"Get Real" - Mark 11:20-25

Will you get real about your fruit, your faith, and your forgiveness?

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Well, Cedar Street Baptist Church, good morning. It's so good to be in God's house with God's people. I love you so very much, and it's my joy to be with each of you. Gosh, I can't believe how fast the calendar is turning. We are now in the month of October, like it or not. And we are in a series, for those of you visiting, we're in the Gospel of Mark, something I like to do in one calendar year. With God's help, I preach through an Old Testament book, a New Testament book, a topic, a doctrine, and then a portion of a gospel. We started in 2016 just going verse by verse through every word, and we're all the way up to the middle of chapter 11 now. We try to do this every fall for a couple chapters and then we switch to something different. But we're in a series of the Gospel of Mark. It's called Jesus Is. And I want to say, if you're new to the Bible, anytime you read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, there's so many things happening. There's all these supernatural miracles taking place. But we have to understand that the main theme of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is Jesus is saying, I am the Son of God. He demonstrates that he's the Son of God through his power and his authority over nature and demons and religious traditions and blindness and deafness and paralysis and sickness, curses, death, and finally eternal salvation itself. Every time we see something that Jesus is doing, he is saying, I am. Therefore, our sermon series is entitled, Jesus Is. Now, as we turn to Mark 11, we're going to be in chapter 11, verses 20 through 25. And the title of our message here is really simple but not easy. It's Get Real. Get real. Jesus is going to get real with us in this passage. And we have to recognize and respond if we're going to get real with him. Now I want to begin by sharing a story. Sometimes the most powerful spiritual lessons can come from physical objects. We're going to see that here with the withered fig tree. But years ago, one of the best illustrations I ever heard from my pastor and mentor at seminary, Dr. Steve Tillis, I'm amazed that his church did not kill him for doing this. So I'm not doing this, I'm just sharing what he did. But we were at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in the back of the church was this big, beautiful oak tree. It was enormous, and it covered a good portion of the backyard, a lot of shade. Every year we had homecoming out there, and they would put the tables out right there in the backyard. It's just beautiful. It was so beautiful that oak tree was a part of their church logo. Well, he gets up there one Sunday and he says, Church, I want to share bad news with you. I talked to a tree surgeon, and apparently there's a disease in the tree and it's rotting, and we're going to have to remove the tree. And when he said that, there was a collective gasp. And he waited about five seconds and he said, Now, now, church, what I what I just did was I lied to you. Your pastor just lied to you in church. He said, There is no nothing wrong with the tree, there is no tree surge. And he said, But we have gasped that much over a tree that we were going to lose. How often do we gasp for souls that are lost? And then he pointed and said, Raleigh, North Carolina has many lost souls, and we need to reach the loss for Christ. I will never forget the day that he did that. And you say, Well, that's Raleigh, North Carolina. That would never happen in Meadow, Georgia. But I've been told, I was not around for it, but I was told in the early 80s when this sanctuary was built, we lost church members that got upset over certain truths getting cut down. Let me just say this. It is good and it is right to take care of creation and enjoy all that God has made, but a human soul is sacred. Absolutely sacred. And that's what the two ladies talked about during our missions moment, Paige and Sherry. They're dedicating their lives to preserving the sanctity of human life. It's sacred. And we care about a lot of things, but Jesus is the master of taking these worldly, earthly material or object things that we care so much about and saying, no, no, no, I'm showing this to you so that you can see what's really important. And that's what's happening in the human soul. And he's going to do it today through a withered fig tree. He's going to do it today through this tree that a couple of weeks ago he cursed. Now, a couple of weeks ago, when he approached this fig tree, he cursed it for not bearing fruit, even though it had green leaves. He was dealing with outward hypocrisy. But last week he goes into the temple of God and flips over the tables. Last week he was dealing with inward corruption. Well, today he's going to re-examine this tree that he cursed a short while ago, and he's talking today about the cause and effect of the decisions we make in our spiritual life. Every decision you make or don't make affects your soul. And he's going to be talking about that. And he's going to challenge us, as the title says, to get real. And as you hear him speaking to his disciples, he is speaking to each of us. So what's our big idea? I want to get right into it. In one sentence, here it is. Jesus uses the withered fig tree to challenge us to get real about our fruit, our faith, and our forgiveness. Again, Jesus uses the withered fig tree to challenge us to get real about our fruit, our faith, and our forgiveness. So if you want to know more about how Jesus is challenging us to get real, turn with me, if you would, to the Gospel of Mark. Again, if you're new to the Bible, it's in your New Testament. If it's after Matthew, it's before Luke. And if you don't have a Bible, grab the Pew Bible in front of you or beside you. We're on page 1007 in your pew Bible. And if you would stand at this time, out of the reverence to the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant, and fully sufficient word, we are in Mark chapter 11, and we're looking at verses 20 through 25. Hear God's word to us, starting in verse 20. It says, As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed is withered. And Jesus answered them, Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt it in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And what whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we love you. And we are gathered here today to worship you. And much like a withered fig tree, Lord, our eyes, our minds, our hearts, they're focused on worldly things. Not unimportant, just not what's most important. With all that's happening right now in our hearts and minds in this hour, clear the distractions. Help us, Lord, to focus in on how you're speaking to each one of us. How you're asking us to get real with you about our spiritual life and the things that we're doing, and maybe the things that we're not doing are the things that need to change. So, Lord, I pray that you would speak to each of us. I know that you will, but help us to be open to hear it. So be with us right now, I pray, in Jesus' name, and God's people said. Amen. Okay, now if you were not here last week, I try to give us key words so that if you're new to the Bible and you're new to the passage, you can kind of hang on to them. All right, so last week when I talked about the temple, I said there's two words that you have to understand or you will not understand why Jesus stormed the temple and flipped over the tables of the money changers. Last week the two words were worship and witness. We said the reason he was so angry about the temple of God being a marketplace was it was supposed to be a place of worship, but also the Gentiles, the non-believers, were supposed to be in that one spot, the courtyard of the Gentiles, to witness what true worship was all about. So that was last week. Well, today, as we look at this passage, verses 20 through 25, I'm gonna give you two more words. If you don't get these two words, you're gonna miss this passage. The two words I want you to hang on to from now to the end of the message is this trust and dependence. Okay? Trust and dependence. I love the word trust. You know, a lot of people say faith, and we're gonna use the word faith here in a minute, but trust to me is the best way to define the word faith, because you could say faith is just believing with your mind. All right, but even Satan believes with his mind that Jesus is Lord more than you do. But he doesn't trust him as Lord. No, when you begin to trust, that's where your faith really takes root. And when you trust in Jesus, you begin to depend on him for everything in your life. That's a hard sell for us, especially as prosperous 21st century Americans. We have lots of gifts and resources available to us every day, and we want to trust in something other than Christ. Because to trust in Jesus, we have to be like a child. And a lot of us want to do things on our own. We don't want to trust God. We want God to support us in trusting ourselves, and that's not God's agenda, that's our agenda. And Jesus is, oh, he specializes in exposing human hearts. Nobody can get to the heart better than Jesus. And he does it by pointing to a withered fig tree. Now, there's one thing that gets in the way of this trust and dependence, and it's a word I want you to think about throughout this message as well, and that's pride. Pride is what caused original sin. Pride is when we reject Jesus and we want to be the Lord of our own life, and pride will keep us from trusting him and experiencing the grace that God wants to pour out in all of our lives. So let's look at this. Let's get right into it. I want to walk through this, and we're gonna get real about your fruit, your faith, and your forgiveness. So, number one, get real about your fruit. All right, verses 20 through 21. It says, As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away at its roots, and Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. Now, why was the tree withered? If you remember a couple weeks ago, and if you were not here, I'll just catch you up again. They're walking in Jerusalem, the final week of Jesus' life, and Jesus is hungry, and he goes to a fig tree, and even though it was not the season for figs, there were lots of green leaves giving out the symbol that it was bearing fruit, but it wasn't. So he goes to the tree, reaches for fruit, he does not find any, and then he curses the fig tree and says, You will never bear fruit again. And he did that as a symbol of the spiritual condition of Israel. He was coming to Jerusalem, the holy city, and he was wanting to see true worship from his covenant children, and they were not worshiping the one true God. Their hearts were far from God. And he's saying, just like this tree is claiming to bear fruit and it doesn't, you also are called to bear fruit and you're not. Now, what does he mean by fruit? Well, I made the argument, and I'll make it again here today, the fruit that he wants is intimate relationship, first with God and then with each other. We know this because he sums up the whole law by saying, Love God and love others. Now that sounds easy, but it's impossible without God's help. You were planted in the orchard of God to bear the fruit of intimate relationship, first with God and then with each other. So if you're living a life separated from God, you cannot bear fruit because you don't have the root. You're made for God. God's not here for us, we're here for Him. And He loves you and He desires to have true intimate relationship with each one of you in a different way. But if you're living your life without Him and you keep Him out at arm's length and you don't want Him to be in control of how the decisions you're making in your life, you keep Him at arm's length when you're living, well, God's gonna hand him you over to what you really want when you pass. I heard a pastor say this the other day and it was sobering. He says, eventually God gives people what they really want. If you don't want Jesus, he'll hand you over to what you really want. And if what you really want is not Jesus, you're gonna find out eventually it's gonna leave you dry and empty. You have a soul and a heart that was made for God alone. This is the fruit that he's looking for. And Peter goes back to the tree with the disciples, and Peter, of course, is obsessed about the tree. Jesus, look at the tree! Look at the tree, Lord, the tree that you cursed, it's withered. And Jesus immediately begins to talk about spiritual things. Now, before I look at our second point, I want to say this. Later on, when Jesus has all the disciples in the upper room, he talks about fruit and he talks about trees and he talks about the danger of being fruitless. In John 15, this famous passage about abiding in Jesus, in verses 1 through 2, he says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Jesus is serious about spiritual fruit. When you die, you will be handed over to what you really want. If you don't want Jesus now, you're not going to want him in eternity, and hell will be a place of separation from him because you didn't want him while you were here. And it's not his will that any should perish, but all should come to a knowledge of the proof of the truth. Ezekiel says he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He desires for every every person made in his image to come and know him and worship him and trust him. But if you reject him now and you take your final breath, he will hand you over to what it is that you really want. And so that's why right now he's saying, get real about your fruit. Get real about your relationship. Is Jesus the centerpiece of your life? Do you share your heart with him? Do you ask for his guidance as you're making decisions? Do you see that the way you're spending your time and your money and your energy as acts of worship to him? Do you recognize what he's doing in other people's lives and do you participate in that? Do you share what God's done in your life? This is the fruit that he's looking for. That's number one. Get real about your fruit. Well, all this is connected. As we talk about a relationship, we can't help but get past that word faith. So number two, get real about your faith. All right, verses 2 through 24, as Peter's saying, Look at the tree, Jesus says, No, look at me. All right? Jesus answered them, Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Now let me take a deep breath. This is a challenging passage. And I want to do everything I can to be helpful to you as your pastor, your brother, and your friend. Unfortunately, this passage has been it has been ripped out of its context many times over the years. There's something in the 20th and 21st century known as the Word of Faith movement, and it's been very damaging to the body of Christ. The Word of Faith movement, using this passage, says, you can have whatever it is that you want. If you name it, you can claim it. And that is not what I would call true worship and trusting God. That's God, that's making God a magic genie. And you rub the bottle, whatever it is that you want, he will do it when you say, and he will do it how you say it. That's not how our God works. And the word of faith movement has it really has damaged a lot of true biblical Christian faith in this country. But at the same time, there's two extremes. The one extreme is I'm gonna name it and claim it I can have whatever I want. He's gonna do whatever I ask. If I ask it in prayer, and I believe that he'll do it, he'll do it. That's one extreme called the word of faith movement. The other extreme is even more dangerous, and that is we don't pray at all. We don't believe that God hears us. We don't believe that God can, and so we take matters into our own hands. I'd say for most of us, we're probably a lot more in danger of that than we are the word of faith movement. We simply don't go to God when we're in trouble. We double down on our own effort, our own strength, our own bootstraps, and I'm gonna get this done in my own effort. And if I have to work harder, I'm working harder, but I'm gonna do it my way. And we don't recognize that's not the way God made you. God made us to be fully dependent upon him every single day. The problem is he's given many of us gifts. Now they're from him, but those gifts were never so that we would depend on ourselves and not him, but that we would praise him. But no, we use those gifts to depend on ourselves. And so he's telling us right now to get real about our faith, to get real about our faith and to trust in him. And the way that you exercise that trust is daily dependent prayer. And guess what? Prayer's the hardest thing I know. I've been in ministry almost two decades, and I will tell you this: I've made baby steps in my prayer life. You want to find the strongest prayer warriors in your church? Don't look at the pulpit. Look at the gray hair. Look at the ones that have been walking with Jesus 50 and 60 years. They got where they are today because they learned how to walk in daily dependent prayer. Now, it says here that if you have this kind of daily dependent prayer, you can move mountains. What does he mean by that? Well, you have to understand in Jewish literature, the mountain, and again, they're in Jerusalem, which is known as Mount Zion. They're in a mountainous area, the mountain is known as something large and immovable. All right? He's talking about something in your life, whatever it is, that is so big and immovable, you simply cannot move it in your own strength. He's saying that's where prayer comes into play. Because our God is a mountain mover. We in our own power cannot move mountains. That's what mountains are there for, they're immovable. But God can do all things. And he is telling Peter, if you really want to grow, you have better learn to pray. Now, to make sure that we don't take this passage out of context, I want to do something today I haven't done in a long time. And I'm gonna go through it quickly right now, but if you have an interest in this, we're gonna be doing this for our Sunday night study tonight. Over the years, I have had many people come to me with tears in their eyes and they said, Bo, I don't understand. I I've been praying and I believe that God can do it, but I've not seen God respond to my prayers. What am I doing wrong? I've prayed that in my own life. Lord, I've been I've been I've been meditating on this, I've been petitioning you, I haven't seen any changes. Am I doing something wrong? Why have you not answered this prayer? And so to put it in its right context, because every single passage, if you just look at the passage and not what everything scripture says, you can rip it out of its context. I came up with something, and I have copies of it right here on this ledge. I have it in the vestibule, and I'm gonna go through this real fast, but we're gonna look at this together in detail tonight for those that want to come back for Sunday night study. According to the Bible, here's 10 reasons for unanswered prayer. Now, if you're a note taker, again, I got the whole sheet, so you're gonna get a hand cramped if you try to keep up with me because I got to go quick. But I just want to read the reason and the scripture, and then we're gonna talk about this more tonight. Why is it when you pray, you don't immediately see an answer? Well, number one, our prayers may go unanswered when we don't ask at all. That's the problem I talked about a few minutes ago. James 4, verse 2 says, you do not have because you do not ask. So the biggest problem is we don't pray enough. But maybe we are praying and we're not seeing it. And then number two, our prayers may go unanswered when we ask with wrong motives. James chapter 4, verse 3 says, You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions. Sometimes we don't want things to honor God. We just want things for our own selfish desires. Number three, our prayers may go unanswered when we ask without believing that God can. In Mark chapter 6, verses 5 through 6, it said, And he could not do mighty works there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them, and he marveled because of their unbelief. You have got to believe in the very fabric of your soul that our God is infinite in his power and he can do anything. And you and I need to learn to pray big prayers because we trust in a big God. Number five, our prayers may go unanswered when we ask with unconfessed sin. Maybe God wants to answer our prayer, but he says, You and I are going to deal with this first before I listen to anything else you have to say. In Psalm 66 18, David says this If I had cherished and Iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. You know this as a parent. You ask your child to do something and they don't do it, but then they ask you for a favor, they ask you for a gift or a blessing, and you say, I love you, but I'm not talking to you about this until you do what I asked you to do. That's just common parent-child relationship. There are things that God has told us to turn away from, and there's other things that God has told us to go towards. And if we won't listen to him, then we can't always expect that he's going to listen to us. He wants us to confess sin. All right, uh, I think I skipped over one. Uh yeah, number four. Forgive me for skipping over it. Uh, our prayers may go unanswered when number four, we ask outside of God's will. 1 John 5.14 says, and this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Now, I think you should pray about everything, but if you're praying for something completely against the will of God, if you're walking with God, he will give you conviction and understanding in time that what you're praying for is not his will, and he'll give you a desire to know what his will is. Like the great theologian Garth Brooks once said, I praise God for unanswered prayers. There's things we ask, and we have no idea how bad it would be if God actually gave it to us. That's why we trust God. All right, number six, I'm back on track now. Our prayers may go unanswered when we ask with an unrepentant lifestyle. Proverbs 15, 29 says, The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous. If you're living a lifestyle that is contrary to the word of God, I'm not saying he doesn't love you. I'm saying that what he the next prayer he's waiting for is, I repent and I confess. I was wrong and I turn away from this lifestyle. If you're walking in that kind of life, he's waiting for a prayer of repentance before anything else. All right, number seven, our prayers may go unanswered when we ask with unresolved conflict. This one is big, especially for husbands. It says in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 7, likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way. And at the end it says, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Maybe you're asking for these big things, and God's saying, you know what, your marriage is a lot more important than what you're asking for. Why don't you focus on resolving the issues on the home front, and then I'll listen to some of these other things you're praying for. Number eight, this is a big one. Our prayers may go unanswered when we ask, but God says, wait. He may not be saying no. He may be saying, not yet. He may be saying, wait on me. Psalm 27, 14 says, wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Two more. Our prayers may go unanswered when number nine, we ask, but God's grace is sufficient. This is a huge one. Paul learned this the hard way. 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 8 through 9. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, Paul's saying about a thorn in his flesh, but it it that it should leave me. But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. This verse kills the word of faith movement. The word of faith says, if you have enough faith and you name it and you claim it, God will do whatever you want. Well, guess what? You're saying you have more faith than the Apostle Paul. Because Paul had a thorn in his flesh, and we don't know what it is. Some scholars think it was declining eyesight. Some scholars think it was the false teachers and ethicists that were attacking his ministry. Whatever it is, we don't know. We just know he prayed three times for God to take it away. And God says, I'm not going to remove this trouble from your life. I'm going to, I'm doing too much good work by allowing it to remain in your life. Your faith is growing, and your trust and dependence on me will grow more if I leave the thorn than if I take it away. And then number 10, and this goes into our final passage here in Mark 11. Our prayers may go unanswered if we ask without forgiving others. Forgiveness is a big deal in the family of God. Matthew chapter 6, verses 14 through 15. If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. If you refuse to forgive somebody, I don't care what name they called you, I don't care what they said about your kids, I don't care what they did to your business, I don't care what they did to your property, I don't care what it is, it could be horrible. And a lot of times it can be. We can do really horrible things to each other. If you withhold forgiveness for anybody for any reason whatsoever, you simply don't understand how wretched your own sin is and how God forgave you. You don't understand your salvation if you withhold forgiveness for people no matter what they've done to you. And if you withhold forgiveness, you're not walking in grace, and God may not be inclined to hear your prayer. Maybe right now you're in this place and you are holding a grudge. Somebody has wounded you deeply. And God's saying, I love you and I want to heal that, but I can't listen to all these other prayers right now. I want to deal with what's important. You need to forgive this person. You need to let it go. And I want to talk more about that here because that leads us right into our third point. Number three, get real about your forgiveness. Verse 25. And whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. Again, if you and I cannot forgive others, we don't recognize how much God had to forgive us. You know, here's the thing. We're just not offended about our own sin the way we are about other people's. I experienced something a few weeks ago, and I don't think this is uncommon. I think this is an everyday thing, but it made me so uncomfortable, my blood started rising. I went to visit uh a family close to this community that I had not seen in a long time, and I was sitting there having lunch with them, and WTOC was on the news. Uh it was like the 12 o'clock, you know, news or whatever. I don't know what the stories were. They had it muted, we're sitting there eating, but as I was sitting there with the couple, the the wife pointed at the screen and said, You believe what happened in Savannah yesterday? And I said, No. She went, makes me sick. Just makes me sick. And you know, there was just such a tone of self-righteousness in what she said. I thought to myself, have you ever been that sickened over your own sin? Yes, what we watch on the news is sickening. Murder is sickening. Guess what Jesus said? If you have anger in your heart for another person, you have the heart of a murderer. Jesus really is being serious when he says these things. You and I, evidence that you're walking with God is you'll never be more offended by the world than you are by your own sin. And some of us are way too impressed with our own selves. We're not aware, we're not sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, because if you're walking with him and you're sensitive to the Spirit, he's going to show you every time that you're arrogant, every time that you're prideful, every time that you're boastful, every time that you have thoughts and words that don't honor him. And trust me when I say this, it's it's excruciating sometimes. If you tell God, God, humble me, he says, I've been, that's a prayer I've been waiting to answer. And he will do it because he loves us. And if you look in the scriptures, you'll find that when people are growing closer to God, it's not that they're sinning less, it's that they're more aware of their sin than they've ever been. If you don't believe me, listen to how people talk about their sin when they're in the presence of God. Job at the end of his life said, I despise myself and I put on sackcloth and ashes for questioning you. Peter said, Depart from me, for I'm an evil man. Paul says, I'm the chief of sinners. I mean, listen to the, you know, Isaiah, when he's in the presence of God, he says, Woe is me, a man of unclean lips. They're not just being cute or poetic. They recognize his holiness and how far they fall short. And if you recognize his holiness, you'll recognize you don't have enough time to point fingers at other people. You got plenty on your plate to keep you busy until Jesus comes back. The same is true of me. There's so much arrogance and pride in my heart that God wants to deal with. And this is where Jesus is saying to Peter and to us, get real. If you want Jesus to get real with you, start forgiving other people that don't deserve it because you didn't deserve it when he forgave you. Start forgiving other people. Now let me say this before we pray out. How do I know that I've truly forgiven somebody? There's things that forgiveness is, and there's things that forgiveness is not. All right? Don't worry, brother, I forgive you. Forgiveness is not a feeling, forgiveness is not forgetting, and forgiveness is not excusing. There's things that people have done to you that you'll never forget. It'd be impossible to say that you could forget it. And it's not about feeling like I want to forgive, and it's not about saying it was okay, that it was not okay what they did. Here's what forgiveness is, according to Ken Sandy. By the way, great book if you've never read it. It's called The Peacemaker. It's the best book on biblical forgiveness I've ever read. He says there's four promises. Every couple I do premarital counseling with uh goes through these four promises. Number one, I will not think about this incident anymore. Number two, I will not bring this incident up again and use it against you. Number three, I will not talk to others about this incident. And number four, I will not allow this incident to hinder our relationship. When I say I forgive you, once again, I'm not gonna think about it anymore. I'm not gonna dwell on it. I may not forget it, but I'm not gonna dwell on it. I'm not gonna bring this up and use it against you in a future argument. It's been done with. I will not talk to other people about this, and I will not allow this to come between us. That is biblical forgiveness. And if you and I will not offer that to other people, it will hinder our prayer to God. So I'm gonna sum it up. Very simple sentence to sum this whole thing up. Jesus is getting real with you. Will you get real with him? Jesus is getting real with you. Will you get real with him? Whatever is happening in your life right now, and everybody in this room has at least something happening that you wish was not happening, something that you wish in your own power you could change. That's true of every soul in this room. And God may change it, and he may not, but he's not surprised by it. He's not surprised, he's not worried, he's working through this issue. And he's calling you to those two words I mentioned at the beginning of the message. Trust me and depend on me. And if you trust him and you depend on him, you are going to become a person of daily prayer. And it doesn't have to be fancy, it has to be genuine. You pray as you can, not as you can't. You talk to him as God has made you to talk to him. And you talk to him about everything. Now, there are plenty of prayers that I pray. I say this a lot lately in prayer. Lord, I'm gonna ask for big prayers. Let it never be said that I have not, because I've asked not. I'm gonna ask for everything I can think of. But if you don't answer the way that I think or when I think, I'm gonna look at my own life and I'm gonna say, Am I living in unconfessed sin? Am I living in a rebellious lifestyle? Have I not forgiven other people? Do I trust and believe that he can do it? And am I willing to wait if it's a long time before he answers this prayer? And am I willing to trust that if he says no, he's saying, My grace is sufficient. I'm not gonna take away the thorn, I'm gonna strengthen you in it. That's what he's doing in our lives. That's where he's telling us to get real. So my prayer is this wherever you're at in your prayer life with God, take the next step today. Every significant spiritual change that happens in life, it happens in small, simple, gracious steps. If you don't pray at all, this is a guilt-free zone. Prayer isn't is incredibly difficult. It's a supernatural thing, it doesn't come natural. So if you're someone that hasn't prayed, what if for the next seven days you commit to five minutes? And in those five minutes, offer the desires of your heart, talk to him about your struggles, talk to him about the things that you desire, confess sin if God brings it to your mind, turn away from things that don't honor him, and just walk with him one step at a time. Take the next step of your prayer life seriously. If you're in this room and you've had a vibrant prayer life, what's the next step for you? Maybe your prayer should be bigger. I never want to get to heaven and God say, Here are all the blessings that I withheld because you simply did not ask or believe that I could do it. My God can move mountains. So maybe for some of you, we got to start praying mountain-moving prayers. But it also is still gonna happen one day at a time, one prayer at a time. You know, for me this year I started taking three by five index cards, and on every side of the card is a different prayer list. One of them is intercessions for really important issues, one of them are personal petitions for things that I need, and then I have one finance card. And I took this three by five card, and on one side is every financial need I have this year, and I drew a line down the middle, and on the right side I fill out when he meets that need. You know how I learned this from? Someone you may have heard of, named Michael Guido. Now, he didn't do it on a three by five card, he had a huge prayer board inside his office. But I've been doing this for months. And guess what I have found out? God is very creative. He answers every prayer differently. Occasionally, he'll give me exactly what I'm praying for. Sometimes when a need is coming up, instead of giving me the need, he'll give me more work, which provides more income, which I can meet the need. I get a phone call and I get a project where I do freelance writing, or I teach a class at the Guidos, or broadcast a few games, or do something on the side and make a few extra dollars, and that money goes towards the need I have. But you know what he's been doing most of the time? As I've been praying for new things because my old things are wearing out, he makes those old worn-out things last a little bit longer. His grace is sufficient. You don't believe his grace is sufficient? I'll let you look at my cell phone when we close out. I've had it for 12 years. How many other people in this room had a cell phone for 12 years? You don't believe our God is a mountain-moving God? Come check out my iPhone 8. Still has the button on the bottom, still running smooth. God may choose to give us new things, or he may take the things we have and make them last longer than we can every dare dream. Either way, we are called to pray because God is calling us to get real. So that's the invitation. As we enter into this time, how is God speaking to you? What are some areas that you're not taking him seriously? What are some areas that you haven't been praying about for a long time? And God's saying, let's get real. Tell me what's on your heart. As we enter into this invitation, you pray and you share your heart with him wherever you're at, and know that he is good and he will listen. And he will help you take that next step, that small, simple, gracious step of faith. Let's pray. Lord, right now, right now, I commend to you every soul in this room. They're your children. You love them, you know them, you know every hair on their head, you know every ache in their soul. And you just want them to pray, you want them to walk with you, you want them to grow in trusting you. You don't always do what we want, but you will always do what we need, and you'll tell us when we need to respond more faithfully. So, Lord, I pray that you would do it only you can do right now as we enter into this time of imitation. Speak to our hearts. Speak to our hearts. How can we get real in areas that maybe we haven't been? Speak now, Lord, for your servants are listening in Jesus' name.