When You Pray - Part 1 - Matthew 6:5-15

3:40It's time you learn from the legend of Honey, the circle maker, a man bold enough to draw a circle in the sand and not budge from it until God answers his prayer for his people. What impossibly big dream is God calling you to draw a prayer circle around? Sharing inspiring stories from his own experiences as a circle maker, the author, will help you uncover your heart's deepest desires and God-given dreams and unleash them through this kind of audacious prayer that God delights to answer. It's an interesting example of some of the things floating around about prayer these days, and I think it's a bestseller probably largely from Christians buying the book. And the question is, is this sort of thing what God tells us about prayer in the Bible? Is it true that if we use a particular instrument like a Staff, such as he did, or a particular technique that God will respond more willingly to us. I think another popular idea is that the length of our prayers will persuade God to act. It's very common for Christian books and biographies to highlight how a particular pastor or a missionary would pray for three or six hours a day. I've read this often. And if we stopped at just acknowledging that that person may have six hours of things to talk to God about, I think that would be just fine. But we produce books that will talk about that we should consider emulating their practices because it will make us more holy, or God will be more likely to listen, or God will be more likely to act in some way. And so the question is: does God teach us that the length of our prayers will move his hand more mightily? I think we need to subject all these things we hear to what the Bible says. So I have two purposes in the message from tonight and from a couple weeks from now. The first one is that we'll learn what God has to say about prayer in the Bible and that we will be instructed on the parameters that He places around prayer. Does He tell us how to pray and what sort of things to pray about and how to go about praying? The second thing is that we would be moved to pray according to God's will. I hope desperately that from these times, from coming to the Scripture and learning from Jesus on how to pray, that we will be moved to pray. We should be praying. Often, and our life should be consumed with it. It should be a great joy to us. So, hopefully, this is very freeing, and that we feel that we understand how we can talk to God regularly, because I believe that's what He wants.

6:12So, if you'll look at Matthew 6 and verses 9 through 13, I'm going to read what we commonly refer to as the Lord's Prayer. Jesus says, Pray then like this, verse 9: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This prayer is almost the same as the one recorded in Luke 11. However, they're slightly different. And I believe that the difference can largely be attributed to that these prayers are a model for how to pray. It's not a prayer that Jesus intended for us just to recite. The few other occasions in which we have the words of Jesus' prayers, he doesn't recite this model. So, it shows us very clearly that it's not something just to recite. For example, the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in John 17, you see that the contents of that prayer relate to the situation that Jesus is in at that time and what's on his heart. So, we see that this model prayer is important because it's recorded in two different occasions.

7:30Jesus clearly wanted us to understand how to pray. So let's look at the circumstances of Matthew 6. This is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount that runs from chapter 5 through chapter 7. This sermon is primarily an exposition of the Mosaic law found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Jesus is confronting the legalistic Pharisees head-on by this time in his ministry. You'll remember he had already cleansed the temple for the first time. The Pharisees are these religious leaders that supposedly had the authority to explain and interpret the law for the Jews. And an ordinary Jew would look to these Pharisees to know how to follow the Mosaic law. Jesus preaches this sermon to say that these Pharisees had missed the heart of the law in so many ways. And he's clearing up misconceptions that they had about the law. Apparently, Israel needed instruction in how to pray and how to pray in a way that was pleasing to God because they had become distorted in the way that they were praying. And so Jesus provides this helpful teaching that will correct their prayer life. And so in Matthew 6, verse 1 through 18, this is a subsection of the Sermon on the Mount. You'll see in 6, verse 1, he starts a new section with beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. And you'll see in 6 verse 5, he continues this section where It begins and when. And you'll see that again in 6, verse 7. You'll see the same thing in 6, verse 16. So you have this subsection of one thought that he's communicating here. And he gives three examples of ways that you can be pleasing to God in your motives. The first is in 6, 1 through 4, and that talks about giving to the needy. The second is in 5 through 15, and that talks about praying. And the third is in fasting. That's in verses 16 through 18. And in each of these, he shows how a person can seek to win the applause of man. You can seek to serve yourself and your own ways. Or you can seek to express praise to God. You'll notice that all three of these sections contrast a hypocrite with somebody who wants to give praise to God and do things his way. The question for each of us is, do we want to please God or man? That's the question that Jesus is asking of each of these categories. And so the section that deals with prayer is 5 through 15. So let's read verses 5 and 6, just before what we just read. He says, And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees you. In secret will reward you.

10:34And by the way, as we go, we're going to have to move somewhat fast through these things because we're going to focus primarily in Matthew 6 this time and in Luke 11 next time. But we have a lot of ground to cover as it relates to prayer. So, this first instruction on prayer is that we must not be like the hypocrites. They love to stand and pray in such a way that they appear to be holy. It's clear their prayers are not sincere, and that these people are not praying to bring glory to God or to express deep needs and concerns that they have to God. They want to conceal their hypocrisy by being loud. They're calling attention to themselves so that they look better than they are. This is antithetical to the reason that you would pray. You pray to God in order to glorify God and conform your will to His, as you see in verses 9 through 13. So it's the opposite of that. And it's not simply that this person should avoid praying in public for attention, but it's not just that it's a bad idea, it's that it doesn't make sense. It makes no sense that they would draw attention to themselves in this way. The hypocrite who prays loudly in the synagogue can only be after one thing, and that's the praise of man. Guess what God says? Look at verse 5. This person may get the reward of human praise, but that's all they will receive, is the reward of human praise, which all of us who've lived at least as long as any of us in here, that's Not worth a whole lot. It doesn't take you very far. The blessing obtained is shallow and worthless. And it's shallow and worthless to pray in this manner. In contrast, a sincere prayer is one that's said in private with only God as the audience, because human praise is not needed. God will reward you for praying in this way. And so one question that comes up right away is: how do you reconcile group prayer? Because I just mentioned that we meet on Wednesdays for a group prayer meeting. And there's a number of suggestions you can read from different commentators of how to understand that. I think that the context Jesus is mentioning here is individual prayer for individual needs, is really what he's focusing on. And I believe it's important that the majority of our individual communication with God is private. But there are other times where we come together as a group to pray for other people and to pray for the needs of the group. We know that Jesus himself engaged in prayer that's not locked in a closet and it's not private. For example, at his baptism, it actually says that after he was baptized, he was praying when the Holy Spirit came down on him. And there's many examples of group prayer and public prayer in the scriptures. So it's obvious that it's not an absolute rule that is meant to bar group prayer from occurring. But we must always be careful that our prayer is not. Not drawing attention to ourselves. Moving on to verse 7, we receive further instruction for prayer. Jesus tells us that we are to pray to God according to his terms and not according to the ways of the pagan nations and their gods. The pagans would often develop these chants and these formulaic prayers that would invoke their gods to perform certain actions. You see this in Hinduism, I think, a lot is one that I think of, where you do say particular things that appeal to a certain God of that realm to do something. And Jesus says that God already knows what we need. He doesn't need us to get his attention through some kind of incantation. He doesn't need to be woken up from a sleep or something like that. A really good biblical example that you may have already thought of in reading that verse is in 1 Kings with the prophets of Baal. You see this really powerful contrast of Elijah versus the prophets of Baal. It's in 1 Kings 18, and you don't have to turn there, but I'm going to read just a small portion of it. So Elijah sets up this contest on the mountain with the prophets of Baal, and Elijah is going to show that God is the only true God, and Baal is false. So he goes to the prophets and says, Let's set up this contest to show the people, and they say that's fine. And so he's laying down the rules. And Elijah says in verse 24, And you call upon the name of your God, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, the God who answers by. Fire, and the God who answers by fire, he is God. And the people answered, It is well spoken. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, choose for yourselves one bowl and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your God, but put no fire to it. They took the bowl that was given to them and prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. But there was no voice, no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. Go in the verse 28. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered, no one paid attention. Going down to verse 36, you see the contrast of Elijah. And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood and the stones and dust licked up the water that was in the trench. When the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, The Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God. You'll notice the stark contrast between these prophets of Baal. Takes a few sentences to mention what they did, but if you track it, it's from morning until the time of the ablation about 3 p.m. They were going on and on for a long time. And you'll notice that Elijah's prayer, it's really plain and very straightforward. It's not very mystical prayer. It doesn't contain any magical words that are hard to understand. You know exactly what he's saying to God.

16:57Now, why does God not want us to go on and on with words like the prophets of Baal or like other pagan practices? Well, in verse 7, you'll see that when he's talking about it here, it's not an issue of pride or drawing attention to yourself. That's a problem that he mentioned in 5 and 6. But what he is saying here, he explains in verse 8. He says, don't be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.

17:26The reason we don't use these empty phrases and we don't go on and on is because we're not informing God of something that he doesn't know. We're not trying to stir him up so that he pays attention to us and can learn information from us. We don't need to pray something a hundred times over because God won't hear us unless we repeat ourselves. Now, we'll get to it some next week, but there is a reason that you might pray something a hundred times over, and that's because you're persistent in prayer according to God's plan where he tells you. You to persist in your prayers because you have confidence in Him and because it's heavy on your heart. But it's not because God will hear us. That's not why we would persevere in prayer. And so we'll get to some of those passages next week. I'm looking forward to that. Or two weeks from now. So, how then should we pray? Well, we're going to go through the phrases of the Lord's Prayer pretty quickly. Hopefully, most of you have heard this prayer and even taken some time to look at it before. We're going to go through these phrases rapidly and see what the model prayer looks like. The first is our Father in heaven. So, Jesus says, Pray like this. One of the two times in the Bible, God explicitly says, Pray like this: Our Father in heaven. So, we see that we are to address our prayers to God as our Father. God created us, He sustains us, He's the author of life. Any prayer that we have, we must acknowledge this role that God holds. He's in a position above us as our Father, and we can only come to Him understanding our role as His child, as subordinate to Him. It's interesting as we go through these phrases, you see Jesus' prayer life later in His ministry reflect His own model prayer, which is neat to see, and it makes sense that He would be consistent that way. In Matthew 26, verse 39, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Gethsemane.

19:31He says, it says, and going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father. Jesus begins his interaction by acknowledging his role compared to the Father. Now, unlike us, Jesus wasn't created. God's not his Father in that sense. But the Bible makes it clear that the Son willingly subordinates himself to the Father. And so, like Jesus, we should acknowledge God's role as Father over us. The next phrase is, hallowed be your name. Personally, I wish we would drop the word hallowed. I think it's fallen out of use.

20:07Kids nowadays don't know what it means, but it's okay. It's in our translations, and we have helpful footnotes and notes that help us explain it. The word hallowed just comes from the word holy. It can be rendered, and if you have the ESV, your footnote will say the phrase can be, let your name be kept holy, or let your name be treated with reverence. That's the idea. We should acknowledge the holiness of God's name. His name is set apart from all others. And before we ever go forward with the content of our prayers, it makes sense that we would acknowledge his name as set apart. And we should be very concerned that God's name remains treated as holy and set apart. We want to give him the reverence that's due to his name. It's interesting that in Hebrews 5, verse 7, talking of Jesus' ministry, It says, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. So Jesus was heard because of his reverence towards God. Jesus maintained the hallowness, the holiness of God's name. Just sounds too much like hollow, I guess. And this is falling out of misuse. But it's holy be your name. And I think we understand that. The next phrase is, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This phrase can have some difficulty because it depends on how you understand the kingdom in the book of Matthew. I think it kind of boils down to you have sort of two major interpretations of that. Some people will view the kingdom as particularly something future, an actual kingdom that's coming on earth in Revelation. And others would see the kingdom a little more symbolically and say, yes, it includes that, but it also includes God's influence in the heart of man even at this time. Fortunately for our study tonight, we don't have to go into that issue. And it doesn't have a big impact on understanding what Christ is saying here. And I encourage you to look into that and to understand it in Matthew. I think you can.

22:12But the first position might emphasize that the prayer here is for a future fulfillment of this kingdom, that we're praying as a longing for it to happen. The second position would emphasize more that we're longing for God's ways to be in the hearts of man at the time that you're praying it here. And either way, you're praying. That God's ways and his rule would have its fulfillment on earth. The heart of what Jesus is saying in this model prayer, I think, is clear, however, you precisely understand kingdom. The next phrase is, Your will be done. We long for God's will to be done before we ever ask for any of our requests. And Jesus embodies this once again in the garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane? Something like that. In Matthew 26, verse 39, he says, And going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And he repeats the same thing in verse 42 and verse 44.

23:14What an ultimate picture of prioritizing the Father's will over our own. Jesus is about to go through the greatest suffering that anyone will ever endure in the history of the world because he's about to be separated from his Father. He was perfect and was with his father and now is going to have the sin of the world placed on him and a separation occur when he doesn't deserve it. He knows he's about to go through this and his prayer is that the Father's will would be done. Something good for us to emulate in our prayers. Subordinate ourselves to the will of the Father.

23:54The next phrase is, Give us this day our daily bread. And this section begins the requests. For ourselves. The first half of the model prayer has been focused on praising God and acknowledging His role, His superiority over ours. Appropriately, the first part of the prayer seeks to orient ourselves as subordinate to God's will. If God knows what we need before we ask, then the most important thing we can do in prayer is to glorify God. He already knows what our needs are. This second half of the prayer contains requests that we make on our behalf. The first request is for daily bread as a model for us to express our needs to God. We are to bring simple and daily needs before God. We see later in the chapter, if you probably flip over a page in most of your Bibles, in chapter 6 and verse 31 through 34, Jesus says, Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. It's interesting that we can trust God to provide our daily bread. It's consistent with the statement that God knows what we need before we ask. So, Jesus here at the Later in the Sermon on the Mount, he is saying that we can trust Him when earlier He has said to ask for this daily bread. And it's interesting that in verse 33, Jesus would say, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then these things, being food, being drink, being clothing, will be added. And it seems to shed a little bit of light on the model prayer earlier in the sermon. We seek God's kingdom and His will first, and our daily needs will be added. But we're also to pray for our daily needs, to ask for our daily bread. And I think we see a little bit of a tension between these things, between what we should pray for and what God already knows. Jesus tells us to pray for what God has already promised that He'll provide. But the model prayer is clear, and God is clear, that we are to bring our requests before Him.

26:26I think it should clear up any confusion about what we are allowed to pray about. We're allowed to pray for any of our needs. And I think that if you believe in the sovereignty of God in such a way that you're unable to express your needs to God because you don't want to insult the fact that He knows everything, then you're directly disobeying Christ. Jesus says to ask for our needs, the ones that God already knows about. The next phrase is: forgive our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. We see here that the confession of sin is appropriate in prayer. We should confess our sins to God. And it's interesting that Jesus mentions the necessity for us to forgive others as well.

27:08At first, it seems out of place because we might wonder what our interaction with other people would have to do with our own prayers. But the teaching here is clear. If we are to be forgiven of our sins by God, we must obey Him and forgive others. Verse 14 and 15, that fall right after the Lord's prayer, make this even more clear. Jesus says, For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will the Father forgive your trespasses. And Jesus gives the same teaching in Mark 11:25 when he says, Whenever you stand praying, forgive. And if you have anything against anyone, so that if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

28:01And this is not, as a note, this is not the forgiveness of salvation. And we don't have time to go into it here, but I think the way the language that's helpful in understanding it is this is a sort of parental forgiveness situation. It's a breach of relationship. It's not talking about being justified from your sin and passing from dark to light, but it's talking about having a functioning relationship, that God withholds the forgiveness that That brings forward a functioning relationship with Him if we refuse to forgive others. Because we know we can't lose our salvation even by not forgiving others. The next phrase is, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This prayer is a request that God would deliver us out of the bonds of sin our own nature and desires lead us into.

28:52It's our own nature that walks towards sin and gives in to temptations. We have a weak flesh, and we need God's help to avoid sin. It's not implying that God would lead us into temptation. It's not lead us not into temptation as opposed to the times that God leads us into temptation, because in James 1, verse 13, he makes it clear that God is neither tempted nor tempts anyone. But the prayer here is that God would deliver us from the desires of our own flesh. In Mark 14, 38, Jesus tells his disciples once again in the garden to watch and pray that you may not enter temptation. It's the same idea, the same kind of prayer. So, a summary of the model that Jesus gives us here is we can break it into four primary elements of this prayer. The first one in verse 9 is a praise to God. The second one in verses 10 and 11 is a petition for God's ways to reign supreme. The third, found in verse 1, Verse 12 is a confession to God of our sins. And the fourth, found in verse 13, is a petition to God for our needs.

30:12So as we pray, we should model our prayers after the one that Jesus gave here. We should make effort to regularly include these elements in our prayers. And I don't think that Jesus is saying that this is a formula for prayer such that each of our prayers needs to contain these specific elements in this order, in some particular way. For example, we see prayers in the Bible for specific needs on occasions that have specific aspects to them, and you don't see all of the elements of this prayer here. For example, Paul's statements in the beginnings of several of his letters where he talks about praying for the people that he's writing the letter to and saying that he thanks God for them and prays for their spiritual needs. He doesn't always have each of these aspects or each of these elements clearly outlined in his prayers. Rather, I think these elements should characterize our prayer life overall. We should regularly incorporate these things into our prayers. And you may have heard of the Acts acronym.

31:14Is that commonly still used? I like the Acts acronym. It's been helpful in my prayer life. So it's ACTS. Am I hitting something here? Felt like somebody was tapping me on the back. So, ACTS, so it's adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. I don't know who came up with it. I think it's a helpful reminder to keep elements of this model prayer in mind. The adoration encompasses the praise and the petition for God's ways to reign supreme. At least in my thinking, the Bible doesn't give us this acronym, so you don't have to go too far with trying to push it, but that's how I think of adoration.

32:02This prayer adds the element of thanksgiving. It's not expressly found in the Lord's Prayer here, but it appears in several texts. I think the most clear one is Philippians 4:6. Paul says, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. So, maybe the person who came up with the acronym thought it would be very helpful to add the T in there, or maybe they just needed a good acronym. I don't know. But I found it very helpful in my prayer life to remember, to think on these different categories. So, a question to ask is: what will God's response be to our prayers? The Bible is abundantly clear that God is pleased to answer our prayers. But it gets more precise than that. God is pleased to answer the prayers of obedient children who approach Him persistently and with confidence that He will answer. God's pleased to answer the prayers that follow his model and acknowledge his name as holy. And we're going to talk about that in a couple weeks when we discuss the Luke 11 passage. But for now, if you would turn over to Matthew 7, verse 7.

33:23So this is still in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? God gives good gifts and is pleased to answer our prayers. So I would encourage you to pray. Pray often about the things that are on your heart. Bring them before God. As you think upon the greatness of God and the things that he's done in your life, the works that he's worked in the world around us, even reading about history, you read about something God did thousands of years ago, you can give him praise for that. Those events affected things up to where they are now, and we get to see God's goodness in them and the way he's organized. Orchestrated the world. So pray.

34:34And one final word on the frequency of prayer, and then I'm going to close with a quote. I noted at the beginning that one of the purposes in discussing this is that we would be moved to pray. But we've read that God does not want us to go on in lengthy prayers that are vain or full of empty words. And I think it's fair to say that we see that the length of our prayers doesn't enter the equation of whether God pays more attention to our prayers or answers them in some particular way.

35:11So how often should we pray? 1 Thessalonians and verse 5, chapter 5, if you will turn there with me to 1 Thessalonians 5. And verse 16. Paul is giving a concluding, the concluding remarks of his letter to the Thessalonians, and he has some quick instructions at the end of the letter and some sort of, I don't want to say random thoughts, but maybe somewhat disconnected thoughts of last things he wants to leave with them. And he says in chapter 5, Verse 16. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. So I want to close with a quote from Dr. Jim Roscup in his commentary series on the prayers in the Bible.

36:20And he says, speaking of this phrase, pray without ceasing. He says, whatever the aspect of prayer or the occasion that may inspire this communion, it is to be a permeating factor. The present tense keeps in mind the continuing urgency of prayer. Without ceasing does not signify that prayer is to be absolutely without ever taking a break. It does denote avidity in prayer that is so persistent in its ready availability that it does not shirk a situation of need or an opportunity of blessing. It's a prayer keeping on the alert and snatching up occasions. Prayer that is a pervasive flavoring touching the facets of life. I love his imagery there of snatching up occasions. I think as we understand this model prayer, it helps inform what God would want to be going on in our prayers as we approach Him, the things that must be kept in their order and in their place to approach Him in a manner that is worthy of Him.

37:30And I think as we grow in our will becoming conformed to the will of God, we will increasingly have things to pray about. And I hope that as we go through our life that we do snatch these occasions, that we see in every situation around us, we want to subject to prayer the things happening. Whether people who are sick, whether the unsaved that are in front of us, job situations, praises for God healing or bringing back a wayward person that we know, and all things, big and small, that we snatch those occasions. For some reason, the imagery to me is grabbing the, you grab somebody by the collar. I just think of going through life and just you're passing these occurrences that happen and you're grabbing them by the collar and saying, Let me pray about this. Let me bring this before God. And so I hope that you will do that in your life and that your prayer life will be impacted by the model that Jesus gives us. So let's pray.

38:35Dear Lord, we find it always humbling and astonishing that we can come before you in prayer. It's really a very big thing that the Creator of all the universe would allow us access to talk to him and to share what's on our hearts. And we thank you for sending your son to this earth for all. The many aspects of his ministry that are vital to our salvation. We thank you tonight, especially for the preaching ministry that Jesus had, where he informs us how you would have us pray. Lord, we want to speak to you, but we want to do it on your terms. We want to keep your name holy and treat it with the reverence it deserves. We want your will to be done on this earth. And we have so many needs in our lives, so many things that come up that we would like to bring before you. Lord, help us in our individual lives that we would bring those needs before you and trust in you for how you orchestrate the circumstances. And Lord, I would ask that you help us as a church to bear each other's burdens, that we be constant in prayer for one another. And Lord, we give you so much praise for all the answers that we've seen, for the great impact that it had on Mario and Fidela, the way that you have taken care of them in this difficult time, the financial resources that you've provided for them, the health that you provided. And with Fidela, we say that you are a good and amazing God. You're great, and the way you bless us is astounding. We thank you for this evening and pray you give us strength for the tasks we have this week and pray it in your Son's name. Amen.