All right, hey, praise God for those kids. Yeah. Those awesome families, I love my man, dude. If you're trapped, pray, okay? That is true.
That is exactly what you should do if you get trapped.
So, man, I love that. What an awesome lead-in to our sermon for today. Luke 11, guys. We're going to be talking about the Lord's Prayer. Lord's Prayer is in Matthew 5.
It's also in Luke 11. We're talking about the shorter version today. All right, so you guys can turn with me there. I don't know about you. This sermon is very meaningful to me because for much of my life, and I'm sure this will come and go at different seasons, but prayer can really be a battle, not to do it necessarily day in and day out, because I feel like over time, God's giving me good rhythms and that stuff.
But, man, to do it well, to want to grow in it. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Listen, I know that you don't want to be in the same place in your prayer life next year as you are this year. You know, you want to grow. That's why we're here.
That's why we get under the teaching of God's word. And today, we're going to see God just give us such a direct answer to a direct question. Jesus, teach us how to pray. All right, we're in this series, walking with Jesus. Imagine hanging out with him.
The more you get to know him, the more you want to know him. Jesus, teach us how to pray. And that's what we're going to be doing in Luke 11 today. You may have struggled with prayer before, I know I have at different times.
Sometimes not the first thing that comes to my mind. We were in a cohort maybe a few months ago, beginning of this year, where churches come together and we do like kind of think tanks, push on each other.
Some churches that are really blowing and going and planting other churches, and we'll get together and we'll critique what the other guys are doing, and they'll critique us, and we're trying to learn together. You probably do something like that in your business or whatever to try to get better. But we were at this thing and they put us through this exercise where they said, Hey, we want you guys to imagine a world in which you 10x your church planting goals over the next five years.
Okay, now if you 10x those goals, we're going to give you exactly four minutes, high pressure, all right, to write down on this big tear sheet and whiteboard kind of thing what happened over the next five years that got you to 10x of your goal.
So basically, you're reverse engineering. What do we need to do to get 10x our goal? And it was high pressure. Hey, these other churches are going to come critique what you're doing.
So you guys got four minutes, go. And it was like everybody in the room is just on a white man, we're going. And our team just immediately goes into battle mode. It's me and about four of other guys. And I mean, we're just dude, we got to double our pipelines and we're going to have to identify planters earlier.
We got to back up into high school ministry and don't just start in college ministry. And I mean, we're just going blow in. We got to speed up our training and we're doing all of this stuff. We got all this stuff mapped out and all these things. And then it comes time to switch.
All right. And so another church comes in to critique our stuff. And we're feeling pretty good about it. You know, we feel like, hey, we're pretty smart with this kind of stuff. And they look at the board and they're kind of.
Kind of being a little bit sheepish, and we're like, Well, what's the deal? What do you think of our stuff? And they say, Well, we sort of thought if you 10x your goals, prayer may have been a component. And we looked up. And we had written eight different steps.
And none of them were prayer. You know, and the reality is, hey, that's a hashtag called hashtag pastor fail.
Okay, that just happens sometimes. Happens in your world too. Man, you give me four minutes and the pressure's on, and what happens? I go into battle mode. What do we need to do?
And maybe you're like that. If you're a high achiever, you're trying to go fast, you got things you're trying to get done, and it turns into what am I going to do? What do we need to do? What are the plans that we need to make? Instead of first realizing, man, for everything in our life, the first thing that we need to do is put it in God's hands and call out to Him in prayer.
Do you want to grow in prayer? I do. I want to grow in frequency. I want to grow in fervency. I want these things to be different in my life.
I know you want them to be different in your life.
So here's what we got to do: here's a big idea. We can learn to pray better from Jesus. Direct question, direct answer from the man himself, okay? There's not a lot of illusions, there's not illustrations, this is not a parable from Jesus. Direct question, direct answer.
We can learn to pray better. Let's dive in. Luke chapter 11. Here's what it says: Now Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.
And he said to them, When you pray, Say, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. That's a way of, in that time, of saying who has sinned against us, and lead us not into temptation. Jesus, teach us to pray.
And what comes out is three verses here of teaching about prayer. This is so great. It's short. It's to the point. It's punchy.
You know, Jesus criticized long prayers. Never criticized long sermons.
Okay, so just know that. But he criticized long prayers that drone on repetition. It becomes this coach speak word salad. All this Christianese starts coming out. That's not what we're called to do.
This is, hey, it's punchy. It's got meat to it. There's intentionality to it. And there's some things here that I think we can learn. All right.
The first thing that jumps out at me is that his disciples come to him and they say, Jesus, teach us. us how to pray.
Now, I just want to ask you a question. Do you have that posture today? Do you want to learn how to pray better from Jesus?
Okay, because many of us, I think at times, if we're in a time of crisis, we want to learn how to pray better. If everything's just kind of rocking along as it should be, maybe we're not thinking about it. And I think that we, you know, we kind of dog the disciples a lot about things that they got wrong. Y'all, this is one shining example of what they got right. If you want to learn to pray, we go to the man himself and we ask.
Will you teach us to pray? Is that our posture today? Do we have that type of posture at our campuses? Do we have that type of posture today? Do we have the humility to say, hey, I want to learn to pray from Jesus?
Well, if we do, then we look, and the first thing that I see here in verse two is: he says, when you pray, pray hallowed. He says, when you pray, pray, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Guys, one of the first things that we've got to wrestle with in prayer is who we are praying to. And Jesus in the Lord's Prayer reframes for us the relationship. of the one that we are going to in prayer.
It doesn't say president. It doesn't say CEO, hallowed be your name. It doesn't say coach. It doesn't say business owner, right? It doesn't say teacher.
It's this relationship of father to a child.
Now look, we are all, and our campuses too, we are all children of God in a generic sense of, hey, you know, man, we're created by God, and in that sense, we're all his children. I understand that. But when we admit our sin, believe in what Christ has done, and confess him with the Lord of our life, as the Lord of our life, the Bible says that we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We used to be an orphan. And no family of God.
Now we are brought into the family of God, and now we have the opportunity to say father to God.
Now, we all, guys. We pray many times, Heavenly Father or Father, 2,000 years ago, that's not the thing. The thing they would pray is more like: I'm praying to the covenant king. The God of Israel, and Jesus reframes this to say, Father.
Now, look, I don't know what comes to your mind. When I say Father, because some of y'all have incredible stand-ins for the Heavenly Father in your own Father, and some don't. But I would say, even to those who don't, you got to understand the way that you know that you don't is because your heart actually is created to long for a heavenly father. The way that you know that it was wrong, that all you saw was your dad's back growing up, is because actually your heart knows and longs for a heavenly father who is ever present. Our Heavenly Father is unconditional in His love.
Our Heavenly Father wants our good, not just for us to be good little soldiers. Not to be good little reflectors of their great personalities and all that, but for our good. That's what God wants for us. God wants us to grow. He loves us unconditionally.
One pastor said it like this: I latched onto this years ago. Our God is the type of father who takes you to get ice cream after you lost the ball game. You know, he wants the relationship with us. And I think it's very important for us to understand that. Let me ask you a question: Do you know God as Father?
Some of us here today, some of us are on campus, are like, man, I believe in God. Yeah, well, you know, so does the rest of the world. This whole idea of like we're moving post-Christian, all that, almost every single human who has ever lived in the history of the world. believed in God in some way. I mean, they wake up, they look around the world, they realize they have feelings of love, they can't understand morality, they see complex things like the human eyeball, and they just think this all didn't just happen.
Okay? I mean, that is almost every single human that has ever lived in the history of the world, and every human that is on the planet right now, as much as we believe our culture is moving post-Christian, man, the world is almost entirely theistic.
Okay? I'm not asking you if you believe that there's a God. I'm asking you. Do you know him as father? Have you been brought into the family?
And here's why this matters so much, y'all. Because as a father. We not as a ch not as a boss. Not as a transactional thing. God, I'm going to do some stuff.
That means you gotta do some stuff. You gotta hold up your end of the bargain. I'm not talking about a boss. I'm gonna talk about an employee. I'm not talking about a Santa Claus in the sky, I'm not talking about a genie.
I'm talking about a father. Here's why it matters so much: because there's going to be things in your life that you pray your guts out for that don't happen. And when that happens... If it's a father who we're praying to, here's the image that can come to our mind. How many fathers would be responsible if they said yes to every request of their four-year-old?
Would that be responsible? My kids have asked me for some pretty crazy things when they're that age, right? Things that aren't good for them, things that aren't good for people around them, things that aren't good for the family. Like, that's not the most responsible thing. If we relate to God as Father and we also understand there is more distance intellectually.
Between us and God than there is us and a four-year-old, right? Way more distance. Then we can begin to understand, God, I'm praying my guts out for this thing, but if it don't happen, I can trust you anyway, because you are a father. You love like a father should. You know, we had a healing service a couple of weeks ago, man, and I'm telling you, stuff happened.
It doesn't shock me. All right, we had people with back pain type things that went away. We had people with infections, I mean, ravaged with infections, that within two days of the prayer service, go back to the doctor, infections are all gone. Children who were having trouble eating, you know, with different diets, solid foods, that kind of stuff for over a year. And next thing you know, after lay hands on and pray, and what?
Within that week, the first time they're able to keep down solid foods, none of that shocks me, okay? I mean, praise God for it, but it's like, well, we believe this stuff.
Now here's the thing. There's also a bunch of people that came down and got prayed over and asked God diligently for things in their life and nothing changed about their circumstances. How do we live in that world? Because we're able to say, Is God, if you do this, I trust you that it's for your good, for your glory, my good. But if you don't.
Then I still trust you. That only works if we know God as Father.
Now, look what it says in verse 2. And I'm going to tell you, this might be what God brought you here for, what I'm about to say next, okay? This will reframe your prayer life if you can understand it. Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.
We are called in prayer. We acknowledge God as Father and then immediately move to the mission of the world. Why are we here? Why do we pray? Why does God have us on this planet?
Why? To hallow his name and to pray that his kingdom will come. This will revolutionize your prayer life. If you can remember that God is not a Santa Claus in the sky to dole out gifts so that you can get on with life doing your mission for your name. But if we can understand that God has given us prayer.
So that he can give us things, he can move in response to our prayers, so that his name will be hallowed in greater ways, and that his kingdom will come.
Now that's a different deal. And it will reframe everything about your prayer life. Y'all, God responds to our prayers for His mission.
Now you might say, well, Andrew, does that mean we don't pray for healing? Does that mean we don't pray for abundance? Does that mean we don't pray for different circumstances to resolve in our life? No, it doesn't mean any of that. Man, I'm the biggest advocate.
Pray huge prayers. They honor God. Pray for your dreams. Pray for healing. Just ask.
I mean, pray to God. But always do it first, having reframe the way that you're praying to say, God, all of this. Every bit of abundance, everything that I have, all of my family, all of my health. It is here for you. It is here for your kingdom.
Your name is the one that is to be hallowed in my life, and your kingdom is the one that I am living for. Y'all, hallowed means to make holy, okay? Make holy the name of God. God's name is holy. And it's his name because it's the reputation of his character, it's wrapped up in his name.
He already is. We don't make him so, but we do in our hearts. When we lift our hands and we say, Hallowed be your name, you are the Holy One. I'm pouring out adoration, I'm pouring out praise. What do I say?
Your kingdom come. Let me ask you a question. This is very convicting to me. Are your prayers about God's kingdom or about ours? Are they about God's kingdom or are they about yours?
Are they about ours? And listen, it can even work in the church world. I think about this right now, okay? Guys, we had a great opportunity this summer. We sent out the launch team for Greenhouse Church.
All right, so Pastor Nico, they're doing great. I don't know, we sent 30 or 40. Their last preview service, they had over 80 people at their preview service, so they're going to launch in September. Yeah, praise God. All of our locations.
Hey, and that team was primarily built from Clifton Road campus and High Point campus. And so, man, we praise God for you guys. But here's the deal: so they're doing awesome, but at the same time, What they are praying for, and this is what Pastor Nico is praying for, he's praying for favor. And I don't know if you guys ever pray for favor, okay? Favor is like the hand of God that was on Jacob, favor is like the hand of God that was on Daniel.
It's favor. This is favor. Favor is when North Carolina ANT is asking you if you want to come to a service on their campus. That's favor. Favor is when the football team at North Carolina AT says, Hey, what if we use Greenhouse Church and you guys help set us up our service projects for all of our football team because we want to get them serve hours during the week?
When they're asking you that, that's favor.
Okay, favor is when God is moving things around on your behalf.
Now, here's the thing: this is what I want you to see. Is God doling out his favor? for Greenhouse Church and churches that we've planted all over the country. He absolutely is. It is not for Greenhouse Church.
It ain't for Mercy Hill Church. To have a great story of a church that we planted because we're awesome or whatever. That's not what it's about. What it's about is his name and his mission. It reframes everything about our prayer lives.
Man, hey, pray for your dreams, man. Pray for the big things in your life. Pray for healing. Pray that God will make circumstances, make a way where there is no way. But remember, this is for Him, and it's for His name, and it's for His kingdom.
Now, here's what it says, and this is what many of us do, okay? We sort of jump straight to this part. All right, verse 3. We know this part. Give us each day our daily bread.
Some of us might feel sheepish. Should I pray for provision? Yes, after we have called God Father and after we have reframed everything that we're about to ask for for his mission, then we say, give us each day our daily bread.
Now, for some of you guys that are crazy about counting your macros, this is your verse, okay? Bread, you're not only supposed to eat bread, you're supposed to pray for bread every single day, okay?
So, but actually, I'm being funny, but in all seriousness. This idea of daily bread is actually a stand-in phrase that people would have understood during biblical times to just mean provision. You know, it's like God's giving you what you need. He's filling up your needs. And he's giving you what you need in that day.
Now, maybe it is food, but maybe it's something financial, or maybe it's courage or energy. We pray big things, but we pray them daily. God, what do I, I'm not saying we don't ever pray for the future, but what do we need today? What blessing of God do we what from the storehouse of God's provision do you need today? Man, do you need an extra measure of faith to walk through another day with a wayward child?
Do you need an extra provision today? You need strength to stay sober for one more day. I don't know what it is in your life, but what do you need today? I find myself sometimes always thinking about tomorrow, and then all of a sudden I realize: man, maybe I just need today's provision today. Not tomorrow's today, but today's today.
You know, Faith Ann, our little chosen girl, our youngest uh child. She came to our family through adoption, and she has some challenges. Many of you guys know this. She has special needs, she has Down syndrome.
Well, there's a thing with Down syndrome where you have to get your neck x-rayed every year, and there's some instability in her neck. And we've been dealing with this for about five years. And this year, on Thursday, we ended up having to do a sedated MRI to try to get better imaging for some things that are going on. And she, man, she did great, but I'm going to tell you: like, you know, the thought of Faith Ann, who's nonverbal, waking up, not being able to drink her bottle, not being able to eat, not being able to understand what we're doing, they'll put her in a car, drive to Brenner, you know, I mean, sit in the doctor's office, poking and prod, the whole idea of that is just very hard. You know, as a parent, you know, and you're just like, you know, I need extra metal, God.
I'm going to need something today that I don't normally have. And I was preaching this, this was on Thursday, and I was going to preach this Thursday night. And I'm telling you, God just dropped this on my heart. I mean, the second I woke up Thursday morning knowing what we were about to have to do, and it's just one of those times you guys have all had them as a parent where you wake up that morning and you're just like, man, today's one of them days. Don't like it, but it is what it is, man.
We're going to have to just put our boots on and go today. And the first thought that came into my mind was, God, I need my daily bread today. Like I need to I don't need tomorrow's bread. I need today's And I wonder, maybe for you, some of us are going to come forward after this service, and we're going to have a chance to pray. And what provision do you need?
What courage do you need? What energy do you need? What faith do you need? To call down and say, God, I need this for today. And then he says this in verse 4, and this is really awesome, okay?
Now we're moving from provision, we're going to move into relationship with God and walking in his ways, right? Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. It's kind of a funny phrase. It's like, is he saying, I mean, look what it says again. Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
Is it saying, God, because we forgive, you should forgive us? No. That would go against everything that we would go against all gospel, okay? That's not Paul's teaching. That's not Jesus' teaching.
Yo, what he's saying is. Even we have I can manage sort of just barely, even if we're not Christians, to forgive one another. I mean, look, you know, for we ourselves forgive. Like, if we can do it. God, what is your forgiveness like?
Forgive us.
Now here's what I want you to see. This is the big link today, okay? If you want to get to the pinnacle of this passage, the pinnacle of the passage and the pinnacle of our prayer life is: God, I want to live your life that you have given me your way.
Okay, what does that mean? Lead us not into temptation. God, I don't want that old life. I don't want the old man rising up in me. Man, I don't want temptation around me.
I don't want that. I want to see straight through it. God, I want to live the life that you have called me to live if you and I are. Are gonna get to this place. This is very gospel-centered, we call this, okay?
How do you get to the place where you're able to honest to God say, Hey, I don't wanna be tempted, I wanna live the life you have for me, not the life that I wanted to live in the old days? You have to get totally in awe. of God having forgiven you. If you are living in awe. That God has forgiven you, and there is forgiveness to be had because of what Christ would do on the cross.
That even though you are more sinful than you could have ever imagined, you are, because of Jesus, more loved than you ever dared hope. If you can get a little bit in your soul. That the God of this universe has seen everything that you have ever done that was wrong or wicked, or will do that was wrong or wicked, and yet. Jesus loved you enough to go to the cross and die for all those sins anyway because he still wanted you and his family. Man, when we get a little bit of that, guess what comes out of our mouth?
Lead me not into temptation. I'm not trying to get led out of temptation so I can earn.
something before God. What I'm saying is, no, no, no, forgive our sins. And because of your great forgiveness that was purchased by Jesus on the cross, now I don't want to be led into temptation. In fact, I want to be led into godliness. The forgiveness of God is what compels us to say, I want to live a godly life.
And the forgiveness, I mean, think about this. The series is walking with Jesus, right? Jesus is teaching them to pray, knowing full well what he's about to do, y'all. He said, You need to pray that God will forgive you. But the only way that God forgives you is because what I am going to do.
And what I'm going to do is go to the cross for your forgiveness. You can say it like this: Jesus died on the cross for our forgiveness. He lived a life we didn't live in sinlessness, died a death that we deserved on the cross, where he was taken down into death itself, and yet, three days later, raised from the grave to give us the opportunity to pray this prayer: forgive us our sins.
Now, some of us need to pray that prayer for the first time. That's called getting saved. Or becoming a Christian, or asking Jesus into your heart, or whatever southern euphemism you want to say, okay? It's like whatever it is, that's what it is. It's that moment of becoming a Christian.
That's what some of us need to do today. Pray to ask God for forgiveness of sins. But for others, it's not about getting saved. We've already been saved. There's nothing we could do that would make, you know, in Christ, there's nothing we could do that would make God love us more.
There's nothing we could fail to do that would make God love us less. It's all bound up in Christ. All right, but we still pray for forgiveness to restore relationships with God, to say, man, to get my life back on track with living a godly life. But we can only pray for that forgiveness because of what Jesus has done, and it's all bound up in Him. You know, it's hard.
We live in a broken world. Death still reigns in this world, and yet we talk about Jesus saving us and. They talk about what he's done for us. You know, I heard a story one time about a mother, father, and a child. The mom died.
And the child was a little girl, and they were at the funeral, and they were actually driving from the funeral to the graveside. And the little girl is wrestling with the concepts that we're talking about here. In what sense has Jesus saved us? I mean, we're on the way to my mom's funeral, but yet we say she lives, right? Like, she's trying to work that out, as any kid would try to work that out.
And the father's trying to think of a way to explain exactly the good news of the gospel in the midst of how hard of a time this is, you know? And about that time, a big transfer truck, semi-truck, comes barreling down the highway and just kind of goes right by them. But as it went on by them, it was so tall that it cast a shadow. And so the sun hit the truck, cast a shadow over the car. And so they were riding in the sun.
All of a sudden, now they're in the dark, then they're back in the sun. And something clicked in the dad's mind. And he looked at his daughter and he said, Hey, listen, you know, just think about this for a minute. Would you rather get hit by the transfer truck that just barreled down the highway by us, or would you rather get hit by the shadow of the truck? And and she thought about it for like one second, and she's like, Well, of course, Daddy, I would rather get hit by the shadow of the truck.
And he said, baby, Jesus took the truck so that what was left for us is the shadow. Man, we live in the shadow. We live in the valley of the shadow of death. There's brokenness all around us. Right?
There is a shadow. But because of what Christ has done, We can ask for God's forgiveness one time to get saved, other times to restore relationship. And we can know without a shadow of a doubt. that we are all bound up in him. And if he lives, we will live on into eternity.
And Jesus already defeated death once, he doesn't have to do that again. He is resurrected for all time, and we are bound to him. And if we get that good news in our soul. that we have been given something that we did not deserve at all. Then, what happens in our life is we begin to say, God, lead me not into temptation.
Instead, I pray that you will lead me into a godly life.
So, here's what I'll call you to do today: pray like Jesus. This is our application: pray like Jesus. All right? This is not a guilt thing. Guys, some of us would be so ashamed if people saw our prayer life over the last week, last month.
Some of you are prayer warriors, and man, you've been on your knees for this church, for your family, for the nations. No matter where we are. There is an opportunity to grow today, okay? There's an opportunity to take a step forward, motivated by the gospel. You and I have been given incredible access.
to commune with God in prayer. Because of the gospel, would we take him up on that? No, listen, I'm going to apply this to unbelievers and then believers, and we're going to be done. Hey, if you're not a believer, my appeal to you today is to pray to accept Christ. Pray to get saved.
Pray to become a Christian. Pray to ask Jesus into your heart. Whatever that is for you in terms of the way that you think about it. But but here's the thing, wha h however you would say it, but here's the the meat of it. You need to admit your sin before God and believe that what Jesus has done on the cross is sufficient to save you, not your works.
That there's nothing you can do. to dig yourself out of a hole that you dug yourself into.
Okay, and then we confess him as the Lord of our life proclaiming That we believe in his resurrection, he is the Lord of our life. Would you do that today? Man, would you pray? We say ABC, admit, believe, and confess. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the Father but by me. This is our way into the family of God. And you have an opportunity to pray to God as Father. After doing this, and I pray that you will. I pray you do it today.
All right? But for others of us, there are some of us here today that I'm thinking: hey, it's not that we need to pray to get saved. We've done that. We need to pray. That something from this passage would really resonate with us, and God would be able to see through the Spirit some strongholds get loosed up.
You know, that our prayer life would get more more frequent, more fervent. All right, and maybe it would come from there's something that we see here that we need access. We need access to calling God Father. We need access to saying, hallowed be your name. God, help me with your kingdom come.
We need access to provision. What do you need for today? We need access to remembering the gospel. God, forgive me. We need access to say, God, lead me not into temptation.
And here's what I want to tell you: you are not today, believer. You are not on the outside looking in. As if there is an intimacy with God that you want that you can't have. Or there's an intimacy with God that other people have that you can't have. You're not standing on the outside in this equation.
I thought about this, so Anna and I have been married for 20 years, okay? And uh We j just this this year And I basically told her, I'm like, babe. If you put up with me for 20 years, we'll do whatever you want to do for our 20th anniversary, okay? And so she did. All right.
So it was like, hey, what do you want to do?
Well, then she couldn't figure out what she wanted to do in 20 years.
So then she said, well, Andrew, what do you want to do? I was like, I don't know. Dollywood. You know, we didn't do that.
Okay.
So, um, So she's like, okay, she didn't want to do that.
So she's like, okay, we'll do like a resort.
Now, I've never done a resort thing ever in my life. It's man, it's inclusive and all this stuff. And it man, it was it was it was fine. We got to go down what she wanted to do and I was glad that we could do that But this was funny. We were four floors up on or maybe I don't know maybe even higher on one of these resort things and it's like you have this this private porch Well this porch is meant to be private I mean it's these concrete walls You can't you know, you don't see any neighbors or up or down you can look down way down there and see like where the pool is and stuff and um and so we're sitting out there one morning and we're just doing a little quiet time and then and then gonna go ahead and work out.
She wraps up a little early. She's like, hey, I'm gonna go. You wanna come? I said I need like five minutes. She said, no problem.
So she leaves. I do my five minutes. And then I get up to go back into our room and she has locked the glass door. on her way out. And my phone is inside the thing, okay?
And and so it's like well I'm like, well, she'll, you know, at first I was like, well, whatever. She'll come. She'll realize I'm not there. Surely she loves me enough to not just not know where I am for an hour and a half, right? Um she's gonna you know come back or do something and so You know, whatever, 15 minutes go by, 20 minutes.
I'm like, well, this is interesting. You know, I'm like, I wonder where she's at.
So then I start thinking, well, maybe I need to try to holler and get somebody's attention. About that time, it starts raining. And it's blowing in.
Okay, I'm now just standing in a corner like this with my Bible trying to get it. And so nobody's out. There's no cleaning people. There's nobody in the pool. And so, guys, an hour and 15 minutes.
Goes by. She ain't even thought about it, I guess.
Okay.
And so I'm like, man, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm sitting up there. Nobody's out.
So the cleaning lady. For the next room over, I could hear her walk out on their little private porch.
Now these are like concrete walls.
So I hop up there and just pull myself over like this. And look at her, it kind of takes her back. And she says, no English, okay? And I'm like, this is my time to shine. I've been studying for this since seventh grade.
So I said, hey. Mi Puerta Noah Breer, okay? which roughly translates to the door won't open. And she was kind of like, you know, looking at me.
So, anyway, she goes to get somebody. He comes in. You know, this manager guy, he opens the door and he doesn't speak English either. And he's like, I could tell, he just got this look on his face, like, how in the world did you manage to lock yourself out? I looked at him and I just said Miasposa.
And he said, oh, si senor, he knew right then, okay? He understood. Listen, I know that story is funny, but I'm going to tell you. I feel like sometimes when it comes to these spiritual things, And you gotta understand, the reality is, it's the exact opposite of this. You might feel like there is an intimacy with God that you are on the outside looking into, but here's what you got to understand: this matters.
Jesus says in the Bible, no, no, no. I stand at the door and knock. If you're a believer, you're not on the outside looking in. You're on the inside looking out, figuring out if you're going to open the door because he's knocking. It's the opposite.
You're not on the outside looking in. You have the opportunity to access. What do you need to access today?
Now what do you need? Father? Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Is it a provision thing?
Hey, is it a forgiveness thing? God's forgiven you. Who do you need to forgive? Is it a temptation? Lead me not think.
What do you need to access? He stands at the door and knocks. Would you open that door to him and enjoy a greater intimacy in prayer? Let's pray, Father. We come before you right now.
God, I ask. That you would move in our church and create a prayer culture and create prayer warriors. Lord, make us better at this, make me better at this. God, let us value our time in prayer. Let us pray in the way that you taught us.
In Christ's name, amen. Mm.
