Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here today.
Speaker 1: Can we thank our worship team for leading us so well this morning?
Speaker 1: Kids, why don't you all head down the hall to the kids' men, let's give it up for our kids.
Speaker 1: Is there rolling out today?
Speaker 1: I know we just prayed, but let's let's pray again this morning, because one of our core values here as a church is that prayer changes everything.
Speaker 1: And what we're going to learn today, what we're going to see today from the scriptures, is that there's more power in prayer than we often think that there is.
Speaker 1: So, father, we pray And we ask you to move.
Speaker 1: We don't just want to hear human words or concepts or ideas or Be entertained, father.
Speaker 1: We want an encounter with you by the power of your spirit.
Speaker 1: It changes everything.
Speaker 1: So, god, we give you this time.
Speaker 1: It all belongs to you anyway.
Speaker 1: We give you our attention.
Speaker 1: We were designed and created for you.
Speaker 1: So, father, in this space today, have your way in our hearts in Jesus' name, amen, amen.
Speaker 1: So we're kicking off a new series today called The Path, and it's going to lead us all through the summer.
Speaker 1: We're going to go, pretty much verse by verse, through the book of Colossians, and I've never talked through Colossians before.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1: Colossians gives us this beautiful picture of who Jesus is, and you need to know if this is your first time with us.
Speaker 1: We are a Jesus church.
Speaker 1: We believe that he's the way, the truth and the life.
Speaker 1: The words of the song that we just sang are spot on.
Speaker 1: We believe he's got the power to do far more than we can do.
Speaker 1: He can heal, he can save, he can set free, he can redeem, he can give us life today and forever.
Speaker 1: And Colossians has this theme of discipleship that runs through the whole book.
Speaker 1: If you've been in church, you've probably heard the word disciple, and oftentimes in today's world we use the word disciple as a verb.
Speaker 1: In other words, what I mean by that is we say things like oh so and so is discipling me, or I am discipling this person that I met in my work that gave their life to Jesus, and I'm discipling them on being discipled.
Speaker 1: And we use it as a verb, which is fine.
Speaker 1: That's a great way to use it.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing is that in the Newt's estimate, the word disciple is always a noun.
Speaker 1: In other words, it's not just something that happens to you, it's someone that you become.
Speaker 1: You become a disciple.
Speaker 1: As you're being discipled, you're becoming a disciple.
Speaker 1: There's an end in mind, and it's not just the retaining of information, it's not just the gaining of knowledge, it's not just the observance of wisdom from the scriptures.
Speaker 1: It's becoming something.
Speaker 1: Our definition for discipleship that we're going to use throughout the summer is really it's a three word definition.
Speaker 1: Discipleship is knowledge, conviction and obedience.
Speaker 1: So discipleship is all about it.
Speaker 1: It is about knowledge.
Speaker 1: There is a learning component that is involved.
Speaker 1: Jesus called 12 men out of their everyday, ordinary lives And his invitation to them was follow me.
Speaker 1: And they did.
Speaker 1: They literally followed Jesus around for three years as he taught, as he healed, as he walked, as he traveled the area around and surrounding Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Judea, as he went.
Speaker 1: They went with him, they learned from him, they listened to him.
Speaker 1: They gained knowledge, but they also they developed convictions.
Speaker 1: One of the disciples said it like this we believed and have come to know.
Speaker 1: So we heard you, we heard this knowledge that you were offering us and we believed it.
Speaker 1: But but it's turned into conviction, it's gone from our head to our hearts And now we are are banking our life on you, Jesus.
Speaker 1: There's a moment where Jesus actually talks about to this great crowd of people that have watched him multiply a few fish and some bread and feed thousands of people.
Speaker 1: They've watched this happen And so they're drawn to Jesus.
Speaker 1: And Jesus gives this speech.
Speaker 1: That is not the speech that you would give if you want to retain a crowd.
Speaker 1: He looks at this crowd of people and he says Hey, here's, here's the game plan.
Speaker 1: You got to eat my flesh and drink my blood.
Speaker 1: And they're like this is weird.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the crowd leaves and he's given us a preview, actually I think, of of the Lord's supper.
Speaker 1: He's giving us a glimpse into what's coming in the future that post death, burial and resurrection of Jesus will take the Lord's supper together and remember his death, burial and resurrection until he comes.
Speaker 1: But in the moment everybody's like this is just weird.
Speaker 1: We knew you were strange without.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: This is really strange.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of the crowd disperses, they leave.
Speaker 1: The cost of discipleship seems a little bit too confusing and too high, and so they're like we're out.
Speaker 1: And Jesus looks at the rest of the 12 and says Hey, what about you?
Speaker 1: Are you with me or are you going to go away too?
Speaker 1: And one of the disciples again looks back at Jesus and says Jesus, where else would we go?
Speaker 1: You have the words of eternal life translation.
Speaker 1: There's been knowledge that's been imparted to us, but it has developed in our heart this deep level of conviction, and then it produces obedience.
Speaker 1: It's knowledge, conviction, obedience.
Speaker 1: It's head, heart, hands.
Speaker 1: It changes the way that we live.
Speaker 1: It changes what we say.
Speaker 1: It changes how we act, how we respond when life presses us and we're under pressure.
Speaker 1: We are obedient to the truth of God's word Because we've become someone new.
Speaker 1: Now, the interesting thing about Colossians this is all context The interesting thing about Colossians is that Paul doesn't just give us this list of things to do and Colossians, in fact, he actually does something, maybe a little unexpected.
Speaker 1: At the center of Colossians is this portrait of Jesus Translation.
Speaker 1: What we're going to see throughout this series is that the fuel for discipleship is the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: It's not just knowledge for knowledge sake, it's not just conviction for conviction's sake, it's not even just obedience for obedience's sake.
Speaker 1: At the center of this life of a disciple, this well-formed life of a follower of Jesus, is the person of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: He's the goal, he's the prize, he is the, in the language of Scripture, the pearl of great price.
Speaker 1: He is the treasure that surpasses anything this world has to offer.
Speaker 1: What Paul does is he says hey, if you want to be a disciple, you want to follow Jesus and become like Jesus and do what Jesus does, then get a glimpse of who Jesus is and learn to see him as more beautiful, more amazing, more spectacular than anything this world has to offer.
Speaker 1: That's where discipleship begins.
Speaker 1: I love the song that we just sang God, show us your glory, show us who you are, and then, in wonder and surrender, we'll fall down and we'll lay our crowns at your feet, because it's not about us, it's all about you.
Speaker 1: So, with that in mind, let me tell you a quick story.
Speaker 1: So yesterday, my boys and I well, my whole family was in the upstate, but the females in the family went to a baby shower, and the boys and I and Tara's dad, we went fishing, because that is better, and so we're on a river trying to catch some trout and whatnot, and all day long it's like Judah, my three year old Judah, back up from the edge.
Speaker 1: Judah, back up from the edge.
Speaker 1: Judah, quit jumping on the rocks.
Speaker 1: Judah, you're going to fall in.
Speaker 1: Judah, you've already scraped your knees running down the driveway today, judah, you're covered in mud, judah, you're going to fall in, and so I'm reeling in this brim.
Speaker 1: That isn't even worth talking.
Speaker 1: I can't even make a fish story about this fish.
Speaker 1: It was so small.
Speaker 1: I was like, judah, you might as well catch this.
Speaker 1: I don't even want it.
Speaker 1: And so I called Judah over to me and, as he's like bouncing from rock to rock, he hits the edge of the rock and goes off into the river.
Speaker 1: Now, it wasn't that deep and it was still water, so I wasn't that worried about it.
Speaker 1: I just knew he was going to be ticked if he fell in.
Speaker 1: And so and he was he falls in and he like catches himself on the side.
Speaker 1: So I'm holding this little tiny brim on this little tiny fishing rod in one hand and I reached down on my other hand and I grabbed Judah and I pull him up and I sit him on the rock and he's soaking wet and the tears are in his eyes and you can see it Like he's not happy And he goes.
Speaker 1: What am I supposed to do now?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, you should have listened on the front And I was a parenting moment, i probably didn't respond as good as I needed to in the moment, but the question, what am I supposed to do now is a great question, is it not?
Speaker 1: And it's a question that I think we all ask from time to time.
Speaker 1: Getting back to, maybe, when you got married.
Speaker 1: You get married, you go on your honeymoon, you get back and then real life begins.
Speaker 1: It's like what do I do now?
Speaker 1: Or maybe you thought a wedding was in your future and then you were single again.
Speaker 1: It's like what do I do now?
Speaker 1: Or you start a new job and it's like what do I do?
Speaker 1: What do I do now?
Speaker 1: I got the job, but now what happens here?
Speaker 1: Or maybe you lost a job You thought you'd have forever.
Speaker 1: It's like what do I do now?
Speaker 1: You get the call that nobody wants to get and tragedy is at your door.
Speaker 1: The diagnosis comes and that's the question What do I do now?
Speaker 1: We ask that question in so many arenas of life And I think, if we're honest, that's a question we ask a lot of times in our faith.
Speaker 1: Well, what do I do now, god?
Speaker 1: what are you looking for from me now?
Speaker 1: And sometimes, as the church, we're really, really good at the front end of faith, helping people get from a lack of faith, to explaining who Jesus is, demonstrating the gospel and saying, hey, here's how you cross the line and step into the grace of God, through faith and the finished work of Jesus.
Speaker 1: But then that question pops up again Well, what happens now?
Speaker 1: What now?
Speaker 1: Where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about prayer.
Speaker 1: If we're going to be disciples of Jesus Christ, we've got to be people of prayer.
Speaker 1: Again, one of our core values is that prayer changes everything, and today the title of this message is prayer that lights the path.
Speaker 1: If you're trying to become a disciple, you're asking the question what do I do now?
Speaker 1: Prayer is not our last result.
Speaker 1: It's our last option.
Speaker 1: It's our first priority.
Speaker 1: So let's go to Colossians, chapter one.
Speaker 1: We're going to read the first 14 verses.
Speaker 1: Today We're going to talk about prayer in general and then we're going to make some applications from the text this morning.
Speaker 1: The context of Colossians this is the apostle Paul.
Speaker 1: He's riding this from a Roman prison around 60 AD.
Speaker 1: He's riding by the way to a church that he's never visited.
Speaker 1: He hadn't been there.
Speaker 1: He didn't plan it himself.
Speaker 1: He wants to go, but he hadn't been.
Speaker 1: But how this church got to Colossae is actually phenomenal.
Speaker 1: It's worth telling the story really quickly this morning.
Speaker 1: So Paul was in Ephesus, about 75 miles from the city of Colossae, and while he's in Ephesus, a man named Apaphrys comes through Ephesus.
Speaker 1: You don't know why he was there, whether it was business or he's on vacation, or maybe he had family there But Apaphrys comes through Ephesus, meets Paul, as Paul does, he shares the gospel with Apaphrys whether it's in a large group context or one on one, we don't know But Apaphrys gives his life to Jesus, he becomes a disciple, begins to be transformed and then he goes back to Colossae.
Speaker 1: And when he goes back to Colossae, i love this.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a church staff, he doesn't have a building.
Speaker 1: Maybe he pulls a trailer up somewhere on Sunday morning and unloads and loads in and loads out.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that works.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a budget, no building, minimal staff.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden there's a thriving church in the middle of Colossae.
Speaker 1: Because a Paphras was faithful as a disciple of Jesus Christ And God used him in his everyday, ordinary life as he went about his business.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden a thriving church springs up in the city.
Speaker 1: Isn't that beautiful?
Speaker 1: And, by the way, that, to me, just encourages me And I hope it encourages you this morning too That we don't need a building or a massive budget or a giant staff to make an impact in the world.
Speaker 1: What we need is the finished work of Jesus, and we have everything that we need to do, everything God has called us to do.
Speaker 1: And so if we, as the church, say hey, we're not waiting for one day when to carry the gospel, we're going to start where we are with what we have And we're going to be a disciple of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Imagine what God could do through a room full of apaphras as we live our lives.
Speaker 1: So this is Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, timothy's, maybe helping Paul at least deliver or write some of this letter to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ at Colossae.
Speaker 1: Grace to you and peace from God.
Speaker 1: Our Father Paul says we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven Of this, this hope, you've heard before, in the word of the truth, the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world, the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing, as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God and truth, just as you learned it from apaphras, our beloved fellow servant.
Speaker 1: He's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the spirit.
Speaker 1: And so Paul says, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Speaker 1: May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience, with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of light.
Speaker 1: The Father has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about prayer.
Speaker 1: This is what Paul is telling the church, he says, hey, i'm praying for you.
Speaker 1: I want you to know that I'm praying for you.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of definitions of prayer.
Speaker 1: The New City Catechism says prayer is pouring out our hearts to God in praise, petition, confession of sin and thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 1: Praise, petition, confession of sin, thanksgiving That's what prayer is and that's a great definition.
Speaker 1: But I would also say it's a little bit incomplete.
Speaker 1: So when you read the scriptures, here's another definition we can use.
Speaker 1: What we see in the scripture is that prayer is an opportunity to participate with God in God's work in the world.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're talking to God, we're offering our thanksgiving to God, but it's also an invitation from God to essentially partner with God in the work that God is doing in the earth.
Speaker 1: What an incredible thing.
Speaker 1: I mean that's amazing, is it not?
Speaker 1: That Almighty God, creator of Heaven and Earth, says hey, i want a relationship with you, i want to hear from you, i want to talk back to you.
Speaker 1: I want this to be like you have a relationship with a friend.
Speaker 1: Think back to Exodus.
Speaker 1: One of the amazing things that the Israelites could not get past was the fact that Moses, a human man who had failed and fallen and messed it up over and over and over, spoke face to face with God like we speak to our friends.
Speaker 1: That's the invitation.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not going to enter the tabernacle and see God face to face and walk out with your face glowing, but God wants to communicate with you, god wants to relate to you like a friend.
Speaker 1: So a couple of thoughts this morning on assumptions we make in prayer that lead us to pray in strange ways.
Speaker 1: The first assumption is this assuming that our prayers don't really change anything.
Speaker 1: In other words, well, god is sovereign, and he is, that's true.
Speaker 1: But because God is sovereign, which means he's overall and in control of all, well, isn't God just going to do what he wants?
Speaker 1: Anyway, he's in control.
Speaker 1: It's his will, not mine.
Speaker 1: So why pray if he knows it all and he's all powerful anyway, and he's going to accomplish his plans in the earth, like with or without me?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Why would I What I pray?
Speaker 1: Dallas Willard says this the idea that everything would happen exactly as it does, regardless of whether or not we pray, is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God.
Speaker 1: It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with a dead ritual at best.
Speaker 1: And of course God does not respond to this.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't either.
Speaker 1: So we don't want to go that far and say, well, because God is sovereign, prayer doesn't change anything, so why pray?
Speaker 1: We also don't want to assume that because we prayed it, it has to happen.
Speaker 1: Yes, god's sovereign and yes, we're responsible.
Speaker 1: But but the thought process that says, well, because I prayed it and God's got to do it, that's treating God like he's the genie in the lamp in the cave of wonders where, if we treat it just right and we rub it in exactly the right spot, we get three wishes, no holds barred.
Speaker 1: And that's not right either.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 1: So where do we find the balance?
Speaker 1: translation What happens when we pray?
Speaker 1: Well, god hears and God responds.
Speaker 1: And I want you to hear that today.
Speaker 1: When you pray, god hears, he cares, he's interested.
Speaker 1: If you want to get God's attention, pray Somehow, some way.
Speaker 1: He's almighty, all powerful, god.
Speaker 1: If all eight billion people on the planet begin to pray at once, god's got the power and the capacity to hear and to notice and to care about every single prayer that's lifted up.
Speaker 1: It's been said that if it's on your heart, it's on God's mind.
Speaker 1: He cares, he hears and beyond that, he responds.
Speaker 1: Now, he doesn't always respond like we think he should.
Speaker 1: He doesn't always respond like we want him to.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, in my prayers, i have a tendency to tell God how he ought to run the world.
Speaker 1: Hey, god, let me tell you the plan.
Speaker 1: Let me offer you my interpretation.
Speaker 1: Here's the game plan for the next 48 hours.
Speaker 1: It's not the kind of prayer that God's looking for from us.
Speaker 1: God's looking for the kind of prayer that says God, i trust you.
Speaker 1: And here are my thoughts, here are my feelings, here are my emotions.
Speaker 1: But at the end of it all, i trust you And I trust that in your way and in your will and in your time, you're going to respond.
Speaker 1: So, to sum it up, when we pray, something happens.
Speaker 1: Something happens.
Speaker 1: Louis Giglio, i heard him say it like this If we could see what happens in heaven when we pray, we would never cease to pray.
Speaker 1: We don't always understand it, it doesn't always make sense to us, we don't always know everything that God knows, but what we know is that when we pray, prayer makes a difference.
Speaker 1: A couple of quick examples Abraham in Genesis 18, he begins to intercede, to talk to God on behalf of a city that has gone off the rails.
Speaker 1: And Abraham says, okay, god, if we find 50 people in this city, will you spare the city?
Speaker 1: And God says, sure I will.
Speaker 1: Oh God, what about if we find 40 people in this city?
Speaker 1: Will you spare it?
Speaker 1: And God says, sure I will.
Speaker 1: What about 30?
Speaker 1: And Abraham just keeps like praying, like more bold prayers, and God keeps responding to Abraham's prayer.
Speaker 1: Moses in Exodus 32, the golden calf incident Moses comes down off the mountain.
Speaker 1: He's got the 10 commandments.
Speaker 1: The Israelites have built a golden cow.
Speaker 1: They're worshiping a false God.
Speaker 1: The true God has led them out of Egypt, split the Red Sea and they've built a cow to worship it instead, because they want to worship something they can see and touch and understand.
Speaker 1: And God's like this isn't good And he's ready to wipe out Israel and start over with Moses.
Speaker 1: And Moses prays to God and says no, no, no, god, you're slow to anger, you're abounding instead, fast love and faithfulness.
Speaker 1: Will you forgive and relent?
Speaker 1: And God says I will, on behalf of this nation and the promise that I've made to bless the world through this nation.
Speaker 1: God says I will.
Speaker 1: God does it again in numbers 14.
Speaker 1: We read this last week Moses prays in the wilderness on behalf of the nation of Israel And, once again, god forgives.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're here today and you're like, well, didn't God know he was going to forgive and didn't God know?
Speaker 1: Well, yes, he's sovereign, he's overall, but still Abraham prays and Moses prays and it changes things.
Speaker 1: God's inviting us to partner with him.
Speaker 1: James 5, 16 and 17 says this the prayer of a righteous person has great power.
Speaker 1: As it is working.
Speaker 1: Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, old Testament prophet.
Speaker 1: He was like us.
Speaker 1: He was a person, a human being with a sin nature like ours.
Speaker 1: And Elijah prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
Speaker 1: Don't pray that.
Speaker 1: It's hard to clarify.
Speaker 1: We need rain.
Speaker 1: Don't pray that prayer.
Speaker 1: But the point is that Elijah was human And when he prayed, god heard and God responded when people pray in faith.
Speaker 1: So our God's responses to our prayers reciprocated upon the nature of our faith.
Speaker 1: In other words, the more faith we have, is God more likely to respond to our prayers.
Speaker 1: If I have more faith, it's God more likely to do what I want him to do.
Speaker 1: Is that how it works?
Speaker 1: No, i don't think so.
Speaker 1: God responds not because of us.
Speaker 1: God responds because of the object of our faith.
Speaker 1: It's not about me.
Speaker 1: It's not about the formula that I use to pray.
Speaker 1: It's not about the words that I say.
Speaker 1: It's not about, like, mustering up enough faith before I go to God to get God to notice my prayer.
Speaker 1: It's about praying to the Father in the name of the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Again, jesus is at the center of all of this.
Speaker 1: My prayers are not powerful because I'm full of faith.
Speaker 1: My prayers are powerful because Jesus is faithful And I'm praying to the Father by the Spirit, in the name of the Son And on behalf of his finished work in my place.
Speaker 1: The object of my prayer is what makes prayer powerful?
Speaker 1: It's not me.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest y'all.
Speaker 1: I am a terrible prayer And I feel like I am a terrible prayer For me.
Speaker 1: I can sit down and read the scriptures and I can study the Bible, but prayer it's like I'm praying.
Speaker 1: And next thing, i know, it's like ice cream.
Speaker 1: Or like you know, did I lock the door on my truck four days ago?
Speaker 1: Where's my wallet?
Speaker 1: Have I lost my keys again?
Speaker 1: Is Noah, you know, dangling from the tree in the backyard?
Speaker 1: like trying to be Tarzan, like what is happening, like that's prayer for me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes You ever been there.
Speaker 1: It's like you're praying and that's like everything you forgot when you start praying automatically comes to mind.
Speaker 1: Or you like wait and pray, like right before bed and you start to pray Next thing you know your alarm's going off.
Speaker 1: You're like what happened?
Speaker 1: We struggle with prayer.
Speaker 1: Maybe one of you in here is like nope, i actually am a great prayer.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 1: I pray consistently, i pray constantly.
Speaker 1: I pray about everything first and foremost, and for you that's amazing.
Speaker 1: We all want to be more like you, but for the rest of us, prayer can feel like a struggle, and so I want to encourage you today.
Speaker 1: It's not about you when you pray, it's about the one that you're praying to, so you can have confidence, when you approach God and prayer, that he hears, he responds, he cares, not because of you, in spite of you, because of Jesus And because the spirit of Jesus, as followers of Christ, lives in your heart and is praying on your behalf at the same time, and that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: So Paul in Colossians one, he prays two things for this church.
Speaker 1: He prays one that they would be filled with the knowledge of the will of God.
Speaker 1: Translation, that they would know what God wants them to do so that they can live this walk that bears fruit.
Speaker 1: It's prayer number one.
Speaker 1: The second prayer that Paul prays in Colossians one is is that the church would have the power to endure with patience and with joy.
Speaker 1: So, one, the church know what God wants you to do.
Speaker 1: And two, when it gets hard and you're being pressed and in the day and time in which Paul's writing there was some heretical teaching about Jesus that was infiltrating the church Paul says you need the power to endure in the face of opposition with joy and patience, a spirit of Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: Paul says that that flows from the grace of God And I love this Like.
Speaker 1: That's a great prayer for a vibrant church.
Speaker 1: Is it not that the church would be a place full of people that know what God wants us to do and then walk it out in the face of opposition with joy and patience and gratitude?
Speaker 1: You want to talk about the ability to change, some reveal.
Speaker 1: Let's begin to be that kind of church And, by the way, i think you are that kind of church.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of place that when people walk in, i think they want to be in the room, and that's all about the spirit of God working through your lives to mold us into a place where it is evident that God is at work.
Speaker 1: And that's what Paul says to the church.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, a path was told us.
Speaker 1: The love of God is evident when you gather together.
Speaker 1: There's a unity there, there's a hunger for the presence of God, there is a working of God's spirit.
Speaker 1: That is not from human strength, it's the strength of God's power working through you.
Speaker 1: Jesus was talking to his disciples one day and they ask him to teach them to pray.
Speaker 1: And I love that because they could ask Jesus a lot of stuff Teach us how to help people, teach us how to do miracles, teach us how to walk on water.
Speaker 1: But their question to Jesus was will you teach us how to pray?
Speaker 1: And we're not going to read that today.
Speaker 1: That's in Matthew 6, sermon on the Mount, if you want to read that.
Speaker 1: But I do have a couple of quick thoughts before we enter into a time of communion for practical application to a life of prayer.
Speaker 1: Number one is this pray like you talk, pray like you talk.
Speaker 1: The goal is not to impress God.
Speaker 1: You don't have to pray in King James English.
Speaker 1: You don't have to pray in perfect.
Speaker 1: You know patterns of speech, your verbs in the right places and all that Like you just talk to God, like you talk to the people in your life.
Speaker 1: The goal is not even just to communicate to God Like you can communicate well to someone without necessarily having a relationship with that person.
Speaker 1: The goal of prayer is to be with God and to know God.
Speaker 1: So just talk to it.
Speaker 1: Be honest about what's going on in your heart.
Speaker 1: Be honest about where you are in your life.
Speaker 1: Don't try to impress him with your big words or making it sound like you got it all figured out.
Speaker 1: John Mark Comer, in God Has a Name, says it like this God is not nearly as scared of honesty as we are.
Speaker 1: Prayer is when you talk to God with the edit button in the off position and you feel safe and heard and loved.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of relational exchange you can't get enough of.
Speaker 1: Number two pray the scriptures, take God's word and pray it back to him.
Speaker 1: I love praying through the Psalms.
Speaker 1: I came across this practice a couple of years ago, at a time where I was struggling in my prayer life and I began to learn that the early church would pray the Psalms to God.
Speaker 1: They would literally just open the Bible to the book of Psalms and pray the Psalms.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing how, when you pray God's word back to him, you are encouraged by what was written thousands of years ago.
Speaker 1: Every human emotion that we experience is recorded in the Psalms.
Speaker 1: Pray it back to God.
Speaker 1: Talk to God Again.
Speaker 1: New City Catechism says it like this what should we pray?
Speaker 1: The whole word of God directs and inspires us in what we should pray.
Speaker 1: What we find is that when we pray God's word back to him, his word shapes not just our prayers, but it shapes and defines all of how we experience life.
Speaker 1: We hide his word in our heart.
Speaker 1: Number three pray spontaneously.
Speaker 1: Someone comes to mind pray for him.
Speaker 1: Something comes to mind pray about it.
Speaker 1: You're walking down the hall at the office and anxiety strikes pray.
Speaker 1: Fear grips you as you watch the news pray Pray spontaneously.
Speaker 1: You pray with your eyes open.
Speaker 1: If you're driving, please pray.
Speaker 1: Pray with your eyes open, but like if something springs up pray.
Speaker 1: Number four pray on a schedule.
Speaker 1: So we want to pray spontaneously, but we also want to schedule intentional moments of prayer to where we're sitting down and we're pausing the busyness of life and we're saying God, i'm carving out time and space, time and space to meet with you.
Speaker 1: Then, number five pray prayers that require God to show up.
Speaker 1: In other words, pray things that are way too big for you to accomplish in your own strength and in your own power.
Speaker 1: It's a path for us in Colossians, one I feel like a path for us was pray and to reach a city, and a city was transformed through a church that sprung out of the life of a man named Apathras.
Speaker 1: So let's be people that pray big prayers.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about this for a few months, but 100,000 people over the next seven years will move to Somerville and they will not have a church family, no relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1: Based on the data that we're seeing 100,000 people What if we begin to pray as a church for God to allow us to reach 1% of those people with the good news of Jesus 1,000 people over the next six years?
Speaker 1: I don't know, i can't accomplish that.
Speaker 1: There are about 210 seats in this room, but guess what?
Speaker 1: Every day, the church scatters into the community And we're gonna come across people that don't know Jesus.
Speaker 1: What if we begin to pray?
Speaker 1: God, use my life to reach people who are far from you, and as we go, let's see what God does.
Speaker 1: We're here to build relationships with Jesus that bring other people to His love, y'all.
Speaker 1: That's a vision that we cannot accomplish in our own strength.
Speaker 1: I can't even change myself in my own power And you can't change you, but Jesus has the power to change it all.
Speaker 1: Paul ends this passage that we read this morning by saying that God, the Father, has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Speaker 1: This is the anchor point for Paul's prayer.
Speaker 1: God has done something on our behalf that we could not do, and the way God did this was through the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: And so today we're going to move into a time of celebrating the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 1: We're going to take the Lord's supper together, and Paul in 1 Corinthians.
Speaker 1: He says when you do this, you remember the sacrifice of Jesus, his blood shed for our forgiveness, you remember His grace, you celebrate the gift of life, and you do this until He returns As a reminder.
Speaker 1: Guess what That we didn't get here in our own strength.
Speaker 1: It's not about us, it's all about Jesus, and so at Summerville Baptist, we practice something called an open table.
Speaker 1: So if you're a follower of Jesus, it doesn't matter what tradition you grew up in, what church you're a member of.
Speaker 1: If you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're invited to participate with us in celebrating the Lord's supper, and so we've got some folks in the room that are going to help us pass this out this morning.
Speaker 1: So, you guys, if you all go ahead and make your way down to the front, i want to pray, and as we pray, i want you to pray where you are that God would prepare your heart for this moment.
Speaker 1: There's any sin that you need to repent of in this moment.
Speaker 1: This is a moment to say God cleans my heart.
Speaker 1: There's someone you need to pray for in this moment.
Speaker 1: This is a moment to do that.
Speaker 1: But let's prepare our hearts in prayer to remember the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Father, we come before you confessing that we have sinned and fallen short of your glory, fallen well shy of your standard of perfection.
Speaker 1: But, god, we're so grateful in this moment for your grace, for the finished work of Jesus that allows us to boldly enter your presence, to extend our hands in worship.
Speaker 1: Father, we can pray to you, knowing that you hear and respond.
Speaker 1: So, god, as we remember Jesus this morning, remind us that our lives are not our own, that we were bought with a price and, because of that, all of life belongs to you, in Jesus' name amen.