The Bryce Crawford Podcast - The Power Of Prayer (EP 47)

Starting point is 00:00:00 What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford podcast. I'm Bryce and in today's episode by the title of the podcast, you know, we're talking about prayer. What is prayer? Why should we pray? What does the Bible say about prayer? We are going to jump right into it. What is prayer?

Starting point is 00:00:16 Well, prayer is communicating with God. We get to communicate with the eternal God of the universe. God is, sorry, I got to keep it going. You can keep it going, but I'll just start it over. I was like belching and it was like distracting me. What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford podcast. I'm Bryson.

Starting point is 00:00:40 In today's episode by the title of the podcast, we're going to talk about prayer. What is prayer? What does the Bible say about prayer? Why should we as Christians pray? Let's get right into it. Well, what is prayer exactly? Prayer is communication with God.

Starting point is 00:00:54 God, the eternal being of the universe, the one who created us, the one who put breath inside of our lungs. We get to communicate with him. And I was thinking about that in the shower the other day. I was like, man, God sits on a throne of unapproachable light, where even the angels have to cover themselves with their wings to cry out how holy God is. That kind of God, that same God, is the one that we can talk to on a regular basis.

Starting point is 00:01:18 The one that we have access to. That is powerful. And the Bible gives a rough outline, well, in detail, but I'm going to give you a rough outline of what the Bible says about prayer. And then we're going to dive into why we should pray and what scripture says about prayer. But the first thing that we see about prayer in the Bible is that we should enter his courts with praise and Thanksgiving. The thing today in today's society is we like to rub God like a genie in a bottle and say, all right, God, here's what I want and I'll respond to you when you get back to me with all my wishless answered.

Starting point is 00:01:46 And that's not what God is. We want to enter his courts with praise and Thanksgiving saying, God, thank you for who you are. Thank you for your character. Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross and thank you for resurrecting and defeating deaths so that we have hope in you and unisoned in relationship with you. God, thank you for your word. that is nourishment to my soul, my spirit. Like that is the kind of praise and Thanksgiving that we need to enter into his courts with. That is the blueprint for prayer.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Man, enter his courts with praise and Thanksgiving. And then there's two calls to action of what we should ask God. We should make our requests known to him and we should confess our sins to God. Now, why would we tell God our requests and why would we confess our sins to an all-knowing God if he knows what we're going to ask for and if he knows the sins that we've committed? well it deepens and creates depth and builds a deep heart connection with God. The Bible says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us. You know how much humility you have to have in the bones of your body to come before an eternal being who knows the mistakes that you've made before you've made them humbly to confess that you've done them? That takes humility.

Starting point is 00:02:51 You know how much humility it takes in your bones to approach an eternal being who doesn't owe us anything with respect. requests for our own lives. It takes humility and it builds depth. It builds friendship and relationship with God. That's what God is calling us to. But we're going to dive into like that more structure and the depths of it later. But I've got about eight to ten reasons on why I believe Christians today should pray and what the Bible says about prayer. And I think the number one reason why we should pray is because God calls us to pray. And Philippians 4, He calls us to pray in every situation. And 1st Thessalonians 5, he calls us to pray without ceasing. And in Luke 18, he tells us to pray without giving up.

Starting point is 00:03:31 So God calls us into a lifestyle of prayer to pray in every situation in the good and the bad, in the ugly, in the temptation. When it's hard to love, when it's hard to forgive, he asks us to pray in every situation. And then he asks us to pray without ceasing and without giving up. Because nowadays, we live in a society that likes to give up on things when we don't give it, when we don't get it immediately. We live in an immediate gratification generation and a popcorn generation. We want to throw it in the microwave, 30 seconds, boom, we get it.

Starting point is 00:03:56 if we don't get what we want instantaneously, we throw it to the curb and we go to something else that will give us what we want instantaneously. But no, God's timing is perfect. And Proverbs says it's the glory of God to conceal things, but it's the honor of kings to search it out. Where's our heart posture? Are we hungry to seek God, seek his presence, and make our request known to him and give him praise and Thanksgiving? God is calling us to communicate with him, not because he's forcing us to, but because he wants relationship with us. God wants us to pray with him because he wants to talk to us. He wants to spend time with us.

Starting point is 00:04:28 The veil is torn. We have access to God. He wants to communicate with us. He wants us to talk to him. He wants us to long for it. And I think that's the beauty of prayer. It's prayer is initiated through man. And so that shows the hunger we have to meet with God.

Starting point is 00:04:44 And right behind God calling us into a lifestyle of prayer is Jesus prioritizing prayer. I mean, you see this in Mark 1, but you see this. see it many times in the gospels that Jesus is running away from the crowds more so than he is running to the crowds. And so Jesus provides this emphasis of solitude with God, alone time with God. So if Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man and he is showing us, he became the example for all of mankind how to live life, and he is showing us how important alone time with God is, what does that mean for the Christian today. Why is prayer on the back burner of our lives? And I remember growing up, there was this phrase, people always said, prayer should not be the spare tire. Prayer should be

Starting point is 00:05:32 the steering wheel. And I always thought that was so funny, but it's true. Why are we living our lives as if prayer is just the med kit? You know, why is it the first aid kit where if there's an accident, we call upon prayer because we need it in the moment. No, like prayer should be a crucial part of our lives. Prayer isn't the first aid kit. We don't want to just use prayer when we quote unquote need it when life gets messy when there's an accident. No, we want to call upon the name of the Lord in every situation like Philippians 4 says, the good and the bad end temptation. We want to call upon him. Through prayer, God also rewards us. It says that the Father gives good gifts to those who seek him out, search him out in Matthew 7. And I truly believe that one of the major gifts that

Starting point is 00:06:17 we get from prayer is that it changes our heart and what we ask for because I know as a human being, I have selfish desires and a selfish nature. And as I pray more, God is going to shift my heart in what I pray for. And that aligns with the same thing. God uses our prayer to accomplish his will. We have selfish desires. But if he is changing our heart, God is rewarding us with the gift of changing our heart, then we start to pray for things that align with his will. And we need to, we need prayer that is going to long for they give her more than his generous gifts so that it will move his heart and move our heart to ask what is best for our lives through him. We need that gift of prayer so that we can come before him and say, hey God, I just want to do your will. What is best for my life? That is a good

Starting point is 00:07:03 gift that we get from prayer is aligning our desires with his. Prayer also strengthens us from temptation. In Matthew 26, Jesus tells the disciples, watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation when he's in the Garden of Gassimony within. So there's a call to Christians today. When faced with temptation, pray. Pray. Because there are a moment when you're going to be in temptation and you're not going to have your Bible next to you when you pray.

Starting point is 00:07:31 And for those of us that don't have scripture memorized just yet, because I'm believing the best. You guys are going to start memorizing scripture. But when you don't have too much scripture memorized, pray. Pray. God is calling us to a lifestyle of prayer. When in temptation, pray when temptation strikes pray because temptation does not have to overcome you there is always a back door out through temptation it's not oh well if the apples there i have to bite it because it's there no that's not true temptation can be overcome through prayer prayer is powerful and effective james five sixteen through seventeen says the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much we can see the gates of hell destroyed through righteous prayer

Starting point is 00:08:15 through a pure heart posture of prayer, we can see the kingdom of heaven, plunder the gates of hell, plunder the schemes of the enemy. Do you have the faith to go home into your room and pray in secret? Pray for those hearts who don't know Jesus. Pray for family members who don't know Jesus. Prayer is powerful and effective. You would be shocked at how much prayer not only moves the heart of God, but will change things in your circumstances and situations. Prayer gives us. God the glory. When we pray to God and he answers our prayer, it points the glory back to God because he's the reason the prayer is answered. When we pray, we are relying on something other than ourselves. We are relying on the creator of the universe. And when he pulls through it's the buzzer

Starting point is 00:09:01 beater and answers your prayer, the glory goes to him because he is the reason for the answer. So when we pray, it gives him glory because we are relying on him through communication. But when he answers, man. The answer is a reason to give him more praise. And let me tell you something, because he delivers us from our problems, he delivers us from our sin, and a lot of you brothers and sisters out there be acting like Old Testament Israel, where God will deliver you from your sin and your exile, will deliver you from your situation, and you go back and worship and worship all the sin that God just delivered you from. And the whole reason we read the Old Testament and see Israel Israel being a knucklehead and seeing the stupid decision that they're making so that we can learn from

Starting point is 00:09:42 them. But a lot of you brothers and sisters out there like to act like Old Testament Israel. Stop being like Old Testament Israel. Stop letting God set you free from things in your life that you're begging him to and then you immediately go back to worshiping them months later just because you don't feel him or oh, he's taken too long. Like man, God used Moses to set the exiles free from Egypt, set the Israelites free from Egypt. As they're leaving Egypt, God let the Israelites loot Egypt. They take a bunch of gold. Then they get free. When most of the Israelites, Moses goes up on the mountain to meet God. They thought Moses was taken too long.

Starting point is 00:10:16 So they went to Aaron and they used the same gold that God blessed them with in Egypt as they were leaving to create a false God to worship. So there is a call for believers to keep praying, press in and give him the glory. We got to stop abusing this thing of like, oh man, we got what we want and now we're going to just go back to worshiping sin. No, that is an unrepentant sin. And the Bible says if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. cut it off. There's a call to unrepentant sin to cut it out of our lives. Prayer helps us receive and give forgiveness. In the Lord's Prayer, which we're going to read that at the end of this podcast, it says,

Starting point is 00:10:52 forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us. Or in another translation, it says, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who've sin against us. Receiving the forgiveness of God actually strengthens us to forgive other people. when we have been forgiven of our sins and we have been put into perspective of how wicked we are, how undeserving we are of forgiveness and God is free to forgive us. It strengthens us to forgive people.

Starting point is 00:11:21 It strengthens us too. I have this written down as well. Prayer reveals the sufficiency of God's grace. In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes pleading that God deliver him from the thorn in his flesh and God's response to Paul was his sufficient grace, meaning that when we are praying as people and as Christians, when we are praying to be released from any sort of suffering,

Starting point is 00:11:48 we can rest in the fact that his power will be made perfect in our weakness. That our prayer, we need to pray that our suffering in the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our suffering, we need to pray that we will run far from self-reliance and deep, into his grace, that we will rely on his grace in the midst of our struggles and that his power will strengthen us in our weakness. And the last point I want to make before we read this passage on prayer is that prayer keeps us in a posture of gratitude. Did you know that gratitude is the number one weapon against sin? Because number one, you can't be anxious and grateful at the same time. But number two,

Starting point is 00:12:30 when you're grateful about things, you have a deeper appreciation for them. You see the depth and the order and the strength it took that received those things from God. But when you're grateful for your circumstance and grateful for your situation, you can be content and satisfied with where you are. And when you're not grateful in your situation and you're not practicing gratitude, those cracks and slips, ungratefulness is the foothold for sin. Because then when we become ungrateful, then it's like, oh, the reason that you cheated on your wife was because you were ungrateful with your marriage in the first place.

Starting point is 00:13:05 let's be real. So if we keep a posture of gratitude, then we can see the light and see the beauty of Christ and all of those things. Now, closing this episode out, I want to read this passage about prayer in Matthew 6th because I think it's a little bit misinterpreted sometimes. And I want to talk about,

Starting point is 00:13:26 man, what is Jesus? These are Jesus' words what he's saying about prayer. He says, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you that they have received their reward.

Starting point is 00:13:42 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who's in secret. And your father who's in secret will reward you. I got asked not too long ago, Bryce, does that mean I can't pray at the dinner table in front of my family? Bryce, does that mean that I can't pray for my football team before and after games? No, Jesus isn't condemning public prayer. He's condemning public prayer for selfish ambition, for selfish games. to be seen by others. That's the context of the passage.

Starting point is 00:14:07 He says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites because they like to pray to be seen by others. But their reward was the fact that they were seen by others. So Jesus is saying, if you struggle with praying because you want to be seen by others, if you struggle with the approval of man, then don't pray in front of people yet. Just go pray in secret. Because the beauty of praying in secret is you can't impress anyone in private. When Jesus says, go into your room, shut the door and pray to your father who's in secret.

Starting point is 00:14:34 He's not condemning public prayer. He's condemning those that want to be seen by others because when you're in secret with him one-on-one with him, you can't impress him. He knows your heart better than you. He knows the things that you're going to ask for. He knows the sins that you've committed and you're going to commit. He's all knowing. You can't impress him. So it gets raw and real in there. In that closet, in that room where you're at, there's a beauty in conducting prayer there. And then he says, when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do, for they will think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not. be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him pray then like this so now jesus is saying don't say things that you don't mean and don't use fancy words because you think god's this fancy god that needs fancy words to move there's not like a blueprint of if you say this god's going to answer it if you don't say this god's not going to answer it that's not prayer he's saying don't say things that you don't mean god knows your heart he knows what you're going to ask before you ask it he knows your personality before you come to him with a fake one. He knows how you actually talk before you talk to him like a different human being.

Starting point is 00:15:37 So he's saying, don't use words that you don't normally use. Don't say stuff that you don't normally say because you want to sound nice. You want to sound holy. Like a lot of my prayers are sound like me going, God, what the heck? What the heck just happened? Because that's how I actually talk. And I used to fall a victim to that. I used to be the guy that was like, man, I got to say the fanciest stuff on the planet so that God will hear me.

Starting point is 00:15:56 But that's not true. God wants to hear my heart. He doesn't want to hear my vocabulary. he wants to hear my heart. So I'm like, man, God, what the heck? What the heck's going on? Why is this happening? Man, I'm hurting right now.

Starting point is 00:16:07 I don't understand why this is happening to me. And so there's this call. Again, there's nothing wrong with having an extensive vocabulary, but why are you saying the things that you're saying? Are you saying it because you think it's going to make you more hurt? Are you saying it because that's actually a part of who you are? And he says pray like this. Our Father in heaven, how it be your name,

Starting point is 00:16:24 your kingdom come, your will be done. Now Jesus is giving a structure for prayer. When he enters in our Father in heaven, He's saying, approach God like a dad. It's not a dictator. He's a dad. Approach him like a dad. Our father in heaven.

Starting point is 00:16:39 Hallowed be your name. He says, your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now he says, man, God, your way, not my way. Your will be done, not mine. We want it here on earth as it is in heaven. We want perfection to invade earth. He says, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

Starting point is 00:16:58 So he says, man, God, nourish us daily. forgive us of our sins so that you can strengthen us to forgive others. He says, lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. God set us free from sin. Set us free from temptation. And then verse 14 says, for if you forgive others trespasses,

Starting point is 00:17:13 your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. So there's this call from all believers. Jesus is calling us into a lifestyle of prayer, pure prayer. Man, how beautiful is it that we get the opportunity to commute with the eternal God? Communicate with him. I said commute. communicate with him, talk to him, share our heart. God, I'm not feeling good right now.

Starting point is 00:17:37 You know what I think is so beautiful? This is just on my heart. The Bible says be angry and do not sin. How can you take anger and not sin? What if you're approaching God, instead of taking your anger out on your friends or doing something out of anger? It's like, me, God, I'm so frustrated and angry about this situation.

Starting point is 00:17:57 God, help me take this anger. Help me not sin. God, what do I do with this anger? I'm frustrated about my situation. Man, prayer can help you use your anger and not sin. Prayer is a shield against temptation. Man, prayer, man, if the word of God is the sword in our right hand, then I would argue that prayer should be right in our left.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Prayer is the steering wheel, as cliche as it sounds. Man, it should not be on the back burner when life gets messy. Prayer should be something that we do often. Jesus, I pray for everyone watching and listen in this episode. God, will you just strengthen our prayer lives? Will you just give us reminders throughout our day to pray? Will our first reaction to be in any circumstance to come before you with it before we gossip and not know it

Starting point is 00:18:44 before we do things and sin and not know it? God, well, we just come before you in Jesus' name. Amen. Guys, thank you so much for watching and listen to this episode. If you enjoyed the episode, follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, TikTok, Bradshaw for podcast. I love you guys. See you guys next time.

The Bryce Crawford Podcast - The Power Of Prayer (EP 47)

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