S8E3 - The Kinds of Prayers God Answers

- Welcome to The Forgotten Jesus Podcast, where you will learn about the real Jesus in the Bible. I'm your host, Pastor Adam French here with Pastor Robbie Gallady and Candy Gallady, both accomplished authors, and Robbie is the pastor of Long Hollow Church and founder of Replicate Ministries. - And Adam French, the founder of Recovery Corporation. - Oh, that's right, yeah, that's right. Thank you for saying that. - And author. - We just had a guy, let's just, we just had a guy get out of jail last night with nothing. We put out a little thing, a little just a blurb on Facebook. We have so many, we have so much club, our church is unbelievable. No, we got so many clothes for him, and guess what? Just got the text, starts a job on Monday. - Let's go. What are you working? Got his Bible, F-260. - Tell them about recovery efforts, it's a really cool thing about Adam's heart. Adam and I, if you don't know, have a very similar testimony, and tell them about the success rate of guys who go through the whole programming gap, which is really unparalleled. - What's all, all glory to Jesus Christ, all glory to the Lord, and the power of Scripture.

Right now, for everyone, everyone who is graduated, they've completed the seven months. Now we've had guys that come and didn't finish, but guys who've completed the first seven months, we have a 100% success rate. Everyone is still sober to this day. It's almost going on three years. - Wow. - No, sorry, wrong one. - No, I don't have a question. - I don't have a question. I was looking for the hype button, my hype button. - Yeah, that was awesome. - So cool thing is, I don't know if you know this, he knows this, but every person that comes into our program goes through the F-260. So the-- - And they hear journals. - And they hear journals. So the book that you guys wrote, I think it's one of the best resources for discipleship, anybody out there that has a teenager, adult, a kid in Christ as addiction, elderly. I've done college students. I've done men in prison. I think it's the best tool. I really do, I believe this. I think it's the best tool to take people through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelations, and you're teaching them, as she always says,

to engage the Bible. So you can find all that. It's on Amazon, LifeWay, the F-260. All the foundation stuff is amazing. I'm an extella, my eight-year-old goes through the kids' stuff. So you're always going, "I wanna teach my kids the Bible." I won't be able to learn the Bible, but what's the easiest? How do I do that? Well, it's already, we already haven't written out, you guys have it out. Great resource. I love it. I've been doing it for 11 years. So I think it's an incredible resource. - And did it at another church, brought it with you, and they're still doing it. - And guess what, here's the thing, they got it. - They'll be back. - They'll be back. - They'll be back. - They'll be back. - Who's the pastor? - Ben Monroe. - Ben Monroe, yeah, he's awesome. - So Daniel Harris was in our college ministry. We did all the discipleship groups. Guess what he's doing? Moving to Denver, same game plan. They're starting out, D-groups. He's in Denver right now, doing F-260 foundations,

planting the church, the same model, so. - Well, here's the items. - It works. - Okay, here's the items. If you seek to build a church alone, you rarely produce disciples. But if you seek out to build and make disciples, you always build a church. That's how it works. I mean, that's biblical, by the way. But, so that's what we're doing. - No, it's not about Jesus. Did Jesus say? - It's not about Jesus. - Jesus is on something, yeah. We do have here to tell you something exciting. Coming out, a new resource. You're the first to hear it publicly. Well, when you hear it may be the first, but we're saying it now first for you. - Wait here. - Wait here. - Wait here. Powerful book. I'll tell you what's interesting is, I love the title of it, because this is what the Lord had you do, right? You're going through all kinds of stuff in our church. I won't tell them the whole book, there's a lot of things going on in our church,

but the Lord told you to not, he didn't tell you to do this or do that, or change this or change that. Fire him, fire him. No, he said what? - Change, yeah. - He said, wait. - Wait, wait. - And wait here, wait. And here is H-E-A-R. So, and you notice the little slash, wait slash here is the picture of the porch. I was waiting on the porch to hear from God. And then we learned today in my D group, the, you know, the Jewish culture always has, they climb a mountain to the pinnacle of scripture. So, scripture has, the scripture is more important than other scripture, but for the Jewish hebraic mind, scripture has weight. Some scriptures weighter than others. So, the Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevim, the Ketovians, so the Torah, the prophets, and the writings. The writings would be at the base of the mountain. So, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. The second section, the middle section of the mountain would be prophets. Starts with Joshua, Judges, 1 Kings, Samuel. And then you get through E-Z-E, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, E-Z-E-Z-E, Ezekiel. But anyway, the top part is the Torah. And so, that's the weightiest of all scripture.

But out of the Torah, there's one book that's weighter than all, which is the Book of Deuteronomy. Now, a lot of people don't know this. Deuteronomy, you know what that means? - I've heard you say a lot from God. - You know what this means? - You said it, but forgot. - Why don't you even know this? - No way, give us choices. - I'll break it down. It's actually two words. It's two words, Deutero Namos. That's the two words, Deuteronomy. Deutero Namos, in Greek. - The duh feels like you should do on television. - Okay, no, duh is a, or duh, duh, uno, dulce, duh. So duh is two or second, Deutero. - Deutero, and Namos is what? - Like number? - Law, it's called the second law, which is the answer. Now, it's not a second law, but basically it's like the summation of the law. So if you're gonna read one book in Genesis, like the cliff notes, the summation is Deuteronomy. So for them, the peak or the top part of the mountain is Deuteronomy. But out of Deuteronomy, there's one chapter that rises to the top, Deuteronomy six. But out of Deuteronomy six, there's one verse that rises to the peak.

Verse four, here, oh, Israel. So Shamah, it's just Shamah. Shamah, Israel at an eye, Elicano at an eye, Ekkad, Veihavtah, Elinai, Eloekah. - We don't speak in tongues here, though. - Levabka, Uvakal, Nothakah, Uvakal, Nafshikah. - Wow. - Which is basically in Hebrew. I know somebody said, Hebrew's bad. I know I haven't spoken. - He was bad. That was awesome. - But it's basically-- - It's your English. - It's your English. - I'm not saying anything. - I was saying it's your English speaking. - Yeah, it's my, it's my Cajun. - Yeah, you're a Cajun. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Let's see, "Lobai should ever come." - I can't. - Like what she's speaking. - The fact that I'm speaking English is a big deal. Jeremy knows this from where I'm from. But anyway, it's here, Israel, the Lord's, I got the Lord's. Oh, but here's this crazy. There is one word. Like so if the peak of the, of all of scripture, the top of the mountain is Deuteronomy 6-4.

One word is the, is the apex, is the pinnacle. Shamah here. - Mm. - So here's what's crazy. - Wow. - Here's what's crazy. Because don't miss this. Here, if we're gonna kind of extrapolate the meaning, here doesn't just mean, so the CSB says listen, listen Israel, the Lord's, I got it. And somebody said, "Well, listen's not as good as here." Well, they're both not the best way to translate the word. Shamah actually means don't miss this. Not just to hear a listen, but to what? - Obey. - Obey and do. - Yeah. - So it's not wait here and all I'm gonna sit as a spectator. When you hear from God, it's okay, I'm gonna hear and I'm gonna act upon what I heard. - Wow. - So. - A great principle for that. Like when we're teaching kids, like as they grow up, like it's so easy to say listen to me, right? But it's listen to me and obey what I'm saying. It's listen and obey. So you're teaching them from the very beginning to hear what you're saying, but then to follow through with the action of it. - Isn't it interesting that in the world of psychology,

they also say, like to listen is a learned behavior? You're not born natural to listen. - It's good. - So if you think about like, if you want to learn something, what's the number one thing? Practice repetition. So you have to practice that. Well, how do you obey? Practice it. - That's funny saying this. - So it's like, there's a lot of connections there. - I just watched, I mean, I've followed different guys on YouTube, but one of the guys was a former CIA agent and he was doing a podcast interview. And somebody was asking, what's the number one skill? Like the number one soft skill a CIA agent should learn to be a good agent? Because you're working in foreign countries and you're going undercover. Guess what he said? The number one skill. It's not how to defend yourself, Jeremy. It's not fighting or how to use a knife or gun. He said the number one skill is listening. - I would say eyes and ears. - He said, you can affect change in anybody if we're good listeners. So anyway, speaking of listening. So wait, here's the book. It comes out September 22nd.

- Where can we get it? Where can we get it? We can preorder Amazon, but literally it is the journey of the revival, the 10 months on the porch leading to it. And then the eight months of the season of revival where we saw by God's grace over 1600, basically people baptized in eight months. By the way, that's miraculous in itself. Oh, by the way, it was COVID and you couldn't pay somebody to get face to face without a mask, much less in a bacterial field tank. And so the fact that 1600 drove or flew in from 17 states, Maine and Portland, Oregon and California and Texas. And so what I talk about in this book is the lessons I learned from waiting and hearing on the porch and I'm gonna teach you very practically, it's very raw, it's a very different book, Jeremy I'll tell you, then I've ever written before. It's very raw, it's very transparent, it's very real, but it's very practical. So you will read this book, this is my promise, and you will learn how to binge your ear to the accent of the Holy Spirit. Like you will literally say, man, I feel like I'm hearing from God. Not audible, like, "Hey, do this." But I know this is the Lord. So anyway, is the audio version out? Or is it coming?

- It's coming out, but here's the cool thing. - I'll read it. and I did it. Many times we'd finished the chapters and I'd be I'd have tears coming down my face because it brought us back to there. And those at Long Hollywood are listening. It brings us back to and this is not some like church down the street across the country. This is our church and I dedicated to Long Hollow, our church for being patient with me. Speaking of prayer, I guess we're talking about today. And look at this guy. I mean you talk about somebody got their prayer life, right? His shirt if you're watching on our new YouTube studio. If you're not checking our YouTube, take a moment to go check it out. And if you click over there, make sure you subscribe to the channel there because it really helps us out on YouTube. Get the word out. But Adam is wearing a shirt that says what? Candy prayer still works. You'd almost think he's praying, man. I don't know. What does the back say? I don't think it has three things on the back. Let me say. Are you able to turn around? Oh, it's Jesus is the way believe in it for yourself. Whoa, we get that shirt from. Speaking of shirts, when we get in merch, Kate, can we get some merch? Seriously. It's in the words got in the works. Just wait in here. Wait in here. Okay. We're talking about the kind of prayer God answers. Come on. The kind of prayer God answers. Candy turn to Matthew 7 7. We're working through Matthew 7 7. Let me just set it up. Many sermons have been wrongly preached on this passage, by the way. You've heard people say, ask anything you want and God will answer it. Seek anything you desire. God will give it. And knock. And every time you're gonna get back from God and what I'm saying, I'm not saying God doesn't want to respond. But I'm talking about the word faith movement. The name it, claim it, blab it, grab it, believe it, achieve it. Movement, which is heretical. If you want a Cadillac, pray for it. If you want to raise, pray for it. You don't have the house you want to live in. Ask God for it. God wants to bless you. God wants you happy, healthy, wealthy, and rich. God wants you to have your best life now. Every day is Friday. Not to quote two titles from a guy in Texas. But anyway, is that the question not to not to

belabor the point? Is that what this text means when in God says, ask and seek and find in the faith promise movement Adam, what they say is God is a roulette wheel in Las Vegas or a celestial slot machine in heaven. These with these guys, they don't say that, but that's what they mean. Just pull a handle enough times in prayer and you'll have what you, if you don't have it, speak things that are not as though they are and they'll come, you've been saying there's a chance. Okay, that's ridiculous. That's what you were thinking. That's how ridiculous that is. No, I'm saying that's what they are. Well, what it is, it's a sort of view of God's power and how it works. No, I'm not saying don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying God does an answer, but you have to understand when we study a text, we have to study the text in context. The way I learned it in school was context is king. Another another little catchy statement is this, a text without its context is a pretext for a what candy? Proof text, she knows it. So a text within its context, meaning the context, the paragraph, the letter in which it was written, if you take it out of that, it becomes a pretext prior to the text so you can change it manipulated to prove, become a proof text, whatever you want. If you don't believe this, just turn on TBN or some of these shows online where people just, you know, have what you want, claim it, name it. So we got to put the text in context. You can't isolate Jesus's words in the sermon on the mount from the broader context of what we're talking about. Okay, so just recap before you read, what did we just study last week? Remember this? Judgment. Judgment. Yeah. You need a judge, judge. Okay, he said, we learned, you should judge, but you need to do it with a righteous judgment. Okay. And know when you judge others, man, that boomerang's coming back to you and sometimes it's not pretty because you've got a log and not a spec. So that's the context here of Matthew 7. Let's read 7 7 through 11. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks the door will be opened. Who among you if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone or if he asks you for a fish will give him a snake. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your

children. How much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them. For this is the law and the prophets. All right. What is going on here? Jesus starts with the attitude we need to have or the disposition in prayer. Okay. On the surface, if you're reading this, like some people read the sermon on the mouth, they just pull out pithy statements or script on a wall or, you know, post on Instagram. It looks like it's disconnected from the previous section, But-but-but... So read verse 12 again, because that's the tie that kind of binds it together. Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them. For this is the law and the process. So what we know from before Jesus is cautioning us in judgment from having a critical spirit, okay? So he's saying, when you judge, don't be critical. Make sure you judge yourself, don't be critical. And then he ties it with the golden rule in a sense at the end. Right. The way you treat others is the way. So before I tell you what I think is going on, why is he book ending this section on prayer with how you treat people and you're postured toward another person? Why is he doing that? Think about this. Is it because, you know, because I think of like the scripture about your wife, like how God doesn't hear your prayers if you're wrong with nothing right. So it's like basically what I'm thinking is it's like I'm going around and I'm treating everybody contrary to what the gospel says, the way scripture says. If I'm, if I'm treating, if I'm being mean to you, harsh to you, and then I'm going to God praying, asking for things, even if it's in accordance to his will, it's going to hinder that. Yeah.

Is, I mean, is that what you're, is it? Maybe I'm awful. No, no, no, I think it's a part of it. You can't go out and treat everybody how you want, you know, like it's like the whole book, the book that we love. If I'm emotionally sick and I'm treating everybody bad, but then I'm getting up praying every morning. Well, yeah. Yeah, what do you think? I mean, very similar. I just feel like if you're like in the judgment sense, if you're judging somebody and then you're also going to be judged, but then if you're going around in that sort of frame of mind and that heart posture, then is God really hearing your prayers? Yeah. Okay. Y'all going further than I want to go. Y'all going there, but okay. No, no, y'all go deeper than I want to address. You got candy and let's do surface level. Let's go. I should have said that. Let's start surface. Okay. Okay. Oh, we're going to get slow. Yeah, we're going to go slow. Jeremy's by the way. I don't know if you know this about big germ. Jeremy, one of Jeremy's many talents is Jeremy was a scuba scuba scuba.

Sorry, that's my scuba steep scuba scuba scuba, scuba diving diving. You said scuba instructor. He was a he was a job instructor. Let's just say that. He was a he was a diving instructor. There you go. Oh, it's scuba dive. So you're a diving instructor? Oh, yeah. This dive master was that for the was that for like Sheriff's Department stuff? Or you did that for fun? This is fun. This guy, this guy. I know, right. Wait, wait, I'm so curious. What's the deepest you ever went? What? Two hundred seventy four. Could you feel it in your chest? Like pressure in your brain? Could you do it in your brain? There's a way to do it. We got to come back up really slow. Right. Our message actually that reminds me of what happened. That would be like a really good. When I came to Long Hollow, I tried to take her by on a scuba diving expedition and just about lost half the people. You're talking about when I went to a joke and I joke it. Can he say we go into Miami?

No, I'm talking about with the servants. I thought we went like yo, I thought he meant lobster diving. Didn't they go after lobster feeding off? We got to roll back in. If I can't stand in it, I don't want to swim in it. I mean, he'd get nervous about. No, I thought you were going to buy it. I thought literally. We started in the shallow end. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm thinking because I came to Long Hollow. I'm preaching 55 minute sermons. I'm parsing the third person Greek imperative voice of the word, you know, peace to us and people are like, what is this dude calling him? So we went scuba diving and now we had to go back to the shore and now we started with snorkeling and now we're back deep again. But anyway, OK, here's what I'm saying. In the context, surface level, OK, let's take the context of what Jesus has just said. Most people get confused because they here ask, seek, find and they're thinking God's going to give them what I'm asking God for what? What does the normal person think here possessions, car, job, family, care of the world, marriage. And I'm not saying those things aren't true because you can find pastors to prove it. But the question we have to ask is, what is Jesus having mind? He's got an interpret scripture, what does Jesus have in mind when he's speaking it? And how did the audience who's looking him eyeball to eyeball interpret it? Did they say, oh, man, he's talking about a rose, well, I can get him. I can get a Benz, you know, I can finally get that. I can get bling, steel, toad sandals. I mean, that's what I'm, no, it's not worth thinking about anything about any of that.

But there, what the context is saying is he's talking about wisdom on how to deal with difficult people. Watch this. And he's talking to the side. He's talking about wisdom. Yes. He's talking about wisdom and how to eradicate the log from your own eye. And then once God gives you wisdom or direction to do that, then He's asking, you're asking God for discernment on how to tell if that's a dog or a hog, how to tell if that's a true prophet or a false teacher, how to tell if someone's hardened, or that's what he's asking. Now we, remember, the problem with us, when we read the Bible in Western America, I'm not down in or Europe, UK, is we always think the Bible is written about us. It's all about us, so we're trying to make it about me and where do I find me in the text. And I'm not saying the Bible doesn't apply to us, and obviously it's impactful. But remember this line, the Bible was written to us not, I mean, you have, the Bible is written for us, not to us. Say it again, the Bible was written for our benefit, but it wasn't written to us, okay? So to them, Jesus is telling them, you need to be desperate for direction from God. Now, here's the challenge, I wanna give this challenge here. We can't reduce Jesus' challenge to prayer just for the matters mentioned above, like we can pray for all matters,

but in this context, Jesus is saying, when you're trying to discern how to ascertain someone's heart, how to help someone with sin, how to look for sin in your own life, here's the protocol, it's threefold, okay? Number one, ask. What does the word ask mean? If we're studying the word ask, what does ask mean? - To ask. - Exactly, exactly. - Ask us. - I don't know how to explain that anymore. - No, that was it, it means to ask or inquire. But in Greek, you miss the urgency here, okay? So it's not just, hey, I need you to do this, would you do this? Another word here is it means supplication, 'cause another word's similar, and which is from the Latin word, which means to bow down, and it's a picture of humility. So the point is, before you can ask for help, you've gotta recognize your insufficiency or your inadequacy to do it in your own strength. And that's a big thing, especially for quote self-made men or girls who are, you know, they make it happen, I don't need a man, you know, or a guy who's saying, you know, I could do this for my own strength, those kind of people have a hard time, why? Because in order to ask for help, you gotta realize you can't do it.

- And I don't think there's been a ever, as far as like another point in history where there's been more information easily at your disposal. So the power of this point is probably more prevalent now because we can, I mean, I could, I got 500 people on my phone I can ask. We can Google, we can, we got Claude, we got Chad GPT, we got Jimina, we've got counselors, that's the fastest, one of the fastest growing fields. We got all these people we can ask. - We got counselors too, AI now, we got counselors online, I mean, yeah. - But you think about it, you know, we teach a lot of people in early recovery is trying to teach them to turn to God, teach them to pray, they don't really, they don't know what prayer actually looks like practically. But I think a lot of times Christians, we've forgotten that. We hear about prayer, we hear about sermons, we hear the word of God, and we don't realize that it's more about what you do with it. You know, think about this, this is something that I have to ask myself. If something were to happen right now, difficult, I think we would all say we would pray, but like if you're listening, you think what's, if something happens to you, you don't know what to do,

you have a relationship issue, someone talks bad about you, golf's about you, issue in your marriage, is your first thing that, your first go to, is it to ask God, 'cause that's what Jesus is saying. - It's funny, it's funny you just said this, I just looked it up, I literally wrote this line down yesterday that I heard in one of my D groups this morning, oh yeah, yesterday morning, here's a line, is God your first response or your last resort? - Mm, that's a line right there. - So good. And we were talking about, here's what we're talking about in the context, we're reading as a church, first Samuel. And it hit me as I was, I'm preaching on first Samuel 24, but what I was studying first Samuel 23 in context, and David goes to Kilea and Kilea wants to fight him, you remember, and basically what he does is, in that chapter, he inquires of the Lord. God, what should I do? Should we go about, yeah, go battle him? He goes, tell us the guys, the guy's like, I don't think we can do it. God's like, no, no, you got it. He's like, can we do it? Ask him again. God says, you got it. And then he asked him, how many times?

Four times in one chapter, David inquired of the Lord, and God responded, okay? And it hit me as I was studying this, 'cause David's called a man after what? - God's own heart. - God's own heart, yeah. - God's own heart. Now that doesn't mean David's perfect. - Right. - It doesn't mean perfect. Obviously he's gonna mess up, but here's what hit me. The one time, the one snapshot of David's life where he messed up royally was with Bathsheba, and then trying to call her husband from the battlefield, and then sending back to die. The only time he's messed up, I would say, is when he forgot to inquire of the Lord. So you think of David's life. You hear that story of Bathsheba, and we always highlight it, but God could take a story Remember the time you yelled at your wife? Okay, well, yeah, maybe yelled at her at that time. But look at the totality of our relationship. I don't yell at her, I'm not mean to her. But it's that one time, okay? David one time, I mean, he probably not one time, but that main point he forgot to inquire the Lord. So here's my question to you if you're listening. When you are pressured or when you have a big decision, do you go to God first or do you go to God as a last resort? You ask your friends, you ask your companions,

you ask your coworkers, you ask your parents, you ask your office buddies, you ask your accountability group, you go online, you ask child CBT, and then when all else fails, I think I'll try the Lord. Sadly, we do that all the time. That's what God's getting at here. This is Jesus getting at it. Well, go ahead. You sure? Go ahead, go ahead. Well, I was thinking about this. You go, I go, you go, I go. What I was thinking about is, we also should say too, I want to put this out there is that it's okay to go to God and prayer with a bunch of unwilling desires. Like, like, like-- - Progression, yeah. - Look, David is, he's facing a bat on his men have a chance of dying. So it's like, we need to be praying for that. But I think of Jonah, 'cause I've been studying a lot of Jonah 'cause I may preach on it when it's my opportunity, but like, what about when it's something that we really don't want to pray for? Like, I think, 'cause you maybe think you maybe brought this up when you said David.

I don't know that David, when David saw Bathsheba, I don't think he wanted to ask God 'cause he probably knew what God was going to say. - Yeah, that's good point. - So sometimes we have to get, we have to force ourselves to our knees or force ourselves to pray, like saying, no, listen, everything in me wants to go to social media, everything in me wants to call so-and-so, but let me start with my knees. I need to get down there and pray. Sometimes you may not feel like asking God first. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. 'Cause feelings aren't always facts, right? It's not always what we're supposed to do. So that's what I was thinking. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to use the principles of the scripture because our faith says that it will come out better for us in the end. - And sometimes we already know the answer without praying. Should I do these drugs? No, we know that, but I'm not gonna pray. - But prayer helps you not know. - I don't know exactly, exactly. What were you gonna say? - Well, I was just gonna say, this was something I learned. This was almost 22 years ago that I learned this lesson, but it just really impacted me in the moment.

It's very simple. It's not like it's a really big deal, but it was a lesson that I learned. And we had just gotten married and I was leaving the place that I had worked for years because the commute was too long. Like I was having to drive like an hour and a half one day a week and even that one day a week just proved to be too much. So I was leaving that job and I was about to go interview for other jobs and I couldn't find my resume. Okay, we had moved and we had boxes of stuff everywhere. I'm looking through the boxes. I'm looking everywhere that you would think. And I just remember spending all day looking for this resume and when I sat down, I thought, I haven't once asked the Lord, where's this resume? Not one time, like I had been just looking for it in boxes and binders and folders, all this stuff. And hours later, it hits me. Well, I haven't even asked the Lord to help me find this resume. Like, you know? And so I'm like, okay, Lord, like, I'm sorry, but can you please help me find this resume? Where is it? And went back to one of the boxes that I had already looked at and in the bottom of that box was that resume.

And I remember thinking it doesn't matter how big the situation is. It can be the smallest simplest of things, but I had not even recognized that the Lord would allow me to find this resume, you know? And I think about that even today. I'll do the same thing. I get called up and doing things on my own and then not even recognizing or asking or seeking the Lord about something. And then when the result happens, how often do we not even thank him for it? Or like, I will 100% pick up the phone to call Robbie immediately and be like, "Oh my gosh, can you believe this just happened?" And then I'm like, wait a second, did I even thank the Lord first? - Found it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like am I recognizing, no matter how big, no matter how small, like he should be our first seeking out, our first ask and then he should also be our first response. - First thing, yeah, that's good. - Yeah, because there's nothing wrong with me calling you, but first thing, I'll take any shirt at this point with the shot in Jesus. So I don't care, I'm not even gonna be picky at this point. It could just say forgotten, I'm fine with that, no. Okay, so you just teed up the next point.

So the first one, and all these words are present tense imperatives in the Greek, meaning present means it's something you do today in the moment and tomorrow when we're sitting here tomorrow at this time in the moment, you do it again. So present tense, wherever you're present, you do it, but then it's like a continual action So God's saying, listen, if you need wisdom and you're lacking, I'm commanding you to ask me, don't look for it yourself, don't seek other people first. Seek me first and then go. Okay, which leads to number two, seeking. So ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you will find that seeking is this idea of a longing, a careful investigation like a CSI agent takes apart a crime scene, Candy likes this. And in another life, this is what I would do. That's what she would do. Yeah, it's funny, we both feel like, I tell people either I would be a preacher or a policeman. So-- I don't think you could be a policeman, honey. Why not? Physically, you could. Because you're too much of a conspiracy theorist. I was gonna say, you'd probably be-- You can't do it, I don't think-- You'd probably have to work for the FBI. You would have your own show for conspiracy and then she would be a detective.

Y'all would be, you know, she would come on as like your guest. Listen, there are certain things. You could be debating. My wife is on here. Here are some things in our household we cannot talk about. Listen, it's all good to tell people here. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. We are drastically different. You're normal. I just present the facts. Conspiracy, just-- No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, by the way, by the record, let me just clarify. Let me get-- Can we focus on "Forgot it, Jesus?" 'Cause I want to get away. No, I want to say this, the conspiracy means is to question the authoritative narrative. That's all it means to question the narrative. No, it's been a bad term. By the way, it came out by the CEA. Anybody know this fun fact? Guess when the word conspiracy became popularized? It was first introduced in the late 1800s, but it became popular in 1964. Getting off track, hon. No, I don't want to hear this. You know what this is, Kate?

It's the CEA. Yes, look at Kate, dude. Okay. Dude, wow. Kate, man, that's why I love this game. Wow. Who? What? What? Whoa. Hold on. All right, let's do it. Okay, JFK, he's really good. Are you happy? Cool. Listen, conspiracy came out by the Warren Commission by Alan Dulles to say anybody questions the official narrative, a lone gunman, three shots. Anyway, okay, that's where it came out. Wow. You could see this is a-- I think it is so just like this. This is a calm talk. I have for Dulles, too. Dude, don't get me started. Don't get me started. Okay, get me started. Seeking, seeking, seeking, seeking, yes. Means to investigate, right? Means to investigate.

Okay. Look at Jeremy's loving this, 'cause he remembers it. I like to investigate. You're in search of something of great value. Okay. So, seeking is asking in action. That's the way I like to say it. Seeking is asking in action. So often, here's our problem. We seek the Lord for advice, but then we give up the search very quickly. I don't know if you're listening. I know it's probably not you, but I've heard of people like that who, that's a joke, it's all of us. How many times, like, oh man, it's a 9/11 fire. We need help, God, and then we're on to the next thing. And we're on to the next thing. God, you gotta save my son, he's lost. You gotta get my daughter off of drugs. You need it, and then we pray, and then we move on. Reminds me of a young woman who says she was dreaming. She died and went to heaven, and she tells the story how when she got there, she was escorted by one of the angels into this big room before she went and met Jesus, and she noticed this room had a door on it, which had her name, and she went into the door, and she noticed in the corner,

there was this huge big box, sorry. Huge big box. And on the box, it had her name, and so she went and opened it, and the angel said, oh, did you know it's on this box? So they opened the box, and she says, oh, wow. She said, what is that? And he said, well, these are the prayers offered by you while you're on earth, and she looks down, and she starts looking at these cards. They were prayer requests that she, while on earth, made it to heaven. She said, oh, wow, remember praying this. I remember praying for this. And the angel said, yes, when any of God's children make requests to him, he keeps the requests, and preparations are made for the answers. But sadly, the angels are told not to give the answer, because the petitioner is not waiting for what they requested. These are all the answered prayers you prayed that you never waited for. Now, it's a fun story, a fictitious story, but the old proverb says it best. When you come to the end of the rope, you should tie a prayer knot and hang on. Don't give up. - That's really good. - Come to the end of the rope. You tie a prayer knot and you don't let go.

So how many prayers have we prayed? 'Cause what happens is when you give up praying consistently with seeking and trying to find it, God's like, oh, he's not, no, he's not serious. He's not serious. I tell people, the kind of prayers that get answered are precise prayers that are persistent. Precise, persistent. Wait here is a book of 10 months of me praying for God. I like to say, I wish I could say spiritually, I was praying for God to revive Long Hollow, or revive the country. I wasn't doing that, I wish I was. I was praying for God to revive me, to change my heart. And in the process of God changing me, we all started pressing in and got changed, all of us in a sense, so. - Well, so you said precise prayers, persistent prayers, but I would also say the posture of your heart in the prayer because we can say something as often as we want or think we'll deem an answer, but really and truly the Lord is listening to what our heart is saying. And like, is the posture of my heart in full true dependence on him to do what I'm asking him to do, right? Is there fear, is there doubt, is there worry? There could be, I'm unsure how this is gonna go, right? But what is the posture of my heart

because I can mow the words, but what do I really, what is God really hearing, you know what I mean? Because he knows, I mean, we know, we've talked about this before, sometimes there aren't even words to put to a prayer because you were so broken or you're so hurt by something and you can't physically get out the words, but yet God knows exactly what your heart is saying and he knows what you're seeking in your desperation. Do you know what I'm saying? And so like Hannah in the Bible, remember, you know, she's praying and she's moving her mouth but the words aren't even coming out and they think she's drunk, you know? Was it Eli that I thought she was drunk? And so anyway, it's the, I've had those moments, you know? And so yes, it is persistent and yes, I am like asking the Lord and being precise, but also I think the posture of our heart also comes into play. And maybe that's changed over time to the more we are precise and persistent. - Well, in the posture to receive the answer, a lot of people are praying but they don't wanna, they don't wanna, the answer guy get like Jonah. Now you gotta go to Nineveh, I hate those people. Well, that's the answer, you pray. - And I think we pray with the measure of faith that we have because praying also is what strengthens our faith. I just met a man a couple of weeks ago and he actually, it's been a while

that I've been around this in close relationship with the lost person as far as GD, every other word, cussing all those things and it's been interesting on the phone with them and I had lunch with them, I had lunch with them actually today. And, but he called me on, I don't know, I think it was Saturday night and I mean, he was just, all this stuff going on and I said, what did you, I asked you a question, did you pray this morning? No, I ain't try that, I said, I said, listen, why don't you try to pray? But I'll tell him put your shoes under your bed and so in the morning of pray, he's like, okay, I'll try that, but it just made me think that sometimes we quit before the miracle happens because we think the problem is too big than the promise that comes from our prayer and that's okay. So you pray with the measure of faith that you have. - Yeah, it's good. - Start praying, start asking, start seeking and then that's what grows our faith. I can remember you've seen this too, like in D groups where people have never prayed and they come in and oh man, you're not gonna believe this, I've been praying. Well, I remember this guy, I think of him often, he came in one time and he goes, he was, man, I don't even think,

I don't think prayer is working, man, I don't even think, I don't even know if I'm doing it right. And I was like, well, what have you been praying for? It was me and a couple other guys. And he starts talking about it and I was like, wait, you pray for a job? Yeah, yeah, it's like, didn't you just get a job? Yeah. And so we start going through this stuff and I'm like, we're all of us in the room 'cause this guy's been a Christian for like two weeks. We're all like, our faces, we're like, dude, God's edging every prayer. He's like, oh, he's like, man, I don't even, wow. He's like, you realize like, so it's like, you don't have to be a giant, just start practicing it. - So good. - And it will grow, grow your faith anyways. - Well, and you said that your problem is never too big for the promise. - The promise of what will come from prayer. - Yeah, and that's strong. - Yeah, it's good. - It's really good. - All right, the last one we'll finish with this one is knock and it means to beat the door down. The greater, there is great intensity, like I said earlier. So there's precise prayers, there's persistent prayers,

there's persevering prayers. So you're persevering and you're, actually persevering second one, persistence the last one. You're persistent in prayer. This is not, you know, a knock, this is a wrapping on the door with your knuckles until they start to bleed or hurt. You know, I know you're in there. No, no, you know, I know you're in there and you're just continuing. And I always say this, the problem in the American church, and I heard this, I think it was Andrew Murray or somebody said this. The problem in the American, maybe A.W. Tozer, the problem in the Christian church today is not unanswered prayer by God, it's unoffered prayer by Christians. - Yeah, so good. - It's not that God's gonna answer your prayer. Listen, if you're listening and I don't know you, but I would assume 'cause I know my own self at times, it's not because God's not answering what you're asking, it's because you're not asking to begin with. And most of the asking is for selfish motives anyway. Charles Spurgeon said prayer pulls the rope down below That's what prayer does. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so lethargically. Others give only an occasional jerk of the rope, but he who communicates with heaven is the man or woman

who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously with all his or her might. Here's the close. The three imperatives, they're all commands in this text, seek or ask, seek and knock. They all form one sentence. Stop playing and start praying. That's literally what they're saying. Ask until you get an answer. Seek until you find what you're looking for. Knock until someone opens the door. A close with this quote, Larry Burkhead said, "God is looking for Christians who don't give up too easily. "Too many Christians live by the open door doctrine. "If the door is open, it must be God. "If it's closed, God must not want me to go in. "If that were so, God's word wouldn't direct us "to knock on close doors. "Good stewards of God's blessings don't give up "and can't be turned from God's will." So, the question is this. What, here's what I ask you as you close. What did you used to pray for that was really a priority on your heart that you have said, "Hey, it's too big for God." That's impossible and you've given up. The problem is not God gave up on you. The problem is you may have given up on God believing that God could answer the prayer. So what are you praying for?

A wayward son or a daughter, an addicted family member. A marriage that you think is beyond repair. A relationships that's broken with a family member or friend. A job you're in that you feel like is a dead end job. A ministry that people have said won't turn around. A church that's plateaued or declining. A person in need of revival that seems like it. I don't know what the prayer is. A financial situation that looks like there's no way out. You take, here's what I told my D group today. Do not insult God with, do not insult a big God with small prayers that you can accomplish in your own strength. Let me say that again. - That's good. - We serve a big God who wants to do big things. What are you, Manly Beasley said it this way. What are you praying for? He would go around, one of my mentors, I've never met personally, but I've listened almost everything and loved this man. Wrote about him and waited here. But Manly Beasley used to walk around it. Every time he'd go to churches and see people, the question he'd ask every person he'd come up to is this. What are you praying for right now that if God doesn't step in, you are toast? If God doesn't intervene, you're done. You're finished. - That's good. - I'm like, wow. Like if God doesn't intervene, man, it's never.

And I think we need to pray big prayers to a big God who wants to do big things. Not for our glory, but for his. God loves to show up and show off his glory. - That's so good, powerful. Listen, if you're listening to this day and you're going, I don't know what to do, start with prayer. Whatever's happened in your life, start with prayer is such a powerful episode. If you want to become a part of our team here at The Forgotten Jesus, please subscribe. And you can also hit the little alarm icon. We'll make sure every episode that comes up, you won't miss. - Yes. - So thank you so much for joining with us today. (upbeat music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music)