Faith Lesson 13 week 2

All right, well we are on the faith class, lesson 13. I believe that we got through question 3 last week, which was about the definite article there, the sin nature that we're talking about. So we will start with question 4, lesson 13, faith class. What does Paul say he learned from what the law taught him? Then we're looking at, let's look at Romans 7, 9, chapter 7, verse 9.

And it goes, Paul, I was once alive, apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. Interesting verse. Alive and died in there. The word alive is in the imperfect tense, so it's also the active and indicative, which says it was a continuous action in the past, but it was then terminated. So Paul was alive.

So what does that mean? What does that tell us? Was Paul alive and then he died? Was he a believer and then not a believer? He was not a believer and then he was a believer. He says he was alive and then he died. Like alive in the flesh. Okay. Anybody else? Well, he was alive in what he thought was true. I mean that he studied with whoever that guy was.

It's like anesthesiologists. I can never get anesthesia as fit. And of course, with my daughter in the medical field, I am totally bad in all these operations. I cannot say those words. And my family will attest to that. So, alive, he was just alive in what he thought. from Gamma Needle, you know. What else? Anybody else?

I think the person alive is not accountable for his thoughts and deeds. Not accountable for his thoughts and deeds. Because he didn't know the law. Then he was taught the law extensively. Okay. So, it says, I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.

So, I guess the question is believer or not believer? He's still not a believer so far. So you think he's not a believer? Yeah. He's a believer in the law. Believer in the law. Interesting. Yeah, and he's faithful to the law. No, I think he was a believer because it says here, what does Paul say? He learned. Learned. L-E-A-N-D. R-N-E-D. Learned.

So, what does the imperfect tense tell us? Come on, we've been into Greek stuff for years. Yeah, easy to remember. And it's not perfect. That he didn't believe and now he believes. He didn't believe it. Imperfect tense. What does imperfect tense mean? Continuous action in the past. Okay.

So, he was alive. So, do you think he was a believer? Yes. Yes. He was alive. He's saying, I was alive. I'm a believer. I am in the Lord. I am alive. Imperfect tense as it was in the past. I'm alive. But then he said, well, so, so it says Paul was a believer at this point. Some people have tried to take Romans 7 and say that this was before Paul was a believer. This states that Paul was alive in Christ. But then what does it say?

He died. So what does die mean? Separated. So he was alive. And now he's separated. From what? Did he lose his salvation? No. So what does that mean? I don't think he had it. I really don't. It is. He's separated from fellowship. So, he was alive. If you look at it, Carol, a lot of people try and do that and that's why in Romans 7, they think... The sin became alive and I died. That means spiritually. No. Separation.

So, when you look at it, he says alive. The Greek actually helps you in that. It's in the imperfect tense which says in the past he's alive. So he's alive. The past continuous So, he's alive. That means he's a believer. So, if death means separation, do you think alive means union? I think that'd be good. Yeah, I think so. So, he was alive, so he's a believer, but then the verse says, I was once alive apart from the law, so he's alive in Christ, But when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. So, what was he separated from? He said it over here. His wrong thinking. No, he was separated from his right thinking, actually. He was separated from what?

If you're alive in Christ, and you listen to the music, and you follow your sin nature, what do you lose? Fellowship with God. Fellowship. You lose fellowship. So he's stating here that basically he's alive, but then once he started to go back to the law, this follow the sin nature, he gets separated. Separated from fellowship.

And you'll see that as we go through seven and then into eight. I think it becomes apparent. Yeah. And it seems like sometimes when I hear separate from fellowship, it sounds like God's the one who's separating himself, but that's not the case. No. We get involved in ourselves and we separate. We lose the fellowship with God. It's absolutely on our part.

You know, that's why I always go back to my things where I say, you know, in Him all things hold together in Colossians. You need to understand that. But you couple that with Romans 8 and the other, that you can't be separated from His love. You can't be. He will not be separated. He will never end loving us.

We can go, swirl, over here, and follow our sin nature, and take our focus off Him, but He is constantly, through the Holy Spirit, wooing us and drawing us to Him. Just read those, I think it's end of Romans 8, where it names all these things that can't separate us from the love of God in Christ. There's nothing that can separate us, so if you understand that, yeah, the only person doing the turning away is us, for sure. Okay? So, we know he was alive, he was a believer, and then he followed the music, started to think law, he became separated. So what do we learn from these verses? Or this verse? What do we learn?

Law activates the sin nature. Law activates the sin nature. Others? That once the sin nature is activated, I can't control it. Yeah, I think that's good, because in the end, in whatever, the end of Romans 7, whatever, 28, whatever. Oh wretched man that I am. He can't do anything about it. And what is the solution? Thanks be to God.

So, I said Paul was alive, but the sin nature used the law to kill or separate Paul from fellowship with the Lord. When the law came, the sin nature was revived and sprang back into activity, and he became separate from fellowship with the Lord. So Paul thought that he could live the Christian life in his own sufficiency by keeping the law. How did that work out for him?

Oh, wretched man that I am. I love that at the end. All this, we think we can do it ourselves, and the Sin Nature is the first one in the cheerleading squad saying, you can do this, you can do this, you can get better. And is, oh wretched man, oh wretched man, and the only thing is thanks be to God. So we're going to get into that a little bit more in question six, a very similar question, but it didn't work out real well for Paul. And in the end he just realizes, oh wretched man, and he realizes there's nothing good in the flesh. There is nothing good in the law. And they're inexplicably, not inexplicably, they're inseparable, the flesh and the law.

So, again, we have been separated from that positionally through our identification with Christ. But, we still have that sin nature in us. You know, a lot of people try and do the one nature, you know, there's only one nature, and so, you know, I always say, I think, what do they say? It's baggage, memories, that's why you sin, and other stuff. No, you still have a sin nature. We've been separated from it positionally, but we still have a sin nature in us. And Paul, Romans 7 is a great example of that. that you know Paul was a believer and yet he still listens to the sin nature and he gets drawn over and he says, I died.

I've been separated from fellowship. We're the exact same way. Okay, question. It doesn't seem then, because I was reading Watchman Knee and I can't say that I agree with what he was saying, like a duality. It seems like God works on us by increasing knowledge about him rather than us trying to work out the bad stuff. You know what I mean? It goes back to what I think, an analogy I think has been used.

What do people who look at counterfeit bills do? Do they look at fake bills? What do they look at? They study the real one. They study the real one. Similar with us. We study and to know God. We don't look at all the bad stuff to see what the bad is. We look at who Christ is to be conformed, to be transformed, to have him manifest in us because we know who we are. We're in him. So we study the original, the true, the truth, which is Christ. Studying the bad and all the bad things is not what we should be focusing on.

I always think one of the hardest things I think for a believer to do is to get over the sins that you commit. You know, that you get beat up by them. You dwell on the sins. You know, man, I just really screwed up today. I just... and you just dwell on that. You dwell on that.

Is that what the Lord wants us to do? No! He wants us to focus on Him. Is He done with all those sins? Absolutely! But believers a lot of times just keep going over and over and over on the bad things we've done and they focus on that. That's not what we're to focus on.

2 Peter 3.18, to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. To know Him as eternal life. It's not to study the old man. That has nothing to do with our growth. Although I think it's very important to understand who the old man is when the music starts and you you know, go over here, but you realize that very quickly that that is not who you are in Christ.

Okay. Courtney, can I say something too? Yes. Paul makes a real strong distinction. I think we make a lot of mistakes like this. It isn't knowing about him, it's knowing him. It sounds like semantics, but it isn't. That's what I said last week. I heard that on the radio station. Is it better to know the word or know the author? That's right, you said that last week.

I mean, that's the whole key. I can know a lot of facts. You know, we've talked about, you know, there are going to be a lot of people who wander around and knowing lots of facts can bump right into the Lord and not see Him. They know everything about the facts, but they don't know Him.

You know, that's why I said the Lord has really been working on me a lot with intimacy, because I think the more I study this faith class, I think the intimacy with the Lord is a key. Because, as I said before, I think when you get to know somebody. The more you know them, the more you can either know to trust them or not trust them.

I think it's the same with the Lord. I think simple faith gets us in salvation into Christ. But I think the growth comes with intimacy. You can trust all these things he says as you know him, as you trust him intimately. As I said before, I think you can love somebody but not have intimacy. And I think that's with the Lord. I think we can love the Lord and we have salvation, but I think the intimacy is key to growth.

Because how do you trust somebody if you don't know them? And so I really believe that a key foundation of our faith is intimacy with Him. And as we'll get down here a little bit, where we even talk about that a little bit about imitating and those type of things. Everybody's probably heard this, but Lori may not know this.

Tom LeRoy used to be a teacher in this church. He used to be our teacher at work for years. And he would come back outside from a Greek class because he learned all this stuff. But the Greek teacher was an atheist, so he knew the words. He could read all that stuff and he could explain it and just light up how about how full it was. But the Greek teacher didn't believe him. Amazing. Yeah, and that's, I mean, you can know a lot of facts. You can know a lot of things, but you go right by the Lord. Yeah. All right, question five.

What is the primary operating principle of the sin nature? So to begin with, what is an operating principle? We've done this several times, but always review. What is an operating principle? The way something works. How something operates or functions. Okay? Therefore, what is the operating principle, or how does the sin nature function? So to begin with, let's focus on what is the focus of the sin nature? Self. Right? That's in and of itself. That's the key.

Is the sin nature is self. So if the focus of the sin nature is self, how does it operate? It loves worldly stuff. It loves worldly stuff. Yeah. Does it condemn us? Oh, the sin nature doesn't condemn us. It desires. It wants to be the best Christian around. How can I do it? How can I do this? How many push-ups can I do? Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Cause and effect. It's the first one to champion everything in the flesh by works. The law and works. Sin nature is by self. Sin nature is self.

How does it operate? Human viewpoint? Well, I don't know how I came up with this because I wasn't here last Sunday, but it is a code of conduct or devotion to such a code. Oh, interesting. Yeah, but what is the focus of that? Self. Yeah, I think that's good, code of conduct. But it's self-focused is the key. And I think since now we're under grace, like the opposite of grace is the, like you said, what's the path of dog psychology thing? Conditioned response. Right. Conditioned response. Yeah.

So it operates by the law and works focused on how we in ourselves can accomplish Christian living. It makes the believer think that they can live the Christian life by self-efforts. So what does that look like? If I do this, then I get this. That's how law works. Others? Well, it's a total screw-up. Put bluntly, yes. So how does it operate? What does it look like? What do you do?

It's like self-righteousness. Self-righteousness. What does the self-focused believer do? Sins. Focus on good works. Focus on good works. Oh, it's to make you proud of yourself and look good to other people and things like that. Make me look like a really good Christian. I think you're also comparing yourself to other believers. Excellent. Excellent. I think that happens a lot.

You know, as I told you, I think many times that, you know, when I was an early believer and we were at the Brethren Church, we have a worship service in the morning, and it was just an open worship service. And the old men would just give these eloquent, you know, prayers. And then they would memorize scripture, and they would just flow out all these scriptures.

What I tried to do was, I want to be like them. Because I think God will smile on me a little bit more, because they're smiling on that guy. Look, oh, that prayer he did, whew. I want to be just like him. There's guys who just knew scripture inside and out. I want to be like them. So that's competition. What is the focus? Self. Winning. Self. Totally self. You know, that I want to make, I want to be just like him so everybody looks at me and says, that guy knows scripture. That guy knows, ooh, he can pray like none other. He's a golden tongue boy. You know?

Totally wrong. Yeah, but you can't judge a book by its cover. Because what you're thinking, I mean, what you think you are and your ego is going cuckoo. You know, I can't tell a lot of anybody else's motive of my own. So, I mean, I stay focused on me. I just knew I was wrong. And I couldn't memorize Scripture and it frustrated me until I got my motive right. To know Him. That's the key. Not to impress anybody.

So, I said, what does it look like? You probably wince at this. But I think Hal had it too, one form of this. So what does it look like with the folks of the Sin Nature itself? What would it do? I said the challenges would be to pray more, study more, give more, to witness more, to surrender more, to minister more, to consecrate more, to commit more, and to focus on and feel sorry about your sin. Is this how you become more Christ-like?

Sounds like a pretty good list. Pretty good list. Is that how you do it? No. Why? Because if you do something it has to come from the heart and you don't think about pleasing others or you might get a brownie point because of what you said. Your whole heart and soul is in Christ so then you just operate differently. What is the focus if I'm doing all that?

Myself, to improve myself, to make God just be a little bit happier with me. But just to kind of bring this around to the big, big picture, is the Holy Spirit can still take all that junk you're doing, convict you of it, and turn it into good. You know, and that's a good point. There's some scripture, and I can't remember where it is, but we're basically, you know, Men were using the scriptures for their own profit, but God was using them. And it's like your story. You said you were trying to get more and more. And here you are now, telling us that. Turn it to good.

Yeah. Or whatever. Or not. I don't know. It's not self-focused. I don't want that. But he does use all those circumstances. I've told Mike a lot of times, whatever his phrase is, I say the wrong things to the right people at the wrong time, whatever. And I always think of that. Well, he may not be working on that person. He's working on this person. And he uses all things. He's in control of all things. In him, all things hold together. Even though you think you're working on this person, God is working on you. Or the three people around him. And I wasn't giving you any credit for that. No, thank you. I did not want that. That was not the focus of it. But also, while you're doing all that stuff, you have no intimacy with the Lord.

Absolutely. And that's exactly what he wants. Perfect. If we're looking at self, are we growing in the knowledge and grace of Him? We're missing, we're losing. Do we have fellowship with Him when we're focused on ourselves? No. Just what Paul said. I'm alive, but once the sin and I start doing all this law-based and all this, I die. I separate myself from it. Well, you've said something, or my somebody, that we're studying so that we can serve. Do we have to serve? I think I'm too old to serve. No, but I mean does that just mean with the people that surround you?

I am more and more convinced of the in him all things hold together. I am getting more convinced that everything that goes on he's using it for his purposes. And whatever situation I'm in, whatever condition I'm in, whatever relationship, anything, He's using it. And He's using it for me or for them or for the people around or anything. He's in control. And so when you say you're not being used or you can't be used, He's using you every day. Every day. And He's growing you He's growing your dependency on Him every day. He should be focusing you on Him every day. And as you do that, it leads in perfectly to the question I was going to ask.

So if we do all these things, pray more, minister more, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, are we to be imitators of Christ? Are we to wear the, we all get the WWJD bracelets? What would Jesus do? No, it's what did Jesus do? Good point. We are to think what Jesus would do in any circumstance. Is that correct? We're to focus on imitation. Is that correct? No. What? Aren't we supposed to be imitators of Christ? No? Anybody say yes? Or to be imitators? Alright. Nice try. I know. I thought I'd get somebody on that one. I thought you guys would all be eating that one up. I thought I'd find somebody with a WWJD bracelet on or something. Yeah?

There's a scripture with Paul saying, being the imitators of me. Me, but not Christ. And what I'm doing, we'll look at Romans 8, 29. If you look at Romans 8, 29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become what? conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined he also called, and these whom he called he also justified, and these whom he justified he also glorified. So, first, who is the one doing the conforming?

The Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit? We can't do it by trying to imitate him. He has to build it into us. He has to build it into us. Well, that says God. Are we separating the Holy Spirit and God? I know they're all God. They're all God, yeah. God through the Holy Spirit. In this one, God is the One. So, first, who is the One conforming? Is it our efforts or actions? In here, it says God is the One. Predestined and foreknew are on the eras tense, active and indicative. Done. Active. He's the one doing it. Indicative. Fact. Okay?

So, is conformity the same as imitation? Go to my favorite source, Webster. I like that one. It's better than Zodiaty's, right? Webster's definition says to imitate is to follow as a model or copy. And to conform means to be identical. And there are different definitions, but these are the ones I think that apply here. To follow as a model or copy. Or to conform, which is to be identical to.

So, how does God conform us? Whatever he wants. How does he conform us? Does he tell us? Through the word, through trials, through experiences. He bodes us. He bodes us, no? That's how he brings us. Others? Well, it says predestined, let's see, for those to be conformed. So is already His plan? Yes. His plan is to conform us. By being in the Word? Word and intimacy with the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Look at Romans 12.2.

Romans 12.2. It says, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by what? The renewing of your mind so that you may provide what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. How do you renew your mind if you're not going to memorize scripture or do anything like that?

And this is my personal journey is that I got away, my motive was wrong. And I go back to, you know, there are a couple of things Mike says are kind of good sometimes. Hey, it's his turn, Mike. I know, I know. I have the bully pulpit. It's my turn, yes. We trade punching bags. When I'm up here, I get to punch him.

Stop getting away from trying to learn facts and get to know him. Read the scripture to know Him. That's why I'm really being drawn through a lot of intimacy with the Lord right now. I think that is just key. And intimacy is spending time with Him. In the Word, all the time. Focusing on Him. And that's why I say when I couple the things that in Him all things hold together, throughout my day, I'm focusing on Him. That He's in control of all the things that are going on with me.

And in the trials, is he gone? No. No. You know, as I said last week, we had Independence Day, and I had from when I ended the service with the announcements, the Citizenships in Heaven. Our Citizenships in Heaven, we just celebrated the Independence Day. What did we celebrate in Christ?

Our Dependence Day. We had Independence Day here on Earth, but we have Dependence Day when we're a believer. We don't have the independence, we have dependence on Him. And as we know Him, we what? We depend on Him, moment by moment. So, Independence Day is great here, but our citizenship's in heaven, and we celebrate dependency on Him, 100%.

And we go through this day, I just think, He's in control of all things. What's He doing? And a lot of times I have no clue what he's doing. Not a clue what he's doing. But I rest in the fact that he does. And I think that's one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is self-discipline. I think we have a million choices every day to choose to focus on Christ or to choose to focus on ourself. And you know what, I agree with that. I think what the thing is, a lot of times what I think happens is, you know, I blew that opportunity. I should have said something. Did God know that? Was I using it? That person missed that gem that I was going to give to them.

No, He's working on you. And we beat ourselves up a lot, but God is working on us. Every bit as much as He's working on everybody around you. And I think in all those circumstances, I'm just thinking, Lord, what do you got going? And my intimacy is with Him all the time. I'm talking to Him all the time.

Yeah. But every day, every choice you have to sit and think about how you missed giving someone your gem or back to Christ. Right. That's my point. Don't dwell on the mistakes. Dwell on the one who is the author and perfecter of your faith. So, transformed in that verse that we did is in the present passage, imperfectly. I have a question. Okay. I know what your question is. That he actually gave me a gem at one point? No, okay. Only one thing. Actually, it's a statement with a question. Okay.

I think that in Romans chapter 7, what Paul is trying to tell us is that sin has Sin's operating principle is to desire to express itself through me. And if I use law for proper conduct, what happens is that sin explodes in my life and I can't control it. And he's telling us, if you go to law, this is what's going to happen. Because it happened to me. I wouldn't have known sin except the sin would have said, don't do this. And here's what he told him not to do, don't desire. Don't even desire, right. And so as soon as you start, well I'm not going to desire, you're in trouble. What are you doing? Step right in.

On the back side of that, as we've learned, as we have begun in the Lord Jesus, so walk in in order to walk by faith. And when we diagram what the very essence of faith is, it had to do with the things of God that are only seen by faith. and rested in by faith. And so, as you're describing, we should, as we learn the truths of the Word of God, which relate personally to the person of Christ, our whole job is just to rest in Him, and to trust Him. And not to worry about performance, because performance is something, or even worry about decision making. Our job is just to believe Him. when He reveals something to us and to rest in those provisions and facts that He gives us. And then we manifest Him. That's right. And all the things, you know, believers are going to go out and slay the world and go get Satan and, you know, just wrestle him to the ground.

Does scripture tell us to do that? But Mike, what do you mean about decision-making? Put your decision-making to the side? We've been given a will to do only one thing, and that's to believe. So, like Holly's talking about, here comes an option. I'm either going to believe, given the option, I'm either going to believe what God says, I'm going to trust Him, even though I may not totally understand, or I'm going to believe some empirical evidence or how I feel or some pressure on me rather than trusting God.

That's the only reason I have a will. I don't have a will for anything other than that. All right. Others? We'll go back on that verse on transforming. Transforming is the present passive imperative. Therefore it is a continuous action now that God is doing by command. Okay? He's renewing our mind. He's the one doing it.

I also look at Mike's favorite verse, 2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. We're being conformed and transformed. We're not to be imitators. The renewing of our mind is our conforming and transforming. And the Holy Spirit and His Word are the ones doing that.

He's the one renewing our mind. Okay? So, are these verses saying we should imitate the Lord or be renewed and conformed and transformed by the Lord? I gave you the answer. It's not to be imitators. It's His job to conform us. We have to do the unmeritorious work, operation, maybe, better word, is to believe. Faith. That's all. That's our job. That's the single thing is to believe.

So when you run into a circumstance on a daily basis, I don't think you can say to God, well I don't know what you're doing. No, I know what you're doing. I know exactly what you're doing. Maybe that's a better thing. I know he's working on it. Because I go back to the same thing. You can't be separated from his love. I know whatever he's doing to me, he's doing it for my... And he's told me he's conforming. I just don't know the situation, what he's using me for. Is he working on me?

I rest. I rest. I rest in the fact that he's in control. I may not understand the situation. Why did this happen to me? But I rest. Next time I'll tell you why. Seeking man's knowledge. This is good in this class. I really want to do that. He totally missed the whole object of this lesson. Faith and wisdom of man. Totally went kablooey on that one. Again, that's what I do.

I rest in the fact that he's in control. I don't understand it, but I know that he's in control and he loves me. And in trials, when some issue happens to me, I don't cheer, but I understand, I rest in the fact that he's in control. When something happens, and I just don't understand it, I rest, because he's in control. He holds all things together, and he loves me. He gets me through. I'm a lot more even keeled in my life, rather than, oh, ooh, you know, great award, yeah, oh no, this terrible thing happened. He's in control of all those things.

So I rest. So the original question of this question was, what is the primary operating principle of sin nature? After all, this is my question is, how does a sin nature not operate by? Grace. Absolutely. Grace is unmerited. Even though that was a weird question. It was the not. It can't operate by grace. It cannot. Because it's self-focused, it's works-oriented, it's law-based. It cannot operate by grace.

So, question six. If, as a believer, I place my faith or trust in law-keeping, what is the result? So this is the answer to the question before and question four. So we looked at Romans 7, 9. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. So, if I place my faith or trust in law keeping, what will be the result?

Death. Failure. separation from fellowship with him. He's using all of it to conform us, to transform us. Conform us to his image, transform or renew our minds. But the result would be the same as what Paul did. Do we think we're tougher, better than Paul, different than Paul? That we get a different result by trusting in the law? No. No. We are in the exact same boat. So, if we focus on law, self, anything else, to be a better Christian, to be a better believer, to be anything in self, we are separated.

We are separated from the fellowship with Him. I always think of believers who do that, myself. I waste my time looking at self and I miss intimacy with Him. I miss that fellowship with Him. He's not the one turning us back. I'm the one turning my back and my focus away from Him. He is constantly after my intimate fellowship with Him. Abba Father. Let me ask you something. So we pray, right? Something terrible happened to an individual and so you pray without ceasing.

But if God is in charge and He has a plan What I'm praying for is useless because it's in God's control that he sees things his way and is going to do it his way. So is he happy because I'm praying even though it's going to happen what he wants to do with that situation?

I think in all things he's using it to grow you, number one. I think he's going to be in control of the situation no matter what. I go back to So now this is punch Mike day. When the Bible study, when I first started coming here and that, you know, and the prayer request, nobody do a prayer request because, to Mike, because, you know, help that person out of that horrible situation.

You know, whatever it was. Well, was that God's will that he may be in that situation? Oh yeah, he's in it, sure. So am I praying against God's will? Well, he probably is helping already by manipulating various things in this person's life that they need. I pray, and we say in the assertion, may your will be done, number one. You know what, though?

There's some stuff in the Bible that says, hey, our prayers paid off. Oh, and who was in jail, and everybody prayed for him, and Peter, yeah, and sure enough, it's like, oh, he got out of jail, an angel got him out of jail, because we prayed enough. That's not that he prayed enough. I thought it said something like, oh, God heard our prayers.

Well, he may have heard our prayers, but again, you can pray, mine is, you can pray anything you want. He wants intimacy. I think the thing is, He's going to start bringing you back to the focus of, let Him do what He wants to do. I can pray for anything, and I'm a strong believer, we disagree sometimes on this, that I can pray for anything. Because I can go to my Father, the God of the universe, and ask for anything. I can ask for anything.

He wants, and again to the intimacy, I can go up and I can ask the stupidest thing. When I was a kid, can I go up to my dad and he only took the good requests from me? Or did he listen to everything I said, even my dumb requests? You know? Don't answer that. My kids are now not good in my class.

But, you know, I say you can go anytime, anywhere to God and ask him anything. But I think the answer can be, you know, I want whoever we pray for, you know, have a gene and a heart. Our request, and I couch it in the phrase, if you notice when I pray, actually, our request is, that's what our request is, but your will be done. So our requests don't influence God? I don't think it influences Him. I think it's just our request and I can ask for anything. His answer may be no, maybe wait, not this time. Totally different answers. But he already has his answer. He has his answer, but I can ask for anything.

When Paul went to the Lord about the throne of flesh, his motive was, I'm done with this, take it away from me. He went three times. He felt like he had access to God three times. At the end of the third request, God had totally changed Paul's mind about the thorn in the flesh and why he had it. And so he rejoiced in the fact that he did have a thorn in the flesh because he now understood God's purpose for the thorn in the flesh.

And I think we have to have, under Grace Umbrella, that same attitude. I'm coming to you with this. Oh, by the way, if you want to change my mind, that's pretty cool. I'm all right with that. And he promises in Philippians, If we make all our requests known to him, he'll give us the peace that passes understanding. That's the most valuable thing in all of existence, is God's peace about any and everything. It passes understanding. And Paul was at peace with the fact that he was not ever going to have life on this earth without that thorn in the flesh, and that it had a purpose, and the purpose was that God would be glorified on Paul. his weakness, he will be glorified. But with that, Matt, I use that verse a lot. All supplications. It wasn't just the ones in this category or that category. It's all things. The result is the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Knowing, again, he's in control and the answer could be no, yes, maybe, wait. A thousand different things, but you rest in the fact that you can come with anything. Right, so it kind of, when I like say would think that I could influence God's decision, that's just me being in the flesh, like, oh hey, I think this is a good idea. And I think he uses all these things, you know, as I say, I'm praying for you, but he may be working on me. He's working on me to understand and peace and rest that I understand even though you're going through something and I'm praying for this, I'm getting rest knowing that He's in control. He's working on me every bit as much and that's what I'm saying, all things hold together. But he did pray the example of the woman who prayed for her son constantly and so he said, because I'm weary of hearing this prayer, you're going to get what you want.

Yeah. the attention from us. He likes the fellowship. And he uses it for us. He wants us all the time before him. Because as you spend time, we'll get into more of the verses about the intimacy. And the more intimacy you have with him, the more rest you have. In all circumstances. Because you can rest.

Lord, this is what I'm asking for, but you're in control and I rest in that. Pray without ceasing. Yeah, you can pray without ceasing. That encompasses ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. I know, we got to end it. Sorry. We will, where are we? Question six? Okay, we'll start on question seven. Let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you again and again just for the opportunity to come before you, again the intimacy that we have with you that allows us to come before you like we do.

We just rest in the fact that you're in control, that no matter what the circumstances are, we can ask you for anything. And yet, just give us the peace that surpasses all understanding. Rest that the world can't provide, but only you can provide in all circumstances. Not just one or two things, but in all circumstances we can rest.

In blessings and in trials, we give you thanks. We give you the glory. We rest in the fact, in the blessings and in the trials, you are there. And you are intimately involved with each and every one of us. And that gives us that rest that only you can provide, the joy that only you can provide. And again, just the manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit through that rest. So we thank you again. It's nothing of ourselves. It's only through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ that allows us to come before you like we do. We thank you and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.