The Prayer That Covers All

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Bill Smith; Matthew 6:9-13 The Prayer That Covers All

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All right, and you're stuck with me this morning, too, because Pastor Don's at that men's retreat. But I'm very excited to be here and just welcome everyone to recast.
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I'm excited. My sister Joyce, Wave, and brother -in -law Dave, and Haley, my niece, and then
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Cheryl's brother, John, and his wife, Trina, and my nephew and niece are here this morning visiting.
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So welcome, you guys. So glad that you're here, that all of you are here. And let's just pray that God does something really special.
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I know how much I need God to lift me up this morning and touch my heart. And I know that that is true of each one of us.
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We live in such a crazy world, don't we? And we just need that renewing this morning.
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Let's pray for that, OK? Holy Father, just thank you so much that we can be here together.
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Father, we are here in Jesus' name. And you said, where two or three are gathered together in my name, that you are right in the midst of us.
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And we just want to praise you and honor you this morning. We want to thank you for your great faithfulness, for your amazing love, for your amazing grace.
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Father, you know that many of us have had tough and challenging weeks. And Father, we get weary, and sometimes we just want to give up.
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And you know how desperately we need you this morning, Lord. And we just pray that you would meet with us in a special way, that you would, as we sing your praises,
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Father, that we would just come into your presence and just experience the joy of who you are,
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Father. And as your word is shared today, that it would just impact our hearts. And I pray that each of us would walk out of this building this morning,
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Father, wanting to know you in deeper ways, wanting to seek you more, Father, that we would be filled with more hope, with more peace,
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Father, that you would just increase our faith through your word and through our time together.
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And Lord, thank you for your family. What a blessing to have all these brothers and sisters who love one another.
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Father, that we can support each other and just know that we're not in this alone, and especially that you promised to always be with us.
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So we love you. We praise you. And we look expectantly to you this morning, Father, to do something special in each of our hearts.
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In Jesus' name, amen. When I first got asked to share the word this morning, it was because Pastor Don is at the men's retreat, and I wasn't going to go.
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And I thought, OK, first thing came to my mind is lots of women will be here, and lots of men will be gone.
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And I thought, wow, what a great opportunity to do a message like how to live with a difficult man, how not to let your husband drive you crazy, something to that effect.
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And then I thought, you know, I better not get in trouble. All the guys will be mad at me.
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But women, I'm just going to break it down this way. You all live with difficult men, because we are far from perfect and we are a work in progress.
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And so my message for that sermon is just be patient with us and pray, pray, pray.
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We need your prayer so much to be good men. So actually,
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I am going to teach on something that is near and dear to my heart. It has transformed my life.
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It has transformed the way I pray. And I entitle it the prayer that covers all.
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And so, but before I dive into the scripture, I just want to share with you kind of what my prayer journey has been for me growing up.
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I mean, think back into your childhood. Can you remember your first prayers?
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Can you remember when you tried saying a prayer for the first time? Or what was your prayer life like as a child?
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Or maybe you never prayed. Although, you know, I find that all kids, and I work with hundreds of teenagers from the roughest, toughest homes you could imagine, and all of those kids had prayed at one time or another.
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Well, for me in elementary school, you know, my parents were kind of the type of parents who basically would let their children decide what they were going to believe.
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They didn't teach anything as far as God or the Bible in the home, things like that. But I went to Chime Street Elementary in Ashtamo.
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And before it was in fourth grade that it became a Kalamazoo public school.
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But through kindergarten through third grade, it wasn't a Kalamazoo public school. And we actually would pray before we would eat lunch.
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We'd get our little lunch boxes out, you know, and we'd be sitting at our desks. And the teacher,
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I mean, we all knew this prayer by heart. God is good. God is great. Let us thank him for our food.
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Amen. And that was my prayer life in elementary school. You know, I thought that's good. You know, thank
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God. I believe there was a God. It made sense to me that, you know, all of this didn't just, you know, somehow happen, but you know, a freak explosion or something that there actually was a creator.
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I believe that. So that was kind of my prayer life. Yeah, that's good. Okay, thank you God for this food. And in fourth grade, we became part of Kalamazoo public schools.
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And I remember our teacher trying to explain that and saying we can no longer pray out loud over our lunches.
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And I thought, that's crazy. That is really weird. Even though, you know, prayer didn't have a great meaning to me, but she said, well, just bow our heads and pray silently.
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You pray the prayer, you know the prayer. And so we did. Now, when I moved into middle school, my prayer life changed because I went to what they used to call
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South Junior High. Now it's Maple Street Magnet. And this was a time when there was some really crazy stuff going on in our nation.
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Martin Luther King had just been assassinated. And our school was a violent, dangerous place.
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And we had riots on a regular basis. And it got so bad that they actually shut down the school year for three weeks and let things settle down.
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So my prayer life changed in junior high school. Here was my prayer life in junior high school. I'd be sitting on the bus.
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My stomach would be in knots. And I just pray, dear God, please protect me today. Dear God, please protect me today.
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Because I saw a lot of violence and I saw a lot of kids getting hurt. So that was my prayer life in junior high.
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Just God protect me. In high school, things got really crazy for me. You know, so many temptations out there for our young people.
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And Kalamazoo Central was full of drugs in the 70s. It's still a huge problem.
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And I got sucked into that. And my life became kind of a nightmare. And my prayer life became,
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God, keep me out of trouble. God, don't let them find out what I did. God, I hope that phone call isn't somebody telling my dad what
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I did. I mean, I was praying to stay out of trouble and to get out of trouble.
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And I also was praying for protection because when you go into that lifestyle, it takes you into a crazy circle of life where all kinds of bad things happen.
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The problem was is I didn't have a relationship with God. I believe there was a
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God, but I didn't have a personal, I didn't even know you could have a personal relationship. Until at the age of 20,
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I saw him transform one of my best friends from a drug addict, alcoholic, self -centered, out of control 20 -year -old into a brand new man.
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And it was a miracle. It was miraculous. It was, you can only look at what happened in his life and just, you know, you just, there was no explanation except for God is real.
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God loves John Mateer and God transformed his life. It was so obvious.
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And he began to share the truth of Jesus with me and what Jesus had done at the cross so that I could be forgiven, so that I could have a relationship.
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He began to share the love of God with me. And I saw it in his life and I saw the transformation and I saw the peace and I saw the craziness end.
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And I am like, wow, God is powerful. And God gave me a brain to be able to understand that if he could do that for my friend
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John, he could do it for me. I remember 1978, I lived in this little cement black house that was converted from a garage to a house.
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And I remember it was a rainy April night, 1978. And I got down on my knees and I cried out to God and I asked him to save me.
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I asked him to come into my life and forgive my sins and to set me free.
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And that is what he did. And he began to teach me that he was my heavenly father.
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And he began to teach me his love. And he began to teach me that it's all about a personal relationship.
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He taught me that his word is a treasure of wisdom and a fountain of life. And I began to grow and get discipled.
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And he called me into full -time ministry at Youth for Christ in 1986. I'm just celebrating my 25 years of ministry.
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And I learned that prayer is my lifeline, that prayer is the very breath of my soul, that if I am not praying,
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I am not breathing spiritually. And so I knew how important prayer was. I jumped right into this battle for kids' lives, troubled kids' lives.
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And it was so overwhelming to become part of their lives and to hear the abuse and the terrible stories of what they had been through and to see them just desperate and hopeless at the ages of 13, 15.
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And it was such a burden on me. And I knew that prayer was the key to having peace, the prayer to have that burden lifted off of me.
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And so I started buying books on prayer. And so I went through my library and I'm just gonna show you some of them, okay?
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And it seemed like every time I'd really get the spirit courage, I'd go out and buy another book on prayer, okay? So, you know, the prayer of J -Paz, okay?
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Everything starts from prayer. Mother Teresa, all right? The Power of Prayer, Spurgeon on Prayer, Too Busy Not to Pray, Prayer of the
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Grand Adventure, A Life of Prayer, The Kneeling Christian. And I'm reading all these books, praying the names of God.
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Prayer of Power, The Prayer Ministry of the Church, Jesus, the Man of Prayer, Thy Will Be Done. Okay, here we go.
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The Weapon of Prayer, The Power from on High, A Treasury of Prayer, Let Us Pray, Praying the Names of Jesus, Prevailing Prayer, Experiencing God Through Prayer, A Life of Prayer, hmm, seemed like I already had one called that.
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Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, The Transforming Power of Prayer. Whoa, this pyramid is growing, okay?
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Wow, you read all those books on prayers. 40 Days to a Closer Walk with God, Answered Prayer. Prayer, prayer,
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The Life of Prayer, Essentials on Prayer, how high can I get it? Okay, Power of Prayer, The Secret of Intercession, Prevailing Prayer, some of these sound like the same titles, don't they?
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A Power Through Prayer, Praying that Receives Answers. Okay, well, I've got, it keeps getting higher and higher, okay, and I'm not gonna stack them all up, but you're getting the idea how important I realized prayer was early on in my ministry.
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You know, one thing that really triggered that for me, I'm gonna leave that up there just for a minute, was that the first year of my ministry,
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I got invited to be the speaker at Daily Vacation Bible School, and they wanted me to share a prayer request with the kids each morning, you know, as part of my presentation to the kids.
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And so I started asking these kids every morning to pray for some aspect of my ministry. And I was having them pray for kids by name in the juvenile home and at the
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Ark and having them pray for our Bible studies and chapel services. And at the end of the week, it was
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Friday, it was the last day of Daily Vacation Bible School, I thought back on my week, and I said, wow,
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Lord, this has been the most incredible week of ministry thus far.
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And I could just see all these answers to prayer. These little kids were praying. Now, you know,
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I'm not the smartest guy, but I'm not dumb either. I'm like, there's a correlation here, okay?
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The power of a little child's prayer. And so I realized prayer is powerful.
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And just, I've seen so many answers through the years. And I've learned that the more specifically
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I pray, the more specifically I see God work. Okay, but all of these books, all of this, these ideas, many of the ideas of man.
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And then I discovered this, what's on this one sheet. And this transformed my prayer life.
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More than all these books that would probably stack up too. About here, and this is a small library on prayer.
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I mean, there are so many books on prayer. This prayer right here has transformed my prayer life.
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It has helped me to pray more effectively than anything I've read in all of those books.
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And here's what it says. In this manner, therefore, pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
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Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
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Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.
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We call it the Lord's Prayer. I call it the prayer that covers all.
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Because there are seven prayer requests in this prayer. And all seven of these prayer requests cover everything that's necessary for our life and for our walk with God.
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And I wanna do just a brief introduction of this prayer. And my hope is that as I get asked to speak again, that each time
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I speak, I'm going to try to teach on a different aspect of this prayer. And go through the seven prayer requests.
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But I wanna give you a brief introduction and then I actually want to pray for a kid in the juvenile home this morning who's really struggling.
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And I'm gonna show you how I use this prayer in my own personal prayer life. I wrote down, this prayer is the prayer that covers all.
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All that concerns our relationship with God and his with us. It covers all our personal needs and needs of those who we are praying for.
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It brings the beauty of God into our lives and the kingdom of God into our world. It connects us to the will of God and supplies our needs.
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It brings forgiveness and healing. This prayer also brings deliverance from evil and protection.
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This truly is the prayer that covers all. Jesus, the master builder, okay, gave us the blueprint.
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Now, I bet you, how many of you can say that prayer by heart? Probably the King James Version. Our father, which art in heaven?
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Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom. Right, how many of you could say that, okay?
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And Jesus is so wise because he made it so simple to remember. But if it's only a prayer that we quote and not learn how to use, then we're missing the intention for which he gave it to us.
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This prayer is to be a blueprint that is to help us cover all the important areas of prayer.
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Now, in the Bible, seven is the number of perfection. And there are seven prayer requests in this prayer.
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The first one, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come to, thy will be done, number three.
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Give us this day our daily bread, number four. Forgive us our debts, our trespasses, number five.
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Lead us not into temptation, number six. Deliver us from evil, number seven.
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Seven prayer requests that are powerful, okay? So, just in a brief snapshot,
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I'm gonna just kinda share what each of those requests mean. Hallowed be thy name.
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Now, hallowed, that's kinda weird, right, okay? Reminds me of a little old kid. You know, his mom took him to church every week,
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Sunday school, you know, so she would always, like a good mom, you know, at dinner, you know. Johnny, what did you learn in Sunday school today?
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And this week, he was excited. He's like, oh, mom, I learned God's name. She's like, really, you learned
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God's name? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, tell me, what's God's name? She's like, he's like,
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Harold. And the mom's like, what? God's name is not
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Harold. Yes, it is. The teacher said his name is Harold. And she's like, I'm sure, I know your teacher. She would not say that God's name is
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Harold. Yes, she did, mom. She said, our father who art in heaven, Harold be thy name.
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No, hallowed, what does that name mean? What does that mean? Okay, hallowed means to regard as holy, okay?
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It means to set apart as holy. If someone came in here and showed some
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X -rated films on these screens, we would feel like this place has been desecrated. Because this is our church, right?
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We see it as a holy place, even though we know it's just a building. But it's special to us, okay?
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And so we would not do certain things in here that maybe we would do somewhere else, because we regard it as holy.
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I know in the juvenile home, if a kid throws the Bible on the ground, all the other kids are like, ooh, you're going to hell, you know?
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I mean, they're like, ooh! And they'll be like, Bible Bill, isn't that right? He's going to hell because he tore up the
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Bible or he threw it. I'm like, well, no, that's not what gets you to hell, okay? But they see the book as holy and sacred, and you don't just throw it on the ground, okay?
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You don't tear it up. You don't take a page and turn it into a rolling paper, which
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I've seen done before. But you regard it as holy. And so when we say, hallowed be your name, we're saying,
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Father, reveal your beauty and glory. Be holy in my life.
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Help me to realize your holiness. And it's really a prayer that God would be honored.
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In fact, the living Bible says, may your name be honored. It's as we learn his name, it's as we learn who he is, that we begin to understand the beauty and the glory of God.
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And so I pray, Father, show me your beauty. Show me your glory. That's how
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I pray that prayer. Father, may I be devoted to your honor. May you be sacred in my heart.
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May I honor you as the holy one today. Your kingdom come, okay?
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When a kingdom comes into a country and takes it over, it changes everything. And when
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I say, your kingdom come, I'm saying, I'm recognizing, Lord, you are king of kings and Lord of lords.
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And I want you to reign in me and reign over me. I want you to be my king.
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I love what Romans said, that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but it's righteousness and peace and joy in the
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Holy Spirit. Because when the kingdom comes in, it changes everything. And so when
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I pray, your kingdom come, I'm actually praying, Father, come in and change this situation.
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Come in and change this person. Tear down the strongholds in their life that are keeping them from believing in you.
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Father, tear down the lies that are keeping them from believing in you. Your kingdom come into their lives,
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Father. Bring them into your kingdom forever. Your will be done, request number three.
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It says in Romans 12, that God's will is good, pleasing, and perfect.
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Now that sounds pretty good. Good, pleasing, and perfect. So many people think of the will of God as restraining, boring, and hard.
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Am I right? Okay. No, God says, my will is good, pleasing, and perfect.
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And so I pray that. I say, Father, help me to see your will as good, pleasing, and perfect. Father, help me to treasure your word or whoever
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I'm praying for. Father, help me to know your will. Says in Philippians, it's
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God who works in his children to will and to do of their good pleasure. So I pray, Father, work in, and I'll name the person, their heart so that they will want to do your will.
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Work in me to will and to do of your good pleasure. Give us this day our daily bread.
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Number four, bread represents sustenance. Bread just was a generic word that meant food and what
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I need for life. And Jesus invites us to bring our needs to him.
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And I have learned to do this, whether it's finances, whether it's tires on a car, whether it's when our washing machine broke down and we couldn't afford a new one,
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I asked God for one. And a week later, someone called and asked if I needed one. I mean, I could tell you story after story like that where I prayed about specific needs and saw
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God meet those specific needs. And one young man I was working with, he had received
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Christ in the juvenile home, got out. We studied Philippians 4 .19 and it says, "'My God shall supply all your needs "'according to his riches in glory.'"
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And I said, Jonathan, that means if you need something, tell God about it. I said, do you have any needs?
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He's like, hmm, I don't know. I'm like, does your family have any needs? He said, yeah, actually we need a refrigerator.
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His dad had died, his brother had died in a car wreck. His mom had mental problems, they were poor.
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They lived in this dingy little rental house and the refrigerator broke. They couldn't keep their food cold.
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I said, we're gonna pray for a refrigerator. And he looked at me like I was crazy. You pray for a refrigerator?
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So at the end of our Bible study, we prayed that God would give his family, his mom and him, a refrigerator.
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Well, the next week I went to his school campus. It used to be called Vine Alternative School.
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Every Tuesday I'd go have lunch with the kids and I saw Jonathan and I said, how was your weekend?
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He's like, oh, it was good. And he's like, guess what?
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I'm like, what? He goes, somebody gave us a refrigerator. I'm like, they did?
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He's like, yeah. I said, that is awesome. And I'm like, do you remember what we prayed on Friday?
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And he's like, hmm? I said, do you remember what we prayed for on Friday?
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And he's just like, we prayed for a refrigerator. Somebody they knew had moved into a house that had a refrigerator and they had a refrigerator from their old apartment and came over and said, do you guys need a refrigerator?
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You could say that's coincidence. I've seen way too many coincidences. So as I pray, give us this daily, our daily bread,
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I think about the needs of that person or the needs of my family and I pray for specific needs. I pray about health.
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I have, since I've started praying for my wife's health every day, it's miraculous because you used to get really bad coughs and colds really easy.
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And I mean, how has that been in the last couple of years? It's just been miraculous because I pray specifically about her health every day.
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I pray, Father, help her to be healthy in spirit, healthy in soul and healthy in body.
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And then I pray, you know, other things with that. I will always say, Father, help her to grow in your grace, grow in your love and grow in the knowledge of who you are.
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And then according to what's going on in the person's life that week or the needs I know, then
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I'll pray about specific needs. Give us this day, our daily bread.
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Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. This is where I pray for forgiveness.
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And I actually pray for forgiveness over those who I'm praying for. And that might sound really weird, you know?
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But I know, I remember Job when his kids were partying and then he would be worried about them.
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It's in Job chapter one. He would, after they had had their parties, he would go out and offer a sacrifice in case his children had sinned.
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And I thought, why would God put that in his word if that's not some kind of an example? And so I actually pray for a person, maybe they're not even in the place in their life where they're actually even seeking
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God's forgiveness. But I'll just pray, Father, help them to know the meaning of the cross.
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Help them to know what you did for their forgiveness. Help them to understand that they need your forgiveness.
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And I just pray, God, may your mercy and grace be upon us. You know, Father, shine your light and drive away the darkness so that we'll see reality and that we'll live lives of repentance.
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And then I pray, Father, help us to desire holiness, righteousness, and truth.
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So I'm not just praying for forgiveness, but I'm praying that God will do something in place of my sin, that he'll usher in that which is good and even change my desires and the desires of the person
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I'm praying for. Lead us not into temptation, number six. This is where I say,
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Lord, I know you're the good shepherd. Please lead us as your sheep. Please keep, and I'll name the person, keep them,
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Father, from temptation. Keep them from the enemy's traps. Keep them from the enemy's poison. Father, protect us.
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Keep us from temptation. And then the last one is the prayer of protection. And I pray all seven of these requests over my three daughters, my two son -in -laws, my two grandsons, my son,
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Josiah, and then I move out beyond that to my brothers and sisters and their children.
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And I do a lot of praying in the car. I found, for me, that's a great place to pray.
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You know, I just shut the radio off and I talk to God. The last one, deliver us from evil.
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This is where I pray against the work of the enemy. And our prayers, if you think about it, our prayers really are so defensive.
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And I mean, we're just, we're praying for protection. We need to do that.
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But we also need to take offense against the enemy, okay? The Bible is very clear.
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We have an enemy who's like a roaring lion. He wants to devour us and our loved ones. And so I pray, first of all, for God's protection.
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And I put it this way. Father, protect Cheryl from the evil one.
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Protect her from demon spirits. And protect her from evil people. Every day, those three over all my family.
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Protect them from the evil one. Protect them from evil spirits. Protect them from evil people.
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And then it says in Romans 15 that God is going to crush
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Satan under our feet. That's what it says. And so I pray against the work of the enemy.
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I say, Father, crush the enemy's plans, works, and attacks against.
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And then I name that person. And so I believe that anybody that wants to live their life for God, or anybody that's taking steps toward God, the enemy wants to oppose that and stop that because he knows that's how our world is gonna be transformed.
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And he does not want that. And so I pray against the work of the enemy. I pray against strongholds that I can see in a person's life that God would cast them down and destroy them.
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So, wow, it's almost time for communion. Like that, I just, that was the overview, so. I wanna just bring out this first,
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I wanna talk just briefly here for the next couple minutes. And so let's all look at this prayer.
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So grab your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, we would love for you to have one, and you can actually take a
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Bible in a seat in front of you and keep it as your own if you want it, if you need one. We'd love to see you do that.
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So we're gonna go to Matthew chapter six, and we're just gonna look up a few scriptures here in the next few minutes.
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Now, this prayer came about because the disciples had saw
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Jesus do awesome things through prayer. They had seen him often go somewhere quiet for prayer.
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And they knew there was a correlation between his time alone with the Father and his power.
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And so in Luke chapter one, they said, the Lord teach us to pray. And that is a great prayer to ask
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God. Now, we're on page 691 in the paperback Bible.
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And look at how Jesus said prayer should begin. He said these words, our
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Father in heaven. This is where true prayer begins.
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In a child -parent relationship. My prayer life came alive when
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I actually came into a relationship with God and became God's son, when
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I became God's child. Now, when Jesus said this, it was revolutionary.
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In fact, at one point, they wanted to stone Jesus because he had called
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God his father. And they considered that blasphemy. In fact, in the
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Old Testament, you don't find any single person addressing God as father.
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It's just not there. He is called in Psalms, the father of the fatherless. And he's called the father of Israel, the nation.
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But no believer dared to call God father. They considered that blasphemy. How dare you imply that you could have that kind of an intimate relationship with God.
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So we hear this and we're like, oh, that's cool. But when they heard it, they were like, what? I can call
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God father? And Jesus says, say our father in heaven.
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This was, wow, this was amazing when Jesus introduced us because they didn't address
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God in that way. In fact, they didn't even wanna say the name of God. And that's why we're not even sure how to pronounce the
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Old Testament name of God, which best we figure it's like Yahweh. And it kinda has been transliterated into Jehovah.
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But the Jews wouldn't even say that name. They would replace the word Adonai, which means
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Lord, instead of saying the name of God. And here's Jesus saying, call him father.
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Jesus was ushering in a relationship with the most high God that people of his day didn't think possible.
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Through his work at the cross, he would open wide the way to the holy of holies. Okay, Ark of the
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Covenant. Anybody, Indiana Jones, Ark of the Covenant, seen that movie? Okay, all right.
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They didn't really find the Ark, okay. But it represented the throne of God. And in the temple, it was behind a very thick veil.
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And the high priest was only allowed to go in once a year. And that was to bring in the blood of a sacrifice to make atonement for the nation of Israel.
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And the penalty was death if anybody went in there besides the high priest on the day of atonement.
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And it says that when Jesus was crucified and he shouted the words, it is finished, the veil in the temple was torn wide open.
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And there was the Ark of the Covenant in view of everyone. It says in Hebrews that Jesus has opened up a new and living way through his blood to the father and that we can come boldly to the throne of grace because of what
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Jesus did. And so we can come into this personal relationship with God.
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I love to tell, we had kids last Thursday night in our juvenile home chapel service who responded to the gospel.
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We gave an invitation. If you want Jesus in your life, raise your hand. We'll come and pray with you.
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And our team went down to the kids and about six hands went up. And we prayed with those young people to invite the father into their lives.
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And I love to tell them, you know what? Your father in heaven is king of kings.
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And if he's king of kings and you're his son, what does that make you? A prince?
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Yeah. All right. You're God's daughter. What does that make you? A princess?
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That's right. You're royalty. No greater privilege than being a child of the king, a child of God.
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Okay. Now for many, this word father is negative, especially the kids
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I work with because many of them have been abandoned by their father. They have been abused by their father.
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And so when I say father, they just like shut down. Okay. So I have to teach them who this father is.
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Okay. And I'll show you the scripture that I always use to help clarify this in a kid's life.
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All right. So we're going to go to Matthew. If you look at Matthew chapter five.
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So we're in Matthew. We're going to go to verse 48. Matthew chapter five, verse 48.
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Now Jesus is kind of setting a standard for us. He's setting it high. We tend to set the standard a little low, you know.
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I'm not as bad as that guy. I don't kill anybody. You know, I'm not dealing dope. I'm, you know, I don't rob banks.
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So I'm okay. And Jesus is like, no, they're not the standard. God is a standard. Okay. And so he's going to say something that the people are like, what, how could
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I ever be that way? Okay. Verse 48. You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.
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Now understand he's setting a standard. He's saying other human beings are not the standard by which you model your life.
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Saying model your life after the father. Ephesians five, one. Be imitators therefore of God as dear children.
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Now God knows we can't be perfect. He knows that. It's so clear in his word. Okay. But he's just saying that's the standard.
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But in this verse, what is God called? Okay. And what's the
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P word? Okay. It comes right out and says, your heavenly father is perfect.
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Okay. Now think about that. What would the perfect parent be? How would the perfect parent love their kids?
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Well, we don't know. I mean, none of us are perfect, are we? I mean, okay. But if you could imagine the most loving dad, the most loving father, okay.
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The most loving parent, okay. That that parent would be understanding. That parent would be loyal.
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That parent would be there for their child in a heartbeat. That parent would want to spend time with their child.
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That parent would be tender. That parent would be tender toward their child. That parent would speak into their child's life.
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That parent would provide every need of that child, right? The perfect. So now think of God as your perfect heavenly father.
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He's not cruel. He's not the great policeman in the sky waiting to beat us down when we mess up.
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He is so forgiving. He is so kind. He is so gracious. Okay.
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So I want you to do a little multiplication here. This is a little creative imagination.
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If you were to multiply and say, this is how many times God is a better parent than I could ever be, what would the number be?
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Would it be like, oh, a billion times? He's a billion times better dad than I could ever be, okay.
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Well, I want to show you God's multiplication, okay. So let's go to Isaiah in the
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Old Testament. Isaiah 55. I'll give you a page number when
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I find it if you're looking for it. Go to around page 500 and 522, 522.
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Here's God's multiplication. Verse eight, actually it starts on page 521.
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He just got done saying in verse seven, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
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Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon.
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So even right there is a description of the father. Then he says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declare the
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Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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That's God's multiplication. He says, as high as the heavens are, okay, think of the heavens.
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They go out their ways, don't they? We don't even know how far they go out.
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Billions and billions of light years. So to infinity and beyond, you know.
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I mean, that's how much better of a father. You know what, I know how much I love my kids and I will always love them no matter what.
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Decisions they make, what they do. I won't always be pleased with them, maybe, okay?
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But I will always love them and I'd do anything for them and they know that and I'm just a sinful man. And I think of our heavenly father and his love.
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How much greater is his love for us than we could ever love our kids as high as the heavens are above the earth.
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Man, you gotta get a glimpse of the father. It's art class and the kids are all, you know, they're doing their paintings and stuff.
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And the teacher's like, just, you know, paint whatever you want. It's, you know, fifth grade art. And, you know, little
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Susie, man, she's working so hard at her artwork and the teacher comes up and, wow, that's interesting,
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Susie, what is it? And she's like, well, I'm painting
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God. I'm painting a picture of God. And she's like, wow, that's interesting. She's like, nobody knows what
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God looks like. Susie looked at her in the eyes and she said, when I'm done, they will. I mean, how do we get a clear picture of God in this word?
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This is the revelation of God, okay? Now, nature reveals
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God. Isn't nature beautiful? Because God is beautiful.
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But this book reveals God in ways that nature can't. When I read the word, one of the primary things
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I look for is, what does this teach me about the Father? What does this teach me about my
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God, my Lord, my Savior? And I look for his names and I look for the titles of who he is and all these beautiful names,
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Good Shepherd, Fountain of Living Waters, Alpha and Omega, The Almighty.
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I mean, and I see the beauty of God. And glory of God. I'm gonna wrap this up.
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I had some characteristics that I wanted to look over with you and share with you about who
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God is. It says in 1 John 3, 1, that he has lavished his love upon us.
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In Matthew 7, 7 through 11, Jesus said, which one of you parents of a son asked for a piece of bread, will you give him a stone?
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Or if he asked for a fish, would you give him a poisonous snake? If he asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion?
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And the answer was, of course not. And Jesus said, hey, even though you dads are messed up or your parents are, you're sinful, you're not perfect, if they ask for those things, you'll give them to them, right?
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Then he said, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask?
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That's what he said. How much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts?
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In James 1, 5, he's described as a generous father who doesn't turn away from his children.
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It says also in James, that every good gift is from above. Now I wanna close with this.
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Jesus called God, in Mark 14, 36, he said,
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Abba, Father, all things are possible for you, Abba.
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Now, this word is an Aramaic word, and it is what a little child would call his dad, daddy.
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And it says in Romans 8, 15, that as children of God, we can call him
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Abba. Now, calling God daddy is pretty weird, okay?
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Try it, it's just like, it doesn't quite feel right, okay? But I think that he used the
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Aramaic word Abba for a reason, okay? And I love to call my
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Father in heaven, Abba. And it's just become natural to me. I'll just say, Abba, help me,
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Abba, I'm struggling. I'll say, Abba, Father, I'll put the two together, okay?
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Father is pater, in the Greek. And it means father, that's what it means, which is also an intimate form.
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There's this dad, and he had a very close relationship with his little girl. And he just so looked forward to coming home every night, and that little girl would run to the door, and daddy, daddy, and jump in his arms, and they'd wrestle, and they'd go out in the yard and kick the soccer ball around.
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And all of a sudden, he realized something had changed in his little girl. He'd come home and be like, you know, where's
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Sarah? She's in her bedroom working on homework. And she'd come out later and say, oh, daddy, hi.
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And then he'd be like, you wanna go out and kick the soccer ball around? Ah, no, no, dad, I got something
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I gotta do. And she'd go back into her room. And this went on for weeks. And the father's heart is like breaking because he wants to spend time with his precious child.
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And she's just like wanting to be in her room all the time. And he misses the time with her, and the laughter, and the talks, and kicking the soccer ball around.
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And well, all of a sudden, Christmas morning, and they're opening up their presents.
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And little Sarah, she's like, let me get daddy's present from me. She goes under the tree, and she pulls out this present.
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And she's like, here, daddy, this is for you. And he opens up the present, and there is a knitted scarf that she made.
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She's like, daddy, I made it. And all of a sudden, it occurred to the father why she wasn't spending time with him.
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Because she was off making this thing for her father. And he said, oh, honey,
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I love the scarf. And he gave her a big hug, and he said, but honey, all
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I really want is you. I've missed you so much while you were making this scarf.
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I thought something was wrong. We get so busy in our life, in our day -to -day business, even in serving
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God, and we forget that the father is there longing to spend time with us, longing to speak words of comfort into our life, longing to show us his beauty and glory.
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And we have to break away from our busy world and spend time alone with the father.
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Matthew 6, 6, Jesus said this. He said, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in that secret place.
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And your father who is there with you in secret will reward you openly. Matthew 6, 6, check that out today.
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He says, come and spend time with me, and I'll reveal myself to you, and you will be blessed.
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You will be rewarded. Amen. So with that, I'm gonna kind of transition here.
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I do wanna say a prayer, but I'm not gonna show you how I pray this prayer, because to pray through it takes more time than we have.
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So let me close in prayer, and Dave is gonna come up and do some music for us, and we're gonna move into our communion time.
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If you wanna learn more about the Lord's Prayer, a book, one of the best books that I've read on the
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Lord's Prayer is called The Lord's Prayer, and it's by R .T. Kendall. You can look it up online,
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Amazon, whatever. It's put out by Chosen Books, which is a division of Baker Books.
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So excellent book on the Lord's Prayer if you wanna learn more about that. But let's pray.
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Father, just thank you, thank you that we can call you our Abba, our
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Father in Heaven, and you love us more than we could ever love our children, more than we could ever love our spouse, more than we could ever love a friend,
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Father. As high as the heavens are above the earth, Father, so is your love above our love.
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And I just pray that we could get a deeper understanding of who you are and what it means to be able to call you
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Father. And just thank you that you promised, you said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
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And that you are the best Father of all. And so may we bring our burdens to you today.
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May we seek out that quiet place to meet with you, because I know,
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Father, you would rather have us than all of our works of service or all that's going on in our lives,
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Father. The most important, the deepest need in our lives is just to spend quiet time with you, letting you speak to us through your word.
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And may that increase, Father. Just thank you that you are the best Father, that you love us, that you have ushered in this relationship through the cross, that we have complete forgiveness, and that we can be your sons and daughters.
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If there's anyone here this morning, Father, and they're sensing that they don't have that personal relationship,
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I pray that even today, they would open their heart and just say, God, come into my life and forgive my sins.
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I want to be your child. I want to know you as Father. Lord, you know if there's anyone saying yes to that.
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And I just pray that today would be the beginning of a brand new relationship with you.
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And just thank you for your love. Thank you for the cross. Thank you that we can partake now of this communion and what it means, in Jesus' name, amen.
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I just want to read a scripture, and then we'll go into our communion time.
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If you're a guest, today we do communion every Sunday, a little different than a lot of churches.
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This is for the family of God, for those who have experienced that forgiveness through Jesus' blood at the cross, and understand the meaning of it.
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There's no, of course, no obligation for you to partake. That's between you and God.
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Let me just read a scripture as far as the meaning of communion. And this is from,
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I like to actually, I open my Bible right during communion every week, and I read this for myself. It's in 1
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Corinthians 11, 23, and this is what Jesus did for us. It says, for I received from the
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Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
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Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And so this is like a memorial service to think about what
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Jesus did for us at the cross, that there's complete forgiveness through his shed blood.
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So as Dave plays, just let the music minister to your heart. You don't need to sing along, you can if you want.
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And as you're led, we have a communion station there, and here you can take and drink the cup right there.
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I like to actually take it to my seat with me, and if you've never tried that, maybe that's something new you might try.
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For me, I can then come back and I can think on it just a little bit more before I partake. I really enjoy that,
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I've tried it both ways. So just a thought there. So Dave, would you pray for us as we go into communion and then pray for us also?
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Thank you. God, thank you for this message, and I pray that you would open our hearts here for communion time, as we remember.
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And we pause to say thank you for what you did on the cross.
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We thank you for your son, and we thank you for coming down as a man and paying the penalty for us.
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And as Bill said, we're princes and princesses, sons and daughters of the king.
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Not only did you pay an unpayable debt for us, or a debt that we couldn't pay you on top of that gave us so much.
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We remember that today, help us not to forget it and help us to live that way. In Jesus' name, amen.