Chris Gaynor: Good morning. Good morning. All right. ⁓ it is so good for me to be here with you today. I I I've got to tell you, I just I loved ⁓ I I love hearing you sing this morning and fill this room. And I thought about ⁓ just as you began Mike saying that you exist as a church, how'd you say this? To cultivate joy in Jesus. And I don't know if you recognized it, but everything you sang this morning should have caused an eruption of joy in you. It should have caused joy to rise up, a recognition of the character of God, the goodness of God, the salvation that is offered to us in Jesus. Your gathering for worship is designed to be joy-inducing. The preaching of the word, the reading of the word, the time you spend day to day in God's word is there, not just simply to instruct you, not Simply to be a guide for life. It is intended to reveal the character of God, which ought to produce. Joy, there we go. Somebody's tracking with me. There's joy in us. This morning, we're gonna step out of your ⁓ series in the book of John, which by the way, is this beautiful unfolding, this beautiful revelation of the character of God. How does John begin? In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and then he says, and the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we beheld his glory. That's not simply to impress us. The revealing of the glory of God, y'all, is to call us, cause us, and call us to joy, to joy in Jesus. We're going to step out of that this morning, though, and we're going to talk about another means of grace that God has given us, and that's prayer. And I want to submit to you this morning that contrary to what many of us think, prayer is not given to us as an opportunity to. ⁓ To encounter a transaction or engage in a transaction with God. Prayers given to us for the sake of relationship that we might find joy in God, that we might fellowship with Him and experience Him. So we're going to look at prayer and the role it plays in our relationship with God. But I want to stir the pot just a little bit this morning, and I just want to ask this question. Why do you pray? Why do you pray? I'm not talking about. Big picture pray. I'm talking you personally. Why do you pray? Maybe the question is not that, but why don't you pray? Why don't you pray? Do you know that this topic probably causes more angst in Christian people than any other topic? Because it's the one place where most of us feel like we should be doing more, we should be doing better. Recently I read a survey that suggested that. 83% of Americans, this is astounding to me, 83% of Americans believe that some or all of their prayers are answered. I was I was dumbfounded by that. Eighty-three percent of people living in America believe that some or all of their prayers are answered. Same survey. Only two percent are satisfied with their prayer lives. And I wonder if that statistic is true not just of Americans, but true of the people of Harvestra. We believe that God answers some or all of our prayers, but most of us are just fully not convinced and not satisfied with our experience of prayer. So this morning I'm gonna try to take ⁓ the passage that Mike read for us, Matthew 6, 5 to 13, and I'm gonna try to answer the question why pray? Why should you pray? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls out three spiritual disciplines: giving, fasting, And pray. And Jesus makes it very clear that his expectation is that all of his followers will engage in all three of these spiritual disciplines. And I know this because Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, when you give, not if you give, when you give, when you fast, not if you fast, and when you pray. So why pray? Let's dig into this passage. Let me see if I can unpack it for you. The first reason that we pray is because of relationship. We we pray because of relationship. We're able to approach God in prayer by virtue as our of our relationship, as sons and daughters. Listen, church, we're we've been redeemed. We've been reconciled to risk relationship. We've been adopted as sons or daughters. Mike already told you I have these two boys. They are. seventeen and eighteen. ⁓ they are in the neighborhood of anywhere from six two to about six five. ⁓ and I know I don't know where their height came from. I attribute it to the preservatives and red dye number forty that's in all the food they eat. I d I don't know. I I can't explain it to you. But but my boys have access to me that none of you will have. They they can interrupt me. They can come in and they do. at any hour of the day. That they have free access to me. They they can ask me for things that you can't ask me for. Well well you can try but I probably will say no. But they can ask me why? Because they're my sons. By by virtue of relationship, they have access to me. And y'all that that's the same access that you and I have as sons and daughters of God. You see I I think we miss this so often because we believe, particularly in the church, often that we've been reconciled to God. We've been we've been restored to Him for the purpose of usefulness. We believe that we're called, and yes, we are called to serve. Yes, we are called to give our lives for the glory of God. But I need you to understand that when God reconciles you, He wasn't reconciling you to usefulness. He was reconciling you to relationship. He wanted you to find joy in him. And he wanted to find joy in you. You see, that's very clear by how Jesus suggests that we should even start our praying. What does he say? When you pray, pray like this. Our Father. Our Father, because prayer is the privilege of relationship. But see, we weren't always in that position. We weren't always in that condition of living in a reconciled and restored relationship to God. Colossians 1 says this: Once, at one time, you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now, and we sang it this morning so beautifully, so wonderfully, now He's reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy. In his sight without blemish and free from accusation. Look, listen to me. You aren't made holy in Jesus just for the sake of being holy. You aren't made righteous just for the sake of being righteous. You're made holy and righteous so that you can be restored to access to the presence of God. He said, goes on in verse 23 and says, if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. What's the hope held out in the gospel? You sang it this morning. The hope held out in the gospel is Jesus in my place. Yet not I, but Christ in me. The scripture says he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. And the chastisement that brought us what? Peace was on him. Y'all, we have peace with God. We have a restored and renewed access to Without fear or anxiety or hesitation to his presence, because of what Christ has done for us. We become sons and daughters by faith in Jesus. Ephesians 2 says this: that you and I were dead in our transgressions and sins, and we were deserving of wrath. But God, ⁓ I love this, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions, is by grace. You've been saved. I may need to say this. Some of you this morning feel distanced from God. You feel cut off from Him because you've never been become a son or a daughter of God by virtue of placing your faith in Jesus. And this morning, we want to invite you to do that. We want you to know the free access that you have to God because of what Christ has done for you. But I want you to know that grace was a costly grace. I want you to think about this for a minute. God loved you so much that he sent Jesus to die in your place. He sent his only son, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to restore us. Ephesians 2 says that. And that right there, y'all, the fact that Jesus would die in our place to restore us to God ought to be enough to motivate us to the place of prayer. How could you not want to engage in In regular conversation with the one who sacrificed so much for you. Hebrews will tell us, Hebrews 10 will tell us that we have access into the throne of grace by virtue of the shed blood of Jesus. And church, I need you to understand when we withdraw from the place of prayer, we actually show contempt for the blood of Jesus that was shed for us. We demonstrate that we aren't really moved by the sacrifice that He made for us, and yet, y'all. We can come and pray because we have relationship. We pray because we have relationship. And not only do we pray because we have relationship, we pray for cultivating relationship. Listen, you know this. There's no horizontal relationship that you have that can survive a lack of communication. Right? Yes? No? Are you all gonna talk to me this morning? Okay, all right. You know this, right? I have two teenage boys. I'm trying to help them understand that if you want a relationship, it begins with communication. Just go talk to her. Just walk across the room and talk to her. Let's not play middle school all our lives with the girls on one side and the boys on the other. Okay? Just go talk to her. A relationship is initiated by conversation. You don't have a relationship that was that didn't begin with somebody saying something, right? That's a simple yes. That's a giveaway. Everybody says yes. Okay. But not only do you begin a relationship by communication, you cultivate that relationship by communication. Listen, if you don't communicate with a person, you don't have a relationship. You might have an agreement, you might have some history, you might have a contract, but you don't have a relationship. It's necessary to communicate, to commune with each other in order to build and cultivate a relationship. Oswald Chambers says this. I love this quote. He says our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We think of prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves. But the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. Now, my guess is you'll push back against that a little bit. I don't really believe that it's all transactional. I don't really believe that prayer is all about getting stuff from me. But the question is, is that your functional definition of prayer? Would your prayer life, would your prayer life stand up to your objection? You see, way too often we approach prayer as primarily transactional. Prayer is not primarily transactional, church. Prayer is relational. It is for the purpose of knowing and enjoying God, of cultivating relationship with Him. That's why I think in Psalm 27, the one ask in Psalm 27 is verse 4. David says, But this one thing I ask, and that is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temptation. Y'all, if you read Psalm 27, David's in a whole heap of trouble. Everything around him is in turmoil. He's surrounded by an enemy. An army has besieged him. Those closest to him have abandoned him and forsaken him, and people are lying about him and plotting to take his life. And yet David says, in the middle of all that, the only thing I want is to be a gay-able to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. Y'all, that's because I don't just need what God can do. I need who he is. And praying is for knowing and trusting who he is. You do understand this. Every physical thing that you and I ask God to do is only a temporary fix. None of it is eternal. And yet, knowing God, enjoying him, savoring his presence, finding peace in him is eternal. He's the only thing that's eternal. Ephesians 1 17, Paul will say his primary prayer for the church is I keep asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, that he may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. You see, Paul understood the greatest need of the church is not for God to work in their behalf in some area of their life. Their greatest need is to know him, to find their joy in him, to be satisfied with. With him. Here's what I love about the model prayer that Jesus gave. Every phrase of this prayer is anchored in the character of God. Every phrase is anchored in the character of God. When Jesus says this is how you should pray or pray like this, he was uncovering the heart of God for us. We pray this way in order to know and experience the heart of God. Because primary, because prayer is a primary way that we Cultivate and grow our relationship with God. You can't pray a single phrase of this prayer honestly without some measure of trust in the character of God that's behind that request. Let me walk you through it. He says, pray then like this, our Father in heaven. Hallowed be your name. You have to know that He's a good Father, full of compassion and unfailing love. Your kingdom comes. You have to know and rely on the reality that he's a mighty king, securely in control, sovereignly ruling over all things. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You have to know that he is the Lord who is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does. You have to know Psalm 1830, as for God, his way is perfect. Give us this day our daily bread. This one, y'all, is so beautiful. I love this. When Jesus said this, there's not a person who heard him say this that would have not thought immediately about the Israelites coming through the desert and experiencing the daily manna of God. The daily provision, the daily expression of the trustworthiness of God. Can I be honest with you? I, like most of you, don't want daily bread. I take weekly bread, monthly bread, yearly bread. At this point in my life, retirement bread. Right? Yes? You satisfied with daily bread. Bank accounts zero today, just enough tomorrow. You'd be okay with that. No, you wouldn't, you're a bunch of liars. All right. It listen, when when you pray that, Jesus said, pray that because if you're gonna pray that way, if you're gonna believe God for that, then you have to have confidence that He is a God who has promised to meet all of our needs according to His glorious riches by Christ Jesus. But y'all don't miss this. This is not just about daily bread. This is not just about physical bread. This is about Jesus said, Hey, man shall not live by bread alone, but by Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. You know that not just physically do you require a daily supply of God's bread for your physical life, you require that for your spiritual life. God's the one who feeds you by his word. It's why you and I have to open the word every day and ask him to feed us, to supply that daily manna for us that sustains our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. And we trust that Romans 8:32 is absolutely true on the on the foundation of the cross, that he who did not spare his only son, how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? You see, you only say that, you can only say it honestly if you know that about the character and heart of God. Verse 12, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Listen, you can only come in in confidence. And confess when you believe that He is the Lord the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, forgiving wickedness, sin, and rebellion. That, my friends, was the revelation of God's glory to Moses when God spoke to him. And if you're gonna come and confess and ask for forgiveness, then you have to believe that 1 John 1:9 is true that if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You see, every every phrase of this prayer is anchored in some aspect of the glory and goodness of God. Verse 13, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The NIV actually says deliver us from the evil one. Which I'm a little more inclined to believe that that might be the better translation. Because here's what I know about the character of God: God does not tempt us, and He does not cause us to be tempted. God is the one who, Psalm 23, is our shepherd, who leads us in paths of righteousness. And so I think what Jesus is saying here is that you and I need to rely on and ask God to. To lead us in those paths, to lead us to do right, to fill us with his spirit so that we choose to walk according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. And we have to believe that Jude 24, one of my favorite verses, he is able to keep us from stumbling and will one day present us before his glorious presence, faultless and with great joy. You see, not a single one of those phrases can be prayed honestly. Unless you have a clear view of the character of God. You find your joy in Him. Let me just say this to you, because I think, and I think this is worth writing down. Maybe you'll write it down and examine it and decide whether I'm telling the truth or not. All right? Here's your challenge. Here's what I believe. When you come to pray, what you believe about the character of God and the nature of your relationship to him is the most important. When you come to pray, what's important is not that you have an accurate view of your situation. When you come to pray, what's important is that you've not worked out a possible way out of the trouble you're in. When you come to pray, it's not necessary for you to be able to fully describe how badly you want God to do whatever it is you want him to do. When you come to pray, what's most important is that you have a clear view of who he is and a right understanding of you. You're leaning into and cultivating trust and faith and hope in God. You see, Jesus modeled that for us in the Garden of Gethsemane. Do you remember this? Do you remember what Jesus prayed? Mark 14, 36. He said, Abba, Father, where'd he start? Papa, Papa, hey, Papa, this is your son. This is your son who you love. Everything's possible for you. There's not anything outside of the bounds of your ability. You are a great God. You are sovereignly ruling over all. You are able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all I could ask or imagine. And then Jesus just says very simply: take this cup from. And then he says, Yep, not what I will, but what you will. You see, in that moment with that phrase, Jesus is not giving God a way out. He's expressing confidence and trust in the Father's plan for him. Y'all, Jesus beautifully models for us what it means to pray in the context of and for the sake of relationship. But here's another thing about this prayer that I want to point out to you. If you group these three, these phrases up into three categories, you'll see this. Jesus says, Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In that moment, Jesus is saying, God, it's all about you. It's all about you. We're not focusing on me, God. We're focusing on you because it's about you. It's about your glory. It's about your kingdom. It's about your will and your purposes and your plans. And I need you to understand that y'all, if you're gonna have a relationship, if you're gonna abide in a relationship, you're gonna have to turn your attention off of yourself and turn your attention on him. Because God is worthy of our surrender to who he is and his glory and his plan and his purposes for us. And then that middle phrase, give us this day our daily bread. Y'all love it. It's right there in the middle. It's the only personal physical ask in the whole prayer. But it's just an expression of trust. It's just a willingness to put yourself in and live in the dependence that we actually all are in, anyway. Right? Some of us live with the illusion that we're capable, that we're that we're getting it ourselves, that we're doing it, that we're providing for ourselves, that we're working hard, that we're making it happen. Some of us live with that illusion illusion. But y'all, at the end of the day, every breath I breathe is a gift from Him. My heart's not going to beat another beat unless He causes it to be. I am more dependent on God than I actually know. And if I'm gonna live in right relationship to Him, then I've gotta posture myself with that willingness to say, you know what? I'll take it a breath at a time, a heartbeat at a time, a morsel of bread at the time. Whatever you want to give, because every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father, heavenly lights. I'm gonna trust you. The last part of this prayer is relational as well. Y'all, I have a relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son, but listen to me, I don't maintain that relationship. I need him to do that. I I need forgiveness because I'm regularly offensive. My my city, some of y'all might, yeah, right. I'm regularly offensive. See, I don't know you know, yeah, I don't have that hard to believe. Yeah, I can tell that already. Y'all, y'all, I forgiveness is necessary for a relationship. And I don't just need God's forgiveness. I need him to keep me from being overcome by the enemy. I I don't know if you how alert and aware you are of this, but y'all, my conviction is that phrase where Jesus says the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy is not theory. It's not some theological concept. It's reality. It's the world we live in. I don't love it, but it's how it is. Y'all, I'm a person that I love peace. I love peace. I love peace and comfort and luxury. That's just me. That's who I am. But somehow that's not the world we live in, y'all. We live in a world where the enemy is constantly at work trying to steal, kill, and destroy. And some of you can picture people in your mind, in your family or in your community, and you know God's doing that. Right? Anybody besides me got somebody and you know the enemy's after them. Just raise your hand. I want to see if you're aware of this. I don't maybe you can see that, but but do you know he's after you too? Do you know that he's steadily, regularly working to disrupt and discourage, to bring fear and anxiety to cause you to mistrust the character of God? And listen, y'all, if we're gonna walk with God, we're gonna be entirely dependent on him to lead us in paths of righteousness. Y'all, it's every time somebody says something about my tenure at Summit and 40 years and people will say to me, ⁓ you've been so faithful. And I just look back at it and I ⁓ no, I haven't. This is not about me and my faithfulness, y'all. I'm not gonna get to heaven and hop over and pronounce ta da. Here I am. Y'all, I'm gonna make it because he keeps me. I'm going to walk in paths of righteousness because he leads me. I'm going to resist sin and temptation because he gives me the unction of the spirit to say no to the desires of the flesh. Not because I don't have them. Listen, some of you young people in the room, I need to bust your bubble just a little bit. When you get old, you don't suddenly not be tempted anymore. It just encouragement. It's gonna be like this for the rest of your life. I'm gonna write a book one day. I'm not really, but I say I am, and this is gonna be the title. Everything I struggle with started in middle school. Those things that were temptations for you in middle school and high school, if you're honest, most of you that over the age of 40 or 50 will say, Yep, still struggle with the same thing. Still do battle with the same thing. Still have to fortify myself, memorize verses, and speak the word of God over the same thing. Y'all, we're gonna make it because he keeps us. And so we abide in this relationship of dependence. And y'all, it's a glorious and good thing, not a frightful and fearful thing. My wife and I have had we've had a really hard year. I don't need to give you the details. but back in November, December, ⁓ Pastor J came and his wife, they spent some time with us, and J said, I'm gonna give you a verse. He says, ⁓ Deuteronomy thirty one, eight. The Lord himself goes before you, and he will be with you. He will never leave you or forsake you. So don't be afraid and don't be discouraged. And after JD left, Michelle and I looked at each other, and here's what we said, you know what? Everything about the circumstance we're in is both fearful and discouraging. It just is. Life is hard. It's painful. But you know what? We can escape fear and discouragement not because we get placed temporarily in a better circumstance, but because we have an eternal God who said, Hey, I'm I'm I'm already in tomorrow before you get there. And I'm with you, and I'm always gonna be with you, and I'm never gonna leave you or forsake you. And y'all, that's no comfort to you if you haven't cultivated a relationship of trust and joy and satisfaction in Jesus. And one of the reasons that you pray, and one of the reasons that you cast your anxieties on him, and one of the reasons that you delight in him and declare his praise and give him thanks for his work and confess your sin is because all of that helps cultivate all. A heart that says, you know what? I trust you. You do whatever's best. Because you sent your only son to die on the cross for me. And now how will he who did not spare his only son not also along with him freely give us all things? Y'all, ⁓ Psalm 84, 11 says, The Lord God is a son and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. And I say that verse, y'all, and every time I think, well, my problem is I don't walk up rightly. Right? You're you're not right with God because you got it right. You're right with God because Jesus bore your sins in his own body on the tree. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that in him we might become what? The righteousness of God. Y'all, there's nothing more upright than the righteousness of God. And in Jesus I'm upright. And if that's true, then I'm a candidate for the promise of 84, Psalm 84, 11 that says, No good thing does he withhold from those who are. Doesn't mean I get everything I want. It doesn't mean I even understand why that's good and this is not. It means that I trust the God that I've cultivated a relationship and believe that his word is true and his kindness and goodness to me is without end. Okay, so y'all, we pray not just because we have a relationship, we pray for cultivating a relationship, and we pray for reward. I think this was the most startling thing to me as I studied this passage. I had never seen it before. Y'all, Jesus was pretty clear in our passage that there's a reward for praying. And it seems to me that he even suggests, I think he's pretty, I don't think it's better than suggest. I think he just straight up says it. That there's even a reward when you pray, when your praying is wrongly motivated. Didn't he say? Didn't he say? Hey, hey, even don't pray like the hypocrites. Don't pray like them. Truly I say, they've received their reward. There's a reward for praying wrongly, y'all. Blew my mind. Listen, don't pray like the hypocrites just to be seen, he says, because being seen and impressing others, getting their accolades and approval is the reward you get, but that's it. If you're I'm gonna go here. If you're praying and preaching and singing, so people look at you and say, wow, guess what? That wow, that's your reward. Congratulations. You got your medal. Go home and hang it on the wall. But what does he say? But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. Let me read it again, okay? But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. Hang on just a second. Did we just violate that instruction this morning? Because none of us are in a room with a shut door shut by ourselves. We're not in secret. Is this a prohibition against praying publicly? No. How do I know that? Because Jesus prayed in public. And he would not have issued a prohibition that he was going to violate. Okay? Look at what he said. Go into your room, close the door, and Pray to your I'm gonna try to step into this very sensitively. Okay, so adults. Married adults. You go into the room and you shut the door. to be in private to experience what? Intimacy. Jesus is saying, look, you want to pull up close to Father's heart? You want to experience and taste oneness with Christ. You tracking with me? You listening? You want to experience the beauty of union with Jesus, of intimacy with him. Then don't stand on a stage or be in a big group or grab a microphone. Go into the room and shut the door and experience in the private place what Jesus is calling you. Listen, y'all, the most precious moments between a husband and wife. You know that, right? They're not in public. They're in private. Listen, if your big moments are in public, here's the problem. You're doing the thing in order to be seen. Husbands, don't say a compliment. This is free, okay? This is free. Don't offer your wife a compliment in front of other people that you haven't said to her in private. Because here's what she knows. You're not saying that for her, you're saying that for everybody else. You're trying to show everybody what a great husband you are. You want to build her up? You go in the private place, you shut the door, and you pour out your heart to her, and you tell her how beautiful and wonderful and kind and gracious and good she is. You pour out your praise on her in the private place. Because that's where you experience union and communion and intimacy. Listen, the most precious moments between fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and friends. Are not moments on big stages with lots of lights and lots of eyes and ears. They're moments when you're alone. They're private moments. They're secret moments. And y'all, there's a reward for that. Hebrews 11:6 insinuates, actually doesn't just imply it articulates the same thing. And without faith, it's impossible to please God. Because anyone who comes to Him. Listen, anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. You hear it? Reward. Who earnestly seek him. What what's the reward for seeking him? Well, anybody know Jeremiah 29, 11? Anybody know that verse? For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm me, plans to give you a hope in a future. Please don't stop there. If you can't quote 12 and 13, then don't quote that verse anymore. Because 12 says, then you will come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. Y'all, the reward is not something, it's someone. The reward is finding him and knowing him and experiencing joy in him. Y'all, we're supposed to pray expecting a reward, but it might not be the reward you think. Can I walk you back through the prayer? This then is how you should pray, our Father in heaven. The reward is knowing the approval and acceptance. It's knowing you're received. It's knowing he finds delight in you. It's hearing him say, Well done, good and faithful servant. This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Your kingdom come, your will be done. You know what the reward of that is? It's the safety and security of living under his rule and reign and the confidence of knowing that his way's better. I can say that, y'all, when I trust him, and that's my reward. His way's better. God has a better plan than I have. He has better ideas than I have. He has better dreams for me than I have. My life testimony bears that out, y'all, and I want to live in that and enjoy that. Verse 11 give us this day our daily bread. The reward, y'all, is his sustaining us in every way. Every way. Physical bread, spiritual bread. That's the reward. I'm kept by him. I'm nurtured by him. I'm fed by him. I'm filled up and satisfied by him. Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors, y'all. The reward is the joy and freedom of being forgiven. Of being forgiven. Of knowing that he does not keep a record of our sin, because if he did, we couldn't stand. As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions. from us y'all when we come and confess, we lay hold of that. Several years ago, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and we were talking about prayer. He's a little bit older than me and still living remarkably. And so we were talking about prayer and he looked at me and he said, Chris, I just love confession. And I was like, there's something really bad wrong with you. Like, I I don't know how you can say that. I didn't say this out loud. I think my face must have said it. Can I be honest with you? I don't love confession. I'm a firstborn type A, only son, high achiever, and a musician. Everything. I'm all of it. I don't like being wrong. I don't like having to say I was wrong. I don't like having to say I was wrong again. For the 850th time. I don't love confession. And he looked back at me and he said, Chris, when I could he said, I get to come into God's presence crawling on my belly, filthy, stained, and broken by sin. And get in God's presence, I get to confess my sin. And then he said this. He said, I get to stand up and walk out clean and whole and forgiven. And he just looked me dead in the eye and he goes, What's not to love about? Y'all, what's not to love about that? Confession is laying hold of the very thing that Jesus died to purposes for us. A restored and renewed relationship with God, righteousness that's ours and his. And then he says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Y'all, the reward of praying that way is that we are led in paths of righteousness with confidence in Jesus' ultimate victory. You know what I know? The devil's not gonna win. He's not gonna win, y'all. He is not going to win. And Jesus will one day finish what he started in me. That's what Paul said to the Philippians. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. So, church, why? Why pray? Why pray? Well, first pray because you have a relationship that has been purchased for you. You have access to the throne of grace by the shed of blood of Jesus. Pray because you have a relationship. Pray because you love the one who died for you. And pray for the sake of deepening that relationship, of communing with the God who would reach so far across the gulf to pull you up to Himself. And then and then pray for the reward. But not the reward of stuff and things and a happy life. Pray the for the reward of knowing and enjoying the God who has loved you with them everlasting. Draw near. Know him. Love him. Trust him. Be satisfied by him. I want to invite you to close your eyes for just a moment, bow your head, and I just want to ask this simple question. What is, what is God saying to you today? For somebody in the room, it might be very well a call to just come and trust Jesus for the very first time. To say, I see it. I get it. He died for me. I want to surrender my life to him. May maybe maybe the call is is is just for you to recommit yourself to to pursuing a relationship with God through prayer. I don't know what it is. Take just a moment, ask God, what are you saying to me? God, what do I do with this? How do I act different because of this word that I've heard today? What are you calling me to? And as the Holy Spirit speaks that to you, would you just commit yourself to respond to God the way he's asking you to respond? God, in this moment I think about the psalmist that said, when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, when I look at creation and the greatness of creation, what is man that you're mindful of him? I feel that. Who in the world am I that you would take notice of me? And beyond that, that you would want to be with me, that you would want to spend time with me, that you would want me to approach you, to know you and love you and trust you. God, what what who am I? God, I'm so thankful that by the blood of Jesus, you have opened for us a new and living way by which we can approach the throne of grace and receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So, God, I pray that you would draw us, compel us, drive us to seek you with all our hearts, to approach you in prayer, to know you and love you and trust you. God, help us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.