SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Maverick and Choir.
SPEAKER_01: What a great song.
SPEAKER_01: And that's just the truth of why we're here.
SPEAKER_01: That is the message that is wrapped in everything.
SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, just make a run to Jesus at the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when you say that, you sing that, a lot of times people ask, Well, Pastor, how do I do that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a faith choice that you make to talk to the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we call prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So literally, the way you run to the cross is you just get sometime, somewhere, someplace, and you just talk to Jesus and tell him where you are.
SPEAKER_01: It's a choice of faith that you make to communicate your heart, your desires, your needs, whatever to him.
SPEAKER_01: And really that's what prayer is.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we make prayer out to be either something that's like a corporate deal we do on the order of service or something, or we make it sound like it's some deep theological, difficult type of thing.
SPEAKER_01: But really, prayer is just what that song is.
SPEAKER_01: It's coming to Jesus and just sharing with him your heart and talking to him.
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
SPEAKER_01: What do you need from him?
SPEAKER_01: What is he telling you?
SPEAKER_01: You say, yes, Lord, when he speaks to you.
SPEAKER_01: It's just talking to him.
SPEAKER_01: This week, we're going to start a five-week sermon series on prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We're calling it in the classroom of prayer because it's going to be a very practical way.
SPEAKER_01: This is how we go about praying in the classroom of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what we're going to do.
SPEAKER_01: Since prayer is an activity, we have handed these out as you have come in.
SPEAKER_01: This is a devotional prayer booklet that we're going to give you every week during the series.
SPEAKER_01: It covers six days of that week, and then you come back to church on Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to use the brew idea that we talk about here at church in order to help you and engage you in that prayer time.
SPEAKER_01: So what will happen is in this booklet, you have sort of the calendar of the week, and then you have a little statement that's the theme of the week that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Each week, the booklet will guide you through some follow-up prayer time with the Lord that builds off of the sermon that week.
SPEAKER_01: So today, in a moment, when I preach, then this will pick up tomorrow morning, and you'll walk your way through Monday through Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: Then there's a little just reminder of what brew means, and I'll put that on the screen here for you, because that's how you're going to go through this.
SPEAKER_01: So each day, if you think about what brew means when we talk about brew, we talk about believe that God has something to say to you.
SPEAKER_01: Then if you're meditating on, this is just a way to meditate on a verse, to spend time talking to the Lord and letting speak to you through this verse.
SPEAKER_01: So you start off by saying, I believe God has something to say to me in this verse.
SPEAKER_01: You read and repeat the verse over and over and over until it becomes kind of comfortable.
SPEAKER_01: You just keep reading it.
SPEAKER_01: You just stick with it.
SPEAKER_01: Seven, eight, nine, twelve times, whatever it takes for it to sort of get a sense of familiarity.
SPEAKER_01: And then you just go back and you take each word and you spend a few minutes and just figure out what each word means.
SPEAKER_01: And as that verse begins to explode, God will speak to you through that.
SPEAKER_01: And then you write down what he spoke to you.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're looking at your little booklet you got when you came in, if you missed it coming in, you can get one at every door on the way out.
SPEAKER_01: We want everyone to have one.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: You'll see that there's a prayer that you're going to pray that is God's promise to speak to us.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're just going to pray.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I believe, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I'm coming to you, I'm praying this verse to you.
SPEAKER_01: Then you're going to read and repeat the verse.
SPEAKER_01: Then I've given you one word that a little thought just to show you how you do each word.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll take a word that day and I'll just give some thoughts about that word, and then there's a space for you to take the other words and for you to do the same exercise.
SPEAKER_01: And as God speaks to you, there's a place for you to just write a sentence or two about what God spoke to you that day.
SPEAKER_01: So it's just a simple way for us to continue to move forward.
SPEAKER_01: And since we're talking about prayer, we need to be praying.
SPEAKER_01: And so this hopefully is a helpful way to help you walk through this time of prayer and be able to pray with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Joshua chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to do our last sermon on the book of Joshua, and it's a great place for us to transition.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want to, we're going to be in Joshua 24, verses 13 through 14, and we've spent about two weeks on that from the perspective of families and making that commitment.
SPEAKER_01: But now I want to answer this question: why do we pray?
SPEAKER_01: Now that's a theological question that a lot of people ask, why do we pray?
SPEAKER_01: It's also a practical question that people often ask the pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we pray?
SPEAKER_01: Why do I have to ask God for that?
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't he know I already need it?
SPEAKER_01: Or why do I have to go and really get on my knees and have this time of repentance when God knows that my heart is broken over this?
SPEAKER_01: Or why do I have to pray and ask for that?
SPEAKER_01: Why do I need to come to the Lord and do that?
SPEAKER_01: Again, doesn't he know?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't he there?
SPEAKER_01: And then that song that Maverick in the choir sang even started off with some of those questions that people ask.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like God's not there.
SPEAKER_01: I don't feel like he's answering me.
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
SPEAKER_01: Why should I come to him when I feel, have this idea that he's not there?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we pray?
SPEAKER_01: Well, this verse is going to answer the foundation of why we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the context I want to remind you one more time is this the children of Israel have entered the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: They've spent a number of years at a basic level defeating the key enemies across the land of Canaan, what we now call the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And now they've reached a point where Joshua has, at God's instruction, divvied up parts of the land to each of the tribes of Israel and let them spread out to begin to obtain their inheritance, to build their families and their homes and live in the land that God has promised them.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a hugely key place in Scripture because this is the establishment of the children of Israel as the nation that God chose to be the conduit to bring the Messiah into the world.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, it has huge implications for us.
SPEAKER_01: Because of that, it is also an incredibly beautiful, practical picture for us on how we walk with Jesus and how we obtain the inheritance that is ours because of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It's an Old Testament picture of the New Testament abundant life in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is also important because as Joshua sends them out, he is literally reiterating the very same instruction that God gave through Moses to the children of Israel when they came to the Jordan River and were preparing to go in.
SPEAKER_01: And so it is hugely important to understand that Joshua is not giving some new vision or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: He is reiterating the same vision that was theirs from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: And in the Christian life, listen, so much of it is not new.
SPEAKER_01: We are doing what Jesus instructed us to do from the very moment that he accomplished the plan of salvation and sent us out to have an abundant life in his.
SPEAKER_01: When we talk about discipleship, as we talked about the last couple of weeks, that happens through a family, we're generally not creating something new.
SPEAKER_01: We are teaching people to step into the vision that God has for us as his children, the vision that he has had from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_01: And it is to walk in relationship with him when we've trusted Christ as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: He's forgiven our sins and he's entered us back into that relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's so important.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, you know, Dave and I, or Matt and I, or somebody will be talking about preaching a passage of Scripture, and I'll sort of make a comment like this you know, it seems like we've said this before or whatever, but a lot of times if you're being super creative and you came up with something new, you're probably not preaching that passage of scripture correctly.
SPEAKER_01: It is what it is, and it is God's plan, and we are bringing God's people into God's plan, and that's exactly what this moment is.
SPEAKER_01: And in this moment, Joshua builds the foundation of their relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He builds on what Moses did to capture the foundation of their relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Read with me again what this verse says in Joshua chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: I, God, gave you, the children of Israel, his children, a land you did not labor for, and cities you did not build.
SPEAKER_01: Though you live in them, you are eating from vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, because of what God has done for them here in the land of Israel, provided them a nation, provided them cities, provided them a land that is fertile and grows and has all this fruit, he is providing that to them.
SPEAKER_01: They did not create it, they didn't conquer it.
SPEAKER_01: God led them to it and made it a promise to them.
SPEAKER_01: Because he gave them a land they did not labor for, therefore, fear the Lord and worship him in sincerity and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Get rid of the gods your fathers worship before the beyond the Euphrates River in Egypt and worship Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is the one who has provided, because God is the one who gives, because it all comes from him, it is his and he gives it to us as a benevolent heavenly father, that is why we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Because he is God and we are not.
SPEAKER_01: Because everything comes from him, because he is the authority of the rules of life, and we are to follow him, that is why we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Now, just to show you the significance of this as a foundational existential truth for life, I want to go back and show you on the screen twice in the book of Deuteronomy that records Moses' instruction to the children of Israel before they went in, that track this exact same thought that God is the one who has given them this land.
SPEAKER_01: In Deuteronomy chapter 6, Moses says this When the Lord your God brings you into the land, he swore to give your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give you, he would give you a land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build.
SPEAKER_01: Did you catch the similarity of that phrase?
SPEAKER_01: When Joshua instructs them as they go to live out their inheritance, he uses the exact same phrase and principle that Moses inserted into the vision for God's people.
SPEAKER_01: A land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build, houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, wells that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant, and when you eat and are satisfied, be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: Fear Yahweh your God, Jehovah God, worship him and take your oaths in his name.
SPEAKER_01: That is why we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Because we live in a salvation that we did not create.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus provided it for us.
SPEAKER_01: God envisioned it for us.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrews chapter 12, the Bible says that he is the author and the finisher of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: It all comes from him.
SPEAKER_01: Moses reiterated the same message in Deuteronomy chapter 8 and gave them a warning to understand the importance of this foundational truth.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams of water, springs, and deep water sources flowing in both valleys and hills.
SPEAKER_01: He's describing the richness of the land and all of that in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: A land of wheat, barley, vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of oil, olive oil, and honey, a land where you will eat food without shortage, where you will lack nothing, a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you will mine copper.
SPEAKER_01: When you eat and are full, you will praise the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he warns them now.
SPEAKER_01: When you eat and are full, and you build beautiful houses to live in in this city that you didn't create, and your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold multiply, and everything else you have increases.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful that your heart does not become proud.
SPEAKER_01: And you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the place of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to this warning.
SPEAKER_01: You may say to yourself, My power and my own ability have gained this wealth for me.
SPEAKER_01: But remember that the Lord your God gives you even the power to gain wealth in order to confirm his covenant he swore to your fathers as it is today.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we're supposed to remember, you may have worked hard, but where did your skill come from?
SPEAKER_01: You didn't, you weren't some existential, you know, ethereal being like in some Star Trek episode, and you lived disembodied out somewhere, and then you decided I wanted to be a human, and you walk up to the buffet of all these human skills, and you go into this computer program and you create the DNA that gives you the talent that you have, and then you inhabit this body and you walk down with the DNA that you selected and go out into the career that you envisioned, and you do that because that's how smart and gifted you are.
SPEAKER_01: Correct?
SPEAKER_01: I didn't pick my mom and dad.
SPEAKER_01: Now, praise the Lord, I probably would have.
SPEAKER_01: Now that I know what I know.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there were days as a you know teenager I thought, why in the world did God give me this mom and dad?
SPEAKER_01: They're awful.
SPEAKER_01: But now I look back, I would have chosen them, but I didn't choose them.
SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't choose the mix of DNA that created the chemistry that became me and the things that I have and can do and can't do.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the oldest of three.
SPEAKER_01: That's where the oldest of the people are supposed to say, amen.
SPEAKER_01: We're the smartest, right?
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, DNA deteriorates as the birth order goes down.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of firstborns here, I can tell.
SPEAKER_01: We got each other, right?
SPEAKER_01: You're feeling me, right?
SPEAKER_01: But what happens, what's fascinating with our kids, when our kids were born, our daughter Mabrie and our son Grant, one of the greatest joys that we had as a parent, it's reflected my own siblings.
SPEAKER_01: We're all radically different.
SPEAKER_01: We're just different.
SPEAKER_01: Like, how in the world did the three of us come from the same parents, the same mixture of DNA, the same chemistry, the same home and environment that created three radically different people.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I love my brother and sister.
SPEAKER_01: They're awesome, but we are all incredibly different.
SPEAKER_01: And my kids, when they were born, Mabry, we were watching, and we thought, well, no doubt Mabry is the smartest child that's ever been born in the human race.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And now I've learned that's not true.
SPEAKER_01: Our grandson Killian is the smartest child that's ever been born in the human race.
SPEAKER_01: But we're watching Mabry grow and doing all these things, and she she was two years old when Grant was born, and so by then she's really flourishing, starting to show who she is, and we're just so proud.
SPEAKER_01: And we thought, uh-oh, we're just worried because we have a second child, and there's no way he can be that smart.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember the day that I thought, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Grant is smarter than Mabry.
SPEAKER_01: Do not tell my kids I said that, alright?
SPEAKER_01: Either one of them.
SPEAKER_01: We need to scrub that from the internet, Bobby, so my kids can't read it.
SPEAKER_01: But here's, and it became this fascinating thing to watch the two of them grow and just so different.
SPEAKER_01: Mabry is a scientific mind.
SPEAKER_01: She's very literal, everything is super literal, and she became a physical therapist, and so she's a doctor of physical therapy, and she's incredibly good at that.
SPEAKER_01: She's really good at diagnosis, she understands all these things, you know, and then Grant is like me.
SPEAKER_01: He'd understand math or science in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_01: Grant is a wordsmith, and he's a writer, and he works for a national magazine as part of their editorial board, and he can just crafts all these words, and I know where he got that from.
SPEAKER_01: He got that from Janet because she is a gifted writer.
SPEAKER_01: She's published books and articles and magazines and all kinds of stuff, and they've got this DNA thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's incredible, and they're so radically different from the same parents.
SPEAKER_01: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says that God knew you as an individual before you were formed in your mother's womb.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that you were fearfully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible even says, as it relates to salvation, in Ephesians chapter 2, 8, 9, and 10, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves that is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, your salvation didn't come from you.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't wake up one day and figure out, oh wow, you know, I'm really smart and I'm spiritually attuned and adept, and I figured out I need to have my sins forgiven, and I'm going to go find a Savior to do that for me.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't, you didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Your salvation comes from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what he also says: for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, that he has prepared beforehand for us to walk in.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, that's where we get the idea that God has a plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: He understood you, he knew you.
SPEAKER_01: He knew you when you would be saved.
SPEAKER_01: He knew what he would do with you in your saved life, and he would transform you here and give you this gift and grow this and let you train here and put you under these mentors and let you be in this kind of church family and let you be in this setting where you can do that.
SPEAKER_01: And he has created all of that, and everything that you have and you are was designed in the mind and heart of God, and he has given it all to you.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, often in our American culture, what's my money?
SPEAKER_01: Or it's my career, it's my job, this is my family.
SPEAKER_01: I did this, I'm making decisions about what I'm gonna do with my family.
SPEAKER_01: We feel like this is my money, I work for this, I can give that much, and I can do this, or I can spend this with it, or I can do with this, or this is my career, and I can invest this much of energy in that, and my career is more important than what they do, they do over at that church, and we make all these decisions, and we do all these things lacking in understanding and commitment to the fundamental issue of life that God is God and we are not.
SPEAKER_01: And prayer, the very essence and foundation of prayer, is to come into Him and to recognize that I am not God, He is.
SPEAKER_01: My life is yours, what do you want me to do with it?
SPEAKER_01: How am I gonna follow you?
SPEAKER_01: He is the source of all blessing and need and everything else, and we come to him and say, God, I need you, and this is what I need, and I am acknowledging that it comes from you.
SPEAKER_01: Even if he knows what we need, and we know that he knows what we need.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said that in Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon on the Mount when he is teaching on prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you know that your God knows what you need?
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal: I need to know that God knows what I need, and I need to be reminded that it all comes from him, and it is not me being smart or gifted or doing whatever or whatever, that it all comes from him.
SPEAKER_01: And I need to make sure I'm in line, and I need to make sure I'm dependent, and I need to make sure I'm coming to him.
SPEAKER_01: The fundamental essence of prayer is acknowledging just what Moses told the children of Israel at least twice, and there's really more than that, but time only allows us to look at the two of them.
SPEAKER_01: That Joshua reiterated the same thing to the children of Israel, and he even used the same fundamental principle and teaching point that Moses did.
SPEAKER_01: You're going You're going to live in houses you did not build, you're going to live in cities you did not create, you're going to be eating from vineyards that you did not plant and you did not grow.
SPEAKER_01: And God gave all of this to you as his blessing and provision to his people.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we are.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we pray.
SPEAKER_01: And when there is a lack of prayer in our lives, it is because somehow we have allowed life to distract us away from the existential truth about who we are and who God is.
SPEAKER_01: Now I just want to show you three quick things.
SPEAKER_01: These are very easy.
SPEAKER_01: The sermon you've already heard the whole summer right there.
SPEAKER_01: There's really just one point.
SPEAKER_01: And that is he is God and we are dependent on him and we are surrendered to him.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the first of the three things I just want to break out and make sure you caught in that message.
SPEAKER_01: We pray because his character is benevolent and he blesses his children.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I have given you this city.
SPEAKER_01: Moses says, God had promised you this land and he promised to bring you here.
SPEAKER_01: From the time that he called Abraham to be the father of the Israel nation, he had promised Abraham, I'm going to bring you to a land that flows with milk and honey.
SPEAKER_01: He reminded them as they're about to go in, I have promised you this and I'm going to do that.
SPEAKER_01: He told Moses before they went in, I will defeat all those enemies.
SPEAKER_01: And when Moses' faith failed at one point and he passed away before going into the land of Canaan and he passed the baton to Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: We studied in the book of Joshua at the very first chapter that God said, I will protect you from your enemies.
SPEAKER_01: I will be with you as I promised to be with Moses.
SPEAKER_01: No enemy will stand against you as long as you're with me.
SPEAKER_01: God is benevolent and that he protects us.
SPEAKER_01: He is benevolent and then he provides for us.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who gives us salvation.
SPEAKER_01: He gives us Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: When you give your life to Christ, He gives you the Holy Spirit inside of you to walk with you, to empower you, to communicate with you, to connect you to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that God does is good.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we sing that song today.
SPEAKER_01: And it's so important that we continue to sing a song like that.
SPEAKER_01: God is so good.
SPEAKER_01: The most prolific lie that Satan tells is always attacking the loving character of God.
SPEAKER_01: He is always trying to separate us from God is this, God is that, God is judgmental, God is whatever, God is whatever, God is not true, God is this.
SPEAKER_01: He's always trying to attack the loving and benevolent character of God.
SPEAKER_01: Even when we come and we're wrestling over some command that God has given us, we're mad because we want to do this and we know that the Bible says not to do that.
SPEAKER_01: There are even times that we refuse to pray because I know if I get on my knees and I come to the Lord, he's going to tell me that I can't do that anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Or that I have to do that.
SPEAKER_01: And we avoid prayer because we're assuming God is trying to make our life miserable or change something that we enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: And we back away because we have somewhere in there allowed that live, Satan, to convince us that God is not good.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, when God convicts you of sin, it is because God is good and he wants to remove what's hurting you from your life.
SPEAKER_01: When God speaks to you about your sin, if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior and He calls you to give your life to Christ, Jesus is pointing out your sin, not because he's judging you, not because he's trying to crush you.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will never perish.
SPEAKER_01: And the next verse says this He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, because the world was condemned already.
SPEAKER_01: But that the world through Jesus might be saved.
SPEAKER_01: God loves you.
SPEAKER_01: He sent salvation to save you from that sin.
SPEAKER_01: He calls you to repentance so that you'll recognize that is bad.
SPEAKER_01: It is separating me from God.
SPEAKER_01: It is going to hurt me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus died for me on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, get this concept.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus stepped out of heaven and took his own punishment as God for sin so that you wouldn't have to.
SPEAKER_01: How many judges do you think a crime off the branch off the bench and tell a murderer, I'm going to go to prison for you?
SPEAKER_01: I've been watching the news all week.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen it happen once.
SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus did that for us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I heard someone say this this week.
SPEAKER_01: I was studying and I've been praying through this message.
SPEAKER_01: I heard someone say this.
SPEAKER_01: God first presents himself in creation as the authority, as the creator, as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and his first presentation to us is that we must obey him.
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe that that's true.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that God presented himself both as creator God and authority and as loving God.
SPEAKER_01: They work together.
SPEAKER_01: They're not independent steps or principles.
SPEAKER_01: They work together.
SPEAKER_01: God as God, without God is love, becomes that evil caricature that so many people paint that Satan wants you to get you believe.
SPEAKER_01: God as love with no authority, no judgment of sin or anything else is some mush God that liberal, non-Christian, atheists, or whoever else wants you to believe.
SPEAKER_01: That's a caricature of God on that side.
SPEAKER_01: God is completely both.
SPEAKER_01: And you must obey him, and he is the sole authority for what is right and wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And sin will be judged, but the Bible also says that God is love.
SPEAKER_01: Why did Jesus say, for God so loved the world they gave his only son?
SPEAKER_01: Not because it's a character trait of love, but God literally is love, Jesus said.
SPEAKER_01: God is love.
SPEAKER_01: And they are both accurate and they are both complete and they are both necessary for a picture of God.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why Satan wants to take away one or the other, and both are important.
SPEAKER_01: But we live in a world today where the lies of Satan are attacking the loving character of God, and I believe we must know when we come to pray, we are coming because God loves us.
SPEAKER_01: And even if I am having to repent or I'm afraid that God's going to put something in my life, I still need to have a principal understanding that God is good and that he loves us, and every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above.
SPEAKER_01: As it says in James chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was being called to ministry, I was doing a career that I spent my life training for and looking forward to.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what happened.
SPEAKER_01: My mom dropped me on my head as a baby too many times or something, but I was headed for a secular career.
SPEAKER_01: I'd wanted to do that since I was a sixth or seventh grader.
SPEAKER_01: Every time I was watching television, I was excited about who those people were and what they were doing.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't wait to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I used to tell people that when I was in college, they said, What are you majoring on?
SPEAKER_01: I'm majoring on the piece of paper I need necessary to get into law school.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm majoring on.
SPEAKER_01: I'd wanted my whole life that to be my particular career.
SPEAKER_01: You probably have other careers that you wanted to be a part of, and that's great.
SPEAKER_01: It's great.
SPEAKER_01: That was what I wanted to do.
SPEAKER_01: I'd been doing it for six years.
SPEAKER_01: I was getting a chance of doing it.
SPEAKER_01: I was flying around the world, and God shows up and he says, I want you to be a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no.
SPEAKER_01: I don't really want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you know how much money I'm gonna make once I turn the corner and become a partner in the firm, and I'm gonna tithe and I'm gonna make a difference because I'm gonna make a lot of money and give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, whose life is it?
SPEAKER_01: I made it, I planned it, I created your DNA, I saved you.
SPEAKER_01: It's my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, I don't want to be a pastor because I know it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna make me go pastor a church in Mississippi.
SPEAKER_01: I really don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Why would I think that?
SPEAKER_01: I remember I'd been through school, I'd been through all that.
SPEAKER_01: I had PhD level education, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do anything, I don't want to do any more school.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna make me go to seminary.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be a pastor because I don't want to go to seminary.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wrestled with God over seminary.
SPEAKER_01: I never heard any, I just never heard any word from him.
SPEAKER_01: And I argued with him, I didn't want to go to seminary.
SPEAKER_01: I'd been in school my whole life.
SPEAKER_01: I hate school.
SPEAKER_01: I hated every moment.
SPEAKER_01: I remember hating kindergarten.
SPEAKER_01: I hated every school I've ever been in.
SPEAKER_01: I hated it, I couldn't stand it, I hated it all.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm eating breakfast with my mentor one morning.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm telling you, we were sitting at we were sitting at Perkins restaurant having breakfast on Germantown Road in Germantown, Tennessee.
SPEAKER_01: I remember it, I will never forget it because it was a lesson I had to learn about this point.
SPEAKER_01: I'm arguing with the Lord, I'm sitting down with him, and he goes, you know, Greg, he said, Listen, uh, they've started taught, they know you're called ministry church.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you need to apprentice and train.
SPEAKER_01: You've had enough school.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you go?
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, and I heard the Lord say, I never asked you to go to seminary.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you arguing with me?
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, all this energy and time I've wasted arguing with the Lord when that wasn't even what he wanted.
SPEAKER_01: And why didn't I have the sense to understand that God is benevolent, that he loves me, and he is not going to make me do something just because it's miserable and I don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_01: And if he asks me to do it, it's going to be good for me, and it's going to be a blessing in my life because I need to remember that God's character is benevolent and he loves us.
SPEAKER_01: So when you pray, this is how you pray.
SPEAKER_01: You pray with gratefulness.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, We begin our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for who you are.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a world today where everybody's mad about everything, and everybody wants this, and everybody's mad because they don't have this, and they're mad that the government didn't forgive this debt, and they're mad that their mama didn't do this for them, and they're mad at their boss because he didn't do this for them, and they're mad at them, and we're all mad, we're arguing with everything, even TV shows are people arguing with each other.
SPEAKER_01: Like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to watch two guys argue about what happened in the football game yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: Just show me the clips.
SPEAKER_01: Like, why are we doing that?
SPEAKER_01: And everybody's mad.
SPEAKER_01: Who's grateful?
SPEAKER_01: We should be different in our culture because we spend every moment of our day saying, God, thank you for this.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for salvation.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that you're with me.
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm in this middle of this mess.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that you're in this with me.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: And so you pray with gratefulness.
SPEAKER_01: The last two are easy.
SPEAKER_01: We pray because He is the sole source of everything that we have.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have anything that God didn't give you.
SPEAKER_01: God owns everything, and anything that you have came from him.
SPEAKER_01: It is not yours.
SPEAKER_01: Those skills that you're doing your job with or whatever, those are not yours, and you did not create them.
SPEAKER_01: It came from him.
SPEAKER_01: I told you a story by the story about those scientists who are arguing with God, and they're saying, we don't need you.
SPEAKER_01: We can do anything.
SPEAKER_01: We can create life, we can change genders, we can do whatever we want to do.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, okay, like then prove what you think.
SPEAKER_01: And they say, fine, we can clone, we can do all these things.
SPEAKER_01: Let's have a human-making contest, and our human is going to be better than yours.
SPEAKER_01: And we can do it just like you did.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, okay, have at it.
SPEAKER_01: So they lean down in the dirt and they start to scoop up the dirt to make someone like God did.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, wait a minute, go get your own dirt.
SPEAKER_01: He is the creator, God, it is all his, and it all came from him.
SPEAKER_01: And you've got to acknowledge and learn that the fundamental part of why we pray is because it all comes from him, and we've all got to be submitted to him.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we pray, we pray with humility and submission.
SPEAKER_01: You live in a city that you did not build.
SPEAKER_01: You live in a house you did not build.
SPEAKER_01: You eat fruits and vegetables from gardens that you did not grow.
SPEAKER_01: They came from Him as part of His promise to you.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you pray, you pray with humility and submission.
SPEAKER_01: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, we pray because we are entirely dependent on Him for everything.
SPEAKER_01: Children of Israel, when you pick that apple off that tree, you didn't plant that vineyard.
SPEAKER_01: Family, when you step into that city and it has been vacated, because in one example in Joshua 24, God sent the hornets and killed the evil people and ran them out of town, and you walk around the streets and you go, family, let's go into this house.
SPEAKER_01: Janet, I like this house.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go in here.
SPEAKER_01: And we're touring this house and we get all the, let's just move in here.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, is it okay if we take this house?
SPEAKER_01: Sure, Greg.
SPEAKER_01: You and Janet take that house.
SPEAKER_01: I got this house.
SPEAKER_01: God says, Greg, you did not build this house.
SPEAKER_01: I provided it for you.
SPEAKER_01: It all comes from him.
SPEAKER_01: I am dependent on him.
SPEAKER_01: Give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: I am dependent on you.
SPEAKER_01: It all comes from you.
SPEAKER_01: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_01: I count on you, Lord, to defeat the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: You are the only one who can protect us, guide us, keep us from this.
SPEAKER_01: It is all, we are dependent on you.
SPEAKER_01: There's a phrase as I started working through this.
SPEAKER_01: I told Dave Scrooper the other day.
SPEAKER_01: I all of a sudden, I'm I'm I'm in this deal where I'm just seeing everywhere God answered prayer, the needs of prayer while we're praying, and this has become a phrase I hear myself saying all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, Pastor, God answered this prayer and did this.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, There's a reason that we pray over stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I need you, Pastor, I need to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we need the Lord to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, with this.
SPEAKER_01: We pray over it together.
SPEAKER_01: They come back later and say, God was so good in this.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason that we pray over stuff.
SPEAKER_01: There is a reason that we pray over stuff.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason we pray in our church.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason we're going pray over the campus tonight in Chaffee.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason that we pray over the offerings every time we give it.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason that we pray going into the invitation.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason that we pray for people who are in the hospital.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason that we pray for direction for people.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason that we pray because we are dependent on what God provides.
SPEAKER_01: And we must stay attached to our dependence on Him.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray with faith, believing God provides, and we pray with consistency.
SPEAKER_01: God give us this day our.
SPEAKER_01: If we prayed for our monthly bread, we'd pray once a month.
SPEAKER_01: God wants to talk to us.
SPEAKER_01: That's why He provides daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: Because He misses you on days you don't pray.
SPEAKER_01: Because your Heavenly Father loves you.
SPEAKER_01: So this week, we're going to pray together.
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: It won't take you but a few minutes to come and pray together.
SPEAKER_01: But don't lose your book as I've already done.
SPEAKER_01: It was here somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: You saw me hold it up.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together as a church family.
SPEAKER_01: Let's walk into the classroom of prayer together and let Jesus teach us how to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And on that, I want you to bow your heads and we're going to pray for the invitation.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want you to know that God provided salvation for you because He loves you.
SPEAKER_01: We've quoted that verse, we've shared the gospel, we've sung the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, just as Maverick and the choir saying, you come running to the cross, how do you do it?
SPEAKER_01: You just come to Jesus and you talk to him and you say, Lord, I know that you are the authority and I've sinned.
SPEAKER_01: God, I know that you are benevolent and you sent Jesus because you love me, and I know that you provide salvation, and you are the only way of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I come and I give myself to you because I am dependent on you to save me.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you come to Jesus and you tell him that he will never turn you away.
SPEAKER_01: Not because I said it, but because he promised.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we come now, we ask.
SPEAKER_01: We need you to move.
SPEAKER_01: We need you to affirm to our lives what we're learning from your scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We need you to move in this moment and be here so that people who are struggling with a decision whether it's to be saved or come back into church or repent of something or go serve somewhere or whatever it is that they're doing.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we need you to be here to make that clear to them and draw them to you and take all of this message from your word and putty all the cracks and illustrate stuff better than I did and help everyone see.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, we need you to draw them to you.
SPEAKER_01: This time is your time, and we need you to move and give people a clear understanding of your love so they'll come to you as their Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we pray these things dependently in the name of Jesus and all God's people.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.