Ask According to His Will

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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Please take your Bibles and turn to 1st John Chapter 5.

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I Hope the Word of God has not become like the manna in the desert for you

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We feast upon it, but it's familiar to us Let's not lose the wonder and sense of God's provision and giving it to us for his glory and our salvation

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This is God's holy and infallible word 1st John chapter 5

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Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves him who begot

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Also loves him who is begotten of him By this we know that we love the children of God when we love

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God and keep his commandments for This is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome

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For whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith

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Who is he who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the

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Son of God This is he who came by water and blood Jesus Christ, not only by water but by water and blood

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And is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is the truth For there are three that bear witness in heaven the

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Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and there these three are one and There are three that bear witness on earth the

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Spirit the water and the blood and these three agree as One for if we receive the witness of men the witness of God is greater

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For this is the witness of God which he has testified of his son

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He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself He who does not believe

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God has made him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his son and this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life and This life is in his son

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He who has the Son has life he who does not have the Son of God Does not have life

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These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God That you may know that you have eternal life

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And that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God And now the verses for today verses 14 and 15

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Now this is the confidence that we have in him That if we ask anything according to his will he hears us

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And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask we know that we have the petitions

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That we have asked of him May the

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Lord be pleased with our study of his word. Please pray with me now Oh Lord, we thank you that you bid us to come to your presence to make our

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Requests known that we can have a bold confidence But Oh Lord impress upon us this

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Important qualification that we need to pray in accordance with your will Lord, we are a self -willed people

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And we need to know your will I Pray for your

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Blessing and this time together and I ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated today the title of the message is ask according to his will ask

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According to his will there are two points for outlying people first is have confidence in him we're gonna learn about the basis of that confidence and Second he hears you what a great encouragement.

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He hears your prayers Have confidence in him He hears you and the sermon thesis is a properly placed confidence in prayer a properly placed

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Confidence in prayer last week we learned again that God has given eternal life to us and the life is found in Christ alone his son and we

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He wants us to continue to believe he wants us to persevere in faith and in that persevering in faith the question of prayer is a logical following subject to this

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If we are walking in faith in Christ if we are living the Christian life inevitably we are drawn to pray and The question of how should we pray has been asked of Jesus himself

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Pray in this way he would say but we're gonna learn today that there is a probable deficiency in our prayers because we often ask

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God to give us what we want We have thoughts and whims and we say

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Oh Lord, it would be good If you gave me what I want Lord, if you love me, you should give me what

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I want and So we ask amiss Because we ask wrongly we ask not in faith and we ask that we might

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Spend it on our pleasures James would say So the question for us today and this could be a transformative day for you, how should we pray?

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How should we ask God? How should we approach him how how is this done in a way that is pleasing in his sight

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Well, the first point today is have confidence But the confidence is in him

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We have a misplaced confidence the Breno family has misplaced confidence

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We're confident, but we don't have any reason to be a very confident And I say that jokingly we don't know why we have confidence and If we have confidence in ourselves we are

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Have a misplaced confidence but if our

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Confidence is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that's something to boast about That's something to be confident about Let's look at verse 14 and try to peel apart here the exegesis we might get a better sense of what

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John is communicating now, this is the confidence That we have in him

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The confidence here is a boldness a freedom

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It's a freedom to speak openly and without fear today, we boldly approached

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God in worship and We didn't have fear because we have the mediation of Christ and that principle comes through here in prayer

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We don't approach God on our merits We're sinners We don't approach

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God in our intellectual Superiority we know nothing in comparison to him.

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We approach him in confidence because of Christ This is the confidence this confidence elsewhere in the

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New Testament is often used in the context of proclaiming the gospel or speaking truthfully about one's faith it describes the courage and assurance that Believers have in Christ.

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I'm never nervous to preach Because I have a message to preach and that message is

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Christ. I Don't have confidence in my ability to form an outline or the craft a nice message

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My confidence is in the one whom I preach The Lord Jesus Christ your confidence is in the one in whom you believe

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The Lord Jesus Christ, this is the basis of our confidence

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We boldly approached the throne of grace because of Christ we lay hold of him in faith and we cling to the hem of his garment never to be let go and we emerge and come into the holy place of God because Of who he is and who

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Christ is Hebrews 10 19 says therefore brethren having boldness.

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It's the same word confidence We have this to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus our confidence the way we can approach

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God in prayer is confident because our confidence is in Christ In the efficacy of his blood a

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Demonstration of God's love which we've just learned about here in 1st.

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John. God really loves the people The demonstration of God's love is our sure union with him in accordance with his grace we

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We have confidence in God's love for us we have confidence in Christ accomplishing of the work and Christ's love for us we have

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Confidence in the Holy Spirit's working in his love for us

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So this is all true and we're nodding our heads the real question the first question we have to ask today is

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Who or what? Do you place your confidence in?

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See when we're sitting in Sunday school and when we're in church, we we have the right answer But the real issue comes as is this the way that I live my life

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Do I believe that I have confidence to boldly approach the throne of grace because of Christ and If so, am

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I making use of this high and holy privilege? Christ has said boldly approach the throne of grace

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The Holy of Holies he says you and I can walk right in there Only the chief priests could go in there and you and I have a free access into the throne room of grace

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So do does your belief does your confidence? equal

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Action, are you actually approaching the throne of grace boldly? Are you coming in faith and bringing all of your cares to the

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Lord Jesus Christ Do you View God like your rich uncle who when you're in trouble you only reach out to him in that time in that time of need

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What do you place your confidence in and I I Think even though the world tells us that no one has any self -esteem anymore

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I think we really place our highest level of confidence in ourselves the great idol of self

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May your confidence be found in Christ May you have a free and fearless?

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Confidence to boldly approach that throne of grace Hebrews 4 says let us therefore come boldly

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To the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need this is that Compassionate high priest section.

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We're not going to turn there, but it might be good Sabbath day reading Hebrews chapter 4 Christ who has passed through the heavens

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Christ is a high priest who can thank you Sympathize with our weaknesses who was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin,

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I don't have a lot of confidence in myself, but I can have full confidence in The Lord Jesus Christ so that gives us the first Framing part of this.

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This is the confidence. The confidence is found in him now the second part is a little different It says if we ask anything according to his will

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Asking is an act of petitioning making a request often with a sense of urgency or need

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To boldly approach God confident in Christ and making our requests known

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Do you wallow in your fears and your anxieties or do you ask?

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Do you Worry about tomorrow or do you trust the one who has ordained all that will come to pass tomorrow?

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It's a very different way of living you may catch yourself and find yourself living more like your unbelieving neighbors than a

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Christian in these ways We should be asking the Lord but Not just to bail us out of our jams or to give us things that fit our pleasures

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We should be asking and petitioning him in accordance according to his will

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That word according means conformity or Agreement Properly It's down from from a higher to a lower plane with special reference to the end point

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The end point is the will of God So what is the will of God isn't that really the question it seems like it's the question that we're always asking

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What is the will of God for my life? What is the will of God? for this situation

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Well, hopefully today you'll get a greater sense of that the next language the next phrase is according to his will and His will is what

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God has determined to be done by decree or precept his commands his precepts his will his choice

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I want to reveal to you two aspects of the will of God and There's a third which

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I'm going to not really speak much of but it's I think it's kind of embedded in The other two the first is the decreative will of God The decreative will of God and this is his decrees

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God has decreed he hath for ordained whatsoever comes to pass

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God executed his decrees in the works of creation and providence

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God has created a world that has a Sun and it has tides and it has animals and has stars

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But he is actively working in time and space and in history

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He and his providential care brings about whatsoever comes to pass

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We have no say in that We might want to know what that is, but we don't have any say in that and In fact, we spent a lot of times in our prayers wanting to know the future

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Is that what we do Oh Lord, you can just see how to me how I could get through This hard part of life and that everything would be better on the other side

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This is the sovereign efficacious will of God By which

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God brings to pass whatever he pleases by decree

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The best example of this might be for the children to illustrate this when

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God said let there be light in Genesis 1 3 he gave a divine imperative and There was light

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The decree to will can have no other effect no other consequence than what

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God sovereignly commands it is a matter of his absolute authority and power and what's very interesting is

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God has decreed that you be a person and that you be the person he made you to be right here

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God has decreed isn't that amazing? You're no accident You're not just a a blip on the universe's radar something that happened.

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God has decreed that there would be a you And that you would be the kind of person you are for his glory equipped with gifts

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It's very exciting that this is part of his decree And he's to create agreed you to be here those little ones that you're having he's decreed that they be here for his glory

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The second element is His preceptive will

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And the root word for that is precepts, and this is where the will of God really hits home for us

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The precepts the commands the statutes that he reveals to his people

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The decrees of God can never be thwarted He brings about whatsoever is coming to pass the decree of God His precepts have been and they continue to be disobeyed

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His preceptive will expresses and reveals to us

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What is right and proper for us to do? It's the rules of righteousness

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The decree of will of God belongs to him alone for many of us

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As I've already mentioned the future. That's what we're interested in But our focus really should be on obedience today

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We must joyfully apply ourselves to his righteousness by exhibiting a practical godliness one of the off -quoted

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Verses of Scripture is Deuteronomy 29 29 the secret things belong to the

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Lord our God But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever

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That we may do all the works all the words of this law

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It's interesting, isn't it? There's secret things that we don't know

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The angels don't know They belong to the Lord our God But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children

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That we may do all the words of this law

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God's will represents the moral standard that God requires all people to meet

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You should point out that when you say to a Jewish person particularly years ago in antiquity

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What is the will of God they would start quoting the Torah? The revealed will of God the commands of God.

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This is the will of God The Westminster larger catechism answer for 93 says

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The moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind

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Directing and binding everyone to personal perfect and perpetual conformity and obedience there unto in the frame and disposition of the whole man

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Soul and body and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness

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Which he owes to God and to man with a promise of life upon the fulfillment and the threat of death upon the breach of it first Peter 1 16 be holy as I am holy

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So when you approach God boldly Are you coming saying

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Lord? I'm Asking for your will to be done, and I'm actually informed and I know what your will is

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I? Don't know how often we pray that way It's appropriate for the child of God to pray out

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Continuously for the various needs of our lives certainly it's good and honoring to God to do that But are your prayers?

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shaped and formed by the word Or do we run to that default position?

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Oh God give me what I want How I want it in the timing that I want it

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You ought not to think that our God Caters to your whims. It's a terrible thing, but we do

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He's executing his decrees through the works of creation and Providence Your bold approach to the throne of grace is governed by his holiness you approach with a heart of obedience

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Maybe this is why we don't pray Maybe this is the reason

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Maybe our impulse is so selfish and not thinking about God and his will

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Maybe we intuitively know that we're not praying in accordance with his will or our real

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Desires of our heart may not be aligned with his maybe that's what stifles our prayers But if we ask anything according to his will he hears us now

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I Could say well if you just what you need to know to pray in the will of God is just know all the

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Bible and pray that way It's a little bit too broad for us today

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So in order to make a tighter application and try to drive it home for us.

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I've selected a few of these for us to consider You're taking notes.

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This might be helpful to write down the reference and The Will of God there are numerous places in the scripture

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That say this is the will of God and we're going to focus on a few of those to try to drive it home

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Okay, first Thessalonians 4 37 listen carefully

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For this is the will of God your Sanctification That you should abstain from sexual immorality

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For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness This is the will of God your sanctification

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So you say Oh God, I have many trials Life is very hard for me.

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Oh Lord Remove these things so my life would be more comfortable and easy

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And the Lord says my will is your sanctification your growth in godliness your progression to increasing

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Christ likeness guess what Your sanctification may require that you endure some trials

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Your father loves you so much. He wants you to make this progress in faith

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If you pray Oh Lord, I want to be sanctified. I Believe with all my heart.

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He will answer your prayer favorably That's praying in accordance with the will of God Oh Lord, give me ten million dollars.

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I'll give a lot to the church Oh Lord, just give me some money. I don't know that he's as interested in that prayer but if you pray

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Oh Lord I want to be sanctified. I want to be more like Jesus.

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I believe he's gonna answer it. I believe he's going to grant you your request same book first Thessalonians 5 18

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I'm gonna turn there real quick Some guy wrote weird things on in the notes

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We ran begin reading in verse 16 First Thessalonians 5 16 rejoice always

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That's the will of God for you pray without ceasing It's the will of God for you in everything

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Give thanks you lose everything You're having medical problems

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Give thanks to the Lord This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

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It's interesting, isn't it? It's not like how we pray our natural impulse isn't to pray this way you need to pray that God would enable you to obey his command to give thanks in all circumstance because It is the will of God for you in Christ How thankful are you?

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Did you complain about anything this morning? How about at home?

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How about on the ride to church? How about the food how about the conversation was it filled with Thanksgiving Are you rejoicing always?

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Are you without ceasing? Approaching boldly the throne of grace.

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Are you giving thanks at all circumstances? This is the will of God for you It's very different first Peter 2 15 says for this is the will of God That by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men

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I wonder how many Christians have made it their mission Not to post online post that but to live the

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Christian life Publicly and openly as their testimony to silence the foolish

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This is the will of God that your good conduct your faith in Christ and corresponding

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Righteous good works would put to silence The ignorance of foolish men

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I'm gonna ask everyone to turn with me to Matthew 6, you know what I'm going to hear You probably need to have this more frequently come up in the liturgy.

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It's on a rotation this is

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The Lord's Prayer gonna give you a little of the background beginning at verse 5

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Matthew 6 5 and When you pray you shall not be like the hypocrites

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For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men

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I'm going to Point this out to you. We have a public prayer time in our church and It used to be more of a problem

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I haven't actually noticed it a problem it used to be a problem formally But when we pray prayers to God in the prayers of the people we are praying to God We're not trying to talk to our

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Congregational members through it that make sense We're not trying to preach a little mini sermon in there.

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We're trying to offer our requests to God for the edification of the body And sometimes we can use prayer.

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We're really say we're praying to God, but we want to want these people to hear what we're saying God is our audience in prayer

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It's much better than even our fellowship with one another to have an audience with God corporately. So when we pray pray to God The hypocrites love to stand in the synagogues

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On the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men Assuredly, I say to you they have their reward

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But when you pray go into your room and when you have shut your door pray to your father who is in the secret place

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And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly And when you pray do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do

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They think that they will be heard for their many words It sounds like a rebuke of some

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Romish practices there to me verse 8 therefore do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him and This manner therefore

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Pray, let's do it together. Let's say the words together our father arts in heaven

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Hallowed be your name Thy kingdom come thy will be done.

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Stop our father in heaven Hallowed be your name

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Your kingdom come There it is your will be done in the very center of the exemplary prayer by definition praying in this way is to pray in the will of The Lord Let's start again our father which art in heaven

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Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

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Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors

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And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from the evil one for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever

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Amen If we were to take each of these petitions

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We'd find that there is direct scriptural Revelation to support it you and I need to grow in our knowledge and understanding of the word

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And not only to read it to understand it in kind of an academic way we need to meditate upon it it needs to become a part of us and we need to Skillfully apply it in all the appropriate situations

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Your kingdom come Your will be done on earth as It is in heaven

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Well, I've got to do two more and the time is beginning to tick Hebrews Chapter 10 verse 36 says again.

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We're trying to understand How we can pray in the will of God.

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I'm going to use just a few examples to help us For you have need of Endurance.

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I want to stop there

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For you have need of Endurance. Well, that means you have to go through some stuff so that after You have done the will of God you may receive the promise

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You have need of endurance Doing the will of God according to the precepts of God the revelation of God the commands of God and you have to endure and persist and persevere and then you receive the promise

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The will of God is your sanctification.

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You're going to go through some hard things if the will of God is Endurance, you're going to go through some hard things

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But the end there is a a fruitful faith -filled reward from him

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The last one I like to give is from Micah 6 8

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What does God require of you But to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your

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God if you're praying about doing justice to show mercy and To walk in humility.

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I believe God is going to favorably answer your request. Oh if we only would heed the instructions of our

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Lord today and Pray in accordance With his will now, let's go back to our text in 1st

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John For those who turned with me this is the boldness

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The confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything in accordance with his will he hears us and If we know that he hears us and I want to stop there this frequently

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Causes me to pause that God hears my little voice

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God hears your prayers Isn't that amazing?

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His ear is tuned To hear from you if you have the

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Son you have eternal life He wants us to continue to believe in him and he wants us to boldly approach him and ask

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I love when my little children come and ask me even my big children ask me for things Sometimes I don't have the ability to fulfill it, but I love to hear them come and ask

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How much more does our Heavenly Father want to hear from us? It says if we ask according to his will

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He hears us and if we know that he hears us whatever we ask

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We know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him

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We in faith can believe that God is going to sanctify us

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To make us more holy To be more patient to be more humble to to put the silence the foolishness of sinful men by our good works,

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I think he would really get behind our prayers if our sincere and earnest

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Goal was that his kingdom would come and that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven

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I believe he'd answer our prayers Where's your confidence today?

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Are you willing to abandon all of those? counterfeit confidences

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And place all of your confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ Are you willing to reform and reshape your prayers and May you do the hard work and diligent work of studying and knowing the scriptures and asking from Competent Christian counselors and your pastor and getting help from others that you would know what the will of God is

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Then you can freely ask for Anything you want? And if you ask it according to his will he hears us

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And we will have the petitions That we've asked of him

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I think this is only possible I'm not going to have you turn there. This will be the conclusion one of the off quoted passage of scriptures from Romans 12

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And I'm going to focus on verse 2 and it says

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I'll read both verses I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice

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Wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable service and Do not be conformed to this world

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And I have to stop there The most righteous person here ingests more world

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Probably than they do Bible so You're not thinking right

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Because your mind's not being renewed Do not be conformed to this world why it?

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Conceals and hides the will of God for you Because his will is revealed here in direct contradiction to out there

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Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the knewing renewing of your mind

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Scripture intake Meditation application Dwelling in the scriptures

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Taking up camp there that you may prove. What is the good and acceptable and perfect?

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will of God That your prayers would not be hindered, but the floodgates of heaven would be unleashed it's interesting isn't it

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So how do you pray today? I hope because of Christ and his word you are

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Contemplating a more properly pray place confidence in prayer That you would ask in accordance with his will

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Have confidence in him. Oh people of God. He hears you Live and pray in accordance with his will and he will grant you your requests.

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It's exciting, isn't it? Let's pray together. Oh Lord, I pray that our lives our prayers would be reshaped

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And we'd have a greater confidence in you and that we would know and discern what your will is

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Oh Lord I pray today that in the power of your spirit you would enable these your people to discern your will

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That they would know what they ought to pray and the decisions they ought to make and the

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The lives that they should be living Oh Lord I pray that you would grant this good gift to us that we might walk in your ways and accomplish your will

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Oh Lord I pray that you would build us and build your church and that your will would be done in here and around the world

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That'll be here on earth. Just like it is in heaven. Oh Lord we repent of our childish way of approaching you we repent of our self -seeking ways we repent of our

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Our desire to have you to cater to us and Oh Lord, I pray that you give us hearts that we would be servants

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To do your will we ask for your blessing on these things in Christ's name.