David Hughes - The 3 Prayers I Pray Most

Happy Saturday night, good to see you! Hey, I want everybody, quick take out your phone. Everybody take out your phone, take out your phone. Thank you. Some of you have your phone out already. Not sure why you are. Take out your phone, take out your phone. Take out your phone. I'll wait, Take out your phone. Let me see your phone, let me see your phone. Let me see your phone. Good job, go on take out phone. take out your phone, take out your phone, take your phone. Please, please, please, take out your phone. Good job! Take out your phone. All right I'm gonna put up on the screen right now a number you can text the word mystery and you download how to invite people with your social media to the series. So go ahead and just, if you'll text the word mystery to 954-329, am I in the way? 1818, 1818. We'll send you a formatted so on your Facebook and your Instagram you can invite people. I know you're gonna be here. You've been around our church at least a year. You know that next week is a week you do not miss. We have people change vacation schedules for week one of the mystery series.

It's always hyper creative. I feel like the creativity of what they're gonna do with the whole set, because it's always something very different than this week. This year is coming up, I don't wanna tell you too much. It's not flashy, I think it's smart. It really helps me with the teaching on an idea to help you initiate something new and big and beautiful in your life. If you're a dreamer, where are my dreamers? Make some noise. My dream, if you're a dreamer, you have big goals, you're ambitious, you gotta be here. If you're not sure how to get started, you feel overwhelmed with something in life, you know to be positive, get here. But I think the sets can help amplify that parable. So I know you're gonna be here, but who are you gonna bring? So invite somebody. Can I ask you to leverage your social media? Commandeer your Facebook for Jesus and your Instagram and share and invite and go public. Let's spread the word, let's fill the house. Thank you for coming to Saturday night, by the way, because we have plenty of seats and plenty of parking Saturday night, Sunday night. But Sunday morning gets kind of crazy. So listen, do this. What would the Apostle Paul do if he had a smartphone? It'd be a weapon, a spiritual mass destruction in his hands.

So go ahead and leverage technology for the kingdom. I know your selfies are great. I know your lunch is very interesting. Let's get the word out on this, amen. All right, I'm gonna take the liberty to forego the typical introduction moment because I did that. And I know as a communicator, that's a bit of a risk because an introduction helps warm up the crowd, builds connectivity. But I will make an assumption about you if you're in the room or you're logged on right now that you came in here with an appetite. I don't mean for dinner, maybe dinner, but I mean a holy hunger to hear from God by way of his word. You like me, you believe the Bible is not just a good book, it's a God book. We don't worship our Bible. We revere and respect our Bible. We believe the Bible has incredible truth that if you unlock it and apply it, it transforms your life in wonderful ways. So a lot of you come in, you just wanna dig into the book. Now, other people in the room, you got kind of more of a pinky toe in the shallow end of faith. You're not sure about the whole Bible being a divine revelation, but you're intrigued. You recognize the Bible is the all-time leading, best-selling book in human history. You recognize not millions, but over a billion people,

two billion people find this book to be the cornerstone of how they do life, and so you're smart. You recognize this book has impacted the human family over the generations, not just spiritually, but sociologically in such profound ways. So you're interested as we jump into a passage. I wanna study just two great verses in 1 Thessalonians chapter five. You have a Bible, open up your Bible, turn on your Bible. 1 Thessalonians chapter five, let's say it together. 1 Thessalonians, big word, 1 Thessalonians chapter five. I wanna show you two great verses, verse 17 and verse 18. So remarkable, I've been studying these two verses literally for decades, and I wanna concede, I don't think I understand everything that they teach or they mean, but they fascinate me. And to get a running start, I wanna back up, back up to verse 12, give you some context, little verse-by-verse study in God's Word, simple stuff, but I think it's gonna be a game-changer for someone. Let's go to verse 12. So Thessalonians, the ultimate authors, the Holy Spirit of God, the human authors, the Apostle Paul, he's the founding pastor of the church in Thessalonica, modern-day Thessaloniki in Greece. And so he started this church, he has rapport with these people, and so he's giving them just some instructions on the way the church he loves should do church.

So he says in verse 12, now I ask you, brothers, to respect those who, good reading, who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord. So here he's referring to church leaders and pastors, right? So who work among you, who are over you in the Lord, and who admonish you, hang on to that idea. to admonish you, hold them in the highest regard. I like this so far, this is good. Hold these church leaders in the highest regard, in love, because of their. Now if you want to be successful in life, here are two times in this short passage we see the word work. We believe in God, we believe in gifts, but we believe in the grind. And so good church leaders are called to work. Ministry is work. What I do is work. Back when I first came to our church, our church was small. Every once in a while I'd get the question after a Sunday morning where someone would say like, hey, do you have another job? You just work on Sunday mornings and talk a little bit? There's a lot more to it than that, you understand, right? There's a lot of work to being a pastor and leader of the church. Now we subdivide the work. We share the workload with different pastors and leaders.

But man, if you want to see success or blessing in life, you bring the work. So we're called to work, called to work. What kind of work do we do? Well, many things, I can't describe them all. But here in this passage, it touches on a couple. It continues, verse 14, trying to get to 17, 18. But here it says, we urge you brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage, loudly. Encourage the timid, help the weak. So there are two things mentioned right here in this passage in regards to the work that a pastor does. It mentions right here that in verse 12, we should admonish, and in verse 14, we should encourage. If you'll allow me a moment to just touch on these. Let me start with the last one first, because that's the one I enjoy the most. I think part of a good church experience, especially the sermon, it should encourage you. In the original language, it means the same thing as the English, like 98% of your Bible, it means the same thing, to instill courage or instill strength. So when we come together on a Saturday night or a Sunday, it's my goal to inspire and encourage you, strengthen you in the Lord. The word of God will do that. By the way, that's why it's so critical that you come to church when your week has sucked. I know when your week has been great

and you got the promotion or landed the client, you love to come and celebrate and express your gratitude, but when it's been bad, when nothing has gone right, when you don't feel like coming, that's when you need to come the most. When everything in you just wants to stay there and sit on the couch or stay in bed, man, get up, get dressed, get to the house of God. I promise if you walk through these doors with any degree of openness, God will invade your reality with a word of encouragement for you. Give you that strength. I can tell you that countless testimonies of people like that was just what I needed to hear. That's not the preacher, that's the word of God and you're receptive. So I love, I'm a positive person, I love to encourage people. We teach the word of God in a way, we don't beat you up with the word of God, we wanna encourage you with the message, but the other word, admonish, that's another responsibility, has more the idea of a correction, an adjustment, even a rebuke, that sounds heavy, that sounds negative, it's not negative, it's needful. When I read my Bible with open minds, the Bible has this dynamic of correction, it will challenge me, it will convict me sometime, it'll show me there are things in my life, or my attitude that I need to change.

Admonition is a key part of good Bible reading, good Bible study, or surely good Bible teaching. So as your pastor and teacher tonight, I'm charged with these two things, to encourage you and to admonish you. Now I feel like pushing back on the admonition part of it, don't, let me tell you why, I've never told y'all before, I own a boat, I'm a proud owner of a boat, I have a boat, it's a fishing boat, and I love my boat, man, I love my boat, I own a boat, right, I own a beautiful boat, my boat looks nothing like that boat on the screen at all, looks nothing like that boat, except it's a fishing boat, this is actually a Merritt fishing yacht, I would argue maybe the finest fishing yachts in the world, made right here in South Florida, in fact, Roy Merritt goes to First Baptist, but they're beautiful boats, and that is a 77 foot fishing yacht with five bedrooms, but that is a boat, that's a fishing boat, now my boat, if you think of the spectrum of boats, it's on the far side, the opposite side of that boat, I have a 17 foot Ancona flat skiff, it's 20 years old, Raul, my boat is a ugly boat, it's a beater of a boat, I have a boat part, I'll just put it out there, me and my buddy, we paid $6,000 for the boat 10 years ago, it has a 90 Yamaha outboard motor, because it's old, it doesn't run half the time, half the time my boat is broke, in fact, my boat is broke right now,

in fact, I took Lisa out on the boat just like a month or two ago, and I put Lisa on my little boat, my boat has no cabin, no bridge, it's just an open boat, just a steering wheel, right, little motor in the back, we went like 200 yards, just turned over just fine, started just fine, got out there, started to sputter and cough and just died. And now I'm not in the canal, I'm out in the ocean. And I managed to get back, get back a little trolling motor, got back to the dock, and now I got this broken boat. But I got a boat guy, I got a boat guy. So I know a guy, he's great with boats. His name is Brad, Brad the boat guy, owns a marina, has mechanics. By the way, Brad also is a pastor. He's a full-time boat guy, he's a part-time pastor. He pastors a great, small church in the Keys, Layton Community Church, on vacation. Lisa and I went to worship with them. Whole church had 23 people, counting Pastor Brad. But it was a great church, great church. So he's a volunteer pastor, but he's a boat guy. But I'm trying to figure out how to get my boat to my boat guy, because my boat doesn't run. So how do I get my boat on the trailer, at the ramp, and get it to the boat guy? So it's a whole bunch of drama. I don't know what to do.

I guess I have to get a tote, that'll be expensive. But see, I get through all that logistical drama, and I get my boat to the boat guy at his marina. And he brings out his mechanics, and he looks at it, and he breaks me the port and says, David, your boat, it's all good. Your boat is fine. Just keep doing what you're doing with your boat. If Brad, my boat guy, did that, he's a bad boat guy. I want his mechanics to analyze it, diagnostic, figure out what the problem is, write me an estimate. Estimate, right, right. And I'll probably just pay the money. Why? I want to know what's wrong with my boat, because I want my boat to go. I want my boat to run. I want my boat to work. I want to know what the problem is. We can fix the problem, because I want my boat to work. I want your marriage to work. I want your finances to work. I want your God-provided peace to work. I want your sense of divine purpose to work. If your doctor does tests on you and you have a cancer, but he doesn't tell you you have cancer because he wants to spare your feelings, he's a terrible doctor. That is malpractice. He needs to lose his license.

If your therapist says you're fine, we both know you have issues. That's a bad therapist. So we have fun at our church. Our church, we're playful, we enjoy ourselves, we celebrate, we're creative, but make no mistake, we're not here to make fun of you. We're not here to play. We're here to work, because we want to go better. We want to run. We want to enjoy, right? So it's encouragement and admonition. It is a rebuke. It is a correction. When he said change in my life, I need to make that adjustment. Then verse 14, verse 14, it continues. Ready for this? Verse 14, I promise we'll get to two verses, but this is too good to leave behind. It says, be patient with everyone. Everyone. You're thinking, have you met my everyone? Have you met my everyone? Be patient with, did the Bible just say, be patient with everyone? Okay, look, you don't have to know or understand the original biblical languages, but occasionally, if you understand some, you get a nuance of deeper understanding.

Stay with me. So this is written in Greek, and the original Greek, this is something called a linear tense verb, meaning this is continual action, or more has this idea. Be about the practice of being patient. Be about the practice of patience. When I say three, shout the word practice. One, two, three. Practice. So I think what the Bible's saying here, you can practice patience. If you're not good at patience, you can get better at patience. God can help you become a more patient person. Now, where are my people? Not bragging, you're kind of naturally a patient person. Raise your hand where my people, got some people naturally. You're kind of chill, but it's awesome. Now, who are my people? You're like, nope, not at all, man. I'm highly impatient. I hate the long line. I hate being stuck in traffic. The DMV is purgatory. Yeah, yeah, all right. I'm one of you. We can get better. We can practice at being patient.

God can help us get better. Now, how will God help you practice being patient? He will put people in your life. Now, you think they're just annoying. They're practice. And I don't mean just those bad people with bad manners, bad breath, right? The close talkers, not just those. I mean the good people in your life, the people you love in your life, every once in a while they tweak you. So parents, your kids are on your last nerve. Your kids are not just on your last nerve, they are practice. Sometimes your friends, they are practice. Your boss, surely he or she, practice, right? That client, those coworkers, they are practice. Occasionally your neighbors are practice. Married people, married people. You love him, you love her, but sometimes they're so annoying. No, they are practice, amen? We can get better at patience. Be patient with everyone. That person who drives incredibly slow with the out-of-state license plate in the fast lane is practice, is practice. I need to. Grow in my patience as a fruit of the spirit that needs to be nurtured.

God, we use annoying people for practice. Verse 15, verse 16, it continues. It's just so good here. It says, these great verses says, make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be. I love that one. Be kind to each other and to everyone else. Be. And I love those two so much. I can't believe I'm gonna run past that joyfulness and kindness, their superpowers, but I gotta get to verse 17, verse 18. This is so incredibly rich. Let's jump to it right now. Here it is, these verses I wanna focus on. Ready? Read the highlighted words on the screen. Pray. Give thanks in. All circumstances, for this is God's will. All right, all right, now, now, look at these great verses. Wow, those are amazing. Those are epic. That's incredible. That's so powerful. How the heck do I do that? How do I pray continually? How do I express gratitude and give thanks

for all circumstances? That's impossible, right? That's impossible, but it's in God's word, and it's an imperative, so these are possible impossibilities, and I gotta concede the fact, I've been aware of these great verses for a long time. I have not fully figured out everything they mean, but I am trying. I wanna know what it means to pray continually and to offer thanks like this, and so to help you understand, and for me, some of this is in the wake, in my personal journey of losing my mom a couple months ago, because I talk to my mom every single day, and that's the biggest thing I missed. My mom was almost 95. She had great health. She loved the Lord. She's in heaven with my dad right now. They celebrated their first wedding anniversary together in heaven in 12 years, so look. I had a great goodbye. I'm grateful, but I called my mom every single day, and I missed that phone call, so I've been trying to do, as I miss my mom, is practice praying and talking to my heavenly Father like this, continually, a little more,

every day throughout the day, so I'm trying to understand what these verses mean, so I would help you with something that God showed me recently. We are blessed. We've had, it's not about preaching and preachers doing the work. We've had some of the greatest preachers on the planet at our church over the years. I'm proud to stand here where Charlie and Nick and our team do a great job. We bring in these great guest speakers, and you may not know my industry, but these are like the people right now. We've had all these folks at our church, our First Baptist Church, and they are like, they communicate to giant arenas. You can't schedule these people. I mean, Pastor Stephen Furtick and Stephen Chandler and Christine Kane and Priscilla Shire and all. I mean, they're the best of the best. We've had all of them on our stage, and as far as their gifts of oratory, they're the most extreme examples of eloquence there are. They can explain such incredibly complex, sophisticated, biblical, and theological ideas. They have big brains and big words. They are geniuses with language, but we're hanging out with one about six weeks ago. He didn't speak at our church.

He was in town, and we're, it was one of the guys, him. I won't tell you which one, and we're hanging out. Our families are close, and he said something. This bright guy, great with words and complexities. He said something so simple about prayer that it's stuck in my heart ever since, and he simply said, our families together, he said, you know, he found, I pray, he said, this bright guy, the majority of the prayers I pray in my life are one of three prayers, help, I'm grateful, or I'm sorry, and it's stuck in my heart because it's so simple. Three prayers, just five words. Five words. Help, I'm grateful, I'm sorry. This guy's a spiritual giant. I mean, his ability's with language, but so simple. He said the majority of the prayers he prays, I'm not sure if that's 51% or 60%, but I started looking at these three different kinds of simple prayers. I thought, it's probably 98% of my prayer life. These three kinds of simple prayers.

If you wanna know how to pray more or better, I recommend these three. So where do we start with the time that remains? Let's start with, let's start with I'm sorry, because I pray that prayer way more than I want to. I'm sorry, or God forgive me. Ever try to throw away your garbage can? I don't mean like the little one from the bathroom, but like your big garbage can that goes to curb. Ever try to throw that away? Like ours got a big crack in the bottom, which is bad for your garbage can, because in my neighborhood, you gotta keep it indoors until it's garbage day, and it'd smell things up and leak. So hopped online to Our City Parkland, how do you throw away and get a new garbage can? And we did this like two months, and did this dance back and forth with the nice sanitation people. I couldn't get the garbage guy to take the garbage can. He kept taking the garbage, but not the garbage can. You've had this, too, right? I'd take the garbage out, put it beside the garbage can, leave the garbage can empty, and he'd take the garbage, not the garbage can. And we're going back and forth and back and forth. I can't get, I can't throw away my garbage can. It took two months to get them finally to take the garbage can, bring me a new garbage can.

So you know that, ever notice sometimes it's really hard to get rid of the garbage in your life? Can I dare be transparent? I get so tired of praying the same I'm sorry prayer, the same forgive me prayer. You know, our church loves creativity. Next week, next week is going to be so good. Don't miss next week. The whole series is going to be very creative, very powerful, I believe. But we love creativity. Why? Because God is highly creative. The first thing we learn about God in the Bible, the first attribute we discover is not his love or his grace or even the scope of his power. It's his creativity. But the devil, he's not creative at all. I can't find one thing in the Bible he creates. Now he twists and distorts and perverts what God creates. He's not creative. But sadly with me, he doesn't have to be. I keep falling for that same dumb lie, that same deception. I fall for that same temptation. No need to be creative. He gets me to do something stupid time and time and time again. And I get discouraged. I get so frustrated with me, not with God. I want to pray not I'm sorry, but God, I'm sorry, why do you bother with me?

Anybody else? Thank you. Like 23 honest people in the room. The rest of y'all, lying is a sin. Deal with that one. Don't you give up. Don't you give up on you. Because he keeps forgiving. He keeps receiving. He keeps redeeming. He keeps restoring. He loves prodigals when they come home every single time. So if he keeps forgiving and he keeps loving, he keeps bestowing grace, you keep trusting, you keep fighting, you keep walking, you keep praying, you keep getting right back up. Don't you dare quit. Don't you give up. That's what the devil wants. And maybe, maybe, maybe going back to verse 14, being patient with everyone. Maybe the secret to being patient with others is remembering how patient Jesus is with me. Maybe you should take your camera out again and take a picture of that one because that's, God, I require so much grace. And I'm so grateful that God gives me that. In fact, I think when you understand God's grace, his forgiveness, your next prayer is I'm grateful, I'm grateful, I'm grateful. Are you a grateful person?

Because, again, embedded right here in verse 18 on the screen right now again, it says, give thanks in all circumstances. And if you don't think that's weird, you've been a Christian too long. I mean, that's weird. Give thanks in all circumstances? That's probably a biblical typo. It meant like give thanks in all good circumstances, right? I recognize all the good things, God's the ultimate source. All good and perfect gifts come down from the Father of life, James chapter 1, right? It all comes from God, right? I know I worked hard and I applied myself. As a student, I studied so hard and I aced my finals this next semester, but God gave me the brains, the intellect, the opportunity, so I give him thanks for this win. But it's not just saying the good things, all things. Give thanks in all. What's that even mean? All right, let me take you on a journey. It's why, you know, the Bible is not just one verse or one book. It's this beautiful anthology of God's word. Let me take you through a journey, a couple different books of the Bible and verses, help you understand the theology of what I think Paul is saying when it says, you know, give thanks in all circumstances. In fact, this reminds me, in 1 Thessalonians, something that Paul says very similar in Philippians chapter 4, that's like two books to the left,

where he says in verse 4, it says rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say it's almost the same idea, different language, same idea. Always, always, good times, bad times. And somebody recognizes, oh, oh, Philippians 4, Philippians 4, 4, that's that chapter, that famous verse, verse 13. We put on bumper stickers and T-shirts, T-shirts as Christians. I love this verse. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and that is an amazing verse. It's so optimistic. It's so encouraging. In fact, you think, man, I wonder what's going on in Paul's life to write that amazing verse, so I can do all things. Probably had the best week. Probably preached his best sermon, opened a new church. Oh, he was single. He met somebody. I can do all things. And the context was he was a prisoner. He was not even a prisoner to the Hebrews, provided some degree of sympathy because he was a Jew. No, it was the ruthless Romans. He was incarcerated. He's a prisoner. Prisoner, he said, but I can do all things through Christ.

Read the fourth chapter of Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord, again, always, I mean, wow. My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus, verse 19. It's so optimistic, he was a prisoner. Yeah. I'm confused. Okay, context. Right before verse 13, we have verse 12, verse 11. Verse 11's on the screen right now, very important. Paul says, I'm not saying this because I'm in need for I have learned, I have learned to be content so I can get better at patience and I can learn contentment in whatever circumstance. Verse 12, for I know what it is to be in need, yeah, and know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the, good reading, the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, then he says, in that context, I can do all things through Christ. He learned a secret, what's the secret? He never says, but I can guess. In fact, you wanna balance again, maybe something he said to the Romans in Romans chapter eight, another great chapter, Romans eight, verse 28, famous. He says, we know that God, that in all things, I read that wrong, one more time. We know that, we know that God causes all things

to work together for good, to love God. Does it say God causes all things? Disaster, disease, God's not the origin of that, but says God can bring about something good. In fact, I think his verse means simply this, I think his verse means simply why God doesn't cause all things, all things are not good, God can redeem a good purpose out of all things. Thank you. So that's why you can give thanks when something happens, but it doesn't seem like it's good because God's in charge and you never know what kind of plan that God's working redemptively on your behalf. Example, I think one of those fascinating families in history is the Tenboom family. Yeah, we're named Tenboom, they were Dutch and they lived in the Netherlands during the time of the Nazi occupation of their country, devout Christians, Jesus loving people. And during this time, the Nazis were rounding up Jews from every nation and put them in concentration camps in the Holocaust. And the Tenbooms were not Jews, they were Christians, but their neighbors were Jews, they began to hide their neighbors in their home and were very successful until finally they were betrayed and they were discovered and they were arrested

and they were sent to concentration camps. The father died right away, the family was ready to perish because of the starvation and disease and hardship. But two of the sisters remained, Betsy and Corey, they bounced from camp to camp to camp. And finally, they were in Ravensbruck in Germany, it was a death camp. They're in barracks 28, conditions were terrible, they'd been in bad conditions before. And barracks 28 though, yes, it was cold and cramped and the guards were very unkind, but the fleas, the sister said the flea infestation was horrific. There were fleas in the beds and fleas in the walls and on the floor and all the clothing and then constantly these fleas were making life miserable, but they had an old weathered Bible they had snuck in, they'd smuggled and they'd read the Bible and Betsy, one of the sisters found this verse in First Thessalonians chapter five, verse 18, which says, give thanks, be grateful in all circumstances. And Betsy said to Corey, we need to be grateful, we need to offer thanks for what we have, not just the good things, but all things. So we need to stop right now and pray together and thank God we're in a concentration camp, but we have a roof over our head, our clothes aren't much, but we have clothes in our body, the bed's very hard, but we praise God we have a bed

and they start going through the list of all these things and finally they said, let's praise God and thank God for the guards, the guards were cruel. And let's thank God for the commandant. And finally she said, let's thank God for the fleas. At that point, Corey said, can't do that. I guess her line was concentration camp, fleas, I can't say thank you for that. So I can't do it, but her sister insisted. So she said it and she said, God, thank you for fleas, but she didn't feel it or mean it. They began to offer thanks day after day after day and it changed their attitude. More than that, the other prisoners in that, these other girls in the room began to watch these two sisters and see their positive, overwhelming, grateful attitude in this horrific circumstance. They found it so attractive as they studied their Bible, the other girls would join in. When they worshiped quietly, the other girls would join in worship. They began to choose to follow Jesus Christ. You see, an attitude of gratitude changes the temperature of environments. We don't know what God's up to, but just God, thank you. It hurts right now, I don't get it right now. I'm confused right now see gratitude may not change your circumstance, but it will always change your heart I'm out of time. Got one last prayer to help prayer I'll just say this man. My God is so generous as in Psalm

121 verse 2 my help comes from the Lord The maker of heaven and earth in the Bible. He helps all kinds of people in all kinds of situations He brings healing he gives strength he brings rescue he redeems the broken He gives wisdom and discernment and vision and guidance. He brings change and transformation He brings provision protection and people for those who are lonely Sometimes he just shows you he's going to help you by the fact you can help yourself Other times he shows you got you got no shot at helping yourself and he is your only hope In fact salvation is probably the greatest example of that salvation because we cannot save ourself But it says in Romans will stay in Romans chapter 10 verse 13 for everyone everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved I Can't save myself. You can't save yourself You're probably a moral person a kind person, but man, we all fall so short In fact, it says it says if you go to Romans chapter 3 verse 23 It says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We're all in the same sin boat There's none who are righteous none at once. So guess what? We've all sinned. So you say hey God, I'm sorry Will you forgive me? Then Romans chapter 5 verse 8 says that God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died For us a single sufficient substitute that sinless one died for us For that you say God, I'm grateful Then finally, how do you put it all together? I don't know I think the clearest verse in the Bible and salvation is Romans 10 9 says you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead. You will be saved You say God help. I can't save myself, but you can And God I'm gonna try to pray continually I'm gonna pray these simple three prayers throughout my day and just trust you God when I need help. I'll ask for help When I sin, I'll trust 1st John 1 9 if I confess my sin God you're faithful and just to forgive me my sin and cleanse Me from all unrighteousness God and even that gratitude prayer I'll be grateful for the good things give you glory for the good things where the things that don't feel good

I'm gonna trust you and say thank you So the two sisters Betsy did not survive the camp. She she starved to death in 44 Corey due to a clerical error was released a week before the women were to be gassed She survived she came back after liberation to Ravensburg. She Ravensburg. She eventually forgave the cruel guards But she asked the guards this question. Did you guys hear us worshiping in the barracks? They said we heard you Said why didn't you come in and punish us and disrupt us because what we're doing was against the rules The guard says what we wanted to we heard you we knew what you were doing who it was against our rules But the fleas we need the fleas were so bad in the 20th barrack that we would not go near that barrack We were afraid of the fleas God provided protection Via the problem in the pest God freed them with fleas You'd never know what God is doing behind the scenes on your behalf the day and night the angels of heaven Intercede for you make a way for you and me So God, I am grateful and God I need your forgiveness and God. I always need your help Lord Jesus, this is our prayer and someone right now. They need to pray that prayer of salvation They need to choose Jesus as Savior. So right now Lord, we cry out help You will save everyone who calls upon your name in Jesus name. Amen