The Object of Prayer

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

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This series is being presented for the men of Set Free Ministry. Lesson Text: Romans 15:30

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Welcome back brothers.
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It has been several weeks since I have been with you all and I do want to say I miss being there as set free and Lord willing this will be the last week that I come to you via video.
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Hopefully, if the Lord so allows, next week as I come in we are going to begin a three month study on the major doctrines of the Bible.
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And that is going to become a new course that I am writing it for the men of Set Free and that is going to become a 12 week course.
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And every 12 weeks it is going to rotate back through so if you come in and you miss a week then you will be able to catch it at a later date.
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It is going to be a rotating course for the purpose of ensuring that everyone who comes through the program is getting very basic doctrinal instruction.
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That is a subject that I love to teach and believe in teaching and I believe it is very important.
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So Pastor Mark and I have gotten together and worked out a way for me to make that my contribution to the ministry.
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And so that is going to begin next week but today we are going to end our series on the subject of prayer.
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And this really just came about as I was talking to Pastor Mark.
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I had ended Galatians and I knew there were several weeks before I was going to begin the new series on doctrine.
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And so we were discussing what would be a good topic and we were talking about some issues that needed to be addressed and different things.
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And it came to my mind and I said you know what we need to really focus on is that most basic thing that we all need to be doing and that is praying.
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And how to deepen our prayers, how to become better in our prayer life.
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As much as we need to become better Bible students, as much as we need to become better disciples, we also need to become better in our prayer life.
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And so I hope that the last several weeks of lectures and lessons and sermons have all been an encouragement to you in regard to your own prayer life.
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You remember the first week we talked about the reality that the Bible says that God knows the future, God has already determined what he is going to do.
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And some people say well if that is the truth why do we pray? And so for the first two weeks we discussed that, the sovereignty of God and prayer.
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And then the third week we looked at the method of prayer and we looked at what Jesus taught his disciples in Luke 11 when they said Lord teach us to pray.
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Jesus gave them an outline for prayer, a framework for prayer which we call the model prayer.
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Our Father who art in heaven, that is a framework for prayer that can be used for praying.
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Not just reciting but actually praying.
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And then last week we looked at the attitude of prayer and we spent a lot of time in Matthew 6.
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And we talked about the fact that some people when they pray, they pray as a show.
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And they only pray when other people are watching.
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And they only pray when there is an audience.
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And we said the danger in that is that you become a hypocrite.
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And that your prayer, the attitude of prayer begins on your knees alone before God.
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The attitude of prayer, the right attitude of prayer begins with a private prayer life.
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Your public prayers and your public participation in worship should be the outgrowth of the soil of your private prayer and devotional life.
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If your private prayer and devotional life is non-existent, then all of the stuff that you do in public is like artificial plants.
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There is no real soil.
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So it begins in the private before God with no one else.
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Jesus said go into your closet and pray to your Father who is in secret.
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And the Father who is in secret will reward you.
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So that is our, that is our leading us up to this point.
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That has gotten us through the attitude of prayer.
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Today we are going to look at the object of prayer.
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The object of prayer.
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And by object I mean who it is we are praying to and how that ought to affect our prayer.
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Now I've already dealt with this in some respect because we've talked about our Father.
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And we've talked about God being Abba Father.
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That was in a previous lesson.
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So rather than rehash that, what I want to talk about today is I want to talk about the importance of our prayers being an expression of our Trinitarian faith.
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And I'm going to write that down on the board.
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Christianity is a Trinitarian faith.
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What does that mean? It means that we believe in the Trinity.
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If you have your Bibles open, turn with me to Romans chapter 15.
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In Romans chapter 15, Paul is closing out his portion of this letter.
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And we know that there's another chapter that comes.
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But this is, this is a, this is sort of a prelude to the end.
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And we know that Tertius is going to add some points in chapter 16.
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He's Paul's Immanuensis.
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He's the one who actually wrote.
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Paul is dictating this letter.
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And we get to chapter 15.
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And Paul says in verse 30, I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf.
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Now it goes on to say that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea.
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He's actually asking for something.
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But I want to focus our attention just really on verse 30 because of what he says.
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Notice it again.
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And then I'm going to pray.
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I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the beauty of it.
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I thank you for the power and majesty of it.
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But I thank you also, Lord, that it instructs us in our time of need.
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And, Lord, we have a need right now.
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We need to know more about prayer.
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And, Lord, today we're going to talk about the object of prayer, which is you, the triune God.
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And, Lord, you live and you have always existed.
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one being, three persons.
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And when we pray, we pray to the Father through the Son by the spirit.
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And, Lord, our prayers ought to be Trinitarian in nature because we worship and serve a Trinitarian God.
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And so today I pray that as we focus on praying Trinitarian prayers, Lord, that you would hear from heaven and that you would bless this time.
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And, Lord, that you would keep me from error, keep me from cowardice, and apply the truth of your word to the hearts of those who will hear.
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Thank you for set free for Pastor Mark and for all that they do.
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May this be a blessing to them in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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All right.
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So, first of all, it is incumbent upon me because I know that not everyone has been taught the doctrine of the Trinity.
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Some of you are maybe new to set free or maybe you haven't been in set free long enough to have received instruction on the doctrine of the Trinity.
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I think it's important that I at least take an opportunity to explain what the doctrine of the Trinity is.
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This is not going to be a full-orbed explanation.
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In our doctrine class that's coming, I am going to devote one whole class to explaining and defending the historic and biblical doctrine of the Trinity.
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But that is, again, going to happen several weeks from now.
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So, because of the importance of this today, I think it is important that we understand the foundational teachings of the doctrine of the Trinity.
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The foundational teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity is as follows.
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Number one, there is only one God.
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And that is the basis of what we call monotheism.
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Mono means one.
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Theos means God.
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We believe as Christians that we are monotheists.
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Only one God.
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Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God the Lord is one Lord.
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Deuteronomy 6.
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The Bible clearly teaches that God is one.
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But, this is the second thing, there are three persons who are called God.
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There are three persons who are called God.
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Those three persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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All three of these persons are called God.
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In John 1, verse 1, it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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The Word, there, is referring to Jesus.
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We know this because later in the same chapter, it says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
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So, we know who the Word is.
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The Word is Jesus.
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So, in the beginning was Jesus.
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In the beginning was the Word.
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The Word was with God, but the Word was God.
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And so, three persons are called God.
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The Holy Spirit is called God.
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In Acts chapter 5, when Ananias and Sapphira lie, Peter says, you have not lied.
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How have you taken this to lie to the Holy Spirit? You've not lied to men, but you've lied to God.
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You see, Peter equates lying to the Holy Spirit to lying to God.
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Some people believe Jesus is not God in the flesh, and some people believe that the Holy Spirit is not personal, but is rather a force.
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I will deal with those arguments in the lesson in the future.
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But might I just say for you today, for the sake of time, I'm not going to go through the arguments regarding the deity of the Son and the personality of the Spirit, because those are often the most debated.
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Here's the thing that we need to realize.
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There is only one God.
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There are three persons who are called God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
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These three are co-equal, co-eternal, and distinct.
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Co-equal, meaning they are all God.
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They all have equal claim to being God.
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They all are eternal.
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There was never a time when there wasn't the Son.
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There never was a time when there wasn't the Spirit.
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The Father, the Son, and the Spirit have always existed.
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God did not create the Son and create the Spirit.
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God the Father, that is, did not create the Son and create the Spirit.
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That is a misunderstanding.
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The Bible describes Jesus and the Holy Spirit as being eternal, and so.
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And we know this.
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The book of Isaiah says that God spoke, and he says, Before me there was no God formed, and after me was there no God formed.
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So there wasn't as if God created another God and called him Jesus.
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That's not what happened.
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There is only one God, but there's three persons who are called God, and right there you say, well, that's a contradiction.
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No, it's not, because we're dealing with two different categories.
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Because when we talk about the oneness of God, we are talking about the being or the essence of God.
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The being or the essence of God.
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And when we talk about the persons, we're talking about personhood.
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So personhood and being are not the same thing.
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God is one in being, but he is three in person.
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You say, that can't be.
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Yes, it can, and I'll give you a little analogy that might help you.
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If you talk about a rock, like a rock that you pick up off the ground.
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Let's say you hold a big rock in your hand.
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That rock has being, but it doesn't have person.
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If you walk over to a fence post, that fence post has being, but it does not have person.
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It has essence, but it does not have personhood.
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I, as a human being, I have being and I have person, and it's a one-to-one ratio.
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One being, one person, and they exist.
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I am one.
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God is one being.
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Three persons share that one being.
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The Father, the Son, and the Spirit share the one essence, which is God.
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The one being, which is God.
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That is the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity.
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The Trinity has always existed as the Trinity.
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By the way, this is what separates Christianity from Islam and Judaism, because the three largest monotheistic religions in the world are Christianity is number one, Islam is number two, and Judaism is number three.
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All three of those religions claim to be monotheistic.
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But what distinguishes them? What distinguishes Christianity is that we are Trinitarian monotheists.
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We are Trinitarian monotheists.
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We believe that God is one in essence, that's our monotheism, but that he is three in person, that's Trinitarianism.
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And therefore, the Father and the Son are distinct from one another, and they can interact.
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So the Son can speak to the Father, the Father can speak to the Son, but they share the essence, the divine essence.
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This is why Colossians tells us that all of the deity, all of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily.
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He was the God-man.
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That's Colossians 2, by the way.
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Tells us all of the Godhead, the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily.
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Very important passage, very important thing to remember.
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Jesus Christ is God and man.
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He is God in the flesh.
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Therefore, when we talk about Jesus, we are talking about a man, but we are also talking about God.
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We are talking about the God-man.
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So, with all of that in mind, with the issue of the triune God, the Trinitarian faith, now let's talk about prayer.
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Because all of that was simply to build up to the idea that when we pray, our prayers are to be Trinitarian prayers.
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Our prayers are to be prayers that exalt the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
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We worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit because they are all one God.
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This is why we baptize.
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What does the Bible say? Go ye into all the worlds and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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Interestingly enough, that word name is in the singular.
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The singular name of the Trinitarian God.
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The singular name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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Because the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that is actually, the New Covenant, that is how we express the idea of Yahweh.
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Because the Father is Yahweh, the Son is Yahweh, the Spirit is Yahweh.
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Or Jehovah, whichever one you want to use.
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God is Father, Son, and Spirit.
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Therefore, when we pray, we pray Trinitarian prayers.
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We pray to the Trinity.
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And I want to talk about how you do that.
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Because notice what Paul says here in verse 30 again, going back to Romans 15.
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He says, I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together in your prayers to God.
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This is often the way that I describe when I'm talking about my prayer life.
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I always say, I am praying to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
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I am praying to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
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Because, let's break that down.
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If we think of the Father, Jesus said, pray our Father who art in heaven.
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And we are praying to the Father.
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But we are praying to the Father, through the Son, because the Bible says that Jesus is how we have access to Christ.
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We cannot access the Father, except through the Son.
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Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
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No one comes to the Father, except through me.
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This is why when we pray, we say, in Jesus' name.
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That is not a magic formula.
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The reason why we use Jesus' name in our prayers, is because Jesus is the way to the Father.
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You remember the story of Jacob, when he saw the stairwell to heaven, and the angels were ascending and descending on that stairwell? And then later, when Jesus meets one of the disciples, Nathaniel, and he says, you, Nathaniel, you will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
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What's the point? What is Jesus making? Jesus is saying, that stairwell pointed to me.
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Jesus is saying, that stairwell was a picture of what I am.
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I am the bridge to the Father.
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I am the one you go through to get to the Father.
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There's a great story from the Civil War.
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After the Civil War was over, one of the northern soldiers went back home, and learned that his whole family had died, and his property had been destroyed.
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He lost everything.
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He put it in his mind, I want to go talk to Abraham Lincoln.
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Abraham Lincoln is the President.
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And I want to go and talk to the President.
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I want to tell him what has happened to me.
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I just want to see him.
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I've lost everything.
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And he wants to go and have an audience with the President.
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Well, at that time in history, just like today, the President was not an easy man to get a hold of.
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It wasn't as if you could just walk into his office and have an audience with the President.
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It wasn't any more easy then than it is now.
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And so the man, he goes to the White House, or he goes to the place where the President lived, and he goes there and he asks to see the President.
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They won't let him in.
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So he sits outside and he weeps.
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And a young child comes to him and says, Sir, what's wrong? And the man says, I have lost everything fighting for my country.
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I just want to talk to the President and they won't let me in.
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And the little boy said, that's easy.
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It's my dad.
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Because the little boy was Tad Lincoln.
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The son of President Abraham Lincoln.
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And Tad took the man by the hand.
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He walked him through the courtyard, walked him up through the doors, walked him right past the soldiers.
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Because this is the son of the President.
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He walked him right into his dad's office and said, Dad, this man is here for you.
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And I love that story.
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And I tell that story because it's a picture of us.
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We are held back from God because of sin.
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We don't even want to go to God because we are so sinful.
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But Jesus comes and he takes us to the Father.
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He is the bridge.
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He is the stairwell.
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He is the ladder.
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He is the one who creates a way.
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It's said that Jesus came and died on a cross and took the wood from that cross and he built a bridge.
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And now we can go to the Father through the Son.
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So, to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
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The Spirit lives within us and he is the empowerment of our prayer.
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We pray by the power of the Spirit of God.
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By God's power we pray to God.
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And it's the power of the Holy Spirit.
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If we didn't have the Holy Spirit within us, we would not even want to pray.
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And the Spirit not only gives us the desire to pray, but he gives us the ability.
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And so we pray to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
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And therefore our prayers are Trinitarian prayers.
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And it is important, I believe, that we acknowledge all three persons in our prayer.
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That our prayers never become over-focused on any one of the three, but that we always understand that we are always praying to and through and by the three.
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Some people only pray about the Father.
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They only talk about the Father.
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It's always about the Father.
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They never talk about Jesus or the Spirit.
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Some people, it's always about Jesus and they never talk about the Father and they never talk about the Spirit.
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And some people, and this is the most common error that I see in churches today, some people are so focused about the Holy Spirit that you never hear them hardly ever mention Jesus and never hardly ever talk about the Father.
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And all of that is wrong.
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They are co-equal, remember.
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Co-equal.
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And therefore they are co-equally worthy of our worship.
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And they are co-equally worthy of our prayers.
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Beloved, our prayers are to be Trinitarian prayers.
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The object of our prayers is the Triune God.
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So, with that in mind, I want to draw to a close.
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I know today's lesson is a little shorter and I could go a lot further and go a lot of different directions, but I want to draw to a close by reading to you from a book.
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This is a book entitled Prone to Wander.
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This book is a series of written prayers.
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It was written by the wife of a theology professor.
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And she writes these prayers with a Trinitarian focus.
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You'll notice when we read the prayer that I'm going to read that she focuses first on the Father, and then on the Son, and then on the Spirit.
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And she demonstrates an understanding of the Trinitarian work in redemption.
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See, God worked in redemption through His Trinitarian nature.
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The Father chose us.
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The Son redeemed us.
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The Spirit sanctifies us and gives us the gift of regeneration.
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So, the Holy Trinity is always working in us to bring about our salvation.
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And so, I want to read to you a prayer.
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And I use this.
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This is actually a personal devotional book.
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My wife and I use this for our personal prayers and devotions because the prayers in here are so powerful.
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And I want to read to you.
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This is based on Genesis 17.
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If you look at this book, and I know some of you, you can't have books yet or whatever, I know.
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I'm going to talk to Brother Mark.
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This is such a powerful, useful tool for me.
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I would love to, once you guys are in Phase 2 or whatever, and you have an opportunity and you want books, this is one I would definitely recommend to help you with your prayer life.
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But I'm going to just read to you her prayer.
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This is based on Genesis 17, which is when Abram was 99 years old, and God appeared to him and said, I am the God Almighty, walk before me, be blameless.
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And then Abraham fell on his face.
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And God said to Abraham, ask for your wife Sarah.
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You shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah, and you shall.
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And I will bless her and I will give her a son.
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And Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 99 years old, bear a child? That's the Scripture.
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That's Genesis 17, 1-3 and 15-17.
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Now, I'm going to read the prayer that is based on that passage.
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So just listen to the prayer.
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And think about the Trinitarian nature of the prayer.
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Almighty Infinite Father, we fall down before you today as glorious saints who love and worship you and as weak sinners in need of your forgiveness and grace.
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Like Abraham, we are often far more ready to fall down and laugh at your promises than we are to fall down in awe and wonder at your perfect holiness and astounding love.
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Your call to walk blamelessly before you weighs heavily on our hearts.
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Some of us are very aware of just how far short we fall from this command, and we are full of fear and dejected with disappointment in ourselves.
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Some of us are very blind to our sin and foolishly imagine ourselves to be doing quite well.
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Lord, thank you that your mercy is more than a match for all our sins of self-hatred and self-righteousness.
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As we struggle and fail to live lives of perfect holiness, we thank you for Jesus, who walked blamelessly in our place for 33 long years.
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When Satan tempted him to fall down and worship before him, he chose to obey with absolute faith in you and spotless holiness.
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With great love and confidence in your promises, he took on all the blame for our disobedience and prideful self-righteousness.
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By his goodness and death, we are rescued forever from ourselves.
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Thank you for such a precious Redeemer and friend.
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Father, fill us with your Holy Spirit and give us faith to believe your promises and live in joyful, confident hope that everything you say is true.
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When sin threatens to reduce us to despair, show us the covenant love of your Son crucified for us.
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Grant us the ability to fall down before the cross each day in confession and repentance and the grace to shake off our guilty fears and rise with great rejoicing.
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May the Lord's Supper be a sign and seal to us of your faithful covenant keeping on our behalf so that we may be strengthened by it to live as pardoned and reconciled sinners who are dearly cherished by their Heavenly Father.
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Give us growing delight in the blamelessness we have in your wonderful Son and growing strength to live in holiness and obedience to you.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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I find that to be, one, just a stirring prayer.
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I find it, too, to be meaningful in regard to my own heart because there are so many things that are written in this prayer that are, to me, so true to my own life.
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I deal with self-doubt and I deal with self-righteousness.
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I deal with doubt and I deal with pride.
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And this prayer, though I didn't write it, really mirrors my own heart.
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And this book is filled with these prayers, this person having taken time to write out prayer after prayer after prayer.
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And so may I end this series on prayer with an encouragement to you.
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One of the things that can be really helpful is to have a prayer journal.
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Write down your prayers.
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Write down the things that you're praying for.
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Write down the things that you're praying about.
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Write down the people that are on your heart.
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And consider the fact that you have an opportunity every day to go before the Lord in prayer.
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And we should not waste that opportunity.
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But remember, the method of prayer God has given to us.
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He has told us how to pray.
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He's given us the attitude to pray.
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And He's told us to whom to pray.
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We pray to Him.
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We pray to the great triune God of Scripture.
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
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Praise Him, all creatures here below.
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Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts.
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Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
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Amen.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank You for this opportunity to be in Your Word again.
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I pray that this moment and this time will be dedicated to You.
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And Lord, that we would all seek that our prayers would glorify the Blessed Trinity.
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The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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The Father who chose to save.
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The Son who came to save.
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And the Spirit who comes to give us new life.
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We praise You, Blessed Trinity, through Jesus Christ.
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Amen.