Fresh Fire, Part 2: Pray Right

Type: Sunday Morning Service

Series: Fresh Fire

Sermon: Part 2: Pray Right

🗣️ Speaker: Pastor Tom Van Kempen

Prayer is more than a religious habit; it is a relational conversation with a loving Father who desires closeness, not performance. Jesus teaches that praying rightly requires pure motives, humility, and intentional space to meet with God away from distraction. When prayer becomes relational instead of transactional, it keeps the spiritual fire burning steadily in everyday life.

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Additional Info

The info below was generated by an AI from the audio recording of the sermon.

Praying Right: How to Build a Real Relationship With God

Prayer is woven into the human heart, crossing cultures, generations, and belief systems. People instinctively reach beyond themselves because they know deep down that they were not designed to live alone or self-sufficient. Yet while prayer may be natural, praying rightly is something that must be learned and practiced.

Jesus assumed prayer would be part of daily life, saying “when you pray,” not “if you pray.” The real issue is not whether people pray, but how they pray. Prayer is not about reciting perfect words or repeating memorized phrases. It is about developing an ongoing conversation with God that reflects trust, honesty, and dependence.

Prayer requires the right motives. Jesus warned against praying to impress others or to manipulate God. When prayer becomes a performance, its reward is limited to human approval. When prayer becomes repetition without relationship, it loses its power. God desires sincerity, not spiritual showmanship.

Creating space for prayer is essential. Jesus encouraged withdrawing to a quiet place, shutting out distractions, and meeting privately with God. This is not about a physical location alone, but about intentional focus. A consistent, sacred space helps cultivate attentiveness, clarity, and intimacy with God.

God already knows what people need before they ask, but prayer invites Him into the process. Prayer does not change God’s nature; it changes the heart of the one praying. Over time, prayer aligns desires with God’s will and strengthens spiritual endurance.

The Word ignites faith, worship stirs passion, but prayer sustains the flame. A faithful prayer life fuels spiritual growth, renews perspective, and deepens relationship with God. When prayer becomes relational rather than transactional, the fire burns brighter and steadier through every season of life.

• Discussion Guide

  Use the questions listed below as a launching point to discuss the sermon points together as a family. These are great for dinner table discussions and small groups.

  • What experiences have shaped the way you currently pray?

  • Which warning from Jesus about prayer resonates most with you and why?

  • What distractions most often interfere with your prayer time?

  • How does viewing prayer as relationship change your expectations of it?

  Action step: Choose one specific time and place this week to meet with God daily in uninterrupted prayer.

• Historical Context

  Matthew chapter 6 is part of the Sermon on the Mount, delivered to first-century Jewish listeners who were deeply familiar with public prayer practices. In Jewish culture, prayer often took place in synagogues, homes, and public spaces, sometimes accompanied by fixed prayers recited at set times of day. While these practices were meaningful, they also carried the risk of becoming performative.

  Jesus addressed a religious environment where spiritual leaders were often admired for outward displays of devotion. His teaching challenged the cultural assumption that visibility equaled spirituality. By emphasizing private prayer, Jesus redirected focus from public approval to personal intimacy with God.

  The reference to pagans reflected Gentile religious customs where repetitive chants and lengthy incantations were believed to coerce deities into action. Jesus contrasted this with a revolutionary idea: God is a Father who listens willingly and knows needs before they are spoken. This teaching reshaped prayer from ritual obligation into relational trust.

• Kids Lesson

  Introduction:

  Ask kids if they talk to their parents or friends every day and why. Explain that prayer is how we talk to God because He loves us.

  Scripture:

  Matthew 6:9–13 (read together from the New King James Version).

  Craft:

  Create a “Prayer Place” card where kids draw or write a spot at home where they can pray.

  Game:

  Whisper Relay – kids pass along a message to show how listening carefully matters in communication.

  Discussion questions:

  Who do you like talking to the most?

  Why does God like when we talk to Him?

  Where can you pray?

  Wrap-up prayer:

  “God, thank You for listening to us. Help us remember to talk to You every day. Amen.”

• Full Transcript

  Good morning. I will give the Lord's Prayer a round of applause, all right? I mean, that's a good prayer. Hopefully you know it. More than knowing it by rote, I hope you understand the words behind it and the model that it is for you and I. I also want to say a happy new year to you. If you were not here with us last week, we started the new year with a new series entitled fresh fire. And so when I say fresh, would you say fire? Fresh. Oh, somebody's got the fresh fire. I like it. That's very encouraging. One of my greatest joys in life has been to preach and teach the Word of God. But even more than that, I've enjoyed teaching my children and my grandchildren how to pray. I don't know if you've ever had that privilege or if you've ever tried to show them the way, but it's challenging at times. It's a little exciting. You never know what they're going to do or what they're going to say. And with that, I've got a couple of funnies that children have said when they were praying to God. And here's the first one. Dear God, this is a four-year-old, by the way. Dear God, a friend of mine is going into the hospital today for an autopsy. i won't i won't complete that one because if they went in for an autopsy it's too late for prayer well oh maybe not there are resurrections right the second child says dear god if you give me a genie lamp like aladdin i will give you anything you want except my money or my chess set well he's drawing a line there you know i'm going to keep my money in my chest that's really really important to me number three dear god i i want to be just like my daddy when i get big but not with so much hair on my back i hope my kids didn't pray that prayer no they didn't they didn't this one's kind of cute dear god i think about you sometimes even when i'm not praying that kid is learning the secret to prayer right there that child is beginning to understand that it's not just those those times that you've designate at 7 a.m or 9 p.m. that are times of prayer that you can have God on your mind all the time. Who can say amen? I mean, Paul actually was teaching in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. He said, pray without ceasing. And when I was a kid, I didn't understand that. But as I'm getting older, I'm beginning to understand, oh, I can do this. I can have God at the forefront of my mind. I can think about him in everything that I do throughout the day. And I pray that's something that you have learned to do over the course of your life. As I said last Sunday, we talked about fresh fire. And we're not talking about hype, okay? We're not talking about emotionalism, although our emotions need to be involved when it comes to the fire of the Holy Spirit and the fire in your Christian faith. But I'm talking about a sustained flame that burns in season, out of season, all the time in Jesus' name. Now listen, fire doesn't stay hot by accident. That's what we learned last week. It needs to be fed with fuel. It needs your constant attention. It needs you to be intentional about how you keep this fire going. So today we're going to dive into Matthew chapter 6. And it's smack dab in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. And in this sixth chapter, there's all different kinds of logs that God gives us through Jesus himself. And he communicates to us that there are things that we can do to keep the fire burning on a consistent basis. And in chapter 6, verse 5, specifically listen to what Jesus says. When you pray. Isn't it interesting he doesn't say if you pray? If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, he is assuming, he is banking on the fact that you want to talk with God, who can say amen? That you have a desire to hear what it is that he's saying. And so the issue isn't whether we as Christians pray. The issue is how we pray. Because the Bible actually gives you very clear instructions sometimes. No clearer than what we're about to approach here in Matthew chapter 6 with a little prologue and then an actual model of how we can model our prayers on a regular and consistent basis. So it's not an issue of how we pray. It's if we're praying right. And so today's sermon specifically is entitled Pray Right. Number one is this praying right begins with understanding what prayer really, really is. When I go back to Matthew chapter 6 verse 5 and he says, when you pray, I think Jesus is touching on something even deeper here. And what I mean by that is he's trying to communicate to us that prayer is a natural instinct. That everybody has a desire to pray. That everybody has woven into their spiritual DNA, this desire to connect with someone bigger than ourselves. Across cultures, people pray. Across belief systems, people pray. Across generations, people pray. Now, here in America, it's gotten a little bit less, which really disappoints and discourages me. I remember I have some old sermon notes from 20 and 30 years ago, and back then, like 90% of everybody in America prayed on a regular basis. About 65% of everybody prayed on a daily basis. They just took this survey recently, and it was 61% of the people pray on a regular basis, and only 44% pray on a daily basis. We're going in the wrong direction, and I know why. People feel like God's not listening. People feel like it doesn't work. There's so much atheism built into our culture nowadays that even Christians are failing to take their requests to God. But we need to do it every day. Who can say amen? Deep down inside, we know that we can't do this on our own. Deep down inside, we know we need to connect with something or someone bigger than ourselves. and we need to understand that that person is God himself. Now many in this room probably have learned to pray at their bedside with their mom and dad. Now I lay me down to sleep. Anybody pray that prayer? Yeah, yeah. Hopefully if you're adults, you're still not doing that one. Some of you have learned to pray around the dinner table. Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Anybody learn that one? Okay. Did you know I don't do that one anymore? probably, oh, at least 25 years ago, maybe longer, I made a decision that I am not going to teach my children only rote prayers. Prayers that they memorize and they don't even understand the words behind. So we started introducing at our dinner table when my oldest was about 10 or 12 and our youngest was a newborn, we started introducing every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner was a unique prayer. It didn't have to be long. It didn't have to be theologically sound. I wanted to hear what my kids had to say to God, and I wanted them to hear what their father had to say to God. And through hearing mom and dad pray, they started to learn that prayer isn't a magic incantation. It is a relationship with God who can say amen. And so sometimes you bring some things up and sometimes you bring other things up. Of course, they started getting so good at it that once in a while they'd forget to pray for the food. While we were praying for the food. But that always worked itself out. Some people learn to pray in church. How many of you learn to pray the Lord's Prayer in church? Let me see your hands. So, look at that. I bet you that's 30% of the people learned to pray the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We learned to pray it. But unfortunately for many of us, I was one. It was nothing more than something I memorized. Or something that when I got in trouble, I'd say, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Help me, help me, help me. That's not the purpose of this prayer in the book. And we'll talk more about it. Because here's what's important to understand. Although prayer is natural, praying right is a learned process. You have to learn how to pray right. Because prayer is more than just natural. Prayer is a conversation with the God of the universe who can say amen. So it's a conversation with God. Now that's uniquely challenging in and of itself because we don't naturally speak God's language. I don't think most of us even know what his language really is. I mean, think about it. We're talking about the God who spoke the word into existence by saying, let there be light, and there was light. Let there be a man, and there was a man. Let there be an elephant or however he went about doing that and things just started popping into existence. So this is what I want to know. If you're from Mexico, what language do you typically speak? Spanish, yeah. If you're from France, what do you typically speak? French. If you're from Japan, what do you typically speak? If you're from heaven, what do you speak? Did you say heavenese? Divinities? do you speak God? I mean, it's hard to really wrap your brain around what language does the almighty, all-powerful, all-present God speak? Does he need to speak a language? And the more I study on prayer, the more I realize that communicating with God is like learning a foreign language, not your native language. You have your native language. Everyone has their native language. But when you learn a second language, typically what you do is you get a book maybe. I took Spanish in high school. I took Spanish one, Spanish two, Spanish three, and when I was done, I got an A every single semester. So I knew Spanish when I was done, right? No. And I realized I didn't know it because I went on a missions trip with Robin's dad to Guatemala and I had no clue what they were saying. How can I take three years, six semesters of a language and I'm immersed, are you hearing me, in a culture where they only speak Spanish and I don't know what's going on after one day. I don't know what's going on after five days, but somewhere around day seven or day eight, because I was immersed in this new language culture, all of a sudden I could find the bathroom. All of a sudden I started recognizing words that, yeah, yeah, I had learned from a book. I had learned from a teacher, but now because I was immersed, say immersed, everything started changing. The language started becoming real to me. Two weeks surrounded by this did more than years of classroom did for me. Now, the classroom was important. I needed that foundation. But the immersion is what's made a difference. Prayer works in a similar, listen, but supernatural way. The Bible is our textbook, but it's way different than a language textbook. The Bible is alive and active and sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates through the dividing of soul and joints and marrow and spirit. What am I saying? I'm saying that the Holy Spirit of God will give you special revelation if you read the Bible. Who can say amen? Hallelujah. He gives you special revelation. He gives you directions. He gives you things. Luke chapter 12, 12 says this, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. The Holy Spirit's your teacher. A transformation comes as you immerse yourself in this idea of prayer, in this attitude of prayer, in this lifestyle of prayer. And if you need a great example of how this looks, Look no further than Jesus himself. I mean, have you ever wondered, why would Jesus need to pray? He's the second person of the Trinity, right? I mean, he is God. He should be able to snap his fingers and whatever he wants, it's going to take place. Until you realize that he didn't come as God. He came as a man. So he came literally to give us an example of how you and I should live our lives on a regular basis. And so we find Jesus early in the morning praying. Late at night praying. All alone praying. Again and again you see and read that Jesus is praying over and over and over again. So much so that in Luke chapter 11, the disciples are kind of watching Jesus. It says that they're on a mountainside and Jesus is alone praying, but all of a sudden they just show up. And we don't know how long they were there. We don't know if they were spying. We don't know if they were trying to be quiet and watch. But they noticed something about Jesus. Here's my question. Do you think the disciples had ever prayed before this? Yeah. They prayed. They were Jewish men. They were all taught to pray since they were a kid, just like you and I. Not only that, some of these guys were the disciples of John the Baptist. And John the Baptist was known as this zealous preacher and pastor. He no doubt prayed, and his responsibility as a teacher was to train his disciples to pray. But compared to Jesus, the disciples are looking at him and going, we've never really prayed. Our prayers seem to be missing the mark. Our prayers are not the same as Jesus' prayers. When Jesus prayed, they sensed authority in his words. When Jesus prayed, they sensed intimacy with God. When Jesus prayed, they saw power in his ministry unlike they had ever seen in anyone else's ministry before. And they surmised that this must mean that prayer is making the difference in Jesus' life. And it can make the difference in our life too. So if you've ever felt like one of the disciples, my prayer's missing something. I don't feel confident when I go before God. I need, I want more in my prayer life. It's available in Jesus' name who can say amen. Number two, praying right requires checking our motives. Jesus now, in the rest of verse five, gives us two warnings. Not to make you feel bad. He just wants to make sure that you're praying with the right motives because motives do matter. He doesn't want to make us feel embarrassed or shamed, but he's trying to protect the fire that he started in our lives. And so in Matthew 6, 5, it goes on and says, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. In other words, there are actually people who are more interested in getting man's attention than God's rewards. There are people more interested in impressing other people than contacting the living God. And he's saying, guys, guys, be careful because this kind of prayer focuses on the words themselves. This kind of prayer focuses on how long you go. It focuses on your personal image rather than the God who is your God, your creator, and your father. And the reward is not intimacy with God. It's attention from people. And Jesus says that's all you will get, you won't get what you're asking for. Prayer that feeds pride does not feed the fire. The second warning is pagans pray to manipulate. They pray to manipulate their image of God, whether that's a higher power, whether that's Zeus or Jupiter, whether that's the, you know, the forest spirits or whatever it is. We're going to skip to Matthew chapter 6 verse 7. This is what It says, and when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathens do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. They think that they can pressure their God to give them something if they do it just right. They think that if you have the right incantation, the right magic spell, then God is obligated to do what it is that we say. But that's prayer as repetition. That's prayer as work, not prayer as relationship. And that's what God wants. He's looking for relationship, not for you to try harder. It's not about incantation. It's about conversation. Martin Luther puts it this way. A good prayer must not be too long, but it must be frequent and fervent. Has prayer ever become just a habit to you? And I don't mean that as a disciplined habit. I mean that like brushing your teeth or flossing your teeth. You just want to get it over. You know you got to do it, but you just want to get it over with. Sometimes I will lay on my bed at the end of the day and I'll think, oops, I haven't prayed today. Lord, sorry. Bye. You've done the same thing, haven't you? We throw in that obligatory prayer at the end of the day when we're exhausted and we're like, I hope that does me. We pray at dinner sometimes just because we always have. We pray at bedtime because mama scared us into praying. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, my father taught me this prayer at night. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die, what are you teaching your little three-year-old? that the Lord's going to come and take you in the middle of the night? If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. It's kind of a weird prayer, to be quite honest. I think we should be a little bit more delicate with our three and four-year-olds. In emergencies, because everyone prays in emergencies, right? I mean, and there's nothing wrong with prayers in emergencies unless they're the only prayers you make. There's a song lyric that captures the tension of this moment. And it begins with, I only talk to God when I need a favor. Anybody know the song I'm talking about? Who sings it? Man, some people are thinking about lunch now. They think Jelly Roll's a donut, all right? No, we're not talking about a donut here. We're talking about the singer Jelly Roll. But listen, guys, his song is a modern-day lament. If you were with us this summer when we were talking about the Psalms, one of the type of Psalms is a complaint, a lament, a problem that you're having that you don't know how to solve. And he's realizing that his prayers are both weak and hypocritical, that the only time he goes to God is when he's in an emergency situation. He actually says, I only go to God when I ain't got a prayer. So I might as well try God. I'm not criticizing desperate prayers. God actually answers them many times. I'm just inviting you to a deeper prayer lifestyle. Who can say amen? There's so much more. Prayer is not a crowbar that forces God's hands wide open. Prayer is a doorway into an intimate personal relationship with the creator of the universe. Number three, praying right means creating space for God in your life. To be honest, this is my favorite part of the message. I go back to verse 6 in Matthew chapter 6, and this is what it says. But you, when you pray, go into your room and when you have shut the door, pray to your father who's in the secret place. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. So I started thinking, okay, going into the secret place. So there must be a secret place for God. But the more I read it, the more I understand this isn't about geography. This is about making God a priority in every area of your life. When he says shut the door, he means shutting everything out over the next five minutes, 10 minutes, hour, however long you're going to do this, and only spend that time alone with God. You're not going to let any of the noise, any of the hurry, any of the worries into your mind. Many people think that you have to come to church to pray, but you can pray anywhere, yes, but, listen to this, but the right space oftentimes makes prayer special. What do I mean by the right place? Jesus says, go into your room. The right space removes the distractions, as I already said. For some, that special place is nothing more than a lazy boy chair in the corner of your living room early in the morning. For some of you, it's a walk in nature. Maybe around a lake, into the forest, up a mountain, something like that. For some, it's the peace and quiet of the back porch with a coffee right here and the Word of God right here and you're taking a sip of that warm coffee and you're reading God's love letter to humanity. Jesus set that example, as I said, by always being found in solitary places like deserts and wilderness and mountains and hillsides. I remember somewhere around 20 years ago preaching this concept in my church in Las Vegas. And my mother-in-law was listening, and she told me afterwards, I'm going to make my own prayer closet. And I thought, oh, that's cute. And never asked her anything else about it. Three or four months later, we're over at her house having dinner, and she says, hey, would you like to see my prayer closet? And I was like, oh, sure, sure. What I didn't know is that she had taken all of the suitcases and all of the clothing and all of the boxes and packages that were in that closet underneath the stairwell. You guys know how a lot of houses have a closet under the stairwell? And she'd removed all of that. She'd had the room repainted. She actually had put a prayer rug down. She had candles in there. And as I entered this room, it was as if I sensed the presence of God in there. It wasn't very big. It was just this little space, maybe three feet wide and seven or eight feet long. And I saw my picture up on the wall. And it looked like she'd been praying for me. It looked like some of the pictures had been tear-stained. I saw Robin's picture. I saw Robin's brother's picture up there. I saw all of my my children's pictures up there. On the other side of the wall, I saw missionary after missionary. I mean, this entire wall was filled up with dozens, if not scores of missionary's pictures. There was a journal laying on here where she'd been writing out prayers on behalf of her family and these missionaries and probably different people in the church. And I realized that she wasn't just building a prayer closet. She was building a legacy. last fall when we went back to Las Vegas for her memorial service every one of my children from my oldest to my youngest stood up on the platform and spoke to the legacy of my mother-in-law's prayer life how that it impacted them how that it had encouraged them how that it had inspired them and so I want to ask you a simple question what would change in your house? if there was simply one spot that was holy ground where the only thing that happened there was you and God got together. What would change in your personal life, in your family life, and in your church life if you gave that spot to God? This is what would change. E.M. Bounds said prayer is the contact of the living soul with God. In prayer, God stands to kiss man and to aid in everything that God can devise or man can need. You might say, that's kind of sappy, pastor. Who's going to kiss God? Well, that's not the idea behind his words. He wants you to think of someone that you love so much like your husband or your wife, your spouse, a child. He wants you to think of the deepest human relationship that you have. And I started thinking about Roman and I, or Robin and I. Roman, I guess that's my second wife. I'm not sure. Robin. How long we've been married? Wow. I hope nobody's name is Roman out here. Yeah. I started thinking about the most romantic times that we've had in our lives. And it almost always begins at a restaurant. And when we go to that restaurant and break bread, we live, not steak and shake, no. I go to McDonald's when I get really romantic, just so you know. No. But we break bread together, typically at a French restaurant is what we really enjoy. And there's always romantic music going on. And I started thinking, does that relate to God at all? And the answer is yes. Worship music is the romantic music. It endears our heart towards God. The Bible, as I said earlier, is his love letter. And God doesn't speak sweet nothings into your ears. He speaks sweet somethings through prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. He loves you so much. He wants you to know. what is on his mind. And finding the right space for prayer, it's also kind of like a weekend getaway with God. It's an opportunity to take a vacation from all of the craziness of life, from the worries and the fears and the responsibilities, and even the fact that I try and be God too much. And when I get away with God, I can just say, you know what, I can't handle this. This all belongs to you. I don't want it any longer. It's an opportunity to literally gain the right perspective on your circumstances, on your life, and even on who God is himself, because the right perspective clarifies our focus. Here's the last verse, Matthew 6 verse 8. Therefore do not be like them, the pagans. We don't want to be like pagans. For your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. God knows what you have need before you ask him. And so if you're like most people, then why do we ask? We don't ask to give him information. We ask to get him involved. We want him to be a part of this process. We want to really be a part of his process is what we're trying to do. As a father, I remember my kids trying to do different things, riding bikes and putting things together when they were younger. And I made a decision, I'm not going to do everything for my kids, but I will help when they ask. So some of them were a little bit more stubborn than others. And the stubborn ones would say, I can do it myself. I can do it myself. And they would rather not get it done than ask for help. Does that remind you of anybody in the house right now? The Bible says you have not because you ask not. That's right. Because I'm going to do it myself. No. We need to get God involved in everything we're doing. Prayer is about figuring out these nuances with God. It's about knowing him better. It's about knowing him as father. Prayer doesn't align God to what I want. It aligns me to his will. Father really does know best when we're talking about the heavenly father. And when prayer becomes relational instead of transactional, the fire begins to burn brighter and brighter in our hearts. So finally, prayer is the log that keeps the fire burning. And when I say that, there are other logs. I need you to understand. There's other logs that we're going to put on the fire, but I need to bring you back to this whole concept of fresh fire. The Word ignites the fire. And when I say the Word, I'm talking about Jesus Christ. He gets it started. Worship excites the fire, but prayer keeps the fire burning. Not perfect. When I say right, don't think that there's the perfect way. We will never do that. I'm talking about honesty. I'm talking about sincerity. I'm talking about transparency. I'm not talking about eloquence. I'm not talking about perfection. I'm talking about faithfulness. So over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about service. We're going to be talking about giving, fasting, faith. And prayer is the partner of each and every one of those. It's prayer and fasting Scripture talks about. All of your giving should be surrounded by prayer. Who can say amen? Before you serve the body of Christ, you should prayerfully consider what it is that you're going to do. Your faith, it's relit or kindled by prayer. Without prayer, the fire fades. With prayer, the fire gets stronger and stronger and stronger. So here's my challenge for this week. I pray that you'd commit yourself to praying something simple. Maybe pick out a spot, a secret place, a room. Maybe it's your blue couch, your brown couch. Maybe it is that lazy boy chair I talked about earlier. Maybe it's 7 a.m. every single morning. It doesn't have to be an hour. If it's an hour, more power to you. But if it's five minutes and you haven't been praying five minutes, you'll notice a difference. and do it every single day at 7 a.m., 9 p.m., midnight, whatever your time is and whatever your place is, just make sure that you're alone with God. And do it for one week and see if you might not hear the voice of God just a little bit clearer. If you're thinking, man, I need some more information on prayer, please join us for Wednesday nights. Starting this Wednesday night, we are going to be studying the Lord's Prayer through the beginning of March. It's going to be a deep dive into what the Lord's Prayer really means and how it can make a difference in our lives. And I just want to challenge you to be here. It's called Fresh Fire Learning to Pray. And even if you consider yourself mature in the area of prayer, I guarantee you'll learn something. approach it with humility and God will make it worth your while for being here God wants to make sure that we're not stuck in ruts and that we're ready for what 2026 has for us so I'm going to ask you to stand right now and I want to invite the prayer partners if they're available to come on down and you cannot talk about prayer without praying for people. Amen? And so I'm going to pray for you, and then the worship team is going to lead a couple of courses, one, two, maybe three, depending upon the response. But during that time, I want you to feel free to come forward and have one of these men, one of these ladies pray with you. They want to pray with you. No prayer is too small and nothing is too difficult for God who can say amen. Heavenly Father, we come to you right now in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Lord, that name makes anything possible. Jesus rose from the dead. And if Jesus rose from the dead, that means everything he said in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is true. And all of the statements that are made in the rest of the New Testament are likewise true. And that means there's no situation irrelevant to God because he loves us so much. And there's no situation too difficult for God because he can raise people from the dead. So I pray twofold today. Number one, I just pray that you'd stir up the embers within us. I pray Father God that last week won't be a one time phenomenon. I pray that we don't just come up on stage and get excited about Jesus and forget what happened. But rather Father God I desire that the fire that is lit inside of us will be so real and powerful that it moves us, changes us, transforms us, motivates us, informs us. Father God, I pray that there would be such a fire lit in this congregation that people will start asking questions, what is going on over at Oxford Assembly of God Church? I pray, Father God, that there would be such a revival here that dozens, scores, hundreds, maybe even thousands, if it's your will, Father God, would come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And I pray, Father God, that we would be so filled with the love of Jesus Christ that we would move out from these pews, Father God, and we would start touching this community in a dramatic and powerful way. I pray, Father God, that new ministries would come to mind. I pray, Father God, in the name of Jesus Christ, that we'd be able to partner with others in this community and make a gigantic difference in the name of Jesus Christ. I pray that you'd open up our imaginations to what is possible, rather than only seeing what can't be done because of our limited resources. With you, Father God, nothing is impossible. And cause us, Father, as a people to love, to pray. Cause a hunger to grow inside of us for more of you, more of your word, more of the spirit, more communication, more dialogue, more of God's voice on a regular and consistent basis. And help us, Father God, to shine so bright that your love cannot be denied any longer. I pray this in Jesus' holy and precious name. And together, everybody says, amen.