Sermon

Asking According To His WIll

Middletown Portland Seventh-day Adventist Church

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  1. Our speaker is Brother George Dialecticus.

  2. Did I say that correctly? George comes to us from the

  3. Connecticut Valley Adventist Church, and I remember he was a

  4. regular speaker here many years ago when Pastor John Cameron was

  5. our pastor. And then for some reason or one

  6. another, we haven't seen him since.

  7. I think that must have been 30 years ago.

  8. So we welcome Brother George to our pulpit and his message to us

  9. today. Brother George.

  10. Thank you, Church, for giving me the opportunity to meet with you

  11. and speak with you today. Let me just kind of move a

  12. couple of things around here and get situated.

  13. It's been, it's been indeed a long time since since I've been

  14. here. It was in the, it was in the

  15. early 90s. I think that they used to come

  16. more like regularly here and, and share a message from the

  17. word of God with you. But it's good to be here again

  18. today. This this message today that I

  19. was going to share was when Fred and I would talked about a month

  20. or two, a couple of months ago, I think we came up with this

  21. date. I was just thinking the last,

  22. you know, the last couple of weeks, you know what to preach

  23. about. And I looked in one of my my

  24. notes and I picked this topic. Take it out of first John 5, 13

  25. and 14. This is a this is a topic.

  26. This topic is I think I've contemplated in the past.

  27. We pray often to God to ask for answers, but sometimes we don't

  28. get the answers, or at least the way we understand.

  29. So, and coincidentally just happened to be what I was

  30. preparing for this one. Maybe I need to focus on just

  31. reading it while I was preparing for this one.

  32. This isn't the heaven in our church, which basically has got

  33. everyone in a really hard, a really hard position.

  34. And so I thought, you know, this sermon was perfect for me.

  35. So, so I would like to share with you this message today and

  36. I hope you can receive all of us can receive a blessing.

  37. I tried to look through this. John gives us a very good

  38. perspective here about understanding ask when we ask

  39. for God, God is always willing to give us an to give us an

  40. answer and give the direction into our lives.

  41. But John gives us some parameters within which you can

  42. understand that and be able to live with.

  43. And I think it's important for us to to grasp that message

  44. because then it will help us better understand God.

  45. So for my opening comments, I want to share with you a short

  46. story from that Jay Kessler tells us in his book Raising

  47. Responsible Kids. He writes and says, shortly

  48. after I got my driver's license, I was driving too close to the

  49. middle of a narrow road and I side swept another car, the

  50. crash toward the front Fender, 2 doors and the back Fender of my

  51. car. And that was my dad's car, he

  52. says. And after I found that everybody

  53. was OK and everything was OK, I stood there by the ditch and I

  54. prayed and I said, dear God, I pray this did not happen.

  55. I opened my eyes, but the wreck was still there.

  56. And so I decided to pray more earnestly.

  57. And he goes back there in the ditch, and he closes his eyes.

  58. He squinted his eyes really hard.

  59. And he prays again and says, dear God, I pray that this

  60. didn't happen. And I opened my eyes, he says to

  61. us. And to my surprise, the accident

  62. really did happen. Well, if God answered prayers

  63. like that, I would say the auto body shops would be out of

  64. Business Today. We all know this feeling.

  65. We've done and said things we wish we could undo or unsay.

  66. And I wish we could go back. I think all of us have felt this

  67. way. We wish we could go back and

  68. change that. Haven't you felt that I wish I

  69. hadn't done this, I hadn't wish I hadn't said this thing.

  70. And actually, Hollywood just plays with our emotions on this

  71. one. If you've seen the stories, the

  72. movies, The Twilight Zone and Back to the Future, they just

  73. kind of play with those with those in that area.

  74. But as I read the Bible, I do not see any promise that it is

  75. God will to change our past. Instead, the Bible teaches us

  76. something better. First, God assures us that our

  77. past mistakes can be forgiven and covered by the blood of

  78. Jesus as we confess them to Him. And the second thing, that when

  79. we surrender our will to Him, when we ask that His will be

  80. done in our lives, we can have the assurance that God will lead

  81. us into a better future so that when we look back, we don't need

  82. to live in regret. And that's the thesis, the

  83. thesis of my message today. The apostle John says, says in

  84. this way in verse 14 for first, John 514, the gentleman just

  85. read it to us. And I'm going to, if you don't

  86. mind me, I'll read this again and I'll put it up on the screen

  87. here for those of you who would like to follow.

  88. And it says, and this is the confidence that we have in him,

  89. that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears

  90. us. And if we know that he hears us,

  91. then whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that

  92. we desire of him. John simply tells us here that

  93. we can have the confidence that Jesus will answer our petition

  94. when those petitions are aligned with what?

  95. With God's will. So of course this leads us into

  96. two basic two major questions. How can I be confident that God

  97. hears my prayers when I cannot see or hear him?

  98. And second question I would suggest here is how can I know

  99. that my request and of course your will.

  100. Does the apostle John give us any help clarifying this?

  101. Indeed he does. God's.

  102. God's Word gives us more than enough evidence that we can

  103. trust his words, that we can trust His promises, and we can

  104. count on his love and care. To see the basis of this

  105. confidence, we must look at verses 13 and 14 together

  106. because when you look verse 14, it starts with a conjunction end

  107. and says end this confidence. So that means that something

  108. precedes that, that we need to understand that first before we

  109. can understand verse 14 where we'd all we tend to gravitate

  110. to. So let's read 1st 13 first and

  111. then we can go from there and understand this.

  112. I would like to explain that first says these things I have

  113. written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that

  114. he may know that he have eternal life and that he may believe in

  115. the name of the Son of God. So in verse 13, John, the

  116. Apostle John explains to us, explains to his audience the

  117. purpose for which he writes his letter.

  118. And his purpose was to strengthen them in their faith,

  119. to establish in their minds that salvation is through Jesus

  120. Christ and that Jesus indeed is the Son of God.

  121. And thirdly, to assure us that because of Christ and through

  122. Christ we can have this confidence of eternal life.

  123. If you look at the 2 words that are used there is to know and to

  124. believe. In what tense are they

  125. presented? It's in the present tense

  126. describing A continuous action, a continuous believing, a

  127. continual knowledge, a continual belief in Jesus Christ.

  128. So our confidence in the eternal life is not a vague memory from

  129. some years ago that I met Christ or I believed in Christ, but

  130. it's a living, personal trust, daily trust in Jesus Christ.

  131. Fred's no matter what you may be going through in life, no matter

  132. the challenges you may be facing, when we fellowship with

  133. God and with one another, we can enjoy the spiritual blessings.

  134. There is that constant connection with heaven that can

  135. fill our hearts to its fullness to give us joy and peace.

  136. That's the connection that can give us meaning into our life

  137. and provide a purpose for our life.

  138. So I would like to read verse 14 now and then John apostle John

  139. continues to say, and this is the confidence that we have in

  140. him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears

  141. us. And that's where I would like to

  142. dive in a little bit and analyze its segment of that verse for us

  143. to be able to understand. So basically, John is tells us

  144. here that now that we've established beyond any shot of

  145. doubt that we have eternal life, now we can go confidently before

  146. the throne of God and approach him through prayer and knowing

  147. that anything we may ask, as long as it is according to God's

  148. will, he will grant it to us and we can have that confidence.

  149. Isn't that good news? Isn't this something that can

  150. give us peace is to know that God not only hears our prayers,

  151. but He also answers them. God hears our praises, prayers

  152. when we seek Him in truth and He has the power.

  153. He's the Almighty God to fill our hearts with Lovejoy, peace

  154. and holiness. I would like to read you a quote

  155. from the Spirit of Prophecy Testimonies for the Church

  156. volume on page 21. This is a vision the idyllic

  157. White had years back, and here's what God showed her in the

  158. vision, she says. I saw that every prayer that is

  159. sent up from within faith, from the honest heart, will be heard

  160. of God and be answered. How many prayers will be

  161. answered? Is it some 50%?

  162. It's every prayer, and the one that sent up the petitions will

  163. have the blessing when he needs it most.

  164. That's fairly assured, isn't it? And it will be often exceed his

  165. expectation. That's even better.

  166. It's there's not a prayer of a true saying that is lost if sent

  167. up in faith from an honest heart.

  168. So here is to me, this is a very powerful statement knowing that

  169. God is going to hear our praise, all our prayers is going to

  170. answer them. And if we come in to him and

  171. faithfully and we will receive the answer at the time that we

  172. need it most. You know, one may say, well this

  173. is good news, but how can I experience this confidence in my

  174. own life? Well, two things.

  175. First, you must realize that our confidence is never in ourselves

  176. but is in Christ. And secondly, our assurance

  177. grows as our lives become more and more aligned with God's will

  178. and more like becoming more like his Son.

  179. Remember the desire is that of John that expresses in his

  180. gospels is to become more like Jesus.

  181. That's the ultimate goal that we need to be is something holding

  182. you back today. Just cry out to God and for more

  183. of his presence in his in your life.

  184. Rome Paul in Romans 829 says that God has predestined us to

  185. be conformed to the image of his son.

  186. This has nothing to do with predestination doctor today, but

  187. it was in other words, what he's trying to say is that it was

  188. always been in God's plan that our characters should align with

  189. the character of Christ and the apostle Paul reminds us in

  190. Hebrews 4/16 and I'm going to start reading from verse 14.

  191. Just looking at the context and he says now that we have, and

  192. I'm going to read this from the message, which is a little more

  193. simplified now that we know that we have Jesus, this great high

  194. priest with ready access to God, Let us not let it slip through

  195. our fingers. We don't have a priest who is

  196. out of touch with reality, but he's been through weaknesses and

  197. testing and he has experienced it all, all but sin.

  198. So let us walk right up to him and get what is already for him

  199. to give us. Take the mercy, accept his help.

  200. King James Version renders it by using the word come boldly to

  201. the throne of grace, which many of us are more familiar with in

  202. the English standard version uses the word come with

  203. confidence to the throne of grace.

  204. So Jesus is our high priest and he is looking after you and I

  205. and our confidence is in him and in his blood through which he

  206. gives us in order to be able to come to the throne of grace.

  207. So the question I'm going to ask right now is how can we be

  208. confident to come to the throne of grace?

  209. I'm going to give you 3 reasons. I'll support those reasons that

  210. I'm going to give you. First reason is because we abide

  211. in Christ. And I'm going to elaborate a

  212. little bit more on this later on.

  213. In first John 228, there's a verse that supports this and it

  214. says and now little children abide in Him, abide in Jesus

  215. that when he appears, he may have you may have confidence and

  216. not be ashamed before him that his coming.

  217. So when we abide in Jesus Christ, we can be confident that

  218. you can come to the throne of grace.

  219. And I give you a second reason. I have it here because we keep

  220. God's commandments. And if you look, John chapter 3,

    John 3:21

  221. verses 21 and 22 supports this idea.

  222. And it says, Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we

  223. have confidence to our God. And whatever we ask, we receive

  224. from Him because what? What is the reason?

  225. What is the basis? Because we keep His commandments

  226. and do these things that are pleasing in His sight.

  227. I'll give you a third reason that would enable us to come

  228. boldly to the throne of grace is because of the blood of Christ.

  229. In Hebrews 10/19 it says, Therefore, brothers, since we

  230. have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of

  231. Jesus, we're not going on our own merits, on our own goodness,

  232. or on good behavior, but it's by the blood of Jesus.

  233. Let us draw now near with the true heart in full assurance of

  234. faith. Brothers and sisters, if for any

  235. reason you're tempted to run away from Christ, perhaps maybe

  236. you experience disappointment in your life, divorce or loss.

  237. Perhaps you may have been ridiculed by your friends or Co

  238. workers or maybe for family members.

  239. Maybe you have walked away from God in your own life for some

  240. period of time and say that now whispers in your head saying

  241. well it's too late for you. No hope if for any reason you

  242. are tempted to run away from God, clinging to this promise

  243. that I have on the screen taken from Hebrews, Hebrews 10/23.

  244. Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm

  245. for God can be trusted to keep his promise is another assuring

  246. for us. And so now that we have

  247. established that we can confidently approach Jesus.

  248. We talked about that we have the assurance of our salvation.

  249. We talked about that. Now we can approach the throne

  250. of grace confidently. The apostle Paul the apostle

  251. John proceeds in verse 14 to say something more.

  252. Now he comes to the point to talking about asking God for

  253. something, for anything here, says if we ask anything to His

  254. will, he hears us. So notice how he establishes

  255. first of all, understanding that we have eternal life.

  256. It's understanding that you are connected with Christ,

  257. understanding our salvation. Now we can go back with our own

  258. requests. Now you will say to me, well,

  259. you say to ask God anything, but isn't God a munition?

  260. Doesn't he know what I'm going through?

  261. Well, indeed He does. But the statement that we have

  262. is that although God knows everything, He knows our needs,

  263. He knows our pains, He knows our wishes, our desires.

  264. He wants his children to make those requests known to him in

  265. their own simple language. You see prayer as oftentimes I'm

  266. guilty too. We often tend to make it a list

  267. of I want to. You know, and long I want to

  268. list, I want this, I want the others or sometimes we prepare,

  269. we repeat the raw formula, but prayer is really coming before

  270. the living God, humbling ourselves and his presence.

  271. Listen the way in the book Steps to Christ.

  272. The author puts it there and that's one of my favorite

  273. sections there. It says prayer is the opening of

  274. the heart to God as a friend, you know, so it's like talking

  275. to your spouse, talking to a friend of you, and you just

  276. share, share something. What's going on there.

  277. It does have to be a lock when words.

  278. A lot of times we are impressed and we're intimidated and we

  279. cannot pray in public because we hear the pastor, an elder or

  280. somebody using all this very fancy vocabulary in present.

  281. But God thought what he wants is just simple sincere words and,

  282. and let me continue reading from the same book there just a

  283. little bit just to give us a side.

  284. It says, of course we do not need to tell God about ourselves

  285. for he already knows everything, but we pray to help us know him

  286. and be able to receive him. Prayer does not bring God down

  287. to us by what it does, it brings us up to Him.

  288. See, our minds may be drawn towards Him who may think of His

  289. works, His mercies, His blessings, but this is not

  290. notice. This is not the fullness sense

  291. sharing our thoughts and feelings with Him.

  292. We must have something to say about our joys, about our souls,

  293. about our daily life. Our Heavenly Father waits to

  294. give us His full blessing, and in prayer we can feel His

  295. boundless love. What a wonder is it that we pray

  296. so little three times. We are so busy, isn't it?

  297. And we pray so little. God is ready, but not only ready

  298. but willing to hear the sincere prayer of even the most humble

  299. child. And here is a sad statement that

  300. she's making. But still, we seem almost afraid

  301. to tell Him what we need. In other words, God is anxious

  302. to hear and talk with us, but the sad reality is that

  303. sometimes we are almost afraid to tell Him what the needs are.

  304. Oftentimes our prayers fail because we did not really ask

  305. for anything. We repeat cliches.

  306. We forget that God is a generous giver.

  307. You remember the story that I remember what Jesus told his

  308. disciples in the upper room right before he was crucified.

  309. It's found is recorded. John recorded it for us in

  310. chapter 14 and chapter 14, verses 13 and 14.

  311. Eight says whatever you ask in my name that I will do that the

  312. Father may be glorified in the Son.

  313. So if you ask anything in my name, I'm going to do it.

  314. But I want us to be careful here.

  315. We read this statement. They say, OK, well, all right,

  316. let's go to God and ask and ask for everything.

  317. Asking God, asking something, God in God's name.

  318. It's not a magic phrase. We tend to repeat that, but if

  319. there's no magic it, we ask something in the basis of

  320. Jesus's merit. We ask something that will honor

  321. his name and will, something that will glorify Jesus.

  322. So you see, so far the apostle John has given us two points.

  323. We can come to Jesus with confidence.

  324. And second, we're invited to ask Jesus for anything there.

  325. So I'm going to look two more points that he's identifying in

  326. this, in this verse here. And I would like us to point

  327. this out to you. If you come to Jesus with

  328. confidence point #1 and we're invited to ask Jesus for

  329. anything. In verse 14, if we continue

  330. reading verse 14, it says if we ask anything now He comes with a

  331. condition there that is in accordance to His will.

  332. That mean what does that mean? That means to seek to know if I

  333. request harmonizes with God's purposes.

  334. In other words, when I ask Jesus for something to do for us, we

  335. should validate with Him whether whatever asking is in line with

  336. His will. I'll give you an example.

  337. You want to buy a house and you pray about it, isn't it?

  338. A wise prayer might be. Lord, I am excited about this

  339. property. I want your will to understand

  340. whether you want me to buy it. If it is from you, please open

  341. the way. But if it's not, help me accept

  342. your guidance. And I think the first part is

  343. easy for us to say. All of us say the first part,

  344. but the last part to help me accept your guidance.

  345. If that's not your will, if your will is not in line with my

  346. will, I think this is the hardest part of all of us have

  347. our omniscient, benevolent Lord knows exactly what's good for

  348. us, His grace and power, for the promotion of our happiness, of

  349. our salvation. That's his utmost goal.

  350. So it is worth reading what the Apostle James and I believe

  351. Fred, you mentioned this morning.

  352. He pointed out he says you do not have because you do not ask.

  353. And then he asks in verse 3. You ask and you don't need to

  354. receive. Why?

  355. Because you asked for the wrong with the wrong motives so that

  356. you may spend it in your own pleasures.

  357. It is not only to ask. We have to ask first, but also

  358. we need to ask for the right motives.

  359. Are we asking for the motives that's something that will

  360. glorify God or it's for our own pleasures?

  361. I remember somebody the same to me years ago.

  362. I'm praying to the Lord that I win the lottery.

  363. So when I give them money to there is this one to Russia and

  364. they can build churches. Good motive to build the

  365. churches. But is this something according

  366. to God's will? You see, true prayer is not

  367. telling God what to do. It is asking Him to do His will

  368. into our lives. It's about God's will be done on

  369. earth and not our will be done in heaven.

  370. Church, are you with me on this one?

  371. I think oftentimes we want our will here to be done in heaven.

  372. That's how we approach things. God wants to see and discern His

  373. will through His Word and to pray that His will into action.

  374. So Jesus modeled this for us when he said in John records in

  375. chapter 4, he says my food is to do the will of him who sent me.

  376. So the principle that Christ is giving is a principle of

  377. service, service for others. He wasn't getting this blessings

  378. and this power from God the Father to to for his own comfort

  379. and and good life, but it's to share it with other people.

  380. So his prayer to his father right before his arrest, he

  381. said, and I pray for their sakes, I sanctify myself that

  382. they also may be sanctified by the truth and that word, your

  383. word says it's truth. And in the book Christ objects

  384. lessons, I would like to read a portion for that.

  385. I would like I like what the author states there.

  386. She says the same devotion, the same self sacrifice, the same

  387. subjection to the claims of the word of God that were manifest

  388. in Christ must be seen in whom and you and I.

  389. Our mission to the world is not to serve or please ourselves,

  390. the society that we live. That's what gravitates us to.

  391. We are to glorify God by cooperating with him to save

  392. sinners. We are to ask blessings from God

  393. that you may communicate to others.

  394. The capacity for receiving is preserved only by imparting.

  395. We cannot continue to receive heavenly treasure without

  396. communicating to those around us.

  397. We ask for the Holy Spirit. I remember, I know it's been

  398. every year we pray in the beginning of the year for the

  399. output of the Holy Spirit. Well, it's great to have the

  400. output of the Holy Spirit of our hearts, but what are you going

  401. to do is question. I'm going to ask everybody, each

  402. one of us to think about, OK, you ask for the Holy Spirit,

  403. What are you going to do with that?

  404. God gives to you. Is it for your own glory, for

  405. your own purpose, or is it God is going to give us the measure

  406. of the Holy Spirit that we need to glorify Him and use this for

  407. the service of others. Remember the story, Just going

  408. to mention this, Remember the story of the two fishes, the

  409. five loaves and that basically 5000 people and at the end they

  410. collected 12 baskets and the Spirit of prophecy.

  411. Give us a little bit elaborates a little bit more to give us

  412. more insight. They were asked to take those

  413. pieces with them and share them in the back when they returned

  414. to their homes. So the blessing that they

  415. received, it wasn't just for them, wasn't just to feed them

  416. there and have a have a good meal, but it was also to share

  417. that and everybody else learn about Christ.

  418. The same thing is for us today, applies for us today.

  419. Now I want to stress one thing, and I'm just going to do a

  420. parenthesis here. There's an important thing that

  421. we need to understand, an important principle.

  422. Whenever we ask something about our own salvation, not about

  423. material things, but something about our personal salvation,

  424. the Savior will be more than ready to hear and answer those

  425. requests. Let me state this one in a

  426. little bit different way. You if we offer any prayer

  427. related to our own salvation, not about health or about

  428. possessions or about friends or anything, but something about

  429. our own salvation, God is more than ready and willing to hear

  430. and fulfill that request. And I wrote it here just as a

  431. statement for us to remember. God desire our salvation even

  432. more than we desired. He died for us so that you and I

  433. have eternal life. Galatians 1/4 He gave himself

  434. for our sins, that He might deliver us from the presence of

  435. the of the evil age in this evil age.

  436. Ephesians 1/5 He predestined us to adaption as sons by Jesus

  437. Christ to Himself. See in the book Desire of Ages,

  438. page 266, this, the Spirit of Prophecy emphasizes this point

  439. in this way. And I'm going to read that quote

  440. if you don't mind me. It says when we pray for earnest

  441. earthly blessings, the answer to our prayer may be delayed or God

  442. may give us something other than we ask, but not so when we ask

  443. for deliverance from sin. You know, I think all of us have

  444. prayed. Lord, I'm looking to get married

  445. strong me a wife. For me it took 20 years to get

  446. that answer. For Alice it may take two years.

  447. But when we pray something for salvation, God gives us the

  448. answer right away. It is His will to cleanse us

  449. from sin, to make us His children, and to enable us to

  450. live a holy life. Christ gave Himself for our sins

  451. that He might deliver us from this present evil world

  452. according to the will of God and our Father.

  453. And so if we confess our sin, what is the promise?

  454. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse

  455. us from all our righteousness. So therefore, what we can glean

  456. from this statement is that we may be sure that when we offer a

  457. sincere prayer related to our salvation, God is going to

  458. answer that ASAP. Well, someone will say, well,

  459. this is nice and good, but how do I know if my request is in

  460. line with God's will? Well, I think you've probably

  461. heard a few sermons on this one and everybody and everybody will

  462. say, well, you can do ask yourself some questions.

  463. This passes the litmus test. For example, does my request

  464. contradict with the Word of God? That's a very simple, basic

  465. question to ask. Does He contradict with His

  466. commandments? Think about it for a minute.

  467. If God has spoken in His Word, and what you're asking is

  468. contrary to what He says, why do you keep praying about that?

  469. You expect God to rewrite the Bible for you.

  470. Remember the story of Balaam? He wanted God to say something

  471. different than what He said the first time around.

  472. But today I want to share with you another way for

  473. understanding this question, that we can have confidence that

  474. what we ask in harmony with God's will will happen when we

  475. abide in Christ. It's a statement found in John

  476. 15-7. And Jesus said there to his

  477. disciples and to us extensively here, if you abide in me, and my

  478. words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be

  479. given to you. So as we abide in Christ, Christ

  480. dwells in US, and then we become partakers of this divine nature.

  481. Second, Peter 214, our thoughts become identified with the

  482. divine will, and then we offer to God, request only this

  483. request that would be in harmony with His will.

  484. In other words, our character, our thought, our mindset, our

  485. process gets aligned with God's will, with God's thought

  486. process, and then what we're going to offer, what we're going

  487. to pronounce, it's going to be nothing but something that will

  488. be in accordance to the will of God, abiding in Christ and

  489. living in known sin. They don't go together.

  490. You cannot believe in the sin that you realize that is a sin.

  491. And you can say that I abide in Christ.

  492. Notice the two parts in the statement of Jesus and He is

  493. using the conjunction and to connect these two because they

  494. are both equally important. 1st we need to abide in Christ, but

  495. secondly His word to be abide in US.

  496. See the call to abide in Christ is followed by this conjunction.

  497. So we receive Christ by receiving His word.

  498. Abiding in Christ is not to be called Christian just by name.

  499. It's not to be saying that I get saved just to be named, but

  500. living a life that is not in accordance to the will, to

  501. accordance to the word of God, but it's a continual

  502. relationship with Christ, Paul said, I daily surrender myself

  503. to Christ. I daily follow his leading

  504. guidance. The indwelling Christ is not a

  505. mystical or inexplicable experience.

  506. So the important thing for us to grasp here is that we abide in

  507. Christ by receiving his Word. We abide in Christ by studying

  508. His Word. We abide in Christ by meditating

  509. on His Word, by leaving His Word and by sharing it with others.

  510. And as we feed on the Word of God daily, our minds will get

  511. enlightened. It's like a aha moment as we

  512. choose to fall and obey Him through heavens enabled power in

  513. Christ. In you, the hoping of glory that

  514. what is becoming is formed within us.

  515. And this is the safe and solid spiritual experience we all

  516. need. Abiding Christ in his words,

  517. abiding in US, and then we can be certain that we exist and

  518. move and our whole being is within the realm of God's will.

  519. There's one of my most favorite passages in the Spirit of

  520. Prophecy page 668. I would like to share with you

  521. because to me it makes things you know more more crystal and

  522. more understandable. Here is here's what the author

  523. says. All true obedience comes from

  524. the heart. It was hard work with Christ and

  525. if we consent, he will so identify himself with our

  526. thoughts and aims. So blend our hearts and minds

  527. into conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall

  528. be but carrying out our own impulses.

  529. Think about it. Stop for a minute and let's try

  530. to digest this. First of all, it has to be a

  531. choice. It is not forced upon us.

  532. It says if we consent, it's you and I have to make the choice

  533. whether we want Jesus to allow Jesus.

  534. If we do, we want to allow Jesus to identify himself with our

  535. thoughts and aims. If we do allow him, he will do

  536. that and he will blend our hearts and minds in conformity

  537. with what? With whose will, with his will.

  538. And so when we get to that state, that's the abiding

  539. Christ. Then when we obey him, we shall

  540. be by carrying out our own impulses.

  541. In other words, we have reached a level of spiritual maturity

  542. where God is working in us in our lives that our thoughts, our

  543. decisions, our actions, our words are nothing but what could

  544. have said, God would have said, Jesus would have said through

  545. us. This is very powerful.

  546. Finally, the apostle John proceeds in giving us the last

  547. point in chapter in verse 14, and he says, and this is the

  548. confidence. Let me bring this up here.

  549. And this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask

  550. anything, we addressed that already according to His will.

  551. That was a second condition. Then you have the assurance.

  552. What's the assurance that he hears us and but he doesn't stop

  553. there. In verse 14, he continues with

  554. verse 15 to reassure us that we that we have that confidence and

  555. the answer to our press. He says, and if we know that he

  556. hears us, obviously we've asked something that's according to

  557. your will. Whatever we ask, we know that we

  558. have the petitions that we desire of him.

  559. So this is a reassurance that John gives us through

  560. inspiration here from from God to tell us about this God of

  561. love, the God who cares for each one of us to meet our needs.

  562. In simple words, the Apostle John assured us that every

  563. sincere prayer is heard in heaven and when our requests are

  564. in accordance with God's will, then it will be answered in the

  565. way that is truly best for us. I want to summarize the four

  566. points that we saw today. The Apostle John here highlights

  567. in these 3 verses. We can confidently approach the

  568. throne of grace #1 we are free to ask Jesus for anything.

  569. Number two. Number three, our request must

  570. align with God's will. That's a condition.

  571. And then we have the assurance that when they are, we have the

  572. assurance that our prayers will be heard and will receive

  573. answers. God hears everything.

  574. He hears the spoken request. He hears also the unspoken

  575. requests. We prayed this morning.

  576. There were some silent requests. God hears those.

  577. When John means here that Jesus hears our petitions really

  578. favorably, that's why I put it on the screen.

  579. Jesus is hearing with a spirit that he wants to help us out.

  580. So that's what religion means here, that Jesus hears our

  581. petitions in a favorable way and he comes out to our aid because

  582. he loves us. Think about this example I'm

  583. going to give you. Think about a mother.

  584. I have a room here full of children and there are multiple

  585. mothers. Everybody's talking around,

  586. there's so much noise, etcetera. But when her child cries, that

  587. mother hears the voice, so likewise our heavenly Father

  588. knows the cry of his children. Jesus is always available to

  589. guide us. His ears burn low to listen, and

  590. He promises to hear and grant what is best for us.

  591. And so when we have this confidence in God that he hears

  592. our prayers, then we will have no nagging doubts as to the

  593. righteous, the rightness of his ways.

  594. But we will calmly trust, knowing that His works, his

  595. decisions are the best for us. The knowledge that our God is a

  596. prayer hearing God will assure us that he will grant every

  597. right petition that is offered to him, every petition that is

  598. in harmony with the divine design and we can rest assured

  599. in the knowledge that our prayers God approves, they will

  600. receive the best possible answer that is for us.

  601. So as I close this morning, our study, I would like to make an

  602. appeal to you. Come close to God.

  603. Put aside anything that separates you from God.

  604. Ask Him to show you anything that hinders you from fully

  605. experiencing the blessing and the outpouring of the Spirit to

  606. you and abide in Him. The statement that we read,

  607. Abide in Him. Make that a daily priority in

  608. your life, and when we leave this way, we will better

  609. understand God's will for our lives.

  610. Our prayers will align with His will, and then we will see Him

  611. work powerfully as He prepares for His Son coming.

  612. Amen. Yes Jesus, we want you to lead

  613. us every day, day by day. Guide us Lord, into your word.

  614. Help us, Lord, understand Your will into our lives and give us

  615. the heart to be able to commit our lives into your hands.

  616. We ask, Lord, for forgiveness of our sins and for guide us every

  617. day into our lives. Fill us with Your spirit to have

  618. the power to be faithful to You and have us be true witnesses to

  619. the people around us. Looking forward for your second

  620. coming. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.