"The 'How' of Prayer" - Pastor Greg Addison - Jan. 28, 2024

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, choir, praise team, congregation.

Boy, it's good to be in the house of the Lord today, amen.

And I hope you do know Jesus.

Jacob and I, when we started meeting each other and talking about Him coming and we talked about how to do services, I said, man, you just point people to Jesus and we'll be just fine.

And that proves the point.

Amen?

And you gotta love that S.

M.

Lockridge, one of those great, fantastic Baptist Bible preachers.

So it's always a joy to hear that, and it's always a joy how it stirs us to think about Jesus.

Jesus.

Today I want you to turn with me your Bibles to John 15, and we're gonna add some scripture to that.

Those are all biblical things that he said, that the choir sang.

And so we're gonna add some Bible verses to that today.

We're gonna finish our study on being a house of prayer today.

We've been studying this all month.

And today we're gonna talk about the hows of prayer.

Last week we talked about the whys of prayer, and we talked about uh four sort of basic foundational truths from Scripture that teach us why God answers prayer.

And those four, just to review them for you, are when when our prayers, when we come to the Lord and acknowledge Him as God, just as uh in that clip from S.

M.

Lockridge from that sermon, when he says he's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, He's the God of glory, he is the creator God of the universe and the King of Kings.

And so when we come to Jesus in prayer, we are surrendering ourselves and we are acknowledging him as God.

Then the Bible tells us that Jesus is our high priest and he describes that he is the mediator between us and God.

That's a part of that, what he does as Savior.

So our four categories of why of answer prayer.

The first is when we recognize him as God.

The second is when our prayers are lining up with his prayers that he prays for us as our high priest.

The same way the Holy Spirit prays and intercedes for us.

Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We looked at that last week.

We talked about that some on Tuesday at the men's businessman's luncheon.

And so the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, and when our prayers line up with his prayers interceding for us, then we are praying together, and we know those are prayers that God answers.

And the fourth is when we come to him as our heavenly Father, we, if you know Christ as your Savior, you are a blood-bought, adopted child of God.

The Bible says in Romans 8, we are joint heirs with Christ when we are adopted as his children through the blood of Jesus.

And so those four wives, God listens and answers those prayers when we pray those.

So then the question is, okay, how do I pray that?

Well, in James chapter 4, the Bible says this you have not, because you ask not.

James 4 · chapter mention

And so the first principle of prayer is that you should do it.

Sometimes we don't get answered prayer because we're not praying.

But then he says this, you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss.

Or another version says, you ask with wrong motives.

And so that how we put that prayer into practice is a good question.

And here in John chapter 15, we have this incredible passage of scripture.

John 15 · chapter mention

This is one of those passages that every believer should know.

And have your arms around, and it is so rich, we'll, there's no way one sermon could ever get all of it.

But there is a thread running through this that relates to prayer.

So read with me, John chapter 15, verse 1.

John 15:1

I am the true vine.

My father is the vineyard keeper.

So he's giving us an agricultural illustration here.

He is the vine, and we're think about a grape vine here if you want to do that.

So God owns the vineyard, Jesus is the vine.

Every branch in me, and so we are just branches in the vine that Jesus is using in this illustration.

Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, the vineyard owner removes it.

And he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.

And so I think that's a pretty easy to understand agricultural illustration.

So you have a branch, it's attached to the vine.

If it's not attached to the vine, it's not getting any nutrients.

It's dead when it's attached to the vine.

Then there's a life, that life-giving vine.

It's producing nutrients and all of that life in that branch.

And if that branch is bearing fruit, then you prune all the little extra pieces and all the stragglers off of that, so it gets more healthy and the nutrients are focused and it grows more grapes.

It produces more fruit.

He says in verse 3, you are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you.

So that means he's speaking to Christians.

You've already trusted in him as the Savior.

Remain in me and I in you, just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.

I'm the vine, you are the branches.

The one who remains in me, and I in him, produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.

If any one does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch, and he withers.

They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, and now here's the prayer theme, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you.

As we talked about last week, Jesus promises to answer prayer.

But how we do that prayer is important.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you.

My Father is glorified by this, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you.

Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love.

And so here's what he's telling us.

So here's what I want to do.

As we work through this verse, I'm going to do these notes a little bit different.

You'll see the verses on the screen right there.

You have them in your Bible.

If you write, if you highlight, if you circle words in your Bible, great.

You can do that.

If not, make a note of these words, and when you get home to your study Bible, maybe you write in that one.

Or if you want to print off this, you know, get on your computer and print off this page of scripture right here and circle these because I'm going to want you to pay attention to these as you read through your prayer journal this week.

Your prayer journal will affirm these principles.

I'm going to give you seven words to pull out of these verses right here that are going to teach us seven principles of how.

Okay?

Now, here's another thing I want to just reaffirm.

When we talk about how to meditate on scripture, how to study scripture, you're doing it in your prayer journals.

We use that idea of brew, and we got that from getting up in the morning having coffee with Jesus.

Because everyone who loves the Lord loves coffee, right?

It is a gift of God.

Do not, you know, despise the gifts of God.

Coffee is a natural product, it comes from the bean and all that.

It's just the way it works, right?

If you don't like coffee, we'll have an invitation at the end of the service.

You can come to the altar and repent, and it'll be just fine, right?

And so we use that idea of brew.

B-R-E-W.

B is believe that God has something to teach us.

That's why we come to his word, because we believe that.

Then R is read and repeat the verse.

You just read and repeat it over and over and over.

God's word is meant to soak in, not speed through.

E is each word, and that's what we're doing today.

We're highlighting how each word brings with it incredible truth, meaning, and power.

And then you write it down.

So that we're practicing that today in church, just as you're doing in your journal.

And so as we pay attention to each word, I've highlighted seven words that grab for us seven biblical principles on the how of asking, how we come to him, how we pray in a way that we are remaining in him, and therefore he can answer our prayers.

So the first word that I want you to circle, pay attention to, is every time he says me and my.

God, what is your plan?

What do you want to do in me?

Lord, I am remaining in you because you are the life.

I am remaining in your words because they are holy scripture.

They are living and powerful, they are profitable to speak into my life.

And so when we come to Him, it is very important we understand that the posture of prayer is surrender to Him.

So you circle the words me and my, that He is the one in ownership, He is the one in charge, He is God.

And we are pursuing Him and what He wants to do.

It is His life, it is His power, it is His direction, it is His wisdom.

So many times we want something and we project that into our prayer life and we don't come in surrender, we come, I want this.

Now there's nothing wrong with wanting, okay?

And He says, whatever you ask in His name, He'll do.

The problem is our wanting machine is broken.

And if it is not surrendered to Him, then we will want things for our own devices.

Again, James chapter 4, you ask and you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, because you would spend the answer on your own selfish needs and desires.

James 4 · chapter mention

That's what the verse says in James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

And so it is important that when we come to the Lord, he wants to hear from us and he wants to know what we want, and we need to share with him what we want and all of that.

But in this process of prayer, it is all a matter of remaining in him, and we are coming to him, and we have to begin with the premise that we surrender ourselves to him.

And he is going to work through this with us to bring us in line of what he wants for us.

So that's the first principle is me and my, that's surrender.

The second word I want you to circle is remain.

Remain.

You remain in me.

Too many times our Christian life does not look like remaining.

Remaining means I got there and I stayed there, and I'm making an intentional choice not to leave.

Again, he uses this concept of remain here, and he's illustrated it by saying, abide in me and I in you.

I am the vine, you're the branch, you have to abide in me, you have to stay connected to me.

If you're ever not connected from me, then you're lost and there's no life in there.

You were dependent on me, you've got to stay in me.

This is relationship.

Relationship.

When you think of remain, all the things that we want to have in our walk with Christ, they all are part or flow out of abiding or remaining in him.

How do I know I can trust him?

Because I'm with him, I'm abiding with him, I'm in relationship with him, I'm remaining in there, I'm working through these things with him, I'm in there long enough to develop trust, to develop love, to hear his voice, to recognize when he speaks to me, to listen when there is some temptation or desire, and I can compare that to the Lord, and is this me or is this his desire?

What's happening there?

Notice this is a key to prayer.

If you remain in me and my words, remain in you.

Under that circumstance, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you.

You see, we have to be in remaining with Him.

One of the verses that is one of my life verses, when people ask me, How did in the world I had a I began my life with a secular career.

I actually was a lawyer.

The first question I get is, Did you get saved?

And then like begin going to church and become a pastor.

The answer is no, I was already saved.

I love my Christian brothers and sisters who are lawyers.

Anytime we want something done right in a church, I call one of the lawyers in the church to come do it.

Okay, so I love my brothers and sisters out there.

So here's the next question they get.

Well, how in the world do you get from there to there?

I mean, like that seems like I can't put that together.

How do you get there?

And the answer to that question is very simple.

Psalm 37, 4 says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Delight yourself in the Lord.

That's the word remaining.

That's remain.

That's abide in him.

That's take my joy in him and be in that relationship with him and all of that.

And it says, He will give you the desires of your heart.

It's very much the Old Testament version of this verse.

I don't think that means that whatever you want, he gives it to you.

I mean, my Mustang Convertible is not a roush, souped-up GT version, right?

Which would be what I would want.

But what happens is he changes your wanting.

As you remain in him, as you delight yourself in him, as he works with you and you trust him, he brings us together and we begin to think the way he thinks and feel the way he feels and love the way he loves, and all of a sudden, my water begins to be adjusted and changed, so it begins to want like he wants and want what he wants.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you're going to be shaped in that kind of relationship.

And now when my heart is being aligned with his and I and he is aligning himself with me, and I'm beginning to understand and trust and love and see what Jesus sees, then my heart is going to want what Jesus wants.

I mean, just let me give you a simple illustration.

When is the last time in your mind and heart that you decided, you just understood we're not seeing enough people saved, and we want to see more people baptized?

And you wrapped your prayers around, Lord, I need to see somebody saved at church this week.

When's the last time that you you you you saw a service and you thought, this is great, and I'm loving this, and I'm encouraged?

But we didn't baptize anybody today.

And it's just not a church.

If we're not reaching people.

Then there is no way that somewhere in that there cannot be a natural explosion in my prayer life of pleading for the souls of boys and girls and men and women to come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus didn't come so we would be encouraged.

He came so we would not be judged for our sins and die and go to hell and spend an eternity separated from him.

That's why he came.

And so remaining in him should begin to reflect things in our life that show that our relationship is beginning to transform or change us.

It means it's gonna take care of some of the sins in our life that we hold on to that hamper the answering of our prayers or our hearing his voice.

Because if I'm gonna remain in him, then there's gonna be conviction and repentance.

That should be a normal part of the Christian life.

Because what does he say?

He describes in here in this agricultural illustration look, you remain in me and I in you.

Here's what's gonna happen: the more fruit that you bear, the more I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna prune off stuff that's keeping you from bearing fruit so that you'll bear more fruit.

What is he talking about?

He's gonna hack away at the things that Greg would do, left to Greg's own desires and devices, and he's gonna reshape Greg through removing those that sin and that character that was not Jesus' character, transform me to be into him to bear fruit.

And so we've got to understand those kinds of things are gonna be taken care of.

So you want God to answer your prayer.

What's hindering your prayer life?

What's in the way of your prayer life?

What are you playing with or being distracted by in your walk that's not a part of fueling your remaining with Jesus?

Me and my remain, prove.

Why is that important?

Look at what he says.

Ask whatever you want, it'll be done for you.

My Father is glorified by this.

He's glorified by that.

When our life is transformed, we get the heart of Jesus, the mind of Jesus, love the things he loved, wants things he wants, desire things he desires, broken heart over things and broken heart of the.

And that begins to shape our prayer life.

And we come back and we ask him that, and he answers that prayer, God receives glory from that, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

You see, when the world looks at us and they look at the church, their question is, is that real?

Is that real?

And when we're living for Jesus and we are being transformed in his image, and we walk the way he walks, and we have the heart that he have that his heart is, we see what he sees, we want what he wants.

We are the hands and feet of Jesus, we are the body of Christ embodied by his heart and mind, and we are doing things that he calls us to do.

It proves the reality of abiding in him and fruit bearing in what he does in the life of people that he saves.

And so when we're praying, you've got to realize he wants.

To answer that prayer, but he's going to answer that prayer in a way that proves the truth of his work in the lives of his people.

And so I'm praying for this and I'm praying for that.

I got to be thinking through this process of if he answers this prayer, is he receiving glory from the proof of Jesus' work in my life?

If I'm going to pray and come to him, then I need to come knowing that he is going to be doing something in my life to prove the reality of Jesus and his work in a life to the people around that need to see it.

God's doing this for his glory, but it's not because he's up there and he's just selfish and egotistical and all that kind of stuff.

This is holy God we're talking about.

This is God who loved us so much he sent Jesus to be our Savior.

What he is trying to do is express the gospel in the world around us.

And answered prayer is a powerful imprimator of his hand on us and in us.

And if you are transformed from being someone who doesn't care about spiritual things and you're kind of doing what you want to do, and Jesus saves you, and you give your life to him, and you enter into this transformation process and you become more like him, and all of a sudden you're praying for people to be saved and you're praying for things to happen, and you're praying for God to do this, and you're praying for God to do this in your church, and he's answering those prayers.

What greater proof or truth of the reality of what Jesus does in a life than that?

Prove.

When I come to these things and give them to the Lord, am I in that proving process?

Am I surrendering myself to his work in a way that it shows the authenticity of a life change that comes only through the gospel?

My Father is glorified by this that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

Man, if you're in that proving process and you are giving yourself to God to do that work, why would he not answer those prayers?

Jesus died on the cross to answer those prayers.

This is one of those spots where we think through sometimes God doesn't answer prayer the way we want him to answer prayer.

But he answers prayer in a way that proves the authenticity of his work in our lives.

Now that's usually a better answer than the one we may have started asking for in the first place.

And so we are realizing, man, God, I'm here for you to do this.

You to do this.

Remember, I had a friend one time I was ministry and singles pastor, and make a long story short, um, my first week in this role as singles pastor, I get a note that a young couple is in the process of divorce, and they are coming to the singles ministry.

And I reached out into their lives to try to minister to them and meet them and that kind of a deal.

And uh and met them and you know, kind of worked through that.

And it I was late in the game, and they were it already on that, and so they went ahead and got divorced.

They had a child, and they kept coming to singles ministry.

So we'd do this every Sunday.

We'd come in, and whoever had weekend custody, they would pass custody at our beginning of our singles Sunday school hour, and they would do and have, and all, and it was.

I'm thinking, I don't know how to do this.

So we're gonna so we're out there, but all of a sudden they start growing.

So he starts growing and she starts growing.

He starts growing, she starts growing.

They're growing, it's working, and they're all of a sudden praying, and I'm talking to them, and these things are happening, and then he comes in one day in my office, and we sit down and he says, Man, this is awesome! I didn't know God could answer prayer.

This is so incredible.

I didn't know I could be the Lord like this.

This is so awesome.

And I just had the Holy Spirit tell me this.

You need to tell him we're not going any further until you fix this relationship thing.

And I thought, I don't really want to tell him that right now.

Uh my my assistant, my partner out there in ministry, he's really good at this stuff.

Lord, why don't you tell him to tell him that?

He says, You got to tell him that, Greg.

So we're working through this, and this is God is good and all this.

And I said, I know it's great, and God's growing, but listen, it's this idea of proving to be his disciples, and he is doing a work in your life with purpose.

And I just feel like you're gonna hit a wall and you're gonna come to a point where it's not gonna go any further until you decide you're gonna do what he wants you to do in that.

And he says, I'm not doing, I'm not doing anything with that relationship.

I'm not going there again, I'm not doing that.

This is good enough.

I didn't know Christian life could be this good.

I'm fine right here.

Yeah, you're not gonna be fine there because you're that close to Jesus.

He's really working to prune and he's changing, and he's gonna do this, and you're gonna have to deal with it.

And he left a little frustrated.

Make a long story short, a few months later, he comes in and he says, Would you disciple us as we start to date again and see if we can figure out how to do our married life correctly?

And one of the incredible experiences I've had multiple times now, I've remarried people who had gotten divorced and they remarried because Jesus got hold of their lives and he proved for his glory what he does in lives.

It doesn't always work that way.

And he's the Lord of the harvest.

And so he determines what the fruit is.

But my point in that story is, man, he was excited and he was happy, and his definition of his Christian life at that point was, I didn't know I could be this happy and fulfilled.

God is not trying to make you happy and fulfilled.

Ultimately, he does want you to be that way.

In fact, Jesus says in verse 11, I've spoken these things to you, so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

But how you get there and what he proves in your life ultimately will give you that joy.

But it may not be a joyful journey at some point if you're fighting the proving process in your life.

Mimi, remain, prove, unable.

Unable.

If you go back up a verse or two, look what he says.

Remain in me, verse 4, and I and you, just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.

Our prayer needs to be built on our dependence of the Lord.

He has built this illustration that we way we understand, I cannot do this outside of you.

I cannot function outside of you.

I don't have life outside of you.

I don't have wisdom outside of you.

I don't have the ability to walk through these things without you.

I don't have the ability to withstand temptation without you.

I don't have the ability to be a witness without you.

I don't have the ability to preach without you.

I don't have the ability to share Jesus without you.

I can't do any of this without you.

And our prayers should be built on the foundation of I am completely and solely dependent on the Lord.

He is all I've got.

Now praise the Lord, He's all you need.

Because that's where the life source is.

But there is no life source outside of being dependent on Him.

Lord, I need you.

And you just, that's your prayer.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, part of remaining in Jesus is recognizing your dependence on him.

Now here's what our modern American middle class, upper middle class, whatever it is, nice, comfortable Arkansas life dynamic is.

We pray, we say this prayer, we say that prayer, whatever, but we get serious about prayer when we're in a crisis.

Now here's the Christian life.

What Jesus is trying to tell us is the only time we are confronted with our dependence should not be involuntarily by a crisis.

We should live being confronted with our dependence and in constant dependence on him as a matter of discipline and walk with him, not because we're fine, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine.

Oh, I hit a wall.

Oh, now I need you.

That is not how that's supposed to work.

Me and my remain, proof, unable.

Words.

Words.

What is he talking about there?

Scripture.

Praying scripture is fantastic.

If you want to know you're praying the right thing, then pray scripture.

Scripture builds our faith, it draws us to Him, it keeps us in line, it shapes us.

When you are brewing Scripture like you're doing over the course of this week in your prayer journal, you should be feeling how it's shaping your prayer life.

Because God's word does that.

And God's word is the only thing that is eternal by which we're saved.

1 Peter chapter 5.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

God's word is the only thing which is inspired by him.

2 Timothy 3, 15 and 16.

It is the only thing that is the double-edged rapier-sharp sword that because he sees everything we think and feel, it defides apart the soul and the spirit, the bones and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our heart.

Hebrews.

It is only God's word that does that.

And if we're remaining in him, building a relationship in him, it's a part of that is being in his word.

And so, again, modern American, sort of comfortable middle-class Christian life.

I basically can function.

I may not be happy with my paycheck, but for the most part, I can pay the bills most of the time.

I know we have financial crises, we get laid off, things happen.

But for the most part, we're sort of in control.

We can do this.

It's not as much as we want to do, and we wish we had what the Joneses do.

But we can at least do this, and I'm in control of this, and I'm kind of functioning.

And I go to church because I like my friends and they're nice people there, and it's encouraging, and I feel better, and now I can go back into the world and do what I'm doing and be in control of my life.

That's generally the way we do that.

And we take out our Bibles on Sunday mornings and we follow along and we feel good about that.

We love the word, but we're not like it's not pruning us.

And so, if you remain in me, and Jesus is very specific, and my words remain in you.

If we're abiding in the Word of God and abiding in Jesus through the Word of God.

Look what he says in verse 10.

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.

Just as I've kept my Father's commands and remain in his love.

You can't do this outside of a strong diet of the Word of God.

Me and my remain, prove, unable, words, and specific.

Whatever you want, ask whatever you want.

Specific.

If your prayers are not specific, the more generic your prayers are, the more generic your faith is.

The more generic your prayers are, the more disconnected you are versus a deeper sense of remaining.

We began the year talking about a spiritual vision that God has for your life.

See, God is doing something specific.

He's got a branch he wants to prune off you.

He has fruit he wants you to bear in this area or in this way.

And there is something specific that God is trying to do in our lives, and we're just kind of praying this generic stuff, and we kind of do.

Listen, you got to be specific and bring it to the Lord and say, this.

Well, Pastor, what if it's wrong?

That's fine.

God doesn't care if it's wrong.

You can't steer a ship till it's moving, right?

He'd rather you be moving in the wrong direction with him.

It's easy for him to run the rudder and put your ship in the right direction.

The hardest part that God has in all of us is breaking the inertia of us being stuck.

When you specify prayer, when you articulate that to the Lord, you have put it out there.

So in a lot of ways, you've crossed over sort of a line of faith and you've said, I'm just going to give this to you.

Like somehow we act if, you know, this is in my heart, but if I don't just say it out loud, then Jesus doesn't really know it, like he didn't know it was in your heart anyway, right?

And so we get, but when we give it to him, when we say it, when we express it, when we're specific in it, we've put it out there.

And I have to deal with some things.

Is that right or not?

Is he going to change that or not?

Do I trust him to change that or not?

Do I believe he could answer that prayer if I put it out there or not?

And so there is something that happens internally in us when we put that out there.

If we're praying these generic, sort of unspecific prayers, and we're just kind of doing this, and we're just kind of doing this relationship thing, it's like meeting an acquaintance and you say, Hey, how you doing?

I'm doing fine.

How are you doing?

And you walk up to me and you say, How are you doing, Pastor?

Well, I have planner fasci in my right foot and it's killing me right here.

And there's this thing right here, I didn't even I didn't even know.

And uh, and and man, it was so cold.

I'm just tired of being cold.

Aren't you tired of being cold?

I'm tired of being cold.

I'm like wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt and a flannel shirt and a like a hoodie on top of that.

I'm like, I'm tired of being cold.

You don't really want to ask me how I'm doing, do you?

Nobody wants to go that deep in anybody's life, do you?

I'm I'm frustrated, man.

This was a bad week.

I was supposed to see my grandson twice and didn't get to go.

I hadn't heard from my son in three days.

I hope he's not watching this because he'll think I'm talking about him in church.

I like, I'm frustrated.

Nobody wants to get that real.

We see each other and we go, how you doing?

Fine.

How you doing?

I'm good.

Too often.

How you doing, Lord?

Yeah, I'm good.

You gotta be specific.

You gotta get into your prayers and you gotta talk to him about what he wants to do, what do you want to do, what does this look like.

And if even if it's wrong, when you ask him and you bring it to him, you are expressing faith and trust in him and is a reflection of your abiding in him.

And if he changes it, you're fine with that because you already love him and you're working through that.

And we've got to get to that point where we write those prayers down.

We say, God, I want you to do this.

And then let him work us through that.

Be specific when you pray.

Ask him for what you want to ask him for.

Trust in what Jesus said.

If you are remaining in him, he is not going to discipline you for telling him what you want.

And you will be surprised as you grow in the Lord how often you will recognize that your wants are starting to reflect the heart of Jesus.

But if you don't ever ask, how do you know you're there?

Finally, faith.

Faith.

We need to pray in faith.

Jesus said, it's right there on the screen.

In your verse, it is printed in red letters.

I am not afraid to stand here and tell you that Jesus said, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.

Jesus answers prayer.

He answers prayer.

Now we have to do our part.

We have to remain.

We have to surrender me and my.

We have to be in the proving process.

We have to recognize we are unable to do it on our own.

We need to be shaped and guided by scriptures, but all of that is drawing us to him and it's doing a work in our lives.

And if you believe he's doing that work in your life, then don't be afraid to let his heart come out of you and trust him to answer prayer.

Too many times we don't have faith that God answers prayer.

We don't pray with strong believing prayer.

Y'all, I am praying that we baptize more people, and I have a goal of the number of people that I am praying that we baptize as a church, and y'all are on the hook because you got to invite them all to church, and you got to share your faith.

And I'm putting you there because I believe in what God is doing in our church, and I believe that Jesus wants to save people, and I believe he's doing the work here, and he planted us here because he expects us to lead people in Christ.

And I believe that Jesus died on the cross to answer the prayer for people to be saved, and I believe there are lost people out there that need Jesus, and we are the example to prove the reality of what God does when he saves someone, and I believe God is gonna answer that prayer.

I believe he's gonna answer that prayer.

And I know I'm yelling, and I'm not trying to imitate S.

M.

Lockridge.

He's the God of glory.

Do you know him?

I can do that, okay?

But what I want you to know is what's in my heart that I believe God can answer that prayer.

We are doing what we're doing because we believe God saves people.

We want to share the gospel because we believe he saves.

We are praying because we believe he answers those prayers.

Again, James 4 says, you have not because you ask not.

We gotta ask.

Paul said again, it is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus came to save sinners.

We believe it or we don't.

And if we stand on it and cry out to God as a people with everything that is in me, I trust in the Jesus who is the Savior to answer that prayer.

And we are seeing it happen.

Why don't you bow your heads as we close this morning?

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you may be watching online, you may have been passing through looking for some NFL game, pre-game show, and you saw some crazy guy screaming up there.

Listen, here's the whole thing.

Jesus loves you and he wants to save you.

Give your life to him.

How do I do that right here?

You surrender your life to him, you give it to him because he gave his life for you.

You cry out in your dependence.

I can't fix myself, but Jesus died to pay the price for my sins.

And you trust him to answer that prayer.

He promised: whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And if you'll call on the name of Jesus today, he'll save you.

If you're watching online, if you're watching on television, right there in your den, kitchen table, wherever you are, if you just stop where you are, pray and ask Jesus to save you, he'll save you.

What words do I say?

It doesn't matter.

He knows what's in your heart.

You just come to him and you say, I'm sorry for my sin, and I believe you love me and died for me.

I need you to save me.

There's no magic words in that.

You bring your heart to Jesus, whose heart loves you and died for you.

You open your life and you talk to him, and he will talk to you and save you.

If you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, in the moment I'm going to close in prayer, God's people are going to stand and sing a testimony of salvation to let you know that they are saved and they believe that Jesus saves.

We'll have pastors at the head of these aisles, we'll have somebody in the balcony.

If you need to be saved, you come find us.

Man, we'll pray with you, we'll show you scripture.

Jesus is saving.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to encourage you to pray.

Like Jesus encouraged us to pray.

Lord, we love you.

We know you love us more than we can describe.

We know that you are the life-giving vine.

And we ask in your name, from our love for you, that people will be saved.

And I pray this morning that whatever it is you want to do in each heart here this morning, that we'll surrender to you and allow you to do that.

In Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said, Amen.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.