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Will you take your Bibles and turn to Mark chapter one? I want to examine verses 35 through 39 under the heading "Lessons from Jesus Prayer Life." I have chosen this passage because, given my rather bizarre schedule this month, I didn't want to go back and continue where we left off in Luke; I'll do that when I'm finished with this writing project, but for several reasons the idea of prayer and the importance of it really came to mind this week, so I thought I would share with you some thoughts from this passage. Let me read it to you, Mark 1 beginning with verse 35,

"In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

"Simon and his companions searched for Him;

"they found Him and said to Him, 'Everyone is looking for You.'

"He said to them, 'Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.'

"And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons."

(Audio not available)....in my God in prayer, it's foreign to a lot of believers. Most do not have a disciplined prayer life. Most do not long to come into the presence of the Most High. Most are unfamiliar with the mercy seat and strangers to the throne of grace. And if you ask them why, and by the way, I've been in that category as well, when you ask why, the answer is, well, I'm just so busy. They start doing what we call the Nashville two-step to try to avoid saying the obvious: I'm too busy, I'm too distracted, but in truth we tend to be undisciplined, and we tend to love other things more than we love the Lord. Let's just call it for what it is. We can become like the saints in Ephesus, in Revelation two and verse four, where the Lord condemned them and said, "You have left your first love." Folks, it is so easy for our souls to go in secret search of other lovers and become preoccupied with other things that move us away from what it means to really be in fellowship with the Lord our God. I love my wife dearly. I have for many years fell in love with her when I was 16, and those of you that know what it is to fall in love and to be in love know that you want to use every minute to get on the phone and talk with them. It's never a duty; it's always a desire. There's never a sense of, oh, fiddlesticks. I need to talk to my wife. That never happens. And given the 1000s of hours I have spent counseling, especially marriages on life support, often I will ask them, "I'm curious, tell me about your walk with Christ, especially how often do you pray together?" And in most cases, they begin to shake their heads, and the answer is "very little." Men, in particular, I want you to hear me. You show me a man that does not pray for and pray with his wife, and I will show you a man who is forfeiting God's blessing in his life. How is your prayer life? Is it a duty or a desire? Is it regular or is it rare? Is it perfunctory or is it passionate? Paul tells us in First Thessalonians 5:17 that we are "to pray without ceasing," meaning our life needs to be marked by a continual attitude of prayer as a result of walking by the Spirit. This was certainly characteristic of the early church. In fact, Luke described this kind of devotion to corporate prayer, even before the day of Pentecost. In Acts 1:14 we read that, "These all," referring to the apostles, "...with one mind, were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers."

My prayer this morning is not at all to shame you into somehow having a secret devotion to God in prayer, to kind of check off a box in some legalistic way, because all that will do is give you the illusion of spirituality, but rather I want to stir up the grace of God within your heart and fan the embers of your spiritual affections, so that they will come into full flame by pointing you to the lover of your soul, and this morning we want to learn by his example. I marvel at the life of our Lord Jesus on earth.

Let me just give you just a little bit of an overview. As we think about it, you will remember that after his baptism, he was taken immediately into the wilderness with the wild beast, the text says, to be tempted by Satan for 40 days. It was so severe the angels had to minister to him. His ministry then begins in Galilee. He calls Peter, James, and John to be his disciples. He goes then to Capernaum on the Sabbath in the synagogue to teach you will recall that he rebukes a demon that controlled a man in the synagogue, right there in front of all of the people, demonstrating his authority over the kingdom of darkness, and immediately then he goes into Peter's house, where Peter's mother-in-law was on the brink of death with a high fever, and miraculously he heals her. You would think that would make for a pretty good day, but the day wasn't finished.

In Mark 1:32 we read that, "When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed." Can you imagine what that would have been like? "And the whole city had gathered at the door. And He healed many who were ill with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He was not permitting the demons to speak, because they knew who He was." An amazing day, a long day, actually. What an amazing several months. So it's time for some R and R, right? It's time to get away from it all. It's time to rest, take a couple of days off, but no, we come to our passage here in Mark 1:35, "In the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there." It's amazing when you think about it. Here you have the Son of Man, even after all he had just accomplished, having an intense desire to spend time with his heavenly Father. In my mind's eye, I can see the Lord getting up from his mattress, whatever he was sleeping on, and slipping out quietly. I've been to that region, many of you have. Beautiful area, beautiful big hills. I can see him finding a path, and in the dark, and making his way up the path until he finally came to a secluded place to pray.

Folks, private prayer was our Savior's habit. Is it yours? If not, why not? Do you pray only before meals, or do you pray before dawn? If the Son of God, who had no sin - no sin in his life - had such an intense desire to labor in secret prayer, should we not be doing the same thing, we, who are fully prone to sin? Frankly, most Christians are loiterers, not laborers in prayer, and yet this is not the example of our Lord. In my prayer this morning, that by the power of the Spirit and his Word, we will all just develop more of the mind of Christ in our devotion to prayer.

So, again, we come to this passage, and there's four great lessons that I want to underscore. They have overlapping implications, but once again, as we look at verse 35,  "In the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went away to a secluded place, and was praying there." The first lesson that we can see here is that prayer reveals an intense longing to commune with God. Now, let's put this in perspective, unlike us, the incarnate Christ was without sin, so he had no need for confession, right? No pleading for undeserved mercy, no longing for forgiveness and restoration; and while Jesus knew where he needed to turn for his source of strength and supplication for those who the Father had given him, his intense longing for intimate communion with the Father was motivated primarily out of his perfect love and intimate fellowship. The enjoyment of that intimate fellowship with the Father, with the Spirit. Well, does this describe you? Hopefully, you've experienced this at a human level. The fellowship we enjoy with a close friend or a parent, a child, certainly a spouse, will motivate our love, and we will have a mutual love and desire to have intimate enjoyment with being with one another, but how much more so the infinite perfections of the Triune God.

When you think about it, no man, save the God-man Jesus, has ever known the kind of soul-satisfying joy of being in perfect fellowship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and while every saint enjoys varying levels of satisfaction, varying levels of joy and fellowship, you know, based upon our walk with Christ, all we can know is imperfect fellowship. There's always something missing, right? We're always wanting more. Our communion is still hampered by remaining sin, these unredeemed bodies that await glorification. In fact, Paul said in First Corinthians 13:9, we only know "in part," right? He says, "...but when the perfect comes, referring to the eternal state, the partial will be done away." He goes on to say, in verse 12, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, just as I also have been fully known."

But even at that, the sweetness and ineffable joy of being in the presence of the Most High is something that is probably the greatest experience we can have on this earth, even though it's not fully what it will be; and all who have truly tasted of the Lord, those of us who have truly walked with Him for many years and have enjoyed sweet fellowship with Him, will always say, I want more. It's just not enough. It's for this reason David declared in Psalm 34:8, "Taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him?" Asaph, the chief musician of Israel, writes in Psalm 73 beginning in verse 25,  "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides Thee I desire nothing on earth." Goes on to say, "...the nearness to God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge."

We see a similar sentiment in Philippians 3:8, Paul said, "I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." And in verse 10 he expresses his longing here to, "know Him and the power of His resurrection." And of course one of the great benefits of our justification, according to Romans 51:1 is that "we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." In other words, we glory in Him, we find our joy in Him, we find our satisfaction in Him, we rejoice in Him, we boast on account of him for who he is and what he has done in our life and what he is going to do in days to come. So, therefore, God is the supreme joy and the greatest satisfaction of our life. My friend, if you have no intense longing to commune with God, you are not exulting him, you're not rejoicing in him. You either know him very poorly, you don't really understand who he really is, what he's done, or maybe in the stubbornness of your heart you're just walking far from him.

One of the ancient priests of Israel writes in Psalm 42:1, "As the deer pants for the water brook, so my soul pants for Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." He uses the imagery here of a deer who is about to die of dehydration, and that certainly pictures a thirsty soul that knows it cannot survive apart from communion with God, a communion that is only made possible because of his reconciling grace; and this is why David said in Psalm 16:8, "I have set the LORD continually before me." I mean, he knew what it meant to exult in God, and for that reason he just had this intense longing to commune with him. He went on to say, "Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory," - literally the whole of my being - "...rejoices....and Thou wilt make known to me the path of life; In Thy presence is fullness of joy; In Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." And we can only imagine the blessed nature of our Lord's interactions with the Father and the Spirit. But you know what's so important for us to remember is that all of this is available to us in prayer, for we have been forever hidden in Christ. I mean, indeed, God is our Father, and the Spirit dwells within us. In fact, according to Romans eight verse 26 and seven, we read that, "...the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words....He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

I remember reading the story of the 17th century English Puritan pastor Joseph Aline, and he wrote the following to a dear friend, quote, and bear with the old English here, okay, "Though I am apt to be unsettled and quickly set off the hinges, yet methinks I am like a bird out of the nest. I'm never quiet till I'm in my old way of communion with God, like the needle in the compass that is restless till it be turned toward the pole, I can say through grace with the church, with my soul I have desired Thee in the night, and with my spirit within me I have sought Thee early." Finally, he says, "My heart is early and late with God. 'Tis the business and delight of my life to seek Him." Would that this be the testimony of each of our hearts. You know, God richly enjoys our communion with him, even as we would enjoy communion with a loved one, a spouse, a child. In fact, we read in Proverbs 15:8, "The prayer of the upright is His delight."

So, prayer, first of all, reveals an intense longing to commune with God. Secondly, prayer should be the first priority to prepare our day. Now, we don't see this as a command, and again, I don't want to be legalistic here, and say that this is a box that you need to start checking off, but we see this as an example of our Lord and other great men of God. Again, that's what we see in Mark 1:35 In the morning when it's still dark, he gets up, leaves the house, goes to a secluded place, he prays there, and there is good reason to believe, by the way, that later that day he preached his Sermon on the Mount. I'm reminded of what David said in Psalm 5:3, "In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; in the morning I will order my prayer to You, and eagerly watch." And I find it fascinating that before engaging in the tasks of the day, Jesus engaged in intimate communion in the presence of his Father and the Spirit before any demands were placed upon him; he sought their will, their strength, their wisdom.

Dear child of God, morning prayer produces midnight joy. Spurgeon said this, "Take not thou to running till thou hast in prayer laid aside every weight, lest thou lose the race." Beloved, no ministry will ever be effective, no marriage will ever be fulfilling, no family will ever be blessed without the pleadings of prayer. You must understand that ministry is war. Jesus experienced this every minute of his life, and the battle is fierce, and those involved in it know it full well. Saints involved in that battle are well acquainted with the early morning solitude of prayer. Spiritual warriors experience the cumulative effects of stress from what is sometimes called primary and secondary trauma. Primary trauma refers to the things that you just endure in ministry - the slander, the false accusations, ridicule, rejection. Secondary trauma is kind of like secondhand smoke, it's those those shared heartaches that you share with other people, bearing one another's burden of sin, the secrets that you know, the things that you pray for with these dear people, whose lives are broken. We weep with those who weep, and over the years, the stressors, the burdens of these things accumulate like plaque in your arteries, and I'm becoming increasingly familiar with that as I get older. The doctor looked at mine, said, "Well, you got some blockage there, but that's typical for a man your age." So my point is this, like the plaque in your arteries, those burdens just continue to weigh you down over the years, and all you can do is take them to the Lord in prayer, and what a wonderful thing it is to be able to do that, to give them to him, because I can't carry them. Psalm 51:17 we read that, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise me."

Frankly, most Christians pray little because they fight little. They're not really engaged in the battle; they're not taking fire. Only those soldiers on the front lines of the Great Commission know the fatigue and the pain and the sorrow and the wounds and the casualties of the battle, therefore, communion with the Almighty will be their last activity before they sleep, and it will be the first priority of their life when they wake. Prayer will never be the early dawn priority of the sluggard who loves to sleep in, or the Sunday morning Christian who merely pretends to love Christ for two hours on the first day of the week, but then lives for him or herself the rest of the week; but hear me, it will be the priority of the battle weary soldier who loves the King, who therefore pleads for more strength and wisdom, who begs for more boldness in battle. That person who knows he can do nothing apart from God, and he will attempt nothing apart from him without first seeking his aid. You know, persecuted saints understand this. We don't get to talk to them much in our country unless you interact with those in other parts of the world who struggle with these things, but they know what it is to agonize in prayer, while their dear children sleep in just blissful ignorance of the dangers all around them. That parent knows the dangers that lurk in the shadows. That's why we read in Philippians 4 that we're to be anxious for nothing; and you know there's a great tension between our faith and our fear. They're always going to coexist. I can preach that passage, "be anxious for nothing,' and I'm anxious about a lot of things, because I'm just human, and so are you. So you learn to live with these things coexisting. Yes, I trust the Lord with all of my heart, but I fear for things. So underneath the anxiety there is this confidence in God's sovereignty and his power, but nevertheless in our humanness, even though we're, we're anxious for nothing in the sense of giving up, we still struggle, and so what do we do? The apostle tells us, "In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Beloved, when the battle is so fierce that you're unable to sleep, and tears roll down your cheeks as you agonize over some great difficulty in your life or in the life of someone else, it will be at that point that you will absolutely crave the life sustaining communion that can only come about through prayer.

Back to Joseph Aline, I was moved by the words of his wife regarding this subject. Let me share that with you. And she wrote this after his death. Here's what she said, "At the time of his death, he did rise constantly at or before four of the clock and would be much troubled if he heard smiths or other craftsmen at their trades before he was at communion with God;  saying to me often, 'How this noise shames me. Does not my master deserve more than theirs?' She went on to say, from four till eight he spent in prayer, holy contemplation, and singing of psalms, in which he much delighted, and did daily practice alone, as well as in the family. Sometimes he would suspend the routine of parochial engagements and devote whole days to these secret exercises, in order to which he would contrive to be alone in some void house, or else in some sequestered spot in the open valley. Here, there would be much prayer and meditation on God and heaven."

Dear friends, there is perhaps no better gage of a person's spiritual maturity than their secret devotion to God in prayer. You show me a man lacks in this discipline, and I will show you a spiritual toddler. His public prayers will be ritualistic and mechanical and repetitious, and some will be ostentatious. That man or that woman, for that matter, will have no appetite for the word of God, no burden for the lost, and they will be increasingly infatuated with the fleeting pleasures of this world. They will lack power in ministry, and Christ will seldom be the theme of their conversation, because that's not the priority of their heart. I have never met a person with a robust prayer life who struggles with debilitating depression that does not derive its etiology for something physical. I've never met a person with a robust prayer life who struggles with addictions or some other kind of life dominating sin. I've never heard a spouse complain or a child weep because their husband, their wife, their parent spent too much time in prayer. Beloved, our longing for God is going to be proportional to our love for him, and our love for him is only measured in our willingness to suffer for him. Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, as we read in Second Timothy 3:12.

The prophet Isaiah understood this very well. Chapter 26, verse 9, we read, "At night my soul longs for You, indeed my spirit within me seeks You diligently." Again, Spurgeon said, quote, "Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night. Devotion should be both the morning star and the evening star."

Another example we find is in Psalm 5, the first three verses, where the psalmist says,

"Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my groaning.

"Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God,

"For to You I pray.

"In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You, and eagerly watch."

There is rich meaning in that text in the Hebrew. The phrase "In the morning I will order" could be translated direct, my prayer to you and eagerly watch. "Order"  the term in the Hebrew was used to describe the laying and order of the wood and the pieces of the victim upon the altar for sacrifice; also, was used for ordering the putting of the show bread on the table. And so I could paraphrase it this way, "I will carefully and purposefully arrange or order my prayer before Thee, as the priest would arrange the morning sacrifice, that my prayers might be acceptable to you." That's the idea, of course. There's a place for praying when we drive to work, right?  Sometimes I just pray so that I can get to work, especially in the traffic we have around here. But folks, there needs to be uninterrupted time of orderly prayer again. Notice in Psalm 5:3 says, and I will "eagerly watch." You know, you expect an answer, so you eagerly look for it, and I fear too often our, we treat our prayer life almost with contempt, like it's an unwelcomed intrusion on our time, and too often we rush into the presence of the Most High without any forethought, without any humility, as if his presence is an imposition on our time, and what blasphemy to demand an audience with the King, and then multitask while we spout off a few quick words of praise and hand him our list of petitions, petitions that are hastily contrived that are bereft of meditation or groaning; our prayers lacking therefore fervency, because too often they're just thoughtless, and how can we honestly expect the king to hear us, to take us seriously, and to answer us with such insolent requests? Why would we expect him to be moved when we come before him with such a cavalier attitude? Needless to say, without holy preparation there will never be patient expectation. But not so our Savior. He gets up early in the morning, and he goes to pray.

The third little point in my outline is solitude is the sanctuary of prayer. Once again, notice he went away to a secluded place and was praying there. It's interesting, we see the Savior's desire for seclusion in other passages. In Luke 6:12 where he prayed just before choosing the 12 disciples, it says, and, "It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God." In Matthew 14:22 and following, and this is after he had fed the 25,000 plus,

"Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away.

"After He had sent the crowds away, he went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone."

By the way, a few hours later, the disciples were terrified by the storm. It's the time when Jesus walked on the water. Peter met him. Jesus calmed the storm. You remember the story, also in light of Israel's rejection and just before he asked his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" We read in Luke nine and verse 18 that, "He was praying alone," underscore "alone." He prayed alone in his high priestly prayer, did he not, in John 17, when he interceded on our behalf, on behalf of all the Father had given him, and he prayed alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he sweat drops of blood in anticipation of what he would endure on our behalf, and he prayed alone when he hung upon the cross. Luke 23:34 He said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." He says, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." It's interesting, Jesus even commanded private prayer in Matthew six verse six, he says, "But when you pray, go into your room," referring to just the most private place available, "and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place, and your Father, who sees in secret will reward you openly." And here in Mark one and in other passages we see that the Lord deliberately sought out secluded places to pray, and we're not to be as the hypocrites to pray according to Matthew 6:5, "in order to be seen by men," certainly that's not a prohibition against public prayer, but it's prohibition against pretentious prayer. So he prayed alone, but in the solitude, and that is the sanctuary of prayer.

But there's more; I would say that solitude provides the atmosphere of being free from distractions. A lot of people will admit that they can't focus when they pray. They start out good, and before you know it, their mind is somewhere else. I mean, we've got high-speed everything this day, these days, don't we? People scrolling their life away; social media. I would ask you, and I don't mean to shame you in any way, but realistically, when was the last time you took just 15 minutes and studied a passage of scripture and meditated upon it, and then prayed about it? When was the last time you spent an hour and read a book that speaks to the whole issue of your salvation? You know, we're like babies, aren't we, we grasp at anything that sparkles, and how rude to seek the Lord's face without making provision for no interruption.

Seclusion also provides intimacy. In seclusion, we can pour out our hearts to God, can we not? We're free to express ourselves. I mean, think about it. Are you more free to express yourself in public or with other people around or by yourself when you're alone with the Lord? Obviously, the latter. And it's also a place where we can pray out loud. I would encourage you to do that. To give full voice to your supplication. David frequently talks about how he, how he cried out loud, 'I lift up my voice unto the Lord," and so forth. Jesus in the garden. We read that He fell on His face and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Not as I will, but Thou wilt."

Personally, I love to walk and talk with the Lord in private. Maybe you love to do that, especially when it's dark. Walking down the road the other night, that way I can talk out loud, and if my neighbors hear me, they probably think I've lost my mind. But I walking down the lane, and we've had two sets of foxes give birth to a number of kits, and I was walking down, and all of a sudden I hear the mama fox kind of bark at me, kind of startled me, and I thought it was the Lord at first, until I saw the fox run off. But what a great opportunity, when you, I mean, you're alone, you're with the Lord. Somehow the sanctuary of creation seems to provide the perfect acoustics for the expressions of our soul, as though all of creation is entering in with you in your supplication, your thanksgiving, your adoration, and what solemn, sacred, sweet dialogs await those who are earnest in secret prayer.

One other thing that solitude gives us is it gives us an opportunity to commune in silence, to sit quietly without the television on, without the kids running around, or whatever, and meditate upon the word, meditate on what you're thinking about. I always encourage people to have a list of things you pray for at those times. And by the way, we have a great list that, that comes out in our, in our newsletter every, every Tuesday morning, and online, and so forth. Hopefully, this devotional book that I'm writing will be an aid to all of that, but you can, you pray the word, you read the word, you interact with the Lord about what you're reading.

Well, finally, in closing here this morning, not only does prayer reveal an intense longing to commune with God, it should be the first priority to prepare our day. Solitude is the sanctuary of prayer, but finally, prayer is important in times of blessing, as in times of distress. You know, we must pray to obtain a blessing, but I would warn you, you want to pray all the more when you receive it. I mean, Jesus prayed for protection when the enemy he encountered attacked him in the wilderness for 40 days, but then we read that he prayed all the more after that because of the blessings that he had received and the protection. Why? Because that's going to spark even more retaliation, but also it's important to help us guard against our own flesh, because in times of blessing it's easy to get lethargic and lazy, and to kind of rest on our accolades, and gradually we leave our first love; but Jesus also prayed for what was in front of him, and that's why we read finally in verse 36, "And Simon and his companions hunted for Him; and they found Him and said to Him, 'Everyone is looking for You.'" "Looking for you," It's an interesting phrase in the original language. It's used 10 times in Mark's Gospel, and every time it carries a negative connotation. In other words, "Jesus, everyone is looking for you. What are you doing out here all alone? You're missing this great opportunity here. I mean, there's seekers everywhere, right? I mean, you have absolutely connected with the culture. I mean, look at the crowds." Of course, word got around, everybody's coming to him, but sadly the disciple’s confused excitement with conviction. Jesus understood that. Folks, there's a huge difference between an enthusiastic crowd and those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

It's amazing, at the outset of his public ministry, his own disciples here, in their ignorance and their misplaced zeal, they try to corrupt the very mission Jesus came to fulfill. That's why he says to them, "Let us go somewhere else, to the towns nearby, in order that I may preach there also, for that is what I came out for." Folks, let me remind you that preaching the gospel was his primary objective, because it is the gospel that God uses to save sinners. Let me put this in a way that that is probably even more practical and perhaps offensive to some, Jesus did not come to this earth to meet our physical needs. He did not come here to help us find a spouse, make us more successful, help us make more money, heal our marriages, straighten out our kids, boost our self-esteem, help us recover from our addictions, save the planet, ban abortion, or help elect more conservatives. It's not why he came? He came to seek and to save sinners. That has to be the priority. Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." And no doubt this was the theme of his predawn prayer.

So, verse 39 it says, "And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons." With every gospel presentation, he knew he was marching inexorably toward the cross. I want to close with a pastoral testimony, especially to you Master's students, and to some of you other students who are studying with us through Shepherd's Theological Seminary. I have learned over the years that prayer is more important than preparation. I have learned that the closet is more important than the library. My heart is more important than my mind, because as I have written elsewhere, "Prayer is the spade that unearths the hidden jewels of a text. Prayer is the drill that bores deep into the caverns of living water. Prayer is what calls upon the Spirit's power to give life to the spiritually dead and dissolve the hardest heart. Prayer is what ignites the preacher's heart with holy zeal and transforms his clumsy rhetoric into tongues of fire."

Beloved, it is prayer - disciplined, fervent, persistent, secret prayer - that transforms weak and cowardly pilgrims into mighty warriors of the cross. So I trust you will learn from this, and that all of us will see Christ as our supreme example. Let's pray together.

O Father, thank you for the great truths of your word. I pray that they will find a place in each of our hearts and bear much fruit, that we might enjoy the fullness that is ours in Christ Jesus, and that you might be honored in our life, and that others will see your transforming power, and that they too will come to saving faith in Christ. So we thank you. We give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.