I, Me, Mine | Week 2 | Message

Well, what's cool about being a parent is you start to see yourselves in your kids, the good and the bad. And one thing about my kids, your kids are probably way more holy than my kids, but my kids from the time they were born, they think life is all about them. Have you noticed this with kids?

Everything they do, every decision they make, every thought that goes into their head is all about them. And I look at my wife, I'm like, why are kids so sinful? They must have they must be coming from your side, not my side. I'm pastor, you know. But our kids, at their core, think it's all about them.

And I believe that that's something that we don't just grow out of as we get older. That we all, starting with me, have a tendency to think this life is all about about me. So last weekend we started a new conversation, a new series called I Me Mind. We were looking heading to the Christmas season at some principles

that you and I can can be distracted and think it's about me when it's really when it's really not. Throughout this series we're gonna be looking at Matthew chapter six where Jesus is giving a sermon to people. In Matthew chapter six he in particular

says here are things you think are about you but I need you to change your mindset because it's not about you, it's about it's about him. So if you got a bible we're gonna be in Matthew chapter six. If you don't have a bible it's gonna come here on the screen behind me.

Matthew six we're gonna start in verse five it says this, when you pray, this is Jesus talking, when you pray don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogue where everyone can see them? I tell you the truth, that is all the reward that they will ever get.

Last week and Bill talked about that word, but when you pray go away by yourself, shut the door behind you and pray to your father in private. Then your father who sees everything will reward you. When you pray, don't babble on and on like the Gentiles.

They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need before you ask him. Pray like this, Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sinned against us. Don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. If you forgive those who sin against you,

your heavenly Father will forgive you, but if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Let me pray for us and we're gonna jump into God's word this morning. Father thank you for your grace in our life. Thank you that we're able to walk in here and open your word, your powerful word.

I pray that we walk in here today with a posture of receiving. That whatever distractions we have, there's so many things happening in our world right now, there's so many things happening personally and externally.

I pray as we walk in here that we will remove those distractions. We'll have a posture of receiving what you have for us in our time together. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Years ago in a small town in Texas, Mount Vernon, there was a wealthy businessman who bought property that he wanted to build a bar and grill. Now he was a wealthy man. He built many things in the past, and he bought this property to build a bar that he named after himself.

So as the building's getting built, they're pouring the concrete, they're building it with bricks, that there's some concern in the local town about having a bar in this small town. In particular, this bar was right next door to a local church, and the church had concerns, and they decided to fight back.

So they decided to do a prayer campaign to pray that God will stop the building from being built. They were so committed to this, they actually scheduled time for people to come into the worship center at every hour to pray that God would intervene. And the church did this for weeks.

Well history tells us that after a few weeks of the church praying like this, a storm came through town and lightning struck the construction site of the bar. And the bar caught on fire and burned to the ground. The church rejoiced. God has answered our prayer. God has done the thing we've asked him to do.

A few weeks go by and the pastor of that church gets a letter in the mail. It's a subpoena. The bar owner is suing the church. The bar gets a lawyer. The church gets a lawyer. A couple months go by they stand in the courtroom and the bar owner's lawyer stands up and says, your honor they should be held financially

liable for what happened to my client's building. We know about the prayer campaign. This is what they wanted to happen. They prayed to their God. They asked God to intervene, and he did it. Therefore, they are responsible. The church's lawyer stands up and says, Your honor, this is ridiculous.

You can't be serious. You're gonna hold the church responsible financially? You have no idea of knowing if our church had anything to do with this. This was just a storm that came in town. This is ridiculous your honor. You should throw this case out immediately. The judge hearing both arguments

scratches his head and says, I don't know how I'm gonna rule this case, but two things had become very clear, the bar owner believes in the power of prayer.

And the church does not. I

believe many of us don't believe in the power of prayer. I believe many of us don't understand the real power that comes with praying to God. Because if we really believed what the Bible says about prayer, I believe my life and I believe many of your lives, our prayer life would look very different. If we truly believed

what the Bible says about the topic that Jesus is teaching on I believe our prayer life would be radically different. Because this book tells us about the power of praying. It tells us the things that prayer can change in your life. This book teaches that if we pray it can change our relationship with God.

That if you and I are committed to prayer it can change our relationship to God. It teaches that if we pray, it can change who you are. That at your core, you could be a radically different person if you have a life of prayer. It can change others. It can change your spouse.

It can change your kids. It can change your coworkers. That if you and I believed in the power of prayer, and we prayed consistently, it could change our fears into something of peace. The very thing that keeps you up at night you can look at and know that there's peace because of who God is.

Prayer can change our situation. We see this all throughout the Bible. That someone prays to God and God acts on their behalf, and God still does that. Prayer ultimately can change our situation. We can be heading in a direction, but because we're people of prayer God moves us into a new direction. That prayer is powerful,

but if you are anything like me, I'm just gonna be honest, if you're anything like me, the reason why it's hard to believe prayer is really that powerful is because you've done it, you've tried it, and you didn't get those results.

You've tried it, you've done it, and your experience with prayer was nothing changed. Or your experience with prayer was I'm not even sure if anyone's listening. And if I'm honest and if you're honest some of you have already heard we're talking about prayer and you're like, Ugh. It's because you don't believe

in the power of prayer, and I'm gonna try to convince you how powerful prayer is because I believe prayer can change these things in your life. Jesus believed it, and I think some of the problem is we've lost sight of what prayer actually is and how it works.

I think there are three ways we get prayer wrong in our culture. Three ways. The first is my gumball machine here.

The first way I think we get this wrong with prayer and why prayer doesn't work for us in our life. We say, okay God, I've said yes to you. I'm now in your family

and we would never say this out loud but if you look at your prayers it kind of reflects this. We say, all right God, now that I'm with you I have a prayer request and I expect you to give me what I want. We think it's a transactional thing.

Like, hey God, I don't care what flavor it is but I expect this from you. So when we pray we say, right God,

thank you. And we go on with our day. And we think God is simply a gumball machine here to serve me and my kingdom. I do this, you do this, And we don't experience this. When we think prayer is simply about a transaction between us and God we're really missing what prayer is.

Others of us in the room, you're not a gumball machine type prayer, you're more of a slot machine prayer. Which is, I don't expect it to work, but why would I not try? If I'm honest, I don't think I'm gonna get a jackpot. I don't think he's gonna answer. But hey,

it's worth a shot. So we take our prayer and say, All right, God. Let's see what happens.

Nothing. I've been messing with this all week because unlike all of you I don't have a real job and this is what I do for a career.

I have yet to hit a jackpot. I'm afraid next service it's gonna hit a jackpot. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't have a plan in place.

I think some of our prayers are, God, I don't even have a plan in place if you just come through for me. I'm so sure you're not gonna answer me, I don't even have a plan for you to answer me. I'm so sure it's not gonna work. I'm just gonna pray and go on with my day because I know it's not gonna get me what I asked for.

Others of you, maybe you've been in church a little bit longer and you have this piggy bank view. If I'm honest, is where I think a lot of us are guilty. Where we say, God, I understand you're not gonna give me everything I want, but I'm gonna be consistent, and I'm gonna pray.

I'm gonna be consistent. I'm gonna do the things you asked me to do. I'm gonna pray for things. I understand sometimes you're not gonna answer. You're not gonna give me what I want. But God, there's gonna be a moment in my life where I'm gonna need to cash out on this.

There's gonna be a moment in my life where I'm gonna need you to make up for all of those no's because I've been consistent. That something big is happening in my life and God I've been consistent. I've been faithful. Now you owe me. Again, we are all guilty of this on some level.

And if that's you today and you can relate to this like I can, that could be why we're not experiencing the real power of prayer. Because ultimately all three of these models of prayer is about I, me, and mine. And Jesus is gonna look at us and say, no, no, no. I think you missed the point of prayer.

Let me remind you of what prayer really is about. Here's the big idea for today, if you're taking notes. Prayer moves me from self centered living to father centered trusting. This is what prayer does in our life. It moves me from self centered living to father centered trusting.

Jesus in Matthew chapter six, he addresses this very thing called prayer. He's teaching to the crowd that has shown up and he says, let me tell you how to pray. Now if you're anything like me and you've been in church you know the Lord's prayer. This is a very common scripture. I'm a pastor's kid. I know it in three different translations. Right? I'm very familiar with the Lord's Prayer. And in fact, I think we actually are so familiar with it, we can become unfamiliar with it. It's not meant to be something that you and I pray word for word. That's not what he's doing there. He's giving us a template,

a model to have effective and powerful prayers that actually change things. We're gonna see three different categories that Jesus is telling us, if you want effective praying, you want powerful prayer, you want prayer that actually works, here are the three buckets of prayer you need to align your prayers in.

For taking notes the first one is this, Prayer begins with we,

not me. Prayer begins with we, not me. When we pray, we don't start with, God this is what I want. God this is my desire. God this is my request. He's saying, no prayer is about a we, you and God, it's not about a me. And he starts by saying, our father. A we, not a me. He's saying, do you know who you're praying to?

Again, we're so familiar with this, can come unfamiliar with it. The God of the universe is allowing you and allowing I to call him father. That means you and I are the son and daughter, and he's the father. He is our dad.

Some of you in this room, you really like the terminology father because you had a great dad at home or you have a great dad. So you understand that analogy. I'm not naive enough though to know that there's some of you in the room that the word father does something to you because you either had an absent dad or

a dad that caused more pain than good. I'm aware of that, But what I want you to hear is he's not saying God is a reflection of your father. He's saying God is the perfection of fatherhood. He's not a reflection of your dad, he's the perfection of dad and we get to call him father.

Just a side note, this is a pet peeve of mine. So when you pray just be who you are. How strange would it be if my kids felt like they had to come to me in a certain way with a certain voice to get me to get to something for them. Just be who you are when you pray.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this. I am a pastor so again I don't have a real job. I do weird things. People will come and pray to me and as soon as they start praying like their whole body language and their whole like tone changes. Have any of you ever experienced this?

Like someone just like this this very dainty woman will come up and be like, can I pray for you? I'm like, yeah please do. She's like, God we ask. Like, what just happened? No. Be who you are when you pray. I mean we should have revere him, I'm not saying we should revere him but be who you are.

When Covid happened I was a teaching pastor of a church in Prescott Arizona

and when Covid the church shut down for a little bit so they asked all of us teaching pastors to call members of the church to check-in on them, see how they're doing and pray for them. So I get on the phone and I called this lady and I didn't know it at the time but she was a part time Christian

And I apparently called her on her day off.

Because as soon as she answered the phone Jesus says, What do you want? With some other words that I'm not gonna say on the stage because they wouldn't let me back on the stage. Are you tracking? And I said, Hey Karen, how you doing?

Hope you're doing well. This is Rocky from the church just calling to check-in on you. She goes, Pastor Rocky? Like, yes. He goes, Praise the Lord brother. God is good. Thinking, then why did you answer the way you answered? Something ain't good. We we should have reverence for God,

but be who you are. Be who you are. Pray the way you actually talk. Right? We don't need to perform for him. Just just be you, have reverence, and start our prayers by saying, God, this is about a we. It's about our father. And then Jesus tells us some characteristics of our father. He says, our father who is in heaven,

may your name be kept holy. Holy. We're just saying about it. Holy means to be set apart. It means to be different.

So it's saying, first understand he's your Father and now understand that He is holy and you are not. He is different than you. He can see things that you cannot see because He knows things that you do not know. He is holy, holy, holy and you are not. So he starts by saying, understand the we you're talking to.

Understand he is your father, but he is holy. And he knows things that you don't know, and he can see things that you cannot cannot see. Here's how this works in real time. I want you to participate with me for a second. If you have ever

said a prayer and asked for something of God and you look back and you're glad God said no. Raise your hand. Yep yep yep. Most of us in the room. Some of you, you had like a girlfriend or a boyfriend when you're in high school and you're like, God please let me marry them.

And now you look at them and you're like, God dodged a bullet. Thank you. And Jesus name dodged that bullet. What's happening there? Here's what's happening. He can see what you can't see because he is holy. Which means there are times in our life where what we think is good is actually not good.

There will be times in our life what we think is bad is actually good because he is holy. We can't see what he can see. We haven't even got to the asking for stuff part. He's saying before you even get there understand I am holy. I am holy. I am holy. And I can see things that you cannot

see. The first framework he gives us to having powerful prayers is understanding who it is we're talking to. The second framework that Jesus will then go into is the hardest part about this prayer.

It is that prayer shifts me from my kingdom to God's kingdom. Prayer shifts me, it moves me from my kingdom to God's kingdom. He says it like this, may your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What Jesus is saying there is when you pray you should have the mindset of your kingdom

above my kingdom. I wanna make this place look like that place. I want this place to respond to you the way that place responds to you. This is so difficult. In my life this is so difficult because I want to be king.

I have to wake up every day and say, it's not about me, it's about his kingdom, because I want to be king. This is something that even Jesus struggled with. Jesus, before he went to the cross, was in a garden, and he's praying and he's so nervous about what's coming, he starts sweating blood because he's so anxious

and he prays, Father, if there's any way, please let it happen, but not my will but yours. If Jesus struggled with this you and I are gonna struggle with this. It's a constant reminder of us saying this is about God's kingdom and not my kingdom, but I wanna be king. You wanna be king.

But before we even get to asking for stuff he says, understand whose kingdom you're living in. Because the moment you said you're gonna be a Christ follower, selfishness is no longer on the table. You've given up the right to be king. You now have a new king in a new kingdom that you're following. So an idea

that a Christian can be selfish doesn't make any sense. A self centered Christian should not exist because we've given up that right. A self centered Christian is like an oxymoron. It should not be connected.

Oxymoron, you guys know what that means? You know what that means? Two words that shouldn't be connected, right? Self centered Christian, Jumbo shrimp.

Microsoft works.

Country music. Okay 10:00. Okay. Okay. I'll be honest, I knew that was a risk coming out here but I went for it. I know where we live.

Self centered Christian, it's an oxymoron. It shouldn't exist. But every day in my life I wake up and I have to fight it. Every day I have to wake up and say, God, I wanna be king. Help me not be king. This should be our posture heading into prayer. It's God, it's your kingdom, not my kingdom. And then Jesus

gets to the part most of us start with and it's the third part of the prayer which is prayer

is how I ask my father to provide. Verse 11 says, give us today the food we need and forgive us of our sins as we've forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation but rescue us from the evil one. So what he's saying is,

again, if you don't like what I'm about to say that's cool. Don't get mad at me. I'm just repeating the words of red. Okay? You with me? He's saying if you're gonna ask for things in prayer he gives us three buckets we're allowed to pray in. Okay? I believe there's more than that. I'm just telling you what he's given us in this sermon. He's saying, when you get to the ask for stuff, there are three buckets you're allowed to ask for. The first is our daily bread.

Give us our needs. Now in our culture, most of us don't struggle with daily bread, but when Jesus is teaching, this is so important when you read the Bible, it's for us, but but it was written to an audience. It was written at a certain time. When he says daily bread, his audience knows exactly what he's talking about.

Everyone listening to Jesus would immediately think back to Exodus where God's people were in prison. God rescues them, and they're heading to the promised land. However, they had no food. So on this journey they prayed to God and said, God provide food for us or else we're gonna starve.

So God made a deal with his people. He said, alright how about this? When you go to bed and you wake up there's gonna be pop tarts all on the ground. The biblical word is manna but it translates pop tart. Same thing. And you just wake up and say frosting or no frosting. It's up to you.

Here's the deal though. Here's the deal. After twenty four hours the pop tarts are gonna go bad and you can't eat them anymore. You have to trust the next day when you wake up, there's gonna be more pop tarts.

The reason why Jesus did this is he knows how you and I think. If he just said, here's pop tarts, have fun. What we would do is we'd collect for ourselves, and we stop relying on the one who provided it. So Jesus says, every night when you go to bed, wake up and trust I will give you your daily bread.

So notice it says give us our foods that we need. Again, I'm the messenger here, right? He says our needs not our greeds. There is a difference. Our needs not our greeds. I'm not saying you can't ask for things you want. I'm saying what are you asking for? Because Jesus' framework is give us what we need today.

Wake up and say, God, this is what I'm facing today and I need you. The first bucket is what are the things that you and I need from God? The second bucket he gives us is forgiveness. He's saying when you pray ask for forgiveness and forgive others. Here's what Jesus is saying. He's saying when you pray remember

the grace that God has given you and make sure you're giving that grace to other people. Christianity, wash my hands, is receiving the grace God has given us, and then we give that grace out to other people.

That's Christianity in a nutshell. We receive grace from God and we give it out to others, and he's pointing us back to what the gospel's all about. I don't know, in a room this size, I'm sure that there's some people sitting here who someone has wronged you in a very real way and you're holding on to unforgiveness.

I just wanna say to you, you receive the grace from God. It's our job to give that away to other people. That doesn't mean you have to be friends with him, it doesn't mean you have to be in unhealthy relationship, it doesn't have boundaries. I'm not saying that, don't hear what I'm not saying. But when you don't

show forgiveness to someone, you're ultimately just hurting you and yourself and not that person, so give grace, because Jesus is saying one of the things you can pray for is grace on your life so you can give grace to others, And the last bucket is direction, if you're taking notes. Direction. He says,

don't let us yield into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. What Jesus is talking about here is the direction your life is going. He's saying, in this life keep evil away from me. Help me stay on a good path.

A prayer I say constantly in my life. I say this prayer a couple times a day. It's a good reminder, and you can steal this if you want and say you came up with it on your own. It's totally good. I often pray to God, God give me the wisdom to know what to do, and give me the courage to do it. Give me the wisdom to know

what it is you want me to do, and what you want me to see, and where you want me to go. And I know it's gonna take courage to do it, so then give me the courage to do the things you're asking me to do.

Because the things God is gonna ask me to do are about his kingdom, not my kingdom. I wanna be king, so it's gonna take a lot of courage to take off the crown and move in his direction. That's a good prayer. And Jesus is saying, you want prayer that works?

Remember who you're praying to. He is holy holy holy. He sees what you can't see. Go into prayer and say, God help me align with your kingdom not my kingdom. And father I have some requests. Any good dad wants to hear requests from their kid. Understand the posture and the relationship

that you're walking into. It's not simply to get something from him, it's to have a relationship with him. The amazing thing about God, when we pray, I think if we understood this this actually might be enough for us. When we pray God is listening. He is focused on your prayer. If I'm honest,

if I really knew every time I pray God is intensively listening, I think that'd be enough. He's listening. He listens to what you have to say and here's the part that some of us get wrong. Every prayer you pray, God answers. Every prayer. God will answer every one of your prayers. And this is the part of prayer that I think has

caused us to no longer pray and expecting God to do stuff. Because you've prayed and you thought God didn't answer you. But God answers every single prayer. He'll answer in one of three ways. Yes, no, or not yet. Every prayer you ever pray, yes, no, or not yet.

So I wanna take a few moments and talk about how to know what God's answer is to your prayer. Because God wants to answer your prayer. But in the church it's so weird. If you talk to God you're spiritual. If God talks to you you're a little crazy. You notice this?

God wants to answer your prayers and he answers your prayers. I think maybe the problem is we don't understand how he answers our prayers. So I wanna give you a very practical way

of figuring out what God's answer to your prayers are. If you're taking notes, think this is so helpful for us. The first way to know what God's answer is, is His word. It's His word. If we want to know if God's answer is yes, no, or not yet, we go to His word. Now look up here.

There are some prayers you don't need to pray. Okay? Because he's already answered it. Let me tell you what a dumb prayer is. Alright? Not a dumb person. Dumb prayer. God, do you want me to forgive my spouse? That's a dumb prayer. He's already told us that answer. You know what's a good prayer? God, give me the courage

to give forgiveness. That's a good prayer. There are things that you're praying for that God has already said yes or no to. God's answer will not change from what he said here. If you want an answer from God and you're like, yeah the bible doesn't give me the answer I then you're the problem, not the Bible. You with me?

Okay. This is so important. The Holy Spirit will never give you permission to do something the Bible says you can't do. Get that? The reverse is also true. The Holy Spirit will never tell you not to do something the bible tells you to do. So

when you're looking for what is God's answer to my prayer, the place we start is his word. We start in the bible. The second thing we do is we go to his people. If we want to know the answers yes, no, or not yet, we go to God's people. We will often get the answers to our prayers to the people in our life.

This is why it's so important you and I are in biblical community because we need people around us who understand our situation that God can speak through.

So if you're like a college student age person and you're sitting here like, I don't know what college to go to. Like God I'm praying do I go to ASU or U of A? Which by the way as a pastor the answer is ASU. Okay? Can I get an amen? Yep. Yep. That's the correct answer there. But if you're like,

not a Christian and you're like ASU U of A, can't decide which one. And you're like, I go to the bible, God doesn't give me an answer. Here's what I say to you. Go to people who know you, who are wise, and who understand the Bible, and seek counsel from them, because God will often speak to the people around you.

And if you do that, and you feel like it's unclear, this is a bonus, if you do that and it's unclear, you feel like God's not leaning you in any direction, here's what you do. This is so profound. Here's what you do. You pick one.

It means God doesn't care. He cares what you do at the school. He doesn't care what school you go to. Does that make sense? Okay. That was for someone in the room. So we go to God's people.

But you want people who care more about your future than your feelings. Does that make sense? So don't go to any random person and go, hey whatever you answer must be God's yes or no. Be wise about it. But God will often give us yes, no, or not yet through the people around us. Next is through his spirit. His spirit.

That when you receive Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of you. And that's when I was a kid, they called it the still small voice that you feel like God is speaking to you. And God does do that. He does. But I'd be a little cautious here because no one will lie to you more than you'll lie to yourself.

So be cautious of, I believe God is telling me to do something. It might not be God. It might be you wanting to build your kingdom and not His kingdom. So whenever you feel like God is telling you yes, no, or maybe, you go to people and you go to the Bible and say, Does it match up? If it doesn't match up, it's not what God is wanting you to do.

And just again, a side note here. Whenever people say, hey God spoke to me and I have something to tell you get a little concerned. Just as a pastor I'm just being honest. If you come up to me after service and say, hey Rocky God spoke to me and he has something that he wants me to tell you.

I'm gonna judge you a little bit. Okay. I'll listen, but I'm gonna judge you a little bit. Two years ago at this church, if you're in this room, I apologize for using this story.

Two years ago at this church, this nice lady comes up to me and says pastor Rocky, pastor Rocky. Which by the way, don't have to call me Pastor Rocky, it's just Rocky. Rocky, God spoke to me and he wants me to tell you something. I'm like, all right, what do you got? She said, God wants you to start a daycare.

Again, if you're in the room, I apologize. I'm like, I got a couple questions. First off, do you think I have the authority to just make that decision here? Like my biceps are way too small to make those kind of decisions here at Rock Point.

If God told you to tell me, he told you to tell the wrong person because I can't just make that decision. Second off, second problem. If God wanted me to start a daycare, why is he telling you?

Why do we need you in this scenario? Why would he not just come directly to me? Problem three, I've already started a daycare. It's just at home with my wife. I ain't doing it again. I ain't. I ain't making that mistake twice. Nope.

Be be really God can do that. Don't hear what I'm not saying. God can do that. Be really careful because when we use that type of terminology we we can honestly do some harm when we do it, but God will do that. I've never heard the audible voice of God, but God can do that.

Just take that and say, does it align with the Bible? Does it align with his word? And do godly people around me, are they confirming this in my life? But God will give us yes, no or not yet through His Spirit. And the last one is His guidance. Simply put, this is if you pray for something to happen,

if it happened God said yes.

If it didn't happen it's either no or not yet. That sometimes when we pray for God to do something or intervene on our behalf we just have to wait it out to see what his answer is. If you pray for the cancer to go away and the cancer goes away his answer is yes. If you pray for the cancer to go away and it doesn't, his answer is either no or not yet. Sometimes we have to pray for things and we just let life happen to see if God's gonna

be yes, no or not yet. But let's go back to where we started though. You and I have a God, the creator of everything who is listening and wanting to respond. Why in the world would we not pray consistently then?

If we truly believed that God is listening to our prayer requests and wants to answer us directly and we're not praying, I think we've lost sight of the power of prayer. As a parent this becomes so much more clear to me now that I've had kids.

With my kids, again they all want to be king and I'm constantly in my house deciding if my answer is yes, no, or not yet. I mean I want to be there for my kids. I my kids to be happy. I want my kids to be content but I also have to navigate what's best for them and what's not good for them.

For example, a couple months ago we were coming to the 03:00 service. That's a service that me and my wife go to. All the Christians go on Saturday if you didn't know and that's a joke. That actually goes over way better on Saturday than Sunday.

We go to the 03:00 service, my wife and I, and we're getting the kids ready and we got the twins in the car. My youngest who's three, sees a black Jeep parked across our street.

Our neighbors don't have this car. We don't know who the car belongs to, but my kids are obsessed with Jeeps. So my three year old sees the black Jeep and he starts walking down the driveway towards the Jeep. Luckily I see this happening. So I run, I get in front of him like, hey dude, where are you going?

And he just looks at me and goes, Jeep. I'm like, the black Jeep? Yeah, Jeep. I'm like, oh you want to go in the Jeep? He goes, Jeep. And I looked at him and I said, Buddy, no. There's no way I'm letting you get in that car. I wanna show you the look he gave me when I told him no.

He's wearing my shoes. He's trying to be like his dad. The answer's still no.

Because, come on, I can see what he can't see. I know what's best for that kid. My three year old has no way of comprehending why I said no. But my answer is no. Because I'm his dad and I want what's best for my child. And what's best for my child, the answer was no.

What I loved about his response is he gives me this look. You can see he's processing in real time, but he doesn't fight me, he just turns around and gets in our car. Because he doesn't understand why my answer's no, but come on, I'm his dad. He trusts me. He doesn't love the answer, but he loves me.

So he's content with the answer.

When we pray and God says no, there's a reason he's saying no. Some of you have prayed for some very serious things and God's answer was no. That is hard. I've had things in my life I've prayed for that were very serious and God's answer was no. That's where it comes back to father centered trusting. We trust

in the decisions he makes because he can see what we can't see. And here's what I can tell you about God whenever he says no. This is so powerful. Some of you, this is why you're here today. When God says no to our prayer request, here's what you and I can be assured of. If my goodness and my knowledge matched his,

I would have made the same decision.

If I knew what he knew and I was as holy as he is, that's the decision I would have made. Because everything God wants for your life is to glorify him and to make you a better follower of him. So when God says no, we can say, okay, God. It's not the answer I want, but I trust you

because this is about your kingdom, not my castle. I don't have to understand why you said no, but I'm gonna trust that you know what's best, and I'm gonna continue my relationship with you. And when we pray with that mindset, how can you not change? Because you're seeing things through the right perspective.

Prayer has the power to change things. When we understand the Father we're praying to, it's about His kingdom, not my castle. And we go to our dad and say, Help. And he wants to help. It might not be the way you want, but he wants to help. That's powerful, and that's how prayer was meant to be. So father,

give us wisdom of these things. Thank you that we're able to call you father, That's the creator of everything wants a relationship with me, someone who doesn't deserve it. Father, every day I wake up and I wanna be king. Every day, father, give me courage, give me wisdom to not build my kingdom but build your kingdom.

Father I want this to be a church that forgives people because we've been forgiven. Father convict us where we need to be convicted. Encourage us where we need to be encouraged. Father, as I pray, give us wisdom to know what you want us to do and give us give us the courage to do it.

We love you and pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Hey, can we thank Rocky one more time for joining us this weekend? So good. I have a couple things for us, so don't get up and leave because it's bad for my self esteem. Okay? Before oh, wait. I just wanted to let you guys know,

I hope you feel encouraged to live a life full of prayer because it changes us and it changes our relationship with Jesus. Amen? We've

got a prayer room in the back. If you wanna pray with someone, don't know where to start. They're in there. They're ready to pray with you. They wanna talk to you. So don't hesitate to head that way on your way out. We played a testimony earlier about how our outreach team locally and globally support

the next generation. And I'll be the first to tell you that what we do is awesome. And if you wanna be a part of that, just scan the QR code in front of you. There's more information, and you can give, and you can learn more. So make sure to do that. Now you guys are good to go. Grab a coffee, grab your kids, and we'll see you back here next weekend.

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