Never Stop Praying

But, but here's the deal, there's something God's speaking to me personally. This isn't just something can this is something that God has really been growing me through and but I'm here to say I think I found, like for real. I think I found the cheat code to the Christian life, like I'm telling you, I think I I think after 42 years of living and most of that living in the church and growing up, I think I figured it out. I think I figured out some of you guys don't believe me, like it's not, there's not, it's not that easy, you didn't. I did. I'm telling you, I really think I did. I think I found the one skill that that will enable me, that will enable you, to be able to handle all this, like, Christian life stuff, with grace and confidence. Because, let's be honest, like, there's a there's a lot, right? It seems like, hey, just love God and love people. But then, like, what does that look like? And it feels like the more you're, some of you guys been there, right? The more you get into the faith, the more there's, like, it's kind of like when you go to college and you think you know something about the career field you're going into, and then you like, sit under one professor and you're like, holy cow, I don't know anything. The only thing I've just figured out right now is that I don't really know anything at all, and, and sometimes faith is like that, you know what I'm talking about? Like, you're like, Yeah, let's go Jesus. And you're like, Wow, there's so much to learn. I think I found the one thing. I think, I think I figured it out. You guys ready for it? It's a prayer. And listen, listen, I saw it right away. I saw it right away. I saw the eyes roll. You're like, Oh my gosh. I thought he's gonna give me something new, right? Like, come on. I know you're thinking. I i thought this guy was gonna give us some answers. Here we go again. Listen now. Bear with me. Bear with me. Okay, bear with me. I know you've heard it before, and I've heard it before. Like I said, I grew up in church. I've been hearing this my whole life, and I'm not I'm not here to say like you need to pray more, and all your problems are gonna go away. Pray more and you'll never get into temptation anymore. Pray more and you'll get that bigger house that you want, and you're, you know, father in law's stories all sudden become interesting. I don't know pray more and like and everything is going to be like, fine for you. I'm not here to say that, but, but I will say this. I am right now, personally, more and more convinced today than I've ever been before, that if we learn to pray like Paul tells us to pray in First Thessalonians five, if we learn to pray like Paul told the church in Thessalonica, if we can learn to pray like that, I'm telling you, it will unlock aspects of your spiritual life that you did not think were possible. It will it will enhance your Bible reading. It will add depth to your worship. It will increase the awareness of God's presence with you. It will help you to fight temptation. It will help you respond more lovingly in your relationships. It will empower you to share your faith more effectively. So you guys ready for what First Thessalonians five is all about? Okay? I'm going to actually zoom out and take the verse before it and then the verse after it as well. Okay, first Thessalonians 516, through 18 says this, three simple commands, always be joyful. Never stop some of you already, I already lost you. Oh, I always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ, Jesus. Three commands. Okay, three commands. And I wish we had like all day long, but we're just going to focus on one of them. In these commands, there's two commands are an attitude side note. Listen, if you think that your attitude is a byproduct of your circumstances, you've not read God's word accurately. You God's not going to ask you and command you to do something that you don't have control over your attitude, joy and gratitude. That's your choice, and it is commanded in Scripture. That's a side note. That's not today's message. All right, those are the attitude commands, and there's one action command right in the middle. And this is it, never stop praying. Okay, here's where you lose everybody, right? Like, how do you how do you do that? This seems impossible, like it can't possibly mean what we think it means, right? And here's the deal, like, I've honestly, there's a lot of verses of Scripture, there's a lot of scripture that I come to and this, this exact same thing happens, right? Like, I read something like that can't mean what I think it means, surely. So I'll figure it out later. Okay, when I'm older, I'll figure it out. Okay, it's been a long time, and I still, I think I'm just now starting to get this one figured out. Now, if you've ever done that to Scripture, don't feel bad. Like the disciples do that all the time, like Jesus would say, so I'm super straightforward, and they'd be like, I don't think I understand that. It can't mean what I think you're saying, right? And this is one of those, like pray like the classically, like the classic reading of it, like many of us memorize it, right? Pray without ceasing. Never stop praying. It feels it feels impossible. It feels unattainable like but listen, God's not going to command it if it's not possible. Paul wasn't like, laying down this rule that sounds like super religious and stuffy, never stopper. What does that mean? Like, just 24/7, I'm just kneeling and by my bed and like, or whatever. I don't know what picture comes in your mind, but listen, he wasn't giving like, commands to make their lives harder, religious rules to make it more difficult. Paul was sharing a secret to the Christian life, to the church in Thessalonica. Like, here's one way, the only way you're going to do this. And listen, this is what it says. The reason I bring all of them together because this, this three fold command, finishes with this line, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ, Jesus, anybody ever pray for God's will? Right? If, if you have, if you don't raise your hand, you're either not a hand raiser or like, come on, what's I mean, I hope you're praying God's will. God, what is your will in this situation, right? What's your will? God, I want to know your will. Show me your will help me make this decision. What's your will in my life? Here's, here's a good place to start. Here's, here's, here's his will for you today, pray and don't stop now. Now, here's the problem. Here's the problem. Lot of us have these preconceived like pictures and notions of what prayer is that would actually make this verse impossible to do, right, like our picture, if what comes into your head when you hear the phrase Pray without ceasing or never stop praising prayer, praying is literally impossible. The one of two things are off, either Paul's wrong, or my picture of what prayer is is maybe been slightly skewed. I'm leaning towards the ladder right. And this is something that we that lot of us tend to face right? We are, our picture of prayer, or idea of prayer, or what it is all about is, is oftentimes shaped by our own experiences, right? The way that we were taught growing up or not taught growing up, or how it's portrayed on media, or whatever your picture of prayer might be like, and sometimes it's so subtle, like I might be able to define I might you might be able to get up and teach on what prayer is. And yet, there's these things that keep creeping in every time you try to do it. Yeah, things like this. We were, our view of of prayer is this, like, really high and lofty religious practice. And so this, this, this voice comes in, or this feeling comes in every time I start to pray that I'm just, I'm not worthy of what this is. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not worthy. Or maybe, maybe it's like, you view prayer as like a skill set, you know, like there's some people who are naturally athletic, others are naturally good at at numbers and all that, others are naturally gifted in music, or whatever it might be. There's a natural gifting, and prayer is the same way, and some people got it, and I don't, I'm just, I'm just not, I'm just not a good prayer. Others view it as as as a crutch for the week. Like, I know communication with God, I know Christians supposed to pray, but come on, man, like just, just do what you're supposed to do and be a good Christian prayer stuff is a little bit of a crutch, even though we believe in it, but it's still these, these, these these past ways of viewing things still creep in. Or maybe, maybe, like, when you think of prayer, instantly comes to mind. Maybe some of you in here today instantly comes to mind. Yeah, that's just a failed experiment that just didn't work. Like I've I've done that before, and as much as you know, as much as you try to overcome this, this, this thing, like, it's still ingrained in your mind that, like, Oh, it's just not going to work. So listen, so this is what happened. So those of us were like, Okay, we're ready to pray. We got, we got prayer and fasting this week. Guys like, it's time to, like, get serious. And there's some of you that you're going to go to pray. You're going to. You're going to wake up in the morning. You're going to be like, alarm clock set, I'm going hard, and you wake up, and you're going to start hearing these whispers. I'm not worthy. You're, you're going to, you're, you're going to start hearing like, especially once you get like, past the first 30 seconds and you run out of stuff to pray for, and you're like, I just, I just don't have it, it right? I just don't, I just don't it's, I just don't have it or or, like, silly, I don't know what am I doing this for?This is I don't need to do this. Or maybe you just know as much faith that you're trying to muster up, you can't get past this. It just didn't work. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. And so my goal today is, is to simplify what prayer is that will simply be able to help us combat some of those voices of the enemy that come at us when we try, when we attempt to call on God. Okay, and so I just I from here on out, this is going to be really, really basic, but sometimes it's we make things way more than it needs to be. Okay? So let's, let's just get really, really simple prayer. I want to, I want to talk about, there's a lot of different things we can say about prayer. But from the I believe the most simple way to see this is prayer is simply communication with God and access to God. Prayer is communication with God and access to God. So let's talk, let's talk communication a little bit. Let's talk communication. Talk communication. Prayer is communication. So let's just, okay, let's, let's step away from from prayer for just a minute. Let's just, let's just be real. Okay. Have you ever watched somebody pray, and, like, as soon as they pray, their voice changes, you know, you know what I'm talking about, right? Like, all of a sudden they get like, super, like, weirdly spiritual sounding, you know what I'm talking about, right? Or other people that go into full presenter, hey, will you bless the meal for us? Yes, let's, let us pray, right? Or maybe a throw in a couple of vines to really get it, you know? Or, or, I think maybe the most common one is when you instantly go into this voice that you that you only reserve for prayer, and it's not used for any other voice. And you don't ever talk like this. You never communicate with anybody else like this. But when all of a sudden you get this, this raspy, like, almost like a whisper, but like a a strong whisper. Cuz if God speaks in a still small voice, I must respond in a still small voice that I would never use in any other context at all. Okay, no, no, I get it. There's a reverence and I and I a seriousness, and I understand all that, but, but, you know, honestly, when I hear that, like it just just weird, like it's just weird, and you start to wonder, like, what are we doing? It kind of reminds me. It kind of reminds me of when macho teenage boys talk to girls. Okay, you know what I mean. Like, you see, Hey, girl, like, what did your voice just drop an octave right now? Like, and how many R's are in? Girl, right? Like, what are you doing? Speak Like a normal human, right? Well, why do teenage boys do that? It's because they're they're projecting, right? It's because they're projecting. They're trying to be. He is trying to be who he thinks she wants him to be, but in doing so, he stops being what she really wants. And that's real, friends, if we have to put on a different voice to talk to God.Are we? Are we communicating with the God of the universe, or are we projecting? You see, so many of us, we're trying to pray, right? But what ends up happening is we begin projecting. We try to be who we think God wants us to be, instead of being who God wants us to be just real. So you know what your prayer voice should sound like, the voice that you used right before you came into the room today, it should sound like the voice that you use when you talk to a friend. Your voice should be yours, see, because prayer is about some again, if we make it more than it is, or something, not more than, but other than what it is, we forget that prayer is about communication, and God wants to know you, not what you think he wants from you. So let's be us. Let's talk like normal human people. Okay, and let's be who God has designed us to be. That's how he wants to talk to us. I wonder how many times I've I've come to prayer and He Listen, he's he's got so much grace. So I wonder how many times, though, but I've come to prayer and he's like, Who's that? You. Like I, I just want I just want you. I just want you. Right in its most simple form, prayer is simply communication, communication with God. Now think about this from a relational thing, like we, we call this like this, following Jesus thing that we're all about that we're trying to do we, we say this often. It's common, right? It's not about religion. It's about relationship, right? Okay, so let's talk about real relationships. What? What? What is the most, arguably the most important aspect in any relationship, communication. Someone say, trust those things go hand in hand, right? But it's communication. Communication is huge. So let's, let's step away from the God relationship for a minute, I think, in illustration. So sometimes it helps me to wrap my brain on something tangible. Let's talk about, like, Marriage Marriage communication. Okay, let's talk about marriage relationship, marriage communication. Now, like, if we were to, if we were to, like, super oversimplify all marriage communication into two categories. Okay? You've got, like, daily conversation and date conversation, okay, daily conversation. And again, this is oversimplified, but if you if you were to force all communication into those two the daily conversation is about, like, practical stuff and logistics and interactive, like coming and going. The focus of this kind of communication is function. This is how we live our lives. This is how we get stuff done. This is how we make it through a day a week, a month a year. This is how things happen. This is daily conversation. And then we have date conversation. Date conversation is planned. It tends to go, it should go a little deeper, maybe a little romantic. The focus of this is really all about expressing our love and getting to know each other at a deeper level. So you got so you guys got it. You got date conversation, or daily conversation, the ins and outs. Functional date conversation really more interesting to one another and that okay, let me ask this. Now this is probably not fair to do if you had to say which of those is the most important, right? Maybe it's just 51% 49% okay, but which one if you had to pick one of those, or even if you're say, if you were to eliminate one and you could only have one, only have daily conversation, or only have day conversation, Imma, take a quick poll. I'm going to see where the room, where the room sits on this one. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna try this. How many of you say would say, Okay, if I had to pick one, I'd say the daily conversation is probably the most important anybody. Anybody raise your hand, okay, okay. There's a few of you. There's a few. Okay, good, good, good. How many of you would say, I think the date conversation, date conversations gotta be where it's at, okay, okay, awesome. Here's the deal. The room was almost completely split, probably 4060, okay, probably somewhere in there. And here's the deal, obviously I set you up, obviously they're both vital, right? But the reason I took a poll is to show like, depending on our wiring, some of us lean one way or another more naturally, and that's okay, but I want to show you what happens if we only take one side of this and neglect the other side. Unhealthy things happen in your marriage, right? What if you only had daily communication? What if it was only just the functional we're going to get life done? And you never really had those date nights? What happens is, is you wake up one day and you realize you're married to your roommate, right? There's, there's no real love, there's no emotion, there's no like. You know a past version of your spouse, but you don't really know them here and now you're, living like roommates, you're living like co workers. But what happens if you only take the date nights, the date conversation, that deeper, intimate, romantic kind of thing? Well, then, but then the rest of your life becoming separated. Your your work schedules are separate. You take different tasks, you divvy those out. You never really crossed paths throughout the week, but you're disciplined in that date night. Guess what? You might really have strong feelings, but one day, you're going to realize we're living two completely different lives. There has to be both. Now, now I want to talk about now, let's bring this back to our some of you like, Ooh, that's good. I need to take some marriage notes, alright? But once you come back to prayer. You can take those marriage notes. Let's come back to prayer. Okay, let's come back to prayer. Because here's the deal, prayer is communication, and some of us want to put prayer in one of just like, just like in the room. Some of us are going to see this like, I need a date night with God every day. And some of us are like, Hey, I just going to talk to them all day, throughout the day. Here's what I found to be the case if I ask somebody hey. So when is, when's your set prayer time every day? Like, when do you have prayer time every day? Or maybe even week, maybe got some blocks of time through when is your prayer time? And if the answer is this, well, I don't really have like, a set I just kind of, like, talk to God throughout the day. Here's what I find. Mind that, like, here's a translation. I don't really pray that much. That's typically what that means, at least, I don't really pray as much as I think I pray.

Here's the reality in a marriage, that date night fuels the daily conversation are you have to have a isolated time to communicate deeper things. Have intentional conversations. Express love, show value, and as you do that, it fuels the daily conversation. It fuels the functional aspects of your week listen our communication with God and our relationship with God functions the same way for some who just like, you know, I just kind of PRAY IN and OUT throughout my day. I you know, that that's great you should and in fact, I'm going to emphasize that in just a moment. But if you don't have a date night with God, if you don't have at least a little bit of time to just sit and be with him and communicate to him like first of all, you probably won't communicate throughout the day as much as you think you are. And two, if you do have that, it fuels every moment for the rest of the day. We've gotta have both. But because we're looking at First Thessalonians, 517, I want to lean on the second part all throughout the day. So I just want to make sure we understand this doesn't, this isn't in an exchange for my daily quiet time. This is fueled from my daily quiet time. Okay, so once I've established that now listen, listen to what, what is available to us. We have the ability to be in communication with God all the time. You know what's not an unusual occurrence in my house, as I walk into a room, walk into the kitchen and and my daughters, one of them are just talking to themselves, like, just straight up conference. And I'm like, this is weird. And so I start to have a conversation. I say something to them, and they look at me like I'm interrupting something. I'm like, what is that? This is odd. This happened to me just the other day. Like, what is what is happening right now? Well, what I didn't realize is, while my daughter is doing the dishes, her phone is on FaceTime on the windowsill right in front of her, and she's just having a great little comment. And I'm like, Okay, first of all, I wouldn't have survived as a teenager in this world. Like, why do we need to be in communication while we're doing dishes together? Like, this is weird with your friends, but anyway, it is what it is and but here's the cool thing about it is, like, that's the kind of relationship that God desires to have with you. We're like, you don't have to be doing anything like, yes, have your prayer time. But guess what? Just open up face time with God. Let him sit there and just like, let's just have him. We'll just be there. This is what God desires. Never stop praying. It's available when we're doing the dishes, when we're going to work, when we're having hard conversations, when we're interacting with friends, when we're tired, when we're excited, whatever the case, like God has given us ability and access to be able to have an ongoing conversation with them, where we just dial them up, put them on the phone and just have them sitting there all day long. It's this daily conversation. So we got two different types of conversation. When we talk about prayer is conversation, it is scheduled communication. Scheduled communication, if you don't have scheduled communication, if your quiet time is like, Hey, I try to have quiet time every day. Some days it's in the morning. The morning. Sometimes I try to do it at lunch. Sometimes I do it evening. Can I? Can I? Maybe I could. I could be wrong. I'm going to guess I know you well enough to know you probably don't have that much quiet times. Set of time. Just like, if I say like, I try to have a date night with my wife every week. That is also a code for, I don't really ever have date nights with my wife, right? Like, no, when God is worth listen the game of the universe, the Creator of all things, is worth carving out a little block in your Google Calendar. You know what I mean? Like, like, give him that every day, but then he opens the door wide open to just talk with all all day long. Here's the next one, and that this, that kind of leads us right into it is prayer is access. Prayer is access. Listen. So the disciples, Jesus, disciples, they would have grown up right as as good Jews taught how to pray, they would have all been taught how to pray. And yet, I find it very interesting that they come to Jesus and they're like Jesus teaches how to pray. Should like, shouldn't you know this by now, you got grown men like you went to like all the schools and like you should know how to do. This is part of your culture. You should know how to pray. But here's the deal, when, when, when the disciples watched Jesus pray like they knew how they were taught, but when they watched Jesus pray, I believe there's two things that always stood out to him. One is the conversational nature of his prayers. Like he always talked to his father, it was just so natural. He didn't put on a voice. He just talked like humans talk. I think it struck them. But the other thing is, is natural as prayer is. In that sense, it says this of Jesus. It says he taught as one who had authority. Is, I believe he prayed in the same manner like his, as natural and common as his prayer was, he also prayed as one who was connected to something with great authority. He was connected he had access to power that the other people who taught them how to pray didn't necessarily have at that capacity. And so they come to Jesus and said, Teach us how to pray. And this is just like how we come, and this is how I hope we can come today, like, Okay, I've learned how to pray, but I want to learn how to pray, like in this natural communication, but in such a way that has authority and power behind it. You see, prayer is communication, but prayer is also access. It's access. And we have to understand a little bit about Old Testament stuff to to really appreciate this. You know, back when, when Moses brought the law and they said of the tabernacle, and then Solomon built the the temple in this temple, in this in this place, like people didn't just have access to the holy presence of God like we do today, which is, I can't even wrap my brain around that they would have to like the the holy presence of God existed in a room in the temple, in the center room of this temple. And actually you could, if you wanted to go, like, be in God's presence. You couldn't. One person could. And that one person could only one time a year. And that is even after that he, like, changed his clothes, did all this purification stuff, like did all the made the sacrifice, did all these things so that he could, he could, for a short time, step into the presence of God one time, once a year, to have face to face access with the holy presence of God. This is the presence of God that we're talking about. It says this, When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies, the place where God was it says that curtain was torn from top to bottom. This was, it's a short statement in the scriptures, but it is powerfully relevant to us today. See when that curtain was torn. It was symbolic of the presence of God no longer being contained in a room in a temple that can only be accessed once a year when God tore that veil, that curtain from top to bottom. He was making a declaration, my presence is available to all. Listen, listen. Prayer is just communication, just talk, just be you. Come as you are. But we have to understand that when we pray in Hebrews, we learn that that we're invited to come boldly into the throne room of God, to come right there, into his his presence, his presence that changes things, his presence that has power, like I can only imagine, like if the if the people of God from Moses's day or David's day knew that they didn't have to go jump through all those hoops just to be in the presence of God. Like, I don't even know what they'd say. They'd freak out. I think of the Great Commission, like Jesus, like, right before he sends him to ascends into heaven, he's like, I gotta, I got a job for you. Go tell the world about this Jesus thing. Go, go share this love with the people, with the people, everybody you see. And this is the promise he gives like, listen in me. He says, Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing the Father Son and the Holy Spirit. And that's usually where we hit the period. That's usually where we cut it off. That's usually where we say, now go, but in the next line, the next statement is, and I will be with you always friends. We have through prayer, we have access to the holy presence of God, and we have access in the presence of God. We have access to his power. We have access to his power, Jesus. Jesus said this. Jesus, ask anything in my name, friends, I am so convicted by that statement.

Here's a test that I give myself every one. In a while, and I challenge you to it as well. I want you to think right now, if God answered every single one of your prayers for the last week, every single one, would you even be able to tell? If not friends, we're praying too small. We have access to the God who spoke the world into existence. We have access to the God who who can change circumstances in a moment, who can break addictions without breaking a sweat. We have a God who can draw the furthest from him, into His presence and change your life. We serve a God who can't do anything. And so while he invites us to come in and just have communication with him, he invites us into His throne room. He invites us to have access to his presence. He invites us to have access to his power. And he says, Ask me for anything, anything in my name, and I'll do it. So let me wrap this thing up. I started out by saying I found the cheat code to the Christian life. Here's what I mean. Let's put it all together. What if you and I as followers of Christ, people who've given our hearts and lives to Him, if you and I have access to the power of God in the presence of God like that, if God invites us not only to find that place, to schedule that place, to prioritize that place, that of prayer, but also to bring him into every moment. If I were to take that seriously, friends tell me how this wouldn't change everything. It's a little bit overwhelming. It's a little bit overwhelming to just to bite off in the whole piece. I've been reading through a book lately. I'll pray first by Chris Hodges. I highly, highly recommend it. And one of his, one of his biggest things is, I mean, again, the whole premise of the book, just pray first. Whatever you're doing, pray first. So maybe the idea of praying without stopping that, keeping that constant access, that's just overwhelming, that's a big task, and it is, and it's something I hope to continue to grow into at a greater percentage my whole life, from the day that I meet Jesus, hopefully it's nearing 100% but here's a good place to start. If I know I have access and I'm invited to come all the time, what if before you do anything, you just pray first. So pray first before you drive out of the parking lot today. Just Just pray first before you leave your house in the morning. What do you pray for before you go into the next meeting? Just, just pray for it before you go, before you go hang out with your friends. Pray first before you eat your meal. Pray first. You're like, Oh, I got that one down. Okay, good. I give you one softball right before you do anything, before you go to bed, before you get out of bed. But whatever you do, just, what if we just said? What if we said, this is my new discipline, if you can learn this discipline now, think about all the things we've already talked about. Man, I need courage to be able to share my faith. Hey, I've been praying through spots all day long, dialing into the access that I have with my father. And I'm going to listen and hear the voice of God in the middle of my work day, I don't have to wait until my next quiet time before I get refueled again, because by four o'clock in the afternoon I'm worn out. Pray first. Never stop praying. That's intimidating, but you know what I can do? I can learn to pray before anything I do. Anybody else feel okay? That feels a little more tangible. I can I can get there. Maybe we'll come back next year, we'll preach the same message, and then we can, like, pray first and in the middle, or something, I don't know, maybe stretch it out. But like, listen, God wants you to take some steps of faith and some steps of prayer this week. I believe there's some of you right now that you didn't even have the prayer and fasting thing in your mind for this upcoming week. Let me challenge you, don't walk out with the same mindset. Listen, God wants to unlock some things in your life that have bound been bound up because we have tied our idea of what prayer. Is to this, this past experiences, friends, God wants to do something new in you. God wants to develop some new relationship with Himself in you. God wants to set you free in some areas of your life. God wants to use you to speak life into the unbelievers in your workplace. Friends, God wants to use you, and we've got to be people of prayer. I look at this verse, never stop praying in my knee jerk reactions, like, how in the world, because I possibly even do that. But the more I look at scripture, and the more I just just just walk through the logical truth, I started to get to the point like, How in the world did I ever possibly live the life worthy of the calling that I'm called to live without doing that, I don't think it's possible. So we've got to get this one right. If you could learn one skill in all of your Christian life, learn this one. Never stop praying God. We love you. We praise you that you are a God who loves us, who cares for us, who says, Come as you are. But then somehow, in the mystery of it all, like you invite us to come as we are, and then you give us access to the Holy of Holies, to your presence and to your power. God we want to live every day. God, we want to live every moment, aware of that access that we have, aware of your presence with us. God, may we pray big prayers, knowing that you give us access to your power So Father, we praise You today and we look forward with great anticipation of how you want to grow us this week as we commit ourselves to a people of prayer. Jesus name we pray.