The Privilege of Prayer

Tonight I'm going to speak on the subject of prayer I'll take my my text from Luke chapter 11 Verses 1 through 4. I know it is familiar But we will read it again The Bible says it came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place When he ceased one of his disciples said unto him Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples and Jesus said unto them when you pray say our father which art in heaven Halloween be thy name Thy kingdom come thy will be done as in heaven so in earth Give us this day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone That is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil I know we know this as the Lord's prayer Perhaps it would more rightly be defined as the disciples prayer

Because Jesus was teaching them how to pray now. I think we understand this But the Lord did not give this with the intention of us Repeating this verbatim Does not mean that it is wrong to do so But that really is not the goal or I would even say the most effective way to pray It is I think his intent that this was given as a paradigm that would direct us In prayer and I'll come back to this in a little bit, but I just want to lay a little a little foundation The first is is Burden and then what we'll get a little bit more practical The prayer must be our priority prayer must be our priority as Individuals and as a church it must be our priority If we do not take time to pray Then any sense of perceived success in our lives is meaningless

We must make prayer a priority We cannot add more time to our day and so We must look at the time God has allotted us and figure out where will I take time from in order to make Necessary what God said was necessary. It may mean you have to take time from your sleep to pray You have to make maybe take time from your work to pray You may have to take time from your hobbies to pray But we must take time to pray We must take time away from Smartphones and televisions and TVs and movies and we must take time away from Fun and activity in order to prioritize prayer in our lives None of us will stand before the Lord and say we just did not have time And so it is prayer must become our priority personally and collectively we cannot tell the Lord that any

Any avenue of service in the kingdom is a replacement for prayer There is no area of service in the kingdom of God or on this local campus. That is a replacement for prayer Preaching is not a replacement for prayer Singing is not a replacement for prayer Greeting and cooking and cleaning and all of these different duties none of them are a replacement for prayer And so it is that no amount of preparation or talent music or oratory will make amends for prayer homelessness Jesus did not call this house a house of worship He called it a house of prayer So my question tonight is what is this house if we do not pray? It does not meet his definition of what his house should be All of these things are good and they are in order But the defining characteristic of his house was that it would be a house of prayer for people of all nations

So I say this is not it cannot be God's house unless it is a house of prayer and of all the things that we might define it by or perhaps It may be better understood by what others would define us as the question is in their Observation in their visiting of our church family and our corporate gatherings would people define us as a house of prayer If not, we have not achieved the definition that the Lord has established for us in a Luke 11 We are presented with what is called the Lord's prayer But before you can even consider what he teaches I am captured by this fact the disciples come to him and they say Lord teach us to pray as John taught his disciples to pray and so it seems from the scripture It was customary that a leader in that time would teach his followers how to pray now

I want you to notice this he did not they did not ask the Lord to to be taught about prayer The question was not Teach me the theology of prayer. It was not I want to learn about prayer. It was teach me to pray This is not theoretical. I Want you to actually teach me how to pray now what what probe this question evidently as they are Improximity to Jesus as he's praying I don't know if it was his passion if it was the efficiency with which he prayed if it was the sincerity or the effectiveness But they are so moved by what they observe and what they feel that they ask him Please teach us how to pray like your praying Their attention is arrested and there's a hunger that stirs within them and they want that same spiritual intimacy That he is experiencing

This is notable because you can search the four Gospels You will find no other place that the disciples ever asked Jesus to teach them something except this They didn't ask the Lord teach me how to preach Teach me how to be a better teacher Teach me how to be a great leader Teach me this teach no the only question. They asked was teach me how to pray Perhaps they understood it was because the effectiveness of all things in the kingdom flow from prayer That you can be a student well studied disciplined and learned But if you do not pray you have failed to meet the standard that God is established for his house And so I say we have to make prayer a priority It must be the priority of our lives Individually and it must be the priority of our church collectively Teach me to pray not about prayer, but to pray I want to learn

I'm sure you've heard it said before That some things are taught and some things are Caught And I think it bears witness in the scripture and Luke 11 what you are watching is Jesus begin to teach by way of instruction They ask and he teaches this is taught teaching there they're receiving instruction But when you get to Matthew 26 I can't tell you definitively if it's the only time in his ministry But certainly the most notable in the scripture Matthew 26 is that great prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane look at verse 37 and He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee James and John Jesus Took with him Peter James and John took with him where? to prayer He was on his way to that isolated place where he would submit his will in Surrender his life I've heard it said perhaps you have as well that he didn't really die on the cross. He died in the garden

Yes, we understand his body died on the cross But it was his will that died in the garden as he prayed in By way of invitation he looks to those three disciples that are so close to him Peter James and John and says I want you to come with me to this place of private deep Vulnerable intimate prayer I want you to experience this with me because some things you only learn when you catch them You have to be exposed to it I've heard a lot of preaching on prayer But but the most impactful lessons on prayer that I have learned in my life Have been in corporate prayer meetings When I would hear people pray When I would hear new people fumble their way through prayer trying to figure out how do you do this? And I would hear season elders who'd been doing this every day for 50 and 60 years

And I would hear the fluency that they would pray with and I would sit close to leaders and and pastors of churches and hear them Pray what was that? It was what Jesus was doing. He was saying I can teach you all day long You can sit in the classroom of instruction week after week after week But at some point you actually have to get in the environment you have to experience it And so it isn't incumbent upon us who have been here a little while who've been walking with the Lord that that we push Ourselves to be a people of prayer for if we are not Nobody will ever learn and I've been to churches that are great churches But they don't pray. I preached at a church several months ago several hundred people. I was there for a few days and Stayed over they had a prayer meeting on Monday night and and I would guess that maybe there was

70 75 people that that may be high, but we'll be generous And as I was kind of just walking back and forth across the altar area I closed my eyes and if I was to guess the number of people in that sanctuary that seated hundreds Based upon what I could hear audibly. I Wouldn't have guessed that there was more than a dozen maybe two dozen people in the sanctuary What is that? It is a people who have had a lot of teaching on prayer But they've not had a lot of experience They've not had anybody invite them to Gethsemane and say let's get in an atmosphere where you can catch something Because some things are taught and some things are caught So here's my goal tonight My goal is twofold one. I'm gonna give you some practical prayer concepts But my goal before we leave is that we would lift our voice and just kind of stir up that atmosphere of prayer

That we so desperately need in our church So let's take a journey back to the Old Testament for a little while Because I think to really appreciate what we have you have to know where we come from we don't have time to Go through the entirety of that Old Testament system, but on Mount Sinai God gave Moses a plan In that was yes the tablets of stone was the tabernacle of Moses was the order and the function of the priesthood all of this came from God and In that there was as you are aware, I'm sure there was the high priest who One day a year on the day of atonement He would make sacrifice for the people of the nation and he would enter into that holy of Holies and he would sprinkle blood upon that mercy sea and That's a lot of detail to cover in a few few sentences, but I want you to understand what all went into that

That high priest had to be a descendant of Aaron He did not even get in the pool of opportunity if he didn't come from the right bloodline and Then if by chance he happened to be of the lineage of Aaron, he had to be living a deeply consecrated life and if if that was sufficient Then they would take inventory of his physical being he could have no defect on his body He couldn't be blind Couldn't be lame in any way He could not be disfigured or have any other physical deformity or he would be prohibited from the opportunity of even being considered to be the high priest and If by chance he was up to par physically Then there was the moral factors that had to be considered. He was to be holy and set apart There was strict requirements imposed upon the marriage and the family and of of who he could marry

There are so many things to consider and then if all of that was still up to par when he was finally Selected the the regiment the the ritual purity that was required in the functioning of the ceremony was so strict He was selected there would be an ordination ceremony. He would wash with water He would dress in sacred garments They would annoy him with oil and of course he would offer the sacrifices and you can read through this There's dozens of chapters in your Old Testament that write this and vivid detail about the material that his clothes Had to be made of and the colors of the stone and the order he would put them on and what all this represents and all of this for one day and on that one day After he had Donned the garments and offered the regular sacrifice He would take off the tunic and the sash and the robe and the e-fod and the breastplate and the head piece

He would take all of that off each of those pieces of Clothing that was so important had so much symbolic significance and represented various things about God in his kingdom He would take all that off and wear white linen He would first have to bring a sacrifice for himself And then he would have to bring a sacrifice for the people and I know a lot of this is Repetitious and I wish we could slow it down and take our time But it's way too much to cram into one Bible study on prayer But I know you're probably familiar in some measure with that Old Testament tabernacle You would come through the gate and that first piece of furniture You would come to was the altar where the animal would be killed and offered to the Lord And then you would come to that brazen labor where the priest would wash the blood from his hands and then when he

Passed through that first curtain. He would come into the holy place here There were three things the candlestick table of showbread in the altar of incense each was so Significant so important each served a purpose and a function and this was the area of what we might call the daily administration of the priesthood But then on that one day of year that day of atonement yom kippur He would come in with that sacrifice and he would enter in through that second veil into the place They called the holy of holies and in this place was this most sacred piece of furniture the Ark of the Covenant It's golden box it contained the the law the tablets of stone it contained Aaron's rod that butted in a Jar of manna that was preserved from the wilderness and over top of it was this seat It was called the mercy seat on each end of it were these golden cherubs angelic like figures

Facing down on to the mercy seat and here's the word of the Lord in Exodus 25 You should put the mercy seat above upon the Ark and In the Ark that shall put the testimony that I shall give thee and there I Will meet with you on the mercy seat God said I will meet with you and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat From between the two cherubim's which are upon the Ark of the testimony of all things Which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. I want you to think about this one day a year if You happen to be of the right lineage And you had a body that was sufficient it would pass the test And then you had lived a life that was worthy of keeping you in consideration And then you happen to be chosen by God and placed into the priesthood

And you fulfilled all the ritual obligations to a tee One day a year You would get to make that sacrifice and come in to that holy of Holies and You would come to this seat called the mercy seat and You would sprinkle the blood of that offering on the mercy seat seven times And if the Lord was pleased after you had done all that stuff Then if God was pleased His glory would come down one day a year One man on behalf of millions of people Got to experience that God said that's the place My mercy seat That's where I'll meet with you and all that's gonna happen is I will delay the consequence of your sin for one more year I'll just roll it on back and next year on that day of atonement I'm gonna see if you're living right doing right if you follow the protocol and you bring the sacrifice

And if you do it right again next year That I'll meet you where I've met you before Right there on that mercy seat. That's where we've come from. I know in some ways it seems so foreign to us because This is not where we live, you know, we love the history we love Israel We love all this stuff, but the reality of living in that construct is so foreign to us You know, what's amazing to me is as vast and amazing as creation is There's three chapters in your Bible about it this thing right here over 50 chapters in your Bible about the tabernacle About the sacrificial system About what to wear and how to do it and what animal to bring in the process in the order in the protocol What does this mean? It means it matters how we have church Now I'm not advocating that we go back into the Old Testament sacrificial system

But what I am saying is it would be flipping of us to think God does not care how we have church Three chapters on creation and over 50 on how to have a church service in the Old Testament Because God cares how we approach him And what is amazing to me is this construct right here this way of thinking this world is how these people have lived for over 1500 years And all of us all of a sudden The disciples see Jesus praying And they see some kind of efficiency and effectiveness and some kind of intimacy that they are not accustomed to seeing somebody Experience perhaps they think that's what you would get in the holy of holies one day a year But now they see Jesus with this unique spiritual connection praying and having this spiritual Intimacy that that nobody's ever had before and they ask the question Lord teach us how to pray

Into my shock He doesn't even talk about this This is how they've approached God for 1500 years This is all they know it's all they lived in it's what their fathers did and their Grandfathers and their great-grandfathers and their great-great-grandfathers. It's all they know every Story is wrapped up in the tabernacle their history is wrapped up in this system and they ask him this most important question He doesn't even talk about it instead He says When you pray It's like this our father which art in heaven Hallowed be thy name And he goes through what we call the king the the Lord's prayer I for simplicity sake i'm gonna offer you just three components of what what we're seeing here Our father which art in heaven it is to lift up your focus Get your eyes off the earth take your focus off the world. You have to acknowledge the Lord

Hallowed be thy name It's acknowledgement thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It's alignment It's bringing my life into alignment with the Lord Jesus Christ What is this it is it is him teaching that prayer is the avenue that aligns your will to mine So if you don't pray you can't be in the will of God Perhaps this is what james was talking about when he said you ask a miss Because you ask wanting to consume it upon your own lusts You're not acknowledging me and coming into alignment with me You treat me like a like a spiritual Santa Claus You just want want want want but you don't ever stop at the at the The forefront of your prayer and submit your will in coming to alignment So he said you have got to pray Thy kingdom come what the kingdom of heaven the kingdom of God you have to come into alignment with it

Your will your thoughts your passions your interests Your values your prayer is the tool that God uses to bring your will into alignment And when you get into alignment, oh what riches there are to discover Give us day by day our daily bread say daily Daily bread means he was expecting daily prayer You're not going to be in alignment if you just pray on Sunday You're not going to be in sync with his will if you just pray on Wednesday before we start bibleston There is daily bread for you, but you have to purpose I will meet with you daily Daily bread it was provision Forgive us of our sins. It was pardon Lead us not into temptation. It was protection or direction on the pathway of life It's access. That's what he's telling you If you will acknowledge me and you will come into alignment with me, then I will give you access to things in my kingdom

Now we like the acknowledgement and we love the access We miss the alignment a lot of the time And this is what he was teaching them not that you must repeat these words verbatim But the construct of your prayer must be built around these concepts When you come into prayer you you have to acknowledge me that I am present among you that I'm with you that I love you. I want to help you acknowledge me in the midst of your sorrow Acknowledge me in the midst of your frustration, but then come into alignment with me because I see things in a way You don't see it I know things in a way that you don't know and I have wisdom that you so desperately need But you have to come into alignment with me And when you do there is A world of things that I can afford you that your access is contingent upon coming into alignment

Now I really just want to focus on two words in this whole prayer But first I want you to understand this these are just some things I'm going to throw out for you to consider The bible is full of what I would call prayer paradigms They are words or concepts in the scripture that may guide us or help us pray more effectively Think of the words that are so frequent in the new testament things like witness and law And testimony Judge and judgment What are these they're legal terms And this is one of the paradigms of prayer. It is legal This is where you come to god and you are presenting your petitions You on the basis of the evidence of what he has done and what his word says You are rejecting the sentence of sin and you are praying against what the world would speak over you

Based on the legality of what god has done and what his word says And so your prayer can take this kind of legal paradigm where you are almost like a like a lawyer or a judge In fact, that's what the word comforter means in john 14 It is paracletos one who comes alongside of you and argues or defends on your behalf So this is just one concept another is is warfare The scriptures are many paul especially in his letters writes of of this militaristic this warfare language And so it is sometimes we go to prayer and we recognize we are battling things as he said that are not in the flesh And and this indignation rises up in us and we we we kind of almost get wholly aggressive If that's possible where where we recognize we are warring against principalities and powers But we have weapons that the world knows not of

And we start speaking the name of jesus and taking authority in the name of jesus. What are we doing? We are warring against things in the spirit Or there is a priestly paradigm of prayer This is where we come and we're just we're offering sacrifices under the lord We're not asking for anything We're just we're entertaining him We're blessing him And there is an element of priestly prayer where you can move in Where you begin to intercede just as that high priest would enter in Offer a sacrifice as an act of intercession for the nation There is a spirit of intercession That you can connect with in prayer Where you begin to intercede for people and pray on behalf of people and situations and circumstances We do this often pastor will present a knee And we lift up our voices and we begin to pray. What are we doing? We are standing in the gap

God would have erased israel had moses not have stepped in the gap and interceded for the people Or there's that kingdom dimension It's power and it's authoritative. It's it's alignment. It's will of god kind of prayers It's we are praying and bringing things into alignment with his will Then there is relational prayer This is as simple as it sounds It's a conversation with the lord Just as two friends would speak or perhaps Truer to the paradigm of scripture as a child would speak to his father It's relational the the consideration of these paradigms is good because A lot of times our prayer is governed by our need But jesus said when he was teaching those disciples, I know what you have need of before you even ask The point being The goal of prayer Is not to just have an exchange of resources I know what you need before you ask

Now i'll still let you approach me on the basis of your need Because i want to talk to you any chance i can give But i need you to know That the goal of our communication Is more than you just telling me what you have need of I want you to hear me if all of your prayer Is you just telling god what you need and what you want you are living at the lowest dimension of prayer that's available to you There is a a world of prayer that you can explore with the lord But you have got to recognize before you even told him that he knew But he just let you tell him anyway Because he knew you wouldn't talk to him any other way And so as we consider these paradigms what happens Is we move beyond a need-based prayer life

To a partnership based prayer life Where it's not about just telling god what i need and what i want But it's coming to the lord and figuring out how Can i partner with you in prayer in order that the will of god may be accomplished So the question is If god answered all the prayers that i prayed today What would change and who would be held outside of my four walls? This is prayer Now i want to zero in on this relational paradigm Because this is what jesus is teaching in the lord's prayer 1500 years it's all they know This is their world And they say Teach us how to pray And he says When you pray pray like this our father And i know you could preach a thousand sermons on the rest of what he says But i want to talk to you about those two words

our father Our conveys the intended nature of all that follows It was intended to be corporate. It was intended to be communal He is speaking of something That cannot really be grasped or comprehended if you try to do it alone It takes More than one To come into agreement to reap the benefit of what he says And father is indicative of the covenant He's not just my father though He is our father Which is what this means as i cannot consider His fatherhood in my life Apart from my familial relationship to you Because as much as he's my dad He's your dad And i don't know How it is at your house But this is how it works at my house I have three boys And they do what all boys do Sometimes They like to fight They bicker and they be brothers and right bubble

And one boy may come to me With need or want in his life. Well dad, I want this. Can you get me this? Well, I could But if I had to sit in my chair and have my peace disrupted with the two of you hooligans acting like that No See you're appealing to me on the basis of my fatherly relationship with you But i'm also a father to the boy that you've been fighting with And i'm not going to involve myself with you until you get it right with him He's not just my father and he's not just your father. He's our father And I don't know if you know this but god doesn't have favorites Yes, there is a favor of god, but one is not loved any more than the other We look at those who have been used mightily of god and

Seemingly have some special grasp of power or gifting and all it is It's not that they're favored of god or loved more than your love But they have an understanding of god based on his word Experienced through relationship that gives them authority to function that way What this means is if god can you so and so in the gift of healing and the working of miracles He can use you too because the only power was made available to them on the basis of the covenant And it's the same covenant that you have Meaning if god could do it for them. He could do it for you because he's not just their father He's your father, but it also speaks to us of the necessity of unity Unity in our homes unity in our church He's not going to do for me if I'm not right with you

Because he's our father And we can wonder god, I know you have all power. I know you can heal the sick I know you can raise the dead I know there's these things up in the kingdom of heaven that I'm supposed to have access to and he's like Oh, yes, you should but you've got to come into alignment our Father our Speaks to that corporate Perspective that I think we we failed to consider I know we have a custom of coming to church I don't know we always realize the significance of the power of what we're doing when we gather There's a law in the scripture. It's called the law of two witnesses Goes all the way back to the old testament the law said that you could not Execute judgment on a man on the testimony of one witness at minimum. It had to be two or three

Jesus revives this teaching and matthew 18 Paul carries it into his letters in the new testament let everything be established by at least two witnesses No young man can bring an accusation against an elder without at least two witnesses It's the law of two witnesses weaved all through the bible and in matthew 18 Jesus is meddling in real life affairs He's talking about reconciliation. He's dealing with relationships. He's he's talking about unity in the church And then when he finishes that he just kind of throws these statements in there that almost seem foreign we go from talking about reconciliation between two parties and bringing somebody in as a mediator To talking about what's bound in heaven and bound on earth and loot How do we go from relationship to binding and loosing it was the law of two witnesses And what he was telling them when he said if any two or three would agree touching any one thing

What he was saying is the church is the avenue that I have established on the earth to bring the authority of heaven to earth So while i'm talking to you about reconciliation Let me also introduce to you a broader concept That I have designed the church to be the avenue That the authority of heaven can be experienced on earth And so it is incumbent upon us that we realize this he's our father our our our The church doesn't work the way it's supposed to work Our prayers will hit the ceiling and fall back down on the floor if we are not in unity one with another You see this in daniel chapter two The Nebuchadnezzar he's worked up. He's got a dream. It can't get the interpretation. He says i'm angry. I'm tired of this I'm going to cut all these people to pieces if somebody doesn't bring me the interpretation of this dream

Look at daniel two and 16 Daniel comes in he desires of the king Will you give me more time? Seems like an unusual request But if you give me more time king, I will show you the interpretation Next verse it says daniel goes back to his house And he made the thing known to hananiah mishael and azariah his companions What are you doing? You're living under a sentence of a king that's about to cut you to pieces And you asked for more time so you could go talk to your friends about it Mm-hmm Because the next verse says that they would desire mercies of the god of heaven concerning this secret that they What was it? It was the law of two witnesses daniel said i'm struggling a hard. This is not good. I feel alone But I know if I can get somebody to come into collective agreement with me

I know if I can employ the law of two witnesses if I can just get somebody to seek God with me So he comes home He gets his friends and he says boys This is what i'm looking at the king is about to cut me and everybody else to pieces if I don't give him the interpretation of the dream But I believe if you will pray with me If we will acknowledge and align our lives and align our will if we will pray together And is this not what happens verse 19 said the secret was revealed unto daniel and a night vision than daniel blessed the god of heaven What was he doing? He recognized there is a dimension of prayer There are things available to us in the spirit, but you don't get them by yourself There is an atmosphere God I feel the holy ghost there is an atmosphere in the spirit that a church can occupy

But a church must move there together If pastor could do it by himself New life would have moved there 26 years ago if the leadership team could do it by themselves We'd have been there a long time ago But I preach to you tonight There is a dimension in the spirit that a church can only give when a church goes there together Yes, he's my dad and yes, he's your dad too, but he's our father There is a place in prayer. God is calling us to move together It's the power of hour and the bible is full of stories like this acts 12 Peter's in prison He's about to be beheaded harrod's gonna kill him just like he did james But somebody in the church got the idea. We ought to gather at rhoda's house We ought to call on god. We ought to pray together and see what happens

It wasn't on the church calendar. It was a prayer born of burden It was a prayer born of need He'd be like pastor coming here on sunday morning and saying, you know what? I want us to be at the church tomorrow night at seven so and so is in the hospital I've got a matter that I need the wisdom of god on who will be here at seven o'clock tomorrow morning It will just pray 30 or 45 minutes with me before they head to work So that's disruptive. It's not convenient. I know but prayer has to be a priority And we must consider where will we take time from? I'm judging all the same things you are Two kids different practice schedules one kid in piano lessons one kid in bible study We're leaving the house at 7 30 and someday is not home till

7 30 or 8 o'clock and trying to figure out where can we make time? How can we do this and We're talking about yeah busy schedules two services. It's tiring. I know but let me just confess to you I know we're struggling and competing for time and calendars, but I am uneasy about stripping god out I don't know if we're going to have keep having sunday nights or we're just going to have prayer meetings or I don't know. Maybe pastor will say we're gonna have prayer meetings seven nights a week I don't know But as I said to my wife We think we have it hard Hey, I I grew up playing competitive sports outside the church not something I recommend But it was a two to two and a half hour commitment six days a week Everybody's busy. Everybody's juggling things and busy with something

I'm imploring us to be busy with the burden of prayer He's our our Our father and now we have to consider this next word father See this place of dimensional prayer, which I think really is the sweetest of them all All of the others are kind of these paradigms that we move in and out of as there is need or situation in our life But this relational paradigm is where we live It's our daily bread It's our walk with the lord And you know, it's so amazing For 1500 years This is all they've known This tabernacle this sacrificial system this mercy seat Less than 12 times in your old testament Is god called father thousands of times He's called lord and all of a sudden jesus flips the script And says you are accustomed to approaching me With a lord servant mentality And you are used to coming to me with timidity and apprehension and appealing for mercy

That the consequence of your sin would be pushed away for one more year But that's not what I intended So when you pray I want you to come with a father first mentality Because a lord has an authority Based upon identity or position But fatherhood is an authority based on relationship And for thousands of years this is the dimension that you have known me in But for the rest of time I'm getting ready to introduce to you a dimension that I want to be known in Romans 8 14 the bible said for as many as are led by the spirit of god they are the sons of god For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry abba father The spirit he says itself Beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of god

So profound because in this in this ancient world even though he's writing to the romans There is no concept of of adoption in jewish culture If a man was to die or disown his family for any unjust reason The the responsibility to raise that child was assumed by his brother It's not a choice. It's an obligation. It's the duty. It's the it's the honor that's ingrained within their culture But to the romans and those vile people it was not so Children would be disowned for all kinds of cruel things and so a child may be put up for adoption And they would be chosen And this is what paul is saying God has led you by his spirit. He has chosen you to be his child And that spirit that you have received that makes you his child It does not lead you back into bondage and to slavery and to the fear of that old paradigm

Instead it leads you to a perspective of a father that chose you In this paradigm you were disowned for your mistakes. You were forgotten because of your errors You were neglected and cast aside and unloved But god said in spite of all that i love you and i choose you and by that spirit You now cry abba father And here is the paradigm that we must grasp tonight You have to choose the chair that you will live by in the old testament It was a mercy seat But in the new testament The writer of heber's and chapter 4 Called it a throne of grace And this is what he said he said let us say us Us not you Let us come boldly You know what that word means it literally means to have no reservation of speech You don't consider your appearance. You're not concerned about your presentation. No

It's like a little child running up to their father because this is the paradigm you've got to grasp Servants have protocols sons don't In the old testament for 1500 years has a servant to that lord You were bound to protocol and procedure in order head to the system of sacrifice But he was telling them i'm flipping the script I don't want your approach to me to be conditioned by that old mentality I want you to know that because i am your high priest who is the sacrifice once and for all Who ascended into heavens that there is now not just a seat of mercy that pushes away for one more year But there is a throne of grace and you don't have to follow the protocol. You don't have to follow the system. You can come boldly I don't know if you've ever experienced this

You know i've Sitting there in our living rooms you're having good fellowship and conversations happening and i mean you're just getting to the good part You you know when you have kids you really cherish adult conversation I mean you get it like a couple times a week and it's I think man thank god for that it's just getting good And you hear it coming from like 30 feet away Have your footsteps And he's coming down the stairs And he walks in with with no respect and i know you got to teach order and the can interrupt I get all that but there's something ingrained within the heart of a child that is loved by their father That they know i have access to him. He's my dad This is all i know and so he walks in he disrupts the conversation. He climbs up on your lap says dad

Could i have a drink of milk? If you say god been waiting seven days to have this serious conversation And we were just getting to the good part and you're going to interrupt me and ask you ask me if i can get you a glass of milk Yeah Because that's the world a child lives in And what jesus was trying to tell him is i don't want your approach to me to be conditioned by formality and system I want there to be this raw authentic sincere hunger this pure love where you know i can just come Notice i said get what you need Because a mercy seat didn't give you what you needed it just pushed it back for another year But the throne of grace he said whereby we may obtain mercy you still get mercy But grace is so much better because mercy just pushes the consequence away

But grace gives you what you really need And that word that word that we may obtain Several words in the english it's a single word in the greek It's the word lambano and it literally means to take hold of something the other place jesus used this Is when he said he the asks receive us receives He was saying you got to take hold of it There is an expectation You you got to have your hand out you've got to come with the expectation that you're going to receive Not because you're entitled not because you're good But you have so much confidence in the father's love for you and you know that you can come any old way You can come any time of day any struggle or any circumstance You don't got to have your suit and tie. You don't have to have a well rehearsed prayer

You don't have to speak 1611 king james english You can just say that's my father and i'm coming boldly to get what my dad wants to give me Privilege of prayer This is where worse and i fear too many of us Come and live with this old mentality I gotta walk here stop here do this do that listen to me I'm not diminishing the countless lessons that are weaved into the tapestry of the tabernacle narrative It's rich the symbolism is profound We could teach bible studies on it for the next year, but he was telling them I don't want your approach to me to be smothered by a system listen But the writer of heber said that all of that was just a shadow Of the things in heaven You know what that means It means if you can find the shadow If you can find the end of the shadow and you follow that shadow

The shadow will lead you to the substance and what he was telling them is there's a shadow I gave you but if you just follow that shadow, it's not going to leave you there It's going to take you to a better seat to a throne of grace. There's still mercy for you, but there's so much more than mercy You see people that live At this chair To them prayer is a treachery It's hard. It's burdensome There's no motivation no desire to make time for it at all If you could get that In your perspective But you want to make sure your father's so happy When you spend time with him For no reason When you say hey, hey dad I know he worked all week and he's tired and you say hey, you want to come with me to go go do this I could run to the store

Now you're probably gonna ask him to pay for it when you get there, but that's just what kids do When those kids come up to you Why? Because they love the feeling Of being loved by their father. I'll tell you if you could ever get that revelation And your walk with god If you could ever be awakened to the reality that prayer Listen, I know sometimes we've got a toil and tarry, but this place of prayer Is the privilege of our lives Stand together with me. This is what Philippians 4 said He said you don't have to be Careful anxious for anything I'm gonna tell you right now If you try to walk with god And this chair You'll live your life anxious depressed Heavy and defeated because this chair won't give you what you need He said be anxious for nothing But in everything

By prayer and supplication With thanksgiving Let your request be made known unto god And then he goes on to the next verse And the peace Of god That passes all understanding It'll keep your heart and your mind. It'll steady your emotions and it'll clarify your thinking Shakalamo santhama But you got to hear me tonight That is not a peace that can be comprehended. He said it passes understanding Your finite mind cannot lay hold of that peace It's not a peace to be understood. It's not a peace to be comprehended. It is a peace to be experienced Some of you know what i'm talking about you walk through valleys Some of you are in a valley right now But you walk in here service after service smile on your face hands raised Worshiping in the altar and if people only knew they'd wonder how in the world do they do that?

But you know you discovered there's a father sitting on a throne of grace who said come come on Let let let me show you because when you come with prayer and when you come with supplication And when you come with thanksgiving and you tell me what you have need of i give you a peace I give you a peace not to be understood not to be comprehended But it'll keep your heart and it'll keep your mind and you can walk right and think right and talk right Why because you prayed Now hear me This is something you only get by prayer All these other things are good and well There is a place for instruments of music and worship and preaching and teaching all of this is good But he was saying this kind of peace it only comes by prayer And so the decision is how do I live?

Do I allow circumstances and trials and tribulation to move me and toss me and turn me to and fro? Am I living at the mercy of storm and circumstance in my life? Or do I choose I will not allow my circumstance to lead me But I will take my circumstance by the scruff of the neck I will drag it with me to see my father at the throne of grace and i'll let him give me peace One day a year one man Saw the glory once a year But the moment he dropped his head and took his last breath on that cross from top to bottom the veil was rent and now At any place and any time You we get to experience what was confined What was limited what was in measure We get it any time we want Is the prince come on would you lift up your hands?

Lift up your voice Come on let god change your perspective tonight prayer doesn't have to be hard Prayer doesn't have to be a battle it can be the joy of your life Come on let him talk to you let his spirit fall on you This is what i'm talking about. This is the atmosphere where somebody can catch something This is the atmosphere where somebody can be changed