Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, emphasizing the importance of prayer in glorifying God. He illustrates how prayer connects believers to God's presence and aligns their hearts with His desires, using stories of George Mueller and Jim Cymbala to highlight the power of collective prayer. The sermon encourages the congregation to pray without ceasing, recognizing it as a command rather than a recommendation, and to approach God with gratitude in all circumstances.
Welcome and Church Information
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If you have your Bibles, we're going to go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, notes provided for you as well. If you've got a child that wants to go to Children's Church, that's available as well for you.
As the men are coming down, and as Logan had mentioned, we are talking about prayer today and how we can glorify God through prayer this morning.
I think one of the greatest strengths of a church can be how it can get a hold of God in every area of its life and how God can impact a church through prayer.
It was said once by an author, and I'm going to quote from him in a little bit, but he made this statement, when a church can learn to get a hold of heaven is when a church will learn
to be able to impact its community. And I'm a firm believer in how our prayer is and how we can glorify God through prayer this morning.
And oftentimes, I try at least once a week to come in here and just walk through the auditorium and pray individually over seats and try to visualize who is sitting where. I know people like to have their own seat, right?
And so it sort of does help me as I pray because I can sort of see faces and I can sort of see who sits where, and I can begin to pray for a need. And as I'm walking through, maybe the Lord will press upon my heart to reach out to someone.
And so prayer is vital in that area. And just understanding what God can do through prayer.
We began two weeks ago looking at what the word glorify simply means, and it's to give weight to.
And it's whatever we're thinking about, whatever we're talking about, whatever we're bragging about. Last week, we talked about praise, and we talked about how we can do that publicly, privately, corporately, and family, and how our family should have a time of devotion altogether.
But today, as we look at prayer, I'm going to give a couple of open-end illustration stories.
I normally only give one, but the Lord pressed upon me to give two this morning, and we'll read the Scripture first. And so if you found your place there, 1 Thessalonians 5, 16-18, very familiar passage of Scripture. We'll stand and read these couple of verses this morning. The Bible says, Rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing. And in everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Lord, I come to you this morning, Lord, just asking for your wisdom and guidance.
Prayer for Strength
Give me the strength in my throat as allergies have set in with the weather changing.
Lord, give me the strength that I need, and help us to worship you this morning.
Lord, help the words to be said this morning to be all about you and nothing about me and all about what you can do for us. God, we love you, and we thank you for what you've done. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.
Many years ago, there was a man by the name of George Mueller. George Mueller was a Christian evangelist missionary who coordinated all throughout England,
specifically in the Bristol, England area, and he had orphanages all throughout the area. I believe one account said that he had over 42 different orphanages with over 120,000 orphaned children that had went through his care. He traveled by ship.
One record has it over 200,000 miles to preach the gospel of Jesus all across the world.
And it's challenged believers all over the world for the last 200 years as Mueller was very meticulous in writing down what God did. Writing down the prayers that he had prayed. Writing down the answers to those prayers.
There was one story that was written down of a time where a morning had come and all the plates and cups and bowls were out and all the kids came out from their bedrooms and sat around the master grand table that they would have their lunch and breakfast and dinner at.
And they came and they sat down and there was no food on the table. There was no drink on the table because there was no money to buy any food.
The children were sitting there waiting for their morning meal and Mueller said, Children, it must be time for school.
And so let's sit down and let's pray for the meal that God's going to prepare for us.
The children sat down and they grabbed hands and as he lifted in prayer, he said a simple prayer that said, Dear Father, we thank you for what you are going to prepare for us to eat. Amen. Said as he ended his prayer, there was a knock at the door.
Said a man came to the door and he opened the door and he said, Mr. Mueller, I've been up since 2 a.m. The Lord woke me up. I don't know why, but I couldn't sleep. And so I began breaking bread all night long.
I've got bread for your entire orphanage this morning. I don't know if you can eat it. I don't know if you can use it. But here's some bread for your orphanage.
And so Mr. Mueller took it in and set it down, fresh baked bread that was brought to his doorstep. No sooner had he had gotten to the table with the bread, there was a knock at the door.
And he went back to the door and a milkman was standing at the door and he said, My milk cart has broken down. I can't make it to my stops. If I don't get rid of this milk, it's all going to go bad. Can your orphanage use this milk?
And he said, We prayed for it. Of course we can.
And so the Lord in that moment prepared not only food but also milk for that orphanage.
And that's just one story of over and over again of Mueller's entries that the Lord worked and blessed through a man who just simply had faith to pray for God to work in a miraculous way. Acts chapter 12, the Bible says this. Peter was in prison. Peter was persecuted.
Peter was in a time where he was in a jail cell and he was strapped to two soldiers. And he was taken away from the church and possibly even going to be crucified at this moment in Acts chapter 12.
The Church's Role in Prayer
And the Bible says that while Peter was in prison, the church was elsewhere doing one thing. The church prayed that God was outceasing for him. The church prayed.
The church met in a house and they began to pray. And God answered that prayer.
And when God answered the prayer, the church didn't believe it. A little girl went to the door when Peter came to the door and they said, she said, hey, I think Peter's here but I think it's a ghost. Because Peter's in jail and we're praying for him.
It can't be Peter because he's in jail. And God answered the prayer. And so often churches, church when God answers prayers, we don't see God answering prayers because we're not looking for him to answer prayer. As I was thinking through that story of the church praying, my mind went to hundreds of different stories.
There's a story of a young lady that was at Allison's church when she was a little girl. Her name was Destiny. She was in a massive, she was young, maybe eight, ten months old. And she was abused. And she was on the death's door.
And the church, it was way before my time, I wasn't there. I've read stories and I've heard accounts.
The church came together on a Wednesday night and just prayed because there may have been a sunny night. And they began to pray that God would work in Destiny's life because the doctor said there's no way for her to survive. Because she was beaten so bad.
But the church came together and prayed. I was talking about my dad when I was five years old, six years old. My dad was diagnosed with cancer in October. And the doctors came and said, this will be his last Christmas.
Enjoy it because you won't see him again after Christmas. The church came together and the church prayed and the church worked in a mighty way. And 30-something years later, now my dad's cancer-free.
And I was just at his house last Sunday. And we watched football together. And we had a great time. And I'm thankful that the church believes in prayer.
But I was reminded of a story by a guy named Jim Cimbala. Jim Cimbala is a pastor at the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. I've quoted him before here. But Jim and his wife were very, are still very influential. Rachel and his oldest daughter, Chrissy, was a model child growing up.
Around 16, she started to stray. And this is his words, not only stray from God, but also stray from us. And at the time, at 16, she left their home. He said, there were many nights we had no idea where she was at.
As the situation grew more serious, I tried everything. I begged. I pleaded. I scalded her. I argued with her. I tried to control her with money, but nothing worked. She was just hardened more and more.
He said, while this goes on, my wife Carol needed an operation. And during the post-surgical depression that followed, the devil took opportunity to come after her and say, you have a big choir. You've made albums.
You've been singing in Radiohead City Music Hall. Your husband can preach to the whole world. But I'm taking your children from you.
I've already got the first one. I'm coming after the next two. And Carol said to her husband, Jim, we need to leave New York. I'm serious. This atmosphere has already swallowed up our daughter. I cannot help raising another child here.
In November, they received a call from a pastor friend that said, Jim, I love you and Carol, but Christy is going to do what Christy wants to do.
She's determined. She's accepted what she's decided to do. You don't have a choice in the matter. He hung up the phone.
He said, I cannot accept that Christy has been away from the Lord. He said, God strongly impressed to me to have that conversation with no one else but God. In fact, he said, I would not have conversation with Christy for the next three months.
He said, Christmas came and it was almost impossible for me to keep the composure around my children, opening presents, and Christy not being there.
He said, February came and on a cold Tuesday night during prayer meetings, he was talking from Acts 4 how the church boldly called upon God in the face of persecution.
And I've been in their prayer services and they're like nothing I've ever experienced before at Brooklyn Tabernacle. I was up there a couple years ago and every tribe and every tongue is represented and they all begin to pray in their own voices and their own tongues.
The Impact of Collective Prayer
And it just reminded me of what heaven's going to be like in our own tribe, in our own tongue.
And it said as they got to their moment of prayer time in their Tuesday night service, an usher came up to him and said a young woman felt to be spiritually sensitive had written on there, Pastor Symbala, I feel impressed that we should stop the meeting immediately and pray for your daughter.
He said a few minutes passed and I picked up the microphone, I told the congregation what had just happened and I said the truth of the matter is I haven't talked much about it. My daughter's far from God these days.
She still thinks up is down and down is up, dark is light and light is darkness, but I know God can break through to her. So I'm going to ask one of my other pastors to come and lead him prayer.
I'm going to ask the entire sanctuary to join hands in prayer and pray for my daughter. He said I haven't done this before, but I want to do it tonight because someone else has asked us to. He said to describe what happened the next few minutes could only be implied as a metaphor.
The church turned into what would be considered a labor room. There arose groaning and a sense of desperate determination as if to say, Satan, you will not have this girl. Take your hands off of her.
He said when I got home that night, Carol was still recovering from surgery and she was not able to be at church and I said to Carol, it's over. And she wondered and she said, what's over?
And he said, if it's over with Christy, he said, I tell you, if there's a God in heaven, this whole nightmare will finally be over.
He said, 32 hours later, I was shaving upstairs and Christy burst through the door downstairs. His wife yelled upstairs and said, Christy's here and she's wanting to see you.
He said, I wiped the shaving cream off my face and I headed downstairs. My heart was pounding. I didn't know what she was going to say.
I didn't know what she was going to do. I didn't know what trouble she had been in for her to come home. He said, I saw my daughter on the kitchen floor rocking in her hands and knees and sobbing and cautiously I spoke her name, Christy.
She grabbed my pants leg and began to pour out in anguish. Daddy, daddy, I've sinned against God. I've sinned against myself and I've sinned against you. Will you please forgive me?
Suddenly, she drew back and she said, dad, with a start, I need to ask one question.
Who's been praying for me? Who's been praying for me? Her voice was like a cross-examination of an attorney. Who has been praying for you? And he said these words.
He said, what do you mean, Christy? Me and your mom have been praying for you since the day you left our house years ago when you were 16. And she said, no, dad, on Tuesday night, who was praying for me?
In the middle of the night, God woke me up and showed me that I was headed toward the abyss of hell and there was no bottom and I was being rebellious and I was scared and I was frightened and I realized how hard I've been, how wrong I've been.
And at the same time, it was like God wrapped his arms around me and held me tight and kept me from sliding any further and said, I still love you.
I just got to know who was praying for me Tuesday night. See, church, we may never understand where our prayers go.
We may never understand the benefits of our prayers and who are going to benefit from them. The church, the Bible doesn't give us a recommendation of prayer. It gives us a command of prayer.
As we think through prayer this morning, as I gave those two illustrations, again, it's the church collectively coming together and praying for God to work in the midst of a people. What is prayer? Very simply, I put in your notes, prayer is this. Prayer is communication with God.
Prayer is communication with the one who has made us.
We do this by praising him, by confessing our sins before him, by thanking him and asking him for our needs and desires. Prayer, church, is a communication with our creator. When we pray, we engage a loving fellowship with the maker of heaven and earth.
It's not just something we do. It's something that should be a part of our DNA. It's something that should be a part of our life where we can't go a moment in time without praying for God to work in our lives. I know my kids say it often.
They'll ask me about something and I'll say, well, let me pray about it. And I say it somewhat jokingly, but I say it because I want them to think and I want them to understand that prayer is that important. Where are we going to go eat? Let me pray about it.
Let me see what the Lord wants us to do. I may already decide that we're going to Pizza Hut because I just want pizza. But God says we should be praying about everything and to pray without ceasing. How is prayer beneficial? This is the question that oftentimes will get asked.
Understanding the Need for Prayer
I watch TED Talks a lot. Not TED Talks in the way of TED Talks, but pastors that will get questions. One of the most common questions that's asked is this. If God knows everything, why do we need to pray? If God's the creator of everything, why do we need to pray?
You know, there are many promises in God's word to encourage us to pray. Psalms 91 15 says it like this.
He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble and I will deliver him and I will honor him. Another promise, Isaiah 65 24.
And it shall come to pass that they before they call, I will answer. And while they were yet speaking, I will hear.
God is not a God who sits up there and just throws everything to existence and says, all right, good luck and I hope it works out.
God says, no, I want to come and I want to be a part of you. I want to listen to you when you talk to me. And before you even get done speaking, I'm going to hear you. I'm going to come and work in your life. Matthew 7 7.
It was the theme verse from my wife's school last year. My kids know it. They could probably quote it with me. And it will be given unto you. Seek and you shall find.
Knock and the door will be opened unto you. But it all begins with asking and it will be given to us.
See, the scripture tells us that we are to pray for one another and also assures us that God hears and answers our prayer. But God cannot hear a prayer that is not spoken. God cannot hear a request that is never told.
God says that we must call out to him and ask him for what it is.
Because I'm oftentimes reminded of this as a father, as a kid who comes to me, my son and daughter, and they'll ask for something.
And I'll give it to them because they ask for it. I don't know if they need a pencil in school if they don't ask me for it. And God is in the same way.
He says, I need you to come. I want you to come and ask me so that we can have a relationship together. So that we can work through this together.
You see, when we receive Christ in our heart, we become a child of God. And becoming a child of God, there are privileges. And one of those privileges is we get to talk to the creator of the universe about anything we want to talk about.
You've maybe been in a conversation with your parent. They were a little distracted. They had something going on and they just said, hey, can we have this conversation at a later time? I've got a lot going on. God's never like that.
God said, it doesn't matter the day, the time, the hour. I'm never going to be too busy to hear your prayer. I'm never going to be too distracted to hear what you have to say. Just come and talk to me and have a relationship. And this relationship will last for eternity.
It's not just a relationship that happens in that one moment, but it's the rest of our life. All into eternity, we get to stand before the presence of God. We get to worship Him.
And as we look through these three simple verses, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, everything give thanks. This is the will of God.
Benefits of Prayer
I broke it down into four ways of what and how prayer is beneficial. The first one is this. It brings us into God's presence.
It brings us into God's presence. Look at verse 16 again. Two simple words. Rejoice always.
No matter the circumstances, no matter what is going on in life, there's rejoicing to be done. Rejoicing.
There's rejoicing that we can look and we can say, God, I know things aren't going the way I want it to go. Things aren't doing the things that I would have done if I would have written out the script of my life. But God, I'm thankful that I'm here today.
I'm thankful that I'm able to worship You today. I'm thankful that I'm able to stand and proclaim You today. And God, I want to come before Your throne boldly, as Hebrews says, so that we can obtain mercy and find grace and the help of need.
You see, God is saying to us that we come into His presence, and when we come into His presence, the things that we seem are so important, God says, they're important, yes. But I'm so much bigger than those problems. I'm so much greater than those problems.
Thank you for coming to the one who has all the answers. Because oftentimes, we'll go to the ones that don't have the answers.
And we'll go to the ones that can't solve the problems, and we walk away frustrated. But yet, when we go before a holy God, we walk away knowing that we can rejoice and knowing that He is there. And we know that He has heard our prayers.
And we have a confidence and a boldness, as the Bible says, that our prayers are going to be heard and answered. You know, at the same token, we can understand that we don't have to lose sight of our surroundings.
Paul urges us to go before the throne of God and take a moment to absorb what God has truly done. Prayer grants us a personal audience with the one who created us. I want us to really think about that. A personal audience with God the Father. That's what prayer does.
Oftentimes, there's movies all across the world of a genie in a bottle,
where you rub a lamp, and all of a sudden, you get this personal genie that can grant you all these wishes.
And it's like having God in a bottle for a moment, and you can ask Him whatever you want, and it's going to happen immediately. And you get all these fine clothes and a house that you've always wanted, and then it's gone after a while.
And the storyline always ends of where they just sort of end in vanity of wanting more.
And I'm not saying God is a genie in a bottle.
Don't get me wrong, but I'm saying God is so much bigger and greater than that. And we would say, yeah, I would love to have that genie in a bottle. I'd love to have three wishes. I'd love to have those things. And God says, I'm standing here. I'm waiting for you.
I'm waiting for you to come and have a personal relationship with me. I'm waiting for you to come and say, I want to speak to the one who created the world. I want to speak to the one who parted the Red Sea,
and the followers of Jesus, the Israelites, walked across on dry land.
I want to go and I want to have that conversation. I want to go and have a conversation with the God who kept the lion's mouth shut when Daniel was thrown in the lion's den.
I want to have a conversation with the God who sent the fish to swallow Jonah and rebuke him and turn him from his ways. I want to talk to the one who sacrificed his only son to die for my sins and to rise from the dead. We have this opportunity, church.
And it's not a recommendation, but it's a command to go and to pray.
And it's a deep sense of awe and appreciation for what God has done for us. But when we begin to have this moment of prayer, it begins to bring us into rejoicing. It begins to bring us into a moment of understanding God's presence.
Not only does it bring us into God's presence, but it brings our focus to God.
It brings our focus to God. It brings our focus to who he is. It brings our focus to God's presence, understand who we're talking to and the privilege that it is, and that we don't just come before God in some callous attitude, but we come before God in a sense of awe,
in a sense of respect of who he is. Verse 17 says, pray without ceasing.
You see, it's the first fruits of our prayer that belong to God. The bulk of our energy, the passion, the determination that we have, all the creative power,
all the moments of praising God, it is the first fruits that go to God. I was told it like this when I was in college, and I've tried to do it this way all my life, but I had a professor, his name was Clint Fredericks,
and he said, when you begin to have your moment with God, he said, I want you to schedule it. Look at your schedule. You're in college, and you're busy, and I worked three jobs in college.
I worked at Chick-fil-A, and I did a paper route, and I cleaned a church at night, and I was busy. I had a lot of time away from college, and trying to figure out my schedule was difficult, and figure out my quiet time with God, and how that was going to look.
And he made this statement. He said, give God the best of your time.
If you're working two or three jobs, seven o'clock in the morning is probably not the best time for you. You're probably going to wake up at seven o'clock, and about five minutes later, you're going to be praying as you're storing in your Bible. Right?
Because you're going to be tired. You're not going to have energy to praise God. You're not going to have energy to worship God.
He said, it may be that you have a full day of classes, and then you have lunch, but then you've got a little break of 20 or 30 minutes where before you go to work, you've got a little bit of time where you can devote that time to God.
It may not be the first time of the day, but it's the best time of the day for you to have energy and passion, and you're awake, and you're alert, and you're not going to fall asleep on God, and all of a sudden you say, God, I'm going
to give you that 20 minutes. I know it's not as much as I should, but I'm going to devote that time. I'm going to turn my phone off. I'm going to close my iPad. I'm going to close everything else around me. I'm just going to devote that time to you. He said, and it's different for everyone.
He said, and this should be our lives, and we should be surrounding our world because when that happens, the rest of our day flows from it. Listen to a couple of the Psalms and how Psalms talks about how we should be extolling or praising God. Psalms 3.3, But you, O Lord,
you're a shield for me, my glory, and the one who lifts my head. When you're down, God's the one that lifts our head. Psalms 75.1,
We give thanks to you, O God. We give you thanks, for your wondrous works declares your name is near.
Focusing on God's Nature
Psalms 145.8, The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great to mercy.
You see, when we begin to pray continually, we begin to pray earnestly. It brings our focus back into who God is. It draws our focus from the world that's around us, and it brings our focus into God and His greatness and what He can do for us.
So this is the first part of verse 17, as it says we bring our focus to God, but then the first part of verse 18 continues on by saying this, It brings us to our place and our purpose. In everything, give thanks.
Oftentimes, people will ask me, in my 12 years I've been a youth pastor, in my couple months I've been a senior pastor, how do I know the will of God? How do I know what God wants me to do with my life?
Well, it's easy to start right here and say, in everything that you do, give thanks. When you begin to be in that place, you begin to understand the purpose for what God has for you. Because often we turn to God in prayer, and it's a response to our circumstances. Right?
A medical emergency happens, and that's when we begin to pray. A financial burden begins to happen, and we go to God. A relationship is broken, and we go to God. We lose our job, and we go to God. We have this helpless sense of hopelessness, and we go to God.
And yes, those are great times to go to God, but it should be always going to God in the good times and the bad. And oftentimes, prayer becomes an assignment of our life. It's almost like we're in school, and the teacher gives us our homework assignment.
And we say, okay, I'm going to go home, and I'm going to praise God today, and I'm going to pray today. And it's sort of like a checkoff, and God says, no, no, no, no, no. It's praying without ceasing.
It's not just a checkmark of a little bit of time. It's as you're arriving down the road, it's as you're going through life, you're coming before God, and you're giving Him thanks. He will respond to those emergency requests, because He's a God that's faithful.
You see, I often would think, why would God respond to me when I'm so negligent sometimes in prayer?
I'm so, sometimes I just, you know, I'm busy. Life is busy, and I don't spend the time in prayer like I do, but yet I go to God, and I begin to pray for Him, and He answers those prayers. And I'm like, God, why are you even answering these prayers?
Why are you even doing this? I'm such a sinful person, and I'm not perfect, and I don't know these things. And God just sort of reminds us that He's gracious to us. He's merciful to us.
Because if I were God, I wouldn't answer my prayers at times, because I'm not faithful.
And God says, I know you're not faithful, but I'm going to be faithful. And I'm going to answer, and I'm going to be there, and I'm not going to limit the power of prayer just because you're not faithful. Because it's not about us. It's about God and who He is.
You see, when we first begin to focus on God, and we begin to maintain an attitude of pleasing Him, it begins to bring a sense of humility and obedience in our life.
We begin to think of His virtues. We begin to praise Him and His power and His wisdom and His love and His ability to bring an ultimate good from any situation.
No matter what happens, we can firmly grasp upon the hand of God that is so often the hand that we need in our life. Acts 20, 36 tells us that when Paul came before God, he knelt down and prayed.
Paul, in this kneeling posture, reminds us that we are a servant or a beggar coming before a holy God. We can't bring anything to Him.
There's nothing that we can bring to Him. But we're just kneeling and begging and saying, God, I need You in my life. God, I need You to work in my life. I don't have anything to give You. Just an empty vessel here to serve.
And God says, that's all I need. That's all I need this morning is an empty vessel willing to open their heart, open their mind, and say, God, I need You in my life. And that's when we begin to see our purpose and our place.
Aligning Our Hearts with God
But lastly, as we look at this verse, it brings our heart to God's desires.
It brings our heart to God's desires. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
I meant to put this up there and I forgot. I was going to have a picture of me at the Garden of Gethsemane. I was there, like I said, about a year ago. It was the most emotional day.
I talked to many people that went to the Garden and went to Israel and I said, how can I prepare best?
How can I prepare when I go to Israel? And they said, there's different places that are just going to hit you different than anybody else. And there were when I was at the mountain of Armageddon and Megiddo there and that valley of Megiddo. It hit me in a special way.
And out in the Sea of Galilee, there were some moments where God just sort of spoke to my life. But the moment that got me the most was when I was standing in the garden where Jesus prayed the sweat drops of tears.
When literally his body was in a sense of just destruction because he was under so much of a weight of what he was about to do that his blood vessels were rupturing below his forehead and he was beginning to bleed from his body because of the pressure.
And then also knowing that this was the same garden that his best friend Judas, one of his 12 disciples, this wasn't a standoff disciple. This was someone that was close to him, that would have prayed with him, that would have spent time with him, also rejected him and betrayed him.
And as I stood there and as I was kneeling in prayer, we spent about 45 minutes in the secluded garden, just our group.
This overwhelming sense of just weight of who God is came over my life because I began to read these verses. Matthew 26, 39. Oh, my Father,
he's talking to God. If it's important for Jesus to talk to God, it's important for us to talk to God. Oh, my Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. It was certainly an understandable request from someone who was pushed to the limits of human endurance.
I can't do this in my physical human body. God, is there another way? That's what Jesus was praying.
And as I was sitting there and as I was kneeling and as I was praying, I found a spot by one of the olive trees, but no one else was around. And I just began to pray and I began to cry.
And God began to work in my life because I realized that this wasn't just another random, but this was Jesus,
the Son of God, who was a human just as me, who would experience the same rejection as I've rejected and who would experience loss as I've experienced loss, who would have experienced the things that we go through on a daily basis, was now experiencing death in a personal way.
And his humanity was beginning to crumble. And then as Jesus begins to continue this prayer, he says this, Nevertheless, it's not my will, but it's your will be done. Even in his most vulnerable state, Jesus' first priority, church get this,
was to align his will with God's will. God, it's not what I want. My humanity is saying do something different.
But a God, if you say I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it. Church, we have got to get to the point where our aim is following the lead of what God's goal is in our life.
We begin to pour our hearts out to God and we begin to say, God, no matter the urgency of importance, I want my first priority to be to you, that I want to follow you, so that everything I do from this point on is for you.
And we begin to glorify God through this area, through this core value. We begin to see that God's will will be done in our life as we begin to align our hearts with God's desire. As Terry comes and begins to play,
again, I've just got one question today. Normally I end with a couple of questions. I just got one question, just something for us to think about.
Where is your heart at today? Well, Pastor James, I accepted Jesus when I was seven years old, and that's great. Maybe you've never accepted Jesus. Today would be an amazing day for that to happen.
And I'm saying on a personal level, where is your heart of saying, God, I don't want just to pray for the list of needs that I have,
but I want to pray for you to work in my life, in my family's life, in my church's life, and our community's life in a way that the world's going to look in, as we talked about this morning in Sunday school, the world's going to look in and say,
it's only done by something other than themselves. That right there is done through a supernatural being. Where are we at this morning? How's your prayer life?
Because when we begin to understand what prayer is, we begin to understand that the essence of worship and the essence of prayer go hand in hand. If I am not in the right heart alignment with God, there's no way I can get up here and preach a message like this.
Personal Reflection on Prayer
There's no way I can get up and I can sing a worship song because it does not align with our heart and it doesn't bring our heart to God's heart. So this morning, it's a personal question for you.
Where is your heart at this morning? Lord, we love you and I thank you for what you've done. I pray that your will would be done in all areas of our life. In your name we pray. Amen.
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