Beyond The Basics 7: Prayer (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Our Father, we're thankful to be here this morning. We're thankful to have your

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Word. We're thankful to have a place to be. We're thankful to have the various homes that we came from.

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We're delighted to have a day of warm weather, a respite from winter, as it were.

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Lord, would you bless our time as we look to your Word to see what you have told us about prayer.

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Would you invigorate our thinking about prayer, our prayer lives. Father, would you make us those who are dependent upon you in everything, not just in the things that we think we ought to be dependent upon you.

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Lord, again, we ask for your favor in this time. In Christ's name, Amen. Well, the last time we met, we began talking about prayer.

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Specifically, we had some direction from Scripture on how to pray. We talked about praying to your

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Father. We talked about praying fervently. We talked about praying individually. We talked about praying corporately.

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One of the reasons why we pray when we gather together. We talked about praying without respect to your feelings, because it is a command.

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We talked about praying sincerely. Praying in Jesus' name. Praying according to God's will.

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And even, to put a sub -point on that, being conformable to the will of God, making our will

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His will. This morning, we're going to begin talking about praying with thanksgiving.

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I don't want to make any generalizations. That would be a generalization.

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I don't want to make too many generalizations about prayer, but I suspect if we were to look over a typical prayer list, it would be what?

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What do people typically pray for? Needs. I mean, it's almost as if, if our prayer life, if we could just kind of characterize it as, you know, put it in the animal kingdom or something like that, we would be like the little baby birds in the nest, chirping and, you know, asking for food.

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That's all we do. You know, I pray for, I remember, I'll never forget one guy saying that our prayers tend to be more about Uncle Bobo's toe than they do about much of anything else.

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And it's true. You know, prayer list, I pray for so -and -so who has a cold, so -and -so who has this, so -and -so who has that, you know, my gout is acting up, this, that,

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I mean, those are all real needs. And we ought to bring those before the Father. That is absolutely correct.

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But how many of our prayers contain thanksgiving? How often do we think to thank

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God for all that He's done for us? Let's look at Philippians 4, verses 4 to 7. I mean, true or false, not just our lives, or true or false,

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I'll just answer my own question. Our lives ought to be marked with thankfulness, not just our prayers, but our prayers as well.

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Who has Philippians 4, verses 4 to 7? Bruce. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that our thankfulness, what we express, reveals what's going on inside of us.

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If we are a thankful people, we are mindful of what we're thankful for, and so we have an inward joy and peace, as I say there in verse 27.

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Going on, this is what Kistemacher had to say. A Christian should cultivate an outgoing personality.

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The secret of his happiness is not confined within the walls of his own meditation and reflection.

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I'm just going to stop there for a second and think about that. What does that sound like to you? The secret of his happiness, talking about a

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Christian, is not confined within the walls of his own meditation and reflection. A monk, right?

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Um, you know, I'm not going to tell anybody I'm happy, I'm just going to have my own stoic little reality of happiness.

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And he says, that's not how a Christian should be. He cannot, going on, he cannot be truly happy without striving to be a blessing to others.

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Hence Paul continues, let your big heartedness be known to everybody.

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For big heartedness, one may substitute any of the following words.

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Listen. Forbearance, yieldedness, geniality, kindliness, gentleness, sweet reasonableness, considerateness, charitableness, mildness, magnanimity, and generosity.

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And that word is the one, let me see if I can find it here.

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Oh, let your gentle spirit, let your gentleness, or let your forbearance, your yieldedness, geniality, kindliness, gentleness, sweet reasonableness.

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In other words, this is how we ought to present ourselves to the world. We ought to come before them in this fashion.

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And that comes from a life that is thankful. It comes from a prayer life that is thankful.

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It comes from a prayer life that is rejoicing in what the Lord is doing. Point B, your inward joy and peace is the fruit of action.

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Again, Kistemacher, the cure for worry is not in action. If one wishes to plant a garden, build a house, make a sermon, or do anything else, he cannot attain his objective by prayer alone.

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Lord, help me as I build this house. Lord, help me as I plant my garden. Lord, help me as I do whatever, and then do nothing.

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He goes on, there must be careful planning. There must be reflection leading to action.

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Paul is not forgetting this. In fact, the reflection is stressed in verse 8, the action in verse 9.

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On the other hand, however, it is also true that reflection and action without prayer would be futile.

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In fact, so very important is prayer to the Christian that it is mentioned first of all in verse 6.

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Prayer is the key, planning is key, and that attitude of thankfulness is key.

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We want to pray publicly, joyfully, like the healed leper. What does that mean? Why would we want to, how do we publicly pray?

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Do we stand out there like the, what is he?

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Help me out in Luke 18 here, the Pharisee. Do we stand out there and say, you know,

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I'm thankful that I'm not like so and so. Does Bruce stand up and say, I'm thankful that I'm not like Steve.

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He might say that at home, but he shouldn't do it publicly. I love

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Bruce, and that's why I can do things like that. No, that's not the point. How do we publicly, what's one way that we publicly pray, even if we wouldn't think about it as prayer?

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Okay, that's good. We want the focus to be on Jesus Christ when we pray publicly. That's absolutely correct, and maybe

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I'm not being specific enough. Is there a sense in which we pray, even if you go to the bank, if you are in the store, if you go to the movies?

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Charlie. Okay, and so, and Pastor Dave, you had a comment?

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Okay, so that you have a constant communication going on with them, and it's displayed in our outward attitudes.

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Well, let me ask you this. Let's make it a little easier. You go into the bank.

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The bank teller says, what can I do for you today? How you respond says something about what you're thinking about.

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I'd like to make this deposit. Or you could say, well, what you could do is allow me to tell you the truth about Jesus Christ.

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Or what you could do, I mean, somebody says, you say, how are you today?

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How was your Christmas? And they go, how was yours? We have opportunities all the time, and so when we proclaim the goodness of the

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Lord, if we say, you know what? I'm so blessed, I can't hardly stand it. Is that a form of prayer?

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I think it is. It's an acknowledgment of what the Lord is doing. I'm proclaiming his goodness to others.

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Let's look at what the leper does. He was very pleased with what

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God did. Let's look at Luke 17. I think that's where it is. If not, then

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I've completely lost it. And you say, what else is new? I had this.

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I don't know what I did with it. That would be it.

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Okay, would you read that? Okay.

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So there we have ten lepers healed. Nine of them just say nothing, go away, but they're healed.

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The tenth falls down on his face. And listen what he does. He gives thanks to him.

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He gives thanks to him, glorifying God with a loud voice. Well, what is that? It is prayer.

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It is an expression of joy and thankfulness to God.

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It's probably an extreme example. But again, you know, if someone says to you, you know, how are you doing today?

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And you say, better than I deserve. Or you say, I am blessed beyond belief.

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Well then, what do people typically respond when you say something like that? Usually they'll say something like, well, that's nice to hear.

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Or, you know, what have you been putting in your coffee in the morning? Or something. They're going to say something to you.

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We have opportunities every single day to give glory to God in what we say and how we present ourselves to other people.

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Now, again, the leper is an extreme example because he's just been healed of a disease that kept him unclean, that kept him outside of acceptable society.

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But we have been spiritually healed of a disease that kept us from a right relationship with God himself.

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And so when we go out and we proclaim his excellencies, we are, in essence, praying publicly.

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We are extolling and exclaiming the goodness of God. We ought to be doing that.

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Now, Pastor Dave just mentioned having an attitude of prayer.

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And I would like to move on to point 10, abiding in prayer. John 15, 7.

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If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

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Whatever you wish. How's that possible? Does that name it and claim it?

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What does he mean? That's Jesus the Lord speaking. What does he mean when he says, ask anything you want?

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Bruce. Okay, and what does it mean to abide then?

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Okay, abiding, remaining, staying, focusing. And think about what he says here.

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He doesn't say, it's interesting often to look at what's not said. If you abide in, if you stay in, if you steep in, if you meditate in what you want, and what you want abides in you, ask whatever you wish.

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No. If you abide in me, if you abide in Christ, and the words of Christ abide in you, if you are steeped, if you are stewed, if you are marinated in the word of God, then whatever you ask,

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Christ will do. Why? Because your mind is so filled with the Bible that what you ask will be biblical.

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It will be right. It will be God -glorifying. Those are the right kind of prayers.

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That's the right attitude to have. That's the right approach to prayer. Let's talk about some hindrances to prayer.

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First of all, you can have wrong motivation. Wrong motivation. What's the wrong motivation to pray?

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Give me some. There must be more than one. To get what you want,

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I think, is excellent. Thank you. That's great. Anyone else?

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Vengeance. Lord, smite mine enemies, thus saith the Steve.

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What else? Gossip. Yeah, how do you do that? You sit around in a circle, and you all go, you know, you pray for something that nobody knows about.

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You confess someone else's sin for them. That's always helpful. Yeah, people do that, though.

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What else? What would be a wrong motivation to pray? Okay. To be seen, to be noticed, to be thought of, wow, that guy can really pray.

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What else? I haven't even thought about that.

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You know, the old rebuke in prayer. You know, that's good. Okay, good.

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Very good. To just, you know, okay, daily prayer. Done. Got that out of the way.

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I mean, that's no better than what? Going to church? Because it's Sunday, got to go to church. Got to throw something in the offering.

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Got to do this. Got to tell my wife I love her. I mean, what?

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We just kind of go through the motions. That's Christianity. Good. All very good.

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Let's look at James 4 .3. And who has that?

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Okay. With lusts or on your lusts or wrong motives, your pleasures. You know,

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MacArthur notes that really that's just asking for things just exactly like the world does. I just want to be satisfied.

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I just want to be happy. It's all about me. My prayer is for my benefits.

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I don't really care about the glory of God, and that is not how Christians ought to pray. Another hindrance to prayer.

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I mean, if you come to God and you just say, you know what? It really is all about me and what

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I want. You know, are your prayers going to be answered? Well, they may be, but not because of anything that you're praying.

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Secondly, ongoing sin. Ongoing sin. Why would ongoing sin hinder your prayer?

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I don't know. I mean, it's like, you know, we often use the model of, because it's biblical, of God as our father.

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Well, even in earthly situations, if you're in constant rebellion against your father and he knows it, you say, hey, dad, you know, for your kids, hey, dad, you know,

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I've been eyeballing this new $600 bicycle and I really think you should get it for me. Well, I don't know if you've noticed this,

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Stephen, but here's a list of things that you've done against me lately. And you go, yeah,

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I know, but I'd really like the bike. That doesn't work. It doesn't work, and yet somehow we think we can have a pattern of sin in our lives, go to our father and just say, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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I know, but you know, I really want the bike. That's not how it works.

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Yes, ma 'am. Yeah? Well, you have to ask for forgiveness and you have to ask for the strength of God to stop doing what you're doing.

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That's exactly right. All right. Let's look at Isaiah 59. Yes. And that's a good point,

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Michael. I think we forget, and it is good to feel the weight and the gravity of your sin.

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You know, I call those you are the man moments, you know, where the prophet, as it were, points at you and says, you know, you think that's bad.

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Well, you're right, and you're the one who did it. But we, again, we have to come back to the concept of God as father and know that if we are truly contrite and broken over what we've done, that we can come to him and we can expect, you know, a caning.

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No, we're going to get forgiveness. But it is not just, again, you know, the absolute wrong thing to do is just to do it, you know, like, well,

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I need to repent, so I'm going to go for the check mark. It has to be sincere.

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Let's look at Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2.

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Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save, nor is his ear so dull that it cannot hear.

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But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

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You've got a real problem if the Lord is not listening to your prayer. Sin is a dividing point between you and answered prayer.

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Thirdly, idolatry, which, you know, I guess is kind of a subset of ongoing sin, but it's so good I wanted to include it anyway.

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Let's look at Ezekiel 14, 3. I mean, what is idolatry?

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I mean, there are any number of definitions, but broadly speaking, idolatry is putting anything before God, worshiping another

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God. So, I mean, think of the whole concept. I'm going to put something else before God, and then

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I'm going to go and ask him to do something for me. Probably not.

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Ezekiel 14, 3, who has that? Fred. So what's

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God asking? Should I be consulted by them at all? Should I, you know, should I charge them a consulting fee?

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No. What's the concept? Should they be able to approach me?

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Should I listen to their prayers? And the clear implication is no.

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Stinginess. Do we think of that as a hindrance to prayer, to our prayer lives, to an answered prayer?

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Let's look at Luke 6, 38. Again, you know, you could argue, and I think it would be perfectly reasonable to argue that stinginess is a subset of idolatry.

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Why would I say that? Putting your money before God.

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Luke 6, 38. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour it into your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

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For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. What's he saying here?

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What's the Lord saying in terms of our giving, Michael? Okay. So we're going to, you know, the offering plate comes by, and we reach into our wallets, and, you know, well, here goes tomorrow's donut money into the offering plate, and we do that every week, and we feel pretty good at the end of the year.

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Fred gives us a receipt for our $40, you know, on our $200 ,000 of income, you know, and, well, it was sacrificial because I didn't have

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Dunkin' Donuts on Monday every week. You know, that was brutal. Stinginess.

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So we don't, you know, if every blessing, if every good thing is from our

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Father, in whom there is no variation of shadow, every good thing comes from God, and then

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He says, I love a joyful giver, and we say, well, you know what, here's my joyful giving, 75 cents a week.

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Stinginess. Can it hinder prayer? Ask, and it shall be given to you.

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What? In the measure in which you give. Does that mean if I give, if I make $200 ,000 a year, and I give $190 ,000, you know, that I'll be blessed more?

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Well, it may mean I don't understand anything about stewardship because I'm probably homeless. $200 ,000 a year, and I don't have any place to live.

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But stinginess is wrong thinking. It is ongoing sin. It is a form of idolatry.

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I put money before God. What else? An unforgiving spirit. An unforgiving spirit.

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I don't want to forgive others. Mark 11 .25. And who has that?

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Yes, go ahead, Steve. So why would you pray and hold something against someone else?

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Why would you do that? I mean, it's like another part of the

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Scripture where it talks about if you have anything against your brother, don't even make an offering.

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Don't even go to the altar, I think is the term. Go make peace with him and then come back.

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I don't think we think about forgiveness enough. I've taught about it in the past. I don't think we have a right view of its importance.

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It is not right to come here to worship God and to be sitting there thinking, this is really a good time, but you know,

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I have an issue with fill -in -the -blank. Or to just be sitting there going, oh, this is very nice, but I really don't like so -and -so, or I don't like what they did, or Daniel.

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Let me see if I'm understanding this right. Are we talking about two believers? Okay. If you have two believers and there's something between them and you feel like you've done all that you can and you still can't forgive them, is that...

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Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you feel like you've forgiven them, but the relationship is different because you don't want to go through that again.

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Okay. I think there... I mean, it's hard to get specific, but I think there may be two sides to that argument.

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One is, you know, how often should you forgive them? Seventy times seven, which is to say unlimited.

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On the other hand, if two people get into a situation and it always goes poorly, there are two ways to look at it.

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One is, well, maybe you should avoid the situation, which I think is what you're getting at. And the other one is that you should learn to work through it.

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Because if we are really brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not right to have a situation where we absolutely cannot get along with somebody else and we need to as much as is possible to try to overcome that.

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And really, when you think about it, let's say, let's put it in a household context, a husband and wife.

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And they know that, you know, when they pick restaurants, they become upset at each other.

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He really likes Mexican food and, you know, she really likes Italian food. I don't know, you know.

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I just picked those two because they're my favorite. And every time, you know, it just gets into an argument.

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Well, there are many possible solutions. One is, don't go out to dinner. That's probably not the best.

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Husband could decide one time, the wife could decide the other time. The husband could decide all the time, and the wife just cheerfully submit.

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The husband could cheerfully defer to his wife. Or they could actually learn to talk about it and come to, you know, a reasonable compromise as a brother and sister in Christ ought to be able to.

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Now, that's kind of a trivial example. But if we were to analyze most of the differences that we have with people, you know, when you try to...

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Seriously, if you've been in an argument with someone, if you go to a third party and you try to explain it, you sound like a little kid talking to your parents.

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But he... It's silly. Most of the things that we get upset about, if we could take a step back and just remove a little bit of the emotion out of the situation, what we would realize is what we're talking about is not that important and that we could defer to someone else.

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That we could let somebody else get away with something. It doesn't hurt us.

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We just don't like it. Charlie. Steve.

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Well, I think that's a good principle. I think, you know, the counterargument comes, you know, someone has consistently done something and, you know, the question seems to be that why would you then put yourself in the situation where it's going to likely occur again?

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And I'm sitting here and I'm listening and I can see, you know, the thought behind the one.

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But I just come back to this. Is it a true restoration of a relationship when you say, you know what,

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I'm not going to allow you to sin against me in that way again? Or, and I'm just asking the question, or what is what you've actually done in that case saying, you're saying, is that, oh,

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I don't know, is that forgiveness I guess is my question? Okay.

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That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

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I think that's true and I think it's particularly true with respect to unbelievers. Michael. Well, yeah.

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Yeah. But I think the focus, Michael, I think the focus was really on interpersonal relationships, but I totally agree with that.

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I mean, you know, anybody else?

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Pastor Dave. Right.

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Right. This is a tangent.

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You are correct. Okay. And I think that really is the key point, you know, getting back to, you know, pushing off all the what is forgiveness, what is not forgiveness.

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The point is really here to not have to go to the Lord, as it says there in Mark, and to have this attitude that I'm going to hold on to some form of anger or I'm not going to forgive someone and then to go before God and expect him to forgive us or him to hear our prayers.

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Carolyn. Well, I think there's truth to that.

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I think the one key point, though, is here that you can't go with an unforgiving spirit to the

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Lord in prayer and expect him to then answer your prayer because it is a hindrance to prayer.

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So I don't want to get back into the whole forgiveness issue just right at the moment.

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Let's talk about other hindrances to prayer. Wrong spouse relationship, having a wrong relationship with your spouse, thinking about them wrongly, same kind of focus.

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Here it specifically talks about husbands being hindered in their prayer with their wives, 1

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Peter. You know, but it is kind of foolish in light of everything else we've been discussing to think that a wife somehow can have a bad relationship with her husband and not have some kind of ramifications from that.

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In other words, think about it, I don't have to submit to my husband and the Lord's going to hear my prayer. Well, no, because I've got an ongoing sin.

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I've got idolatry and then I'm putting myself and my own happiness before the Lord. I've got an unforgiving spirit and yet I'm going to go to him.

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1 Peter 3 .7 says this, Your husbands in the same way live with your wives in an understanding way as with someone weaker since she is a woman and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered.

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And this specifically, by the way, for those of you who weren't here when we talked about 1 Peter 3, has to do with a believing husband and an unbelieving wife.

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And he says, listen, you need to live with her in an understanding way so that your prayer life will not be hindered.

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She's an unbeliever. She is your wife and you still need to think of her rightly if you want to come before the throne of God and expect to have him hear your prayers, answer them.

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Unbelief. Unbelief is a hindrance to prayer. Why? I mean, I don't even know if I want to read that.

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Why would unbelief be a hindrance to your prayer? Aren't we all children of God? I mean, when

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I watch the news these days, that's all I hear. If you're not clothed in the righteousness of Christ, you cannot really even approach the throne.

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True. I mean, who grants us access to the throne of God? It's Jesus Christ. And yet, people outside of Christ think that they can just wander in there.

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James 1, verses 5 to 7, passage that is well known.

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And if you've at any point in your life spoken to the Mormon missionaries, you've heard this one.

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Now, if there's anything wrong with it, just because the Mormon missionaries like it. James 1, verses 5 to 7, who has that?

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Go ahead, Paul. Okay. Specifically, this has to do with wisdom and trials.

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But it is interesting in verse 6 that it says you must ask in faith. Well, an unbeliever can't do that.

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So that would be a hindrance to prayer. I don't believe in God, but I'm going to ask him, you know, what's the typical unbeliever prayer?

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You know, your ship just sank. You're out in the middle of the ocean. It's like,

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God, get me out of this. He's under no obligation whatsoever.

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So when should we pray? When should we pray? I'm not going to go through all these verses. You can do them on your own.

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The first couple anyway. In the morning, we have an example of the Lord praying. In the evening, number three, before critical times.

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What do I mean by that? Look at all those verses listed there. What was happening in all those verses?

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Important things. You know, often before the Lord would make important decisions, he went to pray.

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Why would he do that? Why would

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Jesus go to pray before he made big decisions? As an example to us,

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I think so, absolutely. Okay?

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Because he was not doing his will but the will of the Father. He wanted to demonstrate that to align himself.

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Now, as believers, I think we could probably learn some things here, but let's look at Luke 6, verses 12 and 13.

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See if we can get some of the implication here. Luke 6, verses 12 and 13.

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It was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray, and he spent the whole night in prayer to God.

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When was the last time he did that? Verse 13. And when day came, he called his disciple to him and chose 12 of them whom he also named as apostles.

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So what do we think he was praying about? Choosing the apostles.

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Spent all night praying about it. Why? Because it was important. Now, could he have chosen the wrong 12 apostles?

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No. Could we choose to buy the wrong house?

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Could we choose to buy the wrong car, take the wrong job, marry the wrong person? Humanly speaking, yes, we could.

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Divinely speaking, no, we couldn't. But look at the example.

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Even though he really could not have made a mistake because he is God in the flesh, he spent the whole night praying to his

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Father before he did this. I think the clear implication was he was praying about who he was going to choose.

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Praying for them was a critical time. So before critical times, after great things occur, and we could go to Moses after the

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Red Sea was, of course, that's kind of more like a song, but it's still a prayer. But let's look at Matthew 14, 23, and we'll close here.

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Matthew 14, 23. After he had sent the crowds away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray, and when it was evening, he was there alone.

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You say, I don't get it. What happened? Well, what did happen? He fed the 5 ,000, and then he went up to pray.

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Great things happen, he prayed. Before critical things happen, he prayed. When he was busy, he prayed.

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Before he was tempted, or before others were tempted, before he was tempted in the

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Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed. When else should we pray? Well, always pray without ceasing.

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What does it mean to have an attitude of prayer about you? My first reflex is not panic.

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My first reflex is not worry. My first reflex is not, you know, whatever.

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It's to pray, to know that I have access to the throne, to know that God hears me, that he cares for me, that he will answer me when

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I pray according to his will, when I have done what he has told me to do, when I've let go of my anxieties, my desire not to forgive, when

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I've cleared everything out and I put him first. He listens.

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Why? Because he's our father. Let's pray. Father, we do indeed thank you that we can come before your throne, that we have been granted access, access that is without parallel, that can never be exceeded, to be able to walk into, as it were, the very throne room of God and to make our desires, our needs, our concerns known to you, not just the creator and sovereign of the universe, but you who have adopted us, who have adopted us as sons and daughters, who have told us to call you

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Father. Lord, I would pray that we would each take that responsibility and that privilege seriously, that we would be consumed with prayer before big decisions, after great events, in times of trouble, in times of good, to intercede for others.

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Father, we have this great honor. Let us use it well. Lord, would you just make each of us more and more cognizant each day of the way in which you would have us pray, and let us have that spirit, that attitude, that desire to constantly be within us.