Sunday Recap - Pastor Jonny Kettle - 6 July 2025 Copy

July 6th, 2025
by Ps Jonny Kettle

Sunday 6 July 2025 – Pastor Jonny Kettle

Message Overview:

Last Sunday, Pastor Jonny encouraged us on the practise of prayer, preaching from Jesus’ words in The Sermon on The Mount found in Matthew 6:5-8. This passage of scripture is focussed on our motivations and intentions when we pray, to not seek the approval of man but to seek the heart of God. Three key thoughts from Jonny’s message were:

1. Jesus is as concerned about the posture of our heart as much as He is our acts of devotion to Him. We need to consider our heart motives when practising devotion to Jesus because the right thing done with the wrong heart motive, doesn’t please the heart of God. If our heart isn’t in the right place living out our devotion to Jesus, we can spend time in Gods presence and ask The Holy Spirit to soften our heart and align it to His will and ways.

2. We are always in proximity to God as He is omnipresent. Yet, proximity does not mean intimacy. To build intimacy with God we must be intentional and prioritise time alone with Jesus in the ‘secret place’. Jesus desires for us to spend time with Him alone, one on one, without distraction or influence from anybody or anything else.

3. Jesus is a God of relationship. He knows what you need before you ask because He is aware and invested in the detail of your life. He desires for you to come and spend time with Him anyway because He wants close relationship with you. Our prayers can be long or simple, such as “help’, ‘ thank you’, ‘please’, ‘sorry’, because God sees your heart.

Key Scriptures:

Matthew 6:5-8
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Romans 2:29
No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise[a] from God, not from people.

Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.