Jeremy McGarity on Sunday Service
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Let us pray. For great is thy mercy toward me. Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Psalm 86, 13. My God and my Father, thank you for your steadfast love, mercy, and grace towards me. You have protected me during many storms and guided me when I couldn't find my way. You have been everything from my umbrella on days of light rain to my storm shelter in devastating tornadoes.

I thank you and praise you for a new opportunity to live by your word. Father, continue to lift me and guide me today. I am grateful for your compassion and forgiveness because it has given me a new day to share your joy with others. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's daily prayer. For more inspiration and an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay tuned to Pray.com's Sunday service.

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Welcome to Skyline Radio right here on Pray.com. Hey, this is Dr. Jeremy McGarrity with Skyline Church. We are a multi-site church in San Diego. If you want to learn more about us, visit us at skylinechurch.org. Also, if you would like to receive notifications every time I release new content, please tap follow on my leader profile. Man, I'd sure appreciate it. Other than that, let's dive into today's message. Hey, we're going to jump into scripture here.

And we're going to read Psalm 86. Psalm 86, 1 through 7. I'm going to be in the New Living Translation. And as we stand in the honor of God's word...

I want to remind you that next week we're going to be taking communion together as part of our services. I'll have the two-part message today. We're going through part one and then part two next week on I Tried Prayer Didn't Work. And we'll talk about the second part next week along with having communion. So I want to make sure you are aware of that. Sometimes people ask, when are we having communion? Next week. 86. Psalm. This is a prayer of David. He said this, Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer.

Answer me for I need your help. Protect me for I am devoted to you. Save me for I serve you and trust you. You are my God. Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am calling on you constantly. Give me happiness, O Lord, for I give myself to you.

Oh, Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help. Listen closely to my prayer, oh Lord. Hear my urgent cry. I will call to you whenever I'm in trouble, and you will answer me. The reading of the word of God. Let's pray. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for your word. Thank you that as we jump into scripture and we learn about prayer, what an incredible opportunity prayer is, yet so many...

don't do it and don't understand it and don't believe it. And so as we think through this whole idea about prayer today and the next couple of weeks, we just ask for your blessing. As only you can do, would you move in our hearts, and each person comes in here at a different place in their spiritual walk, and only you through your Holy Spirit can touch them and speak to them so that they have ears to hear. Open our hearts and our minds, we pray. It's in Jesus' name. And everybody said...

Amen. Well, prayer is foundational to the Christian faith. It's foundational. It's foundational to a vibrant life as a believer. I mean, it's huge. And we're in our teaching series on topics that you asked for. And the title to today's message is I tried prayer and it didn't work. I tried prayer and it didn't work. The obvious question after that is, well, why? Why didn't it work?

And so we're going to look at that. Why doesn't prayer work sometimes? Like you probably had someone say to you, you know, I prayed about that thing for a while, nothing happened. And so I don't really believe in prayer anymore. I don't really think it works. And maybe if we're honest, we'd say there are times where we felt that way. Why is that? What causes that? Is prayer just superstition?

You know, is it something that it's just a farce and we just kind of make it up to make ourselves feel good? Like at the end of the day, it doesn't really work. But boy, we sure feel good when we do it. We sure hope someone's out there. No, that's not it at all, is it? What is prayer? And I think there's a deeper question than that. Does God promise to answer every prayer?

And you can look at that a couple different ways. Sure, you can say yes, because you say, you know, sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it's no. Sometimes it's wait. Sometimes it's I've got a better idea, God says. But did you know there are some people he completely ignores? Your prayers aren't going to get through. He's not obligated to answer any of our prayers. Not at all. In fact, the Bible says he's laid out some conditions to answer prayer. And I want us to look at these conditions because if you don't meet them,

Your prayer life will never be effective and you'll be very discouraged. And you might be like a lot of people and just give up. So I want to make sure we understand as we look at these conditions to be sure, again, there are times that God will answer the prayer regardless of whether we meet these conditions or not, because he has a bigger plan and he can answer if he wants to or not. We get that. But as we look throughout scripture, what we want to see is, okay, if I'm meeting these conditions,

then I can be absolutely confident he's hearing me and my prayers can be answered. So what are the conditions that must be fulfilled? There's a ton of them, but honestly, I'm going to get the top ones. And today I'm only going to go through four or so, maybe five, but next week we'll get, we'll finish it off. Most of you know these. And so what's going to happen is you're going to see these. You're going to go, okay, I'm doing that one. I'm doing that one. Oh, that's the one. That's the one.

And some of you, you're sitting next to somebody, they're not doing any of these. And just to be honest, right? You can tell them that you're not doing any of these. So, you know, what are you doing? So no, we're going to go through those and make sure that we can lay these out and really understand it. So that man, if I'm doing all these things in my relationship, the Lord is that close. Number one, here's the first thing. Number one conditions. I got to listen to God first. Am I listening to God? John 15, seven says it like this. If you remain in me.

In my words, remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Now that is a powerful statement. That's a great promise. But remember, every promise has a premise. Okay, the promise here is I'll give you whatever you ask if you remain in me. And I want you to see something in this particular note. Right here is the word remain. Okay, this is a very important word. He says, if you.

Remember, every promise has a premise, as I just said. This word here in the original Greek, remember the New Testament was originally written in the Greek language. This word here is the Greek word transliterated, M-E-N-O, meno, meno. What does that mean? It means to consistently stay connected. So when we see him say, if you remain in me, what is he saying? He's saying, if you consistently stay connected, meno, meno.

If you will consistently be connected to me, you are remaining in me and you can ask anything you wish. My words are remaining in you and so you can ask anything you wish and it will be given to you. May know. Stay connected. Here's the thing that happens so often with people when they get frustrated with their prayer life. People kind of pop in with God every once in a while. They pop into church every once in a while. Something comes up in their life, they throw a prayer up and they get mad. Like, what?

God didn't answer. Well, you only call on God when you need something immediately. You only beckon him as if he's a genie and you expect him to say, oh, okay, Jeremy, what do you need? You want him to be right there, right in the moment, as if you've been connected to him the whole time. And he's going, no, I'm not going to do that. You're not listening to me, but you want me to listen to you.

That's not the way it works. And so often, so many people see God as this genie that, man, I said a prayer and he should answer it because I know best in my life. And that's essentially what we're saying. But we're not meno. We're not. So how do you meno? How do you stay in? Well, he says it right here. And my words remain in you. That's a very important part right there.

My words remain in you. Okay, so that's a big thing. How do my words remain in you? How do you keep them in? That's how you remain in him. So what are we saying? God requires that you listen to him first before he'll listen to us. If I don't pay attention to what God says in his word, why in the world would I think he's obligated to listen to me? I'm ignoring him. My whole life, I'm ignoring him. I'm not listening to a thing he says.

But I expect him to jump on it, answer me right now. So who's God in this relationship? All of a sudden, I'm playing God in this relationship, aren't I? I expect you, answer me now. Because here's the reality. Most of our prayer requests are answered right here. If you're in there, you're going to get the answers that you're looking for. You're going to get the answers you seek. And so he says, I have my word for a reason.

Every day you could be in there. Every day you can be getting answers. Every day you can be getting understanding. Every day you can be getting wisdom. Every day you can getting peace from my word. And he says, as you get in there and remain in me, you're going to have those answers. And it's not going to be a whiny, where are you God? It's not going to be a, why aren't you listening to me? It's not going to be that. And so how are you about that? How are you in listening to God first? Are you in the word of God?

Are you doing more than just popping into church every once in a while? Are you doing more than just getting a message once a week? Are you doing more to stay and to remain connected to him? And maybe someone would say, are you saying that if I don't study my Bible, I won't have answered prayer? No, what I'm saying is that your prayer life will never be more effective than how much you understand scripture. And to be sure, there are times when God will answer our prayer. We've drifted off. We're not doing any of the conditions, but he'll answer it.

He always answers the prayer of someone saying, I'm sorry, I want to come back. He always answers that prayer. Now, the more you understand the Bible, the more effective your prayer life will be. That's the first condition. I have to listen to God first. I have to be willing to listen to him and do what he's already told me to do. And secondly...

If I really want my answers to prayer, I must confess my sins. Now, this one is an obvious one, but it's one that we don't always do. So what am I saying? Well, have I refused to admit something I've done wrong in the past? Have I refused to admit? That's all confession is. We say it all the time. God already knows, right? He already knows what you've done. He already seen it, but he just wants to know if you know, if you know that thing was wrong.

You've got to confess it. We just sang a song a moment ago, I Surrender All. You sang it. I saw you singing it, and I heard you sing it. It was beautiful. I surrender some. Some of you, I surrender none. Some to thee. If we're being honest, that would be what we would be singing. Because at the end of the day, we're not giving it all to the Lord. We're just like, I don't think so. I'll give you a little bit.

That's part of the process. But he says, in order to have your prayer answered, you got to surrender it all. I got to confess all of it. I cannot have unconfessed sin and expect God to answer my prayer. It may be an activity. It may be an attitude, a habit. When you go your own way, you break that connection with the Lord. You break the prayer connection.

See, it's because there's a fake, there's a fakeness there. There's a con that's happening. There's this two lives we're living and God doesn't play that game. He refuses to play that game. He says, just come to me again. And don't get me wrong. Don't be like, oh, I got to live a perfect life. You saw it on the sign. We know it's not about perfection, but it's not about being fake either.

Okay, it's not about this two-faced life either. Okay, well, no perfect people, I'm just going to go sling and do my thing because I saw the sign. No, no, no, that's an invitation. It's not a lifestyle suggestion. Okay, it's all right, I'm welcome there and I can start to learn and I can start to grow, but it's up to you to start putting those things in practice and say, you know what? I got to get serious about this faith thing.

I got to get serious about this relationship with the Lord. So I need to confess. I'm going to confess this stuff that I've been doing because I want that connection to be strong. I don't want to live two different lives. Psalm 66, 18 says it like this. If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would still be listening to me. What does it say? The Lord would not have listened. Not. Circle that in your notes. Not. He would not listen. I mean, just that verse alone tells you what we're talking about.

If I had not confessed, this is David saying, I had to confess. I had to get it off my chest so that the Lord knew we're straight. Proverbs 28, 13 says it like this. People who conceal their sins will not prosper. But if they what? Confess, yes. And turn from them, they will receive mercy. See, that's the difference. We confess, yes, Lord. Then I turn the other direction. I need to go the other way. I don't want to keep doing that. I don't want to keep being that person.

Then he starts to listen. And again, it's not about perfection. We're not saying that. It's about honesty. It's about a real relationship with God. I'm not saying you have to be perfect and never make a mistake. If you ever want your prayer answered, that would mean none of us would ever get a prayer answered. But are we honest with God? How soon do I confess it when I blow it? So the first one, I've got to listen to God first. Second one, I've got to confess. Here's the third condition.

to our prayers getting answered i cannot ignore god's commands i can't ignore his commands in other words when god tells me to do something and i don't do it or when i know god wants me to let go of something and i don't do it then listen that breaks a prayer connection why because you're saying you don't trust god if he's told you to do something in his word and you have not done it he's not going to answer you for something else you already know there's some things that he's told you to do clearly

And if you're not doing them, why would he say, oh, okay, I'm just going to ignore that thing I told you to do over there. You're asking for this over here. Let's go ahead and give you that. He's not going to do that. He's already told you to do some things and you have to do them in order to get those prayers answered. Okay. He's just, he's not that kind of God. He's going to be very clear. The reason he told you to do it is help you grow spiritually into the person he created you to be.

And so when he tells you to do something in scripture, whether you like it or not, he's doing it for your good mind. And as we obey what he's already told us to do, we grow, we grow. But what happens so often is we don't want that particular thing that he's telling us to do because it's hard. It's a challenge. I don't want to do that. I want growth my way, which means I'm going to go over here and ask for this.

And God's saying, I'm not going to give that to you until you do what I told you to do over here, because this is your path to growth. But so many people say, I don't want that path. I want this path. He says, I created you and I want you on this path because I know what's best for you. And when we do that, man, it opens up so much growth in our life. If we just take that one step at a time to say, God, I'll do what you want me to do. Look at this verse. This is such a powerful verse. Pay close attention to what you hear.

The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given and you'll receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, and this is so important, I want you to see this. Okay, to those who listen to my teaching, that word right there, if you have it in your notes, would you circle that? To those who listen to my teaching, what? Okay, more understanding will be given. Now hold on, this word right here, I'm gonna go up here. This word in the Greek is transliterated akano.

Now, here's why this is important, because Akano has the understanding that it's not just I hear you. I hear you. It means I'm listening with the intent to obey. That's the difference of what Jesus is saying. When you look in the New Testament and you're reading through scripture, you see a lot of him saying, you know, listen, listen. He'll say, listen, and he'll continue to talk about listening. Be careful how you listen, he says a lot. Listening is a big deal, because what he's saying is don't just hear me.

Remember one time he said, be careful how you hear. He who has ears, let him hear. What is he talking about? He's saying how you listen, how you hear is really important because you can just hear something. Doesn't matter. You hear something all day. You're only going to remember about 5% of this message. That's just the stats. You're going to hear a lot. You hear a lot of stuff. You hear stuff on the side. You hear someone next to you. You hear all these things are going on. But the thing that you really heard, you listened to is what you do.

And that's what he's saying. He's saying, listen, Akano, I want you to listen with the intent to obey. That's what that word means. He goes, so to those who listen with the intent to obey, they're, they actually, the word do, they actually do my teaching. More understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, listening, those who are not listening with the intent to obey, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. See that, right?

You're going to forget so much because there's no intention there. There's no intention to obey what we're saying today. And if there's no intention to obey it, then you're going to forget it. And he says, even what little you thought you had at that moment, you were in the service and you're listening to the word of God and you're like, oh, that's cool. As soon as you go out and you get your coffee and your latte, and then you get in the parking lot and someone cuts you off, you forget it. I didn't have any intention to obey that. I just got mad about the person in the car that, you know, cut me off.

But he tells, Akano is so important for us to have this, when I listen to the Lord's word, when I'm reading and I'm seeing his word and I'm hearing him, I'm actually listening with the intent, okay, Lord, this is what you said, I'm going to do it. And when I do it, he hears our prayers. He answers our prayers because I have that intent to obey his commands. And again, I'm not saying...

You have to obey them perfectly. We certainly try, but we say it all the time here. It's not about perfection. It's about progress, not perfection. I want you to write that down. It's about progress, not perfection. We're not trying to be perfect. That'll happen in heaven. Until then, you're still a human being. This is the thing. When we have this intention, when we are akano, we have an intention to obey God.

Then this is one of the reasons why I produce notes for you. Not everybody's a note taker. I get that. Not everybody's going to heaven, but I'll say this. With that, notes are so important because it takes that next step. You may be saying, I'm an audible learner. Okay, that's a good step. But every single research study shows that when you write stuff down,

you have about a 75% more chance of remembering something you heard. And so we produce the notes, even though it's inconvenient, it takes more time, it takes more staff, it takes more money, it takes all these things so that you have a chance to Ocano. One more chance later when you think, what was he talking about with that? Oh, well, it was point number two. And you go back and you see your notes, you're like, yes, that's it.

I'm going to do that, what he said right there, because it comes from the word of God. And so we do that. It's an important thing. Again, not about perfection, following the Lord perfectly. I mean, I think of that with my kids. If I tell one of my boys to rake the leaves in the yard, I tell them, rake the leaves. I don't expect every leaf to be raked. We have a hillside. We have a bunch of trees. And I don't expect every single leaf. I'm not going around going, you're imperfect. 99.9% was good, but get out. No, I'm not going to do that. Right?

What do I want to see? I want to see them obeying, doing the job. Just do the job, right? They're out raking them. They're doing the job. They got a good attitude about it. That's what I want to see. They're not going to be perfect with that effort, but they're trying, right? They're going after it. Now it's different if I say, go rake the leaves and they don't do it. And later I come out and leaves are everywhere. And then I go, why didn't you go rake the leaves?

And they have some excuse, this excuse, that excuse, whatever it might be. And then later they come to me and say, hey, dad, can I have such and such? Hey, dad, can I go with my friends and do this? Can I have some money, go to In-N-Out? What am I going to say? I'd be foolish to say yes, wouldn't I? That'd be foolish. Because what I just did was I just encouraged their disobedience. I just encouraged them to not listen to me. You don't have to listen to me. I'm going to give you whatever you want anyway. Don't listen to me. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

Do you see how it works in our relationship with the Lord too? God's told us some things to do. We refuse to do them. And yet, God, give me this. God, I need that. God, I want this. And God's going, just do what I've already told you to do. You're not even doing that. Some of you know what I'm talking about very specifically. There's something he's told you to do and you're not doing it. Maybe for some of you, it's consistent church attendance. Maybe for some of you, it's giving. Maybe it's giving. That's a big one. People don't like that one. It's tithing.

And it's just amazing to me. It's like God makes all these promises about giving more than anything in the Bible because he knows how we can hold on to money. And we just, we worship money and all that. And so people get upset and they think, oh, don't talk about money. Oh, he's talking about me. And it's just interesting to me. It's one of, it's exactly what the devil wants you to believe. He doesn't want us to talk about it because everyone's so sensitive to it. Yet God in his word says it so often. And it's one of the number one things that keeps you from growing. You won't give.

You don't give. Not many of you do, but some of you don't. And it's like, why is my prayer life? I feel like I'm hitting this prayer roof because you're not generous. And he's not going to say, okay, I'm going to answer you and all these other things, but you refuse to tithe. You refuse to be a generous person. So no, so he's not going to answer. You just need to know that. He's just not because this is one of the things. He doesn't want to reward disobedient behavior, just like you as a parent wouldn't want to do that.

It's not wise. On the other hand, if we listen and do what he says, look what it says in 1 John 3.22. And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him. We listen with the intent to obey him and we do the things that please him. We don't just think about the things. We do the things that please him. So we know we're going to receive whatever we ask. It's a powerful reminder there.

of what he's talking about. So we ask, am I doing what God wants me to do at this point? Am I obeying his commands? When he tells me something in his word, there's a principle from his word, or I learned something. Am I doing it? Am I following through on that? Some of you it's serving. Let's just be honest. You've been a Christian a long time and you don't volunteer. You don't serve. That's blocking. He's told you to get involved. And some people don't.

And so a big reason a lot of people's prayers are not answered is because they're ignoring God in other areas. And so therefore, God is ignoring them. We have to understand that. All right, so we listen to God. We confess our sins. We have to obey what he's already said, obey his commands. And here's the fourth one we'll talk about today. I must want to be in God's will. I must want to be in his will. 1 John...

5, 14, and 15 says it like this. This is the confidence we have in approaching God that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him. We know. We can be confident he's answering. When we ask according to his will, we have that confidence. We know. And most Christians make a common mistake in prayer. They go around saying,

And they think they have to ask for God's will on every little thing. I'm at a restaurant. God, should I have the salad or should I have the steak? What is your will? That's an easy one. It's always the steak. And so you just need to know that. That's not difficult to know. Kale salad or the steak, you know. But we go around, should I turn right or turn left? It's like, that's not it. What you want to do is get in God's will. Like sometimes we pray over every specific circumstance.

And what we have to ask is not what is God's will in this particular situation, but am I in God's will as a person? If my life, is it in harmony with God? Then here's what I'm saying, is if my life is in God's will, then my desires will line up more with God's will. St. Augustine was one of the early church fathers in America.

He lived from 354 to 430, and he did some incredible, he has some incredible writings in the early church. And he said a famous quote. He said, love God and do as you please. And I think that's a really important statement because what is he saying there? He's saying if you really love God, then you're not going to be doing things that displease God.

If you really love God, you're going to be figuring out his will and you're going to be constantly trying to live within his will. And so it's not like you're going to be asking for these desires that are outside his will. If I love God, I'm going to be plugging into him more and more to find out, God, am I staying within your will here? I want to make sure I'm doing exactly what you want me to do. We don't have to ask him on every little item like that. Because what happens, you don't hear the answer. You get more frustrated, more frustrated, more frustrated. But he's saying, just love God, love him.

and do what you will, right? And you get in his will, you get God in your life. To the best of my knowledge, Lord, I'm trying to do what's right. I want to live for your will. Then you ask according to your desires. The Bible is very clear. He will give you the desires of your heart. Every promise has a premise as long as I'm in his will. If I'm doing what he's already asked me to do, I can be confident of that. And how do I know the answer to that question? Do I really want God's will for my life? How do I know? It's really simple. How eager are you to read the

How eager are you to listen to the Bible? Watch the Bible. You can watch it now. All the videos that are out there on the Bible app. How eager are you for that? Honestly. Why? Because God's word tells you God's will. God's word tells you God's will. God, I don't know your will on this. Get in the word. He'll tell you. How eager are you to be part of a church body? How eager are you to be baptized? How eager are you? I mean, we can go through the list, right? Saying, do you have that eagerness?

I mean, we have a meet and greet at our campuses right after this. And it's a great way to figure out if this is a church for you and answer some questions. Then you can come to membership, our membership dinner coming up, because you should want to know about the church and where we're headed and what the vision is. But God says very clearly in his word that you need to be part of a local church body, a body of believers. And we tell you all the time, even if it's not ours, we want to help you find one.

Because your growth is our goal, whether it's here or somewhere else. We really want you to grow because we know all the peace, all the happiness, all the joy comes when we're connected to a church family and we're growing. We're growing. And so we want to encourage you. How eager are you to become a member of a church? How eager are you to serve? All these things. That is what he tells us in his word. Disobeying his will is

in one area and obeying it in another cancels it out, cancels out him hearing us. And so we want to make sure we're doing exactly what he's told us to do. We want to be in his will. We want to read the word. We want to study it. We want to memorize it and make sure we're doing everything that God tells us to do. And you might say, do you mean eagerness has something to do with God hearing my prayer? At some level, yes. Yeah. How eager are you to follow his will?

How eager do you want to see this come to fruition? And then we'll stop at number five today, but I'm going to tell you number five and then we'll close up. Number five is I must not hold grudges. Uh-oh. Some of you are like, I wish you would have stopped at number four. This is a big one. Big one. I can't hold grudges? You're telling me my prayer life is blocked because I'm mad at that idiot? Yeah. Yes. Yes. It's exactly what it is.

He tells us very clearly, Mark 11, 24 and 25 says it like this. I tell you, you can pray for anything. And if you believe that you've received, it will be yours. Wow. Powerful statement. But when you are praying first, forgive anyone you're holding a grudge against. Look at it says right there. Forgive anyone you're holding an urge against so that your father in heaven will forgive your sins too. Do you see the promise? And you see the premise?

This is such a powerful reminder. This is a major key for a great prayer life. Over and over and over again, Jesus, when he talks about prayer, he talks about forgiveness. Some of you are thinking about those people and that person right now. You're thinking about that. Who do I have to forgive? Why is it so important? Why is forgiveness? Because nothing will kill your prayers faster than resentment.

When you hold a grudge, when you allow bitterness to grow in your life, it knocks off your prayers. Maybe you're praying and you're not getting an answer because you're holding a grudge against someone. They did something to you. They said something, you name it. And it's just been something that's just stayed there. Maybe you don't even think about it too often until that person or that situation comes up. And then you're like, it's just a grudge. You haven't forgiven them.

And remember, forgiveness isn't about them so often. It's just about us. We don't need to carry that weight around. We don't have to carry that with us. Yeah, but you don't know what they did. You don't. It doesn't even matter. And some of it's horrible, but you can't carry it. You can't keep carrying that baggage. You can't keep holding that grudge because here we think the grudge is like a tiny little thing we're carrying and we can keep it in our pocket. Here's the reality. That thing grows and it starts to take over.

If we don't get rid of it, it starts to take over our lives. And if we're holding grudges, our prayer life is blocked. In Matthew 5, Jesus is given the Sermon on the Mount. He says, when you go to church, you're going to offer a gift to the Lord, but you remember somebody has something against you or you have something against somebody else. He says, go take care of it. Find that person, get that right, and then come back and worship. Isn't that a powerful statement when you think about that? Like really, I am.

I need to go track that down. Yeah, today you can text, right? You can text right now. Text that person. You can, I mean, it's just needs to be taken care of. Why? Why? Because you can't say you love God and you hate people. You cannot. And Hebrews reminds us, look what it says. Watch out that no bitterness takes root. Remember I said it starts small. It's like a seed, but once it takes root, it takes over.

Make sure it takes no root among you. Well, how do you get rid of it? Forgiveness. Forgiveness. You've got to have a good forgiver. Make sure it takes no root among you, for as it springs up, it causes deep trouble, hurting many in their spiritual lives. As it goes on, it just absolutely takes over. Unforgiveness, it's like cutting yourself and waiting for the other person to bleed. It doesn't make any sense. You're only hurting yourself. So what do you pray every time you pray the Lord's Prayer?

You know the Lord's Prayer is the most famous prayer. Do you know that one part where it says, Father, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. You know what that's saying, right? Father, I want you to forgive me as much as I forgive other people. Do you really want to say that? Forgive. Don't hold any grudges. Let them go. Let them go. That might mean somebody needs to have a conversation with somebody. Maybe you need to have a lunch, a coffee, a conversation on the phone.

Because bitterness and resentment and grudges will absolutely block your prayer life. 1 Peter 3, 7 says why sometimes you haven't had answer to prayer. Peter's talking about marriage. He goes through a section on the wives. And then he comes to the husbands and he says, Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect. Watch this. I want to emphasize this. He says, so that, remember that is so important. Promises, premises.

Nothing will hinder your prayers. What a second. You're telling me if I'm having an argument with my spouse that God's not going to listen to me? That's what he said. He said, harmony in the home is key to a strong prayer life. Harmony in the home. That means you got to forgive quickly. There have been times, we've been married 25 years, and there have been times in our marriage where I want to bring something to the Lord, but I know that

Like we've just had a miscommunication or we've had a disagreement, right? And it's like, I got to get that right before I go to the Lord with this. I mean, I need her to apologize to me or this isn't good. He's like, no, right? We got to get this right. But it's true, like the harmony in the home. It's why the Bible talks about church leaders, right?

As church leaders, they have to have unity and harmony in their home. Why? Because if their home is a mess constantly, they're supposed to be leading the church in prayer. They're supposed to be leading, and yet they can't even lead their own home.

And so the Bible is very clear. They can't be a church leader if they can't lead their own home. Disharmony at home blocks our prayers. So we'll close up with who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to call or text? Who do you need to express forgiveness to? Who do you need to say I'm sorry to? If you're really feeling like your prayers are not being answered, if you're really feeling like prayer does not work, then which one of these that we just went over five, which one of these are causing that, would you say? Maybe it's multiple ones.

These are just the first five conditions that we have to work on. That's plenty to work on this week. And we'll come back next week. We'll get three more and we will have communion together and we'll have a fresh start. And that'll be a powerful time as well. All right. Amen. Yeah. Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for your church. And we give you the praise. Lord, we want to ask.

for your blessing on each person. And we ask that you would guide and direct them to what they need to do this week. I think we all know one of them or more that we really got to work on. They're just not easy. But again, you're not expecting us to be perfect, but you are expecting us to progress in our faith. And so we thank you for that. And it starts with a step towards Jesus. Some of you don't know Christ. You're not a believer in Christ yet. And I want to give you that opportunity to say yes to him today. And you simply do that

By admitting, that's A, we call it the ABCs of salvation. You need to admit you're a sinner, that you've done some things wrong. You have not lived a perfect life. B, you gotta believe that Jesus paid for those things you've done wrong. It's called sin. He's paid for them all, past, present, and future. And thirdly, you gotta choose to follow him from this day forward for the rest of your life. And if that's you and you haven't said that prayer yet, follow me in this prayer in the silence of your heart. He can hear you. Dear Jesus, today, I admit I'm a sinner.

I believe you paid for all my sins, past, present, future, by your death on the cross. You conquered death by rising again on the third day. Today, I choose to follow you from this day forward for the rest of my life. If you said that, welcome to the family. Others of you, it's time to recommit your life to Christ. Maybe you would see something we talked about today. You say, yeah, I'm definitely not there, but I want to be there. Maybe you'd recommit your life to Christ today. Follow me in this prayer in the silence of your heart. He can hear you. Say, amen.

Dear Jesus, today I recommit my life to you. Thank you for giving me another chance and being patient with me. Give me the strength to follow you more closely from this day forward. If you said that, we praise God for you. Lord, thank you so much. And hey, by the way, let us know by marking the connection card, whether in the seat back in front of you or the digital one online. Lord, we love you. We praise you. We give you all the thanks. It's in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen, amen. All right, please stand.

Before I dismiss you, I'll read the doxology, the benediction, also known as. It comes from Numbers, chapter 6. It says, May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you His favor and give you His peace. And all God's children said, Amen. Amen.

Hey, thank you so much for listening to Skyline Radio on Pray.com, where you matter to God and you matter to us. I want to let you know you can find more content and resources just like this at skylinechurch.org. And if you wouldn't mind, would you give us a follow if you enjoyed the message? And also, please consider sharing this message with someone else. We say it all the time, an invite can absolutely change a life.

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