Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Our dear Heavenly Father, you are the Father of all glory.
[00:00:10] You are majestic in all that you do.
[00:00:16] You abide in unspeakable glory.
[00:00:25] And out of the riches of your grace, you've invited us to draw near to you.
[00:00:32] You've created space around yourself and permit us to abide with you.
[00:00:44] And for this we are eternally grateful.
[00:00:48] Father, I pray that this new sermon series would be a time of spiritual growth in us and we would mature into, better reflect the image of Jesus Christ.
[00:01:04] In Christ's name, Amen.
[00:01:07] We're going to study the Book of Colossians together.
[00:01:11] Of course, I can't preach verse by verse, but we're going to hit some major paragraphs that carry the major ideas of the book.
[00:01:23] Let me tell you a little bit about Colossi.
[00:01:33] Colosse is in modern day Turkey.
[00:01:36] And Turkey is a. Is a mountainous region, and a valley runs through two major mountain ranges, and it's called the Lycus Valley.
[00:01:54] And a river runs through this valley. And it made the Lycus Valley a prime agricultural spot.
[00:02:06] And so when.
[00:02:08] When the trade routes started running through there, they're going to run the trade route through, through the Lycus Valley, because it's easier to pass through a valley than a bunch of mountain ranges.
[00:02:20] And when they ran the trade routes through the Lycus Valley, it caused certain cities, certain villages to thrive into cities.
[00:02:29] And in fact, there are three of them. One is colossae, and about 10 miles east of Colossae, northeast of Colassa there, there's Hierapolis, and about 10 miles southeast of Colossae, there's Laodicea.
[00:02:49] And these three cities are about 10 miles apart from each other. And they became major trade centers.
[00:02:58] So when Paul, the last missionary trip he took, went to Ephesus, he had a bunch of young men that he was mentoring. And he sent these young men to other cities around ephesus.
[00:03:15] So these three cities are about 100 miles from Ephesus. And these young men took what Paul had taught them. They went to these other cities and they started churches.
[00:03:26] And one of the. One of the young men that started a church, his name was Epaphras, and he had been mentored by Paul. He probably grew up in Colossae. So. So he went back to his home city and started a church.
[00:03:46] And evidently he was helping Paul in Rome when Paul got arrested.
[00:03:57] And after Paul got arrested, and either he got arrested himself or he just stayed in Rome to help. Paul and another family pastored the church in Colossae.
[00:04:10] Another famous name in The Bible. Philemon Paul wrote him a letter about slavery and his wife Apphia and their son Archippus, who probably pastored the church when Epaphras was in Rome with Paul.
[00:04:33] If you look at the end of this letter, we have the name Tychos, because he was the one who delivered the letter from Rome to Colossae.
[00:04:48] Paul's letters get divided into two groups. The first group of letter is a problem solving letter, like the book of Philippians is a problem solving letter.
[00:05:00] Paul says to them, oh, foolish Galatians, who cast a spell on you. You started out in the Spirit and now you think you're made perfect in the flesh. He was trying to correct a heresy in the church. This is not a problem solving letter.
[00:05:16] This is one of Paul's classic instructional letters.
[00:05:21] In an instructional letter, Paul takes topics or. Or he takes a theme and he teaches the people the theology of it. And then he says, this is how you apply it to your life.
[00:05:34] So that's what we have in the book of Colossians. We have Paul giving some clear theological instruction. And he says, this is how it applies in your life.
[00:05:46] And he starts this instruction with a prayer.
[00:05:53] Let me read it to you. Paul could. Paul could write more densely than we're used to reading, but he also had.
[00:06:05] He also had a literary genius.
[00:06:09] Let me read this to you.
[00:06:11] This is what Paul wrote.
[00:06:14] We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.
[00:06:33] Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the Gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world. It is bearing fruit and increasing as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
[00:07:10] In this verse, Paul is modeling mature Christian prayer.
[00:07:19] Prayer is a skill that we should get better and better at the longer we're Christians.
[00:07:29] We ought to learn how to pray at a deeper spiritual levels the longer we're Christians. The problem is the many of us get stuck at level one, just asking God for physical things.
[00:07:46] That's level one, praying.
[00:07:49] Dear God, help me to have a good day at work today.
[00:07:54] Dear God, help my kids to grow up to be good people.
[00:07:58] Dear God, I'd like to get the raise at work.
[00:08:03] Dear God, we've got a sickness in our family and could you please help? All right, I'm not criticizing that prayer. We ought to pray those prayers.
[00:08:13] Those are level one prayers.
[00:08:16] But if your whole life all you pray is level one prayers, your prayer life is immature.
[00:08:27] At some point we have to start praying on a spiritual level and, and not just a material level.
[00:08:36] At some point our values need to start to transition that we appreciate spiritual qualities more than we value of physical things. Can you hear this?
[00:08:51] It's all right for a child to fill their pockets full of marbles and go to school, but when you're 50 and you're filling your pockets with marbles and going to work, there's an issue.
[00:09:08] It's all right for a little girl to have a Barbie and play with it every day and enjoy it, but if you're a 50 year old woman playing with a Barbie at work, there's a problem.
[00:09:21] All right, this is true spiritually.
[00:09:24] Ah, as spiritually we have to, we have to start allowing the Holy Spirit to call us to richer levels of living and more mature practice of the things of God. All right, so what does a mature prayer sound like? Mature prayer begins with thanksgiving for the fatherhood of God and the lordship of Christ.
[00:09:51] We always thank God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.
[00:09:57] Did you hear that? The prayer begins. The mature prayer begins with a consideration of who exactly am I talking to and how should I begin my conversation with him.
[00:10:15] So Paul says, I begin my conversation with God with a thanksgiving.
[00:10:24] Ah.
[00:10:25] If you had to be absolutely honest and I said to you, what are you most thankful for in life?
[00:10:34] What might you say?
[00:10:37] I'm guessing without prompting.
[00:10:41] Very few people would say, I am most grateful in my life for the fatherhood of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ without prompting. Very few people would say that.
[00:10:56] But see, Paul is a spiritually mature man and he has his values, right?
[00:11:02] And when he says, I look at my life, the thing I am the most grateful for is that God is my father and that Jesus Christ is my Lord.
[00:11:17] We begin to pray with gratitude for the fatherly care of God in our lives.
[00:11:23] Now, what does that look like?
[00:11:28] I want to be able to talk about this in the kind of way that you can do this on Monday morning.
[00:11:34] How do you say to the Father, I'm grateful that you're my father.
[00:11:39] All right, let me share these ways.
[00:11:41] What if you just start with, in what way is God your father?
[00:11:47] He is your spiritual father.
[00:11:51] He is the one who gave birth to you to the spirit of the. To the Spirit of God that abides in you.
[00:12:01] He is your spiritual Father.
[00:12:03] And it sounds something like this. Dear God, I recognize today that you are my spiritual father. And I give thanks to you for that.
[00:12:15] Here's another thing.
[00:12:18] He is the Father of eternal salvation.
[00:12:23] You do know that your Heavenly Father has given birth to something eternal in you.
[00:12:32] You have eternal life in you right now, and your Heavenly Father is the source of that.
[00:12:41] If you have emotional well being, it's because your heavenly Father is creating an environment in which your soul thrives and you have emotional well being.
[00:12:54] If you have. If you have material blessings, it's because your Heavenly Father set you up pretty nice.
[00:13:02] And finally, if you value the family of God, then you can't help but say to the Father, I really, really appreciate that you are the Father that I look to. Can you hear this, Church?
[00:13:21] So before I start drilling into all the stuff I want, before I start drilling into all the stuff I think I need, before I go through my litany, I begin by saying to myself, who exactly am I talking to and what is happening in my life that says to me I should be eternally grateful to God for being my heavenly Father?
[00:13:47] All right?
[00:13:48] And then he says, I'm grateful that Jesus Christ is my Lord.
[00:13:54] How do I pray in gratitude for the lordship of Jesus Christ?
[00:14:00] Well, what does lordship mean? It means he's the leader.
[00:14:05] None of you are doing this alone.
[00:14:08] If you are, you don't have to. You have a remarkable leader. His name is Jesus Christ and it is the quality of his personhood to be your Lord, which means to lead you through the challenges, the adventures and the struggles of life.
[00:14:27] He is a wise leader. Dear Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for the wisdom with which you have led me in my life church.
[00:14:40] And then I can be grateful for his lordship because he is the Lord of all grace.
[00:14:46] God treats me better than what I deserve because Jesus Christ is the Lord of all grace.
[00:14:52] Day after day, God has treated me better than I deserve. And it ought to make me feel grateful to my Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:15:03] Jesus Christ ever lives to make intercession for us. Do you know what Jesus will be doing tomorrow? He'll be making intercession for you. He ever lives to make intercession for you.
[00:15:15] Can you be grateful that when you don't know how to talk to God and you feel incompetent in talking to God, you have an intercessor, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he speaks to God on your behalf and then he is the Lord for which we should be grateful because he's made us this beautiful promise.
[00:15:39] I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place, I will doubtlessly come again and. And receive you to myself. That where I am, there you may be also.
[00:15:50] Can you hear that? Your Lord is preparing an eternal place for you.
[00:15:58] That ought to create some gratitude in your existence.
[00:16:03] That ought to make it easier for you to start your prayer tomorrow morning. Dear Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for, for all that you have done and all that you're doing for me.
[00:16:16] Now I'm off on the right foot because how I think about God matters. And if you're like me, here's how I usually start my prayers. Thinking about myself.
[00:16:29] I usually begin my prayers thinking about myself.
[00:16:33] Dear God, I need this or. Dear God, I'm sorry.
[00:16:38] Uh, uh.
[00:16:41] An immature prayer begins with a self focus.
[00:16:46] A mature prayer begins with a focus on God and not ourselves.
[00:16:53] Mature prayer acknowledges the wonder of faith, love and hope.
[00:17:00] Ah, I'm going to read this and emphasize it as it comes up.
[00:17:05] Hearing about the faith of you in Jesus Christ and the love you have for all the saints through the hope laid up for you in heaven.
[00:17:20] Ah, faith, Hope and love.
[00:17:24] Prayer is an act of faith or it's supposed to be an act of faith.
[00:17:32] We pray both for faith and in faith.
[00:17:37] Do you remember Jesus said to a man whose son was a mess, his son was just a wreck, self destructive.
[00:17:46] And the man said to Jesus, if you can do anything, help us.
[00:17:53] And Jesus said to the man, if you can believe.
[00:17:59] And listen what this desperate man said.
[00:18:02] Lord, I believe.
[00:18:04] Help my unbelief church. That was a prayer for faith.
[00:18:11] That was a. That he.
[00:18:14] I don't know how he got there, but that was the most mature prayer he could have said in that moment. Dear God, you are the God of all faith.
[00:18:22] Please increase my faith.
[00:18:26] If you're struggling and it's hard for you to believe, pray for faith.
[00:18:33] If you're worried about friends and family and you're worried that they're never going to come to God, pray for faith.
[00:18:42] If you're worried about your condition at work, pray for faith.
[00:18:48] A mature prayer is a prayer that says God is the author and the perfecter of my faith and I'm going to pray and ask him for faith.
[00:19:02] If I pray in faith. What does that look like?
[00:19:06] It looks like an unshakable trust in Christ.
[00:19:12] Jesus told us a parable.
[00:19:15] He said there was a.
[00:19:19] There was an unjust judge who lived in a city and he didn't fear God and he didn't respect people.
[00:19:29] And a widow had a case that she brought to him and the unjust judge didn't want to be bothered by the widow, so he just ignored her.
[00:19:42] So the next day she showed up at court again and he ignored her. And the next day she showed up at court again and he annoyed her. He ignored her.
[00:19:53] And finally it dawned on him. This lady is going to show up here every day and make me look bad until I do the right thing.
[00:20:03] And then Jesus said, this is what this parable means.
[00:20:08] If an unjust judge will. Will respond to persistence, how much more will God respond to your persistent prayer?
[00:20:18] Listen. Listen. But when Christ comes, will he find faith?
[00:20:25] When Christ comes, will he find the kind of faith that says to God, I am going to persist in seeking you and seeking the best that you have until you open up the windows of heaven and. And pour out on me a blessing that I can't contain.
[00:20:43] If Christ came today, would he find that kind of faith in Christ? Church? I pray to God that he would.
[00:20:53] Praying in faith, it is quieting and quieting the soul and inwardly seeking for the wonder of the Divine presence.
[00:21:06] When I pray for faith, I ask God to increase my faith. When I pray in faith, I am inwardly seeking the wonder of the presence of God because His presence is the originator and the perfecter of our faith.
[00:21:27] Prayer is an act of love.
[00:21:30] We pray for love and we pray in love.
[00:21:34] Ah, it is a wise and mature Christian prayer to pray. Dear God, help me to love the people in my life the way you want them to be loved.
[00:21:44] Now, there's a very big difference between me loving people the way I want to love them and me loving people the way God wants me to love them.
[00:21:54] Church it's easy for me to love my wife in a selfish way.
[00:22:03] It's not so easy to love my wife the way God wants her to be loved.
[00:22:08] Church it's easy for me to love my friends the way I like to love them.
[00:22:15] It's another story to love my friends the way God wants them to be loved. Do you hear this?
[00:22:21] How does God want them to be loved? Love your neighbor as your self.
[00:22:29] Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So we pray for God to help us to love the people around us the way he wants them to be loved. And then we also pray in love. What is praying in love? It is unhypocritical love for God and people.
[00:22:52] It's saying to God, I am opening my heart.
[00:22:59] I am Willing to change.
[00:23:02] And I want to love you, and I want to love people with an unhypocritical love. Church that is a mature Christian prayer.
[00:23:16] What am I doing inwardly when I'm praying in love?
[00:23:21] I'm seeking the wonder of receiving and giving the love of God.
[00:23:28] When I pray in love, I'm saying, dear God, I am open to receiving the love that only you can give.
[00:23:38] And then I'm open to sharing that love with others as you place them in my life.
[00:23:45] I'm going to receive something from you I can't get from anyone else. And I'm going to give to others what they can't get. The love of God.
[00:23:57] Prayer is an act of hope.
[00:23:59] We talked a lot about hope last Sunday. We pray for hope and we pray in hope.
[00:24:06] What is praying for hope? That God would change the nature of my expectations, my anticipations.
[00:24:12] Hope is the anticipation of something good and beautiful because God is who he is.
[00:24:20] So when I pray for hope, I'm praying that God would change the nature of my expectations. And my expectation would be for the good, the beautiful, and the wonder of God to be a part of my daily life that's praying for hope.
[00:24:37] What is praying in hope?
[00:24:41] It is the anticipation that God is about to do good and beautiful things in my life.
[00:24:48] When I pray in hope, it sounds something like this. Dear God, I know you want to bless me.
[00:24:54] Dear God, I know you have something good for me today.
[00:24:58] Dear God, I know that every good and perfect gift comes down from you. And in hopeful expectation, I'm going to walk through my life today expecting you to do good in my life. Church, that's praying in hope.
[00:25:16] What happens inside me when I'm praying in hope?
[00:25:20] I seek the wonder of what is very best in God more than I seek material things.
[00:25:30] When I pray and hope, instead of anticipating, dear God, help me win the lottery.
[00:25:38] Dear God, uh, help me to feel better. Okay, you can pray all those things, but at some point you have to rise above that and you gotta find a spot in your heart and you have to be still in the presence of God and you have to say in hope. Dear God, I have an expectation that I'm going to experience what is best about you. And. And I want to value that more than I value other things.
[00:26:10] Church, this is growing up spiritually.
[00:26:17] Prayer relies on the word of truth. You can use the Bible as a prayer book.
[00:26:22] I've taught this to you before. But you don't always do so well on your quizzes. So we're going to have a Reminder.
[00:26:29] All right, this is Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 15. A couple months ago I taught you through this verse, but I'm going to remind you this week. All right, how do I use the Bible as a prayer book?
[00:26:43] Paul says, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love for all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you.
[00:26:54] Now I can say, there's my prayer book.
[00:26:58] Paul teaches me to look around at the people that God has put in my life and, and be thankful for them remembering you in my prayers. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, here we have again the lordship of Christ and the fatherhood of God may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. There is a grown up prayer request. Dear God, please give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you.
[00:27:30] I can make that an easier statement. Dear God, please help me to come to know you better and better.
[00:27:37] Help me to know you better tomorrow than I know you today.
[00:27:41] Help me better to know you better in one month than I know you right now. I'm valuing and asking that your spirit becomes a more intense teacher in my life and I come to know you better.
[00:27:55] And then the next prayer request I can ask for having the eyes of your heart enlightened so that you may know what is the hope. There we have it here again. Faith, hope and love. Ah, having the highest of your heart enlightened so you can know what is the hope that God has for his people.
[00:28:17] You just pray. Here is again, I'm praying for hope.
[00:28:23] And then he says, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might? Dear God, I pray that according to the working of your great might, you would be at work in me, making me the man that God created me to be. See, I've just used the Bible as a prayer book. It's told me what to pray for, it's told me what to ask for.
[00:28:50] Mature prayer is aware of the fruitfulness of the Gospel.
[00:28:55] Then Paul said the Gospel, the one being present unto you, even as in all the world it is bearing fruit and growing.
[00:29:05] What is the Gospel?
[00:29:07] Very simply, it's the story of Jesus Christ.
[00:29:11] He was born, he lived a sinless life, he died a substitutionary death, and he rose again on the third day of ascended into heaven, from which he will return on that great day. That's the Gospel.
[00:29:26] And Paul said to these in this letter, the Gospel reached you in a fruitful way.
[00:29:36] There's a very interesting word here. It's called. It's translated bear fruit.
[00:29:42] The actual Greek word is carpo. Pharaoh and I learned recently that Caesar Augustus printed a coin, and on the back of that coin, he had his wife Livia dressed up in a costume of the Greek goddess Demeter.
[00:30:13] And the coin said at the bottom, carpo.
[00:30:18] Carpophorus.
[00:30:20] Fruit bearer.
[00:30:22] Ah. Remember I told you that the Lycus Valley is a very fertile place? And they grow, they grow. They. To this day, they grow wheat, they grow. They have orchards there. It's still a very fertile place.
[00:30:36] Well, the Greeks believed that the. The goddess who made the land fertile was named was Demeter.
[00:30:44] And the Romans picked up on that and said, it's not Demeter who makes the world fruitful. It's Caesar's wife Livia.
[00:30:55] All right, so this term fruit bearer was.
[00:31:01] It had a religious connotation in the Greek world.
[00:31:07] If a. If anybody at Colossi read this word, they would associate it with the coin that Caesar Augustus had created. All right?
[00:31:20] Not unlike if you look at your coin, it says, in God we trust.
[00:31:27] Ah.
[00:31:32] Not very true, but it's still on the coins.
[00:31:35] All right, so when Paul uses this term, he's tapping into a life experience that these people have had. And the life experience was Augustus tried to say to them, a fruitful life requires the right relationship to Caesar.
[00:31:56] If you don't have the right relationship to Caesar, you're not going to have a fruitful life. Now, Paul turns that upside down and he says, you want a fruitful life.
[00:32:08] It doesn't come from Demeter. It doesn't come from.
[00:32:12] It doesn't come from Caesar Augustus. It comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:32:20] The gospel of Jesus Christ makes us fruitful in good things in the world.
[00:32:29] A mature prayer prays that the gospel would be fruitful in your family and friends.
[00:32:36] Never give up praying for your children who are far from God.
[00:32:40] Church.
[00:32:42] Never give up praying for your children who are far from God. Your grandchildren who are far from God.
[00:32:48] Pray for them every single day. The gospel is fruitful. And who knows at what moment that God is at work and. And that the gospel will take root and it'll. It'll bear fruit in their lives of faith, hope, and love.
[00:33:09] I believe that we are required as a church to pray for the unchurched people in northeastern Ohio.
[00:33:17] It is our goal. It's our goal in the next five years to be on the cutting edge with God in finding his lost kids. And bringing them home. Church.
[00:33:35] This is not a cliche.
[00:33:38] I'm not standing up here spouting a Christian cliche. I'm saying we exist as a church for a purpose.
[00:33:47] And part of that purpose is to partner with God and find his lost kids, share the gospel with them and help them to make a new connection with Jesus Christ.
[00:33:59] I don't care what we do or don't do. If we're not bringing people to Christ, we're not the church that God wants us to be. Can you hear this? I don't care how much you like the music. I don't care how many programs we run. The church's purpose is there's people out there who are empty and. And God loves them.
[00:34:23] And what they need more than anything else in the world is somebody with a loving, gentle spirit to tell them the Christ story and invite them to church.
[00:34:41] And Paul said, mature Christians pray that the gospel would bear fruit and grow.
[00:34:50] Ah.
[00:34:51] Mature prayer asks for people to be able to know the grace of God through the gospel.
[00:34:59] The gospel is where we learn how much better God treats us than what we deserve.
[00:35:05] Mature prayer asks for people to realize the truth of the gospel. It's one thing to hear the gospel. It's another thing to be persuaded by its truth.
[00:35:14] When we pray, we ought to be praying for the advancement of the gospel in our family and friends, in our church, in the world, in northeastern Ohio and around the world. It is a mature Christian prayer.
[00:35:30] Finally, mature prayer values faithful ministers of Christ.
[00:35:37] This is what Paul said.
[00:35:39] Even as you learn from Epaphras, the beloved slave with me, who is faithful in behalf of you, a servant of Jesus Christ.
[00:35:53] And he made clear to us the love you have in the Spirit. Epaphras started the Church of Colossae when Paul was in Ephesus.
[00:36:03] Now Epaphras is in prison with Paul in Rome. When Paul writes this letter and he's saying to the church, remember your pastor Epaphras, he is a good man.
[00:36:17] You're blessed to have him.
[00:36:19] Epaphras great quality as a pastor was his faithfulness.
[00:36:24] Look what he says.
[00:36:25] The. The thing that he points out, his distinguishing characteristic, his faithfulness, who is, in behalf of you, a faithful servant of Jesus Christ.
[00:36:45] I believe mature prayer entreats God for faithful ministers in the church.
[00:36:52] I believe we have a obligation to each other.
[00:36:57] The staff of this church is obligated to serve you to the very best of their ability and in the name of Jesus Christ.
[00:37:04] But you are equally obligated to pray for them.
[00:37:09] You are obligated to pray for the people who have committed themselves to Jesus Christ and serve this church to the very best of their ability.
[00:37:19] Ah, ah, ah. Now let me be a little more pushy the next time you want to criticize somebody on the staff or what if you say a prayer for him first?
[00:37:31] What if you do the mature Christian thing? Somebody on the staff, all right, I'll just put myself out there. I do something that annoys you, probably going to happen sooner or later, all right?
[00:37:44] And you feel really, you really feel motivated to say something critical about me to somebody else.
[00:37:52] How about just before you do that, you pause and say, dear God, Doc needs your help.
[00:38:00] Would you help him?
[00:38:02] CHURCH I believe that's a mature Christian prayer.
[00:38:07] Any child can complain.
[00:38:10] Adults start doing things that solve the problem.
[00:38:15] Church when the staff. I pray for the staff every day. I pray for the staff every day. But I especially pray for them when they are particularly annoying.
[00:38:29] I say, dear God, this person has more potential than this.
[00:38:37] This person is. This person is missing opportunities to accomplish incredible things with you.
[00:38:45] Would you please help them?
[00:38:47] Would you recalibrate their soul and help them to see you in a new way? Church and they ought to be praying that same prayer for me. All right. Paul says mature Christians pray differently than immature Christians. And one of the way mature Christians pray differently is they pray for the staff of the church.
[00:39:16] And by the way, since you're praying for the staff, throw up a good word for the elders.
[00:39:21] And while you're praying for the elders, say a word or two for the deacons. And when you're praying for the deacons, say a word or two for the life group leaders and the ministry leaders and people who serve our kids and all the things that we do in our church. It is a mature thing to do to pray for the people who are serving God in this church.
[00:39:43] And I believe, I believe God hears those prayers. And I believe that's part of what makes a great church a great church. The church that prays together becomes a greater and greater church.
[00:39:56] All right, so what is the point?
[00:39:59] The point is I would like you to draw a line in the sand and say, this is where I am in my spiritual maturity, but this is not where I'm willing to stay.
[00:40:12] And now I know the first thing I can do to start developing spiritually. And the first thing I can do is I can change my prayer life.
[00:40:22] I'm not asking you to stop praying for things. Go right ahead. But I'm asking that you don't stop when you've prayed for things that you take that spiritual step and you start adding to your prayer life and a more mature sense of who God is, what he's doing and what is really valuable.
[00:40:43] Our dear Heavenly Father, I ask you in the name of Jesus Christ and I ask you by your clear purpose that we would grow more mature in Jesus Christ and I pray that that maturity would begin in our prayer life.
[00:41:08] I pray that if we have to take out a sheet of paper and write some things down to remind ourselves that day by day we would be praying into a richer sense of who you are and how you are at work in the world.
[00:41:26] I pray that we would not be content to stay where we are spiritually but we would have a restless desire to make progress.
[00:41:38] And then Father, I pray that this church would bombard the throne of grace and you would pour out on this church blessings that only you can give and I ask it in Christ's name, Amen.
