0:04 Good morning. Can we pray again, please? Heavenly Father, we come to you through the blood of Jesus. And I just ask you to continue to speak to our hearts, Lord. Come the center of everything we do, Lord. Let our heart be 0:20 set on you, seeking to know you more intimately, Lord. Lord, speak through me, Lord, and let anything that's not from you go away. Lord, we want to hear from you this morning. Pray this in Jesus name. Amen. All 0:38 right. When I was a kid, anybody here, were you ever a kid? Anybody a kid before? You're an adult now, but you used to be a kid. I used to be a kid. It's hard to believe, but I was. And so when I was a kid, you know, from as long 0:53 as I can remember growing up in the Bible belt, we also knew the story of Aladdin. And we knew the story of like this magic lamp that if you found this magic lamp and you rubbed it, I don't know, I don't even remember being taught 1:06 the story, but I knew the story. And so if you rub the lamp, a genie would come out of the lamp and then it would grant you three wishes and it would say, "What three wishes do you want?" And I remember like this was always fun for 1:18 young kids. Like what three things could I ask for? And I remember one of the major rules. Are you guys can you give me a nod if you know what I'm talking about? Because Okay. Okay. So Okay, good. Yeah. One of the biggest rules was you can't 1:31 ask for more wishes, right? You remember? So you only had three and you had to really it was an exercise of what was most important to you as a kid. And so you come up with all things. Well, I would want a hundred cars or I would 1:43 want a big mansion or, you know, it's always earthly things. And so, uh, it's a powerful story and it very much, you know, impacts me and it, you know, the reason I even bring it up is because I think at an early kid, it starts to 1:55 impact kind of your prayer life, you know, where you start to see, maybe you see God as you get introduced to him, you start to see him as just that that genie and you just got to rub the lamp and he'll appear and he gives you three 2:06 wishes and and kind of your spiritual life becomes like that. your prayer life becomes like that. And maybe not. I hope I'm wrong. I hope no, no, no. That never happened happens to me. I don't view God as just a big magic genie. Uh I see him 2:18 differently. And I hope that's the case. But we were singing this morning about we were singing this morning about you know Josh shared the verse like as many as receive him to these he gave the right to be called the sons of God. And 2:30 then we sang a song and I don't know how many you sang this honestly or with reality but you said I am a child of God and you meant it and there's a reality where like God almighty God is my daddy and you sang it with such a conviction. 2:48 I hope so. I mean it's a very catchy song. I have it on my running playlist. You know it's a very upbeat song. It's it's great to run to. Um, but you know what we're seeing is I'm I'm his child. And you know, if we're his child, you 3:02 know, we're his disciples. And so that means if we we get to sit at the dinner table with Jesus. And so when you read in John, there's three there's five chapters 13-1 17 where Jesus is talking to his disciples and he's telling them some 3:20 wonderful things. And so if you are a child of God and you are his disciple, then you're sitting at that table with him like you've been invited to come and eat with him as if you belong to his family and you get to hear those same 3:35 promises and commandments and challenges and just wonderful things that that uh that he said to the original disciples. And so that I think that's very important. Do you come to John and when you read these things, do you say, 3:47 "Okay, that's for me now. Once upon a time, it was just for them. But now that I am a child of God, these promises and these commandments, they're for me now. They're mine. And so, I want to look at it in that light. You know, if we really 4:00 are children of God, like we sang about this morning, that means these promises are ours to be claimed, and they're wonderful promises. So, I don't really want to focus a lot on the promises, but I need us to be anchored in the 4:12 promises. So, if we look at chapter 14, and feel free to turn into your Bibles. I'll put them up here. um probably more for me than for you, but it's very important that you see these in your Bible and you go, "Oh, wow." It really 4:23 says that. So, this is what Jesus told his disciples. He says, "And whatever you ask for in my name, that will I do, that the father may be glorified in the Son." And I bolded whatever. You know, this is an incredible thing. You want, you know, 4:41 you talk about a genie, you know, three wishes. This is Jesus saying whatever. Unlimited. There's not three wishes. Whatever you ask for in my name. And you see kind of a a bit of a condition there, right? You see like you have to 4:54 be on the same page as Jesus. Very important. You know, the father should be glorified, right? And if your heart is the same as Jesus, you know that the your your whole focus and outcome is that our heavenly father would be 5:08 glorified, then Jesus says, "Whatever you ask, ask it." And then in case you missed the first one, look at this. He says it again because he knows you're not going to believe it. I think you know it's going to be hard for you to 5:23 believe that you can go to Jesus and ask him for anything and he'll hear you and he'll do it. But he says if you ask anything again he emphasize anything in my name I will do it. And so we're challenged with that. These are incredible promises. And do 5:37 you know what comes next? What comes after this is a verse that you've probably heard many times. If you love me, if you love me, keep my commandments or obey my commandments. Right? In the middle of that, we have a a pretty uh strong, you 5:55 know, command. But then after that, we have another promise. He says, "Listen, I know it's tough to keep my commandments. I know it. I I was a man on the earth. I faced all the temptation that you faced. I've been it. I've been there. But I'm going 6:08 to go to my father and I'm going to ask him to send a helper. I was the first helper. I'm helping. You know, I came to earth to help you to save mankind from sin. But I'm going to go to my father and I'm going to ask him to send another 6:21 helper. And look at this promise. I mean, sometimes I think we get we get pretty caught up in the commands. And we should we should take Jesus's commands seriously and we should seek to obey every command, but we also need to consider 6:35 every promise. And he promises that he'll send his Holy Spirit to be with us forever. Are you serious, Lord? Are you for real? You're going to give me the Holy Spirit of Christ, the third person 6:52 of the Trinity, to come and dwell inside me forever? That is an amazing, amazing promise. Do you agree? So, he says he'll give me anything I ask for. And then he says, "Not only that, I'm going to come and dwell inside you, and that power 7:09 will come from within you because I'm I'm I'm abiding in you and you're abiding in me." Incredible promises. And again, I I kind of just want to sit for like 10 minutes and just focus on this and ask ask, have we honest seriously 7:23 before? Do we believe Jesus when he says these things? Do we believe that he has the power to do it? or is he just like ah these are kind of some neat things that I just I just wanted to say I just wanted to share these things with you or 7:36 are they true and so if these promises are so real you know are are they reality for you and I'm I'm challenged first you know when I when I prepare these messages I have to examine myself first often many times and the Lord has 7:52 shown me like yeah your brothers and sisters only really need to hear from you one time but you need to go over this over and over again so I this to myself. Do I have such a life that I go to my my I go to Jesus and I say, "Hey, 8:05 I need this done." And he says, "Done or do I find that's not always the case?" Like I ask, but I don't seem to it doesn't seem to be reality. And prayer is not just our relationship with God. And I think this is very important. 8:21 It's not a genie relationship where okay, Jesus made this promise. I rub the lamp and then suddenly I get what I asked for. You know, prayer is so much more than that. It's not just asking. Supplications and asking for certain 8:32 things is part of prayer. But there's also a part of prayer that's thanksgiving. There's a part of prayer that's just praise to him. There's a part of prayer that's listening to him. Do you emphasize that part of prayer? 8:46 There's a part of prayer that's just fellowship with him. Just being in his presence, just enjoying just enjoying him. There's part of prayer that's worshiping of him and adoration of him and exalting him and and just being 8:58 amazed by him. So prayer is multiaceted. It's not just, hey, can you give me this? But very often, especially as a young kid, we're we're taught you go to God when you need something. Hey, I got myself in a pickle. I need some help. 9:13 That's when I go to God. Or I really want something, so I'll come to you and ask. It's so much more than that. But at the same time it is that because we can go to our heavenly father and we can go to Jesus and we say hey I want this. 9:30 Will you do this? And he says I will do it. But sometimes that's not a reality for us. So I want to look at why it might not be a reality. Why might our prayers be hindered? Why is it that this isn't my life? Why isn't this my prayer life? 9:46 that I'm in such close fellowship with Jesus and the father and the spirit that I'm like all I got to do is say it and it's done. It's executed. Why is that? Because that's the way Jesus spoke. But that's not my reality. And I'm being 9:58 honest with you, that is not my reality. So I want to go to my Bible. I want to go to the scriptures. I want to hear from the Lord. What might be the problem, Lord? If you said that with such authority to your disciples around that table at the 10:11 Lord's table, if you said it and I'm not experiencing it, what is the problem? It must not be you. It's probably something with me. That's what I've discovered in my relationship with God. That generally the problem is not 10:25 him. He has proven faithful over and over and over again. The fact that I'm even here talking to you is a testimony of God's faithfulness and how he can take the worst sinner and redeem him and give him life and hope. It's why I'm 10:38 here. So, I've discovered over and over again the problem is me. So, if I'm not experiencing this reality, what is it? And it's not just the it's not just the outcome that we're looking for, right? Again, it's not the genie relationship. 10:52 The the the means are very much the process. It's not just that like this is a checklist where I'm just going to give you eight things and if you do these eight things then guaranteed success that whatever you ask for you're going 11:03 to get. That's not the way I intend this this morning. Prayers are very relational with God. You know so anything that hinders is not just hindering the outcome, it's hindering the very relationship itself. And that's what I see in 11:17 scripture. And by the way, there's a lot more than eight. I don't intend this to be comprehensive where like if you do these eight things, I guarantee you you know that car you've been desiring, it'll be parked in your front front lawn 11:29 tomorrow. That's not how I intend this and I don't believe that's the way Jesus intended it. I believe his promises are true. They're real. He means them. But we have to look at the whole picture, the whole relationship, everything, 11:42 every aspect of it. And what I see in scripture are some eight things that as I go on this journey, my walk with Christ during this brief time on earth, I see there's some things that I can do that will hinder his promises and hinder 11:57 him working in me. And so I want to take those seriously. And again, not intended to be a checklist, not int not at all comprehensive, but in our Bibles. And again, if there's check your Bible, be like a brand and go to the Lord and say 12:13 like, "Hey, I see this. Josh said this verse applies this way. What do you think? What do you think?" And so, number one, the number one reason that I'm not experiencing the reality of like, "Lord, give me this and it's not 12:27 happening is unbelief." is unbelief. Zack Punin has an article and you can Google it. You can go with AI, you can find it very quickly. Now, I'm going to give you the title of it. If you're interested, go read it. It's a 12:41 very short article, but the name of the article is five sins that Jesus hated the most. What do you think of that title, man? I want to know what are the five sins that Jesus hated the 12:57 most. And number one is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. Number two, spiritual pride. Number three, forgot number three. Give me a second. Number three, impurity. 13:14 Impurity. Number four, an indifference to the needs of others. And number five, unbelief. Do you think of unbelief as a sin? For many years, I didn't. It was kind of like a weakness. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. But I'm seeing more and more as I study 13:32 the scriptures that unbelief, not trusting what God says is sin. It's the it's what c it's what's causing all the problem. It's what caused the problem in Eden. When Eve's faced with I don't know who should I listen to, God or Satan? 13:49 Well, God said don't eat of the tree. But boy, you know, Satan brings up some pretty interesting points. Let me think about this. Who should I believe? And again, I don't judge Adam and Eve. I face this in my life. God says this, but the world says this. And 14:04 the world is so enticing with what it says. I don't know who am I going to believe. And in my life, a lot of my my my problems and struggles and misery was caused by believing the wrong person. And so I see unbelief as a sin. 14:21 But look at Jesus what he says. So again, I didn't just like pick one verse like Jesus emphasized this a lot in his ministry. He says truly, why does he Jesus, why do you need to start a sense with truly? Because people are 14:33 going to have a hard time believing this. Okay, I see why you're starting with truly. He says, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes, what's going to happen? That 14:49 what he says is going to happen, it will be granted to him. Jesus takes something that is so crazy. I've never seen this in my life. I would love to see this. Right? Can you imagine a man of God saying, "All right, um, Mount Everest, I 15:03 want you to go to the Pacific." And you're just watching this happen. Can you imagine that sight? Jesus takes something that is so crazy for us. It's super hard to believe. I've never seen it. But Jesus says, you know, if a 15:17 person doesn't down in his heart, but believes it, it will happen. Right? This is Jesus talking. Is that what you see in your Bibles? Is it red in your Bibles? Some Bibles have red when it's Jesus speaking. But he says the problem is the reason you the reason 15:31 you've never seen that, Josh, is because of faith of belief. People don't believe God. And I don't believe God's actually interested in making this happen. Jesus is making a point. Jesus was a master of using exaggeration to make his point. 15:43 He's saying that the reason that God is not doing powerful things in your life is because you don't trust him. Okay? You're right. I have to be honest. Like whenever the light hits me, I go, "That is right." I don't trust him. I trust 15:58 myself. I lean on my own understanding. I lean on my own reason. As long as my reason and my intellect convince me, then I'll go with it. But to trust him and what he says, that's a big jump. But if I don't see it as sin, I won't 16:11 overcome it. I won't be desperate enough to cry out and go, "My problem is that I don't believe you." And whenever he's going to heal the blind man, he asks a very important question like, "Do you believe that I can do this?" And I believe Jesus in those 16:28 tender moments will ask us this. Sometimes we pray for something, something that's a burden on us like, "Lord, [Music] please." And he'll gently say, "Do you believe I can do this?" I don't know. I've been asking for a while. 16:42 Maybe. Maybe. I find myself going, "Lord, I believe you can. I don't. I'm a little more confused about whether it's your will or not. I don't I don't fully know you and all your ways. It's a bit of a mystery to me. I think this is in your 16:56 will. I believe you can do it. I don't know if it's in your will. I don't know if I see everything, but you know, I want to have more confidence in you. I want to trust you. I haven't always done this and I it's been to my you know, 17:08 it's been to my danger that I haven't trusted you, but Lord, I want to settle this. I want to be a man that's different. I want to be a man that trust truly trusts God. the living God. So that's the first thing, unbelief. The 17:21 reason that we're not experiencing just an abundance of prayer life is that we don't really trust him. Maybe that's the case. Here's the second thing. That we're praying in the wrong name. Well, what does that mean? Ever since I can 17:35 remember, I don't remember who taught me, maybe my mom, she says, we always incl conclude every prayer with four words. In Jesus name, amen. That's how I I still to this day conclude prayers that way. in Jesus name that amen. I 17:48 don't know. I never knew why I was saying that for many years. I was like that's just how we pray. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. That's how we end every prayer. So what is it? What are we saying? The problem is we tend to we 18:00 tend to pray in our own name. If you go back and look at those two verses that I started with the two promises, Jesus said, "If you ask anything in my name, the longer that we walk with the Lord, the more in danger we are." this 18:15 when we f first come to the Lord and we're broken, helpless sinners, we don't dare come in our name. But after a while, after we've served the Lord and we've made sacrifices for him, then it might start to creep in. Our prayers might be like, 18:30 Lord, you know, I've sacrificed a lot for you. You know, I've given a lot of given up a lot of Sundays for you to serve you and to work for you, and I've, you know, I've given a lot of money to your uh to ministries and your causes 18:42 and things that I thought were important to you. Can I ask you for one favor? Would you do one thing for me? And I never really thought about this until brother Zach, you know, pointed out. He he shared his own story, his own 18:55 failure. He shared it, I think, in a book or in a message. He said that one day he did that. He came to the Lord and said, "Lord, I've served you for many years. Will you do this for me?" And the Lord rebuked him and corrected him and 19:06 said, "Don't ever do that. Your righteous deeds are like filthy rags to me. Don't ever come to me in your own name and claim that you deserve me to answer your prayer. And so instead, you know, again, it came from some tradition in Jesus 19:23 name. In Jesus name, in Jesus name. But I want you to know the reason we pray in Jesus name. Because you have no claim to go before a holy God and claim anything apart from Christ. And how can you tell? How do you know if you're coming in your own name? 19:39 And we have the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Brothers and sisters, if you look down on other people, if you look down on them, then you probably think that you're a little bit level above them and you're coming 19:52 in your own name. And again, I I'm I'm examining my own heart in these things. You know, sometimes when we pray for our unconverted loved ones, we do that a lot. We pray for our uncon converted loved ones. But let let me ask you this. Are 20:06 you better than them? And again, I don't care what we say out loud. This is for us to examine our heart. Do I look down on my unconverted loved ones? Lord, show me. Show me if I'm like that Pharisee and I think, "Oh, I've heard so many teachings. I'm so 20:20 smart, so knowledgeable in scripture. I'm so much better than these people, these unconverted heathens that I'm praying for, even my own family members. Am I looking down on them in any way?" Well, then it's very possible I'm 20:32 praying in my own name. My burden for them is more about the level that I've achieved and I just want them to, you know, get a little bit of what I experienced. There's a pride there. But I want to pray in Jesus' name. All authority in in heaven and 20:47 earth is his. He's the one that made the promise. He's the one that can grant it. But if I don't come in, I think that I've merited, Lord, you should really listen to me because I'm really a godly man. I'm really I'm really something 20:58 special, especially compared to him or her or whatever. And again, these are things that are in the heart. I don't think we would ever say this openly, especially if we're listening to each other. We would correctly quickly 21:08 correct each other if we heard that kind of pride. But deep inside it creeps in. The devil says, "Listen, Josh, you're better. You've served the Lord for many years. You know that you're even sharing these new covenant teachings. You're so knowledgeable and 21:23 you've you've sacrificed so much and you've done so much. You're so much better than all them." And I believe it. I'm like, "That's right, Satan. You're right." Again, belief. You're right. Saints, right? Lord, um you should answer my 21:35 prayer request. No, nope. In Jesus name, Lord, because of what he did, I have no claim to anything apart from Christ. My boldness to come before the throne of grace is all because of the cross and because of what 21:52 Jesus did for me. No other way. In Jesus name. In Jesus name. Number three, unforgiveness. I knew that I I was pretty familiar with the uh the Matthew passage, but I I hadn't paid attention as much to the Mark passage, but they're saying the 22:10 same thing. Brothers and sisters, I'll tell you, if you don't forgive somebody, if you hold one thing against somebody, the Lord will take all your sins and put them back on you. There's a parable, I think it's in Matthew 18, there's a 22:23 parable where Jesus says of the unforgiving servant, if you want to hold one thing against somebody else, then the Lord can't forgive your sins. So clear in scripture and here he's talking about prayer. He says whenever you stand 22:35 praying forgive whenever you pray like whenever whenever means forever. I mean it's a good check whenever we go to the Lord in prayer. Lord before I before I start bringing my requests to you before I start casting my burdens on you before I 22:50 start laying out my day before you or having fellowship with you Lord is there anybody that I need to forgive that I'm holding anything against? And look at it. If you have anything against anyone, even the smallest little 23:08 prick, the smallest little annoyance, if you have anything against anybody, forgive them. Forgive them so that your prayer is not hindered. So that your father can forgive you and bring you back into that relationship, to that fellowship with 23:26 him. But if you have that unforgiveness, if you have something against somebody, settle it right then in prayer and then you can move forward to the promises. But Jesus says it very clearly. Whenever whenever you pray, make sure there's not an an iota of 23:42 unforgiveness in your heart. Whenever you pray, comma, forgive. Very important. Here's number four. You don't really ask. I don't know how your prayer life is for you, but I'm going to be per I'm going to be honest with you. A lot of times I 24:01 start praying and then my imagination and my mind just wanders all over the place. And I catch myself so often saying, "Lord, sorry about that. I was I started praying and then before I knew it, minutes and sometimes multiple 24:15 minutes have gone by and I was really just thinking. I left the state of prayer like a long time ago and I've just been using my imagination and so I'm really not even focused on you. I'm not really even asking you for anything. 24:26 I'm just coming up with my own scheme in my head. And James addresses this. He says, "Your biggest problem is that you're not even asking. You're not even asking me. You sit down to prayer and you're using again your own thoughts and 24:39 your own analysis because you're so smart. You're so clever, Josh. So you'll figure your problem out. That's your problem, Josh. You're so smart." Or you think you're so smart. So you start kind of like, well, you know, Lord, I'm going to kneel down 24:54 to pray, but really I'm just going to try to figure think through this problem myself and figure out a solution. And it's true sometimes in my prayer, I never even just do the simple 3se secondond, you know, solution of just 25:07 asking him what he thinks for help. You know, I was thinking about this in terms of uh of u Jacob and Rachel. Do you guys know the story of Jacob and Ra Rachel? I mean, it's kind of romanticized of just Jacob loved Rachel so much. You know, 25:23 seven years were like, you know, a short amount of time. One of the things that strikes me about that story is that I don't read in there that any time in those seven years that that uh Jacob prayed to God and asked him what he 25:36 thought. You notice that in seven years? Are you telling me that Jacob never prayed and went to God and said, "Hey, would it be all right if Rachel's my wife?" He never asked. Instead, he schemed. He was a 25:54 schemer. Brothers and sisters, is this you? Is this really your prayer life? And again, I'm examining myself. I find this in me that I'm not really praying. I'm more kind of using my intellect and my my mind to scheme something. And I 26:06 never asked. And I I like to use some imagination this story. What if Jacob had actually just went to God and taken a few seconds to just ask God what he thinks? Lord, what do you think? It's, you know, I've been working for Rachel 26:20 for about three years now or four years now or five years now. I've really been working hard for her. I realize I haven't even asked you what your opinion of her is. What do you think? Should I marry her? What if God told him, "No, I don't think 26:35 you should marry Rachel. I think you should marry Leah." A conversation. And then Jacob might ask like, "I I why why should I marry Leah? She's not as pretty as Rachel. Why?" Again, ask ask. It's a conversation. It's not just one 26:50 question. Do you ask God questions? Do you have conversations? Do you come in with him? And what if God said, "Jacob, I know where you're at. I know you think she's beautiful, but I see her heart. And I tell you, if you'll trust me, if 27:02 you'll believe me, if you'll marry Leah, things will go much much better. You'll discover that she's a far better wife than you could have ever imagined, and she will have many children, and you will have a wonderful family. And instead, what do we see? We 27:17 see multiple wives. We see maid servants involved. We see just constant tension among the children. Now, again, I I'm just using some imagination here. What if Jacob had actually taken time to ask, "Father, what do you think?" I know 27:32 he went and called him father in the Old Testament. What if he said, "God, I really want to know what you think about Rachel, but in my Bible, and please correct me if I'm wrong. If you see somewhere where Jacob went to God and 27:43 asked him what he thought, I would love to see it, but I couldn't find it." So, you don't really ask, and I I this is me sometimes. This is me. I haven't even asked God about I realized that I'm so far in the planning process, I'm just moving 100 miles an 27:57 hour trying to accomplish everything I want to accomplish that I never even ask God his opinion. That's what James says. And then what happens, and it happens in my own family sometimes, my my wife and I are in an argument because I'm just 28:11 plowing along 100 miles an hour and I never thought to even ask God or even ask her. And suddenly there's quarrels and and fights in our our own family. Whose fault is it? It's mine because I never took a few seconds to go 28:24 talk to God about it and ask him his opinion on the matter. I just bowed ahead. I don't want to do that, brothers and sisters. I want to I want to ask God. I want to I want to, you know, be exposed by what James is trying to tell 28:37 me. Like, Josh, your problem is you you don't just go ask him. You think you got to scheme and use all your wisdom and all your intelligence and everything to figure every problem out using your own strength, your own power, your own 28:50 everything. You don't even ask. And here's the next one. Selfishness. Not sure why I put a squirrel because uh I like Googled selfish or I have this website that pictures and I put in selfishness and it's a squirrel holding an acorn. I 29:06 guess that's the picture. So kids, when you think of a squirrel holding out, just go, "Man, that that squirrel is so selfish." You know, when you see them in your yard, just think selfishly. But you know, the next verse, 29:16 James says, like this is the problem. Remember remember we're talking about Jesus' promises. He says, "If you ask anything in my name, I'll do it." But then James says, "But here's the problem." And this one exposes me like 29:29 anything. The reason that you don't get what you're asking for is because of your selfishness. We have a problem here. Like your prayers are all about you. And honestly, Joshua, what you're praying for is you want a more comfortable, easy 29:44 way of a path. That's what you really want, isn't it? Right? That's that's what this is all about. Lord, make my life much easier. And the Lord's saying that's selfish. In fact, you know, 2 Corinthians 5:15, this is a very 29:58 important verse, says that Jesus died so that you would no longer live for yourself. And yet all your prayers seem to be about yourself and about you and about how you can, you know, use these things so that you can have more things 30:13 for yourself so you can spend it on your pleasures. Oh yeah. Thank you for showing me that almost every prayer is centered in me. Lord, you you died on the cross so that I wouldn't live like this. I did this for many years. I didn't even have 30:30 light on this, brothers and sisters. Before I before I came to know the Lord, I lived for myself. And I'm telling you, it's the most miserable existence on the planet. I feel sorry for people that live for themselves. I did it. I'm them. 30:43 I don't judge them. I I was them. And so getting a taste of of living, you know, with a focus on God and with other people. I want that. So whenever my prayers start to come back to me and Lord, could you do this for me? And if 30:56 if you give me this, if I get this job, I'll make a lot more money and that will certainly be better for me and then my children can get these benefits and everything will go well for us. Everything's here. And God says, 31:09 "Listen, Josh, if I grant that prayer, it's not going to set you free from everything being about you. The more I give you, the more it's just going to feed yourself." Oh, that's why you haven't answered that prayer. Got it. 31:22 Thank you. Okay, Lord, let's go forward. set me free from this selfishness. Help me to be more centered in you. I didn't I didn't know it till you showed me in your word my problem. Yeah, a lot of prayers are selfish. I don't want to be selfish. I 31:38 want to have that love and that heart that Jesus had. So that the Lord says, "Okay, that's why I'm not answering. That's why I didn't answer you. And now you see it. Now I see it." Here's another one. Number six, pride. 31:52 Not sure why I picked a cat. Squirrel is selfishness. A cat that somehow put its arms behind its back. I don't know how the picture did this. So, you got a cat with its arms behind his back. So, it represents pride. And this is a great question. If 32:06 God is not answering your prayer, if you've been asking him for something for a long time, one question you can ask, it's not this isn't necessarily the solution, but ask him, "Lord, you're not answering me on this. Where am I 32:20 proud? Because if there's pride in us, he has to resist us. It's the law of the Lord. He resists the proud. He has to oppose you if you're proud. But if you're humble, if you're truly humble, his grace will be poured up out upon you and all that power will 32:39 be poured out out upon you. But if we're not getting an answer to our prayers, if he if something's holding us back, it's good to be hon to be humble and go to the Lord and say, "The only conclusion of why you haven't answered me is there 32:52 must be some pride in here. Will you show it to me? Show me so that I can have your grace." Anytime we sin, anytime that we feel that our our prayers are hindered and Lord's not hearing us and he's not responding, this is a great check. 33:09 doesn't take very long. It's good to get on our knees and say, "Show me where I'm proud. I want you to deal with my pride once and for all. I don't want to enter eternity as a proud man. I want to enter eternity like Jesus 33:23 as a humble man." But Lord, one of the things you might be trying to communicate to me is that you're not answering this specific prayer because there's something in me that's proud about it. Okay, Lord, just show me and I want to confess it and lay 33:37 it out before you. Number seven, that we don't seek to understand others. And the verse, you know, this is for husbands and this is this is a big problem in my marriage and I think it's a big problem in in other marriages, you 33:53 know, in the world. And what they say is like husbands will say like, I don't get my wife and she doesn't get me and that's kind of the end of it. So, we just kind of do our own thing. I don't get her. I don't understand, you know, 34:03 wife things and what she doesn't get why what what it's like to be a husband. She doesn't understand these things. So, that's just the way it is. And that's that transcends cultures, by the way. That's not anyone culture. I think it's 34:14 every culture. I don't get her. She doesn't get me. We're done. But the problem is the Lord's speaking to husbands go that is not the end of it for you. You may not understand your wife, but you don't stop there. You seek to 34:28 understand her. If you need my help, I'll help you. But you don't resign your fact to the everything the world does and say, "Look, I don't get her." You seek to get her. Do everything you can to understand what she's going 34:41 through so that your prayers will not be hindered. And I know this is for husbands, but I believe it's for everybody. I I I've confessed to you that I used to read verses in the scripture like, "Woe to you who are rich." And I'd be like, "Woo, not for 34:52 me. I'm not rich." Or then I'd read verses to like elders or deacons. I'm like, "Thank you that that's not for me. I don't have to obey those things. You know, there would be a sense of relief. You know, I can take out those person. 35:05 You know, those aren't for me. Those are for other people. But when you look at this verse, you tell me, I I believe what the Lord's saying is this should start with husbands. Husbands should be leaders in this area of understanding, 35:17 but I believe it's for everybody. I believe that God intends it for everybody. He wants all of us to live in an understanding way with other. He wants us to seek to understand others. Like, I don't get that culture. I don't 35:29 understand why that person does that. And the Lord says, are you even trying? Are you even putting out the slightest bit of effort to understand them? And I'll tell you, because of this verse, if I see a person, man or woman, 35:44 you know, that it lives in an understanding way with others, I want them to pray for me because I know their prayers won't be hindered. So think about that. Imagine you could ask one person. You ask, you can ask any one person to pray for you. 36:00 And you, and I think sometimes that we get this, right? Something is, we're in the middle of an incredible burden. And we say, "Okay, I got time to ask one person to pray. Who do I ask?" I know it's easy now in mass communication, we 36:13 can just blast a text to everybody. I don't know about that. I would rather one person that meets this criteria and ask them, "Hey, would you pray for me?" I'm not saying that's wrong to blast prayer request. Don't misunderstand what 36:25 I'm saying, but I'm saying what will what will bring power. And then I want this. I want to live in an in an understanding way, not just with my wife, but every every brother and sister the Lord gives me. Every person that I 36:39 cross their path, I want to understand. I told you in my family, I just got back from a poor country. I don't want to judge anybody that lives in that country. I want to understand. I want I need the Lord's wisdom. help me to understand so that my 36:53 prayers are not hindered when I pray for them or pray for anything. Here's the last one. Quite simply, he's not answering your prayer because it's not good for you. The Lord looks beyond, you know, what we can see. And so that's one of 37:10 the reasons that Jesus, you know, taught us like to pray not my will but your will be done. Lord, not what I want because I can only see so far. I think I'm praying according to your will, but I don't know. And so sometimes at the end of 37:23 everything else, it's just not for your good or or for the good of those that you care about, which again, it's not for your good if it's not for those of the good those that you care about. And so it's something like a 37:35 stoplight. This is a great analogy. This is brother Zach's analogy. But if if we're in a right relationship with God, if everything else is, you know, if the if if we're not if we're humble and we come before God in prayer, you know, I believe that 37:48 he hears every prayer, but he doesn't always answer them the way that that we think he should. He's too loving for that. He's too good for that. You know, it's kind of like if my Zimmer Zimmer came to me and she said like, "Dad, I think you 38:02 should buy me a machete." I'm like, "Well, you you're going to have it because you asked for it. Here you go. pick out your machete on Amazon. I don't know if they sell them on Amazon, but that's probably what I would do, right? 38:12 I would not give There's no way I would give my 11-year-old daughter a machete. And sometimes God sees things the same way. He's like, Josh, there's no way I would give you that. It will destroy you or it'll hurt somebody else. 38:26 Oh, you're so good. You're so good. So, it's like a stoplight. Sometimes, right away, the Lord answers our our prayer right away. It's green. And I believe he's done this more often than we can count. Think of every time you prayed 38:38 because you were sick. Did you get a green light? Are you healthy now? Are you healthy now? Then did you get a green light? Maybe he answered it too fast. You prayed. He answered it so quick you forgot even you forgot you 38:52 even prayed. It was so quick. So you got the green light. And then sometimes it's a red light. He's good. He sees beyond everything you say. He says like red light. No. No. And when we get the nose, we want to go back to him and go, "Why? 39:05 my thinking must be wrong. I'm I'm I'm not conformed to your image. My My thinking might be conformed to the world. I want to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. So, if you're telling me no because it's not good, 39:14 show me why it's not good. I want to change. I want my prayers to change. My prayers have changed over the years as I've got to know him more. So, Lord, if I'm praying for things that are not good, show me so I can pray for things 39:28 that are good and have those promises that Jesus gave me fulfilled. And then sometimes it's just yellow. It's wait. It's slow down. I hear your prayer. I'm going to answer it, but I'm going to do it in my timing. Well, why are you going to do it 39:43 in your timing? Because if I do it too fast, you won't be thankful. And that's a problem. If I do it too fast, you'll be proud because you think you're you'll think you're a prayer warrior. You'll be proud. So, I need to 39:55 wait. I need you to come to a point of desperation first so that you won't take any credit for yourself. You'll see your help is dependent on me. then I'll answer it. Or maybe I'm working in somebody else's life life that you can't 40:08 a way you cannot see and I need the timing to line up first. You be patient. You have need of perseverance. Wait. Wait. All right. Let's recap. So, eight things. The Lord has given us tremendous promises, but there are some things in 40:27 scripture that I've seen that maybe are hindering our prayer, and I want to take those seriously. First one, unbelief. not trusting God. Second one, we pray in our name. Lord, I come to you in Josh's name. Therefore, you you should answer 40:40 my prayer. Instead, we pray in Jesus' name. Unforgiveness. If there's anybody we haven't forgiven, the Lord says, whenever you pray, forgive. And it's good to examine ourselves. Lord, is there any unforgiveness in me? Number 40:53 four, that we're not really asking. We're scheming. And so, like Jacob, we scheme. We don't really ask. And again, we use some imagination there to imagine maybe it's different. Maybe we need to be different. And then selfishness that so much of what we ask 41:08 for is so we can use it on our own pleasure. We're more concerned about our pleasure than we are his name or the good of others. And then pride. God has to resist us if we're proud. And it's good for him to do that. Okay. But Lord, 41:21 now we humble oursel and we ask for your help. And then also too, our prayers can be hindered if we're not seeking to understand others. And again it use I use the verse of husbands and wives but I believe it's more universal. Husbands 41:34 should be the example but I believe it applies to all of us. And then finally it's simply not for our good. The reason he doesn't answer our prayer in the way we thought is because he sees the danger. He sees that it won't be good 41:47 for us ultimately. These are just some things that uh I think will be good for us to consider. Brothers and sisters, God bless you. Thank you, brother Josh, 42:06 for sharing uh your heart. Um Josh started with uh John chapter 14. John chapter 14 and verse14. If you ask me anything in my name, I 42:25 will do it. This is Jesus telling it. And when his turn comes, if he wants to ask something for us, read verse 16. I will ask the father and he will 42:42 give you. What is that? another helper which is the Holy Spirit that he may be with you forever because he know that Jesus physically can't be with us 42:59 forever. So he's going to ask the father if he has to ask something for his followers. He's asking that the helper. Why? Verse 17. That is the spirit of truth whom the 43:17 world cannot receive? Because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. So 43:34 the inward filling of the Holy Spirit I without that it is my honest testimony I cannot meet not even a single one of these requirement I cannot without being filled with the power of the Holy 43:51 Spirit. Um I I I never been to any Pentecostal church. I don't know much about the Holy Spirit. But what I learned from the teacher whom I follow, brother Zach, is he constantly speaks about being filled with the Holy Spirit. 44:07 You know where did he get that inspiration from? If you haven't heard, it is from his own wife. Sister Annie was the one who filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the dis um kind of uh discouragement and all that. 44:24 So he was uh fired up to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit by seeing uh sister Annie's life. Um this morning you know there are many mothers uh here and uh I have a godly mother uh who 44:41 raised us after my dad. So I have I'm praying for including my own wife uh and others. What can I pray? The Lord laid this burden. Pray for them to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. That's one. The second is being them 45:00 anointed by the power of the Holy Spirit. The life if we filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can have the life. If you have the anointing of the power of the Holy Spirit, we can speak even the few utterances, few words 45:13 we speak with our children and the discouraged people whom we encounter in our life could be co-workers uh wherever. So that's a burden I have it. The other one is about the prayer. Um prayer is like you know brother Josh 45:31 also addressed uh when we uh are quietly praying um our minds wonder I am the uh one of that person I do deal with that but what I learned from my mother is like um she is the person who prays 45:49 early morning loudly we don't have our own bedrooms rising up so we all used to live uh sleep in one big hall uh in our home. My mom wakes up in the morning and uh her loud prayers uh make me and my brother wake up and kneel down next to 46:07 her. So that's what Jesus did it too. He went into the wilderness and with loud cries he prayed. So thank you so much for the encouragement, brother Josh. Thank you, Josh, for sharing. I was 46:31 really challenged by that second point, uh, praying in the wrong name. And I was reminded of of of a signature. For those who send emails for work or if you've ever sent a physical letter, at the end of what you write, you have to add 46:43 something called a signature. It shows who wrote that, who it's coming from. So I was thinking in this case when I'm praying to God it's like I'm writing a letter or writing an email to him and at the end whose name is there naturally it 46:56 would seem to be my name right here's me I'm I have all these requests I have all these things I want to ask from Daniel but I think what God is challenging us to do is am I praying in the name of Jesus can I end that email can I end 47:09 that uh that letter with Jesus's name that wouldn't work if it's my request if it's the things I want and then I just put Jesus's name at the end. That wouldn't work. Like imagine, could Jesus have actually sat there and write 47:22 written that email? Would Jesus have written out that letter with the things I want? Or have I come to that point where everything I want is exactly what Jesus would want where it works to put his name there? That's the challenge I 47:35 think for me when I pray, am I truly praying what Jesus would pray for me? Could Jesus say, "This is what I want to pray to my father for for Daniel." Uh, Daniel wants to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, I'll put my name there. 47:49 This is Jesus speaking. Of course, I'll put my name there because I know that's what my father wants. Oh, Daniel just wants this really nice car. I don't think I could put my name there because that's what Daniel wants. That's not 47:59 what I want. So, that that thought challenged me. Whatever I pray, it's like a letter to God. Could I say this in the words of Jesus? Could I truly sign this as Jesus saying, "This is Jesus speaking to God for me. This is 48:12 Jesus interceding on my behalf. or is it only something that I could put my name on, not something that Jesus could put his name on. So, I hope that challenges all of us. Are my prayers something I can really say and sign with Jesus's 48:25 name. Thank you, Josh. Um, and also in John chapter 14, I think it's important to remember as Josh said, this is not a checklist of, you know, he started out with the story of Aladdin, this fable of you have 48:45 this bottle and you rub it and you have this means by where you can get what you want. And this is not at all a way that we can get what we want. It's about what he wants. And if you if you read John 14 carefully as Joshua was going through 49:00 there, we can see what what does God want? And one thing that stood out to me, God wants us. God wants us. It if you look in John 14, I'll just go briefly some of the the one thing that I see repeated here, what God wants, his 49:16 heart, his desire. John 14:3, he says, "If I go and prepare a place, I'll come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, you can be also." His burden is that he could be with us and that we could be with him, that we'd have 49:32 fellowship. In verse 16, he says, "I will give you the helper that he may be with you forever." In verse 17, that he will abide in you and be with you and in you. He will not leave you. verse 18 verse 19 that you will behold me because I live you will 49:52 live also. In verse 20 I will be in you and you will be in me. Verse 23 we will come to so if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him. the the heart 50:08 of Jesus, the heart of God, is that we would be with him, that we could abide with each other, that we he will be in us, we in him, we will fully rest in him and have that fellowship. And all these things on this list, we can each one of 50:24 these could have been a message and Josh did a good job of covering all of them, but each one of these, the goal is not to check these off so we can rub that bottle the right way to get what we want. If that's our attitude, then it's not going to go well 50:39 for us. But if our attitude is, Lord, I have unbelief. Lord, I am coming in my own name. I coming to you because I think I'm I did a I had a good week, so I can pray and you'll answer me, right? I rub the bottle the right way and 50:51 you'll come out and do what I say. And unforgiveness to put away to forgive. I I don't think I've ever been to a prayer meeting. We've all been to prayer meetings at different times. I don't remember ever being to one where 51:03 the first thing that they say is let's make sure we have no unforgiveness toward anybody in the universe. I don't remember coming to one. But I saw as Josh pointed out in Mark 11, he says when you stand praying, forgive. That's 51:15 the first requirement. Just forgive. Forgive. And that each one of these ties back to fellowship. And of course, selfishness. Don't not really even asking. not not coming to our father and asking like a a needy child and coming 51:30 in selfishness or pride or not caring for others and and then if we do come and don't get our way it's that resigning okay Lord you your will be done and in John 14 again the goal and I think if we have this in mind verse 13 and whatever you 51:48 ask in my name that I will do that the father may be glorified in the son it's about him but we see his heart throughout this passage. I I can't once you see certain things, you can't unsee them. And I can't unsee the heart of 52:00 Jesus is that he wants us. And God wants us. That's part of why he sent Jesus to die for us. Yes. To take away our sins. Yes. To forgive us and save us and to bear the wrath of God in our place, but also for fellowship from there. It's not 52:13 just a ticket to have our sins washed away and get to heaven. It's a fellowship day in and day out that he wants with us. His burden is that he would be with us. And I'm so thankful for that. And one last passage in is in 52:25 uh Psalm 66. Um there's a passage here that encourages me because you you could look at these maybe you're get overwhelmed or discouraged by what you might see in your heart and failing in all these ways. But in Psalm 66, I love this passage in verse 16. He 52:44 says, "Come and hear all who fear God and I will tell you what he has done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth and he was extolled with my tongue. So he's praising God and he's cried to to God. And here's the verse 18. If I 53:00 regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear. If I have any of these things in my heart, the Lord will not hear. But certainly verse 19, God has heard. He has given here heed to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God who 53:13 has not turned away my prayer nor his loving kindness from me. It is a life that we can live. We can live this life where we come and ask in Jesus name and we receive according to his will that the father may be glorified in in the 53:25 son. This is not some thing for a PhD level Christian or maybe when we're 80 we'll get there. This is today we can we can put away all these things. We can turn as the Lord has shown us whatever we need to repent of. This can be our 53:37 testimony that certainly God has heard and he has given heed to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God who has not turned away my prayer nor his loving kindness from me. We have such a good father and we he is so good and so 53:49 faithful and let us not be discouraged. Let us come to him whatever he speaks to us today from this message and he will welcome us and he loves us. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for your word that causes us to hope. Lord, thank 54:00 you as much wretchedness as we may see in our hearts and as much as we fall short. Lord, thank you that we can come through the blood of Jesus. Thank you for the cleansing blood of Jesus, Lord, that can cleanse us, the righteousness 54:13 of Jesus Christ that we're your children and we can come to you as needy, helpless children. If we do not humble ourselves like a little child, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Lord, help us to become like children that 54:24 come to you not in our own name, not in unbelief or unforgiveness or any of these things, Lord, but to come needy, weak, and that you would come, Lord. And you love us. Thank you for all your love, Lord. Thank you for your goodness. 54:37 Please speak to us again, Lord, and bless our time of fellowship. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.
