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We'll be looking at Matthew chapter seven and uh we're still studying about prayer and we may end up finishing it up this morning, but it has been a blessed thing to look at prayer in the Bible, and you know, um last Sunday we kind of did an in-depth dive in prayer, but this morning I want to look at one particular aspect of prayer that the Bible teaches about. And if my sermon had a title today, it would be Persist in Prayer. Persist in Prayer. That the Bible teaches that you and I are supposed to do that very thing. And so I want to open this morning by reading in Matthew chapter 7, beginning in verse 7, and we're going to read through verse 11. So these are the words of Jesus Christ. So we read in Matthew chapter 7, beginning in verse 7. This is also from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount when he's teaching on this very subject. So when Jesus not only has we've already looked at his model prayer, and now he tells us to persist in prayer. Matthew 7 and 7. Jesus said, Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and ye shall find. Or what man is there of you, whom if his if his son ask bread, will give him a stone, or if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent. If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Persist in prayer. This passage of scripture, I believe, that Jesus is telling us that when we pray, that we need to be persistent in our prayer, that we need to be continual in asking in a godly way, in an honoring way. Have you ever prayed about something and then maybe you just prayed one time or two times and the Lord didn't immediately respond, and then we just give up. Well, I want you to see here in this passage of scripture how the Lord Jesus Christ tells us to pray to the Father. So he first tells us in verse, because I believe that this passage of Scripture is talking about the Lord Jesus teaching us how you and I are to approach praying to God. So first off, he says, ask, and it shall be given to you. Has there ever been anything in mind in your life that you and I just don't ask God for? In other words, we just assume that, well, you know, we can take care of this, you know, we can uh, you know, fund the remodel of our house through our finances, or we can do this thing, or, you know, Lord, I, you know, Lord, I'm just supposed to do that, I'm the man of the house. Or I remember years ago that, uh, and I think I've shared this story with you before, that um, you know, we have an older property. We bought my grandparents' old farmplace, and on that property was an old building that was decaying, it was coming down, it was very old, and uh it was kind of a hazard, and um, you know, and we needed to take that building down. It was old wood and tin and whatnot, it was right behind our house. And anyway, and so I had recruited some help and my brother and family and whatnot, and anyway, and we were going to, we had scheduled a particular day that on this Saturday morning we were going to tear down this building. And we had planned about that, kind of recruited everybody's help, and we gathered all up that morning at eight or nine o'clock, and we were about to tear that down. I was uh just ready to dive in with two feet, and it was actually my brother, uh, not to pick on him this morning, but it was actually my brother that said, Well, Josh, we ought to pray about this before we start. And I want to tell you that as a pastor, when he mentioned that, I felt ashamed, not for him, but for me, because our whole family, or many of us, were about to start working on that building, and we were going to be using saws and sledgehammers, and we had trucks and trailers and crowbars and pry bars, and we were all gonna be working around each other, and you know, and and Brandon just mentioned that well, we ought to pray for our safety, and that also that all of this will go well, and that and I just and to be honest with you, that was one of those things in life that it had not occurred to me that I ought to pray about. It just didn't. I just didn't, my mind was not in that. I just I had woke up that morning and I was just all right, well, I'm ready to tear this building down, and that's something that I'm supposed to do, and you know, I'm just gonna get after it and just do it. You know, I put my leather gloves on, I was ready to go to work. Well, but when my brother mentioned that, I said, you know, you're right. We do need to pray about that. And so we stopped, and we not only prayed for our safety, that everybody would be safe as we did this. Again, you understand that this this building is less than the size of this sanctuary. It's just a small metal building on our property, and again, it just didn't even occur to me that I should pray about doing that. But we did. We stopped, we prayed about it. Lord, may we have keep us all safe and may we be successful in what we do today. And we did. We prayed about it. Well, I want to tell you what happened. We tore that building down very, very quickly. And we had borrowed my dad's big long trailer and we we loaded up. We and see, by the way, I've jokingly told my wife that again, we have an older home and older buildings, and every time I tear something down to remodel or build, I'm I'm encouraged by that, but I'm also encouraged when I haul it off, when it actually leaves my property. All the leftover dregs of what is from the cleanup work is actually gone from my property. It's it's clean, it's a clean slate. Well, so that particular day we had loaded up a huge trailer and piled it up high, and we not when we hauled it off, we got it dumped, we came back and we loaded that trailer up again, and then we hauled it off and dumped it, and by the and by the way, I think it was about 12:30 or 1 o'clock, that entire building was torn down, cleaned up, two huge loads hauled off, and the remaining slab had been swept clean. So there was absolutely nothing left, no debris, no nothing, and we were done a little bit after lunch. And then the thought occurred to me I would have never in a million years thought that we could have done that that fast, that safely, that cleanly, and got that amount of work done in a day. And brothers and sisters, I believe we did that because the Lord blessed the work. But I was about to not even ask for that. Now I tell you that story to tell you that there's a lot of things that you and I don't even think to pray about. They might be small things, they might be minor things, they might be things that you and I are just, well, we're just gonna take care of that. Ladies, have y'all ever prayed about a holiday gathering? Or that you know you have 10, 15, or 20 people to come, and the week before you're already a little bit anxious that are we gonna be able to get all the groceries and is everything gonna come together? And am I gonna be able to get the meal hot on the table at the appropriate time? And oh, by the way, that holiday falls on a church day where we've got to go to church too, and then how is all that gonna be coordinated where everybody can get here? Have you ever prayed about that? It's kind of like the building thing, wouldn't you agree? That's one of those things that sometimes we don't even think to pray about the preparation of the thing that is just so common or ordinary or that you and I normally handle. Well, Jesus says, Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you. So I want you to I wanted you to see that in this request, Jesus says three things. He first says, You and I need to ask God. That you and I actually need to verbalize the words. You and I need to exercise our mouth and say, God, I need help in this area, even though I thought I might not need help. I'm actually going to ask you for help. And then, oh, by the way, I want to tell you too that when we tore down that building and we did all of that, and then at whatever one o'clock or whenever we did that, we also prayed again at the end of all that and thank God for how he had blessed our work and our efforts that particular day. So let's be careful that when we do ask the Lord, and he does show up in a manner that was we were not expecting, that we're careful to make sure that we give him all the glory and praise for what he actually did. Because I don't think for a minute that the success was at our doings, it was that the Lord blessed the effort and the work. So let's be careful to give him the praise. But here, Jesus says first and foremost, you and I actually need to ask for the thing. And then he says, Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find. Well, let me give you an example. Have you ever prayed about something that the Lord, you know, uh we have a particular illness in our family, and, you know, Lord, we really don't know what to do about it, and Lord, we want you to help, we want you to intervene. Well, let me ask you a question. Should you and I not begin to seek the Lord in that? And what I mean by that is is there ever been a thing in your life when you didn't know something about it? Um I want to confess on myself a little bit that um for the majority of our marriage, Sister Chloe has been the main financial person in our marriage as far as paying the bills and the taxes and doing all that preparation. And, you know, and I do occasionally, occasionally had talked to her about that. And in any way, and in recent uh months and at the beginning of the year, you know, she was saying, you know, well, Josh, I wish you would be more involved and be more knowledgeable about this, and and I felt burdened about that and convicted about that. And well, I want to tell you, shame on me for my ignorance. That when I would go to the she would go to the store week after week and buy the groceries and pay the bills, and she'd make sure everything was shuffled around in the right place to where it all went well or whatever, and I was a little bit ignorant of that. And every now and then she'd be a little bit anxious about stuff getting paid or whatever, and I the only reason I tell you that is because I just didn't know, because I never had applied myself to know. Well, when I actually applied myself to know more about the bills and all those things, I was like, well, shoot, stuff is way more expensive than what I thought it is, and I really need to be more to know about this, and how are we going to save for our retirement and all these type of things? My point is, brothers and sisters, is I had never really seeked to know. So my question to you and me is that, for instance, if you and I have a medical problem, or one of our family members has a medical problem, you and not that you and I are a doctor, but you and I should become extremely knowledgeable about that very thing. Is that not right? In other words, if I am a man in my middle age and I'm worried about my retirement or my finances and, you know, and uh uh Roth IRAs and all that kind of stuff, then isn't it my job to do my own due diligence to educate myself about those things so that I actually, all right, Lord, if I want you to bless my finances, well then I need to know some of my finances. Because he's just not gonna add a thin air, just bless me if I'm an if I'm an ignorant soul and I have not done my due diligence to educate myself about those things. Well, Brother Josh, why are you telling me all that? Because when Jesus says, ask, and uh it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find. In other words, if your family has a medical problem and you know it's one of those things that's not very common, well, if it's not very common, then there's not a whole lot of doctors that know a whole lot about that. So you, brothers and sisters, and me ought to become a somewhat amateur expert about whatever thing it is that our family is dealing with, whether it's finances or whether it's a medical condition or whatever it is, you and I ought to apply ourselves in our due diligence to seek out that thing so that we can even pray better. In other words, Lord, my family member is is suffering from a particular disease and it's not a well-known disease, and you know what, there's not even a whole lot of doctors that know about it. So then I become seeking, as in, all right, well, who in the country is an expert on this particular disease? And then I begin to read. Again, I'm not a doctor, but I begin to read and understand and try to uh find out the cliff notes or the or the or the dummy books about what this particular disease is, so that I at least have a quote-unquote working knowledge of whatever that is, whether it's finances or the disease or whatever's going on. Well, brothers and sisters, is that not us seeking to know more? Lord, you know, my my loved one is dealing with this problem, and I don't know anything about this problem, but I should know some things about this problem. I want to seek to know more so that I can pray very particularly important. You know, uh, Lord, I know that according to the progression of this particular disease, that usually within about five to seven months that they begin to start having a lot of physical pain because of this particular thing. Well, Lord, I want you to help them. Lord, help them to be able to get through that phase of this, to get over that hump, because now when these medicines start kicking in and start helping. Well, in other words, I would have had no knowledge, or you would have had absolutely no knowledge about that if you and I had not applied ourselves to seek the thing. Amen? In other words, so when the Lord tells us in prayer, ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find. The Lord wants us to hunt, he wants us to search, he wants us to apply ourselves to the thing. You know, a farmer, what if a farmer tried to plant winter cold tolerant crops in the middle of the hottest summer in South Mississippi? Or vice versa. What if a farmer attempted to plant all summer growing crops in the midst of the fall when it started turning cold? Uh what kind of crop yield is he going to have? Not very good. Because he did not apply himself to know the things that he should have known to be a farmer. So when Jesus Christ is talking about us in prayer, he's saying, look, whatever thing it is, doesn't matter if it's crops or your finances or a medical condition or your family or the church, whatever it is, we need to seek. We need to hunt. We need to look for it. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you. Well, by the way, knock is a physical thing. So not only do you and I need to ask the Lord, you and I need to put feet to what our you know, to what our prayer requests are. Lord, I'm a farmer and I want you to bless my fields. And now that I know what to plant, the right crops and the right time of the year, and when to plant them, and how to plant them, because I've done all my homework, now I'm actually going to go buy the seed and buy the fertilizer and go out and plow the fields and then go plant the fields with my own hands and do the work and do the labor. And then, and it's the proper time of planting because I've done all that homework. And now, Lord, now, Lord, please bless my crops. Right? Lord, now please help me to be a diligent steward to make sure that I'm watching. Well, do I see the bright or do I see the birds, the raccoons that want to go steal the seed, or whatever the case may be? Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is just saying that you and I need to be diligent in prayer, and we need to ask, and we need to seek, and we need to knock. In other words, we don't just need to, oh Lord, I'm having problems in my life. Oh, I need you to bless them. Lord, I need you to fix them. How often do you and I just kind of throw up our hands? The Lord's saying, wait a minute. Friend, you need to not only ask, but you also need to seek. And you also need to knock. But I want you to look at what he says about that. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open unto you. So the man who just says, Lord, you know, I want you to bless my crops, and he goes out there and he just throws some corn out on the until ground, and then it comes the time of harvest, and he's got one or two little corn plants that come up. Lord, you just didn't bless me, you just didn't fix my problem, you just didn't feed my family. And the Lord's saying, Friend, you didn't do what you were supposed to do. In other words, you and I didn't ask right. You and I didn't seek right. You and I didn't knock right. Because we weren't doing our due diligence. The farmer who has done the diligent work, who's done all the things that the Lord has told him to do before. Please provide food on the table for my family. Look at verse 8. He says the same thing in verse 8 that he says in verse 7, but it says, For everyone that asketh receiveth. And he that seeketh find him, findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. That's a great blessing. But the point is that he mentions three different ways, with word and with mind, and with intent and with action and with purpose. The Lord is saying, when you pray, you need to be diligent in prayer. You need to persist in prayer. You don't just ask once, you ask educatedly, you ask seekingly, you ask with your own action. In other words, you and I are to do all the things that we know to do. Have you and I been obedient in the last thing the Lord told us to do? And the Lord's saying, you know, Lord bless me. Well, have I been obedient in the last thing the Lord told me to do? Well, no. I haven't done those last three things that he burdened on my heart that I should be doing. Well, then why are you asking the Lord to bless you if you and I aren't even being obedient to him in the things that he's already told us to do? So I want to I want to take a quick aside and then we're gonna come right back to this. So we're gonna we're gonna leave off and we're gonna pick up in verse 9. Y'all turn, if you will, to James chapter 4. James chapter 4. I want to throw something in here about us persisting in prayer. And you know, last Sunday we mentioned about the fact that you and I are to come to the Lord humbly, that we are coming to a king, and you and I are the servant, you and I are not even worthy to come into his throne room and ask of him a thing, but you and I, because we are children, because we are made heirs with Christ, because we have had the robe of righteousness put on us by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, you and I do have audience with the king. But at the same time, I want you and I to remember what our default nature is. James chapter 4, beginning in verse 1. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Question mark. Come they not hence, even of your Lust that war in your members. Now I want to stop right here. James is the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ physically. He's also the pastor at the church at Jerusalem. His book is a super practical book in the Bible. And James, for lack of a word, he's kind of a hard-hitting pastor. He's kind of a man that doesn't mince words. He doesn't use his epistle, it is very short, but it's also very to the point. He is a man that you would say is very plain spoken. He doesn't beat around the bush. Sometimes Brother Josh can't get the words out of his mouth right, so he goes all the way around the world to tell you. Brother James is not like that. Brother James is going to just get straight to the point and tell us exactly what he's trying to say. So what he tells us, he says, Brethren, from whence come wars? Do they not come from your own lust that war in your members of other words? When one king looks over at another kingdom and he says, That kingdom is rich, and he says, I'm a powerful king, and I'm just going to go take what they have. Because I'm a terrible man and I want what they have, and so I'm just going to go kill them and enslave them and fight them. I'm going to go take all this treasure and it's going to be mine. And then my kingdom will be doubled, it will be expanded, my land will be expanded, my treasure house will be expanded, and that's where wars come from. That evil men want to just do that. And Jabez saying, that's how that happens. Verse 2. He says, Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight in war. Ye have not because ye ask not. Now wait a minute. And then he says in verse 3, ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust. Well, Brother Josh, why are you talking to Christians about this? This seems like evil men are the ones doing this. Yes, evil men are the ones doing this, but I want to point something out to you. Do y'all know that you and I at our core are the evil men? Amen? You and I at our core are sinful human beings. That sometimes you and I say, Lord, I want you to fix so-and-so over there because they're bothering me. Lord, I want to be vindicated in the public eye. Lord, I want everybody to see that I'm right and they're wrong, right? Well, where does that come from? That comes from the fact that you and I are selfish human beings. And sometimes when you and I pray, we pray in a selfish way. We pray, Lord, I want you to fix my problem. I want you to fix it right now because I don't like what them other folks are doing over there. Well, I just want to point out to you that says a lot about you and I. And I want to be the first to tell you that I can be a selfish human being. I can be someone that asked the Lord something from a selfish motivation. And by the way, the Lord is not going to honor my request when I do that. The Lord is going to tell me, no. No, Josh, you can't have that. Because that was a sinful request. That was a request out of your own lust or your own selfishness or something that you wanted, and that was not honoring to God or glorifying to the Lord's kingdom. You asked for that with a wrong intent in your heart. He goes on to say, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the fellowship of the world is enmity with God or hatred against God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Oh, by the way, when you and I act like the world, think like the world, do things like the world, then we're opposing our Lord. Lord, I want you to bless me, and I want you to bless my family, but I don't want to go to church. Lord, I want you to bless me, and I want you to bless my family, but I don't ever pray about who I should actually vote for. Lord, I want you to bless me and bless my family, but you know, I have a wicked tongue, and I just go around spewing bitterness and curse words, and Lord, I don't act right toward other people. Lord, but I want you to bless me. Friendship with the world is enmity or hatred against God. See, you know, the Bible also says that sin, our own personal sin, hinders our prayer life. So how can the Lord bless me if I'm not being obedient to his word and I'm actually disobeying his word and thinking wrong and sinful and bitter and selfish thoughts, and I'm pursuing that course of life? The Lord's not going to bless me, and he's not going to bless you when you and I are acting like that. But Lord, I want you to bless me, and I want you to answer my prayers. Well, what the Lord wants you and I to do first is to repent and to confess our sins and to change our way of life and to do the things that he's already asked us to do in his word. And then when we do that, then the things that you and I are actually praying about, then instead of them being selfish, they all of a sudden start becoming in line with the Lord's will for us and his word because we're thinking like that, we're acting like that, we're doing that. And then now the very thing we're praying for are things that actually honor God. And then the Lord starts granting our requests because they're in line with his will for our life. Verse 5 Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hand, cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Why do I take you to that passage of Scripture? Because when we go right back to Matthew chapter 7, where the Lord Jesus Christ started, Jesus is about to tell us something. Jesus, after he's told us to knock and to seek and to uh and to ask, he then says in Matthew chapter 7, verse 9, he goes on to give an example. He says, Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, shall give him a stone, or if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent. If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? So the reason why I just shared with you about James chapter 4 is because of Jesus Christ's comment here in Matthew chapter 7, when he says, If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, what does all that mean? So Jesus told in the Sermon on the Mount, when he was not only talking to his apostles, but also who to his disciples and to the multitude, what he's literally commenting about is the depravity of man. When he is saying, you as men and women that actually have children, and when you look at your son or your daughter, and your son or your daughter is hungry, that they need bread, or they need a fish. And by the way, in this Middle Eastern country, uh bread and fish were two very common meals, right? That they would make bread and they would, they're a fishing uh area of the world. All the apostles, or many of the apostles were what, fishermen? I mean, that was a very common trade. So, in other words, when your son or your daughter says, Dad or mom, I'm hungry, he said, Which of you, you know, that has a son or daughter, and you being evil, wait a minute, Brother Josh, I'm not evil. Yes, you and I are. That's what James was just talking about. James is saying, you and I are fallen creatures like Adam. You and I are selfish human beings. That you and I have a default, depraved nature that wants to make everything about me and I. Lord, I want you to fix my problems, and I want you to fix them right now. I want you to vindicate me in the public eye, and I want you to make that guy, uh, I want you everybody to see that he's a charlatan and a frog, and I want you to make my community see that he's wrong and I'm right. Right? That's the way we think in our heart of hearts. Now we might not say that out loud. We might not say that to anybody else, but in our heart of hearts that's what we're thinking. And Lord, Lord, you should, you should do this for me because I'm a good man, and they're not. You and I aren't a good man. You and I are sinners that are saved by grace. Amen. The apostle Paul. Brothers and sisters, the apostle Paul wrote a third or a half of the New Testament. And he said about himself, I'm the greatest of sinners. Amen? Are you and I better than him? King Solomon, the wisest man that has ever lived, save Jesus Christ, had over 700 wives and concubines. That man who was so very wise at the end of his life was dishonoring the Lord because he was serving and worshiping the gods of all of his pagan wives and concubines. The man got his ox caught off in a ditch, he went off the train tracks, he got stupid in his old age and started disobeying the Lord. And he was the wisest man that has ever lived except for Jesus Christ. Y'all tell me, am I or you better or wiser than King Solomon? And I are you uh more righteous than the Apostle Paul? Any takers? I'm not. I'm not. King David, who was a man after God's own heart, he was also a murderer and adulterer. Oh, brother Josh, I was better than he was. I've never murdered anybody or committed adultery. Let's not be too quick to say how good we are. Oh, what did Jesus Christ say? Good master. Oh, Jesus said there's there's only one good. That's the Father. Now, obviously, he was good, but he when a man questioned him about that. Brothers and sisters, my point is I want you and I both to understand that when you and I pray about things, you and I need to recognize that there is a sinful and selfish component that lives within us that a lot of times our prayers are tainted. That you and I ask amiss. So you and I first need to look at the beam in our own eye before we attempt to remove the splinter in our brother's or sister's eye. So my point is that James cleared that up for us. But Jesus told these men, he said, if ye then being evil, in other words, us fallen men, sinful men, selfish men, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Now this is my point. This is my point. Who here who is a parent would want to harm your son or daughter? Y'all tell me. Nobody. Y'all love your sons and daughters, amen. And most likely you love them even more than you love everybody else in the world. And by the way, I don't judge you for that. I don't. I don't. I don't judge you for the fact that you probably love the people of your own family more than you love everybody else. Okay? But I want you to see this. If you and I, being evil men and women, fallen, depraved human beings, know how to love our own children. And if my son can't be, Dad, I'm hungry. I just want some bread to eat. Well, son, here's a stone. You can't eat it, it's not nourishing, you'll break your teeth on it. I I didn't help him. Or if, Dad, I just need some meat. Will you give me a fish? No, here's a snake, it'll bite you, and it'll poison you, and it'll harm you, and it'll do harm to your life. Anybody here in the church house, if our son or daughter ask us to do that, would actually harm them? No, we wouldn't do that. That's absurd. We love our children, and we're evil folks. Now, Jesus said, if ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? You and I are not to be compared to our heavenly father. In other words, but Josh, where are you going with all this? Number one, I want you and I to persist in prayer because you and I, who are the evil person, have been made righteous by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I have been adopted into the household of God, and now you have, you and I have the right to come down the throne room of the king and actually ask our lovingly heavenly Father, Father, please help me. You and I have the right to do that now because of what Christ did. But what I want you to see is that what about what does our Father do for us? My Heavenly Father tells me no a lot of times because I'm wrong. Amen. My Heavenly Father does not answer my prayers in the way that I pray them, because a lot of times I pray them wrong. And I'm not just talking about praying the right words. I'm saying that sometimes I ask for the wrong thing. And God says, because I love you, and because I'm sovereign, and because I know better, I'm not gonna give you this snake that you're asking for. I'm not gonna give you this rock that you're asking for. I'm gonna tell you no in this matter, and then instead I'll turn around and give you bread or a fish, something maybe you didn't even ask for. Amen? If anybody here had a 16-year-old son or grandson, and let's say you were a person of means, hey dad, I need a car to go back and forth to them. I got me a little part-time job. How many fathers would go out and buy that young man a V8 600 horsepower, Candy Apple Red Corvette 2026 model? Can only put the highest octane gas in it because it's it's basically a race car on the road. Has Z-rate tires that mean they don't sling apart at speeds in excess of 150 miles an hour, and Papa goes out there and spends a hundred grand on a vehicle and says, All right, son, you just got your driver's license today, and let me put you in this race car, and oh, look what good of a father I am. And then a week later he goes out there and he plants that car in the middle of a three-foot oak tree, and you don't have a son or great-grandson anymore. That was not very wise of that father. No, son, I love you, but uh I want you to first go to uh driver safety school. You know, they have those at school, and you know, in the meantime, we'll let you partially borrow uh the old uh Toyota Corolla we got from grandma. Well, it's a 2007 model. Well, Dad, that thing's got paint coming off of it. Yes, it does, son. Well, Dad, I don't really want to drive that, so what you're saying is you don't really want to drive at all, do you? Well, Dad, I really do want to drive. Well, once you first learn responsibility, oh, and by the way, uh, you're gonna have to pay to put gas in it, and what? You're gonna have to pay for the inch, so so now he has a vested interest in it. Now that he's got a little time under what you're son, you know what, I'll make a bargain with you. You know, you're talking about that little job that you have. I tell you what I'll do. Over the next two summers, if you'll save up your money that you earn, you know what, I'll match that money. So let's say over the next two summers that you save up five or seven thousand or eight thousand dollars because you work real hard. You know, well, if you put eight thousand dollars in, I'll put eight thousand dollars in, and then we'll pool that money together, and you can go buy you a sixteen thousand dollar truck or car or whatever you want. That seems to be a little wiser way to handle the same situation. My point is, brother and sister, sometimes you and I ask for the Corvette. And our Father God says, no. No, Josh, you cannot have the Corvette because you will go kill yourself with the Corvette. You don't even know what you're asking for because you don't have the wisdom to know that you shouldn't have that. But oh, it's shiny and it's beautiful, and I really, really, really, really want it, and I want it right now. But God says, because I love you, the answer to your request is no. And not only no, but I'm gonna make you wait for the thing that you're actually gonna get. And then not only that, in the meantime, I'm gonna train you and prepare you, and while you seek and prepare and you do all the things that you should have been doing all along, and then by the time that you mature a little bit and get a little bit older, whether you and I are 16 or 76, it doesn't matter, then the Lord says, Then I'll entrust you with that responsibility for that thing that you asked for. If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Our father knows what you and I need. And sometimes he tells us no. By the way, uh huh aren't you thankful that he tells us no for the things that you and I shouldn't have that we don't even know will harm us. I want to uh close this morning in Matthew chapter uh 15 very quickly. Give me about two or three more minutes and we'll be done. In Matthew chapter 15, this is another example of someone persisting in prayer. Matthew chapter 15, beginning in verse 21. Then Jesus, Matthew 15, 21, then Jesus went thence and departed into the coast of Tyre and Sidon, and behold, a woman of Canaan, that's a Gentile, came out of the same coast and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. In other words, my daughter seems to be possessed of a devil. So this Gentile woman came to Jesus calling him the son of David, which meant that she believed and recognized that he was the Messiah, i.e., the son of David. So here who this lady is, is a Gentile believer in the Jewish faith and a Gentile lady who recognizes Jesus Christ and believes that that man is the Messiah of the Old Testament, even though she's a Gentile. So she approaches him and says, My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil, and asks Jesus to heal him. Verse 23, but he answered her not a word. The Lord was silent at her first request. Have you ever prayed and it doesn't seem like the Lord's hearing you? Brother Josh, my prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us. In other words, so so she's asking about Jesus, and then she's also bothering his disciples. Please tell your master. You know, I know you serve him. Please pray for me. Please tell him to talk to me. Please tell him I really need help. So she's also asked other people. Please help me with this. Please tell me what to do about this. Please talk to your master for me on my behalf, on behalf of my daughter. Verse 24. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So here is his comment. Jesus Christ is testing her. He's saying, Lady, or he told his disciples, look, my primary ministry as the Messiah is I am first and foremost sent to the Jewish nation. I was not primarily and first and foremost sent to the Gentiles. Jesus just made that statement. Verse 25. Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me. She asked again. By the way, she's also recognizing that he's the Son of David and that he's Lord. She's coming in a reverential way. She's not coming saying, she's not coming demanding, she's coming as a lowly beggar. Verse 26, but he answered and said, It is not meat or fit to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. Wait a minute. Brother Josh, is this, is Jesus calling this lady a dog? What does this mean? That sounds terrible. You know what Jesus said? Jesus has already told her that my primary ministry as a Jewish man is I was sent to the Jewish nation and you were a Gentile, and this is not my ministry's focus. And again, he didn't do this to be rude. He did this to test and to grow her faith. And by the way, it doesn't mean that she's a dog like a throwaway dog. It means that if a man has a large household and he has children in the household, he's not going to take that meal that is prepared for his children and then literally take that brand new hot piping dish off of the table and then lay it on the ground for the pet dogs in the house to just eat before the children eat. He's saying, that's not the way things are done. That's literally what he was telling her. That's not the way things are done. And look, look at this verse 27. And she said, look at this, she said, Truth, Lord, Jesus, I agree with you. Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. So when little Johnny is eating, and a couple little grains of corn fall on the ground, while little Johnny's eating, those little house dogs, they come up and they eat those two little grains of corn that little Johnny drop on the ground. And Lord, that's all I'm asking for. I'm not asking to sit at your table, Lord, because I'm not worthy to sit at your table. I just want those two little grains of corn that fell on the floor. Lord, please heal my daughter. That's exactly what she is coming asking for as a beggar to the King of Kings. And look at what he says. Verse 28, then answered, then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt, and her daughter was made whole from that very hour. Jesus healed her. By the way, in the New Testament, the two examples, when Jesus actually talked about someone who had great faith, in both instances they were both Gentiles. This woman and the centurion. Both times when Jesus said somebody had great faith in the New Testament, he was actually talking about Gentile believers, not Jews. Y'all tell me. Did this lady ask and seek and knock and come before the Lord's table as a beggar? Lord, I'm not asking to put up a chair right beside you on your right hand and eat of the hot dish that you have prepared. I'm just asking for the two little grains of corn that fell on the floor. Lord, I come because I know I'm not worthy to stand in your presence. And the Lord Jesus Christ says, Dear lady, you have great faith. You are one of my children. You do have a seat at my table, and I'll be happy to heal your daughter. See, Christ elevated her. He brought her up. But you and I don't come before the king demanding anything. But you and I do have a tendency to come before the king demanding everything. Why? Because you and I are evil, right? Because you and I are sinful, because you and I are selfish. You and I could just as easily say, when James says, from where do wars come from and rumors of wars? Where does that come from? Well, from our own lust. Well, if I were to ask you, where do 85% of mine and your 90% of mine and your problems come from? They come from us. They come from ourselves. Because we're most of the time the problem. And the Lord first wants us to repent and to confess our sins. And then once you and I actually act obediently and beg forgiveness and come asking and properly seeking and knocking, and then my whole mind has been changed. Lord, I'm so sorry that I asked for this thing. I want to close with this. I remember that when I was in high school, or actually when I was in early college, and I don't tell you this story to brag on me because it's actually not bragging on me, that I remember that I had asked something to my dad. I don't even remember what it was. And you know, I didn't think anything about that. And then I came back to him three, four, five months later and asked him about the same thing. And then he responded positively. But in my mind it might not have been quick enough or something like that. And I just had the stray thought in my mind that, Lord, how selfish I am to demand something of my father or want something of my father immediately. I tell you that to say that earlier when I had asked for that thing, I was in a different place in my Christian walk. And it didn't bother me that I had asked him. And again, I don't even remember what it was, but I do remember this. I do remember the Lord blanketing me with a conviction of sin that I don't have a right to ever ask my father to hop to. And he pricked my conscience. That here is the man who's loved me and provided for me and cared for me. And the fact that I now, at that point in my college career, was walking with the Lord a little better and had more of a biblical mind, the Lord pricked my mind to say, Josh, how dare you think like that towards your father? My point is, brothers and sisters, is this sometimes when you and I pray, you and I pray selfishly. And may the Lord transform our lives and give us more grace to help see ourselves for who we really are. And then you and I can recognize that our Father, a good Father, never gives us stones and he never gives us snakes. He always gives us bread and he always gives us fish. And he is good to not give us some of the things that you and I actually pray about because we pray for the wrong thing. And the things that he actually does give us, he's blessing us. But like the lady, you and I need to ask and seek and knock and persist. Because in the process of you and I praying, we may realize, Lord, I've been asking wrong and I've been asking for the wrong thing, and now I've changed my prayer and I start asking for the right thing. And you know what the Lord did? He just grew you and I in prayer. He just transformed you and I to think more like him and to want more like him. And by the way, that was the purpose of prayer all along to make us more like Christ. I hope this has been an encouragement to you. I'm gonna ask Brother Don to help come in a word of song. The church doors are always open if you desire to unite with membership of our church.