I'll take this opportunity to mention something I should have mentioned, especially to you young men, just to remind you that we are going to meet after lunch for about 45 minutes, so 145 to 230. And we are going to speak a little bit about the Sunday school. So I'm going to say, listen up, and we'll discuss. And then for the rest, young men and women will be meeting in the evening, and we'll discuss the sermons of the day. But we are now continuing in a new series on Praying with Paul, and we're using D. A. Carson's book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Praying with Paul, as a guide. And I did see a couple of those available on the back if you wanted to purchase them. And it is the second edition. He has an older edition, and that would probably work fine, too. I think it's substantially the same. But last time, we considered the necessity and the neglect of prayer. So we began by considering the vital necessity of prayer. And when I say vital, it's both that it's very, very important that we pray as Christians, but also that it's vital in the sense that for spiritual life, even to begin, And to be sustained, we have to be people who pray to God. So it's vitally necessary, and as something that's vitally necessary, it should be a high priority for us. But we've seen a trend in the church, and that's a trend of neglect of prayer. And Carson says that this neglect of prayer that characterizes much of the Western church in particular is both surprising and depressing. The reason it's surprising, he says, is because it's out of step with the Bible. And we know this. We could spend this whole time putting together a list of things that the Bible says about prayer, but we all know that it's out of step with the Bible not to pray. But it's depressing, he says, because it frequently coexists with abounding Christian activity. So we can be doing, doing, doing constantly and not praying. Doing things in our own strength, essentially. So we talked about the most urgent need, and he argues that the most urgent need in the church, of all the many urgent needs in the church, is that we know God better, that we have a deeper knowledge of God. And we saw the relationship between knowing God and prayer was that prayer really is a foundational step knowing God. We get to know God through prayer as we commune with him and have fellowship with him in prayer. It's one of the basic demonstrations as well. So it's a foundation to knowing God, but also a basic demonstration that in fact we do know God, that we pray. J.I. Packer said this, He said, I believe that prayer is the measure of a man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face. And I think Packer's right. Well, behind the neglect of prayer, we considered that there was a general lack of knowledge about how to pray. You remember John the Baptist, how he taught his disciples to pray. And it seems they would have asked him, teach us how to pray. They saw that he was a prayer. It's the same thing with Jesus. His disciples, witnessing him pray, come up to him and say, teach us how to pray. And then we saw how Luther wrote that book for his barber who asked him, how do you pray? Teach me a simple way to pray. And he gave him that way to pray. Well, in this study, we're going to be praying with Paul. We're going to be asking Paul how to pray by looking at his prayers, some of his prayers, not all of them. And the first chapter that we get to before we even get into those prayers is entitled lessons from the school of prayer. And I want to read from that. Lessons from the School of Prayer. He says, throughout my spiritual pilgrimage, two sources have largely shaped and continue to shape my own prayer life, the scriptures and more mature Christians. The less authoritative of these two, that would be, of course, the more mature Christians, the less authoritative has been the wisdom, advice, and example of senior saints. I confess I'm not a very good student in the school of prayer. Still, devoting a few pages to their advice and values may be worthwhile before I turn to the more important and more authoritative of the two sources that have taught me to pray." So I wanted to follow his pattern, and I want to begin with lessons on prayer. And I want to consider five today, and he's got eight of them, and we'll consider the next three next time. But the first one is simply that we make a plan. So make a plan. He says that much praying is not done simply because we don't plan to pray. Now, probably most of you, or at least some of you, have made a New Year's resolution before. And when we make a resolution, we are saying that we are resolved, meaning we are firmly decided to do something or not to do something. And we usually start off with great enthusiasm. We know, though, that many New Year's resolutions tend to fail, and often rather quickly. I don't have stats on this. I'm sure somebody has done research on it. But I do know that gyms are full at the beginning of the year in a way that they're not at the end of the year. So people get excited, and then they get excited around spring break, but then it tapers off. So there can be great satisfaction in making this sort of resolve. And making New Year's resolutions, we can be pleased just to make them. And then especially to announce them, we can even have a sense of accomplishment in that. But until our resolve is backed by deliberate action, there'll be no real accomplishment. And so it is with prayer. He says, we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words. So I hope that this study will light a fire under us and in us to pray. And I hope that we will corporately, as a church, but also individually improve our praying, that we'll be more committed to prayer at the end of this than at the start. Now, excitement can quickly fade. And no amount of books, no amount of sermons, no amount of Sunday schools will actually help us to improve our prayer. We simply have to pray. We've got to pray. He says we don't drift into spiritual life. We don't drift into discipline prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. That means we must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray. And that's why we put the prayer meeting on the calendar every week. It's there. That's what we're doing corporately. We're setting aside this time, whether we feel like it or not, to pray. If it wasn't on the calendar, it would get booted quite often. Now, I want to pause here and ask you, can you think of any biblical support for having set times of prayer? Devoted times specifically for prayer. Anything that comes to mind. Early in the morning. Psalm 63. I also have Psalm 55, 17. Evening and morning and at noon I will pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. So David, it seems, had set times of prayer. Daniel. Yeah, we remember Daniel, the story there. So we read this. This is Daniel 6. Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed by King Darius, he went home. You remember, this was the writing that ended up getting him put in the lion's den. So he goes home, he went in his upper room with his windows open towards Jerusalem. He knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as was his custom since early days. So it was the custom of Daniel to pray three times a day, probably what David talks about in the morning, noon, and in the evening. Anything else come to mind? Well, when Jesus institutes towards supper, it was obviously the custom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. He breaks the bread and he gives thanks. Before he fed the multitudes, he gave thanks. So set times of prayer before we receive a meal. Anything else? Example of Christ, maybe, come to mind? Example of the early church? Let me reference the early church first in Acts 2.42. What were they committed to, right? Steadfastly, they continued in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Peter and John, other Jews too. Now Peter and John in Acts 3, they went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. Now Paul, and this is a little bit less clear, but it seems that Paul had set times for prayer. He often mentions his prayers. Example, Romans 1.9, God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. He could speak of my prayers. I have prayers. I have set times for prayers, and I pray. Same thing with Paul, along with Silvanus and Timothy in 1 Thessalonians 1-2. We give thanks to God always for you, making mention of you in our prayers. But then of course Jesus, we see his example. We know that he would often go away to pray. We read in Luke 5, 12 to 16 about a leper that he cleansed. And you remember Jesus says, don't tell anybody that I've cleansed you. And that's a little puzzling to us. But we see that the leopard doesn't listen to him. And then as a result, we have crowds gathering around Christ. And those crowds are so large, great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. And then it says, so he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. Jesus was so so popular and such high demand by the crowds that he had to set aside time to pray if he was going to get any time to pray. He had to withdraw and he did it often. So we see that setting aside time for prayer is a biblical thing. Now, there are both dangers to this, this advice to make a plan. There's dangers and there's difficulties. The danger is, really the greatest one, is that we slip into mere formalism. And here's what Carson says, he says, of course, mere regularity in such matters does not ensure that effective praying takes place. Genuine godliness is so easily aped, it's so easily imitated, it's place usurped by its barren cousin formal religion. So that's really the great danger, formalism. But then the difficulties, and these are gonna vary depending on your responsibilities, but he just simply says different lifestyles demand different patterns. So he gives some examples. If you're a shift worker and you're constantly changing when you work, you're going to have to constantly change your plan. If you're at home with little children, your plan's going to be somewhat irregular. And you're going to have to get creative to find time to do that. So we could go on and on and on about the different difficulties that you all face. But the conclusion is this. He says, wise planning will ensure that we devote ourselves to pray often, even if for brief periods. It's better to pray often with brevity than rarely but at length. Now, what's the worst option? Not to pray. Simply not to pray. And that will be the controlling pattern, he says, unless we plan to do it. And I don't need to tell you that that applies in so many areas of life. So surely it applies to our prayer life. So I want to ask you, do you have a plan? Do you have a plan? Think about that. I'm gonna throw out several things here this morning, and hopefully something will stick and you can walk away and think about, what can I improve? And this might be it right here. Do you have a plan? And it doesn't have to be elaborate, but simply a plan. It might just be, I'll pray in the morning, I'll pray at noon, I'll pray in the evening, whatever. It could be very simple. So make a plan. Now this second part, I want to focus on practical ways that we can help ourselves to focus in prayer. So he says adopt practical ways to impede mental drift. So we want to resist the drifting of the mind. He says this, anyone who's been on the Christian way for a while knows that there are times when our private prayers run something like this. Dear Lord, I thank you for the opportunity of coming into your presence by the merits of Jesus. It is a wonderful blessing to call you Father. I wonder where I left my car keys. No, no, back to business. Heavenly Father, I began by asking that you will watch over my family. Not just in the physical sphere, but the moral and the spiritual dimensions of our lives. Boy, last Sunday's sermon sure was bad. I wonder if I'll get that report written on time. No. Father, give me real fruitfulness to that missionary couple we support, whatever their name is. Oh my, I'd almost forgotten I'd promised to fix my son's bike today. And then he goes on and he says, am I the only one who does this? And I'm going to guess that we've all experienced that. You think of, oh yeah, I got to do that. I got to do that. Okay, wait, focus. So this is a constant struggle. So how do we adopt practical ways to impede mental drift? Well, he gives a few, and I find them very helpful. And the first is simply that we vocalize our prayers. Now, you don't have to speak loudly. You don't even have to make any sound with your voice for this to be helpful. You may be like Hannah. You remember Hannah. Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Now, Hannah's reason was not to impede mental drift. Hannah was simply a woman that was overcome, and she was pouring out her soul to the Lord, and that's why her lips were moving. Now, if you think this is odd, you might be saying, I'm not gonna vocalize my prayers. I want you to consider how often the Psalms talk about crying out, even as Charlie read on Wednesday. You remember that Psalm 119.45, I cry out with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord. And then again in verses 46 and 47, three times. And are we to imagine that David is completely silent in this situation, crying out with his whole heart to God. So vocalizing prayers is actually a very biblical thing to do. Now the conclusion is simply that vocalizing prayers, as he puts it, simply means that you articulate your prayers, moving your lips perhaps. The energy devoted to expressing your thoughts and words and sentences will order and discipline your mind and help deter meandering. I find it helpful just to whisper at times. And oddly, I find it distracting to be much louder than that. I don't know why, but everybody can be different. So if you haven't tried it, try it in your prayers. Second thing, pray over the scriptures. It's entirely appropriate, he says, to tie your praying to your Bible reading. Take a biblical passage and pray through it. Now, what does it mean to pray through a biblical passage? What's that look like? Any thoughts? You're meditating on it? Taking the 23rd Psalm. Yeah. Yeah, take the 23rd Psalm, apply it to your situation. Let his prayers guide your prayer and become your prayer. Now if you do this, you'll never run out of material. I can promise you that. And maybe, especially some of you who are younger Christians, you might have this struggle of saying, I've prayed and I've run out of things to pray for and it's just been a few minutes. And you get discouraged. Well, open up the scriptures and pray through the scriptures and let yourself be guided by that. I find it very helpful, and especially when I don't feel in a mood to pray, I take a psalm and I pray through it, and I make it my own prayer. One of the suggestions that Luther gave to his barber was to memorize the Ten Commandments. He said, memorize the Ten Commandments and pray through those. Now, you may have adopted a new Bible reading plan, and If your plan, and I'm assuming by now you know this, if your plan is so ambitious that you're constantly trying to keep up and you're not getting time to really carefully read the scriptures, then you might want to consider pulling that back a bit so that you can prayerfully engage with the scriptures. You also may want to consider a plan that has a psalm reading every day, or just add that to your plan so that maybe even as you begin to pray, you read that psalm. Whatever your reading scheme, he says, it's essential to read the passage slowly and thoughtfully, so as to retrieve at least some of its meaning and bearing on your life. Now, if you do this, you will have fuel for a great deal of what he calls reflective praying. So that's what he's encouraging us to do, reflective praying from the scriptures. And thirdly, this is really a sub-point, but adopt as model several biblical prayers. And the Bible is full of inspired prayers, spirit-inspired prayers, especially concentrated in the Psalms. Read them carefully, he says, think through what they're saying, and pray analogous prayers for yourself, just as Daryl was saying. For your family, your church, and for many others beyond your immediate circle. So in this study, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take up some of Paul's prayers, we're gonna look at them, take them apart, and we're gonna practice praying through those prayers, praying with Paul. Now of course, the Lord's Prayer is the obvious choice for us. It is the model prayer in the scriptures. And you probably even have it memorized, that's the benefit of that. So if you haven't ever used the Lord's Prayer to guide your own prayers, try that. Take the opening address, take each of the six petitions and even the closing and the amen and pray through those. Now the Shorter Catechism teaches this, so when we're praying through it, We have to understand that there's more than just saying those words. So for example, the first petition, Christians pray that God would enable them and others to glorify him in everything whereby he makes himself known, that he would dispose or direct all things to his own glory. So when we pray, hallowed be your name. We can then let ourselves pray that God would be glorified, and not only in our lives, but that others would glorify Him, that unbelievers would bow their knee to Christ and glorify God. So you see how much fuel you have for prayer. Has anybody ever used a simple acrostic ax? Is that something? Don't be afraid by the simplicity. Don't think, oh, that's just for beginners. I've heard of people, R.C. Sproul said that he, I'm sure to the day he died, used that to guide and to structure his prayers. Acts, A-C-T-S, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. I once heard a preacher that advocated very strongly for act sad, so he had an A-D on the end. And honestly, I don't remember what the A-D was. I think acts is a good one, acts. And it's helpful for a couple reasons. Not only does it give us some of the basic elements of prayer, but those letters are not just arranged to make a word, but they're arranged to give us a priority in prayer. And you'll find this priority if you read several of the prayers in scripture. You'll see how many of them begin with adoration and praise to God. So I've heard someone say, it's not scat. We need to be reminded of priorities in prayer. We're so quick to jump to the S, right, to supplication. Here's my need. Here's the need of my brother and sister. Here's the need of whatever. So we go quickly to supplication, and we may never get to adoration or thanksgiving. But you remember what Paul said. He said, when you bring your concerns, your cares, and your prayers, bring them with thanksgiving. And we ought to bring them with adoration to God. So, the next one, praying through some good hymns. And he says this, praying through the worship sections of the Better Hymnals can prove immensely edifying and will certainly help you to focus your mind and heart in one direction for a while. I'm assuming when he says the worship sections of the Better Hymnals he's just speaking of hymns that are primarily focused on worship. Now, I've never done this. I don't know if any of you have done this, but lines from hymns are constantly springing into my mind as I'm praying. Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the clay. And you see how we can be helped by hymns to focus our prayers. I know that all my life is portioned out for me." And so on. Along the same lines, you can even use the confession, or you can use the catechism, and you can allow that to focus your heart and your mind on the truths of Scripture. Luther even, talking to his barber again, told him, memorize the Apostle's Prayer, the Apostle's Creed. And Luther would do that. He would recite it, he would pray through it. Again, just another way to help guide our prayers and to impede mental drift. So pray through some good hymns. But also, consider your posture. Consider your posture. And when we're talking about posture, the most important thing is the posture of your heart. Your attitude in prayer is primary, but physical posture can either help or hinder you. We often close our eyes, we fold our hands, and we bow our heads, and that's good, and that can help us to not get distracted, but it's also appropriate. And I think you can make an argument that it's more biblical that we stand, that we have hands raised and our eyes gazing up to heaven in our prayer. So you may want to try that. You may find it helpful to get on your knees and a good way to get your posture bowed down and humble before God or on your face. Maybe especially if the sound of getting on your knees sounds painful, you can get on your face enter into the right attitude for prayer. You might want to pace around the room. So there's any number of things that you can do. There's not just one posture that you can adopt, but some postures, reclining on the sofa or something like that, might encourage mental drift. So just be aware of that. All right, another thing he gets into, and he spends a little more time on this, and I think this can be very helpful, and it's journaling. And I want to read what he says about journaling. He says that many periods in the history of the church, spiritually mature and disciplined Christians have kept what might be called spiritual journals. What such journals contain varies enormously. The Puritans often used them to record their experiences with God, their thoughts and prayers, their triumphs and their failures. So whether you're typing, whether you're writing by hand, I have found this to be very rewarding to keep a journal. And only in the past few years have I begun to see journaling as actually a way to pray. We can write our prayers and that can be very helpful. And I think I began to think of journaling as praying when a few years ago I read Augustine's Confessions. And if you've read that, you know that so much of it is essentially like a journal. And it's filled with prayers and filled with scripture references. I would say that the Confessions, along with the Psalms, have done more to shape my journaling than anything else. And that being the case, I wanted to take the opportunity to read a sample from the Confessions, just from the opening page of this, just to give you a sense of the language he's using. And maybe this can help you, too, as you're thinking about how you journal. And I'm reading here, this is from the Penguin Classics. It's a good translation. I haven't read the others. R.S. Pine Coffin is the translator here. But he says, can any praise be worthy of the Lord's majesty? How magnificent his strength, how inscrutable his wisdom. He's quoting the Psalms. Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you. He bears about him the mark of death, the sign of his own sin, to remind him that you thwart the proud. But still, since he is part of your creation, he wishes to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand whether a man is first to pray to you for help or to praise you, and whether he must know you before he can call you to his aid. If he does not know you, how can he pray to you? For he may call for some other help, mistaking it for yours. Or a man to pray to you and learn to know you through their prayers. Only, how are they to call upon the Lord until they've learned to believe in him? And how are they to believe in him without a preacher to listen to? Well, I'm tempted to keep reading, but I love the confessions, and it may be helpful for you. So what's the real value of journaling? Well, Carson thinks this. He gives three things. He says, first, it enforces a change of pace, a slowing down. It ensures time for prayer. So just a way to slow down in your hectic life. Secondly, he says it fosters self-examination, which is, as we saw, a critical part of keeping the heart. If we're to keep the heart, we have to continually examine our hearts. And then he says it ensures quiet articulation both of your spiritual direction and of your prayers. And this in turn fosters self-examination and therefore growth. Thus journaling impedes mental drift. But he gives a danger. He says this, the danger in this, as with any spiritual discipline, is that the person who is formally conforming to such a regime may delude himself or herself into thinking that the discipline is an end in itself or that it ensures one an exalted place in the heavenlies. So journaling is not an end in itself, but it is a tool that we can use to help us guide our prayers and impede mental drift. So those are some practical things. Hopefully there's something there that has sparked an idea and maybe you can walk away with and help you in your prayers. Practical ways that we can impede mental drift. But thirdly, He says that we should develop a prayer partner relationship. He says that various periods in your life develop, if possible, a prayer partner relationship. So he's not laying this down as something you must always have a prayer partner relationship. We can't find that in the scriptures. But he is saying it could be helpful at various times in your life, if you're able to do it, to have a partner in prayer. Now the obvious question at first is who should our partner be? And let me just read what he says. He says, if you are not married, make sure your partner, your prayer partner, is someone of your own sex. If you're married and you choose a partner of the opposite sex, make sure that partner is your spouse. The reason is that real praying is an immensely intimate business. And intimacy in one area frequently leads to intimacy in other areas. I want to pause at that point and just speak to you young men and women. And I want you to keep that in mind, is maybe someday you have the opportunity to court someone. Seek counsel in this area. You may have a desire to pray, but recognize that true praying is an intimate thing. So seek counsel from your father. Seek counsel, if you're a young man, from the girl's father, from your pastor's, and from others. So keep that in mind. Carson tells a story about a time in college when a pastor spotted him and said, will you come for three months and pray with me on Monday nights? So just the pastor and Don Carson prayed on Monday nights. He said sometimes for an hour, sometimes more, probably sometimes less, but they just prayed. And he says that there's no doubt that he taught me more of the rudiments of prayer than anyone else. So this right here is one-on-one discipleship. If any of you have been thinking, I really want to disciple someone, I just don't even know what to do, where to begin. Well, you can simply pray with them. Now, I never had anything quite like that, but I wish that I had. And wishing that I had, I read this and take it as a personal challenge to myself to consider, should I find somebody? and help them and teach them, disciple them in this way of being a prayer partner for a short period of time. If you know how to pray, and I'm not saying that you're a prayer giant, I'm not saying you're a prayer warrior, but if you know how to pray, consider seeking somebody else who is less mature and help them along. Much can be taught by your personal example in such a relationship. He says such modeling and partnership will lead to the sorts of questions that will invite further sharing and discipleship. After all, it was because Jesus' disciples observed his prayer life that they sought his instruction in prayer. Or you might be here and you might say, I don't know much about prayer. You may be a new believer and you think, how do I even begin to do this? Well, consider seeking someone out. Find somebody more mature. Or find someone at your own level and work it out. And either way, whether you find someone more mature, whether you find someone on your own level, you're probably going to grow. This is going to be beneficial. He says, prayer partner relationships are as valuable for the discipline, accountability, and regularity that they engender as for the lessons that are shared. Now he gives a few remarks on family worship too. And I'll just be brief on this, but your spouse is an obvious and a good choice for a prayer partner. And if you're married and you have struggled to maintain sustained time for praying together, you might be encouraged to know that at least the Carsons have struggled in that as well. They said, not only do we live at a hectic pace, but also each stage of life has its peculiar pressures. But whatever the difficulties, they said they always try to follow a set pattern. And then he writes this, and this is really the heart of the matter. He says, as a family, we daily seek God's face. That's what we do. I like that simple explanation of family worship. We daily, as a family, seek God's face. So, That's developing godly prayer partner relationships. There's many variations of this, and it may be helpful to ask, but if you've met a group before, I mean, that could be a good way to do it. Get a few people to pray with you. Lots of things you can do here. So, prayer partner relationships. The fourth thing, fourth main thing, is choose models, but choose them well. Choose models of prayer. Most of us can improve our praying by carefully, thoughtfully listening to others pray. Now I can say that I have learned much about praying and I hope I've improved in praying over the years that I've been here and have heard men lead prayer in this church. They have been models for me. And young men, I want to especially encourage you at this point that when you're here, You hear prayer meetings when you're here on Sundays, and you hear other men leading. Listen carefully. Don't tune out. Listen carefully to their prayers, and even pray along with them. And I recognize the struggle here, maybe especially at a prayer meeting that's long. But listen, and he says, study the content and the urgency. But do not ape their idiom, meaning don't just take their speech and the things that they say and mimic that. But he says focus on their content, focus on the urgency. If you're a member here, young men, I would encourage you to step up at the prayer meetings. You're never too young, if the Lord has saved you, you're never too long to step up and pray and be a part of these prayer meetings. Lead in the prayer meetings if you don't do that already. Your prayers don't have to be eloquent. We're not trying to impress one another. But they should be from the heart. We're praying to God. So I encourage you to do that. And young women, I'm quite sure that there's no shortage of good prayer models amongst the women in our church. So I would encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities that are there right now to pray. I'm aware of a couple. There might be more, but I'm sure some of these ladies here could tell you what those opportunities are. He says this about prayer models that not all, not every good model is the same. Not every good model provides us with exactly the same prescription for good praying, exactly the same balance. All of them pray with great seriousness. All of them use arguments and seek goals that are already portrayed in scripture. Some of them seem to carry you with them into the very throne room of the Almighty. Others are particularly faithful in intercession despite the most difficult circumstances in life and ministry. Still others are noteworthy because of the breadth of their vision. All are characterized by a wonderful mixture of contrition or repentance and boldness in prayer. So that heart that David had, a broken and a contrite heart, oh God, these you will not despise. So, I wanna also address parents. And this doesn't just apply to parents, but especially parents, what sort of model are you leaving? for your children. Carson fondly remembers the model that his parents left him, the heritage, the faithful, consistent example of his parents to simply read the Bible and to pray. Nothing spectacular but their faithfulness. And listen carefully to his testimony about their heritage. He says this, in the ranks of ecclesiastical hierarchy, so his dad was a Baptist pastor, In the ranks of those hierarchies, my father was not a great man. He never served a large church, he never wrote a book, never discharged the duties of high denominational office. Doubtless, his praying to embraced idioms and stylistic idiosyncrasies that should not be copied. But with great gratitude to God, I testify that my parents were not hypocrites. That is the worst possible heritage to leave with children. High spiritual pretensions and low performance. My parents were the opposite. Few pretensions and disciplined performance. So I think we all can feel that, that we don't want to be those who have high spiritual pretensions and low performance. And may God help us to be good models. And you know that it seems especially the younger generation, the rising generation, can spot hypocrisy. That they are looking for authenticity. So may God help us to be authentic in our pursuit of God in prayer. That old adage applies, more is caught than taught. So may we be good models to the younger generation especially. So he closes it saying this, choose models, choose them well. Study their content, their breadth, their passion, their unction, but do not ate their idiom. And that word unction, It comes from a Latin word that means to anoint. So we're talking about spirit, anointed, fervor, and warmth in prayer. He says look for that, but don't copy word for word what they're saying. That is choosing models. But the last thing that I want to consider, and this gets very practical and I hope it's helpful, but it's simply developing a system for your prayer lists. And he says, it's difficult to pray faithfully for a large spread of people and concerns without developing prayer lists. I wonder if you've felt that before, as you've got email after email, and you've got family, you've got friends, you've got missionaries, all these prayer requests, and you feel, just almost buried him. Well, a plan could help you, and there are many published prayer guides, and he goes into those, and one of them he mentions is Operation World, and Read what he says here about this. He says, despite its remoteness, there is one prayer list that offers a tremendous compensating advantage. The list to which I'm referring is the publication Operation World, and I have it here actually. I grabbed this off the back, and I'm going to put it back, but it is for sale. It's a large book, Jason Mandrick. Mandrick, completely revised 7th edition. I don't know if there's a newer one out there. But you may want to thumb through this, may even consider getting this. But he says, he's referring to this publication, Operation World, which over the course of a year takes you around the world to country after country and region after region and provide you with succinct, intelligent information to assist you in your prayers. Its value lies in its ability to enlarge your horizons, to expand your interest in the world church and the world's needs." So, I mean, here's Guadalupe, and it just gives information, geography, politics, religion, and even the economy, and it lists several challenges for prayer. This gives even some history. The protest strikes and riots of 2009. So this can be a very good way to help you intelligently pray for people in other nations. But that's Operation World. There's a similar tool that's online. I don't know. Operation World might even have something online. Oh, OK. Oh, good. OK. So you can go online, Operation World, and get more up-to-date information. Has anyone used that and found it helpful? Is that a tool? And if you have, any suggestions, ways you've used it? Oh, that's what we have. Good. All right, well, it's on the back on Sundays. There's something else called Joshua Project, and that is specifically geared towards unreached people groups. And you can go to joshuaproject.net, and it says from their website, it's a research initiative seeking to highlight the ethnic people groups of the world with the fewest followers of Christ. So you can focus in on those places in the world and those people where there's really not much, if any, presence of a gospel witness. And we actually consider that one prayer meeting. And I'm gonna try to incorporate these from time to time in our prayer meetings. So that's another thing, Joshua Project. Are there any others people know of similar along those lines? I've got one, I mentioned this at prayer. This was just sent in the mail to me. It's Awakening, a little prayer guide that Ligonier sent out. And I really like it. It breaks up week by week and it has you praying, yourself and your family. Secondly, neighbors, church and co-workers, your city and nation, the world and the global church. So it's got those categories and a text of scripture and saying, pray your nation would abandon its idols and worship the one true God. So there you have it, something very simple that can help you guide your personal prayer, help you guide in family worship, and then this has a little something to write on. So there's all sorts of published prayer guides that you can use, but also you can prepare your own lists. And if you journal, you may wish to have a journal that is set aside simply for your prayer list. You might want to even write on one side, on the left side, requests that you have and any relevant scriptures, and then you can have answers to those requests, answers to those prayers on the other side. That's something that Carson recommends. I had a friend who would use a spreadsheet for this. So he just had Microsoft Excel. So some of you younger guys and girls who like to use spreadsheets, use that. And use that to help you in your prayers. You may want to be even simpler and just say, I'm going to have a few big categories in my mind, and that's how I'm going to guide my prayer. And my prayer plan for supplication is simply, I have four categories. I have family, I have friends, most of them back in Oklahoma, friends in Oklahoma, and then also a season for other churches and for missionaries and for persecuted Christians, and then a final category for this church, Reformed Baptist Church of Louisville. So, just for example, on Monday I'd pray for my parents in the family category. I have a good couple, friends in Oklahoma City, I pray for them with friends and then I'll pray for this church as a whole on Mondays and then I'll pray for somebody in the church. I'll touch on that here in a second, but that's something I try to do. I'm not saying I have absolute success in that, but I have a plan and it helps me guide my supplication. Praying for the church. Our membership directory is, as it says, actually a prayer guide. So this is very helpful, very simple. I'm assuming a lot of you do this, but you can simply go through the directory. Charlie has put together, along with Josh, I believe. Is he your IT man? has put together this monthly prayer list, and if I'm not mistaken, some are gonna be eventually put on the back. So this has the membership organized into 20 days, so that's five days a week, praying, numbered, and this could be very helpful. So if you want something like this, that you could fold up and put in your Bible even, that could be helpful. Taking the weekly prayer notes that we send out and praying through those, that could be another way that you could plan out your your prayers yeah okay yeah yeah there may be some copies this evening or Wednesday night some tweaks ah okay that's fair all right so be on the lookout for that I do want to say, Carson explains the system, and I'm going to explain it very briefly, and you might find this helpful. He would have a manila folder, and he would keep that with him, and he would even take it with him when he traveled. And he had sheets in that folder, and the first sheet was a group that he says, people for whom I ought to pray regularly. And so he was continually praying for these people. His family, obviously, was in that category. In the second sheet, he listed short-range and intermediate-range concerns that would not remain there indefinitely. So something that he would pray for for a brief period, but not something that would be the regular praying of the first sheet. On his third sheet, he had his students at the seminary where he was at that were in his spiritual formation group, and then the rest was filled with letters. And those were prayer letters, personal letters, and those were filed alphabetically. So he had a system, and he would just go through his prayer folder. He does not suggest that this is the best system, but it is something that he was able to keep up to date and organized. And in fact, he confesses, I needed to use it more, not enlarge it more. But it's flexible, up-to-date, expandable. Above all, he said, it helped me to pray. So just find something that helps you to pray. There are people who are planners and there are people who are not planners. I realize that. So if you're not that detailed in your planning, just find something that helps you pray. That's the point. Praying is the point, not your system. The key is find something that helps. Now, if anybody's familiar with something like Evernote, that could be a good tool. Instead of a Manila folder, it's an app you can get. It saves it on the cloud for you or on some server. There's something maybe to consider to arrange your prayer lists. Charlie, you mentioned something. Was it Stephen Gamble who did an entire lesson or two on something like this? Yeah. So was it here? It was here. Okay, so it's in our somewhere. Probably 20 years ago. Wow. Maybe 18. Would it be on Sermon Audio? Probably not. Probably not? Well, I confess. That was pre. That was in the basement. Cassette days. Cassette days, good. Well, maybe someone can do something similar. I have to confess, I'm a rookie when it comes to this. I am stumbling my way through trying to find helpful ways to help me to pray. If you can get your hands on something Stephen Gamble or someone else has done, let me know, and that would maybe be helpful for you. So here's the point. Whatever the system, he says, however, use prayer lists. All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down except on our prayer lists. So there you have it. All right, make a plan. That's his first advice. Secondly, adopt practical ways to impede mental drift. Thirdly, try to develop these prayer partner relationships, and fourthly, choose good models and then use prayer lists. So we have just a little bit of time. I had planned to practice praying through the Lord's Prayer and choose a few men to break that up, but spent more time on some of those things than I planned. But I wanna try to do that. As we're studying prayer, And I know we do this on Wednesdays, you do this at home, but I wanna actually incorporate prayer more into these Sunday schools, especially as we open up some of Paul's prayers, than to take the time to pray through the prayer that we've opened up. And I hope that's a helpful way for us to engage with Paul's prayer and to pray with him. So I will close for us in prayer, and we'll be dismissed. Father, we thank you for this opportunity this morning to pray to you, to praise you, to consider these very practical matters about how we can pray better. Lord, we desire to know you better, to commune with you, to be men and women who pray and who pray regularly. Father, we ask that something here would help us, that we would be able to walk away with a plan, an idea of how to help ourselves to pray. And we ask, Father, that you would lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Deliver us from a prayerless spirit, and from a dependence upon ourself, and from a watchlessness. Lord, we pray that we would be those who watch and who pray. Father, we ask that this day that you would be pleased as we bring more prayers to you, as we read your word and sing to you. We ask, Father, that our hearts would be engaged and you would give us that unction that we've learned about, that anointing of your spirit to give us fervor and warmth and our praise. And we ask, Lord, as your word is preached this morning and in the evening, that it would be preached to the effect that you intend, that it would be like seed planted in good soil and bear fruit. So Father, thank you for this day. We thank you for the fellowship we have with one another. We ask now that you would bless it in Christ's name. Amen.