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[0:00] Good evening, a warm welcome to the service this evening and a welcome also to those who are online and who are watching. I gave out the intimations in the morning, I'm not going to go over them again in the evening, but one thing I will say just in addition to what I said in the morning is that on Wednesday evening we'll be back in the church for a prayer meeting, although there will still be the possibility to join on Zoom. It's nice to have Mervyn and Lucy back with us. They're here until Saturday, is it, next week? Thursday.

[0:40] I knew it wasn't up to Sunday or you'd have a different preacher next Sunday. We'll get an update from them on Wednesday evening, so Mervyn and Lucy will take part in the midweek meeting, so be encouraged to come along and to hear how ministry is progressing through them. We're going to begin this time of worship and we'll sing to God's praise in Psalm 61, Psalm 61 and the first two verses of the Psalm in Gaelic.

[1:11] O God, give ear unto my cry, unto my prayer attend, from the utmost corner of the land my cry to thee I'll send. What time my heart is overwhelmed and in perplexity do thou lead me unto the rock that higher is than I. So we'll sing these two verses in Gaelic to God's praise and after we've sang John McSween will lead us in prayer in Gaelic.

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[13:53] Amen. We're going to sing again now to God's praise. The hymn, the words on the screen.

[14:04] I once was a stranger to grace and to God. Jehovah St. Kenyu, as we know this hymn. I once was a stranger to grace and to God.

[14:31] I knew not my danger and have not my own. Though there spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, Jehovah St. Kenyu was nothing to me.

[14:53] When three days ago we by life from on high. Then we go, fear should we, I tremble to die.

[15:07] Your refuge for safety in self-credited sea. Jehovah St. Kenyu, as we know this year must be.

[15:21] My debtors all banished before the sweet day. My guilty fears banished with boldness I came.

[15:36] To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free. Jehovah St. Kenyu is all things to me.

[15:50] Jehovah St. Kenyu, my treasure and foes. Jehovah St. Kenyu, my neck and be lost.

[16:05] In thee I shall conquer, thy flood and my fear. My table, my anchor, my breastplate and shield.

[16:19] In threading the valley, the shadow of death. The short world shall run me, my quartering bread.

[16:34] For why from thy steward, my God sets me free. Jehovah St. Kenyu, my heart's a-tend, my heart's a-tend.

[16:47] If you could turn now in your Bibles, please, to Matthew chapter 6.

[16:58] Matthew chapter 6.

[17:16] Matthew chapter 6. And we'll read from verse 5 down to the end of the chapter.

[17:35] Jesus is teaching the disciples about prayer. And he says in verse 5, And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.

[17:50] I tell you the truth, they have received the reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

[18:05] And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray.

[18:17] Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.

[18:30] Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

[18:45] But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting.

[18:58] I tell you the truth, they have received the reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen, and your Father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

[19:20] Do not store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. Sorry, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

[19:35] But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

[19:47] The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

[20:01] No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

[20:15] Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. About your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

[20:29] Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap, or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

[20:40] Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

[20:56] If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, or you of little faith?

[21:09] So do not worry, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

[21:20] But seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

[21:32] Each day has enough trouble of its own. Amen. And may God bless that reading of his word to us. We're going to sing again to God's praise, this time from Mission Praise 625.

[21:49] Mission Praise 625. Take time to be holy. Speak oft with the Lord. Take time to be holy.

[22:18] Speak oft with thy Lord. Take time to be holy.

[22:49] The Lord rushes on. Spend much time in secret With Jesus alone.

[23:02] By looking to Jesus, Thy kingdom shall be. Thy friends in the conduct His likeness shall see.

[23:16] Take time to be holy. Let him be thy guide. And run not before him, whatever we die.

[23:33] In joy and sorrow, still follow thy Lord. And go think to Jesus, still trust in his word.

[23:48] Take time to be holy. Be calm in thy soul. Each thought and each temper beneath its control.

[24:04] Thus led by his spirit Two fountains of blood. Though soon shall be treated For service above.

[24:19] If you could turn back to Matthew chapter 6, please, and have that open before you.

[24:35] And again, as we go there, let's pray. Amen. Our heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that has been set aside, for this day that's been set aside from all other days, the Lord's day.

[24:59] we thank you that this is a gift, not a burden. We thank you, Lord, that as our maker, you have given us this command that we stop work and we find time to rest in you.

[25:18] And Lord, we pray that for this hour as we open your word that truly we would fear in it. And we pray that as we take time in the stillness that you would draw near to us, that we would know that you are God, that we would know that you are with us and that we would be guided and led by the Holy Spirit so that we would be praying in accordance with your will.

[25:51] We thank you, Lord, that you see our hearts. You see where we are as we stand before you today. And we ask, Lord, that you would minister to each of us, that you would meet us at the point of our need.

[26:08] Pray for anyone here tonight or anyone who listens to this at a distance who doesn't yet know you. We ask, Lord, that you would be awakening the souls of those who are still outside of Christ.

[26:25] We think of the picture, that unsettling picture from this morning, the parable, where we see a rich man who has so much in terms of the wealth of this world and the security of this world, who has no sense of need and who in a split second is taken from this world where he was so comfortable to a place of torment eternally.

[26:56] And we know, Lord, that this is the truth that you teach us, that we are here just for a short while and then in the twinkling of an eye we are brought into eternity.

[27:10] and we pray for any who, like the rich man, have no sense of need tonight. Those who have no awareness of their own souls, no concern about what happens beyond the grave.

[27:30] And we know, Lord, that we can sit and we can speak to them and we can try and persuade them and yet it's only a work of the Holy Spirit that causes an awakening that will prompt someone to look to Christ as Saviour.

[27:47] So for those, Lord, in our families, for our friends, for those in the community who may not ever come near church, they come to our mind's eye and we pray for them.

[28:01] We bring them to you, Lord, in prayer. And we ask that you would create that sense of need of Jesus, that you would create that sense of sin, the conviction of sin that Christian felt in that book, Pilgrim's Progress.

[28:24] We ask, Lord, that that burden, that that weight would be felt by some who currently feel nothing, that they would look to Jesus and come to the cross where burdens are lifted.

[28:40] We pray, Lord, for those who are outside of Christ. We ask, Lord, that whilst there is time, they would look to you. And we pray that as we live alongside them and as we speak with them, that you would enable us to point them through our words and through our lives to Jesus.

[29:00] us. We pray for others, Lord, who once were close with you, who once spoke often with you, who once had hearts that were warm and alive and who may have drifted.

[29:15] And we pray for them. We are prone to wonder, Lord, as we often sing. And for those who are wandering, some who may be present in body but drifting in mind and spirit, and many who may be absent, preoccupied with something else this evening, we ask, Lord, that you would minister to them, that you would come to us.

[29:40] And, Lord, that you would quicken, that you would revive, that you would draw back those who once walked close and who have drifted.

[29:52] We pray for them, Lord, and we ask that you would minister to them in the power of the Holy Spirit. So, Lord, we ask now that as we bow before you, that you would give us wisdom, that you would give us insight, that you would give us understanding.

[30:10] Lord, that you would meet with us, that you would speak to us, and that we would know that we are in your presence. And we pray all these things together with the forgiveness of our many sins.

[30:24] In Jesus' name, amen. So, Matthew chapter 6 is where we have been for a while, and it's where we continue this evening, and I think we'll probably bring our studies to the Lord's Prayer to conclusion this evening.

[30:46] But I want to start by just showing you a magazine that has been sitting in my house for the last few weeks.

[30:58] I bought it in Stornoway one day. It's called Trail Running. And I've been flicking through it at leisure just over the last couple of weeks, and it's of interest, there's trails, there's advice, there's stuff in it, and there's one particular article in this magazine, which caught my eye as part of the reason that I bought the magazine, and it's a runner, a journalist runner, who decided that they would come to the Outer Hebrides and explore the trails of the Outer Hebrides, and unsurprisingly this runner concluded that the trails, the tracks, and the Outer Hebrides, and Uist, and Lewis, and Harris, were probably the best and most beautiful trails that you could run on in the country.

[31:52] They were just overwhelmed and amazed by the beauty and the openness of these trails, and I think all of us would not be surprised by that, and anybody that does run a trail would completely agree, and as I flicked through this article and read through it, I completely agree with everything that this person wrote in the article, but I need to confess that in spite of my agreeing with all of this, I haven't run on a trail for over a year.

[32:25] They're on my doorstep. I mean, this person travelled half the length of the country to go and run in a couple of these trails. These trails, they're on our doorstep, they're on my doorstep, but I haven't been in them for over a year, I don't think.

[32:38] I've got the right trainers to be able to do it. You know, I have the gear to be able to go and tackle a trail. I know the places to go and park and then venture out to go on these trail runs, but it's been a long time since I've done it.

[32:58] And prayer can be like that. We've spent, I counted back, it was seven weeks, it's been broken up with different things, sermons, but we've spent these seven weeks going through that Lord's prayer week by week.

[33:21] Jesus, God the Son, has spoken and published this lesson for us in how we can pray. And we've gone through it line by line, we've read the manual, and I'm sure we agree, of course we agree, with everything that Jesus has taught us on prayer.

[33:46] But prayer can be a lot like trail running. You know, we know how good it is, we're inspired about it, when we read about it, we may have a lot of good intentions to actually do it, we may know a lot about prayer in theory, but many of us struggle to actually do it.

[34:11] And I confess I struggle to pray. I find it easy to be busy, I find it easy to go into the study and prepare sermons because I know I have to stand here twice a week, and I have to have something to say.

[34:30] It's easy to attend meetings as you're forever getting called to attend meetings. It's easy to go out and see people and attend to different needs that you become aware of, but it's a struggle to actually go into the study or go into the closet, go into whatever it is, close the door, switch off the phone, and take time to be still, and know God's presence in prayer.

[35:03] That's a struggle I have, and I expect it's a struggle many of us have. And so the final sermon in this short series is just, it's simply an encouragement for us to pray.

[35:20] And I think we're given some instruction here on how we can be disciplined in prayer. And we get that as we look at the surrounding verses of the Lord's prayer.

[35:30] We've focused, and we've zoomed in on verses 9 to 13 over the last seven weeks. But what I want to do tonight is just zoom back out for one final time and look at the verses that surround the Lord's prayer and see what we're taught and see the context whereby Jesus teaches us about prayer.

[35:54] So, four points. I said that this morning, but hopefully we will get through four points tonight. The first thing is we are taught to pray by Jesus.

[36:06] We're taught and we're expected to pray. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is we need time to pray. We need to take time to pray. And the third thing is we treasure God in prayer because this is a relationship that we have with God and we take time, we treasure God as we pray.

[36:26] And the final thing is we trust God in prayer. So, first of all, we're taught and we're expected to pray.

[36:41] And that's something that we just can't miss as we step through the verses before the Lord's Prayer. Jesus, if you're looking at verse five here and following five down to eight initially, as Jesus begins to teach about prayer, Jesus doesn't say that to his disciples, if you pray, but he says when you pray.

[37:09] And he doesn't say it once, he doesn't say it twice, he says it three times, when you pray. Verse five, when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues on the street corners to be seen by people.

[37:22] I tell you the truth, they've received the reward in full. But verse six, when you pray, go into your room, close the door, pray to your father who is unseen, then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

[37:35] Verse seven, and when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they'll be heard because there are many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.

[37:49] So Jesus teaches us as his disciples, he expects, he assumes from us as his disciples that we will be those who pray. Jesus doesn't expect all of us to be preachers, he doesn't expect all of us to be church planters, he doesn't expect all of us to be elders or deacons or missionaries who go to far off lands.

[38:13] I mean, these are particular callings for particular people, but prayer is a calling for all the Lord's people. Every Christian, whether very young, we hear the very young at the kids' prayer meeting on the Wednesday night, or those who are so far up in years that they cannot come to a church building and they cannot get out and about, still there is an expectation they are taught their ministry, our ministry together, is a ministry of prayer.

[38:51] Every follower of Christ, every disciple throughout the ages in every place is taught by Jesus to pray. Jesus doesn't say, should you pray?

[39:04] question mark. He says in verse 9, you should pray. This is how you should pray. You know, the person who buys trail running magazine should put their trainers on this coming Saturday and get outside and actually run, not just read about it.

[39:28] You can ask me about that next weekend. the person who takes driving lessons and reads the highway code should get behind the wheel of a car.

[39:41] The person who takes swimming lessons with Cammy should get in the pool and not just read the instruction manuals.

[39:52] And the person who's following Jesus should pray. disciples of Jesus need to pray.

[40:02] Remember the slogan from Nike? I don't know if they still use it. I think they still do. But the slogan is just do it. And that's what Jesus is teaching his disciples about prayer.

[40:16] Just do it. You know, we're good at talking about prayer. We're good at reading about prayer. prayer. But Jesus says just pray.

[40:29] Go into your room, close the door and pray. Malcolm McLean, the minister who preached here not long ago and was in Scalpy for a number of years.

[40:44] He's probably the best read person I know. You know, every book that you want a little snapshot on what it's about, you go to Malcolm and you ask him the question.

[40:55] And whether it's a Puritan book from a million years ago or whether it's a book that was published last week on some obscure branch of theology, you can go to him and ask the question. He's read it.

[41:09] But I remember him speaking about prayer one day, or somebody else was telling me about this, and they said that one day there was a discussion about prayer, about books concerning prayer, and what Malcolm said was, he said, I've read a lot of books about prayer, and we can kind of hear him saying that.

[41:27] He says, I've read a lot of books about prayer, pause, he says, but I haven't found many of them very helpful, pause, because prayer, he said, is just speaking to God.

[41:43] God. And you know, that's the simple, profound, amazing truth that motivates and transforms us when we think about prayer to actually go and pray.

[42:01] When we pray, we're speaking to God. We're not making a speech for the people around us. but we finite creatures are speaking with, we are connecting with the living, infinite, eternal, almighty God.

[42:27] And God the Son, he teaches us, he expects us to do that, to pray. You know, when we're in a relationship with someone, for that relationship to be healthy, we need to be speaking to them, and we need to be listening to them.

[42:50] And for us to have a relationship with God, that's what a Christian is, someone who through Christ and all that he's done on the cross is brought us into relationship with God.

[43:01] For a Christian to have a healthy relationship with God, we need to be in the Bible asking God to speak to us, and we need to be in the quiet place, in the closet, on our knees, in prayer, speaking to him.

[43:22] So Jesus teaches us in the verses before he actually gives us the Lord's prayer, he teaches us, he expects us to pray. It's the first point.

[43:33] The second point is we need time to pray. We need time to pray. And it seems that for all of us, time is in such short supply.

[43:49] Almost all of us seem to have not enough time to do the things we want to do. Whether you meet somebody who's in school, trying to get through the backlog of homework, whether you meet someone who's in the middle of their working life with a to-do list longer than their arm, or whether you meet someone who's in retirement that talks about having 15 different jobs to do all at the same time.

[44:11] We never seem to have enough time to do the things that we want to do. And very often our prayer lives suffer because of that. And I think Jesus teaching on fasting speaks into that problem.

[44:25] So if you fast forward now from where we were to verse 16, because after Jesus gives us this moral prayer, he then shifts to this next subject of fasting.

[44:38] And he says in verse 16, when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they're fasting. I tell you the truth, they've received their reward in full.

[44:49] They're trying to tell everybody, I'm fasting. Everybody look at me, I'm fasting. Look at how holy I am. Jesus says, don't be like that. But when you fast, verse 17, says Jesus, put oil on your head, wash your face, that it will not be obvious to people that you're fasting, but only to your father who is unseen, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

[45:10] fasting. And again, this fasting that Jesus talks about is something that he seems to expect his disciples to do.

[45:24] Not an optional extra, it's something that he expects his disciples to do. Boys and girls, there's not too many of you here this evening, Ailey, Lois, Jono, Alistair, but can you tell me anybody, what is fasting?

[45:41] Jesus talks about fasting, what's fasting? Any ideas? No, it's not the way mum drives, or am I?

[45:54] fasting is fasting is when we stop doing one thing to make time to do something else.

[46:11] Fasting is when we stop doing one thing that we might spend a lot of time normally doing, and we stop doing that one thing to make time to do something else. One commentator, one of weerspey says, fasting means giving up a lesser thing to gain a greater thing.

[46:29] And we tend to think of fasting always in terms of food, and as we go back into the Bible, and we haven't got time to do that tonight, we see that prayer and fasting are things that go together, and so we think about fasting as missing a meal, or missing a couple of meals.

[46:47] But fasting can be more than food. I mean, today, we don't take time to sit down to a meal like our forefathers and mothers did.

[47:00] In the past, a meal would take an evening. And if you decided not to take time to eat, but set that time to pray, that was a significant lump of time.

[47:14] Today, we're in and out with a sandwich in 15 minutes. when we think about how we use our time, we take a lot of time on our phones, don't we?

[47:27] We take a lot of times on different platforms in terms of social media. We take a lot of time in front of the television. We take a lot of time maybe gaming or on Netflix or whatever.

[47:43] And sometimes it can be good to fast that to come away from that to make time to pray. I watched an interview, ironically, it was on social media and it was a football player, John Stones of Manchester City, and the interviewer said to him, he says, I normally, before I interview a player, he says, I normally go on your social media and just see what you're saying and look at what you're up to.

[48:14] And he says, I noticed that for you, you've got no social media, you're not on Instagram, you're not on Facebook, you're not on anything. And he said, yeah, I'm not. And he says, why not? He says, because I think as a professional football player I can use my time on much better things.

[48:35] Now, a football player recognises that they need to be disciplined in their use of time. As disciples of Jesus, we need to be disciplined and make time, take time to pray.

[48:53] And if that means that we need to fast something else to create that time to pray, then I think that's the challenge that Jesus sets for his disciples then and now.

[49:07] So, the first point is we're taught to pray. The second point is we need time. We need to take time to pray. The third thing here is we treasure God in prayer.

[49:21] And we see that word treasure as we move on to the next section, verse 19 and verse 21. We treasure God as we pray. Now, what we consider to be treasure, it will shape how we live our lives.

[49:40] You know, if our treasure is money and success, our whole lives will be devoted to work and succeeding in a particular career, nothing else will get in the way of it. Because that's where our treasure is.

[49:54] You know, if our treasure is in getting the approval of others, our whole lives will probably, these days, be lived online, trying to get people to like and approve and make positive comments about our appearance or the things that we're doing, that's where our treasure is, getting a thumbs up from somebody else.

[50:14] If our treasure is material possessions, then we're going to live our lives in the shops. If our treasure is relaxation and comfort, we'll always be focused on the next holiday.

[50:30] And yet all these things, all these things that are perceived treasure, they're passing away. Jesus teaches us here. Because this world, at time, is passing away.

[50:49] And then there's eternity. And we saw that this morning with the rich man. He has all this treasure. He's gained the whole world in terms of treasure and wealth.

[51:02] and then in an instant, he's passed away. He's lost his soul. And Jesus, he points us to eternity in this next short section from 19 to verse 24.

[51:20] And Jesus says, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal.

[51:37] For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eyes the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

[51:48] If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? darkness. No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he'll be devoted to the one and despise the other.

[52:05] You cannot serve both God and money. And we might wonder just how this lesson links in with what Jesus has been teaching about prayer.

[52:19] But I think if we stop and think about it, it actually flows very naturally from Jesus teaching on prayer. It's all joined up with what Jesus teaches us about prayer.

[52:36] Because when we don't pray, all we can see is this world. The things in this world, that's all we're living for.

[52:47] When our prayer life is dried up, we're just focused on everything in this world. But when we pray, truly pray, our focus shifts from this world to heaven because the one that we are speaking to is our Father in heaven.

[53:10] And when we pray, the things of this world that seem so shiny and compelling, they grow strangely dim because we are, as the Apostle Paul said in Colossians 3, 2, we're setting our minds on things above and not things on the earth when we pray.

[53:31] And when we pray, the darkness of this world that we feel encroaches on us constantly, it's chased out of our hearts in prayer.

[53:42] and the light of God floods them. And when we pray, I think our perspective changes and we come to realize that this world's treasure is not really treasure.

[53:58] It's more tinsel than treasure. The real treasure is Jesus, knowing him, being close with him, and we're closest to Jesus when we pray.

[54:20] There is intimacy with God when we pray. We treasure God, our relationship with God, our union with Christ, when we meet with him in prayer.

[54:43] So that's the third thing, we treasure God in prayer. Our focus goes from this world to heaven. Our focus goes from the people around us and ourselves to Christ.

[54:57] We treasure God in prayer. We need time to pray. We need to take time to pray. pray. We are taught very clearly. We're expected by Jesus to pray.

[55:09] And the final thing, very briefly here, is we trust God in prayer. Prayer is an expression of trust in God.

[55:23] You know, if we think in terms of opposites, the opposite of loving is hating. The opposite of helping is harming.

[55:33] The opposite of laughing is crying. And the opposite of praying is worrying. You know, when we pray, we express our trust in God.

[55:51] When we pray, we take these things that we start to feel waves of anxiety coming in on us. We take these things, we take these anxieties, we take everything to the Lord, and we package it up, and we push it over to Him in prayer.

[56:07] That's how I visualize problems when I pray. You know, there are things that bother me, there are things that cause me anxiety, there are things that keep me up at night, and what do you do?

[56:20] Well, you take them, and you put them into a big box, you package them up, and in prayer, you hand them over. There are situations that you and I, we don't know how to deal with them. We don't see the best way through, we can't see the answers, all we can see is a whole lot of problems, so how do we pray?

[56:37] We don't know how to pray, really. So we don't pray for a particular outcome, we don't pray that God will do X, Y, and Z, because we don't have the wisdom to see what He needs to do.

[56:49] We just say, Lord, this is worrying me, I feel anxiety about this, will you take it from me? This burden, will you take it from me?

[57:03] Will you work out the solutions? Will you work out something that will be for your glory and the good of your people? I don't know what, but will you work?

[57:20] When we pray, we're trusting the Lord with these problems as we hand them over to Him. but when we worry and when we fret and when we run around like headless chickens trying to fix everything in our own strength and engineer solutions with our own very limited intelligence, that stifles prayer.

[57:48] When we're the type of people who are trying to fix everything, we're so busy trying to be fixers, we've got no time to pray. All that nervous energy that we put into trying to do everything, to make things right, is often an expression of a lack of faith in God.

[58:11] When we worry, when we fret, when we run around trying to do everything, when we take the burdens that we handed over ten minutes ago in prayer to the Lord and take them back and start trying to fix them all again, it's an expression of a lack of faith in God.

[58:33] And Jesus seeks gently to correct us, because we all do this. And he says to us in verse 25 down to the end of verse 34, don't worry about your life.

[58:48] Therefore, said Jesus, I tell you, God the Son, the authoritative one, says, I tell you, do not worry about your life.

[59:03] What you will eat, what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. It's not life more important than food, the body more important than clothes. Look at the birds of the air, he says.

[59:14] Look at how they're flying around, look how beautiful they are, look at the grass in the field, look at the flowers in the field, look at the job that I've done with all this. Why are you worrying about all this stuff? In the last section there, Jesus, he takes all the cares of this world, all our worries about clothes and how we look to other people, all our worries about food and drink and grocery bills and will we be able to make ends meet, all our worries about health and how many hours we're going to live.

[59:52] And Jesus says to us, you can trust your heavenly father to deal with all these things, so don't worry about all that stuff.

[60:06] Trust him. God. And we do that. We respond to Jesus in faith. We trust God as we pray.

[60:19] so let's all be encouraged to pray. We are taught to pray by Jesus.

[60:32] We need time to pray. We need to make time to pray. We treasure God, our relationship with God as we pray. And we trust God as we stop worrying and take everything to the Lord in prayer.

[60:54] Let's do that now. Our heavenly father, we thank you for this amazing gift that you have given to us of prayer. And we confess that we are guilty in so many ways because we fail to pray so often.

[61:14] We confess Lord that we default on what you teach us. We confess Lord that we have time for a million other things and we have so little time to pray because we make so little time to pray.

[61:31] We confess Lord that our treasure so often is the things in this world. We become distracted and fixated on things that are passing away.

[61:43] We neglect our relationship with you. We lose out. Our souls become lean. We have no sense of intimacy with you because we fail to pray. Lord we confess that very often even our worries, our preoccupations with the things that very often never happen stifle a life of prayer.

[62:09] We see our children when they are very young not worrying about anything but trusting their parents to care for them, to provide for them, to guide them in the right way.

[62:21] And we thank you Lord Jesus that you have given us this simple, profound, clear lesson that we have a heavenly father who loves us and who calls us to bring everything to him in prayer.

[62:39] we thank you that the way is open for us to pray. We thank you that Jesus paid such a great price to open the way into the presence of God.

[62:57] We think of the moment on the cross where Jesus laid down his life and the curtain was torn from top to bottom to show that the lines of communication with heaven were now wide open that we could come to the father through Jesus the son.

[63:17] So help us Lord we pray to do that. Help us to take everything to the Lord Jesus in prayer. And we ask all these things in Jesus name and for his sake.

[63:30] Amen. We'll sing to conclude that well known him. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.

[63:43] Amen. Amen. What a friend we have in Jesus All our sins and grace to bear What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer Oh, what peace we often forfeit Oh, what needless pain we bear Oh, because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer And we try those temptations

[64:47] Is there trouble anywhere We should never be discouraged Take it to the Lord in prayer And we find a friend so faithful Who will all our sorrows share Jesus knows our every weakness Take it to the Lord in prayer Are we weak and heavy laden Comfort with the Lord of care Precious Savior, still a refuge Take it to the Lord in prayer

[65:49]  Do thy friends despise more safely Take it to the Lord in prayer Take it to the Lord in prayer In his arms you take and shield thee Thou will find a soulless there And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ And the love of God the Father And the fellowship of God the Holy Spirit Be with us all now and ever Amen Amen