So that’s part of what it looks like to be part of a church family, is that you come into a place, you gather together, and we just believe by faith that is a house of miracles. That is a place where there’s breakthrough, that is a place where things change, that is a place where we experience the goodness of God. When Jesus was with his disciples, when they were gathering together, He taught them what it looked like to be family on mission. He actually taught them how to pray. As He prayed, He revealed something really profound. He revealed that when we pray, we know that we are family, and we recognize the mission that we’ve been called to. Check this out. In Matthew Chapter 6, Jesus told them how to pray, He said, “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, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” What He says is our Father, God’s a good Father, and He’s our Father, and we are His children. 

Then He says, not just children, not just a family, a family on mission. "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Here’s what we’re going to do right now. We’re going to pray through each part of the Lord’s Prayer. As we do, I’m going to lead you through it. I just want to go one section at a time. Part of what we want to do today is we want to just slow things down enough that we really take it in, slow things down enough that we really are taught by Jesus, we learn how to do the things of the kingdom, we learn how to practice His presence. What if we just began to pray this, kind of one line at a time, starting with "Our Father"? Come on. What if we just told God, "Thanks for being a good Father. Thanks for being a good father, You’re good to us." He is your Father. God, You’re my Father, and so I see You as that, as a good Father. I choose to trust in Your goodness. I choose to trust in the fact that You are in relationship with me. You want to be in relationship with me. 

Come on, tell God He’s your Father. Thanks for being my Father. Because I want to say hallowed be Your name. Just worthy is the name of God. What if you just said to God, "God, You’re worthy. Your name is high, we lift up Your name." Maybe raise your voices to say, "We lift up Your name Jesus. We lift up Your name Jesus. Special be Your name; holy be Your name; hallowed be Your name. Your name is worthy. Your name is lifted high." We lift up the name of Jesus. Jesus, we praise You for Your name. We give You all the glory. Hallowed be your name, and Your kingdom come and Your will be done. Not our kingdom, not our will, Your way. Come on, tell the Lord. We want to see Your kingdom come into our lives and into our families and into the world around us. Ask God to come and break through and whatever situations are going on in your life or places that you’re familiar with. Speak on behalf of that, call down His kingdom. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, in my life, in my family, at my school, at my work, as it is in heaven.

What if you ask the Lord to come into those places? Your kingdom come, Your kingdom come Jesus. Wherever His kingdom comes, that’s where His will is done. We continue on. Give us today what we need, our daily bread. Come on. Can you just ask the Lord to give you what you need, just for today? Not for too far into the future. Not for where you’re going; forget about what He’s done in the past; right now. You need His presence right now. We need You today Jesus. You are the bread of life, so give us more of You, our daily bread, today. Come on. What if you ask the Lord, just be my provider. Be the one. Give me -- be my sustainer. Give me everything I need for today, for right now. Thank You for your presence right now. Daily bread, today. Forgive us our debts as we’ve forgiven our debtors. Come on, who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to be able to just release something in your heart? 

I know this is the tough one. Is there any place in your heart that needs to forgive, just – you need to release it? Just say, "I release it in Jesus’ name." Maybe whisper out a blessing over someone’s name, or you like, I just want to keep living in forgiveness for them. I would have an open heart towards them. You’ve forgiven us, Jesus, as far as the east is from the west. We can live in that full forgiveness of others. Maybe even just say, "Lord, I just forgive them. I forgive them." Thank You for Your forgiveness, Jesus. Thank You for Your forgiveness, Jesus. Your forgiveness is poured over every area of my life. Thank You for Your forgiveness, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one right now. Lord, we just pray protection. Come on. What if you prayed protection? What if you prayed protection over your children? What if you prayed a protection over our church? What if you ask the Lord to truly protect us and guide us in everything? 

Lord, we just pray protection over the people that we love, and over our church family, and over this city. Lord, protect Your people because there are flaming arrows, there is a lion that is seeking to walk around and he is trying to devour those. His name is Satan. He’s trying to come against the people of God, but we ask for Your protection. Guide us, lead us by moving us, carry us forward. Jesus, we ask all these things. As a church, we pray as one family. We pray all these things, all these things confidently, as Your children, with the good Father in heaven who hears our prayers when we pray to Him. We pray it all in Your name Jesus. Amen! 

As your heart goes, so your life goes. Because the values of your heart will determine the culture of your life. Jesus loves you so much that He wants to have that conversation with us - to be searched, to be known, to see if anything is out of alignment with His best for our life, that is the goodness of God. Thank you for having that courage. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you for praying that prayer, for taking that time. It’s worth it. Jesus is worth it. 

Matthew Chapter 11, Jesus tells us, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” That’s what we’re doing today, we’re learning from the teacher. We’re learning from the master. “Learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” For somebody listening right now, you’re the most restful you’ve been in weeks. Because we just have taken the time to slow it down and try to go heart-to-heart with God. He wants to keep teaching us, to show us what He’s like, what His kingdom is like, what His love and His heart is like. He actually describes the heart of the Father. 

In this passage, He says, “The heart of God is gentle and humble." He comes to us gently. He comes to us with humility, the kind of humility that would lead Jesus to lay down His life for us is the kind of heart that He invites us to experience. A gentle heart, a humble heart. Can I ask you a question? Would the people in your life describe you as gentle and humble? If not, that’s okay. That’s a chance to learn. It’s a chance to learn from the teacher, to experience more of what it looks like to live a free heart, a healthy heart, a whole heart. See, one of the greatest things that Jesus ever gave us was a chance to experience the wholeheartedness of communion. He reminded us that there’s this way to interact with Him. 

Right now, we’re going to take communion at all of our campuses, and so the teams can begin to come forward. As you take communion, it’s really this experience with the heart of God. It’s this reminder of His heart and His love for us. It’s His heart on display, and communion's for anybody who has called Jesus Lord; anyone who wants to follow Jesus, you are welcome to take communion here at Valley Creek. As you do, I just pray that God wants to show us more of what His heart is like today. The gentleness, the humbleness of His heart. The story of communion is really a story of Jesus exposing His heart to His disciples. On some level, the story that goes with communion just doesn’t even make any sense at all. 

You see, on the night he was betrayed, He showed the disciples what it was going to be like when His body was broken and His blood was shed for them. But before He did any of that, or talked about any of that, He showed them worship and what it was like to gather as the church and as the people of God, and He showed them how to wash one another’s feet. He literally knelt down and He washed the feet of the disciples. Probably one of the craziest parts of that story is that He lived with such a humility of heart that Jesus washed the feet of Judas, the very one, who within the next 24 hours, would betray Him, the very one who had already plotted for His downfall. Jesus was so secure in the love of the Father, and His heart was so pure, and His heart was so humble, and His heart was so known, His identity was so solidified in who He was that in that moment, He could serve the very person that wanted to kill Him. 

I’ll just tell you straight up, I don’t understand that. I want to understand that. I want to live in that level of gentle and humble, in secure, in pure, in hopeful. I want to live with that level of wholeheartedness. That’s exactly what Jesus did. Can you even, imagine for a second, knowing what He knew about what the next few days would hold, understanding what He understood about the heart posture that Judas had, how He hadn’t guarded his heart, how He let it slip over those years, over those times, and something had changed, this slow fade in the heart of Judas from, "I’m excited to be a disciple," to, "I’m going to figure out how to get 30 pieces of silver." 

That’s a big heart drift. That’s a big heart change. The counter to that is Jesus washing his feet, looking him in the eye with eyes of love, talking to them about what was going to happen as His body was broken, His blood was shed. That’s a secure heart. That’s a whole heart. In the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the bread with and His whole heart, He said, “This bread is like my body. My body is going to be broken for you. My heart is going to be pierced, literally.” Literally, they took a spear and they pierced all the way into His side, up to His heart. In that moment, Jesus’ heart was physically broken so that your heart could be made whole. His body was crushed, so that your whole life could be put back together in Jesus’ name. He took the bread with His disciples. He said, “Every time you eat it, do it in remembrance of me.” Let’s take the bread together. In the same way, He took the cup, and said, “This cup is like my blood that’s going to be shed for you.” I just put this together as I’m standing here right now. 

Your physical heart is a thing that pumps your blood. The heart of the Father was the thing that gave us the blood of Jesus to bring us back to life, to bring us full forgiveness, to renew us when we were lost, hurting, broken, and desperate; desperate for a Savior. Jesus took that cup, and He said, “This is a cup of a brand-new agreement between God and man." A new promise, a New Covenant, a promise of the forgiveness of sins. No longer will there be separation. No longer will there be shame or striving or trying to figure out how to heal your own heart. Now in Jesus’ name, you can lean in and rely on what God has done, the healing that He offers, the forgiveness that He gives, the new heart that He’s given you. He’s taking your heart of stone, He’s given you a soft heart, a heart of flesh in Jesus’ name. Every time we take, we drink of this cup, we remember what Jesus has done. Let’s drink it together. 

God, thank You that You make all things new. You’ve taken our heart of stone, You’ve given us a heart of flesh. You’ve taken our hard hearts, You’ve renewed them in Your name. You’ve done for us what we couldn’t do on our own. You did it all, so we choose to honor that by living with a whole heart. Even more than that, we focus on the fact that You loved us with Your whole heart. Thank you, Jesus, for Your sacrifice. In Your name.