Ultimate Prayer R905

Next level thinking. That's right, ultimate prayer. Not just prayer, but ultimate prayer.

It's what we study today in the book of Matthew, Chapter 6. The Encouraging Word. This is The Encouraging Word, featuring the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton, well-known author, evangelist, and pastor. And today, ultimate prayer is what we're talking about. Now, we all understand prayer, but how do we take it to a new level, a next level?

We'll open God's Word and discover that together today. But speaking of prayer, know that we're available for you. We'd love to pray with you and for you anytime at 866-899-WORD.

That's our phone number, 866-899-9673 or online at TEWONLINE.ORG and while you're on our website, TEWONLINE.ORG. Be sure to sign up for the daily Encouraging Word email from Dr. Don. It will bless you. Now, let's open God's Word together about ultimate prayer. The Encouraging Word.

Here's Dr. Don Wilton. We're going to be considering ultimate prayer. I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew's Gospel in Chapter 6, where we find the Lord Jesus in his life and ministry gathering his disciples around. I love the Sermon on the Mount, as we call it, and one can just imagine this band of gentlemen who gathered at the feet of the Lord Jesus.

What was he going to say to them? And Jesus gave to them a prayer. Most of us are familiar with this prayer. But Jesus knew the end from the beginning. And you see, Jesus knew that man had a limited capacity and that you and I can only look on the outward appearance.

But God looks upon the heart. And Jesus was standing there as God looking upon the hearts of these who had come to believe in his name. And Jesus knew that he was going to go to the cross. And Jesus knew that he was going to suffer and die and be raised on the third day and then ascend to be seated at the right hand of the Father.

Jesus knew that all believers would not see him in person in the flesh. Oh, yeah, he knew that the Holy Spirit was going to come who is God, who is here today. But he understood the predicament of those who call upon his name. He looked into the prisons of our minds. He understood that people like you and me can as much have handcuffs and chains around our hands and our ankle bones on the outside as we can on the inside.

And my beloved friends, I've met people everywhere I know you have that seemingly have everything. Are free. After all, we're Americans, aren't we? We have more freedom than anybody else in the whole world. But there are people like you and me everywhere, no matter what freedom we have, no matter how many choices we have. We're bound. We're restricted. We're incarcerated in our hearts.

How are you doing today? And Jesus looked into the hearts of these disciples and he said, I want to give you something that you can have and you can take with you and can live with you and be with you all your life upon this earth. I'm going to give to you one of the most precious commodities that can ever be given to any person at any time.

Let's read about it. It's in Matthew, chapter six. And I begin at verse nine. Jesus said, This then is how you should pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth, the same as it is in heaven. Oh, whoa, whoa.

Hold on a minute. Do you mean to tell me that Jesus is telling me that the things that are important to God, that God is dispensing and dispatching and doing and experiencing up there in heaven can be applied to me upon this earth? Didn't Jesus say whatever you loose in heaven will be loosed on earth? You mean to tell me that all that has been made available to the Son of God is made available to me?

Surely not. Here I am wallowing around in my own struggles and people today are struggling with marriages, with sons and daughters who are disobedient and sickness and all the loneliness of life and the incarcerations of our hearts and souls. And Jesus gathers these people and says to them, I want you to know that it doesn't have to be this way because you have somebody. You have made available to you the very power and presence of God. He says, give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts. By the way, we call this the Lord's Prayer, don't we?

I have no argument. I'll call it the Lord's Prayer probably until the day I die. I've grown up calling this the Lord's Prayer, but it's actually not the Lord's Prayer because Jesus didn't need to pray this. Jesus didn't need to pray, forgive me for my sin. He was sinless. How could he have prayed this?

This wasn't intended for him. This is the disciples prayer. He was giving this as a gift to us, as a pattern, as a skeleton framework to try and help me come into the presence of a God who is so awesome and magnificent and wonderful and beyond any human understanding. And Jesus said, this is how you communicate with God and hear from God. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation. I love that word there because it actually means, Lord, would you prevent us from being led by the evil one? When we get to John Chapter 17, just before Jesus goes to the cross, he prays the Lord's Prayer. And one of the things that he prays for is for the protection of people who have believed in his name.

By the way, do you know that? Do you know that you can talk to God and God gives to you protection? I want all the moms and dads to look at me. Do you know, mom and dad, you can pray for your sons and daughters from the moment that they are born that God would protect them and he'll do it. And folks, let me tell you, we live in a day and age where we've got to pray for the protection of our teenagers. You just think about Internet pornography. Just think about what the Internet is doing. Just the Internet to future generations, folks.

The light is going out of the eyes of our students. The availability of those things that break down the human ability to relate to one another are just being ripped asunder. And we all do it in the name of freedom of speech. We're Americans. That's how we live. We've got the right to say anything we want to, to watch anything we want to. And nobody has the right to tell us what to do, what not to do. And the pundits in Washington gather together in their little enclaves and say, well, if you don't want to watch it, just turn it off.

Go and stay in any hotel and tell me you can just turn it off. The Bible says that the thief has come to kill and to destroy. But Jesus said, I've come that you might have life. Moms and dads, what are we going to do with our sons and daughters?

By the time they begin to walk down the aisle as blushing brides, the blush is gone. The spice of life is being sucked out of the soul of all Americans today. Our young people are falling like dominoes stacked up once against the other. And the world is offering everything. And the devil is alive and well seeking whom he may devour.

What can we do about it? God says, bring it to me in prayer. For greater is he that is in you than the one who is in the world. What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Isn't that wonderful?

I want you to know something. When Jesus gave to his disciples this ultimate prayer, he said, let me tell you, the authority upon which I can do what I'm telling you I can do is because mine is the power. Mine is the glory. Mine is the kingdom.

Mine is the Alpha and the Omega. Everything belongs to me and I am God. And when you invest in God, I'm able to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Well, I'm just introducing the subject that we'll never get to the end of. But I want us today to start out by thinking of 10 reasons why Jesus taught us how to pray and gave us this ultimate prayer.

Why? Can I be a little cheeky? If I was sitting there on that mountainside and I was one of those boys there and Jesus was telling me, now look, you and you and you. And I was one of them and said, look, I want you to know that you can pray, you can talk to me. I really believe I probably, when it came to question and answer time, I probably would have said to the Lord, now, Lord, what's in it for me?

And I don't mean to be cheeky by saying that. But folks, I'm about to show you something that is too magnificent. Prayer is something that has unbelievable ramifications for people like you and me. You cannot afford not to listen.

All right, let's just have a look at this. Why? Why do we pray?

Why? Why was Jesus giving to us this ultimate prayer? All right, watch this. Number one, to be obedient. That's it.

By the way, I've noticed this. I've gone through some of the other gospels and I've tried to find a place there where Jesus, and I'm not trying to be facetious about it, where Jesus gathered the disciples around and said, now, let me see, boys. I know that I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going to leave you in the flesh and you're going to be on your own and, you know, kind of good luck to you, you know. But I'm going to tell you, I've got a couple of good ideas. And if ever you, you know, if you get diagnosed with cancer or your marriage is in trouble or you go through a divorce or you run out of money, you know, or you have anxiety attacks or you're suffering from depression or you're hurting or you can't lose weight and you've, you, or what?

It doesn't matter what is coming in your life. All the things that afflict us as people, I've got a good suggestion for you. If you got the time kind of after the ball game, you know, you know, if you'll just take a little breather in between your television program. Or maybe, you know, if you could just kind of, you know, just every now and again, just try this out because, you know, if you want to do this. Now, if you'd like to do this, I'm just making this available to you. And try this out sometime. You might, hey, hey, hey. This may work for you if it works for you. Power to you, bro.

You're on top, man, as I would say in the prison level with the gravel. Let's get down with the stuff. I mean, this is something you could just use, you know. No, Jesus didn't do that. He said, pray, do this. In fact, folks, if I can say it this way, Jesus was saying to people like you and me, you cannot do without this. You cannot survive.

Do it. It's an imperative. So why pray to be obedient?

Just because He said it. If I had any reason to pray, to want to pray, to discipline myself to pray, to continually ask God to give me the discipline to pray. When I fail so many times and neglect to pray for no other reason, just because Jesus said I must do it. Number two, second reason why I need to pray and I love this is to experience God's fullness. Now watch this.

This is wonderful, folks. The reason Jesus gave this to us was to invite us to tap into God's fullness. Let me give you an illustration.

By the way, this applies to everybody. When you are born, when you are conceived and you grow up in your mother's tummy and then you are born, about nine months later, you have a little something that is attached to your mother. It's called an umbilical cord. Boys and girls, that's your belly button, right? Everybody's got one, by the way, you're not special. Everybody's got one. This is kind of a common thing here.

All right, if you don't have one, please come and see me afterwards. We need to talk about this. But every baby that is conceived, here's what happens when you're growing in your mother's tummy. You actually are feeding off your mother's life. And that umbilical cord is the means by which the life of your mother is poured into you. Now, when you're born and you come into the world, one of the first things that the doctor does, snip.

He cuts the umbilical cord because you can't go through life, kind of be attached by a string to your mama. Otherwise, you'd have a real problem. So now you're on your own.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, now you've got to kind of have your own life giving you life. And you know, the Bible tells us that when we are born, we are born with our umbilical connection to God already snipped. The blood flow between us and our Heavenly Father has been severed by our sin.

And we're on our own. And when Jesus died upon the cross. Now watch this, folks. There is a sense in which Jesus died in order to reestablish the connection between ourselves and our Heavenly Father. We're listening to Dr. Don Wilton and we'll be back in just a moment.

Please forgive the interruption. We'll hear the completion of today's message, Ultimate Prayer, in just a moment. Dr. Don wants me to remind you we're connecting not just to present this message, but to start a conversation, to be a part of building a relationship, to go through life together as we connect both on the phone, 866-899-WORD, and online at www.tewonline.org. Every single day, we're seeing God use us to encourage one another to a deeper walk in our faith and to that concept of even deeper, more ultimate prayer.

If you'd like to discover more, visit our website at www.tewonline.org. While you're there, sign up for Dr. Don's socials. You can also sign up for the daily encouraging word, email.

I hope you'll do that. That's online at www.tewonline.org. But as we speak about prayer, if you'd like to have someone pray with you, call us. 866-899-WORD is the phone number.

That's 866-899-9673. Now back to today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. And when you give your heart to Jesus, in a sense, you are reconnected into the womb of God, and His lifeblood flows into you, and you receive the life of God in Christ Jesus. And the Bible says that when you pray, ultimate prayer, gives to you and to me the opportunity to establish all the fullness of God, our Heavenly Father.

Everything that God is becomes mine because I'm in Christ Jesus. And when I talk to Him and when I pray to Him, I am reestablishing that wonderful blood flow with my Heavenly Father. And I am tapping into the very nature and the character of a God who loves me despite myself. That means I'm energized and I'm strengthened and I'm given nourishment. I'm encouraged because I've tapped in to my Heavenly Father.

Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. The reason Jesus taught us to pray in such an ultimate fashion with such ultimate results was to experience the floodgates of blessing. Oh, I love this one.

These are all my favorites. Now watch this, folks. God's Word tells us that when we talk to our Heavenly Father, we tap in to the floodgates of God's blessings. The floodgates of who God is opens up and floods us. And when He floods us with His blessings, He gives to us a strength and an encouragement, answers to life, knowing what to do, where to go, how to handle things, all those things.

The decisions that we have to make because He opens the floodgates. You see, the Bible tells us that when we give our hearts to Jesus, all that God has in store for His own Son, He gives to you and me. We become adopted to become joint heirs with the Father. And the Bible says that when we pray and talk to our Heavenly Father, we are adopted and when we are adopted into the family of God, we become the sons and daughters of God, the floodgates open and we receive all the blessings that God has in store for us. Number four, the Bible says that when we pray this ultimate prayer, that we glorify God.

I love that. We bring glory to His Name. We honour Him. By the way, did you know that probably the greatest purpose for which Christ died was that you and I would glorify the Father which is in heaven?

Did you know that? Some of us might say, you know, what is the purpose of all of this? It's to bring glory to the Name of God, our Heavenly Father. To glorify Him, go right through Scripture, right throughout Scripture we're taught that. Some of us say, well, I've come to know Jesus because of this reason and because of that reason and because of the next reason. They're all very important, extremely relevant, most wonderful blessings. But I'll tell you, the absolute of all reasons why we come to know Jesus Christ is to glorify God and when we pray to Him and talk to Him, we bring glory to His Name.

Number five, to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and not on ourselves. I tell you that's an amazing, amazing thing. Let me ask you a question. What happens when you hurt? Just answer that in your own heart. If you're going through marriage trouble right now, what's happening to you?

If you've been diagnosed with cancer or some sickness, you've got to go to the doctor tomorrow. You don't know what it is. What actually takes place?

If you're concerned about your son or your daughter and your heart is heavy, you're going through a decision, you're having to decide to make a decision. What happens, folks? Tell you what happens. Anything that we go through and experience, all the attention turns on ourselves, doesn't it? That's what happens in life. Everything becomes centred around us. Here's what prayer does. Prayer takes the attention of ourselves and it puts it onto our Heavenly Father. Now watch this. When you take your eyes off yourself and you look into the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, guess what happens?

The whole perspective changes. That's what happened to Peter. He was on the Sea of Galilee and went walking. Jesus said, come on.

He said, OK, I'm coming. Got on the water, took his eyes off Jesus. Boom, down he went. How was he saved? How did he not drown? What was he drowning in, folks? He was drowning in the waves of his own pitiful self. He was drowning in his own self-sufficiency, in his own ability, in his own sense of helplessness, his own discouragement, his own despondency.

He was trying to do it his way. Jesus said, excuse me. Peter looked up and looked into the face of the Lord and Jesus reached down and pulled him up and he walked safely to the shore because he was in the hands of a loving God.

It is an amazing thing. Number six, the reason why we pray is to acknowledge God's sovereignty. I've spent the better part of my Christian life talking about how wonderful God is. Jesus said, when you pray, you put that into practice, not from your head, but from your heart. I meet people all over the place that in a heartbeat, they'll go to church and they'll sing about God.

I meet people in a heartbeat. They'll even acknowledge God. Prayer is a practical means by which you and I acknowledge who God is.

Because what happens when you pray is you're turning to Him and you are saying in essence, Lord, I'm nothing. You are everything. You are the Alpha and the Omega. You are the first and the last. You are the beginning and the end.

It is you knew that I live and move and have my being. Bottom line, Lord, I cannot do this. Paul put it like this in Philippians. He said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. What all things? That means everything in life. That means my marriage and my finances and my home and my decisions and the ups and the downs and the hurts and the pains.

There is no exception to that rule. But how is that accomplished? In Christ Jesus. And when Jesus gathered His disciples, He said, listen, you better do this because if you don't do it, you're not acknowledging who God is. Every time you and I pray, we are submitting ourselves to a God who loves us despite ourselves. We shift the attention. We look upon the face of God. Let me tell you something, folks, whatever your circumstance, I've been in all kinds of circumstances.

I can't tell you the numbers of times, no matter how many people are there, what circumstances. All I have to do is just take one look at my wife. I can't describe that to you. Sometimes she'll have just a little smile on her face. Sometimes she'll just nod. Sometimes she won't do anything.

But I tell you, I just look at her and all of a sudden it begins to happen. God does something. God does something.

What about you today, my friend? Have you tapped into what God alone can do for us? Have you given to Him because He alone is the one upon whose face we need to look?

Jesus really is the answer to every question, including the one you may be struggling with right now. I pray that you would take a moment. You've listened to Dr. Wilton as he's teaching and preaching. You've listened to the encouraging Word of God right now. Dr. Wilton has a challenge, and I pray you'd open your heart to this.

Are you ready? Would you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that Jesus loves me and that He died on a cross for me. Today I repent of my sin, and I confess my sin to the Lord Jesus, and I give Him my heart and my life. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen. If you've prayed that prayer from your heart and you've given your life to Christ, I welcome you to the family of God. You are my brother, my sister in Christ.

Let's get engaged together because we are connected together forever as believers in Christ. It's been a powerful week of studying the Word together, of coming and praying together, and perhaps moments ago as Dr. Wilton was praying that prayer of salvation, you gave your life to Jesus Christ. Or perhaps you've given your life back to Jesus Christ. You realize you needed to rededicate your life. I pray that you would know we are here with you and for you to help you take the next steps.

As a matter of fact, if you gave your life to Christ or rededicated your life, Dr. Wilton has some free resources he wants you to have. Just call us and let us know. 866-899. Word is the phone number. That's 866-899-9673. Or you can connect online as well at www.tewonline.org.

That's www.tewonline.org. The great place you'll also discover things like this safeguards, safeguards of our faith. We are living in a rapidly changing world.

What is this new normal today? How do we as believers hold firm? How do we press on? We press on by resting in the safeguards of our faith. When you have a history of God's faithfulness in your heart and spirit, you can walk boldly and unflinchingly through the midst of trouble.

Why? Because God has proven himself to you. With your gift of support to the Encouraging Word this month, you will receive Dr. Wilton's faith building message, the safeguards of our faith. This four message set will help equip you to stand firm on the foundation of Jesus Christ and these not so new normal days. Call us at 866-899-WORD and request the safeguards of our faith available on CD or DVD today. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener supported ministry. Thank you for listening today. As we wrap up this week of broadcast, we're looking into the weekend, wonderful opportunities to join us on television, TBN, Daystar and more. You'll find those ways to connect on our website, www.tewonline.org. I hope you'll join us there. That's TEWONLINE.ORG or know we'd be happy to pray with you anytime at 866-899-9673.