The Joy of Asking

Father, I thank you God with all my heart. I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Oh God, I've never been more aware in all my life of the need that I personally have of you, Lord. Your indwelling power, your ability, Lord, to go beyond the natural limitations of of this physical body and physical mind. And God, you are wanting, I feel in my heart that you are wanting to take your church, your people, into a place that you've always longed for us to live in and to be. So God, give us the grace to hear these words today. Give us the grace to respond. Oh Jesus, help us, Lord, to be able to respond when you are wooing us, when you are brooding over us and longing to draw us close to your heart. Give us the grace. We ask it not just for our sakes, but for the sake of the people of this generation who, without an empowered church, they will never know who you are. God, we'd be relegated to an argument, and we're not supposed to be that. We're supposed to be a demonstration of who you are to our generation. So God, help us now. Help all of us, Lord, in Jesus' name. John chapter 16, one verse, verse 24. Jesus said to his disciples these words, until now you've asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy might be full. Now the disciples have, they've walked with him for quite some time at this point. I have no doubt they have asked a lot of questions along the way, just like you do, just like I do. But suddenly, he makes this statement to his disciples, and he will make a similar statement to you, to me. We will walk with him. We will grow in grace. We will grow in knowledge. We will grow in experience. We will observe the workings of God. We will study the things that he's able to do. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, he says, up to this point, you've not asked for anything in my name. Now there's no doubt they've asked a lot of things. But he says, you've not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy might be full. In other words, there is a joy that you've not entered into yet. You have a lot of knowledge. You have a lot of experience. You've accumulated doctrine. You bore witness, you could say to his disciples, of things that other people have never seen. But you've not been really a partaker of something I want to give you now. And if you will open your heart to it, it will bring you into a place of joy. Isn't that amazing? The asking brings a joy, and according to what he said to his disciples, it brings a full joy. Not just a partial joy, but a full joy. Now, let's take a look at some of the things that his disciples, to this point, have probably asked him, and things that you and I do too as well. I'm just going to give you, I had to go through the whole book of John to prepare this, so I'm just going to go through it quickly. I don't expect you to turn there. If you get this message later on, you can look it up in your Bible. I'll be quoting the verses. But in chapter 1, verse 38, Andrew and some others, Peter's brother Andrew and some others, started following Jesus. And he turned around and said, what are you looking for? What do you seek? And they said to him, where are you staying? In other words, now in that culture and at that time, if you saw a teacher worth following, and if you felt that teacher had something to say to you that you wanted to learn, you in a sense made yourself, you brought yourself spiritually in a sense, prostrate before that teacher. In other words, I'm willing to come to your house, and I'm willing to hear what you have to say to me. In other words, they were saying, we're open to what you would teach us. Well, that's why many of us are here. That's where it all began, isn't it? I remember in my life, I sat in the church before I was a believer in Christ. I remember sitting in the back of a church one day, and I said out loud, if you're real, I wouldn't mind knowing who you are. In other words, if you will show yourself to me, I would love to sit under your teaching. If your word is truth, if your way is truth, if you promise me life, then my heart is open. That's where their first question began. We want to sit under your teaching. That's why some of you are here this morning. Some of you are online. You're not fully yielded to God yet, but you are at least at the place where you're saying, Lord, I'm open if you want to teach me. I'm open to your words. I'm open to your leading and you telling me what life is about, what my life should be. Chapter two, verse 11, the scripture says, when he changed water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana, his disciples believed in him. Do you remember after you took that first step and the Lord Jesus Christ brought that initial joy into your heart? Do you remember that first time that it dawned on you that God loved you or that you could be forgiven or that you could have a new life? That first time you realized things were starting to change in your life and you believed in him. In other words, it's not just teaching now. It's gone beyond just teaching to the point where I'm embracing what I've heard and I'm starting to believe. This belief is bringing an initial joy into my life. That's what wedding wine is all about. It's about just taking the ordinary and bringing the joy into an ordinary situation. John chapter three, verse 22, the disciples were there baptizing with Jesus. Well, it says Jesus was baptizing. They were there with him. And many of us, you remember those early years when you first believed and then joy came into your heart and you said, I want to go with God. And many in this church have been water baptized on this platform. And you went into that water baptism and you were told that you're going to die to yourself. And when you come out of the water, you're going to be raised up with Christ. It was wonderful teaching, but not very many people really grasp it at that point. A few do, but not many do. It's just a wonderful idea. Like a message I preached one time, I said, forgiving your enemies is a wonderful idea. That is until you have enemies. So it's a wonderful idea of being raised up in newness of life. We're not quite sure what that means, but we're willing to take the journey because what we've been taught, we've experienced some joy. And now we're going into the waters of baptism and saying, I want to go with you, God. And I want to do it publicly. I don't want to be a secret believer. I'm willing to do this publicly before the church and before all people. Then as they went farther in their journey with Jesus, they began to realize that he had a source of nourishment that they didn't understand yet. It says the disciples in John chapter four, verses 31 and on, they said, Rabbi eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat, which you do not know. Therefore the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him anything to eat? And Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are already white to harvest. So in other words, he's displaying, he's teaching again, his disciples, there's nourishment available for you, but it implies that you have to go into the harvest to get it. You don't get it just by sitting in church, which is wonderful. You get knowledge sitting in church, but you get this nourishment, this ability that's God given, the strength that only comes from the Holy Spirit, doesn't come until we start to walk into the harvest, into the work of God as it is. My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. John chapter four, verse 50, they discovered that his words had limitless power to heal. Remember the nobleman came and said, my son's at home and he's at the point of death. Would you come and heal him? And Jesus didn't even go to the man's house or the man's town, wherever it was. He just said, go your way. Your son lives. Can you imagine being there? And you're walking with a teacher who has the power. In other words, there are no boundaries to his word. There's no limitations by distance. He speaks and it's done. Go your way, go back to your house, go back to your village, go your way, your son. Can you imagine being there? Can you imagine the questions that they had in their heart? What kind of a man is this? You remember when they were in the boat and he walked and the storm came and he stood up and rebuked the wind and the sea and they said to one another, what kind of a man is this? That even the winds and the sea obey him. John chapter five, they saw that Jesus could heal no matter how long someone had been powerless to change their situation. Walked up to a man beside a pool who had been there for 38 years lame and told him to rise up and take up his bed and walk. And can you imagine just being there and seeing that power of God at that time? John chapter six, he walked on water towards them when they were in the midst of the sea and they saw that he, he could journey over impossible places. I mean, there seemed to be nothing could stop this man, wind or water or waves or difficulty. His, his whole life was miraculous. They also saw in John chapter six for 68 that there was a time which comes into every Christian's life. It came into mine and it will come into yours and it's after all of this. Now they've seen all of this. They, they, they, they've seen his word has limitless power. They, they've seen that he can heal no matter how long somebody has been sick. They, they watched him walk on water. And then later on in John chapter six for 68, he talks about, unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no life in you. In other words, there's something of me that you need to have life and without it, you're not going to have life. And so almost the majority of his disciples at that time, it's estimated 58 out of 70 turned and walked away. They said, this is too hard. You ever gotten to the point where you just say, wow, this, I thought this Christian life was this, but it turned out to be this. I, I, I got saved through a message somewhere and I was told my life's going to be happy and I was going to be healthy and I was going to be wealthy and I was going to be all this stuff. And, and, and now I'm just struggling. I just don't get this. I've tried to, I've tried to follow you, Jesus, but you're, you're laying things before me that I can't do. And so the majority walk away and it's the same way in the Christian church. People will go to a point and they will just say, this is too hard. I remember I was when I went through this when I was a young believer, I remember being out in the gravel road, screaming at God saying, if this is the way you treat your friends, what would it like be like to be an enemy? I was just really furious at this point. And he turned to the 12 and said, are you going to go as well? And Peter says, well, who are we going to go to? You know, we're, we're staying because we know you have the words of eternal life. Not because we understand it, not because we feel we can do it, but we don't know where else to go. And there's a point in every Christian's life where that's where you are. So it's not an aberration. You're not abnormal because you're there. You're actually on the pathway to something incredibly joyful and wonderful. Thank God for that. They saw later on in John chapter seven, verse 26, that, that he, he, he spoke boldly in the temple, even though they were all aware that there were plots underfoot to take his life. He still spoke boldly. He had a boldness that came from another source, a source that they didn't yet have. In chapter eight, verse 59, chapter seven, verse 30, and chapter 10, verse 39, they saw he was divinely protected. Even when people took up stones to stone him, they couldn't seem to bring themselves to throw them. They would gather around him to try to harm him. And he would just walk through the midst of them. I mean, can you imagine being there and seeing this? You have this, these enraged people in the temple, and they just say, we've just had enough. What do you mean before Abraham was, you were? Only God could say that. How dare you say that? That's blasphemous. So they would rise up and they're, they're full of fury and they go to get him. And he just kind of walks through the middle of them and they just part. And they saw this, they, they saw that he could walk through every threatening situation. The Bible says, because his hour had not yet come. That's why I believe as a believer in Jesus Christ, we are not, we are till God says, we're not, you have a plan for your life and nobody can take it from you. Nobody, nobody, no trial, no situation, no mountaintop, no wall, no enemy, no giant, nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God. And nothing can stop you from fulfilling the plan that God has for your life. In John chapter eight, they looked as he stood in defense of a condemned woman. It was the social order of the day. It was the understanding of the day that if you did this, this was the consequence. And yet he stood there and defended a woman who was condemned. In John chapter nine, he gave sight to a man who was blind from his birth. Amazing. Nobody had ever done that before. John chapter 11, he raised a man from the dead who was dead for four days. In John chapter 12, verse 28, the disciples heard a voice from heaven that confirmed his ministry. How'd you like to have that? This is my son or whatever it was said at that particular time that confirmed him. And then in John chapter 13, they saw something amazing with all of this power, the power to speak into other towns and heal people, the power to raise the dead, the power to walk on water, the power to walk through the midst of all of his enemies, all of this power and all of this knowledge brought him to the point where he bowed down, took a towel and washed the feet of his disciples. He was given power to serve others. Amazing. With all of this power in the world, when you think from a worldly perspective, you would think this power would take you to a throne. Instead of taking him to a throne, it took him to his knees with a towel where he even washed the feet of the man who would cause him the deepest pain he would ever know in his physical lifetime. And now it gets interesting because the questions start in John chapter 13, verse 36, Peter says, Lord, why can I not follow you now? In other words, he's trying to tell him, I want to follow you. And Jesus says, you're not going to be able to, you're going to try, but you're going to fail. Thomas said in chapter 14, verse five, you tell us to follow you, but we don't even know where you're going. So how can we know the way? And you and I have been there from time to time. God, I don't even know what you want from my life. How am I supposed to know the way? I don't even know what your will is for my life. I don't even know what it is you want to do. I don't fully get this and I've walked with you and I've studied and I've seen your power and I've watched you serve and you're calling me to follow you, but I don't even know where you're going. How am I supposed to do that? Then Philip in chapter 14, verse eight says, show us the father and it suffices us. In other words, just give us another sign that God is with you and that you are the son of God. Just show us your father. Help us to understand. Take us through that final door that we can't seem to get through. In chapter 14, verse 22, Judas, not Judas Iscariot who betrayed him, but another Judas said, why are you showing yourself to us and not to the world? That is the most pivotal question of all. Why are you showing all of this just to us? We could say that today too in this sanctuary. God, why are you speaking all of these things? Why are you showing us all these things? Why are you visiting us in our worship so powerfully? Why are you sending us your word? And when you have the power really to send it to the whole world, God, you could just speak to the world. Couldn't you? Couldn't he? He could just speak. Trust me. His voice is loud enough to reach the whole world right now. If he decided to do that. And so Judas is saying, why are you showing yourself just to us and not to the world? And this is where it gets really interesting because the answer is I'm going to show myself to the world through you. That's why that's the plan of God. There is no plan B. I'm going to show myself to the world through you. And we say, well, how in the world is that going to happen? God almighty. I spend my day just trying to survive. I spend my day trying not to curse those who curse me and respond in a light spirit or work my two jobs to feed my kids and keep the bills paid. And you're going to show yourself to the world through me. How in the world is that going to happen? Jesus said in John 16, beginning at verse 13, 12 rather, I have many things to say to you, but you can't bear them now. In other words, I've got lots of things I want to tell you that are for you, but you can't hear them yet. However, when he, the spirit of truth has come verse 13, he will guide you into all truth for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the father has are mine. Therefore I said, he will take of mine and he will declare it to you. Now here's the point that Jesus is making. You can't hear it because I'm going to the cross. And when I go to the cross, I'm going to take all captivity captive. I'm going to pay the price for your sin so that you no longer have to be separated from not just redemption in God, but from the life of God within you. And I'm going to purchase for you a new life. I'm going to purchase for you giftings of the Holy spirit. I'm going to purchase for you something that will make you a wonder to the people of this world. I'm going to come in the form of the Holy spirit and dwell your physical body. And the Holy spirit is going to show you the things that I have bought for you on the cross. He's going to show you these things. Praise be to God. He's going to take what is mine and he's going to declare it to you, to you. He's going to show you the source of your strength, the source of your power, because everything the father has belongs to me, Jesus said. So he's going to take it and show it to you because it also belongs to you. Everything I win becomes yours as well, because I'm the head and you are my body on the earth. In that day, verse 23, verse 22, he says, you will have sorrow, but I'll see you again and your heart will rejoice and your joy. No one will take from you. And in that day, now he's talking to his disciples about the day when he is raised from the dead, when the debt has been paid, when the power of the Holy spirit has come, when this new life that's promised us in Christ becomes ours, you will ask me nothing. In other words, there'll be no more. You won't need to ask all these former questions anymore. They'll all be answered most assuredly. That means truly. I say to you, whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give it to you until now. You have asked nothing in my name ask and you will receive that your joy might be full. Now this is available to people like you and I, who are saying, God, I want the power to live my life for the sake of other people. I don't want people in this world to die because they, in their sin, because they have failed to see you in me. God, I recognize my limitations to reach them. I recognize the limitations of my physical body, of my natural mind, of my natural heart. I recognize God that I don't have the strength to go there, but it's going to be in the strength of your victory that you're going to make me into another person. And you're going to bring glory to your own name through me. And so I'm asking you now to show me God, what you purchased for my life, what the trip is that you have from my feet ahead of me. And I'm asking you Lord to send me into this mountain of confused and hurting humanity and make a difference for your glory and for your kingdom sake. Oh God, give me the grace, my God, to stop and speak with people as you did to the Samaritan woman and the people of Samaria. Give me the grace, oh God, to speak to people that I have nothing in common with, to speak to people that nobody else wants to talk to. Give me the heart to stop in my journey. Give me power in my speech, oh God, as you gave, as you had Lord Jesus Christ and you spoke to the noblemen and you told them, you go home and don't worry, your son is going to live. Give me power in my speech. I don't want to be an argument in this world. Power has to be in our speech now. And I believe that if we will ask God, he will put power in the softest spoken word. The power is of God. It's not of us. It's not by how our voice intonation sounds. It's something that God does. When we speak, God begins to move. As I'm speaking now, you're feeling something in your heart. These words are deeper than just your ears. They're going through you. You know it's true because there's power. When God is anointing, there's power in speech. It has the power to drive away all the darkness and dissipate all the evil that's around. It has the power to reach into the inner presence of people's minds and their hearts. God, give us the power to make a difference as your church in people's lives, no matter how long they have been in that situation. There are people trying to tell us today that our society is too far gone. It's been too long. The scale has tipped too much into godlessness for there to ever be a spiritual awakening. I've only one word for that, baloney. That's all that is, is total baloney. God can raise the dead. God can cause the sea to stop its fury. He can stop the wind. No matter how long this society has been in this condition, the Lord can turn it in a day. He can change any situation. He can bring that which is dead back to life. God almighty, give me the power to walk in impossible places. Give me the power, Lord, to walk where I can't naturally go, where I would tremble, where I would sink under the threats of the waves. God, give me the power to walk in impossible places. Give me the power to keep following when it gets hard and when I don't understand. Give me the power to speak boldly, even at the threat of my own life and my own freedom. God, give me the power not to back away. Give me the faith in my heart to believe that I'm divinely protected and can walk through every threatening situation and that no one can touch my life until you have finished. I've finished the course that you've set for my feet. Give me a heart to stand and intercede for those that are condemned in their sin. Give me the power to help people who can't see to have sight to see a way forward. Put something in my speech, put something in my life that will raise people out of the grave when they feel there's no hope and when everybody else in the world has given up hope on them and everyone is weeping over their condition. My God, give me the power to call them out of the grave and back into life in Christ's name. And God, I'm asking, as once happened for you, Lord Jesus Christ, that a voice from heaven would confirm the ministry that you've given to me. That can be your cry. You see, the voice is something that speaks to a person's heart. When you are in unison with God, you are only telling a person what God's already speaking to them. And there will be a voice that confirms your words. You don't have to argue with anybody. You speak the softest word and it can just destroy years and years of entanglement that the enemy has put in people's minds. And lastly, and mostly, give me the power to serve, because that's where it all led to. That was the final act, in a sense, before the cross, before his disciples. He showed them where all the power they had seen led to this place of a towel and a basin and washing the feet of other people. And he said, you see, only God can do these things. You see, because in the world, when we seek power, we automatically think it's going to elevate us. In God's kingdom, when we receive the true power of God, it brings us to a place of humility, a place of serving one another. The greatest in the kingdom of God will be the servant of all. It's so contrary to our thinking. He said to his disciples, up to this point, you've not asked me for anything in my name. Truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Now, the question is, do we believe that? Do we honestly believe that? Whatever we ask in my name, it will be given to you. Now, if you really believe that, you'd be at every prayer meeting every time the doors of this church are open, if you really believe that. You'd pray first thing in the morning, you'd pray at noon, you'd pray at night, if you really and I really believed. And I'm asking God to put that faith in my heart. Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Now, he's speaking it in the context of being yielded for the sake of other people. He's not talking about asking for a Porsche and you know what I'm talking about. It's in the context of being yielded for other people, of yielding our lives for the sake of the lost. Today, during the worship, I just started crying out on this platform and I was thinking of some people I've met recently and I was saying, God, don't let them die in their sin because they've not seen you in me. God, help me to reach them. Help me. There's a new cry that God's planting in my heart and I don't care who hears it. I don't care how often I have to cry it now. God, help me to reach them. And only you can give the skill because I don't have it. Only you can give the words. Only you can be the voice that speaks to every heart. Only you can open the prison doors. I'm willing to stand, but God, it has to be you. And I find myself saying, Father, give me what I need to do what you've called me to do. What's the point of being on the radio calling a nation back to God if there's no power behind it? It's pointless. It's just more noise on the radio. But I'm asking now, God, you've got to put a compelling in our voices. You've got to lift us as your church out of mediocrity and bring us back into the power of the Holy Spirit. You've got to deliver us from the pride of always learning and never being brought to the knowledge of where that truth is supposed to take us. You have to deliver us from the desire for robes and titles and all these things that hinder the work of God. You have to give us a basin and a towel once again in the house of God and teach us what it means to serve, even to serve our enemies. Jesus washed the feet of Judas, even to serve those that are going to harm us, to serve those that hate us, to serve those that may even take our freedom in the future. Do we have the courage to say, God, God, give me the power to serve. Give me the power not to exact vengeance. Give me the power to speak kindly when others don't speak kindly. Until now, you've asked nothing in my name, asking you will receive that your joy might be full. You see, there has to be a shifting of focus. The joy has to be not about ourselves anymore. It has to be about others. See, that's where the joy is full now. The joy is that I see people coming to Christ. The joy is that even enemies find forgiveness from God. That's where the joy comes from that he's talking about. It's not just getting happy and clapping our hands in the house of God. It's that joy that's in heaven over every sinner that comes to Christ. It's that joy that the angels know around the throne of God. It's a whole other worldly joy, but it doesn't come until we're surrendered. It doesn't come until we're saying, Lord, lead me to where I can't go and make me what I could never be and give me what I don't possess. We believe that it's the delight of God to give it to us. Ask and you will receive that your joy might be full. I believe with all my heart that it's time to ask. It's time to ask. It's time for the church to ask. It's time for us to rise out. We see our society perishing around us. Nobody can debate that anymore. It's time that we rise up out of infancy. As mature sons and daughters, we say, Lord, I get it now. I understand it, but I can't go through like Peter. Lord, I can't follow you now, but oh God, if you'll give me your Holy Spirit, if you will make your promises real in my heart, I trust and I believe that my life will make a difference. We are in the same place that they were back then. They all knew they had no power to go forward without the Holy Spirit, but when God's Holy Spirit came, oh my goodness, when God's Holy Spirit came, they came out of that place of prayer and they started speaking the things that God was doing and was going to do. In the first day alone, 3,000 people bent their knee because they saw the church of Jesus Christ. This is my prayer for this generation. It's my prayer for my own heart. It's my prayer for you. It's my prayer for every church in this country that God would give us the grace to be raised up again and we would have the courage to ask. Have the courage to ask for that pathway for your life and the giftings you need. Have the courage. Have the courage for the sake of somebody that needs to see Christ in you. Have the courage to ask. We're going to stand in just a moment and Elder Vicki, I'm going to ask you to sing that same song again about the mountains can still be moved. If God's speaking to your heart today and you are with me and others like me that say, Lord, I want this with all my heart. I want this journey. I want my life to count. I don't want to be among those that are just always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. I want to make a difference, Lord Jesus Christ, for your sake and for the sake of people that you died to save. God, I want to leave this world of self-focus and be yielded for the sake of others. I'm trusting you to give me what I need. See, it starts with the awareness that you don't have what you need and that's okay. That's why you ask. When it starts to happen in your life, when your heart starts to change and when gifting started to abound in your life, you find yourself speaking things that you never thought you would and speaking to people you never thought you'd go to and doing things you know it's not in your capability of doing, then suddenly there's a joy that words can't even begin to describe it, the joy of being given for the sake of others. So, Father, I thank you, God, today, Lord, for you are speaking to us. You're challenging all of us. My heart first, Lord, to go maybe a little further than we've gone before, to ask the right questions now and to pray for the right things. Lord, this country is going to perish if we don't rise up, and we can't rise if you don't give us the power. So, Lord, we ask you to do in us what only you can do. Everyone who's hearing, everyone who's listening today, God, do in us and for us what only you can do. We're coming to ask. You said that we would receive and our joy would be full. So, we take you at your word this day. In Jesus' name, I'm going to ask if you would stand, and if the Lord's speaking to your heart, and you say, Pastor, I want to be part of this journey, I'm going to ask you just to come, and we're going to pray together at this altar. Wherever you are, just slip out of your seat, balcony, go to either exit, make your way down in the annex. You make your way here, we'll wait for you. Thank you for coming. Thank you. I see young and old. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Don't be afraid to ask, because it's his delight to give it to you. Jesus said, until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. What an amazing word today. Until now, we've really, in some ways, not been asking in Jesus' name in a way that represents him as he moved on this earth. I thank God today. God is inviting us into a new place of faith, where we're going to have what we received this week, where we've got our week set out in front of us. If we will ask for something that is not self-focused, that's all. Just ask for one thing that is not self-focused. Lord, give me courage to speak to her. Lord, let me reach out to him. Lord, let me release all that bitterness, and then let me do something loving. Lord, take me out of where I always seek my own comfort. Just this one time, let me give you five minutes of prayer, that I may be led. He said, if you ask in my name, you will receive it. If you ask for something that is not self-focused this week for the benefit of others, if you and I will ask, and it will involve taking a towel, he said, you will receive it. I think that, beloved, we've been asked to step into the miraculous this week, to step into something that where our faith will shoot up, because we will have it. We will receive what we're asking for, if it will not be self-focused. And who knows where that will lead? One thing we do know, it will lead to joy. And it says a full joy. And joy is what people notice. So, Lord, we just thank you today. We ask for the grace now to hear you, and we ask you for the grace to keep our ears open. We ask, Lord, we see our week before you, and we're asking for something where we are not the focus, where we are not self-focused in our prayer. Lord, I pray for me this week as I travel, Lord. So many times when I travel, I just get shut down and all about what I'm supposed to do. Lord, I ask you to keep my eyes open and keep me sensitive to the people around me, even when I'm tired, even when I feel depleted, even when I have a big don't want to. Oh, God, even when I'm in a different culture and it's harder, oh, God, I just pray, Lord, that I will be available and I will speak. And I thank you, God, that I have the answer to this prayer. I thank you there's a divine appointment, and I thank you a shot of joy will come through me, and it will be faith building for your glory. I thank you everyone at this altar, oh, God, is seeing their week before them. And we know we can ask for something that is not self-focused, and we will receive it. We will receive it. We thank you. We have the answers to this prayer that is not self-focused. So I thank you, oh, God, this week is going to be different. This week, we're going to hold our head up high and walk in faith because we're asking for things you ask for, Jesus, for our benefit. Where you ask for boldness to keep walking in the midst of your enemies, that's because some people were going to hear you. Lord, I thank you. We're going to ask it in Jesus' name, and it's going to happen. We are going to receive it, and our joy will be full. Thank you. We're coming back next week different because we're hearing you today. And I just thank you that. I thank you for that. So, Lord Jesus, receive all the glory now. Receive all the glory. It's not about us this week. It's not about our self-focus, and we're about to step into a place of faith. We're having the answer, and our joy will be full. I can hardly wait to see the worship Sunday next week. So many are coming back with a joy because we have the answer to our prayer, and it's about someone else. I thank you for this shot of faith into your church this day. Lord, we just know who we are apart from you, but we thank you. You're giving us a new heart. You're giving us a new mind to see things. We thank you for this living word. We are grateful for it, and we are changed, and all God's people said, Amen.