Untitled Sermon (14)

One at a Time Prayer

When you think about your relationships that you have in life, and even your friendships, there a big part of your life arent they? When we don’t here from that person we care about, or we don’t here from our best friend, we often feel left out. Imagine going weeks or months without talking to your parents, It would feel weird, most of us cant do that. I know that I can’t. I think about my friendships especially, I had two of my best friends move out of town, and honestly now I know that I am going to put forth an insane amount of effort to keep the friendship that I once had. It was easy when they were here, because if i got bored, i could go to them, if I wanted to do something, I had them. If I got anxious, I could lean on them. If I got upset I could go to them. and now that theyre gone, I going have to replace that. Relationships are everything, its how we operate, and its how we tick. But think about your relationship with God for a sec. How often do you spend time with him. How much effort do you put in your relationship with God to keep your relationship strong, it can be really easy to have a strong relationship with him at camp, and with him during church events, but what about when you get bored, what about when you get anxious, or angry, or upset. How often do we go to him. As we have tackled this theme of one at time, right, we started out with ONE VERSE at a time, ONE Service at a time, One person at a time, But now we are taking a look at prayer life, and when it comes to our relationship with God, it should one prayer at a time

In the book of romans in chapter 12, we get to this part were Paul is adressing Jews and Gentiles, and together, and you there is a main idea that paul is trying to get aross, and its the idea of hey if you are a christian you should be acting like this. If someone is my friend how would they act like it. If someone says that they are a doctor how would they go about acting like it. we would probably say the same things about our teachers, how do they act like it, can they teach, you may feel like some of them can’t teach, and they probably can’t . But how do we look into our own lives in ask ourselves if we are true christian. Paul gives us ten things that mark us as true christians.

Romans 12:9–12 “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

1. Let love be genuine, Can you guys tell when someone is being fake towards you? When someone doesn’t really want to be your friend or someone doesnt really wanna show you kindness. We ought to be real with the love that we have, if we say we believe in christ we ought to express the Love of God in a sincere way. Do you often encounter the things in your life, with love in your heart.

1 Corinthians 16:14 “Let all that you do be done in love.”

2. Abhor what is evil, and hold fast to what is good. Abhor menas to regard with disgust and hatred, we should strive to hate, the evil, hate the bad things, do we hate the bad things or do we join in on the bad things. To hate the bad things, to hate the evil things is to hold on to the good things. The good things in life are things of God, things of christ, they are often the things that we know that we should do, but don’t do. Right if there is an opportunity to do good, we should do the good thing the right thing.

Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” \

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

James 4:17 “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

That really sticks out to me ya know. If i am holding on to good, even when it may be extremely uncomfortable, I am acting in the right thing.

3. Love one another with brotherly affections. oh man this one is a fun one. right its fun to hang with your friends and shoot the breeze with them, and play games, for you girls get the manicure and the pedicure, or together go see zach bryan right, I feel like its easy to do those things, but how do you love someone when they make you mad or make you upset.

Hebrews 13:1 “Let brotherly love continue.”

John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

4. Outdo one another in showing honor. Who in here likes to win? Who likes to compete,. What would look like if we tried to outdo one another to serve one another. The biggest honor that we have is our service, you think about how your parents serve you, by the things they chose to do for you. taking you to your ball games, taking you to concerts, taking to do whatever it is you wanna do. and Im just going to be honest, they don’t have to. But with your friends how do you serve them, how do you help them,

1 Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

Hebrews 10:24 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,”

5 and 6 Be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit. The mark of a christian is someone who is excited someone who is excited to be alive in Christ, Someone who that doesn’t look like they are sick and tired of being sick and tired.

1 Corinthians 14:12 “So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.”

7 serve the Lord. Colossians 3:23–24 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

8,9 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation,. Rejoice in the hope of Christ that we have, be patient in the trials of life that we have right. Rejoice through worship, rejoice through your whole life, and be patient within the struggle\

John 16:33 “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.””

And 10. Be constant in Prayer. We talk to the same people everyday, some of you make sure you don’t go a day without saying goodmorning to somebody, but when we look at our prayer life, for some reason the dedication to it, seems like not there. And Im just going to be honest, its because we don’t make prayer a priority in our lifes, and maybe just maybe that reflects our relationship with God as well.

Andrew Murray has this quote that says Our lives must be as holy as our prayers,

A. W Tozer said Prayer at its best is the expression of the total life, for all things else being equal, our prayers are only as powerful as our lives.

If you were to tell me, who your best friends were I should be able to look at your text and your conversations and be able to see that of a friendship right. IF I were to look at your prayer life, I should be able to see how strong of a relationship you have in christ. Now would it be strong? or would it be weak?

1 Thessalonians 5:17 “pray without ceasing,”

Psalm 145:18 “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”

Philippians 4:6 “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

I want to challenge you to this. Don’t make prayer complicated. Don’t make prayer more than what it has to be, but pray, and pray to God because you believe him, and pray to him just talk to him