Prayers God Answers

Well, praise the Lord, good morning. I know we're missing quite a few folks this morning, but we had a wonderful graduation celebration for our brother Rudy down in Columbia yesterday, down in Lexington, and I know a lot of our folks stayed over to be with the people, and that'll be a blessing to them. Praise God when we can share in the hope that we have in Christ Jesus. It was a wonderful gathering with the people, and the Lord is so faithful to us to give us a hope that goes so far beyond what we know here, and I just thank God for it. I had some simple thoughts this morning, and we'll just see where the Lord goes with it, but I thought of a starting point in 1 John chapter 5, 1 John chapter 5. You know, we understand, we know that prayer is an important part of the Christian life, where we are literally communing with God. It isn't just a laundry list of stuff we want Him to fix in our lives, earthly lives, but it's meant to be an avenue of communion with Him, where we're literally sharing His life. He's sharing Himself with us as well, but anyway, let me just read what John writes. In verse 14, he says, this is the confidence we have in approaching God, so we need confidence, don't we? Wouldn't it be nice if we had a confidence? We went to Him, and we knew that we could be confident in the process. This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. Now, I'm afraid that a lot of our praying has to do with God fix earthly circumstances. This is wrong, fix it, and we don't always know what His will is, but you know there's a lot of stuff we do know that is His will, and that's kind of where my mind went, and I believe the Lord was directing it, because so much of the time, I believe that we've said that we had this theme come up in many different ways recently, on all the stuff that God has done for us, all that He has for us, and how little we enjoy of it. And I believe what we're talking about and thinking about this morning has a lot to do with that, because, you know, if He's sitting here and saying, I've got the riches of heaven for you, and there you go, you're just living your earthly life and kind of ignoring that, and then if you have a problem, you say, oh God, fix it.

That's kind of a skimpy life, isn't it? God has more for us, and I'm very conscious, again, of my need in this area, because we tend to live anxious lives, fearful lives, uncertain lives, more than we dare to admit, and lives where we have needs that just kind of go on and on and on, and yet here's God saying, I got it all, I have everything you need. But anyway, so we have this confidence that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. But John doesn't stop there, does he? He says that if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of Him. That's a good place to start, isn't it? If we're confident that we are, in fact, asking something that is God's will, can we not exercise a confidence and a thankfulness and actually expect Him to answer? That's kind of what He says, isn't it? That's what He wants us to come to. And I thought of this in the context of some of Paul's writings in particular. Now we know that God used him to establish churches, mainly in the Gentile world, but always reaching out to whatever Jews were there. And then he would write letters of encouragement and instruction to them. And so, I mean, these letters are so full of the truths of God's Word, and we often rightly look at them and sort of talk about what God has done, who He is, and all of that. But there's another dimension that I fear that we might miss if we're not careful. Now notice that not only does Paul write to them, he prays for them. And it's not just some, hey, I'm praying for you. This is a specific thing where he actually lays out what he's praying for them. So Ephesians, I mean, you could go through this, and I don't want to try to get bogged down in the details, which are awesome, but that's not my point today. But we see, he starts out with all of the awesome things that God has done. His plan, what He's accomplished in Christ, the fact that it goes back. back to a plan and a purpose before the foundation of the world.

And he goes on and on and on with this awesome run-on sentence of what he's trying to convey and the hope and the purpose and how God's going to bring it all together in Jesus one day. And he gives us his spirit and he seals us and he goes on and on. You try to read that in one breath, you get out of breath real quick. But Paul just can't stop writing about the great things that God wants his people to know and they're very important. But then he comes down to a place in the middle of chapter 1 beginning in verse 15 where it's not just, here's stuff I want you to know, he says, I'm praying for you, okay? For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. So this was an important part of Paul's ministry. I'm not just trying to encourage you with truth so you can have your head full of correct theology. This is a spiritual reality I want you to experience. And I'm not just instructing you, I am praying for you. Does that matter? Is that part of God's plan? Did that make a difference that Paul actually prayed to the Father expecting God to answer his prayer? Yeah, it did. He certainly was his expectation, okay? So he says, I have not stopped giving thanks and remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking. So what's he asking? Now these are prayers that we have looked at before, but I want to see them in a slightly different light. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. That's the starting point.

We need to realize that real knowledge comes from God's spirit revealing it to us. You can sit here and study under theologians all you want to and read the book and say, well, I've got the doctrine down, and that stops way short of what God wants. You don't have to be a study, I mean a theologian with a study to understand God and to know him. God wants the simplest of his children to know him, and he bypasses all of that process. It's not that he ... I mean, we can read the word and God can help us with it, but the point is I've got to have him personally dealing with me and enlightening me, or all I have is just human head knowledge. I need life. I need real understanding because I was born into a world that doesn't understand God and is blind to his purposes. If I'm going to understand what this is all about, he's going to have to show me. He's going to have to reorient my thinking so I don't just think earthly thinking. This is what Paul is concerned about. I want to get you past just all this earthly thinking that has dominated your life. I want you to know, I want you to understand some things, and you need help from heaven to do that. The spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. We made the point in the past knowing the knowledge, and this is a personal knowledge, by the way. This is not just facts. This is not stuff where you just fill out a paper and take a test. This is knowing him in the sense that we know one another because we spend time together. How would you ever get to know somebody if it was just through letters, for example, or just information you read in a book about them? There's no substitute for spending time with somebody, interacting with them in the daily activities of life. That's what God wants for every one of his children. He wants you to know him, not just know about him.

I need God to interact with my heart and with my life to change the way I see everything so that I not only know what's right in the face of what the world declares, but I have some understanding of why it's this way, and I know what to do with it. I need wisdom. How do I take this knowledge, this stuff that he reveals to me, how do I live it out? How does that interact with my earthly life? I need help. I need God to do something that's special for me, to take me past all of my earthly understanding and my earthly weaknesses. Okay? So that's what Paul is praying. And then he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart ... How many of you know that your heart has eyes? It's a way to express that I need, down here, I need to have eyes that are open. I need to have an understanding that's open to him so that I can see stuff as it really is and not as the world ... or the devil wants to paint it. That's the problem with the world. Their hearts are closed. They're so attached to this world, believing what it says, believing its lies, that when God comes around and begins to try to talk to them, their eyes, they immediately close off their heart and say, no, I know how it is. I know what I want. It's my life. Go away. But I'll tell you, God is looking for a people who want their, have their eyes of their heart open. And I've got to have an open heart for that to happen. But I need him to show me things in the, so that my heart can see things as they really are.

All right. I pray the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. Okay. Now why? In order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. It's already been mentioned that that was a theme in yesterday's service. And we talked about briefly, just very briefly, hope as God talks about it has nothing to do with how we use the word as human beings. We use it as wishful thinking. There are things that I would like to happen in the future and I'm trying to make them happen and I hope that's how it turns out. But there's no certainty to it because we don't, we aren't in control. But I'll tell you what God is talking about here is something that is absolutely certain because it based upon a God who cannot lie, who a God who lives outside of time and space, who can call things that are not as though they are. He is, he has absolutely already accomplished everything as if it had already happened. Folks, there is a certainty in what God has promised and I've, and God wants us to understand it and live it, understand, live like it's true because it is, all right? So there's a, but I need to know that in my heart. I need to have a personal knowledge that is not just because somebody says so and they sound good and I sort of believe it because Phil says it or somebody else. God wants you to have a personal relationship and encounter with God himself to where he can talk to your heart and you can know something down here. You could know it to the point where if they put a gun to your head and say, make a choice, you'd say, I know because God has showed me in my heart it's real and that's more real than anything this world has to offer. This is a passing temporary world that's going to pass away. All I serve, the God I serve has plans forever. That's where I'm, that's where I'm headed. That's my expectation because it's not just a wishful thinking, it's an expectation of

something that is certain because God cannot lie. It's God. All right? So he wants us to know that and have personal knowledge of that to which he has called you. I'll tell you, that's how we get in the first place. God has to call and we got to listen. I'll tell you, if God's calling and you've never really let go, you better listen. This is not just some religious thing. He's a God who made everything, who's behind everything and he loves you with a love you can't even imagine. And I'll tell you, if he begins to talk to your heart, you better listen. Your destiny depends upon it. Anyway, the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people. You know, I got to thinking about that. What he's talking about is God's riches. God is rich, isn't he? When he looks at the world, there are riches here that he values above all else. Do you think he values the hills and the valleys and the oceans and the gold and all of that? You think that's what's important to him when he thinks about the world? Oh, I'm rich. The one thing that God thinks about when he thinks about his riches and his possession, it's us. You want to know how he thinks about you and how he values you? You know, if we had a piece of gold right here, we'd say, oh boy, wow, that's valuable. That's how he sees you if you're his. We need to see ourselves in God's eyes, through God's eyes. We are his riches. We are his treasure in this world. There's going to come a time when he'll remove the treasure and burn up the rest.

I don't think that's as far off as some of us might think it is, but it'll be in God's time and God's way. He's going to call in every one of his and then he's going to call them out and burn it up. But thank God, that's how we need to see ourselves through God's eyes. You are his treasure. Not because there's some value in you as you were born into this world, but because of what he has placed in your heart, what he has done. It's all because of him, all right? The riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power. These are things we've talked about many times. This is not just incomparably great power where we can say, wow, that's great. It's for us. It's for us. God wants you to realize in me more than I do, and I confess it, I need to realize that the power that he demonstrated when he brought Christ out of that tomb, brought him to heaven, set him over everything, gave him a name that's above every name, that's the same power that he offers to work in me. I need it. Anybody here with me on that? Yeah, we need actual power. I don't need more, just more information. I need power. I don't have it. I wasn't born with it. I need divine help to be what he wants. Okay? Now here's a question that sounds silly. The things that Paul was moved upon, no doubt by God's spirit, to pray for the people, was there anything he said that was contrary to God's will?

I mean, was God looking down and saying, Paul, Paul, you're getting carried away again. All this stuff you're telling them, you're going way beyond my purpose. No, everything he puts in here, that's God's will. Okay? But this is, I believe that God wants us to get beyond just saying, well, that's awesome. Paul prayed all these wonderful things. I believe with all my heart, God wants us to learn how to take this word personally. And when we encounter something in here that is unquestionably God's will for us, that we start praying that for ourselves. Think about that. Now let's turn this into a personal prayer. That's kind of where I'm going with this. Because it's wonderful to see all the purposes of God and the truth of God and what he has for me and what he wants for me. But we've often referred to the scripture where the word says, you have not because you ask not. See, God's done all of this, but he wants to bring up sons and daughters, not robots. He wants sons and daughters who long to participate and receive and become what he has purposed that we become. He wants us to participate in that. And part of that is praying and asking, recognizing something that God has said is mine and say, God, I ask for that and I believe you because it is your word. It is your will. I'm not asking something that's outside of your plan for me. Now yeah, if it gets down to an earthly question, yeah, I need to have wisdom from him about is this his will or is that? But I know this is his will. There's no question here. I need this. So anyway, so what would the prayer be?

Lord, I pray, I ask, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father may give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I may know him better. I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which he has called me. The riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and I'm one of them. Oh, because of his mercy entirely, I can't look in the mirror and find a single reason why I should be a treasure in his eyes. What an awesome God we serve. Praise God and his incomparably great power for me who believes. That's his power, but it was for me. Now we can pray that for each other too, can't we? Now is there any question about whether what we have just read is God's will for us? So what are we doing sitting around not asking him for it and not expecting it to happen? Now I'm certainly not talking about some glorious, some sort of something where we have this grand experience is the word I was looking for, and suddenly we leapfrog into all of this, but there is a process where we need to be asking God, I know what your purpose is. I know where you're taking me. When you get done with me, I'm going to be presented as a full grown son, and it's going to be all you who have done it, but I'm asking you to bring that process to fruition. Work it in me actively day by day. I want to know you better. I want to understand more. I want you to change my way of thinking. I want you to do all this. stuff that you say so that it becomes mine and I can actually grow up as one of your children and not just blindly blunder through the world and sort of assert mentally all the stuff I'm supposed to believe. What would it be like if a small child just learned all about being human but never ate anything and never exercised?

That's a silly illustration, but it wouldn't make much sense. But we have been born, if we are His, if He has come to reside, we have been born of His Spirit, but now there's a growing process, there's a reason we're here, and it's to grow up to be His children. But I wonder if this is sometimes a missing ingredient. Are we recognizing this is His will? There's no question about it. He's told me that if I ask something that's according to His will, it's as good as done because He's faithful. It's a lot to think about, isn't it? Is this true? Am I just making this up? Is this just fantasy? No, it isn't. And there are a couple of other passages that we can refresh our memories about where Paul is also praying. Think about chapter three. Paul wants them, I'll just kind of skim through how he leads into this, but he talks about the fact that God had revealed to him a mystery, something that had been hidden before he came along. And what the mystery was that God is building a kingdom that's not just for the Jews, it's for Jews and Gentiles. That's what the Old Testament was really about, it was setting up a kingdom that was launched through Jesus Christ. And God's given me the ministry of sharing that truth of what He's doing in the earth, and it's awesome. And He gave me the power to do it. Paul didn't acquire this in school. God just called him and gave him the power and worked in him to give him the ability to do what He did.

And it was to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ. It talks about the eternal purpose that He accomplished. This is verse 11. According to the eternal purpose, His eternal purpose that He accomplished in Christ Jesus. Another grammar lesson, what tense is that verb accomplished? It's the past tense. Paul is not looking forward and saying, I sure hope he gets this done, he's saying he already did it. Everything necessary to make this happen was already done in Christ. That's why this thing was so exciting to him. It says, in Him, and through faith in Him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence. I ask you therefore not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are for your glory. So Paul was having to go through a lot, wasn't he, right? He was in prison. He had paid a price, but it was worth everything to Paul because of what he was able to do for God's people. Praise God. Now he gets to his second prayer in this book. For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches, now has he got what he needs? Has he got everything he needs? Is there anything that he lacks? He's God, I'll tell you. Out of His glorious riches, He may strengthen you with power. Again, you have this sense that I need strength. I don't have what it takes to be the person that He wants me to be. Lord, I need strength, don't I? He's got all that I need.

He's not like some power station that's doing all it can, but there's too many people trying to plug in and it runs out of power. He never runs out. He's always got everything that everybody needs. Is this His will? Is this what He's talking about, His will? Absolutely it is. All right? That He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit. That's where it comes. God has to literally impart through His own being the strength that's in Him, and I need that transferred to me. I need it shared with me, because I don't have what it takes. There's not a person here who has what it takes to be a Christian, not what He's talking about in here. You might go to a Christian church and all of that, practice a religion, but to really be His child and grow up, we don't have the first thing that's necessary, but it all comes from Him, if we're willing and if we want it. That's part of what this is all about. How much do we really want this? How much do we really expect? Or do we just muddle along and hope we're sort of in there somewhere, all right, so Strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being. That's where I need it, in here. I don't need Him just out here telling me what to do. I need Him in here giving me the strength because I don't have it. But I have everything I need through Him, all right? So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,

and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power. Again, that word power. Together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love. Again, the word know here is that deep personal sense of I've been there, I've done that, I've experienced it, I've walked with Him, I know something about Him that I didn't get from a book. I got it from knowing Him. That's something that God wants every person here to experience, and I'll tell you, we can do that. I'm not talking about some grand experience again. I'm talking about walking with Him to the point where we can look back and say, He brought me through that. I was in this difficult place, and He brought me through. He was with me all the way, and I can look back and see it. He carried me that one time. I didn't have anything that it took, but here I am, and He was with me, and He showed me His love, and I've experienced something from Him I could never have had if I hadn't gone through that. God wants that kind of personal knowledge to be in every one of us, all right? To grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love personally that surpasses knowledge. I need something that goes way beyond just knowing the contents of this book.

I gotta have His love. I mean, think about it. What He's wanting to do is reproduce a people who are motivated by love. Love is the opposite of selfishness. It's where whatever abilities and gifts God has imparted to me belong to you, and whatever the cost, they belong to you, and they need to be given to you, and God wants my heart to be open. I can't do that unless He comes in and does some major changes, but He brings His love, and as John says in 1 John, we love because He first loved us. See, that's how God's love is complete, is when He reveals it to us, and we share it with one another, all right? To know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. I don't know about that. That's just for the special ones. That's for the Pauls and the Peters, and I'll bet you we think like that more than we would dare to say. Oh, we're not quite sure what that means, and how's that gonna affect my life, and the devil has so many ways to kinda whisper this and whisper that in our minds. Is this God's will, or isn't it? Yeah, I see some heads.

This is His will, isn't it? That means it's His will not just for me and a few others. This is His will for you, for every single one of us. He wants us to be filled with all the fullness of God, and I understand this is a process. This is something where we experience Him little by little, and we grow little by little. I get that part, but God wants us to be filled. We sang songs about that this morning. I want Him to fill me, and I want Him to become the source of life that's in me. Boy, we got some, he's got a job on his hands, but he is up to the job, isn't he? Praise God, but wouldn't it be good if instead of just saying, that's wonderful that Paul prayed that for the people to whom he wrote, but what about me taking that personally and saying, hey, this is God's will. I'm a believer, why can't I pray this about me? Of course, my brothers and sisters as well, all right? I pray that out of His glorious riches, He may strengthen me with power through His Spirit in my inner being. I need you, Lord. See, that's what's going on. Do we really want Him? Are we really reaching out to Him, and are we reaching out to Him with an expectation, or are we allowing the devil to kind of undermine our confidence?

We're supposed to have confidence that we can come to Him. The confidence doesn't come with our qualification, it comes from Him, entirely, 100%. one who invites. Oh, I wonder how many times the Lord is sitting there saying, I've given you everything. Why are you living in such poverty, such spiritual poverty? I want sons and daughters who participate, who ask me, who want what I have for them. Because I'm freely give it to you, but you need to want it and ask. That's where Paul's going with this. I believe that's where the Lord's going with this. So that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith, and I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Then he goes to that awesome passage, now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within me. Wouldn't it be nice if we read it that way and took it personally? There's so much of Scripture that God wants us to take personally. I mean, I think of things that He exhorts us to do, love one another. Can't we say, God, I don't have it in me to do that, but You have told me to do it. I know it's Your will, and I get how the Christian life works. It's by grace. You're going to have to help me do whatever there is to do. So I'm asking You, Lord, I ask You to pour Your love in my heart and make it possible that I can obey what You say. Can I ask that in confidence and begin to say, thank You, Lord, I know that You're going to answer this prayer because I know it's Your will. I don't have to guess about this one. Praise God. That's a simple principle, isn't it?

To Him that is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine based on what? According to His power that is at work within us. That's the definition of the Christian life. I need His power constantly at work within me, changing me, fixing me, empowering me to be the person He called me to be. But don't I need to be asking Him for this? Don't I need to be saying, oh God, You've shown me in Your Word what You want. And I'm asking You, and I'm expecting You to come and to begin, and more and more to change me and help me to be able to do what You told me to do. Praise God. I mean, you can go on through the epistles. How about over in Philippians in the first chapter? Paul says, well, he talks in verse 3, scriptures we've used so often, I thank my God every time I remember You. In all my prayers for You, for all of You, I always pray with joy because of Your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now. Being confident of this. Talk about the hope. Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in You will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus, okay? Now jump down to verse 9. What's he praying? This is my prayer, that Your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. Don't we need insight? Don't we need the ability to look beyond the surface and just some, this is how I do stuff, but I don't understand it. God wants understanding. God wants us to be able to understand why things are the way they are and to work with Him and to cooperate with Him so that we can look at situations and say, you know, I more and more, I'm able to see this through God's eyes.

I'm not looking at this the way the world sees it. I want to be able to understand things from a spiritual point of view and God's promised to help me if I just ask Him. I'm going to grow in this area, all right? Bound more and more in knowledge, what we know, but depth of insight, understanding. You see the same thoughts that he had in Ephesians. Why? So that you may be able to discern what is best. You want to be able to recognize when something is of the Lord and when it's not. How many times are we guessing and hoping? God wants to build our knowledge and our sensitivity in Him to the point where we can know. We can have a greater wisdom and insight. The devil's not so ... we're not so easily fooled by the devil because he tricks us of wanting stuff that we want carnally. God's setting us free, isn't He? That's His heart. So that you may be able to discern what is best. may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." He uses the same kind of thought that Jesus did when he talked about the vine and the branches. I've got to be connected to a source of life, and when I am, and I allow that life to flow into me, fruit's going to happen. Things that I couldn't ever do or be are going to happen. Folks, I pray, I see the need in my own heart, God, do all this in me. I need you. I need you to change me. I need you to empower me. I need you to motivate me. I need all of this.

I need everything that happened at the cross to start happening in me. What good is it? What good is theology without reality? Thank God, all right? It's the praise and the glory of God. This is Paul's prayer. This is my prayer, that my love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that I may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the praise of God. Would that be a good prayer to pray? Yeah. Do you actually expect Him to answer it? That's the point, because we know it's His will, and we know if we pray according to His will, He's going to hear us. Praise the Lord. Simple principle, isn't it? We learn to take the things that we know are His will, and we can take them to Him with an expectation. I don't have to say, do I really qualify? Are you really sure? Is this about me or is this about somebody else? Oh, stop listening to the lies and the whispers of the evil one. Praise God. Look at Colossians. I don't think this needs to go on a whole lot longer, but anyway. This was a group of people that Paul had never met, but he had heard about them, and he had this burden in prison, but he had a burden to be able to share the glorious riches of Christ with them. He's always thanking God, in verse 3, and praying for them, because he's heard of their

faith and so forth. But then he comes down in 9, and you find out what he's praying. For this reason, because we've heard about your faith and we're thankful about it. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. So what's this prayer? We continually ... That's an interesting word. Prayer is not just a passing event and then we've done. This is a sense of relationship where we're talking and we're lifting our hearts, and there's a constant sense of, I need this, but you're my answer, and I'm trusting in you. I'm drinking in. I'm connected to the vine. I'm opening the channels and letting the life flow in. Okay? So we continually ask God to do what? To fill you with the knowledge of his will. Wouldn't that be nice? To have a sense, to be able to have this ability in us to know what his will is. To know what's right and what's wrong. We're living in a confusing world with a devil shouting every kind of lie that you can imagine. I'd like to have a relationship with him that's close enough that I can begin to discern what's right and what's wrong and what his will is and what it isn't. Is this something he wants or is he holding back? This is his heart. This is why he's reaching out through Paul. Okay? We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all wisdom and understanding that the spirit gives. Now again, you have this sense that I need to have the wisdom, I need the understanding, and I know where it comes from.

It comes from the spirit. You've got the same truth that he expresses again. All right, so where is he going with that? Why do I need that? Why do I need him to enlarge my understanding and my knowledge and all of that? So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord. There ain't no way it's going to happen unless he does something in my heart and my mind. I won't know what he wants or what he doesn't want. I'll be so out of touch with him. God wants us tuned in, connected, in such a way that I can actually live a life in this world that pleases him. What an amazing thing for somebody like me to be able to do something like that. I couldn't ever do it. To live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way bearing fruit, in every way Every good work growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, goes on and on and on with this sense of what he has that I need and how we need to be reaching out and saying, oh God, you've already revealed that this is mine. It's been given to me through Christ. What am I doing here, not asking for it, not expecting it, living a life of spiritual poverty when you give me the riches of heaven if I just ask. I get that it's a process. I get that you're working in me and all of that, but I need to, it needs to be happening. It needs to be happening. That's where he's going with it, all right? All right. According to his glorious might. Now why that? Why do I need all of that knowledge and strength and power and all of that? So that you may have great endurance and patience.

Oh, we love that, don't we? But we know that part of God building his life and his character in us is us standing against that which opposes our faith. We're going to have to make choices day by day. I have no way I can stand up to that unless he gives me the strength to do it. Is he willing to do that? He sure is. That's his heart in all of it. He wants us every time we face something that is opposing our faith, we need to be going to him with an expectation. Lord, you allowed this, but you allowed it so you can come and help me and I can learn something. I can grow. All right? But how are we going to do that if we don't have, if we're not growing in the knowledge of God and being strengthened and so forth? So that we may have not just endurance, but great endurance and patience. God, give me patience and I want it now. No, it doesn't work that way, does it? All right, great endurance and patience. And then here's the part that we sometimes, where we sometimes fall short, and giving thanks. How about not just enduring and going through whatever, but giving thanks in the middle of it? You've got to be kidding me. That's how human beings think. But we need to see, you see, if we have the understanding, we can see all of what's happening on earth through God's eyes, that we're his treasure. He's building us up. He's preparing us for another world.

It's not about the values of this world. It's not about anything this world stands for, but he's changing me from the inside out to think like him, to choose like him, to act like him in the world. He's going to give me the power to do all of that, but he wants me to be asking and looking and expecting, because it's his word. Praise God. It's a lot to think about, isn't it? It's not a complicated principle, what we're talking about this morning, but is it real? Do we really live this out, or do we need to be saying, wait a minute, these books, these words in this book need to be words coming out of my mouth? I'll tell you, we talked last week about God putting his words in our mouth. This is a pretty good example of when he can take what he has preserved for us, and it can become personal, where instead of, that's wonderful that Paul prayed that, I can say, I can pray that, because I know it's God's will, all right? Giving the joyful thanks, not grudging thanks, thank joyful thanks to the Father, so what's he done? He has qualified you. You think you lack the qualification for any of this? So do I. If I'm going to look inside and try to find some, it ain't there. He has done everything necessary to qualify me for all that he has provided. Thank God, that's the glory of the gospel. Praise God. Qualified me to share, qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light, for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Praise God. Now let's read it the other way, all right? I continually ask God to fill me with the knowledge of his will through all wisdom and understanding that the spirit gives, so that I may live a life worthy of the Lord and please

him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that I may have great endurance and patience in giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified me to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has saved us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son He has rescued me from the dominion of darkness and brought me into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption. He loves, in whom I have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. You think just maybe the Lord might want us to see it in that light and begin to take everything He has revealed personally, take it to Him and give thanks, and not just throw it out there like, well, this is a nice sentiment, I'm supposed to do it, but Lord, I'm actually expecting that You're going to be at work in my life. I thank You, I praise You, I'm trusting You, on and on, looking to God. I'll tell you, we have an awesome God, don't we? I mean, like I say, you can go on and on in the Scriptures, you can look at exhortations to be this and don't do that and all of that. Every one of them needs to become a prayer. Lord, You told me to love my brothers and sisters, give me the power to do that, I want to do that. I recognize that naturally that isn't how I am. I'm in a situation where I need to forgive, because You told me to forgive, and here I am and I'm trying and I can't do it, but Lord, if You told me to forgive, I have every reason to say, Lord, You told me to forgive and I'm asking You for the power to do it because You forgave me. There are a lot of things that we just ... I just can't do that, I'm just weak. We make excuses for ourselves and our weaknesses that are going to God with an expectant heart because Jesus paid it all, and all that we could ever need, He has already given us in His Son through the cross. I'll tell you that God be the glory. Praise God.

Praise God. You know, you could go on and on with this, I don't think that's necessary, I don't know if we have to have a service of any special length. Somebody else may well have something and that's fine, that's okay. If it's from the Lord, we want to hear it, but I'll tell you, I don't know, this thought has just touched my heart and I pray that God will make it live so it becomes a way of life, to learn to take the Word that we know is God's will, and we remember that He answers according ... if it's His will, we know that we have it, and then take it to Him with an expectant heart, and look to Him, and quit making excuses for all that I'm not, and just lay hold of what He has given me, and begin to grow. Yeah, it won't happen overnight, and yeah, I'll fall in the mud here and there because I need to learn what I'm made of, but I can always go back to the cross. There's always an answer in Him. You know, your kids all make messes and do all kinds of things, but they're still your kids, and you still love them, and they still grow up, don't they? So whatever the process is involved, but I have every right to take what I know to be His will, and ask Him about it, and expect Him to answer. To Him be the glory. Praise God.