Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Let's turn and remain standing, if
you're able to first John Chapter Three.
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First John Three. So I am
going to be preaching particularly from the first
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part of Verse Twenty Two, but
let me begin in Verse Sixteen and read
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through the end of the chapter.
By this we know love, that he
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laid down his life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives
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for the brothers. But if anyone
has the world's goods and sees his brother
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in need, yet closes his heart
against him, how does God's love abide
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in him? Little Children, let
us not love in word or talk,
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but indeed and in truth. By
this we shall know that we are of
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the truth and reassure our heart before
him. Whenever our heart condemns us.
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God is greater than our heart.
He know and he knows everything, beloved.
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If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God and
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whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do
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what pleases him. And this is
his commandment that we believe in the name
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of his son Jesus Christ, and
love one another, just as he has
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commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments
abides in God and God in him,
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and by this. We know that
he abides in us. I've a spirit
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whom he has given us. Praise
be to God. He may be seated.
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Well, I realized that I'm camping
out in first John Three right now.
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For those of you who have been
here a long time, you know
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that my pattern is negatively inconsistent,
positively varied. You take it, how
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are you like? Sometimes we go
fast, sometimes we go slow. Right
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now we're going slow, and I
was comforted this week by a quote I
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read in Augustine actually was a sermon
on this same passage. At the end
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of his sermon he writes this,
and I'm afraid the epistle itself will not
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be finished during these days, as
I promised, but as the Lord will
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it is much better to reserve the
remainder than to overload your hearts with too
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much food. So he basically stops
his sermon, which was kind of long
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and and and says maybe that's enough
for today. We'll pick it up next
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time. So good to know that
I'm in good company. At least I'd
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like to think so. Anyway,
what I want to do with you this
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morning is along the same lines as
Augustine. is to slow down, continue
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to slow down and think that deeply
about some of these things that John is
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saying. There's a rich, rich
food here, and today the particular thing
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I want to focus our attention on
from God's Word is is prayer, this
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verse that we read in Verse Twenty
Two, particularly the first part of it,
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and whatever we ask we receive from
him. If you want to understand
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more about that second clause, because
we keep his commandments and do what pleases
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him, you'll want to go back
and listen to last week's sermon where we
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talked about the marks of a Christian
and the things that God is is doing
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in us. But today this this
particular clause or statement, this doctrine,
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even whatever we ask we receive from
him. Now prayer is such a big,
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big topic we could never say everything
about it in one sermon, and
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I don't even think you could say
it in a whole book of sermons.
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Prayer is, after all, such
a basic, essential part of our faith.
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It touches on everything right. It
touches on everything that we do,
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every single aspect, every single aspect
of our relationship with God. It reflects
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our relationship with God, it infuses
everything. An old Italian hermit and religious
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writer the last century wrote this prayer
is the sum of our relationship with God.
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We are what we are what we
pray. The degree of our faith
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is the decrete degree of our prayer. Prayer sums up, it shows forth
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our relationship with God and in some
ways. But just because it's so basic
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to the Christian life doesn't necessarily mean
that we all do it very well or
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that we think about it correctly.
I'm imagine it's kind of like eating in
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that way. Eating is a very
basic and essential part of being a human
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being. We do it all the
time, we do it a lot.
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You might be thinking about eating right
now, but it doesn't necessarily mean that
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we think about it well. Just
because eating is a big part of our
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lives doesn't mean that we we do
it well. Right, it's natural to
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eat, we might say. Babies
put things in their mouths all the time,
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but does that mean they're doing it
well? The same goes for US
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adults. Right. How many of
us have perhaps been to the doctor and
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be told that even though you've been
eating every day multiple times since you are
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a child, you've been doing it
very poorly. Maybe you were told you're
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eating too much sugar or salt,
or you forgotten how delicious a cold salad
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is. It's similar with prayer.
Prayer is a very common part of the
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Christian life, we might even say
a natural part of the Christian life,
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but it's something that we can all
learn a know. It more about something
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that we can all grow in.
And this, by the way, all
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at is not a new problem.
If you find yourself struggling with prayer,
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remember that Jesus taught his own disciples
how to pray. The Lord's prayer is
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what we have because of that.
That's why we have the Lord's prayer,
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because they said how do we pray, and he says this is how you
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ought to pray. But remember also
that even though he taught them this prayer
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right, Jesus himself says pray in
this way, it doesn't necessarily mean that
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they mastered the lesson right, because
we know that the hour before Jesus is,
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Jesus was betrayed unto death. He
asked his disciples to stay awake,
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to watch and to pray. And
you remember what happened. Right as he
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wept, they slept, and maybe
you can see yourself in them. Maybe
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you've had also had or do have, even this morning, misunderstandings about prayer
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that need to be corrected. Maybe
you've had good intentions about prayer, but
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it failed to live up to them. Maybe the spirit is willing but the
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flesh is weak. It's not.
Maybe I know this is the case.
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It's truth for you and it's true
for me, it's true for all of
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us on this side of glory.
Jesus knew this about his disciples and he
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knows that about you too. In
fact, it was Jesus himself who said
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the spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak, as he addressed his
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disciples. And that's why, through
the Holy Spirit, Jesus puts his word
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before us in First John and in
many other places to teach us, to
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encourage us, to correct us,
to embolden us, and it's also why
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Jesus puts his Holy Spirit into us. You remember, Paul writes in Romans
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aid about the spirit that has been
given to us. We read a part
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of that chapter already and I want
to read more to you. Romans Eight,
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Twenty Six and twenty seven. Likewise, the spirit helps us in our
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weakness, for we do not know
what to pray for, as we ought
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but the spirit himself intercedes for us
with groanings too deep for words. And
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he who searches hearts knows what is
the mind of the spirit, because the
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spirit intercedes for the saints according to
the will of God. Pause for a
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moment here and remember how good the
salvation you have is, how good your
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salvation is in Christ, Jesus.
When Jesus comes to save US sinners,
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he does so in a way that
brings about a real change in us.
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The spirit, Paul says, as
we read earlier, is at war with
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the flesh, two things opposed to
one another. But guess who's going to
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win that war? Your flesh or
God's spirit? Of course God's spirit is
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going to win that war. He
has promised it, and so it happens.
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When Jesus saves us as sinners,
he does so in a way that
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brings about real change. He gives
us his Holy Spirit that lives in us,
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dwells in US and works directly on
our souls. He's like a computer
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programmer changing the code, or geneticists
changing modifying our DNA. The Holy Spirit
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is changing who you are. He
is fixing what is broken in you.
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He's making useful something that was once
harmful. He is overriding the sinful nature
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that you inherited in Adam and is
making you more and more into the likeness
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of the Sun. That's amazing.
So when it comes to prayer, we
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may struggle, yes, but God
has not left at all up to you
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to figure it out. Of course
we have a part in it. We
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are called to pray, we are
commanded to pray, but the ability to
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do those things does not come from
you working them up in yourself, but
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from God working his salvation into you. You may not feel able, but
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let me remind you that Jesus is
Hebrews seven hundred and twenty five, says
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he is able to save completely those
who come to God through him because he
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always lives to intercede for them.
Your prayer life, in other words,
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rests entirely on his resurrected life,
as Jesus is in the heavenly places interceding
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for you. What God has done, then, is to bring you into
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a relationship with him that is mediated
by the very son of God and empowered
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by the spirit of God. As
this relates to prayer, you might say
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that prayer is like a rope that
pulls God and man together, but it
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doesn't pull God down to us,
it pulls us up to him. That's
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a billy Graham quote. Brothers and
sisters, when we pray in our own
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name, in our own strength,
we enter into a fruitless, frustrating task.
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It will feel like your prayers are
blocked by a ceiling above you,
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that they are ineffective, that they
are pointless, and that's because they are.
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When you pray in your own name, when you pray according to your
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will and your strength, they are
as effectual as you are, which is
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not much. But when we enter, by faith in Jesus name, by
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the power of the spirit dwelling within
us, into the presence of God,
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into his will, communing with him, things change. Of course. He
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hears our prayers, we receive his
blessings and through this the gift of saving
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faith in us is increased and strength
and more and more and more and more
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and more. So with faith in
God, then, father, son and
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Holy Spirit. Let's hear this word
on prayer from first John Three twenty two,
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that we might enter into that blessedness
through prayer. And what does he
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say? He says, and whatever
we ask we receive. From him,
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and whatever we ask we receive from
him, or is Jesus famelessly says in
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Matthew Seven seven, ask and it
will be given to you, seek and
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you will find, knock and it
will be open to you, or if
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you will. Let's turn together to
Luke Chapter Eleven, and here more of
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this, one of the most important
passages in the Bible on prayer, is
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he or also one of the most
encouraging. Luke Chapter Eleven, beginning in
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verse five. This is right after
he teaches his disciples the Lord's prayer.
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Mark my place here in First John
so we can get back there easily.
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All Right, Luke Eleven, verse
five. And he said to them.
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Which of you who has a friend
will go to him at midnight and say
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to him, friend, lend me
three loaves, for a friend of mine
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has arrived on a journey and I
have nothing to set before him, and
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he will answer from within. Do
not bother me. The door is now
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shut. My children are with me
in bed. I cannot get up and
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give you anything. I tell you, though, he will not get up
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and give him anything, because he
is his friend. Yet because of his
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impudence, he will rise and give
him whatever he needs, and I tell
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you, ask and it will be
given to you. Seek and you will
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find, knock and it will be
open to you. For everyone who asks
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receives, and the one who seeks
finds, and the one who knocks it
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will be opened. What father among
you, if his son asks for a
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fish, will, instead of a
fish, give him a serpent, or
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if he asks for an egg,
will give him a Scorpion? If you,
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then, who are evil, know
how to give good gifts to your
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children, how much more will the
heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those
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who ask him? So? Jesus
says this amazing thing. God is your
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father. Ask Him for what you
need and he will give you what you
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need. Now, in light of
this, if you really want to see
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what Jesus is saving is from,
is saving us from, if you really
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want to see exactly how sinful the
human heart is, here's an easy way
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watch how you can take a promise
like this and whatever we ask we receive
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from him, put it into the
the fleshly machine of the human heart and
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watch it just sort of grind and
twist this promise up, spit it out
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on the other side and offer it
as a reason not to pray. What
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do I mean? Well, how
about this one? Well, if God
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is sovereign, prayer doesn't really matter. Why bother if he's going to do
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what he's going to do anyway,
let me ask you this, wicked little
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heart. If you really believed that
God was sovereign, King over all things,
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capable of making heaven and earth,
space and time to bend his will,
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would you really so easily disregard his
command to pray? Really, would
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you really disregard this promise to you, his offer to hear you as a
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father to his children? No,
you don't believe that he is sovereign.
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You believe that you are. You
believe that you are in control, not
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him, and that's why you don't
pray. Or here's another from the devil's
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playbook. I'm not going to bother
asking for things because I know he won't
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give them to me. Well,
why won't he give them to you?
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Do you think that God is a
liar? Is that what you're saying,
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that though he says he will,
he actually won't? Or let me ask
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this, how do you know that
he won't give them to you? Are
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You God? Maybe you know that
he won't give them to you because you
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know that the things you ask for
are wrong. Maybe it's not really about
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God's unwillingness, but it's about your
own sinfulness. Maybe you don't ask for
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things because you know you shouldn't have
them, like a child not asking for
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a fifth scoop of ice cream and
then being angry at their parents, who
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wouldn't give it to him if they
asked. We do this with God.
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There's things that we know we shouldn't
have and so we don't ask for them.
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But then we blame God instead of
our sinful hearts, for not really
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giving us the things that we don't
ask for. Like I said, it
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just a sort of mixed up,
confused thing. Instead of being thankful for
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God's teaching, we grumble against him, as though he were unwilling. Maybe
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why we don't ask has less to
do about God's will and more about our
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will. Or maybe it's because you
think what you ask is too small.
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The God is unconcerned with those things. You think that God doesn't care about
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small things. Maybe. Well,
we heard from Luke Eleven. Let's hear
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from Luke Twelve, where Jesus says
you can buy five sparrows for two pennies.
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He's basically saying sparrows are essentially worth
nothing. Right you can get a
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lot of them for very little.
Five sparrows for two pennies. And he
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goes on, he says, yet
not one of them is forgotten before God.
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Do you hear them right now?
Every single one of them? God
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knows. He's providing food for them, he's taking care of them. Why?
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Jesus says, even the hairs on
your head are numbered. Fear not,
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you are of more value than many
sparrows. God controls all the details
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in your life. Nothing and no
one is too small for God. I
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ask God to help me find my
car keys, and he answers that prayer
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a lot, unfortunately. I heard
it said of Charles spurgeon that he never
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prayed for more than five minutes,
but he never went more than five minutes
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without prayer. However much that's true, and I'm sure it is true at
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least in it's general sense of what
it means. It's true because spurgeon understood
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that you give everything to God,
you don't withhold parts of yourself up from
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him, you don't doubt him,
you don't not trust him, you don't
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stay away from him. All of
that is about you being in control and
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doubting him anyway. You see what
I mean about our hearts. Only the
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sinful human heart could take a promise
like this. Whatever you ask, you
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will receive from him. Twist it
up, walk away and then blame God.
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Even a dog wouldn't do that.
You put the promise of a treat
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before a dog, a bone or
a toy, and they will wiggle and
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they will squirm as long as it's
there. And here's one more. If
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you really want to see what your
priorities are, imagine how you might respond
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if, instead of God saying he
would give you whatever you ask, it
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was a new employer, let's say, asking what kind of perks you would
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like. Anything's on the table,
or a rich friend saying happy fifty birthday.
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This one's for you. Whatever you
want. It's yours. I mean
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it, whatever you want. What
would you do with that? Well,
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you'd probably start making lists. What
should I ask for? This is really
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exciting. You'd go tell other people
about it. Right, you wouldn't spend
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a single moment not pursuing those gifts. But yet, when it comes to
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God, who actually is infinitely wealthy, infinitely in control and promises to be
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a father who loves you. We
say, Oh, yeah, he probably
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doesn't mean it. God. Why
does this happen, this insane, sinful
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attitude towards our heavenly father? It
happens because, as Paul said, the
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flesh is opposed to spiritual things.
There at war with each other. Noticing
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that is half the battle, but
the other half is trust in God to
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actually change things. I hope you're
beginning to feel and to remember how weak
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your flesh is. It is weak, and that's why God gives us his
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spirit to put wind in the sails, to put fire in the engine,
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to change things. Do you want
a change of heart? Do you want
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to trust God more than you do? Then it's time to believe what he
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says, to simply admit your weakness
before your father, go to him and
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hit the strength that he's promised you
in the name of his son, by
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the power of his spirit, and
with that prayer, that position of faith
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underneath the God who speaks, then
were prepared to hear this promise, and
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whatever we ask we shall receive from
him. We understand it by standing under
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him, not by standing over him
and saying well, so how do we
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understand it? This phrase, this
promise, this doctrine, whatever we ask
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we shall receive from him. Well, of course it has to be qualified
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if we're going to understand it fully
incorrectly. Every true statement has qualifications.
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Take another verse from this chapter,
First John, three nine. The Sun
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appeared to destroy the works of the
devil. That's true, but we also
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have to understand that in light of
first Timothy One hundred and fifteen, which
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says that Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. We don't put those
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in opposition, right. We don't
say, well, he came to destroy
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the works of the devil but not
save sinners, or that he came to
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save sinners but not destroy the works
of the devil. Right, they go
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together and we understand what he's saying
more fully and more richly when we take
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them together. And this is true
always of God's word qualifications. That are
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not a bad thing, but we
can't qualify something in any way we want.
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In other words, we have to
understand every scripture in the light of
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every other scripture, letting the clearer
things interpret the less clear things to ignore,
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either on purpose or by accident.
Other relevant scriptures is like having a
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half a key and trying to get
into your house. This is not going
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to work. It is half the
key and that's great. So far,
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so good, but it's not going
to do you much good. or You
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could compare it to something else.
Having a portion of God's word and thinking
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of it of the whole thing is
like having a stripe of red and calling
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at the rainbow. It's just not
true and it's misinformed. We can't pick
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and choose from God's word. How
would you like it if someone did that
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to you, choosing bits and pieces
of what you said to make it different
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than what you fully meant, and
so going to other passages to understand what
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is meant by a phrase like this
is not a problem, it's a requirement.
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And for this verse and First John
Three, we don't have to go
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very far, because in first John
Five, just a chapter and a half
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later, he says that we pray
according to his will, and that's how
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we receive the things we ask for, according to his will. Whenever we
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ask according to his will, we
will and always receive from him. It's
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often said that prayer is a dynamic
thing. It's simply talking with God a
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conversation, and that is true.
But when we talk with God, we
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must do so in a way that
aligns our will with his, and we
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forget this about prayer. When we
forget it about prayer, that's why we
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don't pray. Yes, we talk
with God, but we talk with him
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as supplicants to a Lord, as
supplicants to a Lord, we talk with
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him as children to a father,
as servants to a master. Yes,
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prayers about a conversation, or is
a conversation, and we ought to be
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a hundred percent honest with God about
where we are, about how we feel,
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but it's not a conversation of equals
or conversation about us in charge.
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We're not advising God in our prayers. We're not bargaining with God or encouraging
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him to act in such and such
a way. We are beggars, pleaders,
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petitioners, thankers and praisers. All
this means that we should never even
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desire for him to give us whatever
we want. We should only in always
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desire to get whatever we want according
to the spirit. Why would sinful things,
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things that are against God's will,
or even things that simply are things
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that he doesn't desire not necessarily morally
wrong. Why would we want them?
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Why would that even be a consideration? Why would we ever, in other
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words, read this verse and say, well, I know that God won't
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give me whatever I want. What? Why are you even thinking like that?
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Why would you even ask that?
Why would you even process this in
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that way? Why would we ever
think that that's what God might mean?
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And then is renegging on that promise? Of course that's not what he means.
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The only reason we would ever consider
that God would be required to give
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us anything and everything that we want
is because we think that we know better
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than he does. Now, of
course, sometimes God does give us exactly
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what we want, and it ain't
pretty. It can be disastrous, especially
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if we don't belong to him as
his children. God gave Pharaoh up to
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the hardness of his heart, and
Romans to God taught. God talks about
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giving people up to the lusts of
their heart. That's what you want,
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go after it, and they go
after it right on into hell. It's
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terrible. They get what they want, but for us who belong to God,
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who are his children, this is
who he is talking to. is
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He gives this promise. He gives
us whatever we ask, not according to
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our sinful inclinations, are misunderstandings,
are confusion, our lack of knowledge and
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so forth. He gives us whatever
we ask as it is for our salvation.
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Now I'll go back to Augustine.
Augustine has a great way of putting
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this. He says that we have
to distinguish God's different ways of hearing prayer.
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We can be heard for our wish
or we can be heard for our
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salvation, and he gives some great
examples. He talks about Paul. You
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remember Paul Praying about the thorn in
his flesh and he says three times I
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prayed and the Lord said No.
The Lord said no, and Augustine says,
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so, are we supposed to think
that Paul is this unholy person who
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doesn't obey the Lord and that's why
the Lord's not answering this prayer? No,
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of course not. The Lord doesn't
answer this prayer because he wants to
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be perfected through Paul's weakness. He
wants Paul to be perfected and grow into
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the strength of the Lord. The
Lord doesn't answer Paul, Augustine says,
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and rightly according to his wish,
but he does answer him according to his
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cell Vation. You can see this
on a flip side of the coin.
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Think about the demons who said to
Jesus, please, please, send us
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into the swine. Did he hear
them? Did he answer their prayer,
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the prayer of the demons? Yes, he did. He gave them exactly
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what they answer for and he sent
them into the herd of pigs. But
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did he answer them according to their
salvation? Were these demons saved? Was
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the devil saved when he went before
God and he asked to tempt job?
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No, but did he get what
he asked for? Yes. So Augustine,
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as I said, rightly says we
have to distinguish these ways in which
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God hears us or the ways in
which God answers our prayers. Is it
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according to our sort of bear wish, or is it according to our salvation?
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Both were heard and both were not
heard, but in different ways.
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Paul was heard according to his wish, but not or not according to his
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wish, but according to his salvation. Satan and the demons were heard according
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to their wish but not according to
their salvation. Now, ideally we get
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both right. We wish for things
that according to God's will, that are
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according to our salvation and often the
things that we ask for our but what
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about those cases in that were simply
don't know? Then we trust the God
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who does know, the God who
is sovereign. That's why we trust him
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and we pray as Jesus taught as
to pray. Thy Kingdom come, THY
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will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. So I'll finish this
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way. Does God give us whatever
we ask? Yes, God gives us
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whatever we ask when we ask,
according to his will. And what is
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his will for us, as those
who have been bought with a price,
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those who have been named children of
God through the Son of God? What
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is his will? It is to
give us a complete and perfect salvation in
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Christ, to give us the regeneration
of our whole selves, from top to
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bottom, from inside to out,
so that we might enjoy him forever and
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all of his gifts forever in a
blessed and Eternal State of glory. That
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is God's will. You can't ask
for anything more than that, and you
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shouldn't ask for anything less. Let's
pray
