The Grove 10 Years – Week 8

And while the kids leave, if you do not have a Bible with you today, I'd ask you, you can raise your hand. We have our ushers, they'll be handing out Bibles to anyone that need. If you do not own a Bible yourself, feel free to keep this one as a gift from us to you, so you can have a Bible that's yours. So feel free to do that. And everyone else, go ahead and open your Bibles to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. Just to remind all of us, the last few weeks, we've been going through a sermon series that talks about the DNA of our church, some of the things that are very important to us here at The Grove.

And if you remember, we talked a little bit about preaching as the first pillar that we talked about. Then we talked about the second pillar, which is worship. And last week, Pastor Jason led us through the third one, which is persistent prayer. And today, I will continue. My name is Amir, I'm one of the pastors here, if we haven't met yet before. And we're going to look more, build on the foundation of what Pastor Jason did with us last week, going through the Lord's Prayer.

And today we'll talk even more specifically about what persistent prayer looks like, what persistent prayer actually mean. Here's the big idea for us this morning. This is the one thing that I want you to leave with today. Big idea is this: Abide through persistent prayer. Abide through persistent prayer. Luke chapter 18, I'm going to start in verse one. Would you stand with me in honor of the word of God? We'll read this passage together. Luke 18, starting in verse one, and I'll read all the way through verse eight.

It says this: "Now He," Jesus, "was telling them," his disciples, "a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, 'In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. Now there was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, "Give me justice from my opponent." And for a while he was unwilling. But afterward he said to himself, "Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow is bothering me, I will give her justice, lest by continually coming she wears me out."

'" Verse six: "And the Lord said, 'Hear what the unjust judge said. Now will God not bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night, and will he delay long over them? I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find that faith on earth?' " Let me pray for us. Our Father in heaven, we thank you, God, for this morning, this time that we can gather together and worship and praise your name and pray for one another.

It's so sweet when we get to do that. And this morning now as we're gathering around your word, we ask that you will lead our time, that you will bless our time, that you will speak to us, and that your name will be glorified in this place. We pray that in the name of Jesus. Amen. Go ahead and have a seat. So today's passage, this is a parable. Parable, one of Jesus' favorite ways to teach. He loves using it, kind of hiding truth from those who are not interested, revealing truth to those who are interested.

And this specific parable is easy enough to understand because the Lord Jesus gives the bottom line of this parable in the very, very beginning. Look at verse one again. "He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart." That's the point. That's the moral of the story, of the parable. Here's the first point for us this morning. Pray in faith. Do not lose heart. Pray in faith. Do not lose heart. I want to focus first on the judge in the story, the wicked judge.

Look in verse two because in verse two we get one of the worst description anyone can receive, as this judge, it says, "Did not fear God and did not respect man." Remember when Jesus was asked what's the most important commandments? He said, "Love God with all your heart and mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself." What is this judge doing? He does not fear God, and he does not honor man. Does not respect men. Pretty horrible, right? Now, can we be all grateful?

Thankfully, in our world today, we know nothing about judges who do not fear God and do not respect men, right? Thankfully, that's done with. That's the story, right? That's the story. But this is the point Jesus makes. This unjust, evil judge who admits in verse four, if you look, he admits himself, he says, "I do not fear God, and I do not respect man." He says that about himself. This judge, for the wrong selfish motive of being bothered by the widow, he brings her justice in the end.

And the point Jesus makes is this: If the unjust judge eventually brings justice because of the widow's persistence, how much more, listen to this, how much more a just God will desire bringing justice to his people? Big contrast. This is the reason we pray in faith. This is the reason to pray in faith and to not lose heart. Listen, we are not coming to an unjust judge. We are coming to a good, just, righteous, loving God. And this God loves you.

We're just at the beginning of the sermon, but this is the first reminder today. Hey, God loves you. God loves you. He cares about you. And he's just. Deuteronomy 32:4 says this: "The Rock," that's Yahweh, that's God. "The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. He's a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is he." That's the God we get to go to. Not some unjust, mean judge. We come to this God to bring us justice.

Psalm 145:17-19 says, "Yahweh is righteous in all his ways, and is holy in all his works. Yahweh is near to all who call upon him, who call upon him in truth. He will work out the desire of those who fear him. He will hear their cry for help, and he will save them." Here's the question. Do you believe this to be true? I mean, we are getting great reasons to not lose heart. Listen, you're so loved by your just God, and you never bother him. We never bother God.

He loves us. He wants to hear from us. So come in faith to him because you're his child. He wants to hear from you. You're his child. Which connects me to the other character in this parable. Let's talk about the widow in the parable for a moment. The widow, think about this, the widow has no personal relationship with the judge. He doesn't know her. She doesn't know him. She has no influence, no social power, no reason to expect his compassion. But the widow keeps coming.

She keeps coming and coming. She's persistent. And she's so persistent that so eventually, the unjust judge says, "Okay, I'm going to listen." Now compare that to you and me. Contrast that with you and me. Look at verse seven. Verse seven, Jesus says, "Now, will God not bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night? Will he not bring justice to his elect? And will he delay long over them?" We are no strangers begging for attention from some cold-hearted stranger.

We are followers of Jesus. We are God's elect, his chosen people, crying out to our Father. In 1 Peter 2:9, God calls us chosen family. A chosen family. Think about what that means. That the God of the universe, the one who needs absolutely nothing from us, has chosen to bring us into his family through Jesus Christ. How awesome is that? We're his chosen family. We didn't earn that relationship. We didn't deserve this relationship. He adopted us.

And then because of this relationship, now we can come to him, not because we're important enough to, "Hey, I demand an audience with the judge." No, because we're his children. Jesus opened the way, and yet how often we act like we're bothering him. "I don't know if I should bring that to God. I don't want to bother him. He's got so much on his... He runs the world, right? I mean, bother him with my circumstances? That's too much." How often do we pray as though God is too busy or uninterested in what we're going through?

Maybe we like, "I need to find a way to convince God to care about me." How often do we act like this? That's our heart attitude. Romans 8:15 says this: "You have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.' " Can I tell you something? This word, Abba, is one of my favorite words in the world. So Abba is Father in Hebrew. That's what it means, right? And my kids, because we speak some Hebrew, that's what they call me.

They call me Abba. So there's not many words that I prefer hearing in the world more than hearing the word Abba when my children calling me. And I'll tell you this, my dear children, they are persistent because when they want to talk to me and I do not give them my full attention, they will just keep saying, "Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba," 896 times in a row and to get my attention. Can I tell you what? I love that they do it. I love that. Sometimes like, "Hey, hang on, hang on one second.

But you can keep calling me. That's fine." I love it. And you know what? They know, my children know, that they can come to me with confidence because they know I care about them. They can come. I'm not going to kick them out. They can come with confidence. They know they don't need to lose heart because I love them. They know I care for them. They're not bothering me. I'm happy to hear them. And I am aware that not all of us here experienced a loving earthly father that we had the confidence to come to and call Abba and have that close relationship the way God designed it.

And if that's your story, I'm very sorry about that. I wish that wasn't the case for you. But regardless of that, all of us have a perfect, loving, just Heavenly Father who just wants to hear us calling him. And that's the point Jesus makes in verse seven. Don't lose heart. Don't lose heart. God is just. Don't lose heart. You are God's child. You can come to him. You don't have to convince God to become more compassionate. He already is. You don't have to persuade God to be righteous.

He already is. Persistent prayer is not about us trying to change the character of God. It's just about us trusting his character. He's a loving Father to you and me, and he cares. So pray persistently. Pray in faith. Pray persistently. What does it look like, pray persistently practically? I thought about it maybe this way, a way to think about that, praying persistently is praying in formal settings and then also in informal settings. So I pray persistently, meaning I come to church and here we have prayer meetings, and we pray during the service, and we have a prayer team now that will come and pray around you whenever you need it.

For some of us, formal prayer settings should be I'm in my home, and I shut the door behind me, and I'm on my knees, and I pray to God, and I spend some time one on one with God. For some of us, formal prayer time is the first thing I do in the morning. I get on my knees, and I pray to God. Something we should do. The last thing I do before I go to bed, I pray to God. I thank him for the day. I set times, right? So that's what I mean by formal settings.

But also persistent prayer is when I'm informal, meaning I pray as I go all the time. I'm at work, and I'm praying. I'm in the car on my way to work, and I'm praying. I have a meeting, and I'm praying before, and I thank God after. And I walk home, into my house at the end of the day, and I'm praying and thanking God for his goodness. And I bring to him my heart over and over. I'm playing with my kids. I'm watching the news. Whatever I do, I come before my Father, who wants to hear from me.

"Abba, this is what's going on in my heart." God loves us and wants to hear from us. And if that's the truth, why do we lose heart when we pray? If that's the truth, why? Why do we lose heart when we pray? Why do we give up and we stop praying? Why are we not persistent in our prayers? Look at verse eight. Jesus says this: "I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find that faith on Earth?"

So interesting, Jesus makes a connection between verse one, where he sets up the parable, to verse eight, when he concludes the parable. In verse one, he's saying, he connects losing heart to verse eight, a lack of faith. In this parable, Jesus, he's clearly confronting unbelief that causes us to abandon our dependence upon God. So Jesus basically, if I summarize this parable into one question that Jesus is asking, he's saying this: Do you have the kind of faith that results in you praying without losing heart?

Okay, do you have the kind of faith that results in you praying without losing heart? Because you see a lot of people praying, a lot of people praying, but only a few people pray in faith. A lot of people believe in the power of prayer. I enjoy talking about theology. I very often find myself debating or discussing a theological matter with someone. I never found a Christian that said, "Yeah, let's debate if prayer is powerful or not. Should we pray or not?

Let's debate that." Never found one that want to do that. Because everyone believe that, but only a few come in faith. Only a few really trust I'm thinking about coming in faith to God. That's what Jesus says, will he find that kind of faith when he comes back? And I was thinking about, what does actually faith mean? What does it look like to have faith in the Lord? And in Hebrews 11:1, we get a definition for faith that's made of two parts. And the first one is believing.

Believing is intellectually making sense of things. In my mind, something makes sense. I can believe it to be true. And then the second part is trusting with all my heart that this is true, and I'm going to put my life on the line because I believe it so much. Okay? And maybe to try to explain it, I want to ask a question. I used this before. Many of you know I served in the Israeli military for four and a half years. I was an officer in a combat bomb squad type unit.

Because of my service, obviously, I had to shoot many rounds. Like, a couple thousand. And I want to tell you this. If I had to shoot a target that is on the other side of the stage here, that's not really far, I really believe that I can put my five bullets, it will look just like one. Just like one, because I shot... Would you, based on what you know about me, believe that to be true? If you do, yeah, raise your hand. Come on, thank you for building my confidence here.

That's good. I appreciate that. So here's the question. So, of you, if you put your hand up, who's willing to come up here and put an apple on their head? Right. Thank you. That's lying. Don't do it. That's the difference between I just believe something to be true, yeah, I believe you. Based on the information I have, this makes sense to me, I believe it to be true. But faith is saying, "Yeah, I'm putting that apple on my head." That's trust. I'm putting my life on the line because I believe this so much that I trust it, and I have faith in it.

And a lot of people pray, believe in prayer, but don't have faith. Here's what prayer without faith looks like. I believe it's, "Okay, I'm struggling right now, so I... Well, there's power in prayer, right? Let me pray to God. God, please help me. Amen." And then I'm like, "Okay, put it back in the box. I'm going to go try to fix it myself." And then you know what happens? I don't trust God to deal with it. I'm going to deal with it myself. And when things don't work the way I hoped for, who am I getting angry at?

God. It's God. Because I did not have faith. I only believed. Here's my question, church. Who have you stopped praying for? Is there a child who has walked away from the Lord, and you're like, I... Maybe a spouse who doesn't know the Lord, or doesn't live the way that they should for the Lord, and you're like, "I just give up. I don't need to keep praying about that. It's done." Maybe it's a relationship that seems impossible to restore. Like, it's just gone too far.

Maybe it's a sin that you've been fighting for years. You've been enslaved to this sin for years, and you're like, "Well, I try, but I don't want to bother God with this anymore." Why do we stop praying? Could it be because you've stopped having faith that God can act? Here's what Jesus says: "Don't lose heart." That's the parable. Don't lose heart. Pray in faith. Many of you know my brother is sick. He's got brain cancer. It's terminal. It doesn't have a cure.

That's something that's on my heart. I pray a lot about it. The doctors tell us there is nothing to do. So do we pray about it or we do not pray about it? We pray about it. We pray. We ask God to heal him, and we do that in faith. I'm praying for my unbelieving... I have two grandparents that are over 90. They're not believers. They're in Israel. I know this week for me, I've been really convicted. It's because sometimes I'm like, "Man, they heard it all.

They heard it, and they don't want to talk about it." They are so close, hard-hearted about the gospel, and it's discouraging to pray about that. And I've been convicted myself this week. It's like, why am I not praying in faith? Do I not believe? Do I not believe in the power of God to break their hearts and change their hearts, even at this late in their life? Jesus says, "Do not lose heart. Have faith." Pray in faith. Don't lose heart. What is heavy on your heart today?

What prayer have you stopped praying? In what ways are you losing heart? Pray persistently. Now, hear me out, because as I was preparing this, I was thinking to myself, "Well, if I don't lose heart, if I have faith, does this mean that all my prayers are going to be answered the way I want?" Let's discuss this, okay? And in order to do so, I want you to, everyone, let's turn our Bibles to John, chapter 15. Okay, turn your Bible to John, chapter 15, just one book forward.

John, chapter 15. As you go there, I want you, again, to have this question in your mind. Does praying in faith mean that if I believe strongly enough, if I pray with enough faith, God will always say yes? In John 15, we get a pretty clear answer to this question. Follow me with starting in verse five. Look at verse five. Jesus is speaking, and he's saying, "I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away as a branch and dries up. And they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burnt. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." Verse eight: "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples." Here's the second point for us this morning. Pray in fruitfulness.

Don't trust yourself. Pray in fruitfulness. Don't trust yourself. Look again at verse five here. So first we see this word abide. That's like the main word that repeats itself over and over in John chapter 15. What does abide actually mean? What does this word abide mean? So it means to remain, to stay, to keep up, to not disconnect, to stay connected. It's connecting to someone or something so tightly that you practically become one. And the illustration Jesus is giving here is a vine and the branches.

And here's a good picture to see. So there's the vine and the branches, and after a while, if the branches are starting to circle around the vine, you basically, one, all these little pieces look like just one moving together. And then also, it's kind of hard to see. So where is the vine? Where are the branches? Where does this start? Where does this end? How can you tell them apart? They are so connected, so tightly connected. That's the illustration Jesus is using.

In a way, abiding is saying we're taking the identity of something else. We're just so connected. We're practically the same. You look at me, you see this. We're one when we're not disconnecting. We're inseparable. And then look at the end of verse five because Jesus says something pretty outrageous. He's saying, "Apart from me, you can do..." what? Nothing. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Nothing!" Apart from me, you can do what? Nothing. Listen, this is not ignoring that people who do not follow Jesus don't do stuff and don't even have success in this life.

Jesus is talking about spiritual life, and without Jesus, spiritual life does not exist. But this statement from Jesus, it begs the question, how much of my life am I living as though I don't actually need God? He's saying, "Without me, you can do nothing." How much of my life do I live like that statement is not true? Like I do not really need God. We said that sometimes we stop praying because we lack faith, and the truth is that often we do so if we're honest.

Often we lack faith because we think we can just figure it out on our own. Instead of having faith in God, we have faith in us. Think about such a foolish human condition, right? Our sinfulness, thinking that we can figure it out. Outside of Protestant Christianity, every single religion out there is a works-based, I have to earn my salvation type religion. You know why? Because we don't like to say that without Jesus, we can do nothing. So you know what?

I much rather think I can gain some points with God. I can earn salvation with God if I just do enough, because that brings the control back to me. But Jesus says, "No. Without me, you can do nothing." And the truth is even us, people who know that we cannot earn our own salvation, we make decisions without praying, right? We do that all the time. We plan our days without praying. We raise our children without praying. We're trying to sustain marriages without praying.

We try to overcome sin without praying, acting like we can do it all on our own. When we do this, what does this reveal about our heart? It reveals that we trust ourselves more than we trust God. We trust ourselves more than we trust God, and that's often why we're not persistent in prayer. I want to tell you something interesting. For Jewish boys, the age 13 is a significant age. We call it bar mitzvah. And bar mitzvah, at the age of 13, boys...

Literally bar mitzvah means son of commandment, because traditionally, it means that the boy becomes a man, and from now on, this young boy is a son of commandment, meaning he needs to obey God himself. He's not going to be under the spiritual accountability of his father. So now he is accountable to follow the commandments of God. He's a young man. And all to say, it's a big deal for Jews, the 13th birthday. And as always, there's all sorts of weird traditions and culture that develops with time that's added to it.

Some is beautiful, some is just kind of silly. For example, the 13-year-old boy, the bar mitzvah boy, needs to memorize a section of the scriptures and then recite it out loud standing like the synagogue pulpit. That's part of being 13. You've got to do that. Now, I will tell you this, if you have never experienced this, have you ever heard the voices of 13-year-old boys? Where their voice is like, "I'm not sure if I want to be a boy or a man yet."

Right? And going back and forth on it. It's pretty entertaining to be in that. But that's not enough, so these boys stand at the pulpit, and they recite their scriptures, and right when they end reciting their scripture, there's a tradition that the congregation, as soon as they're done with their scripture, the congregation unleashes a hail of soft candies directly at the boy to shower him with sweetness because the word of God is sweet, right? So it's a good concept, right?

Like, we are so proud of you. That was very sweet. Let's just unleash a candy attack on you. And I'll tell you, despite the sweet symbolism, it frequently evolves into competitive target practice, especially that poor boy's young cousins who can get a headshot. And then on top of that, anyone else in the congregation is really a target for the young kids because there are some high-value targets sitting around that might be more... So some candy doesn't even make it up here because they're throwing it at other kids.

And then after the boy survives that candy attack, another tradition is there to try to risk his life. And that tradition is to lift the boy on a banquet chair and then do Jewish circle dances while the boy is lifted up on the chair. And I'll tell you this. Watching a 13-year-old grip the armrests in pure terror while being hoisted eight feet into the air by his way over-enthusiastic uncles and aunts, it's a view worth seeing. I hope you get to do that one day.

Special things. Anyway, I got distracted here. All to say this. In the church that I was raised in in Israel, at every bar mitzvah, the same two verses were quoted and used to challenge the young boys, and I had these two verses memorized then, and I still remember them. I can recite them to this day in Hebrew. I have it memorized in Hebrew. It says, " And listen, this is what we all deserve. This is what we all deserve. We do not deserve to be connected to the vine.

We do not deserve it. And this is what continuing living life without Jesus is going to lead to. This is what continuing to live life without abiding in Jesus is going to lead to. "I'm going to trust me. I'm not going to trust you." This is where it's going to end. Being gathered and cast into fire and burned. It's called hell. And if any of us sit here today and we're like, "Yeah, that's me. I've been trusting me and not Jesus. I've been trusting myself to just figure out life, but I know I'm not abiding in Jesus.

I know I'm not..." Here's what Jesus has done for you if that's you. He says He came to live a perfect life and take the penalty that you and I deserve, that casting into the fire. We do not have to do it because Jesus, that's what He did on the cross. Took the penalty that you and I deserve, so we don't need to experience it. He wants us to have faith, to repent of our sin, and to abide in Him. And if you have not done this in your life yet, just understand the warning of Jesus here.

It's very clear. Today can be a day of salvation for you. Today can be a day that you, "Okay, I'm gathered into the vine. I'm abiding in Christ, and I have a hope for eternity, and I need to stop trusting myself. I'm going to trust Jesus." And I'm praying for anyone here that is not a follower of Jesus today, today can be a day of salvation for you. Then Jesus in verse seven, look at verse seven, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."

So remember, I told you when we turned to John 15, think about the question, If I have enough faith, will all my prayers be yes? Look at the promise Jesus has given here. If we abide in Him and He abides in us, we can ask whatever we wish, and it will be done for us. That's what Jesus says. So is enough faith just going to get us what we want? Man, if that's the case, we have a lot to ask for, right? I'll say, I was thinking about, man, maybe we can ask the Magic will win the NBA.

It will take a miracle of biblical proportions for that to happen, right? Maybe we can ask. But seriously, this verse isn't Jesus saying, "Call me Genie. I'm your personal assistant." It's not Jesus saying, "Here's an unlimited wish credit cards for you to enjoy. Ask for whatever you want, ever." We cannot look at the second part of the verse ignoring the first part. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, that's a condition, then you can ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

So this verse shows that when we abide in Christ, something exciting begins to happen. His Word shapes our thinking, and His truth changes our hearts and our desires, and so we end up praying fruitful prayers. We pray in fruitfulness. Remember Pastor Jason last week, he said to us, "I dare you to pray, God, your will be done. I dare you to pray, God, your will be done." See, the goal of abiding prayer is not to get God aligned with my desires. It's to get my desires aligned with God.

Instead of an attitude of, "I pray that God's plan will change to align with my will," I pray, "My will aligns with God's plan." And we have a great example for that. Remember Jesus in Gethsemane? Right before He's going to go to be arrested and be crucified, and He's praying in His human body, right? And He's praying to the Father. You remember why He's praying there? He's praying, "God, Father, would you take this cup from me?" Because Jesus is facing the severity of our sinfulness and knowing that He is going to be taken to be the sacrifice for it.

He's going to be taking the wrath of God. He's going to be separated from His Father because of our sinfulness. And He says, "Father, take this cup from me." But then He says, "But not my will, but yours be done." So even Jesus in His flesh, His desire at that moment was like, "Maybe take the cup away from me, but not my will be done. Yours be done." Great example for us. This is what fruitful prayer life looks like. This is what an abiding prayer looks like.

You want to get a yes to all your prayers? That would be awesome, right? Everything I pray about, I'll get a yes from God. It can be done. Abide in Christ, persistently come to God, and bring to your loving Father your heart's desire, and then continually ask God to help you align your desire to His will. Whatever we wish will be done for us because we say, "God, not my will, it's your will be done." And God is always going to say yes to His will be done.

Again, abiding prayer, it's when instead of praying that God's plan will change to align with my will, I pray that my will aligns with God's plan. And then we'll always get yes, because God's plan always is His will and always will happen. Now, is that easy to do? Not easy. Easy to maybe understand it here, not easy to live out. I mentioned, speaking about my grandparents. They're in their 90s. It's not my desire that they will pass before getting saved, right?

My desire is that they will be saved. With all my heart, it is my desire. They don't have so much time left, and I want that with all my heart. But can I also pray, "God, you are perfect, and your perfect will be done. Help me to always rejoice in your will. I want their salvation so much, but your will be done, and I'm going to rejoice in your will, whatever it is, because you are perfect, and you are just, and you're a good God." Not easy, but we can do that, abiding in Christ.

Now look at verse eight with me. Verse eight, he says this, "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples." This verse is very near and dear to our heart here at The Grove. It's like the theme verse of us. It's about everything that we believe in. It's like the mission statement of our church. Our desire as a church is to glorify God. Our desire as a church is to make disciples, and our desire as a church is to make disciples who bear much fruit.

It's all in that one verse. But I want you to notice something. In the vine, there isn't a branch. Jesus does not say, "I am the vine, and you are the branch," singular. He's saying, "I am the vine, and you are the branches," plural. In verse eight, "The Father is glorified by you," plural, "bearing fruit and so prove to be," Jesus says, "disciples," plural. Here's the point, abiding in Christ is personal, but it's not a private matter. Abiding in Christ is we have a personal relationship with God, but we are not ever called to be isolated in our relationship with God.

This is true regarding prayer as well. Being fruitful disciples, this year our small groups are all going through the same curriculum. All our small groups, we're going through the same curriculum that is going through different one anothers of the scriptures. How are we being fruitful disciples? How do we live together? We live together by loving one another, and praying for one another, and being devoted to one another, and carrying each other's burdens, and encouraging one another.

It's so good. That's what it looks like to be the church, right? What it looks like to live with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And what's interesting to me is that all these different one anothers, they all exist really only if we're praying for one another. Because you can come and tell me, "Yeah, we really love another at church. We just never pray for one another." So you don't love one another. I really love my brother and sister here, I just never pray for them.

But I really love them. You can tell me, "We're really devoted to one another. I am really devoted to them. I just never pray for them." Or you can say, "We're really carrying one another's burdens here at the church. We're carrying one another's burdens, we just never pray for one another." Abiding in Christ and persistent prayer is personal, but also something that we do together. And I want to add a word to the big idea that I gave earlier to make it even a little more accurate, and it's this, abide together through persistent prayer.

I said abide through persistent prayer, but it's even more accurate to say abide together through persistent prayer. So that's the question for us today. Are we abiding together? Are we persistent in our prayer? So this is a pillar of our church. This is what we want for all of us. So we want this for every one of us individually, to be someone who prays persistently in faith, fruitfulness. But what does it look like for us as a church if this is one of our pillars, and it's this together, we're praying together for one another and lifting each other's needs up, praying in faith for one another?

And you know what? We have some amazing prayer warriors at this church. Some of you have been praying daily for other people in this church for years and years and years, and we're so blessed to have you here for that. But some of us, for honest, have been really slacking on it. We're coming and we're just like, "Okay, we're coming." We love sitting in the same seat every week, right? As we come around to church, we say good morning to the same couple people around us at meet and greet, and we don't even know.

Some of us do, but some of us don't even know how to pray for these people. We're the church. We're together here every week sitting in the same place, and we don't even know how to pray for one another. So today, this morning, here's what I want to do. I want us to try to apply what it is that we're talking about. On every one of the chairs, there are two cards, and there are some pens around. And here's what I want us to take a couple minutes and do right now.

I'm going to ask, would you write a prayer request on each one of those cards? Preferably, maybe it's something like, "Hey, I need persistent prayer for this." Like, "I need some persistence. I need someone to pray for me." Maybe it's something, a topic in your life that you've been, "I stopped praying for," and actually you need to keep praying for this. If it were me, I would write my brother's name and God's healing for him, and I'll write salvation for my grandparents.

That would be my cards right now. But to write those, and here's what I want us to do. One of the cards, I'm going to ask you on your way out to drop, we'll have boxes at the doors. And I'd love you to just drop that prayer request, if you are willing to put your name even better, and these prayer requests are going to come to our pastoral team and our prayer team, and we're going to pray for you. We want to pray for you. We want to join you persistently praying in faith, submitting to the will of God, but join you in praying.

So we'd love you to drop one of the cards there. The other card, what I'm going to ask you to do is to hand it to someone who sits somewhere close to you. Because this Christian life, this spiritual life, it's like a battlefield, right? And just like soldiers have each other's backs, this is a way for us to have each other's backs, bringing our prayer needs to the Lord together. That's how we love one another, and that's how we are devoted to one another.

So I'm going to ask you, one drop at the door, and we'll be praying for you, for whatever it is. The other one, give it to someone around you. And if you get the card from someone, you're going to commit to be praying for that. That commitment starts right now. We're going to spend a couple minutes just praying for whatever card that you get. We're going to take a moment and pray for that. But then you take that card home, and what we ask you is that persistently bring it before the Lord, to pray for your brother or your sister in Christ, and what they're walking through or what they need, and lift them up before our Heavenly Father.

And now you have someone who's saying, "Yeah, you got my back. I'm going to pray for you. You're going to pray for me." So that's the challenge for the week, and hopefully beyond the week for some of those prayer requests. So take a moment and write it. If you've written and you're ready to give one of those cards, just hand them to someone around you. And if you've got a card, I would say right now, start praying about that, right where we are. If you received a card from someone, just go before the Lord and pray for the request that was given to you.

And let me pray for us to close this out. Father in heaven, we thank you, God, for being such a good God to us that you chose to love us and bring us into your family and adopt us as your children. We know we don't deserve it. We don't deserve to come to you. You are holy and you are just, and we are sinful, and yet you've, in your grace, sent your Son to die for us and pay the penalty of the sin that we deserve. I pray that you give us a prayer life that is full of faith and confidence, that we can come before you knowing that you hear us and you love hearing from us, and that we never bother you.

But at the same time, we pray that you help us to pray the right way, in prayer that is aligned with you, a submissive spirit to say, "God, your will be done, not mine." God, this is something I want, but what I want more is your plan and your will to be done. Help us to abide in you, God, and be fruitful disciples of Jesus. And I pray, God, that you allow us as a church, this body of believers, to pray for one another, to abide together in you. So I pray today as there are cards being passed, that you give all of us faithfulness to persistently pray for our brothers and sisters, to pray in faith.

And I pray that you be glorified through us as we do so, and bear much fruit and prove to be your disciples. We give you all the glory in the name of Jesus. Amen. So again, the one card, would love you to drop at these baskets on the way out. The other one, if you haven't yet, pass to someone else. We're going to have our prayer team come up here if you want extra prayer. They would love to be praying for you. Some of our pastors, elders, will come up here as well if you have any questions or want to talk more.

And aside from that, you have a wonderful week. You are so loved, and we'll see you next Sunday.