0:04

True prayer is neither a mere

0:07

mental exercise nor a vocal performance.

0:09

It is far deeper than that. It is a spiritual

0:12

transaction with the Creator of heaven and earth, Charles

0:14

Spurgeon.

0:15

Hey, we're Andrew and Jennifer

0:17

Smith, your hosts of the Marriage I Forgot podcast.

0:20

And this episode is brought to you in

0:22

celebration of our newest one-year marriage prayer book

0:24

called The Marriage Gift. It releases on October

0:26

17th, and we wanted to ask you if you could take

0:29

a moment today to pre-order this book and

0:31

make an investment into your marriage. We

0:34

know that you desire to pray more for and with your

0:36

spouse. We understand that you may not know

0:38

where to start, or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying,

0:41

or maybe you don't know what to pray, or maybe

0:43

you want to add something to your current prayer life. This

0:46

is why we wrote this book and why we are doing

0:48

this 8-part series. Visit

0:50

TheMarriageGift.com today and pre-order

0:52

your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift,

0:55

powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit

0:57

TheMarriageGift.com today and pre-order.

1:00

Okay, so this is part one

1:02

of an 8-part series on how to pray for

1:05

your spouse and marriage as taught by

1:07

Jesus.

1:08

Yeah, we wanted to do a series as

1:10

a way of learning from the Master Himself

1:13

about how to truly pray for

1:15

our spouse or marriage by looking a little

1:17

deeper at how Jesus Himself taught

1:19

His disciples to pray in Matthew 6.

1:21

More specifically, we want to pull

1:23

out the spiritual principles that we believe Jesus

1:25

was showing by what He taught them.

1:28

Yeah, so today we're going to look

1:30

at all the set of verses that we're going to be looking

1:32

at and discussing over the next 8 episodes, 8

1:35

weeks, as we examine

1:38

what is arguably one of the most well-known

1:40

teachings Jesus ever taught, which is

1:42

about prayer.

1:43

Then we're going to answer the question, what is

1:45

true prayer? So that's this episode,

1:48

and then we hope that you guys will just

1:50

stick with us for all 8 episodes because they're going

1:52

to be pretty awesome.

1:53

Okay, so first let's go

1:55

ahead and read Matthew 6, 5-15. Okay,

1:58

so this is where we find the Lord's Prayer. The

2:01

disciples come up to him and they ask them, Lord, teach

2:03

us to pray. Right? And this is what he says starting

2:05

in verse 5. And

2:30

they keep up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they

2:33

think that they will be heard for their many words.

2:36

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you

2:38

need before you ask Him. Pray then like

2:40

this, our Father in heaven, how would

2:43

be your name? Your kingdom come, your

2:45

will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give

2:48

us this day our daily bread and forgive us our

2:50

debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And

2:53

lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from

2:55

evil. For if you forgive others their

2:57

trespasses, your heavenly Father will also

2:59

forgive you. But if you do not

3:01

forgive others their trespasses, neither will your

3:04

Father forgive your trespasses. So

3:06

that was a lot, but real quick, I just want to explain how this

3:09

A-part series is going to work. We're

3:11

essentially going to be taking one or two verses

3:13

at a time and breaking out the principles

3:15

of it. So this one's going to be focusing

3:18

on verse 5, the very first verse of this

3:20

section.

3:21

And also, just a little treat for you guys.

3:24

Usually we end our podcast

3:26

episodes with a prayer, and we thought it'd be really

3:28

fun to share a prayer

3:30

straight from the marriage gift. So at

3:32

the end of each part, we are going to do

3:34

that. Yeah,

3:35

so if you want to get examples of what the prayers

3:37

sound like, stay tuned to the end.

3:39

Okay, so why would Jesus

3:42

need to teach us to

3:43

pray? Yeah, this is a good

3:46

question that we can ask ourselves because if Jesus

3:48

taught how to pray, then it

3:51

would beg the question of like, well, or

3:53

beg the answer of maybe we need to be taught how to pray.

3:55

I guess not natural. It's not automatic.

3:57

It's not something that we just grow up knowing how to do.

3:59

Right. There's lots of things that come natural to

4:02

us in our flesh. Sinning being one

4:04

of them, it's easy for us to do. I was thinking like breathing.

4:06

Yeah, there is no, you don't need lessons on sinning, right?

4:09

Because we do that. But prayer, a good

4:13

thing to think about with these disciples,

4:15

they were all Jews, they all were raised knowing

4:17

what prayer was. They've seen it. They've seen the rabbis pray,

4:20

they've prayed. Prayer was a natural part of their life,

4:23

but yet they still came to Jesus to ask him to

4:25

pray, which is something pretty

4:27

striking to us in our flesh that Jesus

4:30

prayed a different way. He prayed, there

4:32

was something in the way he prayed that was unique.

4:35

And so they asked, so we can

4:37

just know that if Jesus is teaching his disciples

4:39

to pray, if it's in his word, then

4:41

it's something that we probably need to learn how to do.

4:43

And it's probably like a lifelong thing of learning.

4:45

Which is something that Aaron and I have

4:48

done throughout our marriage is pray together. And

4:50

it's also been a vital part of the

4:52

message of our ministry and what we do online and

4:54

through podcasting is encouraging couples

4:57

to pray together because we've seen the power of prayer in

4:59

our marriage and just the anchor that it is in our

5:01

faith and our foundation to go

5:03

to God in prayer and we want that for other people.

5:06

And so a huge encouragement

5:09

of what we share with people is, hey,

5:12

pray together. And it's another reason why we wrote

5:14

the marriage gift was just to be able to get

5:17

a resource in people's hands that will inspire

5:20

and encourage their prayer life.

5:21

Yeah. And another side

5:23

to look at on this is if

5:25

we're like spiritual children of God, like

5:28

we're God's children, then we need to be taught just

5:30

like children need to be taught. Just like we need to

5:32

learn to read, just like we need to learn to write, like

5:35

we need to learn to walk. Prayer

5:37

is one of those things that as children of God, we get to learn.

5:40

And I believe the Spirit teaches us, I believe

5:42

also practicing and just doing it teaches

5:44

us, but also the word of God teaches

5:46

us how to do it. Jesus himself, like we're going through

5:48

teaches how to do it, but we can also learn from

5:50

other resources. So when,

5:52

in

5:54

what we just read in Matthew six, when Jesus does

5:57

say pray like this, like

5:59

that's it.

5:59

we're here to do in this eight part series

6:02

is look at what he says and

6:04

pull from it some wisdom some insight

6:06

on how to pray and we can we can apply

6:08

this teaching to okay how

6:11

do we pray for our marriages yeah

6:13

just for some examples that are fun that we'll

6:15

go more into as the

6:18

series rolls out but

6:20

when he says go into your room and shut the door well

6:23

your spouse has access in that space so

6:25

right our encouragement is yeah our

6:27

encouragement is to share it share that space with your spouse

6:29

and experience the intimacy that

6:31

prayer has to offer and going to God

6:33

with your

6:34

stuff yeah he also when

6:37

it says your kingdom come we know we can be praying

6:39

for our spouses and asking that God's will be done for

6:41

them in their life and in our

6:43

marriage

6:44

not just seeking yeah like what we

6:46

want or what we desire although that's sometimes

6:49

a part of it really what we're here to

6:51

do is seek what what does God want

6:53

yeah when he says forgive

6:55

us we were taught we can

6:57

pray for forgiveness and we can also learn to forgive

6:59

and we can also ask that they would forgive us

7:02

and so and then when you read that

7:04

last

7:04

one when he when he says lead

7:07

us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil

7:09

one we can pray that same thing

7:12

over our spouse and how powerful it is to cover

7:14

them in that way the Lord's protection that

7:17

they wouldn't be led into temptation and that they

7:19

would be protected from the evil one yeah

7:21

and I know a lot of people there's two things

7:23

I want to mention right now is use

7:25

the Lord's prayers directly like they

7:27

pray the Lord's pray themselves which I think is fine

7:29

because Jesus taught us to pray that way but Jesus

7:32

doesn't say pray this he

7:34

says pray like this and so he's

7:37

clearly showing a template

7:39

like a prompt yeah he's like here's the kinds

7:41

of things that we're praying for here's the way

7:44

we pray here's who we're praying to

7:46

and so that's what we want to pull out of this and the

7:48

second thing I want to mention is if anyone that's

7:50

listening now has been a believer any length of time you've probably

7:52

heard some sort of teaching or message on

7:55

the Lord's prayer which is awesome

7:57

but I think if you stick with us to this eight

7:59

part series you might hear some new thoughts

8:01

and concepts, especially as it pertains to our marriages.

8:04

And to add to that note about how Jesus

8:06

said, pray like this, and that that's like a prompt

8:09

that we can adjust and make

8:11

more personalized. We're kind of praying the same

8:14

things that he's talking about. That's

8:16

kind of our heart behind the marriage gift is there's

8:18

all, you know, 365 prompts, marriage

8:21

prayer prompts where we're tackling topics that

8:24

we need to be covering in prayer for our marriages.

8:26

And our hope is that anyone that

8:28

gets that resource would pray

8:31

those prayers, but would really make them their own because

8:33

you guys know the details of what your marriage is facing.

8:36

You guys know what you're going through. And so if

8:38

you can pray

8:40

through and read through a prompt and

8:42

then be inspired to kind of adjust

8:45

it and make it your own. Yeah, continue on

8:47

in praying it. Yeah, that's what our

8:49

desire was with this. Yeah, none of these topics

8:51

are meant to be like prayed for over once. All

8:54

of them we're praying for regularly throughout our life.

8:58

So, and by the way, our hope is that each

9:00

one of you listening would pick up a copy because we

9:02

desire you to grow in your prayer life and

9:04

to be blessed by this resource.

9:07

Okay, so today we're going to be focusing

9:09

on verse five, Matthew six, verse five. But

9:11

before we do that, why should we pray?

9:14

Well, we've talked about

9:16

this a lot and we just, we always want to reiterate

9:19

these things. First of all,

9:21

Jesus prayed. Like, so if Jesus

9:23

is doing it, it's something that we could look at and be like, well, maybe that's

9:25

something I should do.

9:26

Well, if we're called to walk in his footsteps, we're going to

9:28

follow that example.

9:29

Yeah, and so there's things that Jesus did that

9:31

we can't do. Like we can't be the savior of the

9:33

world. He is, but

9:35

we're told to die to ourselves daily. We're told to take

9:37

up our own cross. So we still are even following

9:40

in that way that he lived. But

9:42

prayer is a big one. There's many times in the scriptures

9:44

that says that he went off alone to pray. And

9:47

so Jesus teaches us by his actions

9:50

what it looks like to have a prayer life. And so

9:52

that's one thing.

9:53

I would also add that we've been given

9:55

the gift of access. We can

9:57

go to God in prayer, whether it be in

9:59

our... bedroom or a closet or our car

10:02

or a living room or a parking or any

10:04

like literally wherever you

10:06

are you can stop and pray you actually

10:08

don't have to stop what you're doing but you just pray and

10:10

you have that access to God and I love

10:12

that.

10:13

Prayer is it's our it's experiencing

10:15

communion with the Lord you're having

10:18

a conversation you're communing with God directly

10:20

through Jesus Christ which is amazing

10:23

that we can do that again that access.

10:24

It's an intimate thing and

10:27

so you're building that relationship up with the

10:29

Lord you're learning and practicing

10:31

how to tune in to Him and how

10:33

He's leading you and how He's speaking to you and finding

10:37

comfort in that space with Him.

10:38

Yeah, it postures our heart toward hearing

10:41

God putting ourselves in a place of like God

10:43

I want to hear from you now I want to experience

10:46

your wisdom for me it

10:48

draws us closer to Him it reminds us

10:51

who we are like oh I'm

10:53

just a man and you're God and

10:55

I need you.

10:56

I really love that just like in a conversation

10:58

with your spouse you reveal

11:01

your heart to them and you become known. When

11:03

you pray there's an offering there up to

11:05

the Lord because obviously he knows already what we're

11:08

going through but when you

11:10

make it known when you reveal what

11:12

your heart is going through what your circumstances are

11:14

what you're thinking you're offering

11:17

that to the Lord and and you're making

11:19

yourself known to Him that's

11:20

really cool. It makes

11:22

me think of scripture when we stand before the Lord one day

11:24

the greatest thing we can hear is I knew you and

11:27

the fearful thing is I never knew you what Jesus

11:29

talks about but but does

11:31

He know us like do we free

11:34

fully willfully and honestly

11:37

and humbly reveal ourselves which is kind of some of the things

11:39

we're gonna talk about today actually.

11:41

And the last thing is just that you when

11:43

you pray you're recognizing the

11:45

Lord's authority in your life.

11:47

Mm-hmm and yielding to it but I mean hopefully

11:49

that's our hearts is that we weren't trying to bend God

11:51

to our will but we're trying to bend our hearts

11:53

to His. So okay

11:57

that gets us into the in the first section. Here

11:58

we go. Verse 5.

11:59

I'm gonna read it one more time. These

12:03

are the words of Jesus. And when you

12:05

pray, you must not be like

12:07

hypocrites, period. For

12:10

they love to stand and pray in the synagogues

12:12

into the street corners that they may be seen

12:14

by others. Truly I say to you, they

12:16

have received their reward. So

12:20

the first thing I want to pull out of this,

12:22

and it's actually the first main point, he

12:25

starts off his whole teaching on prayer with

12:27

this verse. Do not

12:29

be like hypocrites. And

12:32

so he says we should not be like them when we

12:34

pray. What does that

12:36

make you think of first of all when you hear the word hypocrite,

12:38

Jennifer?

12:39

Just someone that is

12:42

saying one thing, doing another.

12:44

Yeah, that's what I think is like they're

12:46

not real. Like it's like yeah, they're

12:48

fake or lying. They present one thing

12:51

but that's not who they actually are.

12:53

I actually looked it up and it's

12:55

a Greek word that means

12:57

that you're playing a theatrical part such

13:00

as an actor wearing a mask on stage.

13:02

Yeah, so it's

13:03

an intentional thing almost.

13:05

That you're portraying

13:06

something that's not

13:09

real. Yeah,

13:09

for the sake of, like

13:12

what an actor would be, for the sake of entertainment,

13:14

for the sake of accolade, for the sake of prestige,

13:16

for the sake of whatever. But

13:18

it's yeah, it's playing a role. And so

13:20

the

13:23

question we get to ask ourselves in light

13:25

of this, when Jesus says don't pray like

13:27

the hypocrites. So he's

13:29

saying don't say what the

13:31

hypocrites say. He's saying don't pray like the

13:34

hypocrites. Meaning don't

13:36

be a hypocrite. Like you

13:38

can come to me and pray and like the words might be one thing

13:40

but it's the behavior

13:42

in that heart that is another

13:45

thing. And so what is

13:47

motivating us to pray? What is it we're

13:50

looking for when we come to God in prayer?

13:54

Is it to be close to God? Is it

13:56

to communion with Him? Is it to seek His will because

13:59

we trust Him? us or

14:01

believe he can heal and save or

14:04

do we pray to be seen and heard? Do we

14:07

pray because we know we should we

14:09

should as Christians like oh this is I gotta

14:11

just fulfill this role I gotta check

14:13

that box

14:14

or I think like is it because we want

14:17

to get a message across to our spouse like if we're praying

14:19

in front of our spouse are we almost like

14:21

manipulation are you praying a prayer

14:23

that you know will make them feel a certain way or

14:26

that you're okay and they're not that you

14:28

don't have sin but they do or you

14:31

you don't need to be changed but they do which

14:32

things I want to make a note on

14:34

this as a form of manipulation so we you

14:36

you you're praying

14:40

with them or praying for them or praying near

14:42

them so they can hear you and the things you're saying

14:44

you're hoping maybe they'll hear me maybe

14:46

they'll take this to or maybe they'll

14:48

maybe it's just as simple like I want them

14:50

to know that I'm a prayer like someone who

14:52

prays right

14:53

which could be very well the

14:55

case too I've seen this actually take

14:57

place you know when people

14:59

are praying out loud for someone around

15:02

others and they start revealing

15:04

things in their prayers that you're like why are you saying

15:06

that why is that coming out of your mouth and

15:10

so the question is is what is it what's

15:12

our intent when we're praying when we come before

15:14

God or others becoming

15:17

before God before others or before our spouse or even alone

15:19

are we doing it as a hypocrite

15:22

you know I looked up the word hypocrite

15:25

I did show the Greek

15:27

word explanation but it also said

15:29

another definition said one who indulges

15:32

in hypocrisy the practice

15:34

of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which

15:36

one's own behavior does not conform and

15:39

that word indulges it stood out

15:41

to me because it's not just someone who accidentally

15:45

acted like some something else other than what they

15:47

were it's

15:47

that's who they are yeah so

15:50

I just I love that we're

15:52

highlighting this today

15:55

because I think it's an important thing to stop and evaluate

15:58

am I am I a hypocrite

16:00

Yeah, well, and especially when we are

16:02

coming before God, because, you know,

16:04

if I come to God and I'm like, God, like,

16:07

I just, I want my wife to respect

16:09

me so much more. Like she does not respect me. God

16:11

changed her heart. And then the Holy

16:13

Spirit's speaking to me about my own

16:15

respect of her, of you, or my own love

16:18

for you. Like, like the coin

16:20

gets flipped in my heart or in my mind with when God's speaking

16:22

to me. Am I even willing to look

16:24

at my own? Am I even willing to look at

16:27

how I'm behaving, how I'm acting? Or

16:29

I just want you to change. And I just want

16:31

God to change you for my sake. But

16:33

don't, no, don't speak to me, God. Just all

16:36

I care about is what happens to her. That's

16:39

a heart of hypocrisy. That's not truly

16:41

desiring God's will. That's truly just desiring

16:44

your wife to change only and

16:46

not really desiring what God wants for her

16:48

or for you. So that's, again,

16:51

coming to God in that heart is

16:54

hypocrisy.

16:56

Another thing we touched on was

16:58

like performance-based hypocrisy,

17:00

where like that idea of like, you're just playing a role

17:03

or you're just on stage, you know? But

17:05

when we pray, and this goes back

17:08

to evaluating our motivations and our heart

17:10

posture before God, when we pray, are

17:12

we truly seeking to hear and receive

17:14

from God? Or

17:16

are we

17:18

just putting on a performance to say, I know

17:20

I'm supposed to do this, like checking

17:22

off the boxes?

17:23

Yeah. Like, God, I did all these things. Why

17:25

aren't you changing anything? And God's like, where's your heart?

17:27

Yeah. Like, are you truly in this? Do

17:30

you even want my

17:32

mind on the matter? Do you even want me? That's

17:34

another thing is going back to the

17:36

verse, it says, don't pray like the hypocrites.

17:39

And even he alludes to the Jewish

17:41

leaders. He says, they like to pray in the synagogues and in

17:44

front of people to be seen by men. They

17:46

weren't even coming to God to be before

17:49

God. They were doing this as

17:52

a thing before men. They wanted to be seen

17:54

by men. They wanted to be, like you said

17:56

before, am I just praying to show my husband

17:58

that I pray? my wife that I like

18:01

look how spiritual I am and you should be better at this

18:03

or am I going to before

18:05

God because I want God?

18:07

And you believe that God's going to hear

18:09

you and help you and answer your prayers

18:12

and yeah

18:13

have that relationship with you. That's

18:15

good. I do have a question about because

18:18

we're talking about hypocrisy. Is it

18:20

hypocritical to pray when

18:22

you don't feel like it? Would you put

18:25

that in the same category?

18:27

Because there's been times like you and I where

18:30

we're frustrated about something or you

18:32

know we've been walking through a season of hard

18:36

and one of us

18:37

doesn't really want to pray. But

18:40

if you're in that mode and you feel that way

18:43

but you choose to pray anyways are

18:45

you being hypocritical? Do you understand what I'm saying?

18:47

I'm kind of flipping it going.

18:49

No I don't think

18:51

like I brought it before Jesus is saying don't

18:54

pray like the pregates mean don't be like them

18:57

in their praying. So I think

18:59

it's one thing if you don't feel like praying and

19:01

then you do it out of obligation and your

19:04

heart's not in it that's hypocritical. You're

19:06

like you're just using words. You're just doing

19:08

something to maybe appease me or to appease whoever's

19:10

with you but you're not

19:14

doing it to truly seek God. But

19:16

I think often that

19:18

prompt to pray even when we don't feel like it isn't

19:20

coming from us. It's coming from the Holy

19:22

Spirit of like in the end the conviction.

19:27

I know I should pray right now because my

19:29

heart is so angry or frustrated

19:31

or hurt or whatever it is. So

19:33

I think in those moments of when you do

19:35

go to pray again if you're truly seeking

19:38

God in those moments then it's not hypocritical

19:40

it's obedient. It's

19:43

yielding, it's humble.

19:45

I thought it was worth it to go down for a little

19:47

bit. I want to go back real quick

19:49

to what we opened up this episode with

19:51

because it was really good

19:53

and powerful and I just want to reiterate it

19:55

was a quote by Charles Spurgeon and

19:57

it says true prayer is neither a mere mental exercise.

20:00

nor a vocal performance. It is far

20:02

deeper than that. It is a spiritual transaction

20:04

with the Creator of heaven and earth. That

20:07

middle part where it says it's far deeper than that, like

20:09

have you experienced that

20:11

deep connection with God when you

20:13

go to prayer and you do

20:15

realize like this is powerful? Well

20:17

I think what I get reminded of often

20:20

because there's times that I go to start

20:22

praying. Like it just happened this morning and I

20:24

like there's several things that's been going on

20:26

lately we've been getting text messages about and I'm not gonna say what

20:28

but I'm just like I just go

20:31

to prayer and I'm sitting there

20:33

and like a few words get out and

20:35

then I just have no more words and

20:37

so I just sit there just

20:41

meditating on the fact that I know God knows and

20:44

so even though I can't get words

20:46

out of my mouth I understand

20:48

and I'm trusting in believing that

20:51

that God knows and so I just sit quietly

20:53

and so that that is the deeper

20:55

part of not of like me thinking man

20:58

I didn't have enough to say to God but me

21:00

just rejoicing that he knows already and

21:02

that he knows better than I do and that I'm

21:05

just participating in whatever he's already

21:07

doing by coming before him and asking him for

21:10

protection for safety for healing for whatever

21:13

it is and so it is that

21:15

it's and I think that's where

21:17

God desires our hearts to be of not

21:19

just do we have the right words but

21:22

do we have the right heart do we have the right

21:24

belief like do we trust him that's

21:26

good yeah true prayer is

21:29

deep it's intimate and it's

21:32

it's recognizing who your creator is like in

21:34

that moment that you didn't have any words you still

21:36

were in all and acknowledging

21:39

who he was and that he knew yeah you

21:41

know

21:41

yeah and we also

21:44

that we ought to ask ourselves a question

21:48

are we are we praying like

21:50

what what is it we're we're desiring when

21:53

we come in prayer like if

21:55

we pray and don't believe anything we're saying like

21:58

that that God is capable of any of it then

23:51

and

24:01

seeking His will, and they

24:03

missed out on that. And so, I

24:05

don't know, I'm just thinking like the word reward. When

24:07

we go to God in prayer, the

24:09

reward is not that He

24:11

answered your prayer or that you got what you want

24:13

or whatever. The reward is that

24:15

you are experiencing an intimate relationship with the

24:17

Lord. Knowing Him.

24:18

Now you're participating in it with

24:20

Him. And knowing

24:23

Him, being with Him. And then, you

24:25

know, the Bible says that God

24:27

rewards those who seek Him. He does. And

24:31

so He wants us to seek Him. And I also think about our

24:34

heart postures if we have a sinful,

24:37

angry, bitter heart. If we have sin

24:39

in our life that we're not willing to deal

24:41

with, that we are not blind to,

24:43

but willfully blind to. Like

24:46

the Holy Spirit is convicting us, but we're pushing it away.

24:49

I think about that verse that says, The

24:52

prayer of a righteous man avails much. And

24:54

I believe that not

24:57

that we aren't without sin, but

24:59

a hypocrite is one who pretends

25:02

to be one thing, but is another thing. Pretends

25:05

to be holy, but is

25:07

walking in unrepentant sin. Are

25:10

we walking in a way in our life that is

25:12

actually hindering our prayers? Is

25:14

actually making us hypocrites before God,

25:17

where, like I was bringing it before, I

25:19

have a certain way of being with you, and yet

25:22

I'm praying to God only about you. I'm

25:24

not coming to Him saying, Lord, like

25:26

David said, see if there's any wicked way in me. What

25:29

do I need to work on, Lord? Because

25:32

I desire my wife to grow, but I know that I need to

25:34

grow. Now that's a prayer for us

25:36

as a couple, not just you and

25:38

you serving my needs. And

25:41

so what is it that we're looking for? Are

25:43

we looking for a reward from God? Are we

25:45

looking for a reward from men? And

25:48

then what heart are we coming to God in? Is

25:52

it one that is of repentance, like

25:55

humility? Yeah, we're humble

25:58

and truly recognizing that it comes to that.

27:59

with poor and a sinner

28:02

that's praying that way, but making it sound like he's not.

28:05

And so I know God desires for us to be

28:07

real with each other that my wife doesn't

28:11

see, that the world doesn't see me one

28:13

way and my wife see me another way. That

28:16

I don't portray to my wife like, oh, I'm all perfect and great

28:18

and you're the one that's broken and failure. Cause

28:21

that can happen. We do that sometimes. We

28:25

lighten the burden of our own sin in our own life and

28:28

the ugliness

28:31

of it and the weight of it. And

28:34

we weigh down the burden and the ugliness of

28:36

our spouse's sin. But what God

28:38

wants is us to be real and repentant of

28:40

all of our sin and to be transparent

28:42

with that. So that when we come before Him, we're not pretending

28:45

we're not what we are. And

28:48

that way we can actually truly know Him and

28:50

each other, like you said.

28:51

So good. Okay,

28:54

so we already kind of covered a

28:56

little bit of why we should pray. I

28:59

just wanna

29:00

quickly go over some reasons why we should be praying

29:02

specifically for

29:03

our marriages. Right.

29:05

Yeah, cause Jesus, He teaches the disciples

29:08

to pray and this is every believer should

29:10

pray. But there's a specific

29:13

responsibility and authority and power and

29:17

obligation in marriage. Like you have a,

29:19

like again, we always bring up your closest

29:21

neighbor as your wife, it's your husband.

29:24

And praying for them, first

29:27

of all, it's a good place to practice praying.

29:29

Yeah. Right. It's the

29:31

most intimate place you'll be to

29:34

pray with your spouse and

29:36

for your spouse. That's the most intimate relationship you have on

29:38

earth. It's the most important relationship

29:41

you have on earth. So

29:44

coming to before the Lord for your marriage,

29:47

I just met with a bunch of pastors this morning and we prayed for marriages.

29:50

That's good. And I brought up in

29:52

my prayer is that marriage

29:54

is the foundation of all societies. It

29:56

really is. It's where children are made. It's where children

29:59

are reared.

34:06

Thank you.

34:30

Thank you.