Practical Living

Dale O'Shields: Thank you for joining us for today's Practical Living broadcast, and I pray that through this message that you will learn how to apply God's word and truths to any situation in your life. Stay with us as we discover God's truths that will transform us.

You can be seated. Grab your Bibles, your teaching seats, you'll see on the back of the bulletin there there's a brief outline for you. You can find more notes available for you at our website, also at the church app. The My C O R app is a great resource for you as well.

As we begin a new series of messages this weekend that will take us through the rest of the summer. I hope you'll be with us through all of this summer together as we talk for these next several weeks about prayer. Let us pray. Say the phrase with me. Let us pray.

Prayer is something that most people do, and I've discovered over the years as a pastor, that's something that we need to be reminded of on a regular basis of exactly what prayer is all about. Because we sometimes sort of forget. So about every two to five years, I'll come back with a fresh series on prayer. And so that's really what prompted me to prepare this particular series for us this summer and to talk for a few weekends together about the importance of prayer in our lives.

There was a Pew Research study done back in, I think it was 2023. I think it was released in 2025 that said about three-quarters of the people pray at least once a month in America. That once a month, at least in this country, this nation, about three-quarters of the people are expressing some kind of prayer to God. That means about a quarter or a third of the people never pray at all. Think about that.

A lot of people never spend any time in prayer. In fact, many people who actually do pray, don't even know what they're doing. They're not quite sure what prayer is all about. They think of it as some kind of religious ritual they go through, and then they have very little knowledge about what prayer actually does. It's sort of like crossing your fingers, sort of hoping that God will do something, and they don't understand the essence of prayer.

My objective in this series, our objective in this series, is to hopefully bring us to this place where we're more frequently engaged in prayer, that we actually learn how to pray more effectively. And I'm believing that throughout this summer that you're going to see some observable results in your life as a result of really praying more effectively and learning to spend more time in the presence of God.

When it comes to prayer, there's some questions you have to answer. Question number one is the one we'll address today. Why even pray at all? Why do we pray? Why do people pray? Why does God ask us to pray? A very important question to answer. Then we'll talk about who we pray to, because it's vital to realize where our prayers are directed, because if we don't understand that, we'll not very seldom understand what prayer does for us. And so who do we pray to?

And then when should we pray? What's the regularity of our prayer life? How often should we pray, and on what occasion should we pray? And then we'll spend several weeks talking about actually how to go about the prayer process. So if you miss any of these, you're going to, I would encourage you to go back online, get them, but make sure you stay with us through the entire series throughout the summer.

Now, when it comes to prayer, people ask, did Jesus say anything about it? And of course he did. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, the very first teaching that Jesus gave regarding his kingdom and how his followers were to engage with him in his kingdom, he gave us in chapter 6 a very clear set of attitudes and actions regarding prayer.

Let me read these for you in Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse number 5. "And when you pray," notice that Jesus is speaking here about the often regularity of prayer, not if you pray, but when you pray, "do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full."

"But when you pray," this is the second time he's mentioned when, emphasizing not if, but when, "but when you pray," talking to his disciples, "go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." "And when you pray," verse 7, again the third time, "when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

"This then is how you should pray." Let me invite you to read with me now all aloud and loudly together, let's read, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." Jesus taught us about prayer, the importance of prayer, something that we need to engage in in our lives and the way to actually do it.

Jesus not only taught us as disciples, as his followers, to pray, but he actually gave us the example from his own life. In Mark chapter 1 verse 35, we find this description of Jesus. "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed." John 17 verse 1. "And Jesus said, he looked after after Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed." Matthew 26:36. "Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray."

So Jesus taught us to pray. Jesus gave us the example of prayer, so there must be something very important about prayer. And indeed, there are many things that are extremely important in why we pray. I've learned over the years in teaching people about prayer, and even in my own life, that there's something that is foundational to a good prayer life, and that's to know why you do it. If you don't know why you pray, you will never be effective and really regular, consistent in your prayer life.

So I'm going to answer today the question, why do we even pray? Why is prayer such an important part of our lives and an important part of Jesus teaching and the whole teaching of the Bible? I'll give you four reasons. Number one, we pray because prayer actually connects us to God. It's a connecting point to God. The number one thing that God desires for every one of us here, all of you, all of us, is that God wants a relationship with you. That's what he wants more than anything else.

This goes all the way back to the book of Genesis, when God created Adam and Eve and placed him in the Garden of Eden, and he did so because he wanted fellowship with Adam and Eve. The Bible says that in the cool of the day, in the evening, that God would come and he would fellowship with Adam and Eve. He loved being with his people, the people he created. The same is true to this very day, that God loves to be with those that he has created.

And eventually, of course, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and they sinned against him, and because of that, their fellowship was broken. And so, over history and over time, God had a plan of redemption and salvation to send his Son into the world, to give his life for the sins of mankind, and to make the way, or to bridge the gap between God and man, so that we could again have fellowship with God. And so we come to relationship with God through faith in Jesus, but we develop that relationship by connectedness and by communication.

Because there is no relationship without connectedness. You can't have a relationship with someone unless you're connected to them. And you can't be connected and stay connected to someone unless you communicate with them. And so communication leads to connection, and connection builds relationships and sustains relationships. This is exactly what Jesus wanted with his disciples. In Mark chapter 3, verse 14, as Jesus is collecting and assigning and calling his first set of disciples, the Bible says that he appointed 12 that they, notice this phrase, "that they might be with him." Jesus wanted fellowship, relationship.

So the most basic, the most simplistic, but I believe the most accurate definition of what prayer is all about, is prayer is connecting with God, talking to God, responding to God, being in relationship with God, connecting with him. And so we pray because we need connection with God. And here's what prayer does. Every time you pray, and you pray the right way according to scripture, that your prayer is saying to God, I need you. I need you.

And anytime you refuse to pray, or you forget to pray, or you remove prayer from your life, you're saying, God, I don't need you. And so prayer is vital because number one, it connects us to God. Let me say one more thing about this. Prayer is not a ritual duty that you do. It's not like, I've got to pray because God told me to. It's not a ritualistic duty. What it is, is a relationship activity. It's something you do to build a relationship.

The second reason why we pray, according to the Bible, is because prayer actually changes things. God hears and God answers prayer. Prayer changes things. What happens is this, when you and I connect with God, we connect with a power source. I could use an analogy here this afternoon. It would be a somewhat an insufficient analogy, but I'll go ahead and give it to you anyway, because it provides a sense of the point. If I had a great power source, a great power plug here that we needed to plug in and out to gain power for some piece of equipment, then what we would do is we would connect something that had no power, that cord that had no power in it of itself, connected to the power source by plugging it in, and then suddenly the machinery, or whatever operation, the electrical motor that needed to operate, would operate. Why? Because it's receiving power from a source.

And this is sort of how prayer works in a very simple analogy, but prayer is again, connecting to God, and with this connection to God, comes a power source to actually invade and work in your life. That when you have situations and circumstances that are bigger than you are, that are opposite of God's plan and God's will for your life, when you're finding yourself needing a miracle, you can tap into the God who is indeed the God of miracles.

The God who is able to do for you what you could never do for yourself. And so, when you go to God in prayer, yes, you are connecting with him, but you're connecting for a power that can do things that go beyond what you could ever do with your life. It releases provision into your life. It frees you from shame and guilt. It allows you to experience God's justice and righteousness coming into your life situations and circumstances. God feeds you the power of wisdom and guidance in your life, supernaturally guiding you. He opens doors for you. Many of you could testify today that as you've prayed, you've seen God open doors that only he could have opened in your life because it was in response to your prayers. You prayed and God said, I'm opening a door. I'm making a way for you.

Prayer is what gives you the power to overcome temptation. Prayer is what brings about miraculous breakthroughs in your life. Why do we even pray? We pray because prayer connects us to God, and we pray because prayer actually changes things. God works in our lives through prayer. Many examples in the scriptures of this. Let me give you one from the book of Acts, just as a little background perspective. The book of Acts is the only history, main history book of the early church in the New Testament. Of course, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John give us the story of Jesus, but the book of Acts gives us the story of the early church. Jesus work in the early church, the Holy Spirit's work. The Acts of the Apostles, we see in Acts, going all through the 28 chapters of that book.

And when you come to the 12th chapter, something is happening with the early church. Persecution is breaking out. There's a king there by the name of Herod. There are multiple Herods in the Bible, and I will not take time today to tell you exactly this Herod was, it's not necessary for this particular story. But one of the kings called Herod decides to persecute these folks called Christians. Because there's a lot of uprising and disturbance related to this. This group of people are claiming that Jesus had risen from the grave. And the early church that is forming and many people coming to faith. And so Herod decides he's going to kind of please the Jews in some ways. And so he persecutes believers and he does so by arresting an apostle by the name of James. And James is brought under the under the incarceration of Herod and ultimately he is executed by sword and it pleased many of the people that James was executed. And so Herod decides he's going to arrest Peter as well. So Peter is arrested. And what's going to happen next, more than likely, is that Peter will also be executed for his faith in Christ.

Let's pick up the story now in Acts chapter 12, beginning in verse number 5. "So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was doing what?" What was the church doing? Earnestly praying to God for Peter. So Peter's been arrested. More than likely, he's going to be executed. What is the church doing? You guys are alive this afternoon. What's the church doing? They're praying. They're praying for Peter. "The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, bring Peter to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. He struck, the angel struck Peter on the side and woke him up. 'Quick, get up,' he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrist."

Peter followed him out of the prison. "They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. Suddenly, the angel left him, and then Peter came to himself and said, 'Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me.'" Why? Because the church, what was the church doing? The church was praying. Verse 12. "When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and what were they doing? They were praying." Prayer changes things.

There are things in your life right now, circumstances and situations in your life right now that need to change, and they're only going to change when you begin to pray diligently, persistently and with perseverance about those things with faith toward them. You need to pray. Why? Because prayer changes things. Prayer connects us to God. Prayer changes things. And there's a third reason that you and I need to pray, very important, is prayer changes us. That's why you pray.

Because unless you haven't heard it recently, let me remind you today, you need to change. I so do I. There are things in each one of our lives that need to change. And so prayer is designed to actually change us. I'm going to say something that will seem a little contradictory to what I just said, but it's not contradictory at all, it's parallel to what I'm talking about. Not only parallel, but actually the truths intersect.

While prayer changes things, it does. It changes circumstances, it changes situations. Prayer doesn't always change circumstances and situations. Let me say that again. Does prayer change situations? Yes. Does prayer always change situations? No. Why? Because sometimes it's not the situation that needs to change, it's you that needs to change. And it's not the problem that you're you're needing to get out of the way, it's something in you that needs to be transformed inside of you.

And so prayer not only changes the externals of the circumstances of our life, but prayer brings us into relationship with God so that God can begin to work in us. Nothing externally may change, but something internally may be radically transformed because we've been in the presence of God, and by his nature, and by his character, and by his values, and by his priorities, and by his principles, and by simply being with him, something changes inside of us. That's why that relationship is so important. You're hanging around with God when you pray, and when you hang around with God in your prayers, something changes in you. God works his nature in you.

There have been many times in my prayer life, and I'm sure that others of you could say this as well. Many times in my prayer life that I pray for something out there to change. I've gone to God in frustration, sometimes even anger, discouragement, God. I want you to change and just fill in the blank, something external. Change this situation. And get on my knees before God, and it's not long before I realize that God is not interested in changing that situation, but he's very interested in changing me. And so when I spend some time with him, I will get up a different man. Why? Because I've been with God, and he's changed my heart and changed my life.

So your problems, yes, pray about them, but realize this, sometimes God is using your problems not to solve a problem, but to change something inside of you. And when you pray, what happens is you're drawing close to God, you're giving him an opportunity to do something in your life that is actually transformative and miraculous. We find a lot of stories like this in the Bible. Let me give you one example. One example of a man who was changed, he was personally changed when he prayed. His life was changed.

There's a story in First Chronicles, two little verses about a man, the only two verses in the Bible we have about this man. We know very little about him except what you find in these two verses. There's no record of any genealogy of this man in terms of having a father. We know something about his mother, as we'll see here in just a moment. But he just sort of pops out of the blue in the story of scripture. I mean, there's all kind of things around these two verses, but he just sort of pops into the frame here for two verses and then disappears. And there's a reason for that, because God wanted us to have a lesson from this man by the name of Jabez.

And we see the story of Jabez in First Chronicles chapter 4, verses 9 and 10. Let me read these verses for you. "Jabez was more honorable than his brothers," which means his brothers were not honorable at all, they were dishonorable. "His mother had named him Jabez, saying, 'I gave birth to him in pain.'" Let's stop there for a moment. No record of this man's father. So as far as we know, there's no dad in his life at all. That's a strike against him to begin with. He's dealing with that issue. And then he's got a bunch of siblings, they're not very honorable at all. So he's hanging out with brothers that are bad news. So he's surrounded by bad news brothers, no dad in his life. And when he's born, his mother gives him the name Jabez, and that name Jabez literally means, you are a pain. How would you like your mother to name you, you're a pain? I mean, things are bad when your mom names you, you're a pain.

So this is the environment that this man was born into. The man he's living in, he's living in this environment, a very dysfunctional family. A very broken family. But I want you to see what Jabez does in verse number 10. In verse number 10, the Bible says that in this context, dishonorable brothers, no dad mentioned, only mom who's named him you're a pain. In this context, Jabez does what? He cried out to the God of Israel. He prayed. Did you hear me this morning? What did Jabez do? He prayed. Okay.

Notice what his prayer is. "Oh, that you would," he's talking to God now, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory. Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain," this label that's on my life. Now, let's break this down for a moment. "Oh that you would bless me." What what's what's Jabez praying for? Is he asking for God to send a lot of money to him, or a lot of financial or material resources? Not at all. I don't believe that at all. In fact, I believe that Jabez is praying for the curse upon his life to be broken. He realizes something is limiting in him. It's not about his external circumstances, it's about a curse that has now been placed upon his very soul. He's saying, God, would you reverse the curse and instead of being me being cursed, can I enter into a blessing from you? Can I be a blessable person from you? Do something in my life that will make me blessable. And Lord, enlarge my territory. It's not a matter of getting a bigger house or having more land or more stuff. He's wanting his heart and life to be bigger. Why? Because his life has been very small. He's been this pained person in a very limited environment. God, would you make my life bigger and would you keep me from harm? I'm surrounded by harm and would you keep me from all this harmful environment that I'm in? And Lord, would you free me, keep me free from pain? He's asking for something inside of him because something inside Jabez needs to change. See, many times in your life, it will not be what is outside of you that needs to change, it's what's inside of you that needs to change.

And notice the last phrase in these two verses. And the Bible says that God granted his request. Can anyone say hallelujah? And I want you to hear me this morning, or this afternoon. If God did it for Jabez, he'll do it for you. If God did it for Jabez, he'll do it for you. So why, why did God create this thing called prayer? Why do we even pray? We pray because prayer connects us to God. That's the way we have connection and relationship with God. And we pray because prayer does change things. You need to pray over your problems because prayer, God miraculously works in response to our prayers. And then we pray because prayer changes us. It changes things inside of us. And the last thing I'll give you today is that prayer, we pray because prayer moves forward God's work in the world. It's vital to the work of God in the world.

I need to digress just briefly for a moment to help us to understand this point. So bear with me and listen closely because what I'm going to say will be extremely important in understanding what I'm going to teach you about prayer. God has always been at work in our world. God is at work in the world today. So anytime you you read the news, you get information on media about different things happening in the world, always remember this, no matter what's happening in the world, God is still working in the world. And so you can see all the bad news, all the terrible things that seem to be happening, and indeed it's true, but we have to recognize and step back beyond that and say, well, even in the midst of all this, God is working. God is working a plan. And the primary work of God in the world, I hope you'll get this, is vital to again our understanding of prayer. The primary work of God in the world, listen closely, is to get the gospel out.

What is the gospel? The gospel is the good news about Jesus Christ. That's the work that God's doing primarily in our world today because this world is going to end. Do you understand that? What we see now around us, it's not going to last forever. It's going to eventually come back, come to an end. And so until that time, we've been left here on the planet. We've been left here in this world to preach the good news of Jesus Christ, to show the goodness news of Jesus Christ, to let the world around us know that there is a God who loves them, who sent his only begotten Son into our world so that those who will put their faith in him can have eternal life, the forgiveness of their sins. It's good news.

And the whole reason we're here is so that God can work in lives, because he doesn't want anybody to perish. He wants all to come to the knowledge of the truth. Will all come to the knowledge of the truth? No. Many will reject him sadly, but Jesus is giving opportunity for any who would desire to do so to come to him and receive him. That's the work of God in the world. Now, God works in the world, yes, by his Spirit, but his Spirit works through people, and that's where we come in.

And that means that what God is doing in the world, he does it through people like you and me. And one of the ways that he works in the world to get the gospel out to the world is through us, through you and me, through the witness of your life, how you live your life. You're showing other people, this is a I'm a follower of Jesus. By your testimony, you're sharing your Jesus story with people as God provides opportunity so you bear witness of your faith to others. And hopefully lead other people to relationship with Christ. That's bearing witness and testimony. You're leading, you're part of the gospel message. But there's one other way that I want to mention here that you engage in the work of God for the world, and that's you pray for lost souls. You pray for those that don't know God. You pray for those that are away from God. You pray for God's kingdom to be advanced in our world.

Notice what Jesus says here in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 and 10. We read it a moment ago. "This then is how you should pray." Read together with me aloud and loudly, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." Notice the prayer, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What's the very first thing that Jesus teaches us to pray? To pray that God's kingdom would come and God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Why? Because we're on a time clock right now. Time is clicking away until Jesus comes back again. And there will be a moment when Jesus will return again. There'll be a trumpet sound. The eastern sky will split and Jesus will return. The dead in Christ will rise. And those who are alive when Jesus returns will be caught in the air to be with the Lord.

And there's coming a time when this world will be consummated. The kingdom of God will come in its fullness. But right now we're to pray that even in this moment, God, send your kingdom rule and do your will in the lives of people. Lead people to relationship with Jesus. And that's the job and task that every one of us have. Yes, to live as Christians, to bear witness with our lives, to bear witness with our words, to lead other people to Christ, but to also advance the cause of God by prayer. And so when you are a prayerless Christian, you're not doing your job. Let me let that sit there just for a moment. When you're not praying, you're not doing your job, okay? You're not fulfilling an assignment that's been given to you by God.

So how does this work? How does this whole idea of prayer being a part of us moving forward God's work in the world? Let me give you several things that we understand here. First of all, it aligns our heart with God's heart. When you pray, you begin to have the heart of God in your own heart. You begin to get synchronized with God. You begin to love what God loves and hate what God hates. And so there's a synchronization. You love the people that God loves. This prayer begins to open the doors for the gospel. As you pray, doors begin to be open so the gospel message can be shared. It brings salvation to the lost, that when, see, I will tell you today, if you're here in this room today and you've accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life, somebody prayed for you. Are you hearing me? You say, I just, I found God. No, you didn't find God. God found you, okay?

And God found you because somebody was praying for you. It might have been a co-worker that was a follower of Christ, but they were calling your name in prayer. It might have been a mother, it might have been a grandmother, a grandfather, it could have been someone in your neighborhood. They were calling your name before God, and somehow as they were praying, it brought you to the place of your recognition of a need for salvation in your life. God worked because somebody prayed for you. It brings encouragement when we pray to and power to God's messengers and God's servants, to those that are preaching the gospel. That when we pray for them, it helps them to be empowered and encouraged to keep on doing the work of God.

Prayer brings revival and renewal to God's church so that the church is fresh and alive in the things of the Spirit of God. A prayerless church will always be a powerless church. When you don't pray personally, you don't have power. And when the church doesn't pray, there is no power. And so God is looking for a prayerful church so that there will be a so that we will be a powerful, empowered by the Spirit church. We need to be a praying church. That's why we have early morning prayer. From the time that we started this church back in the early days, we're celebrating our 40th year of ministry here, and very early on in the life of our church, I started an early morning prayer meeting. We did not even have a building, but I opened the doors of my house at 6 AM every morning from Monday through Friday. I would wake up in the morning, open the door, and we'd have several men that would come over and pray with me every day, Monday through Friday, with early morning prayer. Why? Because a prayerless church is a powerless church. We need prayer now more than ever.

And it's vital that we become a prayerful church. So this prayer revives the people of God. It creates the atmosphere that welcomes the presence of the Spirit. It invites God's engagement in the affairs of nations. Now when we pray, we're asking God, would you work in the nations of the world? Let me make a bold statement this afternoon. It might shock some of you, it might upset some of you, but I'm going to say it anyway. Are you ready? Do you have your seatbelt on right now? God is not an American. Some of you are like, you're kidding me. I thought he was, okay? God's not an American. God is the God of the whole earth, okay? God so loved the world. And it's vital for us to, now we love our nation, we thank God for America. America's been the number one sending missionary nation ever in the history of the world. So we thank God for America and the freedoms that we have, so I'm not in any way denigrating this beautiful, wonderful nation that we have.

But God loves the world. In fact, the Bible's very clear that when we get to heaven and we get around the throne of God, there'll be people from every tongue, tribe, and nation that will be worshiping around the throne of God. One of the things I'm so grateful for and I'm astonished by and deeply humbled by and deeply, deeply, deeply appreciative for that over the years, God has allowed us as a church to gather the nations here. We have, I think the last count, I think it was 119 nations represented right here in this church. 119 nations represented here. Don't, don't hold me to that figure, because that's that's the figure I have in my mind. It's somewhere around that. It changes about every week, okay? Uh, but it's it's it's understand that we we realize that we we have a message for the nations. God works in the nations of the world.

And God advances his kingdom, not just in nations, but as a part of nations, in your neighborhood. Because you're a missionary, whether you realize it or not. Do you know that? Every believer needs to be a missionary. What's a missionary? A missionary is someone that's on a mission, okay? And what is our mission? Our mission is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others. You're a missionary. And so you need to be praying, as do I, for those that God brings us in contact with, that are part of the sphere of our world, that don't know Jesus. We advance the work of God by our prayers. That's why we pray. That's one of the reasons why God said, I'm assigning you to become prayer people. I want you to think about your neighborhood just for a moment. It's easy to think about the world out there and there all there all the people in the world, send the missionaries all over the place, God. But you're a missionary to your world, to your neighborhood.

I'm going to count to three in a moment. Once I get to three, I want you to name the name of the street that you live on. First of all, some of you need to think about it just for a moment. Got it in your mind? You know the street that you live on? You you don't need to give us your whole address, just the street you live on. And when I get to three, I want you to speak the name of the street that you live on out loud. Are you ready for this? This is total participation, okay? Are you ready? Out loud, you're going to speak the name of your street, the street that you live on. One, two, three. Who lives on that street? I hope you understand that you do, okay? If you haven't gotten that part, then we need to help you tonight, today before you leave, okay? That's your address, that's where you live, okay?

There are people to your right, more than likely, and to your left, and in front of you, or behind you, depending upon the kind of street that you live on, the apartment that you live in, the townhouse you live in, whatever your home looks like, it really doesn't matter, you're at some level, there are people around you. Are you praying for them? That's all I'm asking you. When's the last time you prayed for that guy across the street that you don't like? Or that person next door to you, in that apartment next door, that plays their music way too loud. I got an amen on that one, okay? When was the last time you prayed for them? What do you say? What do I pray? Lord, let your kingdom come and let your will be done in their lives. May you show them the light of the gospel. May their hearts be opened up to the love that you have for them. Lord, in the same way that you reached me, Lord, would you reach them with your love?

How about the people that you work with? The people in your shop, the people in your office, the people in whatever environment you might work in. We have so many different ways that people work in this world today, and in your lives, and so how about those people? Do you ever pray for them? You ever call their name before God? How about the people you do business with? Just fill in the blank, all these are people that are in your world that God has brought, do you think it's an accident that God has brought these people in your world? Do you think it's an accident you live where you live? Many times with our nice GPS processes nowadays, we can pin a location, right? On a map, GPS coordinates that are there. And God strategically GPS coordinated you right where you are with your life right now. And he says, I put some people around you, I want you to pray for them, because I put you as a missionary. You may not ever have the opportunity to witness to them, maybe you will, but what you can do for anyone that you meet is you can whisper a prayer for them, that they may come to know Jesus as you've come to know him. Amen.

And so why do we pray? Why even pray? Let us pray. Why? Why let us pray? Why do we even need to pray? I mean, God is God. Why should we pray? We pray because it connects us to God. It gives us that relational connection with him. It's not a ritual you go through, or a duty you have to do, it's something you connect with God, just through prayer, in relationship, communication. Prayer actually changes things. It invites God to work through his power miraculously in our world. Prayer also changes you, that when you spend time with God, it changes things inside of you. It makes you a blessable person. It removes removes harm and pain from you.

And when you pray, it advances God's kingdom in the world. With this, I'll conclude, as Paul makes this statement in Colossians chapter 4, verses 3 and 4. "And pray for us," Paul says, "pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains." And then he says in verse 4, "Pray that I might that I may proclaim it clearly as I should." My prayer for all of us is that we might proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through our lives and through our prayers, as clearly as we should, so this world, more people in our world, can come to faith in Christ, and so God can work as he so desires in your heart and in your life. Would you bow your heads together with me as we pray today. Lord, thank you for your word. We're grateful for the instruction you give us about prayer, and there are many, many reasons why we pray. And I pray that you will just in a very deep way engrain in us these reasons so that we'll understand when we pray that there's a there's purpose behind it, not just some activity we do, but there's actually reasons for it. Seal this word in our heart today by your spirit, we pray, in Jesus name.

I would like to close today by giving you an opportunity to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life. Would you pray with me right now? Right where you are, just simply bow your head with me, and I'm going to give you a prayer to pray and you can simply speak this prayer out, whisper this prayer out, and from the sincerity of your heart, call upon God, and I promise you that he will hear and answer you. So let's pray together. Start by simply whispering the name Jesus. Let there come from your heart just the declaration of his name. Say, Jesus. I know that that I am a sinner, that I have fallen short with you. I'm sorry for all of my sins. Jesus, I believe in you. I believe that you are God's Son. I believe that you are the savior of the world. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins, and I believe that you rose from the grave, that you are alive today. Now pray these words. Say, Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Come into my life. Forgive me of my sins. Give me a new start in you. I commit my life to you in Jesus name. Amen.

Now, if you prayed that prayer with me, I want to encourage you with a promise from God's word that says that when we call upon God's name, we call upon the Son of God, there is salvation that comes to our lives. He changes us from the inside out and you become a new creation. Old things pass away, all things become new, and that's exactly what's happened to you today. Your next step really is to make sure that you get into a good Bible believing church, and you begin to study God's word, get God's word in you, and to make sure that you get a copy of the Bible, if you don't have one, and begin to read it. Spend some time every day in prayer. And I would encourage you also to check out the resources on our website that will help you to get going in your relationship with Jesus. You can find them at church-redeemer.org. Get those into your hands. Get started in your new life with Jesus Christ. Thanks again for joining us today. May God bless you and we look forward to seeing you next time.