In the Gospels we often see Jesus ministering to crowds and individuals one after another in an almost nonstop stream of needs. But we also regularly see Jesus slipping away from the work of ministry to go to his Father in prayer. While these texts are not necessarily teaching passages on prayer, we can see the clear principle shining through - effective ministry requires intentional times of prayer to the Father. Jesus didn't just give us an example of prayer, but as the God-man he needed and lived on his communion with God. How much more true is that for us who are but men?

Let's open up our Bibles to the book of Mark. Chapter 1, verse 29. Mark 1, 29. And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever, and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her.

And he came to her and raised her up, taking her by the hand. And the fever left her, and she waited on them. When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon possessed and the whole city had gathered at the door. And he healed many who were ill with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he was not permitting the demons to speak because they knew who he was.

In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went away to a secluded place and was praying there. Simon and his companion searched for him. They found him and said to him, Everyone is looking for you. He said to them, Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for." Now, the first thing I want you to notice in verse 29 is the word immediately. As a matter of fact, you will find this throughout much of the book of Mark.

You will find the word immediately. Many exegetes have described the book of Mark as something like a series of photographs that have been stitched together with the word immediately. As a matter of fact, If you read the book of Mark, you know you've read it correctly if about halfway through the book you find yourself physically tired. I mean, Jesus is literally moving from one place to another, and it's just immediately, immediately, immediately, immediately. Now why do I bring that up?

I would have to say that's one of the best descriptions of a sincere ministry that I could give. What we see here, I see every day in my life. And there are not demands placed on me as great as many other men. But I can say that it seems like from the time I get up in the morning to the time I go to bed at night, it's immediately, immediately, immediately. Not merely in the ministry, but especially in my home.

I have a 17 year old, I have a 15 year old, I have an 11 year old, and even though I'm 57, I have a daughter who just turned three. And so there are demands. I have a wife. There are demands everywhere. And there is this idea of, Well, you get home and you think you're going to rest.

No, you're not going to rest. Your three-year-old daughter is at the door and wants to jump on the bed again. So you go up and it's not good enough for her to jump on the bed. You have to jump on the bed with her until, of course, mother comes up and you both get scolded. But it's just demands to the point where you almost feel like you're just running in a hamster wheel.

Now, so look in verse 29 through 31, we see that he's already coming from preaching in Galilee, and if you look in verses 14 through 28, there's just, he's surrounded by people, surrounded by ministry, and it's just engulfing him. And then verse 28, immediately the news about him spread everywhere. Verse 29, and immediately after they came out of the synagogue. Now, Do you remember when Jesus noticed that virtue went out from him, as it says in the King James, that power went out from him, that virtue went out from him? I think that most men who minister can understand that text in their own experience.

I'll give an example. When I'm preaching, I oftentimes feel as though virtue or strength has gone out of me. I'm very, very tired. I think it was one psychologist who said that In one hour of intense preaching will drain the faculties of a man more than eight hours of hard labor. I believe that to be true.

Especially counseling. There are times after preaching or during the day when I have to counsel someone and literally a couple of hours of counseling, and now that I'm in the end of my 50s, I find myself almost like I don't think I can do another thing the rest of the day, even though I have to. Study is exhausting. And I feel like virtue goes out of me. I have a chair.

I stand up when I'm studying for the sake of my back, but I have a chair over there where I will just sit down every hour and a half or two hours or so, and literally put my head in my hands and just feel like I can't go on. And then after two years ago, my heart attack, it seems like I'm far weaker than I've ever been. I don't know if I'll ever recuperate. And so we have this sense of there is so much to do, so many demands. So let's look at our Christ.

Verse 32, When evening came, so sometime after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon possessed. And the whole city had gathered at the door. Now, I remember years ago, I was working in the mountains of Peru. And there was this one place we were going to have a conference. It was Santa Rosa.

And it's just dirt, adobe, huts, that type of thing. People travel by horseback, saddles, burros, it's just very primitive. And a great move of God had occurred there, not through heart cry or through me, but through a native pastor by the name of Angel Comenares. And at that conference there was about 1100 people. Many of them had walked, you know, four days, five days through the mountains to get there.

Well, on that particular time, I brought a medical doctor with me, A friend of mine. The moment these godly people found out there was a medical doctor in their midst, I would have to say at times it was almost scary. These were people who had children that were terribly sick, who had so many ailments, who had no opportunity ever to go to a doctor, to have any hope of healing, any hope of some elievement, nothing. They almost tore down the door. The doctors stayed in an adobe hut for three days while a line of people stretched out to see him.

I mean, from morning until dark. And then, because a lot of times in these conferences you just sleep on the floor outside, sleep on the ground outside. They slept in front of the hut. And I mean, it was horrible. He was literally spent.

He didn't even know, you know, he couldn't even think anymore. And then the people who were angry because they would stand there for literally a day and a half and still not get to see him. And people pushing and shoving. Can you imagine how spent that doctor was? I mean he was literally drained of everything.

And the people were transformed in a negative way by their great need. So when you see this picture, don't think of some, you know, painting, medieval painting, where Jesus is in this beautiful long flowing robe and little children are around His feet and people are coming one at a time to be touched by Him. This is a situation, I can assure you, that looked like some sort of a mob attack. And He's already come from preaching in Galilee, from healing Peter's mother-in-law. And then now, and He's not just dealing with physical ailments, there are spiritual ailments, there are demon-possessed people, there are all things going on, and we know that virtue was going out of Him.

Strength was going out of him. Never forget in your defense of his deity, which is absolutely necessary, never forget what he did, he did as a man in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, but look what happens in verse 35. In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place and was praying there. Now, before I get into what I want to say about this, let me tell you what I don't want to say.

Men are made in their physical makeup, They're just simply different. I know men who basically live healthy lives with four and a half hours sleep a night, five hours sleep a night. Those types of men are rare. Most men need eight hours of sleep. Furthermore, we don't see vacations in the Bible.

So I can't say biblically the vacations are needed, but maybe they weren't needed because every seven days there was a vacation. So I am all for leading a balanced and biblical lifestyle. Absolutely. And so I'm not saying as we see here, I would imagine if Jesus, this probably, it started in the evening, it probably went past midnight, and then before the rising of the sun, Jesus is up and out praying. This is true and this is what He did.

This doesn't mean this is what He did every day. I want to be very clear on this. It doesn't mean that you're supposed to enter into some monastic type of lifestyle where you don't sleep and you run yourself ragged until you have no adrenals and you're no good for anyone. But there is a principle here. If there ever was a moment for him to forgo prayer, this was it.

If there ever was a moment for him to sleep in, this was it. And Not only because of the physical exhaustion, but also the need of the people. There were needy people here. There were countless people, as it's always mentioned, you know, by exegetes. You know, when Jesus went up into heaven in His ascension, there were still lost people, there were still sick people.

But this is immediate here. He can see them. They're right around Him. Why didn't He get up since there were so many people, and once again just immediately start meeting the needs of people. After all, isn't that what we would have done?

Now I want to show you something. How quickly pragmatism can enter into your life. Let's be pragmatic about this. There's all kinds of needs. I simply do not have time to pray.

You see? Now we're going to talk about some principles of prayer and how to pray and things like that, but I want you to see something. That's really not the problem here, is it? I mean, I hate to use an earthly illustration, but it would be wonderful to have a father to teach you the principles of how to ride a bicycle. But if you don't have that father and you know nothing about the principles, through due diligence you'll learn how to ride that bike.

How? Just by riding the bike. It's the same way with prayer. Our basic problem, even though there is problem with regard to knowledge, many people do not pray biblically. And yet that is not our chief concern.

Conrad Murrell was an old preacher in the south, kind of a reformed Leonard Ravenhill type of person, and an absolute just wealth of biblical knowledge. And he was also something of a character with the way he would communicate truth. A friend of mine who knew him very well said one day someone walked up to him in pastor and said, I'm going to have a conference on prayer. Do you know anybody I could get to speak in that conference?" Conrad tilted his head and thought and he said, No. No, I don't.

You don't? No. He said, I know men who pray and don't talk about it, and I know men who talk about it and don't pray, so no, I don't have anyone I can recommend for your conference. You see. But brothers, Jesus prayed.

Never forget, I think much more study ought to be done, and much more of the old material ought to be brought forth by orthodox men with regard to Christ's ministry and His humanity. A lot of times we just think, this is God walking around and not taking into consideration that yes, this is God. This is God who has taken upon Himself flesh and who did what He did. I can't say always, and I can't explain the line at all, but what He did, and the power of the Holy Spirit as a man to be that Adam, that triumphing Adam. And he got tired, and he got wore out, and he didn't pray just because it was something he was trying to leave us as an example.

He prayed because he lived on prayer, just like he lived on the Scriptures. Never forget, Abraham is really not the man of faith in the Bible. Jesus is. We especially see that in the garden. So he is our example, the man Christ Jesus.

He is our example. And He prayed because it was necessary for Him to pray. Even in the face of untold needs, it was necessary for Him to pray. And so it is with you, and so it is with me. Now I want us now to just move over just for a minute, and I want us to go to the book of Luke.

There's something unique about the book of Luke. Now don't get scared when I use this language. But, there's two elements that really stick out in the book of Luke more than in all the other gospel accounts. And I think they're related, I know they are. One is the prayer life of Jesus, and the other is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus.

Both of those things. It is amazing with what frequency Luke talks about the Holy Spirit, not only in the book of Acts, but in the book of Luke, and what he says about the prayer life of our Lord. And let's just look for a moment at Luke. We're just going to go through and look at a few passages. In Luke 15, 16, again, well, let's start Luke chapter 5, I'm sorry, verses 15 and 16.

It says, But the news about him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear him, and to be healed of their sicknesses. Brethren, the expense of this kind of ministry, the drain that it causes, and then 16, but Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. Now, I don't want you just to look at prayer. I want you to look at the idea of wilderness, the idea of solitude, the idea of being alone with God. When I was a young man, the first church that after my conversion I became member of a church, and the pastor there was unlike any man I've ever met since.

I've never... I saw conversions, I saw miracles in the life of people. I mean that in a biblical way. I saw works of extraordinary providence. I saw so many things.

He was indeed, he indeed, the title man of God belonged to him. Very unusual man. And one day I was called in to meet with him because I felt like the Lord had called me to be a preacher. I walk in, he was a loving man, but his presence was very kind of intimidating. He was about 6'5", silver hair going back like this, had a voice so deep.

And he didn't even look at me. I walked in and he's kind of looking over at his Bible and then he just looks up to me and he said, Boy, can you be alone? He just waited for an answer. And I was trying to think, because I was intimidated, I was trying to think, what does he mean? At first I thought he meant that, well, you know, if I preach the truth, you know, people are going to abandon me.

I'm going to be alone. I'm going to have to stand, you know. Then I realized that's not what he meant. He meant this. When all your other buddies are going on spring break Christian ski trips, when guys are running around, your young buddies in bachelor groups, when everyone's running around to hear this preacher and that preacher and this preacher and that preacher, can you pull yourself away from all that noise and just be a man shut up to God.

Can you do that? That right there. If a man will shut himself up unto God, then God will deal with that man. And shut himself up to God in the Scriptures and in prayer. Now before I go on, I want to share with you something.

I heard this, I don't remember exactly where, but I think it was Alexander McLaren, a Victorian age preacher that was greatly respected. He was known to spend 30, 60 hours on a sermon. I don't believe he was entirely Reformed, but if you read his stuff, you will find benefit from it. And he talked about boots on, boots off, or studying the Bible with your boots on, that it was work. And I developed from that, as a young man, I realized something.

That I must study the Bible with my boots on and my boots off. I must pray with my boots on and my boots off. Now what do I mean by that? Boots on. Right now I am looking at, in my studies, joy as a motivation for God's redemptive work, as one of the motivations for God's redemptive work.

Now, you ought to all of a sudden, as soon as you hear that, a red flag ought to come up and go hold it. Moving into an area where you need to be careful because God is self-sufficient and God does not gain joy from something outside of himself. Yes, I know that, but Edwards deals with it, and so does John Gill. And now so am I. Alright, but it's hard to work with that.

It's hard to wrap your mind around it, to look at all the texts, to see them properly, to look at Hebrews 12.2, to go on into Jeremiah, to look at Isaiah, he'll be satisfied. Look at all these different texts, look at the language, look at the Greek, the Hebrew, the construct, everything. You are studying the Bible with your boots on. You want to make sure that what you say is true. You don't want to go too far this way or too far that way.

You want to be right in the center of orthodoxy. And in the end, your brain is literally wore out. It's work. Much of studying the Bible is work. Preparing a sermon is work.

Lecture is work. And it's hard, and it's sweat, and it's blood. And sometimes it's not a lot of fun. Sometimes I just literally want to scream. If that's all you do in your study of the Bible, you're going to be in trouble.

You're going to be in a lot of trouble. So there's studying my Bible with my boots off. For me, I know a lot of people like Robert Murray McShane's reading list. I think it's fine. My brain really doesn't go that way.

So with me, I start in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, and I read until I get to the end of the book of Revelation, and then I start all over again. Basically, I'm able to enjoy around three to five chapters a day in which I'm just reading Scripture. And I may be sitting there at my table, I may have a cup of coffee, it's early in the morning, it's very quiet, and I am just wanting to know and enjoy God. Do you understand me? Brethren, brethren, please.

I do know men who their devotional life is their sermon preparation. They tell me, and they're godly men, so I will go with what they say, that that is sufficient for them. I'll be okay with that. I'm not going to judge anyone. But for me and my house, I see a decline in my sensitivity to God and everyone else around me if I am not practicing this life discipline of being alone with God and reading through the Scriptures.

Now one of the things about the Puritan genius, and when I say this, you need to understand, I am not a great scholar. I am not a Puritan, I am not Joe Beekie. One time I tried to impress Joe Beekie by saying, well, so and so, I think it was Flayville, in his Medatorial Glories in Volume 1 said this. And Joe Beekie goes, yes, that's an absolute passage, wonderful passage. Then he quoted the whole thing and told me what page it was on.

So then I decided I won't do that anymore. But one of the Puritans... Well, he didn't tell me what page it was on, but it was close. The thing I want you to see though is the Puritan genius was this. Most young reformed guys believe there's only two books in the whole Bible, Romans and Ephesians.

Honestly. And they can't understand Romans and Ephesians because they don't understand Zacharias. Honestly. Brethren, you know, you ask someone today, well, teach me something about the Holy Spirit. Okay, well, John 16.

The Puritan goes to some text you didn't even know was in the Bible, in the minor prophets, and begins to expound an entire book on the Holy Spirit. Why? Because they read the whole book. And brethren, that is such a neglect today. The whole Bible.

I want to tell you that my foundation of knowledge, you know, people ask me, oh, when would you have, if you could have been at any point in time in the life of Jesus and just observed, When would it have been? You know, many people say the Beatitudes, many would say the Cross. But for me, for long-term benefit, it would have been those 40 days in which He opened up the Old Testament. I mean, it would solve most of our problems today. I mean, eschatology, everything.

I mean, He told them how to interpret the Old Testament. Brethren, it is so necessary. As a matter of fact, I find that Although I read the Old Testament in light of the revelation of the new, that my greatest conviction of sin, lack of wisdom, of errors and judgment, all these different, lack of piety, it comes mainly from when I'm looking at the history of Israel. I mean, as soon as Israel gets its way out of Egypt, I mean, there it seems like the story of my life. And so, I haven't gotten off track.

I want you to see, because I want you to see this. You must have time where you just simply enjoy God's Word and you enjoy God. And it's not a time for you to look at a passage and go, Oh, I don't understand this and then run to your library. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it at that moment. Read through the Scriptures and enjoy them.

Please, I beg you. It's so wonderful to know that you don't have to get up out of bed in the morning and just start running. You can stop. This can be this wonderful time where no one can touch you. And just read.

Now, I want to say this before we go on. Prayer is the same way. People tell me, they go, oh, just prayer is so hard. I say, well, tell me about your prayer life. Just talk to me about it.

And what I find out is, they're right. Their prayer life is blood, sweat, and tears hard. Why? Because their prayer life consists in intercession. And intercession is no fun.

It's no more fun than me going to Afghanistan and fighting off a thousand terrorists in a bloodbath battle with guns firing. Intercession is hard. Intercession is warfare. Intercession is difficult. The devil doesn't want you interceding.

The flesh hates intercession. And if all I did was intercede, I believe my heart would shrivel up into nothing. Into just like a hard, Hollow casing. It's work. And it's supposed to be work.

It's hard and it's supposed to be hard. You're fighting all hell on your knees. And there's even a sense, and I don't want to open this can because I won't be able to close it, but there's a sense of wrestling and fighting with God. Taking hold of the horns of the altar. I will not let you go till you bless me.

He loves that kind of bold faith, if that bold faith is in light of a correct knowledge of his attributes and who he is. Okay? A lot of people can… One man can say what I just said and it's right. Another man can say it in another way and it's completely wrong. It's do you fear him.

For example, if you think Abba Father means you can call Him Daddy, you're in this camp, the wrong one. That's not what that means. It's a term of endearment, but not without the deepest reverence. Okay? In the same way, this idea of wrestling with God.

He delights in this, if it's according to His promises. Holding on to God. Persevering in prayer. But prayer is more than that, brethren. Being in the wilderness as Jesus was in the wilderness is more than...

Being in solitude is more than simply wrestling an intercession. There's not just prayer with your boots on, There's prayer with your boots off. Where I am just enjoying, talking, speaking, Quiet. Not some guru-ish type of meditation, that's not what I'm talking about, but just quiet, stilling your heart before the Lord, and talking to Him about everything. I find that the most powerful prayer I can pray for me that helps me, I'm a fearful man, many people don't know that, they hear my sermons on YouTube and they think It's really counter who I am.

I get afraid. I get full of anguish at times. And to get out of bed in the dark and be down on my knees and look up and say only this, You know. You know, O Lord. And then just be quiet and know that He knows.

Know that He knows everything. And then just to walk with Him. Like I said, I live in the woods. Just to walk, just to sit, just to think, just to delight. To talk to Him about beautiful things, to talk to Him about scary things, to talk to Him about things in your heart that feel empty, to talk to Him, just to talk to Him, and to be with Him, and to walk with Him, and to enjoy Him, and to appreciate Him.

Many times this occurs, of course, with an open Bible, as we're reading and enjoying the Scriptures, enjoying the God of the Scriptures. But it's a relationship with God, and relationships are built on spending time alone with God. And relationships are strained by not spending time alone with God. It's the same way with your own wife, is it not? Give me a man who'll be shut up to God.

Sometimes I just go, No more noise! I'm tired of the noise! Just noise! Noise in the pulpit, noise in conversation, noise everywhere! Will someone just shut up?

Quiet! In one poem It says, after Jesus cleared the temple, the noise and confusion gave way to His Word, at last sacred silence so God could be heard. Now, I'm going to get off track here, but this is really necessary. Let me show you why so much of theological preaching fails to reach the heart of the hearer. It's because it fails to reach the heart of the preacher.

And it fails to reach the heart of the preacher, not because of a lack of sincerity or devotion, but because of a lack of time. Now, We all may approach a text and study in different ways. For example, you have your G. Campbell Morgan's, your Martyn Lloyd-Jones would read the book that he was going to expound over and over and over and over and over, which of course is an absolute necessity. But then they come to a text and they'll read over it and get an idea.

Maybe some people will do outlining or arching, okay? You get an idea of what the flow of the passage, what are the primary points, what are the arguments, how does it function, and that. And then you go to, well let's look at this language here. Is there something in the Greek or the Hebrew that's going to give me a better understanding of this text? And you go on, you work yourself all the way through the nuts and bolts of it to the point where you get what?

You understand it. You're not a heretic. You understand it and you can bring out these points. And it's Saturday, And you've reached the point of understanding it, and now you're going to preach it. And that's where you fail.

Because you never had any time to feed upon it, to enjoy it, and for it to become part of you, and you to become a part of it. So that it's in you. And that's why, listen, I have a friend who on Monday, he says Monday is a difficult day for me as a preacher. And he said, so that's when I do all my nuts and bolts, Greek work, everything else, and get all the stuff nailed out. He wants to get it nailed out, get it done as quickly as possible.

Why? So he can spend the rest of the week simply enjoying the truth, feeding upon it, thinking about it, seeing it from different angles, like the facets of a diamond. Do you see? And then when you get up there, this thing is just a part of you. It doesn't mean you won't need notes, But there's something that's gone on now.

And I just wanted to throw that in, men. And look, everybody needs someone like my wife in their life that can grab a sword and be very scary. Someone who can protect you. You've got to protect yourself. If you have a church secretary, she needs to protect you.

Somebody needs to protect you. You need to have a time where unless someone dies, or someone's at the point of it or something, no one sees you, You're alone with God. Now even if you're not, if you're not a minister, this still applies to you. Because you are a minister in your home. And you are a minister in your workplace.

And so, you see here with Jesus, there was this constantly going off into the wilderness to pray. To pray. Now, I want to go on. Let's look at chapter 6 verse 12. It was at that time that he went off to the mountain to pray and he spent the whole night in prayer to God.

Every night should not be spent in prayer to God, because then you won't be worth much. But you have to ask yourself, when was the last time that I spent an extended period of time in prayer to God? And especially here, this is before the choosing of the Twelve. You have to make a decision at church. The appointment possibly of a new elder, the beginnings of it anyways, or there is a struggle at church or a problem.

And this is for the individual and the congregation. Richard Owen Roberts uses a phrase that I've taken to heart, and I put it in a manual that I've done on fasting, and it's called the Solemn Assembly. And that is, in our church here, our elders have it set up so that they pray a lot. I mean, honestly, they really do. And then there are times when it's a time dedicated to the praying for the needs of the church.

Really, it's not a town meeting where everyone just gossips, It's really praying for the needs. But then there are times when it seems like these needs build up, and there are some extraordinary things, and they'll call something like a solemn assembly, where it's like, we've got to put everything aside as a church, and we have to pray. And I've seen that go on for up to three hours, where the church is just praying. Maybe it's about a woman who is barren, or a disciplined case, or something that's going on. You see.

Now, it's this idea again of returning always to the wilderness. One is for intercession, one is for communion. Now, look at 9.18 again, what it says about Jesus. And it happened that while He was praying, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them. And then look at verse 28, some eight days after these sayings, He took along Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

I could go on and on and on, but I think the point has been made. Our Lord was a man of prayer. If our Lord was a man of prayer, How much more do we need to pray? Now, I have had the privilege of knowing many godly men. Who are now not with us, and I've had the privilege of reading about many Godly men who are no longer with us.

I've never found one man who, as he was coming to the point of crossing Jordan, looked back and said, I regret that I prayed too much. But every one of them has said, including one of my all-time favorites, Martin Lloyd-Jones, I wish I had prayed more. And yet Bethany Jones says about him, you will never understand my husband as an evangelist, as an expositor, if you do not understand him first, as a man of prayer. So when he said that, please don't put him in our category. He was a man of prayer.

And yet, even he said He wished he had prayed more. Have you ever met a man who regretted praying too little about every man you meet? About every man you meet? All? Well, I won't say all because that would be wrong, because If the Lord won battles based on our prayer life, we would be in a very troubled place.

But I want to say that prayer is the beginning, middle and end of everything. Sometimes You'll meet a person, you'll hear them preach, you'll even know their personality. You'll maybe even see things that don't quite add up. They seem silly or a jokester or... And you can't figure out.

They're not really that great a preacher, yet people get saved. They're not really this, but they seem to have an impact. They seem to be too jovial at times and not serious, and yet all of a sudden A seriousness falls over everybody. There are things that are unexplainable about men, and most of those are due to prayer, to the grace of God. You can't...

Now there is sovereignty. For example, you cannot explain a Charles Spurgeon or a Martyn Lloyd-Jones apart from sovereignty. You cannot explain it apart from a sovereign grace that not only saved them, but made them. God wasn't looking all over England trying to find a Charles Spurgeon he could use. He made one.

He wasn't looking all over England. Gosh, he looks a lot in England, doesn't he? He wasn't looking all over England to find a Martin Lloyd Jones. He made a Martin Lloyd Jones. So I want you to see that.

And yet, we can say we do not have because we do not ask. And maybe we could turn that a little bit. We are not because we do not ask. I sometimes think about, And I'm sure you men can identify with me on this. I'll pray for something.

And I'll commit myself to pray for it. Pray for it for five days and then forget about it for five years. And then I remember it. Why? Because all of a sudden, God just did something wonderful.

And I'm sitting there going, Man, He just out of the blue did this. And then I realized, Yeah, this was the thing you committed to pray for until it happened and you didn't fulfill. How gracious He is in answering our prayers. When I look at the monumental answers He has given me for the most pathetic, And I'm not saying this trying to be humble, I'm trying to be truthful, so on the last day you don't see me as a hypocrite. I'm telling you pitiful praying that has led to extraordinary answers.

Why is my heart so cold that it's not motivated to devote more time to prayer. As my Lord prayed, you see. Now, look in Luke 11. In Luke 11, we see something extraordinary. Verse 1, it happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray.

Just as John also taught his disciples. Let me ask you a question. Has anyone ever listened to you praying, and then walked up to you and said, Could you teach me to pray like that? I'm not talking about someone asking you to exposit a text. Has anyone ever heard you praying and walked up to you and said, listen, I'm sorry, I was just overhearing, But could you teach me to pray like that?

You know, I find it amazing. Jesus cast out demons. He really did. When He said He did it, He did it. They were really there and they really came out.

He really walked on water. He really did that. He stopped storms. OK? He raised the dead.

I find it quite amazing that we never have an account of His disciples saying, Can you teach me to walk on water? Because that was amazing. Can you teach me to raise the dead because that was the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen. Usually, we ask someone to teach us something that is most extraordinary in their life. Could it be that the most extraordinary thing about Jesus was His prayer life?

It wouldn't surprise me, knowing His intimacy with the Father, and how it must have manifested, been displayed in His communion with the Father. I know they had never seen anything, they had never heard anything like that before. The way He addressed the one He has known throughout all eternity. You see. Now, just quickly, I dealt with this actually this last weekend.

I've dealt with it in many churches. I want us to go for just a moment to Matthew 6. And the Lord's Prayer, verse 9, Pray then in this way, our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread." I'm going to end there for emphasis because we're running out of time. Dr.

Piper made it kind of well-known, but others have said it, not in this way, but with the same meaning, that prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie. Now we have to be careful with that, but when you look at this text, that's exactly what you're seeing. And most churches don't understand it, and they're not led to understand it, and most people don't understand it. Now, first of all, pray then in this way. Imperative, my friend.

It's a command. You want to know how to pray? Pray this way. I mean, who prays this way? Almost nobody.

I listen to prayers. I listen to prayers. Very few people do I find praying this way. Now when I say praying this way, I am not saying repeating this, as in Catholicism, but there is a core teaching here about prayer, and I want you to see it and I want you to teach it to your church, if you want your church to be according to the Reclative Principle in prayer. Now, in most churches, what is it?

A prayer meeting is basically a town meeting or a gossip meeting. Does anyone have a prayer request? Yeah, Auntie Em's knee. Yeah, Bill and Sally are getting a divorce. Yeah, did you hear about what the mayor did?

And it goes on for 25 minutes and then there's five minutes of prayer. That has nothing to do with Scripture. As a matter of fact, I appreciate what our elders did here. I can say that because I'm not an elder. I appreciate what our elders did here, in that at first you could see them taking almost total reign over the prayer time.

And then little by little, as the church learned to pray from their example and their model, could give the church more freedom. But here are some things that I want you to see. First of all, this is a command, my friend. And we don't have this any other place. This would be taken super seriously.

You all know how to pray? Pray this way. Now, first of all, look at the psychology of prayer. Our Father who is in heaven. This is a perfect, perfect attitude and disposition for prayer.

Our Father. How does that invite us to pray? Our Father without fear, our Father. And then there's the other part, who art in heaven. Your Father is in heaven.

Your Father is the ruler of the universe. Your father is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I'm reminded of that famous photo of John F. Kennedy. He's seated in the Oval Office behind the presidential desk where, because of that position, men would tremble to walk in that office.

And as in many desks, you know, there was kind of a hole that went through or whatever where you could, you know, where you put your legs and then it was open in the front. And His son was inside the desk underneath by his feet playing with some toys. He was the most powerful man in the world at that time. And yet Here's his son, because he is a son, is playing there at his feet. You have to hold these things in attention.

He is my Father. My Father is a consuming fire. He is my Father. He's Lord of Lords. He's King of kings.

Hold that in attention. How can you do that? Only through studying the attributes of God. If you do not study the attributes of God, you cannot do this. Your church will never be able to pray correctly if you do not teach them the attributes of God.

The reason why there is so much idolatry in the church is because the attributes of God are not taught and people are worshipping a God they made with their own mind that looks just like themselves. And why is there so much ignorance? Because Preachers do not preach on the attributes of God. And why do they not preach on it? Because most pastors are ignorant of the attributes of God.

Never forget Jeremiah 9, Wise men shouldn't boast in their wisdom, strong men in their strength, boast in your knowledge of God. I could go on with this. I mean this is a big deal guys. Guy comes to me with his PhD, I always do this. Don't ever come to me and go, man I got my PhD.

Now PhD is a thing honorable to have. Praise God for men who have their PhDs. I don't think I would understand the Greek preposition pata if it wasn't for men with their PhDs. This is what I always ask them. So before you went to Bible college, as a Christian, how many years did you devote to studying the attributes of God?

And they go, well, I read my Bible. Okay. When you went to Bible college, you were there four years? Yes. How many of those years were devoted to studying the attributes of God?

Well, I took one semester of systematic theology and we talked about the attributes I guess for about a week. So when you went to get your masters, how many of those years were dedicated to studying the attributes of God? Well again, I had two systematic courses and in those we studied the attributes of God. We touched on it. It was about a month and a half.

Okay, in your PhD, how many years did you spend studying the attributes of God? Well, my PhD was in something else. Do you see what's going on? Now, I think we need men who have a PhD in Greek prepositions. I honestly do, because they help us interpret the Bible.

But do you see what I'm trying to get at? There are so few men that have devoted themselves to trying to know who God is. And so you can't have this proper attitude in prayer. You need to know Him. Israel was sinning and God said, you're doing all these things because you thought I was like you.

So that, first of all, now I know I'm over time so let's just quickly go through this. Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. Now, this is like three petitions, but in a sense it's one. It's kind of like three facets on a diamond. Okay?

Hallowed be your name. When people think of the holiness of God, they automatically think of sinlessness. And that's not what it means. The idea is separateness. Now, He's holy in His righteousness.

But let me put it this way for you. God is separate. He is not like us, just bigger. He is an entirely other category. That's why even liberal theologians would talk about the otherness of God, or Jewish Orthodox theologians, the otherness of God.

He's not in our category. It's not a quantitative difference. It is a qualitative difference, completely different category. And when he's saying, Hallowed be your name, you're praying, God, that your name be separate, that it be separated from all other names, placed in a category all to itself without competing loyalties. There's you, Here's everybody else.

Now, these three petitions, what do they most reflect? The heart of Jesus Christ. Now when he says pray, What is your first thing to pray about? That God's name be separated. That is the most important thing in all your praying.

That God's Name. That we have, that we ourselves, the one praying, that the church and that everyone in the world have a right estimation of the value, infinite value of God, and see Him in a category completely distinct from everything else. That's why putting God in a conjunctive relationship is always wrong. It's not God and King, God and country. The only time you can have a conjunctive relationship in the context of God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Do you see that? So, and this should be reflected in our own prayer life. And it's not something you mention once every month or something. This is the basis of everything. Our Father who art in heaven, my greatest desire is that in me, in me as a man, that your name be esteemed, valued above everything else.

That there's no competing loyalties. It's the same thing Jesus meant when He said, blessed are the pure in heart, unalloyed, no competing loyalties. That I estimate you properly. That's why we can say that God loves Himself above all other things because He has a correct estimation of Himself. You see.

And so that's the goal. Can you imagine you living that out? That growing in you. You should be asking for that to grow in you. Can you imagine that growing in your congregation?

You try to whip your congregation into shape. You try to maybe manipulate them into shape. All these things. No, they just need to know more about God. And value Him.

Grow in their estimation of Him. And then our goal is that when I go on those secular campuses, then I'm going there so that this will happen. That people will begin to put God in the category where He is. Do you see that? That's what prayer is about.

And then your kingdom come. God, I would love to have the next several hours to talk about the kingdom, to talk about the church. But it's the reign of God in Christ into every Arian facet of life. That's what you're crying out for. Instead of complaining about Washington or this or that, you're crying out.

You've made the Messiah your King. He reigns. Let that expand the influence of it, the reality of it. Let it take over the world. This is a church that can't sleep at night because it sees places where this is not realized.

You see that? And so, I am praying as an individual in the microcosm for myself, Lord, that this rain of Yours become a reality in every aspect of my life. And then I look out at the church, Lord, that this rain becomes so evident and manifested in your people. And then I look at Washington and the world and Communist China and everywhere, Lord, your rain. That's the one thing that I think, you know, I am not a post millennialist, but don't laugh because I understand what they're saying.

And if you look at some of the greatest movements in the history of the world, they were men who were post-millennial, because they didn't hang their head thinking, everything's just going to get worse all the time. They had the idea of Christ riding triumphant. And I want to tell you something, I appreciate that. And I do what they believe in that aspect, I believe. I need to believe.

I must believe that. And face it guys, you need to let Scripture and the seed of Christ, I don't mean seed, s-e-e-d, I mean His session. You need to let the session of Christ determine your attitude with regard to this world and not CNN or Fox News. Christ is reigning. His purposes are rolling on.

They cannot be conquered. And you need to know that. And you also need to understand, like I said, I am not post-millennial. But I understand what's going on there, why they believe what they believe, and I appreciate much of what they're saying. And when it comes down to eschatology, the whole thing is not who's right, who has the least amount of holes in their argument.

It's difficult. But you see, this is what I want you to look out and go, none of this is bigger than the one seated on the throne. My goodness! Oh, it's all getting so dark. It can't be dark when light rains.

Well, all these rulers... Listen, there haven't been really any rulers or kingdoms in two thousand years. There's a rock that was made, cut out, without any hands, and it destroyed them all. And there's only one real king and only one real kingdom. The rest of this is just a bunch of little boys sitting on papier-mâché thrones with little tin crowns on their head.

Do you see that? Well, you need to believe it. You need to pray that way. Thy kingdom come. Roll on.

Roll on. Mighty, mighty is He. Don't grovel before world leaders. Pity them. Cry out to them, Kiss the Son now, before He turns against you, then it will be too late.

He will crush you. If all the armies of the world and hell, future, past and present, all got together and came against the throne of Christ, it would be like a little gnat beating its head against a world of granite. Christ reigns. Man, I'm going to get happy if I keep saying these things. That's the way we need to, and our churches need to pray this way.

Instead of having all these things about what they saw on the news and coming in. No, show them this resurrected Lamb, this God, this man, sitting on the throne. Our brother, triumphant. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. So when I pray that, as in all these things, it's also a commitment.

When I say, hallowed be thy name, I am devoting myself to God's name being hallowed in me, in the church, and in the world. When I say, Thy kingdom come, I am saying, I want your kingdom in me. I want it to be evident in me, manifest in me, in my family, in my church. I want your will to be done. I devote myself to your will.

Help me to understand your will in every aspect of my life. You see, I love democracy. But my friend, there's drawbacks in understanding our relationship with Christ coming from a democracy. He doesn't leave things open here. He is an absolute ruler and he has ordered everything in the universe.

The word cosmos itself, you think, well that means world. No, actually it means order. Ordered. He's ordered everything. And it's our job to know what it is and order our life according to it.

Not for justification, not some sort of twisted legalism. But having been justified through faith in Christ, being declared righteous before the throne of God, and being treated as righteous, we now take up this wonderful law, and we seek to live it out. And prayer is part of that. It's a big aspect of that. I want to tell you something, I preached myself into joy.

That thing about the reigning of Christ, I think I probably won't sleep tonight. I'll just probably run around my house or something. Isn't it amazing when we're just messed up? Do you realize that? We don't talk about this enough.

How great He is on that throne. You start to the point where your people will start pitying the power players of this world when Christ is preached correctly.