06-21-2020

All right. Well, we'll get started here. Dave Huber was out of pocket today. The Internet's down in his part of town there in Corsicana for four or five days. You guys that live in the city, you say, how can that happen?

Well, that's small town life, right? That's how it is in the small towns we live in down here in Central Texas. But anyway, so glad to have all of you with us and thank you, Ben, for helping us with the front end of this.

I know after about 40 minutes, you've got to take off and go to your own church services. Thank you so much for always being part of our church service here and all the wonderful times we spend together at Tradeway and just talking about the Lord together and all the things we do.

Thank you so much. And then, Ben Mitchell, thank you for being on the back end there, helping us with technology today and music and different things. And Kenner, as always, that was a blessing. And on Father's Day today, I have to mention that just like yesterday, I can remember when John and Debbie Carpiak had their first baby, Kenner.

And it just literally seems like yesterday, but what an amazing event. And what great parents to raise a young woman like that. Thank you, Kenner, for being with us today. And Bill, thank you for the Sunday school lesson.

And it always ties in with sermon and the Lord does that because we don't talk about it ahead of time, do we? So, all right, let's get started here. Let me see if I can share my screen. You want to swap the displays on that one.

Oh, really? We see the presenter's view. Oh, that's strange, isn't it? All right, let's see. Let me find it. Swap displays. Did that fix it? It certainly did. Okay. My method usually works. It didn't work that time.

Thank you, Ben. All right. Well, a lot of you guys have heard of this gentleman. And since we're not able to go to baseball games now, for a while anyway, I thought maybe I would put this up here and you might find it interesting.

But he, Harmon Killebrew, was a power hitter back in the days of Babe Ruth. And if Babe Ruth hadn't been alive, then this would be the Babe Ruth of the world, probably. But he tells this cool little story about his childhood.

And I'd like to share it with you on Father's Day. My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mom would come out and say, You're tearing up the grass, boys. And Dad would say, We're not raising grass.

We're raising boys. Don't you love that? Well, look how well this young man turned out, right? Okay. But here's another one, especially from those of us who live down in the South. And we're well armed, okay?

So this is something we believe in a lot. And guns don't kill people, right? Dads with daughters do that. All right. So happy Father's Day, gentlemen. We thank you so much for all the strength you bring to your families.

You're the spiritual leader of your family. Stay ahead of your wife and your kids in the Bible, please. And if you're not, then get ahead. God will help you make up the time and get ahead. You need to be the spiritual leader.

I mean, spending more time in the Word, right? So that's my exhortation for fathers. And I hope you all have a wonderful day today with your families. All right. So let's go into the sermon now. We've been in Roman chapter 8, verse by verse.

And we've been in this area around 26 to 28. And it deals with prayer. I think it's one of the greatest passages of prayer in the whole Bible. And there's a few other topics on prayers, on praying that we teach from time to time.

And number 3 and number 9 have come into play a lot in this lesson so far. But we're mainly talking about number 10, the power of prayer while in the presence of God. And just to review a little bit, the main verse we're looking at here in Romans 8 is verse 26.

Likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. This word groanings is size, unspeakable language of the Father.

Father's infinite language. We pray in our feeble little vocabularies. And the Holy Spirit takes that and magnifies it and translates it into the Father's magnificent language. And he receives it as a beautiful prayer that we meant to be sending up from our hearts.

And the Holy Spirit helps us there. That's exactly what that verse is talking about. And there's a parallel passage we've studied in recent days in 1 Corinthians 2. Beautiful. It says, the things which God has prepared for those that love him, we can't even imagine what those things are.

He already has them prepared. They're going to happen as we step into our days, as we step into God's will in the future. We're going to have them. And God will reveal them to us by his Spirit. Why? So we can pray and ask for them.

That's what this lesson is all about. So we talked about this little part. And look at verse 12. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, so that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God and pray for them.

So we have more than one way to know the future. We can read the book of Revelations and the book of Daniel, books like that, the Bible, and know some of the future. But also the Holy Spirit will bring us just what we need.

Not all of everything from the mind of God. We can't hold that anyway. But it'll bring us just what we need to know about our lives, our family, the world we live in, that we need to pray so that we can be part of God's family business.

And that's what it's all about. It's all his. We're his children, and he wants us to be part of his family business. He wants us to be part of what he is doing. That's how prayer works. It's not asking him to be part of what we're doing.

Because we shouldn't be doing what we're doing if he's not doing it. And this whole lesson was about this whole idea. And we looked at an example in the Old Testament of King David. This was beautiful.

I mean, I hope if you weren't there for that message, you can go back and check our archives. You can hear this message on King David's prayers. But it sort of ended with this. It says, For thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, has revealed to thy servant, to David, saying, I will build thee a house.

So God had already told David, I'm going to build you a house. Now look what it says. Therefore has thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto you. So David was praying a prayer that God already sent him the information.

And so the whole interesting thing about this passage in Romans chapter 8 on prayer is that prayers do not originate on the earth with us and go up to God. They originate with God. Holy Spirit brings them to us, instructs us on how we should pray as we ought, and then we pray.

And in praying, that's not much different than any good work we would do. Prayer is a good part of the good works that we do, but we're doing them together with God, never alone. And you're going to see this play out more and more as we go.

This is just review. So David prayed what the Holy Spirit already instructed him to pray. So it's pretty cool stuff. When you look at David's life, it's such a wonderful picture of victory over the enemy.

Listen, he said, my enemies are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. And we can say the same thing, except our enemies are all balled up in about three groups, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

And somewhere in those three are all of our enemies, but they do hate us with cruel hatred. And so what was David's answer for spiritual warfare? Man, I'll tell you, you know, the thing I love about David, his answer was to run toward the enemy.

And I think that's what stunned the giant. He'd never seen anybody run towards him. They all ran away. He saw their backs, and he just threw that spear and destroyed them. David ran towards him, and he froze just for a second.

And David caught him right between the eyes with that stone and then cut his head off before he could wake up. And then carried his head around in his left hand while he continued to slay the enemy with his right hand for the whole rest of the day, or more than one day.

I don't remember, but it was a long time. And he carried that head with him in his left hand and fought with his right hand. I'm telling you what, that's how David handled the enemy. Now we, you know, I don't ever say I rebuke you, Satan, but I ask the Lord to do it.

Lord, rebuke Satan and his demons and bind them and rebuke them and send them away from me and my family and put a hurt on them. Because I always picture that picture right there when I'm praying, put a hurt on the enemy so he doesn't like to hang around me and mine and my people.

And our church members and all of our tradeway friends and everyone in our circle of life put a hurt on him when he tries to hang out with any of us or do damage. I pray that all the time. Now, also, the power of prayer.

Do you like my artwork there? I had to kind of screen some of that in case we have children watching. But anyway, the power of prayer while in the presence of God. Listen, this whole concept we launched into last time was this mind of God, knowing the mind of God.

And so what we're kind of into last time and this time is the ability to know the mind of God and focusing on that aspect of having answered prayers. You cannot have an answered prayer without knowing the mind of God, because otherwise we just pray amiss.

We ask for selfish things that aren't part of God's will for our lives. He has to say no to those things. So if we want the answer to be yes, we need to know the mind of God. We've been talking about that a little bit.

And then, of course, here are the verses. And there's a great Psalm in the Old Testament. Same thing. God has so many things ready for us. We can't even think about what they are, but the Holy Spirit can bring them to us and help us to know what to pray for.

So that's kind of review. Now, the last thing I'll show by way of review today is last time in John chapter 9. We saw this. We began to pull in this idea that prayer is part of our good works. So if we can study and see what Jesus teaches us about good works and how that operates, then prayer operates the same way.

And what we noticed with many verses last Sunday is that Jesus said there in the middle of around verse 3, he says, Neither has this man sin nor his parents. But this whole thing happened. This man was born blind for this reason, so that the works of God should be made manifest in this man.

And that's all the things that happen in us and in our lives with our families are for that reason. We've had people just in recent days that have lost loved ones to death. And sometimes they ask, why would God let this happen?

I mean, as a pastor, you hear that question a lot. And this is the answer. Verse 3 is the answer. Now, you have to be careful how you answer that when you're a pastor in a situation like that and ask for God's wisdom.

But everything that happens in all of our lives is that God may be glorified. But here's the key for this lesson. Look at verse 4. Jesus said, I must work the works of him that sent me. Now, that is exactly, and we talked about that a lot last time, that is exactly how prayer works with us.

We must work the works of him that sent us. Now, remember, Jesus said, just as the Father sent me, so send I you. So Jesus Christ has sent us into this world, you and me, with a specific job, a specific mission, and that mission is his mission, not ours.

We sometimes try to own it, but that's not really reality. It's his mission, not ours. And so as we go into this mission, we must go into it together with him. And Jesus said so clearly that he works the works that God shows him to do.

He says the words that God tells him to say, and he was never on his own. He was always with the Father, doing the work of the Father, doing the will of the Father. And we know that Jesus had the Holy Spirit without measure.

We have him by measure, the scriptures teach. So we don't have the whole package like Jesus, but we do have the ability by the power of the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit ministers in our lives to know enough of the mind of God to know what we're supposed to be praying for and what our next steps should be.

I'm going to use Ben Russell as an example here. You know, there are two wills of God we talk about. The revealed will, and that's his word. So as we read something properly in context, properly interpreted, and we read that, that shows us God's will.

So that's one way to know. But then there's a second type of the will of God called the secret will, and that's what he's going to do tomorrow or the next second from now. And we don't always know that until it happens, but some of it we can know before it happens, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit as he goes to the mind of God, brings what God's will is in our life for our family and brings that to us and begins to give us a piece about it and close doors in front of us and open a door off over here or one over here, and then he closes that one and we walk through that one.

And there are many ways the Holy Spirit shows us God's secret will that we might pray in the right way. An example with Ben is this. Ben Russell consults the word of God before he does anything, but the word of God is not going to show him exactly which house to choose when he buys a new house in Texas soon, right?

How is he going to know that? That's not in the word of God. So the Holy Spirit has to reveal that to him and move him to pray and his wife and family to pray for that house right there. Pray and say, may I have that house.

And that's an example of how the Holy Spirit does bring the secret will of God to us ahead of time and begins to direct our prayer lives. Let's say we're praying for a loved one who we think may be dying.

What are we going to ask? We're immediately going to ask what we want. Lord, raise them up, heal them. That's not bad. That's a good thing. We should ask for what we want. But in the days that come, in the hours that come, we should be saying, Holy Spirit, I know the most difficult person for me to pray for is my loved one, my direct family, because my will is so important here.

I want them to be raised up for me. And for them. But I pray, Lord, that you will bring me the Father's will. What does he want for my loved one? And begin to adjust my prayer life into his perfect will.

And please do that with me and help me to pray properly each moment of each day as we move through this crisis. That is the practical way to implement all of this teaching that we've been doing. Okay?

So there's so much in this little passage that we talked about last time. We are not here for us. We're here for God. And it's not about our work and our lives and our family. It's about what he's doing and what we're doing with him in his work.

And remember, your children are his. They're not yours. You're just a steward. Your spouse is his, not yours. You're a steward. Now, I understand a little different with the spouse. We are one flesh and we do, we're one flesh.

That's a little different. But when you really come down to it, gentlemen, I'll speak to you on Father's Day, you can't control her, but God can. She really ultimately belongs to the Lord. And ladies, you know that your man belongs to the Lord and so do your children.

And if we'll just remember that and we're working together with God in the lives of these dear ones, it helps so much, especially just in life, but also in our prayer lives. So all of these things that are true of good works that we must do those together with God are true of our prayer life.

We must pray together with the Lord and in his will and go with him, not against him. So now let me ask you this. How does all this go about working? Like we talk about God's works on the earth, how in our good works, the things we're doing for him, how does that have to do with answered prayer?

Well, it does. It is exactly the same concept because praying may be the greatest work we can do of all the good works. The greatest thing we can do on this earth is probably prayer. So it is a good work and it must be done together with the Lord.

So take a look at this. In John chapter 14, Philip said unto Jesus, Lord, show us the Father and it suffices us. You know, show us something so we can believe who you say you are. Wow. I would not have wanted to be the one that said that and I hope it wouldn't be me.

I think it would be Ben Russell. He would say that, right? No, I'm kidding. So I don't think, you know, I hope it wouldn't be any of us. It would be someone we don't know that's with us that would ask this question, right?

Because, man, at least he was being honest, I suppose, transparent. But look what Jesus said. Have I been so long with you and you have not known me, Philip? Oh, man. Now see, now notice how gentle Jesus is with his own sheep.

You see, the only, and we pastors need to remember this. We need to be gentle with the Lord's sheep, but the people he was never gentle with were the Pharisees, the religious leaders that are teaching false doctrine, and he would nail them.

And I kind of like doing that too. He would nail them. And so there's a difference in how we deal with people. You don't deal with the goats the same as you do the sheep. I'm not saying you can know who the goats are either, but sometimes you can certainly sense it when nothing but false doctrine is coming out their mouths.

We can judge them by their fruit, can we not? Look at verse 10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? He says to Philip, don't you believe that yet? You've been walking with me.

You don't know that. You say, show me the Father. He said, the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, or you could say from myself. The Greek word can mean either word, from or of, but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works.

Now he talks about two things there. He talks about words and works, and to God, it's practically the same thing. God spoke everything into existence with words. He spoke everything that is into existence, and we don't have the Spirit without measure like the Lord does, so we can't do that, right?

We're not God. But the thing that we see so interesting here is that Jesus tells Philip, I don't say anything that comes from me. The words that I say, I have heard the Father say them already, and I repeat them.

They're his words that I'm giving to you. And he said, the same is true of my works. I don't do works that I haven't seen the Father do and have me to do. They're his works. I and the Father are one, he says.

Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works' sake. So Jesus, from the point of view of his life, anything you heard him say or saw him do, you are seeing God's work on the earth, because he never did anything selfish or of himself.

And that is a great model for us, and I know we're not perfect. We're not going to accomplish that perfectly, but when you talk about our works, and especially that greatest work of all, our prayer life, we shouldn't be about ourselves when it comes to that.

It should be about God's work in this world, in our generation, and what he is doing, and how he amazingly lets us be a part of it. That's what prayer is really about. I know we get selfish, because we have so much feelings going on for our loved ones and for everything, and we feel things about things.

And I love what Dr. Myron Golden says. He says, as your emotions go up, your intelligence goes down. So we have to be careful about our prayer life, because as our emotions come into it, and emotions are good.

That's part of us, but as they take over, we can pray things that aren't even anything near what God wants us to be praying. So we've got to use both the intellect and the heart when it comes to prayer.

It's not, listen, this whole idea that the mystics are trying to bring into Christianity today, and many of these charismatic churches, and some of the big megachurches, you have little pockets of things being taught that the pastor is probably not even aware of, and they're teaching people to have out-of-body experiences.

They're teaching people to leave their body, travel around in heaven, confess their sins to the devil, which is nonsense, and then go before God. Oh, goodness. No better way to get filled with demons than to get unscriptural like that.

If you leave your mind open, like you hum a mantra, even if it sounds Christian, like Jesus is life, Jesus is life, and you just do that again and again, your brain just turns off. Listen, my mentor, Dr. Irvin Freeman, dealt with demons in his ministry.

He had a family counseling ministry for so long. He said the first way to get one is to put your brain in neutral, and yet today in churches, people are being taught to do that to prayer. They're being taught that's how you prayer.

I'm going to tell you something. Prayer is about words primarily. Prayer is about words. How could your grown children, I got five of them, they all work with me in my different businesses, praise God, because I'm with them all the time.

I get to be around my grandbabies all the time, and I've watched these grandbabies. It's funny, as you get older, like a grandpa age like me, you seem to appreciate things more than when you were young enough to have the kids.

I don't know if you guys have noticed that. Some of you aren't old enough to notice it yet, but some of you that are my age or older, would you raise your hand and say, you know what? I have the capacity to love more than I did when I first started having our kids.

I understand more than I did then. I mean, I appreciate the little things in life more than I did then. That is so true, because we walk with the Lord longer, and He's given us wisdom and so forth, but we look at our kids, and we see the very love of God.

We look at our grandkids, and we see it maybe even more, not that we place them higher than our kids, but I've taught my kids from day one. As we go in the way, and we're doing things together, when I would see something the Lord did, I'd say, you know, Jesus did that.

I was with one of my grandbabies playing golf the other day, Sammo, and he's looking around playing. It's beautiful out there. I said, look at those clouds, Sam. He said, yeah, Grandpa, I like to see animals in the clouds.

I said, you know who paints those, don't you? And he said, who? And I said, Jesus. I said, He's an artist. He paints all those pictures for us. Well, I knew that. Well, how did he know that? Because his mom and dad already taught him that.

And so as we walk with the Lord, we need to understand that our whole life here is with him. It is not a singular selfish life. It is not my stuff going on. It's not my kids. It's not my grandkids. They all belong to him.

I'm a steward, and I'm working together with my father in his business as he raises these children and prepares them for what they have to do in this life. And I know I was on a rabbit trail and forgot where I was.

Sorry about that. Who knows what I was about to say, but that was some good stuff. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. Now look, this goes another generation.

So you have the Father and you have the Son, Jesus Christ, in a family business before anything was created. The Holy Spirit is there as well. The triune God loving himself, total joy within himself. Nothing is created.

He didn't create us so he could have joy. He didn't create us so he could have love. He already had all of that infinitely on an infinite level. He created us so he could show that stuff to us and share it with us.

That's my viewpoint anyway. So now as Jesus said, only the works I do are the ones I've seen the Father do. Now he brings it to us in verse 12. He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do.

You see that? So now we're on a different level. Now we are sons. Jesus Christ is our God. The Father is our God. And what Jesus and the Father are doing, the Holy Spirit brings that knowledge to us and shows us what God is doing and expects us to pray for that and to be part of it as we pray for it.

And I dare say this. You look at it from the human viewpoint. It ain't going to happen unless God's got people praying for it because that's how God likes to do it. It's not that God can't do things. I don't know if anybody was praying for him to part the Red Sea.

I'm sure Moses was praying, do something, Lord, they're about to kill us, right? But God can do anything he wants with or without us. I understand that. But what does God love to do? He likes it when we're sitting on his lap and he's teaching us this stuff and showing it to us and doing it with us.

Picture an older gentleman with his grandson on his lap driving a tractor, teaching that child how to drive a tractor. See that? That's us with God. That's a picture. It's just how it is. So I love this whole teaching on the fact that Jesus won't say anything.

He won't do anything unless it's the Father's words and works. That is a wonderful model for our prayer lives. Now, look how it relates to prayer. Look at verse 13. You say, well, all this is about good works.

Well, is it? Is that all? Or is it about prayer too? Look at verse 13. And whatsoever you ask in my name, that will I do. Did you know that verse was in this context? It is. It's in the context of Jesus talking about his words and his works only being what he has seen and heard the Father do.

And in that context, and then he comes down and tells us the stuff I'm doing is what you're supposed to do. And then in that context, he says, whatever you ask in my name. So what does it mean to pray in Jesus name?

Amen. Is it just tagging that on to the end of our prayers? We all do it by habit. I do it. I don't even believe it has to be done. It's just a habit. But the meaning behind it is important. In fact, it's imperative.

And that is the things that we ask should be what Jesus would be asking the Father to do and what Jesus and the Father are going to do. That's what we should ask for. Now, we can pray according to the revealed word of God anytime we want.

And those are powerful prayers. When Jesus tells us, like in Brother Bill's Sunday School lesson, to pray and thank God for this bread that he might give us the bread to eat today. See, in America, we don't think we need to do that.

There's so much plenty. But how'd you like it when you went to the store a few weeks ago and there wasn't stuff there you wanted to get, right? Certain foods you wanted were no longer there. You see, that can happen.

And that was God just reminding us a little bit. We should really thank him and ask for the daily bread for every meal because it comes from him, doesn't come from us in our brilliant country and all the powerful things we as humans do.

That's not where it comes from. It comes from his hand. He can take it away just as fast as he gave it if he needs to teach us a lesson. Well, he did that, and now we've learned the lesson. And Jesus said, whatsoever you ask in my name.

So you ask for things that are because it's the work I'm about to do. It's my business. You're doing it in the name of my business. And you're asking the Father to bring that to pass because you know I'm about to do it because the Holy Spirit told you I'm about to do it.

That is how we get our prayers answered in there. How many Christians do you think even know this? I mean, it's like the smallest baby grandkid that I've got, the way they would pray might be more powerful than the way a lot of Christians pray because so many Christians, it's just all about kind of baby stuff like, oh, you know, give me, I want this.

I want it now. And we pray to God like that. But Jesus says what we ought to do is ask in my name. And when you do ask in my name because it's my business, what I'm about to do, I will answer it. That will I do so that my Father may be glorified in the Son.

Now, can you imagine you and I have the privilege of getting to be part of that business of having Jesus do the things and put the things in our mind to do so that when we do them, God the Father gets the glory because it came from Him to Jesus through the Holy Spirit to us.

And we all did it together as a family business and accomplished something on this physical earth in time in our generation. And it was God doing it. And it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been part of it because it was God's will for you to be part of it.

And he made that known by his Spirit. That's the kind of praying I'm talking about. And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do. That's guaranteed answered yes, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. He didn't say I might. I will do it. There's your answer prayer. But look at the context it's in. You got to go all the way back up to verse 10 to understand what it means.

He that has seen me has seen the Father. In other words, I mean, that's literal. But with us, when you see me praying something and then going out and doing a good work, if I am right with God, you should be seeing God working in this world.

And he's using me, his child, and working with me in his world and in his business. That's similar. Jesus is the model. It should be similar in our lives. And the words that we speak, boy, wouldn't that clean up some talk around the house?

A little bit too much vain jesting. And we let words slip out that we used to use before. We're saying we think it's cute. Oh, I need to quit preaching to myself. Charlotte's back there listening to me going, okay.

Preacher, preach to yourself a little bit here. But we need to be careful because the words that we speak and the works that we do should be the works and the words of Jesus Christ. And when we pray in his name, he will answer it.

Wow. With a yes. How about that? If you love me, keep my commandments. You might as well say, do my commandments. You might as well say, pray my commandments. Right? So is this talking about answered prayer?

I think so. When we look at verses 13 and 14, the whole passage, even though it looked like it was about works, it's also about prayers because prayers are the highest good work. So what is our prayer life all about?

Asking the Holy Spirit to teach us the revealed will of God. That's the Bible. Because listen, oh, I know I got on a rabbit trail a minute ago, remember? And I forgot where I was headed with it. Now I remembered it.

Okay. So look, so this is where God wanted it right here. Right? So I better hurry before I forget it again. So think about this. Your grandbabies are growing up and your kids are teaching them how to speak.

They don't even know they're doing it. They're just, everything they show them, they say, that's a banana. You know, that's an apple. That's a car. Don't get in front of it. That'll hurt the baby. There's a fire.