7 - Lesson 2: Prayer, Part 3

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Discipleship. We are glad to have you with us.

We are going through an introduction of discipling, trying to teach you some ideas and give you some pointers on how to disciple another individual.

And we're glad to have you with us. We welcome those of you who are new to the class. Here is a place where you can hopefully learn some really good theology with some really bad humor.

Just saying. But we are glad to have you with us if you are an enrolled student or if you're someone who has a

Growing in Grace book, you can grab that. We're going to go through that now.

And we are going through that just as again, as I said, a tool that we use to disciple other people.

Now, I was told that last class that we did, we're going through the topic on prayer.

I was told that the last class was very illuminating for many. They said, we had gotten an email that someone had said it was the first time they ever truly understood prayer and couldn't believe that they had been in church so long and nobody explained what prayer really was to them.

I was talking to someone else this weekend and they had told me that they never had, they've heard the

Lord's Prayer or Disciples Prayer many times. They never heard it as a model, explained as a model and explained the way that we had laid it out for you.

So if you missed last class, I don't know, maybe it'd be good to go back and catch what you missed.

Just saying. But we are in lesson number two of our book, which is prayer, our access to God, to our

Lord. We saw previously, when should we pray? Well, we said you should pray all the time, whenever you can, pray without ceasing.

We talked about how to pray. You know, we said you have to be on your knees at all times to be praying.

You had to make sure that you're on your, no, we didn't say that. You have to be on your face.

No, we didn't say that either. You could pray anywhere, anyhow. I mean, your posture doesn't matter.

You don't need to pray in King James English, you know, the old Victorian English.

That doesn't make your prayer heard more. Just saying. You don't have to say

Lord multiple times within your prayer, within a sentence, to be heard. So we talked about when, we've talked about how, and now today we are going to talk about this question that I told you we had raised.

Does God answer prayer? Now, why would you, if you're discipling someone who is a new believer, why would you want to answer that?

Well, you want to answer that question because it's going to come up. I'm just saying, it will.

It comes up often. And there's a couple reasons why this comes up, and it's for that reason that I want to kind of cover some things with this and say why you want to address this and help people to understand it.

One reason is because there are people who have prayed in the past and didn't get the expected results.

And therefore, they say, well God doesn't answer prayer. Because they expect

God to answer their way. I know many people that argue that they're not believers because God didn't answer prayer.

I met a guy in New York City, in Union Square Park, that told me the reason he's not a believer, he grew up in the church, and he said that he's not a

Christian, he knows God doesn't exist because God can't answer prayer.

I said, what do you mean God can't answer prayer? He said, when I was younger, I prayed and God did not answer.

And because of that, he said, I know that no God exists because God doesn't answer prayer.

And I asked what his prayer was. And he basically had some handicaps. And he said he wanted

God to just take them away. Now there's two things that are really implied in that. One is, you've got to ask the question, excuse me, but who do you think you are that God has to answer prayer by your prescribed method?

Just saying, right? I mean, you don't say it that way to someone. You want to be gentle about it. But when you have a new believer, they may tell you they've tried praying in the past and it just didn't work.

We're going to talk about whether it worked or not and why we pray.

We kind of dealt with that a little last time. But you also have a sense of that you have to remember when we go to God in prayer, we are looking to get his understanding of things, not give him ours.

We're trying to figure out his will, not us tell him ours. That's the reverse to the way many people pray.

Many people pray wanting to tell God what God should do. And we should be praying, asking

God, what's your will so that I can go do it on earth as it's done in heaven, right?

We talked about that last week. And so that's going to be different.

And so what I said with one individual in New York was I basically explained to him, did you ever think that your handicaps made you a stronger person?

In talking with the person, he was a very independent person, was able to start his own business and able to take care of himself.

And there's things because of his handicap, he had to work harder than others. That made him a stronger individual.

He's like, you know, I never thought of it that way. Your handicap might have better prepared you for things that without it you couldn't have done.

So sometimes it's just a changing of our perspective. I was talking to, I got a call from a sister in the

Lord today, and she's having some health issues. She's having problems with her heart.

And she's saying, you know, she's got this fear. Nothing wrong with having the fear, I mean, she's having the fear because of those that she would leave behind, you know, who would take care of the things she leaves behind.

I understand that, but it's all about perspective. When I had some heart issues some years ago, doctors couldn't figure out what it was.

And I think what it was is just not running for many years and starting up again. Heart was going, hey, wait, what's this stuff about? I thought we were done with that running stuff.

But what ended up happening is I would have these, a racing heart, and I got concerned about it.

And I had the fear of who's going to take care of my wife, my kids, things like that. And then I turned the perspective into looking forward to being with God.

If my heart gives out, I get to be with Christ. It changed my perspective.

And that's what sometimes we need to do with prayer is change the perspective. And in this question, does

God answer prayer? There's hidden in that an understanding that God must answer or is required to answer the way we prescribe.

That's dangerous. And we have to be careful of that. Got to make sure we're not trying to say that God has to answer the way we expect

Him to. And that's one of the things that we got to pay attention to. And that's the thing that I want to focus on as we answer this.

Because you're going to see that God does answer our prayer. It just may not be the way we expect

Him to. I have a paper on the website that you can go to.

It's based out of Samuel. Basically, it's with the life of David. And I think it's titled,

Does God Answer Prayer? But it's basically where David prayed for the life of his child that he had with Bathsheba when he committed adultery with her.

And he prayed that this child would live. And the child died.

Did God answer prayer? Well, David's response was he got up and worshipped.

And he gave a reason. His reason was because God answered the prayer.

So let's look in our syllabus at the answer we have here. Does God answer prayer?

Yes! God answers prayer. God will always answer a, catch this, believer's prayer.

That's an important distinction. God does not obligate Himself. Notice how I worded that.

God is not obligated because someone prayed. God obligates Himself to whether He's going to answer prayers or not.

And so what you end up with is this is a case where God is going to give an answer.

We're going to see different answers that God gives in a moment. But He gives different answers.

And He always answers the prayers of believers. Those who believe on Him.

He says He will answer their prayers. Now, He doesn't obligate

Himself to answer those prayers of an unbeliever. And He doesn't always obligate

Himself to answer with a yes. And that's the problem that many of us have. The fact that God answers prayer does not mean that He always gives the answer that we want.

There's actually three answers that God can give to prayer. Yes, no, and wait.

Yes, you ask something and He says yes, you can receive that. No, that's not for you.

Or wait. I want you to wait on me. And that's often the answer we get, isn't it? God often wants us to wait on Him.

Think about some of the missionaries who go onto the field. And years,

I mean there's some missionaries 12, 15, 20 years before they have a convert.

You think they were praying for converts? Yeah, but God wanted them to wait.

So, God will hear and answer the believer's prayer provided, though, He prays in the following manner.

So, if you look in your syllabus, you're going to see a couple of things. That God says, you want your prayers answered, here's how you're going to do it.

Now, keep in mind as you go through this, you're going to see prayer is not something where we obligate

God to answer. God obligates Himself based on His own nature. Okay?

So, the first point, letter A there, if it is prayed in Jesus' name.

Now, let's look at some verses here. And I want you to, and we're going to talk about this one because there is a misconception here.

So, let's look at this. This one is John, verse 14 and 6. We're going to spend a couple of passages in John.

Jesus said to them, Okay, so we go to the

Father through Christ. That's going to be important in a moment. So, now let's look at chapter 15, verse 16.

So that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you.

One more. John 16. Now, here's why

I say there's some problems some people have with the idea of praying in Jesus' name.

They treat it as if it is some magical incantation, some mantra that you must end your prayer with to be heard by God.

In other words, the idea that you must end your prayer saying, In Jesus' name or in the name of Christ.

Some form of that. And you'll hear most people close a prayer time that way.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Now, first off, let me think about that.

Amen means truly. So, when you say amen at your own prayer, you're agreeing with yourself?

Of course. It's the others that are supposed to be saying amen to your prayer. But when we say that we pray in Jesus' name, it is not some magical incantation that we say.

So, when we end our prayer that way, God is obligated to answer it somehow. This is the thing.

You'll often hear, I do not, most of the time, end a prayer time publicly with in Jesus' name.

Now, when I was pastoring at the Chinese church, at Chinese American Bible Church, there were some folks that had a real problem with that.

Because they grew up thinking you had to end your prayer saying in Jesus' name.

Now, one of the things that I did, I had one of two choices.

I could continue praying the way I prefer to pray and not say that. Could that be a stumbling block for people?

Yes. Could I teach them? Yes. I taught them. I explained to people why it was wrong. But you know what

I did? When I closed in prayer, I would close in Jesus' name. Did it hurt anything?

No. I have the freedom to do that. And so, it was a thing where I would teach through it, though.

And some people started to understand. We pray in Jesus' name, meaning in His reputation.

In other words, according to His will. Do you know why God says if you pray in Jesus' name,

He will give it to you? Because if you pray in accordance with His will, that's

His will. He's going to give you according to His will. If you're in line with His will, you're going to get it.

The problem is we interpret that to say, well, if I pray I want a new car because I just want the latest and fanciest car, in Jesus' name,

He's got to give it to me. No, He does not. Because that's not praying according to His will.

Okay? So, we pray in Jesus' name. In other words, according to His will, according to His reputation. I'm going to make this more specific in the next one.

Letter B. If it is prayed... So, fill in the blank if I didn't give it to you is Jesus' name. That is your blank there.

Second one is, if it is prayed in agreement with God's will. That's your blank there.

God's will. In James 4, we see, You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions.

That's the idea there. Are you praying according to God's will or your will? It's going to be one of the two.

And whichever one that is, is going to determine whether you're going to receive the answer of a yes.

You're praying according to your will, you might not receive it. God may do it.

Oh, sometimes you can even pray for sin and there's times where God will give you over to it. You really want something.

You really want that spouse? And every indicator saying no. And you got friends and people going,

No, get away. Oh, no, no, no. And you're just going to plow through and go for it anyway?

What's the end result? You end up realizing afterwards, it was a mistake sometimes. You should have listened to the counsel that others had for you.

But you didn't. And guess what? God gave you what you wanted. And you regret it.

So, we need to be praying according to God's will. In agreement with God's will.

Letter C there. If there is no, ready for this? Here's your blank there. If there is no sin.

If there is no sin that may hinder the believer's fellowship with God. Let's look in Psalm 66.

And that says, If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened to me.

And so, the psalmist is saying, that we have to be sinless. No. We can't be sinless.

But, a prayer that's prayed selfishly, according to our will, with a desire to sin, chances are that's not going to get answered with a yes.

Chances are. Alright? Now, this next one. Letter D may shock some of you.

Think about this. But, this is going to be in 1 Peter 3. Guys, this is for you.

If there is no unconfessed sin between you and your spouse.

That's a blank there. Spouse. That you could, that could be hindering your prayer. Look in 1

Peter 3. Verse 7. Likewise, husbands. That's why I said guys, this is for you. But, we can apply this to both.

Husbands. Wives. Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way.

Show honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.

So that, what's that next part? Read that. Your prayers may not be hindered.

If you don't want your prayers hindered, you better have good relations with your spouse. Now, you go, what does that have to do with it?

Well, if you're not in a right state with God, if you're in a wrong state with your spouse,

I'll put it that way. If you're in a bad state, a wrong state with your spouse, you're arguing, you're fighting all the time, then you're not in a right state with God.

Okay? You can't be in a right standing with God and yet hate your, your, well, your spouse most of all.

But, I mean, you're supposed to love your brothers. You're supposed to love your enemies. Well, you should absolutely love your spouse.

So, in that case, we are to basically be in a right standing with our spouse if we want our prayers to be answered.

One more here. This, also in James, if it is prayed in faith, in faith.

Let's look at James 1. And here, I want to read verse 1, 5 to 7.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives generously to all without approach and it will be given him.

But let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind for the person who must not suppose that he will receive anything from the

Lord. One of the things I love about that passage, it's a favorite passage. Put it back up if we could.

If any one of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God and he gives generously.

I guess I could save this for the next point but I'll mention it now. Because we have it up and if you look at that passage, what do you see?

You see he says he's going to give you wisdom but it says generously without reproach.

Generously without reproach. What's so neat about that is this. Do you ever lack wisdom?

I know I do all the time. And I have to ask God for wisdom. And if you're going to disciple someone, there's going to be times in their life, they're going to have some real doubts about things and they're going to have to rely on God's wisdom.

And you want to explain to them that that's good. But what you also want to realize is when you do that, okay,

God is going to give you wisdom but look at how it says it. He says he's going to give you wisdom with liberally or generously give you lots of wisdom but that's not the part.

I do like that God's going to give me generous amounts of wisdom if I pray for wisdom but I like the next part even better.

He's going to do it without reproach, without criticizing. Have you ever had, and this is often something we as parents do, you try to give wisdom to your children and you do it with criticizing them at the same time and you give it with the

I told you so type of mentality? Isn't it nice to know that when we lack wisdom

God gives it to us but he gives it to us not only abundantly, he gives it without criticizing us?

That's so we can ask. He's not going to look down on us and be like, you're asking for this again?

Like you haven't learned yet? No, that's not God. If you, especially as a new believer, you're doubting things, he says, don't doubt, ask in faith.

Trust that God can do this. I have a friend who helps organize the

NorCal Fire, Dan Bolin, and he helps us out in northern California for the

NorCal Fire, and I'll tell you something, there's a guy who, you want to talk about a guy who prays in faith?

I mean, it's just when we have things that it's like, you know, right now the church that we have had it at, had the event at for several years and now can't do it this next year, we gotta look for a new place.

And we're going around and he says, you know what, let's just set a date. I have faith that God's gonna provide a place.

And that's the way he does things. It's just, this seems to be in accordance with the will of God, God I think would want us to do this, let's move forward.

Boom, done. Go out and do it. And then, you know, move forward and look for places and wait to see what

God's gonna do. That's praying in faith. It doesn't mean going blindly. And it doesn't mean you sit back and go, oh,

I'm just gonna wait on the Lord. No. You move forward in accordance with the will of God and you trust him that he's gonna answer.

And the reason you can ask for wisdom is you don't have to worry that he's gonna slap you down or beat you up for asking again.

Right? Okay, so let us take a look. What are some things that we can pray for in the scriptures?

Well, if you look, some things that we see in the scriptures prayed for.

I'm just gonna give you the blanks here for each of these. We'll look up the verses again. When you're discipling somebody, you want them reading all the verses.

Okay? You want them reading all the verses. in this next section, I'm gonna give you some things that we see in scripture that people prayed for.

Alright? So let us see. 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2. First of all, then,

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all people.

Then, look at verse 2. For kings who are in high positions that they may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly, dignified in every way.

So, in this case, what you pray for is authorities. Pray for your president.

Oh, but I don't agree with that guy's politics. Oh, the guy's such a sinner. Oh, get over it.

He needs your prayer. Pray that he'll get saved then and that God would work on his heart.

It's an idea. Um, pray for authorities that are over you that includes your boss at work.

You know, that guy that you can't stand that always gives you you know, 4 .30 on a Friday night he gives you a big job to do.

You want to get home? Pray for him. Okay?

Uh, pray for those local police officers. Pray for the military. Pray for your mayor, your governor.

Pray for them. You could always be praying that if they don't know Christ, they get saved because if they get saved and radically saved, guess what?

Their politics are going to straighten out, right? They'll get accordings with the Word of God. So, uh, next one, 2

Thessalonians 3 .10 Finally, brothers, pray for us that the

Word of God may speed ahead and be honored as it happened among you.

So, you want to pray for here, you're praying for laborers or, more specifically, you're praying for evangelists.

You're praying for the spread of the Gospel, really. And any of those fit in here, okay? Uh, labor is actually one that's going to be more specific further down.

So, if you're put in laborers or evangelists, that's fine here. But the real thing you want to focus on this one is the spreading of the

Gospel. You want to pray that the Gospel would be spread. Uh, Ephesians, uh, sorry,

Philippians 4, 6, do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be known to God.

Here, the idea is that we pray with thanksgiving, okay? Without anxiousness.

So, we, we want to pray with gratitude for everything that God has given us.

One of the things, maybe you've heard this before, but when you complain, basically what you're saying is,

God, I'm not happy with what you have given me in life. As if somehow

God is unjust and unfair and doesn't know what he's doing and somehow he just made a mistake and if he would've listened to you everything would be just fine.

Yeah. Get over yourself. We gotta stop that thinking. Alright? Matthew 5, 44

But I say to you love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.

So, we pray for persecutors. We pray for persecutors. How can I pray for persecutors? Well, first off, chances are you're not really suffering persecution in the first place.

Okay? Second off, you know, the

Gospel went out and continues to go out in so many ways because of persecution.

So, it's time to think about the blood of the martyrs is the foundation of the church or the seed of the church.

What's meant by that is as those who were martyred were being killed and refused to deny

Christ and actually prayed for those who were torturing them, those who tortured them though they may not have received

Christ during that person's lifetime. There's many times where that person ended up getting saved afterwards because they were so impressed with the testimony of the individual.

So, pray for those who persecute and, you know, and pray for, I would include on that for us in this country, pray for those who are being persecuted as well.

Just, you know, we don't really suffer persecution but pray for those who are. So, Psalm 51 says, is a prayer for repentance.

Let's read this. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for I know my transgression and my sin is ever before me against you and you only have

I sinned and done this evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your works and blameless in your judgment.

And basically this is David after basically Nathan comes

Nathaniel comes to him and David you sinned with Bathsheba you took Uriah's wife and it's like how did you know

I thought I had that hidden and so the end result there is he ends up recognizing his sin and this psalm is a psalm of repentance it is him praying for repentance and mercy we already dealt with James 1 5 so I won't bring it up again but that is pray for wisdom you could pray for wisdom

James 1 5 let's move on Revelation 22

Revelation 22 verse 20 he who testifies to these things says surely

I am coming soon amen come Lord come

Lord come Lord come

Lord come Lord come

Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come

Lord Lord come

Lord come

Lord come Lord come

Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord Lord come

Lord come

Lord come

Lord come Lord Lord Lord Lord Lord come

Lord come Lord Lord come

Lord Lord come

Lord come Lord Lord Lord come

Lord come Lord Lord come

Lord Lord come

Lord come Lord come

Lord come

Lord Lord Lord come come come Lord come Lord come Lord Lord come Lord come Lord come Lord prayed for every member of my church every week. And so I kept that up as a thing for me to remind me to pray for everybody.

Mark those things that God answers. Why? Why should we do that? Well, because it's kind of a way of journaling.

And over time, over many years, the longer you've been walking with the Lord and you see the way the Lord has answered in the past, you'll tend to forget that.

You'll remember those things you prayed for for years and years and years and didn't get an answer. You'll pray for those things that you prayed for a couple times, not that you didn't get the answer you wanted.

You got an answer or wait. You'll remember those things you prayed and prayed and prayed and God said no about, but you'll find that you often forget the things that God said yes to.

And so write those things down and write the answer down. I will sit there and say, if I pray for something, I say, yes, no.

Otherwise I assume it's a wait. So I just keep praying. And if I get a yes or no,

I say, yes, this was the answer, no, this was the answer. That's how

I do things. So let us read together, that means you, on the other side of this screen, other side of this camera,

I want you to read this aloud as I read it, okay? So ready? All right, go.

This is going to be your memory verse for next week. So, Philippians 4, 6 to 7, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

That is your memory verse that you want to work on with your student, your person, your discipling.

And so you want to do that for the next class, okay? You want to get them to do that, to have that memorized, which means you should have it memorized as well.

So there you go. You want to also give them the homework assignment, and so something you can do for yourself is have a prayer list.

If you want to share your prayer list, that's fine. You can go on our Facebook group and share the prayer list.

That's something you could do. So the other thing that I want to do is, we do have some time, that's right.

Let's take a look at the overview, and this is something that we can see if you look here.

I want to kind of go through this, and just take a look at, this is something that I'm going to try to send out to those who enrolled, these

PowerPoints, so you have them. I hope this is large enough on your screen to see, you can kind of see some of the arrows.

But this is just an overview that you can see if you're going to guide someone, direct someone through this process of evangelizing them.

This is just some sheets I want to make available to you so you have an overview, okay? So let's take a look at this.

It kind of covers all the things that we've been talking about. It has some of the mechanics for prayer.

You can tell that this was put together by an engineer. He talks about mechanics and he's got flow charts. Not me by the way.

The guy who was the best man at my wedding, Wayne Smith, put this together. Matthew 6 .8,

the Greek word, means basically to pray, alright?

It means to worship earnestly, to bow down, to ask humbly. Hallowed, we've mentioned this, is the idea to make holy.

So God is always holy. Because of this, shouldn't we always strive to make

God's name hallowed within us? What does it mean to make it hallowed? Well, it means to make it holy.

So here we have just a quick reference for you. When should I pray? Anytime, but it's good to set a time aside.

Good to make a private time. How should I pray? The Lord's Prayer is an example. Reverently, submissively, dependently, honestly, preventively.

Does God answer my prayers? You see here, if we pray in His name according to His will, without hindrance of sin, in faith the result is yes.

And what am I to pray for? And then you have some notes that you can fill in some prayer. Then he's put there the

Lord's Prayer, you see on the lower right, and it says, and he's kind of, and again this is just an engineering mind, you see here he's kind of grouped a section of the

Lord's Prayer that focuses on God, focuses on requests to God, meaning needs, forgiveness of sin, protection, and then again another focus on God.

So, I hope that that becomes something that you find helpful, useful, that overview is kind of,

I kind of like having those overviews. I like Wayne had put those together. And so he's given to those to me in PowerPoint.

I'll share those with you who have enrolled at the website down there as students. So, if you have any questions, anything next class, we're going to deal with the

Bible. You know, and I'll bring this up and you can email us about this. Academy at strivingforeturning .org.

Do you think the pace of this is too fast, too slow? Email us and let us know. Just say, hey, just right, too fast, too slow.

We're looking for Goldilocks here. What it is, is I want to try to make sure that we're going at a pace that I'm giving enough information to not only fill in the blanks here.

I could get through this lesson in less than an hour with somebody if I just focus on the blanks and fill them in.

Notice I'm trying not to do that. I'm trying to give you a lot more insight into what you want to do, what you want to think of when you're teaching somebody.

So, I'm trying to get into all that as well for you. But email us if you have any questions, any comments, you know, concerns.

You like the pace. You don't like the pace. I know many have said they really enjoy this. They're thankful for the pace, but I know some have said, you know what, it's going a little slow for me.

If that's you, fine. I want to let you know you can buy more of the

Growing in Grace books at the store. If you want to pick up your copy or copies for others, for your homeschool, for your

Sunday school, whatever, you can pick up some copies of Growing in Grace at our storefront. They're reasonably priced.

We'll ship them out to you. Also, you can go to Amazon Smile. That helps to support us.

If you go to Amazon Smile and you register with us, you help the ministry as well.

All right? Lastly, I know the part that many of you are waiting for. Again, just a reminder though,

I will be at Fall for Greenville. I should be back in plenty of time for class

Monday, so don't worry. So, what's that?

Okay. I'm getting some comments from the peanut gallery here. So, the

Brother of Encouragement is probably someone most of you don't know.

All right? He's a brother who I got to know first at the

Christian Collegian Network's Repent and Witness. I got to see him at a couple of events, and I've seen him yearly at the event

I'm going to be at this week. It is Brother Bill Schank.

So, Bill is a guy where, you know, I'll be honest with you, he was a new believer when

I met him, somewhat new, rough around the edges, had just a rough background, a really rough background.

He and I did not get along when we first met. I'm just saying. We just didn't. And so, the thing is that being the type of person

I am and being the type of person I encourage you to be, which is one who doesn't talk about other people, but you go to the person, talk directly to the person, and tell them what's going on.

You know, you see sin in someone's life, you should tell them. You should share with them. I'm not trying to gossip in this.

I think Bill is the type of individual, he admits to his own faults.

But at that stage, he was a young believer, but he had some pride issues back then that were, you know, kind of there and seen.

And I came alongside, I tried to lovingly, because he rubbed me the wrong way.

And part of me just wanted to get away from him. Part of me said, you know what, I should help him grow. And so, I just tried to come alongside.

And the first time, it didn't go well. It just didn't. I'll be honest with you, it didn't. He got real upset with me,

I think. Then I saw him at the Super Bowl outreach. And again, we had some words where I was trying to lovingly come alongside and teach him, and I just didn't do it,

I guess, in a great way. We had words again. And I thought, man, this didn't go well.

But then I saw him at the first fall for Greenville. And the guy, we had a time where him and I were alone.

Actually not, we were with Ed Lease. But, you know, we got to just spend more time together one -on -one. And the more we spent time together, instead of avoiding one another, we got to know one another.

And he ended up realizing the heart in which I tried coming to him the earlier times. And got to realize how

I really was trying to mean things. I ended up realizing that he's rough around the edges, but he takes everything in.

He listens to you. And you think, like, man, this guy's just, you know, he's not listening. Why should

I waste time with him? And yet he is. And I've gotten now to know him over, I don't know, like five, six years.

And the more I've gotten to know him, the more I've gotten to love him, to a point where I'm anxious to get down to fall for Greenville.

Because I know I'm going to hang out with him. Which, when you think about, someone told me that four or five years ago, that I'd look forward to him.

I'd be like, what? But that's what the proverb is that says that adversity is meant for a brother.

You know, we can avoid adversity. Bill and I could have just easily avoided one another because we both kind of just rubbed each other the wrong way in the beginning.

But neither of us did. Instead, Bill approached it with humility. And came and learned.

And became someone who I've come to pray for regularly. Someone who I count dearly as a friend.

That I look forward to seeing. And I just, I'm anxious to get to spend time.

I look forward to this time of year, which sounds strange. You know, like I said. But because he's just, he's crazy.

Which is fine. I'm crazy, so maybe we should get along. But the reality is that he's someone who, like many of us, shows signs of spiritual growth.

And just keeps maturing. And keeps growing. Keep wanting to just humble himself before the Lord. And that's an attitude that many of us need to learn from a guy like Bill.

So, encourage Bill. He travels quite a way to get down. Takes several modes of transportation to get down from Greenville.

But he really enjoys it. And so, I'm looking forward to seeing him. And I'm looking forward to you guys encouraging him in his humility.

And in his learning. And in his desire to go out and serve the Lord faithfully on the streets.

And evangelizing. Because he does love to do that. You know, he is one thing, I'll say this. You know, I hope this doesn't embarrass him.

But if you know Bill, you know. Bill stutters.

Bill struggles in trying to put words together. And thinking of just the right word to say.

And you'll see. He'll be like, I just don't know the right word. And he's struggling.

And sometimes, you know, for some of us, you know. It can be painful when you talk to someone who stutters a lot.

Because you're waiting. You're impatient. Which is your own sin, by the way. But you hear this guy open air preach.

Whoa! I mean, there is no stuttering. No stammering. No worrying about what words.

I mean, this guy can bring it. I mean, person after person that I know that listens to this guy preach.

They sit there and they'll talk to him one -on -one. And then they listen to him preach. And it's like, is this the same guy?

Yeah, it is. I've heard him many, many times. He can preach. I love listening to him preach.

And it's just amazing. God just gives him the words. And so I look forward to seeing him this weekend.

So encourage Bill this weekend. Until next class, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.