You are invited to begin your day by turning your heart toward worship before asking for anything, just as Solomon did. Make the commitment to seek His kingdom first, and trust that He will add all these things to your life. Join the prayer night this Friday to fan the flame of revival in your community.
At night, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, what do you want? Ask, and I'll give it to you. Solomon replied, you showed great and faithful love to your servant, my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued to show this great and faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne. Now, oh Lord, my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David.
But I am like a little child who doesn't know his way around. And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted. Give me an understanding *heart* so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong for who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for your word. Thank you God for your presence, for your goodness, for just who you are.
Thank you for being here with us. Thank you. We praise you. We worship you. You are greatly to be praised.
We turn our attention towards you, our hearts towards you, our minds and our thoughts towards you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. You can be seated. As Dolores said, my name is Mariah. Mariah Mullins.
I'm Mariah. Hey. My husband and I, we've been coming to Real Church for a little over 3 years now. We are elders here, and we're just so blessed. We're so honored that God would bring us to this church and and call us to be here.
We feel called to be here. It's it's amazing to be a part of his plans. The the pastor and family, so our pastor, doctor Phillips, and his wife, pastor Courtney, they are in Boston. He finished his master's degree. He's he's doctor Phillips now.
So he went there to do graduation celebrations, and I get to bring the word today, and I'm excited about it. Yeah. We've been talking about prayer for I believe this is our fourth week talking about prayer, conversations with God, praying. And so, you know, I'm really honored to talk about prayer today. My parents are here, and I wanna honor them.
My mom and dad are here, and they are just amazing people of God. An amazing mom of the Lord, dad of the Lord. You know, it's it's been such a blessing to be raised by them. They taught me how to pray. So it's cool to be up here talking about prayer when they're there, and they taught me how to pray.
That's a cool And, you know, I I grew I grew up watching my mom, and I knew that when I grew up, I wanted to be a mom, and I just knew moms pray. Like, that's 1 of the "superpowers that moms get" when they become a mom. And I'm not saying you have to be a mom, but I'm telling you, if you don't know this, a mom has prayed for you. Even if you don't realize, a mother has prayed for you. Like, my mom would be driving all 5 kids in the back of the car, getting work done, taking care of everything, and an ambulance drives by with the lights going and siren, and she goes into prayer for whatever is happening in that situation.
She she would see somebody and start praying for them. You know, I've I've heard my mom pray a lot, and and that's not to discount my dad, but I just knew I wanted to grow up to be a mom, and I wanted to be a mom like my mom. Like, I wanted to pray. So that was the superpower that I wanted. I wanted to pray like a mom, and the other superpower you get is you get to like pack things really well.
So that's that's something else that I got. She's so good at that, and I'm still growing in that superpower. But I'm just so blessed that they're here and that we get to talk about prayer. I love prayer. Amen.
I'm gonna I'm gonna reference a verse that I'm gonna say a lot. So you can write it down or you can find it, but I'm gonna "say it" a lot. So be ready to just have that in your mind. It's Matthew-6:33. It says, but **seek first the kingdom** of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about prayers that I would call seek first the *kingdom* prayers. Now, I've I've prayed a variety of kinds of prayers. It's not wrong to pray differently than this, but this is the type of prayer I wanna talk about. Okay? Seeking first the kingdom prayers.
And I believe that Solomon does this in the scripture that we just read. So I'm gonna just talk through it a second and point out some details that I think are a part of seeking first the *kingdom* items that that we wanna apply to our own prayer life. Okay. So first things first. Solomon, he loved the Lord.
So he loved the Lord and he *worshiped* the Lord. He gave 1,000 burnt offerings, like a grand gesture of worship to the Lord. I believe that's the first step in seeking the kingdom prayer. The next thing that God says in response is, what do you want? Ask and I'll give it to you.
Right? It's like if I were to pick up my phone and and and start to dial God's number, his number is worship. It's just, hey, God. Are you there? I love you.
I'm gonna turn my heart towards you. Like like honest worship, real worship is worship of the heart. Right? So it's turning my heart towards the Lord. Oh, God.
I love you. I worship you. You know, worship doesn't have to sound pretty. I think sometimes we think, oh, only the worship leaders are the worshipers, you know. That's not my gifting.
No. If you have a heart, you are a worshiper. If you have a heart, if you live your life for the Lord, then you're worshiping the Lord. So I'm talking about a real heart of worship. So the "phone rings ring ring ring", worship.
And God's like, hey. What do you want? What's up? Just ask me, I'll give it to you. That's his response to that.
Then Solomon goes on, and what he does is he just recalls the goodness of God. He just says, God, you know, you were faithful to my dad, and you continued to show this great and faithful love to him by giving him a son to sit on his throne. You were faithful, you continue to be faithful. Just just this is who God is. And Solomon, you know, he's just become king in this moment.
Just become king. So he has just been exalted among men, and he humbles himself. That's the next step. So it starts with love and worship, he recalls the goodness of God, and then number 3, he humbles himself. He says, I'm just like a child.
He's just been exalted. But unto God, he says, I'm gonna put my crown down right here. I I'm like a child. I don't even know my way around. So it's very honest.
The next thing I wanna point out is he maintains the character of God. He says the word your 3 times. 3 times. He says, and here I am in the midst of your own chosen people. He doesn't say my people.
He's just become king over these people. He says, your own chosen people. Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well. And then he says, who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours? I believe that that shows he understands where he is.
He humbles himself. He also understands who God is. He he addresses who God is in the situation. And all of this ends with the Lord saying, definitely, you have it. You can have it.
You Not only do you get wisdom, but I'm also going to give you riches and fame because you asked for wisdom. Like, that so pleased the heart of the Lord that he's like, yes, and. So what that is, is that's Matthew-6:33. Solomon came and first he he first did seeking the kingdom. God, you you are always faithful.
You will always continue to be faithful. You are great and I I humble myself before you. So what that is is seeking first the kingdom and the riches and fame, that's just everything is added. Yes. All these things will be added to you.
And you know an additional that additional blessing that I'm gonna talk about that later. I'm getting excited. Okay. Solomon, what he does is he wakes up and he realizes it had been a dream. Okay?
So verse 13. Let's jump down there. *1 Kings-3:13*. The Lord says, and I will give you what you did not ask for, riches and fame. No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life.
And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands as your father David did, I will give you a long life. Just all these things added to you. Verse 15. Then Solomon woke up and realized it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the Lord's covenant where he sacrificed, again, he more worship, sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings.
Then he invited all his officials to a great banquet. So what that is is after this prayer, he trusts the Lord. He trusts the Lord. So he has not received evidence or fruit of wisdom, riches, wealth, and long life. He has just received the promise.
And he goes about saying, I'm getting together all my friends. I'm worshiping you again. Bring around all the friends. Tell them tell them, you were about to celebrate this. We are celebrating the promise of the answer to my prayer.
I believe it. I trust it, and I'm thankful for it, and I'm I'm a 100% believing it. So that's the whole prayer. Now, wanna talk about just 2 points. I'm gonna give you 2 points today.
I'm making it hopefully easy to take notes if you're taking notes. We got a lot of lists. Yeah. The first point is you you do not have to be smart to do this, to pray like this, to have your prayers answered. Being smart is not how this works.
Solomon wasn't wise until God gave him the wisdom. So he didn't, like, was wise to pray like that. But it wasn't like full of all this smart knowledge with You don't have to be smart. You have to be humble. That's the only thing that you need for answered prayers or to pray seeking the kingdom prayers, just humility.
*James-4:7* Sorry. James-4:10 first. **humble yourself** before the Lord and he will lift you up in honor. So in times of discouragement, I go to the Lord, I lay down my crown, and I humble myself. Isn't that crazy?
That humbling myself is when the Lord lifts me up in honor. I think sometimes we think humility looks like there's God, and I'm gonna run the other way because I don't deserve it. That's not what humility looks like. Humility actually takes a lot of boldness. Humility is going before the Lord, and you lay down all you have.
It's a crown, it's your life, everything that you have, and you just say, I like, I don't deserve this. You gave me your life. I have to give you my whole life. That's pretty bold. Yes.
It's not running the other way. It's going to him. You have to be bold to be humble. So you have to be humble for this. And and when you feel unworthy to speak to him, that's a lie from the enemy.
See, it says you have not because you ask not. You have to ask. And it's not about how you sound. It's not about if you can make it sound pretty or long or short or whatever. You can stumble over your words if you humble yourself.
It's alright. If you're struggling in temptation or sin, *James-4:7* says, so humble yourself before God, **resist the devil** and he will flee from you. Amen. I think we wanna fight. Right?
Like, there's the devil. I'm ready. I'm gonna roll up my sleeves. I gotta work really hard to knock him down. No.
That's not how it works. First, you humble yourself towards the Lord. I'm saying focus. My eyes have to go towards the Lord. He'll lift me up in honor.
He takes care of me. He brings my spirit into truth. *Matthew-6:33* again, we're seeking first his kingdom. If I have things in my life that I need to pray over and I turn to him, all these things will be added to me. I seek first the kingdom.
So I was going into a time of prayer the other day, and I've been I've been struggling physically. I have some like esophagus, stomach issues that I've been dealing with since September. And dealing with it, it brings my energy levels really, really low. And then I've been trying a medication and it makes me really tired. So I'm going into prayer, kind of like a "whipped puppy".
I'm like, my eye is twitching because I'm tired. I'm thinking about taping it open. I'm like And I just think to myself, I bet you they're in prayer today, like, we're gonna get this figured out. God's gonna heal me. I'm so tired.
I got my kids. I got oh, Lord. And so I do what I have kind of made a practice of myself to go to the Lord and just be like, *God, whatever. What's on your mind today? Like, I'm gonna seek first your kingdom*.
Whatever you have to say. What's going on? He didn't talk about my body once. Like, I have been healed. I have the testimony of healing within me.
I know he wants to heal me. Yeah. He didn't talk about it once. And we're talking about all sorts of other things, and I'm just in prayer asking him what what we're gonna pray about, what are we talking about. And by the end, man, I'm like, come on, God.
That was great. I'm so excited. I'm like, oh, Lord. You're just, like, lifting up my spirit, And I just am so excited about all the things that he told me to pray about. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna call somebody.
I'm gonna pray for them. I'm gonna you know, the day is just like full of joy. I'm "walking on sunshine" like, oh. And I think, oh, man. I've I got a lot of energy.
Don't I? Like, I got I am not tired anymore. Like, I'm seeking first the kingdom and all that other stuff I thought we were gonna talk about. He just takes care of it. All that all that stuff.
That'll be added to you. Yeah. It'll be added to you. Amen. Good.
Yeah. Point number 2. We must maintain the character of God and seek first the kingdom prayers. Maintain the character of God. I wanna talk about this.
I don't think I gave this to to Adam for the screen, so just follow along with me. So the disciples and Jesus are in a boat. Right? And there's waves, it's a storm. And the disciples look at Jesus and they're like, teacher, do do you even care that we're drowning?
And Jesus says, why are why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? And the disciples say, who is this man? Like, they don't know that they're talking to the Lord. Right.
Mhmm. They don't know who he is. And they've made that known from the beginning when they said, do you even care? Like, they said that to Jesus. Jesus, the flesh, the body of God's love.
Do you even care? He's literally love. All of him. Came down to love us, to care about us because he cares about us, because he loves us. He is all of that.
And they're like, do you even care? So we have to know who we're talking to. You know, God loves you. I hope you know that. **God loves you**.
*Romans-3:4 says, *let "God be true"** and every man a liar. See, I don't wanna come to God with an offense in my heart saying, God, you don't you don't even care. I'm a liar, not God. God is good. Let God be true.
If I have a knee jerk offense at him Like, this is how I see it. Okay? This right here is like, you know all those gears that are all connected in place and and if that first gear isn't like locked in place, like click, nothing's gonna work. But once that first gear is just clicked in place, everything else just starts moving. Smooth and easy.
And and I just think this is the first, like, "click into place". Yeah. Like, God, you are good. And I start to see my circumstances clearly. I start to pray differently, like all those other little pieces are just moving fluidly.
So I I want us to stay aligned in God. We know his nature. He is good. He is for me. He's actually against what is against me.
Yeah. This creates such a heart of faith in me. I'm like, I'm ready to pray for the rest of the day after thinking about these things and aligning myself with this. See, it's not always about my thoughts and what I have to say and what I'm thinking about. It's about his thoughts.
Hallelujah. I seek first his kingdom. Oh, I just got myself out of the way. Good. Yeah.
It's where a lot of my prayers, they just start to change shape. They start to look differently. I have a wedding ring. It's made of gold. And when this gold was pulled out of the ground, it had particles in it, like dirt, gunk, other things, rocks.
And it had to go through a refining process. We hear a lot about refining in the word gold and silver. It needs to be refined. And when you put this gold in a hot environment, a fiery furnace, all those other pieces they burn up. They just disappear and go away.
And if I had tried to make a ring out of that gold before it was refined, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't make a ring, it'd just crumble. It doesn't work. See because out of the mouth, the heart speaks. Right?
So what I'm what I'm trying to communicate here is I'm going to God, things are burning up inside of me. Some things I notice. Some things are a little painful, and I'm like, oh, gotta get rid of that. Some things I'll go a year and I'm like, man, I used to think that way. I used to talk that way.
Yeah. So when I seek first the kingdom and I look at him and I focus on him, and I just ask him, what's on your mind today? What are we talking about today? What are we praying about? What's on your mind?
And all these things are burning up inside of me. All these things are added to me. You know, shackles are coming off and blessings are coming as I just am seeking the Lord. Yes. Amen.
Amen. And my heart starts to look differently. See, out of my mouth is what my heart is saying. So if my heart is wrong, I'm gonna start saying different things. My heart's gonna look differently.
Praise the Lord. I love the presence of God. God. Amen. You know, he answers my prayers.
Yeah. Yes, he will. Every time. Every time. He answers my prayers.
There are things that I'm currently praying about that I know He will answer. Yeah. There are things that I've prayed about that He's answered. I love the presence of God. And when I heard that we were pursuing prayer as a church, I know pastor David kinda talked about this that that we were in a leaders meeting and and we were going to just start pursuing prayer as a church.
We all were just feeling called to that and and let's teach on it and let's talk about it. When I heard that we were doing that, heart just got so excited because you know this is what God does. I've seen in myself and in people around me when he calls us to a season of prayer, **prayer always precedes breakthrough**. Yes. Always.
And now we're being called to prayer as a congregation, as a church body. And I just said, oh, God. What are you doing? Like, what are you up to? Yeah.
What breakthrough is coming? What is happening? Like I'm gonna start crying. The Lord just wants to show his love Yes. To the people around us.
Yes. His heart is so desiring to connect with the people around us. And I believe he's called us to pray for *revival* Oh, yeah. For salvation. He's longing for his children.
And I know we've announced this, but you are all *welcome* to prayer night. We have prayer night at my house on Friday nights. It lasts about an hour. It's from 05:45 to 7. Just come and talk to me.
I'll give you the address. And we pray for revival and salvation. Yeah. And you know, it doesn't it doesn't take a whole church for this to happen, believe it or not. It takes 1 person.
It takes 1 person that means it, that says, God, I'm I'm tired of not seeing your glory in the people that you love. I'm tired of people missing out on your love. And you know what? It's not just that I'm tired, it's that I'm connected to the fact that he just desires it strongly than I could ever, and I'm just trying to tap into that. He desires to love his children.
And I have his love, and I just want people to know it and to have it. Like, I have something perfect for you. He loves you, the God of the universe that made you and thought about you. He knows the hairs on your head. He knows the steps that you take.
He knows everything about you and everything that you'll ever do. And he loves you despite of it. So prayers proceed breakthrough. So we're gonna pray for this as a church. I don't know if you feel called to prayer or not, but if you're alive, you're called to prayer.
Right? You were "born for such a time" as this. Revival is happening already, and we need to "fan the flame". I wanna see it in the people that I that God loves. I wanna see it in my neighbors, and my friends.
Right? Yes. But we have to pray for it. We have to seek first the Lord. Seek first the kingdom of God.
So I'm gonna pray over you and then we're gonna test the breakthrough. Father God, I thank you so much. I thank you so much for your goodness, for your love. Lord, I pray that people in this room would just feel so overwhelmed with your love right now, that your presence would would be with them, would be here in this room. Lord, I thank you so much for your heart, Your heart that is for salvation, for revival.
I thank you, Lord, for your goodness. You have always been faithful. You have been there in my life and in every single life in this room. Amen. From the day that they were born, from generations prior, your hand has been on them.
Your your goodness has been good, and your goodness continues to be good. You are good, God. Yeah. I just feel like his heart is desiring his children right now. So so if you need *salvation*, if you need the Lord, you say, I'm done **living for myself**, and I need to live for God now.
I'm gonna seek first his kingdom. I'm gonna lay my life down. We're we're gonna take some opportunity for you. See, it's not just a a raise your hand and then you've signed up for the club. It's a heart posture.
It's you have to speak with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and that he was raised from the dead, that he is the embodiment of the Lord's love in your life. And you lay your life down like his. And I'm telling you it's worth it. Yes. If you are in this room and you need salvation for the first time and if you need to come back to the Lord and say, man, I've just been away.
I've been living for myself. He wants you back so bad. He longs for you. He longs for a connection with you that you would seek him first and he'll "add everything to it". If you if you need healing in your body, the Lord is in this room.
Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit, that the warmth of your Holy Spirit would rest on these people. *Heal* them, Lord. Thank you that you just add all these things to them. I just see warmth on a leg. I see warmth on a back that needs healing.
I see warmth on a mind. If you're confused, if you're foggy of attention disorders or just I just see it. The Holy Spirit resting on your head, adding all these things to you. Elders, could you come up? Elders, deacons, Chevy, Shirley, Don, Dolly, "come on up".
My parents, can you come up and just get ready to pray for people? If you're being healed or you need to be healed, should be up here. You should come up and either praise the Lord or or tell somebody. If you need the Lord in your heart, you should come up. Come on up and get prayer.
If you need to welcome him into your heart, come on up. You have to believe in your heart and you have to say it. Let somebody hear you say it. Let God be true.
Transcribed with Deepgram