10.8 - Praying Christians (Part 2)

Departing from our regular rhythm, we spend this episode further discussing last weeks "Topic of the Day," Praying Christians. In this discussion, we want to encourage you to pray in faith in all situations with a grateful heart!

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Noah preaches and teaches with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/

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Paul 0:32

I'm back in the studio again this month noah's joining me today, Noah, we promised last episode, we talked a little bit about prayer, kinda some things. You had been talking about prayer, and I talked about prayer. It's. You. You see early on, Luke tells us in the book of Acts, Pentecost and Peter's preaching the gospel and people are being saved. And you've got the beginning of the church there and the promise of the Holy Spirit and just a lot of good things are happening. And Luke tells us about 'em. And then he says these people, these new people in Christ Jesus are devoting themselves to what the apostles were teaching the fellowship through the breaking of bread. And to the prayers.

Noah 1:15

Yeah. Yep.

Paul 1:16

There, this was a praying people and a praying church and that's. Who and what we should be. So I was excited about when you and I were talking and said, Hey, let's talk a little bit more about prayer. And I was really excited when you connected prayer to evangelism not long ago.

Noah 1:33

Yeah. Yeah. As a reminder, last week we touched on on that, and that was because recently I, I preached on how important prayer is to evangelism that we're praying for opportunities in our own lives. We're praying that we would. See and take advantage of those opportunities that we'd have a heart like the heart of Christ, a heart of compassion and mercy that looks for these things and takes advantage of them. But we also need to be praying for other people's efforts and evangelism, we need to be praying for the people that are laboring in that in a, in much more difficult circumstances than ours. And we need to be praying that. That God work in his power through his people. And and so when that comes to our own attempts to, to teach the gospel I think in another context you were saying something like people might ask, do I pray before, during, after? And we agree the answer is yes. If we think. We it, let me put it this way we need to be looking for opportunities and we ought to be praying to God for those opportunities. That's the pre part, right? But when those opportunities come up, we see a door. Maybe we don't want to take it, but we know that we should. Pray. Right there in the moment. The the old phrase of the Nehemiah type prayer where it's just, you're in the middle of the moment. You pray, you keep moving. You see an opportunity. You don't want to take it. You're unsure how to take it. You want to take it, but you, there's a bunch of roadblocks and obstacles on the way. Say a prayer, this is God's work. And God's gonna do his work. And what we are is instruments. Yeah. And then there's the painful debrief. I don't know about you, but anytime that I have an interaction with somebody, I don't know afterward I start doing the play by play. The instant replay? Yeah. Oh man, I said this, that. That wasn't the right thing to say. They seemed like they were uncomfortable because I even started the conversation or they said this and I didn't respond correctly. I should have asked a question. I should have listened more. I should have spoken more. Whatever we do, we end up I think being very critical of it. Take that to God, pray about it. It's his success. And he will not fail. And so we can pray for growth, we can pray for our own improvement and change and as we continue to become more like Christ and we're gonna reflect him more. In the end, I think it's helpful to remember we, we tend to overthink these interactions, but in the end. What it really comes down to is that idea of come and see.

Paul 4:11

Yeah. Yeah. That's where you got my attention. I was encouraged because here's why I appreciate in the beginning, what you were doing is, first of all, you were making it true to the text scripture in Colossians four, but you were reminding us these are things all of us can do. We're not, I'm talking about what only a few certain people can do. This is what all of us can do. All of us can invite, we can say, come and see. We can extend an invitation. Hey. The gospel's being preached here on this day or this message from the word is being preached here, or here's a good thing going on, I think you would benefit from being involved. Come and participate. Come and see. Just come. Yeah. Yeah. Come and invite, and so you pray before. How do I invite, give me wisdom. You pray during the invite, you pray after the invite. And so I, I appreciated that when you were connecting this to just get up there and say, oh, by the way, church, all of us can pray. Let's stand and sing. We already knew that we could all pray.

Noah 5:05

Yeah.

Paul 5:06

But that doesn't mean we all pray. Knowing is not the same thing as doing. Ooh. Yeah. And so you reminded us that this is a level that if you've been a Christian for. A week, or if you've been a Christian for a year or 50 years, it doesn't look the same. It doesn't sound the same, but the heart is the same.

Noah 5:23

Yeah,

Paul 5:23

I can do this. I can partner with God and the, and I'm saying, God, I need you because I can't. He, you're the power in this. You're the wisdom in this. You're the blessing in this.

Noah 5:33

Yeah. Yeah we could go on and on in the different ways that prayer plays into evangelism. But the fact is that's really reflective of our entire walk with Christ. Whatever role we're in, whatever relationships we have with other people all of these things are benefited when we invest in our. Relationship with God and we communicate with him. That communication's gonna benefit all of the other aspects of our lives, our relationships our worries, our stresses, our anxieties our local church. Those are all gonna be benefited from that. And like you said just a moment ago, there's a difference between knowing that because me saying that the, I think that the people listening to this podcast are going, yep. Yep. Believe me. We all know it. We don't all do it. And I would be the first, I'd be the first to stand in line and say, I don't do it the way that I know I should.

Paul 6:31

Yeah. There's an ebb and flow to this and there's definitely some growing in this, I think about prayer, Noah. So as it relates to just all people in all circumstances literally there was a time in my life when I was called to the hospital, it was a member of the church. I was called to the hospital as a young preacher. And a parent. They were very concerned. Mom had been taken back for emergency delivery. And so we're literally, I'm literally with the family praying about the mom and the unborn child and all that like naturally you would do and leave that into the hands of the Lord and in faith, and Lord, we're asking and we're believing and we just held hands and we prayed together and we committed it to God. And literally 24 hours later. We're all together in that same room and now mom's in there with us, the child has been born and praise God, healthy. And now 24 hours later we're praying a different prayer.

Noah 7:29

Yeah.

Paul 7:30

And it's the, it is the judge's 13 eight prayer. You know this. So Manoa finds out. I'm gonna be a dad. And so he prays and he says, Lord, send the man of God to us. Help him to come to us, judges 13 of verse eight, so he can teach us what to do for the child that would be born. And we were in that room 24 hours later and the parents had said, Hey, pray over us and pray for us. We just wanna be good moms and dads. We've got this life in our hands and God blessed us. And okay, show us. Teach us. Lead us, Lord. What? What are we supposed to do as parents? We've never done this before. We've never been down this road before. Yeah. And what a blessing that is. But man, it's intimidating. If we take God outta the equation,

Noah 8:18

right?

Paul 8:18

So what we're saying about prayer is we're inviting God and the creator of the universe says, I want to be involved. Ask me in your life. You gotta trust me, but you gotta ask me, okay Lord, how do we raise this child? And that's praying should be at least every day for the next. 18 years, what do we do? Show us, teach us. Lead us.

Noah 8:42

Yeah. I don't have grown children yet, but you do. Something tells me it goes longer than 18 years.

Paul 8:47

Yes. In a good way.

Noah 8:49

You

Paul 8:50

never stop being a parent.

Noah 8:51

That's what I'm saying.

Paul 8:52

But your prayers change. Okay, Lord, help me not be this parent. The helicopter parent. That's Or the busy, yeah.

Noah 9:00

Yeah.

Paul 9:00

You're setting me up.

Noah 9:03

I really appreciate that illustration. I think that's a good illustration of something that is the birth of a child is something that is both so natural. This God created children to be born into the world this way, and yet it's for lack of a better term, miraculous. It. It's one of those things that we. You, we all only have a certain level of interaction with that part of life. Whether it's our own children, maybe they're the children of our close friends and family that we are, we're part of that, those beginning moments of life. And and so there's something where we can take it for granted that of course un until something goes wrong. We just assume that everything will continue in the natural course of the world. And unfortunately, that's not that's not relegated to just birth. There's so much of our lives where we only recognize the need for prayer when things have not gone according to plan. And I know in my life. The times where my relationship with God has been the richest, my appreciation for his goodness has been the greatest is when I am praying about the good things. I'm praying about the things that are going well. I'm not waiting for things to go wrong, to go to God.

Paul 10:30

Yeah.

Noah 10:30

And that. If I could just permanently shift my mindset where I never lapse again, boy, wouldn't that be, wouldn't that be wonderful?

Paul 10:39

Yeah. I've challenged people. I, somebody challenged me and I went back in scripture beyond the obvious, like Philippians four, six and there's some others. How many times that the point of being thankful is connected to our praying? And the, you talk about a wow moment.

Noah 11:01

Yeah.

Paul 11:02

It really is. In every season of life, prayer is essential. So is Thanksgiving and bring a heart before the father's throne of Thanksgiving. We think it's just something that comes naturally. It does not. It does not. I have learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content. If contentment is learned, I would submit. So is a grateful and thankful heart. So parents teach your kids that, and I'm thankful there are a lot of parents here at Cedar Park that are doing that, but in, in every season of life. And that, that, that attitude of Thanksgiving, Noah, is a powerful tool. God has given that to us to push Satan away. Because Satan knows the power of prayer. The power of God through praying. The power of Lord Jesus helped me. The power of the Holy Spirit that comes through the asking and listen. I don't understand, I do not understand deity, father, some spirit, but I, there's reason why the Apostle Paul spoke, speaks so often about. Th the depth of God's love and the understanding and the knowing of it. Versus just the, Hey, here's what a verse tells me.

Noah 12:23

Yeah.

Paul 12:23

Man. To know how much you're loved by the father and to know how good he is, and connect that to being thankful people when seizes of life are not going well. Does that affect our pre

Noah 12:37

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. You talked about trying to cultivate a heart of gratefulness in ourselves and in our families. When it comes to praying, cultivating a heart of prayer, both in gratefulness in Thanksgiving, but also a heart of prayer that brings our worries to God, that takes to heart the things that God has said about. Coming to him, he, him wanting to hear us and being persistent in prayer. I wanna share a quick anecdote because I was trying to teach my boys to say thank you when when something nice is done for them, and particularly, their mom makes a nice dinner. They, she brings it to the table. First words out of their mouth being. Is that onions or something like that. It's okay, so that's, I'm gonna, I want to train this, I want to change this. And so I started to remind them, Hey, did you tell her thank you? No. Okay. Tell her thank you. Thank you. Okay. That had a limited effect.

Paul 13:45

Sorry.

Noah 13:46

No, that's all right. You're, this is the, that's the laugh of a man who has raised children into adulthood. Been, yeah. And and listening to one who has not done yet done that. Here's what worked. Every time we sat down for a meal, the first words out of my mouth were Mikayla. Thanks for this dinner. It looks great. Smells great. Maybe within a week. Both of the older boys. Leland wasn't old enough at that point to even form any words, both the older boys, almost every meal without any prompting. Thank you, mama.

Paul 14:29

That's a hallelujah moment. Literally, seriously, and good for your boys, man, that training.

Noah 14:36

It is. But here's my point in bringing that up. I, one, I am not trying to tout my parenting because boy, oh boy, it God really does know that is an area of my life that tests me in ways I never thought I'd be tested. But think about this from the context of prayer, not just prayer. Prayer about gratitude. And thankfulness, but prayer that's relying on God, expressing trust in God. What do you think is gonna work if I teach my children for their entire lives? Hey, don't forget, you can always pray to God. Don't forget God's got your back. You can trust God. He knows what's best for you. He's gonna do what's good. Should we be saying these things? Yes, we should be saying those things to our children, but they need to hear us say them. They need to hear us express those things to God. And that's a humbling process if we're gonna do it genuinely. And I'm rambling now. I'm just telling you where I'm at right now.

Paul 15:33

Yeah, I love that. Luke 11, I shared this with the church here not long ago, and I have several times over the years. It's such a powerful text. Luke 11 verse one. When Jesus had finished praying, so they had heard him pray. So after they finish hearing Jesus pray, their request is, Lord teach us to pray.

Noah 15:55

Yeah.

Paul 15:55

I challenge you one time to find in the New Testament where his disciples said, Lord, teach us to be better teachers. I'm not saying Jesus didn't do that. That's part of the mentoring discipleship. They followed him. But it's teach us to pray.

Noah 16:08

Yeah.

Paul 16:08

Ask John taught his type of disciples to pray. Hey Lord, teach us we need to be teaching. On prayer. And again, not from the standpoint of, Hey, I'm going to come up with this three step method. Here's your three bullet points, and they all rhyme. And if we'll just follow this, all of a sudden we can lever things outta God that he really doesn't want to give us. But now he's ah, I can't believe they, they took this approach and set it this way. And that's silly, but we need to understand that prayer is a taught. Spiritual blessing. It's to be taught, but not so as we can have information and do nothing with the information that we have. There's a reason why in Ephesians six Paul's talking about the warfare and our real enemy and the armor that God has given us and the strength that we have in the armor. And he talks about prayer in verse 18. That's that's intentional.

Noah 17:02

Yeah.

Paul 17:03

Praying always with all prayer and supplication. In the spirit being watchful unto this end, and there's a reason why Noah, that language several times in New Testament, the word strive with Paul the apostle does this quite often. Strive with me, strive together with me. In your prayers or through your praying, and that word strive is the agony to agonize. Any woman that's had childbirth. Okay. Agony. But he's there, that's the language of war. We're going to war. It's praying is not an easy thing. And you go into your prayer closet, I'm citing the sermon on the mount. What Jesus meant by that you have your secret place with the right heart and you go to battle, and you go to war in prayer. But Paul invites people in the church to strive together with me. At different times. Romans 15, that I will be delivered from evil men. The Romans 15 also strive for me together with me in prayer because Paul was taking a contribution to Jewish Christians who were in great need and famine. And it, the contribution was coming from Gentile, largely Gentile churches.

Noah 18:15

Yeah.

Paul 18:15

That they would receive this. What's that a prayer about? That people's hearts would be receptive towards a certain thing that was for their good. Think about the bigness of that prayer and strive. Don't get defeated in your praying. Don't get discouraged in your praying. Let's do this church, let's do this together. Let's do this with this kind of faith, these kinds of hearts with one accord believing in God, trusting in God, and look what God will do. Through a prayer, a church that prays like this.

Noah 18:46

Yeah. Amen and amen. I,

Paul 18:49

sorry I got a little preachy.

Noah 18:51

That's all right. I think we can allow it this time. I'm looking at the speaking of time, I'm looking at the time and I'm seeing that we're running up on the upper boundaries of what we intend for this second episode. For those listening, thanks for continuing to join us. We've got a special episode coming up here. So this is the second episode for April. This is the last one we'll do in April and in May we're gonna do we, we've talked about it. We've decided we're gonna do a kind of a special episode in the first Monday of May. It's not gonna follow our normal format. And it's gonna be an opportunity for me and Paul to discuss a topic that's really near and dear to both of our hearts and our prayer is that it's gonna be beneficial. So make sure to keep in the loop and make sure that you've got that mark that first Monday of May. We'll be back with a special episode at that point. Paul, thanks for being here today. Yes, thanks for joining me in this discussion. And to those listening, our prayer is always that you will stand strong.