Matthew chapter 6, I'll begin in verse 1, you join me in every other verse. And we'll go back and forth all the way down to verse number 8. Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. that thine alms may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corner of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But ye, when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Together in verse 8. Be not ye therefore like unto them for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask them. So we're going to start in verse 5 that would be kind of where we start looking from 5 down to 8 and even going further in the chapter 6. And here's the title of the message, The Philosophy of Prayer. the philosophy of prayer. And let's pray. Father, we pray now that you would bless us, that you would help us, you encourage us, grow us in every area of life. But tonight, Lord, I pray about this idea of prayer, understanding it maybe not in such a practical way but in a more of a understanding the philosophical part of it, the more the fundamental truth of it, of what we're trying to accomplish. So Lord, I pray it should help us. We ask in Christ's name, Amen. You may be seated. Now, if you've read the Bible, and I trust that you have, and you've read prayer promises in the Bible, I'll give you an example of what I mean. Just go over chapter 7, look with me at verse 7. Notice this promise of prayer here. Look at verse 7 of chapter 7. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone that asketh receiveth. He that seeketh findeth. To him that knocketh it shall be opened. That's a great prayer promise. So if we look at the great prayer promises, I'm going to think of Jeremiah 33, calling me and I'll answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. There's all kinds of prayer promises in the Bible, but as we consider these great prayer promises on one hand, then we look at our prayer experience on the other hand. And we look at the two, and often we'll say, you know, there's a big disconnect between these two. God makes these great promises, but we see not so much in our own prayer life the reality of that. So the promise seems to be so great, and the reality not so great. So we begin maybe asking ourselves these questions. Well, is God's Word true? Are these promises really true? Or, and if they're true, maybe, does God just not care about me? Maybe God has great promises, but when it comes to me, not so much. Or, maybe we think this, is there some secret we're missing? You know, if I wrote a book, The Secret of Prayer, people are like, oh, what is that great secret of prayer? I like what Leonard Ravenhill said, the secret of praying is praying in secret. Really, the secret of praying is just doing it. So we think maybe there's some secret we're missing. Or maybe we just say, well, I don't know what to do. I seem to be praying, and God makes these great promises, but they don't seem to be happening in my life. And when it comes to prayer, I think we'd all agree on these next few statements. I trust that we would. Prayer is the lifeblood of the Christian life. It's how we connect to the Lord. There's a statement made, Prayer is the way we, well, faith is the key that unlocks all of God's promises, and prayer is the way we receive from Him. So our faith unlocks the cabinet, and then the praying is how we get from Him. So we think about this, that prayer is the lifeblood of the Christian life. It's the means by which we connect with the Lord on a daily basis. And I do believe this, I believe if you're born again, the Holy Spirit's inside of you, there is a tug on your heart towards the throne of grace. The Holy Spirit's working you, tugging you that way, where you want to pray and you want to see answers to prayer. Hold your place in Matthew 6, go with me to Job, because I think this, what Job says, I think we would amen and agree with very heartily. Look with me at Job 23. Job 23, and look with me at verse 3. Now, Job is in the midst of all of his difficulties. Well, let's just pick it up in verse 1. Then we'll see a little bit more of the context. Then Job answered and said, even today is my complaint bitter. My stroke is heavier than my groaning. Now notice what he says in verse 3. Oh, that I knew where I might find him. Then I might come even to his seat. This is that tug. I know the Lord has an answer. I'm seeking the Lord. This is what my heart wants to do. I would order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would tell him what's going on and I would argue my cause before him. Verse 5, I would know the words which he would answer me and understand what he would say to me. In other words, I would seek him and he would answer me and this is what I'm desiring. So I do believe that prayer is a lifeblood of the Christian life. I believe that it's the means by which we connect with them on a daily basis, and I assume again that you're agreeing with me on these statements. And I do believe in every believer's soul there's this tug towards the throne of grace, towards the throne of God, that we really want to be able to get hold of God and seek God and get answers from God. Now when it comes to sermons on prayer, I don't know if there's any one sermon that answers everything about prayer. Prayer is a pretty big subject. Often it takes a multiplicity of sermons to get us to understanding of all there is about prayer. Typically each sermon is just one stepping stone in that. Now some sermons on prayer are more practical, more how-to. have a place, have a time, and both of those are important. You've got to have a place to pray. You've got to have a time to pray. Have a list. You can't be praying and trying to watch your favorite show at the same time. You can't be praying and being on the computer and doing other things. You've got to get alone. You've got to get with the Lord. You've got to get away from other things. All those are good practical ways of praying. But the truth is, there's many people who say, I do all those things, but I still don't seem to be getting answers to prayer. Or it's not just answers to prayer. Sometimes it's just like I don't seem to be connecting in prayer. I'm seeking the Lord, but it just seems like I'm in my room talking to myself. And so tonight I want to not be as practical, but be more a little, I'll again use that word, philosophical about when it comes to prayer. So I'm going to give you three things from Matthew 6 that over the years has helped me, and trust tonight it will help you. Maybe these things you already understand, maybe it'll just be a reminder or an encouragement, maybe a little more push along that way. So let's go back to Matthew 6. Let me show you the first thing I notice. And it's the thing that when you first read it, maybe as a new believer, maybe as a young believer, you first read it, it probably strikes you as an odd thing. Because it almost tells you, well then, why would I pray if this is true? Matthew 6 verse 8, "...Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask them." If the Lord already knows, why am I even asking? He already knows. But there is, I think, an answer to that. So number one is this, prayer is not, N-O-T, prayer is not convincing God of your needs. I think that's an important thing. Because sometimes we're praying, we think, somehow God doesn't know and I've got to inform him and tell him. And that is not what prayer is. Prayer is not giving God an update on your life. Lord, I know I haven't talked to you in a while, let me kind of fill you in on how things have been going. The Lord already knows. In fact, let me tell you this, the Lord knows more what's going on in your life than you do. He knows a whole lot more than you do what's going on. He knows a lot more things that you really want to tell him about sometimes. So we're not informing God, we're not giving him an update. Now watch this, nor are we convincing him of our needs. He knows the need. He knew the need before we knew the need. So we're not informing him, nor are we convincing him. We're not trying to say, well if I say it loud, or maybe he'll say it, maybe I just gotta be louder in my prayer. If I pray real loud, He knows I'm real serious. That's not the way it's nothing. I don't think it's wrong to pray loud But we're not praying loud just because that's the only way God will hear us. He's not deaf. He's not hard of hearing He knows what we have need of Now I do understand There is times of heartfelt pleading when your heart's broken and you're just pouring out your complaint before the Lord and I'm not in any way making light of that or pushing that away. There are times like that. And sometimes we pray with a broken heart and tears coming down our face. That is sometimes our reality. But I think it's important that we understand that God is not unattached or unconcerned about what we're praying about. We don't have to convince him. He already knows the need. And we don't have to really say, Lord, you really got to understand how I feel. He knows how you feel. Lord, you got to understand why this is important. He already knows the need. He knows everything about it. He is not unattached. He's not unconcerned. We're not trying to get him involved. Remember the story in probably 1 Kings about Elijah and the prophets of Baal? Remember he was on Mount Carmel, and he said, you get the profits, you build your altar, I'll build my altar. And he said, you pray first. Remember the story? And they prayed, and they prayed, and they prayed for multiple hours, and Elijah started making fun of them. Hey, pray louder, maybe he's asleep. Hey, maybe he went for a walk, maybe he's not paying attention. And he was mocking them. Because that's not how God is. God is not asleep. He's not gone for a walk. He's not on vacation. God is very concerned. God is very aware. God knows exactly my need. So I'm not convincing Him. I'm not trying to get His attention. So prayer is not convincing God of our needs. Now you say, well, why is this so important to understand? Let me tell you why it's important to understand this aspect here. I am not trying to simply use an abundance of words to get a prayer answered. Some people think, if I say it a lot of times, then God will finally pay attention. God is not like ignoring you. He already knows, He's already in tune with what's going on. So I don't have, there's nothing wrong with using an abundance of words, but I'm not trying to use an abundance of words to get His attention. So I'm not trying to use an abundance of words. He already knows what's going on in my life. Now watch this, and I'm not trying to use specific words. A lot of people get, I think, sometimes they get kind of tripped up on this. They think that, okay, King James is written in an older English style. These and thous, and all of this. If you want to pray that way, that's fine. But it's not like God only listens to Old English praying. Thou God in heaven, the God of all the earth, the everlasting God, the almighty God. There's nothing wrong with praying that way, but you don't have to pray that way. We're not using magical words. It's not like God is like, nope, you didn't say the magic word. Oh, there it was. Now I'm listening. Okay, that's not the way prayer works. God already knows the need. He's already in tune with the need. We're not trying to convince Him of those things. So it's not just a bunch of words that gets His attention. They're not just specific words, and by that I'm talking about magical words, that gets His attention. I am trying, when I'm praying, now watch this, I am trying to pray about what He knows I need. Listen, I'm not trying to get Him involved in my prayer. Now watch what I'm about to say next. I'm trying to get my prayer involved with him. He already knows the need. He already has the answer to the need. I'm seeking him. I'm the one who needs to get his attention set on him. His attention is already set on me. Let me give you an example of what I mean about this. It's not a perfect example, but I think it's a good example. Go with me to Luke 18. Luke chapter 18. I'll use this and I'll try to zero in exactly what I'm trying to say, and then get to the next point. Luke 18, if you will, look at verse 10, a very familiar passage, we've used this a lot, you've probably read it a lot, probably if you've taught, you've probably used it in your teaching a lot. But in Luke 18, verse 10, here's two men praying, I want you to notice the difference in the praying. Verse 10, two men went up in the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. Okay, here's his prayer. Now, if you begin counting, you will get to a specific number. I have it written down. You count along, you see what you come up with. God, I thank thee that I am not, as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. Period. How many words you get? 34? Should have gotten. You weren't even counting, were you? Okay, it's 34 words. He uses 34 words to pray. Let's pick up in verse 13. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes in heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, now here's his prayer, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Seven words. The one guy had five times as many words. And he used a lot of kind of fancy words there. Talked a lot about himself. Which man got his prayer answered? The 34 word man or the 7 word man? The 7 word man. Now this is important because it tells us it's not just the words that gets answers to prayer. What gets answers to prayer? A heart that is open to the Lord and seeking the Lord. When we pray, It's not just words we use. It's not just certain magical words or an abundance of words. It is an open heart. Now watch this. Answered prayers begin with an open heart to the Lord. Don't focus on your prayer. Don't focus so much on having the right words or the right body position. People have asked me this over the years. They've said, Pastor White, when I pray, should I kneel and pray? Should I stand and pray? Should I raise my hands and pray? Should I bow my heads and pray? Should I fold my hands in prayer? What exactly should my body look like when I'm praying? Let me tell you, it doesn't matter. What matters is what your heart looks like. That's what the Lord's looking for. You don't have to have hands folded. You can walk and pray. You can sit and pray. Some people lie on their face in prayer. You can kneel in prayer. You can lift up your hands in prayer. You can fold your hands in prayer. You can bow your heads in prayer. You can look up in prayer. None of those things really matter. What matters is what's going on in the heart. Focus on having the right heart. So when we come to prayer, We're not convincing God of some need. We're not trying to get God's attention about the need. We're not trying to wake Him up. What we're trying to do is get our heart open to a God who already knows what that need is. Now don't lose me, because He knows what the need is. And I'm going to jump ahead of myself and tell you this. Now watch. You don't know what your need is. And that's probably one of the key things about prayer. Most of the time when we start praying, that's really not what we need. No matter how serious it sounds, no matter how much we're really into it, He knows the need. And until we connect with Him, you don't know the need. and you're not gonna get the answer. I'm saying this carefully, God is gracious and merciful and he's much better than us and we ever deserve and sometimes he does things for us just because he loves us and cares about us. But the great answers of prayer that God wants to do in your life is based on the great needs he knows you have and getting you in tune with him so you know those needs. So prayer is not convincing God of your needs. That's the first understanding about prayer, this philosophical understanding. Let's go back to it now to, again, and look with me back at chapter six, look at verse nine. Okay, so if we stop for a moment, let's say right now, I'm assuming you have some prayer need in your life. And maybe you're frustrated with the Lord because the Lord is not, I have a need and the Lord doesn't seem to care. But you know the Lord does care, but what He cares about is the need He knows you have, not the need that you think you have. So back to Matthew chapter 6, look with me at verse 9. So here's the second thing we're going to look at. So we said we're not trying to convince God. He already knows. We don't know, but He knows. Then verse 9, it says this. after this manner therefore pray you our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come now watch this phrase thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven now drop down if you will look at verse 33 very similar type of thinking but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness And all these things shall be added to you. What comes first? His will. That's what always comes first. So number two is this. So number one is prayer is not convincing God of our needs. Number two is this. Prayer is tuning our heart to His will. That's really what prayer is. Prayer is when we get the Lord and the Lord now begins working our life, tuning our heart to His will. God promises to provide for our needs through prayer. That's what He promises to do over and over again through the Bible. Here's a promise here, and a promise here, and a promise here. I'll meet your need. I'll do exactly what you need in your life. becomes, we say, Lord, here's what I need, so therefore I'm going to connect what I need to what you promised. But what God is promising is to meet the need, and the great need in your life is not new shoes. The great need in your life is not a new hat. The great need in your life is not a new bike. I don't know if you need any of those things. Those are not great needs in your life. The great need in your life is to know and to do God's will. That is the greatest need you have in life. And in the midst of doing, now watch this, in the midst of knowing and doing God's will, God meets all the other things. So let me again go a little off script. God is not interested in, okay, I gotta sometimes say things like this just to wake you up. God is not interested in helping a bunch of selfish, carnal, backslidden Christians to get a little more of this world's goods. But most praying that people tell me about is about like that. And we can't figure out why God's not meeting our needs, because you really don't need any of that. What you need is to submit your heart to a holy God and serve Him with your life, and then, therefore, He is going to meet the needs that you have to do His will. So prayer is tuning our heart to God's will. God promises to provide for our needs through prayer, but God tells us, then, He knows those needs before we pray. But what He knows we need is to do His will, and then, therefore, that's what He's seeking for us to do. Often, the things that He's working in our life that we get frustrated with, is the great need, and if we can tune our prayer to that need, we'll see answers that he wants to accomplish. Hold your place, go with me to 2 Corinthians. I got a statement I want to make. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself on this statement. 2 Corinthians. I tend to do that at times. Because I like the statement so much, I just jump right into it. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Look with me at verse number seven. Again, a very familiar, none of this is, I don't, my guess is you're gonna walk out tonight and say, yep, I knew those verses, I knew those things. Great, now let's do them. 2 Corinthians 12, look with me at verse seven. Unless I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of revelations, there was given to me a thorn in flesh, a messenger of Satan to buff me. Unless I should be exalted above measure for this thing, I'd be sought to the Lord thrice, then it might depart from me. Stop, verse eight, look at it. What would you call, what was Paul doing in verse eight? Praying. He besought the Lord thrice, three times. Three times he prayed about whatever this thorn in the flesh was. Now what was he praying? Lord take it away! Did the Lord take it away? No. Because that wasn't his need. Paul needed to do God's will. And to do God's will, Paul needed an extra special dose of God's grace. God knew that. It wasn't that God was ignoring him. It wasn't that God wasn't concerned. God was saying, no, that's not what you need. Nope, that's not what you need. Nope, that's not what you need. Look at verse 9, and he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength, which is what you really need, is made perfect, complete in that weakness. That thorn in the flesh is going to be used to make you stronger to do what I have you to do. Most gladly, now here's Paul's response, most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities. that the power of Christ may rest upon you, upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, and reproaches, and necessities, and persecutions, and distresses of Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. That was the great need. So what God does in our prayer, He says, this is what you need. You have a life. You only have one life. It's soon to pass. Only what's done for Christ will last. So He's looking at your life. It's going to go really fast. It's going to be over. And He said, OK, in this short time, this speck, this little Small flame that poof and it's gone. I want you to serve me I want you to do something eternal with your life something I can bless something I can honor something I can use the great need you have is my power my strength and my grace and all you're doing you're chasing all the things of the world chasing people and chasing power and chasing possessions and all of this stuff that that matters nothing and But I know what you really need. And he's working our heart, trying to bring us to the point where we finally say, Lord, I don't need those. I need you. And the Lord says, bingo, answer to prayer. And then he begins doing things in our life because he's tuned our heart to his will. And then we see the answers to prayer. Again, I'm not saying God isn't concerned about the physical things. I'm not saying God doesn't meet our needs and food. He does that. But that's usually in line with all the other big things He's trying to accomplish in giving us His power and such to do His will. If we ask, as we spoke about in the first thing, this open heart, answer prayers begins with an open heart to the Lord. If we ask with an open heart, then God can begin tuning our heart to Him. You remember, if you're a little bit older, when you had the bunny ears antenna, and you had, especially if it's UHF channel, and you went, And you kept changing them, and they said, move it a little bit, nope, nope, back, oh, right there. Okay, now I can see it. I think that's sometimes what God does with our prayer. He's like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, yeah, that's it, that's exactly what you need to be praying for. And so when we ask with an open heart, then God begins tuning our heart to him. Now watch this, and begins changing our prayers to what they should be. Often, as we pray, God changes. Here's the need, and this is what God wants to give us in answer to prayer. Here's what we're praying for over here. So God begins tuning the prayer, and tuning the prayer, and tuning the prayer, until it lines up, and now the prayer and the need are in the same channel, and He can meet that. Much of praying at least the early part of praying about something, is trying to get my prayer in tune with him. So the answer to prayer comes often as he changes the prayer and changes the prayer, the ones praying, to what the answer really should be. God's concern for us, I want you to think about this next statement. God's concern for us is greater than our concern for us. God cares more about you than you care about you. He does. One of the reasons God tells you to quit doing all that stupid stuff is because He cares about you, and He knows it's just a waste of your life. You're doing things that are just a waste of your life. You're chasing dollars, you're chasing acceptance of people, you're worried about who liked your last Facebook post. He's like, really? Your life is so much more important than that. You have such greater value than that. God's concern for us is greater than our own concern for us. And God's desire to meet our need is greater than our desire to have our needs met. The great hindrance isn't a God who doesn't care. The great hindrance is a God who's not listening. The great hindrance really is our heart, which is set on things other than our true needs. And so, therefore, the Lord can't meet the prayer because the prayer really is not good for you. My guess is this. If one of the Stein's kid came up and asked either Kathy or Dale, and they said, hey, you know, here's a box of rat poison. I always thought what it would taste like. Do you mind if I have a mouthful of this? You would say, absolutely not. Are you out of your head? No way. I'm not going to give you rat poison. I don't care how much you want it. And you would say, of course. Any caring parent wouldn't give a child something that would hurt him. Let me ask you, do you think God's any less of a caring parent than you are? You think God cares less about you than you care about your kids? Why do you think asking for rat poison, God's gonna give you the rat poison? He's gonna say, no, it's not what you need. Here's what you need. And so the big part of praying is tuning our heart to his will. Let me give you some examples about this. Go with me back to Matthew 6. Look with me at verse 25. Matthew 6 verse 25, Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Notice God has a different focus. Behold, the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet their Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not much better than they? In other words, the Lord does have this concern, and He's concerned about bigger things than we are. Go with me to James chapter 4. Now this is a verse we've used again multiple times and I want to stress something about this verse that maybe we haven't stressed enough about. James chapter 4, look with me at verse 2. James 4 verse 2, you lust and have not, you kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight and war yet you have not because you ask not. Then he says this in verse three, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. And we'll talk about that and say, well, ask amiss means you're missing the mark or you're not asking according to his will. But that actually has a stronger meaning than that. That particular word is used 16 times in the New Testament. 10 of those, it's used in the idea of sickness or disease. What God is saying this, your prayers will cause you to be sick or diseased, and that's why I'm not going to do it. You're asking for things that's not good for you. You want them. You want them real bad. but it's not good for you. You ever want something real bad and get it and realize it wasn't so great after all? You're like, huh, that was it, huh? Hmm. And it's like cotton candy. You go to a fair and they give you this big thing, they whip it around, it's a big thing of cotton candy. You're like, wow! But you go, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh. It's like this big, actually, of cotton candy. You're like, really? That's what I paid all that money for? Huh, not much. I think that's how our prayers are sometimes. We have sick or diseased praying, and we can't figure out why God won't do it, because God cares too much to do it. So I said, first of all, answered prayers begin with an open heart to the Lord. It's not the words, it's not getting His attention, it's not the position of the body, it's not yelling or whispering. It's an open heart. Then I said, number two, prayers tune your heart to God's will, or I can say it this way, answered prayers require a yielded heart to the Lord's will. So let me stop just for a moment before we get to number three. Again, because I don't want to lead you astray. God is concerned. If you, literally, you need a new pair of shoes, yes, God's concerned about it. If the tires in your car are bald, yes, God's concerned about it. If the cupboards of your house are empty, yes, God's concerned about it. But those prayers have a much, much, much, much better chance of getting answered when your heart is yielded to His will. Number three. Go back with me to Matthew 6. Matthew 6. Let's look at one more thought here. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. And then drop down to verse 17. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not in the men that fast, but unto thy father, which is in secret. And thy father, who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. And then drop down one more place to verse 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought, no anxiety, no concern, in that way, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. In other words, tomorrow has plenty of anxiety, you don't need to be worried about tomorrow, it already has enough worries, don't worry now about it. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. So let me use that and give you this third one. And I'll take a moment and try to explain why I'm saying it this way. So I said prayer is not convincing God of your needs, he already knows. Prayer is tuning your heart to God's will. But number three is this, prayer is focusing on heavenly results, not just earthly gifts. The Bible is clear in these passages. It is wrong to pray just so others will brag on us for praying. If I say, okay, I'm getting ready to pray, so how can I do this so that Larry's impressed? Okay, ready? Let's pray, Larry. Ready? Oh God of heaven, almighty God, everlasting God, God who knows everything. If I'm doing it just to impress him, would you say I was right or wrong? Is it right or wrong? Wrong. It's wrong to pray just to have an appearance of trying to impress people. You'd say, you know what, you're just putting on, you're just trying to look the part. The Lord's not going to bless that. That's not what the Lord wants. And you would be absolutely right. It is wrong to pray just so others will brag on us for praying or talk about how we pray or be impressed by our praying. Now, if that's true, watch this. If that's true, it's also wrong to pray only about the life that others see. If I'm praying just to be seen, that is wrong. If I'm praying just for this life that you're seeing, just to impress you with my life, that would be the exact same thing. It's the same wrong intent. So the question we could ask ourselves is this. How much of my prayers are about earthly things, and how much of my prayers are about eternal things? What am I praying about? Now, I want you to consider these questions here. What are we praying about that only has eternal significance? What am I praying about that only, maybe only God would see the result? which means maybe it's only going to happen in my heart, maybe no one else sees it, but I'm concerned about what's going on in my heart. Maybe I'm concerned about other things that maybe no one would be aware of, but I know the Lord would be aware, and that's my focus in these. Every prayer that we pray, You know, this is gonna be a little bit of a sting. Every prayer that we pray can't just be about our own situation, problems, concerns, cares. There's gotta be praying beyond us. I can't, if my whole prayer list is I need, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need. It sounds a very selfish prayer life. Is there anything beyond me that I'm praying about? Is there anything beyond my own needs, my own life I'm praying about? Sometimes our prayer life simply becomes a glorified letter to Santa. I want, I want, I want, I want, I want. Give me, give me, give me, give me. What kind of other things could we pray about? Well, let me challenge us. Do we ask God to make us a soul winner? Do we ever say, Lord, bring souls across my path? Lord, how can my life be used to spread the gospel to others? Lord, how can you use me to see souls saved? Do we ask God to help us encourage our fellow believers? Do we say, Lord, When I come to church, can you help me say the thing I need to say or do the thing I need to do that would be a help and a blessing to someone else? Not so that they speak well of you, not just so you can get credit, maybe no one will know, maybe the person you're helping may not know, but what can I do to be a blessing to others? Do we ask God to make our life an impact on others? Do we pray for the needs of others as fervently as we pray for our own needs? Answered prayers are often found in asking for those things that are much more eternal than temporary. Sometimes we don't see answer prayers because the only thing we pray about are these little specific things. Again, I'm not saying don't pray about them. I'm saying there's something bigger than that. All we pray about is these little specific things in our life, and we can't figure out why God doesn't do all this long laundry list of things that I want Him to do. Maybe we ought to be praying about some other things. You ever pray about Maybe, you know, here's a brother so-and-so, I saw him today, kind of look down. Lord, would you maybe encourage and speak to his heart? Lord, is there something I can say and something I can do to help him? Lord, there's someone who mentioned that they have a problem there. And Lord, can you help meet their problem? Can you help fix what is going on in their life? We gotta look beyond ourselves in our prayer life. Let me mention a couple of things and I'm done. Luke repeats what we see in Matthew. Go with me to Luke chapter 12. So is it true that you need a prayer list? Yes. Is it true you need a place to pray? Yes. You need time to pray? Yes. There's a lot of practical helps in praying. But when we get to the bigger philosophical things, We need to understand that prayer is not just getting things from God, but it's getting us to God so God can do what He needs to do and meet the needs that He knows we have. Look with me at Luke chapter 12. Look with me at verse 31. This is a similar passage we find in Matthew. Let's pick it up in verse 31 because you'll kind of notice how it's similar. But rather, seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things should be added unto you." Very similar to what we saw in Matthew. But look at verse 32. Fear not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. He adds that little bit there in Luke chapter 12. God delights to give you your needs in answer to prayer. It's his good pleasure So God delights to give us our needs in answer to our prayer. But yet God also delights to use our prayer life to bring us closer to himself. What delight is there in a Christian when our heart is open to the Lord, our heart's being tuned to the Lord, our prayers are being focused on what's really important to the Lord, and then we see answers to those prayers. That's what brings a closeness between us and our Savior, and this is what the Lord wants to do. This is really what praying is about, bringing us to Him, helping us to see the greater needs bringing other needs in along with it, and then the Lord began ministering and meeting those things in answer to prayer. That's when we understand really the good pleasure the Lord has in these things.