chapter 11, I want to say thank you for praying for me. I'm in week, starting week, moving to week 4, okay? And so pretty much my, I have pain that's extremely manageable with ibuprofen from time to time and Tyenol when I need it, but haven't had, haven't had to have a lot of that lately. It's just weakness, trying to get my strength back at this point. And you'll tell that in my voice today, but that's okay. We will get through it. And hopefully we're going to make that effort to be back tonight, alright? So we're going to preach till I get tired. That's scary, isn't it? You're saying, I hope you don't do that when you get your strength back. Luke 11, verse number 5. We're looking at the greatest stories ever told. Luke 11, verse number 5. If you don't have a Bible, the text verse will be on the screen. And he, this is the Lord, said unto them, the disciples, 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, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in the bed. I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you that though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, Yet because of His importunity, you ought to underline that word in your Bible, importunity. You're going to see it again in another story that Jesus will tell in Luke 18 as it relates to prayer. He will rise and give Him as many as He needeth. 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 everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and 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 fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? Of course, the answer to all of that is no. "...If ye then, being evil, sinful in your nature, 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?" When you come to this text, it's called the parable. It's been labeled or titled the parable of the friend at midnight. It's actually a story of three friends. First of all, there is a friend to feed. I think about it this way. Frank has been traveling on a long journey, arrives at Jim's house late in the evening, in the middle of the night. Jim hears a knock on the door, and he answers the door, and there's Frank. They hug one another. They greet one another. They exchange niceties. Jim says, Frank, it's late. Why don't you just stay the night with us? I know you're tired. You're weary. You're hungry. Jenny, why don't you go into the kitchen Why don't you whip up a snack real quick to feed Frank, and we'll fellowship together, and then we'll get some rest, and let's get something to eat together. And Jenny, why don't you take care of that? Jim hears a gasp in the kitchen. Jenny yells out for Joe to come, and Joe goes there, and she said, listen, we ate the last bite at suppertime. The cupboard is empty. The market doesn't open till the morning. Honey, what are we going to do? There's not a bite to eat in the house. Jim, not to be discouraged, goes because he's now a friend in need. See, Jim had a friend to feed, but now he's a friend in need. And so in desperation, despite the hour, verses 5-7, he goes to his neighbor's house, a friend, and he begins to bang on the door. John, wake up! Get up! I need some food! I need some loaves! Frank's come, and I don't have anything to set before him. He's tired, he's weary, and there's nothing in the house. And I believe he hears John's voice from inside the house. Jim, quiet down. Come on, the door's shut. Everybody's in the bed. The lights are out. I'm not going to get up and give you three loaves. I can't. Get up and give you three loaves without waking everybody up in the house. And Jim, not to be deterred, he keeps waking his friend up. He's banging on the door because waking his friend was better in his mind than letting down his other friend, which was a major deal of hospitality in that day. And so he bangs on the door asking for the loaves of bread. And so you have a friend to feed, you have a friend in need, and then Jesus in verse 8 tells us about a friend in need. Finally, John's had enough. The only way he's going to get Jim to stop banging on the door and wake up the whole neighborhood was to get up and give him the loaves. Give me a minute, Jim. Listen, give me a second. I'll get you the loaves if you'll just quit banging on the door. Here's a friend in need, and that need was met by a friend in need. Jesus put it this way. Look at verse 8 again. He said, I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity. He just won't keep asking and seeking and knocking. He goes on to say, "...he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." What a story! Now Jesus didn't just tell a story to be telling a story. Parables are earthly stories. We've learned that with heavenly meanings. There's a point to the parable. There's a story, a truth to the story that God wants us to get. And here's the point to the parable. God answers prayer. Aren't you glad that God answers prayer this morning? Aren't you glad that when we call, He answers? That's important. It's interesting that the Bible says in Psalm 65 in verse 2, O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. Listen, I'm glad today that I don't pray to some stick, I don't pray to some stone, I don't pray to some idol made by men's hands, I pray to the living God who said if I call, He will answer. And the Lord is impressing upon us and His disciples today that God delights in answering the prayers of His children. And in our verses, there's a particular prayer that Jesus desires to answer. The men in our story, the friend in our story lacked bread. The disciples lacked power. Time and time again, they were met with human need. They were met with crisis. But yet they could not rise up to meet that need because they in themselves did not have the power to meet their need. They needed a power outside of themselves. And dear children of God this morning, can I help us to understand, in 2023, You and I are not equal to the crises and the tasks and the need of life. We need a power outside of ourselves. We need the power of God. We need it. Jesus is going to stress that in verse 13. He talks about how you know how to give good gifts to your children. If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? They needed the power of God. They needed to learn to live by His Spirit. Spirit, may I remind us this morning that God said in no uncertain terms, it is not by might nor by strength. It's not human ability. It's not human resource. Can I help us to understand, church, we do not have the power to change our community in ourselves. But can I tell you, we have a God who can. It's by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Ephesians 3.14, our thirteenth theme verse for the year, that we're to be strengthened with Mike by his Spirit in the inner man. Listen, don't ever forget this. Prayer links our nothingness to God's almightiness. Friend, can I tell you, I'm nothing but He's everything. Prayer is going to bring God's power on your life and my life. And the Lord Jesus is going to teach His disciples as well as us through this passage, this story, and what led into the story, the secret to power-packed life. Pray. Let's pray together. The secret to power-packed prayer. This is part two of a message from several weeks ago. Lord, I pray that You'll speak to us this morning from Your Word, that You will teach us, Lord, the truth of prayer and how it links us to the God who can do anything. Lord, we need You today. I need You. Lord, I can do nothing without You. You've already said that. Lord, I can't be the husband and the father and the pastor and the man that You desire me to be apart from the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. In myself, Lord, I can't. But in You, Lord, we can. You've told us that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us and prayer links us to the strength that's in Christ. And I pray You'll teach us today. Lord, if there's someone here today without Christ, I pray they'll come to know a work in the hearts of Your people, and I'll thank You for it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Number one this morning, if we're going to know the secret of power-packed praying, then prayer must become a priority in our lives. We've learned this, that prayer is a priority. That's seen throughout the life of the Lord Jesus. When you read the Gospels, You find Him time and time again going to His Father in prayer. No one prayed like Jesus prayed. Listen, His prayer life so impacted the disciples, they said, Lord, teach us to pray like You pray. Lord, we want to know how to pray like that. We want to understand how to commune with God. I don't know about you, but there's times that I feel like I'm in the kindergarten of prayer. but all how I need to learn how to pray better, more effectively, more fervently. Can I tell you, prayer was a priority with the Lord Jesus. How much more should it be a prayer in our lives? F.B. Meyer put it this way, he said, the greatest tragedy in life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. There's nothing the devil will attack more, said Leonard Ravenhill, than your devotional life. Listen to me, church. Prayer is a discipline. It's a discipline. Nobody has time to pray. You have to make time to pray. It must become a priority in your life. If you're going to have God's power on your life, your family, and your situation, then we must learn to make prayer a priority. And not just in times of crisis. Can I help you to understand that we need Him every hour. Not just when the crisis comes. I don't want to have to get right with God and learn how to pray when the crisis comes. I already want to have a prayer relationship with my Father. What about you? Number two, and I want you to get this, that prayer has a pattern. It's here when we move into verse number two that we enter into the school of prayer with Christ as our instructor. He gives us a model, a pattern, a template. I know that there are churches that will recite verses 2-4 and what's been called the Lord's Prayer. That's a mistitle. The Lord never would pray this prayer. You say, why? Because it asks for forgiven sin. Jesus never sinned, therefore He never needed to be forgiven. He's impeccable. It's not that He just did not sin, friend. He could not sin. He's teaching us to pray. He's helping you and I to learn how to come into the presence of God. How to bring every tear, every burden, every trial, every emotion, every struggle, every day-by-day, moment-by-moment need into the presence of God. He's teaching us how to pray for daily needs. Petition God. And we learn that prayer is not based on friendship. Even though He's going to tell a story about three friends, it's not based on friendship, but sonship. He teaches us to pray. Look at verse 2. And He said unto them, Not if, but when you pray. It's expected. It's commanded. Our Father. Oh, I'm not coming to my friend. I'm coming to my Father. My friend may not always meet my need, but my Father will. Oh, that I have a heavenly Father. Isn't that a blessing? Prayer at its essence as a child coming to its Father. He says in verse 13, How much more sure your heavenly Father. Hey, I don't know about you, but I just want to stop and thank God for a minute that He's my Father. And I can come to Him. Number three, very quickly this morning, prayer involves persistence. That's where we come to our parable, our story. See how it leads into it. He brings us back to the illustration that Jesus gives and helps us to understand that prayer is not just an action, it's an attitude of the heart. It involves importunity. That's our word. The friend in need at midnight goes to his neighbor who he knows can meet that need and he makes a request. And he doesn't just request one time, he's going to request it over and over and over again. You say, preacher, is it okay to pray the same prayer over and over again? Absolutely. This friend kept asking for the same thing. You say, well, I've heard people say on Facebook that if you're a person of faith, you ought to just ask one time and forget about it. Well, that's not what Jesus said. Jesus said, you just keep asking. And you just keep seeking. And you just keep knocking. That's what He says. It's an urgent request. I can see this man in the Lord's stories. He hurriedly runs to his neighbor's house and begins banging on his door. Friend, lend me three loaves." Hospitality was a big deal in the Lord's day in the ancient world. Not to have food for a guest was more than embarrassing. It was a humiliating failure. It would bring reproach on that individual, on the family, and even the village. You would hear people say, well, don't go to that village. They won't feed you if you go there. They don't have any hospitality. That was a major, major matter in that day. And it was a major crisis and it drove this man to make an urgent request of his friend. How often do urgent, major crises come into our lives that drive us? It was Abraham Lincoln who said that many times, have I been driven to my knees. There's times because we take prayer lightly that God allows crisis moments into our lives that drive us to our knees because we have nowhere else to go. It's an urgent matter. Oh, how languid we are in our prayers. You say, preacher, explain that. That means it lacks energy and enthusiasm. We just sort of casually pray. We sort of just lift off a prayer to salve our spiritual conscience and check off the box that we said our prayer and read our Bible for the day. We go through the motions. There's no urgency. There's no sense of seriousness. Can I help us to understand, if we're not careful, church, we'll get distracted. by a world and lose sight of the seriousness of the world to come. We'll lose sight of eternity. We'll get so used to just being saved, so used to going through the motions, so used to being a Christian, we forget that there are people that we love and people that we know and people that we come in contact that's going to spend eternity in the fires of an everlasting hell. And friend, can I tell you, if nothing else ought to make us urgent, that ought to make us urgent this morning. When was the last time you were urgent over your son or daughter? You say, well, preacher, my children aren't old enough to be saved yet. That's why you ought to get urgent about it, that God will save them at a young age. Get urgent over that friend, that family member, that co-worker. To get urgent about the needs of our nation. To get urgent about the needs of our church. To get urgent about the harvest fields of the world that need God. Can I tell you that if we're not careful, here again, moving into political season, we'll get so caught up in an election, we'll forget the true King. Can I tell you it's not a politician that meets my need, it's God that meets my need. Now remember that. There's an urgency of bringing our needs to the Father. It was specific. I'll hurry on. He said in verse number 5, I underlined it in my Bible, the last phrase, friend, lend me three loaves. He didn't just say, I need some food. He said, I need three loaves. I need one for me, one for Frank, and one for Jenny. We need something to eat together. There's three of us and we need three loaves. It was a specific... He didn't beat around the bush. He got down to business. Tell you what, I believe that there are some times we ought to get down to business in our prayer. Power-packed prayer is definite. It's specific. It's pointed. I believe that many times the reason we don't write down answered prayers in our prayer books is because we really don't ask for anything. We pray in such generalities. God bless the preacher. What does that mean? God heal the sick. Which sick? What need? What does my pastor need? Save the lost. Well, which lost? How do you know? Who's on your list? Is your list up to date? Are you urgently and specifically praying for specific needs in your life, in your family, in our church, our community, our world? You see, it's when we get specific that we know that God's answered the prayer when it comes. to be those matters of asking for something that is definite. That's what we find in verses 11 and 12. He said, if a son asks bread of any of you that is a father, then it goes down to, will he give him a stone? If he asks for a fish, verse number 12, if he asks for an egg, it's a definite matter. We're bringing something definite to God. What would you need to take to God today? What is it that's burdening your heart? James 4.2, you have not because you ask not. You say, well preacher, my matter is such a little thing. Can I help you to understand that Jesus puts our need and God's care for us in terms of sparrows, not eagles? Sparrows. We'll be riding along if we're in a place where bald eagles are at. And I've been in several places and seen them, and they're such majestic birds, such majestic. And we'll say, look, look, there's an eagle. Look at that. There's a bald eagle. When was the last time you said, hey, look over there. There's a sparrow. Did you see that sparrow? No, you don't do that. You know why? Because they're insignificant. But God said, I want you to know that there's not one of them falls to the ground, and I don't know it. that that little sparrow that you just look at and you can just pass by because there's so many of them, and they're just a common occurrence of day, and you just pass it on by, and it's not a big deal to you. God said, I want you to know it's a big deal to me, and I want you to know something, Christian, and I want you to listen carefully. There's nothing in your life that's not a big deal to your Heavenly Father. Not a thing. Not only pray urgently and specifically, he prayed shamelessly. It was a shameless request. Look at our word, importunity. It's an interesting word. It has the idea of being shameless in our asking. The man didn't care what his friend or anyone else thought. He boldly and without shame dared to share his lack, his need. Here's our problem in America. That we can become so self-sufficient that we don't want to ask for our needs because we're too proud. We're ashamed to ask. Can I help you understand that when you and I bring our petitions to the Lord, no matter how large or how small, it is showing our dependence upon God. It brings to us a sense of humility in our own lives. It helps us to understand a sense of dependency. Lord, I need You. Lord, I need You. It's one of my favorite songs. Patch the Pirate wrote and sang, Lord, I need You. Can I tell you something? We need Him more than we ever imagined. We draw our very breath from the God who cares for us. We need Him every hour, but not just every hour. We need Him every moment of our lives. God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble. You want God to answer your prayer? Then be willing to humble yourself before Him and bring any need and every need into the presence of the Father. We need Him. Amen? Let me give you this last one or this point. It's an insistent request. It's an insistent request. What do you mean by that, preacher? Well, this is where the persistence comes in. You see, it's urgent, it's specific, it's shameless. Lord, I'm going to bring this need to you. I know it's small. I know it doesn't seem like it's a big deal, but God, it's a big deal to me and can I tell you it's a big deal to you, it's a big deal to God. Because He cares about every minute detail of your life. He cares about those things. See, we want to preach about just the big things of life. God cares about the little things. Aren't you glad of that? Sometimes we'll say, well, I don't want prayer. I'm not going to mention my prayer request or I'm not going to talk to God about this because there's so many other people that have such greater situations than I do. You're right. You go about anywhere and you're going to find someone who has it worse than you do. You will. But that doesn't mean that whatever you're going through, God doesn't care about. and then insistent, persistent. This is asking. At the outset of the story, the friend asks his neighbor, and his friend said, I cannot. Jesus makes it clear that at first, it wasn't that he couldn't, he wouldn't give to his friend. But because of his importunity, his neighbor gave him what he asked for. And then look what He says that we're to do in verses 9 and 10. Here's where He brings the point to you and I. Here's where the practicality comes. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth he that seeketh findeth, and him that knocketh it shall be opened. I've read different people write different things about the ask and the seek and the knock and we try to get real out there trying to differentiate between asking and seeking and knocking. I don't believe that's what the Lord's doing. I believe the Lord is just reiterating in three different ways what prayer is. That I'm asking and seeking and knocking. That I might gain an audience with the King of Heaven. That my Heavenly Father, my answer, my prayer, it's all in the present tense where it is something that we do in a continual sense. It is persistent. I'm to continually ask. I'm to ask and keep on asking. I'm to continually seek. I'm to seek and keep on finding. And I am to knock and keep on knocking and God said it will be opened. It's an example of persistence. When you say this, preacher, if God desires to answer my prayers, why didn't He just answer it the moment I ask? I mean, if He's such a loving Heavenly Father and He wants me to call and He's going to answer me, then why doesn't it just come the moment I ask it? Well, there's times that it does. There's times it does. Isaiah 65 verse 24, And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer. And while they are yet speaking, Can I help you to understand that that's a truth not just for super-Christians, that's a truth for any Christian. There are times that God has met my need even before I ask Him. And I praise Him for that. But that's not always the case. Isn't that true? There's other times it seems that God's unreluctant or maybe even unwilling to answer. That's how we feel. Well, they'll answer their prayers, but He won't answer my prayers. Or why if God tells me to call and He's going to answer me, why is it taking Him so long? Why didn't He just answer it right then? I think of Mary Martin. Mary Martin. Many of you won't even know her. It was the early years of my ministry here at Calvary. She was already an aged saint of God. I remember Mary prayed for her brother. She would tell me every time I'd shake her hand, and she'd say, pray for my brother. She'd call his name. I remember Miss Mary died and her brother was still unsaved. I remember doing the funeral up in Galax. First funeral I ever did in Galax. And it's true, up there in that cemetery, you've got to have one leg shorter than the other because you're going to stand crooked on that hill. So we're standing there. have the funeral and they're placing the casket in the ground. And I have no idea why, but we sort of hung around. Brother Vernon, you were there. We just sort of hung around. And I don't know why. We were talking to the guys as they were finishing up everything. Everybody had left, but her brother hadn't left. He was still sitting there. I remember going underneath that tent and sitting down beside of her brother and began to share the gospel with him. And that day Mary Martin's brother bowed his head and received Jesus Christ as his Savior. She was already in heaven when the rejoicing took place for her brother. She just didn't give up. And what God is saying, Christian, is just don't give up. There may be a time interval between the prayer and the answer. I think that's what the words of the Lord Jesus is assuring us of that truth in verses 11 and 12. When He talks about the child, the son asking the father for the bread and the fish and the egg, and He's saying, listen, He's not going to give you a stone instead of a loaf of bread, or a serpent, an eel instead of a fish, or a scorpion instead of an egg. He's not going to do that. No, you're going to give Him good things. That's what God wants to do in your life and my life. He wants to grant good things in our lives. It was Martin Luther that made this statement. I've heard it attributed to many people, but I recently found out it originated with him. Martin Luther, a 15th century preacher. He said, prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness. It's not wrestling God to the mat and making Him answer me. That's not what asking and seeking and knocking is all about. No. It's laying hope. God's willing to answer. You say, preacher, why the lag? Why the wait interval? Why do I have to keep asking over and over again? And I'm going to help you understand that this morning. If we don't get any further, that'll be good. I want you to get this. Are you ready for it? Why keep on praying? Because prayer is a spiritual exercise that we're to put into our lives. It's a discipline. It exercises us spiritually and enables us. I jotted down several ways that prayer works in our lives as believers. And why? That God allows this lag, this time interval. And I don't like using the word lag, but it fits it. I pray here, but it might be years. It might be weeks. It might be months. It might be days. I might be in heaven when God answers that prayer. Why? Why does He want me to keep asking, seeking, and knocking? Because prayer enables you to draw near to God. Listen, prayer brings us into the presence of God. And the more we enter His presence, the closer we get to Him. Can I help you? If I want to be close to my wife, then I must communicate with her. I need to talk with her. I have to know her. And prayer is part of this matter of knowing my Heavenly Father. It enables me to know God. It brings me into His presence. Listen, the more we pray, the closer we get to God. And we need that, don't we? Number two, it'll grow and strengthen your faith. Faith is a muscle. It's a muscle. It's a spiritual muscle. That's why the Bible said we're to exercise ourselves in the godliness. Muscles need to be strengthened and prayer Prayer stretches, it strengthens the muscles of our faith. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. I read God's Word. I understand who my Father is. I recognize His love for me, His goodness in my life, His mercy. He wants to answer my prayers. It fosters within me. It builds my faith. It may be, listen, that God is building our faith and preparing us to receive the answer to the prayer. That's what He's doing. He's growing you. Number three, it'll bring us in alignment with the will of God. It may be that the good thing we're praying for is not the best thing that God wants to bring in our lives. Can I say that again? It may be the good thing that you're praying for may not be the best thing in your life and you can't see that yet. I hope this doesn't get me in trouble. If it does, I'll ask forgiveness. You ever notice sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission? I was a Bible college student. And I had been courting a girl in high school. It's not my wife today. And I remember that my whole world was caught up into this young lady. And I remember, I remember, we dated in my senior year of high school, freshman year of college. And I remember I had to come home from college and work and all of that. This was before I came to Calvary. I was in a different college. And I remember I had to come home and work, save up money for that semester. And I remember riding by the mailboxes on Pleasant Hill Road where I lived. I remember talking to God. I was riding in my car. I was talking to God. And I said, God, I'll go anywhere in the world if you'll just give me her. I prayed that. He that findeth a wife findeth a good thing, right? It's a good thing. But God knew that she wasn't the best thing. And it was almost as if God spoke out of heaven and said, He didn't, but it was... Kevin, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. It wasn't long after that that she broke my heart And I was a broken person and she is married to a friend of mine in college and a pastor's wife in a different place. But you know what I learned after that? That had we married, it would have been an absolute disaster and I may not be in the ministry today. It would have been a disaster. God didn't give me the good thing because He wanted me to have the best thing, which is my wife sitting right here that stood with me the last 33 years. It doesn't mean that one is a better person or a better Christian than the other. It just means that this was the best thing. She might have been a good thing. This one is the best thing. And I couldn't see that at that moment. I didn't even know her. I didn't know Lori at that time. But God had something that was the best. And Christian, you get so discouraged at times because God doesn't give you the good thing that you're asking for. And it may be that God is working in your life and the opportunity to bring the best thing into your life. And God is wanting you to be willing to wait. And that's hard. Let me give you the fourth thing. It fosters within us a spirit of praise and thanksgiving. It fosters or builds within us a spirit of praise and thanksgiving. You can't pray effectively without praising. You can't do that. You're going to find when you see the model prayer in Matthew, it begins and ends with praise. The Lord shared this truth with His disciples on more than one occasion. This is the second occasion. The first occasion was the Sermon on the Mount. And He begins it with praise. Hallowed be thy name. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. It's praise. Let me ask you a question. Is your prayers filled with praise? Or do you just dive right into, God, I need this and this and this and this and this? Can I tell you that you haven't really prayed until you've praised? Because when you open the door with praise, it brings you into the presence of the Father. It puts you where you belong and it puts God where He belongs. It puts us in a position to pray and to pray according to the will of God. And the more fervently we pray, the more appreciative we become when God answers the prayer. It leads us to praise. It makes us more thankful, doesn't it? Because God's answered my prayer. For this thing, I think about Hannah. For this child I prayed." She prayed for years. She was broken. Finally, in a crisis moment at the tabernacle, she begins to pray fervently to the God of heaven, and God, if you'll give me a man child, specific, I'll give him back to you. God answered the prayer. in her praise-filled song. As she talked to Eli, before her praise-filled song. Do you think it made her more thankful when God answered that prayer? I do. Christian, can I help you to understand something? that the secret, this matter of power-packed praying is coming into the presence of God, allowing prayer to draw us near to Him, to ask and to seek and to knock, to allow Him to grow and strengthen our faith so that we can believe Him more, to bring our lives into alignment with His will, that it's not just the good thing, but the best thing that God wants to bring into your life. and then to bring within us a greater sense of praise and thankfulness to the God of heaven. Let me just end with this thought right here. Are you ready for it? I'm going to come back tonight and give you the last point, so you better be back tonight, okay? I'll be here, you be here. Good enough? Alright. Good deal? Alright. Prayer not only changes things, prayer changes you. Prayer doesn't just change things. Prayer changes you. And the reason some Christians aren't being changed is because they're not praying. Call unto Me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." What do you need to call on God for this morning? What burden? What tear? What struggle? What good thing? Maybe you're waiting on the good thing, but maybe you need to pray and say, God, help me to wait on the best thing. Lord, help me to learn to be thankful. and to praise you even when I don't feel like it, because you're good and you answer prayer in my life, and you're going to see me through this. It may be that there's a sin that needs to be confessed. There may be a Christian that needs to be restored. There may be a person in the service today. You need to be saved, and the greatest prayer you will ever pray is, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And you need to come and be saved today. How is it with your prayer life? Maybe you need to slip forward today because God wants to change you. Father, take the message. Use it in every heart and every life. That person today, Lord, that doesn't know you as Savior, Lord, they're in their sins. They feel the guilt of their sins. They have a fear of eternity. There's an uncertainty, Lord, if they died, where they would go. Lord, I pray they would come to You this morning. Lord, that they would speak to one of these men and just simply say to them, I'm not sure if I died I'd go to heaven. I'm not sure I'm a Christian. I'm not sure I'm saved. And Lord, they would let someone in a private setting show them how from the Bible they can be saved.