How Do I Talk to God — Carter Conlon

I'm here tonight with my friend Ron Brown, Executive Director of Teen Challenge Southern California. Twelve locations, 700 young people in the program right now. And Ron's got life, he's got incredible life because he has lived his life for the sake of others.

And it's a real unique opportunity for me and him to sing together tonight. We're both ex-cops by the way. We are? Amen. Praise God. We gotta get it all out because we may never be asked to sing anywhere again, so we're gonna get it all out tonight.

134 years between us of life experience, so you listen tonight online. The one thing we can tell you above everything else, it's glory, glory, hallelujah, since I lay my burdens down, glory, glory, hallelujah, since I lay my burdens down, so much better, since I lay my burdens down, so much better, since I lay my burdens down, glory, glory, come on sing along now, since I lay my burdens down, glory, glory, since I lay my burdens down, oh yes I do, so much better, oh yeah, since I lay my burdens, since I lay, give me a key, Jesus on the main line, tell him what you, Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want, Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want, Jesus on the main line, Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,.

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Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,. Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,. Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,. Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,. Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,.

Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,. Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,. Jesus on the main line, tell him what you want,. Jesus on the main Tell Him what you want. Oh, Jesus on the mainline.

Tell Him what you want. Just call Him up and tell Him what you want. One more time, call Him up. Just call Him up, call Him up. Tell Him what you want. Call Him up, call Him up. Tell Him what you want.

You've got to call Him up, call Him up. Tell Him what you want. Jesus on the mainline now. He's God. Oh, hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I'm supposed to preach after that. Thank God. You know, for folks that are listening online tonight with us, just want you to know that there is joy in the Lord.

And God will be faithful. As I said tonight, between Pastor Ron and I, there's 134 years of life experience. And the one thing we can tell you tonight, above everything else, is that if you will give your life to Christ, Jesus Christ will be faithful to you.

He will keep you. He will deliver you. He will set you free. He will bless you. He will give you a reason to live. There's no promise in the scripture that when you come to Christ, that you won't go through trials or difficulties.

But he promises to walk with you in the waters that will try to drown you. And with you through the fire and it will not burn you. And every trial that you will have to pass through in life, you will know him as a friend that stays closer than a brother to you.

And he will walk with you right through into eternity. If you give your life to Jesus Christ tonight, he promises that heaven will be your eternal home when you leave this world. And it just puts everything in its right perspective suddenly.

You suddenly know that you're in the hands of God. And God has everything under control. After the brief sharing of God's word tonight, we're going to go to the communion table. And that means we're going to celebrate the victory that Jesus Christ won on the cross for you 2 ,000 years ago.

If you have any juice or bread or crackers or whatever in your home, you're more than welcome to celebrate with us. If you are turning to God with all your heart, you want him to be your Lord and Savior, you're more than welcome to partake of this celebration with us.

Don't let anything stop you from doing that. Tonight I want to share a brief... I'm getting a lot of feedback. Sound guys, if you don't mind up here. I want to just share a brief word tonight with you about how do I talk to God.

Jesus’ Teaching on How to Pray

How do I talk to God? You know, this is a prayer meeting. And a lot of folks, you've come into a prayer meeting tonight and maybe you're not familiar with the prayer meeting. And you don't know how to pray.

And you're watching us pray and you're saying, is that the way it's done? I want to just share some things with you from the Word of God tonight about how to talk to God from the very heart of Jesus Christ himself, how he told us that we should pray and what should be our attitude of heart when we choose to pray and come to him.

If you'll turn in your Bibles or whatever device you have to Matthew, Gospel of Matthew chapter 6. I'm going to read verses 5 to verse 8. Now, Father, whenever your Word is spoken, our lives should be changed.

I want to thank you tonight, God, for the touch of heaven on this Word tonight. I thank you for the ability to deliver this Word. I thank you, God, for the anointing of your Holy Spirit that will take this Word deep into the hearts and minds of people who are in places where they need to learn how to talk to you.

You call it prayer. But really, it's just talking to you. And so, Father, I thank you tonight, God. Give me the ability to share this clearly, and I give you the praise and the glory for it in Jesus' name.

Amen and amen. Matthew chapter 6, beginning at verse 5. How do I talk to God? Jesus said, And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. Now, a hypocrite in its original text means an actor, somebody who just is putting on a play, but they're not really sincere, in a sense, about the part that they're playing.

It's just an act. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you've shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. That means those who live outside of a relationship with God. For they think they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them.

For your Father knows the things that you have need of before you ask him. Now, these four verses don't tell us everything, but they tell us a great deal about how Jesus himself used this sacred interaction, may I call it that, between us and himself.

An interaction that he had with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when the Scripture says he would come down in the cool of the day, and they would just converse with one another. It wasn't necessarily complicated.

At some points, the Scripture tells us that he would bring animals to Adam and say to Adam, what shall we call this? And so Adam gave a name to some of these creations of God, and that became a way of conversing.

Now, sin entered into the human race, and that ability to communicate with God was lost. There were only maybe a select few in the Old Testament that really had this channel through, like Moses, for example, of talking face-to-face with God, but it was lost to the greater part of humanity until the cross of Jesus Christ.

When Christ himself destroyed the power of sin and death and the devil, defeated it, made an open display of it, and opened the way again for you and I to come into the presence of God and to speak to him again, to talk to him.

Sincere Prayer Rather Than Religious Performance

You know, I tried for years all of these schemes to pray. Folks, let me tell you something. If there's a book on prayer to read, I've read it. I've read Praying Hyde, I've read all of these books, Reese Howell's Intercessor, and I howled and I tried to get my Hyde praying.

I did all of these things, and I burst blood vessels in my eyes because I felt you had to be…. I even went out in the snow one day because it was brainer to go out in the snow and pray for the Indians, and the scripture says the snow around them melted.

Not scripture, but the history says. And I went out, I just near froze to death, nothing melted around me except my resolve melted to ever do anything like that again. And after trying all these things to try to get to pray and exhausting myself, I even started the five o 'clock club in Canada where you would call each other in the morning and wake each other up and pray.

It has to be at five in the morning. Of course, it's not holy if it's not five in the morning. You have to go in your living room and you have to get on your knees, which I did because if you weren't on your knees, it wasn't holy.

Folks, I've been through the crucible. I've been beat up to a pulp by the prayer ministries of America that I used to be part of. And you have to get on your knees because it's not holy if it's not on your knees and not five o 'clock in the morning.

Then I would put my face down. I remember it was a green couch, and I'd put my face down between the two cushions right in the center of that couch, and generally I'd wake up at about seven o 'clock. However, I was on my knees, and I could honestly say, well, semi-honestly say I was on my face before God this morning.

Finally, one day after I'd exhausted all of these avenues, the Lord just went, you know when you just finally stop running, God says, can we talk now? He said, Carter, I had a friend called Adam. And I loved my friend, and I would come down to my friend, and I would converse with my friend.

And it's what I've longed for as God. I longed for this companionship with this man. And because sin entered into his heart, I lost my friend. So I came to this world as a man, Jesus Christ, and I went to a cross, defeated the power that had defeated him, so that I could talk again to Adam's descendants.

He said, Carter, just talk to me. It's an amazing revelation. It shouldn't be, but it is. It's an amazing revelation. Just talk to me. You don't have to speak 100 miles an hour. You don't have to use King James English.

The posture doesn't matter. You can talk to me when you're walking down the street. Talk to me when you're brushing your teeth. Talk to me when you're having a coffee in the morning. Talk to me when you're walking along the way to wherever you're going.

Talk to me when you come home. Talk to me when you get up. Talk to me when you go to bed. As a matter of fact, the apostle Paul, when I first read the verse where Paul said, pray without ceasing, I remember I blurted out, how in heaven's name do you do that?

Well, you just get into a habit of talking with the one who not only redeemed you, but now resides inside of you. God's not off in the cosmos so that you have to shout at him to get through to him. He actually indwells your physical human body in the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God dwelling inside these earths, and so he goes with you wherever you go, so you don't have to shout. When you do talk to him, give him time to speak to you too as well. Now, he tells us in our conversations that he asks that we be sincere when you pray.

It says, when you pray, don't be like the actors or the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they might be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have the reward.

Years ago in New York City, we used to have open prayer on Tuesday night. I don't know if anybody here remembers that, but we had an open microphone in the front of the church, and anybody was welcome to come down and pray.

I remember one night, this older gentleman came down, and he took the microphone, and he prayed almost like a poet. It was very poetic, and it was eloquent. It was actually quite good, in a sense, as far as the English language went.

I remember David Wilkerson leaning over to me, and he goes, the old phony. It turned out he was an old phony. His prayer was, he wasn't talking to God. He was wanting the people in the sanctuary to esteem his spirituality.

Have you ever been in a place, in a prayer meeting, and somebody starts praying, and it's not really a prayer? It's their latest sermonette that they want to get out. They want everybody in the room to hear it, but they're really not talking to God.

They're talking for the, it's a duplicitous reason. He said, when you stand or when you go into your secret place, just be sincere. Just talk to me. Don't give a sermon. If you're in a public meeting, and you're asked to pray, don't give a sermon to the congregation.

Talk to God. It's an audience of one that we go before, and we're not there to utter prayers to impress the people around. That's what Jesus was saying. When you utter your prayers in the synagogue, don't do it so that other people can esteem you to be spiritual.

Just talk to him. You don't have to change the way you speak, in other words. It doesn't have to be long, and it doesn't have to be eloquent. It just has to be sincere. It has to be honest. I love the scripture in Luke 18, where Jesus said, two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and prayed with himself, thus. I love that. He stood and prayed with himself. In other words, God is not listening to him. Now, why is it in the Bible? Well, if you ever called a place, and you don't get a person when you call, but you get a recording, and before you record, it says, this conversation will be recorded for quality purposes and education and instructional purposes and stuff like that, quality control and instruction.

Well, that's why this prayer is actually recorded in the Bible. God wasn't listening to it. There was nobody there, but it was recorded for quality control and for instruction. That's how it got in the Bible.

It's not that it was ever accepted by God. He stood and prayed with himself. Oh, God, I thank you I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week.

I give tithes of all that I possess. And the tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven but beat on his breast and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, these are the words of Jesus, this man, the tax collector, went down to his house justified or in right relationship with God, or we could say answered, rather than the other.

For everyone exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. So when you pray, just be sincere. Just be sincere. Don't fake it. God knows already. Don't tell him how wonderful the day is when you're really bummed and it's been a hard day and you're going through stuff you don't understand.

Be sincere. Just be honest with God when you pray. And then in verse 6, he says, when you pray, go into your room, and when you've shut your door, pray to your father who is in a secret place, and your father who is in secret will reward you openly.

Personal and Private Fellowship With God

When you're in, let your prayer be also personal. Let it be private. Luke chapter 12 and verse 32, Jesus said, don't be afraid, little flock. It's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. So be sincere and let it be personal between you and God.

Now, here's a great example of this. In Luke chapter 15, the prodigal son, we know this story. Most of us know. It's a young man who just took his inheritance, went far away from the heart and the home of his father, and really brought disgrace to the family name, and spent everything he had on himself and was living in a way he shouldn't live, and ended up actually feeding pigs.

And as a Jewish boy, that's probably the worst thing you could ever do because pigs were considered in every way unclean to the Jewish culture. And then one day he got up and decided to come home, and a prayer came into his heart.

Remember, Jesus, he said in this verse of Scripture in Matthew, he said, Your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And so this boy formulated a prayer in his heart, and it's, Father, I've sinned.

I've sinned against heaven and against you, and I'm not worthy to be called your son anymore. So if you'll have me, just make me as one of your hired servants. Now, as he's coming down the road, the Scripture says his father ran to meet him.

His father ran and embraced him. His father fell on his neck and kissed him. And so this prayer, you've got to picture the scene with me. The father is embracing the son, and they are cheek to cheek, lips to ear, may I put it that way.

And this prayer is not for the entourage who followed the father. It's a personal prayer. It's a private prayer between him and his father. And he just, I can see him whispering it in his father's ear, Father, I'm not worthy to be called your son anymore.

I've disgraced you, and I've disgraced the family. But if you will take me back and make me as one of your hired servants. Now, I don't think anybody else heard this prayer. It was a personal prayer between this boy and his father, because they're locked and embraced.

The father is hugging this son. He's so glad to have him home. And the son is not, as we said in the beginning, he's not uttering this prayer for the sake of the entourage that ran down the road with the father.

And so he prays in secret, in a sense, to his father. But the father rewards him openly. And how shocked he must have been. When we are sincere, when we go to God, and we're just gut honest with God. You might be out there tonight, and you made the mess in your own life.

You can't blame your father. You can't blame your mother. Don't blame your uncle. Don't blame your aunt. Don't blame anybody else. You are the one who got addicted. You are the one who fell into depression.

You stole from your business and your company. It's nobody else's fault but yours. But tonight, you just, you get up and you come back, and you find yourself in the embrace of God. It's hard to explain it.

But even tonight, online, you're finding that somehow you feel the embrace of God coming around you. And all you can do is whisper your prayer. You can't shout it out the window, and nobody wants to hear it anyway.

And you're just saying, Father, I've sinned against you and against heaven. I've made a mess of my life. You gave me life for a divine reason. You had a purpose and plan for my life, but I left your calling for my life.

I left your house, and I went out, and I did it my way. And I made a mess of everything, and I stink like a pig. And here I am. And you're whispering it into the ear of God. And then suddenly, how surprised this boy must have been when the father claps his hands and says, Bring out the best robe and put it on him.

You see, you pray in secret, and your father will reward you openly. And so you can hear the collective gasp of all the servants that have come running. This man is a wealthy man. He hasn't come running down the road alone.

There's an entourage with him. And as he gives the command, Bring the best robe and put it on my son, you can hear the collective, oh, from the people. Because this boy, he has prayed in secret, but now he's being rewarded openly.

God, I tell you when you go honestly before God, one of the best prayers I've ever prayed, and I still pray it today. I've prayed it my whole life. It's a really eloquent prayer. Jesus, help me. I've prayed it since the day I got saved.

Matter of fact, if you change the intonations, you can pray it nine different ways. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. You can change, depending on your mood, you can change the intonation of the prayer, and God answers it every time.

I can't tell you how many times I prayed that prayer in desperation. I used to jog. I used to be a runner, believe it or not. If you close your eyes, it makes it easier to believe it. But I used to be physically fit.

I used to be a runner. And when I would run, the whole run, I would say, Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. I got a rhythm in it. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. All the way.

And he helped me. He answered my prayer. I prayed in secret. There was nobody there. Nobody on the roads, the country roads I used to run on. But he heard me. He heard my prayer, and he rewarded me openly.

And he helped me. Gave me abilities that I don't naturally have. Gave me opportunities that could never, never come my way. Gave me resources that could only come from heaven. He clapped his hands and said, bring the best robe, and covered the failure of his son.

Praise be to God. And not only that, he calls for the ring, and it gives him the empowerment of heaven. The empowerment of the Father's house is restored to him. That ring had a signet, and it carried the weight of the Father's authority.

Prayer for Empowerment and Restoration

Behold, I give you power. I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions. I give you power to stand against your addictions and your depressions and your trials and troubles. And where the devil's come into your home and is trying to steal your children, Jesus said, you pray in secret.

I'll reward you openly. I'll give you power over these things that have tried to destroy your house and destroy your life. And then he put shoes on his feet. And how incredulous it must have been to be, usually to come into the presence of God per se, you had to take your shoes off your feet.

Because most people who come into the presence of God generally come in with ideas and strategies and skills. And that's why he told Moses and Joshua, take off your shoes. I don't want your strength to win this battle.

And I don't need your strategies, and I don't want your ideas. I'm going to do this for you. But this boy was broken now. This boy was honest before his father, so the command to give him shoes was almost the opposite.

He's ready now to represent my kingdom. You know, I've often said it. I've said it many times to this public. What do you think, Pastor Ron, that young man's message was when he went out from his father's house?

Seven steps to this, 13 steps to that. No, you've got to meet my dad. You've got to meet my father. Man, oh, man, you've got to come to my father's house. Everybody is welcome there, and everybody gets fed there.

And when you come home, they bring out the band. They bring out the band, and they start singing. I don't know what they sang. Maybe it's, oh, glory, glory, hallelujah, since I laid my burdens down. I don't know what the song was, but the father brings him home.

And because he's prayed in secret, he rewards him openly. Praise be to God. And lastly, pray trusting. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions, as the heathen do. They think they will be heard for their many words.

Trusting God’s Faithfulness in Prayer

I've often found that a lack of faith in prayer often has many words attached to it. The less a person believes, the more words they have to use to try to convince themselves that God will answer their prayer.

God does not have to be persuaded to bless you. Your father knows you have need of certain things before you even ask him. He knows what you need. It's amazing. And you just come and say it. Not only is my prayer sincere, not only is it personal and just to you, God, but I trust you.

I trust you. I trust that what you say in your word to me is truth. I trust that when I pray believing, I will receive. I trust that my enemies will not triumph over me. I trust that you're the God who restores things that I have lost, perhaps through my own ignorance or the way I've lived my life.

I trust that you will receive me and forgive me. I trust, O God, that I can have a new future, a new life, a new heart, a new mind, and a new hope. And that's what talking to God is all about. Tonight, you know, there's a lot of people maybe you hold back because you think there's some kind of religious thing that we do that you don't know how to partake of it.

Or maybe you look online and you say, Wow, these people, they were in Bible school. Obviously, they're all holy. They all know that's not true. And if you don't, give it another month. It's coming your way.

And you're thinking out there, like, how does this apply to me? God loves you. God loves you, the Bible says, with an everlasting love. He says he engraved your name on the palm of his hands. When he went to the cross, your name was on the point of those nails that went through his hands.

He said a nursing mother could forget her child, but I can never forget you. He loved you, the Bible says, before you were formed in your mother's womb, he knew you. And he loved you. And I think, honestly, that sometimes why God hasn't judged this world already is because he's waiting for you to come home.

The Gospel Call to Repentance and Faith

One more son, one more daughter, one more person out there that has the courage to say, God, I need to talk to you. And I need to know what it is that you're saying to me, and I need to come home. I'll tell you how to get home.

Admit that you can't get there by yourself. You need the mercy of God to get home to heaven. Admit that you can't save yourself, which is why God came to this earth as a man and went to a cross 2 ,000 years ago and paid the price for the things that you have done that have offended God, which the Bible calls that sin.

It means it's disobedience to what God says your life should be, how you should live, how you should think, how you should speak. And that sin separated you from God. But God sent his son, and on his son he laid your sin on that cross.

It's the same as when the father embraced that son on the road. He took the smell of the field upon himself. When you came to the cross, the Son of God took the smell of your failing and your sin upon himself and offered you a covering and freedom and forgiveness.

Believe that he took your place, and believe it because he loves you, not because he felt just obligated to clean up a mess. He did it because he loves you. The Bible says God so loved the world. Put your name in there.

I don't know what your name is out there tonight, but put your name in there. You in India, China, Russia, wherever you are tonight, Canada, United States, the UK, put your name in there. God so loved you that he gave his only begotten son, that if you believe in him, you will not perish.

That means be separated from God for eternity, but have everlasting life, which means with God. And you confess him with your mouth. Jesus, if you want me that bad, I'm yours. I give you my life. If you want my mess, you can have it.

If you want to change my life, you can change it. If you want to call me to be something other than what I am, you can call me. Pray this simple prayer with me right now, right from your heart. Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for loving me.

Thank you for giving your life for me. Tonight, I give my life to you. I open my heart to your offer of forgiveness. And your desire to talk with me again. I do confess you tonight. Jesus Christ, as my Lord and my God, for the rest of my days, as you help me, I will walk with you.

And I will be the person you desire me to be. And it feels so good tonight to talk to you. Amen. If you prayed that prayer tonight, I want you to text the word DECIDED to 51000 on your cell phone. Somebody from Times Square Church, there'll be a video come to you, and we'll talk to you about, what do I do from here?

Where do I go now? How does this whole walk with God work? We'll help to answer those questions for you. We're going to go to the communion table, and the communion table is just remembering God's love for you.

Communion and the Lord’s Supper

And when we take communion tonight, let there be just a simple thought in your mind tonight. As you partake of the bread, which he said represents his broken body, and the juice, which represents the blood that he shed in giving his life for you, so you could come home to God again.

And as you take it, just remember he did it for you. We're going to sing one song, and then we'll be back together in just a moment. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Prayer for Healing, Freedom, and Spiritual Renewal

This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Father, we just want to thank you tonight for the people online that have made a decision to trust you again.

We want to thank you, Lord, for the chains that you are breaking right now. We thank you for the prison doors that you are opening. We thank you for the eyes that couldn't see a way forward being given that vision that can only come from God.

We thank you for wounded hearts being healed this very, very moment, Lord, from wounds that were so deep that they can't be healed by any modern method. God, but supernaturally, you're touching them right now.

We believe that, God. We believe that because our prayers tonight are sincere. They're personal, and we trust you, Lord. We trust you tonight that our prayers for others are not in vain. God, we ask you to stretch your hand out through the Internet tonight all over the world, every country that's represented here this evening, God.

So many different countries, so many people listening in. Reach through the Internet, Lord, and touch them right where they are. Touch the lonely people sitting in their cars with their cell phone right now, and those on park benches, and those alone in their rooms or their units or apartment buildings, God.

Touch the mothers, Lord, that are brokenhearted over their children. Give them faith, O God, to believe, Lord, that as they talk to you again, you can bring their children home. God, thank you. God, thank you.

God, thank you for an end-time harvest of souls. Thank you for miracles again, Lord. Thank you, God, for power again in this generation, Lord, beyond what we've ever known in our lifetime. Thank you for mercy, God, that even when we don't deserve it, you still run down the road, and you embrace us, and you call for the robe, and you call for the ring and the shoes and the band, God.

You still do it. You haven't changed. You're the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so, God, I want to thank you tonight. I want to thank you for touching somebody out there in a way that they'll never be the same again.

O Jesus Christ, let a shout of glory for your name go up through the earth tonight, O God, because you're going to do wondrous things in the days ahead of us. We give you praise, and we give you glory, and we give you thanks in your mighty name.

We always encourage you most every week, stay and pray. Even if you're alone, or if you've got some friends with you at home tonight, stay and pray, and pray this one thing, God, fill us with your Holy Spirit.

And just stay in the room, and let God do what only God can do. Give us your Holy Spirit, Lord. Give us that internal strength of God that we need to be the people you've called us to be. Give us the ring now.

Give us the shoes. Help us to hear the joy of heaven over our names being spoken at the throne of God. Open us up to the generosity of your heart and your hands. Stay and pray. Stay and pray. Stay and pray tonight.