Good morning, CHURCH!

(Opening joke)

A new preacher on his first message was so nervous he could hardly speak.

After service he asked an Elder how he had done?

The Elder replied, you seemed quite nervous.

And he told him, "When I am worried about getting nervous on the pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass.

If I start to get nervous I just take a sip."

So the next Sunday he took the elders advice.

At the beginning of the sermon, he got nervous and took a drink. He proceeded to talk up a storm.

Upon returning to his office after service he found the following note on his door.

My instructions were to sip the Vodka, not to gulp it.

You made a few errors in your message.

There are only 10 commandments, not 12.

There are 12 disciples, not 10.

David slew Goliath, he did not kick the crap out of him.

Jesus was consecrated, not constipated.

No more vodka for you.

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Let’s go to the book of Genesis 2:24 ESV for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

Genesis 2:24 ESV

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

This is the priority of marriage.

The man leaves his blood family to establish this new family.

Anything that gets in the way of you two becoming one flesh is out of the will of God.

The marriage is held together by the couple pursuing one another and pursuing togetherness.

They shall become a one flesh partnership.

To the husband, your wife is the only thing you should be pursuing, and to the wife, your husband is the only thing you should be pursuing.

Let’s get to the message today.

Since we are currently engaged in a time of prayer and fasting, I would like to talk about prayer today.

Today’s message title is:

What way should I pray?

Michael did a wonderful job a few weeks ago talking about why we need to pray.

God is our God, and we are His people, and He wants to dwell with us.

But many believers get stuck when they try to pray.

Sometimes we feel like we too quickly run out of things to say to God.

Sometimes we compare ourselves to others that we have heard pray so eloquently.

Sometimes we wonder if we are talking too much and should we be listening to God more.

Maybe you’ve read books with prayers in them and sometimes they seem so complicated.

Maybe you’ve questioned, does God answer prayers more when they use complicated words and super deep details?

I think we’re always safe if we listen to Jesus on any subject that we have questions on.

Did Jesus even talk about how we should pray?

Well, of course he did.

Matthew 6:9-13 ESV

Pray then like this:“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

We’ve often made what I believe is a slight mistake in memorizing this prayer and stating it verbatim as a daily prayer.

When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray he told them to pray in this manner or like this which is a statement that meant, this is a blueprint for how you should pray.

Today we’re going to talk about 5 areas to pray in our daily prayer life.

Point #1

Pray in a way that is intimate

9 Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Jewish people commonly addressed God as “Our heavenly Father” when they prayed.

There were other intimate titles such as “Abba” (Papa) which were rare.

Jesus told his disciples to talk to God with an intimate name that is also hallowed.

In the Kaddish which was a standard Jewish daily prayer they proclaimed, “Exalted and hallowed be his name.”

Jewish prayers recognized that God’s name would be “hallowed,” “sanctified,” or “shown holy.”

When we say that God’s name would be hallowed, sanctified, or shown holy, these are all words that mean to set apart.

We shouldn’t stoop to terms like, “The big guy in the sky or the man upstairs.”

God is to be set apart from sin, darkness and even commonality.

Psalm 77:13 ESV

Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?

Psalm 99:9 ESV

Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!

Point #2

Pray in a way that leads to His will

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The kingdom of God is that moral and spiritual kingdom which God is setting up.

And the subjects of this kingdom are those who have surrendered their lives to Christ.

It’s the one’s who are learning a new way of life.

Turning away from sin.

Heading in a different direction than the direction that used to lead to sin.

It’s where we learn how to do life under the rulership and provision of the great King of kings and LORD of lords.

Thy will be done can apply both to our obedience to God’s will in the world today and to the ultimate working out of God’s purpose for the world eternally.

As we pray it’s important to always submit our will to His.

When you pray this part of the prayer you can pray anything that you know is the will of God.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality

Or you could go the direction of something like:

Acts 2:38 ESV

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

On earth as it is in Heaven leads us to look at the way the heavenly operates and pray that we as believers would impress upon society to do things in a heavenly way.

We have way too much of society influencing the church.

The church should be influencing society in the ways of heaven.

Point #3

Pray in a way of dependence on God

Until now the petitions have been geared toward God and his Kingdom.

11 Give us this day our daily bread

At this point Jesus’ attention moves to the personal needs of the person praying.

So, one takeaway is that Jesus taught us not to enter prayer focusing first on ourselves, but to first focus on God and His will.

This verse alludes to God’s provision of “daily bread” (manna) for the children of Israel in the wilderness after He first redeemed them.

The Israelite’s were dependent on God for daily provision.

Prayers for God to supply our basic needs, of which food was the ultimate example, were common in the ancient world.

So, never feel like you shouldn’t daily ask God to provide for you.

If Jesus put it in the pattern for prayer, then you should be okay with it.

Point #4

Pray in a forgiving way

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors

Some translations say forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

Lord, we ask you to forgive any ways we have wronged you in the same way we have practiced forgiving those who have wronged us.

When we do not pay this debt, we are now in debt to God.

Do you remember the parable of the unforgiving servant.

One man owed the king 10,000 talents. (A talent is a worth about 20 year’s wages.)

He couldn’t pay so he was going to be sold along with his family to take care of the debt, but he begged and pleaded, and the master forgave him his debt.

After being forgiven of his debt, he went out and found a servant that owed him 100 denarii. (A denarii was a day’s wage.)

When the servant begged and pleaded with him, he refused to forgive the debt and had him put in prison.

Matthew 18:32-33 ESV

Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’

We should be daily praying to forgive others.

Point #5

Pray in a way not to fall

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

The part here that says lead us not into temptation raises some questions because that is not a practice of God.

There are parallels with other ancient Jewish prayers that lead scholars to believe that the Aramaic wording behind this verse, suggests that the first line means: “Let us not sin when we are tested.”

We know that scripture says God tempts no one.

James 1:13 ESV

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

It’s because of this that some translations translated it, “And don’t let us yield to temptation.”

Which makes sense.

And lastly, deliver us or rescue us from the evil one.

Whom we know is the one who loves to tempt us and deceive us.

(Closing illustration)

If you’re watching online or here in the room, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?