Sermon on the Mount Part XXIV

[0:00] Sermon on the Mount, Part 24, Prayer. Simple, profound, and puzzling.

[0:11] And this morning, the scripture has some words about things that we're supposed to do in prayer. And I'm looking forward to what Marv is going to enlighten us about this scripture.

[0:35] James chapter 5, verses 13 through 18. Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray.

[0:54] Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

[1:15] And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

[1:30] Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

[1:50] And he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

[2:02] Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. Well, there's no question about it.

[2:16] That is a wow passage. And, of course, the most frequent question that one will receive from reading a passage like that is, why don't we do that today?

[2:29] Here in the United States alone, we have undergone some very serious periods of drought, even though I was too young to remember it, because I was born in the 30s.

[2:45] But yet I do know that in the 30s, there was just a horrendous experience taking place here in the United States, particularly out in the more western, central western states, this phenomena called the Dust Bowl.

[3:01] And if you happen to see any of that on, like, the History Channel or any of the PBS channels, about how utterly desperate these people were for a drop of rain, I mean, it was just incredible.

[3:16] And this went on year after year. And it was called the Dust Bowl because so much of the soil had just turned to dust. The earth was cracking. It was parched.

[3:26] And there were people praying for rain. There were prayer meetings held specifically for rain. And no rain came for a long, long time.

[3:37] And I'm sure a lot of people were thinking about this passage here, and we sure could use an Elijah about now. Because Elijah, in accordance with the chastisement of Israel that was so wicked at the time, Elijah prayed and asked God to withhold the rain.

[3:58] Now, if you know anything about Israel, they don't get all that much rain to start with. And it didn't rain upon the earth for three and a half years. And the ruling establishment, of course, put out a price on his head, and they wanted to do him in.

[4:15] And then it reversed later when Elijah prayed that it might rain, and there was a torrent of rain. So where is Elijah when you need him?

[4:29] And other instances in this same passage about any among you sick, let them call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

[4:40] And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. Well, we've got a half dozen elders. And from time to time we have a number of sick people, some seriously sick.

[4:54] But we've never done this. Why not? And there, of course, are some who would chide us for not doing it. And I'm sure there are some churches where their elders go out and they lay hands on someone and they anoint them with oil.

[5:09] I guess that's olive oil. That's the implication anyway. And they offer prayer for them and they're raised up. And everybody celebrates.

[5:21] And everybody gives thanks and it's a wonderful thing. Two weeks later they do the same thing and the sick die. What do you attribute that to? What happened?

[5:32] Usually the only response is, well, they didn't pray in faith. There wasn't enough faith exercise. And that, of course, is always a kind of cop-out. And I'm not going to belabor this point because we're going to save some of this content for the first of the year.

[5:48] But I do want to make it very clear that the epistle of James is one of the very earliest documents we have in the New Testament.

[6:01] So what does that tell us? Well, that tells us that it being one of the very earliest documents that we have, it would contain the kind of information and the kind of examples that were more prevalent along with the very early days of the church.

[6:20] And even then, it might have been what we would call a Jewish church, rather than a combination of Jew and Gentile together in one body, which didn't come along until later in the book of Acts.

[6:32] So I think we can safely identify the epistle of James chronologically with the very early beginnings of the church when it was more Jewish than it was Gentile.

[6:44] Because James is Jewish. And those to whom he is writing, matter of fact, if you look back at James chapter 1 and verse 1, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad.

[7:11] Greetings. What does that mean? It means just what it says. There were twelve tribes of Israel. And many of the people in those twelve tribes had already come to faith in the Lord Jesus as their Messiah and as their Savior.

[7:30] No doubt some of the people that are being addressed here as the twelve tribes were probably present on the day of Pentecost. And they may well have been among the three thousand who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ when the Spirit came down and they spoke in languages they had not learned.

[7:49] So all of this mixes together. And what I am saying is that the remedy that is provided here in the book of James, and is there anything wrong with elders going to the home of someone who is ill and praying for them?

[8:02] Of course not. And any time we are asked to do that, we will do it. But there is no guarantee that they will be raised up. Sometimes it's God's will that people die.

[8:18] Can you buy that? Sometimes it's God's will that people die. Not everybody is healed. In fact, most people are not healed through prayer.

[8:31] Most people who have a very serious illness, and the doctor says they're probably not going to make it, they usually die. Despite the fact that there are a lot of people praying for them.

[8:43] And we've already addressed the issue that God's will will not be bent because you have enough people praying.

[8:54] With the Internet today, there are all kinds of issues and opportunities to enlist the prayers of thousands of people.

[9:06] In fact, tens of thousands of people. So what if you've got 50,000 people praying that so-and-so will be healed and raised up? And they aren't.

[9:20] They die. They die. Do you suppose for a moment God would have said, well, if there had been just two more, just two more, that's all.

[9:32] If there had been just 50,000 and two people, I would have healed them. But since there were only 50,000 and they fell short, why, I let them die.

[9:44] I just don't believe it works that way. In fact, I'm confident it doesn't work that way. So what's the point then in getting a whole lot of people to pray about anything? Well, one reason is when someone knows, someone who is ill or has some kind of a crisis and knows that people are praying for it, you think that doesn't buoy their spirits?

[10:06] You think that doesn't encourage them? You think that doesn't make them grateful that there are a number of people who care about them and are praying for them? That does something for the psyche of the individual, even if they aren't healed, to just know that there's that kind of sympathy out there and concern and that people are thinking about you and caring about you.

[10:26] For me, that's an uplifting thing. That's nice to know. And that may be a principal benefit. All I know is in the early days, back in the book of Acts, and I'm talking about basically the first ten chapters of the book of Acts, there was a far greater, more routine demonstration of the miraculous on behalf of the people of God than what there came to be later on, including today.

[10:54] And all I can attribute to is that the plan and program of God has changed over the years from an emphasis on the material and the physical to an emphasis on the spiritual.

[11:09] And the best illustration I can give you of that is something we just touched on last week. Read the content of the prayers of the Apostle Paul.

[11:21] There were occasions when people were miraculously healed. Remember the guy? Remember Eutychus? Paul was preaching in the city of Ephesus, I think it was.

[11:32] And this young man was perched up on a windowsill. And Paul was waxing eloquent. It must have been midnight. And you can just see the smoke and the heat from these oil-lit lamps wafting up into the atmosphere.

[11:51] And this Eutychus is sitting up there. And he did something that every preacher should be accustomed to. He dozed off. Lost his seating or his footing and fell from that window ledge and tumbled down there.

[12:08] And everybody was all excited. They ran over to where Eutychus was. And somebody said he's dead. Now Paul, maybe he just felt this out of pure guilt out of his message putting somebody to sleep allowing him to fall.

[12:27] And he went over and prayed over the young man and raised him up. And don't you doze off. Because I probably couldn't do that.

[12:40] And I wouldn't even want to try. All I'm saying dear friends is that God's methodology begins changing. This is called progressive revelation.

[12:54] And things are not always as they are. You get back in the Old Testament and the Gospels you've got one miracle after another. Just bang, bang, bang. They just keep coming up and Christ contributes a lot to them.

[13:04] And the Old Testament the prophets, et cetera and Elijah and Elisha just one after but today where are all these miracles? And some people say well we just don't have enough faith.

[13:15] That's baloney. The plan and program of God has changed. And the shift has been moving away from the physical and material that Israel was so accustomed to.

[13:28] And this is why Paul said the Jews require a sign. The Jews are the original show me people. And Christ performed his miracles to show them to back up his claim that he was who he was as did Moses as did several others.

[13:50] But that's not where we are today. The emphasis is on the spiritual. Now I would be the first to tell you there is no way in the world that an emphasis on the spiritual can compete with the razzle dazzle of miracles that people can look at and say wow look at that I know that person was dead and they're alive and walking around.

[14:16] We don't have many Lazaruses today. I don't think we have any. That's not the way God is operating today. The problem is people look back on the way it was and they reason this way.

[14:29] Well now wait a minute. Who did those miracles back then? Well God did. God did. Does God change?

[14:41] No. God doesn't change. In fact one of his attributes is his immutability. What God is he is all the time. Well if God doesn't change then he can do the same miracles today that he did back then.

[14:57] Yes he can. God doesn't change. But the plan and the program of God does change and it has changed. So don't make the mistake of thinking that because God doesn't change in his character and nature that his methodology and his program doesn't change with a gradual unveiling of new material that wasn't available before.

[15:24] And the most stunning example of this that I don't think anybody can rationally argue with is found in the sacrificial system. one could use the same argument well if God doesn't change then why doesn't he require the sacrifice of animals today just like he did back then.

[15:44] You see God's changing or not changing has nothing to do with it. It's what God's revelation is disclosing at a particular time that differs from before.

[15:55] When Christ became the final ultimate sacrifice for sin that literally ended animal sacrifices. Now they continued to make them in the temple.

[16:09] After the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Judaism went right on as if it didn't miss a beat and they kept up with the ritual and the sacrifices and everything else. But they didn't need to because that was passé and God was not addressed through those things any longer.

[16:25] Nobody I think has any difficulty understanding that. We can say well why don't you sacrifice? Oh well that was for another time. Precisely. That's the whole point of progressive revelation.

[16:38] And what we have here in James fits that early time. In fact, the Christian Hebrew epistles that begin with Hebrews and James and 1st 2nd Peter, 1st 2nd 3rd John, they are all of that earlier date.

[16:56] They are very, very Jewish. You will not read in these epistles. Hebrews and James, etc. are commonly referred to as the general epistles. Sometimes they are called the Christian Hebrew epistles.

[17:12] You will not find any body truth in them. It is only Paul in his epistles where he talks about Jew and Gentile being in one body, one new man.

[17:27] the church which is his body, his spiritual body and Christ is the head. You don't find that in these epistles because that phenomena didn't develop until after Paul came on the scene.

[17:41] Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles. That is super significant. They didn't even have an apostle before. An apostle is a sent messenger to a particular group of people.

[17:56] The Gentiles, they didn't have an apostle. They didn't have a message. They were just left out in the cold. And if you want to read about it, read Ephesians 2.

[18:07] And Paul says things like, you Gentiles in time past were children of disobedience, without God, without hope in this present world. You were really bad off. You didn't have anybody going to bat for you.

[18:20] When Paul was raised up of God and given this commission of being the apostle to the Gentiles, if you had talked to the average Jew about Paul being the apostle to the Gentiles, they would have said, what?

[18:33] What are you talking about? Gentiles don't have an apostle. God doesn't care anything for the Gentiles. It's the Jew that's God's chosen people.

[18:44] The Gentiles are nothing but fodder for the fires of hell. They don't have an apostle. Well, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. because God loved and cared for Gentiles, just like he did for Jews.

[18:59] But that sure doesn't become very obvious until you get along in the book of Acts when Paul is raised up. This is remarkable stuff. And I am just, I am just so wiped out sometimes how few of God's people see this and understand it.

[19:18] I don't, it's just, you just feel like they are so deprived of information that is so vital that it enables you to connect the dots and see how things fit when you understand the progressiveness of Revelation.

[19:34] I hadn't intended to go there, but I had to. Let's move along. Even a definition of prayer is controversial among believers.

[19:45] some see prayer as strictly asking and receiving. And you've got plenty of examples of that in the Old and New Testament where the petitioner prays and God answers.

[19:56] So that certainly is one aspect of it. And then in my estimation, my humble opinion, take it or leave it, the essence of prayer is communication.

[20:09] It is maintaining communication with your Heavenly Father. It is that more than anything else, I believe. It is that more than asking for things.

[20:21] And most of the things we ask for is about stuff or about health. That's where our focus tends to be. But the things that the Apostle Paul prayed for and asked about in the church age had to do with that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, that you may know the length, the breadth, the depth that passes all understanding.

[20:49] It's all about the spiritual. It's all about making us the kind of people we are supposed to be. It's not in giving us this bubble or this trinket or taking away our aches and pains or whatever.

[21:04] It is conforming us to the image of Christ. Let me tell you something. some of the people that I have known over the years who have been the most conformed to the image of Christ with an incredible attitude are the same people with the most broken, battered bodies and poorest health that you would ever know.

[21:34] Do you know anybody like that? Sure you do. And that's what honors God more than anything else.

[21:50] Well, prayer, this communion includes thanksgiving as a main ingredient. and as you read, again, as you read Paul's prayers, how many of them this weekend?

[22:04] I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. He's always got something to be thankful for. He even says thanks to God for his tribulations.

[22:19] Is he crazy? Is he crazy? Thank God for my weaknesses weaknesses because in my weakness he is made strong.

[22:37] This is stuff that is totally contrary to the way the world thinks. They're not in this vein at all. I won't mind telling you that this kind of content is only for the initiated, only for those who are already in Christ and it comes across as just foreign language to those who aren't.

[22:56] They can't begin to identify. Thanksgiving is a main ingredient. We have described prayer as a privilege of believers. It is also simple.

[23:11] It is as simple sometimes as asking and receiving. And sometimes God does very definitely grant what we ask. And that's wonderful.

[23:23] And sometimes he doesn't. and we don't understand why. Because in our perspective it would be the only proper thing for God to do is to answer this particular prayer.

[23:34] But he doesn't. And it just bugs us to no end. Because he doesn't tell us why he doesn't. You know, Job, all the way back to the Old Testament, one of the earliest books in all of the Bible, Job asks all these questions.

[23:47] And you know what his biggest question was? It's the same one as ours when we have adversity. Just three letters.

[23:58] Just three letters. What are they? Why? Yeah. Why? Why this? Why now? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?

[24:10] These are the kind of questions that Job was asking. As he suffered one dramatic loss after another. and he hadn't even been able to grieve through the process of one loss until the messenger came with another loss.

[24:23] And by the time this incident was over, this man was a wreck. I mean, he was an absolute basket case. And he kept pleading, pleading with God, please show me where I have offended you.

[24:36] What did I do to make you so angry with me that all of these losses have come upon me? Because if you'll tell me what I did wrong, I'll do everything I can to make it right. And nothing but silence.

[24:50] Nothing but silence. Now that is agony. Because you keep looking for clues. Where did I offend the Almighty?

[25:04] What do I need to apologize about? Nothing. Nothing. Lost his family. Lost his livestock.

[25:20] Lost his health. He didn't have anything left to lose. And then he had a wife who said, my advice for you is to curse God and die. Thanks a lot, honey.

[25:34] But you know what? She was coming from extreme frustration. And do you think it didn't break her heart in two to see her husband going through all of this adversity when he had tried to do everything right?

[25:51] He had religiously crossed every T and dotted every I and was very diligent in his prayer life and in his giving of alms and all the rest of it. And look what's happened to him. Bottom fell out of his world and God, when you call upon him, doesn't even bother to answer.

[26:10] Boy, what a mess. And do you know, God never did answer his question. God never did say, well, Job, I'm going to let you in on the reason I did this and the reason I allowed that to happen and the reason I allowed that to happen.

[26:30] He never explained that to Job. But I'll tell you what he did do. You read the last couple of chapters of the book of Job. God reminds Job of who Job is.

[26:43] And he reminds Job of who God is. And after that little refresher course, with questions like, Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?

[27:02] Uh. and the bottom line was, Job, you really don't know anything. You think you do.

[27:13] And you think that I should operate in accordance with your perspective. But you are just so clueless. And finally, the light dawned on Job.

[27:26] And he says, ah. That's right. That's true. Who am I to question the wisdom of the almighty?

[27:42] my bad, God. Sorry about that. Do it your way. Whatever that involves. That's the lesson that Job learned.

[27:53] He never did get his questions answered. God has a perspective that we don't have. There is a simple father-child kind of relationship. I think one reason that we are called upon to pray is because God likes us to pray.

[28:09] He likes us to pour out our heart to him. to share with him our concerns and our burdens. And he may or may not turn something around. But I think he just wants the contact.

[28:23] Don't you want your children to talk to you? I mean, even if they're teenagers, especially if they're teenagers, don't you want them to talk to you?

[28:35] Some Christians pray the way teenagers talk to their parents. One or two-word sentences and keep it short and sweet. You know, yes, no, uh-huh, uh-huh, how was school?

[28:48] Fine. That's typical of teenagers. But parents want more. They want details. They want to tell me about your day. Tell me about this. Tell me that.

[28:58] And you know, God already knows about your day. He knows about those things. things. But there is a tenderness and a sweetness and a parent-child relationship just by your talking with the Lord, bearing your heart before the Lord.

[29:15] It's a child-daddy relationship. When Paul talks to the Romans about we call our God Abba, Father.

[29:26] Father. And the word for Abba in the Aramaic is daddy. That's a term of intimacy, closeness, fellowship. I think God just wants to hear from us.

[29:39] And when we pray, we are talking to him. We are just opening our heart and sharing our concerns and our burdens. And when we read his word, we're getting his communication to us.

[29:53] And the puzzling aspect, Job already qualifies for being one of the biggest puzzles. And Peter was a puzzle. And I referred to that earlier, how he was miraculously delivered.

[30:06] Back in Acts 12, and God sent an angel and opened the chains with which he was chained and led him out of the city. And he ends up at the house of a girl by the name of Rhoda. And they're all inside holding a prayer meeting for Peter.

[30:19] And lo and behold, Peter's out there knocking at the gate. He's been released from prison. God miraculously intervened. But he doesn't always miraculously intervene.

[30:30] Next time, Peter's executed. Well, if God rescued him the first time, why didn't he rescue him the second time? God has his reasons.

[30:41] Who art thou, O man, to reply against God? Shall the potter say to the thing that made it, Why hast thou made me thus? Can you imagine a hunk of clay rising up and saying to the potter at the wheel, Hey, I don't want to be this kind of base.

[30:54] I want to be a different kind of base. What are you doing here? Makes about as much sense for us to question the wisdom of God. God has his reasons.

[31:06] And what we ought to do is take great comfort in the fact that he does it his way. His way is always the best way, even when it hurts.

[31:22] And sometimes it hurts a lot. Stephen, Acts 7, where was his deliverance?

[31:34] Why didn't God send an angel to protect him from the stoning? Why didn't he smite the people who were going to throw the stones? Why didn't he smite them blind? Why did he allow a choice servant of God like Stephen to be the first martyr?

[31:52] Why did God allow that? Don't think for a moment he couldn't have prevented it. As the song goes, he could have called 10,000 angels when Christ was on that cross, but he didn't.

[32:07] He let his own son hang there and die in insufferable agony. he didn't intervene. Now, we can look at the crucifixion of Christ and see what came out of that.

[32:24] And it makes perfect sense to us because now, on this side of the crucifixion, we understand what it was all about and what God was accomplishing and why Christ had to be there.

[32:36] But do you think they understood that when it was happening? nothing? Not at all. Not at all. Not even close. Because we have such a limited viewpoint, limited understanding, and yet sometimes we get so arrogant and think we know it all.

[32:57] And God should do this, and God should do that, and why didn't he do this, and why this now, and what did I do to deserve this? That is nothing but puny human arrogance. we ought to be ashamed. So much is related to the perspective of deity.

[33:15] I want to leave you with one passage. It is powerful. It is a passage that I have relied on more than I can tell you, and to me, it is the passage for the believer as regards the subject of prayer in this day and age, and do we ever need it today?

[33:34] And it's in Philippians. Philippians and chapter four. This is the apostle to the Gentiles, the apostle of the church age, and he's got some incredible advice for us here.

[33:52] I suggest you commit this to memory. It will do you good. It is Philippians four and verse six. Be anxious for nothing.

[34:05] nothing. A vernacular translation would be, don't be uptight over anything. That's pretty hard to do right there, isn't it?

[34:19] Don't you see a lot of things every day that you automatically get uptight about, angry about, worried about, frustrated about? Boy, living in this 21st century is, it's got us challenges, doesn't it?

[34:35] Man. You see what, you see what goes on in Washington, and we are told to be anxious for nothing.

[34:48] Why, those sleazeballs, what kind of a, who do they think they are? What, and, well, be anxious for nothing, not even for what Congress does, or doesn't do, or whatever the president does or doesn't do.

[35:16] some people complain that he spends entirely too much time on the golf course. But remember, when he's on the golf course, he's not in the Oval Office making mischief.

[35:29] Maybe it's a cheap thing at half the price. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, and I love this, with thanksgiving, don't leave out the thanksgiving, very important ingredient, prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.

[36:08] Why should I when he might not do anything about it anyway? Doesn't say that, does it? And you know what? He might not do anything about it. And you know why?

[36:19] Again, because he's the only one who sees the big picture. God is the only one who knows what he is about. We don't know. We don't even know what we are about, much less what God does.

[36:35] So, let your request be made known to God and God will give you whatever you ask, provided you ask in faith believing.

[36:49] Now, that's the way some would read that verse, but it doesn't read that way. Keep your place right here in Philippians. I want to show you a remarkable contrast. Stay here in Philippians. We'll be right back.

[37:01] Come over to John chapter 16. John's Gospel chapter 16. And I want you to take a look at verse 16.

[37:20] 16, 16. Jesus is talking to the apostles, and this is right before the end of his ministry. And he says, a little while and you will no longer behold me.

[37:34] And again, a little while and you will see me. What's he talking about there? He's talking about his death and then the three days intervening until his resurrection. He's going to be out of commission for three days.

[37:47] They're not going to be able to see, but then they will be able to see. And it just comes across as a complete riddle to them. And some of his disciples therefore said one to another, what is this thing he's telling us?

[38:00] What's he talking about anyway? A little while and you will not behold me. And again, a little while and you will see me. And because I go to the Father. And so they were saying, what is this that he says a little while?

[38:13] We don't know what he's talking about. What does all this mean anyway? And they were absolutely confused. Jesus knew that they wished to question him. And he said to them, are you deliberating together about this that I said?

[38:27] A little while and you will not behold me. And again, a little while and you will see me. Truly, truly, I say to you that you will weep and lament. That will be because of his death.

[38:40] But the world will rejoice. and that will be because of his death. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy.

[38:52] And they are just, I can just read the quizzical looks on their face. They just wrinkle their brows. What is this? What does this mean? What is he saying? Whenever a woman is in travail, she has sorrow because her hour has come.

[39:10] And I suspect that the agony and the pain of childbirth is pretty overwhelming. But when she gives birth to the child, she remembers the anguish no more for joy that a child has been born into the world.

[39:26] Oh, she paid a terrible price in pain to bring that baby to life. But you know what? When the baby is born and laid in its mother's arms, somehow the pain doesn't matter anymore.

[39:44] The pain is all worth it. Therefore, you too now have sorrow, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and no one takes your joy away from you.

[39:56] And in that day you will ask me no question. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you shall ask the Father for anything, he will give it to you in my name.

[40:08] What does that mean? I think it means just what it says. Is that applicable today for us? Oh, of course, because all of the Bible is written to us and for us, isn't it?

[40:19] No, it isn't. This was a private promise made to a private group of individuals. Jesus was talking to the apostles. He was not talking to the Christian community.

[40:32] The Christian community didn't even exist when he said this. Until now, you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive that your joy may be full.

[40:46] These things I have spoken to you in figurative language. An hour is coming when I will speak no more to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will request the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.

[41:07] So, whatever you ask in my name, that I will do. It is amazing, and I'm sure it has to be terribly discouraging for multitudes of believers today who try to claim that verse and replicate it in their own lives and say, well, it says right here in the Bible, whatever you ask in Jesus' name, he will do it, and I'm claiming that verse.

[41:28] Well, you go right ahead, but it ain't gonna work. work, and it's not supposed to work, because that was for a different time and a different people, and you've got to keep these things in context.

[41:41] The revelation that comes later is, back to Philippians 4, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, and it has nothing to do with your getting what you ask for.

[42:03] It has to do with the inner peace, the knowledge, the confidence that God does all things well, and we go to him with prayer and supplication, and we have requests, we have prayer requests, we have a prayer list, maybe, of things that we would really appreciate God doing, and God answering, and God providing.

[42:26] Nothing wrong with that. Let your requests be made known before God, but with everything I ask for, I always add this to it.

[42:38] Father, I have bared to you my heart. This seems to me, to be the best thing for me, but I know full well how little I know about the future, about what's around the corner, but you know that.

[42:55] So, Father, I want you to take my prayer requests and my burdens, and I want you to subject them to your wisdom and your grace and your knowledge and your perspective, believe, and you provide for me whatever you think best.

[43:17] And I will have a heart at peace and at rest, knowing that nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done, is the best possible thing.

[43:33] you think that doesn't provide peace? I know it does.

[43:44] And I've been in some really extreme circumstances where it worked for me. And I think it works for every believer who will apply the content of that verse.

[44:01] let us pray. Father, Abba, Daddy, your ear is ever kindly disposed toward your children, and we are grateful.

[44:18] And we recognize that we often besiege the battlements of heaven with things that we think you ought to do. And we try to pump up our faith and belief, thinking that if we have enough people praying, and if they pray long enough and hard enough and sincerely enough, we can bend your will, whatever it might be, to ours.

[44:43] How foolish to think that way. We wouldn't even want to. We know that you know, and we know that we don't.

[44:53] And we want to submit ourselves to your wisdom, wisdom, and we know you don't need our permission to do anything. But if you did, we should be eager to grant it that you allow to come into our life whatever best suits your plan and purpose.

[45:16] We want to cooperate with you in anything and everything that we possibly can. thank you for the wonderful privilege. We pray in your dear son's name.

[45:30] Amen.