- Hi, Saddleback Church. (crowd murmurs response) How are ya? Good, great to see you, great to be with you today. We are gonna continue with
the series we've been in in prayer, 40 days of prayer, and I'm so glad that I was
here and had the opportunity to share with you, because I want to talk to you today about some of the lessons
that I've been learning in the years that I walk with the Lord. And it's been quite a long time, actually. I turned 60, two weeks ago. (crowd applauding) And I gave my life to
Jesus when I was six. So I've been walking with
the Lord for 54 years. Well, stumbling along for 54 years. There were some years when I was, you might say, developing my testimony. (crowd laughing) You know what I'm saying. Don't look at me like you
don't know what I'm saying. But some of the lessons that
I've learned about prayer, and I want to share them with you today, I want to talk about three main things. First I want to talk about
the purpose of prayer. Why do we pray at all? Why is that important to us,
why is it important to God? I'd like to talk about
the practice of prayer, because for so many of us, that seems to be a stumbling place, of where do I start and how do I do this. And then I also want to talk
about the power of prayer, and what kind of prayer
is the most effective, what does the Bible say about that? So to begin with, I want
to talk about the purpose. Why do we pray? Remember, prayer is God's idea. If He didn't want to hear from you, He wouldn't invite you to pray. But He has asked us, all
through the scriptures, He's asked us, He's commanded
us to talk to Him, to pray. So it's God's idea. And there are several reasons that God has invited us to
communicate, to talk with Him, and a lot of those we talked
about in the first session of the small group study
on 40 days of prayer, but I want to talk about a
different one here today. Because one of the reasons for
prayer, one of God's reasons for prayer is that prayer is the way that we partner with God, in accomplishing His will and
His purposes on the earth. See, the Bible makes it very clear that we are in the
middle, each of us, you, are in the middle of a
great spiritual battle. It's not a physical battle, it's not against flesh and
blood, against physical enemies. It's a spiritual war, and
we're in the middle of it. It is raging all around us, all the time. And so God has given us armor to wear, and He's given us weapons,
and He's given us a strategy for fighting that war. And we read about it in
the book of Ephesians, in chapter six, I want to start there. In Ephesians six, it's in your notes, but it's also here on the screen. It's kind of a lengthy
passage but I want to read it. Here's what it says. Paul is writing, he says, "Finally, be strong in the
Lord and in His mighty power." "Not your own, in His mighty power. "Put on the full armor of
God so that you can take "your stand against the devil's schemes. "For our struggle is not
against flesh and blood," let me read that again. "Our struggle is not
against flesh and blood, "but against the rulers,
against the authorities, "against the powers of this dark world," what King James calls
the powers of darkness. That's who it's against. "And against the spiritual forces of evil "in the heavenly realms,"
that's where our battle is. "Therefore, put on the full armor of God, "so that when the day of
evil comes, you may be able "to stand your ground, "and after you have done
everything, to stand. "Stand firm then, with
the belt of truth buckled "around your waist, with the
breastplate of righteousness "in place, and with your feet
fitted with the readiness "that comes from the gospel of peace. "In addition to all this,
take up the shield of faith, "with which you can extinguish
all the flaming arrows "of the evil one. "Take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the Spirit, "which is the word of God." Now let me just stop there for a moment. So Paul is giving us a metaphor. Don't be distracted by the metaphor. I've so often heard people,
they come to this idea of the armor of God, and they approach it as though it's something that you put on and then take off, and then
put on and then take off. It's not something where I
can just live however I want to live, do whatever I want to do, and then when life gets tough, now I come and I pray, God,
I'm putting on my helmet of salvation, and I'm picking
up my shield of faith. That's make believe. What Paul is talking about,
what this metaphor is, he's talking about a way of life. How you live your life,
that truth and faith are such a part of you that it's as though you're clothed in them. You see, this list that we
read here in Ephesians six is not a wishlist. It's a checklist, to say
how am I living my life. For example, the belt of truth. Am I living my life in integrity? Am I a truthful person? Am I walking in truth? Am I living in truth? Is the outflow of my
life, through the truth of the word of God, or
the helmet of salvation, do I think like a saved person? Do I think with the mind of Christ? Or the shoes of the gospel of peace? He's saying, what's your walk like? Can people tell just by the way you live that you are a follower of Christ? So it's not a wishlist, it's a checklist, and this idea of armor is to say, how are you living? And when you're living this way, so now there's the armor, now he says here's how
you fight the battle. Here's the strategy, and
he goes on in this passage. He says, having done all of this, he says, now, where am I? Here we go. "Pray in the Spirit." He says pray, that's the strategy. You're armed now. Pray, "on all occasions with all kinds "of prayers and requests. "With this in mind, be alert and always "keep on praying for all the saints." That means all the believers,
keep on praying all the time. So the point is that you're in a battle, it is not a battle
against flesh and blood, so the weapons, the strategy,
are not physical weapons and strategy, they are
spiritual in nature. And God has given them to us. But there is a huge difference between being in a war, and being at war. It's the difference between
being a refugee and a soldier. Both of them are in a war. But the refugee is trying to escape it, trying to avoid it, doing whatever he can to stay out of the battle. The soldier is also in a war, but he is at war. He's in it to win it. He recognizes the enemy
and he is doing his job, his duty to fight against
that enemy, for his side. So in our own lives, then
the Bible makes it clear, there's a war going on,
we have to ask ourselves, am I a refugee or a soldier? Am I trying to avoid the trouble or am I in this battle to win this battle? Again, it is not against people. It is not against the other side. It's not against flesh and
blood, it is a spiritual battle. The devil hates you. He is always at war with you,
he never takes a day off. Are you in the fight? Or are you just trying to run
from him to keep the peace? This is what Paul is talking about here, and he says, here is the strategy. God has called us into this battle and the strategy is prayer. That's how we fight this battle. So if that's the strategy,
then how do I fight it? How do I pray? What kinds of things am
I supposed to pray about? Well let me give you a word picture. In 1983, the United States Navy launched the first battleship that
was equipped with something called the Aegis radar defense system. And the Aegis radar defense
system is on a ship, actually the ship is
built around the system. And the ship is in a fleet, and the Aegis radar system can track over 100 targets, on
the sea, under the sea, in the air and on land. 100 targets, in a circle
with a 115-mile radius. So if you think, where is 115 miles? We're here in Lake Forest today. 115 miles is about 20
miles past Palm Springs. It's about 20 miles past Magic Mountain. It's about 20 miles past Tijuana. Have you figured out there's
nothing past those places? I couldn't think of names. 115 miles out to sea, okay? In that kind of a theater,
that kind of an arena, it can track, not only can it track, it can launch attacks against all 100 targets simultaneously. And at the same time, it can
put up defenses for the fleet. From all of those targets,
all at the same time. It's a fascinating system. It shoots missiles at missiles. Someone described it as like shooting down a bullet with a bullet. It's that accurate, that fast. That's the Aegis system. Now, why am I talking about all of this? Because I think that there's
a picture here for us in how we organize, how we
think about our prayer life. And part of it just has to
do with the name itself, Aegis, most of you know
if you've been around here for a while and heard me talk, that I'm a word guy. And so I thought, well why the name Aegis, where did that come from? What does Aegis mean? Well I want you to write some things down because we're gonna begin
to see the application here to our life, so write
some of these words down that I'm gonna give you. Here's the definition, the
meaning of the word Aegis. It means the realm or reach
of authority, write that down. Authority, influence, protection, responsibility, and advocacy. I'll read those to you again. Aegis is the realm or reach of authority, influence, protection,
responsibility, and advocacy. Now just look at the words on your page. Think about those words. What authority do you have? What influence do you have? What are you responsible for? Is there anyone that you are called upon in your life to protect, or to
speak up for as an advocate? And it leads, then, to a question. And here's the question to write down. What is the Aegis of my prayer life? What's the Aegis of my prayer life, what is in the realm or
reach of my authority and responsibility and
advocacy in my life? What are the targets out there? What's on the horizon? What am I supposed to
be keeping my eyes on to be sure that these
things are being prayed for? What is God holding me responsible for? Now this can sound overwhelming. There are not a hundred targets that you have to be worried about. I want to give you just
six things to think about that sort of define the
Aegis of your life, alright? So you can write these down
and begin to think about them even after the service,
thinking about these things. Here's part of the Aegis
of your prayer life, let's start with your family. Your family, your spouse,
your kids, your parents, your siblings, whoever is in your family, God has placed you in that family. And He wants you to pray for your family, whether you like 'em or not, He wants you to pray for your family. Here's another part of the Aegis
of your life, your friends. Your friends, the people that
God has blessed you with. The people that are doing life with you. Are you praying for them? What would life be like
if you made an agreement with your friends, I will
pray for you every day if you pray for me every day? That's part of the Aegis
of your prayer life, here's another part of it, your church. Whatever church God has placed you in, if he's put you in a church,
you have a responsibility to pray for your church, to
pray for your congregation, to pray for your pastor, to
continue to pray for Rick whether he's sick or healthy, to continue to pray for Rick. To pray for the ministries of the church that are going on around
you, the ministries that you might be involved in. And many of those ministries
reach out into the world which leads, then, to the
next part of the Aegis of your life and that is your community. Community is the city you live in, it's also the nation that you live in. And God commands us, in the
Bible, to pray for our leaders. Again, whether you like 'em or not. To pray for our leaders. How about work, or school? That's the next part, work or school. Do you pray for your boss? Boss, do you pray for your employees? Coworkers, are you praying
for the knucklehead in the cubicle next to you? The people that we work with,
what's going on in their life? Do we know? Do you ever pray for them? I'm not saying you have to
stop and pray with them, although you might want to. But praying for our work,
praying for our school, as parents, I have four kids
that I put through school. I prayed for their teachers. Do you ever pray for their teachers or do we just complain
about their teachers? But praying for their
teachers, that's part of the Aegis of your life. Here's another part, projects or events. Projects or events, the things that are cookin' on the stove. What's going on in your life? What kind projects are coming up? What are you involved with? To be praying for all
of these things, again, is all of it being watched? Am I keeping an eye out? Am I praying over these things? That's why Jesus said,
look at this verse here in Matthew 26, he said, "Watch and pray." He didn't just say pray,
he said watch and pray. And as we just read in this
passage in Ephesians six, Paul says, "Be alert and
always keep on praying." It's not enough just to be prayerful, we have to be watchful,
we have to be vigilant. Because we're in a war. And so we have a responsibility to pray. You see, if we attempt to
sail into dangerous waters without the Aegis system of
prayer in place in our lives, we risk failure. And the failure will not come because of God's heavy-handedness, I'm mad at you because you didn't pray. It won't come because
of His heavy-handedness. The failure would come
because of the absence of his empowering hand. We say, God, why did you let this fail? And He'd say, well why didn't you ask me to let it succeed? You see, you can't blame
God for your failures if you're not asking
Him for your successes. We've got to involve Him
in everything that we do in our life, there's nothing
that I want to do in life that I want to do without God. I want His help, I want His
wisdom, in everything that I do. Failure to pray, deciding
not to pray about something is sending a message to God. It's an unspoken prayer,
let me say that again. I hadn't thought of it
that way until just now. Not praying is an unspoken prayer. And the unspoken prayer when
you don't pray for something is saying, God, I don't
need you in this one. I've got it covered, I've
got it all figured out, I can handle this, you
can just wait over there in the corner and behave
yourself, I got it. That's what you're saying by not praying about what you're doing. But here's what's at stake. It's that if we do not pray,
if we do not invite God into what we're doing, if we don't invite Him into the realm of our life, we will only accomplish the sum total of our own abilities. Let me explain that. We plant the seeds, but only
good gives the increase. We can fill the jars with water, and we can be proud of ourselves and how many jars we filled with water, but only Jesus can turn
the water into wine. Without God's hand, without
his involvement in what we do, we will only accomplish the
sum total of our own abilities. We will never see the miraculous if we don't invite the God of
miracles into the situation and ask Him to be at work on our behalf. Here's what the Bible says
about this in Ephesians three. It says, "God is able
to do immeasurably more "than all we ask or imagine,
according to His power "that is at work within us." It says He can do immeasurably
more than all we ask, so ask. It says He can do immeasurably more than all we imagine, so imagine. What are you asking? You see, if we don't
define our expectations, then we'll never see when
God exceeds our expectations. Again, we will miss the
miraculous because we have not invited the God of miracles
into the situation. So I want you to write this down. Prayer invites the miraculous. Prayer invites the
miraculous, prayer makes room for the hand of God. Prayer releases God's
power in your direction because you are inviting His power, inviting His participation,
His partnership with you. It's not so that He
will fulfill your will, it's so that you will fulfill His. Prayer is bringing you into alignment with the will of God, and thereby releasing God's
power into your situation. Never take God's favor for granted. It is yours through Christ, but it's not to be taken lightly. There is so much at stake. Eternal lives are at stake. Life on earth is at stake. Think about the things you're involved in. Think about projects that
are coming up right now, think about people that you know. Friends that you have, family
members who have a need. What could happen if you prayed? Or to ask that question
in a much darker way, what could happen if you don't pray? It's a frightening question. What could happen if I don't pray? You're in a war. And God has given you a strategy to win and to fight that war. And it is through prayer. Look at this verse from
first Samuel, chapter 12, it's here on the screen. "Far be it from me that I
should sin against the Lord "by failing to pray for you." I find it interesting that it doesn't say, far be it from me that
I should sin against you by failing to pray for you, it says no, it's a sin against the
Lord by failing to pray. So I come back to the question, what is the Aegis of your prayer life? And how can you be sure that
things are being covered, being prayed for, how do I do this? Is this gonna take up all of my time, because it sounds like a daunting
task and it's really not. I want to move now into the idea of the practice of prayer,
and show you how simple things can be. Give you some bite-size pieces here, and I want to share with you some habits that I've developed in my
own life over the years that help me learn how to pray, helped me to remember to pray for things, so you can write some of
these ideas down, alright? The first one is this: schedule prayers. Schedule them, schedule prayers,
put it in your calendar. Set an alarm. Do something to remind yourself to pray. Now some things you'll pray for every day. I pray for my wife and my kids, every day. Some things you pray
for every now and then, or on a sort of regular
basis, for example, I pray for all of my coworkers
every day that I go to work. It's not every day of the
week, but when I'm driving to work, I pray for my coworkers. There are some things that are seasonal. I have a friend, a guy named Dave. Dave travels a lot in his business. His business is actually training pastors. Right now, he's in the Philippines. He's training about 1200 pastors. And when I know that Dave is
gonna be out of the country, I put it on my calendar. I find out when is he leaving,
when is he coming home, and every day that he's
gone, I pray for Dave. It's a seasonal thing, but
I put it on my calendar so that it pops up and reminds me, oh yeah, pray for Dave today. I don't get down on my knees
and pray for half an hour. It's just for a moment, but
I'm praying for my friend. So you can schedule prayers,
here's another idea. Turn drive time into prayer time. Turn your drive time into prayer time. I started doing this years ago. Then in the morning, when
I would drive to my office and it's about a 15-minute drive, I decided I'm gonna turn off the music, I'm gonna turn off the radio,
gonna turn off everything else and I'm gonna spend the next 15 minutes just talkin' to the
Lord, like He's sittin' in the seat next to me, I'm just gonna carry on a conversation. And it's in that drive time
that I've redeemed that time. I've given it a higher purpose, and it's in that drive time
that I pray for myself, my family, the people I
work with, I pray for you. Every day when I drive into
the church, I pray for you. Now, I don't pray for you
one by one across the rows. But I pray for the
congregation, for the people of Saddleback Church,
I pray for your homes. I pray for your marriages,
I pray for your business, for your finances, for your health, that God will bless this church so that we are able to
continue to do the ministry that he has called us to. I pray for you every day
when I drive into the office, I turn my drive time into prayer time. It's a much better use of
my time in the morning. Here's another idea:
set up prayer reminders. Set up prayer reminders or memorials. I'll explain what I mean by this. A few years ago I went to visit my mentor, he's a man who's a pastor up
in the San Fernando valley, been in ministry for many years, he's known my family
since he was a teenager but he's in ministry for a long time. A man named Jack Heyford. And I went to spend a
couple days with Jack. By the way, he's the one who first told me about this Aegis idea. And as I was there, I asked
him about his prayer life. And he said, well let me show ya. And so he took me out into his front yard. Now, as I said, he lives up in the valley, so like so many of the valley homes it's one of those long,
single story ranch houses, so it has a long front yard. And he took me out in the front, we're facing the street,
standing right outside the door and he points over to the corner and he goes, you see
those two Redwood trees? He said, that one's Ken
and that one's Lloyd. (audience laughing) Well Ken and Lloyd are his two
closest partners in ministry. And then underneath those
trees, you could see there's a little bench,
like a little park bench. Little bench there, he
says, that's Dean and Lori. Those are his best friends. He and his wife's best friends. And then along the front of the yard was a fence, and there
were nine cement pillars in this fence. And each one of those
pillars meant something. He said, that one there is the church and that one there is the
school, the university that he had started. And he told me what the others meant. And then in the middle of the
yard as you walk out the door, right in the middle is
this beautiful fountain. He said, that's Anna, his wife. He said she's a fountain of life. So that's Anna. And then behind that fountain
there were three birch trees. He said, you see the one on the right? He said, that's you. I couldn't believe that Jack
had been praying for me. But here was the point. He would go out, he
didn't do it every day, some days he didn't have time. But when he did, took about
ten minutes, not long. But he's just go for a
walk in the front yard and he'd go over to
those trees and he'd pray for Ken and Lloyd, just for a moment. Then he'd sit down on the bench and he'd pray for Dean and Lori. And then he'd just walk along the fence and pray for each of those
things they represented, and he'd stop at the fountain
and pray for his wife. And he'd look at that
tree and he'd pray for me, and he'd move on. They were prayer reminders. Physical objects that reminded
him of things to pray for. I thought, man, what a great idea. So I started doing something
like that in my own life. I have a son in-law who is an Orange County sheriff's deputy. I have another son in-law
who is a firefighter. So whenever I see a police
car, or a sheriff's car, I pray for my son in-law Micah. And whenever I see a firetruck, I pray for my son in-law, Sean. And if I only hear a siren
but I don't see either one, I pray for both of them. (audience laughing) It may happen, actually it does happen, several times a day. I'm just praying for 'em. There's nothing specific,
it's not like I know that there's some trouble,
I'm just praying for them because I've chosen to
just make the decision that I'm gonna set up this reminder that those two guys are covered in prayer, over and over throughout the day. My wife does something like
that, Linda, she loves to run. She runs the track. And the reason she runs the track is that each of our four kids gets a lap. I get a lap. Sometimes I need two or three. But each lap is a reminder of something she's supposed to be praying for. I have another friend, a guy
that I went to school with when I was a kid. From the fourth grade through high school, a guy named Eric. We weren't particularly close
friends, we knew each other, hung out a little bit. We lost touch after school. Four years ago, we reconnected. I found out he's a member
of Saddleback Church. And so I began to notice,
a couple years ago, that Eric, on his Facebook page, every now and then he would post "11:11." That's all it would say, 11:11. So I asked him, what's with the 11:11? He said, I don't know. I just see it on my watch
so I just post, 11:11. Well then I made a decision that whenever I saw 11:11,
I was gonna pray for Eric. So that's what I started doing. And it's amazing, it happens
at least four times a week. At least four times a week. I'll be reading a book, just
wondering hey, what time is it, I'll look, it's 11:11. I'll be finishing a phone call,
I'd go to hang up the phone and I'll look, it's 11:11. It happens all the time. I've actually on a few occasions, I've screenshotted my
phone and sent it to him, just said, I'm praying for you. Just so he knows. But it happens so often that
I can't do it all the time because that would be kinda creepy, right? (audience laughing) He'd think, hey, this guy's
like stalking me or something. I'm not, I have nothing to do with it! It just shows up, I pray for Eric. I don't know what's going on in his life, I don't know why he
needs prayer right then. Doesn't matter, God knows. And that's the strategy. Eric has an enemy that
hates him, the devil. So I'm gonna pray for Eric,
and I take just a moment and I pray for Eric. Let me give you another idea because it's sort of similar to this. Pray for drop-in visitors. Pray for drop-in visitors. Notice I put that in quotation marks. Here's what I mean by drop-in visitors. A drop-in person is the person
who just drops into your mind at random, out of the blue. You ever have that experience? You're in the middle of doing something and all of a sudden you're
thinking about somebody and you're going, why am
I thinking about that guy? I haven't talked to him in years, why is he on my mind? That's a drop-in visitor. I pray for drop-in visitors. I'm just going to assume
that God is at work. I always want to assume God is at work. So I'm gonna assume God is at work and He brought that person into my mind because somebody needs
to pray for that person. So I do. I'll pray for him, and
then I'll pull out my phone and I send them a text. And it's just four words. Praying for you today. That's it, I just send 'em a little text, praying for you today. It's amazing, the responses
that I get from people. Praying for drop-in visitors. Now, every prayer does
not have to be lengthy. As I said, you don't drop
to your knees and pray for a half hour for each
one of these things. They're just momentary. Sometimes it's just the mention of a name. And actually, that's a
biblical way to pray. The apostle Paul prayed that way. I'm gonna show you just three
verses, there are several, but just three verses that show you how Paul prayed like this. Look at this, in Ephesians 1:16, he said "I don't cease
to give thanks for you, "making mention of you in my prayers." That would be like saying, God, thank you for my friend Eric, and then you just move on. First Thessalonians 1:2, "We always thank God for all of you, "mentioning you in our prayers." And in Philemon, verse four, he says, "I always thank my God when
I mention you in my prayers." So they don't have to be lengthy. It's just the mention
of his name before God. But at least you know that
someone is being prayed for. I did this, just yesterday. I was walking to the gym, becoming the Adonis that
I really am on the inside. Actually, I'm putting on extra weight so I stay warm in the winter months, that's really what's
happening, but I could go on. My idea of a balanced diet is
a piece of pizza in each hand. (audience laughing) I was walking to the gym the other day, and out of the blue I
had a drop-in visitor. A young guy named Ryland Walter. Ryland is a pastor in Kansas
City, in his early 30s. I haven't seen him in, I
don't know, a couple of years, and he just popped into my head. So I prayed for Ryland. And as I was walking,
I pulled out my phone, I said, "Praying for you today." Within about 30 seconds,
he texted me right back, he said, thank you so much. I really need this today. Now, I don't know what
was going on with Ryland. God did, and God brought it into my mind, and I prayed for Ryland. But here's what happened by doing that. First of all, Ryland got
prayed for by somebody. Happened to be me. But Ryland was prayed for. And second, it blessed
Ryland's life that day. Because he needed it. And it encouraged him, whatever it was he was going through, it brought him some encouragement,
his life was encouraged. And third, I was blessed because I knew that God had used me to
touch this guy's life. Pray for drop-in visitors. Now, let me move on to
the power of prayer. What kind of prayer is most effective? Well here's what the Bible says in James chapter five, verse 16. It says "The prayer of righteous person "is powerful and effective." The prayer of a righteous person
is powerful and effective. Well, I want my prayer to
be powerful and effective. So I wanted to figure out, well what does all of this mean? So I did a word study. Again, I'm a word guy, I did a word study. And a lot of you like to do word studies when you go to the Bible. I put it in your notes, I'm
gonna put it here on the screen. We don't usually do this, but
I feel like it's important to kind of unpack this a little bit and see what it does to our
understanding of this passage. What I found is that the word
righteous in this passage, the prayer of the righteous
person, the word righteous is the Greek word dikaios. And here's what dikaios
means, it says upright, observing divine laws, and
living according to the Word. And when you see the word
dikaios in scripture, it describes a person whose
way of thinking, feeling, and acting is wholly
conformed to the will of God. In other words, he's got his armor on, like we read in Ephesians chapter six. That's dikaios, that person,
the righteous person, the person who lives by the word of God, that person's prayer is
powerful and effective. Now, what does powerful mean? Well the word powerful, in this passage, is the word energeo. The Greek word, energeo, and it means energized
by the power of God. It occurs eight times
in the New Testament, and every time you see this word, it always refers to
supernatural empowerment. It's not talking about
human energy, human power, it's not talking about human emotion. The power of God can
call out human emotion, but human emotion is no
substitute for the power of God. And that word, powerful,
means it is energized, it is infused with the power of God. The prayer of the person who
lives according to the Word is infused with God's power. And then that next word,
the word for effective, is the Greek word, ischuo. And ischuo means to be a force capable of extraordinary deeds. Wouldn't you love for your prayers to be capable of extraordinary deeds? So I put all of this together as I was doing my little word study, and there's some blanks
for you to fill in. So here's what I want you to write down. That the prayer of a man
or woman of the Word, write that down, the
prayer of a man or woman of the Word is energized
by the power of God, and is a great force capable
of extraordinary deeds. The prayer of a man or woman
of the Word is energized by the power of God, and is a great force capable of extraordinary deeds. And you'll notice in your notes that the translation
there, the BGP translation, the BGP stands for, Bald Guy's Paraphrase. (audience laughing) 'Cause that's what it is! It's a paraphrase. It's putting the
scripture in my own words, now that I understand those words, that's what that passage is saying. That if you want your
prayers to be powerful, energized by God's power and capable of extraordinary things, then be sure that your
life and your prayers are aligned with the Word of God. So you can summarize it this way. The more you honor God's word, the more he empowers your prayer. The more you honor God's word, the more he empowers your prayer. But I need to be very
clear about something here. I am not suggesting,
I'm not talking about, and neither is the Word,
I'm not talking about behaving yourself in a certain way that you now have somehow
earned God's favor. Or that you are earning
an answer to your prayer. I'm not talking about earning anything. I'm talking about welcoming his favor. I'm talking about living in such a way that you are inviting an answer, inviting His grace and
favor upon your life. It's not earning it, it's making yourself open and
available to receive from Him. It's to welcome His favor on your life. Now I want to tell you about an experience that I had with all of this,
just a couple of months ago. It was back in July, and I had been invited to come and preach at another church here
in southern California, their pastor had been called
out of town unexpectedly, they needed somebody to fill in, I was available, I went
down and helped them out. And I was going to be preaching
on this particular passage. The prayer of a righteous person
is powerful and effective. On July 27th, a Thursday morning at 3am, I woke up and something was bugging me. It wasn't my wife. (audience laughing) But something was bugging
me, in the back of my mind, something was stirring
around and it woke me up, I couldn't get back to sleep and I couldn't figure out,
why am I so disturbed? So I got out of bed, I went
down in the living room in the dark and I just
started pacing the floor. And I was talking to the
Lord and talking to myself, kind of like David did in
the Psalms when he says, "My soul, why are you
so disturbed within me?" It was that kind of a prayer
where I said, what is this? And I realized that what was
bugging me was this message. It was bothering me. Because I thought, where's the hope in this? If it's the prayer of a righteous person that is powerful and effective, well where does that leave me? 'Cause I don't feel so righteous. And I thought, I'm preaching
myself into a corner. A hopeless corner. It's a corner that says
that only the perfect, flawless, never do anything
wrong kind of people, only those kind of people can pray. God only listens to those kinds of people, but what about the rest of us? What happens when I sin? Because I know, for me, and maybe for some of you, that when I sin, and by
the way, I'm a sinner. And when I sin, I think, well, I can't pray now. I'd be a hypocrite. Why would God listen to
me after what I thought, or said, or did, it's
like I'm out of the game. I've been sidelined. I can't pray now. And I think, for many of us, we have that same kind of feeling. Why would God listen to me? Because I'm not righteous. So what hope do I have? And so to find hope, I
went to the source of hope, I went to the word of God. What does the Bible tell me about sin? What does the Bible tell me about hope? And I began to think
through, what do I know? What truth do I know
from his Word about this? One of the things that
you discover in the Word is yes, God does hate sin. But he loves you. And you are not your sin. Here's what he says about this. Look here on the screen. 1 John, chapter 2, he says, "My dear children," I love
that he's writing to us as his kids. He says, "My dear children,
I write this to you so that "you will not sin." "But if anybody does sin,
we have One who speaks "to the Father in our
defense -- Jesus Christ, "the Righteous One. "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, "and not only for ours
but also for the sins "of the whole world." He's saying, look, don't sin. But when you do, I've got you covered. You can come to me. You have an advocate. It is Jesus himself, our defender, the one who paid the price for our sins. And he says, just come and be forgiven. Come and be cleansed. Look at this verse from 1 John 1:9. "If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just "and will forgive us our sins "and purify us from all unrighteousness." He says look, when you sin, just come and talk to me about it. Because I'm already promising,
I promise to forgive you. I promise, and if God promises
then what do we have to fear? We just come and talk to him. The voice in your head that says, you can't talk to God
now, after what you did, because you're not good
enough, you're not pure enough, you're not holy enough,
you've failed too many times, you can't come to this pure and holy God, that voice is a liar. It's the devil himself. The Bible calls him an accuser and a liar. And by the way, since when did the devil become the defender of God's purity? He just wants to separate you from God. God says, come to me. The devil says, you stay away from him. Well whose voice are
you going to listen to? You come to the Lord. Don't ever let sin keep you from God. In fact, sin should drive you to God. 'Cause it's the only place
you're gonna find forgiveness. And restoration, and grace, and mercy, and the strength to get
up and to move forward. God will never send you away empty-handed. Look at this verse from Hebrews 4:16. "So let us come boldly to the
throne of our Gracious God. "There we will receive His mercy, "and we will find grace to
help us when we need it most." And when do we need
mercy and grace the most? When we sin. He says, just come and receive it. Now think about this. Because this is my next
thought at 3am on July 27th. My next thought was, so
Jesus is the advocate, He's the defender, He's
the one who paid the price, He's the one I'm following, and Jesus is the one
who taught us to pray. We call it the Lord's Prayer. Many of us know this prayer. And in this prayer, the
disciples had come to Jesus, they said, teach us how to pray, and He said, this is how you should pray. He didn't say what, He said this is how. He's giving a pattern. A formula, a pattern to follow in prayer. And in this prayer, in the Lord's Prayer, that's where we pray, give
us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors. I want you to say those words with me. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors. Say it again, Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors. The first thing to
notice is that confession is a part of prayer. It's in prayer. Forgive us our debts is
a part of the prayer, God knows that we sin. He knows we're going to sin. He understands that battle, read Romans 7, you can read all about it. He knows all about that battle. And He has made provision for us. But here is the thing that
rocked me that morning, at three o'clock. Something I had never noticed before. I'd been praying that prayer
since I was a little kid. I've prayed it thousands of times. And something I had never
seen, had never occurred to me, became so absolutely crystal
clear on that morning at that moment. And it had to do with
the order of the prayer. Jesus says, this is how to pray. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors. The request, the need, God, I need you. I need help, I need food, I need clothing, I need health, I need
direction, I need wisdom, the request for God's
blessing on your life comes before the confession. He didn't say, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and then give us this day our daily bread. He said, I've got a need. Would you meet my needs today? And then would you forgive
me of the things I've done that have offended you? The request comes before the confession. Yes, confession is a part of prayer. But it is not a prerequisite
to an answer to your prayer. God, in His mercy, has
said, tell me what you need. Then we'll talk about
this other stuff later. You see, we don't repent in
order to earn God's blessing. We repent because it's already been so freely offered to us. It's His grace and mercy. (audience applauding) So that thought that says, I can't pray because there's sin in my life? That thought is wrong. Jesus proved it to us when
He said, here's how to pray. Yeah I know, there's sin in your life. Here's how to pray. Bring your request, then we'll
talk about your confession, and I promise that you will be forgiven. So what is there to hold us back from talking to the Lord? From praying? Now, how does all of this reconcile, then, with James 5:16? It's the prayer of the righteous person that's powerful and effective. How do those two things fit together? Well let me just ask this way. If you wait to pray until you never sin, (audience laughing) then you're never gonna pray. You will never be sinless in this life, but you can sin less. If you, day by day, choice by choice, through
the help of the holy spirit, live your life according
to the Word of God, and as you live more and
more according to His Word, and it is a growth process, a maturing process that takes all of life, the more you live according to His Word, the more you will see that your prayers are becoming more and more powerful and more and more effective. That does not mean that God was not answering or hearing your prayers before. But it does mean that you will
be praying more effectively and with greater power because you will be praying
according to the will and the Word of God. You'll know better how to pray because you'll know better how God thinks. And so you'll be praying more and more according to His will, and
that's when you will see, more and more, His power and the effectiveness of your prayers. As I said earlier, you are
not earning God's favor. You're inviting His favor and
welcoming it into your life. So pray. Pray about everything,
pray about everybody, talk God's ear off, just keep praying. As we read in Ephesians six, be alert. Pay attention, and always keep on praying. So here's how I want to
close our time together. You got any drop-in visitors today? I want you to think for a moment, who do you know that needs prayer today? Anybody come to mind? Preferably somebody who's in your phone, their contacts are in your phone. Because here's what I want you to do. Think of someone that needs prayer, because I'm gonna have you
pray for 'em in just a second. Think of someone. Got 'em, yeah? Got somebody that needs prayer? Okay, I want you to bow your heads. I'm gonna give you 20 seconds and I want you to pray
for that person right now. Go ahead, just talk to the Lord about 'em. Pray for 'em. Alright, anybody got a cell phone? Pull out your cell phone. It's not very often you
hear a preacher say, "Pull out your cell phone!"
in the middle of his sermon. Pull out your cell phone, alright? And I want you to send that person a text. If you don't have your
phone with you today, you can do this with
you when you get home, or send 'em an email,
whatever it might be. But send that person a text right now. Get them in there. And you're just gonna send 'em four words. That's all you have to say, four words. Praying, for you, today. And hit send. I wish I could hear the
stories that you're gonna have in the next 24 hours of
people who respond to that. And so while those messages are going out, let me pray for you, alright? Father, thank you so much for your Word. Thank you that you love us so much that you have invited us to talk to you every day about everything. Lord, would you help us to
be fearless in our prayer. To be confident in our prayer knowing that you will always listen, that you are always willing
to move on our behalf, that we have a prayer-hearing God. We thank you, Lord. Help us to be more and more, people who live according to your Word so that we can see, more
and more, your power active in our prayers. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. - Thank for checking out this
week's message on YouTube. We would love to get you connected with our online community. There's three easy ways
to get you involved. First, learn about belonging
to our church family by taking class 101 online. Second, you can join an online small group or a local home group in your area. And third, check out our Facebook group to engage with our online
community throughout the week. To take these next steps, visit saddleback.com/online or shoot me an email at
online@saddleback.com. I hope to hear from you soon. (inspirational music)
