Introduction to Prayer

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While we're passing out the handout, I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles with me to the book of James, and we're going to be in James chapter 5.
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We have been studying the book of James now for several months, going verse by verse throughout this epistle, and we are coming now to the end.
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And over the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at the concluding verses.
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And when you get to chapter 5 of James, and you come to verse 13, and you look at verse 13 all the way down to verse 18, you find that James is dealing with a very important subject in the life of the Christian, a subject which I believe in my heart is overwhelmingly misunderstood.
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And that is the subject of prayer.
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When I say overwhelmingly misunderstood, let me try to clarify what I mean.
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When I talk about overwhelming misunderstanding, there are people who think that prayer is like a wish list that we bring to Santa Claus, and we simply toss it into the lap of the celestial Kris Kringle with all the hopes that maybe we'll get what we want for Christmas.
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And then others think that prayer is a way to make a demand on God.
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There is a video, and I showed it last year when I was teaching through our worship series last year, a video of a pastor.
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Let me back up, a video of a man who calls himself a pastor.
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I want to be clear about that.
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And he is a health and wealth person.
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Health and wealth is a philosophy that teaches that God's priority for your life is always that you experience abundant health and abundant financial wealth in this life.
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And if you're not experiencing abundant health or abundant financial wealth, then you're not doing something God wants you to do.
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You're not being faithful to what God's called you to.
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There's something wrong with you if you're not dealing in abundant health and abundant wealth.
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And this man said, he said, When I pray, God sits up and takes notice.
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He listens when I put a demand on His will.
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I'll never forget that quote.
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God sits up and takes notice when I put a demand on His will.
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Now that's just foolish talk.
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But that's the heart of the health and wealth heresy.
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And it is heresy.
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It's no small heresy either.
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It has destroyed many souls and many lives.
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And it has robbed people financially and spiritually for the last generation.
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And it's really grown and grown and grown.
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And it's seeing inroads in places like over in Africa and places like that, where they're over there and they're taking people who don't have nothing.
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They don't even have a mouthful of rice to eat every day.
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And they're promising these people riches and abundance and everything if they'll just give them everything that they have.
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So these people who already have nothing are giving all that they can, property and everything else that they can to these guys.
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And they're robbing them blind.
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All because of a misunderstanding of God's will and God's purpose for health and wealth.
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I've strayed already.
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Because my point is simply to say this.
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There are myriads of misunderstandings when it comes to prayer.
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There's a lot of miscommunication when it comes to prayer.
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So what I want to do tonight is I want to talk about the subject of prayer.
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We're going to read the text in James.
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We're going to read verses 13-18.
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But I'm not going to give a full exposition tonight.
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It's going to take a few weeks.
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Tonight I'm going to give an introduction to the subject of praying.
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Because I think that it is a subject that is far misunderstood.
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And this introduction may take two weeks, I don't know.
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I have a lot to say.
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And if you've listened to me, if you've been in this church for a long time, a lot of this you've heard before.
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But you need to hear it.
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We need to understand it.
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Because I'll tell you.
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I still hear people misunderstanding the subject of prayer when I talk to them.
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There's things we need to understand about prayer.
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It's purpose.
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Why we pray.
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And all these things.
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And I think that it's in the text here.
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But we're going to be looking at a broader than just what's here in the text.
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We're going to be looking at the broader subject tonight.
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And then we'll narrow it down to what's in the text in the weeks to come.
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So we're sort of doing a mini-series.
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We're in James, but we're doing a mini-series on prayer.
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So let's read the text.
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James 5.13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.
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Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
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Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church.
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Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
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And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick.
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And the Lord will raise him up.
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And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
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Therefore, confess your sins to one another.
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Pray for one another that you may be healed.
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The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
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Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
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And he prayed fervently that it might not rain.
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And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
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Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain.
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And the earth bore its fruit.
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And there we will end the reading of God's Word.
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We are going to look at verses 19 and 20 after this time looking at prayer.
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Because in verse 19 he goes on to talk about someone wandering from the truth.
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And going out and bringing that person back.
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And we are going to sort of end the epistle looking at that.
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What does that mean and how does that relate to prayer and all that.
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But we are going to really on the next few weeks focus on verses 13 through 18.
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A few years ago a motto came into the Christian vernacular.
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It was very popular.
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It was on t-shirts.
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It was on bumper stickers.
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I am sure somebody got a tattoo.
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I have never seen one.
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The motto was this.
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Prayer changes things.
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How many of you ever heard that? How many of you ever seen it? On bumper sticker, on t-shirt, maybe a tattoo.
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Maybe a water tower.
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Maybe you said it.
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Right? Now I want to start by saying this.
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I don't want to rebuff these words entirely to say this is just foolish or this is wrong.
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Because this phrase can be true and we are going to talk about how it is true.
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But I do want to begin by saying that I think that some have misunderstood this phrase.
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Some have misused and misapplied this phrase.
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Prayer changes things.
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Because I think what a lot of people have done is they have misunderstood it to mean prayer changes God.
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You might say, oh nobody would think that.
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Oh yeah they do.
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There are people who believe that God will simply change his mind so long as you pray hard enough.
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Or so long as you pray with enough fervor or with enough intent that you can cause the almighty to stop what he is doing and do something else.
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So if you think prayer changes things means prayer changes God, then I want to just address that at the beginning.
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Because I really do think that is part of the issue.
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I think that is part of the problem.
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I want to show you a few verses of scripture.
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If you will hold your place in James.
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I just want to show you.
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These are foundational Bible passages about the nature of God.
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Numbers 23.19 Numbers 23.19 You might all could quote it.
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I will start it.
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Let's see how many of you know what it says.
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God is not a man.
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Well he is a spirit.
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In Numbers 23.19 it says God is not a man that he should lie.
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Nor is he a son of man that he should change his mind.
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It says God is not a man.
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Because men lie and God doesn't lie.
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God is not a son of man.
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It is a parallelism.
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He is not a man that he should lie.
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He is not a man that he should change his mind.
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Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and he will not fulfill it? God does not change his mind.
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Now we are going to address.
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I know some of you are thinking well there are a few Bible passages that sound like this or that.
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We are going to get to those in a second.
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But from this very specific text.
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The Bible declares in Numbers 23.19 that God is not a man.
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He is not like us.
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One of the most difficult things that we have as human beings to do.
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Is we have to relate to.
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Even in times where it would seem as if God has changed his mind.
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We are confronted by a further examination with Scripture.
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That the language that is used.
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Is what is commonly called an anthropomorphism.
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How many of you have heard me use that big strange word before? You know what that word means? What does it mean? It means a human expression regarding the person of God.
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The Bible does this in different ways.
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It talks about God repenting.
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In the King James Version.
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It talks about God relenting.
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Meaning holding off something he was going to do.
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And people will see that and say.
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Oh my goodness I am so confused.
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I don't understand why it would say that if God doesn't change.
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Because here is the thing that we have to understand.
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We live in time and God doesn't.
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And this is where your mind can often be blown.
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So forgive me if this is a little confusing.
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I am going to put you on a line.
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We are going to say this is creation.
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Alright.
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We will say this is Noah.
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We will put water there.
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We will say this is Abraham and Moses.
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We will give a couple of ten commandments there.
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We will say this is Jesus.
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There is the cross.
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That was two thousand years ago.
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So you have all this going on.
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Here is you.
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And then you have the future.
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Which we don't know how long the world has left.
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So we will just leave that indefinite.
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Here is a line.
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Where is God? See a lot of people think.
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At least mentally.
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The only way they can understand it.
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Is God is right along with me.
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He is kind of going through it as I go through it.
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And he is kind of dealing with whatever I am dealing with.
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God looks at the line like.
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Well there is tomorrow is tomorrow.
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And today is today.
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But do you understand.
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God is not bound by this.
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What if I were to tell you.
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That God is just as much with Abraham.
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On Mount Moriah.
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As he is with us right now.
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He is just as much with Noah.
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Inside the ark.
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As he is with us right now.
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Does that blow your mind? But think about it.
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God is not bound by time.
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He created time.
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Time is part of the created order.
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In the beginning time.
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God created.
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Energy.
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Heaven.
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That space.
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Earth.
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Matter.
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And he said let there be light.
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There is energy.
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The five things that are required.
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For all things to exist.
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What is it? Energy, time, space, matter.
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And I forget what the last one is.
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But motion.
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In the beginning time.
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God created.
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That is motion.
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Or energy.
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The heavens.
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That is the space.
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The earth.
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That is the matter.
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He said let there be light.
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That is energy.
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Motion is the second one.
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So the five things that are required.
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For all things to exist.
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Were created in an instant.
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In the very beginning.
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First verse of the Bible.
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And time is part of that.
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Time is part of God's creation.
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In eternity there will be no time.
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We don't understand that.
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Because we can't live that way.
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We have never lived that way.
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But because of this.
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This is what I want you to understand.
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We talk about God's foreknowledge.
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Right? How does God know what is going to happen tomorrow? Well we say predestined.
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But even without that big scary word.
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That does scare people.
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How does God know what is going to happen tomorrow? Because He is already there.
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Because He is not bound by time.
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You see that is the point.
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That is what I am trying to get across.
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And we can get into certainly the issues of foreknowledge.
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And predestination, election.
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Those things.
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But even without that.
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What do we know about God? Whatever is tomorrow.
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He knows because He is already there.
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You see there are people who don't believe that.
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There is a system out there called open theism.
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Open theism is a theological system.
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That believes that God doesn't know the future.
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Because it hasn't happened yet.
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Open theism believes that God can't know the future.
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Because it is not fixed.
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That God can't know what is going to happen.
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Because He is not there yet.
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Because no one is there yet.
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God is right where you are.
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That is what open theism believes.
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He has only gone as far as you have.
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And He only can know what can be known up until this point.
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He doesn't know if you are going to die tomorrow or not.
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Because He is not there yet.
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He doesn't know if you are going to get cancer or not.
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Because He is not there yet.
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He doesn't know if you are going to survive cancer or not.
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Because He is not there yet.
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And what kind of a God is that? But that is the God who many people serve.
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Because they have a God that is just like them.
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He is bound by the same restrictions that they are bound by.
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And that is a problem.
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You see that is the point of all this.
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When I talk about prayer, you have got to understand.
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I have got to start at the basics.
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Who God is.
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How God operates in time.
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Unless you understand that, you get to talking about prayer, you are going to shoot for the moon and miss it by a mile.
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You have got to start with the basics of who God is.
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How God relates to time.
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Because if you think you are changing God, then you have misunderstood all this.
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And let me finish this little section with a little syllogism.
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Something to help you out.
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This helped me out years ago.
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I heard it and it did help me.
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Because the most positive affirmation that most all Christians will affirm about God is that God is perfect.
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Right? I mean, if you ask, is God perfect or imperfect? Most Christians, even liberals, you know, God is perfect.
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Right? Now, let's talk about change for a minute.
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This is a syllogism.
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If God is perfect and He changed for the worse, would He continue to be perfect? No.
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If God is perfect and He changed for the better, what does that insinuate? He wasn't perfect.
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If God is perfect and He makes a lateral change, neither for the better or for the worse, the very necessity of change indicates a lack or need and thus a requirement for change and thus imperfect.
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So if God changes, He's not perfect.
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So we do have to start, how do we understand God? We understand God as the God who is perfect, as the God who exists outside of time, as a God who not only knows all things, but He already has ordained, He's already there.
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And so when we're dealing with something like this, we have to understand that there are going to be times when we talk about things from our perspective and we talk about things from God's perspective.
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And when we talk about things from our perspective, we can say prayer changes things.
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Because we can talk about things that are and aren't and how God uses those prayers as the means of bringing about His will or whatever it is.
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We're going to talk about that later.
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But we can say that term prayer changes things with an idea of how we see things.
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But what we must never allow that to do is allow it to misunderstand how we understand God's economy in this.
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From God's perspective, things aren't changing.
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From God's perspective, He is using the means to bring about the ends.
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Means and ends are very important to understand.
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You know when I say means, you know what that means? I almost said it.
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You know what means means, right? You've heard the phrase, a means to an end, right? Let's say God ordains that my life is going to end whenever.
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I don't even want to pretend I know.
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But let's say God ordains the end of my life because He's fashioned my days for me.
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Psalm 139.
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My days are fashioned.
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God knows when I'm going to die.
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What means is going to be used for that? I don't know.
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I think it would probably drive us crazy if we did know.
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We don't know.
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But we know there's a means.
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Same way, life.
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There's a means which brings about life.
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Right? And we all know what it is.
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I don't have to get too graphic.
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We know what means causes life.
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Here's the thing that always gets me.
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I see people and they'll hold their little baby and they'll say this is a gift from God.
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And it is.
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And they'll say God ordained the birth of this child and He did.
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Psalm 139 tells us He fashioned our days before us, before there was even one of them.
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So they hold the little baby and they say God has ordained this baby.
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But guess what? We had a part in it.
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Because that baby wasn't miraculously inseminated.
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There was a part that people played in bringing the baby to the earth.
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And that was the relationship that caused the baby to be born, right? Right? Was the baby ordained by God? Yes, the Bible says so.
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Life is never an accident.
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But was the baby brought by means that were compatible with God's will? You might say, well, what if it was rape? Or what if it was somebody who had an illicit relationship or something? That means is not in relationship to God's will.
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No, it's not in relationship to God's revealed will.
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He said rape is wrong.
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He said that murder is wrong.
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He said that these things are wrong.
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But at the same time, God willed that child to be born and there was something that brought it about.
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The means were part of the end.
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I knew I was going to get off track tonight.
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Because this is a broad subject.
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What I'm trying to point out to you is prayer is a means that God uses to bring about His will.
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In the same way, huh? At times, yes, God can use sin.
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God can use anything to bring about His will.
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It's sort of like Dr.
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James White gives a great illustration.
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He said, let's say there was a bucket of water sitting in this room.
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And God wanted the water to be emptied.
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Well, He could miraculously reach down and topple the water over.
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Or He could see to it that 15 thirsty football players could come in after practice and find that bucket of water and empty it by drinking it down.
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The means are secondary to the end, which is the water being emptied.
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God has an end.
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God has purpose.
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And that's the thing about the prayer that I think we often miss.
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When we pray, do you know we always pray, Thy will be done? Do you know why we pray, Thy will be done? It's an act of submission in our prayer.
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Because we know that ultimately God's will will be done and we want God to know that we are submissive to that.
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Frederick Price, who is a false teacher, Freddie K.
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Price, him and Creflo Dollar are aptly named because they're both scam artists and they steal people's money.
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Price and Dollar, are you kidding me? Anyway, both of them are scam artists.
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But here's the thing, what happens? He said, Price said, he said, People pray, God's will be done.
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And if you do that, you're calling God a fool.
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And I said, now wait a minute, my Bible says that when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed.
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Nevertheless, not my will, but Thy will be done.
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He just called Jesus a fool.
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Or he said Jesus was calling God a fool.
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You see, again, this is a very broad subject.
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So I want to give you three thoughts tonight for you to put in your notes.
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Because people ask me this question, people say, you believe God ordains all things? I say, yes.
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You believe that God has already determined what's going to happen? I say, yes.
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And you say, well, why then do you pray? If you believe God's sovereign and God's ordained everything, why do you pray? Three reasons.
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This is my answer.
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Number one, prayer has been appointed as an act of worship.
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Prayer has been appointed as an act of worship.
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What does worship mean? Anybody want to take a stab at it? What's the word worship mean? Don't be afraid.
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Somebody give a guess.
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Huh? Church? Cherish? Okay, that's good.
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Anybody else want to add anything to that? Yes? That's right.
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Yeah.
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The word worship, it means to ascribe worth to something.
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To ascribe value to it.
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And thus, when you said cherish, that's correct.
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Because to cherish something is to worship it.
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It actually is from that combination of phrase.
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Worth-ship.
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To ascribe worth to something is to worship it.
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You say, now wait a minute.
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I ascribe worth to my children.
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I ascribe worth to my family, my wife.
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I ascribe worth to my job.
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You know, I don't worship those things.
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Well, this is how words sort of do take new meanings and things begin to take on a life of their own.
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No, I don't worship my wife, but I do ascribe worth to her.
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I don't worship my children, but I do ascribe worth to them.
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Worship is ultimate worth.
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Value above all things.
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It's that thing which is most important or more important than anything.
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And that's worship.
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That's the thing that we worship.
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And a lot of people say they worship God, but they don't.
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And you can tell because they put worth in so many other things.
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Their ultimate cherish is not God or Christ, but it's everything else.
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Maybe it is their children.
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Maybe it is their spouse.
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Maybe it is their job.
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Maybe it's their status.
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Whatever.
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And you'll often see that that's where their worship is because that's where their heart is.
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Jesus is wherever our treasure is, there will our heart be also.
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And so we see what they worship by how they spend their time and what they do with their lives and those things.
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So, worship is this.
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How is prayer an act of worship? Well, consider the great prayers of Scripture.
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Consider the prayer of Hannah, the prayer of Moses, the prayer of Daniel, the prayer of Christ.
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All of these over and over and over and over.
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They're great expressions of worship.
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All right, let's just look at one.
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Go to Hannah's prayer.
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1 Samuel 2.
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1 Samuel 2.
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I've got to hurry.
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Either that or we're going to stop and we'll finish next week.
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Time is never my friend.
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Go to 1 Samuel 2.
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Now you remember what happened here, right? Hannah was a woman who had no children.
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God gave her a son named Samuel, right? This is Hannah's prayer.
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She says in verse 1 of chapter 2.
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My heart exalts in the Lord.
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My strength is exalted in the Lord.
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My mouth derides my enemies because I rejoice in Your salvation.
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There is none holy like the Lord.
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There is none besides You.
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There is no rock like You.
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Talk no more so very proudly.
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Let not arrogance come from Your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.
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The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength.
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Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, and those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.
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The barren has born seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
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The Lord kills and brings to life.
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He brings down to shield and rises up.
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The Lord makes poor and makes rich.
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He brings low and He exalts.
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He raises up the poor from the dust.
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He lifts the needy from the ash heap.
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He makes them to sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.
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For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them He has set the world.
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He will guard the feet of His faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail.
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The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces.
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Against them He will thunder in heaven.
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The Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
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He will give strength to His King and exalt the power of His anointed.
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Now you just hear that.
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What is that? That is a prayer which is laden with worship.
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The Lord this, the Lord that.
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The Lord has done this, and the Lord has done that.
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You know, one of the things that I think that we often miss in our worship service is how much the times of prayer are supposed to actually be part of worship.
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I think we think the times of prayer are supposed to be times where we ask God for things, but it is not just about asking God.
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It is about proclaiming who God is back to Him.
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And you say, now why is that important? Well, that is what she is doing.
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She is praying to God His own goodness.
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Have you ever prayed Scripture? What do I mean? Have you ever looked at prayers like this in Scripture and used these as models to pray by? I encourage you to look at the book The Valley of Vision.
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In fact, I want to buy a copy for our deacons.
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We talked about this in our last deacons meeting.
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I want all of our deacons to have a copy of this because they often pray in our worship service.
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The Valley of Vision is a book of the Puritan's prayers.
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And they are filled with Scripture.
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And they are filled with acknowledgements of the person and work of God.
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And how He has worked in the lives of His people.
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And the power of His might in working in His people.
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And that is how we worship God in prayer.
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Is we proclaim His goodness often times alone.
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You know, I get down on my knees and I pray by myself and I say, Oh God, who has been merciful to me beyond measure.
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Who has broken me on so many occasions that I needed to be broken.
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Who has shown me things that I would have never learned outside of His Spirit.
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Thank You for loving me and letting me pray to You tonight.
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That is simple, right? But that is worship.
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That is worshipful prayer.
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It is considering who God is when we pray.
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And if prayer was for nothing but that, that would be enough reason to do it.
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If prayer was for nothing but to remind ourselves of the power and mighty awesomeness of God, that would be enough.
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It has been appointed as an act of worship.
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People say, if God is sovereign, why do you pray? My response is because God is sovereign, I pray.
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I pray to a sovereign God and I proclaim His power and His might and His goodness all the day long.
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It would be inane for me to pray to a God who wasn't sovereign.
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Why would I proclaim the power of a God who is not powerful? Why would I proclaim the goodness of a God who has not the power to demonstrate His goodness? Right? So, prayer is first an act of worship.
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Now, we are going to draw to a close because I have a lot more to say in no time.
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But bring these notes back next week.
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I am going to make a mark right here.
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Because it is first an act of worship, but there is more to it than that.
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It begins as an act of worship, but it is going to continue.
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I will tell you what, I will let you write them in and then next week we will fill in.
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1.
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Prayer is appointed as an act of worship.
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2.
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Prayer is appointed as a means of spiritual growth.
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Prayer is appointed as a means of spiritual growth.
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We will talk about that more next week because we are going to go to one of my favorite passages in the Bible, Isaiah chapter 6.
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Isaiah chapter 6.
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3.
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Prayer has been appointed as an avenue for petition.
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And that is what is going to lead us in our study of James because that is what he deals with.
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How do we petition God? And in what ways should we petition God? So, in there I will make my notes marked.
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And next week we will begin with prayer as a means of spiritual growth.
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Alright, let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word.
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I thank you for the opportunity to study tonight.
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I pray that this has been helpful for your people.
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I pray that you will use it to guide and direct us toward a more focused prayer, a more worshipful prayer, prayers that are Scripture saturated prayers, and I ask, O God, help us to look to the Word of God, look to the prayers of the great saints of the past and look to them as examples of how to exalt you in prayer and to be reminded that when we pray to you, we are worshiping the God who created all things.
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And we praise you and thank you in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.