(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now, the part of the chapter we're going to focus on here in Matthew 7 starts in verse number 7. We'll read it again, because this is a really cool promise that we see here from Jesus Christ. This entire chapter here is Jesus Christ speaking, basically, and He's preaching. In verse number 7, the Bible says, Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Now, that word ask there is exactly the same word as the word pray. The word pray simply means to ask. So you think about, you know, oftentimes you'll see it in the Bible probably more commonly than anywhere else. People say, I pray you, you know, give me a drink of water, or I pray you, you know, whatever. They're saying, I'm asking you, will you please do this for me? So prayer just means to ask. The Bible says in verse 7 here in Matthew 7, it says, Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you, for everyone that asketh receive it. What a great promise. And what I'm preaching about this morning, if we haven't figured it out from all the songs we sang, and everything else that bolts in, is prayer. And I want us all to have a good understanding of prayer, how we should be doing it, how we can be effective at it, how we can get our prayers answered. There's lots of things regarding prayer. Bible talks a lot about prayer, and honestly, prayer ought to be a major part of our life. It really ought to be something that we're doing multiple times a day. And we're going to get into that a little bit. But why wouldn't we? I mean, when you look at this verse, for everyone that asketh receive it, why wouldn't we just go to God and ask Him for stuff? I mean, pray to God, God will help you out. God has open ears to hear you. And Jesus makes His promises, ask, it's going to be given to you, everyone that asketh receive it. And then, He explains here, in His chapter, in verse number nine, it says, Oh, what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? If your child comes to you and asks, I'm hungry, can I have some bread? What father is going to give him a stone? They'll hear a chew on this, right? Or if you ask a fish, he's going to give him a snake, he's going to give him a serpent. No father's going to do that. It says, if ye that being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things unto them that ask him? And see, here's the key. He's likening this to a son and a father. And that's going to be one of my first points coming up, is that, if you're born again, if you're saved, see, this verse doesn't apply to everybody. This doesn't apply to every single person. He likens this asking and receiving to a son and a father. Okay, if you're born again, God is your father, okay? And God will give good things to you that ask for them, right? So if you're hungry and you need some food, you ask God to take care of you. He's not going to give you a stone and say, chew on this. He'll take care of you. But we're going to get into a lot of things. And you know what? This verse kind of ends off here in verse 12, this kind of section of the scripture. It says, therefore, meaning because of this, all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophet. So basically what he's saying is because of the fact that God says, ask and it shall be given to you because he's made this promise to hear your prayer and to give good things to you, he ties in this what's commonly known as the golden rule. Because God's willing to give these good things to them that ask, we ought to treat others basically the same way that God treats us, is what he's saying. He's saying because God's so good to you, because God's willing to listen to you, hey, that's the same attitude that you ought to have towards other people. I mean, you want to have good things? You want to ask God to have good things in your life? Why don't you show that and treat other people the same way? You know, maybe they're asking you of something. Maybe someone else is in need and they need some bread or they need something, you know, whatever, and they're asking something for you. Are you just going to turn your back on them and just be like, no, when your father in heaven gives good things to you? And that's why he's tying this in here at the end of the section of the scripture. We ought to make sure we have the right attitude. And now here's the thing, see God, there's a common misconception today. People think that God hears everybody's prayers. People just think that like, they'll just tell everybody, just pray to God and he'll hear you and he'll answer you. And this is simply not true. Proverbs 28 verse 9 says, he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. So some people, the Bible says that their prayer, their prayer, they're actually just praying to God is an abomination to God. He thinks it's, it's, it's horrible. It's an abomination. He doesn't want to hear it. And it's those people that says he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law. So he's saying is, Oh, you don't want to hear God's word. You don't want to hear his commandments for you. You don't want to, you know, listen to what he has to say to you. Well, then he doesn't want to hear anything but from you first, you need to be listening to God and then he'll listen to you. See, it says the prayer of those that turneth away their ear from hearing the law is an abomination. He does not want to hear them. And in first Peter chapter three, verse 12, the Bible says for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. So people who are not, do not want to hear the law, they're not abiding by the law. They're not trying to live, you know, according to the way God has them to live. He's not even going to hear their prayer. He's not going to listen to them. It's actually an abomination. He doesn't want to hear it. Now, maybe you've had some problems in the past getting your prayers answered. And that's, and this is what the sermon is just going to try to help you with because we're going to try to go in depth here so that you can know how to get your prayers answered. You're in Matthew seven, just stay right there. We're going to be going to Matthew chapter six in just a second. I'm going to read from you from first John chapter three, verse 22. It says, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. So we say in here that, you know, all, whatever we ask, we know that they receive of God, all the, all the prayers that they give to God, they receive them. Why did they receive them? Because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. So you want to receive things from God. You want your prayers to be answered. Start off by opening up your ears to his word, listening to him. If you want God to listen to you, listen to him first. Listen to what he's telling you to do. Oftentimes, oftentimes just by doing that, that will remove your need to be asking God for things in the first place. You get things right and, and, and, and listen to what God is actually telling you to do oftentimes, Hey, that's going to solve the problem in and of itself, just by obeying God's word and listening to what he has to say. Now, um, you're in Matthew six, look at verse number five, because Jesus actually recorded here an example of how we're supposed to pray. This is a section of scripture. It's commonly known as the Lord's prayer. So look at verse number five is where we're going to start. It says, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, but they may be seen of men. Verily I say to you, they have their reward. So first of all, I say, and look, your prayer is not some big oration to be heard of other people. So other people can hear you and be like, Oh, that man is so Godly he's praying and making a big deal out of it. Just for the fact that other people can see you as some religious person praying unto God, right? They say, and that is, that's a, you're being a hypocrite. If you're doing that, that goes against the purpose of praying to God in the first place. Not that it's not to be seen of men. And that's what, and that's what you see oftentimes these days, especially in a lot of the false religions, people just standing up and giving these really long prayers, right? I mean, you'll see it at even just that like political gatherings and other things else, someone stand up and you're sitting there going like, come on, what is this guy going to finish? Cause they're just rambling and babbling off and just, just saying all kinds of things and, and basically just kind of exalting themselves and their knowledge and how smart they are and they're Godly and they're saying all these things and it's just hypocrisy. It's just, it's just pointless. Now I'm not completely against public prayer. Obviously we pray in church. I'm going to get into that a little bit, but this is, this is not what he's talking about. He's talking about people who are, who are praying just to be heard of men, right? Not to be heard of God, but just to be heard of men. We pray in public and church cause we want God to hear us and we're praying together to God. It's not, I'm not standing here, you know, coming up with some fancy prayer for you guys to say, Oh man, that's a version is just so great to pray. That's not the purpose at all. It's because we're just asking God for stuff. That's why we're praying. Look, let's continue on here. Look at verse number six. It says, but thou when thou prayest enter into thy closet and when thou has shut that door, pray to thy father, which is in secret and thy father would seeth in secret, shall reward the open. They say, look, you don't have to make a show of it. Just go into your closet. No one even has to know that you're ever praying, but God knows and that's what matters. It's not about whether other people know if you're praying or not. Who cares? You're praying to God. You're not praying to them. God, you go into your closet. No one will know you're praying in your closet, but God will know. And that's the whole point. You're talking to him. Look at verse number seven. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Now this is just ironic beyond a degree that the one prayer, if you could say one prayer that people chant mindlessly and repeat and use vain repetitions over and over and over and over and over again, this is the first one that comes to mind with me. The Lord's prayer, you know, um, our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. You know, everybody knows this prayer and I'll admit, you know, before I was saved when I was younger, I didn't know how to pray. No one had said anything to me or taught me or show me like, like a how to pray to God. You would think like, man, that's kind of silly. How could you not know how to pray to God? A lot of people don't. A lot of people don't understand it. You know, that it's just a communication with God. And I remember there was times when I wanted to pray to God and I just started chanting this prayer. Because I thought, I mean, from the church that I was in and also just in general, like I just thought that that was praying to God, you know, and he's warning us and he puts us in here specifically. I mean, before he even goes into the prayer, he just says, look, don't use vain repetitions. Don't just chant over and over and over and over again. I mean, that's exactly what the Catholic church does. They'll tell you, you know, you go and they'll ask you to, um, you know, you go to confess your sins and well, you have to save 20 Hail Marys and 30 Our Fathers. And like, that's their, it's almost like a punishment for what you've done that's wrong. And it's kind of sick. It's twisted, right? They say you have to chant this prayer over and over and over and over again. And that's your punishment for the sin that you did. But once you do that, you'll be fine. Prayer is not a punishment. Okay. Prayers, there's nothing wrong with prayer. Prayer is a good thing. And the thing is, you don't need to repeat yourself over and over and over again. God heard you the first time. Okay. And these just repeating this prayer, like just word for word, just verbatim is repeating this prayer. It's, it's, it's stupid. There's no reason to do it. What he's doing here is that what he's doing here is look at verse number nine. He says after this manner, therefore pray. So what he's doing is the disciples had asked him, you know, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. Okay. So they, they want to know how to pray. So basically what he's doing is giving them a template. He's giving them an example prayer. Say, okay, when you pray to God, just, just pray after this manner, praying this way. And we're going to dissect this a little bit. So he says, you know, our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. So he starts off addressing God, the father, and he's immediately just, just giving respect and reverence under who he is before he ever gets into anything, asking about what he wants or, you know, the things that he wants to give, he wants God to give him. He said, look, hallowed be thy name. Your name is hallowed thy kingdom come. And then look, he says thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. So first, the first thing he's asking is for God's will to be done. And that's what we always ought to remember when we're making prayers in our life. We ought to be praying, you know, regardless of what it is that we want in our life, we ought to be praying that God's will be done. And I'm going to go a little bit out of order because I want to make a point of this. Even Jesus Christ, when he prayed in the garden, it says in Luke 22, 41 says, and he was withdrawn from them a lot of stones cast and kneeled down and prayed saying, father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. So right before Jesus Christ was crucified, he was in a garden of Gethsemane. He was real happy in spirit. He knew what was going to happen. He knew what he was going to have to go through. He knew he was going to be crucified and all the horrible things that were going to happen to him. And he prayed to God. He said, God, look, if there's any other way, please let this cup pass for me. He didn't want to go through it. He didn't want to do it, but, but the thing is he was submissive enough to the point where he was going to do it. As long as it was God's will. He said, look, but nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. It was God's will that he went through that. That was the only way for him to satisfy the judgment that needs to come on sin. And I say that because when, you know, there's a lot of times there's bad things that we may go through and there's things that we might be asking for of God and saying, God, please don't let me go through this, please. You know, I don't want to do that. Just, just help me out here. But what's more important than what we want is God's will. See, God has a plan. And I've mentioned this earlier in other sermons. God has a plan for our life. We don't always see clearly what that plan is while we're going through the events that we're going through in any given moment, but he might have a great plan. So we always want to make sure when we're praying that look, God, I want your will to be done here. Even if it means I'm going to go through some bad times or whatever, I'm asking you to please help me out of this. You know, I don't want to go through these things, whatever it may be like, Jesus didn't want to have to be crucified, but that was in God's will. So one of the most important things when we're praying to remember to keep in mind is that we ought to pray for God's will to be done. We want his will to be done because again, God, God's plan, if you're in God's will, there's no better place for you to be and it'll work out in the end the best for you. If you stay within his will, that's, that's, that is without a doubt, there's no better way. Even if, even the temporary relief that you're asking for, if that's outside of God's will, but you get that temporary relief, if you would have stayed in God's will, that would end up in the end is going to make, it'll end up being way better for you. Let's continue on with his example prayer, the Lord's prayer. In, um, okay. So in verse number 10, it says, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. So first he's, he's mentioning, look, I want your will to be done. Then verse number 11, give us this day, our daily bread. So what we can learn from this is, okay, this day we're asking for our bread. He's asking God to take care of us and feed us just to stay. He's not worried about the bread for tomorrow. He's not worried about the bread for next week. He's just saying today, God, please feed me. And one of the things is that if you're praying every day, you don't have to keep praying for the future. Just pray for that day, right? But if you're not praying every day and you, and you pray, pray the prayer and ask God to help you out for the day. Well, what about tomorrow? What about next week? You know, we're going to be praying daily. First number 12, it says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. So basically, you know, this prayer, this is a prayer of confidence can say, look, just as I'm forgiving other people, God, please, please forgive me. So when people do me wrong, when people sin against me, you know, God, I forgive them. And that's the attitude we all ought to have. I forgive them. And he's saying, Lord, forgive me the same way, just as I'm forgiven them. Please forgive me of the transgressions I do, the sins that I do. And it says, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. So he's saying, you know, please don't lead us into the way of temptation. We don't want to go that way. But deliver us from evil. I'll save us from, from people are out to hurt us, save us from the bad things that are going to happen for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. So what he did here again, I mean, he just gave them a sample. So these are all things that you can, you know, keep in mind when you're praying to God, first give honor and reverence unto his name. Make sure that you're asking that his will is being done and then ask for the things that you need. I mean, you need food as per food. You know, you don't want to be delivered, you know, you definitely want to be delivered from evil, from people doing bad things. You may ask for that. Jesus Christ has to be delivered from the evil of him being nailed to the cross, but it had to be according to God's will. So this is just a template. It's not something, this is not a prayer to just chant mindlessly over and over again. That's exactly the opposite of what he told us to do. He said, avoid vain repetitions. That's what the heathen does. The heathen just repeats things over and over and over again. They think they're going to be heard by their much speaking. Now, that was the template. There's a few other tips now we're going to go through for getting your prayers answered. One of the things that we ought to have is confidence when we pray, not doubting. In first John chapter five, verse 14, the Bible says, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will. He heareth us. So notice that according to his will is an important part of that. And if we know that he hear us whatsoever, we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him, but we could have confidence in the fact. I mean, he makes the promise, right? He's promised over and over again. We need to have that faith that God will hear us and that God will answer us when we're praying to him. And it's just, it's really just trusting his word, trusting his promise, trusting that God is there, that he's hearing you. It's not just falling on deaf ears. When you pray to God, you know, if you're saved for one, and if you're, and if you're listening to him, he'll listen to you pray, having that faith, just knowing that God will take care of you. In, um, Mark 11, verse 22, the Bible says, and Jesus answering said, none of them have faith in God for verily. I say unto you that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass. He shall have whatsoever. He said, therefore, I say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. So God doesn't want us doubting in his power. God doesn't want us doubting. And you know, when you pray to him thinking like, well, I don't know if God's actually going to do this for me and just kind of having that type of attitude. No expected pray to God and just, you know, obviously you want his will to be done, but just pray. And when you pray to him, just, just have full confidence and faith, knowing that, Hey, if you know you're walking right and you're doing what's right, there's no reason for God not to answer your prayers. And, um, one good thing to do that can maybe help you with this too, is right. I've heard people do this. I've never done this specifically, but, um, a lot of people have done this and they'll say, it's amazing. You write down the things that you pray for. Just keep track of it. And then you can see when God answers those prayers or how things work out where you don't need those answered anymore. And it'll be amazing how God actually works in your life because you see a lot of times we don't take note of these things. Something's real pressing in the moment. And then, and then, you know, whatever changes and it just, it just goes out of your mind. You forget about it when it was a really important need that you were praying to God for. And if you step back and take a look at it, you might realize that, Hey, maybe God really did answer your prayer. He might not have answered it the exact way you're asking for it. He might not have done it in the exact timeframe that you were, you would have liked it to be answered or were thinking that it would be answered. But if you can look back at the things that you prayed for, you'll realize how much God really is working in your life. And, um, you know, I've never written them down, but I know just recently was starting the church and stuff. I can tell you without a doubt, God answers prayer for sure. There's not, there's not one doubt in my mind about, about that at all. God is real. God is just, I mean, the Jesus Christ that saved you is real. The God that did all the miracles in the Bible is real. There's nothing holding him back today from doing miracles again, like he did in the Bible days, except for our faith and just our confidence. And I mean, look, he says you could move a mountain, but you have to believe. Just believe that God is powerful. God can answer your prayers, no matter how hard they are. James chapter four, verse three, excuse me, says ye ask and receive. So here's a reason why people don't receive the things that they ask for sometimes when people pray and those prayers don't get answered. James four, three explains why it says he asked and received not ye because ye ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. So you're saying you're asking for the wrong things. God's not going to give you something just to consume it upon your lusts and be like, God, I pray that I would just win the lottery and be a millionaire, right? If you pray that prayer, God's not going to answer that prayer for you because you're praying to consume it upon your own lusts. I mean, why do you need a million dollars? It's just so you can go out and buy things and just live a life of vanity. Do you think God wants you to live a life of vanity? Absolutely not. That is not according to God's will. And that's not in your best interest either. You might think it is. You might think, man, everything will be great this way. But here's the thing. Sometimes God wants us going through specific struggles because we learn greater truths and it makes us better people. So getting rid of some of the things that happen in our life, that's not according to God's will. He might want us going through to try to make us stronger, to make us better, to prepare us for events that are going to happen later in our life that we have no idea are going to come. We go through some of the smaller things now to face the bigger things later. But here's the thing. Pray for the right things. Don't pray for things just to be consumed on your own lusts, right? That's not the right things to pray for. God's not going to answer that prayer. God's going to hear you. God's going to listen to what you have to say. But if you're asking just to consume your lusts, He's not going to answer that prayer. Now, here's some examples because people might be wondering, too. Oh, well, should I pray aloud? Should I pray silently? How should I pray? And there's actually examples of both in the Bible. I'm not going to say either one is wrong at all. So if you like to pray silently, go ahead and pray silently. If you pray aloud, go ahead and pray aloud. I'm going to look at a couple of examples here. In 1 Samuel 1, verse 10 is an example of someone who was praying silently. This is a story of a woman, the mother of Samuel. It says, And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. And she vowed a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid and remember me and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life. And there shall no razor come upon his head. And it came to pass as she continued praying for the Lord that Eli marked her mouth. So Eli walks up and he sees this woman and she's in bitterness of soul. She's praying. It says here she bowed about and said, Well, so this whole thing that she just said, talking about, man, if you give me a man child, you give me a son, you know, I'll dedicate him unto you, which is actually exactly what happens. Eli walks up on this woman. He sees her and he marked her mouth because he's looking and paying attention to her mouth. It says now, Hannah, she spake in her heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore, Eli thought she had been drunk. So he walks up on this woman and her mouth just kind of moving, but she's not saying anything. And he's looking at her and she was all weeping and crying, you know, like she was upset. So he's thinking, what's this drunk lady doing here? You know, and as he said and Eli said unto her, How long would I be drunk and put away that wine from me? And Hannah answered and said, No, my Lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not that handmade for a daughter, rebellion from the abundance of my complaints and grief. Have I spoken to the two that Eli answered and said, Go in peace. And the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. Now, this is this is important to know because God answers her prayer. It's clear Eli didn't know what she asked for. It says that she had she prayed in her heart. She was talking to God in her heart. Her lips moved, but she wasn't saying anything. Eli didn't hear any of that. She had he had no idea she was praying. He thought she was drunk. He says God's going to grant you your petition. God's going to grant that to you. So obviously God heard her prayer because she ended up receiving a son and she dedicated him to the Lord. That was Samuel. So, again, I mean, silent prayer. No problem with that. Here's a couple of examples of people who spoke, who spake prayers with their mouth. Daniel is a great example. Daniel 6 10 says, Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, this was the writing. This is OK, just to let you know what's going on in the story here in the book of Daniel. Daniel is a great boy. If you've never read the book of Daniel, read it. It's awesome. It's pretty short, but there's a lot of great stories in there. That's the Daniel in the lion's den and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It's a great book. This is a plug for Daniel. I would recommend reading that tonight if you've never read it before, because it's an awesome book. But in this in this chapter, chapter six, OK, they were trying to find a way to you know, Daniel is a righteous man. He was doing everything right and his enemies could not find anything against him to where they can accuse him before the before the king and just be like, hey, you know, you need to get rid of this guy because Daniel is in a position of authority. And there's a lot of people that hated him. He had enemies. So they had to figure out a way where they could make him break the law. And they're like, well, the only way we're going to make him break the law is if we do something that's against his religion, because they knew that he was a man of God and that that was something he would not compromise on. So what they did was they made a decree and just said, well, hey, in order to pray to anyone that praised any God without going to the king first, you know, they're going to they're going to be thrown into the lion's den is basically the law. I mean, Daniel knew about it, says, well, now Daniel knew that the writing was signed. He went into his house and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem. He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did before time. He didn't change his habit whatsoever. He went in, he kneeled and he prayed. Now, the reason why we know that he prayed out loud is because the people heard him. They were laying weight. They were trying to see what he was going to do. They knew he prayed. They knew he had a routine. He didn't change his routine at all. He didn't close his windows and try to hide that he was praying to God. Right. He wasn't he wasn't going out like the hypocrites do and trying to make it, you know, to be seen of men that he was praying. But at the same time, he wasn't hiding it either. Excuse me. And that's how we ought to be, too. Now, look, don't hide the fact that you're praying to God. There's no reason to be ashamed of prayer to God. If you if you're a person that likes to pray before you eat, when you go out in public, just pray. Who cares if people look at you or think anything different? Now, don't go out praying to just be heard of everybody that, hey, I'm praying to God. Right. But don't let that bother you just being in public. Hey, say your prayer to God as you would any other time. So Daniel is an example of someone to pray out loud and then in Psalm 55, 17, the Bible says evening and morning and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. So there's a couple of examples of people who prayed out loud. Now, I do recommend, even though there's nothing wrong with doing it either way, I recommend praying out loud at least sometimes. I think there's something good about that. I think God wants to hear your voice. I think God wants to hear that. And just some of the greatest men in the Bible, when you look at other examples and stuff, have been known to pray audibly. Jesus Christ prayed audibly. Many other people did too. There's good examples to follow. Again, I'm not saying that it's wrong to pray silently. We've already seen that people can do it and God's going to hear you. Okay. It's not what I'm saying. But just from a lot of the examples, and I think more more often than not, you're going to find people praying out loud than in their heart. And one of the couple things that we notice here too, these last two examples, Daniel and the book of Psalms, both of them refer to praying three times a day. Daniel and David both did that. It says evening, morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud. Daniel says that you kneel upon his knees three times a day and pray. God wants us to have that communication with him regularly. I mean throughout the day. Hey, when you wake up in the morning, pray to God. Pray to God for a good day. Pray to God for lots of things to pray for throughout your day. That this day, God feed me with food that's good for me, help me to get my work done, whatever. You know, just start off talking to God, pray to God. In the middle of the day, take time out, pray to God, talk to God. And in the evening, the day's almost over, go to God, pray to God. Look, God wants us to get in that habit. See, these people had routines. They had habits. Daniel had a routine as he did a fourth time. He went through every single time, you know, whenever the time for him to pray came up, but he did it. He just made it a habit. And one other thing to notice about Daniel is that he kneeled. He got on his knees and prayed before God. Now again, is this a requirement, something that you absolutely have to do to pray to God? No, it's not. But it's a good thing to do. God likes to see, see, kneeling is a sign of human, of not humiliation, but it's a, it's a humble thing to do. It's, you're giving a lot of honor and respect. I mean, you get on your knees before someone, you're, you're, you're kind of incapacitating yourself, you know, when you just kneel down, you're, you're vulnerable, you're exposed, right? But that's what you're doing when you, when you kneel down to God. I mean, there's no place to kind of put yourself lower in his sight. So you go to God humbly. You're not like the spoiled brat, son of God, going to God and saying, God, give me this. I need this, right? You're entreating the Lord. And when you get on your knees, you're showing a lot of respect and reverence to God. I think that getting on your knees when you pray to God will, will, will have an influence on God and on whether or not he's going to, he's going to, you know, hear you and answer your prayer. And then to, to what extent he's going to answer your prayer. I think it definitely will have an impact on that. And we see a lot of people who get on their knees and pray in the Bible as well. And oftentimes you'll see it's, it's maybe sometimes for bigger prayers, but not even always for bigger prayers. It's just something that people did in the Bible. I'll give you a few examples of people getting on their knees when they pray. King Solomon did this when he had come into power and he brought the whole nation of Israel together. First Kings 854 says, and it was so that when Solomon had made an end of praying, all this prayer and supplication unto the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven. King Solomon made a great prayer where he was on his knees with his hands up to heaven, just praying to God. Acts 9 40 says, but Peter put them all forth and kneeled down and prayed and turning him to the body said, Tabitha arise. And she opened her eyes. And when she saw Peter, she sat up. This is when Peter was actually doing a miracle, bringing someone back from the dead. But he kneeled down and prayed to God for that power. And then, and then the woman was healed and she was raised from the dead. Acts 20 36 says, and when they had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them all. And they all wept sore and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him. So this is just a prayer of Paul with his, with his friends where he kneeled down and prayed. And then Acts 21 5 says, and when they had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way and they all brought us on our way with wives and children till we were come out of the city. This is Paul departing. Again, he's got his friends coming with him. They're walking him out, basically walking him out of town. Just, just, just talking to him and stuff, saying their goodbyes. And it says till we're out of the city and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed. There's a lot of examples of people kneeling down and praying. Even Jesus kneeled down and prayed in the verse I talked to earlier when we was in the garden of Gethsemane. It says, and he was withdrawn from them about stones cast and kneeled down and prayed saying, father, if they'll be willing to remove this cup from me, nevertheless, not my will, but thy be done. Jesus is the best example for anything that you want to learn about anyways, in the Bible, the way that Jesus does things should be the way that we should look to for us to learn how to do things, right? If Jesus was able to, was getting on his knees to pray to God, I think we ought to do that too. Now, do I get on my knees every single time I pray to God? No. Sometimes I pray to God in my car. Okay. Am I going to be able to get on my knees when I'm driving my car? And there's other situations, but here's the thing. You ought to do it. I mean, I think it's going to be helpful in your prayers to God. We see so many people doing it, giving God that respect. Now let's not forget to pray. I see this, and this is, this just goes back to that, that insert in the bulletin. And one of the reasons why I have that is because don't forget to do it. I mean, the Bible, the verse that we started off with says, ask and you shall receive. And that's a great promise. That's an awesome promise to say, Hey, look, if you just ask, here's the thing. If you don't ask for something, you're probably not going to get it. You got to remember to actually do it. I mean, ask God for things. Don't think that you're burdening God with too much stuff. God can do a lot, right? When you, I, man, I remember I had some friends shortly after I got saved and I was trying to preach a guy. I didn't really know how to preach the gospel. And I was trying to tell him it because these are my buddies that I, that I, that I ran with that, you know, I mean, and this was, you know, the Christian I was, I mean, we were, we would be sitting on the street drinking, right? So we'd all be there and I'd be trying to tell about Jesus. Cause it was, I had just newly been saved. So I'm trying to explain it to him and stuff. And one of the guys was saying, and I was like, look, I'm like, just pray to God, just asking for some, you know, I'm just trying to explain like, look, just do it. And he's just like, no, I can't, you know, like, like he felt like bad to even ask God for something. I was just like, look, don't, you know, like that's the wrong attitude to have. Don't get to the point where like, you're embarrassed to ask God for something. I mean, God knows everything anyways. Okay. If you've done wrong by God, God knows that if you're embarrassed or ashamed, ashamed, well, maybe you should be and use that to do what's right by God, but don't, don't use that as something to prevent you from still just going to God and casting your cares upon him and asking him for things. Don't, don't let that bring you down because you'll get out of that. You know, you need to get into the habit of praying and asking for things. You need to keep a humble attitude because oftentimes if you're not going to go to God, well, you're going to have to take care of it yourself. And that's just going to build a proud attitude. We ought to just rely on God to help you instead of thinking that you're the one that's doing everything. James 1 17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights with whom is no bearableness neither sheltering. That's saying, look, every good gift, everything that you receive that's good, that's coming from God. Whether you realize it or not, all the good gifts, all perfect gifts, they're coming, they're coming from above. They're coming from God. And we need to remember that to keep ourselves humble. Now there's a few more things I want to, I want to touch on with praying because one thing that's really important to pray for is for God's healing. And this is mentioned many times in the Bible where prayer is used for people who are sick, people who are diseased, you know, you got problems. That's why we added our name, our family to the, to the prayer list is because when we're sick, we, the first thing we need to be doing is going to God. Now I don't believe that it's wrong or that you shouldn't try to treat your disease with, you know, with some kind of good treatment. It's going to help you to get better. Okay. I'm not saying that, but the first place we go to is God and tell God and ask him. Now there's nothing wrong with continuing to do things and try, you know, try to try to solve the problems that you have. It's just like, I would liken that to going out and working, right? You don't pray to God just to support you and then don't ever go out to work, especially if you're a man, right? Don't just pray to God and be like, God, I need you to, to just support me and give me food and clothing and just help me out with this stuff. But then you're unwilling to go out and actually work and pay and pay for your own stuff. Right. Um, God expects you to do certain things and I, and I kind of use that same mindset for, for being sick and stuff like that. I mean, there's things that you can do to help your body and then to be, and to get better, go to God first, go to God first with getting a job, go to God first with, you know, with taking care of you, of course, but then go out and do the things that you can do yourselves because here's the thing. God's going to answer things that need to be taken care of by God, right? He'll help you when he needs, when it needs to be God taking care of you. If there's something you can take care of on your own and take care of it on your own. I'm not saying not to pray to God, but I'm just saying, look, if there's something that God knows and you know, you can do this on your own, do it, right? No one has someone else to do it for you. Just do it. But, um, but you know, here in the Bible, the Bible gives many examples of people that were sick, people that needed, you know, healing and prayer to God had actually helped them. And, um, James, go ahead and turn to James chapter five. If you would, this is a last big section of scripture. James is right near the end of the Bible. There's no way I'm going to get to everything. Prayer, prayer, the subject of prayer in the Bible is huge. I mean, there's so many aspects to cover. Um, I can't even, I can't even come close to covering it all in one sermon. Look at James chapter five. This is a really good, a really significant section of scripture here. We're going to start reading in verse number 13. James chapter five is the last chapter of the book of James. So there's any among you afflicted, let him pray. Is any married? Let him sing songs. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise them up. And if you have committed sins, they shall be forgiven. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avail of much. No, God wouldn't be telling us a pray one for another that we may be healed if it wasn't going to happen. Okay. It's, it's very important that look when someone's sick and even say here, you know, have the elders of the church pray over him. I have had, you know, I know pastor Anderson has gone and actually prayed over people that were like in the hospital. You know, people were having like severe problems. Um, you know, maybe someone gets cancer, someone, you know, someone gets these horrible diseases where it's like, you know, there's not much hope. Call for the elders of the church call, you know, get the pastor out there and have him pray because the Bible says that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avail of much. That means that your fervent prayer, I mean, you're praying to God permanently, you know, you're intensely praying to God for things. And if you're a righteous man, that's going to get you a lot and avail it much. And this is why we pray because it actually works. There are many, many examples in the Bible of answered prayers and miracles. And in James five, look at verse number 17. He gives us an example here in verse 17 is as Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. That's an example of a man that prayed, God, don't want it to rain. And there was a reason for that. But God, I don't want to rain three and a half years of no rain. That's a long drought of no rain. Three and a half years. And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. So there, I mean, this is this is one of the reasons why we pray because it works. I mean, it's the main reason why I read, if you know what works, God, listen to him. God is able to do, he's able to do miraculous things, causing it not to rain for three and a half years is pretty miraculous. I mean, that's controlling things that we don't have control over. That's asking God to do something for us. Hey, you have no control over that in our life. God, please help us with this. Please do this for me. The last thing I'm going to get into here is just one more way to get attention when you pray one more way. You know, I talked about kneeling. We talk about praying aloud. And these things, I think, are really good things to do when you're praying. One other thing that you can do is to fast. Now, when you look at fasting throughout the Bible, it's it's always associated with prayer. Now, of course, fasting is, you know, keep, you know, not eating for a while, right? It's for however long you set a fast for, a day, three days, you know, if you're really extreme, 40 days. There's examples of all different types of fasts, but the most common thing is one day, one day fasting. And there's fasts where you can, you know, drink water and that's all you do is just drink water. And some people fast we don't have food or water. Now, I don't recommend doing that for an extended period of time. But you can do that for, I mean, you can do that for a day. It'd be just fine. But we'll see here, look, I'm going to read a few, a few forces of scripture for you. And see, fasting is you're afflicting your soul is what you're doing. You're denying yourself your fleshly appetites. You're denying yourself that, that desire to fill your belly with food. You're denying things from yourself and you're asking God to take care of you for something. And what you're, it's, it's, again, it's another humble thing to do, just like getting on your knees, right? You're fasting. You're saying, God, look, I don't need this other stuff. I need you to help me. It's basically what you're fasting. Matthew 17 verse 20 says, and Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief, for verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you unto you, how be it this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting. He was talking about a devil. So like the disciples at the time, they were trying, you know, they had the power to cast out devils. But they came across one that they weren't able to cast out. They weren't, they weren't able to cast the devil out. And first Jesus says, because of your unbelief, you know, but then he explains up further and just says, well, look, this kind, this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting. So there's some things you're saying, look, you also need to be fasting. And so this example, what's cool, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought, but I got it back in. What's interesting about that is that that kind of goeth not out by prayer and fasting, but Jesus was able to cast it out, which leads you to conclude that Jesus was fasting. Jesus had done the prayer and fasting, and he was able to cast that devil out. The disciples weren't, but in any case, you know, fasting can be something that you need to do. And oftentimes fasting is kind of done in more extreme situations. I mean, you got like major problems, something going on, you know, when whole cities would repent and sackcloth and ashes, sometimes they would declare a fast. You remember Esther in the book of Esther, she had to go to King Ahasuerus and she was not allowed to go in unto the king unless she's actually called. But Mordecai wanted him to want her to go in and entreat the king and basically save the people of Israel because Hanan was going out and he wanted to kill. And so Esther wanted to go into the king. She said, okay, well, you guys need to fast for me and I'm going to fast and entreat God that God would make it so that because if she just walked in, there's only one way that she would be spared from death. And if that's if the king laid out a scepter to her and allowed her to come into his presence, it's kind of a weird rule that they had there at the time. But people weren't allowed just to walk in and just interrupt the king and just walk in on his business or whatever. They weren't allowed just to just to come into his presence even unless they're calling us they're invited. So she held us back. This is a big deal. I mean, think about if you were if you were going to go do something and say, look, I could be facing a death penalty here. If he doesn't show me mercy and extend a scepter under me, I'm going to be I'm going to be put to death. That was a big deal. That was a big affliction. That was something that that she really needed a lot of people praying for and praying to God that he'll bring her through this. And that's what they did. They prayed and they fasted before she went in. And then she went in and talked to, you know, and of course, found favor in the king's sight and and her prayer was answered. And Ezra Chapter eight is another example of this. Ezra 821 says, Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahabah that we might afflict ourselves before our God to seek of him a right way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king, a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way because we had spoken unto the king saying the hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him. But his power and his wrath is against all them that forsaken. So we fasted and besought our God for this and he wasn't treated of us. This is a story of an Ezra. Ezra told the king already said, Look, we don't need your soldiers. We don't need your we don't need your protection, basically is what he was saying. Because they told the king, they said, Look, the hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him. So he said, Look, God is our protection. We're trusting in God. We don't need your protection. But they were making this journey. And, you know, they're on the way and there were there were dangers. There were people that could, you know, that is whoever they come out and they could kill him. They could hurt him. They could, you know, do all kinds of things. So they, you know, they wanted to make sure that they were protected by God. And he was he was keeping his faith because he had great faith in God. But so what he did was he proclaimed a fast to afflict themselves before God. And they prayed to God for God to protect him. And it says, and he wasn't treated of us. So that was another instance. And then the last instance, and we'll close with this verse. And X 10 30 says in Cornelius said, Four days ago, I was fasting until this hour. At the ninth hour, I prayed in my house and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, Cornelius, that prayer is heard. And I'm so I had remembrance in the sight of God. Now I don't have time to get into what other stuff I was going to get into today. If you take anything away from the sermon today, praying is asking. The Bible gives a great promise. Ask and shall be given unto you. God wants to answer your prayers. Okay. God wants to help you as a child of God. He's, he's there for you. Now, one of the most important things is if you want God to hear you, you better listen to him. Okay. Listen to what he has for you. Read the Bible, hear what he has for you. There's birth. There's things that you won't even have to ask for if you just do that first. Okay. You want to be heard by God. Keep his commandments. We've already seen that we've, we've gone over how to pray, you know, the example that, that God gave, don't just use vain repetitions, you know, give God credit, pray that things would be done according to his will, that whatever it is that he's going to do for you, that it's, that it's, you know, according to his will, not just your own. Have faith and confidence when you pray to him that he will answer him because he will just believe his word for that and make sure you're praying for the right things. And if there's things that you really want to, you're really earnestly praying for, I would recommend praying aloud, getting on your knees and maybe even fasting. Okay. Those are all things that can help your prayer life. And please, with the, with the prayer requests, you know, if you have specific needs and there's something that's, that's in your life, get other people to help just to pray for you and to pray with you. I know there's, there's sometimes there's certain things that you don't want to have, like, you know, public, you don't want to say publicly, that's fine. But if there are things and you don't mind it being in the bulletin, let me know. Having more people praying for you, having righteous men of God pray for you, will have an impact. I promise you that. It will have a big impact. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you so much that you hear our prayer. I thank you that you're hearing our prayer right now, dear God. I pray that you would please help us not to forget how powerful you are and that you are a God that's there to hear us. Lord, help us to hear you first. Help us to open up our ears to your words. God, help us to change our lives, to serve you better, to obey your commandments, that when we go to you, we could, we could not have any doubts that you're gonna hear us and that you'll take care of us. Lord, in all these things, we pray for your will to be done. God, I know that coming to church and hearing your word preached and praying and reading are all things that you want us to do. We already know that. I pray that you please help us to continue to do all of those things. And since I know what's in your will, I know you'll, you'll hear us. And God, I pray that you would please just help us to remember and to make a habit out of praying to you regularly, multiple times a day. And Lord, we love you and we thank you for being so gracious and merciful unto us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.