SEP 9 2018 | Stuff Jesus Said S1E6 | Ask Me For Anything…

Sea Change Church · Stuff Jesus Said · "Ask Me For Anything..." Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · September 9, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Well, good morning, church. Today's scripture reading is from the book of John, chapter 14, verses 5 through 14. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and you have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.

Jesus answered, don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. The word of the Lord. So, my name is Ed, last name Andrade. My wife, Sochi Andrade, is right in the pew there somewhere.

And we've been coming here for about almost a year. And awesome to be a part of the family. And you're taking a new responsibility on it, I see? That's right. I'm the head usher beginning today. Thanks to Joe. Yeah, right on. And he's in partnership with Keith. Where's Keith over there? He has been a long time usher and working there. So, Keith is not going anywhere. They will be working in partnership. So, we love you guys.

And thanks for we needed some addition to the team. Keith, it's a lot of work for you to keep all these cats, you know, as you're herding them. So, we're glad you're here. Well, bless you today. I'm glad you're here in this powerful passage. Once again, we are in stuff Jesus said. We're looking at the words in red, the things that Jesus said, some of the audacious, provocative statements of Jesus. And in this particular passage, Jesus says something that we can easily throw into the category of hyperbole or that Jesus is just exaggerating this idea that if you just ask me anything in prayer, I will do it.

Now, I don't know if you have tried that, but what I have found is everything that I have asked in prayer does actually not happen. So, is Jesus lying? What is he up to? What does he mean? Are there any caveats to what he is saying? But if you look at the final verse there in the passage, in verse 13, it says, and I will do whatever you ask in my name. That's provocative. So that the Father may be glorified. This is the reason God answers prayer.

This is the reason God does everything. So that he may be glorified. And it's not prideful for God to be glorified because he is worthy of it all. He created it all. And when God says he's awesome, it isn't being prideful because it's actually true. Everything is completely true in God, and there is truism in that. And it says, so the Father may be glorified and glorified into the Son. So the Son is glorified as well.

You may ask anything in my name, and I will do it. One of the things that Jesus is asking about, and one of the reasons that prayer was invented, because prayer was a created thing of God. Before mankind was created, there was no such thing as prayer. Prayer was a necessity to create a relationship between human beings and God. And there's other ways that he creates relationship through the Holy Spirit speaking to us, through our minds, through our emotions, different ways that God communicates.

But prayer is a created thing, and it was created for a reason. And prayer is created so that you may have relationship with God. And when you pray, and when you see the back and forth, the ebb and flow of God saying yes, God saying no, God opens up the grand drama of not only your life, but makes you aware of the grand drama that is happening in the world, and in your own personal world. And if you are not praying on a regular basis, and you don't have to be an expert, the Bible says no one knows how to pray.

And the secret key to praying is prayer. So if you want to learn how to be an expert, which no one will ever be in prayer, the best way to start is just to pray. The Bible says no one knows how to pray. But when we pray, we become aware of this grand drama. And if you are not spending time in prayer, and you can really be bad at prayer, and God's totally cool with it. He doesn't grade you on prayer. Once again, the Bible says that there is no one who knows how to pray.

It also says in the scripture that there is no one righteous, not even one. So we are all at a base level. So the key is, are you going to pray? And when you pray, all of a sudden, things like little coincidences start to happen in your life. Coincidence is just one way God speaks to me. I don't make all my decisions immediately if there's a coincidence. But all of a sudden, something happens. Three or four things will happen in a row.

And I'll say, well, maybe God's trying to get my attention. And the only reason I'm aware of that coincidence is because perhaps I prayed about that coincidence. Or prayed about something that God used the coincidence to reaffirm in my life. And so prayer is meant to expand your life. Prayer is meant to bring not only expansion, but bring more reality in your life. And prayer makes you more real. It makes you more aware.

And so if you are not staking out some time in the terra firma of your personal calendar every single day, because in Matthew 6, as we learned, Jesus wants you to pray every single day. It says, give us our daily bread. So it shows that prayer is meant to be daily and that there is a reward that comes with prayer. It says that what you do in secret in that passage, as we learned, it says that you will have a reward. So each day you pray, there will be some form of a reward.

Maybe it will be an extra three hours of having peace from that thing that is plaguing you. But prayer is meant to be every day. And it's the language of God. And it's also meant to expand your life. Now, I just want to quickly lay this out of one of the purposes of prayer. Not only to make you more aware. Not only to give you relationship with the Father so that you can speak to him and he will speak to you in different ways.

But also to expand the territory of your life. One of my favorite verses in the Psalms says that when David prays that the boundaries of his life would be set in pleasant places. Now, we're living in a world that loves to constrict the boundaries of your life. We're living in a world where we see people have less and less emotional margin. Less and less mental margin. If you look at the amount of statistics of people that are on anti-anxiety meds and different medications to now control and rein in their overly active minds and souls.

You will see that there has been a constriction. People have less mental peace and mental margin. One of the things that God's tools, which are worship, forgiveness, these spiritual weapons that we go to war with. One of which is prayer. When we live in the reality of those things and we practice the reality of those things. It actually pushes out the margins of your life. The boundaries of your life might fall in a more balanced and pleasant places.

So you have more margin in your life. And so this is what Jesus is trying to do with prayer. Now, let me say that when you pray, that it will take the blessing that is currently on your life and expand it even further. And so if you are just a believer and you have, not just a believer, but you have believed in the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit is dwelling within you. There will be a boundary of protection because you are no longer under the curse of the law.

Romans talks about this. Now, when you're not under the curse of the law, not being under a curse is a really, really good thing. Because all of a sudden, the results of the curse are no longer relevant to you anymore. And so all of a sudden, imagine taking a chalk line and drawing it around your life. And if you never pray, if you never do any other spiritual disciplines, just the fact that you are now a child of God, covered under the blood of Christ, which goes a very long way.

You now have a protection over your life. You now have a blessing over your life. And you might be saying to yourself, well, I'm not feeling that blessing at the moment. But there is a protective covering. Now, what God wants you to do is he wants you to make the decision to step into the spiritual disciplines of prayer, of forgiveness, of worship, all these different things. And you know what that does? It gives you another piece of chalk.

And it allows you to take the normative blessing that comes with just being a child of God. And I hate to use the word just being a child of God because it's more than just. But being a child of God. And it allows you to mark it out further. As a matter of fact, when we step into the spiritual disciplines, one, which is asking prayer that we were talking about today, actually, you can almost throw the chalk away because you start living in the eternal.

Not only are you covered on earth by the blood of Christ, but you begin to use God's tools to harvest the things of heaven. And actually, you can draw the line a little further. But actually, you could take that chalk and throw it as far out as you can and allow God to decide where he's going to mark the boundary. And so this is why this idea of asking prayer and these other spiritual disciplines that are at your disposal if you choose to use them.

And so often, we live very common spiritual lives, right? Because we don't pray. We don't really go into worship. We don't practice self-control. We don't try to practice peace or do the things in our lives that bring us peace. But we continue to go after the things of the world. And our lives actually become constricted. And we live lives that take the chalk. And we try to move the chalk. And we actually either make it smaller than the boundaries that God wants us to live in.

And so this is what I wanted to set up as a framework as we move into this idea of asking prayer. Where Jesus says that you don't have, or James actually says, you don't have because you don't ask. And Jesus is saying, if you ask and you do it in my name, and that's the if, if you do it in my name, then I will, I will, let me just read it exactly so I don't paraphrase it here. In verse 14, you may ask anything in my name and I will do it.

But now, there's a huge caveat there. There's a few. There's a bunch of ifs. And if you look in the scripture, you're going to see that if is this word that puts our lives at a crossroads. If you remain in me. If you obey my word. The Bible is full of ifs. And it seems to put a lot of the impetus into our lives. Are we going to do the things that will expand the boundaries of my life? And so, I want to ask you personally, do you feel like your life, you're living with the boundary lines in pleasant places?

And not that there won't be attack, because the enemy comes in attack and he tries to encroach your boundary lines. But that you are doing the things that push him away. Because the scripture does say if you resist the enemy, he will what? He will flee. When the enemy flees, you have more margin in your life. When you live according to God's financial principles, as you'll find in the Bible, or different principles of God, you will see that the Bible promises if you do these things, then you will have expansion in your life.

And so, we see Jesus saying, I will do it. Now, what's the caveat? The caveat we see here, he says, I will do these things. He says, if you remain in me, and if you ask in my name. And what does that mean, if you ask in my name? And this is the key. That whenever you ask in prayer for something that God already wants to do. Because our real purpose in prayer, besides just pouring out your heart before God, is to have a spiritual life that is constantly seeking for what God wants to do.

And to get our will into the alignment with what God wants to do. And let me tell you, when you understand what God wants to do, and you ask in regard, in his name, of what God wants to do, then it says that every single time that that happens, that God will answer that prayer. It isn't so much what you want to have God bless, but it's finding out what God wants to do, and praying in agreement in his name. Now, let me give you just a quick example of what this looks like.

If my daughter goes out, and she begins to, you know, ask people questions to do things, and then use my name to back it up, the only way that I am going, or she starts making promises, are writing checks that her body can't cash, which happens on a regular basis. She's going to have to come back to me, and say, you know, Dad, hey, I promised to do this thing. Well, I had nothing, I didn't know anything about this. I'm actually not going to follow through on that, because I didn't know anything about that, nor does it have anything to do with the character, or the thing that I'm interested in doing.

But if she were to go out, and she knows what my will is, we have a few things right now that I want her to be a part of, and we've talked about it. If she went out and said, Dad, I knew that we wanted to do this thing, I went out and did it, I made a promises, and I told them that you would follow it up. If she comes back to me, what am I going to do? I'm going to back her act. This is what prayer is. This is what prayer does, and it is discerning the things of God.

Now, let me tell you this. If you don't have an internal spiritual life that you are trying to create and actually putting effort into, it's going to be very difficult to discern the things of God. And when Jesus says, if you ask in my name, the key word there is congruence. There has to be a congruence between your inner life and your outer life. And it is so easy to create a, and Jesus talks about this with the Pharisees all the time, they had this outer life that didn't match their inner life.

And so he's constantly saying, you know, you're whitewashed tombs, you look really good on the outside, but on the inside, you've got all this degradation, you have all this death. And I've got to say that some of us are really gifted. Some of us. Some people are really bad at it. But some of you, some of us, are really gifted at putting out a front that fools a lot of people. And, you know, I would say it'd be woe to you if you were really good at faking it.

You know, there's other people, they've got turmoil on the inside, and they just don't have the ability, right? Like, you know when they have turmoil on the inside. They're just like, ah, they're a mess. You can see it. Jesus is always concerned with those that are trying to put out a good front, but there's no congruence in their heart. When it comes to leadership in your personal life, and I want to talk about in the realm that I'm in, in spiritual leadership and leading a group, because many of you are leading small groups.

Many of you are leading things like Christian surfers or surf church or different things like that. But when you lead those things, the only way to lead those things properly is to lead them from the inside out. And one of the problems I see with the church today, and especially when, you know, you go to seminary and different things, or you read articles about how to run a church, it's usually about the numbers of the church, right?

It's about the amount of people that come. Everyone's excited about that. It's about the product that they're putting out in front. It's about the tithing that's happening. But rarely do you hear people talk about the spiritual formation that is actually happening in the leadership. And I believe that it's very tempting because you get a lot of human applause for it, but it's very tempting in the space that I live to run a strategic church versus a spiritual church, where everything on the outside hits all the metrics, and all the metrics, excuse me, that the world wants to see.

But on the inside, we have staffs around the world, around the country, that are actually behind the scenes falling apart. And I believe that we probably need to start reformulating what spiritual formation looks like, because I believe that if the pastors, if spiritual leaders, and now we'll take this to your life, you personally, if you can get the inside right and focus what is going on on the inside, the outside will take care of itself.

It says, Seek ye first what? And what? All of these things will be added unto you. We've gotten way too good at video screens. We've gotten way too good at provocative marketing that reaches out to your hopes and your dreams and your desires in order to create something that you want to come, that you come and you feel like you've got something, where we can just give you hope for another day. But are we creating a spiritual place within you that is a sanctuary for the Holy Spirit to live?

And so I had to ask myself this week, is there a congruence between what is going on in my heart and what we are doing at the church, or am I just really good at giving people what they want? Because, you know what? Disneyland has crowds every single day, but what are they doing spiritually? Now, I talk about that from my space because I think it's easy to let you understand and see that from the space that I live in.

But in your heart and in your business, when you think about the business you run, when you think about the teaching that you do, whatever the space is, the parenting that you do, is your parenting, let's just take it to parenting, is your parenting or your marriage or your dating life based on a book of rules and understandings and the best way to do things and the best way to market yourself or the best way to raise kids according to the seven rules of whatever, or is the internal life that you are leading actually shaping the outside?

Are you more concerned about hearing the voice of God, knowing that you are beloved, being able to forgive other people, creating a sacred space, a place of holiness, or are you really comfortable with just a little bit of sin in your life? I sat yesterday in my time and I said, God, just reveal, where am I just comfortable with just enough sin? Is B plus enough or do I really wanna pursue holiness? And that's a great question.

Holiness is one of the weapons, one of the tools that'll take that chalk and throw it so far out there, it'll give you results beyond anything you could ever, Ephesians 3.22, hope, dream, or imagine. And so Jesus is talking about prayer as one of those things. And this is where we begin. Again, because if you are going to have your prayers answered, if you are gonna be able to step into the willingness to pray dangerous prayers, big prayers, prayers that are bigger than you've ever dreamed before because perhaps your biggest prayers are too small, then you're gonna have to get a congruence.

Because Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit, the Godhead, doesn't like falsity. And he would much rather have obedience than sacrifice. You know what? We are so good at, I mean, we're pretty good at sacrifice. At least a lot of us are. We can sacrifice away. We can sacrifice away just like Saul. But we miss the interior of the heart. We have got to do that as a congregation. As a group of people, we have to take our inner lives seriously and say, you know what?

I've been concerned. I've been focusing on my job, on my career, on my parenting. I've been focusing on my marriage. You have the wrong focus. The focus is on getting a relationship with God in the sanctuary of your heart, saying, am I trying to be holy? Am I living under the blood of Christ? Am I living with forgiveness? Am I trying to live with joy? And can I move away from the ecstatic excitement that the world wants to deal me and say, this is real life?

The world today has told you that a feeling equals life. Okay? Life is not a feeling. There are people that are dying, that are children of God, that are dying, that their bodies are withering away. And deep inside, there is a joy, and there is a peace, and there is a constance, and there is a contentment that doesn't feel really, really good in regard to, hey, my life, we're on the beach in the Bahamas. But they are living more life than other people that are living the glitz.

Talked to a brain chemistry, a brain expert this week. And we were talking about the gifts of the spirit. And I had this realization. I said, one of the reasons that the world's margins are moving in is because we're being overly stimulated. And he said, well, that's dopamine. That's cortisol. He says, there are different things that we're looking for that produce dopamine. We're looking for more hits. They produce cortisol.

And it stimulates us. And I said, well, when you look at the gifts of the spirit, and I opened it up, I said, how many of these gifts of the spirit would be dopamine-based? He said, maybe joy and maybe love. But the rest are based on serotonin. Now, if you know anything about that, those are the ones that mellow you out. Actually, when people take meds, what does it do? It increases their what? Their serotonin. If you have a depression issue, if you have an anxiety issue, what you're doing is you're basing it on serotonin.

And I began to realize that the world is promising you that if you can just get a little more active, if you can have another experience, another, yay, this thing's happening in my life, then all of a sudden, that you will be alive. We'll talk about this more, but it's the first inklings I've had that maybe life isn't about a feeling. Jesus wants to expand it through prayer. Let's look here at the message. John 15, 7, if you remain in me.

John 15, 7, and my words remain in you. Ask whatever you wish, and it'll be done for you. Jesus is not the first person in Scripture to say this. It's interesting how many people in Scriptures and how many times people have said, just ask me what you want, and I will give it to you. If you look at Mark 6, 23, and he promised her with an oath, and this is speaking of when John the Baptist was put to death, and the daughter of, forgetting her name right now, but the woman comes in and dances before Solomon, excuse me, not before Solomon, before Herod.

Thank you, got it right. And he says to her, because he's drunk, whatever you ask, I'll give it to you, half my kingdom. Really? Like that, kings in the Bible say that a lot, right? Isn't that interesting? Who are you going to say that to, right? You are doing something so amazing right now that you just ask me anything, I'm gonna give you half of everything I own, half of my kingdom. Next thing we see in Esther. Esther, in the book of Esther, says, and the king asks, he's speaking to Queen Esther, what is it, Esther, Queen Esther?

What is your request, even up to half my kingdom? This is a big thing in the Bible. I didn't realize it. But once again, giving their kingdom, and Joe, can you give me some Kleenex? It is hot up here. In fact, I put my glasses on and they steamed. So, appreciate that, buddy. Joe, I really appreciate you, man. You're a good man. How about in Matthew 4, 8 and 9? There we go. I got like 10 people coming to me. Yeah, you guys are amazing.

Joe, do you have 50 bucks? Thank you, yeah. I'll give you half, yeah. Half the kingdom. Satan takes Jesus, right? Up to a, you know, up to the highest place. And he shows him the kingdoms of the world. And again, the devil took him up to a very high place, a high mountain. He showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. And he said, this I will give you if you bow down and worship me. Now, Satan was willing to give all the kingdoms of the world.

What's interesting? So, you have two kings. You have Herod and then you have a king who are willing to give half. Satan will give all the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus says that I will give you the keys to the kingdom of what? Heaven. He actually promises if you obey him, he will give you the keys to the entirety of heaven. Now, if you're going to make a deal with these four people, you have Jesus, you have Herod, you have the king in the book of Esther, and you have Satan.

I try not making a deal with Satan. And they offer you these things. Which are you going to take? I gotta say, Jesus has a pretty provocative offer. He says, I will give you the keys. I will give you all of heaven. Matter of fact, I will give you myself. I will give you everything that is me. And not only that, I will live in you, and you will live in me, and there will be a congruence, and you will understand, and you will have the power and the ability to have it all.

Do you understand what Jesus is offering? How provocative that is? And how small the offers of the king, and Herod, and Satan are? When Jesus is saying, if you just want to get in line, if you just want to follow me, if you just want to bow the knee, if you just want holiness more than you want that shiny thing that feels so good, and that dopamine hit that makes you feel like you're alive, because it doesn't mean you're alive, I'll give you everything.

I'll give you whatever you ask in my name. Powerful. That's what Jesus is saying here in this passage. And these guys are giving false offers. And so I guess one of the questions is, what deal have you made? You've all made a deal, right? Jesus, make no mistake about it, he's offering you a deal. There is a deal, there is a wager going here. Pascal talks about a wager, you know, the Pascal wager, where he talks about, you know, God offering you heaven, and you can look that up.

But he's offering you something here, and all of us have made a deal. And some of you have made a deal for some very shiny things that make you feel alive, but in the end promise death. God wants to give you the entire kingdom. And so in this passage, with that understanding, how does that change the way you pray? You know, as I'll say here in just a moment, say here in just a moment, we often limit prayer to acquiring a thing when it's more about acquiring kingdoms.

We often limit prayer to acquiring a thing. Oh God, if you just give me this. Oh God, if I just have this one thing. If this just happens, then it'll be, you know, it'll all be, you know, great. But God is saying, when you pray, I want to give you a kingdom. Like, ask for whatever you want. And actually the word there is, and I've said this multiple times, but in John, it's not ask for whatever you want. That's such a diminishing, a degradation of the word.

The word is actually what you're willing. The word is thalo. It's a Greek word. It means whatever you're willing to ask. And there's a huge difference between what you want and what you're willing, because your wants have a boundary around them. Right? Because you don't want this, so you wouldn't ask for that. Right? So your wants have a boundary. We all think our wants are so wide, but actually they have a boundary within them.

But whatever you're willing says, if you're willing beyond that, so you might ask, God, give me the ability to forgive someone who has hurt me really bad. You see, that's thalo. What are you willing to ask for? Maybe you're terrified of something, but you're saying, God, make me strong. Allow me to do that thing. Or God, take this thing away from my life. Or God, do whatever it takes in my life to get me free from this addiction.

That's a good prayer. Try that one, if you're willing, thalo. Matthew 16, 9. He says, I give you the keys of what? The kingdom of what? Heaven. It's a pretty good kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth, now this is an agreement, if there's congruence. Whatever you bind on earth will be what? Bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Wow. Prayer is one of the many spiritual weapons that thrust you into the drama of God, making you more aware of his kingdom bringing narrative.

Asking prayer, I say in the notes, is a superhighway for knowing God intimately as Father. Turn your notes over if you would. And so we have this question about was Jesus then using hyperbole when he said that he would do anything if you ask him in his name. As I said earlier, and I won't re-preach it, that prayer is more about understanding what God wants to do rather than coming up with your own agenda for God to bless.

Prayer is more about understanding what God wants to do rather than coming up with your own agenda for God to bless. Now, I'm big on spiritual imagination. I don't think we spend enough time in imagination in prayer. prayer, like not just praying. Like I think part of your prayer time, and I put this in praying for your elephant, part of your prayer time should be a planning session. Like you go with God and you're not really praying.

You're sitting there and you're thinking, okay God, in regard to my kids, what do I want? And so, yeah, can we, you know, okay, I pray they get into a good college, do good on their SAT, they don't get bullied, or whatever it is. We make this little list. Those are like your classic prayers. But what about going a little deeper? Like I pray, God, that my child could have such a heart of compassion that they would change the world with their ability to give in a way that is so benevolent and so powerful that it actually affects kingdoms.

I mean, that's like taking it beyond a good SAT score, right? But sometimes we have to sit with God and say, God, can you help me spiritually imagine? Because we have really poor imaginations. Like we're really bad at it. Like you sit down and you think, okay, my wife's mad at me. God, I pray that my wife won't be mad at me anymore and we can learn how to figure this out. Or my car is broke. God, I need to know. And he knows what you need before you ask.

He says that, okay? He's gonna give you everything that you need, he says. Maybe not everything that you want, but everything that you need. And so we begin to pray based on what we need in the moment. And it's great, but he already knows what you need. The father already says that. Can we just get a little more elaborate in our spiritual imagination? What about for your neighborhood? I just, I mean, in Praying for the Elephant, I mentioned 10 categories.

What about your neighborhood? Have you thought through your neighborhood? I mean, just sit for 20 minutes and think through your neighborhood. Think through your neighbors, that guy you don't like, that has, you know, does his yard work at seven in the morning, way too early. I have three houses in my neighborhood that do yard work at seven in the morning, three days a week. Anybody else have that? No. No one cares about my problems.

So I pray that they would change their timing. But have you thought about your neighborhood? Have you thought about just, have you thought about your work, your cubicle? Have you thought about your boss, what God can do to bring revelation and revival? Maybe in spiritual imagination, you know, the Holy Spirit will put an idea in your mind that's his idea that he says, if you just pray this, I'm gonna do it. But that means that we have to be more concerned about God's agenda than our own.

And we're just so good at thinking about ourselves. I'm really good at it. I don't know about you. I love thinking about myself. What I need, what I want. And my asking prayer becomes, hey, bless Adam's stuff. And I wanna get away from that. Spiritual imagination. So why don't we pray? Here's some reasons. And these are some of the boundaries. And once again, the enemy, Satan, wants to create boundaries. God wants to give you freedom.

It is for freedom that you have been what? Set free. So it is, this is, that's interesting because it sounds redundant. But he has let you out of the prison of the curse of the law so that now you can be free. If Satan had to translate that verse, he would say, it's for freedom that I can put you back into chains and let you walk around without freedom. But he wants to release you and then teach you how to live in freedom outside of that.

And so the enemy is always trying to constrict your life. Constrict your prayer life. Constrict your relationships. Constrict your generosity. Constrict your heart of love and benevolence towards other people. Constrict your charity. Constrict your patience. He wants to make it smaller and smaller and smaller. And when we give into sin and open up doors into our lives, we actually take that chalk line and make it very small around us.

And it says that why then do we want to pray? And I'm just going to give three of the biggies why we don't pray. The first is guilt. God's mad at me. God was mad at you. But for God so loved the world. So it wasn't that he was mad at you, but the anger of God is in the curse of the law and you were under the curse. So it isn't that God was mad at you, but God hates sin and we were under the curse. If you believe in Jesus and are set free by his blood, God is never mad at you anymore.

He might be frustrated. He might hate some of the sin or different things like that. But now you are a child of God and we tend to live in guilt. I have said over and over again that if you can show me anywhere in the Bible that a Christian is supposed to experience guilt, I would like to see it. Now conviction is one thing. God convicts you and then we repent and we walk in freedom. Let me tell you what most of us do.

We get convicted. God might convict us, but we know we shouldn't have done that. And then either we run away from God for a period of time until it gets really bad and then we come back. Or we repent and then we go do a little bit of the works of the law by making ourselves live in guilt until we feel like we've kind of paid the price of the sin, right? So you ever do something bad and it's like, hey, you know, I've done something bad and I feel bad about it and then like, what is it, a week?

Or you kind of decide when that is that you start feeling better about it and you ever like, then you forget about it, right? And then all of a sudden you feel like, okay, God's cool with me again. Or you ever had where you're past it and somebody comes back and they bring it up again and they bring it up again and pretty soon you're like, I don't even care anymore. You know what? It wasn't that big of a deal. Like guilt is this thing that we use to make ourselves feel better and we determine when we should be free from that guilt.

Scripture says that guilt is gone, that shame is gone and that all you need to do is repent and walk in freedom and that guilt has no use for the believer. And so guilt is a reason we don't pray because God doesn't like you or because you have something in your life. If you have something in your life, let me tell you to pray about it. Go to God, I've done this many times, and say, I have this sin and I love it. I absolutely love this sin.

I love my alcohol. I love my pills. I love my sex. I love my porn. I just absolutely love it, God, and I actually love it more than you at the moment, and I want you to know that I love it. I absolutely love it, and I don't want to give it up. Help. We never get that on us with God, right? It's not like he doesn't know anyways. Like at least you have a lifeline. Tell God, I hate my wife. I am so angry, and some people do.

I've met them. Or I hate my neighbor, or I have murder in my heart, God, or whatever this thing is. I'm a mess, and I don't want to change, and I wish that person were dead. We, I'll say we, all have stuff like that at moments in our lives, and what we tend to do is say, when I get that sorted out, I'll deal with God. Go to God in prayer. Don't have guilt. You are under the blood of Christ, and say, God, you know what?

Help, and can you at least get me to the place where I want to change? Start there. That is a rescue line that says, God, help me out. And it might take two years, three years as you walk, but the results of what you covet in your heart will be in your life. And so, if you're coveting sin in your heart, the Bible talks a lot about that, make it real to God and ask him for help. Two more things, and we're done. Unbelief.

We don't believe that God can do it. Where does faith come from, the scripture says. It's by asking. It says, if you don't have faith, if you don't have wisdom, what do we do? We pray. And so, if you do not have belief that God can change something, or perhaps you didn't get the shiny thing that you wanted once in your life, and so now you no longer believe in prayer, and you've scrapped your entire prayer life because God didn't do that one thing.

You're 44, and you're not married, and so to hell with prayer. I've seen it over and over. Maybe it's you, but I didn't get the thing that I wanted. I wasn't able to have kids, I wasn't whatever. I lost my business. I lost my marriage, so to hell with prayer, to hell with God. What I say is that we move back into that and have belief and say, God, give me faith because I gotta say, I have met a lot of people that have had all those things happen, and I've seen what it looks like when you're on the other side living back again in the grace and understanding of who God is and how good he is, but to get honest with yourself and say, God, I don't believe anymore, and go to prayer and say, I don't believe anymore.

Help me to believe. You know the disciples said to that, to Jesus, I don't believe. Help my what? Unbelief. The secret key to praying is prayer. Just pray and restate that in your life. The final one of the way that Satan wants to constrict your prayer life is that we have other passions. Talked about that a moment ago. We just got stuff we like. We like our wine every night. We like our stuff. We like our attitudes.

We just like it. We like it because it makes us feel alive. And I gotta say that serotonin base, and this is once again brain chemistry, but the things of the fruit of the spirit don't give the same hit as what the world is offering. You understand that? And contentment, that everyone wants to be content, until you're content. Have you tried contentment? No, I'm serious. I've been working really hard at contentment, and I get in contentment, and I'm content, and I'm like twitchy.

You know, like, I gotta do something, and I'm like, you know, there's nothing else to do. Like, there's food in the fridge. My kids love me. You know, I have a relationship with a wife. Church is good. Like, I'm happy. I don't want more. I don't want a better car. My little 2002 truck with 256,000 miles on it is good enough for me. Like, I don't want, I just don't have, I've lowered my wants, and I get there, and I'm like, what am I supposed to do with this?

Like, you know what I mean? I don't think we want contentment. We all say we do, but you know what we want? We want that thing that makes us feel alive. I wanna say, the love of God, which probably doesn't feel like a big rush that you won the lottery, is the kind of life that God talks about, and weaning ourselves off the world's understanding of what it means to be alive, the next experience, the next feeling, the next dopamine rush, where we move down, and peace is enough for me.

That just sitting quietly with Jesus, that is life. And I gotta say, I'm having to train myself how to do it. Because, you know, as a former coke addict, it's a long way from those days. Because that was the life that I wanted, and it had offered it to me in a little line that long. And get, and I gotta say, I felt alive until I had a heart attack and almost died. And I say, what life do you want? What life do you want?

And Jesus is offering you a kingdom. He's offering you a kingdom that's bigger than anything else. And I wanna help us as a church to go after those types of kingdoms. Amen? Amen. Let's stand. We're gonna have our worship band come forward. We're gonna sing a song. Then we're gonna go thrive in the world.