Perseverance in Prayer

Well, greetings tonight. Sure is good to see everyone. I think I would like to ask, if you are under 20 years old this afternoon, would you please stand real quick for me? Under 20, please stand for me real quick. All right, now, Pastor, you don't stand up, okay? That's under 20. If I'd have said under 60, you could have stood. Now I want you guys to sing us, I'm just kidding. I want you to give them a hand, man. I am so thrilled to see all of the young people that we have here tonight. You guys can be seated.

I just wanted to recognize you, and I wanted to tell you how proud I am that you are here in God's house, and I'm praying especially for you tonight, and of course for everyone else. I want you to take your Bibles and turn with me tonight to Luke chapter 11 as we continue on the theme of perseverance. Last night we did look at the subject of running with perseverance, and my heart's desire and prayer is that every person at Grace Life Church, and especially everyone who was here last night under the hearing of God's Word, that you would finish the race well, that there would no one that would be disqualified or sidelined.

The Apostle Paul said, "The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith, and I finished the course. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the righteous judge will give me on that day." That's what I'm praying for each and every one of you, and that you will one day pass over from this life to the next, and you, how awesome would this be that you would hear from God Almighty these words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." I hope that stirs something in your soul.

I also want to mention though that I want to see you not only personally, but as a church, as Grace Life Church run with perseverance. God in His grace and providence has given you such a great start. Do you understand, members of Grace Life Church, how much the Lord has done for you and how good He has been to you thus far? I want to challenge you again to give your best energy Grace Life Church and your best effort to what God is giving Himself to for time and eternity, and that is His Church. And I want to take just a little bit of liberty here.

I have met multiple people over the past two days who are guests in attending and visiting, and I want to say to you out of love and sincerity that I would consider giving yourself to this church. I just want to be real with you. Let me say it this way. They are running the right race in the right way, and I don't think you will regret when you get to the end of your race that you gave yourself to running with this church. That's what I felt I needed to say to you tonight. Well, as we transition, as they've already mentioned tonight, I want to preach on the subject of praying with perseverance. Let's look together at Luke chapter 11.

We'll begin in verse number five. "The Lord Jesus speaking, and He said to them, being His disciples, 'Which of you shall have a friend go to Him at midnight and say to Him, 'Hey, 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. 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 Him because He has His friend, yet because of His persistence, He will rise and give Him as many as He needs.

So I say to you." Now here's the lesson that Jesus has given in that illustration. You ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives. And he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Now the context of Luke chapter number 11 is the Lord's Prayer. I didn't read that section of it to you. Some may call it the model prayer or the disciples' prayer. It really doesn't matter either way.

What's going on is the Lord Jesus has just finished praying, and His disciples walk up to Him and say, "Lord, teach us to pray," good song, by the way, "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples to pray." And you just can't help but think that as the disciples observed the Lord Jesus praying, they're like, "Show us how to do that. Teach us to commune with the Father the way you do. Teach us to see answered prayer the way that you do." And what about this? Jesus answers them, and we get to hear exactly what He told them in how to pray. In Luke chapter 11 verse 2, here was His answer. When you pray, pray after this manner.

How many of you know this? Our Father who is in heaven? Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver some evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Now let me break that section down for you real quick. The first part we would title maybe the paternity of prayer, the first section. When you pray, pray after this manner, our Father. So everyone listen tonight, if Jesus were teaching you to pray, this is what you do.

You call God Father. Now that may seem very normal to you, but think about this. The God of whom Jesus Christ is calling Father is who you get to call Father. The same God they see Him communing with is who you get to communicate with when you wake up in the morning as you sit in your pew tonight. Jesus says, "I am the Son of God and I have made you sons of God." We got the same Father. I'm glad you said amen. I was about to have to ask somebody for one. Then we see secondly the priority of prayer. Pray to your Father and say, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done." As God's sons, man, I don't want my kingdom. I might be here 70 years.

My kingdom has no glory. As a son of God, God, your kingdom come, your will be done. Then we see the provision of prayer. So Lord, give us this day our daily bread. So we're yours. We want your kingdom to come. We want the earth filled with your glory, but give us this day what we need in order for that to happen. Then we see the pardon of prayer. Forgive us our trespasses. This is confessing sin and walking in continual fellowship with God by the blood of Jesus. Then lastly, you could break it down this way, the protection of prayer. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. You know what he's saying there?

We are no match for sin, flesh, and the devil. Do not lead us into temptation. We don't have the strength, but deliver us from evil. We might run our race and finish our race and do what you've called us to do. Hey, you know what usually happens? That's where we stop. That is not where Jesus stopped in his instruction and prayer, right? They came and they said, "Lord, teach us to pray." And he goes through all of these, and he continues, but we stop. I'm guessing that most of you do not have a problem with the paternity of prayer, calling on God your Father. Probably don't have a problem with that.

Every once in a while you might have a problem with praying, "Your will be done." I doubt that any of us have any problem with this part of the prayer. Give us this day our daily prayer. Give us what we need, Lord. We probably don't have a problem with that pardon of prayer. God forgive me. God forgive me. And we probably don't have a problem with that part of the prayer for protection. Lord, help me. Keep me from the evil one. Keep me from myself. Keep me from temptation. But the part of prayer that I bet we do have a hard time with is the part that we stopped before, persevering in prayer.

I want to ask you a question before we get into the exposition of the text tonight. What is your greatest burden? What is your greatest need tonight? It probably wouldn't take that long. If you could say, "Oh God, do something," it would be, "Boom." What would that be? Now, let me ask you this question. Have you persevered in prayer for it? See, somehow we all have the Lord's Prayer memorized, but we stopped where Jesus didn't stop. It's like, "Hey, all of this, these are the principles for prayer, but here's the biggie.

You are going to have to persevere in it." And I'm afraid that's the missing piece of many of our prayer lives, and it might be the most important part. Is it a family need? A spiritual need, a battle with sin, a health need, a financial need, praying for a spouse, a lost loved one, direction on a decision, a church or kingdom need? I want to ask you again, would you say that you have persevered in prayer for it? What about revival? As we have prepared for it as we are in the middle of revival. I wonder how many of you could say, "I persevered in prayer for this. I persevered in prayer for this for my church.

I persevered for this in prayer for my family." Jesus says, like, "This is the big deal." Brother Chris asked me, I think it was yesterday. He said, "Is there anything specific that we can pray for you?" And I said, "A big love offering." No, I'm just kidding. I absolutely did not think that. I cut up with you guys a lot. I have a lot of freedom with you. And here's what I said. It's best I can remember it, that I will be as desperate for the next message as I was for the last one. My prayer, it wasn't come Sunday, preach the Sunday morning message, did someone get saved? Was everyone's lives changed? That's not the way it works.

That's not the normative way. Someone may have gotten saved. Someone may have gotten healed. That's not the normative way. The normative way is you keep on keeping on. You stay desperate. You continue persevering, asking, seeking, knocking until he answers. And that's what I want to ask you, even on this Monday, this Monday night, did you kind of stop the prayer process on Saturday night?

I'm going to say, "No, my prayer today has been more intense than it was Saturday because I'm still desperate and persevering in prayer." I want to share with you two things that I hope will help you learn this lesson that Jesus taught his disciples when they asked, "Help us to pray like you." The first one is not taken directly from the text, but I feel like I need to give it to you. It's going to be this, examples of persevering prayer. So I might just say this, let me just show you from the Bible how big this is. James chapter 5, if you would turn there please. James chapter 5 verse 13. I can hear your phones turning right now.

Listen to this text. James chapter 5 verse 13, "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray." Yeah. We got that. Our Father, give us this day, our daily bread. Help us, give us. "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and what should you do? Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he's committed sins, he'll be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man abels much." Pause. So we see like that first section of the Lord's Prayer, how important it is to pray. Pray about everything. Now watch what comes at the end. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not reign and did not reign on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again seven, oh I put that into the text my bad, and he prayed again and the heaven gave reign and the earth produced its fruit. So he says pray, pray, pray, pray. And then he stops him. He says, "Let me give you an example of how you should pray.

These things I've been talking about." You guys remember Elijah from the Old Testament? He says, "You know Elijah was a man just like you? Like there was nothing special about him. No different than you and I, except he persevered in prayer. He prayed for three and a half years." Or let me say it this way, he prayed earnestly and it did not reign for three and a half years. I don't know about you but the word earnestly interests me because he's trying to tell us you have to learn to pray with perseverance.

And so one, prayed earnestly, if you study this, means quote, "In prayer he prayed, not in prayer he played." In other words, when Elijah prayed, the guy just like us, when he prayed he got down to business. When he prayed, he prayed in the spirit. When he prayed, he prayed fervently. How about this? When he prayed, he prayed with all his heart. Is that how you prayed? The English definition of that word earnestly is this, exhaustively, intensely. Y'all, I copied and pasted this straight out of the Merriam-Whibster dictionary. Intensively, painstakingly, thoroughly, unremittingly. That's how Elijah prayed.

And that's what Jesus is trying to teach his disciples. Here's all the principles and yes, you should pray for all of these things but you must learn to pray with perseverance, earnestly. What I just read, does that describe how you've prayed for your greatest need? How you've prayed for your greatest burden? How you've prayed for revival? Turn with me now, if you would, to Daniel chapter 10. Verse 12, "Then he said to me, 'Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.'" That ought to be blowing somebody's mind about right now. Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days for the vision refers to many days yet to come. Just in case you didn't know what was going on there, Daniel has set himself to fast and pray towards the Lord.

And after twenty-one days, an angel comes and he says, "Hey, I just want you to know I heard the first day, and I have come because of your words." Okay? This is happening because you called, because prayer works. But I want you to know that there's something that goes on when you pray that you don't see. He then reveals to us a little snippet of the unseen world. And he talks about a principality, a demonic force, a prince. He says, "Over that territory withstood me," listen, "until Michael the archangel came and helped me." I don't even know what to tell you there.

Except the Bible says, "Are you listening to me?" That's why you have to persevere. He heard on day one, but he did not come on day one. He came on day twenty-one. So sometimes, guys, we've got to keep praying because we don't know what's going on in the unseen world. This is just Bible. You must pray with perseverance. Paul picks up on this in a passage you're very familiar with. What did we see happening in Daniel? We saw spiritual wrestling in the heavenlies. Well my goodness, what does Paul tell the church in Ephesians chapter six, verse twelve? We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against power.

I just got to stop. How did Daniel win? How did he win this wrestling match? He toiled in prayer for twenty-one days. Could I just be transparent with you a moment? We all could repent right here. Pastor Jason, when's the last time that first Baptist church labored in prayer for twenty-one days over their greatest need? When's the last time you know of anyone who labored and wrestled in prayer for their greatest burden and greatest need? I'm not saying every time that it has to be twenty-one days. I'm not saying Daniel's situation is normal, but I'm telling you all over the Bible, we are commanded and called to persevere in prayer.

What Jesus taught his disciples, they would have to do. Now let me finish that text there in Ephesians chapter six. He says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day and having done all to stand. And I'm going to skip to the end where he closes it out in verse eighteen.

He says, "And praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful, being alert to this end," here's our word, "with all perseverance and supplication for the saints." Man, I would like to say to you, so many of the things that you're so burdened about, you're going to have to win spiritual warfare to get it. You're going to have to see it's not about that individual, it's not about their ability, it's not about their power.

You're not wrestling with flesh and blood, you're wrestling against principalities and powers and spiritual things, and the only thing that brings that down and conquers it is prayer so that the Lord gets all the glory. And so we see clearly the examples of persevering prayer. Now I want you to look secondly as we turn back to our text at the exhortation to persevering prayer, in other words, what did Jesus say to exhort his disciples about persevering in prayer? I'm not going to go back and read the text but I'm just going to kind of commentate on it.

Jesus after he tells them the principles, he then uses an illustration to show them what persevering in prayer looks like. He tells the story of a man who has a guest drop in and this visitor shows up and this guy just happens to be all out of bread and it's late at night and all the stores are closed. They had those then. And he goes to his buddy's house and he says, "Hey man, I just had somebody drop by, I don't have any bread. Could you give me however many I need?" And he's like, "Dude, leave me alone. I'm in bed. I got to get up for work early tomorrow. My kids are all in bed.

Go find somebody else." And he says that though the friend did not help him because he was a friend, which he should have, he says he did end up getting up and helping him because his buddy sat down there, "Hey! Hey! I'm not leaving until I get some help." Wouldn't that be good of some Christian people and of God's church to stand at the door of heaven at the throne if you will and just saying, "I'm not leaving until I get some help." You think maybe that's the missing... Listen, it's not that you don't pray. It's not that you don't ask for things. It's not that I don't.

I'm just telling you, I think we stopped short in the text in Jesus' teaching on prayer. We don't know how to persevere. Now a clarifier, this text is not teaching that if you pray for everything long enough and hard enough, you'll get it. It's not saying that. We're not getting into name it and claim it. Y'all know what I'm talking about there? Well, I'm just going to say I want a million dollar house or the pool. Pastor Jackson said I can keep on knocking, he hadn't promised that just saying maybe in heaven, the new heaven and new earth, maybe he'll let you have that. No, there are things that are outside of the will of God.

For example, the apostle Paul who knew how to pray and he knew how to persevere in prayer, he was given a thorn in the flesh and he besought the Lord three times to take it from him and God said, "It's not my will to take it from you." Okay? There are some things that are outside of the will of God. David fasted and prayed after his little boy died, pleaded with the Lord and God said, "David, I'm not giving your son back. You can go to be with him but I'm not giving you your son back." That's outside of the will of God. But that's not what Jesus focuses on in this text.

He focuses on there is so much more that you could see and have and experience if you learn how to persevere. Here's what I want to say to you tonight in this exhortation. If you take notes, I would tell you to write this down. Delays are not always denials. But persevering prayer and Jesus is teaching here is delays are not always denials. Just because you do not initially receive something doesn't mean that you're not going to get your answer as we talked about with Daniel, as we talked about with Elijah. Y'all, just Elijah's little story real quick.

God was the one that told him to pray and it wouldn't rain and God was the one that told him to pray and that it would rain again. So Elijah just does what God says. He kneels down, if he kneel down, doesn't really say that he did that. But it does say that he prayed and he asked the Lord to bring rain. Nada. Now I just point that out because this is in the will of God because God himself asked Elijah to pray for this rain. Why did God have him? He prayed a second time and a third time. I mean by now Elijah's probably like, "Am I, do I have some unconfessed sin I don't know about?

Did I misunderstand what God had promised me or called me to?" He prays four, he prays five, he prays six and on number seven there was a cloud appeared that looked like a man's hand and here comes the rain. You say, "Why did Elijah pray seven times?" I just say because that's how many it took to get the answer. He's absolutely in the will of God. Delays are not always denials for God's reasons and God's purposes. He had Elijah persevere in prayer. Delays are not always denials. How about Acts 12, verse five? Prayer was therefore kept in prison but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.

I probably shouldn't spend too much time here. James has already been beheaded. I mean he was just beheaded. So I would have almost been doubtful that God was really wanting to save apostles at this time. He'd already let it happen but we will meet and we'll pray, right? You know we sent out a text or Facebook group chat and like, "Hey, everybody pray. Peter's in prison and he might die tonight." That is not what the early church did. The Bible says the early church got together and there was constant prayer made by the church and we know that he ended up in the middle of the night God answering their prayers.

You're like, "Man, I wonder what like the Greek definition of that word constant is?" I'm glad you asked because I actually looked it up. Here it is, copy and paste straight out of Strong's Concordance. Pertaining to an unceasing activity normally involving a degree of intensity and/or, you're not going to believe this, perseverance. That's what constantly meant there. They prayed with perseverance and it took a minute before God moved and met their greatest need. Now, let's talk about three things as we kind of move towards closing. Pastor, why does God delay answering my prayers?

Well, number one, I'm going to say because of a work of sanctification. Work of sanctification. It's very clear. It's very clear because it could be because of unrepentant sin in your life. So, no matter sugarcoat that. David said in Psalm 66, 18, "If I regard aniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Now, that word regard there means to acknowledge, to see, and to embrace. I want this more than I want God and God will withhold his answers from you until you're willing to let go and make him your God again. Peter chapter 3 verse 7 also gives us an insight into this.

"Husbands, likewise, dwell with your wives with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life," watch this, "so that your prayers are not hindered." How you relate to one another can affect how, that's specifically in the marriage relationship, can affect how effectual your prayers are. So, it could be a work of sanctification. Or number 2, it could be a work of maturation. So, God is delaying and he's calling you to persevere, to keep knocking. And it may be, I think this is the big one, that you will grow in your faith, in your love, in your surrender to him.

James chapter 1 verse 2 says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds," boy, I could just about stop there and preach for 30 minutes, yeah? Just think about that for a minute. Count it all joy when you fall into diverse or all kinds of various trials. Because God can stand on his word and say, "As strange as it may seem to you, I am in control, and I am working it together for your good and for my purposes." Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, so let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete and perfect, wanting nothing.

I want to ask you something. You don't have to reply. But would you say that you've grown the most in the Lord and in your understanding of him and his word and your likeness to him when everything's going great or when you've needed him the most? When's your prayer life the best? When's your fellowship and your seeking of God and your heart for God the best when everything's going perfect or when the bottom falls out? God is saying, "I'm going to let the bottom fall out, but I got control of the bottom." Okay? And I'm going to let it go long enough because there are some things I want to expose in you.

There are ways not like me that I want you, because of this need for me, I want you to turn away from. I want you to love me more. I don't want you seeking me half-heartedly. I don't want you to look warm. It's not good for you. I want what's best for you, and I'm what's best for you, and I'm going to allow this need to hang around a little while until you come after me with all you've got. And that's called persevering prayer. And it matures us. That's when we grow the most. Number three, we said a work of sanctification, a work of maturation. Then there's the work he's doing in the spiritual realm that we talked about in Daniel chapter 10.

This in the garden, as all of hell is being poured out on him, and he prayed in great agony as it were, great drops of blood. Who knows the spiritual battle that's taking place there? And he prays, and he prays, and he prays again. And then fourthly, God made delayed answers because of the work that he's doing in the world. Let me give you a couple illustrations there. You might say it this way, so that he's most glorified in the world. John chapter 11, Mary and Martha send messengers to Jesus, right? Lazarus is sick. Come. He's sick unto death. And Jesus did what? Delayed. And allowed it to get worse.

No, no, no, no, not a little bit worse, not a lot worse. Impossible worse. Dead. Martha, in verse 39, "The sister of him who was dead," Lazarus said to him, "Lord, by this time there is a stench where he's been dead four days. This situation is impossible," Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?" God let this impossible situation come into the lives of Mary and Martha, whom he loved. The delay is not that he doesn't love you, but it may be that he wants to do something in the world through your situation that will bring him the most glory.

You've probably even prayed in the past, "God, use my life!" Well then he may let an impossible situation come into your life so that you can see him work in your life so that he'll be most glorified. God goes into Egypt and takes Israel out with a strong right hand, does just what he said he was going to do, comes across the wilderness, gets to the Red Sea, and they're just sitting there, "You've done all of this for me just to bring us to the Red Sea to die? Nobody can do anything! Moses can't do anything! They can't do anything!" God ordained the impossibility of the Red Sea that they might see, once again, His glory.

And I just want to tell you, God's going to ordain Red Seas for the people that He's brought out of captivity by the blood of the Lamb, by His power. He's still going to let you run into Red Seas and be glorified in your life! And as well as I can say it in faith and in humility, let it be so! I'd much rather be that than Pharaoh in Egypt! Abraham in Sarah. We're studying, that's what I'm preaching through, expositionally in our church. And good night! 190! 100 Abraham, 90! And God comes for like the fourth time! This time He comes in person!

Old Testament appearance of the Lord Jesus, Yahweh is there with two angels to say, "You are going to have that son that I promised you." I know it's hard to believe. I know the way it looks. In the background, Sarah laughs. She's giving up all hope. Just a quick side note. God goes, "Abraham, why did Sarah laugh?" Sarah goes, "I didn't laugh. Really?" They're really going to argue with God about what He sees in your life, but I love even when we fail to believe as we all. Even when we're looking at it and saying, "Oh yeah, you think this dead womb is going to do something now?" And the old man, he's worse off than I am.

And God says, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" And this is where I want to wrap up with you tonight. I want to be balanced and say there's a lot that God won't do, but there's nothing He can't do. And I think you need to hear that. Is your situation bigger than the Red Sea? Is your situation more dead than Lazarus? Is your situation any more desperate or impossible than Abraham and Sarah? And so I ask you, is your situation impossible? No, it's not, is it? I just want to encourage you to ask again.

Well I've asked before, "Ah, what did we learn tonight?" I heard you on day one, but I'm not coming until day 21 or day seven or the third prayer. God knows when He needs to come. He knows when the work is finished in you. He knows when it will most glorify Him. Your job and the church's job is to persevere in prayer. Do you ever feel like, "Man, I feel bad. I feel like I just keep saying the same prayers over and over again." Have you ever thought that? "Pray for my kids. I feel like I pray for my kids every day." You should. I want to say whatever that voice is, put it away from me. That is not a vain repetition.

You persevere constantly, unceasingly, unremittingly, earnestly. Let me tell you something as I'm done. This is the knockout punch, but it's as real as it gets to me. And I'll probably have to ask forgiveness if he listens to this message. But my best buddy in the world came to my house Friday before I came here. And that's my 23-year-old son who no longer lives with us, and I don't get to see him that often. But he came home, and my buddy is going through a tough time. And God, in my opinion, has ordained one of those times where I'm going to kick the bottom out of the bucket, and you're going to have nothing else than no one else but me.

And you know, man, I'm almost 50 years old, and I've been walking with Christ since I was 23, and God in his goodness has shown himself faithful so many times that I know, I trust, and I believe. But Dawson, this is new. I'd like to think God is going to let you know some experiential knowledge, but I can't make it happen. And I'm daddy, and I say all the things I'm supposed to say. And man, my heart was so burdened for him, and I prayed, and I prayed. And Sunday morning, of course I was here going to be preaching to you guys, and I just remember praying stuff like this, "God, just do something that lets him know you're there. Help his faith.

What I know about you, let him know. Please, please, meet him in your words somehow. Just let him be able to connect." Wow, God does hear, and he does care. He talked to my wife last night, and she said, "I just want to let you know what God's called." And he said, "The sermon Sunday morning was so good." Now, I was a parent. I don't know about you. You get a call from one of your youngins to talk to you about the sermon that they heard?

Well, I was encouraged by that, but I went back and listened to the sermon today that he listened to, and I melted because I could not believe that God had ordained a guest speaker on that day to speak into the very exact situation he was in. He'd have to be sitting there. I knew God met him in his crisis, and it just made me, for y'all, be like, "I'm full of faith right now, and I want you full of faith. It may be simple, but let me know. He's real. He's here. He answers, and he delays as he sees fit, and he knows the perfect time frame. And don't you, if that friend says, "Not right now," you keep knocking. You keep knocking.

And don't you ever forget there is nothing too hard for the Lord. Let's pray.