Sharing good news of great joy to all people,
Elation Church. Today we're starting a new series.
That series is called Powerful Prayer. Everybody
say, Powerful Prayer. That's something about
us is we can pray and we can talk to God. Everybody
say, Talk to God. We can talk to God. See, sometimes
we just get so used to things that it's not a
big deal anymore. But we can talk to the God
who created everything that you know is real.
We can talk to the God who owns everything. It's
all His. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness
thereof. He is set up and tabernacled in us.
We can talk to him. We can walk with him. We
can know him. Everybody say relationship. In
order to have a relationship with someone, you
have to communicate with them. I mean, we're
going to talk about some basic things. It's okay
to talk about basic things. Oh, we're going to
dig deep through the series. We're going to dig
deep. deeper than maybe you've ever experienced
or encountered before. But some of the things
are going to be very basic. You know why we need
to talk about the basics a lot? Because we don't
always act in what we know. We don't always apply
what we know. We don't always experience and
enjoy what we know. Because we get distracted
by everything else around us where our prayer
life becomes the least important thing in our
lives. When it should be one of the most important
things in our lives is talking to God. And encountering
God is real. It's real. He's real. The communication
is real. And when it's real, it's powerful. When
it's not just a religious exercise, it can become
powerful. It can make a difference in your life.
So Mark 1, 35. Just going to start out by introducing
several verses that talk about how important
prayer was to Jesus. And listen, if prayer was
important to him, how much more important should
it be to us? It says before daybreak the next
morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated
place to pray. That's how important it was. Giving
up some sleep for it. Here we go. After sending
them home, Matthew 14, 23. This is after he sent,
you know, I believe it's after he sent 5 ,000
people home from feeding them. After sending
them home, he went up into the hills by himself
to pray. Night fell while he was there alone.
Can you imagine ministering to 5 ,000 people
all day and not just wanting to go to bed? I'm
not sure how true it is, but among preachers
they say, well, preaching one hour is equivalent
to your body, especially if you're emotionally
and physically engaged in your preaching. It
does the same thing to your body as eight hours
of manual labor. So Jesus has been out there
all day. I'm sure he was tired. Like one time
he got in the boat and went to sleep pretty quick.
But this was like, I need to spend some time
with my father. You guys go on ahead. But I need
some personal time. If we had more personal time
with God, we... We might be in a better place.
Might be more powerful in the earth. And this
wasn't just those two examples. I mean, it's
in the scripture over and over again. But I liked
Luke 5 .16 that says this. Jesus often. Everybody
say often. Regularly. All the time. Jesus often.
to the wilderness for prayer. He often stepped
away from whatever his normal daily routine was.
He often stepped away to spend intimate prayer
and time with the Father. And he's God. Notice
that Jesus said, you know what, I don't say anything
that my father doesn't say. You familiar with
that? I don't do anything that my father doesn't
do. How do you think he downloaded that information?
It was in this personal time with the father.
That's where it got downloaded. Luke 11 .1, once
Jesus was in a certain place praying, we don't
know where that was, but we know he did it often.
As he finished, one of his disciples came to
him and said, Lord, teach us to pray. So what
does that tell us? The guys around him noticed
something powerful when Jesus would go spend
time with the Father and then he would come back.
Things would be different than they were before
he went. So they wanted to tap into this. They're
like, this is so important to you, Jesus. We
need some instruction. How can we pray like you?
How can we have that kind of prayer life? And
Matthew 6 is... His answer is in Matthew and
in Luke. But today's technical title, if today's
message has a title, it's what powerful prayer
is and is not. That's why I'm switching over
to Matthew. Because some of us might think that
prayer or powerful prayer is something that Jesus
says is not. Just because of our religious experience.
So, Jesus talked to his disciples and he said
this. He said, when you pray, he didn't say if
you pray, he said when you pray. When you pray,
don't be like the hypocrites. Everybody say hypocrites.
Don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray
publicly on street corners and in the synagogues
where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth,
that's all the reward that they will ever get.
So this tells us what prayer is not. It's one
of the things that we're going to look at. What
is not powerful prayer? Power for prayer is not
being hypocritical. Now that word hypocrite,
I don't have the word up here and all that, but
the word hypocrite, when you see it in the Bible,
it's referring to this. This is what that word
means. It means play actor. Everybody say play
actor. That's what a hypocrite is. It wasn't
necessarily a bad word in their life. I mean,
it's not like hypocrite. You're all just a bunch
of hypocrites. I'm not going to church because
there's a bunch of hypocrites. Well, there's
a bunch of hypocrites in Walmart too. I don't
want to stop you from going to Walmart. But hypocrites
are play actors. Often in this time for entertainment,
there would be plays, right? No TV. People write
things. And you've seen the masks, the drama
masks, right? So what they would do, because
I guess good actors were hard to find, sometimes
an actor would play two or three parts in the
same play. Sometimes they would even talk to
themselves. They'd put up a mask. How are you
doing today? Put up the other mask. I'm doing
fine. How are you? They're talking to themselves.
But here's the deal. They're being somebody.
An actor is somebody who's different than who
they actually are. Okay? A play actor. So Jesus
said when we pray, we don't just get up in front
of everybody and try to be somebody that we're
not. Because some of these Pharisees would stand
out on the street corner and pray these big lofty
prayers. And they weren't even talking to God.
They were just putting their spirituality on
display. They weren't talking with God to have
communication with God and be in relationship
with God. It was just a construct of their religion.
Powerful prayer is not being hypocritical. It's
not trying to be somebody that you aren't to
impress somebody else. Are you with me? Powerful
prayer is not just suddenly breaking out in this
old English. Now, most of the people in this
room may not have encountered this or experienced
it. But if you've been around church very long,
people start talking different when they pray.
Start talking in King James English when they
pray. It's like, that's hypocritical. If you
don't talk in King James English when you talk,
don't talk in King James English when you pray
because you're just talking to God. You're trying
to put on some kind of... False spirituality.
You start saying these and thous and putting
STs on the end of your word. Jesus himself is
saying, don't pray like that. Don't pray like
that. and we kind of covered this, but it's not
a public display of your super spirituality.
You know? Some people want to appear spiritual
for some reason, and they're not really spending
time with God and talking with God, but if all
of a sudden they think they have an opportunity
to get with somebody and pray when they hadn't
even prayed and talked to God all week, and then
now you're going to go pray with somebody? That's
not powerful. Are you with me? Some of you are
looking at me funny. It's like, this is basic.
Right? This is very basic. Jesus said, don't
be like that. Look at the person beside you and
tell them, don't be like that. Don't try to be
like that. We've been in over 800 churches. I
know I've shared this before. I've been in some
interesting prayer moments at church. Because
we would go to a different church almost every
week, you know. At one time, we were like 280
services in a year. That's a lot of services.
So we were doing church a lot. We were the guests
leading. You know, when we got up to like the
mid -280s, I looked at, Gannon and Jeffrey and
I said, we can't do this anymore because I'm
so squeezed out. I ain't got nothing else to
squeeze out. I mean, I'm just so worn out from,
so I said, then we backed it up. We started,
up until that point, we always said yes for anybody
who called. After that, it was like, I can't
say yes all the time anymore. We got to back
it up. I'll say yes. I'm not going to say no,
but I'll say yes for next year, not this year.
Right? But during those church revivals, on Sunday
morning, you know, the pastor kind of handled
everything. But then when we got on Sunday night,
Tuesday night, Monday night, Wednesday night,
all of a sudden he'd just turn it over to me.
So we'd be up there. We'd be singing. It'd be
time to receive the offering. You know, the pastor
didn't even come up for the offering. It's just
like the guest speaker and music team is just
running the whole service. and the ushers would
come forward. You might have been in a church
like this. The ushers come forward, and normally
one of the ushers will pray for the offering.
Has anybody been to a church service like that
before? Sometimes there's even a microphone down
there for one of them to take the microphone
and pray. Well, they didn't ever plan it out.
When I was there, for some reason, the ushers
didn't plan who was going to pray. So in the
services I've been in, you know, the pastor would
just nod at one of them and they would pray.
I can't tell you how many times I nodded at one
of them and they go, and I nodded another one.
So guess who would just go ahead and pray? I'll
never forget one particular prayer. Because this
guy, you know, he broke out in King James English,
Old English. And he got so twisted up in his
memorized phrases. You know what I'm talking
about? There's memorized little phrases that
you, you know, to sound super spiritual to everybody
else in the room, you got to use those. You got
to lock in on those spiritual phrases when you're
praying. And all of a sudden, he got twisted
up. See, I don't guess anyone in the room was
listening to what he was praying to agree with
him. Because when somebody prays in public in
a church, you need to be listening and you need
to be agreeing, saying like, yes, Lord. Yes,
Lord. I agree with that. Amen. I agree. This
guy, praying for the offering, he says, Lord,
you know that we are bringing you today more
than you deserve. That's what he said. We just
got twisted up in his little prayer sayings.
When he said that, I went... He still had his
eyes closed. Everybody else's eyes were closed
in the whole church and I'm just like... I felt
like, you know, I'm a nice guy. Aren't you glad
I'm a nice guy? Because I should have said, what
do you mean? No one in this room has ever brought
God more than he deserved. There's another service
where at the end of the service, you know, the
pastor would normally call on somebody in the
church to dismiss us in prayer. Have you been
to a service like that? It was time for the service
to be over. He called on brother so -and -so.
The pastor said, brother so -and -so, would you
dismiss us in prayer? And here's what he said.
I declined. And it shocked the preacher so much,
he said, what? And then he said it again, I decline.
So the preacher prayed. So I've had some interesting
prayer moments, to say the least. I wanted to
share some of those with you. Because those would
be in line with what Jesus was talking about.
And as he continues on what is not prayer. But
when you pray, go away by yourself. Shut the
door behind you and pray to your Father in private.
Then your Father who sees everything will reward
you. That's a good promise, right? So I don't
care if you're praying in front of people in
a worship service. Whether you're praying in
a restaurant, whether you're praying at home,
whether you're praying while you're walking or
working or whatever, just know that it's always,
when you're praying, it's always between you
and God. Now, when you're praying in a service
kind of situation, You're praying between you
and God, but you're also many times praying on
behalf of those who are in the room and bringing
up that prayer to God, but you're never praying.
See, his heart, I've got to tell you, I've been
guilty of it at times where you just kind of
throw in a few more sermon points during your
prayer. That's not the way you pray. It's not
how we're supposed to pray. Because our communication
is not with... Each other, when we're praying,
our communication is with God. Is everybody okay?
Y 'all are looking at me just like... This is
just very simple stuff, I thought. I thought
this was like just super simple. But we need
to be reminded of these things, right? Jesus
continued. When you pray... Don't babble on as
the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are
answered merely by repeating their words again
and again. Don't be like them. For your Father
knows exactly what you need even before you ask
Him. There's a lot in this. A lot in this. I'm
going to focus in on the Babylon. Here's what
prayer is not. Are you with me? Prayer is not
mindless and meaningless repetition. I'm going
to say that again. Prayer, you might call it
prayer. People call it prayer. But prayer is
not mindless and meaningless repetition. That's
not talking to God. Sometimes I think, even,
sometimes I catch myself. Now, I'm the preacher,
so I know if I catch myself, you ought to be
able to catch yourself every once in a while,
too. Hello? We need to stop ourselves. When we
find ourselves in mindless and meaningless repetition
when we're talking to God, we need to say, whoa,
and we just need to shake and say, I'm talking
to God. I'm not doing some kind of religious
exercise. I'm talking to God. Because it's easy
for us to say the same things over and over and
over and over and over. See, here's the problem.
It's not just using, the same phrase or thanking
God for the same thing. It's just dropping out
of you mentally being engaged with what your
mouth is saying. Or are you just like a robot
all of a sudden? I grew up having to pray. I
was the youngest one, so I had to pray every
meal. Maybe you've prayed like this before. God
is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our
food. By his hands. I'm hoping I'm remembering.
We all are fed. Give us, Lord, our daily bread.
I'm not telling you not to teach your kids to
pray. But that prayer can be just as powerful
as, Twinkle, twinkle, little star. If all we're
doing is memorizing something and repeating it,
we're not talking to God. Unless our minds are
engaged in what we're doing. So I encourage you.
Teach your kid the thankfulness part of it as
you're teaching him the prayer. Not just a good
bread, good meat, good God, let's eat. Maybe
you've never prayed that one before. But prayer
is not mindless and meaningless repetition. Then
Jesus goes on. He says, you know, you want me
to teach you how to pray? Don't do all those
things. Everybody say, don't do that. But pray
like this. Pray, listen, like this. Jesus did
not say, pray this. Some of you just got mad
at me. I've had people get all over me. Why don't
we pray the Lord's Prayer every service we get
together? People have been mad and upset with
me over that. Well, when I tried to tell them,
I said, Jesus didn't say pray this. He said pray
like this. It's okay to pray this. I'm going
to go ahead and tell you that. But it's not okay
to pray this if it's just mindless, meaningless
repetition. Because even this prayer can become
Bible. Pray like this. That word prayer, I looked
it up in this words help in the Bible hub. I
think it's what it's called. I keep forgetting
what it's called. Go to just select. The summary
and go down and word helps. I'm finding some
really cool things. Prashukamahi. I can't get
the right accent on the right syllable, but anyway.
Prashukamahi. Maybe that's close. This is what
I found in word helps. Now get this. This is
so good. To interact with the Lord by switching
basically your human wishes or ideas for his
wishes as he imparts faith. Divine persuasion.
Have you ever thought about prayer being, I'm
just going to get with God? And I'll tell him
my wishes and my ideas, but what I really want
to do is get with him and know what his wishes
are. Has anybody ever thought about prayer like
that, that that's what it is, us getting together
with God to find out what he wants? Well, if
Jesus always said, you know, What I say is what
my father said and what I do is what my father
does. He was getting what the father wanted somewhere.
It's probably because he often went. Got by himself
with God. To interact with the Lord by switching
your human wishes and ideas for his wishes as
he imparts faith. Because when we get on... When
we get on track with His will and His wishes,
that's when faith can get involved. Pray like
this, huto, which means like this, in this manner,
in this way, or fashion, in accordance with this
description, or along this line. So it wasn't
about the specific words. If it would have been
about the specific words that Jesus said, we
should all have memorized this prayer in Koine
Greek and say it just like Jesus said it. The
Lord's prayer should be seen as a pattern. Everybody
say a pattern. A guide. Everybody say a guide.
Or a model. Everybody say a model for prayer.
And just to put it back, I've already said it
once, but the memorized Lord's Prayer can easily
become mindless and meaningless repetition. Look
at the person beside you and say, don't do that.
Don't do that. Then we're going to continue.
Oh, we're going to dig deep. This series may
last 10 or 11 weeks. We've been mapping it out.
He says this, Our Father in heaven, may your
name be kept holy. Everybody say pattern. So
in this pattern, what's happening first? If we're
looking at the pattern, what's happening first?
Praise is happening first, right? We're acknowledging
God. Who He is. We are esteeming Him. We're honoring
Him. Who He is. He's God. He's God. It's easy
for us to get into a track where our prayer is
like our Christmas wish list for God. And that's
the only time we talk to Him is... when we have
a list of things that we want Him to do for us,
right? So we just come to Him, God, I need you
to do this today. I want you to do this today.
God, will you please do this today? We need to
acknowledge who He is. We need to be in awe of
who He is. We need to honor who He is on a regular
basis. May your kingdom come soon. Your kingdom
come. Your will be done. May your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. What are we saying?
Well, we're saying, God, and Jesus knew this
firsthand, God, your will is always done in heaven.
Is that a shock to anybody? God's will is always
done in heaven. But God's will is not always
done on earth. So what does that tell us about
God's in control? God just has some kind of mysterious
plan for everything to happen this week. You
know, God planned it. Got a good Greek word for
that, baloney. It's not a Greek word. Why would
Jesus ask us to link up with God's will in the
earth if it was already happening? It's not.
May your kingdom come soon. May your will be
done on earth. And then some people take this
and other verses to say, oh, I've got to give
this blanket statement to my prayer because I
don't know what God's will is. I don't know what
He wants. I haven't spent time with Him to find
out what He wants. And I'm going to tell Him
what I want, but then I'm going to say, Not my
will, but yours be done. Give some kind of blanket
for my ignorance, for my word ignorance. The
Bible tells us so many things that God's will,
God wills. And if we link up with Him and pray
according to His will, we don't have to end with,
and thy will be done, not mine. Because we're
praying His will. We don't have to have some
kind of blanket thing for our doubt. You know,
for our lack of faith. Well, God, you know, I
think you might, you know, you might could do
this. I really want you to do this. I don't know
if you really want to do this, but this is what
I want you to do. But your will be done. Your
will be done. So prayer, like that word study
that I saw, it's linking up to what, it's linking
up with God to see what he wants, to see what
his will is, to see what he desires to happen.
in your life, in your community, in our church,
in our fellowship. I don't know if we'll ever
encounter that with just, boy, God, you know
I'm in such a hurry today, so bless my day, bless
my family, bless my business, bless my... Okay,
I'm gone now. I'll see you. I'll see you for
30 seconds tomorrow. Trying not to dig deep.
Trying my best not to over -prepare. Because
when I over -prepare, I preach a long time. Give
us today the food we need. I'm going to go ahead
and say it's okay to present your request to
God. In everything that I'm saying, I'm not saying
don't ever present any request to God. Because
Gaynor reminded me before we started dating,
if you ask not, you will have not. Now she was
quoting it out of context because she was wanting
me to ask her out on a date. You have not because
you ask not. The good thing is I asked and 41
years later we're still married. It's okay to
present your request to God. It's okay. It's
also okay to know what he has provided for you,
which would be according to his will, and pray
in agreement with what he's already promised.
That's the powerful angle. And then Jesus starts
talking about forgiveness. What? Wait a minute,
Jesus. You've talked about forgiveness before.
You've given us some amazing parables on forgiveness
before. So why is this in the middle of a prayer?
And forgive us our sins, our trespasses, as we
forgive those who trespass our sin against us.
Forgiveness is a big deal to God. It's a big
deal to God. Unforgiveness will inhibit you from
receiving anything from God. He even says, go
get it right, then come back. Doesn't he? Go
get it right, then come back. Get it right. So
if we're living our lives in unforgiveness towards
everybody else, that means that we're not living
in love because love forgives. Hello? I thought
I'd get at least a little amen on that. If we're
not living in forgiveness, we're not living in
love because love forgives. It doesn't mean that
whatever that person did to you, You're not validating
their behavior, but you're being like God. And
if you want to pray powerful prayers, you got
to deal with unforgiveness first. I mean, that's
what... I guess I could call it like the fruit
of the gospel is you being forgiven. Right? That's
how important it is to God. Then he goes on.
And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue
us from the evil one. Here's what we need to
know. We can't fight against the evil one and
withstand temptation without God being involved.
You can't just work this up. You can't work up
some kind of elevated morality just within yourself.
We need help. As we continue after Matthew 6,
13, on the other side of the cross, we find out
some things like we've been studying at Life
Group and even in our worship services. So don't
let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from
the evil one. We need to constantly acknowledge
our in Christ position. On this side of the cross.
See, the blood of Jesus is how we overcome. That's
what Revelation says. We overcome the enemy.
We overcome evil in this world by the blood of
the Lamb. Jesus' blood had not been shed at the
point of this prayer. But now it has. Look at
the person beside you and say, now it has. So
we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the
word of our testimony is what the Bible says
in Revelation. So on this side of the cross,
we need to acknowledge that Jesus has helped
us and he is helping us. Sin is not our master
anymore. We find in Romans over and over again.
Sin's not our master. It has no control over
us anymore in Christ. Hello? So Jesus did something
about that. And when we're talking to God, we
need to acknowledge what Jesus did. And then
verse 13. I believe every one of us who've ever
memorized the Lord's Prayer have memorized His
ending to it. For yours is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever. Amen. And at least
all of us old people. Now, some of you might
look at your Bible and you read the Lord's Prayer
and you say, well, what happened? People are
trying to steal God's word from us. All these
newfangled translations, they're just leaving
out stuff because they're trying to make, you
know, take away from what God said. Here's the
deal. That last sentence does not appear in any
manuscript. We've got a lot of good manuscripts
that are older than the 8th century now. We didn't
at one point. But that sentence doesn't appear
in any of the oldest manuscripts. So it doesn't
appear as part of the Lord's Prayer until the
700 years after Jesus said it is when it starts
popping up. Okay? But I'm going to go ahead and
tell you this. We're not memorizing the prayer
word for word for vain repetition anyway, right?
We're looking at a pattern. I'm just going to
go ahead and free you up from all that debate
over manuscripts and different things like that.
Look, more praising God doesn't hurt anything.
Never will hurt anything. Acknowledging, esteeming,
and honoring who God is, that's never going to
hurt anybody. So we can add that to the pattern
because it started with that pattern. It's okay
to end with that. It's just a pattern. It doesn't
have to be in order. It needs to be what we do.
It needs to be our pattern. So many people, when
they begin to pray, they're like, well, I would
probably pray more if I knew what to pray. I
just don't know what to pray. Other than thanking
God for the food three times and asking Him to
be with me today, I ain't got nothing else. And
I know at one point, there might be some people
in the room who've grown spiritually to where
that's not a problem anymore, but I dare say
everybody went through that at some point in
your Christian journey. You might be there today.
I would pray more, but what in the world am I
going to say? Other than God is great, you know,
now lay me down to sleep. What are we going to
say? What are we going to talk to God about?
We all do. Look, again. We're building a relationship
with the living God. And I'm going to go ahead
and free you up. You don't have to always do
all the talking. It might not hurt you to do
some listening. It might not hurt you in your
prayer to say, God, you know what I feel. You
know what I'm going through. God, I just want
to spend time with you. In some points in our
life, it might be, I don't know what I'm going
to do. I don't know what I'm going to say. I
don't know what the next move is. But God, I
just want to hang out with you and fellowship
with you and know you and listen for you to speak
to me. And then you open up your Bible and you
read these verses from this message today because
you took good notes. I was hoping at least two
or three people would laugh. And you read these
verses. You say, God, I really don't know what
to say about this situation that I'm in, but
I know you're God. And I know you know a whole
lot more than I do. I know you know a whole lot
more to do. You know a whole lot more about a
family should function than I will ever know,
God. You know. You made me. You created my mind,
will, and emotions. God, you know more about
that than I will ever know. You know more about
that than any doctor will ever know. You know
more about my flesh than any doctor will ever
know. So I want to spend some time with you.
I want to spend some time with you. I want you
to speak to me. Give me the steps. Speak to me.
Because you know. You know so many things that
I... We'll never know. And when we acknowledge
him as God and his creator, as all -knowing,
hello? The only wise God, and when we spend some
time with him, more than just a five -minute
quick, or 30 -second quick little prayer, I believe
we're going to hear him. Because he wants that
relationship with you more than you want that
relationship with him. Should I say that again?
He wants that intimate relationship with you
more than you actually want that intimate relationship
with him. Like I said, we're going to keep digging.
That's just a very basic introduction. We're
going to keep digging. Let's pray together. God,
thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you
for your truth. Thank you for your love. Thank
you for all that you're doing. God, we want to
connect with you. We want to experience you.
We want to encounter you. Help each one of us
to taste and see that you're good. In Jesus'
name, amen. This online worship experience was
brought to you by the friends and partners of
Elation Church.