Stop Praying Like This (Jesus Warned You)

Today in the episode we're going to talk about why Jesus prohibits babbling like the Gentiles or even using formulaic prayers like the Pharisees. And then you're going to be challenged in your own prayer life of how you can put together a practice of prayer. Can't wait for you to join us for The Forgotten Jesus Podcast. Welcome to The Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French, here with Pastor Robbie Gallaty and Candy Gallaty. Yes. We're sporting our new sunglasses because we're ready for- Recovery Refuge. Recovery Refuge sunglasses because we're ready for summer, baby. I was going to say, I'm so ready for summer. We are ready. A great week planned with good weather. So we're out of the ice. It snowed Monday. Going to be 80 degrees tomorrow. Crazy. Welcome to Tennessee. Right. Golly. Yeah. Tennessee weather. A lot of surprises. We got some surprises coming for you, too. You want to talk a little bit about, I guess, what we got going May the 6th? May the 6th at 6.30 at Long Hollow. Come on. Probably the chapel. I don't know for sure.

If you come to Long Hollow, you can be a part of this. We have our friend Marty Solomon coming from the BEMA Podcast. Yeah. From the BEMA Podcast. If you guys are familiar with Marty, he's been a good friend of ours. He's got a new book coming out, and he's going to talk about the book. He'll do some Q&A. I know our audience is excited. Vivian, you excited? Yes. Yep. Chris, Ben. Angie Hearst with us today. We got Angie Hearst in the house today. Whoa. Whoa. We just stepped up our game. We just went to a whole new level. Yes. Yeah. I knew there was a coolness in the room. Yeah. Angie Hearst in the house today. It's a different vibe. We're vibing now. We're vibing. Poor Robert. He's not feeling well. She's having surgery. Thankfully, it's not worse than it could be.

It was crazy. Sure. Okay. Yeah. We got Angie stepping in. Thank you, Angie, last minute. Sorry. Two things. Today, we're talking about the prayer, two weeks in a row on prayer, obviously Matthew 6, 5. Candy and I wrote this book together called The Practice of Prayer for people to have just a way to pray. A lot of Christians like you and me, we pray the same prayers over and over, the same way, the same time. We can't see anything. I was like, why can't I see anything? It's a little dark. I got glasses on. We pray the same way, the same prayers, and we don't have, one, a vocabulary to help us pray better, but we don't know the practices of how to pray better. We teach you how to lament. We teach you how to hear from God. We teach you how to sit in silence and solitude. We teach you how to have a gratitude, a prayer journal, and prayer requests, intercession. Pray scripture. Pray scripture. How to pray scripture. Journal your prayers. Yeah. Anyway, this is a 30-day guide.

It's not philosophy or theology. It's practice. And student version comes out June 1st. Right. Yes, student version 1st. One thing, just to note, if you're an individual, you're listening to this, great. You can purchase it. Amazon, all that stuff. If you're a pastor, a group leader at a church, our whole church went through this together. You can go through it with a group. You can take your whole church. Say, hey, man, I'd love to do a four-week, five-week, six-week series on prayer. This is a great tool to take along with you with your church. Like you said, it's a practical tool, so they'll be praying while you're teaching on prayer, which I think is just awesome. Yeah, it's great. Take small groups, church pastors. If you're interested, take your church. Do it. We took our church. We'll do it next year as well. Really excited about our new YouTube channel. If you hadn't subscribed to the YouTube channel, you can go search Robbie Gallaty. You will have to wade through Long Hollow Sermons, which is fine. Long Hollow's got a consolidation on my life, which is awesome, but you will find the channel. It's basically at Pastor Robbie Gallaty, but just search Robbie Gallaty. You'll see these videos. It's basically, Adam, the Sermon Plus we used to do years ago. I study, like a lot of pastors, and have to discard probably two to three pages every week, just for time.

I have a 35-minute time slot I have to fit in for traffic and challenges on Sunday. Instead of just throwing it away and discarding it, it gives me an outlet to be able to teach this. This is kind of a sermon after the sermon. If you're interested, I'm doing an Easter series right now looking at Jesus from a Hebraic perspective. You can go check that out, YouTube channel. Chris, put a link below if you don't mind. Link below right now. You can go. If you haven't subscribed to this channel, make sure you do that, and like and comment. I was looking at some of the comments the other day. I think we're at 500 now, which is pretty phenomenal. Thank you for that. It's awesome. Also, on your channel, real quick, too, it's not lecture style. I've watched several of them. Sermon Plus was a little more lecture style, a little more, I'll say, professional, but this is more conversational, so it's something that I just think is really relatable. The YouTube channel that you're putting out, I think it's really easy to consume, working out, running, walking, wherever you're at, even with your kids, your family. I really love the way it's coming out, so it's very conversational. I just want people, the CERN Plus that we did before was more formal, kind of professional. And this is just conversational and got some great truths in there. So I think people can really relate to it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and we're excited. Hopefully next week or the following week,

we're gonna announce a new channel as well. Coming soon. Mr. Adam French, recovery. Okay. Coming soon. Restoration, recovery. I'll tell John Steen yesterday, I said, I'm a little nervous because I'm not up to preach every Sunday. So I wanna be a few videos ahead. I wanna be a few ahead in case, you know. No, that's why. We're getting crazy. No, that's why. That's why. We're getting crazy to deal with. No, that's why. In the week, I wanna be locked in. Now, so today, you were telling us a little bit where you thought we were going. Yeah, Matthew 6, 5. So Candy, whenever you pray section. Here we go. Let's see if she can. Okay, I feel like I quoted that. Didn't I quote it last week? No, you did whenever you give last week. Okay. You did the one, yeah, the few before. Okay, I'll try.

Okay, whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites who love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the streets to be applauded by people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Right? Yep. Keep going. Yep. Whenever you pray, don't babble like the Gentiles since they imagine they will be heard for their many words. Don't be like them. For your father knows what you need before you ask him. Whoa. Is that it? That's it. That's all we got today. Okay, good. Okay, here we go. Come on, come on. That was good. She still got it, Adam. Yeah. Still got it. Okay. He's off the cuff. Before we get into what Jesus is saying,

let me give you a history or just a background on how the Jewish people prayed in that culture at that time. Prayer, let me just explain this first. Prayer is simply what? If I were to ask you today or ask a Christian in church, if I asked you, what is prayer? Simply, what is prayer? What would you say, Candy? Talking to God. Talking to God. Adam? Yeah, I think that would be the... That's really what it is. Across the board, people say talking to God. Yeah, people make it more than that. But really, at the irreducible minimum, it is talking to God. It's communicating with God. Now, when you and I are communicating or having a dialogue as friends, let's say, how does that work? Is it one-sided? Or is it one part me, one part you? It's kind of a back and forth. What do you think? One-sided or back and forth? Should be back and forth. Right. If not, it's like...

It's not always that way. It's a lecture. A lecture is, hey, I'm the one talking, everybody's listening. Yeah, you listen to me. But a conversation is back and forth. Okay, so let me ask you if you're listening. If that's the case, it's a back and forth. You talk, you listen. How much do you talk in your prayer life to God? Percentage-wise. Compared to how much you listen. That's the question I had to wrestle with when I started sitting with the Lord on the porch. Because I had gotten really good at telling God how to do his job better. I was great at that. God, if you... I went to him with a laundry list of items for him to spiritually rubber stamp my plans. God, if you do this, if you heal this, if you open this door, if you give me this... And I'm not saying you can't do that. But if you think about it, most of our prayer lives consist of a lot more talking than they do of listening. The Jewish prayer culture was similar to that. They would make these prayers to God and there were two types of prayers in the culture. There were extemporaneous prayers,

basically off-the-cuff prayers or not formulaic prayers. And then there were formal prescribed prayers, okay? The first part, the extemporaneous prayers, would be prayers you don't pray in advance. So for example, Daniel... I mean, not Daniel. Nehemiah, when he's going to ask the king to go back to Jerusalem, it says he prayed in the moment. Boom, it's just a prayer in the moment. Abraham's intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah. That's not a planned prayer. That's a conversation with God. Moses talking to God about the people of Israel. Elijah on Mount Carmel bringing down fire. So you see these prayers. Nehemiah, when he hears about the temple. So all these prayers are extemporaneous prayers. But most of the time, the Jewish culture, even today, the Jewish nation, they are praying specific, organized prayers at certain times of the day. They pray a book called the Amidah, which is a collection of 18 benedictions, the Amidah. In fact, I have one in my office, A-M-I-D-A-H, if you're interested. These are prayers that were recited from memory or recalled from memory. They memorized these prayers and they recited them. Here's a little sidebar here. After the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70,

the temple, you were required to pray at nine and three prayers, or I'm sorry, nine and three, you were required to make sacrifices in the temple every day called the Tamid sacrifice, T-A-M-I-D. to meet just daily before God's sacrifice. They were supposed to do that nine and three. Just put a YouTube video out if you're interested where I talk about why Jesus had to be crucified at nine and died at 3 p.m. It's because of the prayers. They were, because of the sacrifice in the temple. Every day, nine and three, just to remind God, hey, keep your promises, don't forget us, okay? So when the temple is destroyed in A.D. 70 and decimated, the Jews were in a conundrum because now they have no temple to meet with God and they have no place for the perpetual sacrifices to be offered for, to keep in covenant relationship or to remind God of his covenant relationship with them. And they can't have their sins forgiven because there's no animal sacrifice on the day of atonement and passover. So what did they do? You ever thought about this? What did they do? Well, the rabbis came up in the Mishnah and they basically said, we're going to replace, this is interesting, we're gonna replace the sacrificial offerings twice a day with twice a day prayers.

That's literally why they pray twice a day. Every day, Orthodox Jews will pray in place of the sacrifices from the prayer book, the Amidah. So, because they're in a conundrum because you can't have a system of Judaism without sacrifices. Well, they'll say, which is really kind of interesting if you think about it. No, we can't sacrifice, but we pray instead. Really? I don't think that equates. But they have a problem because they can't sacrifice. So they don't know what else to do. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Yeah, it's just a whole lot easier if they just believe Jesus, you know? I remember how children's church goes there when the little kid goes. He's like, I read the first five books of the Bible. Yeah, where's the sacrifice? They're like, shh, yeah, they just gotta move on quickly. Yeah, they don't have answers. So, they would have these prayers daily, but they also had specific prayers, like prayers for Shabbat or the Sabbath, prayers for the Holy Days. They'd have prayers for the Day of Atonement, prayers for Rosh Hashanah. They would have daily prayers. So these were formulaic prayers.

In the first century, actually, they prayed three times a day, okay? Three actual times a day, and I'll show you one example. Candy, go to Acts 3.1. They prayed before bed, they prayed arising in the morning, and they prayed in the afternoon during the sacrifice of 3 p.m. So, Candy, I want you to read Acts 3.1, and I wanna show you, this is bothersome to people, but even after Jesus dies, Peter and John are going back to the temple to do something even after Jesus is gone. Now, Peter and John were going up to the temple for the time of prayer at three in the afternoon. Okay, so here's post-resurrection disciples, still, why? And some people say, well, wait a minute, they don't need the, well, you gotta remember, they were raised in a culture of honoring God, and it's not wrong. Now, obviously, they know information they didn't know before, that Jesus filled the blank of being the Messiah they were waiting for, but they still go to, that was a place where they were, had their bar mitzvah. That was the place possibly where they went and worshiped God. They went to the fest, it was a sacred place for them. It doesn't take away from the place now that Jesus is dead, okay, just know that. So, Jesus is not warning against formulaic prayers

because they had them. Jesus is warning against something else. He's warning against prideful praying. Here's what he says. When you pray, don't be like the what? Candy, you remember this? The Gentiles? The hypocrites. Oh, the hypocrites. Because they what? They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Yes. So, basically, what these guys would do is, during the time of the offerings and prayers and the two times they prayed, nine and three, the early time was getting out of bed, every time they would blow the shafar horn in the temple to signify the sacrifice, that's when people were required to stop wherever they are and pray, okay? So, they would hear, and they would stop, okay? Now, the Pharisees, being the humble. That was pretty impressive. That was close there. Wow. Yeah, I did that. Did he practice that last night? No. No, I didn't practice it last night. No.

He's pretty good at, like, making noises. Okay, yeah, I don't know what that means, but. Okay, so. Trumpet, he can do a trumpet. Yeah, okay. Let's do a trumpet. Just for the trumpet. I don't know how to do the trumpet. You need to do the trumpet. She said you can't. No, that's not the trumpet. I don't know, that's the same. Whenever, do you remember whenever Rig used to play the Walls of Jericho, you would blow the horn so that the walls would come down? Yeah, but I can't remember all that. That was a long time ago. I can't remember that. Can you put me on the spot? I'm starting to sweat over here. Honey, you put me on the spot every day. Okay, yeah, okay. Pulling a striped shirt. Wow, okay. I love it. Okay, moving on. I love it. So, where were we? Okay, so. They blow it.

Okay, so what happened is the Pharisees, being the humble men that they were, they would position themselves on a well-populated street corner in the temple area in the city where everybody was, you know, walking through. There was a lot of traffic. And be ready so that when the brrrr, they would stop and then they would start praying these eloquent prayers. Father God above the highest heavens, far reaching above the cosmos of eternity. You ever heard people pray like that? Like professional prayers. Oh yeah, yeah. Thou will are done through my submission to your holy. It's like, okay, these, and what people would say is, wow, that guy can pray. You ever in a church like that, guy gets up, you're like, man, that guy can pray. Now, sadly, James Montgomery Boyce says, most prayers in churches are for people and not for God. They never make it to heaven because they're there to impress people. James Montgomery Boyce says nine out of 10 prayers in church don't even make it to God because they're there to impress people with eloquent words. I don't know if that's the case, but I will say in this case, that's what the Pharisees did. They wanted you to take pride in them. And Jesus says, if you're praying in a way to impress people, your prayers never make it to heaven because that impression upon people's lives is the reward. Okay. So that's the first thing he says, don't pray to be seen by people.

Then he flips it and moves. He doesn't leave anybody out of this accusation or condemnation. He says, don't pray like the Pharisees, but also on the opposite extreme, don't pray like the Gentiles. Now, what does he say about the Gentiles? Don't babble like the Gentiles because they think they'll be heard or they imagine they'll be heard for their what? Many words. Many words. It's like the exact opposite almost. Yeah. What do you think is going on here? Yeah. They just think the longer they pray or the more words that they use, it's going to get to their requests or whatever they need. Yes. Yeah. It's too much. So the Pharisees would have the organized prayers and the routine prayers down from memory and they would give them a theatrical performance. The Gentiles, so the Gentiles would be from the pagan world. Normally Gentiles, you say pagan, it's synonymous with the pagan world. They were in what we would say today, ancient spiritual new age movement practices. So the new age practice today of the spiritual mantras and summoning and incantations and all this stuff we see today finds its root back and there's nothing new under the sun. So they actually would say these mantras over and over again. I've talked about this before, but I learned this at this new age retreat I went to years ago. I was, yeah, yeah, this one. That's a story for another day.

Yeah. Yeah. But a very entertaining one. Yeah. Very entertaining. And they were, there's a bunch of Christians in the room too, self-professing Christians, misguided obviously, but they said, we're going to do a mantra in order to connect with quote God. Now they didn't mention it was not the God, it was this false God of Hinduism. And basically Lord Shiva, the Supreme Hindu God, this is crazy. We were doing this. You can connect with him and greet him Lord Shiva with a phrase or a mantra. And I'm not making this up. And we sat in this room. I think we probably went at it for 45 minutes straight. All of us trying to tune our voices in this rhythmic fashion to the same frequency. And we would say this phrase, Om Namah Shivaya, I mean, that's, that's what it is. Yeah. Well, we rebuked that in Jesus name, but yeah, but, but we would say this phrase and you just say it over, Om Namah, over, over, and it's just rhythmic chant. And the idea is you think that I'm going to connect with the God and move the God. Well, that is the kind of babble or baloney Jesus is calling out. He's not saying you're going to move the heart of God by saying the same phrases over and over and you're not going to really move the heart of God by just getting the right words right to show pride in yourself. During these times, the Pharisees wanted people to be impressed with them. And it shows us now, again, I don't have an ax to grind here, but I am going to call this out because, and again, I did this, I'm not, I don't have a, well, I'm not going to, I'm not calling out. I don't have an ax to grind.

So don't get mad at me, but I will say, as I was thinking about where do we find vein repetition today? I knew it. I was, I was already going there. Oh, were you? Okay, good. I was thinking some people babble in prayer and some people babble online. Is that what you were saying? No. Wow. Okay. Wow. It's true. What does that mean? You know, like they use too many words online and, and they need to stop. You know what I'm saying? Like, like who has time to read all that stuff? Most of the time it's babble. Yeah. It's true. I'm just saying. So that's where I thought you were going. No, I was talking about. That is a good point though. And we, we need to spend less time talking on social media, more time talking. And if you babble online, why are you doing that? You're doing that so other people will see what you're doing instead of doing something like in private or amongst someone that you might have an issue with. You're babbling online about something. I could say a lot about this too.

Well, that's what Jesus said. Jesus said, love your enemies and post about them. Is that what he said? It's not what he said. He said pray. It's not what he said. No, well, here's the thing, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about vain repetition in praying the rosary. That's what I was thinking. I was trying to think, what is a, and again, I'm not criticizing the Catholic Church, but I am criticizing the rosary. I will tell you why, and you'll see it in a moment. Now, I didn't know this, so I did some research, but the rosary actually was instituted by Pope Pius V, and a lot of people raised, like me and the Catholic Church, we didn't realize, like you assume like, oh, the rosary's been around forever. It goes back to the apostles. No, it doesn't. You can search online and figure this out yourself. The rosary goes back to the 16th century, the 1500s, mid-1500s, so it's not very long. I mean, it's not from the beginning. It was a later addition to do. Now, it's hard to humble, to be humble when you have a name, Pius V, right? I mean, he was a very humble man. Pope Pius. He gave himself that name?

Oh yeah, he picked that name, holy, godly, above people. But anyway, so the question then becomes, where did he get the idea for the rosary? Now, if you don't, if you're unfamiliar with the rosary. It's gotta be from Judaism. No, it's not. It's not from Judaism. With the routine prayers? It's actually from Buddhism. How do you know that? Again, don't shoot the messenger, I'm gonna tell you. So, the idea came from Buddhism by way of the Spanish Muslims during the Middle Ages of that time. They used prayer beads in Islam to pray repetitive prayers. Now, I'm not saying we can't take practices and make them better. I'm not saying any of this, don't hear what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is, I wanna break down the rosary and let me see what you think about if it's repetitive prayers. Here's how the rosary works, okay? The rosary has a total of five different sections, okay? There are five sections of the beads you see around people's neck. And then you have a couple beads and then the cross at the bottom, okay? Here's how, so five sections. The first section starts with, you say 10. Yeah, obviously, first you start with Our Father. That's the first one, so you say Our Father.

You say it just like it is, you recite it just like. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Then there are 10 beads. So there's a bead and then a break, bead and then a break, and then 10 beads, and then a break, one bead, then a break, 10 beads. You say one, 10, okay. Guess what the 10 beads are? And this is the bulk of the prayer. Hail Mary's. Hail Mary, full of grace. So you're praying 50 Hail Marys to five Our Fathers. Now, I can go into this a lot. I don't have time to go into it. But, and I'm not against Mary. I think we honor Mary. She was the mother of Jesus. But I think Mary's in heaven saying, please don't pray to me. I can't do anything for you. Mary was a human being who was a sinner, just like the world. And she had other kids we know from the Bible. And Mary would be saying, stop praying and honoring and adoring me. Pray to my son. You don't need to go through mom to get to my son. Dad, you can go right to him, you know, so. I think, do you think it was because normally women are the ones who get things done?

Maybe. Noelle. You said it again. She said the reason I pray to Mary. Normally women are the ones who get things done. Maybe so. Okay, let me take back everything I said. You know what I'm saying? I'm just curious. It's like, because we obviously know Jesus, Jesus dies on the cross, not Mary, okay. But we know that obviously she's a virgin when she conceives, okay. But the greater sacrifice is obviously Jesus. So if you had a choice of someone, you see what I'm saying, that you were gonna pray to, it seems like common sense you would pray to Jesus. You see, he gave his life for you. So, I guess where I'm trying to figure out seriously is where, how did they get pointed to Mary versus not Jesus, other than women get things done? So I'm just gonna ask Mary to get it done for me. Does that make sense? I think we're more like mothers are more gracious. You're more accepting. Your mama. Yes, exactly. That's part of it. You think about the compassion of a mom.

Most Catholics, and there's some research here, view God as this overbearing, domineering, old, grumpy man from the Old Testament. You can't bother him. He's kinda cantankerous and ornery. Jesus is busy. This is literally what I read from one priest, I think. Jesus is busy controlling the world. He don't have a lot of time. Mary's got extra time on her hands, so pray to him. That's the first thing, but the main point is they get it from John 2. John 2, when they're at the wedding feast, and Mary says, Jesus, we need to turn the water into wine, and Jesus says, woman, it's not my time yet, and Mary just completely ignores him and says, do whatever he says. Jesus is like, what are you talking about? I'm not gonna do anything, and then he does it. So what they say is when the son is not willing, the mother goes to bat and gets it done. That's literally where they get the idea to pray to Mary. It's part of it, of where they get the idea. But you and I both know, we don't need to be praying to someone who has no power in heaven to bless and to honor, and forget power, praise. We shouldn't be praising and adoring and speaking to anyone else other than Jesus. Yeah, well, like we were this week, we've been reading in Psalms.

I was just looking back over how over and over again God speaks through David and he says, like in Psalms 33, he says, I will give counsel. Psalms 33, he says, the counsel of the Lord stands forever. So one of the reasons, a lot of times when we, you talked about the beginning, we're dialoguing with God because we're taking our heart, our emotions, our stuff that we struggle with in this world and we're saying, God, I'm gonna bring this to you. Can you help me get through this? Can you give me hope? Can you give me wisdom? Can you guide me? Can you give me comfort, as it talks about in 1 Corinthians? So we're missing the counsel of a holy, loving, wise God when we offer up these prayers to something that is powerless. It's like, I can't imagine what that would feel like to say, somebody says, hey son, just do 50 Hail Marys and you get finished with that. I mean, what did that do? Exactly. Nothing. No, exactly. There's no, because even what you said in the beginning, the logical, practical side of a prayer or a conversation is back and forth. If I'm teaching my kids, hey, just go, just pray these things 22 times.

There's no, that's no conversation. That's no relationship. And so you leave, what that does, it actually makes people empty. I think if I grew up that way, I would even, that's why you see a lot of people get resentful at the Catholic church because you're like, no, just do this and believe it'll work. Just believe it'll work. If it doesn't work, there's something wrong with you. Not something wrong with the prayer. When you're going, wait a second, where is this in scripture? Because we're supposed to follow scripture. Well, think about the relationship essay you're saying. If I spend 50 times talking to you and five times talking to Candy, that's not a good marriage relationship. If I, you see what I'm saying? I'm talking to you 50 times. I'm talking to you 10 times more than I'm talking to my wife. That, just look practically. If I'm trying to have a relationship with Jesus God and Jesus is in heaven for eternity, then I spend all my time praying to Mary who has no power, Mary's not gonna do anything in eternity. Jesus is, it's all about Jesus. Then that's the first problem.

The second problem is this too, I'm thinking just off the cuff. We have no precedent in the Old Testament to pray to any of the ancient Old Testament saints. You never see any, think about this. You never see anybody saying pray to Abraham. You never see anybody say appeal to Moses because they knew they had no power. They knew that. You mean to tell me Mary, a young peasant girl who gave birth, I'm not taking away from it, gave birth to Jesus is superior in the mind of the Hebrew culture than Abraham who went through test after test and offered up his son or Moses, you see what I'm saying? Who took the people out of Israel. So, and I'm not putting one or the other, but the reality is they didn't even pray to them. There's no example for that. There's no example for that, much less pray to Mary and Joseph and Anthony and Michael and everybody else. So, prayers, this is, I think, what Jesus is talking about here. Now, he's not saying we can't pray repetitively. He's not even saying we can't say the same prayer over and over. What he's saying is don't use formulaic prayer. Now, could you pray, the question we're gonna get to is,

should I pray the Lord's prayer exactly as it is? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. I think it's fine to do that. If you wanna do that, I think it's fine, but I don't think it stops there. I think you can start there, but I don't think you stop there. I think Jesus gave us that prayer as a formula because he says, when you pray, pray like this. He doesn't say pray these words. He could've. Yeah, he could've said that. And he doesn't say pray this. Pray exactly like, yeah, he doesn't say that, okay? He's talking about application, and I think that's one of the most important, that's why I love what you're talking about here, is because the most important part of prayer is how do you apply it to your life? That's why Jesus is taking, let's take the most prominent examples of prayer that you see, the Pharisees in the street, the pagans, and let's say, that's not how you should pray. Let me show you how you should pray practically. You know, and even like, I wrote this in my journal this morning because I had a situation come up this week, you know, kind of a spiritual attack, and I literally put, oh man, it actually works. Because instead of getting all worried,

you know, I was home alone. I could've called Josie. I could've called 40 people. I could've texted. You know, this situation's crazy. I did. I told you this. You know, I actually, and this isn't for my glory, but just as a practical example for people out there, I actually did what Jesus said. Which is. prayed for him. You know what? And I have not had any anxiety, any worry. I'm like, normally I would obsess over this for a month, like tough stuff like this. So it's like Jesus saying, hey, let me, why don't you actually apply this principle to your life? Do it in private. Do it as a conversation. And see, this is what people, this is what we need to know as Christians. That's why the book is so good. You know, I love the book because it's, this is how we actually put this into practice. Yeah. I read this morning, like it was a quote in a book I was reading and it said, turn your worries into prayers, which is basically, you know, what we do, what we should be doing. But oftentimes I like to just outburst and complain, but. Yeah, well, there's a time for that too, but. People you trust, that's good. I read this week a quote, don't want to cut y'all, just a big piggyback on that. It says, it says that anxiety, I don't know if I agree with this or not, but the second part I do, it says, anxiety is not a sin, it's a signal. And it's a signal that you need to apply what? The principles of scripture, prayer, forgiveness, or I need to seek godly counsel, right? So anyways. Yeah, anxiety is a place God's revealing of an area of your life that you need to trust him more in. Correct. That's literally what it could be, you know. Yeah. I think what we see here is, again, Jesus is not against formulaic prayers, the pre-parade of times. He's not against praying the same prayers over and over.

What he's against are public prayers to impress people, okay? So then he goes into the antidote for the prideful prayers. And what is it? He says, but when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. A lot of secret going on here. A lot of private going on here. A lot of inconspicuous, behind the scenes, anonymous prayers, you know, or isolated alone time with God. And I think what he's saying is this, if you have, if you want to know if your prayer life is prideful, would you be praying the same way or the same prayers if you were doing it alone by yourself as you do in public? Would you pray? Yeah, would you be doing this if it's, if nobody hears but God? If nobody sees but him, right? That's the question. Everybody can pray at the prayer meeting. Oh yeah, I want to pray. Let me pray. I'm praying. I love to pray with everybody. Call a brother to pray. Oh, let me pray for you, bro. Let me stop right now. Okay, well, how often you praying in private? How long you praying in private? Because, and I'm not saying you shouldn't pray in public, but what I'm saying is, when you're in private, private prayer reveals the motivation of your heart. Private prayer, public prayer is the what of prayer. Private prayer is the why of prayer. Why am I praying or why am I not praying in prayer? Leonard Ravenhill, one of my heroes of revivalism, no man is greater than his prayer life. No woman is greater than her prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing today. The people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers in prayer. Many players, but few payers, or payers and payers, but few prayers. Many singers, few clingers. Lots of pastors, few wrestlers. Many fears, very few tears. Much fashion, little passion. Many interferers, few intercessors. Many writers, but few fighters. When you fail here in prayer, you fail everywhere. Everywhere. And so my question to you, if God were asking you this question today, if God were speaking to you, if you love me so much, why do you pray so little to me? Why do you talk so little with me? And I'm not talking about in church, I'm not talking about, you know, talking about, we do a lot of, we talk about God a lot. We talk about how much we love him, how much we care, we read his word a lot, but how much time do we

actually make to spend time to not only talk to God in direction of what we expect and want and need, but in listening to God. Here's a dangerous prayer to pray, by the way, and I really say this with caution because you have to be careful because God may just answer this prayer. And here's the prayer. When was the last time you said, God, put on my heart what's important to you? That's good. God, show me how you hate sin. God, give me a passion for the lost. You see what I'm saying? Instead of us telling God what we think he ought to do, we start to say, God, put on my heart what you're passionate about. Break my heart for what breaks, that's a dangerous one, break my heart for what breaks your heart. God. That's the kind of private prayer. You start to realize the more you pray, and I've been at this consistently since the revival, I've learned a couple things about prayer. Number one is prayer is not about me getting something from God. Prayer for me has been more about me getting God. I always say, when you serve the Lord Jesus, that's salvation. You're not serving Jesus to get a treasure, you're serving Jesus because he is the treasure. That is the treasure of your life. And that's how you know you're growing. The goal of prayer is not more from God, the goal of prayer is more of God. And sadly, much of our prayer life is about me, my wants, my desires, my needs, my aches, my issues. And I'm not saying you shouldn't pray that way, it's fine to pray that way. But there's so much more to prayer when you get beyond your personal agenda trying to get to heaven, and you start saying, God, I want you to download the agenda of heaven to the hard drive of my heart, that I may live out what you want me to do where I live, work, and play. And if you're like me, you're going to have to do a lot more listening, and a whole lot less talking. Let me say it another way before I'm done with this, but prayer is more about intimacy with a person, rather than answers to your petition. And that is hard, because that's not the way I was taught to pray.

It was, man, prayer is only when you need it. It's a lucky rabbit's foot, God's a utilitarian genie, whenever you need him, make sure you rub him just right, and you ask him just correctly, and you'll get, and God's like, I can do those things for you, but I just want to spend time with you. When was the last time, if you're listening, you just spent time with God? No agenda, no plan, no list, just you and God, just you and God. And I would also say, that's another reason why praying scripture is so essential, and great, is because the Lord speaks through his word. And so he speaks to your heart, and then what he is speaking to you through that, you can turn into prayer. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good outline too. Do you see what I'm saying? That's what I do every day in my quiet time, like I'm reading, and I'm allowing the Lord to speak to my heart as I'm sitting there, and then based on what I learn, what I feel like he said to me, what truths I see, I then turn that into prayer. Yeah, that's one way to do it too, yeah. And I feel like a lot of that, it's praying what I've learned and gleaned from the scripture, but then sometimes it's also just praying the scripture, whatever that might be, you know, that verse or something. But that's a great way, when you really don't know what to do, yeah, you can pray scripture. I was thinking that in a world full of anxiety, depression, angst, we say this before, number one prescribed drug in America, Billify, fastest growing mental health diagnosis, anxiety, 21% of the world, one in five adults, 53 million people have a mental health diagnosis, right? In a world full of chaos and struggle mentally, the safest place to be is prayer. When you're praying, that's the most honest place you're ever going to be. Why would you lie? God knows everything. Right. So, and I believe this, you're only as strong as you are honest. That's good.

When you're lying and hiding, that's when you isolate, that's when you lash out, you're trying to overcome, all these things, a lot of bad things happen when you're trying to hide what's going on with you, right? So, that's the gift and the benefit of being in prayer is I get to sit with the person who knows me the best, loves me the most, cares for me the most, has the most answers, right? And I get to be honest, which is the most healthy thing I can do for me mentally, physically, and spiritually. Amen. And if we just turn it over to reciting things that have no meaning to connect, no connection to our heart, then we're missing out on this sacred place. Yeah, you know, and I think, you got me thinking, I think you're right. When Jesus says, your father knows what you need before you ask, I think what he could be saying, we always think need like prayer request needs, but I think it's more than that. Could it be, he knows where you are, he knows your heart, he knows your mindset, he knows your situation, he knows your emotions, he knows everything about you, so you might as well just be honest with him, right? You might as well just tell him, he already knows it, so why are you going to hide? You know, it's like, Adam, I see you behind the bush. Oh, I was hiding, sorry, I was naked. Who told you? Who told you? Well, that's what he says. Which of you can add one single moment to his lifespan by worrying? Nobody. You know, like if we could, if we could actually like figure it out on our own, realize that like, I actually cannot add anything to my life by worrying, I'm actually taking away from my life by worrying, I'm taking away the joy, I'm taking away the peace every time. And sometimes we're not intentionally doing that.

Before we know it, we're there, we're caught up in that spiral of worry or anxiousness or fear, and it's like if we could realize we're not adding anything to our life, we're taking away when we're living in that way, and so if we do turn it into prayer, it completely flips that on its head. Well, yeah, and prayer and the word, they go hand in hand, the word can be... hearing from God, prayer could be talking, but again, I would say you can hear from God by sitting and listening too. You know, the thing about the couple that we miss a lot in the story in Adam and Eve is the question God asked the couple is a question we need to be asked ourself. Who told you you were naked? I feel the way to this. This hit me the other day. Who, here's what he's asking. Who have you been listening to? Because I didn't tell you that. Right. What voices in your head? Because it ain't mine. It ain't mine. I didn't tell you that you are always naked, but I didn't point it out. And that's the thing. Many people, like you mentioned earlier, hurting people hurt people. And so when a person is lashing out at you or attacking you, it's normally because they've got an issue that is unaddressed in their own life, or they're listening to voices in their head or culture that they shouldn't. So that's why it's not optional. It's non-negotiable. You need to be in the word and prayer every single day. I was telling my dGroup this yesterday. For me, it is a keystone habit in my life that is non-negotiable. It's on the calendar. It's immovable. Unless we're traveling or something, I'm not saying every single day, but most every day. Candy's in her chair. I'm reading either at home or in the office. I'm reading the word and I'm in the word. Non-negotiable. Why? Because I'm saturating my mind with the word of God, which will change the course of my day. Just like eating food. You can't recall what you ate a month ago or a week ago, but you know you ate and you grew because of it. And the same thing goes for the word and prayer. It's the strongest pill people want. We want to fix. It's the strongest pill that you can take. And neuroscience proves it. Dr. Caroline Leaf, in her recent book that she just put out, I can't think of the name of right now. We can look that up. But she did a research. They did a case study. They did, I think it was 12 weeks. No, eight weeks. And they had people pray for 12 minutes. You talked about this before, but she just did another recent one. They prayed for eight weeks. They prayed for 12 minutes a day. Literally on the brain scans, they could see the neural pathways changing people's brain from prayer. It changes you spiritually, obviously, because you've got the power of God,

but it literally rewires your brain to let go of worry or fear or struggle or whatever you're going through. That's the best pill you can take is prayer. It's funny when science catches up to the Bible. So we're going to give you a prescription this week, a prescription of prayer. You can do it two ways. You can do it yourself, seven minutes a day. I did this in growing up. Call it seven up, okay? Seven up. I know it's corny, but that was the best I had 15 years ago. Seven minutes, seven days when you wake up. Seven minutes, seven days when you wake up. Some of you are going to wake up, hit your knees right by the bedside because you can't. Once you get distracted, you won't come back. Others of you are going to get your coffee. You're going to go to your quiet room. You're going to go to a sunroom or a chair and you're going to pray. Seven minutes. Now, for some of you, you're like, I don't have seven minutes. You'll have to set your alarm seven minutes early. That's okay. You can do that. And then I just want you to pray to God. You can spend some time in silence. You can pray requests. You can sit and listen. But if you want help, the practice of prayer, again, is a way that takes the guesswork out of what to do. So let me just commend it to you. I think it was sold out on Amazon. Angie, I think it's back in stock. Hopefully, if it's not on lifeway.com, they should have it, but I'll commend it to you. We use it. I enjoyed going through it. We wrote it, but you never know how a book's going to land until you go through it. It helped us. Helped me in my own prayer life. All the men at Recovery Refuge went through it. It's just an incredible tool. They loved it. We had so many great conversations. So I think that's a great place to stop there. Just incredible. Thank you so much for bringing all that to light. Again, we say this over and over again, but if you enjoy what you're listening to or watching and you want to help us and you want to get more people to be able to hear about The Forgotten Jesus, please subscribe to this, like, comment, and share it to help us get it out. Thank you for tuning in.