WEBVTT 00:00:00.461 --> 00:00:00.941 Good morning. 00:00:00.941 --> 00:00:12.071 Whether you are online with us or you are here today, we're happy that you are here and if you're, if you, I know some people up in Missouri and Arkansas and some other people. 00:00:12.071 --> 00:00:16.550 Actually some of y'all's family in New York says she watches it's perfect time. 00:00:16.550 --> 00:00:24.547 You are still our family, like a distant relative that you don't see but once or twice a year. 00:00:24.547 --> 00:00:25.952 You still count them as family. 00:00:25.952 --> 00:00:27.786 So you still matter to us. 00:00:27.786 --> 00:00:31.367 So make sure if you're at home and you're watching, you still do that. 00:00:31.367 --> 00:00:39.310 Text 94,000, because we want to communicate with you, we want to get to know you better and we want to get you plugged in with our family. 00:00:39.310 --> 00:01:06.123 So if you can stand for the reading of God's word and today we're going to be coming out of John, chapter 14, verse 14, 13 and 14, sorry and I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the father may be glorified in the son, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 00:01:06.123 --> 00:01:13.765 Verse 14 says you may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. 00:01:13.765 --> 00:01:20.040 Let's pray, father, we thank you so much for your mercy and your grace that are renewed every single morning. 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:23.465 Whether we deserve it or whether we don't, you still supply. 00:01:23.465 --> 00:01:32.156 I thank you, god, for your faithfulness, for your goodness, for your mercy and your love, even when we are not deserving. 00:01:32.156 --> 00:01:34.442 Thank you, lord, for your sacrifice. 00:01:34.442 --> 00:01:41.384 Thank you, lord, for allowing us to be and meet here once more again to worship and bring glory to your name. 00:01:41.384 --> 00:01:43.688 In your name, we pray, amen. 00:01:43.688 --> 00:01:45.313 You may be seated. 00:01:45.313 --> 00:02:03.891 I believe today that God is going to transform someone's life. 00:02:03.891 --> 00:02:10.159 Will you receive that today? 00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:13.895 Will you receive that? 00:02:17.460 --> 00:02:19.383 So who has been doing, every single day, the challenge of 17? 00:02:19.383 --> 00:02:25.644 Five minutes in prayer, five minutes in worship, five minutes in reading the word. 00:02:25.644 --> 00:02:33.625 One small act of faith every single day, small. 00:02:33.625 --> 00:02:36.808 Your act of faith may be getting out of bed. 00:02:36.808 --> 00:02:43.935 Your act of faith may be saying I love you to a spouse when you don't mean it. 00:02:43.935 --> 00:02:53.658 Mm-hmm, did y'all feel that? 00:02:53.658 --> 00:03:02.919 Your act of faith may have been sitting around a Thanksgiving table with people you didn't like? 00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:16.051 Your act of faith may have been shutting your mouth when you really wanted to open it up. 00:03:16.051 --> 00:03:22.270 Faith takes action and sometimes action means you don't take action, and sometimes that's the best form to keep the peace in the house. 00:03:22.270 --> 00:03:25.798 Can I get an amen to keep the peace in the house? 00:03:25.798 --> 00:03:26.199 Can I get an amen? 00:03:26.199 --> 00:03:26.360 Amen. 00:03:27.121 --> 00:03:36.665 So I, for the past two months since I've given this challenge, brother Dale after, and Brother Vernon was there one time and Pastor Aaron met us one time. 00:03:36.665 --> 00:03:43.307 There's someone that we have found at a restaurant at Cotton Patch and I hope she's watching. 00:03:43.307 --> 00:03:44.270 I hope this embarrasses her. 00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:49.028 Her name is Dee and she. 00:03:49.028 --> 00:03:56.352 The first time we met her she called her mama and introduced her mama to Brother Dale. 00:03:56.352 --> 00:04:00.007 That's the kind of sweet person she just called her mama. 00:04:00.007 --> 00:04:00.729 Hey, you want to meet my mom? 00:04:00.729 --> 00:04:01.920 Okay. 00:04:03.163 --> 00:04:04.165 So we invited her to church. 00:04:04.165 --> 00:04:09.002 We went back this last week we invited her again. 00:04:09.002 --> 00:04:12.632 You know what? 00:04:12.632 --> 00:04:17.882 I found out that she's having to work so many shifts because her mom is having brain surgery coming up. 00:04:17.882 --> 00:04:24.074 Three, four weeks ago we didn't know. 00:04:24.074 --> 00:04:28.997 Three, four weeks ago we didn't know. 00:04:28.997 --> 00:04:36.649 But I told her that I'm going to tell my church and we're going to touch heaven for her, because I believe that God hears our prayers. 00:04:38.641 --> 00:04:44.702 I believe that when we speak, the Bible says the faith of a mustard seed in the mountain will be moved. 00:04:44.702 --> 00:04:50.271 In Jesus' name, if we do something and we speak, things have to begin to happen. 00:04:50.271 --> 00:04:56.567 Nowhere in the word of God does it say it might. 00:04:56.567 --> 00:04:59.312 Nowhere. 00:04:59.312 --> 00:05:10.329 Nowhere does it say a specific combination of something that you have to do stomp your feet four times, clap your hands three times and say hallelujah Jesus twice. 00:05:10.329 --> 00:05:37.430 It does not say that Multiple times people are being healed in the word of God, they're being redeemed and restored and transformed by their faith Faith Looking stupid, putting your pride and reputation on the line for the sake and the glory of God. 00:05:37.430 --> 00:05:41.769 We have to start stepping out. 00:05:41.769 --> 00:05:43.764 I'm a little fired up. 00:05:43.783 --> 00:05:47.423 If you can't notice, we had our second class of growth track last night. 00:05:47.423 --> 00:05:48.766 Anybody who was there? 00:05:48.766 --> 00:05:50.851 There you go, come on growth track people. 00:05:50.851 --> 00:05:57.384 This first week we go through the growth track and if you don't know, so out there on the sign up sheet or the sign up table. 00:05:57.384 --> 00:05:58.608 There's a table in that corner. 00:05:58.608 --> 00:06:06.670 Anytime we mention anything, and sometimes even if we don't, because we don't want to overload you there will be a sign-up sheet for whatever's going on, okay? 00:06:06.670 --> 00:06:10.942 So if you see something, a piece of paper, on that table, go check it out. 00:06:10.942 --> 00:06:18.990 Don't pay attention to the month, because we had to move things back several times, so the month is not accurate, but the GrowthTrack sign-up sheet is there. 00:06:18.990 --> 00:06:23.446 We want your name, your number and your email so we can reach out to you and get scheduled with all the people that want to go through it. 00:06:23.906 --> 00:06:42.589 But the first week of growth track is getting everyone on the same page of what we believe, who we believe in and how we believe in Our core values, our core beliefs and, like I said last week, we believe in speaking in tongues and we believe in not suppressing the spirit when he wants to move. 00:06:42.589 --> 00:06:56.389 And if you don't agree with that, there's plenty of churches around here that don't mind doing that, plenty of churches that don't mind suppressing God, putting him on a schedule. 00:06:56.389 --> 00:06:59.194 Sorry, I'm going, I'm meddling. 00:06:59.194 --> 00:07:11.160 So 555, one act of faith and invite one person to church, because you never know, you never know when someone is at the lowest of low. 00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:21.149 God has primed and ordained our steps and has got them to a place when they needed somebody Just to share the love of Jesus with them, not to preach to them. 00:07:21.149 --> 00:07:22.947 That's my job. 00:07:22.947 --> 00:07:25.709 Your job is to share the love. 00:07:25.709 --> 00:07:34.428 Your job is to show them that not all Christians are liars and fake, and we show that and display that. 00:07:34.428 --> 00:07:39.492 Jesus said another commandment I give you is to love each other, so that they will know my love. 00:07:39.492 --> 00:07:45.307 We have to get our house in order Before we can try to go correct theirs. 00:07:45.307 --> 00:07:47.485 They won't receive it. 00:07:47.485 --> 00:07:58.528 If I have a cigarette in my mouth and a beer in my hand and I say, hey, man, you need to stop drinking and smoking, does that add up to anybody in here? 00:07:58.528 --> 00:07:59.904 That's illogical. 00:07:59.904 --> 00:08:06.814 Yet we embrace a sinful nature of our flesh and we tell the world they need to get saved. 00:08:07.060 --> 00:08:09.223 It's time for the church to start getting saved. 00:08:09.223 --> 00:08:17.134 So how have you been doing? 00:08:17.134 --> 00:08:20.541 You been doing it, man. 00:08:20.541 --> 00:08:30.052 I tell you, when you start spending time with God, man, I tell you, when you start spending time with God, when you start letting him be the Lord of your life. 00:08:30.052 --> 00:08:42.495 God is not your buddy, he is the Lord and the King of the universe. 00:08:42.495 --> 00:08:44.923 We need to serve him as such. 00:08:44.923 --> 00:08:46.326 Every week, god is changing your life. 00:08:46.326 --> 00:08:52.235 If you have started doing these five, five and five, just this alone will begin to change who you are. 00:08:52.235 --> 00:09:01.366 It will transform your mind and renew your mind and give you a strength and bring your joy back, because where the joy of the Lord is, that's where the believers get their strength from. 00:09:01.366 --> 00:09:06.684 If you're having trouble with finding your joys because you're not getting in the Word you're not being poured into. 00:09:06.684 --> 00:09:10.366 Let the Holy Spirit come on you and transform you and move you. 00:09:13.981 --> 00:09:16.945 Sometimes it's letting go of old habits and replacing them with new ones. 00:09:16.945 --> 00:09:20.248 The churches are really good about addition. 00:09:20.248 --> 00:09:25.308 We love adding things and we are terrified of taking things away. 00:09:25.308 --> 00:09:28.964 Something new. 00:09:28.964 --> 00:09:41.965 People get excited about something new, but something that the church has been doing for a while and you have to maybe stop doing it because it's more of a hassle than it is a help and you get on this page with everybody that hates you because you're changing something. 00:09:41.965 --> 00:09:43.667 You're taking away their thing. 00:09:43.667 --> 00:10:06.360 Sometimes we have to take out old habits, old ways of thinking, and start living in the freedom and living in the truth of the Scripture, and this change and transformation that we allow God to do inside of us and in our hearts and our minds it will echo for generations. 00:10:07.039 --> 00:10:08.263 God is not a small God to only affect your household. 00:10:08.263 --> 00:10:19.625 When you start adhering to his word and you allow him to move in your household, you will affect the households of the others and it may be that you affect them and they don't like you anymore, but they will be affected. 00:10:19.625 --> 00:10:22.292 Sin doesn't like correction. 00:10:22.292 --> 00:10:23.535 Our flesh doesn't like correction. 00:10:23.535 --> 00:10:25.120 Our flesh doesn't like to be corrected. 00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:39.370 We want to be pampered, pacified and praised and we don't want nobody to tell me if you oh, the bible's offensive you're right, because we don't. 00:10:39.370 --> 00:10:40.759 We don't change until we get offended. 00:10:43.105 --> 00:10:45.672 We ask god has anybody ever been I'm guilty of this? 00:10:45.672 --> 00:10:48.509 We ask God for such huge things. 00:10:48.509 --> 00:10:50.145 I want God to heal cancer. 00:10:50.145 --> 00:10:53.788 I want God to bring the dead back to life. 00:10:53.788 --> 00:10:56.687 I want lives to be transformed. 00:10:56.687 --> 00:10:58.086 I want marriages to be healed. 00:10:58.086 --> 00:11:00.928 I want depression to flee in the name of Jesus. 00:11:00.928 --> 00:11:05.703 I want sight to be restored and a holy, true vision in the house of Jesus. 00:11:05.703 --> 00:11:08.696 I want sight to be restored and a holy, true vision in the house of God. 00:11:08.696 --> 00:11:13.269 But all of that is wonderful and great, but it doesn't start at the end. 00:11:13.269 --> 00:11:14.181 You have to go to the beginning. 00:11:16.024 --> 00:11:30.751 These small acts of faith is sometimes grabbing somebody's hand in the middle of the store and praying with them right there, because I guarantee you that everyone else is saying the phrase I'll be praying for you and never pray. 00:11:30.751 --> 00:11:41.094 We need to be hand-grabbing, thunderstruck, earth-shaking, walmart-testifying people. 00:11:41.094 --> 00:11:44.167 Have y'all seen somebody in a Walmart? 00:11:44.167 --> 00:11:45.264 You know they need saved. 00:11:45.264 --> 00:11:52.785 We'll be praying for you. 00:11:52.785 --> 00:11:59.548 See, god says listen to this. 00:11:59.548 --> 00:12:12.043 God says, when God gives us a representation of what it will take to do something that will unlock the access he has available for us, it always starts with something small, every single time. 00:12:12.043 --> 00:12:14.510 Mustard seed faith, you will be able to move mountains. 00:12:16.081 --> 00:12:20.211 The story of the woman with two mites, her little two mites. 00:12:20.211 --> 00:12:23.206 That was way lower than everything that everybody don't. 00:12:23.206 --> 00:12:26.022 You dare hold back your tithes and giving from God because you can't. 00:12:26.022 --> 00:12:26.903 You say you can't. 00:12:26.903 --> 00:12:30.692 Jesus proved in this story that you can. 00:12:30.692 --> 00:12:36.011 What if God said and held his blessings back and said, oh, I'm sorry, I can't? 00:12:36.011 --> 00:12:39.769 His blessings back and said, oh, I'm sorry, I can't, mm-hmm, they have a perspective. 00:12:39.769 --> 00:12:49.607 But these two mites in the eyes of Jesus was something greater, because she actually gave out of sacrifice and she gave out of obedience. 00:12:49.607 --> 00:12:59.969 The lady with the issue of blood, it doesn't say she took Jesus' robe and she was healed. 00:12:59.969 --> 00:13:02.306 It was the hem. 00:13:02.306 --> 00:13:11.969 Compared to the shirt, this hem is nothing Compared to the magnitude of what she needed. 00:13:11.969 --> 00:13:14.408 Touching his hem should not have done anything. 00:13:14.408 --> 00:13:30.311 But the little things in the hands of Jesus, the little skills that you have, the little passions you have, in the hand of the Almighty God can cast out demons, can restore homes can break every chain. 00:13:30.311 --> 00:13:40.394 In the name of Jesus, do not overlook the little, because the little actually will produce the latter. 00:13:40.394 --> 00:13:45.211 Hold on to the little and use what you have. 00:13:47.542 --> 00:13:49.206 I think we fall in the trap of comparison. 00:13:49.206 --> 00:13:51.725 We do this in church, we do this in our personal lives. 00:13:51.725 --> 00:13:54.568 Comparison write this down if you're taking notes. 00:13:54.568 --> 00:13:56.105 Comparison kills. 00:13:56.105 --> 00:14:05.094 Calling God can put a call on your life and you look at somebody else and yourself, or you look at their Instagram stories. 00:14:05.094 --> 00:14:06.801 You're like whoa, god's really using them. 00:14:06.801 --> 00:14:07.802 He'll never do that for me. 00:14:07.802 --> 00:14:14.663 Do work where you are, stop looking at everybody else's field and start tolling the ground. 00:14:16.407 --> 00:14:17.809 I think we fall into the trap of comparison. 00:14:17.809 --> 00:14:20.433 We want the big results without the small first steps. 00:14:20.433 --> 00:14:22.587 We want the wins without the losses. 00:14:22.587 --> 00:14:27.470 We want the big house without the countless hours of working. 00:14:27.470 --> 00:14:35.527 We want the perfect marriage without all the fights Come on somebody. 00:14:35.527 --> 00:14:43.013 We want the perfect church without all the personality Woo. 00:14:43.013 --> 00:14:47.028 We want the miracles without the prayer and fasting. 00:14:49.880 --> 00:14:53.370 Don't overlook the small steps that God has been leading you to take. 00:14:53.370 --> 00:14:57.668 It is better if you see this. 00:14:57.668 --> 00:14:59.605 This is one of the biggest struggles that I have. 00:14:59.605 --> 00:15:05.966 I'm scared of failing Because I don't want to mess up. 00:15:05.966 --> 00:15:08.307 I don't want it to be a public display. 00:15:08.307 --> 00:15:12.006 People will get the bigger. 00:15:12.006 --> 00:15:16.030 The more you grow, the more judgmental people you'll have come in your life. 00:15:16.030 --> 00:15:18.645 Use it for fuel, baby. 00:15:18.645 --> 00:15:21.663 Let it propel you to where God's trying to lead you. 00:15:21.663 --> 00:15:23.368 Don't let it hold you back. 00:15:23.368 --> 00:15:26.883 If you fall, fall forward in the arms of Jesus and just keep on going. 00:15:26.883 --> 00:15:32.875 Don't let somebody else's attitude control your latitude. 00:15:32.875 --> 00:15:36.803 Man, all these things are rhyming. 00:15:36.803 --> 00:15:37.748 I didn't even have them in my notes. 00:15:39.880 --> 00:15:41.825 So who believes in here that there is power in prayer? 00:15:41.825 --> 00:15:44.952 Have you seen it? 00:15:44.952 --> 00:15:49.700 Without a doubt, everybody in here watching online. 00:15:49.700 --> 00:15:53.410 You have seen at some point in your life that prayer works. 00:15:53.410 --> 00:15:56.729 When people come together, something happens. 00:15:56.729 --> 00:15:59.246 The presence of God fills the room. 00:15:59.246 --> 00:16:02.850 When we start to praise, the Bible says that he inhabits our praises. 00:16:02.850 --> 00:16:11.767 When we start praising and letting go of our pride and whatever we're dealing with outside of these walls and we just shed it all and we just God. 00:16:11.767 --> 00:16:24.841 Whatever you want to do, do he shows up every single time, up every single time. 00:16:24.861 --> 00:16:28.309 In my life I have seen my two, both of my parents, go through hell and back with disease my father had. 00:16:28.309 --> 00:16:30.075 Does anybody know what rheumatoid arthritis is? 00:16:30.075 --> 00:16:32.780 He could not button his shirt. 00:16:32.780 --> 00:16:35.648 He could not get up and go to the bathroom by himself. 00:16:35.648 --> 00:16:40.503 I'm eight, nine years old and I'm helping trying to get my mom to get him out of the chair. 00:16:40.503 --> 00:16:43.128 And he was a pastor. 00:16:44.250 --> 00:16:48.445 You remember the story of Job in the Bible, how he cried out God, what have I done? 00:16:48.445 --> 00:16:53.354 Who came along His friends to say, what have you done? 00:16:53.354 --> 00:16:56.764 I remember watching my dad cry himself. 00:16:56.764 --> 00:17:03.673 I remember watching my dad cry himself, soaking wet, with his head covered because he was in such shame. 00:17:03.673 --> 00:17:10.886 He said, god, if I've done anything, please take this from me. 00:17:10.886 --> 00:17:20.980 God did not take him away from that, he led him through it. 00:17:23.308 --> 00:17:37.846 Sometimes we want God to come down in our situation and snatch us up, like a kid running out into the street and the parent comes to snatch and takes them and holds them back and God sometimes says no, I need you to learn something so out of this disease that my father had. 00:17:37.846 --> 00:17:40.112 He prayed, he cried, he prayed and he cried. 00:17:40.112 --> 00:17:41.923 He was at a hospital. 00:17:41.923 --> 00:17:44.055 They were doing some more tests. 00:17:44.055 --> 00:17:49.090 They were trying to see because he was in his 30s, maybe his 40s, and it just out of nowhere, just hit him. 00:17:49.090 --> 00:17:53.769 No family history of anything like this. 00:17:53.769 --> 00:18:05.029 It was just totally random and he's in this hospital and he's gotten enough on some medicine that he could make his way down to the chapel. 00:18:05.029 --> 00:18:06.886 He had a nurse push him down there. 00:18:06.886 --> 00:18:23.988 It was Sunday and he had to go to church and he was down there and it was empty except for this one lady, and every time he tells a story he cries. 00:18:23.988 --> 00:18:25.951 I don't remember the whole story of why she was in there. 00:18:25.951 --> 00:18:47.192 I think it was somebody that she knew had been shot or something and she was crying out to God herself and she didn't know Jesus, but she knew that she needed to come to the chapel and my father was able to minister to this random person in the hospital that gave her heart to the Lord right there on the spot. 00:18:49.701 --> 00:19:01.061 If we say to God, whatever you want to do with our lives, sometimes he will lead you down the path of disease to get you to a destination that somebody needs to know him. 00:19:01.061 --> 00:19:06.113 Now you have to ask yourself is it worth it? 00:19:06.113 --> 00:19:06.333 To you? 00:19:06.333 --> 00:19:11.632 It's very easy to say yes, real quick, until you're in the middle of it. 00:19:11.632 --> 00:19:17.452 My mother and y'all y'all met my dad. 00:19:17.452 --> 00:19:17.874 He's's been here. 00:19:17.874 --> 00:19:22.825 He's been completely healed, god completely restored, hadn't had any issues, except now he's getting old. 00:19:22.825 --> 00:19:31.286 Sorry, I know he's watching, that's why I said it Lots of payback. 00:19:33.710 --> 00:19:43.690 My mother I remember the day it was a Sunday morning I was playing drums on the stage and it was actually set up a lot like this and a lot smaller stage. 00:19:43.690 --> 00:19:44.432 It was a little church. 00:19:44.432 --> 00:19:47.709 She was over there by a door that went out to the fellowship hall. 00:19:47.709 --> 00:19:54.352 We were on the stage and she was playing bass and all of a sudden we're all playing, we're worshiping. 00:19:54.352 --> 00:20:00.873 All of a sudden I see her out of the corner of my eye grab her chest and she hits the wall and slides down. 00:20:00.873 --> 00:20:06.465 I can't tell you the fear. 00:20:06.465 --> 00:20:15.634 I was 15, maybe 16, to come over to me and see my mother grab her chest and fall to the ground. 00:20:15.634 --> 00:20:18.934 Because of the way that she fell. 00:20:18.934 --> 00:20:19.760 I thought that it was it. 00:20:22.223 --> 00:20:23.105 They took her to the doctor. 00:20:23.105 --> 00:20:27.291 She had primary pulmonary hypertension. 00:20:27.291 --> 00:20:33.190 She had taken a medicine and due to legal reasons I can't disclose what it was. 00:20:33.190 --> 00:20:43.971 But she took a medicine and it caused her heart and her lungs both to overwork because in between there there was a valve that had pinholes in it. 00:20:43.971 --> 00:21:01.726 They had people from England, from Germany, houston, everywhere trying to come and figure out what is going on with her and how to save her life, because at the end they said that she had three to five years to live and that she needed a heart and a lung transplant. 00:21:01.726 --> 00:21:07.525 I don't know if you know about any of this, but it's incredibly hard to give even one of those. 00:21:07.525 --> 00:21:10.011 She would have been long gone. 00:21:10.011 --> 00:21:13.363 Y'all saw her here a few weeks ago. 00:21:15.367 --> 00:21:29.131 When people join together in prayer and the Bible talks about the strength of gathering together and getting in one mind and one accord, how powerful we become, heaven and earth move on our behalf when God's children come before the throne room. 00:21:29.131 --> 00:21:36.231 Those are two specific reasons in my life where God did something amazing. 00:21:36.231 --> 00:21:47.354 It was hard to have faith in that time, but it was replenishing to the faith that I got worn out with in that time when they were healed. 00:21:47.354 --> 00:21:50.346 And that leads me to the title of my message today. 00:21:50.346 --> 00:22:05.328 Even if he doesn't Because sometimes God does not do what we ask him to do that aftermath is when it's hard to have faith. 00:22:05.328 --> 00:22:12.311 Still, it's hard to believe that God even still loves you, that he cares for you. 00:22:12.311 --> 00:22:15.252 God, if you love me, you wouldn't let anything bad happen, right? 00:22:15.252 --> 00:22:16.359 If you love me, you wouldn't let anything bad happen. 00:22:16.359 --> 00:22:35.590 Right In Joshua 10, we see God showing up Joshua, he prayed for a sun stand still moment that lasted an entire day to give them enough sunlight to win the battle. 00:22:37.941 --> 00:22:43.744 Yet we pray for somebody who's in the middle of a rough time in their marriage and they still get divorced. 00:22:43.744 --> 00:22:53.133 We see in 1 Kings 18, elijah calls down fire from heaven and consumes. 00:22:53.133 --> 00:23:00.313 They even put it in water and it consumes his sacrifice and proves that there is a God. 00:23:00.313 --> 00:23:07.470 Yet we have people in this very church that we prayed for and died from COVID. 00:23:07.470 --> 00:23:14.463 Prayer is powerful. 00:23:14.463 --> 00:23:17.170 We know this from experience. 00:23:17.211 --> 00:23:19.967 But many times in our lives it can get a little confusing. 00:23:19.967 --> 00:23:30.284 What happens if you ask God and you know that he can, you believe that he can. 00:23:30.284 --> 00:23:34.512 You know that he should, but he doesn't. 00:23:34.512 --> 00:23:38.022 Is something wrong? 00:23:38.022 --> 00:23:38.984 Is God not listening? 00:23:38.984 --> 00:23:40.809 Is he mad? 00:23:40.809 --> 00:23:41.991 Does he not care? 00:23:41.991 --> 00:23:47.190 Even if he doesn't, I will still trust him. 00:23:47.190 --> 00:23:49.923 I will still believe him. 00:23:49.923 --> 00:23:59.453 Because here's what happens If you base your walk with God on emotion and what he does, you will falter and fail. 00:23:59.453 --> 00:24:00.884 You will lose hope. 00:24:00.884 --> 00:24:04.667 You will lose faith, because we don't worship him for what he does. 00:24:04.667 --> 00:24:05.945 We worship him for who he is. 00:24:05.945 --> 00:24:15.067 It is great all that he does, but it's even greater and more powerful when you start to talk about who he is. 00:24:17.560 --> 00:24:23.387 We've been really trying to break down the faith in these last few weeks, to make it a part of our everyday walk. 00:24:23.387 --> 00:24:32.744 That's why I thought it was so important to include it in that 15 challenge, to make it 16 and to make it 17, because it's so important that you invite somebody into the house of God. 00:24:32.744 --> 00:24:47.226 It's so important that you have an act of faith every day, because you start to exercise that little muscle and when you exercise even the smallest of muscles, they grow. 00:24:47.226 --> 00:24:49.148 For me it's not believing if God can do something. 00:24:49.148 --> 00:24:50.290 I have great faith in that. 00:24:50.290 --> 00:24:52.575 Actually, one of my strongest spiritual gifts is faith. 00:24:52.575 --> 00:25:04.773 When I pray it, I believe it and I'm looking for it to happen, like I literally am looking for it to happen and manifest itself in front of me. 00:25:04.773 --> 00:25:15.452 But sometimes, when God doesn't heal, it makes me question Am I alone, the man after God's own heart? 00:25:15.653 --> 00:25:21.846 David whined and questioned constantly and in the same paragraph encouraged himself about who God was. 00:25:21.846 --> 00:25:37.571 I'm not saying it's schizophrenia, but the guy would be so upset and then he would wrap it up by encouraging himself, because he would start in the middle of his pouring out to God. 00:25:37.571 --> 00:25:39.567 It would become a praise and then he would start to remember who of his pouring out to God. 00:25:39.567 --> 00:25:42.270 It would become a praise and then he would start to remember who God is, and it encouraged him. 00:25:42.270 --> 00:25:45.962 Sometimes nobody around you will lift you up and encourage you. 00:25:45.962 --> 00:25:47.205 You've got to encourage yourself. 00:25:47.205 --> 00:25:53.950 You've got to step out in faith on your own, because you may be around a bunch of sinners at your job. 00:25:53.950 --> 00:25:55.342 You don't have Christian friends. 00:25:55.342 --> 00:25:59.092 You just came to the faith you're really struggling with, if God is even real. 00:25:59.092 --> 00:26:01.468 Start praising him and he will inhabit it. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:05.924 So we're going to dive in a little bit. 00:26:05.924 --> 00:26:14.814 We're going to get some scripture, and one thing that you always need to do when you're studying the Bible is do not allow your flesh or someone else to interpret scripture for you. 00:26:14.814 --> 00:26:16.506 The scripture will interpret scripture. 00:26:16.506 --> 00:26:19.740 So today we're going to look at this. 00:26:19.740 --> 00:26:22.268 We need a little bit of understanding to lay the groundwork. 00:26:22.268 --> 00:26:25.303 We got to know the nature of God and the purpose of prayer. 00:26:25.344 --> 00:26:26.665 This is hard for us to grasp. 00:26:26.665 --> 00:26:29.952 We're not the main character of the story. 00:26:29.952 --> 00:26:43.720 Is that hard sometimes to think about that Like, wait a minute, god's not here for me, no, we're here for him. 00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:49.186 We exist to serve him, not the other way around. 00:26:49.186 --> 00:26:52.932 We exist to serve him. 00:26:52.932 --> 00:26:59.009 We don't pray to get God to do stuff for us and see, that's what it kind of becomes. 00:26:59.009 --> 00:27:01.969 We're in the holiday season, so I'll use the reference. 00:27:01.969 --> 00:27:04.005 We use God like our Santa Claus. 00:27:04.005 --> 00:27:16.371 We make a list, we ask him to check it twice and if I open the package and it's something different than what I want, I'm going to throw a little fit or I'm going to be mad or I'm going to have an attitude. 00:27:17.941 --> 00:27:19.768 Prayer is for us to know his will. 00:27:19.768 --> 00:27:22.106 It is for us to know his heart. 00:27:22.106 --> 00:27:25.685 He's not a slot machine. 00:27:25.685 --> 00:27:26.845 He's not our spiritual Santa. 00:27:26.845 --> 00:27:30.266 It's not if you've been a good girl or a bad girl. 00:27:30.266 --> 00:27:31.971 You get a lump of coal, or he answers your prayer. 00:27:31.971 --> 00:27:37.730 The purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. 00:27:37.730 --> 00:27:41.410 It's so that we get closer to him, to begin to understand his. 00:27:41.410 --> 00:27:49.588 Prayer is about relationship, to pursue God in a very intimate way. 00:27:49.588 --> 00:27:53.910 So now we come to the big question why does God not answer my prayer? 00:27:53.910 --> 00:28:01.461 So, with any questions you have about the Bible, always let the Bible interpret the Bible. 00:28:01.461 --> 00:28:04.228 Now I'm going to lay out some things. 00:28:04.228 --> 00:28:06.053 I'm going to go through it quick. 00:28:06.053 --> 00:28:08.005 You can write it down or you can always go back. 00:28:08.005 --> 00:28:11.021 We have the video every week where you can go back and watch it on our YouTube. 00:28:14.047 --> 00:28:25.451 I cannot, from this pulpit, tell you the steps to take to solve your doubt in prayer, but I can give you some scriptures that I hope will prompt you to start digging yourself. 00:28:25.451 --> 00:28:33.345 If you rely for a pastor to give you all the answers in a 30 to 40 minute message, you're doing it wrong. 00:28:33.345 --> 00:28:36.428 I am not the one you go to for answers. 00:28:36.428 --> 00:28:43.348 I will help you, lead and guide you in any way that I can, and the Spirit leads me, but you need to go directly to God and to His Word. 00:28:43.348 --> 00:28:47.484 Now, number one, we want to ask the question do I have broken relationships? 00:28:47.484 --> 00:28:50.593 Why does God not answer my prayer? 00:28:50.593 --> 00:28:52.201 Maybe I have broken relationships? 00:28:52.201 --> 00:28:54.144 Say well, I approve it All right. 00:28:54.144 --> 00:28:56.047 Well, mark 11, verse 24,. 00:28:56.047 --> 00:28:56.768 Say well, I approve it All right. 00:28:56.768 --> 00:28:57.829 Well, mark 11, verse 24. 00:28:58.391 --> 00:29:07.000 Therefore, I tell you whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:09.205 In verse 25, it says this Right behind. 00:29:09.205 --> 00:29:09.948 If you believe it. 00:29:09.948 --> 00:29:10.871 I will answer it. 00:29:10.871 --> 00:29:26.739 Verse 25 says and when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven will forgive you. 00:29:27.400 --> 00:29:37.255 Matthew 5, 23 and 24 says Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there, remember that your brother or sister has something against you, not you having something against them. 00:29:37.255 --> 00:29:42.211 If you know that they have something against you, you need to go make it right. 00:29:42.211 --> 00:29:46.049 That is backwards to what my mind wants to think. 00:29:46.049 --> 00:29:55.567 They're supposed to come to me, but it says no, you go to them and make it right, because you're supposed to be my servant, you're supposed to be showing the love of God. 00:29:55.567 --> 00:29:57.224 You don't wait for the sinner to come to you. 00:29:57.224 --> 00:29:59.131 Go to them. 00:29:59.131 --> 00:30:04.644 Leave your gifts there in front of the altar. 00:30:04.644 --> 00:30:08.463 Listen, we know that God loves our worship and he desires our sacrifice. 00:30:08.463 --> 00:30:12.092 But in the middle of that sacrifice he said leave it and go. 00:30:12.092 --> 00:30:13.582 Fix your relationship. 00:30:13.582 --> 00:30:23.027 That's how important relationships are to God, so much so that he says that he won't forgive us if we're holding on to unforgiveness towards someone else. 00:30:23.027 --> 00:30:26.821 Leave your gift there in front of the altar First. 00:30:26.821 --> 00:30:30.611 Go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift. 00:30:30.611 --> 00:30:39.335 So it's very obvious here from scripture that God answers prayer according to your level of forgiveness and relationships. 00:30:39.335 --> 00:30:45.930 If you don't fix your relationships or issue between you and someone else, he won't forgive you. 00:30:45.930 --> 00:30:48.094 That's serious. 00:30:50.641 --> 00:30:53.390 Number two maybe you have the wrong motives. 00:30:53.390 --> 00:30:57.127 The Pharisees they wanted to be prayed. 00:30:57.127 --> 00:30:58.645 They wanted to be seen when they prayed. 00:30:58.645 --> 00:31:00.951 They would do it loud and they would do it proud. 00:31:00.951 --> 00:31:03.702 They do it for everybody to know their business and how holy they were. 00:31:03.702 --> 00:31:09.314 Lord bless my business, but I'm not willing to tithe. 00:31:09.314 --> 00:31:16.692 I want my hair to be thicker, I want my nails to be longer, I want my income higher. 00:31:16.692 --> 00:31:22.045 We become hungry for the spotlight and the glory that really belongs truly to God. 00:31:26.553 --> 00:31:35.253 So maybe you have broken relationships, maybe you have wrong motives, or maybe your faith is weak and you just don't believe God can. 00:31:35.253 --> 00:31:39.415 Your faith is weak and you just don't believe God can. 00:31:39.415 --> 00:31:42.567 This is tough, especially after a loss, someone not being healed. 00:31:42.567 --> 00:31:58.577 It's tough to continue to believe when you don't see the miracle you asked God for, especially if you're like me, and I believe it's going to happen and I'm like God. 00:31:58.577 --> 00:32:01.005 I prayed, I believed. 00:32:01.005 --> 00:32:01.707 Why in the world. 00:32:01.707 --> 00:32:03.471 Did it not happen before us? 00:32:03.471 --> 00:32:09.859 That would have been such a good testimony of your grace and your mercy and your power. 00:32:11.441 --> 00:32:13.064 In Mark, chapter nine, a boy is possessed. 00:32:13.064 --> 00:32:16.151 He can't talk. 00:32:16.151 --> 00:32:16.952 He foams at the mouth. 00:32:16.952 --> 00:32:23.300 He is thrown into the fire and water try to burn him alive and drown him. 00:32:23.300 --> 00:32:24.022 The spirit that's in him. 00:32:24.022 --> 00:32:28.160 The dad asked the disciples to drive it out and they couldn't do it. 00:32:28.160 --> 00:32:32.248 Where is their faith? 00:32:32.248 --> 00:32:35.394 Mark, chapter 9, verse 22. 00:32:35.394 --> 00:32:35.934 It says this. 00:32:42.296 --> 00:32:43.598 Mark, chapter 9, verse 22,. 00:32:43.598 --> 00:32:47.877 It says this it has often thrown him into the fire or water to kill him. 00:32:47.877 --> 00:32:52.236 But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us If you can. 00:32:52.236 --> 00:33:02.150 If you can, said Jesus, if I can, I'm Jesus. 00:33:02.150 --> 00:33:08.605 The disciples couldn't do it, so he already had lost faith because the people who were closest to Jesus couldn't do what he was asking to do. 00:33:08.605 --> 00:33:14.730 Everything is possible for one who believes. 00:33:14.730 --> 00:33:20.946 Immediately, the boy's father exclaimed I do believe, but help my unbelief. 00:33:20.946 --> 00:33:25.065 Have you ever been there? 00:33:25.065 --> 00:33:31.928 You say God, I believe, but help my unbelief. 00:33:31.928 --> 00:33:36.403 I know that you can, but I'm not seeing that. 00:33:36.403 --> 00:33:44.986 You do Help my unbelief, but what about when he doesn't? 00:33:45.960 --> 00:33:50.486 In Matthew 9, 22, it says this the woman with the issue of blood again for 12 years. 00:33:50.486 --> 00:33:53.252 He said your faith has healed you. 00:33:53.252 --> 00:34:06.027 In Luke 7, we have the immoral woman come before Jesus and he saves her life from being stoned and says your faith has saved you. 00:34:06.027 --> 00:34:10.494 According to your faith, let it be done to you. 00:34:10.494 --> 00:34:12.304 And their sight was restored. 00:34:12.304 --> 00:34:15.431 Further in Matthew chapter 9, jesus heals two blind men. 00:34:15.431 --> 00:34:24.836 Matthew, chapter 9, jesus heals two blind men Over and over again. 00:34:24.836 --> 00:34:25.460 According to your faith. 00:34:28.873 --> 00:34:33.500 Sometimes we have to stop and I think we hold God captive, sometimes to what we believe is supposed to happen. 00:34:33.500 --> 00:34:35.527 And I say this because I am guilty. 00:34:35.527 --> 00:34:39.670 I look for what I am wanting to see. 00:34:39.670 --> 00:34:52.211 I'm asking God, through faith, for him to do the miracle that I desire for him to do, and most of the time I put my stamp of approval on it in the way that I want him to do it. 00:34:52.211 --> 00:34:55.965 So what am I doing? 00:34:55.965 --> 00:34:59.931 I'm asking God, in faith, to conform to my will. 00:34:59.931 --> 00:35:10.673 I'm asking God, the God of the universe, to do according to my will. 00:35:10.673 --> 00:35:16.688 But maybe God has something different planned. 00:35:18.440 --> 00:35:22.527 You ever prayed for somebody that was sick and they never made it out of the hospital. 00:35:22.527 --> 00:35:28.443 You can't find anybody who has passed on that has went to be with Jesus. 00:35:28.443 --> 00:35:29.648 That would come back now. 00:35:29.648 --> 00:35:39.181 We pray for healing and they end up getting the healing, the ultimate healing, and we get mad at God for him not healing them and letting them stay here. 00:35:39.181 --> 00:35:47.784 Sometimes the desires of our heart and our flesh is in the driver's seat and we pray selfishly. 00:35:47.784 --> 00:35:50.771 I want you to train yourself in this way. 00:35:50.791 --> 00:35:53.342 When you pray, who is benefiting from it the most? 00:35:53.342 --> 00:36:01.135 Is it you Think about it when you pray and you say God, I'm having faith? 00:36:01.135 --> 00:36:09.543 Have you even took the time to seek after his will, to know how to pray, to be led by the spirit of how you're supposed to pray? 00:36:09.543 --> 00:36:14.101 Yes, god loves when we just come and we pray and we cry out for a need. 00:36:14.101 --> 00:36:16.405 We are supposed to do that. 00:36:16.405 --> 00:36:27.943 But before we do that, we need to have the preparation in our spirits so that when the spirit of God moves on us to do something, we step out in action and we have faith. 00:36:27.943 --> 00:37:03.530 First, john, chapter 5, 14 and 15, it says this this is the confidence we have in approaching God that if we ask anything according to his will Verse 15 says and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked for him of him, asked for him of him. 00:37:03.530 --> 00:37:04.775 Now we have a very basic example. 00:37:04.795 --> 00:37:05.820 Here is Paul. 00:37:05.820 --> 00:37:12.204 The man went through some stuff and stayed with his faith for three long seasons. 00:37:12.204 --> 00:37:13.864