Pastor Stan Mons
Sermon Transcription:
Father, we come before You today, Lord, and we ask You, Lord God, send Your Holy Spirit. Lord, we ask You, Lord God, send Your Holy Spirit to every living room, every place that people are watching online, Lord God. And we ask You, Father, would You minister by Your Holy Spirit the Word of God today, Lord. Lord, Your Spirit makes this Word come alive. Your Spirit causes our hearts to open up, our eyes to see in ways we have not seen before. Your Spirit ministers the blood of Christ unto us in ways that no man ever can. Lord, we are dependent on the ministry of the promised Holy Spirit today.
Father, in this place, I pray that every person would be touched by Your Spirit, touched in such a way that the eyes of their heart may be opened to see what the Word of God is speaking over us today. Lord God, that we may receive and believe from You, Lord God, today for our personal situation. Lord, that we may all be able to say, "My heart, the eyes of my heart, have been opened. I praise God because He's opened the eyes of my heart. I come to God because He miraculously opens the eyes of my understanding and my heart by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ." When the Spirit touches the Word of God and causes it to come alive inside of me undeservingly, but by the grace of God through the cross of Jesus Christ.
Father, I pray that this afternoon, Lord, You would allow me to deliver this Word in such a way that people long to get along with You. Father, I pray that Your anointing may touch the hearts online and in person in such a way that people want to hide themselves and speak with You, Father, that they would desire to be with You, Lord God, every day of their life. Lord God, I pray that Your Spirit and Your Word may awaken that desire today. Lord, I pray that You take every bit of the flesh or my personal intentions away in Jesus' name, and I ask You, Lord God, that Your Word may come forth unhindered. In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen.
You know, there's a saying in Dutch that my parents used an awful lot while I was growing up. It won't make any sense to translate; I've thought about it during worship, but I can't make that make sense to you. But it comes to the point where parents will say that their kids have a way of getting to them both in the positive sense and in the negative sense. Kids have a way of drawing the worst out of us as a parent if they would really try, but they also have a way of getting to our heart that really no one else can. They have a way of brightening up our day almost in a way that no one else can. Everything may be going wrong, and then they do this one thing you didn't expect, and it makes everything fine for the day.
In the same way, they also have ways of getting to you and really getting to you. But kids have a way of knowing you and understanding you that allows them a way of asking, a way of approaching a parent that there's almost no way to say no, and in many cases, there isn't.
And I wonder, do we know how to behave like that as children in the kingdom? Do we know how to get to our Heavenly Father? Do we know how to come to Him, how to pray to Him in a way that He can't say no? Do we know how to pray, how to press into prayer as a child?
That's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about praying, pressing into prayer as a child, getting to the heart of God, and seeing God maybe even act in unexpected, unusual ways.
I want to start off by reading to you Acts 4:29-31, pressing into prayer as a child. Starting in verse 29: "Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness."
Now, this is not the first time these people were filled with the Holy Spirit. This is one of the times recorded in the book of Acts where, again, the Word tells us they were filled with the Holy Spirit. This time they were together, and they were praying. They weren't just saying their prayers; they weren't just speaking words. What they were doing was praying. They came together, they were praying, and as they were praying together, the Word tells us the place was shaken, and everyone once again was filled with the Spirit of God.
These people did not have more than you and I do. These people did not have more holiness than you do. These people did not have more promises than you do. These people did not have more time in the day than you do. Most of them were failures. Most of them were literally picked up on the side of the road by Jesus and said, "Well, I know no Rabbi found you worthy of following them and discipling you, but you can follow me. I'm inviting you, I'm calling you to follow me." And here these people come together; some of them may not have even believed in Jesus until he had been crucified, but here they are together, and as they prayed, the place was shaken, and they were once again filled by the Spirit of God.
Pressing into prayer as a child. You see, if you're going to learn to press into prayer, and this week we're talking about pressing into prayer as a child, if you're going to learn to press into prayer and if you will get somewhere in prayer, looking at the Word of God, we have something we can take away just from this verse. This is the takeaway: pray willing to be a part of God's plan.
I'll read to you again verses 29 and 30: "Now, Lord, look on their threats—they were being threatened—and grant to Your servants, this is their prayer, that with all boldness they may speak Your word. Lord, I want to be a part of Your plan for this generation. Lord, we need boldness in order to be a part of it. We need boldness in order to continue to make disciples. We need a boldness we don't have in ourselves, a boldness that would cause us to speak about You, by stretching out Your hand to heal, that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy servant Jesus." But they were willing to be a part of God's plan.
They weren't praying for their city but planning to stay at home. They weren't praying for their people but planning to send out someone else and stay quiet. They knew they needed a boldness. They knew they needed the hand of God. They knew they needed the promises of God. They knew they needed a response from God. But they were praying willing to be a part of God's plan. If you're going to learn to press into prayer as a child, a child of God, this is one of the things that needs to be part of, or become part of, the way that you think, the way that you approach the place of prayer: pray willing to be a part of God's plan.
Let me take you to Exodus 32. I'm going to read to you verses 10-14. The Lord speaking in verse 10 to Moses: "Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation." Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God; he didn't listen to God, he didn't leave Him alone. He disobeyed God face to face, if you will. He pleaded with the Lord his God and said, "Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak and say, 'He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?' Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
Here we have Moses in his relationship with the Lord, and God tells him, "Moses, leave Me alone, get away from Me, let Me go because I have it on My heart, I have set it on My heart to turn against this people. They have gone too far. They have disobeyed Me one time too many, in too deep of a way. Moses, leave Me alone, get out of My way." And instead of listening to God, Moses turns, if you will, to God and says, "Well, let me just say this," and he begins to plead with God.
He tells Him, "Lord, why are You so angry, and why do You want to stay angry with these people? Why are You holding on to this wrath? Why would You allow Your hand to come against the people that You actually bore Your hand for? You brought them out of Egypt with Your great hand, and now You're turning against them with Your great hand. Lord, why? Why would people see that You are really different than who You say You are? Why would anyone have any thought against You for how You treat Your people?"
And then he begins to really build a case against God. He begins to really lawyer up for the people against the Lord, and he starts to call to remembrance what God has said. Now he calls God, if you will, to the judgment, to the bench in the courtroom, and he says, "Didn't You say already earlier? Didn't I hear You say? Haven't You already said to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, who later was named Israel, haven't You said to Your servants, haven't You sworn to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and the land I've spoken of I'm going to give to your descendants as an inheritance?'" God, have you not said that? And then the Lord relents.
Now there's great theological, doctrinal, and every other debate among scholars about this portion of scripture because we're talking about a God who knows all things, who is sovereign, who is holy, who has all things in his hand. It's not as if God did not know what Moses was going to say or pray. Yet, here we see in the word that God tells Moses, "Leave me alone," and instead, Moses turns on God and keeps going and keeps pushing on him. The word tells us that because of this, God relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
This is a father responding to his child. This is a father who had a plan for that day, who had a plan for that situation, and no one could have changed his mind. No one could have persuaded him. No one would have changed what was going to happen that day because the father had made up his mind. Yet, here a child steps in and says something that all of a sudden changes the day, that all of a sudden changes the direction, and the Lord relents from the harm which He said He would do to the people.
Moses knew how to press into prayer as a child of God. No one, no one else could have done this but a child of God. You would have been burned up by the wrath of God that you would dare to even say something still after God says, "Now it is time for you to leave, leave me alone." But when a person that has gotten to know the Lord, when someone who is saved, a believer in Jesus Christ, begins to learn to press into the place of prayer as a child of God, you're entering into a space, a relationship with the father where things begin to happen that cannot happen except by the grace of the cross. You could never approach God as a child of the Father. You could never approach God like Moses or Jesus Christ himself. You could never, except the Father has told you that the righteousness of Christ has been given to you so that the Father would respond to you and relate to you the same way He did to His only begotten Son, the Lord of all, Jesus Christ our King. That's what He has spoken over our lives.
My wondering is, do we know as believers, as Christians, do we know how to press into prayer like a child towards God? We see stories like this time and time again. We'll look at a few more in the word, but here's the takeaway for you from this story: pray according to what God has said. If you're going to learn to press into prayer like a child, you need to learn to pray according to what God has said.
Moses didn't try to fight with God. Moses didn't try to make his own case for God. Moses said, "Lord, haven't you said? Lord, did not you say that you would keep your promise? Did you not say that I would be washed clean from sin if I walk in the light? The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. Father, I'm still struggling. Didn't you promise, Father, that I would be clean, washed from all sin, not only forgiven but washed, cleansed so that all these things come off of me? Father, didn't you say this?" And to come to the Father holding Him to His word and bringing His word with you to prayer to see God change how that day is going to end, to see God change how your situation should be ending or someone else's situation should, in all reasonability, be ending.
When we learn to pray as a child, God begins to respond in ways we see hidden in this word, but we don't see it in just any life. It is the person that has learned to press into prayer as a child—not as a sinner anymore, not as someone who has been adopted and just needs to be grateful for that adoption their entire life and kind of behave really well, or else they may be unadopted—not as a person that just got taken off the side of the road and just gets to tag along with the family, and they're treated in great ways, but they'll never truly fully be part of the divine family of God, but as a child able to change the day.
There are times where my Lenie changes what I'm going to do that day. It wasn't my plan. If my wife would have asked me, I would give her the clear rundown of the day. My daughter can say something and say, "Papa, didn't you tell me you were going to play with me? Didn't you promise we were allowed to take a bath tonight? Didn't you?" And when they remind me by my own words, it does not matter what is on my mind. It doesn't matter what I was planning to do. I will change my mind because they're coming to me not just asking for a favor. They say, "Papa, I trust you. You keep your promises, don't you? Didn't you already say this?"
Pressing into prayer as a child—praying is what they're doing when we look at these stories in the word. Praying is what they're doing, but praying is much more than just putting words together or formulating words that maybe sound pretty or impressive or very long. Pressing into prayer has very little to do with the words you speak or the amount of words that you speak. When you hear "pressing in prayer," you may think, "Oh, I have to pray longer, harder, deeper, with more tears," and you may have a certain picture of what that looks like. I want to invite you to allow the word of God to reshape that picture today because praying is what they are doing, but it is way more than formulating words. So pressing into prayer is not necessarily speaking more words for a longer time.
Let me take you to James chapter 5. We're going to read verse 15 down to 18. Here's what James says: "And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will 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 avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours—other translations say 'with a passionate nature like ours'—and he prayed earnestly. That word 'earnestly' means praying. Literally, the word says right here, he 'prayed praying' because he was using the words, but he was actually praying. He 'prayed praying.' That word can even be translated to 'worship.' He 'prayed worshiping.' He 'prayed praying.' It was a position he was taking. He was pressing into the place of prayer, not just the words. He was taking his words to the place of prayer. He was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit."
Church, when we are talking about prayer and pressing into prayer, the miracle does not matter. Being filled with the Holy Spirit by the living God, when we press into prayer, seeing God give in somehow, miraculously, unexplainably give in to you and allow you to begin to change his mind—the miracle of healing, the miracle of weather-related miracles—the miracle doesn't matter. What I desire for you to begin to see is that when you learn to press into prayer, not just say your prayers, but you learn actually to press into the place of prayer, you can expect the supernatural hand and involvement of God to become real in your life. The miracle does not matter. There will be miracles when you learn to press into the place of prayer. You may not know to ask for them; you may never have to ask for them. But for those children of the living God that learn to press into prayer as a child, we always see God do extravagant, unexpected, unusual miracles so that his children receive what they asked for or what they had in their heart.
I'm reminded of the story of Abraham when his cousin Lot was in Sodom. And Abraham never dared to ask the Father to please spare Lot, spare the city just because Lot is there. He asked the Lord if there are so many believers there or righteous men, would you not destroy the city? And the Lord says, "I would not." And he keeps bringing down the number, but he never comes down to just Lot. And there weren't enough righteous in the city, but the Father knew the heart of Abraham, so He sent angels into the city to bring Lot out by force before the consequences would come on that city. The Father seeks to answer the prayers of his children, whether they have words or not. But to press into the place of prayer as a child is something we need to learn. We need to learn to do. There are prayers, if you will, when praying—the word prayer really means begging or asking—there's asking and begging that my children do without words. If you're a parent, you will understand. There are times that they've said something or they point at something, and there's a small tear that begins to form in the corner of their eye, and you can't—you have to give in. Not always, but there are times where they move you into an answered prayer on their part, an answer to their begging, an answer to their asking.
The miracle does not matter, but when you, as a saved believer, someone saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, are not seeing the miraculous in your life on a somewhat consistent basis, then you are grossly missing out in the kingdom of God. Not only you but all of those that are watching your life and supposed to see in your life that Jesus Christ is alive. We are witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. How will people see in your life that Jesus did not stay dead in the grave, and you just believe wrong? You believe he's alive, but you're wrong. How will people actually see you're not wrong? Jesus is alive, and you have become a witness to the resurrection. That's what you become a witness to when the spirit of God comes to live inside of you. Jesus is not dead. He rose from the grave. He deposits his spirit in vessels that do not deserve it, and he answers the prayers of the children that have been made children by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. You can expect the supernatural hand and involvement of God to become real in your life when you learn to press into prayer like a child.
We see prayer in the Old Testament; we looked at examples. We see prayer in the New Testament. We see even the New Testament quote Old Testament passages to teach New Testament believers about prayer. When it comes to prayer, God has always listened to prayer, and this is something we have to learn to take with us into our prayer life, into our attitude, us approaching the place of prayer. You need to get this in your heart, in your mind, make it a part of how you live life: God has always listened to prayer. When I go to prayer, no matter what I've done, no matter what I've been through, no matter what I haven't done that I should have been doing, when I go to prayer, I need to be convinced fully that the God that I'm approaching has always listened to prayer.
The second takeaway from this scripture portion is this: you have an advantage because the Spirit was sent to teach you to pray. You see, under the Old Testament times, there were very few people that had the privilege of walking with the Holy Spirit or experiencing the power and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. It was often given for very specific purposes, but in the time where the Spirit of the living God has been poured out on all flesh—all who call on the Lord with all of their heart, all who have repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and have received of the Spirit of the living God, received the promises that by those promises we may be partakers of the divine nature—you have an advantage. You have an advantage because the Spirit was sent to teach you to pray.
Now, if you are not a prayerful person, if you reflect today and say, "I'm not a prayerful believer. My life is not prayerful, but I am a believer," if your life is not prayerful but you are a believer, at the same time, you resist the word of God and you resist the Spirit of God. Both teach you to pray. The word of God teaches you to pray; the Spirit of God teaches you to pray. If you were not resisting the word and you were not resisting the Spirit, you would have a prayerful life because the word doesn't just teach you to pray, and then Jesus instructs you to pray, and now you're left to do it on your own. The Spirit of God has been sent to teach you to pray because we don't know how to pray.
Wherever you are today, online and here in person, wherever you are today, you're not destined to stay where you are. No matter if you say, "Well, my prayer life is doing decent," or whether you say, "My life is not full of prayer; I don't have a prayerful life; I'm just not that kind of believer; that may not be my call; it may not be my position," you're not destined to stay where you are. So today, there's a way forward for you, not just a day of trouble. And today, it is in my heart that the word of God would be allowed to move you to run towards the Spirit of God and to allow the Spirit of God to begin to teach you to pray as a child.
You would have two teachers in your life so that you would not be a person that has a prayerless life or whose prayer life is always under attack and always losing, or always cooling down, or always a thing of the past. But that you would be a person that has two teachers in your life. You don't need to know how to pray; you don't need to know how to do it well; you don't have to remind yourself. You have two teachers that are present in your life, and you are becoming a prayerful person because of what God has brought into your life, not because of what you've done, not because of what you have accomplished. All you did was you allowed the word of God to move you, and you did not move the word of God. And the word of God moved you towards the Spirit. And now I just ended up a prayerful man or a prayerful woman. I have two teachers; they both teach me the same thing. They teach me how to come to God. They teach me to come to God through the cross. They teach me to come to God always. They teach me to come to God because he answers. He teaches me to come to God and to approach him, to press into prayer as a child.
I want to talk to you about the life of Jacob, the father of Joseph. Joseph wasn't born yet at this time. Jacob had 11 sons, and at this point in time, it's been 20 years since Jacob has seen his brother Esau. Now, in order for you to get the setting, you have to understand that almost every children's Bible or drawing that has ever been produced got all of this wrong. When Jacob cheated his brother out of the blessing, out of his firstborn blessing, his firstborn right, he put the skin of lambs on his arms to come off way more hairy than he was. He came into the tent of his father, who was blind, to deceive his father and steal the firstborn blessing.
You have to understand this was not the passionate idea that just came up quickly, wasn't thought through very well, of an 18-year-old. At the time that Jacob cheated Esau out of his birthright, he was between 70 and 80 years old. He had lived a life; all the decisions of his life, the relationships in his life, brought him to the place at 70 to 80 years old where he made the decision, well-instructed, well-educated, learned from life, and relationships with his family, to deceitfully and intentionally deceive his father and steal the birthright from his brother. Then, he does not see his brother for 20 years.
Now, he's in his 90s. He has a lot of stuff. He has to divide it into two camps, but all this time, Esau has been on his mind. Esau was the hunter; Esau was the strong one; he was the hairy one; he was the man in the camp. Now, he is going to meet Esau, and Jacob is terrified. Because he has a lot of stuff, he divides all of his stuff, the people traveling with him, all of it, into two camps. He says to himself, "Esau may be out to kill, and so if he attacks one camp to kill off me, my family, and all that I have, then the second camp can still run." He believes that his brother may be out to kill him.
That's where we come into this story of a messed-up family, a man that has deceit and lying in his past. It wasn't an accident; he thought it through. Here we go in verse 22 of chapter 32 in the Book of Genesis: "And he arose," that is Jacob, "he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his 11 sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. Now when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of the hip of Jacob was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, 'Let me go, for the day breaks.' But he said, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.' So he said to him, 'What is your name?' He said, 'Jacob.' And he said, 'Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with man and have prevailed.' Then Jacob asked, saying, 'Tell me your name, I pray.' And he said, 'Why is it that you ask about my name?' And he blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for 'I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'"
Here we have Jacob's story, and the same exact thing happens to Jacob. God says, "Let me go. Let me go, Moses. Let me go, Jacob." In both occasions, we see them both not letting God go, if you will, disobeying a dire word from the heavenly Father. Only a child can do that; only a child can get away with that in the house. Jacob right here presses into prayer. There are not many words involved. He wrestles with God all night. There are only two sentences that we know of that he really spoke, that he really prayed of God. But when this man left the place of prayer, he left a changed man. He left a different man.
The Lord had said, "You'll no longer be called Jacob. You'll no longer be called Jacob, the deceiver. You'll no longer be called Jacob, who grabs on to the heel because he feels he doesn't have enough for himself and just wants more. You'll no longer be called Jacob; you'll be called Israel." In Hebrew, that word Israel right here means "Prince with God." Here you have a man that comes from a broken, messed-up past family of believers, a man that has made every decision wrong in life because he wanted to be in control, tried to make things happen, and he was good at it. He made things happen, except all the garbage that came with it was now catching up to him, and it should have. Yet here, he wrestles with the Lord. When God says, "Let me go," he presses in and says, "I'm not going to let you go. I need you to bless me. I have no reason to make it through what I'm going through. I have no reason to see anything good come from your hand into my life unless you bless me. I'm not going to let you go; I'm going to hold on to you."
God responds to a man like that and says, "From here on out, you're going to be a prince with God. From here on out, you're not going to fight your battles yourself anymore. You're not going to have to try to make things happen for yourself anymore. I'm changing your family. You now belong to the people of God. I am now your God. You are now a prince with God."
There weren't many words in this place of prayer, but there was a wrestling, Church, a holding on to God, a holding on when God says, "Let me go," when God says, "Enough," when God makes you feel like He is not in the room with you and you're trying to pray, when God allows you to feel like heaven is made out of brass and it doesn't really matter if you pray, to hold on and to hold Him to His word, and to press into prayer as a child.
You may say or feel today, "Who am I to press into God like that, into prayer like that? Who am I to hold on to God? How do you even take a hold of Him? Who am I to tell God what it is going to take for me to let Him go?" Like Moses did, Moses let God know, "Well, if you want me to let you go, this is what it's going to take. You're going to have to remember your promises. If you're going to let me go, this is what it's going to take. You're going to have to bless me." Who am I to talk to God like that? Who am I to believe that that's even possible for me? I'm not Jacob. I'm not Moses. You're naming the great ones in the word of God. Who am I?
Well, who are you? Who are you today? Are you a child of the Living God, or do you still not believe that because of the blood of Jesus Christ you can learn to press into God, to hold Him to His word, to speak to Him as one of His children, and to see that God would treat you like He's not treating anyone else around, but you believe with all your heart that He has made you a child and there is nothing that can get you out of the house.
Church, you need to understand this: it is because of the cross that you come to the Father, but it is because of faith that you hold on to Him and press into Him. The cross has brought you near, but unless you believe with all of your heart that all of the handwriting written against you, every accusation, is wiped away, not just in such a way that it's forgiven until the pen hits the paper again, but the word literally implies in the original text, the word tells us that the Lord canceled the account of our debt. There's no account in your name anymore to be filled up when you sin. There's no place for it to be registered. And so the Father will never look at you as anything less than a legitimate child of the Kingdom, a legitimate child of God.
But it is because of that faith in the cross that the cross has done it. The cross has brought me home. I'm talking to my Father. That faith that says it is finished, I believe Him at His word. It is that faith that will allow you to hold on to God, to press into prayer. Faith that you've been made a child of God, that you're a child of the kingdom, and that you can say, "God, I cannot let you go. I need you to perform your promises. Lord, my character is simply not good enough to walk a holy life. My character is not good enough to be kind. I don't love people. I can't love God and love people, but I believed in Jesus. Father, I cannot let you go. You need to give me what I need. I get to ask you as a child. I'm not a worker in the Kingdom. I'm not a part of the armies of the Living God first. I'm not someone that is a sinner that just needs to be super grateful for the rest of his life to even be allowed to be in the home. You said you made me a child in the Kingdom. Father, I need to be able to behave like one towards the Father. I need to be able to approach you as one of your children."
"Would you teach me to pray by your Holy Spirit? Would you open the eyes of my heart that I may see what these men were seeing, that I may understand that you are looking for men and women that will not allow God to withdraw but that press in, not with many words, not with anything impressive, not with an incredible lifestyle that somehow impresses God, but with a heart that says, 'I know what you've done. I get to come to you. I get to call out to you and you do not get to say no to me. You do not get to withdraw from me. I'm your child. Father, take responsibility for me. I need you to be my Father. I need you to do for me what I cannot do. I can't let you go. I need you, Lord.'"
Most of you know that we like to run a pretty tight ship here in the church. When there's Ministries that would like to spend, they have to put in a spending request. It comes to Ella's desk and eventually across mine or Inna's, and we look at it. If it's in the budget and it's in the vision, then it's generally approved, but sometimes it's not. I'm not looking anywhere, but some people on the team are bold and they'll put in a second request if the first one is not approved or if it takes too long. If it's on the to-do list or on the waiting list too long, if they're very bold, they may even come and talk to us about it because they know that we have a lot of rules to guide everything into a way of excellence in the church.
So they treat me and they treat Inna in a certain way, and it's very honorable, it's very respectful. But not my kids. My kids know who they are in the home. I want to introduce you to Barry. This is the smallest bear we have in our bear family, our bear clan in the house. Because he's the smallest one, Esther called him Barry, and now we have Barry. But Barry is very dear to Esther's heart. Sophia bought Barry—she really bought another toy; Barry came with it. But Barry really was the toy that came in.
I've learned something about prayer through my youngest daughter and through this, to me, very insignificant toy. I don't care about Barry, not one bit, but my daughter does, so much so that it changes my mind. When my daughter loses Barry and Barry is gone, she doesn't know where he is. He's gone because she misplaced him or she put him somewhere where she forgot or she took him somewhere where she shouldn't have taken him. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, church. I may be in prayer, I may be preparing for a word on Sunday, I may be on the phone with some one of you, I may be working in my garage, I may be doing whatever I'm doing, but it does not stop my daughter. She will pound on the door, she will hoot and holler, and she will yell and scream because Barry's lost. "I can't find Barry, Papa!" And it doesn't matter what I'm doing, I have to stop. She makes it very known to me what it's going to take for her to let me go: "You need to come and you need to help me find Barry because he's lost. I don't know where he is." Until I give in, I had a different plan; I was spending my time, and many people may argue, on more important things.
Not to Esther. Barry is lost. Then in the evening, everything is good and dandy. The teeth are brushed, the pajamas are on, the beds are ready, the lights are already off, and we've prayed together. Esther hits her bed and she was planning to have Barry next to her in the bed that night. Nobody knows when she plans that, but sometimes she does. She looks around in her crib and Barry is not there. Church, no one is going to sleep. No one is going to sleep until this problem has been fixed. But Esther cannot do it, and she instantly lets me know what it is going to take for her to let me go.
People that you work with, people that you have a professional relationship with, they may put in a spending request once or twice. If you feel you are a sinner in the kingdom of God—yes, you believe in Jesus, but you still, if you will, come to prayer as a sinner, you don't come to prayer as a child. You're going to be the one that puts in that request, and if you're very bold, you may put it in twice and you may even show up one more time about it. But you don't hoot and holler, and you don't yell at the Lord. You don't ask of the Lord. You don't press into the Lord because you're coming to him in a, if you will, professional capacity, but not as a child. Not as a child calling and not letting God go, not letting God the Father go on with His day until you get what you desperately need because you can't do it by yourself.
Some of us, church, have gotten to know the Barrys in our life. We—our opinion has grown, "Well, this is not important enough for me to come to God with. This is not important enough. I could live with this." God's promises, God's people surrounding me, I could live with this. We've learned to be adults in the kingdom of God and no longer a child of God. We can lose the ability to press into prayer as a child. To press into prayer like that, to ask and demand from God like that, it feels like we're not allowed to do it, just like here with the spending request. It feels like we're not allowed to do it more than just a couple of times. But children in a house don't feel that way. Everyone knows when I'm studying in the office and it says, "Do not disturb." Everybody knows, not my kids.
You see, they know that they are children in the house. They know the rules don't apply to us. This is my father. Where have we gone in our prayer lives like that? The rules don't apply to me. This is my father. I don't have to be careful what I say. I don't have to be polite about how I say it. I don't have to have good timing about how I say it. I don't risk getting kicked out of the house. I don't risk not getting food. I'm a child in the father's house. When did we lose the ability, as the Church of the Living God, to approach the father as if the blood of Christ has actually done what he told us it has done? It has made you sons and daughters of the kingdom. The rules don't apply to you. You're a child in the father's house. You get to tell God what you like and what you don't like. You get to ask God for the unreasonable. You get to come to God at every hour of the day. You get to tell God, "No, I don't want to let you go. I need you to keep your promises."
You told me, did you not, that your people would serve you without fear? Did you not prophesy in the temple when Christ first was carried into the temple? Was it not prophesied that your people would serve you without fear? Father, where is my promise? I cannot let you go. I need you to do in my life what you said you would do. I wasn't called to be an adult in your house. I was called to be a child in your house. I don't know where my Barry is. I don't know how to get there. I know you gave it to me. I know you entrusted it to me. But I need you again to do the most elementary things in my life. I'm a child in your house. The rules don't apply to me. Give me what is mine, Father. I need you. I cannot let you go.
Church, if you don't let God go, if you refuse to miss out on what he has, you refuse. Church, do you understand? You get to be a difficult child sometimes. You get to bother God. You get to storm heaven with whatever is on your heart. You get to call out to him, and he is not allowed to turn away from you. Do you understand that by the blood of Jesus Christ, he made you a child in the kingdom? He didn't say, "I make you family." He specifically said, "I make you children in My Kingdom." He specifically said, "I make you sons and daughters." He doesn't expect you to have adult Christian behavior. He doesn't expect you to be able to fend for yourself. He doesn't expect you to have the right words.
He expects you to come to him as a child—to blame him for something, to call him for something, to ask him for something, to yell at him, to come to him, to come to the place of prayer, the place where you have a child and father relationship with God Almighty who brought you there by the blood of the cross. Don't stay away from the place of prayer. Press into it because God will allow you to walk away different. You'll walk away just like Jacob, just like Israel. You'll walk away as a prince of God. I'm not part of the team. I'm not part of the workers. I'm a child of God. I'm a prince with God. The rules don't apply to me. I get to approach him differently. I know I forgot to pray for a whole week, but I'm a child in the house, and now I'm going to annoy my Lord because I need him to do for me what I cannot do. And I get to do that because he made me a child.
Church, if you would stand with me for a moment. Church, you come to the father because of the cross. Jesus Christ made a way for you, but there's a lot of people in the body of Christ that stopped coming and that stopped pressing in maybe the way that you did when you were first saved and this was a fresh truth to you. Church, you hold on to God or you press into God because you believe that you've been made a child in the house, and so the rules for everyone else—they happen to not apply to you. You cannot help the favor. This is my birthright. I was born again into this home, and I get to talk to my father how I talk to my father. He'll chastise me, he'll raise me, he'll provide for me, he'll lead me, he'll correct me when it's needed, but he will never ever treat me as if I should have known better.
I get to be a child in the house of the father. I get to run to him, approach him any way that is in my heart. I get to not let him go. I get to press in, and he cannot turn away from me. He cannot not give his attention to me because I'm his child. He's responsible for me. And because I believe that with all of my heart, I don't care. I'm going to go, I'm going to bring it to him, I'm going to ask it again, I'm going to pour my frustrations, my complaints about him. Do you understand that you have been made righteous before the father? You get to voice any complaint you feel or have ever thought about God. You get to voice it to him. You don't have to be an adult in the kingdom. You get to be a child in the kingdom. He will know how to deal with you. He will know how to raise you. He will know how to answer you. He will know how to work things out for you. But you were called to come to him believing that the blood has made you a child of God. As we pray, I want to ask you, would you just pray quietly from your heart? Holy Spirit, would you open my eyes and would you teach me to pray? Lord, we come before you.
-Pastor Stan Mons