dropping off, I think one of my resolutions was to like,
work out more.
And I was telling someone, I was like,
on New Year's Day, I was like,
eating a really unhealthy breakfast burger.
And I was like, I've already failed my goal.
I literally survived about two hours,
not even that necessarily.
But one of our most important resolutions
that we could ever make,
and it's not just resolution that should fall off,
but resolution to make is to continue to grow
in Christ's likeness.
And that's the purpose of our series tonight,
this holy habits, is that we wanna make spiritual growth,
not just a hope, not just a goal,
but that eventually falls off, but a reality,
that these become habits in your life.
That these are things we do without even,
necessarily thinking about it.
And I love Pastor Corey's definition of what a habit is,
is this rhythm of life,
is something that's normal to us.
We're used to it, because we've done it so much,
but it's so important.
It's a cornerstone of our life.
And our first habit that we talked about
was scripture reading.
We talked about reading God's word,
and hearing from him, and memorizing his word,
and having his word stick with us.
And today we're gonna talk about praying,
and I think a good way to start off,
will be to pray, so let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you
for being a good, good Father.
We thank you for how invested you are in our lives, Lord.
I think about who I am,
and Lord, I don't deserve your love,
but you're gracious and you're merciful,
and we get to be here tonight and worship you.
We get to pray to you.
We get to learn about how necessary
and important prayer is.
So I pray that you bless this.
I pray that the Holy Spirit moves,
works in each one of our hearts,
and now we go out, praying,
in your precious holy name, amen.
All right, so tell me, who is your,
oh, we'll do this, okay, I'll get you talking,
so you don't have to yell at me, okay?
Look to the person next to you and answer this question.
All right, who is your go-to person?
Something bad happens,
and you talk to someone,
you wanna hang out with someone,
or any of those, who is your go-to person?
Tell your neighbor, go.
All this, I see a lot of lost spouses
like you're my go-to person.
All right, good.
All right, we got it, we got it.
Everyone's looking at it.
I've seen if siblings are saying it to each other
if they're actually their go-to person.
All right, so like, I looked at like
the top answers for a go-to person.
A lot of people said like their spouse,
a lot of people said their sibling's friends.
Number one, by far, that I saw was mom,
like the go-to person's mom, like, all the time.
And still, even in my life, I have questions and things,
I don't know what's happening,
and one of my go-to people is my mom.
Like, I call my mom like,
hey mom, like, I did a dump, I did a dump thing.
Like, I've always called my mom
whenever I make like really big purchases.
I remember when I bought Anna's ring,
it was the most money I've ever spent,
I was like, mom, what did I do?
Am I okay?
Am I financially bankrupt?
Like, am I okay?
She's like, you're fine, you're good.
Get her a nice ring, that's what she's told me.
All right, but I remember that it's always been
instinctual as a kid for me to call my mom.
And I remember this, especially there was this time where
I was about, I don't know, the younger I get,
the more acceptable it is that the dumb thing I did.
All right, but I was probably like 10.
And I remember I was really, I was mad,
I was like in a pouty mood, something happened.
I don't know if I wasn't allowed to watch TV longer,
I think I had to go to bed.
That's probably what it was,
because I went to the bathroom,
and I was going to brush my teeth,
I was getting ready for bed.
And I remember I picked up the toothpaste just like normal,
everything was fine, and I was brushing my teeth,
and I was kinda doing like angrily,
I was kinda like still mad.
And I remember my mouth started burning,
and I was like, what, what?
I don't think, it doesn't normally feel like this.
Like, it's not like mouthwash or something,
it's like, what is it?
So I was looking around at the toothpaste,
and the toothpaste looked like kind of a weird substance,
and I was like, that's probably not good.
So I looked at it, and this is what it was.
And I didn't know what it was, it was like icy hot.
I was like, mom, what is this?
I was like, what kind of toothpaste is that?
She's like, did you just use,
and I was like, it was all up in,
like there wasn't just like a little bit.
Cause I kept going, it was like,
I just put it on my tongue, it's like,
oh that taste where it's like,
oh I guess the toothpaste has expired,
that's what I thought.
All right, and I just kept brushing.
And I remember I freaked out,
cause I eventually, it took me way too long,
but I looked at the ice, and I was like,
oh, and I read it back, and it's like poison.
It's like, mom, this is bad.
And I remember my mom came in,
and even she was like, what did you do?
So her go-to person was poison control.
So we called poison control,
and they were very much like,
oh yeah, this happens all the time,
just give them a popsicle.
So I just sat down at my kitchen table,
and got a popsicle, and it was all fine.
But I remember, it was so instinctual.
I was like, man, when things go crazy,
it was all falling apart.
I wasn't mad anymore, now I was just scared.
I was like, I don't talk to my mom,
I don't care if she sent me to bed.
Like, I need my mom.
And so does I still say that, right?
But when things go crazy, and you don't know what to do,
there's people that you go to.
And even if everything's fine,
like, and you just wanna talk with them,
you just wanna be with them, there's people you go to.
And the obvious connection I'm making here
is the one we should always run to is our father,
who cares about us.
It's a privilege not only come before his presence,
but to actually communicate and fellowship with him.
I wanna have this mindset of when something happens
in my life, I say, I need to tell my father about this.
I need to talk to my God about this.
And actually have this communion with him.
And the perfect example of prayer is Jesus,
the one who had the best prayer life.
Now Jesus is fully divine, fully God,
but also in this hypostatic union, he's also a fully man.
You see in Philippians two that says he emptied himself.
What I mean by that is that he faced true human limitations.
Fully God, fully man, but he faced things that were hard.
He faced hungry, faced thirst,
he faced even sickness.
He faced even temptations, never gave in, never sinned.
But he faced hard times.
And how did Jesus always respond in the midst of struggle,
in the midst of attack, spiritual attack,
attack against others?
You see this habit of him praying.
Because he understood that prayer is not an option,
but a necessity.
Prayer's not just something I do when I think about it.
It shouldn't be.
Prayer's something that I need this to actually live
a successful, victorious Christian life.
It's not just I pray when I want to.
It's not I need to pray to survive in this Christian life.
I need to talk to my God about this.
It should be this habit, this instinct.
And that's what I wanna encourage us with tonight
is that every believer can learn the habit
of holy habit of prayer by following four practices
from the perfect life of Jesus.
I wanna see his habit.
And I want us to actually, we're not in one specific passage
and the reason for that is not just so we can go around
topically and just pick whatever we want
and smoosh it together.
More so what I want you to see is that throughout the gospel
we see a rhythm, we see a lifestyle, we see Jesus praying.
I want us to look at four passages and exegete those
and expose those and find how our Savior prayed.
And then go and follow his example.
So turn with me first.
We're gonna be in our Bibles a lot.
I want you to actually turn there with me.
All right, I know it's on the screen,
but it helps you when you actually turn there.
Turn with me to Mark chapter one,
and we're gonna be in verse 35.
Mark chapter one, verse 35.
Now Mark is a gospel that's characterized by it,
by being fast.
He says the word immediately a lot
because he's trying to, he's the shortest gospel.
He's putting a lot in.
He's very succinct.
He's trying to make things go fast.
And he's showing us that there's a lot of series of events
that there was this busyness
that Jesus was busy in ministry.
In the context of Mark chapter one, where we're reading,
is Jesus enters compertium, which was kind of like
the headquarters of his ministry.
And then he is off to races in this chapter.
We see that he comes on, he starts his day off,
he goes to the synagogue, and he teaches.
Then he leaves the synagogue, sees a guy who has demons,
cast out those demons.
Then later on in that day, it says in that chapter
that he continues, and he actually goes
and heals Peter's mother-in-law.
And then on the evening of that same day,
around about six o'clock,
he's healing all the sick and oppressed.
And it says that he's actually, he's at his door,
and people just keep coming and knocking on the door,
knocking on the door, wanting healing.
People that are oppressed by demons wanting to be freed.
And he's doing this over and over.
The whole city is at his door scene.
This guy can heal people.
This guy changes things.
We want what he's giving.
And there's so many, we don't even know
how many people came to his door,
and how long he must have been there,
how tired Jesus must have been.
That is a busy day.
You've all had busy days.
It's not as if we can plan about our busy day.
Jesus doesn't, but he had a busy day.
He wasn't just sitting around doing nothing.
He was teaching, then he was healing,
then he was healing another person,
then there was travel involved in the whole evening.
He's just healing people at a door
over and over and over and over again.
And then eventually he does go to sleep,
but even then we see something
that's just magnificent to me in Mark chapter one, verse 35.
It says, in the morning, after that long day,
in the morning, rising up a great while before day,
he went out and departed into a solitary place
and there, prayed.
And what that says is he woke up early and prayed.
What's interesting to me is those late hours,
like he was healing for a while,
but those late hours did not keep him
from his appointment with his father.
Before the business of the day started,
it says he woke up in the morning,
rising up a great while before day,
before the sun has even come out,
before the day has started.
He says, I need to pray.
I need and I want to talk with my father.
And he goes alone and he prays and he talks with God.
And what's fascinating here, what's encouraging,
what's actually convicting is that Jesus didn't just say
that that prayer would just happen.
No, he made an intentional decision.
And there have been so many times in my life
that I say I am just way too tired to pray.
Way too tired to wake up.
Like my day was really long.
Like Lord, you just don't understand how long my day was.
And like, I'm just kind of exhausted.
I'll pray in the morning.
And then I wake up and my alarm goes off
and I say, I got a snooze button.
I can do it later.
And I press snooze and I press snooze
like the next 30 times.
And I'm like, oh, I'm late.
Now I don't have any time to pray.
I need to get going because I'm going to be late.
And then I say, well, I'll pray at some point during the day.
But now the day's slowly going by.
I say, well, eventually I'll pray.
I just got a lot of stuff to do.
Lord, you know, these are really important tasks.
I gotta get these tasks done.
And then before I know it, it's 12 o'clock.
I say, well, I'll pray at lunch.
But then I get into a conversation with someone.
I can't actually take the time to finish this conversation.
But then I go throughout the whole day.
I say, well, when I get home, I say, well, Lord,
it was a really busy day.
I just need to relax a little bit.
And then let me do it right before I go to bed.
But then I do it right before I go to bed.
I'm actually laying in bed.
I close my eyes and say, well, I'm just going to pray to you
before I fall asleep.
What I end up doing, falling asleep and never once pray.
And what I'm showing there is that there's,
maybe I'm the only person in the world that's like that.
But I tell myself I'll do it and then I don't.
Because I didn't want to make time for it.
We do and have time for what we care about.
And then if we care about prayer, we'll make it a pivotal part of our day.
And Jesus did this.
You know how tired Jesus must have been?
But he said, no, I'm going to get up.
It wasn't even like an if in his mind.
It's like, no, I'm going to get up.
I'm going to pray and I'm going to talk to my father.
I'm going to wake up before everything gets crazy because there's a lot of
distractions and ministry to be done.
But before I can even think about doing that, I need to talk with my father.
We have time for what we care about.
I remember in college, well, probably even throughout college,
that thing I always try to find time for were naps.
Like I always wanted to take a nap.
I always take a nap.
I took a nap today.
It was beautiful.
It was glorious.
But I love taking naps.
And I could find it at any time.
I remember there was one, this is probably not a good thing to share,
but I remember I was at an internship one time and it was VBS week and I was just tired.
And we have this giant volcano because it was like some island theme.
So there was this giant volcano on the choir platform.
And it was like two o'clock.
I just had been with screaming kids all day.
There was glitter everywhere.
There was glitter coming out of my ears.
I had it vacuumed glitter for like the past three hours.
I was like, I bet no one will notice if I take a nap.
So I went under the volcano.
It was the coolest nap I've ever taken.
I went under the volcano, took a nap, and like, I don't think anyone ever found
out I took a nap, but that's not good.
Don't do that.
That's not it.
But I remember I was like finding time to this.
I was like, I want to take a nap.
Maus is going to take a nap.
And I had this intentional resolve.
What Jesus has here is this intentional resolve of I'm going to talk with my father.
I can find time to do a lot of things because I care about it.
If I care and see prayer, I'm truly vital.
Not just an option, but a necessity.
I'm going to make time for it.
And Jesus had actions through this.
I love the action words that are used here.
That it says he was rising, that he woke up, that he went out, that he made this decision
to go out alone, that he departed and found a place.
He didn't just go out and be near people.
He said, I'm going to find a place that is solitary, and then I'm going to pray.
Jesus made prayer a priority even when he was tired.
We were never too busy to pray.
And Jesus was more busy than we could ever think of being busy.
Sometimes we use our business as like a badge font.
Like, look how busy I am.
Like, Jesus was the most busy.
And when I'm so busy, that's why I need to pray the most.
Like, it's like I need to stop and actually pray to him because I'm not getting it through
my day.
I need to pray.
And all the people who are around him, the healing, the cast, and the teaching, even
the disciples, it says in the next verse that they come looking for him.
But he says, before I do all this, I need time alone with my Savior.
And he didn't say I need some like me time.
He didn't say I just need to go and like, thank to myself.
Sometimes I do that.
My prayer becomes coupled with me just wanting to be alone.
And I go alone instead of like actually talking to the Father about it and talking to him,
having conversation.
I'm just thanking and praying through my next day.
It's not prayer.
Prayer is when I'm right before my Father talking to him, bringing my concerns, my requests
before him.
And I like that it says in the verse, it says, a solitary place.
It's not condemning praying publicly or with others, but saying I need time alone with
God.
So one of the prayer tools I think that we can utilize, I want to give you four different
ones that I'm giving these to you.
And I'm like, these have all worked perfectly for me.
More so that like I need to start applying these more because it would change my prayer
life if I did.
The first one is I encourage you to find a prayer closet.
And there's like a whole bunch of fancy, if you like Google prayer closet, some of them
like people have decked out prayer closets like they made in their house.
I'm not making that really.
I'm more so saying like have a place at your home, have a place at school, have a place
at work, have your car, like that's a beautiful place to do it.
Like your commute, find a time where you're alone and you can just talk with God.
There needs to be a time.
And I don't, it is not good.
It's like this, if I try to do like, if I try to do my homework, right on my bed before
I went to bed, you know, I'm going to end up not doing my homework.
I'm going to fall asleep.
Like find somewhere where you're actually awake, you're alert, you can think and you
have this time.
Like I encourage you to schedule a time to pray.
Like we schedule a time for everything else that's important in our life.
Why do we think we can't schedule a time to pray?
Like say this is my time where it's my God time.
Every time I should be praying without ceasing, correct.
But I need a time where I'm praying.
Like and you don't be like, I'm going to pray for the next hour.
It's like you weren't praying for five minutes.
Let's start slow.
All right.
Pray for five minutes in this day.
This is my five minutes uninterrupted.
And then start growing.
What is this schedule time, the schedule place?
And what I love that Jesus does is that he was always doing it.
You see a pattern is that he was doing it in the morning and even in the evening.
Someone once said that prayer is the key to the morning and the bolt to the evening.
Start your day off well and ends it.
Giving it to God.
And what is what the application of this is not a conviction of like, well, I just
need to miss sleep and just wake up at 3 a.m. and start praying.
I don't think that's the point at all.
I think it's more look at the Savior's example.
Nothing, nothing could keep him from conversing with his father.
So question I thought I'm saying this to you, but I don't apply this to me.
Can I be alone with God?
Can I just be alone with him?
Away from the business just with the father.
Jesus knew that he needed the father to face the day, the hardships, the trials and temptations.
And he knew that would make a difference.
So first we need a time to pray privately.
Now we got to add some content to those prayers.
All right, we're praying in a solitary place.
Not bad to pray publicly.
Not bad to pray with others.
Actually biblical.
But I need a time to pray privately.
What else do I need?
Well, I need some content.
What's awesome that Jesus does is he prays about his plans.
Turn with me to Luke chapter 6.
Luke chapter 6 and we'll be in verse 12, verse 12 and 13.
And we see in this context here that Jesus' ministry is growing and now he's at this point
where he needs to appoint disciples.
And he wants to find men that are useful for his ministry.
Men that he knows one day are going to lead his church.
He wants to find the right men.
And what is fascinating to me, I never saw this before.
What is fascinating, before he chooses the 12, he prays.
You see this in verse 12.
I'll make sure I got it in my Bible.
All right, verse 12.
And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued
all night in prayer to God.
Two important things I want to point out in that verse is first, a mountain.
Once again, he's going to a solitary place.
He's not in the valley where everyone else is at.
He's going to a mountain.
That's saying that he's going alone, once again, private, away from the crowds.
Because the crowds like to follow Jesus.
And then what is so amazing to me is that it says that he continued all night in prayer
to God.
He had this deep concern and he knew that the best solution to find was going to be through
prayer.
He was only going to find a solution by talking to his father about it.
I don't know about you, but like, all night is a long time.
Like, let me prove it, okay?
This will prove it.
Him with the next one, Logan.
All right?
So these are pictures from, you guys remember, I put you up with that consent.
Sorry.
All right, but you're all up there.
All right?
This is our teen all night.
We're like two different ones.
All right?
Okay.
I want you to see something.
How long an all night is.
Okay?
So that's like all the teens that were here last time.
Great.
It was great.
Okay?
We look like we're awake, but those are lies.
Okay?
That's like 6 a.m. and we're barely making it.
All right?
But this was one thing we did where we threw toilet paper.
That was fun.
That was Todd's idea.
Todd, you proud of that?
He's, he is.
All right, good.
And then this was us like, this is like us hopeful.
Okay?
So that's like us at the very end where we're delusional.
All right?
So the pictures are about like, maybe like 12 a.m. I think when these happened, all right?
That's Miles at like 4 a.m.
And if you zoom out of that picture, Miles is barely there.
He's holding like an air to drink, his hands are shaking.
He's like, I don't know where I am, but I'm here.
All right?
It's like, by the time you get to 4 a.m. at all night, you're like, I don't know what
life is.
I just don't want a kid to die.
All right?
That's our goal right now.
We want to get them back home.
All right?
We're doing something.
I don't know what we're doing.
All right?
And so you parents are like, we're never seeing him back to an all night or ever again.
All right?
One of the things is that all night is a long time.
And that's what's amazing me about Jesus.
That's why he's our example.
That me right now to go and say,
I'm gonna go pray all night.
I don't think I could do it.
I'll be honest with you.
But Jesus says, no, I'm gonna go pray all night
and talk to my father.
All night.
Even though he has a busy day,
he literally goes a few hours after everyone wakes up
and goes and chooses to 12.
He still continues his day.
And Jesus uses that as an excuse
to keep sleeping the rest of the day.
Now, make it clear that Jesus knew how to rest as well.
He kept the Sabbath.
He wasn't being irresponsible.
But he knew, I need to talk to my father.
It's taken a long time because it's that important.
And we see what he does in verse 13.
And when it was day,
and this is why these two verses work together,
it's saying he was praying that night.
Then when it was day of that same day,
he called unto him his disciples.
Of them he chose 12 and he also named apostles.
When daylight came, he went and called the 12 disciples.
Why then?
Well, he had peace.
He went and prayed and talked to his God all night
to his father all night about it.
You know, what I found as a tendency in my life,
and this is me, okay?
Maybe it's no one else.
But like, I get so stressed about things
and then I like get so anxious about things
and I get so worried about it.
And then I try to solve it myself
and then it starts failing.
And then I get even more anxious about it.
And what I realized is that I'm so stressed
and I'm so worried,
and I even get sometimes mad at God.
But then I ask myself, it's like,
Miles, have you prayed about it?
And not just the prayer of like, Lord, help me.
It's like, no, have you sat down in prayer
and talked to God about what's going on?
And then I do it and there's this crazy thing that happens.
I feel better.
And it's not about me like feeling bad enough.
So it's just like, I've given it to God
who can actually,
who the one who can actually take care of it,
I've finally given it to.
I'm like, oh, you are the God of all
and you can't take care of my problems
and I don't have to be stressed.
I should pray more.
And then like a week later I do the same thing.
But what Jesus shows here is that he didn't get stressed,
he didn't get anxious.
He said, I'm gonna pray.
I'm ashamed to think about this
because like I've made some big commitments
and like, I'm like, did I pray about those?
Did I pray about this big decision I have?
Have I actually talked to God about it?
I remember a pastor said something to me
one time right in a sermon when I was in high school
and he said, I think he was talking to a group of students
and he said, students, you need to pray.
You know what, even pray for something as small
as like purchasing a car
and that's not a small thing necessarily at all.
He's like, pray about it.
And it just hit me.
I was like, God cares about what car I purchase?
Yeah, because he cares about you.
He cares about what happens in your day.
He wants to hear about it.
He wants to hear from you
and see that you're surrendering to him.
He doesn't want just a haphazard prayer here and there
and I don't mean that of like not having a routine of prayer.
I mean, sometimes I just say these routine prayers
just to say that I'm praying right before my meals
right when I wake up in the morning
or like, I just kind of say like a routine thing.
I don't really mean it.
I've noticed that this week for praying for this was like,
I'm praying, but am I praying
or am I just saying things that come to my head
and not actually talking to God about it?
I'm just saying it to get it over with
so I can say that I did it.
But no, an actual prayer, why stop and pray?
What is interesting to me is that Jesus just
did not do anything at this decision.
He didn't just say, well,
I'm gonna trust the Holy Spirit's leading.
Now, he knew that there was pressure here,
that these men were gonna be the future leadership
of the church and he says, I'm gonna pray
because my father's going to work.
It makes me think, how much have I missed
because I haven't prayed about something?
Like, what if I prayed about that?
And it's not like God's holding back.
It's more so that I need to have this prayerful dependence
upon him and then I see him work amazingly.
He always does, but think about what he would do
if I just stopped trying to do it
and just got out of his way and watched him work
as I'm serenading over to him.
So kind of something that's applicable
and that's helped me is that whenever I have a big decision,
I wanna do this, I don't do it enough.
But it's called a pros and cons list, you know that,
but then you couple it with prayer.
This is so practical, but it's so important.
That's why I'd have a teenager do it
if we're gonna talk about some decision
they're gonna make.
We're gonna talk through it,
but we're gonna do it with prayer.
And what it does is like, you know pros and cons,
this pros all the good things, then the cons,
all the negative things, and then you yield.
You pray to the Lord about it.
You say, let's pray through each of those things.
Let's pray through this decision.
Let's talk about it through prayer.
Let's go through each facet of it
and pray to the Lord about it.
What's cool is that I saw a team do this.
And they even necessarily like need me.
That was the cool part of like,
they just do this by themselves.
They prayed about it.
They sought counsel and they made a decision.
It was a biblical good decision.
And it's like, we pray that God gives us wisdom.
Like the best advice, and sometimes it can sound like cold
sometimes, right?
But the best advice is like, pray about it.
If I'm having a team come and talk to me,
like it sounds really cliche, but it's powerful.
But if I have a team that's coming to me, right?
And some of you I've said this to you, right?
Hopefully, hopefully I have, all right?
But it's gonna do a whole lot more
coming before the sovereign Lord than coming before me.
You're telling me, but have you talked to God about it?
Because watch what he will do.
Have you prayed about it?
It's like, before we do anything, we gotta pray.
Have you talked to God about it?
Because I can't solve your problem.
You can't solve your problem.
God can.
Let's talk to him.
That's the best thing to do
when you're trying to make a decision.
Like think through it.
He doesn't want you to be foolish in it.
He still wants you to make the decision.
But if I can go through and just give it over to him,
we have these big decisions,
but we have a bigger God who can handle big requests.
And he takes care of us.
And see, I can come to God with decisions.
That's kind of like the crisis mode.
I can come to God when I'm scared,
when I'm fearful, when I'm certain.
But I'm also supposed to be in daily prayer.
What does that look like?
What does it mean to be in daily prayer with the Lord?
Because not always am I just praying to him in crisis.
Like how do I establish this routine of prayer?
And we see this too in Luke 11, verses one through four.
So it turned me Luke 11, verses one through four.
And that leads us to our third point.
Okay, we see that we need to pray privately.
We see we need to pray about our plans.
We also see that Jesus prayed with a plan.
He prayed with the plan.
This is one of the most familiar
and beautiful prayers ever uttered.
And we see in Luke chapter 11,
I will start in verse one.
All right, let's see if I can get my Bible there.
All right, Luke 11, verse one.
All right, it says,
And it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place
when he ceased and one of his disciples sent him,
Lord, teach us to pray.
As John also taught his disciples.
Jesus was praying and it came to pass as he was praying
in a certain place.
So Jesus is a certain place.
He's praying.
His disciples saw that, knew he was praying.
And what's interesting to me is they didn't go
and interrupt his prayer, which I think is fascinating.
Cause I think they knew by this point
is that we don't mess with that.
There's this holy, beautiful relationship that's happening
where the son is talking to the father and it's this beautiful.
Could you imagine?
Like just, just like, thank for a second.
Don't get so like caught up.
This is real.
Like think about Jesus actually praying
how beautiful that had to have been.
Man, just think about when you get to heaven
and like just seeing Jesus and it's just,
oh, it's just amazing.
And then seeing him on earth, like you walk behind a tree
and like Jesus is praying.
And they're like slowly backing up.
It's like, we don't interrupt that.
We're gonna let him finish.
Jesus finished his praying.
They come up to him and then they ask him a question.
One of the disciples and they ask him what?
They say, Lord, teach us to pray.
Teach us to pray.
They didn't ask Lord, teach us to cast out demons.
They didn't ask Lord, teach us to heal.
They didn't ask us Lord, teach us to do miracles.
They didn't even say Lord, teach us to preach.
They say Lord, teach us to pray.
And why?
I think it's because they saw this commitment
that Jesus had to it.
They saw that probably what he did most
is he's praying daily without ceasing.
We're commanded to pray without ceasing.
Jesus did that.
He prayed and they saw the effect of it.
Like they saw that Jesus would pray and say,
guys, we need to pray about this.
And then they see it answered and say,
oh, it works, prayer works.
Lord, we want that Lord, teach us to pray.
And I heard a pastor say like,
would someone ever ask me that?
Would someone ever say that to me?
And not like in a prideful sense,
but I'd be so characterized in my prayer life
that someone could come up to me and say,
hey, teach me to pray.
Because what you have is what I want.
And that convicted me.
Because it's like no one's coming up to my prayer life
being like, Miles, teach me to pray.
Why?
Because I'm not praying like I should.
But I don't want to be there.
And obviously I'm not gonna meet that perfection of Jesus
by no means, but I want to have a life that is like Jesus
that's characterized by praying.
And what his amazing that Jesus does is he teaches them.
I see this verses two through four, let's look at it.
Very familiar.
And he said to them, when you pray,
say, our Father which are in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
as in heaven so on earth.
Give us day by day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
And while there's, it's a whole another sermon
to dissect all of that.
That's not necessarily my point to do tonight.
More so I want you to see that he gives a plan.
Maybe it's just me, but like when I start praying
and I don't have a plan, my mind starts wandering.
Right, when it's time to pray, like,
I keep bringing this up because I do it all the time
of like falling asleep.
Like I don't keep saying that.
It's just like I keep doing it.
I need to be like, Miles, get out of the bed and go pray.
All right, cause you're going to fall asleep.
I'm like, no, it'll be different tonight
and it's never different.
All right, but like I start praying to the Lord
and I realize I started thinking about the whole day.
I start like planning my next day.
I start thinking about what I'm going to eat later for dinner.
Like I'm thinking about my,
you could be thinking about your grocery list.
I'm thinking about an assignment.
I need to finish an email that needs to be done.
I remember there was one time I was like,
thinking about like how many slices of pizza
I've eaten my whole life.
Like it's like, I'm just thinking about the dumbest stuff.
And it's like, cause my mind is just wandering.
Cause I went in with no plan
and I'm getting the results I planned for.
Cause I didn't do anything.
And it doesn't mean we can't go to Jesus anytime.
It just means like, maybe I should think about
what I'm going to pray and say.
It doesn't mean I necessarily have to have it scripted.
That's not the point at all.
Right? Cause Cary's given us a format to follow.
It's not bad to recite,
but it needs to be sinuant and sincere and genuine
and a prayer.
Not a command, but a format to give us.
Jesus assists us with this.
He says, our Father, which are in heaven,
how will be thy name?
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
As in heaven, so on earth.
He says, first start off, praise God.
We have a lot to praise God for, amen?
Amen? All right.
So we start off saying, Lord, you're amazing.
You're great.
Look at what you've done today.
We start praising it.
And then we even have this surrendered heart
that will be done.
And then after I praised him, I can go in and he wants,
that's an amazing thing.
He wants us to give our request to him.
We can say, give us day by day our daily bread.
Lord, give me what I need today, this physical request.
And he goes in and says, forgive us our sins.
Forgive, and we also forgive everyone
that is indebted to us.
It's this moral request.
There was physical, now it's moral of,
Lord, help me to grow in you and live for you.
Forgive me for the sins I've done,
but Lord, also help me to live and care for others,
to love others.
And then, so we have the physical, we have the moral,
and then it also goes into the spiritual direction
of request, says, lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
It says, Lord, I need some guidance.
I need your wisdom.
And James 1 5 says, if I ask for it, you will give it to me.
I believe that you will give it to me without wavering.
And Lord, I need protection, because there's an adversary,
there's an enemy he's looking to devour me.
What I need you each day,
I need you through this day to fight for me.
And it's going through and talking with the Lord about life.
Lord should not care about my life.
Like, he does.
Does that like amaze you?
Like, does that excite you, that the Lord cares about you?
He cares about your exam?
He cares about your work?
He cares about what you're feeling?
Like, every time you feel that way,
there's no one in your life that's like that.
You might have people that are close,
but no one's like God that cares about everything
and shows it all the time.
That's God.
He loves us.
We need to talk to him, be vulnerable,
and have this plan of just praising him,
asking requests, and surrendering to him.
What I've learned in my life is that,
sometimes I'm not great at that.
Like, I fail at this.
And I don't really talk to him.
I don't talk to him like he's God.
I just kind of like, I have this routine I followed
and there's this fancy language that I do.
It's weird, okay?
Because we don't talk to anyone else
like how sometimes we talk to God about prayer.
All right, James, I'm using you, all right?
Okay, so sometimes when I'm talking to God, right?
I just start repeating myself over and over again.
Like, I don't know if you said, okay, like, I'm praying.
If I go up to James, okay, I'm talking to him,
like, James, how are you doing?
James, I hope you have a really good day, James,
and I hope James, that things just go really well
for you and James.
Thank you for all that you do, James.
You're so good, so good, so good.
James, thank you.
James, James, James.
And it's like, there's not this, I'm like talking,
I'm not talking to him like he's God and he's listening.
I'm just kind of like repeating it.
Sometimes that's because we haven't practiced it before,
but it's like, we can talk to God.
We don't, like, I don't know if you do that,
but then also, I do this, I do this too, okay?
If I did this to James, because you would expect me
to like say hi to James and talk to him,
but if I'm like, if I just go up to James and just say,
hey, James, I need five bucks right now, five bucks, five bucks.
Get your wallet out, get your five bucks.
Five bucks, sweet, come on, come on, come on, come on.
Five bucks, five bucks, five bucks, come on.
I'm serious, five bucks, all right, five bucks,
let's go, what you got?
That's $2, that's three, all right, thank you, all right?
And I just leave, all right, that was it.
Like, sometimes that's what I do.
I'm like, God, I need you, all right, thanks,
and then I take it, like, there was no conversation
that happened, right?
And I look at you, like, four guys like,
you mean it, Miles?
Like, you won't be, like, that's not how you talk to people.
I'll give you your $3 back, all right?
But, like, sometimes we go to him
and we just treat him like this vending machine,
it's like, I hit the button, give me what I want, all right?
And he starts shaking the vending machine, give it to me,
right?
And I don't talk to him like he's the God of the universe
that I'm before and get to be with.
And that's an amazing thing to me,
that I get to talk to God, and I can just talk to him.
Like, just, I remember there was someone in college
I was talking to him, we pray together,
and they talked to God, like, that was their best friend.
And it wasn't this, like, fancy language,
they weren't trying to press anyone,
they were just talking to God.
It's not a performance, it's a conversation.
With the almighty sovereign ruler.
Now, think about that, you could have a conversation
with the almighty sovereign ruler.
Man, some of you teens look really bored, all right?
Because I get to, like, have an almighty conversation
with the Father, and he listens to me.
Like, you're like, Miles, you're a little too excited.
Maybe we need to get more excited and we would pray more.
Because it's amazing.
All right, I'll breathe, all right, there we go.
But, here's my tool for you, that I think would help me.
This is my personal goal for this, this year,
because I haven't been doing it, is keep a prayer journal.
Like, write down what you're praying.
It doesn't have to be something fancy,
because I hear that, I'm like, oh, homework assignment.
I don't want to write down stuff.
No, all you need to do is just write down, like,
okay, I prayed to the Lord, I praised him
for his character of love, and how he loves me.
Go ahead and put up that acronym I have,
because that'll make more sense.
It's kind of the form and I follow,
and I write this down in my prayer journal.
Okay, I have, I pee, and I find something
to praise God for, and I write it down.
I want to write it, I need to do better at this, all right?
And then, then R, it's like, okay,
I've messed up at some point.
And instead of just saying, Lord, forgive me for all my sins,
let me give him a specific.
Lord, I've thought thoughts I shouldn't.
I was prideful, forgive me, Lord.
I don't want to have anything in the way.
And then I go in and I say,
Lord, help me with this specific problem.
Not just a general of like, Lord, give me what I need,
but, Lord, hey, I'm struggling this way.
Or this conversation I have come,
can you help me with this, Lord?
Can you give me grace and wisdom?
And then always in the prayer of,
Lord, your will, not mine, then amen.
And then you like, you feel better,
and there was this format that happened.
It wasn't just saying a whole bunch of words.
It wasn't just like throwing requests at him,
it was talking to him.
This helps keep me on track in an insane amount.
So we have first, we need to pray privately.
In crisis, we can come to them with our decisions.
And the everyday we can come to them.
Now what we see with Jesus,
and I think his encouragement to us,
is Luke chapter 18, verse one, our last one.
Go ahead and turn there with me.
Luke chapter 18, verse one.
And we see that Jesus says, now don't stop praying.
Jesus prayed with persistence.
You know, the problem with like a habit,
is in order to make it a habit,
and Corey said this perfectly last week,
is like, to make it a habit,
you gotta like continue doing it.
But we give up.
Yet even here we can look to Jesus' instruction and example.
You see this in Luke chapter 18, verse one.
And he spake a parable unto them, to this end,
that men ought always to pray and not to faint.
What's interesting, before he gives this parable
to the next verses, he tells them the point of it.
He says, don't miss the point.
I'm gonna give you a parable, but here's the point.
Sometimes they miss the point.
Is men ought always to pray.
We are always to pray and not to faint.
Don't stop praying.
And then he continues to give this parable,
and we couldn't take it apart,
but I'll tell you the overview of it,
of the parable of persistent widow.
And it's this widow who keeps coming to this judge,
and the Bible says that it's a judge who,
who doesn't care about people,
doesn't like people, and doesn't like God.
But this woman keeps coming to him and asking for justice.
Hey, this person wronged me.
There needs to be justice here.
And the widow comes, the judge says,
now I'm not gonna deal with you.
But the widow keeps coming back,
and coming back, and coming back, and coming back.
And eventually the judge is like,
I'm gonna grant her a request,
not because I like her, not because I feel bad about it.
She's like, I want her to leave me alone.
And the point of this is not to compare God to the judge.
It's not what this parable's about.
This parable is the point of this widow
kept persisting with her request.
And we need to keep praying.
And we see this in Jesus' instruction.
He says in that verse, ought always to pray.
That echoes us to 1st Thessalonians 517, right?
The pray without ceasing.
That I need to pray more than just words on my lips,
but it's this heart desire that's constantly desiring him.
It's like breathing to me.
It's not that I have to have this long prayer all the time,
although I think I should have these times
where I'm being privately in prayer with him.
But it's just daily,
like having the spirit of dependence in prayer.
Always to pray.
And then it says not to faint, not to lose heart,
not to get discouraged, not to give up.
The sad reality is people have great intentions to pray,
but it slowly trickles off.
And it's hard.
It's kind of like if we,
has anyone ran a marathon before?
Anyone? Anyone?
All right, okay.
Everyone's like, okay, good.
I haven't.
This is not me admitting that.
All right, how about let's go smaller.
5K.
5K, okay.
Maybe my wife ran a 5K.
Okay, I gotta step it up.
All right, man, good night.
All right, wow.
All right, I gotta run more.
Yeah, that's another goal.
Okay, I'll use Miss Heidi Berry.
Okay, if me and Miss Heidi,
I was like, Miss Heidi, you know what?
I saw you raise your hand.
Like we need to go run a 5K.
And if we went and did that,
you know what she would end up seeing?
We would be up, we would be there at the very start.
And then we'd be pumping each other like,
hey, we're gonna do this.
This is gonna be great.
We're gonna run and we're not gonna stop.
And we're gonna be smiling the whole time.
We'll be joyful.
She started running maybe like the first block
and she turned around.
She still be, she'd make it, man.
But she turned around and be like, where's Miles?
Where's Miles?
Miles is dead at the start.
Like he didn't move.
He was like, yeah, I started moving, he was like, that's enough.
I'll go get a donut, man.
Like I'll come back.
Like that's sometimes how I'm like of just,
I'm like, I have great intentions.
We'll do this.
It sounds really good.
And then we get to the starting line.
It's like, okay, I'm moving.
It's like, oh, that takes effort.
All right, I'm gonna go back over here.
Like you do great, Miss Heidi.
I believe in you.
I'll cheer you at the end.
I'm gonna get my car and come around to the finish line.
I'm not walking.
I'm not even running, right?
But like, that's me sometimes.
So I have these great goals,
but that's why we need to make it practically applicable
and just gives us encouragement.
Don't stop praying.
It gives all these tips of how,
all these instructions, more so his example.
Hey, don't stop praying.
Here's how you can stop,
here's how you can start praying and continue praying.
You know, Christians aren't praying like they should.
I think part of that is two reasons.
Is that first, I think sometimes we just don't have a plan.
We don't have a time.
We don't have a place.
We don't have content.
We don't know how to do it.
No one's taught us how to do it or teach us to pray.
How do we do it?
I think number two is sometimes we doubt.
We pray and say,
well, I pray this request forever.
Do you hear?
Do you care?
Does it even work?
Well, let me tell you,
prayer works and changes things.
Every prayer of someone who wakes up in the morning,
no matter their age,
and they pray,
I know,
I did a nursing home ministry for a little while,
and I know my grandma,
I'll use my grandma's example,
of like, she prays every morning and she prays.
And she just talks to the Lord.
It's like, the Lord hears that.
The Lord hears that faithfulness
and is working through it.
I'm just thinking of like,
what have I been blessed with
because my grandma has just been praying for me
every morning?
Are the prayer of a five year old
every night before they go to bed, Lord?
Be with, and then,
my sister used to do it.
My mom would always make sure
to go through the prayers with her.
She sometimes understands, sometimes wouldn't.
But like, I'm just saying,
Lord, work through those prayers.
It's not just a routine thing that we do.
Like, when you go and pray with your child,
like, those prayers work.
Lord hears those.
It might be simple to their five year old self,
but it's powerful.
It changes things.
God hears every prayer of sorrow.
He hears every prayer of frustration.
Every prayer of uncertainty.
Lord, what do I do?
He hears our request for Lord,
forgive me for this sin.
Lord, help me to forgive someone else.
Lord, give me peace.
I pray that a lot.
Lord, give me wisdom.
Lord, help me through the sickness.
Help me through this decision.
Lord, help me to spread the gospel.
Help me to be bold.
You know, the outcome's not always the way we expect,
but it's always the way God wants.
So I encourage you to use this to our final tool.
Is use an answer, record your answers.
Like, or get a recorder of, like, God answering your prayers.
If you have this prayer journal,
you write down a request, and then he answers it.
Like, take a moment to recognize that.
Like, he answered your prayer.
That's a beautiful thing.
And then when you're doubting,
because it comes up and Satan tries to come up
and make you doubt, and see those,
or sow those seeds of doubt,
go back and say, hey, Sam, I know what you're saying,
but I know my God,
and here's how he's answered here and here.
And I'm flipping pages through the record journal,
and I'm like, he's answered here and here,
and I requested this, and he provided this,
and he went even above what I thought,
and I requested this, but he actually did this,
and that was so much better.
Look at how my God's always faithfully provided.
Great is his faithfulness to us.
Prayer's not about us commanding God,
and saying, God, do what I want.
It's about us bringing our concerns before him.
He already knows them, the Bible says that.
But I can bring them before him,
not to inform him, but to depend on him,
and surrender to him, and watch him work.
And Jesus does this beautifully in the garden,
because in Matthew 26, verse 39,
right before he's brutally tortured and killed,
says, he went a little farther and fell on his face
and prayed, saying, oh, Father, fibby possible,
let this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou will.
Jesus prayed right before his death,
let this cup pass, but if not your will alone.
And in this passage, you see that it actually says,
you continue reading,
and he says that he did this three different times.
There was this anguish, and there was this persistence,
because he never lost hope, he never commanded God,
never distrusted God, and he never stopped praying.
Don't stop praying, and don't ever underestimate
what a small prayer can do.
And I say small in quotation marks,
I'm just saying it's a small prayer
when you're before the holiness of God,
and he's hearing your requests.
But I need to pray to God about just like a quick prayer.
Like in visitation, I should make a habit of praying,
because I go up to someone's house and like,
I gotta say things, and I gotta say things that make sense.
I'm trying to point them to the gospel,
but I gotta make sure I get a conversation.
It's like, why would I go in miles of power?
That ain't gonna do anything.
Why don't I go and talk to the Lord about it,
and pray and say, Lord, help me.
When I have this really hard conversation,
maybe I should pray about it.
When I have a hard conversation with someone,
and things are just rough or it's just sad,
it's like, the best way to end anything is just to pray,
and just say, hey, this was really hard,
this was, or maybe it was really good, like,
I'm glad we gotta have this time.
Can we just pray together?
And then just make this habit of like, I'm gonna pray.
And it's not praying to like, be like,
I'm the best because I'm praying.
It's more like, I need the Lord,
so I'm gonna pray, would you like to pray with me?
And see how the Lord uses that.
Don't stop praying because he doesn't stop listening.
Jesus had a rhythm of prayer in his life.
Go ahead, look and throw up that slide for me
where I have all the tools for me.
Thank you, buddy.
We see that we have these practical tools,
and we're based on them off of practices of Jesus,
that he prayed privately.
I need to have a time with my father.
Do you have a reserved time to talk to God?
And that's convicting,
because like, I have a reserved time where I watch TV,
and I'm like, I need that to chill and decompress.
Do I have a reserved time to talk to God?
And is it more than my TV time?
Like, am I talking to God?
Jesus also prayed for his plans.
We make a lot of decisions in our day.
See how it changes when you talk to him about them.
You ask him for wisdom.
Jesus also prayed with a plan.
I mean, you get the result you plan for.
So plan your structure, grab a journal,
and just go through your prayer life.
Talk to him about it.
Talk about what you, write down what you want to talk
to God about, and then pray persistently.
Don't stop.
Jesus displayed this perfectly.
In the easy times and the hard times,
you could find him with his father praying.
And I think the best way,
it's not over complicated.
The best way to start following the practices
of Jesus' prayer life is get this,
ready, drum roll, start praying.
It's the best thing to do.
Go out and say, I'm gonna pray before I go to bed tonight.
You're like, Miles, I already do that.
Well, good, keep doing it.
The application is simple, start praying.
And you need to recognize, and this is important,
is that you don't need to go from zero to 60 real quick,
okay, you're setting yourself up for failure.
That's like me trying to run the marathon.
I haven't trained at all, I haven't done anything,
and I'm going in, it's like, I'm not gonna make it.
Start slow and in grow.
And in, like if you realize you're not really praying,
or there's no substance to your prayers,
like schedule a time to pray, and then have a journal,
try it.
Also find someone, find an accountability partner.
Like, you're all, everybody look at each other, okay?
Look at each other, all right?
Everyone's like, awkward, you're like, good, all right, good.
Okay, we're all in this together,
so stop trying to do it yourself.
Like say, hey, can we pray for each other?
Can we have a time each week, where we actually get together,
and we pray for each other's prayer lives,
and we pray for what's going on in our life,
and then like, we can text each other,
this crazy thing of like prayer requests,
like throughout the week, we don't just have to do it
on Sunday, right?
We can talk throughout the week and pray for each other,
keep each other accountable.
And then also there's this prayer rule that I found
that I thought was interesting is,
like, and it's actually the mark of successful businessmen,
it's interesting, of like, when they finish a meeting,
they have five minutes, they don't waste those five minutes.
They go and do something, they make the most of their time.
And I realize when I have like five minutes,
you know what I'm starting to do, I'm like,
I got five minutes, and I just start scrolling,
it's like, I'm not really doing anything.
It's like, I got five minutes to just chill.
Like, no, I need, I have five minutes, let me pray.
Let me take this time, like, when I have a break at work,
like, let me go pray.
When I'm driving somewhere, and I have nothing to do,
and I'm just like, I can listen to music,
listen to podcasts, I could also pray.
When I'm walking through, all right, this is you,
this is you, don't do nothing to me, all right, this is you.
When you're walking through the halls at school,
there's this really cool thing you could do,
of like, when you're trying to go to class,
and you're like bummed out,
because your exam went horribly wrong,
or you're mad at someone, and someone was mad at you, okay?
Do you know, like, you're always happy at school, okay?
All right, but will it help make you happier?
Right, and it's not about your happiness,
it's about joy that the Lord gives you,
it's like, as you go from class to class,
like, instead of just taking your head down,
and just not looking at anyone,
just trying to bolt to your class, like,
pray, and talk to the Lord.
Say, Lord, Lord, help me.
Lord, I can talk to you throughout my day,
it doesn't just have to be Sunday, thank you, all right?
But like, looking for these times throughout my day,
of like, you have these free times,
fill it with prayer, you have more time than you think.
A minute of meeting finished early, like,
hey, I got time to talk to God, let me go talk to him.
I remember Pastor Ben said this really cool thing
at work in one of our meetings right before,
is it was good, it was good, it was good, I promise, all right?
But he was like, you guys do know you can like,
pray throughout the work day,
and that was like revolutionary, I was like,
I can pray, and like, it's like, yeah,
I'm also, you're the student, like, you can pray,
so you can pray, it's all right.
It's like, there's times like, I'm like, I gotta stop.
Like, I'll start writing a sermon,
and it's all man-made, I'm just trying to put it all together.
It's like, have I even prayed?
And it's like, this is not a pad of miles back,
it's like, Miles, you should have gotten this earlier.
Then you just walk out, go somewhere, and just pray.
Not to be like, not praying in the middle of the halls,
like, saying, amen, hallelujah,
so everyone knows Miss Rhonda hears me,
so she thinks I'm more spiritual,
it's like, no, I need to just go and pray privately.
Making this actual practice of praying.
And maybe you're like, I already have a practice of praying,
and a habit of praying, okay, well,
now it's time to take the next step in that,
don't just get content, this is holy discontentment of,
okay, well, now I'm gonna pray for longer,
I've been praying for five months,
maybe I can challenge myself to pray for 10 minutes,
maybe I can focus on the content of my prayer,
maybe I need to do it more privately,
maybe I need to fill in breaks throughout my day.
What I wanna leave you with
is remember how much a privileged prayer is.
Last verse, and then we're done.
Here's 4.16, it says,
lest therefore come boldly to the throne of grace,
and we may obtain mercy, find grace to help in time of need.
I can come before the Father,
because what Jesus has done,
I died on the cross and saved me from my sins.
Now, there's not this veil, there's not the separation,
I have a mediator, and now I can actually talk
to my Father and be before him.
What a privilege, I don't have to go to any priest,
I go to him.
I can have a relationship with the Father
because of what our Savior did,
and if you've never believed in Christ,
I encourage your first prayer before you leave tonight
is to pray to him and confess your sins
and bow before him and believe.
Our God hears, our God listens, and our God cares,
and our God acts, and he does that when we pray as well.
When we pray, we see that he listens, cares, acts,
and hears us, so what's stopping you from praying?
All right, with your head spout and your eyes.