back to index2019-11-10 Devoted People Pray
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My name is Nathan and as I'm sure we're starting to miss Pastor Peter being up here, but would 00:00:13.240 |
you continue in prayer for him as he's on his sabbatical? 00:00:16.280 |
And because of that, as you've known, we've been going through the book of Hebrews as 00:00:20.200 |
Today as we have for the last couple of weeks, we're going to be continuing on in our covenants. 00:00:25.900 |
And so this is, if you're unaware of Berean members, if you want to be a member of this 00:00:30.520 |
church, go through a series of classes and at the end sign off on a covenant that says 00:00:39.380 |
And to go into it real quick before we pray and start, covenant number one was what Pastor 00:00:50.000 |
This is I confess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. 00:00:53.960 |
That is probably the overarching covenant, like the bookend of all the covenants that 00:01:00.980 |
And then last week, Pastor Peter preached on the importance of God's word and that was 00:01:07.580 |
Number two was I confess that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, which has ultimate 00:01:12.900 |
And then covenant number five was kind of a branching off of that, I commit to attending 00:01:17.320 |
and preparing for weekday Bible studies every week to the best of my ability. 00:01:22.720 |
And so today, we're going to be looking at covenant number three and before we go into 00:01:26.640 |
that, if you could bow your heads with me, we'll pray and go in. 00:01:33.800 |
Heavenly Father, again, we're very grateful to you, Lord, to be able to sing songs that 00:01:51.220 |
We don't look like this world because we have a hope that is not of this world. 00:01:59.800 |
Thank you, God, that we have a boldness and a confidence and a foundation that's unshakable. 00:02:06.680 |
And Lord, for all of us who have been going through difficult things, who have been struggling 00:02:10.880 |
with different sins, who have been tempted even perhaps to have our eyes turn inwards, 00:02:15.920 |
that our eyes would draw up to you and just be grateful people. 00:02:19.560 |
Lord, thank you for an opportunity for us to then dive into your word. 00:02:24.000 |
Help us to understand you and what prayer is a little bit more after today. 00:02:33.720 |
So covenant number three is a tough one because whenever you're trying to get into this idea 00:02:44.000 |
It's not easy to define the structure, the parameter of what prayer is. 00:02:48.600 |
It's pretty, if you want to be exhaustive about it, there's a lot of stuff to cover. 00:02:53.160 |
So we're not going to be exhaustive today, but to turn our eyes to the covenant, covenant 00:02:57.600 |
number three says, "I commit to a life of devotion to pray regularly, interceding for 00:03:06.800 |
And so I'm going to break that down because I think there is a bit of a connection between 00:03:12.680 |
And that first half, it says, "I commit to a life of devotion." 00:03:17.800 |
I want to just define a few words because I think today's day and age, these words are 00:03:23.320 |
The word commit is pledge, devote, or dedicate. 00:03:30.840 |
When we say we're committing to something, it's not just say like, "I'm just thinking 00:03:36.240 |
You're saying, "I'm kind of putting myself in this." 00:03:40.320 |
And secondly, that word devotion is, I think, even stronger. 00:03:44.640 |
Love, loyalty, enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause. 00:03:48.480 |
And so that has this idea of fidelity, of faithfulness, of allegiance, of this idea 00:03:57.920 |
of if you've ever seen somebody play poker and they say, "All in," it's this idea where 00:04:11.180 |
That calls to us, right, because this is what I am. 00:04:19.180 |
Everything gets swallowed up and swamped into this, that we are people who have submitted 00:04:28.780 |
And so when we read his word, the natural, reflexive, and sometimes only response then 00:04:37.120 |
When you say that Jesus is Lord over my life, when you say that I submit to the Lordship 00:04:41.780 |
of Christ over my life, and when we say that I will take his authoritative word and adhere 00:04:48.120 |
to it and submit to it, the reflex, I think, is prayer. 00:04:56.420 |
A few things, because in Lordship, we feel the battle against the flesh. 00:05:02.180 |
It's a fight we cannot fight on our own within this idea of sanctification. 00:05:08.940 |
Another one is because in reading God's word, we see commands that we, it feels like we 00:05:18.820 |
Thirdly, because in the spiritual battle we're engaged in, we sense our own powerlessness. 00:05:25.180 |
That we are incapable of doing anything to actually bring about change in the hearts 00:05:29.400 |
of people around us, and actually even in our own hearts. 00:05:54.280 |
It's not just that, it's this deep communion with the Lord. 00:06:01.380 |
So if you, you know, reflex, I like that word because you kind of think of that little hammer 00:06:06.780 |
I don't know, I feel like that happened only when I was a kid. 00:06:09.660 |
But when you're a kid, you're sitting there, and I remember we would be in these long lines, 00:06:14.100 |
and then the doctor would one by one go and do all these tests on us in school. 00:06:19.300 |
And then there was always that kid, always that one kid, who would try to kick their 00:06:25.740 |
And the doctor would be like, "Hey, don't do that." 00:06:31.220 |
So what happens is, the hammer comes down on your knee, and what happens to your leg? 00:06:37.740 |
There's nobody that sits there and says like, "Oh, I guess I'm supposed to kick my knee, 00:06:49.840 |
Now it is a discipline, and we're going to talk about that a little bit. 00:06:52.340 |
But when we're living life, when we're trying to adhere to the Lordship of Christ over our 00:07:03.900 |
A secondary question is, what's that look like for you? 00:07:14.340 |
Has it been something that you feel like, "This is very much a part of my life, in my 00:07:23.140 |
Upfront I'm going to say this is a tough sermon, because this isn't like false humility. 00:07:34.020 |
I know, even as going through the sermon, I was like, "Oh my goodness, how do you preach 00:07:47.140 |
This desire and need, and even desperation sometimes that, "Man, we have to pray more." 00:07:53.220 |
And I hope that we as a church come together in this. 00:07:56.740 |
So to flesh out covenant number three, we're going to be all over the Bible. 00:08:00.780 |
And so a lot of it we're going to have up here, but you can follow along in your text 00:08:05.820 |
So this commitment to a life of devotion, to look into that again, I wanted to take 00:08:09.680 |
a look at a series of texts, because I believe that this is where it starts. 00:08:13.940 |
When we commit ourselves to this life of devotion to Christ, that's where prayer begins. 00:08:19.580 |
And so Matthew 13, verse 44, it says, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden 00:08:23.980 |
in the field, which a man found and hid again. 00:08:26.780 |
And from joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 00:08:32.780 |
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls. 00:08:36.420 |
And upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought 00:08:44.480 |
So that idea of devoting yourself to something or committing to something is found in this 00:08:58.540 |
This is what I did a year ago when I became a Christian. 00:09:00.540 |
This is what I did 10 years ago when I became a Christian, 30 years ago when I became a 00:09:08.460 |
Christians, we devote ourselves, we commit ourselves to this. 00:09:13.360 |
We are people that says that it's not just like I'm following on a different track of 00:09:26.180 |
Philippians chapter 3 verse 7, "But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have 00:09:33.860 |
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing 00:09:37.740 |
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but 00:09:44.660 |
Everything that I thought to be dear, I count it, I consider it. 00:09:47.740 |
Like I sit there and I look at it and I kind of study it and look at all the angles and 00:09:57.660 |
Galatians 2.20, "I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but 00:10:05.500 |
I'm actually, I'm saying I've died to myself. 00:10:10.020 |
There is no devotion or commitment to self anymore. 00:10:15.980 |
2 Corinthians 5.15, "And he died for all so that they who live might no longer live for 00:10:20.860 |
themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf." 00:10:27.140 |
Romans 14.8, "For if we live, we live for the Lord. 00:10:32.100 |
Therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's." 00:10:34.500 |
Deuteronomy 6.5, last one, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all 00:10:42.780 |
We glance over these things and we say, "Yes, I want that." 00:10:45.580 |
But honestly, when you put these things on yourselves, this is what we're saying. 00:10:49.260 |
As a believer, we commit to a life of devotion. 00:10:53.500 |
If you're a believer in this room, this is something you have already said. 00:10:58.280 |
This is the agreement in becoming a believer. 00:11:07.420 |
There is no no man's land or straddling the fence. 00:11:26.060 |
And when we take stock of our lives, if we were to sit at this moment right now and to 00:11:29.300 |
look at the decisions we make and to look at the things that we do, we say we are constantly 00:11:44.100 |
When you see someone devoted and committed to something, there's passion there. 00:11:48.460 |
So while it's true that the Christian, it doesn't always mean you need to feel. 00:11:53.140 |
Sometimes people ask, "What does it look like to feel love for God?" 00:11:58.420 |
We can go into that conversation another time. 00:12:03.860 |
When you're devoted to something, when you're committed to something, there's something 00:12:11.860 |
Something that you said, "My life is all about this. 00:12:14.180 |
Is it possible for me to stand here and say, truthfully nod along to that while I'm standing 00:12:23.180 |
And this kind of sounds like maybe covenant number one again, the lordship. 00:12:33.340 |
One of the great results though of Christ's lordship over our lives and our adherence 00:12:36.680 |
to his authoritative word is going to be prayer. 00:12:42.500 |
Prayer becomes a test as to your commitment and devotion to the Lord. 00:12:49.260 |
I'm saying prayer, if you look at your prayer life, if you look at the quality and content 00:12:54.060 |
of your prayer, you're going to be able to see lordship or lack thereof. 00:13:01.420 |
You're going to be able to see by someone's prayers, by their prayer life, whether they 00:13:06.300 |
just say it, "Christ is lord over my life," or whether it's true. 00:13:22.820 |
But this prayer life becomes a window into your heart. 00:13:35.340 |
What prayer, in it being revealing, I'm going to go through a series here, a series of statements. 00:13:40.660 |
First is how you approach prayer reveals what it shows you. 00:13:46.700 |
I'm sorry, the formatting shrunk everything, but it's on your apps too, so you can look 00:13:53.780 |
But how you approach prayer reveals our attitude towards God. 00:13:57.620 |
It can show you whether you treat him kind of like a genie in a bottle. 00:14:01.680 |
An image of some God that you bow down to in order to receive something. 00:14:05.260 |
Your prayer life will show that, it will reveal. 00:14:08.740 |
Your prayer life will show you whether your religion is superstitious and you pray because 00:14:13.700 |
you want to have extra blessing for the day or for some far-off God that you don't really 00:14:17.900 |
know to do some miraculous work in your life and the lives of people around you. 00:14:23.740 |
It can also show whether we live a works-based, guilt-driven Christianity. 00:14:28.500 |
You can do it as a routine because this is what Christians do. 00:14:33.020 |
So for those of us, the bulk of our prayers, if it's done during mealtimes, we might fall 00:14:41.100 |
Prayer reveals our attitude towards life itself, whether you will pursue your own desires or 00:14:46.540 |
God's desires, your own kingdom or God's kingdom. 00:14:52.060 |
If we don't pray, we're most likely self-centered. 00:14:55.540 |
We're not worried about the people around us. 00:14:59.580 |
We're supremely fascinated by our own lives and what we could do. 00:15:08.660 |
Leading into this one, prayer shows where we truly believe sovereignty lies. 00:15:12.020 |
Again, we could say, "I believe that God is in control. 00:15:16.900 |
But by our prayer life, it will reveal whether you truly believe that or not. 00:15:22.420 |
When you run to prayer, when you turn to prayer, it will show something about your belief in 00:15:27.700 |
Prayer reveals an understanding of our own sin because where we see sin, it's reflexive 00:15:33.820 |
Yes, it's a command to us to submit and to obey, but I think this is always accompanied 00:15:39.860 |
by a cry to God for help in overcoming our flesh and grateful prayers to God for sending 00:15:46.540 |
Christ to have done the finished work on our behalf. 00:15:50.720 |
If we pray only in groups and seldom alone, it reveals the quality of our personal relationship 00:15:56.700 |
If we pray alone and never in groups, it reveals the quality of our love and fellowship with 00:16:02.380 |
See, prayer reveals a lot of stuff in our lives. 00:16:06.740 |
We can agree with the concept of lordship, but what prayer does is it checks the reality 00:16:15.860 |
As people who have ... Just looking at those verses, as people who say that, "That's me, 00:16:21.780 |
that I have wholly given my life over to God," people who have expressed that we live solely 00:16:27.420 |
for Christ alone, that all of life is about him, that my job is about him, that my relationships 00:16:35.760 |
are about him, that my free time is about him, that every facet of my life, completely, 00:16:46.420 |
Sometimes our prayers just don't match up to that. 00:16:51.180 |
Tim Keller says, "To discover the real you, look at what you spend time thinking about 00:16:55.340 |
when no one is looking, when nothing is forcing you to think about anything in particular. 00:17:00.160 |
At such moments, do your thoughts go toward God? 00:17:02.900 |
You may want to be seen as a humble, unassuming person, but do you take the initiative to 00:17:11.700 |
"You wish to be perceived as a positive, cheerful person, but do you habitually thank God for 00:17:17.220 |
everything you have and praise him for who he is?" 00:17:20.780 |
"You may speak a great deal about what a blessing your faith is and how you just really love 00:17:25.540 |
the Lord, but if you are prayerless, is that really true? 00:17:29.380 |
If you are joyful, humble, and faithful and private before God, then what you want to 00:17:34.220 |
appear to be on the outside won't match what you truly are." 00:17:37.220 |
I have come across plenty of people in my life who are well put together in the Christian 00:17:42.060 |
faith and know how to articulate lots of Christian things. 00:17:45.380 |
And then, you know, there are just things that feel a little bit alarming. 00:17:51.620 |
And then if I were to ask an apartment maid or something like that about that person's 00:17:55.020 |
prayer life, they might say, "Oh, yeah, I don't really see them doing that." 00:18:01.980 |
See, as a Christian, you live wholly and unconditionally for the Lord. 00:18:09.720 |
The authoritative Word of God becomes our standard, the idea of a plumb line, right? 00:18:19.340 |
And I think prayer becomes the natural response to that. 00:18:23.620 |
And so when you look at your prayer life, when I had to sit and just again look at my 00:18:33.900 |
This brings us into our third point, what is prayer? 00:18:40.100 |
There's so many definitions of prayer out there because in Scripture, there's no one 00:18:45.140 |
And we'll talk about that a little bit, but I really like this one. 00:18:48.060 |
Prayer is a communicative response to the knowledge of God. 00:18:53.340 |
Because when we think about what prayer is, some of us might think like... 00:18:59.300 |
Supplication, entreaties, maybe, what do you call it? 00:19:08.260 |
We might also think of it as words of thankfulness and gratitude. 00:19:15.420 |
Prayer can be adoration and worship and proclamation of His greatness. 00:19:26.980 |
And we can go into a survey of the Bible, but instead, I wanted to just look at 1 Timothy 00:19:30.780 |
2, to give an example of what I'm talking about here. 00:19:33.580 |
1 Timothy 2, it says, "First of all, then I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions 00:19:38.060 |
and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men." 00:19:41.980 |
So those four words there, entreaties, prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, this is pretty... 00:19:47.660 |
Those four words are pretty much the four words used for prayer through the New Testament. 00:19:57.180 |
Here, Paul is saying, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you." 00:20:00.840 |
And here, you'll see someone confessing their sins. 00:20:03.260 |
And here, you'll see someone crying out, "Be merciful on me, like a sinner." 00:20:17.140 |
In Matthew 6, it's probably like the best example of prayer and the Lord's Prayer. 00:20:24.020 |
It's a communicative response to the knowledge of God. 00:20:26.660 |
And I want to dumb that down a little bit, because it helps me. 00:20:30.460 |
It's basically what that's saying, it's relational. 00:20:38.860 |
And I was hesitant about this, because I didn't want to simplify it too much, because there's 00:20:44.620 |
But I think when you boil it down, this is the foundation of it. 00:20:47.620 |
The foundation is not even on the words you're speaking, necessarily. 00:20:52.600 |
It's actually on the person you're praying to. 00:21:02.900 |
Prayer is communicating and expressing my desires to God. 00:21:16.220 |
Prayer is relational in scope, because it's opening this part of me to the Lord. 00:21:29.580 |
We don't just long for a relationship with Him. 00:21:31.420 |
The truth of the matter is, we are in a relationship with God. 00:21:38.380 |
So have you ever been in a deep relationship with someone, and you don't communicate with 00:21:45.220 |
And it becomes very like, "What am I going to do for you? 00:21:51.460 |
If you guys would like to schedule this and this kind of thing." 00:21:56.100 |
Well, when communication isn't there between two people, when you don't see two people 00:22:01.220 |
just kind of like, you know, like two people who really care about each other, love each 00:22:07.900 |
If you really like enjoy being in the presence of people, you don't just do your own thing 00:22:11.380 |
and then, "Oh, by the way, hey, can you like..." 00:22:15.420 |
When you see people who love each other, like you go to a restaurant, you see people who 00:22:22.220 |
What they do is they're sitting across the table and they're just pouring into each other. 00:22:25.020 |
They're just living life, talking about different things. 00:22:32.380 |
See the Christian, we love the Lord so much, we have actually said, "Everything, I've traded 00:22:45.820 |
God has saved us to be in relationship with Him. 00:22:50.020 |
Actually when humanity sins, He distances Himself from us, right? 00:22:56.860 |
I personally think this is great grace and mercy of God, that He would distance humanity 00:23:01.140 |
away from Him because in His presence, we die. 00:23:04.220 |
So He distances us and then the whole goal of salvation is to bring us back to reconcile 00:23:17.540 |
That's why believers have the privilege of approaching the throne of grace and confidence. 00:23:21.780 |
We have this great privilege of speaking with the Lord, having a relationship with the Lord 00:23:30.780 |
Our prayer is going to reveal something about the quality of our relationship with the Lord. 00:23:36.500 |
See in Lordship, it's easy to get stuck on one side of the coin, on what I need to give 00:23:41.860 |
up, what I need to submit and bow my knee to. 00:23:49.580 |
But the emphasis of our faith is not so much on what you're giving up. 00:23:54.820 |
The emphasis is not on the fact that you have to give up your whole lives. 00:24:00.220 |
The emphasis is not on the fact that we need to die to ourselves. 00:24:05.140 |
The emphasis is actually on what we gain in Christ. 00:24:08.860 |
And in light of what we gain, when we gain the clarity of sight to see what it is that 00:24:13.140 |
is being offered to us, we gladly lay down our lives and surrender and submission. 00:24:18.300 |
So to look at those passages again, in Matthew 13, 44, the highlight before was on the kingdom 00:24:25.060 |
I'm sorry, before we say he goes and sells all that he has, but the highlight should 00:24:28.620 |
be on that first part, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field. 00:24:34.940 |
If we get so fixated on the fact that I need to give up my life, that I need to sell everything 00:24:39.900 |
I have, man, that's a miserable existence, isn't it? 00:24:43.380 |
But when we look and we see the kingdom of heaven is a treasure, it changes things. 00:24:49.940 |
In Philippians, it should go from like, I've counted as lost, it's for the sake of Christ. 00:24:56.980 |
The surpassing value of knowing Christ so that I may gain Christ. 00:25:02.800 |
In Galatians 2, 20, it shouldn't be I have been crucified with Christ, it's no longer 00:25:08.100 |
I really think it should be, but Christ lives in me. 00:25:11.460 |
The life, I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and 00:25:20.460 |
Second Corinthians 5, 15, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, 00:25:25.340 |
but the emphasis, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. 00:25:29.900 |
In Romans 14, 8, not so much on we die for the Lord, therefore whether we live or die, 00:25:39.540 |
We don't walk around saying, what have I given up for the Lord? 00:25:49.180 |
Prayer is supremely relational because we are brought into a relationship with the God 00:25:53.760 |
that we now claim to love with all of our hearts. 00:26:11.180 |
In relationship then with the Lord, there are times when you're just grateful and thankful. 00:26:29.320 |
In relationship with the Lord, there are times when you feel sorrow and grief over having 00:26:41.020 |
In relationship with the Lord, out of our love for the Lord and our view and sight of 00:26:44.660 |
who he is, we can't help but shower him with compliments, right? 00:26:58.180 |
We can't help but lift up words of adoration to him, praise. 00:27:05.780 |
In relationship with the Lord, we constantly come across our desire and need. 00:27:12.460 |
See, prayer, I don't think is as complicated as we make it seem. 00:27:17.900 |
If we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, as it says in Deuteronomy 00:27:39.560 |
Every Monday, I drop her off and pick her up from school. 00:27:43.760 |
Then I love picking her up from school because that's the only day of the week I can pick 00:28:06.480 |
Addy will sit there and she will talk our ears off. 00:28:13.600 |
She's like, "Oh, Bella did this and Mason did this and the teacher said this. 00:28:21.320 |
We got to eat a cupcake because it was this person's birthday. 00:28:24.640 |
You know, honestly speaking, even though sometimes it gets on my nerves after a while, I sit 00:28:43.960 |
Three weeks ago, it still breaks my heart thinking about it. 00:28:50.980 |
She looked up and then she looked back down at her food and she said, "Daddy, you already 00:28:59.200 |
I looked over at Kezia and we just stared at each other like, "What was that? 00:29:06.440 |
I almost wanted to discipline her right there. 00:29:14.560 |
There's something about that reaction where she didn't want to communicate with me. 00:29:21.820 |
It's like this is my child that I love with all my heart. 00:29:27.840 |
It felt like she looked at me and said, "I don't love you." 00:29:37.300 |
But seriously, I'm like, I wanted to yell at her face like, "Love me." 00:29:52.020 |
The teacher gives us a calendar that says this is what they do during the day. 00:29:57.020 |
I know that there's a snack time and I know that's her favorite time. 00:30:01.500 |
I know who her best friends are and she played tag again. 00:30:14.080 |
And I think about my prayer life and I think about God. 00:30:17.100 |
And again, it's not about getting all touchy-feely here. 00:30:20.940 |
But sometimes I wonder if we just need to take a step back and think, "I wonder how 00:30:30.060 |
I wonder how do I come off before the Lord in prayer?" 00:30:49.780 |
My time of prayer that I've set here in this time of day and in this part of life and here, 00:30:59.820 |
But I wonder if God is looking down and saying, "I just want to be in a relationship with 00:31:09.420 |
Prayer isn't the straight jacket that we're in that says, "Here's the prescription 00:31:15.220 |
I love it when Addy talks to me just out of the overflow of her heart because it just 00:31:24.940 |
And sometimes I wonder if you could simplify prayer to God just wanting to talk. 00:31:40.540 |
But in life, this is part of us coming together in relationship and our wills start to weirdly 00:31:49.820 |
She knows what I'll say yes to, what I'll say no to. 00:31:58.580 |
And where it might be sterile, I could give her a list of things to do and not to do. 00:32:06.500 |
When we're in communion, when we're talking, when we're sharing, all this kind of stuff, 00:32:11.180 |
when that happens is when the weight of who I am and who she is really comes together. 00:32:16.900 |
And law, if you're going to think about it that way, law becomes so much, so an intimate, 00:32:35.700 |
The Christian, when we think about our prayer life, when we say, "God, I love you with all 00:32:45.540 |
I have given up my whole life for you," and then we have a hard time praying, there's 00:32:55.740 |
And this is why this was so challenging for me. 00:32:59.660 |
Packer says, "Knowing God is a matter of personal dealing. 00:33:09.460 |
It is a matter of dealing with him as he opens to you and being dealt with by him. 00:33:15.260 |
Friends open their hearts to each other by what they say and do. 00:33:17.780 |
We must not lose sight of the fact that knowing God is an emotional relationship as well as 00:33:21.660 |
an intellectual and volitional one and could not indeed be a deep relationship." 00:33:29.740 |
If we understand, even theology, God is omnipresent. 00:33:34.740 |
In a relationship with him, what happens is as we go through the day, prayer happens. 00:33:43.100 |
When we lack in prayer, many times because we forget he's there, he's invisible to us. 00:33:46.860 |
But look at what it says about the Christian in 1 Peter 1.8. 00:33:49.300 |
It says, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. 00:33:54.460 |
And though you do not see him now but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy and express 00:34:02.540 |
Prayer is actually an obvious thing that happens when we keep the invisible God in spiritual 00:34:13.980 |
This brings us kind of drawing into our fourth point. 00:34:20.420 |
You must know the word of God in order to properly pray to God. 00:34:24.660 |
You must know the word of God in order to properly pray to God. 00:34:29.820 |
Because this is the challenging question for us. 00:34:33.980 |
What does it show about your relationship with the Lord? 00:34:37.820 |
Your prayer reveals whether we know who he is. 00:34:41.860 |
It's like trying to talk to someone that you don't know too well. 00:34:51.500 |
We're praying these long little parts of prayer and maybe we're starting to come across this 00:34:57.220 |
little tension of like, "Man, why is prayer just so hard?" 00:35:07.620 |
But in order for you to be able to continue circularly in communication, if it is relational, 00:35:17.940 |
There is no other way for you to be able to know who he is if this is a knowing relationship 00:35:23.060 |
other than through his word and what his word verifies in your surroundings. 00:35:33.340 |
And then the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit does, comes and communicates the word of God 00:35:39.900 |
The word of God responds to us in every situation in life. 00:35:48.260 |
And he says, "How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? 00:35:55.300 |
How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? 00:36:02.380 |
See, this is just, there is no Bible there, right? 00:36:11.220 |
If you look at it, it's just someone, he's just kind of pouring out his heart to the 00:36:19.620 |
And in Psalm 13.3, it says, "Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. 00:36:23.300 |
Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say I have overcome 00:36:27.100 |
him, and my adversaries will rejoice when I'm shaken." 00:36:30.100 |
But here's where the knowing of God thing kind of comes back. 00:36:33.660 |
The Word of God speaks back into our prayers. 00:36:35.660 |
He says, "But I have trusted in your lovingkindness. 00:36:40.900 |
I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me." 00:36:45.100 |
You can see here how David interacts with God. 00:36:48.320 |
He prays, and then he tells truths of who God is. 00:37:05.060 |
We pray, and we're like, "We don't know what to pray." 00:37:07.460 |
Well, it's because we don't know the Word of God. 00:37:13.820 |
We can't expect to pray into thin air and say, "Oh, there it is. 00:37:16.500 |
He put it in my mind, what I'm called to do." 00:37:20.500 |
A theological term for this is the great previousness of God's Word. 00:37:24.180 |
That somehow, even though it was written thousands of years ago, that today, when I'm living 00:37:38.180 |
The prayer flows back into the Word, and on, and on, and on. 00:37:41.820 |
And that's why the Bible says that there are kind of... 00:37:44.980 |
There might be more, but there are two things that are unceasing. 00:37:50.300 |
In Joshua 1, verse 8, it says, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, 00:37:54.120 |
but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according 00:37:59.260 |
The interesting thing about this is we look at it and we say, "Okay, I got to read the 00:38:04.740 |
But it's very interesting because he says, "This book of the law shall not depart from 00:38:09.900 |
And the idea is to meditate on it day and night. 00:38:12.980 |
And so there's this unceasing thing kind of accompanying the Word. 00:38:18.560 |
But the other one is 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 16 through 18, Paul says, "Rejoice 00:38:23.540 |
and pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you 00:38:32.140 |
In Ephesians 6, 18, it says, "With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, 00:38:37.180 |
and with this, in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the 00:38:42.020 |
See, Paul, he never ceases praying for the Philippians, right? 00:38:45.700 |
Like, "I never cease in my prayers, in my remembrance of you." 00:38:49.940 |
He says, "I am praying for you constantly," right? 00:38:53.460 |
And so there's this idea of the Word of God being something we need to meditate on constantly, 00:38:58.100 |
and then there's this idea of prayer needing to be unceasing, and then there's us looking 00:39:02.320 |
at these two things, and we say, "But really, how do you pray all day?" 00:39:13.500 |
And without having to go too far into that conversation, I think God sometimes looks 00:39:18.860 |
at us doing that exercise and says, "Dude, just... 00:39:37.380 |
Eugene Peterson says this, "Left to ourselves, we will pray to some God who speaks what we 00:39:41.180 |
like hearing, or to the part of God we manage to understand. 00:39:44.260 |
But what is critical is that we speak to the God who speaks to us, and to everything that 00:39:49.220 |
So this is talking about the importance of that Word of God, right? 00:39:54.660 |
There is a difference between praying to an unknown God whom we hope to discover in our 00:39:57.860 |
praying and praying to a known God revealed through Israel and Jesus Christ who speaks 00:40:03.580 |
In the first, we indulge our appetite for religious fulfillment. 00:40:12.180 |
What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn 00:40:19.020 |
It's not just that we're just pouring out our heart and that's it. 00:40:23.100 |
God, thank you for being my therapist today." 00:40:25.580 |
It's that we come and he desires to speak to us. 00:40:29.820 |
I think we've all had that friend before who comes and just uses you as a... 00:41:05.580 |
And so if we come to know God as described in scripture, if we are not making a God of 00:41:10.700 |
our own image, of our own creation, then what happens is our prayers become awesome. 00:41:20.180 |
Because the more we know about God, the more our will begins to align with God. 00:41:27.180 |
We start praying for God's kingdom and not our own. 00:41:29.300 |
Because the more we come to know God, man, we love him. 00:41:39.380 |
We'll pray small and detailed because we know who God is. 00:41:42.900 |
We know God cares for the little thing, that he cares for the details, he cares for all 00:41:49.340 |
And so when we pray, we start praying like that. 00:41:55.300 |
When we pray, our prayers become almost like, scandalously big. 00:42:18.420 |
I believe that the word of God is like hammer that can shatter stone. 00:42:24.420 |
I'm gonna watch difficulty fall on their life. 00:42:28.820 |
And I'm going to see salvation happen in that place because I know that's what God desires. 00:42:33.340 |
And so everything about our understanding of who God is, it comes out in prayer. 00:42:44.180 |
I listed out five things here that you can kind of look up. 00:42:48.260 |
They're kind of just little nuggets of advice. 00:42:51.420 |
But just to kind of conclude the sermon, what we're trying to do here in this covenant, 00:42:57.580 |
we're saying we're committing to a life of devotion. 00:42:59.860 |
That we live for God, that we submit to his Lordship, and we submit to the authority of 00:43:06.860 |
And at covenant three, we're saying, well, we need to pray. 00:43:10.660 |
And what we've been saying today during the sermon is that your prayer life is going to 00:43:13.980 |
reveal something about your true devotion to the Lord. 00:43:17.380 |
Whether it's this religious activity that you do and that you've just become really 00:43:21.500 |
good at hanging out with Christian people, talking about Christian things, versus someone 00:43:29.500 |
You know when you come across these types of people. 00:43:33.300 |
Those are the people you leave and you just feel fire under you, right? 00:43:38.020 |
You know when you connect with someone on that God level. 00:43:43.700 |
And so if that's the case, then I think that we really need to commit to this. 00:43:52.740 |
Ask anyone around this area, everyone's gonna be like, "What's Berean like? 00:44:04.180 |
Praise the Lord that we hold a high view of God's Word. 00:44:10.940 |
And in submitting to it, that we become people who pray. 00:44:14.460 |
I wish, this is my secret wish, that when people wonder what's Berean like, I wish not 00:44:21.560 |
only that, but it accompanies with, "Boy, they pray a lot." 00:44:31.820 |
That we constantly, it says up here, that we constantly pray for the leadership. 00:44:40.180 |
More than kind words, more than acts of service, would you pray? 00:44:43.900 |
Like, a prayer is seriously greater than, we won't go into it. 00:44:49.980 |
We constantly pray for one another when we're talking to each other. 00:44:53.420 |
When we hear of how difficult circumstances are going, man, sometimes I love going up 00:44:57.260 |
to that cafe on Sundays because I see people praying. 00:45:01.700 |
And my hope is, it becomes so a part of who we are individually, that it's something that 00:45:10.180 |
I see people praying here together, after service and stuff. 00:45:13.740 |
I know something more serious must have been going on in life for them to be praying like 00:45:19.940 |
I hope even in our fellowship, that it's not one of those things that brings the party 00:45:25.380 |
It's like, "Ehh," when someone says, "Hey, you guys want to pray?" 00:45:28.820 |
But that it's natural that we come together and we're like, "Hey, let's pray." 00:45:36.980 |
That there's no better activity we can be doing than that. 00:45:42.140 |
We couldn't get into the theology of all this, but the urgency of the fact that we must pray 00:45:51.940 |
That it shows that we are truly incapable, that we are truly powerless to change anything. 00:46:03.900 |
We're just constantly praying because it shows that we are in great need and desperation 00:46:08.860 |
for God, and there is that great awareness of this that needs to be saturated and pervading 00:46:20.060 |
So please, set times of prayer in your life where you will devote that time to prayer 00:46:34.820 |
Just say, sometimes it's okay to just say, "God, thank you." 00:46:51.420 |
There are plenty of opportunities that we would give. 00:46:55.700 |
There's a prayer, a men's prayer meeting that's going on in a couple Saturdays. 00:46:59.920 |
And I hope that every XY chromosome in this room is there. 00:47:04.620 |
I hope that we fill that room with people who are just like, "Man." 00:47:12.460 |
If we have a church of men who don't pray, man, we're in trouble. 00:47:17.380 |
I'm really excited for that prayer time because I hope when we come in, it's just like, just 00:47:22.540 |
by everybody being there, we're like, "Oh, yes. 00:47:29.100 |
Yes, you can take your time a little bit more at home or you can say, "I will serve the 00:47:38.220 |
Kind of like the way we would think a parking minister, a cleaning minister. 00:47:41.460 |
You can come and say, "I will devote that time." 00:47:43.860 |
There is no better activity sometimes you can do than prayer. 00:47:47.220 |
I would rather see a trash on the ground right there, or sorry, yeah, than someone not praying 00:47:56.140 |
Hopefully you pick up the trash and then pray. 00:47:58.100 |
But all in all, what we want is we want people to understand the importance and the gravity 00:48:12.540 |
And also, we have praise and prayer nights once a month. 00:48:16.300 |
And during those praise and prayers, I actually do get very encouraged. 00:48:21.940 |
But I hope no matter what season of life you're in, no matter how crazy life is, no matter 00:48:26.500 |
how tough the week was, you see prayer as not just something like, "Oh, I guess I should 00:48:32.260 |
But you look at that night, you circle it, you calendar it in, and you're just counting 00:48:36.060 |
down the days because praying together is sweet. 00:48:40.620 |
I love praying next to people on Friday night praise and prayers. 00:48:45.100 |
It's really hard to pray back there in the cry room, but man, sometimes when I'm out 00:48:48.540 |
here and I'm just praying with everybody, it helps. 00:48:53.940 |
And so all in all, all this to say, this is the covenant that we sign as Koreans. 00:48:58.940 |
I commit to a life of devotion, to pray regularly, interceding for the leadership and the members 00:49:13.220 |
Heavenly Father, would you help us and would you allow us to remember that this is not 00:49:20.900 |
just a call to pray because of guilt, that we haven't been doing it enough, but Father, 00:49:26.220 |
that we would come not to the symptom, but to the core root. 00:49:34.220 |
Can we honestly say we love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? 00:49:38.740 |
And instead of letting this become such a big gap, "Oh, I'll never get there. 00:49:45.980 |
And then starting to bring that standard down. 00:49:47.580 |
I pray, Father, instead that our eyes would just be very simple. 00:49:52.260 |
We would place it upon the Christ that died for us, that rose again, that offers us life, 00:49:58.980 |
that we would place our eyes on you, our creator, the sustainer, the holy one. 00:50:13.660 |
God, there is no one, nobody, nothing like you. 00:50:22.740 |
And Father, I pray that you would help us to stop placing our eyes on different things, 00:50:32.540 |
So Father, as we go into a time of response now, would you help us to pray? 00:50:40.620 |
Would you help us to pray in accordance to who you are and what we know you to be? 00:50:45.720 |
And so help us, God, to pray for your kingdom come, your will be done. 00:50:49.820 |
Instead of using prayer as an avenue to make my kingdom come and my will be done. 00:50:58.140 |
And Father, let every member here, as they go out to the different places in Orange County 00:51:02.740 |
or wherever it is, that we would be people who are marked by prayer.