The Power of Prayer | Is This Thing On?

The sermon focuses on the transformative necessity of a dedicated, private prayer life. Drawing from a recent youth camp experience characterized by a "spiritual renaissance," the message challenges the congregation to move past cultural distractions and performance-based faith to seek a genuine, unhurried connection with God.

Key Camp Teachings
Erik begins by summarizing the core messages delivered during the recent youth camp, which laid the foundation for the students' spiritual breakthroughs:

• The Chalk Circle (Rodney Smith): A challenge to draw a metaphorical circle around oneself and pray fervently for revival to start exclusively within that circle.
• Discernment (Ralph Garcia): The importance of distinguishing between four distinct voices: God, the enemy, the world, and self. This is achieved through Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and wise counsel.
• The Power of Imagination (Travis): A call to stop surrendering the mind's eye to the enemy and instead use imagination to visualize God and cleanse the mind.
• Making Disciples (Robbie): A reminder that believers cannot lead others where they have not spiritually gone themselves.

Student Testimonies

To demonstrate the practical impact of these teachings, six students shared their personal breakthroughs from the camp:

• Ally: Overcame a strong reluctance to attend camp and experienced a profound sense of God's presence and peace during prayer.
• Carson: Broke free from a draining, performance-based faith and removed digital distractions (like phones) to find pure spiritual freedom.
• Evie: Conquered a lifelong fear of embarrassment and the judgment of others in order to fully surrender and worship openly.
• James: Navigated the fallout of a public mistake, a battle with pneumonia, and profound grief, ultimately finding the overwhelming presence of Jesus.
• Addie: Battled internal divides, anxiety, and shame by using Scripture (Philippians 4, Psalm 139) to renew her mind and silence lies.
• Liam: Transitioned from an inconsistent, wavering relationship with God to stepping up in leadership and finding clear spiritual direction.

The Core Message: Fueling Ministry Through Prayer

Following the testimonies, Erik grounds the message in Luke 10:38-42, using the story of Martha and Mary to illustrate the ultimate goal of prayer.

• The Danger of Distraction: Martha was frantic, working hard to prepare a meal for Jesus, but her busyness left her frustrated, burned out, and resentful. Erik warns against doing things for Jesus while neglecting to spend time with Jesus.
• The "Good Portion": Mary chose the better path by simply sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening. True spiritual peace and effectiveness come from proximity to God, not from frantic service.
• Motivations in Prayer: A healthy prayer life must seek the advancement of God's kingdom rather than personal glory. Erik challenges the congregation to examine if their prayers are focused on building up their own names or honoring God.

"No man is greater than his prayer life." — Leonard Ravenhill (Quoted by Erik Schlick)

The sermon concludes with a call to action: to stop living out of anxiety or a desire for human approval, and instead adopt a posture of stillness, knowing that a public life of faith must be directly fueled by a private life of prayer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:39

I'm tired watching that video. What a good week. What a good week. How faithful is God. It's uh only right that I get to preach on this Sunday, considering I'm the only person on staff that does fantasy soccer and lived in Argentina for a little bit. I will be missing the first half of the World Cup, but it is worth it to celebrate the territory that God has gained and reclaimed in these kids' lives. I get to preach on the power of prayer, and so I kind of got lucky. This is a good one, guys. This is a really good one. And it also has to do with what we covered at camp. We contended for a living, active prayer life at camp, each of these kids, and um, it's not just a catchy slogan on a shirt, pick up a phone. It is that, but it's not just that. We were actually trying to have a conversation with God and try to restore some of these lost practices that we have lost throughout the years. And the first night we were at camp, actually, um, people were praying for me before I went on to preach, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm like, did I just plan a whole high school camp on prayer? Oh no. Well, do kids care? Do kids care about prayer? What is going on? And I was filled with some lies in my head while people were praying for me. They're praying faith-filled prayers, and I'm questioning, like, what did I do? You know, have you ever been? Uh, we've all done this. When we were a kid and you go to like the local high school swimming pool in the summer that's opened up, and you get the courage to go up to the high dive, and then you get up there and you're like, oh no, my legs are shaking, everybody's watching, I have to jump now, right? And that's kind of I had that picture in my head when I was up there getting ready to preach, and they were praying over me. I was thinking, oh no, I have to jump. There's no other plan. I've already told everybody what they're preaching on, we're going for it this week. And uh I felt God say, Do you trust me? Do you trust me? It's like go go to the edge, jump. And then I got to the edge. This is all in my head, obviously, like this image in my head. I get over and and I look down, and it's not the swimming pool. Like the huge swimming pool high school, it's like a little kiddie pool, like an inflatable one. I'm like, God, you gotta be kidding me, right? This is what I'm diving into. And I was believing this lie that the kids didn't have the depth, that the kids didn't care, or that I had to trust God to show up in their prayer life. I didn't have control over this. And so when I dove in my mind, I saw it turn into a well that was deep. And God was faithful. And these kids did have what it takes to go for it, to contend. And so that's just a little bit of honesty of where I was at starting about two Fridays ago, before that, before everything you saw in there. Um and I just want to share really quickly what we contended for at camp so you guys aren't left out, because you're about to hear some testimonies, and it's gonna be amazing. But I want you to know kind of what we covered. Night one, we talked about how we live in a highly advanced futuristic world, but it is spiritually and mentally uh we're actually in a dark age. How we've actually done a lot of things that don't lead to human flourishing. That we, when we look at all the advancements, we aren't flourishing as humans, and we've actually lost some things. A dark age is when you culturally, technology-wise, and scientifically you take a step back. But we were talking at camp about how there's a fourth category, actually. There's a spiritual category that we've lost some ground in. We've lost some ancient ways of communicating with God and talking with him and being in relationship with him. And so that's what we contended for at camp. When I listen to students, their biggest desire and their biggest frustration are actually sourced out of the same thing. I hear students say this all the time. Actually, before I say that, this is when it's talking about their faith journey, and I don't think it's just students. I just think students are a little bit more honest. I think this could be us too sometimes. They'll say things like this: Eric, I want to hear from God. I want to know he's real. I want him to speak to me. That's their biggest desire. I hear this all the time. And then I hear their biggest frustration. It sounds like this: I can't hear him. I feel like he's gone silent on me. Or maybe the most popular one I hear is, Am I the only one not feeling it right now? Right? And these aren't just students that think this, right? This is us too. And so their biggest frustration and their biggest desire are actually sourced from the same thing. They we have an innate desire to hear from our Heavenly Father. And we we decided night one that we were gonna go for almost a spiritual renaissance, right? A revival of sorts. We ended up following the uh evangelist, the British evangelist uh uh Rodney Smith, he suggested this when he was asked, hey, how do you start a revival? Actually, he was asked this. He was born in 1860 and did ministry up until the early 1900s, and that he this is what happened is all these older generations came to him and said, Hey, how do we start a revival? These this generation is lost, they're evil, they're they're they're bad. What do we do? Does that sound familiar? Does it sound that much different? We've we've bought the lie from the enemy to speak death over generations that are younger than us. And this is what he said. This is what he suggested. This is his prayer practice that he suggests for people when they say, How do we start revival? He says, Go home, lock the lock yourself in the room, kneel down in the middle of the floor, grab a piece of chalk and draw a circle around yourself. And there on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival inside that circle. When was the last time we prayed for revival of our own hearts, our own souls? When do we when do we ask that? And these kids asked that night one. And they met a God that answers prayers. They felt revival. Each morning we had a different prayer practice. One was we, you saw it in the video, all these kids in sleeping bags reading scripture, laying on the floor, being washed by scripture. Another one was resting and abiding in worship, right? Another one was walking with God, kind of a return to the garden. They practiced these things to build a prayer life, and it didn't disappoint. Day two, Ralph Garcia, the head pastor of Exeter Radiant, came up and taught us on discernment, discerning different voices. There's four voices that we constantly hear. The voice of God, hopefully we hear that one, the voice of the enemy, the voice of the world, and our own voice. How do we distinguish those things? He gave us three tools. He talked about scripture being the primary way that we hear from God. He challenged us and told us, yeah, everybody would get up if they knew they were gonna have a conversation with God at five in the morning, but they somehow don't open up their Bible at five in the morning. Do we believe that scripture is from God and God breathes? The second thing he said is the Holy Spirit gives the gift of discernment. It's something we can ask for. And then lastly, he talked about community and counsel, people that are in the church that have gone before us, that can give us wise counsel. And it's a very dangerous thing, he said, to believe that the enemy's voice is what the Lord thinks about you. So he challenged us. And then we had the Rileys come up and speak identity over us, how it means what it means to be a son and a daughter of the Most High King, and how everything that we know of God needs to be sourced in our identity that's in him. We had trusted elders and deacons and fathers in the house come up and bless each student. Travis came night three and he preached on the power of our imagination. How God designed our minds, and how we don't just have to forfeit a huge part of ourself to the enemy because he's having a field day up there. He talked about the mind's eye. What we, when we close our eyes and when we pray, what comes into our mind? What pictures, what images? Those pictures and images can motivate us and lead us to decisions that honor God. But not if we forfeit that to the enemy. God desires to use our minds to bring the kingdom of heaven, and the kids got to experience that. Travis just referenced the verse of being baptized, right? With Christ being dead to sin. And many kids that night got to say and look at lust, got to look at the brokenness of their family, got to look at idolatry and greed and say, those things are buried, those things are dead to me now. They got to cleanse their mind. There was a great territory. That sounds like a good night, right? That was a that was a long night of ministry, and it was good. And then we had Robbie come in. And Robbie got to preach on how we are disciples that make disciples. He brilliantly reminded us that we can't lead others where we haven't gone ourselves, and that's not a problem for any of the students there because all week we had been being disciples. And so, right now, I'm gonna invite some friends up. Going to give it up. They're gonna testify. They're gonna testify to some things that got put to death with Christ this week. I can't. They're gonna testify to the life of prayer that they've devoted themselves to and what God said to them. We're gonna have Allie go first because she requested that.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Hi guys. Um let me just start by saying I was not a camp person, nor a public speaker, but somehow here I am. Um, like I said, not a camp person, didn't want to go, never have gone to camp. But um this past year I've been carrying like some burdens, some heaviness, bitterness, like an anger. And like a week before camp, I get a text from Colby, and she's like, you know, Allie, you've been on my heart, and me and Eric talked, and we want you to come to camp. And my first response was actually like, dang it, like I don't want to go to camp, but this is probably the right thing to do. So I ended up sending the registration uh to my mom, and I was like, she's either gonna remember and I'm gonna go, or she's gonna forget and I'm not gonna go. And um, long story short, she remembered. And I went to camp. So fast forward to that, it's night three, and Pastor Travis came up and he gave a message about the power of our imaginations. And afterwards, he was like, hey, if any of you have burdens um and you want to let them go, tonight's your night to get prayer. And I was like, shoot, this is my night. Like, I was scared, but I had to do it. So we're worshiping, and I'm waiting for prayer, and I'm sitting on the floor with my friend, and Pastor Travis starts walking over, and I'm like, What's what's going on here? And he sits by me, and I was like, Whoa, what is what is happening? So then he sits by me and he's like, Can I pray for you? And nervously I was like, Yeah, I know you can pray for me. And he started praying, and he was like, you know, I've seen you compete on the volleyball court, um, I've seen your competitiveness. Like, I just I pray that your identity isn't found in sports, but it's found in Jesus. And like I pray that the pressures of being perfect and being good, like they just would fall off your shoulders, you know. And he started saying, like, I pray that you don't have to feel like you have to earn others' approval and earn their love. And like, I feel like you I don't want you to have to work for attention and have to like seek it, like, seek it in God. And then he said, Um, you know, like, if you make a good play in volleyball or a bad play, like there's someone you look up to in the stands. And he said, But I don't see that. I see you in the stands, and God's on the court, and he's looking up to you, and he's wanting your love, and he's wanting your attention, and he wants your approval, and he's saying, like, look at me, Ali. I'm winning for you, I'm on your team. Like, just look to me and just like just love me. And I I just broke down because I was like, the king of the world wants my attention. Like, what? What? This is crazy. Um, so that was really cool. So then after that, I um I got prayer and I was able to release burdens and bitterness and all the anger I'd been holding, and it just was gone in an instant. God took it. Um, and after that, I went back to worship, and God put an image of me in my head, and it was me reading my Bible. I was reading the story of Hagar, um, the God who sees me. A while ago, I hadn't been feeling seen, and I read it, and I didn't get much out of it when I read it, but then um God was telling me, He's like, I see you, Allie. Like, I see you, I saw you in the room, and I sent the head pastor down to come sit with you and deliver a message meant just for you. Like, I see you. And he he was telling me that he saw me. I just needed patience because he was gonna show me. So, uh, you know, fast forward coming down to camp, like I've just never felt so happy and so joyful. And you know, people were like talking to me, they're like, what happened to you? Like, you just look different, and all I can say, I don't know. Like, it was God. I don't want to change, I don't want to go back to how I used to be. Um for those of you who don't want to go to camp, just do it. Just just go. It's it's good. It was the best experience ever. Um, and yeah, God is God is so good.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Hi, my name is Carson. This is my New Day camp testimony. And at first I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay home, be on my phone, and I didn't really see a point in camp. But before camp, I was living out of performance in a relationship with God, and also was always questioning my salvation based off of like my works. And during this time it was burning me out because also confused on why the relationship felt so like apart. And it's been like that since April. But I always like try to stay consistent with God no matter what. And because it was weird because like everything before when I first followed Jesus was everything was so fast, and I was like hauled out of many things and delivered from many things. So during the silence it kind of left me no hope. And I was falling into sin patterns and falling back into worldly secular things, and my mind was full of impurity and constant warfare that like almost made me go back to like the way I used to live. But I always stayed consistent. So when camp was around the corner, I was invited onto the prayer tent team, which kept me staying after church longer after services, and that was like I really loved that part because it kept me with the community. And when it was camp, I felt a sense of spiritual freedom because they took our phones, and that was like my phone was a major distraction, just kind of weird because like got it right here. Um yeah, I just felt like a spiritual freedom, and I was just living off of the joy, pure joy of the Spirit of God, and living off the fruits of the Spirit. And doing all these sessions of worship and prayer really brought me a new idea of like relationship with God and how it's supposed to be. The idea that I don't have to keep performing, but that I just have to love God. And during a session, I willingly got on my knees in worship and closed my eyes. And during this time, I saw the feet of Jesus like on his throne, and that's all I saw. But I was like, it just made me want to go harder and worship, and it was full of like glory, holiness, and fulfillment in my heart that made me want to worship more. And it was just brought me a full thing of happiness. And now that camp is over, it brought me a renewing to my mind of how a relationship with God should be. And the chains of thoughts of impurity and perversion are broken off in me. And I don't fear, I don't feel pressured to work my way to God because God revealed to me the lie that I was living into. You cannot work to God. It's about how you, it's about um, it's not about what you do or can do, it's about what Jesus did for us on the cross. Now I know the love for God is what I need, and the works will follow after that. Overall, God lit a new fire in my heart and an idea that is forging our relationship. That's my testimony. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Hi, my name's Evie. Um so my whole life I've dealt with like a lot of embarrassment that's kept me from doing so many things that I've wanted to do. I was late to school like every day in middle school because I was embarrassed to get out the door. I was embarrassed about the way that I looked. And forever I just had wanted to just like bow down before Jesus and give everything to him. But there was still like embarrassment that had a chokehold on me that that was stuck between me and doing that. And I was finally able to just like give everything to him and just like lay at his feet. And um, I felt so close to him because he's so much bigger than any fear or any anxiety or any embarrassment or any insecurity. He's so much bigger than all of those things. Um, and in that moment I felt so free from any embarrassment. Um, I put him above everything else. Don't be embarrassed about God. Put him above everything else because he's greater than all of those things. And since camp, I felt so relieved from that stress and just completely in love with Jesus. I don't feel a bit embarrassed about the way that I look, and I feel so blessed because I know I have an amazing gun who is worthy of all praise.

SPEAKER_06 19:50

Okay. Um, I just want to start off with um sharing, like this week leading up to this, I was honestly terrified about speaking about this, but through my encouragement from Eric and my friends, that I'm honestly glad I'm up here. So, yeah. Hi, my name is James Gagnon, and I just recently graduated high school, and this last year has been pretty hard. So, um, as many of you have probably seen, I was involved in a mistake that hurt a lot of people and was spread across the internet. Um what's it called? And I'm I'm sure you heard the saying that hurt people, hurt people, so and that couldn't have been more than true. But I was told by countless people that I was a horrible person and Christian, that I had no future, and that it'd be better off if I was dead. Um on the outside I stayed strong and acted like I didn't really care, but on the inside it honestly I started to believe it. On top of this, a week later I developed uh sickness, pneumonia, which shut down half of my lung. So um all the work that I've been putting in for track, because I'm a I'm a big track guy, like that's my life, like I love that. Um all the work I've been putting in that year was just it was pretty much reduced to zero. I had to start over, and it it took away more than half of my season, my senior season. So yeah, honestly, I thought this was rock bottom, but you know, it just keeps going down. But yeah. Um like a week later, we received the my family received the news that um one of our my sister's best friend and someone that was like a sister to me had passed away. So um this honestly broke me. Um I turned bitter and angry. I heard my heart to God and honestly I ran away from him. Um I stopped going to church, I stopped going to youth group. Even like the Christian videos that I saw on my phone, I would skip them just because I didn't want to hear it. But um when Camp came around, uh I honestly just went because I'd already paid for it and and well it was my friends and it's the Malons and I love the Malons, so you know, week in the Mountains, but uh Yeah. When the first worship session started, I just felt this overwhelming presence of the Lord. And I had never felt that before. It was just so powerful. Every night I'd just dropping to my knees and just bawling my eyes out because I felt like the prodigal son. I felt like just Jesus was there. I was returning to him, and he was just holding me in his arms. At that moment, I that was the best I felt all year. I remember thinking to myself, because like running is something that I'd always put above like Christ and church and everything. I remember thinking to myself that I would give this, I would give running up in a heartbeat just to feel like this. So that was really powerful for me. Um when the the first night when Eric, it was kind of weird. It was a little weird, but he made us draw a circle around ourselves, and I just remember sitting there and asking, praying God for revival, and I remember looking up at the stars, and I saw all this darkness and just one star. And I felt like that was like all the darkness in my life. And the one star was just Jesus reaching down. And it that honestly stuck with me so much. So coming back from camp, I mean, I've already been faced with struggles like many of us are, like our phones and everything, but coming back, I just I'm I'm more renewed and more confident that no matter how lost I get in life, or how many times I mess up, or how life hard how hard life can become, I know that God is always there waiting for me with open arms, and He's just He's there whenever I need Him, just right by my side. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Hi guys, I'm Addy Riley, and this is my camp testimony. Yeah, so before camp, um, I was like living with these two different parts of my mind. Um on one hand, I could hear from God, lead worship, do ministry, um, but there was these nagging lies in the back of my head that always lingered. Um I felt stuck in anxiety and shame, and I was believing that I was crazy and no one could understand me, and yeah, I was just like stuck in myself and I couldn't share my thoughts or what was going on with me. Um this looked like in all my relationships I would put up walls and struggle to get close with people and share what was going on. Yeah, I felt super distant from God and I didn't have faith that my life or my mind could change. Um, the enemy was, yeah, just keeping me stuck inside myself and quiet. Um and then during camp, at the start of camp, my counselor Ashley, she wrote me a card saying how she was praying that God would remove all anxiety from my life and would be my peace. And she wrote Philippians 4, verse 5 through 7. One morning we had a quiet time, like Eric talked about, so I decided to read the Philippians chapter. Um, God began to show me what it would look like to renew my mind and dwell on what's good, pure, true, lovely, etc. After doing that, I flipped to Psalm 139, which goes like, You search me, you know me, you understand all my thoughts, and you know all my ways. God pulled back some of the lies that were in my mind that I had been ignoring and pushing to the side for some time. That same night, Travis came and preached on renewing our mind, and literally used the exact same passages and verses that I had read that morning, Philippians 4 and Psalms 139, and it was just like a confirmation that that was for me, and Jesus was preparing my heart. Then my mom came up and shared a story from Mark V about a demon-possessed man who was stuck in caves, he was harming himself, and he was completely out of his mind. Um, Jesus came and completely saved him and clothed him. My mom challenged us that there's no mind that's too far gone for Jesus. Um, God really showed me through that story in scripture that I don't have to live with an anxious mind or these lies anymore. So I went up to Ashley during the ministry time and I got prayer, and I confessed these lies that I had agreed with. We broke off the lies that no one can understand me. I can't share what's going on in my heart and mind, and I'm always gonna live in shame and anxiety. I felt like a physical weight come off me, and my mind was like finally peaceful and cleansed. Um, yeah, the rest of the week I was able to worship with so much freedom. I was able to pray for people, hear God, and just like openly share what God was doing in my life without believing I was unworthy or unwanted. Um, yeah, God brought me to a whole new level of freedom in my mind and showed me that I really can take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. After camp, um, yeah, so in previous camps, coming down the mountain was super scary. I was like, how am I gonna apply this to my life? Was that real? Yeah, just kind of those lies. And um, it felt so easy to slip back into old ways of talking and thinking and living. But this time coming down the mountain was like so exciting. I was like, oh my gosh, God, what are you gonna do next? Um, we had a call to discipleship, and that was just super empowering. Like, I'm so excited for discipleship and ministry to play out in my life and in my friend group. Um, yeah, so I've been praying for a long time for a deep kind of connection rooted in faith, and God is answering my prayers left and right. My cabin group went to coffee the morning after we got back, and we shared our camp testimonies. We cried together, we shared advice and just had a real and deep connection. Rather than it being a burden or struggle to share my mind, it was so easy and just brought joy to my life. I was like, this is what I want to be doing all the time. Um, I felt so encouraged and excited to continue sharing what God was doing in my life and not letting the enemy trap me in lies because anxiety is not my portion, joy and peace are.

SPEAKER_05 28:54

Hi guys, my name is Liam Black. Alright, so I just kind of wanted to start it off by uh going back a year. So last year I kind of started off New Day with a relationship with God, but it wasn't um very consistent. Like after camp, it kind of was like a camp high, and I kind of was like lost some connection with God. Um so this year I went into camp wanting to connect with him and hear from him on like a deeper level. Um so throughout camp I felt that God not only spoke to me but also was using me to speak to other people and pray over them. He gave me the confidence and boldness to go out and speak over people even when like I didn't want to, and I felt embarrassed about it. Um and I feel like because of these experiences, he's kind of given me the right mindset and strength to like continue doing his work. Um so also before this year at camp, uh God kind of put like a vision and calling on my heart to be a light of Mount Whitney because I'm transferring there this year from CBC. Um so during camp, I prayed with some people like Levi Young, and he uh kind of shared the same vision that I had. And once yeah, so yeah, so we kind of just like we're able to pray over uh over our time and like the the coming year. So that was a really powerful moment, and it kind of felt that God was like guiding us and like leading our leading our journey. And uh I feel like he's really gonna equip us to uh evangelize and change the culture of my Whitney. Yeah, so I'm excited to see his plans again.

SPEAKER_04 30:28

Give it up for one more time. There is a story that's similar to that, to each kid that went to camp. We didn't just have to cherry pick five. Like we we have we had 180 people go up to camp, and every student was able to hear from their Heavenly Father. They all have a story that either mirrors or lives out truth, very similar to that. Man, that's good. Um I'm glad that I get to share testimonies with you guys, and then I also am glad to be able to share some scripture with you guys as well. We had David Jansen share about the power of scripture and story and uh having the doctrine and the testifying, and we want to do that this morning as well. So I'm gonna share a little bit. I don't, I feel like I don't even need to because that was so good, but I'm gonna I'm gonna share and I'm really excited. I I want to convince each of you that you guys need a move of God in your prayer life. I think you're probably already convinced of it, but I would like to make an argument for it still based out of scripture. And I want to go to a scripture that you guys probably don't think has to do with prayer, but by the end, maybe there'll be some things we can dig up that I can convince you of. I want to go to the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10. If you have a Bible, go ahead and open up to Luke chapter 10 towards the end. I love this story. This is a good one. This is actually part, this and Luke 11 is actually what we would call maybe the foundation, the groundwork for why we decided to go for a prayer life at camp. Why we decided to go for it. Verse 38. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came across, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened up her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the feet of the Lord listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations she had made. She came to him and said, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. Martha Martha, the Lord said. This isn't, just if you didn't know, this isn't a situation where it's a middle and a first and middle name. Like I grew up to Eric David, and you know you're in trouble. This is a Martha Martha, this first name, this is different, okay? This is Jesus showing love and correction and truth, not just the correction, okay? So he says, Martha, Martha, like poor Martha, what you aren't getting it. Let me speak to you real quick. You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. So Martha is running around frantic and busy. You might have heard these kids talk about how they are frantic and busy and distracted on their phones. Maybe we're the same. I don't know if this, man, that feels pretty relatable, right? She's trying to do a bunch of things for Jesus. Have you been doing so much for Jesus? Recently, have you been looking around at church and saying, look at all these freeloaders around here? Look at all these freeloaders. That's what Martha's saying, right here. You see, Martha's working super hard to prepare a meal for Jesus. In some translations, it says that Mary chose the good portion. Talking about almost like a meal that they would be having. Mary chose the good portion. It says, and it will not be taken away from her. See, the difference between Martha and Mary is this. Martha is running around trying to create a meal for Jesus, and Mary understands that Jesus is that meal. He is the bread of life. She understands, she sees, she knows. Jesus doesn't correct and say, Martha, you fool. He just says, No, Mary has chosen the good portion. And I don't know about you, but if this doesn't give you, if this doesn't represent your prayer life, like it represents my prayer life, very much so. And all of my life. Aren't you gonna say something? Aren't you gonna do something, Jesus? That's what Martha says. She's working, she's preparing, she's doing all this stuff, and then she says, Jesus, don't you care? Sometimes I get to the end of a day, and then I tell Jesus, did you care, Jesus? And she's like, You don't get it, Eric. You're not getting it. And you might be struggling saying, How is this about prayer? Well, Jesus was physically on the earth at this point, right? But he is not now, if you didn't know. He is seated at the right hand of God. And when we go to prayer, it's like us getting to the feet of Jesus, like Mary did. So I think this has to do with our prayer life. And I would encourage you to look at Mary's response. This is what Mary does. She turns and she lives out, lives out Psalm 46, 10. This is a good one. I like this one. It's really short and simple, helps me understand. Be still and know that I am God. That's what Mary does when she gets to the feet of Jesus. And science shows this. Science is catching up to the wisdom of Scripture. It's beautiful. It shows that when we slow our minds and we slow our bodies, we are able to comprehend and learn deeper truths and hold on to them. We don't go into a fight or flight, we leave that and we get to receive peace when we sit and be still. And we listen to Jesus and we know that I am God. That's what it says. I know. It's a knowing. We sit and slow down, and then we get to know things about God when we get still. Have you ever gotten still and it gets really loud somehow? Like you'd be in a loud room, well, it's worship, and then everything goes quiet, and you're like, wow, this is really deafening in here, right? And that's where that discernment that Ralph talked about happens. That's where we can meet meet, we can meet Jesus in that moment. And so I want us to focus on the very last thing that Jesus says in this. He says, Mary has chosen the good portion, the better way, and it will not be taken away from her. Do we believe that? Church, do we believe that what we have with God, our prayer life, our history with God, will not be taken away? It's promised right here. Do we believe it? I'm convinced. They're convinced. Did you hear these stories? They're gonna be holding on to these truths. Right after this, Jesus models, just in case his disciples didn't see it. They saw Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, being still listening. Then Jesus turns and goes and prays to his father and does the same thing. He models it again, and then light bulb goes off for the disciples. And the disciples had seen Jesus do amazing things. They'd seen him heal people, do miracles, feed 5,000. And what did they ask him? Teach us to pray. They wanted what happened when Jesus knelt down and closed his eyes to be the same thing that happened for them. That's what they wanted most. They wanted to know how to pray to the Heavenly Father to spend quality time because they knew that was the good portion that would not be taken away. The disciples realized something really important. Jesus' public ministry was directly fueled by his private prayer life. Do we hear that? Martha was frantic doing all these things. She was not fueled for a ministry. She was not fueled to give a good portion of Jesus. She crashed out halfway through. Leonard Ravenhill, this is the second British evangelist. This is crazy. Look at them. These are all from a long time ago, though. So here we go. When he was asked about a prayer life and living as a believer and having a Christian life, he says this no man is greater than his prayer life. We can fool people, we can wow people, but what happens when we close our eyes and open our mouths, that's the lintness test for the reality that cannot be manipulated or faked. You know those people that spend a lot of time with God? You can hear it. You can hear it. So Luke 11. This is how Jesus responds. This is different than Matthew, the Matthew version. It's a little bit shorter. Okay? But this is how Jesus responds when they ask, teach us to pray. When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us today your daily bread, and forgive us our sins. For we for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And let us not be tempted. Some of you, like I said, might be familiar with a little bit longer version of this, but I want to point out a few things. You might be saying, okay, I get it. The great portion, the good portion won't be taken away. But I'm not hearing it. I'm not hearing from God. Why are my prayers not being answered? And I want to suggest a few things that Jesus actually points out exactly why we won't be hearing from him or his father in these verses. These are like guide rails to make sure we don't pray incorrectly. And I think we live in a culture that says, oh, there's no right way to pray. You don't think there's a right way to approach the heavenly father? I don't know if you've been listening to too many podcasts that are off rails. There is a right way to approach the Lord. Surely there's a right way. The first part says, Hallow be your name, your kingdom come. Not our kingdom, his kingdom. And we have a reverence for his name. Do we have a reverence for our own name? Do we have pride built up? Are we praying to get things for our own name to be great? Are we praying for his kingdom to be built up or our own kingdom to be built up? I've wasted a lot of prayers hoping that my name would be made great and my kingdom would be very thriving. I've wasted a lot of prayers because we know that the Heavenly Father doesn't listen to those ones. James chapter 4, 3 says, You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend on your own passions. Let's go to verse 4. It says, Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sinned against us. Is there relational friction? Do we have unforgiveness built up? A testimony was about unforgiveness. When that unforgiveness was confessed, surprise, breakthrough, hearing from God. The reason why unforgiveness is so powerful and strong is because what we're doing is we're saying, oh, I know that it says that Jesus sits on the right hand of God and he's the judge, but you know what? I think I'm pretty good at judging people. I don't think I want to forgive that person. How about I just, how about I take that spot? It's a dangerous place to be. He's letting us know, do not do that. Forgive quickly so that my prayers aren't hindered or taken away from you. It continues in verse 4: lead us not into temptation. Jesus instructs us to pray daily for holiness and desire to be protected from sin. Psalm 66, 18 says this. If we have cherished sin in our hearts, the Lord will not listen. If we have cherished sin in our heart, the Lord would not have listened. Those are the first three things. Pride, self-ambition, relational friction, unforgiveness, and temptation. The fourth one we have to read a little bit further to this parable. I don't know why, but it's so much smaller on here. The words are so much smaller for this scripture. I'm not sure why. Alright, here we go. Then Jesus said to them, Suppose a friend, you have a friend, and he goes and you go to him at midnight and say, Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. A friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him. And suppose the one inside answers, Don't bother me, the door is already locked, and my children are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you bread because of friendship, yet because of shameless audacity, he will. He will surely get up and give you what you need. So I t so I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock, and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, the door will be opened. It goes on to talk about how even if we're wicked, are wicked as human and fathers on earth. We know how to give good gifts. How much more does God? And then this next one is the struggle of doubting God's character and not being persistent. Shameless audacity. We like to read all the scriptures about Jesus knocking on the door of our heart. Oh, it makes me feel so good. I'm so loved. Jesus knocking at my door, and I'll just open it up for him. What does this say? We're knocking at the door, asking God, asking for provision. He says, He's not gonna do it out of friendship. Why wouldn't he do it out of friendship? That sounds so weird. He knows it's good for us to not answer the door right away. It builds faith. It shows that we actually believe in his character, right? Are we willing to keep knocking? Keep contending. Can I have the worship team come on up? Whoever's on the worship team? Not the full thing. Okay, I lied, there's a fifth one. Sorry. And I hope this doesn't feel like, man, Eric's really talking down at me. I I don't want that. I'm preaching in my own heart right now. But I want what these kids have for you. Desperately. So how do we access the power of prayer? How? Well, there's a those four things that are stopping us, right, that we talked about. But there's still one more thing. And it's the last verse. Verse 11, or verse, chapter 11, 13, it says, How much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? The ultimate reason you do not have the power of prayer in your life, you're not asking. These kids, night one, asked for revival in their hearts. These kids continued to ask, continued to knock at the door every night. They had breakthrough of night one, they wanted more breakthrough night two. They were shamelessly going for it. Has our pride got in the way for going for it? Have we become cynical? And I have the ultimate prayer team for you. I've assembled it. They've had a week of training. You're welcome. And two by two, they're about to go out. And I pray, you will humble yourselves to receive prayer. They're not even gonna ask if you want prayer, honestly. They're just gonna come up and pray for you. So be ready. And they're they're they're qualified. Why are they qualified? Not because they ran around and made themselves busy, because they got to the feet of Jesus, they've received a good portion and it will not be taken away. And they can they can bring this to you today with the power of the Spirit. So ask. Ask and you will receive. If you need to repent and confess, I've confessed to high schoolers, it's really weird, but it's awesome. Okay? They will have a good word for you, they will lead you through repentance, and you will have an opportunity to receive boldly this morning. And so, would our prayer team stand? Would you find your prayer buddy? And as we go into worship, I invite you to stand and be in a posture of receiving. After you've received some prayer, there's gonna be some people up here that are gonna be that got baptized, and we want to bless them as well. And so after you've received, come and bless as well.