Prayer as Intimacy With The Father | Prayer

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, they weren't looking for techniques—they wanted the closeness with the Father that they saw in Him. Pastor Cameron opens this prayer series by showing that prayer is less about information and more about an invitation to know and be known by the God who made you.

Luke 11:1 | additional: Matthew 6:9-13, Philippians 4:5-7, Psalm 37:4

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Creators and Guests

Host

Cameron Lienhart

Cameron is the Senior Pastor of Conduit Ministries

What is Conduit Ministries?

We are all about helping people get closer to Jesus.
Sundays @ 9 AM & 11 AM - 120 Delaware Ave in Jamestown, NY

Well, good morning, Conduit, how are you? I see a few of us drew the bingo cards this morning to wear the shirt. Stan, we're looking awfully handsome this morning. Brad, looking awfully handsome this morning. It's just, you know, at this point, you just gotta, you gotta think if you're gonna roll the dice to wear this shirt on a Sunday morning, it's likely that someone else is gonna be wearing it too, so. So before we get into the sermon for this morning, we're starting a new sermon series today that's aligned with one of our major themes for the year here, which is seeking the face of God through prayer and Sabbath. And we're gonna be starting a series on prayer this morning and I think we had to start. We had it scheduled for four weeks. I don't know, I wrote my sermon this week and it looked like it was gonna be about two hours long. So, well, it's good to be back with you. I, you know, we talk about Sabbath coming up in a couple of weeks here, another month or so. I'm always, I am an advocate for Sabbath, I am an advocate for time off, I am an advocate

For breaking the normal rhythm of your life and I think that it's when we break the normal rhythm of our lives, at least it's been in my experience, that when I break the normal rhythm of my life is when I experience the presence and the voice of God most significantly. And I don't think that's, I don't think that's coincidental at all. I said all that to say I wasn't here last week and even though I appreciate the time away and the time off, man, I just miss you guys when I'm not here and so it's great to be back with you. I was in New York City my first time, I was such a big boy, I went there all by myself and I even drove in the city and I went on the subway and I survived and it was, I more than survived, I should say. I went to a conference out there on prayer and I just want to tell you, you know, from the heart of your pastor to the heart of my people that God moved in significant ways

In my life, in significant ways in my life and the timing was very appropriate. Coming back into preaching a series on prayer, something that is not neglected in the church, even the talk of it is not neglected, but had a burden on my heart this morning to talk about prayer maybe in a slightly different way than we are used to talking about it and then trusting that over the next four-ish weeks or so that we're able to grow in our corporate practice of prayer as we ask the Lord to give us not more information or facts about prayer, but to give us a spirit of prayer, to pour out His spirit upon us, to draw us into intimacy with God and to have the intimacy of the Father drive our prayer. When we stand up to talk about prayer, I want you to understand that I get, I am keenly aware of the monumental task that is before the preacher when they stand up to talk about something like prayer. If we were going to, it would be impossible, save, we did a whole year on prayer and I

Preached two hours every week on prayer, it would be nearly impossible to plumb the depth of even just the scriptural accounts of prayer from old and New Testament. The amount of revelation that there is in the scripture when the people of God call out to God, calling on the name of the Lord is how you often see prayer referenced in the New Testament, or in the Old Testament, I'm sorry, and then of course the lamenting that we see in the Psalms and in the prophetic books and then as we see in the New Testament scriptures on prayer, the practice of prayer in Jesus' life, the way in which He utilized prayer, He talked about prayer, He got in solitary place to go pray, the prayers that you saw Him pray and the prayers that you didn't see Him pray, and then the prayers that Paul prayed over His churches and then the prayers that we see in the book of, listen, we might not get sick of it because it would fill our hearts, but there is so much there that to even, like, we're not, we can't even, we can't even say that five weeks of scratching the surface, okay?

Well, I just want you to be aware that I'm aware of that, and that's just the scriptural references and accounts of prayer. Over here, this is, listen, this is not, this is just 100% in humility and as a prop, sermon prop, okay? These are all the books that I have in my personal library in my office on the topic of prayer, okay? And this is probably with, like, real serious prayers. This is a small smattering of books, right? Tons of information here, right? Lots, lots of good facts, lots of good practices, lots of good sample prayers, really, really, really good information. This doesn't even include maybe some of the commentaries that I have in the office on that explain or give deeper insight into the scripture about prayer, and listen, yeah, with all of this knowledge, with all of this information at our fingertips, you can Google, you can Google a thousand and one ways to pray. You can go to YouTube and get a million different sermons on prayer, like, listen, information is voluminous. We drowned in information every single day. We do not lack for information for any spiritual thing whatsoever, yet with all of the knowledge, with all of the information that we have at the fingertips, it's my, I've been doing this

For a while now. Listen, I think, I will say confidently that any serious disciple of prayer would be or should be quick to admit that prayer is wrapped up in a really significant bit of mystery and wonder and glory. We can write volumes on the practice of prayer and what we think of prayer. When we get down to the foundation of what is actually happening, when we are calling out to the Lord, something mysterious and wonderful and glorious and holy is happening. I mean, the eternal God who has been in existence since there was existence, who created the expanse of the universe, the God who dwells in unapproachable light and glory and majesty, who is in himself holiness, whose face no man has ever seen, who splits seas and who raises the dead to life, who brings healing to the crippled and recovery of sight to the blind, like that God wants to talk to you. And not only does that God want to talk to you, he allows himself to be moved by our prayer. He allows himself to be moved by my prayer.

Who am I? You think you understand prayer? Explain that. There are certainly things that we can know and believe and practice about prayer. Certainly we're going to talk about lots of them, but listen, if we should not step far away from the reality that, man, this is bound up in God's glory and holiness in such a way that we should be a little bit more humble about how much we think we know about prayer and instead approach it with like the humility of mystery that we get to participate with God in like the, I don't even remember what the video said. All I know is it hit me in my spirit, right? We get to participate with Jesus as our prayers bend the art of human history. Now on the other side of that extraordinary mystery, of the extraordinary glory that there is in prayer, there are also things that we can definitely know. Now this is not the same thing as saying that what we can know about prayer is the 10 greatest hacks to having an explosive prayer life. Sounds like a book title you can see at Sam's Club.

I'm not down on books at Sam's, but there was something more and I think there's something, not just something more, there's something first to know about prayer before you start knowing about prayer. And that's kind of what I want to talk about this morning. And even as I was preaching this morning and I was going over, I was trying to edit the sermon last night and I was like trying to get at and grasp this idea that I've both been seeing in scripture, but feeling in my spirit, like there's also, there's also this sense of like, it's like you're, like you need, you need increasing hunger in your spirit for prayer to begin to grasp the foundation of prayer. I hope you'll understand as like, go on. For instance, the disciples, they, they asked Jesus, probably one of the most famous passages of prayer on prayer in scripture. They said, Jesus, would you teach us how to pray? It's clear that there is a desire for more about prayer from the disciples of Jesus in that context. Luke chapter 11 is where we see that different gospels have different ways of reporting that.

But we see in Luke chapter 11, the disciples were like, Lord teach us to pray. It's clear there's something to be known. Jesus or E.M. Bounds, this famous pastor and author said this, he said, for Jesus, it was worth the trip from heaven to earth to teach men how to pray. It was worth the trip if Jesus could just get men praying. If he could just get them before the heart of God, if he, if he could just impart to them a spirit of prayer to get them in communion with the father, it was worth the trip. And Jesus was certainly passionate about prayer. There are lots of times where I'm sure you're thinking, oh yeah, I know that story of Jesus in the gospel about prayer and I know that story about Jesus in the gospel about prayer. And I know that story and that story and that story. There's one story that I was like, oh my gosh, I like that completely. You ever read a scripture and you're like, I've read that a billion times and I never seen that or I've never like considered like fresh revelation.

And this is one of those times where I was reading and I was like, what am I doing? Teach chapter 21, this is Matthew's account of Jesus clearing the temple, right? And you know, we all, this is everyone's favorite scripture to justify when they get angry, right? Well, Jesus flipped tables, but in Matthew's account of clearing the temple of money changers, Jesus said this, it is written, he said to them, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers. What became apparent to me this last time that I read this was it's really clear fact. Jesus had at his disposal, the options to call the house, the temple, anything that he wanted to. My father's house, this place, this temple shall be called a house of preaching. This place shall be called a house of fellowship. My father's house will be called a house of study. My father's house will be called a house of teaching. All great things, all beautiful things, all necessary for the life of sanctification and following Jesus, I believe. But Jesus chose out of all the things that he possibly could have chose in a moment of passion, in certainly a moment of spirit filled righteousness said, listen, my father's house

Will be called a house of prayer, wow. This fact and this fact alone, I think implores us to inquire with the Lord about this holy mystery of prayer that he calls us into to ask some questions. While this sermon series will certainly contain some practical points, guides, handholds on the climb, so to speak, to praying, I want to be clear from the outset. I want you to hear me really clearly, okay? I want you to hear me really clearly because this is like, this is how we're going forward in this series. I want to be clear from the outset that I think we actually need less information about prayer and more inspiration from the Holy Spirit to pursue the God of prayer. We need less head knowledge and we need more heart pursuit. We need less knowledge up in here consumed with facts about how to pray. If you want to write a book about prayer, read all these and then write your own ideas. Great information, great knowledge, great facts, relying on facts brings us to a place of making prayer about duty. But when we seek with all of our heart the God of prayer, then prayer becomes for us

No longer duty, but it becomes a pursuit of intimacy with the God of prayer. Duty makes us quit quickly because there's no intimacy in duty. But when we pursue the God of prayer and create intimacy with Him as the basis of our prayer life rather than just the information about the practice, then we create intimacy, which is bound up in covenant relationship. I pray not because I know a thousand and one ways to pray. I pray because I am enchanted and enloved and enraptured by the glory of the one whom I meet in prayer. Because God's presence and God's Spirit falls and fills and empowers and encourages and burdens and moves and transforms. And so if we are going to create in our hearts a culture of prayer, we must put aside the contemporary idea that we just need more information and pick up the reality that the God of prayer is calling us into a devoted pursuit of His ark and that will set our feet on solid ground. That's my prayer for myself. Not that I would become more knowledgeable about prayer, but that I would become more

In love with God. Because I know that one just leads to duty, another leads to intimacy. No amount of information on prayer will make you a better or more prolific prayer. Let me tell you, I am your example. I've read all of these books. Some of them I've read twice. That's not a brag that's just telling you from experience, great information will not necessarily make you more connected to the God of prayer. What develops the prayer life of a person is a deep and searching desire to know God in our heart. To see Him move in our world, to have Him enthroned on the words of our lips. In this way, prayer is, prayer starts with God. Prayer starts as an invitation from God to know the God that created you. It's an invitation to intimacy with Him. When we believe that prayer begins with us, prayer quickly devolves, maybe that's not a generous enough term, right, when we believe that prayer begins with us, then prayer only starts and ends with the grocery list that we have. Now listen, God wants to hear the articulation of our heart, right?

And so we do pray the list. But when the list is the totality of our experience in prayer, it is a warning sign to us that prayer has begun with us and not begun as an invitation from God to come and meet with me. Prayer always starts as the invitation of the Lord to enter into intimacy with Him. Come and meet with me. Come and be with me. Get alone with me. Come to a solitary place with me. It's never a—it very rarely is a, "Hey, go pray about this for this person over here." It starts as that, you know, it can be that. But prayer always starts as an invitation to intimacy with the Lord. It is first and foremost about God, and the implication is just as staggering when we continue to consider the mystery and the glory that is and the access that offers. I oftentimes think in my life, you know, I have some—I have some people that I look up to, people that don't know that I look up to them, people that don't know me, right? I watch from afar, right, pastors and theologians, right?

Some athletes, you know, you look up to them and you work hard. You work hard in your heart to ensure that there's not an idolatry of man that builds up there, right? And I don't know about you, but there are times and places in my life where I imagine what it would be like to have access to them, right? If I could just ask them some questions, if I could just get some time with them, if I could just be their friend, if I could just work alongside of them, if I could just X, Y, and Z, this, that, and another, and you think about like, what could I gain if I just had access with that person that has the thing that I think I need and want? And then you recognize that in prayer, God is giving you an invitation to access to Him, the giver of all things, the sustainer of all things, the creator of all things, the very fount of wisdom and love, the place that the Spirit comes from. We have been given access in prayer to the immeasurable and eternal and infinite resources

Of a God who says, "Come and meet with me." What an invitation to come before Him in awe and wonder, in intimacy and closeness. And when we accept that invitation and we begin to pursue and enter into the presence of God through prayer, we begin to recognize that it is not now just the circumstances of our lives around us that begin to change, but that something else significant is changing as well. When God is pursued in prayer, intimacy is developed, relationship is developed, a common language is developed, a sense of like, a sense of intuition and knowing and discernment is developed, right? When we commune with someone, intimacy is developed, and then communication becomes more clear. There are things that, in my relationship with my wife, you know, we've been married for 21 years. There's times where we don't have to say words to communicate. She knows what I'm thinking. I know what she's thinking, right? There's a oneness, a unity that comes from the development of intimacy over time, where now, right, we don't struggle like we used to, so when you continue to step into that

Invitation with God, pursuing Him in prayer, that intimacy is developed and God begins to replace your heart for His heart. When you abide in the secret place with God long enough, consistently enough, the things that break God's heart begin to break your heart. The things that God loves, you begin to get a love for. The thing that God hates, you begin to hate. Prayer brings a oneness of heart with the Father in heaven. One of the most, I was going to say famous, but well-known scriptures on the posture and heart of prayer is Psalm 37.4. You know what? "Delight yourself in the Lord, right, and He will give you the desires of your heart." I remember hearing this verse early in life. I don't remember exactly how young I was. I was like between the ages of 7 and 12, somewhere in there, I know that for sure. I remember being captivated by this verse, being struck by it, because, man, listen, I was a child with a childlike faith, and I was like, "Well, let's go, God, because I got some desires. Here we go.

I'm going to delight myself in you, Lord. I'm going to say all the nice words, and I'm going to avoid all the bad words. I'm going to listen to Mom. I'm going to get good grades, right? I'm not going to hit my sister, and I'm not going to kick the dog. I'm going to do all my chores. Everything's going to be good. Get my allowance, and listen, your end of the deal, God, is I want my power wheels up in this place, okay? Right here. Not joking, okay? This was like, "Lord, I want a power wheel, " told my mom, "Lord, Mom, I saw this verse. Don't let yourself in the Lord. I will give you the desires of your heart. I just want to let you know, Mom, I am praying for a power wheel, " and she was like, "You better pray that the Lord expands my pocketbook, because you ain't getting the power wheels." But there was this desire in my heart, right? This is what I want, Lord. No consideration as to whether or not that desire was righteous or his, and not that

The Lord doesn't bless us with things that just simply bring us joy, and I believe that. I didn't get a power wheel, so I just want to let you know. Never got one, but listen, the Lord stored up those prayers in my own pocketbook, and as soon as I became a dad, my son had one, I'll tell you that much. I may have taken it for a few spins around the lawn, 27 years old, but, listen, the reality here is that this verse and verses like it is not a, "Pursue the Lord and he will make all your dreams come true." Seek after him and everything that you want, no matter what it is, will be yours, abundance and blessing and favor in every imaginable sphere that you could, that you can conjure up in your mind. It's not what the Lord, that's not the heart of the Lord, and that's not what this says. This is a, listen, God is the giver of the, when you delight yourself in the Lord, God is the giver of the thing that your heart desires. So God reorders your desires.

He's the one that places whatever your desire is in your heart. It's not he gives you whatever existed in your heart as a desire before him. So in the pursuit of intimacy with him, he replaces what was once a fleshly desire with a desire that is in alignment with his spirit. And that change comes from a pursuit of intimate relationship with him that the basis of us getting what we want from the Lord is not twisting his arm into like trying to convince him to give us the proverbial power wheels. It's about us saying like, Lord, I will enter into communion and relationship and intimacy with you so much so that your desires, Lord, now become mine. Take out my heart, Lord, and put your heart in me. That is my pursuit in prayer. Lord, Lord, I don't want to pray for the things that I want, Lord. I want you to give me a heart that beats in devotion to you so that everything I pray for, Lord, is completely in alignment with yours. We see this and understand this idea in marriage as well, just to talk to you about my marriage with my wife, Sherry, as you grow in intimacy with your spouse, where it may be once started

As well I have my goals and she has her goals and she's got these goals and I've got these goals and we're just moving along parallel with one another. Those tracks never cross, right? But over time as intimacy is developed, there's no longer my goals and her goals. Here's our goals. We are one, right? This is the covenant. This is the covenant of marriage, right? A man will leave his father and mother. A woman will leave his father and mother. They will come together. The two will become one flesh, right? They will become one. So intimacy is always, intimacy both in human relationships and in our relationship with our heavenly father is always the alignment of our hearts. Prayer is about bringing our hearts into unity and alignment with the heart and spirit of God. That's getting on God's page through intimacy with him. There's two sections, oh geez, Lord help us all. There's two sections of scripture here that I think are some of the most well known when it comes to talking about prayer and they both illustrate this same point that the beginning of prayer is always the development of intimacy with the Lord.

That prayer is about the development of intimacy with the Lord. The prayer is about the development of intimacy with the Lord over and over and over and over and over again. Every time someone wants to start with their human need, Jesus or the scriptures bring it back to, hey, remember, it begins with the Lord. It begins with the Lord. It begins with the Lord. Two examples here, okay? We're going to try and do them fairly quickly. The first example is most famous example of prayer in scripture, yell it out, you know what, Lord's prayer, right? Our father, okay? We said in Luke, we said in Luke chapter 11, Luke records the conversation to go something like this. Hey, Jesus, we see that John, he's got disciples and he taught them to pray a little bit. So wondering, could you please teach us to pray? Now, again, going back to Jesus' comment in Matthew chapter 21 on being a house of prayer, right? Those disciples for crying out loud, they could have asked, hey, Jesus, teach us how to raise the dead, teach us how to heal the leper, teach us how to multiply the food, teach us how to turn the water into wine, right?

Teach us how to do those things, fancy, Instagram, picturesque, perfect, right? I'm posting that, okay, right? None of that. They were like, Lord, we need to know about this. Teach us to pray. But what is interesting here is that by all accounts, what we know culturally about those young men is that this request was probably not about the sharing of information at all. They were not like, Lord, give us your five best prayer hacks, please. The book that you wrote on prayer, Lord, could you read it? We want to do a study on it. It was not about that at all. It wasn't a request for information. It wasn't an information age that they lived in. It was a request for demonstration. They wanted to see it, right? Bring us along with you, Lord. We see you praying here. We know you're praying over there, too. And that's solitary. All kinds of times we can't find you. You're up on a mountain, communing, doing what? Communing with the Father. Teach us, teach us about this. Show us. Give us the same spirit, the same desire.

Get us behind the curtain of your prayer life, Jesus. You see, the young disciples were all Jewish men. All Jewish boys, right? They were not unfamiliar with prayer. There was a regular encyclical prayer culture in life in the Jewish faith and for Jewish families. They had daily, they had prayers at increments during the day. They had morning prayers. They had afternoon prayers. They had evening prayers. They had specific prayers that they prayed, the Shema. They prayed every single day, multiple times a day. They even had specific clothing that they would wear in order to pray. This is called a Talit. It's a prayer shawl, right? And words of the Torah on them, it was meant to remind them both of the law and the covenants. These tassels on the end have knots tied into them that remind that they're supposed to touch and hold to remind them of the commandments, their specific number of knots on each tassel. They were steeped in prayer, not unfamiliar with prayer. They were not asking the Lord, "Hey, Lord, we have no idea what we just see you talking to this invisible guy all the time, and we have no idea what that is.

Could you tell us what you're doing?" Not at all in their mind. They knew what prayer was, but what they saw was that there was an unfamiliarity with the type of prayer that Jesus was engaged in. What they recognized was that Jesus wasn't just familiar with prayer. Jesus was familiar with the Father in a way that they had never seen before. And that's what they wanted. The young disciples wanted to know about Jesus' relationship with the Father, not his best prayer hacks. When he went to teach them, he taught them about a relationship that was birthed in devotion and worship. When Jesus answered the question, teach us how to pray, what did he begin the prayer with? It wasn't a say this and say that. Make sure you do this and do that. He started it, he planted the conversation of teaching on prayer in the relationship that the prayer had with the Father. When you pray, Jesus says, make sure you understand who you're praying to. This is not some far-off deity that cannot be known. This is not some golden statue in the wilderness.

This is not some nebulous God that controls the weather or agriculture or fertility. Listen, we pray to a God we know who is our Father. Prayer is an invitation to intimacy with the Father. Our Father, he said. And not only was prayer an invitation to intimacy with the Father, but prayer now was an act, an expression of worship to a God that we could know, but that to a God that we recognize was wholly different than us. Our Father, who art in where not here, in heaven, hallowed or holy, set apart, glorified is your name. That when the disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray, he didn't give them a bunch of facts. He started out by saying, listen, boys. This all starts in intimacy with a Father who is holy. The praying person prays from a place of intimacy and honor. That is the ground from where we pray. We pray from the place of intimacy and honor. Probably one of the second best known passages of scripture on prayer is out of one of Paul's letters. Every anxious person knows this prayer, right, or knows this scripture.

From Philippians chapter four, verses five through seven, what to say? Do not be anxious about anything, right? But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, would guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I mean, Paul, love you, doesn't sound like you have ever had anxiety before, right? Totally written, like someone who's never experienced anxiety before. But listen, I'm standing on faith to believe this morning for it, because we usually start that section of scripture exactly where I started it. Do not be anxious about anything. It's not where that scripture starts, though. We always start in the place of human need, don't we? But Paul does not start that scripture in the place of human need. He starts that scripture in the place of intimacy. What's he say? The Lord is what? Do you see it in your Bibles? Open up your Bibles. Don't look at the screen. If you have a Bible, open it up. Philippians chapter four, verse five and six. It's not even gonna be on the screen, don't even get your hopes up.

I love this. Why do we skip this? It's not a bunch of dorks we are. Let your gentleness, this is verse five. Let your gentleness be evident to all. And then what? The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God in the peace of God, which passes all understanding, regard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Listen, Paul does not start from the place of human need, right? Because the place of prayer does not start with the place of human need. The place of prayer always starts with nearness to the Lord. Intimacy with the Lord, closeness with the Lord, our Father here in this place who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Father and author Peter Greek said this, "The most important discovery you will ever make is the love the Father has for you. Your power in prayer will flow from the certainty that the one who made you, likes you. He is not scowling at you, he is on your side. Unless our mission and our acts of mercy, our intercession, petition, confession, spiritual

Warfare begin and end in the knowledge of the Father's love, then we will act and pray out of desperation, determination and duty instead of revelation, expectation and joy." When our prayer life starts and ends anywhere else other than the love of the Father, we will act and pray out of desperation, determination and duty instead of revelation, expectation and joy. Prayer always starts with him, brothers and sisters. Okay, that's great, Pastor. How do I get better at it? I get you. I hear it, right? Listen, this is the crucible of my life right now. Get better at prayer. Get into the secret place. Get a spirit of prayer. Like that, this is my life, okay? I have the same questions, I have the same desires, I have the same heart, I am pushing in the same way, right, but we cannot push past the truth, right? That prayer begins with the Father, prayer begins with the Father. Prayer begins with him. Desire for him, desire for him, hunger for him, wanting nothing else but to just be filled with him. How do you get better at praying?

I'm going to give you two answers that you're not going to like, okay? Number one, you ask. This is not a secret, okay? There's no secrets here. How do you get better at praying? You ask. You ask the Lord in prayer for God to give you a heart and spirit of prayer. Well, that kind of seems like a little bit of circular reasoning there, pastor. I don't really know if I can get on board with that. Yeah, but it works, okay? I don't... Listen, this is mystery, but listen, God shows up and answers prayers that are in alignment with his heart. When you begin to pray, Lord, I want to know you more, Father. I sense your invitation to come into greater communion and intimacy with you, Lord. Give me a heart that desires you and nothing else. Father, I want a spirit of prayer. Burden me, Lord, with your heart so that I can do nothing else but pray, Lord. Give me prayer, Lord. I want to pray more, Lord. I want to pray more, Lord. I want a burden for you in prayer, Lord.

Give me a spirit of prayer. Like a never-ending chorus on your lips and on your heart. God will show up and answer that prayer. Second way that you get better at praying is you pray. A number of authors over time, authors and pastors, really, authors, pastors and saviors, maybe I should say, have had some way of saying or communicating this main point here. So I've kind of smashed the quotes together to give you an idea. Prayer is more practice than theory. You learn to pray by praying. You learn to pray by praying. This is what Jesus did. He showed his disciples to pray. He didn't say, "Okay, this is how you should pray. Do this first and then think about this thing." No, he was like, "No, you want to learn? I'll teach you to pray? Okay, pray. Here's how you pray this prayer right here." You learn to pray by praying. Richard Foster, the famous pastor and author of Celebration of Discipline, said something similar to this. Mother Teresa said the same thing, another pastor and author, Philip Yancey, and then some no-name pastor from nowhere is telling you the same thing, right?

You want to learn how to pray, you need to pray. Well, okay, I got it then. Tomorrow morning, 4 a.m., alarm's going off. Praying for three hours. I'm going to get after it. Here we go. You learn to pray by praying. Let's do this. The famous performer of the church, Martin Luther, said this. He said, "I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours of my day in prayer." Like, okay, let's go, right? But listen, how many of you tried that before? Tried? Tried? All right. And you're like, and you're getting out, and you get up early, and you're like, "You're getting after it in prayer, Lord, and do this, Lord, and show me this, and like, Lord, make this happen, and Lord, you're glorious, and I want more of your heart." And you're like, just absolutely tearing apart the spiritual world with your prayers, and you are so getting after it in prayer, and you're getting tired, and you're losing your voice, and you're sweating, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, whoo, I must have been praying for an hour now."

And you open your eyes, and it's been five minutes, and you're like, "Okay, what now?" Right? Or you get up really early, and you make the mistake of sitting on the couch. Cliner comes out, blanket, a cup of coffee, "No, not me, of course." Cup of tea these days, and you just start praying, and you're like, "Yeah, Lord, I'm here, I'm ready to go, use me for what you will, empty me, Lord, I'm all yours." You wake up, and you're like, "Oh, I guess I did something for an hour, " but it wasn't prayer. We've all been there, right? Where we're like, "I want to pray more, and I want to have a heart for prayer, and I want to have a passion for prayer, " and so we just jump in the deep end of prayer without ever considering whether or not God was wanting to grow our capacity to pray over time, that God is gentle and God is kind, and He doesn't look at the place that we're at in our infancy with prayer and looks on it with condemnation and disappointment and disgust, but that every fleeting moment that He gets with us, prayers as we're passing through, a moment as we're

Sitting down, the Lord is like, "I love spending time with you. I love being here in this place with you." Don John Chapman says this, "That we should pray as we can, not as you can't." We need to pray more as we can and less as we can't. If you can't pray for an hour, pray for a minute, and God will increase your capacity every time you enter into communion with Him. If you can't pray with words, pray by journaling. If you've got a bum hand and you can't write, flip on some worship music and sing songs of praise and prayer to the Lord. Pray as you can, not as you can't. If you can't pray with hope and faith, pray with doubt and pray with disappointment and bring a heart submitted to the Lord to Him. And the communion with the Father will bring you healing and change your heart. Maybe you're like, "Yeah, okay, Pastor, I'm with you, but I don't even really... I want this. I don't even know what I would even say." I want to pray as I can, not as I can.

I can only pray for one minute right now, but I don't even know what I would say in that minute. I got you. Okay? Let me take a picture of this with your phone. You can write it down in the cover of your Bible. Right? This is my prayer. I pray this every day, like millions of times because this is my heartbeat right now. I cannot get this out of my soul. Father in heaven, I am asking for a greater desire to pray. I want to know you in ways that I've never thought possible before. Please come and meet me in prayer and teach me how to seek you more.

If you, this morning, are sensing, "Oh, Jesus, Jesus." If you are sensing this morning the invitation of the Lord, the invitation of the Lord to come and know Him more, to discover His beauty and wonder in prayer, to say, "Lord, I stand before you, asking, Lord, for a greater desire to pray." If you, sensing the invitation from the Holy Spirit to accept the invitation of God to intimacy with Him, I've been sensing that in my life more and more. And I think that moments of consecration and devotion serve as signposts of our spiritual journey that God uses to remind us of what He is doing and has done. And so what I'm gonna ask is, I'm gonna ask the worship team to lead us in worship, but we have lots of space up here in this front area here, in this front area over here. And what I'm asking is that if you're sensing an invitation of the Lord to come, to seek His face, to ask for a spirit and a burden of prayer, that you would stand and we'll all be standing in worship, but that you would come forward and stand up here, or you can kneel at the altar in prayer.

And as the rest of us are worshiping and as the worship team is leading us, I'm gonna pray specifically for those of you who have come up to say, no, I want more of the Lord. I want more. I want a spirit and a burden of prayer. And I'm gonna offer up some prayer for us down for, I'm like, I don't care. No one can come. I'm up here. I'm gonna be up here. I want this. I want this. So if you're, if you're sensing that invitation now, I want to just invite you to stand and come forward now. I'm gonna meet you down front here and then the rest of the rest of us, let's stand as well in worship as we respond to the Lord, consecrating our hearts, asking for a spirit of prayer. Lord, we make ourselves living sanctuaries for you. Lord, we receive your invitation to come into prayer as an expression of intimacy and love. Father, I pray that you would give us a spirit of prayer, that you would make us a house of prayer, Lord, that you would make us a place, Father, where our pursuit of you is

Marked in worship, honor, relationship, and prayer, Father. Lord release us from this place as consecrated and dedicated people, praying, Lord, as we can. Lord, we thank you for that invitation to just pray as we can, to pray like this person or that person, or I'm just gonna pray as I can and I'm gonna, I'm gonna enjoy the beauty and joy, Lord, of communion with you, Father, the enemy cannot steal our voice in prayer to you. We reject, Lord, the fear of man and the spirit of fear and we claim an inheritance as a son and a daughter who has an audience with the Father because you love us. In Jesus name, amen. Conduit, you are loved. Have a great week.