Giving God My Worries

Well let's go down to the river and study about how to pray. Grab your message notes that look like this as we continue the series that we started last weekend on prayer. My name is René and I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church and for the next few minutes we're gonna be studying the second half of the Lord's Prayer. So if you have a Bible with you you can turn to Matthew chapter 6 and as you're doing that let me just kind of give you a little bit of a heads up on something else that's coming up here at Twin Lakes I'm very excited about.

At the end of September we're gonna do something that we call the Gospel According to Les Mis. Now we've never done anything like this here before. We're going to have the Monte Vista Christian High School Choir which is spectacular and also some of our wonderful singers and musicians and they're gonna be all across the stage here doing music from Les Mis. How many Les Mis fans do we have here? You've seen Les Mis. I mean it's real good and it has in it the gospel message. A message about God's grace to the unworthy and how different people respond to God's grace and so in between the songs I'm going to be weaving them in with the message of the gospel and this is designed to be something that you invite your friends to.

So be thinking now of how in about a month you're gonna invite your friends who love Broadway, love Les Mis, to something that I mean maybe you have some friends who love Broadway musicals and who have told you they'd never darken the door of a church. I think they will really like the Gospel According to Les Mis that's here in about a month so be praying for this as we put that together.

But now let's dig into this message on prayer this morning and I gotta start with a little story. I spent some time a couple of weeks ago with a good friend of mine, Ray Johnston, who's the pastor of Bayside Church near Sacramento. In fact, Ray, one of the most motivating speakers I know and he's gonna be here in just a few weeks sharing from this pulpit. You and I are just gonna be charged up by that. That's gonna be the first weekend in October but Ray and I were talking about some of our life experiences and comparing notes and we discovered that both of us have been up in the air with friends of ours who are private pilots and we have both had pranks played on us by our friends who are private pilots.

And it got us to thinking there must be some kind of a checklist. You know pilots have checklists. They must have some kind of checklist of pranks that they play on unsuspecting friends. How many private pilots do we have here? Can I see a show of hands? Those of you who are? No, I'm not gonna make fun of you. Raise your hands proudly. Okay, you guys know what I'm talking about. Here's my story. I'm living down in San Diego and I have a friend there named Bill Housley. Now to understand this story, you have to understand two or three things about Bill.

First of all, Bill is one of those guys who's an absolute daredevil. He literally laughs at danger. He was a youth pastor but he's never met an activity that's too adventurous for him, right? Second thing you have to understand is that Bill is a loud talker. You know he's one of these people who no matter what he's saying, it's in all caps like this at all times. And then the third thing is this. Bill had a glass eye which always stared straight ahead unlike his other eye and I'm not making fun of him because this guy was my best friend but you just this just kind of helps you picture this thing because coupled with Bill's adventurous daredevil nature and the fact that he was always talking in all caps when he looked at you sideways if you're sitting next to him he always looked cross-eyed as he spoke to you like this and so it just all combined to give you the general impression that Bill was nuts.

Okay so Bill comes up to me one day in San Diego goes, "René, how'd you like to go up this afternoon in my private plane?" And I said, "Sure," against my wife's objections and up we went in the plane so we're tooling around it's a beautiful day in San Diego and we're 6,000 feet above the city and Bill turns to me I'm sitting in the passenger seat and he turns to me he says, "Hey René, how'd you like to discover what it feels like to be weightless?" And before I could say actually I have never wondered that and don't wonder it now Bill goes, "Okay!" and puts the plane into a dive and if not for my seat belt I would have just been floating up near the cabin ceiling and now I'm the one who's screaming, "Bill stop it stop it stop it!" and he levels it out and cackling the whole time, "That was great! You should have seen the look on your face!"

So I'm sweating and then Bill goes, "René!" "Yes Bill I'm sitting right next to you what is it? How'd you like to know what it feels like to weigh twice as much?" and I'm thinking who actually does want to know what that feels like but he goes, "Okay!" Pulls the plane up and I'm just feeling like I'm weighing 320 pounds as he's just rocketing this thing into the sky and then he levels it out and I'm thinking, "Oh at last that's over now I can just enjoy my flight." And Bill had one more ace up his sleeve he turns to me and goes, "René!" "Yes Bill how'd you like to know what it feels like to have no engine 6,000 feet above San Diego?" I'm thinking you've got to be kidding me and before I could say please don't he goes, "Watch this!" Click turns off the engine to the airplane and you know what happened? Nothing.

Actually because of forward momentum we just kept going straight the propeller actually still kept spinning for quite some time and I discovered that you can be in a private plane that's about as light as a glider with no engine and be perfectly safe at 6,000 feet in the air above San Diego. For a while. Sooner or later you will lose your forward momentum and start to go like this and that's when Bill reached over and turned the engine on not without one final prank he went, "Something's wrong!" and I said, "Don't! Don't!" But obviously I got to the ground safely but to me that whole thing is a metaphor for your spiritual life and my spiritual life because a lot of people go, "You know what you talk about prayer I don't really pray and I'm fine! I'm a believer in Jesus honestly I probably don't pray more than two minutes in the morning you know God bless this day I seem to be I seem to be good."

And you can be good without much of a prayer life. For a while your momentum will carry you forward especially if conditions are perfect but at some point if you don't recharge you will crash. And so what I want to do in this series is to re-energize your prayer life because prayer is how you get the power to keep flying forward how you get the power spiritually to keep on living. And this morning specifically I want to talk about giving God my worries and the message notes are tucked into the bulletins that you were handed when you came in and let me see how applicable this topic is.

Quick show of hands and remember this is church so you have to be honest in your confession how many of you would say that you have worried about something so far this year? Can I see a show of hands? All right so it's universal. Write these down in your notes here's some common reasons for anxiety. I was thinking about it and I thought really just about everything that you and I worry about falls into one of these categories. First is just daily needs. Daily needs. How am I gonna pay my bills? What about that test coming up? How am I gonna get to that appointment? Will I ever afford a house? Right and these are all worries about today, the present. What am I gonna do like next today?

And then there's a second common reason for anxiety. Guilt and grudges and these are related because these are both obsessions with the past right? Whether you feel guilty about something you've done or you have a grudge about something somebody did to you, either way you're stuck in the past. So you got worries about the present and worries about the past. These can both keep you up late at night but then third there's what I call a fear of evil. A fear of what might happen next. A fear of what evil people might do to you. A fear of how you might be betrayed. A worry that you can't trust people because of what they might do. A fear of bad things happening. A fear of the other shoe dropping and these are worries about the future.

And in my observation most people fall into one of these three categories in terms of most of their worries. Like when it comes to my worries generally speaking I don't worry about meeting daily needs. Whether or not we're gonna get enough to pay the rent and even when we were under the poverty line for eight years when I was a kid I really didn't worry that much about that. I think maybe because I had the experience of God providing for our needs again and again. And generally speaking not too impacted by worries about the past and regrets or grudges. But my Achilles heel personally is the third one. Fear of future evil. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. And if things are going good well they can't be going good for long. Something bad is gonna happen right?

But in my observation you probably fall into one of these scatters. Maybe you're going I fall into all three of these categories right? Past, present, future worries. My question is, is there one antidote to all this anxiety? No. Let's close in a word of prayer. No of course there is. That's why we're here. This morning let's continue to have the greatest teacher on prayer ever teach us about prayer and how it relates to daily anxiety. You know if the lights went off came back on suddenly Jesus Christ was standing on this stage and you knew for sure it was Jesus and he said I'm back for a half an hour to teach you guys how to pray. You'd be leaning forward going this is gonna be the deepest stuff I've ever heard.

And you know what he'd say? Well he'd say what he said in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6 because this is how he taught us to pray. You see some of you may be thinking well I do pray René but I still worry a lot. So why is my prayer still ineffective apparently? Well I want to do a little review. Last week we saw how Jesus starts the Lord's Prayer with a reorientation. Kind of a reorientation. Who you are and who God is. Before you get to any of the requests he says number one remember God's my father. In Christ we are adopted sons and daughters of God. He says our father that's how he starts off the Lord's Prayer.

And we talked last week about how the word the Bible often uses for God as father is Abba and that's the Aramaic language equivalent of like Papa or Daddy. As amazing as that seems. That's the word that Jesus and the Apostle Paul used to refer to God. Abba, father. Remember God's my dad. And remember my father is king. He's my father in heaven and that doesn't mean he's in heaven remote from me. It means he rules overall. Nothing I could possibly worry about is outside his rule. And then remember father knows best. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now look at these three points from last week. That's a, isn't that a pretty good prayer already? I mean you could just stop right there. Just God you're king overall and you're you've adopted me and you know best God. That's so amazing. And so many of your anxieties would be taken care of if you if you just stop there. And some of you're going how so. This last week my sister came down from near Portland Oregon where she lives. My little sister Heidi and she came down to help me and my wife move my mom out of her house. And so you know a lot of you guys have moved or you've moved your parents or friends and so you know how it is you're packing stuff up and especially if you're moving your parents you always end up discovering stuff from your own childhood that you've never seen before. And that's the coolest thing.

And my sister and I did the same thing. We're going through these boxes and actually my wife lays her hand on one of my father's old diaries. And we find this page in his diary. This is his handwriting written in Swiss German. And this whole page is my dad writing about my little sister when she was just a little tiny baby. Now I told you last week that our dad died when I was almost four years old so I have some memories of my dad. But my little sister was only one and a half. And so she has absolutely no memories of her father. She doesn't remember his voice or his touch or anything. And in fact this piece of paper is the first thing she's ever seen in her life where her father talks about her.

Of course we told her that dad was a good dad and a loving dad but she's never heard it from him. And so in this diary page he writes her name and he writes about the first word up there as an s apostrophe and then Heidele, that's his little pet name for Heide, my little baby sister. So we find this thing and it's written in Swiss German which my sister can't read but I can read. And so at breakfast I said you know what let me translate this for you. And so as she was sitting there sipping coffee I translated because my dad writes, "Little Heide is starting to smile all the time and when she smiles her eyes just beam and I look at her face and I forget that she's waking us up four or five times a night. And in fact I forget that I have any problems at all because I'm so overwhelmed with love for her. And when we lay her on her tummy Heide stretches out her little arms and little legs and waves them almost as if she's trying to remember how to fly. As if she's an angel from heaven sent to us who still vaguely remembers flying. And I smile as I think she is a gift from heaven. And then my smile turns into tears as I thank God and as soon as I'm done praying I pray again and just thank God again and again and again that the heavenly Father has entrusted me to be the father of this little angel.

Well when I was done reading this of course I look up and my sister's eyes are just filled with tears and then I start crying like I'm going to start crying right now but but this is the first thing that she has ever read in his handwriting saying I love Heidi so so much. Well you know some of you maybe never heard your earthly father say I love you. And maybe nobody's ever told you that your heavenly Father loves you. But you see the Bible is your heavenly Father's love letter to you. Telling you, reminding you, God is your father. God in Christ adopts you. Your dad loves you. And when you get that, when you reorient yourself to that, when you understand that prayer is you putting your little hand in the hand of the Father who just loves you so much, then you're just gonna pray.

And you won't get hung up on technique anymore. How long am I supposed to pray? When am I supposed to pray? What words do I use? Exactly how do I do this? That all goes away when you realize it's all about our Father in heaven, my Abba Father who has adopted me as his child. So you first go wow wow God's my Father and my Father's King and he knows best. And then after that orientation you can move on to requests and Jesus models that for us in the second half of the Lord's Prayer because now you're already relaxed. Right? After that kind of orientation you're already at ease. You're already confident that you can go boldly into the throne room of God because he's your Father and he's going to want to hear your requests.

And in the Lord's Prayer Jesus talks about three kinds of requests that relate to our three different kinds of stresses about the past, present, and future. Jesus is first request God's provision. Remember that first huge cause of anxiety which is worry about daily needs? Well that's why Jesus says give us this day our daily bread. Now daily bread doesn't just mean bread. It could but it also represents all the necessities of life making ends meet, skyrocketing bills, and don't miss this. A lot of times we feel like we're bothering God with these requests. This is one of the reasons Jesus starts off the request section with something as small as just daily bread because he's saying you're not bothering God with any request no matter how small.

In fact if you get anything else this morning get this. If it's big enough to worry about it's big enough to pray about. Somebody said there's no problem that's too big for God's power or too small for God's concern. This week try an experiment. If you have a problem and you find yourself starting to worry just change the worry into prayer. Don't worry about it. Pray about it. And there's another key concept here. Jesus says give us this day if you have a pen or a pencil circle that our daily bread. And that sentence reminds us to live one day at a time. Now in case you're thinking live one day at a time that's a contemporary, you know, self-help phrase that you're, you know, putting into the text here.

A few verses later in the same sermon Jesus returns to this theme and he reminds us to live one day at a time. In the Living Bible it's translated. Matthew 6:34. Don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. You live one day at a time. You know I love those old Dale Carnegie books. Some people think they're so corny. I love them. The whole how to win friends and influence people stuff. And he wrote one called How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. I've got it in my library. I've probably read it three times. But I could summarize his whole book in one sentence. So I'm going to save you 10 or 12 bucks on Amazon right now. Here it is. Live in day-tight compartments.

See you can't really live more than one day at a time anyway, right? You can't. You can't live a week or a month at a time. But we sure try. And Jesus is saying you have to focus. That doesn't mean you can't plan ahead. But you focus on what's happening today. And God give me strength for this day. Now let's dig a little bit deeper into this. The phrase daily bread. Context. Jesus is speaking to originally Jewish hearers. For a Jewish person raised on the Hebrew scriptures. What Bible story do you think the phrase daily bread conjures? Shout it out if you know it. That's right. The manna.

Do you remember that story in the book of Exodus? It describes how God fed three million of the children of Israel daily with manna that miraculously came from heaven. Manna were these like little white things that would be found on the ground like morning dew in the morning. And the Bible says it was kind of bland and it was tasteless. But people would pick it up and it would nourish them every morning. But the thing about manna was you couldn't store it. You couldn't save it in baskets because it would go rotten overnight. You had to get it again fresh every morning.

And every time I remember the story of manna it reminds me that after I'd been here a couple of years a lady told me, "René, your sermons are like manna from heaven." And I thought so. It's bland, tasteless, and doesn't last. Thank you very much. But anyway, my point is this. God was teaching the people to relax because the children of Israel, you read those stories, that was one stressed out group. And God is teaching them, "My provision will come just on time. Not too early, not too late. So trust me." That was the big lesson there. And all of us could tell story after story of God's provision in our lives, right? If we turned around and into groups of like five or six, we could be here for hours. People saying, "Let me tell you about an answer to prayer in my life."

But let me just mention a couple. I've told some of you about how our seventh graders from our middle school, Twin Lakes Christian School, go with kids from Baymont Middle School to an orphanage near Tocati, Mexico, Rancho Desus Ninos. And these kids are adorable. And I have to tell you one thing the director and his staff do very well there is they literally pray this prayer for daily bread. I mean there's been times that they literally have had to pray to God, "You've given us charge of over 100 orphans and we do not have food to feed them right now. So help." One time when they prayed this prayer, a big semi-truck was driving by from one of the biggest chicken producers in Mexico.

And the driver pulls into the orphanage says, "I was praying and somehow got the distinct impression that you guys could use some chicken." And he dumps off 300 live chickens at the orphanage. One problem, no chicken coops. So what are they going to do now? They decided, "Well, we do have freezers. We don't have chicken coops. So what we got to do is we got to slaughter all the chickens right now and pluck them and get them ready and put them in the freezer for the future." And the staff wasn't big enough so they just enlisted all the kids. "You guys are going to help us. We're going to slaughter these chickens. This is the way God provided. We're going to all sit around and pluck the feathers off." And they did. So far, so good.

One problem, true story. The next week, first day of school, the new teacher at the school asks all the kids to draw a picture of what they did on their summer vacation. And all the orphanage kids are drawing with crayons pictures of chickens with their heads chopped off and bloody axes. And I'm sure the teacher must have been going, "What is going on over there at like the Stephen King home for lost children?" You know, but another time, this truck, a bimbo bread truck pulls up. Bimbo Bakery is the biggest bakery down there in Mexico. And the bimbo truck driver says, "I want to give you guys all the bread left in my truck." Literally, they're daily bread provided for at the orphanage. They call this the bimbo miracle.

And yes, the mind staggers at the joke possibilities here. Have you been praying for your bimbo miracle? I want to ask. But anyway, I love this because the little kids at the orphanage are growing up with these stories in their own personal history, how they went through tough times. I mean, you know, they were orphans and a lot of them are. And they didn't have homes, but God provided them a place to live and then God provided their food. And life is tough, but God comes through and God provides and that builds up their faith. See, what praying for physical need does is it enables you to grow in a spirit of thankfulness.

Because when you pray for something and then you see God providing, then you're more thankful and thankfulness is just so good for you. You know, Jesus's half-brother James says in the book of James that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of the heavenly lights. And that means that literally all we get, ultimately we get from God. See, you could say, "Well, I don't have to pray for daily bread. You know, I went to college, I studied hard, then I got a good job, I work hard, I earn my own daily bread." And I would say, "Well, God gave you life and breath and your unique abilities and intellect and opportunity and education and capacity."

And so ultimately it's all a gift from God. Ultimately the Bible says, "He makes the sun rise, He makes the water fall, He makes the tides go in and out, He makes the plants grow, He made the whole world." So at the end of the day it's all such a gift from our Father. And so in praying for provision, what we're acknowledging is, Dad's a giver and Dad gives good stuff to his kids and that's awesome.

You know, one of the reasons I wanted to do this series now is this fall we're going to have a building drive for what we hope to do here on campus with a new children's building and so on. But I didn't want it to become, "All right, what can we do?" You know, I wanted it to be about what God can do. And so the first thing I want to do is request God's provision for that and say, "God, your will be done, not our will." And so in the last of the series, on the last weekend of this prayer series, on Saturday morning September 14th, we're having an all-church prayer walk from 9:30 until lunch. We're going to walk in groups around this church campus and pray for the church.

And we're designing this to be entry-level because some of you are like professional prayers, you know, but some of you pretty feel like, "Ah, that sounds uncomfortable to me," some prayer walk thing. It's designed to make you feel comfortable if you're just like an entry-level prayer. I guarantee you you'll love it. And I think this is going to be a major day in the history of TLC that we look back on and say that was the day that we requested God's provision for our needs.

So Jesus goes, "Look, first he says he's your father, man. He's your dad. That's your true father that you've been longing for your whole life, whether you have a dad here on earth or not. That's the real father." And then your father wants to know about your daily needs. And then, number two, I can request God's pardon and offer my own. Pardon meaning forgiveness. Why? Well, remember the second major cause of anxiety, guilt, and grudges over the past. And so Jesus taught us to pray, "Forgive us our debts." Now, just look at that phrase for a second. That means that we don't believe that you should deal with sin like a lot of people do.

A lot of people intuitively think, "Oh, I sinned." And that means, "I got to pray and I got to tithe. I got to travel. I got to serve it. I got to do stuff to pay God back and burn off my debt." Did this say, "God, I'll pay you back"? This says, "Forgive us our debts." When we sin, we have a debt to God, but God paid that debt on the cross through Christ. And so you, how do you get rid of guilt? You ask God, and He forgives your debt. That's awesome. That's grace. He is a forgiving God who doesn't hold grudges against you. Man, that is so freeing. You can stop crucifying yourself for something from your past because He was crucified for you. That's huge.

But then notice this prayer moves right to, "As we have forgiven our debtors." Because here's the truth. We all sin, and we are all sinned against, right? And so sometimes you have guilt about stuff in the past, but sometimes you hold grudges because somebody wounded you. They really hurt you. But you got to watch that. I was reading about President James Garfield. He became president of the United States in 1880, but just after a few months in office, he was shot in the back. And in Washington, D.C., the doctor tried to probe the bullet entry wound with his little finger to try to get the bullet out. And he could feel the metal of the bullet on the tip of his finger, but he couldn't quite get his finger in far enough to pull the bullet out. And in fact, he kind of just pushed it in further.

And so he couldn't get it out. Then he tried other things, couldn't get it out with them. And over the next few weeks and then months, other doctors kept trying to probe into the wound and try to get the bullet out. And James Garfield hung on. He lived through June, through July, through August, his health deteriorating. Then in September, the president, Garfield, finally died and historians tell us today, "Not from the bullet! He died from the infection caused by the constant probing of the wound." But do you understand what a metaphor that is for you and me when we get hurt? Do people hurt you sometimes? Of course they do. They're people. Do they hurt me sometimes? Sure. But the bad things they say about you and the bad things they do to you can't kill you. But you know what poisons you? Is repeated probing of the wound.

I'm just gonna keep probing as somebody did me wrong. I'm gonna keep probing how that person did me dirt and you think you might be making progress. I might get the bullet out. It's just poisoning you. Bitter people, resentful people, are poisoned people. You know, of all the things Jesus talks about in the Lord's Prayer, this is the one subject he goes back to right after the prayer because unforgiveness and resentment probably causes more sin than any other problem the Bible talks about. All the other sins that kind of are more marquee sins, they probably don't do as much damage as resentment. My friends in the 12-step program tell me an alcoholic will go back to drinking because of resentment sooner than anything else can cause them to go back to drinking. It's a major problem and so Jesus tells us to forgive. We've got to let it go.

Now let me just explain this here because when you forgive somebody who has sinned against you, that does not mean that you're denying that they've sinned against you. It doesn't mean you're overlooking it. It doesn't mean you're diminishing it. It doesn't mean you're saying, "Oh, I'm okay. That really wasn't so bad. It's cool. It's all good." No, no, no, no, no, none of that nonsense. In choosing to forgive, what you're saying is that although that hurts so bad, I choose to wish God's best for you and give up my right for vengeance. That is God's job now. God's gonna deal with you. But this does not mean that if they've committed a crime, you don't call the cops. This does not mean if they've molested a child, they don't go to jail. And this also does not mean that you reconcile with them necessarily.

See, forgiveness is unilateral. That means that forgiveness is a one-way thing. You can choose to forgive whoever you want to forgive. Reconciliation takes two. Reconciliation goes both directions. You can always forgive whoever you choose to forgive, but trust takes two. You can forgive somebody because you choose to, but trust is earned by them when they repent and change. But the question is, who are you bitter against? If you just kind of think about it right now. Have you forgiven them? Yeah, but what they did was wrong. If I knew about it, I'd probably totally agree. Yeah, but what they did was devastating. Totally agree. They should never have done that. Totally agree. But let's not talk about them. Let's talk about you. Have you forgiven them? They should go to jail. Fine. But have you forgiven them? Because if not, you are probing the wound and poisoning yourself.

Forgive as God and Christ forgave you. Aren't you glad that because of what Jesus did on the cross, God doesn't hold a grudge against you? God's not bitter against you. God's not wrathful against you. And so you can forgive others as you've been forgiven. You can request God's pardon, request God's provision, and then finally number three, request God's protection. The first one was about the present, the second one about the past, and this one's about those future fears. And Jesus taught us to pray and lead us not into temptation.

Now, you ever wonder, how could Jesus pray, lead us not into temptation? Does God lead us into temptation and sin? No. James again, 1:13–14 says God doesn't tempt anybody to sin. He doesn't. So what's this all about? What this is, is a heartfelt prayer to God saying, "God, I don't want to walk away from you. So keep me close to you. God, I don't want to get into trouble. I want to obey. God, I don't want to dishonor you. I don't want to be one of those hypocrites that people look at. I don't want to dishonor your name." And so Heavenly Father, I just ask that you would keep me out of trouble. Keep me safe. Keep me close to you.

What this is, is a prayer to see trouble coming down the road. A lot of people pray to God once they've sinned, "Oh God, I blew it again!" You know? Sorry. And that's cool if you get into trouble. Pray to God your Father, your Father hears the prayers of His children. But it's also good to pray in advance before you're tempted. Pray before. Pray before you've blown it. You know, do you pray in advance? And then the second phrase, "but deliver us from the evil one," is asking for God's spiritual protection. The Bible says there is an evil one in the world, and the evil one's number one strategy is to intimidate you. To get you to think, "I'm never going to win against this evil in my life," or "evil's going to win in the world no matter what people do," or "I'll never win against that temptation," and if you ever feel like that, you're falling prey to the evil one's intimidation.

But this prayer reminds you, "He who is in you is greater than he that is in the world," and it gives you hope. So look back over your notes. The big idea in all these requests is this. God's ability is greater than my anxiety, right? God's ability is greater than whatever anxieties you struggle with, whether they're about present needs, or past hurts, or sins, or future evil that you worry about. God is greater than that. And if you forget everything else I say, remember God is your abba, your papa. And you know how my dad rejoiced over Heidi as a baby? The Bible says the Lord rejoices over you with singing like a father, his child. You remember that and you'll pray better, you'll pray more frequently, more earnestly, more humbly, more repentantly, more joyfully.

Your prayer life's just going to thrive if you remember that this is what it's a prayer. It's not magic. Prayer is a heart-to-heart conversation with you and the best father in the universe who loves you so much. Now we're going to take communion today, but don't put your notes away quite yet because I want to address something here. I have some friends who come to church and and once in a while they tell me, "You know I've been coming to church, but I don't take communion when you serve communion because I feel unworthy. I love it when you tell me that God loves me, but I feel like, man there's been so much water under the bridge, I got to prove my worth to him first before I receive his love." Do you ever feel like that? Do you ever feel like, "I don't deserve to have God near me, let alone hear me."

Well let me close with this story. Show of hands, how many of you have ever been to a Nordstrom department store? Anybody ever been to a Nordstrom? All right. Okay, as you know, Nordstrom is famous for their return policy, right? You can return anything to Nordstrom no matter how old it is and especially if you have the original receipt, man, you know you can get a replacement. It's a lifetime guarantee. Well I opened with my friend Ray Johnston. He has a friend who's a pastor up in Seattle who decided to put this return policy to the test. He was up in his grandpa's attic after his grandpa had passed away and he found in the eaves of the attic as they're cleaning out his house an old cardboard box with an old suit inside.

His grandpa's old suit from the 1950s and it had been stored in the attic under a leaky roof and you know up in there in the northwest how much rain they get and so this suit was meldery and moldy and slimy and he takes it out and goes, "Wow, the odor is overpowering," and he decides, "I better check the pockets before I toss this," and incredibly he finds in one of the lapel pockets the original receipt for the suit and it was from Nordstrom and so he goes, "I am going to try an experiment here," and he takes the suit, gets a plastic bag and like you know pours it into the bag and then he gets the receipt and he goes to the Nordstrom flagship store in downtown Seattle.

He stands in line with everybody else who's returning stuff they got for a birthday or something and it's all nicely boxed and he gets up and he pours the suit onto the counter and then he slaps the receipt down and he goes, "This suit's defective and I have the original receipt so I'd like a replacement suit please," and he backs away to see what the clerk will do in this circumstance, figures he'll probably get kicked out of the store and you know what the clerk does? True story. He looks at the suit, looks at the receipt, looks at the man and says, "I have just one question. What took you so long?"

You know you may feel like, "Oh man, God couldn't possibly love me. My soul's moldy and moth-eaten and I gotta earn God's love back, but when you come back to your heavenly Father, no matter what condition you're in, He'll have just one question. What took you so long?" Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your love for us. Thank you that you taught us to pray in this way as your beloved children. Thank you so much for your provision, all the amazing things that you bless us with. Thank you so much for taking our debts for your pardon and help us to forgive. And Father, please protect us, keep us out of trouble. We want to give you all our anxieties now as you taught us to pray. And let's all say the Lord's Prayer together from your heart now that we've been studying at the last couple of weeks. Let's all say this together, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.