Okay, we are now going to start, uh, this new series and welcome to those of you across, uh, all of our campuses, across all of our sites, across, uh, the St. Louis area, the country, as we learned last year, the world. Wow. Uh, so welcome. We are now going to start an eight week conversation. Essentially, it's a series and we're entitling it, pray like this. Now, I'll give you a little bit more about the title in just a minute. Uh, and it, we're essentially quoting someone. I don't think it'll surprise you who I'm quoting, but, uh, let's just zero in on that first word, shall we pray? You see, I think each of us have, uh, thoughts about prayer. So how about if we just, uh, do this the old fashioned way while we're getting the, the results, the high tech way? Uh, quick show of hands, wherever you are, if you're at home and you're in a living room, do that. If you're driving, no. 10 and two, do this, but for the rest of us, uh, 'cause some people do listen to this while they're driving. So, uh, quick show of hands, if anyone who's ever prayed, like just once even, yeah, okay. Uh, anybody who's prayed more than once. Yeah, yeah. Anybody who's prayed in the last month. Yeah. Now, uh, you know, we could just keep going with this, right? But the truth is, that doesn't surprise me. Prayer is something that humans do across all segments, across all cultures, all times, throughout all history, throughout all religions, there is something called prayer that seems to be happening. It's kind of a human thing. We, we do this, we humans. Now, uh, I think it's interesting, the, the majority of Americans still pray on a regular basis. That that's what all the surveys show, uh, the, the, the, the Pew Research Center said that 6%. Now, this is a little bit old, but not too bad. 6% of atheists pray daily. Think about that for a second. Uh, now I think it begs the question we have to start saying, well, what, what is prayer? Exactly. So one cynic said, prayer is saying things you don't mean to someone you know is not there. That is a cynical way to look at prayer, right? But I would say that from a biblical worldview, and that's really what we're going to do here, and we talk about why we think that that is the source of truth for us. And you've just heard about classes where you can explore some of that. We really do believe that. But I'm gonna tell you the basic obvious answer through the biblical worldview is prayer is talking with God. I mean, that's the simple answer. Now, it infers a lot of things. It's active, it's not passive. It's intentional. You created in the image of God, now have this longing to connect with your creator. There's mystery here. We're gonna keep exploring some of this mystery. In fact, sometimes we're going to try to answer some questions about this. Some of them we won't be able to answer in this series. We're gonna, uh, load that into, uh, a, a weekend in a series after Christmas called, uh, A and q. Okay? But let's just say that it, there is a mystery to some of this, but it is also so simple that a child can do it. And if you've ever listened, children pray beautiful prayers. How cool is it that we together collectively as a church, whether you're, uh, a little one, whether you're school aged, whether you are a teenager, a student, all of us now all of us are going through this together. I was just talking with, uh, some of our, our leaders in the kids' ministry who are just so excited that we're all tracking this together. You will have things you can talk about this week with the rest of your family. And one of the ways that we'll kind of track and help each other with this is, is, uh, is, is by using what I know many of you have, uh, these little journals, these booklets. So I'm just gonna add each of our sites. We're just gonna have the pastors just one more time through. You might just need a pen. We had a lot of people going, Hey, I got the booklet. I didn't get a pen, so just raise your hand. They're just gonna walk back through and grab these. This is a way for you to jot down notes and to go, oh, yeah, I want to keep track of this. I wanna remember this. I want to apply this into my life on a Tuesday morning or a Thursday afternoon. So this is a good way to do that. Now, uh, let's just keep going on this definition of prayer. Prayer is, is never just asking things, okay? One writer says, do not see God as your cosmic butler that you just get to, you know, it's like you rang, sir, you rang ba. That's not it. The universe wasn't created to serve my every whim and desire. Okay? So, so let's be clear on that. But prayer does involve us asking things, doesn't it? You ask for a car so you can get to work, you ask for a job so that you have work to get to ask for wisdom in that conversation that you're gonna have, ask for God to put someone on your path because you'd like to meet someone. You ask for healing, you ask for comfort for a friend, you ask for courage. You, we ask, we share our hopes and our dreams and our fears, our worries. We, we share this in prayer. But now the next thing is we do this because we actually think there's someone on the other end of that prayer. Amen. I mean, that's it. We believe someone is listening. This is why the Bible, here we go, tells us again and again to pray. It just exhorts us in Psalm 62. It says, pour your hearts out to him. So put it out there in front of God. And then you look at all of these other passages, and this is just a sampling of them. In one Thessalonians five says, pray without ceasing Matthew 26. Uh, if, if, if you're tempted, you pray, James five, if you're in trouble, you pray. Second Chronicle six, you pray for forgiveness. Luke 18, Jesus says, pray and don't stop praying. And then you get to Luke six. And Jesus says, even pray for those who are hassling you, who are persecuting you. I'm telling you again and again and again. We see this now, it all kind of gets wrapped up, uh, in a big general sort of a way in Ephesians six, and pray in the Spirit, on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests, sometimes our prayers are spontaneous, sometimes they're, uh, written down, sometimes they're memorized, sometimes they are recited. Like we, we will, we will borrow scripture and incorporated into our prayers. But always, always, always, it's personal. I mean, it's gotta be personal. Dallas Willard expands on my little definition here, and, and, and the way he puts it is he says that prayer is talking with God about what we're doing together. Now, I love that because it infers this relationship. It infers that God and I are walking and we're doing this together. And we're, I'm, we're talking for reasons I will never fully understand. The God of the universe has invited me into a conversation with him, and for reasons I can't even fully explain that same God says that what I say to him and what I share with him matters. And that means that our prayers make a difference. Now, are we gonna end up talking this year at some point about some of those prayers that we're like, I'm not getting the answer. Well, absolutely. But I need you to know prayer makes a difference. But if all we did today was to talk about how you ought to pray and how it's good to pray, and how powerful it is to pray, if that's all we talked about, I have a feeling some of you would leave here frustrated, you'd leave here discouraged. Some of us we hear talk of prayer, or we read a book on prayer and you get about three chapters in and you're like, oh, no, that was helpful. And you get to like chapters 5, 6, 7, and you're like, man, I'm just depressed. I will never be able to live up to that. You see, I want us to get to a place where we can actually admit some of these things to each other. Some of you are stuck in your prayers and you're not sure where to go next. Some of you're stuck in your prayers and you're looking at everybody else that raised their hands, and you're going, I bet I'm the only one here who thinks that you're not. Every person I know on their journey with God comes through a season or more than one season where they are struggling with their prayers. They're not quite what they want them to be. I've experienced that every person here has. So now why don't we just take a look at the poll and just see, see what we can see. This is what you guys, okay, alright. And by the way, this has been different in each of our services. But the vast, the the big winner is I, I, I wanna pray more than I do. I wish I wanted to pray more than I do. So there is that thing of, uh, I kind of know that I should, but I, I like, I just wish that desire was there. Well, let's just talk about this for a second. What, what if, uh, what if there was something we could now like explore together that was so vast and so rich and so deep that there was enough room for all of us to learn something? And what if it was so practical that it could begin to change how we pray and how we approach prayer like today? See, I think that's the story that we enter into. That's the conversation we're about to begin. So let's pray. Now, when I say, let's pray, some of you're like, man, I don't pray. I don't know how to pray. Well then, then, then let me pray for us. But for those of you who do pray, I'm gonna ask you now to go to the God who brought us all together. Let's pray for some big things to happen. Heavenly Father, we come before you. I believe you're here. I know you're here. I believe you've brought each of us here for a very specific reason. You sovereign Lord, you have, you have known, we were going to talk about this today. And you have known what each of us dragged in here, and you have known what we were going to be asking questions about and struggling with. So Father, we open your word and we're going to listen to the voice of your son. And we are asking for your spirit now to move among us. And may this not only be a day that we gathered together, we're grateful for that, but may this be a day where something new and fresh begins to happen in our lives, in our families, in our friendships, in our community. Father, we would even say our world, your kingdom come, your will be done. So we ask this now in the name of our savior Jesus. Amen. Okay? So Jesus has these guys who are following him around. They're disciples. He's their rabbi. They're gonna learn everything they can from him. And they've noticed how powerful his prayers are. They've noticed that his prayers make a difference and stuff happens. So at one point in Luke chapter 11, we read that after he finished praying, one of these fellas says, can you teach us how to pray? And the very next thing that we hear, that we read in Luke chapter 11 is, and, and it's rendered this way in the English in many, many, many translations. Jesus responds by saying, pray like this. And then he begins to share what some have called the Lord's Supper. Th lord's Lord supper, the Lord's Prayer. Uh, and, and the Lord's prayer. We say the Lord's prayer, but it's not the Lord. Well, it is the Lord's prayer, but I don't think Jesus prays. Think about it for a second. Jesus doesn't pray. Forgive us our sins. Jesus doesn't need to ask for forgiveness, right? So he's giving this, this is really a disciple's prayer. He's giving this to them. Now, you find this prayer also in, um, in Matthew chapter six. So there it is tucked into the middle of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Now, some people will look at the version in Luke and the version in Matthew and put 'em side by side and go, ah, the words are different. See, I got you. The Bible is inconsistent. Lemme help you with that. Jesus is a traveling teacher. That means he's going around from place to place to place. And each each place, each audience, it's new to them. And so he's sharing and maybe tweaking as he goes. These disciples are following him. Nobody has voice memos. Everybody's just memorizing this so that one day they'll be able to write it down. So it doesn't throw me at all that in some, in, in some places, maybe the language was a little bit different. And then in another place, the language is a little bit more like this. Jesus isn't giving us a formula. He's teaching us how to pray. But for our time, we're going to, we're gonna land in Matthew chapter six. Okay? So now here's the thing. Matthew six, as I told you, is a part of the Sermon on the Mount right before Jesus teaches this Lord's prayer, disciples prayer, whatever you wanna call it. He helps them by giving them the how not to. He's about to teach how to pray. But first he says, here are two big no-nos. Alright? And they will help us today. They're, they're timely, they're practical. Here we go. Let's look at those. First we're gonna honor the words of Jesus. This is in Matthew chapter six. We'll start with verse five. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, pray to your father who is unseen. Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, where they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Now, there is so much there, and, and some of this will come up in, in future discussions, I'm sure, but how about if we just start off by saying this, the, the two no-nos are, don't be like hypocrites and don't pray like the pagans we clear. That's it. I mean, that's where it's writing down. Don't be like the hypocrites and, and, and don't pray like the pagans. Now, I do think it's important for us to understand a couple of things. So let's just say this word, hypocrites. It's in the Greek, it is the word hippo crease. Okay? And many of you will know where I'm going with this, but hippo crease is Greek for the Kool-Aid ban. Oh yeah, no, that's not it. Uh, it's Greek for play actors. Jesus is the only one who uses this term in the New Testament. This is kind of his, he's the one that brings this into, into our, uh, vernacular, into our language. And, and what he's doing here is he's using, I'm gonna go on ahead and say a pop culture reference. You see, Jesus knows about play actors because this may surprise you. But in that day already, there were many, many impressive theaters around the region. And there was a very impressive theater in a city, a cosmopolitan Roman city that's a, um, maybe four or five miles from Nazareth where Jesus grew up ssus. In fact, this theater was being built when Jesus was a young man. Now, more than one scholar actually wonders. None of us know, but more than one scholar wonders did Jesus as a young man, as an apprentice to Joseph, his essentially his stepfather, a builder, a carpenter. Did they go to SRIs where the work was? Were they a part of, of what helped build this city? And if that was the case, then that means Jesus spends time in this city where a really impressive theater was being built. Jesus knows about play actors. And his point here is pretty, pretty, pretty straightforward. If you are praying the way actors act like you're putting on a mask and you're pretending, and you're doing it all for the applause and all for the oohs and ahs of others, then you just got your reward. Now he goes a little bit further and says something to them that people would have recognized, because culturally, historically, this is what was happening. And that day, uh, the, the Jewish people would collectively, together pray three times a day. You prayed when you got up in the morning, you prayed when you went to bed, and you prayed in the middle of the day. Now, we're not gonna go into those prayers. Uh, some of it was quoting scripture, some of it was honoring God in another beautiful way. Uh, but oftentimes you would stand when you prayed, okay? And so that, that's how that would work. But what Jesus is inferring here, most folks think, is that there were some who made sure that they arranged their day so that they were in a public spot when three o'clock rolled around. So you're wherever you're gonna be. And it's like, oh, I can't, I'm at the synagogue. Look at me time for prayer. Or even worse, like, oh, you know, you're just, you're out a busy intersection in town. It's like, oh, I don't, I can't believe it. It's three o'clock. I don't mean to hold up traffic, but Lord, it's time to pray. Jesus says, cut it out. God has your number. He knows what's going on. All of this stuff about, you know, publicly come on. He says, do it in private. He goes a little over the top as a rabbi, and he says, you know, go in. Shut the door. Get in a private spot. If this is between you and God, then you don't need spectators. Oh, and by the way, God knows all of this. He knows your heart. He knows everything that's happening in secret. You go to him. That's how prayer works. Don't be like hypocrites. Second thing is don't pray like the pagans. Now what Jesus is talking about here is people who are, uh, praying, uh, and and they're not praying to the one true God. In that day, of course, uh, there were, you were in the land in the time of Roman mythology. And so if you know anything about the gods, those Roman and Greek gods, they were a handful. In fact, if you really study those, those, those, those histories, those so-called gods, were like, they were worse than humans. They were terrible. They were, they were, they were, uh, you, they were unpredictable and, uh, just insecure and all sorts of things. But in those days, if you were a pagan, you prayed a lot of like empty chance and phrases. You prayed. And one of the reasons you prayed was to wake them up or to get their attention. And you didn't even really need to put any thought into it. You're just repeating these phrases mindlessly over and over and over with the hopes of waking them up, impressing them, getting their attention, and manipulating them into doing what you want them to do. That's the, that's the context. That's what's going on. And, and, and I'm just telling you that that happens today. Like I've been around the world and I've seen this happen in a variety of cultures. I've seen people work themselves into a trance state because they are mindlessly chanting something over and over and over, sometimes for hours, with the hopes of getting the attention of the gods. A prayer wheel is about putting a prayer into a wheel. And I've watched people walk along and you spin the prayer wheel, and you don't even have to think about it. It's just you, you mindlessly spin the prayer wheel and somehow this multiplies the effect of the prayers. I could give you example after example of how this is still happening today, but how about we bring it closer to home? You see, whether you're from a liturgical background or not, this doesn't have to do withs denominations, it doesn't have to do with any of that. But I will tell you, the ultimate irony here is that this very prayer that Jesus is now about to give us, some have treated like a, like a lucky charm. And so you repeat it again and again and again without meaning, without thinking about it, mindlessly saying it, hoping that you will manipulate God into giving you what you want. Jesus, before he even teaches us, the prayer says, please don't do that. But gang, lest you think that I'm just going down that road, you do understand. Here's a side note, by the way, some people have heard so much about that, that they're actually afraid to pray the Lord's prayer. Some of us grew up in traditions where like, we barely gave it a passing glance 'cause Oh yeah, no, we wouldn't wanna be, listen to me, we're gonna lean into this prayer. Jesus gave it to us. But for those who grew up in a non liturgical background, there's a mindless kind of repetition that can happen there too. There are phrases that have long ago lost their meaning. Certain things that we just say, we're not even really thinking about it. We just fill our prayers with these things. Or maybe we just think, if we pray long enough, like you pray long prayers that'll impress God. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pray me a long prayer and it's gonna get answered. Or we think we're gonna pray like certain, uh, phrases and maybe they have to be impressive. Or, uh, I would just tell you just saying, I've seen it. I've been around it. I grew up with it a little bit, where if you really wanted your prayer to be noticed, you lowered your voice just a little bit. And perhaps you could even speak with a little bit more of an accent. And if possible, you would use multi-syllabic words, because now the Lord of all creation, the omnipotent, omniscient one will answer your prayers. Lemme help you with this. This is just a little thing. Write it down. That's good for you. Okay? Lean over. Tell your friend to write it down and then tell them what this is. Here it is, it's real simple issue, obfuscation. Okay, go ahead. Just write that. You, you want to eshu obfuscation. Now lean over and tell your neighbors what that means. 'cause we wanna make sure that everybody knows. So go ahead, just tell 'em real quickly. Eshu obfuscation, what does it mean? All right. All right. Okay, here it is. Uh, um, there's probably a better way to say that. Um, a shoe avoid obfuscation complicate with language, um, or just complicate it with your words, uh, which is exactly what that is. So here's probably a better way to, sorry. That's a good way to pray. If you look at some of the most powerful prayers you will find in scripture, they're really simple direct prayers. Now, I'm not, I'm, I'm not saying there aren't some absolutely poetic, beautiful prayers in scripture, but I'm saying if you read some of the psalms, if you read some of the prayers, read the prayers of Jesus. They are direct, they are simple. They are from the heart, and they are powerful. Lemme just say one more thing about this. Please don't think that there are certain phrases that you can say. And if you say that certain phrase and you, and you say it with a certain amount of faith, or maybe you say, with a certain amount of faith and a certain amount that you gave to a ministry, and now, now God has to do what you said, I want to tell you that God will not be manipulated or controlled. What kind of a God would he be if it worked that way? He is the, he's the all powerful God of the universe. And what he's doing, uh, he's, he's, he's inviting us into a conversation where we approach him as Father. Now, that's a word that's gonna keep coming up. In fact, in just a minute, we're gonna, we're gonna take a look at that and, and start to just kind of figure out what this means. And for those of you who are kind of keeping track of things, I want you to know we're only going two words deep into the prayer today. Okay? So we kinda laid the foundation, we're just gonna go two words deep into the prayer. But for now, let's catch our breath. Little, little kind of a break here. Okay? Y'all just talk to each other. What have you learned? What have you, what have, what are you thinking about? What did you jot down? What do you wanna talk about later? Uh, and, and just talk to each other, okay? Oh, and if you don't have anything to talk about, anybody know about fridge scaping? Yeah, it's a thing. It's, it's all over TikTok and Instagram. It, it, I I started with, uh, security tray aesthetics. Do you know what that is? It is a thing where some influencers are, they're taking these beautifully composed photos of their stuff before they go through the TSA, uh, check. And so you're making sure, and then you're posting it. And look how beautifully all of, now listen, I'm not a hater. I need you to know people are really divided on this. I'm not a hater. I'm just fascinated. Now, I will tell you, if you're in front of me and I'm a little bit late to get to my flight, I don't really care that your passport is beautifully tucked in next to your sunglasses and your color coordinator shoes. I just don't, okay? But it led me to fridge scaping. Do you know what fridge scaping is? Some of you do. Fridge scaping is interior decorating for your fridge. It's a thing. It's happening. And then people post. So here's a, so this is someone's real, this is a real refrigerator. And so you, you've got lights and flowers and figurines. You've got antique frames, and you've got all so, so, so, anyway, well, uh, now you got stuff to talk about. Go ahead. Just talk to each other. Okay? All right. You obviously have things to talk about. Lemme just say this, this, this, this is just tonight. Uh, we have respite here, and it starts at six o'clock. This is a chance to gather for one hour of prayer, worship. Uh, pastors will be here to pray for you. It has been a very powerful, powerful experience. If you wanna be a part of that, you can still sign up. We've still got some, some availability. It'll be, it'll be here. So that's respite. Uh, but we're now about to enter into this thing. So Jesus sets it all up. He gives them the, the don't do it this way. And now this is what he says. We're back in Matthew chapter six. This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we also for have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And then we often conclude this prayer with a powerful little ending that it doesn't appear in the, in the oldest manuscripts of, of Matthew and Luke. So if you have a newer translation, uh, not like the old King James version, if you have a newer translation, it's either not there, or if it's there, it's in italics. And you got a little asterisk saying that it isn't in the oldest, uh, transcripts. And this is because we want to be really transparent about this. Uh, we, we really don't know if Jesus said those words. I will tell you that it had become kind of collectively the ending of this prayer within a hundred years of Jesus' time. So it goes awfully far back. And as others have noted, it is both thoroughly biblical. And it gives an echo of what you hear in the prayer. So oftentimes, we will end this prayer together by saying, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. God, it's your kingdom. It's your glory. It's your power forever. So be it. Amen. This is the heart cry of Christians, and it has been for over 2000 years. But the first word in the original language, Greek, the first word in the prayer is the word pater. Or in Latin potter it means Father. Now, some of you, if you go way back, depending on your tradition, you might know the Potter Noster. The potter Noster is Latin for our Father, the our Father Potter, Noster Esche, Che Noman, our father who is in heaven, hollowed be your name. Now, there's so much here that I don't wanna move past it too quickly. The living God of the universe, I mean the maker of heaven and earth, the one that scripture tells us, we cannot survive standing in his brilliant, blinding holiness on our own. That same God is now inviting us to approach him the way a trusting child runs to a loving father. I mean, this is really like, this is, this is where your prayer begins to, to, uh, to, to unlock. But the question is, how do, how, how does that work? I wanna be real clear. I only have that kind of access because of the work of Jesus on the cross. That's the only way I have access. It's not because of what I've done. It's certainly not because of what I deserve. Uh, John chapter one puts it like this, yet, to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, talking about Jesus, he gave the right to become children of God. Listen to me. There's a reason Christians pray differently than all other world religions. It's because we know when we approach the one true God, we are doing it in a grace infused relationship. Some of you, the reason you might be stuck with your prayer life is because you haven't yet turned to Jesus. You still think it's about religion. You think it's about piling up enough, uh, good deeds to outweigh the bad deeds. I want you to, I want you to know that when you turn to him and you receive this relationship based on grace, this is where your prayer life takes off. Please, please, if you have questions, if you wanna know about this, don't wait. Let's talk about this. Because when you get this straight, watch how personal this gets. Father in the Aramaic, some people think Jesus taught this to them. In, in Aramaic, the Aramaic word there is Abba. Abba. It's intensely personal and incredibly powerful. That's the good news of the gospel. You are that loved. But there's a roadblock here. In fact, I think there are two of them. When Jesus says, approach God as father, we get tripped up. Now, some people, when I say we approach God as Father, we'll say, well, why can't we approach him as why, why, why, why can't we call godmother? Well, first of all, because it's nowhere in the scriptures. And then some people will say, yeah, but that sort of bothers me. It feels like maybe the scriptures are anti-women. And I wanna just say, first of all, I, as best as I can understand, I I, I can appreciate that concern, but it really does trace back to the way women have been treated horribly, not by God, but by other people. Now, granted, some of those people say that they belong to God and they're treating women horribly. We gotta admit that. But the Bible is not anti-woman at all. The, the Bible throughout its pages continues to elevate the, the importance and status of women throughout. And let me just say this. We don't want to get all philosophical about this, but God is eternal and God is spirit. So hear me now, that means God does not fit into a physical category. He does not fit into a human category like gender. I will tell you that he chooses to refer to, to describe his love in maternal terms. I mean, we, we do see that Jesus himself at one point describes his love and, and his care by saying, uh, he, he, he's like a mother hen that would gather her chicks up under her protective wings. So we see these metaphors that help us to understand the great love of God. But it is true, the Bible does not refer or use, uh, both, uh, male and female titles to refer to God. Now, we're gonna trust that God knows what he's doing and he's the one who was chosen this way. Kenneth Bailey, a Middle Eastern expert, says it's possible that the reason this is, is if you'd gone down roads where you had mother and Father titles, you would've opened the path back to these ancient near eastern gods and goddesses and all the crazy that was happening with these gods and goddesses and all of the horrible, demeaning, dehumanizing practices. Go back and study the history of it. And God threw out is saying, no, no, no, I am different. I am the one true God. And so he has chosen to use this language to reveal himself, and we're just not gonna use language that is against, uh, what's revealed in scripture. That's just where we're gonna be. Now, there's more to this. Hopefully that helped. If it didn't, I'll bet it at least stirred up some conversations for your small groups. But there is another roadblock. When some of you hear the word, father, you're out. Some of you right now, when, when you hear the word Father, it brings up images that are so good. And so your, your dad was good. He was trustworthy. He wasn't perfect. But man, he's good. But for others of you, when you hear the word Father, what comes to mind is absent, uh, uncaring. Uh, he left us. Uh, heaven forbid he was dangerous. He hurt me. He was abusive. I need you to know that sometimes the way people treat us gets in the way of us understanding how much God loves us. And sometimes that's the way our moms or our dads loved us or didn't love us. I wish it weren't so, but it is true. And we need to get to a place where we understand that this is what's getting in the way of, of, of us coming even closer to God and calling him Father. But I need you to also know that there is a way through that hurt. I need you to know that the way through that hurt is beginning to understand how much God loves you. Now, that probably will take time, and that's, that's gonna get peeled off layer by layer. And it might need the help of a friend that you just keep talking with and you explore the scriptures. It might mean, uh, you come and talk with one of the pastors. It might mean, it might mean that you go to a Christian counselor and say, you gotta help me with this. 'cause I wanna keep moving forward. I will tell you, speaking of moving forward into a, a, a more abundant life, what happened this weekend at our abundant conference, uh, like hundreds and hundreds of people gathered together in rooms here, and we ran out of chairs in some of those rooms. Stories are flying all over the place of courage and faith and hope and healing and like humbly coming to God and, and, and helping each other. It's just fantastic. But God is still doing his work. And I believe God can heal even those wounds, and only God ultimately can heal them. But I also want you to know, God's been doing this from the beginning. See, the truth is these kinds of wounds have been a part of the human story, sadly, since almost the beginning. And God knows what he's doing, and God will not leave you there. And this does not have to be the last word in your story. He loves you that much. And what we want to do is to begin to explore the depth of what the word Father can still mean in the ancient world. What does it mean? It meant power. It meant authority. It meant protection, but it meant love. It meant safety. It meant it meant a championing one. And so what Jesus is saying here is I want you to know that's who you're approaching. That'll change your prayer life, but you kind of have to stop and pay attention to that. 'cause I'm gonna tell you what, you and I move really fast. Are you familiar with the term mindlessness? It's a state that psychologists will study mindlessness, and they've been studying it forever. I will say with the advent of technology and the pace of our lives, uh, I, I, I think it's getting worse, but it's, it's been there for a while now. Uh, it's, it's just this, you, you go on autopilot. You don't think about what you're doing, you just, you're used to it and you do it. And has that ever happened to you? Like you're in a conversation and you're like 20 minutes into the conversation and you've been nodding and, and like, you know, you're giving the impression, you're tracking and it's like, I don't know anything they just said. Sometimes you're driving somewhere and it's like, wait, how did I get here? It's a state of mindlessness. You with me? So Daniel Kahn, uh, Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winning economist. He wrote a book called Think Fast and Slow. And in that book, he describes mindlessness and how it's been studied. And so we're gonna do a little experiment here that he has in the book. This is so quick. This is so quick. You don't have to think about it. Kahneman says, just use your intuition. I'm just gonna give it to you. It's a little math word problem at the end of our time together. You're welcome. But here it is. Just lean over very quickly and answer this first thing that comes to mind Here. It is, A bat in the ball cost a dollar 10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. Easy. How much does the ball cost? Just turn to each other real quickly. How much does the ball cost? Boom. Okay. How many of you said 10 cents? Yeah. How many of you were afraid to raise your hand? 'cause you think it's a trick question? Yeah. The right answer of course is 5 cents. No, it's 5 cents. See, if, if we're going to get a total of a dollar 10, and the bat is more, a dollar more than the, than the, uh, that's the only way you get to it. So the ball costs 5 cents. Now, first of all, I've got a few other things I wanna buy in that economy. So second of all, we kind of set you up for that. He sets you up for that. When you read the book, he says, just go with your first instinct. Just don't, just don't even just go with your intuition. And so your intuition is, wait, well's 10 cents. What are you saying is Now some of you are gonna email me later and say, no, you got that wrong. No, it, it, it, it really is. You can think about it. What he's saying is, you gotta slow down to combat the mindlessness. Like there are times that you're like, you go, oh, that's the obvious. I'm moving. And it might not be the right answer. I wanna say this to you. Now, the way to begin to unlock our prayer life, I think our first big action point is we gotta slow down. We gotta take a breath. And we need to remind ourselves of who it is that we're speaking to and what a privilege. It's, let's go back to Dallas Willard. He says that God must be addressed. Now, this is, this is the rest of his thought. I love this. It is one of the things that distinguishes prayer from worrying out loud or even silently. So, so I can worry, I can say things out loud, but it doesn't become prayer until I address it to God. There has to be a moment. It isn't just, oh man, I am just so upset. I am so upset. I am so upset. It has to be Father. I'm so upset, father, I dunno what to do with this Father. You see the difference? Now, I know some of you're thinking, no, that's semantics. No, I think this can help us because we need to remind ourselves. God doesn't need to be reminded of anything. We don't need to get God's attention. I'm trying to get my attention. I am approaching the God of the universe. And he says, I can come to him. He's, he's my loving father. Okay? Now, I was reminded of some by some other writers of, of kind of this. And so let, let's see if this makes sense. But there are times when, uh, we might say we're gonna pray. And we're like, right now we're just going, yeah, I just wanna pray more. I wanna pray more. So you know what I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to get into that habit. We're gonna talk about how to build a habit, uh, later. But, but I, I wanna, I wanna do that. And then you start thinking about it and you're like, oh, man, I haven't, I haven't really, really prayed in so long. And the next thought is, uh, I feel guilty. Even going back to him. I feel embarrassed. Goodness. I'm, as I'm ashamed to bring that back to him. It's been so long. Could I bring that back? These are the thoughts that are, are the beginning of you giving up on prayer, and they are the strategies of the evil one not true. That's not how it works. Which brings us back to fridge scaping. You see, sometimes we think our prayer life, like when we're gonna open the door and show God what's really in the fridge. It's gotta be so cleaned up and so beautiful and so oddly perfect and arranged. 'cause now that'll impress him. And now I got his attention. But that's not who we are. You know who we are. You know what we look like on the inside. The cream cheese has mold on it. The vegetables are growing their own garden In the crispr, you got a jar of jelly from Aunt Mabel, and she's been dead for five years. There's a milk jug that's completely empty, but people keep putting it back in. And one of the kids has a science project on the third shelf that has gone really, really bad. That's what it looks like on the inside of our lives. Please don't believe the lie that you gotta hang lights and put cut flowers and invite a little figurine and an antique frame before you open the door to your life. He is your loving father. And I'm telling you, when you take that risk of saying to God, oh, it's been a while, but here's the real me that I would never post online. Your heavenly Father says, I'm ready. By the way, I already knew that there was orange juice spilled on that second shelf. It doesn't surprise me a bit that man, am I thrilled that you're coming to me now? You see, if we want our prayer life to take off, what I'm trying to say is that, you know, it is going to be a private kind of a prayer where we, uh, a private kind of a prayer where we, maybe we find a spot, I don't know, maybe it's a really cool looking spot where you, you have a cup of coffee. You, you, you sit there, you've got a journal, you're looking over some notes. Maybe it's for 10 minutes, maybe it's for 15 minutes. Maybe this is a, a kind of a thing that you do. Or maybe it's when you're walking, maybe it's when you're doing your favorite thing. But I want you to remember, there is a father who loves you deeply, is not thrown by any of this and is inviting you to share your heart. So we do this alone, but we also do this together because the, the second word, really, and for us, the first word is our, it's our father, our father. So let's pray with our kids. Let's pray in front of our friends and our spouses, the person we're dating. If it's safe and there's someone at work, let's, man, let's pray together. Let's pray in front of each other. And let's remember that there is a God who loves us this way. In fact, those of you who are in small groups, the next big risk is for the first time maybe ever, you're gonna pray and you're gonna pray in front of people. And together we can remind each other of how much God loves us. You see, he, he, he, there is a ferocious, relentless, generous love of the Father. He, and he's so, he's so close. Name, his name means, well, that's next week. So come back. We're gonna keep moving into this, but let's do this In the meantime, Let's breathe for just a second. You've got this time for just a second. Breathe. And consider this Father who loves you. And maybe for the first time or the first time in a long time, pray like this.