and turn with me to Job 29. Job 29. I'm not doing the series in the book of Hebrews this morning. Lord willing, I'll come back to that tonight. But I had sat down on Friday, and I had worked through the first part of that message, and I really feel like the Lord blessed in the writing of it. And when I woke up yesterday morning, and all week long, I've been trying to seek the Lord more, and trying to be more intensive and more intentional in my prayer. and just trying to take time and spend time in the presence of the Lord. And yesterday when I got up and I was reading, and this is where I was reading at, The Lord began to speak to me out of these verses and then led me to another place that we'll go to, and then another place that we'll go to in a little while. And I'm going to tell you this because this is what I have prayed and I hope the Lord will do in your heart today. As I read it and as I meditated on it, I began to have just this incredibly strong compulsion and urge and desire and burden to get down and pray. I don't know if you've ever had that or if you've ever been reading in the Word of God and what you read just drove you to your knees. But that's what the Lord did yesterday. And as I prayed, I knew that this is what I had to speak on this morning, even though, being me, I didn't want to speak on it because that wasn't the next thing in the series, Ryan. And I don't like getting things out of order, but I knew this is what it had to be. And what I hope that the Lord will do for you today is greater than He did for me yesterday. I hope that He will give you, as we look at these things out of His Word, that same desire to get on your knees and pray. And at the end of this message, we are going to have a time of prayer to do just that. And I hope and pray that the Spirit of God will speak to you and will give you what it is that you need so that when we have that time of prayer that we can freely, if you know what I mean, freely have a time of prayer. And so I want to invite you to go with me to Job chapter 29. I'm going to read the entire chapter. because I want to, and I'm not going to talk about the entire chapter except just to mention a couple of things, but we're going to pay most of our attention to just a couple of verses. Everybody knows the story of Job. Everybody knows what Job went through, what Job was dealing with in this time, and the misery and the agony and the pain and the turmoil that was going on in Job's life. There's a lot of things that we can glean from the book of Job that we can apply to our own personal lives, but also I think there are things that we need to learn to glean from Job's experience that can be applied to the life of the church, that can be applied to the life of the body of believers. Verse 1 says, Moreover Job continued his parable and said, O that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me, when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle. when the Almighty was yet with me, and when my children were about me, when I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil, when I went out into the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street, the young men saw me and hid themselves, and the age had arose and stood up. The princes refrained talking and laid their hand on their mouth, The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him, the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's hearts to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not, I searched out. And I break the jaws of the wicked, and I pluck the spoil out of his teeth. And then I said, I shall die in my nest, I shall multiply my days as the sand. My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch, and my glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand. Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel. After my words they spake not again, and my speech dropped upon them. They waited for me as for the rain, they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain. If I laughed on them, they believed it not, and the light of my countenance they cast not down. I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, and as one that comforteth the mourners. Now this particular chapter gives us a look into the prosperity and the life of Job before all of his trials began on that one fateful day. And basically, the way that you could describe Job is that he lived and acted like a king, which is what he refers to himself as in the very last verse that we read in verse 25. He, in all intents and purposes, was a king amongst the people that he lived around, but not in a haughty and not in a prideful or a self-imposing type of way. He was so touched by the Spirit in the presence of God, that it made an impact on everybody that lived around him. His town, his neighborhood, however big the place that he lived was, however many people lived there, everybody knew who Job was, and everybody respected Job, and everybody listened to Job, and everybody obeyed and followed Job, because Job had something that was special. And what Job had is given to us in verses 3, 4, and 5. And see, when we read something like this, the most important part of this entire passage is verse 3, verse 4, and verse 5. But we would be prone to spend the most time in verses 6 through verse 29. Because in verses 6-29, that's where all of the prosperity comes into play. That's where all of the wealth comes into play. That's where all of the good things come into play. That's where we can read that and we can think, man, I wish that when I walked the rock poured out rivers of oil after me, I wish that I could say I washed my steps in butter, which is poetic language for that he had everything that he could possibly need and more. And in fact, he had so much at his disposal that down in verse 16, he says, the cause which I knew not, I searched out. He had the means whereby he could do whatever he pleased. But the most important part of Job's life was verse 3, verse 4, and verse 5. When his candle, he's speaking of God, shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness. When Job went, everywhere Job went, Job's entire existence was enlightened by the light of God. He was covered in the light God. Take your Bibles and turn to 2nd Corinthians with me for a moment and I want you to see Paul's explanation of this. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4. This is a perfect picture of Job both before and after his trial began. We know that God's light shined on him, and by that light he walked through life. And Paul tells us here in 2 Corinthians 4 beginning in verse 6, For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure, that's the light, that's the Spirit of God in earthen vessels, that's our human frame, that the excellency of the power may be of God, And not of us. That described Job. That's exactly what verse 3 says in Job chapter 29. God shined on him. And then all of his trouble came. And when his trouble came, then look at verse 8. He became troubled on every side. Yet, not distressed. Paul said we're troubled on every side. Job was troubled on every side, yet Job was distressed. And you cannot read the book of Job without feeling Job's distress. Paul said we are perplexed, but we're not in despair. You read the book of Job, he is in despair for almost the entirety of the book. Paul said, we're persecuted, but we are not forsaken. Job felt completely forsaken. We are cast down, Paul said, but not destroyed. And all throughout Job's laments, he desired somebody would destroy him. He wanted to die. He spent an entire chapter basically bemoaning the day of his birth. And so if Paul can write this in verses 8 and 9 and he says, we can be all of these things, but yet it does not have to halt our lives, then why did it halt Job's? Why did the trouble and the perplexity and the persecution and the being cast down, why did that halt Job's life? If Paul says here, it does not have to halt ours. Well, there's a simple reason. It's because Job forgot the light that he had. And when he forgot the light that he had, all of these other blessings that you read about in verses 6 through 29 just didn't really mean anything anymore. And that's why you can go through life and you can have absolutely everything and you can die with nothing whatsoever. That's why we can come into church And we can have absolutely everything and yet come without the light of God on our lives. So Job was surrounded by light. But not only that, in verse 4 he says, As I was in the days of my youth when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle. In other words, when the secret of God dwelt with me. Well, what does he mean here by the secret of God? That's just simply the presence. It's the spirit, it's the glory of God dwelt with him. He was indwelt by the spirit of God. He was shined, he was clothed with the light of God by which he lived his life. He was indwelt, he was filled with the presence of God. And then in verse 5, when the Almighty was yet with me. That statement needs to be viewed in light of all of the times throughout the book of Job where Job felt utterly alone like God had left him. Like God had moved somewhere outside of Job. He says in one place that he realized God was on his right hand, he realized God was on his left, but he couldn't feel him, he couldn't perceive him. He said, I don't even know how he's working. He had lost the feeling of the presence, the sensation or the understanding of the presence of God, but yet he testified that once upon a time the Almighty was with me, He had encompassed me, He had surrounded me. What would you rather have? Would you rather have the rock pour you out rivers of oil and would you rather wash your steps in butter and have everything that you could possibly think of or would you rather be shined upon by God? Would you rather be filled with the presence of God? Would you rather be surrounded by God? And as I begin to read this yesterday morning, and these three verses just begin to pour themselves into my heart, because all week long I have prayed and I have been wondering, how much do I desire the presence of God? Do I desire the presence of God enough to push past the busyness of my own life The busyness of trying to study and trying to prep things. Because I don't know how you are and I don't know how your personality is, but I seem to, nothing is ever good enough for me. It's always, I can always do something better. I'm always trying to figure out how to tweak this and make it what I think is better or make this what I think is better. And before I know it, I have gone all day long and I've not actually spent any time whatsoever with God. Because I'm too busy trying to get things the way I think they ought to be done. And I know every single person in here works. You all have jobs. You have responsibilities. You have things that demand your attention. You have things you have to do. You have things you have to get done. And don't raise your hand, but how many of you go all day long and you realize, hold on a second. I haven't spent any time with God today. Do you want to know why we don't have any power? Because we don't spend any time with God. We don't spend any time with God. We offer prayers and we should. We'll pray here and there and about this and about that and we should. But the days of shutting yourself away from absolutely everything and refusing to leave until you've touched the presence and the presence has touched you is gone out of the church life today. You can go back and you can read in church history, or you can go back into the scriptures in the New Testament time, all the way back in the Old Testament, and if you ever sat and wondered why in the world were these men and these women enabled to do what they did when they were drunks, and liars, and thieves, and adulterers, and murderers, Because somewhere in their life they learned, I can't do anything without the presence of God. I can do nothing without the presence of God. We have learned to live without the presence of God. And we may not understand it, and we may not perceive it, and it may not look like it to our physical eyes, but ladies and gentlemen, can I be honest with you? We're drowning for want of the presence of God. We are desperately suffering for the presence of God. We're in a famine for the presence of God. Amos prophesied, I believe, it was a day when there would be a famine in the land, not of bread, not of water, but of the knowledge of the Lord. And there's a famine today in our churches and in our own personal lives for the nearness and the intimacy of the presence of God. That's what Job needed. It wasn't so much all of the stuff that he had. He needed that light back in his life. He needed that indwelling again. He needed to know, he needed to understand that God was all around him and he just wanted to be able to perceive it again. And I cannot make you understand your need for the exact same thing, because I have a hard enough time understanding my own need for that same thing. But I will tell you that every person in this room that is old enough to understand what I'm saying, you need the presence of God. the little kids that are running around here that have no concept whatsoever yet of the things of God, they need you to have the presence of God. They need this church to be filled with the presence of God. Not just having what we would deem or call a good service every now and then, No, where you come every week believing before you get here and knowing, I've met with God, I've been with Him this week, we're gonna meet with Him today. But we've lost that. We've lost it. And so this morning I hope, by the grace of God, to show you how to get it back. So if we know this is what we need, If we understand that the blessings are good, and you can read again verses 6 through 29, those blessings are wonderful, but the blessings are of no benefit if we do not have the communion of verses 3, 4, and 5. Because in the communion, that's where your life is. The blessings just keep you going. But your life comes out of the communion. And you cannot be a child of God and thrive outside of the presence of God. You can't do it. You cannot do it. We have learned, turn with me to the book of Luke, chapter 11. We have learned to live without the presence of God. And one day here in Luke chapter 11, the disciples came to Jesus and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. Don't teach us to go out and do this. Don't teach us how to write curriculum. Don't teach us how to build programs. Don't teach us how to get people in our doors. Teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. And you know the prayer that Jesus says here, recorded also in Matthew chapter seven for us with a little bit more detail. But here in Luke chapter 11 also, that isn't some kind of a repetitious thing that we just need to pray that and move on. He's giving us an outline for how to pray. And he goes down, he says, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Acknowledge who God is. and bow and submit to his will, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. You see, prayer is only answered when it is in accordance with God's will. So often we make it in accordance with our will. Because you have a will and I have a will, and you've got wants and I've got wants, and you've got needs and I've got needs, And so we sometimes get so wrapped up in our wants and needs that we no longer can distinguish the two of them anymore. And we make praying all about what we think we want or what we think we need. But true prayer bows in submission to the will of God. Verse 3, give us day by day our daily bread. You see, here comes the reality of why we no longer have the presence of God. Because we have forgotten, and everybody in here is guilty of this, and you're looking at somebody who's horribly guilty of it. We live in the most affluent age that's ever existed on earth, and we have forgotten that we are utterly dependent upon Him for everything. We have forgotten that if He does not give us, day by day, our daily bread, we'll all starve to death. We have forgotten that if He does not give us air, we will fall over dead. If He does not make our feet move, we will not walk. If He does not keep our heart beating, it will stop and so will we. But we live in an age and we live in a time and bless God for the blessings that He's given to us. We can go once a week, once every two weeks, once a month, whatever you do, and we can buy everything we possibly think that we could need, and we bring it home, and we get up every day, and we go cook it, or we go get it, and we say, Lord, thank you for this food, in Jesus' name, amen. And we have no idea that if he just had the thought, every bit of that is withholding from us. We have regular jobs, we may have regular salaries, we may make the same amount of money every week, and we go do all of these things and we thank God for it, but we have no idea how dependent upon Him for it we actually are. Because all it would take for my family to lose access to that, is I wake up in the morning sick, and that sickness never leaves, and I can't do this anymore. All it would take for your family to lose access to it is one sunrise, and it's all gone, just like that. And God can make us understand how dependent we are on Him. That's what He did to Job. Job loved God, but somewhere in the loving God, somewhere in the serving God, everything Job had began to become everything Job had. And the whole point of the entirety of Job's trials is found in Job chapter 42, when Job realizes it is submission and it is absolute dependence. He looked at himself and he said, I hate myself and I repent in dust and ashes. He said, I've heard about you by the hearing of my ear, but now my eye sees you. Wherefore, I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. Job had to be reminded of his dependence on God. Sometimes we may ask ourselves the question, why does it seem God moved so much more, you know, 100, 200, 300 years ago than he does now? Because they had nothing. Your common people didn't have anything. They were absolutely dependent on God for everything. We have lost our sense of dependence on God for our daily bread. For our daily breath. For all of our daily blessings, we've lost it. And when we lose Our understanding of how much we really need Him, eventually that power just fades away. It fades away. But we've become so accustomed to the blessings that we don't realize the power has left us. A clear picture of that is in Samson's life. He got so used to the strength, and he got so used to nobody being able to do anything to him, that when he woke up with a shaved head, he had no clue the Lord had departed from him. And he went out prepared to shake himself. He went out prepared to go and have church just like he always had. And I mean, I don't know how you are, but I'll spend all week long trying to tweak and make service or tweak and make message and... I could come here and have absolutely no idea that I don't have the presence of God. And that's when he was captured, and that's when his eyes were put out, and that's when he was made to grind like a slave. Until... He remembered that he was not dependent on his hair. He was dependent upon God. And in one glorious moment of raw and pure faith, he reached out and got God again. If you want the presence of God, you're gonna have to make a commitment with yourself that you're going whatever it takes to reach out and grab hold of God. You're gonna have to be like Jacob. I will not let you go until you bless me. Have you ever thought about the audacity behind that statement? There is no possible way that that pre-incarnate form of Christ came to that man and grabbed hold of him and he did not know who that was. And when God gave him an order, Jacob, let me go, the day is breaking. And he said, no. I will not let you go until you bless me. Do you pray like that? Do you pray in that kind of faith? Do I pray with that kind of faith? That's the faith that is illustrated for us here when Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray. He gives them this outline in verses 2, 3, and 4. And then I want you to go over to verse 9. And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given. Is there any room in that phrase that would give you the indication to believe that it will never be given? Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. I'm reading an autobiography of a man Some of you may have heard of his name before. His name is George Mueller. Lived back in the 19th century in Europe. And this autobiography has made me feel like an absolute failure. Because of this man's simple commitment to God. And In this particular man's life, he began the autobiography with this exact text and along with various other texts on prayer that Jesus talked about throughout his earthly ministry. And he made the statement and he said, if we read that our Lord said, like what he said here in verse 9, ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Why in the world would we ever think that he meant anything other than exactly what he said? Why in the world would we ever get it in our minds that he would not actually do exactly what he said? But how often do we go to God in prayer with something and we're not really convinced ourselves when we're praying for it that he will actually answer it? And when we do that, we are certainly not doing what our Lord commands us here in verse 9. You see, God does not give us, the Bible is not some kind of an obscure treasure map where X marks the spot, and you got to decipher the clues. And in order to decipher the clues, you got to read Greek, and you got to speak Hebrew, and you got to know this, and you got to know that, and you got to have an education. and you've got to be certain, you've got to be some type of an intellectual or some type of a scholar and you've got to be able to pull from here and go over here and decipher that and figure out the coded symbol. That's not what it is. He said ask. Just ask. And it'll be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it'll be opened. And he goes on to say, for everyone that asketh, Receive it. Not a single bit of room for any other thing to happen except receiving. He that seeketh, findeth. And to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. And then I want you to go down to verse 13 with me. And I want you to look at the latter part. Well, you may say, well, what do I ask for? What thing could I ask God and expect every time I ask Him that He will answer? Can I ask for money? No, because that's the doctrine of the world. Can I ask for plenty? No. That's the same thing that Jesus or Satan tried to sell Christ in the temptations in the wilderness. But we're told what to ask for in verse 13. How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? See, in Matthew's account of this, the way Matthew phrases it is, Well, what are good gifts? Luke clarifies it for us. It's the presence of God through His Spirit. That is the prayer. outside of calling on the name of the Lord and you shall be saved. That is the prayer that if you ask, you will receive. If you seek, you will find. And if you knock, it will be opened unto you. Well, what does it mean to ask for the Holy Spirit? How do I know if I ask for the Holy Spirit, then I will receive of the Holy Spirit? That's what he explains in verses 11 and 12. Look at what he says, if a son, a child, shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? If your little baby is in need of something to eat, and you know they're hungry, and they come up to you, and they say, daddy or mama, I'm hungry, Are you gonna go out in the yard and give them a rock and say, here, eat this? It's foolish. With the same simple trust that a little baby has when they cry for food, they don't expect anything but food. They do not expect rocks, they don't expect stones, they expect food. And they expect that food to be exactly what they need. Because after all, the person they're asking, the person they're crying to, loves them. And would not give them something that would hurt them. Or that would be detrimental to them. That's how we have to go to God. How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask Him? He goes on to say in verse 11, or who would desire a fish, would He give them a serpent? Or if He shall ask an egg, Well, they offer him a scorpion. You see, back up to the stone, the only person who offers stones is Satan. If you're the son of God, take these stones and command that they be made bread. If you're really a Christian, don't you think you need to go do something for God to answer your prayer. If you're really a Christian, don't you think that you need to, I don't know, don't you think you need to pray a little bit longer for him to answer you? Because you didn't pray quite long enough. I don't think he heard you. Well, you didn't spend hours upon hours wailing in his presence. I don't think you got his attention. And if you start believing that, there's no end to it. There is no end to it. But ask Him like a child totally dependent on his father. Ask Him like a child completely dependent upon his mother, who has no hope whatsoever to get it themselves. I think of my little girl, she'll be five in June. And as much as she can run around and do, if something happened to her mom and me and both of us disappeared at the same time, she'd starve to death. Because she could not do it on her own. Well, guess what? We can't do it on our own. We cannot have church on our own. We can't live on our own. There's an old song that says, I can't even walk without you holding my hand. I heard a preacher one time say that someone had asked him, how do you discipline yourself to prayer? How do you discipline yourself to want to pray? How do you discipline yourself to want to read your Bible? And his answer was simple, yet I think it was absolutely true. He said, I've served God for nearly 40 years. He said, and today, just like it was when I started, it is the same struggle to go read my Bible and to go spend time in prayer. He said, it is not a matter of disciplining yourself to do it. He said, true discipleship and true prayer, true devotion comes when you realize how utterly dependent upon God you really are. And when you realize your absolute dependence on him for everything, you'll be driven to prayer. You will be driven to the Word. You will be driven to search for Christ in the Spirit of Christ in all things. And he goes on to say in verse 13, one of the most astounding statements. If you, speaking to his audience, being evil, If you, in other words, as a bunch of sinners, as a bunch of depraved sinners, if you can love your children enough that you are willing to give them what they truly need in order for them to make it and in order for them to survive, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask Him. That phrase ought to make every one of us rejoice. Because if we will die for our children, if we will do whatever is necessary to help our children, because how much we love them, how much more does our Heavenly Father love us, How much more favor does He have upon those who are in His Son? And how much more will He give us His Holy Spirit if we but ask? And not only ask, but have the courage and, dare I say it, the audacity to expect him to do it. That's what Jacob did. You remember Moses, after the children of Israel had built the golden calf and Moses had seen that and he had gone back up on the mountain and God was furious. And God said, Moses, go lead these people. And Moses said, Lord, don't tell me to lead them if you're not gonna go with me. Don't you take me up hence if you will not go with me. You want to know what Moses was saying? God, I'm not taking a step until you walk with me. I am not going to take a single step in any direction until I know you will go before me, and behind me, and on either side of me. Until you will absolutely surround me, God, I will not go anywhere. And what Moses was saying is, Lord, I can't do this. You have to do it. And that pleased God so much that he let Moses catch a glimpse of his glory as he passed him by. Do not be afraid. Whatever you're praying for, whatever that burning, secret, hurtful desire is in your soul, do not be afraid to ask God for the power of the Spirit and expect Him to give it. Every time. Not sometimes it's His will to give you the Spirit, and sometimes it's His will to not give you the Spirit, because that is not what this says. It would be foolish for me, or for my wife as a parent, for my child to be hungry and say, mm, we're not gonna eat. You're not gonna eat today. You're not gonna eat today. For them to cry and beg for food. No, we only eat twice a week. You're only gonna eat twice a week because that's what's best for you. It's nonsense. It's also nonsense for us to expect God not to give us of his spirit if we ask him. It's just as much nonsense. But why is it that we need this so badly? Why do we need to be illuminated by the Spirit? Why do we need to be indwelt with Him? Why is it that we need to be surrounded by Him? We'll go with me now to Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3. And everybody in this room has things that you're praying for. Everybody in this room has needs. Everybody in this room has wants. Everybody in this room has desires and ambitions. And I believe that the vast majority of people in this room want to see God do something that is so supernatural and so out of the ordinary of our modern church. that you, just like me, don't know how to ask it right. Well, I'll tell you, it's not about finding the correct way to phrase the request. It's about asking God for one thing. Fill me with the Spirit. Because if every single one of us would go home this week and we would get alone with God, and we would ask Him in the exact same way our Lord tells us to do in Luke chapter 11, fill me with your Spirit, and we would do that every day when we got back here next Sunday, it would be a completely different service than anything we'd ever experienced before in our lives. And God would manifest His glory to us. Paul, writing here to the Ephesian church, look what he says beginning in verse 14. For this cause, or for this reason, I bow my knees, there's the prayer, unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is our Heavenly Father, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He, the Father, would grant you, would gift you, How much more, he said, will the Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask? That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory. Is there anybody in this room that can define how much that is for me? Is there anybody in this room that can count and quantify the riches of God's glory? If you can, please try. And the whole point is that he's saying, if you will simply ask, I will grant it out of my storehouse that has absolutely no end and no measure whatsoever. And I will give it over and over and over and over again. There's a song that says, when we think we've exhausted his store of provisions, When our strength is failed and the day is half done, our Father's full giving has only begun. He gives out of this infinite storehouse. And look what He gives, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. How many of you just need to be strengthened in your spirit today? How many of you need to be filled with the presence of God and the Spirit of God? How many of you are tired of praying for people to be saved and you keep coming and nobody is saved? If you're tired of that, there's one thing you need. The Spirit of God. and He's ready to give it to you out of His infinite storehouse. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. You see, Paul was somebody who had figured out that if I simply ask, I shall receive. So he asked over and over and over again, and he received over and over and over again. And consequently, he was filled with all the fullness of God. In this autobiography, if you know anything about the life of George Mueller, he pastored for a little while and they paid him a salary. And he began to be convicted. And finally, he went before the church and he told them that through prayer, he didn't want money any longer. And the man and his family lived the rest of their lives accepting only what people gave them in freewill offerings, not only from people that he knew, but from all around the continent of Europe. And he had made a vow to God. He said, I will never ask a man for a dime if you will supply all of my temporal wants and you will bless your work. I will never ask for a dime. When the man died, he had absolutely no dime to his name. but there was never a day he ever wanted for anything. He ate, he had clothes, he had provisions, he had a place to sleep, he had a place to be. And not only that, but he started seven or eight different orphanages for children from birth all the way up through adulthood. And every single thing in those orphanages, from food, to supplies, to clothing, to the buildings themselves, God gave him and he never asked for a dime. And as I read that, that in itself is amazing. That in itself is absolute dependence upon God. But what I thought was even more amazing is reading how they were down to, basically in our terminology, they had about two pennies they could rub together. And they would pray and God would send them, the equivalent of us, a couple hundred dollars by the end of that day. And they would see that and they saw it over and over and over again, but yet he testified in there the next day he would be so low and so down in the dumps that he could hardly pull himself out of bed. And on those days he was like that, God would send a reminder to him to pray. And every time he began to see God, just keep doing, and keep doing, and keep doing. And that shows me that no matter what God does for us, you and I still live in the flesh, and we're still going to have those times when it feels like God is a million miles away. But keep asking. That's when the seeking comes in. That's when the knocking comes in. But he was filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding, abundantly above. That's infinite. If the storehouse of the riches and glory is infinite, then he can pull as he wills from that infinite supply. And notice that he is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. All that you could bring to him and asking and seeking and knocking, not only can he do what you can ask, but he can take what you can ask and he can go farther with it than your mind could ever dream. And if that's where the verse stopped, we'd be talking about something different this morning. But he goes on to say, according to the power that worketh in us. If we do not have the presence of God, is it any wonder why God is not doing exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think? And again, I can't point fingers at you, so I hope your benefit, I'm gonna point them at me. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for God to start saving people because there are people sitting in this place right now that need to be converted. And I have wondered and I have wept and I have cried and basically blamed God and said, why are you not doing this? Don't raise your hand, but how many of you have done the same thing? And it hit me, I'm not even having that prayer answered, let alone God doing, exceeding abundantly above that prayer. and you will not convince me that he's done saving people. You will not convince me that God sits on his throne and says, well, you know what, every five or so years, and we'll save somebody in our church, every five or so years, and after I do it, then they're just gonna have to wait until the next half a decade rolls around, and then I finally just do it again. Do you hear the foolishness of that? When he's not willing that any perish, but that all come to repentance. If that is true, then that means that he must be willing for all to come to repentance. And that means that everybody sitting under the sound of my voice, everybody watching, everybody who ever will watch, and everybody who will ever walk in that door or wherever it is that we happen to be. But because of all of the blessings that we read about at the beginning, we've gotten our eyes focused on the blessings instead of the most important thing in this world, and that's the conversion of sinners to Christ. And the Bible tells us that there is no salvation without the moving of the Holy Spirit. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And it says in another place that the power of God was present to heal them all. And as I read this, I told God, I said, I want Wherever we are, here, by the grace of God, when we, according to His plan, get a new building built, wherever we're meeting in a tent somewhere, I want the power of God to be present to heal everyone. And I want it to be so great that if there is a person in that room or that place that is lost, they have one of two options. They can either run out of the building to try to get away from it, or they fall on their face and say, what must I do to be saved? But there's no third. There's no, you can't grip the seat in front of you hard enough to run from it. And ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you not as somebody who's figured it out, but as somebody who is dying inside to try to figure it out. He will do it again. When we, as a church body, as a collective group of people who profess faith in his Son, are filled with the Spirit of God. and know what it is like to be in His presence. Charles and I have discussed it many times. We were not part of that generation who saw people fall on the floor in tears, asking, what do I have to do to be saved? These kids that sit here and then over here, some of these younger ones, they've never seen it either. And because they've never seen it, it's not as real as it should be. Because I've never seen it, because we've gotten so used to just the bounty and the plenty and the blessings, that like Samson, we wish not that the Lord so often has not been among us. If He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think according to that power that works in us, well, what will then be the end result of this prayer? Go with me one final place, Psalm 51. Psalm chapter 51. And you'll see the end result. Verse 10, David says, Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. and uphold me with thy free spirit." Three times in three verses there is a reference to the absolute necessity of the work of the Holy Ghost of God. And then he says in verse 13, When this is done, when I am filled with the Spirit, when we are filled with the Spirit, when the church of God is filled with the Spirit, then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. And just like in Luke 11, does that leave any doubt that that will actually occur? Or is it a promise that it will occur? In this book, there was a section in it where the author was talking about he went into a home to visit some people and there were several people there And he said he struck up a conversation with two young gentlemen about the Lord, and they had no interest whatsoever in the things of God. And they testified to him, and they said, you know what? We don't even see ourselves as sinners. We don't even see ourselves as sinners. And I'm paraphrasing here, but Mr. Mueller said, basically, hold that thought. And he went out and he went into another room and he knelt down before God and he prayed that God would reveal to them that they were sinners. He got up and he walked back in the room. And when he got back in the room, he found those two men broken beyond belief and in absolute tears over the state of their soul. And they were both saved that fast. When was the last time you watched that happen? So often, I go to God, and I will pray, and I will not believe that He'll do what I'm asking Him to do. And if you are honest, you do the same thing. That's our flesh, that's our humanity. And that's not going to leave. We're always going to struggle and we're always going to fight against that. But it is recognizing our absolute dependence on God for absolutely everything. I've asked Him, Lord, make me more aware of what I am dependent upon you for so that I might better thank you. I'm not telling you to go, to never go to the grocery store again and to go try to dig you a garden and if you can't grow it starve to death. But when you go buy something, bless God. for the opportunity to work, to make, to go, to get, that it's there, that you can still afford it regardless of how high it's got, and when you bring it home and put it on your table, bless His name again. Show Him that you know you will never make it without Him. And if He were pleased for even a moment's of time to withdraw His hand, you and I'd turn to dust. The necessity of seeing our dependence upon God. The necessity of asking with the courage and the confidence that when we pray, He hears us. I read a sermon by Charles Spurgeon that said that if God had invited us to come boldly to the throne of grace. Do not go to Him with a request that is not fitting of the King of Heaven. Don't go to Him and limit Him because you're scared He can't or won't do it. Go to him with a request that's worthy of the monarch of the universe, that has at his disposal absolutely everything. And when you go, if you are filled with spirit, Jesus said, whatsoever you ask, you shall have. Ladies and gentlemen, I just submit to you this morning, we need to be filled with the Spirit of God. And we need to be filled over and over and over and over again. Because we will never reach this town. And there are people in this town that are perishing as we sit here and speak. And we will have no impact on them at all. Until we become full with all the fullness of God And until that light shines on us in us and around us again Do you recognize this morning how dependent you are on him I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads this morning. And what I would like to do, again, I don't know your heart. I don't know how the Lord has spoken to you. I don't know how or if he has compelled you with a desire to want to pray. But we're gonna have a time of prayer. You can pray in your seat. You can turn around and kneel at your seat. You can come up here to these front rows that are serving as our altars. You can gather around each other. You can pray as a family. You can pray individually. You can pray individually and then move to pray with somebody if you will. But we're gonna have a time of prayer together. And it is my hope and desire that the Lord would be pleased to begin to stir our hearts as we pray. So bow with me this day. Father, in Jesus' name we come to you. And I hope and pray, Father, that I have said what I was supposed to say. Lord, I need this in my life and in my heart beyond what I understand that I know. I get so busy, I get so focused on working and doing the things that are part of my job, and they are important, but I have made them more important than the communion that is necessary to have the presence and thus the power of God. And I think that if we were all really honest with ourselves, we've made the things that we have to do more important, not by meaning to, but we've just done it, more important than the communion that is necessary to have the presence and thus the power to make an impact in people's lives. To be so full of God that we don't have to take thought of what we should speak to someone, you speak it through us. To be so full of God that it's like there's a glow on our faces that people say, what's going on with your life? Lord, that may require the emptying of some things, the releasing, the letting go of some things, and us making a commitment to Lord as best as we possibly can, shutting ourselves away for a few moments, and endeavoring that we will not let you go until you bless us. Oh God, that we would be prevailing like the little widow woman was who came to the judge over and over and over she came. until finally her request and her petition was granted. Because she knew that that judge alone had the power to avenge her of her adversary. Well, Father, we understand and we recognize, Lord, that you alone have the power to save. We cannot do it. And I don't know the hearts of people here, but Lord, I would hope that every one of us would be in agreement that we would rather never have a church building and see your power and your glory move in us and amongst the people here and amongst the loss that are associated with the families that are represented here, that we would rather you save them than give us what we think we need and what we desire. Because Lord, the blessings are wonderful. But the blessings are nothing without the presence of God. If we could build the biggest, nicest, grandest building in this town and yet have no presence of God, we have utterly become fools. And we are asking you this morning, please don't let us be that way. Teach us, Lord, how to seek, how to ask, how to knock, and how to do so for the one thing that we need more than anything else, and that is a fresh renewal and a fresh supply of the Spirit of God. so that our kids and our young people and our middle-aged people and our elderly people can understand what it's like to sit in the presence of God and know, Lord, that you have touched them because if your grace truly reaches out and touches someone, they will never be the same. They can run, but they'll never get over it. And Father, we just simply ask you to do that this morning. Lord, as sincerely as we know how, as we approach this time of prayer together, I pray that you will help your children in this room pray. I pray that you will give them, through your Spirit, what to pray and help them, whether it's timidly or boldly. Let them know, Lord, that they may come and ask. and it shall be given. Help me to know that in my own life, that it shall be given. In Jesus' name, please give, Lord, I pray the spirit of prayer into this place this morning for your honor, Father, and your glory. Lord, we ask in Jesus' name.