Harrison Faith Church
One Spirit - Part 4 "The Normal Prayer Life" | Pastor Scott Brandon | July 7, 2024
I do not forget that tonight is a great night because we're going to be celebrating, I think 15 people getting baptized tonight. Amen, that is awesome, awesome. That's just not, that's just not salvation. That's new life. You know, you can come down to the altar and get saved. And sometimes we walk out of here thinking, you know, God forgave me my sins, but it's something about walking out of that water with newness in you. You know what I mean? It's different altogether. And let me just say this too. That's important. That's a huge night. We talk about the body being united and coming together. Can I tell you that I really, we as a church, we got to support people who come out of that water and say, I choose Christ, I publicly declare, you may not have walked the aisle. That's okay. There's nowhere in Scripture says, walk the aisle. But the first command Jesus says that if you have chosen me, then the first tip of obedience is to be baptized. That's that public declaration. So church, let me just invite you. We're going to have some fun. We're going to, we're going to grill out and have some games and things like that. It's going to be a great night. I think I saw the weather was going to be right, 65 degrees tonight. So, or something like that. Pretty close to it, right? It's going to be a great night. But listen, I really want to ask you to come because we, we need to support, if we can't be a church that says we're united and not support each other. So tonight, make your way to Taller Ben. It's going to be a great night. Also, let me just say this. If you've been thinking about being baptized tonight, tonight's the night. If you said, you know what? I've been saved and I never got baptized. Tonight is the night. Tonight is the night. So make sure, matter of fact, I'm going to just say this. If you want to be baptized tonight, we'll take it last minute reservation. No problem at all. Just put your name on a card and then at the end of the service today, just come see me and say, hey, I want, I want to get dumped too. I'm ready to, I'm ready to profess my faith out loud. Amen. Pray with me. Father in heaven, we love you. We thank you so much, God, for your son, all that he's done. Father, not just for us, but most importantly, God in us. What you're doing, how you're transforming us. We pray, God, today, to open our hearts and our minds. Lord, let us hear what you have to say. God, I pray tonight. When those 15 people got baptized and come out of the water, I pray that they will experience a brand new life like they've never known before. God, fill them with your spirit and your power, God, and make them vessels of your light and gospel, and ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Today, we want to shift our focus slightly. We've been looking at, we've been in this series, called One Spirit. And as we look in this, this idea of One Spirit, what that means, we're taking that out of Philippians 1, 27, where Paul says to us, he says, if, if, if Christ has died for us, and he has, and he's given us a brand new life, which he has, he says, then let our life have a manner about it, to live in such a way that it's worthy of the gospel. And so, he says, here's how I know that you're doing that, is if you're standing in One Spirit. So, there's a challenge for you and I, it's to stand in One Spirit, it's to stand as the maintain, it's to hold fast, it's to stay right there. It wasn't jump up and jump down, it wasn't to charge the line, it was to be something that may seem ordinary, may seem boring, may seem mundane, but it's very important, he says, stand, hold right there and to stand in One Spirit. We all obviously know that it's unifying us, but in One Spirit, what do we do? How do we come together in unity in One Spirit? There's two things that we do that are large in One Spirit. One is worship, we've been talking about that, there'll be worship in One Spirit, we know that Jesus says that God is Spirit, that if we're going to worship the Father, we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. And Paul also talks about this idea of prayer for the next few weeks, we're going to talk about prayer. And so, today we're going to approach this idea of prayer in a, in a different way, I'm almost a bit uncomfortable about how to, how I communicate to you because it's not the norm for me, but I know Paul is telling us that we ought to pray all times in the Spirit, but let's be honest, sometimes prayer is difficult, amen. That's the time to say amen, y'all missed that, okay? I'm going to run that back because what y'all just told me is that y'all have no problems praying whatsoever at all, okay? And here's the clue, I know, I know better, I know better, I know better, so let me just say it again, we have a hard time praying sometimes. Okay, here we go, because see, I thought y'all were the saints and I was a sinner, so I'm glad we, we fixed that up. It's difficult to pray at times and to be even more honest, it's difficult to have a normal prayer life, there's so many lies that I battle, can I just talk about Scott Brandon today, there's lies that I battle, when I need to pray, I know I need to pray, but here's a lie that comes my way, you don't got time to do that justice, Scott, you're right, let me just go on and get about by day and get things done, and then I'll say, well I don't really, I just, I don't know how to formulate what I'm asking into words, Lord you know, and then I kind of go on about my day, I just, sometimes I run into ways I don't realize that prayer can be ordinary, it's okay for prayer to be ordinary, it's okay for prayer to be simple, it's okay for prayer to even be mundane, if you might call it that, but you and I, we struggle with that because we think prayer is talking to God, and it must be so powerful that every time I say, oh Lord, in heaven, how do it be your name? You know, you don't want to, so you're at, you're somewhere and the Lord says, I want you to pray for that person, and we go Lord, I can't, I can't be speaking the hallowatts right now Lord, I can't, this is not the moment, it's not the moment Lord, when I get home, I close the door and I get in my private place, then I will call down heaven, and that's a lie that anything wants to show us time and time again, we feel that prayer to be effective must be sensational, it must have this sensational about it, it must be powerful, and that's okay because I understand we're charismatic in that way, we're Pentecostals in that way, right, and we want it to be powerful because we're praying to a powerful God, and God's power is moving through us, but I just want to talk about this particular thing today that we think prayer is a sensational act, that prayer is always going to be sensational, and that there is true that sometimes we pray prayer is sensational, it's awesome, and sometimes there's even seasons of sensational prayer, but can I just be honest, and maybe you just say, well pastor Scott just ain't safe, let me just tell you this, that the life of my prayer is not sensational, sometimes when I pray it's just mundane, it's just ordinary, so let me just say that first off because if I ever pray for you or situation, and you go huh, that was a simple prayer, you know like does he even pray to God, does he even know who he is, he was praying to Jesus, and he sound like he was just talking, you know like, so we had this idea of prayer being sensational, and I want to deal with that, so I want to walk you through some history in America to understand why we feel prayer is sensational, so I'm going to take you through some history, we're going to get into word eventually, but I want to walk us through why you struggle with prayer having to be sensational, okay, so it starts off like this, well first off let me, before there, let me just say how important it is to understand our times, first Chronicles 12, 32 says this, from the tribe of Isakar there were 200 leaders of the tribe with the relatives, and it says all these men understood the signs of the time, and knew the best course for Israel to take, they knew the signs, they understood the culture, because they understood it, they knew the best action, the best decision, they had the discernment, I want you to know that America has a move about it, and you can go back further, but I'm going to just save our time today, and kind of start in the 1950s, America has a move to bigger is better, we've always had that push, it started back when the industry right after World War II was done about six years after that, America was the wealthiest it's ever been, and what we have are these factories and these industries, and it was set up to support the war effort, but now the war effort is gone, and we're working in peace, and what we see is that we have all these industries, and now we turn that to the consumer, we turn that to who we are, and plus there's more jobs, and so we're cranking out all these big new automobiles, at the same time too, you have better jobs, higher paying jobs, the economy as well, people are getting married at a crazy amount of rate, and they are producing kids at an even crazier amount of rate, you guys know this from the baby boom, is there anybody from the baby boom era in here, I saw y'all's hands, y'all did like this, be proud, you be proud, and so what happened was, and y'all let me know if I'm wrong, not now, but later on, but what happened was we had all these babies being produced, and they were living in the cities, and it was getting tight, it was getting, you know, you were bumping into people, and so this guy named Alex, I think his name's, let it, he come up with this idea of going out and buying land, and building houses on the land, he called it the suburb, it was the invention of the suburb, and it was the American dream, they were like man look at that house, that's a beautiful house, some of y'all living houses about like that right there right now, and this was the American dream, and he began to build lots of them, I mean 36,000 at one point in time, and he was building the house in a day, he was building it from the foundation all the way to the roof, now it wasn't finished on the inside, but he was just building cranking houses out, and America found this upswing in producing things and living styles, and that's when that verbiage, the American dream, really started to come along, and so what we see is really not only is it more houses, and bigger cars, and better cars, and now they're out here in the suburbs, which is away from the city, what they need now is somewhere to go shopping, and they need to buy things that they don't need, this is where we have the brand new megastores, and superstores, and the malls, and you know, and they're selling things that you and I have no business buying, but it's America right, and we have stuff, we have access to stuff, how many I went to JCPenney back in the day right, and you would be in JCPenney for an hour right, just looking all the wonderful things, like when I go to home people I'm looking at everything I don't need, I'm just in there looking around saying Lord help me, give me strength to get out this place without losing money at my back pocket, and so here we find as America is growing, thriving, we are becoming abundant, we're becoming rich, and bigger, it's better, we have the Jones issue, because Pastor Caleb bought this, I got to buy, you got to buy, and so all this is starting to accumulate into the idea of super, and mega, and abundant, and it's great, and it's sensational, but it has an impact too, and the impact is it also impacts our faith, and it not only does it impacts the government, it impacts the big three seas, which is consumerism, convenience, and comfort, which is the reason why you got AC in the church today, because before the suburb area you didn't have AC, I don't know if y'all know that or not, but the suburbian time introduced AC into the church, because the church was used to not have an AC, but since you had it in your home, surely you should have it in the house of God, right, we should have that there, so thank God for those times, and let me just say this, by the way, these are just observations, I'm not condemning anything here, but I want you to understand the track of America, I want you to understand the culture of America, so that impacts our faith, and it impacts, we're in this culture, we're living and breathing, and understanding how we are to exhibit our faith in this culture, what happens is, is you have this huge suburbia, you have all these people here, and all the churches they've been going to their whole life, are now back in the city, but they don't want to drive to the city, so now they start building big churches, and these big churches are being fueled, because now we have TV and radio, and Billy Graham, he's out there preaching to thousands upon thousands, can you imagine, people's like Pastor Kenneth was talking about a while ago, they're just bound down, worshiping, but all these people are hearing the gospel, praise God, but all those people, when they hear the gospel, guess what, the next problem is this, they've got to go to church, that's a whole lot of people for a church, and so what happens is, now we build big churches, mega churches, this is the 1950s, the next one is the 1970s, and so what we see is that we're building these mega churches, and not only is it mega churches, but we're learning from the world, we're learning from the influence of the world, because we understand what sensationalism in the world, and that's impacting how we're doing things in our faith, just in our culture, doesn't mean that we're leaning away from Christ, but it just means that culture is shaping the way we do things as well, so not only is it mega churches, but also it's mega conferences, I mean you've got thousands of people coming to a conference for one weekend, and so they have mega churches, and mega pastors, and these mega worship teams, and these worship teams are now on these stages, these huge venues, and what we don't realize, which is a bit of effect we found now, is this, is that these conferences have allowed people to come in and host these worship sessions, but the people who run the arenas in these large venues, they only know how to run things for entertainment, so now entertainment has now crossed over to our worship, and we don't know how to separate that, now again here's what I know, I'm not saying any of this is bad at all, I love everything to be excellent unto God, I'm just saying here's the culture that we're at, and now we worship in sensationalism, now we worship in entertainment, right, because the dry culture of worship is, that's boring, you know, we live in a culture of sensationalism, we can look at that just by looking at Amazon, how many of y'all shop on Amazon, and what you do, you're looking for them stars aren't you, you're looking for those stars, you don't want to buy a normal mediocre product, you're looking for something that has five stars, four and a half, okay, you know, but you like, you want thousands of reviews, you're looking for something that's sensational, you don't want something that's mediocre, and so you're, you're able to process because of technology, you're able to process information and look for the sensational, in fact you're so geared towards sensation that if you look at not only Amazon but also social media, you can now scroll, which is an important thing to know, because in technology they didn't want you to, they want you to scroll and not swipe and click, because scroll allows you to create the addiction, you guys know how that is, some of y'all pray through that, Nascar to deliver you all a few times, but you're scrolling because you're looking for the sensational post, you're looking for the thing that catches your attention, come on, I know I've been there many times myself, and so we're looking through there trying to find something that grabs our attention because we don't want normal, we'll pass normal 15, 20 times, I'm looking for something that's worth my time, I'm looking for something that's sensational the whole time we're being trained, the whole time where it's being we're being cultured, and not only in social media but now you have TikTok and Snapchat and you have YouTube shorts and you have all this abbreviated media that keeps our eyes focused on the sensational, you want you want things that are quick if you watch a YouTube video, you know that the the common way that they format our edit video is those quick chops, they're interrupting themselves, you know why? Because they know the in-betweens are normal, that's mediocre, that's not sensational, and you and I are supposed to be okay with just having a normal Christian prayer life, but look at the culture that we live in, look at the pressure that we feel that we face, and we don't know how we've been taking along all this way, and again I'm not saying any of this is that at all, I'm just saying it's important for us to understand the culture that we live in, because the enemy uses the culture to say your prayer life is mundane, it's ordinary, it's normal, you don't have time for your prayer to be sensational, you don't know what to say to make your prayer sensational, and so why even say it, if it's not sensational, it's not worthy to be uttered, God should not hear it, and that's a lie, because we're looking to pray, to have consistency, here's the problem that it impacts us, all of these things create sensationalism which is the main driver and Christianity, and sensationalism prioritize or places materialism over spiritualism, that creates a huge problem with us, because what we now find is simply this, is that now our faith and our understanding, here comes the rise of the prosperity gospel, here comes the rise of the American gospel, and what happens is is now we are focusing on theology and our belief and our relationship with God, it's now focused on the sensational things, that is the manifested success in our life, the visible blessings in our life, and that overshadows the personal spiritual transformations that have kept Christianity and made Christianity what it is throughout its whole time, and so you and I, that's mediocre, personal transformation, I'm better, I'm not as prone to addiction or I've been, my mind's been renewed, that's not as, that's not as powerful as someone who's being blessed, right, someone who's understanding some success, and besides why, why worry about the fruit of the Spirit when you can look to love, joy, and peace through consumerism, we can buy that, we can find that, so not only is it prioritizing materialism versus over spiritualism, now it takes spectacle, spectatorship, and prioritizing it over authenticity, so now we're focusing, we're set on materialism and sensationalism and authenticity, transparency, ruinous, takes a back seat to the spectacle, this is what we fight here in worship, just a few minutes ago, someone here today was a spectator, you were, you were observing, you weren't participating, you weren't being authentic with the law being transparent with the law because you weren't sure, you just were here checking it out, but God in heaven is not worth your check it out, you can check it out in hell if you want to check that out, but what the Lord is asking you to do is to recognize that he is the Lord God Almighty, and he does not deserve you to spectate as if you have the right to discern and inspect, if he's good enough for you to raise your hand or open your mouth or cry before him or kneel your knee, he is, he is the great I am. But yeah, here we are. In a setting, church services nowadays, we foster environments that are highly produced, spectator oriented, and the problem with that is, is that now we have environments that will allow someone who was far from God to think that they had an experience with God because it was a great entertainment piece, it engaged emotionally and they leave as unchanged as they came in, but thinking, man, that was great church, you don't know what great church is, you went to a concert, you had an observation, you were spectating, spectatorship has replaced authenticity and redefined God as sensational, or seasonal, or shallow, or even worse, man-centered. And that is the contention that we have because of the culture that we live in. You guys, we live in a Babylon. This church is not a bubble that keeps us from those things. We have to understand that everyone in this place brings culture with us, and we have to realize that. We have to understand that there is a real need, that's why Paul says, do not be conformed to this world, but allow your mind to be renewed so that way it transforms you, so that your life may be a holy life, a sacrificial life, and that is our spiritual worship. To make things even worse, we have access to the extraordinary, the people who are truly pursuing God in different countries, in different states, and are seeing tremendous moves of God like the aspirational revival. We are seeing God doing incredible things, we are seeing healings, we are seeing all those things. Where are we seeing them at? Not here, we are seeing them on here, in our hand. So what we have now is this ability to access something that we have not engaged in. It is not truly ours. So now we are borrowing spirituality, and we feel good because we appreciate it. We check off on that, we like it, we love it, and somehow it creates this connection that what God is doing there I am a part of because I have validated with my life and my love, and that is not the truth. In fact, personally for me, this is not what I recommend to you, but personally for me, I don't look at any real spiritual content I try not to, because I don't want that to ever be any kind of fix for me. If I'm not walking in my relationship with the Lord, I need to feel the deficit, and I don't want to supplement that with artificial spirituality. And the other thing is simply this, to make it worse, it's not not only do we have normative experiences, but we also have fabricated experiences. So that means simply this is that to compensate for our own lack of spiritual growth, we have learned to fabricate our walk and then use others to create a false confidence by posting our practices, our prayers, and our revelations online. So other people can congratulate us what they're like or their love, and to make us feel like we're going in the right direction, walking with God, like Noah walked with God, and really what it comes down to is simply this, is that we're just using somebody else to do what God was supposed to do in the first place. Now, listen, you say, Pastor Scott, you're doing a lot of heat today. I'm just stating obvious. I'm talking about our culture. I'm talking about the culture that you have to fight. I have to fight. The culture that my family has to fight and your family has to fight. And we can't say, well, that's not us, my heart. It doesn't make a difference if it's your heart or not. You still have to fight what the culture is trying to teach you to be. And I want you to understand that because all of this is producing in us a problem. It's producing in us a dilemma that normal is what we scroll past, that normal, it was the absence of sensational, that normal is second rate, that normal is what we settle for, that normal is what boredom consists of, that normal is undesirable. And this is not true of history, nor is it true of the word of God. In fact, this one book that we follow is filled with normal people. Thank God that I read the word and I go, well, I never been a murderer. So David, you're on your own there, buddy, but I think I understand your frustration. I see things all throughout the word of God that I can say, I'm like that. I'm like that. I'm like that. I'm like that. He's just a normal person, but he has abnormal experiences. He's an ordinary person with an extraordinary or extraordinary event or a happening in his life. We see this that most importantly, we need to understand that scripture emphasizes. I want you to hear this today. Scripture emphasizes a normal narrative for the life of the believer. Scripture emphasizes a normal narrative for the life of the believer. What's not normal about you is the fact that the world can't stand who you worship. If you want to live an abnormal life, then live your life unto God out loud and you will find all of the abnormality in your life, because the world does hate you. It despises you. It looks to cancel you and shut you up. And so if you're looking for a little extra fun, then go ahead and turn your relation outside and let the world see. What we see is that God uses the normal things. He uses the mundane things. And I would say this, that God often uses routines as a backdrop for revelation. It's important for you to understand that, because again, we're fighting the lie that our life and our faith must be sensational. I'm not saying it's never sensational. I'm just saying the whole of it is not sensational. So whenever we find that the law comes to us and says, you're not living sensational for the Lord. The Lord said he'd give you life and life more abundantly. How come your life's not as sensational as it's supposed to be? How come your prayers are not being answered in the way that it should be? Let me just bring you right back to the fact that that's not always what we see in Scripture. It's a sensational lifestyle. And some of y'all say, Pastor Scott, I know this. I know that life's going to be kind of consistent here and there. Let me tell you, are you living that way? Are you living understanding that your life might be normal in terms of the Bible? You might just be a mundane Christian who just walks through the rituals and the routines and the ceremonies. And it may seem like it's born to everybody else, but it is sustenance to you. And I think it's important for you to understand that. Again, I'm trying to attack this lie that our faith and most importantly, our prayer life must be sensational because it's not going to be sensational, but it needs to be routine. We see that God often uses routine as a backdrop for revelation. Look at Moses in Exodus chapter 3. Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he left his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. So what we see in this is that Moses is just keeping the flock in the Hebrew. He says this. He's doing something habitually. He's just doing something that's normal. He's in his routine. And the God knows where he's at and he shows up in a moment and puts a bush on fire. Out of his normal routine, God creates revelation. We see that in Daniel as well. Daniel had routines. Daniel in chapter 6 verse 10 says, "But when Daniel learned about the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room. With its windows opened towards Jerusalem, he prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to God." Daniel had a routine prayer life. Do you know how boring or mundane or non-sensational Daniel's life was if we don't read ahead to the lion's den or the dreams he's interpreting? But this is what he normally does. He prays every day with no sensation. He understands that his prayer is not motivated by the effect that he receives from the Lord. But his prayer is motivated by giving to know him and by being faithful before the Lord, who is always faithful before us. Prayer, prayer is something that really you can't change anything in this world. You don't have the power to do those things. Even though all power and authority has been given to us through Christ Jesus, those things are not really within our capacity to exercise unless God does that. But the one thing we are responsible for is to open our mouth and pray. It's to call upon his name regardless of how mundane that might be, how normal that might be. We see in Acts 10 and 9, the next day, since the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. The sixth hour to pray was noon time, and that's when they pray. They pray morning, noon and night. He's just in his routine. And while he's in his routine, God shows him a vision. He makes he makes wide this revelation that everything they can't eat in the last thousands of years, they can now eat. And it messes Peter up quite a bit. But God spoke to him in the normal routine. Do you have one of those? Do you have that routine? It just feels like, uh, no, see if I just got, I just pray when I need to pray. That's because you pray sensationally. When you have sensational needs, you pray sensationally. When you're desperate, that's when you pray. When you desire, that's when you pray. But that is what the world has taught you to do. And so when you don't have a desire and you're not desperate, where are you praying? You're not. Because when you're a sensational prayer, then you only pray when the sensation comes upon you to do so. When really our response and our call and our beckon by the word of God is to just pray without ceasing, to pray continually in the spirit. That means when it's boring, when it's mundane, when it's ordinary, when it doesn't seem to be great, you and I are still called to pray consistently. I'm out of town this morning, so I'm going to jump on down to, um, well, let me give you the first and second point. It's God uses routine prayer to promote community and unity. Man, I hate to pass this up. God uses routine prayer to promote community and unity. We see this in the Apostles' lives. Oftentimes, the church came together and they prayed. They had an issue. They came together and they prayed. They had another issue. They came together and they prayed. And what we found was this, that the church was always praying in the early church. They were always praying. It wasn't that. Oh, what's happened? Let's get together and pray. They were already in a vein of praying. They were already in this unity and understanding of praying. Can I tell you how important it is for you to pray to come together as a church and pray? I would rather there be 15 people in here to meet a preach to, and all of y'all be in here on Wednesday nights during prayer time. Because I promise you, God will move more heavily in this church and in your life if you show up for the prayer meeting versus the preaching. Every day, all day, because that's all that Acts tells us. Acts continues to tell us that when the church came together as one and prayed, God showed up. Unity was there. God loves to be in a place where we are one. Why? Because He is one. And He wants to be one with us. There's something about God that is drawn to the idea and the acting out, the practicing of oneness. And if you and I will pray these normal prayers throughout our day, whether it be small things or great things, if we just practice this idea of prayer, even though it's normal, you and I will begin to come together like a fabric and become one and walk in one's spirit and stand in one's spirit. And when the enemy attacks us like he did all through Acts, guess what? God shows up in an extraordinary way. Why? Because he sees ordinary people in extraordinary situations and he makes up the difference. So let me challenge you in a weird way today. Are you just an ordinary prayer? Is your life, do you have normal prayer, uneventful prayer? Is it routine? Is it patterned? Is it simplified? Or are you only praying when it's sensational? Last is the worship team comes on up. God uses routine prayer to transform situations and constellations. That is, in a situation of life, you don't know how to deal with it, God loves us to come consistently. We see that in the persistent widow. Luke's chapter eight, he says in verse one, that they always ought to pray and not lose heart. Verse three says, she kept coming. Verse five says continually coming. What we see this is that she was not going to stop in her prayer. Do you think every time she was praying or every time she came to that judge, it was a sensational request? Probably not. There was at some point in time, I guarantee that judge thought, you know what? She ain't ever going to stop because she's always coming the same way every time. She's not screaming. She's just going to bother me. She's going to wear me down with the Hebrews, or the Greek says. She'll wear me down. And that's how our prayer life must be. It must be in such a way that if the Lord puts a mountain in front of us, we'll just wear that mountain out. But do we have the ability to do that? Or have we been so cultured by our culture that we're looking for the sensational prayer that says mountain, be thou gone. And when they don't move, we go, oh, something must be wrong. No? We just forgot that you're supposed to pray continually, that your prayers ought to be normal. In fact, how normal is it, how daily is it? Jesus says, and He said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread. It's every day. It's every day. Every day, do you have a routine of prayer every day? You're never going to fully mature until you have a routine every day. And I'm not saying that your routine prayer every day is a sensational prayer every time. There's just times we get together or sometimes I just sit down and I just read through. I'm not a formula God. I like to keep it. I get just the same old, same old words me out quick, which is why it's so hard for me to pray. But here's what I know. I know that it's disciplined for me. I don't really have to be routine for me because it's through the routines that God changes me. It's through the routine that God makes me sensitive to His voice. It's through the routine that God has allowed me to understand how important that my daily bread is and my asking for it is. So God wants us to move into that routine, that normal request. To wrap it all up, Philippians 4, chapter 4 verse 6 through 7, "Do not be anxious about anything." I always find that almost comical. Don't be anxious about anything. But the thing it really is simply this is that we ought to move our anxiety and our worry into a matter of prayer. How often are you going to run into things that will make you anxious or cause you to care or create worry? Every day, all day long. The Lord says this. He says, "If your prayer life was sensational, can you imagine how worn out you would be at praying at everything that created worry or anxiety in your life? That prayer life is not sustainable." I'll tell you what is sustainable. Lord, you see this issue that I have. And I don't know what to do, but I know you know what to do. And so I'm asking that you give me discernment on how to tackle it, how to grow my faith, and how to be glorified. Amen. It was the last time you prayed simple prayers. You sat down at a restaurant and the waitress was horrible. And you could have stopped. You knew the Lord touched the shoulder. You knew you could have prayed for her. Did you, us extroverts, did you say, "Can I pray with you? Can I pray with you?" And a simple prayer. Lord, let her know she loved, that you love her. Let her know that it may be a hard day, but your word says that mercies are new every morning. I pray you give her strength. Amen. It's not sensational. Or maybe that's not you, that you're not there yet. Maybe when she leaves, you just say, "Lord, she's having a hard time." Give her strength. In Jesus' name, amen. That's what I'm asking is, is your life consistent in prayer? Is there a normality to your prayer life? Because I can tell you how to pray, but usually how to pray leads you back into sensationalism all over again. Tell you what to say, but then we find ourselves trying to grow and add to what our words are, the concepts and the structure of our prayer. I'm just trying to tell you that when it comes down to praying, it's not the quality of your words, it's not how eloquent you are when you speak. It's not the power and the presence of God. God is looking, God is looking, to and from to someone. He might show himself faithful to, and he's looking for someone who's faithful to him, someone who will pray when they don't want to, someone who will pray when it's hard, someone who is praying when it's difficult. You stand with me this afternoon. This morning. Lastly, I want to bring to your attention is this simple thing that we struggle with prayer being sensational. You know, when I was growing up, these altars were normal. Pastor would preach, he would open the altars, he would respond to it. That was the normal thing. That was, that was the normal experience. Nowadays, our altars are sensational. We only come to the altar when our need is sensational, when our problem is sensational. When it gets really, really, really big, then I'll come down to the sensational place that my sensational God will meet me. And that's our response. But really, our response should be regardless of our problem being sensational. Regardless if we have a problem or not, this is a time that I heard the word of God. He's called me. He's quick in my spirit. I need to respond. Why? Not because he's a sensational God, but because he is God. And the response is demanded and deserved. So what are you saying, Pastor Scott? Should we all come down to the altar? No, because there's no room for all of that. My goal is to not get you down here. My goal is that every time we hear the word preached, that we stop turning your seat, however you want to do that, and say, Lord, I'm here to respond. I'm not coming to you out of sensationalism. I'm coming to you out of a routine, ordinary, normal prayer life that says, I just lean to you and look to you for everything. My highs, my lows, and my mediocre. Church, I want us to be a church that understands that prayer is consistent. There'll be fluxes, highs and lows. We got to be a consistent church. And if we are consistent, we'll find God will unify us. He'll deal with us in our situations. He'll deal with our anxiety. He'll reveal things to us in the routines of our life. Do you bow your heads and pray with me, Father in Heaven? Pray God today that as we look to you, you would remove God this idea that you're a sensational God. You are a God of sensation. That's true, but we don't only find you in sensation. Pray, Father, you would show us that you are a God who longs to reveal himself to the beat and the humble and the quiet experiences that you see in the light of the Lord. You weren't there in the lightning. You weren't there in the rocks thundering and trembling, but Lord, you were there in a steel small voice. You are there in what people might call insignificant moments. Pray, God, you would train us and teach us. Whenever we hear your word, whenever we hear the prompt of the Holy Spirit, we'll say a prayer, no matter how great or how simple it might be, we've got our heart as a believer, as a follower, as a child of God, as to respond, and whatever magnitude that might be, and I pray you would do that in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you join me this morning just to take some time to pray, and here's what I want you to pray. There's a few things. I want us to pray that God will establish prayer as normal in your life. I want us to ask God to prompt us to pray. You small little tidbits in life, not the big things, but just the small things. God prompt me, and then God give me the strength to stop and pray when I'm pumped. There's those three things around normal prayer life. I want you to prompt me more, and I want you to give me the strength to stop and pray when you prompt me. Will you join me and pray this morning?