- Be shameless in Asking. (Luke 11:5-8)
- Be shameless in Expecting. (Luke 11:9-10)
- Be shameless in Receiving. (Luke 11:11-13)
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You know the first prayer that I ever learned?
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You know what it was?
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Now I lay me down to sleep.
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How many people know this prayer?
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Come on, how many know this prayer?
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Okay, what's next?
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I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
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If I should die, if I should die, this is what five-year-old little Jeff was praying, "I should die before I wake.
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"I pray the Lord my soul to take." Yeah, I prayed that for years.
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Never even really thought about the words to that.
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But isn't that kind of a morbid prayer that we teach our children that I grew up with?
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"God, I'm going to bed now.
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If I'm going to die while I sleep, that's pretty morbid.
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And then the second prayer that I learned, how many of you know this one?
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God is great.
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God is, go ahead.
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Amen.
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And then what some of you might even know, the extended cut of that, By his hand, we are fed.
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Give us, Lord, our daily bread.
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Oh, and people, did you hear that?
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People weren't as familiar with that one.
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At least not the second part.
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Well, when I was a kid, I remember one day asking mom what a sankum was.
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She's like, "What are you talking about?" I'm like, "What's a sankum?" She's like, "I don't understand what you're saying." And I said, "Because we pray that prayer, "let us sankum for our food." I seriously thought that that's what we were saying.
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It sounds like a brand of coffee, like let us sankum.
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That was just my Shakur redneck coming out.
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Well, needless to say, since I was five, I've learned some things about praying.
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And by God's grace, I'm still learning.
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Luke chapter 11.
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Look at verse one.
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It says, "Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, "and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him," this blows my mind, seriously.
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Imagine you're following Jesus around for three years.
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you see? What do you see? You see lame people walk, right? You see blind people see. You see demon-possessed children exercised, right? Deaf people hear. You see water turned into wine. You've seen a lot, haven't you? And you would think that the disciples would say, "Jesus, can you teach us the water to wine trick? Jesus, can you teach us how to make blind people see? Can you teach us that?" What was the thing specifically the disciples asked? Here it is. They said, "Lord, teach us to pray." As John taught his disciples, talking about John the Baptist. They saw in Jesus, in God incarnate, they saw one whose life was typified by prayer. And they saw that and they said, "We want to pray. We want to be a prayer like our master is a prayer." So Jesus teaches them. We're not going to go through this. We went through this actually last time, I think we talked about prayer. Where Jesus gives what is commonly called the Lord's Prayer or the Disciples Prayer.
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Jesus says, "Here's how you pray." And he gives the ingredients of prayer. You can revisit that on your own, but I want to pick up in verse 5 because Jesus gives a lesson about prayer that I want us to take into 2013. But before we look at these verses, let me just ask you, let's get the question out.
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Why do we struggle with prayer? Now let's be honest. We're in a school, but this is church for, you know, the next hour. How many of us struggle with prayer at times in our lives? I do. I do. I'm your pastor and I'm telling you, I struggle with prayer. Why is that? I think there are a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons, I think sometimes we wonder if deep down does it really matter? Have you ever wrestled with that? Does it really matter? Does it? I mean, how many times have you heard me say, or you hear your favorite preacher on the radio, how many times have you heard the preacher say, "God is sovereign, He solely reigns, God is omnipotent, He has all power." In other words, God has a plan and God has the power to make his plan happen. So why should we pray? Shouldn't we be a little, I don't know, ashamed? Like, you know, here's God running an entire universe, overseeing how many billions of souls and nations and...
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I know you're busy, God, but can I bother you for a second?
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I hear people say that to me a lot of times.
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Pastor Jeff, can I talk to you?
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I know you're busy.
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Yeah, I am busy, but I'm not too busy to talk to you, okay?
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And I think sometimes people take that attitude to God.
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Like, well, God doesn't want bothered with my little thing here.
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Well, we see quite a different thing in the scriptures though.
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If we would get a biblical clue, Psalm 55 verse one, listen to this, "Give ear to my prayer, O God, "and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy." I remember the first time I read through the book of Psalms as a young Christian, I was actually shocked at some of the things that were said, honestly.
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Like, you don't talk to God like that.
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Yeah, he did.
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And he was inspired by God to talk to God like that.
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That's why it's in the Bible.
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But you see what he said?
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God, I need you to hear me, God.
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And it can't be as if I'm praying and you're like hiding somewhere.
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I need you to hear me, God.
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I need you to hear me.
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Same thing, Psalm 102.
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"Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress.
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"Incline your ear to me.
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"Answer me speedily in the day when I call." It almost sounds demanding.
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God, I need you.
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God, please, I need you to listen, God.
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So why don't we pray?
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I mean, God ordained the end, but listen.
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God also ordained the means to the end.
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What do you mean by that?
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Listen close. God ordained salvation through His Son. God ordained sanctification through His Spirit.
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But God has also ordained prayer.
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You will not enjoy the experience of the goodness of God without prayer.
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I want to say that last sentence again.
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Don't mishear me.
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Salvation is ordained through God's Son, Jesus Christ.
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Sanctification is ordained through God's Holy Spirit.
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But God also ordained prayer.
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Why?
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Here it is.
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You will not enjoy the experience of the goodness of God without prayer.
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I already told you I'm not the strongest one in the family and I'm certainly not the smartest, but I do know this.
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A straightforward reading of the Bible simply says that God moves when we pray.
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And some passages in the Bible can't be explained any other way.
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So, Hyper-Calvinists, I love you.
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But I'm not going to do some sort of an interpretive acrobatic trick to try to explain Bible passages when they read very straightforwardly somebody prayed and God moved because somebody prayed. That's just what the Bible says. That's just what it says. Do I believe God solely reigns? Of course I do. But I also believe that God moves when we pray. Because so many passages can't be explained any other way. And let's be honest, sometimes we are so lame.
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I am. I'm not just, I'm not even going to talk for you. I'm just going to speak on my behalf. Sometimes I am so lame when I pray because I pray things like, how many times have I prayed this with my family? God bless us and help us have a good day, amen. It's not a wrong prayer, but when it comes to this subject the Lord has really stretched me a lot, even in the past few days. Because here's what we're going for, okay? This is our 2013 prayer theme. This is what we're going for. I want you to write this word down. It's in your bulletin, but I want you to write it down because we're gonna be talking a lot about it. "Shameless." You're like, "But it's written right there. Well then circle it. Shameless. Shameless.
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This morning I just want to look at three things that Jesus said about shameless prayer. And if you're sitting there like, "I smell heresy coming." Hold on, get in God's Word and look with me. I'm not preaching some sort of a name it claim it thing. I just want you to look with me and say, "Is this what the Bible says?" But very clearly, Jesus is teaching here that our prayer to God the Father should be shameless. And here's the lesson he gives. Look at this story, verse 5, "And he said to them, 'Which of you has a friend? Which of you, excuse me, who has a friend? Well, go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him.' And he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed, I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs. So the First thing, write this down in your outline, the back of your bulletin.
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Jesus is teaching to be shameless in asking.
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Be shameless in asking.
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This is actually, I'm sure you caught it.
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If you haven't, I want to explain some things.
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This is actually a funny story.
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Now, Jesus wasn't like the Jerry Seinfeld of the first century, going around telling jokes, but this is actually a humorous story, and I'm gonna show you why here in a second.
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It all circles around one word, and it's the word impudence.
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I want you to circle that in your Bible.
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Impudence.
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That's not a word, I can't remember, outside of reading it here in Luke 11, I can't remember reading that word anywhere, and I certainly don't remember using that word in context.
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But what does impudence mean?
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Here's what it means, jot this down.
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It means offensively bold.
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Offensively bold.
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Or it means annoyingly relentless.
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Annoyingly relentless.
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But do you know what else it means?
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Take a guess.
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It means shameless.
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That's what it means.
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I looked up the word from, well, first of all, I looked up the Greek word and literally the Greek word means impudence.
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I'm like, well, then I need to understand what impudence is.
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And I did some checking and did some reading and some research and the best synonym for impudence is shameless.
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Now looking at this story, first of all it says that Jesus said, "Which of you has a friend will go to him at midnight?" Now understand in the first century what happened at midnight.
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Somebody tell me what happened at midnight.
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The answer is nothing, right?
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They didn't have David Letterman and Jay Leno.
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They didn't have infomercials.
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They weren't up watching the chop slap or whatever.
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They weren't on the internet.
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They weren't checking their Facebook or they weren't Twittering or whatever.
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In the first century, when it was midnight, it was dark and what did you do?
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You went to bed.
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Why? Because you had to be up at five or six whenever the sun came up because it was time to work.
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Nothing happened at midnight.
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except, you know, in your one room house, that's why he says, you know, my children are in bed with me.
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Typically the house was one room and the family all slept together.
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It'd be cold.
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And that was how the family kept warm.
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Everybody jump in bed together.
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Let's say that that doesn't work so well at our house.
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Maybe that works better in yours.
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But midnight, they would have all been sleeping and probably would have been sleeping for an hour or two.
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So you go to this friend at midnight and say, "Friend." Notice buttering up, right?
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That's calling him friend.
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They're like, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey." It's like, "Friend, lend me three loaves." Now, when we think of loaves, what do we think of typically?
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We think of town talk, right?
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The big loaves.
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Now, well, when Jesus was telling this story, his disciples would have understood.
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These would have been like little biscuits, okay?
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Or three little pieces of flatbread.
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It would not have been very much food.
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He says, "I need," basically it was a snack.
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"I need a snack because I had this friend come over And a response from inside the house says, "Look, the door is shut." Like, well, what's the big deal with that?
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Well, realizing that the doors in Jesus' day would have been, you know, there would have been hooks and bars and metal things to clang and unlocking and opening instead of just like the deadbolt that we have.
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What he was saying was, "Look, I'm not going to get up and raise a ruckus, "make a lot of noise and wake my family up because your friend needs a snack.
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Yeah, really, here's the modern version of that, when you think about it, is imagine that I show up at your house, Justin, I show up at your house at 2 a.m., and you're sleeping, and you hear pebbles hitting your window.
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You're like, "What's going on?" You open the door, you're opening your window, "What's going on?
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"I'm standing outside of your house." Get this scene?
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I'm standing outside of your house.
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"Hey, Justin!
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"Hey, a buddy of mine from high school came over "and we're playing some PlayStation hockey "and I'm out of Doritos." That's what this story is.
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"Justin, do you have any Doritos?" "Jeff, we're sleeping.
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"It's two in the morning." "Do you have any strawberry Pop-Tarts?
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"We just need something.
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"We're just like hanging out.
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"Can you give us a snack?" And Justin's thinking, what?
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What planet is this guy from showing up at my house asking for Pop-Tarts at two in the morning?
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That's the point of Jesus' story here.
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It's a story of a shameless guy not caring that he is annoying his neighbor over a non-emergency.
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You're like, I can kind of see where that is a little bit of a humorous story, do you see that?
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Let me tell you when this is not a humorous story is when it actually does happen to you.
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Because it has happened to me being a pastor.
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Several years ago I had this lady call, I'm not gonna tell you her name, but none of you would know her anyways, but I was in bed, it was like 12.50 a.m.
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I'm in bed, my phone rings.
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Being a pastor, when you get that phone call in the middle of the night, what do you think of, right Paul?
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It's like there's been an accident, Somebody's been admitted to the hospital.
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Pastor Jeff, you need to rush down here.
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So the phone rings.
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So, you know, when that happens in the middle of the night, I am out of bed like a rocket.
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I'm like, hello?
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And I recognize this lady's voice.
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And she's like, "Pastor Jeff, "I need you to take me to the hospital." Well, having known this lady, I knew that she really didn't need to go to the hospital.
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Do you know people like that?
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sort of push the panic button over everything.
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Don't point at anybody in the room here, but you know people like that.
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She said, "Pastor, do you ever need to go to the hospital?" I'm like, "Why?" She says, "Because I can't sleep." I'm like, "Well, that makes two of us.
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Maybe we'll carpool." Don't think less of me, all right?
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If this is going to tempt you to think less of me, I want you to tune out for a second.
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But what I said was, watch TV until you do.
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She goes, no, I need to get to the hospital, I can't sleep.
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Are you in any pain?
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No, I'm not in any pain.
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Are you having problems breathing?
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No, I'm not having any problems breathing.
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My patience is really short.
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at like almost one in the morning when it's a non-emergency, okay?
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I'm just getting that out there.
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Don't call me to chit-chat at one in the morning.
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And I'm like, what is the emergency?
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Now, this was a woman who didn't have a job, didn't have any place to be the next day, but the emergency was she couldn't sleep.
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and I needed to take her to the emergency room.
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And I said, "You know, if you were on fire or there was something really wrong, I would take you.
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But if you can't sleep, that's okay.
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Just stay up and watch TV and maybe you'll drift off to sleep." That was my pastoral advice.
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That was a long time ago, okay?
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Don't judge me.
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And if I get any emails or any correspondence criticizing me, I'm going to call you at one in the morning, just to chat, and I will do it.
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Okay?
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And we'll find that you're human too.
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So I think of this woman and I thought, you know what?
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This is exactly what Jesus was talking about in this story.
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This is the same attitude that we are to take to God.
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So let me just ask you, when was the last time, when was the last time that you really bore your soul to God?
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When was the last time you did that?
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I don't mean the grocery list.
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Like here's a list of the sick people that I know, and I'm just gonna run through them for God.
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Hey, that's a good thing.
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But I'm talking about taking it deeper than that.
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I'm not talking about the generic speech that I've been so guilty of committing so often.
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When was the last time that you brought the specific need to God?
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Shameless in asking.
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Shameless in asking.
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Well, this story really is to set up the next thing that Jesus said.
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He says you need to be shameless in asking because number two, you need to be shameless in expecting.
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You need to be shameless in expecting.
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Look at verses nine and 10 with me.
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Jesus said, "And I tell you, "ask and it will be given to you.
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"Seek and you will find.
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"Knock and it will be opened to you.
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"For everyone who asks receives.
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"And the one who seeks finds, "and to the one who knocks it will be opened." So be shameless in asking, but also be shameless in expecting.
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All right, I'm gonna get confession time.
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Up until yesterday, my entire Christian life, I've never understood this parable.
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I'll be honest with you.
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I have studied over it and read through it and meditated on it.
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Let me tell you why.
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My whole Christian life, when I read through this parable, do you know what I thought that it taught?
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I thought that what this parable was teaching was, if you persistently annoy God, eventually he'll give you what you want.
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How many people have heard teaching like that?
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Seriously.
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If you annoy God, eventually he'll give you what you want.
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The reason I struggled with that is, Okay, in this parable, like the friend in the house in bed with his kids and a locked door, that guy, like how does he represent God?
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Like, because he's kind of reluctant, but God's not really reluctant.
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Is Jesus saying that you should annoy God to the point that God gives you what you need just to shut you up?
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Now that doesn't seem right.
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Well, the lights finally came on for me, and this forever will change the way I think about prayer.
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And I pray that it does for you as well.
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But here's the thing, maybe you already caught this, but the parable isn't about the guy in the house.
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It's about the shamelessness of the asker.
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That's what the parable's about.
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The guy in the house really is irrelevant as far as the point of the story.
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The point of the story is the shamelessness of the guy asking the request.
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Because look at what Jesus says, verse 9, "And I tell you," and I tell you, what would you expect Jesus to say?
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And I tell you, disciples, don't be annoying like that guy.
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And I tell you, don't be shameless in bringing your requests to God.
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That's not what Jesus said.
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Jesus said, let me tell you a story about a shameless guy that wasn't afraid to go yell at his buddy for a snack.
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Now, I'm telling you what.
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and it will be given to you." Do you see what Jesus is saying?
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Impudence, shamelessness works on a buddy, and I tell you be just as shameless when you approach God because He will answer. Jesus said, "I tell you," and somebody might leave here today and say, "Wow, that seemed like awfully radical teaching." Now this is straight from Jesus, okay? I didn't make this up. Jesus said, "And I tell you to expect answers." Did you see that? Just as shameless. Now, shameless Shameless doesn't mean irreverent.
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Shameless doesn't mean we don't honor God.
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Shameless means I'm not afraid to bring whatever need is on my heart to the throne of God.
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I'm not afraid to do that.
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And really, it's a radical concept, and it certainly would have been to the disciples to hear this for the first time, to be expecting things from God when we ask Him.
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You know, it wasn't like that in pagan religions, and it's still not.
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You don't just cry out to your deity and say, "Hey, this is what I need, and I need you to provide it." You just don't do that.
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And in Jesus' day, and even before, and even in modern day, when you have a king, you don't into the King's presence unless you were invited. In fact, with some of the ancient kings, do you know how you went into the King's presence? Sometimes you'd have to go in backwards as a sign of "I'm not worthy to face you." With some kings, you had to go into his presence kneeling. "I'm not worthy to stand in your presence. I'm But I'll tell you one thing about the kings in ancient days, you never walked in there and demanded anything.
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And what Jesus is teaching here is God is the opposite.
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God is saying, "Because of my son, come boldly to the throne of grace and ask for whatever you wants. And it's not just you can. God's saying, "I want you to." Do you get that?
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God's not indifferent, like, "Well, I'm here if you need me." God has opened the door through the death and the resurrection of his Son, and he's in the throne room saying, "Come on in. Come in here and tell me what you need. Come." Well, That seems a little shameless to go into your throne room.
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And Jesus goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Just like the guy that bothered his friend at midnight.
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Shameless.
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Three present imperatives, what does that mean?
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In these verses, Jesus is giving us the commands, but they're continual commands.
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That's the present imperative, meaning this.
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Literally what Jesus was saying is, I tell you, ask and keep on asking.
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Seek and keep on seeking.
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Knock and keep on knocking.
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It's continuous.
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I'm sure you noticed in verses 9 and 10, Jesus sort of said the same thing twice.
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Why did He do that?
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Well, verse 9 is sort of the command.
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Jesus goes, "And I'm telling you, ask, seek, and knock." That's the command.
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But verse 10 is the promise.
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Did you catch the difference?
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Verse 10, Jesus says, "For everyone." Everyone who asks receives.
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Everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
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Underline that word, everyone, in your Bible.
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Because I know that there are gonna be people that are gonna be tempted to walk out of here today Yeah, you know, that might be true for Stephen Furtick or James MacDonald or John MacArthur.
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That was probably true for Spurgeon and Luther and Calvin and yeah, that was probably true for those guys.
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Jesus said, "Everyone, are you included in the category of everyone?" Is that you?
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Show me how you're excluded from that.
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Because the promise is for you.
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Everyone who asks, receives.
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So let me ask you, when was the last time that you prayed about something actually expecting God to directly answer?
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And I would guess for many of us it's been a while.
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And the reason I would say that is because I hear people say silly things like, "Well, I guess all we can do is pray." That expression drives me insane.
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"I guess all we can do is pray." We've tried everything else. We don't have enough money and we don't have enough resources.
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So we're going to throw this Hail Mary pass to heaven and hope that somehow our prayer reaches the ear of God and that he might consider possibly doing something on our behalf.
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That is not what Jesus said. Jesus said, "Everyone who asks, receives." Isn't that what he said?
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Everyone who seeks finds.
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Everyone who knocks the door's gonna be open.
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Like, well, gosh, that sounds awfully bold.
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That is the whole point. Shameless.
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Shameless to go into God's presence and say, "God, the reason that I'm here and the reason I'm being so bold in my asking is because you told me to. It's because you provided the way because you said that you would answer and I believe you. One more, you ready for this? Number three, not only be shameless in your asking and be shameless in your expecting, but be shameless in receiving. Look at verses 11 through 13.
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"Well, before you do, I wanna tell you a true story." This isn't some little nugget that I found on the internet.
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This is a true story.
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One day when I was a teenager, I was walking home from school, and on my path home, I had to pass a grocery store and a bank.
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So one day when I was walking home from school, I just walked into the bank, You know, you walk into the bank, you have the row of tellers, and then you have like all those little back offices and stuff.
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I walked into the bank, and I walked right past all the tellers, walked right into the offices, and I walked into the manager's office, the bank manager's office, and I asked him if I could have loan papers because I needed a loan for pocket change.
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And he said, "Well, how much do you need?" And I remember saying, "Oh, 2,000, probably do it." He's like, "What do you need the money for?" And I'm sitting in this bank manager's office, and I said, "Well, what I need the money for "is just so I have some cash on hand." So he gave me the papers, and I sat and filled them out.
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This is a true story.
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And he looked him over, and he said, "I'm sorry." He says, "I'm sorry you're denied the loan." Well, it became sort of a regular routine.
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On my way home from school, I would walk into the bank, walk right past the tellers, walk right into the manager's office, and plop down on the chair.
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Sometimes I'd bum candy from them.
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Sometimes I'd bum a dollar off of him and he'd get into his own wallet and give me money out of his own wallet.
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And you're like, Jeff, how were you so bold to walk into the bank manager's office and get him to give you money from his wallet?
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How did you manage that?
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Do you know how?
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He was my father.
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(congregation laughing)
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All that I told you is absolutely true.
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Why was I so bold?
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Because he was my father.
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I would just walk right in.
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Now, Darren, you had the same father.
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What are the chances anybody else would have gotten away with that?
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Zero, right?
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Zero.
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Dad would have politely told them to get out of his office.
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He didn't just walk into the manager's office on a whim, but I could because he was my father.
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Well, you see where Jesus is going with this, don't you?
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Look at verse 11.
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Jesus says, "What father among you?
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"If his son asks for a fish, "will instead of a fish give him a serpent?
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"Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?" Like, what's that all about?
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Well, obviously, you can see how a serpent would look like a fish.
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Well, what about a scorpion?
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Well, actually, in the Middle East, I read this week that there are actually some scorpions that would actually roll up into a little ball.
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And they're actually the same color of an egg, that if you were to have this balled-up scorpion in your hand rolled up into a ball, at first glance, you would think it was an egg.
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And Jesus said, "What kind of dad would do something like that?" If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?
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So be shameless in receiving.
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Jesus here was doing a classic Jewish line of reasoning.
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This is called the lesser to greater argument.
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Jesus said, first of all, here's how it is with a friend.
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Now let's crank it up a few degrees.
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Here's how it is with a father.
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Now children aren't shy about asking for something, are they?
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Wilson, are your girls shy about asking for something?
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No, no.
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else with kids, are kids shy about asking? Evan, is that, Corinne, is Evan shy about asking? No.
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And you've been around our kids, Kate is not shy about asking for anything. Seriously, you could be driving down the street and he'd be like, "Buy me that building." Children aren't shy about asking, why? Because they get the relationship. Children understand, "This is my father," and they inherently They know, "My father loves me.
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"My father provides for me.
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"My father takes care of me." That's why children aren't afraid to ask their parents.
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Like, "Hey, dad, give me." They get the relationship.
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When Jesus here is pointing out the obvious observation, fathers do good for their children.
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And Jesus is saying, "So if you have a hungry child, "your child comes to you hungry and dependent and comes to you and says, "Dad, I need something to eat." Would you trick him by giving him something dangerous?
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Would you do that?
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That's monstrous, isn't it?
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You know, "Dad, can I have a sandwich?" And you like, give him a Cobra.
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No father would do that.
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That's crazy.
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And Jesus is like, yeah, that is crazy.
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You will always try to do best for your kids.
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Now, you know what?
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We fail from time to time, we do.
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But deep down, we wanna do what's best for our kids.
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And Jesus points out, if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children.
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Like, what's with the insult?
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Well, you know, I spent the first 20 years of my life in the evil category.
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And though redeemed, though adopted, though pronounced righteous in Christ, I still live in the flesh.
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I still face temptation.
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And that's what Jesus is talking about here.
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He says, "You're just a human being.
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Let me talk about a perfectly holy, unstained by sin father.
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Now, what do you think he's going to be like when you come to him?
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I'll tell you, Psalm 84, 11, no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
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So you at your very base, redeemed or unredeemed, you're walking around in fallen flesh and you wanna do what's best for your kids, what do you think God the Father's gonna do?
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Well, what will he give?
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This point you're like, oh, this sounds great.
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This sounds great, Jeff, this sounds great.
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So what's he gonna give, what's he gonna give?
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What's he gonna give?
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Well, what does it say at the end of verse 13?
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How much more will the heavenly Father give?
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Shout it out.
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Shout it out, come on.
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The Holy Spirit.
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What?
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I'm sure to some people that sounds like a ripoff.
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You mean when I ask God for something, what he's going to give me is the Holy Spirit?
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You mean I can ask God for anything, but his answer is really only in one thing.
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Boy, that sounds backwards.
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Actually, the opposite is true.
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What are some things that people ask God for?
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Shout it out.
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What are some things that people ask God for?
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Go ahead, shout it out.
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Shout it loud because I'm already hearing.
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What's that?
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Children, okay.
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What else?
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Healing, good, what else?
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Money, okay?
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What else do people ask God for?
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That's it?
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Like we got three.
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All right, well, you know what?
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To be fair, I had more time to think about this this week 'cause this is kind of what I do.
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While you're doing your thing, this is what I'm doing.
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Here's things, I was just kind of sitting down thinking, what are some things that people pray for?
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What about comfort?
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Do people pray for comfort?
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I have an Aaron's uncle right now is down in the hospital after suffering a massive stroke and we're praying for healing, somebody said that, but we're also praying for comfort for the rest of the family.
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Here's one I hear all the time, strength.
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People pray for strength, seriously.
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Like how often do we pray for that?
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All the time, right?
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Here's some more, wisdom, right?
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You pray for wisdom, guidance.
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What about love? Maybe there's a broken relationship or maybe you're praying for joy because you're like, "Man, I see they're all they're all fired up and I'm just not feeling it, God. Where do I get some of that?" So how does God answer these prayers? Check this out. This is incredible. We pray for comfort and And God answers that prayer by giving us, according to Jesus, what? Who? The Holy Spirit, who is also known as the Comforter. Isn't that awesome? We're like, "God, can you give me some comfort?" And God goes, "Yeah, I'll tell you what I'll do.
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I won't just send you comfort, I'll send you someone who will indwell you, who who will constantly comfort you.
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And people pray for strength.
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And God says, "Okay, I got an idea.
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"I will send the source of strength Himself, "my Spirit, to indwell you." God, I need wisdom.
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I will send the Spirit of wisdom Himself to indwell you.
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Do you see a trend here?
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God, I need guidance.
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God says, I will send you a guide.
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God, I'm really struggling with some areas like love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness, and God, I really struggle with self-control.
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How does God answer?
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I will put my spirit in you.
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I won't just give you those things, I'll give you the source of those things.
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It would be like if you came up to me after church and you're like, "Pastor Jeff, can you give me a ride home?" And I toss you the keys to my car and say, "It's yours." You ask for a ride and I give you a car?
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Or if you come up to me this afternoon and you're like, "You know what, Pastor Jeff, I could go for a pizza." And I go out and I buy you a Pizza Hut franchise and say, "This is yours now." You ask for a thing and instead you're given the source.
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Any need we could possibly have is met with the indwelling presence of God himself.
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And you're like, "Okay, Pastor Jeff, "I knew you were gonna Jesus-juke us on this." What about the material things?
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What about the physical things?
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Do I believe God provides those things?
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Absolutely, I do.
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Without a doubt.
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Just this morning, it helped that this stuff was so fresh in my mind.
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I get a call, Mark Bloomingdale pulled up here and he said, "The lot's not cleared.
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"What are we gonna do?" And Mark says, "Well, here's some options, some things to think about and I said, all right, well, let me think about it.
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Hung up the phone and my knee-jerk reaction was, okay, I gotta try to find somebody to call and see how we can get the lot cleared.
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But again, since this message was so fresh in my mind, guess what I did?
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I prayed.
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I prayed shamelessly.
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I'm like, God, we wanna have church this morning and the lot's not cleared.
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So because you've been teaching me so much about shameless prayer, God, I'm just gonna ask you to clear the lot, however you wanna do it.
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Well, then after I got done praying, I got on the phone and I, actually I sent a text to Kent Chevalier from Northway.
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Like, hey, who clears your lot?
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He gave me the name of a guy.
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I called the guy.
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While I'm on the phone with this guy gave me, Mark texted back in and said somebody was here to clear the lot. I didn't have to call that guy. And that shows you how faithless I can be. That I prayed God, I prayed and I prayed shamelessly, but I guess there was a little faithless part of me that said maybe I should have a plan B. Hey, God's God's growing me too, okay?
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God's still teaching me some things.
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But what about these other material and physical things?
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You know, how does the Holy Spirit fit into all of that?
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Well, sometimes when we're praying for money, the way God answers through His Holy Spirit is to give us contentment.
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Sometimes when we're praying for health issues, what God is answering through his Holy Spirit is to find the purpose in the health issue.
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That's something I could write a book about.
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And actually I did.
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but to pray and to pray and to pray over a health issue.
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And God, why aren't you answering this prayer?
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For God to say, well, there's another purpose I have in this right now.
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Aren't my problems just, you know, in the grand scheme of things, aren't my problems just so insignificant in the big picture?
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Am I just expecting too much?
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Am I really ready to receive God's answer?
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Jesus said to pray shamelessly.
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He said to be expecting shamelessly and to receive shamelessly.
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You know, we have plans for 2013, if the Lord wills.
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One of the things that we wanna do is to get every small group involved in some sort of an outreach ministry.
50:59-51:02
Well, that seems ambitious for a church our size.
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It sure does, that's why I'm hoping that God shows up and makes it happen.
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We have plans in the works for special needs ministry.
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How do you really expect a church of our size and our budget to make that happen?
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God's gonna have to show up and make it happen.
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I wanna see many people come to Christ.
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I wanna see many people baptized in response to the gospel of Christ.
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I wanna see this room filled, not just the center section, I wanna see this room filled with passionate worshipers of Jesus Christ.
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Those are the things that I want, not for our glory, but for God's glory.
51:57-52:00
Let me ask you, what do you wanna see in 2013?
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Is there a relationship in your life that needs healed?
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Like man, we had a falling out and it never really got back to where it needed to be.
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I don't know what to do.
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I'm gonna give you a hint.
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Pray shamelessly.
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You're like, you know, we get this physical thing going on, we need healing.
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What should I do?
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Pray shamelessly.
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You know, we need a, I know this affects a lot of people, we need employment, you know, through downsizing or circumstances, we need employment, we need provision.
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What should I do?
52:44-52:45
What should I do?
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What would Jesus tell you to do?
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Pray shamelessly.
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And I have to wonder how many blessings in my own life I forfeited because of James 4.2, where James says, "You do not have because you," what?
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Because you do not ask.
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I have to wonder in my own life, And this is again where God's really hit me this week.
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How much of what I've wanted and what I've yearned for and what I've dreamt about, how much of it really currently, I don't have it just because I haven't asked God for it.
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We are not going to ask anything of God that's going to surprise Him or overwhelm Him.
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Do you understand that?
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That's why we can pray shamelessly.
53:45-53:51
We're not gonna take a request to God, and we're like, God, we need healing.
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This person, you know, her uncle had a stroke, God, and he's laying down in the ICU, he needs healing.
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God's not gonna be like, what?
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You want me to do what?
54:03-54:05
Where's God gonna be overwhelmed?
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Oh, you know, Jeff, you know I'm awfully busy.
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You know, Tom's not the only guy in the world laying in a hospital bed.
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I'll get to him when I get to him.
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That's not God.
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He says, "Bring it." Shamelessly.
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Can we in our church, in our homes, in our lives, can we move beyond safe prayers?
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Can we move beyond the don't ask for too much prayers?
54:40-54:45
Can we move beyond the God bless me can keep me safe prayers?
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And can we start boldly praying by faith for the impossible?
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For God to show up and do what only He can do?
54:59-55:12
By God's grace, let's make 2013 a year of shamelessness in our prayers.
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Let's do it right now. Bow your heads with me.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Luke 11:5-13
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.