Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / I Don't Know How To Pray - November 16, 2025

Transcript

I Don't Know How To Pray - November 16, 2025 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

0:00
Good morning. My name is Daniel.
0:03
I am the lead pastor here at Res Church.
0:05
Thanks for braving the rain. I know, I know in Bakersfield,
0:08
when it rains, I mean, literally if it even sprinkles, we all
0:12
flip out like it's a welcome to the hurricane of California.
0:16
You know, we're made of sugar and we're going to melt.
0:20
We're in week two of a series on prayer.
0:23
I'm excited that you're here today.
0:25
We are we're kind of walking through last week was the was
0:28
the why and and what of prayer. And then this week we're going
0:32
to talk a lot about the how for, for me.
0:36
Let me I have in my life, just in different moments, different
0:40
circumstances I have experienced just just gruelling moments in
0:45
a, in a emergency room, hospital room, just on on the floor of
0:50
the hospital, on my knees in a in a hospital gown, just
0:53
writhing in pain. By the way, hospital floors are
0:57
really gross. I, I, I just, just just just
1:01
crying out to God in, in just extreme pain.
1:05
I, I have poured my heart out to God asking him to explain why I
1:11
lost a child. I have, I have had moments where
1:14
I'm just up to here with frustration, feeling like God's
1:16
calling me towards something, but but not actually knowing
1:19
what it is that he's calling me toward and just kind of being
1:22
frustrated that I don't feel like he's being clear enough.
1:24
And, and I'm and I'm asking, but he's not answering.
1:26
I have felt spiritually dry at times where I just, I feel like,
1:33
man, there's nothing there. And yet intellectually I know
1:36
that my feelings don't match what I know to be true about
1:38
God. But I don't understand why I'm
1:40
feeling the way that I feel in all those seasons or moments in
1:45
my life. Are, are, are kind of those real
1:50
times where I think back to just overwhelming feelings of, of
1:54
powerlessness, like I'm not in control.
1:57
I can't fix a thing that's wrong or, or or ignorance or I just
2:01
don't understand or I don't know or feeling forgotten, feeling
2:06
lost, feeling taken advantage of.
2:09
And, and in every one of those scenarios, it is, it is reaching
2:13
back toward God, like, like reaching up toward God and
2:16
going, hi, I need you to move on my behalf.
2:24
Anybody else felt that way? Oh, just, I need you to move.
2:31
I need to experience God's presence, God's power, God's
2:34
move. And so here we are Week 2
2:37
talking about prayer. If you're, if you're here or
2:40
you're watching and maybe you're new to Christianity or you're
2:42
not a Christian and you're just kind of a skeptic, you're
2:44
checking it out. Someone invited you.
2:46
And, and look, I'm glad you're here.
2:48
In fact, if you're here and you don't understand prayer, man,
2:50
what a wonderful time to come to church.
2:52
We're going to talk a lot about this every one of those moments
2:55
of my life and maybe some of you can relate even if you're not
2:57
Christian have been these times where prayer for me prayer is
3:02
simply reaching out to God in hope of experiencing him.
3:08
And so in our in our sermon last week where we we came up kind of
3:12
a working definition of what is prayer and we said it this way.
3:17
Authentic prayer is encountering God's astonishing presence
3:22
meaning, but prayer, real prayer, is just looking toward
3:28
God and beginning to experience who he is, which changes us.
3:32
And so today what I want to do is I want to take a look at a
3:35
couple prayers in the Bible and and I want to see if from there
3:39
we can build a framework for the how to pray, not why to pray
3:44
that was last week, but the how to pray.
3:46
How do we go about this? So maybe prayer seems a little
3:50
intimidating to you and it, and it shouldn't, you shouldn't at
3:53
all. So we're going to look at a
3:54
couple texts today. The 1st is going to be in Luke
3:57
18 in in Luke 18, there's a point that Jesus wants to make
4:02
about us and, and, and about prayer.
4:04
In fact, he uses prayer to make the point.
4:05
And, and so Jesus made-up a lot of stories.
4:08
I don't know if you know that or not.
4:10
We call them parables to make it sound better.
4:11
But he's made his stories up to teach lessons.
4:13
And he, he made-up a story to teach a very specific lesson in
4:16
Luke 18. And I want you to see this.
4:18
Here's what it says. We're going to start in verse 9
4:22
if you're if you're in your text, Luke 18, verse 9, he this
4:25
is Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in
4:29
themselves that they were righteous and treated others
4:33
with contempt. Say me because every one of us
4:37
struggles with this right here at some point or another.
4:40
We think that we we're righteous and we treat others with
4:44
contempt. Sometimes it's we actually treat
4:48
others with contempt because we think they're being
4:49
self-righteous, which in that moment is ironic because we're
4:52
being self-righteous. Verse 10 two men went up to the
4:58
temple to pray. 1A Pharisee. Now listen, a Pharisee, you
5:02
don't have to know much about the Bible.
5:04
I'll explain. A Pharisee was a professional
5:07
religious person. They went pro at religion.
5:12
OK, a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
5:20
Now look, I know that we don't think much of the IRS, right?
5:26
We ain't got nothing on how they thought about tax collectors in
5:28
the 1st century. In 1st century in Jerusalem, a
5:31
tax collector was the worst of the worst of the worst, an
5:34
absolute traitor. I mean, you could be anything
5:36
other than a tax collector. You could be a prostitute, you
5:39
could be a murderer, you could be a Padres fan.
5:45
Worse than that, if you could even believe that was a tax
5:49
collector. A tax collector.
5:53
Verse 11, the Pharisee, the professional religious person
5:55
standing by himself, prayed thus.
5:58
God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners,
6:04
unjust adulterers. You can fill in the blank for
6:08
yourself, right? Those Republicans, those
6:11
Democrats, my neighbor, whatever, or even like this tax
6:17
collector, verse 12, I fast twice a week, I give tithes of
6:22
all that I get. Verse 13 but the tax collector
6:32
notice where he where he's at standing far off would not even
6:38
lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be
6:46
merciful to me a Sinner. I tell you, the man went down to
6:54
his house justified rather than the other.
6:57
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who
7:01
humbles himself will be exalted. Now this is Jesus example about
7:07
prayer. The professional prayer is
7:12
completely wrong and the amateur outcast is the honorable
7:18
example. Just consider that because today
7:22
what we're going to do is we're going to learn a framework for
7:25
prayer. A framework.
7:27
Now, it's not a formula, it's not a spell or any magic words.
7:35
It's just, it's just a way, a framework that we're going to
7:38
see from Jesus who actually teaches us how to pray.
7:44
And at the very center of this framework is this idea that it
7:48
needs to be a heart that is in need of God.
7:53
OK, and it what I here's what I mean by that.
7:54
Without a posture of humility, prayer is shallow.
8:01
Without a posture of humility, prayer is shallow.
8:05
In fact, our big idea, if we take nothing else out of today,
8:08
take this one concept. Prayer is a spiritual
8:12
chiropractor, it realigns the posture of our soul.
8:18
Prayer is a spiritual chiropractor, it realigns the
8:20
posture of our soul. My soul is constantly in need of
8:25
an adjustment. That's why I started talking
8:30
about all these seasons of my life that we're so desperate
8:34
because often times my heart is not humble, my life is not
8:38
desperate. And so I, I, I believe it to be
8:41
true that often times what God does is he steps back and he
8:47
allows us to experience this world and life without his hand
8:51
on us so that we can begin to realize like, oh man, this is
8:55
pretty terrible. I'm pretty hopeless.
8:58
I really need God's presence. Amen.
9:01
Let's just consider this. When are you most appreciative
9:07
of a life vest? When you're standing on the boat
9:10
and it's nice, it's sunny outside and, and, and you got
9:12
this big bulky thing on and it's actually making you kind of hot
9:15
and it's itching my neck. Like what do I got to wear this
9:17
thing? Or when the boat is capsized and
9:20
the waves are blotting out the horizon and you're just going
9:24
like, I would die right now if it weren't for this life vest,
9:29
man, I'm thinking about this life vest a whole lot
9:31
differently right now. Amen.
9:36
I I I asked myself this question about 10/10/12 years ago and it
9:42
is, it is just kind of haunted me for the last decade.
9:45
It's it's constantly on my mind. It comes back up in prayer all
9:48
the time. Here's the question.
9:50
How can I become desperate for Jesus even when things are going
9:53
well? Because look, I got no problem
9:58
being desperate for Jesus in the middle of a storm.
10:00
Amen man, none at all. I have a journal entry in my
10:05
prayer journal from the weeks right after my wife and I lost a
10:09
child. And it says essentially this,
10:11
Hey, godfather, whatever it is that I'm supposed to learn from
10:15
this storm right now, I'd like to learn it so I don't have to
10:17
go through this again. And I and I believe that the
10:21
primary thing that God has been teaching me over the course of
10:24
the last decade is how to desire his presence in my life even
10:30
when things are good. And in my experience, it's a
10:35
posture issue. Now that may not make sense.
10:39
You can posture issue. Let's go ahead say what?
10:42
See, thanks for asking when when I'm low, when I'm desperate,
10:48
when I'm screaming for God and I feel like life, life will only
10:53
be good if God shows up. But when I when I have that kind
10:57
of realization of how much I need him, then what in my life
11:10
would create that level of desperation to experience God
11:15
outside of a tragedy, apart from a crisis, apart from a disaster?
11:22
Let me just let me ask you here, we're going to do a little
11:27
survey. You ready?
11:28
Raise your hand if you would like to experience God's peace
11:31
and contentment. OK, now hold it up, Ray.
11:33
Now raise your other hand if you would like to experience that
11:36
without having to suffer tragedy in crisis.
11:40
Right. What if I could experience God's
11:44
goodness, but I'd not have to go through the crazy tragedy to get
11:48
there? And here's the crazy part, OK?
11:50
A guy named Daniel Henderson has written a number of books on
11:53
prayer. And in one of his his books, he
11:55
wrote this. He wrote this line.
11:58
It says this, most Christians pray out of a crisis or a
12:02
grocery list. See, either everything's going
12:07
wrong. So I could now I'll pray or I
12:09
gotta, you know, well, God pray for them and I want this right.
12:12
And we just checked the little boxes.
12:16
But but, but my question for you is like, what if, what if we
12:19
could change that? What if we could change that?
12:25
What if we experience God's goodness out apart from the
12:28
tragedy? What if we could experience
12:30
God's goodness all the time? And I believe, and this has been
12:35
the last decade of my life, I believe that it that if we will
12:38
begin to follow the framework for prayer in the Bible and we
12:41
will begin to actually get consistent with that framework,
12:44
consistently doing that, I actually think we will
12:47
experience God's presence in our life all the time, all the time.
12:53
That's my promise to you if you would just begin to do what
12:57
Scripture shows us to do when it comes to prayer, man, we it will
13:00
grow your faith in your pursuit of Christ like nothing else.
13:03
Let me just show you we're going to look at 1:00 central prayer
13:07
today. Jesus taught his disciples how
13:09
to pray. It's called the Lord's Prayer.
13:11
It's in Matthew 6. It's also in Luke.
13:13
We're going to be Matthew 69 through 13.
13:15
This is what it says. Our Father in heaven, hallowed
13:20
be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it
13:27
is in heaven. Give us this day Our Daily
13:30
Bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our
13:34
debtors. And lead us not in since
13:36
temptation, but deliver us from evil now.
13:40
This little tiny, short prayer has all the elements of a
13:45
framework that we're going to lay out today that we could use
13:48
for any prayer, for all prayer, for prayer every day or all the
13:50
time. And prayers can be short and
13:52
prayers can be long. Jesus shows us this, this lesson
13:55
in a tiny prayer, but it also tells us that Jesus went out
13:58
alone with the Lord and prayed for hour upon hour upon hour.
14:01
In fact, we we see him withdrawing all the time to
14:04
spend time praying to the Lord. It's the same framework.
14:07
Ji Packer says it this way. He says this prayer, the Little
14:10
Lord's Prayer, is the pattern for all Christian praying.
14:14
Jesus is teaching that prayer will be acceptable when and only
14:18
when the attitudes, thoughts, and desires expressed fit this
14:23
pattern. That is to say, every prayer
14:32
should be a praying of the Lord's Prayer of some type.
14:37
It's not just the Lord's first lesson on prayer.
14:41
It's the most important lesson. It is the lesson on prayer.
14:48
Jesus, we have a recorded ministry, Jesus has about three
14:52
years where we have stories of him doing public mission work
14:56
and a public Kingdom work. And, and in that three-year
14:59
period, of all the accounts we have in the Bible, his 12
15:03
disciples only asked him one time ever to teach them how to
15:10
do something. They did not ask him.
15:16
Hey, Jesus, teach us how to heal the lame didn't ask teach us how
15:22
to heal a blind part didn't ask teach us how to multiply all
15:25
them fishes and loaves into a bunch of food.
15:27
Man, I'm going to do Chick-fil-A.
15:28
Like didn't ask teach us how to fish like you did and, and pull
15:34
coins out of fish's mouth. Didn't ask one thing.
15:39
Teach us how to pray like you do teach us how to pray.
15:43
So I would just say you might consider that if in three years,
15:47
after all of that supernatural work, the only thing that the
15:49
disciples ever looked at Jesus and said, hey, teach us that it
15:53
was prayer, it might be important to you and me.
15:55
Yeah, let's try. Let's see.
15:59
I'm going to give you this framework up front so you can
16:01
track along with me. Here are the five points.
16:03
They're in your, your, your bulletin.
16:05
Just to give them to you up front.
16:06
Five parts of a prayer framework #1 grounded in Scripture #2
16:12
glorifies God #3 gratitude driven #4 groans of confession,
16:24
and #5 gets the requests last. Now I'm going to walk through
16:30
this and and show you and then I got a little easy way to
16:32
remember it at the end. Hopefully it'll be helpful.
16:34
Grounded in Scripture, we should start all prayer with reverence.
16:38
And if you're not sure about that word, let me explain.
16:42
Really I've been using the word posture.
16:44
And, and the idea is that we want to see how good God is and
16:51
how much we're not like that's actually to see things
16:53
correctly. And so we need our our heart and
16:56
our attitude to change toward God.
16:58
And so if we spent a ton of time on this today, which we won't,
17:01
we could actually break down every little word, every little
17:04
segment of this short little Lord's prayer and we could track
17:07
it back to verse after verse after verse in the Old
17:10
Testament. Everything Jesus is saying here
17:12
in the New Testament in this little prayer is actually a
17:15
paraphrase of concepts from the Old Testament that have already
17:18
been said and already been recorded hundreds of years
17:20
earlier. So when he says, how will it be
17:22
your name? How will it just means most
17:24
worthy be your name? That's most of the Psalms
17:29
actually say the exact same thing when he says your Kingdom
17:33
come. That's Psalm one O 3 And and
17:36
Daniel 4 when he says, give us this day, Our Daily Bread.
17:39
That's Exodus 16, Deuteronomy 8, and Proverbs 30.
17:43
When when every part of this prayer is a paraphrasing of
17:47
things God's already said. See, the fastest way to realign
17:51
my heart, my attitude, my mind toward God to get a correct
17:56
perspective is to worship God with his own words.
18:00
To worship God with his own words.
18:03
Why? Why would we do that?
18:05
Well, here's why. Because his words are perfect
18:11
and mine are not So, so, so to start a prayer with real
18:15
reverence, I highly recommend starting with Scripture.
18:19
It's not the only way. I would just recommend it.
18:21
And, and I want to show you what that looks like.
18:23
But but before I do, if you're again, if you're a skeptic, if
18:27
you're new to Christianity and you understand, why would you do
18:29
that? Why would you read God's words
18:30
back to him? We believe as Christians, we
18:33
believe that the word of God, that's the Bible is perfect and
18:37
without error. Amen.
18:39
It's perfect. And I'm not.
18:51
Someone once asked the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon.
18:54
They asked him what's more important, reading your Bible or
18:58
praying? And he thought about it for a
19:00
second and he went, what's more important to you, breathing in
19:05
or breathing out? They're the same thing, they're
19:14
the same coin. Praying to God and hearing from
19:18
God is part of communicating and experiencing God.
19:22
Amen. Reading God's word, allowing Him
19:25
to speak to us. We believe that the Word of God
19:28
is alive and active and sharper than any 2 edged sword.
19:31
Hearing from God and letting Him Pierce our very soul with His
19:35
words is as important as speaking to God and talking to
19:39
Him and, and, and, and. I want to start with something
19:47
perfect. Say perfect.
19:50
I want to start with something perfect.
19:53
And here's why. This is why it's so critical
19:55
because I am an inconsistent human being, because I'm human.
20:00
My emotions, my circumstances, my health, the people around me,
20:06
the influences are around me, the world, it all has an impact
20:09
on me. I am an inherently selfish,
20:12
mean, egotistical little creature.
20:16
In fact, if I even took my own subjective standard of morality,
20:21
I've I took Daniel's standard and then I applied it back to my
20:23
own life, I still wouldn't pass. That's how bad it is.
20:30
I need something objectively perfect, objectively true,
20:36
objectively moral, objectively holy to hold up and highlight
20:42
how far off the path my life, my distortions, my perspective have
20:47
become. Because I'm always veering off
20:49
the road when it comes to pursuing Jesus.
20:51
And that's what the Bible does. When I start prayer by
20:55
reverently reading God's word, it keeps me low where I belong
21:03
because it shows me the gap between myself and God.
21:08
And so here I'm going to do it for you and, and maybe this will
21:10
help. Just doing it sometimes helps,
21:12
right. I want you to imagine if you
21:16
can, that you're about to go to the Lord in prayer, but you're
21:21
angry that someone has offended you recently.
21:24
That's not that's happened to anyone else.
21:27
Anyone ever been offended and angry but know they needed to
21:29
pray? Yes, 410 all of us.
21:31
Yes, all of us or, or, or or I'm lonely and I'm feeling isolated
21:38
or I'm hurting. I feel like I'm being overlooked
21:40
or someone's taking advantage of me.
21:42
You know, all the feelings that are just so real to us, right?
21:44
They all affect our view of ourselves and others of God and
21:47
they affect my view of you guys, right?
21:49
And So what I do is I go to God reading his word.
21:52
It looks like this Ephesians 2 verse one, father.
22:01
And I was dead in my trespasses and sins in which I once walked,
22:08
following the course of this world, following the Prince of
22:12
the power of the air, the spirit that is now in work, in the sons
22:15
of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions
22:22
of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the
22:26
mind. And I was by nature child of
22:30
wrath, just like the rest of mankind.
22:34
But you, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with
22:42
which you loved me, even when I was dead in my trespasses, made
22:46
me alive together with Christ. By grace I have been saved, and
22:56
you raised me up with him and seeded me with him in the
22:59
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages you
23:02
might show the immeasurable riches of your grace and
23:05
kindness toward me in Christ Jesus.
23:10
For by grace I have been saved through faith, and this is not
23:13
my own doing. It is a gift of God, not a
23:18
result of works, so that no one may boast.
23:21
For I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
23:24
works which you prepared beforehand, that I should walk
23:28
in them. Do you see it?
23:40
By what right do I have to claim being offended?
23:46
By what right do I have to claim unfairness or slander or
23:51
mistreatment? If life were fair, I would be
23:54
executed as an enemy and rebel of God.
23:58
That would be fair. If life were fair, I would face
24:02
an eternity in torment apart from God.
24:06
I don't want fair. I want grace.
24:13
Offended. Offended, if we're being really
24:18
honest, really honest, and you could see every thought I'd ever
24:22
have, you'd find out that the secret me is far worse than the
24:25
me that I want you to see. And you'd know that I'm
24:27
despicable, far worse than anything that you could ever
24:29
describe. But God.
24:35
So we start with Scripture reverence to begin to shift our
24:40
perspective, our posture before God, and then and then we
24:45
glorify God. Oh God, I may be nothing, but
24:51
you are something. So we spend a little bit of time
24:56
remembering who God is. Psalm 34 says this.
25:00
I will bless the Lord at all times.
25:03
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
25:05
My soul makes its boast in the Lord.
25:09
Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
25:13
and let us exalt His name together.
25:16
I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me
25:19
from all my fears. Those who look to him are
25:22
radiant, and their faces she'll never be ashamed.
25:24
The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.
25:27
That's me, and saved him out of all of his troubles.
25:33
The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and
25:36
delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord
25:41
is good. Blessed is the man who takes
25:43
refuge in him. Amen.
25:48
What are we doing? We are gazing into the character
25:51
of God. We are gazing into Him.
25:54
We are looking at Him, and it will show us the gap.
25:57
And as we begin to see the gap between who God is and who we
25:59
are, it puts us in our place that's resetting on adjusting
26:08
our posture. That's why Jesus starts his
26:11
prayer with Father in heaven. Your name is worthy.
26:15
Worthy are you worthy? Is your name your Kingdom come?
26:18
Your will be done. It's about you, not me.
26:24
The third thing we do is, is, is we begin to acknowledge what
26:28
he's already done. It is gratitude driven that the
26:31
Bible constantly, just consistently says, hey, remember
26:34
what God has done. In fact, if you go turn to the
26:36
Old Testament, which is the first part of the Bible, you'll
26:38
find that one of the most consistent spiritual disciplines
26:41
and all the Old Testament is, hey, remember God's
26:43
faithfulness. Hey, remember what God's already
26:45
done. Hey, in fact, they told every
26:46
generation, you need to teach the next generation to remember
26:49
what God has already done because they're going to forget
26:51
you are too. So here's what we're going to
26:53
do. We're going to come up with
26:54
ceremonies and sacrifices. We're going to come up with
26:56
holidays so that you will not forget because man, are we some
27:00
forgetful people. Remember, remember what God has
27:06
already done. Don't allow the circumstances of
27:11
the moment to make you forget how good God has been.
27:17
And so, so we should do that in prayer.
27:20
This is part of the framework of prayer is to remember him.
27:23
So, so let me give an example. Let's say hypothetically, we
27:26
were in the middle of, I don't know, a financial crisis at the
27:28
church. And so I really want to pray for
27:31
God to do stuff. Come on, God, like, let's just
27:34
rain some dollar bills on this place.
27:37
But before I can get there, you know, I probably need to stop
27:41
and remember all the things he's already done.
27:44
So I, I'm, I'm praying God's word to him and I'm remembering
27:47
his character and I'm glorifying him.
27:50
And then before I go any further, let me, let me remember
27:52
his faithfulness. Let me spend a little bit of
27:54
time remembering how much he's already provided.
27:59
Father, we, we give you glory and honor and praise for all
28:04
that you are doing in this church.
28:08
Thank you for Rez church. Thank you for facilities to meet
28:13
in. Thank you for elders who love
28:16
you in this church. Thank you for raising up
28:19
deacons. Thank you for volunteer leaders.
28:22
Thank you for all these small group leaders.
28:24
Thank you that we get to see so many people come to Christ in
28:27
this church. Thank you for gospel growth.
28:30
Thank you for helping us get a foothold in this neighborhood
28:33
and sending people here to this church that we can care for a
28:36
disciple. Thank you for the gift of brand
28:39
new members who chose to go through a membership class and
28:42
and join this church. Thank you for men and women in
28:44
mentorship. Thank you for steering this
28:46
church toward partnerships that you have for us.
28:49
Thank you for faithful givers who have obediently given to
28:52
this church. Thank you for a legacy of two
28:54
separate churches who for years and many former pastors and
28:58
attenders have laid building blocks for this church to stand
29:01
upon. We see your hand at work and we
29:06
acknowledge that we could done none of this without you.
29:09
Thank you in Jesus name, Amen. We thank Him.
29:14
We should remember how good he is.
29:17
Now look it, don't you feel better?
29:22
We haven't even asked for anything yet, and I already feel
29:28
better. All I had to do was begin to
29:30
remember how good God is, how faithful He's been, all the
29:34
things that He's done, and I'm already feeling better.
29:36
There's a Psalm or a hymn from 1897.
29:40
It goes like this. When upon life's billows, you
29:45
are Tempest tossed. When you are discouraged,
29:49
thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by
29:55
one, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
30:04
Remember all the things He's done #4 groans of confession.
30:10
So, so we start with scripture and we approach the Lord to
30:13
recalibrate our heart and we speak his goodness and we
30:15
remember our blessings. And then Jesus would say this.
30:18
Forgive us our debts. He's essentially saying forgive
30:21
us our sins. Now here's the thing, it's a
30:24
really short portion of Jesus prayer because he had none.
30:29
But he knows we do. And the best way, the best way
30:36
to do that is to confess them, to speak them out loud to God.
30:42
Jesus didn't have anything to confess, but I do Amen.
30:48
You do. And so oftentimes, I think they
30:54
will really only get to that point after we've spent some
30:57
time in the Word of God remembering and acknowledging
31:03
who God is, remembering his faithfulness.
31:08
Spending time doing those things begins to allow some of that
31:12
conviction to bubble up to the surface and things that we
31:15
didn't really want to talk about.
31:18
You get to the point, you realize I've got to confess this
31:22
to the Lord. David put it this way in Psalm
31:28
32. For when I kept silent, my bones
31:31
wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and night
31:37
your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by
31:40
the heat of summer. Salah, I acknowledged my sin to
31:45
you. I did not cover my iniquity.
31:48
I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and
31:53
you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
31:55
Do you know what this does? It's still recalibrating our
31:59
heart. So if I started my prayer angry
32:04
and offended and and mad, and I get to the part where I begin to
32:10
realize how much sin I have to confess to the Lord, it's like,
32:15
oh, I was really angry, but then I have to look at my sin.
32:26
I was trying to find a visual for that, how you feel if you've
32:28
ever prayed like that. I found one.
32:30
Check this out and I confess it.
32:48
So before I've asked God for anything, we've we've started
32:54
with scripture, we've glorified God.
32:58
Oh man, we've practiced some gratitude.
33:02
There's some groans of confession and then we get to
33:06
request last. Now I'm ready to ask now I'm
33:09
ready to go to God with my petitions and God wants us to.
33:15
He asks you to. He tells you to heck and James,
33:19
for he says you have not because you ask not.
33:22
Why aren't you asking two things about asking the Lord.
33:28
Number one, I would say do it last.
33:31
Here's the second thing. If you'll, if you'll do this
33:33
other stuff first, if you'll follow this framework, you'll
33:36
find that by the time you get to your request, your request will
33:39
change sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot of bit because
33:45
God has been working in our heart through that whole
33:47
process. And listen, the entire Christian
33:51
faith is based on the concept that God changes hearts.
33:55
Amen. I didn't change mine, and you
33:59
can't change yours. God changes hearts.
34:04
And so in my prayer life, when I start with the things that
34:07
realign my posture recalibrate me toward God by the time I get
34:10
to request they change, here's the second thing.
34:14
We always ask, like Jesus did not my will, but yours be done.
34:18
And here's why. I know what my heart wants.
34:23
I also know I shouldn't trust my heart, so sometimes I'm going to
34:28
ask and I'm going to go. God, I don't even know if what
34:30
I'm asking for is sinful or not. I'm not sure.
34:35
God, I don't even know if I could handle the blessing.
34:38
If you gave it to me, I might mess that up.
34:41
So here's what I'm going to ask. But then I'm going to say not my
34:43
will, but yours. I don't know everything, but you
34:47
do. So I'm going to ask because you
34:49
told me to ask. And then I'm going to leave it
34:51
in your hands because I know that you know better.
34:54
Not my will, but yours be done. Now I know it might be difficult
34:59
to remember 5 GS when you sit down to pray, so I made an
35:04
acronym for you. It's space.
35:06
It's in your handout space. Scripture, praise, acknowledge,
35:10
confess, entreat. We start with scripture.
35:13
We praise Him first. We acknowledge all of the
35:16
blessing and faithfulness He has shown us in our lives.
35:20
We confess our sin. And lastly, we entreat him.
35:23
Entreat just means to plead with God or to ask urgently, I
35:26
entreat. And if we'll do that, prayer is
35:31
a spiritual chiropractor. It will rely in the posture of
35:35
our soul. And so here's what we're going
35:37
to do to end our service today is we're going to do this.
35:40
We're going to pray this way together as a church.
35:46
And then if you're willing to pray like this consistently, if
35:50
you start to practice this, there are five things that will
35:55
begin to happen as a result of this.
35:57
And I didn't have time to preach it, so I stuck it in your bone
36:00
or in your bulletin in that little outline.
36:02
There's five things in there. We're going to call that the
36:05
bone. You have the extended edition.
36:09
You need to take that home. It's a little bone.
36:10
It's a little nugget for you. You can fold it away, put it in
36:12
your pocket for later, like leftovers.
36:15
So we're going to practice this together using this framework of
36:19
space Scripture. Praise, acknowledge, confess,
36:23
and entreat. Here we go.
36:24
We're going to start in Psalm 8. We're just going to pray
36:29
Scripture to God. Here we go, ready.
36:32
Pray with me, O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all
36:38
the earth. You have set your glory above
36:41
the heavens, out of the mouth of babies and infants.
36:46
You have established strength because of your foes, to still
36:51
the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the
36:56
work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set
37:02
in place, what is man that you are mindful of us, and the Son
37:09
of man that you care for us? Oh God, we stop and we pause and
37:16
we wait in the glory of your name and of your character and
37:20
of your faithfulness. You are holy and we are not.
37:25
And we acknowledge. We see what you're doing around
37:28
this church. We, we, we see the changed
37:30
lives. We see the marriages being
37:32
strengthened. We see our kids coming to
37:34
Christ. We see people getting hungry for
37:36
your word and for your presence, Father, we see real life change
37:41
and we thank you for what you are doing, for letting us see
37:46
it, for letting us notice it, for letting us participate in
37:49
your work. And we confess God, I know that
37:56
I allow circumstances of this life.
38:00
I allow the difficulty of of messy people, especially me, to
38:06
to cloud my view, to shake my faith.
38:11
Father, I am. I'm prone to doubt that you have
38:15
a plan. And I in my sinfulness, I get
38:17
anxious about the future. I get worried about not being
38:21
able to see all the steps in front of me.
38:24
And I doubt you. And so I confess my sin and I
38:28
repent to you. Wash me clean and renew in me a
38:32
clean heart. And I bring my request for our
38:36
church before you. I ask that you grow our hunger
38:39
for your presence in our prayer lives, in our desire to study
38:45
your Word. I ask God that you provide for
38:46
this church exactly what it needs financially, through the
38:51
generosity of the Saints in leadership, through the
38:55
empowerment of people you saved and equipped.
39:00
God help us to spread your gospel to every edge of
39:03
Bakersfield and beyond, for yours is the glory forever in
39:10
Jesus name and all of God's people said Amen.
39:15
May God respond to the pleas of his people for the the last
39:22
moment or two that we have remaining in this sermon.
39:25
I just get your attention for just a second.
39:28
If you do not know the God of this universe personally, if
39:35
you've never surrendered your life to Christ, I want to give
39:39
you an opportunity to do that today.
39:43
If you if you believe that you'd like to do that, I'm going to
39:45
lead you in a prayer. All you have to do is simply
39:46
repeat after me or something similar.
39:48
I'm going to use the same space framework for this prayer.
39:53
And so if you're willing to ask him for forgiveness and
39:55
salvation, just follow after me. We we bow your heads and close
39:59
your eyes for just a moment. Father, your word says, if I
40:10
confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart
40:19
that you raised him from the dead, I will be saved.
40:26
So I lift you up perfect and holy, and I acknowledge that you
40:35
created me and everything around me, and I confess that I am
40:42
hopeless and in need of a Saviour.
40:47
So I surrender everything to you and I ask you to save me.
40:54
Be my Lord, please Jesus, if you said that prayer for the very
41:02
first time, will you raise your hand for me to say thank you,
41:11
thank you, you put your hands down in Jesus name, Amen.
41:17
Real quick, Jesus loves you so much more than you realize right
41:26
now. And if moments ago or recently
41:31
you gave your life to Christ and you haven't told anybody, let me
41:34
be the first to say welcome to the family.
41:43
Will you stand? We're going to sing a song and
41:46
respond to this sermon. Our prayer team is going to be
41:50
up here. We, we love praying with you.
41:53
If you have given your life to Christ, maybe it was moments
41:55
ago, maybe it was recently and you haven't told anyone yet.
41:57
There's some tables in the back that say I raised my hand.
42:00
As we sing, as we respond to this, as we come up for prayer,
42:03
you can, you can sneak back there, talk to somebody, tell
42:06
them about your decision to follow Christ.
42:09
We would love to celebrate with you.
42:10
If that's too intimidating, you can just come down for prayer
42:12
like everybody else. We would love to pray with you
42:15
for any reason. Whether you made a decision
42:17
recently, whether you just need prayer, whether you need
42:19
encouragement, we love praying for you.
42:22
You move as the Lord leads. We love you, Church.