1st Timothy chapter 2, I'm going to read verses 1 through 4, and then we'll remain standing for prayer. 1st Timothy chapter 2, beginning of verse 1, reading down to verse 4, and then we'll pray. Paul says to Timothy, I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. May God bless His word. Please bow with me in prayer. Our Father, we come before you today With heavy hearts, as we think of our dear sister Ma'ajua, Lord, we were so thankful that we had the blessing of walking with her through life and being blessed to know her. And Lord, thank you for the grace of God that you bestowed upon her as we walked with her through life. We saw so many various phases, we saw a woman that experienced war, civil war in her own country, and then came here and just had a burden and a passion for souls. And Lord, we think of some people that are part of our church because she had a burden for souls. And Lord, we saw someone that went through some real deep waters and someone that just pressed on for you. We thank you for her family. And we thank you, Lord, that you sustained her. And I think of Ruben's testimony, Lord, that with her health conflicts and her health battles, that as humanly speaking, she should have died many years ago and you gave her such a long life. And I think of Ruger's testimony that you maybe spared her just so she could just invest her life in Ruger. And what a great, young, honorable young man that man has become. And Lord, we're just so thankful for the heritage that you gave Adjua and the blessing of her, and thank you Lord that she is now in your presence, that to be absent from the body is to be present with you, that she knew Jesus Christ as her Savior. We thank you for Joanne Tomkiewicz, of course what she meant to many of us. Lord, thank you for her, for her salvation, and we pray for Ed, that you would comfort him and make your presence very near to him, for Joanne's Daughters, grandchildren, just may they know that you are the God of all comfort. Also for Violet and James and Violet's siblings and everyone that is grieving over the loss of Beulah. And for the Kerr family. Lord, we feel the sting of death this last year, and we just ask you to comfort them. We thank you so much for allowing Kilsun surgery to be such a success. We pray for her rapid healing and that you would return her to us soon. We thank you, Lord, that the surgery went well. And we pray for her just to be back on her feet soon, but not too soon. Pray that she would get the rest that she needs. We thank you for this incredibly diligent, virtuous woman, that she truly is a Proverbs woman. And as we joke, Father, that she would probably be back to work last week, right after the surgery. But help her not to push herself, but help her to heal properly. We also lift up Howard Hoban after his surgery this week. We ask you to heal him. And bless those that are not with us today. We pray for Lynn, that you would heal her of her sickness and just those that have other ailments. We think of Pat Sanino mentioned this morning and Jim, just heal them and other people that are just part of or friends of our church family that you'd minister to them. Lord bless our gathering today bless your word and may Christ be magnified in our midst and we ask this all in Jesus precious name Amen, and you most of 1st Timothy chapter 2 we are going through 1st Timothy in our morning service and today we have moved into chapter 2 So let's let's begin with prayer. Okay. Let's bow together in prayer father. Thank you for your word Lord you You tell us in your Word that you have given the offices of the church, like pastors, evangelists, pastors, teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. So you've laid it out very clearly that the pastor is to feed the flock, and that our job, the church's job, is to equip the saints, to do the work of the ministry, and that's how you build your church. And so Father, as we are called to expound the scriptures, if we move away from your word as pastors and teachers, and we simply entertain or give our own opinions, Lord, we are not doing our job. But if we will stick to the scriptures and preach and teach your word and be led of your spirit, you will grow your church. And Lord, that's what we want. We want to be a healthy New Testament church that follows its head. The Lord Jesus Christ seeks to be led by your spirit and truly rightly divides the word of God. And so Lord, today as I expound the scriptures and specifically this text in 1 Timothy 2, I pray that you'd help me to feed the flock today. Help us to understand what Paul wrote and what he meant when he wrote this text that we're going to look at today. so that we can properly understand the context of what he meant to Timothy, so we're not twisting the scriptures to our own destruction, and then that we can make proper application for us today, so that we don't veer off course exactly what the teachers of Timothy's day were doing, and Paul wrote this letter to encourage Timothy to get these people back on track. Lord, help us not to get off track and swerve from the truth. And so we ask You to do this today. We pray You'd bless what's going on in the back, those that are watching the babies, those that are teaching the young people. And Lord, feed Your flock today. Help us to magnify You, we pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Alright, 1 Timothy chapter 2. We are just going to look at one verse today, and that is verse 1 of 1 Timothy chapter 2. We just finished chapter 1. And as I mentioned before, remember that the epistle of 1 Timothy was just simply that. An epistle is a letter. So when Paul wrote this to Timothy, it was not broken down into chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3. It was just a letter, the same way we would receive a letter. And so Timothy didn't get it and say, oh, look at this from Paul, chapter 1, verse 1. He just read it as a letter. And he didn't finish up chapter one and say, I'm going to put my bookmarker here and I'll get to chapter two later. He just read it as a letter. And so when when he came to the end of chapter one, he went right into chapter two because it was all just one letter. So we're going to kind of read it that way. So at the end of verse 20, he finished talking about these two guys, Hymenaeus and Alexander, who he just said he delivered unto Satan. We looked at that last week. Wow. He delivered someone to Satan. Very serious stuff. But now he moves on to a new topic, and he says, and he begins this, he says, I exhort therefore. And he begins to, he moves into kind of a new territory, as he tells Timothy, and again I remind you, this whole challenge, he's telling Timothy to stay in Ephesus. to charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Timothy wanted to join Paul on his way to Macedonia. Paul was his mentor, and Timothy's heart was to go to Macedonia. Paul had just got the Macedonian call. Come help us! And he was heading to Macedonia. And apparently Timothy's heart was, I want to go there. I mean, wherever Paul went must have been exciting. I mean, where Paul went, things happened. Not always good. I mean, sometimes it was persecution. But God was in Paul's, you know, wherever he went, God did big things. And no doubt Timothy wanted to go there. Timothy was one of his prime students. Timothy sat at his feet and learned. That's how Timothy matured in the Lord. That's how Timothy became qualified to be a spiritual leader in the church. And he had already spent a lot of time in Ephesus, and most commentators believe he was probably fed up with a lot of the grief, the false teaching, you know, he had probably maybe even been burned out with his ministry at Ephesus, was probably chomping at the bit to go with Paul. And then he gets this letter, the epistle of Paul to Timothy. And Timothy says, I'm charging you, stay there at Ephesus. You've got some work to do. can't come with me to Macedonia. And here's what I want you to do. And then a lot of this first epistle is to challenge him regarding public worship. And so in verse 1 of chapter 2, he begins to address public prayer. how they are to conduct themselves as a church in Ephesus on what to do when it comes to public prayer. So that's going to be our theme for a little bit, at least for today and then next week and probably scattered out throughout this epistle. Definitely today, definitely next week as we talk about praying for people in authority. But today we're just going to look at verse 1. And what we are to do with public prayer. And the broad category of prayer. We're going to talk about your prayer life. But don't worry, we're going to talk about my prayer life too. It's not going to be all about you. I'm not going to start yelling at you. My prayer life needs work too. We're all in this together. But we're going to learn some things about prayer. And he's talking about public prayer. So let's just look at verse 1, because that's what we're going to look at. 1 Timothy 2, verse 1. In fact, I'll say it, and then we'll just pray briefly, jump right in. Paul says, I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks. So there's four things there, which is the broad category There's some crossover. All these things be made for all men. So we're talking about prayer. So let's pray. Father, we ask your help. Because Paul's talking about prayer. And we want to learn about prayer. So teach us. how to pray, even as Jesus taught his disciples how to pray. Teach us some things today about praying, and about praying in public, and we'll thank you for it. We pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen. So let's look at these brief categories here as we jump in. Supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks. Now, he's talking about public prayer, as we'll see in the next two chapters, He talks in chapter 3, I believe it is, about how to conduct yourself in the house of God. And a lot of the things he's going to talk about, clearly he's addressing the public gathering. And he begins here. So first of all, what is supplication? Supplication is simply asking for something. And you know what? That's part of our relationship with God. Jesus spoke about When we ask God, do you know that God wants you to ask him for things? And he uses the illustration of a father. What father, if his son asks for bread, and I might be getting these mixed up with the bread, the stone, and all that, but what father, if his son asks for bread, is gonna give him a stone? Or if his son asks for an egg, is he gonna give him a scorpion? In other words, if any son asks his dad for something good, What dad is going to give him something bad in return? And Jesus uses that to communicate that any father that loves his child is obviously going to care for his son and give him good things. Our Heavenly Father is so much more interested in our well-being than an earthly father who is imperfect and sinful. So what an invitation to bring our supplications before God. Do you pray for things? Do you pray for things? Here's the thing, and as we're going to see, we're going to talk, in fact let me just mention this now, because all these things hit at this point. When it comes to our prayer life, these things reveal in us, whether it, you know, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, our prayer life will most often reveal where our heart is. Are we more interested in me first or others? Because sometimes Our prayer life can be all about ourselves. Can it? You ever think about when you pray, when you pray, and what you pray? Some people, their prayer lives are just like a genie in a bottle, right? I want three wishes. And if the only time you pray is when you need things, Now, wait a minute. Now, prayer is supplication. That means you're asking God for things. He wants you to come to Him when you have needs, because that shows a dependence on Him. Any father, any son, who never comes to his dad with needs, that dad ought to be concerned about that. Any dad that loves his son or daughter delights in meeting the needs of their child. And after a while, if a child never comes to their dad, or if their dad tries to meet the need and the son or daughter says, nah, dad, I don't need you. What do you mean? Get out of my life. I mean, that ought to concern any parent, right? God wants us to depend on him. And every time you bring a petition before him, you're demonstrating, you're telling him, Lord, I need you. But if all we're doing is coming to him in times of crisis, but we don't come to him until we have a crisis, then we're really not telling him we need him. Second thing, prayers. The word prayer is a broader term. That refers to all communication with God. Now here's the thing. If our prayer life is nil, except when we're in trials, what does that tell us about our relationship with God? Ron Hamilton has a song called, Lord, I Need You. And it talks about the fact that when everything's going rosy in our life, we soon forget to pray. But when the trials come, that's when we get on our knees. Now that's human nature. Remember the song, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing? Remember that phrase in there that we can all relate to? Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. That was written by a man of God who understood the nature. In fact, he had a time when he went away from the Lord. Robbie Robinson wrote that song, I think it was back in the 1800s. How many Christians who love the Lord have times where they stray? One of the easiest ways to tell if you've strayed from the Lord is if you have no prayer life. You've got this. It's like you're telling God. Every day you don't pray, you're saying, Lord, I got this. I don't need you. Is that what you're telling the Lord? Do you really not need Him? Third word, intercessions. Now, intercession is the least narcissistic part of prayer. Because intercession is when we pray for other people. And then third, it's also less narcissistic, and that's giving of thanks. When you and I fail to give thanks, it is really a sign of the fact that we do not appreciate the goodness of God. In fact, the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5.18, in some things give thanks. I do that often, don't I? Some of you are smirking, some of you have no idea what I just did. I just twisted the scriptures. You want to make a motion to vote me out of church? See, you should be concerned if a pastor starts twisting scriptures. The Bible doesn't say, in some things give thanks. It says, in everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. There's a big difference between in some things give thanks and in everything give thanks. Also, here's what it doesn't say. In everything feel thanks. And I'm glad it doesn't say that, because you don't always feel thankful, right? But here's the point. If you understand that the God of heaven is good and works all things together for good, Romans 8.28, then no matter what's happening in your life, if you realize He's in control, even when you're not feeling it, you can be confident that even the bad things he allows for the Christian who submitted, surrendered to him, even the bad things have a good design for them. I've shared with you, the man that led me to the Lord, just shortly after he led me to the Lord, lost his wife in a car accident. Just married for two years. A young man loses his new bride. And I go to the hospital as a baby Christian to try to encourage him. First time I've ever been in a hospital where a man lost his beloved wife. And thankfully I went with some other Christians, had no idea. What do you say to someone that just loses his new bride? And thankfully I didn't have to say anything. Because the man you met just a little while ago from this pulpit, John Caputo, sat there in the hospital bed with his Bible open to Romans 8.28, and he had the peace of God on his face. He was not happy that his beloved wife died. But he claimed, in fact I think he said this, he said, I'm hanging my hat on Romans 8.28, all things work together for good. And now he is decades later, and he has seen the goodness of God in his life. God brought a precious wife, and he now has multitudes of kids, and he's had a long life. Hopefully he's going to have many more years, right? We're praying for that for John. But God is good. He works all things together for good. Now let's jump in here. Three things I want us to briefly look at. We saw, Paul says this, first of all, in this verse, he's not referring to time, because he's already started this letter and he's, you know, he's a good way through this, but he's referring to importance, especially when it comes to public gathering, public worship. He's saying first of all, importance. And in Paul's mind, prayer is of the utmost Importance, when it comes to gathering and worship, prayer ought to be very important. So when you're worshiping God as a church, prayer should take priority. It's very important. I want to talk about that for a minute. Because in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus addressed doing different religious things publicly versus privately. Do you remember that? He talked about giving. He talked about praying. He talked about fasting. You remember what he said? Let me share with you. You don't need to turn there. But Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 1, take heed that you do not your alms, your giving, before men to be seen of them. He said when you're giving, Remember, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Don't give to be seen of men. And then in verse 5 he said, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. They love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. So Jesus is saying, don't pray to be seen of men. So as he's saying, in fact, I remember someone one time telling me, we shouldn't pray at all in church, because that's praying in public. And Jesus said, don't pray in public. Is that what Jesus was saying? If he is, then what Paul's saying here in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 1 seems to contradict what Jesus was saying. And then in verse 16 of Matthew 6, Jesus said, moreover, when you fast, Don't be like the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces. Have you ever been without food for a while? You don't even have to try to disfigure your faces, right? When someone walks by with a tray of food, I mean, it's automatic. You just, you know. But when you fast, Jesus said, don't disfigure your faces like the hypocrites of a sad countenance. They disfigure their faces. Why? That they may appear unto men to fast. Now what's Jesus talking about in Matthew chapter six? Is he saying the opposite of what Paul's saying when it comes to prayer? That prayer should only be in secret. He's not. He's telling us. And so I want to talk about this. With prayer, is it public? Or is he talking about publicizing? So he's not saying there's anything wrong with praying in public any more than he's saying, you know, when you fast, make sure nobody finds out. And when you give, I mean, we have our offering. Should we not do it in public? I mean, when the men come around with the plate, should you say, shh, everyone close your eyes, and just pass the plate around, but don't let anyone see. I mean, that would kind of be ridiculous. But is that what Jesus is saying? I want to share something. I want to use as an example fasting. And I am not bragging when I say this. There is a book that has helped me within this last year. Many of you know I lost a lot of weight, right? Because I needed to, for my health, for my life's sake. And I'm going to tell you, I'm not bragging at all, because I fasted not for spiritual reasons. And some of you have asked me, how did I lose the weight? In the last nine months, I've lost 70 pounds. And I did it through what's called intermittent fasting, but not for spiritual reasons. So I'm not getting credit with God, and I'm not losing my reward right now, okay? There's a book by a nephrologist from Toronto named Dr. Jason Fung, and it's called The Complete Guide to Fasting. And it's all on intermittent fasting. And in this book, They have all these examples of people they call fasting superstars or fasting all-stars. And they just give all these people who give examples of how they did fasting. Intermittent fasting is how I lost 70 pounds. But again, I'm not... Did I just violate what Jesus said? No, because I did it simply for physical health reasons. In fact, Dr. Jason Fung wrote a book called Diabetes Code, and I have diabetes, that's one of the reasons I had to lose weight. He wrote another book called The Obesity Code, and I was obese and I needed to lose weight. But the point is, when Jesus talked about don't fast to be seen of men, and don't pray to be seen of men. He's not saying, the hypocrites when they would pray, they would pray making long prayers to be seen of men, to get the glory of men. He's not saying don't have public prayer. He's talking about our motives. If we pray simply so that people will say, wow, did you hear the prayer that John Anderson gave? It was so eloquent. Let's make sure every time we have public prayer, John Anderson prays. He uses long, flowery words. They're so beautiful. John Anderson is so spiritual. In fact, nobody else is going to pray but John Anderson because he uses those fluffy words. And I feel so close to God when John Anderson prays. There have been people in our church over the years, none of them are here now, that sometimes when they prayed, I thought, is he really praying from his heart? You know, I mean, some people, if you hear someone pray, and all of a sudden their tone of voice changes, it's like, hey, Joe, will you pray? Sure, I'd be glad to pray. Dear God! You know, and all of a sudden it just changes. It's like, wait a minute! You know, prayer is communion with God. It's not, you know, it's not, you're not praying to be seen of men. You're talking to God. Now, I don't mean you should be casual like, hey, dude, what's happened up there? You're talking to God. But the idea of what Jesus was talking about when he said, don't do it to be seen of men, the same with fasting, the same with giving. Like if we took the offering when Gore came around, and I took out my wallet, and I said, 100, 200. 300. Oh, here, Gore, here's my offering. You know, that's the idea. Or I took this big money bag. Back then, they used coins, you know. And I said, oh, I got a big bag of gold here. I want to make sure the church gets this. Hey, Gore, you know, if that's what I did, that's what Jesus is talking about. And so, you know, like this book, The Complete Guide to Fasting, first of all, it's not written by Christians. And honestly, sometimes we don't talk about fasting. And I'll confess to you, I didn't talk about it a lot or preach about it a lot because I didn't do it. But there's a difference between fasting for physical reasons and fasting for spiritual reasons. And I'm convinced Sometimes we do need to do fasting before God. But also, I don't think there's anything wrong if we called a fast, you know, if God put a burden on our heart. Like when September 11th happened, if we as a church said, you know what, I think it'd be appropriate for us to pray and fast as a church. You need to be careful though that, you know, someone from the church says, I'm calling a fast. And you know, you're impressing or imposing on others that God has led me to make all of you need to fast. Or all, you know, imposing on others how they should spend their money or how they should, you know, eat their food or not eat their food. I remember when I first started getting into this intermittent fasting, and then I'm going to move on. I remember I was so self-conscious that I couldn't tell people I was fasting. But, you know, people would want to know, how'd you lose the weight? So here's what I did initially. Because, you know, it was taboo to say you're fasting. So I said, I'm trying this thing called intermittent eating. You know, because then I'm not saying I'm intermittent fasting. It's like, that sounds safe. How'd you lose your weight? Oh, I'm intermittent eating. Hey, that's not taboo. But then all of a sudden I realize, wait a minute. What is Jesus really condemning here? You know, it's not, it's, it's the same with prayer. God is not, the Lord's not condemning praying in public. We need to pray. We need to encourage prayer. And the same with giving. You know, there's nothing wrong with sharing a testament. Once in a while we host a Financial Peace University, and when it's appropriate, we have a testimony time where we'll share stories of how God put it on our heart to give generously to someone else. And that will often inspire someone else to give. As long as you're not boasting, like, hey, listen to what I did. Praise me, praise me. You know, that's bad. But there's times when it's appropriate to do that. Let's move on. Second thing. So number one, public prayer. Public or publicizing? The big difference. Number two, prayer. Communing or racking up points. And let me just mention this, and I want to get to this last point with time. And I've shared this already, but I want to repeat it again. And again, I'm not doing this to get the credit. And if I am, and that's my motive, just by me sharing this with you, I've just lost all my rewards. All right, so there. Many years ago, and this is often touted, Martin Luther would often say this. Martin Luther would often say, I have so much to do today that I have to spend the first three hours in prayer. And I remember hearing that many years ago, and many Christians I've known have had Martin Luther as their hero. Like, if I don't match Martin Luther's three hours of prayer in the morning, I'm not spiritual. Now, I would remind you, remember where Martin Luther started out in his journey. He started out in a religion that is works-oriented. And I think that might have stuck with him a little bit. And I've shared this story with you. That when I first got saved, I started devotions for half an hour a day and then an hour a day. And then I went to a seminar where I got challenged to pray for everyone in our congregation every day. So I started a prayer list. And I prayed for every single person in our church every day. And pretty soon I started spending two and a half hours doing devotions every single morning. Now again, I just lost my reward, so I'm not doing this for praise of men. And I did that consistently. And I want to tell you something, I felt pretty good about being a good pastor when you pray for your flock every single day. And I remember thinking, if I pray for every single person in our church every day, our church is going to grow from 30 to 300 in the next year. And it went from 30 to 33 in the next year. In fact, I thought, if I'm being a good pastor like that, we are never going to have any problem people because I'm praying for them every day. And guess how many problem people we had? A lot! But here's what happened, just in a nutshell. We had some babies. We had our first baby. I'm not mentioning any names because she's here today. And my wife, one day, babies tend to cry. And my wife would get up in the middle of the night. She was nursing. And I was very spiritual. I'd get up every morning very early. And I had my 2 and 1⁄2 hours. I'd fix my halo. And I was doing my devotions. And one time, my wife came in crying because the baby was crying. The baby was crying. And she was in tears. My wife was in tears. Both of them were crying. And my wife's like, you know, just once, I wouldn't mind having my devotions, you know, in quiet time. And I mean, I've been having my devotions, my quiet time with the Lord, this chunk of time. And she would deal with the baby. And it was just a beautiful arrangement for me. And it was like God said, lion, You need to wake up here, buddy. This isn't all about you. And I got it. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, He that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife. I'm married. I can't just focus only on the Lord. But here's the problem that I ran into. When you're spending two and a half hours in devotions being spiritual, And all of a sudden you have to change that plan. And by the way, just so you know, I got up, stopped devotions, and I helped my wife. And I'm not saying that to boast. Okay, I just lost that reward, so I'm not getting any glory here, okay? But just so you know, guys, when your wife needs you, stop being spiritual and take care of your wife. That's the most spiritual thing you can do. My wife just says, my wife just got charismatic. But here's the challenge. When you're spending every morning for two and a half hours with the Lord, you feel good about yourself. But try to change that to then cutting down to only doing like a half an hour of devotions every morning. And you start, I struggled feeling less spiritual. And I had to really wrestle with that. And I submit to you, I want to ask you something. Was I any less spiritual doing a half an hour devotions than I was when I did two and a half hour devotions? If you say yes, you're missing something. Because our walk with God is not dependent upon our performance. Please understand that. We just sang this morning Rock of Ages, and in verse 2 it said this, Folks, when we got saved, we took things out of our hands. It's not up to us anymore. No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. It's not up to us anymore. Please understand that. I'm going to share with you one more illustration today. It might take a couple minutes, but it's very important to me that you and I understand, whether it's prayer, scripture reading, your performance, when you get saved, you're not coming to God and saying, Lord, I'm offering my religious deeds to you. When you get saved, You're casting all that aside. Remember what Isaiah 64.6 says? All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. When you get saved, you come to Him empty handed. Because when He died on the cross, He paid it all. When He died on the cross, He said, it is finished. We can't add to what Jesus did. Not one prayer. The only thing you do is repent and cry out to God. There's not even a magical prayer formula. I used to think that prayers were what got me right with God. I'd go into the priest, confess my sins, and then he would give me a list of prayers I had to say, and that was my penance. No! You just repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. That's what it is. So, number one, public versus publicizing. Number two, communing with God or racking up points. Here's what Jesus said in Matthew 6, that's what I've been quoting. Jesus said this, Now it's interesting, I used to hear that verse. When you pray, use not vain repetition as the heathen do. That word heathen means Gentile or pagan. Now that verse confused me for many years. When you pray, don't use vain repetition as the heathen or the pagans do? Wait a minute. I didn't think pagans prayed. Pagans pray to their God, small g. and they would pray to their God, small g, and they'd pray. Remember the showdown with Elijah on Mount Carmel? You know? And they prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed, and their small g God heard them, right? Not at all. You see, the heathen. And what Paul's saying is, it doesn't matter how long you pray, the longer you pray, It's your vain repetition that doesn't matter. The quantity of your prayers. You pray for two and a half hours. That doesn't score you extra points with God, because prayer is communion with God, not racking up points. I had to learn that. Finally, prayer. Communion with God. That's what it's all about. It is not Empowering in fear. I want to share with you a testimony. I've quoted this book before it's called It's called becoming free indeed by ginger volo and She shares a story of a teacher that could apply to even some fundamentalist preachers and and even some invitations that I've given and Invitations, I believe there's a place for invitations, but they can also be abused. In fact, I remember going to an evangelistic meeting as a new believer, not as a new believer, I was studying for ministry. And I remember going to this evangelist, I remember going to a pastor friend of mine's church, and I remember they had this evangelist, and Talk about abusing an invitation. This guy, this invitation went so long. You know what an invitation is? I mean, I love Morris Gleiser. He gives good invitations. And his preaching is so good. I mean, I cannot withstand his invitations because I'm so convicted from the Word. But this preacher that I'm talking about, many years ago, he gave an invitation, and he went on so long, and he included so many things in the invitation, it got so ridiculous, it was like, if you love your mother, come on down! And it got so ridiculous, I started getting annoyed. And I dug in with my heels and I thought, I am not going down. I might have been the only carnal sinner standing in the pews. You know, it was that bad. But I want to share with you this testimony from this book of someone that abused the invitation or the idea of making a vow. before God. Let me read it to you. And I'm not going to read the teacher's name, because it can apply to any false teacher or even any sincere meaning evangelist or teacher. Let me read it to you. And again, I'm going to avoid, I'm not going to plug in this guy's name, though he abuses the use of the vowel V-O-W. Let me read it to you. By far the most common vow this preacher has, does, has their audience make, make, involves Bible reading and prayer. So here's a Bible teacher that will often make his audience commit to making a vow, V-O-W. And I'm gonna, again, I'm gonna make it plural. They don't ask for a big sacrifice. Five minutes of Bible reading and five minutes of prayer every day. That doesn't sound bad, does it? It'd be like me saying, okay, bow your heads. Who will make a vow before God that you'll commit to five minutes of prayer and Bible reading a day? That doesn't sound bad, does it? Stay tuned. They make it sound, or he makes it sound so easy. He, I'm gonna read they because it could apply to anyone. He, they imply this is the least Christians should do to show God they were committed to him. So-and-so would ask for a show of hands, a public commitment to the vow. Hands will go up all over the room. Then more hands. You know, I'm just going to put he for this one person. Eventually, so many raised hands blanketed the room that seemingly everyone in attendance, thousands of people, were making the same vow. Whether someone raised a hand because of peer pressure or because of a genuine desire to read scripture and pray more often, they were now committed to something. This person, so-and-so said, A vow was deadly serious. He would point to a text like Deuteronomy 23.21, and I quote, When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it, for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee, it would be a sin in thee. What were the consequences of that sin? So and so said that he had a few ideas. He said God would cause suffering, sickness, or even death if someone didn't keep a vow to the Lord. So imagine I give an invitation, and I say, who's going to make a vow to read their Bible and pray just for five minutes a day? And I see hands go up all over the room. It's OK. You just made a commitment. Do you realize how serious this is? If you miss five minutes of Bible study, you might die. Do you see that? This gal says, I'll never forget the conference where I personally made this vow about Bible reading and prayer. The pressure to do so was overwhelming. Everyone around me was making the same commitment. Plus, there were 1,440 minutes of the day. The vow was only requiring me to dedicate 10 of them to the Lord. How hard could it be? In the coming months and years, that simple vow would haunt me. If I didn't read my Bible or pray in the morning, I'd feel so much guilt. Sometimes at night, I'd realize I hadn't fulfilled my vow. Lots of nights, I'd see one of my siblings reading the Bible in a room and freak out, scrambling to read a chapter or two before I went to bed. The difficult thing about the vow wasn't the length of time required. It was the relentless nature of the guilt. The vow weighed on me. Even if I did read my Bible and pray the first thing in the morning, I'd only have to wait a few more hours for that same pressure and guilt to creep back in. Caveat. Of course the reading of the Bible is a good idea. Psalm 119.11 says, Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. There are too many benefits of reading God's word to count. So the problem wasn't with the object of my vow, scripture and prayer, the vow itself was the problem. It was creating unnecessary guilt. God tells me to dwell on his word, to hide it in my heart and to know it. And here's the key, to know the one who wrote it. That's the key. But nowhere does he command me to read the Bible every day, to command it. Laying that burden on myself was unnecessary. A vow like that, especially one that calls for only five minutes a day, each of those two crucial spiritual disciplines is built on a serious misunderstanding of what the Bible is. And then it goes into a chapter that is very good about the fact that too many people look at the Scriptures as simply a rule book and not a revelation of God Himself. Don't get lost in the purpose of God's Word. It is to reveal Himself. It is very easy to lose track of falling in love with the God of the Bible and simply loving the words and the rules and losing track, and leaving your first love. So what is prayer to you? Is prayer communion with God? Or is it something to impress others? Is prayer fellowship with your Savior? Or is it tallying up points so God will be pleased with you and give you more goodies? Is prayer drawing near to someone you deeply love? Or is it making sure he doesn't strike you dead because you stepped out of line? What is prayer for you? And have you missed it? Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for challenging us to pray publicly. But Father, as the teachers that Timothy was warned about, who have swerved off course, it's so easy for us to swerve off course. Father, it's so easy for us to play church, to cross our T's and to dot our I's, but to miss you in our relationship as we do church. Lord, please forgive us if that has happened and renew in us a deep love for you. And as we love your word, help us not to swerve from the truth and just be a bunch of vain janglers. Lord, help us to love you. Help us to renew our walk with you. We'll thank you for it. We pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen.