Like a forest fire, you get it going, you can’t stop it. We’ve been talking about these five goals, the five goals are taken from Do we still have that will illustration. We can flash up there, the will illustrations navigator will let me know when it’s up there. If it gets up there, I forgot to tell him, I want to use it this week. Anyway, if you had a wheel, and you know the dynamics of a wheel, you have this wheel, and this is the hub of the wheel. And that’s the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You start there, then you have a relationship, you have two relationships. One is horizontal, one is vertical. The horizontal, the vertical relationships has to do with our relationship with God. That would be the foundational one is what we talked about last week, God’s word and prayer, which we’ll talk about this week. Those are the vertical spokes, then you have horizontal spokes, you have fellowship, which is what you were just doing and what we do in small groups. And when we get together and go to breakfast, and do all the things we do play golf, that’s fellowship. And then we have, give it away. We have witnessing evangelism, the Great Commission, we’ll talk about that. Now the thing that makes it all run is the realm of the will. That’s what that’s where the rubber meets the road. And the rubber meets the road in obedience to all of these things, becoming a man of prayer. Is it up there? becoming a man of prayer, becoming a man of the word and having if you’re going to have a relationship with Jesus, that’s what you got to do. And you just have to decide how close you want to get. Then that horizontal relationship, and we have a big challenge there, and we’ll talk about that next week about fellowship. And why men need men and what fellowship is how God uses it in our lives. But if we’re going to grow in the Christian life, those are all the elemental aspects, the foundational things that we have to do and be growing in. We like to ask as a question, which one of those Do you think your strongest sin typically will hear fellowship? The least is prayer. And we’re going to talk about that today. First Timothy two eight says, Therefore I want men in every place to pray. Well, you know, when I came to Christ, and well, when I was a kid, going to church in the Southern Baptist Church, the thing that I hated most about going to Sunday school as a young man, was that they would have this habit of randomly asking someone to pray. And it scared the bejesus out of all of us. Until we learn the road prayer that everybody prayed. God, we thank you for the day, we thank you for our church, we thank you for all our missionaries, we pray to help us get something out of today and bless the teacher. Amen. And that’s what everybody prayed every week. So you didn’t have to be so afraid, because we learned the rote prayer to pray. But if someone asked me to pray, and just an open forum, then I would have been up the creek because I really didn’t have a prayer life. And then I came to Christ, I truly came to Christ. And even then I struggled. information about me, they asked him to share something that he could share about me that might help me and be a better leader or whatever. And so he’s he put them off and said, I can’t really think of anything. And then they pressed him further. And he says, Well, if I had to think of one thing I wish you to showed up at the prayer meeting. And why would that be why men afraid of being in God’s presence? Well, if you if your mom and dad lay down the law, and this is what you can do and what you can’t do, this is your curfew. This is a friends you can hang out with. These are the places you can go, this is the way you have to dress, bah, bah bah. And you’re violating those. You avoid them. You avoid your parents the best you can, because you’re not keeping the rules. And that was found that was my problem. I avoided God because I wasn’t keeping the rules. Now, my theology was still growing, and I was still trying to figure out say, by grace through faith, I believed I was saved by grace through faith, not a result of work, so no man can boast about it. I want man in every place in every church and every place of leadership in the home in the church, it business on the road, get Jesus on the scoreboard on your heart, pray about everything, pray without ceasing. There’s another guy that I talked to once I’d done a man of God talk at a retreat up near Sacramento. And on Saturday night, I did a man of God talk and it’s just full of grace, how amazing grace is. And that’s unmerited favor given toward one who doesn’t deserve it by one who didn’t have to give it. It’s amazing that God gave us his grace. And we’re saved by grace. Because if it was no grace, we would have to work and earn it and be worthy of it. And we can’t do that. So God gave us what he called grace. unmerited favor, gave it to us anyway, but God demonstrates His love toward us. And while we were still sinners, Christ died for us not when we got through sin and not when we cleaned our life up. Because I can’t go and clean my life up, I tried clean, everybody tried cleaning your life up. And you just get desperate and frustrated and you can’t. You can resist, resist, fall, fall, fall, resist, resist, fall, fall resist. And that’s our battle against sin. And so men have a struggle with praying. Because if you’re on a works based system, if you’re feeling guilty and ashamed all the time, you’re not going to want to get in God’s presence. If the code says run your laps, and you don’t want to run the laps, you want to avoid him. If you’ve broken curfew and he finds out about it, you’re going to avoid him with all you can. In the same thing with God with us guys, if we’re not men of grace, instead of man of works. We’re going to avoid the prayer meeting. We’re going to avoid getting in his presence. We’re going to tell people I can’t journal. I can’t memorize. I can’t get in the word. I’m not disciplined enough. I’m too lazy and we accept it in ourselves that we’re lazy. But really what the Kuru root problem is, is we’re uncomfortable with God. We’re uncomfortable on spiritual turf. We’re uncomfortable in Bible studies. We’re uncomfortable in small groups. We’re uncomfortable being around other guys. Because if they really knew what I was really like, they wouldn’t accept me, they wouldn’t love me they wouldn’t approve of me. It weren’t gets it becomes a problem in the marriage too. Because we won’t be transparent, we won’t be open with our wives. And there are some things our wives don’t need to know. But then there are other things we need to be open and communicative within. We need to share with them and they need to know our heart. And that’s why I pray in with your wife is so important. Because when you’re praying, she can hear your heart. And when you’re praying, she gets to know you better. And when you’re praying, she can hear your real heart, which we have a hard time expressing sometimes when we’re just talking and communicating. But when we bring God into the Holy Spirit into the conversation, it changes things. And it can make you more intimate with your wife or anybody else in your life that you pray with there are far so if we’re going to struggle with our relationship with God, and we are it’s gonna hinder our prayer life. It’s going to hinder our time and the word because the word rebukes and corrects. And we don’t like to be rebuked and correct, corrected. And so when we read God’s word, that’s what happens and that’s what it does. God wants to man to be spiritual leaders see what he says I want man in every place with holy hands lifted up to God, free of anger and dissension, disputing controversy quarreling in doubt. Nepal’s writing Timothy and Timothy is about to take over the churches and the churches are struggling. Churches are bloody battlefields spiritually. Their church arguments church splits, people can’t get along. People insidiously preoccupied with their way their self. They feeling self righteous about being right. treating other people less than brothers and sisters. Getting resentment banks. happens in church, having with elders hand with a consent for pastors happens with people in the church happens when they want to change the carpet in the church, or where they’re going to get pews or chairs. Important things things that really matter. Where you have a cross or not up there, while you some people go to war over that, and some people go over not having one. What kind of music you’re going to do when that guy’s throwing up a lot of churches? Can we raise our hands or not? Is that going to get us in trouble? What if I speak in tongues? how we handle that neck can be very divisive. The devil always plants a outhouse next to every Cathedral, God God bills. More than one actually. He salts the whole congregation with his people. And they are the best way that I’ve found to help that you’re never gonna stop it. But you can help it is to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. treats a truth. If you preach the truth, the people that are Devil’s minions, useful idiots, we call them as what Stalin call people that help the communist cause but they weren’t communists. They just went along to get along and he called them useful idiots. And so those things are planted throughout the church and they cause trouble in ruckus, and they’re irreconcilable. It’s hard to make peace with them. It’s their way or the highway. They gossip they slander and they were having all those troubles. I got a list of things they were having. They’re in First Timothy two eight from anger and dissension and disputing and controversy. I looked those up it means strong feelings of displeasure and antagonistic feelings of opposition. dissension is contentious, likely to cause disagreements, disputing to argue irritably to debate? controversy arguing because of opposing views, quarreling verbal conflict between antagonists doubt to call into question the truth, to lack confidence in they were struggling with all those things in the church. Paul’s first admonition was hold up holy hands that God has called you His men to be holy to be the leaders in church in the the leader in home. And we always put an agitate before leader when we’re talking about spiritual leadership and that is that word spiritual servant leadership, laying your life down, do sacrificing for the good of others, bearing up and conflict in tension and problems in trials. God’s called us to be those kind of leaders like himself, who emptied himself and took the form of a bondservant. And made it was made in the likeness of a man that didn’t regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself even to the point of death on a cross. That’s a hard thing to be schooled in worldly leadership and then to transfer over to spiritual leadership. And so a lead doesn’t happen in a lot of churches. You still get a lot of worldly leaders leading us trying to lead a spiritual church, and it crashes and burns eventually, some quicker than others. But you can operate on the world’s ways and complex God’s purpose in will. You have to operate by faith. You have to be able to see bad faith in the in balance grace in truth, because I can have grace and give you a lot of grace. But if I give you a lot and a lot more grace, you just run over me go there’s no truth. But if all I give you is truth, true truth. I’m holding the line I’m making you keep your the rules. legalistic we might call it. The new people run away from you. The thing that draws people is what Jesus had he came full of grace and truth. He says in john one. He had a balance between grace and truth. And I love the way they depict him in the series that chosen because when he was going to heal the level of the crippled man who would couldn’t get in the pool of Salaam he says, do you want to be healed? Well, there’s no one to take me I didn’t ask you that. Do you want to be healed? So he was great to give him grace, but he wanted the truth. Still me you want to be healed? And so he finally said yes. And Jesus healed in there. He didn’t have to go on the pool. Jesus healed him. That’s a wonderful scene. It’s It’s It’s wonderful to see the depiction of Mary at the woman at the whale when she was delivered. Mary when God God casts a demon down the crippled man at the pool, this alone, the leper that He cleansed. We’re all lepers and crippled in our own way. We’re all, no one there to help us to get into the pool. whatever they’re saying, you need to do better you need to and we all know we keep record on our sins. Jesus keeps no record on our stance says that first Corinthians 13. His love is a love that keeps no records of wrongs done. He doesn’t have resentment, bank, your name on it. We talked about that a few weeks ago on forgiveness. Any fool can claim his rights and any game and I’ll make sure it gets some. I want man in every place with holy hands lifted up now he’s not talking about a posture for prayer because he’s not saying if you’re going to prayer, we pray with holy hands, you have to lift your hands up. That’s okay if you do that. And there is a scripture in Psalm 63 that talks about lifting up your hands to worship Him. And it is a sign of worship and respect. We can bow down in prayer and in humility and bowing before King. You can lay on your face you can pray with your eyes open you there’s no particular way God said when he said Pray without ceasing. He didn’t tell us what physical posture to get in. It’s a hard issue. It’s connecting with God in our spirit and our soul in our heart. And that’s what God wants. He wants a relationship with you and me, believe it or not, he wants an intimate, personal abiding relationship with you. Me, why me? If he if Pete if you knew what I was like, if you knew what I’d done, you know why I’m reticent to tell you and be transparent with you and the rest of these guys. But God brings us into the plateau of grace and peace, transparency, honesty, truth. When we come to know Jesus Christ, he puts all his that sin of mine behind him brass, sand, present sand and future sand. He chooses not to remember it and that’s what we can do in gray stone. to each other, we can choose not to remember your past sins. Because our tendency as human beings is to label people. And so once they’ve fallen, they can never get up again, they can never outlive that reputation. Take pastors who fall in the pulpit, Morley, they have an affair, they are hooked on pornography, they’re having whatever issue they’re having. They may or may not step down, and oftentimes they have to step down. But there are some that aren’t that repentant. They want to beat the rap, they want to dictate the terms of their own restoration. It’s hard to deal with those guys. But there are others that are broken and repentant. And David said, after his murder and adultery when he came into God’s presence, he said, a broken and contrite hearts, you’ll never cast out. The sand that God’s always going to hear, for sure is a repentant sin. If my people would want to humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways in you’ll enjoy all the riches of heaven, all the riches of this Christian life, but don’t enjoy them to for Jesus to be lifted up and get it and he said, and therefore he exalted him and gave him a name, which is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. What did Jesus have to do? He went to the seminary and he said, Father, if there’s any way I don’t have to drink this cup, let it pass from me three times. And every time he had God’s had to say, No, you have to drink it to the dregs. He didn’t want to drink it in his humanity, who would want to go what he knew he was fixing to go through, who would want to not just not be beaten and scoffed at and spit on and humiliated And for you, and I took some joy, the riches of the kingdom of God, all the fruit of the Spirit, all the blessings, all the peace, all the grace, all the gentleness, all the kindness, all the goodness, all the self control, all the fellowship, the love, for us to enjoy those things we have to humble ourselves. We’ve got to pay a price. What do you want, I want peace, what price you pay, willing to pay to have it. And not all prayer groups or groups you want to be in. But there are prayer groups or groups you want to be in. And I’d like to think that the ones we have are one you’d want to be in if you want to learn to pray. If you want to get to a place where you hear a man’s heart and the beauty of and that’s where fellowship flows out of. It’s like I tell you, if you do a prayer, hug with your wife, people who prayer hug with their wife, their marriages do better. 32nd or less prayer. God, thank you for this woman. Thank you, you bless me with her. I pray a blessing over her as her husband. I pray that she would sense your presence and you would meet every need of her heart, amen. Now, if you put your arms around your wife and prayed that you think you’d have a worse marriage or you think you’d have a better marriage, the better marriage comes when you do those kinds of things. They don’t just come left to yourself, you’re going to self destruct. So we have to bring him into every every relationship, every circumstance, we pray without ceasing. But if you’re going to pray you got to get past this thing of guilt and shame. With the Lord. Because Do you do things that are gonna make you guilty? Yeah. And you’re always afraid of punishment. You’re afraid of being neglected, not neglected, but unaccepted. rebuked, humiliated, embarrassed, scolded. And then that shame comes in in shame produces in you a sense of abandonment, a fear of abandonment, when you’re afraid that God’s going to leave you that your wife’s going to leave you that your boss will fire you that your coach won’t play you. In so you’re afraid of abandonment, because some of us have been abandoned. We know what abandonment is, we’d been left without dads, we’ve been left without wives, we’ve been left without money, our physical health, we’ve been abandoned, you feel like you’ve been abandoned that he doesn’t care anymore. They don’t care anymore. And we do abandon each other. That’s one of the things that’s that’s what divorce is all about. It’s abandoning each other, someone’s abandoning the other. Sometimes it’s mutual, most times it’s not. And so we have a fear of that. And what we do is we put that fear on God as if God’s gonna abandon us. And God’s got the whole Bible full of scripture that says, I’ll never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you. No matter what you do, no matter how far you run in the wrong direction. No matter how many sins you commit, I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you your mind, I called you to myself. That settles it. Now if you really believe that you can get rid of your guilt and your shame and you get rid of it in that cleansing verse, first, john, one nine. If you’ll confess your sin, you have to do that repentance, you have to refit, confess your sin. That’s what David did in Psalm 51. against the the alone have I sinned and done what’s evil in your sight? I know my sin, it’s ever before me. And I bring it to you. So you’re right. When you judge me, and you’re right, when you punish me and correct me. You have to come to that place in your life where you are getting cleansed on a regular basis in the old country preacher said that some issue doesn’t. Don’t wait till the night to try to think of all the sin you committed when you come here a second of thought, this girl walked by and those things were today. And you just your eyes weren’t bouncing, they were focused. You were riveted. And the Lord just checked you. And when the Lord checks, the Holy Spirit checks, you just go, wow. Am I ever going to get over this? I had a friend that went to see his mentor. his mentor was a godly man. And he was dying in the hospital. And he was praying with the guy says, How can I pray for you? He says, pray that I’ll quit trying to look down my nurses dress. Any thought Will I ever get over this? There are some things that we’re going to have pray that I won’t won’t that BonBon that won’t. That candy bar, that coconut cream pie that I’ve been gobbling lately. Could be anything that is not good for us. But the truth of the matter is, the Lord says you can just run as hard as you want to run, let that product Go, go. Let him go let him run as hard and far as he wants to go and spend all his money on while living. And the father was always there. father didn’t judge him. He didn’t rebuke him. He didn’t criticize him. He didn’t try to fix him. He just let him go because he had to suffer the consequences of his sin. And when he suffered the consequences of sin, and his dad was praying for him, he came to his senses. And he says, What am I doing? What am I thinking? Here I am I’m working for a Gentile pig farmer. Which is not such a Jew wants to be doing an employment. I’m hungry. I’m looking at what the pigs are eating and thinking that’s looking good these days. And my father has a bunk house back there and all his heart helps it live in the bunkhouse. He feeds them three times a day he takes care of them. And here I am out here. What kind of fool Am I you have to come to that place in your life. If you’re going to enter into prayer, if you’re going to have a prayer life and if you’re not entering into prayer and having a prayer life, you’re going to have a worthless Christian life. You’re gonna you’re going to hurt the cause more and you’re helping the cause you’ll be carnal worldly, and we’ve given ourselves permission to do that I mentioned last week we’ve given ourselves permission to be carnivores. Only Christians, and there’s no concept of that in the Bible. We’ve given our permit itself permission to drink too much. Yes, we can drink his Bible and say you can drink alcohol, but there’s going to be a point in time where you drink too much. Maybe not. But probably. So controlling their appetites is something that we have to work at. We have to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, whatever freedoms you think you have. And we give ourselves freedoms that the scripture doesn’t give us. So those things we have to come to first john one nine, and confess our sin. And then we’re still on praying ground, we’re still have an open communication with the Lord. If you will confess your sin, I will be faithful. Faithful means I’ll never not do this, I will be faithful and I’ll be righteous, the righteous thing to do and I am righteous I am God. And the righteous thing to do is forgive those who come and repent. And it’s a terrible thing when someone has sinned against you. And they come and ask forgiveness and you don’t give it to them. All you’re saying is the unforgiving heart is an unforgiving heart. So if you’re not willing to, you’ve been forgiven by God, and he’s erased all your sin, and he’s put it far behind him as he is in the West, and he died while you were still a sinner, not when you cleaned yourself up. Then how dare you not forgive another person who’s repentant. Now, if they’re not repentant, you forgive them anyway, because you don’t need to carry that around. But Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, when he was teaching about the Lord’s Prayer, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. But if you don’t forgive them, then you’re not going to be forgiven. That’s sobering verse. But that’s what we find in prayer, we find forgiveness and peace. And we want to walk away to that plateau of freedom in truth. Jesus says, I came to set this captives free, free to do what free to have a relationship with me. And then we do that in prayer. We do that in talking to him bring in everything before him. But we all do it in a structured way. And the structure is not my will, but your will be done. We prayed and we prayed and prayed, granddaddy and grandmother still died. Why did we keep praying 1000s of people were praying, and she still died. And it was because of God’s will, sweetie, God was calling her home, it was her time. And we have to just accept that. And we’ll see her again. And that’s what we can rejoice in. And that’s our hope. We’ll see her again. But God knows best and God is good. And in as bad as this feels. And as much losses were suffering. It’s a good thing, because my God is good. And my God is sovereign. He learned that in his presence, he learned that he doesn’t keep score on your sins in this presence when you’re confessing sin and he forgives your sin. And he never brings it up again. You can sin in the morning. And then he asked forgiveness, he forgives you. You can repent. You can send the same sin in the afternoon and you go the Lord and say, Lord, I did it again. He said that was that Santa committed this morning and God straight with you. I did it again. The devil will come along at that point and say God doesn’t want to hear that he knows you’re just gonna keep doing it. Why are you wasting your time going to confess it. And that’s a lie from the pit of hell. If you confess your sin, all your sin, anytime you sin, I will forgive if you’re repentant, and broken, and he knows your heart and He knows my heart. And if I’m going to confess my sin, He knows if I’m repentant or not, and I’m broken over that sin. And I don’t really think many guys are going to go to him in that, in that condition unless you’re repentant and broken. If you’re not repentant and broken. You’re justifying and rationalizing your sin instead of confessing it and being repentant over it. And so you go to him and he says, what, Sam? And you say, you know, the one I committed this morning? I don’t remember that. What do you do? What do you do this morning? And I’m sitting there gas and I’m just going What do you mean your God? He says, I choose not to remember it. Did you repent? Yes. Did you ask my forgiveness? Yes, sir. Don’t you believe I forgave you? Will you receive His forgiveness for your sin? Would you clean up your heart so that you can enter his presence with holy hands lifted up. That’s all you need to do. holy hands are coming from holy living. And holy living is confessing your sin when you when you sin, and God will forgive your sin and invite you into His presence even closer. That’s the battle that we face every day. And if you’re not a man of prayer today, if you say, Well, what are you strongest? And well, I know, I don’t know what I’m strongly saying, but I know what I’m worst in prayer. That may be the reason it probably is, oh, you can be lazy, you can be a guy. That’s pretty good guy. You live a pretty good life and your galus like Nathaniel. But you’re lazy. You’re not willing to do homework, you’re not willing to get up earlier, to spend time in the word. You don’t have a real hunger for God’s word, because you’re not in it. The way you get a hunger for God’s word is getting in it. You don’t wait to get hungry, you get in it and become hungry. You don’t wait to see if that pies good. You taste it and see that it’s good. And Scripture says that about God taste and see that he is good. So sometimes it can be we’re just lazy. But look what we’re missing out on. If you really believe that prayer works in prayer does. And there are people that have been prayed for and they live. And they fail for prayer. They knew people were praying and they were healed. And God loves to heal. He loves to lift up. And he does it all the time. But he doesn’t always heal. Sometimes he lets us die. It’s our time. We got to die sooner or later. And some of the people that have been that strongest Oh, nutrition and all this stuff, die cancer. That’s just life just the way it is. And we have to accept whatever God puts in and whatever God takes out. And then that’s where the peace is. That’s where you know, that when God loves you, he has your best interest in mind and everything he does, he’s able to work all things together for good if you’re been called in, if you’re a believer today you have been called if you’ve been called. And what’s the rest of that verse. All things work together for good for those who have been called in according to His purpose. God has a purpose, and you’ve been called according to His purpose, and he’s going to make sure that purpose is accomplished in you and through you. Whatever it is, we know what the big purpose is. It’s a great commission. But you have a place to fit. You have gifts, you have a location, you have a geography. People ask me, you’re going back to Alabama. They asked me that I knew you moving back and I said, I don’t call that it’s not my call. Lordships says it’s his call. He’s my commanding officer unless he cuts me orders and calls me away. I don’t go anywhere I’m put. But when he calls me I have to be ready to go. I want to finish off with this one. Scripture. It’s in Colossians. One. Because this is how if you want to pray for someone this if you want to pray for me, this is what I want you to pray. In. When you hear this, this is what you want me to pray for you. For this reason, also since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray. This is intercessory prayer. This is praying for others This was interceding between that person and God and we’re asking God to do things like we just prayed this morning for Cindy Sree. We’re interceding for her that God would heal her body that the doctors would find out exactly what’s going on because they didn’t don’t know right now. Hopefully they do right now because we pray. But we have not ceased to pray for you so that you may be now here’s why we’re praying for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will. Now, filled with the knowledge of his will means that you’ve been in His Word. Because that way, the only way you know for sure you’re praying according to God’s will is you’re praying according to God’s word. And that’s the reason the word is so important in our lives, it’s knowledge. And that’s what we want. We want knowledge of his will what’s God want? What would God do? What did they put in that colloquial term? What would Jesus do? How would he respond? So I want you to be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding now he could have said with all wisdom and understanding that he qualified it he didn’t say it couldn’t be our worldly wisdom. But he said, I want you to be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom. Now, Bill gothard years ago defined wisdom is Seeing life from God’s point of view, understanding God understanding his will, understanding his heart. And you get that in the word in prayer. And then a divine understanding is learning how to respond in any situation the way Jesus would respond. That’s true understanding. You’re slapped on one cheek, what do you do? You turn the other, you’re accused falsely, what do you do? You bear up under, you’re forced to go one mile you volunteer to go to. So you know the knowledge of his will. And then you have the wisdom and the understanding, to know how to respond through the Holy Spirit in any situation. It’s not a bad thing to be prayed for. Why so you’re walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, if you’re not doing these things, you cannot be walking in a manner worthy of the Lord. What does that mean worthy, that means that you have the privilege to honor him. And if you’re a Christian, that people are going to judge how Jesus Christ is based on how you are, if you claim to be a Christian. So when they criticize you, or make fun of you, or mock you, or do everything that they did to him, what do you do? How do you respond? And don’t be too quick to try to explain yourself or defend yourself or vindicate yourself. When he was reviled, he reviled not and when he suffered, he uttered no threats. There’s a time to do be that, to do that. And then there’s a time to give a testimony. Are you the Son of God? Are you the King of Kings? Are you the King of the Jews? Yes, I am. And you’ll see the Son of Man coming with his angels from heaven, that got him in trouble. So I would, would you like to see me walking in a manner worthy the Lord and pray that I’ll be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and understanding it to please Him, in all respects, bearing fruit and every good work that you do, you’re not wasting your time, you’re not shadowbox and you’re hitting the target every time you’re bearing fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of change lives, the things that happen when the Holy Spirit is using you and moving in you and through you, speaking through you, and increasing in the knowledge of God. I want to see you increase in your understanding and wisdom and knowledge of who God is. Because if you’re not praying, I can only come to the conclusion that you don’t really have a healthy concept of God. So I’m going to pray that you will be strengthened in your knowledge of God and strengthened with all power according to His glorious mind. And so I can pray this, that you would be strengthened because he’s powerful, and he has a mighty God, and He can do this. I love playing golf with Lee mash off. I’ll be fixing up but he’ll go you can do this. I don’t but he’s because he’s powerful and mighty and he can make that happen. That you will be strengthened with all power according to His glorious mind for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience. That’s character. That’s Christian character. Your steadfast You’re not going anywhere. You’re not leaving your post. You’re sticking there. And patience. You are a patient impatient guy. In the one you need them, be the most patient with is yourself. That you will be attaining all steadfastness and patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father. He didn’t just say giving thanks, joyously giving thanks. And when you’ve been forgiven, and you’ve confessed your sin, and he’s cleanse you of all unrighteousness, joyously give thanks, I’m clean, I’m forgiven. I can go on now. I can walk with him today. I don’t have to ruin my whole day because I sinned in the morning, I can confess it. And Will’s in the he’ll put his arm around me say we got work to do but and God doesn’t have a trashy who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the sons of life. One day, there’ll be an inheritance and you’ll inherit heaven, and all the joys and all the power and all the wonderful things and having so you’re going to share and heritance of the saints of light the saints of light. That means heaven as opposed to darkness. Some people are going to spend eternity in darkness. But if you get to spend eternity in the light, had say that something to be pretty joyful about. And so if you don’t have the joy the Lord right now, then just start thinking about I’m going to get to go to heaven, no matter Why I’m saved, I’m forgiven. That’s never going to change. I’m going to heaven. Hallelujah. Amen. So guys, God wants us to become in a prayer and we’re going to stay after it. Amen. We’re not going to give up, we’re going to be guys that are going to be resolute. And if I’ve, if you’ve been lazy, quit being lazy. Do whatever you have to do to find a prayer meeting, journal, read your Bible and pray it back to God. If that’s all you can do is pray it back to God. Now you we all know about foxhole prayers, oh, I just got the word, I got cancer. Let’s go to prayer. Go to prayer way before that. Because when the cancer comes, or whatever that print trial is, whatever that loss is, you need to be prepared now, not later for you practice for the game, you’re playing Saturday, all week long, you prepare. And then there’s a game. You prepare for trials and loss and difficulties to come. And then when they come, you’re ready to live a life worthy of the gospel worthy of Jesus Christ, worthy to be called his son, his servant, his friend. So let’s pray. Since we’ve been talking about it so much, Father, we’re banging our heads before you today because you’ve invited us into your throne room. The God of this universe is called us to be his. I’m just praying for you. The God of this universe has called us to be here. You’ve called us in because you want us to enjoy all the things that we just got through reading about the wisdom, the understanding the knowledge of your will, being strengthened by your mind and your power. And that’s what we asked for. And Lord, that we want to enter into a relationship with you that blows our mind. It’s not natural, it’s supernatural. We want to see marriages healed and bodies healed. We want to see people come to know Jesus Christ. And we all do that through prayer. Prayer is not supporting the work. Prayer is the work. And so Lord, we come and we pray, help us to be men and prayer help us to seek your face and not your hands. And, Lord, we want to enjoy all the riches of your kingdom, all the riches of the spirit that you give us. And so Lord, I asked you to do all this for every guy in this room and everyone listening through streaming video or wherever they might hear this. Bless. Come open our hearts make us men and prayer in Jesus name And all God’s men said Hey, man, give them Heaven, guys. Thanks
Transcribed by https://otter.ai