Open Q&A

Welcome to Apologetics Live. We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible. Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro.

And Pastor Justin Pierce. We are live, Apologetics Live. Again, we are out here in Orlando, California. Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro and Pastor Justin Pierce? Wait, you don't look like Pastor Justin Pierce.

Nothing happened. Yeah, something happened. No, you are Pastor Casey, so you're not Justin Pierce. No. Okay, just checking. For a second, I thought Justin Pierce lost some weight, you know. But we're here from Orlando, Florida.

We've been out at Beulah Baptist Church, a good church if you're down here in, well, it's actually in the Wintergarden area, so it's a little bit of a ride from Orlando, but we pulled you in to join us tonight for an open Q &A.

And so, you know, tonight, folks, it is an open Q &A, which means any questions you have, just go to ApologeticsLive .com. I have a question. Go to ApologeticsLive .com, scroll down, find the section that has the duck icon, that's the StreamYard link, and that is how you join us.

We do have a regular kind of co-host here backstage, and that is.

Mr. Justin Peters. How are you, sir? Hey, brothers, doing well, doing well. I apologize for my unusually casual attire here, but this was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I was going to say.

That, yeah, I was going to say that, you know, that you were not expecting, you called Pastor Casey and said, hey, what are you doing? He said, Apologetics Live, and we roped you into joining us.

Yeah, well, I won't be able to join you the whole time, but I'll stick around for a good 45 minutes or maybe an hour or so. Well, Justin, if you were still here,.

You could join us in the hot tub for evangelism after the show, but you're already back up north,.

So. Yeah, yeah. Man, it has been eons since I've been in a hot tub. Yeah, well, you know,.

It would be good to, we've been having some great, great evangelism in the hot tub. We had a young lady that actually prayed to receive Christ in the hot tub, and so that was kind of neat, and we've, you know, but right after that, of course, we got, you know, screamed at and yelled at by two lesbians, so it was a little of both.

I wasn't there for that. No, you weren't there for that one. So I did, you know, I found this interesting, and I didn't share this with you.

You said you had a question, so I'll go to your question first. Actually, my question is why did.

You decide to get such a good haircut like mine? Why does he think everyone is trying to mimic him.

All the time is the real question. Actually, the sad thing is, so I keep forgetting the cameras right there. Yeah, we both decided to cut our hair really short. For the same reason. For the.

Same reason, yeah. Now, the question is, after we give the reason, will Justin shave his head? That's the question. I was going to say my hair is this short because I lost at a challenge with you at tennis, and my bet was that I would shave my head if I couldn't win, if I couldn't lose, and I was trying so hard to lose, but, you know.

Yeah, I think the first question is,.

Why are we talking about our bald heads? Yeah, I know. Well, actually, I commented earlier, I'm like, this is a terrible spotlight here because it's shining off the top of our heads.

Now on the foreheads, but yeah, it's life. So, for folks who are regular listeners here, you know that usually when I'm home, what we end up doing is we use an app called Wisdom, which I love that app.

It's a great open air evangelism app, type of app, because you just get on, and you can talk, and people can listen, and people can join, and you can let guests come in and give them like 15 minutes. The nice thing is that they have 15 minutes, and it's one way that I wish I could do in the open air, just 15 minutes, okay, you're done, next person, but we use that app.

They sent a survey, and I haven't, folks, I haven't shared this with Anthony, or Casey, or Justin, and so I want to go through the questions they asked on this survey because I find this really interesting.

Oh, but because I filled it out already, ah, I can't pull it up again, so that's a bummer. All right, so here was the interesting thing they asked. I'll just go over some of them. They asked whether you're male, whether you preferred a, who you preferred it for your audience, male, female, or non-gender.

So, I clicked male, female, but then they had questions like, do you attend religious services weekly, or do you attend church on Sunday, I think is actually how they worded it. They asked, do you think abortion is wrong?

Do you think cancel culture is hurting the country? It's pretty isolative. Yeah, I mean, it really was interesting in what they were, I was like, so I actually wanted to go through all those questions, but oh well, that didn't work because I filled them out already.

All right, so with that, I'll start with some of the questions that I had that I want to talk about, and I want to start with the topic of prayer. Pastor Casey, you, this past Sunday, just spoke on the topic of prayer, good sermon.

Wait, did I say that in front of him? Okay, you know, I turned to Anthony, you know, Pastor Casey did a pretty good job Sunday. It was a good sermon. Yeah, good sermon. You didn't hear that. Okay. It's a convicting one.

So we went out, the three of us went out to lunch with another pastor, and there's something that we talked about with prayer, and I want to get your thoughts on this. I made the comment that most of the people I talk to that are Christians would say that prayer is the one area I've never heard anybody ever say that their prayer life is good.

It's always something that could use more work, and yet if we had a conference on prayer, no one would come. It's the thing that every Christian seems to know we need work to work on, and yet it seems to be an area that so many of us don't want to work on.

What would be your thoughts? Why do you think.

We struggle with prayer so much with that? You know, the first thing that comes to mind is when Jesus preached His first sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, there were rewards there based upon what He was wanting done, and so we naturally love to be rewarded, and we like to see the fruit of our labor, and so perhaps a lack of fruit or a lack of evidence or a lack of joy after the prayer, a lack of effectiveness from prayer would be some source to why folks would not be inclined to do such like you mentioned.

So nevertheless, my answer would be, well, if you're not getting the rewards from prayer, if you're not getting exactly what you think you should get out of prayer accomplished, perhaps consider re-evaluating what you're praying and see what you're saying, what you're doing, how you're doing it, and see if we're actually praying biblically, and so to your point, last Sunday's message was also impactful for myself, and all we simply did was took a look at how Paul prayed for the church of Colossae, how he prayed for Timothy, how he prayed for the church at Ephesus, and I encouraged our congregation to outline those passages.

Take the points from Paul's personal prayer life, which obviously is divine, it's inspired, and then put those in a way that you can also pray for your own family, and I guarantee you this, when you outline those prayers, you will pray in a way that you perhaps have never prayed before because you're praying different concepts that generally aren't our stereotypical, oh, help me God, thank you for these things,.

I'm done, prayers. Yeah, no, there's something that came up, you're gonna put it in Chris's?

Yeah, I'll put it up, so Chris Huff says this, here's something else with prayer with what we're seeing right now, look at the Damar Hamlin situation, how many only go to the Lord when they want their miracle, and I would actually say that this is something that probably all of us do, right, when things are going really well, we tend to not pray as much, when we've got some issues in our lives, we tend to be praying a whole lot more, I mean, I'm guilty of that, I admit it, right, and I would think that we probably all are, and I think that one of the most striking things in the pastoral training that I'm going through at Beulah Baptist under you, and then in some of your, in your last sermon on this, is that, you know, our prayer is supposed to be continual, right, pray without ceasing, and so it doesn't matter how big or how small, we're supposed to be continually in prayer, and how many of us are actually doing this?

I'm really now trying to make a concerted effort throughout the day to bring to mind something to pray about, you know, and I'll tell you, one of the easiest ways to do it, what I've had to do is to think about all the things I'm thankful for, right, I mean, throughout the day, we should be thanking Him for everything that we have, and you know, there's a disconnect in our prayer life as well, lots of times our prayer lives, stereotypically, not for everybody, are trying to remove what God is doing in our life, let me explain, and so if we have a hardship in our life, oh Lord, please remove this, please remove this, please remove this, but aren't we, as Christians, called to live a Christ, a cross-like lifestyle, embracing suffering, we're called to suffer, Philippians 129, and the trials of our faith are more precious than gold, and so nevertheless, we should spend less time trying to remove the trial instead of thanking God for the trial, because God is sovereignly, providentially working in our lives, I've just had the awesome opportunity of making a home visit with Randy and Darla, the members of our church, she's broken her ankle, and she's thanking God for the divine appointment that she had at the hospital, even though it's painful, and she's embracing this season in her life, and feels called to strengthen her prayer life, and perhaps even divert from doing so much in life to praying more,.

It's beautiful, Justin, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I agree, I agree with everything y 'all said, and I would include myself, you know, and we all have a tendency to maybe have a bit more dedicated and intense prayer life when there's an acute need in our lives, or something, some kind of crisis that we're facing, but we should, as scripture says, 1 Thessalonians 5, pray without ceasing, of course, that doesn't literally mean we pray 24 -7, I mean, that's not even possible, but we should strive to be in a place where we're in a posture of prayer before the Lord, and go to war with our sin in such a way that there's no habitual sin that interrupts our relationship with Christ in a relational way.

Yeah, we, prayer should, we should, as much as we ask the Lord for things, we should just spend time in prayer, and I try to do this, in admitting my own weaknesses before the Lord, and admitting my dependency upon Him, praising Him for who He is, and giving Him thanks for what He's done, and that's something, in the last couple of years, I've really strived to be more intent about, is to be more thankful, to thank Him for more of what He has given me, and on so many levels, so, and let me say this while I'm thinking about it, a lot of people think that the quality of your prayer life is measured by how much time you spend in prayer, and I don't think that's a healthy metric of your prayer life at all, I mean, I mean, if you're talking like five seconds a day, that might be an issue, but it doesn't, you know, you hear people bragging about, oh, he spends three hours a day in prayer, and well, I don't spend three hours a day in prayer, the quality of your prayer life is not measured just by the length, it's what you say, it's your heart posture before the Lord, that's what's important, far more than the number of words, we're not looking for a word count here, you know, in our prayer life, that's not what's important, it's just the quality of it in our heart posture before the Lord as we do it,.

In a short Santa count. Yeah, that's a good point, and let me just bring up some comments that people put up, Chris Honholds, who actually, you know, Chris posted this earlier, let me see if I can find his, he asked this question, what chaos do you plan on unleashing tonight?

Like, come on, Chris, we really, like we do chaos here? I think what he's more, Chris is more upset because I posted that I did a 10 mile run, then you and I went and played an hour and a half of tennis, and he wanted to take a nap just from reading that, so, you know, but, I was praying while y 'all were doing that.

Yeah, you were in the word, is that based on what our pastor we went to lunch with? So, Justin, you're like, this is funny, he goes, he says, yeah, in Bible college, you know, all the guys would call their bed, their mattress was called the word, and so someone called him up, hey, are you up?

Yeah, I've just been in the word all morning. So, but Chris Honhold says this, he says, genuine biblical prayer humbles us before the Lord and makes us entirely dependent on God. Our flesh and pride hates that, and that's the thing I think of.

When I think of prayer, it's about dependence, and, oh, go ahead. To your point, Colossians 4, 3 says, praying at the time, same time as well, that God will open a door for us to speak the word. So, one of the points that we should remember, especially upon dependence upon God, is that prayer precedes effective evangelism here in the text.

We're praying for God to open the door, and so sharing the gospel is essential, especially street preaching and all, but how much more of a precedence should we set where we spend time with the Lord in prayer?

Correct. Yeah,.

Drew said this, scripture is our knowing of God. Prayers are communing with him through what he has revealed of himself through that scripture, and that's a really good way to put that. And then, I don't know how to pronounce his name here.

I'm guessing. Okay, he just said, I am one who might take it literal and not have enough vocabulary to pray without stopping, plus I can't remember most of the things in my life outside of some basic these days.

And, you know, one of the things that I'll point out with prayer is what I found helpful years ago is to pray God's attributes back to him, pray God's word back to him, and so what I do, and we have it available at Striving Fraternity.

You can go to the store. We have what actually was my prayer list and still is today. It's basically just a chart of the attributes of God, and I start my prayers with those 31 attributes, or as Justin prefers, perfections of God, not attributes, but I'll tell you, it is helpful to start with praying to God who he is because, I don't know about you guys, but when I come to prayer, I usually come with a laundry list of things I want God to give attention to, and when I start praying and I'm praying through his attributes and suddenly realizing who God is, I suddenly realize many things I wanted to, like, God, I want you to do this or this, and I realize, oh no, God, you know what?

I feel like Job when God opened his mouth and I'm like, okay, I'll just shut my mouth and squirm away with ashes.

You know, at the beginning of prayer, besides repentance and confession being primary because God won't hear your prayers if you have ought in your life, if you're hiding sin, if you're concealing sin, so that'd be primary, but then true prayer is going to align you with God's will.

Prayer is going to take your pursuits and replace them with God's purposes in your life.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, prayer is not about trying to convince God to do something for us or get him to conform to what we want. It's in God's sovereignty, he uses that to conform us to him and to align and to make our will more commensurate with his will and submissive to his.

Will, not vice versa, so. Yeah, private chat, so Jesse Heller is in the background. And Jesse,.

If you want to come in, we don't have your camera, so I don't know if your camera and.

Mic are working, but I'll at least read it. I think it's important to make time for God each morning. I would agree. I think that's a great time to pray as we start a morning.

All right, so let me ask because there's some people who believe you must start the day with prayer. Let's open it up. Is there a specific time in Scripture when we must pray? Is there a specific posture we must have?

Do we have to be eyes closed, hand folded? Is there any things like that that we must do when it comes to prayer? So Casey is chomping at the main right now. I think we're just going to let Casey jump on this one.

Well, let me answer it easily.

Folks, when you can't see because the camera is too low, he's got his Bible there and he's like he's putting his pen into a whole different spot so he can have multiple things here.

So our prayer life should be devoted at all times, not just having a specific time to be devoted. So a devotion time is great, but we should be devoted to God continuously. Colossians 4 .2, devote yourselves to prayer.

And so prayer then, obviously, like Justin has quoted already, to pray without ceasing. How do you continuously pray? A good question here on how you pray without ceasing is going to answer the subject of, well, do you have to pray with your eyes closed, with your head bowed and your hands together?

Well, I would say when you're teaching children who cannot focus, they were two years old, they're toddlers, to keep their hands from grabbing onto something, tell them to put their hands together when they're looking around.

This sounds familiar. I think I heard this recently. Was this Sunday? Sunday, I think I heard this.

And when their eyes are looking around so that they're not distracted to think about other things, tell them to close their eyes and pray and also to bow their head in a posture of humility and respect to God.

Those are some elementary ways to be able to get prayer going in the right direction. But yet we're to pray without ceasing and throughout the day. And so to kind of continue that thought, the same word for prayer is also in Hebrew, the word meditate.

And I'll quote to you Psalm 119, I think it's verse 97. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day, all the day. And so we meditate on God's law all the day. And as you're meditating that word, if you look it up in the Hebrew, it is to mutter, to kind of speak as you're going.

So God not only knows your thoughts and hears your words, but he knows the meditations of our heart. And so we're to be walking with God and speaking with him, praying with him all the day long. It's almost like when you start to pray, we shouldn't even say amen and cut it off and stop.

We should just continue with the Lord every single day.

Yeah. And you know, one of the things that you said in your sermon, you talked about that that word is the idea of muttering. And I actually was looking it up in the Hebrew and it has the idea also of being a word that's used when charging an enemy.

And so I thought that was interesting because what it then refers to, it's the idea of that cheer that you'll hear people do when they go to battle and they're trying to psych themselves up and get themselves ready for war.

And they yell at an enemy. It's a similar usage for prayer, which I thought that was like,.

I wouldn't have thought meditating in that way. So my wife brought this up to me on the way home from church on Sunday and I thought it was brilliant. I must quote what she brought up.

Isn't it humbling when you get done preaching and then your wife like says like something that's way better than what we preached. Like, why didn't you tell me that before? This is why I try to preach the whole message to my wife beforehand so that I can pass off.

Her brilliance as mine. I try, I try. So Philippians 2 ,14 says to do all things without grumbling or murmuring and disputing. And so not only is complaining like verbally wrong, sinful, but here in the text, it addresses the murmuring, the grumbling.

If you are grumbling in spirit, that's sin. It's disputing what God is sovereignly doing in his sovereign world. And so the same thing goes for prayer as we are not to be murmuring, but to be mumbling or babbling or continuing in prayer.

It's not that we are articulating words. It's that inwardly we are with the Lord and asking him to continuously help and to guide. And we're thanking him or asking him to fill us with his spirit and with wisdom and with knowledge.

Help us to walk worthy of him. Help us to be a good testimony. Let the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing unto him. It's that kind of idea. Yeah. And they just put this comment.

Up that Tim says, great way to start your day. And hopefully it continues throughout our day as we tend to get occupied with life. And I think that's a good point.

So I'm just going to read a Psalm 5, Psalm of David in verse 3. Oh Yahweh, in the morning, you will hear my voice. In the morning, I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch.

Gee, I wonder what translation that might be. I'm guessing that's the LSB.

That is the LSB translation. I just got to make sure that when I put the thought out there that maybe we are supposed to pray in the morning, that I would use the best Bible translation possible for that.

So no one can dispute it now. If MacArthur says so, let it be.

Oh, he's the Pope, huh? He's our Pope. So, you know, one of the things that there are people who think that specific postures have to be had. Your eyes have to be closed. There's nothing in Scripture that says that you have to have your hands folded, your eyes closed.

There's nothing in Scripture. In fact, we see in Scripture a lot of different postures. You do see people that are bent over. Now, why are people typically in a posture where they're bowing down? Because that's the word for worship.

And so prayer is a form of worship. And prayer is something where we see our dependence upon God. And so it is a natural posture to be putting ourselves where we are dependent on someone to be bowing before them.

Does it mean we must do that? No. In fact, Nehemiah prayed standing up and with his eyes open because he was asked by the king and he quickly says a prayer. And there's no indication that he got down on his knees and closed his eyes.

He would have been standing, handing the cup to the king. So he would have been standing and he probably would have kept his eyes open. But he could still say even a quick prayer in that way.

You look like you got something you want to say. Yeah, you know, and a lot of prayer truly is birthed out of need. When Paul was praying for the Colossian church, he had heard that heresy was creeping in and diluting what they perceived the deity of Christ to be.

And so nevertheless, he started off with that Colossian prayer and he was praying from an element of need there. And some of the things that he brought up in prayer, he says that he didn't cease to pray for them in Colossians 1, 9.

But then he springs up these subjects, and I think they're worthy of our attention for just a moment, that they would know the knowledge of his will. They would be filled with spiritual wisdom and understanding, that they would walk worthy in a manner of the Lord and please him.

Again, that they would have the knowledge of God, that they would be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, and then being steadfast and patient and joyously giving thanks, and then enjoying the inheritance that they know that they have.

And if you outline that prayer, I think it is a perfect way to enhance our prayer lives for our own churches and.

For our own family members. Yeah. And just for the record, Cole was saying, you know, we hold hands around the dinner table to keep our kids from stuffing their faces before we bless the food. Sometimes we open our eyes with their face and the plate.

So with children, yeah, but we don't have to hold hands to pray, okay? Just saying. I don't mind holding my wife's hand, but sorry guys, some of you people, I don't like holding your hand. All right, so let me bring Melissa in.

She's backstage, and Chris Hough was backstage but dropped out, and so is Jesse. Jesse may be trying to get his camera working, but if you guys want to come back in, ask your questions. Melissa, what question do you have for us?

Before I ask the question,.

I was just going to say, I do something each week. I have a person, a woman that I pray with every week, and that helps so much to keep things in focus. And also, I have a group, a prayer group with my church too.

They do, they review the sermon, and they do prayers for each other. So those both help me a lot with my prayers. So I just want to suggest that for somebody, for anybody listening. And my question is, okay, this is an overused verse.

It's misused so much, and I just want to know the correct context, because people try to use it for their life and say like, oh, I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me for like anything they want to do, like their dreams or something.

So I want to know like the correct, what does it actually mean? Okay, so that's, you got it open there. It's Philippians 4 .13. I can do all things through.

Christ who strengthens me. So let me, let me read that. So one of the things we always do, right? So that's, that's going to be Philippians 4 .13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So let's back up a little bit and let's pick up in verse 10. And a lot of times that's all that's necessary in trying to understand this. But verse 10, He says, I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have received your own concern for me.

You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.

I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So as we look at the context there, and we're looking at the greater context, the book of Philippians, he's writing to a church that has been financially providing for him and taking care of him.

He's, he is in prison. They, prison back in those days was a situation where you basically got basic, you know, bread and stale bread and water. They didn't really take, the guards didn't take care of you.

And you, the system was built on the expectation you'd have people outside coming to help provide food and clothing and comforts for prisoners and bribing the guards to get those in. That was the system.

So that's what you have. You had Onesimus who was providing that for Paul on behalf of the Philippians, and he got so sick he had to go home. And so Paul's writing this letter to them, sending them home, encouraging them that, because now sending him home means they have, he has no one to care for him as he's in prison.

So now as he's talking about being in need or being hungry, hmm, that kind of sounds exactly like his situation. If Onesimus returns home, he has no one to provide for his needs. And so he's saying that to them to encourage them because they're very upset.

He's worried they're going to be upset over the fact that he's sending Onesimus home and that there's no one to take care of him. And throughout this book he's explaining that. And so here what you end up seeing is as he's finishing up his letter to them, he's telling them that whatever situation he's in while in prison, he's learned that God can take care of him.

So when we're looking at this, does this mean that I can do anything, even things that are impossible? No. So, but in the, within the context, Paul is saying he could do anything referring to whether being in need or being in abundance.

That's the context. And if we keep reading, he says, yet it was kind of you to share my trouble and you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left, uh, Mesopotamia, no, I'm saying the wrong word.

Yeah. I can't, I don't know why I do that sometimes. Macedonia. No, no church, uh, entered into partnership with me giving and receiving except you only. So, so that's right within the context of what he's saying here.

This church was caring for his physical needs. So in the context, it's his physical needs. You see that before the, the abundance that are hungry, uh, or sorry, the plenty are hungry, the abundance or need this is dealing with physical needs.

And so in that sense is the context of what he's talking about.

I've seen two Christian volleyball teams, uh, playing against one another. And both of them had.

Philippians four 13 Jersey. So I wonder which one God loved more. Well, yeah. So which one, one, it must've been a tie, right? Because then were they both praying Philippians four 13.

Can we apply this to us at all? Or is it just for, that was just for them?

Absolutely. I think we can, we can apply this to us. I think that as we look at our lives and see that there's times of abundance, uh, and times where we have plenty, we can rejoice when God, and then there's times we don't have that.

Uh, some of my own personal testimony, my story is, you know, there was a time in my life that I was homeless. And so I have, as, as some know, I come from a very well-to-do family. So I had plenty growing up, but then I went to a time period where I had nothing.

I was, you know, living in, I was in my, all my stuff was in my car and I was either in the car or, you know, I found someone that would let me sleep on their couch for, you know, for a bit, but I didn't have a place to stay.

I had, I was, you know, didn't have money for food, but God provided through that. And I can say that in all things that was going on in my life at that time, whether it was the plenty or hunger, I could, I could say Christ could do all things.

Yeah. And I think the, uh, I think a really important.

Word in this is in verse 11, where it says content, right? So it said, he's learned to be content in whatever circumstances that he's in. And, and, and there really, I think that's the take home message for us and the application for us is be content, whatever circumstances we're in.

And, and, and pray for that. And that's, that's against our own human nature. We covet back to.

Prayer again. He is, he is preparing the next sermon on, it's going to be on prayer. So,.

But it's a good point, right? Cause even those circumstances, what do we do? Right. We should.

Go to prayer. Yeah. And, and you had, sorry, you said in the message, I think either that or at lunch, I forget which, right? What is it we often do? We usually try to fix the situation. We don't turn to God.

We try to fix our own. We make a mess of it. Then after we make a good, thorough mess of the situation, then we say, Hey God, can you get me out of this? Where prayer should be the first thing that we go to.

And that's really what Paula goes to.

Yeah. And to your point being first, when we fight in the spirit, often people refer to Ephesians 6 .10 on the armor of God and praying on all that. Yes, we should be praying on truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, the word of God.

This is important. But then the first point of action after you have prayed all these things is to pray with all petitions and praying at all times of verse 18. So once you have all the armor on the first battle strategy point.

Is to pray. Yeah. All right. So Justin, do you have anything you want to add to that?

No, not really. I think y 'all pretty much covered it, but yeah, I think the overall, you know, every verse in the Bible has but one meaning. There's only one meaning, but there are many verses that have many possible applications.

And Philippians 4 .13 is a very applicable verse, even though none of us find ourselves in a Roman prison. But the application is that we should strive to be like Paul. He was content even being in a Roman prison.

And the only way, by the way, that he could be content in such a situation is with a healthy theology of the sovereignty of God. Aside from that, you would have no reason to be content in a prison. So I encourage people to work on their understanding of God's sovereignty, and that will help you by miles to be content in all things.

And it'll change your prayer life. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. I mean, healthy understanding of God's sovereignty is just, it is absolutely crucial in every aspect of our lives as believers, every single aspect of it.

And so, yes, it energizes our prayer life. It energizes our, this almost sounds oxymoronic, but it energizes our humility. If you understand what I'm saying, it deepens our humility. It deepens our understanding of our own frailty, deepens our understanding of the glory of God and how everything ultimately is about God's glory.

Even our suffering is about God's glory. It is a privilege to suffer for Christ. Philippians 1 .29, it's something that is granted to us. So, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think on.

We should bring up, there's a question that came early on and yeah, I was going to get some of.

Those. Yeah. Let me just see, Melissa, you have any other questions? No, I just want to say thanks.

For answering. And also thanks for talking about prayer. That helps too a lot. And don't forget, check out my show, Truth Be Told Radio, truthbetolradio .com. There you go. All right.