# 1. The Vision of a Praying Church – Luke 11:1-4.

In some ways Talbot Creek is beginning of a brand new year in terms of the church. It is the time when we start all over. I don’t know how many of you realize it but we have actually completed six years of ministry here at Talbot and we are thankful to God who has brought us this far.
Looking over those six years we have done some things right and in some areas we have missed the boat altogether. Some of the things we have done right I think are these:
• We have reached out into the community through our Summer Fairs, Community assistance to families in need, soccer camp and through monthly messages in the Chronicle and other means.
• We have reached out into the Schools through Big Brothers and other programs there.
• We have established an active and alive Youth Group that meets twice a week.
• We have a viable Sunday morning worship service and children’s program.
• We have at least some active home Bible Study groups going.
• We have reached out through missionary giving both to projects at home and overseas.
Those are all good things which we have done and which we need to celebrate in our thanksgiving.
But there are also some areas in which we have dropped the ball.
• We have not done well in reaching the un-churched.
• We have not done well in creating spontaneous fellowship during week days. As a result of this we have lost some of our families.
• We have fallen down in the area of prayer.
Now, I mention prayer last but it is really the most important part of what we do here at Talbot. In fact it is central to everything we do. After much prayer and thinking about the direction in which we should go this coming year I believe that God has given me a clear impression that the thing we need to do most is to go back to our original vision and back to the most important part of that vision, which is prayer. In the light of that I want to start off the new ‘church year’ with some messages which I hope will challenge you to make Talbot a praying church and thus a powerful church.
Now stay with me. This is not an attempt to beat up on you but to teach you principles about prayer, which, if we practice them, will renew our passion for God and His Church. Right at the start of this church I preached a message on ‘Core Values’ in which I outlined five things I wanted to see develop in the lives of the members of this church. Let me repeat them for us:
• We want to see people here who are prepared to live under the authority of the Word of God.
• We want to see people who have developed the habit of daily prayer and who are expecting answers to prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• We want to see a church in which people are known for their integrity. They live by their word. You can trust them.
• We want to see people who give their best for Jesus in whatever they do – no half-hearted effort here.
• We want to see people developing their leadership abilities to the fullest.

Now, it is this area of prayer and prayer ministries that I want to concentrate on over the next five or six weeks. The church should be a place where people experience amazing answers to prayer and I believe that many of us do but we don’t share these answers in an open way. I want us however, as a congregation, to renew our commitment to prayer and the instrument I want to use in getting there is ‘The Lord’s Prayer.’ We are going to look over a number of weeks at our Lord’s teaching relating to prayer. Let me invite you to turn with me first to Luke’s record of the

Lord’s Prayer – Luke 11:1 – 2.

Notice that Jesus was praying in a certain place and his disciples obviously saw and heard him pray. It must have been an awesome experience for them to see and hear their Master in communion and fellowship with the Father. The disciples do not give us a description of how he prayed but they indicate that there was something awesome about it. And so they waited until Jesus was finished, then they came to him and said, “Lord teach us to pray.”
Church members sometimes say to me, “Pastor Cowan, I wish I could pray like you.” What they really mean is that they would like to be able to find the same words that I use when I pray but what they are seeing and hearing when I pray is only the outward visible and audible action. True prayer comes from the heart and that is not easy to see.
Here is what we learn however from the disciples’ request.

1. Prayer can be Learned – ‘Lord, teach us to pray.”

In fact we need to be taught because it is not something we do naturally. I was taught to pray as a child. My parents taught me very early in infancy, as soon as I could talk, to pray, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee lord, my soul to take.’
Later on I learned, ‘Jesus tender shepherd hear me, Bless Thy little lamb tonight. Through the darkness be thou near me; Keep me safe ‘til morning light.’ Still later on I learned the Lord’s Prayer just by hearing it repeated in Church.
That was about my limit in prayer until I was truly converted at 17 years of age. I just didn’t know how to pray so I took my hymnbook and learned prayer hymns and prayed them back to God. Sometimes I would pray ‘Teach me thy way O Lord, Teach me thy way…’
You see, here’s what you need to know about prayer.

‘Learning to pray is a lifelong process.’

It begins with learning to pray during devotional times when no one else is listening to you but God. God is not concerned about the actual use of words or the proper use of grammer. It’s only people who have that concern. God is concerned about the heart.
In public prayer it may begin with just one sentence, what some people like to call a ‘popcorn prayer.’ The first time I ever prayed openly in the presence of others was shortly after my conversion when someone who thought I had been a Christian for years asked me to open in prayer. Absolutely stunned at the request, I closed my eyes and repeated the Lord’s Prayer. Don’t be embarrassed if you can only pray one sentence or the Lord’s Prayer in a public meeting and please remember, we can learn to pray.

2. It’s the Lord who teaches us to pray – ‘Lord, teach us.’

It is interesting, isn’t it, that when you go to the Old Testament you really find no instruction on how to pray. There are scattered principles about what to pray but no how to pray. You don’t find any such teaching in the books of Moses or the instructions of the Prophets.
And when you come to the New Testament the same is true. You find a lot in the Epistles about the content and challenge of prayer but little about the process of prayer. It is only in the Gospels in the teachings of Jesus that you find out how to pray. You find it in the Sermon on the Mount and in other places where Jesus taught on prayer.
Jesus teaches us in the Gospels and He teaches us in His personal relationship with us. He is able to teach us because He is as close to God the Father as anyone can get. He is One with the Father (John 10:30). This closeness and oneness with the Father enables him to know and teach us how to pray.

3. We all need to learn how to pray – ‘Lord, teach us…’

Notice that it was the hand picked disciples of Jesus who asked the question. They needed to know ‘how to pray.’ They had seen up close in the life of Jesus what prayer was able to do. When they made this request of Jesus they were really admitting to Jesus that they did not know how to pray. Can you imagine that? The Disciples of Jesus who would later on become known as the Twelve Apostles were admitting that they did not know how to pray.
In the old days most Evangelical churches had mid-week prayer services. In most of those churches only a handful turned up for the prayer service. In a church of 500 you may find 20 people at that service. Why? When I would ask people this question, ‘Why don’t you attend prayer meeting?’ the most common answer I would get was “Pastor, I don’t know how to pray.”
Is this a common church problem? Listen to the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:26, ‘We do not know how to pray as we ought.’ This is the only thing Paul ever admitted to not knowing. He knew how to write letters, how to explain deep theology, how to work with his hands to support himself, how to explain and defend the Gospel, how to plant churches – things that you and I know how to do them. But he didn’t know how to pray as he ought. Paul would have to say like the rest of the Apostles, “Lord, teach me to pray.’
Do you feel that need in your own life? Do you need to go to Jesus as the Disciples did and say, “Lord, teach me to pray.”

Here are some questions I want you to answer to yourself:
• When you pray, do you feel like you are talking to yourself?
• Has prayer become for you just a meaningless habit?
• Are you getting no answers to prayer?
• Do you pray only when you face a crisis?
• Are you any different because you’ve prayed?

Closing:

As we close this message today, let me take you back to the statement we made six years ago in our Vision Statement for this church –
‘We want to see people who have developed the habit of daily prayer and who are experiencing answers to prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit.’
To put it in a much simpler way:
‘We want to see you experience amazing answers to prayer.’
Over the next few weeks I want to challenge you to learn to pray, privately and openly and to help you do that I want to invite you to become part of a Prayer Partner Team. What I want to do is to have small groups of prayer partners who will meet at their own convenience once weekly for prayer. When the service is over I want you to talk with one another and see if there are others who will join with you. The teams should be four to six persons. If two couples would like to make a team that would be good. Set a time when you can meet and start as soon as possible.
There is a sheet of paper on the Welcome table where you can register you Prayer Partner Team. This is for my benefit and knowledge.
I will also provide a list of things to pray for and you can add to that list request from your own group.
I am willing to come to any group and give you a help in starting to pray effectively.
I want you to come and receive the teaching over the next few weeks that will help you to pray as Jesus prayed.
And those of you who are receiving this message over the Internet, why don’t you write and let us know that you too are willing to be a Partner in Prayer with us. May the Lord bless you abundantly today.

I was once visiting an Old Order Mennonite Church when I saw something I shall never forget. A little boy of about eight or nine years old entered the service late, dressed in what looked like a brand-new suit. Underneath that black suit was a new plaid shirt. But what drew my attention the most was that, in spite of that black suit and attractive plaid shirt, he was barefooted. He wore neither shoes nor socks.

Now perhaps he had a reason for going sockless and shoeless. Perhaps they didn’t seem important to him. Perhaps his parents couldn’t afford them although that seemed unlikely given his attractive new suit. Perhaps he was late for church and didn’t have time to finish dressing. Or, perhaps, he just couldn’t be bothered. Whatever it was it seemed peculiar to me because I was a stranger to the practices and culture of the Old Order Mennonites. The moment I entered that church I was transported into a totally different and peculiar culture. They were wonderful, friendly, gracious people but they lived their lives in a totally different way from the world around them.

Imagine how you would feel if you were suddenly transported from this century into a Roman army camp in the First Century A.D. Everything would be peculiar to you and among the strange things you would see would be the Roman soldier’s feet prepared for war. Why? Because, instead of army boots, he would put on sandals. We all know what sandals are, just the sole of a shoe with straps attached to secure them to the feet. This was what the Romans wore but there was one thing that was different. The soles of those sandals would have studs underneath them like golf shoes today.

You will understand why as we look at:

1. The Purpose of a Soldier’s Sandals.

Why did a Roman soldier wear sandals? Well for three main reasons.

• A. For Firmness.

He needed something to keep him from slipping and sliding in the heat of the battle. He needed the ability to stand his ground and the studs underneath would help him to do this. He did not know what kind of terrain he would be fighting on so he needed to provide his own foundation, and his sandals were specifically made to accomplish this.

• B. For Protection.

In modern warfare we often hear about the ground being mined. In the First Century they had no explosives and no technology to mine the ground so they did something else. They fixed into the ground sharpened sticks or spikes so that, when the enemy came running along he would injure his feet on these spikes. The Roman soldier wore sandals with tough soles to prevent this from happening.

• C. For Mobility.

In the heat of the battle the soldier would soon be killed if he remained in one spot too long. He had to keep moving so as to get the advantage when he was under attack. Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones tells us that one of the secrets of Alexander the Great’s military success was his ability to move his army about quickly. How did he do it in an age when armies moved very slowly? By providing his soldiers with the proper footwear to do it, namely studded sandals.

So then, there are the three main reasons for the soldier’s sandals – Firmness, Protection, and Mobility. With that in mind let us now consider:

1. The Practices of the Saviour’s Soldier’s.

‘Stand firm,’ writes Paul, ‘with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace.’ Literally, in the Greek, it says, ‘’shoeing the feet with readiness of the Gospel of peace.’ Paul looks at the Roman soldier and he sees an illustration of what Christians ought to be. They should have their feet ‘shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.’

1. What is the Gospel of Peace?
   

• It is the knowledge of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which brings peace with God and peace in the human heart. The Apostle is picturing a Christian who is under Satanic attack constantly. He is the object of temptation and demonic oppression. Life has not been easy for this person. We see people like this around us every day. Some Christians go through it more than others, but it is there. How can a Christian handle these things?

To begin with he needs to be absolutely sure of the reality of his faith in Jesus Christ. He needs to know, without the shadow of a doubt, that he has made his peace with God and nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Every person listening today or reading this on our web site, needs to ask himself or herself this question:

‘Am I truly born-again? Have I unequivocally invited Jesus Christ by faith to come into my life and be my Lord? Have I truly experienced forgiveness with God? Do I have the peace of God which passes all understanding in my heart and mind?’

When the Apostle Paul was arrested for preaching the Gospel and thrown into prison in Rome where he suffered for two or more years, he could say without the shadow of a doubt,

‘I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day,’ (2^nd Timothy 1:12).

Paul had received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour and he knew that nothing could ever take that away from him. He was at peace with God and when Satan threw temptation, and persecution and arrest and imprisonment and a dungeon at him, he remained steadfast and secure in the greatness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do you know Christ in that way? Have you made your peace with God? Have you settled once and for all the issue of whether or not you are saved? You cannot face the storms of life and you cannot face the attacks of the devil with confidence and stability until you know with certainty you are right with God.

Moreover, you need to be committed to this Gospel. You cannot go into battle with Satan in a half-hearted way. That would be like a Roman soldier going into battle with his shoes unlaced or his sandals untied. That would be inviting trouble to overtake you. No, the Gospel calls us to live in a certain way – to live a life worthy of this Gospel – to accept the duties and responsibilities of the Gospel. We cannot have the benefits of the Gospel while we reject the responsibilities of the Gospel. To be ready to go into battle with demonic forces of this world we must be resolute in our commitment to live a life completely surrendered to Jesus Christ.

1. How does this work in practice?

Well, it works in Christian warfare just as it did in Roman warfare. When you receive the Gospel of peace in your life and make a serious commitment to live by it, here is what it provides.

1. Firmness.

When you put on this commitment to the Gospel you are now equipped to take a stand for Jesus. You are no longer like some unstable Christians who are thrown off balance by every teaching that comes along in this world – Ephesians 4:4. You do not need to run from church to church and conference to conference looking for some new teaching and some new experience constantly. No, a total commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ will keep you firm in your faith and help you to stand firm no matter what Satan may throw at you.

1. Protection.

Alongside of the need to stand firm, there is the need for protection. If the devil can’t get at you in one way then he will try in another way. If he can’t get at you by distorting the truth, he will throw all kinds of subtle desires before you. He will create new ambitions in the area of material wealth, security, positions in this world, prestige before men, and anything else that he thinks will draw you away from God. That’s the way he does it. He changes the focus and distracts you from the most important thing in life, which is wholeheartedly following Christ. We need protection from the world, the flesh and the devil, and we also need:

1. Mobility.

Our foundation gives us ability to move. When the battle becomes too much for us we can move to a new position. We can ‘flee youthful lust’ or change our tactics in battle. When I first became a Christian I use to argue with members of my family about the Gospel. Then someone suggested that, instead of trying to convert them I should just pray for them. Since that time I have seen literally dozens of my family members come to faith in Jesus Christ. The Christian can confront and rebuke someone today and do an act of kindness for that some person tomorrow. He becomes sensitive to the leading of the Spirit of God and it gives him this sense of mobility.

Closing:

The challenge for you and for me today is the ‘put on the sandals of the Gospel of peace.’

1. You have to put it on; no one can do it for you.

2. That means you must know the basics of the Gospel by studying them; no one can do it for you.

3. It means you must take the Gospel with you, that it, first in your heart, anywhere you go, for you never know when you will come under attack from Satan.

The centre is located at 2347 Concession Rd 10, Brechin.

Traveling north from Brechin, take the 169 turn off, travel north to Con. 10 (Udney) and turn left.  The community centre will be on your left.   Travel time from Brechin is 7 minutes.

Coming south on Highway 12, turn left on Concession 10.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

The great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, once said, “Like the Spartans, every Christian is born a warrior. It is his destiny to be assaulted; it is his duty to attack.” Today I am concerned with the Christian who is being assaulted, who is being fiercely attacked and needs to be protected.
Sometimes we look at people who face several physical and social difficulties in life and we naturally assume that they are under a heavy attack from Satan. I recall, for instance, a pastor-friend of mine whose wife died a few months after discovering she had cancer. He was left with eight children to take care of and some eleven churches to supervise. Shortly afterwards his eldest son lost a leg in a car accident. Then one of his daughters died in a drowning accident and another lost an eye in yet another accident. It all happened in little more than over a year. Like Job in the Old Testament it seemed that one tragedy followed upon another. Christians naturally reacted by saying that he was under severe attack from Satan.
They were probably right, but you know, there are other kinds of attacks that sometimes are never seen outwardly but are just as severe as the visible physical attacks. There are attacks upon the mind and the heart which have been violent and painful enough to drive away believers from fellowship with God. For some Christians the attack has been so strong that they have given in to things they literally despise. Some have found themselves trapped and in bondage to things they hate. It all happens because of the onslaught of the devil.
How do we as Christians prepare for this sort of thing? Is there a way to safeguard ourselves from such a time in our lives? I believe there is and I think this is exactly what Paul is answering for us when he says, ‘Put on…the breastplate of righteousness. Let’s begin by:

1. Describing the Breastplate.

In his description of the Christian’s armour Paul is once again drawing from the image of a Roman soldier. Paul is a prisoner in Rome and there he is guarded by Roman soldiers and, as he observes their equipment, he takes note of the breastplate. Each soldier wears a coat of mail that covered the ‘trunk’ of his body, that is, the front and back from the neck to the thigh. This was very important equipment for it covered and protected the vital organs, the heart and the lungs. If either of these were wounded in battle you were almost certain to die. It covered the abdomen as well which, to ancient people, was the seat of the emotions – see Phil. 2:1 ( KJV).
When applied to the Christian life, the ‘breastplate of righteousness’ offers protection for us when we are assaulted in the areas of our feelings and conscience. Consider, first of all:

A. Our battered emotions.

Our feelings or emotions play a significant role in who we are as persons. Secular psychologists have discovered this and are struggling to teach us how to deal with our feelings today. They always want to know ‘how do you deal with this’ problem and that issue. They ask questions like, “How do you feel about your parents? What emotions do you experience when you spouse walks into the room? Are you angry with your teacher?” The list goes on. “Do you feel accepted by your co-worker? Do you like being with your neighbour?” These are all questions designed to deal with the heart, questions to put you in touch with your feelings.
Emotions are also the Devil’s target. If somehow he can play with your emotions, make you feel unwanted until you fall into despair and depression, make you feel angry to the point of sinful outburst, make you feel sinful desire to the place where you lose control, then he’s got you wounded.
I see it in my counselling all the time. There are Christians whose emotions have been wounded by uncaring parents, a harsh spouse, a neglecting pastor, a gossiping friend, and so on, and the Devil takes advantage of it.
Then, there is the area of:

B. A Confused Conscience.

The conscience is that inner sense of right or wrong. It is that sense of having to give an account of ourselves. We don’t seem to be able to get rid of it. It is always there nagging away at us – Romans 2:14 – 15; 1st Timothy 4:2.
Satan tries to confuse the Christian in the area of the conscience. Whenever you hear someone say, “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right,” you are hearing the opinion of a confused conscience. Whenever you hear someone say, “God could never forgive me,” that is a confused conscience. Whenever you hear someone say, “I don’t feel badly about it because I did it in good conscience,” that is a confused person. Satan comes along and he tells you that the end justifies the means; that it is okay to cheat on your exams because everyone does it; that pre-marital sexual involvement is okay because it proves your love for your boyfriend or girlfriend; that is an attack in the area of the conscience by Satan. And that is the kind of language we are hearing today from many Christians which means that Satan is winning the battle in their lives.

Now here is the answer to that kind of an assault – Hebrews 9:13 – 14.

We need an inner cleansing of the conscience. How? Through the blood of the lamb – Revelation 1:5c; 12:11. But, once we have been cleansed, how do we protect the heart and the conscience? We ‘put on the breastplate of righteousness.’

Before I talk about our part in all of this, let’s:

2. Define Righteousness.

To define righteousness we need to turn to Philippians 3:4b – 9. In this passage Paul speaks of two kinds of righteousness. The first is:

A. Man-made.

This is the kind of righteousness which is legalistic. It is the result of my own self-disciple and obedience to rules and regulations which others I have made or others have imposed upon me. It makes me feel good because I have kept all the rules. That kind of righteousness is purely external and totally inadequate in terms of defeating Satan. It makes me want to commend myself before God and pat myself on the back but it won’t stop Satan from attacking me. We all know people who we knew to be people of honesty and integrity, and then, for seemingly no good reason, they do something out of character that totally alarms us. We say, “I can’t believe he did that!” But we shouldn’t be surprised. Man-made righteousness always ends up that way.

B. God-provided righteousness.

There is a righteousness that God imparts to us when we come to Christ and which we receive by faith throughout the Christian life 1st Corinthians 1:30 & 2nd Corinthians 5:21.
The best way I know to explain this is by using Puritan terminology. The Puritans talked about ‘imputed righteousness’ and ‘imparted righteousness.’ Imputed righteousness is righteousness that God puts on our account. For instance, in the same way that a wealthy man may take some of his money and put it into an account for a poor relative, so God takes from the infinite righteousness of Jesus Christ His Son and puts it on your account.
Now, back to the rich man and his poor relative. Once the money is in the relative’s account it is his to draw upon and use as he wishes. He can leave it there and live like a pauper and have his creditors harass him for payments, or he draw upon it, pay off his bills and enjoy the benefits of what is left over.
So the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, purchased by the shedding of blood upon the cross, has been imputed to every believer to provide for us and protect us from the assaults of Satan and his demons. This imputed righteousness must now begin to work in me. It must become infused into my heart and mind to protect my emotions and my conscience from being damaged, confused and defeated by Satan.
What is my part in all this?

3. Doing Our part.

Paul says we are to ‘put on…the breastplate of righteousness.’ How can we do that? Keep in mind that we are talking about the emotions and the conscience. We must begin therefore with the heart. The Great Commandment says:

A. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart’– Luke 10:27.

Here the word ‘love’ is a verb and an active verb as well. In other words, it is something you must do. You must exercise your love for God. When you love someone you do things for them. You want to spend time together, go places together, send them cards and flowers or whatever is appropriate to the relationship. All of these things help to grow and maintain the relationship and to protect it from outside influences. When you do these things for the loved one you are ‘putting on’ love.
So it is with God. When we take the time to practice our love for God we are literally ‘putting on,’ not just love, but the righteousness of God. We do these things by spending time with God, by answering his call to serve someone in need, by putting effort into our worship, by rebuking Satan with His word when Satan comes to tempt us, by taking time every day to seek cleansing for our hearts and minds. When you do these things you are drawing upon the righteousness of God and putting on ‘the breastplate of reighteousness.’

B. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your mind.’

Paul tells us in that we are to ‘bring every thought into captivity to Christ.’ Practice giving your thoughts over to God. Ask him to take them, cleanse them and remove evil and anxious thoughts from your mind – Psalm 139:23.
Many Christians today are being defeated in the area of their thought life. The things they think about other people are not very pleasing to God. We need to pray sincerely every morning and every night Psalm 19:14, and we need to pray it with intensity.
Now I could talk about the other two parts of that commandment because it is all part of putting on the breastplate of righteousness.
Part of that is also putting the word of God into your mind and into your heart. We will talk more about that when we get to the ‘sword of the Spirit.’

As Christians we are to ‘put on the breastplate of righteousness.’ Just as a good Roman soldier protected the vital organs of his body with a covering of mail, so you and I are to protect the two vital aspects of our personality, the heart and the mind or the emotions and the conscience, with the righteousness of God. These must be guarded from Satan’s attacks. God has provided that righteousness for us by sending His Son to shed His blood for our sins.

The righteousness He provided in Christ we must ‘put on.’ We put it on by loving God with all your heart and all your mind.

God has done His part; the rest is up to us.