Skip to content Lord, Teach Us To Pray Oct 11 · 42 min ...more
Lord, Teach Us To Pray
October 11, 2026 · 42 min
Teaching directly from the Mount of Beatitudes by the Sea of Galilee, Pastor Jeff explores Jesus' instructions on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 6. While many treat prayer as an empty ritual or a checklist of demands, Scripture calls believers into authentic relationship.
Series Stand Alone Series
Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub serves as president of Pastor Jeff Ministries, a national and global ministry designed to equip believers and challenge them to take
October 11, 2026 · 42 min · Stand Alone Series
Teaching directly from the Mount of Beatitudes by the Sea of Galilee, Pastor Jeff explores Jesus' instructions on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 6. While many treat prayer as an empty ritual or a checklist of demands, Scripture calls believers into authentic relationship. ...more Show the full description Show less Teaching directly from the Mount of Beatitudes by the Sea of Galilee, Pastor Jeff explores Jesus' instructions on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 6. While many treat prayer as an empty ritual or a checklist of demands, Scripture calls believers into authentic relationship.
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In this video 0:00 The Importance of Prayer in Jesus' Ministry7:18 Pray with Sincerity13:00 Pray with Honor and Dependence27:00 Pray with Forgiveness33:00 Pray with Vigilance and the Power of Prayer
The Importance of Prayer in Jesus' Ministry 0:00 Hey. Would you help me welcome all our campuses this morning from the Sea of Galilee?0:18 Well, we have an excited group. We've been here for a couple days and we're so excited about what the Lord is gonna do. We're here at the Mount of Beatitudes on the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is right behind me.0:27 So, so much history has taken place here and so today we're going to teach right from that. And if you would, would you join me in prayer as we get ready to begin? Our Father in Heaven, we give you all the glory, we give0:38 you all the honor, we give you all the praise for who you are. And Lord, today as we're here at the Sea of Galilee, we pray through your living and active word that you would speak clearly to us. Because Lord, we as a0:49 people believe every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that it is you who are speaking. So our prayer this morning is speak Lord for we are ready to hear. And so now for all those who have gathered0:59 who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he says, and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the1:11 word, Amen. Amen. As we're here at the Sea of Galilee on the Mount of Beatitudes, this is the traditional site for where Jesus would have taught the Sermon on the Mount. Whether this was the1:23 exact spot, we know it was certainly close to here where he was teaching. So I thought of no better thing to do today than to teach right from the Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and
1:34 7. And as Jesus begins to teach this Sermon on the Mount, he talks about who the blessed are, who the blessed are in this life. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And blessed are those
1:46 who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And so on. And then he talks about how we are salt and light, that we're not to lose our saltiness, that we're to
1:57 continue to be light, that we're to preserve our culture from becoming putrid, that we're to be light in a dark place. And he continues and talks all about personal relationships and how important personal relationships
2:08 are. And says even if you have something against your brother, 1st go reconcile to your brother, then come back and worship. So he begins to teach about that. And as we jump ahead later on, he begins to to tell us all
2:20 about how we shouldn't judge others and how we should continue to pray, ask, seek, and knock. And then he finalizes his whole sermon by talking about, you know, 2 roads and 2 gates and
2:32 2 ways and 2 foundations and making sure that you, have your foundation set. And when he ended, people said he doesn't teach like 1 of our scribes. This one's different because he's teaching as
2:43 1 with authority. But right nestled in the middle of this message that Jesus taught right here in the Sermon on the Mount, He teaches different things. He teaches us how to give, He teaches us how to
2:55 fast, and He teaches us how to pray. And really the way He does that is the attitude that we should have. So He says in chapter 6 in verse 1, beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed
3:07 by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be
3:19 honored by men. Truly, I say, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that when you're giving will be done in secret, and your father
3:30 who sees what is done in secret will reward you. So he says, hey. When you give, don't announce it. Don't blow a trumpet. Don't tell everybody, hey, I'm a giver. I'm really, really generous. If you do that, you already
3:41 have your receipt. You've already been paid in full for what you have. But when you give, don't even let your right hand know what your left hand's doing. Just do it with a good heart, and your father, who is in secret,
3:51 he'll reward you. After this section on prayer, he talks about fasting, and he says, the same way. Whenever you fast, this is verse 16, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their
4:03 appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say they have the reward in full. So he says, when you fast, same way. Don't put on a gloomy face and peep... Walk around so people say, why
4:14 you look so gloomy? Well, I'm fasting. I'm so spiritual. Don't don't do that. If you do that, you already have your reward in full. But he goes on to say, no. You... When you fast, fast so that your
4:26 father sees you, and then your father will reward you for what you do. But where I wanted to focus our time today is on the section on prayer. We're a church that's built our whole ministry on prayer. 1st Tuesday is our
4:37 most important meeting of the month. I believe the greatest thing I can do as your pastor is to teach you to seek the face of God. If you know how to seek the face of God and you know how to hear God, that's the best
4:48 gift that I could give to you. And it's certainly what the disciples wanted too. I mean, if you study the life of Jesus, which we're gonna be studying all week this week, 1 of the things that you'll notice is he was
4:57 always wanting to spend time with his father. He he was always sneaking away to spend time with his dad. After he fed the 5000, he went up on 1 of these mountains right here, and he's prayed all night long before he
5:08 walked on the sea. In Luke 6 12, before he selected all of his apostles, he went up on a mountainside and he prayed. And he spent all night praying, which is really interesting because
5:20 Jesus had perfect access to his father. So when the father was telling him, here's your 12, it couldn't have taken that long. I think he stayed up all night because he got the answer to these are your 12. And he was
5:29 like, oh, no. I better pray. This is this is the best you got for me. And he stayed up and he prayed all night long. We see him when he was 12 years old when his parents traveled from Jerusalem up here, back to
5:41 Galilee area, you know. And he was... He stayed behind and they went back and they found him. And what did he say? He's like, did you not know I needed to be in my father's house? He prayed all the time. He snuck away.
5:53 Mark 1 35 says very early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went to solitary places where there he prayed. His whole ministry was prayer. Even the night that he was betrayed, he takes his
6:04 disciples into the garden. He takes Peter, James, and John with him so that they can keep watch and do what? Pray. And he comes back 3 different times and says, could you have not stayed awake for at least an
6:16 hour? I mean it's interesting to know that even a prayer meeting with Jesus can be difficult in the flesh, right? I mean prayer is a discipline, but the disciples saw Him praying so much. Even on the cross when He was
6:27 given His life, what was He doing? He was talking to His Father. His whole ministry was prayer. And so what you have recorded in Luke chapter 11, after all the things the disciples saw... I mean they they saw Jesus do
6:39 incredible miracles. They they saw him heal people, restore sight to the blind, even raise the dead. The 1 thing that we have recorded in scripture that they wanted to be taught was what? Lord, teach us to pray.
6:51 Obviously, when you spend time with the father, there's something different than when we do it. So we would like to know how to pray like you pray. And this is what Jesus is teaching here in the Sermon on the Mount.
7:01 Here's what he says in verse 5. In the same way he talks about giving and fasting, he says, when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street
7:12 corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have the reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, and pray to your
Pray with Sincerity
7:24 father who is in secret. And your father who is in secret sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as as the gentiles do, for they suppose
7:36 that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. And today I'm just gonna give you 5 ways that you
7:48 can pray, 5 truths about prayer that will help you. There's so much that we could unpack, here today, but I'll give you 5. And the 1st 1 I wanna tell you is this, pray with sincerity. Pray with
8:00 sincerity. Sincerity is more than just clarity. It's sincere. It's your genuine heart posture. Notice what he says. He says don't be like the hypocrites who love to stand around and play... Pray. There there are some
8:11 Christians that like to give a lot of words and say things over and over and act spiritual and do all these things. No. He's telling be genuine and be sincere in the way that you ask. If it's genuine and sincere to raise
8:23 your hands, raise your hands. If it's genuine and sincere to kneel, kneel and pray, but do it in such a way that you're being sincere with God. And you don't need to magnify your words and multiply your words thinking
8:34 that if I pray the right way or if I have a lot of words to say or if I could could just know how to do it there'll be some magic formula I can present to God and then he'll answer it. I mean think about Peter. Peter
8:45 spent the most time with Jesus potentially of any disciple and right out here in the sea when he started walking on water with Jesus and he began to see the winds and the waves and went down, do you remember how he
8:56 prayed? 3 simple words. Lord, save me. Alright. I mean, it wasn't a complicated prayer. It wasn't like, dearest Jesus in the midst of my drowning. Like, no. I mean, he
9:08 didn't he didn't pray that way. He prayed what he needed sincerely, and we need to learn to do that. Like, if you have needs, bring them before the Lord. If you have genuine heart concerns, bring them before the Lord. Be
9:19 very sincere in what you pray because the Lord responds to your authenticity. The Lord responds to your genuineness, not your many words, not your flowerly language. And I know, I think prayer is more
9:31 caught than taught. I sometimes see people at church. I can't come to 1st Tuesday. I can never come there. I don't really know how to pray out loud. It's more caught than taught. And really what it is is you expressing
9:41 what's in your heart to the Father. Just telling Him what is going on. We see this all throughout scripture in Luke chapter 18, you know, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector that both went up to pray. And 1
9:53 prayed and thank God he wasn't like everybody else. And then he tithed and he gave and he was awesome and he had all the right words. And then the tax collector who was unliked, who was a sinner, who knew he was a
10:04 sinner, stood at a distance and just beat his chest and said, Lord have mercy on me a sinner. And Jesus said, I tell you the truth, that 1 went home justified. Right? God is looking for your sincerity.
10:17 So be sincere. Because sometimes the devil will trick us and think, well just be really flowerly with your words and just pretend you know what you're saying. No. Be genuine. Be be authentic with Him. And that's what the
10:28 Lord is drawn to. I mean, think about if you have children. When your children are young and they sit on your lap, they don't have an agenda, they just wanna talk to their dad or they just wanna talk to their mom.
10:39 They're just being genuine. I remember in college, when I was in college and was just beginning to walk with the Lord and had come to Christ but didn't know how to walk it out and was still kind of had 1 foot in the
10:48 world and 1 foot with Jesus and didn't know how to do all these things. I remember 1 morning I woke up and prayed a prayer like some of you pray... Have prayed in the past, Lord, if you just get me through this, I
10:58 promise you I'll never do this again. And I was praying 1 of those prayers, and as I was praying that, I remember thinking in my head, you're lying. You're lying. Because even as you're praying that prayer, you're
11:09 thinking about what you're gonna do later today. And I remember I stopped myself in the prayer and said, lord, you know everything. You know I'm a liar. And I I... I'm I'm sitting here telling you I'm sorry, but I'm not
11:19 even sorry. But I wish I was sorry. And, lord, could you begin to teach me to love what you love and hate what you hate? I really would like to be a genuine follower of you, but I don't even know how. Could you bring
11:29 some men in my life that could teach me how to do that? I'm telling you, it didn't happen instantaneously, but in a period of weeks, God started bringing people into my life. My heart started changing. My behavior then
11:39 started changing. But it's because I got sincere. It was genuine. I wasn't praying the things that I knew Christians were supposed to pray. I was praying what was really going on in my life. And the Lord loves it when
11:50 you bring what's really going on in your life to him. I mean, think about church. The word that gets used the most in church, I think, is this word, fine. How are you doing today?
12:02 Fine. Everybody's fine. But not everybody's fine. But we tend to go to God like we're fine. Like everything's fine, but if you could just help with my wayward child, but if you could just help with this job, but if you
12:12 could just help with my fine... But everything's fine. But it's really not fine, and God likes our sincerity when we bring it to him, and so he tells us how to do that. Don't go on with your flabbering words, and you
12:22 don't have to have all the right intricacies, all these different things. Just be genuine and share it. I mean, even Jesus in Gethsemane, when He was praying, what did He pray? Your will be done. Not my will, but
12:34 your will. I mean, he was sincere. That wasn't what he wanted to do. He knew what was coming. It wasn't just a physical excruciating pain he was gonna deal with. It was the wrath of God that was gonna be poured out
12:45 completely onto me. He said, if there's any other way, this is not what I would want, but not my will. Thy will be done. Right? He was being sincere, and God is drawn to sincerity. Let me
12:57 give you a 2nd way to pray. Pray with honor. Pray with honor. Notice what he says in verse 9. He says, Pray then in this way. Now he's gonna give what we call the Lord's prayer. It's really the disciples prayer
Pray with Honor and Dependence
13:09 because he's giving the prayer to the disciples. So when he says pray in this way, it means we can pray this exact prayer. Okay? But it doesn't mean that this is the only way we can pray. He doesn't mean repeat these
13:20 words every time because he just got done telling us. It's not about meaningless repetition. He's saying this is the way that you should pray. In other words, I'm gonna give you principles for how you should pray, and
13:30 here's how you can pray. And he starts talking about praying with honor. He said pray in this way, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your
13:41 kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So how do we start praying? We start praying by giving honor to the Father. We start praying by giving him all the glory that he
13:53 deserves. So often, we're good at asking for our daily bread, which we'll get to in a minute. Like, these are my needs today. I'm waking up, and I'm... I got a list of needs. When God... When we approach the throne of
14:03 God, what God wants us to approach him is is with honor. We're talking to the king of kings, we're talking to the lord of lords, we're talking to the ruler of the universe, we're talking to the 1 who created everything
14:13 out of nothing, we're talking to the 1 who has given us the very life we have in our lungs, we're the 1 that tells us, without you knowing, blink every 6 seconds so that you have moisture in your eyes. I'll keep your
14:23 heart beating. I'll make sure your your organs are working. I... That's who I am. And so he expects to be honored by us. A couple years ago, I had the the opportunity and privilege of going
14:34 into the oval office in the White House. And I can tell you, when you walk into the oval office in the White House, you you you don't walk in there cavalier. Like, hey, Perez. What's up? You walk in with honor because of
14:46 the position. When we when we come before the Lord, yes, he calls us his friends, but we walk in knowing our position and who we are compared to him. So our father who art in heaven,
14:58 holy or hallowed be your name. That's why when we have church services, we usually start off by singing praise songs and worship songs to our lord to give him the honor that he deserves because he loves it
15:10 when his children give him honor. In the same way, we as parents, we love it when our children give us honor. We're called to show honor to the lord. Amen? I mean, you think about it. In Isaiah chapter
15:22 6, when Isaiah saw the the train of the lord's robe fill the temple with glory, and he heard all the spiritual beings around, what were they saying? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
15:34 God Almighty. In Revelation 4 and 5, what do you hear him say? Holy, holy, holy. Our God is different than anyone else. He's holy. He's completely other. He's completely perfect. You think
15:46 about what's the most beautiful, perfect, all of those things combined... God's greater than all of that. And so when we approach him, he wants us to approach him with with honor. I mean think about this. Yesterday
15:58 for for those of us who are here, we were at Mount Carmel, and we got to talk about Elijah in 1st Kings chapter 18 who called down fire on the altar and demonstrated that his
16:09 god, our god, was the true god. And it's interesting because what you see with the prophets of Baal, all morning till noon, they prayed. They were sincere. They were sincerely
16:21 praying. And then at noon, Elijah taunted them. And we talked about how he did that, said maybe your god's busy, maybe he's in the toilet, maybe he's out running around, maybe he just can't hear you, maybe you should
16:31 shout all the louder. So they did. They got even more sincere. They started cutting themselves until the blood flowed, and they they did that all afternoon. But when it came time for Elijah to pray, he knew the 1 he was
16:42 praying to. And he asked the Lord to show the world that his name was the name that was worthy of being followed. He prayed with honor. He wanted God to get the glory. Sometimes when we're
16:54 praying for the things that we need, we're praying for God to do things in and through us just so we can get through. But we're praying when we pray the way we pray. Lord, here's what we want you to do so that you get
17:04 the glory. And when you shift your focus from praying for your needs to praying for what God would get his glory through, everything begins to change. So you can pray the same way, you can pray for your prodigal
17:16 child, but it's not just so they come home because you love them and you miss them, It's so that God would be glorified because he would be the 1 that would get all the credit. It's okay to pray if you have a shortage in
17:27 your finances. It's okay to pray if your health is not good, but it's not just so you get healthier and get more money. It's so that God would get glory because everyone would know that he's the 1 who did it. So we pray
17:39 with honor. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. And then honoring is living what God wants. What does he pray? Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on the earth
17:51 as it is in heaven. And here's really what we're praying. We've been talking about the kingdom. When the kingdom comes, there's a king. His name is Jesus. He's gonna set up a kingdom. It's gonna be perfect. Until he gets
18:00 here, we have glimpses of that kingdom, but we don't have the kingdom yet. When he comes, there won't be any anybody that's not perfectly healthy. There won't be anybody that lacks anything. There will be no sin. I mean,
18:11 you talk about a perfect world. It's it's a perfect world when the king comes. And here's what we're praying. Lord, we want that. We want that more than any... Lord, if you were to come, like, there's nothing on your
18:22 calendar more important than that. I promise you. Right? Even if you're engaged and next week's your wedding day, this is more important. You'll be more excited about that. And so we're praying, let your kingdom come.
18:32 And then we're praying this, let your will be done on the earth as it is in heaven. In other words, Jesus, until you get here, we want to live your kingdom values now. So that when people see me, and
18:44 people see my family, and people see the people I associate with, they know what... They get glimpses of what that coming kingdom is gonna be. They're they're... It's wetting their appetite for what's coming. So it's not
18:55 about what I get to do today. It's Lord, how do you live your kingdom values in and through me? How do I realign or reorient my life to your agenda for what you want to see happen today? Right? So when we wake up, most
19:07 of us have, you know, things on our phone, calendars on our phone. Here's what we're doing. Here's what I got to get done today. All this stuff. It's setting that aside and saying, Lord, I'm here to honor you and I'm
19:16 here to reset and recalibrate my life. And I want to see your kingdom come. Does anything in my schedule need to change to accommodate what you want to get done through me today? That's a different way of praying. Amen?
19:26 And so that's what God's asking us to do. So pray with sincerity, but pray with honor. Know that the Lord is the 1 who is in charge. And then 3rd, pray this way. Pray with dependence.
19:39 This is the 1 we tend to be fairly good at. Give us this day our daily bread. Now notice what he doesn't say. Give us this day our weekly bread. Give us this day our monthly bread. Give us
19:51 this day our yearly bread. We live in a society that believes if we can take care of ourself, we're better off. We have this idea of financial independence or just being completely independent of anybody else, that
20:03 that's real success. Like, if I have enough health and enough money and enough relationships, I can choose what I need and I don't need anybody else. That's as unbiblical as it gets. God wants us to remain dependent upon
20:14 him. Every good and perfect gift comes from our father. When you eat today, that came from our father. And we live in a culture where we're used to eating 3 meals a day. We live in a culture where we have abundance. We
20:24 don't think about... Most of us don't think about, Lord, I hope I have enough to eat today. Right? And so when we begin to pray dependently on the Lord and say, Lord, I wanna be dependent upon you for everything,
20:35 sometimes the Lord sparks areas of generosity in our heart saying, you don't need all that, so why don't you give some of that away? Well, if I give that away, then I'm gonna... Then you'll have to depend upon me. Right?
20:44 I mean if we're really gonna pray the way the Lord wants us to pray, we're putting ourselves in a position where we're asking the Lord, Lord make me more dependent upon you. Lord how can I become more dependent upon you?
20:55 What does it look like to become more dependent upon you? And when you see the Lord come through in ways that you didn't expect Him to come through, down to little silly things, everything begins to change. Your prayer
21:06 life will change. I've told this story a lot, but I can't get away from it because when I 1st became a youth director in a church outside Chicago in Joliet, Illinois, it was a church of about 100 people, that's where I
21:16 began my ministry. We had 4 kids in our youth group, I think all 4 only came because their parents made them, and that's how I got my start. And there were these 5 ladies in our church, 1 had been a missionary to Brazil,
21:28 1 is now married to a pastor, just 5 really solid ladies that I remember thinking these are the old ladies in the church. They're probably 45 to 55 years old at the time. They seemed old then, younger than
21:40 I am now. But but they invited me to their Wednesday night prayer meeting And I didn't have anything better to do, and I lived in the parsonage next door to the church, so I couldn't, like, say I'm not around. So I came
21:50 to their meeting, and I remember they just set up 5 chairs. They put 0.167 1 in for me, and I just sat there and really listened to these women pray. And these women prayed as if God was right there with us and that
22:01 everything they were praying was gonna come true. And I remember when we got done with our 1st meeting, and this woman looked at me, she said, we've been praying for you to come to our church because we've needed
22:10 somebody like you for a long, long time. And I didn't even know what that meant. I was like, thanks. You know? But then, they would say, well, what do you wanna pray for? And I said, well, we wanna start a youth service.
22:21 And we only have 4 kids, and we wanna have, like, 100 kids. And so they started praying. And I remember we started our youth service, and we had 20 kids at our 1st service. And I was expecting 100. And I felt like the
22:32 biggest failure in the world. I I went into our pastor. He was getting ready to retire at the time, and I said, I'm really sorry. I said, I know I'm not very good at this thing. I'm new to it. So if you need to let me
22:42 go, I totally understand. And I'll never forget. He looked at me and he said, Jeff, we have never had 20 high school students in our church at the same time in our entire history. He goes, you're doing awesome. I said,
22:53 okay. So then I went back and I would pray with these women. I said, well, we gotta pray that they get saved. So they started praying that that was gonna happen. I remember I stood up and gave a message, probably a 20
23:03 minute message, and I asked if anybody wanted to receive Christ. And I and I said, just stand if you do. And a couple people stood. And I remember looking at them, like, are you sure? Did you understand what I what I
23:12 said? And then they got saved, and then it started to multiply. And so what I began to think is, these are the prayer warriors of the church. That's what we call them. Right? So that what I could do is I could
23:21 subcontract my prayers out to them so that I could go do ministry. And that's how I viewed it. But what I didn't understand at the time was they were getting the benefit of getting to know God in a way that they... That
23:32 God wanted me to get to know Him. And that by praying together, that's how you trust the Lord for what you needed to do. So we had an event that came up in our church. It was, you know, it was probably 30 some years ago.
23:44 Our kids wanted to do a barn dance because they said if we do like this big barn dance, Pastor Jeff, we'll bring everybody in and then we can share the gospel with all of them because they don't just come to church. They
23:54 gotta have kind of an inroad to do it. And so I said, okay. And so we ended up renting out this barn out in the middle of, you know, west central Illinois and all these different things. And we were gonna
24:06 go decorate it, and the kids told all their friends about it and all this kind of stuff. And so they just said, hey, what we need to do is we gotta get bales of hay, you know, just for decorations. And our annual budget,
24:16 I mean for the entire church, our church annual budget was 113000 dollars for the year. That included pastor salaries, that included everything. And our youth budget was 500 dollars. So I I called all these farmers in
24:27 Illinois, and I was like, hey. How much are bales of hay? And everybody I called, they were 3 to 5 dollars for a bale of hay. I knew I knew we needed 100 or 200 of them. And I'm like, I wasn't... I was smart enough as a
24:37 24 year old to know I didn't need to spend our entire youth budget on bales of hay. And so I started to pray every day for hay. Because that's what the woman taught me to do.
24:49 They said if you have needs, you ask the Lord. And so I was praying for that, like, every single day. And kids would come in every week and, like, did we get any bales of hay? I'm, like, we can't afford hay. We can't...
24:57 We're not gonna have that. It'll be fine. We'll still have a great event. And it came up to the day before where we went out and we decorated this whole barn. It was perfectly put together. We had the DJ come in,
25:06 everything was right. At this point in time, we probably had 100 kids helping out with this thing. They were gonna invite all their friends the next day. And the guy that owned the barn that let us borrow it came out and
25:16 said to me, he goes, I've never seen kids this fired up about Jesus. This is so awesome. Way to go. And I said, yeah. I said, you know, it's really cool. I said, I just wish we had bales of hay. And he said, what do you
25:27 mean? I said, well, they wanna have bales of hay for decoration, and we couldn't afford it. He said well how many do you need? I said I don't know. We were trying to get like 100 or 200. He said okay. He said just wait
25:36 right here. And he went inside and came back out. He said get 7 of your kids and come with me. 7 of us went around back of his barn. He owned a towing company. He had a flatbed. We
25:48 got on the flatbed, drove 1 mile down the road, and he took us to a barn. He said this is my friend's barn. He said you can have as many bales of hay as you want. If you break 1, it's a buck. Otherwise, you can just
25:59 bring them all... He goes I'll bring them all back for you and he swung the barn door open and there was 1000 bales of hay sitting right there and you know what I began to think
26:14 I begin to think this. If God cares enough about providing bales of hay for a group of high school kids so they can put on a dance, so they can share the gospel with their friends,
26:26 what does God not care about? He got all the glory. Our kids knew that God was the 1 that provided it. Several of those kids ended up coming to dance, gave their lives to Christ, became part of our ministry.
26:38 Why? But I would have never known to pray for that. That seems stupid. Why would you pray for hay? I mean that's... God's got more important things to do than that. And isn't that how we approach God sometimes? Like this
26:48 is important, but Lord it's not that important. I mean there's people dying in the world and I'm praying for bales of hay, right? That's how we feel, but God wants us to come and be sincere. He wants us to come and honor
26:58 Him, and our Lord loves it when we're completely dependent on Him. I mean you'll even see like the children of Israel, like when they were, in the wilderness, God provided manna. And how did God do that? He
Pray with Forgiveness
27:10 said just take enough for the day. And if they took more than enough for the day, what happened? It all spoiled. He's like, I'm gonna provide tomorrow too, and I'm gonna provide them. Just take what you need today. Make
27:21 sure you're fed. Make sure your family's fed, but don't take more. And some of us, because we live in America, we think I need an abundance of money. I need an abundance of health. I need an abundance of everything.
27:31 God's saying no. Here's where I'm concerned. I'm living right in the moment today. How can you enjoy today? What do you need for today? How can I help you today? So depend upon him today, Which begs the question of,
27:43 are you really depending upon the Lord? Is there anything in your life that you're depending upon the Lord for? So pray with dependence. And then this 4th 1. How about this? Pray with forgiveness. Pray
27:55 with forgiveness. This is sometimes the hard 1, right? And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. In other words, Lord, forgive me in the same way that you see me forgive others. That's the kind of
28:05 forgiveness I want. I want the kind of forgiveness that you watch in me in the way that I forgive others. And notice skip down to verses 14 and 15. He says this. He comes back to it. For if you forgive others for their
28:15 transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your father will not forgive your your transgressions. And here's what that means. It doesn't mean, well, if I'm not
28:25 forgiven, then I'm not say... If I don't forgive somebody, I'm not saved. It means this, if you're truly saved, how could you not forgive somebody? That's what it means. I mean, the only way you're saved is because you
28:35 believe that Jesus, who was sinless, went to the cross and was pinned to it for you. And he gave his life for you, and he experienced the full measure of the wrath of God for you. So if that's really how you're saved,
28:46 how is it you could not extend that forgiveness to somebody else that didn't wrong you nearly as bad as what you did to your heavenly father? It's an impossibility. Christians do not have the privilege of not forgiving.
28:57 And here's the truth about forgiveness. You always have daily opportunities. Even for those of you here in Israel, you're gonna have daily opportunities today, maybe with people on your own bus. Right? I mean,
29:09 there's just always things that come up where we have opportunity. We don't like those things because they make us mad and that person should have known better and they shouldn't treat me like that and I deserve better
29:18 than this and how come you're treating me this way and all those kind of things. Those are opportunities for you to go before the Lord and say, Lord, I forgive them. And I wanna give... Forgive them with the same measure
29:28 of forgiveness that you forgave me. And when you can release other people, it grows your heart for God. It grows your heart for God. So pray with forgiveness. I mean, we referenced this earlier, but
29:39 when you go into worship, if you realize your brother has something against you, what does the Bible say? Well, 1st go be reconciled, and then come and worship. In other words, you you you don't wanna approach the throne
29:50 in prayer or in worship while you have unforgiveness in your heart. You know, where you have... And and here's here's here's buzzwords for unforgiveness. Well, I don't have any unforgiveness in my heart. Are you bitter
29:59 towards somebody? Are are you hurt by somebody? Do you resent somebody? That's that's... Those are signs of unforgiveness. And I've said this publicly many times. I think unforgiveness is certainly a a
30:11 contender for 1 of the greatest sins in the local church Because it's the 1 that we we can't really check-in other people, we can't even... Sometimes we're not even aware of it in ourselves, we don't see it. It's kind of
30:21 the the silent killer, but you cannot live with unforgiveness in your life and continue to grow with Christ. God wants you to forgive. And so if you're here today and you think about, man, there's somebody I am
30:31 forgetting, I'm still mad at my mom, I'm still mad at my dad, I'm still mad at my coach, I'm still mad at my boss, I'm still mad at my employee, whatever it is, forgive them. Forgive them. And a great way to pray is,
30:41 Lord, here's what I'm mad about with that person. Is there any time in my life where I've ever treated you that way? And if you think about that, you'll get a Bible study. He'll he'll show you
30:53 some of those things. And when you see how greatly you've been forgiven, or maybe it's even just saying this, Lord, I know you've forgiven a lot in my life. I'm well aware of that, but Lord, would you begin to show me
31:03 just how much you've forgiven? I really wanna know. You'll be so grateful for all that Christ has done in your life that you won't be able to help but to forgive others. And that's what it means to be born again. I mean,
31:15 that's... In different religions, like in Islam, you you you kill the infidels. You you kill those that are different than you. Jesus is the opposite. You love those, and you pray for those, and you bless those who
31:27 persecute you. And the only way that's possible is by being filled by the Holy Spirit. And so praying this way, you have to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God so that you can become a dependent upon him.
31:39 I've told you stories about Corrie 10 Boom and her time in Ravensbruck and forgiving her captives. Some of you know the story of, Louis Zamperini, after he came to Christ. He was in the movie The
31:51 Unbroken. And after he came to Christ, he flew back to Japan to forgive the Japanese men who in that prison camp tortured him after he came to Christ at the Billy Graham crusade. I mean, there's
32:03 something powerful about a Christian that forgives. And if you say, well, I don't know if I can do that. Your Lord and savior did. Because some of his very last words were what? Father, forgive
32:14 them for they know not what they do. Well, they knew exactly what they were doing. They they knew they were crucifying him. They knew they were being... But they didn't realize the scope of it. And Jesus said they don't
32:24 even realize this, but Lord, I even forgive them, the ones that scourged me and nailed me to this cross, which means we're forgiven because of Christ's grace in our lives. So therefore, because we've been forgiven, what
32:36 are we called to do? We're called to forgive. So pray with forgiveness. It's very hard to go to the throne when you have bitterness and hurt and resentment towards all these other people, but then you're asking God,
32:45 okay, Lord, I'm really serious about you. No, you're not. Right? I mean, even in 1st Peter chapter 3, talks about a husband and wife's relationship. And if that's off and not right, reconcile that or it hinders
32:57 your prayers. Right? And in marriage, you always have opportunity to forgive 1 another. That's what it looks like. In families, you always have to forgive 1 another. That's what it looks like. And that's how we continueShow more
Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub135K followers
