WEBVTT 00:00:18.714 --> 00:00:21.036 We are in the book of Jonah on Sunday mornings. 00:00:21.036 --> 00:00:25.230 If you didn't get an outline and would like one, just raise your hand right now. 00:00:25.230 --> 00:00:30.109 Or if you'd like to borrow a Bible, our ushers would be happy to lend you one. 00:00:30.109 --> 00:00:46.414 A man was stranded on a desert island for two years. 00:00:46.414 --> 00:00:55.213 When he was finally found, the rescue team noticed that he had built three huts on the island. 00:00:55.213 --> 00:00:59.146 They were a lot rougher than the ones I picked out here. 00:00:59.146 --> 00:01:06.989 When the rescue team arrived, they asked him about the three huts he made Wow. 00:01:06.989 --> 00:01:09.844 He said this one's my home. 00:01:09.844 --> 00:01:14.849 This other one is where I go to church to meet with God. 00:01:14.849 --> 00:01:22.573 The rescue team was moved by the fact that he had a place to worship for these two years he built for himself. 00:01:22.573 --> 00:01:26.090 Then one of them said what about that third hut up there? 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:30.429 The man said well, that's where I used to go to church. 00:01:30.429 --> 00:01:39.894 A lot of people today play musical churches. 00:01:39.894 --> 00:01:40.742 Have you ever noticed that? 00:01:40.742 --> 00:01:53.147 But as Jesus said to the woman at the well, worshiping God is not a matter of being in the right place, but knowing the right person. 00:01:53.147 --> 00:01:54.850 Jesus Christ. 00:01:56.459 --> 00:02:08.269 Jonah lived at a time in ancient Israel when God's presence in the Shekinah Glory actually dwelt in a physical structure in the temple in Jerusalem. 00:02:08.269 --> 00:02:19.308 That's why, when God called Jonah to leave his home and ministry in Israel and go to the pagan Assyrian city of Nineveh and preach against it, he didn't want to go. 00:02:19.308 --> 00:02:27.052 He ran away and fled from where he knew the presence of God was. 00:02:27.052 --> 00:02:29.764 He's fleeing from the presence of God, he's getting out of town. 00:02:29.764 --> 00:02:34.770 He didn't want to be anywhere near the presence of God. 00:02:34.770 --> 00:02:40.692 From that moment on, jonah didn't want anything to do with God. 00:02:40.692 --> 00:02:47.043 He didn't want to worship with others, he didn't want to read the Scriptures, he didn't want to pray. 00:02:47.043 --> 00:02:55.991 In response you know the story God sent a violent storm on the sea in the hope of bringing him back. 00:02:55.991 --> 00:03:09.293 Jonah realizes that in this storm he's put all of them in danger and tells the sailors that they must now throw him into God's storm overboard, into his wrath for his sin. 00:03:09.293 --> 00:03:15.465 Well, the sailors reluctantly threw him into the raging sea and when they did, the sea became perfectly calm. 00:03:15.465 --> 00:03:24.234 Jonah, as he's thrown in, expected he would probably die in judgment for his sin rebelling against God. 00:03:24.234 --> 00:03:28.750 But God sent a great fish to swallow him and saved him from drowning. 00:03:28.750 --> 00:03:31.022 Now Jonah. 00:03:31.062 --> 00:03:40.128 Chapter 2 describes Jonah's dramatic turnaround from his descent into death to his rising to life again, by God's grace. 00:03:40.128 --> 00:03:46.191 I'm going to read the passage again and we'll talk about it from another angle this morning. 00:03:46.191 --> 00:03:49.234 Jonah, chapter 2, verse 1,. 00:03:49.234 --> 00:03:58.792 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the stomach of the fish and he said I called out of my distress to the Lord and he answered me. 00:03:58.792 --> 00:04:11.167 I cried for help from the depth of sheol and you heard my voice, for you had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and your current engulfed me and all your breakers and billows passed over me. 00:04:11.167 --> 00:04:15.188 So I said I've been expelled from your sight. 00:04:15.188 --> 00:04:19.949 Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple. 00:04:19.949 --> 00:04:23.266 Water encompassed me to the point of death. 00:04:23.266 --> 00:04:26.709 The great deep engulfed me, weeds wrapped around my head. 00:04:26.709 --> 00:04:28.966 I descended to the roots of the mountains. 00:04:28.966 --> 00:04:31.487 The earth with its bars was around me forever. 00:04:31.487 --> 00:04:37.249 What you have brought up my life from the pit, o Lord, my God. 00:04:37.249 --> 00:04:46.833 While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. 00:04:46.833 --> 00:04:59.567 So Jonah, a religious professional, a prophet of Yahweh, a man of God, was deeply in the dark about God's grace, which we've stated before. 00:04:59.567 --> 00:05:05.357 But right at this point, right at this moment, in the belly of the fish. 00:05:05.357 --> 00:05:06.644 He suddenly gets it. 00:05:06.644 --> 00:05:14.423 He gets it when he realized God answered his prayer and rescued him, even though he didn't deserve it. 00:05:14.423 --> 00:05:36.483 Grace, wow, it all began with his prayer when he was at the very lowest point in his life, sinking down, almost drowning at the bottom of the sea, and that happened to be also his biggest problem about prayer, and maybe ours too. 00:05:38.339 --> 00:05:42.511 Today we're going to look at the prominent theme of prayer in Jonah 2. 00:05:42.511 --> 00:05:46.589 First, our trouble with praying and then our access to God in prayer. 00:05:46.589 --> 00:05:48.564 So what's our trouble with praying? 00:05:48.564 --> 00:05:55.470 Jonah, chapter 2, is a prayer and a song, and what a prayer it is. 00:05:55.470 --> 00:06:01.269 I just love this chapter. 00:06:01.269 --> 00:06:10.872 There's so much here when you see Jonah come to realize God in a new and special way. 00:06:10.872 --> 00:06:17.367 Jonah is telling us that this prayer changed his life. 00:06:17.367 --> 00:06:29.449 Jonah wants us to see how important our prayers are, but if you notice, up until now prayer wasn't that important in Jonah's life. 00:06:30.819 --> 00:06:33.427 The first chapter Jonah isn't praying. 00:06:33.427 --> 00:06:38.031 The pagan sailors are praying to their gods. 00:06:38.031 --> 00:06:42.701 Jonah, however, a prophet of the true God, isn't praying to Yahweh. 00:06:42.701 --> 00:06:46.329 It's a kind of rebuke. 00:06:46.329 --> 00:06:57.920 I think the pagans are being more spiritually alert than God's man, jonah, even when Jonah and the sailors find themselves in life-threatening trouble. 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.504 You don't see or hear Jonah praying. 00:07:00.504 --> 00:07:04.555 Just throw me in the sea. 00:07:04.555 --> 00:07:25.516 And so Jonah, see, doesn't start praying until he's in so much trouble he's ready to drown. 00:07:25.516 --> 00:07:29.101 That's when he starts praying to his God. 00:07:29.101 --> 00:07:38.319 Oh yeah, then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the stomach of the fish. 00:07:38.701 --> 00:07:39.543 Chapter 2, verse 1. 00:07:39.543 --> 00:07:42.130 And that's our trouble with praying, isn't it? 00:07:42.130 --> 00:07:57.615 Like Jonah, most of the time we're not praying, unless our life kind of gets really complicated and trouble sets in. 00:07:57.615 --> 00:08:06.247 Well then, we're going to start praying Now. 00:08:06.247 --> 00:08:12.036 We will want something from God, something we need right away. 00:08:12.036 --> 00:08:18.867 Now Jonah's praying when life gets really bad, when his life is on the line. 00:08:18.867 --> 00:08:23.141 Now, that's going to change, by the way, at the end of chapter 2. 00:08:23.141 --> 00:08:27.490 He's no longer going to do that. 00:08:27.490 --> 00:08:30.815 We'll see it later. 00:08:33.458 --> 00:08:34.880 So why wasn't Jonah praying? 00:08:34.880 --> 00:08:36.903 Why don't we pray? 00:08:36.903 --> 00:08:40.908 Maybe two main reasons. 00:08:40.908 --> 00:08:44.818 Maybe Jonah thought he didn't need anything from God. 00:08:44.818 --> 00:08:55.719 I'm good, hey, maybe that's how we think I'm good, I don't need it, I don't need anything from God. 00:08:55.719 --> 00:09:02.447 You see, oh, I'll talk to God when I need something. 00:09:02.447 --> 00:09:08.741 So we treat God like a personal servant or a vending machine. 00:09:08.741 --> 00:09:12.808 Is that the only time he hears from you. 00:09:15.720 --> 00:09:18.124 This is a common misunderstanding about prayer. 00:09:18.124 --> 00:09:29.023 Yes, we should be praying to God about our needs and casting our cares on him, but that's not the only reason to pray. 00:09:29.023 --> 00:09:41.105 From the very moment we believe in Jesus as our Savior, prayer becomes a spiritual lifeline right into the presence of God. 00:09:41.105 --> 00:09:46.381 Galatians 4-6, he says because you are sons. 00:09:46.381 --> 00:09:54.120 When we believe in Jesus, god has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying Abba, father. 00:09:56.323 --> 00:10:06.283 And in Matthew, chapter 6, the Sermon on the Mount, jesus urged his followers not just to pray to God, but to their heavenly Father. 00:10:06.283 --> 00:10:13.758 Do you talk to your Father just when you need something? 00:10:13.758 --> 00:10:17.865 How's that relationship? 00:10:17.865 --> 00:10:27.041 Jesus said when we pray, it's not just about our daily need, although that's important. 00:10:27.041 --> 00:10:40.378 What about hallowing his name, praising who he is, confessing our sins, checking our hearts, not holding trespasses against others, bringing everything before him in a spirit of surrender? 00:10:40.378 --> 00:10:51.092 So we may not think we need to pray. 00:10:51.793 --> 00:10:55.802 Even more important, the second reason we may not be praying is because there's something wrong. 00:10:55.802 --> 00:11:01.078 There's something wrong there certainly was with Jonah. 00:11:01.078 --> 00:11:07.350 Some sin is hindering our relationship with God. 00:11:07.350 --> 00:11:12.280 There's a distance, and prayerlessness really does indicate that. 00:11:12.280 --> 00:11:20.556 Now listen, think back of what happened here in chapter 1. 00:11:20.556 --> 00:11:27.125 God spoke to him, said Jonah, I want you to head up to Nineveh. 00:11:29.107 --> 00:11:34.620 Jonah's not talking to God because he's not listening to God. 00:11:34.620 --> 00:11:38.065 There's the first breakdown, right there. 00:11:38.065 --> 00:11:42.010 Are we listening? 00:11:42.010 --> 00:11:48.004 Are we listening to his word? 00:11:48.004 --> 00:11:49.508 Do we know? 00:11:49.508 --> 00:11:58.019 We're pulling away because we know, oh boy, I want to talk to him right now. 00:11:58.019 --> 00:12:06.668 So Jonah's fleeing, and that's the reason he's not praying. 00:12:06.668 --> 00:12:11.378 He's not listening, he doesn't want to listen to what God has to say. 00:12:11.378 --> 00:12:14.328 He's trying to get as far away from him as he can. 00:12:14.408 --> 00:12:20.219 And prayer, you see, prayer is how we draw close to him. 00:12:20.219 --> 00:12:27.513 In fact, it's a very common idiomatic expression in the Bible for prayer. 00:12:27.513 --> 00:12:31.519 It's called drawing near to God. 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:34.788 It's an idiomatic biblical expression for praying. 00:12:34.788 --> 00:12:48.234 If we don't want to be near God, we're not going to be praying I'll tell you that and we're not going to be listening. 00:12:48.234 --> 00:12:52.880 This was Jonah's situation. 00:12:52.880 --> 00:12:59.370 Something dramatically changed. 00:12:59.370 --> 00:13:04.054 You got a little bit of insight on prayer. 00:13:06.636 --> 00:13:11.662 In Jonah's case, drawing near to God was not just connected to prayer. 00:13:11.662 --> 00:13:22.417 It was also realizing a state of being in God's actual presence again. 00:13:22.417 --> 00:13:26.881 And that's why he mentions temple. 00:13:26.881 --> 00:13:30.835 The temple in Jerusalem was where God's presence dwelt. 00:13:30.835 --> 00:13:32.779 I'm going to look on your temple again. 00:13:32.779 --> 00:13:34.865 I want to be in your presence again. 00:13:34.865 --> 00:13:48.491 So now for us, today, because of Jesus, we don't have to go to the temple in Jerusalem it doesn't exist right now but we don't have to go to a physical prayer. 00:13:48.491 --> 00:13:52.899 Prayer is our access to the presence of God anywhere. 00:13:52.899 --> 00:14:02.399 So let's look next at our access to God's presence in prayer and what Jonah here in chapter 2 could teach us. 00:14:02.904 --> 00:14:12.447 Notice that when Jonah starts praying, he wanted to draw near to his presence, and he says that by mentioning the temple Chapter 2, verse 4,. 00:14:12.447 --> 00:14:16.732 So I said I've been expelled from his presence. 00:14:16.732 --> 00:14:24.461 Nevertheless, I want to be in your presence in your holy temple. 00:14:24.461 --> 00:14:25.826 Verse 7,. 00:14:25.826 --> 00:14:34.298 While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you your presence in your holy temple. 00:14:34.298 --> 00:14:36.167 What does that mean? 00:14:36.167 --> 00:14:48.373 Well, jonah's in the belly of a fish, so he's not literally looking at God's temple, he's meditating and recalling what God's temple means. 00:14:48.373 --> 00:14:51.538 He's being in the presence of God. 00:14:51.538 --> 00:15:08.221 God's temple also was a visual aid of the gospel which, for us who believed in Jesus, has become a reality in Jesus Christ. 00:15:08.221 --> 00:15:18.918 God's holy temple is a concrete picture for us of how God is going to reconcile Jonah and us to himself. 00:15:18.918 --> 00:15:26.418 God's holy temple really does give us the good news and bad news of the gospel. 00:15:26.418 --> 00:15:33.136 The bad news has to do with the temple's connection to God's moral law. 00:15:33.136 --> 00:15:37.532 You know this, I've gone through it before. 00:15:37.572 --> 00:15:40.477 In the center of the temple was the Holy of Holies. 00:15:40.477 --> 00:15:46.056 Only the high priests could go in there once a year to atone for the sins of the people. 00:15:46.056 --> 00:15:56.227 In the center of the Holy of Holies was a wooden box, the Ark of the Covenant. 00:15:56.227 --> 00:15:58.633 Just a wooden box, but it was overlaid in gold. 00:15:58.633 --> 00:16:02.668 It's called the Ark of the Covenant. 00:16:02.668 --> 00:16:05.693 I showed you this before. 00:16:09.205 --> 00:16:11.567 In the center of the wooden box. 00:16:11.567 --> 00:16:18.533 That wasn't. 00:16:18.533 --> 00:16:26.278 It were the tablets of God's moral law, the Ten Commandments. 00:16:26.278 --> 00:16:36.352 My Hebrew is a little rusty, but I should have no other gods before me. 00:16:36.352 --> 00:16:39.557 You shall not make any grave an image. 00:16:39.557 --> 00:16:44.548 You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. 00:16:44.548 --> 00:17:25.186 You shall keep the Sabbath holy and honor your father and mother, and you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not lie, you shall not covet In the Ark God's moral law. 00:17:25.186 --> 00:17:32.938 This is where he met with his people in the Holy of Holies. 00:17:32.938 --> 00:17:45.451 Over the Ark, the law required what God designed each one of us to be, in our heart of hearts, holy and good, like God himself. 00:17:45.451 --> 00:17:51.250 Holy and good, god's presence dwelt with his people in the Holy of Holies. 00:17:51.250 --> 00:17:53.714 Over his law. 00:17:53.714 --> 00:18:01.820 God says you want to talk to me, I'll talk to you over my law. 00:18:01.820 --> 00:18:08.278 I will only relate to you over my law. 00:18:08.278 --> 00:18:19.656 In the covenant I made with you, god is saying you want to relate to me, you can only do so when you are in accord with my law. 00:18:29.018 --> 00:18:39.538 Now Dennis, our associate pastor Dennis, is getting ready to conduct an orchestra at the Christmas and Elmhurst concert. 00:18:39.538 --> 00:18:45.292 Now, let's have that. 00:18:45.292 --> 00:19:07.699 When a conductor comes before his orchestra, all his instruments have the music, the score right here, the music they are supposed to play. 00:19:07.699 --> 00:19:11.590 But what if they begin to play? 00:19:11.590 --> 00:19:18.910 One instrumentalist, like Eric, decides to play a whole other song. 00:19:18.910 --> 00:19:25.133 He is not following the score. 00:19:25.746 --> 00:19:30.875 Let me ask you what is the relationship between the conductor and that instrumentalist? 00:19:30.875 --> 00:19:40.679 The conductor will say unless you obey the score, we can't have any kind of working relationship. 00:19:40.679 --> 00:19:44.615 And the instrumentalist says how rigid of you. 00:19:44.615 --> 00:19:55.778 I am an artist, I will play what I want to play, but unless we all obey the score, there can be no relationship. 00:19:55.778 --> 00:19:59.409 No beautiful music, none. 00:19:59.409 --> 00:20:06.515 The conductor and the instrumentalist must meet together over the score. 00:20:09.726 --> 00:20:12.894 The Bible is saying the exact same thing. 00:20:12.894 --> 00:20:16.164 God says you want a relationship with me? 00:20:16.164 --> 00:20:20.048 You must obey the score I have given you. 00:20:20.048 --> 00:20:22.468 You must fulfill the law. 00:20:22.468 --> 00:20:26.567 I am holy. 00:20:26.567 --> 00:20:35.371 You must be holy according to my score, otherwise we can't have a relationship. 00:20:35.371 --> 00:20:39.009 You are not going to make beautiful music. 00:20:39.009 --> 00:20:50.939 If there is to be a relationship with the conductor, to make beautiful music, the instrumentalist must repent. 00:20:50.939 --> 00:20:57.193 Must repent of wanting to be the conductor. 00:20:57.193 --> 00:21:02.671 Playing his own tune Can't do that. 00:21:02.671 --> 00:21:08.977 He must see he is an instrumentalist under the conductor and his score. 00:21:08.977 --> 00:21:27.429 Without obedience to the score there is no relationship, there is no beauty, it's a mess, it's chaos, it hurts the ear and a lot of other things. 00:21:29.365 --> 00:21:39.839 The bad news of the gospel is that we see in the temple that we have not been playing according to God's score. 00:21:39.839 --> 00:21:44.189 Terribly, we've been playing our own tune for years. 00:21:44.189 --> 00:21:49.108 We are sinners. 00:21:49.108 --> 00:21:54.834 We can't come in directly into the holy of holies in the presence of God. 00:21:54.834 --> 00:22:04.656 We must repent a tone for our sins to be qualified to enter God's presence. 00:22:04.656 --> 00:22:08.930 But the temple also shows us the good news of the gospel. 00:22:09.049 --> 00:22:22.204 Believe it or not, over the Ark of the Covenant, over God's moral law was a golden slab where the angels were sitting. 00:22:22.204 --> 00:22:26.034 This golden top piece is called the mercy seat. 00:22:26.034 --> 00:22:34.834 On the mercy seat, this is where the high priest would apply the blood to make atonement for the sins of the people. 00:22:34.834 --> 00:22:45.317 Once a year the mercy seat was place of atonement and that's called the place of propitiation. 00:22:45.317 --> 00:22:58.268 Big word Propitiation means to turn aside the wrath of somebody through payment you owe somebody. 00:22:58.268 --> 00:23:13.105 It's like if you don't pay your electric bill then the company's wrath shuts you down and there's judgment for not paying your electric bill. 00:23:13.105 --> 00:23:16.313 But let's suppose somebody pays your electric bill for you. 00:23:16.313 --> 00:23:27.018 Propitiation is the wrath of the electronics turned aside and you have all the electricity you need. 00:23:27.018 --> 00:23:36.916 Propitiation turning aside the wrath through payment of the debt owed. 00:23:39.204 --> 00:23:48.298 The temple shows us that the mercy seat, which was over the law, on Yom Kippur, the animal sacrifice was made. 00:23:48.298 --> 00:23:55.032 His blood placed on that mercy seat covered the debt of the sins of God's people. 00:23:55.032 --> 00:24:04.095 The animal was slain, his blood sprinkled on that mercy seat. 00:24:04.095 --> 00:24:06.827 The temple was showing us. 00:24:06.827 --> 00:24:12.498 You see, god will accept, will accept fulfillment of the law. 00:24:12.498 --> 00:24:26.085 Who are on my score If you will accept a substitute sacrifice for the debt you owe me for violating my law, my score. 00:24:28.509 --> 00:24:32.300 Without knowing it, I think Jonah looked into God's holy temple. 00:24:32.300 --> 00:24:37.001 What he was actually looking to and trusting was Jesus Christ. 00:24:37.001 --> 00:24:43.480 Romans, chapter 3, 23-25,. 00:24:43.480 --> 00:25:08.287 Paul actually refers to Jesus as our propitiation, our mercy seat, for all have sinned fall short of the glory of God being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. 00:25:08.287 --> 00:25:17.424 Jesus is the mercy seat. 00:25:17.424 --> 00:25:28.329 Jesus is the sacrifice for the payment of our sins, so that now we may enter the presence of God. 00:25:28.329 --> 00:25:32.517 He covered us. 00:25:32.517 --> 00:25:46.265 He followed the score perfectly and also in His death we see the price that had to satisfy God's law so we could come into His presence. 00:25:46.265 --> 00:25:50.799 It was an act of pure grace. 00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:56.369 That is the gospel. 00:25:57.611 --> 00:25:58.192 Now listen to me. 00:25:58.192 --> 00:26:19.078 The day you see that, the day you get it, the day you understand it and believe in Jesus, whose blood was shed for years since that day, you then enter our relationship with God and have access to come into His presence anytime, anywhere, through prayer. 00:26:19.078 --> 00:26:23.548 Listen to Hebrews, chapter 4, 16. 00:26:23.548 --> 00:26:34.381 Let us draw near some word for prayer with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. 00:26:34.381 --> 00:26:41.498 Jesus Christ has granted us access to the very presence of God in prayer. 00:26:41.498 --> 00:26:43.079 Why wouldn't we go there? 00:26:43.079 --> 00:26:51.411 Such a cost and privilege we have. 00:26:51.411 --> 00:27:02.565 Jesus purchased our access to God at a great price, the price of His own blood, as an atoning sacrifice for the sins we've committed. 00:27:02.565 --> 00:27:08.576 Let me read something else out of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament Hebrews 10, 19, 20. 00:27:08.737 --> 00:27:37.565 Same idea, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, write into God's actual presence by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh. 00:27:37.565 --> 00:27:43.673 And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near again. 00:27:43.673 --> 00:27:52.525 Prayer with a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, in our bodies washed with pure water. 00:27:52.525 --> 00:27:56.296 He makes us clean so we can enter the presence of God. 00:27:56.296 --> 00:28:02.998 There's about a hundred hymns that come to my mind right now. 00:28:04.145 --> 00:28:06.770 Prayer is more than a grocery list. 00:28:06.770 --> 00:28:10.137 It's an integral part of our relationship with God. 00:28:10.137 --> 00:28:13.565 We're not just praying to a wall or a thin air. 00:28:13.565 --> 00:28:21.955 We're praying drawing near to our heavenly Father, talking to Him, listening to Him. 00:28:21.955 --> 00:28:28.545 Believing in Jesus as our Savior gives us a whole new relationship in the new covenant with God. 00:28:28.545 --> 00:28:34.951 When we believe in Him, scriptures tell us that God actually adopts us as His sons and daughters. 00:28:34.951 --> 00:28:38.073 He views us as His children. 00:28:38.073 --> 00:28:48.541 And Jesus said if you ask your heavenly Father for bread, he's not going to give you a stone. 00:28:48.541 --> 00:28:54.454 Some earthly fathers might do that, but not Him. 00:28:54.454 --> 00:29:08.759 If you've never personally believed in Jesus as your Savior, please I invite you to do it today, just in your heart of hearts, even as we close in prayer today, just open your heart and say Dear Jesus, I believe you are my Savior. 00:29:08.759 --> 00:29:09.741 You died for my sins. 00:29:09.741 --> 00:29:11.064 I invite you into my life. 00:29:11.064 --> 00:29:11.223 Do that. 00:29:16.630 --> 00:29:19.992 Prayerlessness is a signal. 00:29:19.992 --> 00:29:22.914 It's a warning light on our spiritual dashboard. 00:29:22.914 --> 00:29:26.137 There's something wrong. 00:29:26.137 --> 00:29:30.261 Something wrong. 00:29:30.261 --> 00:29:33.565 Why are we distant from our heavenly Father? 00:29:33.565 --> 00:29:37.288 Maybe due to some unconfessed sin? 00:29:37.288 --> 00:29:40.611 It may just be unbelief. 00:29:40.611 --> 00:29:42.553 I don't think God can do that. 00:29:42.553 --> 00:29:44.714 That's impossible Really. 00:29:44.714 --> 00:29:53.402 It may be our busyness, it's just not a high priority on our daytime list. 00:29:55.747 --> 00:29:59.451 Paul's got an answer to that in just a minute. 00:29:59.451 --> 00:30:04.737 I've reached a point in my life, in all honesty, where I can't afford not to pray. 00:30:04.737 --> 00:30:05.396 I can't. 00:30:05.396 --> 00:30:09.402 I've got to connect constantly. 00:30:09.402 --> 00:30:23.300 Prayer is connecting with God and it eases our burdens, extinguishes our anxieties, calms our fears, lifts our spirits as we enter God's presence. 00:30:23.300 --> 00:30:34.836 That's why the apostle Paul urges us to pray about everything all the time 1 Thessalonians 5.17,. 00:30:35.156 --> 00:30:39.059 Pray without ceasing, just keep talking to God all the time. 00:30:39.059 --> 00:30:43.545 Whatever you're doing, he's there, giving you access. 00:30:43.545 --> 00:30:47.030 Let Him know what you're thinking, what's happening. 00:30:47.030 --> 00:30:48.914 Philippians 4-6. 00:30:48.914 --> 00:31:00.394 And don't be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God in the peace of Christ. 00:31:00.394 --> 00:31:03.440 Keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:09.809 You know fittingly, let's pray. 00:31:11.230 --> 00:31:30.565 Father, thank you for Jesus, who made it possible to know you as our Heavenly Father, whose death for sin gave us access into your very presence, to your very throne of grace, to receive help we need and to draw close to you and your presence with us. 00:31:30.565 --> 00:31:34.729 Thank you, father, that you not only hear our prayers. 00:31:34.729 --> 00:31:37.872 You have the power to answer them according to your will. 00:31:37.872 --> 00:31:54.328 We leave them at your throne, whatever it is today that we've been carrying and we need you to look at, but we pray with a spirit of surrender, as Jesus did, not my will, your will, father. 00:31:54.328 --> 00:31:58.914 You know what is best, you know what is good, what is perfect. 00:31:58.914 --> 00:32:00.175 That's your will. 00:32:00.175 --> 00:32:03.200 Forgive us, father, for our prayerlessness. 00:32:03.200 --> 00:32:09.888 Revive us in your spirit to call out to you, abba. 00:32:09.888 --> 00:32:13.630 Father, pray in Jesus' name, amen.