Prayer: Before You Ask
Selected Scriptures
Connect:
Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.
Prayer:
Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.
Review:
The disciples once asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray.” Which means they realized they didn’t know how to do it. So he teaches them the prayer known as The Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6, Jesus doesn’t just give words to say, he reshapes how prayer works—the posture, the priority, and the practice of prayer. This series walks straight through Jesus’ teaching, helping us move from religious, performance-driven prayer to relational, trusting, God-centered prayer. We’ll learn to pray the Jesus way, and this week we look at how to prepare our hearts before we ask for anything…
The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…
o What did you learn about God?
o What did you learn about people?
o What did you learn about yourself?
o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?
Reflection:
Personal Experience & Discussion:
Some of us have kids, all of us were kids at some point! Spend some time discussing the difference between a parent’s perspective and a child’s perspective around the request, “Can I please skip school today? I really don’t want to go…”
Reflective Discussion (Remember to look at the context of the verses as you are reading!):
Discuss Pastor Scott’s statement, “The purpose of prayer isn’t to impose our will on God but to align our will with His.” If God is for us, not against us, if He can work all things together for good, if He is both loving and powerful, if we really convince ourselves that He not only can but WILL do what we want… what is the purpose of praying, “Thy will be done”? Read the following Scriptures to support your discussion of that question (Matt 7:7-11, Mat 21:22, John 14:13,14, James 4:1-10, Ps 37:3-8, John 15:5-8)
Richard Foster wrote about the “Relinquishment” prayer: “To applaud the will of God, to do the will of God, even to fight for the will of God is not difficult….until it comes at cross purposes with our will.” Read Jesus prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and discuss: What has to happen in our hearts, our minds, our will, our relationship with God… to pray that kind of prayer in willful surrender to the purposes of God. (Matthew 26:38-44)
“An un-surrendered life leads to unnecessary pain.” A surrendered life faces pain as well, but there is a difference. Discuss the difference between the 2 kinds of suffering mentioned in the following verses. (Prov 19:3, Prov 13:20, Ps 107:17-18, Rom 6:23, Rom 12:1,2, Jam 1:2-4, Heb 12:1,2, 1 Pet 1:6-7, Reve 2:102 Tim 4:7-8, Heb 10:35, 36, Gal 6:9, Matt 5:10-12, 2 Cor 4:17)
Application:
Pastor Scott made it clear that surrender is a matter of Lordship: Who is on the throne? Make a commitment to prepare for situations where temptation is strong- commit to praying, “Lord, give me the strength here, now, to honor You; Your will be done here, now, in my life.”
Prayer:
Spend some time together committing yourselves again to the Lord’s purposes and will in and through you, whatever the cost. As Scott shared, “We’ve already got a King”; own that declaration this evening as you pray together Matt 6:9-10.
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