Episode 48 || When You Have Nowhere Else to Turn

- Well, what's up, Pando family? We are back for another edition of the Pando exclusive podcast. If you've been with us before, we're glad you're back. If you're new with us, welcome. My name is Derek. This is Brandon. We serve on our online team together at a place called Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. And if you're watching this, I would maybe assume that you would have already watched one of our weekend services. And so thanks for joining us for that. But if you just happened to click on this podcast, we hope that as each week we do, as we talk about the sermon from our weekend service, that it helps you apply the text that we'll be going through in scripture together to your life to help you follow Jesus better and better. Brandon, 'cause it's not like any of us do it perfect. - Oh, no, absolutely. - None of us do it perfect. That's not what this is about. But it's, I think it can be helpful to, that's why we do groups right in Southeast to discuss scripture, to apply it to our life. And so we hope that it'll be beneficial to you as well. But Brandon, we are, gosh,

is this our last podcast before October? - It is our last podcast. Yeah, October is like a couple days away. Like we are firmly in like spooky season and at Halloween coming up, which my kids are always reminding me of, like we gotta go get costumes and stuff like that. And yeah, I mean, the year is, I mean, it feels like this every year, right? Like it's practically over. Once we get to October, like just running downhill here. But you know, it's been a great year. And the back half of the year has so many, I heard the back three months, I should say, has so many cool stuff, so much cool stuff going on. So yeah, yeah. And Paul, this is getting cooler outside, which here in Louisville has been great 'cause it was super hot this summer. - Yeah, it's getting cooler. The sun is setting quicker each and every day with-- - It's like dark at four o'clock. - I know, which shit I guess is just part of the year. But I'm excited because today we get to talk about our student takeover weekend here at Southeast. And so we'll dive into that here in a few minutes. But we have another sermon series coming up, starting this next Sunday, that'll be called Flip It. - Flip It? - And so I hope that y'all be looking forward to that.

- You had a board game, I feel like that was a board game. - Maybe, maybe, I don't know, what the-- - What was that thing, I say for me growing up, but like, what was that-- - Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. (laughing) - What was it that you played at high school? What was that, was it like Bob? What was that thing? - Oh, Bobbit, yeah, Bobbit. - Is that what it was? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Maybe that's, is that what you're thinking of? - Maybe, maybe, oh yeah, 'cause it does say Flip It, does it, Bobbit, Flip It, twist it, yeah, yeah, yeah. - So maybe next week we'll have one of those. - Yeah, man, I haven't seen one of those in a long time. - A long time. - My kids have one, but it was, yeah, I didn't like it because it would get in like their toy box and it would randomly get hit in like the middle of the night. So you'd be like walking through their room doing something like, "Bobbit!" - Yeah, absolutely, talk about Spooky. - Yeah, like the ghosts are playing Bobbit, I guess. I don't know, anyway. - Talk about Spooky. - But this last weekend we did something at our church called Student Takeover. And I think one of the reasons why we get to do this,

and Kyle had mentioned it, I think the week prior, that this isn't a weekend at church where it's like, we have the youth coming up on stage where it's like they're doing a play and all the parents should clap and everybody should be super kind. No, Kyle talked about, no, this is truly a weekend where we give our student ministry at Southeast the Keys. - Oh yeah. - Right, our middle school, our high school ministry is the Keys to be able to put service together. And it's something not only at our Blankenbaker campus, which is our broadcast campus that you see every weekend, but it's also something that we see at all of our campuses. - Yeah, yeah, we were, so I was actually at the Prospect campus yesterday out there, and they were, you know, had Student Takeover we can go into, and it was just so cool to, like I, we had some students leading worship on the Blankenbaker stage, and we see in the broadcast, we had students on stage at Prospect leading as well, and so it was just really cool to see that across our campuses that, you know, hey, there are students stepping up to serve our church in this way, and I think that's so amazing. At that young of an age to be like, I'm gonna stand up on stage and lead people in worship, like I, yeah. - Yeah, it takes courage.

- Yeah, but it was great to be a part of that, and great to just see, you know, the next generation, if that's what you wanna say, to see them do in that. - Yeah, and I think it's a heartbeat of our church that, you know, we wanna continue to invest in the next generation continually, because not only are they the future of our church, right, the future of, and remind ourselves that, well, they are the church now. Like, they are the physical representation of the church now, but not only now, but to the people in their schools, on their sports teams, and even for us as a church to think about, like, one of the things that Kyle, I think challenges us to think about a lot is this question of who are we becoming, right? And I think that's for us as a church, too, to think about it. Like, okay, well, who are we becoming when it comes to our next generation? Like, are we investing in them? Are we discipling them? Are we bringing them along? And I'm grateful that we get to be a part of a church that focuses on that. 'Cause I know that it'll impact your kids, it'll impact my kids, and just as fathers, I know that that's, I love that, because there are times where, you know, just with my schedule, I don't always get to be a part

of every single part of their day and their discipleship, and those parts where I miss, I mean, our church just steps in into those parts and helps develop them, and I love that. But this past weekend, we got to hear from a guy named Brock Odell, so one of our student pastors here at our Blanket Baker campus or our broadcast campus that you'll see every weekend. And Brandon, he talked to us about a couple of different situations where we see Jesus performing what we would call a miracle. So walk us through that. - Yeah, so Brock had us in Matthew chapter nine this week, and the story that he used is parallel in a couple of different of the gospels, so I may end up bouncing kind of between there, but we were in Matthew chapter nine, and then I believe, I marked it here, so I would have it. It's also in Luke chapter eight, I believe. Yeah, so Luke chapter eight and Matthew chapter nine. - Before you get started on that, can I have you clarify something that may be helpful? - Yeah, let's go. - We talked about potentially bouncing between a couple of different gospels. - Yes, yeah. - So talk about the significance of that because that may be a question someone would have. - Yeah.

- Well, why is there a story in one gospel that's the same in another, but slightly different, or the same walk us through that? - So yeah, in our Bibles and our New Testaments, we have four gospels that lead everything off. There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and they're all written by different people for different kind of purposes, but also it shows us the story of Jesus through their particular lens. Like, especially with a couple of them, two of the gospel writers were known apostles. Matthew and John were both apostles, so what we get from them is really just an exact, their eyewitness testimony of this is what we saw, this is what we experienced. The two middle gospels, Mark and Luke, Mark is written by a young Christian, who's a leader in the early church, who was a traveling companion of the Apostle Peter, and was also later in his life at a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. And so what most people, or what a lot of scholars believe is that Mark is the recollection of Peter's preaching of Jesus. - Okay, yeah. - So in a way, it's second-hand eyewitness testimony, I guess you could say, is that John Mark was his name that he wrote down how Peter recounted the gospel, and if you read the gospel of Mark,

it makes a lot of sense because we know from the gospels that Peter was very impetuous, it's probably a good word for that. And when you read Mark's gospel, it's very much like this happened, then this happened, then this happened, it just kind of fits with how you might think Peter would present the gospel. And then Luke was a doctor, but he was also a traveling companion of Paul throughout the missionary journeys. And so he tells us at the beginning of his gospel that he set out to write an orderly account of the gospel, that he went and talked to eyewitnesses, that he researched the claims, that he went through some of the oral histories of the church, and he recorded the gospel as best that he could piece the whole story together. So all of them are based in eyewitness testimony. But the two outer ones, Matthew and John, are apostles themselves, members of the 12 who wrote down what they heard Jesus say and do. Now, in the first three gospels in particular, there's quite a bit of overlap in terms of the events they cover and some of that stuff. And we see little differences here and there, like there is a little bit of a difference in how Matthew records the story we're gonna look at today versus how Luke records the story we're gonna hear today. But I do think, there are some people who would look

at that and be like, well, what does that mean? And I really think it shows us that the gospels were actual historical things that happened to real people. - Right, yeah. - Because if you talk to any number of people about the same event, you get radically different testimonies. And the gospels, of the particulars that are like, okay, you know, a little bit of leeway here, but they all agree on the broad scope of the events that happened during the life of Jesus. So we get that in Matthew chapter 9 and Luke chapter 8 today, looking at this story. Love that. Thanks for explaining that. Yeah. Because, you know, I think that's helpful to know that, you know, especially like some of the small discrepancies, and correct me if I'm wrong, it would actually like, it's actually, it makes it more believable, right, than it just being like the exact same thing of like, hey, let's all get our stories straight type of thing. Yeah. Yeah, because you would say today, like if two people told the same story and they told it word for word, you would be like, well, there was obviously some collusion going on there, right? Like they were making these, these are too dependent on each other. And the fact that the gospels veer a little bit in some of the particulars, I think, is just evidence of, these are people recounting the things that they actually saw. And you know, I think even, I mean, the Resurrection Sunday is a great example of this because you do get, well, which women were at the tomb and who reported what to who? And I think you look at it and you can make it all make sense once you realize like, oh, well, Matthew is remembering it the way he remembered it. Sure.

He's remembering it the way Peter remembered it and things like that. So, so I think, you know, it has the, the, the feel of a veracity of truth to it because you know, we see that these were people responding in real time to things that were happening to them. That is so good. And I imagine that's one of the many reasons why the, the early, early, early church felt like what we have here in the gospels were the ones that we were supposed to have. Yeah. But you explained in that, but so we're in Matthew, Matthew nine, you're going to be bounced around a little bit and set us up again for what we're talking about. So Matthew chapter nine, Jesus is kind of firmly in the middle of his ministry there. He's been doing some, some things throughout the countryside, been preaching. And he comes to a place where he's been talking to some of the followers, some of the Pharisees. And as he's talking, a leader of the synagogue comes to tell him that his daughter has, has just died. We're told in the gospel of Luke in Luke chapter nine, or Luke chapter eight, that the synagogue's leader's name, his name is Jairus. So I'll probably, I'll just refer to him as that for the rest of the time. And Jairus's daughter, she is either at the point of death or she has literally just died, which someone brought up in my group yesterday. I never considered this, that, that his daughter being at this place, how much faith does it take to walk away from your dying child to be like, I've got to go get Jesus and bring him back to this. Yeah, that's a great, I had never thought about that because, I mean, gosh, I mean to, I mean, you're like definitely losing control over that situation to be that desperate and convinced that Jesus can take care of it. Yeah, like you're walking away from your household at this time to be like, no, I'm like, I know you need me here, but I need to get to Jesus more. So he comes, he comes to Jesus and, and as Jesus, and Matthew's gospel, you know, can you, you can bring her back to life, so, so come and lay your hand on her.

So Jesus agrees, he gets up and he goes and he, he's going to leave, he, he's going to Jairus's house, but we're told in Luke's account of it in Luke chapter eight that the crowd was so pressed in on Jesus and they were so eager to hear from him that they couldn't, they couldn't really get to where they were going easily, like it was very slow to get through the seats, the streets of the city. And as they're traveling, another person who is in need of some desperate help comes along, we're told in the gospels that there's this woman who has suffered for 12 years with a constant source of bleeding for 12 years and it's interesting because I think it's Luke's gospel where he brings up that Jairus's daughter is 12 years old. So you know, you kind of have this weird that we're, we're losing this 12 year old daughter and this woman with this 12 year issue. So she's, she's trying to press through the crowd to get to Jesus because she is convinced that if she can just touch his robe, she will be healed. Now Luke tells us being the doctor that he is, he tells her, well, she's gone to all manners of doctors, she's gone, she's gone to anyone who she thought could help her to get to stop this issue of blood and that just for 12 years, nothing, nothing has worked. But she's convinced like Jesus can do this. If I can get to him, he will take care of, care of me. And her faith is such that she thinks I don't even have to talk to him, right? I just have to grab the corner of his garment and I will be healed from this now. [BLANK_AUDIO] In Malachi chapter four, one of the Old Testament prophets written hundreds of years before Jesus came onto the scene. I got to think of my Old Testament prophet-- So the very last book we have in our Old Testament-- So I think I wrote the reference here down, down right. And if I didn't, I'm going to feel really silly now. But Malachi-- Well, you got to go all in. Yeah, we just got to go now.

So Malachi 4, too, is talking about the coming day of judgment, the coming of the Messiah. It says, but for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And so a rabbinic tradition in that day was like, well, when the Messiah comes, he will be so powerful that even the corners of his robe and his prayer tassels on his garment, they'll be enough to heal people. Wow. So what she is doing is a very clear profession of faith. Like I believe in what Malachi says about the Messiah. And I believe that Jesus is this. So she reaches out. She touches the Him, or the tassels on his robe. And Luke's gospel tells us that Jesus notices the power leaving Him. He notices that this has happened. And He stops and says, well, you know, like, who touched me? And I think it is Peter. And Luke's gospel is like, everybody's-- like the whole crowd is touching him. Yeah, everybody's here. Yeah. And Jesus says, no, like, I realize what happened. And finally, the woman confesses, like, yeah, that was me. And I've been healed, which was a very dangerous thing for her to do in a sense, because like, her issue of blood for 12 years, she's been ceremonially unclean, right? Like, she's not supposed to be out in public.

She's not supposed to be around people. And she's saying, like, no, I had this. And now Jesus, like, I know He's healed me of this. And you kind of think, just to put yourself back in gyrus issues for a minute, that you have left your home. You've left your daughter who has either just died or who is on the edge of dying. And, you know, the crowd has now stopped. Like, this lady has kept Jesus from getting to your house. It's been a long trek to get there anyway. And you're just like, can we go? Can we get to the house? And so it's in Luke's gospel. And Luke 850 says, when Jesus heard about gyrus's daughter, when gyrus is like, hey, we need to go, Jesus says, don't be afraid. Just have faith and she'll be healed. And so there's just this, like, Jesus reminding gyrus, like, your faith in me is not misplaced. Like, we'll get there, we'll go. And so they end up going to the house. There are mourners out already mourning the loss of the girl. And Jesus tells them, no, you guys need to go. She's not dead. She's just asleep. And they laugh at Jesus for this. But he goes into the house. He tells the little girl to get up, and she does. And the little girl raises back to life.

And the news of the miracle spreads throughout the town. I mean, both of these miracles. Jesus just continues to grow in his fame, I guess, in that area because they see, like, okay, he is doing what the Messiah is supposed to be doing. He's healing people, he's bringing people back to life. Like, is this the guy we've been waiting for? - It's fascinating, you know, because I'm sure, like, I would be willing to say that both gyrus and this woman who's had this, you know, medical issue for 12 years that probably have lived two totally different lives, probably different upbringings in certain ways. They have different issues. And yet there's one thing that I think connects them both. Right? And it's that they were both desperate. - Yes, yeah. - Right? They were both desperate. And I think that that is the same. Like, when I think about, like, how can I identify with these stories? - Right. - Like, I think I can put myself in that place where it's like, yeah, man, like, I have been at times in my life where it's like, I've just felt desperate. - Yeah. - Where it's like, I don't know what else to do. I don't know what else to try. What, like, everything I try seems to not work or I'm trying to do this and it doesn't work.

And yet it leads me back to the same place, right? A place of prayer, a place of being on my knees, of needing God to come through. And so I think that's one of the things we see from this story that both of these people were desperate, that they knew that they had an issue that was pressing, that was literally either changing their life or about to change their life. - Right. - But they were also, in the same way, I think convinced that Jesus could do something about it. - Yeah. - And that's what makes me bring up like my initial reaction when I hear, like if someone were to say the word faith, like what do you think faith is? I almost think that sometimes I think of faith as like a synonym or a parallel word to like religion. - Right. - I'm of the Christian faith, right? Like I'm of a Christian faith. But for them, and I think what Jesus noticed in both of them was that they had faith in him. Like their faith was in action. And then when you read through the New Testament, we also see Jesus being frustrated and almost discouraged by people, even his disciples at times of not having faith. And so like when we talk about faith Brandon, especially in this context, like what,

like why was that so important in this moment? And then I'd like to talk about prayer here in a little bit as it pertains to that. - Yeah. Well, let me back up and talk about something that you talked about for a minute and then I'll use that to spring we're off faith a little bit. So I think it's interesting. You know, Brock talked about it this weekend, you just use the word, the word desperate. And we have taken so much of the desperation out of life in our culture, right? Like think about that. Like one of the reasons I think we struggle to be desperate for Jesus is because we don't know what it's like to be desperate for anything. Because we live in a culture where all the things that people used to be desperate about, we have largely taken care of. - Very true. - Yeah. Like we have, you know, you think about in Jesus's culture, there are people who are living literally day to day. Like they don't, you know, they're day laborers, they have to get a work that day to be sure that they're gonna have a place. We have careers and we built like, okay, I know where I'm gonna go to work this next day. We, they struggled to know, like if they're gonna have

their food, they're one, you know, drought away from not having harvest or having, you know, not being able to get the food that they need. And we, you know, have supermarkets and pantries and things like that. So like we're hardly desperate for like, oh, I don't know what I'm gonna eat today. They lived in a very arid and desert-y. Can I say that? The desert-y culture where, you know, there's a sense of, I'm not sure where water's gonna come from. Like what if the well dries up? What are we gonna do? They live in a culture without a vast supply of medicine where it's like you could get just a standard cult could hurt or even kill you. And so, so much of our culture today is like, we're not desperate about things. 'Cause we don't have to be. If I'm hungry, I go to the fridge. If I'm thirsty, I go to the faucet. If I'm sick, I go to the medicine cabinet, right? Like I don't have that sense of desperation. Like even, I mean, you think about it from our Western kind of culture mindset. You know, when Jesus talks in the Beatitudes about bluster those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, like a lot of us, I should say, like a lot of people in our culture today have no idea what it is like

to be truly hungry or thirsty. - Yeah, it's hard to feel those words. - Yeah. - Yeah, you're right now, I've never thought about that before. Like for him to say those words hunger and thirst for them. - You're right. - Like that would have significantly probably brought on like not only in a mental and emotional but a physical reaction like, oh, okay. But it comes back to that. Those are like, holds are almost desperation words. - Yeah, yeah. And well, and I'm sure you have to do this. So even with my kids, like I'll have a couple of my kids who are always like, oh, I'm starving. It's like, you're really not. Like, didn't you just have gold fish who don't wanna eat what I put in front of you? - Right. And so it's just that idea of like, I think we struggle to really understand desperate faith because we have eliminated so much desperation from our lives. And certainly we do still occasionally have it, right? When really hard circumstances hit, like when we get a diagnosis that we can't take care of with ibuprofen or whatever. Like there are those moments of desperation but our experience of desperation is far less than the audience in Jesus' day.

And so I think we struggle to understand faith as desperation for that very reason is it's hard for us to be desperate for anything at all. And so to use that to talk about your question about faith, like I think like faith is one of the, faith is a great word that we take out of the New Testament and it's a great Greek word that's throughout the New Testament Bible. But I do think, you know, our ideas of it, like you said, are kind of tainted by religion. Like, oh, we think of faith in terms of what faith are you. Or we think of faith in terms of just, go to the Super Bowl this year. We use faith in terms of a generic feeling. And I think just the way faith has been used in our culture so often that in many ways it's not the best biblical word to describe what the New Testament means when it says faith. When the New Testament talks about faith what it's really talking about in our closest English terms is it's talking about the idea of trust that I am trusting in Jesus. I'm trusting that this is true. I'm trusting this is right. I'm trusting that he's going to provide. And so faith isn't just some like nebulous belief. It is actually living as though like I'm trusting that this is right. I'm going to build my life on it. That's yeah you're right because that idea of trust of both of these people both gyrus both this woman right they had great trust that what would what they either had heard that Jesus could do what they had whatever it was like they had believed believed and it's interesting because you we see Jesus getting on his disciples getting on him means a light getting frustrated you know with them and trying to teach them in those moments where I think it's a thing is in the gospel of Matthew where I mean just within a couple of chapters like Jesus is feeding what is it like the five thousand and then the four thousand in like both times the disciples are like well what like all we have is you know a couple of fish and some loaves like what do you want like what do you want us to do in both times as if they haven't seen it before as if they haven't seen us before had they haven't seen it before like they'd seen it with their own eyes and then is it in between there that we have Jesus walking on water is that yes yeah isn't one of the gospels I think

Pete puts those kind of in that sequence and so it's like there's this concept where man we can be so close to seeing Jesus come through seeing God come through in our life answer that prayer give us that word breakthrough if something we've been praying for whatever it may be and yet we can struggle right but why do you think like in those moments and this is just like a personal opinion right why do you think that Jesus like why do you think Jesus was frustrated in those moments if frustrated may be a bad word but what do you think he was frustrated in those moments with his disciples of like you you little of faith right like come on guys like yeah well I'll tell you what I'll go back to what I just mentioned about a couple of my kids right like I do have a couple of kids who are very quick on the trigger to be like oh I'm starving like what are we going to oh oh I don't know what we're going to eat and it's one of those things like eventually eventually a child's lack of trust reveals something about me as a parent interest okay say that again so eventually a child's lack of trust can reveal something about me as okay right because if my kids are walking around the kitchen you know at 530 like oh I don't know if we're going to eat I don't know what we're going to eat I don't know if there's going to be food oh this is so bad right if they're doing that then how am I going to feel is their father like have I ever not right put something on the table for you have I ever I mean even it's just like a sandwich whatever like has there ever has has there ever been a time when there was nothing then why why are you worried like why aren't you trusting and I think that's that's the source of Jesus's frustration with him and why he called you know oh ye of little faith if we talk about through the lens we've been talking about oh oh you have little trust like why don't you trust me right now like why don't you believe that I can take care of you and why don't you believe that I want to take care of you and so I like I think I think that's part of the the level of it I think that's even part of the level that we see God with the Israelites in the Old Testament right it's absolutely like I brought you out of Egypt I've done this don't you think don't you think that I have what's best in mind for you don't you think that I can do this and so I think that lack of faith in that lack of trust just you know certainly I mean kids are kids they're they're gonna they're not always going to understand things right I think I think God has grace for us as his kids like okay like they they just don't understand the whole picture but I do think like some of that frustration in Jesus's ministry with his 12 is like guys you've been with me all this time do you not understand do you do you not trust that I know what's best and we're gonna get there hmm

I think that's a great point and I absolutely agree and yeah and that's what makes gosh and that's you almost see the two totally different reactions from Jesus in these moments where it's like Yeah. Like we can trust him. And even gosh, like we think like he's talking about like the nation of Israel. We had talked about this, you know, back. What was the sermon series we had a few months ago in the summer with Bryson and we were talking about Moses with Bryson. Oh, yeah. Unexpected leader. Unexpected leader. If you all were with us then for that. We're talking about, you know, God, you know, sent all these plagues, right? These Israelites could see happening right in front of them delivered them. As a people in from bondage in one of the most powerful nations on earth and has taken them out. And yet even through that over and over and over and over again, they kept missing the mark on being able to trust that God was going to take care of them. Yeah. That in the desert, in the wandering, God was going to take care of them. And then you just see in Israel's history over and over and over again. They forgot that God is the one that they can trust in. They wanted a human king. They wanted their own thing. They wanted and God had given them everything that they need. And it's the same for us. He's given us everything we need. He's given us what we need to know him. Right. His word. He's given us his spirit. Resources like, you know, panda to have different churches and podcasts to watch and listen to and worship with. But it brings us back to this part of devotion we have, one of the spiritual disciplines that Jesus expects us to have in prayer. And prayer can be such an interesting thing to talk about because on one hand, we like, if we believe in God, like, let's just make this assumption that everybody's listening to this right now believes in God and maybe you don't. And that's okay in this moment. We'd like to talk about, like, say, if we just believed in God and we believe that he's all powerful. He's all knowing. He is everywhere. He knows what we need. Scripture tells us that he even knows that we should pray when we don't know what to pray. Right. Right. But yet he still calls us to pray. And yet there are sometimes Brandon where I can fall into times in my life where I'm like, man, am I just going through like a wish list in my head of like, man, I wish God would do this. I wish God would do that. And there are times he enters those prayers. You know, but then there are often times he doesn't. Right. And I have to wrestle through. Well, why is that? You know, is it that that wasn't part of his plan, wasn't part of his will, but maybe just basically, Brandon, like, why do you think Jesus? Why do you think God calls us to pray? Like, why is that part of this experience that we call life? Oh, man, we're just diving in here. Well, you know, like, I think by its very definition, prayer is an act of desperation. And I think that's why we struggle with it. Because when I pray and when I ask God for something, I'm admitting that I can't get it myself. Interesting. And I'm admitting that I'm not the source of it myself. Right. Like, I once heard somebody talk about the, the, their idea was, was basically that a refusal to pray is a confession of self-sufficiency. Right. All right. Say that again. I don't think I can't. Can you? A refusal to pray is a confession of self-sufficiency. Right. That's a good thing. But I'm not praying about these things because I think I can get it for myself. And I think, like, that's why so often, I think our prayer needs to start with Thanksgiving and with, with praising God for what we've had because it reminds us that we didn't get what we've already had by ourselves, right? Like the things that I've already enjoyed and the blessings that have already come on to my plate, like, these are things that I did not do for myself. And so when I stop and I thank God for those things, I remember like, hey, I did not get here. I did not do that. I did not make that happen. And then it propels me forward in more desperation to realize like, hey, the, you know, the, this past day, like, God really showed up in ways that maybe I wasn't always aware of, right? Like he, he put food on the table. He, he put water in the cup. He took care of all these things. And, and I need him to do the same thing tomorrow. Like, I think that's why it's so significant that in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, Chapter 6, Jesus, praise, you know, give us today our daily bread. It's just like, hey, remind us today that what we have, what we have right now is what's been given to us. And, and what we've had, what we had yesterday is what was given to us. And what we're going to have tomorrow is what he's going to give to us. and And we tend to reserve prayer for those things we think we can't do on our own. When really, I mean, the truth of the matter, we can't do any of it on our own. We can't do, I mean, we didn't make ourselves, we didn't put ourselves here.

There's nothing that we have, there's nothing that we are that exists apart from him. And so prayer is just our way of acknowledging that we are not self-made. That's such a great way to put it. And that's super convicting because when you said that, like, it immediately brought things to mind of like, okay, well, what are the things that I normally don't pray about? Yeah. Well, typically, like, it's probably two extremes for me. One would probably be the things that I, if I'm being honest, I probably really don't think God can do, right? Yeah. And then the other side of things where it's like, well, like, I can take care of it, I'm not worried about. Right. Yeah. It's like a sweet spot of a lane where like, these are not too small for God to care. Yeah. Then these are two like this right here in this perfect lane. Yeah. You know, and I think that they're like, and then this can be hard because I know that like, gosh, like I remember growing up, you know, a lot of times my family read, listen to different preachers and different people. It's like, Hey, man, if you just believe this thing enough, if you just have faith, God will provide it for you in your life. Well, that may not always be true. No, not always be true. Because, and you know what I had to go through to learn that wasn't true is go through a lot of seasons back to back to back to back to back where I felt like I was believing or having faith for something and it wasn't happening. Yeah. Right. And I had to wrestle with like, man, I really like, I feel like I am doing what God is asking me to do that. I'm being faithful to the things he's asking you to do. And yet it seems like his answer is no, right. Or his answer is not right now. And and what I've had to do in those seasons is remind myself of like, OK, well, if I believe scripture and I believe that he is a good God, if I believe what like what Brock told us that he actually loves us. Yeah. Well, then like, like in, you know, Matthew seven, you know, talking about how, hey, if, if a man, or is it, or what man there among you who when his son asks for a loaf will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake. If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give you what is good to those who ask him?

And it reminds me of a sermon that Kyle preached earlier this year of like, man, God is ultimately the one who gets to define what is good. Yes. Yeah. In that situation. Yeah. Well, you know, I think sometimes when we when we talk about prayer like that, well, you just got to believe and you say, and you'll get what you asked for. I think that shows that we have put our faith in prayer and not in God, right? That we have put our faith in the requests that we've made rather than our faith like this magic formula. We are trusting in our prayers rather than trusting in our father and that that's where I think we get backwards on this. And I love that you bring out that that Matthew chapter seven passes because I think so often like part of the trust, right, is not trusting that God is going to answer my prayers. The way that I want him to that he I trust that he's going to answer my prayers in the way that he thinks his best. Right. And I think about that Matthew chapter seven passage a lot when it comes to unanswered prayers in my life because I think, you know, Jesus says, if your son asked for a loaf of bread, would you give him a stone? And I have to step back and think, am I asking for the stone? Like if I if I ask my father for the stone, you think he's going to give me that? Yeah. Or do you think he's going to give me the bread? All right. If I ask my father for the snake, you think he's going to give me that or do you think he's going to give me the fish? Like, what is it that he is really going to give me? And sometimes I think we have to step back and say, like, what is it that I'm asking for? Have I asked for the stone here? Maybe that's what that was. And God is like, no, this isn't good for you. This, this isn't what you really want. And I think it's, I think it's Tim Keller who once said something to the effect of like, like part of a part of our faith and trust and prayer is trusting that God is going to answer our prayer. According to what we would have asked if we had all the information he had. Right? Like, if we, if we know every, if we knew everything that God knew, what would we want and what would we pray for? And we have to trust that that's what he's going to give us. And that's the risk that Jairus took, even if they didn't know this, like, that's the risk that Jairus took.

That's the risk that this, this woman that is just touching like the hem of his garment took of like, okay, well, he like, ultimately, ultimately, this rest. we, there or not, my daughter decide like, he will heal my daughter not, it rests on Jesus. It doesn't rest on Jairus, it rests on Jesus. Like he plays that faith in that trust and he was convinced that Jesus could do it of like, Lord, if you are willing, right? If you are willing, not even like, if you're capable. - Right. - Like if you wanna do this to it. If you are willing and ultimately like, that should be all of our prayers in our life of like, Lord, your will, we sit in the Lord's prayer, like Lord, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And to be able to, I mean, pray big prayers, like I don't think that's a wrong thing to do, to pray big prayers, to ask a God for things, to pray those things, but ultimately, to pray with hands out, with palms up, of like, like you are my king, you know all things, and you know what's best for me, and you know what's best for your king. - Yes, yeah, and I love that energy with it. I'm having your hands open, 'cause there's that idea that, you know, I trust that whatever you put in my hands is gonna be good, and I trust that whatever you take out of my hands, that's gonna be good. - Yeah, that's a fair point too. - And this, you know, you made me think while you were talking about that,

talk about the faith chapter of the Bible, Hebrews, chapter 11, all these examples of faith, and the writer of Hebrews, or the preacher of Hebrews, however you wanna say it, he comes to the end of it, he's like, I don't have time to tell all the stories of all the great things people did by faith, but he says, you know, by faith, people over through kingdoms, rule with justice, receive what God had promised, their weakness was turned to strength, they became strong in battle, they put whole armies to flight, women received their loved ones back again from the dead. So he's like, look what all these people did by faith. But then in the end of verse 35, he turns it around, he says, but others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free, they placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at, their backs were cuts with whips, others were changed in prisons, some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, others were killed by the sword, someone about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated, they were too good for this world. And like what the writer of Hebrews is telling us, and I think it applies here in prayer, is that, you know, whether we get what we wanted or we get what it was, God had something different in mind than what we wanted, that it's all faith, like it's all trust. It's like I'm just, I'm not trusting that God's gonna answer my prayer, I'm trusting that God, sorry, I'm not trusting

that God is gonna answer my prayer the way I want. I'm trusting that God is gonna answer my prayer in the way that best brings him glory and honor, and leads to my good, as Romans 8.28 tells us, that no matter what the outcome of that trust is, no matter what the outcome of that faith is, I'm desperately trusting that whatever God has in mind is better than what I have in mind. - And pay no family, that's the thought for this week, that is the challenge for this week of, as you navigate through this season of your life. And for many of you, you may, like this season of your life being incarcerated, may mean that that is your circumstance for the rest of your life. For some of you that may be a little bit different and the prayer that you've been praying is, man, like I've been asking God to get my parole moved up or to get that approved or be able to get out and that answer from the Lord in this season may have been no. It may have been not right now or it may never be a yes. And I think the challenge in that is to trust in a God who loves you so much and died on the cross for you but also knows what is best for you, right? And that's hard, man, right? Like that's hard to wrestle with of like, man, because there are so many times in my life where I think I know what's best for me. And what I have to remind myself is there is a God who, like Brandon said, who knows infinitely more

about what's going on around me and what I need and what I need to go through. And he is ultimately going to give me a good thing, right? Well, he knows what he needs to take out of my hand. He knows what he needs to put in my hand. But ultimately, he knows what's best for me. And we can trust that we have a Father in Heaven that sees us and knows us. And so as we wrap up this conversation, I would encourage each of you to not think about this prayer journey, this prayer conversation, as like a circumstantial thing, right? I would think about it, like with how Pastor Kyle reminds us a lot, is about who we're becoming, you know? So when you are praying those big, bold prayers, when you are trusting God with those things, I would ask yourself, like, are we praying? That no matter who you are right now, do you believe that God can do something in and through you regardless of your circumstance? Because I believe that he can. I really do, no matter where we're at, no matter where we live in the world, that he can use you, that he can help you become more like him to become the person that he wants you to be, which is ultimately more like him. So, Panda family, we would just encourage you to have faith, to trust, like Brandon said, that faith being trust, to trust that there is a God that loved you so much that he would put on flesh as Jesus.

Live the life that we couldn't live, none of us could live, by the way, to die the death that each and every one of us deserved. And to be raised on the third day, right? Defeating death like Brock talked about. So that even though we will have a physical expiration date on this earth, y'all, we're gonna live forever. But if you've placed your faith in Christ, death is not the end, death is not the end for us. And so our journey between now and then is to think about who we're becoming, you know? And to not necessarily think about the circumstantial things that God would hopefully change around us, but the becoming part of who we are and what we're doing. And are we in situations where we're desperate enough to trust God when we have nowhere else to turn? And to trust ultimately in him and no one else and nothing else, no other way, but Jesus alone. So Brandon, any final thoughts before we wrap up this conversation? - No, man, I think you put it so well and I think the hardest part sometimes is trusting God in the midst of waiting for those prayers to be answered or maybe not seeing those things happen and just trusting like he's gonna do something in me, even if he doesn't give me those things that I want in that moment. - Amen, amen. Y'all, that's the journey. That's the journey for a lot of us

because most of our life, it's the journey. You know, it's the journey between seasons and but we're grateful that you're spending this season with us. Y'all keep diving in with us each week. We hope this is beneficial to you. I know that it definitely helps us dive further in the scripture and apply it to our own life and we hope that God's doing the same for you. And again, if you have questions, whether it's about scripture or about topics that you would like for us to discuss on this podcast each week or you just, you need someone to join you in prayer for something that you're praying for in your life. We would encourage you to write us here at Southeast. You can address it to one of us or our online team and we would love to get back with you to do that. You can always find the address to our church in the description of our videos. Pando family, we love you. We're grateful that you join us and we'll see you next time. You You