All of us can pray to God always

Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray!

If you haven't got it already, we are talking about prayer! The most beautiful gift given by God to his children!

https://linktr.ee/WildfireMinistries

https://linktr.ee/hope2families

Music by
Over the limits
Vernacolmusic

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 8:46 What is prayer?
• 12:30 Signs of life in your prayer life
• 13:19 Astonishment x passion in prayer
• 16:07 Humility in prayer
• 18:01 Confessing our sin
• 21:39 Do we have faith when we pray?
• 24:46 Are we disciplined when we pray?
• 25:37 Are we diligent when we pray?
• 28:54 Ephesians 6:18
• 31:41 Conclusions on prayer

Transcript

Wildfire podcast is an extension of Wildfire, which has a focus of igniting men and women of God into a deeper discipleship with Christ, instilling people with a passion to radically and relentlessly pursue Christ wherever that leads.

That God's truth will spread like a wildfire.

Hi, everyone.

Good to be back.

So, this morning, we're going to be looking at Ephesians 6, 18.

So, if you want to turn there, that's going to be the passage that we're going to center our focus on, come to the end of everything.

This morning, we're going to be talking about, all of us can pray to God always.

And, I just want to ask yous, what does surrender look like to yous right now?

Whenever you were coming here this morning, I don't know what that looked like for yous, where your life is, what situation you are in.

But whenever you came here this morning, what were you expecting to happen?

Were you expecting to come, to sing, to hear someone speak, talk, do the same thing, go home, Sunday, boom, done, next day?

Or was there a possibility that you don't know what was gonna happen this morning?

because where God is, I don't know about you, but how can we know?

How can we know?

Israelites, whenever they were about to cross the Red Sea, all they seen was the ocean.

They didn't know what was about to happen, because God's ways are not our ways.

And I suppose this morning, what are God's ways?

And that's what I'm thinking of.

Like, I'm the one speaking, so I'm coming with the expectation that I'm gonna get through what I have to say.

But if God wants to break me by His very word this morning, and I can't speak, then so be it.

And this morning, whatever God wants to do with you, are you open to that?

Or are you saying, no, I don't want to cry in front of people?

Not this morning, God, don't do that.

Or I don't want to feel a conviction, or I don't want to be taught or rebuked or corrected or trained.

This morning, don't put a restriction on what God can do, because I don't know what God's going to do.

His ways are not our ways.

So come with an expectation as to what God is going to do this morning, because he's going to do something, whether that is to teach, to rebuke, to correct, to train, to break, to build up.

I don't know.

An experiment in transcendence.

When I was 13 years old, I wasn't sure I was buying all this jesus stuff.

I was a curious kid, but this wasn't an easy sell.

If this is true, I want to in.

But if it's a fairy tale, I would rather find out sooner or later, so I don't waste so much of my time.

A mentor approached me with an experiment of sorts.

What do you think God would do if you spent every day of your life this summer praying for your unbelieving friends?

Why don't you find out?

I would then walk the school grounds with a folded school directory.

The first day back, I asked the school headmaster to start a prayer club.

So every Wednesday at 6.30am in the morning, I would randomly open a passage, gather my own interpretation, and write it on a piece of looseless paper, and speak it to anyone who showed up.

This was a recipe for disaster, not revival.

But I had one thing going for me, and that is I prayed.

I would come an hour early on Tuesdays and Thursdays and pray.

My mum would have to tell me to chill because she was losing so much sleep taking me in.

A couple of months in, so many pupils were coming, we had to move from a math class to a school theatre.

At the end of that school year, approximately one third of my class had entered a relationship with jesus.

In the darkness of the early morning, all the atmosphere of hospital lighting through the potentially heretical sermons of a 13 year old skeptic, it was either completely ludicrous or ultimately breathtaking.

This is from the book Praying Like a Monk and Living Like a Fool written by Tyler Stanton, a book and series of videos that I would highly recommend.

But prayer, prayer.

This is a person who was unsure himself, was sceptical.

And it was a person whose teaching was really not that sound or correct.

But he had a childlike faith and came before the father and knew that it was all about what the spirit would do.

And over one third of his class, because his prayers came to know jesus.

This is the power of prayer.

And prayer makes us think.

We can either conclude, no coincidence, foolishness or we can either say, this is God and God is moving.

So I want to talk about what prayer is.

I want to talk about what it means to pray the way God calls us to pray.

And how will we talk about this?

I will define what prayer is and what it isn't.

I will talk about the signs of life in your prayer.

And then we will use Ephesians 6, 18, verse 20 to talk about the perpetual ongoing nature of our prayers.

That it should be never ceasing.

But why talk about this?

Know God and glorify God.

This is the chief end of man, as the Westminster Confession of Faith says.

It says we are called to know God and to glorify God.

This way?

Better?

Okay.

Visit me again if it doesn't.

Know God and glorify God.

That is the chief end of man.

That is the Westminster Confession of Faith.

But how do we know God?

And how do we become closer to him?

Through the reading of his word to us, and also through communion with him, which is prayer.

I've said it so many times, but it is because it is true.

For nothing to take place this morning is impossible.

You cannot leave here like a car that has just been serviced until the next time.

I'm talking about God's eclivia, his set of heart ones gathering in his presence, opening up his word, dedicated to the teaching, dedicated to prayer, dedicated to praise, and remembering the love, the holiness and justice of our God through the table that God instituted.

There is no way any of us can sit here and say I've got everything down.

I know everything there is that there is to know about prayer.

No, knowledge is an ocean to which we swim, but there is an incredible depth in understanding it.

Always immerse yourself.

Always go deeper.

Never stop.

God, speak to me this morning.

I lack wisdom.

Give me wisdom.

I lack understanding.

Give me understanding.

I am pursuing you with everything that I've got.

If you don't want to pursue God, pursue him, pursue him.

If you don't want to take up your cross and follow him, if you don't want to lay everything down, if you don't want God most out of anything in your life, then the take up your cross and follow me lifestyle is not for you.

The life of a follower of jesus has not been and never will be.

I'll take your seconds.

I'll take your second fritz.

It's the first fritz that God desires.

It is an all in everything, all that matters pursuit of God.

This means we pursue him deeper.

And to do so, we need to pray, pray.

So let's pray together before we continue on.

God, we are in your presence.

Why?

because your presence is in us.

The spirit of the living God is in us.

So we are expecting, I am expecting that even the hard hearts in here, you can open.

And those who are children of God, that we may come receptive, ready, expecting, longing.

God, do something, do something.

Teach me, correct me, train me, so we can leave joyous this morning saying, God taught me something.

I'm a child of God, and he taught me.

And we can go joyful and praising.

Help us to understand the importance of prayer and the privilege that it is that we get to never cease in our prayers.

Amen.

So what is prayer?

Prayer is a communion with the Most High.

It is the creation who have been given privileged access to the Creator.

It is the child to whom the Father says, come.

It is the High Priest who says to his fellow priests, step into my presence with irreverence.

It is to the servant the King says, enter my courts.

It is an invitation to communion with that which is heavenly.

Prayer is necessary for a follower of jesus to know God.

It is God's chosen means of communicating to us.

So therefore it is our privileged means of communicating with him.

And who is prayer for?

Well, contrary to belief, prayer is not for God.

God doesn't need your prayers.

God doesn't need anything from us.

Think of the level of pride a person has that they say, God, I will grace you with my sinful presence today before the throne room.

I'll come to you when I want.

I will take it or leave it sometimes.

Yeah, I don't know if I want to pray or not.

I know people talk about it and it's a discipline.

But, you know, God, you know, I don't think you're deserving of my presence today.

The God of the universe, who spoke great galaxies into existence, invites us to pray.

A sinful creation deserving of nothing, yet given everything, including access to the Father and the Spirit, because of the truth of jesus, who tore the temple curtain into, so that we can have fellowship, communion with God always, never ceasing.

God says to his church, you are my church, my presence is in you.

You have constant access to the presence of God, because you are always in his presence.

That's why we can pray.

That's why we are commanded to pray always, because God's presence is in us always.

Prayer is an opportunity for us to be grounded in the reality of God's perpetual presence.

That is, God's presence never ceases, and so our prayers should never cease.

Pray always, the Bible says.

It's not a means of drawing away from reality.

Think about it.

I get it.

In your work, in your professions, in schools, in your occupations, in university, whenever you're being with your kids and they're waking you up, whenever you get angry with people, whenever you're in the day to day, on the ground, life stuff, where does prayer take its place?

And prayer is not a means of stepping away from your life.

My children are crying, this is annoying, or I'm in work, these people are annoying me, and it's not about, oh, I need to step away from that in prayer.

It's about you're in there, and God says even in that, you can pray.

Even in that, my presence is in you, and you can pray to me.

Pray, always, pray, always.

That's our privileged position that we are called to, and we have been given, and it is a gift.

We are always in the presence of God.

In the normality of life, you can pray always.

So knowing it is here, and that we have continual access to you, how do we understand and live out that and never ceasing communion with God?

I want to talk about the signs of life in your prayer.

Okay?

You can look at a dead body, and you can see that there's new signs of life.

You can look at a live body, and see that there's signs of life.

So it is with your prayer life.

So many people have such a dead prayer life.

Okay?

And if it's dead, accept it.

Remember what we talked about last week?

Accept it.

I'm sorry.

Change it.

Don't be a person who, yeah, that is me, but I don't want to accept that, so I'm going to try and justify it.

Accept that your prayer life is not what it should be.

It's not what it's called to be.

And be excited that it can change here this morning.

All of us can go deeper in our prayers.

What are the signs of life?

The astonishment and passion of a child of God, number one.

Do you have astonishment?

Do you have a passion?

I get to spend time with God.

What is going on?

If you think of a child and their father, the privileged moments that was, to spend time with that father, to spend time with that mother, to spend time with that friend, what a privileged position that was.

And I get to spend time with the divine.

God, I get to spend time with him.

How does that make sense?

I don't understand.

And it says in the Psalms, as a deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you.

How long after you?

I just want to be in the presence of God.

I can't leave.

God, you say that I get to be in your presence all the time.

I just want to stay there.

I just want to pray always.

I'm your child, you're my father, and I get to be with you always.

I never get to be disconnected from you.

You're with me always, and I get to pray with you always.

I'm astonished by that.

Often our view of prayer is like medicine.

We are forced to take it because it's good for us.

So I guess I'll do it.

All I desire is to dwell in the house of the Lord, my King.

My King.

We can do that now.

God's presence is here.

He has made us living temples of the Holy Spirit.

It's presence.

What a privilege.

The Bible says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added on to you.

What is it that you're seeking?

When I have decided to seek the kingdom, the way in which I can do this is through prayer.

This is the Father, that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God, what is done in heaven, can make it here, done on earth, in the normality of my life?

I was sitting in the football changing room yesterday with all my teammates as they're swearing, hurling abuse, talking about sex.

I'm like, the presence of God is in me.

So the presence of God is here in this room, in this changing room.

And I'm sitting there, and I just, I get to pray before my Father in that changing room, get to commune with him in that most normal of situations.

And all of us, whether you're sitting at your school desk, whether you're sitting in your university, wherever your context is, in the most normal of circumstances, that becomes a supernatural moment, because God's presence is inside of you, and you get to pray with him.

And he wants to speak to you, and he wants to use you.

Passion, astonishment.

Seek his kingdom first, his kingdom first.

His will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Two, do we come with a humility before God?

Okay, I'm gonna say this first, I want you to just think about it for a second, and what this could possibly mean.

Hebrews 5.7.

In the days of his flesh, jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears.

To him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

So the emphasis is, so jesus is God, but the emphasis is not because he is God, his prayers have been heard.

jesus, who was God, had reverence, and so his prayers were heard.

That's what this verse is highlighting to us.

So if jesus, Son of the living God, perfect and holy, okay, comes with the reverence and so his prayers are heard, how much so should I have reverence?

Coming to pray before my God and my King.

And if we can pray always in his presence, then we're called to have reverence always before God.

Always.

He was heard because of his reverence.

Reverence matters, a holy fear for who God is.

We talked about it last week at Communion, a holy fear.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The presence that people couldn't touch, that's how holy it is.

And yet that same presence through the spirit of living God is inside us, fear and reverence.

1 Peter 5, 6 says, Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and he will lift you up at his good time.

Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.

Come with a reverence.

Number three is, do we confess or sin?

One of the most mind boggling things that I find is, I could ask a person, did you sin yesterday?

And some of their answers are like, I don't actually know if I did or not, like probably.

You can't do that.

You can't do that.

You need to know.

In a second, if you're a child of God, okay, the Bible says that if you sin, there is a conviction, a hatred towards that sin that is followed by a quick repentance that then sees you experience grace and love and then freedom.

And with that freedom, you're joyous about it, and you go and proclaim that.

There's no verses in the Bible that says that you can sin and feel nothing and have a forgetfulness and a passivity on it and say, I don't know if I did or not.

Again, reverence before your King.

How you approach God matters.

Knowing about your sin matters.

If you're in sin, just confess it.

Confess your sin before your Father who is in heaven.

That's why jesus died on the cross.

In the Psalms, David said, if I had not confessed my sin, God would not have heard me.

He would not have heard me.

And in John 9.31, it says, we know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him.

God listens to him.

If you're in sin, recognize you're in sin, come before the holy, holy, holy God, and confess, and let his love that he wants to lavish on you, forgive you of your sins, because that's the advocate and the mediator and the intercessor that we have in jesus, and then be joyful and approach God in prayer, never ceasing prayer.

We are saved, born again.

We have an advocate who pleads on our behalf.

This is why we have the assurance that God will answer our prayers, because jesus came to us and told us directly, whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the father may be glorified in the son.

jesus said to you, pray, pray in my name, and I will give whatever you ask, for what reason?

So that the father may be glorified.

As we discussed last week, our sin matters, how we respond matters, especially now we're in Christ.

It doesn't do what the culture says.

Now that we're in Christ, sin doesn't matter anymore.

If we are truly in Christ, then we will always come to a place of freedom.

Okay?

I'm not trying to condemn you.

If you're a child of God, there is no condemnation in Christ, but there is conviction.

Conviction brings you to repentance.

Repentance brings you to freedom.

And then in our freedom, we're called to pray.

We're not called in our sin to pray.

jesus didn't come so you could pray in your sin.

jesus came so that you could pray in liberty and in freedom.

So if you're a child of God, don't be in condemnation, but remember conviction, remember repentance, and then remember that freedom that it brings.

So then you can pray in that freedom.

Four, do we doubt?

James 1.6 says, but when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

God's word is radical.

There is no middle ground.

God doesn't say, yeah, you can come, sort of believe, sort of not.

God says, if you have that mindset, you're double-minded.

You're like a wave tossed by the wind in the ocean.

Don't expect to receive anything.

It's just that simple.

Okay?

So I want to receive from the Lord.

Pray in faith.

Don't doubt.

It's God.

It's not about you.

You're not granting your own prayer request.

Your request is to God.

He is the one who can grant.

God can do all things.

All things.

Have faith.

Mark 11, 24 says, Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Okay?

That doesn't mean, okay.

Mercies.

Boom.

No, no, no.

Seek first the kingdom of God with a bold confidence.

It's the kingdom we seek.

And seeking the kingdom is what we pray for, and what we receive in faith.

The Father will answer those who ask things of God, what God wants, in the name of jesus.

This is the bold promise that we have, and it should fill us with joy, that normal people like me and you sitting in this room can come before our God who's in heaven and pray for anything.

What is God's will?

For sinners to be saved.

Pray in faith, in a manner so assured, it is like you have already received it.

And God has and God will answer the prayers of His children.

Pray for the promises of God.

The promises of God are what we pray for.

Do you want more love?

Do you want more joy?

Do you want more peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

Pray, because God says He wants to give you that.

Pray as if you've already received it.

In faith, don't doubt, God will give you it.

Do you lack understanding?

Do you lack wisdom, self-control, all these things?

These are the promises that God wants to give to His children.

Why don't we spend our time praying for those?

Praying for those.

The armor of God.

God has given us armor to equip us for the spiritual battle ahead.

Pray for those.

Pray for the promises of God that He has given you and pray in faith in an assurance that you have already received it.

Pray.

Don't doubt.

It's God.

Five.

Are we disciplined?

1 Thessalonians 5.16 says, Rejoice always.

Pray continually.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for your life in Christ jesus.

Do not quench the spirit.

Ephesians 6.18.

Praying at all times in the spirit.

Matthew 26.41.

Stay awake and pray for strength against temptation.

Colossians 4.2.

Continually.

Steadfastly in prayer.

Continually.

Steadfastly.

Always.

Never ceasing.

Always.

Always.

Always.

Always.

Always pray.

Always pray.

Always pray.

What a privilege.

We always get to pray.

But are we disciplined?

Do we keep praying?

Do we never stop?

Pray, pray, pray.

Are we diligent?

Are we diligent in our prayers?

jesus talks about two parables that relate to this.

About being persistent and diligent in your prayer.

One of them is the widow and the unjust judge.

So the widow would come to the unjust judge, plead her case, the judge would deny.

Widow would come back, plead her case, judge would deny.

Widow would come back, plead her case.

Widow back and forth, back and forth.

The widow kept coming, the unjust judge.

He was unjust, he wasn't just, kept denying, kept denying.

because of the widow's persistence, the judge finally said, take what you want.

And jesus said, how much more will your father in heaven, who is just, want to give to his children?

Persist, be diligent.

Constantly come before the throne of God, offering up your requests.

Always offering up your requests to your father, who wants to give.

In Matthew 7, it seeks, seek, not ask.

Seek and you shall find.

Knock and the door shall be open.

Ask and you will receive.

You have to seek it.

You have to knock.

You have to ask.

It requires a verb.

It's something that you do.

God is calling you to fellowship.

Jeremiah, seek with all of your heart.

Full surrender to God.

Not partial, not like a wave tossed around like an ocean.

No, seek the Lord with all your heart.

Seek the Lord with all your heart.

He will give you the desires of your heart.

Seek the Lord with all your heart.

He will give to you.

One of my biggest fears is that I will stand before God and he will say, why did you not just ask me, my child?

Why did you not just ask?

Why did you not just ask?

I'm your father, I was right there.

I wanted to give you so much.

And you didn't ask.

How ludicrous do we have to be?

Ask, ask God, pray always, offer up always.

Be disciplined, be diligent, constantly ask.

God, I want to love you more.

I want the fruits of the Spirit.

I want the armor of God.

God says he will give if we ask in faith.

We are called to pray as though we have received it.

There is a calm and quiet assurance because jesus has already won.

There are things I know God wants me to have that is his promises.

I begin with those in my prayer, and I have them and they are mine.

because I'm a child of God.

I get to claim them.

The presence of God is inside of me.

And I get to pray with a boldness, humility, a passion, a discipline, a diligence.

Pray always, pray always, pray always.

To finish with our passage, Ephesians 6, 18, which reaffirms everything that we have been talking about.

Pray always.

It says, Praying at all times in this spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Praying at all times.

Always, always, always pray.

Not in part, but in full.

Why?

because the presence of God is in us always, and so we can commune with God always.

We can bring our request to God.

Always pray at all times.

In the spirit, spirit of the living God, the presence of him who we are called to have a reverence and a boldness.

Someone who prays at all times has a passion to pray at all times, to dwell in the house of the Lord all his days.

In the spirit requires a fear and a reverence and a humility at the fact that we have the spirit of God living inside of us.

With all prayer and supplication, again, supplication comes with an earnestness and a reverence.

Come confessing your sins, be disciplined, be diligent, be earnest, earnestly praying, earnestly never stopping, never ceasing, constantly coming before the Father.

Keep alert with all perseverance.

Be self aware that we are in a battle, OK?

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be a trench with someone who comes up to me and says, here, are we in a battle, in a war?

It's like, yeah, we are.

Don't be a child of God who is naive to the fact that our warfare is not against flesh and blood.

Don't spend your time wasting on flesh and blood.

It is against powers and principalities.

We have stepped in to a heavenly realm of battle, to which we are equipped with all the promises of God.

And that is prayer.

Prayer.

Never cease.

Never stop.

Never in the sin of arrogance and pride, take prayer lightly.

Have so many wrong views of what prayer is and what prayer does.

What people did in the presence of God in the Old Testament.

Think about it.

That presence is inside us.

It's inside us.

I don't understand that God of the universe is inside me.

He's inside of me.

I don't understand fully what that means, but I have all eternity to understand it.

To go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into that.

His presence with me always, and so always I can pray, never ceasing in my prayers and my requests.

We have never ending access to God because God is in us.

So how are you approaching him every second of every day?

We cannot box prayer up.

We cannot put it to one side.

We cannot allocate a time of prayer and then disconnect it from the living of our lives.

We are commanded to pray always as we are in God's presence always.

You're in God's presence always in the living of your life.

So always pray, never stop.

That's why God says in everything, pray, everything, pray.

Everything.

In Ephesians 6 it says, pray at all times in the spirit.

Pray all times because you're in the spirit.

Pray all the time.

What have we talked about?

What is prayer?

And what does it mean to pray the way it causes us to pray?

How do we talk about it?

How do we define prayer?

What it is and what it isn't?

We talked about the signs of life in your prayer.

Come with a passion.

Come with a humility.

Recognize conviction that brings repentance and then freedom and pray in that freedom.

Come with a discipline.

Come with a diligence.

And come with faith because of not who we are, but because of who God is and who God has made us.

We can come with a boldness and a faith that God can answer prayers.

And we have used Ephesians 6 verses 18 to 20 to reaffirm.

Pray always in the Spirit.

Always in the Spirit, earnestly seeking Him.

If you cannot see the necessity of prayer, if you cannot see the expectation for prayer, if you cannot see the command for prayer, if you cannot see the power of prayer, if you do not want to pray, these are all the hallmarks of someone who is not in love with jesus.

Which shows a lack of love more than not communicating or talking with the person you say you're in love with.

Saying you don't want to talk to God, saying you don't have time are dangerous and showcase a lack of love for God.

That's it.

If you want to leave here today and not change and not understand or feel convicted by prayer and the power of prayer and not want to persist in prayer or do anything that we talked about this morning from God's word, I don't know what to say to you.

I don't know what to say to you anymore.

But for those who are sitting in this room, who desire more of God, the way in which you get more of God is through prayer and communion with him.

We're all called to pray always.

Don't stop.

Never cease in your prayers.

Go deeper and deeper and deeper.

This is a privileged position that we have been given because of what jesus did on the cross and is what we will remember in this table.

CS.

Lewis wrote, I pray because I can't help myself.

I pray because I'm helpless.

I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.

It doesn't change God, but it changes me.

I leave you with one of the most baffling triffs found in the Bible.

All of us can pray to God always.