Praying Kingdom Prayers

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We are going to continue talking about prayer last week Pastor Matt preached a message about prayers of consultation, praying prayers of consultation, making a choice to invite God into our decisions for insight into our situation. If you didn't listen to it, I would highly recommend it. This is a practice that we've been working in in a long time. But we've tried to up our intentionality about consulting God in everything we do sounds like a good idea. Right? Like yes, of course as Christians, we should always consult the Lord but actually doing it is another step that we need to take. And so I believe that if we commit to that, God can really help us make the best decisions possible. We've we've really seen God kind of protect us over the last few weeks for making some bad decisions. Anybody make any bad decisions ever buy a car, you shouldn't have bought a house went on a date, okay? All of those things. You guys okay, today, everybody loose, we need to like shake a little bit. Okay. So today we're going to be looking at some more scripture about prayer, and how we pray prayers that last in the kingdom, how we pray prayers that last in the kingdom. So before we get started, I think it would be appropriate to pray. So when we pray for us, Father, thank you for today. I thank you for what you're going to do what you're going to speak to us today, God, I believe that you have a word for us to help us move forward to take some next steps in your word and in your kingdom, God in your house, we just pray that You would speak through us today through me today that we would hear your voice in a unique and significant way in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Okay, so today we're going to be back in Matthew seven. We've been there periodically throughout this series. And before we get there, though, I want to read a verse that's kind of been rolling around in my heart the last few days. If you're reading with us, we have a soaked Guide, which is how we do our Bible reading as a church. We're reading through the Bible this year, which is pretty fun. And we just finished up the book of Judges.
Some of the craziest things in the Bible took place and judges. If you have ever read it, if you haven't, I would, I would recommend it. Okay, because it's pretty interesting. You're gonna be like, this is in the Bible. Yes. It's in the Bible. There's chaos and confusion that happened in the book of Judges, okay. And as I'm reading through this book, I'm thinking, wow, like, this is weird. Thinking this didn't work out very well. Why is God doing this? I'm feeling a little confused by some of the planning that's going on. And if you're like, I don't know what you're talking about. Go and read it. Okay. It's very interesting. But you get to the last chapter of the very last of the whole book, it is a book of craziness. Okay, this is the verse last book. Last chapter, I'm sorry, last chapter, last verse. In those days, Israel had no king. All the people did whatever they seem, whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
And then it all made sense, right? All the people did whatever seemed right, in their own eyes. And I think that you can also look at your life and think whenever I'm left up to my own decisions, my own devices, making my own choices, sometimes I fail, sometimes I mess up. And as humans, we think things are crazy. Have you ever heard anybody say all the world's just going to hell in a handbasket, and like it's just getting worse and worse and worse? It's always been crazy. When humans are left up to their own devices, it's always been crazy. There's nothing new. That's happening right now. That hasn't happened for hundreds and 1000s of years. There is craziness that happens when we do what is right in our own eyes. When we don't consort consult the Lord chaos will follow up. Think back to the last bad decision you made.
Some of you guys like I don't want to some of you are thinking that happened yesterday. Okay, whatever the last bad decision, can I encourage you, God can always redeem those bad decisions, okay? Just because now you might be locked into a contract or a purchase or something like that. But God can redeem and restore everything once we submit it to him once we say okay, Lord, I didn't consult you. I repent. I'm gonna give it back to you then God can still redeem those. But that's why last week's wet last my last week's message was so powerful is because when we choose to live live in a kingdom of God, there's only one king and it's not you. And it's not me. I'm never going to be king or queen isn't
am a girl of my own world, right? I'm going to choose to submit myself under the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the God of heaven and earth. Who knows the end from the beginning? Why wouldn't you want to consult the one who knows the end from the beginning? Right? That seems like a logical thing to do. How amazing is it that the book of Hebrews tells us that we can come boldly before God and make our requests known? We have front row access anytime access to God? That means that we can consult him with every decision we make every situation many of us are still living in this, which Who do I want to follow? What do I do? Do I want to do my own thing? Do I want to do God's thing, it's a choice that we have to make regularly. Even thinking back to the first few weeks of this sermon series, when we were talking about what we hunger for our appetite.
What you hunger for, will let you know which Kingdom your life is choosing, if you hunger for the things of the world, or if you hunger for the things of God, if you hunger more for the things of the world, or if you hunger more for the things of God. It's not what you're saying. But it's the fruit of your life. I was really challenged this last week we had every month at the beginning of the month, we do something called heart check Tuesday. And it's available again on the app, we've tried to give you all the resources possible on our app, but we go and we just say, Lord, search my heart, if there's anything in me, that doesn't look like you that doesn't reflect you like I want to know so that I can walk it out, right? I want to I want to stand in a place of repentance. And the Lord actually showed me some worldly appetites that I've been operating in. This was a heart check. For me, it was like, hey, you've, you've been kind of operating more with this natural appetite than hungering and thirsting for the things of God and I had to do some repentance, I had to make some changes, so that I put God as king in my life. So we're going to look at Matthew seven. And remember this, chapters five to seven of Matthew, I called him a couple of weeks ago when I preached, I called them the kingdom school, because this is where Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God. And we're learning a lot about that. Okay, so Matthew seven, seven says, Keep on asking, and you will receive, keep what you asked for, keep on seeking, and you will find keep on knocking, and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds, and every one who knocks the door will be opened. To me, this verse is all about prayer. It's about speaking of an invitation given to us by Jesus to ask him for what we need to seek His will. And all we do, and to do it consistently and intentionally. And I believe that having an active and intentional prayer life is one of the most, if not the most important rhythm of your life. If you say I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, I believe in Jesus can I encourage you get more involved in prayer, get more involved in talking to God get more involved in inviting him and consulting him? Every single day. I don't know how we continue walking according to God's plan to live the way he's calling us to live if we don't spend time with him each and every day. And I mean it each and every day, every single day, you got to start somewhere, right? Maybe you only come to church on Sunday. Maybe that's all you do. Just begin the process of spending time with the Lord. You don't have enough willpower in your life. You don't have enough discipline in your world to walk out each and every day according to God's Word and His plan. If you did, there is no need for Jesus to come. Because we could have just continued living in the Old Testament, living according to the law. But Jesus came because he recognized in and of ourselves, we don't have what it takes. There's no way that we can live for God in ourselves. Without the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was a gift that was given to us. When Jesus came, He lived a perfect life. He died on the cross he was raised again. He went back to heaven. And he said, All right, you guys get the Holy Spirit. Now that we have access to the Holy Spirit, that's why we can come boldly, before the throne of God. Why? Because when God looks at us, he doesn't see us. He sees His Son Jesus. He sees the Holy Spirit on the inside of us. And we have an intercessor and intermediary. As a go between that lives within us. That's the power of prayer. That's why we pray it's not just a Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep anybody ever say those first. That's great, Lord bless the food amazing. But that's not why we pray. We pray to build intimacy with our Father in heaven, our Creator, our King. We pray to grow close. My goal today is twofold. I want to give you a new view of prayer in two different areas. Okay, so I've only got two points.
Yes, that's exciting. Normally I have
lat I only have two. Okay. So today twofold. I want to give you a new view of prayer in two areas, motivation and longevity, a new view of prayer in regards to motivation, and longevity. So we're going to start with motivation. What is our motivation for prayer? For most of us, our motivation for prayer is all about results.
Okay, this is our motivation for most things, though, isn't it? Why do we work out?
Results? Right? If you're not seeing results, what do you do? If you're working out and you're, you've been doing it for like two days, and you're not ripped? Then what do you you're like, I'm done with this.
Forget about it, right? Like, I want results. I go to work to get paid, right? Like I want the result of my work is my paycheck. Right? The result of doing the things we do in life is we get results or our motivation for doing these things, is because we get results. And I think this is the problem for most of us. We view prayer based on results rather than intimacy.
If we choose to pray every day for a week, and we don't see some significant results every day, for a week,
why would I keep doing it? God didn't do what I asked. I prayed last month.
God did not do what I asked him, I saw no results.
For me, this has never been more real than eating healthy.
Apparently, it takes a while to see the results of eating healthy, okay, I've never given it a long enough, go. I'm like, Nope, I want crumble. Thank you so much. Eating healthy is the worst. Okay? If I pray for something, and God doesn't answer the way that I want, and I don't see the results that I want. Because I'm the queen of my world and my kingdom, the way I expect the way I think I need then I'm done with it.
I'm done with it, we have to change our view of prayer, our motivation for prayer cannot be resolved only.
It has to be being with Jesus. And until your motivation to pray becomes spending time with Jesus, you're going to be disappointed in your prayer life.
Spending time with him listening to him consulting his plans, his ways. Even when we don't see the response we have. This is an amazing resource that we have available. This is a prayer book. And if you're like I don't know how to pray, I don't know what to do. This has scripture. And it has prayers that will get you started in a prayer life. It I love I use it. I've been praying almost every day pretty consistently for 25 years. Okay, I started because I was in Bible school and I had to keep literally a tally of I prayed for this long. I read the end and I had to turn it in and get graded on it. That was my Bible school. It's but it put I gotta have it, I gotta have it. And now I do it right. So but this is a great place to start. If you don't know what to do. Grab one of these from our, our merch area, they're free. Okay, we would love to have you have one of these. If we run out, we'll get some more. Okay, so let's keep reading in Matthew seven. I love this. You parents, if your children asked for a loaf of bread? Do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish? Do you give them a snake? Of course not. So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children? How much more? Will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who asked him? I want to just camp out I'm going to change the color of my pen.
How much more? Will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who asked him this is the foundation from which we ask, seek and knock.
God our Father has good gifts for us. So no matter what the result is, we can see I can be confident in God. I can be confident that he's faithful, I can be confident that he'll respond. Not out of my plans, but out of his goodness, which is actually way better anyways, I don't want God to think about some of the silly prayers you've prayed.
Teenagers, anybody ever pray as a teenager, I just pray that he would like me, and that we would get married.
Thank you, Jesus, that you did not answer those prayers. Right. Like, I'm so thankful that God responded not out of my what I wanted in my results, but out of his goodness, he knew the end from the beginning. He knew that in Hastings, Nebraska. There was a young man getting saved at the same time that I was getting saved that I had never met that I had never seen that
God had good plans for us. He saw this when we were 18. Far from God, but bringing us to a place where we were close to God, he was ignoring my prayers. Thank god, okay, he wasn't ignoring them. He was hearing them and saying he was saying, I actually have someone way better for you. I actually have a better plan. I have good plans for you. Listen, John, fifth five.
First, John, I'm really trying to reverse John 515 says this. Since we know He hears us, when we make our requests, isn't that good? Look, it's in the Bible. So it's true. He hears us when we make our requests. We also know that he will give us what we asked for. Okay, so this seems kind of confusing, doesn't it? If I read this, I think well, then I should have married that guy. Right? The guy I prayed about when I was 16, or 17 years old. Like why didn't that work out? If I prayed, and God heard, and he gave me what I asked, well, I love it when we take verses out of context. So let's put it back into context. Real quick. Okay. The verse before it says this, and we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything. Oh,
oh, sneaky Bible.
That pleases Him.
Out of his what? His goodness, what pleases the father, it's his goodness for us. It's the plans that he has. For us. It's not my list of all the things I want. It's, you know how I know what pleases Him. I spend time with Him, not out of a result, but out of intimacy. And when I'm spending time with him, he begins to reveal his good plans for me. And then I can pray according to His good plans. And then I'm not disappointed because we're in unity around the things that he has for my life. We're in unity around that, Jeremiah, if you don't believe me, here's another verse, Jeremiah, 2912, and 13, then you will call on me, and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And that's powerful. That's powerful when we are in a world where people don't listen.
We live in a world. We live in relationships where people do not listen, they're looking at their phone.
Right? I like to go and smack people's phones out of their hands.
It's fine. And then I'm like, I'm not liable for that.
Verse 13, you will seek Me and find Me. When you seek me with your whole heart. That speaks to our motivation. When you seek God out of the abundance of your heart of connection, of love of relationship, you can honor him in that way. And he will lean in to it in some of your like my prayer, I tried to pray and it was the worst. Change your motivation for it. It is amazing. It is so life giving. I'm to the point now where I'm so sad when I have to quit praying when it's time to like have a day. Like man, I get up early. I find myself getting up earlier and earlier and earlier, just so I can spend more time with the Lord.
Just so I can spend more time in his presence. Why? Because it's not about results. It's about intimacy. I want to get his mind. I want to get his understanding about what's going on. Our motivation for prayer must be finding him. The second place that I want us to get a new view of prayer is longevity of prayer. One of the best books on prayer that I've ever read is this book. It's called circle maker. It's by Mark Batterson. It's older. I don't know what year it was written. But I probably read this book every year at least read through it about every year every other year. Maybe we have some available in the merch area. Okay. Listen, this will stir your faith like no other book I've ever read. To this day, I think fair. It's a good one. Yeah, you agree. Okay. Well, I like it.
Pastor Matt has some other ones he likes. Well, the Bible come on, of course the Bible.
So Holy, okay.
So first the Bible, and then this guy. Okay. So I highly recommend it. The premise of the book is about it starts with a story about a guy named Honi. And he was called the circle maker. There was a big drought in Israel and they were praying for rain praying for rain. And this guy home, he drew a circle in the ground and he said, I'm not leaving the circle until God responds to our prayers. Okay, so that's kind of the premise of the book. There's a lot more involved in it. But I want to read just a little excerpt from the book is that okay?
So this part is called Think long. Think long toward the end of his life. Honi the circle maker was walking down a dirt road when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Always the inquisitive, inquisitive sage hony question him how long will it take this tree?
to bear fruit, the man replied 70 years Honi said, Are you quite sure you will live another 70 years to eat its fruit? The man replied, perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather, just as they planted trees. For me, I'm planting trees for my children and grandchildren, so that they will be able to eat the fruit of these trees. This incident led to an insight that changed the way Honi prayed. In that moment of revelation, the circle maker realize that praying is planting. Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground, it disappears for a season, but it eventually bears fruit that blesses future generations. In fact, our prayers bear fruit forever. Even when we die, our prayer stone, each prayer takes on a life and eternal life of its own. I know this because of the moments in my life, when the Holy Spirit has reminded me that the prayers of my grandparents are being answered in my life right now. Their prayers outlived them. Prayer is the inheritance we receive, and the legacy we leave. Prayer is the inheritance we receive, and the legacy that we leave. God is a generational God.
He does not live on our timeline, according to seven day cycles, even years or decades. He is viewing our lives through the lens of eternity generationally. And our prayers may be answered quickly, which is nice. Or they may not be answered in our lifetime,
but they are seed in the ground. And we can be confident that every prayer that we pray, is heard by God and it's received by God, I can see the answers to prayers in my life, for prayers I have never prayed.
I can see right now answers to prayers that I prayed when I was 18 years old. checking a box,
I can see prayers that are answered of people I may know and may I may never know truly what God is doing here in the life of Mercy city is fruit and harvest of prayers that have been prayed by faithful believers. For decades before maybe we were even born.
In the last six months here at Mercy city, we've seen 251 People say yes to Jesus 251 that and we have their names. We are following up. I hope we have 251 baptisms on the 26th Oh, amazing. Would that be God's doing something significant in Seward, in Lincoln in Nebraska, but it's not because we got here 10 years ago, we are seeing a harvest of prayers that have been prayed, maybe for generations, in our city in our state. In the same way, I'm praying prayers over this house, my house, my family, our city, our state, they may be answered in my lifetime, or I may never see them. But I can be confident that they're getting to God, I can be confident that through his good plans, he's going to do whatever the things that I'm asking according to what He has planned for us. How do I know I love though, that I can know what He has planned because I spend time with them. Because I'm in His presence.
So you might be in this room and you're like, great, I'm glad you have a good prayer life. What's my next step? You guys know if you've been here for any length of time, we're a church of next steps if you're visiting today, I don't believe it's by accident. I want to encourage you I want to challenge you to start praying daily not for a result before relationship.
Not for result but for relationship and pray prayers that last not just for you. But for a generation to come.
Is that powerful to think that my grandkids might be walking out things I thought were for me.
But if I can say I used to pray prayers about seeing the nation's I wanted to travel and preach and all over the world now I'm like, good.
I get tired.
long flights are hard, you know. So I'm like I'm in we'll do that still. But I can't wait to see what my kids do.
I can't wait to see the places that they preach.
I can't wait to see the impact that my grandkids have an eye believe that it's the prayers that I prayed. When I was 18 and I never saw my kids yet and I never saw my husband yet. I never saw my grandkids yet. But God did. You might be in this room believing for a child keep praying. Keep believing God sees what we can't see. God's good plans for you will be revealed in those intimate moments that you're with him he will reveal His truth he will reveal his plans to you I believe
that prayer is powerful. It is life changing. Praying Kingdom prayers is the most important part of each and every day. Would you stand up on your feet with me today?
I believe there are a lot of people probably who don't know where to start. We have so many resources available to you on our app. If you download the Mercy City Church app, it's 100%. Free, of course, and there's a on the bottom it says study tools. We have three by fives, we have worship music, we have soap guide, we have all sorts of things. We have videos, you can watch a people telling their stories about what Jesus did in their lives. Go and check it out, grab one of these books. Take a next step, join a city group, getting around people that are going to help you understand how to pray, how to grow, how to do the things that God's calling you to do in that next step of your relationship with him.
And I want to invite you to we've we pray every Tuesday morning at 6am. It's our favorite, favorite part of the week. More favorite than Sunday morning more favorite than I think, Pastor Matt, and I love prayer on Tuesday morning in Lincoln. And in Seward we gathered together at 6am. Just to be with Jesus to pray, to pray for the church to pray for each other, to pray for what's going on. And it is a powerful time. But it's also a great time to learn how to pray. You can come in and you're like I've never prayed amazing. You will learn how to pray on Tuesday mornings. Take a next step in prayer this week. Take a next step closer in intimacy with your father. This week. Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you for today and I thank you for what you're doing. God I thank you for the impact that you're making. In our hearts and in our minds. God, I believe that you are stirring our hearts towards you. Growth in your new passion for your presence, new passion for your house, new passion for the things that you have for each and every one of us. God I pray that this week as we commit to prayer as we commit to a God that you would meet us where we are and that you will reveal your good plans for each and every one of us in Jesus name. Amen.
Thanks again for listening to today's message. For more information on all that God's doing at Mercy city or to share how the message has impacted your life. Visit us online at Mercy City DOT church or on social media.