Jeff Durbin on The Lords Prayer Part II

Jesus Teaches Prayer as Intimacy with the Father

Father, forgive your trespasses. As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray. God, please guide your church today. God, I'm in myself not worthy to lead your people in prayer. So God, I pray that by your spirit you would teach us to pray.

Help us, God, to see you as you are, not as we have made you in our own mind. Help us, God, to love you enough to seek your face as we ought. God, help us, Lord, to cast away from us the things that don't matter, the things, Lord God, that distract us from you.

Help us, God, to be a church that prays. Help us to be a church that prays in the way that brings you glory and that you're pleased with. Lord Jesus, teach us to pray. God, I pray that you'd get me out of the way in this sermon.

I pray that you would cause me to vanish away, to decrease, and for Christ to increase. God, bless us as a church. Help us. Help us, God, to leave behind us right now all the things, Lord God, that are weighing on us.

Help us, Lord, to cast away from us sins that would distract us from listening. God, convict us. Allow us to let go of what robs us of joy. Let us walk in the light as you are in the light. In Jesus' name, amen.

So this is big, being taught to pray by Jesus. I mentioned as we opened up the Lord's Prayer that history is full of examples of people that prayed and from a human perspective prayed well. I talked about the Puritans and how much they prayed and how committed they were to like rich theology in their prayers.

The prayers were great. If you get the Puritan prayer book, it is just fantastic. It makes you actually feel really small as a 21st century Christian, the kinds of prayers that we have compared to the weight and the height and the glory of the prayers and the value of the vision.

It is really spectacular. If you don't have that in your library, get it. Get it because it will really bless you. Not so much to have prayers that you just get through as rote prayers that you pray just to do, to have something, but read those prayers to see the kind of rich theology and understanding of God that the Puritans had.

How they prayed was really a testimony to what they knew about God and how they had experienced God in ways that are just really spectacular. If you even learn the history of the Puritans and that movement and what God brought them through to use the Word of God to transform and shape really the world and so much of what we have as blessings before us, study the movement, study what God did, and then pray for a revival, and really pray for a revival not so much just in the theology of the Puritans but in the prayer life of the Puritans and how they sought after God so much.

But history, again, is just replete with examples of people that can pray and pray well, and there's great books on prayer. And you can look at modern people that God has raised up to teach and to lead the church.

I mean, universal, and there's great books on prayer. But each and every single one of those examples falls woefully short of Jesus and His prayer life and what He knew about prayer, and not only what He knew about it but how He actually did it.

He demonstrated it. I talked to us about the fact that, you know, if you want a model for prayer, if you want to follow somebody that could pray and pray well, you have to follow Jesus, because Jesus is God the Son.

He was in an eternal relationship with the Father. You know the chapter. In the verse, John chapter 1, verse 1, En arche ein hologos, kai hologos ein prostom theon, kai theos ein hologos. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jesus always existed forever back. No matter how far back you want to push the beginning, Jesus was already there, and He was prostom theon, face-to-face with or toward the Father. That's intimate face-to-face relationship with the Father from all eternity.

He was God. John 1, 14, and the Word became flesh, and He dwelt among us. And when the Word, who was in an intimate relationship with the Father forever, lacking in nothing, here's the thing that drives me bonkers about thinking about the Trinity and like the relationship of the Father to the Son.

There was nothing lacking, nothing lacking in the fellowship of the Trinity, the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God, eternally existent as three co-equal, co-eternal persons. God is perfect without you and without me.

He didn't create because He needed something. He didn't create because He needed glory. He just had to have it, right, and He's missing it somehow. He didn't create because He was lacking in fellowship or joy.

It says in the Bible that God is the happy God. Try to wrap your mind around that. He's the happy God always, and He always had perfect fellowship, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and so there's this perfection of community and relationship and fellowship among the persons of the Trinity, the triune God, forever in the past.

It's perfection, happiness, no brokenness, no stain, no weakness of relationship, no failing daily in our relationship as we do with each other every single day, and our families especially will notice it, the conflict that happens between brother and sister and father and mother and mother and daughter, the conflict.

We see relationships of love that we have that we don't ever want to do without, amen? We want those relationships forever, but it's not a relationship of perfection. It's a relationship that is stained constantly by our own sin, our own pride, our own evil desires, our own selfishness.

That's how our relationships work every day, and we want those relationships, but they're not perfect. They're what we know, what we love, and we don't ever want to let it go, but it's not perfect. And yet here you have Father, Son, Holy Spirit from all eternity in absolute perfection, never a bad day and never a dull moment, happiness and bliss and fellowship.

And so then Jesus, Philippians says, Paul says, He was in the very form of God, Jesus, and He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped or held on to, but He did what? He emptied Himself, and He became a servant, and He became obedient even unto death.

The Lord's Prayer as God-Centered Worship

So Jesus takes on flesh. The infinite takes on the finite, and He humbles Himself, and He's in the world now after having an eternal relationship of perfection with the Father. Now He submits to obedience as your substitute, as your federal head, as your representative.

He's representing you, living a life that you and I have absolutely failed of obedience and perfection, and so He now operates in a relationship with the Father of perfection on this side of heaven. And He prays, and He prays well.

Jesus would get up early in the morning, and He would pray before the sun was even up, right? And so when I say, like, we need to follow Jesus, I mean, Jesus took the Psalms seriously. He was a literalist, a wooden literalist.

When it says, early in the morning, my prayer shall rise to you, Jesus was a wooden literalist at that point. He took it seriously, and He got up early in the morning before everybody else is up. It's dark outside.

Jesus is up to do what? To seek after the Father. It was His single mission in life. His ultimate goal, His purpose was to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Jesus wasn't just walking through a relationship with the Father of glorifying the Father through His life of obedience.

He did. He was also in a hot, white pursuit, a white, hot pursuit of affection and intimacy with the Father. And so when Jesus teaches us to pray, He comes right after how pagans do it. Unbelievers pray with babble, Jesus says.

They just babble on. They just say stuff because they think they're going to be heard for their many words, because they say a bunch of stuff, right? And so I pointed out as we entered this text that when Jesus goes after how pagans pray, we always go to, like, well, who's that today?

How do I apply that example of Jesus to, like, what happens around us today? And as good, solid Calvinists today, we go, oh, well, that's Rome. They say just meaningless words and babble, and they just pray just, you know, over and over and over repetitious words, and they pray so that other people, or Jesus attacks people and actually critiques people who pray so that other people see them pray.

And we're always trying to figure out, like, well, who does that around me? And the answer is that's not the point of Jesus addressing it. It's not about the other. It's about me. Jesus teaches us, like, what it's like to pray.

If you want, like, sort of a bird's eye spy cam view, okay? We love, like, today in our technology, we love it. We love we have cameras everywhere, and, like, we're all voyeurs in a sense, right? We all, like, love to watch YouTube and, like, hidden camera footage of a robbery or someone involved in something that they shouldn't have been involved in, and we can't help it.

They have millions and millions of views and viral videos. Well, here is actually some good voyeurism, a way for you to actually pay attention to something, get a bird's eye view of something that you want to watch.

And Jesus tells you, like, what it's like in His relationship of prayer and intimacy with the Father. You get to now spy on it a bit. What was it like for Jesus to rise early and spend time with the Father?

What was it like when Jesus prayed and He talked to God? What was it like? And Jesus tells you. This is what it's like when God the Son talks to the Father in perfection. This is what He tells us. He says, like this, you pray like this.

He says, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Now, as a quick review, I do want to touch it. We're not going to spend a lot of time here today, but I want to make sure that I put this together in one tight package for us.

You'll notice that when Jesus prays, He doesn't leap into the Father's presence, although that happens, of course, at times with all of us. We leap into the Father's presence and we say, give me, like, help.

This is an emergency moment. But when Jesus goes into the Father's presence and He prays, and you can just see Him praying this prayer publicly, not for the purposes of being seen, but for the purposes of real intimacy and teaching, He says, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Notice that when Jesus prays and He tells us to pray, His singular focus is on the glory of God. It's an upward prayer first. It's about what is right and true before what I need. You see, here's what you have to get.

We have to all grasp this about prayer. Prayer is not about going to God to make Him better than He is. We're not going to God to give Him instructions. Jesus says as much. He already knows what you need before you've even asked Him.

He already knows it. It's already before Him. He's already decreed it. He knows. So why does He call you into prayer with Him if He already knows all things? Because of intimacy, because of relationship.

That's how He's created us. He calls us into worship to glorify Him and to know Him. And when Jesus tells us to pray, He first starts off with the Father as premier, as treasure. And so we go into God's presence and you say, what was it like when Jesus talked to the Father?

First and foremost, when Jesus talked to the Father, He was focused upon the Father's glory, the Father's desires, the Father's will above all things. And that is perfection incarnate. What's it like for a perfect human to worship God?

Well, He first focuses upon God in worship and prayer. And so when we go to God's presence, it's first about God's glory and His name being holy. Notice that Jesus says, hallowed be thy name. And admit it, I said it when we did the message before, most of us don't even know what in the world that means.

Admit it. When you hear people praying that prayer, they say, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It just seems so erudite and so lofty and big. And I told you about how for years at the hospital, the beginning of this church right before you, I would see daily, every single day, I would see these AA groups and SA groups and HA groups and all these groups get together of people who were completely dissing Scripture, God's revelation in Jesus.

They wanted none of it. You can worship the doorknob, the electricity, the floor mop, it didn't make a difference as long as it wasn't Jesus. And at the very end of this meeting where they would often heap scorn upon Jesus and anybody in there that brought their Bible, they would all say, okay, let's dismiss now.

They all stand up, they'd hold hands, and they would say, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom. And I was in awe. I would just, what's happening? Do you know what you're praying?

The people who just dissed Jesus in the biblical worldview for 35 minutes are now actually going into God's presence after just maligning Him and His Son and His mission. Now they're saying, God, may your name be holied throughout the earth.

Hallowed be thy name means this. God, your name be holied. God, in my life, may your name be holied. Mine first. Holied be your name is not asking, it's not, watch, it's not an exclamation, proclamation.

Piper said that, that for 20 some odd years as a pastor, he thought that in the Lord's prayer where Jesus says, hallowed be thy name, he thought, and I think many of us do, that that was a proclamation, right?

Like you're saying to God, God, your name be holied, because it is. Like, holied be your name, God. Like, praise God. But that's not what it is, that the word itself is actually asking God, telling God to do something.

Do you get the difference? It's not, praise God. It's more like, your name be praised. Do it, God. You're actually calling out to God for Him to do something. And so when Jesus tells you, you go into the Father's presence like this, our Father in heaven, first and foremost, child, Father relationship, Son of God relationship, go to Him not as an unbeliever, Gentile, doesn't know God, repetitious prayers for just, so that meaningless words, just so that we'd be heard.

He says, you go Father in heaven, Father-Son relationship. He says, your name be holied in my life, in my family's life, in my son and my daughter's life, my spouse's life, my home, my church. God, your name be holied here.

And that's, holy your name, God, among us and our families and communities, my neighborhood. God, your name be holied in my city. May my city council holy your name. May the governor of my state revere your name as holy.

May the President of the United States holy your name. That's the kind of prayer that you go before the Father with, is you're praying first and foremost to your Father, and you're praying a prayer, God, do this, do this in the world.

I think about this, watch for a moment now. This is important. I don't think that pessimillennialism, amillennial, premillennial, postmillennial, can be broken down into two camps, pessimillennialism and optimillennialism, okay?

I don't think that you can truly hang on to any pessimillennial system, that all things get bad and worse and destructive all the way through. I don't think you can really hold on to that prayer and pray the Lord's Prayer every day and mean it.

Things are going to go bad and turn to dirt and mud and grotesque things, and the world's going to get awful and bad and terrible and fall apart. Father, your name be holy, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

See the difference? That doesn't work, does it? It's two conflicting ideas. If you truly pray the Lord's Prayer every day and you believe that God answers prayers, and that He's telling you to pray the prayer for a reason, how could you possibly pray the Lord's Prayer and believe that the world is not ultimately going to be under the feet of Jesus in time and in space and in history?

How could you do it? You're praying, God, your name be holy. Why is Jesus telling you to pray the prayer? Because He doesn't intend for it to be fulfilled. I think as it extends, Jesus says, your kingdom come, your rule, your reign, your sovereign rule come, your will be done on where?

Earth as it is in heaven. Every one of us in the West today, Christianity in the West is satisfied, so satisfied with Jesus being King over Neverland. We're satisfied with Jesus being King over Neverland, and the secularists are satisfied with our position, our claim that Jesus is King over Neverland.

Heaven, that place over there, Jesus rules well there, and He belongs there, and He rules mightily there. He's King of kings there and Lord of lords there. And then all of a sudden, you come in, as Doug Wilson says, and say, yes, and Jesus is King over these United States.

And people say, oh, you mean King, King? Like, really, King? Think about it for a moment. The prayer you pray, first and foremost, God-centered, not me-centered, is Father, Father, your name be hallowed, your name be holy, do it, God, and your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus comes into the world. He breaks into history as the second Adam, as perfection, as the true and perfect Israel. He comes into a world that's stained by sin, cursed by sin. He redeems. He's removing the curse as far as it is found.

He rules heaven and earth now, and justice and righteousness will be established in the world. Jesus wins, and watch, here's the point. He tells you and I to pray for it, to pray for it. But here's the thing, watch, watch.

As you and I pray, as the church prays under the instruction of Jesus, our Grandmaster of Prayer, as He tells us to pray, watch, we pray this prayer together for the world. Holy your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

But here's what you have to notice. When you pray those things, as Dr. White has taught me and says so often, prayer, first and foremost, it's not about changing God, making Him better than He is. Prayer changes who?

Come on now, who? Me. It changes me. And so you pray this prayer, your heart gets aligned with God's heart first and foremost. You start treasuring the things that God treasures, being pleased in the things that God is pleased with, and so first and foremost, the Lord's prayer every day in your heart and on your lips before God is going to transform you.

Because you can't pray this prayer and truly mean it and have a life that is completely distorted and disharmonious. How do you pray that prayer and talk to God every day about His name being holy and His kingdom coming, His rule coming and His will being done on earth as it is in heaven if you don't seek holiness every day?

If you don't seek His rule over your life and family every day? If you don't seek His will being done in your personal life every day? You cannot pray that prayer every day and truly mean it and not be transformed by it.

You can't. You can't because it would be a total catastrophe, a prayer that means nothing. So the first thing that this prayer does is obviously glorifying God, but the next thing it does is it has to change you.

Why? Because it's not about you. Jesus says, you enter into the Father's presence, the first thing you do is you center yourself around the things that matter to God first. That's the start of the Lord's prayer.

Daily Bread and Humble Dependence

Okay, next. Jesus says this, watch. He first says, God, then He says, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

The prayer is really in two parts, right? One is God-centered first and foremost. Next is me. So Jesus is saying, you first go into your Father's presence and you align yourself to the will of the Father.

You focus on what matters to God. Next, you focus on you. Jesus isn't saying, look, you're a robot and you're under the feet of God and He just wants you to just give Him glory like a drone for all eternity.

You just drone on about God and His glory and goodness. No, it really is intimate. It's really meaningful and actually Jesus tells you, you go to your Father for what you need. It's really, it's interesting because watch, He says, give us this day our daily bread.

Now, I mean this when I say this. It's a part of me that, forgive me, it's a part of me when I was like planning for the Lord's prayer, I was like, let's make that a six-month series. Because you really could.

You could do it and I think it would be awesome. But we eventually have to finish Matthew, for goodness sakes. But so I am going to really scan over so much here, guys, and I know that I'm not a perfect pastor and I miss things, but I'm going to do my best to try to talk about the things that matter a lot, at least to me and I think to us.

When He says, give us this day our daily bread, it's interesting. You go to God and He says the most simple thing, give us this day our daily bread. It's like the most basic thing of life. If you don't eat, you die.

That's it, right? And so it's really interesting. Jesus puts like in this Lord's prayer, He could have said a hundred things. You know, He could have. He could have said, give us, God, our sandals that we need, right?

The ground is really hot here in Arizona. That's a good thing to pray for, right? Boy, it's hot, right? So that's a basic thing. That's a basic need in Arizona, right? Something for my feet, right? So He could have been in there like, God, give us our daily clothing.

He could have said, God, give us our monthly mortgage payment, right? Those are all important things, right? God, please give me my monthly rent. Why did Jesus, in teaching us to pray, go straight after the most basic thing of life?

Food, give us this day our daily bread. It's because Jesus is teaching us, I believe, humble dependence upon God for the most basic thing of life. You recognize in your prayer, watch, that you need God for even the most basic thing of life, for the smallest things and the big things.

But Jesus is saying, you go to the Father and you ask Him for the most basic stuff of life, without which you cannot survive and pray any longer. Bread, Jesus says, give us this day our daily bread. You're coming to God and you're recognizing He's the sovereign, He's our Father, and if He doesn't feed me, I don't get anything.

I don't eat. You know, watch, this is important. Let me say, especially to the kids, if you're in here right now, kids, and you haven't checked out yet, you need to listen. You're raised in Christian homes, right?

I wasn't, but you're raised in a Christian home and I see it, I see it. You see the fact that kids raised in Christian homes can get jaded. They get jaded, they just don't care anymore. They get indifferent to like Christian terminology, the gospel.

Prayer at the dinner table or at breakfast or at lunch just becomes something you have to do because we're a Christian family and we love Jesus and so Jesus is in our table and so we say thank you to Jesus, right?

Like it becomes something you just do. It's just part of like the thing. And so you say, well, I gotta pray real fast and like, you know, you say it, you shoot out a prayer to God because what? That's what Christians do.

You just have to pray. It doesn't really mean anything. You're just doing it because that's what Christians do because that's part of our tradition because if I didn't do this, maybe anything bad about me.

Maybe I'm not very Christian, very good at being a Christian if I don't pray before my meals or maybe I had to pray really well. One thing I noticed about Presbyterians when I hang out with them, uh, Presbyterians and Baptists pray different before meals.

I don't know if you guys know this. Am I right, Marcus? Oh, you haven't noticed, okay. Presbyterians are like, thank you God for the food, love you, amen, right? Baptists are like, Lord, we just want to thank you for the waitress and all the hands that made the meal that brought it to the table and God want to thank you for what you did in church this morning.

Like half the time Baptists don't even get to like to thank you for the food but sometimes we forget to thank God for the food because we've already prayed about 50 other things, right? And everyone's mad because we're ready to eat now and we're hungry, right?

Okay, but prayer at the table is not something we should ever become jaded to or be indifferent towards because watch, Jesus says you pray every day to the Father, give us this day our daily bread so you recognize if you're in that kind of prayer with God that the reason I have this food in front of me is because God gave it to me.

Now this is a hard thought and you gotta come, you gotta, this is where like theology matters. A whole lot. Today, today in this room right now, not a single one of you is gonna go to bed tonight, I don't think, hungry.

And if that's the case, if you're gonna leave here today and you're not gonna eat tonight, you come talk to us and we're gonna feed you, okay? That's my promise right now, no one's going to bed in here hungry tonight.

If you need food, we're providing it. You're not gonna leave here without food, okay? So let's get that out of the way. Every one of you is gonna leave here and go to bed tonight with food in your belly and you're not gonna starve.

Guarantee it, okay? However, we think give us this day our daily bread, meh, whatever. Because we are so unbelievably blessed by God and loved by God, we don't even know what it means to be hungry. My kids have never experienced hunger.

They think they have and they try to make it look like they have. They go three hours between meals and they're like, I'm starving, especially my son, Sage. Especially Sage, if Sage ever goes three hours without food, he's like, I'm dying, dad, dying.

He literally acts like that, like literally acts like that. It's the truth. I wouldn't stand up here and lie to you at the pulpit, okay? If he doesn't have food for a couple hours, starving, he's dying.

Now, the truth is that in the world today, and we don't like to think about it because it's a raw thought. It's a painful thought. We don't want it in our minds. We're gonna go about our business and not think about all the pain that's going on in the world around us right now.

But today in this world, there are little babies starving today that are gonna die. Today in this world, there are one-year-olds and two-year-olds and three-year-olds that are dying of starvation without moms and dads cast out into the streets.

There are people thrown into the garbage today that will die of starvation. There are people in the world, in God's world today, that are dying of starvation. Nothing to drink and nothing to eat. And we think, why would I pray for God to feed me?

It's a tough thought to have because you have to say, okay, well, wait a second. Now God is a good God. Why are people starving in the world? Why does God let one-year-olds die of starvation and two-year-olds die of starvation?

That thought hurts my heart. Why would God be like that? The truth is, is every single one of us deserve to die starving because we hate God from the womb. We run from God and His world and His universe as rebels from the start.

Every thought of our imagination is wicked. There is none righteous, none who does good, none who seeks after God. We're all rebels against the King from birth. We are rebels and we are sinners. If you don't believe kids are sinners, come over and babysit.

I'll show you. We're rebels. We are in a fight with God from the beginning. God says, haters of God, enemies of God. That's our position. And so in the world today, in sin, people die of starvation and God doesn't owe anybody anything.

If you think that He does owe anybody anything, you have not contemplated your own sinfulness before God and contemplated His holiness. He owes us nothing. We are all this clay in the potter's hands. All of us deserve one thing to be cast out, but He shows mercy to people, goodness to people, love to people.

Every day the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The sun comes up to rise over people who are enemies of God. People today will have full bellies who are at war with God. Think about that. He feeds His enemies.

And in this world today, people die of starvation. In a cursed, fallen world that Jesus is wrapping up and redeeming, He's winning, people today are dying of starvation. Watch. And Jesus says, you pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And so when you go at the dinner table, when you go to lunch at tonight, when you go to eat with each other or at home, that prayer, God thank you for this food, that matters.

He fed you. Every detail of the universe, every molecule, every moment, every transaction, every person, every breath, every heartbeat, every single one is wielded in God's hands. And every little step and molecule and movement and growth out of the ground, moving on the truck to a restaurant, to your plate, to your belly, is from a God who loves you.

And Jesus says, you go to God with humble dependence. Give us, Father, give us this day our daily bread. Give me what I need. If you don't give it, I'm not going to have it. So Jesus teaches us humble dependence.

And what we should know about that? And here we go. Is this, God is sovereign. Man, we say it a lot, don't we? We're Calvinists, right? We have to say that, right? We're reformed. We have to say sovereignty a lot.

We have to say holiness of God a lot. We have to say depravity of man a lot. We have to say these things, part of it's our code language. Welcome to our ghetto, okay? This is how we talk here, right? Now, pause.

Stop letting it be just the language of a ghetto. Because when Jesus actually teaches you to pray, He teaches you to pray to your Father for what you need, which means that you recognize from the beginning of your food that the Creator has control over the creation and the creatures, and He's the one that determines whether or not you will eat.

We don't like a God like that in the West. We don't like a God who's in control of whether or not you put food in your mouth. But Jesus says this, you have to pray, give us this day our daily bread, because He's the one that gives it, which means that God is the sovereign in the world over the food supply.

God's the sovereign over the trucks that brought you your food. God's the sovereign over the sun that caused it to grow out of the ground and the rain that fell on it, the water. And God's the sovereign over the hands that learn the skills and the trade to work the ground, to develop it.

God's the sovereign over the person that got the lease to put the store there. God's the sovereign over the employees that put the food out in the grocery store. He's the sovereign over every detail to get the food into your mouth, because He loves you.

So the first thing you recognize in asking God is, give us this day our daily bread, is that God's the Creator, you're the creature, and He's the sovereign. You come to Him in humble dependence for your most basic of needs.

And here's what's amazing, you got to capture this, is that Jesus actually tells us that our Father in heaven, our Father, He wants you to ask Him. He wants you to come to Him. He wants you to come and ask for what you need.

He's not far off. He's saying, you come to me for like your food. I want to give you that. Come to me for the food. I'll give it to you. I want you to ask me. God is sovereign over the macro things. That's the whole story, right?

I want you to see a verse for that, because we've got to have scripture with this, right? So I want you to see Isaiah 46 .10. It is one of my favorites. I want you to try and memorize it. Isaiah 46 .10, I want you to see it together.

By the way, if you want to see how sovereign God is, read Isaiah 40 through 46, chapter 40 to 46. Read that section of scripture. But Isaiah 46 .10, I want to read this together. This is God. I'm going to start in verse 9.

Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. Not only is there no other God, there is none like me. Watch. And here's how there's no other God and none like God.

Watch this. This is big. And if some of you guys are thinking about what I'm thinking about, you know what I'm talking about. This is big, right? You know what I'm saying, Dan? Okay. Okay. I am God, there is no other.

I am God, there's none like me. Whoa, whoa, whoa, like what do you mean? Here's what it means. Watch. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all, what?

My purpose. How does God distinguish himself from the false gods and the idols of the pagans in the world? How does he do it? I'm the only God, there's none like me. And here's how. I declare the end from the beginning.

I do my purpose. These false gods, they don't control anything. These false gods don't do a lot of talking. Wood has a hard time with that. Stone, stubble, and hay can't speak. It can't be in relationship.

It can't decree. It can't give any revelation. But there's more. There's more. False gods can't control history. And God says this. I'm God, no one else. I'm God, there's none like me. Here's how. I declare the end from the beginning.

My purpose stands. Even, watch, to the macro things. Sorry, macro things and the micro things. Watch what he says. Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. Watch.

I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed it, and I will do it. How does that make you think about the birds? Stellar asked me for an airsoft gun. My first response was, you'll shoot your eye out.