The Way Up

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. We are loved by God and know who God is, and He is the way we can love one another and serve one another. And in this week, we're looking at the way up, okay? The way up, which is our connection to God in prayer and what that all means. So, let's pray, shall we? Lord God, we praise and thank you for your goodness and grace in our lives. For even this time of disruption and change and struggles. Lord, we rely and look to you for every good gift. We thank you, Lord, for the ministries, opportunities you've given us. We cry out for our area and all those hard hit by Irma. We cry out for Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in general, Lord. Lord, we just ask that you would do amazing and exceedingly great things through your people. That we may serve and give so that they may know you more deeply and that they may flourish and thrive, Lord. Both in this life and, Lord, especially in the life to come. We thank you for the many churches in our area that we are all one church together, partnering with many, Lord. And that we have been able to testify of your goodness and grace in a variety of ways to people in need. We pray for every church today that they would be renewed and refreshed. That those who have been serving and giving and sacrificing would be renewed and restored and encouraged. And that you would be present here as we not only talk to you in prayer, but speak about prayer. And to learn more what it means to be in a life of prayer, living the way up. All this in Jesus' name, amen. Our text today is Luke chapter 11. And we're going to read that together. That's interesting. Okay, there we go. We had a couple glitches today. I think we had a power-like surge a couple times in early service, right? A little disruption then. So we'll see what happens this time. But Luke chapter 11, verses 1 through 4, I'll just read this. Now Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. So far our text. You notice it's called the Lord's Prayer, right? This one's the shorter version. Matthew's Gospel has a longer version of this prayer. The one that we will most likely, if I'm with it later on in the service, we'll pray, if I remember. But this one has all the simple content of that as well, okay? We're going to be talking about that today. Some of you know I teach a couple – I'm an adjunct at FGCU, and I teach a couple leadership courses. And one experiment I do in the class, which I thought I wanted to do, I didn't do it in early. And I'm wondering, are you up for something like this? Or do you want to just sit there? You're up for it? Okay, we'll try it. Because actually the sermon was short and early, and we got done in record time. So we do have a little time. And this is actually kind of interactive. So everybody has to stand up and find someone you don't know that well. So you can't have your spouse. I'm sorry. Find someone else, okay? Find someone else. Come on. If you have to have groups of three, that's okay. But stand up next to them, okay? All right. Everybody standing that can. All right. This is what you need to do. Observe them from head to toe. Just be quiet and observe them from head to toe, okay? Have you checked the other person out fully? Okay. Now turn your back to that person and make three changes in your appearance. You can do this. Three changes in the way you look. Turn your back. And I know, Mark, this is not rocket science. Just make three changes. Buckle your belt. You know, take your glasses off. Okay. All right. You got it? You ready? Turn back and try to figure out what those three changes were. Okay. Have you figured it out? Okay. Guess what? Turn around again and make three more changes. Okay. You can have a seat. You can have a seat. That's the point I wanted to get at. It's amazing. All right. What's amazing about that is sometimes we get paralyzed. Change? Change? How am I supposed to change? What am I supposed to change? And then you think, okay, I guess I can do three. So you do the three. You get that figured out. And then somebody says you got to change more. And it's like, wait a minute. And we get paralyzed. And all of a sudden, we can't handle change. It doesn't take much, does it? It does not take much. Mark Twain, I think, is the one who said, the only person who likes change is a baby in a wet diaper. Okay. Well, we have faced a lot of disruption and change in our lives with Irma passing through our area. Good, bad, in between, everything. It was disruptive. Some people didn't want to change at all, and they...