Jarek Berga - Discipline of Prayer

[00:00:00] Almighty God, you welcome you. Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to, so we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church, and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:34] All right. You're like, who's this guy? I am a pastor. My name is Harrick. [00:00:40] I'm supposed to be up here. [00:00:43] Welcome. I'm one of the elders here. Well, good. Good to have you. [00:00:47] I have the privilege this morning of opening up the word and sharing some things with you. And before I do, I want to just pray. [00:00:59] I've been deep in thought around some of these things this week, and I really need God's help. And I think we all. [00:01:06] One of the things that this text that I'm going to be reading to you today reminded me of is like, we're really needy. May not be aware of how needy we are. We might not be aware of the specific needs that we have, but we're way more needy than we know as human beings. And so I want to just pray that God would meet us with his supply in our need this morning and provide all that we need. So not just for me, but for you, too. So if you'll join me. [00:01:31] Father, thank you for this morning. [00:01:35] Thank you for this opportunity that we have to gather together as your people. [00:01:41] No matter where we're at in our journey of discipleship, of learning to enjoy Jesus, obey him, and operate like him in every area of life, wherever we're at on that journey, I thank you that you are here with us. [00:01:55] As Brittany shared, I think sometimes we just need to know that you're right next to us and that you're calm and you're patient and you're generous. [00:02:04] And I pray that that would be our experience this morning, that it would be like we know, like Jesus is here. He's with me. Not just us collectively, which is true and absolutely necessary, but he's with me and whatever I'm going through in this moment, God, thank you. [00:02:22] Would you make Jesus real to us? He's already real. [00:02:26] But sometimes our minds, just our hearts, just don't see or understand what he's doing, who he is and where he is. [00:02:34] Would you make us a little bit more aware of your presence this morning. [00:02:37] Would you give me all that I need to do what you've called me to do? [00:02:41] God, we love you, Jeanne. We pray. Amen. [00:02:46] Amen. So my son Josh has just recently started playing flag football. [00:02:55] And so we're like. We're doing the whole Friday Night Lights thing. [00:02:59] We've been playing baseball. He's been doing baseball for. Forever. He did soccer for a while. [00:03:04] And so we have been going on Friday nights to birds. All birds. All right. To go catch games. We've run into some of you while we've been there. It's a whole new world for us. [00:03:16] And one of the things that's new is everything. [00:03:20] Everything. [00:03:24] It's like another language. It's like another world. I like football a lot. [00:03:30] American football. [00:03:32] New to me. Not really new. I used to actually play it when I was a kid, but I've forgotten much in these 20 years. [00:03:38] And so one of the coaches decided to. And I've been curious about this. I'm like, okay, they're running plays. [00:03:45] What are those plays? [00:03:48] Can I have them? Can I look at them? Is this a thing that, as a parent, do I have access to what my son is being trained to do? Apparently I do, because the coach, he heard my thoughts, and he uploaded the playbook to the Game Changer app. And so I just want to. I want to welcome you into my confusion. Can you guys throw up the play? [00:04:14] 25 pages of that. [00:04:20] No explanation. [00:04:23] It's like. Okay, well, okay. There's so much going on here. [00:04:30] Can I just, by a show of hands, just raise your hand if this is true of you. [00:04:34] Who here has no idea what's going on here? [00:04:37] Okay. [00:04:38] About half the room. Well, it's actually. Who here understands this? [00:04:44] Okay. Wow. That's way more people than I thought. [00:04:49] It's cool. [00:04:50] I think this is going to not break down. It might, but I read this, and I was like, there's so many questions. What are these letters? [00:05:00] Number one, two. Why are two of them cut off? Is that intentional? Is that, like, a formatting issue? [00:05:10] Three, Is this a pass play or a running play? [00:05:13] Four, and this is critical. [00:05:16] Who gets the ball? [00:05:23] Like, there's so many questions. If you don't get the ball, what do you do? Do you just follow the line? [00:05:31] What if. How do you convince them that you're the person? [00:05:36] There's just so many questions that I have. And so I'm curious. Could you, by a show of hands, who, like, truly gets this? [00:05:44] Who really, really gets this? [00:05:46] Okay, Gabe, you're the Closest one. [00:05:49] Didn't you play football? All right, come on up here. [00:05:58] You guys don't know Gabe. It's time to get to know him. Wonderful, man. You could just put that on. Slide it on. [00:06:04] I didn't turn it on for you. Okay, it's the test here. We're going to put that playbook skill to the test. Okay, Gabe, what is happening here? So what I'm understanding from this, I don't know what the letters stand for. That's probably some internal code. But it's pretty clear we got a couple guys in the backfield here. They're gonna go out for passes. We've got two receivers here, they're gonna go out for passes as well. And then quarterback gets to decide he wants to throw it to. That probably will get decided at the time of the game based on the strength of the defense and who's out there and whatnot. So, okay, my best assessment. All right, for those of you that know what this is, do we agree? [00:06:51] Okay. Any disagreement. [00:06:54] Incredible. You nailed it, Gabe. [00:06:56] Well done. [00:06:58] Thank you, Gabe. [00:07:03] Okay, so I forgot to ask you the most important question. [00:07:06] What do you do if you're on defense and you know this is coming? [00:07:11] You try to stop it. You try to stop it. Okay. [00:07:17] Make sure that they're all covered, that no one gets the ball. It's a pass play, right? [00:07:22] It's a pass play. So you know a pass is coming. And so you can, if you know what's coming, be prepared and you're more likely to pick one. [00:07:32] Is that the intercept one? If you know it's going to be a pass play and you know more or less where everyone's going. Okay, why am I. Yes, I need clarity on what this is so that I can help my son. But that is certainly not why I used a fifth of my message on this picture. [00:07:51] I hope. Let's see if this lands. [00:07:55] Here's my point in bringing this up. I think if you understand the play, especially if you understand the opposition's play, it can change your game. [00:08:06] You may not know when they're going to run this play, but when they do, if you know what this play is, you can read it and respond quickly. Why? Because you're prepared. [00:08:18] You're prepared. [00:08:21] If I can have the FF Bruce quote, the longer one. [00:08:26] This is a quote that's really been hitting me this week. [00:08:30] I've been spending time in Ephesians. It's one of Paul's letters, one of his best known letters. And it talks a lot at the end of that letter. About warfare, a spiritual kind of warfare, a battle. The football game is like a battle between two sides. There is a battle happening spiritually in our world according to scripture. [00:08:49] And if you kind of know what the enemy's gonna do, the opposition's gonna do, you can be prepared for it. [00:08:55] And so we're obviously living in this moment right now, a culturally charged moment. [00:09:01] And I read this this week and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is it. Check out this quote from FF Bruce. He's a Scottish, he's since passed away. Scottish scholar, a Bible scholar. He says, one of the devil's wiles, which is language we don't really use, but it's one of his schemes. [00:09:18] The devil would be the enemy, the opponent of God. Not his equal, but nevertheless, he's the one that's going against God and inspiring all the evil in the world. It says, one of the devil's wiles, one of his schemes. One of the plays in his playbook that he runs, possibly his most effective one, is his readiness to exploit strained relations and angry feelings. [00:09:40] Boy, if anything marks our age, wouldn't you say that that probably does? Strained relations and angry feelings. It is just the way of the world. [00:09:49] It is normal, and it becomes weaponized through things like politics. And then you get strained relations and angry feelings multiplied. [00:09:59] But here's what he said that gave me so much hope. He said, to be forewarned about the nature of his schemes or his wiles is to be forearmed against them. [00:10:09] I'm going to say that again. To be forewarned about his wiles, his schemes, is to be forearmed against them. [00:10:18] And I have been tossing this over all week. I think that the Lord wants us to be aware. By the way, if you're here and you are not yet a disciple of Jesus, welcome. [00:10:31] What we're going to be talking about today is something that is crucial for the disciples of Jesus to know. [00:10:36] But just so you know, this doesn't not include you. [00:10:40] A part of this warfare is actually to pray that God would bring sons and daughters home to his house, because he's very generous and he wants everyone to come to him. [00:10:52] And so part of this is our battle on your behalf. [00:10:56] But if you're a part of the church, if you're a member of this community specifically, I think God wants to forewarn us so that we can be forearmed to engage in this battle in a different way, to not be engaged in this battle in the ways of the world, to not be engaged in battles where we raise Our voices, where we lose our cool, where we fracture relationships, those things sometimes are inevitable. [00:11:19] But I'm saying the fractures, I mean, how we respond to things. It's never inevitable that we're going to respond poorly to something we can't control, where we're going to find ourselves. But one thing that we have some level of control over is our response. And I think God wants us to respond in a way that honors Jesus as king and reflects the reality that he is enthroned and that there's a certain way to do things that really pleases and honors Him. We're going to talk about that today. So turn over with me to Ephesians, Chapter six. [00:11:53] Ephesians, Chapter six. If you don't have this, if you don't have a Bible, that is okay, we're going to put this up on the screen for you. [00:12:01] This is Ephesians, Chapter six is this incredible letter that you really have to read. It's worth reading in one sitting. You can do it. It'll take you a little bit, but it's worth doing. [00:12:12] And Ephesians is this letter where the Apostle Paul, if you don't know who the Apostle Paul is, he was an early church leader, a remarkable human being who actually once thought he was doing the will of God by stopping the church. [00:12:27] And then he met Jesus and was like, oh, no, he's the enthroned king. [00:12:33] And I've actually been opposing him. And so what ended up happening to Paul is he went from being the greatest, maybe not the greatest, but one of the great opponents of the church to one of the great spokesmen of the church. [00:12:44] And what he was advocating for was that men and women everywhere would come to recognize that Jesus is the king on the throne. [00:12:50] He wanted to see the rule and the reign of God spread everywhere. He. He wanted to see men, women, young people, children experience life under God as king. [00:13:04] And so he went everywhere proclaiming this message. And this isn't just any king, because that's not necessarily good news. This is a gracious, forgiving king who calls and summons lost sons and daughters home to himself through forgiveness, through. And as you can imagine, that is messy because it means that you have a whole house full of people that may not even like each other together. [00:13:30] But he has a plan for that. And we're going to read about that here today. Ephesians, chapter 6. [00:13:35] The apostle Paul has already spent various chapters talking about the significance and the necessity of unity in the church, unity amongst God's people. [00:13:45] He spent time talking about the need for gifted people in the church to equate and strengthen people as they unite around Jesus and serve him and minister to him. And he's made a call for men and women and young people, children, anybody that comes to Jesus to press into maturity by being in a community of people who are about the same things, about enthroning Jesus in their hearts. And then he ends his epic letter this way, which feels. If you read the letter, you're like, whoa, where did this come from? But let's read it and I'll tell you why. I don't think it's strange at all that it's here. Ephesians, chapter 6, verses 10 to 20. But we'll read the first five. It says, finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength, or be strengthened in the Lord. Some translations say. So obviously he's talking, but what he's going to talk about isn't something that we conjure up. We're not white knuckling. We're actually drawing from a higher source. [00:14:40] Everything he's about to say. He said, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. Anybody remember the two things I said were a part of the schemes of the devil? What are the two things? [00:14:52] Strained relations and anger. Angry feelings. Thank you. Oh, there it is. Thank you. [00:15:00] So put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. [00:15:05] So this is something we're going to need divine empowerment for. It's not something that we can just do on our own. If you've ever lost your cool, you know, you know what it's like to be like, oh, Lord, help me. [00:15:15] I have just given freedom and reign to emotions that I did not discipline in this moment. [00:15:22] And it typically leads to shame and regret. [00:15:25] We need. And that's not. That's just an acknowledgement, like, we really do need help. But the good news is God offers his strength to us and we strengthen ourselves in Him. So put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil, which are like, that sounds weird. [00:15:40] He's tapping into God as a divine warrior, which may sound really crazy to you. You might be like, oh, my gosh, God is divine warrior. This is Old Testament. The people of Israel understood this. [00:15:51] The apostle Paul himself was actually in chains, in custody, in prison while he's writing this letter. So he would have had possibly a Roman soldier that he's looking at as he's penning this, thinking about God is the divine warrior who comes to do battle on behalf of his people in the world. And he also has these. [00:16:09] These Roman soldiers in front of him. And so these things seem to be coming together in a way that he wants to present to us. So it sticks with us. Verse 12. [00:16:19] After we put on the full, we start talking about the full armor. He says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, which must have been quite a thing for him to write with his Roman overlord right next to him. [00:16:34] This is not the problem. This guy is not my enemy. [00:16:37] Our struggle is not against flesh and against blood, but against what? The rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. [00:16:53] This just got cosmic. [00:16:56] It's not a person that's sitting in front of me that's the problem. [00:17:00] It's spiritual evil that's animating what's happening in this world. [00:17:05] It's cosmic. So naturally, if you're fighting against cosmic powers, do you know what's not going to help these. [00:17:16] These did some cool things in high school when I was. [00:17:20] Doesn't matter. [00:17:23] It's a fight club reference that will only make sense to, like ten of you. But I grew up in Orange county in the 90s. [00:17:32] We had to do something with the muscles that we accumulated, okay? But it was all under control. It was all in good fun. But the truth is we could struggle against people. [00:17:44] And as we get older, we don't use the. We don't put up our nukes so much. We send out nukes with our tongue. Right. [00:17:55] It's not in my notes. [00:18:01] We're somewhere in here. Verse 13. [00:18:04] For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, having prepared everything to take your stand. That's really what Paul is saying, like, take your stand against all the attack of the enemy. Take your stand. [00:18:19] And almost everything he's going to talk about is defensive. [00:18:23] He says, stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. [00:18:35] And we can keep going to verse 16. In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. [00:18:46] Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit. That's the only offensive weapon that he includes here, which is the word of God, which is offensive in some ways to those who have not yet enthroned Jesus as king or don't want to. [00:19:02] But it's not an attack in a human sense. [00:19:07] It's God. It's a kingdom moving forward through the Word preached and proclaimed. [00:19:11] And it doesn't have to be just pastors. It's people sharing the word of God with others. [00:19:15] Verse 18 Pray at all times in the spirit with every prayer and request and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. So very clearly Paul's not just thinking about what's happening at the local level. He's got bigger things in mind. [00:19:32] Which, by the way, what's happening at the local level is critical and crucial. I never want to lose sight of it. [00:19:37] But as we'll see, Paul's going to call Christians to pray for Christians all over the place, not just here. [00:19:45] Verse 19 Pray also for me that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel. I think Paul had this sense, I think something that all preachers have this sense where like, if God's not strengthening me, we got nothing. We really do. We have no power in and of ourselves. [00:20:06] I can maybe I could try to entertain you. I could try to do all kinds of things, but ultimately it's just me. [00:20:15] What we need is power. [00:20:17] What I need are words that are given to me. Not just me, any preacher and not just preachers, any disciple that has a message for the world, which is every disciple. We need prayer because doing this work is really, really, really difficult, I would say impossible to have any lasting fruit apart from God strengthening us. [00:20:38] Verse 20. For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should. [00:20:46] There's so much here and I am only going to scratch the surface and I want to just acknowledge this up front. This could be like a whole teaching series. And I get in trouble when I try to do a teaching series and a message. That's when I start going 60, 70, I start setting restored Family of Churches records for longest preaches. When I try to do that, not gonna try to do that today. What I'm gonna do is just acknowledge that there's at least two components to what we just read. One is there's a significant amount of relational work that is required for the disciple. [00:21:18] That looks like righteousness, right? Relationships between people. It looks like controlling and taming our tongue so that what comes out is upbuilding and encouraging to other people. [00:21:28] It includes a whole lot of things. It means being ready to take good news to others. [00:21:33] There's this whole relational component to this, that is right there. It is obvious, and some of you may be frustrated that I'm not gonna get into more of that. Totally get it. I just don't have the ability or the time to do that right now. So I wanna acknowledge that part, but I also wanna acknowledge something very critical that starts in verse number 18. [00:21:52] It says, Pray at all times in the spirit with every prayer and request. [00:21:59] So there's relational work and then there's requesting things of God. We're going to focus on this side for today. [00:22:06] Praying in the spirit at all times. [00:22:09] That's what our focus will be. [00:22:15] And here's part of the reason why. [00:22:18] The scholars that I read on this text in particular, so many of them said something almost exactly the same, almost verbatim, word for word. All these different parts of the armor of God, which is God's armor that he gives to us, you put them on with prayer. [00:22:35] So you put on the belt, you put on the breastplate, you put on the helmet, you put all these things on with prayer. [00:22:43] So it can't be done again. This isn't try harder, strive more. Like this is depend. Deeper is what we're talking about here. [00:22:55] Why? Because what we're facing is crazy. [00:22:59] What we're facing is absolutely crazy. Powers and principalities in the heavenly places. [00:23:05] What does that even mean? Okay, so I found some smarter people than I to share what that means. [00:23:12] Bishop N.T. wright, one of the preeminent scholars in the book, Biblical scholars in the world today. He said this. And you guys don't have this in the back? I'm just gonna read it. There are principalities and powers at work in the world. [00:23:23] They use all sorts of means. [00:23:26] They use political powers, they use the media today, something unknown in Paul's day. They attack, they besiege, they pull down. [00:23:36] And then he goes on to say. [00:23:39] He goes on to say, therefore stand. Be strong in the Lord, in the strength of his power. And this is resurrection language from chapter one, which obviously we haven't read chapter one of Ephesians, but in chapter one of Ephesians, Paul talks about this resurrection, life, life out of death. [00:23:54] Which is why we have hope in this world, because we're all marked by death. But Jesus took on death so that we can have life. [00:24:02] So Paul is using resurrection language because of the schemes of the devil. The physical rulers will do their political stuff, but what counts is the dark forces behind them. They are just puppets. This is very strong language. I get that. [00:24:16] And I'm not saying. And I'm not here to suggest Any. I'm not making political statements. He is, because he sees the Bible making them. This isn't a left or a right thing. This is a Jesus enthroned thing and enemy. An enemy trying to fracture Jesus people along fault lines of politics. [00:24:39] So fiery darts, anything that will then cause us to fracture along ethnic political lines. That's where the enemy's working. [00:24:52] But Paul knows this how? [00:24:57] Well, he's in a Roman prison. [00:25:00] He's experiencing persecution himself. [00:25:03] And he knew that persecution was likely to come to believers. And so he tells them to stand firm. [00:25:10] Stand firm, prayerfully put on all of these relational, beautiful, powerful practices of making peace. And then he says, how love. Well, this is an echo of putting on, like this gospel of peace on your feet, which is an echo of Isaiah 52, which says, how lovely are the feet of those who preach good news of peace. [00:25:32] This is part of how we stay beautiful in a really ugly world. [00:25:36] And I'm not talking about people. I'm talking about a world that's been marked by these spiritual powers and authorities in heavenly places that divide and fracture our world. [00:25:46] But just so you know, if you're a Christian, those feet that Jesus washed are beautiful because they're meant to carry good news into terrible and broken situations. [00:26:01] But we cannot do this on our own. [00:26:04] I'll finish with the Bishop N.T. wright. He says when you look at Paul's letters, and he's considered one of the preeminent Pauline scholars on the planet, which means he's done significant work on Paul's letters, of which there are many. [00:26:17] He said there are many themes which only occur in one letter. [00:26:21] That doesn't mean that they're not important, but they only occur in one. [00:26:24] But prayer is all over the place because prayer is the daily, hourly challenge to live at the intersection of heaven and earth, to be the new temple people in the power of the Spirit. There was a temple in Israel and it was destroyed. And that was the place where the people went to meet with God. And now we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. [00:26:50] God's people are his temple. That's where he inhabits. [00:26:56] And this is why it's hard work to hold God's creation together at this point. Heaven and earth coming together, Jew and gentile coming together, male and female coming together. These were dividing lines in their time. Just fill in the dividing lines of our time. [00:27:12] That is difficult. Can we agree? Can we get an amen? That's really difficult work. [00:27:17] This is the challenge of new creation, the challenge of the world, of the new world. Which is being born. [00:27:22] If you've ever. I think I've mentioned this probably too many times at this point. Old shtick for the shtick. For those of you guys who are here, I've been there. At the birth of three children. Let me tell you, there are some things you can't unsee. [00:27:35] Right? [00:27:36] You've ever been there? We've all been there. Technically, it depends. C section or. You know, there's different. There's some variety here. [00:27:43] But in general, we've all been part of this. We have been the bloody mess that came out. [00:27:50] Gosh, whatever we were, all this was true of you and me. [00:27:56] If you don't know if it's been a while, it's bloody and it's really messy. Okay. Again, some things you just can't unsee. [00:28:05] What's my point? [00:28:07] Life, when it's birthed, it comes through loss. [00:28:12] And even the Hebrew imagination considered blood to be a symbol of life. [00:28:18] You have to lose life in order to give life. [00:28:21] And I think our Lord is calling us to be a people who are birthing, if you like, who are going through labor pains to see this new creation work that he wants to birth in Temecula come to pass. And it happens primarily. Again, there's this relational component to it. I'm not going to downplay that at all. That is a huge part of it. But we can't even do that relational work until we do what? [00:28:46] Until we learn to pray. [00:28:49] Praying in the spirit. [00:28:51] Now, as a pastor of this local church, I just have to say we are doing this. [00:29:02] You heard Brittany share beautifully about the work that's happening in the prayer room. [00:29:08] I can testify to the work that's happening in gospel communities. You guys can all testify to the work that's happening here. [00:29:15] There is. [00:29:16] We're a praying church. No church is perfect, but we have definitely made significant strides and progress in the area of prayer as a community. I just want you to know I speak on behalf of Tom and on behalf of Mike. Man, that is something that just makes us squeal with glee to hear stories about the communities that we have praying for one another in the various spaces that we have. [00:29:41] And so what I'm saying, some of this is, like, for some of you, you just need to hear, like, just keep going. It's bearing fruit, okay? [00:29:50] For. For all of us. We can all say, I think with. With no reservations, we can all grow in this. Right? [00:29:57] Who here has their prayer life all sorted out? Not me. [00:30:01] Maybe you do. And that's wonderful. Keep at it. The enemy will try to go after that. But in general, I think we could all grow in this because what we're talking about is life from the dead. [00:30:12] We're talking about seeing Jesus life manifested in the world. [00:30:17] And my opinion here, I think in the last week and a half since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we have seen some signs of life coming out of a horrendous, evil situation. [00:30:32] I don't know if you guys have heard the stories that are coming out. I had to kind of search for it a little bit, but I'm finding them. I've heard stories of churches the Sunday after Charlie Kirk was assassinated being filled and having people regularly telling the testimony. It sounded very similar. It went like this. I haven't been in the church for 15 years, and I really feel like in light of what's happened, God's summoning me back, or people have said I've never been in a church before, but I just had this overwhelming sense that I got to be there, I have to go. [00:31:12] And I think what we're seeing is. We're seeing a lot of hurting people move towards the healer. [00:31:19] And again, this isn't a political. Set aside the politics. [00:31:22] I'm not that interested in it. What I'm trying to communicate and convey is that we are standing in a really important moment. [00:31:31] Sons and daughters are coming home that have been gone for a long time. [00:31:37] A long time. Could you imagine what your life would be like if the last 15 years you had no connection to the church? [00:31:46] Especially if you. If you consider yourself a disciple of Jesus, but you have no discipleship, context, or community? [00:31:52] Like, that's a tragedy. [00:31:54] That's. That's like sons and daughters. Like, I just imagine my kids, like, leaving home and having. [00:32:00] It's like, come home. Like, come home. We're seeing almost like a. [00:32:07] Almost like a prodigal son moment where it's like sons and daughters are coming home and not just one or two. Which, by the way, that's my story. Maybe that's your story, too. I was a prodigal who came home, and it was rad. And I can tell you the date, I can tell you the weekend, all that stuff. I can get into it. I don't have time. I'm a rough clock manager as you all you all that know me, know this. [00:32:32] I'm going to try to work on this. [00:32:35] That happened. [00:32:36] That happened to me. Maybe that happened to you. [00:32:40] I left home, and Jesus brought me home in spectacular ways. [00:32:47] But I'm just one guy. [00:32:51] Last weekend, I don't know the number. [00:32:54] But it wouldn't surprise me if we're talking about hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people coming home at once. [00:33:03] Do you guys get the gravity of this moment? [00:33:06] In our lifetime, we may never see this again. [00:33:10] And we have to be ready. [00:33:13] Because if that's you, by the way, if that's your story, come and find me later. I want to talk to you about it. I want to know what God is doing in your life. I'm curious. The same God that's at work in you has been at work in me. And sometimes, because I've been doing this for a while, I forget. [00:33:26] And I need to be reminded of how kind and merciful and gentle our Lord is. [00:33:33] But here's the reality. [00:33:35] They're coming. [00:33:38] They're coming. [00:33:39] And the enemy would love nothing more than for them to come into churches that are divided and dysfunctional because they. That's not great, is it? It's like, I already got enough crazy at home. What kind of a home is this? [00:33:53] Where you claim you don't whatever time. And I'm going off script. And sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's not. This is the preaching, you know, throttling that difficult in the moment, and then I call attention to it and keep talking about it, and it's like we're spiral. [00:34:13] So terrific, Terrific. Okay. [00:34:17] So this kind of love, how do we hold on to the kind of love that Jesus calls us to amidst times of hatred and evil? [00:34:26] Again, not political, not picking political sides. Tom talked about this. If you weren't here last week, if you're taking notes, if you're not, take one note. Listen to Tom's message last week. [00:34:36] If you're struggling with me, I get it. [00:34:39] Listen to his message. [00:34:41] What he talked about last week was that the temptation in this hour is to pick a side in the wrong war. [00:34:49] Who are we battling against? Truly, it's powers that we cannot see fueling, powers that we can see that want to rip us apart. [00:35:04] How do we hold on to love amidst hate? Well, I want to give you three quick signs of love in evil times. [00:35:12] If you see this, you know without a shadow of a doubt that love, the love of Jesus, is making inroads in human communities. [00:35:26] When you see unity, when you see harmony in relationships, and when you see effective witness. [00:35:35] What do you mean by effective witness? [00:35:38] What I mean by that is that men and women, young people and children are becoming aware that Jesus is enthroned and that their allegiance belongs to him and that his rule is not. [00:35:58] He's not Domineering. [00:36:01] He's not forceful, he's not violent. [00:36:04] He's gracious, he's merciful, he's kind. And he's the kind of king who will come down and sit next to you and just want to be with you. This is different. [00:36:16] This is different. This isn't somebody who's got power that wants to lord it. He's the Lord who serves. [00:36:26] He's the Lord who puts on a servant's towel and washes the feet of men and women, cleanses them, and then says, go and do the same, because this is what I'm all about. And so now this is what you're all about. [00:36:42] But this is the kind of stuff, if you see this happening in crazy, dark times, you know, the king's working here. [00:36:48] And I just want you guys to know the king's working here. [00:36:54] As elders. We are just. We are so blown away by the ways in which King Jesus is at work here. [00:37:05] How is that happening? I believe it's because, in part because he's really gracious, but also because we've given ourselves to prayer. [00:37:13] For the last two and a half years, we've had this prayer room. [00:37:17] And what a prayer room is if you're new, especially if you missed maybe family time. Brittany was talking about this. It's a consecrated, dedicated space. [00:37:26] All it's there for is one thing. [00:37:29] There's two things, but the primary thing it's there for is so that we can get together and pray and enjoy the presence of God together. [00:37:38] Sometimes it's there because my office is full and I need somewhere else to go, and so I'll just go there, but by and large, it's there. That was a joke. Didn't land. It's fine. [00:37:50] It's cool. My office is right next to the prayer room, which I think if you've seen any growth in me in the last two and a half years, it's probably just I've caught what's happening there. [00:38:01] I'm sort of kidding. Sort of not. [00:38:04] How does this happen? I think we have to pray like our lives depend on it. And I think we have been. [00:38:11] I think the kind of unity and love that God has in mind, that's how it comes about. [00:38:17] Okay, I'm going to. Nope, I'm going to skip it. I'm just going to summarize. I had a video, but for the sake of time, I'm not going to play it. [00:38:25] My favorite movie, if you don't know, Is. [00:38:30] That was unanimous? Pretty much. Fantastic. [00:38:33] Trained you well. [00:38:35] If I'm ever unsure like is what I'm doing working. [00:38:42] So Back to the Future, if you don't know the movie, it's a great. It's 40 years old this year. [00:38:47] Hey. Oh, we've got some 40 year olds in the room as old as the Back to the Future, part one of the trilogy. [00:38:53] And to make a short story long, what happens in Back to the Future is that you have this eccentric inventor who actually invents a time machine and he makes it out of a DeLorean. We don't have to get into that. [00:39:08] And he goes, his intention is to travel through time to learn about many things. [00:39:15] What ends up happening to him, though? And this is like I think the first few minutes of the first movie, so no big spoilers coming here is that on the night when he's supposed to go back in time, an enemy comes in and takes him out. [00:39:31] And it's PG, but man 80s PG is different because it's what happens to Doc Brown is rough. [00:39:41] Okay? And so what ends up happening is you have this terrible moment where Doc doesn't realize the opposition he's up against. He meets them and they take him out. And so the rest of this movie, if you like, is about many things. But one of the things is how are we going to get Doc back? [00:39:59] Well, it's a good thing we have a time machine because that means we can go back and change some things, right? [00:40:04] And there's this moment where Doc Brown from 1955 meets Marty McFly who was a kid from 1985. Boy, if you don't know this story, come talk to me later. I'll explain it. [00:40:18] Time travel. [00:40:20] I should have just played the clip. It would have been faster. [00:40:27] Again, while they keep giving me a mic, I'm going to keep using it. [00:40:33] If they take it away, I totally get it. [00:40:36] Completely understand this is not great. [00:40:39] But what ends up happening is Marty McFly from the future has information about the future. [00:40:46] And doc Brown in 1955 is this younger man compared to the man he knew in the 80s. [00:40:53] Marty wants to tell him what happened. Why? [00:40:58] Because if you are forewarned, you can be forearmed for what's to come. [00:41:06] And I'm telling you guys this haunting quote from ff. Bruce. [00:41:12] God. I believe that God, through the apostle Paul, wants to forewarn us that we are going to get shot at. [00:41:20] The flaming arrows are coming. [00:41:24] It's going to happen. Maybe it happened this week and I just don't know what's going on with you. That's totally fine if you Want to pull me again? Very easy to find. I'm right here. It's also easier when I'm not on the clock because I can talk for longer and it's no big deal. [00:41:34] Okay, Come and find me. [00:41:37] If you haven't experienced this yet, just know it's coming. [00:41:42] And our loving Lord wants us to stay like this, not go like this. [00:41:51] And he's forewarned us. So here's what I want to do with the rest of our time. I want to give you guys a simple framework for prayer. [00:42:00] Some of this you're already doing. Some of this you might be doing already, completely. But this is for all of us. This is how I've been thinking about prayer. [00:42:09] So let's get really, really practical. Here's a simple prayer framework. There it is, kind of three components to this. [00:42:16] There's ongoing prayer, there's scheduled prayer, and there's spontaneous prayer. [00:42:21] Okay? [00:42:23] Ongoing prayer. [00:42:28] Jesus, when he was teaching earlier in Matthew. We've been going through the Gospel of Matthew for a while. [00:42:34] And earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, during the Sermon on the Mount, which is the most challenging, I think, ethical teaching anywhere in the world, I think our Lord gives it to us. [00:42:47] One of the things he teaches on and instructs on is how we ought to pray. [00:42:51] And one of the things he says is that we ought to be the kind of people who not only pray publicly, but also privately. [00:43:00] He says to go and find your inner room, or your prayer closet, if you like, want to use some kind of modern language to be the kind of person that's not just on the corners, like, hey, look at how holy I am. Which is a real temptation, I think, for all of us, but rather that we also cultivate this rich inner life with Jesus. [00:43:21] And he teaches on that specifically. [00:43:24] And he models it. [00:43:26] He models it himself. One of the interesting themes throughout the Gospel of Luke, it's one of the biographies about the life of Jesus, is that Jesus seems to be going from one prayer meeting to another, to another, to another to another. It's like his life is like a series of prayer meetings. [00:43:41] Wherever he is. I don't know if you've noticed, if you've caught this. [00:43:44] One of the things that marked Jesus life is that he'd get up really early and go. [00:43:48] He'd go somewhere else. [00:43:50] He had these crowds that were following him. Everybody wanted a piece of Jesus, right? [00:43:55] Multiple ways. Some just wanted a piece of his garment so that they could be healed. Some wanted a piece of his flesh. They wanted to kill him. But either way, Jesus learned how to get away and pull away so that he could be with who? [00:44:09] With his Father. [00:44:12] It's almost as if that was the secret of his success. [00:44:16] Not in my notes. [00:44:18] So I'm not talking. Whatever this is. One of the ways in which Jesus operated differently is his life was committed to prayer. Some of you are like, but he was God. Yes, yes, and amen. That's good theology. [00:44:33] That's very good theology. But he also was operating as a fully human man in his life. [00:44:40] Mark read it earlier. He laid aside his rights and privileges, and he operated just like you and I as a human being in this world. [00:44:50] And so he had this rich life of ongoing prayer. So for me this week, what this has looked like as I've been thinking about this and chewing on this is I've been really intentionally thinking about what I'm thinking about. [00:45:03] Have you ever thought about your thought life? [00:45:07] You ever, like, paid attention to? It was like, boy, that was an interesting train of thought. [00:45:11] That one left the station and I don't know where we are now. [00:45:16] So here's what I've started to do. [00:45:18] I've started to intentionally seek to be thoughtful about my thoughts and turn them into prayers. [00:45:26] I've started to notice a little bit more when I'm getting anxious or worried about things or getting hyped up about something or agitated. [00:45:34] And I've realized, like, man, I don't necessarily need to set aside a time of prayer just to tell him what's on my heart. [00:45:41] I could do that while I'm walking. I could do that while I'm brushing my teeth. I could do that when I'm fill in the blank. There is no time in which I can't talk to him. [00:45:51] He hears our thoughts. You guys heard this during family time. [00:45:56] He knows what's going on. In fact, this is not the first time that I've heard that this week where somebody's life or thinking has been revealed to God by someone else, has been revealed by God through someone else who had no idea. God is aware of our thought life. He just invites us to tell him so that we can abide. [00:46:15] So there's this ongoing life of just being with God and enjoying him as a father. [00:46:21] One of the things I love about having kids, there's a lot of challenges that come with it. But one of the things that I love about having kids is like the first thing in the morning when before the fights have begun, there's this really sweet time where my kids will come to me, and it's like I Want to nuzzle. You know that move right there. [00:46:42] And right now they're young enough to where it's just. It's adorable. In a few years, they'll be like, what do you want? Like, God help me. [00:46:50] What are you after? [00:46:52] What did you do? [00:46:55] Off script, unhelpful. [00:46:57] So there's this ongoing life that. That God invites us to. To know him as Father. But that's not the only thing. [00:47:04] There's also a scheduled component, a discipline of prayer in the. [00:47:12] I'm not going to get into it, but the Jewish spiritual life of the times of Jesus was rich. [00:47:20] They had times of prayer, morning prayers, midday prayers, evening prayers, and they had these prayers that they all memorized and spoke regularly. And they could get through. And I read somewhere that they could get through a lot of it in about five minutes, but that they had this intentional practice of meditating on what they were saying. [00:47:42] There was a word for it, kavana. [00:47:45] The rabbis actually applied this idea of like, I'm actually thinking about what I'm saying. I'm slowing down. [00:47:54] I'm becoming aware of what it is that I'm saying. But in a deeper level, I'm becoming aware of who it is I'm praying to. [00:48:02] In fact, in the synagogues, I think even to this day, they have, like, a little. [00:48:07] They have a. This is where I should have put this in my notes. But they have a little sign that basically reminds people, like, remember who you're praying to. [00:48:15] Remember whose presence you're in. [00:48:17] So there's a way. And the reason I mention this is there's a way that we can make scheduled prayer rote quickly. [00:48:23] Do you know what I'm talking about? Where you could just start to go through the motions. [00:48:29] Especially if you grew up in maybe like a more liturgical environment. You could even have these beautiful prayers, but you just kind of start saying them, and you say them without really thinking about what you're saying. [00:48:39] But the rabbis from Jesus time and Jesus himself knew it doesn't have to be that way. If you have scheduled prayers, even prayers that you're reading, they're not your spontaneous prayers. You can slow down and become aware of who it is that you are saying them to, because ultimately you're in the presence of someone. [00:48:59] So there's ongoing prayer, there are scheduled prayers, and then there's probably my favorite. But you can't just rely on this. Spontaneous prayers, pray, probably my favorite, because I think there in that environment is where I'm most likely to give God room. [00:49:15] That's where I'm Most likely. And typically spontaneous prayer for me is responding to a situation in front of me. [00:49:22] I was just reading. I've been reading the Book of Acts at night to my son. And one of my favorite stories in the Book of Acts is a story that probably feels like flyover country because it's just so strange and it doesn't feel applicable. But it's a story where Paul. And this actually makes me feel better. Paul goes on and on and on and on and on. Preaching where he just, like. He talked all night. You guys know this one? Some of you know this one. He just kept talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. [00:49:52] Which I'm like, okay, I'm not alone. But what ends up happening is. I don't know how this worked. I don't know the internal architecture of Jewish, ancient Jewish homes well enough to get this. [00:50:05] But there was a guy on the third story by a window who. Paul just kept talking. I'm guessing it was warm. I don't know why else you sit by a window. Maybe there's a little draft that came in, or maybe he's just like, oh, I'd rather hear the birds. Anything but this. I don't know. I'm speculating here. [00:50:22] It's insecure. Preacher. I can think of reasons why somebody would want. Also I can. [00:50:27] I can think of reasons why somebody would want this to happen to them, especially if I keep going like this. He fell out the window and died. [00:50:35] Crazy story, right? [00:50:37] The guy died, and Paul effectively killed him by not stopping. [00:50:49] And so what ends up happening is the apostle Paul runs out and he's. He grabs the guy. This is this brother. And it becomes tender, quick, sort of funny in a weird way. And then it's not funny, but he grabs this brother and he picks him up and he's like, oh, he's fine. [00:51:04] And then he kept preaching all night into the morning. The most preacher thing ever. [00:51:11] Sometimes we're just responding to what's in front of us. The Apostle Paul had a different thing on his life. I'm not sure that I. I mean, who knows? God could do whatever he wants. [00:51:20] But sometimes there's just this spontaneous need that comes up in front of you that is an extreme example of that need. [00:51:27] But I just want you to know that there are needs everywhere in front of you all the time. [00:51:32] When you're in your family environment, in your household, with whoever you live with or your roommate or whatever. When you're in your gospel community meetings, your Lord's supper midweeks, when you're in this space, there are needs everywhere, and you can actually help meet those needs by simply praying for them. [00:51:50] And we see this in the scriptures. There's ongoing prayer, there's scheduled prayer, there's spontaneous prayer. All of these things matter. Okay, so what do I pray? [00:52:01] Is a helpful question to consider. [00:52:03] And I just want to give you guys four things really fast. [00:52:07] Number one, if you have not memorized the Lord's Prayer, I want to challenge you this week. [00:52:12] Memorize the Lord's Prayer. [00:52:14] The disciples, when they saw Jesus life and what he was doing, they asked him a question. They didn't ask him, like, hey, how do you do all these miracles? [00:52:21] Hey, how do you. [00:52:22] How do you engage so well with people? How do you ask such great questions? All those things were good questions, and they may have asked them privately, but the ones that the scripture felt it was necessary to write down was teach us how to pray, and the Lord's Prayer is his answer. [00:52:38] Again, as we think about Kavana slowing down and saying the Lord's Prayer with intentionality and thought, do you know what it means to be. To start the Lord's Prayer and be like our Father and realize God is my Father? [00:52:54] That just hits different. [00:52:56] When you really slow down and think about what you're saying, it means that you might be here. You may have a great relationship with your earthly father. It's just a preview. [00:53:05] You may have a bad relationship or no relationship or worse with your earthly father. It doesn't define you. [00:53:12] Our Father in Heaven, which, by the way, it's not just rule and reign and power, it's intimacy. [00:53:26] But don't forget about the rule and reign and power part, because he's in, as it were, the Lord of Heaven and Earth. Which means that the battle that we're fighting is a battle that we can win. [00:53:38] Going back to what we were talking about earlier in Ephesians, this battle, the enemy is not God's equal. [00:53:48] He's not. [00:53:51] Our Father is the Lord of Heaven and of Earth, and he's coming to reclaim what is his. [00:53:59] And last weekend, I believe we got a little preview of what happens when the Lord comes to reclaim what is his. [00:54:07] Again. Set aside the politics and just look at the people. [00:54:11] 15 years I haven't been a part of the church. [00:54:15] They may have their reasons. They may be great reasons. [00:54:22] And it struck me this week when I was thinking about it. [00:54:25] When you pray, prayer is like the Lord's Prayer. You are asking God's rule and reign to touch everyone. [00:54:33] You are saying, God, may everybody come to enthrone you as king, and you're seeing God do that. [00:54:43] So what's my point in saying this? [00:54:46] One of the challenges of prayer is not seeing results fast, isn't it? [00:54:51] Is that you can be praying for something for a long period of time and you can see nothing change that's happened to everybody. Everybody in this room, if you have been praying for any extended period of time, you have prayers that are unanswered. [00:55:06] And I just want you to imagine, take the example of someone who's been away from the church for 15 years. Could you imagine being the parent of that person or being the sibling of that person? And you love Jesus and you love them, and you've been praying, God, please bring them home. Bring them home. Bring them home. Bring them. You guys, in this room, there's people that you are praying for. Bring them home, God. Bring them home. Bring them home. Right? Everybody in this room probably has someone, but the vast majority of you. And if you don't, by the way, you can start that today. [00:55:39] And then here's the craziest part. A moment like the one that we're living in. Do you know what the. [00:55:44] The lesson is? For me, at least, God can answer many prayers in a moment. [00:55:54] How else do you explain 550 salvations at one church in Long Island? [00:56:00] How about tough environment? [00:56:02] And the same thing happening in Iowa, and the same thing happening in Florida, and the same thing happening all over the place? How else do you explain this? I have no explanation. Maybe you're just more theologically advanced. Maybe you're more in tune to the Spirit. Again, find me. I'd love to hear, I'd love to get better at this. Come and tell me. But I'm left with no other explanation than God is answering a lot of prayers really fast. [00:56:32] And so you can be praying the Lord's prayer regularly. You. You can be praying through scripture, you can be praying through situations. There's kind of no limit as to what you can do. [00:56:43] And so I'm gonna do a quick challenge. [00:56:47] If you could go to the last slide, I'm gonna invite everybody to take out your phone. This is the last thing we're gonna do. And then we're gonna go into a time of response. [00:56:57] I'm gonna invite you to schedule prayer in your day. If you currently do not. If you've already got your prayer time set up, you can ignore this, or you could just cheer us on for the rest of us. [00:57:10] But if you don't currently have a scheduled prayer time, you're probably over relying on spontaneity. [00:57:18] And there's nothing wrong with spontaneity. [00:57:20] You might be over relying on spontaneity or on your ongoing prayer life, but there is more to it than that. [00:57:26] And so I want to invite you. Grab your phone or if you are the kind of person that respect you have a physical calendar. [00:57:34] Pick a 5 minute block in your day that's usually open. [00:57:38] And this is deep mansplaining going on right here. [00:57:42] Create a new event on your phone. [00:57:47] It's almost insulting how detailed this is, but it's not meant to insult. [00:57:54] It's just a reflection of where I'm at today. [00:57:57] And I'll mature and grow, but I'm literally giving you the playbook. The enemy has a playbook for your life. It's called anger and strained relations. [00:58:09] God has a playbook for your life. It's called prayer with others even. And this is a quick way that you can add prayer to your day. This is running the counter play. You know the play that's coming. [00:58:23] Run the counter because you are forewarned. [00:58:28] Will you forearm yourself? [00:58:32] So I'm going to leave this up for 30 more seconds. This can actually be done really fast. [00:58:37] Add a prayer block to your day. Set it to repeat every day. [00:58:42] Set and repeat to never. [00:58:45] Feels really intense. [00:58:49] Then this is all assuming you have an Apple phone. [00:58:52] If you don't, then the next thing, the next reminder is get an iPhone and then we'll go from there. [00:59:01] Bonus time. Invite someone from your household maybe to join you. [00:59:07] Pick a time during the week. It might need to be a little earlier than you like. [00:59:11] It might mean that you're going to bed a few minutes earlier than before. [00:59:15] It might mean that da da da. Fill in the blank. It's worth it, whatever it is. And then if you want like a double bonus, pick a morning and an evening block. [00:59:24] And I'm not just standing here telling you to do this. [00:59:27] I've done this. [00:59:29] I have a morning, a mid morning, a midday, a mid afternoon and an evening set up. I'm not saying that that's what you need to do. [00:59:39] And I'm not saying that because like, oh, look at how holy, look at how needy. I can't go that long without praying because my stupidity is real. [00:59:50] My weakness and sinfulness are real. [00:59:53] The need I have, they run deep. [00:59:57] I want to see men and women, young people, my own household and family enthroned. Jesus as king. [01:00:06] I have brothers and sisters that don't know who they are. [01:00:11] I have parents that don't know who they are. [01:00:15] I have neighbors that don't know who they are. [01:00:18] And I want to be standing in solidarity with the spirit, welcoming them home. [01:00:26] And I believe each of us are invited to do that. Please stand with me. [01:00:31] I'm going to call the band up. [01:00:44] If you're on the prayer team, I'm actually going to invite you to the front as well. [01:01:00] This message was, in some ways, especially on the back end, really, really practical, giving you things to do, maybe giving you a new way to think about reality. [01:01:12] But I want to. Just. Before we go into response time, I just want to acknowledge something. [01:01:17] None of this makes sense if you're not currently in relationship with God. [01:01:22] If you're not currently. If you haven't put your faith and hope in Him. [01:01:27] What I'm talking about doesn't really connect. [01:01:31] Everything I'm talking about is flowing out of a relational reality of being united in Christ to God as your Father. [01:01:42] So if you don't yet know God as your Father in this place, I want you to know everybody starts there. [01:01:49] And you are being summoned home by the Father. [01:01:54] The king is dad. [01:01:58] Dad can be loaded. Dad can be hard. [01:02:01] He wants to give new categories of fatherhood. [01:02:05] And I can speak from personal experience. [01:02:08] My father is the best father, and he knows what he's doing. And he's not just mine, he's yours. [01:02:16] So some of you might need to just come home. [01:02:19] You might need to experience God as father for the first time. [01:02:23] More likely than not, for some of us, we just need to re. Experience God as our Father because we've known it. And maybe it's just for whatever reason, life is hard. There's pain and suffering in this world. Things don't go the way that you want. [01:02:34] And all of a sudden, God as father starts to feel fuzzy. And so if you feel like some level of distance between you and God, I want to invite you to come and receive. [01:02:44] There's men and women here who would love to pray for you. [01:02:49] Beyond that, I think some of us, we might just need to pray. This is something I actually did earlier this year. [01:02:57] It's the most practical prayer I think I've ever prayed. Help me to grow more disciplined, Lord. [01:03:02] Help me to count the hours in the day. [01:03:06] Help me to remember that life is short and I'm not gonna be here for that much longer. [01:03:11] I don't know how long it is, but in the scheme of a trinity, it's a vapor, it's a mist, it's gone. It's a rain shower that passes, and then it's done. [01:03:20] It's not a long time. So some of us just need to have God reawaken the value of time so that we'll make the best use of our time. [01:03:31] And then for other people, there's just other things going on that I have no idea. [01:03:35] But God knows, and maybe he's been highlighting them to you, and he might be inviting you to come and receive prayer. We have a few minutes. I went long, but let's take some time to respond in prayer. You can also praise him. That's part of how we enthrone God, is he's enthroned on our praises, and so we get to speak back to him what's true. And I'm gonna pray for us quickly, and then I'll step aside. Father, thank you. [01:04:05] Thank you that you have forewarned us this morning because you want to forearm us for the battle. [01:04:12] And that it's a battle, that it's beyond us, but it's not beyond you. [01:04:19] And that you, in the end, will win the war. [01:04:23] But I also believe that in Christ, through the resources that Christ has provided, we can win many more battles maybe than we even realize in this time. [01:04:36] Thank you. [01:04:37] That strained relations and angry feelings don't have to have the last word, but the gospel that says, you are loved, you are forgiven, and you are being summoned home, come as you are. [01:04:53] That's the truest thing about us as humans. [01:04:57] And I pray that we would increasingly become a church. Well, that's what we give ourselves to, that work of praying home, sons and daughters, that work of praying in our unity, that work of praying into maturity, pressing into it through prayer. [01:05:13] God, would you give us a fresh sense of who you are and what you're doing so that we might align ourselves with your purposes? Thank you. [01:05:22] We love you. It's your name we pray. Amen. Okay, let's praise him.