

It's in Matthew 6. It's also in Luke.

We're going to be Matthew 69 through 13.

This is what it says. Our Father in heaven, hallowed

be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it

is in heaven. Give us this day Our Daily

Bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our

debtors. And lead us not in since

temptation, but deliver us from evil now.

This little tiny, short prayer has all the elements of a

framework that we're going to lay out today that we could use

for any prayer, for all prayer, for prayer every day or all the

time. And prayers can be short and

prayers can be long. Jesus shows us this, this lesson

in a tiny prayer, but it also tells us that Jesus went out

alone with the Lord and prayed for hour upon hour upon hour.

In fact, we we see him withdrawing all the time to

spend time praying to the Lord. It's the same framework.

Ji Packer says it this way. He says this prayer, the Little

Lord's Prayer, is the pattern for all Christian praying.

Jesus is teaching that prayer will be acceptable when and only

when the attitudes, thoughts, and desires expressed fit this

pattern. That is to say, every prayer

should be a praying of the Lord's Prayer of some type.

It's not just the Lord's first lesson on prayer.

It's the most important lesson. It is the lesson on prayer.

Jesus, we have a recorded ministry, Jesus has about three

years where we have stories of him doing public mission work

and a public Kingdom work. And, and in that three-year

period, of all the accounts we have in the Bible, his 12

disciples only asked him one time ever to teach them how to

do something. They did not ask him.

Hey, Jesus, teach us how to heal the lame didn't ask teach us how

to heal a blind part didn't ask teach us how to multiply all

them fishes and loaves into a bunch of food.

Man, I'm going to do Chick-fil-A.

Like didn't ask teach us how to fish like you did and, and pull

coins out of fish's mouth. Didn't ask one thing.

Teach us how to pray like you do teach us how to pray.

So I would just say you might consider that if in three years,

after all of that supernatural work, the only thing that the

disciples ever looked at Jesus and said, hey, teach us that it

was prayer, it might be important to you and me.

Yeah, let's try. Let's see.

I'm going to give you this framework up front so you can

track along with me. Here are the five points.

They're in your, your, your bulletin.

Just to give them to you up front.

Five parts of a prayer framework #1 grounded in Scripture #2

glorifies God #3 gratitude driven #4 groans of confession,

and #5 gets the requests last. Now I'm going to walk through

this and and show you and then I got a little easy way to

remember it at the end. Hopefully it'll be helpful.

Grounded in Scripture, we should start all prayer with reverence.

And if you're not sure about that word, let me explain.

Really I've been using the word posture.

And, and the idea is that we want to see how good God is and

how much we're not like that's actually to see things

correctly. And so we need our our heart and

our attitude to change toward God.

And so if we spent a ton of time on this today, which we won't,

we could actually break down every little word, every little

segment of this short little Lord's prayer and we could track

it back to verse after verse after verse in the Old

Testament. Everything Jesus is saying here

in the New Testament in this little prayer is actually a

paraphrase of concepts from the Old Testament that have already

been said and already been recorded hundreds of years

earlier. So when he says, how will it be

your name? How will it just means most

worthy be your name? That's most of the Psalms

actually say the exact same thing when he says your Kingdom

come. That's Psalm one O 3 And and

Daniel 4 when he says, give us this day, Our Daily Bread.

That's Exodus 16, Deuteronomy 8, and Proverbs 30.

When when every part of this prayer is a paraphrasing of

things God's already said. See, the fastest way to realign

my heart, my attitude, my mind toward God to get a correct

perspective is to worship God with his own words.

To worship God with his own words.

Why? Why would we do that?

Well, here's why. Because his words are perfect

and mine are not So, so, so to start a prayer with real

reverence, I highly recommend starting with Scripture.

It's not the only way. I would just recommend it.

And, and I want to show you what that looks like.

But but before I do, if you're again, if you're a skeptic, if

you're new to Christianity and you understand, why would you do

that? Why would you read God's words

back to him? We believe as Christians, we

believe that the word of God, that's the Bible is perfect and

without error. Amen.

It's perfect. And I'm not.

Someone once asked the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon.

They asked him what's more important, reading your Bible or

praying? And he thought about it for a

second and he went, what's more important to you, breathing in

or breathing out? They're the same thing, they're

the same coin. Praying to God and hearing from

God is part of communicating and experiencing God.

Amen. Reading God's word, allowing Him

to speak to us. We believe that the Word of God

is alive and active and sharper than any 2 edged sword.

Hearing from God and letting Him Pierce our very soul with His

words is as important as speaking to God and talking to

Him and, and, and, and. I want to start with something

perfect. Say perfect.

I want to start with something perfect.

And here's why. This is why it's so critical

because I am an inconsistent human being, because I'm human.

My emotions, my circumstances, my health, the people around me,

the influences are around me, the world, it all has an impact

on me. I am an inherently selfish,

mean, egotistical little creature.

In fact, if I even took my own subjective standard of morality,

I've I took Daniel's standard and then I applied it back to my

own life, I still wouldn't pass. That's how bad it is.

I need something objectively perfect, objectively true,

objectively moral, objectively holy to hold up and highlight

how far off the path my life, my distortions, my perspective have

become. Because I'm always veering off

the road when it comes to pursuing Jesus.

And that's what the Bible does. When I start prayer by

reverently reading God's word, it keeps me low where I belong

because it shows me the gap between myself and God.

And so here I'm going to do it for you and, and maybe this will

help. Just doing it sometimes helps,

right. I want you to imagine if you

can, that you're about to go to the Lord in prayer, but you're

angry that someone has offended you recently.

That's not that's happened to anyone else.

Anyone ever been offended and angry but know they needed to

pray? Yes, 410 all of us.

Yes, all of us or, or, or or I'm lonely and I'm feeling isolated

or I'm hurting. I feel like I'm being overlooked

or someone's taking advantage of me.

You know, all the feelings that are just so real to us, right?

They all affect our view of ourselves and others of God and

they affect my view of you guys, right?

And So what I do is I go to God reading his word.

It looks like this Ephesians 2 verse one, father.

And I was dead in my trespasses and sins in which I once walked,

following the course of this world, following the Prince of

the power of the air, the spirit that is now in work, in the sons

of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions

of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the

mind. And I was by nature child of

wrath, just like the rest of mankind.

But you, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with

which you loved me, even when I was dead in my trespasses, made

me alive together with Christ. By grace I have been saved, and

you raised me up with him and seeded me with him in the

heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages you

might show the immeasurable riches of your grace and

kindness toward me in Christ Jesus.

For by grace I have been saved through faith, and this is not

my own doing. It is a gift of God, not a

result of works, so that no one may boast.

For I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good

works which you prepared beforehand, that I should walk

in them. Do you see it?

By what right do I have to claim being offended?

By what right do I have to claim unfairness or slander or

mistreatment? If life were fair, I would be

executed as an enemy and rebel of God.

That would be fair. If life were fair, I would face

an eternity in torment apart from God.

I don't want fair. I want grace.

Offended. Offended, if we're being really

honest, really honest, and you could see every thought I'd ever

have, you'd find out that the secret me is far worse than the

me that I want you to see. And you'd know that I'm

despicable, far worse than anything that you could ever

describe. But God.

So we start with Scripture reverence to begin to shift our

perspective, our posture before God, and then and then we

glorify God. Oh God, I may be nothing, but

you are something. So we spend a little bit of time

remembering who God is. Psalm 34 says this.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord.

Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me,

and let us exalt His name together.

I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me

from all my fears. Those who look to him are

radiant, and their faces she'll never be ashamed.

The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.

That's me, and saved him out of all of his troubles.

The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and

delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord

is good. Blessed is the man who takes

refuge in him. Amen.

What are we doing? We are gazing into the character

of God. We are gazing into Him.

We are looking at Him, and it will show us the gap.

And as we begin to see the gap between who God is and who we

are, it puts us in our place that's resetting on adjusting

our posture. That's why Jesus starts his

prayer with Father in heaven. Your name is worthy.

Worthy are you worthy? Is your name your Kingdom come?

Your will be done. It's about you, not me.

The third thing we do is, is, is we begin to acknowledge what

he's already done. It is gratitude driven that the

Bible constantly, just consistently says, hey, remember

what God has done. In fact, if you go turn to the

Old Testament, which is the first part of the Bible, you'll

find that one of the most consistent spiritual disciplines

and all the Old Testament is, hey, remember God's

faithfulness. Hey, remember what God's already

done. Hey, in fact, they told every

generation, you need to teach the next generation to remember

what God has already done because they're going to forget

you are too. So here's what we're going to

do. We're going to come up with

ceremonies and sacrifices. We're going to come up with

holidays so that you will not forget because man, are we some

forgetful people. Remember, remember what God has

already done. Don't allow the circumstances of

the moment to make you forget how good God has been.

And so, so we should do that in prayer.

This is part of the framework of prayer is to remember him.

So, so let me give an example. Let's say hypothetically, we

were in the middle of, I don't know, a financial crisis at the

church. And so I really want to pray for

God to do stuff. Come on, God, like, let's just

rain some dollar bills on this place.

But before I can get there, you know, I probably need to stop

and remember all the things he's already done.

So I, I'm, I'm praying God's word to him and I'm remembering

his character and I'm glorifying him.

And then before I go any further, let me, let me remember

his faithfulness. Let me spend a little bit of

time remembering how much he's already provided.

Father, we, we give you glory and honor and praise for all

that you are doing in this church.

Thank you for Rez church. Thank you for facilities to meet

in. Thank you for elders who love

you in this church. Thank you for raising up

deacons. Thank you for volunteer leaders.

Thank you for all these small group leaders.

Thank you that we get to see so many people come to Christ in

this church. Thank you for gospel growth.

Thank you for helping us get a foothold in this neighborhood

and sending people here to this church that we can care for a

disciple. Thank you for the gift of brand

new members who chose to go through a membership class and

and join this church. Thank you for men and women in

mentorship. Thank you for steering this

church toward partnerships that you have for us.

Thank you for faithful givers who have obediently given to

this church. Thank you for a legacy of two

separate churches who for years and many former pastors and

attenders have laid building blocks for this church to stand

upon. We see your hand at work and we

acknowledge that we could done none of this without you.

Thank you in Jesus name, Amen. We thank Him.

We should remember how good he is.

Now look it, don't you feel better?

We haven't even asked for anything yet, and I already feel

better. All I had to do was begin to

remember how good God is, how faithful He's been, all the

things that He's done, and I'm already feeling better.

There's a Psalm or a hymn from 1897.

It goes like this. When upon life's billows, you

are Tempest tossed. When you are discouraged,

thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by

one, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Remember all the things He's done #4 groans of confession.

So, so we start with scripture and we approach the Lord to

recalibrate our heart and we speak his goodness and we

remember our blessings. And then Jesus would say this.

Forgive us our debts. He's essentially saying forgive

us our sins. Now here's the thing, it's a

really short portion of Jesus prayer because he had none.

But he knows we do. And the best way, the best way

to do that is to confess them, to speak them out loud to God.

Jesus didn't have anything to confess, but I do Amen.

You do. And so oftentimes, I think they

will really only get to that point after we've spent some

time in the Word of God remembering and acknowledging

who God is, remembering his faithfulness.

Spending time doing those things begins to allow some of that

conviction to bubble up to the surface and things that we

didn't really want to talk about.

You get to the point, you realize I've got to confess this

to the Lord. David put it this way in Psalm

32. For when I kept silent, my bones

wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and night

your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by

the heat of summer. Salah, I acknowledged my sin to

you. I did not cover my iniquity.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and

you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Do you know what this does? It's still recalibrating our

heart. So if I started my prayer angry

and offended and and mad, and I get to the part where I begin to

realize how much sin I have to confess to the Lord, it's like,

oh, I was really angry, but then I have to look at my sin.

I was trying to find a visual for that, how you feel if you've

ever prayed like that. I found one.

Check this out and I confess it.

So before I've asked God for anything, we've we've started

with scripture, we've glorified God.

Oh man, we've practiced some gratitude.

There's some groans of confession and then we get to

request last. Now I'm ready to ask now I'm

ready to go to God with my petitions and God wants us to.

He asks you to. He tells you to heck and James,

for he says you have not because you ask not.

Why aren't you asking two things about asking the Lord.

Number one, I would say do it last.

Here's the second thing. If you'll, if you'll do this

other stuff first, if you'll follow this framework, you'll

find that by the time you get to your request, your request will

change sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot of bit because

God has been working in our heart through that whole

process. And listen, the entire Christian

faith is based on the concept that God changes hearts.

Amen. I didn't change mine, and you

can't change yours. God changes hearts.

And so in my prayer life, when I start with the things that

realign my posture recalibrate me toward God by the time I get

to request they change, here's the second thing.

We always ask, like Jesus did not my will, but yours be done.

And here's why. I know what my heart wants.

I also know I shouldn't trust my heart, so sometimes I'm going to

ask and I'm going to go. God, I don't even know if what

I'm asking for is sinful or not. I'm not sure.

God, I don't even know if I could handle the blessing.

If you gave it to me, I might mess that up.

So here's what I'm going to ask. But then I'm going to say not my

will, but yours. I don't know everything, but you

do. So I'm going to ask because you

told me to ask. And then I'm going to leave it

in your hands because I know that you know better.

Not my will, but yours be done. Now I know it might be difficult

to remember 5 GS when you sit down to pray, so I made an

acronym for you. It's space.

It's in your handout space. Scripture, praise, acknowledge,

confess, entreat. We start with scripture.

We praise Him first. We acknowledge all of the

blessing and faithfulness He has shown us in our lives.

We confess our sin. And lastly, we entreat him.

Entreat just means to plead with God or to ask urgently, I

entreat. And if we'll do that, prayer is

a spiritual chiropractor. It will rely in the posture of

our soul. And so here's what we're going

to do to end our service today is we're going to do this.

We're going to pray this way together as a church.

And then if you're willing to pray like this consistently, if

you start to practice this, there are five things that will

begin to happen as a result of this.

And I didn't have time to preach it, so I stuck it in your bone

or in your bulletin in that little outline.

There's five things in there. We're going to call that the

bone. You have the extended edition.

You need to take that home. It's a little bone.

It's a little nugget for you. You can fold it away, put it in

your pocket for later, like leftovers.

So we're going to practice this together using this framework of

space Scripture. Praise, acknowledge, confess,

and entreat. Here we go.

We're going to start in Psalm 8. We're just going to pray

Scripture to God. Here we go, ready.

Pray with me, O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all

the earth. You have set your glory above

the heavens, out of the mouth of babies and infants.

You have established strength because of your foes, to still

the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the

work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set

in place, what is man that you are mindful of us, and the Son

of man that you care for us? Oh God, we stop and we pause and

we wait in the glory of your name and of your character and

of your faithfulness. You are holy and we are not.

And we acknowledge. We see what you're doing around

this church. We, we, we see the changed

lives. We see the marriages being

strengthened. We see our kids coming to

Christ. We see people getting hungry for

your word and for your presence, Father, we see real life change

and we thank you for what you are doing, for letting us see

it, for letting us notice it, for letting us participate in

your work. And we confess God, I know that

I allow circumstances of this life.

I allow the difficulty of of messy people, especially me, to

to cloud my view, to shake my faith.

Father, I am. I'm prone to doubt that you have

a plan. And I in my sinfulness, I get

anxious about the future. I get worried about not being

able to see all the steps in front of me.

And I doubt you. And so I confess my sin and I

repent to you. Wash me clean and renew in me a

clean heart. And I bring my request for our

church before you. I ask that you grow our hunger

for your presence in our prayer lives, in our desire to study

your Word. I ask God that you provide for

this church exactly what it needs financially, through the

generosity of the Saints in leadership, through the

empowerment of people you saved and equipped.

God help us to spread your gospel to every edge of

Bakersfield and beyond, for yours is the glory forever in

Jesus name and all of God's people said Amen.

May God respond to the pleas of his people for the the last

moment or two that we have remaining in this sermon.

I just get your attention for just a second.

If you do not know the God of this universe personally, if

you've never surrendered your life to Christ, I want to give

you an opportunity to do that today.

If you if you believe that you'd like to do that, I'm going to

lead you in a prayer. All you have to do is simply

repeat after me or something similar.

I'm going to use the same space framework for this prayer.

And so if you're willing to ask him for forgiveness and

salvation, just follow after me. We we bow your heads and close

your eyes for just a moment. Father, your word says, if I

confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart

that you raised him from the dead, I will be saved.

So I lift you up perfect and holy, and I acknowledge that you

created me and everything around me, and I confess that I am

hopeless and in need of a Saviour.

So I surrender everything to you and I ask you to save me.

Be my Lord, please Jesus, if you said that prayer for the very

first time, will you raise your hand for me to say thank you,

thank you, you put your hands down in Jesus name, Amen.

Real quick, Jesus loves you so much more than you realize right

now. And if moments ago or recently

you gave your life to Christ and you haven't told anybody, let me

be the first to say welcome to the family.

Will you stand? We're going to sing a song and

respond to this sermon. Our prayer team is going to be

up here. We, we love praying with you.

If you have given your life to Christ, maybe it was moments

ago, maybe it was recently and you haven't told anyone yet.

There's some tables in the back that say I raised my hand.

As we sing, as we respond to this, as we come up for prayer,

you can, you can sneak back there, talk to somebody, tell

them about your decision to follow Christ.

We would love to celebrate with you.

If that's too intimidating, you can just come down for prayer

like everybody else. We would love to pray with you

for any reason. Whether you made a decision

recently, whether you just need prayer, whether you need

encouragement, we love praying for you.

You move as the Lord leads. We love you, Church.