Praying All Together by Pastor Kent Munsey

12:00 PM

INTRODUCTION:

1. THREE MOST IMPORTANT CONNECTIONS

2. SIX PRAYERS TO FOCUS ON

CONCLUSION

Main Scripture: Psalm 90:12­17 “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom. O LORD, come back to us! How long will you delay? Take pity on your servants! Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives. Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good. Let us, your servants, see you work again; let our children see your glory. And may the Lord our God show us his approval and make our efforts successful. Yes, make our efforts successful!” INTRODUCTION Pastor Kent explains that there are three relationships that are most important in our lives because they are going to last forever. Those relationships are with God, with our spiritual family, and with ourselves. 3 Most Important Connections 1. GOD: Prayer is our main way of communicating with God. In communicating with God through prayer, we must remember the ABC’s of Prayer that Pastor Kent highlighted at the beginning of this series on prayer. Prayer is:

A. Amazing B. A Big Big Deal C. a Catalyst

Prayer is the biggest change agent on Earth. If we want to affect anything that is happening on Earth, it must start with prayer.

2. YOURSELF: Mark 12:31 states, “Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” We are our own biggest advocates, encouragers, and friends. A lot of us have never met the person that God designed us to be. We need to stop being who we think we need to be and start becoming who God designed us to be. We need to start thinking about ourselves how God thinks of us. 3. SPIRITUAL FAMILY: When we look at the prayer “Our Father” we are able to see the significance of the relationship with the kingdom of heaven here on earth. The truth is that you are not really in a spiritual family until you feel offended or disappointed. It is in those moments that we get to lean into God. Our only resolution is a lifestyle of prayer where we learn to forgive, work it out, grow, change, and transform ourselves together. Moses and the Israelites ended up circling for 40 years until they decided to pray together. When they came together, unified by their prayers, they were able to realign themselves with God’s will. 6 Prayers To Focus On When we take a look at Psalm 90:12­17 we are able to see six main prayers that we should focus on regularly as a church community. 1. TEACH US: The scripture says, “Teach us to number our days…” We need to continually pray for God to be our teacher. We need to ask ourselves if we are putting a NO where God has put a YES. We need to learn that we can never underestimate the value of one day, one week, or one season. 2. COME BACK TO US: In scripture we see that God didn’t leave Moses and the Israelites, but they left God and got lost. We should always be cautious that we aren’t going off on our own good ideas, but instead we follow God’s ideas. 3. SATISFY US: The only thing that can truly satisfy us is Jesus, sin will never satisfy us. We must must maintain consistency in the following of Christ’s example. 4. GIVE US: Scripture says “give us gladness in proportion.” We can continually lean on God to give us joy. 5. LET US: Matthew 5:14 says, ““You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” We cannot forget the “us” because it is the prayers that we pray all together that will glorify this city. 6. SHOW US: God will show us incredible things through prayer. When God is with us no one can be against us. CONCLUSION If we want to see something bigger than ourselves we need to dive into more “all together” prayers. We have to remember the importance of putting it together with all three connections. Connecting with God is wonderful, but we cannot afford to neglect ourselves, nor our spiritual families. All three parts work together when we pray with passion and with purpose.

Additional Scripture: Matthew 6:9­13 “Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.” Colossians 4:2 “Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Never stop praying.” Job 36:22 “Look, God is all­powerful. Who is a teacher like him?” Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” Deuteronomy 1:1­46