Sermon Tone Analysis

CONNECTING WITH GOD

THE PRAYER OF CONNECTION

Sunday February 14, 2021

Scripture Reference: Matthew 6:9-13, 2 Chronicles 15:1-5

"Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

10 May your Kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today the food we need, 12 and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

13 And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one Matthew" 6:9-13 (NLT2)

"Then the Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded, 2 and he went out to meet King Asa as he was returning from the battle.

"Listen to me, Asa!" he shouted.

"Listen, all you people of Judah and Benjamin!

The LORD will stay with you as long as you stay with him!

Whenever you seek him, you will find him.

But if you abandon him, he will abandon you. 3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach them, and without the Law to instruct them.

4 But whenever they were in trouble and turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him out, they found him.

5 "During those dark times, it was not safe to travel.

Problems troubled the people of every land." 2 Chronicles 15:1-5 (NLT2)

Intro.

A. Look with me again at V.5 "During those dark times, it was not safe to travel.

Problems troubled the people of every land."

I wonder if that sounds vaguely familiar to you.

To me this sounds an awful lot like the world we are living in today.

There are problems on every hand.

We are still embroiled in COVID pandemic.

We are facing the problems of natural disasters.

There are social and moral problems facing our world, political problems and the list goes on.

1.

Now let's look again at V.1-4 "Then the Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded, 2 and he went out to meet King Asa as he was returning from the battle.

"Listen to me, Asa!" he shouted.

"Listen, all you people of Judah and Benjamin!

The LORD will stay with you as long as you stay with him!

Whenever you seek him, you will find him.

But if you abandon him, he will abandon you. 3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach them, and without the Law to instruct them.

4 But whenever they were in trouble and turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him out, they found him.

Notice what is said in V.4 "whenever they were in trouble and turned to the Lord" This is my prayer for you and for myself.

We need to stop looking to Washington DC or Sacramento, Wall Street, or Dr. Phil or Oprah to solve the problems we are facing in our lives and start putting our trust where it really belongs and that is in GOD ALONE!

I am not suggesting that we abandon Washington or that we ignore the government, but I think it is time we stop looking to these institutions as our ultimate means of support and help.

If the government is going to do us any good whatsoever then it must be because God rules in government and if He does not, then that government can never be the help to us we want it to be and I suggest strongly that He does not rule in our government.

B.

Last week I said to you that our purpose as a church is to connect people with God.

I will tell you this without apology it is our disconnect from God that is the central cause of every ill and problem we and our world are facing today.

Now I know that for some people they will say that I have made the solution to the problems we face far too simplistic, but I will tell you that I believe this with all my heart.

I believe that I will be able to show you through this series of messages that I am going to be sharing with you that this is completely true.

C. Now how do we connect with God?

When I first asked myself this question, I thought the answer might be difficult or complex but then I had a revelation.

Connecting with God is actually very simple.

In fact, I think that I can boil down how to connect with God in just one word.

Do you want to know what that word is?

The word is PRAYER!

1.

Now of course you want to know how I was able to come up with such a simple answer to what I am sure most people believe to be very complicated.

Here is why I believe that prayer is the key to connecting with God.

How is it that a person makes that first connection with God?

Many times, at the end of a message like this I will invite you to pray.

I will invite you to come to God for the very first time in your life, to ask Him to forgive you of your sins and to give you His new life.

How do you do this?

You do this through prayer, so your first connection with God comes through prayer.

Now think with me about the times when after you made this first decision you had a disconnect with God.

The same problem existed there was sin in your life that had caused this separation, or this disconnect.

So once again I invited you to reconnect with God to ask Him to forgive that disobedience in your life and reestablish that relationship.

All of these things happen through prayer.

Then there are the times when we connect with God on behalf of other people.

Maybe those are people who also need God's forgiveness, people in your Oikos or people who need physical healing or have a financial need.

What do we do to try and connect these people with the God whom we believe can meet whatever need it is that they have?

PRAY!

Now I am sure people could say "Well we connect with God through reading the bible or through a Small Group or a Sunday school class or even possibly through a sermon I preach.

My contention is that it is because of prayer that these other means become a way for us to connect with the living God.

2. Let me remind you again of the one thing the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to do and it wasn't how to study the scriptures or how to preach or even how to heal the sick.

They asked Jesus to teach them how to pray and I am convinced that the reason this was their request was because these disciples knew that the power to understand the scriptures and to heal the sick and even raise the dead came through prayer and connecting to our heavenly Father.

D. This is why I have chosen to make The Lord's Prayer the center piece of this sermon series.

Here are two reasons I want to walk through this prayer with you.

1.

This was Jesus' prayer and therefore this is a prayer that I know will be answered.

Don't we all get frustrated with prayers that we have prayed that do not seem to be answered?

Well, if we want to learn to pray prayers that are sure to get answered then don't, we want to look to the example of God's own son when it comes to knowing how to pray?

2. The second reason I want to share this prayer with you is because I also believe that every single issue, we face in this life we live is addressed in this prayer.

Counting today for the next seven weeks we will be looking at what I think are the seven phrases of the Lord's Prayer and what each of those phrases teach us about connecting with God.

Let me give you a very quick overview.

a) The first phrase "Our Father in heaven may your name be kept holy."

This is the Prayer of Connection this will be our focus for today.

Today I want to help us remove the misconceptions that I think many people have about God and these are the things that lead so many to disconnect with God.

b) The second phrase is "May your kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

This we will call The Prayer of Surrender.

Here we are going to discover God's cure for all the confusion we experience in life.

Do you ever ask God, "What is your purpose for my life, what do you want to do with my life?"

God has an answer for you.

c) The third phrase is "Give us today the food we need."

This is the prayer of Dependence.

Here God shows us His antidote for our worries and anxieties in life.

Anybody here want to get rid of some worries and fears about the future?

Well God addresses these things in this prayer.

d) The fourth phrase is "Forgive us our sins."

This is the Prayer of Cleansing.

So many people live lives that are filled with regrets and guilt and resentment.

Here God will show us how to live with a clean and clear conscious.

e) The fifth phrase is "As we have forgiven those who sin against us."

This is the Prayer of Release.

Here we will find God's cure for all the hurts and scars we have experienced in our life.

f) The sixth phrase is "And do not let us yield to temptation but rescue us from the evil one."

This is the Prayer of Deliverance.

Here we will discover God's promise to protect us and give us power over temptation.