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My dad used to do things when he preached that would drive me nuts, and as a kid, that is, when I was a kid. And I know I have kids, and sometimes they remind me of myself when I was a kid. And so, a little word for the kids, and to prepare the kids, I have two sermons today.

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What my dad would do, he would come up with this little devotion before his sermon, and he would go over that. And he would never tell us that that wasn't the sermon.

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And my dad, you think I preached long, my dad really preached long. And he would go over this little devotion, and it was pretty substantial. And I'd be thinking, "Okay, this is the sermon." And a little while, it was a fairly good devotion. And he would finish it, and then he would say, "Okay, now to my sermon." And as a kid, I would just wilt. It would just crumble me.

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I'm like, "What do you mean now for the sermon?" And so, I'm going to have two sermons. One is in Corinthians, or text. The other one is something I believe the Lord gave me this morning, and I won't try to do them both short. So, I'll try to do two devotions. And what I mean by the Lord giving me something this morning that I woke up this morning reading the Bible, not in Corinthians, just reading another passage. And I said, "This is exactly what my wife and I need to hear." And so, I sent her a text message five in the morning, and I outlined the text message for her to be able to see what I'm seeing. And I just kept on developing that. I was like, "Man, this is so good." And the reason my wife and I needed that word was because last night, late last night, we were thinking about all the people we were praying for.

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And as we were praying and thinking about people that we love that are falling into sin, my wife said something that I'm sure you've said before. It's like God's not hearing my prayers. And I was so tired. I don't know if you've ever… I like to say I'm a great preacher and a great man of faith, and I just believe the Lord, and I never struggle with doubt.

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I said to my wife, "Yeah, I feel the same way." God's not hearing our prayers. And then after you pray for people that you care about and you pray, and it's almost like you grow weary in praying, and you want to just kind of give up praying and stop praying for people. And I believe right now, I believe in our church that just talking to you and you talking to me. In fact, I've heard this over and over and over again. I think the two burdens we carry is our unconverted lost family members, the unconverted. And then we all also carry another burden with us that we're praying for a Christian that we know. Maybe it's a family, maybe it's a family member, maybe it's a child who we really believe is a child of God, is a Christian. We have reasons to believe that they do know the Lord, but they've wandered into sin. They've wandered off, and we're burdened for them, and we pray for them. And I'm not going to have you do it, but if I asked you if that was your burden of your heart, I would suspect that most of you would raise your hand right now, that there are names that you're praying for that are not right with God. They're not living right. And you don't know how to address it.

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You don't know how to confront them. You don't know what to say. You're just praying.

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And I want to encourage you. It's a message of encouragement. I needed this encouragement.

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God is listening. Turn with me to 1 John 5. God is hearing your prayers.

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1 John 5 verse 14. Now, I've told John Wynnum to motion me after a little while so I don't get carried away as I can get to my second sermon. So if you see John fiddling his arms about, know that he's doing that for my sake. 1 John 5 verse 14. This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him. If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life.

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That's not my word, brother. Sisters, that's not my word.

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That's God's word. That's God's word.

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4 things we can have confidence in when we pray for a wayward brother or sister.

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4 things that you can have boldness and confidence and assurance is that I don't have much faith.

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You're going to have confidence in this. I'm always looking for those passages that, like I've told you before, if you like wisdom, I ask God, I take that one. Man, you told me, you promised me, you've said in your word and you cannot lie. Those who trust in you will not be disappointed.

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That's why I know I'm saved because the gospel is a promise and I believe God. I'm looking for these promises that can anchor my life and my confidence in. I have to have God's word and I need particular promises. I can't make up things and pretend like God's going to do what I want him to do. But if God says he's going to do something, that gives me assurance. That gives me confidence.

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That gives me boldness. We can have confidence and boldness to enter into the throne room of God's grace. You can be a sinner and know that God forgive you because he's promised you that he will forgive you and you can go in boldness and receive the grace you need. These are the words of God and he's given us confidence that he hears us when we pray. Look at verse 14.

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This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. We know that he hears us, whatever we ask. But we struggle. We struggle. We say in those moments of doubt and moments of weakness, we struggle. I don't know if my prayer is getting to heaven. I don't know if he's hearing me. I don't know. I mean, you know what it is. You pray and nothing. You pray and then there's no miracle immediately afterwards. There's not even a feel good sensation in your soul. It's just like you pray. Like, where is God? Do you hear me?

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Don't think you're alone in this feeling because the Psalmist, Psalm 88, hears the Psalmist crying out, "Hear me, O Lord, may my prayer come before you. Turn your ear to my cry. Now hear my prayer, listen to my cry. Let my prayer come before you. Incline your ear to me, O Lord." The Psalmist is not that he doubts God, but yet he seems to make sure. He's like, "Lord, don't turn your ear away from me. I need to know you're listening." And so sometimes we struggle with knowing that our prayers are doing any good. We struggle with knowing that our prayers are valuable or are effectual. He said, "Well, I know the prayer of a righteous man abels much, but I'm not that righteous man. I'm a weak man. I'm a struggling Christian and I can't be certain that God hears me." But let me tell you with boldness, with authority of God's word behind me, he does hear you, brother and sister. He's listening to your cry. The Bible tells us we can have boldness to enter into His presence. Ephesians 3, 12 says, "In Him we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him." Well, prayer is entering into the presence of God. Is it not? What is prayer?

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I was just praying before I come up here and preached. I went into the back room back there to pray and I was like, "Lord, where can I go to pray?" It's like I can't go to Jerusalem. I can't go to some high hill. I can't go to the Temple Mount. I can't go where I can. I was reminded.

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Jesus told us that those who worship Him can worship Him in spirit and truth. It's not about a particular mountain or particular location. You can enter into the presence of God right where you are in your bedroom, in your closet, in the pew where you're at right now. Some of you are praying right now for something. Go ahead and pray as I preach because God's listening to you.

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You're entering into the very presence of God. He's like, "Well, I don't have the right to enter into the presence of God. He's holy. He's the Almighty." I'm just like, "Well, yes, you don't have a right, but you have the confidence in Jesus Christ. It is His righteousness that blazes a trail before you and you don't have to doubt His righteousness, do you? You don't have to say Jesus is not perfect. You don't doubt that Christ is sufficient to bring you in behind Him, do you?

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As much as Christ is righteous, you have an entrance into the presence of the living God.

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And then He told us, "Jesus says, 'Now don't go in your own name. Take my name.' Whatever you ask Him, my name, enter into the presence of God with my name and the Father will hear you." We have boldness and confidence to utter our petitions. Hebrews 4.16, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." We have confidence not just to enter in. We have confidence that He's listening.

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The Bible tells us in Psalm 145, "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him." He is listening. In fact, the Lord Jesus is waiting to hear you pray. He's on standby.

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My mother, when my brothers would go out on Friday night and hang out with her friends, my mother would never go to bed until they come in the house and she would be waiting.

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And she couldn't lay down until they came into the house waiting. She was on standby.

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God is on standby waiting on you. He hears you. We have confidence in this. Don't question.

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And I know what you do. I know I do. I question if God hears me, but we don't have to. We don't have to doubt. We can have confidence. We can all have confidence. He hears it, but I know if you're like me, we always have a wiggle room out of confidence. We say, "Well, it says according to His will." If we pray according to His will, well, I don't know if I'm praying according to His will.

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Maybe I'm praying amiss. Maybe I'm praying according to my will and God's going to do what He wants to do. And He's not going to hear me in my prayers. But it appears in this text, this is what was so glorious to me this morning. It says in verse 15, "And we know that He hears us whatever we ask." Whatever we ask. Now, we know that it's talking about in context, about someone who've gone off into sin. Now, He does put a qualification in there. I'm not saying pray for those who have sinned the sin unto death. There's no hope for those. And that sin unto death, from my understanding, is the sin of apostasy, a total rejection of Christ knowing after Hebrews 6, after you've tasted the goodness and the eternal realities to come. But this is not, go here is not to try to talk about the sin unto death, but the fact that if they haven't committed that sin unto death, then we can have confidence that any other sin that they have committed, any other transgression that they've fallen into, that we are to pray for them. We have God's revealed will for us to pray for those who fall into sin. We're commanded to. So we don't have to wonder, it's like, is it the revealed will of God? Is it God's will for me to pray for my brothers and sisters? The answer is yes. This is God's revealed will. In fact, this text tells us so.

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We can have confidence that He hears us when we pray for our brothers and sisters in sin.

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Thirdly, we can have confidence that God will grant our request.

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And again, this is the hardest of all the struggles we have. We like to believe that He hears us.

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Mom and dad hears us when we ask for a new toy, but that doesn't always mean we get the new toy.

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I know God hears me, but is He going to grant me what I want?

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That's where we sometimes have the hardest struggle.

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But look at what verse 15 tells us. And we know that He hears us whatever He asks. We know that we have what we asked of Him. I mean, this is amazing. We have what we've asked.

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It's almost like Mark 11, 24, it says, "Therefore I tell you," Jesus says, "whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours." It's like, you don't have to, you don't have to think, well, I'll believe God answered it after the prayer has been answered, which it could be six months from now. This is saying you can have confidence that you're going to have this prayer answered. Believe that you've received this one, you can have confidence in it. If you want to pray for the Holy Spirit, you can have confidence He's going to give you the Holy Spirit. You being evil know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will the Heavenly Father give you the Spirit if you ask? Now, this is a prayer you can pray for and have confidence in. Jesus says in Matthew 21, 22, "all things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive." Now, how do we know He's going to answer this one? Because what verse 16 tells us,"if you see any brother or sisters commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life." Now, this is amazing. We know this in verse 18, it's not in our text, but verse 18 goes on to say, "we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who has been born of God protects him and the evil one does not touch him." You see, every true Christian will come back. Every true Christian will have life.

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We know God's going to discipline His children. If they are, and I guess that's the big if, if they do know the Lord, our prayers will bring, will be answered and be part of God's tools to bring them back. So in conclusion of sermon number one, hey, I did it.

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We can pray. God will hear us. We can have confidence. Don't grow weary in praying for the ones you love, that you know are Christians.