Disciples Depend on the Lord — Luke 9-11

0:01 Alright. Our portion for today is, Luke 10 verses 38 and then going to chapter 11 verse 13. And, let's begin with a word of prayer. Dear heavenly father, Lord, we need you. We need you, this hour.

0:22 And, Lord, we want to know you. We want to know your love. We want to know your ways. We wanna know your goodness. And, God, we pray, would you teach us what it means to depend on you, to depend on your grace?

0:39 Lord, far be it from us to try to be strong on our own measure, But, God, to be strong in your grace, that is what we desire. That is what we seek, Lord. We pray, would you impress this passage on our hearts? We might leave understanding your love for us in the way you want us to go. And we pray this in Jesus name.

1:04 Amen. Well, we've been considering this idea of disciples for a couple weeks now. Luke has been naturally bringing it up through the through the passages, and I just say let's keep the good thing going. We're gonna be seeing that in chapter 10 in... With Mary and Martha, and then we'll be seeing it as Jesus instructs his disciples how to pray.

1:29 So this morning, I finally settled on a topic... Or not the topic, the title for this message. And, the title I want you to remember is disciples depend on the Lord. Disciples depend on the Lord. We've seen some of the works that Jesus called his disciples to do and he gave them power, but now we see in order to follow the Lord, in order to walk as Jesus walked, there is something that's necessary.

1:58 And what we see is that is dependence on God. The life that God wants us to live must be dependent on his grace, must be dependent on his grace. So let's, consider one more thing. So one of Luke's main thing... Themes is Jesus being the son of man.

2:16 And this title is a name for... Given for the Messiah, but it also reminds us of his humanity, the humanity of Christ. And what Luke is reminding us is that Jesus being the son of God, God himself was also a man. God made flesh in the incarnation and a man dependent on the father. We see Jesus as a man said that I came to do the father's will.

2:46 We see after... Before any of his major decisions like choosing the disciples, he was going before the father and and praying. Took the whole night to pray. And if the perfect son of God is dependent on the father, if that is necessary, how much more so his people? How much more so his people if we are to be his disciples?

3:07 So we see Christ as a man perfectly dependent on the father. We see him doing that in prayer, and now we wanna follow and walk as he walked. And another theme we see is is prayer is brought up quite a bit in the book of Luke. So over the Bible is the the the word prayer is mentioned over 650 times. And in the gospels, in Matthew 14 times, Mark 12 times, John six times, but in Luke and Acts, see 26 times in Luke and 29 times in Acts.

3:40 So Luke is showing us the importance of being dependent on God particularly through prayer. And this is one of his main themes, so we're gonna be looking at this in the passage and considering it. So the two ways that we are dependent on God that we're gonna see is by reading the Bible and by prayer. I think we know that one song, read the Bible and pray pray every day if you wanna grow, grow, grow. So if you want to leave early, just play that song a couple times in your head and you can go on out, but that's what we'll be talking about.

4:28 So we'll be considering these true and unchanging truths, reading the Bible and praying. And in reading the Bible, this is how we can know God and know his will and in prayer to experience the intimacy with God that he desires to have with us in a relationship with him and to receive the power to do his will. So let's go to Luke 10 starting in verse 38, and I'll be reading till the end of Luke 10. Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. And she had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.

5:14 But Martha was distracted with much serving and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. So we'll be focusing on verses 38 to 40 to start off and I titled this part, two women with two choices. So we see Martha and Mary and we'll be looking at their choices and also the results of their choices.

5:57 First we'll be considering Martha. So looking at verse 40 it says Martha was distracted with much serving. And if you look at that word distracted, the the Greek word for that is, peri speo. Speo meaning drawn and peri meaning away. So I think the, what the Greek is actually showing is a little bit stronger than what the passage is saying.

6:21 It's saying that Martha was drawn away by her serving. She was drawn away by her serving. And it's even interesting here, we see that Martha welcomed Jesus into her house, but drew away from him. She wasn't near to Jesus. And I think we can relate to this sometimes, right?

6:40 If we know the Lord, if we have him in our lives, we've welcomed him into our lives and we we call him our our Lord and our savior, it is right and fitting for us to be in his presence and to abide with him. Yet, sometimes we're drawn away. And oftentimes drawn away by good things, but not the best thing. Drawn away by good things, but not the best thing. And this often happens when we're leaning on our own understanding and wisdom and thinking, you know what?

7:10 I think I might know better than God. I think I know what good thing he wants me to do rather than seeking his will and saying, Lord, what do you want me to do? What is the best thing that you desire for me? And this is where Martha found herself being drawn away from the Lord. But isn't serving the Lord good?

7:29 Isn't that a good thing? Yes, it's good. God God calls us to be a living sacrifice for him. He wants us to give our lives to him completely. He wants us to...

7:39 Our life to be a service and a sweet smelling aroma to him. But if the Lord isn't with us in our service, what meaning does it have? It's complete futility. It's meaningless. If the Lord isn't with us, we don't wanna go off and do our own thing because there is no joy, there is no peace, there is no satisfaction apart from the Lord.

8:04 So if we do want to serve him, our heart has to be in the right place. And and you see Martha, she was frustrated. She was saying, Lord do you not care that my my sisters left me to serve alone? So you see her heart wasn't at peace with what her decision was. She was frustrated.

8:22 And a point that is important for us to consider is that God redeemed us wholly, completely. He didn't redeem just part of our lives and left the rest for us to do our own thing, but God redeemed us holy through his son on the cross and therefore wants us holy in all that we do for him. Whether it is abiding and listening to his word or whether it is in service, God wants all of us. And we see Martha, yes her hands and feet might have been given to the Lord, but her heart wasn't with the Lord that at that time. She was drawn away from the Lord.

9:31 If I want to heed his word and live according to him and abide with him in in fellowship, I can't do that if I'm trying to be prideful or if I'm not sitting at his feet. But Mary, she chose to sit at his feet humbly before him. In a very interesting sense, she allowed Jesus to minister to her. And that in itself requires a certain humility to say, Jesus I will sit at your feet and allow you to even serve me in a sense. But there we get the blessing of the Lord that he is willing to serve us and and bring us to his word.

10:09 And if Jesus is... Or sorry, if Mary is is sitting at his feet, she is close to the savior. She drew near and in the sense said, Lord you're in control of this time. I don't want to do my own thing, but Lord I'm going to listen to you in this time and heard his word. So this is the first point that we made in dependence on God.

10:29 If we are to depend on God we must listen to his word. So I would ask, are you enjoying fellowship in his word? Are you listening to him? Does the word of God impact your heart? Does it impact your heart?

10:44 Are you applying the words of God to your heart? Because it's easy to read these words and just go on with her life and and not be moved and changed by it, But every time we approach the word of God, it is the Lord speaking to us. We know that the word of God is true and reliable and trustworthy. So for us to not have a desire to heed his word and listen to it and approach it in a manner of reverence and humility, that is not the way of a disciple. The way of a disciple is to heed the word of God in humility and say, Lord I want to learn from you.

11:28 And now we'll see the consequences of both choices. First the result of Martha's choice. We'll consider... We'll continue in verse 40. Then Martha was distracted with much serving and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

11:45 Therefore tell her to help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha you're already in trouble about many things. So the two phrases I want us to pay attention to are first, Lord do you not care and then serving alone. But we'll look at that first phrase, Lord do you not care. And I think we might recognize that phrase from earlier on in the Gospels.

12:08 We see the disciples said that same thing to Jesus saying, Lord do you not care that we're perishing when they were out on the boat on the waters and they saw the storms and they were filled with fear and their response was, Lord do you not care? They doubted God and lost faith in him And we see we can find ourselves in that same place. We might lose our faith when we don't abide in him. If we're not coming close and near to the savior, we might even forget that he cares about us. We might forget the love that he has for us and that this life that we're living for him, he he's with us in it.

12:48 It's not like we're alone, but when we're near to the Lord we can know that he cares. And another point from this is we're not meant to serve alone. And this is kind of a point for us. Serving without Jesus is futile and vain apart from him. In first Corinthians three, Paul says that he is, that he calls God his fellow laborer.

13:11 He says that we're laboring together with him. And if we try to serve alone it's gonna leave us in this place of frustration and saying, Lord do you not care about what I'm doing? Does it does it not mean anything to you? But if we're serving as unto the Lord and and with him, then we can have faith in him. And you see in verse 41 it says, and Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you're worried and troubled about many things.

13:40 Seeing that phrase, worried and troubled. If we draw ourselves away from the Lord and try to do our own thing, anxiety will come. If we say, Lord I want to do my way. I don't I don't want to heed your word and abide with you. Anxiety will be a result of that.

14:00 We're going to end up like Martha did, worried and troubled and not having our focus set on Christ. And you can kind of get a sense from this verse. It says worried and troubled about many things. And you can also, you can kind of imagine that Martha her focus is distracted. It's not set and focused, but we see that what Christ desires is for us to set our focus on him and then everything to flow from that.

14:25 Everything to be in subjection to that. We are meant to serve with the Lord and we need him. And now we see the result of Mary's choice and this is a very, sweet thing. In verse 42 it says, but one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. And what is that one thing that is needed?

15:13 And man if we try to live our lives apart from the Word of God, scriptures and having his spirit working through us, we're going to miss out. Right? It says that Mary chose the good part but Martha made a different choice and she actually missed out on what God had for her. And here we see the second point from here. Looking at that last phrase, which will not be taken away from her.

15:43 Communion with God and the time we spend in his word, even on this side of eternity can be eternally cherished. It has eternal value. The time that we invest to be with our Lord, it's it's it's amazing to think that even on this side of eternity, that has implications for our communion with God. That has implications for our joy and our enjoyment of being in his presence. And this idea that it will never be taken away.

16:14 Right? And I think that can give us some assurance especially like when we get frustrated. I mean, right now I'm studying first Corinthians and man there's some there's some difficult stuff to understand, but it's a peace knowing that the time that we spend to understand and know who God is as he has revealed himself in his word, that has value even if we don't understand sometimes. That has value and eternal value as well. And I kind of titled this point spiritual FOMO.

16:45 So does anyone know what FOMO means? Yeah, fear of missing out. Spiritual FOMO. And I think in a sense this this can be an attitude that we can acquire or we can we can call it this, that we don't want to miss out on what God has for us. There is a joy that we can have in being in his presence and experiencing that close communion that he desires to have with us.

17:08 And we want to have that... We want to have everything that God's... God has to offer to us. Right? So in a sense we want to be like Mary and say, Lord I will draw near to you.

17:18 Even if I don't necessarily understand everything, I'm going to draw near to you trusting that this time has eternal significance. That it that what I learned from you can be eternally cherished because I don't want to miss out on what you have for me. And I think this leads well into, chapter 11 and we'll read the first verse of chapter 11. So it says, Now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased that one of his disciples said to him, Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. So the first thing I want to want us to consider is what have the disciples witnessed of Jesus up to this point, especially considering how Jesus prayed.

18:06 And the two words I want us to remember is power and intimacy. Power and intimacy. So the revelation of Jesus' glory seen by the seen by the disciples were accompanied by Jesus' prayer. So I'll give you a couple examples. In Luke three twenty one it said, when all the people were baptized it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized and while he prayed the heaven was opened.

18:34 In Luke nine:eight-twenty it says, once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked, he asked them, who do the crowd say that I am? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life. Jesus asked them, what about you? He asked, who do you say that I am? Peter answered, God's Messiah.

19:00 In another gospel we see, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. And I think it's, I think we can kind of imply from that text from Luke eight eighteen through 20 that how Jesus prayed and talked to the father that might have influenced Peter recognizing who Jesus was. Seeing how Jesus talked to the father might have clued Peter in onto who he was in the presence of. That this was more than just a man. It was more than just a prophet, more than just John the Baptist, but this this man was different.

20:09 So just imagine what the disciples thought about Jesus' communion with the Father, His prayer life. They must have been thinking, wow, this is different. This is different than what we experience. And you'd even remember this that Jesus, he prayed before many of his miracles. The clear demonstrations and signs of his power and wonder that was given to him by the will of the Father, foreseeing that was prayer, talking to the father and seeking his will.

20:38 And now we'll we'll even see in chapter 10, the disciples they received power from Jesus to perform signs, but in another gospel it says they couldn't cast out a demon. And Jesus says, this kind only does not go out except by prayer and fasting. So these disciples I think in their minds are probably thinking, you know what, How Jesus talks to God is different than how we talk to God. His relationship with the father is different than our relationship with the father. And I think this clued them in into asking him, Lord would you teach us to pray?

21:12 Seeing the relationship that Jesus had with God. And secondly, seeing the intimacy that Jesus had with the Father. One example you'll see in Luke five, says in verse 16, so he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. So we see Jesus going and praying alone with the father and sometimes through the entire night. And I'd imagine the disciples witnessing this and saying, wow, this is different than what we have.

21:39 This is different. And this leads them to say, Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. And a second point I want us to realize from this this verse is, this is the heart attitude, the heart posture of a disciple of Christ. Lord teach us. We know that word disciple to be a learner or apprentice of Christ.

22:03 And this should be our posture before our savior to say, Lord would you teach us? And I'd imagine Jesus was probably overjoyed to hear his disciples come before him and say, Lord teach us. Because this was them acting like his disciples. And what an important thing to ask, Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. So a reminder to us that we want to be learners of Him.

22:27 This is our true responsibility as disciples, not to do amazing miracles and signs which the Lord Himself gives us power to do if it's his will, but to be a learner of him. To say, God, I want to know you as you reveal yourself to me. So now we'll look at Jesus' instruction to them when he teaches them to pray. And I'll read from verse two to four where it says, And he said to them, when you pray, say our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

23:03 Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. So we'll consider each portion of this prayer piece by piece and try to get something out of it as Lord provides. So this first part it says, our Father in heaven in three glorious truths. First that he's ours.

23:33 Right? That we can claim the Lord as our own. Secondly that he's our father. Right? That we don't have to look to him as a slave master, but say, but we can call Him our father and approach Him as such.

23:50 And third, that He is in heaven that He reigns. We're not speaking to a God that is powerless or to a God that doesn't have the power to hear us and respond rightly, but that He is in heaven, that He is sovereign, that He reigns. And that when we approach Him and ask of Him, it can actually happen. Right? We can actually have faith that it can happen because we're not talking to a powerless God, but we're talking to a God who reigns in the heavens.

24:19 And I think a good application for us is it is good to begin our prayers focusing on the person and attributes of God. And this is something I've been trying to practice this past year. Starting off my prayers and and thinking about who is God before going into my requests. Because this focuses our hearts on who he is and it actually empowers our requests, right? When we focus our eyes to who he is, his faithfulness, his love, his power, it actually embolden...

24:52 Emboldens us when we're bringing a request to him to know that he is good and that he has the power to actually hear our prayers and do something about it. And this next phrase we see, hallowed be your name. And one thing we should remember is it is good to have a spirit of reverence before the Lord. We are speaking to a holy God. A holy God yet that we can call him father, right?

25:21 So a holy God to know that he is set apart from all creation that he is, if you can say it simply just different from everything else that he is holy. And secondly, God would you be hallowed in my heart? Right? God would you be set apart in my heart? Would I not only know that you're holy, but would I treat you as such?

25:44 Would I approach you as such? That you are different from anything else in creation. And secondly, would you be set apart and hallowed in our church? Would we see you as you are as holy and just and say, God we want to be like you. If we don't see him as holy, it's it'd be hard for us to be like him, but we must see him as who he is and then follow as such.

26:07 And what is being hallowed? It says, hallowed be your name. We see the importance given to the name of God. And this is a cool promise we see in in Psalms 23. It says, he leads us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

26:23 The reason why we can trust the Lord in our very sanctification is that he's backing it up with his own name saying, I will sanctify you because of who I am, because I am God and my name will not be moved, it will not be changed. You can trust me. We can see many promises that God made... Makes and he says, I will back it up with my name. And the next verse we see in in verse two, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as is in heaven.

27:22 Would you make what is evil good? Would you restore, bring restoration to this earth? And the second thing is, would sin and death be no more? What a glorious promise that when we're asking asking the Lord to come again that sin and death will be no more. That we don't have to see people suffering.

27:40 I mean, as we see a lot of people suffering in our church, that won't be anymore. And secondly, this this struggle that we have with our sin in our flesh, that will be gone in the kingdom of God. That will be gone. And and another thing we see is we'll be with him. Right?

27:57 So we are with him now. He's with us, but we will see him in his kingdom. We'll see him and we'll be like him as he is. And the last thing is we will reign with him. In Romans eight it says, if we suffer with him, with Christ, we may also be glorified with him.

28:16 To think that God takes sinners and redeems them, not only redeems them and makes them kings and and priests unto him. Incredible. And this is what we get to look forward to in his kingdom. And we want to say again to this passage, Lord, your will be done, but Lord start in my heart. Would your will be done in my heart?

28:38 God, would I see your word and would I would I see what you're calling on my life and Lord would I obey? And start in our church as well, Lord. Would your will be done here? We can see in in the churches of God, we see the first the first fruits of the kingdom. The first fruits of the kingdom where we say willingly that Jesus is Lord.

29:01 And we get to start we get to start a little bit early. We get a little bit of a head start and that's kind of a joy that we have. And now in verse three it says, give us day by day our daily bread. And I want us to remember, is a good thing to be dependent on God. It is not a fault in the system.

29:21 It isn't an... It isn't a deficiency, but this was God's design that we would be dependent on his provision for his daily provision, both spiritual and physical. That he that we look to him and say, Lord God we need you. And we remember that in the first meeting. We needed him for our salvation, to have a relationship with him, but to have fellowship with him, to follow in the way of his disciples, we need him.

29:51 And as we remember this, looking back we can say, Lord, I see how you've provided. I see how you have answered my prayers. How you have given me food. How you've given me clothing. All these things and we can say, Lord, you have provided so I can trust that you will provide.

30:07 So looking back on God's faithfulness gives us faith and strength to trust him. Trust him now and trust him for the future. And the reason why it's good to be dependent on God is that this provides us power in our Christian walk and also more intimacy. We see Paul saying when he's pleading to God and saying, God would you take away this thorn? That God said, my grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

30:38 So when we are weak and when we are going before God and saying, Lord I need your strength, we get to rely on supernatural power instead of what we can muster in our own strength, but God gives us his grace through his spirit and says, I will sustain you. I will help you to endure. And the second thing is, it provides a deeper intimacy with God when we are dependent on him. When we are needy before him and say, Lord, I can't do this apart from your grace and he provides, doesn't that just bring our hearts close to him and say, God you really care. You really care about my needs.

31:18 That you really do provide and it brings us to love the Lord. So this is God's design that we might be dependent on Him. And looking at verse four it says, and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. So why ask for forgiveness if we're already saved? The reason is sin doesn't break our relationship with God after we've accepted accepted His forgiveness for us in our salvation, but it does affect our fellowship with Him.

32:09 Right? Doesn't it bring our hearts and say, you know what, I'm willing to forgive because I'm remembering what God has done for me and I'm willing to extend it to others. So it's a way for God's love to be carried out in our lives as well towards others. And a point I'll make about this is we really need to learn how to repent quickly. I feel like this is the biggest struggle I have is repenting quickly and just going to God.

32:32 But if we just remember who He is, who we're going to, we're not going to a God that you know, there has to be a layover time before we can go to him, but he is inviting us to receive that forgiveness right now. That is who he is. Right? So we've already received his forgiveness in our salvation. How much more would he sustain us now?

32:55 How much more would he sustain us and welcome him into his presence? And the latter parts of part of verse four it says, and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. So there are some implications about this verse that we'll consider and try to parse through. So what is it saying? Is it saying that God is God is making us tempted or is he the one that's tempting us?

33:21 Or is it saying that when we're tempted that God is kind of drawing back and isn't with us anymore? First of all, if we say Lord would you lead us? We are really saving ourselves from much temptation. We are saving ourselves from much temptation. If God is leading us and we're walking in the spirit, we're not needlessly welcoming temptation.

33:44 But sometimes we find ourselves walking in the spirit and suddenly just temptation comes out of nowhere. And I think this verse gives us a peace that we can have when temptation does come. That the Lord is still with us. That he is still leading us even when we're tempted. That we might look to him and say, Lord would you deliver us from the evil one.

34:04 Right? That we can say, God even if I'm feeling this temptation, I'm not alone, but you're still with me. Your spirit hasn't gone from me, but now I can go to you and seek your deliverance. In James one thirteen it says, let no one say when he is tempted, I'm tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone.

34:24 So we recognize that it is the devil who's bringing this temptation into our life and in a sense as God permits. God is permitting the temptation, but what the devil means to destroy us, God means to strengthen our faith and trust in him that we might look to him and cry out for deliverance and he'll use this to build our faith and trust in him. And now looking in in verse verses five through 13, or verse five through eight. And he said to them, which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say, friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me.

35:09 The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you though he will not rise and give to you because he's a friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So the teaching of this parable is kind of giving us a situation of a person that is is in need, is at the time of need. So we see it's at midnight and they have nothing, But even at this point, a reluctant friend will listen to this man because he's persistent.

35:45 But the lesson for us is how much more so our heavenly father? How much more so our heavenly father will he listen to us when we're in need? This friend is doing it out of reluctance, but who is our God? He's not annoyed by our requests, but he loves to hear from us and he loves to see us drawing near to him. And furthermore, he's more than a friend, we approach him as father.

36:09 We approach him as father. And the friend said, you know, can't get up, know, I'm too tired or whatever, but who is the Lord our God? He is he's the one that never sleeps, that never slumbers, and he has the power to meet our greatest needs at midnight when we have nothing at that time of need. In verses nine and ten it says, so I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.

37:02 And it brings us back to Mary and Martha. We want to ring out all the blessing that God has for us. We don't want to miss out on one thing that the Lord is offering to us. And it's like Elijah asking for a double portion. We want to be asking big prayers of God and expecting that he listens to us.

37:21 But the second point is, what about when God doesn't say yes? What does that mean? So the first thing we can consider is maybe the Lord is asking us to wait on him. He's asking us to be patient on him. And a comfort for us is in in Psalms one thirty where it says, when we are waiting on the Lord, when our soul waits on him, we're waiting on him more than those who watch for the morning.

37:47 Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. So our waiting on him isn't on on a... It's it's expectant. Right? Our waiting on him is expectant.

37:56 Just as as the people that are waiting for the morning, watching for the morning have expectation that the sun will rise, we can have that same expectation with our God. And what if God says no? A comfort for us is that his no is a greater grace to us. His no is a greater grace to us that he's bringing about a greater good. We see with Paul it says, the response that God gave was my grace is sufficient for you.

38:26 And sometimes what God wants us to experience in suffering is that we can have a greater knowledge of who he is. When we receive his grace and we see how faithful and just and kind he is toward us and we're comforted by him, that grows our love and our faith for him. So even the no's that God gives us is a greater grace and a greater good. And God even said no to Jesus in the garden and we see that that brought about the greatest good. And if that brought about the greatest good, our very salvation, how much more so can we trust him when he says no to us?

38:59 We can be comforted. And now looking at the last couple of verses in 11 to 13. If a son asks for bread from any father of you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

39:19 If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? In James one seventeen it says, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. The first thing we can realize from this verse is our heavenly Father is not cruel or deceptive towards us. That he truly does give us good things. He is truly gracious to us even when we are experiencing it in pain, even when we're experiencing it in suffering.

39:56 And I love that verse in James one seventeen where it says, who does not change like shifting shadows. The reason why we can trust him is because he is faithful. And because he's faithful we know that he doesn't change in his attributes, right? So when he is good, He is good yesterday, He will be good today, and He will be good tomorrow. And we can actually put our trust in that truth because He is faithful and true.

40:23 So when suffering happens in our life we don't have to question our God, But the thing is he he invites us to bring our questions before him because he's faithful and true. And this is my favorite point in the entire message. So verse 13, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So one thing we can see is when we're praying according to his will, when we're asking God to do what he wants to do, we can know that he'll say yes to it. Right?

40:59 If we're asking God to be true to who he is, when we're asking God to do something he's promised us to do, these are prayers that we can know we'll get a yes to. And these are my favorite prayers to pray, to know that you're going to God and he will respond with a yes. When we're asking God, Lord would you be faithful in this part of my life? Lord would you empower me with your Holy Spirit? God says yes to those kind of prayers and it's so encouraging and gives us confidence to say, Lord there are some prayers that he will always say yes to.

42:07 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. And this is what God desires of us that we might seek him with our whole heart. As Hebrews eleven:six says, he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Let's close with a word of prayer. Dear heavenly Father, Lord we thank you that we can call you our Father in heaven.

42:30 That you truly are good and kind, that you truly hear us in our requests and you do listen and heed. Lord, would you help us to trust you, to trust your word, and to experience the joy in fellowship that Lord you offer to us in your grace. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.