Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to pray?
Like, every single one of us knows we should pray.
Even nonchristians know we should pray, right?
Some of your nonchristian neighbors are like, are you praying?
We need you praying for our block.
We all know this, and we're in this series called 40 days of prayer.
But the truth is, I imagine as we've identified the importance of prayer in this series,
for some of you, you've come worse at it.
Why is that?
Because the truth is, it's hard to pray.
It's difficult to pray.
It's easy to do everything else, and often easy to forget to do the most important thing as
a believer.
So let me ask you a question.
Why should you pray?
Why?
You ever ask yourself, why am I doing this?
You ever felt like, I'm just talking to the air, I'm talking to nobody?
What is the purpose of prayer in order to improve your prayer life?
I want to challenge you today.
You need to be able to answer that question, why?
And so what I want to talk about today is I want to ask you, do you know the purpose of
prayer?
Why are you doing this?
You see, one of the ways to improve your prayer life, listen to this, is to understand the
purpose of prayer.
Now, if you google this, you're going to find a bunch of pastors, theologians who disagree
with me today, and that's okay.
They can be wrong.
Amen.
But I want to answer that fundamental question.
Why am I doing this?
Why should I do this?
Anybody raising kids?
Oh, my gosh, Tammy and I, my wife's turning 50 and we were looking at some old videos.
And if you want to feel old, watch old videos.
It's just.
Oh, my gosh.
When did we become just from the.
Don't know when that happened.
But we were watching our kids when they were little, and both my wife and I, we felt sad
and we cried because we miss them being little.
We miss them being kids.
But you want to know what I don't miss?
Do you want to know what I never, ever want to do again in my life is sit down with a child
and do homework?
Come on, somebody.
I mean, I am preaching.
Amen.
And here's the reason why homework is so frustrating.
Because teachers don't tell kids why.
Why does it matter how the Egyptians built the pyramids?
Why does it matter how we started speaking English?
Why does it matter?
You ever ask this question in math?
Why do I have to know algebra?
Well, let me tell you.
Why.
Do you want to know why algebra is important?
And I told my son this.
Solving algebra equations.
Listen to me.
Strengthens your problem solving skills.
It helps to teach organization to break down complex data, and it teaches logic.
And wait for at Sandals church, critical thinking skills.
Thinking is hard.
Yep.
That's why most people don't do know.
It teaches you how to think.
It teaches you how to solve.
So if teachers aren't teaching kids why math matters, maybe as christians, we're not
teaching christians why prayer matters.
So I want you to think, what is the purpose of prayer?
What is it?
And again, if you google this, you're going to find books about it.
You're going to find people that talk about it, use big words, that all they do is confuse
you.
But let me tell you, this is the simplest way I know how to tell you what prayer is.
The purpose of prayer.
I wish we had a drum roll.
The purpose of prayer, and it's very simple, is to connect with God.
Amen.
At its most basic level, where I don't sound like some snooty tootie PhD, it's just
connecting with God.
That's all it is.
And some of you, you've been taught the wrong thing.
And I hear christians say this all the time, wrong.
Prayer is a conversation.
No, it's not.
Listen to me.
Prayer is more about connection than conversation.
Like if you're talking to God and all the time he's talking back, you may need medication.
Now, I'm not saying he can't talk back.
I'm not saying he doesn't talk back.
When I meet these people, like the other day, I was talking to God, I was like, listen,
prayer is about connection, not conversation.
And parents, you need to teach your children this because your kids are going to say, why
doesn't God talk back?
Here's your answer.
Because prayer is about you connecting with him.
At the end of the message, I'm going to talk about how he primarily connects with you.
Prayer is your end of the relationship.
That's how you connect to him.
It's how you check in, it's how you talk, it's how you dial in and you say, God, here I am.
Here's what's going on.
Here's what I need.
Here's what I'm worrying about.
It's how you connect to him.
And this is why it's so important.
If you're not praying, you're not connecting.
You're not connecting.
So I want to challenge you.
Connect with God.
This is so important.
So your friends say, why do you pray?
It's how I connect with Jesus.
Why do you pray?
It's how I connect with God.
Why do you pray?
It's how I check in with heaven.
It's so, so important that you understand.
And here's the thing.
A Christian who does not pray is a disconnected Christian.
You say, well, I don't feel God.
Are you connected?
I don't hear God.
Are you connected?
I don't sense God.
Are you connected?
I don't see God.
Are you connected?
Because here's the thing.
If I brought up my wife and I's coffee pot and I put it right here and it was unplugged,
and I'm like, I don't understand why this doesn't work.
You would all go, we need a new pastor.
And yet christians unplug from God.
I don't know why I don't feel him.
I don't know why I don't see him.
I don't know why I don't plug in in the name of Jesus and all that is holy.
Hey, sandals church.
Thank you so much for continuing with us in our series 40 days of prayer.
Before we jump into our message, I'd like to invite you to partner with the work that
Sandals church is doing.
You could do so at give SC.
Now let's get back to our message with Pastor Matt.
Next, let me challenge you.
You want to be better at prayer?
Don't pray like me.
Don't pray like anybody.
Pray like yourself.
Be yourself.
When you pray, be yourself.
Just be you.
What's the vision of Samuel's church?
Can somebody help me?
Be real.
It's not being fake with ourselves, God and others in prayer.
Be real with yourself.
Just talk to God like you would talk to anyone else.
Because he doesn't know the fake you.
He doesn't.
Matthew six five.
These are the words of Jesus.
And when you pray, you see the assumption is you're connecting.
He says, don't be like the hypocrites.
Why?
There's a way that's fake.
For they love to pray.
Standing in the synagogue, posting it on Instagram.
I mean, some of you, you spend more time getting the photo right than you do actually
talking to Jesus.
Just me in my prayer closet alone and with all my followers.
Listen to this.
They love it to be heard on the street corners and to be seen by others.
Prayer is not about being seen by others.
It's about listen to me being heard from by God.
You see, prayer is not you hearing from God.
Prayer is God hearing from you.
So when you talk to God, talk to him.
Now.
Here's the thing.
It's awkward, isn't it?
My kids are teenagers.
That was their favorite word.
Awkward.
It's so awkward, dad.
You're so awkward.
Before twelve, you're the coolest thing on earth.
They turn 13, you're so awkward.
Stop embarrassing me, Dad.
I was ordering food.
I know.
Do you have to do it that way?
It's awkward.
And you know what's especially awkward?
When you meet somebody for the first time.
I get it.
You know what's even more awkward?
When you meet somebody for the first time who knows everything about you and you know very
little about them.
You know who experiences that every day?
Me.
I meet people all the time.
They think we're best friends and I don't know their first awkward.
You know?
And I don't know how to handle it.
I turn into Ron DeSantis.
I'm like, I like him.
I like him.
Relax.
He needs to learn to smile.
But be yourself.
What if you met me on the streets?
What if you met me on the streets and I said, hey, it's nice to meet you.
Or I said something like this.
It is with the utmost delight and profound honor that I extend my sincerest greetings to
you.
The feeling derived from this fortuitous encounter transcends mere pleasantries.
Indeed, it is a momentous occasion, a juncture where our paths converge in the grand
tapestry of existence.
May the ensuing discourse be adorned with intellectual splendor and mutual understanding as
we embark upon this regal journey of shared discourse and camaraderie.
How many of you would go to a different church if we met each other that way?
Then why does prayer sound like that?
I truly believe that when some pastors pray, the Lord Jesus is like, who's that?
So when you pray, be you, Lord.
It's Miguel.
Miguel Jr.
The restaurant's doing great.
Thank you, Lord.
Or how about this prayer?
Lord, I don't know what to say.
I feel stupid.
Please help me to not feel this way.
For some of you, that's the most holy, honest prayer you could pray.
I feel stupid, Lord.
I don't sense you.
I don't feel you and I feel bad about that.
I feel awkward talking out loud to someone I can't see.
The Lord gets it.
But if he's going to get you, you got to get real when you pray.
You got to get real when you pray.
Now here's the next thing.
If you're bored in your prayer life, if your prayer life feels flat, if it feels mundane,
if it feels like you're checking a box.
Why not invite the Holy Spirit to help you pray?
Amen.
What about that?
And some of you are like, I never heard of the Holy Spirit.
Well, I'm going to talk to you about him.
When I first became a dedicated Christian, I was 21 years old, gave my life to Christ.
I was fired up, man.
I was super excited, and my friend was like, have you been baptized by the spirit?
I was like, probably.
No.
I don't know.
It could have happened.
I didn't know.
And so he brought me to his church service.
It's a great church, just a couple of miles from us.
I got good friends there.
I know the pastor there.
I'm not to make fun of them or put them down at all, but they're more of a holy roller
church.
I'm just hoping you guys would be holy.
Would you help me out, stop sinning and just be holy.
So I went to their church.
I didn't know what.
And if you've ever been to one of these Holy Spirit services, they're a little wild.
And so I show up.
I didn't know what to expect.
I grew up Baptists, and so whenever we talk about the Holy Spirit, if you grew up in a
church with the name Baptist or Bible in it, raise your hands.
Yeah, you're a little nervous.
You're like, oh, okay, where's this going?
If you grew up in a church with spirit, flame, or fire, you're ready to take your shirt off
and rub it down the aisles, like, well, come on.
We've been praying for this revival is breaking out.
So I grew up Baptist, and so here's the thing.
Christians, we come from different denominations, and we need to care as much about each
other as we do about being full of the spirit.
And so I went to this service, and I didn't know what was going on.
But basically, you come forward and you march down this aisle, and I start walking, and I'm
looking, and people are passing out.
In a baptist church, if someone passes out, you call 911.
Amen.
You call 911.
And, I mean, it's person after person.
And I'm like, should I be in this line?
I don't know.
So I get up to the front, and then women are collapsing, and they're putting blankets over.
I'm like, are they dead?
What is going?
My whole life in a baptist church, never saw a blanket in service, ever.
Blankets came out everywhere.
But here's the thing.
Listen to me.
I said, lord, whatever you want to give me, I want.
So I went forward, and people are getting.
They call it slain in the spirit.
I didn't know what that was, but I'm going forward, and I go forward, and there's probably
about a couple hundred of us that went forward to receive the spirit.
And guess who's the last person standing?
I'm like, lord, what is your problem?
Slay me.
Slay me now.
And so I'm standing there and I'm frustrated, and I don't get it.
And it's a new experience.
And everyone's pressing on me.
Everyone's crowding around me, and they're praying in something I don't understand.
And all of a sudden, I feel everybody just, like, move.
And the senior pastor starts walking towards me.
This guy was pretty famous, and I'm not going to sound say his name, but he's an
intimidating guy.
And he comes over and he puts his hand on my forehead.
You can hear the smack.
I can't imagine smacking people at sandals.
Do you want prayer?
Smacks my forehead, but whatever.
And he starts praying over me, and he's pushing my head back, and I'm like, okay.
I'm thinking each time, this is it.
No.
This is it.
No.
And so then he says to me, gets up real close, and he know, like a vulcan mind grip, he's
got my head.
And he says, lord Jesus, set this young man's balls on fire.
She said, what?
I go, what?
I'm 21 years old.
I don't want my balls on fire.
This is not why I came to church.
And if you're like, oh, my.
This happened.
This is real.
You want fake?
Go to church down the street.
This is real.
I panicked and I ran out of the church.
Left all my friends, they were all dead on the front.
They were slain.
They were like, where's Maclin?
Ran out of the church.
And so here's the thing.
I don't blame that church.
Here's the truth.
I don't know that he really said, set my balls on fire.
My friend that goes there said, I think he said, set you on fire from the balls of your
feet.
And I was like, I didn't hear feet, so I could have misunderstood.
Just like sometimes you do when I'm talking, right?
I know.
So here's the thing is, some of us have had a really awkward encounter with the Holy
Spirit, and we just gave up.
And what we did is because of a person or a performance.
And by the way, this is a performance, and people criticize that.
Every sermon is a performance.
Every job you do, you're performing.
That's where the word comes from, and I don't mean this as fake, but what I mean is I'm
trying my best.
That's what I mean.
And sometimes I don't do the best I can, sometimes I'm misunderstood, sometimes I get it
wrong.
And so I don't want to blame that church.
I just want to say, just because you have a bad encounter with some holy roller doesn't
mean there isn't a holy spirit.
See, there is a holy spirit.
And his primary purpose, listen to me, is to help you live your christian faith.
God the Father loves you, Jesus died for you.
The spirit indwells you and empowers you.
And if your christian life and your prayer life is flat, maybe you need a filling of the
spirit.
Paul says this in Romans 826.
Likewise he says, the spirit helps us.
Does your prayer life need help?
Well, I got good news.
The spirit can help you.
How does the spirit help us?
He helps us in our weakness.
Okay?
And if you're like me and you have add, that's real focus is a miracle.
He says this, listen to this.
How does the Holy Spirit help me in my weakness?
For we do not know what we ought to pray for.
Whole.
Sometimes when you sit there and you say, lord, I don't know what to pray for, the spirit
does.
Spirit does listen to this.
But the spirit himself, the Holy Spirit is personal, not just a force, not just energy.
He is the third person of the trinitarian God.
Now, we don't understand this, and some of you are like, what?
We don't understand this, but for 2000 years, this isn't new.
This isn't just sandals.
For 2000 years the church has proclaimed a belief in one God who is spirit and exists
somehow in three persons.
We don't understand it and we really get in trouble when we try to explain it.
And let me just say this.
If you can explain all that God is, I think you got the wrong God.
That is, you got to leave mystery for who God is.
But the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
You ever want to say something, but you can't.
Tammy and I were having a conversation the other day just about how hard language is.
She said a word and I interpreted that word the wrong way.
Now, to be fair, husbands, my interpretation is the correct use of English.
But wives, here's the frustrating thing about language, so is hers.
And it was over.
This one word, seam seems ooh.
And we interpret it differently.
You see, sometimes language isn't precise enough for what we want to say you ever wanted to
tell somebody you love them so bad, but all that comes out is tears.
All that comes out is nothing.
Sometimes love is too deep for words.
And the spirit helps us when our prayer life, listen to me, needs to go beyond a word.
And this is so important.
And so when we talk about the Holy Spirit, right?
We're all going to have one of three responses, nope, I grew up in a Bible church.
This makes me uncomfortable.
Oh, man.
I've been waiting for sandals to get baptized in the Holy Spirit and it's about time you
guys got saved.
Well, thank you.
And then some of you.
And let me say this, for the vast majority of people that go to sandals church, they
haven't been to church in a long time or they've never been to church in their life and
they need to be our primary concern.
Wouldn't it be nice if democrats and republicans actually cared about Americans?
Wouldn't that be great?
So regardless of whether you grew up in a Bible church or you grew up in a holy spirit
filled church, wouldn't it be nice if we actually cared about new christians?
Instead of fighting with each other, why don't we say, hey, holy spirit.
We want to help these individuals learn to pray.
And the best person to teach us to pray is the Holy Spirit.
It's not a book.
And by the way, there are some great books on prayer, but the best teacher on prayer is the
spirit of God.
So I want to challenge you.
I want to challenge you no matter where you are, be prepared to invite the Holy Spirit into
your prayer life.
So let's talk about this.
What I want to challenge you specifically is this.
You need to understand, okay?
Raise your hand if you're a Christian.
Every Christian, every Christian needs to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit.
I don't know where you think your prayer is going without the Holy Spirit, but it's not
making it to heaven.
Just go outside and shout.
How far will your voice go?
Anybody ever have a cell phone bar problem?
I don't know about you, but my phone works everywhere but my house.
You see, the bars tell you how great the reception is.
So what you need is a tower to take your words someplace else.
And without the tower working, what happens to your words?
It doesn't matter how sincere you are, doesn't matter how real you are.
If you don't have the tower to broadcast what you're saying, where does it go?
It ends when your power of your voice and your volume dies out.
So if you want your prayers to go to heaven, you need the Holy Spirit to get them there.
And here's the amazing thing about the Holy Spirit.
He's here and there.
And if you're a believer, he's here and there.
So here's the thing.
Jude, the half brother of Jesus.
And if you've never read Jude, it's only one chapter.
You should tell everybody it's your favorite book.
I love Jude.
Read it every day.
It's one chapter.
But Jude is the half brother of Jesus.
And this is so important.
Listen to what he says.
He says, but you as a Christian, dear friends, he says, build yourselves up in your most
holy faith.
Listen to me.
If you're a Christian, the most important thing you are doing is building yourself up in
your faith.
So many christians get saved and stop.
Let me tell you something.
When you get saved, it just started.
It just started.
Your mission in life as a Christian is to grow, is to build, is to change.
And the way we do that is by inviting the spirit.
But this is so important.
He says, my dear friends, what you need to do is you need to grow up in this most holy
faith and listen to these words and pray in the Holy Spirit.
You need this every Christian, everywhere.
Now, why is this important?
Because James is talking about how to connect with his brother Jesus.
And what he says is not, learn to talk to my brother like I do.
That's not what he says.
He says, learn to talk to my brother through the spirit.
Jude grew up with Jesus.
Jude knew Jesus.
Think about that.
And Jude says, when we talk to Jesus, we do so through the power of the Holy Spirit.
So if the half brother of Jesus needed the Holy Spirit to pray, what do you need?
What do you need?
We all need.
Every single believer, whether you grew up in a Bible church or a pentecostal church, needs
the Holy Spirit to pray, and it shouldn't be a divisive issue.
Isn't that sad that the very person of God that brings us together is the very person of
God that we divide over?
That's our spiritual gift.
We divide over the Holy Spirit.
So every Christian, everyone, every single one of you needs the Holy Spirit to pray.
Everyone does.
Some Christians, some Christians will pray in tongues through the gifting of the Holy
Spirit.
Not all.
I get all my pentecostal pastor friends are like, you pray in tongues yet?
Pastor bad.
And I'm like, no, not yet.
They're like, oh, you're so cute.
You're so cute.
Look, I've asked for the gift many times, okay?
And the Lord doesn't give us all gifts.
I asked for the gift of singing.
Wouldn't that be great for me to lead us in worship?
I think it would be so profound.
I'm just up here on my guitar, rocking out in the name of Jesus.
But the Holy Spirit didn't give me that gift.
The Holy Spirit doesn't give us all of the gifts.
He gives us the gifts he chooses.
Now, here's the thing.
We all have the Holy Spirit, but we can always have a new experience with the Holy Spirit,
a new encounter with the spirit.
And let me tell you something.
You start serving God, and he's going to give you new gifts.
You see, the further you trust him, the deeper you go, the more he's going to give you.
But we need to just say, look, some of us, we have this gift.
The apostle Paul says this in one corinthians 14, for if I pray in tongues, my spirit is
praying, but I don't understand what I'm saying.
I have so many christian friends that pray in tongues.
I don't have the gift, my wife doesn't have the gift.
But so many people I love and respect do.
They're not varsity and I'm not jV.
They just have a different gift.
And instead of dividing over it, we need to celebrate it.
We need to celebrate this.
You see, as christians, we all have the same power, we all have the same spirit, but we all
receive different spiritual gifts from the Holy Spirit.
I don't know why God gave me the gift of speaking.
I didn't ask for it.
I didn't want it.
I was terrified to speak publicly.
I failed public speaking in junior college.
Do you know how hard it is to fail a class in junior college?
Listen to me.
The gift of tongues is real.
And here's the thing.
It's beautiful when it's done right.
It's beautiful.
Tammy and I were in Ireland November, and we hadn't slept for seven nights, and I wasn't
okay.
I wasn't okay.
And the pastor said, it was a pentecostal church.
The pastor said, hey, is there anything we can do for you?
I said, I haven't slept.
And they got me an appointment with a doctor.
It was great.
And he said, and can we pray over you?
I said, absolutely.
It was a pentecostal church in Ireland.
And so they prayed over me in tongues.
Irish, I don't know, is weird, because people, when they're speaking Irish, they sound like
they're speaking in tongues anyways.
You're like, what?
But here's the thing.
As he prayed over me, I wept.
It was like the words of God were washing me.
So when tongues is done right, listen to me, it's beautiful when it's done wrong, it feels
like a car crash.
I want you to imagine going to a Celine Dion concert.
Just think about know, have you ever heard her sing like, that's what I'm going to sound
like in heaven.
Celine.
It's going to be me and Celine.
They're going to call us Celine Matt Dion, right?
I want you to imagine you're at a Celine Dion concert.
It's her last concert ever.
You're there and she ends beatboxing and you're like, what?
I've heard tongues like that and I'm like, that's not the Holy Spirit.
That's you.
And it's gross and it turns people off to the power of the spirit.
Listen to me.
The spirit never draws attention to you.
Ever.
If you're in sandals church worship and you feel led during worship or during prayer to
speak in tongues, that's great.
Keep it to yourself.
And I'm not saying silently, but if I'm in worship, and Paul says this in one corinthians
14, if non believers come in worship and they see you beatboxing like Celine Dion, they're
going to be distracted from the message.
And here's where my charismatic friends get it wrong.
You don't need to be a distraction, you don't need to be the center of attention.
Where my conservative friends, in my tradition, gets it wrong is they say it's not real.
I'm here to tell you it is real and I've seen it over and over and over again.
I've seen it done right and I've seen it done wrong, but it is real.
It is real.
So here's what we're going to do right now.
We're going to open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit.
No music, no song, no production, no fogs, no coming forward, no flags, no carpets, no
blankets.
Nobody's getting slain.
Nobody's dying today.
Do you know why?
The Holy Spirit doesn't need anything but a willing vessel.
Here's what I want you to know.
If you're not a Christian now, here's what you need to know about God.
God calls.
He never coerces.
He wants faith.
He doesn't force himself.
That's not who God is.
So let's just pause right here and let's just pray.
So here's what I want you to do, is I want you to bow your head.
I want you to close your eyes.
And if your prayer is flat, if you're frustrated with your prayer life, could it be that
you need the Holy Spirit?
Could it be that you've separated yourself from God?
So let's just invite him right now.
And let me just say this.
If you're in a sandal service, we don't want any outbursts.
This is not your opportunity to hijack what God is doing here.
This is just about us silently receiving, calling out to Holy Spirit, saying, I want more
of you in my prayer life.
For some of us, he's going to give us this gift for all of us.
He's going to empower us.
Every single person will be empowered.
Some of us will be gifted in a new way.
Let's pray.
Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus, we just come to you right now.
And Lord, as the pastor of this church, I just say, sometimes my prayers are flat, they're
rote and they're mundane.
And it feels, Lord, sometimes like I'm just checking a box.
Fill me afresh with your spirit, Holy Spirit.
I just confess, Lord, my pride in what I think I know, my pride in my understanding of you.
And I just confess that.
And I invite you, holy spirit, to just fill us as a church to fill every believer in this
place.
Fill us with the power to pray like Jesus.
And, Lord, for some of us, fill us with this gift to pray in a way that we don't
understand.
That's a mystery, but is beautiful.
We pray this in Jesus name.
Amen.
Now, here's the thing.
Nobody needs you to teach you how to do this.
When it's been authentic, people, it just happens.
It's never forced.
It just happens.
It'll feel like there's something inside that has to get out.
And when it's just you and God, let it out.
Let it out.
It's a beautiful thing.
All right, next.
All the Baptists can relax.
Here we go.
You survived.
Next.
Learn to listen for God's voice when I pray.
Well, you said, Pastor Matt, it's primary.
I know what I said.
Prayer is about connection, not conversation.
But, you know, sometimes God speaks him when he wants to learn to listen for God's voice,
because some of you.
Hello.
Are hard headed and God is speaking at you and you don't listen.
Revelation 110.
This is John who wrote the book of revelation.
He says on the Lord's day, that's Sunday, he says, I was in the spirit.
Whoa.
He's not just praying in the spirit.
He's so close to the Holy Spirit, he can't distinguish himself from what the spirit is
doing.
I was in the spirit.
He said, I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet.
As your pastor, let me tell you something.
I have heard God speak.
You say, what did it sound like?
It felt like a train crashing into my chest.
It was beautiful and terrifying.
Beautiful and terrifying.
When God speaks, your whole body, your whole soul will shake.
When God spoke to the Israelites, they begged Moses to tell him to stop.
You see, some of you worship a wimpy Jesus, and that's not the real Jesus.
When he speaks, people fall.
Lord, what do you have to say?
What do you have to say?
That's why John says I fell as though I was dead.
Hebrews three, seven through eight.
So, as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear his voice, I don't know if you will.
Do not harden your hearts.
You see, the Holy Spirit can speak to me through the Bible.
So I said, prayer is the primary way I connect with God.
Do you want to know why you need to read your Bible?
Your Bible is the primary way he connects with you.
Some of you are like, I want a word from you, Jesus.
And Jesus is like, I want you to do something about the words I said.
And you're like, I want a new word.
And he said, I want you to be obedient to the old words.
Sometimes he can use a voice.
It can be a still, small voice.
Sometimes it's a strong urging.
As I was writing this message this week, I felt prompted to stop my sermon and pray for a
staff member.
And I just texted him.
I said, I don't know what's happening for you right now, but God is telling me to stop this
message and to pray for you.
You see, God can do that.
Sandals church raised two extra million dollars in December.
We had this huge goal.
It was a massive undertaking.
Money's tight.
McDonald's is now $100 a meal for happy meal.
It's like, what's going on?
And we were $34,000 short of our goal.
And the Holy Spirit urged a member of our church to write a check for the exact amount we
needed.
That's the Holy Spirit.
I don't know why, Frida, but I feel like it should be 434 thousand, whoever it was.
Thank you.
Next.
The Lord can speak through a trusted believer.
Keyword trusted.
And if you need to pray about that, talk to someone on staff.
I don't know if they're trustworthy.
Okay, then I wouldn't talk to them.
Trusted believer.
I kid you not.
I was working out at the gym, getting stacked, and this young hispanic woman came up to me.
She said, are you pastor Matt?
And I said, yes.
She said, my boyfriend's going to get in a fight outside, and you need to stop it.
It's like, okay.
So I go out there, I'm walking out there, and two Jack dudes, I mean swole dudes, are
getting ready to throw down.
And so I shout out at the guy, he goes to our church.
I said, Mike, what are you doing?
Can I just say, if you're about ready to look at porn, and I just magically appear in your
living room, and I'm like, what are you doing?
That's God, stop.
What are you doing, Mike, what are you doing?
And this other hispanic guy comes up to me.
He's like, yo, man, nobody's jumping in this fight.
I was like, you think I'm jumping in?
I was like, come here, let's bring.
Oh, yeah.
You see, I'm the age of both of these guys together.
There will be no jumping in.
But I said, mike, what are you doing?
Mike says to the guy, he's about ready to fight.
Hey, that's my pastor.
That's what he said.
And then he fought the dude.
And I watched a church member get punched in the face several times, and then they were
done fighting, and they just walked by me.
I was like, Mike, what's going on?
He's, like, handling some business.
And I'm like, and here's the thing, Mike.
If you're listening and you're sitting in church, I love you, brother.
But in that moment, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and he said, if you don't change your
life, I'm going to do your funeral.
Do you feel that?
You see, the Holy Spirit speaks.
And here's the thing, Mike.
People at your funeral are going to be sad because they love you and they care for you.
And everybody at that funeral is going to say, why did God do this?
And what I'm going to be thinking is, Mike, why didn't you listen?
Change your life today.
You don't need to handle your business.
You need to handle his business.
Last point.
I love you, Mike.
I love you, and I'm praying for you.
Last point.
Remind yourself of who you are as you pray.
Some of you are so sad.
You're like, I don't have the gift of the Holy Spirit.
And then some of you are like me.
You're like, I don't have any gifts.
And you just feel so second class.
Some of us feel dumb.
I don't get God.
I'm not smart.
I mean, some of us, right, we're not good at reading.
Lord, I can't read your word.
Man.
I got news for you.
When you pray and you talk to God, I want you to remember who you are this week because you
don't know who you are.
Because if you knew who you are, you would pray every day.
Galatians four, four through seven, it says.
But when the right time came, God sent his son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves.
Why?
So that he could adopt us.
Listen to this.
As his very own children.
And because we are his children, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts.
We all have the Holy Spirit, prompting us to cry out, Abba, Father, you see, when you
become a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit.
And God's not just God, he's dad.
Abba is the word that little kids in Israel use for daddy.
Abba.
Abba, right.
Abba.
He says, now you are no longer a slave, but God's own child.
Look, my kids are grown, but do you know they all have keys to my house?
They can come home anytime.
Do you want to know why?
My home is their home.
It's where they belong.
Do you know what heaven is for you if you're a believer?
Home.
When's the last time you visited?
When is the last time you came by?
My parents are old and I love them.
And whenever I go see them, you know what they say?
Thank you so much for coming home, son.
We love to see you.
I know you don't know how to pray.
I know you don't know what to say.
I know some of you are like, I don't even know there was a holy spirit.
You're just know.
I feel so dumb.
Sorry.
That's my spiritual gift, I guess.
I don't know.
But here's the thing.
My parents don't care what I've done, who I am.
They don't care that I'm Pastor Matt.
They care that I'm their son.
And for some of you this week, let me tell you why you need to pray every day this week,
because you need to go home.
Do you miss home?
For some of you, it's been way too long.
And just say, dad, I've been out there.
That's what prayer is.
So I'm going to do right now is I'm going to pray over you and dismiss you.
So this is new.
No bells, no whistles.
I'm just going to dismiss you.
Listen to this.
As you go home today, I want you to go home to your physical home and I want you to go home
today and pray and check in with your internal home and just say, abba, daddy, it's been
too long.
I'm so sorry.
And here's the thing.
He's not going to guilt trip you.
He loves you.
He sent his one and only son, Jesus to die for you so you could have these conversations.
Isn't that great?
So let me pray for you and then you'll be dismissed.
And if you're at a campus and you need prayer today, you can still go forward.
At the end of service, there'll be people to pray for you there.
And if you're watching online, let us know if we can help you.
We love you guys, but here's the thing.
Prayer is hard by yourself, but with the Holy Spirit, it's powerful.
Amen.
Let's pray together.
Jesus, we pray in your holy name that your holy spirit would help us pray.
God, let us not make this 40 days a to do list, something to add to our calendar.
But God, let us be away where each and every day we're checking in with home because you
sent your son to earth for us so we could be with you in heaven.
But lord, we don't have to wait for heaven till we die.
We can talk to you right now through prayer because of Jesus.
So Holy Spirit, empower us all this week as we go home and we talk to you each and every
day through this series.
We pray this in Jesus holy name.
Amen.