Still in chapter number 1, preacher, how much longer are we going to be in Nehemiah? I don't know, you're asking the wrong person. You've got to talk to God about that one. I didn't set off here with a set number of sermons to preach out of Nehemiah. I didn't set off with a scheduled time when we were going to finally get done with the book of Nehemiah. I believe the Lord wants us to go through Nehemiah, and we're going to go through it the pace he dictates. Amen. If we're going to try doing it our own way, it's a waste of time. I want to get as much out of my Bible as I can. I don't know about the rest of y'all, but the Bible is our spiritual food. Amen. And as it's obvious, I likes to eat. Sion needs to get in the Word of God and eat some here too. Now it's twice I've stalled. Let's all stand if you're able to. Nehemiah chapter 1, verse number 5. This is again Nehemiah praying right here. And said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments. Let thine ear now be attentive and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants. And confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, both I and my Father's house have sinned, oh yes, we have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Fascinating how much they hated him when he was alive, but once he died they revere him greatly. Verse 8, Remember I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from the fence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there. Now there are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer. We want to take today and look at this question. The shape of our prayers. What is the shape of our prayers? Our Father in heaven, we thank you God. We thank you for everything. The air we breathe, the light that illuminates our field of vision, that we have eyes to see, ears to hear. Hey, we've got a skeleton, so we're not just a bunch of blobs running around here, or slithering around, I guess would be the case, but we have the skeleton that You gave us so that we can walk around. We thank You, God, for giving us Your Holy Word here. For giving us this fine building for us to meet in. I thank You, Father, for each and every one that's here. Because it's a blessing to me that they are here today. I've said it many times before and I still mean it. They could have chose to go any place else. They could have chose to stay home. And yet they came today. That means so much to me, Father. Thank you. And I ask you please to bless them mightily for it. But Lord, most of all, I ask you that you'd help each and every one of us To hear, to listen to what is in the sermon here today. Write notes down, incorporate it into our very beings. So that we can be of greater use to you. So that we can get along better. So that we can be better servants. So that we can be better witnesses for you. so that we can ring those prayer bells of heaven and get your attention. Get results for our prayers. My mind goes right now to that Kelly who is looking for a kidney transplant. We've been dealing with this for I don't know how long. We thought one time we'd had a solution, but it fell through. Now we've got another opportunity here for her. And we're asking you, Father, please, for your help with this. that it would work, that both her and the donor would be healthy and recover quickly. Lord, there's drug issues in families' lives. And we've seen you work before. We've seen a mighty move from you, how you have delivered so many in the past. And we know, Lord, you can do it right now, too. And we're asking you, Father, for the help. Lord, we've got people here who are burdened over various things, job issues, family issues, health issues, others, seeing our church grow, whatever else is on their hearts. We're asking you, Father, please, for your help with this. And Lord, while it certainly wasn't my intention to make this long-winded, I just couldn't help myself. This is our time to have a little talk with you. And we're grateful. That's it for now, Father. We'll talk to you in a little bit. In the glorious name of Jesus, we do pray. Amen and Amen. You may be seated. So what is the shape of our prayers? How do we use our prayers? Is it time filler? Something that we're doing just because we've got nothing better to do. It's that time of day. Okay, we need to go ahead and start praying now. Is there more to it? Is it just something we do at church? These are things that we should think about occasionally. How do we shape our prayers? Is there more to it personally to us? Are we truly having a conversation with our Heavenly Father? Or is it just words? Do we communicate with Him on a childish level? I'm going to pick on these little ones here. They blessed my heart. I don't know about the rest of y'all, but when they got up here and they did their verses. And what happened? They were supposed to do them at the same time, weren't they Brother Tip? And what did Josiah do? Took that microphone, stuck it in his mouth, and he did his best to say that verse. And it was funny. It was marvelous. I'm glad they did it. I'm glad they're working on the verses. But how many times do we treat God the same way with our prayers? And it's something I'm doing out of habit here right now, and I hope you understand what I'm saying, and amen. Little Miss Emily, she took the microphone and nice and clearly recited her verse. I'm not downing either one of them, honest, I'm not. Praise God they got up here and did it. It thrills my heart. But our prayers, how do we shape them? Are we doing that same way like Josiah did with God with our prayers? Or do we do it like Emily did? I ask because it is important. How do we express it? Is it childish, what comes out to God? Or is it something that's actually meaningful here? Do we express it simply, okay, Lord, this is what's on my heart, and I know you get the drift of it, because you're the best. Or is the way we pray actually shaping it in a manner? We're letting God know this is important. Nehemiah here. was shaping his prayer in a way to let God know it was important. Now in these past couple of weeks, we've looked at dealing with the burden on your heart. Last week we looked at what it means to actually mean our prayers. And all three of these are going hand in hand here. Because I'm telling you church, if we want to be successful, if we want to see this church grow, if we ourselves want to grow as Christians, we need to have the best possible prayer life that we can get. Prayer is our communication with Him. The Bible is His communication with us. If the lines of communication are jumbled, if they're cut, we got some problems. I think the little one over there says, uh-oh, good timing. Yeah, uh-oh. If we're not shaping our prayers correctly, I want to show you five things here real quick. We will be done before midnight because I've got to get to work by midnight. Number one, do we know, church, do we know who we are talking to? I go up to Brother Margarito and say, Howard, how are you doing? You're going to be looking like, who's Howard? I'm Margarito. Did you forget my name that quickly? I'm not going to go to God and call him by some other name. I'm going to call him correctly. Notice here what Nehemiah did there in verse number 5. He said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven. Let's break this down here real quickly. The word LORD, that's all four capital letters. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That means Jehovah, the self-existent, the eternal one. Ain't dealing with Joe Schmo here. Ain't dealing with some bum on the street. Ain't dealing with some big name preacher. Ain't dealing with some no name Sunday school teacher. We're talking God Almighty here. He says, Oh Lord God. The word God here is the Hebrew word Elohim. What in the world does that mean? I'm glad you asked. I like when you ask those questions. El means God. Ohim means more than two. Remember, He is a triune God. We dealt with all this back when we were doing the doctrine earlier this year and the last part of last year. Triune, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. He's calling upon all three aspects of the Godhead here as He's calling out. He's got problems and He knows He needs all three aspects of God to get the situation rectified. He calls Him Lord God of Heaven. He's calling Him the Sovereign Creator of Heaven and Earth. You got problems, guess what? He's the one who made you. He's the one who knows how to fix it. I heard a preacher a long time ago. He and this other preacher, they went to this place down south. It's kind of like Walmart, but it wasn't Walmart. And that other preacher, he had a battery charger, Brother Tim, and he needed to get that battery charger swapped out because it didn't work and it was still under warrant. So they got into that preacher's car and they drove over to that place there and they walked in. He set that battery charger on the counter and says, I need to exchange this. And the girl says, I can't help you. What do you mean you can't help me? I bought this thing. I got the receipt right here. It's still under warranty. I need it exchanged. No, sir, I can't do it. Why can't you do it? because that's from a different store. You see the store's brand name right on the package. Oh, picked up his battery charger and they done walked out of there. They got in the car and he said, I can't believe that. The preacher that was relaying the story to me says, he told him, says, you know why you got to take that back over to the other place? They're the ones who made it. They're the ones who know how to fix it. We got a broke society out there, church. Let me tell you something. That televangelist, he don't know how to fix it. That self-help book, he don't know how to fix it. Chicken soup for the soul, don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to fix it, but I can tell you the one who can fix it, amen? I can take you to God. It ain't going to do me no good to be calling upon anything and everything else but God. Amen? Nehemiah went to God in prayer and says, we're your people. You called our forefather Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees. You're the one who made us a nation. You're the one who can fix the problem and we're coming to you for help. Church. There are eight different names given for God in the Bible. I don't want to give them to you real quickly. I'm only going to give you the verses for the sake of time. Write them down, go home, read them, study it out for yourself. And I'm going to give you in order from Genesis through the book of Ezekiel. In Genesis chapter 22 verse 14, we find His name is Jehovah Jireh. The Lord shall supply. In Exodus chapter 15, verse number 26, we find a different name for the Lord here. The name here is Jehovah Jireh. I'm sorry, Jehovah Rophi. That means the Lord who heals. Over in Exodus 17, verse 15, His name is Jehovah Nisi. Even though I tend to pronounce it Nisan for some dumb reason. But it's Nisi. It means the Lord is my banner. We got a banner right there. The American flag. Any country in the world that has an American consulate there, and you see that flag there, that's your banner as an American citizen. You can always go to that building there and say, I'm an American citizen, here's my passport, my driver's license, whatever it is, prove you are an American, and they will take care of you there because you are an American citizen. In Leviticus 20 verse 8, His name is Jehovah Makedesh. The Lord who sanctifies. In Judges 6, verse 24, His name is Jehovah Shalom. The Lord who is peace. In Psalm 23, verse 1, He is Jehovah Rohi. The Lord is my shepherd. Jeremiah 23 verses 5 and 6 calls him Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord who is righteous. And Ezekiel 48 verse 35, he is called Jehovah Shammah, the Lord who is there. Now I like, as I was studying this, what Dr. David Jeremiah had to say about those eight names. put in a slightly different order those eight names. Jehovah-Rohi, Jehovah-Jireh, Jehovah-Shalom, Jehovah-Rofi, Jehovah-Sidkenu, Jehovah-Shammah, Jehovah-Nisi, Jehovah-Makedesh. Goes like this. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down, He restores my soul, He leads me in the paths of righteousness, For thou art with me in the presence of mine enemies, you anoint my head with oil." Right out of the 23rd Psalm. Why did I bring up these names here today? Why did I tell you about them? Because when you're going to have a conversation, it's kind of good to know who you're talking with. Because if you know who you're talking with, you can get some help. I called up work a couple of weeks ago, and the one boss put me on speakerphone. I hate when they do that, because I don't have a clue who else is listening, let alone when they actually start talking to me. And had a salesman do just that to me. I'm trying to talk to the boss. The salesman's talking over him, and I know he's talking to me because he called my name, and I'm the only dentist at work. I don't know how to work with this guy because I've got no idea who he is that's speaking to me. But then once he identified himself, suddenly I'm able to work with him. There are things in our lives, church, I would challenge you to learn these names of God, so that when you start to pray about something of such utter importance, You can call out Jehovah Shalom. Lord God of peace, I need peace for the situation I find myself in, for my loved one and the situation that they are in. And I need the peace that passes all understanding. And you're praying, you're shaping your prayer about peace. You're shaping it around the part of God that can answer the peace request. Do you know why it is that Satan said, I will ascend to heaven, I will be like the Most High? Because I will be like the Most High, the Most High, Elyon, the strongest of the strong. He only craved the part of God that was strength and power. God gives us everything so that He can be a help to us. So it helps when we communicate to Him in the way that we need it, church. Shape those prayers by knowing who you're talking to. Number two. Not only do we need to know who we're talking to, but if we're going to shape our prayers right, do we keep asking until we get an answer? Matthew chapter 7 verse 7-8. Let me turn over there real quick. Matthew chapter number 7. Familiar verses. Matthew chapter 7, verses 7 and 8. Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. It shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Isn't it amazing how in our English it translates, ask, seek, knock, A-S-K, ask. But the whole aspect of verses 7 and 8 here is what's known in the Greek language and all that good stuff there as a present imperative, a continuing command. No one's home. Tim, are you home? Tim? Tim? Tim? I kept knocking till I got a response. May have annoyed the daylights, Adam, but that's okay. That's what God wants us to do. Keep at it, church. Luke chapter 18, let me give you this one here, and I'm going to show you where it is that I'm going with this. Luke 18. First seven verses of Luke 18. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint, saying, There was in a city a judge which feared not God, nor regarded man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while. for a while, but afterward he said within himself, though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge saith, and shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? Well, I forgot to bring a cup, so I'm going to borrow one of these here real quickly. Y'all know my trusty tea. Nice empty cup. Nothing in there. Four or five drops in there now. And as you see, I'm still not pouring more in there. How long is it going to take me to fill up this cup at this rate? Long, long time. You see, that's us taking our prayer request, writing it down, praying about it, and then walking away until the next appointed time that we get together and we take a prayer request. We're just adding a couple of drops each time. And that's it. Why is this cup not full yet? I see tea in there, but I don't see it worth my while yet to even take a swallow of it. There ain't enough there yet for a swallow. What's the point? But then when I take, and I continually pray about those prayer requests, and I keep knocking, and I keep knocking, And I keep seeking. And I keep seeking. I keep asking. I keep asking. Over and over and over again. God, I need an answer. Lord, when are you going to hear your servant? Father, we've got this issue that's going on right here. And we've been praying about Miss Kelly to finally get that kidney transplant that fell through earlier this year. And God says, OK, the cup is now full. And God says, my child, I've been waiting for you to catch up to me. I've been wanting to answer your prayers, but you kept stopping. You take a step, and I want you to keep going, but you stop. You're miles and miles away from me, and I want you to come back, but you're not taking the next step. He wants us to be consistent about praying, keep asking Nehemiah here as he's doing this. Let's back up here to Nehemiah chapter number 1. Let now thine ear be attentive, verse 6, and thine eyes open that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant which I pray before thee now. Day and night, and he's saying, look right here, right now, I am still saying this exact same prayer that I've been praying for days now, that I've been praying for nights now, three times a day, four, five, six times a day, however often it is, he's still knocking, he's still waiting on an answer, he still knows God's gonna answer! Because he ain't gonna stop till he gets one! Shape your prayers understanding you're going to keep on keeping on until He finally gives you the answer. Now maybe the answer is going to be no. Maybe the answer is going to be yes. But keep knocking until He gives you an answer. Number three. Shape our prayers. Do we keep on praying so as we protect what we hold dear. Paul writes time and time again there in his epistles how he makes mention often, every time he prays for the recipients of that particular letter. You know why he said that? Because in Acts chapter 20 verse 29, Paul said, For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. If he doesn't keep praying, if he doesn't remain vigilant in his prayers about what it is that he's in need of protection, guess what? The enemy's ready to snatch it away. Little Miss Emily, you look so adorable right there. You are so cute. And you're right next to Daddy who loves you so much. Do you know how much your Daddy loves you? Your Daddy loves you so much that he would put that Bible down right now and he'd punch me in the nose if necessary to keep me from taking you away from him. He loves you that much. Wouldn't you, brother? No, she needs to hear it. Wouldn't you, brother? Yeah. If he were to ever stop protecting you, problems. So if you pray for your daughters, they need protection where they live. Mama, are you stopping praying? Keep praying. You may be the only thing that's standing between them and destruction. His prayers for his family may be the only thing protecting some monster from snatching them off the street. from the grocery store. Daddy here is standing up for his little ones. So I'm going to protect mine. It's not just about this, DeCosto Church. It's not just about pulling out a gun and defending your family. It's about hitting your knees in prayer and calling out to a holy and righteous God, my banner, the one who's going to have my back. The one who's going to have the supply I need to protect my family. I gots to be praying about it, because I know the wolf's out the door right now, ready to bark through. It's our prayers that is needed to protect the church. Shake those prayers to protect. What's that verse we're learning? Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all of the fiery darts of the wicked one. Hey, doesn't that word all mean all? Or does it mean some? All! But you ain't gonna take that unless you're praying. Don't believe me? Alright, fine, don't believe me. Ephesians chapter number 6, we'll run over there real quickly. Not part of the sermon, but we're going to do it anyways. Ephesians chapter number 6. Let's start with verse number 13. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand an evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fire darts of the wicked. Verse 17. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spear, which is the word of God, colon. Remember, I told you all, punctuation is vitally, critically important in God's Word. Right. Colon. Change of thought. Same subject. What's that very next word? Someone say it. Praying. Praying. Always with all what? Prayer. Prayer. And what? Supplication. Supplication in the Spirit and watching there unto with all what? Perseverance, that word means constantly, and supplication for how many? All saints. We love to talk about the armor of God, but we forget it doesn't end at verse 17, it goes through verse 18. Because without prayer you ain't picking up that shield, you ain't putting that belt on you, you ain't putting the shoes of the gospel of peace on you, you ain't taking the sword with you. You need prayer to do all that. Prayer is what helps you put on the armor of God. What's the armor of God? Protection. Defense. You ain't gonna do it unless you're praying. Church. We've got to pray. Nehemiah here, he was praying about the plight of Jerusalem, about the people that lived there, and he's praying a hedge. He didn't know if God would let him do anything or not physically to rebuild, but he knew he could pray about it, and he was going to pray about it, church! What happened with Job? Satan went to God to say, let me kill his kids. He'll curse you. For God's sake, all right, go ahead, take the kids. He kills the kids. Job continues to offer up sacrifices. He continues to trust in his God. Takes all of his money, takes all of his wealth. And there at the end, chapter number 42, he gets what? Double for his trouble. And we're told that he had 14 kids. and six daughters. Fourteen sons, six daughters. But he started off the book with only seven and three. You see, because he prayed prayer protection over those kids even though they died. He still had them under the blood of those sacrifices. He still was confessing their sins to protect them the best that he could, church. So yeah, he got to heaven, he gets to see all of his kids. We might lose something here in this life, church. But do your best to bring protection on it now. And you do that by shaping your prayers to protect. Number four. Do we know scripture well enough to properly acknowledge everything in our prayers? Scripture in our prayers, preacher? Oh yeah. Now, maybe you've got a particular verse on your heart. You've seen it, you've learned it, and it just works, and you put it in that prayer. Maybe you've got the basic understanding of it. Let's look here at Nehemiah's prayer. Verse number 5. And said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. He is acknowledging God has promised his faithfulness to his people. And he could cite verse after verse, if necessary, about this. Verse 6. Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, both I and my Father's house have sinned, we have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou Command us thy servant Moses, 6 and 7. It's a little generic right here, because quite frankly, if he were to write it down, the book of Nehemiah would have been huge. You could see a good summary of all this just going back there and reading Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And that don't even include everything from Joshua up until the time here of Nehemiah, of all the sins of Israel. Amen. So yeah, at this point here, he's summarizing it. But I do believe there were other times that he got right down there and he called a spade a spade. He got right down there and he started naming names. He started to cause sins. Sins! Told God all about it. Church, don't just sit there and always say, Lord, please forgive me of my sins. Name those sins. Not because you want to repeat them, but because you want to get clean from it. You want to take that Holy Ghost soap there and you want to scrub everything down and get good and clean. Not just jump in the shower and get wet and come outside and towel off. You're still a little dirty when you towel off. You get that soap in there, you're scrubbing, you get it all cleaned and washed off. Verse number 8 is a call back to Leviticus chapter 26, 33-39 where God promises exactly what's written here. Remember I beseech thee the word of that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But verse number 39, But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there. That calls back to Leviticus chapter 26, Verses 40 through 45, right after God promised them, He would throw them out, He turned right around the very next verse and says, but if you'll turn back to Me, I will take you back. They also cited this in 2 Chronicles 6, verse 36 and 39. Same thing. That's why it's important that we both read our Bibles and we know our Bibles so that we can accurately quote and claim these things that God has laid out here for us. This ain't just for our entertainment. This ain't just for Sunday school time, see who's the smartest person who can answer the questions. This is for us to talk to our Father about. No, He doesn't need to be reminded of what He said, but He does want us to know what He said. Do we know it? Do we actually know the Scriptures or are we just faking it till we make it? That don't work. Verse 10 is a call back to Exodus 13, 9. Now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. He says right there in Exodus 13, 9, I delivered you out of Egypt by my strong hand. Verse 11. O Lord, I beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant, and to the prayer of Thy servants, who desire to fear Thy name and prosper. I pray Thee, Thy servant, this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Now here he's making his request to God. Often times we're so busy making our request to God, we're rubbing the magic lamp, we forget to get cleaned up first. We forget who it is that we're actually talking to and forget to do things right. How many of us have ever got to go and sit down at the supper table without ever washing up at all first? Okay, maybe once or twice we got to sneak through because we're in a hurry. We got to hurry up and eat so that we can get off the bed, get homework done, whatever the case is there. But for the most part, it's mama saying, get your sorry hind end back into that washroom there and wash behind your ears. Get that dirt off your face. Clean your hands. You soaked this time. Don't just dip your fingers in the water. Actually get clean. Pay attention, boy, because mama's going to get after you too. You got to get clean. But when we get clean, we get to eat. God wants us to get clean so that we can eat. You really want to try eating and you stank? Ever been in those situations where you stank so bad you know you stank? Hoo-wee! Yeah. You think God wants that? Uh-uh. Make sure we're doing things in His order. Which brings us to point five. Do we use the right format? Sin gets confessed, the need is expressed, praise is given, and then the desires of our heart come. We have a terrible time, as Ms. Souther is coming with the Song of Invitation, we got a terrible time focusing in on what we want and not what He's after. We love to sit here and tell Him all about the needs, all about our troubles, but we forget how much trouble we ourselves are in because of sin. We forget that His Word says that our sins have separated us from Him. Let alone the fact that the Bible does say we were made in His image. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I love when Gracie says, thank you Daddy. Was it an actual requirement for her to get whatever it was? Generally, no. But when she says thank you, I know she appreciates it. Church, we can praise Him because He deserves it. He can hear that praise and our needs and the desires of our heart a lot better though after we've gotten our spiritual mouths cleaned up because we've confessed our sins. If we'll shape our prayers correctly, God can move mightily. And as we're going to see here, and I hope you've been doing the homework, I hope you have been reading through the book of Nehemiah, and when you get done, like I said, go back to chapter 1, start reading it all over again. The more times you read it, the more you will realize everything Nehemiah has done here in chapter number 1, God's going to respond to in chapter 2 through 13. But it's all hinging on Him shaping His prayer correctly. So I've got just two questions and a statement here in closing. Number one, do we offer up our prayers God's way or our way? Number two, Do we try to connect with God, or are we satisfied being just as vanilla as we possibly can be when we pray? I'll be honest with you, I love vanilla, but there's times I need something else besides vanilla. And the statement's simply this, how we shape our prayers matters to God, and it should matter to us. Our Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for all you've done for us. And Lord, I'm not going to pretend to be some great prayer warrior. I think we both know me well enough to know that ain't the case. But I thank you, Lord, that to an extent that doesn't matter, simply because you do want us to pray to you. You do want us to come and have a little talk with you. Yeah, there'll be times when we're going to get through something very important. Times we're going to feel that we've got this burden we have to deal with and that's just all there is to it. And maybe in those times we get to be great prayer warriors. It's amazing, these little glimpses here about prayer, how utterly fascinating and eye-opening they are. If we truly want to become the people that you'd have for us to be, if we truly want to see this church grow, flourish, see souls saved, It's going to begin with us putting in greater effort, all of us, with our prayers. Because even the best of us can do better. I certainly count myself as among the worst, so I know I can do a whole lot better. Or I should, at least. Help us, Lord, please. In Jesus' name we do pray. Amen, amen. Please stand.