Body Beautiful

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Lesson 4, it's our 4th in the series sermon. And today, we could talk about many subjects as we try to keep the change in our lives. You know, as we talked from the beginning, the first Sunday in January, New Year's resolutions last about till now. By now, after about 4 weeks, most people have stopped. Only 6% keep their New Year's resolutions at all. And it's tough. It's hard to keep change happening in your life in many ways. And I guess I could talk in the last week about many things, many different areas. And the Bible has great words of wisdom for us in areas from stewarding, that is managing, taking care of this body that God gives us. So from time management, to weight loss, to exercise, to daily habits, to relationships, to marriage. All of those things are wonderful topics to talk about. But I think in this series, we've been trying to do something more fundamental than that. Okay? I'm not having a problem with any of those. But now last week, Hunter, and I heard he rocked it. Yeah, you know, Hunter preached on money. And you go like, well, isn't money though? Do you realize that one third of everything Jesus said in the New Testament was about money and possessions? Did you know that? One third. It's a fundamental struggle that we all have with where our priorities are. What our relationship with material wealth and gain is. How to seek God's kingdom first. And all these other things fall in line with that. That's kind of how Jesus talked about it. So that's why we talked about that fundamental issue that we work through and struggle with. The week before, we talked about, instead of just keeping a change, we talked about the whole new you that God has given you. And the power of your baptism. The power of how God has united you with Jesus Christ. And through his death and resurrection, you are given a whole new you. The old has passed away, the new has come. And that we are to daily reckon. That's the biblical word for it. To consider, to count, to do the math that we are dead to that and we are alive in Christ. So that's what we focused on. And the first week, it was to have that mature attitude that Paul had. And Paul, you think, I mean, he could have at some point said, you know, I have arrived. I'm good enough the way I am. I'm not even close to anywhere where Paul was in his passion or his love or his character. And yet Paul says, the mature will have this attitude. Not considering what's looking forward to what's ahead. I strive on to the upward call of Jesus Christ that I have been given and God has called me to. So I keep on striving. That's the mature attitude. Keep on working on chain. We're going to end our series with a focus on prayer. And you might go like, why prayer? I've been reading a book by Timothy Keller. And in it, I think he gives a great rationale as to why this is so fundamental and why it's so important. He says, prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge. It is also the main way we experience deep change, the reordering of our loves. Prayer is how God gives us so many of the unimaginable things he has for us. Indeed, prayer makes it safe for God to give us many of the things we most desire. It is the way we know God, the way we finally treat God as God. Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life. We must learn to pray. We have to. That's kind of why I couldn't say it better myself. That's why I quote sometimes. I quote others because it's like, they're better at saying it than me. So the Bible has many things on prayer. From the beginning to the end, you can read about many examples of prayer. You can read about all sorts of things about prayer. But you know what? The Bible doesn't really have a lot on the methods of prayer. There's not these chapters that say, okay, this is what you do in prayer. We do have the model prayer Jesus gave us called the Lord's Prayer. But it's short. It's not like it's six chapters on it. What we find out in the Bible is that we don't really, as Edmund Clowney says, the Bible does not present us an art of prayer. It presents us the God of prayer. So it's always going to be God-focused in our prayers. And that's going to be a clue as to how and what prayer is really about. So today we're looking at Colossians 4, as I read before. And in it, this verse specifically continues steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. So we're going to learn these three things from that verse. What prayer is, the focus of prayer, and the power of prayer to bring change about in our lives. Okay? What prayer is. Do you realize most people pray? I mean most people. Like almost everybody. You cannot take prayer out of public schools, as long as there are exams. Now I'm not saying people are praying with full knowledge or understanding of what they're doing. But there ...