Sunday 13 July 2025

Nollamara Church Of Christ Sermons.Raw transcript of meeting:

Date Of Sermon: 13 July 2025

Speaker: Jamie Boland

Sermon Title: Lord, teach us to pray

Scripture Reading: John 15:5, 7-8, 16

 You did not choose me, but I and appointed you so that you might go and be a fruit. Fruit that will last so that whatever you ask in my name, the father will give you.

Thank you, Leslie, for that reading.

Well, good morning again. You may recall a few weeks ago I shared briefly about how the leadership, uh, of the church had spent time with an external consultant. A young man named Chris Dickens came over from Queensland, spent three days with us. It was a very fruitful, productive time for us. A main name is a leadership was to think about the future of the church and, you know, take time to reflect upon where God might be leading us.

At the end of our time together, the consultant produced a report along with a series of recommendations. Now, the primary recommendation was that we enter a sustained period of corporate prayer. Now we can sit here today, we can look around and we can see that we're not getting any younger as a church.

Yeah, that's the reality we are facing thing. And if this church is to survive into the next generation, then what we need to do, I believe, is come together as a unified body and we need to seek the mind and will of God. Amen. Now, I'm sure if I was to ask us here, most of us would want Nola Mara Church to have a life beyond its current members.

Amen? Amen. So what I'm gonna do is ask for a commitment over the next few months. I'm gonna preach through the Lord's Prayer. And I want this to be the focus of our small groups, and I want it to spill out into our prayer meetings and also into our own individual prayer lives. I've been really seeking God on this, and I honestly believe that God wants to do something and write here.

Prayer is where it starts. Amen. Here's a simple vision statement. I want to guide us if you can read that. I want us to plant seeds for a tree and whose shade we might, we might never bask now, do you know what I mean? You know, do you know what this means when I say this? It means I want us to pray into being the future life of this church.

And when I say future, I mean that time that might exceed us. Because I honestly believe if God has a vision for this church, then it's gonna be something that outlives us. Jesus comes and he teaches his disciples. He has a vision that that outlives even his own life here on earth. And it's thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's a vision that outlived him. And so the question is, are we willing to pay the price? Are we willing to give of our time to plant seeds for something we might never fully see? I found a nice picture that illustrates this principle. If you can see that it says Sun one day, you'll truly appreciate the important things in life, and the son many years later is pushing his daughter on the swing saying, thanks, dad.

Okay. This is what it means to plant seeds for a tree in whose shade we might never bask. We leave behind something for others to bask in and enjoy. Are you with me now? The title of our message today is Teach us to Pray. If I could ask you to bow your heads as we commit this time to the Lord.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. As we come before your word, we ask that you would open our eyes and stir our hearts. Give us vision, we pray, not just to see what is, but to see what could be through your power and purpose. Holy Spirit, align our desires with yours and give us faith to pray boldly.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I was 32 years old when I first went to Sudan, and I was young. I was fresh, and I was very idealistic. You know, I was on that plane. I'm gonna change the world for Jesus. Okay? I thought I knew it all, but I can tell you honestly, it wasn't long before I confronted. I was confronted with a situation that I knew absolutely nothing about.

Okay? I was out there in the field and I'm confronting something and I'm like, man, I have no idea what's going on right now. It happened in a local church, a church in which I was part of the ministry team. Now this church was a small church on the outskirts of Khartoum, and this area where the church was, was basically a shanty town.

It was on the the fringe of the Sahara Desert. Many of the people that lived in this area, their internally displaced refugees, their fled war in southern Sudan. I can tell you I was the only white person at this church, and I'm possibly the only white person for miles around her. I've actually got some pictures.

This is the inside of the church. Can you see how simple that is? Yeah. Very simple. On the walls here, there's writing in Arabic and the floor. It's just dust. It's just dust. It's very basic. This is me preaching at an open air meeting just outside the, uh, the building. This is probably around the time I met my wife.

You can see why she was attracted. I was very thin back then and I had a head full of hair, but it's a very simple, basic area. It's a shanty town. Now, one day before a service, I was grabbed by the arm and taken to a back room and, and it was very interesting. Here's this back room, okay? This was the war room.

Do you know what I mean by the war room? That's where they would pray. Okay, now it was explained to me as I'm being dragged out to that room by this guy that a young girl was demon possessed. And so I was needed to help cast out this demon. 'cause you know what? I'm the white guy and us white guys know what we are doing.

We are the experts or so they thought. And so I entered this room and there's these two huge South Sudanese guys, and they're pinning down this small girl. Literally their knees are down on her shoulders, just holding her down as she's thrashing around. There's also three or four other people there.

They're praying, and I can tell you when South Sudanese pray, they're loud. Okay? They've seen war, and war is loud, and war is violent, and that's their approach to spiritual warfare. I. When a bomb drops, it makes some noise. So if we're gonna drop some bombs for Jesus, they are loud and they are aggressive in their prayers.

And so here I am. This is happening in front of me. I'm standing there and I'm thinking I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Okay. I'm the big missionary man, and I'm completely out of my depth. Now it's at this point that I have a dilemma. I could pretend and I could act like I'm the expert who, you know, knows what he's doing.

I could say, I, I'm the man. I can come and try and take charge, and I could, or I could humble my heart and I could pray. I could just stand there and say, Lord, I have no idea what to do. Can I tell you what I did? I chose the latter. I simply stood there, praying quietly to myself, saying, God, I dunno what I'm doing.

I don't even know what to say. God, you've gotta help me. Mm. Guess what happened? This moment of honesty and vulnerability, vulnerability, it opened a channel of communication between me and the Almighty, and I'm standing there and I'm feeling the spirit lead me in prayer. I don't think I've ever been that honest and raw and vulnerable with God as I was in that moment, because up until that point, I think I've got this.

I know what I'm doing and I'm confronted with the situation, and I just dunno what to do. And as I just opened myself up to God, this channel of communication is open to the Almighty. At one stage, I had this picture of Moses. You know, he's got his arms raised as the battle rages, and I'm standing there.

I'm lifting my hands. I'm sensing the way the Lord wants me to pray. A few minutes later, something truly miraculous happened, something that I've never experienced before or after. Everyone in this room, they're doing their own thing. You know, the Sudanese, they're shouting and screaming in prayer and then, you know, they're just moving around actively as they're praying and they're putting all of their energy into it.

And here's me, I'm just standing still quietly praying to myself. And then suddenly, suddenly this amazing sense of peace filled the room. And I remember standing there thinking it was like we'd broken into the very throne room of God, and his presence has descended down into this room. There was no other way for me to describe this.

It was powerful and it was tangible, and as it happened, every single person in that room fell quiet. It's like we were some, you know, part of some orchestra, and the Divine Conductor is just bringing us all down together. Understand, they're all just shouting and screaming. They're doing their own thing.

And this Divine Conductor just brings us down together. Everyone stops what they're doing all at the same time. We open our eyes. And this young girl, she stopped thrashing. And the two big men that are pinning her down, they know it's safe to, you know, let her stand up. And so she picks herself up. She wipes away all the dirt and the dust that's on her.

And, and we knew at that moment it's done. I learned a valuable lesson that day. That lesson was this. I would not have experienced this event if I had pretended to know what I was doing. I would've excluded myself from the very thing that God wanted to show me. If I pretended I'm the man, I know what I'm doing.

I've got this. God, I honestly believed I only experienced this because I was real with God, that my humility had opened a channel between God and I that allowed me to actually connect with what he was doing. And can I tell you, this is what prayer is all about. It's about being real with God and connecting with him.

Amen. Amen. Being humble enough to say, I don't really know what I'm doing sometimes, and that's okay because of when it comes to my life and when it comes to prayer. It ain't all about me.

On Wednesday, I had no idea how to begin this message. I had the seed of this message in my mind. I had no idea and I, I just didn't know what to do and I, I prayed a very simple prayer, Lord, would you show me how to start this message? I was actually walking from the church to my house, you know, about 10 minutes later.

And this memory just popped into my mind as always doing something else. It's not coincidence, A simple prayer. And God just dropped the seed of this idea into my mind. So last week we looked at the concept of discipleship. What does it mean to follow Jesus? And we saw that Jesus didn't. You know the people Jesus called to follow him.

They weren't the best of the best of the best. Remember that the people Jesus called, they're not being called by other rabbis. They're young men who didn't make the cut. They didn't make the grade. They're not the best of the best of the best. And yet Jesus says, come follow me. And so what that means is they weren't considered bright enough prospects to carry forward the work in ministry of someone else, and yet Jesus called them because he believed they could do as he did.

Also spoke about three components of discipleship. We have information that's passed on from rabbi to student. This is just a recap of last week. We have a, a rabbi who models to their disciples a particular way to live. And it's all for the goal, not of filling our minds, not of being the, the smartest person in the classroom.

It's about, you know, the goal of, you know, imitating, imitating, you know, the life of their rabbi as they walk in their footsteps. Hence the expression I used last week. May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi or someone reminded me during the week, eat dust. That's what I said. And one thing the disciples saw Jesus' model constantly was prayer.

The one thing they saw Jesus' model constantly, probably more than anything else was prayer. Now we might think prayer is not that important, but if it's important enough for Jesus, how much more for us? Amen. Amen. Now, I love the example we see in Mark chapter one. Jesus is in Capernaum. He's teaching in the synagogue, and and Mark says, the people are amazed because unlike the teachers of the law, he's teaching with authority, and I love this.

It's like he's got this connection to God. He's connected to God and out of that connection he comes and he teaches and it's boom. They're able to see this guy's got an anointing. He's got something. He's unlike those guys who have studied. He's connected to God. It's brilliant. Mark then says he heals all the sick and demon possessed people who are brought to him.

Now, if that's me, conventional wisdom says it's time to stay and plan a church. I appoint myself the CEO, senior pastor, and away we go. This is gonna get big. The people love me. Ministry, fruit ministry success, but not Jesus. The Bible says this, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to God and he will make your paths straight.

That's exactly what Jesus does. He doesn't lean on what he thinks might be best to do. Instead, what we see is he gets up early in the morning and he finds a very quiet place to pray. Now, I want you to understand this. He's been up late into the night fighting the powers of darkness. He would've been physically exhausted.

He would've been spiritually drained, and yet he knows the importance of finding a quiet place to pray. The following morning, the whole town, they're looking for him. Everyone wants a piece of this guy, Jesus. He's the man. We want to be with Jesus. We want him to stay. Jesus, where are you? Eventually the disciples, you know, they find him.

And what does Jesus say? He says, let us go somewhere else so I can preach there. Also, this is why I came. Out of this time spent quietly in prayer. What we see is Jesus gets direction and vision for ministry. He doesn't know at all. He doesn't have at all. He has to spend time with his father to see what path the Lord has for him.

And out of that time it becomes clear, this is the path God has for me. I've gotta go to other villages and preach there. And in doing it this way, Jesus is modeling the way to those who have, who would follow him. This is what we now need to do. We need to follow what Jesus has modeled to us. We need to find those quiet places to pray to see what path the Lord has for us ahead as a church.

Amen. Now we see this at the beginning of his ministry. We also see it at the end this time in a place called Gethsemane. Jesus is there. He knows what's coming, and he tells the disciples, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He prays and then tells his disciples that they too should pray.

He knows that to walk the path laid out for him, he needs to come before the pa, the father, and he needs to pour out his, his, his soul in, in prayer and supplication. Can you see this For Jesus? Prayer was not some optional, extra. Has that ever been your spiritual journey? I read, I study, I do. Prayer. Oh, do I have to?

That's like something I tack on when I've got time for it. For Jesus. Prayer was not an addendum. It wasn't this op optional extra. It was the very heartbeat that sustained his life and ministry. And if it's true of him, how much more us? In Luke chapter 11, verse one, we read one day Jesus was praying in a certain place.

He's alone and they've seen that. He goes out, he withdraws. Where's Jesus? He's off praying. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. Just as John taught his disciples, do you see what they don't say? They don't say, Lord, teach us to preach. Lord, teach us to plant churches.

Lord, teach us to evangelize and share our faith. No Lord, teach us to pray. This is the one thing we specifically see in the gospel where they ask Jesus, Hey, you've gotta teach us how to do this. Why? Because they could see that prayer was the key to everything about Jesus ministry. He's the son of God, God incarnate.

And yet, for him, prayer was the key to everything he did in ministry. Now if we compare this to the three components of discipleship that I showed earlier, what we see is this. Jesus is constantly illustrating the importance of prayer. The disciples see this and it's something they want to imitate, and so then Jesus goes and gives them the information.

He teaches them what we call the Lord's Prayer. As I said earlier, we're gonna launch into a sermon series where we're gonna draw out the, the content of each aspect of this prayer. We're gonna do this over seven or eight different weeks. Can I tell you, our goal is not just to absorb in information about what Jesus taught.

I said this last week, how often do we just stop at absorbing information from the Bible? Filling my head and thinking, that's the goal of the Christian faith. It's not the goal is what? It's imitation. Our goal is to do as Jesus did. Why do we need to do this? Because I believe the future of this church depends on it.

Yeah, we wanna learn from Jesus and we wanna put into practice what he says. That's something interesting I learned this week. The English word prayer derives from the Latin term. That's the way the Italians would say it. Being married to an Italian. Can you say that? Can you see the connection to the English word that's there?

Life is uncertain. Life is full of challenges. We pray because life is what precarious the reality of life in a fallen world is that we are gonna face circumstances and struggles that we won't overcome unless we pray. If you think you can overcome the challenges of life that are thrust upon you without prayer, good luck.

Gordon Fee was a, a New Testament scholar. I love his writings. He, he said this, he said, A prayerless life is one of practical atheism. Just take time to get your head around that. Hear what he's saying. He's saying You may profess a belief in God, but if your life is not one of prayer, then you're actually living like an atheist.

You're living as if God doesn't exist. Do you get that? A prayerless life means you are practical, atheist. You may not subscribe to it in theory, but in practice you are. 'cause you're saying, even though there's supernatural resources available to me, it's like we're saying, no thanks God. I've got this. I can work out this situation by myself.

Life is precarious. We need to pray. And at the risk of sounding alarmist, the life of this church is precarious. We collectively, corporately, need to pray. Are you with me? Now we can believe in Jesus and that's good, but we've been called to follow Jesus and to do as he did imitation. If imitation is the goal of discipleship, let me, let me say this.

I'll try and say it as soft as I can. 'cause it's a strong thing to say. If the goal of discipleship is imitation, then we can't claim to be following Jesus as we ought. If we're not committed to prayer now that hurts me more than it hurts anyone else here because I know that if I'm gonna shepherd this congregation, I need to be a man of prayer and it's something I'm learning.

To be patient with me, uphold me in prayer as I take those steps. Now, think about the disciples. They're young men. They're just like I was when I first went to Africa. They're fresh, they're green, they're idealistic. They believe they're following the Messiah, and for them, they're experiencing up close what you know, many prophets and kings had longed to see, but you know, it wasn't long before they're soon confronted with a situation they knew nothing about.

And just like me, they quickly realized we can't fake it. We can't follow Jesus and fake it Lord. We dunno what we are doing. Teach us to pray. And then you look at their lives, they go on to become prayer warriors. Yeah. There's even times when they pray over handkerchiefs and the anointing on that handkerchief brings healing to people.

Okay, can I tell you that development wasn't automatic. They didn't just click their fingers and bang, it happened. Prayer didn't get beamed down from them, from, you know, down, down upon them from heaven. Prayer for them needed to be learned the hard way, and their schooling began at this point with this simple, humble request.

Pete Greg, he's one of the founding leaders of an international movement, known as 24 7 Prayer I, I love what he says here. He says, the best bit of advice I have ever received about how to pray was this. Keep it simple. Keep it real. Keep it up. Yeah. Now, if you're like me and you don't really know what you're doing when it comes to prayer, I find this to be excellent advice.

And what I wanna do for the rest of our time today is just look, uh, quickly at these three things before closing with a brief look at our Bible reading from today. So the first thing we wanna look at is keep it simple. Can I encourage you? Prayer doesn't need to be complicated or weird. Have you heard people the minute they start to pray.

They just, it's like you flick a switch, they become a, a different person. You know, there's nothing natural there. We, we can just speak naturally and normally we don't need to speak in thousand. They in King James language. Okay. You don't need to speak in complex theological jargon. Let me, let me just break it down like this.

God is the creator of the universe, and when you are the creator of the universe, you're not gonna be impressed just because someone uses some fancy language. When you think about the complexity of creation, God is pretty hard to impress. I'm gonna impress God by using some really fancy thou and they language just be normal.

Keep it simple. You just need to speak. Okay. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and he knows what it is We need to pray. Just let prayer become a, an expression of your heart. Can I tell you? When you keep it simple and you start with that, over time you will get better at praying. I listen to Gene pray and I wish I could pray like that, but I'm becoming like that as I just learn to be normal, natural, and keep it simple.

I understand Jesus specifically warns us about getting over complicated in prayer. Let me, let me read from Matthew chapter six verses five to third and I'll read it from the message Bible. For those that dunno, the message Bible is a paraphrase. So Jesus here is instructing his disciples. He says this.

Paraphrased when you come before God, don't turn it into a theatrical production. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for 15 minutes of fame, Hey God, you must be impressed with me. Listen to my prayer. I created the world. Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here's what I want you to do.

Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role play before God. You don't have to act. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage, the focus will shift from you to God and you will begin to sense his grace. Verses seven to 13, the world is so full of, sorry, the world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are peddling techniques for getting what you want from God.

Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your father you are dealing with, and he knows better than what you need, better than you, what you need with a God like this. Loving you. I love this. You can pray very simply. We're gonna look at the first line of the Lord's Prayer next week. How does it begin? ABA Father with a God like this loving you.

You can keep it simple. It's an invitation in Matthew's gospel. Jesus immediately follows this with the Lord's prayer, and can I tell you it's just 31 words in the original language. And it rhymed. It rhymed. It was, you know, Jesus is basically leaving us a poem. You learn poetry, poems that rhyme in primary school.

This is the beauty of the Lord's Prayer. I like what the former Archbishop of Canterbury said. He said, the Lord's Prayer is simple enough to be memorized by small children, and yet profound enough to sustain a whole lifetime of prayer. This is what makes Jesus the master teacher. He can take something simple that is deeply profound.

Right. Alright, let me reverse that. He can take something deeply profound and communicate it in a way that's simple. We can remember this as children, and yet you will never exhaust this prayer in your entire lifetime. Amen. Amen. So when you pray, keep it simple. Just remember, Adam and Eve walked and talked in the garden with God before sin and confusion entered the world.

What? What on earth did they talk about? Whatever it was, it must have been real simple 'cause there's no complexity in life before the fall. Okay. This is a good model. Keep it simple. So keep it simple. Keep it real. Now you need to keep prayer real, because when life hurts like hell, and I can guarantee it will, you're gonna be tempted to put on a mask and pretend that everything's just fine.

I'm doing okay. Put on my Sunday smile. And you know what we do is we learn to hide how we truly feel. Can I tell you God's not deceived by Sunday? Smiles. At other times we're gonna sin and we're gonna make a complete mess of things. Is it just me? I put my hand down. It's not just me, it's what we do.

There's gonna be times where sin, we'll make a complete mess of things. The temptation's gonna be to run and hide from God. Can I tell you? It's not really gonna work, okay? You can't hide from a God who sees everything, and not only does he see everything, he sees straight through you, how do you hide? Keep it real.

Please keep it real and learn to engage God in the hard times, even if they're self-inflicted. Can I encourage you? Read the Psalms. The Psalms are all about keeping it real. You don't have to pretend. Just come to God. Let it spill. Pour out your heart. Give voice to it. Listen to these words from Psalm 55.

It's a, a Psalm of David, the man after God's own heart. He says, this evening, morning, and noon. I will complain and murmur, I'll complain and murmur when evening, morning. That's the whole day and God will hear my voice. I love this. I love this. This is about keeping it real. There is an awful lot of complaining and murmuring here, and God will hear David's voice.

Can I tell you, when you pray, be real with God, God can handle it. Sometimes you might wanna, you know, dump on someone and they just saying, whoa, whoa, I can't handle this. God can always handle everything you need to spill out him. Keep it real. So keep it simple, keep it real. Keep it up. In Luke chapter 18, Jesus, we all know.

He tells a parable about a widow who's denied justice by a corrupt judge. And Luke says, Jesus told this parable to show his disciples that they should always pray and not not give up. Lemme say, no matter how simply and honestly we pray, it can be so easy to lose heart. Yeah, God, I'm giving it all. I'm praying simply, I'm being real.

It can be so easy to lose heart and it can be tempting to give up when it seems that our prayers are not working. I love this analogy. I found someone, someone once compared prayer to throwing rocks in a swamp. Just picture the scene. You've got a bag full of rocks and there's a swamp, and you're just throwing them in.

What's gonna happen? You're throwing the rock. It's gonna disappear without a trace. And you're thinking, this exercise seems pointless. But if you keep going long enough, if you keep throwing these rocks, eventually a swamps gonna be filled. And one day a rock's, you know, gonna be thrown. That's not gonna sink.

Suddenly, solid ground will begin to appear. Suddenly you've got something to stand on. As I said earlier, life's gonna present us with situations and challenges that we won't overcome unless we persevere in prayer. So keep it simple, keep it real, keep it up. I'd like to add a fourth thing. Keep connected.

We looked at this verse last week. Jesus appointed 12, whom he also named apostles. The key words here to be with him and to be sent out, to proclaim the message and to have authority to cast out demons. Jesus called people to be with him, to walk with him, to talk with him, and from a place of close relationship, do what he did.

That's where it begins. It begins with this place of close connection, relationship. Let's listen again to these words we heard in our reading today. I am the vine. You are the branches. If a conditional clause, if you do this, then this will happen. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Isn't that a wonderful promise? Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. If we had to imitate Jesus and do as he did, then we need to stay connected. Verse five couldn't be any clearer. Yeah, without Jesus, you can do what?

Nothing. Jesus is pretty emphatic there. The reality is life can be busy at times. At other times it can be overwhelming. And if you're like me, you can be so easily distracted. And so what we need to do is be intentional about, about creating space for Jesus in our lives. It ain't just gonna happen. You've gotta be intentional and strategic about carving out time to connect with Jesus, and prayer is how we stay connected.

I like the analogy of a fuel tanker. I dunno if you've heard this before. This big truck. Okay. A fuel tanker transports fueled a petrol stations. It has two tanks. It's got the big tank, it's got the big tank. And somewhere underneath it's got a little tank. Now, this big tank holds thousands of liters of fuel, but that fuel is for others.

The fuel that needs for itself is found in the little tank. Now, here's my point. It doesn't matter how much fuel is in that big tank. If the little tank is empty, yeah, if that little tank is empty, then that truck can't be where it needs to be in order to serve others. The big tank is the gifts and talents that God gives you.

He graciously gives us gifts and talents. That's the big tank. The little tank is your spiritual life. And because the little tank is smaller and empties quicker, it needs to be re replenished constantly. If we are to be where God wants us to be, being fruitful in the way God wants us to be, then we need to keep the little tank full.

The big tank is his responsibility. The little tank is ours. Can I tell you, far too many people try to live their spiritual lives out of their giftedness. What they're doing is they're drawing from the wrong tank. I can't tell you the numbers of stories I've read of high profile ministers who have fallen because they haven't taken time to connect to Jesus.

They're just giving, giving, giving out of their giftedness. Suddenly there's nothing left and they burn out.

This is for my own personal experience. Your giftedness cannot sustain the life that God has for you. You are created to draw life from Jesus and from that connection serve others. If you're trying to serve others without being connected to Jesus, eventually you are gonna run dry and the engine just won't move.

One other thing we find when we stay connected to Jesus, we're gonna find that our will and desires become more naturally aligned to him. Is that true? Have you experienced this? When you're more connected to Jesus, your will and desires become more naturally aligned to his, and out of that connection will flow prayers that God will delight to answer.

That's what Jesus meant when he said. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. It's not saying, you know, God's like the magical genie. You just rub the lamp and you get three whistles. It's saying, when you're connected to me and you remain in me, my words remain in you, then you will find yourself aligned with me in a way where you are just gonna naturally pray prayers.

The God the Father says, yes, I want to answer that prayer.

Are you with me? Yeah. I found this yesterday. I love this. Now, if you're a tech savvy, you know about wifi, you can see there. You've got full bars, you've got connection, okay? That's our goal in life, is to be fully connected to Jesus. Why? Because God wants us to be fruitful. He wants us to do as Jesus did.

And and what this passage here is telling us is that fruitfulness relies on answered prayer. Are you seeing the link here? Fruitfulness in life relies on answered prayer. Prayers don't get answered if you don't pray. Okay, and we're talking here about prayer that flows out of a connection to Jesus, who is one with the Father.

We also heard these other words in our reading. This is to My Father's glory. That you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples. You did not choose me. So that's the whole thing of a rabbi calling a disciple. You didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit.

Fruit that will last. And I think for us it's gonna be fruit that, that we want to go beyond our own lifetime. And so that whatever you ask in my name, the father will give you. This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about planting seeds for a tree and whose shade we might never bask. We wanna pray.

We wanna have fruit that lasts, even fruit that lasts beyond our own lifetime. So next week we're gonna begin by looking at the Lord's Prayer, the first verse. And as I said earlier, it's also gonna be the focus of our small groups. I'd also like it to be the focus of our own individual prayer lives. And so what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna ask for a commitment.

I want us to prepare our hearts for a time of sustained prayer. We need it. We desperately need a time of sustained corporate prayer. And so starting from next week, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna bring some specific prayer requests this week. I'd like us to simply bring our lives before God and renew our connection to Jesus.

'cause this is where it's gotta begin. It's gotta begin by us making that renewed connection to Jesus. Jesus said, my sheep know my voice and they follow me. So I'm gonna close by giving you some homework. I want you to carve out time. It can be as little as five to 10 minutes a day. If you're gonna pray for an hour, that's great, but it can be as little as five to 10 minutes a day.

This is all about calibrating our lives back to Jesus. I want us to take time where we're deliberate strategic. We close our phone, we turn off the tv, and we position ourselves to hear from Jesus. Okay? It's your daily homework. Take time to to set apart and pray. And we'd also love to see you on Wednesday 'cause I want that room to be too small for us to pray together.

We've just set it up. Let's unset it because we need a bigger space please. And on Saturday, join us as well. Come and pray. Please come and pray. So we keep it simple. Keep it real, keep it up. Keep connected. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that you're a good God, that you want us to bear fruit. Fruit that lasts. Father, help us to be about people who are connected to Jesus, who can have a vibrant prayer life. Out of which will flow prayers that you will delight to answer. Lord, I pray birth in us a vision for planting seeds to grow trees in who shade we may never bask.

Amen. We want the life of this church to long exceed us. We want it to be a vibrant, healthy, spiritual community that honors you and is a light in this community. And so Father, we thank you for the gift of prayer. We thank you for the Holy Spirit who leads us into prayer. Help us to keep in step with him, to yield to him.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.