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Feb 04, 2024

My View Of Prayer

My View Of Prayer

Passage: Matthew 6:5-7

Speaker: Matt Petty

Series: Rethink Your Life

Category: Sunday Sermons

Keywords: church, worship, prayer, faith, jesus, god, sermon, christian, bible, christ, gospel, hope, pray, preaching, sermons, holy spirit, praying, spiritual, jesus christ, christianity, teaching, bible study, how to pray, the gospel, prayers, fasting and prayer, power of prayer, step by step, study the bible, powerful prayer, the power of prayer, bible teaching, 2023, prayer for healing, burnt hickory worship, burnt hickory baptist church live stream, how to do

This week, we continue our sermon series on rethinking our lives in light of scripture by diving into our view of prayer. Prayer is hard because it’s spiritual warfare, but it also unleashes an unstoppable eternal power from God. God deeply desires that we as His children honestly communicate with him from our hearts. We see in the bible that our pattern for prayer is not to just get something from God but to experience Him more fully. We don’t impress him with our prayers, but through humble adoration, total submission, wholehearted petitioning, and obedient responses, God will hear and answer our prayers. Are you praying intending to grow closer to God, or are you looking for something from Him? Are you growing weary in the spiritual warfare and need encouragement in your prayer life? If you need prayer, we’d love to spend time with you in prayer and take time to answer your questions, so reach out today! Our prayer hotline is 770-590-0372, or you can email prayer@burnthickory.com. You can always take the next step in your faith journey and let us know about it by visiting burnthickory.com/next.

Well, good morning, church. Thanks for being here today. And then I just wanted to say, on behalf of all of the leadership of this church, I just want to pause just for a minute and say thank you. Over these last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of stuff going on here in the life of the church. And you guys have incredibly stepped up from your volunteering to your serving to your giving. There has been such a sweet spirit here and we are just seeing some incredible things happen in the life of the church. So thank you for what you're doing. Keep praying that we can reach this community.

Well, if you've been here over the last couple of weeks, you know we're in this series that we're just calling Rethink Your Life. Where we're leaning into this concept or this idea of so goes your thinking, so goes your life. And it's this truth that is absolutely incredible that wherever we place our attention, that is where our life seems to drift to. Wherever we don't have our attention, we seem to drift away from those things. So we're pulling some of the big ideas and the big chunks of our life out, and we're holding them up against Scripture, against where God would have us. And we're just asking God to reshape our attention, to help us rethink some things in our lives. We started out in Ephesians 2 on week one, where the Apostle Paul showed us what it looks like to have a true relationship with Jesus. And we asked ourselves that weekend, How can I know that I am saved? He tells us in that passage that we know that we're saved by Christ's power and his redemption. We know we're saved when Christ has forgiven us and given us life.

During the second week, we asked ourselves to rethink our relationship with the word and with Scripture. And we showed out of second Peter, that week what it looks like to know that I can trust that the Word of God is true. Not because my mama told me, not because the church says that I should, but we can trust scripture, the Apostle Peter says because it is a true, proven document given by God. We challenged ourselves that week to ask ourselves, What does my relationship with the word looks like? We moved from the Word of God in week three and asked ourselves, What is my definition of worship? And I ask you to rethink worship and to expand your boundaries farther than just the 25 minutes that we stand in here when the band is leading us. But what is worship? We looked at the second Samuel six, where David was bringing the presence of God back into the city of David, and he showed us what it looked like to worship, which by definition is just putting God's worth on display. Last week we moved into another incredible key area of our life, and last week we looked at the Apostle Paul's definition of biblical success.

Now I know we stepped on a lot of toes last week as my toes were all over getting stepped on last week because the reality is, that most of our views of success have been shaped by culture, have been shaped by those around us, maybe even shaped by what our parents told us what success looks like. Well, last week out of Chapter 20, Paul, in his farewell address to the Ephesian leaders, Paul says this success is laying down who I am and holding up who Jesus is. And we had some targets of success last week and we asked ourselves last week, am I living for my success or my living for his?

Well, this week we're going to pull into another equally massive topic in our life. And I'm just going to ask you today, quite frankly, whether you've been saved for one year or 80 years. Today, I'm going to ask you to rethink your prayer life, to rethink your prayer life. And I'm talking to all of us, no matter how mature we are in the faith or how young we are in your faith. I want to ask you to rethink your prayer life today. We're going to do it by watching Jesus give us an example of effective prayer. If you've got a copy of Scripture today, turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew Chapter six, Matthew Chapter six, and we're going to work through the most famous prayer of all time, the Lord's Prayer. As you're finding I want to give you or mention a couple of warnings that even keep us from getting started sometimes in conversations like this. The first warning is this If you have been a Christian for any length of time, there's probably nothing that I'm going to say today that is going to change a major paradigm kind of or open up some new realm of understanding for you. It's not. It's going to be incredibly, incredibly just what you have heard about this passage before.

But I'm just going to ask you to see it through fresh eyes. One of the things that I struggle with in my relationship with the Lord the worst is the fact that I know Scripture, and when I come to the Scripture that I already know, a lot of times I find myself just breezing through the passage to get to something else. I'm going to ask you today in Matthew chapter six to place everything you know about this on the back burner and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you. The second warning I want to give you today is that I know that no one here, no matter whether they are new or seasoned Christians, is going to be surprised today by the fact that Jesus tells us that we should be people of prayer. You know that. Third, I also realized today that me getting up here and ranting and raving and trying to guilt you into praying is not going to work. It's just not going to do it. And it might do it like this afternoon. But by tomorrow afternoon you'll totally forget about it. So that's not going to happen today. And here's the fourth morning. I also know that this, if we're honest with each other today and if we're honest with ourselves today, all of us, or at least most of us, would say these words today, Matt, if I'm honest, I have to say that prayer, prayer is hard. It's hard.

Whether I've been a Christian for one year or 60 years. Prayer is it's hard. In fact, do me a favor today, if you are a person that would just honestly say today, right? But honestly say, Matt, I wish I had a more vibrant prayer life, a better prayer life. If that's you today, would you just do me a favor? Raise your hand today if that's you. Both my hands are up, right? Both my hands Raise them up high real fast because I want to know who doesn't wish that, so they could get up here and teach this, right? Because here's something I know. All right. Here's what I know all of us could use a better prayer life. I know that about us. So we all need this talk on prayer. So let me do this before we jump into the passage. I want to give you three general thoughts on prayer that can kind of build some unity. And then I want to give us what Jesus says to us today. I'll put this in your notes. You can write it down. Number one, prayer is hard because prayer is spiritual warfare. It's spiritual warfare.

Now, let me flesh this out for you just for a second and show you how you know this is true. Have you ever realized that the last thing that Satan wants you to do is pray? Hey, have you ever experienced this? You know what I'm talking about. You will go all day long. No one will call you. No one will come to your house. Your kids seem normal, and your husband finds everything that he's looking for. Right? And no one will hardly speak to you. But at the moment, I'm telling you, at the moment you begin to pray. What happens in your life? I mean, all heck must lose, doesn't it? The doorbell rings, and the dog makes a mess somewhere. Your husband can't find something. Your kids turn into little mini Satan's running around the house, right? You find, like, all you find, like, all this random stuff you don't even want to do and you start doing it. I mean, you're picking up laundry like you find yourself in the bedroom, folding laundry, for goodness sake. You don't even want to do it. But that's how you know. You know, the last thing Satan wants you to do is pray. And it's not it's not random. It's not random. The fact is that as soon as you start doing it, all of these things happen in your life, and all of this stuff raises up in your life. Why? Why? Because she knows that prayer is the foundation we are called to fight with. It is the foundation that we're called to have. Prayer is the offensive weapon. It is the offensive weapon of the Jesus follower. And prayer is the true key to flourishing as a son and daughter of the king. That's what prayer is.

I love how Samuel Chadwick puts it in his book, The Prayer Path. Listen to this quote. He says this one concern of the devil is to keep the saints from praying. Our enemy fears nothing from our prayerless studies, our prayerless work, and our prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil. He mocks at our wisdom. But he trembles when we pray. Prayer turns ordinary mortals and the men of power. Prayer brings fire. Prayer brings rain. It brings life. It brings God. And there's no power like that of the prevailing prayer. So what does this mean? Yeah, it's spiritual warfare. But number two, look at what Chadwick mentioned here. Number two is prayer unleashes an unstoppable eternal power from God at its core. Satan hates it. But prayer unleashes the power of God into situations in our lives. And this is so freeing when you think about it. And here's why. Because that's the power of prayer, which is not from me and not from you. It takes that pressure off of us. So when we pray, we are praying that God's power will be released inside of us. Listen to this. 667 prayers are mentioned in Scripture and 454 of them in the Bible, there is an answer of God and how God moved in the situation. That's where prayer is.

Prayer unleashes this power that is not from us. We don't come up with it. It is from God. The primary. I didn't put this in your notes but listen to this. The primary conduit for God's power to move in your life is not trying harder. It's not more effort. It's not being around more. It's prayer. It's prayer. So with those two things being said, listen to this. Number three. God's desire is to his children just honestly communicate with him from the heart. That's God's prayer. God's prayer is that we would just honestly communicate from our heart to the heart of God. Now, here's what that means. All right. Just practically speaking, that means that you don't have to have some kind of fancy prayer language. All right. That's what that is. That's what that means, right? Here's what that means. Just talk to the father. Just talk to God. It doesn't have to be some specific pattern. It doesn't have to be some fancy kings or English language prayer. In fact, some of the more formalized prayers and some of the more formalized language are what have kept some of us from becoming people of prayer. You know that I'm right in this. You see, some of you grew up in situations when you heard people pray, you were like, I will never sound like that. I can never string words together like that. That guy is like Thoreau. I don't know where he gets this. I don't know how he can come up with this. Have you ever heard somebody pray and you're like, Dang, I don't know what they just said, but it sounded good? I mean, you know what I'm talking about. God, just that's not what it's about. A lot of you grew up in families where there's fancy prayer language was all over the place. You know, you get in the car to head off on vacation and watch Dad praying in the front seat. God, just give us some travel mercies. Nobody has ever said the word travel mercies before except for in that moment. I love Tim Hawkins, he puts it like this. You sit down at the dinner table and what's the first thing somebody prays for? God bless these nasty tacos for the nourishment of our bodies. Right. Bless this. The head of your super spiritual. He says, Did you go and bless the hands that prepared it right? You have to throw that one in that fancy language. Or how about you're praying for somebody else and then you start praying for that hedge? I never knew what that hedge of protection was in life, but that's what I'm talking about.

We get caught up in these words and we start copying other people's prayers and we're not praying. We're just trying to sound like somebody else. God says, Quit. I'm not concerned with your eloquent language. I'm not concerned with this eloquent wisdom. I just want your heart to connect with mine. See, God wants a personal relationship with you, but also God wants this prayer relationship with you so much that Jesus not only came to this world and lived and only came to this world and died and rose. But Jesus came in while he was here, catch this. One of the clearest things that Jesus did while he was on this earth was to teach us how to pray. This gets us to Matthew Chapter Six. Matthew Chapter six. Jesus teaches us, through this Lord's Prayer, a model that we can use in our daily lives.

And before Jesus teaches us how to pray, though how He masterfully does it so many times, He teaches us how not to pray. It's compare and contrast. It's one of his favorite teaching styles. So first, I just want to walk us through the text today, and I want to show you how Jesus says not to pray. And we pray not like the Pharisees that he's about to show us. Watch this. Matthew, Chapter six, verse five. Here's what he says. Jesus says this. And when you pray. Now notice it doesn't say if you pray. The assumption is if you're a follower of Jesus, that prayer is a part of your life, he says. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. Don't be like the hypocrites. Now, this is a very specific word because this was Jesus's pet name for the Pharisees who were there when he was saying it. I love the snarkiness of Jesus sometimes, right? They were in the room. It was this group of people that were super religious, but they had no passion for God. And he's going like, don't pray like those guys. No, no. Watch what he says. He says, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Now, this is not an attack on public prayer. Save the emails. Write public prayer has a place. Okay, It does. But it only has a place if your heart is right. This is what Jesus is saying. Watch what he says. He says they only, love to pray standing in the synagogues on the street corner to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. Why? Because the reward is the recognition or status.

But verse six, watch what he says, But when you pray, go into your room. Close the door. Pray to your father, who is unseen. Then your father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. So how do we not pray? In summary, it's pretty easy. Jesus says, Don't pray like the religious people. Now, this was bold because they were there. Jesus is saying, Don't pray like the religious people. Pray like the people who have been delivered, saved, and adopted into God's kingdom. Think about this. Lots of religious people, quote-unquote, pray, don't they? Lots of them do. But Jesus said don't be like them. Why? Because they pray primarily for two reasons. And I put these in your notes. Number one, they pray to use God.

You see religious people, really just pray to use God. There are so many ways to apply this. But here Jesus is describing a group of people that pray really and truly just to get the respect of other people. They're not interested in connecting with the heart of God. They want to feel superior. They want to feel like they're the most important person or they're the most powerful person. So Jesus is obviously not a fan of this, but why? Here's what you can write the principle down. The true motivation of prayer should not be just to get something from God. It should be to experience God more fully. Now, I recognize that I just stepped all over the paradigm of a lot of people's prayers right there. Why? For a lot of people, the reason that we pray is to get something from God. But what is Jesus telling us? Jesus is saying? That is not the primary reason why we pray.

We pray, first of all, to experience God. And here's what that means. There is a stark difference between a love relationship with God and a transactional relationship with God. Here's what I mean by that. A love relationship means that I just want to get to know you. I just want to be in your presence. I just want to experience you. A transactional relationship means that I'm just about the business God, and I just think that you're some genie in a bottle that's going to give me what I want. You see, if your relationship with God is a transactional relationship, you will find yourself always having to discipline yourself to pray because you think God is just your servant or your genie that is going to bless you. If you think if your relationship with God is a love relationship, then you will just want to be with God. There's a difference there. You just want to see God in your life. You want to see God move. You want to be in step with God and you want to see God's power flow to this earth. I think this is one of the huge, huge, huge mistakes of the modern church is that our transactional relationship is not a love relationship. See, the question that hit me this week and I was dealing with this is, is Matt, do I talk to myself a lot? Do you talk to yourself a lot? I talk to myself a lot. Matt, do I see God as beautiful or do I see God as useful? You see, that's the difference right here that he's talking about. Well, Matt, I don't know that. Well, Jesus gives us the answer, and he says that you can know which one of these you see him as. If you just look at your prayers, in fact, look over six again, it says.

But when you pray, go into your room and close the door and pray to your father, who is unseen, then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Jesus basically says, that if you want to know the ultimate litmus test of your relationship with Jesus, if you're a follower of Jesus, it is not how you serve. It is not your outward obedience, although those are incredibly important if you want to know where your relationship with Jesus stands. Ask yourself How is your secret prayer life? Why is that? Well, secret prayer is the only action in a believer's life that can never be outwardly rewarded by man. Have You ever thought about this? If you serve in some way, somebody can give you an accolade. If you come and worship publicly, somebody can say, wow, look at that. They've been to church two weeks in a row. It's a miracle, right? No. But your secret prayer life is not something that anybody else sees. And in that moment, it quickly identifies your outlook on God's power, your outlook on God's presence, and your outlook on God's character. It identifies who you think is in control or how much you want to be in the presence of God.

You say, well Matt doesn't any prayer do that? No. Because I know that I've heard people pray with unclean intentions. Just to sound better or sound more spiritual or be in the moment, right? But you see secret prayer doesn't do that because there's nobody there to give you any accolades. It is you connect your heart with God. So let me ask you something. Are your prayers using God or your prayers desiring to experience God? And your secret prayer life will tell you the answer to that. So, number one, they pray to use God. But number two, watch this. Religious people, pray to impress God. They pray to impress God. It seems kind of crazy, but. But keep reading. Watch what he says. Four, seven, he says. And when you pray, do not keep babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Now here's what he's saying. He says, You know what religious people, they get into this mode where they just kind of keep repeating the same thing over and over and over again, thinking that kind of like a dripping faucet they will eventually wear God down and eventually God will move in their life.

Now, this is way different than in the parable of the judge, right? This is way different. That is bringing our request before God. Until God tells us not to. Right. This is if I just keep saying these couple of phrases, if I just read these couple lines, think the Buddhist is chanting or the Muslim prayer guide, or maybe even the rosary at some point in your life, there is just this constant over and over and over again, and there's no emotional connection to it. There's nothing from the heart. It's just words that we're saying. You see, really, this kind of thinking shows that that person is basing their relationship with a god. There is this feeling that God is being hostile toward them, and eventually, you can just wear God down to hear you. But that's so untrue and like so much so Jesus said quit your babbling. That's not how God works. That word babble is the same word that Elijah used in First Kings 18 when he called out the pagan worshipers dancing around trying to call fire down all day. He has three words, and fire hits the world. Why?

The fact of the matter is that God wants you to experience him more than you want to experience him, and you're never going to earn God's attention. That's the point. So Jesus just says quit babbling. Just bring your request and bring your life because you already have full access to me. So listen, we don't pray to impress God. We don't pray to use God. Jesus says we pray to know and we pray to love him. We pray to trust him. We pray to petition him. So Jesus says, quite frankly, don't pray like those guys. Right? But then he moves on, and watch what he does, he doesn't stop in the negative. He gives us the positive. Watch the prayer. We've heard this. If you've ever been on a sports team or lived in the South, here it is, right? Matthew 6, verse nine, says, This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us of our debt as we have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

I love what Martin Luther says about this prayer. He says this is a prayer that you can pray a thousand times and get something new out of it every single time. But unfortunately, it is a prayer that many of us do pray a thousand times, but yet get nothing out of it. So here's what we're going to do for a couple of minutes that we have left. We're going to pull a couple of essentials from this prayer that really and truly can give us somewhat of a guide to place into our private prayer moments to know that we are praying effective prayers. You say, Matt, you told me, that's not about a methodical approach. It's not about a certain word to pray. That's not what I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you Jesus's way of how we can connect with the Father according to Jesus. And here they are. There are four of them. Number one, Jesus says that the first element of effective prayer is what he would just call humble adoration. Now, adoration is a church word, and here's what it means literally just means to lift up Jesus, to lift up God, to point to God, to point to God first. Now, notice in this prayer that it doesn't start with my desires. Look at it. Verse nine again. It says, This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Now we get you some words, kind of get some phrases to get to this, and I'm just going to call them out in order just to teach to this text. Look at the first word. It is our. It's our. I love the fact that Jesus starts this as our because it gives us the sense of community, the sense of knowledge that when we approach God and pray, listen to this believer.

You are doing what thousands of years of saints and millions of other people have done because you are then created to connect into a community of faith and come to the Father. When we connect with God, as in our statement, we're realizing that it's not just about me, it is about the body of Christ, and it is about me seeking him. We are not the center of the universe. Also, Christianity is not a solo sport where you do it in a community. The next word is our what? Our father. Our father. Now to us like, Well, man, I see that all the time in Scripture. You do, because it's one of the most beautiful attributes of how we can call on God. Why? Because God as Father means that God has what's best in mind for you, and He has the resources to achieve it. Now, remember, to us, that's an incredible statement.

But to these people, it was huge because they never saw God as their father until Jesus began to teach this and show them that God is not this abstract being that is out there, that He is your father and the father wants what's best for you. Remember this, though. Some of you had great dads, some of you had crummy dads. Remember, God is not the reflection of your father, your earthly father. God is the protection of your earthly father. So when you approach God, you are approaching him as the father. And of all the names of God, this one separates God, our big G God away from all the little g gods because nobody else claims this. Our Father, what? In heaven. What does that mean? That means yes, God is in heaven. Yes, God is here. But location is not the point of this. It means that God is in the position of control and while God is with us, He is also transcendent. He is above us. He is larger than us. And while God is with us, he has an eternal perspective. I love this idea because what this is doing is pointing the attention away from me and on the bigness, on the majesty, on the wholeness, and on who God is. What am I doing? I'm adoring him for what he has done, what he can do, and what he will do. That's how we start our prayers. I love how Philip Yancey says that. He says prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view from heaven. What's the next phrase? Hallowed be your name. That one confused me as a kid because they only say that Halloween, right? It sounds scary, but it's not. Hallowed literally just means God, I am lifting you above all else. And my ultimate concern, God is for you, not my comfort and not my riches.

I love this. And we put all this together. Jesus is just saying to us before we ask God for anything, let's adore him. Let's lift him up. Let's give him the honor that is due to him. Let me ask it. Is that how your prayer life starts? With you coming before him and realizing who he is and what he's done and what he's going to do? Number one, Jesus says effective prayer starts with humble adoration. But number two, he says continues with what he's just going to call total submission. Total submission. Now, notice, though, that you're still not in the position to say, God, give me. Why? Because you haven't submitted anything to him. You haven't given him your life. Look at the next phrase in verse ten. It says That's your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Believers, listen to me. I think that's one of the scariest verses in the whole Bible if you're a believer. One because what does this do? It takes two. It takes the focus off of this guy right here, and it invites the presence and the power of God's agenda into every part of my life.

Now, why would Jesus say it like this? Why would he say, Your kingdom come, your will be done? Why would he say that? Why? There is a day coming up when we know that perfection and fulfillment and 100% worship of God are going to come. We know that as believers in Jesus Christ. But what this prayer is doing, is asking our hearts to submit to the fact that I want to live that way now. And I want to give myself to Jesus that way now. And I want to submit my heart. I love where he says, Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven is saying, It's not my will, it's not my wants God, it is your desires. These first two areas of humble submission, I mean of humble adoration and total submission are really a picture of where is my relationship with Jesus. Look, if I'm just jumping into God, I need. God, I need. God, I need. Then I don't understand God. But what is it saying? It's saying God, I lift you and God, I fall down to you. I love how Al Mohler says this. Listen to this quote. He says, Our prayers. This is scary. Reveal our deepest convictions about God, about ourselves, and about the world around us.

Every word we utter in prayer, every idea and every concept that we form as we pray and every emotion that flows out of our heart is a reflection of what we believe about God and about the Gospel of Christ. So when we grasp, here it is. When we grasp who God is, when we grasp how big He is, when we grasp how powerful is, and when we grasp how small and how much we need His kingdom now, Why in the world would I turn to anyone else for anything except for God? So number one, humble adoration. Number two is total submission, which moves me then to number three, which I'm just calling wholehearted petitioning. Or if you want a smaller word for that, ask. Right. That's it. Wholehearted asking of God. Now, I love this because it comes after we realize who God is and who we are. But watch what Jesus says right here. Verse 11 He says, Give us today our daily bread and forgive us of our debts as we have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Now watch what Jesus does here. Jesus gives us four general areas that we should always be aware of in our lives when we are bringing requests before God.

The first one that Jesus says is Give us this day our daily bread. Now I was probably about 18 years old before I realized that this was not just about me praying that lunch was coming, right? This is about me praying for God to meet my daily needs. Now, obviously, he's talking about manna in the wilderness. Obviously, he's talking about the Jewish diet, which was always bread involved. Amen. Come on biscuits in the South, you non-keto people. Right. But he's praying for a bigger thing here. He's saying, God, I know that you are concerned with everything about my needs. Listen to me because God cares about your everyday needs, your big ones, and your small ones. He cares and Jesus is instructing us to rely on a God that can literally give us what we need for this moment. That's what the manna was, right? It wasn't good for tomorrow. It was good for today. That's why when God says you come and you do this daily, you come before me regularly because God is going to give you what you need for this moment. So here's the deal. Believe believer.

Listen, God cares about your job. He cares about your relationships. He cares about your school. He cares about your family. He cares about your aching bones. He cares about your health. He cares about your lost friends. God give me today my daily bread. God, give me what I need for this moment. That is okay. Bring it before the father. But then he moves and Jesus says. And also forgive us of our debts. Now that means nothing about mortgage. Although that would be awesome. Would it not? No. He's saying, God forgive me of my sins. That's what the word debt literally is here. And ultimately, while daily needs are big, God forgiving us of our sins is the greatest need in our lives. So what is he doing? He's encouraging us to confess to bring our repentance to him. Most of us don't do this because of two reasons. Either we think too highly of ourselves that we're not a sinner and we don't need the grace of God.

Secondly, we think too lowly of ourselves, and we feel like we can't bring him before God. Neither one of those is true. The Gospel says that he is a forgiver. And he's saying, pray to God, ask him to forgive you. So. Well, Matt, I thought you were supposed to do that at the very beginning of your prayer so God could hear me pray before I get to everything else. That's great. That's fabulous. You be you. But I'm following Jesus's models to take it up with him. Right. Here it is, number three. He also says, Lead us from temptation. Now, I love this one because this is a pre-loaded prayer where we're asking God to put roadblocks up in front of us in those areas that we know that we are predisposed to fall to. Do you know what yours is? Amen. Wives, don't tell him what it is they know, right? They know.

But what we're doing in this prayer and this petitioning and asking of God, is going God I know that I struggle with this. God, I know this is coming today. God, I know this is around the corner today. And I'm going to ask you, even before it gets here, to step in the middle of it. And then fourth, what does he say? And deliver us from evil. Deliver us. In other words, God, when I'm in the middle of it, when I've already stepped in the middle of it, God, take me out of the trap. I love this language because it's so cool to walk through just the triune nature of God, where we're lifting up the Father's name. We're recognizing what Jesus has done on the cross to give us access to God. And now we're asking the Spirit to lead us into forgiveness. And none of this is by my power. It's all God. This is all him stepping in. Hey, look, you can't live this prayer on your own when you smash all of these petitions together. Really, what you're doing is you're saying, God, I'm asking you to help me from being in control. I'm asking you to forgive me, to deliver me, to give me what I need today. Thank God I'm realizing and recognizing that I have sinned in my life. And would you forgive me for it? Would you protect me from it? Would you steer me away from it? And, God, when I get in the middle of it, would you rescue me from it?

That's prayer. And God wants to hear that from us. Listen, you're not going to tell him anything, he already knows. You realize this, right? When you come before him, he already knows your heart. He's just asking you to recognize it. So there's humble adoration. We're bowing before him. There's total submission. We're going it's not about me. It's about you. There's wholehearted petitioning where we're asking God to move. And here's the last one. Effective prayer always brings obedient responses. Now, this one's a little bit different, but this is how you can know if there is effective prayer happening. It's if there is a response that is happening in your life due to the prayer. If you're just praying all the time, I want you to hear this, hear this. Prayer is not the ultimate goal. Prayer is the connector into God's power so that we may live his power, and presence and see see him moving in our lives. Does that make sense?

If you are only a person of prayer and you never see it walked out in your life, then your prayer is not effective. Prayer is awesome, but the ultimate goal is connecting with the heart of God and walking that out in our lives. That's the goal, right? Look at verse 12. It says, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. You see when we experience God in this kind of prayer, here's what happens. It takes the focus off of me. It puts the focus on him. It invites the power of God into my life. The power of God begins to flow out of my life. And there is always a response. In this scripture, He gives us the example that we just forgive other people for their sins. Jesus knew that was a tough one, but there were plenty of others that could have gone into that. But it's God moving in us.

Now, you say Matt, that's great. That's fabulous. I've heard that before. What does all of this have to do with me? It has everything to do with you. Why? Because every day. What if we use this as the prayer guide for our lives? How do I do that? Well, that's how I want to finish the service today. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to close your Bibles. I want you to turn your phones off for me for just a minute. I want you to get out of that game. You finish up real quick. Do it real quick. All right? And I want you just to listen just for a second, because to close up this service right before the invitation, I just want to walk you through what your time in prayer could look like using this.

So, would you bow your head and me just for a minute? I just want you to say this to the Lord. I want you to say God today I adore you. I lift you up. I thank you for saving me. I thank you for being a God who is a rescuer. I thank you for being a God who reached down into the nastiness and gave me life. I thank you for being a God that doesn't give up on me. I thank you for being Emmanuel that is with me, but also being over the universe. God, I thank you for all you have done for my life and my family. God, I adore you. You're the one that goes before me. You're the one that never leaves me, nor forsakes me. You're the one that carries me when I can't go any farther. God, I adore you. I lift you up. I give you honor, I give you praise and I say thank you, Father. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, God. I adore you.

And with your heads bowed. There are probably lots of things in your mind that connect even more when it comes to adoring him. That's when knowing the character of God. That's when having Scripture. That's when having worship songs in your mind. All of that matters at this moment because it gives us even more ammunition to lift and adore King Jesus. But after we adore God in our time with the Lord, we just submit to Him. We submit by saying something like, God, I know that I have a tendency to take control. I know I have a tendency to do my own thing. I know I have a tendency to walk in my power. But God, today I am taking myself off the throne and I am giving you all of me. God, I'm yours. And I'm submitting this day to you. My family to you. My job to you. My school to you. My sports to you. My popularity to you. God, I am giving all of me to you.

We've adored him. We submitted and now you can ask. God, I'm asking you to step into my life. God walk in this situation today. I don't know what your situation is. Walk in this in my family. Walk in this is my school. God, walk in this is my health. God, show me how to talk to him. Show me how to talk to her. God deliver us from this moment. God forgives me for all of this. God set me on this path. God, show yourself to me in a mighty way today. God put me in a situation to honor you today.

Do you see how this works? It's asking of him. God, your kingdom come. God, don't make this about me. I want it to be about you and your love and your grace and your mercy. God help me to be the wife that I need to be. Help me to be the husband I need to be. The dad, the mom, the kid. God, watch my attitude today. God, give me your power today. See how it's working? I've adored him. I've submitted my life to him. I'm asking him. And then here's the last one. God, just help me to respond to you. And God help me when you say go, that I go. Lord Jesus today. God, I fully realize that nothing in this message today is a surprise.

But God, I also realize that there's a reason that you pause in the back side of the Sermon on the Mount and you just told a whole bunch of people that have been walking with you for a good while how to pray. God in these next couple of minutes, I just ask you, just allow us to sit in this moment for a minute. God, maybe some of us just need to sit and pray for a couple of minutes. Maybe some of us need to stand and worship you for a couple of moments, God, maybe today hearing all of this, somebody has finally realized that you are King Jesus and want to deliver them and give them life and save them. Today, God, in this next couple of minutes, moves in people's hearts and lives. Thank you, Jesus. It's in your name.

Amen.

Let's stand and sing together. I'm going to be right over here beside the next steps banner. If you just need somebody to pray with you today, man, I'd love to do that. If you need to give your life to Christ today, it's an incredible day to do that. If you just need somebody to pray over you. We'd love to do that too. Let's sing.

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My View of Prayer

February 4, 2024

3 General Thoughts on Prayer

1. Prayer is hard because it’s spiritual .

“The one concern of the devil is to keep the saints from prayer. Our enemy fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray. Prayer turns ordinary mortals into men of power. Prayer brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God. There is no power like that of prevailing prayer.”
— Samuel Chadwick, The Path of Prayer

2. Prayer an unstoppable eternal power from God.

3. God desires that His children just communicate with Him from the heart.

Matthew 6:5–6
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Religious People Pray to…

1. God.

PRINCIPLE: The true motivation of prayer should be to just get something from God; it should be to experience God more fully.

Matthew 6:6
“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

2. God.

Matthew 6:7–8
7 “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
Matthew 6:9–13
9 ““This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”
4 Elements of Effective Prayer

1. Humble .

Matthew 6:9
“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…’”

“Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view.”
— Philip Yancey

“God, You are the supreme and absolute treasure in all the universe and over the universe. All other treasures are as nothing by comparison.”
— John Piper

2. Total .

Matthew 6:10
“‘…your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”

“Our prayers reveal our deepest convictions about God, about ourselves, and about the world around us. Every word we utter in prayer, every idea and concept that we form as we pray, and every emotion that flows out of our heart is a reflection of what we believe about God and about the gospel of Christ.”
— Al Mohler

3. Wholehearted .

Matthew 6:11–13
11 “Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”

4. Obedient .

Matthew 6:12
“‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.’”
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