Sermon Notes
Extra Documents:
Prayer Guides: https://www.emmanuelburbank.org/prayer-guides
Ministry Framework: https://www.emmanuelburbank.org/ministry-framework
Yearly Focus: https://www.emmanuelburbank.org/yearly-focus
Prayer Guides: https://www.emmanuelburbank.org/prayer-guides
Sermon Notes: https://www.emmanuelburbank.org/sermon-notes
This year, our focus is to help Emmanuel Church be A Praying People.
I love the two-prongs of these tools - a Ministry Framework gives a long-term, big picture idea of what we are about, and a Yearly Focus helps give a short-term, narrow goal that we can go after.
A picture I find helpful is that the Framework is the whole Bible, but a Focus is a book of the Bible. Framework is Big Picture - Focus is Narrow Goal.
The Journey
Our Yearly Focus really came out of a heart and spirit that Pastors Andrea and Bob have been sharing for a while.
Last year before the transition, Pastor Bob kept saying how much he thought Emmanuel Church should just stop doing everything for one year and pray.
Fast forward to August, and as Andrea and I were talking, he kept saying how much he wanted us to just really focus on praying and seeking the face of God.
So when Pastor Andrea and I were talking about what our Yearly Focus should be, it seemed obvious to us that God was calling us to Prayer.
That said, we both also wanted to do 50 other things. Lists and plans and dreams were put up on white boards and chatted about.
But no matter what, we kept coming back to prayer.
We were constantly reminded of Bob saying to not get ahead of God, but to stay behind Him, we were hearing Jason Jensen talking about slow and healthy ministry, and at one point in Andrea’s office I said,
Anything not built on prayer is destined to fail.
I’m sure I read it somewhere, but I couldn’t find the source, and Andrea loved it. He wrote it on the board, and we both just looked and said, I guess we have our answer - we need to be focused on prayer.
And we talked about a month of prayer, a prayer season till Easter, or six months, or a year. And we landed on a Yearly Focus for three main reasons:
Making it yearly gives it enough time to stick and become a habit. Shorter than a year it will come and go, and who knows if we will even remember. But if we dedicate ourselves to something for a year, it makes an impact.
Making it yearly makes it hard. I can do anything from willpower alone for a short period of time - but a year? I need the Spirit to show up if something is going to be a year. Especially if it is going to be a year-long and I don’t fizzle out.
Making it yearly makes it clear - this is the foundation we are building this next season of ministry on. This is not a flash in the pan, this is not a ministry initiative that we are going to move away from next year, prayer is the foundation that we build from.
The Foundation
And the reason that prayer is The Foundation is simple - we can’t do ministry. We can work. We can come up with ideas, programs, and strategies. We can labor and strive.
But Psalm 127:1 puts it perfectly: Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
God does ministry. And God does ministry in, and through, and with us. Because God likes to work through His people.
So, we don’t run ahead of God, we get behind God. We come to Him in prayer.
Let’s make it clear: Anything not built on prayer is destined to fail.
And Jesus makes it clear that if that work isn’t done in and through Him, it’s nothing.
John 15:5 says, I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Prayer needs to be the foundation of everything we do - as individuals, as a church, as the people of God.
And, if we aren’t building a foundation of prayer, we are missing out on one of the great gifts of God.
The Gift
Because prayer is a gift. Prayer is the means by which we enter into the eternal conversation, the eternal joy, the eternal life of the Living God.
The Great God of the universe, the God who exists as an eternal unity of relationship - three persons in one unified substance - three who are so bound together in joy, unity and love, that out of the abundance of love this Triune God created the world, and created beings to participate in, and experience the overflow of the love and joy of the Triune God.
In prayer, God brings us into that relationship. And God does this because of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.
Hebrews 4:14-16 puts it this way:
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith 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. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Jesus is our high priest - the one who represents God to humanity, and humanity to God. And in Jesus, all the fullness of God is made manifest to us, and in Jesus, all the fullness of humanity is made manifest to us. True God, true human.
Prayer is the means by which we engage in relationship with the Triune God.
Because of who Jesus is, because of what He has done, we are able to approach the very throne of God with confidence.
We don’t have to stay outside - we don’t have to wait - we don’t have to wonder - we don’t have to get our act together.
We get to come to the throne with confidence, and there we receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Prayer, at its most basic, is communicating with the God of the Universe - and the wonder of wonders is that our God cares enough, not only to listen to our prayers, to engage with us in prayer.
The Mystery
Because while prayer is foundational, and prayer is a gift of God, prayer is always a mystery.
One of the beauties of prayer is that we straight up don’t know how to pray. None of us. Even the Apostle Paul said, “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26)
But even more exciting, God wants us to pray so much that even when we are getting it wrong, God Himself in the Holy Spirit is translating for us.
And not just the Spirit - a little further down in Romans 8, in Verse 34, Paul says, “Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”
So in prayer, not only is the Spirit translating for us, but the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is interceding, getting our back, helping us.
The Guide
And not only does God want us to pray so much that He welcomes us up before His very throne, that He calls us to do it constantly, and that translates for us and intercedes for us, but Jesus also gives a guide for how to pray.
On top of the whole book of Psalms, and a ton of examples of prayer throughout the Scriptures, the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-15 is the greatest example of prayer for us to dive into.
Our Lord said:
This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name,your kingdom come,your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.Give us today 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 the evil one.
It starts us upward - focusing on God, on our relationship with Him as our Father because we are in Christ Jesus. Recognizing the holiness, the magnificence, the glory of our God.
Then it points us to purpose - to God’s kingdom, God’s will being done.
It points us to the desire of God - that His will be done on Earth - just like in the Garden of Eden, just as we were created for - and just like the promise of the New Heaven and New Earth - that God’s good purposes will be fulfilled on Earth, just as they already are in Heaven.
We share our needs with God, and show that we are dependent on Him.
We own our sin and come asking for forgiveness, confident as Hebrews reminded us that at the throne we find mercy and grace.
And we are reminded that if we receive forgiveness, we must, not should, must forgive others.
And we ask to not be led into temptation, knowing we are weak and will often fail.
Let me challenge us all to embrace the Lord’s Prayer as the tool that the Lord has given us to help us engage in prayer.
Wrapping Up
At the core, prayer is about our relationship with the Triune God. Prayer is foundational for the individual, and for the Church as a whole.
We need to be devoted to prayer as individual people, trusting that our God wants to meet with us in prayer.
And we need to be devoted to prayer as a church, trusting that God wants to meet with us in prayer.
And we need to acknowledge that anything not built on prayer, is destined to fail.
As we start 2026 focusing on prayer, we know a year is a long time to keep up a focus. We will work hard to keep it always in the front of our minds - but we also recognize having divisions helps.
So, over the next four quarters:
We want to prepare our hearts, minds, and lives so that we are able to hear and respond to the Triune God.
We want to participate in the Story and Mission of God
We want to persevere through every season and struggle, knowing that prayer gives us strength
And we want to proclaim the glory of God to ourselves, one another, and our world.
And in order to do that, we need to be A Praying People.
Resources Used
Elwell, Walter A., editor. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. 2nd ed., Baker Academic, 2001.
Holloman, [editor], editor. Kregel Dictionary of the Bible and Theology. Kregel Academic, n.d.