The Path of Prayer

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our [email protected] we would love to stay connected with you throughout the week through social media, so be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Now. Enjoy the message. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Good morning, everybody. We are entering a new phase of our Healthy series where we're talking about the Lord's Prayer. In fact, I believe a healthy Christian is a Christian who communicates well with their heavenly Father. And when you read the Bible, that's God's means of communicating with us. But when we pray, it's our means of communicating with him. And prayer is an incredible privilege that every one of us have. Each one of us who know Jesus as our personal Savior, we have the incredible opportunity that and we have the wonderful privilege to go before our Heavenly Father each day, each moment of each day in prayer. I think we'd all agree that communication is the key to a healthy relationship. To be able to speak to someone, to share your heart, to share your thoughts, to be able then to listen to someone so that that communication goes both ways is the key to a very healthy relationship. When you communicate with someone and you share with them your heart, you are really being vulnerable. You're being open, you're being transparent. And there is just a connection you have when you can be that honest in a relationship, but then not just being able to talk to someone and express your heart, but to be able to hear that person. And people who are good at communication will talk about active listening. Active listening is when you listen to someone not only with your ears, but you listen to them with your eyes when they have your absolute full attention. Now, even in the healthiest of all marriages, people who study and people who track these kinds of statistics will say, this is gonna surprise you. Women are typically better at communicating their thoughts and their feelings than men. Now, did that shock anybody in the room? Now, that's what statistics will say, fellows, that they are actually better than at communicating than we are. In fact, how many of you ever had this experience? I've talked about this before, but how many of you women have ever looked at your husband, and maybe you're having these moments where you're talking a little bit and you're sharing with one another. Maybe it's out on the patio or maybe it's on a vacation and you look to your husband and you're just having this wonderful moment. And you say to him, what are you thinking right now? And then he looks back at you, and to your surprise and your disgust, he says, nothing. And how many of you women who have ever heard your husband say that have been angry at that response? Right? About nine out of ten of you. But can I help you with something, girls? Because I can speak from, you know, that male perspective. When your husband or your significant other looks at you and says to you, I am thinking nothing. Believe him. Believe him. There is absolutely nothing going on in that moment. Men have this incredible ability. We have a gift to turn it off. I mean, if you could put the EEG or the ek, whatever that is that measures your brain waves at that moment, it would be flatlining. It is a gift. Men, women, you don't understand that. You don't have that ability. God did not give you the ability to turn it off. Your mind is always at work. You're always thinking about things. That's why you have trouble going to sleep sometimes. You ever notice how your husband just roll over and he's out, and you're like, how do you sleep like that? Don't you know how many things we have to worry about? And you're thinking about what you did today, what you have to do tomorrow. You're worried about certain things. Everything is active. Your mind is just constantly working, and you don't understand. Well, honestly, he is telling you the truth. He's being very transparent in that moment, and he's really not thinking about anything. So don't worry that your marriage is in trouble or your communication isn't where it should be. In fact, when he says that to you, he's actually being very honest with you. So women typically are better at that. In fact, Gallup did a survey and found that women often pray more than men. I mean, women not only communicate better to their significant other, to their kids, to their friends, but they actually communicate with their heavenly father a little more consistently and better than men. I heard about three guys who were hiking. They came on this raging river and they had to cross. And so the first guy began to pray, and he said, God, give me strength to cross the river. And all of a sudden, his arms were massive and he was able to get into that stream, and he was able to swim to the other side. The second guy saw his friend and the power of his friend's prayer, and he said, God, give me the strength and give me the tools that I need to cross this river. His arms became massive, and suddenly he saw a rowboat tied to the shoreline and he got in it and he rowed to the other side. The third guy saw his first two buddies and heard their prayer and saw how God answered their prayer. And he said, God, give me not only the strength and not only the tools, but God give me the intelligence to be able to get across this river. And all of a sudden, miraculously, God turned this guy into a woman. She looked at. She looked at the map. She hiked upstream 50 yards and walked across the bridge. Sorry, guys. I thought that was kind of funny. When you figure that they have a greater ability to pray and they pray more often than we do, I thought that was powerful. But you know, oftentimes when you look into the Bible and you see the idea of pray or you see the, the word prayer, it is always associated with something that is sacred. Because prayer, when you boil it right down and you consider what prayer really is, prayer is just talking to God. That's why the Bible Sundays in Philippians 4, we are to pray always. In 1st Thessalonians 5, he says we're to pray without ceasing. Now what does that mean? That means we're to be in an attitude of prayer. We're to be in a place spiritually, emotionally, where we could reach out to God at any moment in time and we could pray to Him. In fact, when you read Luke 18 in verse one, the Bible says we should always pray. We should always pray. And when you think about it as a child of God, the failure to pray is in of itself a sin. Because when I don't pray, I am willfully choosing not to communicate with my heavenly Father. And I said that a sign of a healthy relationship is good communication where you speak and then you listen. And when we as Christ followers, when we as his kids, when we don't pray, we're making a conscious decision not to talk to God. We're just saying, you know, I don't have time. I'll wait till I'm in trouble, or whatever the justification of it is. But really, the failure to pray for a child of God is in itself a sin because it is the willful choice to not talk to our Heavenly Father. In fact, in the first century, when Jesus was on the earth, prayer had stagnated. People were not praying as they should because of the misinformation that the religious people were teaching them. They were making prayer out to be something that the average person didn't think they could do. For example, people who've studied this said prayer stagnated because of formalism. Formalism. People were taught that if you're going to pray and if God is going to hear your prayer, your prayers need to have a certain form. You can't just willy nilly, you know, just knee jerk and throw anything up toward heaven. Your prayer has to have a certain form. There were prayers for certain events. There were prayers for certain times of the day. And so people got frustrated because they didn't feel like they were connecting the prayer with the right form. They weren't putting it in the right order. So therefore God wouldn't hear them. And they just frustrated, they quit praying. So formalism, and not only formalism, but ritualism, began to be taught as well. Where there were just certain times of the day that you were to pray there, like Dr. Pepper, you know, 10, 2, and 4. There were just times like God keeps office hours, and if you really are going to reach heaven, you need to know when he's available. And so your prayers need to have a certain form, and they need to also follow a certain ritual. It got right down to how you approached God with your palms up or your palms down, with the knees bent or bowed, the direction you were facing, you're facing the east. And all of those things were important so that the religious orders taught they were important if you're going to reach God because you respect him in that you show him reverence by being someone disciplined to follow the rituals and to also follow the form. A third reason prayer stagnated in the first century is prayers were very long, very long. In fact, one of the prayers that rabbis taught was that there were actually 16 adjectives in front of the name of God, gracious and mighty and powerful, and, you know, and wa, wa, wa. It was like 16 adjectives. And not only did you have to have the right adjectives, you had to put them in the right order. And not only did you need the right adjectives in the right order, but you need to pray the prayer at the right time of the day. And then you need to be in the right posture of your prayer at the right time of the day with all those adjectives in the right order. Can you see how confusing prayer became? And people just stopped praying. And the last reason that prayer stagnated is prayers were repetitious. Repetitious. They followed the same order and form each and every day. And. And you were saying the same thing to God the same way every day, and they were just repetitious. I mean, it's a wonderful thing to teach our kids how to Pray when we teach them. Now I lay me down to sleep. This was always a strange part of the prayer. Pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, you wanna. Okay, kids, night, night. Now, if you were to die, that's kind of a strange thing. But anyway, the idea is that you're teaching your kids how to pray for. By giving them a certain form. But when you, you know, when you grow up, you need to break out of the form and kind of go on your own, right? You need to learn how to pray on your own. You don't need to follow that same form. It's like if you approached your spouse with the same words the same way every day, they wouldn't feel you're being authentic, and they wouldn't feel that you're really coming from the heart. So you shake it up, you change it up, and you try to tell them what's on your mind. But so prayer, all of those problems, all of those factors weighed into why people just got to where they didn't pray. So Jesus came on the scene and he really, he really shook all of that up. Jesus came on the scene and he really broke down and made prayer such a simple thing. In fact, he would tell his apostles, when you pray, in essence, just avoid three things in Matthew 6, and we'll get to the text in just a moment. But in Matthew 6, Jesus said, Just avoid these three things. Avoid hypocrisy. Don't be like a hypocrite when you come before your heavenly Father. Don't. Don't act like he doesn't already know the needs of your heart before you pray. That's why I often tell you, you know, to be honest in your prayer. If you're angry, pray an angry prayer. You say, I don't know if God. Well, it's not like he doesn't know you're angry. He's sovereign. So if you're confused, pray a confused prayer. I mean, be honest and open in your prayer. It's okay. God can handle it. And when you go before your heavenly Father, don't be hypocritical. Be open and honest and share with him your feelings. Share with him exactly what you're going through and your perception of what you're going through. He said, Jesus said, don't be a hypocrite. Avoid hypocrisy. By the way, the word hypocrite is interesting. It is the Greek idea of role playing. They talked about actors. It was playing a role. You're. You're Acting behind a mask. You have a facade. And that's not the real you. That's just the you you're presenting. And God says, don't come at me like that. I know you. I know where you lie down. And when you rise up, I made you. I know everything about you. Even the hairs of your head are numbered. And so he said, don't come at me with hypocrisy. Don't try to spin me and don't try to convince me. Just be open and honest. So avoid hypocrisy. The second thing he said to avoid when you pray in Matthew 6, he said, avoid this repetition. I touched on that a moment ago. In other words, don't come at him the same way every day. Change your prayer up a little bit. Now, I have certain things that I pray for every day. I have certain people I pray for every day. A couple of them, three of them, I've spotted in the house this morning. And there's certain people that are on my personal prayer list that I try to remember to pray for each and every day. And. And when you're praying through a list, you have to be careful that you don't pray the same prayer the same way every day. You gotta shake your game up a little bit. Cause you know you're talking to your heavenly Father. And so you don't wanna become repetitious. You don't want it to be vain and void. And so you try to approach him with openness and honesty. So avoid. Jesus said, hypocrisy, avoid repetition. And the third thing he said to avoid was pride is pride. Be humble. When you come into his presence, approach him with a sense of pride. And there's a beautiful illustration of what that looks like in Luke 18, where you have these two people who are going up into the temple. You have a very poor man, an average man, and you have this Pharisee, and they're both going into the temple. And the Bible contrasts how these two men approached God. The Pharisee, the very proud man. He stands so that everyone can see him praying, and he smites himself on his chest. And he says, I wanna thank you, God, that I'm not as all these other people are. Now, what arrogance is that? Can you imagine praying publicly and saying, God, I wanna thank you. I'm not like a bunch of these losers in here, you know? I mean, I'm just so glad that I'm not like a bunch of these people. Good night. I mean, I'm better than everybody else. And his prayer was you know, he's condescending and pontificating down to the people. And he was bragging. And when you read his PR bragged, he tells God everything he's doing as though he didn't know. He said, you know, I tithe I, I'm faithful in the temple. I do all these things that the average person doesn't do. And even the things that he was doing are commendable things. But he was so proud and arrogant in the way he approached it that the Bible here says that God essentially just turns his back on his prayer. And then he contrasts that with this average poor man who was so humble in the sight and the presence of God that the Bible said he did not as much as lift his eyes up to heaven. He was so over overwhelmed in the presence of God. He was so overwhelmed by how unworthy he was to be able to approach God that all his prayer was, was, lord have mercy on me, a sinner. And the Bible contrasts the two prayers of those two people. And the Bible says one man left the temple justified, made right with God and the other man didn't. And the one that was justified was the humble man who acknowledged who he was and who God was. And God heard his prayer. Why? Because it wasn't full of pride. It was just open and it was honest. Now, can you imagine as the apostles walked with Jesus, all the things that they saw him do? Have you ever had someone you had, you held them in high esteem until you got to know them. And once you got to know them, you wish you just didn't know them as well as you did. You know, it kind of burst the bubble. Maybe it's a celebrity or maybe it's some leader in a company or somebody you've admired or looked up to and you have this image of who they are and all of a sudden you have the opportunity to spend a little time with them and you just go, oh my goodness, they're not anything like I thought they would be. And all of a sudden your image of who they are is totally shattered because they're role playing. They're not who they are. Who they are in private is totally different than who they are in public. And that's the story that probably a lot of us could share. I can give you illustrations of people I've come across that are that way, that when I was younger it kind of got me a little disillusioned with some of them because a lot of them were leaders in ministry and I just didn't understand that. I've Often wondered, well, how can a person become so arrogant? Does popularity or maybe some level of success, does that make them that way? And I used to think, yeah, yeah, they were real humble when they were poor. They were real humble when no one knew them. And now that they're popular and now that they've attained this level of successor, so arrogant, nobody can stand them. So the idea some people had, well, it was their success or their popularity that brought about their arrogance. But I'm almost of the conclusion that they were arrogant all along, that the popularity or the success just gave them an opportunity to be who they were all along. They were just role playing until they got to a point where they could be who they actually were the whole time. I don't think it made them that way. I think it revealed who they really were the whole time. And I'm saying that to say if Jesus were not everything that he represented himself to be, the first people that would have seen that would have been his apostles. They were with him day in and day out. They saw him in good times and bad times, happy times and sad times, and they were astonished at how consistent he was. And they never questioned that he was the Son of God and all the things they saw him do. Think about it. He counseled with people. In fact, when John talks about the miracles that Jesus did, John said in the latter part of his book, he said if everything Jesus did in his lifetime were to be recorded, he said the volumes of books, the libraries, could not contain it. He did so many amazing things. So not all the things that Jesus did are recorded in the Scriptures. We just have a little snapshot of what his life and his activity looked like. But I'm just suggesting to you, as you think about this, when they saw him perform miracles, they saw him speak to large crowds. Remember the feeding of the 5,000? And they got hungry and he performed the miracle and fed them all enough. There were leftovers. They saw him walk on water and calm the storm. I mean, all the things they saw him do. I could imagine if I were learning from him, there were a lot of things that I might ask him to teach me how to do. Lord, how do you speak to a group that size and not lose their attention? I mean, the Bible says on the Sermon on the Mount and especially at the feeding of the 5,000, they said he went a long time, a long time. Now, I've told you my philosophy about that is I want to end, I want to get done before you are. That's what I want to do. I Want to finish before you do? But I've been in some. You ever been in some long church services? Good night. I mean, I remember my dad would have certain pastors in and they would preach an hour. An hour. They would go an hour. Now, I know it depends on who they are. I've never heard one. I've heard a lot of them. I've never heard one that can go an hour and keep me. I mean, I'm just. Man, the mind can only absorb what the backside can endure, for one thing. But the point is, Jesus preached a long time. Nobody left. They were mesmerized. I'm sure he had to use humor. I'm sure what he was teaching, they were captivated by. What's my point? The point is, the apostles knew that they were going to be following him. So you would think they would ask him, teach me how to speak. How do you do that? How can you be such an effective communicator? How do you do that? Or maybe they would have said, how do you handle these complex problems when people bring you these difficult things? How do you handle that with such wisdom? How do you know what to say and when to say it? And how do you know when to get upset and when not? I mean, you turned over those tables in the temple that time. I mean, wow, that's some righteous indignation. How do I know when I need to control that and when I need to reel that back? My point is, there's a lot of things they could have asked Jesus to teach them because they were with him day in and day out throughout his earthly ministry. But the one thing they saw him do that they wanted to do, just like he. He did it, was to pray. Isn't that amazing? In fact, in Luke, I have this verse for you. In Luke 11:1, they just said, lord, teach us to pray. And his response to that question is the Lord's Prayer. It's given there in Luke 11. It's given again in Matthew 6. I think Jesus taught this many times. The Bible records these occasions when it was reported that he taught this. But I think this was kind of a thing that he was teaching them because this was so important to having a healthy relationship with your heavenly Father, was having clear communication. You want to know how to pray? Look at Matthew 6. Look at verse 9. In fact, Chima led us in this a moment ago. After this manner, he said, therefore pray. Here it is. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. He said, that's the model prayer. You want me to teach you how to pray? That's it. And over the next few weeks, I want to dissect this prayer. I just want to take it line by line, and I want to talk about all of the elements that are significant. As Jesus was teaching us this prayer, path to power, this pathway to prayer. I heard about a church that was teaching this particular prayer. And in some of the classes where the little kids were, they were learning to memorize the Lord's Prayer. And so the parents, like many of you will do when you leave here, you might ask the kids that are in met kids, well, what'd you learn today? What'd they teach you today? And they asked their little boy that question. And he said, well, I learned the model prayer. They said, well, can you recite it? He said, I can part of it. And he said, our Father who does art in heaven, Harold is his name. That was close. That was close. But the point is, in that prayer, we see Jesus breaking it down so that we can comprehend. How do you approach God? So I wanna do that for you. I just wanna take this first line. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And the first thing I wanna point out before we go home is it talks about our relationship to God. Jesus reminds us, he says he is our Father. Now, the reason that's important is because in Judaism, there was such a fear of God. In that first century, people had been taught that you don't approach God with familiarity. You approach God not just with reverence and respect, but you reproach God with a sense of fear. And so the idea that he is our Father was foreign to the way so many people thought about him. In fact, when you look how Jesus prayed, Jesus prayed my Father. And oftentimes he would pray our Father. And throughout Jesus earthly ministry, he referred to God as his Father. In fact, when you look at the scriptures in the life of Jesus, there's only one time when Jesus does not refer to his Father as God, rather as his Father. And that was on the cross. And on the cross, Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, what's the difference there? Well, when you understand what was happening at the cross, at the cross, Jesus Christ completely became sin. He who knew no sin became sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Think about this. When Jesus hung on the cross, all of the sins past, all of the sins present, all of the sins forward until the day Jesus returns again. All of those sins were rolled upon Jesus there at the cross. And it suddenly became as dark midnight at noonday when the sins of the world were rolled upon Jesus. And the Bible says God had to turn his back on his son. And out of that darkness, Jesus does not any longer see him as his father. He sees him now as his God. And he's seeing a God who has forsaken him simply because he had completely become sin for us. Now, after that atonement was made on the cross, you notice that the prayer changes and Jesus cries out, father, into thy hands I commend my spirit tetelestai. It is done. It is finished. Now what had happened at the cross is Jesus had paid for sin and he had become the propitiation, the payment for our sin. And in that moment when all of the sins of the world were rolled upon him, his Father forsook him and he didn't seem as his God. As father, he saw him as God. And that's the only time in recorded scripture where Jesus ever refers to his heavenly father as his God was when he became sin at the cross. And once the payment of sin was made at the cross and he satisfied the justice of God on sin, he sees God back in that different light. He says, father, again into thy hands I commend my spirit. It is finished. So Jesus was trying to change the perception that people had when they prayed. He said, approach God this way. Just call him your father. Romans 8:15. You receive the spirit of adoption by whom you cry out, abba, father. In other words, you approach God with a sense of familiarity. He is your heavenly father. He's your dad. Now I can tell you when you approach. When my kids approached me when they were little, around the house, they had no problem calling out to me when they had a problem. No problem calling out to me when they had a problem. Mainly it was money. When they needed a little money. Any you dads and mamas have that? Do your kids fear and approach? My kids didn't try to find the right form. They didn't try to find the right time. Not a good time to approach dad. They didn't try to find the right words, oh gracious and mighty and powerful one that inhabits the cab of his truck. You know, none of that, hey, dad, I took 20 bucks out of your Wallet. And sometimes you didn't find that out till you got somewhere and thought you had 20, and you don't. I'm just saying our kids don't fear us that way. There is a familiarity that we want to have with our kids. Why? We want the relationship to be authentic. If your kids start treating you the way some of us treat God, you think something's wrong with them or you, why don't you talk to me? And when you talk to me, why do you approach me like that? Who you trying to fool? I know you. I know what's going on with you. I know you better than you know you. I mean. And so when Jesus was talking to his kids, he was saying, approach your heavenly Father like you approach your earthly Father and understand that there is a relationship you have with Him. Listen, there's nothing you could do to make him love you more, and there's nothing you could do to make him love you less. So the first step to prayer is understanding. The door is open. Understanding the access is available. Understand the only thing keeping you from connecting to God in your prayer is just your hesitancy or your reluctance. You just approach him and be honest with him when you say God, I'm worried about this. I got a big day tomorrow. Monday's rolling around. The 15th is coming up. I'm worried. You know, whatever it is is on your head, in your head. I pray this next round of tests will be good. I'm just a little concerned about it. I mean, just be honest and open. Approach him that way and realize he's your Father and He hears you and he cares about you. I mentioned a moment ago, the hairs of your head are numbered. There's another verse where he says, I see the sparrow when it falls. He's trying to say, I see the most minute and the smallest things in nature. I see the littlest things about you. I care about those things. If it's big enough to bother you, it's big enough to move the heart of God. So Jesus said, he begins this path to power and this path to prayer by saying, look, understand your relationship. He's our Father. Look at the second part of this. He's our Father who art, which art in heaven. What does that mean? That's the domain. That's the kingdom of God, is heaven. And Jesus always saw His Father in heaven. Remember in John when He was telling his apostles not to let their hearts be troubled? And then he said, in my Father's house. He pictures heaven like a big house in my Father's House are many mansions, he said. So he saw his Father who lives in heaven. And when Jesus ascended, he ascended into the presence of his Father who is in heaven. And so this idea that God is in heaven above, it talks about our rulership, recognizing he's the king. He has a kingdom, he rules over the earth. He sees everything, he knows everything. One day he'll judge everything. And so God is a God who is in heaven. In fact, listen to how Paul describes him. Paul said in Ephesians 4, verse 6, God is above all, he's through all. And I love this translation cause it sounds like a southerner. And he's in you all, he's in y'. All. So he said, God is above all. Above all. What does that mean? Transcendent. And most religions believe God is transcendent. We believe he's transcendent, but they stop there. They believe he's transcendent in the sense that he's not available. What was the Bette Midler song? From a distance, God is watching. And so there are people who have this idea that God is there, but he's distant. He's a distant deity. He's not a father. He's a force or an entity who cannot be moved. He doesn't have emotion. Well, the reason you and I have emotion and the reason that we can be moved is we're in the imago dei, we're in the image of God. He formed us like himself. So we're in the marred image of God because we're in the fallen image of man. So we're not like the original design. We're erect version of the original design. And once we know Jesus, he begins the process now of trying to pull the dents out and conform us, Romans 8, 9 or 29 into the image of his son. So once you know Jesus, you go into the body shop and it takes you a lifetime. And he's trying to get you back to the original design. But I'm saying we have emotion because God has emotion. We feel because he can feel. And so never think that because God is transcendent, because he's above everything, that he's not through all and he's not in you all. That means he's imminent. How can God be both transcendent and imminent? It's a mystery. I can't explain it. But I'm just saying Paul comprehended it. That God can be both transcendent and he can be imminent. The same sun that can heat the universe can ripen a cluster of grapes as though it has nothing else to do. The same God that overlooks all of the universe can care about me and can care about you as though we're the only people in his concern. So one of the things Jesus said is, remember where he is. Remember that your heavenly Father, when you pray, he's above all. He sees all. He's looking on everything. He's transcendent, and he's imminent. He rules over everything. Next week, I'm gonna touch on. One of the difficult things about prayer is praying God's will to be done and prayer isn't bending his will to our will. And I'm gonna get into that a little bit, because God only wants for us what we would want for us if we just knew what he knows. So God is above all. God is seeing all. There's nothing that escapes his attention. By the way. He not only sees the things that happen around us, he sees the things that happen within us. He knows our hearts. He knows what's going on. That's why I said earlier, pray mad. If you're mad, pray a mad prayer. If you're confused, pray a confused. He already knows the condition of your heart. So Jesus said, man, when you pray, understand the relationship you have with God. Understand his rulership, that he's the Lord of your life, that he's concerned about everything. He sees everything. He is a Father, and he's a Father who is in heaven. And then let me give you the third thought, and we'll go home. Not only does this involve our relationship and our rulership, but then he said, hallowed be thy name. It involves our reverence. Our reverence. Respect. Hallowed. The idea of hallowed is to reverence him and recognize him as holy. That he's different from all others, that he is God and God alone. That's why he said in the top 10 in Exodus 20, you shall have no other gods before me. There's no other God should be in place of me. There should not be anyone in your life more significant than me. No other gods before me. He said, don't even worship a graven image. Don't even put anything that looks like me in that path and worship it instead of me. It'd be like being on a business trip, guys and. Or gals. And while you're on this trip, you meet someone and so you have dinner with someone. Then you feel bad about that and your spouse calls you and you go, yeah, I'm at dinner. Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden, they're not comfortable with the conversation, and you say, look, the only reason I went out with them is cause they made me think of you. They're so much like you. Would anybody in the room buy that? No, I'm just saying graven image means we're trying to tell God there's someone else or something else out there that's just like him and we prefer them over Him. He's saying, hey, hey, don't play those games, man. You've got me. You've got me. You've got a relationship with me. Let's keep that. Let's keep that tight. Let's keep that close. And so when you understand that we are to reverence him and we're to respect him, and he is our Heavenly Father, he is our God, and we approach him with that sense of respect, there's a difference between reverence and fear. Some people interpret that, hallowed be Thy name, as you approach God with a sense of fear. Well, I touched that on that a little earlier. I think there is probably an element to fear, that it's okay to be. To have a healthy view of God, that we have a sense of fear in that we know what he's capable of doing. When Jesus talked about the Great Commission in Matthew 28, he said, all power. Again in Acts, chapter 1:8, all power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. In other words, he's not just powerful, he's all powerful. He has all the power. And so there's a sense in which there is a fear factor. But it's not. I would describe it this way. It's not cringing dread of God. It's a respect of what he's capable of doing and what he's able to do. I read this little. Hopefully I remember it correctly, but I read this story about an ancient king back when the kings went to battle with armor, full armor. And this king was a good king. He loved his family. And every time he went into battle, not knowing if he had returned home safely, he would always hug his children before he left. And as he was mounted and ready to ride and lead his troops into war, he realized, I hadn't hugged my children. And so he gets off of his mount and he runs back into the palace area, and the kids are there. And they'd seen their father, obviously, every day, but they'd never seen him in his armor. And when he ran in his armor, they stepped back from him in fear of him. And he pulled his helmet off so they could see who he is. And they recognize him as their father. And all of a Sudden, their hearts were warmed and they embraced, and he went out and led his troops into battle. And I think sometimes when we read the Bible, we see God in his armor. Man, he looks kind of scary in that Old Testament. He went Old Testament on those people, and we have this sense of fear. That, man, talk about a bunker buster, man. This God can do anything. He can take anything he is capable of. There's nothing too hard. God is a awesome, powerful God. And you're just talking about. And so sometimes as his kids, we kind of back away from him. And he pulls his helmet off and he says, remember what Jesus said. He said, I'm your dad. I'm still. Yeah, I'm powerful. And, yeah, I can do things that no one else can do, but I still love you. And if you had been the only person in the world to redeem, I would have gone to the cross just for you. And so we approach him, Abba Father, with reverence, with respect, with awe, knowing he occupies heaven and knowing one day we're gonna join him in that place called heaven. But until we get there, he's still in all of us. He's through all of us. He cares for all of us. And he's as close as a prayer. And if I could challenge you over the next few weeks to do anything, I would challenge you to commit yourself to praying. It's not that we don't pray correctly. It's that we just don't pray at all. And I would challenge you just to connect prayer to something you do every day. Maybe your prayer time is when you're in the shower, right, and you're praying. Maybe your prayer time is your commute. I mean, it's a good time to pray, right? You're driving that traffic around here. That's a great time to pray. Or maybe navigating the roundabout. Oh, dear God, you know, please teach those people to drive the roundabout. You know, I'm just saying connect it to something you do every day and make it natural, make it real. What I mean by that is, when you find yourself worrying about something, connect prayer with the thing you worry about. And the minute you start worrying about it, pray about it. Just immediately, automatically let your mind go there. I'm worried about this. God, help me not to worry about that. I'm gonna put this in your hands. I'm gonna trust you. God, I'm worried. I'm gonna put this in your hand. I'm gonna trust you. Because he will not fail. He cannot fail again. I'll get to that next week on his will. But I'm just suggesting to your minds and hearts that God does love you. He does love me. And he wants a relationship with us. He wants it open and honest. He loves the communication. So don't forget to pray. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for the opportunity that we can be reminded that you not only inhabit the praises of your people, but you're moved through the prayers of your people. So Father, help us to be a people of prayer. You said concerning your church that your church should be a house of prayer. So healthy churches are churches that pray. Healthy people are people who pray. Pray. And good communication impacts all of us. So Father, help us to really comprehend and understand and commit to the discipline of prayer. And I pray for my friends here, maybe who've never trusted you as their Savior. This might be the moment, this might be the morning when they settle that once and for all, when they pray a simple prayer like this right where they are watching online, listening to a podcast. Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive my sin. I believe, Lord, that you died on that cross for me. And so with all that I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Week. [00:39:28] Speaker A: We look forward to seeing you next week.