This is the second time that I have the privilege to preach to you on Father's Day, and it is a great privilege. It's a great joy to be able to spend a couple hours and study, thinking how can I best serve the men, the dads in our church. And the message that God has really laid on my heart, that I've tried to labor in for the last couple weeks, applies to teens, applies to young men, applies to middle-aged men, older men, wherever you see yourself, this message applies to you. Whether you're a new believer, or whether you've been a believer for 30 or 40 years, the message applies to you. It doesn't matter whether you're single or married, whether you're a dad or not. The message is for the men in the church. And I believe that God wants to speak to us this morning in these words, I want men to pray. If God would speak to our church this morning, And he is speaking to our church this morning through his word. He would say, men at Tri-County Bible Church, I want you to pray. Our text is 1 Timothy 2 verse 8. Let's look carefully at the wording, and I'm actually going to read it a couple times, a couple different ways, so that by the end of four readings, we've got a good idea of what's being communicated in this verse. Paul says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. Listen to it again. I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Listen to it again. I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer without anger or disputing. And one more time, wherever you assemble, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy. I read it in four slightly different ways. They're all saying the same thing. God is breathing out His Word through Paul, giving instructions for the early church that Timothy is leading. And his message is, I want the men in your church to pray. That's God's burden for us this morning. I want to unpack this one verse for us. That's all I want to do this morning. Pretty simple, straightforward. I want to unpack this verse. I'm going to explain it. I'm going to extend it. And then if you like keeping with ease, I'm going to exemplify it. Or more simply, I'm going to illustrate it. I'm going to explain what this verse means. I'm going to show how far the extensions of this verse and its applications reach. And then I'm going to illustrate it in three ways. That's what we're doing this morning. Let's explain it. I don't know if any of you have ever gotten onto Google Earth. The first time I got on Google Earth, I think I told about half the church in personal conversations because I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. You see this big globe, and you type in Madison, hit enter. It brings you right in, and you can actually see the cars in your parking lot. Unbelievable. Actually, it's cars from about three years ago that the photo showed. What I want to do, start looking at the globe, And then we're going to zoom in on the exact words of the verse we just read. Start big. Paul wrote three letters to pastors. This is one of them. It's the first of them. About the same time that he would write to Timothy, he would write to Titus. They were sent probably the same year. Second Timothy, his second letter to Timothy, would be his last letter he would ever write that we still have. And he wrote it about two years later, just before he died in Rome. This was written about 62 AD. Paul is probably in his mid-sixties. Timothy, probably in his late thirties or early forties. Timothy is the pastor of the church in Ephesus. Paul states his reason for writing this letter in chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, and I'm just going to condense it and basically say, Paul's saying, Timothy, I'm writing to you so that you'll know how believers in the church should behave. I'm writing so that you'll know how believers should behave themselves in the body of Christ. What the church looks like. Now, if you do a quick overview of this book, Paul is basically telling Timothy, I want you to believe the Gospel and hold on to your faith in the Gospel. I want you to preach the Gospel. I want you to defend the Gospel. I want you to suffer for the Gospel. And many times in these three pastoral letters and in this one letter, he's saying, I want the church to live out the Gospel. I want the church to be a living display of what the Gospel looks like when you meet. And this chapter is one of those chapters, similar to Titus 2, where he says this is what life looks like as it adorns the Gospel. This is what the Gospel looks like when it's the rubber meeting the road. In this chapter, in the zoom in, we're coming a little closer. In this chapter, 1 Timothy 2, Paul said in verses 1-7, basically he says, I want the whole church to pray. Pray specifically for your government, for your leaders. And he's got two purposes, really, in praying for the leaders. He says, verse 2, so that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life. Basically, so that we might go about our business, namely, the business of spreading the gospel, without any hindrance. And that's why he moves on then to talking about God, verse 4, wants all men to be saved. Come to the knowledge of the truth. The other reason he prays that way is so that the government won't look at us as like rabble-rousers. I don't want you guys to be known as a church for always being contentious when it comes to your leaders. When those leaders think of Tri-County Bible Church, they should think, that's a church that prays for me and thanks God for me. So that we might go about our business of spreading the gospel in this world like we need to. Paul says, I want the church to be praying like that. I want them to have a heart for the Gospel and they're praying for their leaders that they would give them a without hindrance ability to spread the Gospel and do their work because those leaders know that that church loves them, prays for them, thanks God for them. And then, getting into our verse, Paul says, you see it in the third word of the verse, I want men to pray. Now, I'm going to skip over that for just a second and point you to the end of the chapter so that we can see what's going on here better. In verses 9 and 10, Pastor Chris actually highlighted this passage for us just a couple weeks ago in his message on modesty. Paul wants the women in the church. That's where he turns next. He wants the women in the church to be dressed in a decent, in a beautiful, but in a non-showy way, so that their inner godliness in the meeting of the church will be seen. And then in verses 11-15, he says, I don't want women in a church meeting to exercise authority over men in the church. That would not display the gospel. You can see that Paul's attention is basically saying, this is what I want life to look like in the church and in the church meeting. So we've just gone pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy 2, and now let's zero in on verse 8. Paul says, therefore, after verses 1-7 on basically, I want the church to pray and thank God for governmental authorities in order that the gospel might advance. He says then, therefore, I want men to be the leaders in this kind of prayer. That's the connection. I've just been talking about prayer ultimately for the Gospel to advance. I want now men to lead in that kind of prayer. I want men to lead. That's what the therefore is there for. Paul says, I will, or you might underline will, You might say, want, or desire. This is what I want. And Paul is expressing it as his desire, but as the Holy Spirit is breathing these words out through Paul, listen to this as God's desire. I want men to pray. Who? I want men. I want men to pray. This is in specific contrast to women. Paul is going to address the women specifically in the next verse and the verses following. He's addressing men. Now there are two ways you can refer to men. We often will sometimes say mankind. And we're not talking about all the males in the world. We're talking about people. And Paul has a term he can use for people. And he used that term, if you look back in v. 5. There is one God and one mediator between God and men. Different word. The man Christ Jesus. Paul says there's one God, one mediator between God and people. God and humans. God and the human race. Talking about both men and women. That is the man Christ Jesus. And maybe before we should move any further, let's just park right there. You might be here this morning, not quite sure what the Gospel is. You think church is all about doing good? trying to live better, show more kindness to people. The message of the Bible is summed up in that verse we just read. There is one God, and the message of the Bible is that we are out of sorts with Him because we love ourselves mostly. We are sinners. We're self-centered. We're wayward. And there is one Mediator that God Himself in love provided for us. A go-between. Jesus Christ, the Man, God Himself in flesh. Two thousand years ago, He came and lived perfectly in your place. And He died in your place for your sins, taking your punishment on Him. And He rose again, really, literally, bodily. He rose again from the dead. He is now in heaven awaiting His return. At His return, He will judge this world. And the message of the Bible is, get right with God. There is one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus. There is no other way of being right with God. You can't work your way there. A church, me, priests, they can't do it. One mediator. It is the Lord Jesus. And it is to men who have accepted that, a whole church which is centered on that doctrinal truth, the Lord Jesus Christ is our only Savior, that Paul is speaking this message. Paul says, I want men to pray. This is not men, everybody. This is men in contrast to women. This is not saying that women cannot pray in public. Passages Paul is going to write in other places, like 1 Corinthians 11. Paul is going to allow women to pray, in that context, prophesy within the church. It's fine for women to give testimonies in the church and to pray publicly in church, provided that there's a leadership structure that's not inverted. It's fine for women to participate. God's not saying men are the only ones who can pray. God's saying, I want men to be the leaders in the prayer of the church. I want men to be the leaders. He says everywhere. Literally, in every place. Three Greek words. In every place. The context is public worship. The church in Ephesus did not have a building in 62 AD. The church is not a building. Paul's basically saying, wherever you meet, whatever context you meet in as a church, I want the men to be the leaders in prayer. We could apply it to Tri-County Bible Church like this. Whether you're meeting at the high school on Sunday morning, at the Fine Arts Center on Sunday night, at Dana's Park on Wednesday night, whether it's a smaller group meeting like EMM's, or whether it's a larger group meeting like morning worship, whether it's an at-home fellowship at the Vanio's or the Bosa's or the Hearst's or the Falcone's. Wherever you are, meeting as a church, I want men to be the leaders in prayer. How? He gives two hows. First is lifting up holy hands. The second is without anger, without quarreling. What does he mean, lifting up holy hands? There's actually two parts of that that need explanation. First is the lifting up of hands. And the second, what does he mean, holy hands? Lifting up hands. This is a posture, like getting on your knees, lifting up hands. It's a posture, a physical posture. Many times throughout the Old Testament, 1 Kings 8, Solomon does it. He stands before the altar of the Lord in the presence of the whole congregation of Israel, and he spreads out his hands toward heaven. And he says, O Lord God, there's no one like You. Posture. Lifting up hands. Psalm 28, Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cry to You for help, when I lift up my hands toward Your most holy sanctuary. Psalm 63, I will bless you as long as I live. In your name, I will lift up my hands. Lamentations 3.41, let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven. where Israel is basically saying, we need to repent of our sins. The reason we are in exile, the reason we are lamenting the fall of Jerusalem is because of our sins and our waywardness. We need to lift up our hands to God. Lift up our hearts to God. This was a common posture. That's my whole point for reading those verses. Paul is not saying in this verse that you have to lift your hands every time you pray. Rather, he's describing a God-word focus and intent and intensity in your prayer that very well could be postured by the lifting up of your hands. Just like getting on our knees can be a great evidence of humble dependence God, I'm nothing. I get on my knees to show it to you. Lifting your hands can express a fervency. It can express a beggarly intensity. I need you, God. And what Paul is basically saying is I want men to lead in genuinely intense, God-focused prayer. And he says I want them lifting up Holy hands. Highlighting the need for the men who lead in public prayer and the worship services to back that up with a holy life. It's not saying you're perfect. It's not saying you never sinned. It's not saying that the people in church don't realize that you've had stupid failures in your past. It's saying that your life is characterized by holiness. You're set apart to God. The hands you lift up in prayer are not the hands that are getting dirtied by living in worldly, sensual, self-centered ways that everyone in the church says, you know what, that guy's really inconsistent. He looks real great when he prays in public, but I know that same guy is out there week to week and his life doesn't back up this intense love for God that he's professing. God says, I want your lives to be characterized by holiness. Set apart to God. And He says, I want you to pray without anger, without quarreling. God doesn't want people praying in the church when they're out of sorts with each other. He doesn't want people praying when there's anger and contention in your heart toward other people. It's a hypocrisy that God doesn't want in His church. And He doesn't answer those prayers. You might remember last week before Mark Miller came up to pray, our focus really starting the service was the only way we have access into the presence of God is through Jesus. Exactly right. Mark wasn't contradicting that at all. The only way we stand before God is through Jesus. But there are passages of Scripture, like 1 Peter 3, that says if you're out of sorts with your wife, your prayers are hindered. God doesn't want people praying to Him when they're out of sorts with other people. It doesn't mean that you're never going to have disagreements with other people, or that you'll never have to part ways with people. It doesn't mean that you're going to get along perfectly with everybody. Paul's going to have Edemas leave. Paul's going to have all kinds of disagreements with the church at Corinth. It's not saying that there's none of that. It's saying that in your heart, you don't have any anger toward those people. A selfish, bitter spirit where you're saying, I'm going to get one up on them. I've got to prove them wrong. There's not an anger, a contention, so that when you're lifting your hands in prayer, saying, God, I want the Gospel to advance. And I want the Gospel to advance in this church and in the lost. You don't have people saying, if only people knew what that guy lived like. If only people knew how that guy treated the people around him. If only that guy knew what his family thought of him. That guy's hard to get along with. He doesn't understand anything of Gospel grace. God doesn't want that kind of duplicity in the men who are leading in prayer. He wants their lives to back up what they're showing when they lead in public prayer. God wants His church to be marked by genuine love. Not like, I love people, but I can't get along with people, really. And He wants His church to be characterized by transparency. What you see up there is what you get. It's not one thing in public and another thing in private. That's those two qualifications at the end. Holy hands without wrath, without disputing, without doubting, without quarreling. The minute that passionate prayer for others comes out of the mouth of someone who's bitter and angry, the church has stopped living out the Gospel. That's what God is warning against. So, I explained it. No matter when, where the church meets, God wants men to be the leaders in prayer. And their prayer should be characterized by earnestness and intensity. And the men who are praying should be characterized by purity and genuineness. What you see is what you get. That's the verse. I think we understand it. Now, the significance of this verse can go farther. That's why I used the word extend. We explained it. Now we're going to extend it. The significance of this verse can be extended in three ways. And you'll see, these are very logical. The first one is God wants men to lead in all kinds of prayer. In this context, it's praying for governmental leaders, thanking God for them, praying for the advance of the gospel without hindrance. God wants men to lead in those kinds of prayer. But the fact that Paul's saying it here, you might as well just say, God wants men to lead in all kinds of prayer. Whether it's confession of sin, or intercession for believers, adoration, praise, benediction, doxology. God wants men to be the leaders in prayer. All kinds of prayer. That's the first extension. The second extension. God wants men to be the leaders in prayer. God wants men to be the leaders in all aspects of worship and ministry. God wants men to be the leaders. It's not saying that women shouldn't have places of importance within the church. It's saying God wants men to be the leaders in prayer, in worship, in ministry. whether it's praying or reading Scripture, or men being leaders in listening to Scripture and hearing it and responding to it, or men being the leaders in giving, men being the leaders in singing. God wants men to lead in every aspect of biblical worship. He wants us to be the leaders. Now, I've got to make one parenthetical note before I go on to the third extension. The note is this, Paul is not saying that every man in the church is gifted for public ministry. He's not saying, men, every one of you in the church needs to have the giftedness to be able to stand up and speak a prayer to God in front of more than 100 people. Some of you would say, for me to get up in front of 25 people would be unnervingly Frightful. God's not saying that you have to have a giftedness different from your own. Now, if you have a fear of praying in front of large groups, something I used to have quite a bit, I would encourage you to do everything you can to conquer that fear. Because it may not be a good fear. On the other hand, you just might say, I just am not gifted. I've prayed in public before and it doesn't serve anybody. I'm just not an up-in-front-of-people kind of guy. Paul's not saying be an up-in-front-of-people kind of guy in terms of big congregation, big church congregation. Paul's emphasis is on being the leader in prayer and in passionate worship. During the worship service, are you, right where you sit, engaged in worship? Engaged in prayer, whether you speak it or not. People know you are intent in praying with whoever's praying. Do people know, right where you're sitting, that you are agreeing with what they're praying? Do people know that you are as dependent on God as the person leading? Lead in all kinds of worship like that. Whether or not you're gifted to get up in front of people, that's not the point. The point is, are you a leader in worship? You can lead in small groups. Whether that's in your EMM, you're more comfortable praying with 15-20 people. Or you can lead On the way out the door, someone's sharing a trial with you. Are you the one who says, can I take a minute and pray with you just right now? You can pray one-on-one. And by that, you're showing you're a leader in your prayer, in your dependence on God. And you're being a leader in our church in this way. It's not that you have to be up in front of people. Are you a leader? in passionate prayer and worship. That's what Paul's getting at. Not whether or not you're comfortable in front of crowds, but whether or not you're a passionate prayer yourself and a passionate worshipper of God. God wants men to be leading in this way. Third extension. All kinds of prayer. All kinds of worship. God wants men to be the leaders in. The third extension is, this is in a church context. a service, a gathering of the church like this this morning. However, you've really got to extend this beyond the context. And what I mean is, God wants men to be first and more so at home what they are in the church. Or I might say, God wants men to be first in private what they are in the public gathering of the church. And he wants them to be more so that way. What I mean is, what I display in public should be an evidence of what's going on and an overflow of what's going on in private. You can see, I think, that that's a legitimate application. God doesn't want the public life and the private life of the members of His church to be different. He wants them to be consistent. What we see in church is what your family should see at home. God's not interested in having men speak lofty public prayers while they never pray at home. And their family says, where did that come from? God's desire for men is to be passionate leaders in the worship of the church. That's what this verse is teaching us. That starts at home. This message is kind of a rudder-setting message. In one sense I could say, like Paul would in 1 Thessalonians 4, you are excelling in these things. I'm just telling you this so that you would excel all the more. Because we've got so many men in our church that are characterized by leading in private and public worship. Our church doesn't lack this. And I'd just say, keep doing it. Keep growing. None of us have arrived. Let's keep pressing on toward this goal that Paul sets for us. There's a target out there. There are some. And you might say, at this point in my life, singing, praying, doing it passionately, I've always thought that was for ladies. It's not a real manly thing to do. We've got men in our church that think that. Getting passionate about worship. That's not a masculine thing. We've got some men in the church who you would say, probably all of us would say to some extent, you know, when I think about my private life, what I put on in public is a little bit more pretentious than what's actually going on in private. but convicting there. Some of us would look at our lives and say, you know what? When it comes to my personal life, my family life, I don't have any habit of prayer for my family, with my family, for the lost. I don't have any regular habit. Whether you're already kind of down the road in this, or whether this is the road that you need to get on, the message is the same. God wants the men at Tri-County Bible Church to be leaders in passionate worship, leaders in prayer. That's God's call to us this morning. And rather than now starting to work out applications, I just want to give three illustrations. These are three closing illustrations. that show you what this looks like. And I have deliberately chosen illustrations that are not like, let me tell you what Charles Haddon Spurgeon's prayer habit was. Let me tell you what David Brainerd's prayer habit was. Because immediately it would defeat you. You would say, Horatious Bernard spent three hours in prayer? on a regular weekly basis, and he always thought he never prayed enough. I better stop right now and just walk out the door, because it's absolutely hopeless for me. There are some godly saints whose examples I could hold up, and all of us would be like, never. I've deliberately chosen a couple examples that are powerful examples, but I think they're people that we can relate to. I want them to challenge us. I want them to inspire us. I want them to help us work out the applications. What does this actually look like in life? First example, a man named James Payton. James Payton. Some of you might be familiar with his son, John Payton. John Payton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, from Scotland. His dad got saved. His dad is James. That's the guy I'm focusing on. His dad got saved. He was about 17 years old. God just transformed his life. They were involved in a very evangelical Presbyterian church. The church was about 4 miles away. And his dad had 11 kids. And so throughout almost all of John's growing up, he never remembers the rest of his family going to church because the mom was always at home with all the kids. He remembers his dad missing church three times. Once was an ice storm, once was a snow storm where he couldn't get his legs in and out of the snow, and the other when there was an epidemic of cholera where his dad had to go and help on a Saturday night and he actually ended up helping all through the night into Sunday and wasn't able to go to church. His dad went to church every week walking four miles. His dad was a stocking manufacturer, which in our modern day it would be like he made pants. That's what his dad did. This is what John, famous missionary to the New Hebrides, remembers about his father in family devotions. How much my father's prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain. Nor could any stranger understand. When on his knees and all of us kneeling around Him in family worship, my Father poured out His whole soul with tears for the conversion of the lost world in service to Jesus. For every personal and domestic need that we had. We all felt as if the living Savior was present with us. And we learn to know and love him as our dear friend through our father's prayers. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father's face, and I wish I were like him in spirit, hoping that in answer to his prayers, I might go someday and carry the gospel to some part of the heathen world. He also remembers how his father used to pray in a small room which the family called the closet. The closet was the sacred place of that cottage. There, every day and a couple times a day, generally after each meal, we saw our father retire and shut the door. And we children came to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct that prayers were being poured out for us there. We occasionally heard emotional echoes of a trembling voice, fleeting almost as if for life, and we learned to slip back and forth past the door on tiptoe so we didn't disturb him. Peyton writes, if I were to forget everything else I had ever been taught about religion, my soul would wander back to those early scenes and shut itself up once again in that closet, and hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with a victorious appeal. He walked with God and I want to as well. James Payton, simple stocking maker, had a large family. His family wasn't able to go to church all that much. He was a man of prayer. And his son would become a veteran missionary to the cannibals and would say that his father's passionate prayer, his private prayer life, was like the bedrock on which John's conviction was built. God wants men to be leaders in worship and prayer. Example number two, Tom Carson. Two weeks ago, I read this book. It's called Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, Reflections on the Life of Tom Carson. His son, Don, wrote the book. Some of you might know him as D.A. Carson. He wrote about 60 other books. Teacher at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's one of my favorite authors and preachers. Outstanding student of the scripture and teacher of it. Writes a book about his dad. His dad never pastored a church more than about 30 people. Most of his life it was about 20 people. French speaking Canada, 40 years, characterized by three periods of ministry, most of them about 15 years long. Never pastored more than 30 people, that's why he calls it Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor. would never see significant growth in his ministry. About 30 years in the ministry, God started growing the work in French Canada, but it was always in the ministries of other men around him. And right up until his last years, Tom always thought of himself as a weak servant of God. He always used to say, God, why don't I have such a burden for the lost like I should? And he's out visiting lost people ten hours a week. God, I'm such a lazy pastor, and he's working 55-60 hour weeks. He would always feel like he wasn't doing as much as he could and he always beat himself up for it. His son described him as always wrestling with a feeling of inferiority throughout his life. This humble, ordinary pastor has become one of my heroes after reading the book. I want you to hear the impression he had on his children. Throughout all his years, Dad, this is Tom Carson, he never had a study outside the home. Usually, a single room in our house was reserved for the purpose, though I remember one extended period of time that it was sacrificed to the needs of his elderly mother-in-law. When the door to the study was shut, we kids knew that we were not supposed to intrude. Dad's practice in private prayer was to kneel before the big chair that he used and pray loudly enough to vocalize so as to keep his mind from wandering. Outside the door, we could hear him praying. even if we could not hear what he was saying. I remember countless days when he prayed for 45 minutes or more. Actually, strange to tell at this juncture, I can't remember days when he didn't. Jim, this is Don's brother, another of Tom's sons, Jim recalls barging into Dad's study unannounced one time, finding him on his knees praying and quietly backing out. And Jim wrote about that. That image has always remained with me. especially during my later rebellious teen years, while walking away from God, I could not get away from the image of my father on his knees praying for me. It's one of the things that eventually brought me back. Don and Jim remember their ordinary pastor father having a consistent habit of private prayer at home. And it was one of the things that God used to eventually bring Jim back from his teenage rebellion. Amen? God says, I want you to pray. Last example is personal. A man named Pete Tierpach. He's my dad. Never served as an elder in a church. My dad's not a public speaker. He was an IBM salesman for 35 years. And he would lead my mom in 15 to 20 minutes of quiet prayer when they woke up in the morning. I remember waking up in my bed, maybe 6, 6.30, I remember laying there hearing my dad's grovelly morning voice. I couldn't really make out, but maybe one or two words every couple seconds. And then that would always be followed by my mom's crisp voice. My mom always has this beautiful, high, crisp voice, whether it's in the morning or at night. Never had that grovelly morning voice like my dad. Like I said, I wasn't able to make out too many words, but me? And the rest of my siblings knew that they were praying, that they were praying for us. And all of us know that they still do it every day. Two weeks ago, my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. And all of us kids had the responsibility of putting together a couple pages of a scrapbook. None of us saw each other's pages. But we all sent them in to my oldest two siblings, Dan and Mel. We sent them over to Pennsylvania, and they compiled the book and then shipped it to the hotel that mom and dad were staying at on their 40th anniversary. Big surprise. It left my dad in tears. I think they cried for about six hours as they flipped through the 60 pages. It was really, really special for us to be able to honor him like that. I'm going to read two excerpts from what my two oldest sisters said. My sister, Melody. She's in her mid-30s, wrote to my parents. As a child, I remember countless times walking into your room first thing in the morning to either find you praying or reading the Bible. Then I didn't really understand why this was so important to you and why you needed God to get through each day. Now as an adult and a parent, I understand why I found you morning after morning earnestly seeking God. Thank you for being a wonderful example of what it means to love God with all your heart. Next oldest sister, Glory, writes, I can't imagine what my life would be now if you two had not committed to make God the center of our family. Thank you for letting me see you have your devotions together and praying together as I grew up. One time while listening at your door, I heard myself mentioned by name being lifted to the Lord in prayer. That was an unforgettable and humbling experience. I knew then, as I know now, that my parents' number one goal in life is to see me and now my family loving and serving God. Pete Tierpach, a 35-year IBM salesman, led his wife in passionate prayer. And it's the dominant memory that his children have as they reflect on 30 plus years of parental ministry. God wants men to be leaders in prayer. Reading these testimonies, it's convicting for me. I'm not like James, not like Tom, I'm not like my dad. You might feel the same way. I wish I was more consistent. I wish this was more a part of my life. I wish my kids may have seen that for the last ten years. Let me remind you that James and Tom and Pete were sinners, and they were imperfect, and I am certain that there were mornings that it was my mom encouraging my dad to pray rather than the vice versa. They needed Jesus. They were weak, imperfect, They, like you, need a Savior. My goal this morning is not to put you on the guilt trip. None of us pray like we should, okay? Let's just fess up to it. None of us pray like we should. I could really easily make us all feel like, oh man, I'm a failure in life. No. Have you trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver you from your sins? His grace is greater than all your sin. You have stepped into, Romans 5, a world of grace. Jesus continues to love you just where you are. You've trusted in Him as your Savior. He will never let you go. He loves you and He wants to see you grow and He wants to encourage you. And His blood keeps on cleansing you from all sin. Don't leave here feeling guilty, discouraged. You have a Savior. You've dealt with your sin. You've dealt with your weaknesses and your failures. I want you to go out of here saying, Lord Jesus, You have raised me to walk a new kind of life. And You call me to be a leader in passionate prayer, in private and in public, in all kinds of worship. Give me a heart that's more after You. Motivate me with your grace in the lives of other people. Motivate me with the promises that I will one day see your face. I need you. Without you, I'm nothing. And let the grace of Jesus Christ that's been showered on your life already, and promises to be continually showered on your life until you see Him, and it's been showered on thousands and millions of believers in the past, let it encourage you to keep growing. Because God wants Tri-County Bible Church to be a place where men are passionate and genuine in both private and public prayer.