Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:00]:
Hey, good evening, everybody. Good to see you guys. Hey. This evening, you know, we're continuing a series we started last week and the first of the year. And that was just to say we want to be confident in Christ, that how do we walk with confidence? And so we said it really started with identity, and that's what we talked about. It's knowing who we are as followers of Jesus, knowing who we are as children. And this evening, we're going to just continue our series. And, you know, I was reminded of an incident that happened a while back.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:32]:
I was traveling, and it was a season that I was traveling quite a bit. And so I ended up buying a pass for, you know, like, the lounge passes. Anybody got lounge passes. You know how, hey, you know, like, all of a sudden we can, you know, when we're layovers are long and we're like, overseas, we're different places, that it just makes it a lot easier to kind of navigate. It just makes it easier when you land, and then you can hit the ground running. And so, you know, I told one of the guys that I was with, I said, hey, no problem. You know what? Like, you see all those guys, they have to pay, do all that stuff. It's like we have a lounge thing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:06]:
He says, follow me. And he goes, oh, okay. He's all excited. And we went. And he said, I've never been in this kind of a lounge before. And I showed him my card, and then they hand me the card back and they go, you know, we don't see this number. I don't know if this card is active. I say, oh, no, no, no, it's active.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:26]:
It's like, I have it. I've had it for a few years now. It's kind of a thing. And then all of a sudden it goes like, can you just look the number up? Look from my name. And, you know, you're doing all those things, and the more they're doing, the more you're just going like, I don't know, right? And then at the end, I had just, you know, I've been telling my friend, hey, come on, we're going to relax. You can get food, you can do all this stuff. And then all of a sudden, at the end, she keeps it. Well, what I can do is I can send a message to see, you know, whatever the kind of a thing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:54]:
And it's like, at this point, you know, the line is getting longer behind me. I'm holding them up. People can hear me trying to explain, like, no, the card really should work. Right. That kind of a thing. And at the end, you know, what happened is we just walked away. Right. I had to say, hey, you know, I'm sorry that, you know, we'll.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:02:13]:
I'll get it resolved. And the thing is that, you know, what had happened is I had changed a credit card and. And the. What do you call that? Because it expired, it didn't renew. Right. And I didn't realize. Right. I didn't realize that because it was like an automatic renewal.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:02:31]:
And so. But, you know, when you're denied access, sometimes it can be that kind of a situation. You know, it can be a little inconvenient, it can be a little embarrassing. It can be a little bit, you know. You know, maybe it just makes things a little harder. Right. And so what we want to talk about this evening is the fact that your time with God, that you're not going to be denied because there's always open access. And open access is not based on the fact that, you know, you are on your credit card.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:01]:
It's not based on your credit history. It's not based on what you've done. It's based on who he is, and it's based on what he's done. And so this evening, let's take a look. There's just going to be three kind of simple things that we talk about. But I think that when we understand this, it will help us to make use of the access that we have, because sometimes the problem becomes, not that the heavens are not open, but we just don't call upon the God of Heaven. And so when that does happen, it doesn't matter if you have all the access in the world, but you need to use the access that you've been given. So we're going to read, starting out in Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 19 to 23.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:44]:
And would you be kind enough? Let's stand. Let's stand in reverence for God. Reverence for his word. And we're gonna read this out together. Okay, Ready? Let's begin. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence, let's say confidence. Confidence, he's saying. Right to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is, through his flesh.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:04:12]:
And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with a heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. And, you know, when we see this, we can probably tell that this is it's. Drawing part of the illusion from the Old Testament. It's drawing an illusion from the tabernacle or the temple, and how there was a veil before between the holy place and the holiest of holies, where God would meet the people of God, where he would physically descend and meet apart from the. Not apart in the place where the Ark of the covenant, the law had been in the Ark of the covenant and a blood had been poured over. Says at that point that God, when he would look down from heaven, he would see the people, but he would see the law through the sacrifice. And it was at that point that he would meet with the people of God. And he's saying this, that Jesus is the fulfillment of that right? Because his sacrifice, that he tore the curtain and he says is what it was torn, his flesh was torn so that we might have full access to God, that you can be confident.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:05:41]:
You don't come on your merit, you don't come on your credit, you come on his. And so before we're seated, would you turn to your neighbor, says, you can have full access by trusting in Jesus, right? And then you can have a seat, right? We remember that we come, that we need somebody to go before us. Why? Because like Moses in the Old Testament, that we needed somebody to go before us. God is holy and morally perfect and pure and the Creator and sustainer of all things and almighty God, and yet at the same time that he rules and reigns in every realm, right? In every. If there is a different dimension. In every dimension. But, you know, the thing is that what you really see is that when people of power have, you know, that kind of power, and they have an elevation, a place of kind of respect and awe, that they're often not the most, you know, easy to get to. You guys know what I'm talking about? Like, if how many of us that have called customer service, you can't even talk to a human being nowadays, right? You got to just talk to AI.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:06:57]:
You got to talk to somebody. Automated voice. You can't even talk to a regular human being, much less the president of the company, much less the manager in the service department, right? And so why is that? Because there's a screen in all of those places. There's hoops that you have to jump through. There's things that you have to kind of be validated for, right? Just like I didn't make the validation. And for instance, if you're the President of the United States, how many of us know that we just can't call and say, hey, Don, Lunch Wednesday, right? We can't do that, right? Like you have to, there's a protocol and all these things. But you know, presidents, they have many different series of people that you have to go through. But there was a, a bunch of years ago, a teenage guy in Norway thought that, hey, you know what? He was pretty good at kind of computer stuff and hacking a little bit.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:07:57]:
And he somehow got the secret phone number for the White House. And so at 16 years old, this guy Vi Fil Atlason called actually President George Bush on the phone, George W. And he said, I just, you know, I just called because I just wanted to talk to him, see if I could get through and invite him to Iceland and see what he'd say, right. So just a teenage boy and kind of like just think I'm going to take the prank deal to the next level. But in order to. On that first phone call, he didn't realize that he was going to be screened. And so he pretended off the cuff to say that he was Olafur Ragnar Grimson, who is the president of iceland. So a 16 year old boy pretended he was the president of Iceland.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:08:49]:
And after a couple questions they started asking him, what was your date of birth, what was your hometown, what's the name of your parents? At that point it kind of all fell apart, right? So he said that, you know, I was passing the checkpoints, I was passing the checkpoints, but the thing is that I just, I just couldn't pull it off. Later he was pulled in by the police and brought in for questioning. Right. And no charges were filed. But the thing is that, you know, the God that we serve, he's not a distant God. He's not a God that wants to make you jump through hoops. He's not a God that wants to say, you know, that you're disappointing to him. You're not being screen called anybody, screen call, right? You get this thing, you look, turn the phone back over, right.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:09:37]:
Every once in a while to voicemail, right? You're not walking into a throne room of a God who's annoyed you're coming to Jesus. And when we come to draw close to him, would you be reminded that the scripture says that when you draw close to God, God draws close to you. Is God holy? Absolutely. Right. Is God mighty? Absolutely. Do the angels fall down and worship? Absolutely. But Jesus has made the way. Jesus has made the way with his own body, with his own blood.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:10:16]:
So he says, come, come. And not just, not just kind of creep in, not just kind of inch your Way in, not just kind of half hearted, knockingly. He says we can come with a spirit of boldness. It goes on in Hebrews 4 by saying this. So since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, right? For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. You know, like when Edna was talking about some of the distractions and the food or whatever it is and the things that happen that, you know, they're just kind of distractions, right? You guys know what I mean? You guys experienced some of that, I'm sure this week as well. If you're participating in the fast in any way, there probably were temptations.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:11:13]:
The temptations are different at times, right? The temptations don't always make you say, hey, just throw your whole life away. It's just sometimes it's to draw, to steal your time, right? To steal your emotional energy. Sometimes the temptation is to steal part of your finance, right? So to be in this kind of a place. And so he's saying that there's this aspect, but he was without sin. And so. But he understands that when you're tempted, he understands that the fact that we get tired, he understands that our bodies let us know when we haven't eaten at times, right? Sometimes your body lets you know that when you've walked a little too far in the wrong shoes or whatever it is, God understands that. Why? Because he walked the walk. He became one of us, right? But then he says this in verse 16.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:04]:
Let's read this together. Ready? Let's read. Let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And so some translations out there. Maybe King James, new King James will say this. Let us come boldly before the throne of grace. Let us come with confidence. That word paresis means with boldness, with openness, with a sense of being able to speak plainly.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:39]:
You guys ever been asked to come up and speak in an environment that you're not quite used to, and all of a sudden you find yourself stumbling over your words. You're not sure how to say stuff, right? But he's saying that this. You don't have to watch your words. You know, I was. Some of you guys know, somebody had mentioned that I had a leak this week in my house. And, you know, we were in staff meeting and I get this Phone call from my son. And he doesn't call me a whole lot during the day. So I had this thing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:13:10]:
I think something's up. I better answer this phone call. So I answered the phone call, and he just said, dad, there's water coming out of the roof. And I go, it's not even raining. I said. And he said, no, no, no. I sent you a video. And so I take a look, and there's just water coming out, like, the vents, you know, like, that's used to kind of keep your roof kind of ventilated, right? That there's just water coming out, right? And so, you know, I have to rush home, you know, turn off the water, try to figure out what's going on, and then I call the insurance people, right? And how many of you guys know that? Like, when they start asking you all these questions, I start getting nervous.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:13:54]:
I dealt with insurance people before, and it seems like at times they're gonna say, well, what you said was on the initial thing, right? Because they tell you this. Your call is recorded, and all these things, you're asking me these questions, and I'm being really super careful. They asked me, is the house habitable? Which means, can I live in the house? I said, the house is generally fine, but I have no water, so maybe I can do for a night, but I cannot, right? So we cannot live. So I find myself speaking. So they're asking me these questions, and I'm nervous. Why? Because I think that they want to get me somehow, like, in the trap, right? Like. And give me a lesser kind of a. Kind of a payment for the things that they'll do.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:14:43]:
And so they're asking, when did this start? It's like, I don't know when this started, right? I just got a phone call. I came home, and the whole thing. When we're in this kind of a place. But God is saying this. He's not trying to trick you. You know that sometimes when you're taught about prayer. Prayer, maybe. When you're taught about.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:14:59]:
Maybe sometimes patterns in prayer. And to be honest, patterns can be helpful. Patterns can be helpful in learning how to pray. If you're familiar with the Lord's prayer, What is that? That's a pattern, right? It's a pattern to pray. It's not an exact prayer that you ought to pray in the sense of just saying the same words, right? You're not required to pray. Our Father in heaven, how holy or hallowed is your name? But what are we called to do? Recognize that God is holy, but Recognize this, that God is relational, that he's your father. That's what he's wanting you to do. Pray.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:15:40]:
He's not saying, pray to the great, mighty Jehovah. Pray to the God of the creator of the universe. Acknowledge all the. No. He says this. Come and talk to your Father in heaven, right? And so we see a pattern when he says, give us this day our daily bread. It could be, give us this day our. Somebody had texted in this week.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:01]:
Give us this day our car repair. Give us this day our, you know, extra energy because I'm not drinking coffee this week. Give us this day our sense of connection, that I'm feeling lonely in this place. I'm feeling isolated. This is what it's saying, right? It's a pattern. It gives us. But let's not be confused at the same time. God's not trying to get you to say magic words, but God's looking at you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:30]:
He's looking at your heart. He wants you to be able to speak boldly and openly and honestly, right? It's almost like the. If you've ever had kids and you see them, you're trying to introduce them to, you know, uncle so and so, right? He doesn't know them. He's your friend, right? And they're meeting your son, and you got a little boy. And I've seen kids do this. It's like, hi, Uncle. They don't even want to look at them. You guys know.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:58]:
So sometimes. What do we teach them? Look uncle in the eye and stick out your hand, right? Don't be afraid, right? And shake Uncle's hand, right? And the thing is, it's like he's saying to us that you can come and you can tell the whole story, right? Because if you've ever talked to people who are really kind of at the top of the food chain at times. You guys ever get one of these when you're in this conversation? You're in a conversation, could be the president of your company, could be the president of, or could be the lead person, could be the governor, could be the mayor, could be whatever it is. You're in this conversation and you're trying to explain your stuff, and you see the guy do this. You guys ever get that? How does it make you feel when they do that? Right? Yeah. It's like, I got other things to do. I have other people to see. And what God is saying to this is like, you can tell the whole story.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:17:57]:
God's not looking at his watch. God not saying, I got two other guys behind you, right? You're not having to couch your words in the perfect pitch, in the perfect presentation so that you can convince God to do something that he doesn't want to do. Prayer is not about convincing God to do something that he doesn't want to do. Prayer is about being close to him. And at times when we're asking him to do something, it's saying, God, that we're wanting you to do the things that you really want to do anyway. If you're in a place of need and you're at. And you're praying for something right now because you're facing a great need, would you know this, that God wants to provide your needs? Because that's why it says in the Lord's Prayer, give us this day what our daily bread, right? Give us this day. Rent money.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:51]:
Give us this day. The Social Security check comes in, Give us this day, right? We're talking about whatever it is. God wants to be a provider. We're not asking him. You're not asking him for something that he doesn't want to do. He wants to do it already. If you're praying for healing for somebody, it's not that God is reluctant and we have to convince him to do it. And so we come in faith, though.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:19:20]:
We come in faith, we come believing. And. And there are things that when you pray, there's a mystery, right? How many of you guys know what I mean? Like, we don't really understand all the dynamics, right? I've been doing this for a while now, but there's mystery in this thing, right? Why certain things at certain times, man, I just sense the move of God, and it's like, man, and literally guys who cannot get up, get up and walk, right? We've seen that. We've seen that. We've seen people who. From the emergency room die, get up, like. But does everybody. No, not everybody that we prayed for.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:02]:
So there's mystery, right? I'm not saying every time that I know how every prayer will be answered, but the invitation is not. Get it together, then come. The invitation is, come and receive mercy. Come and receive mercy. Come and find grace. Come and find life. Come and get help in time of need. This is what it's saying in this place.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:30]:
That makes sense, right? Am I making that up, or is this in the scripture? Right? This is God's revelation. And sometimes when we're in this place of seeking the Lord, maybe we're pressing in, in this beginning of the year, fasting and praying that. That sometimes, you know, you can be honest you can say, God, man, I'm tired. God, I'm distracted. How many of you guys that found yourself that maybe because you changed something that you ate, you're not drinking coffee, you're not doing whatever, that all of a sudden it's like you had brain fog this week? Anybody had brain fog? Okay? I can just tell from that. Yeah, brain fog. It's like I noticed that I've been texting a message or whatever, and I just look at it, and it's totally nonsense, you know, because, like, I'm hitting on the wrong kind of a place. And I can say, you know, Lord, I'm feeling it today.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:21:18]:
I need to kind of get realigned, right? And so my body's making adjustments, right? Sometimes. But you can pray, though. But you can pray for whatever it is that you need. It says you can pray, God, give me the open door. God, would you lead me to the place? Now one of the things, you know, when we're praying for people, sometimes we just don't know what the mechanism that God will do to meet your need, right? So if we're praying, if you have a financial need sometimes, you know, people we're. And I've been praying with people often for jobs, right? Everybody praying for job, right? I'm talking to some people praying for jobs. I talked to some folks last week that they came in, a family came in, and. And it just was such a heavy burden for me.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:22:05]:
I just heard. I just heard so much hurt. I heard so much pain. I heard so much disappointment. I heard so much kind of this long years of opposition and delay on some legal issues. But, you know, we prayed. So they came and we prayed on Sunday, right? When we asked at the end that, hey, anybody want to come up, lay our hands and pray for them? And they came forward, and I got to pray with them. And they came on in the middle of the week, and the first thing at the end of the service, they came up and they said, we just came to tell you that everything that you prayed for God moved this week, right? Some of it was health oriented, some of it was work oriented, some of it was legal oriented.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:22:55]:
And the things. And he said, it's not all done. They said, it's not all done. But I said, but the door's opening. And one of them said this. At least the window's open, right? But, you know, the thing is, it changed the atmosphere. It changed the trajectory. You know, when they came, to be honest, I felt like they were counting on my faith in some sense, because I Felt like they were.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:26]:
Sometimes we get beaten down in life and that's why we pray together, right? Sometimes you pray with somebody because you know what, you can hitchhike on somebody's faith. Turn to your neighbor says it's okay to hitchhike on somebody's faith. It's okay, right? Should you grow in your faith? Yeah, absolutely. But you can hitchhike on somebody's faith, right? The man who was paralyzed, it says his friends lowered him down and Jesus, it doesn't say that. Seeing the man who was paralyzed, seeing his faith, it doesn't say that. What does it say? But seeing his friend's faith, that he healed the man, you know, it's not who has faith sometimes, it's that there is faith that's expressed. So sometimes you're stronger than others, right? So sometimes others are stronger than you. So you can hitchhike on each other's faith.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:24:18]:
But when we come, we ought to come with a sense of confidence that I'm not having to convince God to do anything because he already wants to do something. But there is a combination of grace and effort, right? There is this kind of combination at times that I can pray all I want for a job, but until I. Until I submit that app, right? Sometimes until I knock on that door, until I make that phone call, at times there's a combination. But we come confidently, openly, boldly, and you can speak plainly. And I think part of the reason is because God loves to welcome the bold requests from his children. Yeah, I see this. You see this illustrated throughout the scriptures. And one of the kind of the big, to me ways I see this illustrated is, is a man named Caleb.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:25:21]:
If you're familiar with Caleb from the Old Testament, that, that he was one of the 12 spies who, who entered into the promised land and saw the land was good, but they also saw there were some problems. You guys remember what the problems was in the promised land? That there were giants in the land, right? There literally were dudes that were bigger than them. It was like. It's like, you know, when the small Japanese team goes against Kahuku team, you know, like, that's a whole different kind of a deal, right? So it seemed overwhelming to them. But Caleb, along with his friend Joshua were the only two of the 12 that says God, we see how good the land is and we see the giants and we cannot defeat them, but with your power we can. So he's one of the 12 guys, one of the two guys out of the 12 who said, God, we trust you despite whatever the situations, whatever the odds look like. And so God gave him a promise. And the promise was this.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:26:25]:
Everybody else is not going to go into the promised land, but you and Joshua, you guys are going to walk in, right? You two are going to walk in. And so we see in the book of Joshua that this is 45 years later. Caleb is 85 years old. And he goes. When he goes into the promised land, it's not like just. It's not like this. It's not like saying, hey, giant, you got to go. Because God said, this is my place, they take it by force.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:26:56]:
And so 85 years old, Caleb is the brother who's rolling up his sleeves and strapping on his sword, right? And so they take the land. They literally take the land. They literally beat three particular giants. It lays out in the place of Hebron, and he gets the inheritance that God has promised. But there's one corner, there's one corner that hasn't been conquered, right? And so what Caleb does is Caleb recognizes God honors faith. And so Caleb puts the same call out there. He says this. If there's a man in this place, if there's a man in my tribe, if there's a man in our.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:27:39]:
In my. In my kind of cadre, in my people that will conquer this land, then you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to give my. My daughter as his wife. We see this in Joshua 15. So Caleb said, whoever strikes Kiriath Sephir, that's the place that becomes Hebron and captures it, to him, I will give Achsa, my daughter, as a wife. And so this guy, Othniel, and Othniel, the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, so his nephew captured it, and he gave him Achsa, his daughter, as wife. And so he. Othniel, he's like his uncle, right? He's a scrapper.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:28:21]:
He. He's a mighty man of valor. He's a mighty man of war. So he takes the thing. And so Caleb is honoring to his word, and he gives Aqsa as his wife. And then when Aksa comes to him, she says this in verse 16. Let's read what it says. I'm sorry.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:28:37]:
In 18, it says this. Ready? Let's read. When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. Now, Aqsa was glad to be married, I think. And she asks. She sees the man. She comes and at first she's saying to him, you know the place that we got, the place that my dad gave you that's awesome. But I need you to ask him for something else in addition, right? And so she kept asking and encouraging.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:29:12]:
Ask my dad, ask my dad, Ask for the springs, ask for the water. Right? And you know, the thing is, I think Othniel, I think he was kind of in this place, was like, you know, I know I took the city. I know we had a good day. We did battle and we won. But, you know, the thing is, your dad promised to give you to me as a wife. So I did my part. He honored his part. I don't want to push it today.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:29:40]:
You know what I mean? He earned. To be honest, he earned Aksa as his wife. But, you know, I think he's saying, you know, I'm not really comfortable to ask your dad yet. I don't. We don't know each other that well. I mean, he's the uncle, so they know each other, I guess. But, you know, let him get to see maybe how I treat you first, right? You guys ever been in a place where you haven't wanted to ask because you didn't have the connection, right? I've been in that place, yeah. I didn't have the connection, to be honest.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:13]:
Sometimes it's relatives, even, but it's the uncle that you only see, like, twice in your life because they live on the mainland and, you know, that kind of a thing, right? And they say, hey, Glenn, anytime you need anything, just give me a call. But, you know, there was a part of me I didn't want to call, ask because I didn't feel like I had the relationship. That makes sense. But when you have the relationship, it's easy to ask, right? So we see in the following verses, in the verse second half of verse 18, what does it say? And so it says this. Let's read this together. From verse 18, it says, and she got off her donkey. So, Right? So she's talking to her husband, right? And he's hesitant. He's not doing it.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:31:05]:
So she gets off her donkey. And Caleb said to her, what do you want? Right? What do you want? Right? And so she says to him, give me a blessing since you have given me the land of the Negev. Give me also what springs of water? And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. And, you know, like I said, I was the nephew, and I was nervous to ask. Othnia was the nephew, but he was still nervous to ask. But Aqsa, the daughter, why is she so easily asking? Because that's my dad. Because that's my dad, right? And Caleb doesn't rebuke her. He doesn't say, oh, my gosh, you always asking for more.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:31:59]:
What does he do? It just. He blesses her, right? Because God loves when his people, his children, have something bold that they ask, have something big that they're asking. Why does God rejoice in that? Because if you ask for something big, you know what that indicates? That you believe that God is big enough to do it. That we believe that the God that we serve is not a small God, but he's a mighty God. That God is honored by that. That God is blessed by that. If we only pray small prayers, I believe it's not honoring to God, right? It's like God, you know, we got all this financial stuff and so. And so is sick and all this stuff.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:54]:
And it's like, I'm not asking for much because why? Because sometimes we don't think God wants to give it to us. Because sometimes we might feel like, I don't know if he can do anything right, or that he just doesn't want to. But when it's your dad, I don't know about you, but I have kids. You're not ashamed to ask for nothing, right? And the thing is that in some ways, you know what? Some ways I'm also saying you think Daddy's made out of money. But in a lot of ways, you know what? I'm honored. I'm honored that you would ask. I'm honored that you would bring that before. So God invites us.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:33:40]:
Ask boldly, turn to your neighbor. Say, God wants you to ask boldly. But God wants you to know him as your father, not just simply as the mighty God, the creator and sustainer of the universe. Is he that? Yes, he is. He is that. But by the blood, by his sacrifice, he's made a way. And there's a change of relationship. So he says, now ask your dad in heaven.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:34:20]:
Ask your dad in heaven. That relationship gives you access. You know, sometimes we're in this place where if we're not careful, prayer becomes a ritual and not a relationship. But prayer is talking to the God who knows you, who loves you, who knows you best and loves you most, because it gives you access. Relationship. And we need to practice this in private as much as we do in public. You know, we. We get together in 21 days of prayer.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:34:59]:
And a bunch of us, we come into this place and there is, I think, power that happens when people gather in the same place, the same time, pray for the same things. But we should not only Practice it in public. We ought to practice it in private, right? That if the only time I talk to my dad is when the whole family is there, you know, that kind of gives me an indication, right? God is saying that like, yeah, talk to me. Talk to me when everybody's together, but make sure that you talk to me. When sometimes it's just you and me. So it says in, in Matthew 6, verse 6. And when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father, who is in secret, right? There's a. Like a secret place.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:35:54]:
There's a place for you and God. A place for you and God that you can tell them anything you want. You can tell them about everything that you need. You can tell them what your greatest discouragements. You can tell them about your greatest hopes. You can tell them about the thing that you are nervous about that you're on this place. You want God to do something. But sometimes we're nervous to ask, says your father, who sees in secret will, what will reward you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:36:23]:
Does it mean he always gives us everything we want in the way that we want it? No, he does. That's not the promise. The promise is this, that the will of God is good. So he's going to reward you with something that's good. He's going to reward you with something that is pleasing and something that maybe not on first glance, but that over time you're going to think, you know, that was the perfect decision. And so sometimes we ask for peace and we have more trouble. But sometimes God is using that trouble to move us to the place where we get the real peace. Because sometimes what we want is not peace.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:37:16]:
Sometimes what we want is relief, right? That's very different. And relief is important at times. But sometimes God answers in a way that we can't. We can't picture when we're praying to start this church. I remember, you know, my wife and I, we. Before, when we first got married, we were living in Waikele. And I would look out towards Makakilo and there used to be the old clubhouse. I don't know if anybody remembers there used to be an old clubhouse built on the hillside of Makaquilo.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:37:54]:
And I would sit on my balcony and my wife and I would have often have coffee and breakfast outside or dinner on the balcony. And I would look out that way and I would pray out that way. God, would you give us a church in that direction? And you know, when that happened, we just were praying, Lord, that would you let us start in that place? And I'm not sure exactly why, but I knew at this time there wasn't like a ton of churches in Kapolei. And there's a park on staff at New Hope, Oahu. And I remember Pastor Wayne pulling me in one day and he says, glenn, where do you want to go? I said, kapolei, without hesitation. Yeah, Pastor Reynard, that's where I feel, I feel led to that place. He says, oh, okay, that's awesome. And then the next day, because there were a bunch of guys that we were going to go out and plant, and he gave it to this guy Alex Che.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:38:45]:
I hated him. No, I was kidding. I didn't, I'm just kidding. He was a friend, right? And, but there's a bunch of us that we were on staff because the church was pretty dynamic, big church, and the pastors, the discipleship pastors. That's what kind of like my title was. We, we all got together and he was, they were like, oh, man, that was a, it was kind of a blow. I know you were counting to go on Kapolei. What are you going to do? Because that's not the way that you wanted it to go, right? And I said, you know, I, I'm more committed.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:39:21]:
I, I, I did think that's the place for sure, but I'm more committed to God and the mission than the place that I want. And so basically I just said, I'll surrender it. And so I thought, maybe we'll plan in Maui. Maybe I'll go back to California. My friends are calling me. Come back. California. Let's plant a church in California.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:39:48]:
I said, we'll figure it out, you know, kind of a thing. And the group of them, they prayed for me because it was, wasn't what I wanted, but, you know, I was gracious. And I gave the Alex, like, our realtor's information because we were looking for a house and we had looked and she knew the area well. You know, we gave her all of what, all this, whatever things that we had, gave it to Alex and we just put it in God's hand. And, you know, then one day I get called. I'm walking with Wayne one time after a service, and we're just walking, going to his car. And he said, by the way, you're going to be the guy to go into Kapolei. Alex, right before he signed his house for his house, he was literally going to buy the house in Kapolei.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:40:40]:
Said, I don't think God wants me to be here. I think God is calling me back he came from Montana, and he went back to Montana. You know, why did it happen that way? Why did we go through all these things? Because you know what that did for me? And this is what Wayne said. He said, hey, you must have been praying, huh, when that happened, right? So when he said, I'm gonna ask you to go plant the church in Coppola, that no matter what happened, and. Because there's always been things that have been great, and there's always been some things that have been difficult, but what I never asked myself is this. Am I in the right place in all these years? I've never asked myself that in the ups and the downs, because you know what that part showed me? It showed me God knew what he was doing, even though, humanly speaking, somebody else might have had a different decision, that I knew God's plan was to be in this place. So I've never. Because his will is good, it's pleasing, and it's perfect.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:42:03]:
And so you and I, we have open access. We remember who we pray to. You can remember that you can be honest and open, and that God loves to hear your request, even when it's bold, because it honors him. You know, I heard this kind of snippet of a snapshot of a message by a guy, and he was talking about something I thought was that I think really kind of cemented what I was thinking about in this thing called having open access. And he was talking about, you know, when Jesus was crucified, there were three people crucified at Calvary, right? You guys familiar? There's Jesus in the middle and two thieves on the side. And he's saying, you know, the thieves. The scripture doesn't give us a whole lot of description about what the thieves are like. But I have friend that when he first came to the Lord and gave his heart to Jesus, and we were talking and his life was changing, and he said this.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:43:25]:
You know, Glenn, I've never had an honest job in my life. Because what he was talking about was that he had been on drugs as a kid, and the best way to kind of be able to feel that was to deal drugs. So he did that. And he was, like, 35 years old, married, family. You know, it was a difficult situation in his life where his son had been hurt, that when he came to the hospital to visit that he brought a bag, and, you know, you got to bring the bag through the scanner at emergency, and the guy looked on the screen, and he said, hey, what's that in your bag? And then he realized that there was like drugs in the bag. And so he left. He bailed, right? And he. He was so ashamed of himself because he said, what's wrong with me that I cannot even be here to see my son? And that was the thing, the precursor that led him to Christ.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:44:34]:
Right. I wonder if one of the thieves, maybe the same way, never had an honest job in his life 30 something years, right? But can you imagine when one of those thieves, after he died, goes to heaven? What if it was like the questions that sometimes we ask, that if you were to die today and God asked you, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say if that thief were there? And when he came to the. To the gates and he was asked by Peter or the angels or whatever it is, aren't you Elias, that thief? He goes, yeah, I am. Weren't you the other guy who was crucified outside of Jerusalem with the Master? You say, yeah, I think so. Right. Didn't you mock that guy in the middle and kind of say, like, if you're the Son of God and save us, save yourself? Yeah, it wasn't my proudest moment. Well, why should I let you into heaven? What would the guy say? It's like, I don't know. If he were to say, well, do you know what substitutionary atonement is? No.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:46:17]:
Do you know what plenary inspiration of Scripture is? I don't know what you're talking about. Wouldn't have you prayed and fasted to connect with God? No, I haven't. Then why should I let you into heaven? And I think his answer would be, because the guy on the middle cross said I could come. That's access. Because the man on the cross says, if you believe in me, you can come. That's for you and that's for me. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes with a prayer. Father, I thank you that you said, there is a throne of grace.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:47:15]:
And Lord, we need it because you are a holy and a mighty God. But we're thankful that on your body you took the penalty, you took our price. And that, Lord, you said that because we've asked, because we've come to you recognizing like that man on the cross. It's not because we're good. It's not because we're all perfect. It's not because we're holy, because we said, lord have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. Thank you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:48:00]:
You said that I can come. Thank you. That you make a way and I thank you. This access is not something just to simply get into heaven. It's now that we're part of the family, Lord, you want us to keep coming? Thank you. Through Jesus, Lord, we have open access, Lord. Teach us to come boldly, Lord. Teach us to come regularly, Lord.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:48:33]:
Teach us to come despite the distractions, Lord, when our temptations and the world and the enemy and all these things come against us, Lord, thank you that we can draw closer to you. And that, Lord, you are a shield and a fortress, Lord, because we come because of your mercy and because of your grace. And if you agree with that, would you say, in Jesus name, amen. Hey, God bless you guys. Thanks for joining us.