Let me ask you to turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 11, and you can stick your finger in Matthew chapter 6 also while you're at it. So Luke 11 and Matthew 6. Now we're continuing in the nine marks study, the nine marks of a healthy church, and over the years Mark Dever, you know, originated this study. He's come up with a few more marks, so now they're up, I think, to 13. We're in Mark 10 this evening, which is focusing on corporate prayer. Now, I want to emphasize at the front end of this message, we can do all the right things. We can employ all the right activities. We can carry all of the things out meticulously that are supposedly marks of a healthy church and yet not be healthy. We can be like Israel that was described in Isaiah chapter 29, 13, where Isaiah says, the people draw near with me to their mouth and they honor me with their lips, but their heart are far from me. So we can engage in all of the things that the nine marks say indicate or are part of or evidence of a healthy church and yet not be healthy. Our hearts can be far from the Lord. We can be like whitewashed tombs that are beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So it's important on the front end that as we approach this topic of corporate prayer that we do so with a commitment to prayer. that we recognize what prayer is, and that our hearts are engaged with the Lord in prayer. So what I'd like to do this evening, I want us to look at some principles that inform our corporate prayer, and then we're going to look at eight statements that Deborah makes that we ought to be able to look at and consider and follow, or statements that ought to characterize the prayer patterns of our church. So the first thing I want to say is that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Look with me in Luke 11. Luke 11, verses one to four, that Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. your kingdom come, your will, excuse me, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins, for we forgive ourselves, forgive everyone who's indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. Now, you recognize this is a shortened version of what Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount, so turn over to Matthew 6, and we'll look at the longer version of what has come to be known as the Lord's Prayer. In three years, Jesus certainly repeated the same information numerous times. We don't learn anything the first time we hear it, and so it's no surprise to hear Him giving the same sermons or the same messages or the same sayings at various times and multiple times during the course of His three-year ministry. So in Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 5, When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who's in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they'll be heard for their many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now, Jesus tells us, go in private and pray. That doesn't in any way preclude the practice of corporate prayer. And if you look at the early church, you see they were frequently engaged in, or they frequently devoted themselves to public prayer, to corporate prayer. And that's what I want us to focus on tonight. In the Nine Marks ministry, they have a number of small books, kind of mini books, dealing with the various marks. And the one on prayer was written by a man named John Anwuchequa. He's affectionately known as John O. He's the pastor of Cornerstone Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where Pastor Bob Self is one of the elders. But John makes the point that there's no record in the Gospels of the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to do anything but pray. He did teach them. He taught them the Bible. He taught them truth. He taught them about public ministry. He taught them to teach. He instructed them in many ways of what ministry should look like. He sent them out to preach the gospel and even to heal. When he descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, he found his disciples trying to cast a demon out of the son of a man who was quite distressed, and they said, we can't do this, we don't understand. But they didn't say, Lord, show us how to do this. But they did say, Lord, teach us to pray. They often observed Jesus praying, and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. Now, what is prayer? How would you answer that question? What is prayer? Is that an easy answer or a little more nuanced answer? Different people have different views on prayer. I'm not gonna get off into some of the more bizarre views, but for some it's talking with God. And some would say, and God talking back to us. I would not say that. God speaks to us through his word and we speak to him through prayer. Some would say it is communicating with God. Not just speaking, but there's more to communicating than speaking. Some would say it is communing with God, which involves communicating, but it also involves fellowship. Pastor Jono says that prayer is like breathing for the Christian. It is essential for life. A failure to pray, he calls spiritual suicide. He says it's vital for our spiritual health. In fact, God's word calls us to pray without ceasing. So what is prayer? Again, Pastor John quotes another author who says, prayer is calling on the name of the Lord through his promises. I think it's very interesting to qualify it in that way. It's calling on the name of the Lord, calling out to Him as our God, our Father in heaven, as it were. But then calling on Him in keeping with His promises. It's not simply name it and claim it and pursue your own agenda and ask God to rubber stamp it for you. He's not a spiritual vending machine where you put the prayers in and you push the button and you get what you want out on your timetable. Years ago, there was a song on the Christian radio station. It was a parody, which means making fun of, a common view of prayer. It was called Shopping List. And the verses were just like this endless list of all the stuff that the singer wanted God to do for him or to give to him. It really reads like a kid's wish list in Toys R Us. And then he gets to the chorus and he says, give me this, give me that, bless me, Lord, I pray, grant me what I think I need to make it through the day, make me wealthy, keep me healthy, fill in what I miss on my never-ending shopping list. Now, sadly, that's about what some people think prayer is, but that's not biblical prayer. So it's important that we understand what prayer actually is. It involves making our requests known to the Lord, but it involves much, much more. So what are some key elements of prayer? Please pray that my thing comes back on. There we go. No idea why it just turned off. some key elements of prayer. There's an acronym that many of us have used, ACTS, and those letters stand for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Let's look briefly at each of these four elements that are really key for a balanced and healthy prayer life. Adoration is expressing our praise to God, praising Him for who He is, for His glory, for His beauty, for His attributes. It's praising, it's worshiping, it's adoring God. Confession is confession of our sins, confessing our failure, our need for His grace, confessing that we need Him, confessing our weakness, our unbelief, our Faintheartedness, we sing the hymn, help my unbelief, my help must come from thee. And if you read the verses, I would but cannot pray, I would but cannot love, the love, By wood, by love, divine. And you see there's this confession going on of what I know I ought to be but I'm not. So confession involves calling on the Lord to forgive us and to deal with us in grace. The third aspect is thanksgiving. It's giving thanks for the wondrous things God has done for us. Now what's the difference between praise or adoration and thanksgiving? Do you know the distinction between those two? Because there is a difference and they're both important. And they're both contained in Scripture. Praise focuses on who God is. It focuses on His holy character, His glory, who He is. And we love Him for who He is. Thanksgiving focuses on what He has done for us as expressions or as outflows of His character. God, we praise You for Your love. We praise you that you are loving and gracious and kind, and we give you thanks that in your love, you sent your son to die for us. In your grace, you have redeemed us from sin." You see the difference? They're deeply connected, but there's praise, there's adoration, and there's thanksgiving, and both of them are vitally important part of a healthy spiritual communion with the Lord. And then finally, supplications. And this is where we present our requests to the Lord. And most people think of prayer and they jump right to prayer requests and supplications and they don't really focus on those other vital and soul nourishing aspects of communing with God through adoration and confession and thanksgiving. And if you read the Psalms, you're going to discover there are other types of prayer. There's Psalms of lament, where the psalmist is lamenting, expressing sorrow. He's not just calling out to the Lord, he's crying out to the Lord. Now, lament certainly can be involved in prayer of confession. But it can also be pouring out to the Lord your sorrows, not of the things you have done, but just the hard things in life that are happening to you, or what your enemy might be doing to you, or sorrows, or whatever. And so the psalmist laments, and in fact, even as we read this morning in Psalm 13, how long, O Lord, will you hide your face from me forever? Those are laments. There's also remembering. There are a number of psalms where the psalmist remembers the wondrous things God has done. Not strictly, thank you Lord that you did this, but he's simply reminding, he's calling to mind the wondrous things God has done to build up and to fortify his faith and to fortify the faith of others around him. reciting the deliverances that God has made. You remember the psalm, some went out in ships and then they were distressed but they cried out to the Lord and he delivered them. Or the psalms that describe the exodus event. How we were enslaved and yet you set us free and the horse and the rider were thrown into the sea as we crossed the Red Sea on dry land. So we employ these various elements in a balanced prayer life, and we do so in private, private prayer, personal prayer, but we also do so in public or corporate prayer. So I wanna spend really the bulk of our time tonight focusing on corporate prayer. What is corporate prayer? What is communal or congregational prayer? There's a distinction between praying in private and praying in public, praying all by yourself and praying with God's people. The many writers refer to the Lord's Prayer and say the use of the plural, our Father, who art in heaven, forgive us this day. In the immediate context, Jesus says go into your closet and pray by yourself and pray this way. So I'm not real sure if Jesus was saying this should be a pattern for public prayer or private prayer. I think it's a pattern for prayer, personally. Corporate prayer is the church praying together. It's believers gathering for the purpose of prayer or believers attending the prayer of God's people. And again, Mark Dever says that prayer is the life of the church. And the prayer life of the church is vital, a vital indicator of that church's spiritual health. points out to us that in the first couple of chapters of Acts, we find the believers gather together to pray. It's as they were praying that the Holy Spirit descends upon them and fills them, and they pour out into the streets and begin to preach. And then, as thousands are converted and added to their number, they gather over and over and over to pray. It was a particular priority of the early church. So, In that vein, Pastor Dever makes eight statements about corporate prayer. He says there's a wide variety of how churches carry out the mandate or the responsibility or the privilege of corporate prayer, but there's some common characteristics that ought to characterize the way we pray. So eight statements, number one, all of our public prayer life as a church should be an outgrowth of our personal private prayer lives. And that's kind of a given. We should be, the fuel of our public praying should be private prayer, intimacy in our walk and relationship with the Lord. That's the fuel for effective corporate prayer. We need to walk with the Lord individually. And then we need to walk with the Lord together with one another. Secondly, he says that some of our praying or some of the practices in prayer will vary over time. Now what he means by that is there's no one set way to accomplish this mission or this mandate of effective corporate prayer. At our church, we have Wednesday night prayer meeting every week and we've had it ever since the church started. And it's a vitally important part of the life of our church. We also have community groups where we meet once a month and we pray together. That's a focus of what we do in our community groups. And oftentimes in the community group, we can share things that are a little bit more personal, a little bit more intimately connected with one another than we would share in a larger public meeting. Our elders meet every week, every Tuesday morning at 6.45 to pray for you. That's not so much corporate prayer, but it is in a sense. But there are a lot of other ways that praying together has taken place or still takes place in the context of this church. Years and years ago, we were part of a mission prayer group. We met once a month on a Sunday night and we would pray for various countries and we would pray that God would raise up missionaries from our church. We used to have a large number of senior citizens, we called them the prime timers, and they would meet once a month specifically to pray for their grandchildren, which I think was very sweet. There's a group of ladies that meets now. Every Wednesday night that we don't have snack supper, there's a group of ladies who meets earlier before prayer meeting in order to pray. So it's the pre-prayer meeting prayer meeting, if you will. There's a group of moms that meets once a month to pray for their children who are students in high school or college, and they've been doing this for years. There's a small group of men who've been gathering, I think every Friday morning, Or maybe once a month, I'm not sure, but they've been doing it for like a couple of decades. And I only found out about it a year or two ago. Good friends of mine that have been meeting regularly to pray together. Some of these groups gathered and prayed for a season. Some continue to this day and will go forward. organized by the leadership of the church. Some rose up spontaneously. One of my favorite stories in that regard, many, many years ago, I think it was when the moms wanted to gather to pray for their children. I'm not sure, but I believe that's what it was. A letter came to the elders requesting permission for these ladies to gather at the church to pray. Do they need permission to gather to pray? Do they need the elders to approve of that? And we really got tickled. We started joking about, oh, we wouldn't want unauthorized prayer to take place. Well, yes, we actually would. All the prayer we can get, we would very much appreciate. But we found that to be quite humorous. But again, we've seen it rise up spontaneously, or I like to say organically, in many, many cases. Now there's no one single way for a church to fulfill the commission to pray together, but it's vital that we accept that as a vital part of spiritual health as a congregation, that we are committed to corporate prayer, to pray together, to call upon the name of the Lord with and for one another. Other churches embrace other ways to do that. These are some of the ways that we have done that. Now there are two words, third statement that Deborah makes. Two key words that would be very helpful to keep in mind as we pray together corporately. And the words are we, or our, as opposed to I and me. That's the first one. What do I mean by that? Well remember, when you're praying with other people, you're praying representing them. We are going together to the throne of grace. It's not simply your personal, private experience with the Lord that others are looking on and observing, but you are praying, and they are participating with you in that prayer. So there's a sense in which we join together to call on the name of the Lord with one voice, and we represent one another when we pray together. That's the first statement. Years ago, when we always have deacons and elders do our invocation prayer, and one of the pastors noted that a number of our deacons were praying, I this, I that, and he said, you are leading the people before the throne of grace, it's not I this or I that, it's we. So we're praying in the first person plural, we gather, come meet with us. because it's not just your own personal private experience that everybody else is a spectator. We are leading together and participating together in this corporate communion with the Lord. Well, the second word that Dever recommends that we pay close attention to is the word amen. Now, what does amen mean? It means so be it. I agree. This is true. Now, that's not just what the person who's praying tacks onto the end of his prayer. In Jesus' name, amen. But amen actually can and often is, and I would say even should be used by everyone when someone finishes praying. which basically is the public expression of affirmation. We agree with what you have just prayed. We embrace that prayer. We affirm that to one another and to the Lord. Now, that's a very common practice among a lot of our Reformed Baptist brothers and sister churches. And in fact, in some cases, some of them are very enthusiastic And I remember the first time I was praying with some of these dear brothers, and you're praying, and you finish, and you're not the only one praying, there's a group of people praying, but as you finish, and you're done, suddenly there's this thunderous, Amen! and then somebody else prays. Some of you who are from that background are laughing because you know what I'm talking about. It's a little unsettling at first if you haven't ever been around that. I'm not saying it necessarily needs to be thunderous, but I think it should be audible. I think there should be an audible amen. I am engaged in your praying as you have helped lead me before the throne of grace, and I am affirming my agreement with that prayer before the Lord. I just think that's a healthy thing. It's not something that we have given a whole lot of thought to in this church, but I think we ought to. We should always be learning more about prayer. As that one person prays and others join with him, we and us, our Father who art in heaven, forgive us of our debts. Give us our daily bread. And then together, the corporate, amen. Mark says these two emphases help us pray together better, and I think he makes a good case of that. Now, fourth point he makes, the fourth statement, is there are different kinds of public prayers, and they're all important in the local church. Now, here he's distinguishing between gathering to pray in a corporate setting like prayer meeting or community group and a pastor or an elder leading in public prayer. And public prayer where the pastor is leading or the elder is leading is very important in the life of the church. And he says, some of the prayers are longer. They're more carefully thought out, they're more carefully structured, and some are much briefer, a little more spontaneous. If you look on our bulletin, we have prayer emphases, and we have that we pray for one of our missionaries, we pray for one of our church ministries, we pray for two of our sister churches. Every week, that's standard practice in our pastoral prayer, as well as other things. that are part of that pastoral prayer, but we include it in the bulletin to make sure that we include praying for these various ministries and these various sister churches that we're committed to. The Cornerstone Church in Mesa, Arizona prays for us. We're in their prayer rotation. And when they pray for us, they send us a copy of the bulletin and they circle that we were the prayer emphasis that week. There are others who have called us and said, we are praying for you this week. What would you have us to pray? Or maybe they've emailed that request. We've done that a few times. But that's a good practice to let each other know we're praying for you. How do you want us to pray intelligently? We ask our missionaries to send us prayer requests so that we can pray for them intelligently. But some prayers are longer. They're very carefully thought out and planned out. Again, some are brief. The invocation prayer that Aaron led in this evening, and Pastor Brian led us, no, Pastor Dave led us in this morning, that is a brief prayer, and it's very focused. We don't ask these men to make a number of requests. The main focus of an invocation prayer as we start the service is inviting God or invoking his presence. Be present with us, come meet with us, fill us with your Holy Spirit that we may speak your word, that we may hear from you, that we may sing your praises and that our praise will be acceptable in your sight. So we're invoking God's presence and his help that we might worship him. Regarding the pastoral prayer, this is an interesting thing. Different churches have different practices here. Mark Dever spends about 45 minutes preparing for his pastoral prayer. And he held up, in the video that I watched, a little fold-over sheet, and it was covered with scribbles. And these are the things I prayed for this past Sunday morning, he said. He said, it takes him about 45 minutes. Scott Van Steenburg told me he's been there on a Sunday morning. Devers' pastoral prayers typically take about 15 minutes. I remember years ago, Pastor Nick received a visitor card. Someone had made comments on the visitor's card. The pastoral prayer was much too long. It wasn't 15 minutes, I promise. But there's instruction. There's understanding of what is important and how we pray. Dever read an account of the Westminster Assembly. where it began with one pastor leading in prayer for two hours, and then another man preached for an hour, and then they sang a hymn, and then another man prayed for another hour, and then another man preached for another hour, and so forth. And this prayer for an hour or two hours was something that all were deeply engaged in and it was something that took careful preparation, careful prior thought. He says that Puritan pastors often spend as much time preparing for their pastoral prayer as they did for their sermon. And if you know anything about how the Puritans prayed, they spent a lot of time preparing for their sermons. Now there are those who say, you know, prayer should be spontaneous. You shouldn't write out what you're gonna pray. Just get up and pray from your heart. In a public prayer, in a pastoral prayer, we want to make sure that we are including the things that ought to be prayed for, that we are covering all the bases as it were in an appropriate way. And so it makes sense to plan out what you're gonna say. and to plan that out from the heart. I had a guy tell me one time his understanding of preaching was you get up in the pulpit and the spirit begins to work and you preach. I said, no, I don't think that's what preaching is. I think preaching is you go in your office and pray for the spirit to work there first, so you prepare, then you get in the pulpit and ask the spirit to work even more. But if he doesn't meet me in the study, then I don't have confidence that much is gonna happen in the pulpit that will be of benefit. And the same with prayer. There's a place to prepare and to think through how we're going to lead our people, how we're going to lead you guys to the throne of grace. Spontaneity is not a guarantee of heartfelt, effective prayers. And sometimes we neglect important and we forget important aspects of prayer if we don't think through it ahead of time. As we think of this public prayer, as we think of leading in prayer in a worship service, we view that, our elders view that as part of our teaching and pastoral ministry. So we only have men, in fact, we only have elders leading in pastoral prayer. We do have elders and deacons leading in the invocation prayer, but we only engage men in that aspect of prayer. In the corporate prayer, where everybody's invited to pray, we invite men to pray, we invite women to pray, we invite children to pray, and they all do. And that's a very healthy and very important part of community together, praying with and for one another. Now, when we pray, when we pray in public, again, Deborah makes this point, fifth point, it's generally best to begin with praise, to begin our prayers addressing God, our Father in heaven, hallowed, glorious be your name. to begin by praising the Lord. And we try to do that, to elevate our hearts and our minds to adore and to love and to worship our God. Before we start asking Him for anything, we want to engage our hearts with who He is through worship and through praise. You read the Psalms, many of the Psalms begin by praising the Lord before it gets to the meat of what His concerns might be. Public prayer. It can be a pattern. If we pray well in public, it can be a pattern for you to learn, oh, this would help me. This is what praising the Lord looks like, and it would help me in my personal and private prayer time. So we wanna give attention in our public praying and our corporate praying to praise and adoration. Again, that adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication all are important parts of praying together and praying publicly. The sixth statement that Deborah makes is it's fitting to give special and particular attention to confessing our sins to the Lord. Now there's some churches that actually have a distinct prayer of confession every Sunday. And I've been in churches that do that, a lot of Presbyterian churches do that. We tend to incorporate confession in our other aspects, other times of praying. We sing hymns of confession. This morning we sang sovereign grace over sin abounding. And we sang Jesus, what a friend of sinners. I love the hymn, help my unbelief, my help must come from thee. And the verses are just confessing our helplessness and our weakness and our need for the Lord. This past Wednesday night, if you were here in prayer meeting, we had a discussion of the verses that we preached on last Sunday of Romans 5, verses 3 to 5. We talked about what it means to rejoice when we suffer. And that unshakable hope enables us to rejoice, but what does that look like? And we talked about rejoicing a bit. And then when we came to a time of prayer, before we took any requests at all, I wrote on the marker board, ACTS, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. And I said, let's take a time and let's just pray through these four aspects of prayer, specifically in regard to being men and women who rejoice even in times of suffering. And the confession could be, Lord, I confess I fail to rejoice. I confess, I sometimes complain. I confess, I don't lay hold of the hope that you give me that can stimulate and can encourage that rejoicing. And so confession becomes an important part of praying together. Martin Luther, you remember we just celebrated the 502nd anniversary of the 95 Theses. Anybody know what the first thesis of the 95 Theses is? I'm gonna tell you, this is number one. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. And again, he goes on to distinguish between repentance of sin and penance, paying for your sin in order to get absolution and forgiveness of your sin. But he said the entire life of the believer is one of repentance. So confession is a part of personal prayer, but it also is healthy to be part of our corporate prayer life. Well, how should we pray in public? How should we pray together? How should your pastors pray? What should that actually look like? And here I'm talking not just about, I'm talking particularly about intercession. I'm talking about the supplication aspect. Turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter two. 1 Timothy chapter two. Paul says, 1 Timothy 2 verse 1, Now when he says all people, It doesn't seem like he's really including us within our body, but clearly we know that happens. We know that's essential. But he's saying not just us, but others as well outside our number. So what should we pray? Well, we should pray for the people in our congregation. We should pray for one another, particularly praying for growth and praying for maturity and joy, praying for the ability to apply the things that we are learning from God's word, but particularly praying for those who have needs. And so we do that, we pray by name. This morning we prayed for John Fesenfeld who's in the hospital suffering from cancer. And we've prayed for others by name who are going through particular times of struggle on Sunday mornings, but we do it much more together on Wednesday nights. We should pray for the salvation of family members, of our children, of our neighbors, and we do that in our Wednesday prayer meetings particularly. We should pray for the ministries of our own church, and every Sunday morning in the pastoral prayer, we include one of those ministries. But as we pray together, we can include more with greater time devoted for prayer. We should pray for the efforts to bring the gospel to others in our community. This past Wednesday, we prayed for the Bible study that two of our ladies have with these three Asian ladies that they've been having for many months now, taking them through the scriptures and showing them Jesus Christ. praying for our missionaries as we hear requests from them. By the way, John Cordy, I didn't get this message until after the service, John Cordy asked us to pray for him as he's preaching in this church in cells for the next eight weeks. This is the second of nine weeks that he'll be praying. So we're gonna pray for him when I close the service tonight and pray for his ongoing ministry. for that congregation. But we should pray for missionaries and for the furtherance of the gospel throughout the world. We should pray for our brothers and sisters overseas. We pray for our brothers in India who are engaged in gospel labors and experiencing hostility from their government. For those in China who are experiencing persecution. And in many Muslim countries, North Korea, where the gospel is being suppressed. And we should pray for the advance of the gospel in places where there is open persecution. By the way, I read recently, I've only seen it in one publication, that there is a revival going on of tremendous proportion in Iran. It's more individualistic, it really is not involving churches yet. but there's a massive turning away from Islam. There's a disillusionment from the fundamentalist Ayatollahs. In fact, this article said the strongest influence pushing people toward Christ are the Ayatollahs. because they're so turned off and put off by Islamic fundamentalism, there's a massive move toward Christ. I've not been able to corroborate that. Maybe some of you have seen something about that. But we should pray that God would do such glorious and wondrous things. We should pray for persecuted believers. We should pray for our leaders. Pray for the national leaders and those who are in authority as we read in 1 Timothy chapter two. These are all categories that ought to be included in our corporate prayer, and to some extent, at least in our pastoral prayer. Some are more focused on Wednesday evenings. But I want you to notice, back in 1 Timothy 2, what does Paul actually say about how we pray for our leaders? Look again. I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions. Why? that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. Now I want you to notice, the point of the prayer is not the success of one party over another. It's not the advancement of one particular political agenda or the failure of a different political agenda. The purpose is that the church would be unhindered by whatever the government does. Pray for our leaders that it may go well for us, that they don't get in our way, that they don't restrain the promotion and the expansion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And there are countries where governments are actively involved in trying to do that. This is pray for them. Pray for the Modi government in India. Pray for President Xi and his government in China. Pray for them, doesn't say against them, pray for them that God would work in such a way that the rulings and the way they govern would end up going well for his church. That's an amazing statement the more you think about it. Now certainly, We should be praying about significant moral issues. We should pray that God would end the scourge of abortion in our country. We should pray that our government would come up with wise and effective solutions to serious problems like poverty, like injustice, like violence and crime. I've had lengthy, lengthy discussions with my daughter about gun violence in schools. She was part of that lockdown at Riverside a couple of years ago when somebody sent, somehow they hacked into the system, a middle schooler hacked into the system and sent a text message to every student at Riverside High School saying, get out now, shooting at 12.30. They received that at 12 noon. And the kids were terrified. Kids were crying and they were calling their parents and saying goodbye and I love you and all that kind of stuff. So it was a prank. And the kid got caught and he got in a whole lot of trouble. But this is something she's passionate about. But do we ever pray for our leaders that they would have come up with wise solutions to gun violence in our country? That would be a good thing to do. We don't necessarily need to pray what that looks like because it's kind of controversial, different opinions. But God, guide us and give us wisdom to solve these problems that are so plaguing our country. There's increasing hostility to the gospel, to truth, to righteousness. We should certainly pray about those things. We can pray for our military, for their protection, for wise leadership, and all those things. We can pray for righteousness to prevail over sin, that light would prevail over darkness. We can pray for the salvation of our leaders. But here's what I want to encourage you to think through. We should avoid praying for things that are controversial. because you want to pray so that every person in the room can say amen. And the reality is, we all agree that there are these problems that need to be addressed, but there are different views on how those problems should be addressed. And one person says, oh God, would you make this person succeed or that person fail, and somebody else goes, I don't like that person you want to succeed, or I do like this person you want to fail. And they can't enter in and say amen because they don't agree with you. and we're injecting politics into our prayer life. So let's be careful there and let's pray in such a way that everyone present can say amen. And don't say, well, everybody ought to agree with me. No, let's pray for the things that we know are in keeping with God's agenda. God wants righteousness to prevail. God wants truth, the truth of his word to go forth. He wants the church to advance. He wants the gospel to run unhindered. He wants his kingdom to go forward. You don't find any examples in the New Testament of believers praying for the success or the failure of Emperor Nero. Pray for our leaders that it may go well for us. It's interesting in Acts chapter four. Turn with me to Acts four. In Acts chapter four, John and Peter were arrested. They healed a man. and the religious leaders didn't like it because they were getting a lot of attention for it, people were glorifying God, and so they arrested Peter and John, they threatened them, they warned them. They realized, we can't deny what happened, but they threatened them and they warned them to say no more, no more to preach in the name of Christ. And in Acts chapter four, verse 23, we read this. When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God. They prayed. Here's what they said. That is remembering. Remember I said there are other types of prayer, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, lament, remembering. They're remembering, they're recounting the providence of God in the wickedness of man in their own city and how Christ is treated. But then I want you to notice, what do they actually pray? Or what are they requesting? And now, verse 29, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. They do not pray imprecatory prayers against the Sanhedrin. Oh Lord, strike them. smite them for their wickedness. They don't pray that. Lord, consider their threats and give us boldness. And I think that's a pretty amazing example. Is that normative and that's how we ought to pray in no other way? I'm not even saying that, but I'm saying you don't find these imprecatory prayers in the New Testament against government leaders who are harassing believers. It's, Lord, consider what they're doing, give us boldness to do what you would have us to do. The reality is, again, we have different political views. Some people are for this policy, some are for that policy, some think this solution would work, some think that solution would work. In corporate prayer, every single one of us should be able to enter in together and say amen. And so we should weigh how do we pray in such a way that we truly pray for our country, for the world, that every political slice that is aligned with righteousness can say amen. And then the eighth point, finally we should urge members to gather regularly for corporate prayer. It should be a priority for us as a church, it should be a priority for each member of our church. Now I realize there's some who are providentially hindered. In the providence of God, it is not just inconvenient, it's not workable. You can't fit it into your schedule to be here on Wednesday night for prayer meeting. We get that, we understand that. There are churches who virtually require every member to be at every stated meeting of the church. And if you're not at every one, they call you on the phone and say, where have you been? And harass you in a sense. We don't do that. We trust you to make wise decisions. But I wanna urge you to take seriously this responsibility of us as a church to pray with one another and to pray for one another. Maybe there's only one member of your family who's able to attend. Okay, that's fine, that's better than none. But to take seriously the privilege and the mandate that we are to pray together. Now, as elders, we spend a lot of time, as we were talking about the strategic plan we're trying to put together, we spend a lot of time talking about how much should we expect each member to do? How many hours a week is reasonable to expect someone to be involved in the church activities and ministries? Years ago, we had a visiting pastor who said to us, I ask my people to give me five hours a week, one hour for the worship service, and they get to pick the other four. Now, our worship service is a little over an hour, but anyway. So if you come to Sunday school and morning worship service, that's roughly an hour and a half. So you've still got three and a half hours to go. If you come Sunday night, that's another hour. So now you've got two and a half hours. No, I take that back. That's two and a half hours. Now you got Sunday night's three and a half hours. I never was good at math. So what are you gonna do with that last hour and a half? Well, prayer meeting takes about that much. You could do that. There are other things. Clearly there are people who invest 10, 15 hours a week because they come to these services and they engage in the ministries of the church in that way and they also are ministering behind the scenes. They're teaching and they're serving and they're caring for and they're organizing and doing all sorts of other things. So there are people who are doing lots more than that. But I want you to ask yourself the question and I know I'm kind of preaching to the choir. This is a good Sunday morning discussion to have. How many hours a week is reasonable? How am I able to be a responsible church member with my present level of commitment? Is there more I ought to be doing? And should prayer meeting be a vital part of my commitment to this church? These are decisions, these are issues that I would urge you way carefully. Pray about that. God, show me what you would have me to do. Show me what you would be pleased for my practice to be to characterize how I operate, how my family operates, how we are involved in your church. Be intentional, don't just... Well, I guess we'll go, be intentional. Commit yourself to those things that God would have you do to be a healthy and a faithful member of his body. Well, as I said at the beginning, Pastor John said that prayer is as vital to life, or that prayer is as vital to spiritual health as breathing is to physical life. And he tells of a story of when he and his wife adopted a little girl. She's probably three years old now, I think. But when they adopted her, she was a premature baby, and she was not able to breathe on her own. And so she was in the neonatal intensive care on a ventilator. The ventilator had to breathe for her and teach her how to breathe. And he made the point, breathing is necessary for life, but it doesn't come naturally for everyone. There's some who need help. They need to learn how to breathe, his daughters being one. And sometimes we need a little help. Sometimes we need to give more attention to how is it God would have me to develop my prayer life and to express that not only individually but also with his people. I wanna urge you, we need to pray. We need to learn to pray and we need to learn to pray well. And we need to commit ourselves that we will pray for one another and we will pray with one another. Would you bow with me and let's pray now. Father, we thank you for the privilege that we have of coming before your throne of grace and calling upon your name, of claiming your wondrous promises. There are many precious promises you've given to us. And Lord, thank you for the commitment I see in so many of my brothers and sisters here faithfully to pray for one another and with one another. I pray, Lord, that you would move us more and more to be a praying church, a church that finds times of prayer to be the lifeblood of our communion and our fellowship with one another as well as with you. And Father, we do pray for our brother John Cordy as he serves you in Arizona with these dear people who are living on this Indian reservation. We ask, Lord, particularly as he's preaching for this church in Cells, would you equip our brother, would you fill him with your spirit, would you cause his messages to lodge deeply in the hearts and souls of his hearers, and would you bear much fruit from this ministry, we pray. And we ask these things in Jesus' precious name, and God's people said, amen.