Teach Us To Pray pt. 3 - Pray With Boldness

[00:00:00] Amen. [00:00:02] Man, God is, huh? [00:00:05] Good morning, Emmanuel. Fellowship church. [00:00:09] What a joy to be together today. Worshiping the Lord, getting into his word. Man, God is good. We are going to be finishing out our series on prayer today. [00:00:22] And, man, I don't know about you guys, but this has been a needed balm for my soul. [00:00:29] I am just man, I'm excited for what God's been doing. I'm excited for what he's going to continue to do in our midst. Because one of my most sincere hopes right now as a pastor is that our church would become a people of regular, deep, communal prayer. Guys, I know this is like the Pastory thing to say, right? But prayer is the way forward for our church, period. [00:00:59] It just is. Guys, I don't know if anyone has thought about this bit. Next Sunday is our two year birthday as a church. That's kind of cool. That's cool. That's very cool. But guys, here's the thing. Emmanuel Fellowship Church is a movement of God, is a movement of the spirit to draw his children together into fellowship for the sake of the mission in the world. In West County. That only happens because God is moving. [00:01:27] If God is not in, it we who are laboring, labor in vain. Amen. Which means prayer is the work. [00:01:35] It's the only way forward for our church. I hope these last few weeks have been as challenging and encouraging for you as they've been for me. And if you've missed, by the way, I know I say this a lot, I would strongly encourage you to go back the last couple of weeks online and catch up on just what God has been doing in our midst. We've spent two weeks so far talking about prayer. We talked about this idea of what it means to pray with reverence, right? We talked about these kind of confessional, honest prayers that really are built upon us, acknowledging God for who he is, right? Seeing the holiness, the righteousness of God set next to the sinfulness of us, and how the chasm in between those things should draw us to a place of reverence, a place of, if we're honest, like fear, a place of awe and worship. Right? We also talked about what it means to pray with intimacy. How the beautiful truth of the gospel is that a holy and righteous God made a way for sinful and broken you and me to come and be connected with him, right? That Christ has made a way for intimacy between sinful, broken, rebellious humanity and a holy and righteous God. That we don't interact with God like the prophet Isaiah from this place of abject terror that his holiness will destroy us, but rather we interact with God from a place of intimate, connected relationship. [00:03:06] What a privileged status that is as a sinful human. To know your creator, to know him intimately. I love it. Today we're going to land out this series by drawing those two ideas together and talking about what it means to pray with boldness. [00:03:28] There's something about the interaction of our reverence and our intimacy that naturally draws us to a place of confidence and boldness in our prayers. There's a text in Mark eleven. It's very interesting. It's interesting because most American evangelicals avoid it like the plague. The reason we avoid this text is because this is one of the texts that many false prosperity teachers misuse to teach a distorted gospel of material comfort. This is a text that has been so often misunderstood and misused in the church that many biblical Christians just go, that one's dangerous jurisdicts, I don't want to mess with it. Mark 1122 and 25. You don't have to look it up. I'm just going to read it to you. Says this jesus replied to them, have faith in God. Truly. I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he has said will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, everything you pray, everything you ask for, believe that you have already received it and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him so that your father in heaven will also forgive you. Because Jesus commands us, commands his followers to pray with boldness and with belief. [00:04:54] And this is not a prosperity gospel thing. This is not about you having some superpower where you can get God to do what you want. This is not about telling God that you want to get your bills paid and you need a luxury car and just getting him to do it because you have enough belief. It's actually not what this passage is talking about in the slightest. [00:05:17] What I think this passage shows us is that as you grow in your faith, as you're sanctified, as you become more and more like Christ, your prayers to the God of the universe will be prayers for the kingdom and prayers that are expectant and ready for God to move. [00:05:37] Expectant and ready. When one of my kids who will remain nameless, when one of my kids was first learning to pray, she well, that kind of narrows it down. [00:05:49] She would exclusively pray in prayers of thanksgiving, regardless of what we were praying for. And it is one of guys, I'm not joking, it is one of like one of the cutest parenting memories I have at this point. This sweet little girl would pray and everything she prayed would just be a prayer of thanksgiving. And so Grandma's going for a doctor's visit and we'd say, hey, let's stop and pray for Grandma's doctor visit. And her prayer would just be, thank you, God, for taking care of Grandma at the doctor today. [00:06:17] That was every single prayer she prayed was always just a thank you thank you. In this place of real just trust and belief and guys, that's like, oh, it's so cute, it's so sweet. But man, there is something in that. [00:06:32] There is something in the assured confidence of a child in a safe, loving family environment that speaks to the kind of kingdom of God relationship, the kind of Jesus centered gospel prayer that Jesus taught about. Jesus said, right, your faith needs to be like these kids. There's something in childhood, bold, trust that speaks to what it means to be a person of faith. [00:07:04] Guys, I think there is this very natural progression in Christian growth, christian maturity that moves our prayers to boldness. Boldness in our prayer is an important and misunderstood aspect of biblical prayer. It's a natural progression of what we're talking about when we begin to understand the reality of who God is, when you begin to have a deeper, continual awareness of who it is you are praying to here in that reverence right, awe and wonder and worship at the King of reality, who maintains existence by his will. [00:07:43] And you partner that with the amazing privilege, the amazing gift of the relationship that Christ has bought for us, the intimacy you have with this God, this God who holds all things in his hands. [00:07:58] Yeah. [00:08:00] You'll begin to pray with confidence. [00:08:02] You'll begin to pray with boldness because you know who you're talking to and you know what he thinks about you, right? [00:08:11] There is a truth in that. Do not miss me here. I've already said it, and I'll say it again. This is not an invitation for you to try and manipulate God into getting what you want. This is not some superpower. You have to make your life on this earth comfortable. [00:08:28] No bold prayer in the gospel, in the Spirit. Guys, this is the way forward for the church. It's the way forward for Emmanuel Fellowship church. It's the way forward for your own faith journey. This is how you sync up to the move of God. [00:08:47] Prayer is our primary work. It's our primary work as believers. It's our primary work here at Emmanuel to see God move, to be synced up to his move, to have your heart in line with the move of God, to pray with the expectation, with the boldness, with the audacity, that you actually believe the God of the universe will advance his kingdom in your life and in our community. [00:09:11] It's a real thing. Guys, we're going to be in Luke 18 today. If you want to turn over to Luke 18, we're going to look at one of my favorite parables in scripture. If you don't have a Bible with you today, we have house Bibles around the room. Just look under the chairs in front of you there around, I promise. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. If you don't have a Bible, if you don't own a physical copy, of God's word. I would encourage you to just take that pew Bible or talk to one of our pastors and we'll get you one. That's nicer, but yeah. Luke 18. [00:09:42] We're going to look at one of my favorite parables. I love this parable that Jesus gives because it is easily one of the strangest parables Jesus gives in all of his ministry. Luke 18, I'm going to read for us starting in the first verse of the 18th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. We read this. Now he, he being Jesus, told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not lose hope. [00:10:10] So there was a judge in a certain town who didn't fear God or respect people. And a widow in that town kept coming to him saying, give me justice against my adversary. And while he was for a while, he was unwilling. But later he said to himself, even though I don't fear God or respect people yet, because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice so that she doesn't wear me out by her persistent coming. [00:10:36] And the Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says. [00:10:41] Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night? [00:10:49] Will he delay in helping them? No. I tell you that he will swiftly grant them justice. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? And this, beloved, is the word of the Lord for us today. [00:11:04] Pray with me, church Father, we ask today we ask today that you would give us fresh eyes, fresh ears to consider you and consider your kingdom. [00:11:18] God. We I confess to You, Lord, that it is just so easy to be caught up in the coming and going of every single day in the busyness of the monotony of right here and right now, the schedule in front of me and the tasks on my calendar. It is so easy to just move through each task moment by moment and to miss the bigger picture of your grand cosmic work of the Gospel in the kingdom. [00:11:50] Lord, today I pray that you would slow us down enough to step back and have a larger perspective on our life, on our church, on this world. [00:12:01] Jesus, remind us afresh of Your grand Gospel plan and our place in it and our role in it. Give us tender hearts to consider the work you have done in our own life and the work you are doing in our midst. [00:12:17] Give us open ears to hear from you today, spirit, we need you to do this work, so we pray it in Your name, Jesus. [00:12:23] Amen. [00:12:26] So what's actually going on in this text? Our text is picking up in kind of a unique section of Luke. If you read through the Gospel of Luke, it's built, I mean, like all four Gospels, it's telling us about the life and ministry of jesus. But Luke gives a really large chunk of time, a large chunk of the book, to the last journey that Jesus makes from his home in Galilee to Jerusalem before the Passion Week. He dedicates like a good 20% of the book to this last journey Jesus makes when he begins his travel toward Jerusalem for the final time. And as he stops along the way, he gives these really important kind of final teachings, and it all builds up to the Passion Week. Our text picks up in the middle of that journey. Jesus has already revealed himself as messiah to his followers. The Mount of Transfiguration has already happened. The cat is out of the bag. He sat with his disciples and said, yep, you got it right. I'm Messiah. Let's go to Jerusalem and kick some butt. And they're ready. As Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem, the crowds are just gathering and gathering and gathering, and Jesus just has this train of people around him as they're making their way to Jerusalem. And what they're ready for is for Jesus to rally up an army, kill the Roman governor, and free Israel. Like that's what they're looking for. And as they make their way in this journey to Jerusalem, jesus keeps saying, now, just so you know, that's not actually how this is going to go down. That's not the plan. [00:14:03] In fact, I'm going to be betrayed, arrested, tortured and killed. And they all go, no, that's not what we're doing. There's this really weird disconnect where Jesus keeps bluntly telling them, I know you guys are super hyped right now. It's going to be bad when we get there. It's hard to be my disciple. You're going to suffer. They hate me. Wait till you see how much they hate you. They're going to kill me when we get there. It's going to be awful. And everyone keeps going. So anyway, we got the swords. Let's kill Pilate and take Jerusalem. This strange disconnect, right in the middle of that, we get this moment where Jesus gives this parable. And I love this because there's two reasons I love this. First off, this is easily one of Jesus'weirdest parables. He compares the just, holy, righteous God of the universe to an unjust, oppressive, foreign judge. It's very strange. But even beyond just the weirdness of the story, jesus does something here that he does not normally do. He tells them exactly why he's telling them this parable. Usually Jesus is very coy about his parables. He shares the parable and then kind of goes, oh, no, did you understand it? If you have ears to hear, you will. And then he moves on and doesn't tell them. But he starts off here saying, look, you need to pray. You need to labor in prayer and do not lose hope, do not give up. Let me tell you why. [00:15:36] And then he tells this story. So this story by itself is actually very simple. [00:15:45] There's a terrible judge who's only interested in self gain. There's a widow in need of justice. She essentially bothers the judge, asking for justice over and over and over until he relents gives up and gives her her justice just to stop how annoying she is. [00:16:06] And Jesus ends by saying, if an unjust judge will give justice because of bickering, how much more will God give justice to those who cry to him? Continually labor in prayer church, do not lose hope. [00:16:26] You are not speaking to an unjust judge. You're speaking to God. [00:16:32] And then he goes, But, I mean, will you have faith? I don't know. I guess we'll see. Like, it's weird how he kind of texts that bit on the end, but good for us. [00:16:40] Two things to consider before we dig too far into this parable. [00:16:46] So you have to remember, we're reading this parable out of the Gospel of Luke, right? And that means a couple things for us. The first one is this parables are Jesus'really, his favorite form of teaching. It's one of the most common ways he engages people. And there's a whole lot of depth. There's been a lot of research and study. Like, Jesus was incredibly creative and intelligent and layered in the way he built and taught his parables. There's actually been research to look at the parables of Jesus compared to the parables of other rabbis in his day. Jesus'parables are complex and beautiful and teach us these multiple layers of the truth of the Gospel, right? And so we have to understand that we're stepping into Jesus'real teaching wheelhouse, right? But the other piece of that is this is a parable told in the Gospel of Luke. And amongst the four Gospels, luke is the one that gives most attention to marginalized people. Luke is very concerned with those who feel on the outside understanding that the Gospel is for them. And so a lot of his themes are built around ideas of being lonely, being on the outside, being rejected, and justice justice for the oppressed, justice for the mistreated. And so it makes sense, right, that Luke would go out of his way to preserve this parable about justice for an oppressed person. [00:18:10] This idea is on full display here. See, the setup of this story is this unrighteous judge. Now, this was a common enough idea in Jesus'day. You understand something here, right? Remember, Israel is a conquered people, right? They are not citizens on an equal standing of the Roman Empire. They are subjects of the Roman Empire. And so, as much as they could, they kept all their civil disputes in house. The Jewish people appointed their own religious judges to try and deal with squabbles and disputes because they wanted to get Rome involved as little as possible in their affairs. Because Rome didn't care about them, right? Rome cared about what they produced. But the problem is, if you were a woman or specifically a widow, you oftentimes couldn't get a hearing amongst the religious judges because of the current understanding at that time of the Torah law, women didn't have much in terms of legal rights when it came to property, when it came to civil matters. And so a widow petitioning her local synagogue, her local religious judge, very likely would simply be ignored. Now, apart from the religious judges, there were also secular Roman judges appointed for every district within the entirety of the empire, and they were required by law to hear any case that was brought before them. And so this secular judge, this gentile judge, would have to hear a case brought to them. But the corruption of these Roman judges is like stuff of historic legend, right? Like, these guys were appointed not because they were qualified for the position, but because they knew the right person and wanted a cush job where they could take bribes for the rest of their life, right? So these Roman judges, even though they might hear a case, it was common, it was the expected norm for the Roman judges to rule in favor of whoever bribed them the most. [00:20:22] So put this poor widow into the middle of this story. [00:20:27] You have to understand something, right? Like widows were common in this day. People didn't live to a super ripe old age all the time in the Roman Empire, especially in Palestine, where they were subjected people who did backbreaking labor most of their life, right? Widows were relatively common, and widows were in a dangerous place in ancient Palestine. If you were widowed at an age where you were too old to remarry, you did not have a lot of options. [00:20:56] Your husband's estate could not pass to you legally, and so you were dependent, dependent on your husband's male relatives to care for you. Women were not allowed to sign contracts or sign titles unless a male from the husband's line would sign it. So if your brother in law doesn't like you, he just takes the homestead and you can do nothing about it. You have no recourse. It was horrifically common for widows to turn to begging or prostitution, which, by the way, if you look at the minute, this is like a little bit of a rabbit trail. But if you look at the ministry of the early church in the first century, there's this book called the Dyadac, which was a ministry manual for how the local church in the first century was to care for and organize ministry in the local church. One of the primary things they talk about was organizing care for the widows in their community because they lived in a society that ignored the widows. And so the church immediately powerfully palpably stepped into meeting that need, which is a beautiful thing, a challenge for us as we consider our own community and the needs around us, right? But this widow who needs justice for whatever reason, the story doesn't tell us she needs justice. Something has happened to her, and for whatever reason, she has no recourse in the Jewish courts. They won't hear her case. They won't give her the time of day. Maybe she's just upset the wrong person with the wrong kind of power. Her only option is to bring the case to the secular Roman judge. And we all know how corrupt the Roman judges are. And so he's waiting for his bribe to hear her case. She doesn't have the bribe to pay him, so what does she do? She pesters him. [00:22:47] You have to hear my case. It's your job. He ignores her. She comes back, you have to try my case. It's your job. He ignores her. She comes back. You have to try my and she keeps going day after day after day while this unrighteous sinful judge moves through his docket, taking his bribes, laying down judgments. You can imagine this woman sitting in the courtyard, showing up when the office opens, just saying, try my case. Try my case. You have to try my case. You need to try my case. And eventually I love this guy's honesty in his self reflection. You know, I don't fear God or people, which I don't fear God or people, but, man, this lady is incredibly annoying. I should try her case. [00:23:43] But that's how the story goes, right? Eventually it gets to the point where he goes, this is driving me nuts. If I give this lady her justice, she'll leave me alone. And so he does. [00:23:55] He gives her the justice, and it goes on. [00:24:01] The story ends at that, right? Like this. By the way, this is typical for stories we get in Luke. This woman is being unjustly beat down by a broken system. But she doesn't give up. She has no other options. She's totally dependent. And by the way, I think this is a beautiful aspect of this story that's easy to miss in this corrupt and broken system. [00:24:24] This woman still expects justice. You notice that? I mean, if we kind of sit looking at the story, there's really no good reason for her to expect justice, right? Like, she is a victim of a broken and jacked up system, and yet she goes, Nope, there is right and there is wrong. [00:24:47] I expect justice. Expect it. And she's dependent on this judge to get it. And so she shows up until she gets it, man. And then look how Jesus tags on to the end of this. [00:25:08] Listen to what the unjust judge says. Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay in helping them? I tell you, he will swiftly grant them justice. [00:25:23] Jesus takes this example of a terrible situation that still results in justice, and he points back to God. He is good. [00:25:34] How much more will he bring about justice? Because this is where our text, I think, really connects back to what we've been talking about for the last two weeks. Jesus says in this parable that the persistent widow is able to get her justice through her dedication, even in an objectively terrible circumstance, right? You would be hard pressed to come up with a scenario worse than this lady's, and yet, through her persistence, she receives justice. Our circumstances, beloved, are much, much better. [00:26:16] And I don't mean because we live in the modern world and we have a different judicial system. That's not what I'm talking about. [00:26:23] This young or this widow, she was petitioning an unjust, corrupt, sinful judge. You are a child of the king of reality. [00:26:34] You have an intimate connection to the holy and righteous God of the universe. Your petitions don't go to an unjust judge who fears neither God or people. Your petitions go to the king of reality who's able to actually do something about it. [00:26:51] Your worries, your concerns, your fears, your sorrows, your requests, your petitions. The things that bother you, from the grand things of the kingdom to the little bitty petty stuff that sits and stews in our heart that we bring to God in our confessions. You are bringing your petitions to the king of reality, the one who holds the stars in his hands, the one whose holy glory lights the angels ablaze, the one who floored Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah, who set them back in terror and fear that God tells you, come, approach. Tell me what's bothering you that is. Man, that's beautiful, guys. You're not a widow getting ignored and rejected by a society and a judge. [00:27:44] You are a precious child who has been sought out, who has been redeemed, who has been adopted by this amazing God of the universe. [00:27:54] The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ has elevated your position so far beyond what you deserve. [00:28:00] As Jesus'accomplished work on the cross has given us this amazing, privileged position. Because of our amazing high priest, our sins are forgiven. Because of your amazing high priest, you can approach the throne of grace with confidence. [00:28:19] There's this text in Hebrews, I think it's so helpful. The author of Hebrews uses Leviticus in the description of the tabernacle and the temple worship as an analogy for our relationship to God. And there's this bit in Hebrews four. It says this therefore, since we have such a great high priest, and he's using the high priest from Leviticus as an analogy for Christ and his ministry, because since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. [00:28:50] We do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who's been tempted in every way as we are, yet is without sin. [00:28:59] Jesus lived a human life. [00:29:04] He is not detached and removed and cold and uncaring to your struggles. Do you ever have that moment like where you're telling God about something you know in your heart of hearts is petty, and you go, how the heck am I telling the God of the universe about this annoying conversation I had? [00:29:22] Why does he care about this? [00:29:25] Because he knows what it's like. [00:29:28] Because he walked in your shoes. Because he lived a human life. He had annoying conversations with people that he liked. That bugged him, right? [00:29:39] He lived a human life. He was tempted in every way, as you were tempted. Beloved, go down the list. [00:29:46] Search through your heart every sin and idol you love, every temptation you've received from beginning to end. Christ knows what that feels like. [00:29:56] He knows what it's like to have a human heart, to have agency, to actually have the freedom to choose rebellion. [00:30:04] Christ knows that feeling, and it says because of that, he sympathizes with our weakness. [00:30:11] That's a really fancy Bible way of saying, jesus doesn't think your concerns of your heart are petty. [00:30:18] He delights to hear them. [00:30:21] He loves to hear from you. He sympathizes with your weakness. [00:30:26] The God of the universe. The God of the universe has petty conversations with you about everyday absurdities. [00:30:37] What a beautiful thing we have a high priest who sympathize with our weakness, one who's been intempted in every way as we are, and yet is without sin. This is verse 16 of Hebrews four. Therefore, because of who Christ is, because of this amazing intimate relationship you have with Him, therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace for us and our help, help for us in our time of need. [00:31:12] Guys, that's the same throne room that Isaiah entered into in Isaiah six. [00:31:18] That's what he's talking about. The same throne room, the same mercy seat, the same God of the universe sitting there in all his splendor, where the smoke of his majesty fills the temple, where the train of his robe spreads out over the land, where the power of his glory lights his angels on fire. The same throne room that laid Isaiah on his face, saying, I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm going to die. I can't be here because of Jesus. [00:31:49] You get to walk in the room with boldness. [00:31:54] You get to walk up to the throne of the holy righteous God with expectation, not with fear, not with terror, not ready to die, but expecting to receive, says, approach the throne of mercy with boldness so that you may receive mercy and find grace to help you in your time of need. [00:32:22] Jesus, your perfect high priest, has made it such that you get to talk to God with bold. Expectation. [00:32:34] That's nuts. [00:32:36] That makes no sense. [00:32:40] But man, it's a gift, man, it's a privilege. So, yes, we pray with boldness. [00:32:46] We pray with boldness because we're intimately connected to the God of the universe. The King of reality intervenes on our behalf. [00:32:56] He tells. US to expect Him to help us in this life. [00:33:02] He tells you to expect Him to give you mercy, to give you grace, to help you when you are in need. [00:33:13] You notice Hebrews four doesn't say walk in thermal of grace and like, give God your shopping list for the new luxury car you want this year. This is not prosperity gospel teaching. And I know it's dumb that I have to repeat that, but that heresy has wormed its way so deeply into our culture that many Jesus loving Christians reject this amazing privilege we have been given to approach the throne of God with confidence, not because you somehow have authority over him and you can tell him what to do. No, because the amazing gift of the gospel, you can expect the God of the universe to intervene on your behalf, to give you help in your time of need, to always have a well of mercy and grace, one that never runs dry, to actually hear the intimate, petty confessions of your heart and approach you with understanding. [00:34:10] Man. [00:34:13] How does that not become an expression of the prosperity gospel, right? How do you keep that from becoming this just nightmare distortion of what the Bible teaches? [00:34:25] Isn't this the exact same argument? [00:34:28] A name it and claim it health and wealth? Preacher proclaims even in our city, even right now in other buildings in this community. [00:34:35] There's a key difference between biblically bold prayer and blasphemous prosperity prayer. And I know that's a harsh way to say it, guys, but it must be said that way. [00:34:49] There's a difference between what the Bible commands us in our boldness and the blasphemy. That is a prosperity gospel. [00:34:56] Prosperity prayer treats prayer and faith like a superpower. You are the one in control. [00:35:02] It totally ignores proper reverence for the holy and righteous God. It totally ignores the intimacy of our relationship with Him. It treats God like a means to the end of our comfort. [00:35:17] It treats you as God, and God is a tool to accomplish your glory. [00:35:24] Our parable is actually really instructive on the difference between this kind of blasphemous prayer and Biblically bold prayer. [00:35:32] Take a second with me to look at the widow in our parable. [00:35:37] Look how she approaches this judge. I would say she is dependent. She's persistent. She's expectant. [00:35:46] She has no other options. She needs this judge to try our case. She's persistent. She does not give up. She comes back day after day after day, expecting, demanding justice, and she is expectant. [00:36:01] And look what she's expectant of justice. [00:36:07] Luke is very clear here. [00:36:10] She comes seeking justice, seeking the will of God in the world, the right righteous will of God. [00:36:21] Think of how this posture affects our own understanding of prayer. Persistent, dependent, expectant. [00:36:28] Jesus uses this language of crying out day and night to describe this kind of persistent prayer. I think Jesus basically challenges us to try and annoy God with our prayers. I think that's the best way for us to consider it. Try and annoy. See if you can do it. [00:36:45] See if you can bring your true, real heart and desires to God so often that you annoy Him. You can't he delights to hear from you. He loves to hear your true heart. He loves it, can't do it. But it's not just the persistence, it's also the dependence. You bring your true heart to God because you understand you are not God. You are dependent upon Him for the meeting of your needs. You are dependent upon Him for the sustaining of reality. You can't tell the atoms in your body to keep holding together. [00:37:22] You don't have that ability, that authority. If they decide they don't want to, you're kind of stuck, I guess, unstuck. [00:37:30] It is the will of God to maintain your reality. [00:37:35] You are dependent on him. [00:37:38] We're completely dependent on God. To work out his gospel plan, he must intervene. [00:37:45] But also notice it's not just about persistence. It's not just about dependence. The widow is seeking justice. [00:37:53] She's seeking something specifically, God must intervene to bring his kingdom on earth. That's what she's seeking the good, righteous, holy will of God for God's. Correctness. To supersede the brokenness of the curse. [00:38:13] That's what's loaded down in this biblical term, justice. [00:38:17] The right, righteous, holy will of God. Superseding. Correcting. Making up for the brokenness of the curse of sin. [00:38:25] So, yes, that can't happen without the move of God. [00:38:30] You are dependent upon God to bring about his will, to work his kingdom, to bring the dead to life, to save us and save those we love. So we come to Him dependently. We come to Him over and over and over and over. We come to Him expectantly, because God has promised that Jesus will return and he will restore all things. [00:38:51] God has promised that in the end of days, the curse will no longer exist. All that will remain is what is good, what is holy, what is righteous. God has promised that he will come back. And every single sin, the most petty sin, careless words spoken between friends, every single one will be accounted for either by the blood of Jesus or the wrath of a holy and righteous God. [00:39:21] That is a promise of your God. [00:39:24] Sin will cease. The curse will die, death will be destroyed, and perfection and holiness will reign for eternity. That is a promise of the Lord, and the promise of Jesus is as good as accomplished it's. Trustworthy our God keeps his word. Amen. [00:39:45] So our prayers can be steeped in expectancy, our prayers can be steeped in expectancy, because God will accomplish what he has promised. [00:40:00] When we seek the will of the Lord, when we seek the kingdom and we bring our heart to God, growing in holiness, growing like Him, saying, Lord, please work your will. You can trust him. [00:40:11] Not seeking out this is the difference, right, between this blasphemous prosperity prayer and biblical prayer. [00:40:19] Not that you're expecting or not that you're dependent and persistent, that part, but what you're expecting. What are you expecting? Are you expecting God to come and serve you and give you all the stuff you want to make you comfortable? Or are you expecting the kingdom of God to advance and the promise of God to be fulfilled? [00:40:36] That's the difference. [00:40:39] What are you actually praying for? [00:40:42] What are you actually longing for? The widow longed for justice. [00:40:53] So we should ask not just how we pray, are we reverent? Are we intimate? Those are good questions. [00:41:01] We should also ask, what are we praying for? [00:41:05] Of course you bring your desires to God, no matter what they are. Bring your desires to God, your real desires. He knows your heart. He knows what you long for anyway. Bring your real heart to God. He delights to hear you. He's sympathetic to you in your weakness. But you do so with the complete and total understanding that a holy and righteous God is going to work out his will on this earth. And sometimes you say something to Him. Let's be honest, it's just really dumb. [00:41:32] I know that's the harsh way to say it, but I need you to stick with me on this. Sometimes, in a complete and total sincerity of heart, we ask God for something that to us feels brilliant and appropriate and necessary. And because of our limitations, it's actually just really dumb. [00:41:53] No dig on you. You can't help it. You're human, I'm human. It's just the best we've got. But the scripture tells us that by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf. [00:42:05] He helps kind of wide out the dumb parts, right? [00:42:11] I think of it the way, like, my kids will ask for stuff sometimes. [00:42:15] I've told this story before, but there was one time when one of my kids was really young and they went out and did a bunch of errands with me and they were just really well behaved. And so our last stop was at Walmart. And I said, hey, I'm going to get you a treat. You were great. This is a rough day. You did a lot of stuff. I'm going to buy you something special. And so we go into Walmart and we're making our way back to the toy aisle, which is, like, in the very back of the store, right? And so as we're walking through the like, this kid is just like, so stinking hyped. Like, here comes toy action. And so every time we pass literally anything in the store that catches their attention, they're like, that's the thing I want. No, you don't. You don't want a lunchbox. We're going to the toy aisle, right? [00:42:54] And this actually progresses into them beginning to have just a complete breakdown, temper tantrum. You said you'd bring me here to give me a treat. I want this. That is a Disney branded thermos. There's a toy aisle back there. You don't want that. You want something back there, right? This kid, they thought their request was reasonable, right? And in line with what I had told them. But here's the thing. I had something way better for them, right? The little kid just didn't understand it. [00:43:25] They were content with something way too small. I had a way more generous gift in mind I had a way more generous gift in mind than a branded thermos. [00:43:36] And their imagination in the moment was just too small to get where I was taking them. So you know what I did? I said, no, I've got something better for you. Let's keep walking. And they asked for something else, dumb. And I said, no, let's keep walking. And then they asked for something else dumb. And I said, no, let's keep walking. And it got worse and worse and worse until we're having a full blown meltdown. Temper tantrum in Walmart, like 20ft away from the toy aisle, right? Complete frustration. You said, you'd get me something. And I'm like, I will. Look, guys, sometimes you bring your real, true, beautiful, complete heart to God, and you're just too limited to have the right perspective. [00:44:26] And God has something bigger and better in mind, and you're doing your best to pray the kingdom, to move past your selfishness and your flesh and pray for God's will, and you just got it wrong. [00:44:39] And so God says, no, I have something better. [00:44:43] That doesn't mean God doesn't want to hear your heart. That doesn't mean your prayers aren't important. It just means that God, in his grace and his mercy and his sovereignty, is going to hear that prayer interact with you and move you to the bigger, better, glorious kingdom truth he has for you and has for this reality. [00:45:02] So we pray with boldness, not assuming we have some superpower to make God submit to our will. Quite the opposite. We pray with boldness, assuming that God and his sovereignty will at times say, nope, it's actually bigger and better than that, right? [00:45:19] The fact that God says, no, sometimes I've got something better doesn't mean you don't pray with expectancy and boldness. It means you pray with expectancy and boldness. And then you just get to delight and praise Him when he shows you how his imagination is bigger than yours. Amen. [00:45:34] So here's what we're actually going to do to land this out today. [00:45:37] We're going to try this out. [00:45:40] We've done a little bit, kind of like a prayer experience each week of this series within the prayer cards in the box, and that's still there. If God is doing something in your heart, if there's some prayer you're working through, a confession, you have something you want to bring to the Lord, something you want our pastors and our prayer team to pray over, please, in the next few minutes. Write it down, drop it in the box. Yes. And amen. If you have something burdening your heart right now and you need someone to pray with you to help you kind of get it out and process it to the Lord, we're going to have prayer counselors in the room. If you guys could stand up so people know who you are, that'd be awesome. [00:46:13] Prayer counselors today, you can find them. They'll be standing in the room somewhere. They'd love to pray with you, pray over you, intercede on your behalf. If you need privacy, they can step outside with you and pray beyond that. We're going to do something a little different today. We're going to extend our response time longer than we normally do. And I preapologize for you if this is going to be an awkward moment for you, but I think it's going to be good for us. We're going to take a few minutes and we're going to pray with expectant boldness for God to move in his kingdom, move in his glory, and move his gospel in our midst. And here's how we're going to do that. So you guys, if you've been at Emmanuel a while, you know that we have missional partners around our community and around the world. We have different people we partner with, financially different people we partner with strategically that we believe God has connected us with specifically for the advancement of the gospel. And so I've got five of us who have a piece of paper that has a name of one of our ministry areas. If you guys want to stand up and spread around the room, we've got first light ministry right here. We've got our connection to Columbia right here. We've got our strategic ministry here to the city of Ellisville, our connection with elementary school and stuff we do in our community. Our senior care ministry where we go and do worship gatherings at a couple senior care facilities in West County. And then also Chris has signed this as Black flag missions. That's a term used in the missions community to talk about missionaries who go into countries where it's illegal to be a missionary, where their life is in danger for the place they're going. We support two missionaries who are in a black flag country. We're not allowed to say their names in our livestream. We're not allowed to talk. We're not allowed to know what country they're in. There are lots of missionaries around the world right now who take their lives and their families lives in their hands and trust the Lord to guide and protect them as they proclaim the Gospel. So here's what I'm going to invite you guys to do. Do what you need to do for the next few minutes. If you need to sit and pray on a card and put it in the box, if you need to grab a prayer counselor, do that. But what I'd like for us to do as many of us as are willing and able. I'd like for you to get up out of your seat and go to one of these prayer leaders. Just whichever one of these areas of ministry is just striking your heart right now and just kind of mob up into a circle close to them. Grab and drag a chair if you need to, whatever you need to do. And we're going to take a good just 1015 minutes, and we're going to pray for these areas of ministry. We're going to pray for God to move in power, for Him to seek and save the lost, for Him to set the prisoners free and break their chains and free addicts. We are going to pray to see God's movement in our midst and in our world. And so I'm going to invite you to do that right now. Get up and just go to one of these areas of ministry, whichever one strikes your fancy, and we're going to put some prayer prompts on the screen one at a time. I'll give us just kind of like a good three, four or five minutes to pray through each one. I want to invite you to be bold. I want to invite you, whatever group you end up in, to take a minute and pray out loud with them as your group kind of forms up in that area. I want to invite you to as the prayer prompt hits, man, just be bold and pray out loud for God to move. If you don't want to get up and move or you feel like you can't, that's fine. [00:49:35] You can write down your prayer and your prayer card and do whatever you need to do with the Lord right now. But I want to invite you guys, go find a group and let's bring up that first prayer prompt. [00:49:48] I want to invite you guys first. We're going to take three, four, five minutes, however much time we need. And I just want to invite you out loud to pray generally for that specific area of ministry. What is God doing there, right? Pray. Pray for God to move in power. And then after a few minutes, I'll come back up and I'll move us to the next group. So find a group. Let's take a few minutes. Let's pray for God to move.