your son said in Matthew chapter 6 and we pray that you would teach us correct us rebuke us and train us for righteousness and we pray these things in Jesus name Amen now I didn't record is that what you were just doing great thank you all right well go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 6 if you would We are looking at the Gospel of Matthew, if you didn't know. And I've explained in past sermons why there's four Gospels. Why is one not enough? Why are there four? Why are there not more? Well, there's four that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Four individuals who each wrote an account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Now, the reason there are four is because not all of them were dealing with the same message, the same argument. Now, same message as a whole, yes. But they were emphasizing something. They were arguing something. They were trying to prove a point of something. Whatever their purpose of writing was, it differed. And that's why, as a whole, we get a complete picture. Well, not even complete. John tells us that there's so much more that could have been said. But we get a thorough picture of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Now, Matthew is setting out, it's a book, I think, predominantly written to Jewish people, but I think we have immense benefit from studying it ourselves, asking and answering the question, why did the king come, but not the kingdom? Why did the Messiah come, but not the messianic kingdom that was promised that would come when the Messiah arrived? Where is the kingdom? If Jesus is the Messiah, where is the kingdom? And so Matthew sets out to answer that question. And before he gets to the explanation that we'll see later in his book, right now we're dealing with the Messiah preaching to the crowds that are following him. And he's teaching them principles of this coming kingdom. And so with that, I've expressed before that the Sermon of the Mount is not directly applicable to the church. It was written to the nation of Israel. However, there are many similarities that we can glean important application. This passage is one of them. Last week, we talked about giving. There's some application for us, right? This week, we're going to talk about prayer. There's some application for us. Now, I want to preface, as I did last week, that this passage is not everything scripture has to say about prayer, in the same way that last week's passage wasn't everything there was to say about giving. So, what we're going to look at, you need to take into consideration, of course, but also take into consideration that the Bible talks a lot more about giving. It talks a lot more about prayer. If you're interested in what the Bible has to say about prayer We have a Bible study Wednesday night at 7 o'clock that you can come to free of charge and enjoy great discussion and usually some delicious snacks and so that is my shameless plug for that if not, there are recordings, but that's the boring method the unparticipating route so in this portion of The Sermon on the Mount, the perhaps most famous sermon in scripture, definitely the most one of the most famous that Jesus ever gave. I believe he gave this message or a variation of this message probably a couple different times. It's recorded a little bit differently by the gospel writers. But I want to go back to something that Pastor Dave highlighted for me last week concerning verse one. Now the New King James says, take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Does anyone have something different than charitable deeds? Acts of righteousness. So there's a textual variant here that I was unaware of. And I think it's important. And so what the textual variant basically is, is some manuscripts have charitable deeds here. So that would make verse one launching us into this narrative of giving. Whereas the alternative, and I think that it would seem likely given the context is verse one is a transition into our acts of righteousness. In other words, our acts of worship, how we worship the Lord. And so take heed that you do not do your righteous deeds or literally your righteousness before men. And so we think about, you know, and we highlighted last week, well, what about being a city on a hill and a lamp, you know, shining our light? Shouldn't, aren't we told to let our righteousness shine? Yes, but the issue he was dealing with there is the explicit purpose of being recognized or acknowledged or celebrated by men, being men pleasers rather than God pleasers is what Jesus is addressing. And so verse one sets us on a new trajectory of talking about our worship. And there are three areas of worship addressed by Jesus. Number one, giving. We looked at last week. Verses 2 through 4 rather than 1 through 4. Prayer, which we're going to look at this week and next week. Verses 5 through 15. and fasting, verses 16 through 18. And that will be interesting, because I have not done a full, exhaustive study on biblical fasting, and I think it'll be interesting to see the application, perhaps, that we might draw from that. Now, with that, we did not finish last week, as you might recall, but we were talking about the heart of giving, and we got to the last main division, In verse 4, that your charitable deed may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly. Now that's a textual variant. Some manuscripts don't have openly. It's just your father will reward you. But the point is, there are rewards in giving the right way. And there are rewards in praying the right way. And that is the theme that we're dealing with. So we looked at the heart of giving verse one, the hypocrisy and giving, you know, not giving in order to be seen the hiddenness or secret giving, you know, we be we should be giving to God that's between us and God, not a spectator sport. And then the hope of giving. What is the reward of giving? Well, I want to highlight a few of these things before we jump into our new text. First of all, will, there, the word will is a future active indicative. Now, future tense means what? It's future. It's coming. It's ahead. Active indicative means indicative is true or true for sake of argument. In this case, it's true. In other words, it will happen in the future. What is it? Well, first of all, will himself. Now, in light of what we looked at last week, what reward do you think is better? The praise of men or the praise of God? Now, I'm not saying the praise of men doesn't feel good. We like to be acknowledged. We like to be appreciated, right? Or, on the flip side, we don't like when we're underappreciated, when we're undervalued, at our job, when we're working hard and our boss doesn't notice. We get discouraged, right? We want a raise. We want an up in our pay for the work that we're doing. Well, we can take heart knowing that God sees and he himself will repay. Openly, again, is a textual variant that the majority text includes that the critical text does not. The idea remains that God's reward will be public because it will be received in the kingdom. Which leads to an important question. What are rewards? Now, for sake of time, we won't look at all of these passages, but rewards, and this is by no means exhaustive on the topic of rewards, but it's an important topic because not all believers are guaranteed to have rewards. There's a difference between a believer who is saved and eternally secure in Jesus Christ. In other words, someone who has heard the gospel that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins, they trust that, accept it as true, believe it 100%, they're saved. But if they don't live a life of righteousness, and we're rewarded for our righteousness, They're not going to be rewarded. Does that make sense? It's pretty straightforward. It's pretty simple. And so rewards are an important thing. And there's a lot of ideas on what exactly those rewards are. Now, I personally only like to go so far as scripture takes us. And sometimes it's fun to speculate, but I try to do so cautiously. But there's one element of rewards that I believe are acknowledgements, and those are the crowns. James 1.12 talks about a crown. 1 Peter 5.4 talks about a crown, the crown of life. 2 Timothy 4.8 talks about another crown, that those who look forward to the return of Christ will receive. That's a crown that I hope our church, every one of us, might receive. That we're all looking for the return of Jesus Christ. Now, what are these crowns? Well, I think, especially when you consider the historical context, they were crowns that were essentially badges of honor, if you will, wreaths for victories achieved in Olympic Games or competitions of that sort. They were acknowledgments In other words, we are going to receive praise and glory from God for the things we do now. That's why it's important how we live this life now. Now, depending on your view, and I think I've mentioned my grip on this view is getting weaker and weaker, but regarding the 24 elders of Revelation, Historically and traditionally, I take the view that that's the church. I am very much open-minded at this point that that may just be simply angels. But if they are, as some suggest, the church, what are they seen doing? Casting their crowns at whose feet? Jesus's, right? So following this logic here, crowns are acknowledgments for service, deeds done in the body. They're casting them at Jesus' feet, which I think is quite clear what they're acknowledging, that the glory is His. Everything we do that could be glorified is His. Now, I think regardless of whether they're angels or the church, the point stands. If they're angels, well, apparently angels too will receive crowns. And they will cast them at Jesus' feet. Now, if they're angels and not the church, we have a problem with one of my favorite bands, right? Casting crowns. They have to change their name. But we'll leave that for another day. So some rewards are acknowledgments, praises, glory that we receive from the Father with the Son. Some of them are enjoyments. Daniel 12, 13, at the end of Daniel, the amazing, powerful book of Daniel, which is why we named our son Daniel, because it's one of my favorite books. I'm sure your rationale for naming your son Daniel is similar. I'm sure your rationale for naming your son Daniel is similar. I'm sure your parents rationale might be similar. Daniel is a great name because Daniel was well esteemed by God. Now, at the end of Daniel, after all this information God is giving him, he tells him to close up the books. There's no more that you're going to receive. There will be someone else who receives further information. But as for you, Daniel, you go your way and you will rest with your fathers until you are resurrected on the last day and you will enter into the joy of your inheritance. Now that language of inheritance is also communicated, as we'll see later in the book of Matthew, when Jesus is talking about the Jews entering in the joy of their master, their inheritance. Now, inheritance is somewhat of a flammable topic, theologically, and there's a couple different ideas of what exactly that looks like. And we'll explore that more in the book of Matthew, but I will say me personally, not every, every believer will have an inheritance, but not everyone will have the same inheritance. Does that make sense? And it's been better said, or maybe more illustratively said, everyone's cup in the kingdom or in heaven will be overflowing, but not everybody will have the same sized cup. Meaning, those who were faithful in this life, they'll have one of those big Yetis that everyone's carrying around these days. Or the mug, if you've seen Trevor's water jug, the behemoth. Could irrigate an entire field. Some will have that. And then some, I think I saw Willa had those little Dixie, I think they're shot cups, but used for snacks by us for our purposes. Those cups will be overflowing, but they'll not all be the same size, right? Why is that? How do we get our cup to be larger? Well, Ephesians 2.10, right? We were saved for the purpose of good works, that we should walk in them. Which implies what? We might not walk in them. And if we don't walk in the good works that God prepared for us, and oh, by the way, we're rewarded for the good works that we do, what's going to happen? In my personal view, loss of rewards, loss of inheritance, our cup shrinks, right? Or maybe it doesn't grow. But the idea is heaven will be a glorious place. I've had people say to me, well, I think Pursuing rewards is improper that seems selfish. I just want to be with Christ That's all I want and that's good, right? That's a beautiful thing Except we were told that we need to be doing good things right good deeds prepared beforehand that we should walk in them So out of obedience we must do it. Oh and also I God will bless us. He will reward us for doing the very things He's calling us to do, the very thing He's enabling us to do, the very thing that He Himself is doing in and through us. So some rewards are enjoyment, and some rewards are, there's a component of responsibilities. There are passages that talk about us reigning with Christ. That is amazing. Now, I personally believe that not everyone will have the same degree of reigning. I like to think of it in terms of, you know, you've got, in our world, you might have a president, right? Then you've got a governor, and then you've got a mayor, and then you've got a city councilman, and then you've got, you know, and the pecking order. It might not be at all like this. It might be exactly like this. But I like to think of it in terms of those who are faithful now, will be given responsibilities during the kingdom in terms of responsibility and reigning with the Lord. Now, I also have been exploring a really, I think, important element to the conversation of rewards, and that is spiritual gifts. We all have spiritual gifts, right? Those are divine gifts. God gave us those. Oh, and he also prepared us for good works, meaning that it's not operation bootstrap. You go do and work hard until you die. And then whatever you did, you get recompensed for. God has a purpose for each of you. What that is, I don't know. That's between you and him. There's different ways to discern what your spiritual gift is. First of all, try all of them. See what things you naturally have a propensity towards. And by the way walk by the spirit and you'll see more you'll be more likely to see what the spiritual gift is but I think those spiritual gifts have a correlation with what we'll be doing our Responsibilities and that just makes sense right because our spiritual gifts are the things our responsibilities we're doing now so follow me here if we're rewarded for the deed done in the body the good deeds done in the body and might our spiritual gifts have some relationship with what we do for eternity? For example, some of you may protest, but if I have the spiritual gift of teaching, and we'll use the indicative for sake of argument, we'll assume it is true, I believe that during the kingdom I will have some teaching role. Well, won't we all have the same knowledge? Yes. But won't there be physical inhabitants that don't have glorified bodies, that need taught? in the millions and over a thousand years, billions. So I think there will be a very needy ministry of teaching. What about evangelism? What about shepherding? What about encouragement? What about the other spiritual gifts? Maybe God will add a whole other element of spiritual gifts or a component to the way we interact with each other. I didn't go. So I think those are important. So just to summarize, giving is a private affair between us and God. God himself will reward the right kind of giving. Not all giving is rewardable. So if you're giving, if you're sacrificing your hard-earned money, your time, your effort, whatever it is, don't you want to know if it's going to be rewardable? What we do now determines what will be done in the kingdom. I know it's hard. Life is... There's three enemies, right? The world, the flesh, and the devil. And I think they're all magnetized. In other words, we still have the flesh. Even though we died to sin and died to the law, the flesh is still there. And I think there's a strong magnet of the flesh and the world that draws us into the world. Worldliness must be avoided by us. Worldliness is terribly difficult to avoid. Why? Because we live in the world, right? It's all around us. And so we're in the world, not of it, as they say. And so as much as possible, that's why this prayer scheduler is hopefully a tool that will help that as you sit down daily. I would encourage and suggest the morning. That's a great time just to set the tone for the day. But really, anytime you can sit down, spend time in prayer, focus on the Lord, praying to him, worshiping him, lifting him up, and then focusing on your relationship and what he has called you to do can really set the tone for the rest of your day. And as you set that discipline into your life to do that every day, Scientific studies say that 30 days or so becomes a habit. Well, then those habits become really ingrained spiritual disciplines. I think you can really start to see some amazing spiritual fruit from this. And so the question, do we trade kingdom glory for earthly heaven? That's always the issue, right? This life is temporary. You know, life is short. That means to some go crazy, right? Spend like there's no tomorrow, jump off a cliff, do this, do that, do all these crazy things. But as Christians, we know there's 1000 years coming and that 1000 years goes into eternity. And so eternity last time I checked is long, longer than any of our lives longer than this world has even existed the 6000 some odd years. Don't make the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, as someone once said. This one is actual. Don't trade kingdom glory for temporary earthly pleasures. Now, I'm not saying having comforts here are sinful. You're not sinning in doing that. But anytime you make a purchase, anytime you do something, just ask yourself. Is this an exchange? Am I exchanging something that could go heavenly? Or am I being too worldly? Just always, but again, just be so cautious with that because legalism can quickly settle in into your life and you want to avoid that. Now moving into new territory, five through eight, the practice of worship through personal prayer. Now that's the focus here. The key word is personal prayer. Some of the things Jesus says here isn't going to apply necessarily to corporate prayer, right? If they did apply to corporate prayer, we shouldn't be doing corporate prayer, right? We shouldn't be praying out loud to be seen by the corporate body of Christ. Well, there's three parts to this. Verse 5 gives us the wrong way of prayer, verses 6-7 gives us the right way of prayer, and verse 8 gives us the reality of prayer. So in verse 5, the implication of prayer, similar to giving, there's an implication that this is something the people of God should be doing. Verse 5 says, And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners, of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward." So again, the implication is when you pray. Not if you pray. When you pray. You should be praying, dear believer. I should be praying, dear believer. The way to avoid is, you shall not be like the hypocrites. Now I mentioned last week, this word hypocrite comes from the idea of someone who is an actor, a play person who would wear a mask. Now, someone who is an actor wearing a mask, what are they essentially doing? Hiding their true identity, right? So a hypocrite is someone, the word has come to mean, someone who says one thing, but does another thing. That's hypocrisy. So he says, when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. Now, who does Jesus have in mind? Who has he had in mind this entire section? The Pharisees in particular, but I think we could lump in all the religious leaders, right? The teachers of Israel. Does this issue happen today amongst teachers? You bet. And I would hope that I have a relationship with you all, that if you ever see hypocrisy in me, Gently lovingly and I would request humbly privately Come to me and expose that and hopefully I'll be humble enough to change if not smack me around a little bit But hypocrisy is a serious thing, right? That's why I mentioned the statement I said I've been saying this a lot more frequently, but I mentioned it either last week or a few weeks ago be yourself and But be your sanctified self, right? Don't try to pretend to be something you're not. Don't come and, you know, put, as they say, lipstick on the pig. You know, people see right through that. Now, the issue in first century Israel is the people didn't see right through their religious leaders. They thought they were the peak righteousness. Now, some did see right through it. And I think it would have been welcome to hear what Jesus had to say to them, that they're not righteous. They're self-righteous. That's not true righteousness. They think they do this and they do that, that they're acceptable in a perfect, holy, righteous God's sight? Then they are deceived. They're also hypocrites because their statements, their speech doesn't match their behavior. How so? Well, he says, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets. that they may be seen by men. Now that word that is purpose literally with the purpose to be seen. So they're praying in synagogues or the equivalent, if you will, of church and the corners of the street, not with the purpose to pray, but with the purpose to be seen. Do you see the difference? They want to be seen. And so what's their reward? They're seen. If they had the purpose of praying and to be heard by God, they would have their reward. But that wasn't their purpose. So what's the reward for wrong prayer? Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. What was their purpose? Their objective was to be seen by men. Mission accomplished, God says. You did it. Enjoy your reward. Enjoy the fruits of your labors, right? The reward here appears to be the things sought in praying. So, for the hypocrites, they were seeking public acknowledgment, not the actual request. So whatever they said was just really emptiness, and I think God treated it that way. He didn't listen to them, because they weren't praying to Him. Do you see? They were communicating, they were speaking, but not to God. They were speaking to be heard by men. The people of God should have a devoted a life devoted to prayer. Prayer should not be hypocritical. In other words, saying one thing and doing something else. That's tricky for us, right? Sometimes we know enough of scripture of how we should be praying, but personally, we haven't really bought into that. Well, rather than praying hypocritically, maybe pray, God, I'm a hypocrite in this area. I need help. Soften my heart towards you in this area, whatever it might be. Prayer should not be to show off for other people. I think Michael could and Sarah could probably attest to this, but at Frontier, any Bible school, I'm sure struggles with this, but it's almost like a competition, right? When you're a new baby Christian, you're learning to pray and you're using fancy language. And I remember thinking sometimes while someone was praying, does that person even know what that word means? Prayer should not be to show off for other people. Hypocritical prayer is rewarded with the praise of men. But is that the reward we want is the important question. Hypocritical prayer is not rewarded with the answer to the prayer. So the right way of prayer, verses 6-7, the prayer of God's people, "...but you, when you pray..." So notice the contrast. There's an expectation of being different. They're not to pray like the hypocrites. "...but you, when you pray..." Also the implication, right? "...go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray..." Ah, typo. "...pray to your Father who is in the secret place." And the Father's reward? The reward here is the answer to prayer. The one who hears in secret will give to you the thing that you asked. Now that seems exciting, right? Anything I ask, the Father will give me? That's why I preface this by saying this is not everything scripture has to say about prayer biblically. We've been exploring Wednesday night of an important topic of the prerequisites to prayer. In other words, the prerequirements, what you must do before you pray. One of the tough questions I asked the group and we had some discussion on is, does God hear? This is a trick question. Everyone's prayer. Does he hear anyone's prayer? Technically, yes, he hears it. But does he listen? You know, there's a tragedy that happens in the world. My thoughts and prayers are with you, which I've always wondered, by the way, what are what do thoughts do? And I'm not trying to mock that. But do we even know what we're saying when we say them? Is there sincerity in the things that we say? Or is it we heard someone else say it, and it sounded good. And so we Now, I know the intentions there are to comfort people, right? But why not say that? I'm sorry for you. If there's anything I can do to comfort you, let me know. Or, amongst Christians, how often do we say, I will be praying for you? What if there was a monitor that kept track of whether or not we actually did pray for that person? It was encouraged to us at Frontier Better, instead of saying, I will pray for you. Hey, could I pray for you right now? If time allows, right? Sometimes people need to get on and go somewhere, but you know, there's nothing wrong with just right then and there praying for them. Or, you know, there's a great tool in the back of the church, a prayer scheduler that you can now write those things down and say, you know what? I need to be praying for that person. I need to commit to doing that for them because I do care for them. Because that's the reality is we care for one another. I think we really do want to pray for them. But then our minds are running a million miles a second, and we're gone on to the next thing. And then we forget, right? And so praying in private now, do you have to literally go into your room? Does that mean you can't pray in your car? You can't pray? In private, elsewhere, you have to be in your room, the door has to be shut. If your hinges are broken and it can't shut all the way, you're sinning. No, the principle, the emphasis here is private, personal prayer. Why? What is he getting at? It's between you and God. Our worship of personal prayer is between us and God. Now, if someone sees you praying privately, is everything undone? God doesn't hear? No, that's not what he's getting at. So the second correction, when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, literally repetitive babbling. I've been around people who pray, it seems like their Father God is their punctuation. Father God, I pray. Father God, I also pray this. And Father God, I pray this. And again, I'm not trying to mock that. I'm just trying to highlight for you, do we know what we're saying? when we pray? Are we praying consciously? Or do we shut our brains off when we pray? This is something we've had a good discussion on Wednesday night. That's one of the difficulties of prayer is sometimes you just, you know, you need to do it. And so you do it and you start doing it. And as you're doing it, you start to drift a little bit, right? And you kind of just go through the motions. Don't beat yourself up over that. Just acknowledge it, get back on track and keep developing your prayer life. But the idea, especially the mention of heathens, don't do vain repetitions as the heathen do, they thought that the more words, the more opportunity of their gods listening. Jesus says, don't pray like that. Which, the excellent point, by the way, because we're going to look at this next week. What is, starting in verse 9, in this manner, therefore pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, I grew up Roman Catholic, and when you sin or do something naughty as a little boy and you confess it to the priest, they would prescribe, like a doctor would, 10 Hail Marys, 30 Our Fathers. And when you study a passage like this, the irony is very strong that Jesus himself says, when you pray, do not use vain, literally empty repetition. Now we're going to explore what exactly did Jesus mean in this manner, pray, and we'll look at what is called the Lord's Prayer. I actually think the Lord's Prayer is in John 15 through 17. That's the true Lord's Prayer. But there is a lot of really important things about prayer that we can learn from Jesus. But it's just ironic that right after saying don't use vain repetitions, we vainly repeat Our Father, right? For they think that they will be heard for their many words. The people of God should have a life devoted to prayer. We've covered that. Jesus emphasizes that personal prayer should be between the one praying and God. The Father will answer prayer done the right way. Now, next week, I'll look at some of the prerequisites to prayer that we've explored on Wednesday night, because they're important. God doesn't just hear all our prayers. There are prerequisites, one of which is, are we in fellowship with God? Now, I use the imagery, it's almost like a hypothetical scenario. If we're living out of fellowship with God, and we approach Him in prayer, and we just start giving these requests and these supplications, and they're even well-meaning, and we're praying for people we love and care about, and disaster in the world, and we're praying for our country and all those things, but we're not in fellowship with Him, it's like God is sitting there and saying, don't you think we need to talk about something first? What about us? Right? As if God would say. Why is it that way? Because God cares for you. Yes, God cares for the world. He wants to answer your prayers. He wants to demonstrate His omnipotent power, His benevolence towards us, His grace, His mercy, His love. All of those things are true. But you know what's true most of all? He loves you. So much so, He sent His Son to die for you, right? And if He sent His Son to die for you, and you believe that wonderful truth, you have everlasting life, you are His child. Do you think he wants to spend time with his child? He wants to get to know his child? Or better said, he wants his child to get to know him? You bet. So the Father will answer prayer done the right way. Empty repetition does not make God here anymore. There are prerequisites to prayer. The reality of prayer, we'll get through verse 8 apologetically quickly, but we'll review some of this next time too. Therefore do not be like them and in the reality of prayer. For your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. Hold on. Not all prayer is heeded by God. We'll get to that in a moment. Prayer does not inform God of our needs. Did you know that? We're not informing God when we pray, right? Oh, let me write that down. I didn't know that. Thanks, I'll be praying for that person too. So why do we pray? Again, verse 8, "...therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows..." If I remember correctly, it's in the perfect tense, which means literally has known. He has known, and He continues to know, and He will continue to know into the future. the things you have need of before you ask Him. So why ask Him? Why do we pray? Have you ever thought about that? After all, just thinking logically, if God is omniscient, He's all-knowing, He knows everything, He even knows the future, wouldn't He know what we're praying before? Of course He would. So why pray? And I think we talked about this Wednesday night, but it gets to the very heart of what prayer is. Prayer is communication with God. Now, I like to think of things, you know, Sarah mentioned being a word nerd downstairs. I, too, am a word nerd. And I like to think of things etymologically. In other words, the history and kind of the linguistic principles of a word. And communication, we get the word common, right? So in order to communicate, you have to have a certain degree of commonness. Ideally, language, right? If you have language and culture, even better, right? Because we might speak English and go to Britain, but there's going to be some things lost in communication, right? There's degrees of commonness. Prayer is our communication with God. And even though God knows what we need before we ask, He encourages us to ask, I think, so that we get on and stay on the same page as God. Because God is actively working in your life. And when you are praying, and you have a life devoted to prayer, you're accepting that. You're on board with that. You are yielding to the Creator in what He wants to accomplish in your life. So if you weren't convinced already, now do you see why prayer is important? Here's the difficulty with prayer. It takes two people, but it's one-sided, right? How do you have a conversation with someone who doesn't verbally, audibly speak back? That's hard, right? And that's why I think some of us struggle. Sometimes it can feel strange, weird, and we don't know how to do it. We don't know what to say, especially, or not especially, forget that. I want to close with this. One thing that was really helpful in my prayer life, personal prayer life, before praying, Just stop. Now don't get any weird creepiness of empty your mind and those sort of things. Just stop. Take some breaths, no creepy breaths. Some deep breaths. And really focus on the Lord. And one thing I've pictured is, you know, we're invited to come boldly to the throne of grace. I try to picture that throne. And it calms my heart. and I settle in, and then I realize, I'm talking to my Creator. And that has changed my prayer life. Now sometimes, life is busy, it's hectic, I don't always do that, right? Sometimes I start being hypocritical. You know what I was saying. Because we have common language, right? But sometimes I'm hypocritical, And it's as if God is saying, Jacob, stop. Let's get real here, right? I know I said I'd close with this, but I want to talk about this prayer structure real quick. Some of you might be familiar with Acts, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving. Someone properly said, well, confession really belongs before that. So they did cats. Confession, adoration, thanksgiving, supplication. I suggest my structure, confession, exaltation, thanksgiving, and love. Kettle. I like it because kettle, you know, think of a kettle bell getting stronger. Our prayer life makes us stronger. I will break down what exactly this means next time because we're past time, but prayer is important. If you're not doing it, you need to. If you need help, reach out, talk to me, Pastor Dave, one of the other elders, someone who's been walking with the Lord for any amount of time. We need to be praying because I think if we're not, we are spiritually disabled. We are ineffective in our personal life, but also corporately, because we are doing things without the power of God, asking Him to work on our behalf. Why would we ever? And that's why I mentioned that gal at the beginning who said, that's about all I can do. Surely it's enough. In fact, we need more of it, right? We need more prayer warriors. With that, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you again for the salvation we have through your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the freeness of that gift, that faith alone, in Christ alone, gives us the precious, unchangeable gift of everlasting life that cannot be lost. Lord, you desire us to live good works and that done through your spirit, your work in and through us. I pray, Lord, as you work in and through us, we'd be mindful of what you would have us let go of, change, correct and pick up as far as good habits. And I pray, Lord, that this prayer scheduler would be a help towards that end. We love you, Lord, and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.