SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_02: Father God, we're grateful that you brought us here today just to worship you, to tell you how great you are, and just to thank you for what you've done in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: And so pray you take this time just to uh look at your word, let it speak to us, and uh let it heal us.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so Father, we thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Y'all can be seated.
SPEAKER_02: So a good thing is I did this one service before.
SPEAKER_02: I think I got all my jitters out.
SPEAKER_02: You know, um a little bit nervous about being up here today.
SPEAKER_02: Um those of you that know me, this isn't uh what I normally would do.
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm I'm more the type that I love doing missions um and I love working and I love fixing things.
SPEAKER_02: And so um, but putting together and trying to organize my thoughts and communicate it in a way that everyone understands, that was a challenge.
SPEAKER_02: And so, but I think I'm good.
SPEAKER_02: I feel much better.
SPEAKER_02: So um yesterday I was inviting you know uh family and friends to remind them to come out today and tell them what time it was.
SPEAKER_02: And I put a little note in there that said, um, Haley's Comet may come again before I preach again.
SPEAKER_02: So Haley's Comet is anticipated in 2061.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be 81 years old, so you know I feel pretty good about that.
SPEAKER_02: Um I grew up in Richmond, kind of been here most of my life, lived in Dallas for a little bit, but early on we went to uh First Baptist Richmond, and um the pastor was John Lockhart, but while he was out, our youth pastor, Mike Kipp, he would fill in for the pastor, and he was a big Aggie, played football for him, got all this you know paraphernalia in the um his office.
SPEAKER_02: So any of y'all Aggies will pray for you.
SPEAKER_02: I don't see too many out here.
SPEAKER_02: Um I see one in the back, I'm worried about them.
SPEAKER_02: Um but we we always loved it when he would preach because he, um, being a big football guy on Sunday, man, he'd hit the 22 and a half minute mark and it was time to close, do the invocation, and you had to be home in time to make sure that you saw the oilers or cowboys or whoever it was.
SPEAKER_02: Um good for thing for you.
SPEAKER_02: There's no football today, so I got all the time I want.
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't I don't have to really you know cram anything in.
SPEAKER_02: Um but uh today I'm just really grateful that Neil gave me the opportunity to share with y'all.
SPEAKER_02: Um when Neil called me, um I thought he was calling to say, hey, can you help me fix something at church or do this?
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, great.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, hey, would you mind sharing what God's been doing through this whole journey of infertility?
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, ooh, hold on, let me think about that.
SPEAKER_02: I'll call you back.
SPEAKER_02: Um so a few months later, I kind of gathered my thoughts and uh kind of what God's been doing with Catherine and I through this time and told Neil, I think I'm ready.
SPEAKER_02: And then he's like, Alright, we'll see you in three months.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, all right.
SPEAKER_02: Um so give me plenty of time to kind of remind myself of what God did for us during this time, and so that's what I'd like to share with you today.
SPEAKER_02: Um Don said, I do really enjoy missions.
SPEAKER_02: Um I'd like, you know, I love getting out there and being able to work and serve people.
SPEAKER_02: Um, even if it means taking orders from Brian McKee and some hideous sandals, um, I'll take it.
SPEAKER_02: Um but uh you know it it's really I've God used it in my life many times and to uh teach me things about himself and to show me um really just to declare himself in my life.
SPEAKER_02: And so I've I've I treasure those times and I've been able to serve with the church in Costa Rica the past two years.
SPEAKER_02: And um so if that's something that you've ever kind of been on the bubble, encourage you to think about it.
SPEAKER_02: It'd be crazy what God can do with you uh in that time.
SPEAKER_02: Um so be careful when Pastor Sunshine calls you.
SPEAKER_02: You never know what he's gonna ask you.
SPEAKER_02: Um for those that know me in Grand Parkway, you kind of have a little idea about me.
SPEAKER_02: But those that may not know me from Grand Parkway, I graduated from the school right across the street in uh class of 1999.
SPEAKER_02: And with that, you may be wondering, what is this punk doing up there gonna teach me anything about the scriptures?
SPEAKER_02: Um what it does teach me is that God has been good in my life, he's been gracious, and has really taught me a lot since I left uh Austin High School almost 20 years ago, which doesn't seem possible, but it um it is.
SPEAKER_02: Um so, like I said, God's grace and love in my life for sure.
SPEAKER_02: Um, Catherine, my wife, um we just celebrated our 15th year of marriage, which that blows by too.
SPEAKER_02: Um I start thinking about that.
SPEAKER_02: Um it's funny because I'm actually three years older than Catherine, and um I actually asked her to marry me when she was still in high school, which today I'd probably be carted off to jail.
SPEAKER_02: Um but I did ask her dad for permission.
SPEAKER_02: I think he failed to communicate that to my mother-in-law because when she came home after I asked her and she said yes, her mom was quite shocked.
SPEAKER_02: Um so I don't see Scott Rinfrew in the crowd here, but I know he's got a lot of daughters, and so he's probably mad as a Canadian can get.
SPEAKER_02: He's you know, probably mad about talking about his daughters getting married in high school, but that's not me.
SPEAKER_02: Um so if you know my father-in-law, y'all can give him a hard time later for me.
SPEAKER_02: Um but I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: God confirmed early in my life that Catherine and I were to get married.
SPEAKER_02: Um I may you may think I'm this tough guy.
SPEAKER_02: I'm a softie.
SPEAKER_02: If I can get through today without getting teared up, choked up, then it's a miracle.
SPEAKER_02: So bear with me if I get a little uh uh teary-eyed, but I'm not afraid, I'm not sad to admit it, it's just today's a big day just to share what God's done, and so there's some emotion involved in that.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to share what God did years ago to confirm Catherine um really how what her role in my life.
SPEAKER_02: But we had some friends, um, we used to go downtown, and McDonald's had 29 cent cheeseburgers.
SPEAKER_02: So for 20 bucks, you can buy, I mean, a couple sacks of cheeseburgers, and go talk to homeless guys, talk to them about the Lord, pray with them, and hear about their struggles.
SPEAKER_02: Well, one day we're in McDonald's parking lot, and it's sunny.
SPEAKER_02: Landon and my friend Shane were all sitting there praying, and this homeless guy just breaks our circle, puts his hands in there, and starts praying with us.
SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the prayer, um, he said, You know you love her, you just need to do something about it.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, whoa.
SPEAKER_02: All my friends knew that I like Catherine.
SPEAKER_02: All my friends knew that I was too shy to really kind of step out and initiate this.
SPEAKER_02: So the homeless guy speaking to me at McDonald's that I didn't know or meet really, you know, was God's way and an unusual way of speaking to me in my life.
SPEAKER_02: Um so I knew that Catherine and I were to get married, and that's why we got engaged in high school.
SPEAKER_02: Took us a little while to get actually get married, but we were there.
SPEAKER_02: Um getting married so young, we received quite a bit of unsolicited advice.
SPEAKER_02: Um I remember uh how many times we were told we're making the wrong decision, you don't know what you're getting into, um, you've got your whole life to think about this, and I was like, you don't get it.
SPEAKER_02: I know this is what God has for us right now.
SPEAKER_02: Um, we were told we'd be barefoot and pregnant in no time, um, which, if only that were the case, you know, looking back years later and struggling to have kids.
SPEAKER_02: Um but one commitment I did make to Catherine and her parents was that she'd finished college, and you know, a lot of people go off to college and kind of get lost and disappear and do all sorts of stuff they regret and never finish college.
SPEAKER_02: So I felt like we did pretty good.
SPEAKER_02: Um life early on for us, you know, we were in school, but life wasn't stressful.
SPEAKER_02: Um, our jobs, you clocked in, clock out, um, didn't have to really think about work once we got home.
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was real common, like we'd love to stay up to 1 a.m.
SPEAKER_02: and watch Craig Ferguson, the late, late, late, late show.
SPEAKER_02: You know, you gotta be work the next morning, it's no big deal.
SPEAKER_02: So that was, you know, we kind of did life.
SPEAKER_02: Um, it wasn't hard, we didn't have big challenges, we didn't, you know, it wasn't easy uh uh at the same time, but it wasn't a big deal.
SPEAKER_02: And so God was always providing for us and giving us um what we needed, not necessarily what we wanted, but we were always in good shape.
SPEAKER_02: Um the funny thing is I think about staying up one o'clock at any time now, and I can't do that anymore, um, for any reason.
SPEAKER_02: Um but um what I wanted you know kind of get into is Catherine and I we moved back to Houston in 2011.
SPEAKER_02: And around that time we started thinking, okay, we're out of school, we've checked all these boxes, you know, we really would love to you know start having kids.
SPEAKER_02: And so this is a process that you know you kind of think it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: Everyone warned us it's gonna happen, so we think for sure it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was it was a struggle.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't something that happened, it wasn't something that right away that we were able to say, hey, you know, we're gonna have a kid.
SPEAKER_02: And uh it was I think October of 2014.
SPEAKER_02: And on my birthday, Catherine woke up and she's like, Hey, we're pregnant.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, Yes, this is awesome.
SPEAKER_02: This is something that we're excited about, we've been praying about and um really hoping uh that God would provide.
SPEAKER_02: Um but only a few weeks, you know, we were cautious, we didn't tell a bunch of people.
SPEAKER_02: We had friends and um that have gone through this where you get excited, you tell the whole world, and then you know, you have a miscarriage, you gotta go through the struggle, and you gotta go and relive it with everyone, you know, time and time and time again.
SPEAKER_02: And just a heartache with that, so we kind of kept it quiet.
SPEAKER_02: Not that we weren't trying to celebrate anything, just we were trying to be careful.
SPEAKER_02: And a few weeks later, Catherine did end up having a miscarriage, and uh it made kind of a you know, it was a tough time.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not easy, it's not something that we just you know bull rush through.
SPEAKER_02: But um, so that was my birthday.
SPEAKER_02: She told me she was expecting, and then later to have a miscarriage.
SPEAKER_02: And so I came home from work one day, and Catherine was in the shower, and she asked me to come over there because uh she wasn't feeling very good, and I was like, okay, you know, this is weird.
SPEAKER_02: Next thing I know, she just collapses, passes out, stops breathing, eyes closed, everything.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, man, what is going on?
SPEAKER_02: So as I'm dragging my wife out of the shower, I feel like, is this breaking bad?
SPEAKER_02: Are we gonna roll up on carpet and take her out?
SPEAKER_02: Or what's going on here?
SPEAKER_02: You know, I didn't was not expecting this.
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking to my wife and thinking, God, what is going on?
SPEAKER_02: Well, about 15 seconds later, she kind of came back to and had a call family and say, hey guys, um we didn't tell you we're expecting, but now we gotta tell you we're not expecting.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we're going to the hospital.
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to come up there, um, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, that was that night at the hospital, the doctor kind of explained just all her blood loss, her body kind of just hit reset button, kind of restarted.
SPEAKER_02: We're all used to our phones and computers doing that, so her body took key and kind of did the same thing.
SPEAKER_02: Um this was new.
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know about y'all.
SPEAKER_02: Um guys don't sit around watching a baseball game or something and talk about miscarriages.
SPEAKER_02: At least my f guy friends didn't.
SPEAKER_02: And so um this was a new subject to kind of deal with the disappointment and the hurt and the loss that we we experienced through that time.
SPEAKER_02: Um but this kind of I look back and in our journey that we went through.
SPEAKER_02: This is kind of when the journey of infertility got real.
SPEAKER_02: This is the time when um I thought, man, we'll get pregnant again.
SPEAKER_02: We got pregnant once, we can do this again.
SPEAKER_02: This won't be a problem.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but little did I know what God was you know putting us through this next couple years.
SPEAKER_02: Um so after a result of that, you know, we had a few doctor visits and this and that, and then the doctor kind of said, Hey, I think it's probably best y'all go see a reproductive enchrinologist.
SPEAKER_02: Never heard of that before.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so after you know, you're going to that and we got a diagnosis of you know what was causing infertility and kind of the challenges we faced with that, it's kind of like the doctors love to play money ball.
SPEAKER_02: You'll go there, and he's like, All right, you're 30, this little chart.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you have a 3% chance of having a baby.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, three, that's it.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about y'all, but I wasn't very excited every time that and he's like, oh yeah, then you gotta pay to hear that news about how little chance you have of having a baby.
SPEAKER_02: Um and it was every time, you know.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, like if you're 30 in a day, you got 2% chance now.
SPEAKER_02: It's like, wait a second, that was yesterday.
SPEAKER_02: You know, two weeks later, we're already going down.
SPEAKER_02: Um and so it's that seeds of doubt that you know the the numbers and the things would plant in our head about what God can do in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Um so now we got this diagnosis, we know the challenges we faced, and we start these treatments.
SPEAKER_02: And mind you, remember I told you October of 2014 was when we first thought we were pregnant and then went through the miscarriage.
SPEAKER_02: The next October, every October 2015, 2016, was all um hard times.
SPEAKER_02: We'd either had an IVF transfer that didn't work, or we had bad numbers or these bad status.
SPEAKER_02: Always October was a bad time.
SPEAKER_02: But I want you to remember that because I want to come back to how God redeems October here in a minute.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I feel like I'm doing better.
SPEAKER_02: I was nervous last service.
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
SPEAKER_02: So feel more comfortable up here.
SPEAKER_02: Feel like they got the bad end of the deal, so y'all, you know, y'all feel good.
SPEAKER_02: Um but forgive me, I just pick up here.
SPEAKER_02: Um one thing that was hard for us to understand is you know, we did marry young, but Catherine and I made a commitment early on to one another.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, when we dated, we tried to honor God with our relationship through our purity.
SPEAKER_02: When we married, we were both virgins.
SPEAKER_02: And when we married, we had not kissed until two days before the wedding.
SPEAKER_02: I told her we didn't want to embarrass ourselves in front of the whole crowd, so at least we needed to practice, you know, get get that out of the way.
SPEAKER_02: So, but the whole time I'm wondering, God, did you not honor our commitment we made to one another?
SPEAKER_02: Did this this, you know?
SPEAKER_02: But God, you've got to remember we serve a mighty God and He can do big things.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think He didn't honor our commitment.
SPEAKER_02: He just had other plans for us at the time.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but at the time I didn't understand it.
SPEAKER_02: Um I asked myself, are we no longer God's children?
SPEAKER_02: Have we lost his benefits and the rights and the pleasure of being his children?
SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, when a child asked his dad for something in providing, what happened that God didn't hear our prayers?
SPEAKER_02: What happened that we you know we didn't get experience this great thing that everyone I see around us?
SPEAKER_02: I see kids coming into terrible um circumstances.
SPEAKER_02: Watch the news all the time about kids that are abused or not wanted or left out in the hot car or whatever you hear about, thinking, man, God, I'll I'll I'll take care of one.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'll take care of mine, please.
SPEAKER_02: Um so that that was hard to hear and go through.
SPEAKER_02: But earlier I mentioned we had this routine of life.
SPEAKER_02: It was kind of life was easy in the sense that we didn't have big challenges, that we didn't have big struggles, we just kind of were able to get through.
SPEAKER_02: This is when life got real.
SPEAKER_02: This is when uh infertility kind of brought out the bitterness, the loneliness that we experienced through that time.
SPEAKER_02: There's not uh, at least I didn't know about it, just you know, where you could just go talk to people about the struggles.
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, and through this time I got to meet a lot of good people in our lives that really uh changed uh friendships that changed us and helped us through this time, but this is unlike anything that we had ever experienced.
SPEAKER_02: Um and one thing during this time, like I mentioned, when a little kid asks you, like if you're a dad, and a kid asks you for a toy or even for something, you're happy to give it to him.
SPEAKER_02: And I was wondering, well, God, what what about it?
SPEAKER_02: You know, and I almost felt like has anyone ever had a kid throw a tantrum?
SPEAKER_02: You're at the store and the kid loses it because you won't buy X.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, anyone happened?
SPEAKER_02: I felt like that was me with God.
SPEAKER_02: I was starting to get bitter and get frustrated in my soul about, God, don't you hear us?
SPEAKER_02: Don't you know our heart and know that we want we want this child and we want to be parents?
SPEAKER_02: And it was it was a it was a struggle and little by little um that kept ha happening, happening.
SPEAKER_02: But little I know, you know, God is a good God.
SPEAKER_02: Even when your parent told that kid no at that time, that parent still got home that night and took care of them, provided for them, had a roof over their head for them.
SPEAKER_02: It's not like they abandoned the kids.
SPEAKER_02: Kids just don't see that.
SPEAKER_02: At the time, I didn't see what God was doing to provide and protect and sustain us.
SPEAKER_02: But that daily exercise of Satan being in my ear and trying to create, see the doubt of why I should not believe that Yahweh, the God of creation, was able to provide for us.
SPEAKER_02: But something that um I don't want to sit up here and think, oh, poor me, even though I've I've probably done a good job.
SPEAKER_02: Y'all feel bad for us now, right?
SPEAKER_02: We look like good people.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we should have no problem to have kids.
SPEAKER_02: My wife Catherine was stuck dealing the bulk of this burden.
SPEAKER_02: The countless appointments that she had to go to, leave work, go to the parking garage, fight for a spot, get up there, take your blood, do this, um, you know, was a constant thing that she had to experience all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And if you know me, I love fixing stuff.
SPEAKER_02: I love building, fixing whatever I can.
SPEAKER_02: That's how my brain works.
SPEAKER_02: Like walk away, like it's it's it feels great.
SPEAKER_02: But my wife and I were broken, and I couldn't fix that.
SPEAKER_02: It was a crazy feeling of just being, oh man.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it very isolating to say the least.
SPEAKER_02: You know, here I am, my wife's dependent on me, and you know, and I I can't help her through this time.
SPEAKER_02: This is something that you know she had to struggle.
SPEAKER_02: And not to mention, during all these times of you know, wondering, is God gonna provide, you know, we this child is you know, all the struggles, all the doubt you deal with, and then they mess with her hormones, all this stuff to make her think she's really gone crazy, that she really doesn't know what you know day it is, who she's mad at, or what she's mad at, or why for.
SPEAKER_02: But just the fact that you know, part of this process of infertility is they mess with your hormones.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're just a pre-warning, if you didn't know that, um, that's just a the burden that she had to bear in this process.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I want us to think about this.
SPEAKER_02: God does all things for the glory of his name, not ours.
SPEAKER_02: So we serve a mighty God and a big God.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to keep saying that a few times today because during this whole process, um, God reminded me of that, that it's not about us, and it's about his name and his glory.
SPEAKER_02: But at the time I wanted to say, hey, look at us, God, feel bad for us.
SPEAKER_02: So as long as I've got y'all to feel bad for us right now, I'm doing good, right?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to I want us to keep thinking bigger than that.
SPEAKER_02: Um, should I give it up?
SPEAKER_02: You know, God, you know, we've been faithful, we've trusted, you know, we've prayed.
SPEAKER_02: Why, why haven't you answered?
SPEAKER_02: Um do y'all think that, you know, the first year we were going through this, we thought, okay, we got this.
SPEAKER_02: You know, God's been good to us, it's a little roadblock, we'll get through it.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until after about the first year we're like, God, we need you.
SPEAKER_02: We can't do this on our own.
SPEAKER_02: This is a struggle that um is beyond what we can do.
SPEAKER_02: Um I remember going, uh I called Neil, because I don't know if you many of y'all know Neil Marcy struggled with infertility years ago.
SPEAKER_02: And um, so he was kind of like the first person I knew that I could trust and kind of helped me just flesh out my frustrations and struggles.
SPEAKER_02: But I haven't you ever like in when you play sports or you're wrestling with your brother or sister and you get the wind knocked out of you, and you can't really breathe or you can't really talk.
SPEAKER_02: It's just that I mean anybody, am I the only one?
SPEAKER_02: Have you been knocked knocked the wind out?
SPEAKER_02: That's what I felt like with God.
SPEAKER_02: I'd sit down and you know, we go to pray, and it's like, what can I say?
SPEAKER_02: What else can I say that I haven't said already?
SPEAKER_02: Has God not heard me?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've done it 762 times.
SPEAKER_02: This is the 763rd time, now he'll hear me.
SPEAKER_02: It was that doubt and that that frustration.
SPEAKER_02: And um, I remember sitting down with Neil thinking, okay, I can get Neil to kind of feel bad for me, and he'll kind of take some of this burden off of me, and you know, like I'll I'll feel good about it.
SPEAKER_02: And sat there and, you know, Neil's got his legs crossed, kind of pointing away, and he's like, This is not how it works.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we serve a big and mighty God.
SPEAKER_02: It's time to pray and trust God for that in that.
SPEAKER_02: And so having people that um kind of go through that process was a big deal for us.
SPEAKER_02: Um but at the same time we struggled, and it it was real clear.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I got my good friend Marty here today, and um I told you I'm a softie.
SPEAKER_02: You know, many times we set up Whataburger and uh he would just pray for us.
SPEAKER_02: Um he would listen to me, kind of um express my frustrations, but knowing that he was praying for me and Kelly and all these people, little by little, the more we talked about it, the more people were praying for us, the more we knew that we weren't alone, um, that we were trying to figure out what this means for us, but God had put people in our life.
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know if you remember a few years ago, Lindsay's husband Brandon, shared with her at the church one day about their struggles with infertility.
SPEAKER_02: And um, that was a great time for us to build a relationship with them, and uh they end up not skip not giving you a spoiler alert, but they had a baby, and then a week later we end up having a baby, but we'll get there.
SPEAKER_02: Um so this brings me to the heart of what I wanted to talk about today.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and obviously is prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Um many times we've prayed and we asked God for things, many times we pray and we confess God to things.
SPEAKER_02: Um, many times we pray and we worship God.
SPEAKER_02: Just say, God, thank you for doing this.
SPEAKER_02: Look what you've done, look how you did it, is beyond what I expected.
SPEAKER_02: I never thought you would have done it this way.
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't have done it this way, but we give you the glory because this is how you did it.
SPEAKER_02: Um so, thinking about that though, I want to say something today.
SPEAKER_02: Prayer is asking God for something, and it's simple.
SPEAKER_02: Form coming to God and asking God for something.
SPEAKER_02: Like I said, there's many aspects to it.
SPEAKER_02: We, you know, we'll confess, we'll uh tell God where we failed him, where we've done wrong, but we'll give him praise.
SPEAKER_02: But at the very core, um asking God for something.
SPEAKER_02: Um but I like to think prayer is the belief that we can ask God to intervene and affect changes in nature and it changes the course of world events.
SPEAKER_02: Remember earlier I said we serve a big and mighty God?
SPEAKER_02: Let's think about that.
SPEAKER_02: Do we believe that God, praying to him, can change the world, change everything around us?
SPEAKER_02: Because I'll be honest, I'll be the first to say many times when I pray, I think I can affect a box about like this.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think outside of my box on what God has the ability to do.
SPEAKER_02: But trusting God that he has the ability to do more than what's around me, that he can change the world and change the people around me is a big deal because we serve a big and a mighty God.
SPEAKER_02: So I want to go to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, 7.
SPEAKER_02: Um something I just wanted to start off with.
SPEAKER_02: But it's kind of, I'm sure we all know if we had to, we could recite the Lord's Prayer by mind.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, we've all heard it probably many times in our life.
SPEAKER_02: It's something that we've come accustomed to hearing.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to challenge us today, like the way we think about it and way we go about reading it is important.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so I'll read it first off.
SPEAKER_02: It says, And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
SPEAKER_02: Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
SPEAKER_02: Pray like this our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_02: The f the first thing about this that kind of strikes me as funny is God tells us, you know, to pray like this.
SPEAKER_02: He says, But when you do, don't don't repeat the same thing over and over.
SPEAKER_02: Because that's kind of what um the pagans would do.
SPEAKER_02: Pagans, you know, in in that time, you know, they thought if they kept saying the same prayer over and over, it'd give validity to their false God and say it over and over.
SPEAKER_02: And now it seems like a large sect of um certain areas of Christianity and and Catholicism, this is what they do.
SPEAKER_02: They say this prayer over and over again, and that's what he told us not to do.
SPEAKER_02: So take heart to what we pray and have meaning behind it.
SPEAKER_02: Don't just repeat it to repeat it, is what I take away first.
SPEAKER_02: Um, first thing, there's three things that are asking God to do big for his name here.
SPEAKER_02: Um lot of times when you get a book on prayer, it says, make your name hallowed.
SPEAKER_02: It's got this idea that uh, you know, God, make your name hallowed, be revered and come and respect your name.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_02: But the Greek reads as an imperative.
SPEAKER_02: It's a little different than what we use in English.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'll be honest, when I left that school across the street, my English was very poor, probably because I wasn't a very good student.
SPEAKER_02: So when I went to school and had to take Greek and Hebrew, I learned English a lot better by taking Greek and Hebrew than I ever did across the street.
SPEAKER_02: So I speak to you about Greek today, not that I'm some expert or very proficient in it, but it does it does speak to us a little bit here.
SPEAKER_02: Um so the imperative verb is used as a command or an instruction.
SPEAKER_02: But the third person imperative in the English is a little tricky.
SPEAKER_02: If you were to write it exactly, it would say, um, he cleaned his room.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of vague.
SPEAKER_02: We know it's not the right English, something doesn't add up.
SPEAKER_02: Um, or you can say, let him clean his room.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of how we work around to make it work.
SPEAKER_02: Right here, it says, hallowed be my name, but if you really get into the literal, it says, make your name hallowed.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, God, make your name great.
SPEAKER_02: Restore your name here.
SPEAKER_02: Because people don't respect it.
SPEAKER_02: So let's think about if you're a Jewish person at the time reading that, they would have thought of Ezekiel 36.
SPEAKER_02: It says, I will vindicate and hallow my name.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna read it real quick, so give me a second.
SPEAKER_02: It says, Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, Is it not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act?
SPEAKER_02: But for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came, and I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them, and the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: When though I will vindicate my holiness before their eyes, I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you to your own land.
SPEAKER_02: I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from your idols I will cleanse you.
SPEAKER_02: So that's saying, You didn't respect my name, my name wasn't revered.
SPEAKER_02: And so God says, I'm gonna vindicate my name.
SPEAKER_02: So when we say make your name hallowed, we say, God, restore your name, make your name great here among us, among the nations, so people know and respect your name.
SPEAKER_02: To me, that's different than saying, Make your name hallowed.
SPEAKER_02: So I like I like that.
SPEAKER_02: I think about God vindicating his name and making his name known.
SPEAKER_02: It's clear, it's established, it's not vague, it's not politically correct that we can say one thing or not the other.
SPEAKER_02: God's name is great, and that's what we we're asking him to do.
SPEAKER_02: The second thing that says, make your kingdom come.
SPEAKER_02: And so we got this idea, we're talking about prayer and asking, and so the second thing he asks in here is make your kingdom come.
SPEAKER_02: Or I like to say, cause your kingdom to come.
SPEAKER_02: So when we're praying, we're saying, God, make your kingdom come.
SPEAKER_02: Cause your kingdom to come here on earth.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about y'all, but in my prayer times, rarely have I said, God, your kingdom come.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if that's just my own fault for not thinking bigger than what's around me and thinking bigger than what's around here in Fort Bend County, but thinking about God's kingdom coming back and being on earth, um, and the call that we have for that.
SPEAKER_02: Um I wanted you to think about Revelation 8.
SPEAKER_02: And it's in there opening the seventh seal, and there's a lot of craziness going on, and you know, God establishes a kingdom, and it says this and another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censor, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints of the golden altar before the throne.
SPEAKER_02: And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.
SPEAKER_02: So when he says, Make your kingdom come, these prayers, you know, kind of get all taken together.
SPEAKER_02: When his kingdom's coming, it gets offered up as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: And to think about that, we get to play a role in that when we're asking God to make his kingdom come.
SPEAKER_02: But again, key word, we're asking in that prayer for his kingdom to come.
SPEAKER_02: The next one says, Um, your will be done on earth as is in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this would make life easy.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about you, we got a lot of sin is clearer in our life, in our culture.
SPEAKER_02: We got all this strife, we got all this disappointment, heartache, everything associated with living in a broken world.
SPEAKER_02: Right here it says, Um, your will be done on earth that is in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: So if we had heaven on earth, will we have all those problems?
SPEAKER_02: Will we have our struggles, the aches and the pains and the groans that we have of sin in our life?
SPEAKER_02: No, we'd be worshiping God because we'd be heaven on earth.
SPEAKER_02: So, another thing, when's the last time we asked for God to bring heaven on earth?
SPEAKER_02: But again, we're back to that, my idea about asking and asking God to do something big, and whether it be bring his kingdom or do something big in our life, in our prayers, we're asking.
SPEAKER_02: The next three parts of the Lord's prayer are the needs for our interim.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we talk big picture, talking about God, asking him to do something big.
SPEAKER_02: Well, the next three, we're asking God to do something, sustain us and keep us in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Um daily bread.
SPEAKER_02: It says, uh, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts.
SPEAKER_02: So the word here is it's a rare word in Greek.
SPEAKER_02: It's not used anywhere else in Greek literature, but it literally means day-by-day bread.
SPEAKER_02: So we're asking God, hey God, we need you to sustain us.
SPEAKER_02: We need you to give us our day-by-day bread.
SPEAKER_02: Now he didn't say, hey, I need a piece of cheesecake at lunch, I need flan at dinner, and cream billet for dessert.
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's not how he's communicating here.
SPEAKER_02: It's about meeting our needs.
SPEAKER_02: We're asking God, hey, we need you to meet our needs.
SPEAKER_02: That was me struggling with this infertility thing, saying, God, I have this need that I'm asking for you to provide and sustain us and um and to provide this child that we're praying for.
SPEAKER_02: I drive a lot, just kind of out and about and with the job.
SPEAKER_02: Um y'all ever fill up at the shell gas stations, and it's like this little TV.
SPEAKER_02: When you're filling up, they try to like make you watch TV while you're pumping gas.
SPEAKER_02: Has anyone else seen that?
SPEAKER_02: Alright.
SPEAKER_02: So you watch, they have little sports, they'll have a little news, a little cooking show, and then they always have like a word of the day.
SPEAKER_02: And I was sitting there the other day and I was I got embarrassed last service because there's three people in here that heard of this word.
SPEAKER_02: So we'll see how many of y'all have ever heard of the word heuristic.
SPEAKER_02: Man, where were y'all first service?
SPEAKER_02: I could have oh, we got one.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, he was in first service, so that's why he knows that one.
SPEAKER_02: Um it was a you know, it's a very definitive word.
SPEAKER_02: It's something that if you or I use in normal conversation, I think you look at me like, what'd you say?
SPEAKER_02: Or I mean, who do you think you are?
SPEAKER_02: You know.
SPEAKER_02: But what it means is the diver involved learning and discovery, problem solving by experience.
SPEAKER_02: The diver used a heuristic approach to figure out where he put his hands for the best dive.
SPEAKER_02: I think this word here, being used only once in Greek literature, is a really, really like sharp arrow pointing to what he was trying to say about God providing day by day.
SPEAKER_02: It's a very uh the the thought that um God sustains us, and he's not we're not worried about tomorrow, we're not worried about yesterday, but each day he's given us and provided for us enough to get us through that day.
SPEAKER_02: So, y'all following me there?
SPEAKER_02: So this very specific word.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and now next time you're at the gas station, you can pay attention to the words they're trying to tell you, or at least it's 10 minutes not to have to look at your phone or do something.
SPEAKER_02: But anyway.
SPEAKER_02: Next part it says it talks about um forgiving those who sinned against us.
SPEAKER_02: It's not referring to salvation, but he's talking to the disciples.
SPEAKER_02: Um, has anyone ever done you wrong?
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever walked away mad and angry and ticked off about what you couldn't believe what someone did?
SPEAKER_02: Am I the only one that's ever had that?
SPEAKER_02: That was my struggle back in the day was anger.
SPEAKER_02: Boy, I could get mad.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I think that's something that God really has worked in my life.
SPEAKER_02: And if you know me, I don't really get fired up about a whole lot these days.
SPEAKER_02: Um, except for the Astros.
SPEAKER_02: I love the Astros.
SPEAKER_02: Um but the the idea here is, you know, how can you not be willing to forgive others for what they've done to you?
SPEAKER_02: It's a hindrance, you know, for you walking with God.
SPEAKER_02: And so he's saying, you gotta learn to forgive.
SPEAKER_02: If you can't learn to forgive, how are you walking with God?
SPEAKER_02: And how are you praying, asking for God to forgive you when you can't let it go?
SPEAKER_02: So um, remember, we're this whole idea about asking, let's keep thinking about it.
SPEAKER_02: We're asking God to give us our day-by-day bread.
SPEAKER_02: We're asking God, you know, to teach us to forgive and to love.
SPEAKER_02: And it says, do not lead us into temptation.
SPEAKER_02: Um everyone knows, you know, in James it says, you know, God won't tempt us.
SPEAKER_02: But I will say, left to ourselves, you know, without God, we're praying for God for the Spirit to speak and guide us, left to ourselves, we'll walk directly into temptation, directly into sin.
SPEAKER_02: Um and and fall.
SPEAKER_02: So God's covered his basis.
SPEAKER_02: We asked him to make his name known.
SPEAKER_02: We asked for his kingdom to be here, and we asked for heaven on earth.
SPEAKER_02: I'll take it.
SPEAKER_02: Um, he provides for us day by day.
SPEAKER_02: We learn how to forgive and um deliver us from temptation and gives us that out.
SPEAKER_02: Man, if we did those things, I think our life would be different.
SPEAKER_02: But for me, my whole life, I've read this and just kind of like, oh, um, it's just wrote.
SPEAKER_02: It's not not something that has meaning.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to read y'all, I don't know if you Neil time to time reads the message translation.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I actually read this this morning, but uh Eugene Peterson, I mean, he's it's not like he got together and wrote this half-instance way to translate the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: He's a scholar, he spent a lot of time.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to read, now that we kind of changed our thinking about the Lord's prayer, I want to read it in the message.
SPEAKER_02: And this gets me excited when I read it in this message, in this translation.
SPEAKER_02: It says, the world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer ignorant.
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's go ahead and tell me how you feel.
SPEAKER_02: They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques, forgetting what you want from God.
SPEAKER_02: Don't fall for that nonsense.
SPEAKER_02: This is your father you are dealing with, and he knows better than what you need.
SPEAKER_02: With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply, like this.
SPEAKER_02: Our Father in heaven, reveal who you are.
SPEAKER_02: He's asking him to reveal.
SPEAKER_02: Set the world right.
SPEAKER_02: He's asking to make it right.
SPEAKER_02: Do what's best as above and so below.
SPEAKER_02: Keep us alive with three square meals.
SPEAKER_02: Keep us forgiven with you and your forgiving others.
SPEAKER_02: Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil.
SPEAKER_02: You're in charge.
SPEAKER_02: You can do anything you want.
SPEAKER_02: You're ablaze in beauty.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about y'all, that I literally got excited reading that because I was like, man, telling God, you're ablaze in beauty.
SPEAKER_02: That means you're just thinking about what God's done for you, what he can do, what he's going to do, and God's glory is ablaze.
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
SPEAKER_02: I get excited about it now.
SPEAKER_02: So pray for the kingdom, pray for heaven on earth, pray for God to sustain us, deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_02: But to me, I'm still this idea of prayer and asking God in our struggle that we had with infertility and all this um oh man, it it was it's just a journey, is all you can say.
SPEAKER_02: You don't know what next week has, you don't know what the next month has, you don't know if it's gonna be bitterness, frustration, what it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_02: And for me, looking back on it now, God taught is teaching me to pray and pray with a purpose and asking him for more than just my my needs, but the needs of people around me, and to bigger than this little box that I like to keep drawing around myself.
SPEAKER_02: The other thing, I don't know if y'all remember um Lance Williams, he used to be on staff here.
SPEAKER_02: Um I went to seminary with Lance, and I remember sitting in Hebrew class, and he would be in the front, right in front of the teacher.
SPEAKER_02: Lance was good at the languages, me not so much.
SPEAKER_02: I'd be in the back, the three or four of us in the back, struggling, asking questions.
SPEAKER_02: I remember Lance turning around and shishing me to be quiet.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, Lance, I want to stomp you right now because I paid the same money you did to be here.
SPEAKER_02: But to be fair, I gotta make those language books on my shelf useful for one day until Haley's comment comes again.
SPEAKER_02: So um, I want to go over the six ways in the New Testament like prayer is used and kind of the relationships that that shows and explains to us.
SPEAKER_02: Um in the New Testament, these words that I'm mentioning all have the meaning of asking for something.
SPEAKER_02: And the first one is called prosukumai.
SPEAKER_02: Sounds cool.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it kind of is more than just prayer, uh, but it's a common word for prayer and only used in prayer to God.
SPEAKER_02: It says pray like this, like we just said in Matthew 6 9.
SPEAKER_02: And in James 5, Elijah prayed for it to rain, asking God for something.
SPEAKER_02: And then he prayed for it to rain, asking God for something again.
SPEAKER_02: So this idea of asking God for something is part of our prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Um second word is I teo.
SPEAKER_02: It says, normally a lesser person asking someone greater for wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: It says, and if any of you, in James 1.5, if any of you last wisdom, ask God.
SPEAKER_02: Um y'all follow where I'm going with this asking?
SPEAKER_02: You know, we're supposed to ask God.
SPEAKER_02: It's not something that we take for granted that um we assume is gonna happen, but God is telling us, you know, let me know what is on your heart, what is on your mind, and make it known to me.
SPEAKER_02: Um but the way that I tell is used, it shows the relationship of one asking to the recipient.
SPEAKER_02: And like I mentioned earlier, a boy asking a father for bread.
SPEAKER_02: Would the dad give him a stone?
SPEAKER_02: Um, we need to pray, I need you to ask one thing for you, though.
SPEAKER_02: I need you to pray for me on that, because I have a little girl now, and I don't know how I'm gonna tell her no on anything.
SPEAKER_02: Um she's nine months now, and I don't know how to tell her no when we go to the store, and she can't even speak.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh, that looks great, that looks great.
SPEAKER_02: Um third one is Deomai.
SPEAKER_02: Um in this use it really emphasizes a need.
SPEAKER_02: Um you think back, Matthew 9.38, it says, pray for the Lord to send labors in the harvest.
SPEAKER_02: Um and right before that, it says the harvest is great in everything that's going on.
SPEAKER_02: And so God's, you know, in that passage, it's asking to send people for help.
SPEAKER_02: I know we've all been in situations where in life or work and we ask, you know, a co-worker, hey, we need help with this.
SPEAKER_02: The same thing for God.
SPEAKER_02: When we got something going on in our life, we got something that you know God's provided opportunity, there's nothing wrong with asking for help.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the next one, erratao.
SPEAKER_02: I think that sounds cool too, but uh closest thing to our English word and ask.
SPEAKER_02: It's you know, Greek things kind of get communicated differently, but this is really hand in hand for what we in English would say for ask.
SPEAKER_02: Um implies familiarity, uh, implies like the two people that are asking are equal.
SPEAKER_02: You know, earlier we had the father and the son, and the first time we had God and man, you know, the relationship of this ask, you know, when you relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, it's just like asking your wife for something.
SPEAKER_02: There's a certain response that you're gonna get from asking your dad, your mom that they respond to.
SPEAKER_02: Um so in Matthew 15, the disciples asked Jesus to send away a lady that just kept asking and asking him and asking him.
SPEAKER_02: So they thought that they were on a level with God, that they could tell him, Hey, I'm asking you to do this or telling him to do.
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, No, you you mistaken.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you that's not um what I'm here for.
SPEAKER_02: But that's the idea of familiarity.
SPEAKER_02: Next one is paracoleum, and this has the idea of begging or pleading.
SPEAKER_02: Um in 2 Corinthians uh 12, 8.
SPEAKER_02: But I begged and pleaded with God a lot.
SPEAKER_02: I begged with them, hey God, we're here.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know why you don't think that we're not worth it, but we want to be parents.
SPEAKER_02: We want to be there and serve you and make your name known through having this little one.
SPEAKER_02: But uh I want to read this, it says, So to keep the 2 Corinthians, keep me from becoming conceited, because of surpassing greatness of revelation, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me to keep me from being conceited.
SPEAKER_02: Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that you should leave me.
SPEAKER_02: But he said, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is being made perfect in weakness.
SPEAKER_02: So even though he said, you know, this thorn in my flesh won't go away, and he's begging and begging, God said, My power is sufficient.
SPEAKER_02: So many times in our prayers, we are begging.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I will say over the years as a kid, I remember playing baseball, remember laying there at night begging God that we could win the next day.
SPEAKER_02: So I want to say that my probably a little different now, begging God to provide a child in our life was different than what, you know, that little need that I wanted inside the box.
SPEAKER_02: But remember what we said, we serve a mighty God.
SPEAKER_02: And our prayer is the belief that God can change things in the world, in us, and everywhere.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just in that little box, that little sphere of influence that we have.
SPEAKER_02: Um the last one is into Kino.
SPEAKER_02: It's only five or six times in the New Testament, and it says two people coming together to ask concerning someone else, to intercede.
SPEAKER_02: Hebrews 7 says the Lord lives to make intercession for us, and uh Romans 8 says the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.
SPEAKER_02: So prayer in its simplest form is asking God for something.
SPEAKER_02: Not saying we're wrong for including other things, you know, just like when we tell God He's great in our prayer, we worship him, we confess, it's all part of it.
SPEAKER_02: But our core prayer, we're asking God for something and giving him thanksgiving for how he's done it or why he's done it.
SPEAKER_02: Um Charles Ryrie, some of you may be familiar, defines God's glory as anything that makes God seen, anything that reveals what God is like.
SPEAKER_02: Um I will say every couple years, me and some good friends, we go to Montana.
SPEAKER_02: We do this hiking through the mountains and um come back with sore feet and tired bodies and hungry.
SPEAKER_02: But every time it's a great experience.
SPEAKER_02: And I got back two weeks ago, um, and this trip this year was really neat because some about way the moon wasn't very bright, but the stars were beyond crazy.
SPEAKER_02: So two nights I didn't set up a tent.
SPEAKER_02: I just laid on my raft, and I woke up at 2-3 in the morning, and then God uh stars.
SPEAKER_02: You talk about God's glory being ablaze, was blown up in my face.
SPEAKER_02: Right there was you know reminding me of how great he is and how he spoke this into existence.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, we're talking about a big and mighty God that can do more than what's just in front of me, but can affect the world and change the world.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm looking at this all in front of you know, right in to in front of me.
SPEAKER_02: Um the one thing I will say, I read about Eugene Peterson in the message translation, is he lives in Flathead Lake.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I just drove by there, and I could have gone and seen him, talked to him about how great his translation was, but then it says it doesn't take appointments anymore, so I got kind of put out by that.
SPEAKER_02: Philippians 4 says, give thanks, make your request known with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_02: Begin prayer and adoring God's attributes, praise and worship.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not telling you not to just go to God and say, ask for this, ask for that, and ask for this.
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to say that it's part of us asking and being clear of what we want from God and giving him glory and for when he does deliver.
SPEAKER_02: And John 14, 13, it says, Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
SPEAKER_02: I know there's a lot of oh, there's theology out there that, you know, if you say it and you claim it, it's gonna happen, and then you're gonna be be, you know, rich and all these things.
SPEAKER_02: But I think God is about his glory, and that's what we should be about.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's why when we pray, we're gonna make his name known and bring glory to him.
SPEAKER_02: Um but the big thing is when you learn what God is like, you will worship him, you'll give him the glory.
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know if you all ever in Joshua it talks about uh stone of remembrances and you know things that happened in life that remind you um that were a lasting impact in your life.
SPEAKER_02: And remember earlier I told you about October.
SPEAKER_02: October was bittersweet.
SPEAKER_02: We found out we're expecting, and then um found out that we're not expecting.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's 2014.
SPEAKER_02: 2015, we found out um I think we had an IVF transfer that failed, and we had to start that process again.
SPEAKER_02: Totally disappointing, um, you know, heartbreaking.
SPEAKER_02: And for me, I'm a fix-it guy, like I mentioned, and my wife's sitting there crying, and we're praying and begging God, and I can't fix anything.
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's out of my control, it's out of what I can do.
SPEAKER_02: But remember, we serve a mighty God, that He can change the world and change the people around us, and so that's what I'm banking on that God to do that.
SPEAKER_02: So October 2016 stinks, October um 2017, God changed our life.
SPEAKER_02: We had our first little baby girl, but now this is where I get to I struggle.
SPEAKER_02: On my birthday.
SPEAKER_02: So the same day that we found out, October was just a terrible month for us.
SPEAKER_02: It always was bad news, nothing good.
SPEAKER_02: Her due date was I think October 10th or 12th.
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, well, doctor's like, man, there's no way we're gonna let her go that long.
SPEAKER_02: The dime comes, and they're like, the hospital's full, hospital's full.
SPEAKER_02: We're like, really?
SPEAKER_02: We're ready, I want to meet this little one.
SPEAKER_02: And they're like, no, you're gonna have to wait.
SPEAKER_02: And then um October 19th, like 1 a.m., they said, hey, there's a bed.
SPEAKER_02: We were out of there at the hospital, and then 9.59 that night, Marie Ansley was born.
SPEAKER_02: And so I want to read to you about, there she is.
SPEAKER_02: Um, she went to her first Astros game, she's a champion.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I want to read to you about Stone of Remembrance.
SPEAKER_02: It says, He said, This is after wandering in the wilderness for forty years, the Israelites experienced the power of God to roll back the waters of the Jordan River, enabling them to cross over and take possession of the promised land.
SPEAKER_02: So he says, He said to the Israelites, In the future, when your descendants ask their parents, what do these stones mean?
SPEAKER_02: Tell them, Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.
SPEAKER_02: That would be a big event.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, for the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_02: We all know about the Red Sea, when he dried it up before us until we had to cross over.
SPEAKER_02: He did this so that the people of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful, and that you might always fear the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_02: Remember when we said earlier about um, hallowed be your name, make your name known?
SPEAKER_02: I think that's God doing that right there, making his name known, vindicating his name to the people.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, These stones you'll keep as remembrances.
SPEAKER_02: So when people ask about it, you can say, Man, God's glory.
SPEAKER_02: This is to his glory.
SPEAKER_02: He answered our prayers, he delivered us through this.
SPEAKER_02: This is my stone of remembrance here.
SPEAKER_02: This um it's been a good opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: Um, when people, you know, we get to tell her about it.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we waited so long.
SPEAKER_02: It's given us the opportunity to talk to people about what God worked on us and did to us in that time.
SPEAKER_02: But I've got a living stone here of a little girl.
SPEAKER_02: The rest of my life, I can tell how great God is because of her showing up in my life and changing my life.
SPEAKER_02: Um so in the end of this, God was in the process of teaching us that everything is done for his glory.
SPEAKER_02: Our prayers are answered for his glory, our struggles, we gave God the glory, teaching us to give God the glory through our struggles.
SPEAKER_02: It's not as easy when you're in the middle of them, but during at looking back on it now, giving God glory and making his name known for that.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I will say this infertility is a it's a tough subject.
SPEAKER_02: It's not something that we talk about.
SPEAKER_02: Guys hang out at baseball games and talk about, like I said.
SPEAKER_02: It's something that sometimes it's embarrassing.
SPEAKER_02: You think, man, what's wrong with me?
SPEAKER_02: Every, you know, is there something wrong with me, or does God not love me?
SPEAKER_02: And so it that that that thought kind of isolates you from it.
SPEAKER_02: But I will say, I want to encourage those that are around, um, one that are struggling with it, be faithful in prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Be faithful to remember that we serve a mighty God, that he can change the world and he can change us.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but those of you that know someone that's going through that struggle, I encourage you several things.
SPEAKER_02: Be careful what you ask them.
SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you how many crazy questions we had over the years, but when you're gonna have kids, why not you having kids, this and that?
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I love to turn the table on them and say, Well, when are you having kids?
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a super personal question just to assume someone's gonna answer and give you an answer to.
SPEAKER_02: So be careful when you're talking to someone.
SPEAKER_02: But two, love them.
SPEAKER_02: Pray for them, come beside them.
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you know they're struggling and you know that they've got this hole in their life and they're begging for God to feel, come beside them and pray.
SPEAKER_02: And that goes more than just the infertility side.
SPEAKER_02: That goes for anything that you know someone's struggling.
SPEAKER_02: I encourage you just to go side by side with them.
SPEAKER_02: Another thing, just show up in their life.
SPEAKER_02: Don't just, you know, when you're isolated and you're struggling and you're laying in bed at night and your wife's crying to sleep and you're thinking, what can I do?
SPEAKER_02: You know, those people in our lives that really um helped us through this time by praying and being there and knowing that we could count on, um, that was important.
SPEAKER_02: So, final three things I want us to take away from today.
SPEAKER_02: Um, the primary purpose of prayer is that God may be glorified.
SPEAKER_02: Everything he does, we should give him glory.
SPEAKER_02: We should remember the reason he does it is for his glory.
SPEAKER_02: Um time to come to God in prayer and ask.
SPEAKER_02: Ask God for something big.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we serve a big and mighty God.
SPEAKER_02: And the second, the last thing, the third thing I'd like to say is get some big stones ready.
SPEAKER_02: Because we ask our big and mighty God to do something in our life.
SPEAKER_02: We should expect him to do it.
SPEAKER_02: And to um when he does, we've got to be there to give him glory for what he's done.
SPEAKER_02: So in my life, Marie is the best thing that's ever happened.
SPEAKER_02: She's wildly crazy.
SPEAKER_02: She doesn't sit still, she's a tiny savage, as I like to call her.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it like uh we have a little camera and we watch her sleep.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a little just lapse.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I love it because that's me.
SPEAKER_02: I sleep talk, sleepwalk, eat, change clothes, go outside, all sorts of crazy things.
SPEAKER_02: And so seeing her, you know, sleep crazy, I think, man, how great is our God.
SPEAKER_02: I got this little one that's um here to remind me of that.
SPEAKER_02: And so ask God for something big in your life and expect Him to deliver, but get some big stones ready.
SPEAKER_02: So thank y'all.
SPEAKER_02: I want to take just a moment while Lindsay plays.
SPEAKER_02: Um, just think about what we can ask God in our life.
SPEAKER_02: Think about what God's done in our life to give us the stone of remembrance, that we can give him glory, that when other people see it, they know what's different or ask that something's different about you, because that's not the way of the world is to take credit for it and to say, hey, look at me, look how great I am.
SPEAKER_02: But we want to do that to God and say, God, look how great He is.
SPEAKER_02: Because look what He's done for us.
SPEAKER_02: So take a minute, just think about what we can pray for, think about what we can give God the glory for.
SPEAKER_02: Father God, um, I'm here today to say that uh, wow, you are so good to me.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes my heart and my pride wants to think that I can do it.
SPEAKER_02: But I'll I'm here today say that I need you.
SPEAKER_02: I need you in my life, I need you for the big things, for the small things.
SPEAKER_02: But here today I just want to pray for those that are hurting, that are struggling.
SPEAKER_02: I pray that um you will speak to them, Father, and I pray more importantly that you will vindicate your name among our people today.
SPEAKER_02: That we will know your name is great, that you and all glory is due to you.
SPEAKER_02: So, Father, we thank you for this time today just to share what you've done and pray you'll bless those that hear.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Ryan.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: My name is uh Clyde Culpin, I'm the worship pastor here, and before we conclude our service, uh wanted to let you know a few things that are going on in the life of our church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the first two things are for our ladies.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, tonight is the backyard barbecue, and there's gonna be uh sweet tea sipping, back porch rocking, cornhole tossing, good food eating, and lots of gabbing.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know who came up with that, but it was catchy.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what gabbing is.
SPEAKER_02: So I thought it said gambling.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I thought you said Ryan thought it said gambling.
SPEAKER_00: So that'll be fun.
SPEAKER_00: So if you go into that, you can see you tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Uh ladies, also about a month from now, August 26th, we're gonna have Elizabeth Woodson here, and she's gonna be leading our time uh for the women's fall gathering.
SPEAKER_00: And so there'll be dinner with that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you can sign up for that in the lobby today uh as well.
SPEAKER_00: If today's your first time with us, uh there's a card on the chair in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like this is called our Connect card.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'd love for you to fill that out.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're not gonna bother you or anything.
SPEAKER_00: We just want to have a record of your time here with us and be able to answer any questions uh you might have about the church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh at the conclusion of our service, we're gonna have I want to ask Ryan uh and Catherine, if she's available, and Lindsay and Brandon.
SPEAKER_00: Um they've both shared about their journey with uh infertility.
SPEAKER_00: And so if if you've heard something today and it stirred up something in you, you want prayer, um, it doesn't have to be infertility, it could be anything going on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask them to be available uh just to pray with them, and also there'll be some of our pastors and elders uh available as well.
SPEAKER_00: Uh thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask Ryan if you would bless us.
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand and hold your hands out and let's receive a blessing?
SPEAKER_02: So, Father God, we say you are great, you are big and mighty.
SPEAKER_02: I say we ask that you vindicate your name and do all for your glory and use us in in this world to make your name known.
SPEAKER_02: So we thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.