### Quotes for Outreach

1. "There are two diametrically opposite centers to life. You can live your life centered on yourself so that you are self-centered and all of your interests and goals are related to yourself and those who might be important to you. The other way is to live your life centered on God, centered on Jesus Christ. That is the Christian way. That is the biblical way. That is the way that the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us." [18:13] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




2. "Now reflect on that. What does it mean to abide in Jesus? It means to have a deep faith-based relationship or connection with Jesus. And abiding is not relating to Jesus or relating to God once in a while. You don't abide in God if you think you can come to your time of prayer maybe for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes in the morning, and then you're done for the day, and you never think about God again throughout that day." [23:41] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




3. "Now imagine with me, if you are this kind of person in whose life God is first, whose life is Christ centered, what will you wish for? Think about it. If in your life God has the first place Christ is the center of your life, what will you wish for? What will you pray for? There is only one thing to pray. Just one thing. May your will be done." [34:42] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




4. "There is no greater joy than to see yourself playing a part along with God becoming an instrument so that other people come to faith in Jesus Christ. There is no greater joy because you have just become a part of the story and the testimony of somebody who was dead but through Jesus, by faith, now is made alive. That's joy. There is no greater joy than that." [51:26] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




5. "So if we as Christians, we believers, we know the revealed will of God is that this place needs to be a house of prayer for all the nations. What should we do? We should pray. This should become the central part of our praying every day. Before you even ask God for anything for yourself, get up and say, God, may your will be done today." [47:18] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




### Quotes for Members

1. "And there is no way you can be in the middle on this. Every Christian, everyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ has to make this decision at some point. You will choose either to live a self-centered life, even as a Christian, you will call yourself a Christian, and you will be living a self-centered life, or you will be Christ-centered and God-centered. And these two do not meet together. You cannot put, as the English proverb says, you cannot put your feet in two different boats and expect that you will stay afloat." [18:58] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




2. "And so, ask yourself, if you want, and this is what God is giving to us as a promise that if you will ask, ask whatever you wish, it'll be done for you. Remember the precondition. We have to learn to be God-centered, to be Christ-centered. We must be abiding in Jesus and His words abide in us. What does that do to us? Instead of being people who are constantly seeking our own good, seeking our own benefit, we will be looking to the example of Jesus, the example of the apostles, and the examples of millions and millions of Christians down the centuries." [27:31] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




3. "And what do you think happens to a person who constantly is connected to the Lord Jesus Christ? And to the teachings of the Bible? The Lord Jesus and His example and the teaching that is there in the Bible through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives will begin to change us. In the beginning it'll be little by little. Then we will see that our very basic attitudes and perspectives to life will change. We will move from a place where we were self-centered because all of us begin with, at that place, being self-centered, to becoming more and more oriented towards God, becoming more and more centered on Jesus Christ." [26:04] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




4. "And so if we as Christians, we believers, we know the revealed will of God is that this place needs to be a house of prayer for all the nations. What should we do? We should pray. This should become the central part of our praying every day. Before you even ask God for anything for yourself, get up and say, God, may your will be done today. Show me what I need to do and what we need to do together to fulfill what your will is, to become an instrument in your hands to fulfill your will. And that, he says, when you ask, you will receive. And what do you think is going to happen? He says, your joy will be full." [47:18] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




5. "And so let's learn to pray like this so that we can share in that joy, so that we can bring life. God brings life, but we play a part in bringing life to others. So I want to ask you a question. In fact, I want to give you a challenge. When you sit down to pray, when you sit down to pray, ask God this. Ask Him, God. Tell Him, Lord, I realize that I am a self-centered person because that's what we are. That's our human nature. That's our role. That's our old person. I am a self-centered person. And then pray to God. God, change me. Make me a God-centered person, a Christ-centered person. And then pray this. Lord, teach me to pray. Teach me to pray. And He will. He will teach you to pray the way we have been talking about." [52:26] (70 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall. God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. He says, "Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth." The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Let us pray.

Father, we thank you that you are the Almighty One. We come with fear and trembling, but we come also with faith. We come knowing that you are the Almighty God, the one who has the power to forgive, the one who has promised that whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And we thank you that we have heard your word, the word of the gospel that you have spoken to us. We thank you for the gift of faith, which enables us to draw near. And we thank you that through this faith, by your grace, we receive all that you have prepared for us: the gifts of forgiveness, the gift of eternal life, the gift of fellowship with you and one another, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and above all, the gift of your word that continues to speak life into our lives.

And Father, we pray that as we, your people, gather this afternoon, that your Spirit will make us one. You would take our feeble words in song and in prayer, and Holy Spirit, we pray that you will present them before the Father. We thank you, Jesus, for the new and living way that has been opened through you, and we thank you that we are accepted in and through you as children of God. We pray our praise and our thanksgiving and our worship will be acceptable to you. In Jesus' holy name we pray. Our song leaders will lead us in a time of praise and thanksgiving.

Good afternoon.

We want to be talking about prayer today. But before I introduce and read the passage and introduce the verses we will talk about, there's one basic principle that I want us to reflect on. And this principle is foundational to our Christian life, and it is foundational to prayer as well. And that principle is the orientation of our life, which direction we are oriented. Or it would be actually better to say, where is our life centered?

There are two diametrically opposite centers to life. You can live your life centered on yourself so that you are self-centered, and all of your interests and goals are related to yourself and those who might be important to you. The other way is to live your life centered on God, centered on Jesus Christ. That is the Christian way. That is the biblical way. That is the way that the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us. And there is no way you can be in the middle on this.

Every Christian, everyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ has to make this decision at some point. You will choose either to live a self-centered life, even as a Christian; you will call yourself a Christian, and you will be living a self-centered life, or you will be Christ-centered and God-centered. And these two do not meet together. You cannot put, as the English proverb says, you cannot put your feet in two different boats and expect that you will stay afloat.

And so this is a very fundamental thing. And it shows up in the manner and the content and the substance of our prayers. All you have to do is to really look at your own prayer life and see whether your prayers reveal a self-centered heart or a God-centered heart. And that is crucial for us as we reflect on the passage and the verses that we want to talk about in prayer.

I will read to you from John chapter 15, verse 1 onwards. These verses are not on the screen. We just have one of those verses up there. But if you need a Bible, if you don't have a Bible, there's a Bible right in the middle, in front of you in the pews. You could take that out.

John chapter 15, verse 1. It says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

And I'll read verse 7 and 8 again. "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

And this begins at the first place where he says, "If you abide in me." Verse 7, this is a verse that we are familiar with in terms of our prayer life, and we have picked on one of the things here, "Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." And we have, in so many of the places and people, we have learned to treat it like a mantra. It's like a formula that if you ask anything in Jesus' name, it will be done for you.

But as we will discover, that is not what is being taught here. The first thing we've got to listen to what Jesus is saying, and he has been saying in these verses before this as well, is abiding in him. This is a prominent, very important condition to the prayer promise that he has given to us. He says, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you."

Now reflect on that. What does it mean to abide in Jesus? It means to have a deep faith-based relationship or connection with Jesus. And abiding is not relating to Jesus or relating to God once in a while. You don't abide in God if you think you can come to your time of prayer maybe for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes in the morning, and then you're done for the day, and you never think about God again throughout that day. Or worse, you think that you can attend church for an hour, hour and a half, and that is abiding. That is not abiding. That is only a touch point.

Abiding means to remain in him, to be constantly connected to him. And then he says, "My words abide in you." And his words for us are contained in the Bible, which is the word of God, the written word of God. And therefore, the teachings of the Bible are to remain in us.

Now the only way the teachings of the Bible can remain in us is if we are familiar with them. And we will become familiar with them if we read them often and study them often. That is why an important and non-negotiable practice for everyone who would be God-centered, Christ-centered, is to read your Bible. It's as simple as that. Read your Bible. Read it right through Genesis to Revelation. Read it again and again and again.

And when it speaks to you about something, and it will, that is not according to God's will in your life, then you correct it. You change it. You're open to God helping you to change, to confess sin, to give up that which is wrong, to change attitude, to change behavior, to walk in the ways that God's word tells us. So, God's word has to make its home in us. And it'll do so as we open ourselves to reading and to study and to hearing God's word. That's crucial.

Now what do you think happens to a person who constantly is connected to the Lord Jesus Christ? And to the teachings of the Bible? The Lord Jesus and His example and the teaching that is there in the Bible through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives will begin to change us. In the beginning, it'll be little by little. Then we will see that our very basic attitudes and perspectives to life will change. We will move from a place where we were self-centered—because all of us begin with, at that place, being self-centered—to becoming more and more oriented towards God, becoming more and more centered on Jesus Christ.

And that is crucial. And that is the journey of every Christian. And that is Jesus' and God's example for us. Jesus was absolutely centered on God the Father. He heard God's voice. He did what God decreed. He walked in obedience. He fulfilled the plan and the will and the purpose of God.

And so, ask yourself, if you want—and this is what God is giving to us as a promise that if you will ask, ask whatever you wish, it will be done for you. Remember the precondition. We have to learn to be God-centered, to be Christ-centered. We must be abiding in Jesus and His words abide in us.

What does that do to us? Instead of being people who are constantly seeking our own good, seeking our own benefit, we will be looking to the example of Jesus, the example of the apostles, and the examples of millions and millions of Christians down the centuries. And in fact, we will look to the Old Testament and the many, many people who have lived in a God-centered way.

And what does that ultimately mean? It means being able, like Jesus did, to go on the cross and to sacrifice oneself for the sake of other people. That's what it means. That is what Jesus was.

Now, you may think this is not practical. And I have heard many people say this to me. But we have to be practical. You know, when you say that this is all something to do with religion, something to do with the Bible, something to do with the heavenly things, something to do with the spiritual things, but it's not practical for life, you are making a statement in which you are denying your faith. You are actually saying that this world runs in a way over which God does not have control. That is a denial of faith.

Because everyone who believes in Jesus learns to put their trust and their faith upon God. And time and again, the heroes and the heroines of faith are those who have declared by their mouth and by their lives that God comes first in their lives. That what God has done, what God has promised, what He has said He will do, He will do and He is able to do. That is the walk of faith.

And if you are hung over the practicality, you are wondering that if you trust in God, how will your life move forward, then you are in danger of denying your faith. Because you must realize that whatever you have in life, every source of, every resource that you have, every relationship that you have, every opportunity that you have, it comes from the hands of God. He is the one who gave it to you. He is the one who will sustain you because He has said those who have faith, those who walk righteous after Him, He will provide for their needs.

And so, we must be God-centered. There are no two ways to live the Christian life. You know, when you are self-centered, you are either thinking about yourself or you are making decisions in your life or around based on your relationships with other people. And that is a danger that we, in South Asian culture, that's our danger. In the Eastern culture, this is our danger. We are part of large families and collectives, and this is our particular temptation, that we will count our friends, we will count our families, we will count people with whom we have a relationship more important to us than God.

And so we've got to figure out what is this that we need to do? What is it that we need to give up? We need to make sure in every way that God is central in our lives. God is number one. There can be no compromise on this, absolutely.

Now the way of salvation is also the one that God has given. And this is again, time and again, a conflict that we face in life. In Christian life, in the churches, there are two ways Christians approach their relationship to God. One way is the way of the law, where Christians think that if we can do all the right things, God will accept us, God will be pleased. And God's gospel, God's law tells us that there is no man other than the Lord Jesus Christ born on earth who can satisfy the requirements of the law.

It is impossible, listen to this, it is impossible for you and I or anyone to please God by doing right. Because we cannot do right. The other way is the way of the gospel, the way of Jesus Christ, which says that I will declare you righteous. You only have to receive the promise that I give to you, that I give, that I declare you to be my child, forgiven.

In fact, God says over us who are sinners, but whom he forgives, he gives us the label saints. These are diametrically opposite ways, and time and again the Christian church and Christians in churches make this mistake. They keep thinking if we do the right thing, God will be pleased, forgetting that it is impossible for human flesh to please God.

There is only one future or one present that is there for us by God. For the human flesh, for the old person that we were, it must be identified with Christ on the cross and put to death. That is why the Bible says put to death yourself, then rise in newness in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that is what we do in the waters of baptism. We go down into the water, we die to ourselves, and when we rise, we are made anew. We are born from above or born again. That is the only way to please God.

And so, to be centered in God is to give him the first place. To believe what he has promised us. Believe on his word. So if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

Now imagine with me, if you are this kind of person in whose life God is first, whose life is Christ-centered, what will you wish for? Think about it. If in your life God has the first place, Christ is the center of your life, what will you wish for? What will you pray for? There is only one thing to pray. Just one thing. May your will be done.

Because if God is at the heart of your life, if he is the one in whom you abide, then there is only one prayer a Christian can really pray. And that was the prayer of Christ himself. That was the life of Christ himself. Your will be done.

Remember this. When we pray, "my will be done," we are praying something that is actually diametrically opposite to what God wants us to pray. That is why when you examine your own prayer life, you will find out whether your heart and mind are really centered on Christ or are they centered on your will.

But then, verse 8. By this, Jesus said, "My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples." Now, if as a Christian you are God-centered and Christ-centered and you have learned to pray, "God, your will be done," and then what do you think is going to happen? Your life will become fruitful. Your life will become fruitful.

And this is what Jesus is saying. By this, my Father is glorified. Your life will glorify God the Father. How will we do that? By bearing much fruit and by proving, thereby, that we are his disciples. And what is this fruit that we are talking about?

Essentially, in the New Testament, I'm not going to go into great detail on this, but it basically means two things. One is the fruit of a changed person. And you think about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. You read about that in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22; it talks about the fruit. 22 and 23 talks about the fruit of the Spirit. That is one kind of fruit, where we are changed more and more into the person, likeness of Jesus Christ.

And then the other fruit is that we together as God's people carry out his will in this world. And what is his will for this world right now? It's very simple. He is calling people from all nations to become part of his family. We saw that as we were looking in Ephesians. That's God's will. That's God's program. That's what he invites us to be and do: call all nations to faith in Jesus Christ.

In fact, we studied this on Friday when we talked about Jesus' words, quoting the prophet Isaiah: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." That is what God desires for us. So what he desires for us as a church, as his people, is to do all that we can do together, not individually, together as his body, to make this place a house of prayer for people from all nations.

You see, this is where we are in a critical juncture in the history of our church. Because we began this church in 1985, a long time before I came to Canada, it was started. And what was the basis of our joining together? The basis of our joining together was if you are from South Asia, that is, if you come from India or you come from Pakistan and you can speak Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, then come and join our church. This is your church.

As somebody described it very recently, they called it a desi church. I mean, that's a contradiction in terms. The moment you begin to say that this is what it is on the basis of ethnicity, you've taken Christ away from the center. But that was the need of the hour. And so over the past decades, this is the kind of church we built. This became a house of prayer for people who came from India and Pakistan.

But the word of God says this should be a house of prayer for all nations. That is what God has said. So now, in our history, this is where we are. This is what God is calling us to be. This is the vision that he's showing us. This is going to be your future for the coming years and decades. Will we obey? That is up to us.

And some of the troubles that have happened to us in the recent past, and many of you have seen it, the essential issue is this. What kind of a church are we to be? That's at the heart of it. You know, when people in the church get into conflict, we know that it is Satan who sows dissension and disturbance in the relationships among Christians. But he does it by showing, taking us in different directions, and we have to discern which is the direction that God is taking us in.

And how do we discern that? We go to God in prayer. We align ourselves so that we abide in him, we let his words abide in us, and then we go to him and ask him, "What is your will?" Then we pray, "Your will be done." And then what does he say? He says, "By this my Father is glorified that you will bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples."

So that's the future. That's the vision that God is showing to us for our future. The question before us is going to be, are we going to be God-centered? Are we going to be Christ-centered? Or are we going to be in our own ethnic bubble and say this is all that we want to be? God is saying open your eyes.

The other day we were talking about this in one of our Bible studies, and I think it was Pastor Pat who told us there are more than 40 different nationalities around us. People from 40 different nationalities around us in the city of Edmonton. And God is calling our church, as he's calling other churches, to become a house of prayer for all nations. That's his challenge to us.

Now there's one more verse that I want us to look at, and that's John chapter 16, verse 24. In fact, this entire chapter, these chapters, John chapter 14 right up to chapter 17 are chapters that you should read and study again and again and again. These are wonderful things that Jesus is teaching his apostles and through them the disciples.

Now in John chapter 16, verse 24, it says, "Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full." Just before this, what Jesus has been talking to them is about the fact that they would talk to him and let him know what they wanted, kind of thing. But he's saying now I'm going to be going away and you have a direct access through me to God the Father.

He says, "I'm going to be away for a short while and then I will be with you." He was talking about his death and his resurrection. And through that resurrection, what he's saying is we have access to the Father. And so he says, "Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full."

Now here's what I want to ask you. What does it mean to ask in somebody's name? What does it mean? Does it mean that at the end of the prayer we add the phrase "in Jesus' name"? Is that what it means? No, it's not what it means. To ask in Jesus' name means to ask what Jesus would ask.

Let me say that again. To ask in Jesus' name means to ask what Jesus would ask on his behalf according to his will, according to his wish because we are his ambassadors on earth. And so we have to learn to pray like this. This is not what we pray like because what are we praying for is stuff in our own life. I need this. I need that. I need that. I need that.

Now God has a place for that kind of prayer, but it is a minor place. If all of your prayer life is only asking for things for yourself, you have not learned to pray because at the heart of prayer is this God-centeredness, Christ-centeredness to ask God the Father to do that which will bring him glory.

See, that's our concern. Are you passionate about God's glory? That's what we should be praying for. In James 4, verse 3 it says, "You ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, on your desires." If the motivation for my praying is that I should ask God and God will give you something, I'm not doing anything better than a pagan. That's what pagans do.

That is what pagan prayer is. You go to whoever is your God or whatever is your idol, you bow before them, you offer whatever you have to offer, you expect them to give you what you want. That's pagan prayer. That's not Christian prayer. Your Father in heaven knows what you need and he has promised he will give you what you need.

In fact, the very next words in James 4, verse 3, the words that I have read, "You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions," verse 4 begins with a title that he gives to people who pray like pagans do. He says, "You adulterous people." Let me repeat that. He accuses those Christians who pray like pagans that you are adulterous.

Rather than being faithful to God who is our Father, we are being faithful to the world. We are seeking things not for the glory of God the Father; we are seeking things for our own selves. And if that is at the center of praying, you are praying as a spiritual adulterer. Take that to heart. God will not compromise on this. God will not share his glory with anyone. He will not do it.

But this is what he says. Jesus said, "Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. You have not asked anything in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full."

And so if we as Christians, we believers, we know the revealed will of God is that this place needs to be a house of prayer for all the nations, what should we do? We should pray. This should become the central part of our praying every day. Before you even ask God for anything for yourself, get up and say, "God, may your will be done today. Show me what I need to do and what we need to do together to fulfill what your will is, to become an instrument in your hands to fulfill your will."

And that, he says, when you ask, you will receive. And what do you think is going to happen? He says, "Your joy will be full." Because Jesus' conversation before this was this. He was telling, he was saying to the disciples, he said, "I'm going to go away." So they were talking amongst themselves. What is he saying? Where is he going to go?

He says, "So he understood what they were talking." So he said, "Are you saying to yourself, what do I mean by I'm going away for a little while?" So then he explains, "I am going to go away for a little while. You will not see me for a little while." He's talking to the apostles. He's talking to the disciples.

And he says, "And then after a little while, you will see me again." What he was saying is, "I am going to be arrested. I am going to be put to death. I'm going to be buried. But then he was promising them that he will be raised again." And he said this to them. And I'm saying this to you. And when this happens, you will have much more my joy. My joy will be in you and your joy will be filled.

You will be filled with my joy. And what he was saying is, "Yes, for a time, the devil is going to come and he's going to put me to death and I will be buried. But that is not the end of the story. I will be raised again."

So what do you think happened on Easter day when the disciples saw their beloved Lord alive again? They were filled with the joy that comes from God. Because he whom they loved, they thought had died. And they thought that their story was over. And his story was over. But God resurrected what the devil thought he had killed.

And therefore they were filled with joy. That is the joy that God is promising us if we will be centered on him. If we will learn to pray always in all aspects, "May your will be done." And if we begin to work together to fulfill his revealed will of calling and making disciples from all nations, then when that prayer is answered, don't you think our hearts will be filled with joy?

Where do you think you and I are going to find joy? This is not happiness. This is not when you get a new toy and then you're happy for a day until it breaks. Or a better toy comes in the market and then you want it. I mean, even adults like toys, right? I mean, I like my electronics. But every time you want the newer model, that's all temporary. That's not joy. That just fades away.

How do you think you and I as Christians, as people who follow Jesus, will find joy? There is no greater joy than to see yourself playing a part along with God becoming an instrument so that other people come to faith in Jesus Christ. There is no greater joy because you have just become a part of the story and the testimony of somebody who was dead but through Jesus, by faith, now is made alive.

That's joy. There is no greater joy than that. It is always new life that fills us with joy. And this is an example that Jesus talked about. He says, "When the woman is in labor, she is in pain, but when she gives birth, the joy of that new life makes her forget all the pain."

That's the kind of joy that we are talking about. When people from all nations will find life, we will be filled with joy and our joy will be full. And so let's learn to pray like this so that we can share in that joy, so that we can bring life. God brings life, but we play a part in bringing life to others.

So I want to ask you a question. In fact, I want to give you a challenge. When you sit down to pray, when you sit down to pray, ask God this. Ask Him, "God, tell Him, Lord, I realize that I am a self-centered person because that's what we are. That's our human nature. That's our role. That's our old person. I am a self-centered person. And then pray to God, 'God, change me. Make me a God-centered person, a Christ-centered person.' And then pray this: 'Lord, teach me to pray.' And He will. He will teach you to pray the way we have been talking about.

As you learn to abide in Jesus, as you let the word of God abide in you, you will ask whatever you wish because you will ask according to the will of God. And it will be done. Make sure you're asking for the right things. Make sure you understand what the will of God is. And make sure that you're aligned with the will of God.

Make sure that your prayers are not full of speech like the pagans who are constantly harping about everything that they have sacrificed before the idols and what they want and what they need. But rather let us be humble and say, "Lord, I am before you as a humble servant. I belong to you. Do whatever you will in my life, with me, and through my life."

And you will see God the Father glorified in your life and through your life. So let us be encouraged. To become people of prayer. We are the ones who first of all need to learn to pray rightly. To pray as people in whose life Christ is first, in whose life God is first.

There was this missionary of Scotland. He had this prayer. He prayed, John Knox. You know what he prayed? The missionary, he was burdened for the people of Scotland. He said this in his prayer. He said, "Give me Scotland or I die." You know what that means? He says, "Lord, I want this nation to turn to Jesus Christ. And if that does not happen, it is like death to me." That was the passion of his praying.

Can you and I learn to pray with similar passion? "God, would you make Asian Christian Church a house of prayer for all nations?" And the passionate part about this prayer would be, "Lord, if you don't do it, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself."

Remember the words of John Knox: "God, give me Scotland." May God bless us with that same spirit which moved John Knox to say, "Even at the cost of my life, I value you. I value the life of the people of Scotland. They need to come to faith in Jesus, Lord."

And so would you pray? Would you pray like he did? Would you pray like Jesus did? Would you pray like the saints of old did? Pray that God's will will be done in your life, in your family's life, in our church's life, and for the city of Edmonton and beyond.

I want to invite our worship team to please come and lead us in the offertory song, "Worthy is your name."

Let's pray.

Yes indeed, you alone are worthy, oh Lord Jesus. We thank you because most supremely you have shown to us what it means to do everything in obedience to the Father's will, to live and to die in a way that God's will and God's purposes are fulfilled.

We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who is in us and amongst us and who strengthens and empowers us to live like Jesus did. So I pray for myself as I pray for my dear brothers and sisters, whether they are here in person or online. We pray that through your word, your Spirit would help us to abide in you, Lord Jesus, to be connected to you as branches are to the vine.

That we would not be among those who are cut and cast and burned, but we would be among those that are pruned and cleansed and made more fruitful. We ask, Lord, that in and through us, your name would be glorified. We ask, Lord, that you would teach us to pray rightly so that our prayers are not self-centered, but our prayers are centered on accomplishing and seeing your will accomplished, your purposes accomplished on earth.

Father, we pray that you would be our help as we go out and have fellowship, Lord. We pray that your Spirit will encourage us. Amen. That you look after us and encourage us. And be encouraged, and to encourage one another.

As we go into our week, the work that you have given to us, the family responsibilities that you have given to us, Lord, we ask that you would help us to fulfill them well. And Father, help us to fulfill them in a way that keeps Jesus at the center of our lives.

Father, we do want to thank you for all the wonderful things you have provided for our sustenance and for life here on earth as well. Father, we thank you for all the wonderful things you have provided for our sustenance. These gifts and offerings that we have brought, Lord, they are an acknowledgment that everything we have, everything we are, belongs to you, comes from you.

And we pray that that which has been given would be blessed by you, that you would multiply it, and you would allow it to be used for the extension of your kingdom. And Father, we pray that all that we are, all that we have, we would also dedicate to your glory, to fulfill the responsibilities that you have given to us, towards our family, and towards our neighbors.

And we pray that through our lives, your name would continually be glorified. And we pray that you will fill us with the joy of seeing people come to faith in life, faith in Jesus. Through the witness of our lives, and through the testimony of our words. We pray that the gospel would be alive, and it would flourish in our midst, and it would go out from us to the nations that you have brought to this city.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

And now may the grace of God the Father, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and forevermore. Amen.

Please be seated. I just...