Teach Us How To Pray
This morning, I want to talk to you on the subject of prayer. I believe in these days that we must have a prayer life, because if we don’t, we will struggle. Sometimes we go through things, and if there is no prayer, there will be no victory. There are people in our lives, our family, our friends, loved ones, who need prayer, and we got to learn how to pray, how to stand in the gap.
We must get away from this microwave Christianity that the church has adopted, because sometimes it just takes hitting the knees for days, for weeks, for months, and even years before we see things come to pass. This new generation has lost sight of that, and we need this older generation to help us get over the humps, get over the mountains.
So, how do we pray? This morning I am going to dissect what we call the Lord’s Prayer, so that we might all learn what real prayer is about.
It’s something to see that in Luke 11, one of the disciples came to Jesus after he got done praying, and he asked him to teach him how to pray. Why is that? Why did he ask such a thing? Maybe because Jesus was healing the sick, he was casting out demons, these prayers of Jesus was working, and the disciples marveled because it one area of the gospels they couldn’t cast out a demon, but yet, Jesus did.
So the beginning here, they are saying teach us how to do what you do. You know, you got to want to crave the supernatural realm, you got to want to learn the things of the Spirit. Some people are perfectly happy about not even venturing out at all into the deep, they are simply happy with staying in the shallow water, but, I want to ask you all this morning, who wants to venture out into the deep? Who wants to know how to pray?
Matthew 6:5-13
Matt 6:5&6
First of all Jesus tells us what prayer is not. He talks about the hypocrites. The Pharisies and religious leaders would often pray out in the streets, so that everyone could see them, so they could look holy, sound holy, but many of them were indeed hypocrites. But Jesus said thay when you pray, you need to enter your prayer closet.
Because when you are in your prayer closet, wherever that might be, when there are times of intense spiritual warfare, many times you don’t want people to hear what your praying about. Maybe there is something you need deliverance of, maybe your interceding for your children, your spouse, friends, when you do this, it’s not for the streets where everyone to hear, it’s between you and the Lord.
Matt 6:7
Vain repetitions- Keep repeating the same things over and over and over. Some people just pray nonsense and think that God doesn’t know that your praying nonsense. God is more than an answering machine, God is all about relationship, He desires a relationship, not a bunch of nonsense and garbage.
BRUCE ALMIGHTY- Jim Carey in heaven talking to God (Morgan Freeman)
Let one of your kids get struck with a life threatening illness or a car crash and I guarantee that real prayer will come out of your mouth. Just be real
Matthew 6:9
1) The Person- Our Father
I want to start off with the word our. God is not just my Father, I am not an only child, but He is a Father to many. It’s not just about me, and what I want, and if I don’t get my way I am going to throw a tantrum, or a fit.
Father- You are not praying to spirits in the universe, but when you pray, you better know who it is your talking to. Understand who He is to you and me. Our Father says that I am a son, not a slave. You are a child of the King. Our Father defines my relationship to Him, and His relationship to me.
I have been here over 4 years, and I never 1 time heard Chad or Chelsea call Pastor Kevin Pastor, they called him dad, and they called Pastor Debbie mom, not Pastor. They were the only ones who could come to Him like that in the church, and it’s the same with our God Jehovah.
When we come, He is our Father. A non believer can’t call Him father because that’s not God’s son, that is until He receives Jesus into his heart.
It’s never your condition, but your position. Regardless of where you are in the Lord, rather you are backslid or not, He is still your Father. Again, it’s not your condition, it’s your position. Doesn’t matter if you’re the black sheep of the family or not, your still a son or daughter.
Now when you say Father, every demon force knows that I am His son, I have a relation with Him, I have the family name and the family crest.
2) Position- Which art in heaven
It’s his judicial position more than geographical position. God is everywhere, but God is soverign, He is the boss. He is the judge of the earth, nobody voted Him in, and nobody will vote Him out. He reigns, He sits on the throne. It’s not geographically, it’s how He reigns.
When you go to court, as soon as the judge enters everyone stands, and when He sits, everyone else sits, and when they sit after him, that is a type saying that they sit under His authority. He has the power in his courtroom to throw people out, to have the last word, he reigns that courtroom, and that is just like our God who reigns here on earth.
Everything and everyone is under him, under his authority. He is above everything in your life. Demons, sickness, spells, diseases, finances, doctors report, it’s all under Him.
(BOOK OF JOB- The devil and God)
You got to see that every problem is under His authority. If God be for you, who can be against you?
3) The praise- Hallowed be thy name
His name is holy
His name is so Holy, that devout Jews wouldn’t even call His name. They wouldn’t even whisper His name, because of it’s holiness.
When the writers of the King James bible even wrote the name of God, they stopped and washed themselves. Every time the name God was written.
When you got a good name, you don’t go down to the dealership to go sign the papers to buy your car, they send them to you, they bring the car to you.
Hallowed, if we are going to come into His presence, we can’t come into His presence without a praise.
Hallowed be thy name, you are praising Him because of who he is, you exalting Him
and you have legal access to God through praise.
David wrote in Psalms 100 to enter into His gate with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. We have to praise our way into His presence.
Everything so far has been establishing God for who He is, and I tell you what, when you look at just who is, you can look at cancer and say who are you? You can look at diseases and say who are you? You can look at poverty and say who are you?
Another point, you can’t be intimidated by your conflict. You can’t be intimidated by what the doctor says, what the devil is saying about you. Your ears need to hear you say who Jesus is to you, because Jesus is the name above all names.
When sickness comes, you say, Jesus is Lord of my life, He is my healer, I accept everything He did on the cross for me. In the name of Jesus I am healed and I receive my healing, my deliverance, my inheritance.
Now, a warning to all... even the 10 commandments speaks of this. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain. It’s not good to mess with His name. Don’t use His name so loosely, don’t you know that when you say the name JESUS, demons tremble, there is power in that name.
If you knew what kind of power that name had you wouldn’t use it so loosely, you would use it when a crisis comes.
For by calling on that name, a person’s name can be written in the book of life
4) Divine Godly leadership- thy kingdom come
We don’t want to be under a Pharaoh, we want to be under Jehovah, Do you know what you call when you say, thy kingdom come.
Come... Come.. We are talking about 1000,000 of angels, of power,
You got to pray right, stop whining , have a war posture, don’t pray out of your flesh and emotions. When Paul and Silas were singing, praising, and praying unto the Lord, the kingdom came and shook the prison.
5)Purpose- Thy will be done
I want nothing but His will. The purpose of God in earth as it is in heaven.
My will is not in IL, but God’s will is
If it’s not in His will I don’t want it.
Old Testament- Old Will
New Testament- New Will
If it’s in His will, no devil in hell can stop it... because it’s His will.
Healing is in the will/ deliverance is in the will/ victory is in the will
If it’s in the will, you can’t be mad if people claim what’s their’s and you don’t. Jesus died and left it for you, left it to you, you just got to claim it.
For healing your prayer is thy will be done in earth, as in heaven.
Speak that will right into your body./ Sometimes you got to fight the devil for your will. He is tresspassing on your will, because he has no right to your finances, your body, your house, no right..
6) The provision- Give us this day, our daily bread
Give expresses His sufficiently
It’s not a matter of do you have it or not, because I know you got it.
You wouldn’t ask a homeless person for $1,000 dollars, but I bet you would ask God if you had a need.
It says though, GIVE US not just give me
You can’t be satisfied w/ your success and not show me how to succeed. Don’t keep your success to yourself.
-FISHING-
Don’t laugh at my failure, but teach me how to do it right
This day
this means a continual basis. God wants us to depend on Him daily. Don’t worry about tomorrow, because your not in tomorrow.
Our daily bread
You can’t fight today’s devils with yesterday’s provision, yesterday’s provision was for yesterday.
The 40’s provision was for the 40’s, the 90’s for the 90’s, and now for now.
God supplied manna for the day to the children of Israel, they didn’t want them to have leftovers
7) Prerequisite- Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
You have no right to ask God for the things you won’t give to others. How can you ask God for forgiveness, if you won’t forgive others?
3 Revelations
1) You will have trespasses
2) God will use those who trespass against you, to monitor your capacity to receive & give forgiveness.
Judge not, lest you be judged. For what measures you meet, shall be met unto you again.
With the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.
3) People who do not forgive, cannot receive forgiveness because they don’t understand forgiveness, and therefore they do not believe in forgiveness.
If U do something to me that was bad, and I forgive you, than if I do something bad back to you, and you forgive me, I won’t have a guilty conscience because I was able to forgive you when you did me wrong.
BUT
if I have never forgiven someone, and I did something bad to a certain person, no matter how many times they say I forgive you, I will never feel forgiven, because I can’t believe that I could have done that, and you just forgive me.
Some of you are struggling, and you don’t feel forgiven in your heart as a Christian, because you haven’t practiced the prerequisite of forgiving others, and your walking in guilt, because you yourself have never experienced releasing a guilty person of charges that they did to you.
8) Pentinance- Lead us not into temptation
Having a humble attitude because of your own weaknesses
Don’t let me get into something that I can’t get out of
Don’t let me get to far gone to where I can’t find my way back
Deliverance takes time- I mean to where your not thinking about it, to where your not fighting it, not resisting it, to where it’s out so far as if you never even had it
Some of you might not be there is every area of your life
You got you out of it, but is it out of you?
Keep scrubbing Lord...
Keep scrubbing Lord so other people won’t see it
Keep scrubbing Lord, before the enemy sees it..
Keep scrubbing Lord, I have thoughts running through my head that are not Godly thoughts, I want to do things that are not of you... keep scrubbing Lord.
Now to the end, up until this point, everything has been coming down,
thy kingdom, the will, the bread, the forgiveness, but this is the turning point of prayer.
Thine is the kingdom, & the power, and the glory..
Now your ready to give back to the Lord.
We want to now radiate the glory back to Him.
Now that there is overflow, the glory must go back up to Him.
This is the completion of what God wanted when He made Adam. God wants His image back in you, His nature back in you, His character back in you, so now you are walking & talking like Him.
He desires to see Him in you.. Because we are His children.
CLOSING!
Prayer completes itself once you start looking like your Heavenly Father, the Father that your praying to.
