Good morning, will you pray with me? Father, we come before you right now, and we're grateful for the truth of your word that calms all of our anxious hearts. I know that people walk in this room or are watching online, and, and hearts are filled with anxiety at times, maybe over a personal struggle or maybe anxious about the latest headline. But wherever we are, you are with us. We thank you for that. I pray that that truth would sink deep into our hearts. May we learn how to trust you, where to place our hope even when there's chaos. We pray today for leaders of our world to have wisdom. We pray for them to be divinely led. We pray for peace to emerge. We pray for protection over our military. We pray for peace over their families and for the peace of Jesus to guard all of our hearts. Your word says that the peace of Jesus will guard our hearts and our minds if we just call out to you. So right now, I call out to you that every person listening, we'll be able to put aside the stress and anxiety that they walked in with and will be fully present to you and what you wanna say to us today, fully present to each other, and we ask your Holy Spirit to speak. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Amen. Well, it's good to be with you this morning if we haven't had the chance to meet, I'm Angela Bi. I have the amazing privilege of being the campus pastor at the Grants Trail South County campus, so I know they're watching. Hi everybody. Be back with you next week. Love you all. Um, also Mid Rivers, Fenton, those in the hub and those here, those watching online, it's, it's just good for us to come together like Diego said, and open God's word together. Well, last week if, uh, you were here and you remember Greg talked about anxiety and how really it's, it's only God that that walks us through that, and he asked the question, he said, if you tend to deal with anxiety or ever have, raise your hand. Well, my confession this morning is I'm one of those people I've, I've dealt with anxiety and I know what that overwhelming feeling feels like. So when he asked that question, my husband gave me a big elbow and my side and made me raise my hand. Then Greg went on to say that research shows that anxiety is connected to iq. So I nudged him right back and raised my hand again. Yes, I did. So, um, today we're still on the mountain that, uh, we call Mount Beatitude. We're in the sermon that Jesus preached that we call the Sermon on the Mount. We're gonna focus on just a, a small, powerful but mighty section and, and dive into what Jesus was saying there. So we're in Matthew seven and Jesus said, 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 to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. We're gonna talk about prayer, but before we dive in, let me ask you this, what motivates you to pray? It might be that you've only called out one line before in a panic, or maybe you're a person who prays every day. Or maybe you're like, uh, only over certain things. Maybe I guilt motivates me or maybe something I desperately need. So, um, I'm asking you what motivates you to pray? And we'd love to do this around here. I want you to talk to a couple people around you and share with them. Um, if you've never prayed, that's a fair answer. Also, I'm just here checking this out. So go ahead and talk to each other, okay? All right. Before we go even, uh, any further, I just wanna give one more shout out. There's some very special little people watching from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Love you all had to call that out. Okay. What motivates you to pray? Well, here Jesus is speaking and he's using a Hebrew style of teaching where he takes three points, three, easy to remember, very specific points, and then he goes back and revisits each one. Now, those listening to him that day would've been very familiar with this style of teaching. This is how the rabbis of the day talked. They'd have been very familiar with that. In fact, they say, it says this later in that chapter, the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority. So you get the feeling here that they're either standing or listening and they're, they're leaning in like what authority this guy has. They're hanging on every word and paying attention. And actually right here, closer to the Greek language, um, he uses the present imperative, which is a little more specific. I'm gonna read that to you again from a different translation, one that you've probably never heard of and you won't find on your app. It's called the NAT, the New Angela translation. And it goes like this, y'all don't stop asking why would you stop? You're going to receive, keep seeking. If you do, you're going to find what you're seeking for and keep knocking. Knock and knock and knock. God's going to open doors for you. Now, that's my translation. So Jesus is talking about prayer here. He's actually giving instruction on how to communicate and relate to God. He's calling us in and saying, persevere when you talk to God, persevere in, leaning in and in seeking Him. And in his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul simply says it like this, never stop praying. It's that simple. Never stop praying. So let's break this down a little bit. The three points that Jesus gives, he starts with ask. So asking is about dependence. You don't ask for help if you can do it yourself. You don't ask for something that you can conjure up or make happen for yourself. So this is what motivates most of us to pray, is when we come and we need to ask for something that I can't do for myself. We ask for, for guidance, for wisdom, for healing, for direction, for doors to open. Some of us I know watching this room or maybe watching from home have prayed hard for the baby to sleep through the night. We pray for parking spaces. This is about asking. And then he goes on to say, and keep seeking. Now while asking is about need, seeking is about relationship. And he's saying here, um, you can please ask, but also seek. We lean in and we seek a relationship with the giver himself, the giver of what we're, of who we're asking. And this means that we can get to know him. We, we ask the question, what is he like this God that I'm praying to? And what is his character? And one of the best ways to do that, this is why we always keep pointing back to God's word because as we read it, we actually get familiar with what God is like. And if you've never opened your Bible before, um, open it to one of the gospels. Start there. Matthew, mark, Luke, or John. This is the story of Jesus as he walked the earth. And we watched Jesus, how he responded to people, how he related to people, how he moved toward the marginalized. No one was disqualified. And as we do that, as we seek in that way, we get to know what God is like because it's hard to trust someone you do not know. And as we get to know him, we begin to trust him. And then he says to knock, just, just keep knocking. This is about persistence. This is about you. Don't stop. This is, this is the time when you say I'm gonna pray bold, unfiltered, shameless prayers. I'm just gonna bring the messy and all and just bring it all to God, whatever that is. Author and Bible teacher Beth Moore tells the story of when she was a little girl and she was told to ask for whatever she wanted from her parents and she decided she wanted an elephant. She said, I could just picture myself writing to kindergarten on this beautiful grand elephant as I arrive at school. She asked for that elephant. And I imagine her parents said, good asking. Keep asking. But then there are times we don't get exactly what we ask for, right? I'm sorry sweetie. You can't have an elephant for so many reasons, the least of which is, um, have you ever tried to scoop? I mean if you have a dog, you know why you don't want an elephant? But keep asking and knowing this, that even if it's not the specific thing, good things will be given. God is good and we'll give good things to you. And sometimes we get worried because here's what we think about prayer and, and if we're not super familiar with God, we're like, okay, here's how it has to happen. I need to figure out exactly what needs to happen, exactly how this needs to go and ask God for that. Because what if I ask for the wrong thing and the wrong thing happens? And see, we don't have to do that because we can trust God that there's no wrong prayer. There's no bad prayer. We get to come just as we are and ask big and then we get to trust him. So we keep on knocking. Jesus goes on to say, for everyone who asks, receives, everyone who seeks finds and to everyone who knocks the door will be open. Now this is where you might start feeling some tension or anxiety. This might be a point where your brain wants to just check out your super tempted right now to take your phone out and play Candy Crush instead of keep listening because some of our hearts have trouble hearing that. And you might say to me, Angela, I prayed, I prayed long and hard and the thing I was asking for didn't happen. I prayed and I didn't receive. So this is hard. It's possible that you feel like you've got prayers hanging out there that just hit the ceiling and came right back down. How can Jesus say this? Everyone who asks receives in his book, God on mute, Pete Greg says this unanswered prayer is the single greatest challenge to faith. He goes on to say that people don't normally walk away from faith because of theology. We more often walk away because we prayed and nothing seemed to happen. And so we walk away. Or you might look back at some of your prayers and you feel more like Garth Brooks. You are like, yeah, I prayed and I prayed and I kept asking for that specific thing. And Y'all can sing along if you want to, Of God's Garth Brooks wisdom, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. And to some of you, your biggest takeaway from today is gonna be Garth Brooks Wisdom and others. Others are you are gonna say, now I know God answers prayer because I prayed they wouldn't play that whole song and they didn't. So wherever you are, but he's right, he's right in this song he was praying, um, he goes back to a high school football game with his wife and he runs in his old high school sweetheart. And he remembers praying so hard. God let her be the one. Let me be with her forever. And if you do, I'll nest. I'll never ask for anything else again. This, this is all you need to do for me. Anybody remember high school prayers? If you were doing that back then, my mom used to say, um, puppy love is real to the puppies. So let the puppies pray. But he thanks God for that. And alright, so I wonder for you, I know I, it's true in my life. Are there times that you prayed for something you knew was the right thing you desperately wanted from God? And you looked back later and you're like, thank God he didn't answer that prayer. Or if you're not one who prays, maybe it's this, I wished hard for it and I worked hard to make something happen that didn't happen and I'm relieved that that thing didn't happen. Okay, one more time. I want you to talk to the people around you about an unanswered prayer or something you worked for that you're glad didn't happen. Okay? Those unanswered prayers. I know for us we've got many of those stories, uh, in our life. One in particular. Um, my husband was looking for a new job way back years ago and a possible job across, we'd have to move across the country, but it looked like it was gonna open up. And I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed. Um, he was praying too. He was offered the job. It was a great job and he just couldn't get peace about it. And then I started praying for him that God would change his mind and change his heart. But uh, he turned the job down. And we found out later that six months later that job didn't even, didn't exist anymore. And so thank God for praying husbands for that. So sometimes um, we're relieved that God didn't answer our specific prayer. But then there are other times when the stakes are high, the loss is permanent, the heartache is real. The thing I feared most just happened. And if that is you, I want you to know that you are not alone. All through the centuries, God's people have wrestled with reconciling, everyone asked, receives, and my situation. In fact, there are those sitting in this room. I'm there with you. I've still got prayers hanging out there. And when that happens, the question is what do we do? Even the psalmist, if you, it's all through the Psalms, prayers like that. So if you look at, for example, Psalm 22, the psalmist says, every day I call to you my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief. Do you know what the psalmist is doing there? Persisting, staying in the game, not walking away in the midst of, I don't understand. In the midst of where your god's staying in there, when the prayers get messy and honest and real, the psalmist is showing us you stay in the game instead of walking away, we persevere. But perseverance takes intentionality. This happens on purpose. You don't wake up one day and find yourself praying more or closer to God or more knowing his character. This happens on purpose. We're intentional about how we seek God. We choose to believe that he's good even when I don't see it. We choose to believe that he's at work in ways I don't yet see. Can I talk just a minute to the students who went to winter blast a couple weeks ago? It has been so much fun to hear stories, so much fun to hear about the powerful ways they experience God and the powerful ways you connected with each other and your leaders. I know for me, my youth group way back in the day just just saved my life. So I want to talk to you just a minute and tell you this. Do not forget that weekend. Put a bookmark in your brain about what happened on that weekend. Journal about it. Write it down, whatever you need to do because you need to know this. What happened there was real and powerful. And there will come times in your life when it'll get hard. Some of you students are like, I already know that. I'm already experiencing that. There'll be times when you'll find yourself anywhere. But on a mountaintop, where are the friends now I don't feel God's presence. Now this just got hard. And this is the time to remember that the same God who met you that weekend is the same God that meets you wherever you are. The same God who's with you, whatever you're experiencing and feelings can't dictate truth. God is with you just as powerful. Just don't forget, don't forget that years ago my family was on a friend's boat and uh, we parked the boat in the middle of the lake and let the kids swim around the boat and they were playing in their life jackets floating around. And my son's daughter, Mira was about four years old and at one point, um, she kind of was drifting and drifting and we hear her yelling out, daddy, daddy over and over, daddy. And so finally my son leaned over the boat and he goes, Mira, what is it babe? And she goes, are you thinking about my safety right now when she can no longer see her dad? She wondered, who's looking out for me? Who's in charge? We do that, right? God, are you thinking about my safety right now? Who's, who's in charge? Who's watching out for me? And we lean in. And this is what connects us directly to this passage. Because Jesus knew when he was talking to the crowd that day, when he talks to us today, he knows what we're gonna face. He's telling them to ask, to seek to not knowing heartache would be part of our story. Knowing that loss would come, knowing that silence would challenge our faith. He told us that actually. And John, he says In this world you will have trouble, but you get me. You don't get get easy. I'm not promising you easy. What I'm promising you is myself. And yes, I'm paying attention. I see you, I'm with you. He continues in his sermon. You parents, if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not. So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who seek him? So here you almost see Jesus reading their minds, right? Everyone receives and I think he's reading our minds everyone. Is that what you mean or do you mean everyone but me? What is Jesus saying there? And then he kind of turns the tables on 'em, right? And we're gonna go back to the NAT again and I'm gonna read that passage to you from the NAT. The new Angela translation would go more like this today. Parents, seriously, you would not give your child a rock if they ask you for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or hand them a snake instead of chicken nuggets. Now let's pause right there because we know that in the brokenness of our world, our world is broken. Not all parents are good, right? And a lot of damage happens because parents are good. So don't let that hang you up right here. He's talking about good loving parents. What they would do and the parents answer, absolutely not. I give my children good things. I buy organic. So if you an imperfect parent, give your kids good things, how much more will your heavenly Father give you? What is good when you ask, do you have any idea how much he loves you? How much more does your heavenly Father love and want? Good for you than even the best of parents. Let me give you, if you're a a parent, lemme speak to you just a minute or a grandparent. Let me give you a motivation to pray. Whether you've got little ones living in your house or your kid is 50 years old, you need to be praying for them. This is a reason to get this figured out because they need to be prayed over 'cause God does answer prayer. Not only that, they need to learn, that they can ask, that they can seek, that they cannot. What better time to learn than from your own good parent? Pray for your kids, pray for your family, pray for those you love. And this is where seeking goes hand in hand with asking. Because when I seek him, I get to know him. When I know him, I start to trust him. And when I trust him, then I truly believe that he's for me and with me and often at work in ways we do not see in his book simply called prayer. Richard Foster says this, sometimes it just seems like God is hidden from us. We do everything we know, we pray, we serve, we worship, we live as faithfully as we can. And still there is nothing, nothing. It feels like we're beating on heaven's door with bruised knuckles in the dark. God, are you thinking about my safety? Are you thinking about my marriage? Are you thinking about my health, my child, my parent, my mental health? Are you thinking about me? And even when our knuckles are bruised, we keep knocking like the psalmist with honest seeking. We keep knocking, we keep persisting. Jesus said, keep going. Now, often when we stop praying, it's not because we stop believing normally it's just because we stopped depending, we just stopped asking. And what happens then is when I stop, depending on God, when I stop asking and seeking, then I'm on my own. Then I have to figure things out. Then I have to make it happen for myself and everybody I love. Then I don't even see a boat in sight to call God's name. I am on my own. And what happens then is quietly self-reliance takes the place of faith. Managing things myself replaces trust. And if you've gone down that road before, as I have, here's what you know, the worry and anxiety that Greg talked about last week. That's when it takes over. That's when it comes over you like a wave. When I'm on my own, no one in sight to even cry out to this is not a better way. 'cause what happens then is I create this watered down human version of God. And I worship that God. I let that God sit on the throne of my heart because if I'm honest, I want God to do what I would do if I was God, right? So when I pray, I'm expecting God to do what I would do. And when God doesn't do that, it is so confusing to my human brain why he wouldn't do what I would do. And so I sit this human God on the throne of my heart. But if I keep seeking and keep knocking, then he shows himself to me in a personal way. And I can let the eternal God of all creation be in charge. I can let him guide my life. I can trust in what he wants. How much more does your heavenly Father love you than a human version of God? I want to know him. And so then when times come that are hard, then when I'm no longer on a mountaintop, I remember winter blast. I remember my baptism. I remember the class where I gave my life to him. I remember the time in my group where we prayed and things happened and I felt his presence. I remember and I clinging to that, Jesus replied to Peter once when his disciple, Peter didn't understand what he was doing. He said, Peter, you don't understand what I'm doing now, but someday you will. We clinging to the fact that one day, one day it's gonna make sense. Maybe not on this side of heaven, but one day it's gonna make sense. All right, so let's get practical. How do I do this? Well again, it doesn't happen by accident. I have to be intentional. I put rhythms in my life. I put times when I know I stop. And this needs to happen in community and individually this happens. And we love giving you tools, groups, all the things we do. The app first five, but a piece of this is yours to do individual, you and God on our staff. We take this serious. We believe this is true. So our entire staff is broken down into groups of three or four. And we call it first 30, whereas close to the first 30 minutes of the week, we get together and open God's word together and pray you can do that. The disciples, back in Jesus' day, they would set their alarms and three times a day they would pause to intentionally be with God. In fact, that happens even after Jesus' death and resurrection. It says the next day, as Cornelius messengers were nearing the town, Peter went, went up on the flat roof to pray because it was about noon. This was one of his times to pray. Pastors Nathan and Joel just a few weeks ago, back in January, did a whole service on scripture and prayer. Go back and watch that, especially if you missed it. There's things in the app, even for this weekend. We've included things in the app, in the crossing app that will help you continue this conversation and to seek and to learn. Psalms was a prayer book in Jesus day. Open the Psalms. Read the Psalms. My first 30 group last year memorized together. Psalm 37, uh, 27, Psalm 27. I had my children memorized Psalm 103 when they were little. 'cause I wanted their hearts to say God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, bounding in love. And then one of the things that has helped me the most in my journey, uh, we call it a breath prayer, where you literally have a phrase or a sentence, maybe it's just a couple of words that you breathe out all day long. In times where I've dealt with anxiety, some of my breath prayers have been, you guard all that is mine. You guard all that is mine, or my soul finds rest and God along the Lord of heaven's armies is on my side. Your grace is enough all day long. Your grace is enough or it can simply be, I know you're with me. I know you just breathe that out all day long and sometimes just sit in silence before God. Because relationships work better when we talk. And listen now to be careful here, this doesn't get off into legalism. You know, if you decide you're gonna pray a certain time and miss it, don't beat yourself up. You just start again. You just pick it up again. Don't, don't get legalistic here. So one of the reason, one of the things Greg talked about last week was the fact that we have to be honest about the fact that you have an enemy of your soul. Satan would love nothing more than for you to stop asking, stop seeking, stop knocking, that you lose course of who God is. You lose the truth that God is for you. And then he gets to whisper lies into your heart about who God is, about who you are, about your situation, about how God feels about you. The only way to combat that is to be in His word and to keep seeking and knocking and coming to him. God wants to know you. Years ago I was a men. I was mentoring a young college student. She'd been raised in the Muslim faith, but had come to Christ and received Christ as her Lord and savior. And one day she walked in my office and plopped down on the chair and she said, do you wanna know the best thing about following Jesus? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I wanna know the best thing. And she goes, you just get to trust. What a privilege that you, you just, you just get to trust him. The writer of Hebrews says this, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every way respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. He's talking about Jesus here, our high priest. Because Jesus looks at you and says, I know, I know. He didn't come and walk the earth and experience no pain. He didn't come and walk the earth. The earth is broken. We are broken people. And so things are not as they should be. This is not the plan. The plan was not sickness and brokenness and heartache and sorrow and death. That was not God's plan. And so Jesus came and walked among us living life as it was not planned and experienced exhaustion and disappointment and tears and grief and heartache. And he looks at you and goes, I know I get it. I experienced it and I am with you. And then he surrendered. And when I surrender, it sounds like this. Here's what I'm asking. God, I'm not gonna stop asking. But even if life stays just like this, I trust you. Even if this situation doesn't change, I'm gonna stay in the game. I'm with you. And what happens is as I'm praying about these things, the things that motivate me to pray, the things that drive me to my knees, God's actually doing something in my heart. He's actually changing my heart and drawing close to me. And he says, what do you want? What are you asking? And I come to him and I say, I want my son to be healed. I want this relationship to be restored. I do not want this devastating loss that is facing me. I want this addiction to be defeated. I want my mental health to be restored. And I stay in the game and my heart changes and moves closer to him. And he says, what do you want? I want peace. I just wanna know I'm not alone. I want you to give me joy right in the middle of this circumstance. Angela, what do you want you? I just want you. And at the end of the day, if I get you, it's enough. That's because I've come to know him. That's because I've drawn close. And when I'm in the water and I can no longer even see the boat or who I should cry out to and I say, God, are you thinking about me? What happens is suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder and he goes, Hey, I'm in the water with you. I'm right beside you. I never left you. You lost sight of me, but I never lost sight of you. And then I learned the most beautiful thing of all. He was actually seeking me first. I thought I was begging him, but he was calling my name. And everything I do as I ask and I seek and I knock, is in response to the fact that he's been seeking me all along. And so my heart moves to trust him more. And the relief and peace I've been longing for starts on the inside. So what motivates you to pray? How can you lean in more? I wanna say a prayer for you, but we intentionally left a little time right here because we want to invite you to take your time. You can sit right where you are and just pray. If you've never prayed before, let me just challenge you to simply say, God, if you're real, will you show me if this is right? Will you just show yourself to me? So we love you to hang out and talk at the end of the service, but let's leave quietly and do that out in the lobby and in the hub, the campuses in your own home, wherever you are, just take, take some time to pray. Jesus, I wanna start by saying thank you. Thank you that you know every heart, you know, every request, you know every need, you know, every anxious thought you are in the water with each one of us. So I pray that even right now, we would experience your presence through the power of your Holy Spirit, that we would learn how to ask, we would be motivated to keep seeking and to keep knocking, knowing that you are near and we leave it all to you. If we get you, Jesus, it's enough. And we do. You are the good loving Father. So I pray for each person who hears the sound of my voice. May they experience your Holy Spirit. May their hearts calm, and may they find you to be who you say you are. And I pray all of this in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.