Spend Time with God

Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · October 1, 2023 · Is Your Faith Growing? series

Jeremy MacDonald teaches from Matthew 6 and Philippians 4 about the reward Jesus promises when we pray and fast in private. Time alone with the Father grows our confidence in Him and brings His peace, which goes beyond understanding.

More from Jeremy MacDonald · The Is Your Faith Growing? series

Topics: Faith, Prayer, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] Well, friends, I do ridiculous things for rewards. I don't know about you, but for me, my life is marked by those moments that I don't know if everybody fully understands what is at stake and what's possible. But do you know when you get a receipt from the grocery store, you could win a chance to have a gift card and fill out a survey, and they will give you a chance at getting a reward. And if you've ever wondered who actually fills those things out, it's me. Yeah. Legitimately, the Starbucks app has rewards attached to it. I have actually ordered coffee to a restaurant. I had no intention of going to, did not pick up that coffee.

[0:46] But because I knew I would get a reward for ordering that coffee, I put in that order. Anyways, just this morning, I drove out of my way to a gas station knowing that that gas station would give me a reward versus the one that was much closer to my route. I am the one that does ridiculous things for rewards. Some of you are with me, and I think all of you're with me in some sense, but maybe not all of you're with me in that sense. But I really do think, honestly, if we're honest with each other, or in church, we should be a little bit honest with each other. You enjoy rewards as well. They just might be a little bit different. But for some of you, you know, you love the reward programs, just like I was mentioning, like you've got the PC Optimum app. You do the points, you know how it goes.

[1:31] You're coordinating with the redemption days. And, like, you love that. It's like couponing. You're a couponer at heart. Like, rewards are your jam in that sense. But some of you, that's not exactly you, right? For some of you though, it's a little bit different. For some of you, you love trophies or plaques, like you've got them right from whatever the thing was. Maybe it was from when you were growing up or you've got it stored somewhere, but you celebrate that recognition of that particular thing you did. And you love the fact that somebody would honor you in such a way to give you this trophy or this plaque, whatever it is, for whatever level of any, you know, investment that you made. That's your thing. For some of you, and this might hit a little bit close to home, so I apologize. It's not about your trophy and plaques, it's the ones from your kids.

[2:17] I know, I know. Now I'm stepping in, right? Like you get a lot of joy outta what your kids come home with. You've got them socked away. You've got them, you know, here is what you know, my kids have done over the last little bit. And, like, you celebrate, you got the bumper sticker again. No judgment, I'm not judging. In fact, just to prove that I'm not judging, this is legitimately my award from the 1996 Riverview Christmas pageant, where I was the prince. My parents still have it. Yeah, I was the prince of the carnival. What a thing in 1996. That's so long ago. But the point being is, you love the rewards. For some of you it's a bit different. For some of you though, it's all about the work promotions. And so you've climbed a different ladder, and you celebrate that because obviously it benefits you a little bit.

[3:03] But then also the ability to be recognized for the work that you've done. And for some of you, it's even a little bit different. For some of you, it's just straight up public recognition. And for some it's like, yeah, I would love to stand on a stage like this and have, like, a thousand people cheer my name. For some of you that's like, no, I don't want that at all. But I would love that individual to come to me and, like, look me in the eye and appreciate and know how hard I've worked. And they give me that recognition. For some of you, it's your spouse. They would just gimme that recognition, that kind of public recognition of the work that I've done. And the reason for all of this is actually really intentional. The reason for all this is kind of in all of us, it's that you love to be recognized, not in a bad way, but in a good way. You know, you love to be recognized, not in a, like, just puff me up kind of way, but like there's something baked into our DNA, our brains, that we love to be rewarded. We love to be recognized. You know, I was at this conference, a year ago, and it was ministry leaders thinking about the faith of the next generation. And we had a speaker come who had been in tech for a number of years.

[4:11] And so he was speaking about the challenges of our tech age and the apps that in particular teenagers can access and use, but obviously we get access to and use as well. And so he had been a part of the development of a number of them and knew the inside scoop. And it's fascinating 'cause these companies that we all know and these apps that we, a lot of us, use that employ people who are psychologists and sociologists and people that understand the brain to build systems into their apps that kind of taps into this reward-based learning that is inherent to all of us, really. And so he references this, and it's never left me. He's like, can you imagine for a moment if I was able to say, your friend, your friend has said something about you to all your other friends and a group of strangers, and your friend is willing to let you know what that is.

[5:00] Do you wanna know what they said about you? And of course everybody's like, yeah, that's a hundred percent I wanna know. And he's like, that's the invention of tagging in a social media feed. That's the invention of tagging. That's what it is. It's baked in 'cause they understand the brain that loops you in. It draws you in to the app or the experience, and then Instagram or Snapchat first. But it came out with an even more, maybe, insidious thing. They said, listen, what if your friend said something about you to a group of your friends and strangers? You don't know. But if you don't log in in the next 24 hours, you'll never know what it is, right? And that's the stories. And then there's Snapchat too. You know, from, like, an award standpoint, anybody on Snapchat? We got some Snapchat people. I'm not saying that Snapchat's bad, I'm just saying you got a couple people, a few in the balcony. K. And so Snapchat had this feature, has this feature where if you're having an engagement, like a conversation with a friend, and you have a conversation, or you send something back and forth, a snap, on a daily basis, it counts up your streak.

[5:53] And you've gotta have your streak to continue to see that number climb. So you've gotta log in and you gotta interact every single day. And we see this across all sorts of different apps, right? The streak, even your Bible app has a streak function rewarding you with this arbitrary number as you log in because they understand your reward-based learning. I had a streak going in Duolingo, which is a language learning app. I was trying to sharpen up my French. And as you can maybe tell, whenever I speak French, it's pa, pa, pa. And the reason is because I did Duolingo, I had a streak for a thousand days. But the last, like, 200 days of that streak, I went back and did the same basic learning about colors because it was just easier to do that than learn something new. So I could keep my streak going. And I got to a thousand. I thought, what does my life come to? But the point is, is that you love to be recognized. It's baked into our DNA, it's baked into our mind. It's baked into our heart.

[6:47] And so for a lot of my life, I've been a Christian pretty much my entire life. I grew up in the church. And so when I'd read the Christian scriptures, I would get to this particular part I wanna show to you. And I would bypass this little bit about rewards because for me, at least for my experience and the way that I've experienced faith, it, I didn't fully understand what was going on. And it kind of almost grated against what I believed about into. And yet, and yet as I was preparing for this message, I realized there's actually something really profound that Jesus invites us into. And it's all about a reward. And, and at least at this point as I realize, oh, what if God actually understands and knows how we're wired? Of course he does. He knows how you're wired. He knows how your brain works. And what if he actually is inviting us into something profound?

[7:35] And he talks specifically about a reward that he wants to give each and every one of us. And so for, for the next few moments, I wanna dig into a particular passage, this idea that we love rewards. And what if, what if we could access a reward greater than anything else that we've ever experienced? What would that look like? So go with me to Matthew chapter six. I'm gonna put it on the screen. It's the, uh, biography of Jesus. And this particular passage is gonna be Jesus speaking in the Sermon on the Mount, his most famous sermon. Some people would think that perhaps this was a collection of his greatest hits, the fact that he would go and he would preach often over his ministry. And that this is the collection of often when he would preach. And we don't have a collection of every time he spoke. We know that for sure.

[8:20] But that perhaps these are the lessons that they've compiled into the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps he delivered it as one on the Sermon on the Mount. If you've watching the chosen, it showcases that for sure. And, and there's these incredibly astute observations about human understanding, about our nature and all of this baked into Jesus inviting us into something really spectacular. And so in Matthew chapter six, it goes this way, watch out. Don't do your good deeds. Now good deeds is important. We gotta ask ourselves the question, when Jesus says, don't do your good deeds, What is He actually talking about before we really unpack the rest of the verse? And so, good deeds are really important to note. This is, and it's, and it's fairly explicit actually, if you watch and read the whole, the whole passage when He is talking about good deeds, He's talking about, traditional Jewish forms of piety, righteous acts, things that, that in those days were a way for you to kind of showcase or do good things that God has invited us into as a part of your faith experience. And so there's three in particular, and He talks about these three in Matthew 6.

[9:22] And so there's giving to the poor or almsgiving, that's one. There's prayer and there's fasting. And so for our time, I'm gonna, we're gonna focus in kind of on two main ones. We're gonna focus in on prayer and fasting. But the point of each of these is really interesting, 'cause as we're in this series, Is Your Faith Growing? We're talking about the idea that, that our confidence in God can be tied to particular actions that we could participate in. And so for these three actions, these three specific things that Jesus talks about is good deeds, is righteous acts. Each of them kind of speaks to something in our own lives that are a competition for our heart. They're each a competition for our confidence or our belief, or or where we seat our hope, even as just people. And so this isn't necessarily even just a Christian thing. This is, this is just a thing.

[10:11] This is a human thing that we all kind of rest in usually a few different things that we often can find confidence in. And, and Jesus invites us to participate in something that would kind of break the back of those three things so that they wouldn't master us, and instead that we might be mastered by Him who has their best interest at heart. And so for each of those things, giving to the poor kind of breaks the back of money in our lives. For so many of us, you know, money is the thing that we put our hope and trust and faith in. You know, part of the reason why we don't give is 'cause, well, we're not confident or assured that we will have enough later on. And so we don't wanna give 'cause we have to be assured that we're gonna be safe. And the Bible comes in and really lasers in on that particular heart thing and unpacks why we wanna offload money as our source of hope and our source of confidence. So that's one, and that's, that's a part of that one.

[10:59] We're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about that. The other one, prayer, kind of comes at this idea of time, that the time that we're given and the time that we have is so valuable. Would we be willing to acknowledge that if we could dedicate some of it in prayer, which is this time alone specific with God, believing that God is actually gonna hear our prayers? That's pretty significant. It changes how we understand and view our time. And then the last one, fasting typically is around food. You know, a lot of times people abstain from eating or, or from eating certain things for a particular amount of time, and that's fasting. And so this was an ancient practice. The Jews would do it. Christians have done it for thousands of years. And especially back in those days, there was a sense that, you know, your food was where you had confidence. There wasn't as much preservation, there wasn't as much refrigeration. And so if you had food enough, that was a sign of confidence, you could be confident in knowing you were gonna be safe. And, and yet fasting kind of breaks that heart issue of where we find our hope and confidence. Alright? So these are the three things.

[11:55] Let's go back to the passage to see what Jesus is saying in Matthew 6. Watch out, don't do your good deeds. Those three is what He's talking specifically about publicly, to be admired by others. That for these three things, what He's gonna unpack is the really big important question. When we think about righteous acts, about good things. And that's all about this big question, which is, what is your motivation? What is your motivation? Now, if you're not a Jesus follower, you know, you even know there are some good things, some good deeds, perhaps based on your own worldview. And, and so these words kind of still can apply for you. What is your motivation for doing those righteous acts, those good things? And it kind of comes back to this, again, reward idea that there's some type of, draw in each of us to be rewarded and acknowledged for the things that we do.

[12:44] And for Jesus in this instance, He's gonna invite us to shift and make sure that our motivations are properly aligned. But as we do that, He's going to invite us to experience something that, again, I've missed for a lot of the times that I've read this particular passage. Now, when we read into the commentaries, what they discover is that the motivation is a little bit specific. It's not necessarily trying to change how we represent these three actions. They're the righteous acts. But that instead there is indeed this, core thing going on. The motivation is the important thing that Jesus is talking about, even though He is gonna talk about specific ways to do these three acts. And the reason for that, as Don Carson says, is that there's no contradiction with Matthew 5. So before this, we read that the disciples are told to actually let their light shine before men so that they may see their good deeds, the folks that are witnessing the good deeds of the disciples. And, and when we read that, we realize that the motive is for men to praise the heavenly or heavenly Father.

[13:44] So righteous conduct under kingdom norms, under Jesus's rule must be visible so that God can be glorified. But, and this is, and so just the next chapter where Jesus is saying this, it's clear it must never be visible in order to win human acclaim. This is the invitation that Jesus makes to each of us, that our motivation shifts. Alright? Okay, so let's take a look. Watch out. Don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward. And this is the thing, this is the thing that I never really tied into or fully understood or I just, I guess I would miss, but that Jesus talks explicitly about a reward, a reward from your Father in heaven. And so we have to ask ourselves the question, what actually is that reward?

[14:33] Like God, our heavenly Father? If there's a God in the universe and He's willing to give us a reward, what is He about to give us if we would do these kinds of things? It's a, it's a reasonable question and one that I think we can answer here this morning. But we have to continue on in the Scripture. So let me just say upfront so that you know what the reward isn't. So the reward isn't that God will say yes to all of your prayers. And I know that personally because I asked for a lot of things as a middle school boy, that God did not answer in the affirmative. And to be honest, I'm fairly grateful for it in this part of my life. And so if you've ever followed Jesus for a length of time and, and you've prayed for things, you recognize that, that not all of our prayers get answered the way that we might want them to be.

[15:19] And yet, sometimes with the idea of time behind us, we can see that perhaps there's something else at play that God is doing something else or something else is going on even as we pray. Okay? Let's continue. So when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. And, and if you are not a Christian or a Jesus follower, if you're just here, you know, checking things out, maybe part of the reason why you've been hesitant about faith before, if you've disengaged from faith, you know, maybe you've walked away and, and you know, somebody is, you know, made you come for this morning. Part of the reason why faith grates on you a little bit is the experience of the hypocrites in the church. That Christians are often very hypocritical. And to which we would say, yeah, we are, but, we are because we're all sinful beings.

[16:05] And it's been the case from the very beginning and Jesus is inviting us to, to move past that and to live into this life that He's calling us to. And, and that's a part of the journey. And so we own the fact that we can be hypocrites for sure. And yet that doesn't change the fact that what Jesus is inviting us into is so profound and so good that we can still say here, even though we mess it up, we think this pursuit of Jesus is worthwhile. So Jesus says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly. In other translations it would say to stand on the street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, and here it comes. That is all the reward they will get, that their motivation for public acclaim ends up being fulfilled, but that's all they actually receive is the public acclaim.

[16:54] Now, there are examples throughout the New Testament of all different kinds of prayers. And so just to remind us that this isn't an invitation to a specific type of prayer or a location for prayer, we recognize that instead Jesus is talking about our motivations. We'll see later on in the New Testament, these examples of, of public prayers even in the New Testament church. And then in terms of like physical response in the way to pray, in the way that we might position ourselves for prayer. It doesn't have to be, again, a specific type of prayer. You don't have to, it's not a boat necessarily folded hands or head bowed, although that is a way to pray. But we read throughout the Christian Scriptures, There's, there's not just public prayers, but there's like, there's face down prayers, right? On, on top of that, we find kneeling prayers. And these aren't exhaustive lists, but there's also sitting prayers and even prayers that are, you know, with people standing. And so the idea here is that Jesus is talking about something I think very, very profound. It's not about the specific rote way to pray.

[17:46] It's instead something about the motivation, and who is watching as we pray. Alright, so let's continue. "When you pray," Jesus says, "go away by yourself, shut the door behind you and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, who sees everything, will reward you." Like, the fact that God would reward us is fascinating. And again, something that I wouldn't have thought of or sought after or wondered about. And yet, here we are, and Jesus is very explicit: reward from your heavenly Father is possible. But here's what the expectation is, that we would make Him the audience for our prayers and that He actually sees everything. And for some of you, you know, this goes even to a bigger principle. There's a sense that, you know, in our world today, so much happens and so many things happen sometimes in secret, or sometimes, things go on that, you know, shouldn't go on. And you wonder like, is God recognizing any of what's happening here? And that, and the answer is yes, that, that our heavenly Father actually does see all the good and all the bad and secret.

[18:53] And part of our faith is this understanding that in time God will bring proper justice to all things in all situations. And a part of that is recognizing that when you do righteous acts, when you do good deeds, when you do things that maybe nobody else would see, that time you spend seeking after your heavenly Father is seen by Him, and that He may actually, and promises to, give you a reward for it. And that perhaps that reward is something worth seeking after. So one of the big questions that we often get as pastoral leaders is the simple question, okay, what does it actually mean to pray? How do I do this practically? Because for some of you, like, this has been your journey. You've prayed for maybe years or for decades. For some of you, you know, prayer, you kind of get in a thought of like, is it quiet? Or like, do I just think something? Like, how does it actually look?

[19:47] And then for some of you, you know, to be honest, you've perhaps been in churches for a while, but prayer is also just something that, you know, the professionals do, and that for you personally has not been a part of your experience. So I wanna give you a few ideas on practically, when we talk about prayer, how to actually pray, like how to do this kind of thing that we learn about throughout the Scriptures. Okay? So just three ideas. They're not the only ways, there's just some options for you if you would like some ideas. Okay? So the first is, and in this section in particular, Jesus is gonna launch into the Lord's Prayer. This common prayer, if you Google it, Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, Lord's Prayer, when His disciples asked Him, in Luke, "Lord, teach us to pray," He launches into, you know, a section of the Lord's Prayer and teaches His disciples, this is a prayer that you can just pray word for word on your own.

[20:34] And this is a good way to start in or lean into prayer. It's a historic thing. The church has done it for years. Christians do it, and it highlights a few important points or structures. There's bits to it that allow you to experience prayer from maybe different angles. And so the Lord's Prayer is a really good place to start trying to help us understand maybe the context of prayer and what we can do and say in prayer. There's even different, like, acronyms or categories. And so in this setting, I could say like, the parts of prayer, here's an acronym you could take into prayer. And that when you have a time on your own in private, or even in public prayer, whatever it might be, that there's specific things you can think or say out loud as a part of your prayer, turning your attention to God. And so the parts thing is five. So starting at the very top, the idea is that we could praise God with our prayers. You know, when we read the Psalms, there's so many different psalms that are just meant to praise God for who He there's so many different psalms that are just meant to praise God for who he is.

[21:38] And so that's a worthwhile and reasonable thing that Jesus followers would do, is that we would praise God when we pray, but also on top of that, we might actually ask Him. And, but this is the one that gets up the big time, right? This is the one that instinctively we go to, even people that aren't Christians, is like, oh, when I need something, if there's a God out there, please would You show up and do this thing that I need from You as a form of asking God to intervene? And that's a reasonable thing. We do that as Christians, we do that as people. And that's totally fine, but let's not make it the only thing that we do in our prayer time. So we can praise God, we can ask God of things, we can repent. This is really worthwhile. We see this again through old scripture, our proper response to our own sinfulness, our own fallen nature. When we experience sin in our own lives and things that we've done, we repent of those things and we bring those things to our heavenly Father for forgiveness. We can thank God, we can thank God for things that He's answered, for ways that He's been available in our lives and true to us and we've experienced Him.

[22:34] We thank God for those things and then we can just share, we can share in the life that we're living and where we're needing Him to, you know, jump in and we need God and we just share with Him as if we're having a conversation with someone. And so these are ways that you, again, could pray. A third way that you could pray is actually in the New Testament, in the early church, Paul's letter to the church of Philippi. He gives a little bit of an instruction of prayer, and then it maybe takes a shot at what this reward might be, which I think is really helpful. And so here's a third way that you might pray, especially if you've not tried this before. So in Philippians we read this, he says, don't worry about anything. Now, if we were having coffee together and I was to get some points from Starbucks, gratefully yeah, for that coffee experience, you would have some things that are on your heart and mind right now, right?

[23:32] Like, if you're honest, as much as you're here hoping to focus on God, there's something weighing on your heart that you're just wrestling with. And I don't know what it is, but you know, just by saying that, you know, a thing or two pops to mind, it could be a person, it could be a situation. There's just something that's kind of welled up inside of you. And that's just a part of our human experience. And so it's interesting to note that even from the very beginning part of what Christians were invited to experience is that when we think about those things, instead of worrying about them, we pray about everything. And that in prayer, this is how it might look. And so here's just, again, an idea, but one that I would invite you to try today and then even this week, tell God in prayer what you need.

[24:30] Because as you think about this situation, there's something that you feel like you need in that moment that you need in the midst of that, that you need God, if God was to intervene, what would that look like? And so just tell Him, this is the invitation for prayer, but that we don't just be about the people that are asking, but then we also look and find ways to recognize and to see where is God working already in my life and in this situation. So we thank Him for all that He has done. The next verse, I think, is a picture of what the reward that Jesus is talking about, what it looks like for you and for me, and for all of us for these thousands of years since He said them.

[25:16] When you do these things, then you will experience God's peace. And God's peace exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ Jesus. So wherever you're at in your journey, whatever you believe about God, about the life that you live and what's around you, I'm sure if you could imagine what God's peace exceeding, anything that we could understand, reason, belief. So it'd be nice to get a little bit of that for your own life and for your own situation. And so perhaps this reward that Jesus is inviting us to experience and to take with us is really specific and a way maybe to wrestle with. It could be something like this. It could be that when you leave your time with the Lord, no, go, Go ahead to the next slide.

[26:20] The reward is that I leave my time alone with His uncanny assurance that God is with me. This uncanny assurance that in the midst of whatever this thing is, that I'm not alone in it, that I have God's peace with me, that His Spirit is actually inside of me, that I have the ability to recognize and know that, that He will be with me through it all. And so throughout this series, this has been a part of our experience, right? So as we look to the different parts of our of this series about growing in our faith, the idea being that we could grow our confidence that God is exactly who He said He is, and that He is in our lives, real. And so we've said that when you're in community with insiders, when you, when you go into a group and you experience faith and you're with each other, that there's a sense that your confidence in God grows through that, that your circumstances when you face them, that you can come out the other side with a renewed sense that God is real and that He's with you. Last week we talked about serving others, that in the act of going to serve others that we could have and increase confidence in God. And then this idea that the spiritual disciplines, the things that we do disciplined are things that we will have our faith grow because of. And so, this idea of prayer together, or sorry, prayer alone with God is so important and so valuable. So let's keep going.

[27:39] There's a sense though that if we look to our relationship with our Heavenly Father, that it really is held together like all relationships. It's held together with disciplined actions and disciplined routines. And so we show off to relationships. And you get this, if you have people that you love, there's a sense that that relationship is built on and predicated by specific actions that you do, communication with each other, acts for each other, things that build into that relationship, and a relationship where your Heavenly Father is no different. The act of spending time in prayer with Him is significant and important and develops the relationship and allows us to experience God in our lives on a daily basis in a way that is profound. And if you've met somebody that has been following Jesus for any length of time and has a prayer life where it's just so rich with their Heavenly Father, it's it's profound to hear them talk about how their life goes and how they see God moving in and through them. And if we're not careful, our experience of faith in kind of like North America area church wise is often easier to disengage from that bit.

[28:47] It's a little bit more cognitive. Sometimes there's this sense that we might know the things, but we don't necessarily do the things that we kind of know about God, but we don't experience God. And what we learned from Jesus is that there's actually a reward that's very experiential, that's very personal. And so inviting us into this action step to grow our faith is really absolutely critical. I wanna show you, let's keep going here. Jesus goes on and He explains fasting. And I want you to catch this 'cause for some of you, this is also, this is a part of it for some of you this morning, you know, prayer is important, yes, but, and this isn't exactly what Jesus says, but there's a sense that fasting is an intense way to come to God, you know, through prayer and fasting. And for some of us, I think there's been a maybe a miss that we haven't experienced all that God has for us because we haven't been willing to take this step that's been a part of our tradition for thousands of years. And so Jesus says, "When you fast, don't make it obvious." And so this is again, the going back to the motivation. "As the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting.

[29:53] I tell you the truth, that's the only reward they'll ever get." The motivation. He goes on, "When you fast, comb your hair, wash your face, and then no one will notice that you are fasting except your Father, who knows what you do in private." This is the thing. "And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you." And so for fasting, there's this you know, if you've ever experienced this, it's a combination of withholding from something, usually food. But there's something more than just like withdrawing and not eating food for a particular amount of time. Sometimes it's even selections of food. Like people can fast from sweets over time. People can fast from other things, but there's something a little bit deeper going on. And so the commentators say this about it, the various kinds of fasts were very commonly practiced throughout much of Israel's history. So we read about them in the Old Testament, and it's always kind of the symbol of some deeper meaning than simply abstaining from food. We kind of see them in two categories.

[30:47] I wanna show you these two categories 'cause maybe this is what you need today. And the first is that fasting can be this really, really important kind of self-humiliation, this kind of humbling ourselves before God in connection with confessions of sin. We see this throughout the Scriptures. And so for you, there's a sense that yes, we come and we can confess and we can repent to God, but at times there's an importance of being able to humble ourselves so deeply that we would withdraw from something like food in order to pray more deeply, that as our body signals us for hunger, it reminds us to pray. And then in the second category, to lay some special petition before the Lord, sometimes out of anguish or anger or desperation. And so for you, if you think about the things that you want to pray about, you know, perhaps it's time to actually spend some time fasting over those things.

[31:37] And I can't prescribe that for you, but I think the Holy Spirit could. So if we go back to this passage in Philippians, and this is kinda where I want us to take a few moments here, this invitation not to worry about anything, and instead to pray about everything, telling God what we need, and then thanking Him for all that He has done. This is the invitation for, I think, all of us. And I know in this room that there's lots of you that maybe, you know, prayer and who is this God? And you know, you're not quite sure and you're not fully on board. And that's totally fine. You're always welcome to be here. There's no pressure from us to participate in any way. We're happy that you're here, but I think there is something about experiencing this type of prayer that is potentially really meaningful and important for you and for your journey and for what's going on right now in your life. And so I, you know, as I think about this and the reward that Jesus invites us into understanding, it's about the motivation.

[32:39] It's not necessarily about the place or the time or even the posture, but that we would be willing to acknowledge and recognize that maybe there's a God out there who does see everything that we do and does know exactly what's going on in our lives. I would wonder if we could take a few moments just in our service here, because you're here and you know, we've sung these songs and we've and we, you know, we've had a time of prayer and and we're reading the Scriptures together. I wonder if maybe this is a time when, not gonna get you to go anywhere. You don't have to move over your seat, you don't have to stand or anything like that. But if we could just take a few moments in this service for each of us personally to do this, to tell God what you need, maybe to thank Him for all that He has done, and then to just wait and see if maybe here this morning that the Holy Spirit might actually respond to our hearts.

[33:40] Now it's a little bit gutsy to do that because then in some ways we kind of lift that up to God and then we let Him minister to us how He would like to. But I think that's the idea. And so what I wanna do is take a few minutes, we're just gonna, Mark's gonna play a little bit in your seat. You don't have to go anywhere. You can close your eyes if that allows you to focus more, you can bow your head. You can maybe even open your hands up as a sign of just openness. And for just a couple of minutes, I would love for each and every one of us just to pray, just to practice it, just to give it a shot.

[34:25] It seems like perhaps Jesus was onto something when He was inviting us into it. And if we would pray, telling God what we need and what we're wanting and what we're looking for, and what we're wrestling with, and what we're worried about and what's going on in our life and more authentically before our Heavenly Father, in these moments, I'm just gonna pray that the Spirit would speak to each and every one of our hearts in a way that maybe for you is new and maybe for you is a little bit different. And my hope is that this would not be something that just happens here, but that you would be so profoundly drawn into what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life, the reward that your Heavenly Father has for you, that you would want to seek after Him again and again this week and next week and next month.

[35:17] So let's just take a moment and quietly, in your own mind, in your own spirit, come before your Heavenly Father in prayer, inviting Him to hear your prayers and then speak to you and only Father.

[36:48] I get the sense that there's somebody with such significant need that You're inviting them to spend time this week, fasting before You with that in mind. And so, Lord, I pray that in this moment that You would just affirm their and their heart and impress upon them Your desire to meet with them in the midst of that, that they would take time to come before You in that way this week. Father, I get the sense that there's somebody who thinks this all might be a little bit hokey, you know, that's not fully sure that You're even real. And yet here they are reaching out maybe even for the 10th time or the 11th time, or the 12th time, expecting there to be no response. And yet, God, we know that Your Spirit has been knocking on the door of their life so profoundly.

[37:39] I pray that You would give them eyes to see even this morning how You want to invade their life in profound ways. Father, there's some unanswered prayers here in this room in the sense that there's been some folks begging and pleading for something and it feels like maybe that You haven't been there or that You haven't answered. And yet, God, we know that You're in the midst of the mire and the situation. And we just believe that, You've actually been carrying them through. And so give them a vision of how You are carrying them in the midst of that and how You want to work even in the midst of the most difficult of circumstances.

[38:25] Spirit, I feel like there's somebody that is celebrating greatly, and I just pray that You would encourage them to share that, that this wouldn't be something that is done. Just obviously we pray in secret, that's what You asked us to do. And yet we shine our good deeds in front of men so that You may be glorified. And so, there's some people here that need to take what You're doing in their lives and they need to actually share it with somebody else that You might be glorified. And so give them the confidence to know what that means and look like, and then God, empower them to go and to do that. I get the sense that there's somebody who may be, this is a bit embarrassing because they haven't actually had enough of a prayer life with You, even though people assume that they have. And I would just pray that, You would take that guilt and that shame and You would release them from that. And instead that You would give them a sense of confidence knowing that, You are so happy that they would run into Your arms today and this week. And that they can start fresh.

[39:30] You invite us to start fresh and that this can be a time where things change. Yeah, there's some people here that change is the prayer. Change is the thing that they need. And in this moment and in this day today, that there would be change in their lives and Your Spirit will go with them and empower them for that. But, God, protect them because as soon as they walk out these doors, it's gonna be easy for the enemy to come around them and to tell them lies and to try to dictate what things might actually need to happen. And instead, God, would Your Spirit be true as they go from here and let it be something that, lives into the rest of their life and that they might share with others, that they can come around with friends and their small group, or if it's us as pastors, the prayer team, that, we can be in prayer for them. That this doesn't have to be different this time today and from here on, it's gonna be consistent.

[40:25] Father, and I just want to pray even here that our church, as this community of believers, that we would be the kinds of people for anybody that has raised their hand to say they would be not in this moment, but just in their lifetime, that they've said yes to You and that they're following after You. I pray that, they would recognize that they're a part of Your movement here in this city and in this community and the people around them. And God, let Your Spirit that is with us, we know it is with us from the Scriptures, that we would be open to it, that we would be open to it speaking to us, that we'd be open to the Spirit leading and guiding us. That this would be the kinds of people that would be constantly looking to You for guidance and direction and invitation that we had our trust and our confidence is in You. God, it's not in anything else.

[41:10] And that because of our confidence in You that You would let us be a part of Your work. You will always do Your work. God, You don't need us for that. And yet You allow us. And so, Spirit, empower us, we pray, and go with us. We pray, and as Jesus is inviting and invited us to reward us for the times that we, in quiet and in secret, look to You, and God, that reward of confidence in You and peace, as we read upon in Philippians, we ask for it and we want more people to experience Your peace. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.