praying boldly. I didn't put this verse on our follow-along sheet, but this is a very important verse, I think, for us to think about as we get into things today. Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14-16. Hebrews 4, verses 14-16 is actually the passage that speaks about encouraging us to pray boldly, to come boldly before the throne of grace, So let's, let me get a volunteer to read that one, Hebrews 4, 14 to 16, and then we'll go to the Lord, and then we'll think about this theme together this evening. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Thank you. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we are so amazed when we think about the truth that we are invited to come boldly to the throne of grace. Lord, we in ourselves are weak and sinful. We ourselves are foolish at times. And so we would, in our own weakness, almost expect to have the access barred to your throne of grace. And yet we praise you that because of Jesus, Because Jesus as our Great High Priest has gone through the heavens, has opened that way for us, we praise you for this blessed opportunity that we come by the merits of Jesus. We come in His name to bring our petitions and requests. And Lord, we thank you that you hear us in the name of Jesus, and that as your children, you incline your heart, care toward us and answer us in your will according to what is best. So Lord, help us to come before your throne boldly. Help us to pray boldly. Lord, help us to recognize that boldness in prayer is because we trust in you. We trust in your greatness. We trust in your plans and purposes. So Lord, help us to truly offer up prayers that are pleasing to you, bold prayers. in Jesus name we pray this amen. Well as Chapel continues this book he speaks about praying boldly and the subtitle of the chapter is as a child of God so the idea is praying boldly as a child of God now this picks up where we left off last week if you remember last week I talked about an illustration or a quote that I read. Someone said, the only person that can wake a king up at three o'clock in the morning and ask for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access. And we think about that, we kind of push on that a little bit today as we think about the fact that we as children of God can pray boldly. John 16, 23. Let's turn there. John 16, verse 23. If I could have someone read that one for us. "...and in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you." Alright, so this is a pretty bold statement. Whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give you. Chapel says this, we speak to the king of the universe. but the Prince of Heaven speaks on our behalf. Thus, we can be very bold, not because we deserve to be heard, but because the One who speaks to the Father for us provides us the privileges and the power of His identity as we pray. When we pray in Jesus' name, truly praying in Jesus' name, not just that little tag on at the end of our prayer, but when we pray in Jesus' name, As children of God, seeking His will and His purposes, we are praying in the identity of Christ. We are praying, and remember we, way back at the beginning of this series, we talked about doing something in the name of the prime minister. Well, there's a sense in which when we come in the name of Jesus, we're coming in His name. We are, as believers, in Christ. there's a brand new identity that we have. Before, we were aliens, we were strangers, we were, when the Bible says aliens, by the way, it's talking about foreigners, not slimy things in movies. We're talking about, we were foreigners from the kingdom of God, we were strangers to grace, we were unrighteous, unforgiven enemies of God. but God in His grace saved us, and our identity now is in Christ. We read through the gospel, sorry, we read through the epistles, and over and over again, Paul uses this expression, in Him, in Christ. That's who we are now. So we come before God, not just on our own. We come before God in the name of the Son, in the name of the very Prince of Heaven. And as such, we have the privileges of children. Chappell in his book mentions the fact that sometimes individuals in our military, and he's speaking of the U.S. military, but same thing is true in Canada, sometimes individuals in our military are sued by some other person, corporation, for something that they did on duty. And when that happens, they are represented by the whole of the army behind them, the whole military behind them. So if you actually read the docket, it doesn't state their name. It states their branch of military service. In fact, let's say there was a corporation that was bringing an accusation or a charge, suing someone, you know, the Smiths Corporation. On the docket it would say, Smiths Corporation versus the Department of Defense. And there's a sense in which we have heaven on our side. as God's children. We are not just going on our own. We're not just representing ourselves. Heaven represents us. We have the privilege of heaven's representation through our elder brother, Jesus Christ. And so this is a wonderful thing, particularly when we not only feel the depth of our own weakness, but also when we face the accusations of Satan. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sin. Because my sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me." We sing that song in our worship services. That is the privilege that we have as God's children. We're not just legging it up to the throne of grace on our own. We're not just in this thing of our Christian life on our own. We have the kingdom of God on our side. We have the very representation of heaven on our behalf. So praying boldly, empowered prayer. We can pray boldly because we recognize we're coming to God on the merits of Jesus. And we have that privilege because we are his kids. We are children of the heavenly father. but also imposing prayer. Luke chapter 11, verses five to 10. You'll probably recognize this when we look at it here. Luke 11, five to 10. Does anyone have that one for us? Yes. He said to them, which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give to him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened." Now you think about this scenario. It's actually kind of rude. midnight, go knock on someone's door and, hey, I didn't plan well enough. Can I have your food? That's, that's a very much an imposing prayer, but this is actually the illustration that Jesus uses to encourage us to pray to the father, to encourage us in a sense, to impose on the father. Now, every one of our prayers, we consider who Jesus is. we consider who God the Father is. Every one of our prayers is, in a sense, imposing. You know, after all, we're talking to the King of the Universe. We're talking to the Lord of Glory. So every prayer is, in a sense, an imposing prayer. And yet, God welcomes us to pray at any time. We can have boldness to come before Him at any time. God, God welcomes us to impose on him. God welcomes us to bother him. Chappell said this and it really stuck with me. He says, based on, he's looking at this story that Jesus gives in Luke chapter 10, I'm sorry, Luke chapter 11, and he says, With fathers, we can be even bolder than we are with friends. With fathers, we can be even bolder than we are with friends. I'll tell a story of myself here. My freshman year at Bible college, Thanksgiving break was coming up and made plans to go to my Aunt Sandy's place. And she lived in Minnesota and some friends of mine at Bible College lived 15 minutes away from where she lived. So, but hey, great opportunity to go visit her, spend some time together. It's not a long break, but they're going that direction anyway. So now I had been there a couple of times and, um, And each time I've been there, it had been a pretty memorable occasion. And so I thought, you know what, when I get there, I know the directions. So I just kind of casually got the directions from my parents and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I know the way. Well, the reality is that on our trip there to Minnesota, we ended up taking a lot longer to get there because of some bad weather. And by the time we got there, it was quite dark and a lot of snow had fallen. I hadn't been there in the dark, hadn't been there, and there's a whole bunch of snow. So we get to this tiny little town that she lives in, and I cannot find her house. I'm not the one driving. Someone else is driving, which makes it even worse. They're going to be dropping me off. I cannot recognize her house with the snowfall. So this is like probably 1 o'clock in the morning. Because that's how much longer it took than it should have for us to get there. Dark, snowy, I don't know, I can't find her house. So we drive around, the only establishment that's open at that time is one that sells beverages of a certain variety to the coffee shop. It wasn't a coffee shop, no. So, I really had nothing else that I could do. So I went into this bar. Of course, I can't make a call to Canada from their telephone that they have behind the desk. They did have a pay phone, but I didn't have a calling card on me. So at one o'clock in the morning, I make a collect call back home to my dad. to ask him for directions from the bar to his sister's house. My dad answered the phone. My dad gave directions. He is my dad. You know, if it had been If it hadn't been an option of calling my dad, I would have just like holed up in a snowbank or something. But I knew that I could call my dad and that I could, even though it was a ridiculous hour of the night, I could call my dad and I could get what I needed from him. Now listen, we as humans are prone to be impatient, we're prone to be, you asked me this already, why are you asking me this now? What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now? God is so much happier to hear from us than we are at our best moments to hear from even our children. God invites us. He gives to all men liberally, in the old words of the old King James, and upbraideth not. It doesn't give us a hard time for asking when we come to Him in the name of Jesus. God is a very gracious God, and we can come boldly to Him, even imposing on Him, because He's a God that invites us to do that. Next, chapel talks about pervasive prayer. 1 Thessalonians 5, 17. If you need to turn there, probably some of you know what this verse is already. It's a very long verse. So whoever reads this one for us, just buckle up, because it'll take you a while. First Thessalonians 517. I don't know if anybody can. I can handle it. Lynn, OK. Thank you, Lynn. Pray without ceasing. There we go. Pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. Thank you, Lynn. I hope that didn't tire you out too much there. Can we get her to do 516 as well? Rejoice evermore. There we go. Wow. So not only can we impose on God at any time, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 17 teaches us that we should come to God at every time. We should come to, we should come to him constantly. We should be in this attitude of praying without ceasing. Now I've mentioned this to you guys before and I'm sure I'll mention it to you again, Repetition is the mother of propaganda or learning or something. This expression here, pray without ceasing, that without ceasing would be the same expression that was used of someone with a chronic cough. You know how you have that tickle in your throat and it's always on the verge, it's right there all the time? That's the idea behind this. that you're always there, you're always in that attitude of prayer. There's like a prayer right there, ready to go at all times. Pray without ceasing. Planned prayers and planned approaches to God can be very helpful. Some of you might follow the the Acts method of prayer in your own devotional time, ACTS, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. Some of you might follow that. And that's a good way for us to pray heaven's priorities, to pray the kind of things that God invites us to pray. But not all of our prayer times are going to be prayer times where we sit down get away from everything and go through a list according to an outline. There are times, in fact, the Bible tells us, encourages us by this verse. There are times that we need to be firing up prayers to God, even when we're not sitting down and praying through in some structured way. God wants us to pray without ceasing. Sometimes we just face those times and we have to. When the circumstances of life just bring you to a place where you're not, you don't have that time to sit and map out a prayer. Think of Nehemiah before the king, right? He had to, he had just time to fire one up quickly to God when the king asked him what's wrong, because he could have gotten some pretty big trouble for not being all cheerful in front of the king. I think of in my life, you've probably all been there, where there were these prayers, there was a need for a prayer almost of desperation. Vacations with our family are not always easy. One vacation that we've taken since we've been here was someone actually loaned us a cottage. We went up for a little bit to their cottage for most of a week. And there was a grocery store in town, and we went to that grocery store to pick up some stuff to eat while we were there. Well, as you guys know, Judson's terrified of flies. And he also did not like the whole idea of being on this vacation. He wanted to be at home. So we went from this cottage where he had started to get a little bit comfortable. Hello, hello. He just came from Costco. Flat tire. So Judson had started to kind of get comfortable in that cottage that was being loaned to us and he didn't want to go anywhere else. He had this one seat that he basically wanted to stay in and didn't want to go anywhere else. But we needed to go get groceries, so we all bundled into the vehicle and went to the grocery store. He complained the whole way there. He didn't want to go out. We got there, and he didn't want to go in. Of course, he couldn't just leave him in the car by himself. It's summertime. So we all go in together. Now, at some point along the way, one of us was taking kids to the washroom. And one of us was getting a cart and starting to do the shopping. We wanted to try to just get through this. Somehow there was a miscommunication between me and Sarah. I thought that Sarah was taking Judson to the washroom. Sarah thought I was taking Judson with the cart. So Sarah comes out of the washroom and finds me and she's like, where's Judson? And of course, you know, my, uh, my heart hit my knees, you know, where is Judson? And so, you know, we're running around the store trying to find him, you know, completely losing all dignity, trying to, you know, call for him and look for him. And one of the things that I knew, you know, about him that two things I was afraid of. One, that he just go out into the parking lot to go back to the van. and not be aware of cars around him and the danger of that and of course there's the other danger that parents have in their mind child abductions so these things are going on in my mind and I was praying continually praying I didn't have a nice formula in mind I didn't have my outline set up it was like Lord help me find him Lord help me find him Lord help me be okay Lord help me find him And I'm scared to this day, still thinking about that. Now, thankfully, we did find him. Thankfully, he was fine. He was OK. But terrified. And in that moment, all it is is these prayers, these, Lord, we need you. God wants to hear those kind of prayers, too. He wants us to be always in a state of prayer, always ready to pray to Him. Whether those prayers be the kind of planned out type of prayers where you're going through a list that you would pray through in your personal devotions, or whether they be those prayers for grace and help and guidance and strength along the way, God invites us to pray at all times and tells us, pray without ceasing, constantly and consistently. Constant prayer leads us to recognize that God wants us to call upon him in all matters. God wants us to call to him in small matters and in great matters. Philippians chapter four, verse six is a passage we'll get to eventually in the series on Philippians, but Philippians four, six. I'll read this one. It says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known. to God. Now when it says, be anxious for nothing, and then goes on to say in everything in prayer and supplication, those terms remind us that God is ready to hear our prayers about everything, including those things that we think of as small matters. And certainly God is ready to hear our requests in big matters as well. James, chapter 5, verses 17 and 18. We could even read the end of verse 16 to get the context of this. But James, chapter 5, verses 17 and 18, if someone would read those ones for us. Right before saying this example, thank you Ariel, right before saying this example, James reminds us that the effect of fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. And then he goes on to give an example of Elijah. Now we think of Elijah as someone who was, you know, super saint, Christian 3.0, you know, the guy that's leveled up behind all of us, he's all the XP points. He's the man. But James is quick to remind us that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Every person that you encounter in scripture that God uses are people that have natures like ours. God encourages us to pray for big things. Elijah prayed and it did not rain for three years and six months. That's a pretty big prayer. That's huge. The chapel says this, super prayers are not reserved for super saints. Super prayers are not reserved for super saints. We all can pray big, bold prayers. In fact, when you look at all of the teaching on prayer, God is not kind of barring the door. Oh, don't, don't pray that. That's too big a deal. That's too big of an issue. Don't, don't pray for that. Pray for this. It's little. We don't see God doing that. God is always encouraging us to stretch beyond the little prayers that we have a tendency to pray, to pray big prayers. Jesus, when we pray in Jesus name with the right motivations, God wants us to pray big prayers. Well, let's move on now to the last point in our follow-along sheet, Miraculous Prayers. Miraculous Prayers. Jeremiah 33. By the way, we could use James 5, 17, and 18 as an example of Miraculous Prayers too, right? Call to me and I will answer you. and show you great and mighty things which you do not know." Thank you. Great and mighty things. Great and incredible things. One of the amazing things that I found in looking at this verse, and some of you might actually have this in a note or footnote in your Bible, this word, mighty things, can also be translated inaccessible things. Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and inaccessible things. Inaccessible to who? Well, not God, but inaccessible to us. The type of things that we in our strength could never accomplish. The kind of things that we in our own efforts could never bring to pass. God has access to those kind of things. God can do those kinds of things. Even as we think about praying for the miraculous, and whether we're thinking miraculous in a strict definition where there is a suspension of natural laws or marvelous coordination of natural laws to accomplish things, or whether we're thinking in terms of things that are just beyond our ability to accomplish, they're not out of God's power. They're not out of God's hands. We pray for salvation of someone. That's a miraculous prayer because that is beyond our ability to accomplish. We pray for someone to experience healing. That's a miraculous prayer. We, in our strength, can't accomplish that. I'm using a more broad definition there, not in the sense of suspending natural laws, but in the sense it's beyond our power. We pray for money to come in for the Shalom Orphanage. That's a miraculous request because it's beyond our ability and our effort and strength to accomplish. God God has these things in hand, though. They're not beyond His power. Sometimes people pray for miraculous things, and it's right for us to do. Sometimes people pray for miraculous things, but forget just how miraculous the ordinary is. Let me explain what I mean by that. The Bible says that that Jesus, by the word of his power, is upholding all things. The fact that God is holding everything together, that Christ is holding everything together, moment by moment, that this whole universe doesn't fly apart into chaos, and that he has planned the end from the beginning. You think about all of the people, all of the forces, all of the animal, plant kingdom. You think about the weather patterns. God has all of that in control and is using all of it to work toward his ultimate end. That's amazing. People have a tendency sometimes, and I think particularly within the charismatic movement, to think of that as, you know, to yawn about that and think, well, what we really need is some crazy extra expression of miraculous power. And they forget just how amazing the day-to-day providence of God is. I mean, that's huge. The very fact that that all of this is held together by God. That we have a book like Revelation that tells us what's going to happen before it's happened. God has planned how it's going to happen, when it's going to happen, that it's going to happen. That's an incredible God. But we can pray for things beyond our ability or beyond what we would think of as natural laws because God is the God over those laws. God can do amazing things beyond the laws of nature. Chapel says this, and I've written it here, big prayers get out of hand, not because we request miracles, but because we demand them. And maybe you've been in that kind of a context where people are like, God, you have to do this. You have to do this. And, and it's something miraculous and it doesn't happen. And there's anger and bitterness at God. God doesn't have to do anything. God does all His holy will. And if God doesn't do that miraculous thing that we had hoped for, God has a reason for not doing it. And at the end of all things, as we trust Him, one day in glory we'll recognize that it was better for Him not to have answered that request the way we asked. Let me wrap this up here quickly. The key thought the chapel puts at the end of this chapter is this, when we pray in Jesus name, we also speak with his voice to the father. This understanding should make us very bold when we pray. Because we know that we speak to the heavenly father with the voice of the son, we should be confident that we can pray consistently about everything in our lives. Things great and small, matters that transcend time and space. So let us, as children of God, pray boldly to our Heavenly Father.