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Hello, Go Church family. We are talking about Pray Like a Champion. I'm Lara. I'm here with

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Pastor Matt Hadavah. Hey, everybody. And Gilbert. We're so excited to be back here. We wanted

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to surprise you with a new voice on the opening of the podcast. They are definitely surprised.

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Always Gilbert. So it's lovely to be on Lara's podcast. It's nice to be on Lara's podcast.

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Welcome to Lara's podcast. Feel special. This is going to be exciting. I really enjoyed our

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discussion last week as we were getting into this subject. So this is going to be good.

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Yeah. This subject is such an important subject. It's a broad subject, but it's something that

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really helps propel us forward in our walk. We're now off the trail of fear. We're going down the

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trail of faith and we're going a little further, a little further, a little further. And of course,

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to keep going further, we have to walk with the Lord. We have to hear from him and talk to him and

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bring him into our walk. The love solution. So as we get into this series today, I want to say that

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this is part one out of three parts for our November series called Pray Like a Champion.

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And we're leading into our week one Grow Group. So I'm so excited that we're introducing the

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series that we're going to be chatting about in our Grow Group starting this week. I will also

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mention that the big Sunday messages are always available on podcast in case you missed them. So

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please stay tuned to this channel. And in case you weren't there, please listen in.

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And or you want to share it with someone else. That's right. And in case you missed any other

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series or you weren't with us, you know, during the series, please go back and listen to them.

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There's a lot of there's a lot of life giving truth in the series that we've been covering and

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you don't want to miss any of that. But as we as we get into our series, or as we get into

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this week's discussion for our series, I want to talk about the purpose of the series. Lara,

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could you read out the purpose? Yes. Once you are born again, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us

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as our champion, champion helper. That's love. And he comes to activate the characteristics of

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the champion in us. That's grow. We can communicate with our heavenly father from a position of

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victory and activate our authority as his champions in the earth. That's go, love, grow, go. We want

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the Go Church family to act on the reality of our place in Christ individually and corporately as

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a church by living a lifestyle of prayer. Outstanding. Wow. That's awesome. Thank you

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for coming up with that. Oh, praise God. Yeah, that's, that's really what we're about. And the

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reason why we have a purpose is because we do everything on purpose. Yeah, we do everything on

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purpose. We also do everything in teams. And just to peel the curtain back here a little bit to let

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you know, we build these series in teams and Lara actually has been working very closely with us

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actually has been working very closely, helping to craft this series. And it started with a list of

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questions, right? So it our series don't they don't have to start with all of the answers.

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We start sometimes with just questions that need to be answered. And we talked about last week how

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Ciela brought up this amazing verse and from the Greek study that she'd made. And that's just an

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example of how we want Go Church to as we grow together to work in teams that feed one another,

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that support one another, and then help us fulfill all that God has called us to do.

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I'm a big fan of Go Church if you can't tell. I always say Go Church is the best place,

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but I'm biased, but it's still the best. Go Church bias. And talking about questions that,

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you know, we put down for for the series that, you know, Lara put down a list of questions.

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And there are a few that we're going to actually address and discuss. The first question is,

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what is prayer? I think that's a good question considering we're doing a series called Pray Like

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a Champion. To answer that question, which, you know, is bigger than just this series perhaps,

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but I think the answer needs to begin in our key scripture, Luke 18.1. And Luke 18.1 says,

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Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

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The Amplified says that a little differently. It says that they should pray and not,

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how does it read? So pray and not give up and lose heart. Lose heart. And you know, you'll see,

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you'll see life do that to people. You'll see life bring people to a place where they are ready to

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give up, where they're ready to, they've lost their confidence, they've lost their confidence,

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they've lost their belief that they're going to make it. And that passage right there tells us that

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prayer, whatever it is, is the thing that will keep you from going the wrong way when you come

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to that place of failing and losing heart. Yeah. I always feel like, well, at least in my mind,

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you know, before I really came to know the Lord, and I really came to understand a lot of these

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things, I always felt that prayer is something someone does to make themselves feel better about

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a situation they're going through, or like, you know, something they do just to console themselves

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or feel like they did something bigger than themselves. You know, maybe it's a bit of a

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cynical look, but it's just, I guess, my honest sentiment before that. And I realize that that

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caused me to have just such a skewed perception of the word prayer or the act of prayer. And I'm sure

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a lot of people have that, you know, knowingly or unknowingly, I'm sure that there's a lot of that

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in their minds. But you know, prayer is not something you do for you. That's what we talked

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about last week. Meditation is something that you can really do for you, to you. But prayer is

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actually communication with someone. And that is the communication that you have specifically

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with your father as a New Testament believer. And it's something that, of course, you engage,

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you activate, but communication is not a monologue, right? I mean, if I walked up to my wife,

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Sela, and I just started talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, and walked away,

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that's not communication. That's just, she might put it as, this might as well have been an email,

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you know? The truth is that communication goes both ways, you know? But in summary of what we

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mean when we say prayer, we mean communicating with our father. You know, it means coming to him,

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talking to him, and just developing or cultivating a lifestyle of communication.

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That's an essential point because if you look at the whole of the scripture is a revelation of who

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God is. But the Gospels, and specifically the ministry of Jesus, is to reveal that this awesome

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God is our Father. And the essential part of being a born-again follower of Christ is to

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get acquainted with and then develop a living relationship with a loving Father.

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And sadly, in today's world, there are people that have never had an experience with a loving

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Father. They've had bad experiences with fathers who love themselves. Others have had experiences

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of absent fathers or nonexistent. But that's why we put the scriptures first over our experience,

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and we find the characteristics of the Father. And then we develop a relationship, which we call

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prayer. Generally, what we're going to see is there's actually different kinds of prayer

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that are defined in scripture, and the definition of those is not for bondage, but is for us to

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understand how we talk and communicate with our living, loving Father.

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Yep, that's right. So last week, I mentioned that I had these notes, which I have on my iPad,

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on my phone, and I put them in two parts, which is part one, God hears me, and part two is I hear God.

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And there's so much scripture on that, and I want to share one verse particularly that I like,

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and that is Psalm chapter five, verse three. I'm going to read it from the amplified version,

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just to lay out this point about I hear Him, He hears me. I just think it kind of

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ties it together really, really sweetly. And so Psalm chapter five, verse three in the amplified

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says this, in the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice. In the morning, I will prepare a prayer

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and a sacrifice for you, and watch and wait for you to speak to my heart. You see, that is a

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beautiful picture of prayer. It's an image where I look at you, and I like that He says

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in the morning. It's good to communicate with the person you love the most, or the person you value

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the most, first thing. And that's something we can do, and we can do on a daily basis. And like

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Lara was mentioning last week, you can do this anywhere, anytime. You're not restricted to when

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and how often you can do this, but you can just have that relationship where it's you will hear

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my voice, and I will direct my voice towards you, and then I'll wait for you to speak to me.

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And that's just a beautiful picture of prayer. I want to propose a second point about prayer. So

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what is prayer? And I heard the minister say this before, which I really appreciate, and it helps me

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think about it clearly. It's if you're going into prayer the same way you're coming out,

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it's not prayer, it's just a complaint session. And that's the truth, the communication you have

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with your loving father, who also made promises to you, who's also your covenant partner, who is also

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a person who made all these promises, and who has absolute power to do everything that he needs to

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do to keep you going. If you have a communication lifestyle with that person, and you go in and

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communicate with them, and it doesn't change you, then you're not really praying, you're just

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nagging, you're just complaining about your situation, and you're not looking at the person

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you're talking to, you're looking at the problems and just like a broken record repeating those

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problems. So you're actually, you're not praying, you're actually meditating on bad things, you know.

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But prayer is supposed to change you. It's supposed to change the outcomes in your life. It's supposed

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to create results in your life. Because I'm not going to say prayer has power, but that's not the

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right wording, but prayer releases power. So like there's a release of the power of God in my life

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when I pray and I invite the Lord into certain places in my life, into certain situations

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in my life. There's a very popular passage of scripture in Jeremiah, and that is Jeremiah

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chapter 29 verse 11. Call on me. And it says, I know the thoughts that I think towards you,

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says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil to give you a future and a hope. And people stop

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there, you know. But if you keep reading, it says, then you will call upon me and go and pray to me

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and I will listen to you. And you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

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Verse 14, I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity.

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So I'll stop right there, but the thoughts that he thinks towards us and the plans that he has for

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our lives, plans for peace and not evil to give us a future and a hope, is directly connected to

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the fact that we call upon him. That we reach our hands out to him, that we look for him. And

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he says something interesting, you will seek me and find me. It's like, are you hiding? You know?

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What does that mean? The fact is that, you know, you need to invite him in to a situation where

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he's not visible in that moment to make him visible, to make his promises plain in your life.

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So that is what prayer is, right? Prayer is an invitation for God to do something in your life,

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to change something in your life. Prayer brings results. That's right. And if you're not

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seeing results, then we need to look at more in this series about how to pray like a champion.

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Yeah, that's right. I do remember times in my life where I reached a boiling point of frustration

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with certain things. And honestly, if I ask the Lord, like, what's going on and this and this and

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this, it's just, it's not like, oh, he says, you know, crystal clear. He speaks to my heart and

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it's always, you know, have you been praying? Honestly, have you been praying about these

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things in your life? Have you been giving them to me? Because right now it just looks like you're

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holding on to something and you're complaining. So how about you invite me in and you share these

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things with me so that I can do something about it. And that is what we're saying. Prayer is

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that is what we're saying. Prayer brings results. Prayer leads to results. Another, I mean, another

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question which ties into this is why do I have to pray? We're kind of mentioning it. We kind of

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touched upon it, but doesn't, doesn't God already know what's good or what's bad in my life? Doesn't

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he already know what's right and what's wrong in the world? Like, why, why do I have to pray?

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Well, let's, let's put that same question in a little different context. I know that there are

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foods that are good for me and I know that there are foods that are bad. Let's take salted caramel

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gelato. It's not good for me. Right. There's actually nothing about that. That's good for me.

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And, uh, kale or Swiss chard, you know, the, some green leafy vegetable. That's very good for me.

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Right. It's full of vitamins and nutrients and, and it's lots of benefits. So here's something

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that's good. Here's something that's not. Um, everyone can understand that, but here's,

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here's the point. There's a choice, right? And the choice is not, um, a, it's the choice lies with me.

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I have to decide I'm going to choose what's good for me. I'm going to put away what is not. And

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prayer is a direct reflection on the fact that God has given us first, he's given us as in the,

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the, the creation of man, free will, but then second, um, he has, he has invited us

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to work with him in his labor. He's invited us to be co-laborers with him. And part of that

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is praying out his plan. And what we see throughout the scripture is though God's plan may be very

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clear, it is not automatic. And the easiest way to understand that is the Bible says that it is the

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will of God, that not one person would perish, but all would come to the knowledge, the life-saving

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knowledge that Jesus is Lord, that God is not holding their sin against them, that God put

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their sin in Jesus, that God raised up Jesus from the dead and he ever lives to make intercession

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for them, that by believing that in their heart and saying it with their mouth, they can be born

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again. That is the perfect will of God for every person. Yet you and I probably know people

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who have yet to accept that truth and probably we know some who have rejected it. So the perfect

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will of God is clear and we can understand it through the word of God, but we see that it is

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not automatic because choice, decisions, and just people's will play a part. And prayer can put me

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in a position where I can see God's will and receive from him what he needs me to do in a

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particular situation. We are as the church responsible and given an assignment to pray out

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God's will in the earth. That's super powerful. Praise God. That's right, not everything that

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happens around you is the perfect will of God and that's why we pray, right? There's a reason

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to release the power of God in our lives because he wants something better than what we may be

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seeing or he wants something better for someone and he needs us to do something about it. So

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that goes back to champion, right? We're championing his cause. I want to also mention

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another point is that something you shared, Pastor Matt, at the last believers gathering.

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There was this big emphasis from the Lord about words and the words that are being spoken and

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the words that we as a church should say and we as an individual should be saying. Words matter.

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The Bible tells us that death and life are in the power of the tongue. Words contain

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power. They contain life. They contain the life of God's spirit. One translation says about John

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chapter 6 verse 63 and the funny thing about a container is if it's closed you don't enjoy

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what's in it. That's right. You can always laugh about it. You can always laugh about it.

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That's right. You can always laugh about that. Obviously if I cook something really garlicky

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and I put it in a Tupperware and I just don't seal it right, next thing you know is my wife's

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asking me what's going on? Why does the fridge stink? But if I seal it then nothing comes out.

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And the point is words can be just that. Can be closed containers that you never take out

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and release into the earth. But prayer does just that. So prayer helps us take the word of God.

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He put power in and he put life in and our job is to release the container. Allow the power and

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the life of God to flow into the world. That's what Pastor Mao was just saying that we are

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co-labors. We're co-labors with God. That's such a high thought. That's such a big honor that

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the word in Greek in the New Testament is we are synergios. We are in synergy with God. So

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he put power in and our job is to release the power. And that is something that prayer does

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for us. That's why we have to pray. Especially because we don't see what we're supposed to be

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seeing in our lives. I love that illustration. We are the containers and we open the lid. We

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open our mouths and speak God's word. That's good. That's amazing. Yes. Praise God. Yes.

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Praise God. That's really good. So just since we're talking about it, to take this

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a step further, if we look at Matthew chapter 28, this is just before, just as Jesus is being

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ascended into heaven. And Jesus in verse 19 says, go therefore and teach all nations,

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baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe

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all things I have commanded you and I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

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Verse 19 says, go therefore. And a good rule of Bible interpretation that I learned a long time

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ago from my pastor when I was a little kid is when you see the word therefore, you should identify

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why it is therefore. So let's look at verse 18. Verse 18, Jesus came and spake to them, spoke to

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them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. All power. Now that we see in both

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Colossians and Ephesians that in the resurrection of Jesus, God put all authority in Jesus.

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All. So the authority for anything happening in the world, let's say it another way, the way God's

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will is going to be done in the earth has to be through Jesus because God put all the authority

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and power in him. And as soon as he gave it to Jesus, Jesus said, you go because of this.

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And teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, teaching them to observe all things

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I have commanded you and I'm with you. As soon as God invested, empowered,

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it crowned the risen Jesus with all power and all authority. He immediately gave it to the church.

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Yeah. So during the age of the church, which is the time in which we live and that time is coming

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to an end. The way God is going to do things in the earth is through the church and the specifically

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the model we have, we see this throughout the gospels and in the book of Acts is that we go

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to God in prayer. And in that way we could say it like this. God has limited himself to the church

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and its ability to pray out his will. Praise God. Lara silently saying, wow.

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You can't see it, but she said, wow. But that's a, that's very powerful. It's a very high thought.

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I mean, this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to really dig into pray because it's so easy

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to look at pray and like me, like I just said, have a loaded assumption of what the word means.

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But the more we see, the more we understand that this is a go subject, right? It's not just a love

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grow subject. It's a go subject. And the Lord's empowering us to pray so that we can get results.

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And I want to, I want to read first John chapter five verses 14 and 15.

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And says this, now this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to

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his will, he hears us. So I'm going to pause right there. If we ask anything according to his will.

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So he, so going back to what pastor Magis said, all, all authority in heaven and on earth has been

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given to Jesus. And he says, go there for, right? So the go there for literally tells us what his

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will is. His will is go there for and do something with the authority that I have. So verse 15.

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And if we know that he hears us, well, he does hear us because he told us go there for, and I'm

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with you until the end of the age. So if he's with us, he's, he's going to hear us, right?

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Whatever we, so verse, verse 15, and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that

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we have the petitions that we have asked of him. I love this verse of scripture because to me,

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to me, I can hear John's relationship with the Lord in it. And I don't know if, if you've met

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people like this, but there's sometimes I'll, I'll, I'll encounter someone and I just, I recognize,

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wow, they, they know him. You know, they don't, there's a lot of people that know about God.

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They, they know lots of facts, but sometimes you encounter someone and they have,

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they have spent time with Jesus. They, they have become acquainted with the father and

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it comes through in what they say. And here John says, you can have confidence. You can have

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confidence that if you're asking something that is according to the will of God, he hears you.

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And you know that if he hears you, you know, you have what you asked for. Why? Because like for,

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for John, you can hear it. That's just who he is. Yeah. John is so convinced of the character of

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God that as soon as you ask him something according to his will, you know, it's already done.

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You can just put your head down and say, okay, that's finished. And, and we would, we would title

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that faith, the prayer of faith, and it certainly is, but it is, it is born out of, or it springs

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out of the knowledge of two things, who God is, what he's like and what his will is, what he wants.

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You know, so obviously praying against his will or praying something that's not his will,

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you know, we've used on the podcast a couple of times the, the reference of James and John, where

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they said to Jesus, do you want us to pray that fire will fall down on a village? And I'm happy

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to use James and John as that illustration and not my own shortcomings, but that's against God's will.

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So that's an example. There's, here's a pretty clear example. Sometimes prayer

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comes from a sincere place, but it is against the will of God. But we want to pray, obviously from

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a sincere heart, but according to the will of God. And John, you can just, I just love that display

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of the confidence he has in God's character. And he says, as soon as you ask him something,

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you know he hears you and you know him, if you know him at all, as soon as he, as soon as he hears you,

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you know you have it. Yeah. Once you know him, it becomes, it makes more sense. Yes. How to pray,

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why you're praying, what you're trying to do. And this is, this is actually something that we're

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going to talk about and dig deeper in next week, which is the character of a champion,

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prayer. I keep saying prayer. I hope this is coming across right, but one who prays, one who

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prays, you know, and we're going to talk about not only aligning ourselves with his word, but aligning

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ourselves with his heart. And that's going to help us a lot. And I want to, I want to point back to,

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to another, another thing that I was thinking of about this, this question of why do I have to pray?

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And it reminds me in Matthew chapter six, where Jesus is talking, he says, I say to you, do not

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worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, about your body, you know, the clothes

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that you're going to put on. And then he goes on to talk about, describe the birds of the air.

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And you know, they don't, they don't sow nor, nor reap nor gather into barns, nor store up, nor think

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about things, but still your heavenly father feeds them. You know, I heard, I heard it said by a

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minister that there are more bananas falling to the ground in the jungle than there are monkeys

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to eat them. You know, and that's true. There's, there's just an abundance in, in the world. And

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he, you know, Jesus goes on to talk about, don't worry about clothes. Why are you worried about

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clothes? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. And, and yet, you know, not, not even

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Solomon all his glory was arrayed like one of these, like even the richest man in history was

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not dressed as beautifully as the grass of the fields. And your father already knows what you

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need, you know, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. All of all these other things

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will be added onto him. And then a few verses down, you kind of don't notice this because the next

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chapter, but then he says, he goes on to say, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find

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knock and it will be open to you. And if this is in the same passage, you know, these things are

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connected. And so on one hand, he's saying, don't worry, why are you thinking about it? Why are you

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thinking about this? And on the other hand, he tells you, seek, you know, ask and knock and this

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will all be open and revealed to you. And to me, this suggests this one thing, which is based on

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knowing the character of God now and knowing about prayer, knowing about the power of words.

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We're not really, so we're not praying to tell God what we want to know. We're not praying to

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tell God what we need because he already knows what we need. We're actually praying to release

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something that he already gave us into our lives. You know, so he already knows what we need. He

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tells us not to worry. He tells us that he has all these things sorted out, all these provisions

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required for our lives. He tells us not to worry about them, not to think about them, not to dwell

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in them, not to hold on to them. But he does tell us to ask and seek and knock. And these things

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get revealed to us and these things are open, opened up to us. And these things are delivered

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to us. So we're not praying to tell God what's wrong. We're praying to allow him to release

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something into our lives that is required. And that is such an important image for me

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when I'm praying. When we were at Rayma and we were hearing

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Pastor Brad share, he said when he prays, he does the look left, right?

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Yes.

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I love that.

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Pastor Matt, can you tell us what that is?

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Well, I should first say that Rayma is a Bible training college that's here in Beirut. And

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that's what you're referencing. And we had a visiting guest instructor. He's actually the

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director of Rayma Bible Training College in Norway. But he made a comment about the way he prays. And

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from Ephesians chapter two, verse six, Ephesians chapter two, verse six says,

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and God raised us, that's me and you and Pastor Brad, God raised us up together, together with

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Jesus and made us sit together with Jesus at the right hand of God. And so what his point was, in

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prayer, what you want to do is remember that you're not like way down, way down, thousands and

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thousands and thousands of meters below the throne of God. No, you're seated with Jesus at God's right

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hand. And so you just look left to see him.

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Yeah. I love it.

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Such a nice image.

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Yes.

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Wow. Praise God. Well, we don't have much time left for this week, but what I do want to do is

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introduce the Bible illustration that we're going to be talking about and digging deeper into during

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our grow groups. And the passage that we're going to refer to is in Acts chapter 12. And the verses

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are one through to 17. If you notice Acts chapter 12, verse five is actually the scripture that we

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get the title for the series from, which is Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer

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or in the NLT, it's prayers, earnest prayers were given, was offered to God for him by the church.

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Yeah.

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And so let's give some context here rather than reading through all of this. I'm sure that

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you're going to have time to read through this before the grow groups and during the grow groups.

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But basically there's a point in time where Herod the king was persecuting the church and going

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after the leaders of the church. And what he did was he imprisoned James, who was the brother of

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John. So there were three disciples that were arguably the closest to Jesus. And that was James

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and his brother, John and Peter. And there were times where Jesus would go to certain places,

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with them, those three by himself. And so you consider them somehow the inner circle of the 12th.

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And basically he imprisons James and he, what is it? He kills James, the brother of John with the sword.

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Yeah. So Herod, his official title was king. He gave himself that title. So he was not

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an official monarch. He just, he took that title to himself. Herod was an appointed leader

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by the Romans. And so Rome governed the land of Judea that Jesus and the gospels kind of occupy

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through two particular, through two leaders. One is Pontius Pilate, who we see featured

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in the crucifixion passion of Jesus, but then also Herod. And Herod was responsible. They

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sort of divided both in territory, but then also they divided different responsibilities.

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The way to think about Herod though is he's like a gangster. I mean, that's how we would refer to

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him today. He's someone that has managed to find a political appointment through

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very corrupt means. And you can look that up. That's not a secret. That's public knowledge.

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And so Herod was a political animal, always trying to curry favor. And it says that he arrested James

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and had him beheaded. They cut his head off. And he found that it pleased the Jews. Well,

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that was very important to him because he's holding onto power. It's a very,

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political place. It was a very tense, very tense time. And there was a real possibility,

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and this ended up happening, that Rome was just going to come in and wipe out the place. And that

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happened in 70 AD. But the reason for that is there was always uprisings. So Herod, the king,

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he likes being the king. And so he's always trying to create favor. And he found by persecuting

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these church leaders that, hey, this is pleasing. Everyone really liked it when we crucified Jesus.

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I'm going to kill this guy, James. Well, when he killed James, one of my favorite stories is about

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the beheading of James, which I won't take time to share now, but you can look it up for yourself.

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It's not in the Bible, but it's in church history. And everyone liked it. So Herod had Peter arrested.

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And that's the context of Acts chapter 12. So it's almost a certainty. It is an absolute certainty.

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That Peter, you know, that's probably going to happen next, right? And so, yes. And so the reason

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why it doesn't happen immediately is because Herod wants to make a show of it. And how do you make a

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show of it? You have to let people know. So they're announcing it, hey, this is happening tomorrow

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in such and such place. Come see. And sadly, at this time, public executions was

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really popular entertainment. So it is a certainty that Peter is going to be beheaded.

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He's not waiting for trial. They're waiting for a crowd.

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And so the context of the story is, you know, with all that in mind, understanding the circumstances

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that Peter finds himself in. He's basically in jail and waiting for this.

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How different is this Peter in Acts chapter 12 versus the one we looked at in Trails of Thought

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where, you know, he and the other disciples are like, don't you care? We're going to burn you.

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Different person. He's in the boat in the middle of the storm. He's like, we're going to die.

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And new Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter already knows James has been beheaded is asleep.

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And I think that that's an important point here because we're so asleep that the angel didn't just show up yet to hit him.

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Because we're talking about prayer. We're actually talking about champion prayer that's being offered in this context.

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When you read the story, this they're they're persevering in prayer for Peter. But Peter is he's asleep.

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So I think that that's just worth mentioning.

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The people that we're talking about praying are the are the church members, the not apostles.

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Right. They're the ones that have come to faith as a result of the work of the apostles.

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They are praying for Peter. Yeah. So what actually happens is Peter's in this jail cell, fast asleep.

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And in another place far away. Well, I might say far away, but probably across town, there are prayers being offered up.

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So the church is persevering, earnestly praying, praying like champions for Peter.

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And he's asleep. And suddenly an angel of the Lord shows up. He's still asleep.

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So he has to get hit to be woken up. And sure enough, these supernatural series of events cause Peter to leave the jail and go back to the house.

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When he goes back to the house, he's knocking at the door and these guys are still praying and they're like, ah, is that Peter?

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No, really? Is that it?

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You know, I'm just going to leave that there because I think it's a good discussion during Grow Groups.

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But I do have a few questions around it. So if Peter and James were both in the same situations, how come Peter got out of it?

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And the group of believers. What does what does earnestly praying look like?

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So what would that have looked like in during that time or that night?

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And question number three, what would have happened if they didn't pray?

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Like, what would have happened in that situation? Could it have been different?

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And question number four is what happened when Peter came to the house and why did they react the way they reacted?

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So the the fourth question is, I mean, each some of these we would have to apply some supposition to answer the specific things, but we can find scripture to answer the principle.

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But the fourth point, which what you're referring to there and you'll you'll see this when you read it in the and discuss it in the Grow Groups.

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But when Peter shows up, he's knocking at the door. First, they don't answer. Then they're like, oh, they're it's like an angel is out there.

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It's not actually him. They didn't think it was him. And Peter's like banging on the door, which I would imagine if I was Peter and be like.

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At some point, they're going to come looking for me. So open the door.

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But the fourth point of like, why did they react that way?

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I think gives us a window into why a lot of times I see people drop their prayer and leave the place of confidence.

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And that is. I would guess that the people that were earnestly praying probably had an imagination of what their answer looked like.

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That's good. They probably thought, I bet if we pray, God will change the heart of Herod and and he'll announce his release and they'll let him go.

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Because they didn't think, oh, well, probably an angel will just open the doors supernaturally and his chains will just fall off supernaturally.

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That wasn't that wasn't in their in their realm of thinking. So the only way their prayer can be answered is through this particular imagined series of events.

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So sometimes we will see people not again.

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If you're listening to this podcast, you don't do this, but you probably know someone that will imagine how God is going to answer the prayer.

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Like, Lord, I want the doctor's report to be good.

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You know, when I go to the doctor tomorrow and then the doctor's reports like everything is good, except for this one this one thing.

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What's happened? What happened? What? Maybe maybe I have some open doors in my life that I need to go and work or the prayer didn't work or I need to go find someone more anointed to pray.

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Pray for me. And this kind of like what I would refer to.

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And I don't mean this in a bad way against people that fall into these traps, but that's very silly.

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The point is, God can bring an answer to what we're praying for in a million different ways.

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That's good. And these guys, they just weren't expecting Peter to just show up at three o'clock in the morning.

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How did you get out? There's one source of power, but many channels. That's right.

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Yeah, that's good. So in closing our discussion for the fourth time,

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what we're going to do this week is Laura is going to read out action points that we're going to carry through every single week.

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We encourage you to do these during the grow groups and share what you've done on these action points during the grow groups and also as individuals.

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Right. We want to cultivate a daily lifestyle of what we're talking about.

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So, Laura, could you please read the week one action?

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Yeah. So write down three verses that you can pray for yourself over a particular circumstance that you are going through.

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For example, like prayer for peace, confidence, wisdom, whatever you need.

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That's good. Yeah. So we encourage you to find those scriptures.

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How would we find them? How would we find them?

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Well, I would give you what I do. I would look.

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I would Google it first and then find the common verses that talk about, let's say, fear.

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I did this in particular when the earthquake happened back in February.

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So I was I felt like I was paralyzed by fear and I couldn't even sleep some nights.

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So what I did is I looked up verses over that speak about do not fear.

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And then I started meditating and praying over myself.

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And each day passed, I felt that I slept better and they simply work.

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Praise God. Yes.

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Yeah, I think that's a that's a great way we can use a tool that most all of us have access to.

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And you can just Google verses on wisdom, New Testament verses on faith, New Testament verses on.

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And you'll find a host of things. Yeah.

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Please go Bible Gateway dot com is a great reference option as well.

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So you can actually search the life Bible dot com.

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Why? Well, if you have made it this far in your day and no one else has told you,

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let me tell you that we love you and we're praying for you.

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God bless you. Thank you for listening to this message.

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We want everyone to experience the unconditional love of God, growing his love and go with his love to the rest of their world.

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We invite you to connect with us at one of our groups for our next gathering.

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And if no one told you yet today, we love you and believe God's very best for you.