Prayer: Pray Your Heart Out

Oh, okay.

Well, here, right before we get into the message, I promise we are.

I keep saying, hey, before this, and then, you know, whatever, just go with me.

I want to give you guys a quick recap.

Friday night we had an event called Canvas, and it was, guys, it was awesome.

If you're unfamiliar, we do this, uh, we do this event once a year basically, and it's something that the art group has put on, and people pay money for a ticket or they donate money to it, and all the money goes to a family in our community that's in need.

This year it was uh it was Matt and Erica Fattis, they've been part of our church for a long time.

Parents of four kids, they've been through a ton.

Matt's had all kinds of medical issues, uh, but they've stayed amazingly strong in their faith.

And so we have this art night, we raise money for them.

And I want to give you guys an update because I want you to know this.

Before Friday night, the most that we had ever raised through Canvas was$10,000.

That was that was a lot.

And that's, by the way, like that's a good chunk of change.

If you can hand someone in need$10,000, like that can do things, okay?

And because of your faithfulness, because of those of you who bought tickets and gave and prayed and all that, Friday night, we raised$20,000 for the Fattus family.

Come on.

How awesome is that?

Seriously, like that's that's awesome.

And I am so grateful to all of you who support people like that, all of you who are generous.

And honestly, I'm really thankful in moments like that for those of you who give faithfully, like every month or every week, whatever that works out for you.

Those of you who just give as part of your life, it's not even that you give when there's an exciting event to give to, you just give consistently.

Because the reality is, if we're not healthy as a church financially, we can't really focus on doing all those extra things.

And there's there's a reason that in the last few years we've been able to do more and more outreach than ever before.

And a lot of it has to do with the fact that the people here who are being faithful week in and week out or month in and month out to give and to be generous, you're allowing us to be healthy enough to extend out and do more.

And so I want to thank all of you who give, because every single time we can do something like that wouldn't be possible if we weren't healthy financially.

So thank you guys for that.

I don't I don't really go into detail about that very much, but God really put that on my heart this morning.

And look, if this is your church, if this is your church and you're proud of what's going on here, I want to encourage you and even challenge you to give and to become a consistent giver.

And that's between you and God.

You just pray, ask God to put it on your heart.

He'll give you a percentage.

That's what we believe in is percentage giving, and then just be persistent.

Do that month in and month out, and you will see God work in your life, and you will see God do things through this place that wouldn't be possible.

He uses our resources because really they're his.

So I just want to thank you guys for that because it blows me away when we can do this stuff and it wouldn't be possible without you, okay?

All right, well, hey, I'm gonna pray again.

We've prayed a good bit this morning, but uh, but it's it's good to pray.

We're gonna pray a lot.

All right, so let's pray.

Jesus, as we as we dive into your word, as we open up your word, we we want to ask that you would speak to us.

We want to ask that you would change the way that we think.

We want to ask, God, that you would show us your perspective, that you would you would help us walk out of here more equipped for life than when we first walked in.

God, I don't even want us to be excited without being equipped.

So equip us with the tools that we need to live the life you've called us to live, Lord, because we know and understand that it is a it's a different life, and it is not an easy life, but it is a it's a good life.

So equip us through your word this morning, Lord.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Well, last week we wrapped up a series called Resurrected.

We've been in Ephesians for uh about the second half of this year, ever since April.

We're halfway through Ephesians chapter two, but I'm gonna hit the pause button on our study of Ephesians for just a few weeks, and then we'll jump back into Ephesians 2.

I want us to talk about something different for the next few weeks, and I think it's something that God is really wanting our church to grow in.

And know when I say church, I don't mean us as an organization, I mean us.

Because you are the church.

Like if you consider his hands your home, you're the church because the church is people.

And I believe that this is something that God has for us, that God wants us to go deeper into than we've ever gone to before.

Before we dive into what this is, what we're talking about, I want to ask you a question.

It might be kind of an odd question, but I think you'll be able to relate.

Is there any sound, any noise that your ears are are really attuned to?

Like, are there any sounds in your life that when you hear them, even if they're faint, even if they're far off, it's like instant attention.

It's got your full attention.

I have a few sounds like that in my life.

Like, for example, if I'm here at the building, my ears are unbelievably attuned to the sound of dripping water.

Because we have this roof that needs replaced, and and the time is gonna come sooner than later for us to step up and replace it, like it will happen.

But uh, but we've been we've been getting by for the last several years.

Every time it rains, every time.

We don't have a leak, we it's like it's like a game.

Find the leaks.

You know, how many can we find this time?

Sometimes it's like a faucet has been turned on in certain places.

Sometimes it's just a little drip.

But those of us on staff, we have had to be very mindful of that.

And it rains fairly often, right?

So my ears have become incredibly attuned to the sound of just a drip of water.

And I can be walking through this building and it might be 20, 30 feet away, but if I hear that tiny little, I'm like, whoa, there's a leak somewhere.

You know, and I gotta find it.

I've even had times where I've walked through this building with someone and I've been in like mid-conversation with them, and not to be rude, but I I've heard it and I've shushed them.

I've been like, shh, shh, hold on.

And unless you're like 30 years older than someone, you should never shush them, right?

That's just like common knowledge.

But but my ears, they're so attuned to that sound that I've heard it and I've said, hold on, I'm so sorry, but did you hear that?

And they're like, no.

And then I'll hear it again.

And I'm like, Did you hear that?

I'm like, I don't hear anything.

And I'm like, oh no, no, no, no.

There's a leak.

There is a leak.

And so I'll kind of like walk around and I'll be like, aha, I found it.

And they'll be like, how did you hear that?

It's just that my ears are attuned to that sound.

It's not that I have better hearing than them, it's just I'm listening, like I'm always listening for that sound.

At home, there is a different sound that my ears are really attuned to.

And I've got four kids, you know, you guys, you guys know that, if you know me.

I want I want some participation here.

Guess what sound my ears are the most attuned to at home?

You guys are smart people.

You know, so I thought people would yell crying, and every someone's always crying in my house.

Sometimes it's Megan.

Like some somebody's always crying.

All day long, there's never a time when it's not crying, crying doesn't bother me, it's constant.

Silence.

Because if I've got four kids and they're awake and and I don't hear anything, something bad's going on.

It's not, it's not, I'm not even thankful.

I'm not like, oh, silence.

I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is happening?

What is going on?

Like a crime is being committed, and it's probably my two-year-old Judah.

He's awesome, he's so creative, he's mischievous, he's always riding on something he's not supposed to, carpet, couches.

He he likes to fill things with water, that's his new thing.

I think I talked about that a few weeks ago.

I have a couch with these built-in cup holders, he fills the cup holders to the brim with water.

And it's not like I'm looking for that.

I'll sit down and I'll put a drink in the cup holder and like all over the place.

Friday, we have we have some electronics, you know, in our house, like most people.

On Friday, he's like, hey, what happens if you take a cup of water and just pour it all over some expensive electronics?

It breaks.

That's what happens.

And so if I hear silence in my home, I uh my ears perk up.

They're like, whoa, where's Judah?

Where is my son?

Right?

There's just certain sounds that your your ears can become attuned to.

You you really pay attention to those sounds.

Well, have you ever wondered what sound God is listening out for?

Have you ever wondered what sounds God pays specific attention to?

Like what are his ears attuned to?

What's he listening for?

1 John chapter 5 gives us some insight here.

1 John 5 · chapter mention

John was Jesus' best friend when Jesus walked the earth.

He says, I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.

He's talking to Jesus' followers.

And I know that not all of us in the room have crossed that line yet, but if you have, he's talking to you.

He's saying, Hey, I've written this so you can know that you have eternal life.

And he says, We are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.

Psalm 34, 15 says, The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, his ears are open to their cries for help.

If you study scripture, you will find that God is always listening.

Always listening to the cries of his people.

There's times in the Old Testament when the nation of Israel was up against it, and they would cry out to God, and he would say to a prophet, I have heard the cries of my people.

That God is listening to us.

That it's it's actually our voice that God's ears are attuned to.

It's our pleas for help, it's our request, it's our our needs, it's our prayers.

The one sound that God is listening the most intently for is your heart crying out in prayer.

And so for the next several weeks, we're gonna study prayer together.

And we're gonna talk a lot about prayer, and I'm praying that we pray more than we ever have before as a church.

I'm praying that individually you experience prayer in a way that you never have before.

Whether you're a new Christian or even on our prayer team, like we've got awesome people on our prayer team.

I know that they would say, I would like to experience more in prayer than I have so far.

So I'm praying that we pray.

Because I'll tell you this prayer works.

Like, how many of us have experienced the power of prayer?

That's awesome.

And I and I pray that every hand goes up the next time I ask that question because I'm telling you guys, prayer works.

This is not a fairy tale, this is not just something that we've invented as a crutch to feel better about life to help get us through.

I have seen prayer work in ways that are undeniable.

Undeniable.

I'll never forget the first time that I got chills when a prayer request of mine was answered.

I was about 25, I was actually working here as the youth pastor, and uh and I had this idea for the youth group, but it had a price tag, like many ideas do.

And the price tag was$3,000.

So I went to my boss and I said, Hey, is there any way you could approve$3,000 for for me to use for the youth?

And he said, No.

Um, and it wasn't because he didn't care about youth, the economy had just tanked, and it was a really, really rough time, so we were being extremely, extremely careful.

We're always careful, but back then we were like crazy careful.

But he said, I want you to pray about it.

And he wasn't just saying that like dismissively, like, you know, go pray about it.

He said, no, no, pray about it.

And so I did.

And at that time I was keeping a prayer journal, and I wrote in my journal the date, and I said$3,000 for the youth, and I didn't talk to anyone about it, maybe Megan, but but I didn't share that with people.

Two months later, I get a letter in the mail from a mother of a student in our youth group.

And this was a student I was not super close to.

I really barely knew him, and I think I maybe met his mom once, but she just told me in the letter that she had been praying for our youth group, that her son was really growing, and and she was praying for the youth group, and she felt like God put it on her heart to give to the youth group, and there was a check for$3,000, exactly.

And I was like, what in the world?

You know what I mean?

I got chills because that was so specific.

You know what I mean?

That was crazy, that was awesome.

I've seen God do that so many times.

This last week I saw God answer two prayers that blew my mind.

And I thought I was gonna step up here today and talk about one, and he did it twice because God just shows off sometimes, you know?

And I'm not gonna lie, if I was God, I'd do the same.

So it's okay.

Friday night, I told you guys that we raised$20,000 for the Fattis family through Canvas.

Here's what's so cool about that.

So I walk in about 15, 20 minutes before it was time to start Canvas, and I found Sheila Keefe.

Sheila is our outreach pastor.

Sheila is amazing.

She is all about helping people.

So everything from Canvas to Guatemala to all the outreach that we do as a church, Sheila's in charge of that.

And so I walked up to Sheila and I said, Hey, where are we at?

Because I'd been following the numbers and all that, because we have to write a check, right?

That's important.

So I'm like, where are we at?

And she said, Well, we're gonna be at$20,000.

And uh, and I said, Yeah, but where are we at?

And she's like, it's gonna be 20,000.

And and I'm in charge of the finances, so I'm like, yeah, but like, where are we at?

Okay?

She said, Well, we're just a little over 18, but I have been praying all week for 20, and we're gonna give 20.

And I'm like, cool, but it starts in in like 15 minutes, you know?

So uh so we'll we'll see.

But I told her, I said, well, hey, pray about that.

And I wasn't being dismissive either, and we both did, like, hey, pray about that.

And I know Sheila already had been.

She's like, she looked at me like, oh, I've been praying.

So I'm not even joking with you guys.

About five minutes before Canvas starts, Sheila comes up to me, she hands me her phone, shows me this text.

And a couple at our church, five minutes before Canvas starts, text Sheila said, Hey, we wanted to be there tonight, but it just didn't work with our schedules.

But we want to, we want to contribute.

And Sheila just said, Awesome, just let me know how much and I'll add it to the total.

And they said,$2,000.

And we crossed that that is what got us across the line five minutes before it started.

I mean, come on.

And so five minutes up to it, she's had she had faith.

She's like, it's gonna be 20.

And five minutes before,$2,000 comes in.

And there it is.

Last Sunday, at the end of the first service, we had God answer a prayer in a pretty powerful way.

How many of you were here last Sunday, by the way?

This is to see who you who's really faithful.

Um always.

Like, you think when you guys get to heaven, like you're just gonna go to church once every three weeks?

Come on.

You gotta get used to it now, people.

No, I'm teasing you.

Um so at the very end of the first service last week, this service, I noticed some commotion toward the back of the room, and I couldn't quite tell what was going on, but I'm paying attention and I can see some people kind of moving around.

Uh, and my wife actually sits right there in that back area, so I'm kind of always aware of where she is.

You know, I have certain people in the room, like the Torelli's, I see you guys there, and my wife's always over there, and Brian Scurris, and there's all these people that I'm like, I know you guys.

Um, the rest of you are great, I just know them better.

So um, so I'm kind of like doing that, and I notice this commotion, and and I can tell that there's a few people involved.

I can tell it's a few guys from our safety team, our first aid team.

Uh, we have a police officer named Shane who goes here who's awesome, and Shane got up from over there, and he walked over there, and I was like, man, I know I'm going long, but no one's ever faked a medical emergency to get me to stop, which is pretty creative.

And I would give props to that person if that was the case.

Um, but it didn't seem like that.

That's what was happening.

And so I stopped and I just said, Hey guys, do we need to pray?

And someone in the back just kind of gave me a thumbs up.

And so we we all stopped and we all prayed.

And we prayed that whatever was happening with the gentleman in the back of the room, that God would heal him, that he would be okay.

So we pray, worship team starts.

I run back there, and and this this gentleman named Ken, who's an amazing man, I've met him a couple times, I know his kids.

Um, he's he's laying on the floor in the back.

And when I got there, his eyes were open, but they had pretty much just opened.

And Shane was right next to him.

Shane had his hand on his pulse, and Shane looked at me and said, He was not breathing at all, and I could not find a pulse.

And Megan told me, Megan had been over there, she's on our prayer team, and she was she was praying with Cindy Fournier with him and over him.

And Megan was like, he was as white as I have ever seen a person.

And she's married to me.

So, like, think about that.

Okay?

Like, that's a I mean, when I take my shirt off, she's like, Oh, it's blinding, please put it back on, you know.

So this is like tan for me, actually.

Um and so, I mean, but his eyes were open.

And Shane looked at me and he said that, and there were some other symptoms, and Shane said, you know, Shane's got a lot of medical experience.

He's been a police officer and EMT for years and years and years.

And Shane said, Look, it here's what's happened.

He's he's had a he's had a stroke or a heart attack.

Um, and so the ambulance is on its way, came, put him on a stretcher, took him off, and then I was in contact with his family.

Well, I get a text from one of his kids that night, and then I called him and they said, Hey, they did tests.

He has no signs of a heart attack, no signs of a stroke.

And I was like, okay, that's awesome.

But you know how you have that sort of like cautious optimism at first.

I mean, I've I've seen God heal, God healed my son when my son was in the NICU, my oldest boy, and and and I had that this cautious, like, okay, that's good news, but like, you know, let's just make sure.

And so they said, we're gonna keep him overnight, and we're gonna run tests, and we're gonna do all these kinds of things.

And so, you know, they they they did every test, I'm sure, that they could do.

They did a really full-blown stress test on his heart, and I get an update the next day that that his heart, no blockages whatsoever, 100% healthy.

Every scan they did come back healthy.

He he left the hospital and he was given a 100% clean bill of health.

Okay?

Come on.

Now, I don't know what happened, but neither do the doctors.

Here's what I do know that less than 24 hours before he walked out of that hospital, that same man was laying on our floor, he was not breathing, he did not have a pulse, and hundreds of people stopped what they were doing, and we prayed in the name of Jesus Christ that he would be healed, and he got back up and he's fine.

That's what I know.

So prayer works.

It works.

And because it works, and because God tells us that he's listening, we should pray.

Like, guys, we should pray, but but so often we struggle with prayer.

There's all these different reasons that that many of us, even if we've been following Jesus for years, we sometimes struggle to pray.

Like sometimes we we don't pray because it's intimidating and we don't really know how to pray, and we're like, I don't know how to start, it's awkward maybe.

Sometimes we don't pray because we've been jaded.

We've prayed for things in the past and it didn't work out the way we wanted.

And so it's hard for us to pray because we're like, I've tried this before, I don't know if this really works.

You know, sometimes we we don't pray because we just don't value prayer that much.

We're so busy, and we we run here and there and everywhere, and we do all this stuff, and at the end of the day, the one thing that didn't make the cut is like prayer.

Sometimes we're like, hey God, it was like it was you or Netflix, and I just, you know, I don't know.

Um and I'm guilty of that.

Like, oh, I forgot to pray.

Sometimes we've been praying for years, and prayer it's become sort of routine, it's become kind of monotonous, and we're sort of on autopilot like we pray, but it's like we're going through the motions.

And it doesn't have the passion that maybe it's meant to have.

But people, prayer is meant to be a vibrant, passionate, powerful, foundational part of our lives.

And it works.

And I think if we understood how it works, and if we understood what God really does when we pray, we would pray so much more.

I heard a pastor that I love to listen to put it this way: He said, if we understood the power of prayer, we would pay, we would pray powerful prayers.

And I believe that we've got to be people who who pray because listen to this God's listening to us.

We have his ear.

Are you familiar with that phrase to have the ear of someone?

Like in ancient times, if you had the king's ear, it meant not that you were holding his ear in your hand, that's just that's just gross.

Um it would mean that that you had an audience with the king on demand, and you had influence with the king.

And so if someone said, Oh, that man has the king's ear, that means if he wants to talk to the king, the king will see him, the king will listen to him, and he actually has influence with the king.

God tells us that he is listening to us.

He asks us to pray, and he promises to answer our prayers.

Jesus said, Hey, whatever you ask for in my name, it'll be given to you.

That's bold.

But we struggle to believe that.

But people, if we if we understood that we have the ear of our God, that the sound that his ears are attuned to is your prayers.

If we really believe that, we would pray like that.

Like when I when I think about my prayer life, how often do I pray as if God's never gonna hear it?

Sometimes I pray prayers and they're so lifeless, it's like I'm I'm sending an email to someone, I'm I'm sure it's just gonna go to junk.

Like it's just gonna go to spam.

It's like I'm emailing God at God.com and I'm pretty sure he's not gonna see it.

Maybe like one of his underlings way down the line will, but I'm not I'm not praying like I have the ear of the king.

I'm not praying like I believe that I actually have an audience with the God of the universe.

I'm not praying like I actually believe that my prayers influence him, that he's listening, that he wants to respond.

Do you pray like you believe that God stops whatever he's doing to listen to your prayer?

That's how we should pray.

That's how we should pray.

In the book of James, chapter 5, James, the brother of Jesus, is talking about prayer.

James 5 · chapter mention

And he says, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

And what's so cool about that when it says righteous, by the way, is that we are made righteous by Jesus.

So righteous just means right standing with God, and we think oftentimes that that means we've got to live a certain way.

And look, if you have given your life to Jesus, live like it.

That's that's really good.

And that does produce effects.

It really does.

God, I do think God listens very, very intently to the people who are very faithful to him.

But your righteousness is not your own, it's Jesus's.

He's given that to you.

So it says that the prayer of a righteous person has power, produces results.

Then it mentions Elijah, this prophet from the Old Testament.

He says, Elijah was as human as we are.

And yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years.

And then when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

Now, here's what's really cool about this set of verses right here.

Is when it says that Elijah prayed earnestly, there's like a really interesting wordplay going on in the Greek language that James was writing in.

Because the Greek word that we translate pray is this word proseuchomahi.

Prosuchomahi, right?

I'm probably pronouncing it wrong.

It's Greek, okay?

So proseuchomahi, that means pray.

Now the word that we translate earnestly is the Greek word prosuke.

So in the Greek it actually says prosukohi prosuke.

And if you're like, that sounds really similar, it's because it does.

Proseukomi means pray.

Do you know what prosuke means?

Pray.

So if we literally translated James chapter 5 and those verses into English, it would say, Elijah pray, prayed.

James 5 · chapter mention

Elijah pray-prayed.

He didn't pray, he pray-prayed.

But see, that's that's how he prayed.

And I believe that it's time for us to stop praying, and I think it's time for us to start pray-praying.

I really do.

And there's a few reasons why.

Guys, we're in a different season as a church.

I know I've said that a lot, and I want to be want to be careful that it's not like I'm just trying to speak something into existence, but that is not that is not what I believe at all.

God has done things this year, and he's made it very clear to us, very clear to those of us in leadership, very clear to those of us who are who are in counsel to leadership here at the church that he is doing something new here.

And I know a lot of us have felt it.

I've had people come out of the woodwork that I've never met before who have said, I don't know what's happening, but God's doing something new.

And new seasons are challenging.

New seasons mean changes.

New seasons mean having to look at things that maybe you've looked at one way for a long time and say, okay, God, give me a new perspective on this.

And that's not always easy.

But we're seeing God do things in and through our church that we've never had happen before.

I mean, great example, Canvas, right?

We've never raised more than$10,000.

20?

Come on.

That's like things don't double very often.

And so we're seeing all this stuff happen.

We're seeing the outreach that's happening in our community through this church skyrocket.

We have done more outreach in our community so far this year than we've done in the last three combined.

And I'm not even saying that as an indictment on the last three years.

The last three years have been great, but we're seeing things happen.

And there's this one verse that keeps coming into my mind.

It's a very obscure verse.

It only happens twice in Scripture.

Well, it's the same statement twice.

You find it for the first time in Isaiah chapter 37, verse 31.

Isaiah 37:31

Isaiah's prophesying to the people who follow God, who are remnants in Judah.

And he says, You who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will put roots down in your own soil and grow up and flourish.

I believe that our church is not just growing, but growing up.

I believe that we're starting to mature in ways that we haven't before.

But see, here's the thing.

If you want to grow up and flourish, you've got to have roots.

If you want to see your reach extend, if you want to see your life change, if you want to mature, if you want to experience things that you've never experienced before with God, it's not just about you reaching up, it's about you putting roots down.

Because the deeper your roots, the further your reach.

The deeper your roots, the further your reach.

And so prayer is it's one of those things that gets us rooted in God.

People who pray, their faith is rooted, their faith is strong.

I believe right now, as God is calling us to do more and to be more as a church, he's also simultaneously calling us to put roots deeper than they've ever been before.

So it's time for us to get rooted.

And prayer, it gets us rooted.

So I want to talk about prayer for a while.

And next week, we're gonna start to study what Jesus taught on prayer.

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is talking about how not to pray, and he's talking about some religious leaders, and they prayed a certain way, and they they really thought they had it.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

You know, it had to be really hard for the Pharisees in Jesus' day because they thought, like, God is so happy with us, gold star.

Look at how we pray, and then Jesus shows up.

He's like, actually, I don't like any of that.

Like, none of what you guys do impresses me.

And they're like, Well, we'll just kill you.

And they just like, well, I'll get back up again.

So it just kind of kept being like a one-upping thing.

Um, it was awesome.

So, so they they prayed in all these elaborate ways, and it was very showy, and it was it was very fancy, and Jesus said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't, don't, I don't care about any of that.

And then someone asked Jesus, well, how do we pray?

And he said, Pray like this.

And notice that Jesus didn't just say, It doesn't matter how you pray, just pray whatever.

I mean, sometimes I think we think that way about prayer, like it doesn't matter.

And look, God is loving and generous and kind.

It's not like if you don't pray the exact perfect way, he's like, Well, not listening to that.

But but Jesus did not say, just whatever.

He said, Okay, pray like this.

And then he taught us how to pray, and I believe that we should take that teaching really seriously.

Look, we are Jesus followers, and there is nothing more important to us than sitting at the feet of our master, Jesus, and learning from him.

So we're gonna spend some time starting next week going through Jesus' teaching on prayer, learning how to pray like Jesus.

Like, would you love to be able to pray like Jesus?

You can.

And so next week we're gonna start with that.

But but today, today, I just want us to commit to pray.

Today I want us to see how powerful prayer really is.

And I want us today, this is my prayer.

My prayer is that we would just say, you know what, I'm gonna pray.

And I'm gonna pray like I've never prayed before.

I'm gonna pray with more passion, I'm gonna pray with more vigor, I'm gonna pray with more purpose than I have ever prayed before in my life.

It's time for us to start praying like never before.

It's time for us to pray, pray.

That's what I'm saying.

And so today, what I'm hoping for is that you would begin to pray your heart out.

Pray your heart out.

P Y H O.

It's been behind me on the screen the whole time.

If you're like, what does that mean?

Is that some new type of like calisthenic workout?

No.

Pieho is not a new gym thing, it's it's it's prayer.

Pray your heart out.

And I know many of you do.

But I also believe that there's many of us that maybe don't even realize we have permission to pray our hearts out.

What does it look like to pray your heart out?

I want to walk through a few descriptions of what it really means to pray, pray, to pray your heart out, and give all of us an opportunity not to feel bad.

There's no shame here, there's no guilt here.

If I talk about this and you're like, that's not how I pray, any bit of shame you feel about that, that's your enemy trying to keep you down.

What you should feel is like, oh, I can pray like that.

Oh, I have permission to pray that way?

Yes, this should be encouraging.

We can pray our hearts out.

What does that look like?

Well, number one, if you pray your heart out, you pray bold prayers.

You pray bold.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16 says, Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God, and there we will receive his mercy, we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Hebrews 4:16

Last night I was at Walmart with uh with Lily and with Judah, my middle two kids.

Megan and I always have to divide and conquer.

There's no time to ourselves.

So it's like, I gotta go take two with you, you know.

So I'm at Walmart, and I've got a list, and Megan knows how forgetful I am, so she told half the list to Judah, she told half the list to Lily, and I asked them, and they they combined, their powers combined.

I remembered what we needed after I went in the second time.

So it was good.

Um that's a true story.

So I'm there.

We we go to checkout, and what do they have at every checkout stand, right?

They got candy.

Now here's what didn't happen.

What did not happen is this neither of my children said, you know what, Dad?

I've been thinking, you know, life's not easy.

And sometimes, you know, just a little bit of sugar.

Just something sweet, you know, because life life can be tough.

You know that, dad.

Life can be bitter, and I'm not asking for the world, Dad.

I'm not asking that you get me a king-sized candy bar.

I'm not being crazy.

But I see a lollipop over there.

And I just, if you don't mind, I'd love, even if, you know, even if she won't let me have half of the lollipop, that's fine.

That didn't happen.

No.

That would be a timid request, right?

Like, if if if you don't mind, and if you if you're okay with it and if it's all right with you, what happened?

They went, candy, candy, I want candy, dad, dad, I want candy, dad, I want a lollipop, dad, I want that one.

Like, and what happened to me?

I said, okay.

I mean, it's my heart is for them.

They're my kids.

I love them.

I love them.

They're amazing.

And they said, I want candy.

They're good salesmen, you know?

Any of you who work in sales, this is a true thing.

The number one reason that people who work in sales when they when they can't close deals is because they don't actually ask the person to buy.

It's because they don't say, Are you ready to buy?

How many would you like?

They're like, Well, you know, and I used to be in sales and I was not good at it because I didn't do that.

I'd be like, you know, if just think about it, and then like, you know, I don't know, get back to me, or maybe I'll get back to you, and you know, okay, bye.

That's how I would do sales.

Didn't last.

Pray bold.

Because you are the children of God.

Don't ask God for something like you're some employee of his that that's on thin ice.

Ask God like you're a child.

Because you are.

You're you're you're you're really young to God.

Like some of us in the room feel like we're old.

You're not old.

God's old.

He's super old.

Like you're you just got here.

Okay?

So ask God like a child, boldly, specifically.

Praying your heart out means praying bold prayers.

It also means praying big prayers.

Ephesians 3, verse 20 says this.

Ephesians 3:20

Now all glory to God, who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Translation, you don't dream bigger than God.

You don't have bigger plans than God.

You don't have bigger ideas than God.

So you can't like outdream God.

You can't go to God with something and then him go like, I mean, yeah, I I guess.

I guess I I can figure out a way to make that happen.

That's not gonna happen.

Like, like God, he thinks bigger than you.

I had an experience with my my oldest a few days ago.

Liam, I've talked to him before.

He plays basketball.

Have you ever told you guys about that?

Um and so Liam is gonna play up this year, and he's he's in third grade, he's gonna play fourth grade, because he's really good.

And and he was in the car, he's like, Dad, I really hope that I can start for the fourth grade team.

And I'm I'm a dad, so maybe I'm biased, but like that's gonna happen.

Like, I see Liam beat seventh graders in one-on-one all the time, and he's in third grade, so that's gonna happen.

And so I'm in the front seat and I'm like, really?

Is that your goal?

Because I really believe like that's kind of a given.

And he's like, Well, I guess I'd be cool if I was the best player on the team.

And I was like, okay, well, why don't you make that your goal?

That feels more appropriate, and then work toward that.

Because I don't think you're I think you might start just without having to try that hard.

Be open to God challenging your vision and challenging you to expand it because I'm telling you, he thinks bigger than you.

He dreams bigger, he can do more than we could ask or even imagine.

And so if you've got some prayer, look, look, I'll put it, let's make it really simple.

Let's say you're$30,000 in debt.

I know all of us are really good with money, none of us obviously are in debt, but hypothetically, if you're in$30,000 of debt, do not pray for$500.

Do not pray for$1,000, pray for$30,000.

Because that's what you need.

And he'll give it to you.

He will, he'll at least give you the wisdom to get you there.

But pray big, praying your heart out means praying bold.

It also means praying big.

Praying your heart out, it means praying confident, it means being like Sheila, who says, Oh, we're getting to 20.

I've been praying, we're getting to 20.

She did not say that, like I really hope we do.

There was there was not one iota of doubt in her mind.

You know, Elijah, who we mentioned earlier, he prayed like that.

There's a story in 1 Kings chapter 18 about Elijah versus the prophets of Baal, and they set up this contest.

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

Baal was a false god, and they have these two altars, and like it's almost like a reality TV show before that ever existed.

It's like two altars, you know, here we go.

And on one altar was the sacrifice, and the prophets of Baal were praying all day long that Baal would bring fire and consume their sacrifice all day long.

And then you've got over here Elijah alone with his altar, and he's got a sacrifice on it, and he's praying that God would absolutely, totally make fire come down and like consume the altar.

And it's like, who's gonna win?

Like that's that's what's going on.

And what's really what's really cool about it is you've got the prophets of Baal going all day long, nothing happens.

So when Elijah steps up, there's really not that much pressure because Baal didn't show.

Like Baal, he's a no-show.

So even if Elijah prays and fire doesn't come down, it's like, well, that didn't happen with Baal, so it's a draw.

Worst case scenario, it's a tie.

But Elijah, he says, Hey, before I pray, why don't you guys douse my altar with water?

And in fact, why don't you guys dig like a moat around it?

I want that filled with water.

I want you guys to fireproof my altar.

And they do it.

And this is Elijah, I mean, he's he's he's like being very braggadocious, but it's okay to brag on God.

And then in 1 Kings chapter 18, here's what happens.

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar.

This is the water-soaked altar.

And he prayed, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, prove that I've done all that is at your command.

O Lord, answer me.

Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have brought them back to yourself.

And fire comes down from heaven and consumes the whole thing.

Elijah was confident.

When you pray your heart out, you pray like you believe God is listening and that He has the power to do something.

Praying your heart out means you pray honest prayers.

Some of us don't realize we can pray honest prayers.

If you're upset, pray upset.

If you're sad, pray sad.

If you're confused, pray confused.

Look, there's a reason sometimes that we pray in like groans that we don't even understand, because sometimes we don't know what to pray.

We're just like, uh.

And God knows.

Pray honest.

One of my favorite things about David in the Old Testament, he wrote, he wrote most of the Psalms, which are songs to God, and many of them are prayers, is that he was brutally honest with God.

Even to the point where he would cross lines that we would think, like, man, I feel like God's mad at you for saying that.

But God loved him.

One of my favorite psalms, and this just shows my immaturity, I think, in my maleness, because I love this psalm, is Psalm 3.

It begins in verse 1 by saying, Oh Lord, I have so many enemies, so many are against me, so many are saying, God will never rescue him.

And David, he he was kind of a whiner.

He would always be like, No one likes me, everybody hates me.

But in his case, they were all trying to kill him.

So he had a point.

Like, this was not people are giving me looks, this is like armies are trying to kill me.

Okay, so he would do that.

He would just say, God, but but this is where it gets so good.

Psalm 3.7.

This is literally like my favorite prayer that has ever been uttered.

Arise, O Lord, rescue me, my God, slap all my enemies in the face, shatter the teeth of the wicked.

This is a man literally praying that God would punch his opponent's teeth out.

He's like, God, punch him.

Slap him right in the mouth, knock their teeth out.

Like that's what he prays.

Now, how many of you would feel comfortable praying today that if there's someone who's against you, like, God, would you just punch him?

Would you just punch him like someone pray that, you know?

And God might not do that.

He might actually love the person you're praying for him to punch.

Okay?

But you can pray that.

You can pray honest prayers.

Look, you can't pray your heart out if you can't pray your heart.

So if you can't actually share your heart with God, I mean, how can you pray your heart out if you can't pray honest?

Pray honest prayers.

How do you feel today?

What are you really struggling with?

What are you really upset about?

What really bothers you?

What are you afraid of?

Tell God.

He already knows, by the way, he's not going to be shocked.

Like, what?

He knows.

So let him know.

But he likes to hear from us.

Okay, one final thing.

Pray constantly.

Pray all the time.

Praying your heart out means you don't just pray every once in a while.

It is really good, by the way, to have to have time that is dedicated to prayer, to have time that you set aside for like serious prayer, but there's not a time that you're not allowed to pray.

Pray all the time.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, always be joyful, never stop praying.

1 Thessalonians 5:17

Now, I don't want to disconnect those two sentences.

In fact, I think it was maybe 16 that said that.

16 and 17 say, always be joyful, never stop praying.

I'll tell you this, you will not always be joyful if you stop praying.

Those are connected.

But Paul says, never stop praying.

Some translations say, pray without ceasing.

There is no moment in the day that you can't pray.

You can pray in line, you can pray in the car, you can pray with your eyes open, by the way.

There's nothing in scripture that says you must close your eyes, you must be holding hands with at least two people for it to work.

That's not how it goes, right?

You can pray even before eating.

In fact, some of us should start praying before we order.

That's what I found is way more effective.

Instead of me praying for God to magically turn what I ordered into good food, I'm like, God bless this food.

He's like, that's decided.

You ordered that.

You should pray when you're ordering.

God give me the strength to order good food.

That would be a better prayer.

But whatever.

Like you can pray all the time.

There are so many times as a pastor that someone's talking to me about their problems, and I'm nodding my head like, yeah, mm-hmm.

And I'm in my mind going, I have no idea what to say.

I have no clue.

I have nothing.

Nada.

And I'm sitting there like, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's hard.

Yeah, wow.

And in my head, I'm like, God, please give me something.

Please.

Because I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, sometimes people share stuff with me, and it's part of my role.

And I great, but I'm like, I have nothing, God.

I have nothing.

And the whole time they're talking to me, I'm praying.

Like I'm kind of listening to them.

But I'm also listening to God.

Because I'm going, God, I've got nothing in and of myself for them.

So please give me something.

Just something.

And He's really faithful to do that.

Pray all the time.

Pray without ceasing.

Pray constantly.

Pray your heart out.

Bold, big, confident, honest, constant prayers.

That's what it means to pray your heart out.

And I'm praying that we start doing that today.

And here's what we're going to do to kind of get this started.

It's one thing for us to pray for ourselves, and by the way, pray.

I mean, look, Philippians chapter 4, verse 6 says, Don't worry about anything.

Philippians 4:6

Instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need and thank him for all he's done.

So you can totally pray for yourself.

And what are the parameters?

What are you allowed to pray for?

Anything.

Everything.

Pray about it.

So pray for yourself.

Absolutely.

This week, pray passionately.

Just set time aside and say every moment it comes into your mind, every moment you're frustrated, pray.

Take it all to God.

But there's something really powerful too about praying for one another.

In fact, it's amazing how much more often I hear from God when I am doing something that's for the benefit of someone else versus my own benefit.

The time I hear the most clearly from God is when I'm preparing the message every week because it's not for me.

It's just not for me.

It's for other people.

And God's like, ooh, I have this, I want you to say this.

And sometimes if I'm like, God, I need to hear something from me, he's like, I'll tell someone else.

And that's really frustrating.

But it's like he likes it.

He does speak to me like that, but but he likes using us to bless each other.

That's something that he just enjoys.

And so I want us to begin praying for one another like we never have before as a church.

Here's something we're going to start doing.

A few different ways you can you can let us know this is we're going to start lifting up one another's needs and prayers as a family together on a really constant basis.

And we're going to make it very simple.

If you have the mobile app, and I and I encourage you to download it if you don't, um, because it's free.

So there.

So if you have the mobile app, there's a section now at the bottom that just says pray.

And if you click on that section today, there's only one link, and it is I will pray.

It's you saying, I will pray for people.

And all you do is you click on that, you put your email address in, and you're on a list.

Simple as that.

If you don't want to do it like that way, then at the back four columns we have cards that say I will pray, and you can you can give us your information there as well.

And what's gonna happen is that next week, we're gonna add to that that link, that pray link on our app and via our website as well, hishandschurch.com.

And we also have, you can write prayer requests down at the back four columns as well.

We can do that way too.

But starting next week, we're gonna start asking for for all of us to share prayers, to say, hey, I need this, and pray for this, and then and we're going to send those out to the people who say they will pray.

And we are going to pray for each other.

And we are going to see God answer prayers, and we're gonna see God do things that that, I'll be honest, might not happen if we don't pray.

There are things that may not happen in our lives if we do not pray.

Because prayer, it does things, it's effective.

And so it's time for us, I believe, to begin praying for one another.

Now, next Sunday, we're gonna start to study prayer.

Start looking at what Jesus says about prayer.

And worship team, you guys can make your way out, but today I'm just asking you to commit to praying.

For you to say, I'll pray.

I'll pray.

The the best way to get good at prayer is to pray.

Is to pray.

You know, my my youngest Eli, he's not good at anything.

Um like even even pooping is hard for him.

Like he He sits there, it's like he is so focused.

When he's going to the bathroom, it's like, you know, because he's like, oh, I gotta really, like, really concentrate.

Um, he's not good at anything.

But what's so crazy to me is that six months from now, he's gonna walk, he's gonna be saying words, he's gonna be good at a lot of things because he just does it.

You know, there's not a there's not a one-year-old that goes, Man, I really want to think through this and evaluate my abilities before I try this, right?

They just do.

And Jesus said, if you if you want to experience the kingdom of heaven, be like one of these, be like a child, so just do.

And if you're here this morning and you pray all the time, keep it up.

And just pray more, bigger, bolder prayers.

And if you're here this morning and you're like, I struggle to pray, I've never heard God answer a prayer of mine, I've never heard from God in prayer, then do not give up.

Pray more than you ever have before.

Pray your heart out because it works.

And I promise you, we are going to see God answer prayers.

Anyone ready to pray?

All right, let's pray.

Let's pray, pray.

Lord, we love you.

Jesus, we need you.

And we're not gonna deny that.

We're not gonna act like we've got it figured out, we're not gonna act like we have any capacity in and of ourselves to go through this life and experience the life that you have designed us to live without you.

We need you, Jesus.

Father, we love you.

We we need your love.

We need your wisdom, we need your guidance.

Holy Spirit, we need your power in our lives.

We need you to remind us of what's true and what's real in this world that is so filled with confusion and lies.

God, there are people in this room right now who desperately need you to do something.

There are those of us in this room right now, God, that need you.

We don't have a relationship with you, maybe.

We're not sure how to engage with you.

God, I pray right now, if there's one person in this room that has never given their life to you, that they would do that right now, that they would not hold back from you.

I know you will not hold back from them.

So I pray right now, and we pray together, it's not me, it's all of us.

We pray that you would make yourself real to that person.

And they would just say yes to you.

Lord, every single one of us right now has a need, something that we need.

And we might have dismissed our need by saying that it's too small, that our need is too small for you to worry about because you got bigger fish to fry, or maybe we've said our need's too big, it's just too much.

It's too big, and for me to pray it and it not happened, it would break my heart.

I pray that you get us over all of those misconceptions and that we just begin to pray in the name of Jesus like we have never prayed before.

Lord, help us lift one another up.

Help us commit to praying.

Help us not delay in this, Lord.

I pray that today that we would make that commitment, that we would say, I will pray.

I will pray for my brothers, I will pray for my sisters.

I will pray that your will be done in this world, Lord, that we would pray for our community, that we would pray for our nation, that we would pray for our leaders.

That God, anytime we're tempted this week to accuse someone, that we would stop and we would pray for them.

You say in your word that we should pray for our enemies.

Anytime this week, Lord, that we're tempted to get on social media and bash some person in our culture, some organization, some company, the government, whoever it is, anytime we we're tempted to voice our our frustration about someone, anyone, that we would stop and rather than doing that, we would pray for them.

That we would say, Lord, help them see you.

God, make us people who pray.

And show us your power.

We love you, Jesus.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Love you guys.