Matthew chapter six. What a wonderful text it is for us. I really hope and pray that as we look through the message today, you will see this in a different light as how you can use this prayer as a basis for your own personal prayer time from time to time, maybe perhaps every day. And so I've been using that myself, trying to do that as a prayer. And so it says in Matthew six, nine, after this manner, therefore pray ye Jesus is teaching his disciples, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts. Interesting, Luke uses sins. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I pray as we look into your text today that we would learn together that we would be challenged regarding our own prayer life and how this can be used as a model for our prayer life even today. How effectively it really covers all prayers of all time in some capacity can fit into this model. And so, Lord, may we be people of prayer. so vitally important that we be people of prayer. So may we be challenged today, encouraged if we're already praying, encouraged to keep it up, perhaps do more in order. If we just sort of let this slide, may you repent and may we be those who speak to you often. Lord, bless those teaching downstairs. You give them wisdom. Bless as they look ahead to the day and tomorrow gives safety for those who are traveling. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. On the back of your bulletin, there's an outline we talked about last time, the practice of repetition. Interestingly, I found this quote from D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees, he comes face to face with God. It is the ultimate test of a man's true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life." End of quote. That's a pretty profound statement. And he's a very knowledgeable person of scripture. And so he really wants to highlight the importance of prayer. So the practice of repetition, we saw the condemnation of vain repetition, verse seven. And when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Those are the moonies who would go around just mumbling the same thing over and over and over and over and over. There are those who have, I don't want to be critical, but have a bead where you touch a bead and you say the same prayer over, same, same. and you have to do that over and over and over and think by so many, if you do 10 of these, you get that. That is vain repetition. So their condemnation of that, secondly, was the call to be different. Verse eight, be not therefore like unto them. For your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. Another quote I read this week. And have we not all known what it is to find that somehow we have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of others? We have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of others. Have you prayed for five minutes at a time? What do you do for the last four minutes? Well, see, that's what we need to work on, have that prayer relationship with God. So it's number one, it was a practice of repetition. Two, in your outline, the priority, your first blank priority of relationship, priority of relationship. Verse nine, after this manner, therefore pray ye. This is often called the Lord's Prayer, and I was looking up different on YouTube this week. I typed in the Lord's Prayer, and it gives all these people's renditions of the Lord's Prayer, et cetera. But really, it's more accurately would be called the Disciples' Prayer, maybe even the best I like it as the model prayer. Now, it's a prayer that Christ himself would have no reason to pray because it says, forgive us our debts. And in Luke 11, 4, forgive us our sins. Christ had no sins for which to be forgiven of, but it is a prayer that we can use even today in 2025 as a model, as a outline, if you would, as how we approach God ourselves. We're gonna do it at the very end. I'm gonna try to give you a practical use of that at the very end of the message today. So we find that Christ could not have prayed that. He was sinless. We find, number one, under the illustration, after this manner, you've seen how wrong to do it in verse seven. Don't be doing the vain repetition. After this, this is how you're to pray. Don't be doing as the heathen do, just repeating the same thing over. And over and over, I was listening, happened to be on YouTube, or not YouTube, I'm sorry, Facebook. And a guy was, a Baltimore Ravens player, was praying a really good prayer. It was on Christmas day, they'd just beaten some other team, I'm not sure who they won. And then at the very end, the whole team said the Lord's Prayer together. They all said it together. So I imagine there are some true believing Christians in the team that really know it, but there's a lot of people who say the Lord's Prayer more like a mantra, or a get out of jail free, or if I'm really in trouble, it's gonna be like a good luck charm. That is not at all what this model prayer is to be for. The principles of prayer are all here, and you cannot add to them, says one commentator. You can take the longest prayer that has ever been offered by a saint, and you will find that it can be reduced to these principles. That's the beauty of this prayer. It's the principles that we can apply on our prayer lives today. Now, I mentioned, perhaps I mentioned earlier, Jesus throws in a teaching, but it's not throwing in, it's not important. Perhaps this might be the most important passage in prayer in the entire Bible. Without it being a part of a Sermon on the Mount, we still would need to look deeply into what Christ is saying to us in this prayer. It is never intended to be that panacea, someone has said, the magic talisman that people start, and you'll see it in movies. Somebody will go through some scary movie and they'll start walking and they'll start quoting the Lord's prayer. Listen, you should have been praying to God long before I ever got in that spot in the first place. That's not some kind of, whoo, it's got some kind of charm. It's going to put some kind of aura around me. It's going to protect me from the darts and the spears and the swords of everybody else. That's not what it's for. It was instead designed to be an instructional tool to help his disciples, apostles, to learn how to pray. What should our prayers look like? I would tell you, if you look at my prayers on a day-by-day basis, they have been laden with requests for you and other people. I mean, that's what I pray for all of you every day. So that's the majority of my prayer time. So I've been trying to get beyond that. I'm still doing that, but I'm spending other time using this as a model. I'm telling you, it really will help you in your prayer life to use this as a model for your prayers. He introduces it. He says, when you pray, verse seven, use not vain repetitions. Do not do that. So many claim to use his name and pervert the intent. But he sort of, like what Tom Brennan says, he fired a warning shot across the bow to all those who take this prayer and simply repeat it as some kind of, repeat the Lord's prayer five times and say, three Hail Marys and all this, and get your request. That's not it at all. That's not it. Our Father, so how he starts the, so really, he gets rid of all that. Now when Christ came on the scene, One of the radical things he did was taught during his lifetime here, the idea of Israel's God as a father. From what I understand in the Old Testament time, there's just a very few mentions of God as father. But he said in John 16, Christ went to great lengths. He said, I show you plainly the father. He directly referred to God as the father more than 40 times and prayed directly to him with that title about a dozen times. So if your concept is a far removed deity frowning upon humanity and emotionally detached from the concerns and struggles of humankind, then you're going to be surprised when he says, starts with praying this after this manner, our father, which aren't in heaven. They're used to it. And the world today, the gods of the heathen could lots of them could care less. What's going on? Can you imagine putting the God who owns the universe and keeps the universe running together and making a statue? This God's right here. You can't do that. So all these have such a narrow mind into who they're God. Make a statue of something. That's the God I'm worshiping. The God we worship can't be made with hands. He's above all these things. That's our God. We find that the model prayer really is a wealth of blessings to those, but it's only available to those who are likely related to God. There is, we talked about in study school, the universal fatherhood of man, the idea and the brotherhood of fatherhood of God and universal brotherhood of man. that all human beings are on the same level regarding God, and that's not so. The Bible says, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to what? Become the sons of God. So you're not that until you were to receive him as Savior. Then you become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Christ said in John 3 to Nicodemus, except the man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. The president who passed away recently made it very popular to say in the 70s He was born-again Christian. And so by the way, that's the okay term. I'm born again I've been born again by the power of God. I'm a born-again Christian I've been born a second time and if you have not been born that second time spiritually, you're not a child of God Yes, he's your creator, but he's not your Savior your father One pastor said this, Lord, I have no right to enter your presence and ask your aid, but that of a child. And that is all the right in the world, as a child. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, he defined home as the place that has to take you in when you show up there. Now, I cannot go with confidence into all the homes in Whirtland. I know the mayor fairly well now. I don't even know where he lives, but I can't just go and walk Walson to his house and expect to be greeted happily, et cetera. Now, in my own home, yes, because that's where I live. I'm the child, you know, I'm the whatever, the person there. So the child has the right of entrance, of hearing at all times. The reason I can enter God's presence anytime, anyplace, anywhere is because I am his child. So we come boldly unto the throne of grace. The illustration, the improvement, therefore, it says in verse nine, the improvement. So let the past be gone, the don't do as the heathen do, therefore, this is how you pray. And the imperative, pray ye. That imperative means something in original language, it means something that you're to do, a command, pray ye this way. A divine command. Praying is not really optional. It's a divine command for us. You always find in the lives of the saints that they have spent hours in prayer. And I was so taken by this. John Wesley used to say he held very poor view of any Christian who did not pray at least four hours a day. Yeah. Ouch. He held in very low esteem Christians who prayed less than four hours a day. So there's the practice of repetition. There's the priority of relationship. Thirdly, and you outlined the particulars of reverence, and number one is a relationship with God. Hollywood, our father, which art in heaven, Hollywood, be thy name. So we talk about our father. Whose father? He's our father. And notice it's the plural pronouns. So when we pray, we're all talking to the same father, our father. if you're a child of God, our Father, which art in heaven. And this is the Father, this is the God who's in heaven, a precious God, a precious Father for us. Christ is minimizing on the presence of God. Instead, he's magnifying the Father's position. Thus saith the Lord in Psalm 66, the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. The Father has a lofty advantage as he looks down upon us. Psalm 139, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting and my uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. From such a lofty position from heaven, God watches over us. Isn't it interesting how even today, we will get the mindset, if I don't say it out loud, or if I don't think a certain way, then God doesn't know. If it passes through your mind, God knows. If you're thinking on it right now, God knows exactly what you're thinking about right now. Now, it's in a good way. My majority of my prayer time is not out loud. I'm riding my bike first half hour of the day, And I'm just praying, I don't want to disturb Stephanie from sleeping, I don't think I would anyway, but I'm not praying out loud. I'm praying silently for others and for y'all, et cetera. But God knows, and I'm thankful he knows what I'm thinking then, but sometimes it's those bad thoughts. I hope he didn't think, I hope he doesn't know about that one. Well, he does. He does know about that one. So it can give us great comfort and also it can give us great anxiety at times if we're not careful. So that way we keep our mind pure. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. The fact that our Father is in heaven gives us great comfort because we look at our union, our state of our country, the state of the world, and we say, what's it gonna be like when our children and grandchildren grow up? What kind of world are we gonna have left? I don't know, but God's still on the throne. Like what Robert Browning said in one of his works, Pippa Passes, he said, God's in his heaven and all's right with the world. And so God's still on the throne, he's still in control. So our God is secure and we are secure in him. So the relationship to God, how about the reverence for God? Hallowed be thy name. reverence to sanctify, to set apart, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise, to glorify him. One of the biggest weaknesses of my prayer life is the fact that I don't glorify God enough. The Bible's so replete with, we are to be glorifying God. In Psalm 113, from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same, the Lord's name is to be praised. Unto thee, O God, do I give thanks. Unto thee do we give thanks, for that thy name is near, thy wondrous works declare. Psalm 76, in Judah is God known. His name is great in Israel. Jeremiah 10.6, for as much as there is none like unto thee, O Lord, thou art great, and thy name is great in might. So we are to be praising God for all that he has done and is doing. Our respect for his name, I think, reveals itself in how a Christian how we use and carefully avoid using some terms. We should never be saying, oh my G-O-D. We should never say that, period. We'll pass it on and say, oh my gosh. You're saying the same thing, you're just using a slang for it. I don't think you should be saying that either. And do not type O-M-G. the same thing. You type what you mean. That's taking the Lord's name in vain. Now, the Jews had a different route. They would type G, underline, and D. They would never write out lots of times the whole name of God. So G, underline, and D, not fill it out all together. They had such a respect for God's name. God's name is not to be trifled with. Kent Hughes says, we hollow his name by living a life that displays that he is our father. Martin Luther was right. He said, we best hollow God's name when our life and our doctrine are truly Christian. When we pray our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, we are dedicating ourselves to lead lives that reverence all that he is. Solomon wrote, a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. God's name is important to him. Would they just take your own name for just a moment in your mind and find people starting using slang terms for your own name? Would you like people just throwing your name around for any reason? I don't think it would care that much about me, but we're not God. God's name is to be reverence. You should take the high road. Do you know what I mean, I take the high road? If there's even a question, don't do it. Don't take the low road. Take the high road. If there's a question, I'm just not gonna use that term anymore because I shouldn't be doing it. If it casts any kind of disparaging light upon God. David boldly said, the Lord is my shepherd. What a wonderful thing, the Lord is my shepherd. How are you proclaiming his name to the lost world? Thirdly, then, is the rule of God in your outline, the rule of God, verse 10, thy kingdom come. So there's three basic kingdoms, if you would, for just a moment. Think about it this way. The first time Christ came, he offered himself to the Jewish people, and the kingdom is with you now. If they had signed on and received Christ as their Messiah, he would have, I don't know how it all would have worked, Well, he could have started the kingdom then, but they said, no, we're gonna reject you, and they crucified Christ. Well, the second kingdom is he comes in our lives. When we ask Christ in, he comes and he is the ruler. The kingdom is within you, Jesus said in Luke 17, 21. So it's really the kingdom is the rule of God, the kingdom of God, the rule of God, or the reign of God. So when we say, thy kingdom come, we are actually asking God to rule in our hearts and lives. It's not just, Yes, we want the third part, the millennial kingdom to come when it comes back to the tribulation. It's not just thy kingdom come on earth. I think it's thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Now, in heaven as it is in earth. In earth as it is in heaven. So that's the idea. So we have a throne on your heart. There's a throne there. You may not be able to see it. You can't see mine, but it is there. And either you're on the throne or God is. Some of us need to be sending ourselves packing, I think, and put God back on the throne and may his kingdom come and his will be done in our life. That should be the foremost thought of our daily walk with him. I want him to be not only then, not only in my life, but kingdom come to our marriage, our family, our church, our friends, our city. The kingdom come in my home, our ministries. We are to yield to the king. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth. Can you imagine for just a moment what happens in heaven? When God gives an angel an assignment, don't you think they're just waiting there? I can't wait to have something to do. Give me something to do. Angel, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, I want you to do this. And off they go. They're just waiting with anticipation. How can I serve God? What can I do to help those wonderful gods who created me? What can I do to help him? And here we are on earth, Well, you really want me to do that? Let me pray about that. And they're like, yes, I get to do something for God. And I'll think, now I'm just, that's a little bit of imagination there, but that's the idea. Everything, don't you think is pretty much what God wants done in heaven is done in heaven? Yes. Those who didn't want to do that are part of the ones that followed Satan, Lucifer. That will be done in earth as it is in heaven. The question I must ask myself is whether I do God's will on earth as it is done in heaven. If not, why not? I'm on the throne of my life. Fourthly is the resources, the relationship, reverence, rule of God, and resources of God. 611, give us this day our daily bread. So give We in America, I think we enjoy the highest standard of living probably of almost any human society who's ever existed on earth. We have such a high, now you may not find bread on the shelves right now, or milk in the cooler because there's this threat of storm and we in Kentucky, we somehow have the idea that it's gonna be like a 10 month storm and so we've gotta get to the store and buy all those things out. But typically, on a normal time, our pantries are full, our refrigerator's likely full, we might have a second freezer somewhere with a turkey and pot pies in it in the basement. We might have cash in our wallet, we might have money in our bank account. The average Christian, we really don't know what it is to not have the bread. Give us this day our daily bread. We really have, matter of fact, my wife and I threw away pepperoni yesterday that was almost a year expired, I think one was. And so we had it and didn't use it. Good thing we, I think we threw away two packages. I bought some just in case we need it on the last time we went to the store and we used that for the pizza yesterday, so. Give us this day our daily bread. It's a faith, our daily bread. It's interesting, Luke, in his part, in Luke 11 three, day by day, our daily bread. Day by day. It requires faith. It requires one to look to God every day. What we want is retirement that has everything covered for the rest of my life. I don't wanna retire. I don't want to have to work out the rest of my life, and I want to have money to live happy as I'm doing now the rest of my life, and not do a blessed thing, but whatever I want to do. Now, I've never hired or found anybody that has that kind of retirement, but that's the goal, what we want. Instead of, what about give us this day, our daily bread? Well, I've got it all covered. And we don't really need God then, do we sometimes? It's the way we act, perhaps. Faith, now I'm not saying don't plan for the future. I'm saying this says, give us this day our daily bread. And bread is our needs, not our wants. Bread is common, not a luxury. It's ordinary, not special. And too many of our prayers are for what we do not need, but what we simply want. The Bible says in Philippians 4, 19, but my God shall supply all your needs. But you know, he often supplies our wants and things we didn't even know we needed or know we wanted, perhaps, a chance. He's a wonderful God. So Brett says we are to pray for the material as well as the spiritual. Fifthly, in your outline, repentance to God, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgive us our debts. So there's the importance of the petition. Forgive us of our sins. Again, in Luke, it's the word sin is there. Forgive us of our sins. What an important thing that is. The most important thing you ever decide in this life is to have your sins forgiven by God and have that relationship with him and then confess that to other people. That thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Tell people what God has done for you. The importance of that. And it's even important regarding our prayer. The Bible says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, what? will not hear me. So confess our sins. And then also there's a humility here. Confessing that we have sinned is very humbling. No one truly prays for forgiveness of sins without being humble. And that's part of being saved. It's repentance, admitting that you are a sinner in need of saving, and there's imperative, and we forgive our debtors. Now, some will say, that's some kind of legal term, forgiving the debt. That's not really what it's talking about here. It simply means the forgiving spirit. If we're asked to be forgiven, then we need to be forgiving ourselves. If you look a little further, 14, if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. important to be forgiving of one another. He will not come to the center unless he asks for the forgiveness in the right spirit, and the right spirit involves that forgiving spirit. John Butler says all of this is not legalism but a limitation of forgiveness to genuine repentance. J.C. Ryle says we must not expect our prayers for forgiveness to be heard If we pray with malice and spite in our hearts toward others, to pray in such a frame of mind is mere formality and hypocrisy. It is even worse than hypocrisy. It is as much as saying, do not forgive me at all. He says, our prayer is nothing without charity. We must not expect to be forgiven if we cannot forgive." End of quote. We ought to be forgiving. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Some have rendered it. Sixthly is the righteousness from God. Lead us not into temptation. There's the direction. Lead us not into temptation. Now, this is not saying or implying that God might lead us into some kind of evil when we should pray that he will not. Rather, it's a negative way of saying we want to be led in the right direction. It's a request to be led in that right direction. Tom Brennan says, is God omniscient? Yes. Does he know exactly what temptations are lurking in the weeds of my path today? Yes. Again, yes. Well, then it would be wise thing to ask him to guide my day so that I miss many of those temptations the devil has planted for me. So many Christians, he says, fight sin when what they ought to do is to avoid temptation. Leave me not to temptation, Lord, please keep me in the right path. So those temptations that the devil wants to put in front of me, I am able to avoid by your grace and mercy. Leave me not into temptation. Someone has said the problem with praying that is this, the Lord starts to answer it. And it begins to reveal to you the temptations you willingly allow entrance into your life. Take lust, for example. Someone asked John R. Rice one time if it was a sin to have evil thought. And he answered, which I think he got from Martin Luther, he said, it's not wrong for a bird to land on your head, but you should not let him build a nest there. And the problem is so many Christians are willingly sit in the park bench feeding the pigeons, so to speak. And then they have this choice of entertainment, and then they wonder why they struggle with these sins. We need to avoid, lead me not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Deliverance. Request is not a prayer for seeking exemption from a trial, but rather I think a prayer seeking to escape from transgression. It's not seeking exemption from suffering, but rather seeking to escape from sin. Deliver us from evil. And some would say that perhaps the evil one. Keep us from sin. We should be concerned, concerned about that. When we're sick, we quickly make requests for church for prayer, we should. But how many folks ask the church for them that they will not sin during that said time? Deliver us from evil. Then seventhly is the respect for God. There's respect for God here. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Focus is really where it should be on the greatness and glory of God. Praise for God at the beginning gives praises for God at the end. The place of praise, the prayer includes much praise for God as well as petition to God. We are not only to simply get, we're also to give, give glory to God. It's not just asking, it's praising God for who he is. It's a teaching of praise, a pedagogy of praise, if you would. Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. So this religion of ours is not about us, it's about Jesus. And the ministry we're involved in cannot be our kingdom, it must be his kingdom. To him be the glory both now and ever, Peter said, amen. So in closing, I wanna take this prayer, and you think with me as we go through, and I want you to think about how you can apply it to your life. So we would start with, if you were praying, I was praying, I would say, perhaps I would say, our father. I would stop and say, Lord, I thank you for being my father. Thank you for saving me from sin. I thank you I can come to you as a child. And thank you that when I received you as personal savior, I became a child of yours, our father, which art in heaven. Lord, I'm thankful that you're already in heaven. You are in control of all things. You're looking down upon us. And I thank you, Lord, that that's where you are. It's a real place for real people. And you're a real God. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Lord, I praise your name for who you are. Jehovah Jireh, you're the provider. Lord, your name is holy. Lord, forgive me for not holding up your name the right way. Forgive me for not saying, telling others more about your name. Lord, your name is, we want to, we all praise you for who you are. Thy kingdom come. Lord, I pray. I pray that you would come into my life and dethrone me. your throne in my heart and life. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. I pray for my wife and my family that your kingdom would reign in our lives and we would be obedient in earth as it is in heaven, Lord, that we would listen to what you have us to do. May today, Lord, may I talk to people about you. May I live, may my words and actions be such as not detract from you. Give us this day our daily bread. Lord, thank you that you give us our daily bread. I'm thankful, Lord, that we have food to eat. Our shelves are full. We have stuff in the freezer. We have money to go buy things. So give us, thank you, Lord, for every day for your provision. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And Lord, please forgive me. And start naming your sins. Wrong thoughts, wrong actions, wrong words, wrong attitude. You pick your sins, I'll pick mine. Forgive us our sins. And Lord, I forgive those who sin and who have done me wrong. Lord, please help me have a forgiving spirit to those who really run me the wrong way. And meet me not in temptation. Lord, please help me today. I will keep my mind focused upon you. May the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. May I stay away from those wrong things and not read the books or not read, look at things or whatever it is that I struggle with, Lord, keep me from those temptations. Deliver me from evil, Lord, help me to not be, give me the strength to not sin. I don't have to sin. For thine, for thine, the kingdom. It is God's kingdom, for thine is the kingdom. Lord, it is all about you. When we're in heaven for eternity, we're not worshiping any of us. It is gonna be God forever and ever and ever and ever, for thine is the kingdom and the power. Aren't you glad that he has the power? You know, there are approximately a number of planets and stars in the universe as there are grains of sand upon the sand of all the seashores on the earth. And he's upholding all of those by the word of his power. That is the power and the glory. Lord, you're such an awesome, wonderful, glorious God. And thank you that you would even consider a wretch like me. Oh my goodness, Lord, you're such a wonderful God. And all this I say, amen. That is just simply taking the Lord's prayer as a model And you take it, you probably got it memorized already. You take it and you stop with each phrase and apply that and thank Him. Praise Him, glorify Him. We have so much to be grateful for. If you don't know Him as personal Savior, that's where it starts, giving your heart and life to Him. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you that we can come to you at any time, any place. and understand that you are listening. Lord, you are so gracious to us. May you help us, Lord, that we be people of prayer. Or what Mr. Wesley said about people praying less than four hours a day. I'm so convicted by that, not expecting anybody to start praying four hours a day. Lord, how much do we really pray? Help us to be people of your book, people of prayer, people of witness, people of service of opportunities you give us. Lord, may we be faithful to serve you. Lord, if there's a need this morning, I pray that you'd speak to hearts. I ask these things in Jesus' name I pray, amen.