Why Does Prayer Feel Boring? - November 9, 2025

Welcome to resurrection church if you're new here welcome my

name is Daniel I am the lead pastor here at res church have.

You ever had a moment where you were you were face?

To face with someone and you were you were just like burying

your soul like you. I mean, you like that

excruciating moment where like you're getting?

Really vulnerable with someone. And and man there.

Is a potential that they're not. Going to return.

That, that, that. It's not going to.

Be reciprocated I I remember the moment.

That I. First looked.

In my wife's eyes when we were dating and said I love you.

And that pause. Is feels like it's never going

to end. You know you're going.

Do they feel the same way? And and and you're.

Face to face, you're kind of analyzing, you know, like, what

are they going to do looking at body language?

And do they feel the same way about me?

You ever felt that? Nobody.

Lord, some of y'all got married. I don't even know how.

You ever feel that? If you've ever felt that, what

is that? Scenario another one, but.

Where you're face to face in this conversation that was just

really. Intimate.

Really vulnerable. I would, I would.

And maybe in the moment. There was a possibility.

That you could be rejected. I I would say if you've ever.

Experienced that? Then you've experienced one of

the most primal, one of the most sort of central feelings that

makes us human, our need. To love and be loved.

To know and be fully known. In fact, the fear of rejection

is so great in our current culture that like there are

people that completely avoid this entire process.

Like I'm going. To have an online relationship.

Who's going to do this whole thing via text?

That way I can like. Because, man, there is a fear of

of rejection. Right there there is a man or am

I going to be accepted? I'm I'm looking at someone face

to face and I'm staring in their eyes and I'm and and it's almost

terrifying but but we also. Want it so much?

I do. I want to be.

Loved and accepted. Here's what I would tell you.

I would say that this is actually both.

One of our greatest human needs and one of our deepest, darkest

fears. It's this.

Question if someone fully. Knows me, Would they really love

me? We were created to love.

And be loved. To be known and be loved.

That's actually what sets. Humans apart from all of.

Creation. You know your dog wants.

To be loved, but if you rub its belly and give it treats, they

don't care if they know it or not.

We do we care? Why do we care so much?

Do you ever wonder? The Bible says that we.

Care because we were actually created in such a way.

We were designed in such a way to love and be loved, to know

and be known. And the reason that it's so?

Difficult and there's so much angst around it is that we.

Live in this this fallen. World.

In which we can never eat like. We live in a distorted world in

which we. Can never really fully see it

the way it was intended to be. A Pastor Tim Keller, in his book

The Meaning of Marriage, actually says it this way.

He says to be loved. But not fully known is

comforting, but superficial. It's shallow.

To be known and not loved is our greatest fear, but to be fully

known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.

It is what we need more than anything.

It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self

righteousness, and fortifies us for any.

Difficulty that life can. Throw at us.

We're starting. Today a three-week series on

prayer. This series is called Teach Me

to Pray. And if right now you're thinking

like, if we're starting something on prayer, why are we

talking about like? Romance and and being loved.

I'm glad you're paying attention.

They're they're related and we're going to look at this.

So here's what we're going. To do over the next three weeks

today. We're going to talk about.

Why we pray like like, what is prayer like?

What is it really? Why are we doing this?

Or why are we supposed to be doing this?

And then next week we're going to actually.

Talk about how to do it. So kind of the logistics of

prayer and then in the third. Week of this series we're we're

going to practice. We're going to come in here and

we're going to do. Elder LED congregation

participation, say yay, open mic like we're you're going to be

part of this. We're going to do a prayer and

worship service. There's not going to be a

sermon. Yeah, I know you're you're

disappointed. I am.

We're going to pray. We're.

Going to practice what we preach.

OK, so let's start today with what is prayer.

What is prayer? Why?

Why are we supposed to be doing this and and?

Maybe maybe you joined us today or you're you're you're.

Joining us online and you would, you would kind of consider

yourself maybe a skeptic, A skeptical about Christianity or

Jesus or, or or faith in general.

So first of all, welcome. I'm glad you're here or you're

watching. I actually am really excited to

talk about prayer with you particularly.

Maybe we can clear up some things about this idea of

prayer. I'm excited you're here.

I'm excited you're joining us. So there's a really interesting.

Concept that runs all throughout.

Scripture. All throughout the Bible, in

fact. And it's this idea of.

Seeking God's face and I really want to talk about this idea of

seeking God's face today, what that means.

So we're going to start in Second Chronicles 714.

If you have your Bible, just turn there.

We're going to read that first. This is kind of our foundational

verse for the day if. My people.

Who are called by my name humble themselves and pray.

And these are the important three words.

You can underline this. Seek my face and.

Turn from their wicked. Ways then I will hear from

heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

A similar concept in Psalm 27, eight, there's a psalmist, he's

talking about this command from the Lord to seek his face, and

he says. This you have said, seek my

face, and my heart says to you, your face.

Lord do I seek. Over 100. 50 times in the.

Bible God tells us to. Seek his face, seek his presence

to seek. God, it's a proactive.

Command. We're supposed to seek him and

and and whenever. The Bible is being specific.

It says more than just seek God, it says seek my face.

And so I really wanted to break down.

What does that mean? What does?

What does he? Mean seek my face.

And it's it's actually relatively.

Simple and yet you're going to find this kind of hard and that

is this that. Seeking God's face.

Means that I'm coming to him in. Prayer.

Not to get something from him, but to get God Himself.

So I'm not. After what's in his hand, what

he can give me, I'm after his face, I'm after him.

There's a Hebrew word that we see.

Throughout scripture called Panim, it is the Hebrew.

Word here that we're. Reading for face, but it

actually is translated two different ways depending on

where you're reading it. In Scripture, same word.

So not only does it mean face, it also means presence,

Presence. And this word, whether

translated as face or presence, is mentioned 2100 times in the

Hebrew Bible. So don't think about God's.

Face as like a physical face with eyes and a nose and a

mouth. The Bible is telling us to seek.

Being with God closely, not just wanting God to do something for

me, but to be with God. And so I want to I want to just

look through the texts. Today and look at some different

scriptures and, and I hope what it means is that maybe we

relearn some things about prayer.

Maybe we reset some misconceptions about it.

You know, almost every religion in the world.

Talks about prayer or. Or meditation or incantation in

some method or another. But Christian prayer is vastly

different than almost every other religion.

And the reason it's so different?

Is that only Christianity? Is built around an intimate,

personal God of the universe, a God who knows us, excuse me, a

God who loves us so much that he would send his son to die for us

to make it possible for us to seek him and know him

personally. My earliest memories of prayer

are with my, my parents. They're, they're, they're

phenomenal memories. My mom and dad praying with me,

whether praying before bed or just praying at different times

and teaching me those things. But my earliest memories of

prayer at church are horrible because they were the Wednesday.

Night prayer meeting y'all? Y'all ever been to a small

Southern Baptist country church and then Wednesday night prayer

meeting? As a nine year old, I was pretty

sure it was medically possible to die from boredom.

I was sure I was at the verge. It's just that no one would show

up like most prayer meetings in, in conservative churches.

And there'd be a couple of people sitting around this big

list of, of people that were sick.

And then they would just sit and they would mumble over the same

sets of little words and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And we we'd be praying for so and so who's in the hospital and

so and so and Aunt Bertha's bunions, you know, what is this?

I don't get it. And so I grew up most of my

life. Even most of my Christian life,

not really knowing how to pray, not really knowing what to pray,

not really know why we pray. Like does this even work like?

Maybe maybe you can relate to that.

How come every time I sit down to pray?

My mind starts to wander. Anybody else?

Oh my gosh. And then I'm.

Then I start to get all like. Ashamed like this got ashamed of

me because I can't stay on track because I can't.

Pray the right way am I even saying the right words man,

just. Does this even do any good?

What am I doing? Yet the Bible would tell us to

pray without ceasing. James, 48, would say to draw

near to God, and he will draw near.

To you, that sounds pretty personal.

That sounds. Pretty intimate that does not.

Sound like Wednesday night prayer meeting?

Do you ever think? About that.

Most of us talk about prayer more than we actually pray.

Like, yeah, I'm going to pray about that.

You know, you get the text from your buddy who's like really

going through it and you're like, oh, that sounds terrible.

I'm going to pray for you, brother.

And like, that was the prayer, the text, and.

Then we just go on with. Life like you all realize that

the prayer. Emoji is not the actual.

Prayer. So so like.

For me, maybe if we understood prayer a little bit better,

maybe, maybe it would be. Easier.

Maybe we'd be more. More motivated to do.

It you know, a couple years ago I started to really wonder.

How? How come I say that I believe

that prayer is this incredibly powerful thing of talking to

God, bringing things to God, but my life doesn't look like I

believe that. Like it like if I if if I really

believed what I said. I believed I I would be praying

a lot harder and a lot more and I was just really.

Convicted of like. Gosh, I need to take, I need to

take a better look at this. And then someone gave me a book.

Another pastor friend of mine gave me a book.

It sat on my night stand for like a year.

And I finally got to reading it. And it was about leading through

prayer, like leading a church in prayer and, and how all of

really Christian leadership is dependent on prayer.

And so as I begin to read that, and I begin to do the things in

that book, our elder room entirely changed.

Like like we started to. Build an elder room around

prayer and when we did the church begin to change, we begin

to see God move. We start.

Every Sunday morning, including this morning at 6:30 in the

morning, sitting around tables just pouring out our heart,

praying to God, asking for his presence, asking for him to show

up. We pray for churches

individually by name, by their pastors name for their kids, for

their prayer request. We.

Pray for you, you. Didn't show up here today not

having been first prayed for by a group of people this morning.

Going to the throne room of God with your name on their heart,

praying for you, praying for you.

And so let's let's dig a little on this idea.

We're going to jump around into some different scriptures today,

different quotes, different things to see.

If we can get a. Better maybe a more holistic

understanding of prayer, because prayer has been not only

misunderstood. Now, in 2025, prayer has been

misunderstood. For a long time we.

We have some beautiful quotes from historians and church

fathers throughout the last few thousand years talking about

trying to understand prayer better.

Mother Teresa said prayer is not asking.

Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God at His disposition

and listening to His voice in the depths of our heart.

Henry Newman said to pray is to listen to the one who calls you

beloved child. To pray is to let that voice.

Speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let

that voice resound in your whole being, Saint Therese, who was

born in 1873, said. This prayer is a surge.

Of the heart. It is a simple look toward

heaven, is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both

trial and joy. Been a lot of descriptions

written about prayer we're going to we're going to use this sort

of easy definition today and through our series it's also

going. To be our big idea today.

So if you don't, if you leave with nothing else, leave with

this concept. I want you to really wrestle on

this and chew on this today. Authentic prayer is encountering

God's astonishing presence. Authentic prayer is encountering

God's astonishing presence. Authentic meaning there are a

lot of cheap substitutes encountering because this is

meant to be a face to face relationship, like me staring

into my wife's eyes. And astonishing because every

time we are exposed to the presence of the God of the

universe, we are changed. And I want to show you.

What happens if if? You and I will will begin to do

this, begin to proactively seek God.

I want to show you what happens when we do that.

It happens throughout the Bible. We see it over and over again.

It's happened in my life for many of you, it's happened in

your life. Here's the first thing we have

to get an understanding that God actually cherishes our prayer.

He, he, man, He loves it when we talk to Him.

It's not just a command, it's not a duty, It's not a check

box. He actually desires US talking

with him and we see this. All throughout.

Scripture as prayer is described to us.

If if we turn to the story of the tax collector and the

Pharisee that Jesus tells we would, we would see that we're

going to look at that one next week.

If we look at David and Psalm 51 pouring his heart out to God, we

see this. But I just.

Want you to hear it? There's a story of Jesus in a

region called Samaria with a group of marginalized people,

and he's speaking to a woman who's who's very much the least

of these, very ostracized, and they're having a conversation.

And he begins to describe to her what is about to happen when he

goes to the cross, when he makes a way.

Here's what he says. He says in John 423 and 24.

But the hour is coming and is now here, when the true

worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

For the Father is look at that Word, seeking such people to

worship Him. God is spirit and those who

worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

God desires for you and I to seek His face in intimate

conversation with Him. That, that, that.

Means that a lot of the things that you've heard or been taught

about prayer. Are wrong because if.

If that's what God's desire. Really is.

Then prayer. Prayer is not a performance

because that's not what God's asking for.

It's not what he cherishes, not what he's looking for.

You don't have to pray good or pray Gooder.

I don't know how's that work. You're just talking to God.

There are no magic words yet You wait too often.

You've heard somebody pray and you're like, oh, I can't pray.

I would mess it up like it's some sort of spell from

Hogwarts. Like man, if you may probably

not working because I said it wrong.

It's supposed to be like. Wingardium Leviosa.

No, you're just talking to the Heavenly Father.

Let me to get your head around what that means.

You got to go back to the very beginning of the Bible, the very

beginning of the whole creation story.

God has created the first man, the first woman there.

There's a garden. There's no sin.

We haven't rebelled against God yet.

Everything's perfect. The Bible calls that Shalom.

Shalom, perfect peace. And here's what's happening in

that garden. Where everything's perfect.

Just the way it was designed. We're walking through the garden

with Jesus, just talking side by side, face to face

conversations. That's.

Actually how we were created. That's what we were created to

do. The problem comes shortly after

when we rebel against God. When that rebellion happens, it

fractures that relationship, sin and death.

The the the curse of sin falls upon mankind.

Now all of a sudden, it's not so easy to just walk through the

garden with God. We can't.

And yet, and yet we were still created for that reason.

We were still created with that desire.

So so when you look around. And you go, man, something's not

right. Let me tell you why.

Because we were created to walk. With him and all.

Of a sudden, we're apart. From him and so the Bible

continues to lay out this framework, this instruction of

seek me, seek my face. Why?

Because you were designed to need it.

It's nothing's going to feel right until you find him.

Seek my presence. Come find me.

So prayer is this conversation with God that he desires.

The The primary way that we speak to God is through prayer.

The primary way that God. Speaks to us is through His

word, the Bible. We'll talk.

A lot about that next week, and these aren't different things.

This is just the conversation. I just want you to consider that

God has always wanted us to seek His presence.

He's always wanted us to come and talk to Him.

He created us with that very need inside of us and so often.

Your dissatisfaction in life is that there's actually a need to

talk to him, and you're doing other things with that need and

wondering why it doesn't satisfy.

He desires this conversation when we step into that, when we.

Intentionally. Proactively.

Begin to do that. Begin to seek his face.

Begin to talk. To him begin to have.

Those conversations, Here's what happens.

This is .2 in there that authentic prayer begins to

expose my heart. Now here's what I mean by that.

OK, I should define quickly God's presence.

So we're talking about seeking God's presence in the Bible.

There's actually three types of presence.

God. God is present in three ways in

the Bible. And, and, and I want to

articulate some of that difference so that you

understand which one we're talking about.

It says that God is omnipresent and all that means is that.

God is everywhere all the. Time there's nowhere to hide

from God. Secondly, it says that because

of Christ, if we've given our life to Christ, we are what's

called indwelt with the Holy Spirit.

He's put his spirit inside of us and all the time Spirit doesn't

come and go, but but there's a third type and this is the type

we're going to be talking about today.

And it's this idea of the intimate presence of God that

the face to face conversations with God.

Now how? Can there be three types?

That's a? That's a logical.

Question. And so I'm going to give you an

analogy. That I hope is helpful.

How many of you here have ever babysat a toddler or an infant?

OK, like literally some of you are parents and not raising your

hand. I'm just wondering what happens

with your kids. OK, most of us, yes, Now.

If you've ever babysat a kid, a. Small kid, you know that they

they could like sit in the living room floor and you could

be in the room with. Them kind of watching them.

And they could be. Oblivious to the fact that

you're there because there's some amazing thing that has

caught their attention like a. Cardboard box and they could

just be enthralled with that. Thing for like hours and have no

idea you were there and then but there's a moment right where

they turn and they see you and they make eye contact and

they're like and there's a spark of.

Recognition and they're like mom, y'all know what I'm talking

about right? For me, it's it's, that's not

mom, you know what I mean? Yes, everybody with me.

It wasn't that you weren't there the whole time, but something

different happens when they turn face.

To face and make eye contact with you, yes, that's.

The type of. Presence we're talking about so.

It's not that. God's missing.

It's that there's this moment we begin to turn and look.

For God. 'S face that everything changes.

I'll give you another example. How many people here are

married? OK.

That was not a hard question for some of you.

I hope you're not in trouble later anyways.

Now, men. Y'all know you're still

technically? Married when you're at work,

Yes. OK, yes, it's a weird crowd

today. You're still married.

When you're at work, if you're at home and you're doing the

dishes and your spouse is in the other room, you know, cleaning

some floors, you're still married.

OK. Thank you.

But but don't but aren't. Everyone like a good date night?

Come on. Yeah.

Everyone like a good date? Night Yes, trying to grow this

shirts the old fashioned way. It wasn't that you weren't

married and you are married. But there's something about

intentional time. We put our phones down, put the

distractions down. Some of you have.

Young kids. Are like, what's that like?

We turn toward one another, we're face to face.

I'm actually spending time in intimate conversation with my

spouse. Connecting, talking, listening,

enjoying. I'm looking at those beautiful

brown eyes. What's different?

What's different? I'm face to face, man.

I'm I'm intentionally seeking the presence of that person into

an intimate conversation. Authentic prayer is seeking

God's manifest presence. In my life now, news flash,

buckle in, we're not in the Garden of Eden.

I know Bakersfield in the fall tricks some people as soon we

take all the photos as we invite all of our friends and they

think Bakersfield's amazing because they haven't been here

in August. We're not we're not in the we're

not in the Garden of Eden. And here's what I.

I mean by that like. Because we're not in the Garden

of Eden. We're not just walking with.

God, through the cool of the evening anymore.

And so to to to seek God. One means we have to be

intentional. 2 It means that. As we draw close to God, as we.

Begin to to turn. Face to face, we get to

experience his presence. Here's what's going to happen.

In the garden. It was perfection.

I could walk. With him with no big deal but

right now? We live in a fallen, distorted

world, so as I get close to a holy God every time I'm.

Going to go, oh, I'm not like that.

It's like the illumination of. Holiness on our life and every.

Time that happens, we're going to begin to.

See. A gap between God's character

and my. Character between.

God's attitude and my attitude between God.

'S power and my weakness between his humility and my.

Pride and there's going to be a gap.

Amen. And it'll.

Be that moment, no matter where you're at.

When you get close to holy God, you go.

Oh, he's not like me. It exposes my heart when I begin

to interact with the perfection of God and so So what will

happen is your heart. You know your.

Circumstances. Your attitude like all.

Those things you're just going to all of a sudden you're going

to go, oh God, is so different than I am.

Now here's the thing. Not, not in shame.

Shame is not from God. Adam and Eve used to walk.

With God naked that. Shame is not from God.

We we did that. So as we draw close to God, we

don't we don't get. Shame because we're not perfect.

Actually, there's this this gentle correction that is the

beauty of Christ, the standard of holiness where we go.

Oh, and the and the third. Thing will happen.

Which is that that exposing my heart to God in humility allows

him to work on it. Now I say in humility why?

Because the moment we begin to see a gap between God and.

Us, we have. To have a recognition I'm the

one that's wrong. We're not going God.

Come down here, get in line. We're going, oh, oh, I have some

things that are not right. There's there's a, there's a a.

Theological concept that we get from scripture called

immutability, immutability, say immutability, immutability, it

means that God does not change. There's no variation.

And and we get that from Malachi 36, from James 117, from a lot

of other verses. God does not change, but I do

Amen. You do.

Amen. You ever had a bad day?

God hasn't. You ever been wrong?

God in God doesn't change. So what happens is I take my.

Broken, warped, Emotional. Self and I seek the face of God,

and as I get closer and closer to a perfect.

God, I go, whoa, I'm not like that.

And that recognition allows him to begin to change me, to begin

to transform my heart, to begin to refine my character moment by

moment, minute by minute, degree by degree, little bit by little

bit. Just like when you're doing

something with a little kid and they get to watch Dad do it.

They try to be like Dad. That's what's happening, right?

You're going, oh, I need to be more like Dad.

And that can be in conviction, that can be in encouragement.

That can be all kinds of different correction.

Let me give you an example. Wednesday night I had a

particularly rough night and and it's just been tough.

And statistically, pastors have one of the loneliest jobs in the

world. 43% of all pastors who consider quitting sight,

loneliness, isolation is the reason they quit.

And I remember Pastor Ray Johnson said he was talking to a

group of pastors and he said be careful pastor because a a

church will use you up and throw you out like a Kleenex and move

on to the next pastor. And I and I thought at the

moment, like, man, that's awfully cynical.

You know, like, and, and I actually, I think I know what he

was trying to say in that moment.

I think what he was saying is like, the churches aren't

malicious. It's just that they rarely

realize the burden that they're putting, you know?

Pastors sit in the spot. Where everyone in their trauma,

in their hurt, in their pain, run to the pastor and when, when

you know when your nose is running, you're not thinking

about it right? You're grabbing the.

Kleenex or your sleeve if you're my kids or whatever, right?

And you just, you just use it. And so inherently pastors end up

with, with a lot of that. And I was just laying in bed

Wednesday night, like really kind of struggling with

isolation, loneliness and talking to God, just talking to

God in the middle of the night, just talking and talking and,

and just pouring out my heart and, and I, I just, I could feel

the Lord talk to me through that and just say, man, you're not

alone. I'm right here.

I have not hidden my face from you.

There are days for a pasture where no human is safe to relate

to. But he is.

He is. And so he's he's.

We're just in the middle of the night.

God is ministering to it. He's just reminding me.

Like, you know, Daniel, you might, you might be a little

emotional. Right now.

And as I draw close to the goodness of God, I'm like, oh,

yeah, I think I'm a little emotional right now.

Not in the shameful way. In a way.

Oh man, God now can correct some of those things in my heart in

the middle of the night, just in a conversation.

Why? Because God, without any,

without any magic words or formal incantations, God can

change me simply by me drawing near and seeking His face and

getting closer to Him and realizing He's so good.

You can encounter God's presence face to face and that that

changes me every single time. That's what it does in this

life. You know all the circumstances

we're going to go through our, our emotions and, and our

reactions and our perspective. They're going to change wildly.

You're just going to go through some stuff.

And here's the thing, we have a heavenly Father who says he has

he Jesus came down and suffered so that he would have

experienced everything that we've experienced, suffered,

struggled, lived, died so that we could have confidence that

when we draw close to him, he's gone through.

He knows exactly what you're going through and his word says

bring that to me. Seek my face, seek me with all

of your heart. Bring that to me and I will give

you rest it in in the Bible, every time we see God, God speak

about his face, it's every time he blesses someone, it says he

shines his face upon them. Where where God's face where his

presence is his joy and satisfaction and peace and

comfort. And when like really horrible

stuff happens, it you'll see it says God hid his face from them

and he turns and and and and all of the evil and ills of the

world flood in and we actually have the choice to seek his face

again and again and again. He says, come talk to me, come

spend time with me. Come worship me.

Come and join me. Won't you come?

That's prayer. That's prayer above and beyond

anything else you understand about prayer.

That's what it is in any fashion.

It's seeking the face of God. And in those moments, in the

authentic, proactive, seeking God's face, He begins to

illuminate our life and our heart, our situation, our

circumstances, and change us in the process.

This is what's happening when we really pray, when we genuinely

seek God's presence, because authentic prayer is encountering

God's astonishing presence. And every time this happens, it

changes us and and the. Ability.

To do this, to just come to God at any moment, it is only

possible because Jesus came and went to the cross and broke down

this barrier between US and God that was fractured, and now we

can freely do this. In the Old Testament, when this

relationship was fractured, God's presence was in this one

little spot in the temple, in this one little place.

And nobody else could go. The high priest could go.

There's a big veil that. That, that, that that was.

A barrier no one could get in and one person once a year.

Could go in, but not anymore. Now you and I have access at any

time in the middle of the night, driving in your car on a walk,

at any point and listen, it doesn't.

Prayer is any moment from a short thought to dedicated hours

of intentionally trying to seek and experience God any moment

when you're seeking God's presence.

And so that might be. Conversational.

I talk to God all the time. That might be angry.

You can. You can be angry and yell at

God. He's a big boy.

He can handle it. It could be a cry of

desperation. It can be a list of Thanksgiving

and things you're grateful for. He could be just worshipping and

appreciating his good. It's all prayer because it's

seeking his presence. And so, you know, I always, I

always want to give you something to do with with the

truths that come out of. Scripture as we.

Preach on a Sunday morning and so here's my my my number one

goal today is actually that you would you would take this

concept, this idea and then it would reshape and refashion how

you consider and think about prayer.

Then it would change your perspective about what it is to

talk to God to seek God to look for his presence.

But let me give you something to do like.

Next week. We're going to actually spend

some real time on, on doing things right?

Like like here's some here's some concrete examples of, of

ways to pray and how to pray. But let me give you give me one,

one challenge for this week as we move into next week here, let

me just ask you this question. What would it look like to seek

God's face instead of his hand and any?

And what I mean by that is this, to seek God's hand is to say.

God, I need you to do something for me.

To seek God's face is. To say, man, I just want to be

near you and. The interesting part is that you

can seek God's hand and miss his face entirely.

We we, we can get into this thing where we treat God like a

like a genie in a bottle. And we do we.

Figure if we rub it and we say the right things, we might get 3

wishes, but if you seek God's face you get the whole thing.

What would it look like in our life if our prayer life begin to

start with? And maybe at some point.

Centre around just wanting to experience.

The presence of God in our life. And, and here's the the crazy.

Thing we were designed. For it, we were designed for it.

You're not actually going to feel real satisfaction until

you. Begin to do it.

What would it look like if every day this week?

You stopped. Before, you just rushed off into

the busyness of life and. You just said for 60 seconds,

sit still in silence. Say God, will you show yourself

to me today? Will you show me more of you

today? Maybe.

Maybe you're. So new to this that it all seems

intimidating. You could literally set an alarm

on your phone and when it goes off, just say God, will you?

Will you show yourself to me today?

Will you show me more of your presence today?

Will you help me to enjoy you more today?

I I just tell you from my own life, it will change everything

about. The way you see God about the

way you approach life, if you will simply slow down and

attempt or just ask for God to show himself to you more deeply,

He will. He's not embarrassed, you're

asking, he's actually. Waiting for you to ask.

He wants to be wanted. Here's the crazy thing.

I. Think you already want to let?

Let me ask this question. How many?

People, if I just asked you if I.

Just came to you after service said hey would you like to

experience God more deeply in your life?

How many people would raise your hand?

Man, like logically we're like, well, yeah, of.

Course. OK, cool.

Let's ask for it every day this week.

Let's just say, hey guy, will you?

Will you help me to experience you more deeply this week?

Just ask now for some of you, maybe, maybe online, maybe you

just kind of got him hanging out listening, what have you.

You're hearing this and. And here's the thing to to ask

God for that to to ask a God to to show himself.

More deeply, to experience His presence you actually have to

know God and and for some. Of you, you've.

You don't know Him, You know about him, you know of Him, you

know somebody that knows him, but you don't know him.

As you see, we only come to God in relationship.

Through belief in Jesus Christ. Without Christ we have no

access, we have no relationship. We have no Heavenly Father.

It takes a surrendered heart. To Jesus.

So if you've if. You've never.

Done that the Bible actually lays out an instruction.

Of what that looks like. In Romans 10/9 and 10, it says

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, I believe in

your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be

saved. For with the heart 1 believes

and is justified, and with the mouth 1 confesses and is saved.

And so if you've not done this before, but you're willing to

surrender your life to God today, I want to give you an

opportunity to do that. I want to invite you to do that.

Will you please bow your heads and close your eyes as we wrap

up our service? Just a moment, for just a moment

God is calling to you and if you're willing to ask him for

forgiveness and salvation. As we close our eyes and bow our

head, I just want you to repeat this prayer after me.

Jesus, I know I'm lost and I need you to save me.

I'm not satisfied and I need relationship with you, so I

surrender everything to you and I receive your promise of

forgiveness, of adoption, of eternal life.

Be my Lord. Please Jesus, if you prayed that

prayer moments ago, would you be brave and raise your hand for me

to see? Thank you, thank you.

You put your hands down in Jesus name, Amen.

Real quick, whether a moment ago or or maybe sometime in the last

couple weeks, if you surrendered your heart to Christ to call him

Lord. Welcome to the family in in just

a moment. We're going to we're going to

respond to this sermon. We're going to sing a song to

close our service. And in the back there are

tables. The banners say I raised my

hand. Whether you raise your.

Hand or not, if you've. Made a decision to follow

Christ, to surrender to Christ. I want you to go back there

during the song, and I want you to.

Tell someone what happened. We want to celebrate with you.

We're going to give you a Bible and a gift and follow up with

you. We're going to talk about what

it looks like to follow Christ. The rest of you, where you

stand. We're going to sing a song.

Our prayer team is going to come up.

We, we, we love Fran with you and for you for all sorts of

things. What a great time to.

Be prayed for during a series on prayer.

So don't miss an opportunity to have someone pray for you today.

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