to the Gospel of Luke chapter number 11. We've been looking at the greatest stories ever told. The stories of the Lord Jesus. Jesus always had a truth to share and He would share with us many times through stories. Somebody said if a picture is worth a thousand words, a story is worth a million words. There's just something about a story that captures our attention, that builds intrigue into our lives. It pulls us into it, and from that, you and I can, from the stories of the Lord Jesus, we can gain truth that actually helps us climb, and we're going to see that this morning in this particular story. Luke chapter number 11, and find, if you would please, verse number 1. Luke 11, verse number 1. And it came to pass, this is the passage of time, that as He, the Lord Jesus, was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive every one that is indebted, or who has sinned against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And he, the Lord, said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend? He now begins the story. Which of you shall have a friend? And shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not, stop bothering me. The door is now shut. My children are with me in the bed. I cannot rise and give them." How many like to be woken up in the middle of the night? I'm not one of them. Look, if you would, he goes on to say in our verse, I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, his persistence, he's banging on the door in the middle of the night, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I, here's the truth, here we go, and I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and you shall find. knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth it, to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? He's talking about the sinful nature of man, that we're imperfect. If ye then, being evil, imperfect, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? In response to the disciples' request, Lord, teach us to pray. Jesus is going to tell a true-to-life story. It's been named or titled, The Parable of the Friend at Midnight. It's actually the story of three friends. First of all, there is a friend to feed. You see him in verse number 6. He said, For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. Notice that this man's friend, sort of the main character of the story, he has a friend that arrives at his home at the midnight hour. He's been traveling throughout the evening hours, late into the night. He arrives, he's tired, he's weary, he's hungry. He knocks on his friend's door from the journey and he's a man that is to feed. But then you're going to find also the main character of the story, not only is there a friend to feed, they're in need of something. There is a friend in need because here is a friend who needs a friend and he doesn't have anything to take care of his friend. Did you see it? A story of three friends. Look at verse number 5. And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves? So here's the first friend, the friend to feed. He shows up in the middle of the night, tired, weary, hungry from his journey, and he arrives at this man's house who is his friend, and he doesn't have anything. As a matter of fact, He has no food anywhere in the house, nothing to set before Him. The hospitality in the world of Jesus' day was a big deal. Listen, to have the cupboards bare, to have nothing, give to his friend that arrived at the midnight hour to eat was more than just embarrassing. It was a shame. It was a disgrace. It was a reproach upon that man and his family and the entire village in which he lived. that you were known in that day by hospitality. You didn't have a McDonald's to go to. You didn't run down to the 24-hour diner and grab some late-night breakfast. You didn't have any of that. So you became the source of hospitality. And here's a friend in need. He doesn't have anything to give. to the friend who's arrived at his house. But then thirdly, it's the story of three friends. There's a friend to feed, there's a friend in need, and then you find a friend in deed. Look at verse number 7. And he from within shall answer and say, Stop bothering me. Trouble me not. You're bugging me. Hey, quit banging on my door. We're in the bed. The lights are out. Can't you tell? This is an hour for sleeping, not visiting. And so he's knocking on his door. Hey, I need three loaves. Hey, I've got a friend showing up in the middle of the night. I don't have any food in the house. I need three loaves. That's exactly what the story is. And notice what the Bible says. He said, Stop bothering me, trouble me not. Verse 7, The door is now shut, and my children are with me in the bed. Many times families slept together in that day. Houses were small. He said, If I get up, the kids are going to wake up, the baby's going to start crying, my wife needs her rest. Hey, if you don't stop banging on my door, you're going to wake up the whole neighborhood. Man, you need to get. I cannot rise and give thee. Look at verse 8. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, because he kept banging on his door, he will rise and give him as many as he needed. Listen, I'm not going to give you three loaves, I'm going to give you ten. Please quit banging on my door. Please stop. Now Jesus didn't just tell stories to be telling stories. Parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings. That means that there are truths, there's a point to the story. You say, preacher, what's the point of the story? Are you ready for it? Here it is. God answers prayer. That's it. God answers prayer. God desires to answer the prayers of His children. Isn't it amazing that when God answers our prayers we're surprised? But yet that is to be the norm of the Christian life. We're to be asking of God and receiving from God. The truth is, God doesn't just answer the prayers of His children. He delights in answering our prayers. We see that throughout this story that Jesus is telling, and then the next story that He's going to tell about the Son and the Father. And we see that God desires, He delights in answering our prayers, and you're going to find at the very end of it all, there's a particular prayer that God desires to answer in each of the lives of His children. Now, let's bring this down to where it gets to you and me. The man in our story lacked. Look at verse number 6 again. I underlined it in my Bible, the phrase, I have nothing to set before him. He had a need in his life. He lacked. Can I help us understand this morning? You and I have lack in our lives. You say, Preacher, I know it. We're needy people. You're exactly right. But the lack that we have may be different in our minds than what Jesus is getting ready to share with us. You see, 21st century American Christianity, we have spacious buildings. We have cushioned seatings. We have heated and air-conditioned auditoriums, sound systems, video screens. soul-stirring music. There's more of the truth of the gospel being preached in our land right now than ever before in its history through social media. You say, Preacher, did anything positive come out of COVID? Absolutely. Every church and every nook and cranny is right now, right now, My word just left me. They're right now streaming. I had a different word. They're streaming their services all over the world. It's happening. Thankfully, we were already doing that. We didn't have to start doing it, but now just about every church does it. We started COVID, we had thousands and thousands watching. We watched as that number went down a little bit because the people that were watching our services, their church services came up, by the way. They ought to be watching their church services. By the way, we're after COVID, now we ought to be attending the church services. But we'll just leave that for a different message, right? Yet by and large, our altars are empty. The baptisteries in many churches are unstirred. Churches sparsely attended. Communities spiritually darker than they have ever been before. Marriages and families, and I'm talking about Christian marriages and Christian families, are in trouble. Young people, disillusioned. They see the trappings of religion in their home and the churches they attend, but seldom if ever do they see a move of God. We go through the motions of worship, but yet I'm reminded of the psalmist when he says, "...to see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary." Can I help us understand? God wants to move in our day. But yet we see very little of the moving of God in our land. Can I help us understand today that maybe the lack that we have is different than what we think? That what we need today in America is more of God. To see His glory and His power. I love the music of our church. I enjoy our life group teachers. I enjoy the fellowship of God's people. That's not why I come to church. I know just about every service that I come here, somebody's going to sing a song that's going to move me and stir me and encourage me. That is not why I come to church. Preacher, why do you come to church? Because I want to meet with God. You see, you can have all of that and it can be wonderful and nice and sweet and we go out the door and we went to church, but I'm just going to ask us, did we meet with God? You see, the man in our story lacked bread. The disciples lacked power. That's where verse 13 comes into the picture. Look at it if you would please. I'm laying foundation. Look at verse 13. If ye, then being evil, imperfect, know how to give good gifts unto your children... Now God answers prayer, answers all kinds of prayer. But here's a specific prayer. How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? Now what does that mean? I already have the person of the Holy Spirit living inside of me. It came into my heart 39 years ago when I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior. If you're saved this morning, you have the person of the Holy Spirit living inside of you. We don't need to pray to receive His person. We already have that the moment we're saved. Can I tell you what the disciples liked? There was a time that there was a demoniac boy and the father said, can you heal my son? And they were powerless to do it. There were times that they were faced with specific need, and they were powerless to meet the need. They needed the power of the Holy Spirit in his life. God is going to bring people across our pathway who are in need. And if we're not careful, we're going to be like the man in our story. I have nothing to set before you. we lack. What we need is His power in our lives. The Divine Comforter, the Helper, the Enabler of God's children in this age. It's a reminder. It reminds us of our own insufficiency, our own inability. That without Him, we can do nothing. It reminds us of His sufficiency, of His ability. Friend, can I tell you, we need the Spirit's supply in our lives. power in our lives to understand that without Him we can do nothing, but friend with Him that by His Spirit we have something to set before people. Can I help us to understand that prayer brings God's power to bear in our lives, in our marriages, in our families, in this church, in our community? I want to preach to you this week, and then when I get back from my surgery, the second part of it, that lets you marinate in what I'm going to preach this morning. The secret to power-packed prayer. How often do we pray? but there's no power in the prayer. How often do we pray and our powers are anemic and weak? We have nothing to set before them. I bring nothing to the table God hasn't promised to bless my speaking abilities. God hasn't promised to bless my delivery of a message. He has promised to bless His Word. God wants to empower His Word in our lives this morning. If I'm going to have power-packed praying, first of all, I'm going to have to learn that prayer is a priority in my life. Prayer is a priority in our lives. To understand the story, you have to see it in its larger context. Go back to verse number 1. The Bible said, and it came to pass, that as He, the Lord, was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray. No one prayed like Jesus prayed. Throughout the Scriptures, we see Him communing with His Father in prayer. One commentator made the following observations concerning the Lord's praying. He said that the Savior, though perfectly holy, regarded the duty of secret prayer as of great importance. that he sought a solitary place for it, far away from the world and even at times from his disciples. He went on to write, if Jesus prayed, how much more important is it for us to pray? Isn't it interesting the disciples never said, Lord, teach us to teach like you teach. They never said, Lord, teach us to witness like you witness, or heal like you heal, or even preach like you preach. But they said, Lord, teach us to pray like you pray. This verse teaches us something about the prayer life of the Lord Jesus. I want you to get it real quickly. I want you to notice He prayed continually. Look at verse number 1 again. The Bible said, And as He was praying. The tense of that verb is the idea of something that is constant. It is ongoing. That Jesus remained in constant communion with His Father. Can I help us to understand that when you and I get along with God, And we begin to pray and then we say, in Jesus' name, Amen. That's not the last time that day that we need to commune with God. No, that's the starting point. I need to leave the solitary, private place of prayer and have ongoing communion with God. Let me ask you something. Do you have continual communion with the God of heaven? Or do you just go throughout your day and then when you get home at night, you say a quick word of prayer and then hop into the bed? Can I tell you that praying was part of the very spiritual existence of the Son of God? And it ought to be part of the spiritual existence of our life. Not only pray continually, I want us to quickly move on. He prayed privately. Now watch this. He prayed in a certain place, a designated place, a frequented place. Judas knew a place that he went. Didn't he? That Jesus had frequent, designated places that He went to and He communed with His Father. Do you have a place you meet with God? It can be a chair. It can be beside your bed. It can be in your car going down the road in your commute to work that maybe is 15, 20, 30 minutes long. You know, instead of listening to talk radio, why don't you talk to God? Instead of catching up on my morning social media texts, why before I talk to men, why do I not talk to God? I'm just asking us. Mark 1.35, the Bible says, And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out into a solitary place, and there prayed. He prayed continually. He prayed privately. Can I help us understand something? If we'll pray long in private, we won't pray as long in public. I've been in church services, and you ask somebody to pray, and you wonder if they're catching up on their prayer life. They just go on and on. I really hate that when I'm ready to eat. I mean, enough already. The food's getting cold. You know, do all that in your private time. We're ready to eat right now. Get down to business. Ask God to bless it and let's eat. Some of you don't get anything outside of the message. You got that. Amen. I know where our heart's at. We're Baptists, right? Get it? He prayed passionately. Look at verse number one again. And as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased... That word doesn't mean that he just stopped praying. It doesn't mean that he was done praying. It means he paused his praying. The Lord Jesus was fully engaged in prayer to His Father and He paused. For Jesus' praying came as naturally as breathing. His wasn't a half-hearted but a whole-hearted pray. John Bunyan said, in prayer it's better to have a heart without words than to have words without heart. Jesus didn't just go through the motions. He was passionate. He was all in in His pray. The disciples, when they saw Him pray, when they heard Him pray, sensed a deficiency in their own prayer lives, and they desired to pray as the Master prayed. And Christian, if we're not careful, there's a deficiency in our own spiritual lives, and it is the priority of prayer. Oh, we pray, but many times our prayer only becomes passionate and continual and unceasing and private when there's a crisis in our lives. Can I help us to understand that praying in the good times of life prepares me to pray in the crisis times of life? We need to pray on the mountaintop more than we need to pray in the valley. Luke 18, 1, men ought always to pray and not think. Romans 12, verse 12, continuing instant in prayer. Ephesians 6, verse 18, praying always with all prayer. I Thessalonians 5, 17, pray without ceasing. Ceasing. That doesn't mean that I'm to be down on my knees in some kind of solitary place 24-7, 365. What it means is I take my communion with God out of my devotional life into my everyday life, and I commune with Him throughout the day. Friend, listen, God is a person, and that person goes with me everywhere. I need Thee every hour. Isn't that right? Can I take that down? We need Him every moment, every nanosecond of life. If you're going to be the Christian God wants you to be, you need His power. Prayer needs to be a priority in your life. You want to be the husband. Fellas, we are absolutely deficient to be the men and the husbands that God wants us to be. We cannot do that on our own. Cannot. Cannot. I'll fail every time. Ladies, you cannot be the woman. If you're married, the wife. And the same for men. If you're married, the husband. Being the person that God desires you to be. Apart from God's power and God's working. You can't be the father and the mother that God wants us to be without the power of God in our lives. We'll never see our loved ones saved. We'll never see our wayward children turned back to God. We'll never see the move of God of co-workers and friends and neighbors coming to the Lord. will not see His glory and His power unless prayer is a priority in our lives. We must have the power of God. James 4 says you have not because you ask not. How often does our witnesses fall flat because we lack the communion with God to give it the power that it needs? I just want to say this morning, church, if we don't get anything else out of the story of Jesus, it's this. Prayer is a priority. We don't have time to pray. We must make time to pray. We must fight for time to pray. There's times that we need to turn other things off so that we can turn our prayer life on. It may be a blessing when you look at your phone or your iPad or Galaxy Tab or whatever you have and it comes up that your screen time was down so much percent this week. That's a good thing if some of that time was spent with God in prayer and with the most important people in your life. Teenager? Don't allow a screen to rob you of some of the most precious years that you can have with your mom and dad. Teenage years do not have to be volatile. They don't. There needs to be sweet communion. Mom and Dad, our lives, your lives need to be open for your teenager. You ever notice that teenagers are like the man in our story? They find the most inopportune times to want to talk, like midnight. Mom, I got a problem. Dad, I need to talk to you. It's 11 o'clock. Can I tell you, lose some sleep. Because if you close the door one time, they may feel like the door's closed every time. Have an open-door policy to your young person. Invite them to share with you whatever they need to share, even if it's uncomfortable. Because they're going to share it with somebody. Would you rather them share with you because you're open to them or an influencer on social media? Would you rather influence your child or a paid influencer that's influencing them with the world? I'm just asking. I'm not telling you to rip the phone out of their hand. I'm just saying that maybe we need to lay it aside and make time for the most important peoples in our lives. Because I'm going to tell you something, teenager, you'll never get those years back. And life begins to flow. And time marches on. And mom and dad and children leave our home. By the way, it's designed that way. And so we have to make time for those precious relationships. But can I help you to understand? You don't have anything to set before your children if you've not had any time with God. And that's true for any of us at any time. A couple would come to me with marital issues, or a couple comes to me with family issues, or a person comes to me with personal struggles. I have nothing to set before them on my own. They don't need what I have to give them. They need what God can give them. That's who changes us. Not only is prayer a priority, but can I quickly say that prayer has a pattern. When you come to verse number 2, Jesus didn't say, if you pray, but when you pray. It's expected that we pray. Look at verse number 2. And He said unto them, when you pray, He begins to give them a lesson in how to pray. It's a model. It's a template. It's a pattern. It's a prayer not to be ritualistically repeated, but to be a resource to be practically followed in our lives. I learned some simple truths and I'm going to give them to you as quickly as I can this morning. And I want you to get it when you begin to understand the pattern of prayer that it leads us to worship. Worship doesn't just happen on Sunday. It happens Monday through Saturday. Sunday is the first day of the week. If I don't worship on Sunday, chances are I'm not going to worship like I need to and have private time with God on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. and I'm missing the priority. One flows out of the other. That's why we need to be in the presence of God with His people so that we can publicly worship and that fuels our private worship. Prayer leads you into the presence of God. the sovereign God of the universe, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who created the galaxies, who flung the stars into space, who put the planets in orbit, who scooped up the oceans and heaped up the mountains. That God is your heavenly Father if you're saved this morning. When ye pray, say, Father. Do you realize something? That God, your Father, invites you in His presence to commune with Him and talk to Him. Prayer. Our story is about friendship, but prayer is based on sonship. Notice Jesus said, we say, our Father. When you come down to verse number 11, which of you shall ask bread? Any of you that is a father? He's going to come to verse 13. How much more shall your heavenly Father? I want you to realize God is your Father this morning. And He wants you to talk to Him as a daughter and a son of God. That word Father is Abba. It's Aramaic, Abba. It means Papa. It means Daddy. I'd never go into the presence of God and call Him my heavenly Daddy. But yet that is the closeness that God desires with His children. It's intimate. It's real. It's personal. It's relational. But yet we don't make it a priority. That's the person of prayer. Then He leads to praise. Hallowed be thy name. That word hallowed means to sanctify. It means to magnify. It means to glorify. Prayer elevates our worship. Prayer and praise go together like peanut butter and jelly. They're two sides of the same coin. God inhabits the praises of His people. And praise leads us into the presence of God. And prayer enables us to linger in His presence. Can I help us to understand? Don't just barge into the presence of God and don't tell Him how wonderful He is. Take a moment and love on Him. God will get real close. Quickly, prayer leads us to surrender. I want you to look, if you would please, in verse 2. I want you to look at four words. Thy kingdom come. I'm not going to expound the entire prayer. I'm going to deal with some pieces within it, some points within it. Look at these four words. Thy will be done. That's surrender. Prayer leads to surrender. It shows my dependence upon God. It brings me into a rightful place of submission. Someone said prayer is surrender. Surrender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. He said if I throw out a boat hook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, he said do I pull the shore to me or do I pull myself to the shore? He said prayer is not pulling God to me. or my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God. Prayer leads us to surrender. It says, God, I have nothing. I need You. You may be sitting here this morning and you're broken. And you don't have the answers. And you don't have anything. But God does. And prayer links you with a Father that wants to come into your life and bring change and help and hope. He loves you this morning. Bring it to Him. And surrender to Him. God, Thy will be done. Prayer leads us to petition. Look at verse number 3. Give us day by day our daily bread. We don't live the Christian life month by month, year by year, week by week. We live it day by day. God meets our needs daily. He said, sufficient to the days of evil. He said, you've got enough problems today without worrying about tomorrow. He said, I'm going to meet your needs today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Oh, how we live in tomorrow. How I live in tomorrow. God said, I'm going to give you grace and help for today. Let me get you through today. You'll get through today, and then we'll take care of tomorrow when it comes. Oh, isn't that a wonderful way to live? Let me tell you what prayer it is. It recognizes God's ownership of all things. It's the understanding that it's God. Everything that I have, all that we are, comes from the good hand of God. Daily, daily, one day at a time, God meets our needs. Here it is, God said, bring it to me. What's your need? Bring it to me. Bring every need, every burden, every tear, every struggle, every emotion into the presence of our Heavenly Father. Listen, there's times, listen, ladies, listen to me, men. I know there's times that we want to share with others, and we should. But listen, choose wisely who you share your heart with. Don't just throw it out there to the people you work with if they don't know God. Because what you get back is nothing. You need to share it with somebody that walks with God because they can give you something. But how often do we spend the majority of our time telling it to others when we should tell it to Jesus? When was the last time you brought every tear into the presence of God? Every hurt, every brokenness. I want to help you understand something about your God this morning. The Bible tells us He's touched with the feeling of our infirmity. If you'll give me just a few minutes, what I'm getting ready to tell you is going to help you more than you could ever imagine. The Bible says that what touches me touches God. He feels my hurt. He empathizes with me. Can I help you understand that when you feel your hurt in time, that's not the first time it's touched the heart of God. God is an eternal being who knows all things. He knew your hurt from the very outset of eternity, before He ever created the heaven and the earth, before you were ever even born. Before you ever came into existence, God knew every struggle, every trial, every burden, every hurt that would come into your life, and He already felt it and already has what you need. What you feel right now, He's felt for eternity. And He has what you need. And He's waiting for you to come to Him. And there's times that Jesus is telling us that we need to be like the man in our story. Just keep bringing it to God. You say, why? Is it because God is trying to make me wait and make me suffer longer? Is it God? Am I trying to force God to answer? No, God is bringing you to deeper surrender so you can receive the answer and the help. Prayer leads us to confession. I'm almost finished. Look what he says in verse number 4, "...and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is in debt." Do you know that the Lord Jesus just assumes that Christians forgive each other? Wow. I don't think He left any room in there for a hard, unforgiving, bitter heart, did He? He just went ahead and said, if you're saved, you ought to forgive. but we need to bring our sins to Him. If I regard iniquity, nothing will cut my prayer life. Nothing will cut my communication line. Nothing will stop the power of God quicker in our lives than unconfessed sin. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the psalmist said, the Lord will not help me. That word regard means to see. That means I know it's there. I know that bitter heart. I know that unforgiving spirit. I know that angry mindset, that attitude, that sin that's in our lives. We see it. God's shown it to us. We know it's there, but we do nothing. God said, I can't answer your prayer yet. I love I John 1-9, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Could it be, could it be, could it be that our most serious sin is the sin of prayerlessness? That prayer is not a priority. Prayerlessness, Christian, is not just a shame, it's a sin. Samuel said, moreover ask for me, God forbid, that I should sin against the Lord and ceasing to pray for you. That word ceasing means to leave undone what should be done. Charles Spurgeon said this, all our failures in the Christian life are prayer failures. I'm done with this. Prayer leads us to victory. Look what he says in verse number 4, "...and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." That word evil is in a tense that means the evil one. Satan's machinations, his deceptions, what the world, the flesh, and the devil seeks to do in our lives to defeat us, to take us down spiritually, What he's saying is we're asking God to lead us, to follow Him, and ask Him to lead us away from the place of temptation and failure. But hey, for God to do that, we have to be willing to follow, right? And then he says, deliver us. You know what he's just saying? When the tempter comes, we have nothing. I am no match for Satan in myself. I am no match for the world. I am no match for my flesh. I am no match for the enemy. But my God is. My God's greater. I John 4, for greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. And prayer puts us in touch with that God who is greater. Leonard Ravenhill said this, a great revivalist, there is nothing the devil will attack more than your devotional life. He wants to keep you out of your Bible and off your knees. F.B. Meyer said, The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. The great preacher Samuel Chadwick said, Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toils. He mocks at our wisdom. But he trembles when we pray. When was the last time you made Satan tremble? Christian, prayer will link your nothingness and my nothingness to God's almightiness. I have nothing. When we come to that point, we're ready to go to the presence of God and say, God, You're everything. I have nothing. I have nothing to offer. God, I need Thee every hour. God answers prayer. God wants to answer your prayer. And the God of the universe wants to bring His power to bear in your life. You're sitting here in this auditorium this morning broken. You're looking for hope and you're looking for help. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer and carry it over and over and over because somewhere along the line God's going to give you breakthrough. God's going to bring people across your pathway. It might be your own children. And I promise you in that moment you have nothing to set before them if we've not spent time in the presence of God. It's God who empowers our words, who gives us wisdom, who gives direction to speak into the lives of others, to bring that person that's seeking the Lord, that person that's seeking help from God, to bring what we've found in the presence of God. We need His power. You need His power to see His glory and His power at work in our lives. But it's got to start with making it a priority. I'm just asking, how's your prayer life? Where are you with God? And maybe you need to bring your hurt and your pain and your brokenness to the God who loves you. And maybe you're here today, and the greatest prayer you will ever pray is, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner, that you've never called on the Lord to save you. You may be here in the brokenness of sin, and you need the Lord to save you, and to change your life, and to write your name in heaven, and to have the assurance that you have a relationship with God. That's the most important prayer you'll ever pray. Let's bow our heads in prayer.