a failing expert. Were it not for the Lord, and I do pray that it will be him that you hear, and not me, because I am not exhibit A. I would like for us to pray once again before we begin, please. Great God, our Heavenly Father, hallowed be your name. We desire, Father, that we would have quiet hearts before you, that we would have hearts attuned to you that your word yourself would be magnified this day. You have graciously allowed us entrance into your presence. And so we give these things to you. Father, anything that is not of you, I ask that it be forgotten, and only the things that are edifying to you be remembered. I thank you for the opportunity. I thank you for all of these ladies that have taken time out this day to come, to be encouraged, to be exhorted, to be convicted, to learn of you, to grow in you, to commune with you. May you receive all the honor and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Those of you that are from Dominion know that I have a great fondness for tears. Actually, it's not a fondness, it's a weakness. And so I apologize ahead of time for that. Also, I am not the computer savvy one in this congregation. My age makes me old school, and that is why there will be nothing up here today. And I am sorry, I hope it will not be a distraction, but that you will be able to listen and hear the words that the Lord has laid on my heart. Because of that, one of the things that would have been up. I had one. My talk today has four major headings or is broken up into four divisions because we are talking about prayer and I am one who loves I think it's alliteration when it's all the same word, is that correct? My grammar is not so great. My four all began with Ps. So first is pray, the second division is praise, then pursue, and finally to persist. And so we begin with pray. Many years ago when my dear Mr. Perry, my husband Clyde, and I were attending another church, some friends of ours had a little girl. She was probably around six or seven years old at that time. She was sitting with us, taking notes during the morning sermon. The topic that day was prayer. And little Haley wrote on her paper, Prayer is wind you talk to God. Wind, W-I-N-D. Of course, she meant to write wind, but the irony was not lost on us as we saw how accurately she had described much of the prayers that are lifted to God. Wind, nothing of substance, just a lot of wind. For those who cry out to him to help, but not in repentance, this is truly all they are doing, blowing a lot of wind. For John 9 31 tells us, now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Our only hope of God hearing us when we pray is found in 1 John, the first chapter. Nine, verse nine through the second chapter, verse two, and it says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sin. We can come to God in prayer because our sins have been paid for, as Tara alluded to, by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. What an incredible privilege this is. We do not have to rely on a priest. We don't have to rely on any other person for our prayers to be heard, but we can come directly to God. But why? Why should we pray? If we believe that God is sovereign, knowing everything, then why bother? Jesus said in Matthew 6, 8, Therefore, do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. He had just been talking with his disciples about how not to pray before he went on to teach them how to pray. This is seen in the very next verse where he says, in this manner, therefore pray. There are many places that we can go to in the Bible to find the clear call for us to pray. A favorite of myself and many of you, I am sure, is found in Philippians 4, verses 6 through 7. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, in God's word, we are over and over again commanded to pray. God's institutions are not folly. Can I believe that the infinitely wise God has ordained for me an exercise which is ineffectual and is no more than child's play? No. which leads us to praise. We are called to pray, yet when we approach God, we often come, I do, with scattered and distracted thoughts. In an attempt to focus as we pray, the simple little acronym, ACTS, A-C-T-S, has proved helpful for many of us. Each letter stands for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. These are just a framework for us to guide us. Adoration is the first, and for me, often the most neglected aspect of prayer. I confess that in speaking on this topic, I'm coming to you as one who desperately desperately, needs to hear and learn and act on what God has revealed about adoration and not as one having attained it. So what comes to your mind when you consider adoration? I picture a bride and a groom, oblivious to everyone and everything around them, gazing longingly and lovingly into each other's eyes. I saw such a picture just last week from Emily's and Josiah's wedding. There was pure bliss, intimate focus, full of love for one another. Now, think about our adoration of God. Do we come into his presence with this same excitement, this same longing and love? I was surprised to find that the Bible does not use the word adoration, nor even adore. Adorn is in there and adorned, but not adoration. But it does have plenty to say about our reverence, about our worship, and about our fervent and devoted love to God. And these are the definitions of adoration. Our adoration is not a mere acknowledgement or a casual conversation. This is not a stranger on the street that we are conversing with, but the creator of the universe, the king of all kings. Psalm 47, one through two says, oh, clap your hands, all you people. Shout unto God with the voice of triumph, for the Lord most high is awesome. He is a great king over all the earth. Back in the 90s, my mom used a prayer journal. It was put out by Becky Terabasi, and it was divided into sections, much like the ones that Sandy has so thoughtfully put together for us today. One of those sections was titled Praise. The cover sheet, I thought, exemplified well the difference for us. It said, when we praise God, we find ourselves overwhelmed with his unfailing love and goodness. Overwhelmed. The praise section is designed for expressing our praise to God for who he is rather than for the things that he does for us. The thanks section is the place where we respond to God's blessings in our lives with thanks and gratitude, an important distinction. There are many examples in our Bibles where praise is being lifted up for who God is. I want us to look at just a few of them together. First one, do you remember when Moses and Israel had miraculously crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and they were safely on the other side, having seen the riders from Egypt? with their horses and their chariots swallowed up in what was now churning waters, their hearts and their voices swelled in a song of praise to God. In the middle of Moses' song, which you can find in Exodus 15, verse 11 says, Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Prior to this event, Israel had lived in Egypt for hundreds of years, hundreds of years, surrounding by their many gods, that's little g gods, that they worshiped. Yet, when Moses and Aaron stood before Pharaoh time after time, telling him to let the Israelites go, each time Pharaoh refused, the Israelites had witnessed firsthand the complete ineffectiveness of all Egypt's little gods as the plagues came upon them. And now, in this latest instance, when Israel thought their lives were surely over, for they were caught between the Red Sea and the Egyptians thundering after them, God once again miraculously delivered them. Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? No one. Definitely not the worthless gods of Egypt. There is no God like our God. In Daniel 4, we have another example. The study notes in one of our Bibles tells me that no king ever had a more prosperous or powerful kingdom than Nebuchadnezzar. His was the first and the greatest of the four Gentile empires. Listen to his words in Daniel four verses two and three where he says, I thought it good to declare the signs and wonders that the most high God has worked for me. How great are his signs? How mighty his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and his dominion is from generation to generation. Now this declaration came about not because he was such a powerful king, but it came after a most humbling experience. Do you remember what happened when he was in the midst of this great prosperity? When his heart was lifted up in great pride and he took credit for building up Babylon and for building up his own kingdom? In verse 30 of chapter 4 in Daniel, he said, is not this great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty. He had not been finished speaking before God banished him to the fields where he ate grass like oxen, his hair grew long like eagle's feathers, and his nails were like bird's claws. He went from a position of the highest honor to living as an animal for several years. But God didn't leave him there. And in verse 34 through 37, we read this wonderful tribute that he gave in praise to God. And he said, and at the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High. and praised and honored him who lives forever. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done? Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven, all of whose works are truth and his ways justice. And those who walk in pride, he is able to put down. First-hand experience there. We also can go to the Psalms where we find example after example of praises to our God. I have several that I want to read to you. Psalm 8-1, O Lord, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth, who have set your glory above the heavens. Psalm nine, verses one and two. I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will tell of all your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. Psalm 92, the first two verses. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night, morning and night. And in Psalm 113, the first six verses say, Praise the Lord. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and evermore. From the rising of the sun to the going down, the Lord's name is to be praised. The Lord is high above all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like our Lord? Who is like our God who dwells on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth? He cares about us. Do these scriptures cause us to lift our hearts in adoration to our God? Are we praising the Lord as we meditate on who he is? Now we pursue. D.A. Carson, in his book called A Call to Spiritual Reformation, poses this question in his introduction. What is the most urgent need in the church of the Western world today? What is the most urgent need? If I were to ask each of you this question, I'm sure we would come up with many of the same answers that he received, such as our greatest need is purity, integrity, evangelistic effectiveness, better study of scripture, improved private and corporate worship, and more. All of those good answers, but none of them were his answer. Instead, he wrote, the one thing we most urgently need in Western Christendom is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better. So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs. And these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own happiness and our own fulfillment. God simply becomes the great being who potentially at least meets our needs and fills our aspirations. We think rather little of what he is like, and what he expects of us, and what he seeks in us. We are not captured by his holiness and his love. His thoughts and his words capture too little of our imagination, too little of our discourse, and too few of our priorities. He continues, in the biblical view of things, a deeper knowledge of God brings with it massive improvement in the other areas that we mentioned, in purity, in integrity, in evangelistic effectiveness, in better study of the scripture, in improved private and corporate worship, and much more. But, and this is so important, if we seek these things without passionately desiring a deeper knowledge of God, we are selfishly running after God's blessings without running after him. I don't want to be running after his blessings and not him. God's word gives us many such warnings about this. Job 21 verses 14 and 15 says, yet they say to God, depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of your ways. Who is the almighty that we should serve him? And what profit do we have if we pray to him? Hosea 4 verse one and six says, Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land. There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. My people are destroyed. Why? for a lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being priests for me. Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. Isaiah 115 says, when you spread out your hands, and my Bible had a note to say, in prayer, to pray, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers. I will not hear, your hands are full of blood. And one more, 1 Corinthians 15, 34. Awake to righteousness and do not sin, for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. These are serious warnings. Oh, that we would awaken to righteousness. Oh, that we would truly know our God. Dr. Carson goes on to say, one of the foundational steps in knowing God and one of the basic demonstrations that we do know him is prayer. Spiritual, persistent, biblically-minded prayer. but we have forgotten how to pray. Where's our delight in praying? Where's our sense that we're meeting with the living God, that we're doing business with God, that we are interceding with genuine unction before the throne of grace? Let's go back to Matthew six and verse nine where we found that Jesus was introducing his disciples or instructing, excuse me, his disciples how to pray. They witnessed the relationship that Jesus had with his father. They had observed him getting up early or going away from crowds just to have time alone in prayer. They saw the importance that this time of prayer was for him. and they wanted such communion with God. So Jesus begins teaching them by saying, and you know it well, in this manner, therefore pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. He began with in this manner. He didn't say, now, something like this or along these lines, but he said in this manner, he was specific. And his opening address to our Father in heaven didn't say, my Father, but he included the disciples, didn't he? He said, our Father in heaven. Now, to call someone your father implies that you have a unique and special relationship with them. Now, this can be because you are a biological child or an adopted child. Either one means that you are a part of that family. This is the glorious truth of Ephesians 1, 3 through 6, which says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him, when? Before the foundation of the world. Why? that we should be holy and without blame before him, in love having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved. We come to our father in heaven by this blood bought adoption of Jesus Christ himself. God is not earth bound, nor is he encumbered by the many sins of our earthly fathers. Psalms 14 to says the Lord looks down from heaven upon the Children of men to see if there are any who understand who seek God. Let us seek him with hearts full of adoration. For this same God has made us. If we are his children accepted in the beloved, how can we help but praise him? Well, Jesus continues his teaching the disciples by following the address of our father in heaven with hallowed be your name. Hallowed. It's a word you don't hear very often, is it? It means to make holy, to purify, to consecrate, or mentally, excuse me, to venerate, which means you regard it with the highest respect and honor that you give in reverence. When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the very first one that we find in Exodus 20 verse 3 was, you shall have no other gods before me. Elise Fitzpatrick, in her book called Idols of the Heart, subtitled Learning to Long for God Alone, says that in this first commandment, God demands our absolute and unequivocal devotion to him alone. She then goes on to say, this commandment is preeminent because it is impossible, impossible for us to obey the other nine if we fail to obey this one. She continues, the sum of this commandment is that we must set God apart from everything else in our hearts and give him a place of priority above all else. That priority includes the reverence that we show for his name. The first commandment, or excuse me, the third commandment is perfectly clear when it says, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Do you understand what that means to take his name in vain? For most of my life growing up, I thought it meant that we weren't supposed to use God's name as a curse word. Well, that certainly is one aspect of it, but the fact that maybe I don't curse doesn't mean that I'm not taking his name in vain. Vain in this context means light, empty, or common. Remember our wind? W-I-N-D when we talk to God, that's vain. It's light and empty. Some people want to make God their buddy or their pal. That's making him common. And as we have seen, he is not at all common. So when we address our heavenly father, we must remember his preeminence, his authority, and his rank. We are to hallow, to revere, and to honor him. And so we persist. What are some practical ways then to help us as we bow before our heavenly father in praise and adoration, to hallow, to revere, and to honor his name? First and foremost, our hearts must be right before him. We spoke earlier about the need for a relationship with God, which he has provided through our adoption as his children. This adoption cost Jesus his life, but it was the only way for us to be able to approach God. Hebrews 4, 14 through 16 says, seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, And who is this? Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come quietly and timidly to the throne of grace. No, if you know anything, that is not what it says. It says to come boldly. Boldly we are to come to the throne of grace. Why? That we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. He knew we needed that, didn't he? We can come boldly to God, but not without the intercession of our great high priest. And here our praises can begin because we do have such a great high priest. As we quiet our hearts to come to God in prayer, we need to think seriously about who he is. One of his titles is King of Kings. Have you noticed how our society is enamored with royalty? You look around, Disney has an entire marketing line just around the princess theme. The magazines and the news media abound with stories about the royal family across the pond. Yet, dream as we might, most of us never will be given access to Queen Elizabeth. nor even get close enough to hear her voice, much less to hear her call out our names in recognition. Yet, here we are, ladies, daughters of the heavenly king. He made us. He calls us by name. He has given us full and free access to himself. No appointments have to be made. No fear of being turned away or kept from him. Remember, we can come boldly to his throne. Spurgeon said, may we not draw some comfort from the thought that our prayers never are intrusions? He has not put out with us for coming to him. Yes, it is great comfort indeed. Anytime any place we are welcomed into his presence. Yet, if we are allowed into the presence of an earthly dignitary, we would neither come casually strolling in, nor would we come running helter-skelter with no regard for their rank or position. We would be very conscious of and adhere to the proper protocol. God is our heavenly father. And as such, we have a more intimate relationship than we do with any earthly monarch. But we still must show a proper respect and a proper reverence for our king. So how do we still our hearts and think on who he is? As we have seen, the Psalms are a fine place to begin. We can make a list of his attributes. Sandy has such a list in our notebook for us that will help us to focus our minds. We can study particular passages. Psalm 145 is an excellent place to start. It's subtitled as David's Psalm of Praise. And we can write down all the things that we adore about God. For example, in just this Psalms, he is proclaimed as my God, my king, he is great, his greatness is unsearchable, he does mighty acts, wondrous works, And it continues. First Chronicles 29 verses 11, 13. We can read again of David's praise to God. The people have joined him in giving to building the house of God. And David says, thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. Indeed, everything that is in the heavens and the earth Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from Thee, and Thou dost rule over all, and in Thy hand is power and might, and it lies in Thy hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. Now, therefore, our God, we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious name. God will open our eyes to see the truths about himself if we but ask. Psalms 90 verse 12 is a verse that pierces me. So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 111 verse 10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is not to be afraid. The fear of the Lord is to reverence him. It's back to the honor that he's due. And Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24 says, thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this. What? That he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight. says the Lord. There are also many books. Tara alluded to the resource page that has been put in your binder. We can use these alongside our Bible to grow in our knowledge of God and therefore in our praise and understanding of him. This then will be reflected in our prayers. Reverend William J's Prayers for the Use of Families, being one of my favorite books, and it's on my list, is a compilation of prayers. And it's not only for specific occasions, such as even different seasons of the year and the weather that occurs. but it also includes prayers from people in many various situations. He also has prayers for the morning and the evening for every single week of every month. These prayers are rich and full. Though they are not intended to take the place of our own prayers, oftentimes they have helped me to bring my own mind and heart and thoughts into the presence of God with clarity and focus. I highly recommend it. A little booklet titled Notes on Prayer by Elizabeth Elliott talks about the work of prayer. Many of us, and I know for a long time myself, thought that prayer should come easily and naturally. But she writes, prayer is work because a Christian simply can't make a living without it. He can't live a Christian life at all if he doesn't pray. Prayer is the opposite. not the same, the opposite of leisure. It is something to be engaged in, not indulged in. And she refers to Paul's writing about our wrestling and prayer. With the thought that praying is work, then we need to know how to do our job correctly. She wrote a second little booklet that's called When You Pray. And here she's chosen 15 passages of scripture that are used as prayers for ourselves and others. not just for us to use parroted words, but as a help for bringing our hearts and thoughts captive to Christ. These are the encouragements and the longings I have for my family, for my church, for the world. One example which expresses my longing for all of you here today comes from Ephesians 3, verses 19 through 21. that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Holy Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Hymns are another avenue through which we can praise our great God. We opened this conference with the hymn, we gather together to ask the Lord's blessing. Did you really think about what you were singing? The second verse reads, beside us to guide us, our God with us joining, ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine. So from the beginning, the fight we were winning, thou Lord was at our side, all glory be thine. Makes me want to burst out into song again, doesn't it? Hymn 683 in your Trinity is another wonderful hymn of adoration. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer. Sing o'er His wonderful love proclaim. Hail Him, hail Him, highest archangels in glory. Strength and honor give to His holy name. Like the shepherd, Jesus will guard his children. In his arms, he carries them all day long. Praise him, praise him. Tell of his excellent greatness. Praise him, praise him, ever in joyful song. Here at Dominion, the words of our hymns are carefully chosen each Lord's Day to help us as we gather for worship. They are intended to help us focus our thoughts and our hearts on God that we might worship him aright. In our own private devotions, the hymns can also be used as a means of prayer, just as they are in our corporate worship. carefully considering the words that we are singing brings us into his presence with joy. My session will be closing with the hymn from Isaac Watts, a beautiful hymn that expounds on the great majesty and glory of our God. As we sing it, I want you to really listen to the words. to help bring your heart in adoration and praise to our great God and Heavenly Father. The first verse starts out. Great God, how infinite art thou. How poor and weak are we. Let the whole race of creatures bow and pay their praise to thee. He alone is worthy and he desires our communion with him in prayer. Let's pray, ladies. Oh, our great God and heavenly Father, you are worthy of all our praise. You are not like us and we are so thankful, Father. You are high above the heavens. You are the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords. You are great and greatly to be praised. I thank you, Father, that you have given us your word, that we can know you, that we can pray these things back to you, that it delights your heart. Father, I pray for these women that are here today. that all of us might have a burning desire to know you more, to love you more, to serve you with our whole hearts. We can pray throughout our day. We don't have to be sitting, but there are times when it is precious to be alone and quiet, even as our Lord taught us. But may we always be aware that every moment of every day we are yours and all we have to do is lift our thoughts to you. You do not require us to come at a certain time. You are always ready to receive us. Thank you, Father. Thank you for adopting us as your own beloved children. We praise you and magnify your name for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.