A.W. Tozer once said the key to prayer is simply praying. We know prayer is of utmost importance, but we often overcomplicate it and give up before we even get started. In this series, our goal is to offer you a simple guide for how to pray in hopes of helping you enter into a life-long and life-giving practice.
Yield | Who Has the Right of Way?
Speakers
Josh Blount
Lead Pastor
Worship
Notes
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Prayer enables us to pick up what God has set out for you.
P. R. A. Y.
P = Pause
R = Rejoice
A = Ask
Y = Yield
True discipleship involves a continuous yielding to Christ, allowing His lordship to shape our character and guide our steps.
Dallas Willard
Matthew 6:9
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
Yielding - relinquishing the right of way to another road user, allowing them to proceed ahead, thereby enabling oneself to enter or continue moving within the traffic flow.
A yielded heart in prayer allows us to merge our will and our ways with God’s will and God’s ways on the road of life.
Matthew 6:12
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
1. Yield In Continuation
Matthew 6:13
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Amen - So be It
Saying 'amen' in prayer is not a closing of the book but a turning of the page. It's the realization that our dialogue with God is a perpetual story, with chapters of learning and growth yet to unfold.
C.S. Lewis
In the symphony of faith, 'amen' is not the final note; it's a moment of pause. It's the acknowledgment that our journey with God continues, with melodies of grace and rhythms of redemption awaiting us.
Tim Keller
Saying amen is not a sign of completion but a declaration of agreement to keep walking in faith.
1 Thessalonians 5:17
Never stop praying.
Don’t hang up with God, stay on the line.
What if the time you spend in prayer is when you refocus on Jesus so that you can carry his presence with you into the other 23 hours of the day with a heightened awareness that he is with you, he is for you, that he likes you, that he hears your thoughts? You do that, and you start to pray in real time. You instinctively lift situations to the Lord in the actual moment that you're experiencing them while you're watching that distressing news report or hearing about your friend's latest crisis. You are no longer deferring all your prayers to some later, holier moment because your whole life is becoming that holier moment.
Brennan Manning
2. Yield In Confession
Matthew 6:12
And forgive us our debts (Sins)
I John 1:9
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God does not deal with sin by ridding our lives of it as if it were a germ, or mice in the attic. God does not deal with sin by amputation as if it were a gangrenous leg, leaving us crippled, holiness on a crutch. God deals with sin by forgiving us, and when he forgives us there is more of us, not less.
Eugene Peterson
Confession Slows Us Down
Confession makes grace real.
To confess your sins to God is not to tell God anything He doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the Golden Gate Bridge.
Friedrich Buchner
3. Yield in Forgiveness
Matthew 6:12
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
Your revelation of the forgiveness you have received from Jesus, fuels the fire for the forgiveness you can release through Jesus.
Ephesians 4:31-32
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Luke 23:34
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
The Lord's Prayer teaches us that forgiveness is a mirror reflecting our redemption. Before extending forgiveness, stand before the mirror of mercy, remembering how lavishly you've been forgiven.
Tim Keller
4. Yield in Guidance
Give Jesus the right of way.
Matthew 6:13
And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:13 NLT
Don't let us yield to temptation
If you don’t choose to yield to God’s guidance, You will inadvertently yield to Satan’s temptations.
The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.
Elisabeth Elliot
Proverbs 14:12
There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Luke 22:43
Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.