(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you literally you you you good job, by the way, on detoxing digitally. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult for you, but hopefully you're not just re-picking up the same bad habits you might have had before that, if you had really bad habits with spending tons of time wasting it, right? The whole point is to try to break free from the cycle. And break free from the addiction, if there was one, for a month, so... Alright. Man, it's such a good feeling to be caught up on prizes. I was... This is one of the things that you're never going to realize, when you do prizes as a pastor, it's like, it's one of the biggest struggles, I think, of all the things that I do. What are we going to do for prizes? This is easy. Alright. I did start working on the camping trip stuff, so you... I'm going to take the other sign-up sheet that we have right now, at the end of the day today, so if you haven't signed up for the camping trip and you want to attend, do so today. Because I'm going to go off of the information that I have now for our church and start planning and talking to people outside of our church to allow others to come and join us, which we do every year, but I always make sure that we give enough time for people here to get their slot reserved. But now it's late enough, I need to start letting other people know for certain if they are able to attend or not, based on availability. So, there's that, and then it looks like some work has been done. We're not complete on the construction process yet, but they did a few more things. I went and reviewed today, so slowly but surely it is getting done. I appreciate your patience. The plan is, after that work is done, we need to get our certificate of occupancy from the fire marshal, so I'm holding off, because if anything fails, especially with stuff that, if anything fails from the work that was done by the people we employed, they need to come out and fix their work to be compliant. So, I've been holding off on doing the rest of everything, which includes getting all the carpets clean from all the construction that was done, and then after that, bringing in all the rest of our furniture and all the rest of the stuff that we have, just in storage still, because just for logistics purposes, not to have to move everything back in and out to get everything done. So, we're almost done with that. I appreciate the patience, but as soon as they're done completely, which who knows when that's going to happen, unfortunately, but they are making progress still, once all that stuff is done, then we will be able to continue moving forward with the rest of the projects that we need that I want to get to make this space complete. Alright, that's it for the announcement, so I'm going to ask Brother Jesse if he could come up here. Oh, the food, yes. So, the Dodie's brought in some food that's available on this table in the food room here that they brought in for free, so anyone is welcome to help yourself to whatever is in there and take it home with you. It'd be great if it could all be cleared out, if you find a new home for that stuff, today would be awesome. So, thank you for reminding me about that. Brother Jesse, come on up, please lead us in our next song. Alright, we'll turn the song to the song of 129. 129 is the Rock of Ages. 129 is the Rock of Ages. One, two, three. Save from wrath, they make me go. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no later go? These were sins, but not atone. Thou must stay in that alone. In my hand, lo Christ I bring. Standing to thy cross I cling. How I joviously breath. With my eyes shall close in death. When I rise to grow to know. And behold, beyond thy throne. Rock of ages, life for me. Let me hide myself in thee. And while the opera plays being passed around, please turn through your Bibles to Matthew chapter six. Again, turn through your Bibles to Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six, we will be reading the entire chapter. You can follow along silently as brother then leads. Matthew chapter six. Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Fairly I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. That thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Fairly I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye, if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life that what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment? Ye hold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for this time to come together to hear your word preached. Thank you for this chapter. I pray that you would help Pastor Burzins now as he comes to preach to us the importance of prayer and that you would all help us to walk out of here with a better plan for a better prayer life for ourselves and a better understanding of how to pray. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Alright, so if you look down there in Matthew chapter 6 where we started, I'm going to look at the beginning of the chapter. Jesus is giving instruction on multiple things here and what's appropriate and what's not. And he starts off by explaining how to give alms. Alms is just your generosity towards someone in need. Alms is just you're giving someone something that they need help with and you decide to help them out, love them, and give them some money. And what the Bible is teaching there right off the bat is just saying, hey, you know, don't just broadcast this and make it a big public display and how great you are. Don't record yourself giving money to people in need and then putting it up on social media so everyone can see what a great person you are. That's the modern day version what the Bible is totally preaching against. And you see that a lot now these days, people doing all this stuff. And why are they doing all that? To make money. People with these YouTube channels and stuff, they get monetization, they earn money by doing this, they want people clicking on it. People who want to see the heartwarming stuff, oh man, this homeless guy, I asked him for a dollar so I gave him $500 or whatever and all this other stuff. That's not sincere. And see, one of the things that the Bible is teaching here is that, and the sermon is not about alms, it's about praying, but in the context it all matters. It all goes together. It's a very similar teaching. So when you're giving, you're saying, don't even let your left hand know your right hand is doing this. Just be able to freely give, give generously, don't think much of it, give and don't make a big production of it, don't make sure it's in secret. Like no one else needs to know that you're helping someone out. God will reward you for your love, for your kindness, for your generosity, for helping those in need. But no one else needs to know about it. Because the only reason you don't let other people know about it is so that you can receive some praise, you can receive glory and honor for being such a great person. Don't do that. Don't exalt yourself. Just let it be. God will exalt you and do time if you just stay humble and just do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because you're looking for the attention. Similarly, now as we go into praying, he says this, and when thou prayest in verse number 5, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. Don't be like the hypocrites. The hypocrites that existed then, same type of people still exist today through prayer. He says, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. So there are people out there that want to look holy. They want to look pious. They want to look so great. They're going to stand up and they're going to make the big oration like a mini sermon and a prayer and have all this, everything's all planned out and practiced out on their prayer of everything they're going to say. It's like a speech. So people can be like, wow, Dr. So-and-so or whoever So-and-so is just so great at saying these prayers. That's not what prayer is about at all. It's turned into that for some people. It's turned into this look at me, look at how holy I am, look at me on my knees. Now I'm going to say this because this is important. You could pray anywhere and you should pray anywhere, but your intent matters a lot. God knows your heart. The Bible talks a lot about just going in your closet and praying secretly, praying privately, which absolutely you should be doing. It's not forbidding any form of public prayer. Right before I came up to preach, brother Devon prayed in front of everybody. In front of the whole church. We all prayed together and he was leading that prayer. But it's not because brother Devon loves to be up here and let everybody know how well he could pray. It was from the heart. And that's what everybody does. When any time anyone is doing prayer up here, we're praying from the heart because that's what God wants from us is that sincere prayer where we're actually speaking to the Lord. And pray literally means to ask. So we're asking God of things. We're asking God for his guidance, for his help. We're asking for any number of things in prayer. It can be public, it can be private, but what matters the most is the intention. And what we also see here is that we ought to be praying. It's like when you pray, meaning there is a time you're praying. You can't talk about when you're praying if you're never praying. When you pray, this is what you need to do. He says don't be like those fools. Don't be like these clowns that just want to get the praise of everyone and look like they're so holy. Don't be like them at all. Instead, this is what you do. Verse 6 says, When thou prayest, enter into thy closet. And when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. No one needs to know about it. It's the whole point. It's not for anyone else when you're praying to God. It's not for anyone else to see. You may be praying for other people, but it's not for anyone else to see that you are holy, you're righteous, you're spending all this time in prayer. That's not the point. Verse 7, But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do. Now, notice there's three instances right off the bat. He says don't be like these guys, don't be like these guys, don't be like these guys. They're hypocrites, the heathen, you know, people just looking for work. This is great because this could help you identify people that you don't want to have anything to do with. Because when you see the people who are making these grand prayers in front of everyone to be like the best prayer maker who's ever lived, or that wants to just make sure everyone knows that they're praying, or that they're doing these prayers that's just a bunch of repetitions. Just repetitious prayer. That is what you need to stay away from. He says, But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions. Vain means meaningless or empty. It's just repetitious. Keep repeating yourself over and over and over again. The heathen does that. For they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. They just think, well hey, if I just chant this prayer over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, God will hear me one time. Maybe that prayer will get through. And God will just listen to me because I've just kept repeating myself over and over and over again. Chanting, repetition. It's rampant in the Catholic Church. That's probably the best example that I could think of other than just other false religions that are out there like the heathen do. Which you could lump up the Catholic faith into that same category of the heathen. It's literally all it is. It's just they try to add Christ to heathen traditions. But when you come in, it's just like, oh yeah, you have to say this many Hail Marys and this many Our Fathers. That's vain repetition. And what's kind of mind boggling to me is that right after Jesus gets done saying don't use vain repetitions and then gives an example prayer to pray, people will take this example prayer and then chant them. It's become a vain repetition. Like the Catholic Church is the Our Father. Or whatever, right? Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, we forgive our debtors. We had to memorize this stuff. I did in the Presbyterian Church. And what it was was a chant. So it was a chant. It's a vain repetition. Now you don't have to be saying it a million times for something just to become a chant either. If it's just some vain prayer or just a meaningless prayer. I remember praying this prayer during a time where I was just kind of confused. One of my family members died and I didn't know what to do. I was kind of young. I don't remember exactly how old I was, 12 something around that time frame. And I just thought it might be appropriate to pray and I was just like, you know, just didn't really know much of anything. So I just said the Lord's Prayer. Just repeated these words. But I was confused about that too because I didn't feel any different. Nothing changed. I didn't even know what I was saying. I just thought it was something that I should say because that's what you're taught. Now maybe you're sitting in here today and going like, you know what, I was never really taught to pray. And in another Gospel the disciples asked Jesus to say, hey, can you teach us how to pray like John the Baptist taught his disciples how to pray? Can you teach us? And hopefully this will help today if you're not certain exactly how to pray, what you should be praying for and things like that. We're going to cover a lot of that as much as we have time for this morning. And prayer is a big subject. There's a lot of content from the Bible on this matter and it's something that we should be doing on a regular basis so we can see what not to do. Don't just chant things over and over again. And look, I know we've got the prayer challenge which is like spending 20 minutes of your time in prayer every day. Don't just use that 20 minutes by saying the same thing over and over and over again until the clock gets to 20 minutes. Don't do that. That is going to not do you any good whatsoever. If you have nothing that you can even think of to pray for for 20 minutes, don't just repeat a chant. Now, that being said, it doesn't mean you can't pray for the same things. We have the same needs maybe from day to day. We have some things that we want to pray for especially as the prayer hasn't been answered yet. We're going to keep praying for it but it's not this just right after the other immediately within seconds where we just keep on saying the same thing. That's what the Bible is talking about here. Verse 8 says, be not ye therefore like unto them for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him. God knows. God knows what your needs are but just because God knows, did he say, well God knows what you have need of so don't even bother praying. No. He still teaches them how to pray. God knows what you need but he still wants us to communicate with him and talk to him and rely on him and go to him for our needs. He wants us to do that. There's a pleasure that God is going to receive by us actually going to him, opening up our mouth and talking to him in prayer and asking him for the stuff that we need. He knows it already but he still wants us to do it and speak to him. So then in verse 9 he gives us the manner. Look at after this manner therefore. After this manner means after this way, after this style, after this type. It doesn't mean these are the words that you always say. After this manner, it's like a template. Here, this is a way to pray. And we can look at the various aspects of how we ought to pray. And this matters. He starts off even in the very beginning. Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. This is an address to God. This is opening up a communication, honoring the name of the Lord, and a prayer. And appropriately, humbly, giving glory to God as you approach and speak unto him. Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your name is hallowed. Your name is holy. So why do you need to add that? Because it's respectful. Because you're showing respect unto God whom you're asking for something. So everybody can probably do well and revisit how we pray to God. He's saying this is how you should pray. So if he's giving us an example of using respectful terms to God and just before he even begins to ask for anything, just showing honor unto the Lord, you know, we should consider our own methods of prayer. Are we taking even just a little bit of time just to address the Lord appropriately? Address him with the respect that is due unto his name. And the best way I can think of explaining this to you is just imagine someone, anybody were to show up or you were to come in the presence of someone that you respected very highly. That you had great regard for. What type of greeting would you give to someone in a position of stature and someone that you would highly regard that if you were to come to meet, how would you address that person? And then God is so much more, right? God is so much more deserving of the respect and dignity. So that's the first point here on how to pray. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. So this next verse here, verse 10, it's praying with consideration and desire for God's will to be done. And all that we ask God for and all the things that we want, all of our requests, our petitions ought to be with the understanding that God, we want your will to be done. We may be going through this hardship or that hardship or this sorrow and this grief and this problem. And Lord, we're going to ask you to do things for us. I'm going to ask you to help me in this area. I'm going to ask you for this area. But Lord, the most important thing for us is that your will would be done. Because sometimes God's will would be that you go through and experience some hardship. Or in Jesus' case, the will of the Lord was that he would be crucified on the cross. Which is why when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, in Matthew 6, he's given this advice saying, okay, this is how you pray. And then we see him put it into action when he's praying. And he says, Lord, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what I will. He's saying, look, this is what I would like, but I only want this if it's according to your will, if we could do this in your will. We ought to have the same mindset when we go to pray. Hey God, we pray for little children to be healed of serious diseases, but Lord, your will be done. Anybody, little children, old people, everyone across the spectrum, no matter what the situation is, Lord, you know more than we do. We know that sometimes bad things happen, tragedies happen. We're going to pray and ask you to prevent this and help us out and do all these things. But Lord, your will be done. There'd be nothing wrong with praying for the safety of the martyr Stephen. He's going out to preach to people. They don't like to hear what he has to say, but Lord, you've really filled him with your spirit and power, and he's great expiring in the Word of God. Lord, please keep him safe. Please help him to reach as many people as possible. Please give him length of days and long life, but nevertheless, Lord, your will be done. We don't want to ask for things that's contrary to the will of the Lord. And this is a side note. He says, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The prayer is that things would happen on earth the way they do in heaven, because God's will happens in heaven every day, all the time. But you know what? God's will is not always happening on this earth. Why do I even make a point on this? Because the God of Calvinism would tell you that everything is always happening according to God's will on this earth all the time. And that's simply not true, because why would Jesus be saying, hey, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven? We want earth to be like heaven, Lord, so the way that your will is being done up there, we want it to be done down here. That's a prayer. That's a request. Why is it a request? Because it's not happening. Now, in many cases it does happen, but in many cases it doesn't. When a predator defiles a child, that's not the will of the Lord. It's not. That's not God's will. There's things that don't even, the Bible says it doesn't even enter into his mind. But anyway, I don't want to get off into the Calvinism argument, but I just want to point that out, because there it is, again, in Scripture, just showing us God's will isn't always, God's, there's a person who's called the God of this earth, it's the devil. Lowercase g, God of this earth. It's the devil. That's why things are all screwed up. Why would the world be such a big mess if God was just in control of absolutely everything? I'm not saying God doesn't have the power, but of course He has the power, but He created everything perfect, and then man sinned and brought sin into the world. Let's continue on the prayer. I'm getting way too far off rabbit trail there. Verse number 11, give us this day our daily bread. So, every day asking just for your needs. There's a need, right? Your sustenance. Asking for food. Asking to provide. Asking God's provision for you. Verse 12, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. So, asking for mercy, asking for forgiveness on our shortcomings, on our failings, what we do wrong to God, just like we have mercy and show compassion on other people in their failures towards us. People who are indebted to us, Lord, just as we forgive those people, please forgive us when we're indebted to you. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This is asking for safety. Evil is when someone does you physical harm. God, protect us, right? Please not in temptation, deliver us from evil. We don't want to go through that. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. It's yours, Lord. Amen. Now, he follows this up with four. If you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And here's a point I was actually thinking about making the entire sermon about this one point. About praying for people and praying for people that you have a problem with or that has a problem with you. In God's example prayer, he brings up forgiving our debts, so it'd be good to us, because we are good to others. We forgive those that are indebted to us. If someone is indebted to you, you know, it could be physically just money. Hey, I loaned somebody this money and they're financially indebted to me. But they may be indebted to you for other reasons. Maybe they actually did you wrong one way or another and now they owe you because they've done you wrong. There's a whole multitude of possibilities about how someone can be your debtor. Someone could owe you something. And in this sample prayer, Jesus is saying, hey, the same way that I forgive other people, please forgive me. Which, that's followed up again in Matthew chapter 7. That's also in chapter 5. Flip back to chapter 5. But after his template of a prayer, after the example prayer, he follows it up literally saying, well, if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. So he's tying this in with that prayer that he was just saying how to pray. How to pray. We're going to look at verse number 44 of Matthew chapter 5. Verse number 44, we're going to start reading. Bob reads, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. So people who are indebted to you or people who use you and persecute you, you know what the Bible says? Pray for that person. That's what the Bible says. I don't want to. I know you don't want to. But Jesus said to pray for them. You can listen to your flesh. Or what you can do is say, well, I'm not going to pray for them. Well then, you know what, when you're indebted to God, he's going to remember how you didn't want to pray for the person who did you wrong and that you don't like. And then when you're indebted to God, he's going to be like, okay, you want your prayer to be heard? Well hey, you weren't that way towards other people who were indebted to you. You're indebted to me now. And you're looking for mercy and forgiveness? Uh-uh. Just keep that in mind. And he follows this up in verse 45. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. God does give rain and he lets the sun shine on all manner of people. Just, unjust alike. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same. So if you only care about and think about and pray about the people that you love, everybody does that. You need to go above that. You need to be able to love those that don't love you. You need to be able to pray for those that are praying for you. You need to pray for those that would do you wrong. You need to pray for people that you don't like. Now here's what's going to happen if you can put this into practice. Even if you have to force yourself, you spend time praying for other people, you will love that person more. You actually develop more of a love for that person if you start to consider them in your thoughts and pray for them. And yeah, people have problems and you have a problem with them because they're a certain way or whatever. How about you pray that God can help them with that? Whatever the issue may be. Help the situation. Help someone who might be a little less spiritually mature be able to grow in that area. That's causing you a problem. And now instead of maybe being bitter or angry towards someone, they still might do things wrong but your view and perception of that person will be different. You actually pray for people and even if people do you wrong, pray for them. See them as someone in need and then when it's time of your need, God will see how you behaved and then you'll be much more likely to get the things that you asked for. Flip over to James 5. I'll read for you from Luke 6 while you're turning to James 5. Because this concept of praying for other people, pray for those that use you, curse you, all these things, your enemies. This is multiple places in the scripture. It's not just one place. Luke 6 27 says, But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. Again, another reference to praying for people that are using you. Praying for people that are your enemies. Do good. James 5, look at verse number 13. The Bible says, Is any among you afflicted, let him pray. If you have problems, you're afflicted by something, pray. Absolutely. Pray when you have problems, pray. Is any merry, let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise them up, and if you have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. So when people are in a bad way, when people are ill, when people fall sick, hey, get some godly people to come in and pray for you. They didn't treat the Lord for you. And God will hear that, the prayer of faith, we'll get to that a little bit later, but just make a mental note of that, the prayer of faith shall save the sick. But here's what I want to focus on, verse number 16. The Bible says, Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. It combines confessing your faults one to another with praying one for another. Confessing your faults isn't like the Catholic booth where you're just confessing all of your sins unto someone. When you confess your faults one to another, it's like when you do someone else wrong. You're admitting you're wrong to the person that you've done wrong to. You confess your fault to them. So this goes hand in hand with the verses we were just talking about, pray for those, you know, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. When people do us wrong, we pray for them. So you're supposed to confess your faults one to another, oh yeah I'm sorry I did this, I was wrong for you, and also be praying one for another. So when people do you wrong, you're still praying for them. And then when you do wrong, you should be able to confess your fault and say I'm sorry I did wrong here. And still be able to pray for one another in that context. And then the Bible says the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Prayer works. It availes much according to the Bible. There's a lot to it. And this is a power that we have that God has given us through prayer. That to me it's like if we really, if we read the Bible and really believe this, and in fact I don't have the rest of this in my notes, but it talks about him praying for rain and then praying for no rain and praying for rain. And God listens to him and it's kind of like, you know, sometimes we read stories in the Bible and just sort of think like well yeah I mean that's cool and that happened and God performed a miracle or whatever. But we fail to realize, to make it real in our life that prayer, God's still just as powerful as he ever has been. We could ask, if the Bible says that the effectual, fervent prayer, I mean you're in it. You are thinking about it. You're sincere. You are praying. You're not just repeating dear God please bless this food in my body in Jesus' name. Amen. Right? That's another chant. Anytime you pray you should be praying from the heart, but when you're fervently praying for someone, you're fervently praying for something, it avails much and then the Bible gives us an example of how the effectual, fervent prayer that I just made avails much. Verse 17, Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. Basically, hey, Elijah was a person just like you and me. This man who did all these, you know, greatly use of God, there's many miracles performed, everything else, but you know what? He was a man just like you and me. Like passions, just like us. He's still a person. You know, as much as we may honor somebody for their service to the Lord, don't forget that people are all still just people. There's nothing particularly different about any one of us when it comes to the ability to serve God other than just your willingness to serve God. You all have the capability, though. So the teaching here is saying, hey, effectual fervently in praying, that avails much for a righteous man. Elijah was a righteous man. Elias was a righteous man, but he was a man subject to like passions as we are. He still wasn't perfect. He still grew up in a world that was broken and the Bible says, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. He prayed earnestly. He meant it. He was serious about it. He was praying to God that it wouldn't rain. It wasn't just, oh, well, I'll try this and just see if this works. No, he's earnestly asking God, God, please, make it not rain. Lord, please hold back the rain. He's earnestly praying for it, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. Three and a half years, it doesn't rain. The Bible's telling us because Elijah prayed for it not to rain. God listened, and then it didn't rain. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain. And the earth brought forth her fruit. That's huge. That's a pretty significant prayer. That's a significant amount of power that God was willing to show and do all based on the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man. That should tell us a couple things. One, how about we try to get ourselves righteous? I'm not talking about the righteousness that comes through the blood of Jesus Christ. Every saved person has full righteousness through Jesus Christ our Lord. But we need to be also striving to walk righteous while we're here on this earth and walking in the Spirit so that we can have that righteousness that God's going to see to say, wow, this person is actually yielding themselves to the Spirit, yielding themselves to my will to do my work. I'm going to listen to this child of God. Here's a child in whom I'm well pleased. Here's somebody who's doing good works and following me and being obedient. Yeah, I'm going to listen to what they have to say. And I will grant their request. The best example when you think about it is in a family, just in a physical human family. You have a family, mom, dad, children. The child that is doing what they're supposed to do, doing their chores, doing their school, being respectful, obeying their parents, all these things. When that child asks for something, you better believe mom and dad are going to be much, much, much more inclined and desirous to give what they're asking for. Especially if you can see it's something they really want. They really have a desire for this and as long as it's something that's good for them, right? Something that's not going to be bad for them, something that's not going to hurt them, you're going to be much more likely to want to do that for them. And on the flip side, you have another son, another child who's just always a problem. Not doing what is needed, needing to be chasin', needing to be disciplined over and over and over again. Well guess what? When they come asking for stuff, it's going to be like, well no, how about you start by just being obedient? Before you get the extra blessings, just start by being obedient. This is the way that God deals with the Heavenly Father, dealing with His children. So you want to be heard of God, you want your prayers to be answered, start by trying to listen first before we even can ask. Listen to what God says. You want to ask God for something and Him just come right back and say, but you should have listened here. It's already here. It's already here. Effectual form of prayer over a righteous man, but also you gotta be praying, right? Get the righteousness, right? Try to be the best child you can be and then from there, pray. Set time aside and really, you know, entreat the Lord for whatever your petition is, whatever your request is. Ask Him. You're in James chapter 5, flip over to 1 John chapter 5. So this effectual, fervent prayer, you know, we ought to be praying not just for our enemies, not just for people who aren't good to us, but also, of course, for our loved ones, our family, our friends, you know, church. Lots of people to pray for, but we also be praying in depth for people. So that effectual, fervent prayer is going to be something that you're really giving a lot of thought. You're really taking heed to the request. Hopefully, you've already thought about things. Is this according to God's will? Of course, we want to be praying in God's will. So one thing you do is we just say, hey God, no matter what we're praying here, we want your will to be done when we pray to God, but also give thought to it, right? Because some prayers, you might stop yourself from even praying, going like, you know what, this isn't God's will. You've got a family member who's, you know, a man and a woman who are dating and living together and are not married, and they're going, oh, we're trying to have a baby. That's not the right prayer. You don't pray that God's going to open up the womb of the unmarried couple to have children. That's not according to God's will. When they ask you to pray for that, you say, okay, I'll pray for you. And then you pray that they'll either, you know, move out or get married to get right with God, right? Pray that prayer for them instead. Because that's part of God's will, right? That they would stop committing fornication by either getting married or breaking it off or, you know, just stopping the sin. But think about those things, and not just things that are obviously sinful. I mean, that's a pretty easy example, but, you know, take the time and think about it. You know, people praying for work, for employment, you know, or pray that you're not going to be literally having to do something just overtly sinful either. You know, I would say, like, bartending would be a good example of something that would just be overtly sinful. I mean, you're just giving poison to people and getting paid to just serve out this booze and get people drunk and, you know, you're partaker with other men's sins. Consider the things, right? I'm not saying, you know, we're praying for Brother Will for employment. I'm not saying that he's even seeking that type of job. I know he's not seeking that type of job. My point is, you know, people pray and ask for different things, but we want to be thinking about those things and think about the ramifications. And also, then, think about it in your, you know, in your mind. So, when people are on the list and people are looking for whatever, oftentimes with church members, I'm praying that, you know, God will bless people with better jobs, closer to the church, being able to get more involved, have more time to spend serving the Lord. You know, all these various things you think about in depth. Hey, someone's just seeking a job. Okay, you could pray for that person to find a job, but how about you pray that that person can find a job that's going to allow them extra time, it's going to allow them to be at all the church services, it's going to allow them to serve God, it's going to allow them to go to the soul-winning events, it's going to allow them to, you know, like, ask for all of it. And think about all of it as if you were the one that was in that situation. What would be all the things that you would want, not just one little line that's, you know, on here, right? Think about everything else that would be involved with a situation like any of these. We're praying for a child, a little child to recover from, you know, and hopefully not have any major problems and things, but that problem of a child having such difficulty with their health has an impact on many more people than just that child. Of course, right? So when you see the line item on our prayer list of pray for this child, you know, you hopefully will be going above and beyond praying just for the child. You could pray for all the medical staff that's going to be working with that child, pray that they'll be sharp, that they'll get the rest that they need to be able to properly care for this child. Pray for the family that they'll be able to have, you know, one, the finances to be able to afford the health care that's required for the child, whatever that may be. Pray that they'll have the emotional and physical strength to be able to stay with the child and advocate for the child and be able to be there and support their child. You know, maybe people are going to have to be at work or something. Think about all of these things that would be a big impact in this life and pray for all of that. When you do this, it becomes also much more personal. Praying for other people will help build relationships. You don't even have to tell a person you're praying for them and the relationships will improve as you pray because you care about them. The more you care about people sincerely in your heart, the better the relationships will be. Pray for your spouse. Hopefully you're already doing this. If you don't, start immediately. Pray daily, regularly for your spouse. I guarantee you that will help your relationship. Even if you already have a good relationship. Thinking about your spouse and praying for them will improve the care and the love that you have for them. That goes for every family member and everyone else. The more time you can be praying and thinking about people, you don't always necessarily know what their needs are. But spend time in prayer. Go in depth. In 1 John 5, we have another reference here and I'm already going a little bit long on some of my points here. I'll cover this one real quickly. We saw this already early. We want to pray according to God's will. We saw that in Matthew 6. We also saw the prayer of faith in James 5. But look at 1 John 5, verse 14. The Bible says, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. So God's not always going to hear your prayers that aren't according to his will. But you know what? Anything you're asking according to his will, he's going to hear you. And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of him. And then this is followed up with, and I touched on this I think last week, if any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin and there is a sin not unto death. So there's definitely some instances where we shouldn't be praying for people. And I covered that a little bit more last week, so I'm not going to go into that right now. But just understand, hey, we need to be praying according to God's will, which is also followed up with, you know, it's God's will sometimes that people, you know, do these things and there's a sin unto death. And just leave that. You don't have to be praying for that situation. And I brought up the situation with Achan. You know, they weren't, at that time, they weren't supposed to be praying for Achan. They were just supposed to deal with the problem and get the wicked out of the camp and deal with it. So I'm not going to re-preach that now, but what a great promise there in verse 14 and 15. Hey, if we know that we're asking things according to his will, we know that we have the petitions. We know that he hears us and we know we have the petitions that we desire of him. That's awesome. There's so many things you could pray for for that. You could pray for boldness. You could pray for wisdom. You could pray for a whole number of things that is clearly spelled out in the Bible that God wants you to have. You pray for the things that we already read that God wants you to have? Great. He's going to open that up to you. How about just praying for more laborers? Famous passage, right? The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into this harvest. Pray for the church. Pray that God will build this church here. God will continue to bring more laborers here so that we can go forth. And what's the big plan? What's the endgame? Exalted in the name of Jesus Christ and leading people to him? That's what we want. And we want more of it. Pray that God will help us in that endeavor. Flip back to James. I should have just had you stay in James chapter 4. We need to be praying according to God's will and then we need to not be praying for things that are just going to satisfy the lust of our flesh. These are the wants, the desires that is just self-gratifying, fleshly type of things. The Bible says in James 4, verse number 2, ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight in war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. First of all, you want to have this. People are going to war and they're fighting with each other because they want things. You didn't even ask for them. They're just going and taking them. These are all these problems and wars and fighting. People aren't even asking God for this stuff. They're just going and trying to take it and do it on their own. So you have not because you ask not. But then he says this, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss. You're asking for something wrong anyways. That you may consume it upon your lusts. So many problems come from people having their desire in the wrong place. You're looking to consume things on your lust. That's why you're not getting it. And if you're asking and not getting it, maybe you should start thinking about is this even right? Instead of saying well now I'm just going to do it by force. Turn to Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6. I think I'm going to close on this one point. A few more passages but this one point. And this is the timeliness or how often to pray and how do we schedule prayer and things like that. Well how often to pray. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5.17 pray without ceasing. So there you go as far as how often you should be praying. You ought to be praying regularly. And a prayer without ceasing, that doesn't mean continual prayer. It's going to start now and just never ever ever end like as in constant prayer to God all the time. But what that means is that you should never stop praying as something you do. You should just always have a prayer time. You should always be praying to God. Now look, praying to God frequently throughout the day, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. It doesn't take much. You could pray even in your heart the Bible calls it which would be like maybe we think about it in our mind. We pray to God even if it's not out loud. We ought to practice praying out loud because there's a lot of references to that. I'm not going to go through all the time to do that but of people speaking and calling on the Lord and calling out to Him and using their mouth verbally in prayer. Which is also why it makes sense to go in your closet because why would you need to go in your closet if you're only praying in your mind? Right? So my recommendation is this according to what we see in scripture, open up your mouth in prayer. When you pray to God, don't get so used to just praying everything silently that that's all you ever do. Open up your mouth to God. Pray to Him. Speak to God more than just in your heart. God knows your thoughts. He knows the intents of the heart. He knows all this stuff. But as we see in scripture, look, people... And that's the example too. When they passed that law about Daniel not seeking any petition or request from anyone else without getting permission first, he was in his house, kept the same routine, same program, but how did people hear him? Because he was praying with his mouth. And it was important enough to continue praying with his mouth. Not saying, oh, God can hear my thoughts anyway so I'm just going to pray in my heart. No, pray with your mouth. Really, that should be the standard of prayer is praying out loud. And it's not for anyone else's benefit, but you're praying to God. You're speaking to God. None of us likes trying to be a mind reader, right? Now God can read minds, but let's show God the respect of being able to say out loud the things that we want. So pray without ceasing, of course, but when should we pray? Obviously, any time there's a need. For sure, for certain, we should go to God with all of our needs, with all the things that are going on in our life. And especially during times of need. Absolutely. And also any time of the day. So we're going to see here, and for as long as needed also. So any time and as long as it needs to be, and you make the time to do it. Make the time to pray. We're seeing an example of Jesus Christ praying. And you better believe He made the time to pray, and He's praying, you know, you can debate what He was literally praying about, but there's two things in the context that He probably was including both, among other things. But look at verse number 11 of Luke chapter 6, the Bible says, And they were filled with madness, and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. So Jesus is preaching, and people already don't like it. This is really early in His ministry, and they're saying, well, what are we going to do about this guy? So there's already a threat to Jesus physically from these people that hate what He has to say. And look at the next verse says, When Jesus needed to pray to God, hey, it's already late, but I got a lot of things I need to pray about, so He stayed up all night, praying to God. Now, Jesus wasn't a slouch, He wasn't a slacker, He was a pretty busy guy, from what we could read. He was on the go. Hey, the birds of the air, they have nests, right? The foxes have their dens, and the holes are going, but the Son of Man had not where to lay His head. Like, I'm going out, I'm on the move, I'm on the go, I'm sending people out, I'm healing, which I guarantee you was already extremely exhausting. You say, yeah, but He's God, you have to do a thing, but He was man. And when you do spiritual things, you don't have to be bench pressing anything, it drains you. And anyone who goes out soul-winding all day knows that. Man, it's way more draining than just walking around all day. You go walk at the mall all day. Sure, you might get a little tired, right? But it's not nearly the same amount of draining as when you're soul-winding all day. Preaching the gospel to people, that's just a drain of its own. Imagine Christ, who was doing all these spiritual things, preaching and teaching, as well as the healing. The virtue going forth out of His body. He's tired, worked all day. But no, He gets to a point where He's saying, I've got to pray. He's got enough to pray about where He's praying all night. He wasn't just chanting, He's praying about things in need. He goes off. He's supposed to go out on a mountain because He's just going and getting off by Himself. He's just getting away from everybody. Continued all night in prayer to God. And then what the next verse says in verse 13, when it was day, He called unto Him His disciples, and of them He chose twelve, whom also He named apostles. So in the direct context before and after, I think we see at least two things He's praying about. One, I would say almost for certain, is the latter, where He's going and choosing His disciples. Big decision. This is a huge impact. It's His ministry. He's just starting, and He's picking out the apostles. So He's spending a night in prayer before this big event of choosing the people who are going to be with Him for His ministry on this earth. That was a big deal. It required a lot of prayer of making sure He's going to be doing the right thing. I don't want to humanize Jesus too much to the point of being, you know, just completely not knowing things because we know that He knew. But at the same time, He still went through and sort of understands what it's like to be fully human. So for us, though, our takeaway is when we have big decisions to be made, when there's a big deal, dedicate and invest the time to pray. Whether it be a move, a job, you know, something that's going to be a significant, a spouse, right, a significant impact on your life, He's choosing disciples, you know, you're choosing a mate for life. Pray. Spend all night in prayer. That's worth it. I don't know about this, but give it the time. Make sure that you are being thoughtful. You're going through this. You're talking it out to God. You're bringing forward your request, and you're fervently praying about it. I mean, Jesus was able to stay up. He wasn't kind of praying. You're kind of praying you'll be falling asleep, right? He was seriously praying to God all night long, fervently, right after He was receiving a bunch of threats. So there's probably some of that involved in His prayer. And then right before He's choosing the apostles. So lots of reasoning to pray and lots of time spent in prayer. Ten minutes didn't cut it. He wasn't going to cut it. He was up all night praying. Twenty minutes wasn't going to cut it. That's our challenge. Twenty minutes. This isn't the only instance that we see Jesus Christ praying all night either, by the way. I'm free to admit I am nowhere near in my prayer life where Jesus was at. But we ought to be striving to improve on that and dedicate the time. Not just when there's need, right? Because there could be special instances. Jesus wasn't up all night every night praying, right? We know that as well. However, He did spend time where He's up all night in prayer. But not only do we need to just pray when things come up, when circumstances arise, but we also need to have a regular prayer schedule as well. Acts 3 verse 1, the Bible says, Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer being the ninth hour. There is a set time that Peter and John are going to the temple to say, hey, we're going to pray. This is the prayer time. It's an hour of prayer right here, the ninth hour we are going to pray. And it was scheduled. It was set up. So they're going to actually make sure they pray at that time. We have a church time. We have a soul winning time. You know what? There's a prayer time as well. Set up a time in your life, in your schedule for prayer. And I would say this, your regular prayer time, schedule it appropriately. Schedule it appropriately. Don't make it the absolute last thing of your day when you're already super exhausted and ready to go to sleep and you put your head on your pillow and say, that's when I'm going to start praying. Because you probably won't achieve the amount of prayer that you want to do if you do that. Now I'm not saying you can't pray for people when you lay your head down on your pillow before you go to bed. Sure, that's great. Do it. But don't rely on that as being your scheduled time. Because as Jesus said to his disciples in the garden, watch ye and pray lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready but the flesh is weak. And prayer, you know, I've fallen asleep many times praying. Flesh is weak. You want to pray and you don't want to fall asleep and you still could end up falling asleep in prayer. It happens. So when you are determining, hey here's my life, here's my schedule, put it somewhere, somewhere. Make it a point to say I'm going to pray and it's not going to just be, well if I have time at the end of my day, I'm going to pray hopefully before I fall asleep. It's more important than that. It's much more important for that and more valuable for you. Praying to a God that hears and answers prayers. Don't let that slip by. Elijah was able to say to ask God, request that it wouldn't rain. For three and a half years it didn't rain. That's pretty amazing. So take prayer seriously. We've got this prayer challenge. Set your mind to do it and even if you missed a day already, don't worry about the stupid chocolate. You don't need it anyways. You don't. What you need way more than those prizes is a good prayer life with God. Good open communication with the Lord, casting all your cares on Him, going to Him, seeking His will and seeking the good of others as well. Praying for other people. And you don't have to stop with the people on the list. Pray for other people who aren't on the list. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. We thank you so much for the guidance that you give us and for the sample template prayer that was provided for us by Jesus Christ. I pray that you would please help us all improve spiritually our relationship with you as well as our relationship with others. I pray that you would help us to take into consideration all the things that we've seen today from your word and be able to modify where necessary our own prayer life. I pray that you would please help us all, that we would have a set time set aside to be able to pray, Lord, and that we wouldn't neglect speaking to you. And God, please bless our church. We do need laborers here. As you very well know, please build our church. Please help us to reach more people, God, and I pray that you would just bless everyone here today. I pray that you would just bless everyone here today. 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