[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Prayer, as we started looking at last week, we're going to continue here, and we started to discuss this, but it is a posture of dependence that is appropriate to those who understand, and this is why we spent the last several weeks looking at these verses that we are in a battle that we cannot win through our own strength.
[0:26] And so as we continue to look at this, I want to consider three kind of questions this morning as we look through this text.
[0:34] First of all, how should we pray?
[0:38] We're going to see that we should pray comprehensively.
[0:42] Why must we pray?
[0:43] Because we are in a battle that we cannot fight alone.
[0:47] And then why don't we pray?
[0:50] Because we have believed lies about God, about ourselves, about our own competence.
[0:56] and we'll consider that a little bit more this morning.
[1:00] And our title this morning is Watch and Pray,
[1:03] because that's kind of what he tells us here.
[1:05] Pray and Bealer.
[1:07] Watch and Pray.
[1:08] We've been thinking about warfare.
[1:09] We've been thinking about the armor and the soldier.
[1:12] And this isn't moving on.
[1:14] This is still a part of the armor and the soldier.
[1:16] The soldier stands watch.
[1:19] He is alert.
[1:20] He looks out for the enemy.
[1:22] And that's what we see happening here.
[1:24] So the first thing this morning, we watch and pray comprehensively and Paul piles up in this
[1:32] verse, these words at all times with all prayer and supplication.
[1:39] He's not just saying with all prayer, with all prayer and supplication, keeping alert with
[1:45] all perseverance for all the saints.
[1:50] All of the language here is comprehensive in nature.
[1:55] There is a deliberate redundancy that Paul uses.
[2:01] He does this in other passages.
[2:02] He loves to say things in two different ways or three different ways or to say words over
[2:07] and over again.
[2:08] He didn't come up with this on his own.
[2:10] He no doubt learned in his education rhetoric and oratory, but he didn't learn that there.
[2:15] He just had to read the Old Testament.
[2:17] and you see the Old Testament doing this again and again you'll kind of understand often
[2:23] in many Old Testament passages what the point is because there's a word that gets repeated
[2:26] eight or nine times and then when that passage ends it stops being repeated so you wonder which
[2:32] portion of my supposed to read together will the portion where that word keeps getting repeated you
[2:35] know that's how you you tell what the point was being made he says here pray at all times
[2:44] And he doesn't literally mean that we're speaking words to God every second of every day.
[2:53] He's talking, we talk last week about the fact that there is never a time when prayer is inappropriate,
[2:59] or unnecessary, that we are a people who live in a posture or a lifestyle of relation with God.
[3:09] It's, you know, maybe a sort of illustration is you may be married and you may have a good
[3:16] friend that you talk with with some regularity, but probably not as much as your spouse,
[3:21] who is just always there, they're there in the morning, they're there in the evening.
[3:24] They're there.
[3:25] It's still not quite the same as what we see here, but it's the lifestyle constantly lived
[3:30] in fellowship and relationship talking to God about everything that is going on sharing
[3:35] that with him and in relationship with him. So, you know, the Scriptures give us these pictures
[3:41] read through the Psalms, and you see this. In the morning, Psalm 5-3, a Lord in the morning,
[3:46] well, I direct my prayer unto thee and we'll look up. You know, we pray in the morning. There's
[3:52] a series of prayers that different churches throughout history have called different things.
[4:00] A lot of ministers will do, which takes all of the Psalms that tell you the different times
[4:05] during the prayer day that you're supposed to pray,
[4:08] something like eight or nine times during the day
[4:11] that we were told to pray and they will have prayers
[4:14] for all of those times of day.
[4:18] And it's always, when you're tempted,
[4:20] not just at times of the day, when you're tempted, pray.
[4:23] We just pray that in the Lord's prayer this morning,
[4:25] after our prayer of confession.
[4:28] We talked last week about Psalm 56
[4:30] and when I'm afraid, I look unto thee.
[4:33] When you're afraid, you pray to the Lord.
[4:38] When you need wisdom, when you're making decisions, when you read James 1, 5 last week,
[4:43] but Psalm 143, or again, the Lord's prayer, this daily provision looked to him for how you
[4:49] lived, for how His will is to be done.
[4:52] When you're angry, the Bible even tells you to pray.
[4:55] When you're angry, Ephesians 4 actually tells us that.
[5:00] When you're joyful, you're supposed to pray.
[5:02] When you're exhausted, you're supposed to pray, and when you don't know what to do, or what
[5:08] don't know what to say, or don't know what to pray, Romans 8 gives you this help that
[5:12] when we don't even know what to say, the Spirit is there with us, interceding for us, with
[5:16] things even beyond the words that we're able to say, understanding what we're able to do.
[5:19] So even when you don't know what to pray, pray, and the Spirit is there to help you even
[5:23] if you feel like, well, I just completely bungled that, thankfully the Spirit did not.
[5:28] He sanctified even your prayers.
[5:31] The command assumes something that we're going to be looking at through the rest of this
[5:37] morning, which is that our need for God is not something that comes and goes.
[5:42] And really, that's the way that we look at life.
[5:44] There's times when we need God more, and there's times when we need God less.
[5:47] And Paul, in this verse, and we're not just thinking about verse 18, in this whole passage.
[5:52] Remember, this is a continuance of the spiritual armor.
[5:55] We're always to be putting this on.
[5:58] We're not supposed to be caught in battle without our armor on.
[6:01] It's something we're supposed to be putting on,
[6:03] taking up regularly and consistently, constantly wearing
[6:06] and prayer is part of that.
[6:09] We don't have times when we need God less,
[6:12] even though sometimes we think we do.
[6:15] And Paul is telling the Ephesians you always are in need,
[6:19] and so you always need to be praying.
[6:22] And you're not just supposed to be always praying,
[6:24] you're supposed to be praying with all prayer and supplications, and there's two words here.
[6:29] First of all, the prayer word is a very broad, very generic word for prayer of all sorts.
[6:36] It's a word that can be used very broadly, but the supplication emphasizes specific requests.
[6:44] So you're supposed to be praying all the time, you're supposed to be praying about everything,
[6:48] and when you pray about everything, you're supposed to pray with specific requests.
[6:52] So this doesn't mean that several times a lot of times a day we just say,
[6:56] God, I pray about everything.
[7:01] Our confession picks up on this when it's talking about confession of sin.
[7:06] And it says, you should confess your particular sins, particularly.
[7:12] That's true of all the other sections of prayer as well.
[7:17] Don't merely say, Lord, bless my family, pray for your wife's particular burdens.
[7:22] this might improve your marriage. You may actually have to figure out what your wise
[7:25] particular burdens are. Pray for your children.
[7:30] This is particular temptations. You can't do that if you don't know what your children's particular temptations are.
[7:36] Pray for your church's particular needs. You need to be involved enough in your church that you know what your church's particular needs are.
[7:44] And actually, you know, the reality is that some of you might have very different understandings of what our particular needs are than I do.
[7:50] And that's wonderful, because all of those various particular needs that some of us may see and some of us may not see are good.
[7:56] I probably have some very particular needs that I'm totally unaware of, and I need you to be praying for them.
[8:04] Pray for your unbelieving neighbors by name, if you know their names.
[8:10] If you don't find out what their names are.
[8:13] God did not, you know, he does everything in your lives or purpose.
[8:18] He did not put you in the neighborhood next to the person you're living next to by chance.
[8:25] It wasn't a whim, he didn't, if you're a Christian with un-Christian or with non-believing people in your family, he didn't put a Christian in your family for no reason.
[8:35] Don't abandon your non-Christian family, pray for them, minister to them.
[8:40] That's hard sometimes, because a lot of times if you're the Christian in a non-Christian family, the way that you can be treated or mocked or just disregarded, it doesn't make it feel good.
[8:50] It's not easy, it's hard to hold your testimony in the middle of that, but you need it.
[8:56] As I already said, pray for your particular sins, pray for your pastor's sermon preparation.
[9:04] Pray for, we're going to get into that more next week.
[9:07] Pray for our missionaries.
[9:09] Get to know our missionaries.
[9:10] There's a reason I told us several weeks ago and I told our Sunday school class, I sent
[9:15] out a message this morning, this week, rather reminding our Sunday school class, the Sunday
[9:20] school directors I think with a lot of wisdom this year have kind of split up our missionaries
[9:24] into different classes so that each class is hopefully praying for different missionaries
[9:29] of our church and so we're getting to know them hopefully will be getting to know what they're
[9:34] going on and who they are more than their names. I've sent out the links to our Sunday School
[9:39] class I can sign up for prayer letter updates or things like that and or at least some of them
[9:45] and so if you're not in a Sunday School class that's a good way to get to know our missionaries
[9:49] is to start going to a Sunday school class.
[9:53] Prayer becomes more comprehensive when we bring the details
[9:57] of life before the Lord.
[9:59] You think, I don't know what to pray for all the time.
[10:02] Well, once you start being particular, it's easier.
[10:05] And then not only pray with all prayer and supplication
[10:08] all the time, but pray with all perseverance, he says.
[10:13] And we can treat prayer, like, a vending machine where we, you know, put the money in and then nothing happens and we go away.
[10:25] And that's not what prayer is meant to be like. We pray once and then nothing happens and we say, well, I guess I'm not supposed to keep praying about that.
[10:33] Paul says, pray with all perseverance. If God has an answer to you yet, keep praying.
[10:38] You're not certain if God has answered you yet.
[10:40] Maybe you gave you a no.
[10:42] Well, if you're not certain, keep praying.
[10:44] Paul gave us that example in himself, in himself, didn't he, in second Corinthians, he had
[10:47] this, this burden, and he wanted it to be taken away.
[10:51] He didn't know if it was the intention that he should have it or not, and he wanted it to
[10:55] be taken away, and so he kept praying, Lord until he knew that the Lord wasn't taking it away.
[11:02] Daniel prayed and fasted for 21 days, because he didn't know the answer.
[11:08] He didn't know how he should communicate the reality of what God was speaking to him.
[11:13] And so he prayed and fasted for 21 days.
[11:15] And I don't know if you ever noticed this when you read the beginning of 1 Samuel and the story of Hannah and Samuel.
[11:20] And how should you think maybe about her going into the temple praying and Eli seeing her praying?
[11:25] You know that she was very emotional. There was a lot of grief.
[11:27] that her grief was so great that she was praying,
[11:30] but she was moving her lips, but sounds weren't coming out.
[11:32] But maybe you've never noticed in that text
[11:34] that it actually says that she had been praying for years.
[11:40] Every time she went to Jerusalem,
[11:43] she was going up to the temple praying for this.
[11:45] She had been praying for years for a child.
[11:48] And finally, that prayer was answered.
[11:51] Elijah was told to pray that rain would come after three years
[11:55] of drought and he knew that it was gonna be given
[11:57] And yet God said, keep praying until it comes.
[12:00] He knew it was going to be answered, but he didn't know when, and so he prayed, and then
[12:02] he sent his servant up to see if rain was coming, and then wasn't, so he prayed again,
[12:05] and sent his servant up to see if rain was coming, and it wasn't, so he kept praying.
[12:10] Jesus gave us this picture of the persistent widow who, you know, when she's got an unjust
[12:17] judge, she's still going to keep asking and keep asking until he finally does what he, what
[12:27] much more, when you have a loving God who loves to give you good gifts, who isn't ever
[12:31] going to get tired of you asking, when you have a need, would you not just keep bringing
[12:35] it to Him?
[12:37] Luke 2 tells us that the prophetess Anna prayed day and night for years, waiting for the coming
[12:44] of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[12:48] We don't pray consistently and persistently because God is reluctant to give, but because
[12:55] That is using even prayer to form us into, James calls us steadfastness, is being created, perseverance
[13:03] is being created, we're becoming children who are being taught to endure but also taught
[13:11] to trust him in everything.
[13:15] And then he adds to
[13:21] this comprehensiveness by saying pray for all the saints.
[13:27] A lot of these pieces of armor have been very personal.
[13:29] We've been thinking about our helmets and our breastplate and our armor.
[13:32] And we've talked about how we need to use our armor together.
[13:35] Because we're a part of an army.
[13:37] We're not just a single person going out to fight a duel.
[13:40] We are a part of an army.
[13:42] But here he makes it explicit.
[13:45] Pray for all the saints.
[13:48] Pray for yourself.
[13:49] But also pray for all the saints.
[13:51] The Christian is a part of a body.
[13:54] an army, a host that is engaged in a common war, and so your brothers battle matters to
[14:05] you.
[14:06] Your sister's temptation matters to you, your pastor's ministry matters to you, your missionaries
[14:13] faithfulness matters to you, and this isn't a new idea, it's in the Bible, it's the church
[14:18] just thought about this for a long time.
[14:20] It's that great Christian poet and author, John Dunn, saying, you know, when one man dies,
[14:28] I am diminished for I am a part of all men, asked not for whom the bell tolls, the bell tolls
[14:33] for thee.
[14:38] The teenager in your congregation struggling with temptation or discouragement, adults who
[14:46] don't have teenagers yourself matters to you.
[14:49] The husband and wife struggling with marriage or with the inability to have children, teenagers, even though you're not really thinking about that old time.
[14:58] It matters to you.
[15:03] Prayer ought to turn us outward, especially if we're trying to pray at all times and be comprehensive.
[15:10] And then the second thing we see in this text is not just the comprehensiveness, but we watch and pray, because we are in a battle.
[15:19] I was talking about to somebody this week about how last week we just kind of touched on the spiritual warfare element of this and didn't then go further.
[15:27] and I said we're going to be doing this next week. Paul has just told us we do not wrestle against
[15:32] flesh and blood. But against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this
[15:40] present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
[15:47] There are spiritual
[15:48] forces of evil in the heavenly places. You probably have friends and neighbors that don't believe that
[15:54] And sometimes you struggle to remember and think about that and they are battling you.
[16:01] And so he tells us then pray, praying at all times.
[16:07] It's not an incidental transition, as I said, prayer belongs inside the armor of God.
[16:18] And so then to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making simplification for all the saints.
[16:22] The Christian life is war.
[16:25] The prayer is one of the principal ways that God gives us to fight.
[16:30] And there's this thing we've been talking about all the way through this text.
[16:34] It's this sometimes it's a conundrum.
[16:36] It's kind of hard to think through exactly the victory has already been won.
[16:39] Christ is the victor.
[16:41] He has defeated the enemy and yet we're still in battle.
[16:46] Why is that the case?
[16:47] It seems hard to imagine sometimes.
[16:53] And a lot of this pictures we might think of in terms of illustration don't quite reach to the truth of it.
[16:59] This decisive victory has been accomplished through Christ's death, resurrection, ascension and reign.
[17:05] We aren't praying in order to make Christ victorious.
[17:07] We're praying because Christ is victorious.
[17:11] And if you're here today and you're not a Christian and I'm talking about this warfare
[17:15] And these spiritual forces of evil, and you don't know that there's a victory, then that is actually something that's important for you to hear.
[17:23] There is a victory, Christ died and rose again, defeating death and sin and these spiritual forces.
[17:31] And you can, in coming to Christ, experience and be a part of the experience of His victory.
[17:38] And yet, the Christian life is still continuing to fight.
[17:42] And the New Testament gives us sometimes these pictures
[17:46] that we will describe as already and not yet pictures.
[17:50] And actually, not just the New Testament,
[17:51] but Ephesians gives us a lot of these.
[17:54] What do I mean by that?
[17:55] Well, Satan is defeated.
[17:58] And yet, for a time, he is still active.
[18:03] He's maybe in his death throws.
[18:05] If any of you have ever had to kill a rattlesnake before, but they keep moving around even after they are dead.
[18:13] Satan still has his death threats.
[18:15] Christ is raining, but the enemy is still attacking.
[18:21] We belong to Christ.
[18:24] We've actually been declared just and righteous, and yet we're still battling sin,
[18:30] even though we've been saved from sin.
[18:33] Christ's kingdom has come and yet what did we pray this morning as Jesus taught us to your kingdom come and
[18:40] And we're dealing with all of these and we know
[18:43] We are Paul has told us an Ephesians seated in the heavenlies with him and
[18:48] Yet we look around and say well, I'm seated in a pew in a church not in the heavenlies and we know that there's this one day
[18:54] Now we see dimly, but then we will see face to face there's there's this reality that you know
[18:58] the Sabbath in the Old Testament that was such a picture of the rest, God gives his people
[19:03] Christ has come, giving rest from sin and death to his people and yet Hebrews tells us there
[19:10] remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God and so we still have this Christian Sabbath
[19:15] day on the first day of the week, looking forward to that day when we're finally going to have
[19:19] all of the rest, some of it we don't have yet and so we keep fighting and so Paul goes on
[19:27] after this in this warfare, saying in verses 19 and 20, which I said, we'll get into next
[19:33] week, but he says, and also for me, words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly
[19:39] to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.
[19:42] When Paul is thinking about spiritual armor, and this is why it's important for us to
[19:47] situate this command to prayer in the midst of a part of the spiritual armor, when Paul
[19:52] thinking of the spiritual armor and the spiritual warfare, he's not thinking about, you know,
[19:59] Aunt Louise who's got a sore arm. And it's not that it's wrong to pray for those things.
[20:05] It's part of, that may actually be for Aunt Louise something that is really causing her struggle
[20:11] in her own walk with the Lord. You know, that may be something really significant. I'm not saying
[20:14] that that's not significant. I don't have an Aunt Louise. I just made her up. And if one of you has
[20:18] I'm sorry,
[20:24] but he says, pray for the gospel ministry, when God's word is proclaimed, there
[20:34] are sinners who don't have hope, who are headed to hell, who one day die and never have
[20:44] life separated from God, and they can't be saved unless the Spirit applies that gospel
[20:51] message and transforms their heart, because they are dead in their trespasses and sins,
[20:55] and nobody can take the dead and raise them to life except God himself.
[21:00] And so he pray for those who are preaching the message of God, and then also when the message
[21:05] of God is being preached, there are believers sometimes in front of the preaching of the
[21:09] Word of God.
[21:10] I hope all every week in front of the preaching of the Word of God, hearing that who are struggling
[21:14] with sin, who have sin in their lives that seems to be winning the battle, who have discouragement,
[21:20] who have anxiety, who have all sorts of struggles, and there is nothing, they're doing what Paul
[21:27] says, working out their salvation with fear and trembling, and yet they feel like they're
[21:31] losing, and there is nothing except the next verse, which says that it is God who is at work
[21:35] within you, both the will, and to do, and how does God do that way, sanctifies us with the truth,
[21:41] his word is truth, he uses his spirit, and there is supernatural miraculous work happening
[21:49] When Paul is preaching, when God's word is being read, when you're in your homes, dads and moms,
[21:56] reading your words, God's word to your children each day, when you are in your bedroom,
[22:01] reading the Bible and praying, there is miraculous, supernatural, it's pray for that.
[22:08] He doesn't say pray that I won't have problems.
[22:10] In fact, he tells me you're going to have problems, that's why you're putting the armor on.
[22:13] He says, pray that I will preach Christ faithfully and boldly, the enemy doesn't merely want individual Christians to fall into sin.
[22:30] This is the advance of the gospel. So we pray for preaching. We pray for evangelism. We pray for missionaries.
[22:38] We pray for discipleship. We pray that it would be there. And then we pray that it would be effective.
[22:43] We pray for conversations for Christian parents, for elders and pastors, for churches, for boldness, for opportunities, for faithfulness, under opposition.
[22:52] And I have seven or eight or nine, maybe pastors here in Southeast Texas, and at least on a monthly
[23:02] basis, sometimes on a weekly basis, we're texting each other on Saturday and not on Sunday
[23:05] morning asking what we're preaching on and praying for each other's sermons and praying
[23:11] for each other's ministry and the people in those churches and we're praying that there
[23:14] would be nonbelievers sitting under the preaching of the word and each of those congregations
[23:17] on Sunday morning.
[23:19] And we shouldn't be the only ones doing it.
[23:21] you guys should be praying for that too.
[23:23] And then we watch and pray because we are not what we think we are.
[23:28] That's the third thing I think we need to see in this text.
[23:33] We, I told you I was going to ask why don't we pray?
[23:36] Now this is where we answer that question.
[23:37] Why don't we pray?
[23:38] And I've got several reasons.
[23:40] I think there's three overarching reasons
[23:43] and then several kind of smaller ones here I want to consider.
[23:48] First of all, as we watch and pray because we're not what we think we are, we don't really
[23:54] believe God is as good as he says he is.
[23:57] That's one of those things I think that keeps us from praying all the time, not just
[24:01] as he says he is, but as he actually is.
[24:04] And this is ultimately a faith issue for us.
[24:06] And it's going to be a faith issue that we're going to keep fighting until we actually
[24:09] see him face to face.
[24:10] We're never going to think he's as good as he actually is.
[24:12] We're going to be constantly learning about his goodness for the rest of our lives.
[24:19] Prayer requires us to entrust ourselves to God.
[24:22] And if deep down we think, if I pray and I ask him to do something and then he does something
[24:34] and it's not actually what I think is best for me.
[24:39] And that is a worry we have a lot of times.
[24:41] Then we won't pray.
[24:43] We see it throughout the Scripture that God is communicating to His people, His goodness.
[24:49] You know, next at us 33 and 34, I know you've heard me say this before, but it's such a pivotal passage.
[24:54] Moses asks God, I want to see you.
[24:56] I want to see your glory, and God says, I will make my goodness pass before you.
[25:01] I'll say my name twice, and then I'll make my goodness pass before you.
[25:05] And so he says, the Lord, the Lord, a God in merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding
[25:10] instead, fast love.
[25:12] That is who our God is.
[25:15] He is merciful, he's gracious, he is abounding, and steadfast love.
[25:20] He goes on to say that he relents from judgment.
[25:26] So who is God?
[25:28] He's a saving God.
[25:29] That's who he is.
[25:29] He's a good God.
[25:30] That's his goodness.
[25:31] He saves.
[25:32] He saves enemies.
[25:33] he saves sinners. He answers Moses request by revealing the goodness and character that he has
[25:41] in Jonah four. Jonah tells us that he actually knows God's character. He hates what God's
[25:48] goodness means for Nineveh. He knew God was good and he doesn't like Nineveh so he doesn't
[25:52] want God to be good and that's sometimes why we don't want to pray because we don't think God is
[25:58] really good, or if we do, think he's good, we don't want his goodness.
[26:03] That's kind of what we deal with.
[26:06] But really, it is that we don't really think that what God is going to do in our understanding
[26:13] is good.
[26:14] I prayed and He did this and I didn't like that, so I'm not going to pray again.
[26:20] Next week, we're going to read together as we're reading through the Psalms Psalm 136, and
[26:25] I think we're going to read it back and forth, because that's actually how it was intended
[26:28] to read and the whole Psalm talks about who God is and what he has done and saving his people
[26:34] and every single verse it says something about God or something he's done and then the congregation
[26:40] responds his steadfast love is in doers forever. His steadfast love in doers forever. His steadfast
[26:45] love in doers forever.
[26:51] And Romans 828 is such a picture. It tells us for those who love God,
[26:55] all things work together for good. It's kind of the the New Testament version of Joseph's
[27:00] statement to his brothers in Genesis 45 in Genesis 50 20,
[27:05] you minute for evil, but God minute for good to bring about the salvation of many who are alive.
[27:10] But then he goes on, he doesn't just say, all things work together for good for his people.
[27:17] But he goes on to tell us what that is, what is the good? Well, it's to be conformed to the image of
[27:22] his son and to be glorified. God's goodness isn't proven to you when you pray and he gives you
[27:29] everything you want. In fact, he wouldn't be good. Parents, you know, you wouldn't be good if
[27:34] you gave your kids everything they wanted or asked for. I mean, that's not a surprising
[27:39] reality to us. God's goodness is proven by his determination that if you are his son,
[27:47] he is going to make you more and more like Christ and he is going to get you to heaven.
[27:53] And he's going to do whatever it takes in your life to make you more like Christ and to get
[27:58] to heaven. Everything that he gives and everything that he withholds is governed by his commitment
[28:06] to you being more like Christ and you getting to heaven. And that's not, he's nothing is going to
[28:13] keep him from doing that. Nothing. It doesn't matter what you want. The other reason we often don't
[28:19] pray is because we don't actually think we're needy. That's part of the problem. I told you sometimes
[28:25] we think we need him more than others. The Bible's diagnosis of us is radically different than
[28:30] our own kind of self-perception of ourselves. We think, okay, okay, basically I need a little
[28:36] help every now and then. And Scripture says you are utterly dependent on God every minute of
[28:41] every day. Look back in your bulltons at what we pray today. How does Jesus teach us to pray?
[28:49] Your will be done on earth as it is and haven't given us this day our daily bread for give us our debts for give us our sin even as we're for giving those your sin
[28:59] Against us we may need to actually pray God. I'm not forgiving those who sent against me. I need to start there
[29:04] lead us not into temptation today
[29:07] every day always we need him
[29:12] Jesus says a part from me you can do nothing
[29:16] Paul says
[29:18] Not that we are sufficient in ourselves, as I already said, Jesus teaches us to pray.
[29:23] Give us this day, our daily bread, our physical existence is something we receive from God,
[29:29] but even spiritually, especially spiritually, because that's what this passage is talking about.
[29:33] We can't resist temptation in our own strength.
[29:39] We will not and certainly cannot persevere without the help of God.
[29:44] We pray before we read God's Word all the time and you should do this in your homes and you should
[29:51] do it in your private worship because you can't understand and comprehend God's Word rightly without him
[29:58] illuminating His Word.
[30:00] Aye, his spirit for you. The Bible tells us there's no spiritual fruit that you will bear apart from Christ, from your union or Christ, or what works your union with Christ. It's the Holy Spirit who unites you to Him. You can't save anyone. You can't even sanctify yourselves.
[30:20] You can't protect yourself from spiritual deception. You can't accomplish gospel ministry through your own power.
[30:27] So our prayer ought to essentially be saying all day about all things in particular prayers I need you.
[30:37] That's what prayer is.
[30:39] Third, I think under this idea, we think we are competent to face our problems.
[30:45] It's connected to this previous one, but that's another problem.
[30:48] Prayer is effectively an assault on our own sense of self-sufficiency.
[30:53] When someone does something that bothers us or when something goes wrong, what do we instinctively
[30:59] do?
[31:00] We make a plan.
[31:01] I mean, how often are we told by our wives that I didn't want you to fix it?
[31:08] Like this is our natural, like we hear a problem, we try to fix it, we come up with a plan,
[31:12] we try to do something, not just men, we all do this.
[31:16] There's nothing wrong with planning, but there's a difference between I have a plan, but I
[31:20] and actually worked this out on my own.
[31:22] I need God's help to lead here and actually my plan
[31:25] may not be good.
[31:26] So I need God to be in control.
[31:28] I've got to hold this loosely because maybe that came up
[31:30] with a terrible plan and I need God to be leading
[31:32] because I need to be ready to go in a better direction
[31:35] if my plan was bad.
[31:36] That's very different for saying, I've got this,
[31:38] which is what we do a lot of the time
[31:40] with a lot of things every day, little things all the time.
[31:47] Sometimes God's allows circumstances we cannot fix,
[31:50] precisely because he's trying to teach us that we can't live with him.
[31:54] I feel like in my life I've ever few months or years there be something that comes
[31:59] up that I can't handle this and it reminds me, oh I should have been praying more than
[32:02] I am praying.
[32:03] I wasn't doing this as well as I am.
[32:07] Paul says, as I already talked about it in 2 Corinthians, that he was burdened beyond strength
[32:14] because he couldn't rely on himself but he wanted to rely on God who raises the dead.
[32:19] So when there's something you can't handle, isn't it good, you're going to the one who not can raise the dead, you're going to the one who does raise the dead.
[32:28] That's the power we have access to, and yet we think I've got this.
[32:36] God puts us in situations where our competence runs out so that we depend on him.
[32:41] We also, there's other reasons, other, as I said,
[32:44] more minor reasons that are probably connected to these,
[32:47] that flow out of these, we sometimes don't pray,
[32:50] because we don't have enough time.
[32:55] Which usually means I have time for the things that I think are important,
[32:58] but not time for that.
[33:00] We, it's true of our Bible reading too, I don't have time.
[33:03] Well, we spend a lot of time on a lot of things,
[33:06] and some of them might be important, but are we really ready to go through
[33:09] catalog every minute and every hour of every day and say that was more important than
[33:13] praying and reading the Bible.
[33:17] We don't generally lack time for our phones or
[33:20] entertainment, sports, conversations, and even if you do, some of you are very busy.
[33:26] You're about very important things and you're not wasting a lot of time by the world's
[33:30] standards, but as you work, more important than prayer and reading God's work.
[33:35] Really, are you ready to say that is the case?
[33:42] So do I have the time isn't really the question to ask,
[33:47] but like what's my time worth or what is this thing
[33:50] that I'm doing worth in comparison to God?
[33:53] Also, I think, well, sometimes we want instant gratification
[33:55] and so we don't want to wait and be patient.
[33:58] We want to request and then have the answer right away.
[34:01] We don't want to request and wait and request again and wait
[34:04] and depend on God and wait some more and persevere and then finally get an answer and we
[34:10] don't want to ask and spend time doing that if the answer is going to be no. And we don't
[34:14] want to put all that effort in if the answer is different than we want and we don't want to
[34:20] wait years for an answer and sometimes we get there and we'll like, well, I'm past that. I don't
[34:24] need it. But we need to pray. Sometimes we don't pray because it's not our routine.
[34:33] And this is
[34:34] is a real practical problem. Our lives are shaped by our habits. There are things we do and
[34:43] they are habits. They are the way we do things. They are routine. And if prayer is dependent
[34:50] on whether we happen to feel like it or not, it's not going to happen. It needs to be our
[34:54] routine and our lifestyle and our pattern. Not some elaborate system, just making it ordinary.
[35:03] because it is the ordinary means of grace, it's the way that I got or nearly communicates his grace to us.
[35:10] We're not grateful, so we don't give thanks.
[35:13] We don't look at things and say, how many good things do we experience every day?
[35:16] We don't say, thank you.
[35:19] We notice, thank you to other people, but maybe we don't say thank you to God on a consistent basis.
[35:23] Or we doubt, just prayer actually work, the word and prayer is the answer to that.
[35:31] or past disappointment.
[35:34] There's so much, I think that I have a few others,
[35:37] but I want to move past, I think also sometimes shame
[35:39] or I'm confessing, can cause us not to pray.
[35:44] I think I know that that's the case.
[35:47] And that is not where we want to be, confess your sin,
[35:51] flee to Christ, give up what you love more than Him
[35:55] and if it's something that is not something
[35:58] that you're loving more than Christ,
[35:59] But you just carrying shame and guilt and a burden and maybe feeling like I can't beat this.
[36:06] You may not be able to, but the one who is in you is more powerful than the one who is in the world.
[36:10] He does kill sin.
[36:12] His death was powerful enough to defeat sin and his resurrection made you just.
[36:17] And there is real victory over sin no matter how powerful and impossible to defeat it feels like in your life.
[36:26] the things that you love so much and you feel like you can't get rid of, God has the power
[36:33] to eradicate them to put them to death.
[36:35] And so keep going to the one who can defeat your sin, who has defeated sin, and who
[36:43] work these things in you.
[36:44] So as we close, as we pray, as we think about prayer some in the coming weeks, we want to
[36:56] Prayer shouldn't be the you know the staples commercials where there's a button you push and all sudden stuff shows up
[37:02] Prayer isn't like the emergency button the staples button. We push and all the sudden something shows up prayer should be
[37:09] This pattern of the Christian life every day all day
[37:13] We should even though it's a pattern. We should be praying urgently because we are in war
[37:18] We are in danger and those we are connected to our endanger and so we need to pray like it's really needed and
[37:25] And then we need to pray independently because we need him.
[37:30] More than we think we do. He is really good. We are really incompetent and we really don't have the power to do the things that we need to have done. And so we should be those who are praying all the time. In this spirit, with all prayer and supplication, keeping alert with all perseverance and making supplication for all the saints. Let's close and prayer.
[37:54] Heavenly Father, I do pray that you teach us in our hearts the need of prayer, that you give
[38:01] us a desire for prayer, that you'd make us a church that prays, that we would exhort and
[38:06] encourage and build one another up in this area, that we would maybe even get to the point
[38:13] where we feel like this is actually a strength in this congregation and in our lives.
[38:17] You have developed us in this way.
[38:19] We know your goodness and we know your power and we trust in you and Lord, we pray that
[38:27] you'd protect us, guard us against temptation, deliver us removal, protect us in the face
[38:35] of the onslaughts of the devil.
[38:38] I pray that Lord our lives and our church would see and know that God is good, that He is seated
[38:43] on the throne that He reigns and that His life is everlasting, He killed death, He is risen
[38:52] and sin no longer has power, and Jesus name. Amen.