A Praying Church

Providence Baptist Church iconProvidence Baptist Church

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Ephesians 6:18-20

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Thank you for leading us in the Psalms. I think that is a great thing.
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We came across that in Ephesians, and we just said, you know what? We need to be singing the Psalms.
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So I love hearing your voices singing the Psalms and the promises and good things of God.
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I want to ask you this morning, what do you think you should be looking for in a church?
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It's kind of a question that we get quite often. People ask, what are some things
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I should look for in a church? Well, turn to Ephesians 6. We'll talk about that this morning, but let me just start off and give you some ideas.
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Things that people say. So you know what? I want to go to this church. They have a wonderful kids ministry.
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I want to go to this church. They have a beautiful sanctuary. I want to go to this church because they do this thing or they do that thing.
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And frankly, I'll just mention this, quite often we let our children choose the church we should go to, which is not a good idea.
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We should choose the church based on other things. Well, let me ask this. When is the last time you said, you know what?
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I want to be part of that church because that church is a praying church.
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Friends, from Ephesians 6, we have almost this expectation.
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I shouldn't say almost. We do have this expectation that the churches of our
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Lord Jesus Christ are churches that pray. The Lord says it is written that my house should be called a house of prayer.
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And you have made it a den of thieves. The church should be a place where the people of God pray.
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And Christians should be people that pray. And yes, granted, we've spent a few weeks here.
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Ephesians 6 at the end, but we're going to pick back up in verse 18. And I'll tell you what today is.
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Today is going to be the last day that we're in this section. And then we move, believe it or not, to the final section of this letter to Ephesians.
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I think before the next eclipse gets here, we'll be done. So, all right.
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Ephesians 6, our discourse this morning is on a praying church.
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Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word? Pick up a sentence in the
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English. I need to back up to verse 16. So let's do that. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.
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And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Praying at all times in the
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Spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.
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And also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the
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Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.
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Father, would You help us to understand what it means to be a praying church and to be praying Christians? May Christ shine forth from this text today.
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May we understand that we seek You because You first sought us. We understand what
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Jesus has done for us. We pray that today there would be repentance. There are people in this room, the pastors included, this morning, that need to repent for lack of fervency in prayer.
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So lead us by Your grace again to the cross. Let us not be stubborn or proud or foolish and hold on to our sin.
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Let's cast it down at the feet of Jesus. Let us repent, be received again into His loving arms and to walk faithfully in newness of life.
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There are those in this room that need to come to Christ for the first time. They know what the
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Gospel is. They've sang the song. We've sung. They've heard the preaching. But they've never come to Christ putting their personal faith, experiential faith in the finished work of Jesus.
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Lord, would You open up hearts today? Would people do that for the glory of Your name? We miss
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Monty and Lisa today being under the weather. We pray that You'd be with them. We thank You for newness of life.
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We thank You for baptismal candidates like Caleb and Miss Virginia, that You're working here for the glory of Your name.
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Would You continue to do that for Your glory and Your great name and by Your mercy?
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We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Now, a few sermons here on prayer.
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Let me just mention this. The Word of God is rich. The Word of God is like rich food.
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It is wonderful. That's what we've done with Ephesians. We haven't just quickly ate the steak and gone about our business.
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We've chewed on it. We've savored it. We've tasted the flavors. And that's what we're doing here. I don't think this sermon today is repetitive.
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I think you'll see today that we're drawing out more aspects from the text that we haven't quite finished.
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We'll do that and then we'll move on next week to verse 21. I'll tell you this, a preview about verse 21.
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Next week's sermon, Lord willing, is gonna be on a biography of a beloved brother. And we're gonna learn about a man in the
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Bible mentioned many times actually in the Bible by the name of Tychicus that maybe you haven't noticed.
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So that'll be next week. But let's talk about today. You're like, come on, preacher. There's enough for today to be considered.
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So let's do that. So we started on this a few weeks ago. And I read a quote from John MacArthur. I think it's helpful.
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I'll read it again. Victory over Satan and his host in the great spiritual warfare in which we are engaged demands unceasing and diligent commitment to prayer.
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Friends, we are the church militant. In this life, we are at war. And we need to pause and consider this morning this very thing.
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Is this you? Is your life given over to unceasing and diligent commitment to prayer?
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Consider that. Because over the course of two sermons so far, we have said that we must pray submissively, that is in obedience to God, we pray because He's commanded us to.
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Savingly, that is trusting the gospel, calling upon Christ. Seasonally, prayer is always in season.
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We must pray spiritually, that is in the spirit, by the word of God, according to the word of God.
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Significantly, with all prayer and supplication, big prayers to a big God. And then we said last time, sixly, strategically.
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We're praying in this context for a specific thing, and that is boldness in sharing the gospel, boldness for those sharing the gospel, and even for ourselves, and the furtherance of the kingdom of Christ.
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So in two sermons, we've covered six aspects of prayer. And what we're gonna do today is cover a final six aspects straight from the text.
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So first today, but seventhly, over all. We must pray supremely.
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Now, I'll mention this. Verse 18 is at the end of this spiritual warfare.
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Praying at all times in the spirit. But I want to encourage you that though Paul leaves prayer for last, he does not mean that prayer is a last resort.
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That's not the point here. We ought to pray supremely. We ought to be known as a praying church.
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We must pray. This is a crucial aspect of spiritual warfare.
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Frankly, let me just say this. Prayer must be our first recourse and not our last resort.
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Prayer to the Father, by the work of the Son, through the power of the Spirit, we pray.
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Just to be honest, we're a bit too ready to try and figure things out on our own in any given situation before stopping and turning to God in prayer.
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We make this decision, we haven't prayed. We do this, we haven't prayed. The church gathers, we're gonna do this, we haven't prayed.
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Let prayer be our first recourse and not our last resort. The church must pray supremely.
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Let us stop saying things like this. Well, I can't do much for you, brother, but I guess I can pray.
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Let us instead understand that prayer is doing much. It is a great work to be praying for one another.
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I wonder this morning if you were to take out a piece of paper and list some of your priorities in life,
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I wonder where prayer would fall. Would it even make that list?
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If you were to write down some immediate goals that you have, what would you say? I need to lose some more weight.
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I need to make some more money. My children need to be better at sports ball. Or whatever the case may be.
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What are your priorities? I'm afraid for many professing Christians, increasing in our prayer life is not a priority.
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And what I'm saying to us from the text is that prayer is a priority.
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Churches can do a lot of stuff, a lot of programs, a lot of activity, but you show me what a church thinks about prayer, and I'll tell you about the church's spiritual health.
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How do they pray during their service? I've been part of services before where maybe there was like one prayer.
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Some of the things that we try to do here is we try to add strategic parts of our service where we pray, right?
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Where we have Scripture reading and prayer, where we have prayer before the offering, where we have prayer after the confession and catechism reading, where we pray at the end of the service, where we pray before the sermon, where we pray at the end of the sermon, why?
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Because we believe that prayer is a priority. We must pray supremely.
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Next, we must pray seriously. So let's walk through the text. Paul says praying at all times in the
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Spirit with all prayer and supplication. So we've covered all that. To that end, and now we pick up this, keep alert.
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So now we consider what the text is telling us about praying seriously. We are to keep alert, the text says.
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Now this is one Greek word, and the definition is this, or one definition, to make an effort to learn of what might be a potential future threat.
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So we don't just pray reactionary, we pray proactively. A lot of times when it comes to prayer in the
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Christian life, we pray in reaction to things. Now, it is good to pray in reaction to things.
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You get a bad report from the doctor, you're gonna pray about that. You hear about the crisis in the Middle East, you're gonna pray about that.
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You hear about things, and you pray reactionary to those things. But when Paul says keep alert, he's not saying look backward and figure out what's going on back there and pray about it.
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He's saying keep your eyes open, keep alert. Think about what might be down the road.
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We should seek the power and wisdom of God every morning.
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Well, I don't need God's wisdom today. You don't know what's gonna happen today, right? I don't need God's protection today.
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Today's just gonna be a normal day. No, you don't understand, we're the church militant, you don't know what's down the road.
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I'll give you a biblical example. In Matthew 26, Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, and he takes with him, specifically,
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Peter, James, and John, and then he goes off to pray. But when he comes back, the text says in verse 40 and 41, and he came to the disciples and found them sleeping.
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And he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
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The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Now, had the disciples truly comprehended, had they understood what was around the corner with Christ's crucifixion, do you think perhaps they would have been more watchful?
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Perhaps they would have prayed better. Perhaps they would have taken it more seriously. That's what Paul is telling to the church at Ephesus.
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Keep alert. Don't just think about what's already happened. Think about things you don't even realize yet, only
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God knows, and seek to God, keep alert, seek Him, pray seriously. It's not the same word, but in 1
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Peter 5, 8, we read, be sober -minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
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So be alert. Don't think that today, I've conquered temptation today, I'm good with, no, no, no.
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Go to God, keep alert, pray seriously. If we truly understand spiritual warfare, we would pray more vigilantly for ourselves, for our church members, for our spouse, for our children.
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Hey, how about this, for our pastors, we should be praying.
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Another, just re -emphasis, and then we'll move on. We're not just praying reactionary prayers, but proactive prayers, being watchful, staying alert, thinking about things to come.
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Pray seriously, fourthly, or no, thirdly. I can't count. We must pray steadfastly.
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So the text says, praying at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert, and then we have this, with all perseverance, all perseverance.
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So watchfulness and perseverance go together. A similar command is given in Colossians 4 .2.
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Paul says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
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So a praying church continues in prayer steadfastly. It doesn't give up.
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It keeps praying. I keep praying for the kingdom to expand in Perry County. Yeah, but it didn't happen today.
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Well, you pray for revival. We didn't see 1 ,000 people come to Christ. It doesn't matter, we keep praying.
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We keep praying, we keep praying, we keep praying. Why? With all perseverance, why? Because this is how God tells us to pray.
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It's not a gimmick. It's not an event. It's not a
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New Year's resolution. Prayer is life for the church. So hear me very carefully,
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Providence Baptist. A church can do a lot of things, and programs, and activities.
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But listen, this is our warning. Once a church stops persevering in prayer, the life has gone out of her.
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So here's an analogy. Young man has a wonderful truck, a great truck, a wonderful paint job.
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It's a nicer paint job than Connell's. A great speaker system, great tires.
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This thing is just magnificent. But he doesn't change the oil. So what's gonna happen?
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Well, eventually, he's on borrowed time, right? Eventually, that motor's gonna blow up. So he's got everything on the outside looking good, but eventually it's going to die.
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Same with a church that doesn't persevere in prayer. Now let me give you some application to the home.
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It was Robert Murray McShane who said, what a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more.
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So dads, there are a lot of important things to do with our families.
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Lots of necessary things, good things. I'm not disparaging teaching your child how to pitch, or hit, or taking a walk with your family to see
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Cedar Falls on Pedigree. I'm not disparaging any of those things. Teaching a son how to change a tire, or skin a deer, or whatever the case may be.
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There's lots of important things we do with our families, lots of necessary things, but we must not do anything as a father the neglect of steadfast prayer, persevering prayer.
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Our wife and our children must be taken daily before the throne of grace, and we must pray for them, and then we must pray with them.
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We must pray for our own duties, and our own sanctification. So I'm telling you dads, not just the church collectively, but even you individually, you must keep alert in prayer with all perseverance.
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You must lead your family in godliness. You are required, dads, to lead.
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We're required to lead our family in godliness. Well, my wife is responsible before God.
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That's true, your wife is responsible. She will give an account, but you're responsible to lead her, to lead your children in godliness, and dads, what
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I'm saying here, you can't do it on your own, so pray. And let me encourage you, dads.
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God is for you. There's no one that is more for the godliness and sanctification of your family than our triune
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God. So why wouldn't we go to him? Go to God, receive his mercy, his power, his wisdom.
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You can't be the dad you need to be apart from the grace of God, so go and pray.
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Mothers, you must pray. Well, my husband's not leading me like he needs to. My husband is not as godly as he needs to be.
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Well, I'm gonna tell you, that's true of every husband in this room. We need to be godlier, we need to be more sanctified.
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So let me ask you this, wives, pray. Will you pray?
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Pray for your husband, pray for his godliness, pray for his leadership. Moms, pray for your children.
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Pray for your own walk with Jesus. Children, I'm not leaving you out. You're converted, you must pray.
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Persevering prayer is a necessary component to the Christian life. Prayer is not just something the adults do.
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All of us should pray. If you're not a Christian, you should call out on the name of the Lord even now.
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It is both a sacred duty and glorious privilege God gives us to pray, and one in which our great
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God is pleased to use and not to change his will.
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When we pray, listen, don't be silly. We don't change God's sovereign prerogative or will, but what happens is when we pray,
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God changes us, and then God uses our prayers to bring about his preappointed purposes.
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It's a really amazing thing. We pray supremely, seriously, steadfastly, forthly.
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We must pray for the saints. The text says that to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for the people you like.
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Wait a second. That's not what the text says. It says what? For all the saints.
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So let me tell you this, and I wanna, before I tell you this, this is not, this is not to beat you up.
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It's just encouraging. And if you need to repent of this, I hope you do, but let me just say this.
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Do you pray for our church? Do you pray for the families of our church?
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Do you pray for the families of our church by name? So there's 17 families in our church.
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Now, I'm gonna do this, and it's just gonna show my own foolishness, and the
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Lord will humble me, but I'm gonna try my best to tell you the families of our church. There's 17 families.
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I pray by name for the families of our church. So if I leave you off, it's not just because I'm preaching and I'm nervous to try to say all these names, but we've got the
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Carters. We've got the Conleys. We've got the Goodmans. We've got the
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Howards and the Howards. Now, one set of Howards, they're looking for another church, Jacob and Anna, the church closer to home, but they're still in our membership role, and we've still committed to pray for them.
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So do you pray for the Carters, the Conleys, the Goodmans, the Howards, the Howards? Do you pray for the
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Coulisses? Do you pray for the Madewells? Do you pray for the
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Majors? Do you pray for the Nelsons and Nelsons? So we've got the Alan Nelsons and the
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Alyn Nelsons. You've got the wise Alan Nelson and you've got the young Alyn Nelson, right?
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Do you pray for the Coulisses, the Majors, the Madewells, the Nelsons, the Nelsons? Do you pray for the
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Osbournes? We've got the Os bournes that are here, we've got the Os bournes that are abroad, that are in Belize.
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Do you pray for the Osbournes and the Osbournes? Do you pray for... now we've got three
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R's. Do you pray for the Rankins? Do you pray for the
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Robinsons? Do you pray for the Rowlands? Do you pray for the
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Turnages? And do you pray for the Whites? That's 17. So if you took 16 families, so you understand
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I'm removing you. So you said, okay, myself and 16 other families. If you prayed two minutes during your week by name for people in...
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now I'm not saying this is be all end all. I'm just giving you an analogy here. You were to take the families of our church.
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Now, and you just say, I'm going to give two minutes a week to make sure. I'm going to pray general prayer, but I'm sure
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I'm just going to give two minutes a week to praying for the families of our church by name. You are giving up 32 minutes of an entire week.
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32 minutes. I'm not saying that's the be all end all. I'm not saying that that's all you should be praying.
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I'm just saying for some of you, you need to start. Pray for one another by name.
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Why would we not pray specifically for the members of our church?
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As a reminder, friends, the text commands us with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.
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And if the text says that we should pray for all the saints, is there not probably a special and particular application for one another at Providence Baptist Church?
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Did you know that prayer for one another cultivates unity? Do you remember what the text says back in Ephesians 4?
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You say, pastor, that was years ago. There's been children born since then. But in Ephesians 4, verse 3, it says that we're to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
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The Holy Spirit creates unity in the church, but we are commanded to maintain unity in the church.
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You know, it's very hard to be frustrated. Virginia, I was just mentioning.
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I see you back there. Because we had people, and then you have to add on that.
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But the point I'm trying to make is it's very hard to be frustrated with a brother or sister in Christ if you're constantly taking that person to the
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Father. If you're constantly praying for their well -being, for their sanctification, for the fruit to be born in their life, for their likeness to Jesus.
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We actually maintain unity when we pray for one another. We must pray for the saints.
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But there's more application. That is chapter 26, paragraph 14 of the confession.
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The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith says this. Chapter 26, paragraph 14, and I endorse this wholeheartedly.
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Every church and all its members are obligated to pray continually for the good and prosperity of all churches of Christ in every place.
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We must pray for all the saints. In other words, churches must pray for churches. We ought to pray for our partnerships in Mexico, for Grace Baptist Church in El Pechote, for Sola Gracia, Grace Alone Baptist Church in Tuxla.
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We must pray for the church in Villahermosa. We must pray for Bible Word Baptist Church in Azul, Texas, really
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Briar, Texas. We must pray for Trinity Baptist Church in Port Arthur, Texas. We need to pray for the saints, churches, lifting up churches, and pastors, and members by name.
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Matthew Henry says it this way. None are so much saints and in so good a condition in this world, but they need our prayers, and they ought to have them.
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So what pastor, what Christian, what church doesn't need our prayers?
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They need them. Further, I'll add another application. We should pray, if we're gonna pray for all the saints, we should pray for churches in our community.
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You understand that we're not at competition with church. I'm not talking about false churches.
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I'm talking about with churches in our community that are true churches, though they may have things that we consider wrong.
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Maybe they need to grow in areas. We all need to grow in areas. There's not a perfect church in this community, including
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Providence Baptist Church. We're not a perfect church. We need to grow. But we should pray for churches that are true churches in our community, even if we think that they maybe have gone wonky in their theology or maybe weakened evangelism, weakened holiness, but as so long as they're true churches, they should be prayed for.
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Or in fact, maybe I should say it this way. They should especially be prayed for if they're faltering.
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Think about this in Perryville and Perry County and Central Arkansas. Would not more true churches,
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I'm not just talking about the crazy things that pop up around and the new ideas and the new gimmicks. Would we not be better with more true churches?
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Christ -honoring, gospel -heralding, holy -living, kingdom -focused, bold churches.
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The more of those churches, the better. Don't you want to see more churches sending people to the streets for evangelism?
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Don't you want to see more churches caring about sound doctrine? More churches caring about biblical membership and worship and family worship and the
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Lord's Day? That if all the churches in our area were so serious about these things, you couldn't hop from one church to another church because every church would be preaching the same truth.
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We want to see that, Jesus. So we pray by name for churches in our area.
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If we believe that Christ is worthy of a healthy church, then we ought to pray for other churches to be healthy.
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And one final application, we ought to pray across denominational lines.
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Saints are saints even if they get things wrong sometimes. So the text says that we should pray for all the saints.
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So those who are truly born again deserve our prayers. I use that intentionally, deserve our prayers because God says we should pray for them.
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Well, they don't deserve our prayers, but God says we should pray for them. Therefore, they are owed our prayers for them because the text says all the saints.
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John Gill says of every nation, age, sex, and condition, in all places and of every denomination.
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So Christ taught his disciples to pray saying our Father, suggesting that they were not only to pray for themselves, but for all the children of God.
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Hey, listen, we could sing stuff and we can say we've got good theology and all that, but at the end of the day, what it means to be a
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Christian in some respects is that we just want to take what the Bible says and we want to do what it says.
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So we don't get to just pick the parts that we like. We pick it all and we say, I'm gonna do everything the
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Bible says by the grace of God. I want to live my life in this way. I want to, ultimately,
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I wish we didn't have to use monikers like Baptist or Reformed Baptist or whatever the case may be.
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I wish we could just say, at the end of the day, we believe the Bible here.
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And if that's true, then it means when a text says that we are to pray with all perseverance, making an application for all the saints, there's not an exception clause.
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And we have joy to do it. Next, fifthly, we should pray simultaneously.
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Now here, I'm just gonna make a grammatical note. And that is from 18 to 20, all this instruction about prayer, it's not individual, it's plural.
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Okay, so when the text says, praying at all times in the spirit, this is where we get in trouble with the epistles.
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We get in trouble with the epistles when we grab a verse, rip it out of context, and we say, this is my life verse.
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I'm not trying to be mean, it's not your life verse. That's not what it was written for. It wasn't written for it to be your life verse.
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Rather, this was written, these letters in the New Testament, they were written for the health and furtherance and promotion of Christ -exalting churches.
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And so this text here is not just saying pray individually, it is saying, when it says praying at all times in the spirit, that's in the plural, that's the grammar.
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So we must pray simultaneously. You understand I'm a little creative there with the alliteration.
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We must pray together. We must recover both the prayer closet, that is that place for you to go off by yourself and to call out to God in prayer, but we also must recover the prayer meeting where the church comes together to pray.
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Further, while we pray in our worship gathering, it is not the time of intermission, right?
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So you're just like, okay, so Connell prayed for our offering just a moment ago. Well, okay, I guess I can check out and I'll think about, you know what, what's good for lunch today?
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I wonder what we're gonna do. No, no, as Connell's praying, or as any of the brothers are praying in our corporate gathering, we should be echoing our amen.
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We should be thinking about listening to what they're praying and we are praying even as they pray in agreement with them because it is our corporate duty to do so.
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A prayer is a means of grace by which God conforms us evermore into the image of Christ and by which he accomplishes his pre -appointed purposes for the good of his people and the glory of his name and churches must pray together.
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And I add this here. Our theology here, our confession of faith here, our belief in the sovereignty of God here, our love for the church here, our adoration of King Jesus, if these things do not lead us to pray together in joy, then we haven't really understood.
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If you say to yourself, well, the sovereignty of God means I just sit on my hand and everything else just happens.
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Since God decreed all would happen from eternity past, then I just do nothing. I sit around, I do nothing.
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Then you don't understand the sovereignty of God. You don't understand the
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Bible's teaching, the rich and robust theology that we have here, the theology of our forefathers.
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By forefathers, I mean the apostles. The theology of our king, the theology of Jesus, the greatest reformed
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Baptist in the scripture, right, the Lord Jesus. I love Moses. Why, he's a reformed Baptist. No, you understand what
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I'm saying is the idea of this rich theology, if it doesn't drive us to prayer, we don't understand it because it's not a theology, it's not something that just stretches our brains, but it enlarges our hearts.
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We wanna pray together. And this will lead us into our last point. We pray for one another, but we pray with one another.
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So we pray supremely, seriously, steadfastly, for the saints, simultaneously. And finally, we pray searchingly.
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Let me explain this. It's kind of the wrap -up point. Praying at all, I'm gonna read these verses again.
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Praying at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which
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I'm an ambassador in change, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. So let me drop this in here.
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The great end of prayer, the great goal and purpose of prayer, is not that we'd have our wishes granted.
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The great end of prayer, the great goal of prayer, is that we would know
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God all the more. So when I say pray searchingly, there's kind of a twofold idea.
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One is, we need to search ourselves. We need to understand ourselves. We need to understand our sins.
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We need to be honest about where we're at, our shortcomings, our needs, our desires.
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We need to be honest about the necessity of God conforming us evermore into the image of Christ.
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We need to search ourselves and pray honestly, but also to pray searchingly is that we pray in order to know
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God. We search for God. We seek God to love Him, to pursue
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Him, to understand more of His glory, to find ourselves glad in His awesomeness, to rest ourselves in His gospel.
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Christians pray because they love God. We are glad this morning to have this command, a command in our text.
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We're glad to have it because we want to obey God. That's what the regenerate heart wants to.
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Yes, yes, thank you, Paul, for giving me this. Thank you for pastors who will dissect the
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Word and explain this to us because this is what we want. We want to pray supremely and seriously and steadfastly and for the saints and simultaneously and searchingly.
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We want to do these things because God's given us a new heart that seeks after Him.
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And we seek after God because God first sought us.
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The Bible says that the Son of Man came to seek and save that which is lost.
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You are in the Bible. There it is. That's us. We seek
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God in prayer because God first sought us in Christ.
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How is God going to accomplish the plan to have a people from every nation who call upon the name of the
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Lord? Here it is. To send us Christ. God's great plan to have a praying people is to send the
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Son of God, the eternal Son of God, truly God, to become truly man in the womb of Mary, conceived by the
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Holy Spirit, to be born of the Virgin, unstained from Adam's corruption. To seek
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God, this is what Jesus did, to seek God daily and perfectly, to fulfill all righteousness, to obey
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God on our behalf, to pray to Him in all the ways that we have failed to pray, and to keep
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God's law in perfect moral rectitude, in perfect righteousness.
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And then Jesus died. And you know one of the reasons He died? Because your prayerlessness deserves hell.
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I don't pray, no big deal. Yes, it is. To not pray is sin.
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And sin deserves judgment. And one of the reasons that the
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Son of God was judged on Calvary in your place is because of your prayerlessness.
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And then, of course, all of our other sins. The wrath of God that we deserve fell upon Jesus as our substitute.
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He died and was buried, and on the third day, He rose again from the dead in victory.
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He ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and the Father and the
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Son sent the Holy Spirit to find us, to stop us on the road to Damascus, as it were, living our own way, going our own way.
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Ah, there's no way I'm gonna turn to Jesus. No, there's no, I'm just gonna continue in this hypocrisy and this rebellion.
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I'm gonna keep going and doing my own thing, and God's not gonna do anything about it. And God said, aha,
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I've got other plans. Today, you're coming home to Christ and the
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Spirit of God stopped you dead in your tracks, opened our hearts, opened our eyes, showed us
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Christ, convicted us of our sins, granted us the gifts of repentance and faith. This is what
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God is doing in the world today. I wonder, even in this room, is the Holy Spirit working in this way in your life right now?
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Have you understood how, we just talked about one sin, really, the sin of prayerlessness.
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Have you understood how guilty and vile and shameful you are just for the sin of prayerlessness, just for not calling out to a good and gracious God and going your own way and rejecting
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God's kindness and rebelling against Him, and instead of going to Him to receive
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His goodness and kindness, you've spat in His face. That's just one sin we've talked about. Have you felt your shame and your reproach and your guilt and your sinfulness?
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If you have, look to Christ. Won't you hear the gospel this morning? The gospel of the
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God who seeks His people and turned from your sins and put your faith in the finished work of Jesus.
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Is prayerlessness nothing to you? Listen, I heard a quote once that said this.
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I'm gonna illustrate it. Sheep fall in the mud sometimes. But pigs live there.
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So a sheep may fall in the mud of prayerlessness, not taking prayer seriously, not committing to this sacred duty and this glorious blessing.
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Is that you? Are you a believer, but this is you? I'm telling you, a sheep can't live there. So I'm calling you this morning to come out of the mud, dear saint, and seek
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God in prayer. Christ's life and death and burial and resurrection, it is enough for you.
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The grace of God is available this morning to the humble Christian. Don't make excuses.
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Well, that preacher just doesn't understand how busy I am. He doesn't understand the kids. He doesn't understand, you know, for me to pray more and I have to get up earlier.
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He just doesn't understand. No, I don't understand. But I'm telling you this morning, don't make excuses. And also, don't believe you have to live in defeat.
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I could never pray. I could never be a, all this stuff, I just could never attain to be able to pray the way that he talked about in the sermon.
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That's living in defeat. So repent of your prayerlessness. Come again to the
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Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. I'm telling the church this morning, you actually can have a vibrant prayer life, but it starts with owning your prayerlessness, coming out of the mud, repenting, and then going again to God's grace.
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Remember, the great end of prayer is to know God. And if you have a regenerate heart, this excites you.
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You want to know God. It is your heart's desire to know
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Him and to live for His glory. So I'm telling the church this morning, repent of prayerlessness, come out of the mud, come again to Jesus.
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His grace is sufficient for you. Know this day there is no one more for your prayer life than God.
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So turn it over to Him. Don't make excuses. Let your pastors help you.
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Let us walk with you humbly. There's no person in here that has a perfect prayer life. There's not a single believer in this room that says, you know what,
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I'm praying as much as I need to pray and I don't need to grow on that at all. No, we all struggle.
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But what we can't do is live in defeatism and just say, nope, we can't pray. That's not the people of God.
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So let us turn it over. Let us repent. Let us grow. Okay, but what if you live there?
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You're not just visiting the mud. You're not just falling in the mud, but you live in the mud. What if prayer today is a absolute drudgery to you, a bore for you, a burden for you?
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What if today you could never imagine praying more than two minutes, you could never imagine what it would be like to fall on your face and pray to the
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God that you don't want to actually rule your life? Well then, my friend, you're in a very dire situation.
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But I'm telling you this morning, I set before you life and death. Choose life. You've already wasted enough prayerless days.
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Repent of those days. Turn away from those days. You need to turn away from your sins against a holy
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God and you need to call out to God in His mercy even now. It's hard to say, it's not hard to be a
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Christian. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Well, that's not hard. I just, I leave all this stuff.
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That's easy. No, it's not, right? The heart loves this stuff. You want to keep all this stuff.
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You want to keep all these idols that you've built. You want to keep all these sins. You can't imagine turning these things over to a holy and righteous
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God and saying, I need to live the way that the Bible tells me to live. I need to live in the grace of God under the authority of God.
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I need to love the church. I need to let go of these things. If it was easy, everyone would just say, oh, those are, no, those things have a hold on your life, but I'm offering you this morning the mercy and grace of Christ.
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I'm saying Jesus is being preached to you this day. Let go of those things. Turn from those things.
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Those things will only lead you to the lake of fire. Run from them and run to Jesus and He will bring you into His family if you turn to Him in faith.
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No excuses. I don't care how old you are, how young you are, your gender, what sins you have in the past, who you've been.
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If you run to Jesus in faith, your sin will be forgiven.
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Go to Him. Now, some of you, your prayer life should begin with this simple prayer.
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God, I believe. Help my unbelief. Look to Jesus in faith. Flee the wrath to come.
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Repent and believe the gospel. Okay, church again. Do we believe the importance of the text? Let me read it one more time.
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Praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which
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I am an ambassador in chains and I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Church, will we consider these 12 points on prayer and seek to intentionally apply them?
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Praying submissively, savingly, seasonally, spiritually, significantly, strategically, supremely, seriously, steadfastly for all the saints simultaneously and certainly.
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Really, the question is this this morning. Two options. Will we be a praying church or will we be a playing church?
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That's the options. May God grant us grace to respond rightly and to repent of any prayerlessness in our lives and to grow together in His blessed duty.
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To God be the glory. Father, thank You for this text.
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What a needed text it is today. And at this moment, we don't think about all the other churches in the world.
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We just think about Providence Baptist Church at 1520 North Fush Avenue in Perryville, Arkansas, 72126.
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We confess to You that we are a church that needs to grow in prayer.
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Forgive us, please, of our prayerlessness. Let us not have just one of those one -off sermons where it's like, man,
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I felt bad that day and then we just go back to normal. Let us change and be a church of prayer.
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We don't want to be a playing church. These are not the days for playing. These are the days for praying.
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Give us the grace to do this. Call upon your people this morning.
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Draw them. There's sinners in here who have not closed with Christ.
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I don't know what they're holding on to. Idols, sin, a past that they don't think can be forgiven.
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May the Spirit of God right now, even as we pray, break their hard hearts and draw them to Christ.
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And may today, this day, April 14th, 2024, be the day that they say,