Well, good morning, and welcome to the gathering here of Calvary. My name is Jim. If I haven't been able to meet you yet today, if you're our guest, then I welcome you. I get to serve as one of the pastors here. And it's a great joy for me every week to be able to invite you as a gathered body of believers to open your copy of scripture with me. And this morning, I'm going to ask you to open your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 1. 1 Timothy chapter 1. And I believe you did receive a copy of our notes for our series we're involved in, and I trust that you'll be able to follow along with that as well. 1 Timothy chapter 1, I am not a mountain climber. Wouldn't mind giving it a shot if I had started earlier in life, perhaps, I don't know. So I like looking at mountains. I like driving up mountains and looking around. But I'm not a mountain climber like Sir George Adam Smith was a mountain climber. And Sir George Adam Smith tells the story about how he and his guide were climbing the Weisshorn in the Swiss Alps. You say, what's that? A tall mountain and a dangerous mountain. That's all I can say, but you can Google it, the Weisshorn. But this particular climb on this particular day was very stormy. And the wind really sheared against these mountains where they were hiking. And as they were climbing, because of the weather and because of the wind, they were climbing up the sheltered side of the peak of the Weisshorn. And they did it. They reached the summit that they were working towards, and they were just so excited to be there, to finally get to that summit and to finish their climb. They were so excited, as a matter of fact, that Sir George Adam Smith remembers that he was jumping up and down with joy on top of that peak, forgetting about the fierce winds. And on one occasion in those moments when he leaped off his feet into the sky from that peak, the winds caught him. And they about blew him over the edge and down into the glacier below. Good thing he had a quick guide with him because the guide literally grabbed hold of him while he was in the air, and he brought him, he kept him with him, and he exclaimed to Sir George Adam Smith these words, on your knees, sir, you are safe here only on your knees. I love that statement, on your knees, that's where safety is. We're talking about that, we're singing about that this morning. literally or figuratively, on our knees. We're considering this morning the importance of prayer. Now, I know I just had an amazing way of stating the obvious to those who would gather and identify as Christians. Yes, we know we're supposed to pray. We've heard a lot of sermons on prayer. And there are a lot of sermons and even pithy statements about prayer that you've heard. As a matter of fact, you've heard most of these statements. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, is well known for saying, when thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words without heart. It's good advice. It was Robert Murray McShane who said, what a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more. Martin Luther, the reformer, put it this way, pray as if everything depends on God, and then work as if everything depends on you. One of the great devotional writers of the past, J. Sidlow Baxter, gave us this lesson on prayer. Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments and despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers. That's true. You see, prayer is a power that we need to reckon with. It connects us with God himself in communication and in petition. And even the godless have to reckon with this force. It was none other than Mary, the Queen of Scotland, in no way an evangelical in her beliefs. It was Mary, Queen of Scotland, that said this, quote, I fear John Knox's prayers more than I fear an army of 10,000 men. Wow. You've heard most of those statements, because you've heard sermons on prayers, maybe for decades, and so have I. And you and I know that Paul, well we can refer to Paul as the consummate prayer teacher. He gave us small pithy statements as well. For example, in 1 Thessalonians 5.17, Paul writes to believers, pray without what? Ceasing. He writes to the believers in Ephesus, in Ephesus chapter 6, verse 18, in that context of the spiritual armor, the armor of God. He says, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit. And with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. Wow, a lot of all's in that. Paul also would shorten it a bit in Colossians chapter 4, verse 2, where he simply says, devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. Or to the believers in Rome, Paul, the prayer teacher, wrote, be devoted to prayer, period. Or as David read earlier in our service in our call to worship, Philippians chapter 4, verse 6. One of the best known verses on prayer from Paul. He says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. You know what Paul's saying, right? Paul is saying to you, on your knees, sir. On your knees, ma'am. You are safe here only on your knees. But I want you to observe something, and I put this in your notes. I want you to observe something. It's one thing for Paul to teach us about prayer with these and other verses that I've read. And with Paul, of course, you have a chorus of other authors in Scripture beckoning us and even commanding us to pray as believers, as God's people. It's one thing for Paul to teach us about prayer But it's quite another thing to listen to him teach pastors how to lead churches into corporate prayer. This is like next level stuff. The stakes are high, and it is a challenge. And I'll say after a couple of decades at this, Jim, who has to work hard at his own prayer life, finds an even bigger challenge in motivating God's people to pray as a shepherd. So I got my thing going on, my battle. And at the same time, as a faithful elder, as an overseer, as a pastor, I need to call on you to join me, literally, in praying as a church. Vance Havner was right when he said, the thermometer of a church is its prayer meeting. Or it was Spurgeon himself who said, prayer meetings are the throbbing machinery of the church. Corporate prayer is important. And it's to this topic of corporate prayer that we follow Paul in our sermon this morning. You see, this is exactly what the aged Apostle Paul is doing with young Timothy in this text. You see, we are rounding this morning, we are rounding what we can call the expositional corner into the next unit of thought. The next unit of thought, building on chapter one, is chapter two, verses one through eight. And it's in this unit of thought that Paul is introducing what will be to us a three-part series on corporate prayer. He's going to be with heavy words, requiring that we be praying, that we be praying together, that we be praying together on purpose, That we would be praying together on purpose all the time. That we would be praying together on purpose all the time with a plan. That's this next unit of thought. But I want you to not miss something here. I want you to keep something in mind. That this epistle that Paul's writing to Timothy, according to the last verse of the epistle, where Paul is not just greeting Timothy, but he's also greeting the entire church, this epistle will be read to the entire congregation. And what Paul is calling Timothy to do in leading the church towards corporate worship, and in particular, corporate prayer, the rest of the church is going to hear this charge when it's read to them, as you're hearing this this morning. The congregation bears the blame if corporate praying is not happening, not just the pastors. You see, God calls the elders, calls the pastors to call the church to pray. If the pastor doesn't call them and they don't pray, that's the pastor's fault. But if the pastors, if the elders call them to pray and they don't, that's the congregation's fault. And so here's my theme for you this morning as we get into this new unit of thought in our study through First Timothy. And this is a very personal challenge. Here it is. I want you to personally embrace your chief priority of praying together in the local church before everything else. You say, what's our outline today? Well, if you have the handout, you're getting a feel for it. We're going to land in the middle of one verse this morning. But as we stand in that one verse, we're going to take three looks. What's the first look? Well, number one, I want you to look around. I want you to look around and note the context. In other words, I need you to get your map app out on your phone, so to speak. and look at the map of where we've been, where our blue dot has been, where it is now, and where it's heading in this epistle. And it's here, as you look around and note the context, that I want you to consider four observations, just to get your bearings as to where we are. And the first observation is this. As you look around, you'll see Paul praised God for his salvation grace. Paul has praised God for his salvation grace, not once, but twice. He opens the epistle with these words, chapter 1, verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus who is our hope. To Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ our Lord. We get into those first two verses as you have an elder statesman of a pastor writing to his protege with a heavy assignment. a solo deployment, if you will. And he says, Timothy, never forget that you and I and every believer has a savior, has a hope, has a heavenly father, and has a Lord. And it's all by his grace and mercy. Paul opens this letter praising God for his salvation grace. But as we push further into chapter one, we saw him do that a second time. This time, in verses 12 through 17, Paul shares his salvation testimony, in part to confront the error that the false teachers had been teaching there in Ephesus in connection to the law. And Paul says, they don't even know what they're talking about with the law. The law is for the unrighteous. And then Paul gives his testimony, in essence, saying, like me. The law crushes unrighteous people like I was. And through the law, in my desperation, grace found me. It was, verse 14, more than abundant with faith and love which are found in Jesus Christ. Verse 13, yet I was shown mercy. So twice in chapter 1, Paul praised God for his salvation grace. And I want to pause here for a moment. For those of you who may be watching online or have been with us in our young series here, You've heard the gospel like a lot in just chapter one of 1 Timothy. You've circled through it a lot. You've heard the gospel because the false teachers were attacking the truth of eternal life in Jesus by faith alone and grace alone. You heard the gospel as Paul gave his own testimony. And yet perhaps at this point, you're still holding it at an academic arm's length from you. And I just want to lovingly nudge you. And I want you to know I even was praying for you in my office, if this is your heart, that, Lord, would you work in the hearts of people that know all this stuff? They know the gospel message and even the Christmas songs we sing every year. You've been singing the gospel your whole life. You're hearing it here in the epistle that we're studying. When will you come to faith in Christ? I'm not suggesting that you believe. I'm not saying it's a good idea to repent of your sins and to flee to this grace and mercy that's in Jesus. The gospel is not a suggestion. With the authority of scripture, I'm commanding you to believe and repent in the truth of Jesus Christ. Be converted. Watch this new life course through your very person. I can't run down there and shake you and do it for you. I can work my hardest to say it differently each time, but at some point, you can't hear it a new way. And you need to fall on your knees and cry out to God, say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Open my eyes to see my sinfulness. Open my eyes to see the beauty of Christ and the work of Christ on the cross. Open my eyes to what does it mean in this season to celebrate God becoming man? Because I promise one thing, when God mercifully opens your eyes to see, to see the kingdom. to see your sin, to see the Christ, to see the work, to see the empty tomb, to see him at his father's right hand today, to see the free gift of eternal life being extended to you. Hey, listen, once you see that by his grace, we don't have to push and pull you. You'll come running to Christ. I want you to know that's how I'm praying for you. That's how I'm praying for you. Because already twice in chapter one, Paul praised God for his salvation grace. But that's the first observation. I want you to make a second observation of where we've been here in this context. The second observation is this. Paul charged Timothy with local church leadership. And didn't just do it one time. He did it twice as well. We saw that in verse 3, I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus, so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines. And then at the end of this chapter, we saw it again. Verse 18, this command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience. Stay at it, Timothy. I'm charging you to stay on the scene and lead. Lead a church that at one point had stronger, more unified days. Occasioning Paul's letter of Ephesians, but even since then there had been loose gravel under the feet of the gospel there in Ephesus. False teaching was continuing to press up towards the surface relentlessly Paul says, I'm leaving you there, Timothy. I'd rather have you with me. And he'll even say in second Timothy, I hope to come to you. But if not, Paul charged Timothy with local church leadership twice. But there's a third observation to remind you where we've been. The third observation is this. Paul exposed false teaching threats. Not once in chapter one, but twice. We saw it in verses 3 through 11, as I referenced earlier. They were mixing together a Jewish legalism, reaching back into Old Testament texts, but also stoking up some very creative and imaginary genealogical myths, and combining that with elements of Old Testament law legalism. Paul says they don't even know what they're talking about, or what matters about which they make confident assertions, verse 7. But it was there, the false teaching was there. And in verses 3 through 11, Peter says, Timothy, go get it. Subdue that. Destroy that false teaching. And address the false teachers as I have started to do. And then again in verses 19 and 20, he's gonna say, keeping faith in a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Verse 20, I've handed them over to Satan in a form of church discipline, using the same language he did in 1 Corinthians chapter five, so that hopefully they'll be rescued. They'll be taught not to blaspheme. So what's he been doing? Paul praised God for his salvation grace twice. He charged Timothy with local church leadership twice. He exposed a false teaching threat twice. And I don't know about you, but if I'm Timothy reading this, and then when I know the church hasn't read to them about me, my knees would start to buckle. He's gone through these three themes twice each. And the weight would be pretty intense on my shoulders. And my knees would begin to buckle under the burden and the weight of this, maybe even taking me right down under the weight of this charge to my knees. And maybe that's just where Paul would want me to be. Feeling the weight of what we've talked about already, it brings me to my knees. It brings Timothy to his knees. And that brings me to the fourth as you look around, as you look up and note, or as you look around and note the context, and it's this. Paul alerts Timothy to the first priority of corporate worship. The first priority. Remember, he's telling him how to lead the church. Remember these words that you've read before, and we're going to study together in a couple of months. In chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, Paul says, I'm writing these things to you, Timothy, hoping to come to you before long. But in case I am delayed, I write so that you, Timothy, will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the support of truth. St. Timothy, I'm writing a manual for you, a pastoral manual of what must get done. And priority number one, now that you've been crushed with the assignment and the burden on your shoulders, priority number one is corporate prayer. It's corporate prayer. You know, last week I called our sermon on verses 18 through 20 by the title, On Your Mark, Get Set. But now as we crest into chapter two and find ourselves in verse one, verse one is the go. I want you to look at 1 Timothy chapter two, verse one. First of all then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. and one mediator also between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. And for this, I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I'm telling you the truth. I'm not lying. As a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension. We've had on your mark get set, and now he says go. It's corporate prayer. I want you to therefore note what the go is not. Sometimes we want to be able to define and be able to say, well, we want to decide for us what's important for us as far as church goes. We want to define that. And all of us have different strengths, and we're all made differently. And we do have different strengths and weaknesses. And yes, we are all different in God's wonderful palette of creative right. We're just different, yes. But we're not allowed to say what the tuning fork's supposed to be. we respond to the tuning fork. Or if I can change illustrations, we respond to the priority that God says must be our priority. And so I want you to note, if I'm saying that corporate prayer is the item of first importance for the rest of the epistle, as we write this manual, as we see how local church is supposed to be done, because after all, as we see on the screen, it's His church. And it's all about His glory. But we feel the weight of our stewardship. What is the go not? Well, it's not politics. Can we just say that? We're going to talk about kings here in just a moment, next week. But we don't interact with believers in the context of the local church, and our first priority is to win disciples when it comes to political persuasions. That's not the goal. That's not the priority of why we come to church. Some people are, some of you perhaps are intrigued by some of the words I just read. Especially when I read verse six, who gave himself as a ransom for all. And that word all is sneaking around all over in this paragraph. And you're like, that's going to make us talk about the doctrines of grace. And we're going to have to address the extent of the atonement. Hey, we want to talk about Calvinism and Arminianism. We're going to get it in this particular paragraph, eventually. And the answer is, yeah, we will talk about some of that. But that's not the ultimate purpose. That's not the starting point, better put. If you're only excited about getting answers or defending your position by the time we get to verse 6, listen, you missed it. You and I can totally run past the go, which is corporate prayer. It's not politics. The Go is not politics. It's not the doctrines of grace. It's not attire, though modesty is an issue we'll have to discuss in this chapter. Some people say they don't hear anything. in this whole chapter except I wanna get my list ready for what someone else is able to wear, allowed to wear, and then I'm gonna police that. Does that need to be done? Do we need to be concerned for modesty? Yes, don't hear, I'm not saying that's not important. But what I am saying, if we're only concerned about that and we're not involved in a high commitment to corporate prayer, we've missed it. We can get our attire right and get praying wrong. It's not debating issues of headship, though we'll get to that later in chapter two. It's definitely not an issue of polity. That's not the go, whether we have pastors and deacons or elders and overseers and bishops and how many and why. And you say, well, that's why this book exists. Let's go through this book so we can talk about that. If that's what we go to this book for and that's it, we'll miss it. as important as it is, and we'll talk about it. The go is not issues of benevolence, but we'll get to that in chapter five. The go is not church discipline, but we'll get to that in chapter five. It's prayer. It's corporate prayer. And as we're gonna see, it's evangelistic prayer. And as we're gonna see by the time we get to verse eight, Men, it's gotta start with us. Now, I gotta lay one more list out that's not pleasant for anyone on either side of this desk, because I can struggle with this too. But let's just share our notes. Why do we avoid corporate prayer efforts in the local church? Wednesday's a big one, Wednesday night's not the only one. There are small groups that are organized within the church. There's men's and ladies' ministries. There's a Wednesday morning prayer service, corporate prayer service, for those that don't like driving at night in the dark. We try to create a scene of corporate prayer where it's not merely you picking and choosing who you want to pray with. We try to get generations mixed in. We try to get you praying with people that look different from you and act different than you. We try to organize prayer times so that you'll pray with people that you normally wouldn't pursue on purpose. Why do we avoid attending things like that? Well, my list is embarrassingly long. but I'm letting it hang out, you let it hang out too. Big one is we say it's fatigue, and we are tired, and we are busy. I've heard often, it's boring. I've heard not only fatigue, but busyness with parenting and with job, and we are busy with parenting and job, and no one gets an extra hour in a day, we just don't. Why do we avoid corporate prayer in the context of the local church together with people we might not pray with any other time? Because we're just distracted. It could be, I've heard from about the same service in different churches even that I've served in, that the prayer service is shallow for some, and some people about the same service will say it's too deep, it's too academic. I've heard some say, I won't attend that prayer meeting because I don't have a lot in common with that small group of people, of believers that meet in those called prayer meeting times, which screams lack of unity. Some say, well, I'm not going because I'm in protest against the deacons, or against the church, or against the pastor, or against the youth ministry. They use their lack of attendance as a protest. Some say in churches like ours, about corporate gatherings like ours, I'm not going to go because I don't want to be legalistic about it. And you don't have to go to every prayer meeting. You don't have to go to everyone. I saw a cartoon once. It was either in Leadership Magazine or Christianity Today years ago. And it was two saints in their white robes with little halos jumping up and down and outside of the pearly gates. And the caption reads, he just announced he's not counting Wednesday nights. meaning God wasn't keeping score with Wednesday nights. But some people really use that as an excuse. Well, I'm not going to go, because that's legalistic, that you have to be there praying all the time. And so they go to the other extreme, and they don't, the ones that say, well, nowhere in the Bible does it say we have to gather for corporate prayer one time a week, so they don't go any week, ever. Sometimes it's because of lack of male leadership or an example. OK, I'm through the heavy list. Thank you for walking through that with me. Did it match yours? R.A. Torrey, a great preacher of another generation, associated with Moody Bible Institute, said this. He said it back then, and it's true today. We are too busy to pray. And so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little. We have many services, but few conversions. We have much machinery, but few results. Or one man just simply said this, look. He's talking about those who say they can't pray, they don't want to come out to pray corporately with other believers beyond their personal choosing. And they say, this one author says, let them go out to sea, out in the ocean on a small boat. They'll learn to pray out there in a storm. And while that's true in literal boats and big waves in the Atlantic Ocean or in Lake Huron this time of the year, it's true figuratively, isn't it, as well? It's the storms and the trials in our life that really get the prayer out of us. And not only out of us, but we become very vocal about the importance of prayer and ask many to pray. But when the water calms, they're nowhere to be found. Storms are a blessing in that they teach us the importance of prayer. All right, this is heavy so far, and it's Thanksgiving weekend, and yes, I watched the parades, and yes, my football team's won this weekend. I'm not in a bad mood. But I would like to suggest this as a transition to the second point. Maybe we recoil at the inconvenience of corporate prayer Because what we do falls short of the blueprint when we are together. And that's the second look I want you to take from inside of verse one. Look at verse one again. First of all then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men. Let's unroll the blueprint. Maybe we've just been missing it when we have tried to get together. The blueprint is right here in one verse, and I'll just say this as we go into this verse for a few moments. There are seven major Greek words in the New Testament describing different angles of prayer. There's more than seven. There are seven big major ones. In this one verse, Paul's going to invoke four of them. This is a packed verse. Four words. The first word you see in verse to, again, I urge that, and look at this word in the New American Standard, it's entreaties. Entreaties. This particular word for prayer, dealing with prayer, is used 19 times in the Greek New Testament And here's the key idea, here's the feel, okay? This is the word that you're going to use if you have occasion and the opportunity to approach a king. This is the word that's usually describing the scene of you approaching a superior when compared to you. And this word, entreaty, is not just dealing with your approach to a king or a superior, but you're doing so, listen, about very specific needs. You're taking these needs, either for yourself or others in corporate prayer, and you're bringing them to the king. And the whole weight of this entreaties is this. It's all in who you're approaching with needs. You are expressing dependence. When you're using this word entreaties, when you are praying by entreating, you are basically saying, in other words, unless you, King, unless you, God, meet these needs or supply these needs, it just won't happen. Because I don't have it within myself the power to do this. So I'm asking you. Again, it brings our mind back to, for the third time in this service, what Dave Dietz started with the call to worship, Philippians 4.6. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. That's a call to entreaty. Our Lord's half-brother James puts it this way in James 5.16, the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much, because he's going outside of himself, outside of herself, and approaching the only one that can meet these specific needs. And you're making entreaty. And Peter. When he talks about prayer, just quotes the Old Testament at this point. He quotes this passage, the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears attend to their prayer. So look at this, entreaties has everything to do with who I'm approaching that can meet the specific needs that I'm powerless to meet. And I'm laying them out. So whenever you see the concept of entreaty, I want you to also write down this word. This carries with it the main idea of dependence. So when you see the word entreaties, think what? Dependence. But there's another word. It's the word in verse one, prayers. Entreaties and prayers. This particular word in the New Testament is used 37 times. This is a big one. This is one of the biggest of the seven, obviously. And here, see the word prayers as kind of the umbrella term for the others. I'm breaking these four definitions out separately, but there's overlap, and there's weight being added as you add weights to a bar in the weight room, if you will. But this is a big weight, and this is the umbrella term for all prayer. But there is a nuance to this. And the nuance that's being emphasized by this umbrella term is that it's the fact that you in this moment are talking, you're talking and communing with God, with deity. Even idolaters attempt this with a false god. But for you, you are speaking with God himself. When you're praying, Those are highly sacred moments, either by yourself or with the body of Christ. It's actually a startling moment when you're praying, not only because of what Carrie read during the scripture reading out of John chapter 16 this morning, a scene that took place in the upper room, But our Lord, earlier in that upper room, also in John chapter 14, made some of the same observations. Listen to these verses. This is John 14, verses 13 to 14. Whatever you ask in my name, that will I do. You won't be able to see me, but I'm there, I'm hearing it, and I'm going to do it. And you say, Lord, why would you do that? And he says, well, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I'll do it. Jesus is basically inviting us to talk to him. We can't see him, but he's there with us, and it's not just the second person of the Trinity, it's the first person of the Trinity. The Father is there. Those are astounding moments, startling. Whether you're praying privately or corporately, you're in the presence of God, and you're talking to him. So with the word prayer, I want you to remember this word, devotion. Not devotions and daily bread. I'm talking about devotion in those moments there is an awareness that you're communing with the true God. Here's a third word. The third word, if you look at verse one, is petitions. This word isn't used often in the New Testament. It's one of the lesser of the seven primary prayer words, but the key idea of petition, it's focusing on the concept of you being, for example, in an interview or in a conversation. There's a nuance to this particular word that is speaking of an intimacy. You have access to even have this conversation And as one commentator noted, the nuance to this word petitions is it's something that's happening face to face. The word you need to remember for petitions is this, confidence. Okay, so far you are in the presence of God himself. He's the king who can meet the needs that you're stating specifically. And you know that in this very intimate face to face, if you will, process of prayer, he will meet the needs as he sees fit from his storehouse. My dad was really into flowers and gardening and stuff like that on our porches, right? I didn't get into that. I didn't mind cutting the grass. I didn't mind kicking a soccer ball in the grass. But geraniums and all these other flowers, he always had to have a good pair of clippers, good shears, and gardening stuff. And it was like, well, that's great. And I'd help him bag stuff he was cutting up growing up. That was great. But it wasn't until I got married in the summer of 89, and we had a temporary apartment in Troy near 16 and John R. I had a little plot there. My wife and I had a little plot. We could plant whatever we wanted that summer. I had no tools. So when my dad says, hey, mom and I are going to come visit you, drive down from Clarkston, spend the afternoon with you guys, take you out to dinner, Is there anything you need before I get there? I said, Dad, I hate to say this, but I got no shears. I got no pruning clippers. I got nothing, and I got work to do. Well, my dad heard that, and he was like, bing! And he wiped out Kmart on the way down. And remember the Sunday sale clippers? Yeah, you could do it. So he comes down. He has a carload of gardening stuff. I still have some of that equipment today, because he just needed to hear that. And he was like, oh, I'm your man. I'm bringing everything you need. In a sense, I made a petition to God and he abundantly, because of the intimacy of our relationship and because of his store of supply, if you will, he met the needs. I had confidence that he would. I'm looking at the time, and I got another illustration. This is me driving right by it. I'm going to let that one go. I'm excited about this idea of petitions. There's a fourth word, thanksgivings. Thanksgivings. Well, this is an appropriate one for this weekend, right? This is a big one of the seven. What does it mean? It means to give thanks. There's nothing hidden here. There's no nuance, except there's a specificity involved on your part. Your focus is on God the giver, not man and his imperfections. This is thanking God specifically for specific needs he's met, specific graces he's operating in your life. For the word Thanksgiving, I want you to remember this word. It's worship. Giving praise to him. It's not giving him any new information. It's pointing at things in your life, on your list, and in your days and saying, God, thank you for that. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. When I see this, when I see them, I see you because you did that. I'm not a golfer anymore, but I remember enough of it. When you approach the golf ball, you just have to remember four things. You've got to remember your grip. You've got to remember your feet. You've got to remember your left elbow. If you're right-handed, stay straight. You've got to remember your head. Keep it down, even after the swing. That's it. If you can remember just those four things, you're supposed to have a good time. But when it comes to corporate prayer, any kind of prayer, you have to remember four things. You have to remember dependence. devotion, confidence, and worship. And that brings us to the third and final look from verse one, the takeaway. Note the implications of what we've seen in verse one. Note the implications. See, this is far more than just a Greek vocab study this morning. I'm going to give you three implications. Number one, did you notice the overlap? I had to do my best. This is me working up here, sweating this morning. Each word is a different Greek word, and each has a nuance that makes it distinct from the other three words, but there is overlap with all four words. What does that mean? Well, the overlap communicates focus. It communicates focus, a real possibility of praying like this if you're getting the assignment. This makes prayer an issue now of obedience and therefore prayer is part of your worship. It's operating in those moments in an awareness of the very presence of God or the fear of the Lord, if you will. So the overlap between those four terms communicates focus and possibility. But there's a second implication. Did you notice that they're all plural? Prayers, entreaties, petitions, thanksgivings. So the plural communicates persistence. You might want to put the word plan in that blank as well. A very persistent plan. This second implication just screams something to put on your prayer list and it's a leather covered journal. or a nice journal, where you don't just say, well, I can remember that while you're driving around or in a service. There's things that you're writing in your journal to pray for like this. When someone says, well, you pray for me, you're writing it in your journal so you pray for them like this. The plural communicates it's gonna be more than one and done. It's persistence, and there's a third implication. And the third implication is the on behalf of at the end of the verse, that this kind of praying, entreaties, prayers, petitions, thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men. You see, the all men communicates the whole spectrum of people. He's gonna start out by talking about kings and anyone less. You know what that makes, for Christians, that makes corporate praying for even unsaved people a good work. Not that we do to get saved, but one, it's a good that we can do for all people, including the unsaved. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16, see that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people. Galatians 6.10, let us do good to all people, especially to the believers. Those are the implications, and those speak for themselves. I don't know who invented this statement, but I've heard it most of my life, and you have too. You can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular the pastor or the evangelist is by who comes on Sunday night. But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to corporate prayers. So that's why the pastoral intensity this morning, I got a weight on my shoulders. And I desire and I pray and I plead with you and I admonish you to personally embrace your chief priority of praying together in the local church before everything else. It's on your knees, church. You are safe here only on your knees. It's his church, his glory, our stewardship, and it starts with his priority, corporate prayer. I dropped this quote in our news and prayer from time to time by Tim Challies. Nobody wants to be part of a church that doesn't pray, but also almost nobody wants to attend the prayer meetings. Believe in the power of a praying church enough to attend and champion those meetings. Make prayer instrumental rather than supplemental to your church. Spoiler alert, we've looked at categories of prayer here in verse one. Next week, When we pray like this, we're going to find out that there will be consequences and wonderful consequences when a church prays as we've been prescribed. Lord, even in this closing brief moment of prayer, I am asking you to do what I am powerless to do. And all of us are asking you for something we are powerless to accomplish alone. we are demonstrating dependence on you. Make this, as much as it's a praying church in the present and in the past, make this church excel still more. Not just in praying in our private devotions, but definitely that. Not just at casual coffees with others, but definitely not disincluding that. but to be inconvenienced to come and pray with people that aren't our choosing for who shows up so that we can pray and go down deep as a family here at church. You must do that. We depend on you. And we know we are coming into your very presence as you've instructed us and you that the Godhead is here hearing this. And we're confident that we're praying in your will. And so we give you thanks ahead of time for what your spirit will do in each of our hearts, one heart at a time, so that we together can pray like this. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.