Fresh Start in Faith: Foundational Prayer - January 12, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

So I wonder this morning if you would help me recite our theme verse for the year, really.

I'll start it. Therefore, if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old is gone, the new is here.

Praise the Lord. That's what we're celebrating. But I've got to ask you,

have you ever wanted to redo?

Have you ever wanted to start over?

Maybe more than once, maybe some have already want to hit the reset button on this year.

You know, I never would have thought about reset buttons growing up except for

video games as they became more advanced.

And if you're not a skilled player like me, you like the reset button.

You like the quick save option so you could save and then restart and know what

you did wrong and then learn and start again.

But unfortunately, life doesn't have a reset button. No matter how much politicians

like to try to push a reset button and reset relations with other countries,

it doesn't always happen.

And especially in our own lives, it doesn't. I remember when I was in high school,

we had the opportunity, our AP biology class, to go to the College of Idaho,

and just to kind of tour and see everything.

And there was something we got to do, and we got to take a test. Yeah.

I know, I'm the only one probably that cheered, but the test was for scholarship

money. And if you pass this test, then you got a scholarship.

And at the time, I had an experience to call to preach in this,

and so I was just trying to figure out what to do with my life.

But I was really good at the sciences.

I was really good in chemistry and biology.

I'm not so much good at math, which kind of made chemistry a little difficult

at times, but I was all for, all right, I can do this.

I didn't want to be a marine biologist because I can't swim very well,

and there's no way I wanted to go on the ocean because I know what's in that

water when you get out there.

Sorry, Emma, you kind of inherited that from me.

But I say all this to say I was doing pretty good, and I took the test,

and I turned it in, and I was confident, but I was kind of in a rush because

lunch was next, and I wanted to get to the lunch.

I wanted to experience a college lunch to see if it's different from the Capitol

High School lunch that I was so accustomed to.

And as I was getting whatever I ate that day and sat down at a table,

there was a big skirmish of people rushing toward me.

Now, I was a very shy kid and I didn't like a lot of attention,

but here came this group of people toward me. I'm like, am I going to get jumped at a college?

They know this is just a high school kid that's not supposed to be in the college

cafeteria. What's going on here?

Come to find out, they were all looking for me for a specific reason.

They said, Mike, we've been looking all over campus for you.

I said, why? Did I miss the bus? Are we trying to leave? What's going on?

They said, no, no, we need you to come back to the biology department.

I said, why? Did I leave something? No, I got all my stuff.

Why do you need me to go back? Well, you didn't finish the test.

I said, what do you mean I didn't finish the test?

I looked over that thing. They said there was a backside to one of the tests.

You got every question right, except you missed the entire back page on one of those.

I said, oh, talk about wanting to have a do-over. I wish I had one there.

Nevertheless, I didn't. My trajectory in life could have been different if I

had gotten the kind of scholarship they were offering from that exam,

and I might not be here today in this capacity.

So sometimes even when we don't get a reset, when we don't get a do-over,

it's okay, because God has got us,

and God is faithful to continue to bring new life to us, even in circumstances

and situations where we might not check the backside of a test.

But I can guarantee you, from that time on, I always flip the paper over just

to make sure that there's nothing I need to do on the backside,

whether that's an exam or a tax form or whatever it might be.

I wonder if you're looking for a fresh start this year, especially in your spiritual

life, because if so, you've come to the right place for celebrating new life.

I want you to have a fresh start in three spiritual disciplines as we're starting

out this year, three foundational disciplines to have a fresh start with God.

Today, we're going to talk about prayer. We're going to talk next week about Scripture.

And then the third week and the final week of the month here,

which is actually the fourth week, but the third in the sermon series,

we're going to talk about the power of community in the Christian's life.

And so this morning, we're going to talk about a scripture that we say every

Sunday, that we recite together as our benediction,

and it's one that we've probably known since we were growing up in different

faith traditions even, and it is simply Matthew 6, verses 9 through 13 in the King James Version.

Matthew 6:9–13

And so I'll invite you to stand, if you will, and if you're able to.

And hear the word of the Lord this morning. In verse 9, Jesus says,

After this manner, therefore pray ye, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the

kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Lord, this isn't the end of the service,

but Father, just the beginning.

Father, I pray that you'll take your word that we are so familiar with here

in this passage, and Lord, really help us apply that to our life for a fresh

start with you in our prayers.

God, we know that prayer is the key to power, the power that comes from your Holy Spirit.

And God, we just pray this morning that we will experience your grace and your mercy.

Lord, the challenge that comes from your Holy Spirit as we begin this new year

in our prayer life. God, we thank you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Well, there's three elements that I really want to highlight in the Lord's Prayer.

We are going to recite it together as our benediction at the end of the service.

I think Meadow is going to lead us in that later on, Meadow,

not right now. And so she's going to lead us in that today.

But the first thing that we see in this passage that we are so familiar with

is this element that we just call surrender.

Now, you know all about surrendering, right? You see it on TV all the time,

and when someone surrenders, they put their hands up and say, okay, you got me.

Whether it's a police officer, whether it's in an army movie or something,

when the gig is up, they raise their hands and say, I cannot do anything else.

Your armaments are bigger. You've caught me breaking the law.

Whatever. Here I am. I cannot...

I cannot take control anymore. And that's exactly what we're talking about.

We think in the scripture, what it says here, our father, which art in heaven.

We think about what surrendering is. The first element that we see in the surrender

is the fact that we say our father.

We surrender first and foremost to God and to his family. When we say this prayer,

it's an act of submission.

It's an act of denying that the old humanism, the old secular self-sufficiency,

a kind of I can do it myself, why do I need any help kind of idea.

It's when we proclaim this our father, we're claiming that it's together.

It's not just my father, it's our father together, that we're part of the family of God.

We declare that there are no other gods except this one who is a father to us that we're praying to.

And the truth of this, if we want to jumpstart our spiritual life with God,

if we want to jumpstart our relationship with him, then we've got to surrender ourself.

And I would say, surrender ourself daily.

Say, God, take my will. May it be yours.

God, I give my life to you again today. I'm talking about when your eyes wake

up and you realize that you're still on this earth in your warm bed and you got stuff to do today.

Surrender all that to God. Say, God, this is yours.

May I do what you want me to do? When we surrender ourselves to the Father,

it's following what Jesus wants us to do. He said, after this manner, pray ye.

After this manner, you should pray our Father, to have that connection with

God like Jesus had that connection with his Father.

That's what Christ wants for you, for you to have that kind of relationship.

Now, I just want to pause here for a moment because I know not everyone has

had or has a good relationship with their Father.

Some have had great fathers, praise the Lord. Some have had fathers that maybe

weren't there or had fathers that weren't very nice.

I'm not pointing out for you to look at God like those fathers,

but to look for the Father that sent Christ to this world, to look to the ultimate

Father, the ultimate example of what a father should be,

the ultimate example of what a God would be.

And when we look to the Father in heaven, it's an acknowledgment that the Father

of Jesus in Christ, the Father of Jesus is our Father as well,

the kind of Father that we all want, the kind of Father that cares for us,

the kind of Father that Jesus reflected the image of in His time here with us on earth.

So we talk about surrendering to God and to His family, but we also talk about

our Father which art in heaven.

And that is, when we think about resetting our prayer life, it's not just recognizing

that there's someone greater than us, there's someone that we can cry out to,

there's someone that we're accountable to, but it's also recognizing not just

a residence of where they're at,

but it calls us to remember spiritual things.

Our Father, which art in heaven, who is in heaven.

Yeah, heaven's beyond us, but though he's there, he transcends time and space

to meet with us here this morning.

He goes beyond to make sure that personally we can have that interaction with

him. But this points to us being heavenly-minded.

Man, we get so caught up in the things of the world so often, we get distracted.

I'm probably the worst one. I don't have ADD or ADHD, but sometimes I feel like

it. This week was an example.

I had a sermon to write, but I was still coasting off of last week's sermon

together and service together.

And by about Wednesday, I'm like, oh no, I got a sermon to write.

And so I was a little stressed out and I got to put things in order.

Lord, help me get my mind off of.

To do stuff I do for the church, and let me concentrate just on you today.

And, you know, I was able to flip that switch. God gave me three,

the next three. And so praise the Lord for that.

But sometimes we get so distracted by the world or just by life and the busyness

of it, we can neglect the heavenly things, the things that are most important to us.

We can even have Christian busyness and overcome the relational part of who we are with God.

You know, in Colossians 3, 1 through 3, it says this, Since then you have been raised with Christ.

Set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you died and your

life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Paul encourages us in Colossians, just like he did the church at Colossae,

to be of a heavenly mindset.

Yeah, we take care of business here.

But, you know, ultimately, we look forward to the future of what God's going

to do when he brings all the culmination of everything together.

We think and we look to the world through spiritual eyes, through heavenly eyes.

Well, our Father with your heart in heaven says, hallowed be thy name.

We surrender to God and his family.

We surrender to heaven and to the eternal perspective that we should have.

But we also surrender to God's holy name. Think about that.

The holiness of God. Maybe we feel like Psalms 8, verse 4, what is man that

Psalms 8:4

you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

You're like, God, in this beautiful creation that you've made,

what do you care about me for?

How do I rate in this? I'm just a sinful man.

It seems like when I put my mind to it, it's not for spiritual things,

it's for fleshly things.

When I get my mind set on something, sometimes it's not good stuff.

And when you look at the scope of the world, I'm not the only one.

When we look at what evil men could do and how far they will take it,

it's a little frightening.

If you've ever had a free moment and you've gone on Prime Video or something

like that, anywhere on your streaming service, you go to documentaries,

there's always scary stuff on there.

Now, I like to nerd out with how things are made or that kind of stuff.

But you click on some of them. And there's some scary people in the world.

We watched a video last night about a 13-year-old boy that ended up killing

his sister. That was scary.

It reminds me of that verse again. What is man that you were mindful of him? God, we're sinful.

And you're asking us to pray, our Father which art in heaven,

holy, hallowed is your name?

Talk about a disconnect. But aren't you grateful that God bridged the gap when he sent Jesus?

To bridge the gap between our sinfulness, our horrid evilness,

and his holiness, and his goodness, and his mercy, and his grace.

We have a name that we can cling to. It is the name of Jesus.

And you know this verse in Philippians 2, therefore God exalted him,

Jesus, to the highest place and gave him the name which is above every other

name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

We surrender to the name of Jesus. us, we either do it willingly,

Lord, save me, or we're going to do it when judgment time comes.

Because I ain't none of us going to stand in the face of a holy God.

None of us in our sin can face him.

But the scripture says, every tongue shall confess, every knee shall bow.

Wouldn't you rather do it willingly? I think I would.

If you want a fresh start in your prayer life, just know that when you go before

him, that's an act of surrender.

You're laying it down. You're laying your life down before him.

Hey, you could be saved, you could be sanctified, but you know what?

There's still that surrender that's there because we live in a dirty world, folks.

And though we might be pure, and if you imagine yourself as pure wearing a white

robe, yeah, go walking down the street. How long does it stay white and pure?

Give your kids, you know, a nice white suit and send them out to play in the

mud puddle. How clean do they stay?

Well, that's the kind of world we live in. We've been made clean because of

Jesus, but there's still dirt that gets on us.

We still need to surrender, even those holy clothes, if you will,

to Christ to have that cleansing.

So if you want to have a fresh start, get down the surrender part.

It's not good in war. In spiritual warfare, we don't have to worry about that.

If we've surrendered first to God, God fights our battles for us.

So let's surrender to God first and foremost. Our Father, which art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name. And then there's the next part, the next element of prayer

that we're familiar with is just request, it's plea.

Thy kingdom come. We want God's kingdom here and now.

I know we talk and we study Revelation, we talk about God's future kingdom.

But folks, the benefits of living in heaven are available to us now.

You know, there's a deposit that God has given us to be able to live the life

that's above the fray of sin, to be able to live the life with a clear conscience,

to be able to be about the mission of God,

to seek and save that which is lost, that's available now. You don't have to wait for a future time.

That God can work in you. He can work through you. And he will if you let him.

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6, 33. So later on in this chapter,

seek ye first the kingdom of

God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

Everything else will be taken care of if you first consider the kingdom of God.

And living out the kingdom values now, you're like, well, what are the kingdom values?

I turn you back to Matthew, and we won't do it today because I appreciate your

time and the investment you've made.

But in Matthew chapter 5, look at the Beatitudes.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

You can go through there. Look at Matthew 5, leading up through chapter 6 and

7. You want to know what kingdom life is all about?

This is the preamble to the kingdom of God.

And how do we live then as converted, as saved, to transform people.

We live just like Jesus told us to live for God's kingdom.

And part of God's kingdom is that second part, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

We want God's will to be done in our lives, the will of God, the plan of God for us.

And I love the phrase after that, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Well, I haven't been to heaven. I know one that has. His name is Jesus.

But I can tell you, and I can imagine, and reading the Old Testament,

with the exception of a bunch of angels that fell who became demons,

when God tells the angels to go, they go.

When God says, I have a message for this person, I need you to take it to them, they go.

Folks, we want God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We need to, in a sense, copy the angels. When God tells us to go, what are we waiting for?

When God tells us to accomplish this, what are we waiting for? Come on, let's go for it.

I know, Scripture says, well, who, if they build a tower to store their grain,

is just going to go out and do it? They need to count the cost first.

And that's wise and prudent leadership.

But if God says, go build the tower, we got to go build the tower and trust

that the funds are going to be

there, that God's going to go before us and he's going to provide for us.

Too many times things get stuck in committee. Things get stuck in meetings when

God just says, oh, come on, guys.

Oh, provide, just have enough faith to listen to me and go. I don't see Michael

or Gabriel questioning God and saying, okay, God, it's kind of a long distance

from your throne room here down to Bethlehem.

But I think if I take the 95 and, you know, I go south and then I cut off at

the 80, I think we can make it. No, they just went. They just listened to God.

We rationalize. God's given us a rational mind. Praise the Lord for that.

We think and we debate. But if it's clear that God is saying go, then boy, we need to go.

All right, enough on that point. Verse 11, it says, give us this day our daily

bread, trusting God that he will provide for us, trusting God in our requests,

in our pleas, to say, God, provide.

I know right now in California, there's a lot of people, not just millionaires,

by the way, or billionaires, not just movie stars, normal people like you and

like me, churches like this one that are suffering today because they don't

know about their daily bread.

And so while it may be a request for us, God, take care of my needs today, it is a plea for them.

As they plea, God, save me, help me understand this.

Help, just give us some food for the day. We don't even know where we're going

to lay down the bureaucracy of the governments, or we just need your grace to be poured out.

So are we relying, even though we might be self-sufficient, do we still rely

upon God for our health to provide the jobs for us, to provide what we need?

We can't get so prideful that we forget where the source of all of our health,

all of our wealth comes from.

It's not in our own making, but it relies or it relates back to God.

So when we pray this, do we pray for that daily bread?

Spiritually, are we relying on God to give us what we need for this day?

It goes on in, forgive us our debts or our trespasses as we forgive those who

trespass against us or our debtors. Forgiveness is vital.

Forgiveness is key. Do you remember back Matthew 5, verses 23 and 24,

Matthew 5:23

Jesus said this. He said, hey, if you're down here worshiping the Lord,

you're given an offering.

And of course, this is my paraphrase, so let me go to the Word.

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that

your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift.

But we talk about forgiveness. I think forgiveness starts with us here,

with one another, not letting anything get in the way of our worship.

And if we're here worshiping God, Lord, we love you. We thank you,

God, for all that you're... That's just a song I made up, of course.

We're just worshiping God, and out of the corner of our eye,

we see our brother, our sister there, who we had a fight with this week.

We didn't resolve things.

And we're here worshiping God, asking him or telling him how great he is and

asking him to take care of us this week. and we see our brother or sister,

and they look at us kind of with the side eye, like things ain't cool.

Scripture says, hey, take a time out. Take them, go out to the foyer and solve this stuff.

Be reconciled. Forgive one another. Seek forgiveness.

Take care of it. If you're going to come before God and worship him,

tell him how awesome he is, well, if you've got that hatred or that angst in

your heart toward another person, he's not really going to accept what you're offering him.

Kind of like when you have two kids that are fighting. And you finally get them

and say, okay, you say sorry to one another. I'm sick of this stuff.

Sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. No, I said mean it.

How do you make them mean it, right?

Sometimes God's children are like that. We pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Folks, a fresh start in this prayer. It's about forgiveness.

I hope part of your prayer life is, Lord, search me.

Search my heart. If there's any unforgiveness in there, if there's anyone I

need to forgive or seek forgiveness from, Lord, show that to me and let me resolve it.

We don't want unforgiveness from stopping our prayers to God,

from getting in the way of what God wants to do in us and through us and with us.

Well, the scripture goes on, deliver us from evil or lead us not to temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

Boy, if there's ever a day and an age when we need that, I think it's today.

Folks, it's not just the internet. It's not just the TV. Those are tools through

which, messages through which medium can flow.

But folks, it's all around us, the people that we meet.

But I think if we can pray for God's kingdom, if we can pray God's will be done

in our lives, if we can pray that he will provide for us daily,

and if we can forgive and be forgiven, accept that forgiveness as we give that forgiveness,

I think that deliverance is going to come.

I think God is going to pull us out of those situations because we will not

be led into that temptation because we will be wise and to know,

hey, that's a trap. There ain't no way I'm going there.

I like, okay, you're probably sick of hearing that. I kind of like politics

stuff and I like watching C-SPAN when there's a hearing.

Nobody watches that except probably this guy because I like seeing how the people

that are there testifying, how they give their testimony.

And I like watching some of these characters of senators or congresspeople try

to trap people into answers.

And the stupid ones that are testifying always walk into the trap unless they know what's going on.

And then I like the back and forth that happens. I would never want to be in

that chair, one or the other.

But, you know, sometimes you can see a trap being laid and you're like,

don't do it, don't do it, don't walk into that.

I think as believers, if we're kingdom-focused, if we're about what God wants

us to do, if we're living even through forgiveness, that we're able to see those

traps that Satan lays out for us, those temptations.

We can mark that mud hole and not have to walk through it.

We could walk around it or go in the way that God wants us to go in.

When we say, deliver us from evil, boy, that is our ultimate prayer.

That's our hopeful prayer.

God, if your kingdom's going to come, we know there's no evil in your kingdom.

Let us be a part of that. So we surrender. We have requests and pleas,

and I just want to end with this.

Deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

The third element to keep your prayer life fresh is just this,

is the praise and commitment. What you might call the doxology, right?

There's some Bible scholars that believe this was added into Matthew at a later date.

If you look in Luke's account, I don't believe, is it Luke? I don't believe it's in there.

And you guys can go to Bible scholars and ask them there, It's in my Bible,

so I'm going to believe it.

Okay, it's there. And I think it fits there because earlier on in Scripture,

in Psalms, King David gave a doxology. Here's what it says in 1 Chronicles 29.11,

another 29.11 that's popular.

Yours, O Lord, is the greatest and the power and the glory and the majesty and

the splendor, for everything in heaven is yours.

Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom, and you are exalted as head over all.

I think if David can have a doxology of praise in his prayer,

we can have one too in the Lord's prayer, in the model prayer.

Nevertheless, we think about ending our prayers with praises,

ending our prayers with a time of praise and commitment to God,

saying, God, whatever happens, I'm going to follow you in this because this

is who you are. Yours is the kingdom.

God is the source of the kingdom. It's his after all. He possesses it.

It's his. He's the recipient of everything that happens in the kingdom.

And he allows you into that. For yours is the kingdom.

Yours is the power. Folks, the power is not ours.

The power belongs to God. It's his. The power that spoke into existence the known universe.

That's the kind of power we're talking about. Words are powerful.

Words are powerful because God exemplified that.

Let there be light. There was light. Now, I know we joke, let there be light,

and we flick the switch, but I'm talking about light out of nothing.

We think about the praise and the commitment that we have. Yours is the kingdom.

Yours is the power, and yours is the glory forever.

Folks, when we think about recharging our spiritual life, it's about why we're

lighting a white candle every Sunday, looking for reasons,

looking for reasons to glorify God, looking for reasons to praise God,

to help build one another up through what God is doing in our lives.

Even when we're down in the dumps, even when life is against us,

to know that there's a God who is working.

And if I submit myself to my surrender, if I request, if I plead before him,

he might encounter my circumstances, and that he might change me in the midst

of all this into the person he wants me to be, a kingdom person,

a person that will follow him no matter what happens.

That leads us to the place of praise. It's not just a praise,

oh, praise you, God, this is your kingdom, this is your power,

and this is your glory, but it's the commitment to say and to trust,

God, I'm closing this prayer with the trust that you're going to act.

This is your kingdom, God, You're going to act. It's your power at work,

God, for the whole world to see. You're going to act.

And God, we're going to glorify you. We're going to put the big spotlight on

you that this is what you did.

It's not anything that I've done.

Have you noticed, if you watch football, college football especially,

have you noticed a trend during this season of how many players and star players

especially, are giving praise, honor, and glory to God through Jesus Christ?

I don't think that's an accident. I think there's a revival going through our

college sports systems.

They are saying, look at what God is doing in me and through me for his glory.

I mean, we're talking about Heisman Trophy candidates should have been winners. We're sorry.

There's a hole right here that I step in. I'm going to step this way.

We're talking about coaches of winning programs. We're talking.

I just look at the news people that have the microphone. They can't take it

away if they're not Christians. They have to let the guy talk.

And the gospel is presented when you take the culmination of all these football players.

It's astounding, but this is what I'm talking about. They're praising God.

They're rejoicing in God, and their commitment is to God.

Excited because a lot of them will go to the next level. And what kind of revival

will that start in the professional realm?

That's just one area of life, of entertainment, if you will.

But it's exciting to see. And I know somewhere along the line with those athletes,

they had to surrender their life to God.

They had to cry out and request from God, plead with Him, because they all don't

come from great home situations.

Some do. A lot of them do.

But they had to cry out to God for salvation, and this was their time to praise and to commit.

So looking at the beginning of this year where we're still at,

thinking about your prayer life, if you want a fresh start, remember these three points.

Remember the Lord's Prayer that we'll recite here in just a few minutes.

And maybe put in some new prayer practices.

Maybe this is a time where you'd like to start a prayer journal and maybe keep

it and finish it throughout the year.

Prayer journal where you write down what God is doing in your life,

your prayer requests and your

praises. Make that part of your morning worship, your morning routine.

It doesn't have to be in a written. It could be on your phone.

There's all kinds of notes and stuff that you can put on your phone.

You don't even have to write it these days. You could just talk it.

Just make yourself a memo. Hey, God, you answered this prayer today.

And then I would spend time at the end of the year just replaying and going

back and reading your prayer journal. See what God did.

Reminds you that old hymn, count your blessings. See what God has done.

Well, that's one idea. I still want to, and we will as a church,

plan some prayer walks around our communities, around our neighborhoods.

We're just going to go pray for every house we go by, every person we see,

every business we pass, and just pray God's blessing upon them.

Pray that they will come to Christ, and as God opens up the door for opportunity

to speak to people, we'll speak to people, and we'll follow the lead of His Spirit.

And I just want to introduce to you the idea, sign up to be a prayer partner here at the church.

Ever since I got here, well, before I got here, Pastor Chuck,

when he came to be my interim pastor while I was on sabbatical,

he said, Mike, this is what we have at Mountain View. And he laid on my desk a paper.

On that paper was a bunch of your names.

I said, Chuck, what's this? He

said, this is something we have at Mountain View. I found it so valuable.

He said, every day during my morning devotional time, I take out this paper,

whether it's Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on. It has a list of names.

And when I get to my time in prayer, after I read the scripture,

then I start praying, going down the list, praying for each one of these people.

But it's not just that, Mike, he said. He said, each one of these people are

praying for me on this day as well.

And so I want to invite you to be a part of that. I still have the list.

I still use the list. But it's time for a new list because it's a new year.

Some of those folks might not be here anymore.

But out on in the welcome center or excuse

me on the information wall the big white one there as you go out to the

right there's a clipboard all you have to do is

sign your name so that i could read it and then put a check mark by which day

i'm sorry i do that on my account because sometimes i'll just sign my name and

people say who's that so write it so or have your wife write it so it could

be read and then just check which day that you'll be praying for me and know

that i'll be praying for you.

I know people are going to be praying for me seven days a week.

I talked to someone in our church here in the third row on the left here that

said, Pastor, your preaching just keeps getting better and better.

I said, well, hopefully, thanks be to God.

And I said, you know why? I said, no.

I said, because you got people praying for you every single day.

Now, if that could help someone like me, imagine what it can do for you if you

got people praying for you.

Just me and the pastoral staff to pray for you.

Folks, sign up on that. It doesn't have to just be today. We're going to keep

it out there a few weeks if you don't get a chance.

But we're talking about the power of prayer. Do we believe what's written up

here behind us? Man, it's almost like a no-brainer, right?

That this is a tenet of our belief that there is power in prayer.

It's the power of God working in us and through us.

And so I pray that you'll just let God ignite your prayer life.

There ain't nothing going to stop a church that is committed to prayer right

here and now, but throughout all eternity.

And so I hope that your prayers will continue to make a difference.

Now, but throughout all eternity as well. Let's pray together.

Then we're going to sing a song, and then Meadow's going to come,

and she's going to lead us in our Lord's Prayer benediction today.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for a beautiful time that we have here.

Lord, a time to praise you, a time to worship you. Lord, a time to hear from your word.

And God, we pray that we'll take this word to heart. Lord, that in this prayer

time, in our prayer times, we'll remember that we surrender are all to you.

God, we will remember that you've asked us to come and request things of you.

Just ask, because you're a Father that loves us, that gives good things to His children.

And Lord, we're going to return that with the praise and the recognition of

who you are, and the commitment and faith that, God, you do answer,

and you will answer prayers.

Lord, be with us today, we pray, as we continue to go our own way after this,

following your path wherever you lead us. It's in Jesus' name we ask all this.

Amen. I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast.

You can find a copy of today's sermon, as well as other sermons,

and the sermon outline from today on our church's website, www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.