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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Franklin Cobos

Practical Prayer

I wasn't anticipating being back this quick, but things worked out that I have a meeting in Las Vegas, work-related.

But I was able to rearrange my flights and come spend the weekend with you all here.

But it's nice just to come back and walk around the campus and think back of when I was here.

I enjoy walking down that pathway just by a bird.

I remember trying to learn how to stop and smell the roses figuratively as a medical student amidst all the worry and work and scurry.

And I picked out 1 I particularly enjoyed this morning.

As I stopped and smelled them, I figured they owe me a little something after I was here for 4 years.

I also like to stop and look at that plaque next to the statues of the Good Samaritan.

Last time I was with you, anybody, who was here last time when I came, I was invited last time?

Do you remember what we talked about together then?

I went and looked at that plaque out in front of the statues and if you notice the second paragraph third line down begins with 3 words it says and by chance and By chance we talked about chance and providence and how those how your belief in those 2 concepts shapes perhaps how you live your life to the better and the worse.

And this morning, we probably won't go back too far.

There were several things I wanted to speak with you about that Sabbath I didn't get to, ran out of time.

I heard twice this morning from Tim mentioning that I should give a sermonette.

Do you remember what I gave last time when I was asked to give a sermonette?

That's right, I've been invited to speak with Christianettes.

I don't think you're Christianettes, so I'll give you a full sermon this morning.

Let's open our Bibles this morning and begin to look at the Lord's Prayer.

For convenience, you can go to the first Gospel, Matthew chapter 6.

If I remember, I hope I remember, I studied this, what the sermon is about.

Matthew Chapter 6, it begins in verse 9, and when I initially began my personal study into this passage, it was 1 of the other books, I don't recall which 1 it was, perhaps Luke, I commonly go to Luke because he's the physician, and the opening gamut begins with the scenario where the disciples come to Jesus and ask him simply to teach us to pray.

As I looked at that verse I wondered if somebody could teach me to pray who would I ask?

I thought that was an excellent question that the disciples had come up with.

I wondered, maybe it was the way Jesus could spend an entire night in prayer.

How Jesus could spend the entire previous and following day working for people who are suffering, who are angry, perhaps with him, and still live an unsullied life in this world.

And so perhaps it was that that made the impression on the disciples that this man had an experience that they did not, and they wanted to learn to have it too.

So they approached him and said, teach us to pray.

The Lord's Prayer is the response which they received.

I'd like to break this prayer down into several phrases, and actually words.

When I studied it initially, I broke it down into several phrases, and as I continue to go through it in my mind and my own personal study in prayer, I've gotten to the point where I'm just looking at words now.

I used to have a phrase, Our Father which art in heaven.

We begin our study this morning by looking at the word, our.

You've all prayed this prayer, I imagine, and maybe like me, it was more of a parrot prayer.

I can remember 1 day we were over in the basic science building and our pastor for our class led us in worship that morning and he ended by inviting us all to recite the Lord's Prayer.

This was when, you know, we were part of the crowd.

We sat in the very back on the left in basic science hall.

We got about halfway through that prayer and suddenly it all fell to pieces because our class pastor had misplaced 1 of the phrases.

And half or part of the class followed him and the other half, it was confusion.

People were saying all kinds of things and That experience left a deep impression on my mind that I did not know that prayer.

I felt in my heart that that was a serious symptom of an underlying problem that I needed to address.

Let me ask you to look in your Bibles in chapter 3 of Mark.

There's an interesting experience that Jesus has while he's with a group of people in a house if I remember.

This is Mark chapter 3 verse 34 and 35 that I will read for us this morning.

It states that Jesus, and he, speaking of Jesus, looked round about on them which sat about him and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren, for whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sister and mother." Recall this experience.

His blood relatives had come to the door of this cram-packed house where he was ministering and they said, excuse me, you've got visitors here, your mom, dad, you know, family.

And his response has interested me in that he basically says, he says here in his response, Is that the people I am with right now are as important to me as my blood family And while I recognize my ties with them, and I realize they're there.

You can't make me interrupt what I'm doing with these people to show favor to those perhaps that I may not naturally be inclined to favor.

An example I like to give in my own life of how this has affected me is when I'm talking on the phone, I see my cell phone rings a second time, I'm in the middle of a conversation, I'm speaking to my father, and it's somebody else who's calling, I don't say, hey dad, I got somebody else on the other line, let me get back with you.

I let the voicemail pick that up because I'm talking to my family.

On the other hand, if I'm speaking to someone who is not my family, maybe someone from work, a friend from church, something like that, and the cell phone comes from dad's home or dad's cell or mom, my sister Nancy, When they call, what do I tell them?

Do you tell your family, oh hey wait, someone else is on the line.

If it's someone I don't know and my family calls, I say, you hold on.

My mom's calling, and I'm going to talk to her.

And I put them on hold, and I bring my mom in.

And that's basically kind of the situation Jesus was faced with.

How will he treat people who are not his blood relatives?

He looked around about him on those which sat about him.

The people I went to school with, did I treat them as well as though they were literally my blood family?

There is a passage I read recently in Ministry of Healing where I learned this.

She says, Let not the heart of 1 connected with you starve for the want of kindness and sympathy.

I have lately tried to notice the people I work with.

Maybe you'll do this sometime in the coming week or maybe you remember an experience in the past week where people drop Phrases or hints to you as they come in and they express.

Oh, it's Friday or it's Monday It's gonna be another terrible day.

They will say things that I have lately picked up on But to me would indicate they're not living a happy life They have got trouble somewhere in their life besides the experience that they're having with me right now at work.

They may find it quite easy to put away personal issues to perform professional duties.

You smile at Greek people and say, yes, I'm having a wonderful day.

You pass, you pick up your scrubs, you go to the OR.

It's easy to hide those things from people you work with, but when you get home and you're having your family around you, you tend to unfortunately you tend to treat them probably the worst of all the people that you expose yourself to.

Maybe that's because you feel you can risk treating the ones you love the most the worst.

Whereas the people who you don't really care for at work, oh you treat them with the greatest, dearest, great doctor, so and so, so come right in, so nice to see you again, been waiting to do anesthesia for you for so long, you're such a nice surgeon.

You spew these lies at people for no reason, they're not your blood family, well Why are you treating them so well and then go home and treat your family and then you unload on your family, right?

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Practical Prayer

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