Confident Supplication

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Sloppy Shabbat Shalom. Amen. Okay, so if you're at home watching online today because you had the smarts to turn around and not drown, which is highly possible out here on Western Avenue, please do us a favor. Let us, you know, say something online while you're watching. Let us know that you are with us, even not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

And we would appreciate that. It is pretty serious rain out there, so we do ask the Lord to watch over all those who are traveling about. I had the privilege of going to London once, and London was just everything that you kind of see on the TV about it. You know, there's the subway and there's the just Big Ben. I was really disappointed when I realized that that scene from one of the vacation movies where Chevy Chase gets caught in the circle going, big Ben, Parliament, yeah, that doesn't exist.

Because I so wanted to do that. I wanted to just go round and round going, big Ben, Parliament, yeah, that circle doesn't exist. But the one thing that you see that does exist are the Mind the Gap signs. How many of you are aware of what the Mind the Gap is? The gap is the space between the subway platform where you stand and when the train pulls up.

The distance between where you're standing and where you actually get on the train. And apparently, people from Great Britain have a problem of the falling through that. No, I'm just kidding. I have a good friend from England who watches, so please don't send me letters. Anyway, the sign is there, and they're all over the place.

Mind the gap. And it's such a cultural thing. They've even got T shirts. And I'm like, mind the gap. Well, I mean, how dumb are we sometimes?

I mean, do we really need a sign to tell us that which is right in front of us? All right, you're standing on a platform. You know a train is coming up. You can see it. Mind the gap.

But the truth of the matter is, it's not such a dumb sign. Because the truth of the matter is that we can get so caught up looking at our cell phones, doing whatever we're doing, that we can be going through life and not paying attention to the dangers that are right in front of us. Sometimes we need somebody to tell us to mind the gap. Now, we feel like we shouldn't need someone to warn us not to do that, but the truth of the matter is, we do. And whenever I think of that phrase, mind the gap, there's an Old Testament passage from Ezekiel that.

Ezekiel, chapter 22 and verse 30, the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel, the prophet, about the condition of Israel, really the condition of Judah. And he's telling him all of the difficult things that are about to be poured out on the land because of the spiritual condition of the people. But he gets to this place where he's explaining why they are not experiencing the blessing of rain. And the reason they're not experiencing it is, well, let me just read what he says in Ezekiel 22, verse 30. He says, I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land so that I would not destroy it.

But I found no one. I mean, you want to talk about a tragic explanation or description of the children of Israel, the children of Judah's spiritual condition, God is saying, I looked for somebody to stand in the gap to intercede on behalf of the land. You know, he was looking for that one righteous person. Remember when Abraham interceded even for Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, Lord, if you find 10 righteous people, Abraham was standing in the gap.

Moses stood in the gap. When God said, move out of the way. I'm going to destroy these people. I'll start over with you. And Moses said, no, don't do it.

He stood in the gap on behalf of the people. But when God looked around to find someone to stand in the gap, he couldn't find anybody. And I'm not just trying to be cheeky and clever. This morning, he couldn't find anybody to stand in the gap because Israel stopped minding the gap. They stopped listening to the warnings that God had given them about what happens when you turn your heart away from the Lord.

So this morning, mind the gap. Today we're going to talk about our prayer life. And it may seem odd to you, but God is. Jesus is going to say some things to us not just about standing in the gap, but minding the gap. Will you pray with me, Abba?

Father, we hear the rains coming down quite hard. We know the streets are filling. We thank you for the fact that our ponds, our lakes, our water reservoirs are filling with water. Father. That the land is drinking in a healthy dose.

But Father, I do pray right now in the name of Jesus that you would watch over those who are out and about and keep them safe during this time. Father, now here on the inside of this building where we are dry and safe, I pray that you would meet us in this moment and that you would help us to hear not just your warnings, but your encouragement to stand in the gap, as a people and as a congregation of prayer, I pray this in Yeshua's name. Amen.

Of all the things that seem odd to me that I would need a warning for if I was to list all the spiritual things that might have a negative impact in my life, where God. Where I would expect God to say, mind the gap. Prayer is not one of them. But when we come to Matthew chapter six and verse one, that is exactly what Jesus. Where Jesus begins.

I mean, as he's sitting on the mountainside and he's talking to these people, he's teaching these people the Torah of the kingdom. He's teaching them about prayer. He has to start with a warning. Matthew 6. 1.

He says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. Now. Matthew, chapter 6, verse 1. This warning is going to be kind of an umbrella warning for multiple topics that he's going to address.

A couple weeks ago, we dealt with the first one. Beware of doing your acts of righteousness, your giving of charity to be seen of men. Jesus says, mind the gap. He says, when you're doing charity, beware of how you do it. And now he's going to say beware in regard to how I pray.

Later he's going to talk about beware in how I fast. Why do I need to beware? And this is the hardest thing for us to accept, the fact that there are danger zones, even in the good things God has given us, if we listen to the wrong voices. And this is the conflict that is happening on that mountainside. Honestly, it's only been in the last year or so that I've really come to understand just how much of a nuclear bomb the Sermon on the Mount actually was to that culture.

You have people who are sitting there and they are drinking it in. They're loving what they're hearing. But off to the side, you have the Scribes and the Pharisees, and you know that every illustration and every topic Jesus talks about, they are not being shown in a good light. And they're supposed to be the teachers of the Torah. They're supposed to be the guys who know what the law says and how to walk it out.

But they are literally in every topic, they are the ones Jesus is saying, don't do it like them. He's not saying, don't do it like the Torah. He's saying, don't do it the way they do the Torah.

How can they not know how to Pray because they don't know how not to be self obsessed. And that was what they were learning from the narcissism of the scribes and Pharisees. You know, I don't want to be that kind of generation. I sure don't want to be that kind of person who claims to be of the right religion and doesn't even know how to connect with the God of my religion. I mean, that's a pretty big warning, isn't it?

I mean, how pathetic would it be to go through all of the motions of, you know, living a life of morality and purity and trying to set myself apart for the Lord but never being able to actually connect with the Lord? That's not what God. That's not our religion. That's not what this is about. But let's be honest, some here, if we're honest, would have to admit, I really don't know how to pray.

Now we're gonna get into this, and I don't want to shame anybody. There are people that are in this room who genuinely don't know how to pray. Maybe because you weren't raised in the body of Christ, you weren't raised with that instruction. And when you come to this topic, when you ask the question, master, will you teach me to pray? That's a great to be.

So don't. So don't kick yourself for what you don't know. But there's others of us who should know how to pray. And after generations of our family being in the faith, we still don't know how to pray. How is that?

Well, I think it's because we get caught up in this culture of self obsession and we take something as holy as prayer. And somehow, like the scribes and Pharisees, this thing that is supposed to bring us into the glorious presence of God gets shifted for how we can put the spotlight on ourselves. And Jesus says, mind the gap. That's not what this is about. Beware of doing that to be seen of men.

So today we're going to do two things, and I'm gonna use this terminology. Mind the gap and stand in the gap. The mind the gap is. Here are the warnings that Jesus gives about how to pray and how not to pray and then stand in the gap. We need to hear what Jesus teaches us about prayer, how to pray, and where to pray.

So as we begin to look at this, I want you to notice if you have your scriptures open, and I hope you do, you can open it on your Bible app, on your phone, as long as you're not texting, tweeting, or, you know, playing a video game, whatever. I may not know, but God knows I'm just kidding. Well, he does know. So Matthew 6:2 begins with this phrase. And I want you to understand the flow of this.

The Sermon on the Mount is not a sermon where Jesus says, well, now I'm gonna talk about this. And now I'm gonna talk about this. There's a consistent structural flow of why he's saying what he's saying and in the order in which he's saying it. So after giving us this mind the gap warning, Matthew 6. Two, he says, begins with when you give to the poor.

Now, the mind, the gap part of that is don't give to be noticed of men. The stand in the gap part of that is don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Give confidentially, but also confidently, knowing your father sees and knows you can give. And again, don't be dumb. He's not saying that.

The minute you. If someone sees or knows that you gave, then you lose your blessing. Now you think, okay, Brent, I mean, who would do that? Oh, I'm not allowed to name names. Okay, but trust me, it has happened.

Please notice that there is a don't and a do. And the doing of righteousness is always to please God and not to be seen of men. So that's the first. When you give, when you do charity. Now, we come down to Matthew 6.

5 and listen to what he says about when you pray. When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father, who is in secret. And your Father, who is in secret, sees what is done in secret.

He will reward you. Okay, first of all, I want you to notice something. I want you to notice these two when you's. This is a menu of the whenus, when you do righteousness, when you give charity. And that's followed by when you pray.

Does anybody notice anything about that? It is not if you give charity or if you pray. It's when you pray. There's no such thing as a disciple of Jesus who does not give, because righteousness is the man. Giving is the manifestation of the righteousness we have received.

You cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ and live your life selfishly being a taker instead of a giver. It just doesn't work that way. That's not the way discipleship works. There's no way you can be a follower of Jesus if you are not spending time with him in prayer. If there's no prayer life, if there's no effort for connection and communication, how can you possibly identify as a disciple if there's no connection between you and the Master?

Just nod at me so I know you know what I'm talking about. So let's just put this out there. These two things are not ifs, they are when. They are expectations. And Jesus wants to teach us how not to do them, while at the same time making sure we know there is a right way to do them.

How are these connected?

Giving manifests our understanding of the righteousness we've received. And prayer reveals that we know who the giver is and that we want to spend time with him. So he begins with a mind the gap, a warning not to pray like the hypocrites. So who are they? Well, they were the guys standing over there with their arms folded and their foreheads wrinkled and were not happy about what was happening.

The scribes and the Pharisees. So what is the link between giving and prayer? Well, this message today is about confident supplication. What is supplication? Supplication, you can literally see the word supply in that word.

A supplication is when we go and ask the Lord to give something to us. So notice the flow of Jesus thought. He starts off talking to us about how we give to others and there's a right way and there's a wrong way. Amen. And then he moves to prayer where we're now going to God to ask him to give to us.

Isn't it interesting that he started first making sure we understood how we are to give to others. He links these how we give to others and how we ask God to give to us. I think I've mentioned this before, but remember Acts chapter 10. The House of Cornelius, this Roman centurion of all the people that God could have chosen to give and to pour out the Holy Spirit to to be the first Gentile. He wasn't the first Gentile to know who that Jesus was the Messiah, but he was the first Gentile that the Lord dec to pour out the Holy Spirit upon.

Why? Well, Acts 10 tells us because his alms giving, his righteousness, his charity giving and his prayers had ascended to heaven. God chose him because he was a man who gave while Jesus is. And then There's a lesson here. Before we go storming into the presence of the Lord to ask for him to give, we best check ourselves.

You know, we go in and we get mad about, well, hey, God, how come you haven't hearkened to my cries? Do you know what he's going to say? How come you're not hearkening to theirs?

How come you can find a justification every time you pass by? I'm not saying you have to give to everybody on the street corner, but how in the world can you come up with a rationalization to never help somebody on the street corner?

How can you be a disciple of Jesus and not live for the opportunity to give? And then we go marching into the throne room to tell God all the things he needs to give to us. You see, God sees and knows the condition of our heart. And when we give, when we give to others, he knows that when he sees that we have a heart to give, he that's the righteousness he's looking for. Jesus connects these two topics, both with a warning to mind the gap so you can stand in the gap, so you will know how to pray.

And I'm telling you, a selfish, greedy heart is never going to be a platform to learn how to pray. It's going to be the things that make your prayers go bonk.

Bonk. It's a Hebrew word. Look it up.

The Greek word here for secret is a word you're actually kind of familiar with crypto. It's where we get the word encryption from when we encrypt our emails or we encrypt our text messages so that only specific people can hear it. That's how we do it. We encrypt it. God says, go into that place where your heart is to lay before God.

All that is in your heart and what you need. Go to that secret place where it's just for you and God. It's not about being seen of men. It's not about you glomming glory for yourself. It's just go into the presence of the Lord.

Now, you know my favorite Greek word is telos. But you need to learn Brent's favorite doctrine. It's found in first Brent one, one. Don't be dumb. Everybody say that.

Don't be dumb. I'll be fine if they put it on my headstone. Brent's last words, don't be dumb. Now, what do I mean by that? Don't take a teaching of the Lord and take it to ludicrously stupid degrees.

Now you say Brent Why are you saying that? Because I've had to deal with it. Just like Jesus wasn't saying, oh, too bad someone saw you give so you don't get a reward. That's dumb. I mean, sometimes people have to know you're the one giving.

You don't jump out of your car, run to the car behind you and say, please give this money to the. To the guy on the street and cause a wreck. You know, don't be dumb. In the same way Jesus is saying is not saying you should never pray in public. Now, you know, we have people that will take these things, and they will go to ludicrous extremes with them.

So let me just talk with you for a moment about this. Can I really. Can I just ask you to search your heart and ask if you are someone who needs to mind the gap, that you really need to hear this. Beware of how you pray. Many will say, no, no, Brent, that's not me.

I don't stand up and pray, and I don't love to be seen. That's not me. I don't pray like a Pharisee.

If you believe there's only one liturgically correct way to pray, congratulations, you're a Pharisee.

If you sit in judgment on how other people pray, you best be minding the gap. Going to Israel for many, many years and going to places. Sometimes the sites are run and controlled by the Catholic Church. And so obviously, you run into a lot of Catholics, and Catholics have a way of pursuing God that is alien to me. Bending over and kissing the golden star.

I'm up there going, please, hello.

But the Lord really worked on me. He said, I'm sorry, are they worshiping you?

I'm sorry, Did. Did they. Did they come to you to punt? Have them punch your worship is okay card. Now, don't.

Don't misunderstand. Don't be dumb. Well, Brent just endorsed Idol. No, I didn't. I'm just asking you to consider the possibility that sitting in judgment on how somebody else prays or connects with.

With God is not. That's above my pay grade. That's just not my job.

Maybe we don't go out on the public street corner so that everybody can see us, but secretly judging people is not the secret place. God wants us.

So why is the secret place so important? And, wow, I hope you hear my heart, because that is where we get what we actually need.

I use the description a lot of pressing in. What do I mean by that? I mean that moment when we set aside everything else to Focus solely on being in his presence. When you find yourself in his presence, meaning you have gotten past the self based distractions, are truly seeking just Him. It is that place of full release where when you pray, when you leave that place, you don't leave with your list, you leave with peace.

That place where you go in to be in his presence for the purpose of being in his presence, not just educating him on everything you need.

Sometimes our prayer time at churches is where we list every sick person we can possibly think of. And trust me, if I'm sick, I will ask you to pray for me. I don't begrudge that.

But prayer becomes about the never ending telling of God what we need from him or what we want him to do for us. But hear me in his presence. Your spirit will hear Dayenu Diana from the Passover. Enough. It's in his presence that you know that he is enough and that he is more than what you need for the list that's in your hand.

Did Jesus have the right to be irritated with the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees? Absolutely. Because the Torah was given to teach Israel about how to live in community of righteousness, not selfishness. It was also given so that God could continue to dwell among the people. But this is why he has the right to be irritated.

I mean, how self obsessed are you? If you take your teaching about prayer, which is connecting with God, and somehow you make it about you. Because what happens when you go into the presence of God? You experience his glory, you experience his goodness. May I illustrate it for you?

You have your list of things that you need him to give you, but you take the time to actually go into his presence. And when you walk into his presence and you see Him, Diana, he's enough. And you spend time pressing in and connecting with Him. And eventually the compassionate heart of Jesus says, hey, I saw that you had something in your hand when you walked in. What is that?

And having been in his presence, you say nothing that wasn't already in your hands long before I got here. That's the presence. That's why Jesus says, don't pray on the street to be seen of men. Take time to go in and be focused in his presence. Jesus goes on Matthew 6, 7 and 8.

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetitions as the Gentiles do, for they suppose they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

I mean every flavor of Christianity has some degree of yammering and babbling. So I'm not poking fun at any, you know, just one group, because eventually you could poke fun. We all have the cadence of the way we pray. I had a good friend. I won't say what denomination he was in, but we just used to have fun going round and round because the denomination that he's from, they.

When they pray, it kind of sounds like this. Lord God, Father God we just want to come to you Lord God, Father God, Father God, Lord, Father God he knows you're talking to him. But it's almost as if my prayer is going to be effective if I get in at least 12. Lord, Father God, Father God Lord, Father God's in the prayer somewhere. So we had this ongoing kind of humorous thing about that.

One day we went to lunch with a youth pastor from that particular church. And I didn't bring it up, but we were in this restaurant, and I invited him to return a blessing, and he started. Lord God, Father God we thankful Lord, Father God the fellowship Lord God, Father God And I was. It was like the Holy Spirit and three angels trying to keep me under control because not only did I want to just bust out laughing, I didn't want to bust out laughing at him. I was wanting to bust out laughing because I knew my friend was just about to come unglued, and he starts kicking me under the table while he's praying.

Now, again, we could go denomination by denomination, flavor by flavor. And you will find that we all have our cadence, we all have our rhythms, and none of those matter.

Jesus says, mind the gap. Be warned, don't pray like the Gentiles, where you're just repeating things over and over and over again. So in our movement, man, when I went to Israel for the first time, I fell in love with all things Hebrew, all things Jewish, and I love the vocabulary. I mean, just last Sunday, I preached about the faith of Abraham. And, man, when I found out my relationship, I mean, I just dove right.

I loved everything, and I started learning words. And of course, I was Tanya, and I own a Holy Land tour company. And so we go to Israel all the time. And sometimes I would have a messianic that would call the company wanting to talk about a tour. And we would have this conversation, you know, like, yes, I've been to Israel a lot.

I'm over there all the time. And eventually we would get to the topic of the itinerary, and they would say, and by the way, this happened more than three or four times. Okay? And they would say, well, now we don't want to tour on Shabbat.

You really mean it if you say it like that. And then she'd say, oh, I'm so sorry. That's the Sabbath. Now, this is after we've had a conversation. I mean, I spend weeks in Israel.

I probably am going to have heard the word Shabbat at some point. The conversation goes on. And we don't want to go to a bunch of those churches. We just want to find a place where we can commune with the Ruach Hakodesh. Oh, I'm so sorry.

That's the Holy Spirit, too. And I'm like, yes, ma'am, I understand that. As I said, yeah, okay. And the devil inside of me wants to just respond by saying, oy vey. Oh, I'm sorry.

What that means is, are you kidding me right now?

But I'm not. But I get it, because I came back with the same enthusiasm. And I still do it, man. I get fired up and I'm preaching about the Holy Spirit. And the next thing I know, for some reason, I'm talking about the Ruach Hakodesh.

And people who don't know, they think, oh, he's got a cold. Bless his heart, he's having a senile.

We all do it. We can all get distracted by our vocabulary. Maybe we don't pray a rosary. Maybe we don't, you know, pray in a way where we just keep saying the same things. But Jesus was warning us, and what a warning.

This is the way the pagans pray where they worry about their vocabulary. Friends, you will not find somebody who loves Israel more than I do, who loves all things Jewish more than I do, who studies Hebrew as much as I do. But the Lord doesn't hear your prayer because you say Ruach Hakodesh. Your prayer isn't more genuine or effective if you say Yeshua instead of Jesus. You know that those two names aren't even pronounced all around the world.

It's Jesus, Jesus, Yeshua.

We don't. We may not be like the pagans, but have we become corrupted by a mentality that. It's my vocabulary that makes my prayer effective. Instead of being in the secret place with him, these three things get God's attention. A heart that desires to be in his presence alone, because he is all you really want or need.

Now, don't go out here and say, well, Brent says we're not allowed to ask him. Yes, we are. Give us this day our daily bread. We'll get there. A heart that has heard the cries and pleas of others and responded in righteousness is ready to go to the Lord in righteousness.

By the way, it'll clarify a lot of the things you pray about. A heart that is doing selflessness will be stronger, be more equipped to not go to God with selfishness. A heart that knows you enter the presence to be impressed by him and not the other way around. So now I'm going to get up in your business and, yeah, I'm just going to say it.

Here goes. Some of y'all. Oh, that's right. I'm talking about you. Some of y'all pray too much.

Crazy Pastor said what? Yeah, some of y'all pray too much. What do I mean by that?

Our prayer life is not about educating God about what we need. And this is what I know about his presence.

That when I have gone to him and I know I have been heard, I. Stop the yammering. Come on.

When I've been in that moment, I've told you the story about praying at the International House of Prayer and asking God, is Ephesians 1:18 for me? And then having a gal walk up, put her hand on my shoulder and say, hey, I have a word from the Lord for you. God wants you to know Ephesians 1:18 is for you.

Man, I'm good. I was ready to go, get in the car and go home. I had been heard. And there is nothing like that moment that when you are praying that you know you've been heard, because it changes that prayer list. It just.

It's not that those things just go away. It's that you walk out of there knowing that the one who can actually handle them now has them. Are you with me? So why do I say we pray too much?

Because too many times, we never get to that place of peace, because we've never been in that place of his presence.

We stand outside and throw our prayer request at Him. We wave it at Him.

We educate him. Heavenly Father, I know you're omniscient, but maybe you've overlooked this fact. There's a due date on the electric bill.

Yeah, he knows. He's already set the answer in motion before you even got there.

Sometimes we pray too much, and it's evidence that we have not been spending time his presence.

Some of us pray too loud. I'm not talking about the volume of our voice. I'm talking about the volume of our vocabulary. That somehow we make this idea. That somehow we can make our prayers more effective by our vocabulary or our cadence and we don't even realize that when we do that were praying like pagans.

Jesus says that's the way the Gentiles pray. Worship team, you can come back. I know this really hurts, but some of us pray like Pharisees and other of us pray like Gentiles or pagans. And when we do that, God is searching for a man to stand in the gap. A man and a woman whose prayer that he will rush to fulfill on behalf of people.

But he won't find people to stand in the gap if he doesn't find the disciples of Christ. Mind finding the gap, taking heed to these warnings and understanding this is not what is gonna make God respond to your prayer. And by the way, even when you've been in his presence and you know you've been heard, don't be dumb. Don't go away from here and say, well, Brent says once you've had that, you're never allowed to bring it up again. Life is a journey and it hurts today and it may hurt again tomorrow and next week and a month later.

But that moment, a victory is that moment of his presence when you know that you've laid it down because it's all encrypted, because it's just for him, you and Him. It's the moment that you are seeking, not the list. I've always said that we are much more ready to have our prayers answered when we come to that place where we want him even more than we want our prayer answered. When we want him more than healing, when we want him more than money, when we want him even more than the relationship restoration that is breaking our hearts. Because we can only deal with all of that if we are with Him.

Next week we're going to dive into the Lord's Prayer, the Kingdom prayer. But I say to you, no prayer will have any value in our life, even the one Jesus taught.

If we will not go to the secret place, if we won't have a passion for pressing into his presence. Because that's your prayer life. Your prayer life isn't about all the things you told Him. It's not about all the things you ask Him. It's about the time you spent with him just realizing, turn your eyes upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace when you press into his presence.

And yeah, your heart is still aching for the things on that list. But now you see that his heart is already beating in unison with yours and he's already caring about that which is hurting you. And you walk out of that place and you know that you've been heard. Could I be so bold to ask today as we go into this song of response, don't you be honest enough with yourself to just say, maybe I'm one of those guys, gals that didn't realize that I need to mind the gap. I need to take stock of how I'm praying and the things that I think really make my prayer valuable.

And may I ask you this?

If the Lord looked here, if the Lord needed somebody to stand in the gap for Oklahoma City, if the Lord needed someone to stand in the gap for your hurting loved one or your fellow church, if the Lord looked around and he was looking for someone to stand in the gap so that he could flow through answering that person, are you that person, Would Jesus find you and say, there's a Cornelius, There's a man who's ready to take everything I give to him and then turn around and give it to somebody else. That's a person that's ready to stand in the gap. That's a person that's ready to pray in a lifestyle in a manner so different than what the scribes and Pharisees were teaching. I close with these words, your Father in heaven knows what you need before you ask him.

That is the Torah of the kingdom.