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Pray Faithfully & Forgivingly
20 Plays1 month ago
Series: Faithfulness to Jesus
Mark 11:1-25
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Beach Warning Flags
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If you've ever spent any amount of time at the beach, you know one of the first things that you do, especially if you're planning on swimming, is that you check the beach warning flag.
00:00:13
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You've seen these flags on the flag posts. Green means calm conditions. Yellow means moderate conditions. And red means rough conditions. And double red means they're sharks. No, I don't know what double red means, but means stay out of the water.
The Concept of Spiritual Drift
00:00:33
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But if you've ever been at the beach, even in the most calmest of conditions, you'll know just under the surf is the current. And if you're out there with your friends or your family and you're just standing there chatting or you're throwing around the frisbee, you know in no time flat that the current has moved you further than you wanted to be moved.
00:00:54
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And quite often we just look up and we go, oh, we're no longer by the tent or the car and we're now half a mile down the beach. Friends, that same dangerous drift can happen to us when we fail to see Jesus as king and we fail to see his word here as authoritative in our lives.
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When we stop seeing Jesus as divine and royal and we start seeing him as ordinary and common, we drift. When we stop seeing God's Word as having authority over every area of our lives, we drift.
00:01:36
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When Jesus goes from being our King to our friend to our homeboy, we drift. When we decide and choose and pick from God's Word those things we want to follow and those things we want to ignore,
00:01:56
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We've turned God's word into a Christian buffet. And we drift. And it's a slow drift. That's what makes it so dangerous. It's a decision by decision, day by day, slow drift that takes us further and further from where we want to be.
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And we all drift. We all drift.
Consequences of Spiritual Drift
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and probably the most prominent thing that suffers when we drift is our prayer life.
00:02:34
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When we drift further and further away from recognizing Jesus as King and recognizing that His Word has authority, we find reasons to stop praying.
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Because prayers go unanswered. And the reality is we find less and less reason to go to God's Word. This we're going to look at today, what it looks like to have a powerful prayer life.
The Gospel of Mark's Structure
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Mark chapter 11, if you have your outlines, we're going to see that there is this lack of response to Jesus as king. We're going to see a lack of function in the temple, which is supposed to be a house of prayer. And we're going to ask ourselves, as the community of God's people, how can we function properly in our prayer life. This is where we're going today. If you have your Bibles, Mark chapter 11, please. Mark chapter 11.
00:03:29
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Mark 11 begins because all I've heard about for the last three or four weeks is when are we getting out of chapter 10? For goodness sakes, when do we get to chapter 11? Well, we're here today. This is it this morning.
00:03:42
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Chapter 11 begins the third and final act. in the Gospel of Mark. Act 1, if you remember, was in Galilee. That's where we were discerning the person of Jesus.
00:03:54
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Act 2 was on the way. It was all about accepting the mission of Jesus. And now chapter 11 begins Act 3, which is in Jerusalem, and it's all about faithfulness to Jesus.
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It begins with this final march into Jerusalem towards the cross, In this morning's passage, we see as he goes in as king to his capital, to his palace, he receives no royal reception.
Jesus's Entry into Jerusalem
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Look with me here, starting in verse 1. Chapter 11, verse 1 says, As Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the towns of Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives.
00:04:41
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and Jesus sent two of them on ahead. Go into the village over there, he told them. and As soon as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.
00:04:54
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If anyone asks, what are you doing? Just say, the Lord needs it and will return it soon. Verse 4 says, the two disciples left and found the cult standing in the streets.
00:05:05
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Tied outside to the front door. And as they were untying it, some bystanders demanded, what are you doing untying that colt? And they said Jesus had told them what they what they were to say, and they were permitted to take it.
00:05:18
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And then they brought the c colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it, and he sat on it. Many in the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.
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And Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, Praise God, or Hosanna, your translation may say. Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David. Praise God in the highest heaven.
00:05:50
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And so Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the temple and after looking around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon and then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples.
00:06:06
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What we need to remember here, friends, is when this is taking place. This is taking place at the Passover festival with these vast numbers of people that are in Jerusalem at this time And Jesus could have very easily snuck in, if he wanted to, into the city, into the temple.
00:06:30
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He could have gone under the radar, or as the kids like to say, on the down low. He could have chosen to do that. But we're told here this procession into the city is almost deliberate and ensured that he would be noticed.
00:06:48
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And we get this fabulous picture, these elements of royalty, Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. All these elements subtly shade the narrative, subtly crying out, the king has arrived.
00:07:15
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It's this beautiful picture. and And we see that it's this formal and ceremonial entrance that's pictured here. Jesus is exercising his royal prerogative to go and requisition this unwritten colt.
00:07:31
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Go get this colt for me. And we'll notice the disciples don't write it back. they They walk it back. So this colt is unwritten, prepared just for Jesus, and they lay down...
00:07:44
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their garments and spread them over top and Jesus mounts this unique mountainous mounting up on top of the colt as a king would do and it says that they spread out their garments not only on the ground in front of him which is a recognition of royal dignity but the crowds are around him chanting but can you Can you just picture this for a second?
00:08:08
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He's on this colt and he's going into Jerusalem and they're laying out the palm branches and they' they're crying out, Hosanna in the highest. The king is entered. It's this it says acclamation here in verse 9 and 10. This is basically Psalm 118.
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the last of the Halal Psalms that's sung right at the major festival. All of these signs point to Jesus. The king is entering his kingdom, his palace, his city.
00:08:47
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And we would expect Jesus here to be welcomed. The king has arrived. Everybody, stop what you're doing. Hey, let's go out and see what what's happening. The king is here. Blow blow the trumpets.
00:09:00
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Open the city gates. The one we've been waiting is finally here.
00:09:08
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Zechariah 14 basically tells us this exact picture. We should expect Jesus to come in Jerusalem and set up residence here. go to the city, go to the temple that corresponds to the capital and the palace.
00:09:21
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He should enter there seated and ushering in this new age of blessedness, but instead, look at verse 11. One verse says it all.
Failure to Recognize Kingship
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Look with me at verse 7 in your Bibles.
00:09:37
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So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the temple, and after looking around carefully at everything, he left.
00:09:47
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Where's the celebration? Where's the entering in of the king?
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No one in his capital, no one in his palace appears to pay him any attention.
00:10:07
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Rather than being appropriately received as king, he is completely ignored. And I thought as I read this this week, I thought, how true is that today? How many people don't see Jesus as king anymore?
00:10:27
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Then I thought about that. That's true of the world. The world sees him that way. They don't see him as king. They might see him as prophet. They might see him as good teacher.
00:10:37
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He's definitely not Messiah, and he's definitely not king. But friends, this is Jerusalem.
00:10:45
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He's going to his people here who should receive him as king, and it says they completely ignore him, the ultimate insult. And I thought to myself this week, what about us as Christ followers?
00:10:59
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How do we approach Jesus as kings?
00:11:04
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Have ever watched this on television, the the British Royal Guard? You know these these guys that stand guard outside of Buckingham Palace or St. James Place? They're mounted as guards and they're in their full uniform and they stand perfectly still.
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what I'm talking about?
00:11:34
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They creep over slowly, slowly to them trying to get a selfie with these guys. Or they taunt them, trying to get them to respond, trying to get them to remove.
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And they do give a verbal warning, stay back, don't do that. you're not allowed to touch. Right? Fair warning. And I thought to myself this week, this is what it looks like to approach royalty incorrectly.
00:12:09
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There's a right way to approach royalty. There's a right way that you approach these guys. And there's a right way to approach Jesus as king. And when we don't, there's a real danger.
00:12:24
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I would like to say, 20 years ago before we had the selfie, nobody in their right mind would think about going up and standing next to these guys. Nobody would.
00:12:35
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You viewed them from afar because you respected that position and you knew they were representing royalty.
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These people here failed to see Jesus as royalty, to see him as king, the ultimate insult. So what's the result of such an inadequate response to Jesus' king?
Symbolism of the Cursed Fig Tree
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Well, let's keep reading.
00:13:00
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Verse 12, verse 12 with me. It says, the next morning, as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry, and he noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way ah way off. And so he went over to see if he could find any figs.
00:13:15
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But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit. And then Jesus said to the tree, may no one ever eat your fruit again. And the disciples heard him say this.
00:13:28
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Let's pause there for just a second. So Jesus goes into Jerusalem expecting this royal reception as king doesn't get it He leaves, he sees this fig tree that's not producing figs, and he curses it.
00:13:45
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Are we all on the same page? Okay. Verse 15, follow on. So them then they arrived back in Jerusalem, and Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. And he knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.
00:14:04
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And he stopped everyone from using the temple as a marketplace. And he said to them, the scriptures declare, my temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have turned it into a den of thieves or a den of robbers, yours may say.
00:14:19
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And when the leading priests and the teachers of the religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began praying. plotting how to kill him. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teachings. And that evening, Jesus and disciples left the city. So now they're back outside of Jerusalem.
00:14:36
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And the next morning, they passed by that exact fig tree that had been cursed, and the disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up. And Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day, and he exclaimed, Look, Rabbi, the fig tree you cursed has withered and died.
00:14:53
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Let's pause there. So what's happening with this fig tree example that's kind of sandwiched in the middle of the story here? Probably one of the most misunderstood passages here, this fig tree.
00:15:10
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Let me explain what's happening here because I think it's quite interesting. Verse 13 is this picture of this fig tree that is ill-functioning.
00:15:23
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It's supposed to produce fruit, but it's not producing fruit. And Jesus curses this tree, in essence, saying, because you aren't functioning as you should, may no one ever eat fruit from you ever again.
00:15:38
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And then just two verses down, we're in the temple. And he's looking around the temple, which is also ill-functioning. It's not functioning as it should.
00:15:52
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And he says, instead of this functioning as a house of prayer, you've made this into a den of robbers.
00:16:00
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And then anybody who ever says, Jesus just meek and mild, hasn't read these next couple verses. Because Jesus goes in and he turns over tables. And he kicks out the money changers.
00:16:15
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There's a consequence for ill-functioning things in God's kingdom. He's not going to put up with it. And we see here that both the fig tree and the temple were faulty and not functioning.
00:16:28
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And as such, there's this result or this consequence or this punishment, if that's a better word for you this morning.
00:16:39
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What is that punishment for the fig tree? Well, simply flip over. You'll see. Verse 20 tells us. It says it's withered up from the roots up. They came back and saw this very fig tree that he had cursed and because it was ill-functioning, the result of that, the punishment was that it was shriveled up from the roots. It had lost its potency. It had lost its vitality.
00:17:08
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What's the same result for the temple? Well, we know the temple's destruction is looming. the The end is near. Mark's own community will see the fall of the Jerusalem temple as a consequence of it failing to be a house of prayer for all people.
00:17:26
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A destruction that made way for the true temple.
00:17:30
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Of the end time of which all peoples, both the Jews and the Gentiles and Mark's own time, will offer up authentic prayer to God What does this say for you and I
Warning Against Spiritual Drift
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today?
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What's happening? This is not just a cautionary tale for the religious elite at this time. It's a it's a caution for you and I today that there's a real danger in the drift.
00:17:54
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That if we slowly get away from seeing Jesus as king and we get away from God's word being authoritative in our lives, we start to become rootless.
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And fruitless. And eventually, functionless. And we need to be replaced. I'll just put a note to myself here this week.
00:18:16
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Just look at the landscape of the American church that we all see these days. Who have drifted, who are drifting further and further away from God's word.
00:18:34
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who don't see Jesus as king. Hey, he's just your friend. He's your homeboy.
00:18:45
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Let me tell you what, that may work for some people who don't know Jesus, that may get them in the door, but you cannot view Jesus as your homeboy, as your buddy.
00:19:00
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There's a real necessity to see him as king for who he is. And I love it because on Saturday morning at the men's breakfast, Conley, in his wisdom and walking through Revelation, did tell us of the royal divine position that Jesus is there on the throne.
00:19:23
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The moment we stop seeing him like that, think it's real dangerous for us to, a danger for us to drift
00:19:33
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The Apostle John reminds us, in fact, here, Revelation chapter 2, verse 5. He says to the church in Ephesus, You have persevered and you have endured hardships for my name, and you have not grown weary. To which you would think the church in Ephesus are patting themselves on the back.
00:19:48
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Yes, hey, we're doing a great job. but But then he goes on, he says, Yet, hold on, this I have against you. You have forsaken the love that you first have.
00:20:01
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Consider how far you've fallen or drifted. Repent and do the things that you did first, for if you do not repent, I will come to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place.
00:20:15
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God is in the business of fixing dysfunctional churches. How does that happen? Well, sometimes he takes the money changers and he turns the tables over.
00:20:27
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Sometimes he throws the money changers out. Sometimes he throws the pastors out.
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It's a wake-up call for you and it's a wake-up call for me.
00:20:41
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Your job is to listen to my explanation of the Bible. My job as your pastor is to keep one eye on you, one eye on God's Word so that we don't start drifting.
00:21:02
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had somebody just recently ask you guys sure do spend a lot of time emphasizing the Bible. What about Jesus? And I said, what about Jesus? What do you mean by that comment?
00:21:15
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Well, it's just if you would just be more about Jesus and your relationship with Jesus.
00:21:24
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And I said, how are you ever going to know Jesus unless you know His word? You only worship what you know. so while we say the foundation of what we do here, why we stay so close to the Bible, why I'm not up here giving you my opinion and why I think the American church is falling to the wayside, I really have nothing important to say.
00:21:44
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God's word this morning has something very important to say, and it's to treat Jesus as king, to see him as king and to stay close to his word and to have it have authority over your entire life.
00:21:59
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Because if we don't, if I don't do my job, He will replace me here.
Characteristics of a Well-Functioning Church
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I know for a fact He will replace those because we are no longer functioning as the church should function properly.
00:22:13
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So what does a good functioning church look like? Well, let's look at these last couple verses. Verse 22 to says this, Then Jesus said to disciples, in response this withered fig tree, he says,
00:22:29
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have faith in god i tell you the truth you can say to this mountain may may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea and it will happen but you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart i tell you you can pray for anything and if you believe that you've received it it will be yours but when you are praying first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge again and so that your father in heaven will forgive your sin two
00:23:00
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What's he say here about a well-functioning church? Two things he says. He says a faith-filled prayer will be the one aspect of a functioning church, of this new house, of this new oikos, this new community of God.
00:23:18
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They will be characterized as a people who pray in faith. That's the first thing. If you want to function well, we need to be praying in faith. If we want to protect ourselves from the drift, we need to make sure we're praying in faith. And second, Jesus says we are to be characterized as a community of people who forgive others.
00:23:43
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So how do you and I guard against spiritual drift? This is where i want to end today. Just a couple of thoughts. and And these couple of real-world applications are just right here from God's Word. So I'm not making anything up. You can go right home, and we're goingnna talk about praying faithfully. What does that look like?
00:24:01
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And praying forgivingly, because these are the two aspects of what a well-functioning church looks like. What does it mean to pray faithfully? At our couple's small group that we had on Thursday, this question was posed.
00:24:19
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describe your current prayer life. this was We had these little cards that we handed to each other and kind of spurred conversation. One of them was, describe your current prayer life. And I think the consensus was, after we went around the table, we all are praying daily, but there's a certain aspect of our prayer life that we all really wanted to improve and to be more faithful. And what does that look like in your life and my life? Well, I put two things. If you're taking notes,
00:24:46
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This is a good time to write this down. Praying faithfully means pray regularly. That's the first thing, regularly. And second, with intention.
00:24:56
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What does this look like? Well, we come to the Lord regularly in prayer, meaning you have a set time. If you're a morning person, do it in the morning. If you're an evening person, do it in the evening. It doesn't say we have to do one or the other.
00:25:11
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Some will pray all throughout the day, which I think you as you mature as a Christian, you will work your way into that. But we must have a specific time, a regular time that we go in prayer seeking guidance from our Lord.
00:25:31
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praising Him, giving Him gratitude for what He's already done, seeking direction. And then what I put here, something that we we kind of talked a little bit about and in our small group, listening.
00:25:43
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Listening to the response of the Holy Spirit. How often are we to go and quickly pray and ask, and and then we're off to our busy day, or we're off to sleep.
00:25:53
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And we haven't spent any time listening to how God is answering that prayer. Somebody mentioned journaling, and it wasn't me. Y'all, it wasn't me.
00:26:04
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Somebody else in our group said, how about journaling? Journaling's a great idea also. As you're praying, writing down who you're praying for, and as those prayers are answered, you're you're writing in your journal also. Hey, this prayer was answered.
00:26:18
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The goal in praying faithfully is intentionality. And if you miss a day or two, or you miss an hour or two, don't beat yourself up. Give yourself some grace and get back on track praying regularly.
00:26:31
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This is what praying faithfully means. Second, praying for forgivenly. What does it mean to pray forgivenly?
00:26:40
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and i just want to give a real world example, not of Kim and I. I just want to let you know right now, this is not not my wife and I. But have you ever been in the car right outside the church with your husband or your wife or your kids and you're screaming at each other?
00:27:00
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and a heated argument. And then you come in here and sit down at the pews and we say, all right, let's all go to the Lord in prayer. How many you just feel like, oh yeah, I'm going right, i'm just ah I was just in that horrible dispute out there, now I'm just ready to jump right in. and No.
00:27:22
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That conflict, that unforgiveness in your heart is a barrier to answer prayers. That's why he says here, go pray and ask for forgiveness from anybody that you've wronged, basically, is the is the sum here.
00:27:43
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Anybody that you have something against or has something against you, go and ask for forgiveness.
00:27:54
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Pray with a forgiving heart, acknowledging our own need to forgiveness, and seeking understanding and forgiving others leads to a release of bitterness and resentment. And it lowers that obstacle, that barrier that we have for our prayers to be heard and received. And I just put a note here.
00:28:14
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this is This is what Mark is saying when he's saying, if you want to have a well-functioning prayer life, one that prayers are answered You better pray prayerfully and you better pray forgivingly.
00:28:27
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And maybe if we're not doing both, maybe you're not hearing answered prayers or seeing answered prayers, maybe it's one of these two areas that we need looking at. If you don't have a proper heart, you don't have a forgiving spirit, it simply wrecks your prayer life.
00:28:44
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And the further we allow that drift to happen, the easier it is to to just not go back to prayer. The more you miss church, the easier it is to miss church.
00:28:59
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And I'm not telling you have to be here every Sunday. That's not what I'm saying. We meet here Wednesdays too.
00:29:07
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I love it when somebody says, Pastor, I'm really sorry I missed Sunday. And then I just respond to you have the grace to miss Sunday. Just don't make it a habit. It's the same with your prayer life. Hey, i I missed a day. Sometimes we get in such a hectic um day and we just forget or something's happening and we go, oh my gosh, now and yeah I got guilt because I didn't pray. and No.
00:29:28
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Give yourself some grace and forgive. especially those in the body of Christ because it fosters peace and harmony and unity among each other.
00:29:40
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Friends, this morning I'm simply waving the beach warning flag today for everybody to see. Cautioning us to just be mindful of the drift because it's, boy, it's so easy and it happens just decision by decision, day by day.
00:29:57
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May we be a community of God's people who who are characterized by faith and forgiving and a healthy prayer life. And all God's people said,