Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Good morning, Church. Would you pray with me, Father? I thank you for the words of that song, Lord. And we do want to draw near to you.
[00:00:13] We do want to experience you, Lord. And we do pray that you would meet us and bless us and help us and strengthen us with your presence today, Lord.
[00:00:24] Be with us now in these moments.
[00:00:26] In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:00:29] Well, good morning, Church. It's good to be with you today.
[00:00:33] If you are a guest with us and we have not had the chance to meet, my name is Chet, and I'd love to meet you. But we're so glad that you're here. And we have been going through the Sermon on the Mount in our study, through the Book of Matthew, which is a biography of Jesus. And we've been looking week by week at it. We're going to continue that today.
[00:00:53] But when I was thinking about what we're gonna talk about today, which is Jesus teaching on prayer, I was reminded I have two girls and a boy.
[00:01:02] So Emory, Abby and Teddy, and Emmy And Abby are 7 and 5. And kind of, you know, raising them these years, like they have a certain instinct, I've noticed.
[00:01:15] They will, you know, have bunnies or whatever. And I'll be in the room and they'll be like, dad, quiet down. My baby bunny is sleeping like they want, you know, they'll do that. And my son Teddy, he's now three, so he's kind of starting to come into his own. And the other day, I was sitting on our recliner. We have a nice recliner, and I was just zoning out, like all dads do. Amen. You know, just like, don't talk to me, don't bother me. I'm in my space where nothing happens.
[00:01:46] And all of a sudden, he punches me square in the face.
[00:01:51] And I didn't see it coming. I was like. I was zoned out, you know, and he has. He loves superheroes. So he has these big green hall cans. So he had that right on his hand, nailed me right in the face and says, gotcha.
[00:02:07] And I laugh about it now. I was not laughing then, Teddy, you can't do that. You know, I was freaking out a little bit, but that never happened with my daughters. I never got punched in the face randomly. I noticed that there's a little different instincts. You know, they have the instinct to take care of people. He has the instinct to fight people.
[00:02:31] And I think that, you know, there is something to guys and girls. Amen.
[00:02:36] We're wired differently, and I think there's purpose to that. But. But you want that purpose to mature.
[00:02:44] And you want that instinct to develop. You want them to learn what it looks like in a healthy way, or at least that's the goal of parenting. Amen.
[00:02:55] You wanna point that in the right direction. And I think there is an instinct that is universal to humans, and it's the instinct to pray.
[00:03:07] And if you ever think about that, it's amazing to me, I've read accounts of all kinds of people and some who completely reject that God is real, that prayer is real, and yet they will admit that they find themselves praying sometimes.
[00:03:25] And you can read many, many accounts of this, that sometimes people say, I don't believe in God at all. I don't think any of that is real. But yet in moments in their lives, they will all of a sudden go into prayer.
[00:03:40] And it's a fascinating thing to think about because it seems to be a universal human instinct. But like any instinct, it needs developed, it needs directed, it needs matured.
[00:03:57] And what we're gonna see today is, is that Jesus is gonna say, hey, I want to teach you how to pray.
[00:04:06] Because a lot of times what happens is we sort of just determine what it means to pray and what it looks like to pray and how prayer should function. We sort of teach ourselves.
[00:04:18] And there are some things you can teach yourself, and that's a good thing. But sometimes it's not always great to teach yourself. Amen.
[00:04:26] Like, babe, look what I built. I taught myself.
[00:04:29] She's like, I can tell you with me, like, we should have just paid someone. Amen. So there's self teaching is good, but it also has its limitations.
[00:04:41] And when we think about prayer, I don't wanna just leave prayer to what I think it should be and what I understand and what I'm just instinctually compelled to do. But I want prayer to be something I learn and I develop and grow in. And that's exactly what Jesus shows us in Matthew chapter six. So we're gonna learn today prayer from Jesus.
[00:05:08] And I believe he is exactly the right person to learn how to pray from that. There is no greater subject matter expert than Jesus. And I think you will absolutely agree with me as we read the genius and the power and the clarity of his word. So Matthew 6 we're gonna pick up at verse five.
[00:05:29] And Jesus says this. And again, this is in the middle of this sermon that he's preaching called the Sermon on the Mount, and he says this. And when you pray.
[00:05:39] So there's our subject matter, prayer. You must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others.
[00:05:52] Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
[00:05:56] But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
[00:06:10] And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they'll be heard for their many words, do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
[00:06:25] Pray then, like this.
[00:06:28] Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:06:48] Now, there's a lot about prayer here, but I just want to talk to you about three simple things today. It's gonna be a very short sermon.
[00:06:58] Not, I want to talk to you about the privilege of prayer, the place of prayer, and the paradigm of prayer. The privilege, the place and the paradigm. Now, let's first talk about the privilege of prayer.
[00:07:12] Now, Jesus opens this section, and if you read the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety, you will see this theme drawn out in many different ways, where Jesus is saying, I don't care about religious appearances.
[00:07:31] I care about the substance of the soul.
[00:07:35] So many times. And I bet every one of us today reads those words of Jesus. We're like, yes, we all agree, because every one of us in this room probably does not stomach, well, religious hypocrisy or hypocrisy of any kind.
[00:07:54] We don't like that. And the good news is, Jesus didn't like that.
[00:07:58] And Jesus says, yes, that is a problem. But it is also something that should not surprise us because it's not fundamental to religion in general. It's fundamental to. To being a human being, that all of us at times are hypocrites and say one thing and do another and tell people, you shouldn't be like this. And then we're not like that.
[00:08:22] We're all messed up in that way. But what Jesus is saying is, I'm calling you to a deeper experience of God that isn't about how we look to other people, but what is really happening in our heart of hearts.
[00:08:40] And so all through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is saying, look, the point of prayer is not to look good and sound good. And so people hear us pray or they see us pray, and they're like, wow, that person is so spiritual.
[00:08:54] That person is.
[00:08:56] Their words are so eloquent. Jesus says, it's not about that.
[00:09:03] The privilege of prayer, the reward of prayer is that you experience God.
[00:09:11] And more precisely, that you know that God sees you and cares about you.
[00:09:22] See, this is so fascinating to me in this text that Jesus says, when you pray, don't do it in front of others, don't do it to be seen by them, but pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.
[00:09:40] One great pastor from the 1960s, Martyn Lloyd Jones, he says that the highest human experience, the pinnacle of the human experience, is prayer.
[00:09:52] It's when broken, messed up people like you and me are able to connect with the Almighty God.
[00:10:01] Lloyd Jones says, whether you realize it or not, prayer is the great privilege of your life because you get the opportunity to be in proximity to your creator, to the almighty God.
[00:10:18] And this is what Jesus is showing us, that in prayer, we experience God. And even more, we realize that God sees us and rewards us for it. That he cares about us, that he acts and moves. Years ago, when I went to Cleveland State for my undergrad, Any Vikings in the room?
[00:10:42] God bless you. God bless you.
[00:10:46] We gotta work on that church. I need some more Cleveland saters with us. But one, me and my buddy from high school, we were both going at the same time, and we were not the most devoted students. And so one day there was, like, this event that was pretty close to campus. And we were like, yeah, let's go to that. You know, And Colin Powell, General Colin Powell was speaking at the event. So we both thought that was really cool, you know, sort of one of the most influential American military commanders, you know, the last 30, 40 years. So we're like, colin Powell's going to be there. That's really neat. And so somehow we got tickets and we were super far away. And then my buddy, he has a little mischievous streak in him. He was like, I see that there's a lot of open seats down in the front. Like, let's go down there. And I was like, all right, let's do it. What's the worst? We're only gonna see a general, you know, might get shot, but let's do it. Yeah.
[00:11:42] And so we got down there, and as we were like, things were transitioning through the event, all of a sudden, Colin Powell walked right past us. There was, like, security. You know, he had, like, security around him, but, like, he was probably within 10 or 15ft of us. And I don't remember anything he said, but I was like, that was cool just to be. And that was the peak of my college experience there, seeing 10ft away from Colin Powell.
[00:12:12] But it was cool. It was like, man, this is neat to be that close to just someone who has just been part of the landscape here. We're just sort of in awe of that to a certain degree now. How much more amazing would it have been if we would have been about 10ft away? And then Kola Powell would have turned to us and said, hey, thanks for sneaking down here and being here. And I understand that you have tuition coming up, and I've made a lot of money in my career, so I would like to give you a check and pay for it.
[00:12:50] Cause I know that you need it now. That would make that story a lot better. Amen.
[00:12:56] That didn't happen. But here's what Jesus is saying. He's saying, not only do you get proximity to God in prayer, but you can go into prayer expecting that he sees you.
[00:13:13] And he's already been anticipating what you need.
[00:13:20] How powerful is that?
[00:13:23] And so Jesus says, that is the reward of prayer. And then he says, but there is a place of prayer. Now, I think this is again, fascinating about this teaching. Jesus says, when you pray, go into a room and shut the door.
[00:13:41] And Jesus is showing us that prayer is meant to be a specific action and time and place in our lives.
[00:13:53] See, we can pray throughout the day while we're doing a million things. And probably many of us do that, right? You're at work, you're typing out emails and.
[00:14:03] And you pray. You're in a conversation and someone says something and you pray. You're like, lord, help me to let that one go.
[00:14:12] And that's good.
[00:14:14] That is good.
[00:14:16] But sometimes church, that becomes the fullness of our prayer life.
[00:14:22] And again, there's an instinct towards that. And that's because you are made in God's image. Your soul is meant. It's. It's tuned into the Almighty. That's why prayer does come so naturally, whether we want it to or not, whether we say we believe it or not. It's because you are made in his image, made to connect with Him. But Jesus says, but let me mature that instinct.
[00:14:43] And it's good to pray all the time at these random moments. But he says, but I'm asking you to make prayer something where you actually have a place that you go to, to focus and to seek and to meet with God.
[00:15:06] Now, if we were just to stop this sermon right there, which don't get excited. We're not going to. But if we were just to. If we were just to say, all right, let's just stop here and practice that in our lives.
[00:15:21] Where you actually say, there is a place I go to and I go to be alone with God and I shut out distractions, I would say that would revolutionize your prayer life.
[00:15:34] That just. That devotion of time and space will be absolutely transforming.
[00:15:42] Because how many of us today ever even have a thought in our mind alone, away from the constant stimulus of life?
[00:15:53] You really gotta work to do that. Amen. This is what Jesus is saying. He's saying, privilege is such a prayer. You should actually work to create a space and a time where you can be engaged and focused and not distracted by it.
[00:16:12] It's that important. It should be that much of a priority to us, if we understand it correctly, you with me and I believe if you create and you can pick any place, you can pick an office in your house, you can pick a corner in your garage.
[00:16:31] There's a great story of Susanna Wesley, who is the wife of John Wesley. She had a million kids and a crazy life. She would throw her apron over her head and her kids would be like, don't bother, Mom.
[00:16:44] She's praying.
[00:16:46] And that was her secret place.
[00:16:50] They knew, they didn't mess. But the point is, hear Jesus. Words, time, attention, intent is how we grow and learn what it means to be people of prayer. Blaise Pascal, in 1670, he says, all of man's problems stem from our inability to be alone in solitude.
[00:17:20] He said that in 1670, Facebook was just coming out then, right?
[00:17:29] Imagine in 1670, he said, yeah, we can't stand to be alone with ourselves in solitude. It creates all these problems in our life. Imagine what he would say today.
[00:17:39] It's so much harder, but yet this is the call of Jesus, which means that this is not a new problem.
[00:17:47] This is not a problem of technology in the way the world. This is fundamental to being human beings. But Jesus says, but go find a place. Go to see her and go get this. Go with expectation.
[00:18:03] So if we go to a place and we go with expectation, here's what it means. Jesus says when you pray, expect that God actually hears it, that God actually cares, that God actually is already a million steps ahead of you and you don't have to twist his arm to help you, right? Is there ever something in your heart that maybe you're praying and you're like, praying? You're like, you're saying, like the weakest, most anemic Prayers ever.
[00:18:39] I hear, I'm throwing it up. Cause it's the thing to do.
[00:18:43] But I'm not really expecting anything to happen here.
[00:18:48] I gotta figure this all out on my own.
[00:18:51] And that's what you sound like, but even worse.
[00:18:58] But no, this is what Jesus said. He said, look, if we wanna understand prayer, it all really begins with understanding who we are talking to.
[00:19:08] We are not talking to a weak and anemic God.
[00:19:12] A God that doesn't care about you, but a God that cares about you more than you could know, that is powerful, beyond comprehension and has a heart to show you mercy.
[00:19:30] Jesus says when you go to prayer, you go with expectation.
[00:19:35] I believe God is at work in this. I believe he's gonna help me. Now, I always am gonna realize that I'm not God.
[00:19:44] So what I think is God helping me is he might have to show me what that actually looks like. You with me?
[00:19:50] Because again, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are his thoughts above mine.
[00:19:56] God, this is what I'm asking for. Cause it makes the most sense to me.
[00:20:00] But you always have the final say because you can see things in a way that I can't. You with me. But I'm going boldly. I'm praying boldly, but I'm trusting that however you answer, you with me on this. He says, go with expectation. And then he gives us this powerful model of prayer, which, if you grew up in church, you might know this model by heart. The Lord's Prayer. Our Father. I know it this way. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. That's how I remembered it. Just sounds really cool that way. Amen. A little King James to it, but many of us, we probably know this or know elements of it. But what Jesus is showing us is it's a paradigm for prayer. Jesus is saying, look, prayer is not just magical words on repeat.
[00:20:56] It's not an incantation.
[00:20:58] It's not just let me say this. Certain phrases. This is not what the Lord's Prayer is. It's not like, okay, I say these words in this order, with this vocabulary. And therefore it unlocks God's power.
[00:21:13] Because Jesus just said, no, don't do that. That's what the Gentiles do. But what this is, is it's a way of thinking about prayer. It's an outline.
[00:21:22] It's a guide for us. And behind this outline in this guide is a very powerful image that I don't want you to miss. And this is the image that is carried all Through Jesus teaching on prayer. And it's the father child relationship.
[00:21:43] Jesus says here. Here's the image that I want you to think about with prayer.
[00:21:47] Our Father who dwells in heaven. That God is your Father, that he dwells in heaven, but he is a father unlike any earthly father.
[00:22:01] He is infinitely powerful, infinitely wise. He is majestic, he is transcendent. He is all these things, but yet he still knows your name and he cares about you. And so this we bring into prayer. My kids are at kind of this fun age where, like, they think that I have way more capability than I do.
[00:22:28] We'll drive by, like, a house, or they'll see a house on tv, and they're like, dad, can you buy that?
[00:22:35] They're like, dad, this. You know, they're like, I like our house, but can we get a new house? Like, I really like one. Like, well, kids, how much do you know about the Federal Reserve and interest rates?
[00:22:48] And I could show you my bank account. It's not gonna make sense to you right now, but I appreciate you thinking that I can do this, but we're gonna be here a long time.
[00:23:00] Amen.
[00:23:01] They're still in that phase where, again, they kind of think, like, I'm a lot more capable than that. I know that that reality is gonna be shattered very quickly, very dramatically. But it is kind of fun right now, you know?
[00:23:17] But what Jesus is saying is. He's saying, actually, your kids will move away from that reality, but we need to move into that reality.
[00:23:27] No, Our God is our Father, and he is infinitely more capable than we think.
[00:23:37] And he loves us and he cares about us, and we can.
[00:23:42] We can expect great things, and we can go to him boldly. See, that's part of a privilege of a child. Father relationships.
[00:23:54] Several nights, even this week, my kids woke me up from a dead sleep because their binky fell out of their bed.
[00:24:05] Granted, my son Teddy has 15 other Binkies in his bed.
[00:24:10] This was not a real crisis.
[00:24:12] If you wake me up out of sleep for a binky, we will not be friends anymore.
[00:24:18] You with me.
[00:24:21] There is a certain relationship that is privileged. Amen. There is a boldness that a child can have with their father, with their parents, that not everyone can have. Amen. It goes hand in hand. And this is. This is the image that Jesus is giving us today.
[00:24:41] Go boldly. We can ask boldly. We can go before him because he is powerful, but he's our Father and he cares. And then he gives us these petitions to pray through. I just want to walk you through them real quick.
[00:24:57] And there's about six of them in this prayer. And the first one is this. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.
[00:25:08] Now, hallowed be your name. That means make your name holy, make your name sanctified. And what Jesus is showing us here is that prayer. It's not that I'm adding anything to the greatness of who God is. Holy means to be set apart. It means to be utterly unique.
[00:25:32] Holy means that God should be reverenced. There should be a sense of awe that I carry in my heart. I say, man, God is majestic. The author, Hebrews says it this way. He says, God is a consuming fire.
[00:25:51] The author of Proverbs, he says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
[00:25:59] And what does fear mean? It means I recognize God is majestic. He is holy. He is utterly unique. He's not to be trifled with, but to be revered and honored and worshiped and obeyed. And when Jesus says, hallowed be your name, he's saying, our first prayer is, God, help me to revere you in the way that I should.
[00:26:26] In fact, help all of us to revere you in the way that I should, to recognize the greatness and the majesty of who you are. I think one of the issues, that if you've been a Christian for a while, we can't ever lose our reverence for God.
[00:26:48] Yes, God loves us. God comes to us, but he is also the Almighty God. Church you with me.
[00:26:56] And it's good for my soul to grow in the recognition of the greatness, the incomprehensibility, the glory, the importance, the weight of the reality of God. And this is his prayer. Hallowed be your name.
[00:27:15] In other words, may we revere you in the way that you deserve, in the way that is consistent with who you are. And then Jesus says, and your kingdom come.
[00:27:27] Second petition. Lord, make your kingdom happen here. In my life, in my family, in our church, Every time I think about our new building, that's my prayer. Lord, your kingdom come.
[00:27:43] Let this be a tool that. That advances your kingdom in this area. We're claiming this land. We're claiming this space for your kingdom, your glory.
[00:27:53] Advance it through this.
[00:27:56] Your will be done.
[00:27:58] This part's so important. Jesus says, look, when you pray, you, reverence and you worship God, you pray for his kingdom and you pray for his will. All of those come first.
[00:28:13] Here's one of the fundamental problems in our life.
[00:28:16] In our heart, we say, God, my will be done.
[00:28:21] But Jesus says, no, no, no.
[00:28:23] God's will Be done.
[00:28:26] Your will is secondary to that.
[00:28:29] It's better that God's will is done because that is the right one.
[00:28:35] And sometimes in our heart, my will is not the right one.
[00:28:39] It's too much about me, or it's gone in the wrong direction. So Jesus says, we pray your will be done. Now, notice this.
[00:28:49] This is the beginning point of how Jesus teaches us to pray.
[00:28:55] It starts with God.
[00:28:57] It starts with focusing on Him. And here's where prayer becomes more powerful in our lives. When we take the time to really think about who God is, His importance, and we ask God to make that more clear and more real to us.
[00:29:17] When that's the beginning points of our prayer, we're off to a much more powerful start. You with me? But then Jesus says, but we start there. But then God does care about our needs.
[00:29:32] Give us this day our daily bread. So after this, then we get into our needs.
[00:29:39] Cause we all have needs and God cares about them.
[00:29:43] Says, lord, here's what my life needs. We all need bread. We all need things. We have bills to pay and places to go and things that need to happen. And Jesus says, yes, pray for those. Ask God for those.
[00:29:59] But make sure your priority is first, his kingdom, his glory, his way. And then ask to your heart's content.
[00:30:07] And then Jesus says, and Lord, forgive us our trespasses, our sins, as we forgive others.
[00:30:17] And we pray, lord, will you not only meet the physical needs of my life, but will you meet the real spiritual needs of my life as well? There's a famous psychiatrist named Carl Menninger, and he said that if he could convince all his patients that they were truly forgiven, he said 75% of them would walk out the next day fine.
[00:30:44] That if I could convince them that they were truly forgiven to. And most of them would be just fine.
[00:30:53] Because forgiveness is a need of the human heart.
[00:30:56] We don't always recognize that as the need, but when you go behind the layers, we all need justification from God.
[00:31:05] We all need this sense that, yes, God forgives us.
[00:31:09] We can live without the guilt and shame of our sins, past, present, and future.
[00:31:16] And we can rest in the assurance of his love and his help. And Jesus says, yeah, we need to pray for that and experience that and offer it. And then he says, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now, I find that prayer helpful at two levels. Lead us not into temptation.
[00:31:36] In temptation, the real danger is me, is me overstepping, is me being gravitated towards something that's wrong or unhealthy. And so Jesus says, lead us not into temptation. In other words, God, protect me from me.
[00:31:56] That's a good prayer.
[00:31:58] You say that. You say something along those lines. Every day you're on a better path. Amen, Lord. Yeah, there's some knuckleheads around me, but. But I got them all beat. Amen. Protect me from me. That's the first part. Lead me not into temptation. But then the second part is. But deliver me from evil, Lord. I recognize evil is real. There are bad things and bad people and bad agendas in the world. And, Lord, I pray for your protection on that.
[00:32:27] Now, Jesus shows us this prayer, I believe, as an outline, as a paradigm, as a way to say, okay, when I go to prayer and I make time and attention and I'm engaged and I'm focused and my heart's open to God working, what should I pray then?
[00:32:50] How should I go about it? This is Jesus showing us that.
[00:32:54] And he's saying, if you see this, if you understand it, you pray grows and transforms our prayer life in such a powerful way.
[00:33:10] Now, maybe some of us today, we're like, Chet, I've tried to pray, and that's actually been a stumbling block for me.
[00:33:20] Cause I've prayed and I've asked God to do things and to help things and to heal people and to stop these events and to do this thing.
[00:33:32] And it hasn't always happened. And this reminds me, I heard a story this week about a guy named Ann Lee who grew up in Vietnam. And as a young man, he had a loving, healthy family. But then things started to fall apart. And by the time he was in junior high, his dad had decided to leave his mom. And he was crushed by it, and the family was crushed by it. And so the day that he was leaving, he knew what was happening. He was about 12 at this time, and he knew that he was leaving, and his mom wasn't going to even know about it. And so he was just crushed and confused and devastated. And he said, and I prayed to God, I said, God, if you're real, stop this from happening.
[00:34:20] And his dad left.
[00:34:22] And he said, after that, I no longer believed in God.
[00:34:28] And he said, I then went. Grew up and went through life. And maybe some of us have actually experienced something like that.
[00:34:36] Maybe some of us know someone who. That's kind of similar to their story. It was like that was the thing that maybe spun their faith in a. In a totally different direction.
[00:34:49] And that, again, is where prayer is an instinct.
[00:34:53] But we need taught how to do it, and we need taught about what it actually means and what it looks like. And so Ann Lee went through, he grew up and he went to college and he was just kind of doing life away from God, trying to figure it all out, trying to, you know, find fulfillment and all this. But nothing was happening. It was all just empty and hollow and painful and frustrated. And so he was just kind of getting to his end of the rope again and again. And finally he kind of ran into some people and they invited him to church and to like a Bible study. And he said that the people there, he said, I recognized there was like a different substance to them.
[00:35:38] There seemed to be something deeper at work in them. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I recognized it. And so he said I was drawn to it. And so he started listening and he started hearing and he said he kind of looked at them and he was like, man, you all are like a bunch of goody two shoes. It's kind of annoying to me.
[00:35:55] And so he started reading the Bible and He read John 1 where it says that all who believe in Jesus will become sons of God.
[00:36:08] And he said, oh my gosh, these guys aren't sons of God because they're goody two shoes. Cause that's not what the Bible says. And so he thought that he was going to like dig into them.
[00:36:24] And so he read that. And then in that moment he prayed and said, lord, I'm reading this and would you make me your son through Jesus? And he came to that Bible study with these goody two shoes. And he says, hey guys, guess what?
[00:36:39] I'm a son of God too, because I've trusted Christ and you guys do all these good things, but that's not what makes you a son. And he thought he would make them mad by saying that like in other words, you're doing all this work and you don't have to, you can be a son of God just by trusting in Christ.
[00:36:58] And they didn't get mad. They said, woo hoo. Yes, you get it.
[00:37:04] And then he was mad that they didn't get mad.
[00:37:07] But then all of a sudden, God began to work in his heart and to confirm the truth and power of that prayer. And it changed his life.
[00:37:20] And just here's what I love about that. Today you and I can experience the privilege and the power of prayer because of Jesus Christ.
[00:37:33] You are a son, you are a daughter if you do just what Ann Lee said. You just, you ask Christ and you trust Christ to make you that.
[00:37:45] See, all of this powerful teaching about prayer is not for the spiritual elite.
[00:37:53] It's for the spiritual unimpressive, AKA you and me, church, no offense.
[00:38:01] It's for the everyday people like you and me who are looking to Christ and saying, only in your name does any of this matter.
[00:38:12] Only in your name is this possible.
[00:38:15] And so today, church, we can experience the power, the privilege, the reality of prayer because of Christ.
[00:38:25] And that's why as Christians, we say we end every prayer we say in Jesus name. That's why we say that.
[00:38:32] We say it only matters if this is in Jesus name, if this is through him and by them. God, I'm not expecting you to listen to me because of who I am.
[00:38:45] I'm trusting that you hear me because of what Christ has done for me.
[00:38:52] My hope, my trust, my confidence is in him.
[00:38:56] So we can pray boldly, we can pray confidently, we can pray intentionally. We can expect God to meet us, to see us, and to act because of him. Let's pray.
[00:39:10] Lord Jesus, I thank you that you do invite us into this great privilege.
[00:39:20] But Lord, when I think about my life, I think about how many times I've left this privilege on the table.
[00:39:30] I think about how easy it is, Lord, to just rush through life and not pray.
[00:39:38] I find in myself, Lord, such a tendency to make decisions and to stress about things and to struggle through things and to do it all without engaging in the power of prayer.
[00:39:58] And so, Lord, I pray you would just help us today to be drawn to prayer in a new way.
[00:40:05] I pray we could hear Jesus words as an invitation, as a challenge, as a reframing.
[00:40:15] And I pray, Lord, we would have a secret place in our lives and we would go and we would pray and we would humble ourselves as your sons and daughters, and we would trust you as our heavenly father.
[00:40:30] I pray, Lord, in prayer we could see you.
[00:40:34] And I also pray, Lord, that we could know that you see us, that you care, that you're real, that those words and those cries and those groans are not just dissipating into the atmosphere, but they're being held in your heart and worked out through your mighty hands.
[00:40:59] And I pray, Lord, as we see that happening in our life, our faith would grow to new levels.
[00:41:07] Bless us, Lord, with this. Help us to see the power of it. In Jesus name, amen.
