06-21-2020

Park Meadows Church

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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.

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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.

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But anyway, so glad to have all of you with us and thank you, Ben, for helping us with the front end of this.

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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

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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.

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And Kenner, as always, that was a blessing. And on Father's Day today, I have to mention that just like yesterday,

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I can remember when John and Debbie Karpiak had their first baby, Kenner.

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And it just literally seems like yesterday. But what an amazing event. And what great parents to raise a young woman like that.

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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

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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.

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You want to swap the displays on that one. Oh, really? We see the presenter's view.

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Oh, that's strange, isn't it? All right, let's see. Let me find it. Swap displays.

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Did that fix it? It certainly did. OK. My method usually works.

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It didn't work that time. Thank you, Ben. All right. Well, a lot of you guys have heard of this gentleman.

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And since we're not able to go to baseball games now, for a while anyway,

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I thought maybe I would put this up here and you might find it interesting. But he,

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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

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Babe Ruth of the world probably. But he tells this cool little story about his childhood.

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And I'd like to share it with you on Father's Day. He says, my father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.

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Mom would come out and say, you're tearing up the grass, boys. And dad would say, we're not raising grass.

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We're raising boys. Don't you love that? Well, look how well this young man turned out, right?

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OK. But here's another one, especially from those of us who live down in the South. And we're well armed,

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OK? So this is something we believe in a lot. And guns don't kill people, right?

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Dads with daughters do that. All right, so happy Father's Day, gentlemen.

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We thank you so much for all the strength you bring to your families.

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You're the spiritual leader of your family. Stay ahead of your wife and your kids in the

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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.

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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.

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All right, so let's go into the sermon now. We've been in Roman chapter 8, verse by verse.

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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

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Bible. And there's a few other topics on prayers, on praying that we teach from time to time.

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And number three and number nine 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.

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And just to review a little bit, the main verse we're looking at here in Romans 8 is verse 26.

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Likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the

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Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

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This word groanings is size, unspeakable language of the Father. Father's infinite language.

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We pray in our feeble little vocabularies and the Holy Spirit takes that and magnifies it and translates it into the

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Father's magnificent language. And he receives it as a beautiful prayer that we meant to be sending up from our hearts.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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That's what this lesson is all about. So we talked about this little part and look at verse 12.

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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.

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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

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Bible, and know some of the future, but also the Holy Spirit will bring us just what we need.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And this whole lesson was about this whole idea. And we looked at an example in the

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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.

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You can hear this message on King David's prayers, but it sort of ended with this. It says, for thou,

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O Lord of hosts, God of Israel has revealed to thy servant, to David, saying,

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I will build thee a house. So God had already told David, I'm gonna build you a house. Now look what it says.

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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.

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And so the whole interesting thing about this passage in Romans chapter eight on prayer is that prayers do not originate on the earth with us and go up to God.

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They originate with God. Holy Spirit brings them to us, instructs us on how we should pray as we ought, and then we pray.

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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.

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And you're gonna see this play out more and more as we go. This is just review. So David prayed what the

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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.

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Listen, he said, my enemies are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred.

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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.

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And somewhere in those three are all of our enemies, but they do hate us with cruel hatred. And so what was

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David's answer for spiritual warfare? Man, I'll tell you, the thing I love about David, his answer was to run toward the enemy.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I'm telling you what, that's how David handled the enemy. Now we, you know, I don't ever say

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I rebuke you, Satan, but I asked 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.

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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.

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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.

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I pray that all the time. Now, also the power of prayer. Do you like my artwork there?

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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.

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Listen, this whole concept we launched into last time was this mind of God, knowing the mind of God.

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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.

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You cannot have an answered prayer without knowing the mind of God, because otherwise we just pray amiss.

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We ask for selfish things that aren't part of God's will for our lives. He has to say no to those things.

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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.

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And then of course, here are the verses. And there's a great Psalm in the Old Testament.

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Same thing, you know, God has so many things ready for us. We can't even think about what they are, but the

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Holy Spirit can bring them to us and help us to know what to pray for. So that's kind of review.

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Now, the last thing I'll show by way of review today is last time in John chapter nine, we saw this, we began to pull in this idea that prayer is part of our good works.

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So if we can study and see what Jesus teaches us about good works and how that operates, then prayer operates the same way.

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And what we noticed with many verses last Sunday is that Jesus said there in the middle around verse three, he says, neither has this man sin nor his parents, but this whole thing happened.

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This man was born blind for this reason, so that the works of God should be made manifest in this man.

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And that's all the things that happened in us and in our lives with our families are for that reason. We, you know, we've had people that just in recent days that have lost loved ones to death.

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And sometimes they ask, why would God let this happen? I mean, as a pastor, you hear that question a lot.

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And this is the answer, verse three is the answer. Now you have to be careful how you answer that when you're the pastor in a situation like that and ask for God's wisdom.

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But everything that happens in all of our lives is that God may be glorified.

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And, but here's the key for this lesson. Look at verse four. Jesus said, I must work the works of him that sent me.

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Now that is exactly, and that we talked about that a lot last time. That is exactly how prayer works with us.

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We must work the works of him that sent us. Now, remember Jesus said, just as the father sent me, so send

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I you. So Jesus Christ has sent us into this world, you and me with a specific job, a specific mission.

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And that mission is his mission, not ours. We sometimes try to own it, but that is not really reality.

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It's his mission, not ours. And so as we go into this mission, we must go into it together with him.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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I'm gonna use Ben Russell as an example here. There are two wills of God we talk about.

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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

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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 gonna do tomorrow or the next second from now.

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And we don't always know that till it happens, but some of it we can know before it happens. And that's the work of the

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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 the door off over here or one over here.

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And then he closes that one and we walk through that one. And there are many ways the Holy Spirit shows us

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God's secret will that we might pray in the right way. An example with Ben is this,

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Ben Russell consults the word of God before he does anything, but the word of God is not gonna show him exactly which house to choose when he buys a new house in Texas soon, right?

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How is he gonna 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

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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.

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Let's say we're praying for a loved one who we think may be dying. What are we gonna ask?

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We're immediately gonna ask what we want. Lord, raise them up, heal them. That's not bad.

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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,

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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.

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I want them to be raised up for me and for them. But I pray, Lord, that you will bring me the

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Father's will. What does he want for my loved one? And begin to adjust my prayer life into his perfect will.

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And please do that with me and help me to pray properly each moment of each day as we move through this crisis.

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That is the practical way to implement all of this teaching that we've been doing, okay?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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She really ultimately belongs to the Lord. And ladies, you know that your man belongs to the Lord and so do your children.

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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.

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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.

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We must pray together with the Lord and in his will and go with him, not against him.

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So now let me ask you this, how does all this go about working? Like we talk about God's works on the earth, in our good works, the things we're doing for him, how does that have to do with answered prayer?

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Well, it does, it is exactly the same concept because praying may be the greatest work we can do of all the good works.

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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

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Lord. So take a look at this. In John chapter 14,

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Philip said unto Jesus, Lord, show us the father and it suffices us. Show us something so we can believe who you say you are.

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Wow, I would not have wanted to be the one that said that. And I hope it wouldn't be me.

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I think it would be Ben Russell. He would say that, right? No, I'm kidding. So I don't think, I hope it wouldn't be any of us.

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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,

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I suppose, transparent. But look what Jesus said. Have I been so long with you and you have not known me,

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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.

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We need to be gentle with the Lord's sheep. But the people he was never gentle with were the

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Pharisees, the religious leaders that are teaching false doctrine and he would nail them. And I kind of like doing that too.

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He would nail them. And so there's a difference in how we deal with people. You don't deal with the goats same as you do the sheep.

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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.

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We can judge them by their fruit, can we not? Look at verse 10. Believest thou not that I am in the

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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.

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You say, show me the Father. He said, the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself.

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Or you could say from myself. The Greek word can mean either word, from or of.

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But the Father that dwells in me, he does the works. Now he talks about two things there.

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He talks about words and works. And to God, it's practically the same thing. God spoke everything into existence with words.

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He spoke everything that is into existence. And we don't have the

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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

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Philip, I don't say anything that comes from me. The words that I say,

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I have heard the Father say them already, and I repeat them. They're his words that I'm giving to you.

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And he said, the same is true of my works. I don't do works that I haven't seen the

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Father do and have me to do. They're his works. I and the

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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 work's sake.

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So Jesus, from the point of view of his life, anything you heard him say or saw him do, you are seeing

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God's work on the earth because he never did anything selfish or of himself. And that is a great model for us.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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 mega churches, you got little pockets of things being taught that the pastor probably not even aware of.

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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.

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And then go before God. Oh, goodness. No better way to get filled with demons than to get unscriptural like that.

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And just, if you leave your mind open, like you hum a mantra, even if it sounds

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Christian, like Jesus is life, Jesus is life, and you just do that again and again, your brain just turns off. My, listen, my mentor,

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Dr. Irwin Freeman, dealt with demons in his ministry. He had a family counseling ministry for so long. And he said, the first way to get one is to put your brain in neutral.

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Now, and yet today in churches, people are being taught to do that to prayer. They're being taught that's how you pray. I'm gonna tell you something.

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Prayer's about words primarily. Prayer's about words. How could your grown children,

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I got five of them, they all work with me in my different businesses, praise God, because I'm with them all the time. And I get to be around my grandbabies all the time.

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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.

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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?

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I have the capacity to love more than I did when I first started having our kids. I understand more than I did then.

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I mean, I appreciate the little things in life more than I did then.

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That is so true, because we walk with the Lord longer and he's given us wisdom and so forth.

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But we look at our kids and we see the very love of God.

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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

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I would see the something the Lord did, I'd say, you know, Jesus did that. I was with one of my grandbabies playing golf the other day,

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Sammo, and he's looking around playing, it's beautiful out there.

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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?

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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.

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Well, how'd he know that? Because his mom and dad already taught him that. And so as we walk with the

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Lord, we need to understand that our whole life here is with him.

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It is not a singular selfish life. It is not my stuff going on. It's not my kids.

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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.

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And I know I was on a rabbit trail and forgot where I was. Sorry about that. And who knows what I was about to say, but that was some good stuff.

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Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.

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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.

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The Holy Spirit is there as well. The triune God loving himself, total joy within himself.

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Nothing is created. He didn't create us so he could have joy. He didn't create us so he could have love.

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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.

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That's my viewpoint anyway. So now as Jesus said, only the works

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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.

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You see that? So now we're on a different level now. We are sons. Jesus Christ is our

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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

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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 gonna happen unless God got people praying for it because that's how

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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

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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.

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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.

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Picture an older gentleman with his grandson on his lap, driving a tractor, teaching that child how to drive a tractor.

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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.

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That is a wonderful model for our prayer lives. Now look how it relates to prayer.

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Look at verse 13. He said, well, all this is about good works. Is that all? Or is it about prayer too? Look at verse 13.

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And whatsoever you ask in my name, that will I do. Did you know that verse was in this context?

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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.

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And in that context, and then he comes down and tells us the stuff I'm doing is what you're supposed to do.

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And then in that context, he says, whatever you ask in my name. So what does it mean to pray in Jesus name?

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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.

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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

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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.

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Now we can pray according to the revealed word of God anytime we want.

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And those are powerful prayers. When Jesus tells us like in brother Bill's Sunday school lesson to pray and thank

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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.

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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?

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Certain foods you wanted were no longer there. You see that can happen. And that was

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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.

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Doesn't come from us and our brilliant country and all the powerful things we as humans do.

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That's not where it comes from. Comes from his hand. He can take it away just as fast as he gave it.

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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.

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So you ask for things that are because it's the work I'm about to do. It's my business.

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You're doing it in the name of my business. And you're asking the father to bring that to pass because you know

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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.

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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.

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Because so many Christians, it's just all about kind of baby stuff. Like, oh, you know, give me,

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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.

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And when you do ask in my name because it's my business, what I'm about to do, I will answer it.

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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

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Jesus do the things and put the things in our mind to do so that when we do them,

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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.

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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.

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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

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I do. That's guaranteed answered yes. So that the father may be glorified in the son.

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If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. He didn't say

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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.

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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

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God working in this world. And he's using me, his child, and working with me in his world and in his business.

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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?

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A little bit too much vain jesting. And we let words slip out that we used to use before we were saved and we think it's cute.

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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.

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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.

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And when we pray in his name, he will answer it. Wow. With a yes.

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How about that? If you love me, keep my commandments. You might as well say do my commandments.

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You might as well say, pray my commandments, right? So is this talking about answer prayer?

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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.

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So what is our prayer life all about? Asking the Holy Spirit to teach us the revealed will of God.

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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.

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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.

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So think about this. Your grandbabies are growing up and your kids are teaching them how to speak.

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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.

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That's a car. Don't get in front of it. That'll hurt the baby. There's a fire. That's hot, hurts the baby. And they're slowly, gradually teaching this human being words.

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Don't you agree with me that when they get to be, oh, maybe about Gemma's age in my life, and certainly

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Abby, who just turned seven, and Sam, you know, who's able to play golf with me now, that as they grow older and they know more words, they can express their love to me, the grandpa, in a greater way that I appreciate a lot.

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Now, I appreciated it before they could talk. I love babies. And I'm about to have a new one, maybe today. So I've got one due today or tomorrow.

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And so I'm excited about that. But when they get where they can talk and express, and what are they expressing so often is their love in their cute little way with words.

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Now, you think about it, this heresy that's being taught in our churches that you should just blank your mind out and just become one with God.

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And that's what prayer is. No, that's what Hindu prayer is. That's what Buddhist prayer is.

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That is not Christian prayer. Christian prayer is based on God teaching us words.

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And you would say, well, how does God teach us the words we want to use to communicate with us? This right here.

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As we study and meditate and read and learn more and more, and this Bible comes alive to us and teaches us new things about God, His mind,

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His works, His person. Every day of our lives, we get a larger vocabulary of ways to praise

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Him, to thank Him, to talk to Him. And we speak with words from our mind and our heart with words.

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So you can't tell me that this point's not important where we ask the

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Holy Spirit to teach us the revealed will of God by helping us understand the Bible better every day of our lives.

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Help us know more of the Word of God because that's God's revealed will. And half of my prayers can be just right in line with those.

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Lord, give me this day my daily bread. Jesus told me to pray that. That's gonna get answered. You see my point?

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But it doesn't stop there. Also pray and say, show us the secret will of God. What is it that God is going to do with me right around the corner, the next three or four minutes, or the next day or two, or the next week or month or year?

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Reveal that to me, Holy Spirit, so that I can pray for the proper things as I ought to because I don't have that ability in and of myself because Romans 8 24 -28 teach me

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I don't. And it only by the Holy Spirit in size and in a language I can't understand because it's

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God's language, He goes and takes my feeble request to the God and magnifies it and translates it into infinite language, takes

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God's answer in His mind and heart, brings it back and makes it minimal enough for me to understand.

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It puts it into my little words and yet helps me understand it and then I pray in line with that. That's what prayer is about, so that we can pray for it before it happens and thus be part of God's work in the world around us.

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Is that cool stuff or what? So if we wanna be like Christ, this is how we work.

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We do only the works that the Father shows us to do and that we've seen Him do, and this is how we pray.

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We pray only with the information coming from the heavenlies by the Holy Spirit into our heart and mind.

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Remember the Corinthians passage we studied how it said, how can any man know the mind of a man other than the man's mind, right?

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No one knows my mind more than me. And then it relates that and says, well, then how can you know the mind of the

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Father if that's true? If you can't even know the mind of a person, you really don't, you know what they let you see, you don't know them, only that man's heart and mind really knows his mind.

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If that's true of a man, think how that's true of God. So the Holy Spirit has to reveal the part of God's mind that the

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Lord wants us to know right now to us so that we know how to pray. And that's a picture of God's heavenly message, words and work coming down to Jesus and Him seeing them and then going out and doing them.

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And that's exactly the model for us. Now, Romans 12, one, we have more evidence of this.

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All right, so let's look at a little more evidence of this, knowing the mind of God and how that influences our prayer lives.

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I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

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Now, here we find ourselves spiritual beings living in a tent or a body in a physical time -space world.

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In our generation, and here we are, we can't see God because of our sins.

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Adam and Eve sinned and then that was the end of that, right? We don't see God. Jesus is

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God's seeing. We don't hear God's voice because Hebrews chapter one, verses one through three said,

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God does not choose to work that way in our time. But now He reveals Himself to us through His Son, and that's the

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New Testament plus the Old Testament, the Word of God, the canon. And so how do we live in this physical world and perform the things

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God, His perfect will for our lives? Well, the first thing we have to do is present this body as if it's

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His, not ours. Okay, that is a mental thing we have to do day by day, maybe moment by moment.

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We have to say, am I gonna use this body for me during the next few moments or for Him?

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Because He can use my body in this world to accomplish physical things that are

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God's secret will being made manifest. In this world, think about that. You're not on the bench, ladies and gentlemen, you're on the team, you're playing on the field, and your body is what

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God uses for so many of the powerful things He does in this world. Your mind, your body, your money, everything about you, all the platform

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God's given you, the more influence He gives you, the better. And money is part of that, by the way, the Proverbs proves it.

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No one will listen to the advice of a poor man, so we have to ask God to give us more wherewithal in the world of finances.

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Tradeway's all about that, you guys know that. So you've gotta get those skillsets, you've gotta have a more powerful prayer life, and we have to have a bigger footprint in this country because we're losing it, all right?

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They now own all of the great colleges on the East Coast that we used to own because preachers founded them.

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How did that happen? Because our footprint got smaller. We were taught, well, to be spiritual, you need to be poor, and we lost our money, and money is what

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God uses so often as the tool to keep power over things. Doesn't have to do it that way, but we know from Scripture and practice that He does it that way when

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He wants to, which is most of the time. And then our prayer lives, that's gotten just as weak as our pocketbooks.

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If our prayer lives were better, our pocketbooks would be bigger. I think, I don't know

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God's will for each person. I know what the written word of God says. God says, I'm gonna bless your house with multiple riches.

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That's what He says, but you gotta get skillsets, you gotta love me more this year than you did last year, you gotta walk with me, you gotta be diligent.

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Think, you know, there are things we have to do, so it's conditions, but He wants us to have riches in the family and to build generational wealth through our kids and grandkids.

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The Scripture commands us to do that. Lay aside for your children and your children's children. How do you do that if you don't understand?

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Well, God tells us how to do. He wouldn't ask us to do something not show us how, all that's in the Bible. But now look what

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He says. When it comes down to walking that walk and being in the middle of the game,

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God's game, being in the middle of this business that He's doing, God's business, we have to first present our body as a living sacrifice.

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It's His body, not my body. That's harder when we're younger, it gets easier as we get closer to meeting

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Him, I think. So for a young person, I told my son, Matt, and I can say this to any of my five children,

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I happened to be with him yesterday, but it's particularly true of Matt, and all the siblings would say it, that as a young, young man,

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Matt decided to walk with God. He didn't wait till he got older. He submits to God's will now while he's a young man.

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And I told him, I said, Matt, God's gonna bless you your whole life because of that, it's not that different than King David.

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So think about that. Pray that your children will have that attitude and help them have that attitude, but we present the body as a living sacrifice.

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Holy, man, Charlotte's been listening to Dr. Freeman. You need to go out to parkmeadowschurch .com

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and click on the Rocky Freeman, listen to all of them. You should make a goal this year to hear every one of every word that that man says.

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But Charlotte plays him in the kitchen every morning. And I go in there and I'll cry at first because, you know, I miss him.

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And I hear that voice and she does too. We cry every time we hear it. But he was talking about what it means to be holy just yesterday, and I'm going, oh my goodness.

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I grew up, cut my teeth as a new Christian listening to this man teach on holiness from the scripture.

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What does it mean? It means not just you quit smoking and all this stuff. It's not about rules and regulations, it's about the heart.

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It's about being set apart from things, yes, but unto God. It's about both of those things, being separated from the world, not worldly, not like the world, different than the world in how we speak, the words we let come out of our mouths, the works that we do and the things we do and who we hang out with and what we're thinking about all the time.

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That's what holiness is. And then be acceptable unto the Lord. Well, Jesus has made us acceptable by his blood.

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So that's done, that's positional. But all of this is our reasonable service. It says, listen, if you did all of that, if you presented your body to God every day and only walked with him, if you stayed wholly separate from the world, doesn't mean you can't enjoy the beautiful things

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God's given us. That's not what that's talking about. That's saying don't be worldly and ungodly and be acceptable to God.

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If you did all of that, you didn't gain any rewards in heaven because that's what you're supposed to do. That's what's reasonable.

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That's the reasonable service. Wow, so that's where we start. And then he says, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed.

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Don't think like they think, don't act like they act. I know we're tempted to, we're tempted to do eye for eye and all that stuff, tooth for a tooth.

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That's not Jesus's way. Don't be conformed to how they think, how they act, but be transformed like a caterpillar into a butterfly.

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Transform, metamorphosis, that comes from the Greek word here. By the renewing of our minds that we may, look at this now, here's the lesson for today.

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Do what? Prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

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Do you know that that, let me not get ahead of myself here. I'd start to get ahead of myself.

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I'm just gonna go with the slide, okay, because I'm excited about this concept. But I'm gonna have to ask you the question now.

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Did that say that you ought to go about trying to know God's will? Let me just ask you that and you think about it.

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Does that say you need to go about trying to know God's will? What does it say? First of all, here's the points

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I see so far. Live for God. Be a person that's living for God. Your body is a living sacrifice.

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In other words, you let him have your body to do what he wants to do in his work today. Secondly, live a different life than the way the world's living.

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Talk different, act different, do different. Number three, live an acceptable life unto

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God. Number four, don't be worldly. Number five, have a new mind, think differently.

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And pray often. Listen, when those bad old thoughts pop in your mind, which they'll do all the time, Satan can put things in your mind.

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He'll put things in there to see what you do with them. And God allows it because it's a test and it makes you stronger.

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And you immediately should just say, Lord, give me the mind of Christ right now. And that thought will go away.

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Instantly. See, that is a prayer you can pray that's a biblical prayer and it'll be answered yes every time because the Bible says to ask that.

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Give me the mind of Christ. All right, so I need a new mind. And here's the result. You test and discern the good, acceptable, and perfect secret will of God.

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Wow, wait a minute now. Can we know the perfect will of God?

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Look what it says. Prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

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That's interesting. Does it say we know it or seek to know it or does it say we need to prove it?

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It doesn't say know it, it says prove it. You know, that requires some contemplation. I spent a good part a couple of weeks ago of that week thinking about what that meant and contemplating it.

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Well, the stem word for this little Greek word for prove here means to be watchful, like a watchman watching out over the camp at night to make sure the enemy's not coming.

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It's kind of like watching in order to prove something. All right, it means a person who's tested in battle, a proven person, a proven soldier.

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It can mean a reliable person or soldier, a trustworthy proven soldier whose life is proven.

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You trust him, you can send him to do the job and he'll do it. It means those things, but I like this better.

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If you look it up in Webster's and you look at the archaic word, the oldest English meaning, which would certainly at least go back to 1611 when the

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King James was translated. It means to learn or find out by experience.

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Now, I want you to think about that a minute. In the Greek words, back that up perfectly. I mean, this is what it means.

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That you may learn or find out by experience you could say it this way, that you may learn or find out by doing what is the perfect, good, acceptable and perfect will of God.

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What do you do? You take a step. You see, why is it you think it's so cool to me that I'm glad God made me a businessman first and two degrees in business, running a family oil company when

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I'm in my 20s. And then he saved me. Saved me in my car, driving to work from college to the oil office that day.

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And then three years later calls me to preach. And now I start studying theology back then, 40 years or something years ago.

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And everywhere in the Bible, I see practical information about how to run a business, about economics, finance, how to create wealth.

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All of this stuff's in the Bible. The Jews have known it forever. Christians are dumb about it. I don't know why. I think because most pastors never owned a business or did anything in business.

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They went from high school to college to seminary to the pulpit. And I'm not knocking that, but I'm saying they don't often see it.

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And I hope some of them can see it through the Ministry of Tradeway. But here's the thing. If you want to prove

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God's will, you take a step in the direction that the Holy Spirit has led you to take a step.

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And then you take another one. And every step you take, once you look back, you're in God's will because you can't not be in his will.

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God is sovereign. I mean, everything that you do is gonna be part of the history that he wrote and has written before he made anything.

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You can't, he doesn't have 15 plans. He got one because he's perfect. Doesn't need two. He has one perfect plan and you're in it.

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So what you do is gonna prove to have been his will. But here's the thing. You can't live that way.

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You have to live like Brother Otis taught me. He said, look, David, the scripture teaches he's sovereign and that he predestinated how this thing's gonna work out.

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And he loves his plan. It's got good and bad in it because Adam and Eve chose that, but that didn't surprise

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God. They did what they wanted to do and God held them responsible. And that's why we're living in this situation where we have bad with the good because we asked for it.

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Didn't surprise God, it's God's perfect plan because Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world. That proves that.

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And so here we are. But he said, knowing that doesn't mean you can tempt God or just fold your arms and say, well, let's just see what

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God does. He said, that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches you gotta take all the equipment

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God's given you to this moment, all of the mental equipment, the learning, the power, the teachers you've had, the money you've got, anything you've got that's a platform, your family, everything, the business you may own, everything you have, and you take exactly where you are and you do the best you can do with it today.

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And that's what you do. And God is the sovereign. And you're working with him and he's working with you and through you and in you.

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And you just need to take a step with the best knowledge God's given you for that moment. That's how you prove

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God's will. You don't know it, you prove it. You step into it and now you know it. Each step you take, you're proving

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God's will. Now, that's amazing. And don't you think it ties in directly with our lessons on prayer lately, that the

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Holy Spirit has to bring the mind, the only one who can know the mind of God is the mind of God, the

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Holy Spirit, that he is the spirit of God. He knows God's mind.

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He's the only one that knows it. And other than Jesus, obviously. But how does

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Jesus know it? Because the Holy Spirit brought it to him because he had the spirit without measure. He had totally the fullness of the spirit.

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So he's linked in. If you wanted to look at something digital, every digital thing of God's mind,

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Jesus was just linked right to it because of the Holy Spirit. Now we have a linking to that, but it's by measure.

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However much of the spirit -filledness God wants to give us, he gives us to accomplish our mission.

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And that's all we get, but that's what we get and we have it. And it's important. And then God, the Holy Spirit brings that mind of God to us and shows us, here's your next step, do it.

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And then we either grieve him or we please him. And whichever way we go on that,

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I mean, if we grieve him, then he's gonna chasing us and we're gonna get a whipping, we're gonna learn a lesson, and that was God's will.

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So that we could then take the correct step next time. All of it works out according to God's will, but we gotta do it step by step.

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So we have to do the best we can do with everything we have at our disposal that God's given us at this point in our life and do that.

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That's our job. And prayer is a huge part of it. And I'm afraid that we don't do that as well as we could or should.

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But the way we do it is we have to spend more time before God and give the Holy Spirit time in his timing to bring you

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God's secret will. So you can pray and say, Lord, let this happen in the world around me, let me be part of it.

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I'm asking you, I'm begging you, let this happen, let me be part of it. But if it's not your will, adjust my prayers over the next day or two, adjust my prayers and let me pray in your will.

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And you will see yeses, the answer yes. As you walk and then step into that, there's gonna be a moment where Ben and his wife

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Cassandra say, that's the house. God has shown us, this is the house. Lord, give us this house and they're gonna get the house.

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And they just proved God's perfect will, which previous to that was secret. We do it all the time.

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We don't know we have the power, but we do it all the time. So the result is you test and you discern the good, acceptable and perfect secret will of God.

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Acceptable means fully agreeable and well -pleasing to God. Isn't that something? I like the word perfect there.

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It means complete, the whole, listen, the whole acceptable will of God for my life,

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I prove it as I take these godly steps that the Holy Spirit leads me to take. So why does that tell me?

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I can't live by a set of rules that men make. I have to use the word of God as the highest authority, physical authority that we have.

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There is no higher authority than this in the physical world, right here. It's the only perfect thing in the physical world.

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That's why when Paul said, when that which is perfect in the neuter, which means a thing, not Jesus, but a thing, when that which is perfect is come, these things like tongue speaking and the other things he mentions will pass away until the last three and a half years of the tribulation when they will come back.

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But from all that time, which now has been at least 2000 years, this is how God speaks to us by the water and by the

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Spirit. And the Holy Spirit together with the word of God shows us not only the written will of God, not only the reveal will, but it shows us the secret will of God enough for us to pray and then take a step and then pray and then take a step.

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And as we pray and as we take that step, we are proving the good and acceptable, fully pleasable and well -pleasing to the

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Lord and complete will of God for our lives. All right?

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Got a lot of stuff popping in there, don't it? Verse three says, for I say through the grace given to me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.

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I'm gonna tell you something, when God starts to bless you, you can get prideful. And you go, well, no, wait a minute.

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That's ridiculous, right? That's ridiculous because God will let enough negative happen where he will remind you, you know what?

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You really have nothing except asking for bread tomorrow. And I'll give you that. That's what you've got. You've got me. These things are tools in my hand.

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You may or may not have them today or tomorrow, but when you need them, you'll have them. When you don't, you won't. Don't worry about that.

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Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things shall be, it doesn't say might be, shall be added unto you and sleep well at night.

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Or if you wake up not sleeping so well, think about these things till you go back to sleep. I do that a lot. But look at verse three.

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For I say through the grace given to me, to every man not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man, the measure of faith.

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You see, we don't have the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the Holy Spirit like Jesus did, or else we just, everything would be perfect.

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We would do it. We would say everything perfectly. We would never slip up and say something stupid. The works we would do would be perfect, but we have it by measure.

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And what's cool about it is God has dealt to us exactly the amount of faith he wants us to have to accomplish the job we're here to do.

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And some jobs require more faith and he'll give us more faith at that time. Not before you need it, but right when you need it.

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And all of this is how we're working together with God and his family business and how he deals with us as his children and equips us.

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We got a little time. Let's go to another one. I mean, that's just, all of that's in that one little section that deals with the topic.

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Here's another completely different section, but it's all parallel passages that supplement and build up this concept that we're showing the scripture teaches because there's no independent truths in the

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Bible. They're all backed up by layers of truth where the Bible sheds light on other scriptures and says, yep, that's what

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I mean. That's what I'm saying. For when it's a true doctrine, you'll find that to be the case.

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Look here, Ephesians 5a. For you were once upon a time darkness, but now are you light in the

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Lord. So walk like that now. Don't be a hypocrite. Walk as children of light.

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For the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. So when we're filled with the spirit, that's the life that the world sees.

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And the fruit of the spirit, now tie this into what we're talking about with answered prayer, the Holy Spirit going to the mind of God, bringing the part of that that is pertinent to the next step you're gonna take to you so you can pray,

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Lord, make this happen. Equip me, help me to do this. For the fruit of the spirit, see, that's the job the

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Holy Spirit must do. He does it in goodness and righteousness and truth in your life. And through that, proving what is acceptable in the

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Lord. So you see, once again, we don't have to know God's secret will, we just need to prove it. We just step into it and do it and then we know it.

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Now you have an inkling before it because he shows you what to pray for so you can say, Lord, open that door and you can step through it.

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This is all fascinating to me. This is, I mean, I've lived so much of this in my life, but I go back and this sort of shows me, well, here's what that was.

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You know, here's what the Lord's doing. Now that I know it, it makes it even more powerful, right? And to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather rebuke them and reprove them.

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I added the word rebuke, right? Reprove them, correct them, show them where they're wrong.

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Don't just sit there quietly like the moral majority, the quiet, unspoken person who just lives a good life, never says anything.

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And that allows the ungodly people just to take over all the microphones in the whole world. We've kind of done that, haven't we?

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And, but we're not to have, not only do we not go with them and act with them and take part of what they're doing or talk like they talk or act or dress like they dress.

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We don't want anything, anybody to mistake us for them. We were, not only do we not do that, but we also actively reprove them and correct them, especially if they're in a group of young people that need to hear what, that their thought was wrong.

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I mean, I don't, you don't think we should do it just for fun, but if you got, I won't even do it if it's just them, cause

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I know they won't listen, but if there's four or five people standing around that need to hear that what they just said was nonsense,

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I will reprove them. And you need to get where you can do that and we'll do it. You need to know enough Bible to do it and just make sure you do it for the sake of those other people listening.

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If you don't, you will grieve the Holy Spirit. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which they're doing in secret.

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Matt and I were talking about that when we had our little talk yesterday, things being done in secret in Washington, DC and in Hollywood, things like that.

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Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. What's that talking about?

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He will show us not only salvation light, light about what to pray for, what to do. See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise people watching.

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That means we're watching like a watchman, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Don't waste any time.

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We don't have much time left. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but look at this, understanding what the will of the

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Lord is. So you can know that. You can understand God's will before it happens and pray for it before it happens so that your prayer is a part of it happening.

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It's amazing. And be not drunk with wine, where is in excess, but be filled with the

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Spirit. So here we see that without the Holy Spirit, we could do none of this. This is all a work of the

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Holy Spirit, bringing the mind of the Father to our mind and heart and saying, pray for this and then go do it.

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Pray for this and then do it with me. This is what I'm doing it. I want you to go with me and let's do this tomorrow or today, whatever the case is.

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So here's the points I see here. Number one, we got to live for God, not living for the world. Number two, we have to have a different life.

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We have to be holy. We have to be separate and different than they are. Not having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but reproving them.

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We have to live an acceptable life. You know, do the best we can to walk for the

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Lord and not be worldly. And we have to have a new mind. Do you see the same things we just saw in the

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Romans passage? Redeeming the time, by the way, what does redeem mean?

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It means to set free by paying a price. So the way that you redeem time is you give up some stuff that you like doing and spend more time in prayer and in Bible study.

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The two examples, more prayer, more time in praying and studying the word so you know

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God's reveal will, more time in prayer so you can know his secret will and more time doing good works for God so you can change the world, right?

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That's what redeem. So to redeem time, to have more time to do that, you got to give up other stuff. You got to pay a price.

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You have to give up some of the stuff you like doing and take that time and do the prayer and the

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Bible study and the good works with. Does that make sense? Redeeming time is what it means. And then be spirit filled.

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Can't do any of it on your own. Wow, what's the result of that? You put together what the will of the

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Lord is. You understand what the will of the Lord is. It's interesting. You look over on the left, this understanding the will of the

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Lord, Greek word, sunie me, it means to put together.

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It's from two little words, put and together. So you put together what God's perfect will is and you ask for it and then you go do it.

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Pretty powerful. Would that enhance your prayer life if we learned to do that? Interesting.

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Prove that perfect will of God. That means to find it out by experience, by taking a step.

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That's kind of entrepreneurial, isn't it? And it's fearful. That's what entrepreneurial fear is all about. Learning how to take a risk for God and you'll see what the return is.

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All right, here's another one. You got a little more time because since you're home and comfortable, you're not as tired as if you'd sit in that hard pew at Park Meadows.

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By the way, you may be wondering out there if you're in our Tradeway group. We had physical church in the physical building last

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Sunday and there's a big increase in Texas, not just of testing, but of actual people going into the hospital.

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The numbers have more than doubled. So we're pulling back and we had church from home again and we're gonna probably do that the next three

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Sundays after this one and take another look at maybe having, even when we do the physical service, as you know, we're gonna include you guys.

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We already got all the equipment set up and we did it last Sunday. It was a little crude. We'll get better at it, but we're gonna make it where that always happens so you can be with us.

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Now let's look at this one. Philippians 119, for I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer.

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Here you have Paul, perhaps hanging in a dungeon, okay, and he's talking about how the saints are praying for him and he's gonna talk about the results of those prayers and how powerful they are and so we're gonna learn something about prayer from this little passage.

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That's the context. He said, I'm going, I know that this shall turn to my salvation.

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He's not talking about getting saved spiritually. He means like I'm gonna get out of prison or they're not gonna be able to kill me because it's not my time yet.

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That's what he's talking about and two things have to happen for that to happen. One is the saints have to be praying for him in his safety, in his release and secondly, the

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Holy Spirit has to supply the power and the Holy Spirit, he says the supply of the Holy Spirit of Jesus.

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Now think about that. So the Holy Spirit has got to come to all these saints out there in the church in Philippi and tell them

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God's secret will is for Paul to be released and to be okay and you need to pray for that and to have them praying and that's what's happening here.

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So this is an actual real example of this concept of prayer being played out. It's already happened.

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It's a fact. It happens. It's how it happens. According to my earnest expectation and my hope.

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Now, Paul just gave the best definition of the word hope in the Bible. It doesn't mean what the modern English word hope means because that's like,

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I hope the cowboys win, but they probably won't. It's a negative word, right? Okay. But the old

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English word in 1611, it meant the earnest expectation of something happening. Like you expect it to happen is what hope used to mean.

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So Paul uses two synonyms here. It means the same thing. So I just leave out the word hope because it's so negative.

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I read it this way. According to my earnest expectation that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always in my past, he looks back at the past.

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God has never let me down. He's never let me be ashamed where some worldly person could say, well, look at his

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God. He's pathetic. Cause look what he let happen to Paul. Paul said that's never happened once to me. And it's not going to happen now, even though I'm in a fearful state, but I know the saints are praying for me.

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And I know God has never let me be ashamed of his power in my life. And he won't let me be ashamed now.

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So therefore with all boldness, since he's always been that way and he doesn't change.

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So now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or death.

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Now there he's praying, God, whatever your will is, you may kill me in this prison, but I'm praying that you won't.

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And the saints are praying that you won't. And I'm hoping that your Holy Spirit, I have a joyful expectation that that's not your will.

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And your spirits led me to pray for me to be released. And they're praying for me to be released. So that's what I expect. And I know

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I won't be ashamed no matter what happens. And by the way, no matter what happens, it's all about your life being magnified in my body.

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Now let's think about that. Is that our attitude when we're praying for our loved ones, for ourselves, for our friends, or is it we just want them to be well, so we feel better.

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So we're happier because we don't want them taken from our life, which is it? Paul says, look, if I do die, is what

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God wanted to happen to magnify him. But if I don't, it's because he wants me to take some more steps and magnify him that way.

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But no matter what, it's all Jesus's family business, not mine, I'm just with him in it. Whatever he wants, that's what

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I want to do. Send me Lord, here I am. Wow, this is what our prayer life should be in line with this.

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For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Look, if I do die, I'm going to be instantly in a new body with no aches and pains that can never die again.

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And I'm going to be in his immediate presence in a physical place called heaven, where he is,

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I'll be with him. That's gain. But if he leaves me here, then it's Christ in me.

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I'm going to let Jesus do his will right here in my body, because my body is a living sacrifice to him.

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And I'm gonna let him do his will in this world. That should be our attitude. So this prayer of the saints for Paul worked in conjunction with the

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Holy Spirit's direct work in Paul's life. So the Holy Spirit is working in Paul's life by working in others' lives, the people around him began to pray, and the

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Holy Spirit was moving them to pray for Paul to be released from prison and to be able to preach again.

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And that's what happened. So this is just, to me, a beautiful teaching on prayer and an example in the

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Bible of how this plays out. The result was that Paul has an earnest expectation that he shall not be ashamed of God, that Christ will be magnified in his life, in time and space.

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That's what it's all about here and now. Well, Brother Dave couldn't be with us today because the internet's down in his little part of Corsicana, and Brother Ben is long gone to his own church service.

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So I'm just gonna sign off here for us today. And I just want to thank you guys for being with us.

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I want you to know that we love you, and it's such a joy for us to have all of you with us from around the country and so forth.

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And we will see you next Sunday, same time, same place. Lord be with you.