PYHO: The Best (and Hardest) Thing To Pray

We're in a series right now called PIHO, PYHO.

It is not a new workout craze or anything like that.

It's an acronym that stands for Pray Your Heart Out.

We want to be people who pray.

Because prayer works.

Prayer absolutely works.

And we've seen God answer prayers in crazy ways here at our church.

I talked about that a few weeks ago.

Prayer absolutely works.

In fact, James 5.16 puts it so simply: the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Now, if you look at that, you say, I'm not a righteous person.

Good news.

Jesus has made you righteous.

If you have given your life to him, your righteousness, which really just means right standing with God, it's not about you anymore.

It's not about your performance.

It's about what Jesus did.

And so he has actually made you righteous, which means your prayers are supposed to be powerful and produce wonderful results.

Your prayers are supposed to be effective.

But oftentimes when we describe how we pray and what happens when we pray, we may not use words like effective, powerful, wonderful.

If I were to come to you and say, hey, tell me about your prayer life, you're like, man, let me tell you the wonderful results that have been happening because of my prayers.

You know?

Some of us may say, ah, prayer's hard for me.

Because prayer is kind of hard.

It's hard sometimes to engage in it.

Some of us might say, hey, prayer at one point in my life was this passionate, vibrant thing, but it's it's a little monotonous now, it's routine.

I kind of feel like I'm on autopilot when I pray.

Some of us, maybe we've even been Jesus followers for a while, and we're like, it's hard for me to engage in prayer.

It's intimidating.

I don't feel like I'm doing it right.

It's confusing.

I'm a pastor, I hear people say things all the time like, I'm not good at prayer.

I've heard so many people say that.

I'm not good at prayer.

And the reality is, you are.

Or at the very least, you're created to be.

We're meant to pray powerful, effective prayers.

And I mentioned this quote a few weeks ago.

A pastor that I love to listen to put it this way years ago, and it's it's stuck with me ever since.

If we understood the power of prayer, we would pray powerful prayers.

So we want to pray our hearts out.

That's what we want to happen over the course of this series.

And we're doing it in a few different ways.

Number one, we're committing to praying for one another.

And so we have a mobile app.

Download it if you don't have it.

On that mobile app, there's a link at the bottom that says pray.

And if you click that today, it's gonna give you one option which says, I will pray.

And if you click on that, put your email address in, you're signing up to pray for people.

And all that's gonna happen is you're gonna start receiving pray requests.

You don't have to pray for all of them, it's just gonna be an email every week, and you can read through those prayers and you can pray for every one of them, or you can pray for one of them.

You might just say, hey God, show me which one you want me to pray for.

And if one jumps out, pray for it.

You can also sign up on our website if you don't want to do the mobile app.

But here's the thing, middle of this week, we're gonna add two more options to that.

When you click on pray, it's also gonna say, pray for me.

And then there's gonna be another option for answered prayers, and you can begin to share your prayer request.

You can begin to share when God answers your prayers, and so we're gonna start praying for each other as a church like we never have before.

And I want to encourage you to sign up for that, be part of that.

Because as I begin to share answered prayers, I want you to be like, I prayed for that.

My prayers do have a result, they do have an effect.

It's real.

So we're committing to pray more than we have before, but we're also committing to learn about prayer in new ways.

We're committing to say, hey, Jesus, teach me how to pray.

And there's no better person to learn how to pray from than Jesus.

No one understands prayer the way that Jesus understands prayer.

Because no one understands prayer from both ends.

Jesus understands prayer from like the receiving end, like he understands what it's like to receive prayers.

And Jesus also understands what it's like to pray.

Because Jesus, he prayed, and that's kind of a weird concept.

You know, maybe you're here and you don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, you're like, I think Jesus was a great guy, and I'm still kind of figuring that out.

And so if Jesus is just a guy, him praying is not, it's not a weird concept at all.

Lots of people pray.

But if Jesus is God in the flesh, then him praying, you know, to God, it's kind of an odd thing to think about.

I've had my kids ask me before, why did Jesus pray?

What's the point in God praying to God?

And there's this really interesting scripture that kind of enlightens that for us.

It's in Philippians chapter 2, and it says, though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave, and he was born as a human being.

And when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and he died a criminal's death on a cross.

So what it says is, yes, Jesus was God.

But he didn't cling to that.

He set aside his divinity so that he could come to this earth and live as one of us.

So Jesus took his divine privilege and power and he said, I'm gonna sacrifice that, I'm gonna lay that down so that I can come and live as one of them and die as a sacrifice for them.

Which means that when Jesus was on this earth as a man, when he performed miracles, it wasn't in his own strength.

It was through faith, it was through the power of the Holy Spirit, because he laid his own power aside.

When Jesus prayed, he wasn't praying because it was just the right thing to do.

He prayed because he needed to pray.

He prayed because he had to pray.

He prayed because prayer was his only hope, just like it is for us.

So, Jesus, he understands prayer from every angle imaginable, and he loves us enough to actually teach us how to pray.

And so we're studying Jesus and what he taught on prayer.

We're just gonna sit at the feet of Jesus for a few weeks and say, Lord, teach us how to pray.

In Matthew chapter 6, verse 9, Jesus says three very powerful words.

Matthew 6:9

Pray like this.

And if you've ever wondered, how should I pray?

This is where you start if you read this and go, man, I just wish Jesus would give me some clear instruction and tell me exactly what he'd like me to do.

You know, here we go.

He says, pray like this.

It could not be more simple.

And then he prays this prayer immediately following those three words.

He says, Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

May your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

And that's it.

Now I time myself saying that prayer 14 seconds.

I talk a little fast, so it may take you like 20.

14 seconds.

He does not go into this elaborate, long, eloquent prayer.

It's so Jesus, because it is deeply profound and impossibly simple.

That's how Jesus is.

And he prays this prayer as an illustration, as an example for us.

He says, Hey, pray like this.

And so we're going through this prayer piece by piece and we're studying it.

Last week we looked at the beginning when he says, Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

We looked at how Jesus approached God in prayer.

And it was through the lens of relationship and reverence.

He knew that God was his father, but he also knew that God was God.

And so we talked about that last week.

Today I want us to look at verse 10.

The second statement that he makes, he says, May your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Okay?

This this part of the prayer, this prayer, you might say, is, in my opinion, the best thing that you could ever pray.

What Jesus prays for right here, this is the best thing you could pray for your life.

It is also simultaneously the hardest thing you could pray for your life.

May your kingdom come, may your will be done.

It's the best and the hardest thing to pray at the exact same time.

And I want us to explore what that means.

Now, in order for us to do that, we have to have some understanding of the terms, because there's some language here that Jesus uses, and he uses it a lot.

For example, he says the word kingdom.

If you were going to take one word to sum up the message of Jesus in Scripture, it would be kingdom.

If you read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the stories of Jesus and his teaching and his ministry, the word kingdom shows up constantly.

It's like his theme.

He's always saying that the kingdom of heaven is like this, and the kingdom of God is like this.

Matthew chapter 4, verse 17, you might be able to count that as like the thesis statement of Jesus' ministry.

Matthew 4:17

He says, Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

The kingdom of heaven.

We see this language pop up all the time with Jesus, but for us, it's a little bit of a confusing thing.

Because we don't live in a kingdom.

We don't.

We live in a republic.

We live in a democratic republic.

That's the world we live in.

And we know that because we can make fun of our president.

Right?

Whoever is the president, like the thing that Americans are best at is making fun of the people who lead them.

That is what we are the best at.

We're so good at it.

It's like an art for us.

But if you lived in a kingdom, nope, nope.

That is an art form that no one practices in an actual kingdom.

You know, because that's how you lose your head in a kingdom.

Because a kingdom, it's all about authority, right?

There's a king.

You can't have a kingdom if you don't have a king.

There's a ruler.

This word kingdom, it's kind of foreign to us.

And when we think of the word kingdom, I think where we get off track really easily is we think of geography.

We think of a place.

But that's not what Jesus is actually referring to.

The Greek word that we translate kingdom, the word that Jesus used, is the word basilia, and what it actually means is authority and power.

It means dominion.

The idea is that a kingdom is wherever a king's authority is recognized.

That's what a kingdom is.

So if you're talking about where, if you're going to use the kind of where word, geography, where's the kingdom of God?

Well, it's wherever the authority of God is recognized and the will of God is carried out.

Jesus actually defines the kingdom of God with that second part of his prayer.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

What is the kingdom of God?

It is when God's will is done on this earth the same as it is in heaven.

That's the kingdom of God.

Where is the kingdom of God?

Wherever the will of God is being done on this earth.

And so when Jesus said that the kingdom of God is near, he was actually talking about himself.

And if you look at Jesus, everywhere he goes, the will of God is done.

Everywhere Jesus went, God's will was done.

And so that place, as long as Jesus was there, it became like an extension of God's kingdom.

People were healed.

People were encouraged, they were forgiven.

Burdens that people had carried for years and guilt and shame, it melted away, and people were included.

They were brought into God's family.

Everywhere Jesus went, the kingdom grew.

And by extension, as Jesus followers, the church, that's how it's supposed to be for us.

That everywhere we are, it's like little pockets of the kingdom of heaven.

When you go to work, when you're home, when you go out to eat, wherever you are, it's like that's where the kingdom of heaven is.

Because if you're there and you're a Jesus follower, that means that you should be recognizing the authority of God and living your life to do his will wherever you are.

That's what Jesus meant by the kingdom.

And so he says, Hey, the kingdom of God, may it come, may it grow.

And he says, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Whose will his will.

His will.

He says, May your will be done.

And that is a challenging thing to pray.

But it's the best thing that we can pray.

It's the best thing in the world we can pray.

And that's what I want us to spend some time talking about this morning.

What does it look like to pray for the will of God?

There is no better thing you can pray for your life than for God's will to be done.

But there's no harder thing you can pray in your life than for God's will to be done.

So let's explore this for a minute.

Why is God's will the best thing to pray for?

And the answer is really simple.

Because God's will is the best.

God's will is good.

It's so good.

Romans chapter 12 puts it this way: don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

By the way, the word repent, we saw that word earlier, that word often has a negative connotation like turn or burn, but repent means change the way you think.

It literally means rethink.

So he says, hey, let God give you a different perspective, a different mindset, and then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

God's will is good.

It is good, it is pleasing, it is perfect.

Now, God's will gets kind of messed up sometimes when other people talk about it.

God's will gets confusing.

God's will is often misunderstood.

For example, a lot of us when we hear the phrase God's will, I just got to have an awesome conversation with a young man after the first gathering where this kind of came up.

When we think of God's will, we often think of like a tightrope.

God's will is this one narrow, very small set of choices that you're supposed to make, and you make one wrong choice, and now you're outside of God's will.

You know, so it's a tightrope, like you better not step left or right, or you're out of the will of God.

That is not, that is not the biblical description of the will of God at all.

One of the best examples we have of the will of God in the Bible is the Garden of Eden.

It's the first few pages of the Bible.

That's where God's will, in other words, what God wants, that's his will, that the world was like God wanted it to be for a very short period of time, or at least a period of time.

We really don't know how long that period was, but as far as pages in the Bible, really small, so God's will was perfectly enacted.

The world was the way he wanted it to be, and people were naked in God's will, so you didn't have to worry about clothes.

You saved so much money, by the way.

Just think about all the money you would save, okay?

And they were unashamed.

You know, I went to the beach this last week and I dieted for like two months, just knowing I was gonna go to a beach, and people that I will never see again are gonna see me without my shirt on.

I'm like, well, I better prepare for this because this is gonna be horrible, you know?

And so, like, can you imagine what it would be like to just be completely unashamed?

It's like everyone's two.

Everyone's two years old, you know, like woo! Um, and they're in this garden, and there's all this fruit, and they can eat whatever they want.

Like God says, hey, all these trees, I put them here for you.

Eat whatever you want.

It's a buffet every single day.

There's this one tree called the tree of life, and it's like incredible.

He says, eat freely from it, but there's one tree that they're not supposed to eat from.

And God says, Don't eat from that tree, you'll die.

And this garden really illustrates the will of God.

Now, see, when we think of the will of God, we often think of it like the garden would have been reversed, that there was one good tree they could eat from and all the rest were bad.

But that's not that's not how it was.

There was one bad choice, thousands of good.

God's will is not a tightrope.

God's will is about freedom.

When you're living in the will of God, you have the freedom to know that you can pursue things that you love and you can go after passions that you have, knowing that you're in the will of God.

And even if you even if you find yourself in a place where maybe God doesn't want you, you're not outside of Him, He can bring you back very easily.

God's will is about freedom.

But we don't think about it like that because there are people who talk about God's will in ways that just don't even line up with Scripture.

But make no mistake, God's will is good.

It is good, it is it's better than your will.

And that that kind of gets like at the heart of the matter, right?

Because we all have wills.

Like everyone in this room has a strong will.

That's why I think it's funny when someone says that's a strong-willed person.

I'm like, is there not like isn't everyone strong-willed?

Everyone I know has a will.

I have four children.

They all have a will.

Every single one of them.

And the funny thing is, is their will so often is just not right.

My will for them is so much better at this stage of life, anyway, than theirs.

I can say that confidently.

I want better things for my children than they want for themselves.

I do.

Now, the battle is them actually trusting my will over theirs.

And this battle comes up on a daily basis.

Even though I'm a good dad, there's like this born-in suspicion that you don't want the best for me.

That's actually what Satan used in that first temptation back in the garden.

He basically said to Adam and Eve, I think God's holding out on you.

And they were like, I knew it.

I've always felt this way.

I knew it.

You could be the best parent in the world, you could give your child everything they could they could have or imagine or dream of, but make no mistake, at some point your child will be like, I don't think they're they've got the best for me in mind, you know?

It's gonna happen.

And so my kids have their will, I have my will, my will's better than theirs because I'm I'm like way smarter than my children.

Um that's then they're gonna get to where I'm at or outpace me, but they're young, like they don't know much.

You know?

They're not old enough yet where they have homework that I don't know the answers to.

That's a great place to be as a dad.

You know, because you feel so smart when they're like, Dad, what's four times four?

I'm like, ha, 16, I remember that one.

In like three years, I'm gonna look at it and go, yeah, you're on your own.

I don't know.

But right now I'm just smarter.

Now, what's really hard for me as a parent is when they want something that I know is not what's good for them, and when I actually know what they should have, and I know how good it would be if they trust me and they just don't.

My will is is better than theirs at this point in time.

God's will is better than ours at all times.

You all have dreams for your life.

You should.

But it's amazing how often children underestimate the degree that their parents dream for them.

And I think we often underestimate how much God dreams for us.

So you have plans for your life.

That's good, but God has plans for your life too.

The question is, whose plans are better?

You have dreams, good, but God has dreams for your life.

The question is, which dreams are better?

God has plans for your life, God has ways of working in your life, He has solutions to problems in your life that you could not even fathom.

A few years ago, I found myself in this really interesting spot financially.

I just didn't know what to do.

I was in uncharted waters and I saw two potential scenarios.

Scenario A, good, scenario B, bad.

And I was praying hard for scenario A.

I'm like, God, let it be A.

It was the only thing I could think of that would work.

B is bad.

God, please don't let it be B.

Not B, A.

Not B.

Just want to be really clear, God, A.

And then God gave me C.

And it was better.

It was, it was way better it was way better than B.

And it was better than A.

It's just that I couldn't have imagined it.

I'm not smart enough.

I'm not creative enough.

It was like God was like, Justin, I have a whole different solution that you can't even think of right now.

Forget about it and trust me.

God's will is is good.

It is pleasing, it is perfect.

So the best thing you can pray for your life is for God's will.

That's the best thing you can pray.

Because God's will, it's it's the best thing.

Always.

But here's the challenge.

It's hard.

It's hard to pray for God's will.

It's the hardest thing you can do because the easiest thing to pray is for your will.

I mean, if I think about the times that I pray and how many prayers I've I've sent God's way over the years, how many of my prayers have been about my will?

The vast majority.

I'm really good at telling God what I want.

It's not hard at all.

I'm so good at that.

Like I have all these plans and ideas, and I'm kind of like, hey, God, sit down for a second, because I've got something to tell you.

I have an opportunity, Lord, that you can get involved in at the ground level.

If you're interested, God, um, I just want you to know that now is the time.

And I spend a lot of time talking to God like that.

Not in those words.

I mean, I'm not doing that.

That's like I put my best suit and tie on and be like, hey, here's my business.

No, I don't do that.

But I do pray often for my will to be done.

It is not hard to pray for my will.

Like I pray it all the time.

God, this is what I want.

God, this is what I what I want to do.

This is what I'd like to see happen.

And does that upset God?

No.

It doesn't.

But there's a huge there's like a huge difference in praying.

God, do what I want.

God, get involved in my plans.

There's a big difference between that and actually praying, hey Lord, show me what you want and help me get involved with what you're doing.

That's a big shift, and it's a hard shift to make because what if, what if God's will is different than your will?

What if God's will is different than your will?

And here's what I want everyone to know.

It is a hundred percent.

If you're ever wondering, like, what if what God wants for me is different than what I want for myself?

Yep, it is.

No question.

Next question.

What do you what do you got?

It's different because he's God.

He's God, like his ways are not our ways, his thoughts are above our thoughts.

Of course, his will for you is gonna be different because you can't even imagine the things that he knows.

But we don't like different.

We've talked about that a bunch.

Different's hard.

Like, how many of you, and please give me a show of hands and be honest, all right?

Not that you wouldn't be, I'm not, I'm not suspecting you to be liars or anything like that, but I just I want to see.

I want to see the truth.

How many of you would say, I am an adventurous eater?

I'll eat anything.

Okay?

Cool.

Not not that many of us.

I'm I'm more adventurous than I used to be.

I think everyone who's an adventurous eater, it really depends on at what point in your life did you first eat sushi?

That's how you know when someone becomes because like my son, I love sushi, and if I show him sushi, he's like, You mean the fish is raw?

I'm like, yeah.

And he's like, you know, he freaks out.

I would have done the same thing.

It's seven, eight years old.

But I love sushi now.

Right?

So if you haven't had sushi yet, by the way, totally not in line with the message whatsoever.

Does not matter in the grand scheme of things at all.

Has anyone in the room not had sushi?

You've yet to eat sushi.

Oh, people.

Okay.

Let's pray.

Lord, help these people.

Jesus ate fish.

It's true.

Okay.

So I'm not what I would consider this hugely adventurous eater, more so than I used to be.

I crossed the sushi line about seven, eight years ago, and I haven't looked back since.

But I remember this one time that a good friend of mine took me to an Indian restaurant, and I'd never Eaten Indian food.

Now, if you've never eaten Indian food, it's incredible.

It's my favorite type of food.

However, they use spices that we just don't use as Americans.

And so you smell things that you have, you just don't know what it is.

You'll walk into an Indian restaurant and you're like, I don't know if this is good or not.

I can't tell.

I'm not familiar with any of these smells.

And we go to this place and he's like, dude, you need to get the chicken tikka masala.

And I was like, I don't eat food, I don't pronounce.

Like that's that's a that's a word, you know, that's like a rule that I have.

If I can't pronounce it, he's like, oh, or get the mutter paneer, and I'm like, chicken tikka, it is.

All right?

At least that has the word chicken in it.

So I order this dish, and it's unbelievable.

It's literally my favorite thing to eat.

Unbelievable.

And I never would have ordered that for myself.

It's just different than what I'm used to.

It took someone else that I trusted to introduce me to it and urge me just for me to try it.

But it but it was different, and we don't like different.

And so I think sometimes it's hard for us to pray, God, your will, because what if God's will is different than my will?

And I'm kind of married to my will.

I like my will.

I enjoy it when my will happens, and God's will might be different.

And I'm telling you guys, it is.

It is so much different.

But it's better.

It's hard to pray for the will of God because the will of God might not only be different, what if it's difficult?

What if the will of God is hard?

And I want you to know if you're asking that question.

Oh, it is.

Oh, it's so hard.

Like, it's difficult.

God's will is not an easy thing.

Read the Bible.

Just read it.

Read like 20 pages of it.

Find someone in the Bible who lived in the will of God and just be like, wow, everything went so smoothly for them.

You know?

That's not, that story's not in there.

The closer someone is to God, it's like the harder their life is.

And it almost makes you go, is this, is this, is this inviting me to follow God, or is this like a warning story?

Like stay as far away as possible.

Sometimes it's hard for us to pray, God, your will be done.

Not my will, your will.

Because what if what God wants is hard?

And what I want us to understand is it is, and that's a good thing.

Because here's something we have to we have to grab hold of.

We often value what is easy over what is good.

That is normal in our world.

We live in a world that's all about comfort and security.

Like, I'm on Netflix the other day, and Netflix has the option now where you can skip the intro to shows.

Have you seen this?

It's like, who has time for the intro?

It's 10 seconds long.

You're like, I can't sit through this anymore.

You know?

That's how comfortable and easy and convenient our lives have become, where people are sitting in a room.

There are people at a company in a market room going, you know what's really taking up too much time?

The intro to these shows.

Yeah, we should give people the option to skip that.

Great.

Like, we live in a world that's all about convenience and comfort and ease, and if we're not careful, we become people who are addicted to what's easy.

But there is a big difference between what is easy and what is good.

Easy and good are not the same thing.

I was trying to think of a story to illustrate this.

And I tried really hard to go outside of my norm, but I want to apologize to you guys.

Because this one example just kept popping in my head, and I'm like, God, no, they've heard too many stories related to this.

They're not going to be able to take it.

And then God was like, Well, they don't all come on this day every Sunday.

And I was like, that's true.

Um, and so I have a son who plays basketball.

And I promise you guys, I know I realize that I have an issue and a problem.

And just so you know, my daughter Lily's taking up ballet, so get ready for a bunch of ballet stories in the next few years.

Who knows what Judah and Eli will do, and so hopefully something different, and so I can have a variety of things to pull from.

I tried my best.

I'm sorry, I'm working on it.

That's what I'm saying.

Okay?

But I have a son who plays basketball.

And uh last year I was a coach for CYB second grade at Sixes, and uh, and I'm never gonna coach again in Cherokee County.

I haven't been banned or anything like that.

I think I've actually told this story.

I just decided it's not a good idea to be a pastor and a coach in the same city.

It's not a good idea at all.

Um if you are here this morning and you reffed a CYB second grade sixes game last year, I am sorry.

I apologize to you.

That wasn't me.

That was a different creature that lives inside of me that doesn't understand how you could be a referee and yet somehow have no working knowledge of the basic rules of basketball.

So maybe watch a YouTube video or something.

I don't know.

Anyway, okay.

Um so I was a coach.

And the way it works, I think I've actually told this story or a different version of the story at some point, so forgive me.

But but like all the second graders at my son's school, they all showed up this one night, and all of us coaches, three of us, because there were three teams, there were like 25 second grade boys playing in this league, just at our school alone, and uh and they all like basically did drills in front of us, and we just sat there and we rated them.

We just with the little clipboards.

It had to be so nerve-wracking to these children.

We're just like, mm-hmm.

Okay.

Uh and and we gave them all like rankings, and then we got in a room and we did a draft.

And the whole way of doing it, there was an official from CYB there, and they're they're there to ensure that it's done fairly, you know, so that that oh, I pick this guy, well, I get this guy, and and you kind of do that to keep the teams even, right?

So I had I had a couple kids who are really good, and I had a couple kids who were like, What's basketball?

I don't know.

My parents signed me up, and I don't even want to do this.

I had a couple of those kids.

I had a boy on my team who I loved, loved.

Um but if if I was bowling and he was one lane away from me, I would, I would like move six lanes over, because that's how little I would trust his ability to throw a ball that direction.

Like, it was hard.

But it was designed to keep the teams even, okay?

So that everything's kind of fair and it's competitive.

Like that's the point.

It should be competitive.

But there's this one school, and I'm not gonna name the school, um, because maybe you you maybe your kid goes there, and maybe you're the coach of this team.

And uh just so you know, if that is you, you should feel convicted right now.

Um you should feel bad.

Sometimes it's good to feel bad.

Uh, but but no, you should change your ways.

But here's the way this works.

Um there's this one school, and their team somehow, crazy, wins every game by over 40 points.

Every game, 40 to 2, 44 to nothing, 46 to 2.

At one point in time, the season was halfway over, no team had scored more than one basket.

If you don't know basketball, one basket counts as two.

And so, not one team had scored more than one basket.

And I was talking to one of the CYB, you know, the upper echelon of CYB, really, and I said, What's the deal with this team?

And he's like, Oh, yeah, they do it a little differently.

They have an agreement, and all the good kids are on one team, and all the kids who aren't so good, they're on the other team.

And because they know who the good kids are in advance, they start practice like three months before the season starts, because they already know who's gonna be on their team.

So they begin practicing with these kids three months before everyone else, like when all the rest of us coaches are learning our children's names and trying to be like, no, run that way, run that way.

They're like calling plays and whistling and doing like bird calls, and these kids know what to do.

Like, it's crazy.

And so they just run the floor and it infuriates me.

It infuriates me, it makes me so mad.

It does not, but I want you to believe me, it does not make me mad because of the fact that it guarantees that those kids are gonna win.

That I could care less about second grade basketball.

It's, I mean, who in the who in the room has ever been like, let me tell you about the glory days of second grade?

You know?

I could care less about that.

It infuriates me because I've spent a lot of my life working with children, and I realize that what those parents are doing is like ruining their children.

They just don't realize it.

They think they're helping, but the parents of the kids on that team, they're ruining the experience that their kids are supposed to have.

Because, see, here's the thing, it actually happens a lot in our culture when parents arbitrarily ensure the success of their children.

Meaning that the success of their children really isn't so much about what their children do, it's just about the fact that we've basically created a scenario where you can't fail.

You're guaranteed to succeed because we've we've really broken the rules as parents to make sure that you get a trophy, that you win.

When you do that with kids, you rob them of any type of character building, any type of resilience.

Like the kids on that team, not only have they never lost, they've never even been close to losing.

They win every game in like five minutes.

So none of those kids have ever been in like a tight situation at the end of a game.

Like they've never felt pressure.

They've never had to lose a game and go shake the hand of another team and say, good game.

They've never had to learn that.

And the whole point of sports in second grade is to learn how to be like resilient.

It's to grow character.

My son has lost games and cried, and I'm glad that's happened.

And I realize how that sounds.

Um, it sounds callous, but I'm like, man, I'm glad that my son is able to learn lessons like this when the stakes are so low.

As a quick aside, parents, if you do not let your children learn hard lessons when the stakes are low, you are guaranteeing that they will learn those lessons when the stakes are high.

So, so seriously, the worst thing you can do as a parent is arbitrarily ensure your child's success.

That just bankrupts their future.

You're borrowing against their future when you do that.

And see, though, those parents, they have conflated easy with good.

And they thought, oh, we're really good because we've made it easy, but easy and good are not the same thing.

Like, what if Jesus had taken the easy way out?

Have you ever stopped to think about the power that Jesus had because of the favor that he had with God, that he could call on God to do anything, and God would have said yes?

Jesus on the cross, in the blink of an eye, had he asked the Father to get him off that cross, he would have been off it before anyone could have even said anything.

Like Jesus allowed himself to go through everything he went through for us.

Why?

Because he wanted what God wanted more than what he wanted.

Jesus did what he did because he surrendered his will to God's will.

He prayed that in his prayer example, right?

Lord, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

But we see Jesus pray that in other times.

We looked at this last week, actually, Mark chapter 14, verse 36.

Mark 14:36

Abba Father, everything is possible for you.

Please take this cup of suffering away from me.

He's praying before he goes to the cross.

Please take this away from me.

Now I believe, I don't know this because I'm not God, but I believe that had the prayers stopped there, God would have obliged.

God would have said, okay.

But Jesus continues.

And he says, Yet, I want your will to be done, not mine.

So here Jesus says, God, it's my will that I would not have to go through with this.

It's my will that I would not have to die this death on a cross.

That's what I want, God.

That's my will.

And instead of ending there, he says, Yet, I want your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.

And I think it's so profound and important for us to realize that what Jesus prays here in the hardest moment of his life is the same thing that he prayed back in that moment in Matthew 6 when people said, Teach us how to pray.

He says, Your will be done.

What Jesus prays in the hardest season of his life is what he's used to praying every day.

If we wait until we're in a really tough situation to pray the prayers that we we should pray, we just won't pray them.

But Jesus practiced.

He practiced every day praying and surrendering to the will of God.

And when he found himself in a situation where his will and God's will were at big time odds, he had practiced submitting to the will of God.

And so he prayed the same thing that he had prayed every single day, your will be done.

Jesus believed so much in the goodness of God and in the goodness of God's will.

That when he was in the hardest situation of his life, because crucifixion, it is not easy, that when he was in the hardest situation of his life, he looked at that and he said, if that's what it takes to experience the will of my father, so be it.

If having to endure crucifixion is what I have to do in order to experience the will of God, I have so much faith in the goodness of my Father's will that I'll do it if that's what I need to do.

And God's will is so good.

It is so good that when Jesus did that, things worked out for him like you couldn't believe.

When Jesus submitted to the will of God, that's when things got good.

I mean, you might be thinking, well, what are you talking about?

He died on the cross.

Yeah.

For like a minute, a few days.

But that's not where the story ends.

That's not where the story ends.

Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

We read this a few minutes ago about how Jesus set aside his divine privileges.

I want to read a little further.

We'll go ahead and start back in verse 6 where we were.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges.

He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God, and he died a criminal's death on a cross.

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names.

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Now I think what's really important to realize there at the beginning of verse 9 is that it says, Therefore.

Therefore.

In other words, because Jesus submitted to the will of God, because Jesus said, Your will, not mine.

Because Jesus said, I don't care if it's hard, I want your will, not mine.

Because of that, therefore, God elevated him to the highest place of honor.

God said, Your name will be the name that is above all names, and one day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that you are Lord.

That will happen.

Because you submitted to my will.

Now, if that's not good, to be the name above all names, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess.

If that's not good, I don't know what good is.

But Jesus experienced that because he surrendered his will for God's will.

This last week I was reading Revelation chapter 5.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

I want to read the entirety of it to you and we'll close with this.

I don't know if you guys have ever read Revelation before.

It's weird.

It's super weird.

I would be a liar if I tried to explain this to you and say I know what all of this means.

Like if anyone ever says they understand all of Revelation, the Bible actually says people who pretend to know everything know nothing.

Okay?

So some things are actually meant to be mysterious.

But if you don't know the setup of Revelation, the idea is that John, who was a disciple of Jesus, really Jesus' best friend, he has been basically banished to this island, and while he's there, he has a vision.

And it's like an out-of-body, holy cow.

He sees heaven.

And heaven is gonna be cool, guys.

Like, if what he sees is like real, and some of it I think is symbolic, but I think a lot of it is not, then we have some, like it's gonna be good.

That's all I'm trying to say.

It's not like heaven's gonna be a petting zoo, and like, oh, just giraffes and goats.

I've seen these.

There's gonna be stuff in heaven that your mind is not prepared to see.

So much so that as he describes what he's seeing, he doesn't even have like the ability to describe it.

If you read the previous chapters in Revelation, as he begins to describe what he sees, he sees the throne of God.

And then around the throne of God, there are these four, and he just says living beings.

He can't even like think of a word on earth that would describe them.

He's like, there's these four beings, and like one of them kind of looks like an eagle, but it's covered in eyeballs, and the other one sort of looks like it has the face of a goat, but then it has more eyeballs, and all these wings also covered in eyeballs, and you're like, what in the world is going on?

It's crazy.

And he says, around the throne of God, there are 24 other thrones, and there are these 24 elders who sit around the throne of heaven.

He paints this picture, and it's it's kind of like out of this world.

But he's just doing his best as a person to describe what he's seeing.

And he gets to this point in Revelation 5 where there's this scroll that needs to be opened.

And again, it's like when you read Revelation, there's a lot of symbolism.

There's always these numbers.

There's seven stars and seven lamps and there's seven horns and seven eyes, and there's all this stuff.

Like he's just doing his best to try to describe what is literally indescribable.

It's really cool.

And so he sees this scroll, and the idea is that this scroll has to be open for something really important to take place.

That if this scroll cannot be opened, this event, this era in history won't happen.

And it has to be open, but someone has to be able to open it.

And that's where we get in Revelation chapter 5.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

And listen to what he says.

Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne.

There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals.

And I saw a strong angel who shouted with a loud voice, Who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and open it?

But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and read it.

Then I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and read it.

But but one of the twenty-four elders said to me, Stop weeping, look! The lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David's throne, has won the victory.

He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.

And then I saw a lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings, and among the twenty-four elders.

He had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the sevenfold spirit of God that is sent out to every part of the earth.

He stepped forward and he took the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne.

And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb.

Each one had a harp, and they all held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God's people.

And they sang a new song with these words.

And you've caused them to become a kingdom of priests for our God, and they will reign on the earth.

And then I looked again and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne, and of the living beings and the elders, and they sang in a mighty chorus: Worthy is the Lamb who is slaughtered, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and they sang, blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.

And the four living beings said, Amen.

And the 24 elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb.

Now that's cool.

Like, come on, that's cool.

And that is how the story ends for Jesus, as far as we know.

That's the result of Jesus saying, Your will, not mine, is that all of heaven worships him.

Thousands and millions of angels make up songs and they say blessing and honor and riches and glory and power and strength.

It's like they're just thinking of all the words you can say that are good words.

And they're just going through a list and goodness and glad tidings and joy and people, like they're just going through it.

It all belongs to you.

But what I want us to understand is that would not be what Jesus' reality is if he had said, My will, not yours.

But Jesus prayed, I want what you want more than what I want.

And God, I don't care if it's hard.

If I've got to go through a cross to experience your will, so be it.

Good is better than easy.

And God's will is good.

And right now in this room, every single one of us has a will.

Every single one of us has something we want to happen.

And my prayer is that your will happens and your dreams come true and all that good stuff.

Yes.

Unless, of course, God has something better in mind for you.

Then my prayer is that your will doesn't happen because that would be you short-sighting yourself.

My prayer is that God's will would become your will.

My prayer is that you would say, I don't care if it's hard.

I mean, what would happen, church, if if we said, hey, we're not going to be people who live for what's easy anymore?

We're not trying to live for our own personal comfort.

What if we became people who said, hey, what hard thing do I need to experience to have God's will take place in my life?

What would we see?

What would happen?

That glory that Jesus experiences in heaven, do you know that the Bible says that he's going to share that glory with you?

If you follow him with your life, he's going to give some of that glory to you.

The Bible actually says that.

We are co-heirs with Christ.

And if we are to share in his glory, we must also share his suffering.

So pray, your will be done, your will, not mine.

That is the best thing you can pray.

It's the hardest thing you can pray.

Because yes, God's will is different, and yes, God's will is difficult, but do you want easy or do you want good?

That's the question.

Do you want easy?

Do you want good?

And if the answer is good, then I suggest that you take a page out of Jesus' book and begin to pray on a daily basis.

Your will be done.

Your will be done.

Every day.

Lord, your will be done.

Even if it's hard, your will be done.

When it's good, when life's going great, your will be done.

When life's really hard and you're scared and you're nervous, you don't know what's gonna happen, and there's uncertainty and there's hardship, your will be done.

Do I want easy or do I want good?

Who wants good?

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Jesus, blessing and honor, and glory and power.

That belongs to you.

And that belongs to you, Jesus, not just because your name is Jesus, but it belongs to you, Lord, because of the way you lived your life.

You set every easy thing you had aside.

You had it easy, Jesus.

You were in heaven, you were worshipped, you were adored, and you said, I want to set this aside and I want to live a hard life.

So that I can obey the will of my Father.

Lord, give us faith this morning that your will is good.

Give us faith this morning that your will is better than our will.

Make us a people who surrender.

Make us a people who submit.

Make us a people who trust.

God, we don't want to settle for our will anymore.

We don't want to settle for just what we're used to.

Stir in our hearts right now, and every single heart in this room, God, I'm asking you, stir in our hearts and give us a submissive obedience to you where we say, I want what you want.

No matter what, I want what you want.

Jesus, I pray that you would raise our church up to be a church that is singularly focused on your will being done.

We love you, Jesus.

And we trust you.

And it's in your name we pray, and it's in your name we worship.

Amen.

Love you guys.