Pray Like a Champion - Introduction

Hello, Go Church family. I'm Lara and I'm here with Pastor Matt Hattabaw and Gilbert.

Hey, welcome, Lara.

Thank you.

It's so good to be on your talk show today.

We're glad to be here together with Lara and with you listening.

That's right. Hey, Go Church family. We're so glad to be here and we're so excited that this is a new series, a new month,

and we're getting into some new things and we're going further and further and further all together as a church.

The first thing we want to talk about is who we are.

So if this is the first time that you listen to a Go Church podcast, welcome.

We're so glad that you're with us and we trust that you're going to experience some new things and you're going to get some new things today.

So who is Go Church?

Go Church is a family of churches working together to reach the world.

And we are part of a greater church.

And there are three churches, three Go churches in the UK, in Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford.

And we are a new location right here in Beirut in Lebanon.

And our values are love, grow and go.

So what are our values?

We're going to talk a lot about our values, actually.

Yeah.

Love, grow and go.

This this series is actually going to help us dig into that.

But we want everyone to experience the unconditional love of God,

to grow in his love and to go with his love to the rest of the world.

That's right. I always say this, but my favorite two words in this and the values of Go Church is your place.

Yeah. Because Go Church is your place to love, grow, go.

It isn't someone's specific place.

It isn't the leadership's place.

It is your place.

And this is a home that we are creating for you, for your families and for many people who don't even know the Lord yet.

So we're so glad that we can all come together, experience the love of God together to grow in his love and to go out to our world with his love.

We are a Bible based, we're spirit filled and we are a groups centered church.

So what do I mean by group centered church?

So a group centered church, we kind of take that first century look at Christianity,

where the believers in the Book of Acts lived on a daily basis with one another in community.

And so rather than meet every Sunday in one place, we meet all over Lebanon in small groups.

And then twice a month, those groups come together and we have what we call our big Sunday and a wonderful time of celebration.

And then our believers gathering.

That's awesome.

I love what you said about your place, because I found my place in Go Church and my entire life changed.

Praise God.

How did it change?

Well, it's like I was going in a direction and the Lord changed my direction opposite.

It's 180 change.

And I have a loving family.

When I say I have a loving family, I have a loving family.

People who care about me ask about me and I ask about them.

It's my place.

It's amazing.

That's awesome.

And that testimony is our values reflected in your life, which is that's my prayer,

that church comes outside of ceremony, outside of stone walls and affects real people where they live.

That's right.

I mean, the church has a, you know, the church is so important.

At the end, the church is referred to as Jesus's body on the earth and in the earth,

which means that we are both connected to him, but we are also a vital part of who he is and what he's trying to do in the earth.

And this is what we're trying to do at Go Church.

You know, we purpose to be deliberate in what we do in the meetings we have and in the purpose of the church.

I mean, we're not here just to fill up an auditorium room and, you know, talk at people.

That's not what we're about.

We're here to see lives transformed.

We're here to see people get to know the truth of who God is.

We're here to empower people to do what God has called them to do before they were even born.

You know, the Lord has a special place in his heart for you.

And I'm talking to you as an individual, you personally.

He knows you by name.

He has beautiful plans for your life.

And he has beautiful gifts that he's prepared for you.

And even though that's the case, it's so important for us to plug into the right place so that we can thrive in these gifts.

We can grow in these gifts.

We can discover what is in us so that it can come out of us and impact our worlds,

because there is no point to a, you know, being part of something greater than yourself if you're not doing something that is greater than yourself, which is actually impacting a change.

And that is that is what we're about.

And going back to what Pastor Mao was saying, we have all kinds of different meetings, but most of our meetings happen in small groups.

And this is actually the reason for our podcast right here is that we are talking about the series,

but we're leading into the grow groups that are happening every single week.

And the goal is to basically share some material, teach on some material and prepare you and just prime you for a discussion,

which is based in the word of God, but it doesn't just start and stop in the word of God.

It should start in the word of God and finish in your life and be completed in your life.

And that's the whole point. The whole point is we're going to take a series.

We're going to learn about it together.

And then we're going to see in our grow groups how this affects our lives and impacts our lives.

You know, the difference between a good series and a great series is a good series is, you know,

a good teaching based on the word of God, but a great series is what do I do with this material?

And how does this change my life?

You know what that sounds like?

The Follow Me series that we just did a couple of months ago.

That's right. That's right.

And really what I would say to you is if you've just discovered this podcast, you can go backwards and listen to some of the podcasts that came before,

the series that came before, and one builds upon the other.

And our Big Sundays, we release those also on this podcast channel.

And if you're wondering who this is for, it's for you.

And like Gilbert said, we want to equip you with some stories, with some illustrations,

and with Bible verses that you can take with you into the grow group.

And that enriches the discussion.

When we all come together with something in our grow groups to share, to contribute, that makes for a rich environment.

That's right.

And this is what I really appreciate about the meetings that we do, is that we go from attending church to every single person participating,

participating in the discussion, applying their lives or applying the word to their lives and applying their lives to their brothers and sisters.

And we have four key components about the values that we carry through our grow groups.

And, you know, we always laugh about the acronym and what they stand for.

You know, I will call it ACA, but, you know, I'll say Roy calls it something else and, you know, we'll leave it there.

But Laura has a good suggestion for our acronym.

What is your suggestion, Laura?

CAAC.

C-A-A-C. CAAC.

That's great.

And maybe we can start that grow group at Abu Arab as well.

With cheese inside.

Yes.

And what do they stand for?

They actually stand for care and activation and accountability and communication.

Yeah.

And that is what our grow groups are about.

You know, it's not about just solid teaching.

It doesn't revolve around one person.

You know, people are important and teaching is important, but it really revolves around these elements, which is we care for one another.

You know, we're accountable to one another.

We also want people to be activated in the things that they have, the things that they do.

And this is, you know, and we also have communication because we're trying to communicate what is happening in the rest of Go Church and the rest of even the church to our grow groups.

And the the element that I really just want to talk about for a minute is activation.

And that goes back to what we were just talking about, which is every single person has a gift in them.

Every single person has a plan and a purpose for their lives that the Lord ordained.

You know, it's not like you, of course, you qualify for certain things, but you qualify to participate in what the Lord's already done for you.

And our that's why it's not, you know, it's not qualification from the part of the church is activation.

So it's helping you go from where you are today and go towards what God sees you as and where God's trying to get you.

Yeah. And a place that if you're listening to this, you can get activated is Alpha.

Alpha. We're planning a big alpha in the new year and the team is actually right now assembling.

So there's opportunities for that. And you might hear me say that and think, what's Alpha?

And what do you mean? The team is building.

And my answer to that would be, well, Alpha is something that you want to know about.

You want to invite people to. And the team are the people that actually make it possible.

The team are the people that allow or create a place for Jesus to touch and change lives.

That's good. I mean, I personally came into contact with Go Church through Alpha.

Alpha has a special place in my heart and it's such an effective way to reach out to people and demonstrate the love of God to people,

no matter who they are, where they're from. It's so accessible and it's such a wonderful tool for you to use.

But it's also a wonderful learning experience. You know, you learn how to be reliant on the Holy Spirit.

You get to learn how to approach people and engage people in a healthy, loving environment and healthy, loving way.

Because one of the key principles is, you know, we're here to win people and not arguments.

And that's what we're learning to do. We're learning to love people.

We're learning to demonstrate the love of God to people. And there's a lot more to it.

But if you're interested in being part of the Alpha team, please reach out to us and we will provide you with more details about when training is happening.

And the Alpha launch, so the first day of Alpha will happen on Thursday, the 11th of January in 2024.

And we're so excited to engage people and invite new people who we meet over the next couple of months, especially throughout the holiday seasons.

I will also say that we have our big Sunday gathering coming up and that's going to be on the 12th of November.

That's a Sunday morning. It's going to happen at the Sineghe Field Muniset Palathe.

So we are moving our venue from Vox Cinema and City Centre Hazmiyeh and it will no longer be at the cinema.

But now we are moving it to the municipality in Sineghe Field and our doors open at 10.30 in the morning.

I will also say that we have our believers. Our next believers gathering is happening on Friday, the 24th of November.

So that is going to be the fourth Friday of this month and be there.

And if you wonder who can come to a believers gathering, anybody, believers, non-believers, doubters.

There's something for everyone.

There's something for everybody.

That's right. That's great.

And with those announcement points, I'm so excited to get into our study series for this month, which we're calling Pray Like a Champion.

I'm excited about this.

Me too.

Me too. There's so much there and I believe that how we're going into this as a church is so different to the way we're going to come out of this.

And we're going to see so many things and we're going to be empowered to go further in the go portion of our of our go church values.

But before before I do that, you know, I do want to mention like what my what Pastor Matt said in is that a couple of months ago we had the Follow Me series.

Last month we had Trails of Thoughts.

And although we move forward and we do new series, we never disconnect from what we've learned, what we've seen, what we've experienced in the Word of God that belongs to us.

Because the Word of God doesn't have an expiration date.

It's not like every single month, you know, the word resets and it means nothing anymore.

It's you know, it contains power and it contains life and it contains truth that we can take forward every month.

So I don't want to I don't want to disconnect from Trails of Thought.

I want us to build upon it and go further.

And obviously last month we talked about a very interesting subject.

Of course, we talked about the trail of fear, the trail of faith.

We talked about our minds and how important our minds are and how they play a role in the actions that we take and the experiences that we experience in our lives.

And a big action point or a big takeaway was meditation, meditation in the Word of God and how this is a an important action point.

So I want to ask this question, what is the difference between meditation in the Word of God and prayer?

You know, when we talk about meditation, we're picking up the Word of God that we know belongs to us.

So we know it in our minds that it belongs to us, but it needs to sink into our hearts.

And so we take that word and we just start applying that word to ourselves and, you know, talking to ourselves, talking to our souls and saying,

you know, this belongs to us.

So that is, you know, an application of what the Psalmist in Psalm 42 does, where he says,

why are you cast down on my soul?

Hope in God, God's done too much for you, for you to be down versus prayer, where it's, you know, I'm not really talking to myself, right?

It's not like I'm talking to my own soul, but I'm talking to the Lord.

Yeah. You know, to me, the difference between meditation and prayer, and although meditating on the Word can certainly happen in a time of prayer,

you make that appropriate distinction between talking to yourself versus talking to God.

Prayer is talking to God.

But there is to me, still the best picture of meditation is a cow chewing.

And here's here's why I say that, because the word meditation has been corrupted in a lot of in a lot of societies where meditation is either weird

or somehow trying to think about nothing or find, you know, find like an absolute absolute state of calm.

But Bible meditation is not that at all.

Bible meditation looks like the way a cow eats grass.

And if you've ever been around cows, when they eat grass, they don't just slurp it down, they don't swallow it.

They chew on it.

They chew on it. They chew on it.

And hopefully you're not eating.

You hear me say this, but after they swallow it, they're still not done chewing.

A cow has seven stomachs and there's a process of digestion where food returns to its mouth and it continues to chew.

And in that chewing, different nutrients are released, enzymes are released.

And that grass becomes part of that cow.

And the nutrients in that grass are extracted.

That's what meditation is, where we take a verse of scripture, 2 Corinthians 5, 21, that I am the says that I am the righteousness of God in Christ.

That truth is true about me.

It's in the scripture.

But if I want to get it in me, I need to meditate in it.

So I'm going to take it from the scripture and I'm going to put it in my mouth.

And like that cow, I'm going to start chewing it.

He made him, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin for me so that I would be made the righteousness of God in him.

God himself, the one that made the whole world, he made me the righteousness of God.

I am right now the righteousness of God.

What am I doing?

I'm chewing on that verse.

I'm meditating on that verse.

I've taken that verse out of the pages of scripture and I've put it in my mouth.

And when I put it in my mouth, the same thing that happens to the grass in the cow's mouth happens to the truth in me.

That's so good.

That's so, so good.

And I like that you mentioned the fact that meditation and prayer can happen at the same time.

It's not something separate.

And I mean, talking about trails of thought and the trail of fear and the trail of faith and thinking about how meditation can help,

but how prayer can also help.

It reminds me of that scripture in Psalm 34 and verse four, it says, I saw the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.

And really, prayer doesn't have to be separate from meditation.

So I can take that scripture and say, I know that in the presence of the Lord, I don't have to be afraid.

God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a saved mind.

And that means I don't have to be afraid.

That means that if I'm afraid, I'm not looking at the Lord.

So I'm going to look at the Lord and I'm going to keep going in a certain direction.

So that takes me off the trail of fear and it keeps me focused on the trail of faith.

But then to go further on the trail of faith, we need to know how to live in prayer because we can't keep walking where the Lord has asked us to go.

If we're not working with him, walking with him, talking to him and having him help us go further where he's called us to go.

So how do I know where the Lord wants me to go?

How do I know what the trail of faith looks like if I've not heard from him or haven't engaged him in the decision?

What decisions I've been taking?

So this is so important.

I mean, we're going to talk about many, you know, many elements of this, but having a prayer life helps us go further on this trail of faith that the Lord's called us on.

Because we're not called to go alone.

I mean, Jesus says that he sent another comforter, the helper, the Holy Spirit, who will abide with me forever.

If he's with me forever, that's because he's my helper forever.

That's because he's guiding me forever.

And so I need to know him and I need to have a relationship with him to be able to to walk further and further with him.

So that that is the essence of why prayer life is so important.

And, you know, we're just touching on that now and we're going to build this up over this month.

But let's how about we go to the key scripture for this month?

To be honest, there are so many scriptures that could have been key scriptures.

And we pick this one, but we're going to we're going to look at tons of scriptures and we're going to look at many scriptures that really point to this, the same the same heart in this in these words.

So it's Luke, Chapter 18, verse one.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

And I'm going to read this in the amplified version.

So, again, Luke, Chapter 18, verse one.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Now, Jesus was telling the disciples a parable to make the point that at all times they ought to pray and not give up and lose heart.

Pretty simple. It's not very long.

It doesn't require much context.

It's actually we're just looking at what Jesus told his disciples to say.

Yeah, but there's a lot of truth in there for us, right?

I mean, if if you find yourself at the point of fainting and losing heart back up from there and say, hmm, maybe I haven't been praying or maybe I'm doing it wrong.

So that's what this series is about.

Yeah. And so this leads us to a few questions, and we're hoping to answer some of these questions over this month.

But the question we've already kind of touched upon is what is prayer?

And in short, that is communication with God.

So that is developing and cultivating a life of personal, direct communication with the father.

And that is specifically our right as New Testament believers.

Right. And this is this is something that Jesus points to in John, Chapter 16, where he says that, you know, I won't pray for you anymore.

John 16 · chapter mention

But the father who loves you, you can ask him anything you want, and he'll do it for you because he loves you.

And that points to the fact that we can have a an open and direct communication life with our father.

That's so big. Praise God.

That's so, so big. And that's something that belongs to us as believers.

And and that's unique to to who we are as children of our father is that we can have direct access to him, that we can talk to him personally.

And that not only we can talk to him personally, but he can talk to us personally.

You know, I have way back, I was looking through the notes that I put together.

So, you know, whenever I read I read scripture, some sometimes things stand out to me.

And I like to make different notes on it so I can go back to it, you know, whether it's promises of sleep, promises of a long life,

promises for healing, promises for success and provision and prosperity.

And one of the one of the set of notes I have is is, you know, it's one note and there's two titles or two two subtitles in there where I add a whole bunch of scriptures.

Number one is. God hears me, you know, and there are so many scriptures about, you know.

Like what we just read in Psalm 34, verse four, that I saw the Lord and he heard and he delivered me from all my fears.

That's in there, you know, God hears me.

And then there's a second set, which is I hear God, you know, and that's exceptional.

And honestly, like it's almost the I hear God portion is almost longer than God hears me because there's so many times in the Bible,

even in the Old Testament and the New Testament, where the Lord speaks to someone or the Lord guides someone or the Lord directs someone,

whether whether it's with words or whether it's in a vision or whether it's through an angel.

But I hear God and that's something so precious.

And that's something that we can really take through this whole month and think about.

I hear God. I'm able to hear him. I'm able to to receive something from him.

And that leads me to another question, which is kind of unique to the point of prayer, which is, you know, if God knows all these things,

God knows what I need, God knows what I have, God knows what I don't have.

So why do I need to ask him for it? What's the point of that?

Well, I know that as we go on, we'll dig more into that answer.

But it's an important point, because if you really step back and look at what a lot of people call prayer,

sometimes you might hear someone, not you, of course, if you're listening to this podcast,

I'm sure you don't pray like this, but you might hear someone say, well, Lord, if it's your will, then do this.

But if it's not your will, well, then I guess you're not going to do it.

And I guess you're just going to do whatever you're going to do.

So I don't know. I don't even know why I'm praying. And that's. Amen.

Now, unfortunately, that's not Bible based prayer.

And that's specifically what we want to target in this message, because we're called the body of Christ.

We need to work together with the head if we're the if he's the head, we're the body.

And if the head wants to go to the kitchen, then the body can say, OK, I guess if the head wants to go, it's going to go on its own.

No, the body, the whole body has to go.

And the the connection point in just in a very brief statement, the connection point between the head and the body is prayer in the spirit.

And and we know we have access, we have entrance to pray out the perfect will of God through the word of God.

I love that you have these notes and this is I'm going to draw attention for everyone.

Do you have notes like that?

Have you have you specifically looked up verses that reinforce or build confidence in you that God hears you when you pray?

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is John, Chapter 11, where Jesus looks up to heaven in front of a closed tomb of his friend Lazarus.

John 11 · chapter mention

And he says with a loud voice, Father, I thank you that you hear me always.

That should be our attitude.

If if our attitude about the Lord was he always hears me when I pray, do you know what we would do more?

Pray. Yeah. And the reason why people don't pray or you have to encourage them to pray and try to, you know, hey, remember, take it because they don't believe it's going to make a difference.

And it stems from this idea of, well, whatever your will is, Lord, it's your will be done and you're going to do whatever you're going to do.

So I'm just going to go make a sandwich.

And that that in and of itself is contradictory, right?

It is. What's the point of talking to him and asking him something which is, you know, you're not sure that's what he wants and you're not really asking him to do it.

But you're telling him, do whatever you want to do. And if you're going to do it, you're going to do it. If you're not going to do it, like you might as well not ask.

You might as well not talk. Right.

And that's why most that's why most people don't. Yeah.

In addition to all the exceptional things you said, what I love about prayer, one of the things I love about prayer is you can do it from anywhere.

Yeah. At any time. Even if you're sitting in any language.

Right. Yes. When you're sitting in front of your laptop, working at working in your job, you can pray and know that he will hear you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank God he speaks Arabic. Yes. And Armenian.

But that's really the beautiful thing about redemption.

Because of what Jesus did, I have an open door to heaven.

Yeah. I'm not I'm not in line.

I don't have to earn his hearing.

He has opened up a new and living way for me.

And that's why the writer of Hebrews says, come with boldness into the presence of God.

Yeah. This is not, you know, oh, please come boldly and say, I have this problem.

And now I don't, because I'm giving it to you.

Yeah. Praise God. So it's going to be a good series.

And the next the next point I want to bring up, I want to touch upon is why did we call this series Pray Like a Champion?

Why did we use the word champion? What do you what else are you going to do?

You're going to pray like like a wimp?

Well, well, I do want to point this this verse out to everyone listening.

And this is Acts, Chapter 12, verse five.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

We're actually going to come back to this very soon. We're going to come back to this passage in one of our discussions.

But it goes like this. So so the verse says, but while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.

And there are some excellent notes that I want to read out about this.

The Greek word to describe earnestly is the word ectinos.

I'm sure I'm saying it wrong.

Same word they would use to describe strenuous and constant efforts of an athlete.

So champion athlete. Right. So let me read on.

The verb tense used is imperfect.

So it suggests that they prayed not as a one off, but for considerable length of time.

So they persevered in prayer. They kept praying.

It's it's a it's a not a one off thing that we do.

I mean, prayer is not designed to be, you know, I kind of clock some hours in and I just do what I said I'm going to do.

Sometimes I, you know, I'm glad Siala is not here, but I'll use her as an example.

Sometimes I catch her. She'll listen eventually.

And I'll be hiding. But, you know, sometimes I see her at the gym and I'm always laughing about this because, you know,

she goes through her workout routines and she's very diligent.

She's very organized and she has like a set that she's doing and she's just following her program.

And then, you know, it's like, OK, she's doing a bicep curl or whatever she's doing.

And every time she's doing it, she's just like, oh, come on.

Like, she's just she's mad that she's working out while she's working out.

I always look at her like, is there even a point to work out if you're just going to be like sloppy,

mad about it all the time and not bother with it?

You know, I'm just joking about it. But when you want to exercise like a champion or like when a champion or like a top level athlete performs,

first of all, they love what they're doing as grueling as it is like they have a passion for it.

I mean, you have to. Who can't like who can really dislike what they're doing if you're training like two times,

three hours a day doing high intensity stuff, you know, if you're if you're like an MMA fighter getting punched in the face, getting taken down.

You must like what you're doing and you do it deliberately.

So it's not like they walk into the gym like I'll just put the minimum effort in and just say I covered my sets and whatever, whatever, whatever.

And I think that's the that's the impression you get from the very earnestly is that you persevere with all strength,

with all diligence and with all your all your effort and you keep doing it and you keep living it.

And it's almost like a champion lifestyle. Yeah. You know, it's it's the lifestyle of a champion.

It's not only the fact that, you know, you do it from a place of victory once a week.

You know, you stay in that place of victory. Yeah, that's right.

And since we brought up Ciela, then I'll mention that we wouldn't have this title or this illustration if it wasn't for her.

That's right. She's actually the one that brought it up.

And she's very fit. She's fitter than me. And I said, this is this is brilliant.

But if you think about it, there's a lot of people you're talking about going to the gym.

There are a lot of people that go to the gym that do health maintenance workouts.

But the people that compete at the top level of a particular sport as an athlete,

their whole life is built around being the best at that thing.

They go to bed and wake up at specific times based on their training regimen.

They eat and more specifically, don't eat things based on their training regimen.

And they order their day and time and they focus their their mental focus, what they talk about, how they spend their money.

Everything is based around being the best in this arena.

If that's not what we should be doing when it comes to prayer, I don't know what is.

And that's why when Cielo brought that up about this particular definition of the Greek word, I was like, this is this is the message.

Yeah, that's so good. And I want to I want to add a point to the word champion.

And, you know, I was thinking about the word champion while we were preparing the series.

And, you know, if you look at the meaning of the word champion, the main meaning is me when I played Mario Kart against Roy, I'm just the champion.

You know, I stay the champion.

The jokes aside, it's it's the most most commonly used when, you know, we're describing the winner of a prize or a competition, a champion.

You know, last time that someone won the World Cup, they're the champions, you know.

But there is another meaning which I really like.

And I'll read this out from the Webster's dictionary, which is it's this a militant advocate or defender.

So a champion is someone who carries a cause which is greater than themselves and they fight for it.

So if we look at the example of, you know, the fight of David and Goliath, Goliath was a big, big man.

OK, he was born to fight. He was trained for fighting.

This is his life. This is who he is.

And he was considered the champion of the Philistines.

So he represented everything related to the Philistines cause when it comes to fighting.

So the way they would fight is you bring out a champion, we bring out a champion.

They fight and whoever wins is the winner.

So effectively, that champion is the defender of the cause of the whole nation.

Yeah. You know, and that is that is the word that, you know, I know it's a play on words a little bit, you know,

pray like a champion. Sure, we pray like winners. We pray like victors.

That's right. But we also pray with a cause and we also pray because we are defending a cause that is greater than our own.

And as the church, that is applicable.

That is the way we should be thinking about it.

And, you know, many of us associate prayer with love and grow.

You know, if we look at our values, love and grow.

Sure, I pray because I want to experience the love of God.

I want him to talk to me and feel that fatherly love.

Definitely. I pray because I want to grow in his things.

I want him to show me things. I want to receive things.

But not enough of us pray with a go mentality.

So I pray because I'm a champion of his cause. Outstanding.

And I need to be a champion of his cause. So I need to keep praying and I need to go.

So because I'm praying or sorry, because I have a go call, I need to pray.

I need to say this is not according to God's will.

So I will pray about this and we're going to sort this out.

I don't like what's going on here, but we need to go further in this and I don't have the resources.

So I'm going to pray and I'm going to ask my father and he's going to be glorified because I've asked him.

And so prayer becomes a champion lifestyle because we are championing God's cause in our lives personally

and also in the greater plans that he has for us.

So we need to think about prayer from a love, a grow and a go mentality as well.

That's exactly right. Prayer needs to go beyond ourselves.

And we have gone beyond our time on our podcast, which we normally do.

And but we really have a time though. Well, this is this has been I mean, this is just a taste of what we're going to dig into.

And this is an opportunity for each of us to really take our personal prayer life to a new level,

to become intentional or deliberate, like Gilbert said, and to learn

the scriptures that teach us how to pray like a champion.

That's right. So what we're going to cover this month, so the key points that we're going to cover in weeks one, week two and week three is,

well, week one, what is a champion's prayer? So we're going to talk about prayer. What is prayer?

Are there different kinds of prayer? You know, how do I pray?

And we really link that to the idea of love because we're understanding the equipping of God in this.

Number two is becoming a champion prayer. You know, I know this might be confusing language,

but it's also a play on words that, you know, becoming a champion prayer.

So who I am is a prayer. I am one who prays, one who prays. That's right.

And so we're looking at this from a grow perspective.

So what do I need to develop in so that I can become a person who is a champion at praying and someone who the Lord can rely on in prayer?

Week three, we're going to talk about the lifestyle of a champion prayer.

So the lifestyle of one who prays like a champion. And that is really a go week.

We're going to talk about what it looks like to use prayer in our lives to go further in God's things.

Exciting. It is exciting. Right.

Well, praise God. Like Pastor Matt said, we're out of time, but we're so excited to see you on our big Sunday and to go through this study.

And if no one told you, we love you and we're praying for you. God bless you.

Thank you for listening to this message.

We want everyone to experience the unconditional love of God, grow in his love and go with his love to the rest of their world.

We invite you to connect with us at one of our groups for our next gathering.

And if no one told you yet today, we love you and believe God's very best for you.