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Teaching podcast from the Eagle Community Church of Christ in Mont Belvieu, TX.
Well, good morning. And happy Mother's Day. What a great day. You got a full house. Wasn't the singing amazing this morning?
John Gunter:Love coming together to worship God in song and to get your toes stepped all over. Right, mothers? Everybody for it. That's the joke with preachers is we always praise our mothers, and once Father's Day comes, shape it up. Right?
John Gunter:Amen. That's right. That's right. Good man. Good man.
John Gunter:But again, we are so thankful that you've come together with us this morning as man, I said it earlier, just what a beautiful beautiful day, beautiful weekend, and we got to praise God for things like that because we know the heat's coming. Right? So, certainly thankful. I I wanna start this morning with a question, and and of course, last week we talked about fasting, and I told you what we're gonna do is we're gonna pair that with a sermon on prayer as well, because those always seem to go hand in hand. So I wanna ask you this, how many of us have run up massive telephone bills talking to someone you liked?
John Gunter:Raise your hand. Nobody? Lots of us. I So I'm from rural Southwest Arkansas and everyone was long distance. I don't even know if kids know what long distance is nowadays.
John Gunter:Right? So, you have to explain that telephones were attached to walls. Right? But I remember, I I would run up in high school, I ran up a bill, I think I ran a hundred and $80. And to pay that off, I hauled and stacked firewood for, I think, an entire summer.
John Gunter:I don't I think that's a lot more than a hundred and $80 worth, but we still have a barn full of firewood because of that, don't we? My mom is here this morning, so I'm I'm thankful for that. She can vouch for that. Well, why do we need to spend so much time and money in conversations with people we like? You think about that?
John Gunter:Because when you're you think about relationships, especially one that is just beginning, all you want to do is talk to that person. Right? You wanna have communication. You wanna you wanna know more about them. You wanna hear about their day.
John Gunter:You wanna understand everything. Now, what's interesting is Katie and I would do that once we first met and everything. If you don't know this about my wife, she and my mother-in-law, once it gets late in the evening, don't let them get still or they fall asleep. So a lot of our conversations were very long in the afternoon or evening, and then I started noticing that my wife would or my future wife would start speaking about four words per minute and slurring those. Like, hold on.
John Gunter:I need to get off the phone here. I'm a night owl and she's not, and so I'm I'm geared up, I'm ready to hear about everything, and she's just barely getting it out, and she needs to go to sleep. I said, okay, let's talk tomorrow. But it kinda hurt me to say that because I wanted to talk to this person who was special in my life. And so, can we relate that to actually praying to God, to keep a connection to God open?
John Gunter:Do we have that same level of desire, that same yearning to continue to speak to our father in heaven? And I think what goes into that a lot of times is is our understanding of prayer. Do you really believe it works? Do you have a faith that says, God is listening? God wants to hear from you?
John Gunter:Because the story of scripture from the very opening pages is that God desires to have a relationship with you. Now, what comes from that is we continue to push God away, don't we? We we don't have the same desires as him a lot of times, beginning in the Garden of Eden and going on. But you see throughout scripture, God begins in Eden, he creates this perfect place for Adam and Eve to live, to have relationship with them, to fellowship with them, and then it was just man's desires that pushed God away. But the rest of scripture is God coming back, that I'm going to live with you, I'm gonna be there in tabernacle, in temple, and guess what?
John Gunter:That's not close enough. So Jesus said, I'm gonna go away. It's better that I go, and the spirit of God comes to dwell in you. That's the kind of relationship that God desires with you. Do you have that same desire to have a lifetime of constant connection to God?
John Gunter:We'll read this a couple of times today, but this is a common thing I think of when I think about prayer, and I'll be honest with you, it brings guilt into my mind. Because as Paul's making this he's making this statement in first Thessalonians first Thessalonians chapter five. He says, pray without ceasing. Now, we're gonna cover the the whole context of this in a minute, but I I feel guilty because I'm like, I don't do that all the time. But I I think what what God wants here, and what Paul is trying to say is you wanna continue to do this all the time.
John Gunter:Now, we may approach prayer as a here's the beginning and here's the end, like that conversation we were talking about. I pick up the phone to call my loved one, we have the conversation, we put down the receiver. Nowadays, you don't even know what a receiver Red button. Right? Conversation over.
John Gunter:But sometimes when I call my mom, she is busy cooking dinner for my dad because he doesn't cook, and, you know, she does it all. Nothing to do with anything. But she has to put me on speakerphone because she is doing some things, and so you hear all kinds of noise. What she doesn't do is say, I'm busy. I I you know, leave me alone.
John Gunter:The phone is on the counter on speaker, and so we wanna continue to have that conversation through the chaos, through the effort, through the work. And I think that's the kind of thing we ought to that's the way we ought to view prayer. No matter what's going on, chaos, blessing, I'm having one of my worst days, God wants the receiver on talking to him. That we pray without ceasing. And so, we're gonna approach the the lesson today kind of like we did last week, and talk about some of the examples we see in the Old Testament first.
John Gunter:And so we start in Genesis 18, starting in verse 23. Then Abraham drew near and said, will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? And he's talking about Sodom here. He said, suppose there are 50 righteous within the city, will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked.
John Gunter:Far be that from you, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? Abraham's being pretty direct with God. Alright. He said that, and the Lord said, if I find so I if I find at Sodom Fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake. Abraham answered and said, behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I I who am but dust and ashes.
John Gunter:Suppose 50 or five of the 50 righteous are lacking, will you destroy the whole city for lack of five? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find 45 there. Again, spoke to him and said, suppose 40 are found there. He answered, for the sake of 40, I will not do it. Now, this sounds like a kid, doesn't it?
John Gunter:I'm testing the boundaries. Now, if we're we're honest with it, we test the boundaries too. I wanna know where the line is so I can get right up close to the line. Right? Yeah.
John Gunter:Alright. Well, what about 45? What about 40? Then he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak. Suppose 30 are found there?
John Gunter:He answered, I will not do it if I find 30 there. He said, behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there? He answered, for the sake of 20, I will not destroy it. You you would think God at some point would say, that's enough.
John Gunter:Alright. Let me answer this for you. Yeah? But he continues on, he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose 10 are found there?
John Gunter:He answered, for the sake of 10, I will not destroy it. And the Lord went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. I don't know how you view your conversations with God, but God has pretty broad shoulders. You know what that means? He can take it.
John Gunter:He can handle If you don't think so, go read the book of Psalms. There's a lot of them in there like, God, where are you? I don't think you're here, I think you turned your back on me, all of these things. But God is the perfect father. Now, some of you may have grown up with imperfect fathers.
John Gunter:Right? And that's a % of us in here. And so, our our view of God may be tainted by a father that was not kind. But when we look at God the father, we have to view that in light of perfection. Maybe we can't even wrap our our minds around that.
John Gunter:That God is perfect, and God is gracious, and you can tell him what's on your heart. You can bring those concerns and questions even when it seems like Abraham's just pestering God. Ever been pestered by a kid like this? Absolutely. Well, what about this and what about that?
John Gunter:Yeah? Okay. Well, this is this is the level of relationship and conversation that God desires. But did you hear the humility in what Abraham was saying? Let not the Lord be angry, I'm just dust and ashes.
John Gunter:But I do wanna know this, where do you stand on this? If there's 20, what will you do? If there's just 10, you know, all of the things. And God listens to him, and he cares for him because he is perfect. You don't you don't catch God at a bad moment where he's, you know, low blood sugar and hungry.
John Gunter:Right? You catch God in perfection. The place I want to be, I'm not at my best when I'm really hungry. Right? You don't catch God that way, and sometimes we act like we're going to catch God off guard, or he's busy, he's out to lunch, he's on vacation.
John Gunter:I don't want to bother God with this, he's got a lot on his plate. God has broad shoulders, and that's what we see here with Abraham. In Exodus, we we see this with Moses. Thus, the Lord used used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. That might sound, I don't know, like we shouldn't be able to do this.
John Gunter:We should have such a reverence for God that we should never speak to him and tell him what we really think. Right? Heard a preacher one time that he was talking on the Psalms and how kind of blunt they are sometimes, telling God, you know, how it is. And as he was talking through that, a man came up to him after church and he said, you know, if I was ever angry at God, I sure wouldn't tell him. What is your view of God?
John Gunter:You think he doesn't know? Right? And and so, God knows already, but he still wants you to communicate to him. Now, I may become frustrated with my kids when they're telling me a fact for the one thousandth time this story. Right?
John Gunter:But God does not. He wants to hear from those he loves. He has created us in love to show love and to have this relationship. And so Moses, Abraham, they can both speak to God as a friend. So how are your prayers?
John Gunter:Do you pray to God as if he is your friend? Daniel, in Daniel six, there's just been a decree that you can't be doing all this prayer stuff. Right? Or there's gonna be consequences to pay. And it says, when Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber.
John Gunter:Now, that's a big point in this. By the way, this was not in a dark closet somewhere hidden. He went where there were windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously. So in moments of deep crisis where it could cost him his life, what Daniel wanted to do was speak to his father.
John Gunter:How many of you, if something tragic happened right now, you know whose number you're calling? You know the people who are there for you. You're gonna pick up the phone, you're gonna talk to them, and that's gonna bring some sort of peace to you. But that doesn't compare to the peace that comes from God. And we wanna talk to our father in heaven, whether we're you saw Abraham on on behalf of other people who he was scared were gonna lose their lives in intercession for them.
John Gunter:Moses, just in conversation speaking as a friend, and then Daniel in a moment of crisis, all I wanna do is speak to my father who is in heaven. You see this as as kind of a devotion that goes beyond maybe what we feel like we're we're capable of at times. Jeremiah 29 verse 12, you say, then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. You understand from this verse what God is wanting from us.
John Gunter:You will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. I was having an interesting conversation before class this morning. How many of you were raised that that God only hears you in certain circumstances, like, if you have not been baptized, God doesn't hear you? That's the way I was raised. You had to meet all the all the conditions before God would hear you.
John Gunter:Now, as a a mature man and someone who has read scripture, I don't believe that at all. Because throughout scripture, it talks about God hears you. Because I I can't imagine after reading scripture that God is going around plugging his ears unless you're perfect. Who would he hear at that point? Not me.
John Gunter:How about you? Okay? Then you will call upon me, come and pray to me, I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Now, unfortunately, sometimes it takes the crisis to seek God with all of our heart.
John Gunter:Right? But prayer should be this, again, this desire, just like a relationship with someone else, that I I just can't live without you. And so what we see in this is, I I desire this relationship. Often, we do in prayer is we're just seeking results. Right?
John Gunter:I wanna pray for this, and God, I want you to grant me this. Now, how many of us have prayed and prayed and prayed for something and thought God said no, Then a little while down the road, we realized God was saying, I got something better for you. Amen? We need a church full of amens this morning because I know that's your testimony. I know that's what God has done for you.
John Gunter:He's done it for me. But often, we approach prayer as, I'm gonna pray, and Lord, I already know the answer, so go ahead and give it to me this way because I know all. Right? We wouldn't say that, but we really know, and I know the best way. And then God surprises you and gives you more than you could have ever thought about or even thought to desire.
John Gunter:In Matthew six, on the sermon on the mount, verses nine and ten, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray, and he he says this, he says, pray then like this, our father in heaven, hallowed or holy, be your name, your kingdom come, what's that in yellow? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. How many of us pray to God with our laundry list of requests? Yeah. Sometimes we can find out, oh, I I want this, and I want this, and I want this, and I want this.
John Gunter:Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, your will be done. We can bring God our request, he he does not mind that, but I love that Jesus says, your will be done. And guess what? He didn't just tell his disciples to do this, that whole, you know, do as I say, not as I do thing. He didn't just tell him to do this, he, in the garden, facing crucifixion and the beating and everything he would have to endure, what he does is he prays, God, not my will, but yours.
John Gunter:And so, lived it out. And so, what we see here is prayer can transform our desires if our desires are in the right place, and that is that no matter what, God, we want your will to be done. Philippians four, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And so, in prayer, that's what we're inviting God to do, not just to answer all those requests.
John Gunter:And and look, Paul says, take your request before God. Bring it to him, bring all of your requests before him, and I've got plenty. But guess what you're gonna receive? In giving all of those things, all of your worries, all your anxieties, all those things, you bring those to God, and what do you receive? Verse seven, somebody said it, peace.
John Gunter:And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. I love that part because you ever gotten that peace in a time that it doesn't make sense that all of a sudden the peace comes over you and you go, okay, I can get through this. I didn't think I could, and all of a sudden, something has changed. The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, and I know you've you've experienced this before. Often, we're we're asking God why, or we're requesting such and such, and what God gives us in reply is his peace, something no one else can give us.
John Gunter:Now, you may get some some comfort from others, but the peace of God is another level. That is something we should all desire, and we invite him to bring us that peace to be transformed by him. And so, I told you prayer fasting go hand in hand. I I want to point out a couple of things, and I think we read a couple of these last week. From Matthew four, then Jesus then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
John Gunter:Okay? And yes, yes, he was. Anybody fasting forty days and forty nights right now? I don't think so. Yeah.
John Gunter:I doubt even after my request last week, y'all didn't fast during lunch, did you? Well, this is this is what Jesus does to prepare for this temptation, is to fast and to pray. Well, why would you do those things? Because both of those things bring about a focus. They bring about this this, you know, I'm gonna be with God.
John Gunter:I wanna give my time to him. I'm I'm worried about what's going on. And so, if you think about this, if they fasted and prayed in a in a simple time technology wise I'm sure we could list a whole lot of things of ways that was simple. Of course, it was a hard time as well. But all the distractions we have right now, if they felt like what I need to do is fast and pray to remove all of those things and to focus on God, how much do you think we ought to do that?
John Gunter:Because, man, there's plenty of distractions out there. So many things take our minds, take our effort, and then lead us down the wrong road. We need to fast and pray to God. And of course, from Acts 13, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
John Gunter:And so the early church, the leaders there said, what we need to do, we know we've got to set apart Barnabas and Saul. To do that, we are going to fast and pray. I'm gonna give myself to this, to eliminate all of these other things, to focus on God and his will for us. And so, what we see in this is that it's not an either or situation. It's not a fasting or prayer.
John Gunter:These things go hand in hand. That prayer actually serves to deepen fasting because you're not just laying off of food or something like that for no reason. What I'm doing is I'm taking one more thing out of my life that I feel like I have control of, and I'm giving it to God. And God, I can be sustained by you. I can't imagine a forty day fast, can you?
John Gunter:I'd rather not imagine it, to be honest with you, as far as I want to go with it. But to think about that I can be sustained by my heavenly father in this way, I'm going to give my all to him, man, that shows shows faith. Back to where we began. Paul says this, he says, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. To do this, to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing.
John Gunter:Do you do you hear the conversation never needs to end? We say amen and it feels like the the phone hang up. And we should just say, as we often do at funerals or celebrations of life, I'll see you later. I'm going about my day, but I'm gonna lift you up, I'm gonna continue to lift you up, I wanna keep you on forefront of my mind. Not that this has to be a formal, here's the bell, we used to do that in church.
John Gunter:Did y'all for class, you got a bell? Here's when it begins, here's when it ends, all of those things, and we approach prayer in the same way. And what God wants is open communication. I'm not I'm not done with this, I'm I'm going about my day and I'm gonna continue to lift you up. Now, we can be real legalistic about that.
John Gunter:Well, did you pray all day today? Okay. What does that mean? No. Not every second that I'm breathing a prayer, but I'm leaving that communication open, that I I love God, I trust God, and I want to keep this open for him.
John Gunter:Alright. Practical ways to live this out. I think you can whisper short prayers throughout your day. We are so formal, I think, in in the way we pray, in the way we begin, and we have to end with amen, but we can breathe little prayers. God, thank you.
John Gunter:To practice being grateful for all the things that you see throughout your day. When I was at Lipscomb, they had us practice this kind of thing. Alright. How many things are you thankful for throughout your day? How many of you took a hot shower this morning?
John Gunter:Why didn't you take a cold one? You wanna be more thankful for that hot one? Take a cold one tomorrow morning. How many of you have a package coming from Amazon or somewhere else this week? Already.
John Gunter:Yeah. Can you be thankful for the person that brought that? Can you be thankful for all the hands that have been involved in getting you that thing? You didn't even have to go to the store and duck behind the the counter when you saw somebody you knew. That thing is going to get dropped off at your front door, can I be thankful for that?
John Gunter:Can I be thankful for the health I have this morning? You've been sick? There's there's no better way to be thankful for just a day where I can breathe perfectly until I get that first sinus, you know, issue, and I can't breathe at all. I've got a c pap, so it's trying to pump air through something that's closed. It's horrible.
John Gunter:But we can be thankful for all those things. Are you thankful for what you have on, that you had something to wear? Are you thankful for, I have the ability to to go eat lunch today, to take your mother? Do you have your mother with you? That's a great thing to be thankful for.
John Gunter:Has your mother passed and you can sure be thankful for her legacy? Yeah. How many things can we be thankful for? You see how the communication can never stop if I'm thankful, if I care enough that I want to keep this line of communication open to God, and that goes on with worry as well. How many things do we have to be worried about?
John Gunter:We do all kinds of things, and I think one of the worst things we do is keep the news on twenty four seven. I don't care which news you're talking about. If you think I'm talking about yours, I am. I'm also talking about theirs. But all it is is to scare you and to worry you and to make you feel a certain way.
John Gunter:Well, part of that is because we want to make you feel like you're in control of that, or someone else is. And unless they do x y z, it's gonna be bad. What if we turn that worry into prayer? What if we gave that worry to God and said, God, I can't do much about this. You know that, like he needs to be told anyway.
John Gunter:But God, I'm gonna give it to you. How many times have you struggled with something, a worry, and you finally gave it to God, and you experienced that peace? It doesn't even make sense, peace that surpasses understanding. I'm gonna give it to you, and all of a sudden, you get that peace. Again, constant communication becoming a part of your daily rhythm.
John Gunter:I wanna leave you with this question. What would change in your life, your family, and your faith if you truly lived a life of continual heartfelt prayer? What if this church practiced this? Do you think it would eliminate bickering? I'm gonna give things to God, that I'm gonna pray for people that maybe I'm not getting along with right now or something's not something's off.
John Gunter:And I want you to pray for me. I'm gonna request that from you, to pray for me, to strengthen me. I guess I'm blessed because being a minister here, I get to hear people, you know, when they stand up here, pray for me, whether it's to speak or just to for our family or whatever, but hopefully, we pray for everyone in here. Hopefully, we pray for people who God is sending our way, we've not even met yet. I know some of you don't know this, but we've been praying for you very specifically, people we didn't know that have become a part of this family.
John Gunter:And I looked around this morning and I just smiled. My heart was glad to see the faces in here that maybe even a year ago I'd never met. And that is a blessing from God, and I wanna thank him for that this morning. And so, I I don't think you can end a sermon on prayer without prayer. I don't think we can just talk about something and and play like, that's a good thing, we should do it.
John Gunter:But I wanna I wanna end this this service in prayer, and and I'm just gonna give you I used to do this at our last church, probably freaked people out, now you're worried. It's nothing. I'm gonna spend fifteen seconds of silence because I know you probably don't get fifteen seconds of silence. And so, let's bow our heads, let's ask God to clear our minds and just open our hearts to him. Can we do that this morning?
John Gunter:Would you bow with me? Just breathe and trust in him this morning. God, our father, God, we want to lift up your name this morning. Lord, that your name may be holy. Lord, bring before our minds right now all the ways that you have cared for us, that you have blessed us, that you have grabbed us by the hand and led us along even when we didn't realize that's what was happening.
John Gunter:God, open our hearts, remove remove all the things, all the the pride, the bickering, the all the negative things that may stand between us and you. Lord, fill us with your love. Lord, we don't just pray that just to receive something from you, Lord, we pray that we also are givers of that same love. Lord, that as we have received your grace and mercy and forgiveness, Lord, that we are Lord, we pray that we are eager to give that to others, even people who may do things against us, who may say unkind things about us. God, help us to return to them peace and love.
John Gunter:God, I wanna put before you this morning all of our cares and worries, and you know every single one. Lord, help us to lay all of those things at your feet. Lord, help us to experience your peace that doesn't make sense. But Lord, when we think about you being our perfect father, Lord, that we know you love us despite all the things we do that are against your will. Lord, draw us close to you, wrap your arms around us, strengthen us.
John Gunter:Strengthen us to do all the things that we need to get done, Lord. Help us in in all of those things to realize that strength comes from you and we can only do them because of you. God, I'm so thankful, I'm so grateful for the the people that worship here with us, Lord, that have become like family to us. Lord, again, we pray to to draw closer to you and closer to each other, and and Lord, for us to experience a love from each other that, Lord, we can only say comes from you and from people who love you. Be with us as a church, Lord.
John Gunter:Lead us in the way that we should go. Lord, help us to get out of your way, Lord, and for you to always guide us in everything that we do. It's in Jesus name we pray, amen. This morning, if you feel like you have strayed from the path, if you have, if you don't have the relationship with God you'd like to have, we'd love to pray with you. I believe that the prayers of eous man do mean something.
John Gunter:They do availeth much as scripture says. And so we won't offer a time to to pray with you. We love to see you begin that relationship with Jesus, being baptized into his name. What a day like today to begin that. Would you come this morning as we stand and ask these prayers?