Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: It is wonderful to see you all.
It's good to meet with the family of God, isn't it?
Yeah. All over the world today, the family of God are meeting, some in Newton Abbott, some in London and up north, and wherever people are meeting to honor the name of Jesus. Can I just thank Jill? And where's Kelly? Kelly this morning? So Friday, we had that dreaded phone call that went, I'm ill. I can't lead worship phone call. And we're like, oh, no, oh, no. And we hadn't got anybody else available and we were in the middle of a church plant, so we thought, well, I can't sing. My voice is just about okay.
So we rang at Kelly and Jill. And Kelly and Jill. Let me just say, right, there is a lovely sense of God's presence here. This, you know, to step out. It's a massive thing to step out and be in front of people.
And you just brought that lovely sense and you helped us and you enabled us to really magnify the name of Jesus this morning. So thank you so much. Thank you for that. And, yeah, thank you.
Well, I've got a bit of a locket going on here, if that's okay.
So I don't crumble under my voice, but we're going to get through. We're going to get through. I believe God's got a good word for us this morning. Amen.
Okay, so last week, I promised you that I would show you a video of when we went away. Is it not working?
Okay, I promised you.
There we go. Sorry. There we go.
Save me shouting. Yeah. I promised you a video of snow. Yeah. Does anybody remember that? Okay, and we're starting this whole thing of prayer this year. So between January and March this year, we're going to be looking at prayer as a church. And I believe God's going to really start shaping people's prayer lives afresh and new this year. And who would love that in their own life? I would.
And so what happened is we went to Scotland with the family.
I'm one of five, so you can imagine how mad it is. And my brother from Australia came over for a month in December with his children and his wife, his lovely wife. And the children have never, ever played in snow. They're like eight and ten and they've never played in snow. They were born in Australia. And in November, Heidi and I, this is my amazing intercessor prayer partner, my 13 year old daughter. In November, we decided to pray for snow in Avimore, Scotland. And you can imagine the weeks are going by and my family, we're all on this Avimore WhatsApp group, and the men are all sending in these weather reports going, let's not disappoint the kids. It's not going to happen. And I'm underneath going, oh, it's coming all right.
We've prayed it's coming. And they're all laughing, going, oh, she thinks she's the weather girl now, and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, jesus, you've got to back me up here. I'm telling everybody that snow is coming on Christmas Day. Well, it's now Christmas Eve. It's not even in the minuses in Scotland, it's not even minus. It's just like one, two degrees, nothing. Matt, you can back me up here, right? Everybody's saying in the UK, snow is not coming.
02:00 p.m. Christmas Day. We are sat down as a family to eat our lunch. I get quite emotional because Jesus loves to answer our prayers.
And we're sat there and these kids are screaming because outside the white stuff starts to fall at 02:00 p.m. Christmas day, as we are eating our lunch. And just to prove it. Are you ready? Thanks, Gordon. Are we gonna.
You might hear my crazy family in the background.
Here we go. Can you see? It's.
You see it all coming down. And then on the left was the morning after. So at 02:00 p.m. Christmas day, this was Boxing day, and this was my golden doodle playing in the snow. So isn't God good?
Isn't God amazing church? So there you go. Just to prove that Jesus does love to answer our prayers. But you know, the biggest challenge of that, and here's the biggest challenge, and we're going to look at that as we journey over prayer. Lord, if you can send snow, why did my loved one not get healed of cancer?
These are biggies, aren't they?
They're biggies.
And we're going to journey through this and we're going to set the scene today. Looking at. Actually, we're going to focus a lot in the New Testament and New Testament prayer. But this morning, I just want to set the scene with Moses and his relationship with God.
And we're going to have a bit of an insight into Moses with God. And. Yeah, can we just bow our heads? I want to pray this. I believe God wants to talk to us. So, Lord, we bless you this morning.
We bless you and we welcome you in this place.
Lord, will you speak to us this morning? Will you inspire us again at the start of this year? Will you come, precious holy spirit, open our spiritual eyes and our hearts, Lord, because we're a people that are hungry. We're a people who want more of you in our lives. We're a people, Father, who we're thankful for 2023. But, Lord, we know there's more. There's more that you have for us, for our families, for our lives, for our worksplaces, for our streets, our neighborhoods.
So, Lord, we bless you this morning, and we honor you in this place. Amen and amen. So over last year, let me just do a really quick recap, because I think the Lord is just really sending us on this journey. Last year, we looked at biblical discipleship. And I'll just do a bit of recap for those that weren't with know biblical discipleship. Being a follower of Jesus is really key to being a Christian. We are disciples. If you are a follower of Jesus, you love Jesus. You are a disciple of Jesus. And we looked right at the start of. Right.
Am I okay? Yeah. Sound wise. Acts. In the book of acts, the day of Pentecost had happened. Okay. God poured out his spirit. Everybody remember that. God poured out his spirit. And Peter stands up to give this wonderful, very simple but profound sermon about Jesus Christ. It's the gospel, basically.
And people are so upset about Jesus going to the cross, they were cut to the heart. Have we really caused this? Has our sin?
Has our sin and the weight of our sin caused God to come down in flesh and take that sin upon his own shoulders?
Is that what our sin, our lives have done? And Peter's like, yeah.
Let us never tire of the gospel church, of that message that God sent a sinless, perfect savior to die in my place and your place. And I actually think the fullness and the understanding of that fully won't come until we're in glory.
But surely my prayer this year is, lord, I want a little bit of that glory. I want to see that afresh this year. The extent of your love and your grace over my life. I never just want to go, oh, hey, yeah, he did that for me. Now let's move on. Never. And so the people said, what must we do? I've got to stop getting so excited because my preacher's voice is going to go, and then you'll have to have Ruben.
And then Peter says, okay. And the people say, what must we do to be saved? Like, what must we do? And Peter comes up with four key things, and they are very key. And it's a bit like a chair. First thing, believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins this morning. If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, can I say, turn that around before you leave this place. Give your life to him. Believe in him. Believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
Be baptized.
Repent. This isn't in this order. Repent. Turn away from your sin. Come back to God. Come home to God. And then the fourth thing, receive the Holy Spirit. And you see church being a disciple of Jesus Christ, you can't have three and not another. You see, if we, oh, don't know the water down here.
If we try to believe in Jesus without repentance, this is what's going to happen to our lives.
If we try and have Jesus without receiving the Holy Spirit, do you see what happens? We're shaky. And I think some of us feel that we can believe in Jesus, but we don't need anything else in our lives. We need the power of the Holy Spirit this year. We need the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to keep our lives right. Say, Lord, if anything I'm doing in my life, do you remember that psalm? Search me, o God. Make it a regular prayer in your life. Search me, o Lord, if there's anything in me. Because that's the way we're going to keep the unity of the spirit. Lord, if there's anything in me, I want to walk with humility this year. Show me there's anything in my life that shouldn't be there. Forgive me, forgive me.
And for those who haven't been baptized in water, going down into the waters, being buried, dead, buried and rising with him. Over the years of pastoral ministry, I've had people say, why do I have to get baptized in water?
What does that really, really matter? And I'll say to you, the simple answer is, because Jesus commands it.
Because Jesus says so.
This year, as a church, let's do things because he says so. It might be uncomfortable for us, but because he says so. Okay, let's get on to this morning. So let me set the scene with Moses this morning and then in the next couple of weeks we're going to move on to some other stuff. Right at the start of, we read over the 30 days, which is incredible. Well done to those who kind of hop, skip and jumped maybe a little bit like I did over the 30 days. Anybody hop, skip and jump a little bit. That's okay. All right. But one of the greatest passages I think we read over the Christmas time was the book of Exodus. Incredible, meaty book of the Bible. I encourage you at the start of this year to go and read Exodus. And so this story, really, in a nutshell, is the people of Israel have been in slavery. How many of us remember a time, have been enslaved by the God of this world?
They were enslaved. And then the deliverer, Moses, comes. Are we thanking God this morning for Jesus Christ, our deliverer? Absolutely. Delivered this morning. Okay. And then the journey begins.
You've got to walk with Jesus. You've accepted him. He saved you, delivered you. Now you've got to walk with Jesus.
And how many of us know that it's no picnic in the park at times?
And so the journey began for the Israelites. And it's not long after the journey had begun for the Israelites that God and Moses meet together in the mountain, up the mountain, right at the start of this journey in 2024. I encourage you, church, to get practicing God's presence, to get practicing prayer. If we neglected prayer last year, and it happens to us all, we have seasons where we're busy or we're distracted.
But let me encourage you at the start of this year to say, lord, every single day, I have to come and kneel before you. I have to.
And Moses, at the start of this journey, he goes up the mountain. And this is what's happening. He actually goes up the mountain for 40 days. Can you imagine? He's up there for 40 days on a mountain. I hope it's a nice mountain. Hope it's got some shelter and a bit of comfort up there. And I don't know, but he was up there for 40 days. And Moses is seeing the manifest glory of God, while Moses is meeting with God. And remember, Moses chooses to go up the mountain. It's a choice for him. Moses gets the mountain. He's meeting with God. He's seeing the manifest glory of God. But you see, down the mountain, the people are manufacturing the presence of God.
They're saying, where's this man Moses?
Where has he gone? Like, he's been gone for days now.
Is he coming back? What's happened to him? What is he even doing? See, Moses was enjoying the presence of God.
Moses was having dialogue with God.
Moses was getting intimate with God. But, you see, the people down the mountain got impatient.
They didn't want to hang around and pray and wait. They got so impatient that they decided to make a golden calf.
And you can read it in exodus thirty s or something like that.
And so they made a substitute for the presence of God in their lives.
And they made this golden calf.
One of the biggest lies of the enemy when it comes to prayer is that praying is a waste of time.
Anybody ever prayed, and in the back of your mind, you're thinking, is God really hearing my prayers? Is he really hearing what I'm saying? Or is that just me?
Is he really hearing?
Is he going to respond to me? Is he there? I mean, it's been two weeks now. It's been three weeks. I've been knocking, is he really there? And the people got so impatient that they decided to manufacture the presence of God themselves. They built this golden calf, and here they even said, here we go. Here's our God that brought us out of Egypt.
Shocking how far, and only in 40 days, they had fallen away from their eyes towards the presence of God. And what God wanted to do and lead them to saying, we can't wait around. We're not hanging around here.
When they built that golden calf, they were basically saying that prayer is a waste of time. They were basically saying that you can't have a relationship with God. They were basically saying, nothing happens when you pray. That is an absolute lie of the enemy church. I want to tell you right now, I have experienced God do wonderful things. There'll be times where he has healed people.
There's been times when he's come and he's brought the snow.
And they grew impatient.
They took matters into their own hands.
By the next chapter, Moses had come down the mountain, and it's disastrous.
And it talks about Moses coming down the mountain, and obviously God's angry. Moses is angry. The situation is dire. The people have completely turned away from God.
And it says that Moses. This is what he does.
He used to get a tent and pitch it outside the camp. And I can understand why. He probably pitched it outside the camp, away from the people.
And he got a tent. He pitched it outside the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And every time Moses wanted to inquire of the Lord, he would walk through the camp outside the camp, and he would go into that tent of meeting. And the scriptures tell us that when this pillar of cloud came over the tent of meeting, the people would come out of their own tents. They would stand outside their tents, and they would worship the Lord.
But Moses would go in with God and meet with God. And here's the thing. And this is about next generations coming up. Joshua.
Moses'aid his kind of help, who then eventually took on the leadership. He never left the tent of meeting. The entrance of the tent of meeting. When Moses was there because Moses and Joshua knew that prayer was the doorway into the presence of God.
It was the doorway into the presence of God.
Will we be a praying people this year?
Will we be a praying people this year?
Here's the thing. When Moses went into the tent and meeting, I love that we sang about being a friend of God, God being our father. I think it was in the goodness of God's song. I've known you as a father. I've known you as a friend. And scripture tells us that the Lord spoke to Moses as one speaks to a friend.
If that isn't a model of prayer, I don't know what is.
Like, we'll get onto the New Testament stuff and the models of prayer, but to start us off this year, I believe the Lord wants us to come to him as one and speak to him as one comes to a friend. I remember Heidi and I praying and I'm like, oh, Lord Jesus, do it for us. I know you love us.
Will you? I know you're not Santa, and I know I'm not coming to you like Santa. I just believe you're so good.
I just believe you're so good and you love us and you love your children.
Come to him as a friend this year. Church.
I believe some of our prayers are going to be shaped. You know, I remember being in my, this is ridiculous. And part of a very large church. And I was about 1920, and we were in a prayer gathering one night and we broke into groups because we were so large that we had like groups of 20 slots with each around this auditorium. And I sat with my 20 group. I was about 1920 and we were going around praying and I decided that I was going to pray this most amazing prayer. Okay? And let me tell you, when I prayed this prayer, it sounded amazing.
And in my heart I was like, they're going to think as I'm praying it. And it all went well. I'm thinking they're all going to think that. Doesn't Esther pray well?
You know what? The Holy Spirit, when I got back home, absolutely rebuked me in the nicest way he could because I was realizing at that moment I wasn't praying to God.
I was praying for the effect and to everybody else in the room that they would think I was marvelous at praying.
Wow, what a wake up call.
We are not praying. That's why I love prayer meetings. I often say to people, you're in a prayer meeting. If you want to learn how to pray, get into a prayer meeting with people who know how to pray.
And I love prayer meetings where we're not sat round, particularly listening to one another, because that's not the art of praying. It's not the reason we pray to listen to one another.
God wants our hearts. He loves it when we're raw.
Over the next coming weeks, on Sundays, we're going to have opportunities where we're going to have people praying out, get ready. You're going to get ready.
Don't be too long, otherwise we'll do a water gun or something at you. But we want people standing up just saying, lord, we just praise you, we honor you, we thank you, we glorify your name.
And so Moses is in this tent of meeting. He would speak to the Lord, or the Lord would speak to him as one speaks to a friend.
Incredible. And then Moses, there's one conversation that God has with Moses. I'm going to watch a clip in a moment, actually. I'll explain a little bit in a moment. There's one conversation that God has with Moses, or Moses has with God, actually. And so when Moses comes down the mountain, he goes to the tent of meeting and he meets with God. It's a regular thing for him. He wants to dialogue with God, and God is so angry with the people. And this is what God says to Moses. He says, I'm going to let you go to the promised land, but I'm not going to go with you.
So, in other words, I'm going to give you my blessing because I promised it. You're going to have it, but I'm not going with you.
Can you imagine that?
And I think sometimes, and I'm guilty of it, that in prayer, all I've wanted is the prize, the blessing, the answer, without wanting him.
I believe God this year as we want him, as we seek first him, his righteousness. I believe other things are going to be answered as well. And here's this interesting thing, because Moses goes to God, and this is all about friendship. He goes to God and he says, yeah, but, lord, I want to remind you that no one will know who we are if you don't go with us.
No one's going to know who we are.
No one's going to distinguish us from other peoples across the nations of the earth if you do not go with us.
So how's that going to go, Lord?
And then it says that this is what God says in return. He says, okay, I'm going to do what you asked.
Moses is so specific with God in your prayers this year. Be specific.
There are so many occasions in scripture where people have changed the heart of God.
Sometimes we hear a lot of teaching that says, well, God has his plans and he absolutely does. And we'll be looking at this in a couple of weeks. God has his plans, yes.
And he does direct our paths. Yes.
But I believe God loves prayers like Moses that say, hang on a minute, Lord, I need to remind you of what you said. I need to remind you of this promise over our lives.
And the Lord turns around and he says, okay, I'm going to do what you've asked. I'm going to go with you. I find that incredible because just a few passages earlier, the Lord is saying, okay, you can have the promised land, but I'm not going with you. And Moses stands there and he says, well, Lord, I actually don't want the promised land if you're not going to be there. I don't want the land of milk and honey if you are not going to be there.
We don't want to just set up every Sunday if God is not going to be in this place, we don't want to be a church that just strives and does a load of busyness and a load of activity. This year, if God is not with us. We've been very, very intentional as a church that we haven't gone in 100 miles an hour to take over everything and do everything all at once. Because this year is Lord, we've got to know before we step out, Lord, that your presence is going with us and his presence is with us.
It is with us. But you see, prayer is going to open that door to a greater level of his glory, a greater level of his manifest presence in us.
You know, the Bible says that the God of this age has blinded unbelievers. They can't see the glory of God in the image of Christ Jesus image. When we talk of image, it is so important because the Israelites set up their image of a golden calf church. I want us to see this year the glory of God in the image of Christ. And the unbelievers are only going to see the glory of God in the image of Christ. Through who?
Us.
Through the church we get to reflect, being disciples, all in on this journey, the glory of God and the image of Christ to the unbelievers.
When I read scripture like that, about that, the God of this age has blinded unbelievers. I get mad.
I get so mad.
I want scales to come down this year.
I want spiritual eyes to open all around Newton Abbot, in my neighborhood, in my street, in my family. For people to go, what must I do to be saved?
And Moses said, I can't go. I don't want your blessing, Lord. I don't even want the land of milk and honey if you are not going with me.
In other words, Moses knew it, Joshua knew it. That, Lord, your presence is everything. And we're holding on to your presence. And it is in prayer that that is the doorway that we come before the Lord. And we say, lord, I'm coming into to your presence.
We're going to look at different ways we do that this year. And we're going to hope to have like a little snippet for you, a little video clip for you. And we're going to watch Pete Greg and some of you know Pete Greg from the 24/7 prayer ministry. And he explains a time in his life when he wanted to get intimate with God in prayer. But he had a young family and we're going to watch snippets. So if you got young families this morning, this may be a little bit of encouragement to you when we come to look at prayer this year. Thanks, Gordon.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: That moment, little Danny starts crying.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: We just go back to 30 to.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Rebuke him in the name of Jesus.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: And he needed brilliant.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Divine love and presence that is here. And let me try and push this a tiny bit further because I loved what you said about being a busy mom and all of that stuff. Firstly, I was primary carer for our kids for a number of years. And I remember going to the prayer room at 03:00 a.m. Taking a few months old baby. He was asleep in his thing, going in. I was tired.
I felt like I need to be awake when the baby's asleep. Like a hole in the head. She was waking every 2 hours. At stage, I settle in, I'm like, okay, jesus, it's you and me. And at that moment, little Danny starts crying. And I'm all ready to rebuke him in the name of Jesus. And he did his nappy, his diaper changed. And I was deeply resenting this intrusion on my hour know esoteric stillness. And I realized, and this is deeply celtic holistic spirituality here. I need to forgive me, but I need to find Jesus in the changing of the diaper or I will never find Jesus. So this is a little graphic, but we're humans. As I'm wiping the Whatsapp off his backside, I am realizing this is my sin.
And as I'm tenderly cleansing him, I'm repenting and receiving forgiveness. And that lovely moment when they've got a clean diaper on. They're all cuddly. I'm thinking about the father. So I had to take the thing that felt like a distraction and make it my moment of encounter and let me apply that in a different way. Most of the books on spirituality have been written by hyperintroverts.
Start to explore those bits of the bible for that.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: Okay, we'll just stop it there because of time. But it is this whole idea that making prayer every part of our everyday lives. I don't know about you, but I was particularly grown up where you would have to go away and have a quiet time in the quiet.
I know some people here, they go jogging and they hear God and they hear his voice. I think there are times to be quiet. But isn't that a lovely example for us? Particularly encouraging if you've got small children and you're thinking in their everyday, how do I get time with the Lord every day? How do I get into his presence? How do I seek him every day? So we're going to have snippets of those throughout. Okay, I'm going to wrap up this morning.
So Moses, he's gone up the mountain to seek God.
He comes down the mountain to find. People are so impatient, and they're not seeking the presence of God. They've put a substitute in place.
Maybe this year there are some things that we need to get rid of out of our lives that we've substituted, at times, the presence of God for the presence of something else.
And that thing can just go in order to make room for the Lord. This year, your prayer church is what we were created for, right in the garden of Eden. There's this lovely scene where the Lord is walking in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve, this lovely friendship with God, this dialogue, this fellowship, and we know that sin destroyed all that. But thank God this morning that Jesus has made the way. Jesus has made a way. We're restored. So let me just go through these, and then we're actually going to finish with the Lord's prayer together. So to wrap this up quickly, when we pray this year, this is, like, so obvious.
It's so obvious.
But at 1920, when I was in my prayer time, it wasn't so obvious.
When we pray, we're praying to him.
We're praying to our Father in heaven.
We have a father in heaven who loves us. That is the reality today. We're praying to our father through the name of Jesus. We come through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Incredible. We are communicating with Almighty God.
The second thing to remember is that when we're praying in this communication, that we are aware of his presence when we come. And on a Sunday, can I encourage you something Phil and I do quite often on a Saturday night, we prepare ourselves for Sundays, so we'll have a time of prayer, or we'll cancel certain things in the home in order to get our minds prepared. But can I encourage you when you come on a Sunday, although if you come in in a car full of kids, usually those are the most stressful times.
But come and just say, Lord, I just posture my heart, prepare my heart.
I'm going to come and worship you this morning.
I love this morning. I love that hearing the sound of the church worshipping this morning. Yeah, things were a bit different. We didn't have instruments here, but that didn't interrupt things. People came this morning saying, we're going to worship the Lord. We're going to worship him. And can I encourage you that when we come into our prayer times this year, that we're doing more than just airing our feelings ever had those kind of times where we're just expressing our thoughts, we're just expressing how we feel. And that's so okay. But sometimes in my prayer time, all I've done is I've just almost had a bit of a time with a counselor, and so I'll just air my thoughts and then gone away as we come. Let's say, lord, I'm coming with more than my thoughts to you. I'm coming to worship you. I'm coming to love you. I'm coming as a friend. This is a two way thing. This is not just me coming and loading it all. This is a two way thing. This is being aware of his presence. Third thing is, we can come boldly. We can absolutely come boldly.
None of us are deserving. I'll just tell you that right now.
But we have had the invitation to come boldly. Do you know you've had the invitation?
The invitation's there. We either accept the invitation or we don't.
I think sometimes in church life we go, well, I haven't exactly been great, and I haven't done it. Do you know what? It's not on you. It's not on you.
Do what we need to do. Yes. Come humbly and repent and do what we need to do. Yes, those are scriptural, biblical things, but it's not on you coming to him. He has done everything for you. We have a ticket. It is through the blood of Jesus.
To come into his presence and to come boldly because of Jesus, the final thing as well. And we will look more deeply into this as we go through the weeks.
How we start and end our days is really important.
How we start and end our prayer times are key to how we live and how we walk through the land, how we journey through the land. This year, when we come to God, we're going to come with our problems. Yeah, who doesn't have a problem?
We're going to come with our problems.
We're going to come with our mistakes.
We're going to come with our desires. But I want to encourage you within that to end every single time with the Lord.
But this is what your word says.
Yes. We're not denying that there's illness. We're not denying that there's problems. We're not denying there are financial struggle. We're not denying the reality of any of that stuff.
But what we're saying is, Lord, that is the reality. But this is the truth. And I've gone back to your word and I'm saying, but, Lord, this is what your promise, this is what your word says.
If you do that, let me tell you, you will revolutionize your day.
You will not head out to your day or into your situation carrying just the facts, because the facts can weigh us down. Right, but let's finish. Maybe at nighttime, some of us need to go back to God's word. Maybe make it a daily habit of at nighttime, going back to the psalms and saying, lord, I'm going to read the psalms, especially the encouraging ones.
Read them over and over our lives.
What I want to do this morning to finish up. Thank you. You've been repatient, particularly with my voice. Appreciate you. Church, we love you. Can we stand? This morning we're going to say the Lord's prayer together.
This is a wonderful prayer and I love it. Just before the Lord's prayer, actually, the disciples go to Jesus and say, lord, teach us to pray.
What a great question to ask the Lord. Lord, will you teach me to pray, Lord, I've struggled to pray for so long. Teach me to pray.
And Jesus says, and I love this. You don't need to babble.
You don't need to babble on these moments. These are really sacred moments. This morning we honor you, king of the universe, in this room this morning.
And we say in 2024, Lord, help us to pray.
Teach us to pray, Lord, as you spoke to Moses like a friend, pray. That will be our experience, our encounter this year that we wouldn't just be one sided in coming to you, but we would hear your voice back.
Teach us to pray, Lord, help us to be a praying people.
We rebuke that lie of the enemy, Lord, that says prayer doesn't accomplish much. That lie that says, hey, nothing's happening.
Lord, we thank you for the model of the early church. They were devoted particularly to a few things, and one of those things was prayer. And they said, we will be devoted to prayer.
And in being devoted to praying, individually and corporately, they saw prison cells open.
They saw miracle after miracle.
More was accomplished through prayer than any other activity under the sun. Just think about that for a moment, church.
And yet we find prayer too much.
We find we don't have enough time to pray.
I want to say to us this morning, as a church, we can't afford not to pray this year.
So teach us to pray, Lord.
Come on. Let's say this together.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver. Deliver us from the evil one. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.
Close.
