Turn your Bibles to Mark chapter 11 verses 20 to 25. That'll be our passage. At the end of the service, Dwayne's going to come back and lead us in some more worship. Would you stand in honor of God's word as I read? And as you're doing so, I did want to let you know that our church suffered a loss of a wonderful man. Doug Van Gelder went to be with the Lord this last week, just before Christmas. And his wife, Chris, is a faithful greeter on Sunday mornings. And if you would just be praying, Next Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock. There'll be a service for him here, and you are all welcome to attend if you would like Mark chapter 11 beginning in verse 20 God's Word says this this morning, as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe. that you have received it and it will be yours and whenever you stand praying forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father who is also in heaven may forgive you your trespasses and so father we thank you this morning we come believing that you do hear us when we pray and lord when we pray according to your will and for your glory and with a heart that is pure with you and with others that that you hear us and that you respond and answer and so father i asked this morning that you would hear the prayer of this servant Now, Lord, that you would do a great work through the teaching of your word in our midst in spite of who I am, Lord. I pray that you would do it because of who your son is and because this is your word. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. You can be seated. I don't know if there's anybody here who has made it to the movie theater in the last week or so. Maybe I should just do a survey. I don't really want to advertise for movies necessarily. But I'm going to go ahead and ask if anybody here, who here has seen Star Wars? The hands were already starting to go up. We all knew. OK, a lot of people here have seen Star Wars. I have to admit to you, I saw Star Wars. I'm going to tell you right now how it ends, actually. No, I won't do that. But I did go to see Star Wars. And you guys know, if you know me at all, I'm not a big movie guy. I mean, I like movies. I just wish they were 45 minutes long instead of two and a half hours long. Just get to the point is my thing. So actually, my niece, the other day, I said that. I said, I wish it was 45 minutes and not two and a half hours. And she just said, Uncle Chris, they call that a TV show. I don't know if you've heard of those. it's not so much it's not so much that you know whatever i'm not i'm not i'm not a star wars guy necessarily but i know some of you are and i don't want to offend anybody here have anybody walk out of church in an angry fashion so i won't say much about the movie and i won't criticize you if you love it it's fine that you like star wars but but there there was there was there was one particular thing that i didn't like about the movie and that is its popularity And the reason I didn't like its popularity, I know some of you right now think I'm going to make some spiritual point here, but I'm really not. What I didn't like about the movie's popularity is when we went to the movie the other day with two of my youngest kids and my wife and I went to see the movie and it was absolutely packed. And you know for me that's a problem because when I go to movies I always take my pillow and I lift those arms up and I stretch out and lay my head on my wife's lap and I sleep and there was just no way to make that into a couch. So I was already bent out of shape, like, oh, this is going to stink. I have to stay seated in here. And I know some of you sometimes feel like laying out in church as well, but we will remove you from the room if you do that here. But I did. I brought my pillow in anticipation of a tremendous nap, and that didn't happen. So I ended up watching most of the movie. I did fall asleep for part of it. I did go out and stretch my legs during part of it. Texted a few people, you know, whatever but I mean I walked out but but but I did see the movie I kind of get the point of the movie, but there was something I really did like about the movie and that was its name. I Do I like that name? I actually rings a bell with me I kind of like it the force awakens and actually when I read this passage this morning now, I'm not talking about You know some mythical story, but I'm talking about a reality and that is that there's this great power in prayer you know how concerned we are as a church for the church in America you understand that we have a been a part of planting five different churches, revitalizing one, planting four others. And in fact, I got a message from Danny Gardner from Denver on Christmas Eve night. He said last year there were 50 people at the candlelight service, and this year there were 240 people at the candlelight service at that same church. So we're excited. God's working there. It's good news. Our Christmas offering this year, half of it's going to Boston to help plant the church there. So we're concerned about the church in America, but I've got to tell you something. Our concern in the church in America, what we need to do is if we really want to see the force of the church awaken in America, because it is dying, if you want to see the church awaken, what it's going to precede that awakening is going to be prayer. It's not going to be man's great schemes and plans and clever ways to try to get people to come to church. It's going to be because God's spirit moves and works and convicts the world of sin and draws people to himself. Jesus is the one who builds his church. So it's not a matter of getting fancy. It's just a matter of being faithful. And we have to begin on our knees. And I don't think it's hopeless for America. I don't. I don't think it's hopeless for America. Some of you are feeling like it really is. And many of you are thinking, if we don't elect just the right president next time, we're done. And I would tell you there's not a political answer for what ails our country. It's a spiritual answer, and it's going to change, and I believe there will be revival, and the church will be awakened when God's people pray, and we recognize our dependence on Him, and even when we'll repent of our clever schemes, thinking that somehow we were going to build a church. That's not what Jesus ever promised would happen. But He did promise this amazing thing. If you look down at verse 24, verse 24, I tell you that whatever you ask in prayer, believe, I'm sorry, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. That's a tremendous promise. And by the way, that's not only just for the church, that's for your life too. It's an amazing promise that whatever you ask in prayer, believe it, that you've already received it, that it's already a done deal. Now I realize that some people in this room would take that to mean, well that sounds like a health wealth prosperity, we can name it, claim it. I don't think that's what this teaches at all. In fact, I'll show you today, I really believe what the point is, and the ESV version I think gets this right, when it says this, his point is, is that they should trust God to remove whatever hinders them from bearing fruit for God. We'll talk more about the context, but God promises he will remove whatever hinders you from bearing fruit for God. And I believe everybody in this room believes that at some point you're going to meet God face to face and you'll be all by yourself in that meeting. And even though we blame a lot of other people for our problems in our lives, our parents, our spouses, our kids, or this or that, when you stand before God, you're not going to be able to mention any of their names. Like Adam did in the garden. It's that wife you gave me that won't play well in heaven before God. And so we'll be held accountable. I believe we all of us want to be fruitful. We wanna hear well done, good and faithful sermon. I'm sure everybody in this room wants to hear that. And what God promises is if you'll seek him, he'll remove whatever hinders, whatever hindrances are in your way from bearing fruit for him. Why are we so prayerless? Why do we struggle with prayer? And let's be honest, probably most of us realize and recognize we don't pray as much as we should. This is not gonna be a guilt trip sermon today, because I don't think guilt trips are actually very motivating. And so I could guilt all of us into praying by saying things like this, that the average Christian prays three minutes a day. We have access to God and we pray three minutes a day. And I'm happy to tell you that pastors are much, much better than parishioners. Pastors, on the average, pray five minutes a day. So that's, I mean, come on. Why do we struggle so much with prayer? I think for two reasons. One is just distractions, we're too busy. We're just inundated with information all the time, things to look at, things to do, right? I mean, start looking at people when they stop at stoplights, what do they instantly grab for? Their phone. You can't sit through a red light anymore without looking to your phone. I read something interesting that there are actually, of the 7 billion people on the planet, more people now have access to a cell phone than they do a toilet. It's amazing, right? So we're inundated with information. Number two, I think there's a second reason why, especially for maybe people, believers in America, the richest country in the history of the world, and that is the issue of dependence. We oftentimes are just too arrogant. We've come to a place where we're self-sufficient. We think we have everything that we need. We don't really need to seek God. And so it takes a tragedy or difficulty in our life for actually us to come to Him. Somebody has said this, the absence of prayer is the sure sign of work done in the flesh. If we're not praying, then we're just doing it on our own. Somebody else has said this, God will never give you a life that will make Him unnecessary. and never bless you so much that it'll make him unnecessary. And so I think there's a lot of various reasons for prayerlessness. I know in my own life it leads you to distractions and usually it's just a lack of vision for my own dependence on Him. We read about that in Psalm 14. So let's look at our passage this morning. Let's grab this verse in context and see if we can't make some sense of it and maybe make some practical applications. And then what we're going to do today is actually pray before we go. I don't want to talk about prayer and then not pray. So we're going to talk about prairie, and we're going to pray. And so if you'll look at verse 20, the first thing I want you to see is Peter's observation. We'll see Peter's observation, and then we'll see Christ's explanation, and then finally two exhortations from Jesus. First observation of Peter, verse 20, Of the passion week Monday, so this is Tuesday morning and on Monday Jesus went into the temple cleared out the temple before he did that he cursed a fig tree He cursed the fig tree if you remember this it was a symbol of Israel It's really a parable of of Israel if he was a metaphor It was a tree that had leaves but no fruit and a tree that had leaves was supposed to have some sort of fruit and Jesus was hungry it said and so he went to grab some fruit from a tree that appeared to be fruitful and yet it wasn't And really what he's saying is, is that's like the nation of Israel. There is a temple, there's all kinds of activity in that temple, but there's not worship there. There's real no spiritual fruit there. And we talked about the danger of that in our own lives. All kinds of activity, but maybe no fruit. And so Peter comes by, and remember in verse 14 it said that, and he said to it, may you never eat fruit from, no one eat fruit from you again. So he had said this tree will now be barren. But then they come and the tree is completely withered. In Matthew chapter 21, the parallel passage says the tree was withered at once. The disciples didn't notice that, but the tree had been completely destroyed. It wasn't just barren, it was dead. And so Peter spoke of this tree's condition with amazement. Because it was far beyond being barren, it was destroyed. And in Matthew 21, 20, it actually says that when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, how did this fig tree wither at once? So really what they're amazed by is that the fig tree could just instantly be gone. Now, if Jesus had said, may no one ever eat fruit from you again, there would be no proof for the disciples to know if that ever really happened or not, unless every year they came back to see if this one tree had fruit on it or not. And so Jesus, I think, to make the point, completely destroys it. I also think Jesus is making a point that that temple is also going to be destroyed, and it was in A.D. 70. Because there'd be a new place to meet with God. Remember Jesus had said that this house was to be a place of prayer for the Gentiles. That he says this temple was meant to be this great light to the world about the greatness of God and yet they have corrupted it and they're ripping people off in it and they're fleecing the flock and this isn't a place of communion with God, this is a place of commerce where they're just making money. So Jesus says no, that system is completely, utterly destroyed. From here on, I'm gonna build my church. and they will be my light to the world, and they will point people to me, and they will be a place of community where people commune with God, the church. So the tree is really, it's a sequel here, our passage today, it's a metaphor for Israel. And in verse 13 it said that that tree had nothing but leaves. There's a danger of the same thing happening in the church today, that we have a lot of activity, but we have no substance, we have no real spirituality, we have no real relationship with God. I also remind you that Jesus is about to depart. This is Tuesday of the Passion Week. By Friday, He's going to be crucified. They will need to learn how to pray. And so Jesus had said this is to be a house of prayer. He's going to teach them how to pray so that the church would be a place of prayer. And so then we pick it up in verse 22. Jesus explains. Verse 22, notice this, it says, Jesus answered them have faith in God truly I say to you whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea But does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass it will be done for him So the disciples are amazed that a tree can just instantly die at the word of one man now now what is crazy to me is these disciples have seen Jesus bring people back from the dead and Remember the woman who had bled for 12 years? She touches Jesus' garment and she's instantly healed. Remember when the storm was raging earlier in Mark and Jesus is asleep on the boat and they wake him up as if somehow, you know, like, we're gonna die. And he's like, I'm on the boat with you. And he just steals the storm. So now in this only negative miracle recorded in the Gospels, Jesus instantly tells the tree, you're dead, and the tree dies, and they're amazed. They shouldn't have been amazed. What Jesus says to them is, is you need to have faith in God. Faith that rests in God is an unwavering trust in his omnipotent power and his unfailing goodness. And so they don't really fully comprehend God's omnipotent power. It's never amazing when God does something that is within his ability. They shouldn't be amazed that the God who created the universe can kill a tree or calm a storm or raise the dead. So this year, as my kids were opening some of their presents, I did more shopping than I usually do. My wife has been so gracious over the years. She does most of the shopping. She's so thoughtful. She really makes Christmases special. I was reading a little biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it's a letter that he wrote to his parents. He's the man that died in Nazi Germany 10 days before the end of the war. He was the Christian pastor who opposed publicly Hitler, even tried to help in his assassination because he knew what he was doing was wrong. And so he was imprisoned by Hitler and 10 days before Hitler actually committed suicide, he had him hung at 39 years old, engaged, never married. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I recommend you read some of his writings. And he had written to his parents and he said, the thing that is filling my heart with hope this Christmas as I'm in prison is that my mom always did such a great job leading us in celebrations of Christmas. And my kids could say the same thing. So his heart was filled with joy because his mom had always been so thoughtful at those seasons. That's what my kids have had. So my wife's always done most of the shopping, done most of the work, made it a sweet time for our family, and I'm appreciative and grateful for that. But this year, I did some of the shopping. I didn't do all of the shopping, but I somehow got involved in some of the shopping and was enjoying that, picking out presents for the kids. And so my wife did something that she didn't need to do, but every time they opened a present that I picked out, she said, dad picked out that one. And I really mean that sincerely. She didn't have to do that. She was doing that because she was wanting to draw attention to the fact that I had picked that because when she gives the gifts that she picks out, she doesn't say, and I picked out this one, not dad. She always says that's from mom and dad. But this year, if dad picked it out, she says, dad picked it out for you. Drawing attention to my part in that, did not need to do that. Doesn't do it the other way when she picks it out. He was just gracious and kind. And so they opened several of the presents, and then my daughter Hannah, finally after Christmas is over, we're sitting around, and Kristen's drawing attention to the presents that I picked out, she goes, dang, Dad, you did a good job picking out presents. And the way that she said it was really like this, I am so shocked that you actually picked out things I like. It's close. And of course, I look in the mirror, I'm thinking, I'm like a fashion icon, how would I, I mean, of course. What else do you think I'm gonna pick out?" She was shocked. Like, no, usually presents come from mom and they're good. You know how to do that? Really? That's what these disciples are doing, really, honestly. Jesus curses the tree, they come back the next morning, they see that it's cursed and it's dead, and they go, wow! How did that happen? You did that? Jesus is going, your faith in God is too little. Your view of the power of God is not great enough. And then notice in verse 23, he says this, truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea. Now Jesus is using hyperbole here and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass. It will be done for him. I love this here. First of all, I want you to notice when Jesus says truly I say to you, that is something only Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark. He says it 13 times. It's a solemn affirmation. Literally, it means amen or so be it. It reminds me of Hebrews 6, verse 13, when the Bible says that when God made a promise to Abraham, because there was nobody greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself. Jesus literally saying here, I swear to Jesus. He can't say anybody higher. Literally, I'm saying to you, this is, in fact, true. The Son of God says this is true. It's a solemn affirmation. I don't think that we should swear to God. I think we should let our yes be yes and our no be no. But we know that humanity, we oftentimes, that's something we still practice today. You go to a courtroom, right? You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God. You're really swearing by a higher, somebody over you, above you. There's nobody higher Jesus can swear by. And so he just says here simply, truly I say to you. And then he says this amazing thing. He says, you know, if you, If you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and you don't doubt, but you believe in your heart, it will come to pass. Now, Jesus is likely standing here on the Mount of Olives, and from the top of the Mount of Olives, you can see back over to the Dead Sea. Probably what He's literally doing is saying, see this mountain right here? And maybe even looking over to the Dead Sea, see this mountain? If you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, it'll be done if you believe and don't doubt. Now, sadly, what many people have done is abuse this passage. Jesus is using hyperbole. Hyperbole is derived from a Greek word meaning overcasting, and it's a figure of speech. It involves an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis. Jesus here trying to inspire faith. He's not trying to inspire the health, wealth, prosperity movement here by any means. It's always dangerous when you isolate one verse from scripture and you don't interpret it with the rest of the Bible, which we will do today before we leave. And so what he's doing here is he's giving them a visible illustration and he's saying, in a positive way, you can have unwavering faith and trust in God that he will remove whatever obstacle stands in your way from living a glorified, fruitful life for him. And then Jesus gives two exhortations concerning prayer. The first one is this, therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours, and whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you of your trespasses. Jesus gives these two exhortations concerning effective prayer. Number one, have faith. He's saying, ask, so therefore ask, come to me. We can ask of God. Have faith, believe that he's able to do it. Nothing's too difficult for him. He can move mountains. And you know, while some of you in this room might say, well, there's not really a mountain I want to move. I mean, after all, wouldn't that be ridiculous? I'm just gonna go, after church today, I'm gonna go over to Tehachapi and I'm gonna move the Tehachapi mountains over to the other side of Bakersfield just to see if I can do it. And you say, what? That would be foolish. God isn't interested in our folly. But you know what, some of you, including me, we have mountains that are spiritual mountains, even emotional mountains, difficult mountains, and what God is saying is, you know what, I can move those mountains if it's for my glory and it's according to my will, which we'll talk about in a moment. So he says, ask. Ask in prayer. Believe that you have received it, that it's as good as done. And then he gives a second condition of effective prayer. And this is kind of shocking. You think, how does this fit in here? He says, and forgive so that your father also may forgive you your trespasses. So faith and forgiveness are essential for effective prayer. And so he says there, when you stand in prayer, by the way, that was a common posture then, to stand in prayer. We often kneel in prayer. That's also a posture described in the Bible. We can lay in prayer before the Lord. That's a common posture as well. But I will tell you, probably our prayer life would be more effective if we would stand more and sit less. Not always a good place to pray when you're laying in bed with your head on the pillow, amen? Because the next thing you're doing is what? Sleeping. Not a bad thing to go into your sleep praying. There's not wrong to do, but if you're intentionally trying to have a prayer time, it wouldn't be bad to stand every so often. But he says this, he says, you need to forgive and not hold a grudge against others. In fact, it reminds me that standing position, doesn't it remind you of Hannah? Remember Hannah in 1 Samuel when she's pleading with God for a son? It says that Eli saw her standing, pleading with God. And so as we plead with God, he says, you need to come first with a heart of forgiveness toward others. And in fact, we see this repeated in Ephesians 4, verse 32, that we're to forgive as God has forgiven us. That's a readiness to pardon offensives, to overlook personal wrongs. And here's the point I think Jesus is making here, is that God forgives unworthy objects, and we therefore should do the same. Now, your Bible may or may not have verse 26 in it, which basically says if you don't forgive others, then God won't forgive you. And there's some debate about whether or not that's really in the original manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts don't have that piece of that in there. However, Jesus says the same thing in Matthew chapter 6. And so it's truth, it's gospel truth. So you ask, what does that mean? That is a parental relationship. It doesn't mean that if you fail to forgive somebody, you lose your salvation. What it means is, though, in relationship with God, when you hold a grudge against others, that your relationship with Him is going to be strained. Your prayer life will be weakened. It's kind of like in 1 Peter 3 when it says, Men, don't be harsh with your wives, but dwell with them in an understanding way, so that your prayers are not hindered. I think what God is saying there is, I'm just going to treat you, you're still my son, you don't stop being my son, but I'm going to treat you how you treat your wife. That's humbling. And so I think he's saying the same thing. If you want to hold a grudge against others, that's okay, I'll just kind of do the same thing with you. And your prayer life will be hindered because of that. It's not a salvation issue, but it's hypocritical for us to receive so much grace and then not extend it. In fact, I'll make you guys a deal today, okay? I'm gonna make you a deal, and here's the deal. Actually, you can stand before God. I'm giving you an opportunity to be unforgiving toward another human being completely unforgiving and If you meet these criteria and you stand before Jesus and you said but pastor Chris said it was okay I'll take the heat for you. Okay, I'm gonna take that one on for you. You just mentioned my name there I'm sure it's gonna work out great And here's the deal I'm gonna make with you, okay you can not forgive somebody else whether it's an unbeliever, a believer, you can hold a grudge, be as bitter as you want to be against somebody else, as long as that person has offended you more than in your whole life you've offended God. And if you meet that criteria, then you can be unforgiving. You have my permission, and if I'm wrong about that and you stand before Jesus, then you blame me, okay? Does that sound like a deal? Because you know that's never, ever going to happen. See, I think it kind of works like this. I do think it's like a parental relationship. I think it's like this. When my kids were small, I used to get so frustrated when they wouldn't share. Even like on a Christmas morning, they have their toys, like, I don't want to share. You just get your kids all these things and you go down and they're, you know what I mean, they're pulling on the other side of a truck. It's mine, it's mine. Every kid does that, I did that. But there was something so irritating, you know, like when you would do that, it's kind of like, ah, you know, you've been given so much and you can't share, like that was a gift, you didn't earn that, whatever. Right, so I used to have this little thing, I'd say, okay, hey, listen, you don't have to share. You don't have to share. In fact, it reminds me, it was so fun watching little kids growing up, things they would do. I remember, I was thinking of the sharing thing. I remember my daughter Hannah, I'm a big fan of having, we have two sets, right? So we have a girl, boy, and then a gap in the middle, a girl, boy. I think that's not a bad thing to have a girl first, because I think it keeps boys out of a lot of trouble, at least for a while. And I remember, in fact, because they always get to make the rules then, right? The older sibling gets to make the rules, at least for a while, until the boys get big enough. I'm like, hey, I don't have to do this anymore. I remember when, finally, that happened. My son Ryan, he had to endure so many times of getting married, all through his little years, to his sister. He'd have to put a suit on, she'd make him get dressed up, and she'd get a dress on, and they'd walk in to get married again. And I remember, finally, when he got old enough, I remember he just blurted out one time, he goes, I don't want to be a husband anymore. I want to just be a dog. It works for a while, right? You get to the advantage. In fact, I remember one time, too, I was watching them play the piano. We had a little piano, and Hannah would play the piano, and then Ryan would play the piano, and then Hannah would play the piano, and Hannah would play the piano again, take two turns, and then Ryan would get one turn, and then she'd get two turns, he'd get one turn. I'm like, hey, that's not fair. What are you doing? She goes, oh, no, Dad. She's probably six years old. No, dad, it's fair. How is that fair? You're getting two turns, he's getting one turn. Oh, no, no, no. It's like this. Hannah gets a turn, then Leanna gets a turn, and then Ryan gets a turn. Hannah gets a turn, then Leanna. I go, who's Leanna? Well, that's the other me. So Hannah goes, and Leanna goes, then Ryan. So I remember, I would say this to the kids, like if they wouldn't share, I'd say, hey, you don't have to share, it's okay, but I don't want your toy in my house anymore. So just take your toy outside, your toy's not allowed in my house, this is my house, so you can, I'm not sharing my house with your toy anymore. Okay, I'll share you know what I mean like you see what I mean Like as a dad you get that right you guys get that like so you can imagine when God looks down at us And he has forgiven us of so much in Christ, and he's going and you're not gonna forgive somebody else Now let me make this distinction though. This is important forgiveness isn't reconciliation Reconciliation takes two parties but forgiveness That only takes one. To forgive means you release from liability. And by the way, you know what is great about forgiveness? You know who really gets released when you forgive? You do. See to it that no one misses the grace of God so that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble. and defile many. So Jesus just says, hey, listen, when it comes to prayer, first thing you have to have is faith. You have to really believe that God hears you. I just want to tell you today, if you're struggling in your faith and you're like, I don't know if God hears me when I pray, I just want to tell you, I would stand up here all day long. I have seen God answer so many prayers. It's unbelievable. And I know I speak for many in this congregation as well. He listens when you pray. He hears you. Believe. Trust Him. It's amazing. It's amazing to me what Jesus says in Matthew 7-11, God delights to give good gifts to those who ask Him. If I'm a dad, I just told you I love giving gifts to my kids. I enjoy it. It's fun. I like getting them things. I have fun shopping for them. And if I'm a corrupt, sinful dad, how much more so does our Father in Heaven love, delight to bless people? So let me just give you two essentials for prayer. I've already identified them, but let me just develop them a little further. Number one, first essential for effective prayer, number one is faith. Secondly, forgiveness. But I want to give you two components to faith. What does faith involve? Faith involves two things, I think, and that is, number one, Worship, and secondly, God's will. So faith is, we believe God is capable of granting any prayer, any prayer, with these two conditions. We believe that he answers prayer with these two conditions. One is, hallowed be your name, that it's for his glory and not our own glory. Last night we prayed together, I prayed together with some people up front here, a group, and it was amazing because a lady prayed, she said, she started by praying, she said, Father, forgive me, she has an adult son who's an alcoholic, she said, forgive me, for always praying for my son so that my life will be easier." She said, I pray that you would do it, Lord, for your glory. Hallelujah would be your name. It's having a right motive, really. Worship is having a right motive. James 4.3 says, you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions. So the first thing is we pray for God's glory. Secondly, we pray for God's will. That's how we pray by faith. We pray for God's will. Your kingdom come, your will be done. I'm not a big outdoorsman guy, like I'm a little bit of an outdoorsman guy. I have fun. I mostly just have fun with whoever I'm with. In fact, even going to that movie the other day, my kids said, Dad, you don't have to go to the movie. And I was like, no, I want to go because I want to sit by you guys. I just like being with you. So over the years, we just find different ways. So we do the outdoors fishing thing, and we had a couple kayaks, and we've done those things, right? And mostly I've done those just because I don't want my kids to grow up and say my dad never took me fishing, right? So that's kind of a, you know, I just don't love it. I like it, I like getting outside, I just like people that I'm with. And so sometimes, right, we've taken little boats out or kayaks or rented little fishing boat, whatever. Go up to Mammoth, I went there with my son this year, we had little kayaks, right? So when you're in a boat and you throw the anchor up to the shore, right, is that for the purpose of pulling the boat to the shore or for pulling the shore to the boat? Are we trying to pull the shore to ourselves or are we pulling ourselves to the shore? That's what prayer is like. When we pray, it's not a matter of me getting what I want, it's a matter of me more and more wanting what God wants. Somebody has said this, prayer is not principally a way for me to get what I want, it is instead a process by which I begin to want the things that God would want. And so, we are to come We are to come in faith, and we're also to come with a spirit of forgiveness, releasing others from liability, not praying with hypocrisy. And maybe this morning there's some bitterness that's keeping you from prayer. Maybe you're angry. Maybe you need to really ask God to evaluate, Lord, is there somebody I haven't forgiven? So I don't want to just talk about prayer today. I don't want to just talk about this God that can do above and beyond all we could ask or imagine. I want to pray to him. R.A. Torrey said this, we are too busy to pray and so we are too busy to have power. A great deal of activity and yet we accomplish very little. The devil does not fear our programs and methods but he trembles when God's people begin to pray. So we're going to do something totally insane today. We're going to pray in church. Whoa. I realize I'm just going over the top here. And I say that kind of sarcastically because I do get a little irritated with all the Christians that are so mad that we can't pray in schools when we hardly ever pray at church. Let's start here and see what the Lord does there. I'm not against praying at school. You know the old bumper sticker, as long as there's tests, there will always be prayer in school, right? But I'm just saying, why don't we pray? By the way, Jesus said he was mad because he said my house was to be a house of prayer, right? My father's house to be this house of prayer. And so some people might ask me, what are the goals for 2016 at Grace Chapel? My problem is I've never had a goal for any single year in the 16 years I've been doing this deal. My goal for our church is that we would glorify God, we'd be filled with the Spirit, seek Him, and so far, so good, right? I mean, five churches planned. And listen, here's the amazing thing. You guys, you can look at your leaders, that includes me first and foremost, because I'm the weakest of all of them. I am. There's nothing about me that anybody would ever say, yeah, that's gonna be great. That I look back on it when I was 31 years old and I'm like, that was one desperate church. I mean it sincerely. I'm thankful for the privilege. But I'm not worthy of it. So we don't sit down and go, okay, what are our attendance goals this year? What are our financial goals this year? We're going to plant a church this year. Not one time did God ever give us a heads up when we were going to plant a church. Three different times people called us and said, if we give you our church and our building and everything, would you just take over our church and put a new church and send a pastor and people? Okay. All we can do is, I think, try to be faithful and be ready so when God sends the opportunity, we can try to meet it in faith. But why do I say all of that? Because it is not my intention to now change that. And to start saying, okay, we're going to do this this year, we're going to do this this year. You know what we're going to do this year? Is we're going to be in God's Word together, we're going to seek Him, we're going to ask God to fill us with the Spirit, and we're going to start off our new year by praying. What we're going to do is say, you know, Don Wilkes, the chairman of our elder board, he always says this, what do you always say about planning? You pray and then you plan, you don't plan and then you pray. See, so often what we're doing is we make our plans and then we pray and ask God to bless our plans. We want to be praying and say, no God, we want your plans and then you bless them because they're your plans. That's pretty good what you say. I'm just gonna ask you to join me in prayer. It's so good to just pray with you. And I just would hope that that inspires more prayer in all of our lives this year as we start 2016. Let's seek God together. It's the fool that says in his heart there is no God when there's so much evidence. And the evidence that somebody really says there is no God is that we don't seek God. And so if we don't pray, we're really no better off than the people who don't even believe in prayer. So let's seek him. I want you to join me real quick. Pastor David is preaching at another church in town this morning. They're without a pastor, and so some guys from our church have been filling that pulpit, primarily. This is a couple times over there. We have one of our youth leaders been over there doing that, another guy in our church. So let's pray for Pastor David. He's preaching right now, and I just told him we would do that. So, Father, we pray for Pastor David as he speaks this morning at a church in town. Thank you for that church. We pray that you bless it. I pray that you provide a pastor there. And, Lord, ask that you would speak through our brother and friend and pastor here, David, this morning to them. Be with them, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.