How Do I Pray

Grab your message notes. Pray is the beginning of our brand new series on prayer that we are starting this weekend. Now most of us, if we're honest, I think, probably approach prayer like that first greeting time. Right? Kind of like, "I gotta do it. My pastor told me to do it on Sunday. It's kind of my requirement. Get it done. Get it over with, but I want to move on to something better." It's just dry duty. But some of you approach prayer like the second greeting time. Like you get to meet with your best friend ever. And that mindset changes everything about it. And that's the mindset I'm hoping to give you during this series about prayer.

Let me just tell you right up front. This is not a guilt sermon series. I know when I say, "Pray," as a pastor that makes you, "Oh no, I'm gonna feel guilty about this because I don't pray enough." I know that if I were to walk up to you as your pastor and say, "Hey, how's your prayer life?" No matter how good it is, you'd probably say, "Oh, could be better." Right? I don't know why it is, but people feel guilty about prayer. People feel ashamed about prayer. People feel confused about prayer. They don't know how to pray. They feel like they don't pray enough. They only pray at the last minute, sort of emergency prayers in case of emergency, break glass and pray, you know? And so when they hear a pastor say, "Pray," it just feels like duty.

"I don't want to do that in this series. I don't want to guilt you like you felt in the first greeting time. What I want to do in this series, listen, is tell you how much God loves you. And I hope that when you learn how much God loves you, it'll make you want to pray naturally and beautifully and regularly. Now, why would I care about your prayer life? Well, for one thing, because prayer is good for you, there's all kinds of double blind studies that have been done on this, but let me just give you two or three. Harvard Medical School study, when you pray, your heart rate slows, your blood pressure goes down, your breathing becomes calmer, it's good for you.

University of Pennsylvania study, prayer and meditation increase dopamine levels in your brain, and that's associated with a sense of well-being. In one National Institutes of Health study, people who pray daily are 40% less likely to have high blood pressure than those with a daily prayer practice. It's remarkable. Lots more studies on this that I can show you, but somehow we know this intuitively, that prayer is good for us, because check this out. According to a Brandeis University study from 2008, 90% of all Americans pray, and that number just keeps going up. In fact, 5% of atheists pray daily. And when asked why one atheist in this study said, "Well, I don't believe in God, but I do believe in the research that shows that praying to God is good for you, so I do. Very logical."

And all of this interest in prayer is confounding sociologists who thought that we were in a post-religious culture. Tim Keller puts it this way. He says, "We live in a culture that is starved for spiritual experience. We live in a technological society that reduces everything to facts and figures. It reduces your feelings to chemicals. Everything is explained. But instead of people losing their interest in religion, what has happened is that, because of that, people are starved for religious experience. And we see this incredible desperate rush into anything that's going to give us some kind of a mystical experience that we're vaguely searching for. You see it in Santa Cruz with people being interested in Eastern religions. You see this interest here in the occult. You see people try to satisfy that through meditation and relaxation techniques. People are longing for something. They're longing for intimacy with the intimate. What we're longing for, what we're wired for, is prayer. We want to connect with God.

But we all have a lot of questions about prayer too. Things like, "How do I pray?" Is there a right way to pray or a better way to pray? Is God listening? If God knows everything, what is the point of prayer? How do I have a more dynamic and a more effective prayer life? All kinds of questions. So where do we go for answers? How do we learn how to pray? Well, it is right in front of us. In words that almost everybody knows, there are words that you said earlier in the service, probably by heart, whether you come from a religious background or not, the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6. Somebody once said, "More people have said the Lord's Prayer more often than any other set of words that has ever existed." But it's so familiar that we can miss the amazing truths in these words.

So listen, what I want to do for the first two weeks of this four-week series on prayer, we're trying to raise the prayer temperature of the church here, is I want to look at the Lord's Prayer and see what Jesus teaches us about how to pray. Because I want to know what Jesus said. And because what he said, just these few words of the Lord's Prayer and his introduction to it, teaches you and teaches me everything you and I need to know about communication with God. Everything. And the very first thing you notice before Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray is this. He teaches them how not to pray. Did you know that Jesus said there's a couple of ways that you actually should not pray? We probably ought to pay attention to that, right?

He says, "When you pray," first thing he says, "don't make it a show." Don't make it a show. Matthew 6:5, "When you pray," these are the words of Jesus, "don't be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on street corners to be seen by others." Now the word for hypocrite is derived from the same root word as the word play actor. He's saying, "don't put on an act." The word to be seen by others, tayatani, is the same root word where we get our word theater. Don't make prayer into a theater.

Now what's he talking about? In Jesus' day, his religious background, Judaism, in his day there were Pharisees, Jewish Pharisees, and they had made prayer into a system. And probably there was some good idea behind this originally. It was like, let's make sure everybody prays. So they had five times a day that you had to pray. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing, you just had to stop, drop, and roll right into the prayer position and pray at 6 a.m., 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., and 6 p.m., 6, 9, noon, 3, and 6. You just had to stop everything and pray. So far, so good. But what the religious leaders in Jesus' culture apparently did was they timed it so that at those times they would be at the busiest thoroughfare in downtown Jerusalem. They'd be like in the middle of them all. So they'd be like walking across the street and, "Oh, it's 9 a.m. Excuse me. Oh, most unificent deity, we implore thee for thine intervention." And they'd go on and on with these long prayers bowing and putting their heads to the ground. And everybody would look at them and go, "Look at him. What a great man. He is so spiritual." And Jesus says that is so stupid.

Because it tempts you to make prayer into a show, into theater for the benefit of other people. You're living for their applause, right? Now, you might say, "Oh, that's ridiculous. We would never do that." Really? Does that ever happen to you and me where we make prayer into theater? What about this? I don't know about you, but every time our extended family gets together for like Thanksgiving or a family reunion or anything, and there's a prayer time. And there might be, you know, 25, 30, 100 people there for this little reunion thing. And it's time for prayer. And who is asked to do the prayer you think every single time? Who do you think it is? Yeah, it's me, right? "Hey, René, you're licensed to do this. We got a pastor here. Wow, you're a trained professional. You pray for us."

And so what happens every single time, I go, "Oh, okay." And then in a split second, it goes wrong. Because what I think to myself, and you might relate to this, because maybe you're the token Christian in your family, right? It's time to pray. "Let's get Bob." He goes to church. "Bob, you pray every time." Right? And so what do you do? I think to myself, "Don't blow it, René. Don't blow it, because your entire extended family's opinion about God could hinge on your prayer, right? If you don't pray in an attractive way to them, if you accidentally say some words that are offensive to them, they could go to hell. So don't blow it. So I overthink it, and it gets long sentences, and I remember to thank God for everybody and all their needs, and the food gets cold, and everybody's mad at me at the end, and it's a disaster. Right? Can you relate to that?

Or how about you're in church? You're in some small group somewhere, and somebody goes, "Let's close in prayer." And somebody else says those words that you hope you never hear, "Let's all hold hands." Oh, no. And you're holding hands, and you're in the dreaded ad-libbed counterclockwise prayer circle, right? Nobody tells them that they got to go counterclockwise, but they do. And so you're standing there, and now you can't think of anything anybody else is praying. You're not listening to them, because you're counting down three, two, one. And you're thinking of the words you're going to say. You're going, "Don't blow it. Don't look like an idiot. What are you going to, how are you going to start? I have any father or Lord Jesus. What are you going to say first?" And you're overthinking it, right?

Jesus is saying, "What are you so worried about? You're not praying to them. You're not praying to your family. You're not praying to your small group. You're praying to God. That's your audience of one." Look what he says in the very next verse about this. He says, "When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your father, who's unseen. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret." You don't have to worry about getting people's attention. Your father always sees. Then he will reward you. All right, what word is repeated here twice? It's obvious, but just shout it out. Now, what word is repeated here twice? Shout it out. Say it one more time. What word? Father. Remember that. Because Jesus starts picking up a theme here. Back to that in just a second.

But let me ask you, do you ever pray without thinking? Do you? One mom says she was listening to the prayers of her sleepy little daughter. And her daughter prayed, "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if he hollers, let him go, eenie, meenie, miney, mo." You know, prayer without thinking. Now, it's got to cute when a kid does this, but when adults do it, not so much, and that's Jesus' next point. Don't make it into a formula. Don't just repeat formulaic prayers. He's talked about his own religion, and now it had gone, arrived because of the Pharisees in his day, and now he talks about the pagan religion, which was the other major religious point of view in his day. He says in verse 7, "And when you pray, do not keep babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words."

Now, stop right there for a second. I used to think Jesus' target here was prayer length, many words. But that can't be it, right? Because Jesus himself prayed through the night many times. So that can't be what he's talking about. So what's he talking about here? Prayer motive. You see, the pagan religions, Roman and Greek religion, they had made prayer into a formula. Archaeologists find magical incantations on bowls and on things they put on their walls, and if they read those exact words, that exact formula, many, many, many, many, many times, then that was gonna kind of crack the will of whatever God they were praying to, and they were gonna get what they want. One historian says, "Religion in the first century Roman Empire depended on the correct practice of prayer and ritual and sacrifice." Now watch this, knowledge of the correct verbal formulas was the key to efficacy and had to be enacted by religious professionals faultlessly. Even private prayer was formulaic, a recitation, right?

In other words, it was just like some kind of magical incantation or curse or oath. Now, can Christian prayer ever turn into this? Absolutely. All the time. I get emails saying, "If you will only pray these words, you know, 14 times, and then cut out this prayer after you print it out and bury it in your yard or whatever, then you know magically it's gonna come true, you know?" And Jesus says, "Don't be like that. Don't be like that." Why? For your father knows what you need before you even ask, right? You know that it's not like God's in heaven going, "Thanks for telling me what's going on. I have no idea. Now I'm all caught up," right? We're not telling God something he doesn't know. So why pray, anyway, if he already knows it all? Ever wonder that? Well, what's the word we see there again? Now this is the third time in three verses. What word is it? Father. Father. Why pray?

Look, I'm a dad. How many dads do we have here? Show of hands. How many dads? As a father, let me just tell you, when my iPhone dings because it's got an instant message, "Ding," and I pull it out and I realize, "It's one of my three kids. Oh, it's Elizabeth. Ah, awesome. It's David. It's Jonathan." I stop everything because I want to read what they texted me. Now I don't care if they tell me something that I already knew. I don't care if they tell me something that I had no idea what was going on. I am so excited to hear from them because it's them. And because I just love to hear from them, anything from them. Listen, when you pray, God is so excited to hear from you because it's you and He loves you.

Jesus is trying to move people from this idea of prayer as religious magic and move it into a place about relationship. So easy to shift back into the religious magical view, isn't it? Jesus, you know what He's saying? He's saying, you know, Jewish or pagan, when it comes to learning about how to pray, don't look at the professional religious people. You want to learn about how to pray? Don't look at the religious people. Look at who? Little kids with their fathers. That's where you learn how to pray. You know, what words would you use to describe the way this child is looking at her dad and he's looking at her? Love, admiration, trust. There's some reverence. It's casual. It's easy. Their eyes are just shining. That's how you learn about prayer.

What's the relationship between a father and a child? I want you to watch a 60 second video. I just saw this yesterday. This is a video that a mom took of a pre-recorded bedtime story being read by a young father who is currently stationed in Afghanistan to his little two-year-old baby girl and watch how she responds to his voice. Look at the screen.

Okay, let's read Farmer Mickey. Farmer Mickey wakes at dawn. Time to work the whole day long. Yeah. The hens lay eggs. The cows munch pay. Yeah. eat pace daddy well kudo burns to sheep say ah take a at dinner gonnoko brings her bells don't forget to wash up love when the evening comes it's not a peep mickey counts as sleeping sheep hey, Adra can i have a hug thank you thank you bye bye.

Is that not awesome? Don't you just love that? Yeah, isn't that awesome? Jesus is saying though 60 seconds spent watching at a child who loves her dad and a dad who loves the child you'll learn more about prayer genuine prayer looking at that than you were will years of the professional religious people who have made it into a magic formula for show. It's not about show. It's not about formula. It's about relationship. Prayer is a relationship and that is the secret to praying you just get to know God you just get to know your loving God.

And so with this intro about how not to pray Jesus goes into the Lord's prayer he says that's how not to pray this then as a result of the principles I've been teaching this then is how you should pray now I want you to notice he doesn't say this is what you should pray he says this is how you should pray he's not necessarily saying you got to say these exact words every time he's saying this is how you should pray in this spirit like this our father now stop just there for a second let's just focus on these first two words for just a minute Jesus says our what? our God is who? think of all the times he uses these words he does not start the prayer our king even though God is a king he doesn't start the prayer our power even though God has power it's our father first thing most important thing remember God is my father and we're so familiar with this idea that it's easy to miss that when Jesus said to approach God by calling him father people were shocked in the Old Testament the Hebrew Scriptures God is referred to as the father of the nation 14 times but it's always in a national sense there's no personal prayer in the Bible to God as father personally until Jesus and then everything changes because in the four Gospels Jesus speaks of and prays to God as personal father 60 times 60 times now this is beautiful because it moves what's prayer all about from the religious realm into the personal realm the realm of family.

Listen to people who are used to being taught about prayer like oh you want to learn about prayer? here you got to study this for two years and here's some giant books or some giant scrolls about how to pray and there's five times and you got to pray like this Jesus says this is how you should pray dad and that's just like a shock to people's system because he's saying God's not impersonal he's personal God's not distant he's loving God's not just some force he has a name God's not far away he's close to you.

You say not to me man I don't think God's my father look at this the Bible says to all who believed him and accepted him he gave the right to become children of God that means not because of anything you've done but when you trust in him when you believe in Christ and accept him God gives you power legal status to become his children there's so many verses about this in the New Testament Romans 8 says he adopted you as his own children and now we call him Abba father you may know that the word Abba here that sounds like Papa doesn't it well that's essentially what it means Papa dad in Swiss German I used to call my dad Papi when I was a little kid and every language has a word like that for dada, abba, papa and that was the word in Aramaic this is what Jesus called Joseph when he was a little baby Abba and that's the secret that's the thing you must learn from the message today because if you say, "Ah, my prayer life is boring" then you have never gotten what Jesus meant when he said, "Address God as our father" because the more you get that, this is the picture here the more you internalize this the more it will rock your world.

Now a couple of things I just want to say on this point of God as father first, this does not mean that God is gendered as we are God does not have gender Jesus says the father is spirit God doesn't have a body, okay? but when God reveals himself in the Bible he often reveals himself as father when Jesus prayed to God, he prayed to him as father because the idea is he's not impersonal, he loves you but there's a second thing, very important I want to say here the reason some of you are going to struggle with this is because of your dad, okay? whenever I preach on this I know what's going to happen every time that morning I'm going to talk to people after the service and that week I'm going to get emails and people are going to say, "René, I got to tell you, that sounds good but I have a real problem understanding God as father" because my dad was absent my dad abused my dad abandoned my dad still doesn't return my phone calls my dad still won't return my letters my dad is a jerk and what I would say is I'm so sorry but please don't judge God by your earthly father judge your earthly father by your heavenly father does that make sense?

Rather than saying, "Well, my dad was a jerk, guess God's a jerk" say, "No, God is the template for what a loving father is supposed to be like" my dad had no excuse and I forgive him in Christ but all of that doesn't mean that God is like my dad in fact in the Psalms God says, "I am a father to the fatherless" so maybe you don't even have a dad you are far from alone did you know, stat I just saw this week, 40% of kids in America will go to bed tonight without a father living in that home 40% so a lot of you are thinking, "I don't even have a dad at home" or "didn't have a dad at home when I was growing up" but you still have God as your father.

Many of you know that my dad died when I was almost 4 my sister was a year and a half and one day when I was 8 or 9 I was crying my eyes out about it in the hallway at home and my mom sat down next to me in that hallway and told me about this truth and she applied it to where I was at she said, "René, your earthly father can't be with you but your heavenly father never leaves you" and she said, "that means when you walk to school, every day he's walking to school with you" and that means every time you take a test, he's right there next to you and that means at recess when you're kind of worried that other kids are going to make fun of you he's right there with you and that means when you're in sports and you're playing kickball and you don't know if you're going to whiff at the kickball when it gets pitched to you he's right there in the stands cheering you on and I've never forgotten that she probably, you know, it probably left her mind maybe the next week but because life gets so busy and as parents we don't always remember what we tell our kids but I'll tell you something this concept hit me at a particularly vulnerable time and it revolutionized my life and it will revolutionize your life if you get that God is your father when you get that in prayer you're just putting your hand in the hand of the one who loves you because then in prayer you're not going to feel like you're going to, you know, middle management with a clipboard who's keeping score, hoping to demote you God's not like that and you won't feel like you're coming to an impersonal distant force God's not like that and you won't feel like you're coming before an angry judge because God's not like that to his children God's a loving dad God's a loving dad let me just promise you something I promise you this if you get that God is dad you will pray prayer is just what happens to people who get that God is their loving father and you don't go, "how long should I pray?" "what do I need to pray about?" "what words do I say?" "what if I get it wrong?" "what if I do it at the wrong time?" "or do I have to kneel or do I stand or open my eyes, close my eyes?" all that goes away, all that goes away just go talk to dad just talk to dad about anything, anytime, anywhere, anyhow because it's a relationship our father and then Jesus says two more words that are astounding in heaven now this doesn't mean that he's in heaven and not on earth in heaven is a sign of his sovereignty he says he is over all it means my dad's the king how cool is that? dad's the king and that's number two, remember my father is king king over all some of you know the story of Diane Disney Walt Disney's daughter who lives here in the Santa Cruz mountains I actually looked this up this week to see if this is really true and it's about time because I've been telling this story for years but I looked it up to see is this really true? and it is! and in fact it's better than I suspected I'll tell you some new details Diane Disney wrote the cover story for this Saturday evening post article My Dad Walt Disney and there's a great picture in here of her when she's a little baby with Walt and Lillian and her with her sister great little family but she starts off the article by saying that she actually didn't know her father was Walt Disney growing up she said I'll tell it to her to you in her words until I was six years old I had no idea what it was my father did for a living can you imagine that? the news was broken to me by a playmate at school she was going to kindergarten and she was six years old and a little kid at her kindergarten said you know what's it like having a dad who's Walt Disney and she said well my dad's not Walt Disney well that's his name isn't it? well Jesus happens to have the same name as the guy that makes those cartoons no that's your dad! and so she's like what? so she says that night when dad came home from work and flopped into his easy chair I approached him with awe but then doubt crept in he didn't look famous to me he just looked tired so I asked a crucial question daddy are you Walt Disney? yes honey he replied no I mean are you V Walt Disney? he looked at me smiled and nodded so it was true daddy I said please give me your autograph is that awesome? she says she walked around in awe for weeks my dad's Walt Disney can you imagine learning that? if you were a child it's like every kid's dream come true only it was real life for her well listen can you walk around in awe because you realize now who your daddy is as one pastor puts it your father rules over all nations and all kings and all kingdoms and all races and all genders and all religions and all political affiliations your father rules over all times and all places and all peoples there is no one and nothing that is not under the authority of your father amen to that? amen man you know what? yeah praise God.

Here's the thing if you and I really believe that then what are we so worried about? if you and I really believed that what are we ever going to be afraid of? our father in heaven and then third Jesus says hallowed be your name beautiful phrase that we usually go weird words I don't get it let's just move on right? because we don't use this word very much except for like Halloween what does it mean? to hallow something means keep it sacred keep it special never take it for granted you know I'll tell you what I advisedly say God is your daddy I say it because the Bible calls him Abba and that's what Abba means but although yes God is your Abba never take that lightly remember to revere him hallow that truth revere the mystery be in awe of that.

I don't know if you saw this story in the paper this week with this photo incredible story did you guys see this? article says Karen Hatch got the rush of a lifetime last week while when she was sitting on a kayak in the middle of Monterey Bay the 43 year old Santa Cruz resident wanted a close encounter with a humpback whale but not this close expecting to be dumped into the chilly waters of the bay she clutched the side of her tiny boat when the whale suddenly dived just feet from her boat ducking under the surface without spraying her with so much as a drop of water and somebody happened to be photographing that exact moment isn't this an incredible scene? she says it was incredible it was a very humbling experience listen to this because these whales could easily come up to us and flip us with their tails and kill us but they don't want to so she was in awe well when you think about it when you and I pray we are having a close encounter with a being infinitely greater than that and yes he could kill us if he wanted to but he doesn't want to in fact look at what he wants to do back to Romans 8 he adopted you as his own children now if we are children then we are heirs heirs of God and what word does it use yet? next what does it say it out loud? co-heirs with Christ say it again what? co-heirs with Christ what does that mean? what does co-heirs mean? well it's like the rest of the Walt Disney story you know there's another little girl in this picture after Walt and Lillian had Diane they adopted a second daughter they named her Sharon and they always said to everybody who asked we love both our girls exactly the same it doesn't matter one bit that one's adopted and one's not they're both Disney girls now you apply that same principle to you you've been adopted by God and among other things that means that God the Father loves you and loves me with the same love that he loves Jesus Christ that is astounding that is absolutely amazing and part of hallowing God as Father is to really believe that.

But I happen to know that you don't believe that you know how I happen to know that you don't believe that? because I don't really believe this not all the time not 100% of the time because if you and I really believe all this we wouldn't ever feel sorry for ourselves we would never be full of anxiety we wouldn't lack for confidence would we? we don't believe that and that's one reason your prayer life and my prayer life can be so drab because we don't really get our Father our Father in Heaven hallowed, hallowed be your name do you hallow that truth? do you keep it close? do you keep it safe? do you keep it close? do you keep it sacred? because if you do, your prayer life will be dynamic almost without trying because this is just such a cool idea.

Now next week we're going to look at the second half of the Lord's Prayer where Jesus gear shifts into what it looks like to request things before God but I want to close today by looking at his transition sentence he's been adoring God as Father and he says your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven see, Dad is a king and that means he's got a kingdom and in his kingdom there's compassion for all and in his kingdom there's justice for all and in his kingdom the races are reconciled and in his kingdom the sick are healed and in his kingdom the abandoned are loved and in his kingdom the disabled are welcomed in and because he first loved us and adopted us as co-heirs into his kingdom we want so bad to spread the love of his kingdom to other people we want so bad to see his kingdom come and his will be done here on earth as it is in Heaven and it begins in my life.

You see a lot of times we pray asking God to fix the world but what this prayer is saying is we can't ask God to fix the world unless it starts with me right? you see ultimately prayer is not about making God do something and you really need to get this most people go to God telling him what to do God I want this, I want that, I want this and I want that now listen, of course it's not a sin to go respectfully to your Father and make a request, any Father would love to hear that we'll see that next weekend but ultimately prayer is not about making God do anything I'm going to pray and I'm going to pray long and I'm going to pray hard and I'm going to pray through and I'm going to say the magic prayer and I'm going to say it 27 times and I'm going to pray with my forehead to the ground and I'm going to pray standing up with my arms raised with my eyes closed or with my eyes open and I'm going to do all this stuff because I'm going to pray so hard that he's going to answer my prayer that is thinking of prayer as a show and thinking of it as a magic formula.

Prayer is not about making God do anything prayer is about aligning myself with God's will meaning God I'm just going to receive whatever it is you will for my life now again of course when you're in the middle of something it's great to say God please fix this but you always end with your will be done just like Jesus did bottom line, bottom line there's only two kinds of religion in the world people who try to use God and people who let God use them people who try to use God are always after a technique because if they learn the right technique then they're going to obligate God to answer their prayer people who want God to use them say Father Abba you have already given me so much more than I deserve and so just out of gratitude Abba let me just serve you how can I serve you? your kingdom come in me the bottom line don't try to use God because then prayer is just something to get through remember the first greeting time? yeah good good to see you pastor says I got to do this move along got to get something get to get to something else here more important more interesting for me don't try to use God instead simply adore your loving Father this is my best friend of the world and I get to talk to him that perspective changes everything everything flows from that.

Now let me just wrap up with this quick show of hands how many of you have ever seen the movie Finding Nemo anybody here ever seen Finding Nemo? practically ever this is a great movie right? well you know the stories about Nemo the little fish who gets caught and he's in a dentist's office aquarium and he feels trapped and lost and hopeless but remember I said at the beginning your perspective changes everything right? well he gets a change in perspective because it turns out his father is looking for him and his father search for him is so legendary that the sea fish tell the sea turtles and the sea turtles tell the dolphins and the dolphins tell the sea birds and one of the sea birds a pelican flies into the open window of the dentist's office where Nemo is in the aquarium and he says you'll never believe it your father's searching for you he's coming for you and Nemo says no no not me that's not my dad and the pelican says no no I think it is it's clownfish right? names a game fight names Marlin Marlin and Nemo's eyes get big and he says that's my dad my dad is searching for me and his whole perspective changes and he gets motivated and he gets energy.

Well you know what you may feel trapped you may feel lost you may feel hopeless but your dad's been searching for you Jesus says your dad the king of heaven and earth has been searching for you and he longs for you and in fact he brought you here today and what he wants more than anything else is to have you rush into his loving arms Heavenly Father thank you so much for this truth and God I just pray that every single one of us would think about our adoption by you imagine it meditate on it rejoice in it so that our fire starts to burn again so our prayers of power again so we can pray with boundless confidence and Lord if there's anybody here whose prayer is nothing but a grocery list who doesn't know you as father may they right now come to you through Jesus so they can have power to be adopted as sons and daughters of God and we pray this in Jesus name Amen.