Need to Plead

Amen.

Turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

And can we give a hand clap for the great I Am?

That is one of my favorite songs to worship to.

I didn't even tell the team that, but man, that was good.

It's good when we get in the presence of God.

Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Continuing in this our second week of the Awakened series.

Last week, we talked about my people and the need for my people to begin to wake up.

And the second part of that verse in 2 Chronicles 7.14 says, If my people will humble themselves and pray.

So we're going to talk about the topic this morning, the need to plead.

So in Luke chapter 18, if you go all the way to verse number 8, you kind of see a question that takes us back, and you've got to understand this question to get to the parable that's before it.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

And so the end of the parable, the question is this when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?

And a good quote that came from Dr.

Carson, he said this text without context is a pretext for a proof text.

What in the world does that mean?

The Bible's a continuous letter.

Okay?

So each book is a continuous letter.

And so to understand a particular passage, and you look in your Bible and you see the number 18 and say, well, that is the chapter that I'm looking at.

But to understand, it's like reading a book.

The whole of Luke is a book for us to read as a continuous letter.

So to understand verse 8 of chapter 18, we need to look at a couple of things in chapter 17.

And as you go back in chapter 17, verses 27, 30, and 37, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna paraphrase what it says, but it says that the people of Noah's time ate, drank, and were merry.

And then it says, this is verse 27, then it says that likewise in the days of Sodom or Lot, that they ate, drank, and were merry.

They bought, sold, they planted, they built, and repeated.

It was a continual feast.

If eat, drink, be merry.

And so what it's saying was they were doing what was typical.

They were doing what was normal.

And I kind of want to submit to you this morning that the desperate need of awakening in America is not because we necessarily have persecution at our doorstep.

What we have is desensitization.

We have a slow, incremental spiritual famine.

Slowly, over time, over decades, incrementally, we're desensitizing our country, and we're saying, eat, drink, be merry, repeat.

Eat, drink, be merry, repeat.

Build, work, plant, eat, drink, be merry, repeat.

And the disciples say, how will we know when this is going on that the kingdom of heaven is at hand?

And it's interesting, I shared a portrait last week and I kind of forgot to define a little part of it.

But at the end of chapter 17, it says, wherever the vultures are gathered, that's when you know that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And I showed a picture and I forgot to describe that a vulture in the background.

It's called the vulture and the little boy.

And it's a picture of famine.

And the illustration I was given is that we're in a famine, and the vulture is right there waiting.

He's waiting for eminent death so that he can come and the vultures are circling.

Jesus says, In when before my second coming, the vultures will be at hand.

And it made me think of when Jesus, right before he was to be per, or before he was to be executed, he went into prayer.

He went into a season of prayer between him and the Father.

And he began his prayer.

And the disciples, when he went back to find the disciples, before the vultures came, before the men came to get him, Jesus said something to his disciples.

The last admonition he said, could you not watch with me for one hour?

And so today, I want to tell you, it's time to pray.

Let's pray together.

We pray in a service and we're just using empty words.

We're using repetitive transitions.

And God, not even beginning to enter your presence.

We pray over work and go to God so often we're just uttering words to the air.

We've got to understand that it's time to pray.

And for an awakening to happen, your formula says, if my people will humble themselves and pray.

And God, I think we've got a lot of your people, a lot of Christians.

Many are not praying.

Help us, Lord.

Help me, Lord.

Help this congregation today to understand what they know.

We know this.

We understand this, Father.

But I feel we just not doing it.

God, I pray that you would just use this sermon to do what you want it to do in our hearts.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Point number one this morning.

We have a little acrostic of pray.

Point number one is this we have to persist to God.

That word persist means remain.

We need to endure.

We need to persevere.

Look at Luke chapter 18 as it starts the parable of the persistent widow.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

And it says, it gives you the conclusion.

Now, this is one of the only parables that tells you the point of the parable at the beginning instead of later on.

But it says, then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.

Two things in that verse one that you see.

Number one, he says they always ought to pray.

God sees, letter A, as we persist to God, letter A, is God sees the frequency of our prayer.

1 Thessalonians 5.17 tells us to pray without ceasing.

Now, how is it possible, Pastor Rick, that we can pray without ceasing?

A pastor friend of mine described an encounter that he had with a molecular biologist by the name of Jill Leuquitas.

And he said, Jill Leuquitas was talking to him and telling him some new information about the human makeup and said that we're all made up of four basic nucleotides.

What is that?

He said.

She said, it's a small chemical molecule chain with a radioactive pulse.

He said, in English, Doc, and she said, all humans are made up of a chain of dirt with a little bit of electricity.

He said, Doctor, you mean to tell me that we're made up of dirt with electricity?

He said, I want to tell you now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I want to tell you a Hebrew word, Doc.

It's called Nefesh.

Hebrew word nephesh means God aspirated.

God breathed.

God spirated from no other place but his essence into dirt.

And man became a living soul.

Dirt became man.

And she said, the doctor says, Does it say that in that book?

And he said, Yes, it does, doc.

And he says, Einstein says, Science without faith is blind.

Stick with me, okay?

I'm gonna get to a point.

Neurons in our brain transmit electrical transmitted responses.

Okay?

The Bible says this love makes you and I one.

God desired that you and I would think in one accord.

Let me give you a poll.

Have you ever picked up your phone to call somebody?

And as you picked up your phone to call somebody, that somebody was on the other line calling you.

Okay?

Now stay with me here, okay?

There is no such thing as a coincidence.

Y'all with me?

You're on to something, Professor.

Thank you.

So because you can think a thought, a neural electrically transmitted response, one nefesh to another nefesh, God breathed into us, however you want to look at it.

Because you can think a thought, you can pray a prayer.

How can I do something continually?

How can I always do something?

Because you can think a thought, you can pray a prayer.

So when we think, pray.

And the Bible says, two or more agree on anything under heaven in God's will, it's done.

So look at your neighbor right now and say, Would you use your brain?

Now look at your second choice, because that's what they are, and say, use your brain.

Persist in prayer.

That's how I can pray without ceasing because thoughts are something that I can do and I can continually pray.

That's why when I look back, and I've been hearing about this my whole time in ministry, in 1962, the Supreme Court ruling that there be no prayer in Bible schools.

Listen to me, this is garbage.

And the satanic spin that it gets is unbelievable.

Listen, we largely believe the wrong thing about this, okay?

It was about public prayer, and I can tell you, since that ruling, several states have combated and amended the ruling.

And so let me tell you a few.

Here's the good news that you never hear.

In Oklahoma and Montana, principals and teachers can open the day in prayer.

In Massachusetts, Mississippi, Maryland, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, and God bless Alabama, student-initiated voluntary prayer is permitted because there's been amendment.

You never hear this.

All you see is another post about there's no prayer in schools ever since prayer got taken out of schools.

But I'm gonna get to something even greater about that in a second.

In Kentucky, you can recite the Lord's Prayer.

Okay?

Prayer out of schools is a joke.

Why?

Just try to stop me from praying.

Go ahead.

I just prayed for John just now.

Just now I prayed for John.

Why?

Because I can think of thought and he needs the prayer.

Okay, so as long as you can think, you can pray.

Just try to stop me from praying.

Okay?

While I'm preaching, I can think of your face and pray that God touched you because we have these amazing brains.

And so as I think thoughts, I can pray prayers.

Why do we memorize so much scripture?

Oh, they took the Bible out too.

Right.

Okay, so I memorize scripture.

And that's why I wana and our one-way students here at CCW, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, we are memorizing scripture.

And just try to get scripture out of schools.

Just try.

You can't.

Because as long as I'm in school and as long as they're in school and the scripture's in them and the Bible's in them, you ain't getting scripture out of schools.

You say, well, that's kind of a technicality, Pastor.

Um, you know.

Um, but I'm tired of satanic spent.

And further, I was talking to Steve McClinton.

He was in the as a librarian out of school.

I used to substitute teach.

And so I understand the rules of what you can and can't do.

Now, as I substitute taught, let me tell you what I brought in my briefcase.

I brought my Bible, brought my laptop.

And we have, we would have quiet work time where I would give students work and they would have to be quiet in their desk.

And guess what I would do with my laptop?

I started studying for my sermons right there in school.

And I'd be studying, working my sermons.

I'd have my Bible open.

And you cannot, what you can't do is you can't congregate a crowd and go and start preaching at them.

But they can come ask you anything.

Mr.

Mack told me a student came up to him one time, pointed at his Bible, and said, Why do you have that there?

He said, Well, it's actually kind of the guidebook for my life.

It's the rules that I live by.

And any student asks you a question, you're allowed to answer that question.

Okay?

You just can't initiate things.

That's really what is held back.

Okay, you can't initiate.

But all you ever hear is the Bible and prayer has been out of school since 62.

That's the spin that you hear.

And so I'm saying this: look, when I would have uh events, I would take these cards for my students that were in my youth ministry.

Okay, and so I didn't initiate, but we would have a laser tag overnight.

I'd bring my cards, I'd sit them there, I'd say, uh, hey Drew.

Look at that.

Drew would come, he'd pass out to all his friends.

Now I didn't do it.

Take that, Satan.

Here I am in school passing out ways that we're gonna get the gospel.

You see, God sees the frequency of our prayer.

Prayer can't be stopped.

It can't be stopped and will never be stopped.

God sees the frequency, not only the frequency, but God also sees the fervency.

He says, Don't lose heart, don't give up.

He sees the fervency of our prayer.

That's why James 5.16 says the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

That's letter B.

God feels the fervency of our prayers.

So don't lose heart.

That word fervent, the Greek is the word ectanes.

And it means this to boil, to bubble, to burn over.

Colossians tell us of Epaphras, and it says that uh Epaphras, the bond service, was always laboring fervently for the saints in prayer that they'd be able to stand in the will of God.

That word fervent meant he boiled in prayer.

He bubbled, he was pouring out in prayer.

And I know that as we look at our times today, we say, man, it's difficult, Pastor.

Things are dark, things sometimes seem dry, so what do I do?

We keep praying.

We fervently pray.

My family member is lost, Pastor.

What do we do?

We keep praying.

I'm sick, Pastor.

What do we do?

We keep praying.

I don't have a job, Pastor.

What do we do?

We keep praying.

My child is a prodigal, Pastor.

We keep on praying.

The world got the Rhoda, Pastor.

What do we do?

We got to keep praying.

Listen, I didn't say get a group together and talk about it and complain.

I said keep praying.

I didn't say write a post about it on Facebook.

I said keep praying.

He says, fervently pray.

You want something to change?

Fervently, continuously pray, feverishly, boiling over.

We pray.

We keep praying.

My dad, uh, ever since I was really young, we had to chop wood.

And um there's some there's some wood chopping people in the house, am I right?

We got any wood stove people in the house?

Cheap?

You're cheap?

Right?

Say, no, Pastor, efficient.

We're efficient.

Listen, I know what it is.

Okay.

My dad, you can go to my dad's house in the winter.

Oh my soul.

He'd have it 174 degrees in the living room so the whole house can be cooked.

Don't like them gas bills.

We were always finding logs somewhere.

He would have this swap guide in the newspaper and be looking free wood.

We were always picking up some free logs and bringing them home, chopping, stacking wood.

If I go home right now, in the middle of July, with my dad 63 years old, there is a pile of wood sitting.

And they live in a semi-residential area.

They're not out on some acreage.

There's a pile of wood sitting to be split and stacked right now.

The last time we visited, my dad had me stacking wood.

Okay.

Listen, he would look me.

I remember this at nine as early as nine years old.

My daddy would look me in the eyes.

And he would say, now listen, we don't want to waste energy.

He'd say, swing that axe like you mean it, son.

I'm like, nine.

I can barely hold the axe.

You know what I'm saying?

It's like, no, and he would look me in the eye and swing that axe like you mean it.

Listen, it taught me more, church, to watch my daddy work.

He didn't understand what it was teaching me.

At the time I didn't like it.

I really didn't want to be a part of it.

But it taught me more now, the things that I understand now, because listen, dads, they may not like it now, but they see it.

They see what it is to work and to be a man.

And so I watched and he said, swing that axe like you mean it.

What God's saying here, church, pray like you mean it.

Pray like you mean it.

Alright, that's verse one.

We gotta move.

All right.

The second thing, the second point this morning, the letter R there is, remember who God is.

Remember who God is.

Let's jump into the parable part.

It says this.

Saying there was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.

There was a widow in that city, and she came to him saying, Get justice for me from my adversary.

And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, Though I do not fear God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she wearies me.

And so what we see here is this widow who's going before this judge, and she's continually going, and she she remembers who it is that she has to go to for justice.

She remembers who it is that has power.

And so she goes back to the judge and letter A, under this, remembering who God is.

Understand that God is attentive to all of his children.

God is attentive to all of his children.

You see that this illustration of the judge and the widow, it uses a widow later on in Scripture, verse 15 through 17.

It talks about children.

And what it's pointing out is people that are dependent upon somebody for their living.

He's saying, God is attentive to those needs.

And the disciples were trying to shoo away, push away the children, and Jesus says, suffer not these little ones.

Suffer not the widow.

And scripture even talks about the widow in Deuteronomy, Old Testament.

It says, cursed is the one who perverts justice to sojourner and the fatherless and the widow.

Isaiah says, plead the widow's cause.

And so as a church, we have to look out for the widows.

We have to look out for the fatherless.

And that's the gospel in us working itself out.

And so we look out for those who need that.

And I was trying to think about how we understand God's attention to us.

You know, our children come to us with all types of needs, right?

And it who's a parent here, right?

Your children come to you.

Just the other day, I called and I was reporting to Heather about tax preparation.

I was just reporting to her.

I didn't know I was on speakerphone and I said, uh, you know, we're going to get a you know a refund.

And Weston's ears, I think, perked up.

Later on that evening, you know, this is the way kids think.

Later on that evening, Weston has this conversation with Heather, and he's like, Mommy, I want you to give me half of the money.

And he's dead serious.

And Heather's like, nah, that ain't gonna happen.

And he started crying.

You're not gonna give, why wouldn't you do that?

Why wouldn't you give you the money?

Not even half.

And then he started coming down off of it.

Well, what about this much?

What about this?

You and then he said, You probably won't even give me a penny.

But the innocence and the way that he asks, just knowing that the parent wants to do good for them.

Now listen to this story.

This is an unjust judge.

And he says, I care about the widow.

Jesus says, God says, I care about the widow's cause, I care about the children.

Can you imagine?

Listen, the God who created galaxies cares about your health.

It blows my mind to think about the God that created these constellations and created these great things that my mind cannot even wrap itself around the Milky Way seven planets.

He cares that your stomach hurts because something's bothering you.

Because you got upset.

Can you imagine that the God that lifted a sea and sent plagues on this earth and raised the dead cares about your broken heart?

Widow and children represent those that need help.

As you look to the Bible, you see this word whosoever.

You are part of that whosoever.

You are part of God's plan.

And what he wants is for you to remember the one that has the power to answer and identify and help with your needs.

You're a part of God's plan.

Now you can go through this life and be elevator music.

You can be background noise to something that's already planned out and it's going to happen his way.

Or you can be a part of it and be a tool in his plan.

Let it be as this.

You see that God was attentive to all his children.

God is accelerated to action through communication.

I don't know why God chose prayer as the means, but God chose prayer.

He's accelerated to action through our communication.

He could do things any way he wants, but he decided that prayer was an action that was going to make him move.

Herbert Jackson was a missionary, and when he got onto the field, he was given an assignment.

And on his assignment, he got a new car, or he got a new used car, and he found out quickly that the car wouldn't start.

And the only way to get it started was to get it jumped going down a hill.

And so then it would, the ignition would turn, and so he made himself what he thought was an ingenious plan.

He would go by a school and park the car, and that's where he would walk back to home, and so the school was parked on a hill.

And so he asked some teachers if it would be okay if he brought out some children.

He would get children every day to push his car and get it jumped off and started.

And so he and then he would leave the car running if he went somewhere to do errands.

Well, uh, as it happened, Jackson uh he got sick after a few years on the field, and a new missionary came, and he began to tell this new missionary of the situation with the car and his ingenious way of starting the car.

And the new missionary pops the hood and does the man thing and looks under the hood and he says, Um, Mr.

Jackson, it looks like this cable right here is loose.

And he twists the cable and he goes around and gets in the car into Jackson's huge surprise.

The car started right up.

What was wrong the entire time?

For two years, he would go and do this method, needless work, because there was a loose connection.

Ephesians 1 says is how tremendous is the power available to those who believe.

Something that I think we lack is a loose connection.

We have to remember who God is.

We lack a remembrance of that power.

One man said it this way: the secret to his presence is his presence when we are in secret.

Secret to God's power is his presence when we are in secret.

God is going to act according to his will in the world, but has chosen the method of prayer, the special communication with his people.

Scripture says, I am the good shepherd, and my sheep know my voice, and I know them.

I can be in church, and I've been in churches, a former church, four or five hundred people, and crowds gathering, and my children be across the other side of the church.

They used to run the aisles and just, you know, church kids.

This is their playground.

Okay.

And so they'd be running.

And I could make this noise.

Ps, psst.

And my kids, no matter what was going on, would suddenly go.

They could be, I now for a while this worked.

I still I don't think I hadn't done it in a while, but we've been in a supermarket be saying, and I kind of see them over there and go, ps.

My kids go.

They know this noise that their dad makes.

A couple of times I've done it, and the heather turned.

Okay.

They know this voice, this action.

Sheep know the shepherd.

We quiet ourselves before God and we focus on Him and the sound and this position in order to set out in prayer.

We're postured to a place of remembering who God is.

And so it's not just flippant words.

It's not just a transition.

It's not just God bless the macaroni.

It's real moments postured with God.

We're remembering who He is.

I heard this quote the other day.

It said, Be strong enough to stand alone.

Be smart enough to know when you need help, and brave enough to ask for it.

That takes us to number three.

We have to ask God.

The widow woman had to go to the judge.

She had to ask.

She was being wronged.

And look at verse 7 and 8, and it says, And shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them, tell you, I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.

We go and we have to ask God.

Matthew 7, 7 and 8 is that ask acronym.

It says, Ask, seek, knock.

We ask and we shall receive.

We seek and we shall find.

We knock and the door will be open unto us.

And so we have to go to God to ask.

Letter A under that is this God patterned us to need help.

God patterned you and me to need help.

Say something with me.

Help.

Say a little loud.

Say help.

Say, I need some help.

Thinking about trying to get sleepy.

Okay.

Well, y'all weren't with me last night.

I was up till one o'clock watching the fight, so there's no excuse.

We need help.

Adam needed help in Genesis 2.18.

You know what God did?

He looked down at man.

He said, This is no good.

Thank God that God looked down at man.

Are you with me, man?

Can you say amen?

That he looked down and said, This is not good.

They need help.

And guess what?

He called Eve.

Somebody that's read the Bible.

What did he call her?

What else?

Help! His help meet.

His help meet.

Y'all got to get on the talk about help.

Call her woman.

We need help.

Adam needed help.

You know, in Psalms 121, verse 2 says, I will lift up mine eyes and to the hills from where my help comes from.

Psalms 121:2

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of the heaven and earth.

It's a blessing to be helped.

Sometimes we get this idea in our society that if we need help, we're like a lower class.

If we need help with something, that something's wrong with us.

If we can't pull up our bootstraps and do it ourselves, then something's wrong.

And we got this idea that being in need of help is a bad thing.

God patterned us to need help.

Why there's other humans.

You can't do it all.

Are you with me?

We need help.

God made it that way.

And so it's a blessing to be able to help and to be helped.

And so as you looked at verse 2 and 4 about this judge, this is an unjust judge, scripture says.

He did not regard God or man.

And what it says about the widow, and Google this, okay?

I'm doing you a favor, you'll have fun with this.

I wish I could do it some justice, but if you'll Google Harold Clayton, the tortoise and the hare, he does a message about this persistent widow.

And he comes and he wears a napkin over his face, acting like a widow, and he's blowing the napkin.

Watch Harold Clayton talk about the persistent widow.

And he says, Oh, Judge, I've been wrong.

And he, but I can't do it, okay?

But if you watch this seven-year-old, you'll have a good time watching this sermon.

But the widow comes and she's coming to a judge that doesn't regard God or man.

And what it says there, that weary, the word for weary there, when you when you define it, says she's making me black and blue.

She's continually, it wears me.

She's beating me down like a slow jab to the face to the death.

Over and over, a hammer fist to the face.

Parents, let me ask you something.

Don't you want good for your children?

Don't you want a good future mate for your children?

Grandparents.

Isn't that your desire?

You want a good future mate for them?

You want them to have character.

What about business owners?

Don't you want God's blessing to be on your business and the work of your hands?

You want God to bless that.

Married people, don't you want God's blessing on the marriage that you have and for you and your mate to enjoy one another?

Concerned family member.

You say, I got a prodigal.

Don't you want God to reach into your family and to the lost in your family and God to do something in them?

American citizens, aren't you concerned about the well-being of this country, church?

So what do we do?

We keep coming and we keep coming and we keep praying and we keep coming and we keep praying and we keep going back to God because we need help.

Let it be about that.

God's purpose for us is to acknowledge our need.

God wants you and me.

I don't know why God decided to work in this pattern, but God wants and desires to hear from us our need.

Our asking is what God has chosen as the ignition to fulfilling.

And I can prove it because Scripture says in James 4, if you have, you have not because you ask not.

It says you don't have because you don't ask.

John Piper says this prayer, listen to me.

My favorite quote on prayer prayer causes things to happen that would not have happened if you had not prayed.

I'll say it one more time.

Prayer causes things to happen that would not have happened if you had not prayed.

And so is it important that we pray?

Absolutely.

All these things that I just mentioned, God wants you to be the ask.

He wants you to be coming to him and revealing your needs.

Sometimes we just we're so busy.

We're too busy to bring our needs to God.

And we'll bring our needs to somebody on the phone for 30 minutes.

We'll bring our needs before a group of people on a social media.

But God who can fix our problem, we totally skip little things, big things, God wants us to bring our needs.

We have to ask.

That takes us to the next point.

When a person, letter, or number four, is why yield to God.

When a person is yielded to God, Tozer said this: when a person is yielded to God, believes the truth of God, is filled with the Spirit of God, even the faintest whisper will be worship.

It starts with a yielded heart.

We have to be yielded to God.

I want to take you to verses 10 through 14.

He goes from that parable to another, and he talks about people praying.

And it says this two men went up to the temple, verse 10, to pray.

One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself.

Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector right here.

I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

We talk about yielding to God.

It's a humbling of ourselves.

And that Chronicles passage says we have to humble ourselves and pray.

In order for your schedule to allow for you to pray, you've got to humble yourselves before God.

You've got to be yielded to a moment.

You have to have a plan for prayer.

I don't know how your mind works.

There's some people that are very organized, and it needs to be 5:30 in the morning, and you need your coffee, and you need this and this.

And some people it'll be your drive to work, or some people it'll be because you look at something and it makes you think of, oh, there's the mirror.

I got to pray.

I don't know what your pattern is, but your pattern has to be that you pray.

It has to be intentional, and we have to be yielded to God to care about prayer.

I think largely for what we would call the Christian church, there's no yielding to God in any manner.

We want God to be the magic genie.

And we will pray when someone has cancer.

And we will pray when things go bad.

But we will not be submitted and yielded in prayer constantly, fervently, frequently.

We need to be yielded to God.

Letter A under that is God is captivated by submission.

God's captivated by our submission.

If you look at Matthew chapter 6, we see the opposite of a submissive prayer.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

We see what I'll call the smug prayers.

And it says in Matthew 6, and when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, which is kind of like this prayer we just heard.

Oh Father, with thou inhabitest the heavens, I give my tithe, I feed the poor, I am a man.

What is that?

He says, Don't be like the hypocrites.

They love to be heard in prayer.

They love for others to hear them practicing righteousness, to be seen.

Literally, that verse in Matthew 6 that follows says, It's where it says, Don't sound the horn before you, where we get the phrase, don't blow your own trumpet, don't blow your own horn when you give.

And so there's people, that's their prayer, that's their life in prayer, and it's all about hear me, see me, know that I am good.

But James 4, 7 and 8 says this that if we submit to God, it's about submission in prayer.

Resist the devil, he will flee.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to us.

God wants to draw near to us.

God wants to be close to us, church.

It's not, I prayed that God would help me not to try to bring a message that would make you feel guilty into prayer.

I want you to understand the need of this intimacy.

God desires you.

He desires time with you.

Can you understand that God loves you so much and wants to be with you?

He says, if you submit to me and draw near to me, I'll draw near to you.

Ladies, let me ask you something.

In a man, is godliness attractive?

Okay.

Three of you.

It'd be tough to get my point across, but anybody here ever seen a gorgeous woman?

I'm talking just a knockout lady.

I mean, outer beauty.

She's just full of beauty, and she's walking around with a potato.

Y'all with me?

Like just a real plain guy.

Okay?

Somebody who's like, when you look, you're like, I don't, I don't understand that.

You're walking down the street, you're like, I don't get it.

Right?

Let me tell you what I think.

Okay, I haven't found this in the Bible, so don't go back on me.

Where did he see that?

Because uh I've been looking into teaching about dating.

But one of three things to me happens.

Okay, number one, a lady, either the boy, he might be a big old boy, and the girls always wanted to be protected and safe.

You might see a big old potato and a beautiful girl, right?

Big old potato, just plain.

Y'all with me, okay?

Let's just be, we're a church, but can we be real?

Okay, a big old potato, you've looked at him too, don't judge me.

And you're like, how in the world?

And he's just big and straight, and she's leaned up against me like, wow.

Maybe she can't even see his face.

I don't know.

But but she's with big old potato, and she just wanted to be protected.

And he makes her feel so safe.

Okay.

Sorry, that's out for Heather.

Okay?

Big old potato.

Two.

Okay.

She's with him and she laughs till her side hurts.

She's with a guy.

She is beautiful, a knockout.

He's a plain potato.

But when she's with him, he just makes her laugh and laugh and laugh.

And she she loves to be with him.

And he likes to lull her into believing I'm in love with this guy.

I don't know how, but I'm in love with him.

He's so funny.

All I do is smile when I'm with him.

I just want to smile when I'm with him.

And so he's funny.

Okay.

Number three, he's godly.

He knows how to know God.

He might be a potato, but she is blinded.

She does not know that he's even that way because when she sees him, she's someone that sees someone that shines with the glory of God on them.

And she wants to be around him.

Listen, I want to be around godly people.

I don't know about you.

So I tell our teen boys all the time, there's always hope.

Listen, guys, there is always hope.

Let me tell you.

Either start working out, get funny, or start reading that book.

You might just be lucky.

Okay?

I was.

Don't you want to be some of you getting a little late?

Don't you want to be near godliness?

God wants to be near godliness.

Why don't you think about that?

He says, draw nigh unto me, and I will draw back nigh unto you.

God wants to be around the godly.

God wants to hear the prayers of the godly.

God wants to be around people who are trying to serve and be like him.

He wants you to be submitted.

Submitted prayers are like this.

They're prayers in God's will.

1 John 5.14 says this.

This is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

See, God has a will.

He has a moral will and a sovereign will.

But listen, scripture also, it's not like God's just going to do what he's going to do no matter what.

That's what I'm trying to get across to you.

What you say matters.

And the end of the book is not going to change.

There's going to be victory.

God's going to come back and plant his second kingdom.

But you get to be a cog in the wheel if you choose to use your voice and not be elevator music.

You get to be a tool in God's ultimate purpose and plan.

So he has a will.

But Philippians says this: don't worry for anything.

But let every request be made known unto God.

Everything it says.

Look, the Greek for that is everything, everything that we bring to him.

He says, let every request be made unto him.

He says, Don't worry.

Don't waste an ounce of your energy investing in hours and days of worry.

Don't have an upset stomach because you're trying to grind your way through this problem.

Bring everything to me.

Jesus even prayed this way.

What?

What do you mean?

Jesus prayed this way.

Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And he said, God, I don't want to do it this way.

He said, God, I want salvation for these people.

And he prayed and he perspired, sweat drops of blood.

And he said, God, is there some other way for these people to come to salvation?

God, take this cup from me, he said.

Let it pass.

You know what he said after that?

Not my will.

Your will be done.

Submitted prayers are about understanding God's will.

God will answer the prayers of the submitted Christian.

Your prayers will start to look like God's will.

Being submitted to Him assumes I understand I'm praying in a manner consistent with His will.

James 4.3 says this about it.

Why aren't prayers going the way we think they should?

You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss.

We're praying prayers outside of His will.

So God connects through submission, submitted prayer.

Letter be, God connects with us through sacrifice.

God connects with us through sacrifice.

Psalms 141, 2 says this, let my prayer, David said, be as incense unto you.

And the lifting of hands as a sacrifice.

My prayer would be like sweet aroma to the nostrils of God.

My prayer is like incense being lifted to heaven.

It's a sacrifice.

Proverbs 15, 8 says that the Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked.

But the prayer of the upright pleases him.

Let me bring it to you this way.

Parents.

Those of you that have children, you know that it doesn't your children don't have to do anything in order for you to love them.

You just love them.

From the moment they came out and they started babbling and crying, and you had to check.

And all of it.

You spent countless hours, you fed them, you made sure you've loved them.

From the moment you set eyes on your child, you've just loved them.

They don't have to do anything in order for you to love them.

But when they do something, it doesn't hurt.

Are y'all with me?

My children on occasion will write me some notes and letters.

This is from Weston.

Rick, you are the best dad ever.

You make me L-A-P-H laugh.

Love Weston.

I love Weston without that letter.

But did that letter hurt?

Absolutely not.

Wyatt draw drew me this picture I've had for a couple years.

Says, I love you, Daddy.

There's me and White, I think.

I imagine that's what that is.

Trees.

He randomly wrote Red Sox over here because he knows it's my favorite team.

I've had this in Indiana, I have it here.

Okay.

Does he need to give me this in order for me to love him?

No.

Does it hurt?

Not at all.

For Father's Day this year, Callie gave me this.

And there's some awesome alliteration on it.

It says, I hope you have a great day, Daddy.

Thank you for always being there for me.

You've inspired me as a youth pastor.

And as my dad.

But you're the best at both.

You're awesome.

I love you.

Dad.

Duhest.

Daring, dependable.

A.

Awesome.

Amazing, admirable.

D.

Duhom.

Dedicated and determined.

Rick! Radical.

Inspiring, cool, and kind.

I mean, that's me, right?

She gets me.

She didn't have to do any of that for me to love her.

But does it hurt?

Not at all.

She took the time, they took the time to sacrifice some time.

I got some gifts for Father's Day.

It connects to the heartstrings of who we are.

Y'all have things too.

You got old things, things they made in kindergarten.

You put up your Christmas tree and got some of the ugliest stuff people ever have imagined.

I know it.

And when you look at it, you go, baby.

Look at my little baby, the little artist, little macaroni artist, one day Picasso.

They're so awesome.

Right?

And it connects to your heart.

When we sacrifice of our time, God goes.

I love them.

I really love it when they do that.

I sent my son to die for them anyway, but ah.

Oh, they're praying again.

Oh, it's like a Roma.

Oh, it's so good when my kids do that.

Oh, I'm so proud of them.

I love them.

Connects to his heart.

Um, I got a little photo I want you to see.

I don't know if I'll make it through.

So this was the Wednesday after camp, and I don't usually come off my own altar call to take a photo.

But it's listen, y'all don't understand the blessing when students come and respond.

Because there's a million things going through their minds.

As do you.

Listen, I get it.

An invitation uh a pastor is trying with all his heart to get you to respond.

And and look, it all means something to God.

For us, we just see what visually happens.

Okay, so we don't always know what gets taken home.

But it does something for the preacher.

I don't want you to do it for me, but when people come to this thing and and I'm just being honest, okay?

Callie is straightforward like her mother.

Not a lot moves her.

Okay.

So if I preached and Callie came to the altar, I'm like, woo! But just recently, Wyatt joined youth group.

And look, at home, you don't know how it is with kids.

Like, I think they love each other, but I'm not always so sure.

You know, I just I'm like, and and I'm I open my eyes from prayer and I see this.

My eyes I see my children holding one another in a brace, going before their father, which is in heaven.

God connects.

Was it a sacrifice?

Look, it's not a big sacrifice for me to pray.

But it is something.

It's something that we can do for God that he can't do to himself.

I don't get to pray to God.

Okay.

I tell the teens every week, worship is the opportunity we have to do something for God that he cannot do for himself.

We get a chance to exalt the name that's above every name.

And in order to do that, you have to have something greater than you to be exalted.

So God doesn't worship.

Now a rock, scripture says, will take your place.

I don't want no rock taking my place.

And so we have an opportunity to sacrifice.

God connects with us through sacrifice.

How does that happen?

Romans 12 says, I beg you, brothers, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice which is holy, acceptable unto God, and our reasonable service.

God says it's reasonable that you would sacrifice yourself to live for me, to live to me, to pray to me, to come to me.

It's reasonable because, listen, he knew a little something about sacrifice.

The gospel is this Jesus came and sacrificed his deity from heaven and lived on earth as a man.

It's called the Hippostatic Union.

He became the God man, all of his essence in God, all of his essence is man, and he came to this earth and he lived a life that was afflicted by all the afflictions of man, and he climbed up on a cross because he chose, even though in the Garden of Gethsemane he was saying, God, if there's another way physically to do this, I'll do it.

And he took crucifixion because he wanted to sacrifice to please the Father.

Maybe you're here this morning.

You've never received that sacrifice.

It was for you.

He got on that cross for the chance that you would say yes to him.

I want to read to you one last scripture and close with an illustration.

God connects with us through sacrifice in Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

How do we know this?

God likes the sacrifice of our prayer.

Hebrews 4, 14 through 16 says, Seeing that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness.

Listen, as he was on earth, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

So Christ went through everything that we go through as a man.

So let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.

Jesus died on the cross for the moment that you could boldly come before the Father which is in heaven, because Jesus is the mediator between us and him, a God who couldn't look at sin because Jesus stretched out and sacrificed all.

Now we can come boldly, like my child saying, Give me half that tax check.

We can come boldly and say, God, please heal, God, please deliver, please awaken our people, please bring back my prodigal, please save my lost family member, please, God, and we can come boldly with that childlike faith.

God connects through sacrifice.

In 1857, there was a revival that started through the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting.

Jeremiah Lansphere had been hired on at this church and he didn't know how to begin a ministry.

And so, not knowing what to do or how to really start ministry, he began a weekly prayer meeting.

It was to meet on Wednesday for one hour during lunch for businessmen or anyone who wanted to come.

As the prayer meeting began, 25 minutes passed, and not a soul was there.

Before the meeting closed, a few men came and a few more men.

There were six men that covenanted together in that first prayer meeting.

It grew in the next two to three weeks and went from six to fifteen to seventy to a hundred.

And by October of that year, Laron Thear recounts that there were three rooms full of men, and they changed it from a weekly meeting to a daily meeting at lunchtime.

Three rooms in the church full of men praying to God that he would change their city.

It went on for another year.

In 1857, what Lanfier had looked at with six men had bolstered 6,000 people praying in New York City, another 6,000 in Pittsburgh.

It began to scatter through the entire eastern coast of the United States.

And in often places of business would be seen this sign at lunchtime.

We'll meet back after the prayer meeting.

Washington, D.C.

saw five different times daily that the prayer meeting was taking place.

And let me tell you the results of these men coming together in prayer because this is what you need to hear this morning about prayer.

The men came together and they gave their prayer meeting a name and it came from Scripture.

Matthew 26, 40 says, Could you not watch with me one hour?

It became the prayer watch.

May of 1859, 50,000 lost sinners came to Christ as a result of the prayer meeting that started with Jeremiah Lanfear and six men.

50,000 people came to repentance because of prayer.

There were reports all through New England that there were many cities that didn't know a lost soul.

The whole city had been converted because people began to come together and pray and seek God.

Over one million people in 1859 added to the church membership roles of the United States.

One million people because one man said, I'll pray.

I don't know what else to do, but I can pray.

You think it's important right now, at this time in history, that we care about prayer, church?

And it's not, listen, I'm not trying to guilt you.

I'm just like, God wants to be near you.

Don't you want to be near him?

Church, what God could do if we just watch for an hour in prayer.

What I'm telling you, what I feel in my spirit, is that the vultures are circling.

Jesus is gonna return.

And he asked this question in verse 8: Will I find any on earth that will be faithful?

Will we pray?

I want you to bow your heads this morning.