Sermon Summary
What if prayer was never meant to feel like a religious chore, but rather like breathing -- something so natural and constant that life simply cannot function without it? That is the vision this message casts for us, drawing from the words of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5 where we are called to pray continually, rejoice always, and give thanks in all circumstances. What makes this passage remarkable is that Paul frames these practices not as suggestions but as the explicit will of God for our lives. For those of us who have spent years wondering what God's will is, the answer may have been right in front of us all along. We are invited to reimagine prayer as an open, never-ending line of communication with a God who never tires of hearing from us -- one that shapes every moment of our day rather than being confined to a scheduled slot on a calendar.
Key Takeaways
- Prayer was a foundational and constant part of Jesus's earthly life and ministry, and it must be equally foundational for believers today.
- Constant prayer, as described in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, is explicitly stated as God's will for every believer and should function like breathing, natural and unceasing rather than scheduled or obligatory.
- Bold prayer is made possible through Jesus Christ, who as our high priest empathizes with human weakness, giving believers the confidence to approach God's throne of grace openly and without reservation, no matter their condition or circumstance.
- Believers are called to pray for everyone, including enemies and those who have caused harm, because praying for others releases the one praying from bitterness and invites God's healing and blessing into their own life.
- The gospel is communicated not only through words but through the lived actions of believers, and prayer fuels the kind of life that points others to Christ.
Scripture
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, which calls believers to rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances as God's will in Christ Jesus
- Hebrews 4:14-16, which describes Jesus as a high priest who empathizes with human weakness and invites believers to approach God's throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and help
- Romans 1:9-10, in which Paul testifies to constantly remembering his fellow believers in prayer
- Ephesians 6:18, which instructs believers to pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and to keep on praying for all of God's people
- 1 John 5:14, which affirms that God hears prayers offered according to his will
- Matthew 5:44-48, in which Jesus commands his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, noting that loving only those who love you back is no different from what unbelievers do
Reflection Questions
- The sermon compares prayer to breathing, describing it as spiritual oxygen rather than a religious obligation -- in what ways has your own prayer life felt more like a scheduled duty than a natural, constant rhythm, and what might it look like to change that?
- Jesus maintained a consistent prayer life even as the Son of God, which raises the question: what does it reveal about the nature of our relationship with God when we neglect prayer despite having even greater need of it than Jesus did in his humanity?
- First Thessalonians 5:16-18 tells us to rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances, presenting these as God's explicit will -- why do you think so many believers still struggle to identify God's will when it is stated so plainly in Scripture?
5-Day Bible Reading Plan: Salt, Light, and the Calling of the Ordinary
Theme: Getting Back to the Basics of Prayer
Day 1: The Rhythm of Constant Prayer
Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Devotional: Prayer was never meant to be a scheduled obligation squeezed between the demands of daily life. It was designed to be the spiritual oxygen that sustains your relationship with God from morning until night. Just as breathing happens naturally and continuously, so should your communion with the Father. Paul's instruction to pray continually is not a burden but an invitation into a lifestyle of ongoing conversation with the God who created you and knows you completely. Today, resist the urge to compartmentalize prayer into one moment. Let every hour become an opportunity to turn your heart toward God.
Reflection Question: In what areas of your day have you been leaving God out of the conversation?
Practical Application: Set a quiet reminder on your phone three times today, not as a scheduled prayer time, but as a prompt to simply acknowledge God's presence in whatever moment you find yourself in.
Day 2: Approaching God With Confidence
Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16
Devotional: There is no other faith in the world that offers what Christianity offers. The God of the universe, the one who spoke all creation into existence, invites you to come before him exactly as you are. Broken, discouraged, confused, or ashamed, none of those conditions disqualify you from approaching his throne. Because Jesus walked this earth and experienced the full weight of human struggle without surrendering to sin, he is uniquely qualified to receive your prayers with understanding and compassion. You do not need to clean yourself up before you pray. You simply need to come with the confidence of a child who knows they are loved.
Reflection Question: What prayer have you been holding back because it felt too big, too personal, or too impossible to bring before God?
Practical Application: Write down the prayer you have been afraid to pray. Then pray it out loud today, approaching God not with hesitation but with the boldness of someone who knows their Father hears them.
Day 3: Praying Like Jesus
Reading: Luke 5:15-16
Devotional: Even as crowds pressed in from every direction seeking healing and teaching, Jesus consistently withdrew to pray. This was not a spiritual discipline he practiced only when life was quiet or convenient. It was the foundation upon which everything else in his ministry was built. If the Son of God prioritized uninterrupted time with the Father, how much more do you and I need it? The busyness of life will always compete for the time that belongs to God. The noise will not stop on its own. You must choose, as Jesus did, to step away from the demands of the day and return to the source of all strength and wisdom.
Reflection Question: What is currently competing most loudly with your time in prayer, and what would it cost you to set it aside?
Practical Application: Identify one recurring distraction that consistently pulls you away from prayer. Make a deliberate and specific plan today to protect at least one block of uninterrupted time this week for prayer alone.
Day 4: Praying for Those Who Have Hurt You
Reading: Matthew 5:43-48
Devotional: Jesus did not suggest praying for your enemies as an optional spiritual exercise for the especially devoted. He commanded it. And the reason is not simply for their benefit. When you pray blessing over someone who has wronged you, something happens in your own heart that no amount of time or willpower can produce on its own. Bitterness begins to lose its grip. The wound begins to heal. God does a work in you through the very act of interceding for the person who caused the pain. Praying for them does not excuse what they did. It simply means you are trusting God with the outcome and freeing yourself from the poison of unforgiveness.
Reflection Question: Who came to mind when you read the word "enemy," and what has that unforgiveness been costing you?
Practical Application: Choose one person who has hurt or wronged you. Pray for them by name every day this week, not asking God to change them or to bring justice, but genuinely asking God to bless their life. Pay attention to what shifts in your own heart by the end of the week.
Day 5: A Life That Preaches Without Words
Reading: 1 Peter 2:12
Devotional: Prayer is not only what happens when you close your eyes and bow your head. Prayer is what fuels the life that others watch when you are simply going about your day. When constant prayer, bold prayer, and intercession for others become the foundation of how you live, your actions begin to carry a message that words alone cannot deliver. The people around you are watching to see whether your faith is real. A life built on genuine communion with God produces a visible difference that draws others toward the hope you carry. You may never know whose life was changed simply because they watched you walk faithfully through difficulty with peace they could not explain.
Reflection Question: If the people closest to you could only observe your life and not hear your words, what would they conclude about your relationship with God?
Practical Application: Identify one practical way your daily life can more clearly reflect the peace, boldness, and compassion that a consistent prayer life produces. Commit to living that out this week and ask God each morning to make your life a visible testimony of his presence.
Transcript
to get back to the basics.
And this morning, I'm going to speak specifically on prayer, getting back to the basics.
and that it is vital for us to have a good prayer life in order for us to make it through life.
Life is tough enough without having that hope and that communication with the creator of the universe.
And so prayer is important.
There's a part of Jesus's life while he was here on earth that cannot be understated.
It was his prayer life.
Jesus was always in conversation and communion with the Father.
And from what we know from the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John found within our Bible, it appears that Jesus kept a regular rhythm of prayer throughout his life.
if prayer was a foundational part of jesus's life then it needs to be a foundational part of our lives as well how many believe that to be true today we're gonna we're gonna take a closer look at three ways the bible describes the prayer life god is calling you and i into
First of which is constant prayer.
The first thing that comes to mind is something we see in the life of Christ.
He was constantly in communion and prayer with the Father.
While constant prayer is a daunting task, it is a necessary one.
in your bibles this morning if you would please turn to the book of first thessalonians first thessalonians chapter five i will have it here on the overhead uh but it's chapter five we're gonna look at verses 16 17 and 18. so three verses today
And there, it tells us to rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
amen let us pray father we come before you today we thank you for your word we pray god in these next few moments of time that that as i share these words that father you would anoint these lips of clay to speak your word open the ears to hear your word
so that your word would take deep root into our hearts and that it would produce a vast harvest of the spiritual fruit that you desire to have in our life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Lord, we pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, the name that is above all names.
amen and amen praise god in this passage paul talks about several things that we should be doing all the time rejoicing praying and giving thanks he goes on to say that it is the will of god in christ jesus for our lives and here's the important part
There aren't many places in the Bible where we are told so explicitly and clearly what the will of God is for us.
In fact, people have asked me over the years, what is God's will for my life?
Well, we're told exactly what God's will is for our lives here in the Scriptures.
In fact, there are many people, maybe you in this room, maybe watching online, you're that way.
You're like, what is God's will for my life?
You use and spend huge chunks of your life trying to figure out what God's will is.
The obvious problem is not that it's so simple or easy to carry out.
It is the fact that it's smack dab.
How many have ever heard the phrase, can't see the forest for the trees?
Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees, yet it's smacking us right in the face today.
And God is telling us in his word what his will is for our lives.
He wants us to pray.
He wants us to rejoice.
He wants us to do this not just once a week.
He wants us to do this continually on a daily basis.
It doesn't take away that God's desire for us is to always be in communion with him.
Think about it like breathing.
You don't schedule a time to breathe.
If you open your calendar on your phone, it doesn't have on there, 8 a.m., take a breath.
You don't do that.
You don't set an alarm and say, okay, it's 10 a.m., time to take my next breath.
You just breathe.
It happens, it's constant, it's natural, it keeps you alive.
Prayer was meant to be like that for the believer.
Not a religious obligation that you just check off on a daily basis, but the spiritual oxygen that keeps your relationship with God alive and thriving throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, throughout the years.
Paul modeled this himself.
In Romans chapter one, verses nine and 10, it says, "'God, in whom I serve,'
Let me get it up there for you.
I don't know if I have the right one.
I may have skipped a scripture.
There it is.
I got it now.
Here we go.
God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his son is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers.
Notice the word constantly in my prayers at all times.
And I pray that now at last by God's will,
The way may be open for me to come to you.
And then Ephesians 6, 18, I threw it up a little soon, but there it is now.
And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all of the Lord's people, for all of the saints.
Paul practiced the discipline of constant communication with God and it shaped everything he did.
Do yourself a favor and think of your prayer life as an open line of communication.
a phone call of sorts that never comes to an end with someone on the other end who never tires of hearing from you.
I gotta tell you, I'm not a phone person.
I'm just not.
I do, I just,
i'll talk on the phone when i have to i finally broke back out my little jawbone thing i had from years ago that i could keep you know doing my hands like this and working on stuff and i could talk to people and i had not used that for several years and i got behind on phone calls anybody ever get behind on returning phone calls you know now here here i gotta say the expectations have changed over the decades
There was a time when you would call someone and if you didn't get a call for a week or even a month, you didn't sweat it.
You didn't sweat it.
You know why?
Because there was this thing called a landline.
It was in your house.
And if you were on vacation, you had no access to your landline.
And you could have been gone for a week or two and people didn't sweat it.
They didn't get offended.
They didn't get upset because you didn't call them right back or answer the phone right away.
Anybody have a party line?
Anybody ever had a party line?
You know what a party line is?
Party line is there could be five, 10, 15 people, probably maybe not that many, but there could be five people on the same line.
So if I call Crystal and Crystal picks up the phone, guess what happens?
The phone, it would ring maybe once at your house and ring twice for this person out here, but they'd still pick up the phone.
and listening on your conversation of what was going on.
Those days are gone.
Now we have these things that we carry around at all times, and we're like, when I call, they better answer the phone.
They got that phone in their hand the whole time.
Come on, y'all.
Patience is part of the fruits of the Spirit.
If they don't answer it, don't worry.
They'll call you back, maybe.
Or they'll text you, maybe.
And if they don't call you back, your lifeline's not in them anyway.
Come on, even if you're hurting, your lifeline's not in them.
Your lifeline is in Jesus.
Cry out to Jesus.
There's gonna be somebody you're gonna call and they're gonna answer.
Come on.
But I guarantee you this, Jesus will always answer the phone when you call.
Amen, praise God.
I love this right here.
We need to not only have a constant prayer but we need to have a bold prayer.
A bold prayer when we go before the Lord.
Hebrews 4, 14 through 16.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest, that's Jesus, who has ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith that we profess.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are.
Yet he did not sin.
Praise God.
Let us then approach God's throne of grace with what?
Confidence.
Well, you all don't sound like you have any confidence this morning.
We go with confidence.
Come on, we go with what?
Confidence.
Confidence, that's it.
So that we may what?
Receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Anybody ever been in a hard time and you needed some grace and mercy?
oh yeah praise god then we approach the throne of god with confidence father i come before you because i know you are able you are able god we have confidence and be and we're bold as we approach the throne of god because of what christ has already done on our behalf it's not because of me it's because of jesus because of this
When we offer our prayers to God, we can trust that he understands, that he empathizes with our situation.
And I gotta tell you this morning, folks, that's a huge deal.
Because the gods of other religions, false religions, I will say, aren't able to do that.
You got to be, you know, you got to fix yourself up.
You got to do certain things.
You have work you got to do before you can approach my God.
That's what they say for their religion.
But in our relationship with God, with the true God of the universe, you don't have to do anything.
You come to him as you are, broken, broken.
Depressed, dirty, filthy, sinful, any and every way, you can approach him however you look, feel, or whatever you're going through.
And he's ready to receive you at all times.
1 John 5, 14, this is the confidence that we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
I want you to notice that part there, though.
If we ask anything, what?
According to his will.
How do we know what God's will is?
I told a gentleman years ago, you go ahead and pray your prayer.
And if you have any kind of, you know, conscience at the end of it that kind of doesn't really sit well, that's the Holy Spirit telling you that is not God's will for your life.
A lot of times, though, what we do is we want it so badly that we ignore the Holy Spirit and we do it anyway.
What happens when that happens?
Great things.
Great things happen when that happens, doesn't it?
No, great things do not happen.
Horrible things happen at times when we take things into our own hands.
The Greek word for confidence used here in both of these passages is podesia.
And potosia means freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech.
It was a word used in the ancient world to describe the right of a citizen to speak freely in a public assembly.
So God has given us the freedom to speak whatever we're feeling,
Whatever we have on our heart, whatever question that we may have to ask, God, the universe, God of the universe, the one who created all things, gives you and I his creation.
Think about that.
He gives his creation an opportunity to stand before him and ask questions or just stand there and just be in awe of him.
He doesn't say, you're not good enough.
Get out of my bubble.
Get away from me.
You're just a mess up.
Man, aren't you glad that God doesn't act like a human being, that he doesn't treat us like we treat ourselves and other people at times.
I'm thankful for his grace and his mercy.
The idea of approaching someone with complete openness and holding nothing back is like this.
Imagine that you're a kid again in your mind's eye and you run into your parents' room.
You have no appointment, no hesitation, and no fear.
You just burst through the door because you know that you belong there.
You know that you're loved.
You know that you are welcome.
That's the kind of boldness we're invited to bring into God's presence.
Not arrogance, but the confidence of a child who knows that they are deeply loved by their father.
Get in the habit of praying bold.
Get in the habit of it.
Not just safe prayers like God bless my food and keep me safe.
Pray for something that's been sitting on your heart that you've been afraid to bring to God because it feels too big, too impossible, too personal.
Approach God's throne of grace with confidence.
He already knows what's on your heart anyway.
The bold prayer that you pray is you choosing to trust God with your need or desire out loud.
Lastly this morning, pray for everyone.
Pray for everyone.
The world around us needs our consistent and constant and bold prayers.
Everyone needs prayer.
And that includes the people that you don't want to pray for.
Not the country song that says, I pray a pot falls on your, you know, a flower pot falls on your head.
Come on, y'all, some of y'all know that country song.
Yeah, we don't want to pray that way.
That's not what I'm talking about.
There are people that you may not like.
your enemies, your adversaries.
But I want you to look at what Jesus says about that.
It's found in Matthew 5, 44.
But I tell you, Jesus says, I tell you, your enemies, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.
Persecution may look different for Christians in different parts of the world.
But whoever comes to mind when I said your enemy, there was somebody that probably came to your mind, that's the person that you need to pray for.
Praying for them doesn't mean that what they did was okay.
I want you to get that this morning.
It means you're trusting God with the justice of freeing yourself from the poison of bitterness.
That when someone speaks their name, you don't grit your teeth.
Because we can't have that in our heart.
Jesus continues in Matthew chapter five, verses 46 and 47, and he says, if you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
And if you agree to only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
Do not even pagans do that?
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
It's easy.
to love and to pray for those whom we love and care for.
It's a lot more difficult to pray for those who have harmed us, who have wronged us, those we have offense against, yet those are the people who need our prayers the most.
And the wonderful thing about it is you think that you're praying for them
And yes, you are, technically.
But while you're praying for them, God is healing you.
When you're praying blessing upon them, God is blessing you.
See how that works?
Think of one person who has hurt you, wronged you, or frustrated you.
Maybe a coworker, a family member, someone from your past.
Every day this week, pray for them by name.
It's gonna be tough the first time, I know.
Not a prayer for God to change them, but a prayer for God to bless them.
Watch what God does, not just in their life, but in yours as well.
As I mentioned in the beginning, prayer was an important part of Jesus's life and his ministry.
No matter what else was going on, he always made time for prayer.
He always sought fellowship with the Father.
As we follow the example of Jesus and put what we learn into action and into practice, we too must be people of prayer.
That is, we need constant prayer,
We need a bold prayer and we must, and they need us to pray for everyone.
This world is in a lot of trouble without Jesus.
As I've said before, if a house was on fire and you knew the occupants were still in the building,
Would you not try to do everything that you could to see them rescued, even if it took you running into the fiery building to get them out?
I would hope the answer in this room would be yes, that we have enough compassion
for people that we would do everything we could whether that's calling 9-1-1 going and getting a garden hose or whatever it is that we would do whatever we could to do that there are people that are in burning houses today in the spiritual realm they don't know christ as their savior
They have not turned their life over to him.
I'm not talking about following a list of do's and don'ts.
I'm talking about having a real relationship with the God of this universe that is through Jesus Christ, that is by faith and by faith only.
You have the answer.
If you have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you have the answer.
You have the means to rescue them from that fiery house.
Are you doing it?
Sometimes even rescuing them could be the silence that you have and the actions that you carry out.
You know, those works that prove our faith.
We say we believe in Jesus and we actually walk it out.
Those actions can be a saving grace for a person that has never experienced that before.
So sometimes we don't even have to say anything.
It is our lifestyle that preaches the message, the gospel of Jesus to people.
So whether it's our actions or our words, are we doing all that we can to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ?