Always Answered (Pastor Greg Hudson, 08/24/24)

I heard a story this week, but when I investigate it, I always like to check out and make sure

a story actually happened, because sometimes you hear stories and it's questionable whether

it actually took place.

I heard it this week, but it was actually back in 2021.

And it was about a mountain in Colorado, which apparently is the highest peak, the highest

mountain in Colorado, Mount Elbert, the highest peak there.

And it happened one morning that someone set out to hike this mountain.

And apparently it's not a challenging hike.

You don't necessarily need ropes or things like that.

But as you can imagine, there is a great elevation change.

And so the hike should take about seven hours for an average hiker.

And so the hiker set out in the early morning to hike up this mountain.

And about eight o'clock that night, so 12 hours later, the search and rescue team got

called.

My husband hasn't checked in.

He hasn't returned.

We're not sure where he is.

And so the search and rescue gathered their personnel and they sent out a team of about

five people to hike that trail.

They saw where his car was.

They hiked up the trail.

They called out the name.

They went to the top.

They came back at about 3 a.m.

So basically all night they're like, okay, we're going to rest and we'll start again

in the morning.

And so the next morning the sun came up.

Those five plus others begun the search process for the missing hiker.

And it was probably about nine or 10 that morning that here comes the hiker down the

trail back to his car, back to the parking lot.

And it turned out that he had got disoriented on the trail.

He had found a place to sleep overnight.

And in the morning he was able to find the trail and get, thankfully, safely back to

his car.

That probably happens more often than we might imagine.

But the reason that this story kind of stood out is because over the night this missing

hiker had received numerous phone calls from the search and rescue personnel.

They'd called him.

They'd reached out to him.

But he did not answer because he didn't recognize the number.

It was an unknown caller.

It was an unknown number.

And so he didn't answer the phone.

He made it back safely.

But the Lake County search and rescue team, they posted, they said, if you're overdue

according to your itinerary and you start getting repeated calls from an unknown number,

please answer the phone.

It may be the search and rescue team trying to confirm that you're safe.

This story had a good ending, a happy ending.

But sometimes we think we know the big picture.

We think we know everything that's going on.

And yet perhaps there's a detail.

It may seem small.

It may seem insignificant.

And yet if we don't heed the call, if we don't answer, we're missing out on something very,

very vital.

So if you're lost, answer the phone.

And if God is asking you to do something, answer the call.

So we're going to begin today in the book of Revelation.

We're going to go to Revelation chapter 5.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

And I just want to prepare you the first little bit.

We're going to go through several Bible verses.

They'll be on the screen.

But as always, I encourage you to look them up.

But we're going to be kind of tracing a theme through scripture.

So we may be looking at a few more Bible texts than we normally do.

But we're going to start in Revelation chapter 5 and verse 8.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

Revelation 5 and verse 8.

Now this is a, we don't have time to get into all the details of Revelation.

But Revelation and Daniel, which we've been studying on Wednesday night down at the hub.

So if seven o'clock on Wednesday you're free, come down and join us.

We're studying on the 3 this week.

There'll be some amazing snacks from the Weiser family.

So come out, bring somebody with you.

But Revelation and Daniel often look at the big pictures.

They look at, you know, the dragon.

They look at prophecies.

They look at the second coming.

They look at three angels message.

But also in Revelation and Daniel, they talk about some maybe smaller things within those

books.

But within the Christian life, it's something very vital.

So I want to read here Revelation 5 verse 8.

Revelation 5:8

It says, now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders

fell down before the lamb, each having a harp.

And here's what we're looking at today.

And golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

The prayers of the saints.

And if you turn over just a page or two to Revelation chapter 8, it's a similar theme.

Revelation 8 · chapter mention

It says, then another angel, this is Revelation 8 verse 3, another angel having a golden censer

Revelation 8:3

came and stood at the altar.

He was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon

the golden altar, which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the

angel's hand.

So what's going on here?

Well, this is kind of an image, a symbol, which looks back to the Old Testament as much

as of Revelation does.

And in this case, it's looking back to that Old Testament sanctuary that the children

of Israel set up under God's commands in the wilderness.

And later also the temple that was built.

And if you were to go into the sanctuary, you would see the altar there where the sacrifices

were made.

And then you would see a bowl, a basin of water, the laver where the priests were cleansed

as representing the cleansing we get from God.

Then if you go into that first room, it's called the, what is it called?

The holy place.

And you would see a table of showbread on this side.

You would see an altar or excuse me, a lamp stand over here.

And then in front of you, there would be another altar.

And this would be called the altar of, anybody remember?

Of incense.

And so in Revelation, we saw at least two different verses which are referencing this

altar of incense, which stood in the sanctuary, in the temple.

And back to Revelation, it says, the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints

ascended before God from the angels hand.

And so in the temple, in that sanctuary, as the priest would sprinkle that incense, which

had a very specific recipe, they weren't supposed to use it for anything else except for in

that sanctuary, that incense would burn and the smoke would go up over the veil.

What was on the other side of that veil in the most holy place?

The park of the covenant, which symbolizes the throne of God.

And so in that show and tell plan of salvation, that incense represents the prayers of the

saints going to the very throne room of God.

And so in this book of Revelation with all of its beasts and pictures of the second coming,

it also references this idea about the prayers of the saints.

Now I'm going to admit something right now.

I don't know everything.

I can't fully explain how prayer works.

I can't write down an equation or a magic formula or certain words that we say that

is going to guarantee a prayer is answered in the way that I want it to be answered.

I don't necessarily know why some sick people that we pray for get better and some sick

people that we pray for don't get better.

I can't explain exactly how prayer works, but I can say that Jesus has asked us to pray

and Jesus has asked us to bring things to him in prayer.

And in fact, our scripture reading from 1st Thessalonians 5, it said, rejoice always,

pray without ceasing in everything, give thanks for this is the what?

Is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

I don't know exactly how prayer works, but what I do know is that Jesus has asked his

people to come to him in prayer and to pray always to rejoice always to pray without ceasing

to to bring things to him.

Concerns, thanks and everything else.

In fact, one of the things Jesus did was to teach people to pray.

You can think of the story in the Gospels where where Jesus is praying and his followers,

his disciples see him praying, hear him praying, and they want to experience the same thing

that he's experiencing.

And they say in Luke chapter 11, let's turn to Luke chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention Luke 11 · chapter mention

It's also in Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shares the same thing.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

But in Luke chapter 11, as these followers come to Jesus, notice what happens.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

It says, now it came to pass as he, Jesus was praying in a certain place when he ceased

that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us, teach us to pray.

We want to pray the way that you have prayed.

Teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples.

And the next verse says, so he said to them, and you can notice what comes next, the Lord's

prayer.

That's a prayer probably many of us, most of us have have memorized at some point in

our life and probably most of us have said that Lord's prayer at some point.

And so when they Lord teach us to pray, the way that Jesus taught them was to share the

Lord's prayer.

Now, that's a great prayer to memorize.

It's a great prayer to say.

But I think also it's a great pattern for what prayer is about because within the Lord's

prayer, there's praising to God.

There's forgive us our sins, confession of sins.

There's asking for needs.

Give us this day our daily bread.

There's a plea for forgiveness.

Forgive us as we forgive others.

And so the disciples wanted to learn to pray and Jesus shared with them the Lord's prayer.

And so prayer is an important thing.

Jesus said, pray without ceasing.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

And then in Hebrews chapter four, Hebrews chapter four, there's another reminder of

just how incredible prayer is.

Hebrews chapter four, it says in verse 16, let us therefore come.

What's that next word?

Boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in our

time of need.

We can come boldly before the throne of grace.

How incredible is that?

That altar of incense with the prayers ascending over the veil to the throne of God.

We don't have to wonder if God's gonna hear.

We can come boldly before the throne of God.

And if you're like me, there's been times when there's been something to pray for, but

maybe you're not exactly sure what to say or you're not exactly sure how to say it.

And we wonder, you know, does God even hear a prayer like that?

Turn over to Romans chapter eight.

I told you we were going through several verses here today.

Romans chapter eight and verse 26, because it reminds us that even when we don't know

what to pray, it's okay.

Romans eight, verse 26, it says, likewise, the spirit also helps in our weaknesses for

we do not know what we should pray as we ought.

But the spirit himself, the Holy Spirit, makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot

be uttered.

Now he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because he makes

intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Even when you don't know what to say, even if you are weeping over a situation in your

life, even if you're groaning and your heart is breaking and aching and you don't know

what to do next, God hears that.

And the Holy Spirit knows your heart and he knows the situation and he's able to take

that to the Father, take that to the Son and to make that prayer what it needs to be.

And notice it says according to the what, the will of God, because that's sometimes

maybe where we think we fall a little bit short, because we could look at something

like 1 John chapter five, and this is just one verse of many that says something similar

to this.

1 John chapter five and verse 14, it says, now this is the confidence we have in him,

because we can go boldly before the throne of grace.

This is the confidence that if we ask anything according to what?

His will, he hears us.

So that's the caveat.

And we sometimes add that to the end of our prayers if we're praying for someone.

Well, you know, your will, that's what Jesus prayed in the garden, if it's possible, take

this cup, but your will be done.

And I think we're doing that because that's what Jesus asked us to do.

But maybe sometimes we add that because maybe, maybe we're not expecting that prayer to be

answered the way that we're praying.

And so we're we're letting God off the hook.

You know, I want this to happen.

But according to your will, it be done.

And so sometimes that's the challenge.

We don't know.

We don't think we know what God's will is.

We don't know what job we're supposed to take.

We don't know what major we're supposed to take in college.

We don't know what direction we're supposed to go with this decision that we've been struggling

with.

And so sometimes we don't know God's will.

And that's true.

We don't always know.

So today I want to look at three different things that many people have looked at.

There's probably more three different things that we could say.

Yes, for certain, this thing is God's will.

This is always God's will for this to happen.

So the first thing I think that we can agree on that it is always God's will to save the

sinner.

That makes sense.

It's always God's will to save the sinner.

So that might be me.

That might be you.

And if you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, today is the day to do that

because it's always God's will to save the sinner.

But assuming that we have accepted Jesus, there's people we know that haven't.

There's people we know that are having struggles, that are having challenges, that are having

issues in their life.

And we can look at 2 Peter chapter 3 as a reminder that this is always God's will.

2 Peter 3 · chapter mention

2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 9, it says, then, oh, I'm not finding, oh, there we go.

2 Peter 3 · chapter mention

I was looking at the wrong place.

2 Peter 3 and verse 9.

I was looking at 1 Peter.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering

or is patient toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come

to repentance.

That's God's will, that everyone comes to repentance.

This is the message of the Bible.

This is the mission of Jesus that all people would come to repentance.

You can think of Peter as he's walking on the water.

Remember that story?

He sees Jesus out on the water, and he begins to walk out, and then he does something.

Where does Peter look?

He takes his eyes off of Jesus, and he starts to sink.

And he doesn't say, Lord, if it's your will, please help me to fall.

No.

It's just like three words.

Lord, save me.

Because it's God's will to save those who are falling.

In Peter's case, he was sinking, he was falling, and he could just cry out that prayer, Lord,

save me.

You can think of 1 Timothy chapter 1, same theme here.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

Now it's Paul writing, Paul sharing the story in 1 Timothy chapter 1.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

And we recognize that Paul was one who had a history of going against God.

And he says, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus

came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.

And so we can pray that prayer starting with myself, starting with ourself.

Lord, I know that it's your desire to save the sinner.

Lord, save me.

Be merciful to me, the brokenhearted.

But we can also begin to pray for someone else.

We can also begin to pray for others that we know.

We can pray that lives will be changed, that things will happen in the life of someone

else.

You may or may not realize it, but we are, we're doing a Daniel series right now.

And in about seven weeks, we're going to do another prophecy series.

It's going to go for about two weeks and it's going to be several nights a week.

We're going to mail things out.

People in Ringgold will get an invitation to come here and to hear the gospel preached,

to learn about Jesus, some for the very first time.

We may not realize it, but even here in North Georgia, there are people that don't go to

church.

There are people that don't know Jesus.

There are people that are desperately in need of a savior.

So starting October 10, I believe it is, a Thursday night, we're going to be inviting

people to come and learn about Jesus.

And so my challenge for you, seven weeks out, is to start praying because it's always God's

will to save the sinner.

So take your bulletin, take one of those little cards in front of you and start writing down

a name or two or start writing down three names.

Or here's the goal.

Think of five people, five people that you know.

Maybe it's a family member.

Maybe it's somebody you work with.

Maybe it's the neighbor across the street that you see, but you've never really known.

Start writing down people that you can start praying for right now because we know it is

always God's will to save the sinner.

There's a story about a gentleman named Zalindo.

I'm going to assume I'm pronouncing that right, but he's from the country of East Timor, which

is kind of between Australia and Indonesia over in that part of the land.

And he had begun studying the Bible and began to learn some new things.

And he and his wife were married.

They owned a little store that sold different little groceries and things like that.

And he started to study the Bible.

And as he learned new things, he learned, OK, maybe on one day of the week, I need to

not be selling things at the store.

And so he started to close his store on Sabbath.

And his wife's like, what are you doing?

Why are you closing the store on this?

We need the money.

We need to get that income.

And here you are shutting down the store because you're reading that Bible.

There you are reading that Bible.

And then as he continued to read, Zalindo said, actually, I'm thinking, he says to his

wife, I'm thinking of joining this Adventist church, the Seventh-day Adventist church.

And his wife's like, what?

First, you're closing down the store.

Then you wanted to join this other church.

And she said, if you do that, I'm out of here.

I'm going to leave you.

And so this marriage was not going very well.

And one would go to the store.

And then the other would go to the store to work.

And so they were working different shifts to keep this store open.

And there was not a lot of communication going on.

And Zalindo began to pray, God, I don't know what to do in this situation.

I'm confused.

I thought I was following what your word said.

But I don't know.

God, I need a miracle.

And it was a few days later, a little bit of time after this prayer, that he went into

the store to take his shift.

His wife was in the store reading the Bible.

And she did not have a happy look on her face.

And he looked and he saw that she was reading from Revelation 12 and 13, where it's talking

about remnant and beasts and dragons and different things like that.

And he said, if you want, I can try to explain some of those things to you.

And she just slammed her hand down.

And she spoke gruffly.

But it wasn't about him.

But it was to him.

And she said, I can't believe they've been lying to us all this time.

I can't believe they've been hiding these things about who God is, about what God wants

to do.

I can't believe that no one has taught me this in my whole life.

And it was a short time later that both of them were baptized, that both of them gave

their heart and life to Jesus and decided that they wanted to serve God and they wanted

to love him and to follow him fully.

It is always God's will for the sinner to be saved.

And that's something that we can pray for.

Here's a thought here.

It says, select another and still another soul.

Fully seeking guidance from God, laying everything before him in earnest prayer and working in

divine wisdom.

As you do this, you will see that God will give the Holy Spirit to convict and the power

of truth to convert the soul.

Select one and still another.

And then it's God that is going to be convicting.

It's God that's going to be converting.

It is always God's will to save the sinner.

And so I just want to throw another ad out there.

In October, we're going to be doing a forecasting hope series here.

So write down how many names are you going to write down?

Five names and be praying for that.

So there's another thing that it's always God's will for.

It is always God's will to bless and revive a church.

That's always God's will.

That's what God wants.

Yes, that's our church here if you didn't recognize that.

We can look at some verses because it's God's will to revive the church at large, but it's

also God's will to pour out his Spirit and to revive this church right here in Ringgold.

So Psalm 85 is just one of the many verses that we could look at.

Psalm 85 and verse 6, it says, will you not, God, revive us again that your people may

rejoice in you?

Amen.

It is God's desire to revive the church with ringtones, with whatever is needed to revive

us.

I didn't put it on the screen, but if you look at Psalm, what's the longest chapter

in the Bible?

Psalm 119.

If you were to read those many, many verses this afternoon, just circle every time it

uses the word revive because over and over in Psalm 119, it says, revive me in your righteousness.

Revive me according to your word.

Revive me for this.

Revive me for that.

Over and over in Psalm 119, it talks about being revived through God, being revived by

his word, that God might revive the church.

In 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15, it describes to us a little bit about what this church

1 Timothy 3:15

is.

1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 15, it says, talking of the church, the church is the house

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of what?

Of truth.

So as we gather together, as we open up God's word, as we pray together, as we seek God's

truth in his word, God wants to pour out his spirit and to revive.

I want to point us again to the back of your bulletin here.

It says the mission of the Ringgold Seventh-day Adventist Church is to reflect the love of

Jesus through a spirit-filled life which seeks to serve and lead others closer to God.

Then a vision for us, the Ringgold Adventist Church will be a biblical, spirit-led, faith-filled,

family-focused and growing fellowship.

God wants to revive this church.

God wants to use this church to reach families.

God wants to use this church to reach individuals, to make a difference in the world around us.

There's a story to share by a gentleman named Joe Kidder.

He's a professor at Andrews University and he tells the story about when he was pastoring

years ago and he had a church that he was in charge of and it had nine members.

It was a very small little church, nine members.

They tried this and they tried that and the people didn't really want to do anything.

They weren't very receptive.

I'm talking about the nine members, you know, didn't want to try to reach the community.

And finally something happened and one of the members, an 80-year-old named Eileen, decided

that she wanted to pray.

So she began to pray for her neighbor.

Her neighbor's name was Phoebe.

Her neighbor was 25 years old and Phoebe was into alcohol and drugs and promiscuous

lifestyle and just looking at Phoebe, she would be the last person that you would anticipate

would make a decision to follow Jesus.

But Eileen, 80 years old, was praying for this one person, praying for this neighbor

of hers.

And then they decided, this little church decided that they were going to have a prophecy

seminar.

They were going to invite people in and the pastor said, if you do this one thing, if

it doesn't work, I'll never ask you to do anything again.

So they agreed to that and the first night, guess how many people they had?

They had 10.

They had the nine members and Phoebe.

And what had happened was Phoebe earlier in the week had been hunting under the influence

of something and had accidentally shot her mother, shot her own mother.

But the mother survived.

So that sounds like a bad story, but it was good.

The mother survived, but Phoebe was so distraught that she went to her neighbor who she knew

had been praying for her.

And she went to seek some kind of comfort.

And as Eileen was comforting this young Phoebe, she invited her to come to hear the Bible

preach, to hear the gospel shared.

And so that first night there were nine members and Phoebe.

And Phoebe heard the story of the gospel and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

And so then they had the second night of the seminar and guess how many people were there?

So there was nine members, there was Phoebe, and then there were 50 other people.

Because Phoebe was so excited that she called all of her friends.

She called all of her family members and she said, you've got to come and hear this thing

that I am learning.

You've got to come and hear this message that's being shared, that's being taught.

And by the time that seminar had been over, 10 of them had been baptized.

So the church doubled in size starting from one person praying for a neighbor, one person

praying for revival, one person praying to make a difference.

And that's exactly what happened.

What can we be praying for?

Who can we be praying for?

Will we pray for a revival in our church?

Will we pray for revival in our family?

Will we pray for revival in Ringgold and our community?

Because it's always God's will to bless and to revive a church.

There's one more.

It's just one verse, this next one.

It's always God's will to glorify His name, that God's name will be glorified.

In John chapter 12, Jesus prays and He says, Father, glorify your name.

John 12 · chapter mention

And there was a response as He prayed.

A voice from heaven came saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.

And this is the time that is just before Jesus goes to the cross.

And this is the time when Jesus says, if I am lifted up, I will draw all people unto

myself.

And so when Jesus is talking about glorifying God, it's not about boasting.

It's not about pride, but it's about capturing this divine character of God's love.

When God's name is glorified, that means Jesus is lifted up.

That means Jesus is glorified.

And so when we as individuals live out our life for Jesus, when we as a family gather

together and live out a character of God, when we as a church reach out and say, Father,

and bring people to know the saving grace of God, what a difference that makes.

And that is what glorifies God.

And that is what makes a difference in this world.

You can think of the early church in Acts chapter one and two.

They prayed, they gathered together and they prayed.

And it says that the Holy Spirit was poured out and the place was shaken and world changing

events began to happen.

Because that day 3,000 were baptized and from that the gospel went to the whole world as

people prayed, as people were united.

There were baptisms, too many to count, and the name of Jesus was boldly proclaimed.

And so the question is, could it happen today?

Can we pray that sinners will be converted?

Because that's God's will.

Is there somebody that you can pray for?

Maybe it's yourself, but maybe it's somebody else.

Could we pray for revival to come into a church because it's always God's will for a church

to be revived.

We can pray that the Holy Spirit will be poured out.

And is it possible that God's name will be glorified as we each and every day lift up

Jesus to the world around us?

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Dear God, we thank you so much for all that you do.

And Lord, we start to think of individuals that are desperately in need of you and we

know that we all need you.

But Lord, many of us have accepted you as our Lord and Savior and we recommit ourselves

to you.

But Lord, maybe there's somebody here who has never truly accepted you.

Lord, they're lifting up their hand right now in their heart and saying, Lord, save

me.

And there's others that we know, Lord, family members and friends and neighbors and spouses

and children that we're lifting up because we know that they've drifted, that they're

far from you, but you love them even more than we do.

And Lord, we pray for this gathering here, this group of believers as we've gathered

on this Sabbath morning, that may this place be revived by your Spirit.

May we go from this place and lift up Jesus so that your name may be glorified everywhere

we go this week and guide and bless in all that we do.

In your name we pray.

Amen.