The Greatest Sermon Ever // Prayer - Part 2 // Matthew 7:7-11 // Pastor Josh Evans

Listen, it is the 11 o'clock service here today. How you guys doing?

Everybody give me a thumbs up if you're doing well. You're here and I'm so thankful that you are here. If you're a guest here today, let me just say thank you for being a part of our service and this is the first day we've had both of our services and so we had an 8 30 a.m service this morning. Had a great crowd in that service. First time we've ever offered even kids programming and things like that at our 8 30 service and just a phenomenal, phenomenal time. But like Pastor David said earlier, you guys must just like to sleep in.

You're like, listen, we're coming to the late one and we are here but I am super grateful that you are. And let me just tell you a little bit about why we did that, why we added a service. As many of you know, if you've been here for any length of time, in one service we were beginning to really just become hard to find seats for guests and things like that. So if you're a guest family or if you invited somebody, you've probably experienced this. If they have four or five in their family that come, it's difficult to kind of find seats in here when we're all together. And so we decided that we would add another morning service so that we could continue to reach as many people as possible and to disciple them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus, which is our mission for why we exist. And so for just a moment, here's what I want you to do. I want you to look around, look at the seats that you have available.

And the reason why we did this is so that you can look at those seats and that you could say, hey, who could God use you to invite to fill that seat? Who is it that you know? Is it a family member? Is it a coworker? Is it somebody at the restaurant that you frequent often that you need to invite to be a part of this?

Is it somebody from the ball field or from the gym or wherever it is that you know people wherever you spend your time during the week? This is an opportunity for you to do so. And so we'd love for you to invite people to be a part of it.

Well, listen, I want to invite you at this time. You have your Bible to go to Matthew chapter number seven, Matthew chapter number number seven. And if you haven't been here, we have been in a series. In fact, this is week number 11 of this series. This is probably the longest Sunday morning series that I've ever done. This is week number 11 of what we are entitling the greatest sermon ever. Now, if you came in here today thinking that this is going to be the greatest sermon you've ever heard, it's not the case.

And so I want you to know that up front that the reason why we entitled it this is because we are slowly unpacking and working through Jesus's sermon on the mount. And we call it the Sermon on the Mount. That's how everybody referred to it as it's a it's the longest sermon that we have recorded in scripture.

And it's preached and taught by the greatest teacher ever in Jesus. And we call it the Sermon on the Mount. But here's what, as I've studied this over the last 11 weeks, I'll tell you a great name for this could be called a mountain of a sermon. It's not just the sermon on the mount, it's actually a mountain of a sermon. In Matthew chapter five through seven, Jesus, he really unpacks so many different things that are so culturally relevant to our life and our society, even today, especially even to your life or my life, even today, this sermon is so relevant. You ever talked with somebody who says, hey, the Bible is not relevant for my life, here's what I'd encourage you to do.

Take them to this sermon, Matthew five through seven. And you can see that this speaks into some of the things that we have questions about. He talks about things like, like sex, he talks about things like lust, he talks about things like divorce, he talks about spiritual and private disciplines, he talks about giving to the church, he talks about being judgmental, that's what we looked at last week. He talks about all of these different things in this one sermon.

Aren't you thankful we don't try to tackle every single one of those each and every week that we come together? When this sermon that Jesus spoke, when everybody was together in this one time, he spoke on all of those different things. And here's what's interesting is that we've already looked at prayer, we looked at that about four or five weeks ago in this series. And what we find here in Matthew chapter number seven is Jesus comes back to prayer, something he's already addressed, something that he's already talked about. And now Jesus comes back to the idea of prayer. Why do you think Jesus came back to that?

Think about this, this is something he's already talked about, he could move on, he could talk about anything else. Why in the world would Jesus come back to something like prayer here in this this passage? Well, obviously, I think it's to show value that that we should value prayer. But I think it is because he knew one thing about every single one of us that would be learning about this sermon, and it's this is that we often neglect our prayer life. Isn't that true?

Isn't that true of you? In fact, if you want to be honest before God, I know I do. How many of you would say your prayer life is not what it should be?

Would you slip up your hand? Listen, every single one of us in here can agree and to testify to the fact that our prayer lives are not what it what they should be in a lot of ways. And so I think that that's why Jesus here comes back to this idea of prayer is because he knew then as well as now that we would often neglect prayer. But he talks about it as like the most important thing that that we as Christians followers of Jesus could ever do. And if that's true, why do we neglect it?

Well, I was thinking about that this week. And I think one of the reasons we neglect prayer in a lot of ways is this. We don't value prayer enough. You find that to be true in your life. You don't value it enough. Here's what I've learned is that we are going to make time for what we value the most. Isn't that true? If your kids are playing sports, you make time for it, right? Right.

Because we value it. If you like the gym, you're going to make time for it. You're going to get up earlier. You're going to go late. You're going to make time for what matters most in your life.

If you like a certain TV show or something like that, you make time each week to watch the favorite show that you have. We make time for what values us or what is valuable to us the most. And sometimes the reason why you don't pray is if you're honest, is you don't value it enough. You don't value it the way you should. The second reason why I think we neglect prayer is this. We don't believe in it enough.

We don't believe in it enough. Perhaps there's been a time in your life where you prayed for something. Maybe you prayed for God to heal somebody or you prayed for a job promotion and they chose somebody else or you prayed for something to happen at your school and it didn't happen the way that you wanted. And when that happens, you begin to say, does it even make a difference in the way that I pray? Does it make any difference at all if I pray?

So we don't believe in it enough. Well listen, if that's you and and maybe you don't value prayer the way that you should or perhaps or behalf you've kind of stopped praying because you don't think it makes any difference, then I want you for the next few moments in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus is going to speak directly to why we neglect prayer and how we should make prayer a regular part of our life. The big idea that I want you to see is this.

Prayer should be fundamental to everything in your life. Let's all say that word everything together. Everything. Let's say it louder. Everything, right?

Everything. Listen, prayer is not to be just something that you do before a meal, right? Today when you go to lunch and and you pray, that's important and you should do that, right? But it's more than that. Prayer should not be just something that you do when you go on a trip and you pray for God's safety and stuff.

You should do that, but it has to be more. Here's what Jesus is going to tell us is that prayer, it should be fundamental to everything in your life. That means it should be fundamental in your family. It should be fundamental with your children. It should be fundamental at your job. It should be fundamental in your decision making. It should be fundamental to every aspect of your your life and that's what Jesus is going to talk about and address here in Matthew chapter 7. So let's look at it and jump in.

The first thing I want you to see is this. The persistency of our prayer life. The persistency of our prayer life.

Look at what he says in verse number seven of Matthew chapter 7. He says this, ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. In that verse, we see the persistency of your prayer life. In fact, Jesus, he talks about the persistency of your prayer life and he mentions three verbs that are super important that should describe the way that you pray.

You see them there. It's ask, seek and knock. Now these three words, we're going to take just a few moments to look at them because these three words and I don't want to do, I know we're not in school right now, I don't want to do like a grammar lesson with you or whatever, but it's important for you to understand why they are there and what they actually mean. All three words are present tense verbs that are imperatives. They are imperatives and they're in the present sense. And so in other words, what you find here is that these three words are to be ongoing. They're not one-time things, they're to be ongoing as you go throughout life.

In other words, all of these things you should be continuously doing. So let's look at the first one, ask. The word ask. Now because of its usage, remember, it's a present tense verb that is an imperative.

You could translate it this way. Ask, ask again and keep on asking. You see, as Jesus is talking about prayer, he begins to tell us to continue to ask. This word, if you look it up in Greek, the word ask, it actually implies begging. The word, if you look at and you follow this Greek word in the New Testament, what you're going to find is that this word every time is usually used when it's talking about somebody that's inferior, asking somebody like they're superior. In other words, the word is used when a slave is asking his master for something. The word is used here in the sense of when we are asking the holy creator of the universe for something.

He's talking about somebody inferior, asking and begging somebody superior than us for something. Now when you think about asking over and over again, that can get what we would say is annoying. Think about your children. You know, your kids, when they ask you over and over for something, that's annoying, isn't it? Like, listen, my kids, I have two kids, and so my kids ask me every single day, I'm pretty sure, they ask me if they could go eat dinner at Chick-fil-A.

Every single day, right? And so like every day after school, they're like, can we go like every day after school, they're like, can we get Chick-fil-A for dinner? Can we get Chick-fil-A for dinner?

And things like that over and over and over. Now, I love Chick-fil-A. How many of you love Chick-fil-A today or whatever? I guarantee you that even though this is the later service, if you go there today, you will be first in line. I guarantee it. And so you can trust me on that and stuff. But here's what I'll tell you is that, you know, we all love Chick-fil-A and I get it that Chick-fil-A is like God's chicken and it's going to be served at the marriage supper of the lamb in heaven one day.

I get all that and stuff. But I'll tell you this, when you get asked over and over and over and over and over again for Chick-fil-A, it gets kind of kind of annoying. In fact, my kids sometimes when they get home from school, I can already see it coming. Hey, dad. And I'm like, no, we cannot get Chick-fil-A.

I just finished a form, right? Because they constantly are asking. And for parents, that's annoying, right? We don't like that. It's like, stop asking.

I've already told you no once. Don't ask me again. Well, here in this passage, Jesus is describing our prayer life and he's almost saying this, ask, ask again and keep on asking. Think of this thought. Jesus never gets tired of you asking him for things.

Think about that. The way that you get tired when your kids and how it exhausts you when they ask you for things over and over again, here's the point that Jesus is trying to bring up. When we go to our father in prayer, he never gets tired of you asking. So keep on asking.

Stay persistent. The second word here is the word seek. So we see ask and now we see seek. And remember, it's a present tense verb that is an imperative. So what he's trying to get us to see is this.

You could translate it this way. Seek, keep on seeking and keep on seeking, never stopping. And so it's this continual idea of seeking. This word in the Greek, it has some desperation attached to it.

In fact, in fact, you can use this word seek as the same word as endeavoring, like when you lose something and you're endeavoring to find it, right? Have you ever misplaced your phone, right? Or better yet, because I very rarely misplace my phone.

Let's ask a better question. How many of you are married to somebody that always misplaces their phone? Do you have somebody in your household like that? It's like when I come home or in the evening, it's like, hey, call my phone, call my phone, call my phone. Abby is on my speed dial, not just because we're married. It's just because I have to call her all the time when we're in the same room.

It's crazy, right? But when she loses her phone, what happens is, is we all it's kind of like a crisis moment in the house. We all jump in kids come out of their room, mom's lost her phone again, we start going nuts. We put lights on our head, you know, the ones that go around.

And we're looking at that's a joke. We don't really do that. And so but it we kind of start endeavoring to find it. That's the word that you see here seek. He's saying that that we endeavor out of desperation to find something and so what he's saying here about our prayer life is be persistent.

Ask, keep on asking, seek, keep on seeking. And then the third one is this is the word knock. Remember, the usage is the same. And so it's a present tense imperative verb.

That means this it's an ongoing thing. What Jesus is saying is to knock and keep on knocking to keep on knocking. You think about knocking at a door, right? I remember the church that I grew up in and and you might have participated in this. How many of you have ever gone on what we used to call door to door visitation, right?

You remember those days, right? You go out and you do door to door. And what we would do is is we'd go out door to door complete strangers houses, and we would have gospel tracts and we would invite them to church and tell them about Jesus.

It was awesome. But I'll tell you this is that back in the day when we used to do that, or whatever, it was super uncomfortable sometimes because you never know who was on the other side of the door, right? And and you would often have some awkward interactions, you know, from time to time, and we'd all have stories to tell after we did that. Well, my church used to do that. And you would have these kind of awkward embarrassment type of type of interactions.

And so if you think about this idea of knocking, that can't be like those awkward, embarrassing interactions that you have. What do you think Jesus is referring to? Well, in Luke chapter 11, we don't have time to turn there. But in Luke chapter 11, he gives us a parable. And this parable is so important.

And the parable goes like this is, is Jesus is telling this parable. And there's a man who in the middle of his of the night, this other guy comes and shows up unannounced to his house to stay with him. He didn't know he was coming.

And so it's completely, you know, unprepared. And so this man knocks on his on his door, he has nothing in his house to feed him or anything like that. And so it was culturally acceptable for him to be hospitable during that day.

That was what was what he should have been doing. And so he said, Oh, sure, come on in, stay with me tonight. But I have no I have no bread to feed him. And that would have been in that culture rude for him to welcome a guest into his house and not deliver food for him. So the man leaves and and he goes into another neighbor's house in the middle of the night, okay, around midnight, and he goes and Jesus is telling this parable, and he goes to this other guy's house begins to knock on his door, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, and the guy comes to the door and he says, Hey, I need some bread, because I got to feed this guy who showed up at at my house. Now, how many of you would be excited to serve a neighbor of yours bread after midnight in the middle of the night after you've been asleep?

Anybody anywhere like that? Okay, nobody would. Listen, if you're like me, I'm thinking I ain't going to the door for one thing.

And we're not doing that or whatever. And I would be like, go get your bread. Apparently, they didn't have like waffle houses and stuff like that, which kind of surprises me.

But they didn't have anywhere that they could take him. And so he went to his neighbor's house and he got some got some bread. But here's the point of that parable that I want you to see in Luke chapter 11, verse number eight of that. Here's what what the remember Jesus is saying is, here's what it says, I say unto you, though, he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, but yet he giveth him the bread.

Why? Because of his and Jesus uses this word, importunity, that he will rise and give him as many as he needed. You say what is that word?

We don't use that word importunity a lot. What does that mean? Here's what it means. Persistence and shameless knocking. So So in other words, what Jesus is getting at is the word knock that we have in Matthew chapter seven. It's the same idea of what you find in Luke chapter 11, when he's talking about importunity, this shameless knocking, like, hey, we're gonna knock, and he might not come to the door the first time we knock, but guess what? We're knocking again, we're knocking again, we're gonna keep knocking, you say, what is the point? What's what's Jesus trying to tell us?

Here's the point. Jesus is trying to make us understand that we need to be persistent in our prayer life. We need to be persistent in your prayer life.

If you're asking for something that hasn't been answered, keep asking. If you're seeking him for something, keep seeking. If you've been knocking, praying for God to open up a door in your life, and he hasn't opened up the door, his point is this, keep on knocking. In other words, if you've been praying for somebody's healing, and they haven't been healed yet, keep praying. If you're praying for somebody's marriage to be restored, and it hadn't been restored yet, keep on praying. If you're praying for maybe a loved one, or a friend, or a co-worker that hasn't accepted Christ yet, keep on praying. If the job hasn't worked out yet, and you've been praying for it, keep on praying. If the church hasn't experienced revival yet, keep on praying.

That's the point. It's this continual persistency with our prayer life. That's what Jesus is trying to get us to understand.

And some of us, if you're like me, let's just be real for just a moment. We pray sometimes for something one time, and we don't bring it up again, right? We pray it one time, hey God heard me this time, why do I need to bring it up again?

He's saying, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. That's the persistency of your prayer life. The second the second thing I want you to see about your prayer life should be this, the expectancy.

The expectancy of your prayer life. Look at what he says in verse number eight of our text. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Now there's three words there if you're marking your Bible, I'd encourage you to mark these three words because they should be encouraging to you. It's this, the word receiveth, the word findeth, and the word opened. Here's what I want you to learn and what Jesus is trying to tell us with receiveth, findeth, and open.

This is it. God answers prayers. If you believe that, can you say amen this morning, right? God answers prayers.

He does. God answers your prayers. Every single prayer that we pray, he answers it.

What we're to do is to be persistent and expectant. I remember there was a song that always when I think about prayers and God answering our prayers, this was always in my head. It was an old, it was a southern gospel song probably like 15, 20 years ago.

It was a song entitled A Greater Yes. Here was the point of the song is the song was you never pray a prayer, your father will not answer, right? In other words, he can't ignore your request, but here's the point. While you're waiting and you're watching, in other words, while you're asking, while you're seeking, while you're knocking, he is praying or he is answering your prayer in some way, in some way.

Here's what I'll tell you. God answers prayers, but not always the way that we want him to answer our prayers. Sometimes we have to realize that when we pray things, he's answering it by saying no. He's answering it by saying not yet. He's answering it by giving you something that you need more than what you think you need.

And so for a moment, listen, if you've ever prayed for something that didn't happen the way that you want, don't think that God didn't answer your prayer. He answered it according to his will, just not according to your will. And that's what he talks about Jesus. He knew that, you know, in that day and age, there was people that probably were sitting in the audience of this sermon on the mount that had prayed for something. It didn't happen the way that they wanted.

And so they're discouraged by it. And so Jesus goes on in verses nine and 10, and he begins to explain what he means by God always answers our prayers, just not always in the way that we intended for him to. Look at what he says in verse number nine. He says, or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asked for a fish, will he give him a serpent? In other words, verse 11 as well, if he then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that that ask him.

In other words, what Jesus is getting at is he's telling us we better be expectant, believing that God is going to answer our prayers because he's a good father, and he knows what's best for us. Now, if my kids, you know, at lunch, if they ask me for a chicken nugget, I don't throw them a rock, right? Right. So eat this, right?

That'd be crazy. And so Jesus uses a couple of analogies there. He's like, you know what? He wants them to really understand. And so as you can imagine, he says, Hey, when your, when your kid asks for food, you don't throw him a stone. If, if your kid asks for some fish, you don't, you don't throw him a snake, right? That'd be crazy. And everybody's like, what are you saying, Jesus?

That that's wild. Of course, we, we don't do that. But listen, here's what, you know, if you're a parent in here, you get this. As a parent, sometimes our kids ask us for something that we as their parents know is not good for them. You ever had your kids ask you for something and you say, no, you don't need that.

It's not good for you, whatever. And then they get frustrated because in their world, they're like, man, this is what I need. This is what I need right now. And you as the parent, you know, what's best for them.

And you know what they need. And so you tell them no, or not yet or wait, you're still answering their prayer, but only in a way that them as the children cannot see it. Here's what Jesus is trying to teach us is sometimes we as followers of Christ, sometimes what looks to us like bread is a snake in your life.

Sometimes what looks like bread in your life could be a stone in your life. But when we pray to God and we ask him for the specific things of our life, we have to trust that he is the one that knows all things and he knows what is best for you. We have to trust him for that. The third thing I want you to see is not only the expectancy, you got to know that he answers every prayer that we pray, just not always in the way that we want him to. But the third thing is the intimacy of our prayer life.

It's found in verse number 11. Jesus says, if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him, right? Think about it. You know, as parents, we give our kids good gifts all the time. And here's what's amazing is we give kids gifts even when they don't deserve it, right?

Have you ever, I mean, think about it. In December, you know, like when my kids are bad, I've even said things like this, hey, you do that again, you're not getting any presents at Christmas, right? As parents, we say things like that.

We don't mean that, right? Because then it's like your kid could be the, you know, the worst behaved kid on the face of the planet on Christmas Eve, when they wake up on Christmas Day, here's what's going to happen. They're going to get a gift from you as the mom or dad, and they're going to give a gift and it's going to say something, you know, like to the best son in the world.

And you're kind of like yesterday, they were the worst son in the world, right? And so here's the point is, is Jesus is saying that even us and he calls us evil, which is all of us, right? And he says, even you that are evil, you know how to give good gifts to your kids and everybody in his audience is saying, yeah, yeah, we do. And he goes on, he says, on a greater scale, think about this, a perfect, heavenly, righteous father that is up in heaven, don't you think he knows what you need in your life more than what you think you, you need? And here's what I want you to see before we land the plane this morning is this, is this intimacy with your relationship with, with the father.

Jesus mentions, and he calls him father. And I don't want you to overlook that. I don't want you to overlook that because sometimes we do. And here's the, here's the point that I want you to kind of think about as we kind of close this thing out is this, the way that you view God determines how you approach God. The way that you view God determines how you approach God.

Think about it this way. If you see God primarily as a judge, then you will always be dispensive and fearful, always wondering what you have done wrong. If you see God primarily as a judge, if you see God primarily as, as your boss, then all you'll ever try to do is, is work hard to earn his approval because you think that's your job. If you think that God is, is just some sort of cosmic distant being, then you might go through religious rituals when you need to, but they're always going to lack relationship and heart. And God forbid you think this, but I've heard this too from sometimes when we refer to God, if you think God is like the old man upstairs, then here's what's going to happen in your life. You're going to be on your best behavior when you're like in his house, you'll get dressed up, you'll act proper, you'll say the right things and stuff like that, but it's going to be nothing when you leave this place. Here's the point.

And the list could go on and on. The point is this, the way that you view God, it's always going to determine how you approach God. And so what Jesus is saying when he refers to him as our father, he's saying, if we really looked at God as our father, then we would approach him as natural, as open and as confidently as my kids approached me every single day.

That's what Jesus is trying to say. And so my question is, is that how you approach God? Do you see him as your father?

Do you see him as your heavenly father? Because think about it, my kids or whatever, they don't even knock half the time. They just come right in. They're so confident.

They're so comfortable. We have such a close relationship that that's what they do, that they can ask me and keep on asking me. They can seek and keep on seeking. They can knock and keep on knocking.

Why? Because of the relationship, I'm their dad. You see, that's the relationship we should have in our prayer life. It's when we come to the father, we should come confidently. We should come expectantly, knowing that he is going to answer our prayers. We should come persistently.

Keep on asking, keep on praying, because he is your father and he knows what is best for you. So listen, how do you approach God? On your way in today, you received a card that looks like this for just a moment. I want you to grab it. It should be around you probably for just a moment and just to make sure we're all on the same page and that you haven't fallen asleep and you're not googling where you're eating today or whatever.

If I was sitting in the service, I probably would be by now. But listen, just wave it up in the air. I want to know that you're with me if you got your card.

Okay, everybody should have it. There's three questions here and here's what we're going to do. We're going to spend just a moment today praying for these things. I'm going to ask Becky. She's going to come at this time and she's going to play the piano while we're doing this. But here's what I want you to do. Right here, I want you to grab a pen if you have one.

There might be a pencil in the seat back in front of you. But here's what I want you to do. That first question, what am I asking our father to do? What is it in your life right now that you are asking God to do? It could be about your marriage. It could be about your children. It could be about your grandchildren. It could be about the world that we live in. It could be about your job. It could be about a relationship in your life. It could be about your school.

It could be about your friends. This is for everybody, kids, adults, teenagers, whatever. And what are you asking him to do? I want you to grab a pen. I want you right now as I'm talking, go ahead and fill that out.

It can be anything and it can be private and nobody else know about it. The second thing is what are you seeking from our father? What are you searching for? What are you asking and keeping on asking? What are you seeking from our father? What are you looking from him?

And then the third thing I want you to see is this. What door are you asking him to open? What door are you asking him to open that perhaps he hasn't opened yet and you are asking and begging and persistently coming to him? What is it that you are asking for?

What is it that you are seeking and what door are you asking your father to open? Here's what I want to invite you to do. I want you to take just a moment to fill this out. We're going to do this quietly.

The piano is going to be playing. This is not for anybody else. This is just for you because we need this because if you're like me, my prayer life's not what it should be. It's not and it could be so much deeper.

It could be so much better. There's so many things I pray for one time and I never bring it up to God again and I know you're the same way. Listen, this is just a tool for us. I want you to take just a moment to do that and once you're done, here's what I want to invite you to do. Let's all stand at this time. Everybody can just stand wherever you are and here's what we're going to do. I want you to take that card and if you're comfortable and your card's filled out, this altar down front is open and it's going to be just a place, a refuge, a prayer for each one of for each one of us today. If you're comfortable after I pray, this altar is going to be open. You're welcome to come pray here. You say, pastor, I'm not comfortable with coming down front and doing that.

That's okay. We don't want to make you feel uncomfortable today but here's what I want you to do. I want you to pray. Maybe you could sit right where you are and just pray for these things. What is it that you're asking God for? What are you seeking Him for and what door are you asking God to open? Father, God, we have so many needs in this place today, so many things we're asking you for, so many things that we're seeking you for, so many doors that we're asking you to open and sometimes you haven't opened them yet and sometimes you haven't answered them yet and sometimes we just give up and we don't persistently pray. God, I pray, Lord, right now in this moment that we would have breakthrough in our hearts, that we would be persistent in our prayer life. Bless in this prayer time, Father, for it's in your name. Listen, if you got your card filled out, this altar is open. You're welcome to come down front and join me down here praying. If you want to kneel right where you are or sit in your seat and pray, I want to invite you to spend just a few moments here today as the piano plays to pray over the needs that we have in our church.