If - Part 1 - Pastor Raymond Woodward

we're going to be talking about prayer and by no means would I ever want to give the impression that I think I'm some kind of expert on prayer that's for sure I ran across the definition of a few months ago that I liked very well and I use when I'm on the road an expert is anyone that's 50 miles from home and if you're less than 50 miles from home you're not an expert but once you go 50 miles from home you're considered an expert so I'm not an expert tonight that's for sure secondly James writes this he said brethren don't take it upon yourself to be teachers because teachers receive greater judgment teachers are held to a higher standard if you're gonna teach it you better do it if you're gonna teach it you better live in if you're gonna teach it you better practice it and so I approach all of these things with a great deal of seriousness of heart and I think it's gonna be a very profitable series for us I know it already has been for me studying through these things and so tonight we begin we think we're going to go for six lessons in this series we may go less we might go more we're gonna try to follow the Lord and we're gonna talk about prayer and our Series title is simply one two letter word and that is if everyone say if there are fifteen hundred and ninety five ifs in your Bible and most of those function as what you might call a conditional conjunction they're on the front end of one of God's promises not all of them but many of them most of them and and it works like this if we meet the condition then God will deliver on the promise our response to God's commands will affect two things it will affect our relationship with him and it will also determine in a great measure what we receive from him so many times in our lives all that standing between us our current circumstances all of our situations standing between us and our circumstances and our highest hopes on this end we've got crushing circumstances and we've got confusion and we've got all kinds of things but over there we've got our highest hopes and our greatest dreams and sometimes all that stands between now and then all that stands between this and that is this Bible word if one little if can change anything scripturally speaking one little if can change everything biblically speaking so if although it's only two letters it might just be the biggest word in the Bible and our theme scripture for this series of course is probably the biggest if Scripture in the Bible second Chronicles 7:14 if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then if they will then I will if you will I will then will I hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land if you will then I will now Jesus as you would expect he used the word if all the time more than 40% of the IFS in the New Testament are in the Gospel accounts the four Gospels that tell his story 248 ifs in the gospel 602 in the New Testament so about 41% of all the ifs in the New Testament are found in the Gospels many of them in Jesus own words and Jesus always puts that if on man's side of the equation on our side of the equation if we will do this then God will respond if we will then he will however although Jesus often talked about what would happen if we believed when we pray or if we obey when we pray or if we faith when we pray or if we persevere when we pray or if we keep asking seeking and knocking when we pray although he often said things like that here's one thing Jesus never said he never used this phrase he never said if you pray not one time does Jesus say if you pray because Jesus expected us to pray he expects his people to pray he expects his Saints to pray he expects seniors to pray he expects children to pray he expects adults and he expects single parents and he expects young people he expects married couples to pray he never said if you decide to pray because he expected his people to pray instead of saying if you pray here's what Jesus said Matthew 6 and when you pray I'm expecting you people to pray I'm expecting my kids to talk to me I'm expecting my Saints to commune with me so when you pray don't be like the hypocrites because some people like to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men Jesus isn't taking a cheap shot at people who are loud or when they pray or people who stand when they pray or people who happen to be behind a pulpit when they pray he's not taking a cheap shot he's saying if the only thing you do is pray when other people see you pray you're not really praying if the only time you ever talk to me is when you come to your church building you're not really a person of Prayer if the only time you ever pray and you only time you ever acknowledge me and the Everett only time you ever say those big flowing flowery words is when other people can see and hear then you're not really praying they're only doing it to be seen in men Jesus said here's what I want you to do verily I say unto you my people my disciples my church my Saints those people have their reward but you when you pray not if you pray when you pray enter into your closet and when you have shut your door pray to your father which is in secret pray where nobody else can hear pray where nobody else can see prey when nobody else is aware prey when nobody else is awake prey when nobody else is around and your father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly now we're a church that believes strongly because the Bible teaches corporate prayer so we pray together because the early church prayed together we pray together because God's Old Testament people prayed together we lift up our voices in prayer because the Bible commands us to we lift up our hands and we get exuberant in prayer because the Bible tells us to we even get very intense in prayer because there are some things that you have to fight for in prayer and the Bible teaches us that so Jesus isn't taken a shot at all of that he's just saying if that's all you do you're not a person of Prayer you're a performer of prayers Jesus taught us it's not all enough to only pray publicly and periodically Jesus said you are to pray privately and persistently look at this Luke 18 and he spoke a parable to them to this end here was the purpose of his story he wanted to teach them that men ought always to pray and not to faint he doesn't mean pass out in a faint he means don't give up don't get weary in doing it we need to always be praying every one say always he said in Luke 21 watch he therefore and pray always somebody say always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass in that context he's talking about the end times but could I tell you if you'll pray always you'll escape a lot of things that are happening right now this week today in your life he said you'll escape these things and you'll be worthy to stand before the Son of Man if you pray always Paul picks up the theme he learned it from his encounter with God Ephesians 6 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints supplication means to go to God and literally ask him over and over to present your case over and over to supplicate to present your need and again Paul says praying always someone say always he says in first Timothy I exhort therefore that first of all before you do anything else before you think of doing anything else before you plan anything else before you get people around and counsel about what you're going to do i exhort therefore that first of all before you do the rest do this supplications prayers intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men and of course his famous line in 1st Thessalonians 5:17 pray without ceasing now it is not possible to go through life on your knees head bowed hands clasp and pray without ceasing in a physical posture he's not talking about 24/7 verbage coming out of your mouth that's humanly physically impossible here's what he's talking about don't you ever get far from that moment of Prayer don't you ever get out of that attitude of Prayer don't you ever stray from that heart that is in communion with God so at any moment of any day any second of any hour you can immediately launch yourself into prayer it shouldn't take you 15 minutes to have to repent of everything you've been doing and thinking and saying and then finally you're ready to pray sometimes something's gonna happen in your life that you're not expecting and you're gonna need God in an instant and when that happens you want to be able to pray without ceasing it shouldn't take a 10 minute run in a church service to get people warmed up to pray we're Pentecostal we're apostolic we're spirit filled we're Jesus name it should just be hey folks let's pray and there should instantly be a swell of Prayer some people will be loud some people will be soft some people will be pretty stoic some people will be very emotional I'm not talking about how you do it I'm talking about you do it there should be a spirit in the Apostolic Church that we pray without ceasing we should be able to pray on the platform pray in the altar pray in the pews pray in the aisles pray in the foyer pray in the parking lot pray at home pray at work pray in the restaurant pray wherever we are there should be something built in you that at any second of any minute of any hour of any day of any week month or year you should be able to launch yourself into prayer why because it hasn't been that long since you were in prayer because it hasn't been that long since you talked to God talking to God we got to get this through our heads talking to God is not going to a building to a Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. prayer meeting that's incredibly valuable because that's corporate prayer that's where the church gets together to pray and Jesus was the one who said where two or three agree where two or three are gathered in my name he said there I'll be in the midst of them so that's why we do corporate prayer but if you're waiting from Sunday night to Wednesday night to Saturday night to Sunday morning to Sunday night and that's when you do your pray and you're not a person of Prayer and Jesus has a problem with that and the Bible does too now in light of this scriptural insistence pray always pray first pray without ceasing in light of that insistence from the Bible as Christians not you we including pastor we must be asking ourselves questions like these am i praying persistently or just periodically where do I fit am i praying persistently or just periodically we need to ask this question am i praying privately or just publicly where other people are around when I'm in a church service am I making prayer a priority not in my sunday every week go to church life am i making prayer a priority in my daily life now all of those are good questions but here's the problem with those good questions all of those questions are very generic so perhaps a better thing to do would be to ask these questions maybe these next questions would provide a more accurate assessment of our prayer lives five questions number one when am i praying where am i praying who am i praying for what am i praying for and why am i praying anyway and if we can't answer those questions with specifics we're not praying if there's no place for prayer if there's no time for prayer if there's nobody you're taking to prayer if there's no situation you're asking about in prayer and if you only motive you have for praying is to keep pastor or the church off your back or maybe God off your back then you're not really praying it's not enough to just believe prayer is good we've got to actually pray it will get worse my friend Paul Graham pastored the great revival multicultural multi-ethnic multilingual multinational Church in Montreal Quebec he said this so much that I think it says I know I've looked it up people said it years before he was around but I think it's his because he said it so much no prayer no power some prayer some power little prayer little power sporadic prayer sporadic power consistent prayer consistent power more prayer more power great prayer great power much prayer much power Apostolic Prayer apostolic power holy ghost prayer Holy Ghost power so we got to make up our mind what we're gonna do with this thing called prayer now in case you think this is just a series where pastors gonna beat up on all of us and put us all on a guilt trip and we already are suffering enough in this area this series we will talk specifically practically about the actual practice of Prayer we will discuss in this series what to do and what to say when you pray we will talk about how to be more effective when you pray but none of that will matter until you turn and unless you turn if you pray into when you pray you can own only you can do that pastor can't do that for you church can't do that for you the Bible's not going to do that for you God Himself is not going to do that for you that's about your desire so you are the only person in your life who can turn if you pray into when you pray and if you'll do that you can learn the rest you you can get into prayer and then learn as you go let me say this in the first part of this series as clearly as possible just as straight as I can say it you will not learn to pray by studying prayer you will not learn to pray by reading about prayer you will not learn to pray by listening to other people pray you will not learn to pray by watching the church pray on Saturday night you will only learn to pray by praying you can't learn to pray any other way and I thank God that we have everything that we do and yes I do believe that we can teach our children and we can teach all that we're supposed to do that but you are the adults of this church you're the core of this church and nobody is going to be able to give you prayer by osmosis at some point you have to make a choice and that choice is going to take discipline and the reason it takes discipline is because you're a disciple of Jesus and disciples don't do what feels good they do what is good they don't do what appeals to their flesh they do what's going to grow their spiritual life prayer is personal let me be real honest here nearly every Christian I've ever met feels like they're not doing prayer right including the guy I look at in the mirror nearly every Christian I know feels like they're not doing prayer as good as somebody else nearly every Christian I know feels like they're not getting the results they could be or should be getting in prayer and can I just kind of address the elephant in the room tonight those feelings are normal but they're only feelings so ignore those feelings and pray anyway if you don't get anything else out of this series that would be it ignore all your feelings I'm not doing it right I'm not doing it good I'm not doing it as good as I'm not getting the results I want God must not be happy with my prayer those are just feelings ignore those feelings and just pray what is prayer prayers not complicated pairs talking to God my goodness some of you are professionals at talking you do that more than you do anything else in your life so it's not the talking that's the problem it's - you're talking to those feelings are normal ignore them pray anyway ignore them go to God anyway ignore them talk to Jesus anyway and I know what you think your first prayer if you're a new convert if you're a new believer if you're a new member at ccc your first prayer and you felt this and that's why you struggle your first prayer will probably be something along the lines of a toddler's first painting it's not real pretty it's just color slashed everywhere but you know what when our toddlers do those we put them on our fridge anyway because we're in a relationship with that cute little kid and so we put them on our fridge anyway God's your heavenly Father guess what he loves your first attempts at prayer he loves it when you come to him and you stumble and fumble over your words and you get distracted you fall asleep anybody here in this church honest enough to ever admit that you have fallen asleep praying look at that oh let's go one further anybody ever fall asleep during a sermon that's a better question I'm not as much honesty there i watch it from up here I know some of you were lying just then but you know what God looks down from heaven can't we just be normal would that be okay y'all want to be spiritual can we just be normal has anybody ever fallen asleep talking to another human being I fall asleep talking to Beverly I fall asleep talking to Pastor Jack I've been asleep when people called me on the phone and slept through the whole conversation that is true and it's interesting too and God looks down from heaven he's not looking for you to do a perfect prayer the first time or even every time he just wants you to talk to him when we talked to each other it doesn't have to be perfect pastor Jack and I we really have to get new cell phones because we spend half of every conversation saying what you're breaking up what I can't hear you I think we need to get new cell phones either that or we need to stop talking to each other from inside like concrete bunkers or whatever we're doing wrong it's not all or a hearing aid yeah speak for yourself old gray head now this could be jet lag this could be jelly you have the mic on when no you don't for another week good I can say what I want and and and if your phone cuts out hopefully you don't just like lose it at the person what's wrong with you sometimes we don't get it exactly right it's not about perfection it's not about performance it's about communication we don't always get it perfect when we talk to each other even if we're in a marriage relationship we're a family or a friendship or a work in relationship or Saints in a church we don't always get it right when we talk to each other so don't you think that God our Heavenly Father who's forgiven us of all our sins would give us some some grace and cut us some slack if we didn't always get prayer just exactly perfect I just like to remove the the mystery and the and the guilt that we so often put on ourselves God's not putting that on us we're complicating things prayer is personal so we need to practice praying we need to just pray are you saying pastor Raymond that practice makes perfect no because you're never going to get perfect in praying I'm saying that if you practice praying practice doesn't make perfect practice makes permanent what you want is to establish the habit of praying not the perfection of praying so let's talk about this in a little detail we're just kind of going to launch tonight and we'll we're gonna go through some wonderful things in this series as the Holy Ghost leads of course but we're going to go through the Lord's Prayer of course we're gonna go through putting on the armor of God we're gonna go through praying through the tabernacle those are all different methods that people use to kind of get into a routine of prayer and some people use them all their life some people use them for a while till they get prayer established as a habit but we're going to talk about a lot of those kind of details but tonight I just want to talk to you about the main thrust of our series because if we never turn if into when it doesn't matter anyway you can study all the great prayer plans of the Bible but if it's always if you no it's got to be your choice to turn if you pray into when you pray now the greatest enemy of Prayer is not the devil the greatest enemy of prayer is distraction distraction comes to us before we pray as we're praying after we pray distraction is never-ending in our lives and distraction can come from us it can come from others it can come from our work it can come from our technology it can come from our entertainment it can come from our responsibilities distraction can even come from our personality and I just felt compelled before service a little while to just push this point just a little bit we all have personalities and our personalities are different they're all unique but but human beings as we've studied before way back human beings basically fit into four categories and high poverty 2400 years ago or so he he before Jesus was ever born high poverty studied this and he came up with the choleric The Melancholy the sanguine and the phlegmatic and some people call them different things and whatever there's four personalities and our own personality can conspire against us when we pray you know a phlegmatic person they're easygoing and so many times they please other people it's just kind of a little bit of a quirk in their personality they want everybody to be happy and they would and so sometimes they're so busy doing things for other people that that infringes on their prayer time and then there's there's the sanguine people the happy-go-lucky you know every day is a new day every friend's a new friend and and never met a stranger those people just bounce around from one thing to another to another to another so for to get them to concentrate on prayer for a little while that's their challenge and then you've got the choleric people the the powerful people they like to control everything in fact their motto is just give me control and nobody gets hurt and and those people they're used to doing everything for themselves and so to sit down they're thinking just let me go do it God I'll fix it and I'll report to you when I'm done just a second and and and their challenge is to actually depend on God and talk to God and give it to God and then there's the melancholy people or the perfectionist people and there's a few of those around them and those people the thing is they don't want to do prayer because they can't get it perfect and if I can't get it perfect I'm not even going to start which is I got to say really really dumb and I've been there on that one some you know III like systems I've tried every Bible app I've tried every prayer app there are prayer apps you can list all your people that you're praying for and then check them off and and and sync them up to other devices and I think that's really really cool and I got that all set up and never use it again but I got it all set up it was just amazing I had the perfect prayer system it never resulted in any prayer but it was powerful it's amazing don't laugh at me you've tried that to see when when we let all those things distract us the devil is not our enemy distractions our enemy the devil doesn't have to lift a finger the devil's in Florida train him for the hot place I don't know what he's doing but he's not working on you he doesn't have to because you've distracted yourself it's not the devil it's distraction and that's exactly why Jesus said when you pray shut the door get alone get away be still focus on God ignore everything else and when you get there it's not so much a place as it is an attitude almost but when you get there you're still you're alone you're away you're ignoring everything else you're putting away your phone and staying away from your computer and all of that stuff and when you get in that place in your closet with the door shut then pray and your father will see you praying in secret but the blessings will chase you down openly it's an amazing thing according to Jesus the acid test of spiritual integrity is your personal private prayer life if that doesn't exist then your spiritual life doesn't to fail to pray is to fail at being a Christian and the immediate response is but pastor Raymond it's hard to pray sometimes do you realize there is no eternal value in anything that is easy to do everything that has eternal value there's a challenge to it so prayer in that light prayer should be one of the hardest things we ever do if you prayed long enough that it's become a habit that's wonderful and it's got easier but it's never gonna get easy it's always gonna be a challenge to set your flesh and your time and your schedule and your priorities and your to-do list and your responsibility it's always going to be a challenge to set that aside and just go pray and this is what stops a lot of people when they first try to pray the very first thing you will discover as you attempt to pray is your own spiritual emptiness and it will scare you and you will think this isn't working and you get in that place of prayer and you set aside that time for prayer and you're fighting distraction and your phone's pinging and emails coming in and your minds wandering and and and your words seem to be just bouncing off the ceiling and you feel like I must be doing this all wrong I don't feel anything and all I can think about is the clock and the clock by the way is moving slower than it ever has before and I feel like I might as well just give up I'm so empty this doesn't seem to be working I'm not feeling anything and my words to you at that moment and God's words to you would be don't stop push through your own emptiness because pushing through that feeling of emptiness is one of the first critical steps in establishing a prayer life because God is trying to teach you first of all that it's not about feelings now I like feelings some people don't some people just would like us all to be a little odd Donn's little robots and we don't ever make get too excited or anything like that but for most people they're emotional people they like to smile and laugh and have fun and get excited about wonderful things in life and so you know it's hard for us to do something where there's not always this emotional feedback and and can I just address the Pentecostals because that's what we are and we're thankful to be Pentecostal and Pentecostals we have the privilege of being filled with the holy spirit and we have the privilege of being in a church where God actually moves and His Spirit comes in and it's sometimes like a river and it's sometimes like a win and it's sometimes like a roar and we love it all and we're never gonna stop doing it because it's all through the Bible that's how God's people worship Him but but that can be our worst enemy when we're trying to play pray alone when we're trying to pray by ourselves because you are not unless you live in a different house than I live in you are not going to get the rush of a Sunday night service at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning it is not happening and if it does Beverly is going to be tramping down the stairs saying what are you doing it's not the same you don't do it because it always feels the same the same as you don't stay married because it always feels the same if you're looking for it for it to always feel the same and that's gonna be your criteria for staying married you're gonna get divorced bye-bye you stay married because you made a commitment and you're in love with that person and you're mature enough to realize love is not a fleeting fickle feeling love is a commitment to another person so when you pray it's not always going to feel like Sunday night and most of you don't have a praise team standing beside your easy chair singing to you while you're sipping Tim Hortons you don't have that some of you you use music to pray and that's okay could I make a suggestion if your music causes you to sing all the time it's not good background music that's good workout music but it's not good prayer music the point of music is just to kind of set an atmosphere not so you're distracted by that we can set our own distractions up that hurt us when we're trying to pray let me get back to these notes somewhere my goodness so pushing through that emptiness that's important because here's the thing folks we because of life we get so empty spiritually that we don't even notice it we don't even recognize that we're empty because we're so busy because we're so entertained because we got so many people needing us and wanting us and wanting to talk to us so we don't even realize we're empty until we go to pray we're so used to being empty that we don't even sense it or feel it we fill up our days and our minds with busyness and calendars and entertainment and talking to others and we even fill up some of our days with sermons and praying with other people at church and that's all good but it's when you finally start to pray on your own that you will feel the hunger and the thirst and the emptiness it was there all along but you just kept drowning it out by being busy busy busy busy and so God asked us to pray he expects us to pray he said when you pray he said praying always Paul said pray without ceasing because it's important that we notice when we're getting empty it's important that we notice when our spiritual tank is not full to fail to pray is not about breaking a religious rule to fail to pray is not trying to live up to some arbitrary standard and you missed to fail to pray is failing to treat God as God failing to pray is actually a sin against his lordship in our lives because we're thinking and saying I can do it by myself I'm smart enough to handle everything comes at me by myself here's what Samuel said first Samuel 12 moreover as for me god forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you but I will teach you the good in the right way it would be a sin for me it wouldn't be a sin against you it wouldn't be a sin against Mike to-do list it wouldn't be a sin against my church or my pastor it would be a sin against God if I didn't pray for you Psalm 65 this is kind of the theme of the whole book of Psalms oh thou that hearest prayer unto thee shall all flesh come you know why we pray because the Bible tells us God hears our prayer that's why we pray I don't need any other reason if God hears my prayer I don't need another reason to pray 2nd chronicles six now my God led I beseech thee let your eyes this is Solomon's prayer for the temple this is Solomon's prayer for the place that they built for the Lord I beseech thee let your eyes be open let your ears be a tent under the prayer that is made in this place do you know what Solomon prayed over the temple he said God let this be a place of prayer and God would you stir up your people to pray and God when we pray would you please hear us from heaven Solomon said my prayer is that this would be a place of prayer and Jesus basically said the same thing in mark chapter 11 he taught said unto them is it not written my house shall be called of all nations the House of Prayer but you've made it a den of thieves he was talking about their particular religious practices where they brought animals and temple money and they were bartering and exchanging at it you couldn't bring an animal from your house and offer it in the temple you had to come pay your money and buy a temple animal and there was all kinds of extortion and cheating going on and it was really just a mess and Jesus said you've turned this into a place on a lot of activity you've turned this into a place of a lot of interaction humanly speaking you've turned this into a place to make money and do deals but here's what you haven't done you haven't done what Solomon prayed over this place my house shall be a house of prayer now I want people to look at our church and I want them to say that's a church that knows how to worship I want them to know this is a church that baptizes in Jesus name where people still get the Holy Ghost I want people to know this is a church that believes that the Bible informs us as to how we live our everyday lifestyles that we're all holy set apart people I want people to recognize that you might not want that I want that I want people to look at us and they might not understand but if they can see the beauty of it in you they'll eventually see the beauty of it in scripture so I want all that but here's number one according to what Jesus said my house shall be called a house of prayer so we're never more in line with his purpose then when we're praying and that's the great thing about prayer a saint that's been serving God for 75 years they can pray but a little child can walk in here from Sunday school and they can pray a person can walk in off the street and they can pray a person who's a drug addict can reach out to God for the first time and they can pray a young person who's struggling they can reach up to God tears running down their face and they can pray and so the number one thing that Jesus wanted this house to be known for is my house shall be called on a house of prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray he healed people with his prayer he insisted that some demons only come out by prayer jesus prayed often he prayed regularly the writer of Hebrews says that he prayed with prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears Jesus got emotional when he prayed the Bible says he prayed early in the morning and sometimes he prayed all night he was transfigured with glory as he prayed and when he faced his greatest crisis he did so with prayer we hear Jesus praying for his disciples and the church in the few hours before he died and then we hear him petitioning God in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and finally Jesus died praying immediately after their Lord's death the disciples prepared for the future of the church by being constantly in prayer together all church gatherings were devoted to prayer the power of the Spirit descended on the early Christians in response to their prayer and when they appointed leaders they did it only through prayer all Christians in the New Testament were expected to have a regular faithful devoted fervent prayer life said it before the early church didn't just have a prayer meeting the early church was a prayer meeting now we've got a lot of things they didn't have we've got buildings and pulpits and sound systems and internet and choir and webcast we've got praise teams we got all kinds of things that they didn't have but here's the one thing they did have that we have to have we have to be a church that prays but you don't get a church that prays if you don't have people who pray prayer is so powerful that wherever you look in the Bible prayer is there why is that because wherever God is prayer is and wherever prayer is God is now this is neat to me I was studying this system fascinating we learned language so early in our lives that we have no memory of how we did it and that's not true if you're learning a second or third language but your first mother tongue we call it we learned that language so early that we have no memory of the process so it would be easy to look back and imagine that somehow we taught ourselves to speak but that wasn't the case language is spoken to us when we're very small babes in arms little infants we learn language only as we are spoken to as soon as we're born and our parents cherish us and take us home we're plunged into a sea of language we hear talking all around us and then little by little and syllable by syllable we learn to mimic and we learn to repeat and we acquire the capacity to answer mama Papa blanket bottle yes no we get it not one of those words we say oh isn't that cute that's their first word that wasn't the first word because all speech that we ever say is actually answering speech the first word was somebody that said it and we heard it and mimicked it so really none of us have a first word the first word preceded our speaking we were spoken to before we ever spoke and now many studies have have evaluated this they've shown that children's ability to understand and communicate it's profoundly affected by the number of words and the breadth of the vocabulary they're exposed to way back when they're infants and toddlers so so really here's the principle we learned this from science and from study we were all spoken to before we ever spoke and we speak only to the degree that we're spoken to and that informs what I want to say to you as I close tonight about this wonderful thing called prayer in this very first part of this Bible study series prayer is our reply to God he's already talking to us he talks to us through his word when you pray it's not your first initiative you're replying to the God who's already spoken to you through his Gospel through his Spirit through his servants through his church through his word so that means that if we're going to learn to pray effectively it's not enough to just kind of watch people pray here's the best way to learn how to pray here is the handbook on prayer the more familiar you become with the language and the prayers and the people and the events of the Bible the more you will instinctively know how to pray because this book is God talking to us and when you hear God talking to you over and over and over then you will learn instinctively how to respond to him what are you saying pastor I'm saying we need to plunge ourselves into the ocean of God's language we should study and think and meditate and reflect and ponder the Scriptures because then when we pray we're praying intelligently there's a response in our heart and our mind they in the Bible here's what you're going to discover this may shock you you're gonna discover a God who's quite complex you're gonna discover a God who's very real and you're gonna discover a God who aggravates you sometimes and if you have any relationship with any real person you're gonna know that instinctively any real person you're in relationship with you're going to be confused by them sometimes you're going to be aggravated by them sometimes and exactly the same way sometimes you'll be confused by God sometimes you'll be aggravated by what God allows and what he does but you will also be amazed and you will be comforted because God is a real person and God is speaking to you through his word we know how we should pray by getting our vocabulary from the Bible that shouldn't be a surprise since that's how we learn to pray as toddlers and babies and somebody said well yeah but God spoke audible words to people in the Bible I wish God would speak to me like that can I just say no you probably don't it was scary to death we'd be having your funeral but there's a bigger issue please know we have something far better than a disembodied voice coming occasionally out of the heavens we have the Bible and the Bible is the Word of God and that's why you need to have a relationship with God through the word if you want to have a relationship with God through prayer John 1 and 1 in the beginning was the word the Word was with God and the word Oh God John 1:14 the word was made flesh and dwelt among us Hebrews 4:12 the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword see God acts through his word we don't get past the first chapter of the Word of God but what is say and God said and there was God acts through his word the Word of God is quick and powerful it's alive and active so if you want God to be alive and active in your life you get that through getting familiar getting your face in the scripture and learn it I'm not saying you need to read 25 chapters a day but if you could read a verse a day and figure out what that verse means and better than that talk to Jesus while you're reading or immediately after you read and say God what are you trying to say to me today through the word start with a verse start with a phrase start with a chapter start with a bite-sized piece of the Word of God you don't have to give God the whole life history of you every time you pray and he doesn't have to give you his whole life history every time you read but if you can just have that conversation going that helps us in prayer the goal in reading your Bible is not just to get information about God the goal of this is to actually hear God speak and to meet God in the pages of his word a lady named Anne Lamott she she's a best-selling author she wrote a best-selling top charting humorous little book called help thanks Wow the three essential prayers help thanks Wow now in that book she actually gets some things right she creatively names the three biblical categories for prayer help that's called supplication that's one prayer help thanks that's Thanksgiving that's a good category for prayer so help thanks and wow that's adoration god you're so great help thanks Wow the three essential prayers it's striking though that her book leaves out one of the most critical categories for prayer and that's repentance if you take her book which isn't very long but if you contrast it with the Lord's Prayer that is much shorter than her book you'll find out that the lack of emphasis on repentance is a glaring omission even in a light-hearted book about prayer Jesus taught us much about repentance and confession even in the short little thing we call the Lord's Prayer so if I was writing her book I'd at least call it help thanks Wow sorry at least the probably the reason she didn't think of that is because Anne Lamott is not using Scripture as a starting point for knowing God here's a quote from her book listen to this let's not get bogged down on whom or what we pray - let's just say prayer is a communication from our hearts to the great mystery or to goodness or to Howard to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in its to something unimaginably big and not us we could call this force not me or we could call it not preachers on stage with a choir of 800 or for convenience we could just say God the problem with an lamotte's approach is that if God is not the starting point for prayer then what happens and this can happen to church people this can happen to Pentecostal people this is why you need a relationship with the Bible if you're going to pray because if God isn't the starting point then our own needs become the starting point if God isn't the starting point our own needs and desires become the sole focus of our prayer it's not right to decide how to pray based on how you're feeling or based on what experiences you went through today instead what we need to do is do everything we can through the word to behold our God as he is and then if you actually ever behold him as he is you'll want to talk to him and you will say thanks and you will say help and you will say sorry and you will say Wow and you'll say a whole lot of other things not because you're a professional player it'll be because you have a relationship with a real God in a real Bible the more clearly we grasp who God is the more it shapes our prayer and that by the way apostolic is why we pray as the Bible teaches us in Jesus name we're not praying to the cosmos we're not trained to goodness we're not praying to the force we're praying in Jesus name and Jesus isn't somebody you have to guess he was a real person he left us his real Bible and so everything that he inspired people to write down about him you can trust it and take it to the bank I've got one more scripture without a basis in the Bible our prayers will be shallow but they almost also might be untethered from any reality at all because if you're like Miss Lamont you're responding not to the real God you're responding to what you wish God was like or what you wish your life to be like and if we are left to ourselves our hearts they'll tend to create a God who doesn't even exist these are God he's a figment of our imagination and people in Canada they want a God who's loving they want a God is forgiving they don't want a god who's holy or righteous or has any expectations and that's why when they do studies of the spiritual habits of young adults in Canada and they do say that they pray but here's what the studies reveal they pray but they never repent and they've never experienced the joy of having their sins forgiven because they pray to a god who's not concerned about sin it's a figment of their imagination without prayer that is responding to the God of the Bible we're only talking to ourselves and if you want to talk to yourself for an hour that's good that's fine we won't have a problem with that but you're only talking to God if you know the God of the Bible final scripture Ephesians chapter 1 verse 15 wherefore I also Paul says after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and loved unto all the saints I cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers can I stop there and just say that was one of my struggles in prayer as a perfectionist I'm not even a recovering perfectionist when you're perfect you don't try to recover I'm just that was one of my struggles I thought because your brain still it won't turn off for some of us and and my brain says you know what good does this do God touch pastor Jack and sister Cathy and God touch Eric and Annette and God touch pastor Matt and trashin what good does that do like I'm just going through kind of a little list like what good does that do you know if I could make a speech to God and write it all down and have it perfectly formed and tell God how Meritus these people are of him doing something gracious for them and I could get it all formed I'd be fine but Paul just hit me right in the head right there he said I made mention of you in my prayers I didn't make a speech I didn't talk to God for a half hour about every one of you I mentioned you to God and if you can just think about this with me for a second when you're talking to somebody you might say to somebody I'm really concerned I'm really concerned about brother Phillips I'm really concerned about Alan Porter I'm really concerned about pastor Jack pray for them you wouldn't go on and on and on and on you might just mention them and you mention them because you care and you mention them because you love them you don't have to make a speech and so mentioning somebody in prayer that's prayer mentioning somebody to God who already knows their name their need their address their prognosis their diagnosis mentioning them in prayer that's valuable prayer and I really struggle with that maybe nobody else has but I really struggle with that feeling like well if I just list off their names I'm not really praying you are really praying you're making mention of them now sometimes you need to bear down because the spirit will lead you but make it mention that's valid valuable prayer here's what I pray Paul said that the god of our Lord Jesus Christ so this is all the people he's mentioned this is all of his friends and colleagues this is what he's praying for them that the god of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of glory I'm praying that he may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him I'm praying that the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened that you might know what is the hope of his calling the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power that's my prayer requests for all my friends and colleagues and ministry and if you compare that passage in Ephesians one with passages in Philippians 1 and Colossians one of several other places in the epistles here's what you'll figure out very quickly this is how Paul prayed for people that he loved here's his prayer I just keep asking Jesus I just keep mentioning you to Jesus I just keep bringing your name up before Jesus a pastor called today I was in Alexandria with Beverley over the weekend and last week had a wonderful time and that great church sends their greeting to hear and we love them and they love us and Pastor call today and yesterday I think and we were just chatting very briefly how's Matt how's pastor Jack we didn't go on for a half an hour he just loves them and he wanted to know if they're okay if they weren't okay we could talk but it's a mention and Paul said here's what I do when I pray for all my friends I just mentioned you before Jesus and here's what I pray for all of you I pray that you'll get to know him better that's my number one prayer for all of you now that's amazing it's remarkable that in all of his writings Paul's prayers for his friends contain no Appeals for changes in their circumstances those people lived under the Roman Empire they faced hardships and dangers and persecution and death from disease and oppression by powerful forces and separation from loved ones and threat of jail and Massacre and murder and death their existence was far less secure than ours was ours is today but in Paul's prayers for his friends you don't see one petition not one for a better Emperor for protection from all the armies he doesn't even pray for bread for his next meal he doesn't pray a lot of the things we usually have at the top of our prayer list now does that mean it would have been wrong for Paul to pray for that no because Paul knew like we know that Jesus invited us to pray for our daily bread and Jesus invited us to pray deliver us from evil so it's not wrong it's just that Paul said it's minor the big thing I'm praying for you because you're my friends is that whatever you happen to be walking through right now I'm praying that God will let you know him better through what you're going through that's what I'm praying he said the most important thing I can pray to God for you the most important thing I can ask God to give to you is to know him better so Paul he taught us something prayer is not just a way to get things from God prayer is a way to get more of God and that's how we need to pray for each other first and most of all is that when you're walking through the pain of losing a loved one I pray I can pray all kinds of things God comfort them and God be with it but the most important thing is God would you reveal more of yourself to them because if you reveal more of yourself to them they'll be okay they'll get through it walking through that dreaded regimen of treatment for that scary disease god I pray that you'll heal them and God I pray that that'll be a good report and god I pray that you'll turn it around it's right to pray all those things don't stop praying all those things but while you're praying all those things God make yourself real to them reveal your spirit to them in the middle of this trial because I can't control how the trial can turn out but God gave me permission to pray God in the middle of the trial I'm praying that you'll reveal yourself to them and that's how Paul always prayed for everybody as soon as we turn if we pray into when we pray there is unlimited potential for the church to do amazing amazing things would you lift your hands right now postures been in in in intentionally a teacher tonight I'm not trying to make a cheap play for your emotions I'm not trying to goad you or shame you I'm not trying to incite you I'm just trying to teach you and explain to you some things I'd like you to remove all the guilt that you felt and all the times you thought I'm not doing this right and whatever and I'd like you to just pull out of your mind all the times when you shut down praying because you thought you weren't feeling anything you might not be feeling anything right now that's very cool because you don't have to feel something to pray to a God who fills time and space in the universe so would you lift up your voice right now and would you start by just thanking him for being such a God such a great God such a good friend such a faithful father would you just thank you for all of that for just a moment Jesus I worship you because there's no one quite like you there's no one that walks with me like you do and there's no one that's been there for me like you have been there for me and God I thank you for your hand on this great church and these precious people and God so many of them walk through so many things and right now we've got some of them in the hospital and some of them under doctor's care and some of them they're they're quite fearful of a diagnosis and some of them are negotiating a family situation and some of them have had horrendous financial setbacks and some of them they've got all kinds of heartbreak in their life and and Jesus it's good to take all those situations and name them out in detail and we do and I do but God tonight I'm praying for your precious people that whatever they happen to be walking through right now our prayer is that we would know you not just in the power of your spirit but we know you can also let us know you in the Fellowship of your sufferings so God whatever the situation I'm just praying you to let us know you and you let us answer you we read about you in the word we hear about you in the word and prayer is our answer back to you I thank you for a great church that believes in truth and loves the moving of your spirit and I thank you for Bible study and I thank you for faithful Saints and I thank you God for all of that and we respond to you tonight you've given us so much Jesus you've given us so much and our prayer is our response to everything you've said and everything you've done help us to pray teach us to pray oh my would you just let that gentle undercurrent of prayer would you just let that flow for just a moment just a moment oh I worship you Jesus oh I worship you Jesus thank you Jesus for your sweet spirit that's in this room right now thank you that you visit us so regularly and so often by the moving of your spirit thank you for that God would you stand with Pastor right now we're certainly not doing this little series because I'm trying to wow you with some great lesson we're certainly not doing it because we're trying to condemn anybody we're just doing it because the Bible tells us when we pray things happen if my people which are called by my name if we'll just humble ourselves and pray God will if we will he will over the next few weeks as we go through this series I'm asking this great church if you'd make a special personal effort to give yourself especially to prayer if you're not consistently praying start with five minutes and build it up to 10 that's way better than starting with an hour and shrinking it down to zero just start just do just try and when you get there and you don't feel this or you don't feel Sunday night or you don't feel the choir and the praise team that's good because you're becoming a person of prayer and you don't need all the emotion to pray you just need to know that God is and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him

Channel: Capital Community Church

Views: 12,485

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Keywords: pastor raymond woodward, raymond, woodward, raymond woodward, preaching, preach, sermon, ccc, capital, community, church, fredericton, nb, new, brunswick, canada, upc, upci, united, penetecostal, international, apostolic, christian, if, my, people, which, are, called, by, name, prayer, praying, learning, to, pray

Id: bjpwm0TtW6o

Length: 65min 5sec (3905 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 17 2018