The Violent Take the Kingdom By Force

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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Please stand for the reading of God's word. Old Testament scripture reading this morning we found in Genesis chapter 25, verses 29 through 34, and 32, verses 22 through 23.

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Starting in chapter 25. Once when Jacob was cooking stew,

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Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of the red stew for I'm exhausted.

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Therefore his name was called Edom. Jacob said, sell me your birthright now.

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Esau said, I'm about to die. Of what use is a birthright to me? Jacob said, swear to me now.

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So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew and he ate and drank and rose and went his way.

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Thus Esau despised his birthright. Turn over a few more pages to chapter 32.

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Be reading verses 22 and 23. The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants and his 11 children and crossed the ford of the

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Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had. And then in Matthew, New Testament reading will be

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Matthew chapter 11, verse 12. From the days of John the

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Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force.

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Good morning again.

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Morning. Open your Bibles to, again, this will be a topical so we'll be different places.

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But why don't we start in Luke 18, Luke chapter 18. We'll start at verse 35.

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Luke 18, verse 35. We'll read to 43. As Jesus drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.

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And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. I'm sorry,

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I'm gonna start over. As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant.

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They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. Verse 38. And he cried out,

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Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be quiet, to be silent.

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But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him.

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And when he came near, he asked him, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said,

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Lord, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, recover your sight. Your faith has made you well.

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And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God and all the people. When they saw it, they gave praise to God.

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Oh God in heaven, we are to give praise to you. Lord, as we'll see here in a moment, you give us what we need.

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You promise and you are faithful to fulfill. Lord, you call on us to cry out to you, for it is our worship to do so.

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I pray God that in our need, we wouldn't be grumblers, we wouldn't be people who look elsewhere, but instead in our need for righteousness, we would cry out to Jesus and ask for mercy.

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God in heaven, it's so easy for our minds and hearts to go elsewhere. So let this be a reminder for us to ask and we shall receive.

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We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Well, one of the pleasures of doing, of studying theology, which we all should be, we're all theologians, one of the pleasures of it is seeing all the ways that we can misstep and maybe overemphasize certain things or underemphasize others.

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And in my ministry, these last several years, I can see how I have overemphasized things and perhaps underemphasized others or reacted to certain things in ways that weren't helpful.

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And one of the things that I have considered, especially lately in my own studies, is the emphasizing the need to stop constantly asking for things from God.

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Like our prayer life is just one thing after the other of asking things from God. And there's a certain sense where it's true, right?

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If our prayer life is just filled with just asking things constantly, there's something missing from that.

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But there can be an overemphasis there. And I think I have done so in my ministry before, of overemphasizing the need to not just be constantly asking things from God.

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Because if you look at the scriptures, have you ever noticed, even in like the

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Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us how to pray. And after calling

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God Father, the prayer is filled with petitions. Remember, the Lord's Prayer is a model prayer.

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And after calling God Father, he then petitions like crazy. He asks things like crazy.

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It's filled with asking things from God. And I mentioned Jesus calling

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God the Father because we are to consider God our Father, who joyfully, and it's his pleasure to give his children things, for us to ask of him of things that he joyfully gives.

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I think it can be an overreaction to say, well, we need to stop asking so much from God. No, God, you know, that God is pleased when you ask him for things.

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He is your loving Father. He loves it when his children ask things from him.

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Did you know that he requires it? He requires you to ask him of things.

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Oftentimes, he uses that as a means to give you those good things that you ask him. God takes pleasure in his children asking things from him, and he uses that as a means to give you those good things you ask.

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And did you know that you are to desire the good things your Father gives as a promise? You are to put your desires in the good things your good

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Father has said, I will generously give you, just ask me. You are to desire those things.

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You are to actually ask him with confidence, with, I don't know, this phrase

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I think is all right, with reckless abandonment. I will ask of him, and I will continue asking. Now, over and over again,

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I don't care the cost. I will ask. Did you notice how the blind man in the gospel here in Luke, did you notice how the blind man in Luke 18 asked in such confident faith?

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You notice that? You notice he cries out. The crowd tells him, shut up. Stop yelling, you beggar.

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And what does he do? Does he shut up? He asks again, Lord, have mercy on me. In fact, he asks all the louder.

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The negativity of the world, trying to tell him to be quiet, only makes him ask even louder to the

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God who is good, who will give good things to him. And did you notice how

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Jesus asked him what he wanted? Has that ever struck you as kind of weird?

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That Jesus would say, whoa, whoa, what would you like me to do for you? I have no idea. He's blind, right?

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You gotta imagine, there's a big crowd around Jesus. In order to get to Jesus, he had to be navigated with the help of others.

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So you can imagine this blind man crying out, help me, help me. He says, have him come to me. He's being helped by people we would assume.

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He's blind, surely. And Jesus says, what would you like for me to do for you? Jesus knew he wanted his blindness to be cured.

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It's not like Jesus being son of God knew all things. Jesus knew these things. He wasn't asking him, what would you like me to do for you?

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For Jesus' sake, he wants this man to ask him for healing.

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He is asking, what would you like me to do for you? For his sake, because it is an act of worship to go to the

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God of all things that are good and ask, oh Lord, that you would give me that good. Our God requires us.

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It's a good thing to ask many things from our God. He is a father who loves us.

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He loves giving us good things. And it is an act of worship to see him as such and say, oh

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God, heal me, help me, as this man has done. What drove this man to worship

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God or Jesus this way? Because he desired the good thing that he knew Jesus could and was willing to provide, the healing of blindness.

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And so nothing's gonna stop him, and he asked. I think this is a good example, and there's others that we're gonna look at, that our

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God loves it when we ask him for good things. It is his pleasure to give it, and it is our act of worship to ask him for those things.

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It is a good thing to ask many things that are good from our God. Let's look at another example.

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We read it a little bit during the scripture reading portion. Let's go to Genesis 32.

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Let's go to Genesis 32. We see the same mentality from a godly man on display.

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I'm going to ask, and nothing's gonna stop me to receive good things from my

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God. Look at Genesis 32, 22.

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The same night, Jacob arose and took his two wives and his two female servants and his 11 children and crossed the ford of Japheth.

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He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had, and Jacob was left alone.

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And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

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So Jacob, in pain from that, is continuing wrestling with this man all night.

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Then he said, let me go, for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

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And he said to him, what is your name? And he said to Jacob, what is your name?

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And he said, Jacob. Then he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.

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Then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him.

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So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.

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The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the people of Israel do not eat sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the thigh.

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I wanna look at, I remember when I first read this as a Christian, being like, that's weird.

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Because he's wrestling with, there's all sorts of things that are interesting about it. He's wrestling with this man who is

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God, which your mind should go to the son of God. This God taken on a human form to wrestle with Jacob.

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And that's not the strangest thing about it to me. The strangest part is that Jacob won. The almighty

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God and Jacob won. And I remember this being very strange because even in my early Christianity, I had understanding that God is almighty and we are not.

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And it just was a strange thing. But it's really important for us to see that it's not as if Jacob was like stronger than this

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God. Because again, look at what he says. In verse 30, I have seen God face to face and yet my life has been delivered.

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So it's not like Jacob went from that saying, yep, I mastered that guy. He says, I've seen God face to face and he didn't kill me.

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And so I think it's very fascinating to see that God wrestles with Jacob and allows him to win, so to speak, in the same way that Jesus asked the blind man, what would you like me to do for you?

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Jesus knew what the blind man wanted and God, Jesus here, with Jacob, could have destroyed him right there.

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But it was for the benefit of Jacob that he would wrestle with him all night for the promise. Again, it is a blessed thing, it is a commanded thing, it is our worship to ask things of God and even wrestle with him all night for those things he has promised.

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You see that this has been a benefit for Jacob right here. Now, why was

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Jacob in such need of the promise that night? What was at stake? You remember what was gonna happen the next morning.

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Who was on his way to come meet with Jacob? Esau, his brother. And you might think, oh, that's nice, his brother, but it wasn't too nice to Jacob.

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He was really scared. In fact, Esau had 400 men, enough to kill him, his family, and everything that was with him, right?

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And why would Esau wanna do such a thing? Well, the last time he really was around Esau, this is what

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Esau said. Look at chapter 27, verse 41. Look at 27, verse 41.

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Now, Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him and Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are approaching, then

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I will kill Jacob. So Jacob gets out of Dodge, in part to find a wife among his mother's relatives, but also to escape the hatred of his brother for so, quote unquote, stealing his blessing, which is debatable, but that's not the point.

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But my point here, in looking at this, is that Jacob leaves the murderous gaze of his brother and goes and gets a family, right, much wealth, and he's on his way back to home in which he hears the report that this man who wanted to kill him is on his way to see him with 400 men.

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I can imagine the fear, the anxiety, Jacob being very afraid of what's happening, but you gotta understand that that night, as he's considering these things, he also had the promises of God that was given to him.

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He has the murder, the what is Esau gonna do to me, kill me, kill my family, but he also has, on the other side of that, the promises of God that counterweight that.

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In fact, the promises of God run against the things that he knows that Esau, at one time at least, wanted to do against him.

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So he has these two things like this, right? These promises, if we look at them, just to get our minds with the context here, look at chapter 25.

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This was at his birth. Chapter 25 of Genesis, verse 23. This was at his birth.

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Excuse me. And the Lord said to his mother, who was given birth, and the

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Lord said to Rebekah, the two nations are in your womb right now, right? That's Esau and Jacob, and they're going crazy in there.

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She doesn't know what's happening, and then he tells her what's happening. Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided.

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The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger. So Jacob was the younger,

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Esau the older. So there's a promise right there that Jacob would be the one being served by Esau, but yet Esau's on his way with 400 men with a lot of power, ability to kill him.

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We see the promise continuing. Chapter 27, verse 28, look at that.

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Chapter 27 of the same book of Genesis, verse 28. This is the supposed blessing he stole from his brother when his father blessed him by saying, may

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God give you the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine.

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Let people serve you and nations bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers, and may your mother's son bow down to you.

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Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be everyone who blesses you. Again, promise, but yet Esau's coming with 400 men tomorrow and wants,

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I think, to kill me. Goes against that. Verse 31, verse 3, right before he flees his father -in -law and he's on his way back to home, right?

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Right before where we're at currently. Look at chapter 31, verse 3.

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Then the Lord said to Jacob, return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred and I will be with you.

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Go back and I'll be with you. I'm going back. Esau, 400 men, wants to perhaps kill me.

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The promise is counterweighted by the circumstances that's before Jacob. And of course, this is the last one, chapter 32, verse 9 through 12, we get this promise.

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Jacob, on the eve of this thing that is causing anxiety in him, and Jacob said, oh

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God, in chapter 32, verse 9, God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, oh

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Lord, who said to me, return to your country and to your kindred that I may do you good. I'm not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff

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I crossed this Jordan and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers, with the children.

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But you said, oh God, here's your promise, I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

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You see this going on here, right? This war in him, it's a terrible reality that here's the promises, but yet here, again, it's a counterweight and it's scaring him.

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And so that's the context. That night, he wrestles with God. And that night, he wrestles with God. What he's doing is he's like, give me the blessing.

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The blessing that you promised, I want it. There's something in the way, supposedly, and I am wrestling you for that promise.

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I will let nothing stop me from getting the promise, your good promise that you have promised me.

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Jacob shows his desire and faith in the promise in wrestling God all night for it.

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Now, how often nighttime comes and we're sleepless with anxiety and worry, how often do we just stay in our worry and anxiety filled with it?

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Instead of wrestling with God in prayer for this promises that he's given us. And what an example we have before us, right?

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Jacob would be filled with an anxiety. He would know all about the anxiety that you have that keeps you up at night. And he wrestles with God for the promises, to be sure of it, to put his mind on it, to say,

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God, you have promised that you're good, you will give it. And that's how he answers that anxiety. This is a man who asked, who asked tenaciously that he would receive what has been promised to him, even in the face of the greatest adversity of his life up to that point.

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Now, before we leave this, and then we go to the New Testament and focus more on the promise that we have in Christ, let's contrast that, that the acting of Jacob there that we can see and marvel at, let's contrast that with Esau, right?

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And we read it earlier, see how Esau treated the promise that he was never destined to have anyways.

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Look at Genesis 25, go back there, and let's look at Esau, how he treated it. He did not wrestle with gout all night for it.

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Instead, he gave it up quite quickly for fleshly gain.

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In Genesis 25, 29 through 34, once when

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Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.

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Therefore, his name was called Edom. Jacob said, sell me your birthright now. Esau said, I'm about to die, what use is a birthright to me?

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Jacob said, swear to me now. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew and ate and drank and rose and went his way.

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Thus, Esau despised his birthright. You see that contrast between the two? Jacob is gonna wrestle with God Almighty all night for that blessing.

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And Esau says, I'll dispense with it easily for some food. Now, some people argue that there could have been a famine going on right here, that he literally could, he was working all day, he didn't have any food, he really could have died and he was looking for his life and that stew.

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And the answer would be, so what? Give me the blessing of God. But even if it is just, he was just really hungry, he's like, oh, whatever,

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I wanna eat. That's still the same point, isn't it? There's a contrast there. There is one,

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I want the promise of God, I will ask for the promise of God, the God who has promised to give me, he's almighty, he's good, he'll give it because he is my father and I'll continue to ask until I get it.

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And the other one who easily dispenses with it. What's our promise? What's the promise that we have?

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What's the promise that we are to ask with such worshipful, bold faith like we see here?

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It's not physical healing, our eyes going from being blind to seeing physically.

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It's not physical protection from enemies and physical offsprings as we've seen in Jacob, it is the fulfillment of those promises.

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It is better promises than that, right? You understand, all those promises that we see in Scripture is a yes and an amen in Jesus and what he provides for us spiritually.

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We have better promises now at our disposal, it's right there before us.

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It is better, it is the fulfillment of all these things. To be a fellow heir with Christ and his kingdom he has established with his blood and resurrection.

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If that doesn't cause a stir in your heart at all, it's because you are dead in your sins.

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That you could have the better fulfillment of the promises of kingdom living and righteousness with Jesus is far better than receiving sight, far better than having a billion children, or the way our society is, having no children.

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It is far better than anything you could imagine to be a fellow heir with Christ and his kingdom, there's nothing that compare.

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What good is physical health and prosperity if used as a law breaker before God?

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There's nothing good about wealth if I'm gonna use it to displease my savior. In fact,

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I'd rather not have it for it's just more ways to sin. But what a blessed promise that you can walk this life right now, even in the flesh, as you battle the flesh, no matter the circumstances, you can walk this world with peace and unity between you and your maker.

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Everyone wants that, whether they know it or not. What a blessing, what a promise we have in Jesus.

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The person who has been awakened to his sin and need for Christ does not tiptoe to the kingdom.

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But he screams out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And when he asks, what would you like me to do for you?

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You say, Lord, give me your righteousness. I hate my sin. Matthew 11, 12,

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I think this gives us perfect context. Matthew 11, 12, from the days of John the

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Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force.

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Now, it can be harder to understand that because it looks like the violent are the bad people and they're like doing bad things to the kingdom, but that's not what

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Jesus is saying there. He's saying the violent are those who say, I'm a sinner and the kingdom,

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Jesus, what he does, he can forgive me of that sin. Give me that kingdom. I will do anything

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I have to do to take it, to have it, to enter into it. I'll destroy anyone in my way. I will go.

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In fact, Luke 16, 16 is another verse of the same point in which he says, the law and the prophets were until John the

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Baptist. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached and everyone forces his way into it.

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I will go and I will go into that. Nothing's gonna stop me. He has provided the way in Christ and the Holy Spirit.

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I shall go and nothing's gonna stop me from forcing my way into it. In fact, you might call it, you might do it violently.

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You see, John the Baptist, you notice how he's paired up with both of those verses. John the Baptist preached repent.

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John the Baptist preached you're a sinner. God is not happy with you.

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Your life is bad because you're a law breaker. That is the sum total.

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And yet he has provided a way in his kingdom through Jesus Christ. Go, enter in through your repentance.

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And those who truly respond are those who do it violently. I will go and nothing's gonna stop me.

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I'm not gonna let anyone tell me to be quiet. I will ask, oh Jesus, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

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And he will respond. What would you like me to do for you? Give me your righteousness, please. I love,

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I think it's worth reading from it. Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan. When he is seeing these, he's at the interpreter's house and he's seeing these things and the interpreter is interpreting them for him so he can understand things.

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And I think it's worth reading here. Listen as I read. In my dream, I watched as the interpreter took

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Christian by the hand again and led him into a pleasant place where a beautiful stately palace, think of the kingdom, stood.

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Now Christian was greatly delighted when he saw the striking building, but he was even more impressed at the sight of people who walked around the top of the palace dressed in gold.

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You know what that is? It's the righteous. There's the kingdom. He's seeing the kingdom. There's the righteous walking about and he's impressed by it, right?

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The righteousness on display. Christian looked wide -eyed at the interpreter and asked, may we go inside?

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Without a word, the interpreter led him closer to the door of the palace. A big group of men stood in a jumble in front of the entrance of that kingdom.

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They all wanted to enter, but they seemed to lack the courage to do so. A little distance from the door, a man sat at a side table equipped with a book and his pen and a quill.

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His role was to take the names of those who were determined to enter into the kingdom, the palace. Christian's attention drifted to men posted at the doorway dressed in armor.

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They stood blocking the way and their clear intent was to prevent those who wanted to enter from getting in, even if it required violence.

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Christian pondered the meaning of all this. Finally, when all the men cowered back away from the door for fear of the armed men,

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Christian spotted one man who appeared very resolute. He strode up to the man who sat at the table and said, sir, write down my name.

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As soon as the name was recorded in the book, the man drew his sword, put a helmet on his head and rushed toward the palace door where the armed men opposed, oh,

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I got to switch the page and this is a weird Kindle. Opposed him with deadly force, but the valiant man was not discouraged at all and he fought fiercely, cutting and hacking his opponents.

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He both received and administered many wounds to those who attempted to keep him out.

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Nevertheless, he cut his way through them all and pressed forward into the palace. Those inside cried out with a joyous voice, even those who walked upon the top of the palace.

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They said, come in, come in, eternal glory, you shall win. So he went in and was clothed with garments similar to those worn by the citizens of the palace.

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Christian smiled and said, I think I certainly know the meaning of this. Now let me go. I love that.

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Christian says, I know what this is saying. Now let me go into the kingdom. I'm ready to go myself, let's go, let's do it.

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This is someone who has been awakened to their sin. They're awakened to their dirtiness, their wretchedness, their awfulness.

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They understand that all the problems of their life is not other people, is not all these things as a victim, but I am a lawbreaker and Jesus enables me to be a law keeper by his work.

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Nothing's going to stop me from coming in faith to him. No one's gonna stop me, no one's gonna tell me to be quiet.

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Being made righteous in the kingdom does not mean we then stop asking things of God by faith.

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You enter in, you're justified, you receive that righteous robe and then we stop asking things from God?

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Then we stop asking things, the good things and righteousness from him? Absolutely not. Our life becomes marked by asking things from God, wrestling with him all night in prayer.

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Our life is marked by this. The life and desire of the

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Christian in this life is to walk according to the justified status we have received upon entering the kingdom.

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You understand that? Your life is marked by I want to walk according to the righteousness

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I have earned by Christ and his accomplished work. I only like saying

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I earned it with that. I wanna walk according to the righteousness I have been given by Jesus. That's what

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I wanna do. And I know that this is good for me, the greatest good that I could have and I will ask and I will reach and I will go to it over and over again because he has promised to give it to me in the spirit.

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I desire, personally, I desire good health. I desire reasonable wealth.

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I desire good circumstances. That's foolish to say you don't. But more than anything,

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I desire to walk righteously by God's grace in whatever circumstances he desires for me.

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That is the greater good that I long for. I'd rather walk righteously in suffering than unrighteously in comfort and ease.

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Being found in Christ's kingdom means we boldly ask him confidently in faith that he would enable us to walk righteously in this life every day of our lives because of his work of justifying love.

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And this is where I wanna end with Luke chapter 11. Let's go there, Luke chapter 11.

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This is the life of a Christian who loves righteousness because of Christ and asks good things of righteousness because of Jesus all their days.

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They do not stop because our God is good and offers it to us.

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Look at Luke. Now, you remember at the beginning of the sermon,

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I remarked on how when Jesus taught us how to pray, which is the beginning of chapter 11, remember he called

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God Father, the one who generously gives and loves. And again, we can see how there's petition after petition.

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Ask, ask, ask. It is good, oh beloved, oh children of God, to ask your

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Father for things. And I love the teaching he has with it. This is the life of the saint in the kingdom.

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He said to him in verse five, chapter 11 of Luke verse five, which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him.

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And he'll answer from within his house, stop bothering me, the door is now shut and my children are with me in bed.

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I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because of his friend, because even though he's his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

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You know what he's saying there? Impudence is boldness. It's just over, I'm not gonna go. You have bread,

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I know it's in there, I need it. It's a good thing I need for my friend that's in. Give me it, please. I'm not gonna go away until you do.

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So even though at first he wouldn't get up to do it because he's already locked the door, it would have been a whole thing, he says because of his boldness, because he wouldn't go away because he kept on asking, he got up and gave him the bread.

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What is Jesus teaching us here? Be bold, ask good things. Do not stop, don't grow weary.

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Your God loves you, he cares for you, he wants to give you good. Continue to ask petition after petition after petition.

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Ask your kind and gracious and good God. He says in verse nine, and I tell you, ask and it will be given to you.

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Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives.

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And the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Notice how it's remarkable.

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He says, ask and it might be given to you. No, it will be given to you. When you see a promise in scripture, mark it, highlight it.

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God's not joking when he gives you a promise in Christ. He says that if you ask, it will be given to you.

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You know what that means? It's not a maybe, it's not a perhaps. If you ask, you will receive, right?

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He says, if you knock, it will be opened. If you search, if you seek, you will find.

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It's not a maybe. It is every single time, it will be given to you. Maybe not in the way you like, maybe not in the timetable you like, but it will be done.

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It will be provided for you. Notice in verse 10, he says, for everyone who, and then he says, ask, and he goes through the thing again.

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For everyone, not just for some people, for the very mature Christians, for a certain class of Christianity, everyone who does this will receive.

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This is the life of the Christian, is that we ask boldly because our

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God has promised to give us the good things he has in his right hand. In fact, he grounds this kind of thinking in the goodness of our

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God. You notice that in verse 11, he continues on, he says, what father among you, if his son asked for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent?

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He says, or if he asked for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? Imagine having a child, your child, even any child, but especially yours, and they're starving to death.

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And they say, I need bread. Give me an egg to eat, give me something. And you give them not only something that's not gonna help them with their hunger, but you give them something that's gonna hurt them, right?

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A scorpion or a rock. What kind of lack of love? We would call that a deep -rooted, a manifestation of sin that is not even normal among the pagan.

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That you would have a starving child and you have the goodness in your hand, and instead of giving them the good thing for them to eat and enjoy, you give them a scorpion.

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That would be a wickedness that we can't even hardly fathom in our minds, doing such a thing. And he's connected that with the goodness of the father.

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He has the good things that you desire and want and need. He will not withhold it from you.

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Even in the moments when you're in your trial, you're in your hardship, and you're thinking, you're withholding it from me, there is a greater reality in which you know, my

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God is too good to me to be withholding this thing from me. He says in verse 13, if then you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father, who is not evil, give, notice what he says here though, the

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Holy Spirit to those who ask of him. What's the good thing that God has that we need to be seeking?

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What is the good thing? It's not our definition of good. The good thing that God has in abundance that he desires to give his children is the

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Holy Spirit, i .e. righteousness. He has given you righteousness in your entrance into the kingdom, and it is our joy and desire to walk righteously after the image of Jesus, growing in maturity, growing in the graces of the

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Holy Spirit. It is his joy to give it to you. You know how you know that you are a member of the kingdom is when you want righteousness above all things, because righteousness is

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Jesus, and you love Jesus. And we gotta understand that your greatest desire is found, not in all the other things of this life, although they are rightful desires of themselves typically, but the greatest desire is let me have

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Christ in light of it all. This is my desire. This is what I'll ask boldly. This is what I'll go over and over again to him for, is that I would have

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Christ. And God, in Jesus, it says, I will not withhold righteousness from you.

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That temptation to sin that you have, you are to ask, oh Lord, take this from me. He will not turn his back from you.

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He will give you victory as you go to him and go to him and go to him and say, this is the promise

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I have is righteousness, and I will receive it from your hand for you are good and you promised it to me.

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This is the kind of bold prayer life. This is the sort of things that we should ask from our God. I remember being a newer

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Christian, reading this and being like, well, that's not true because, you know, there's plenty of people that ask things from God all the time, right?

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And to say, like a blanket statement, you'll get it, that just doesn't seem right. And of course, I knew enough by God's grace to say, well, there's something wrong with my thinking and not

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God's. And I realized that this is a promise of the righteousness in Christ, that he's not gonna withhold that from me.

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And as a young Christian who's battling typical young Christian sins, this was very pleasing to me that you have promised you'll give me victory over my sin progressively.

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And I can tell you he has and he continues and he will do that now. This is what we have in Jesus.

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This is what we have in Christ. Are you asking the

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Father for things with impudence, boldness, repeating?

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Are you asking, expecting to receive, seeking, expecting to find, knocking, expecting doors to be opened by our

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God? If that is not your worship, if that's not what has been a disciplined practice, could it be that the good thing you imagine is not the good your eternally good

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God has in mind? Could it be the good things that you have for yourself and mine, it doesn't measure up to what

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God is offering in Christ? To receive the

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Holy Spirit, to gain and walk in righteousness as of the greatest goodness. To those struggling saints who are growing weary with asking for this good thing, right?

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Struggling with sin, you are weary with asking for this good thing from our

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God. Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. Fear not, little flock, for it is your

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Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom of God. Let us pray. Oh God in heaven, we thank you for righteousness.

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We thank you for Jesus. What a good God you truly are in every way. Let us not be deceived into thinking that the good things that you have for us is anything less than righteousness.

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Lord, help us to see even every circumstance that we are in as saints. You are using it for us to see

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Christ more clearly, realize forgiveness better, and to walk in greater conformity to his image.

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Lord, if this is our greatest desire, then even with tears, even with heaviness, with hardship,

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Lord, we can still see the hope of what you're doing in that. Lord, I'm not asking that the tears would be taken away from the saints.

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I'm not asking that the hardness wouldn't be taken away if that's not your will. What I am asking is that the saints before me would see that you are using all these things for us to experience righteousness more, and may that give us hope as we ask, oh

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Lord, just let me grow in righteousness even as I go through these hard things. Lord, there are people before me.

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Lord, we're all in some way struggling with sin. God in heaven, I pray that we would learn to be like Jacob and wrestle you all night, knowing that you promised to give us the good things of righteousness, and we shall in prayer constantly go to you.

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We shall grab hold of the means of grace that you have before us with boldness, expecting these good promises that Christ has won for us.

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Let us not grow weary, but let us rather see in what ways can I, Father, in what ways can we,

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Lord, be so bold in our prayers as we take hold of the promises you've promised us.

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Thank you, Lord, for this goodness that we have from you. May you be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen.