And it's just really, it's really done a lot for my heart to see this, the Lord just let us start this place out right and just fill up this altar. And you do that voluntarily on Sunday morning and we do that together on Wednesday night. And we're gonna do that at the end tonight. Of course, you all know that you can stay in your seat if you want, gather up here if you want, but Brother Rob's gonna pray first and then I'm gonna pray after that. And I said all that for this reason. Let's go to 1 Timothy chapter two. We're going to get down Lord willing today through verse 5, maybe verse 6 at the most. And what I'm going to give you tonight is nothing exciting, okay? I don't have some kind of a lift the roof, that was the best thing he ever preached or taught. I have nothing really inspirational for you. But what I have for you is probably one of the most important things you could learn in your Christian life. Did you hear what I said? This is probably one of the most important things you can learn in your Christian life. Notice what Paul says in 1 Timothy 2 verse 1, I exhort therefore that first of all, you see that? First of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. For kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who have all men to repent, to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. Let's pray. Father, we love you tonight. We thank you, Lord, for the word of God. I thank you for the church. I thank you, Lord, for, Lord, it feels like you've put the wind in our sails ever since we got in this building. We've got so much more done than we ever expected to get done, and you've blessed tremendously, and I thank you for it. And Lord, I pray that you would bless tonight, that you'd help us, God, to get out of this passage of scripture, these few short verses. Pray you'd help us to get out of this what we need. And Lord, this is a very inglorious message from a human standpoint. But God, we need to get ahold of this truth. And God, I just beg you to please get this message across to your people tonight. And we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. All right, now I'm gonna talk to you about the priority of prayer. And you'll notice what he says is, I exhort therefore. So first of all, understand to exhort is to incite by words or advice. It's to animate or urge by arguments to a good deed or to any laudable conduct or course of action, to advise, to warn, to caution. Listen to this, to incite or stimulate to exertion. So Paul is exhorting them, pushing them, trying to excite them to put some effort in to their prayer life. Now listen, before I go any farther, I want to be honest with you. Because I don't want people to leave like, oh man, preacher's such a great man of prayer. You don't know what kind of a man of prayer I am or ain't. And I don't really know what your prayer life is or not, but God knows. Of all the spiritual disciplines that there are, Bible reading. I don't usually have too much of a difficult time with Bible reading. There are times that it's a little bit hard for me. There are times that I'm struggling to pay attention. There's times that I'm struggling to be motivated. But for the most part, for all of my life, I can't even hardly explain it. From the time I was a little boy, after I got saved, I started trying to read. Somebody told me four chapters a day would get you through your Bible in a year, and I started that in elementary school, and I just had this goal that I had to get four chapters a day. I couldn't sleep at night if I hadn't. And I just had become such a habit for me to read my Bible that I feel weird when I don't. If I get up and I start to make it through the day and I could probably count on one hand, for sure two hands, in the last 20 or 30 years if I got to the end of my day and hadn't read my Bible, and when that happened I opened it and read at least a chapter or a couple verses because my conscience was trying to beat me half to death before I went to bed. That's me and Bible reading. And I'm not saying that boastfully. Because God knows that that kind of thing, the devil hears you bragging and boasting, you know, I'm gonna read my Bible, it's not a problem for me, and then see that thing start becoming an issue. But that's not one of the spiritual disciplines that I necessarily struggle with, for the most part. Another spiritual discipline that's not that difficult for me is church attendance. Now, that's, I would say, 90% of the time. I just, it's a spirit, you realize it is a spiritual discipline, right? What did you come here for? No really, what did you come here for? I mean I was laughing a second ago and then I looked at your face and I was like wait a minute, maybe I really need to ask that question. What does blow my mind is that sometimes people come to church for a decade and you find out after a decade they weren't even in church for the right reason at all. Well, for me, church is not that difficult of a discipline. There are times I don't feel like it, but even the times I don't feel like it when I go anyways, yeah, I'm your pastor. And sometimes I get up here and don't feel like it. I'm tempted to pick up the phone and be like, hey, you guys want to preach next Sunday? Just trying to give you an opportunity to get some experience, that's what it is, you know. But for the most part, you know, it's like I don't struggle too much with that, but there are times that I do, and then I push through it, and when I push through it, I always leave here by the time I'm getting in my car glad that I did it. That's not a tough one for me. Witnessing. Witnessing is not, it's just not, I don't know, that's just, there are times, you know, I would say I'm not as good about my witnessing as I am about my Bible reading or my church attendance, but for the most part, to something about witnessing is just fun. Something about it like, I mean, I can't explain it to you. I don't know if it's a gift the Lord gives, I've prayed for it, I've asked for that gift, and I hope I have the gift of evangelism, but you know, it's something about just speaking up, you know, when you push past that initial like, oh they're going to think I'm crazy, and you just start talking about God in public, and you're seeing God move in it, the situation got set up, and the Lord's directing the conversation, you're not being like a street preacher just screaming at them, you're actually there in public, and God's moving, and I'm not against street preaching, just so that you know, but God's moving, and I'm in the middle of that opportunity to witness, and I just get where, I don't even care who's around me. For the most part, not as good about that as Bible reading and church attendance. See Bible reading is pretty safe. I'm sitting at home on my chair with my coffee. Church attendance is pretty safe. You're all here. You can see people I care about. Catch up with people I like talking to, fellowshipping with. Witnessing, for the most part. I'm all right, but it's not always, I'm not always as good about that. Giving, I believe giving is a spiritual discipline. Forgive me, visitors, I hardly ever mention it, just so that you know. We've never passed a plate here in years, and we don't, you know, I heard a preacher getting up and commending his church because their Christmas offering, they gave $10 million. And I thought, shame on you, man. They're trying to buy their kids Christmas presents, and you're pushing Christmas offerings. That's a time of the year I try to back off on you so that you can buy the kids some Christmas presents. But anyways, I like to give. You know what I've learned about giving? It's more blessed to give than to receive. There is something about it, man, when you just give, like the Holy Spirit asks you to give, it makes you feel good. It's a bigger blessing to give to somebody than it is to get from somebody. That's a spiritual discipline. But of all the spiritual disciplines that there is, the one I struggle with the most is prayer. Now, that doesn't make sense because there isn't the world standing around watching you. It doesn't pull your bank account numbers down. It doesn't require you when you're not feeling good to get up and get in the car and go to church anyways. It doesn't require you to sit there and read through numbers and chronicles. Come on, you can laugh, that's funny. But something about prayer is so difficult, at least for me. I mean, I wonder how many tonight, and please don't raise your hand, would just be honest and would just say, man, when it comes to prayer, I avoid it because I don't really know what to say. I don't feel like I understand what I need to say to the Lord. I've prayed and my prayers didn't get answered and so I got discouraged from praying. I've prayed and God has said no when I prayed so I just gave up on praying. I mean I'd like to pray but I don't know what to pray and it's just sort of, it's just difficult. I mean listen, I don't know if you know this about me or not, but I'm definitely the ADD, ADHD, ADHD, ADHD, ADHD. That's me, okay? My parents did not believe in medicating me. They believed in beating the fire out of me until I sat still. It was that. It was absolute all-out war. It was, if you don't like to sit still, you're going to sit still longer. How bad it was, my mom was getting so frustrated because she was whooping me, whooping me, whooping me, and it never worked. And one day they came in, her and Aunt Mary had gone grocery shopping together because Aunt Mary had the extra car, Mom didn't, Dad was at work, so we all went with the cousins and Aunt Mary and went grocery shopping together and they were dropping the groceries off at our house. And my cousins were out playing and my Mom said, because I was so bad in the store, she said, go sit on your bed and wait and I'm going to come whoop you in a minute when I'm done putting the groceries away. And she said, I sat there on my bed and screamed, begging her, Mom, please come spank me. Because I wanted to go play and she said a light bulb in her head went off and said it's bigger torture for him to sit than it is to get a spanking. But the Bible said to spank so my parents still believed in spanking and so now they just added sitting before they spanked me. I still have that problem. If you've ever been talking to me and you realize pastor's not here anymore and I'm just talking to a wall, I'm sorry, I'm working on it. But I get it, I get that it's hard to kneel down and focus and pay attention and I believe this, I believe there's something demonic in the resistance to prayer. I'm gonna show you in just a minute. I think one of the reasons that if most of us were honest, listen, I can fast, I'm not a huge fan of fasting. I'm really not. I find it easier to fast than to pray. My wife can literally fast me under the carpet. It's embarrassing. It's terrible how much better she is at it than me. She can outlast me every day of the week. But I find it easier to fast, which is a spiritual discipline, than I do just to pray. And the reason for that is because of the power in prayer. Paul said, I'm exhorting you, I'm encouraging you, I'm pushing you, that first of all, supplications. Supplications is entreaty. It's a humble and earnest prayer and worship. It's a petition. It's an earnest request. Think of it this way, supplications, the root word would be supply. Do you know what you need? You need a supply of the Spirit of God. So easy for us to pray for our bills, which is actually okay to do. It's a supply. You need to eat, you need to pay your bills, you need to put a roof over your head. It is okay to ask God to help you pay your bills and to pray for that kind of thing. You should pray about everything. But there's a whole lot more of supply we need in our life than just monetary supply. You need a supply of the grace of God to put up with people. You need a supply of the filling of the Spirit of God to crucify your flesh with the affections and lusts and produce the right kind of fruits in your life. We ought to be laying out supplications before the Lord and then prayers. So there's different genres here, different sections of your prayer life that you ought to consider. And this will help you learn to pray. Break it down. I'm gonna focus on supplications and then there's prayers. Prayer is in worship, a solemn address to the Supreme Being. It's consisting of adoration. You guys ever read the Psalms? How much of the Psalms is men telling God things about God God already knows about himself? Consisting of adoration or expression of God's glorious perfections. Confession of our sins. You realize that that's where you're supposed to be confessing your sins? I'm already saved. That's right. That's a one-time thing. If you were born again, you confessed, you didn't confess your sins. Follow me. If you had to confess your sins to be born again, you'd never get saved. Because you commit sins you don't even know you're committing when you stack yourself up against a holy God. When you got saved, you confessed what you are. I abhor myself. God, I am a sinner. God, because of my sinful heart, my sinful mind, my sinful flesh, my sinful state, because of what I am, I need somebody that can wash it all away. I'm asking Jesus Christ to come into my heart, forgive my sin, and save my soul. He's the only one that lived the perfect life. And He did it for you. And then He went to the cross of Calvary and bore your sin in His body on the tree. He died, He was buried, He rose again the third day. He descended first. He put your sin in hell already. If you go to hell, it's because you're refusing to accept what's already been done for you. It is not God's fault. Salvation is complete. And it's a free gift. And when you accept that free gift, for by grace you are saved through faith and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, for at the heart man believeth unto righteousness. I'm a good person. No, you're not. Now that's offensive, isn't it? You got the most un-PC preacher probably in Michigan. But I don't want to be rude or disrespectful. I don't want to be ignorant. I don't want to be mean. But the fact of the matter is, is the Bible says there's none righteous, no not one. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every one of us needs a Savior. He put your sin in hell already and rose again the third day and ever live it to make intercession for you. One God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. You don't confess your sins for salvation. You confess what you are a sinner on your way to hell and you realize Christ died to save you and you ask him to save you. It's that simple. It's that simple. It's a free gift you receive. Once that happens, you're a son of God. You're born again, born of the Spirit, right? In your relationship with your father, if you want that relationship to be right, you need to be talking to him about what you did wrong. That's prayer. It's Lord, you convicted me by your spirit and I know I'm wrong and I'm sorry for what I did because you're trying to get things right with daddy. You want to live the Christian life. How much of a confessor should I be? As much of a sinner as you are. You mess up? I mess up real bad, then get right real good. The shorter you can keep your accounts, the better off your relationship with the Lord will be and the more like Him you'll become. That's prayer. Something we're to be doing in confession of our sins, you don't confess them to a man. Did you hear me? The Bible says confess your faults one to another and pray one for another. It does not say confess your sins one to another. You have got no business going to a man and telling him all about your sins. I don't want to hear it. Now if you need help, I'm here to help you, but I always tell people before we get into the conversation, I say look, Let's just keep things as general as you can. And I, you know, I may need information to help you, whatever you feel comfortable giving me, but I don't dig down into people's nitty-gritty, dirty, and if they start getting too nitty-gritty and dirty, I stop them. I don't need to know all that. All you need to do is get right with God. I don't want to hear about all that. God never appointed a man to stand there and know every little bit about every little dirty deed you've ever done. That's godless, depraved stuff. That ain't right. Amen. Something's wrong with you if you want to tell people about it. You know where you should tell? You should go to the throne of grace. Find mercy and grace to help in the time of need. You should go right to God and get it right with God and He'll help you out. Confession of your sins, it's supplication for mercy and forgiveness, intercession for blessings on others and thanksgiving, or an expression of gratitude to God for his mercies and benefits. A prayer, however, may consist in a single petition. It may be extemporaneous. Go through your Bible. Prayers can be long, they can be short. Nehemiah, so I pray to the Lord. and then spoke to the king. Right there, boom, right there, he's standing there. So I pray to the Lord. I'm in a bad spot, God help me. And then, boom, and God answered the prayer just like that quick. That can be prayer. Well, I pray while I'm driving to work and I pray while I'm, well, I mean, all that's good, you can do that. But I'm telling you, you're gonna have a hard time getting on your face and focusing on God and not having distractions show up. I'm telling you, the resistance against prayer is so strong, it's palpable in the room when you start trying to pray. Then he says intercessions. Well the intercede is to come between. It's a mediation. It's to step in favor of somebody else to step in between. You know what you should be doing for other people? You should intercede. Gentlemen, when's the last time you interceded for your wife to God? Ladies, is he driving you nuts? He's probably just as big of an idiot as you think he is. No, it's just reality, right? So, rather than making it worse and fighting about it, did you go talk to God? That's a tough one, ain't it? You know what I want to do as a pastor? I want to intercede for you. You know what I ask God for? I say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and be merciful to a bunch of sinners I pastor. I ask God for his mercy. I intercede. I want to intercede for my life. I want to intercede for my children. Intercessions, and now watch this, and giving of thanks. Look at what he says. Be made for all men. You live in a culture that just criticizes and talks and gossips and posts and comments and doesn't pray. You know what God told you right there? He said, first of all, I want you to have supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks for all men. Let me ask you a question. You make fun of people? You spend your time and energy looking at them, criticizing them, laughing about them, and making fun of them. I'm asking if you do, maybe you don't. I'm 100% sure that there's enough people in the room tonight to where somebody, I'm talking to somebody in the room. Just remind yourself and let me remind you or let me bring this to your attention in case nobody's ever told you. You're not the be-all, end-all. And whatever you give out, you're gonna get back. Be not deceived, God's not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. So when you make fun of and criticize other people, just remember that you also can be made fun of and criticized. What you're saying is that you're a very arrogant individual and you think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. If you got the time, effort, and energy to talk about them, to make fun of them, to criticize them, you have the time to intercede for them. You have the time to pray for them. You have the time to thank God for them. Have you ever stopped and thanked God for that person at work that you can't stand? This is real Christianity, by the way. I just can't stand them. Have you ever stopped to thank God for them? Never thought of that, did you? You know, how can I thank God for him? Thank God for putting him in your life to show you what you are and to give you an opportunity to show Christian love and charity. God, thank you for putting this very annoying person in here and help me to learn how to be a true Christian and love him anyhow. He said to give thanks for all men. And he said for kings, for kings, verse 2, and for all that are in authority. You guys realize how much Jesus went around encouraging the Jews to rebel against Rome? Did you read that in the Gospels? How much Jesus went and was worried about voting? You know what the Bible tells you about politics? Pray for them. Now, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but shame on you if now all of a sudden you're praying because you like Trump, but you didn't pray for Biden. God said to pray for kings and all their authority. We should pray for them. I wouldn't want their job. Now some of you might get mad at me for this, but it's okay and don't you ever doubt my commitment to old fashioned truth and to right morals and to right decisions and to biblical living that goes beyond conservative. So, what I'm about to say, don't even think about casting doubt on where I'm at. I'm so conservative that I can offend the conservatives. You do understand that, right? Most of the conservatives can't stomach me. But it actually bothered me when, and I've been guilty of it myself, okay, so I'm not harping on you. It bothered me when people are making fun of an old man that seemed to have cognitive issues. He's an old man. It bothered me that nobody said, hey listen, let's not do this. You don't need to do this. Let's just be old and go sit on the beach somewhere and just live out the last few years of our life. Could you imagine being in his position? With the whole world staring at you and making fun of you and mocking you? Well you can like him or not like him but all those guys are a lot tougher than you think they are. That's a tough job. We ought to pray for them. If there's some liberal in office running agendas that's destroying the nation, Christians are supposed to pray for them. Don't you want them to get saved? You want them to burn in hell forever because of their politics. Don't you realize your Savior died to save their souls from hell? And God is interested in seeing every last one of them born again, washed in the blood, forgiven, and on their way to heaven. God's interested in that. We got too many conservative Christians, you know, Wednesday night crowd, that we get more worked up and bad-mouthed at them than we do praying for them. We ought to be praying for them. For what? That we may we lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. You've got the good, the acceptable, and the perfect will of God, right? Romans chapter 12. So you want the will of God for your life? I want the will of God for my life. People ask me that question all the time and usually it's younger folks. From time to time it's somebody that's way up there in years and they feel like they've never found their purpose. Well there's your purpose. That ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, Romans chapter 12. What's the acceptable, good and acceptable right there? Verse 3. See when people say, I want to find the will of God for my life, usually what they're talking about is some greater purpose and some greater meeting and some fame or some career path or some ministry where they're vaulted into this powerful, wow, he found his purpose. Look at his life. God's not interested in any of that. If you wanna find that, whatever that might be, then you gotta be willing to find the good and acceptable will. You know what the good and acceptable will of God is? For you to pray for everybody. Kings and all are in authority. I'll never forget, man, it was almost becoming a problem for me when I was a kid. We lived over at 7 Mile and Middlebelt in Livonia, and man, every time I'd hear those sirens, I mean, every time I'd hear the ambulance or the police or whatever the sirens were, I'd start praying for God, whoever that is. Don't know who it is but whoever that is if they're not saved helping to get saved use this to bring them to Jesus Christ and if they are saved and Backslidden use this to help them to get right with God and get back in church to start serving the Lord again And if they're saved and right with you and serving you then help them and use it to make them better for you I'm like laying in my bed like waking up cuz I'm here and I'm panicking about whoever it is, man I wish I could get back to that childlike heart and Just a little bit of life, you know, a little bit of experience of being around just a little bit. You just get tough and calloused and hard and just, you're not praying for them. You want the good and acceptable will of God? How's your prayer life? See, we get frustrated with praying because we go to God with our wish list. And God is not interested in checking the boxes of your wish list. Think about it for a minute. Lord, I'm just, you know, paycheck to paycheck. And yet He's got servants that are more serious about serving Him than 99% of the Laodicean rich and increased with goods Americans that are all over this world living in poverty, living in persecution, hiding because of their faith in Jesus Christ, having to sneak to worship services, having to hide their Bibles. All over the world He's got people serving Him in abject poverty and we're acting like we're, you know, Lord I'm struggling. And then we wonder why our prayer life is so weak and pathetic that we lose interest in praying. I'm going to tell you tonight that there are some prayers you can pray that God will answer. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. You see that? There's a proof text on the deity of Jesus Christ. Who's the Savior? The Lord Jesus Christ, right? Jesus Christ is God. Look at this, look at verse 4, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. I want God's will for my life. You better start out with knowing what it means to be saved. I didn't say my church. I didn't say my doctrine. I'm saying God gave you this book and my job is to open up this book and preach and teach this book faithfully and to answer your questions from this book and God wrote this thing, these things that I've written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God. It's God's will for your life. Alright, well I'm already saved preacher. Well go over with me to Luke chapter 10. Keep your finger here in 1 Timothy, go to Luke chapter 10. You guys ever notice that the disciples did not ask Jesus Christ to teach them to preach? You know what they said? Lord, teach us to pray. What did Jesus Christ say about his house? My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye've made it a den of thieves. Ten million dollar Christmas offering. God help us. And the world looks on at that show, and the world sits back and says, yeah. Yeah, they're all the same. They're always after the money. How about praying for people? Look what the Lord says in Luke chapter 10. Look at verse 2. Therefore said he unto them that harvest truly is great. You guys realize that there are lost souls everywhere. But the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his You know what God wants? Laborers to go reap the harvest. I'm telling you, I'm getting more and more of a burden for souls as my life goes on. People don't understand that. It's a funny thing to me that, and forgive me for mentioning it again, but it comes up every so often that I get accused of being unloving because of the way I preach. And almost every single time that that happens, it's from somebody who claims to be a Christian. Why do I not get that from lost people? I'm talking about men that know I'm a Christian and are not. Let's put it that way. You know what they call me? Hey pastor, somebody stopped me not long ago. Pastor, I've never actually met you, but what's your name? Will you pray for me? Lost people. You know what the problem with the generation today is? It's the Christians. They're the problem. They're the ones that get offended when you open up God's Word and preach God's Word to them. That's my Jesus, that's my God. Well, if that's your God and I'm preaching His Word, why are you getting offended at me preaching the Bible? The fact of the matter is, is you don't want to serve Him. You like your cushy little life. You love your sin you're dabbling in. You don't want anybody to challenge you, exhort you, push you, motivate you to serve God. You don't want anybody giving you a burden to get out there and reach somebody for Jesus Christ. You're just going to get mad at the preacher. Okay, fine. Hey, I don't win them all. But I am shocked, I am shocked at how many people recognize the truth when they hear it and say, I need that. Listen, those that are a generation behind me, justifiably so to an extent, you have been pretty much written off by my generation and the generation ahead of me. And there's some reasons for that. I think one of the reasons is my generation. I think we're to blame for your state and for the state of the generation out there of the young folks. Wow, why did it get real? I think we're to blame. What's blowing my mind? is how many of these young folks that nobody else wants to spend any time working on them because they look like they're too much work, how many of them are actually thinking, and how many of them are actually open to the truth, and how many of them are actually getting serious about hearing about God and knowing something about God and wanting to know the truth of the Bible, and actually appreciate somebody talking to them with some respect. Like, wow, you respected me enough to just tell me the truth whether I like it or not. Yeah, I do. I figured you're a man enough to take it, you're a woman enough to take it. You want to be treated like an adult? I'll treat you like an adult. Here's the truth. You don't like it? I'm not your mommy. I'm not worried about whether or not you get offended at me. And there's nothing you can do for me. I don't need anything from you. God's taken great care of me and I need nothing from you, but I do want to help you. And I cannot help you. By marketing you, by tiptoeing around the truth, I can help you by giving you the truth of what that book says, and God loves you, that's why He wrote the Bible. And it's going to rub you the wrong way because you're a sinner, but if you'll get it right, it'll help you. The harvest is great, but nobody wants to say anything. Because the laborers are more worried about their reputation than they are about lost souls. Y'all want to go be a missionary, I hope so. I hope we send out, I hope we send out dozens of missionaries all over the world. I hope guys go out of here and start churches and God blesses them like crazy and they win souls and those churches grow. But I will say this, I ain't putting my hands on you or ordaining you and sending you out if you aren't winning souls here. Yeah, amen. Prove it. Get a burden, go get them and bring them in. They're dying and going to hell, does that not matter to anybody? We still believe that, right? I mean the Bible hasn't changed, churches all have, but that book hasn't changed. And the Bible says they're dying and going to hell without Christ. And they need help. All right, so let's run some references. Go to John chapter number 16. John chapter number 16. I want you to see verse number 23. John 16, 23, in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs, but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. And that day ye shall ask in my name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loveth you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. You know what he was saying? He's saying, as of right now, you haven't asked anything in my name, but the day is coming that I'm going, and when I go, you'll ask in my name, and ask that ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. You guys realize what that means? I remember walking around the sanctuary in the wintertime on Ten Mile. And I'd look out that window as I was going by there and I was praying. That's one of the things that works for me is if I can move while I'm praying. I think better on my feet. I talk better while I move inside. I move. And I'm walking around that sanctuary and I'm praying and I'm looking out there at that 2.78 acres next to us and I'm saying, God, please, God, please. God, we need it. God, we need it. We gotta have it. We gotta have it. We need more. Please God, I don't know how, but would you work a miracle, would you give that to us? And then the weather's nicer, I walk around the property, walk by it and pray for that property and pray for the, see I'd heard some older preachers talk about needing more property. And I heard them claiming verses that they say, well rightly dividing, that doesn't apply to us. But they claim the verses. And they're asking God. And they're not asking God for it for their own pocketbook. They're not asking God for it for their own fame. They're not asking God for it for their own riches. They're saying, God, souls are getting saved and we've got to have more room for them. God, would you please do something? And just in faith, praying and asking for supply, saying, God, we need help. And we don't have the strength to do it. And God said, no. God, please give us that property. Please give us that property. We don't have enough room to build here. Please give us that property. God said, no. We went on for seven years. Seven years. But we kept asking. And God kept saying, no. Because God had something so much better for us than two acres. Try 14 and a half. God had something so much better for us than a 450 square foot addition plus a 450 square foot porch. You guys seen Sunday morning in here? My wife said to me the other day, she said, honey, could you imagine how over the top stressed you would be right now if we had just built that addition and all these people are coming and there's nowhere to seat them? And they wouldn't be coming because there would be nowhere to park. We'd be having everybody parked up the road and we'd be shuttling you guys back and forth to make sure there was parking spots for our visitors so that when they see the parking lot they go, okay, we can fit. People were pulling in and leaving. God kept saying no. But we kept praying for seven years. And look what God did. I'm telling you folks, God answers prayers. Go to Romans chapter 8. Just a few more verses tonight, Romans chapter 8. The problem is we don't pray according to his will. We pray according to our will. That's the problem. That's why we don't see our prayers answered because we're trying to force God to be our Santa Claus. God ain't interested in being your Santa Claus. He's your father. Now I know nowadays people don't understand what it is to be a father. That'd be a great message. It'd take me about six hours to preach it. And that would cover about the tenth of it. But he's a good father. And so he doesn't give us everything we want, but he knows what we need. Romans chapter number 8 verse 26, likewise the spirit also helpeth our infirmities. Here you go guys. This is for all of you that say, well I would pray more, but I just don't know what to say. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. Not a person in the room really knows how to pray. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." So they say, praying in the Spirit and then they're blabbering all these utterances. It says, groanings which cannot be uttered. Anybody getting that? You can't utter them. So you get down and you pray in your language. And you talk to God from your heart. And God's Holy Spirit takes that thing up and he translates it to God in heaven. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit because he maketh intercession for the saints. Watch it, according to the will of God. That is why a lot of our prayers aren't answered. because the Spirit of God says, Lord, I hear what he's saying, and Mike's down there praying for property on Ten Mile, but we got something else cooking. That's what God's Spirit was doing. I'm beating my brains out in prayer, I'm begging God, I'm praying and praying, praying and praying, and I think I should have been, I think I was doing the right thing. And God was like, I got a seven year lesson I need to teach you. because I can do so much more than you can even fathom. You just let me be God." I think he also wanted to see if I'd keep praying. So we don't have the time for the references tonight, but it's because of his importunity. Remember the judge? Somebody's knocking at his door, his friend's needing some bread, and he's in bed. And when he wouldn't quit knocking because of his importunity, his persistence in knocking at that door, he finally gets up and gives him what he asked for. Because he didn't stop knocking. See, some of you have given up on your lost loved ones. Because they're so hardened and you're so, you've just given up. And the Lord wants to see if you're going to keep knocking, keep interceding, keep begging, keep talking to God for Him, keep interceding, God give Him a little more life, God give Him another chance, God give Him another chance, God convict Him again, God convict Him again. The Spirit of God only has to give everybody two chances in order to be just in damning their soul. You understand that, right? Two times God has put Himself in a place where He'll give everybody two shots and then He can be done with them and be just. They denied the Lord two verily verilies. You deny the Lord once and He's just. But He puts it in creation and conscience. Every man gets it. And if they ignore those two, He can let them go. But what about you? You ever stop to think you might be somebody's only chance of being convicted again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again by the Spirit of God? Interceding for them. God, please get them. God, please get them. God, convict them. God, work on them. God, help them. God, please be merciful to them. God, please be merciful. God, please get them. Well, is it the will of God that they not perish? Sure it is. So now you're praying according to the will of God. If God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, if that's God's will, don't you think maybe if you ask God to make you a soul winner, He can make you a soul winner? Yeah, that's not my will. Yeah, I know, because it's going to cause you to be embarrassed and have to bear his reproach and be mocked and laughed at and made fun of and hated and criticized and talked bad about and misjudged. Welcome to my life. Yeah, really. He's such a hateful man. I'll never forget years ago, probably almost 15 years ago, some woman came to our church. She sat over there in the back and she was like a jack-in-the-box. I was watching her get up and sit back down, get up and sit back down, get up and sit. She was clearly angry. And she left and posted on Facebook, I just had the worst church experience of my life this morning, you know, tagged our church and tagged me and all that stuff. I had no idea what I was even doing. I was just preaching. Well, I mean, there's a reproach that comes with it. You know how much they hated Jesus Christ? Yeah. They hated him. It wasn't the harlots that hated him. It wasn't the drunkards that hated him. It wasn't the lame that hated him. It wasn't the maimed and the dumb and the deaf and the blind that hated him. It was the religious crowd. and they killed him. But we don't want to be mocked at and laughed and made fun of, laughed at and made fun of for Jesus. Then in Romans 8, 28, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. Go to Hebrews please, just a couple more passages and we'll pray tonight and be dismissed. Go to Hebrews chapter 4. I'm trying to exhort you to pray and to work on your prayer life. I'm working on mine. I need help. And I'm going to show you in our concluding passage why it's so difficult. Hebrews chapter 4, look at verse 14. It says, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace that we may attain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. See, some of you stop confessing your sins because you've struggled with them for so long and you've gotten them right so many times. That you feel like, well, how many times is God going to keep forgiving me? As many times as you keep coming. That's how great Jesus is. He doesn't run out of forgiveness. He doesn't run out of power to wash you and give you another chance. He said, come boldly to that throne and you'll find grace and mercy to help. But you got to get to him. It's literally, Hebrews chapter 7 please, it's literally like saying I'm not going to shower because if I shower I'm just going to be dirty again tomorrow. You shower anyways, don't you? If not, we need to talk about some other stuff, man. You need some help, right? We all shower anyways. Well, it's the same thing in your walk with the Lord. It's the same thing in your prayer life. Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25, wherefore he is able also to save them the uttermost that come unto God by him. Doesn't matter who you are, Jesus Christ can save you when you come to God by Jesus Christ. Watch this, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Jesus Christ is interceding to God for you. Keep going to your right, go to the book of James, chapter number one. James chapter number one. Look at verse 5. If any of you lack wisdom, hmm, I think that's the problem with most people. We got way too many wise guys. Nobody thinks I need help. I'm in over my head trying to pastor. I was talking to somebody this week. It's just a lot of different plates spinning all the time. And you deal with a lot of different people. And you got to slow down and make sure you know who you're dealing with at this moment. And pay attention to this situation and this person. And adjust your approach based on who you're talking to. You think anybody's capable of that, especially me? I lack wisdom. So what I do, I pray. Guys, you can't even, we can't even raise kids. You can't even hardly hold a marriage together when you love them enough to die for them. We're all pathetic. We're all so clueless. We all cause problems. We all make problems we have bigger. And sometimes our problem solutions are so much smaller than we would even think and we can't even see it. It's all of us. If you don't understand what I'm saying, you haven't dealt with people long enough, or enough of them. And I'm not any different than them. So we should all be asking God for wisdom. Because what does God do? That giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. That means He gives it to you and He gives it to you abundantly, liberally. And then He doesn't chew you out later. I gave you the wisdom, what's wrong with you? That's upbraiding. You know better. I already told you, like we do to our kids. The Lord doesn't do that. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. But let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." So when we pray, we've got to ask in faith. We've got to realize that we have a Savior to go to, to intercede for us and to help us. and that He cares about us and that He hears our prayers and that the reason our prayers hit the ceiling is because we're not actually praying according to His will. I don't have time for it. Go back to Daniel if you would please. I want to wrap up in this passage. I don't have time for it tonight but you know the passage so I can quote it to you while you're going to Daniel chapter 10. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. You know the passage, Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are and yet he prayed that it not rain, it didn't rain, he prayed it would rain, it rained. And he says he was just like you. And he said the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. You born again? You got the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. He ever lives to make intercession for you, and will wash you clean. You can get to him, you can get cleaned up, and based on his name, and his mediating power, and his interceding power, and the spirit of God reading your heart and mind, and knowing the mind of the spirit, you can pour your soul out to God. And God said, I'll move mountains through a man's prayer life. And that, is why we don't pray. Because it is so powerful that the devil sees to it that he sprinkles pixie dust, isn't that the stuff to make them go to sleep? Okay, whatever that is, right? That he, or is that the little fairies in Disney movies? Is that what it is? Okay, well you're staring at me, you're not helping me out at all. So whatever, he does whatever he's got to do to make you fall asleep. Got it? It's a demonic thing. Because when he sees the power of God beginning to move in the person on their face, and that's getting right up to the throne of almighty God, and God's responding to his child, the devil says, I'm gonna make sure that they got something to addict them. Your faith would grow like crazy if you could follow me around for a week. My phone will stay silent for hours. And then the second I get on my knees, Ding, ring, ding, ring, ding, ring, ding, ring. Now listen, don't be like I didn't want to call you because I figured you were praying. Okay? I probably wasn't. It's my job to shut my ringer off and to know what's going to happen because I've seen it happen so many times. And I'll call you back when I'm done praying for you. Daniel chapter 10, let's look at this and then we'll gather around tonight and pray. Verse 12, then said he unto me, fear not Daniel, for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, watch it, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I'm come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days, three weeks, But lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I remained there with the kings of Persia. And now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days, for the vision is for many days. And when he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground and became dumb." And that passage goes on. You can read it later. Here's what I want you to understand. Daniel, Daniel makes up his mind, he says, alright, that's it, that's it, I have got to get an answer from God. Like Jacob, he wrestled with the angel and he prevailed. I will not stop until you bless me. I'm gonna get serious about this. And he set his heart to get after God, and he gets down on his face, and the second he gets down on his face, God dispatches Gabriel. And he's coming down through outer space. and the prince of the kingdom of Persia, principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, intercepts him in outer space. And the battle got so bad, Michael had to come back him up to get the prayer through, the answer to the prayer through. Twenty-one days they're going at it out there while this man's fasting and praying down here, God's not answering yet, he's waiting on God. And he continues praying and he continues praying and he continues praying because there's a battle going on in the unseen world that he can't even fathom. But he didn't stop praying. And he gets through and gets the answer to the prayer and gets overwhelmed with this stuff so bad he's not even strong enough to stand up. And then God has to strengthen him and set him back on his feet. That's Daniel. You mean if you got serious about getting a hold of God, the devil gets serious about stopping it. So you know what he's done to an entire generation of Christians? He's got you so entertained and so cold and so complacent and so uneducated about the Bible and the spiritual world and the principalities and powers that you wrestle against that he just doesn't even put it on your radar to have a prayer life. And the second you start, a wrestling begins. Your flesh doesn't like it, the devil doesn't like it, the principalities and powers don't like it, because God hears and God answers prayers. But wait, he answers them according to his own will. And that is why most of us aren't interested in a prayer life. because God's will doesn't usually line up with ours. And thereby we miss out on a tremendous amount of blessing and a tremendous amount of power and souls saved and victory in our lives and a walk with God and a life worth living that