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00:00:12.000 Oh my God.
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00:01:05.000 Welcome everyone.
00:01:07.000 [cheering]
00:01:08.000 Welcome everyone. Welcome everyone watching online as well. And I don't know about you, but that bumper music kind of makes me want to dance, but trust me, I won't do it. Not publicly,
00:01:16.000 not in front of anybody. My wife said, "Amen. God answers prayers." But how many of you wake up some days and you're tired, you grab your coffee, get
00:01:24.000 the kids, you put them on the bus, you get them to school, or maybe you just got to get to work, you got to run errands, you deal with people, you got to answer emails, you got all this stuff
00:01:33.000 you do, you come home, you go to bed, and you wake up and you do it all over again. Anybody feel like that?
00:01:40.000 That routine, that rut, that just mundane day after day after day life that we get into. And we all have a rhythm of life.
00:01:50.000 But I believe God wants us to have a healthy rhythm of life. Not just a rhythm of life, but a healthy one. And not just a rhythm of life, but a
00:01:58.000 healthy spiritual rhythm of life as well. And this series called Morning, Noon, and Night is all about helping us
00:02:05.000 practically read the Word of God and then applying it to our lives. How do we have healthy spiritual rhythms in our
00:02:13.000 lives? And that's morning, noon, and night. It's not just a one-time thing on Sunday, but it's every single day. We can have healthy spiritual rhythms. And
00:02:22.000 we all know about this thing called prayer. I believe all of us know the power of prayer. We read about it. We've heard about prayer. But believing in
00:02:31.000 prayer and actually praying are two different things.
00:02:36.000 So not just believing in this thing that's available to us but then actually applying it and doing it with our lives.
00:02:42.000 And I find most often people are thinking a lot more than they are praying. Now you can be thinking and praying within your mind, but I believe many times we're ruminating things.
00:02:51.000 And I don't know about you, but have you ever had so many thoughts that you got so full of joy, like overwhelmed with good thoughts? Or does overthinking typically
00:03:00.000 lead you to negative thoughts, fearful thoughts, anxious thoughts? Prayer works the same way. When we pray and we go to God, it actually transforms our
00:03:09.000 thoughts and our mind to be fixated and focused on the right things, the things of God. So today's message is more than
00:03:16.000 just information. There's going to be a lot of information. It's more about application. So my goal is not that you would leave here today going, "Oh, I
00:03:25.000 know I'm supposed to pray more." But you would see the why. You'd see the importance, and you'd have some tools of why and how we can pray and be a people
00:03:33.000 who pray as well. Let me give you very practical steps that really -- prayer is the highest level of activity. The
00:03:41.000 most important thing that we could do is pray. I want you to catch that because there's so many things that are important in life, but really prayer is
00:03:50.000 connecting with God, the Creator of the universe, and He desires to have relationship and communication with us.
00:03:57.000 So it's the highest level of activity.
00:03:59.000 The greatest thing we can be engaged with is prayer. So that's how important it is. And I'm going to encourage all of
00:04:06.000 us to take an extra 15 minutes a day -- that's just a little more than 1% of our day -- an extra 15 minutes a day this
00:04:13.000 week, every single day, to spend time in prayer. That's something every one of you can do. I want to encourage you with that. So before we jump into this
00:04:21.000 message, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You, God, for this day. God, thank You that we could gather together to worship You. God, thank You that we have
00:04:29.000 a roof over our head, to be dry and in, and out from the weather. God, I thank You for the people sitting here and listening to the sound of my voice. For
00:04:36.000 all those watching online, God, I pray that they would hear from You. God, that I would be a conduit for Your Spirit,
00:04:42.000 for Your Word, for Your truth. God, speak through this earthen vessel to communicate Your heavenly truths to this
00:04:50.000 room full of great, great people who need to hear from You. God, I pray that You would transform each and every one of us. Help us see the importance of
00:04:57.000 prayer, to understand how we can pray, and God, that we would actually be a people who pray. And Father, I pray You'd receive all the praise, all the honor, and all the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.
00:05:10.000 So, what is prayer? Just very basic.
00:05:13.000 Let's get a starting point. Prayer is simply put communication with God. It's communicating, but it's not simply just
00:05:21.000 talking at God. It's not even us talking to God. It's communicating with God. So communication should have a two-way
00:05:28.000 communication. We communicate with God, God communicates with us as well. So prayer is communication. It's also
00:05:36.000 relationship with God. And I'll probably say that dozens of times today: that prayer is relationship. It's not about
00:05:44.000 what we get from God or what we can do for God, but ultimately prayer is relationship. So all of you have somebody you love in your life.
00:05:52.000 Hopefully the people sitting next to you, you love them. If you had a relationship with somebody -- and think about this -- you called them up, like if I called my wife and said, "Hey, Rachel,
00:06:01.000 I need you to do this for me. I need you to fix this. I need you to give me this. I need you to bring me something.
00:06:06.000 I need you to do something for me. Okay, bye." And I hang up. And then I don't talk to her again until I need something else. And then I call her again and say,
00:06:13.000 "Hey, Rachel, I need you to do this for me. I need you to fix this. I need you to pick something up for me. I need you to help me with this. I need you to solve this problem." And I say, "Okay, bye." And I hang up. And if that's the
00:06:22.000 only relationship we have, that can be a relationship, but it's not a healthy one, right? But we do the same thing
00:06:29.000 with God at times. We say, "Hey, God, I need you to do this for me. I need you to help me with this. I need something from you. I need you to fix this. I need you to solve this problem.
00:06:37.000 Okay, thanks, God. I'll call you next time I need you." And that's what many of our prayer lives can look like when we go to God just simply trying to get
00:06:45.000 something from Him. And it's not that that's bad, but if that's the only relationship you have with God, then that is bad. You're missing out on so
00:06:54.000 much more life that God has for you. And I'm not just preaching at you today. I want you to hear something. Just a couple weeks ago, I felt very convicted
00:07:01.000 where I realized my prayers have been, "God, help me. God, give me wisdom. God, help me lead Your people. Help me make these decisions for Your church." All
00:07:09.000 good things. But I wasn't spending time just with God. I was like, "God, tell me what to do. God, help me." All good
00:07:16.000 requests, all good things. I'm going to God asking for help with people and family and things in my life. And many of you -- all good things -- but I was
00:07:24.000 missing out on God. I'm not just saying, "God, tell me what's on Your heart." God, I just want to spend time with You. I just want to be in Your presence without any agenda.
00:07:35.000 So I'm preaching to myself as well because we all need to be reminded. We all need -- just like we're in football season, right? Steelers are about to play. We're
00:07:44.000 undefeated so far, in Jesus' name. But football, in any professional sport, there's always the basics you go back
00:07:52.000 to. It's blocking and tackling. Football boiled down: there's blocking and tackling. There's conditioning. There's drills. You never stop doing those basic
00:08:01.000 things. The best professionals in the world still go back to blocking, tackling, footwork, conditioning. It
00:08:09.000 never changes. As Christians, it doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian.
00:08:13.000 We go back to basics. We go back to prayer. We go back to reading the Word of God. We go back to the basics. And we all need reminded of these things
00:08:21.000 because prayer isn't about getting things from God. Prayer is getting closer to God. It's relationship. It's
00:08:30.000 access to Him. It's being close to God -- that is ultimately the best thing we get.
00:08:35.000 So we're going to focus today on the Sermon on the Mount. Jared referenced it in Matthew chapter 6, the first four verses. We're going to look at chapter 6,
00:08:43.000 verses 5 through 12 -- what's commonly known as the Lord's Prayer. How many of you have ever heard of the Lord's Prayer? Maybe how many of you memorized the Lord's Prayer? How many?
00:08:52.000 Okay, we're going to put you on the spot. We're going to test you. The Lord's Prayer -- it's actually not the Lord's Prayer. It's actually the disciples' prayer because Jesus, He
00:09:01.000 didn't actually have to pray this prayer for Himself. He was modeling something.
00:09:05.000 And we're going to get into that, about what the Lord's -- it's okay to call it the Lord's Prayer -- but ultimately it was a model for us to learn. But Jesus talks about three spiritual practices:
00:09:16.000 giving, praying, and fasting. Three distinct spiritual practices. And it's interesting: He doesn't say, "Hey, if
00:09:24.000 you are interested in these things, you can participate." He doesn't say, "Hey, if you happen to get around to these things, this is how you do them." No.
00:09:32.000 Jesus actually said when you give, this is how you give. When you pray, this is
00:09:38.000 how you pray. When you fast, this is how you fast. He gave these instructions assuming that all of us were going to do
00:09:47.000 these three things. We're going to give, we're going to pray, and we're going to fast. It was a normal part of the spiritual rhythms of a follower of
00:09:55.000 Jesus. So all of us, if we're a Christian, we follow Jesus. There's an expectation that we give, we pray, and
00:10:03.000 we fast. But it's not just going through the motions. Jesus actually addresses this in Matthew 6, verse 5. He speaks to
00:10:11.000 the heart of the matter because you can give, you can pray, and you can fast for all the wrong reasons. And it's not
00:10:18.000 pleasing to God. And I want to help you: if you maybe have gone through the motions, maybe you've been in church for a while, you grew up in a religious
00:10:25.000 home, you may do those actions that are good, but if you don't have the right heart or the right motivation, you're missing out on so much more
00:10:34.000 blessing that God has for you. So He starts off in verse 5. He says, "When you pray" -- again, assuming that you're
00:10:41.000 going to pray -- "when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites." And this language that Jesus uses is actually a
00:10:50.000 very strong language. He says, "You must not do it this way." So it's like, "If you're going to do it this way, you
00:10:58.000 better stop and start doing it a different way. When you pray, do not do it this way." It's a very clear rebuke
00:11:07.000 and a challenge for us to go, "I don't want to be on that side of Jesus. I don't want Jesus saying, 'Don't do that.
00:11:12.000 Stop it,' right? I want to be on the side where Jesus says, 'Good job. Keep going,' right?" So when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, for they love to
00:11:19.000 stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others. "I tell you the
00:11:27.000 truth, that is all the reward they will ever get." Now in the Bible, you see there's black ink and red ink. Red ink,
00:11:36.000 red letters are Jesus' words. So most of what I'm going to share with you today are Jesus' words. It's His preaching. I'm just repeating what He
00:11:45.000 taught and giving you some context and other verses to help you understand. But when Jesus says things like this, we should listen. He says, "Don't do it
00:11:53.000 this way." Because what was happening -- and you can get the picture here -- He's on the Sermon on the Mount. There's thousands of people. There's crowds of people coming to hear Jesus teach and
00:12:02.000 preach. And He delivers a sermon and He stands up. There's religious people in the crowd. There's people who've never been to synagogue or a church before.
00:12:10.000 And there's people of all different backgrounds. But the religious people, they would put on these really elaborate robes and these head coverings. They'd
00:12:18.000 have these things called phylacteries, and they would look very bold and audacious, and they just wanted to be seen. They wanted to be known as, "I'm
00:12:25.000 really religious." It'd be like putting all your PhDs and MBAs and your money on your chest and be like, "Look at me. Look at how good I am. Look
00:12:33.000 how smart I am." And bragging and boasting about that. And God says that's all the reward they're ever going to get. And the religious people of the
00:12:42.000 time would stand up. They wanted people to see them. But God wasn't going to bless them for that. God wasn't going to honor their lives for that. So the key point takeaway: don't make prayer a performance.
00:12:56.000 Don't make prayer something you're trying to do to impress other people.
00:13:00.000 Try to impress God. Impress God with -- God, I need You. You know, I've had people say, "Wow, you pray so wonderfully, and
00:13:09.000 you must practice a lot of prayer." I do. But I want to show you a little clip of what my prayers often look like.
00:13:22.000 Help.
00:13:24.000 [screaming]
00:13:27.000 How many of you can relate, right? Like, "Oh, you're so spiritual. You've got your life together." Well, come see me at 2 a.m. This is what I'm doing: "Help.
00:13:35.000 God, I need You. God, I don't know what to do." Like, I'm just human, you realize that? One of our core values here at Freedom Church is we are
00:13:43.000 authentic. We're real. We're just real people. I'm not this high and lifted up prophet or whatever. I'm just a real guy who loves Jesus, who's been saved,
00:13:52.000 redeemed, born again, and I want to help as many people know God and find freedom in Him as well. That's what we are.
00:13:58.000 That's what we do: we exist to help people know God and find freedom, discover their purpose, and then make an impact in their world as
00:14:07.000 well. So don't perform, don't be perfect. It's not about the perfect words. But Jesus said here in verse 6: when you pray, don't be like the
00:14:15.000 hypocrites, but when you pray, go away by yourself. Shut the door behind you.
00:14:20.000 Pray to the Father in private. Then your Father who sees everything will reward you. Now, He's not condemning
00:14:28.000 public prayer. Think about it: Jesus prayed publicly. His disciples prayed publicly.
00:14:32.000 The early church prayed publicly. So public prayer is not bad. It's the motivation behind those prayers that can be wrong. If our
00:14:41.000 motivation is "look at me, look how smart I am, look how gifted I am," I use these big religious words that most people don't understand what they mean -- that's
00:14:47.000 the wrong thing to do. So public prayer is okay. We pray in church. Jesus said, "My Father's house will be a house of prayer." We want to have prayer
00:14:56.000 publicly. But what He's saying is, go away privately. Most of your prayer should be done privately. It's like the football players again, professional athletes:
00:15:04.000 what you see on the field is only a result of all the work they've done throughout the week, right? All the conditioning, all the blocking, tackling, all the X's and O's, all the
00:15:12.000 nutrition, all goes in, so they can play a game for an hour or maybe less on the field that they're actually on there performing this thing. Same way with us
00:15:20.000 as Christians: if we want to see God move in miracles and wonders and do something supernatural, we've got to be
00:15:27.000 doing things Monday through Saturday as well, in the privacy of our own home, in our prayer times, going to God in prayer. Because the most
00:15:36.000 valuable thing you get in prayer is God Himself.
00:15:41.000 The most valuable thing, the greatest thing you can receive, is God Himself.
00:15:46.000 That's what we get. It's not about what we get from Him. It's that we get Him.
00:15:50.000 We get relationship. We get His presence. You know the two times you should always pray: when you know what God wants you to do, and when you don't
00:15:58.000 know what God wants you to do. Because if you know what God wants you to do, you've got to say, "God, I need prayer to know how to do it. I need Your grace. I need Your help." And when you don't know
00:16:05.000 what to do, you say, "God, I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do." So either way, there's a time to pray.
00:16:10.000 Because the greatest thing, the most valuable thing you get in prayer, is God Himself. And then look at verse 7.
00:16:17.000 Verse 7, the third time Jesus says this: "When you pray, don't babble on and on as the Gentiles do." They think
00:16:25.000 their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.
00:16:30.000 And He talks about Gentiles, the non-Jewish people. So He's speaking primarily to Jews. He's saying, "Hey, don't do what the Gentiles do. Don't do what those people
00:16:38.000 who worship all these false gods, all these idols, all these things of the world -- they babble on and on. They try to conjure something up. They try to get
00:16:47.000 something from their false gods." He goes, "Don't do that. Don't just repeat these words when you don't have a heart or meaning behind it." In fact, I love
00:16:55.000 one of my favorite stories from the Old Testament. I find it funny -- I don't know if I should find it funny -- Elijah and the prophets of Baal. So if you
00:17:03.000 don't know the story, there's this prophet of God, Elijah, and he's facing these 500 prophets of Baal. Baal is a demon god. They worship this god. And these guys, they're trying to flex.
00:17:12.000 They're like, "Whoa, our God is greater than your God." Elijah's like, "My God's the only true God." The prophets, they start rambling and babbling. It says, "From morning till night." They
00:17:21.000 start cutting themselves to draw blood to try to please their god, this Baal.
00:17:25.000 And nothing's happening. Nothing's coming. There's no sign of Baal. And Elijah, he starts to make fun of them. He goes, "Hey, maybe your god went and he
00:17:33.000 took a nap. He needs to wake up so he can hear you. Maybe your god went to the bathroom and he's taking a while to come back." Like he's mocking
00:17:40.000 their god, who's a demon god, right? And then when it comes his turn, he goes, "Okay." They're like, "Okay, call upon your god." He calls upon Yahweh, the one
00:17:48.000 true God. And He comes down in fire. He takes up the sacrifice, licks up the water, and shows Himself for
00:17:56.000 who He is. Elijah's heart wasn't "God, I need You." It was, "God, show Yourself. You get the power. You show the glory.
00:18:04.000 You show Your kingdom to these prophets of Baal." And Jesus here, He's saying, "Hey, don't babble on like the Gentiles. Don't babble on
00:18:12.000 and on, repeating these rote prayers that really don't have any meaning or any heart behind them." He says in verse
00:18:19.000 8, "Don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask Him." God is the only God that is known as Father. He's a Father.
00:18:32.000 He's a heavenly Father. He's perfect. He loves us as His children.
00:18:37.000 Maybe you've never heard that before, and you need to know: God loves you as a son or a daughter. And nothing like what your
00:18:44.000 earthly father has done -- even if you've had a great earthly father -- our heavenly Father is so much greater, so much better, surpasses anything we could think
00:18:52.000 or imagine compared to our earthly fathers -- that our heavenly Father knows what we need even before we ask Him. So
00:19:00.000 what's the point of even praying? If He already knows, why do we pray? Are we informing God of things that He already
00:19:08.000 knows? It's not about informing. It's about relating to God. He still wants relationship. Just like my kids: I want
00:19:16.000 them to talk to me. I want them to have relationship with me. They're not necessarily informing me of things. Most of the time, we know -- like when something happens, you're like, you
00:19:24.000 know which one did it, you know, your kids did something. But you say, "I don't need to be informed necessarily. I want to have relationship." God is the same way.
00:19:31.000 We're not informing Him when we go to prayer, but we're relating with God in prayer. He listens to us. He hears our prayers. So don't try to impress God.
00:19:42.000 Don't try to perform for God. It's not about perfect words. It's a simple invitation to come. Come and pray. We're
00:19:50.000 going to take a little sidebar to Luke 18. Luke 18 is a little bit later in Jesus' ministry. There's the Gospel of
00:19:57.000 Matthew; what we're looking at in the Gospel of Luke is a different one, but it's a little bit later in His ministry. And Jesus is highlighting these two
00:20:04.000 different men. He actually tells this story about two men who came to the temple. He's comparing the difference in these two men's prayers. Again, this is
00:20:13.000 Jesus, so it's not some random story. It's not something I found on the internet. These are Jesus' words. He tells His disciples
00:20:20.000 this: two men went to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, a religious leader. The other was a despised tax
00:20:28.000 collector. If you don't know much about tax collectors, they were Jewish people typically who sold out their Jewish families and their friends to the Roman
00:20:36.000 Empire, okay? So everyone hated the tax collector. Even the Romans didn't like the tax collectors. They're just like, "Give us the money." So he's despised.
00:20:43.000 So we have a Pharisee, a religious guy, and a despised tax collector. Everyone hated him. The Pharisee stood by himself
00:20:50.000 and he prayed this prayer. He said, "I thank you, God, that I am not like other people -- cheaters, sinners, adulterers.
00:20:58.000 I'm certainly not like that tax collector. I fast twice a week" -- I just feel like he has some pompous tone to it -- "and I give you a tenth of my income." And he's bragging to God.
00:21:10.000 But the tax collector, Jesus says, stood at a distance. He dared not even lift his eyes to heaven. He's humble before
00:21:18.000 God as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest with sorrow. He said, "Oh God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner."
00:21:27.000 And Jesus says in verse 14, "I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee" -- He points to the tax collector -- "he's the one who
00:21:34.000 returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves
00:21:41.000 will be exalted." One was trying to impress God. The other one was repenting before God. One was comparing himself to
00:21:49.000 other people, while the other was comparing himself to God. When we compare ourselves to other people, we
00:21:56.000 lose every single time. We either get prideful and think we're better than them, or we start to look at them and be envious or jealous of them. The only one
00:22:04.000 we should compare ourselves to is Jesus Christ Himself, the perfect standard. Because when you compare yourself to Jesus, we're all going to
00:22:13.000 fall short. We're all not going to be perfect. And the key is not to be perfect, but it's to understand: I want to become more like Him, and allowing Him to train us and make us more like Jesus.
00:22:23.000 So Jesus speaks to the heart multiple times: don't do this prideful, arrogant, "look at me" way, but a humble, contrite, repentant way of
00:22:32.000 praying. So let's go back to Matthew 6, verse 9. Jesus says something so key that you can miss if you just start reading ahead. He says, "Pray like
00:22:41.000 this." He doesn't say "pray this."
00:22:46.000 He doesn't say pray these exact words in this exact way. It's not a formula. It's not a prescription. But He says, "Pray
00:22:53.000 like this." The Lord's Prayer, as most of us know it, is actually a model. It's a pattern. He says, "Use this to help you
00:23:00.000 guide your prayers." It's not that you pray these words verbatim. There's nothing wrong with praying the words verbatim, but ultimately He's like, "I'm
00:23:07.000 giving you a model for how to pray." So I just want us to read through it all.
00:23:12.000 We can have the slide go as I read along. So we're going to read -- and I know there's different translations. You probably have it memorized in a different translation than what we're going to show -- but let's just read through.
00:23:20.000 "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give
00:23:28.000 us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
00:23:34.000 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." So again, how many of you memorized the Lord's Prayer? You have some variation of what
00:23:43.000 we just read, right? Different translations. If you grew up in church, you probably read that, heard that, memorized that "Our Father" prayer.
00:23:50.000 But I want us to go through each line of this and unpack what Jesus was trying to get to -- the heart of this prayer, the heart of how do we pray? And
00:23:59.000 this is the apex of all the teaching that could be done on prayer.
00:24:03.000 This, I believe, is the apex of how we should pray as followers of Jesus. When they asked Jesus, "Teach us how to pray," this is what He gave them. So it starts
00:24:11.000 off: Jesus says, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name." That is: God, may
00:24:18.000 we keep Your name holy. Holy is to be set apart. It's sacred. It's above any other name. That's why we sing: the name
00:24:26.000 of Jesus is above every other name. That we say, "Our Father in heaven." He's a heavenly Father. He's a perfect Father.
00:24:33.000 May we keep Your name holy. There should be a reverence to when we go to God in prayer. There should be a remembering of who we are talking to. Jesus was telling
00:24:43.000 His disciples: remember who you're talking to. This isn't your boss. This isn't your dad. This is your heavenly Father who is holy, who is sacred, who
00:24:52.000 is set apart from any other thing. That we go to God in reverent prayer. We say, "God, yes, He's a friend of ours, but
00:25:00.000 man, He's got to be a reverent God as well. He's holy. He's set apart.
00:25:05.000 Hallowed be Your name. May we keep Your name holy." How do we do that in prayer?
00:25:10.000 Well, Psalm 100, verse 4 is one way we can do that. It says, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with
00:25:17.000 praise." We enter His gates. We enter prayer first and foremost reminding ourselves of who God is, saying, "God,
00:25:25.000 You are so good. God, You are big. You are mighty. You are El Shaddai, Lord Almighty. God, You can do all things.
00:25:32.000 God, You are faithful. You are trustworthy. You are true, God. You separated the oceans for the Israelites to come through on dry ground. God, You
00:25:40.000 raised the dead. You overcame sin and darkness." And we begin to praise God.
00:25:44.000 And we thank God. And we worship God as we start our time in prayer. We enter His gates with thanksgiving. Here's what
00:25:53.000 starts to happen: when you go to God, you've got all these things. And I do the same thing. I'm like, "God, I've got all these things I need to do. I've got all these tasks that need to get done, all these decisions that need to be made. I've got family
00:26:01.000 members that I'm praying for. I've got people in the church I'm praying for.
00:26:04.000 God, You are faithful. God, You are good. You are the Savior. You are Redeemer. You are Healer. You are wonderful. God, You can do all things.
00:26:14.000 That nothing is impossible for You." And I start to realize something: all those things I was stressing about,
00:26:22.000 God's the answer. The answer is found in Him. And many times we can remind ourselves of who God is. And our
00:26:31.000 problems that we take to God look a lot smaller when we compare them to how big our God is. We need to remind our problems how big God is, not tell God
00:26:40.000 how big our problems are. God welcomes our prayers. He welcomes our problems.
00:26:44.000 He welcomes those things. But ultimately, start with "Hallowed be Your name. May we keep Your name holy." And then verse
00:26:51.000 10: "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This is not
00:26:58.000 "God, here's what I want," but "God, whatever it is You want -- I want Your will to be done."
00:27:05.000 Your kingdom come, Your will be done. You know what it is like in heaven? Heaven is perfect. There's no sin. There's no sadness. There's no death.
00:27:14.000 There's no weeping. There's no sorrow.
00:27:17.000 There's no fear. There's no death. And we say, when we pray, Jesus said, "Pray this:
00:27:24.000 on earth as it is in heaven." What does earth have? We have death. We have sin. We have rebellion.
00:27:28.000 We have sickness. We have disease. We have war. But we pray, "Your kingdom come.
00:27:33.000 Your will be done." As it is in heaven, may it be done here on earth. That we would lay down our sinful lives and our
00:27:40.000 sinful ways to pick up the way God would have us, as it is in heaven. That there would be healing, there'd be health, there'd be life, there'd be wholeness, there'd be
00:27:49.000 truth, there'd be compassion, there'd be love. All the things of heaven are available here on earth. That's why Jesus said, "Pray it." If it wasn't
00:27:58.000 possible, why would He tell us to pray "on earth as it is in heaven"? He gave us the description. He gave us the challenge to pray, "Your kingdom come.
00:28:08.000 Your will be done." Not our will. Not my plans, God. Not humanity's thoughts, but God, we want Your thoughts, Your plans, Your will on earth as it is in heaven.
00:28:20.000 We should be praying that daily, to build our lives to see with eyes of faith, to see a better kingdom, a better way. And
00:28:28.000 then verse 11: "Give us this day our daily bread."
00:28:34.000 Just in that one line, it encompasses so much: that God is provider. He's going to provide for you. But it's daily,
00:28:41.000 morning, noon, and night. It's a consistent rhythm of prayer. Don't pray just when things get bad. Don't pray
00:28:48.000 just when you come to church or a Bible study or a group or when you eat, but pray every day. "God, give us this day
00:28:56.000 our daily bread." It's a daily dependence on God. It's also a reminder: God's the one who provides all things. We think we
00:29:04.000 work for everything we have. It's ultimately only because God's made the way for us to earn a living, to use our gifts and our skills and our abilities.
00:29:12.000 God provides everything we need.
00:29:15.000 Philippians 4:6 and 7: Paul's writing to the church in Philippi. And I love how he puts this -- he really gives us some instruction that I do feel is a
00:29:23.000 prescription, a promise, if you will. He says, "Don't worry about anything.
00:29:29.000 Instead, pray about" -- what? -- "everything." And if you look back at the original Greek manuscripts, and the word
00:29:36.000 "everything" translated, it means everything.
00:29:41.000 He's literally saying pray about everything. Not just the big things or the bad things. He says pray about everything. And that word "don't worry" --
00:29:50.000 it's the merimnao. It's like the stress.
00:29:52.000 It's the anxiety. He goes, "Stop being pulled in multiple directions. Stop worrying about anything. Start praying about everything." Every thought we have, we could take to God in prayer.
00:30:03.000 Every situation, every circumstance, every relationship, every need on a day-to-day basis, we go to God. We tell
00:30:11.000 God what you need. He says, "Thank Him for all He has done." Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds
00:30:19.000 anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. This formula, if
00:30:27.000 you will -- I believe it's a formula, a promise. You start with: don't worry about it. Now, how many of you know it's a lot easier to say "don't worry" than actually not worry? Let's just be real.
00:30:36.000 It's easy to say, a lot harder to do. But these are God's words: don't worry.
00:30:42.000 Pray about everything. Tell God what you need. Thank God for what He has done.
00:30:48.000 Then the result will be: you experience God's peace. His peace that exceeds anything we can understand. It doesn't
00:30:55.000 make sense: when you get a sickness, a diagnosis, when some situation happens, and you can have the peace of God in your life if you follow these steps.
00:31:05.000 Don't worry about anything. Pray about everything. Say, "God, I need help. I need a miracle. God, I need healing. God, I need something. God, I need You to reach some family member of mine." It's okay to do that.
00:31:15.000 And then say, "God, thank You for what You've already done. God, thank You that I have breath in my lungs to even pray to You." And His peace will overcome you.
00:31:23.000 His peace will exceed anything. He will guard your heart and your mind as you live in Christ Jesus. It's a promise of
00:31:31.000 the Word of God: follow the steps and you will have peace. 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Casting all your anxieties on Him
00:31:40.000 because He cares for you." I used to believe this. I remember thinking, "There's so many bad things in the world.
00:31:46.000 Like, God doesn't need to hear my prayers. I just have little prayers.
00:31:48.000 Like, God's too busy. He's got wars and big stuff to deal with -- like, what are my prayers?" But God is not
00:31:56.000 limited in His ability to hear your prayers, right? God is not limited in His time. He actually says bring all of your anxieties. Cast all of your
00:32:05.000 anxiety, all of your fear, all of your worries, cast them on Jesus because He can handle it. He cares about you. He
00:32:13.000 knows what you're going through. He sees, and He's the one who can help you the most. He wants to carry the things that you are carrying. If you're feeling
00:32:20.000 weighed down, overwhelmed, heavy burdened with life and situations right now, take it to Jesus. We're going to have a time to pray at the end of the
00:32:28.000 service today. I'm inviting you: please don't leave here today with the weight of something you walked in with.
00:32:36.000 We all have stuff. It's called life. We all have a busy schedule, so many things going on. Whatever it is that you carried in here -- like a weight, a
00:32:44.000 burden, maybe a sin, a thought pattern, some fears, some worries -- I'm inviting you: do not carry it out of this room. We're going to give it to Jesus today.
00:32:53.000 We're going to pray. We have people who are going to pray for you. And we want to cast our cares on Jesus. Then we get to verse 12: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
00:33:05.000 Forgiveness is probably one of the most gripping things that I see over and over again in people's lives: when we hold on to unforgiveness and we won't release it.
00:33:14.000 Really, unforgiveness is like holding yourself in prison, right? It's when you're holding on to unforgiveness, you're holding on to an
00:33:22.000 offense of somebody, it's like you're drinking poison hoping they're going to die. Or you're in chains and you're wondering why their life is not
00:33:29.000 miserable, but yours is. Unforgiveness can hold you back from all the things that God has for you if you don't let go
00:33:36.000 of those offenses, those things from the past. And trust me, I know it's hard.
00:33:40.000 It's why we have an event coming up. I'm going to skip ahead in the notes a little bit. But there's two things we're going to do. There's a Worship Night coming up on October 9th.
00:33:49.000 It's a Friday evening. I want you to put it in your calendar, put it in your phone, text some friends, say, "Are you going to go? I'm going." Invite some people. We're having a worship night for
00:33:57.000 about an hour, hour and a half on a Friday night. It's a little more informal. We don't have like a rigid plan. Just come worship. Just come be in the presence of
00:34:06.000 God. We worship on Sundays, but we just want to give another opportunity to worship God all together. Open to anybody who wants to come. Bring your
00:34:14.000 kids. We love having kids. I know there's babies in the room. I'm always like, bring the babies. We have a church with babies and kids. We want that.
00:34:22.000 Bring your kids to that worship night.
00:34:23.000 Then the very next day, Saturday the 10th, as well as the following Saturday, we have an event called Victory and Freedom. My wife and I have been doing
00:34:31.000 this ministry for years. We're really recreating it for Freedom Church. We're calling it Victory and Freedom.
00:34:36.000 What it really is -- it's not a boring seminar, okay? Get that out of your minds. It's not like I go to seminars and workshops and I'm just like falling asleep by midday. This is an 8:00 a.m.
00:34:46.000 to 8:00 p.m. jam-packed day of a spiritual workshop. And I tell you what, you'll be filled up. You'll be running the race
00:34:53.000 for God faster than you ever have. What it is: we help you identify things from your past. Identify things that are holding you back, those burdens, so you
00:35:02.000 can have victory over your past and then walk into the freedom that God has for you in your future. So it's a workshop.
00:35:09.000 It's involved. It's fun. We separate the men and the women for, I would say, obvious reasons, just to talk about some things, and also provide a way for
00:35:16.000 husband and wife to come if you have children. But October 10th, all day, 8 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and October 17th.
00:35:23.000 The cost is $30. That provides all three meals. There's a light breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner. So you can't get three meals for less than $30. We're not
00:35:31.000 trying to make money. We're trying to cover some of the cost to it. So there's $30, you can get signed up. And I want to say: if you literally do not have
00:35:38.000 $30 to your name, come talk to me. Do not let that be a barrier for you to get here. Whatever it takes, get to Victory and Freedom. The ladies are going on the
00:35:47.000 10th; the men are going on the 17th. Because what it is -- we can go back to verse 12 -- a lot of what we're going to talk about is forgiveness:
00:35:55.000 forgiving your earthly father, perhaps, or forgiving somebody in your life. And if we don't forgive others, how are we
00:36:02.000 asking God to forgive us? That we don't really understand forgiveness and what we've received from God unless we're really understanding how we
00:36:11.000 can forgive others as well. So then verse 13: "Do not lead us into temptation, but
00:36:18.000 deliver us from the evil one." God does not lead us into temptation. The word "temptation" there is actually like
00:36:25.000 testing and trials. Now God allows things to happen. He allows consequences for our actions, but ultimately He doesn't lead us into temptation. Satan
00:36:33.000 leads us into temptation. And actually, as Jesus went into the wilderness, Satan tempted Jesus for 40 days and
00:36:41.000 40 nights. So we pray this prayer. Jesus prayed this. He taught us to pray this. He's not saying, "God, don't lead us into temptation." He's like, "God,
00:36:49.000 don't let us go through trials and temptations and let the evil one destroy us. Don't let the evil one win over us."
00:36:57.000 I pray a prayer for my kids consistently: God, I pray they would have a heart and a devotion and a love for You without having to go through all the
00:37:05.000 stuff that I had to go through to get to that place. I had to go through a lot of yuck, a lot of bad stuff in my life, bad decisions, poor decisions I made. And
00:37:13.000 when God saved me and God forgave me and God showed me a new life, I became born again. I now have a heart and devotion for God. But I had to go
00:37:21.000 through rock bottom to get there. So I pray: God, help my kids not have to go through rock bottom. May my kids know You and love You and serve You all the
00:37:28.000 days of their life. God, I pray You would not lead them into temptation, not let the evil one win, but God, they would know You and serve You all the
00:37:36.000 days of their life. That's a prayer I believe all of us should be praying for the next generation, for the young people in our lives.
00:37:43.000 So I want to give you something practical here: a four-letter acronym, the word PRAY.
00:37:49.000 Talking about prayer -- real easy. The word PRAY: P, R, A, Y. First thing to do -- just to help you. If you're like, "I'm brand new to prayer. I've never
00:37:56.000 prayed. I don't know how to pray." I want to give you a tool. First thing: praise.
00:38:00.000 "Hallowed be Your name, God. May we keep Your name holy." We go to God. We start prayer with "Thank You, God." We recognize and acknowledge who He is.
00:38:09.000 Second thing: we repent. We turn away from our sins. I pray consistently: God, if there's anything in me -- anything I have been doing that I shouldn't be doing, a thought
00:38:18.000 pattern, if I've been a jerk to somebody -- bring it to my attention. I repent of those things. And God, forgive me as I forgive others. I
00:38:26.000 release others of offense as well. Number three: we ask. "Give us this day." It's okay to ask God for things. Ask God for help.
00:38:34.000 Ask God for wisdom and guidance and direction. Number four: yield. "Not my will, but Yours be done." Whenever it is
00:38:42.000 that God's saying something -- sometimes we hear something, we feel like God's telling us something, and we go, "Yeah, but I don't really want that." Don't ask God for His opinion if you don't really want it.
00:38:51.000 Because God's going to tell you things.
00:38:52.000 He's going to maybe speak it through somebody else. He's going to challenge you or correct you through somebody.
00:38:57.000 Ultimately, to pray, we must yield to whatever it is God is speaking. So we're going to create a 15-minute prayer
00:39:04.000 rhythm. Every single one of us can take 15 minutes. We're building on this.
00:39:10.000 If you were here last week, we talked about the Word of God. 15 minutes: read the Bible, read the Word of God. This week, we're going to read the Word for 15 minutes and add 15 minutes of prayer.
00:39:21.000 So read the Word, and then 15 minutes of prayer. Thank God for what you just read. "God, show me something in what I just read." Maybe it's helped me understand what I just read. I just read 15 minutes. I don't fully understand.
00:39:31.000 What am I supposed to learn from this?
00:39:33.000 Pray for 15 minutes a day. 15 minutes is just a little more than 1% of your day.
00:39:37.000 So if you read for 15, you pray for 15, you have about 2% of your day you're giving to God for His attention and His
00:39:44.000 purpose, that relationship with Him. You know, I figured out: if a hundred of us in this church prayed 15
00:39:52.000 minutes a day, that's 25 hours of prayer taking place every single day. There's over a hundred of us in this room. If a
00:40:01.000 hundred of us said, "I'm going to pray 15 minutes every day this week," there's more prayer happening just in this room than there are hours in the day, every
00:40:10.000 single day. I think that's powerful, to say: what does it look like? What could God do with a church full of people who actually pray, who become people who
00:40:18.000 pray, even if it starts with just 15 minutes a day? We're going to close with what I believe is one of the most powerful moments of prayer in all of
00:40:27.000 Scripture. Luke 22, verse 42. And the worship team -- I'm actually going to do something a little different than
00:40:34.000 we did last service. Worship team, come on up.
00:40:39.000 Prayer teams, I'm going to invite you guys just to stand right up front.
00:40:43.000 So I know there's like three prayer teams. You guys can line up. You can line up on the sides. You can line up in front. We're going to offer a time to pray. And why we're doing this is,
00:40:51.000 I said, you know, we're going to teach on prayer and then we're all going to leave, probably get lunch, go watch the Steelers win. But we might miss out on something. And I'm
00:41:00.000 a big proponent of practicing what we preach. We're going to do what we say. So we're giving you opportunity. We're going to actually put
00:41:08.000 it to prayer. But let's read what Jesus said. Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. He's about to go to the cross. He's about to sacrifice His body,
00:41:16.000 go through the most horrible thing imaginable to man. He's about to be imprisoned, wrongfully arrested, punched
00:41:24.000 in the face, spit on the face, have a crown of thorns pressed deep into His skull. He's about to be whipped 40 lashes, and He's going to be nailed to a
00:41:32.000 cross. And He's at this moment of weeping and sweating drops of blood, in agony. He's wrestling with the
00:41:40.000 weight of our sin upon Him. And He's at this place in the Garden of Gethsemane.
00:41:45.000 He said, "Father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from Me. If there's any other way, would You take this from Me?" But He says this, verse
00:41:53.000 42: "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done."
00:42:03.000 Jesus could have said, "God, I can't do it. No, it's too much." In His humanity, He could have said, "I can't do it." But He said, "Not My will, but Yours be done." You know what this prayer is?
00:42:12.000 It's a prayer of surrender. It's a prayer of Jesus saying, "God," to the Father, "God, not My will, but Yours be
00:42:22.000 done." He had nothing to repent
00:42:30.000 of. He had nothing to confess. But He prayed to God: "God, if You could make it happen any other way -- but nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be
00:42:39.000 do, but God, Your will be done in my life. Your kingdom, Your will on earth as it is in heaven. Would you please
00:42:47.000 stand to your feet? I'm going to close in a prayer, and then we're going to invite you to come forward to receive prayer, and we're going to worship God.
00:42:58.000 Let's pray. Heavenly Father, holy Father, God, hallowed be Your name.
00:43:09.000 God, You are holy. You are sacred. God, You are set apart. You are one of one: God of gods, King of kings, Lord of lords.
00:43:20.000 God, we exalt Your name above every other name, that every knee shall bow to the name of Jesus.
00:43:32.000 God, I pray for every single person in this room, God, everyone listening to my voice online, God, every single one of us would say this prayer: "Not my will
00:43:40.000 but Yours be done." That prayer of surrender. Before we come to You with a list of demands or a list of things we
00:43:47.000 want, God, may we start with: "God, not my will, but Yours be done." God, that we would take seriously this
00:43:55.000 matter of prayer. The highest level of activity we could be a part of is to be in communion and relationship and communication with You, the Creator of
00:44:04.000 the universe, the Creator of our soul, the One who has blessed us with our families, with our finances, with everything we have. God, we thank You.
00:44:14.000 We praise You. God, we can't do anything other than live our lives as a thank-You for what You've done for us, for who You
00:44:22.000 are. God, we thank You that You hear our prayers. God, You might not always say yes, but God, You hear our prayers, and
00:44:29.000 You answer exactly as You will, according to Your will.
00:44:34.000 And God, I pray right now, in this moment, in this room full of people, God, there's someone here right now, but they don't know You. They don't have a
00:44:43.000 life-giving relationship with You. God, maybe they've tried to give or to pray or to fast. But God, I pray right now.
00:44:51.000 I believe they know exactly who they are. They don't know You in a real way. They don't have a relationship with You.
00:44:57.000 God, I pray they'd stop trying to impress You. They'd stop trying to perform for You. They'd stop trying to use the perfect words or get cleaned
00:45:05.000 up before they can come to You. But God, You say, "Come to Me." You called the disciples to come follow
00:45:12.000 You. Before You ever corrected their behavior, You said, "Come, follow Me." God, I pray that that person, those
00:45:19.000 people right now in this very room would simply say, "Yes." The most powerful response we could say is, "Yes, Lord."
00:45:27.000 God is inviting you right now in this moment. Will you surrender your life to Him? It's the greatest decision you
00:45:34.000 could ever make, to simply say, "Yes, Lord." If that's you today, I just want to pray for you right where you are.
00:45:42.000 Heavenly Father, I pray, God, as You see them, You know them, You care for them so dearly. God, I pray every single person making that decision to surrender
00:45:50.000 their life to You or to recommit their life to You, God, I pray You'd show them who You are. God, You'd reveal Yourself to them, they would know
00:45:58.000 You in a real and personal way. God, that they would surrender their will, their plans, and their life to You
00:46:05.000 totally. And God, I pray for every single one of us, that we can give over more of our lives to You. That our prayer each and every day this
00:46:13.000 week would be "Not my will, but Yours be done. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In
00:46:22.000 Jesus, we thank You. We praise You for who You are. We give You all the honor and glory. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
00:46:29.000 So church, don't hold back. I invite you to come forward. There are prayer teams right up front. You can say your name and what you want prayer for. They're going to pray for you -- don't give them your whole life story.
00:46:39.000 They're not going to give counseling.
00:46:40.000 We're going to pray. We're going to go to God, standing with you in prayer. And the worship team is going to lead us in a song. And we'll be dismissed in just a few minutes.
00:47:09.000 [singing]
00:47:10.000 I'm calling on the God of Jacob.
00:47:15.000 Whose love endures through generations.
00:47:21.000 I know that You will keep Your covenant.
00:47:22.000 I'm calling on the God of Moses.
00:47:29.000 The one who opened up the ocean.
00:47:41.000 I need You now to do the same thing for me.
00:47:54.000 O God, my God, I need You. O God, my God, I need You now.
00:48:04.000 How I need You now.
00:48:07.000 O Rock, O Rock of Ages, I'm standing on Your faithfulness.
00:48:16.000 On Your faithfulness.
00:48:27.000 I'm calling on the God of Mary.
00:48:35.000 Whose favor rests upon the lowly.
00:48:41.000 I know with You all things are possible.
00:48:47.000 I'm calling on the God of David,
00:48:55.000 who made a shepherd boy courageous.
00:48:56.000 I may not face Goliath, but I've got my own giants.
00:49:07.000 O God, my God, I need You. O God, my God, I need You now.
00:49:15.000 How I need You now. O Rock, O Rock of Ages,
00:49:29.000 I'm standing on Your faithfulness. O God, my
00:49:38.000 God, I need You now. How I need You now.
00:49:47.000 O Rock, O Rock of Ages, I'm standing on Your faithfulness.
00:49:55.000 On Your faithfulness.
00:50:14.000 You heard Your children then, You hear Your children now.
00:50:21.000 You are the same God. You are the same God.
00:50:27.000 You answered prayers back then, and You will answer now.
00:50:33.000 You are the same God. You are the same God.
00:50:43.000 You moved in power then, God, move in power now.
00:50:54.000 You are the same God. You are the same God.
00:51:06.000 You were a healer then, You are a healer now.
00:51:10.000 You are the same God. You are the same God.
00:51:19.000 You were a Savior then, You are a Savior now.
00:51:29.000 You are the same God. You are the same God.
00:51:32.000 O God, my God, I need You. O God, my God, I need You now.
00:51:41.000 How I need You now. O Rock, O Rock of Ages,
00:51:49.000 I'm standing on Your faithfulness, on Your faithfulness.
00:51:59.000 O God, my God, I need You. O God, my God, I need You.
00:52:07.000 How I need You now.
00:52:15.000 I'm standing on Your faithfulness. You're faithful.
00:52:29.000 Such a faithful God.
00:52:52.000 God, we thank You that You are the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore.
00:52:56.000 And Lord, we just thank You that we can call You our heavenly Father. That we can come to You with our requests. That You've heard our prayers in the past.
00:53:03.000 You hear them now, and You answer them, Lord. And we know that You answer them in the way that's best for us.
00:53:09.000 And so we trust You. We love You. And we thank You. All of this is for You. We lift You up in this place. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.
00:53:19.000 Amen. Well, we're going to continue prayer in this place, but if you are not receiving prayer, you are dismissed.
00:53:25.000 And we'll see you next week. We're so excited to see you next week. Have a great and awesome week.