“Give God Glory & Praise His Will” The Battle Plan: Week 2 (Matthew 6:9-10)

Amen. I pray that you have your bibles this morning. Of course, if you do, let’s open them together to Matthew chapter six, as we continue this battle plan for prayer series. Matthew chapter 6, we’ll be looking at verses 9 and 10. Last week we started to explore the concept of being in war, or in a battle. We looked at this from the military viewpoint that if you were going to survive a battle in a war, much less win that battle in the war, you must be prepared. Preparation is the name of the game. Of course, that easily transitions into your spiritual life. You’re in a war if you don’t know it. Satan is looking to destroy you and your family, even yes, right now as you’re in church. Even as we pray. He always is on the lookout for who he may devour. A relationship he may destroy, or reconciliation that he makes you believe is not going to happen.

Whatever it is, he’s attacking you, and so we too must be prepared. The best way to fight that battle, the best way to be prepared, is through prayer, hence the series The Battle Plan.we want to be ready for this battle by beginning to understand prayer, so we began our preparation last week. As we’re looking forward to February 4th, we’re all going to enter into a season of prayer together. Part of the preparation last week was obeying Jesus as he tells us to go alone with him. To build a relationship with him into our prayer closet. Now your prayer closet, I told you last week, was wherever you can get alone with God. So a time and a place. If you haven’t done that, do that now. Now, this week, we’re going to be continuing that preparation process for the battle plan, continuing to add to this battle plan by looking at the model that Jesus gave us and what is traditionally called the Lord’s Prayer.

Understand this; every battlefield commander knows that you must have a battle plan in order for the troops to find victory on the ground. See what a battle plan does is it unites the troops. It gives them objectives. It helps them to find victory and unity, and togetherness so that they can win the battle without a plan, without the preparation for a plan, the battle is already lost before its even begun. When I think of a battle plan that succeeded, I can’t help but thinking of one of the greatest plans in military history. You remember back in the 90’s when General Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf, as they called him, he put that great battle plan together to win the victory of Desert Storm. Do you remember the details of that phenomenal battle?

In his military genius, he put together a battle plan that allowed him to leave the Iraqi forces basically blind and defenseless. What he did is he helped them to believe or caused them to believe that most of his forces were coming from the south. He positioned ships there at the sea, make it look like that’s where the main force was going to come from. He even put some troops there to make it look like there were many more troops than were actually there. The whole while, the Iraqi forces through Kuwait, through Iraq, they were bringing all their troops to the south. What was General Schwarzkopf doing? He was doing the great left hook. Do you remember that?

He brought a majority of his forces, not from the south, but through the desert through the west. That was quite a left hook. Maybe the greatest logistical move in military history. 1,500 tanks. No small task. Over 300,000 troops. Thousands of tons of ammo, and fuel, and supplies traveled 300 miles through the desert without the Iraqi’s even knowing what was going on. So the moment the battle began, they were already losing. They had their forces in the wrong area. They were getting beat down there anyway, but then this massive force came from the west. They didn’t expect, and they just rolled through the whole country, Kuwait, Iraq, and just defeated all the forces. So therefore, the Americans of the coalition forces saw a great victory, but I want you to know this morning that General Schwarzkopf, as great as his mind was, he didn’t just come up with this plan on his own.

No, what he did, is he looked back through history. He saw many other models of telling an enemy, “We’re down here,” or, “We’re over here,” and then while the whole time you’re planning on doing this. What he did is he took that old model, listen to this, and he brought it with him to the modern battlefield, and because he did that, he saw a great victory. Church, in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus has given you a model to create this battle plan to face your enemy. If you will take that model and what we call the Lord’s Prayer, if you’ll take the old model, and you’ll apply it in a new way to the battle field that you’re on, I promise you this. You will find a great victory in your life as well, this season. Now, I know we win the war, but doesn’t it feel like sometimes we’re getting our, whatever, handed to us by Satan?

Wouldn’t you like to see a few more daily victories? Knowing the war’s already won, Jesus has already accomplished that, but doesn’t it feel like sometimes you’re getting your teeth kicked in by Satan? I do. I want to win a little bit more. I want to be on the other side a little bit more. I believe the key is applying and using this model prayer that Jesus gave for us in Matthew 6, verses 9 through 13. Now, we’re only going to hone in on verses 9 and 10 to show how the priority of your prayer has to start with God, but then as we walk through the next few weeks of this model prayer, I promise if you apply it you will find the victory through it if you’re consistent with it. Now, this is a fantastic prayer. It’s called the Lord’s Prayer, but I’m going to not be okay technically with the title the Lord’s Prayer. He never gave it that title.

You can call it that if you want to. I know we’ve been calling it the Lord’s Prayer for years, but what I want to refer to it as is not just the Lord’s Prayer, as if you think this is some prayer that Jesus prayed. You don’t see him praying this prayer. It’s not just something he prayed, it’s something he gave. This is an example prayer. This is something that you take like an outline, and then you will plug it into your life and start filling in the gaps. This Lord’s Prayer can be prayed in two different ways. One, as most of you do, it can be a memorized prayer that you just say. You can say the words in the text, you can just repeat them. How many of you have the Lord’s Prayer memorized? Our Father,who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Right? You have that memorized, but I don’t think that’s the best way to use this prayer.

You can do that. The best way to use this prayer is how Jesus gave it to his disciples. As a model. As something that you actually mean when you say. Here’s the problem with the Lord’s Prayer, this is the genius and also the wickedness of Satan. He has taken something so good, in the model prayer from Jesus, and he’s made it so empty in our lives in 2018. In fact, so many people take this Lord’s Prayer and just say it without even meaning it, they’re actually doing exactly what Jesus told us not to do already in verse 7. Look at that. In verse 7 Jesus says, “When you pray, do not use meaningless repetition or babble.” That term we looked at last week basically means saying something without meaning it. How much is the heart of Christ breaking when we’re using the model prayer that he gave us, to do exactly what it told us not to do in verse 7.

When we say it and we’re just like, “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. When’s lunch? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done the earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses and sins, as we forgive those trespasses against us. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever,” and we’re out. How many times have I done that? How many times have you said that prayer, and you had no idea what you’re saying? That can’t be what Jesus intended. He gave us this prayer as a gift. So let’s walk through it. Let’s stand together. We’re going to read verses 9 through 13, the whole prayer, but then we’re going to hone in on verse 9 and 10. You’re going to want to say it with me so just go ahead. Just make sure you say it as according to the NASB, so we’re kind of all saying it together.

Or you can say it your way, it’s not going to be that big of a deal. In verse 9, Jesus says, “Pray then in this way: Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Amen.” You may be seated. I think that’s the first time I’ve read a text of scripture and I can kind of just sit back and watch. That’s the genius of the prayer, but it’s also the curse of the prayer. You know it so well you don’t mean it, so let’s make it mean a little bit more today so that never again, this is my prayer this week for you, that never again we would use this model prayer in our lives with it meaning something.

Without this changing the way we look at God, and without changing the way that we look at the world. In verse 9 and 10, I believe what Jesus wants is he wants to put God back as the priority of your prayer so that when you pray, God gets the priority and you seek his glory above yours. How many times have I said a prayer? How many times have you said a prayer and God’s glory, God’s will, God’s priority hasn’t even crossed your mind, but all of your prayers have been consumed with what I want and what I need. How many times? Too many is the answer, even if it’s just one time, too many. Really the answer to the question is, how many times have we completely missed it with what Jesus is trying to do here in helping us to pray. This is a model prayer that if you would apply it in your life with God as the priority, I believe you could pray every single day and it brings you nothing but joy, exaltation, and freedom from the burden. First things first, in verse 9, we give God the priority in our prayer by seeing that God is personal.

God is powerful, and therefore God is worthy of our praise. That’s what it says here. God is your father, that means he’s personal. God is in heaven. If you don’t understand that, that means he is powerful, and hallowed be thy name means that God is worthy to be praised. The first thing that Jesus teaches here is that God is a personal God. You say, “Pastor, how do you know that Jesus is teaching that?” Well, what does he say God is? Our Father. Let’s just talk about that for a second, because I said that and it didn’t seem like it was a very big deal to you. Right? The same way you say it, Our Father who art in heaven. You don’t even think. You don’t even slow down, do you? I don’t. Our Father who’s in heaven. Our Father. Jesus didn’t say pray to my father. God was his father, but then if you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you can call the king of the universe dad.

This intimate relationship that you should have with your earthly father, even if you don’t have it, you can have it with your heavenly father. Because God is personal he’s also loving. This is what a dad should be. Now, as I talked about God as your father, I’m going to be bringing up some of what I call and the world calls, daddy issues. We chuckle when we say that. Oh, he’s got daddy issues. We would like to say a lot, somehow it’s like it’s isolated with women. Oh, she’s got daddy issues. You’ve all got daddy issues. Because none of your dads are perfect, but some of you have some deep seeded daddy issues. Here’s what you need to know about God. Everything that your dad should be, God is. What that also means is everything that your dad wasn’t, God can be for you. That means if your dad abandoned you, and left you, and forsake you when you were a child, that you need to understand that God will never leave you, and he will never forsake you.

Now early in the first service, this is when children start looking at their dad like, “Mm-hmm, you ain’t perfect.” Well, guess what, you’re not either so stop looking at him. But none of us are perfect. I’m not talking about your dad. I’m talking about God. Maybe for you, your dad was too busy for you because he’s out there trying to make a dollar so your family could eat. He was just absent. You need to know that Jesus and God through Christ, God is never too busy for you. God always has time for you. Always. I don’t know what your job is, but I’m pretty sure if you live in America today, it’s busy. Whether you have customers and you’re a mechanic, or you’re a teacher or a superintendent, or you’re on the trash cycle and you’re picking up cans, or you’re a doctor seeing the next patient. I don’t know what you do, but I’m sure you’re busy. In those moments when it’s not busy, few and far between, in a moment, in a millisecond, you can stop and talk to God. Guess what? He’s just waiting there for you.

God’s never too busy for you. God is a personal God because he’s your father, God is a loving God. God is your father who wants the best for you, his child. Now I know God carries a paddle with him, or in my home, a glue stick. I don’t know what God actually has, but what I’m telling you is I know God disciplines you, but just like your real parent’s children, and even parents that are newer today, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love because he disciplines you. In fact, Hebrews 12 and Proverbs tells you the exact opposite. You know God loves you when he disciplines you. You need to be that example of God to your children. You need to discipline your children. Okay, that’s a separate sermon, let’s get back onto this. But God, yes he disciplines you, but he’s also there for you when you need him. If you just want to talk to him, if you want to complain to him, if you want to cry with him, if you want to laugh with him, he’s always there.

Some people struggle with God because they would say, “Yeah, God already knows what I need because he’s God,” or you have a proper view of the holiness of God or the omnipotence of God, or the all whatever of God, you’re like, “He already knows it. Why do I need to pray to him?” Because he wants you, his child, to ask him for what is best for you. That’s kind of weird isn’t it? Is it? Is this not exactly what we want with our children, is what God expects from us? Like for example, my sons. I know when they need to go to bed. They have that look. Some of your children have that attitude. Some of them speed up, some of them slow down. some of them get angry, and some of them cry. I don’t know how your child is, but I can look at my sons and say, “Mm-hmm, you need to go to bed.” You know what’s better? You know what’s a win, is when they need to go to bed and they know it, and they come to me and the say, “Daddy, put me to bed.”

That’s a win. I mean they’re seeing it for themselves, and you go and do it. It’s much better than chasing them around the house with a glue stick, or the paddle, going, “Go to bed. Go to bed. Here’s your water. Here’s your drink, here’s your food,” or whatever 15 other things that they’re going to ask before they go to bed. Isn’t it awesome when they say, “I need to go to bed. Come put me to bed.” My daughter, I know that she does not need social media. Pause. All the teenagers right now are like don’t do it, dude. Don’t do it. Lord Jesus, I haven’t prayed in a couple months, but can you just stop the pastor from talking right now? Just hush. God ain’t hearing your prayer because he wants me to say this. Here we go. Social media is systematically destroying your child’s view of worth.

You’re letting it happen. Every single like that they get, or every single like that they don’t get either brings them up or crushes them down.

It’s the nude picture that she sends to her boyfriend, oh yeah, she’s doing that. It’s bad. Or the nude picture that he’s sending to his girlfriend that makes them feel beautiful, rather than realize that God created them and he makes all things beautiful. Over and over again, one picture. One post at a time. He is destroying your children, Satan, through social media. Okay, well you’re a little strong on that pastor. I get it, but I’m fired up about it. I saw it. I saw it. I knew it. You know it was a touchdown when she saw it, and came to me, and said, “Daddy, can you delete this app from my phone?” Don’t tell me it’s weird that God wants you to ask for things that he already knows. That’s God. It’s called a relationship. God is personal. He wants to speak with you. God is loving. He wants the best for you, but you know what’s fantastic about this passage?

Not only do you get to call him father and him personal, but anything you bring to this personal God, he is powerful enough to answer. Whatever problem you bring to him, and how complicated you think that it is, it is not near approaching the nearness of the fraction of the percent, of even approaching the percent of the fraction, of God not being able to handle it. God can handle it all. Our Father, who art in heaven. Like what does that even mean? He’s in heaven. Yeah, that’s God’s address, but because it’s God’s address, that’s the place that God created because he created all things. God created that place called heaven that you get to live for all of eternity. In fact, God created all the heavens, the universes, the earths, the planets, all of this, he create it. God is personal, and God is powerful. Spend a few minutes in your prayer, we’re going to do it again in a second with hallowed be thy name, or even before your prayer. This can help as a pre prayer exercise, thinking about just how powerful your God is.

Thinking about all that your God has done. The universe. I remember when I was in astronomy in college, that was the class that all the football players took because they could sleep. Right, you go in that place and the stars, and sometimes their music I’m like, “What are you thinking? Dark room. Music. I’m out,” but for some reason, it overwhelmed me. Seeing all of it, I couldn’t understand in these limited telescopes that we have that there’s probably a million other layers past what I could see in this planetarium that God created all of that. It was like the weight of his glory was crushing me the further I laid back in that seat, and the bigger the expanse of the universe was to me. That God is powerful. That God is personal. What can you bring to him that he cannot do?

You realize that just a few degrees, if you’re a science person and I mess this up I apologize, but the earth, a few degrees one way, a few feet the other. Off the axis this way, off the axis that way, one way we’re an ice cube, the other way we’re a fireball, but we’re not either of those things are we? We’re perfect. The only planet that we know of that has this thing called flowing water and life. Billions of other orbs are floating around in the universe, only one is positioned perfectly to its star, that we know of, that has life. That’s a great accident. No, don’t be so limited in your thinking. Of course, it’s not an accident. It’s God. This is a great exercise for you to practice in prayer so that you can say, “Our Father, who art in heaven, oh you are powerful.” Then, because God is personal, and because God is powerful, he is worthy of your praise. Hallowed be thy name. This is not another name for God. This is not an adjective.it’s not just describing God. Hallowed is a verb. It’s something that you do because of who he is.

It basically means to make his name holy. I don’t understand that, well let me say it another way. To praise his holy name. Now you get it, don’t you? This is the section of your prayer that I want you to spend some time in. You’re going to need to mark out some space for this. I mean, you need to clear out some time in your calendar because this is where it can get good and this is where it get deep. This is how you give God the priority in your prayer, by thinking of all the ways that you can say, “Praise be your name,” or, “I praise your name.” Because of what? Praise is different than thanksgiving, by the way, although they kind of mix sometimes. Praise is just praising God for who he is. The creator. Go into that creation thing a little deeper. We went pretty deep just now. You can go a lot deeper.

Think about how far that planet off is or how small that amoeba is you got to look at it through a microscope, and you’re somewhere in between. Praise him all the way through. Because he did all that. You’re not even getting to thanksgiving yet, when he does some of these things for you. Praise him. Literally, right now, start writing things down that you could say hallowed be your name about. You don’t just say hallowed be your name and move on. That’s not what Jesus meant. He meant for you to say hallowed be your name, and walk through specific areas that you can praise God in your life, and the more of these things that you go through, guess what? The bigger God will be, and then you’ll be able to move on to the second part of the prayer. Hallowed be thy name. What are the ways that you can praise God in your prayer time because you’re going to go from praise and you can’t help it. This just happens naturally.

It happens to me all the time and you’re going to slip right into thanksgiving. Not the holiday, but gratitude. You’re going to be sitting there praising God for being the sovereign creator. Your sovereign savior. Your redeemer, and automatic you’re going to go, “Uh huh, and thank you for saving me, seeking me, finding me, and redeeming me.” It’s okay. Let it slip back and forth. But if you do this, and you think about it long enough, this will be the majority of what you call prayer. This should be, by the way, the majority of where we spend our prayer. Giving God the priority. Hallowed be thy name. But what we do is we do it the other way around, don’t we? We start with our needs. See, here’s the problem. When you start with what you need, and what you want, that’s selfish.
By the time you get done with that you’ll never get to this. You save the good stuff for the end, and the problem is in most of our prayers we never get to the good stuff. We get to our stuff, and we think that’s the good stuff. You’re so limited in your view of what good is. Start with the good stuff, with God and how you should praise him, and his greatness, and his goodness, and then by the time you get to your stuff, you’ll have the right and proper perspective of it. That’s what we’re going to do right now. Our Father, personal. Who art in heaven. Powerful. Praised be your name. That’s verse 9. In verse 10, because of that, not only do you see that God is personal, powerful and worthy of praise, but because of that, you will want his kingdom to come and his will to be done in your life.

This will happen if you do it properly. If you follow this model, what happens when you get to verse 10, and you’ve already spent a large amount of time praising God for who he is, and realizing that compared to him you’re very small, you’re soon going to want that God who is so great, that God who is so almighty. You’re going to go, “Of course I want your will to be done. Of course I want your kingdom to come in my life instead of my own.” But when you start the other way around, you’ll never get to what God wants because you’ll be so focused on what you want. I promise you what he wants is better. Hear me church. God, and I don’t know all the implications of this but I feel like I needed to say it, God is better than you. I don’t like that. That doesn’t feel right. No, because the world tells you you’re number one. You’re the greatest.

You’re not. Absolute, you’re not even close. You may not even be third. God, then others, then you. I mean that’s how the bible works it out, but God is better than you so that means this. I’m not trying to offend you, but once you wrap your mind around that, then what God’s will is is better than your will. Does that make sense? Of course, you don’t want to go back to what is worse, when you can have what is better. In the old days, if you lived in the mountains and sometimes even if you lived here in North Texas, it would get pretty cold. How would we warm our houses years ago? Wood burning stoves and fireplaces. They’d be in all the houses, and all the houses would have the soot and all that everywhere, but it somehow, insufficiently I would say, warmed that hunting cabin or that house. But what happened? We evolved past that and we went to things like heaters, and furnaces, and they ran off of gas and electricity, so you could just set the temperature, and be in your house and be warm and cozy when it’s what? 20 something degrees outside.

After we came down from the mountains, and away from the wood burning stoves, we didn’t look back did we? Now I know some of you have a wood burning stove because you’re nostalgic. Right? You have a beard, and some black rimmed glasses, and skinny jeans. You’re like wood burning stoves man. That’s the way to go. Okay, if joining a gangs bug has God all over you, I get that. Old is cool, but believe me we went back to the old, and to the farmhouse, and I want to tell you this morning. I’m saying, modern technology is awesome. Because when it goes it is bad. You don’t see new houses being built with these wood burning stoves. We have furnaces and we use them because it’s better. God’s will is better. It’s not nostalgic to go back and have your will to be done. You don’t want your will to be done the more you see how great God is. Okay, so pastor, how do I want what God wants more?

How do I really want to say your kingdom come and your will be done on the earth as it is in heaven? I tell you how you do it. By spending more time in the first part of the prayer that we just talked about. Hallowed be thy name. What I’m telling you is that the bigger or the larger your view of God, the easier it will be to say, “Thy kingdom come and thy will be done.” So if you’re sitting in your prayer, you got like one minute in and you’ve run out of things to say hallowed be your name about, and you need more, I’m not dogging on you. It happens to me too, just go back to his word. Here’s where a bible really comes into your prayer life. There is an unlimited supply of God’s greatness and goodness in here, and what you’ll do, you’ll run out in your mind because you’re limited in your thinking and you’ll go back here and you’re like, “Whoa. Look at these things about God.” You’ll take these attributes you learned here. You’ll bring it back to him in prayer, hallowed be thy name, and the larger your view of God, of course the easier it will be.

You’re so great. You’re so good. Of course, I want your will to be done in my life.the less time you spend in hallowed be thy name, the more time you might want your kingdom to come and your will to be done over his. See, when you say, your kingdom come, what you’re really doing is acknowledging that his plan is better than yours. It’s just an acknowledgement. There’s a couple other things that go along with that, for example, his kingdom coming is his kingdom growing. We participate in his kingdom growing by sharing the gospel. So by you being obedient to the great commission, we are literally, the kingdom is coming. It’s growing and more people for all of eternity will be worshiping him. Another aspect of your kingdom come, is anticipating the return of Christ. God’s kingdom is literally going to come back again, and establish itself on this planet when Jesus comes back again.

So we participate in the kingdom growth by sharing the gospel. We stay eager and ready for the second coming of Christ, but I don’t struggle in those two areas in prayer. Where I struggle the worst is thinking that I’m the king. So the most important part of thy kingdom come is you acknowledging that God is the king and God’s plan is better than yours. Sometimes I quote the Lecrae song and it helps me. He says, “I build a throne on my own, so I can put my feet up.” Then he says, “I pray that my kingdom will be overthrown by the sole redeemer.” Now, that’s modern rap, but there’s some good theology there. See, so many times I try to sit on the throne of my own life, and I be in control of it. Why? Because I want to sit back and put my feet up. Think I got it all planned out, all figured out, but I don’t. What I need is God to come into my life and overthrow my kingdom. He overthrows my kingdom by the sole redeemer.

This is what you should mean when you say, “Thy kingdom come.” Not that you want your selfish kingdom to be established, because it’s not good enough. You want God to come in and overthrow your kingdom with his. Now, I finally want to help you, in being able to, just like I did with hallowed be thy name, I want to help you extend your prayer by giving you things to insert when you say, “Your will be done on the earth as it is in heaven.” Step one is becoming okay with his will above yours. Step two, never again just say thy kingdom come and thy will be done on this earth as is in heaven. From now on, insert things there. Well pastor, what can I insert into my life, where I want God’s will to be done. Everything. If there’s areas in your life where you want to control it yourself, and you don’t want God messing with it because you love it so much, you probably don’t need those areas or those things in your life anyway.

Everything in your life could be on the hit list for praying thy will be done on this earth as it is in heaven. Nothing should be off that list. So this part of your prayer can also get long. What I want you to do this week, last week was find a time and a place. This week, is start writing down things that you can say, “Praised be your name about.” Also, start writing a list that you can say I want your will to be done on this earth, in my life, in these areas. That’s going to be a pretty big list, and you’re going to have to cull it down, because on February 4th, we’re going to ask you to bring five things that we can all focus on together. If you have more, I’m not going to kick you out of the church or anything, I’m just saying it’s going to help you if you just have five. But right now, you can practice by bringing these things to God, that you want to see his will accomplished him. I do this all the time, Tammy and I, last year decided that we want to buy some property.

We wanted to move out of town, and buy a little place. So we started looking, and before that we started praying. Why? Because I did not want the land or the house if God didn’t want me to have it.

No way. I knew what my will was. It was pretty clear. I said it all the time. I’m kind of a vocal person. I knew what Tammy’s will was, but I didn’t care about either of those as much as I cared about, “What does God want? Does he care? If he does care, what is it?” So I started praying, thy will be done in this part of my life. I was very specific. I knew that it was important because if we bought it, which we did, it was going to come with some responsibilities. Let me tell you, I’m feeling the responsibilities right now. If you’re my friend, I talk about it all the time. I mean, water pipes are freezing and water pipes are busting. Right? I got heaters going out. All these things are happening. It just kind of comes with land, but I’m able to make it through those things without kicking the dog too much.

And without screaming at the kids too much, because I know that I followed God into that decision. That’s a small example, isn’t it? But there’s many more. I’ve been praying God’s will to be done, throughout, years before and even now, and it’ll be long into the future, throughout this whole building the future initiative. The same thing. I don’t want a building if God doesn’t want us to have a building. Not at all. This place is fantastic. We’ll just stay here, if God doesn’t want it. But it seems clear that he was okay with us having it. So now we’re moving forward in it. You can insert all the things here. Tammy’s writing career we’ve put here. My doctoral dissertation consumed a lot of this space that God’s will be done in it, and to help us accomplish it. On, and on, and on you could go. You could fill this part of your prayer list. You need to do it because God wants you to be specific. As I mention this, there’s another part of it that’s a little deeper. Are you ready for one step deeper? Got time for that? Okay, one step deeper. We’re almost done.

Sometimes you, in this section of your prayer, you do not need to pray thy will be done. You need to pray for the courage to do God’s will that you already know it. Usually these are the areas where you have a sin desire, or a personal lifestyle choice that is not in agreement with what God says. Pastor, what are you talking about? Let me give you an example. If you’re cheating on your spouse, and you’re trying to maintain your prayer life, I’m going to tell you right now it’s going to be hard. Most people don’t maintain a good prayer life, but you’d be surprised at how many people I meet that are in an adulterous sexual relationship inside their marriage, and they talk to me about their prayer life. Let me help you out. You don’t have to pray about that. You don’t have to pray thy will be done, like there’s some kind of choice. Do I stay with her, who I’m cheating on my wife with or do I go back to my wife? The decision’s made. It’s not like God is teetering between one or the other. The bible is very clear. You stay with your wife. What you need to pray for is the courage to do God’s will.

This week, we talked to your children in upward basketball about courage. Here’s what we told them. We said, “Courage is having bravery or being brave, even when you don’t want to, and nobody else wants to do it with you.” We gave them a cute example, like they’re in the lunch room. They have a lunch tray, and their friend drops their lunch tray, and what’s the whole lunchroom doing? Did you see him drop that tray? We don’t want that to be your child. We want your child to say, “Stop it. They’re embarrassed already.” Pick up their tray and partner with them. That took courage because they were willing to be brave when they didn’t want to. Why didn’t they want to? Because no one else was being brave with them.sometimes in your life you don’t need to say thy will be done. You already know his will. What you need to pray for is courage to have the bravery to do his will, even when you don’t want to and no one else around you supports it. Even if you have to do it alone. You say, “Pastor, how do I know what his will is?” Lots of it’s in here.

That’s a bible reading. We’re just two verses in. What a model prayer so far, right? If you would pray this prayer, as a model, I promise that God would help you to find victory in your life. Like General Schwarzkopf though, that this is not a model that you just grab from the text, and put into your life and repeat it. No, General Schwarzkopf had to take that model and apply it to his battle field. You got to take this model and let it live on the battle field that you’re in every day. Which means, specifics need to be throughout this prayer. That if you’ll follow this model, on the battlefield that you’re fighting, God will lead you to a great victory for his glory. That he’s personal. That he’s powerful, and that he wants to hear from you. That he’s worthy of your praise. That his kingdom comes and overthrows yours, and you systematically start praying for his will to be done in every area of your life.