5 Kinds of Prayer

So there are so many different ways we could go to talk about prayer. And I know that many of you are like, I've heard so many messages on prayer, like, yeah, it's church. Okay, we're gonna talk about prayer. It's a big part of our Christian life. We're gonna bring it up. But I've kind of asked the Lord, like, what do we wanna do here? Okay, how do we wanna go? And I was thinking about the biggest hang ups that keep people from having a prayer life. What are the things that hinder us from praying? And I think a few of them are some people just we fail to make it a priority, right? We're like, I don't think it's that big of a deal, and I can't really do anything about those people, like you guys, sorry, like you've just gotta, you know, I always say you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink. Okay? So like you, there's hope for you, but you've got to make a decision, right? So I'm not going to talk about that today. Or maybe you're struggling with insecurity, and you feel like I'm not good at it. I don't know how to do it. I feel stupid. And those are very real. Those are real things. I think we're going to address some today. And then the final one is a just a general lack of understanding about prayer, about how to pray, what it looks like, what how do we do it? Like some people, you're new to church, you've never you didn't grow up in church, and so you might hear us pray, and you're like, wow, I don't know if I can do that. Or you're looking around, like, who are they talking to? Like, right? Like, we don't know. Like you maybe just don't understand it. And so those last two, I kind of want to address those today, and I feel like the Holy Spirit is leading me to teach very specifically about different types of prayer, because there are many different types of prayer. And specifically I want to look at what Jesus says. That's always a good place to start, isn't it, because we see in the New Testament, Jesus went to pray often. He went to pray. He went off alone to pray. He prayed in front of crowds. He prayed for healing, he prayed alone, he prayed against things like there were. We see lots of different ways to pray, if we look at the life of Jesus, but specifically in Luke 11, we see this verse, the disciples come to him, and one day was Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. So I want to set the tone here real quick, Jesus is praying, and the disciples are like, we want to know how to do that. We need you to teach us how to pray. So this should let some of us off the hook. If the disciples didn't know how it's okay, if you don't right, you don't say yes to Jesus, and then you magically have this amazing prayer life. And you sound like, I don't know who you know, praying the house down like the disciples. And this wasn't like, early on, they'd been with Jesus for a little while at this point, and they said, Jesus, we want to know how to do that. I like that. I like what you're doing. I feel like it's good, teach us to pray. Verse two, he said to them, When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom. Come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive everyone who sins against us. Lead us, not into temptation. This is something we've taken we've taken this verses, we've taken these scriptures, and we pray that way, and some of us, we just say those things and we say those words. But what happens is, a lot of times, there's no life in that because Jesus wasn't saying repeat after me,he was teaching them. These are some of the things that you need to pray. These are some of the areas where it would be good to understand how to pray. He wasn't teaching them memorize this, do this, do that. He was teaching them his heart for prayer. Okay, and our walk with Jesus is never meant to be repetitive. It's never meant to be religious. It's never meant to be I'm going to do this, this and this, and then I'm good. That's not what having an intimate relationship with God is all about. He wants to talk to us. He wants to hear from us. He wants us to bring our emotions and our feelings to him. Can you believe that they're not bad? God God doesn't want us to hide those things or get those away. One thing I've been doing as we've been reading our soaps guide. We read a psalm every week, and a challenge for me has been to identify all the feeling words that are in the Psalms, both from the person that wrote the psalm, but also from God. So God's not intimidated by our feelings, even if they're big feelings, even if they're negative feelings, he wants to hear about our feelings because it reveals our heart when we're happy, when we're sad, when we're mourning, when we're celebrating, all of those things can be included in our prayer. And so the intention of his prayer teaching was not to give a strict religious way to pray, but to give us a guide to an intimate and full prayer life. Okay. So what I want to do today is look at the five, five different types of prayer that I can find represented in this passage of Luke 11. Does that sound good? Okay, so number one, prayers of intimacy and worship. Okay? It starts out with saying, Father, hallowed be your name. And that word hallowed, I wanted to just tell you what it means, just in case you don't know. It means to dedicate or consecrate Okay, or to make it holy, to honor it, to esteem that. Okay? So it's kind of a a word that's saying, Hey, we're going to honor your name, okay? And from the very beginning, we see that Jesus is prayer starts with the word father. It doesn't start with Master, it doesn't start with Judge. It doesn't start with big guy in the sky, right? Like it's it's an intimate connection as his son, we have to understand that our place of prayer is as a child of God. Our place of prayer is a son or a daughter. We get to go to God not as slaves and servants, but as sons and daughters. I love in Galatians, chapter four, it says, and because we are His children. We who's included in we, you guys. Everybody. Raise your hand. All of us, yep, nope. Everybody's awake. Okay. We are His children. God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out Abba Father. Now you are no longer a slave, but God's own child, and since you are His child, God has made you his heir. When we get this revelation that we are children of God, we respond differently to him when we understand that I'm his kid. I'm his daughter. I can go and I can ask him for anything i My dad doesn't. I don't live with my dad. He doesn't like, you know, he's just like my old dad. Now, sorry if you're watching this dad, your old guy. So like, I love him, but like, I don't call him every day. I'm not seeing him all the time, you know? Like, he doesn't provide for me anymore. But you know what? I know. I know that if I needed something, I could call my dad, and I could be like, Dad, can you help me with this? And he would do it in a heartbeat. Why not? Because I'm his servant, because I'm his daughter, and there is access that I have to my dad because I'm his daughter. We have different access as a child of God than we do when we're servant or we're outside of the family of God. We don't have to be intimidated to ask God for what we need. We can have a relationship. And I realize not everybody's relationship with their parent is like that, where it's open and you can ask, but I understand that okay, like my kids know, because we have a pretty good relationship, it's pretty open. They can come. They don't have any hesitation to ask us for what they need. Especially my youngest, all I hear about is all the needs, you know, everything that she has. But you know what I act like? It's annoying, but I I figure out a way to make it happen. You know what I mean? Why? Because she's my daughter, and I want to do whatever I can to provide for her. I want to honor my kids in that way, and God's the same way. He's our Heavenly Father, so let's not get caught up in thinking he responds to us like maybe even some of our earthly fathers, where maybe they were harsh or maybe they were demanding, maybe they didn't they weren't helpful, they didn't invite you into a space of relationship. That's not who God is, and I love that. In Galatians here, it says that our we're prompted to call him Abba, Father. What does that mean? That's an intimate way to say Father. So in the south, they say daddy. Okay, so like, when our kids were little, they would, they would call us mama and daddy, and oh, it's cute, right? But like, as adults grow up in the South, it's still mom and daddy, like, there's no dad in in the south. And so we've, we've really worked hard to make our kids still call us that, because we like it. Some of them do. Eli calls pastor, Matt pastor. He, like, refuses to call him daddy. So, I mean, like it's working for some of them, some of them not so much. So it's an intimate way that we see here in the Scripture, though, and I love that it reveals this. Of God. This name of God hallowed be your name. The Bible says the name of the Lord is a strong tower that the righteous run into it and they're safe. The name of God is powerful. Holy is Your Name? What is God's name? It's whatever you need it to be in whatever situation you're in. If you need provision, it's Jireh. If you need peace, it's Shalom. If you need guidance, if you need a father in your life, it's Abba, it's Jehovah. There are opportunities for you to learn more about the nature of God as you honor his name. That's a part of prayer. So how might we pray like this? Father, I need you today. I honor your name. I worship you. You are a good God. You are mighty. You are powerful. Thank you for what you do in my life. Thank you for the way you move. Thank you for the way you lead me. Thank you for your provision. God, your name is great. I want to honor you. You see how that's an intimate prayer that I've prayed with with my father in heaven. It's an intimate and powerful way to pray, keeping his name holy and worshiping Him is one type of prayer, okay, the second type is a prayer of consultation. Now we see this in in Luke 11, where he says, Your kingdom come. Your kingdom come. What does that mean? It means that I want what God wants. Now we've talked about this quite a bit this year so far, and so I do think it's significant that we we're really feeling like the Lord's reminding us of this a lot. It's saying, God, I want your ways. I want your will. I want what you want. And so I'm going to live a pause and pray kind of lifestyle. Prayers of consultation remind us to pause and pray where we don't just do what we want and what we feel, but we seek God's will in every situation beforehand, that's the key. Like a lot of us, figure out this didn't work. I better go ask God what I was supposed to do, right? Like, or we're like, God, oops, help you know, like, that's a different kind of prayer. So a prayer of consultation is where we invite God into our situation before we make a decision. As we've been reading in the Old Testament for our soap Guide, which is our Bible reading plan that we've been doing together. I've noticed multiple times that people keep getting themselves in trouble. Okay, we've been in Kings and Chronicles, especially here lately. And so it's like they messed up, then they messed up, then they really messed up, and then it got worse, you know? And then Then somebody came and they sought the Lord, right? And and we see every time this happens, a lot of times the verse will say, and they fail to consult the Lord. And one specific time that I was studying around was in First Chronicles 13, where King David is attempting to move the Ark of the Covenant. Now, if you don't know what the Ark of the Covenant is, it was the place where the presence of God dwelt, okay? And there was a very specific way that God required people to move this from place to place. There was a whole thing that was set up to do that. Okay? And so David decides that he wants to get the Ark of the Covenant back into Israel. Okay, so that's where we're at in in verse one here, it says David consulted with all his officials, including the generals and captains of his army. Then he addressed the entire assembly of Israel as follows, if you approve and if it is the will of the Lord our God, let us send messages to all the Israelites throughout the land, including the priests and Levites in their towns and pasture lands. Let us invite them to come and join us now, this sounds good, doesn't it, but this plan fails miserably, and actually somebody ends up dying because David failed to consult the Lord. What David Did seemed right.

Okay, let'slook at this. He consulted with all of his officials. Good idea, right. Then he addressed the entire assembly as follows, if you approve, who the entire assembly, and if it is the will of the Lord our God, just a little if it is instead of, is it? He said, If it is the will of the Lord, then let this happen instead of Lord. Is it your will for this to happen? It appeared right, but he was seeking the counsel of people and the approval of people, instead of going to God and saying, God, how do you want us to do this? What do you want us to do? And because of it, someone lost their life, and the Ark of the Covenant was actually away from the people of God for a significant amount of time because David failed to consult the Lord. He didn't pause and pray, he didn't stop and ask God, what do you want me to do in this situation? How do I need to proceed? I'm faced with this situation. Don't know what to do, I'm gonna pause and pray. If you don't know what to do, can I encourage you don't do anything? Pause and ask God to intervene. Ask God to speak to you, ask God to show you, to reveal his ways to you. Pause and pray so that we can listen and obey. If you need a little rhyming, little slogan that can be it, okay, pause and pray so you can listen and obey prayers of consultation. Number three, prayers of provision. Give us each day our daily bread. A couple things that I want to highlight about prayers of provision. Okay, now this is a prayer where we're asking God for what we need, okay? And I want to encourage you, it's okay to ask God for what you need. You don't have to feel guilty about it. You don't have to feel selfish about it. Even if you have a lot, it's still okay to ask God for what you need. Even if you don't have anything, it's still okay to ask God for what you need. And God wants us to tell him what we need. He wants us to why? So that we're showing I trust you God. If I ask God for what might I need, it shows that I'm trusting that God. I need you. I want what you have. I want what you want for me, and I'm going to trust you with my need. I'm not going to be worried. I'm not going to be anxious about natural things. Paul tells us in Philippians 46 Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything and tell God what you need. I feel like that's pretty clear. Tell God what you need. Tell him what you need. Do you need finances? Do you need healing in your marriage? Do you need healing in your body. Do you need your mind to be clear? Do you need direction on a job that you need to take? Do you need a better job? What do you need? Do you need a place to live? Do you need God to intervene in a relationship? Anything you need, God is willing to provide anything you need. You don't have to worry about it. You don't have to be anxious about it. Instead, you can pray about it. You can drop it at God's feet, and you can trust that He hears and he responds. Why? Because we're his kids, and he doesn't ignore us, but he has every good thing we need for life and godliness. And we can go to him and we can say, God, I need you to move. I need this situation. We need this, Lord, even the things that we're like, okay, we really want to move forward. Let's just say, Okay, we're launching new campus at City impact. It's going to be amazing. We've got a group of people there right now prepping and getting ready. But before we did that, we were like, Lord, we need the right people. We can't do this if we don't have the right people. So we told, God, we weren't worried. And like, Oh, no. What are we going to do? We said, Okay, God, we need you to intervene. We need you to speak to people's hearts. We're getting ready to start city groups in a few weeks. Like, hey, we need some more leaders, Lord. So I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to say, God, we need you to speak to some people's hearts who feel called to lead and called to pastor in the community that you've placed them in. And I believe you're going to direct their steps so that we have every leader we need, so we have every group we need. Why? Because this is your church, God, and because you these are your people, I'm not going to worry about I'm just going to tell God what I need. That's how we pray those prayers of provision. And I love that. It says that we can ask for our daily needs every day. We can tell God you're not bothering him. You might pray for the same thing every day. That's okay, too. I love the Bible says, Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, keep on going. Like we always say, the squeaky wheel is the one that gets hurt, right? Like, sometimes, if we need something to happen, we we've, I don't think Robin's in here right now, but she's she can be our squeaky wheel. We're like Robin. Nobody's responding to this email. We need you to be the squeaky wheel, right? Like we need you to make something happen. That's how we can be with God. We can keep asking him, God, don't forget your word. God, don't forget me. Don't forget my need. I know you see me. I know you have what's going on every single day until something changes. We can keep praying. We can ask God to provide. We've seen God provide for us in so many ways. As church planners, we saw him provide early on. And, and I was thinking about, okay, like, what, what was one thing recently? And, and I was thinking back to the day we found out that we couldn't meet at Dawes middle school anymore. You know, we found out, like Thursday, I think it was, I don't remember. I remember I was preaching that weekend and and we had to go record the message for Sunday. We didn't know how to record. We didn't have anything going we didn't know any of that. And we were like, Okay, let's do this. And they said, You can't come back. And of course, at that time with covid, did anybody else say, like, like, they're not going to cancel school. And then they canceled the College World Series, like two months. And I was like, what is happening? Like, what is going on? Okay? So I was like, Well, where are we going to meet? What are we going to do? And and pastor, Matt and I had kind of been looking for buildings, looking around, and we had been in this building, but we didn't really think a whole lot of it. But the the owner. Her that called us, and he said, Hey, you guys can record in our space if you want. And we were like, oh, okay, so up in the chapel, it was a weight lifting room, and there was a big muscle guy on the wall, and there were holes in the floor and holes in the roof. We had buckets around the area we were recording. There was like makeshift things, but God began to stir something in our hearts and and we began to say, hey, you know what? I think we could make this look like a church. So we came and we had an offer, and we way low balled it, and they came back and said, Yes. And we were like, oh, okay, cool. So, so we were like, This is great, moving forward. And then a couple days later, the owner calls and he said, Hey, I have a counter offer. And we were like, No, the offer made and accepted. Like, what are we talking about? And he said, What if I throw in the building next door for free? And we were like, Okay, God will provide and not you know, when he provided that, when we needed it. We were not one week without somewhere to be. Not one week. Nobody knew what was going on in the whole world, but God knew, and God knew that we little church in Lincoln, Nebraska, needed a place to meet, and he made a way. Why? Because he's our dad and he cares for us, and he knew what we needed, and he made a way. Number four is prayers of repentance. Prayers of repentance forgive us our sins as we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And this is so interesting about repentance, we have learned to pray these prayers over the years. It's not sorry, God, I messed up, but it's Lord, search my heart. God, I don't want to keep living this way. I want you to make me look more like you. That's my favorite way to pray a prayer of repentance. Is I want my life to look like your life. I want my life to look like the life that you have for me. And this isn't a one time prayer. This isn't a clean up prayer, right? Sometimes we do that. We're like, Well, I'm gonna when I was younger in my faith, I would do something, knowing I shouldn't, thinking I'll just repent later. And God convicted me pretty quick about that, but I had to change the way I thought. Now every day I say, Lord, anything in me, something we do regularly at Tuesday morning prayer, is we pray this verse, search me and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me on the path of everlasting life. And then we wait, and we allow God to reveal anything, and then we say, God, forgive me. Forgive me for holding on to that offense, forgive me for being angry, forgive me for saying that. And then that next part, help me to forgive others. Help me to walk in forgiveness. Help me to extend forgiveness. Offense is one of the quickest things that can wreak havoc in our hearts and in our churches. Letting offense take root in US has really taken out more believers than probably anything else that I've seen in 23 years of ministry. It's a daily check, check my heart and then extend forgiveness. The final type of prayer is prayers of intercession and protection. I love this one lead us not into temptation. This prayer is praying for others, praying for situation, praying for protection of situations and people. So something I do, I like to pray protection over things. One thing I do. I don't even know when I started this, but every time I get on an airplane, every time I touch the side of the airplane and I say, safe flight in Jesus name, that's it. But it just makes me feel better, and I know that God's going to protect me. I think, I think I've done that longer than I've been married. I mean literally, like, as soon as I got saved,I thought, You know what? I better pray for this airplane. I don't know who that pilot is. I don't know who's in that room. So I just started to pray protection over that. I started to pray protection over our home. I pray protection around our building and our properties that city impact and steward. I pray protection over those. I ask God, God, cover these spaces. Cover our people as they go home. Cover our people as they walk in and they're going to school this week. Lead them and guide them. I pray protections, and I gotta admit, I mean, they're really good at this or really bad. Some days I pray for everyone else and not myself, and some days I just pray for myself and I don't pray for anyone else. I'm not perfect. We're not perfect at this. It's not like, Okay, I did the prayers of worship. I don't do that like I just let the Holy Spirit lead me in that, right? But we have to be reminded sometimes of what we pray for. I write it in my journal. Who am I praying for? I've got a list of families I'm believing for babies with these people. I've got a list of marriages that I'm praying for. I've got a list of of our leaders and our people and families who have texted and said, Hey, I'm going through this, and I don't pray for each of those things every day, but I let the Holy Spirit show me what do we need to pray for today, and I begin to intercede on their behalf. Why? Because I think it matters, because I've got faith, because I've seen God move, because I've seen. Seen him intervene. I've seen him show up in situations and change things and heal bodies and heal marriages and heal hearts and minds. Over the years that we've been doing life with people, I've seen God show up when we pray. Prayer is powerful, these prayers of intercession and protection, it's spiritual warfare that we walk in. Ephesians six says this, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power, put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against the strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places. We are fighting a spiritual war. And you might say, Oh, I'm not well. It's being fought. You can engage or you can continue to live your life like it's not going on. But I'm here to tell you today, it's happening. And you can live oblivious and let the enemy do whatever he wants in your world. Or you can step into the authority given to you by your Father in heaven, and you can take authority over the dark enemy, the unseen things, the unseen places, the spiritual places that you don't see what's going on. But there is an enemy fighting against you. He does not want you to succeed. He does not want you to walk in the fullness of who God's called you to be. He does not want your marriage to succeed. He does not want your kids to follow after Him. But God has given you a weapon. The weapon is prayer. The weapon is your voice. The weapon is that we have an opportunity to declare, I declare the blood of Jesus that was shed for me on the cross over my family, over my kids. God be with my kids when I can't be there. Protect them as they go. Be with my marriage. Be with my husband. Speak to us, heal us. Let me have faith where I'm weak. Replace my doubt with faith. Stir up the gift of God on the inside of me so that I can walk in the power that you've placed on my life. The Bible says in Romans eight, that the same spirit who raised Christ from the dead is now alive on the inside of us. Think about that for a minute, the same spirit that took something that was dead and brought it back to life. Is the spirit that we pray in. It's the spirit that we declare the word of God, and it's the spirit How. How do we do that? It's in us. It's with us. It's the Holy Spirit who leads us and guides us. And I know that there is power when we pray, I've seen it. And I would venture to say that many of us who who have a prayer life, maybe you're like, I need to help my prayer game. Maybe some of us are like, No, I'm pretty good, but this was a good shot in the arm. And maybe some of us are like, I don't pray at all, and I don't know where to start. Can I encourage you ask somebody come to Tuesday morning prayer. We're here every Tuesday at 6am come be a part of it. Let it inspire you. What's your prayer life lacking and what is your next step? This morning, as I was just continuing to prep for the for the message, I really felt like the Lord wanted me to challenge us to a three week prayer challenge. We've got three weeks left in August, three weeks left of this series, and I believe that God wants to do something significant in the next 21 days. I believe that either you're going to pray for something specific for the next 21 days. You need something. You need direction. You need God to intervene. You need something, or maybe you're just gonna start your prayer life. And you know how long it takes to make a habit? 21 days. I got in my calendar, and I was like, Lord, there's three weeks left in August. And he was like, Yeah, I know. Thanks for listening. You know, like it took you long enough? Like, Sunday morning, right? Like, but I want you to say, Okay, I'm going to accept this prayer challenge. I'm going to receive this I want to see what God can do in the next 21 days. I want to see if my life can't look different three weeks from now, I want to see if my marriage can't look different. I want to see if my kids can't look different. I want to see if my home can't be a house that's filled with the peace of God. In 21 days, I wonder what God can do, if you will, set aside time for the next 21 days to seek His face, to make your requests known, to lay your life down before Him and say, God, I want what you want. You, let's be challenged in that today. What could change in the next 21 days? Would you guys close your eyes? I just want to pray for us, God, I pray that in this room we would accept this challenge. God, I pray that in this room we would not be intimidated. I break off the spirit of intimidation right now in Jesus name and I pray, God, that was faith would arise, that faith would stir on the inside of us, that we would be anticipating and expectant as we go into the next 21 days of prayer. God, I believe that you want to do something significant in our lives. God, I think that when we start September, this church is going to look different. I believe that our families are going to look different, that our homes are going to look different. Our minds are going to be clear, that we are going to be a church that's dedicated to following the voice of God, not one or two, but many, a force to be reckoned with God. I believe that we are engaging in a spiritual battle like we've never engaged before, and God, we're here for it, so we accept this challenge to see what you'll do. God stir our faith in the next 21 days in Jesus name Amen.