All right. It's, uh, it's been a week already, hasn't it? Um, I, I, I just, the, the worship that we just got to experience together, come on. How, how cool is that? The, the, yeah, I'm in the, uh, let me just say hello to those of you who are at Fenton, at Mid Rivers, at Grants Trail and overflow here at Chesterfield online. Uh, when we say hallelujah, we are actually proclaiming that God exists. I mean, that's what the word literally means. We praise you, God. We believe there is a God who is above all of this, beyond all of this, and get this. He is in all of this with us, which means when we pray, he actually hears us. So we're gonna pray. Now, if you're ready to pray, I would ask you to join us. If you're not, I'll pray for us. But we believe the all loving, all wise, all powerful God will now hear us. So let's pray. Father, we come before you and we ask that you would, that you would lead us in this discussion. Lord, we will feel a sense of incompleteness at the end of it, because it is so big that we will not be able to cover it all. But Lord, you are so loving and so good. And may we continue to, to seek your face. May we continue to walk towards you when we open up some of these issues. Lord, it will involve us continuing the conversation. I pray now that you will give each of us the, the ability to do that. And, and we ask all of this. Now, I, I do ask this in the name of Jesus, because it's the only way I have access to you. So I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Alright, so it's been a ride. Those of you that were here, uh, I was talking with somebody who's newer, said, I think I've just kind of caught you guys in Mider and all of that. Yep. Today we're gonna wrap up this, this little series, and next week we start Woo something big. You're gonna wanna be here. Your friends are gonna wanna be here. But let's just say that today as we go into something, uh, well, let's start with this. If you have your phone, will you, will you get out and will you join us on the app? Those of you who have the app, if you don't download the app, it's for free. You can get it where you get your apps. And frankly, it is, uh, there are resources there already for today, like stuff we've already got for you to, that you can walk out with. Here's the question. What's the one word that describes God these days for you? Go ahead. Just, we'll get to it. You'll think I've forgotten about it, but we'll get to it. Uh, what's the one word? You just get one word. We're gonna build a word cloud, so you know how that goes. What's the one word that best describes God? Is it one of his titles? Is it a character trait? What's the one word for you right now? You see, I actually believe there is a transcendent category busting infinite God who created this unlikely universe. This universe, we said a couple of weeks ago, this universe that was, was created in such a way, it's like, it, it's got a Goldilocks vibe to it, doesn't it? Because it's not too hot, it's not too cold. It's just right for life to exist. And we believe in this God, as, as Isaiah says, the holy one, the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. There is a God who inhabits eternity. And he created all of this, not out of loneliness, not out of, uh, out of need, out of love. And what we've been learning is that he did all of this so that we could enjoy each other, and so that we could enjoy relationship with him. We are created in the image of God. That means an awful lot. It means that human life has dignity and worth, intrinsic worth, but it also means that we have a capacity to connect with God like no other creature. And so that means an awful lot. And that'll actually come up in just a minute. But we, we, we, early on in the story, we admitted last week. We walked away. We ran away from God's love. We rebelled against God's love. But he loves us so much that he doesn't leave us on that road to fend for ourselves. He doesn't leave us heading towards an eternity without him. God made a way, and we know this because he speaks to us through this book. I've told you, and I'll say it one last time today, that, uh, we trust the, the scriptures. There's evidence that corroborates this. If you want to go over it, we can go over it from, from the internal consistency to the archeological evidence, the manuscript evidence. If you wanna go down the fulfilled prophecies, we can go through this. But we believe the transcendent God is speaking to us through this book. And watch this. The God who speaks to us in this book actually invites us to speak with him. I'll just give you a few examples. Pray without ceasing. Verse Thessalonians says, Jesus says, when you pray, call to me and I will answer you. This is, this is the, the, the eternal one, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah. And then this one, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. So prayer, so many different things. It's, it's, it's confession, it's adoration, it's uh, it's, it's it's celebration. It's it's gratitude. It's longing. It's asking for wisdom, asking for power. It's pouring our hearts out to this God who is so much more than we can imagine. And some of you're like, well, yeah, I've always heard that about prayer, but I'm stuck, man. I don't know how to pray. Or I don't. Why would I pray? If you see, we have lots of questions about prayer. So what I want you to, you to do now, as we often do so, uh, is at, if you're at home, if you're watching online, then do you know who your group is? But here, just hang out with some people and just tell them like, what are your questions about prayer? We all have questions about prayer. No way are we gonna cover all of these. But if you have questions about prayer, I'd love for us to kind of talk about 'em. So go ahead, hang out with each other. What questions do you have about prayer? Go ahead. This is the part where we talk to each other. All right? Yeah, go ahead. You got it. Okay. All right. I'd love to sit in on these discussions. We're gonna bring it back here. And we've been asking, our pastors have been asking each of the sites ahead of time, some of their questions so that we can all kind of do this in real time. Um, let me start off with this one. For some people, the question is, uh, is there anybody on the other end of the line? Like, the reason I don't pray is because I'm not even sure there's a God. Now, if you've been with us, you know that, that there are surveys that will show regularly that, that atheists, a percentage of atheists pray. And some of you're like, well, I don't understand that. Well, uh, watch this. Okay, I prayed before, even though I say I'm atheist, I prayed before. Because, you know, sometimes you feel so lost and you feel like there's nothing else. And you know, people can only do so much. And you know, if there is something else, it's almost, for me, it's like a last resort, which I hate. I hate having that. And I hate being that person who I say I'm atheist. But then I like having, praying as like a last resort. And I hate that. It's definitely something I wanna explore into my future. But as of right now, I need to focus on my studies. I need to focus on my life. I need to focus on, you know, getting my head straight before I reach out. Okay? So for me, first of all, I want you to understand, we're not showing that to goof on anybody or to make fun of anybody, right? Because I guarantee you there are people within the sound of my voice right now from one of our sites or maybe watching online who can absolutely relate. You aren't sure there is a God who exists. What I love about her, what I love about what she's saying is how honest she is. I mean, she's just telling us what she's really wrestling with, and she's reaching out. You see what she was saying upfront is, is true. It's right. Like nobody can do this on their own. Nobody. And she's still reaching out. So what I would say to her, what I would say to you, if you are in that kind of, that's your, your lane that you're in right now, is that it is okay to continue to seek out and to even reach out while you have the questions and the doubts and the struggles. We can do all of this at the same time. And when she says, Hey, I wanna get my life sorted out and I gotta work on my studies, good for you. And let's keep figuring out who God is. It's what we do around here, okay? Now, for many of us, we're, we're maybe at a different place on the journey. And so we have questions. And so I have some from the, from the sites here that are that, that are coming in. But, uh, like you guys, anybody here have a question about prayer? Let's just try for a few minutes. We won't be able to get to all of them. Um, you're, you're good over here. Okay, great. Uh, yes, right here. Matt, you, you had your head up first. Yes. Anytime I hear that question's a quote from a parent in high school that comes to mind, and it's one that a lot of people I know relate to, why ask if he's just gonna say, not now, my child. Yes, my child. My child. Okay, so why ask, let me try to see if I can wor, I wanna make sure I'm asking what you're asking. 'cause God will say this, this or this is behind the thing. Why would I pray? If God's gonna do what God's gonna do anyway, is that it really? So there is that whole thing of, I mean, some of you, how many of you have heard sights? Everybody? How many of you heard that God is sovereign, right? So we've all heard that God is sovereign. Well, what does that mean? Well, I'm gonna give you one verse 'cause I wondered if this one might come up. So we loaded a couple of verses up. Uh, give us the Isaiah one if you would. Um, so the Lord Almighty has sworn, surely as I have planned, so it will be as I have purposed. So it will happen. You know what that's saying? God is sovereign. You know what that's saying? God is in charge. Well, wait a minute. If God's in charge and he knows all things and he sees all things and his plan will not be thwarted, then what am I doing? Praying? Do you sometimes wonder if maybe your prayers are too insignificant? It's like, I don't, I wonder if they make a difference because God's gonna do what God's gonna do. That's the question. Well, okay, so here's a little bit of a crack at an answer. First of all, I want us to be sure to understand that all throughout the scriptures we are told and invited. Bring your prayers, bring your requests to God. So there's something going on here. One theologian put it like this, God, uh, God in his wisdom created all of this. And for some reason, for his own good reason, God wants humans to be intimately involved in his plan of doing things. So God is giving us this. God's plan will not be thwarted. And he delights when we bring ourselves and our longings to him. Now, this is gonna sound like a cop out, but I just want you to understand, we're gonna hold on to two things at once. Is God's sovereign or do my prayers make a difference? And the answer is yes. I know it's a mystery, but it's true. Can you change God? No. Numbers says you can't, God doesn't change. But all throughout the scriptures, we see that our prayers move the hand of God. Big mystery here. But what we can't do is pull away from either one of those truths. He's in charge. We'll come back to that and pour your heart out to him. Okay? Anybody else have a question? Maybe that's just a tad easier. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you got? So how do You discern God's voice from on everything Else in the world? How do I discern God's voice from all the noise? Yeah. Okay. There's a couple of different ways, uh, that I would say that we know or tried and and time tested. Uh, one of them is, uh, that, that book that's in your hand, anything that somebody says, yeah, I think the Lord told me to do this. And it directly contradicts what we see in the scripture. We can just clearly say, Nope, that isn't it. That isn't it. It's something else. So always match it up to God's word. The other two things are, are godly wisdom that we hear from community. So there are people that I trust that are also gonna lean into that book, and I'll ask them, Hey, I'm trying to figure something out. Can you help me with my blind spots? And then the last one is the most powerful and mysterious of all. And it is the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. If you follow Jesus and he's gonna nudge you and he's gonna give you a peace, or he's gonna keep nudging you. So I think all three of those together give us our best sense of God's voice. Alright, anybody else? Yeah. Um, Like, am I doing it right? Well, man, is that it? That one came in from a couple of the sites. Am I doing it right? Because, you know, it's like you want to do it right? Uh, well, I think there's, you know, there's a couple of things to that. So, uh, first of all, um, James four says that our motives matter. In fact, James four says, sometimes you don't get what you're asking for in prayer 'cause your motives aren't good. So there is that. What are our motives as we come into this? So we want to make sure that we're lined up with God. We wanna make sure that there's not some kind of rebellion that's getting in between the two of us. I can show you in Psalm where it's, uh, um, the Psalm. It says, uh, if I had sin in my heart, God would not have heard my prayer. Okay? And then I've been using this one 'cause it's coming up, and I just find a way to put it in there, uh, all weekend long. Uh, first Peter three, seven. That's a great one. Uh, husbands treat your wives with dignity and respect so that your prayers will not be hindered. Hmm. Again, that's for free. That's just out there. That's, you know, you can go look it up for yourself. So what are all of, all of these are really inferring something that we want to be lined up with God's way. We wanna be lined up with God's way, which gets us to maybe may, maybe this would help. Um, John is a verse that sometimes people will, will use in quote, 'cause it's scripture, right? I mean, we quote scripture. And so what does John says? 'cause this is a, ooh, this is a way. So, uh, John , guys, if you have that one, you may ask for anything in my name and I will do it. And you're like, there it is. There's my guarantee. That's what I want. Hang on, read verse . 'cause it's all in context, right? So I'll do whatever you ask in my name so that the father may be glorified in the Son. What's he saying here? First of all, in my name means that we are admitting, I don't even get to like, walk into the throne room of heaven except for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It all begins and ends with him. So when I pray in his name, I am praying, saying, God, I can't do this without what Jesus has done for me on the cross. I will enter into this prayer time because of him. But it doesn't mean that, that I get to hold that over God and say, now I ask it in his name. You gotta give it to me. That's simply not the case. We do this so that God will be glorified. We do this to line up with God's will. All right? Maybe one more. One more. All right, Jason, what do you got? I've got This passage, Exodus story two, where it looks like Moses prayed and changed God's mind. Oh, come on. So in Exodus, what is it? Exodus . . And so it looks like God changed his mind. Uh, and it's like, what is, what's going on there? Uh, listen, this one is so easy to answer. I'm gonna let the bullpen answer it for me. So, um, no, real quick, I wanna keep an eye on the clock and then we can talk later if this isn't enough. Um, There's an even more un uh, unhelpful translation. One of the old translations says that God repented of what he was thinking. And you're like, well, wait a minute. What does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean that godsend, it doesn't mean that God, uh, had to back up from something. So let's just let go of that word. I think that's an unfortunate word to use there. Uh, newer translations will say, God relented of this thing that he was going to do, Jason, without getting too deep into things and, and, and dropping $ words that I could barely spell. Um, I will say this, God does not change. We've already said that God does not need more information. So in no place in scripture do we see where God goes, oh, well I didn't know that. I guess we'll go down this road. That's not who the sovereign God is. But the writers of scripture are trying to help us to see God in real time in the narrative. And so there are times that they'll use language that helps us to understand in real time, God relented of the punishment because of something else. Well, God already knew that was going to happen, that the writers of scripture are trying to show us that God is in the story with us and they're writing from our perspective, not from his perspective. And they're trying to help us understand that in real time, God does things when God relents of his judgment, because someone has come and repented. That's good thing. God knew that was gonna happen. This is the part that makes my head hurt and he's waiting for you to do it. So he relented from the punishment, but he didn't change his mind. No, that's all I got. Jason. Don't ask me anymore. No, no, no, no, no. You're right. You're right. You're right. He knew ahead of time. But this is that mystery of God is sovereign. But come on, you have agency. It's both. I just don't want you to let go of either one of those. God is in charge and your prayers make a difference. That's awesome. Let me give you one more. Jesus says, keep praying. Somebody at one of the sites said, well, I feel like, should I keep asking for the same thing? Like, 'cause that feels weird. Does that mean I don't believe Jesus says to keep, ask, keep asking In, uh, Luke, um, in, in Luke chapter , I think it is, uh, Jesus tells this story. So let's just look at it real quickly. Uh, he said, suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says, friend, lend me three loaves of bread because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him. Now, let's just put this into historical context. There are no hour markets, right? There's no delivery system that you can drop stuff off at the door. It's the middle of the night In Middle Eastern hospitality. You have to put a spread out even if that guest isn't hungry. There's a little bit of an Italian grandma thing going on here where it's just like, no. And it's not just for you, it's for the sake of the community. The whole community's, the whole village's reputation is on the line. If a guest is there and you've ever been in these situations, they will put out whatever they have to serve you. It is the most humbling thing that, that, that you can imagine. Jesus says in this story, they got nothing. They can't run to a hour market to pick up some, you know, bread and milk and eggs, and maybe not the eggs anymore, but you know what I'm saying? They, they, they, they, they don't have that. So what do they do? They run next door. You run next door. It's the middle of the night. Hey, hey, we've got guests. Hey, come on. You gotta help the whole, you know, this is the reputation of the village online. Hey, you gotta help us. Jesus says, this is the response he gets. The one inside answers, don't bother me. The door's already locked and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything. This guy's in for the night. I don't care about the village's reputation. I don't care about any of this. Now, by the way, the crowd, I think would've been kind of giggling at this point. 'cause this is absurd. Nobody would answer that way. Jesus is telling a story and he's winking at these people at this point going, so this is what's going on. All right? What does, what does the person do? They keep knocking. No, seriously, I've got guests, you've got to help me. I know you don't want to get up, but no, no, you've got to help me. Jesus says, I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity, he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives the one who seeks finds, and the one to the one who knocks the door will be opened. This whole thing is in the context of prayer. If you look at Luke , what's going on there is he is just taught them the Lord's prayer. And now he's doing this and he's saying to to whoever answered, uh, asked that question, uh, at one of the sites, he is saying, there is something to persistent passionate prayer. Now, lemme let's be very clear on what Jesus is not saying. He is not saying God is a cranky old neighbor. All right? He's not saying that he's using a rabbinical technique called, you do not have to remember that, but it simply means from light to heavy. So teachers would often start off with something light, they would make a point and it'd be kind of comical, and everybody would be kind of giggling and going, well, yeah, of course that's the case. And then once you've made the light point, then you make the heavy point. If this is true, how much more is this true? So Jesus is saying, if you're gonna wake up a cranky neighbor in the middle of the night because you know that's the only way you're gonna be able to feed your guests, how much more would you keep persisting in your prayers to a God who does not sleep, who does care for you and is not cranky? You see, we are called to persist in our prayers. And Jesus says, so I say to you, punchline, ask and keep asking. When was the last time you asked for something? Because when you and I ask, it's quite humbling. We're, we're saying is, I need help ask and keep asking. Seek and keep seeking. I think there's an action kind of to this, it seek. And like if, if God, I need a new job, Okay? It's not God, could you please plop one into my lap? It's God, I need a new job and I'm gonna polish off my resume, and I'm gonna ask some godly wisdom to see if I'm missing anything, and I'm gonna pray for open doors, and I'm gonna take the next step. See, he can keep seeking, and then we're right back to knock and keep knocking. But remember, God is not a cranky neighbor. God loves you. God hears you. So that means whatever it is that's troubling you, whatever it is that you're wrestling with, you bring it to God. Now, somebody ask the question are, are like, is something too petty to bring to God? No. Not if your motives are right, not if you're really lining up with him. You bring whatever it is that you're wrestling with. I mean, whatever it is that that is happening in your life right now, you bring to him, he's not surprised. He knows what it is that's keeping you up in the middle of the night. God, I have this appointment this week. God, I gotta test on Thursday. I'm gonna study and please help me God. You know, I have this aching loneliness right now, And I'm about this close to getting into a relationship that will destroy me. I just wanna say it out loud, will you help me with this? You see, what we do is we pour out what's in us, not what we think should be in us. We give the real thing to God. Sometimes I think we're afraid of rejection. Sometimes I think we're afraid of, of God seeing, God knows all of this. So we pour this out to him. But then the question you might be asking is, well, if he understands all of this, if he knows all of this, then why do I have to keep asking? I don't know. Not very satisfying. Was it? I don't know. Again, I think there's a mystery to some of this. Uh, I think prayer does move the hand of God. I I believe he is the sovereign one. I believe that my prayers, I don't get to demand anything of God. I don't get to demand anything of God. Let's be real careful with that. E even when I ask in his name, I don't, he's not my butler. Jesus is not some genie in a bottle that has to grant me three wishes because I somehow worded a prayer correctly. He's the sovereign God of the universe. He's God, and I'm not. That's where I want us to start. Okay? And then I just wanna take a quick detour here before we enter into a, a, a time of, of prayer and, and worship. Um, some of you know about manifesting. Now you're probably of a certain age. Some of you're going, I have no idea what you're talking about. You're probably of a certain age. Um, it's, it's something that if you like, social media influencers are big on this. Uh, celebrities will talk about this. It's not new. It's an old trick, but it's coming up again. And it's this idea that you manifest like what you think your vision for your life is. You put positive thoughts out in the universe and you will get these positive outcomes that will come back to you. There's a kind of a law of attraction there. And so you'll see this is out there and there are people that will tell you, this is why I'm successful. This is why I'm popular. This is why I look the way I look on Instagram. It's because of this. And that's what they're being told. Now, let's just say a couple of things real clearly. First of all, I am very pro positive thoughts, okay? The Bible in Philippians four eight says, think, think things that are true and excellent and good and noble. Think those things. Yes, do that. I think it's good to have a vision for your life. I think it's good to understand that you have agency and that you, you gotta own your life. I get all of that. But gang, one more time. Let's remember. He's God, I'm not. He's God, I'm not. And when we approach him, that changes the color of our prayers completely. Because now he's in charge. I'm not. You still with me? You see, the Bible doesn't say much about manifesting or vision boards or the law of attraction. These are all of the phrases. This is all of the stuff. It doesn't say anything about any of that. What it does say over and over again, real clearly, he's God, we are not. And so when we approach him in prayer, we hang onto this. He's the sovereign God who somehow pays attention to me. Seems like we could spend just a minute in prayer. Now, uh, I'm gonna ask Kenny if he'd just come on out and we'll, uh, we'll, we'll enter into this. But while he's doing that, uh, coming out here, is there, have you ever had God answer a prayer for you? I mean, like, answer a prayer for you. You feel seen as we say these days, right? You feel seen. It's like, God, I'm right here and you okay? I mean, what a powerful thing that is. When a prayer is answered, at least in my life, something jars loose in my heart, all of a sudden it's like, oh, wow, God are really, and I lean in and I pray more. And what happens is God says, oh, you, oh, you want to play at that level? And then God leans in and gang, now we're going, I am gonna ask you to start praying maybe for the first time, maybe for the first time in a long time. Let's just quiet our hearts. First of all, Kenny, would you lead us in worship? And then, and then I, I'd just like to lead us in, in, in prayer. Here We fall down, lay Jesus, and we cry. Holy, holy, holy, holy. So this past Friday, we gathered here for Gather . And our, our, the room where we were in, we couldn't even fit everybody in the room. The hundreds of people who showed up. And I know many of you were there, but for me, it just struck me how people of all ages, but particularly younger generations that were there. And it was times of worship. And it was times of hearing what is happening in the world and how God is moving and he's not finished with us. And it became apparent to us, those of us who were here, that he's not finished with us or this city either. He's not finished with this church yet. And there were moments when we cried out in prayer, and I began to wonder, God, what are you inviting us into? So I'm just gonna ask you now, if you would, to enter into a moment of prayer. Father, I don't know what it is that people are needing prayer for you. Do give him the courage. Give them the peace, the what? May they come to you. Now, father, for some I know, healing is, is is the word. It's physical healing. It's stuff they're facing. It's relational healing. It's, it's, it's, it's a kind of a spiritual, or even a mental, sort of a healing God of anxiety and worry. Lord, for some people, it's gratitude. Lord, bring to mind your goodness and your faithfulness. Now, Lord, for some of us, it's confession. God, may we openly admit where we've strayed. Lord Jesus, forgive Us. Lord, I I will confess that I, I I want to be more persistent. Three prayers that have come to mind. God, I want to keep praying. Forgive me for the moments where I, I I let up Lord, bring courage and peace and healing and strength and comfort and joy. And a reminder that you are with us and you are not finished. Lord, bring this to mind. Now, we do pray. We do pray. And we Cry out. Oh God, we cry out And we cry. Holy, holy, holy. And we cry holy. And we cry. Holy, holy, holy Jesus. We do pray this in your name. Amen. Listen, when you and I enter into a struggle, a challenge, an open, honest conversation with God, I cannot promise you that you will get all of the answers the way you want those answers. I cannot promise you that what I can promise you is that God is there with you. I love the story of Jacob in Genesis. He wrestles with God all night long and God doesn't let go of him sometimes. That's what it's gonna look like. I love the way Lisa Turkers says that, uh, sometimes we talk about the preferred outcome of prayer. 'cause we all know what we want. I want what I want. What she asks, I think so beautifully is, is the preferred outcome the only proof that God loves me? It's not, see, even when I don't get the answer, sometimes I don't get the answer I want when I want it. And I'll tell you in this lifetime, if you live long enough, you can look back and sometimes you're like, oh God, thanks for not giving me that thing I asked for. And then there are other prayers that I don't think this side of heaven, we're gonna feel the peace and know the answer of why God gave us the answer he gave us. You see, I think it's both. But we, we, we keep leaning into him and we keep pouring into him. The Psalms are the best place to start. You pray. You pray. Some of the Psalms are just a, they're a mess. If you read them. They are so beautiful to pray in these moments. Psalm , I think, uh, uh, David starts off saying, you like hide from me. Why are you hiding from me? I need you and you hide from me. And then by the time you get to the end of the, of the, of the, of the prayer, he's saying things like, you know what? You always help the, the, the hopeless. And boy, I just can't stop thinking about all the good things you've done in my life. It's both. I, I'll let you in on a little secret. That's the way my prayers sound. Sometimes they're raw and they're open and they're honest. And then God brings me back and it's like, oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, you've got me. Dr. Ellen Davis is an expert in the Psalms rights about these. And she says, the whole point of these kinds of ugly psalms is to stay involved with God, stay engaged with God. You keep talking, you keep praying, you keep longing. And there's something that happens spiritually, mysteriously, where God moves in close, even when you're not getting the answer you want. CS Lewis wrote once that it, it, prayer doesn't change God, it changes me. There's something that happens in there when you don't see, when you're in one of those prayers, you may not get the answer you want. You may not get some philosophical insight. You may not get some deep theological truth. You may not get the miracle you are begging for. But what I can tell you is you get a person, what did God say to Paul when he begged? Would you please take this suffering away from me? What did, what did, what did God say to him three times? Paul, you won't even understand why, but no, not this one, not this time, but my grace will be enough for you, and my power will show up in your weakness. Now, as soon as I say that, some of you are like, are you kidding me? You went through all of that and that's what you're giving me. That's preacher talk. You have to say that. They pay you to say stuff like that. Well, don't listen to me. I want you to know that when we go through our times, and as we plan these weekends and things like that, the Lord lays things on our hearts and, and, uh, and stories and and pastoral connections. And, and I want you to know now what you're about to experience is, uh, it, it, it might ambush some of you, but the intent is not to ambush you. Okay? We're just not gonna do that. There's a young couple that and, uh, Who Talked with them before they walked in this room who said, we're, we're ready to share our story. We're grateful to share our story if it can help others with their story. So these young parents, both of them, uh, quite, uh, uh, quite lovely people of strong intellect. Two veterinarians, they've got a little boy, and then they find out they're pregnant again. Only this time it's gonna be twins, twin boys. Oh boy. But you hear them talk about just the joy of that and the way we know how to do boys. We got this. And it's like, woo, but two of them. And you can just imagine I can't, but you can maybe just imagine. It's that, right? And so then in the process of caring for the twins in this pregnancy, it becomes apparent through, uh, what sounds like was just, uh, very sweet and caring and insightful, uh, interventions by their medical team. It became apparent that one of the twins was struggling. And, uh, without going into all of the particulars of what that is, uh, I, I, I want you to know that there were miracles along the way in this pregnancy, like a once and forever shot of a surgeon in Austin, like the only one in the world and, and the surgery. Well. And so it's like you're looking and you're praying and you're praying and you keep praying. But she knew she would be in the hospital for a lot of the pregnancy, and it's probably not gonna go to full term. And so that's where we pick up the story. When dad gets a call from mom and she's in the hospital, watch this. I get a phone call the next day, um, from Michelle. And yeah, I pretty much had my go bag at this time, right? Because I was ready. And, and I think that's probably the first thing I said to her was that I'm, I'm ready. Like, is this, is this the go? And she pauses me and says that they, they can't hear Austin's, they can't find Austin's heartbeat the way that that can't be under understated. But I, I think also it's, you know, I start, I start driving to mercy. I'm, I'm praying like I heard Michelle pray of, of big, bold things, you know, bring, bring him back. Save Liam, help Michelle. And, and I get there and, um, and, and Liam, Liam is still alive. Just so, there's just so much there. I mean, it's just like we just, we just, we lost our child. Um, we still have a child there. Like, what do we do? I just remember waiting for our C-section when it was decided that, okay, like it is, you know, it's time. The safest thing for Liam is just to deliver them. So that's what we're going to do. When we felt we were all on board about that, that it's just time. Um, I just remember being in a constant, like steady state of prayer. Um, just, you know, praying that he'd be delivered in health. And, and we got to hear, hear Liam cry. Um, we got to hold our son, Austin. My, my son's alive of my son Austin is, is gone. And it was complex. I mean, the joy was real. The grief was real. Yeah. I mean, it was just, again, just kind of how it all started. It was just such a shock. You know, when, when things came to fruition on that day, I don't struggle. Um, I've never felt anger. I truly haven't felt angry. What I, what I feel, what I wrestle with is just profound confusion. There are so many undeniable miracles. Like God's Hand is just all over the story, which I just love. Um, and in my head, you know, I'd written my own story about how then I thought that that was going to, um, how that was going to end. And I think that that hope, even though I have questions, I, I know, um, I know where Austin is and I know he's safe with the Lord. Those questions aren't, aren't a threat to my, my trust in God. I I, I've seen them grow me closer. I'm not afraid to ask questions. Mm-hmm. I can be confused, but I can be content with this answer that he gave me. So I, um, like Brandon said, like I can still have full faith in him because he's never giving me any reason not to trust him even now. So, uh, so the courage it takes to share that story to all of us, the courage it took for some of you to sit through it because it's real close to a story of yours, but did you hear the honesty of it all? I'm content and confused. There's joy and there's grief. This is real life. And the questions can be asked because it's not throwing them because they trust in a faithful God. So God doesn't always give us the answer that we want, but he does give us himself. He gives us his son Jesus, who has entered the story. There's a reason he's called the man of sorrows because he understands, he's acquainted with grief. He understands what it's like to live in this broken world, but there's more. He entered this story to make a way out of all of this. He entered this story to defeat death and heartache and illness and sickness so that they do not have the last word. This is why I believe Christian, uh, hope is, is, is what we clinging to. It's what we need. It's what we, it's what pushes back the dread the show. You are right. Two Samuel , David said the same thing you did, and I will see my little one again. It's the truth. And we cling to the truth. Is that some kind of a pie in the sky somewhere over the rainbow optimism? No, it is hard edged. It is thought through, and it is based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It's why we're not afraid to talk about the intellectual aspect of this. There is evidence of who Jesus is, and he lives. He lives again. What did we sing that we were enjoying so much earlier? Hope will arise. You know why? Because the king is alive and it means the death will not have the last word. Now, listen to me. Some of you are in the thick of it right now. How do you pray when I say you gotta pray and you start praying? Listen, that's what we do. But what do you do when there's nothing to say? If you follow Jesus, you listen to this promise, it's for you. In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Listen to me. When you are out of words, when you are out of options and you are fast running out of hope and you don't even know what to say, you come to him anyway and you begin to pray. And the very spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, will help you even if you can't get the words out. You see, there is something miraculous that is going on here. The eternal, all powerful God chooses to enter in so close to the hurt and to the heartache, to the regret, to the loss, to the grief, to the confusion, to all of it. So personally that it says the Spirit of God groans on our behalf. The Holy Spirit is helping you to express things that are deeper than words to God the Father. And this is the miracle and the mystery of prayer. So we pray that's how much God is for you. That's how much God loves you. That's how much God will not pull away in the darkest times. He will lean in. The Bible tells us He is close to the broken hearted. So I say we pray and we keep praying, and we pray some more. Listen to me. For some of us, we're not in that situation. Now you are having, like you're in a good season. I say pray. Give him the glory. Thank him for it. Look for ways that you can spread his grace and invite people into the story. If you've got little things that you're going, I don't even know that God would care about that. Oh, he does. And he knows how many hairs are on your head. I promise you, he cares about the details of your life. So I say we pray and we keep praying. I don't know how God's gonna do it at the end. I don't know how he's gonna pull it off. But because of Jesus, we are told that there will come a day where there's no more heartache, there's no more worry. There's no more sin. There's no more death or confusion or grief for the old. Things have passed away and my king says, I'm making all things new, and I'm gonna count on that. But in the meantime, ask and keep asking. Seek and keep seeking. Knock And Keep knocking.