Rooted in Prayer

Good morning. Welcome. Welcome. Come on in. Hey, my name is mike, one of the pastors on staff here at, so a church, It’s great to be with you. We, uh, I’m excited about our content today, what we’re gonna look at, I like to open up a short story. So I have a wife and my wife makes me go to the doctor and I go to the doctor once a year and they take blood, they check my heart. I stand on a scale. The doctor talks to me about stuff. But this last couple of weeks I went in and they had a survey thing. Uh, and I took a photo as I was going through my paperwork. Um, and I asked the nurse is like, this seems different than last year and she said, well because of the reality of what’s happening in our society, they do mental health screens for people’s annual physicals, which, which makes sense. But you might have seen this piece of paper after your doctor. I even saw them on the football game I was watching yesterday a little bit, uh, NFL players were telling me it’s okay not to be okay talking about as we process life. The pains and stresses and anxiety and depression that’s part of the human experience. And so I’m excited to cover our topic today. Looking at what it means to be rooted in prayer because I know there’s answers and there’s hope and there’s healing found in the word of God. And so if you’re, if you’re far from God or you’re close to God of Christianity. Something you grew up in or, or if it’s something you’ve never experienced before. Uh, the word of God has a word for you this morning and it speaks to the human experience and human existence and how to cope and process life well. So if you take a moment and bow your heads with me as we uh, we jump into our passage this morning, let’s pray God. I thank you for, I think for today, I thank you for all the men and women you brought here today. You have a plan for their lives. You’re the, you have a purpose in their life and you’re doing work in their life. I prayed, you would just really draws closer to you as people, as individuals and as a collective church. I said, you just draw hearts together. Help knit our hearts to each other and to you help us to see you clearly in your heart and the word of God today as that you instruct us, convict us, encourage us in ways that only the word of God can speak to us in a way that convicts and changes us. Lord. Change the motivations of our heart and change uh, the actions of our lives because we love you God. Just use the word of God to do the work of God in our life. If you just and we pray this Amen. And so I was I was prepping for this week’s sermon and I was contemplating what prayer passage to pick in the bible and if you’ve ever seen your bible or open the bible, there’s a lot of different prayer passages in the bible and I was texting one of our pastors like late at night like I sometimes do and I was like, hey, I’m gonna spend a lot of time trying to find a passage, can you just tell me which passage I should I should do? And I woke up the next morning early and like I’m just gonna pick the one I wanted. So I picked the one I wanted and cause he doesn’t sleep with his phone and which is appropriate. So he texted me like at seven or eight a.m. Like a normal person, you know, I would do the Lord’s prayer and I’m like good 2.5 hours into my singer prep on the Lord’s prayer. If you’re looking for the Lord’s prayer, it’s on page 4 73 in the Blue House bible. If you don’t grab that bible, it’ll help you out. Um if you have your own personal bible and you’re a red letter bible snob like I am, it’s the part of Matthew chapter beginning in chapter five and it’s just several pages of red letters and that that symbolizes these aren’t just words, these are jesus words and so we’re gonna be looking at part of the sermon on the mount, looking at what jesus said about prayer, which seems appropriate in my opinion for looking at prayer as a church and so page 4 73 in the Blue House bibles, Matthew chapter five is when this begins the sermon on the mount. This is jesus most famous, prolific longest passage that you see in the bible of jesus sermons and I love this passage Matthew 56 and seven, but just some context Jesus began began his earthly ministry. He was went off into the desert for 40 days where he was tempted, he came out of that that trial and he starts to do ministry starts to preach the word of God, starts to gather disciples. He started to grow in popularity and fame in the area he was at and then we jump into the sermon on the mount at page Matthew chapter five, he’s going through a variety of topics, he’s saying, don’t be this, be this, don’t be like this, be like this and he’s talking about the kingdom of God to this, this large group of people and a few little bit before chapter six he’s talking about like hypocrisy, don’t be a hypocrite how you give your money instead. We give differently the kingdom God’s differently, we give like this and then he jumps into chapter six verse one, he says beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them and he talks about hypocrisy and then if you jump down to verse five he says and then when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for? They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners that they may be seen by others truly, I say to you, they have received their reward, but when you pray go into your room, shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do for they think they will be heard because of their many words do not be like them. For your father knows that what you need before you ask him pray then like this, our father in heaven hallowed, be your name, your kingdom, come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Or if you forgive others trespasses and your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Amen. So if you’re if you’re like me and you’ve grown up in the church, you’ve heard a lot of people try to help us wrap our arms around this idea of prayer. What is prayer, what it’s not what does it look like? Why should I pray? What do you pray? We can kind of try to give some structure to this, Those of us who like structure, I’m a free spirit, those of us who like structure you like these acronyms, you’ve probably heard of like push acronym pray until something happens. I heard that in high school you might have heard the ax acronym, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication you might have heard of uh you’ve heard that one, something else you have heard of? The rooted series has like a prey acronym praise something okay, something I don’t know we have these, we have these structures to try to help us as people wrap our arms around what is prayer, what I wanted to be, What is it actually supposed to be and how does that stretch me and how does that grow me? And I want to do it right. I’ve been in many small groups, many community groups here at our church and it’s and I just right away jump into it. I just normalize christian stuff and we’ll share stuff about like what people are going through and smaller groups like alright, create the person beside you and some people like I’ve never prayed before, they just kind of freeze and they’re, they’re nervous and so it’s okay, it’s okay, we’re trying to look at being rooted in prayer as a church. If you remember last week dan looked at being rooted in daily devotion, which was excellent and he had a word for us about being devoted being obstinately persistent in your daily devote we as a church wannabe. Obstinately persistent rooted in prayer. And so this, this passage we just looked at by jesus is for the disciples, which is, which is us, which is for the disciples. Trying to learn how to pray from Jesus himself as he lays out for us what it is, It’s kind of like a skeleton. What many scholars say, it’s, it’s like a skeleton system. Here’s the head bone, here’s the neck bone, here’s the rib bone, here’s the hip bone, right? Here’s the knee bone. It’s a skeleton for us to look at what prairies as we go through this passage. I think that’s very helpful for me to kind of wrap my arms around what this is because it’s not a canned prayer that I’m supposed to repeat over and over again. Like some of you might have heard before. It’s not that it’s supposed to be a structure of framework that we can build out with muscles and flesh. We can make, we can personalize it, but you all have personalization and accessories on the outside of you, but you all have bones, you gotta head bone. You got bones, you get what I’m saying. So prayer life should have some structural bones that you’ll flush out in your own prayer closets. It seems uh, in your own unique way, but like why pray, why should we look at prey and why pray and I think jesus obviously lay this out, a very compelling reasons for why sons and daughters of jesus should be praying. I’m gonna spend a majority of our time looking at verses nine through 13. So verse nine when you pray, when you pray say some of your bibles say that this one says this CSP translation says pray then like this. This is assuming that the followers of him will be praying. It’s not like a subjective thing when you’re in a parking lot and you need a spot or when the cop pulls you over it’s like when you pray say and he rolls into this part of us. This prayer should be part of our rhythms as normal people as followers of jesus christ verse nine Our father in heaven hallowed be your name. So why should you pray? Well first reason you should pray is all your other christian siblings are praying. You should be praying, he’s not. Yes he is your personal lord and savior. But that language isn’t in the bible as much as you think it’s our father our savior. When your follower and disciple jesus christ, you’re wrapped up in this whole grand romantic story of God’s saving mankind, God’s saving the church, God saving you and the room full of christians. It’s a collective group. Think he’s our father, you might have been an only child growing up and that’s wonderful in the kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. You have many sons, Brothers and sisters in the faith, he is our father. So you’re praying, not just alone in the prayer closet, you’re praying the followers of jesus christ all over this planet that are turning to our heavenly father, our father in heaven. When you hear phrases about father in this time, in the bible thinking of God, that’s very normalized in our rhetoric for God. God the father our father. If I prayed, you know, father help us, you know, that would be very normal language for us to think of God with the father word. But this time in the bible, if you did a word search on the names of God, it’s not a very common word, they had all kinds of phrases and titles they were giving to God that we’re not father as Jehovah, the God provides the glorious god powerful God. I mean, there’s all sorts of other titles and wording used to describe God up till now in jewish literature, but when jesus came on the scene, he was really normalizing a familiar fatherly relationship that he wants us to walk into as his sons and daughters. This is a new shift that’s happening in how humanity interacts and understands God, our father in heaven, when you, when you hear our father in heaven, you’re prone to think of your father here on earth and your father here on earth might have been a terrible man, might have been a terrific man. I don’t know, he could have been emotionally absent, he could have been physically absent, he could have been physically violent, he could’ve been verbally absent. He could have been a great, emotionally engaged man who loved the Lord and loved you and loved your family well, but regardless of whoever your father is and if that is a triggering response to our father in heaven, and you’re like, that’s a bad, bad branding Christianity. That’s not, that’s not how it should be, you know? But regardless of how you respond in your heart, when you hear the word father, the reality is, the bible describes who this father is. So why are we praying? Why pray? Because it’s our father in heaven And that father that we read about throughout the bible throughout the whole scripture, he’s known as, he’s described in several big words, but he’s called Omnipresent, He’s everywhere. Your earthly father is present maybe, and mentally physically present maybe. But your eternal father, your heavenly father is omnipresent. The bible says he is everywhere. He’s everywhere all the time. When you went to bed, he was there when he woke up, he was there when he went to the restroom, he was there when he had coffee, he was there when you drove to church, he’s there when you get down church, he’s there when you go home and watch your team lose on fancy football, he’s there, he’s gonna be there every step of the way throughout your whole day and he’s gonna be there tomorrow. He’s gonna be the next day your earthly father can’t do that, can’t keep up and can’t be there all the time. But your heavenly father is the bible says omnipresent, we’re praying to an omnipresent father who is everywhere and all over wherever I am. He’s the creator of the world. Why are we praying? Cause he’s the creator of the world, He created everything and he’s everywhere, all over what he created. He’s all up in his creations business and all up in our business and everywhere we go he’s are omnipresent father. That’s different than the father I grew up with. That’s different. The next thing is like all knowing is what the bible calls him. My dad knew what my mom told him and what he saw and what he heard about me and it wasn’t always good and I got away with a lot of stuff. The all knowing god of the universe is your heavenly father who you’re praying to disciple christian, he knows everything and he is everywhere, he knows everything good, you’ve done everything private, you’ve done everything public, you’ve done your, you’re praying to the God who knows not just you, but he knows what’s happening in your internal dialogue. That opening photo I shared when you’ve had thoughts that are anxious or depressed or stressful or suicidal God, your father knows that there is no stigma for what’s going on in your head, your heavenly father knows what’s happening if your external you and your internal you christian our father who art in heaven. There’s a third part about God. There’s a lot you can say about God, but the main three things that you need to know about your heavenly father, he’s all present, all knowing, but he’s all powerful. My kids think I’m all powerful when they’re little. But as they grow up, they realize like I can maybe outrun dad, they are not trying me on strength yet. But there’s a day coming when my sons will have some facial hair and they will, they will look me, I’m aware of that. So I’m pivoting from what I am now, but I I am like the man right now for my little kids. But as time goes on, you realize your father has limited strength and capacity. God has a power of capacity of strength and intellect that is unmatched compared to your earthly father. Your heavenly father’s intellect, his strength, his power, his might is amazingly more powerful than your earthly father. Our father in Heaven. Hallowed, be your name. So this last week we just got a new king in europe England, great Britain and he he’s some people’s father, but he’s also someone’s king, there’s a reverence, there’s an attached to him in great Britain. We as christians, We don’t just serve God as a warm and fuzzy father, but we serve a high king over the entire planet. And that king, the bible says is holy. He’s righteous, he’s perfect, he’s pure, he’s hollowed is what it says about him here in this passage that father you have as a believer that father it says in the back of his eyes are too pure to even look upon evil. Evil can’t even be in the presence of our heavenly father. He’s holy, He’s holy. Which means we walk into his presence in our following conditions and will be incinerated. We cannot be in the presence of God because of his righteousness. His holiness is hallowed, be your name. We are praying to a father whose intimate powerful all knowing and he’s also to be respected to be revered. So as you pray, we jump right into our pasta is not at ourselves and what we want, it’s at God and who he is. Do you see that in verse nine? So when you go into your prayer life this next week and why are you praying? Why are you reading prayer? You’re praying to God Holy and hollowed father. Who’s in heaven verse 10, your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So why pray? Why are we praying? We’re praying for God’s kingdom. God will glorify his name in our city in this neighborhood and around the region and around the world were praying that God will glorify his name and advance his kingdom that we just saw in verse 10, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. We can really wrap our arms around the opening line in verse 11 that bottom line in verse 11. We want the glory of God here on this planet. We want God to glorify his name in our lives. We want God to make his name famous. We want God to do good work and expand the gospel and expand churches and see lives change to transform. We wanna, we wanna glorify God’s name and see and see his work being done here on earth as it is in heaven. But between that opening line and verse 10 that bottom line of verse 10 there’s a line in there and your will be done. I don’t think juice is sneaky but I think he’s smart at what he did there. Let’s read it together your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So why am I praying not just for the cerebral gods came in to be expanded advanced in my neighborhood, my network, but I’m praying because I need God’s will to be done in my life. God’s kingdom to advance in my life. There’s parts of my life that I don’t I have a strong will like my father was a pastor, I grew up in the church. I’ve been reading this bible since I was 13 and I still got a strong will. My will be done. I don’t know about you but my will is alive and present. I don’t need to give my will a pep talk in the morning when I get up and like all right, my will. I gotta let’s go. We’re going today. My will. I mean my will is alive and well in my life. I know your will is where it should be. But my will needs to get checked all the time and so how do I help my will become his will, My heavenly father’s will. How do I have that transition that happens in my life? It’s by yielding my will to God’s will. Your will be done. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So why we pray, we pray that God would be glorified in my life and the life I’m supposed to live here on this christian life. Look at me at Verse 11. Give us this day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread. So why pray? But we need things we’re needing. I needed that breath right with faint my heart. If it gives out on me, you’re gonna have to have someone else pick up my bible or blue bible and keep going. Okay? But we need a lot of things. We need breath. We need air, we need auction, We need food, we need shelter. We have tangible needs the early church the early church that became christ followers that built the early Church. You read about the Book of Acts. They’re predominantly indentured servants and slaves and females and females were a lower class at that society at that time, it was not the upper echelon of that society that became christians. It was the lowest class of that society became christians. So living by God’s daily bread of physical needs was a reality of the early church. I know here in America, we’re very detached from that because we have buildings and budgets and salaries and cars and homes were a lot different than a third world country, but but the reality is Christianity began amongst the lowest class of a very impoverished people. Our daily bread give us this day, our daily bread. That is a very tangible real thing. But we need that. We need protection. We need daily protection in our lives. We need daily healing in our lives. We need we need God to redeem us and restore and forgive us that we’ll see here later in this passage, but we need daily deliverance from God. You think back to the when the Egyptians and that God saved and rescued the Israelites out of Egypt like two million. Some people strong. They went by a cloud of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day was to provide shade in the desert and a pillar of fire by night was to provide warmth at night and then they got daily allotment of bread and birds to eat meat quail, they got daily meat, carbs and meat daily, and if they saved it and hoarded it up, it would turn bad is what you read about in the book of Exodus. We God desires a daily connection of him for our daily bread. Think about this like I need God’s daily bread, his daily deliverance in in my in my mental health, my physical health, my financial health, my emotional health. I need two daily be going to God to not just deliver me, but give me the substance to get through the day. God desires have that close relationship with a father and his Children and he wants to talk to you daily. You might not talk to your earthly father for years, but this is a turtle father who were praying to in heaven wants to have a close daily relationship with you. Like think of think of if you had a friend, a close relationship with someone you like, let’s talk Sunday morning a little bit for 30 minutes and then do not talk to me again the rest of the week, I’m leaving. I’ll see you in 6.5 days if I feel like it and I come to church and maybe you can talk to me a little about church and then that’s it. Don’t text me, don’t call me, don’t write me and then you go away again. If that’s your relationship with that person, you really don’t want to have a relationship with that person, especially how connected we can be as people. God says, give us this day our daily bread. It’s not just that God meets your physical needs. He means your emotional needs. He meets your spiritual needs. He means all of the birds. And anxiety and stress is that you have as a man or a woman. And that that help that encouragement. That comfort has to come from your daily connections of God, verse verse 12 and forgive us our debts as we have. Also forgiven our debtors, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. You realize like why can we even pray? We can pray because we are forgiven God is in the humanity christian people forgiving business. That’s what God does. He forgave your debts. He forgave your debts. He removed them as far as the east is from the wife. God forgave and removed your sin from his presence. So you can have a relationship with him. You can’t come into the hollowed presence of your heavenly father because you’re forgiven son or daughter. The king forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. So it seems like verse 12 is fishing for what we should be doing in our weekly communion life where we stop, We saw a heart down and we say Lord have I sinned against you, Do I need to confess that sin to you? Have I sinned against my brother or sister? Do I need to confess my sin to my brother and sister. We try to keep a short list of grievances and hurts of God and with men and women, we need to be forgiving each other’s deaths and forgiving God’s deaths. This is our father, we’re in a Children of the father and God doesn’t like to see his Children fighting and going after each other. There’s people in this room or on your social media world or in your family that you need to be forgiving and forgetting their debts to you. Like God forgive and forget your debts were spending time for heavenly Father, we’re spending time with our father and he’s forgiving them, we have no right to hold that grievance against them. We need to be forgiving and releasing people to be growing up. Like we grew up, I was having a fun meeting with some people this last week and we’re talking through like where we’re at spiritually speaking and kicking off a discipleship group, it was a lot of fun and the people are like, you know, I’m, you know, I’m this spiritual age on that spiritual age and I just wanted to assure them like that’s amazing, that’s great. You know, there’s young people in their faith, they’re taking steps growing in their walk with God, that’s great, this is a good place to be where you want to grow. If you walk with God and we’re gonna make mistakes, I share the story of our community this last week that like, you know when you’re an infant in the faith, what do you do with babies? You hope they don’t yell and scream, You hope they don’t poop through their diaper and you just pack them full of food. It’s gonna be loud and messy. But that’s what infants in the faith are. What do you do with Children in the faith? Children in the faith? Like don’t touch that cars kill kids, watch out come this way, Hey, stay away from that. I would be a horrible helicopter parent if my wife didn’t let me be a little more relaxed about stuff, but we gotta give grace to infants and Children in the faith and they’re gonna make mistakes. I would never go to a child in the faith or one of your kids and be like, how dare you climb on those chairs johnny, how dare you throw trash on the floor, Not the trash can Suzy, You get what I’m saying, We should be gracious and compassionate to our siblings in the faith as they’re making steps and growing and becoming more like christ our heavenly father, someone gave me grace and someone invested in me when I was young spiritually, we gotta get that same grace to people that are around us as a church, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors Verse 13 and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I think this verse is misunderstood. I think it’s obviously misunderstood. Misapplied. I’m gonna There’s analogy I heard about, let’s say you had the dreaded nut allergy. You had peanut butter, not peanut nut allergy. You’re like, if you come to your peanuts, you’re gonna have an anaphylactic shock and get that whole EpiPen in the thigh to stay alive. Let’s pretend. Okay, let’s pretend uh you’d be a fool, You’d be dead and dumb if you went to all this, you’re like, where’s your peanut butter? It’s the third. I’ll great! You walk down the third, I’ll Oh, crunchy, creamy. I’m a creamy, creamy guy. Today, you take the creamy peanut butter home, you dim the lights, You open the peanut butter, You take the lid up. I love that opening smell of peanut butter. You lay out a smorgasbord of, you know, crackers and bread and toast and jam and jelly and and you have like celery because that’s the only way you can eat peanut butter. You take the peanut butter out and you you put it on everything. You take photos of you and your peanut butter. You just like, you know, you’d be an idiot if you’re allergic to peanut butter, you would be, you’re dead. Do you get what I’m saying is like stupid. That is. So you get what? But this is what we do. Verse 13. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Eva. So, peanut butter on the side, you have something that you’re tempted in, that maybe the person next to you, not tempted in and we have these rehearsed patterns were masters at finding out our aisle four at the grocery store. I’m gonna walk down the busy body gossip. I’ll I’m gonna scroll through instagram and just troll my enemies file. I’m gonna sit there at night and rehearse and rehearse grievances about someone filed. It’s friday night. I’m gonna go get slashed again. This we have sinned patterns that we go through that same dumb peanut butter thing with our different vices as people. It’s a both and thing here in verse 13 verse 13, lead us not into temptation. That’s you, but delivers from evil, that’s your heavenly father. So, like if you’re sitting there with the peanut butter and the dim lights and everything alone and you’re about to take a bite of celery of peanut butter and then you come to your senses like Lord protect me. The bible says later on in the epistles. It says uh depart from me. You know, it says, uh, when you like, flee from evil, there’ll be a path out. So that you can get away. That’s what the bible talks about elsewhere. When it talks about sin, it’s like, we should not lay down the freight train of our sin patterns and expect something not to happen. But if you do come to your senses right before you sin in something and you call out to help God will come through and help you. But it’s a dumb way to live christian. So it’s done just a white knuckle yourself and make rules that no one can go to the grocery store because there’s peanut butter there and you know know, you know, you stand out front hand out flyers, watch out for peanut butter at the grocery store. You know, you have hashtag down off the butter and you get what I’m saying. So like it’s like there’s a disciplined side of this thing of temptation where you like be smart, get help, get accountability, memorized verses, but there’s also a God growing you up and changing your side of sin patterns. I know there’s a time in my life as a young dad where I was just angry and my wife knew it was a bad angry dad. Um, and I, and I got help from a godly pastor who gave me biblical counseling with bible passages and reading and memorization. I was getting accountability and I was God help grow me in that area of being an angry dad, it happens. And one of my sons came to me and he’s like you, I asked him like, hey, how’s something about me and my temper. And I was like, dad, you’re not angry anymore. I mean that’s a work of God, not a work of mike, white knuckling reading this book, you know, rehearsing what to do and not to it’s not a work of man, it’s the work of God changing and growing me up from a child and infant child to a teenager in that area of my life, of my anger. Does that make sense? It’s a work of God to change you. But but we can also not walk down the aisle for the grocery store. It’s a both and thing christian, we tend to want to swing to one extreme or the other. Well, the Lord’s gotta save me from verse 13, the Lord’s gonna save me as I put myself in front of dumb situations and the other extreme is look how I saved myself, verse 13. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. And then verse 14 and 15, for if you forgive others, their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. And again, the feet of our skeleton of our prayer, life that we’re standing on is the fact that we are forgiven and God has separated our sins as far as the east is from the west and we should ground ourselves in that in our prayer life in the prayer closet. I’m forgiven from this. I have confessed that to you. I’m forgiven from that. I have a new identity in this God’s grown in that and that’s standing on the forgiveness of what jesus christ life did for you. There’s this really good quote that I like to share a few if possible J. C. Reilly and it’s long. So I’m gonna read it to you, it says a saved soul has many sorrows. He has a body like other men weak and frail, he has a heart like other men and often a more sensitive 12 he has trials and losses to bear like others and more often he has his share of bereavement deaths, disappointments process. He has the world to oppose a place in life to fill blameless li unconverted relatives to bear with patiently persecutions to endure and eventually a death to die and who is sufficient for these things. What shall enable a believer to bear all this christ. So we pray amen. This christian walk will not happen if you do not learn how to pray and I know that christ laid out an amazing prayer structure for us to kind of wrap our arms around in our minds around but when you pray here the suggestion is for you next time you can be you can pull up in your your bible the Matthew six and you can pray privately our father in heaven and you can take a moment, let your mind dwell there and reflect on that and pray what comes to mind along the theme of your heavenly father. Maybe there’s grievances and pains about your earthly father or there’s something you wanna say to God about your heavenly father, acknowledging his grandness and his name. You can privately reflect and pray Raleigh to your father hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done as you work through this structure of what our prayer lives could look like and should look like it’s some of it’s gonna be easy to embrace some of your like that’s that’s my jam that verse 11 or that verse 12, that’s that’s me. I was like what’s up this versus you know, nine and 10 and 13, but it’s it’s good for you. It’s good for you to dwell on things of God. It’s good for you to confess and it’s good for you to forgive other people’s sins. It’s good for you to look to God for your daily bread. It’s good for you to yield your will to God’s will. This is what we need. This is what we need to learn how to pray christian. So some of you like, I don’t, I do not have a relationship with his father that you’re talking about mike and that’s fine, we’re here for you is you discover that if you’re exploring who Christianity is and who this God is just know he’s a good God and he can’t be trusted. He’s a good heavenly father and he can be trusted the connect card. We love to buy you coffee, lunch one of us and our staff or someone or talk to someone that’s friendly. They’d love to befriend you and talk through what that looks like more. You have a heavenly father if you know it or not. Some of you like I grew up in the church, I hardly pray. That’s crazy what you just shared about prayer. Start dabbling in this and get some, get some tell some people what you’re working on learning. It’s fun to learn to pray and when father people, it’s fun to go to these church prayer meetings we have around the city as small community groups at our church here, off campus, off site. There’s different prayer groups that are happening. They’re just happening every week at the same time. You can crash it and hear other brothers and sisters share their thoughts and prayer and you can, you know, learn from other people. But the real thing is, it’s not a specialized language. Talk to God like you would talk to your father, don’t talk to God and some fancy religious rhetoric. Men and women and others, others, you’re like mike, I’m with you. I’m a member. I’m, I’m working my tail off, loving the Lord. I just think it’s good for us to realize that our work and everything that we’re doing in the church should be rooted in our devotion of being persistently obstinately grabbing on in our prayer life. And God answers those prayers questions God answers those prayers. There’s great resources out there for praying for a spouse, praying for a kid, there’s some great resources for praying for your family, there’s some great tools we’ve given our our members and you can find them out there for like praying for the lost and personal prayers. Be persistent in it. It is a holy, healthy thing to have discipline in ordering your thoughts and bringing them to go, hey man, will you stand and pray with me as we, as we close our time here. God, I thank you for today. I thank you for what you’re doing in these people’s lives. I think that the word of God is alive and jesus words are powerful. We just got to let them out in our lives. I pay people to do business with you and the word of God, we praise in jesus name. Amen