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I want to start by setting expectations for today. This is going to be a training session, not a lecture. I need you to be a smart class, an attentive class, and specifically today, a notetaking class. Even if you normally don't take notes, today you do. I'm teaching on how to build your prayer life, and this is something you'll want to write down.
On Sunday, I shared something important: prayer is not the preparation for the battle, but prayer is the battle itself. Think about that for a moment. I've been thinking about how many people aren't ready for battle—even people raised in church who don't know how to accurately pray according to God's word.
Let me be honest with you: it's not your fault that you don't know how to pray. It's on us, the pastors. Our responsibility isn't just to tell you to pray; it's to teach you how to pray. Prayer is so essential. I referenced the story of Elijah on Sunday—he was caught between a famine and extreme provision. The vehicle between both of those was his prayer life. The only way he got out of famine into promise was through prayer. Nothing was changing until he went to prayer, and when he did, his entire life began to provide the things he was expecting from God.
Here's what I want to challenge you with: It's not that God doesn't want to give it to you. It's that you don't have a prayer life that matches what you're asking for.
This isn't going to be a shame session. I promise you, by the time you leave today, you will know how to pray. There's going to be no excuse. You're going to be going to the throne room as often as you can.
Luke 11:1 tells us something beautiful. It says that once Jesus was in a certain place praying, and as he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray." Just as John taught his disciples, it's the pastor's responsibility not just to tell you to pray, but to teach you how to pray.
The disciples saw something in Jesus. They saw him always going to prayer, but they were never included. Here's the reality: when you really love God, prayer time isn't for everybody all the time. You can't always have a part in someone's prayer life.
I don't mind corporate prayer—it's cool to have a partner, it's cool to get with the group in the church with the men and the women. I love that. But I need my time. Sometimes I need to talk to God about you. Sometimes I need to talk to God about your partner. Sometimes I need to talk to God about the person I'm praying with, and I can't say it because they're going to open their eyes, offended.
The disciples saw this in Jesus and said, "Lord, we envy your communication with the Father." They weren't asking him to stop praying privately. They were asking him to let them join him in that intimacy.
We find ourselves in Matthew 6, where Jesus exposes what we call the purpose of prayer. Look at Matthew 6:5:
"When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on the street corners and in the synagogues or the church house where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get."
I have a warning for my intercessors: You dare not pray in church more than you pray at home. You cannot be a person that only taps into God when you get in the temple—only taps into God when it's time to pray for somebody else. But at home, God is calling your name with no response.
It can't just be, "Oh, when I GET IN HERE, I'M READY TO PRAY FOR SOMEBODY." God is saying, "I sure would love if you kept that energy at home." Some of us pray powerfully when it comes to other people, while our own prayer lives are suffering from absence and abstinence. We're missing it.
He uses a very aggressive word here: hypocrites. Jesus doesn't sugarcoat the truth. Whatever he's challenging us to grow in, he doesn't make it more palatable. Jesus would have been cancelled every Sunday in our culture because he goes to the synagogue, to the temple, and tells the person praying on the stage: "You're a hypocrite, because your life is not as powerful as your public prayer."
He's calling it out. We shouldn't pray to be seen. We should pray to be heard.
Verse 6 says:
"But when you pray, go away by yourself. Shut the door behind you and pray to the father in private. Then your father who sees everything will reward you."
The King James version adds the word openly. It's critical. When God blesses you, God is not going to bless you under a basket. God is going to bless you on the public platform so that everybody that saw you will know God's hand is on your life. But here's the thing: they won't know why God's hand is on your life.
People ask me, "Pastor Kenneth, how is it that 20,000 young people said yes to Jesus in just seven years? What's happening? How can you do what you do?" I'm not special. I promise you, I'm not. I just understand what prayer does. Prayer and spending time before God can take a regular person and make them seem supernatural. It can take an ordinary person and make them extraordinary—not because they're good, but because they tapped into glory in the prayer room.
Jesus is teaching us a practice: "When you're getting ready to pray, go away by yourself and close the door." Now, I'm not saying you need a physical door. What he's saying is close the gap. There are some things that God needs to deal with you on that nobody else can be in the room for. There are certain things God needs to talk to you about that nobody else can be present for.
I've learned this about my personal prayer life: if I had to pray with other people in the room, I would never be brutally honest. When you pray around other people, you pray churchy. You know what I'm talking about.
"And then, Father, we release in this moment that you God are like..."
It sounds good, but God is not getting to your heart. It's when you're by yourself that you're real. You're like, "God, this ain't a good week for me. God, my life doesn't look like I'm keeping the promise I made you at church. God, I'm struggling in some areas that I can't stay around my corporate team." Private time is necessary. Jesus says, "Close the door. Close the gap."
Here's the real problem: The reason most of us don't lean into prayer is because we don't value time with God the way we value time with people. We value time with people. Some of us are more consistent to church than we are to prayer because we value a dollar. We're more consistent to work than we are to prayer. We value relationships. We're more consistent with people than we are with prayer.
Prayer checks your heart because nobody sees it. There's nobody there to say, "You prayed really well this morning." There's nobody there to give you a round of applause. So now I have to see if your heart loves Him. Your heart is challenged the most when you don't get the credit.
When you serve in church and nobody really acknowledges how much you serve, then your heart is on display. Do you get offended and say nobody sees how much you sacrificed? Or do you say, "I never did it for people in the first place. Everything I did, I did as unto the Lord."
If God is everything to you, then why do you talk about Him more than you talk to Him? You know what challenges us? When somebody mentions your name and you know it's somebody you don't really talk to. It's like, "Wait, are they talking about me?" And they're like, "Yeah, I'm talking about you." You're like, "No, you're using my name, but you don't know me. You're referencing my name, but you don't know me."
It's nothing worse than telling everybody how much you love God, but when they all leave, you won't spend time with Him. It's nothing worse than saying, "Oh, I love my wife so much!" when you're at church, but when church is done, she's like, "But you won't spend time with me." You make public declarations, but it's not who you are when nobody gives you applause.
I want to challenge us today. This isn't for some of you who are new and growing. But for others of us who've been with God for a while, Jesus is saying: "I've been with you, but you haven't been with me. I've come to you, but you haven't been coming to me."
A strong private prayer life increases public favor. This is critical. If you want to grow in favor, increase your prayer life at home. When you increase your prayer time at home, God opens public favor for you. God starts to trust you more.
Listen to this: The people that spend the most time with me can get the most out of me. The people that live in my house get the most out of me. The people that live in my presence get the most out of me. If it's not about religion, it's about relationship.
Let me prove this with Scripture. When Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, he only brings three disciples and leaves nine out. Out of these three, they all fall asleep. Jesus comes back. He does not wake up all three. He wakes up Peter. There is a closeness between him and Peter.
Look at Luke 22:31-32:
"Peter, when I was praying, I heard that Satan has desired y'all that he may sift y'all as wheat. But when I heard that your name came to my heart, and I began to pray for you, Peter, that your faith wouldn't fail you, and that after you've been converted, go get the other 11."
Peter is getting more out of Jesus because Peter spends more time. After the resurrection, Jesus goes and finds them and says, "Peter, do you love me more than these?" And Peter says, "You know everything. You don't even have to ask that question." He said, "Feed my sheep."
Why is Peter getting so much? Because Peter spends more time. God doesn't play favorites. He just feeds the hungriest. Peter wants more from me, so I'm going to give him more. If you're comfortable sitting on the outside, comfortable getting a little bit of blessing and standing in the back row, God will give you everything you ask for. But for the one that's hungry, that says, "One thing I desire and that will I seek—that I will behold the beauty of the Lord and dwell in His temple," that person gets more from God.
Your Bible says:
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
You have to be full, not just fed. God's promise is that you will be filled, not just fed. If my appetite is bigger than yours, He has to give me more than He gave you. God will skip over the one who's been in it longer to get to the hungrier one.
Saul got arrogant. Saul got cocky. "I'm the king, and God chose me. I'm tall, I'm handsome, and I'm going to do what I got to do." But it was a little boy named David that was hungry in the backyard. God said, "Okay, Saul, keep acting up. I will replace you with another one better."
Now, let me teach you how to actually pray. Jesus gives us a model in Matthew 6, and there are seven steps to building a prayer life.
Matthew 6:9 says:
"After this manner, therefore, pray ye. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."
Jesus is the first one to teach that when you pray, God isn't just God—He's Abba. He's Father. Jesus is the first to introduce coming out of religion and stepping into relationship.
He acknowledges God's deity, His sovereignty, how big and amazing He is. And he uses the term "hallowed be thy name." That word means the name is sanctified, set apart, and kept in its own lane.
You can never receive from what you don't honor. I'm telling you, different members get different versions of God because the people that honor get something different.
Look at the woman with the issue of blood. Everybody else is pulling on Jesus and getting nothing. Everybody else is trying to touch him, trying to be famous, not touch the anointing. But there was a woman who said:
"That's not just a man. That's the Messiah. That's the Son of the living God."
A lot of you are trying to be famous and trying to be cool and sit with the disciples at the table. But she said, "I don't need a seat at the table. I need a piece of His robe. I just need something to touch me. I believe that if I touch the hem of His garment, because I'm not touching a man—I'm touching the Son of God—if I touch the hem of His garment, I will be made whole."
And she pulled something out of Jesus that nobody else could pull. Nobody else made Jesus heal them. Jesus didn't have a choice. He was like, "Somebody touched me and pulled anointing out of me." But she was only able to do that because she honored.
Here's the reality: How is it that the same man, one woman got healed from a lifetime of sickness because she honored, while one man sold him for the cost of a slave because he dishonored? One saw He was the Son of God and holy. The other got too comfortable. He got too common with Him. "Why are they pouring oil on His feet? People are praising Him when He's coming through, and we're just walking through. They're saying hosanna, and He gets offended. Why? Because he got so common with who he was submitted to that he couldn't receive anymore."
But the woman at a distance said, "I'm not going to spend enough time to get too comfortable. I want to honor you, and I don't need you to talk to me. I don't need a meeting. I don't need you to hear my problems. I just need one touch from the Lord."
When you honor, you can pull stuff ahead of time. You can pull stuff ahead of time based on how you honor.
Let me give you one more story. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus is at a wedding and they run out of wine. His mother comes and says, "Jesus, they run out of wine." He says, "What does that have to do with me? I am a guest at the wedding. You running out of wine is not my concern. That has nothing to do with me. I'm not on it. I'm only going to do what the Father says to do. I'm only going to say what the Father tells me to say, but I don't move outside of God's timing."
And she said to the servants, "Whatever he says, do it." She didn't say, "I understand. Let's wait." She said, "I believe God is going to do something if I keep standing in faith. Just do whatever He says."
And the same One who said it wasn't His time said, "Go fill those pots with water." Wait, I thought it wasn't His time? Jesus isn't a liar. So that means she pulled it into her day. She said, "God, I'm not waiting another season to see my son step into glory. I'm not waiting another season to see what You promised me. An angel came to my bedroom and told me I was carrying the Son of God. I'm not waiting another season to see what You said was going to happen."
There are some things you're waiting on, and they're waiting on you. You're saying "2025 is going to be my year," but you're only saying that because you stopped believing this would be this year. The year's not even up. You still have time. What do you think God can do in the remaining days? He built all of this in six days and rested on the seventh. How dare you think God can't do it.
So, the first step: Address God personally and honorably. Write down how you personally honor God's name. Here are some examples:
What's yours? I want you to write it down. Type it, write it. You're going to use this for the next seven days.
One of my favorite things to call God is faithful. What I've seen from God is faithfulness. Psalm 37:25:
"I've been young and now I'm old. I've never seen the righteous forsaken, nor the seed of God begging for bread."
God is faithful.
Secondly, submit to God's will. This is surrender. Verse 10 says:
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
He says, "Not just Your kingdom coming, but God, Your will has to be done here as it is in heaven."
Here's the issue: There is no argument about obedience to God in heaven. One person tried and got kicked out so quick, nobody tries it ever again. There is no argument about obedience in heaven. What we're praying is, God, give us the same pure desire to obey You. Allow my life to be fully surrendered to Your will. And that means erasing the things that I planned. Erasing the things that I want.
Write down the areas of your life that need to align with God's will:
You simply say, "Lord, let Your will guide my home, my heart, my relationships, my decisions." Before you buy the house, ask, "Is this Your will?" Before you buy the car, ask, "Is this Your will?" Because the last thing you want to do is buy a car that's going to require faith just to pay the note every month.
This is faith. The beautiful thing Jesus says is this: You cannot ask for weekly provision. You can't ask for monthly provision. You can't ask for yearly provision. Why does he do this? Because He's saying manna is only for today. This manna spoils tonight. Which means that if you get a brand new mercy and grace tomorrow morning, it deserves a brand new prayer. That's why we pray daily.
Verse 11 says:
"Give us our daily bread."
So list your present needs spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Deuteronomy 8:3 says:
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."
I learned a long time ago that God, more than physical bread, I need Your voice in my life. I'm a pastor. I'm a man of God. I'm an intercessor. I'm a prophet. I speak God's word. I cannot move without Your voice. More than food, I need Your voice.
But what is it for you? What's the daily bread thing you need? For some of you, you battle with so much insecurity, you need daily bread of confidence. For some of you, you battle with your identity and you have imposter syndrome. God, I need confidence. I need to know who I am in You.
Sometimes the enemy will come and try to distract you right in the middle of when you're getting ready to pray. Every time right in the middle of you getting ready to say, "God, I need provision," something will happen to get your mind off of it. Some of you have needs right now, and the hope of the enemy is that you don't learn what you need to learn, because he can't beat you any other way. You've been beating yourself with a prayerless life.
What do you need mentally? For some of you, it's mentally. "I have imposter syndrome. I got to pray every day about my identity because God, I get in certain rooms and I start comparing myself to other people. I start comparing my gift to other gifts. I start wondering why I don't have what they have. So every day I have to reenter myself in my identity in Christ."
What do you need physically? Some of you need physical healing. It could be health. It could be discipline.
Example prayer:
"Lord, provide wisdom in my marriage, strength to handle this grief, and peace for the chaos at work today."
When you understand that prayer is supposed to be daily, it becomes so much easier. When you're just praying the same thing over and over, like the Gentiles, saying the same thing every day, it explains why you're not excited to do it tomorrow. Give us this day our daily bread. You're not even thinking about what you're saying. You're becoming repetitive with no power.
Matthew 6:12 says:
"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
Identify where you need God's grace. Then identify who you need to extend that same grace to. Write down their names. What friend? What family member? What person did you have to drop, or they dropped you, and now you're trying to release this?
You need grace every day, but you need to give it every day as well. The Bible says that I can ask for what I want to extend.
So if I'm asking God for forgiveness, God says, "My forgiveness is directly connected to how I release others." When you pause and a name comes to your head, it means you should write it down. When a name comes to my head during forgiveness prayer, that means I haven't fully processed or fully released that name.
Sometimes you can tell yourself you forgave someone. "Oh yeah, I forgave them." And it's not until something else comes up and you're like, "I knew something about you. I should have never. I should have never. I should have never." And then you start bringing up all the skeletons you said you buried, and you use those bones as a defensive wall against that person now.
But here's the thing: How many times has God had to forgive you of the same thing? We say stuff like, "I mean, I forgave them, but they did the same thing over. It's a slap in the face." And God is like, "Wow."
If you're going to ask God to release you of all the stuff you did, you've got to release others of the few times they messed up with you. Even if they messed up your whole life, it's still a few times compared to your whole life of messing up with God.
Example prayer:
"Forgive me for the areas where my mind gets stuck on wrong thoughts. Lord, I release those who've thought wrong thoughts about me."
I'm challenging you because I know some of you will say amen and not change. Faith without works is dead. I don't want you to say amen to me and miss God.
This is self-discipline. Matthew 6:13 says:
"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
He's saying that every single last one of us, if you're living right now, you're going to deal with some form of temptation. The thing that I hate is that when people act like they won't have some form of temptation. Every temptation is going to be different. I'm not saying every temptation is lust or drugs, but it could be pride. It could be ego. It could be unforgiveness. It could be laziness with obeying God. It could be a lack of prayer.
We all have something that we're tempted to do that God is saying, "No." Even Jesus was tempted to say, "Not this cup. I'll do anything else, but I don't want this one." And God was like, "That's actually the main one I'm calling you to."
Every person in this room will have something. The question is: "God, I need you to help lead me, steer me away from temptation."
You've been saved for a long time? That means you can exempt the human experience? It's just not real. I know old fools every day. Living a long time doesn't mean you learned a lot. You've done a lot of things in your life? Yes. But did you finish a lot of them? Did God approve the things you've done?
Write down what areas you've been tempted in or have struggled with lately. Ask God to help steer you away from those things.
I went through a season where I started being snappy with people. I'm a very kind person and I see the best in people, but I got to a point where I was like, "Man, no, folks ain't dumb. You're playing in my face." And then I realized: "Oh God, steer me away from leaning into my humanity and not into Your Spirit."
Example prayer:
"Lord, I really feel lust, pride, and distractions trying to creep back in my heart, but I'm resisting it. Please give me the strength to honor you with my heart and my mind."
It could be lust. It could be pride. It could be bitterness. It could be anger. It could be unforgiveness. One thing about unforgiveness: Sometimes you have to remind your heart you forgave somebody. It isn't a one-time thing. You can forgive somebody and then a week later, a new detail comes out about what they did. And it's like, "Wait, you did that too?" And you have to remind yourself: "Hey, you released it. You let it go. Remember, you said you're not holding on to it."
Your heart will go and grab anything that makes it feel sensitive or insecure.
This is trust. When He said, "Deliver us from evil," notice He wasn't saying, "Go out and find evil and kill it." He said, "Listen, there are some attacks that you don't even know where they came from."
Transparently, have you ever been in a place where you were living for God and all of a sudden, serious attacks just hit you, and you're like, "I don't literally know why all these attacks just hit me right now." That's real spiritual warfare.
The unfair thing about spiritual warfare is that you get pulled into it before you realize it. Imagine this: the only way that fights start, you don't know. You're just sitting there and somebody blindsides you with a punch and you're like, "I'm in a fight." You didn't ask for it. You weren't ready. That's literally how fighting in the spirit is.
You get a bad report from the doctor. Somebody in your family is diagnosed with something they can't get rid of. You're loving your spouse and they don't love you back one day. You were doing good at work and layoffs just happen to be your position. You weren't ready for this. You literally got blindsided.
This is the reason why you got to pray every day. God, I don't know when spiritual attacks are coming, but I know that You can deliver me. I know that You can keep me.
When Peter was getting ready to go through, the only person that knew was Jesus. Jesus said, "Peter, Satan has desired you that he may sift you as wheat. But I prayed for you, Peter, that your faith wouldn't fail you."
Write what you need God's protection from today: people, addiction, strongholds, attacks, even yourself, and unknown attacks.
Romans 8:26 says:
"For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered."
You will go through times in your life where you're like, "I genuinely don't know how to pray for this. I don't know if I'm supposed to go through it so that I can give God glory in a hard thing, or is it the enemy that I'm supposed to rebuke and speak away? Or are you going to use my light in the middle of this while people are looking at me and I'm going to stay in peace and in joy?"
Sometimes you got to say, "Holy Spirit, do it for me. Deliver me from the evil one." Whether it be an outside attack or me attacking myself. For some of us, our biggest enemy is actually ourselves. It's not Satan. Satan just knows what you like. Satan can't make you fall, but he can give you the option to choose what you always secretly wanted.
That's why when Jesus was hungry after 40 days, Satan said, "Hey, turn this stone into bread. I know you're hungry." And Jesus said, "I won't do anything that God hasn't given me permission to be able to do."
This is worship again. Prayer starts with worship and ends with worship. Starts with praise and ends with praise.
Matthew 6:13 says:
"For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."
There are three breakdown words:
Thine is the kingdom. The word basileia in Greek means that everything that I can see is under Your domain. Everything is the King's domain. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. The world and they that dwell therein. So when I end my prayer, I have to say: I know the person I'm asking has the power to do what I'm asking them to do.
For yours is the power. The word dynamis means God, if You speak a word, all of heaven has to bow. All of earth has to bow.
And yours is the glory. The word doxa is very powerful. Private prayer leads to public platform. God blesses you in public. God gives you public favor. You have to be very careful to not start wearing glory as if it was earned. God will elevate you. He can do it quickly. But when you get there, you got to be careful not to say, "I belong here. Nobody knows what I went through. Nobody knows my pain. Nobody knows what I suffered through."
When you were in the gym shooting, nobody was there. People were turning their backs on you. You got stabbed in the back. And then God puts you in the palace and it's like, "Bro, you're letting your pride get to a place where you're wearing a glory that doesn't belong to you. You're wearing doxa that doesn't belong to you. That's not yours."
If God took His hand off you, you would be trash. Garbage. You would be nothing. I remind myself every day:
"It is because of the Lord's mercies that we are NOT CONSUMED. His faithfulness never fails us. His compassion fails not."
Don't ever think you were so good He had to pick you. He intentionally chose the weaker things of this world to confound the mighty. The foolish things to confound the wise. God picked me because I proved I don't need you to be super smart. I just need you to listen. I don't need you to be the strongest spiritually. I just need you to be submitted, and you'll be good.
Express that you trust God's sovereignty above all else. That's how you end your prayer.
Example prayer:
"God, I trust Your sovereignty above all else. I trust that You've got me. I trust that even if it's something I asked for that You didn't approve of, it's because You had something better. Lord, I trust You. I trust that all power is in Your hands. That nothing is too hard for You. That You are all powerful and all knowing."
Now you have the perfect template. If you're not praying now, you just got to say you don't want to. But you have the template to do so.
I'm challenging you: Which one of these seven categories is hardest for you? Because that's the one you need to pray the longest about. You'll go through seasons where you got to pray in certain categories longer.
There are some seasons where my prayer life is more worship than anything. I get on my knees, I come to a worship song, and I don't even remember if I got through the whole prayer because I spent 30 minutes just sitting before Him.
There are certain seasons where my surrender is more than anything. Where I'm reminding myself that whatever I wanted, God, I realized my heart started going after things You didn't necessarily have for me. So I'm surrendering my will to Your plan.
There are times where my faith is more—where I'm in a season where I need You because I need You to give provision in a certain area. So I'm leaning in faith.
There are seasons where my forgiveness is the biggest thing. Maybe I've been stabbed by somebody that was close. Cut up by somebody that I was connected to. Dropped by somebody who I thought had my back. And so now I'm in a season that in prayer time I got to pray about forgiving people a little bit more.
You got to say their name every day until you say that name and it doesn't hurt. Got to say it every day. "God, I forgive them. God, I forgive them. God, I forgive them." Every day until you can say, "God, bless them." Because I can't say God bless if I haven't said God forgive. I can't say God bless if I don't mean God forgive.
There's some seasons where I'm stepping more into self-discipline in my prayer life. It could be working out. It could be my diet. It could be my prayer time. It could be how I'm moving in my purpose. It could be me not being lazy. It could be me starting the business that God told me to start. Whatever it may be, there's sometimes I'm saying, "God, in this season, I need more self-discipline."
Some of you are going to be in that place in January in a 21-day fast because you've cheated every year, but this year you're not going to cheat.
For some of you, it's seasons of trust where you got to trust God more. You're just in a place where, "You know what, God, nothing I've tried works. I trust You. I'm giving it all to You. I'm done." God may pick you up and say, "Move here. Go there. Serve there. Give this." You're like, "God, it doesn't make sense." God said, "It doesn't need to make sense. It needs to make faith. I need to grow something in you."
And then lastly, you have to end in a place of worship. The place of worship at the end sometimes is different than the place of worship at the beginning. The place of worship at the beginning sometimes is hopeful, beautiful, good. But the end sometimes—that worship is you didn't get what you wanted and still you worship.
"Yours is the kingdom. I know it didn't work the way I thought it was going to work, but yours is the power. I know, God, it was I thought it was going to happen a different way, and it didn't. But God, yours is the glory. I'm not living my life to please myself. I'm living my life to please You."
If you're living your life to please God, you got to be able to worship Him when you don't get what you wanted. You got to be able to worship Him when you feel like your life got flipped on its head. You got to be able to worship Him when sometimes the tears actually hurt. You have to be able to worship Him.
I'm pulling each of you into a seven-day challenge. I want you to pray the prayer I just had you write. Some of you got to add some more stuff because you were trying to listen and write. You're not a good person with that. You don't multitask. You got to go home and write some more stuff because you got to fill out this list.
I want you to pray this every morning, every night for the next seven days. Every morning, every night for the next seven days.
What's the point? As I spend time with God, it becomes more natural to me. Right now, if you're not spending a lot of prayer time in prayer, your prayer time feels like the awkward dating stage. "I don't know what questions to ask. It gets awkward. I don't know what to say. So I have a lot of silent time in my prayer." Not because you're comfortable, but because you're confused.
The goal is to get you to a place where your relationship with Him is so intact that you can sit next to Him and not say anything and still enjoy your time. You can just sit in His presence and you didn't say nothing and you're like, "I had a good day with You. We didn't talk about nothing. I didn't need to talk about anything. Your presence was heaven to me. Just sitting with You was what I needed."
In verses 14 and 15, Jesus closes out by saying:
"If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins."
Notice that Jesus goes right back to forgiveness at the end. He's already taught them: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Why is He going back to harp on something He's already taught? Because when you struggle with the area of forgiveness, this is the only area that can literally throw off your entire relationship with God.
The Bible says: If you don't forgive others, then God won't forgive you. That means you can't be redeemed if you're not forgiven. If you hold and say, "I refuse to forgive them," well, God says, "In My eyes, you're not covered in the blood. You're covered in your stains."
To refuse to forgive is to exercise the highest level of pride in front of your Father. It's to tell God, "I don't need your mercy. So I'll hold them hostage." And God says, "If you do that, everything else—Jesus said this—if you don't do this, this whole prayer that I just taught you is null and void. If you don't forgive, all this excitement and amen means nothing because God can't hear a person who is still covered in unforgiveness."
Father, I thank You for being good. Thank you for being faithful. Thank you that you help us today to lean into prayer and to be more active with our prayer life. Thank you for teaching us to be more intentional. I pray this over them:
Our Father who art in heaven, Father, hallowed, hallowed is Your name. Honorable, pure, majestic, righteous is Your name. Lord, we pray that Your kingdom will come here at Evolve Church and over our lives. And that Your will will be done here on earth, in our church, in our city as it is in heaven.
And God, give us this day our daily bread. Whoever is in the house and they need, God, give us daily bread. God, increase our resources so that as we continue to work out the program, we'll be able to feed every family that comes to us. We pray for supernatural increase. God, help us not to turn anybody away. We call in thousands and hundreds of thousands to be able to touch every family that we need. Give us our daily bread, God.
And God, forgive us our debts as we forgive every person who is indebted to us. God, we say out loud: Whoever owes us, the debt is canceled. They don't owe us an apology. They don't owe us a text. They don't owe us a call. We good because God is covering me. I'm covering you, God. We release every person.
And lead us not into temptation. God, set every person free. Any person, God, who's trying to follow You, but they're in crazy temptation right now—maybe it's lust, maybe it's pride, maybe it's ego, maybe it's an old thing, an old love, an old fling—maybe it's to drop what You told them to pick up, maybe it's to pick up what You told them to put down. Whatever the temptation is, God, lead them away from it. Steer them away from it.
Deliver us from evil, God. Deliver us from the plan of the enemy. Deliver us from every single attack. We cancel sickness, illness, ailments, and disease. We declare that we are the healed sons and daughters of God.
And we believe this is all done because Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Yours is the basileia, dynamis, and doxa both now and forever. In Yeshua's name we pray. God's people say it.
Amen.
I want to start by setting expectations for today. This is going to be a training session, not a lecture. I need you to be a smart class, an attentive class, and specifically today, a notetaking class. Even if you normally don't take notes, today you do. I'm teaching on how to build your prayer life, and this is something you'll want to write down.
On Sunday, I shared something important: prayer is not the preparation for the battle, but prayer is the battle itself. Think about that for a moment. I've been thinking about how many people aren't ready for battle—even people raised in church who don't know how to accurately pray according to God's word.
Let me be honest with you: it's not your fault that you don't know how to pray. It's on us, the pastors. Our responsibility isn't just to tell you to pray; it's to teach you how to pray. Prayer is so essential. I referenced the story of Elijah on Sunday—he was caught between a famine and extreme provision. The vehicle between both of those was his prayer life. The only way he got out of famine into promise was through prayer. Nothing was changing until he went to prayer, and when he did, his entire life began to provide the things he was expecting from God.
Here's what I want to challenge you with: It's not that God doesn't want to give it to you. It's that you don't have a prayer life that matches what you're asking for.
This isn't going to be a shame session. I promise you, by the time you leave today, you will know how to pray. There's going to be no excuse. You're going to be going to the throne room as often as you can.
Luke 11:1 tells us something beautiful. It says that once Jesus was in a certain place praying, and as he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray." Just as John taught his disciples, it's the pastor's responsibility not just to tell you to pray, but to teach you how to pray.
The disciples saw something in Jesus. They saw him always going to prayer, but they were never included. Here's the reality: when you really love God, prayer time isn't for everybody all the time. You can't always have a part in someone's prayer life.
I don't mind corporate prayer—it's cool to have a partner, it's cool to get with the group in the church with the men and the women. I love that. But I need my time. Sometimes I need to talk to God about you. Sometimes I need to talk to God about your partner. Sometimes I need to talk to God about the person I'm praying with, and I can't say it because they're going to open their eyes, offended.
The disciples saw this in Jesus and said, "Lord, we envy your communication with the Father." They weren't asking him to stop praying privately. They were asking him to let them join him in that intimacy.
We find ourselves in Matthew 6, where Jesus exposes what we call the purpose of prayer. Look at Matthew 6:5:
"When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on the street corners and in the synagogues or the church house where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get."
I have a warning for my intercessors: You dare not pray in church more than you pray at home. You cannot be a person that only taps into God when you get in the temple—only taps into God when it's time to pray for somebody else. But at home, God is calling your name with no response.
It can't just be, "Oh, when I GET IN HERE, I'M READY TO PRAY FOR SOMEBODY." God is saying, "I sure would love if you kept that energy at home." Some of us pray powerfully when it comes to other people, while our own prayer lives are suffering from absence and abstinence. We're missing it.
He uses a very aggressive word here: hypocrites. Jesus doesn't sugarcoat the truth. Whatever he's challenging us to grow in, he doesn't make it more palatable. Jesus would have been cancelled every Sunday in our culture because he goes to the synagogue, to the temple, and tells the person praying on the stage: "You're a hypocrite, because your life is not as powerful as your public prayer."
He's calling it out. We shouldn't pray to be seen. We should pray to be heard.
Verse 6 says:
"But when you pray, go away by yourself. Shut the door behind you and pray to the father in private. Then your father who sees everything will reward you."
The King James version adds the word openly. It's critical. When God blesses you, God is not going to bless you under a basket. God is going to bless you on the public platform so that everybody that saw you will know God's hand is on your life. But here's the thing: they won't know why God's hand is on your life.
People ask me, "Pastor Kenneth, how is it that 20,000 young people said yes to Jesus in just seven years? What's happening? How can you do what you do?" I'm not special. I promise you, I'm not. I just understand what prayer does. Prayer and spending time before God can take a regular person and make them seem supernatural. It can take an ordinary person and make them extraordinary—not because they're good, but because they tapped into glory in the prayer room.
Jesus is teaching us a practice: "When you're getting ready to pray, go away by yourself and close the door." Now, I'm not saying you need a physical door. What he's saying is close the gap. There are some things that God needs to deal with you on that nobody else can be in the room for. There are certain things God needs to talk to you about that nobody else can be present for.
I've learned this about my personal prayer life: if I had to pray with other people in the room, I would never be brutally honest. When you pray around other people, you pray churchy. You know what I'm talking about.
"And then, Father, we release in this moment that you God are like..."
It sounds good, but God is not getting to your heart. It's when you're by yourself that you're real. You're like, "God, this ain't a good week for me. God, my life doesn't look like I'm keeping the promise I made you at church. God, I'm struggling in some areas that I can't stay around my corporate team." Private time is necessary. Jesus says, "Close the door. Close the gap."
Here's the real problem: The reason most of us don't lean into prayer is because we don't value time with God the way we value time with people. We value time with people. Some of us are more consistent to church than we are to prayer because we value a dollar. We're more consistent to work than we are to prayer. We value relationships. We're more consistent with people than we are with prayer.
Prayer checks your heart because nobody sees it. There's nobody there to say, "You prayed really well this morning." There's nobody there to give you a round of applause. So now I have to see if your heart loves Him. Your heart is challenged the most when you don't get the credit.
When you serve in church and nobody really acknowledges how much you serve, then your heart is on display. Do you get offended and say nobody sees how much you sacrificed? Or do you say, "I never did it for people in the first place. Everything I did, I did as unto the Lord."
If God is everything to you, then why do you talk about Him more than you talk to Him? You know what challenges us? When somebody mentions your name and you know it's somebody you don't really talk to. It's like, "Wait, are they talking about me?" And they're like, "Yeah, I'm talking about you." You're like, "No, you're using my name, but you don't know me. You're referencing my name, but you don't know me."
It's nothing worse than telling everybody how much you love God, but when they all leave, you won't spend time with Him. It's nothing worse than saying, "Oh, I love my wife so much!" when you're at church, but when church is done, she's like, "But you won't spend time with me." You make public declarations, but it's not who you are when nobody gives you applause.
I want to challenge us today. This isn't for some of you who are new and growing. But for others of us who've been with God for a while, Jesus is saying: "I've been with you, but you haven't been with me. I've come to you, but you haven't been coming to me."
A strong private prayer life increases public favor. This is critical. If you want to grow in favor, increase your prayer life at home. When you increase your prayer time at home, God opens public favor for you. God starts to trust you more.
Listen to this: The people that spend the most time with me can get the most out of me. The people that live in my house get the most out of me. The people that live in my presence get the most out of me. If it's not about religion, it's about relationship.
Let me prove this with Scripture. When Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, he only brings three disciples and leaves nine out. Out of these three, they all fall asleep. Jesus comes back. He does not wake up all three. He wakes up Peter. There is a closeness between him and Peter.
Look at Luke 22:31-32:
"Peter, when I was praying, I heard that Satan has desired y'all that he may sift y'all as wheat. But when I heard that your name came to my heart, and I began to pray for you, Peter, that your faith wouldn't fail you, and that after you've been converted, go get the other 11."
Peter is getting more out of Jesus because Peter spends more time. After the resurrection, Jesus goes and finds them and says, "Peter, do you love me more than these?" And Peter says, "You know everything. You don't even have to ask that question." He said, "Feed my sheep."
Why is Peter getting so much? Because Peter spends more time. God doesn't play favorites. He just feeds the hungriest. Peter wants more from me, so I'm going to give him more. If you're comfortable sitting on the outside, comfortable getting a little bit of blessing and standing in the back row, God will give you everything you ask for. But for the one that's hungry, that says, "One thing I desire and that will I seek—that I will behold the beauty of the Lord and dwell in His temple," that person gets more from God.
Your Bible says:
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
You have to be full, not just fed. God's promise is that you will be filled, not just fed. If my appetite is bigger than yours, He has to give me more than He gave you. God will skip over the one who's been in it longer to get to the hungrier one.
Saul got arrogant. Saul got cocky. "I'm the king, and God chose me. I'm tall, I'm handsome, and I'm going to do what I got to do." But it was a little boy named David that was hungry in the backyard. God said, "Okay, Saul, keep acting up. I will replace you with another one better."
Now, let me teach you how to actually pray. Jesus gives us a model in Matthew 6, and there are seven steps to building a prayer life.
Matthew 6:9 says:
"After this manner, therefore, pray ye. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."
Jesus is the first one to teach that when you pray, God isn't just God—He's Abba. He's Father. Jesus is the first to introduce coming out of religion and stepping into relationship.
He acknowledges God's deity, His sovereignty, how big and amazing He is. And he uses the term "hallowed be thy name." That word means the name is sanctified, set apart, and kept in its own lane.
You can never receive from what you don't honor. I'm telling you, different members get different versions of God because the people that honor get something different.
Look at the woman with the issue of blood. Everybody else is pulling on Jesus and getting nothing. Everybody else is trying to touch him, trying to be famous, not touch the anointing. But there was a woman who said:
"That's not just a man. That's the Messiah. That's the Son of the living God."
A lot of you are trying to be famous and trying to be cool and sit with the disciples at the table. But she said, "I don't need a seat at the table. I need a piece of His robe. I just need something to touch me. I believe that if I touch the hem of His garment, because I'm not touching a man—I'm touching the Son of God—if I touch the hem of His garment, I will be made whole."
And she pulled something out of Jesus that nobody else could pull. Nobody else made Jesus heal them. Jesus didn't have a choice. He was like, "Somebody touched me and pulled anointing out of me." But she was only able to do that because she honored.
Here's the reality: How is it that the same man, one woman got healed from a lifetime of sickness because she honored, while one man sold him for the cost of a slave because he dishonored? One saw He was the Son of God and holy. The other got too comfortable. He got too common with Him. "Why are they pouring oil on His feet? People are praising Him when He's coming through, and we're just walking through. They're saying hosanna, and He gets offended. Why? Because he got so common with who he was submitted to that he couldn't receive anymore."
But the woman at a distance said, "I'm not going to spend enough time to get too comfortable. I want to honor you, and I don't need you to talk to me. I don't need a meeting. I don't need you to hear my problems. I just need one touch from the Lord."
When you honor, you can pull stuff ahead of time. You can pull stuff ahead of time based on how you honor.
Let me give you one more story. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus is at a wedding and they run out of wine. His mother comes and says, "Jesus, they run out of wine." He says, "What does that have to do with me? I am a guest at the wedding. You running out of wine is not my concern. That has nothing to do with me. I'm not on it. I'm only going to do what the Father says to do. I'm only going to say what the Father tells me to say, but I don't move outside of God's timing."
And she said to the servants, "Whatever he says, do it." She didn't say, "I understand. Let's wait." She said, "I believe God is going to do something if I keep standing in faith. Just do whatever He says."
And the same One who said it wasn't His time said, "Go fill those pots with water." Wait, I thought it wasn't His time? Jesus isn't a liar. So that means she pulled it into her day. She said, "God, I'm not waiting another season to see my son step into glory. I'm not waiting another season to see what You promised me. An angel came to my bedroom and told me I was carrying the Son of God. I'm not waiting another season to see what You said was going to happen."
There are some things you're waiting on, and they're waiting on you. You're saying "2025 is going to be my year," but you're only saying that because you stopped believing this would be this year. The year's not even up. You still have time. What do you think God can do in the remaining days? He built all of this in six days and rested on the seventh. How dare you think God can't do it.
So, the first step: Address God personally and honorably. Write down how you personally honor God's name. Here are some examples:
What's yours? I want you to write it down. Type it, write it. You're going to use this for the next seven days.
One of my favorite things to call God is faithful. What I've seen from God is faithfulness. Psalm 37:25:
"I've been young and now I'm old. I've never seen the righteous forsaken, nor the seed of God begging for bread."
God is faithful.
Secondly, submit to God's will. This is surrender. Verse 10 says:
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
He says, "Not just Your kingdom coming, but God, Your will has to be done here as it is in heaven."
Here's the issue: There is no argument about obedience to God in heaven. One person tried and got kicked out so quick, nobody tries it ever again. There is no argument about obedience in heaven. What we're praying is, God, give us the same pure desire to obey You. Allow my life to be fully surrendered to Your will. And that means erasing the things that I planned. Erasing the things that I want.
Write down the areas of your life that need to align with God's will:
You simply say, "Lord, let Your will guide my home, my heart, my relationships, my decisions." Before you buy the house, ask, "Is this Your will?" Before you buy the car, ask, "Is this Your will?" Because the last thing you want to do is buy a car that's going to require faith just to pay the note every month.
This is faith. The beautiful thing Jesus says is this: You cannot ask for weekly provision. You can't ask for monthly provision. You can't ask for yearly provision. Why does he do this? Because He's saying manna is only for today. This manna spoils tonight. Which means that if you get a brand new mercy and grace tomorrow morning, it deserves a brand new prayer. That's why we pray daily.
Verse 11 says:
"Give us our daily bread."
So list your present needs spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Deuteronomy 8:3 says:
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."
I learned a long time ago that God, more than physical bread, I need Your voice in my life. I'm a pastor. I'm a man of God. I'm an intercessor. I'm a prophet. I speak God's word. I cannot move without Your voice. More than food, I need Your voice.
But what is it for you? What's the daily bread thing you need? For some of you, you battle with so much insecurity, you need daily bread of confidence. For some of you, you battle with your identity and you have imposter syndrome. God, I need confidence. I need to know who I am in You.
Sometimes the enemy will come and try to distract you right in the middle of when you're getting ready to pray. Every time right in the middle of you getting ready to say, "God, I need provision," something will happen to get your mind off of it. Some of you have needs right now, and the hope of the enemy is that you don't learn what you need to learn, because he can't beat you any other way. You've been beating yourself with a prayerless life.
What do you need mentally? For some of you, it's mentally. "I have imposter syndrome. I got to pray every day about my identity because God, I get in certain rooms and I start comparing myself to other people. I start comparing my gift to other gifts. I start wondering why I don't have what they have. So every day I have to reenter myself in my identity in Christ."
What do you need physically? Some of you need physical healing. It could be health. It could be discipline.
Example prayer:
"Lord, provide wisdom in my marriage, strength to handle this grief, and peace for the chaos at work today."
When you understand that prayer is supposed to be daily, it becomes so much easier. When you're just praying the same thing over and over, like the Gentiles, saying the same thing every day, it explains why you're not excited to do it tomorrow. Give us this day our daily bread. You're not even thinking about what you're saying. You're becoming repetitive with no power.
Matthew 6:12 says:
"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
Identify where you need God's grace. Then identify who you need to extend that same grace to. Write down their names. What friend? What family member? What person did you have to drop, or they dropped you, and now you're trying to release this?
You need grace every day, but you need to give it every day as well. The Bible says that I can ask for what I want to extend.
So if I'm asking God for forgiveness, God says, "My forgiveness is directly connected to how I release others." When you pause and a name comes to your head, it means you should write it down. When a name comes to my head during forgiveness prayer, that means I haven't fully processed or fully released that name.
Sometimes you can tell yourself you forgave someone. "Oh yeah, I forgave them." And it's not until something else comes up and you're like, "I knew something about you. I should have never. I should have never. I should have never." And then you start bringing up all the skeletons you said you buried, and you use those bones as a defensive wall against that person now.
But here's the thing: How many times has God had to forgive you of the same thing? We say stuff like, "I mean, I forgave them, but they did the same thing over. It's a slap in the face." And God is like, "Wow."
If you're going to ask God to release you of all the stuff you did, you've got to release others of the few times they messed up with you. Even if they messed up your whole life, it's still a few times compared to your whole life of messing up with God.
Example prayer:
"Forgive me for the areas where my mind gets stuck on wrong thoughts. Lord, I release those who've thought wrong thoughts about me."
I'm challenging you because I know some of you will say amen and not change. Faith without works is dead. I don't want you to say amen to me and miss God.
This is self-discipline. Matthew 6:13 says:
"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
He's saying that every single last one of us, if you're living right now, you're going to deal with some form of temptation. The thing that I hate is that when people act like they won't have some form of temptation. Every temptation is going to be different. I'm not saying every temptation is lust or drugs, but it could be pride. It could be ego. It could be unforgiveness. It could be laziness with obeying God. It could be a lack of prayer.
We all have something that we're tempted to do that God is saying, "No." Even Jesus was tempted to say, "Not this cup. I'll do anything else, but I don't want this one." And God was like, "That's actually the main one I'm calling you to."
Every person in this room will have something. The question is: "God, I need you to help lead me, steer me away from temptation."
You've been saved for a long time? That means you can exempt the human experience? It's just not real. I know old fools every day. Living a long time doesn't mean you learned a lot. You've done a lot of things in your life? Yes. But did you finish a lot of them? Did God approve the things you've done?
Write down what areas you've been tempted in or have struggled with lately. Ask God to help steer you away from those things.
I went through a season where I started being snappy with people. I'm a very kind person and I see the best in people, but I got to a point where I was like, "Man, no, folks ain't dumb. You're playing in my face." And then I realized: "Oh God, steer me away from leaning into my humanity and not into Your Spirit."
Example prayer:
"Lord, I really feel lust, pride, and distractions trying to creep back in my heart, but I'm resisting it. Please give me the strength to honor you with my heart and my mind."
It could be lust. It could be pride. It could be bitterness. It could be anger. It could be unforgiveness. One thing about unforgiveness: Sometimes you have to remind your heart you forgave somebody. It isn't a one-time thing. You can forgive somebody and then a week later, a new detail comes out about what they did. And it's like, "Wait, you did that too?" And you have to remind yourself: "Hey, you released it. You let it go. Remember, you said you're not holding on to it."
Your heart will go and grab anything that makes it feel sensitive or insecure.
This is trust. When He said, "Deliver us from evil," notice He wasn't saying, "Go out and find evil and kill it." He said, "Listen, there are some attacks that you don't even know where they came from."
Transparently, have you ever been in a place where you were living for God and all of a sudden, serious attacks just hit you, and you're like, "I don't literally know why all these attacks just hit me right now." That's real spiritual warfare.
The unfair thing about spiritual warfare is that you get pulled into it before you realize it. Imagine this: the only way that fights start, you don't know. You're just sitting there and somebody blindsides you with a punch and you're like, "I'm in a fight." You didn't ask for it. You weren't ready. That's literally how fighting in the spirit is.
You get a bad report from the doctor. Somebody in your family is diagnosed with something they can't get rid of. You're loving your spouse and they don't love you back one day. You were doing good at work and layoffs just happen to be your position. You weren't ready for this. You literally got blindsided.
This is the reason why you got to pray every day. God, I don't know when spiritual attacks are coming, but I know that You can deliver me. I know that You can keep me.
When Peter was getting ready to go through, the only person that knew was Jesus. Jesus said, "Peter, Satan has desired you that he may sift you as wheat. But I prayed for you, Peter, that your faith wouldn't fail you."
Write what you need God's protection from today: people, addiction, strongholds, attacks, even yourself, and unknown attacks.
Romans 8:26 says:
"For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered."
You will go through times in your life where you're like, "I genuinely don't know how to pray for this. I don't know if I'm supposed to go through it so that I can give God glory in a hard thing, or is it the enemy that I'm supposed to rebuke and speak away? Or are you going to use my light in the middle of this while people are looking at me and I'm going to stay in peace and in joy?"
Sometimes you got to say, "Holy Spirit, do it for me. Deliver me from the evil one." Whether it be an outside attack or me attacking myself. For some of us, our biggest enemy is actually ourselves. It's not Satan. Satan just knows what you like. Satan can't make you fall, but he can give you the option to choose what you always secretly wanted.
That's why when Jesus was hungry after 40 days, Satan said, "Hey, turn this stone into bread. I know you're hungry." And Jesus said, "I won't do anything that God hasn't given me permission to be able to do."
This is worship again. Prayer starts with worship and ends with worship. Starts with praise and ends with praise.
Matthew 6:13 says:
"For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."
There are three breakdown words:
Thine is the kingdom. The word basileia in Greek means that everything that I can see is under Your domain. Everything is the King's domain. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. The world and they that dwell therein. So when I end my prayer, I have to say: I know the person I'm asking has the power to do what I'm asking them to do.
For yours is the power. The word dynamis means God, if You speak a word, all of heaven has to bow. All of earth has to bow.
And yours is the glory. The word doxa is very powerful. Private prayer leads to public platform. God blesses you in public. God gives you public favor. You have to be very careful to not start wearing glory as if it was earned. God will elevate you. He can do it quickly. But when you get there, you got to be careful not to say, "I belong here. Nobody knows what I went through. Nobody knows my pain. Nobody knows what I suffered through."
When you were in the gym shooting, nobody was there. People were turning their backs on you. You got stabbed in the back. And then God puts you in the palace and it's like, "Bro, you're letting your pride get to a place where you're wearing a glory that doesn't belong to you. You're wearing doxa that doesn't belong to you. That's not yours."
If God took His hand off you, you would be trash. Garbage. You would be nothing. I remind myself every day:
"It is because of the Lord's mercies that we are NOT CONSUMED. His faithfulness never fails us. His compassion fails not."
Don't ever think you were so good He had to pick you. He intentionally chose the weaker things of this world to confound the mighty. The foolish things to confound the wise. God picked me because I proved I don't need you to be super smart. I just need you to listen. I don't need you to be the strongest spiritually. I just need you to be submitted, and you'll be good.
Express that you trust God's sovereignty above all else. That's how you end your prayer.
Example prayer:
"God, I trust Your sovereignty above all else. I trust that You've got me. I trust that even if it's something I asked for that You didn't approve of, it's because You had something better. Lord, I trust You. I trust that all power is in Your hands. That nothing is too hard for You. That You are all powerful and all knowing."
Now you have the perfect template. If you're not praying now, you just got to say you don't want to. But you have the template to do so.
I'm challenging you: Which one of these seven categories is hardest for you? Because that's the one you need to pray the longest about. You'll go through seasons where you got to pray in certain categories longer.
There are some seasons where my prayer life is more worship than anything. I get on my knees, I come to a worship song, and I don't even remember if I got through the whole prayer because I spent 30 minutes just sitting before Him.
There are certain seasons where my surrender is more than anything. Where I'm reminding myself that whatever I wanted, God, I realized my heart started going after things You didn't necessarily have for me. So I'm surrendering my will to Your plan.
There are times where my faith is more—where I'm in a season where I need You because I need You to give provision in a certain area. So I'm leaning in faith.
There are seasons where my forgiveness is the biggest thing. Maybe I've been stabbed by somebody that was close. Cut up by somebody that I was connected to. Dropped by somebody who I thought had my back. And so now I'm in a season that in prayer time I got to pray about forgiving people a little bit more.
You got to say their name every day until you say that name and it doesn't hurt. Got to say it every day. "God, I forgive them. God, I forgive them. God, I forgive them." Every day until you can say, "God, bless them." Because I can't say God bless if I haven't said God forgive. I can't say God bless if I don't mean God forgive.
There's some seasons where I'm stepping more into self-discipline in my prayer life. It could be working out. It could be my diet. It could be my prayer time. It could be how I'm moving in my purpose. It could be me not being lazy. It could be me starting the business that God told me to start. Whatever it may be, there's sometimes I'm saying, "God, in this season, I need more self-discipline."
Some of you are going to be in that place in January in a 21-day fast because you've cheated every year, but this year you're not going to cheat.
For some of you, it's seasons of trust where you got to trust God more. You're just in a place where, "You know what, God, nothing I've tried works. I trust You. I'm giving it all to You. I'm done." God may pick you up and say, "Move here. Go there. Serve there. Give this." You're like, "God, it doesn't make sense." God said, "It doesn't need to make sense. It needs to make faith. I need to grow something in you."
And then lastly, you have to end in a place of worship. The place of worship at the end sometimes is different than the place of worship at the beginning. The place of worship at the beginning sometimes is hopeful, beautiful, good. But the end sometimes—that worship is you didn't get what you wanted and still you worship.
"Yours is the kingdom. I know it didn't work the way I thought it was going to work, but yours is the power. I know, God, it was I thought it was going to happen a different way, and it didn't. But God, yours is the glory. I'm not living my life to please myself. I'm living my life to please You."
If you're living your life to please God, you got to be able to worship Him when you don't get what you wanted. You got to be able to worship Him when you feel like your life got flipped on its head. You got to be able to worship Him when sometimes the tears actually hurt. You have to be able to worship Him.
I'm pulling each of you into a seven-day challenge. I want you to pray the prayer I just had you write. Some of you got to add some more stuff because you were trying to listen and write. You're not a good person with that. You don't multitask. You got to go home and write some more stuff because you got to fill out this list.
I want you to pray this every morning, every night for the next seven days. Every morning, every night for the next seven days.
What's the point? As I spend time with God, it becomes more natural to me. Right now, if you're not spending a lot of prayer time in prayer, your prayer time feels like the awkward dating stage. "I don't know what questions to ask. It gets awkward. I don't know what to say. So I have a lot of silent time in my prayer." Not because you're comfortable, but because you're confused.
The goal is to get you to a place where your relationship with Him is so intact that you can sit next to Him and not say anything and still enjoy your time. You can just sit in His presence and you didn't say nothing and you're like, "I had a good day with You. We didn't talk about nothing. I didn't need to talk about anything. Your presence was heaven to me. Just sitting with You was what I needed."
In verses 14 and 15, Jesus closes out by saying:
"If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins."
Notice that Jesus goes right back to forgiveness at the end. He's already taught them: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Why is He going back to harp on something He's already taught? Because when you struggle with the area of forgiveness, this is the only area that can literally throw off your entire relationship with God.
The Bible says: If you don't forgive others, then God won't forgive you. That means you can't be redeemed if you're not forgiven. If you hold and say, "I refuse to forgive them," well, God says, "In My eyes, you're not covered in the blood. You're covered in your stains."
To refuse to forgive is to exercise the highest level of pride in front of your Father. It's to tell God, "I don't need your mercy. So I'll hold them hostage." And God says, "If you do that, everything else—Jesus said this—if you don't do this, this whole prayer that I just taught you is null and void. If you don't forgive, all this excitement and amen means nothing because God can't hear a person who is still covered in unforgiveness."
Father, I thank You for being good. Thank you for being faithful. Thank you that you help us today to lean into prayer and to be more active with our prayer life. Thank you for teaching us to be more intentional. I pray this over them:
Our Father who art in heaven, Father, hallowed, hallowed is Your name. Honorable, pure, majestic, righteous is Your name. Lord, we pray that Your kingdom will come here at Evolve Church and over our lives. And that Your will will be done here on earth, in our church, in our city as it is in heaven.
And God, give us this day our daily bread. Whoever is in the house and they need, God, give us daily bread. God, increase our resources so that as we continue to work out the program, we'll be able to feed every family that comes to us. We pray for supernatural increase. God, help us not to turn anybody away. We call in thousands and hundreds of thousands to be able to touch every family that we need. Give us our daily bread, God.
And God, forgive us our debts as we forgive every person who is indebted to us. God, we say out loud: Whoever owes us, the debt is canceled. They don't owe us an apology. They don't owe us a text. They don't owe us a call. We good because God is covering me. I'm covering you, God. We release every person.
And lead us not into temptation. God, set every person free. Any person, God, who's trying to follow You, but they're in crazy temptation right now—maybe it's lust, maybe it's pride, maybe it's ego, maybe it's an old thing, an old love, an old fling—maybe it's to drop what You told them to pick up, maybe it's to pick up what You told them to put down. Whatever the temptation is, God, lead them away from it. Steer them away from it.
Deliver us from evil, God. Deliver us from the plan of the enemy. Deliver us from every single attack. We cancel sickness, illness, ailments, and disease. We declare that we are the healed sons and daughters of God.
And we believe this is all done because Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Yours is the basileia, dynamis, and doxa both now and forever. In Yeshua's name we pray. God's people say it.
Amen.
