Transcript from the podcast (so sorry for the spelling mistakes)
Wildfire podcast is an extension of Wildfire Ministries, an organization that has a focus of igniting men and women of God into a deeper discipleship with Christ, instilling them with a passion to radically and relentlessly pursue Christ wherever that leads, that God's truth will spread like a wildfire.
Thank you.
So as Katie said, we're gonna be starting a new series which is called Salt and Light, and this is taken from Jesus' first, likely first sermon and longest sermon, which is called the Sermon on the Mount, where he speaks about everything that we saw in the video and many, many more things.
And one thing that I find interesting about this sermon is that, while atheists will go against creationism, go against our morality, very few atheists, I can say I've never seen an atheist who will go after the teaching of Jesus.
So that should automatically make it very important.
Even atheists can find no problems with the teachings of Jesus.
And if the world was run by the standards that the sermon of the Mount sets, it would be a much better place.
Love your enemy.
There would be no more war.
But of course, we're imperfect people.
So that's why we have to petition God for his help and we have to pray.
So tonight we'll be looking at prayer as well as other godly disciplines.
But this series will present you with Christian principles for godly living in an increasingly hostile world to Christianity.
But where better to start than the fundamental disciplines of reading and prayer?
But before we begin, I'd like to invite Cameron up to the front.
And another volunteer, please.
Don't worry, you don't have to fight him or anything like that.
No volunteers.
James?
Okay.
Thank you.
Actually, you can probably stand over there as well.
Okay.
So James doesn't know what this is yet, but can you stand there, James, just on that side?
And Cameron, can you do a backflip for me, please?
Nice, James, could you do a backflip, please?
You're not gonna give it a go?
Why can't you do a backflip?
To do a high?
Have you ever practiced one?
You ever trained to do a backflip?
No, okay.
Cameron, just do one more, just in case anyone missed it the first time.
Wow, and Cameron is a Christian, and he is single.
I can't really read your writing, Cameron.
Here, was that everything you wanted me to say?
Yeah, is that it?
Okay.
So, but basically, discipline is really important, okay?
Is Cameron disciplined himself to be able to do a backflip?
James didn't, and then he couldn't do the backflip.
So, in our lives, we need to discipline ourselves for what's important.
There's a principle called, you sow what you reap, or you reap what you sow, rather.
So, whenever we sow things in our lives, we reap the results.
So, for example, someone doesn't just wake up one morning and say, I'm going to be a lifelong pornography addict.
That's a habit that's taught throughout their entire life.
Or, today, I'm going to wake up and I'm going to divorce my wife.
That's not something that happens overnight.
These are things you learn over time.
So, you don't just learn these things overnight.
You train yourselves, and everyone's training themselves for something.
But, it's up to you to decide what you're training yourself for, okay?
And it starts now.
The only solution to avoid some of these potential hazards that we could run into is to train ourselves for godliness.
As it says in 1st Timothy 4, 6 through 8, If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of faith and the good doctrine that you have followed.
Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths, rather train yourselves for godliness.
While bodily training is of some value, like Cameron's backflip, godliness is of a value in every way, and it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
That's the only value that's of good value in life to come, is godliness.
So we're all disciplining ourselves for something, but it's up to you to decide what you're disciplining yourself for.
I need to think about that tonight.
So as we talked about, we're going to be talking about spiritual disciplines of reading and prayer, and how we can overcome some of these other issues in our lives through these two disciplines.
Because you can't just get rid of sin, you have to replace it with something.
God doesn't just let you starve.
He has to replace it with good food, with bread, or the word of God.
So tonight, we're going to be reading from Matthew 6 verses 5 to 15.
So if we could have those up in the screen, please.
Or you can look up your phone as well.
So Matthew 6, 5 through 15.
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.
Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.
Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
And when you pray, do not keep babbling like the pagans, for they think 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.
So put your hand up if you ever heard a prayer in shirts that's been too long and you've got bored and fallen asleep halfway through it.
Yeah, pretty much everyone.
Jesus is literally saying, don't do that.
Don't pray prayers that no one can pay attention to because they're far too long.
Okay, Jesus is saying, pray short prayers and keep those long prayers.
They're excellent, but pray those in private.
No one needs to get bored of them.
So everyone gets bored of long prayers.
Just pray those short prayers in public.
And when it continues, Jesus says, This then is how you should pray.
Our Father in heaven, hallow be thy name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Okay, so as we talked about, this is Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which took place in a mountain in the north, a mountain in the north of the Sea of Galilee in Israel.
And he's speaking to a large crowd about everything we saw in the intro video.
But this is him teaching us how to pray and the importance of prayer.
So what is prayer?
In case any of you don't know, prayer is the act of spending time with God to worship, seek to understand and make requests of him.
And something else Matthew develops in relation to prayer is in Matthew 26, 41, he says, watch and pray that you would not fall into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
So our flesh is weak.
On our own, we cannot do this.
We can't pray to God.
Even the disciples in this very chapter fall asleep when they're praying with Jesus.
So there's not a lot of pressure here.
The disciples who are with him all the time fell asleep.
So you're okay in that regard.
But I'd like to focus more on this.
Let's watch and pray.
When Jesus talks about watching and praying, it's the idea that we have to be engaged with our surroundings, okay?
Prayer isn't just a one-off thing we do.
It's a reaction to the things that are going on around us, okay?
To those temptations we face.
And Paul also talks about it in Thessalonians.
He says, rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing.
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Pray without ceasing.
Paul is known for being sarcastic in certain passages, but I don't think this is one of them.
Because I don't think he's talking about prayer as something you just do.
I think it's an attitude you have.
Prayer isn't something you do once or twice a day.
It's an attitude you have throughout your whole day.
OK, it's the attitude that your mind is prepared and you're always in fellowship with your father in heaven.
You're ready at any moment for temptation to default.
So why is prayer important?
The world is becoming more and more hostile to God.
I don't think anyone would debate this.
You just have to look on the news and you'll see any kind of articles that are against God.
Schools are becoming more and more anti-God.
Universities, you name it, no one would doubt this.
But how do we as Christians respond to this increasing threat to our faith?
Well, we have to go straight to the Father in heaven.
And the Bible tells us as well that the devil is like a roaring lion.
In 1 Peter 5, 8, Peter says, Be sober minded, be watchful, your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
So if you're not paying attention, the devil is going to go for you.
And on your own, you can never win.
And Paul also talks about this in Corinthians.
He says, No temptation has overtaken you, except that which is common to man.
But God is faithful.
He will not let you be tempted beyond what you're able.
With the temptation, he will provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
I believe this way of escape is prayer.
At any moment, you can pray.
And so you can see the temptation in your surroundings.
You can watch him pray.
You're watching.
The temptation comes.
You pray straight away.
And when we pray, we're in fellowship with the Father.
We're transported immediately to the Throne Room of God, where Satan does not dwell.
Whenever you pray, you go straight to the Throne Room of God.
Satan can't touch you.
If we just apply this principle in our lives, we would never fall in the temptation.
Of course, we're human, and that's not going to happen all the time.
But think of how many times we send throughout the day.
A lot of those could be avoided if we just go in prayer to the Father.
Before we go any further, I like to say I'm a huge hypocrite.
You know the term practice, what you preach.
I'm preaching in my prayer.
I'm terrible at prayer.
Quite often I'll come and say, okay, I prayed once every day this week.
That's dreadful.
Okay.
Another example of this is looking at an idea podcast.
And we were speaking about, I think it was the Book of James, and it was talking about spiritual disciplines again.
So I said a good principle is no Bible, no breakfast.
You get up an hour earlier and you read your Bible, and then you're prepared for the rest of the day.
So after that podcast, let my dad listen to it.
The next day he came down the stairs and I was watching the office at nine o'clock in the morning.
And he said, have you done your Bible today?
Or have you prayed?
So I'm a huge hypocrite straight off the bat.
But these principles have helped me.
And I've fallen short many, many times.
But these things have helped me and I hope they'll help you.
So just keep these in mind.
The first thing is to choose better times to pray.
So quite often what happens is I try to pray every night.
So I go in, lie in my bed and I realize, I haven't prayed today.
So I take that moment, I pray.
My mind drifts apart.
And I thank you, God, for this day, for your Lord Jesus Christ, for my sins, and what time did I start life going tomorrow.
Your mind drifts off.
And because you're tired, you've done a full day's work.
So I would argue that the best time to pray isn't when you're lying in your bed, ready to doze off.
You need to be watching and praying.
You need to have your attention span about you.
And the best way to do this is to just pick intervals throughout the day, take that time and pray.
So in the morning, that's a great time.
As I said before, I'm not very good at that one, but you can also in the car.
Most people here probably listen to music in the car.
Maybe every so often in the journey, turn the music off and just talk to God or at work.
I don't know, it depends on your job.
If you're a police officer or something, then don't do this one, but just take the time.
And if it's not a busy day, just pray, thank God for the day and fellowship with him.
Another thing you can do is pray with structure.
For example, pray through each line of the Lord's Prayer.
So our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Take that springboard off that.
And you pray, you thank God that he's your heavenly father.
Another example of this is in verse 12, it says, forgive us our trespasses.
So you just say, Father, I've sinned many ways this week.
I've lied, I've stolen.
Please forgive me of these.
And I thank the Lord Jesus Christ, paid for this punishment on my sin, this punishment on the cross, and that I'm forgiven.
And we know from 1st John 1,9, that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Okay.
And one final step I think we should take, I had to take this one quite recently, is I was considering getting you to stand up and then here was the longest screen time, would stay standing, but I'll not do public shaming.
But you'll know yourself, if you go on your phone, you can see your screen time.
And for me, it was YouTube, one YouTube video from MrBeast, and that's me doing the rabbit hole.
So I quite recently had to delete YouTube, and I've had to delete Instagram, things like that, because of the stand in the way of my prayer life with God.
There's a pastor in America, John Piper, he says, one of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook, and you can add Instagram and Snapchat, will be to prove at the last day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.
So God doesn't need to, whenever he has you right in front of him, he doesn't have to use his power to see whether you were a good Christian and prayed every day.
He just has to tell you to look up your screen time.
Because if your screen time is, say, four hours, and you haven't prayed for five minutes, that's an issue.
It's an issue I've faced, but it's an issue that's in your control.
You can just delete the apps.
They can be deleted off your phone.
As I said, I've had to do that recently.
What I want to do now is, for one or two minutes, I want us all to focus and just pray individually.
Get your phones out and back to the passage, Matthew 6.
Take the time to just pray to the Lord's prayer.
Take each verse, and as we've done before, use that to apply it to your life.
Or for some of you, you'll know yourself, if you spend too much time in your phone and compared to your prayer life.
For some of you, you might need to delete your social media.
And I hope if that's the case, God will convict you of that right now.
And you'll just take the time, while everyone has their eyes closed, and delete those social media apps.
Not forever, but until you get these more important things sorted out.
Because there's no point in saying, I'm trying to pray, I'm trying to pray.
But then, because of your muscle memory, you just go on your phone and look up Instagram every two seconds.
It's important that you take these steps, so that whenever you stand before God, you can say, I did everything I could to pray.
It's within your control.
So for two minutes, what we're just gonna do is close our eyes, or look at your phones, and pray for the Lord's Prayer.
And if you need to take that step and delete social media, you can do that now.
Amen.
So hopefully you enjoyed that time.
Some of you know that might have been the first time you've ever prayed, or the first time you've prayed in a while, so hopefully you find that helpful.
The next point that we're going to look at is Bible reading and the importance of it as a spiritual discipline.
But what does it have to do with Lord's Prayer, because that's a prayer?
Well, Jesus says, give us this day our daily bread.
But we know this isn't just physical food, but it's also spiritual.
Because he says in Matthew 4 verse 4, just a few chapters earlier, he says, man cannot live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The word of God, another name for the Bible.
And 2nd Timothy 3, 16-17 tells us that all scripture is breathed out by God.
Profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent and equipped for every good work.
That's the importance of Bible reading.
But why else is reading our Bible important?
50% of marriages fail.
92% of men are addicted to pornography, and the number of women is catching up.
Moral issues like transgenderism, homosexuality, and even veganism are dominating today's popular culture.
And mental health is an all-time high.
But how can we overcome these issues if we don't even know what the Bible says about them?
Jesus says in John 14, he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
How can we know what truth is if we don't read our Bibles?
Further evidence of the importance of Bible reading is Psalm 1, which is written by David, who is called a man after God's own heart.
He is actually the second after Jesus.
He is the character in the Bible who is the most written about him.
So we know he is a really important character, and he is after God's own heart.
So what can we learn from this man?
Well, David writes in Psalm 1, he says, Blessed is the man that walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season.
His leaf does not wither, in all that he does, he prospers.
So David tells us that the man who focuses on the law of God, or the word of God, and he meditates on it day and night, it consumes his mind, he prospers.
Another example of this is Joshua, who is the man God shows to lead the people of Israel into the land of Canaan and conquer it for him and for his people.
And in Joshua 1 it says, the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written, for then you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success.
Have I not commanded you?
Be strong and courageous.
Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
If you're meditating on God's word day and night, he's always with you.
You're always thinking about him and he's always with you.
Foddy Bochum, who's another pastor in America, you're going to think I listen to too many American pastors, which is probably correct.
But he has an interesting quote.
He says, the modern church is producing passionate people filled with empty heads who love the Jesus they don't know very well.
Many of us in this room claim to be Christians, and quite rightly so.
We are Christians.
But as Christians, we're claiming that Jesus is the Lord of our lives.
Okay, he is of utmost importance.
He's the most important thing to us.
But how can he be the most important thing to us if we don't even know what he's like, what the Bible says about him?
And Jesus says in Luke 24 in the road to Emmaus, after he's risen from the dead, he's walking with two of his disciples.
And it says that, beginning with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them all things in scripture concerning himself.
Jesus says to himself that the entire Bible is about him.
And as Christians, it's hard to need to know this Bible so that we can know the Jesus who's our Lord.
And God's will for your life isn't that you'd be happy or you'd be successful.
It might be.
You might be happy and you might be successful in your life.
That might be his will for your life.
However, his primary will for your life is to make you holy, as it says in 1 Peter, which means set apart and therefore like Christ.
But how can we be like Christ and train ourselves to be like him if we don't know what he's like?
And we need to know the Jesus we love, or else we're just loving our version of him, which is false.
That's the duty we have to read our Bibles as Christians.
We need to know what the Bible says about Jesus, what Jesus says about himself, and therefore the true character of the person who is our Lord of our lives.
But how can we take practical steps to read our Bible?
I'm definitely not the only person who's been to camp in the summer and has come away really inspired, ready to read my Bible and get started and read to the Bible in the year until you get to Leviticus and then it gets too hard.
But Proverbs 15-22 says without council, plans fail, but with many advisors, they succeed.
So a practical step I've taken is I've been part of two, what we call community groups, which is a group of guys who meet weekly and we keep each other accountable with our reading.
We say, what have you read this week?
How have you fed your soul?
And we also have a group chat where we put in tics.
Once we read out God's word for the day, we throw in a tick and that way we're keeping each other responsible.
These guys have helped me and many of them are in this room.
They've helped me to read my Bible much more often than I would have otherwise, because I have a duty not just to God, but to them.
They can ask me questions and if I haven't been reading my Bible, then they can pull me aside and call me up on it and call me to something higher.
Because Jesus doesn't just call us to be mediocre.
He calls us to be much better.
He calls us to be part of his kingdom, to spread the kingdom of God which again is talked about much more in the Sermon and the Mount.
The kingdom of God is the influence of the kingdom of heaven, the influence of God's reign.
We are part of this kingdom and it's up to us to stand firm for what we believe in and for the Bible.
But we need to know the Bible.
We need to know how best to defend the values it talks about.
We need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And I think a practical step you can take is, even if it's just with one other person, ask them to keep you accountable each week and daily as well.
I think week's almost too long.
You need to meet daily through just a group chat, through a text and keep each other accountable with, have you read your Bible today?
And if you haven't done that, you need to stop what you're doing and read your Bible.
It's of paramount importance.
But to some of you, this almost seems irrelevant.
Why would I even want to read my Bible or pray or anything like that?
Well, I went surfing a few months ago with a friend of mine, and we pulled up to Port Ballantrae car park, and my dad was already in the water.
But my friend said, here, it looks, the waves look a little bit fat.
They don't look that good for what we're looking for.
We'll head somewhere else here and go in there.
So we went around to this other spot, and the waves were like knee high, like taller kind of waves, or are they smaller than that look?
Are they?
Yeah, but taller waves.
So, and then my dad, who was in the Port Ballantrae, came back that evening and said it was the best surf session he'd had all year.
He'd get 10 foot barrels.
He loves it.
But the point was, I had a choice there.
Whether it was I gonna follow my dad, he told me to come in after him and join him in the waves of Port Ballantrae, or was I gonna follow my friend somewhere else, which was disappointing.
That's like the choice we're given in life.
We can follow our heavenly father who says, this is what's best for you.
I told you my word, you follow my son, and this is how you will gain prosperity for all eternity.
Or you can follow the way of the world, which will only lead to death and destruction.
There's no way about it.
You just see any number of pop stars, you have everything they want in the world, and it all crumbles in the end.
But those who give their lives in service for God, they're the ones that are truly rewarded.
This life, as Bruce talked about a few weeks ago, is only a small part of eternity.
That's something to bear in mind.
And Jesus says in John 10 verse 10, I have come that they may have life and habit to the full.
This eternal life that we're having to the full doesn't begin once we die, it begins now.
But the way to be partaking of that is to accept Christ as the Lord of your life.
You can't fully gain this freedom unless you submit to the Lord of the entire universe, and accept that he died on the cross for your sins.
So some of you need to do that tonight.
Before you go any further, or else the rest of these principles we talk about will seem completely irrelevant.
Jesus says himself, he says better than I ever could, in John 3, 16 to 21, For God loved the world in this way, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send his son into the world, condemn the world, but in order that the world through him might be saved.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.
Because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God, and this is the judgment.
The light has come into the world, but people love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come into the light, lest his works be exposed.
But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that they may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
Jesus is the light of the world, and he came in here to save you.
And if you haven't put your trust in Jesus, that's the most important thing you can do.
Because tonight we've looked at the importance of reading and prayer, but most importantly, the importance of life and obedience to Christ.
Because apart from him, there is no life, there is only death.
And that's something to bear in mind.
That's what the Bible says.
And Jesus wants what's best for you.
But you need to read your Bible to find out what that is.
And you need to pray so you can enact it.
Like we said at the start, you're disciplining yourself for something, but it's up to you to decide what that's going to be.
Are you going to be the 45 year old, who's a spiritual child, who is their talents and gifts that God gave them in hope of finding fulfillment elsewhere?
Or will you be the man or woman of God, who starts their life from tonight now, in obedience and discipline, to the life that God's called them to be?
I spoke at the first night of High Tide, some of you may remember in September, about discipline to passion.
So you may be wondering, is there like a part 2 of this, where you talk about the passionate part?
Like, where do we really get excited about this?
There's not going to be a part 2.
This is it.
Because passion isn't something that's manufactured.
It's something that's earned.
People who become passionate about things are people who put themselves all into it.
Sportsmen who are passionate about it, Cameron who's passionate about his backflips and stuff, Kostarin, that's because he's put the practice in it, and he sees the reward for it.
How are you going to be passionate about the Bible, if you're going to read it once every two months?
That's not going to happen.
Don't be surprised when that's the case.
It's also important to point out that if you can find me one person who spent their entire life in service to God, reading their Bibles, praying, who thinks it's a mistake, find that person to bring them to me, because I don't think that person exists.
These things are not wasted.
They're useful for all eternity.
And a verse that we're going to close on is Hebrews 12, 11, which says, For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.
You may not enjoy your Bible reading.
You may not enjoy your prayer for the first few weeks.
It's going to be hard.
It's going to be difficult.
The Bible doesn't say it's not going to be.
It says the opposite.
For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained in it.
Righteousness like the righteousness of Christ.
Again, God is trying to make us holy, set apart for his service.
He can't use us unless he sets apart to be used for him.
You become passionate about something because it defines you.
So what defines you?
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