DAVID: So you can do something about it. You see God does it to bless you. God doesn’t need to curse someone else. He’s eternally supplied! And so He wants you to request and I’m going to show you why. Remember we talked about this problem with inner chaos. Did you know that the prayer request is actually God’s way of removing that inner chaos from you? Look at this. Philippians 4, verse 6 and 7. Beginning in verse 6 it says: Don’t worry about anything. Instead pray about everything. Okay? Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. So some people say if you’re asking God for something you can’t possibly be thankful. This contradicts that because it’s telling you to while you’re asking God for what you need you’re thanking Him for what He has done. You can be requesting and grateful at the same time! Then verse 7 says, and we all quote this one. Peace that passes all understanding. Right? But it says: Then you will experience God’s peace which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. When Then. When?
AUDIENCE: Then.
DAVID: Church, when?
AUDIENCE: Then!
DAVID: When is then? It’s talking about when you give Him your purposes. Come to God. Ask Him for what you want. Then the peace of God will fill your heart! When you enter into the realm of prayer requests what you’re doing is you’re collecting all of your needs, all of those things that trouble you and you’re handing them over to God. That inner chaos in you you’re taking it and leaving it in God’s hands. So the prayer request is one of the keys to stillness of the soul! When we give God the things that trouble us within us, when we give Him those things that are on our mind it frees us to be able to enter the deeper realms of prayer. Here’s the problem and this is why the prayer request is looked at negatively. Because when people pray and they unburden themselves of their earthly desires and their earthly concerns they give it to God, they feel the peace flood them then what do they do? They say thank You, God and they go on their way. God didn’t give you the peace so that you can walk away. He gave you the peace to move closer! So the prayer request is Number One. Number Two is reverencing. John chapter 4, verse 23 says: But the time is coming, indeed it’s here now, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship Him that way. I was at a church and I don’t mean, if you’re religious I’m sorry, you’re going to get offended, but I was at a church that had one of those angry drill sergeant worship leaders.
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
DAVID: The ones who scolds you if you’re not doing exactly what they need you to do during different parts– Oh, don’t you love the Lord? Oh come on. You can lift your hand or you can yell, and they say the same things, you can yell for a baseball game, you can yell for a football game but you can’t yell for Jesus! All right they say those things. And so she’s yelling at people. I’m going oh my goodness! She’s like really angry at this church. I– it’s like, this is like, this is righteous indignation or she’s got to repent, one of the two, and she’s yelling at them and I remember just the atmosphere was very– it wasn’t God. It was the flesh. It was very uncomfortable. And she says come on, you’ve got to get used to this because this is how it’s going to be in heaven. I said I sure hope not!
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
DAVID: And so I recognized in that moment that you can’t demand worship!
AUDIENCE: That’s right.
DAVID: Worship cannot be demanded. It’s cultivated!
AUDIENCE: Oh, that’s right!
