[0:00] John and chapter 1, we're going to read from verse 1 through to verse 23, one of the miracles in the Gospel of John that's recorded concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.
[0:24] So let us hear God's word, it is true, this is a true account, it's not just a story, it's something which is validated by witnesses and is truthful and right.
[0:41] Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Peter, we gave the wrong, which chapter are we? John 5, verse 1.
[0:55] Apologies. Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.
[1:08] Now there was in Jerusalem, near the sheep gate, a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here, a great number of disabled people used to lie, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
[1:26] One who was there had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he'd been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get well?
[1:37] Sir, the invalid replied, I've no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.
[1:48] Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured. He picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath.
[2:01] And so the Jews said to the man who'd been healed, it is the Sabbath. The law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied, the man who made me well said to me, pick up your mat and walk.
[2:13] So they asked him, who is this fellow who told you to pick up and walk? The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
[2:27] Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see, you are well again. Stop sinning. Something worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
[2:41] So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, my father is always at his work to this very day and I too am working.
[2:55] For this reason, the Jews tried all the more to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.
[3:07] Jesus gave them this answer. I tell you the truth, the son can do nothing by himself. He can do only what he sees his father doing. Because whatever the father does, the son also does.
[3:21] For the father loves the son and shows him all things. Yes, to your amazement, he shows him even greater things than these. For just as the father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the son gives life to whom he's pleased to give it.
[3:37] Moreover, the father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the son, that all may honor the son just as they honor the father. He who does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him.
[3:52] Let's briefly pray once more. We ask, O God, that you would speak to us in your word.
[4:06] We thank you that this account and record of the life of Jesus has meaning and purpose to us because you do not change, O God.
[4:16] You are the same. And the Lord Jesus is himself living and active now in this world just as much as he was then, as he walked amongst us.
[4:27] Help us to hear what you are saying to us. Help us to learn. Help us, Lord, to know something of that healing touch from yourself too. For you are the God who has power to transform and to change.
[4:40] And, O Lord, if we are willing to receive it, you are willing to give it. Make us willing then and cause us to receive of your truth, your power, your grace.
[4:51] For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. If you do have a Bible, then it would be helpful if you had that passage, John 5, open, just as we consider these events in the life of Jesus and what they mean for us today.
[5:10] On the 3rd of March, 1950, Gwen wrote a letter to George, asking him to meet her next Saturday at 2 p.m. at Montes.
[5:22] She posted it in London, addressing it to George Green, who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. Whether George and Gwen ever met at Montes that weekend, we'll never know, because the letter only arrived at the college 56 years later, and was opened not by George, surprisingly, but by curious staff at the college.
[5:46] Now, we may complain sometimes about the speed of our service from the Royal Mail, but I'm sure none of us have had to wait that long yet for our post. But waiting, of course, is one of our national pastimes.
[6:01] Wherever we go, the British wait. Cueing, of course, is one of the cultural gifts that we have passed and spread around the world. A bit like cricket and rugby, except we're better at queuing than those sports.
[6:15] And perhaps the reason the British are so good at waiting and queuing is because we've been brought up with that saying, all good things come to those who wait. You see people waiting, of course, hours, perhaps even days, to get tickets to the Wimbledon Centre Court matches, or camping in the streets outside shops which have their sales about to begin, perhaps on Boxing Day.
[6:44] We don't mind waiting if it's something that we want bad enough. If it's something that we really, really feel we can't live without, we don't mind how long we have to wait if we know it's going to arrive.
[6:57] But we don't like waiting for things that we don't think we should have to wait for. We don't like waiting on the end of the phone to speak to a real person after being passed through several computer voices to speak to our energy supplier or somebody like that.
[7:11] But imagine what it must be like and have been like for this man who was waiting 38 years simply just to walk. Because that's what we're told about him, aren't we?
[7:23] Verse 5, One who was there had been an invalid for 38 years. We don't know whether he couldn't walk because of an accident.
[7:40] We don't know if it was because of an illness. It's possible, of course, that it could have been something that he'd had since he was born. And he'd maybe never walked.
[7:50] But almost certainly for most of those 38 years, he had lived by the pool, this pool in Jerusalem. There was a sort of a customer tradition that every now and then God would send an angel to stir the waters of the pool.
[8:07] And if somebody got into the water, they'd be miraculously healed. And so all these disabled people were there waiting around the pool. We're told there are five colonnades. No, there's five covered large areas.
[8:21] Blind people, lame people, paralyzed people were there. Some lived there. Some were brought there daily by friends or family. They relied upon the generosity of people.
[8:33] It was a community of disabled folk. This man was there 38 years waiting. Have you been waiting a long time?
[8:49] Perhaps you too have had to suffer a physical disability or an illness. Perhaps you've had an infirmity.
[9:00] And for many, many years you have labored under that and found it a great pressure. It may be, of course, that waiting has to do with something which is beyond the physical.
[9:14] It may be that you've been praying for somebody in your family for a long, long time to become a Christian. It may be that you have been dreaming of something to be realized.
[9:27] A loving marriage, perhaps. A change in your situation, in your family, or even in the workplace, or in the home. Perhaps you've been waiting a long time thinking, will I ever know that forgiveness?
[9:42] Will I ever know that healing to my heart of that pain that I still carry with me? It may be that you can feel a little bit of this man's frustration and impatience because you've been waiting and you're still waiting.
[10:00] Whatever you are waiting for, whatever you have been dreaming of, whatever your longing, whatever your disability, there is great encouragement for you and for me here in the experience of this man who waited 38 years before he received what he so long desired, the gift of walking.
[10:21] But we need to begin with a straightforward question, a question which Jesus asks this man, which we might feel is quite odd, perhaps even seemingly foolish.
[10:32] Do you want to get well? That's what Jesus says to him. Comes to this man, 38 years, can't walk, speaks to him, the first thing he says to him, do you want to get well?
[10:42] Well, of course, we might ask. Of course he wants to get well. Of course he wants to be better. But it's an important question. Why would anybody want to stay ill?
[10:54] Well, sometimes they do. Sometimes it can be quite comfortable in the status quo, even if it is in a place of difficulty, of frustration, of impatience.
[11:10] When we're unwell or when we're struggling or in difficulty, we receive sympathy. We receive people's attention. We receive people's care. There's a certain safety, isn't there, in staying as we are, receiving from others.
[11:27] If this man was to be healed, then his whole life was going to be transformed and changed. If this man was healed, his whole situation would be different. He couldn't stay lying by the pool.
[11:39] He'd have to get up. He'd have to get himself a job to earn his keep. He couldn't rely on the provision of others. His social standing would change. He couldn't stay with those disabled friends. He'd have to make new friends.
[11:50] He'd have to break out of the situation in which perhaps he was institutionalized. He'd have to go to the temple to worship God, something he could never have done before, and give to God the honor and the thanks and the praise that he deserves.
[12:04] His whole life would have consequences if he was healed. So it would be for you and I. Getting what we're praying for or waiting for has immense repercussions in our lives.
[12:18] If that person was to be saved in our family, then our relationship with them would change. If our situation was such that we know forgiveness and we know a change in our hearts, then we have to live differently.
[12:32] If things changed in our workplace or in our family, we would be different people. We'd have to react differently and respond differently, and people would respond differently and react differently to us.
[12:46] Do we actually want all of those changes? One of the things that keeps many people from becoming a Christian is the realization and recognition that to become a Christian means that things have to change.
[12:59] things can't stay the same. We can't just be the way we always have been. There is a transformation to take place.
[13:10] So Jesus asked this man, and I ask you, do you want to get well? Do you want that answer to prayer? Do you want things to change? Do you want God to do something? Really, do you want it?
[13:23] Now the response of the man who was paralyzed clearly shows that he did want to get well. He says, Sir, I've no one to help me into the pool when the water's stirred. Well, I'm trying to get in.
[13:34] Someone else goes down ahead of me. Clearly, when they thought that an angel had come and God was going to provide a miracle, he's tried to drag himself and get himself into the pool, into the water first, but it was only the first one there who had the healing.
[13:49] And perhaps they were friends with them, or perhaps they weren't lame. They were maybe blind, or some other disability, which meant they could move faster than him. But clearly it shows he was not content to stay as he was.
[14:00] He wasn't content to stay lame. He did want God to intervene in his life. He did want things to change. He wasn't satisfied to stay there, even after all this time, and put up with a status quo.
[14:16] What about you? What about you? You say, I really want to go deeper with God. I really want to know this love of God in my life, and I want to live for him.
[14:29] I want to know a change in my circumstances and situation. I want to know what it is to overcome this habitual sin that keeps on dragging me down. I want and pray for this or that.
[14:41] Do you really want it? Do you really want that change? Because let me say this to you. That man was healed. That man was healed.
[14:53] Jesus did it. The man's weight is over. Verse 8 and 9. Jesus says to him, Get up, pick up your mat, walk. At once the man was cured, picked up his mat and walked.
[15:03] Two little verses, but an incredible act of God. Incredible healing takes place. Jesus isn't some physiotherapist, if I can put it that way, and massages his back because he's had a trapped nerve or a slipped disc for 38 years.
[15:19] It's a miraculous, supernatural, powerful work of God in that man's body that has no human explanation. It shows us that this person, Jesus Christ, is somebody who is beyond our comprehension.
[15:35] He is God. He does what no man can do. He's healed. What started off as just an ordinary Sabbath day for this man, an ordinary day by the pool, waiting with little expectation, no expectation maybe, that today he'd be healed.
[15:57] That day is the day that changes his life completely. It's the most marvelous of days. A day that I'm sure for the rest of his years he would always remember. He was whole.
[16:10] His waiting was over. His longing had come to an end. His dream had been realized. And what does that mean to us?
[16:20] What does it mean to those of us who are still waiting? Still waiting for that answer to prayer. Still waiting for that life to be changed.
[16:33] Still waiting for that touch of God. What does it mean for us? Well, we may ask ourselves, perhaps some of those around the pool even asked it as well, why aren't I healed?
[16:43] Perhaps you've been asking yourself that many times. You've seen God at work in the lives of others. You've seen God transforming and changing. You've seen people being set free.
[16:54] You've seen people see their loved ones converted. And you're saying, why am I still the same? Why has nothing happened? Why hasn't God heard my prayer? Why am I still waiting? It's normal to feel that way.
[17:06] But although we may not understand or perceive why Christ is keeping us waiting, we can learn a lot from this story that will sustain us, encourage us, help us as we continue to wait upon him.
[17:24] There's one thing we need to recognize and need to understand this. We are not waiting because God is not working. Sometimes the attitude is this, well, the reason that my prayer isn't heard is that, well, maybe there's no God at all.
[17:38] Or maybe God just isn't busy. Maybe God isn't working. God isn't doing things like that anymore. But the reality is that God is at work. Listen to what Jesus says, verse 17.
[17:50] My Father is always at his work to this very day and I too am working. When the Lord Jesus Christ created, sorry, when God created the world, he did it in six days and he gave that seventh day a day of rest when we're told that God restes from his creative work.
[18:09] He gave us the pattern of the world, the pattern of the week that we still have now. But it didn't mean that God put his feet up, if I can put it that way, that God ceased from his labors of constantly caring for and providing for his creation.
[18:23] God is not, as was once thought at one time, the watchmaker who winds up the world and lets it get on with itself. He is the God who is hands-on in the world.
[18:34] He is the God who rolls his sleeves up and gets into the world. The very life of Jesus is the proof of that. And just because we cannot see the work of God does not mean that God is not working.
[18:48] When the cloud covers the sun and we cannot see the sun, it does not mean it's not shining. We know that. And so it is with God. You see, our judgment of God is very weak. We are people who are earthbound, materialistic.
[19:04] We judge things by what we can feel and touch and smell and taste and see our senses. But we cannot put God into that category. We cannot put him into a place where he is judged by our senses.
[19:16] He is beyond those things. He is God who works beyond anything which is seen or touched or felt or heard. God is working.
[19:28] We see only a poor reflection. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, he says, Now, he says, I know in parts. Now I know in parts.
[19:40] He says, Now I see about a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. There is coming that day when we stand before God when we shall see and we shall understand. We shall comprehend what God has done.
[19:51] We shall see the handiwork of God in our lives when we thought that he wasn't there. Because you're waiting does not mean that God is not working.
[20:04] God is at work. His work is invisible to us. Only at times do we see what he's accomplishing. Be sure of that.
[20:16] Secondly, you're not waiting because Christ is hindered or unable to come to your aid. In other words, don't think that you're waiting because somehow Jesus can't do the thing that you're praying for him to do or asking for him to do or longing for him to do.
[20:34] Don't think that he's held back and restricted either by yourself or by others. You see the situation there in verse 16. The Jews were angry with Jesus.
[20:48] That's the religious leaders. Not the ordinary people. When he uses the phrase Jews, it doesn't just mean the Jewish people means the religious leaders. They were angry with Jesus. They'd made all these rules which they'd added to the Old Testament law of God.
[21:01] And one of them was this, you can't pick up your mat and walk with it on the Sabbath day. It wasn't God's law. It was their law. And Jesus shows them that he is working all the time and nothing that they do can prevent him from doing that.
[21:18] No human power can prevent him from bringing to an end the weight of this man. He doesn't say, well, I'll come back tomorrow and do it. No, he does it there and then. He knows that this will upset those religious leaders.
[21:31] He knows that they will persecute him. He knows what their attitude will be. Look at what it says, verse 18. This reason the Jews tried all the time the harder to kill him. Not only because he was breaking the Sabbath, which he wasn't, but according to their law he was, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal.
[21:51] See, sometimes we get into this situation. People get this idea as well when it comes to being a Christian. Say, well, I'll become a Christian when I'm good enough. When I've sorted all the problems out in my life, when I'm a nice person and a good person and I know that God will accept me, that's when I'll become a Christian.
[22:06] But, dear friend, you're never, ever going to be good enough. You're never, ever going to sort those difficulties out. You're never, ever going to be the good person that you hope you will be to be accepted by God.
[22:19] God accepts us and works in our lives according to his grace, not according to our works and deeds. So you have to come just as you are.
[22:30] You have to come with your sin. You have to come with your bad habits. You have to come with those problems, with your baggage. You have to bring it all to Christ, just as you are. But at the same time, those of us who are Christians and we're praying and we're waiting and we're looking for God and we're saying, why are we waiting, Lord?
[22:47] There can be a sense of frustration where we look at ourselves and say, well, perhaps I need to do something. If I did this, then God would answer my prayer. If I did that, God would change the situation.
[22:58] It's up to me. You see, there's nothing that hinders Jesus from doing the work that he wants to do as and when he wants to do it. He's not waiting for us to act so that he can act.
[23:11] Look at the situation. There's the man. Does the man approach Jesus? No. Does the man look up to Jesus? No. Does he pray to Jesus? No. We're told that Jesus saw him and spoke to him.
[23:26] Jesus initiates. Thank God that he does. Thank God that he does. He initiates through all sorts of ways. He may initiate through a parent who speaks to us of the Lord Jesus.
[23:39] He may initiate through a friend. He may initiate through a piece of paper that we've received and read. He may initiate through something we hear on the television. In whatever way, God takes the initiative to intervene and to bring to an end our waiting as and when he wants to.
[23:58] Here again, listen to what Jesus says. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he's pleased to give it. The gift of salvation and the gift of God is always his to give when he wants as he pleases.
[24:13] It's not our right to take. We don't deserve anything from God apart from his judgment for our sin. But in his mercy and grace, he's pleased to give us life.
[24:27] He's pleased to give us salvation. He's pleased to give us restoration. He's pleased to answer our prayers. But it's in his time, in his way, on his terms. So if you're waiting, don't be frustrated.
[24:43] Don't let the enemy tell you it's because of you that God isn't answering that prayer. It's because of you that you're still waiting. Trust him that he has a purpose in it.
[24:53] And that's the third thing. Although we are waiting, it's not pointless. It's not in vain. It's not to no purpose or end. It's not without reason. It's not that God has forgotten you or is ignorant of you.
[25:08] How often that thought creeps into our minds. Lord, I've prayed and prayed, but you've forgotten me. The psalmist thinks of that, doesn't he? When he speaks and prays to God, he feels as if God isn't there and God has forgotten him in some way, but he knows that God can't do that.
[25:25] See, what God has promised he will do, he must do. Even though we don't have it now, if it is his will that we should have it, then we shall have it and nothing in hell and earth will stop that.
[25:38] That's why the Bible is so encouraging. Read the life stories of God's people all the way through. Abraham, given the promise that he would have a son. Oh, did that arrive in nine months?
[25:48] No. Was it nine years? No. It was 25 years later the promised son came. He believed God. David was anointed as king over Israel when he was just a young man.
[26:01] How long did he wait? Decades till he actually received the crown and was king over all of Israel. Joseph, that young boy, had that amazing dream from God that his father and his brothers would honor him and reverence him.
[26:16] Again, 20 years or more through captivity, through imprisonment, through slavery. What about God's people taken into Babylon waiting 70 years for the promise to be fulfilled that they would be set free and brought again?
[26:34] And what about the Lord Jesus Christ? If you know your Bible, you'll know that God promised a savior right back in the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter 3. Thousands of years later, Christ stood upon the earth as the savior of sinners to undo the work that Adam and Eve did, to bring life instead of death, restoration instead of destruction.
[27:02] Jesus came as God promised in his time. Here's Galatians 4. But when the time had fully come, God sent his son.
[27:13] When the time had fully come, you may be waiting, dear friends, but that waiting isn't in vain. It isn't hopeless or helpless. There is a goal.
[27:25] There is an end. God's promise will be fulfilled in his time. There's something else that we have to bear in mind here, which, again, we find hard to conceive of, but it's Jesus' words as he meets the man the second time.
[27:38] Now that he's healed and walking, Jesus says to him something which we might feel, again, is quite strange. He says to him, see you are well again, stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.
[27:51] There is something worse than being lame for 38 years. There's something worse than the difficulty and the pain that we're enduring as we are waiting for prayer to be answered, as we are longing for God to intervene into our situation.
[28:05] It could well be that God has spared us from many heartaches by allowing us and bringing us into the situation in which we're in. Of course, there's something much worse than physical illness and paralysis, and that, of course, is sin itself.
[28:25] There's something much worse than physical pain. There's something much worse than physical suffering. Awful though those things are, real though those things are, concerned though God is for those things, the worst thing is to be cut off from God.
[28:38] The worst thing is to stay in our sin and to face that day of judgment. The worst thing ever is to have to stand before a holy God and for God to say, I never knew you and to cast us away from his presence for all eternity.
[28:53] That's a reality. It's real and more real than the physical difficulties of paralysis or pain or discomfort or broken dreams.
[29:03] Jesus isn't just saying to this man, look, there's always somebody worse off than yourself. There always is, it seems, somebody worse off than ourselves, but really we don't need to be told there's somebody worse off than ourselves.
[29:18] That's very little comfort. Jesus isn't saying that. Rather, in one sense, I think he's saying this, get yourself right with God. Don't continue in the course of being ignorant of God.
[29:31] Get right with God and put your heart right with him and your life right with him. You don't know what God has spared you from already. And even in our present trial and testing, it could well be that God has protected us from something such much worse.
[29:50] I wanted to read a quote to you from Joni Erickson. Joni Erickson, I couldn't find it in the book, but those of you who know her story will know that as she gets to the very end, this is a young girl, 18, who in a diving accident was completely paraplegic from the neck down, paralyzed.
[30:07] She was able to say a long time later, not the next day, a long time later, I know that God did that for my good and that he spared me from all sorts of heartache and sorrow and grief by allowing me to have that terrible accident.
[30:24] and through that, she has a great and wonderful ministry to help and care for others in a similar situation. But dear friends, we just don't know what God has spared us from.
[30:35] We may feel that the present test is too hard for us. We may feel that we're going under because the strain and the heartache that we're facing at this time is something which is overwhelming.
[30:49] But it may well be, dear friends, that God has prevented us from enduring something much, much worse. Here's Paul again as he writes.
[31:00] He says this, No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
[31:15] So here's the question as we close. How are we to wait? We're still waiting for God to do something in our situation. We're still waiting perhaps for God to bring revival in our day.
[31:27] We're waiting for that person to come to faith in Christ. We're waiting for some help and healing in that situation, whether it be inward or outward. How are we to continue to wait?
[31:41] Well, first of all, we are not simply to wait for God with a sense of resignation as if it was just, well, a matter of luck or chance. We are to wait upon God.
[31:52] There's a big difference. We wait for the bus, but we are to wait upon God. We're not just sitting twiddling our thumbs thinking, well, perhaps something will happen.
[32:03] Perhaps God will hear. Perhaps my luck will change. Actively waiting upon God is an exercise of our faith in a heavenly Father whose plans for us are good.
[32:15] It's waiting upon him with expectation. It's saying, Lord, I believe and know that you can change and work in this situation and I believe and trust you are at work here to bring about your plan for me.
[32:30] It's a hopeful thing, not just a hopeless thing. We are to wait upon a loving heavenly Father, a loving heavenly Father who the Bible tells us and teaches us and we know from our own experience is a God who loves to give good gifts to his children, who withholds no good thing from those who love him, a loving heavenly Father for whom nothing is too hard, a loving heavenly Father who has given his own Son and how will he withhold from us any good thing if he's given such a great price to have us.
[33:04] But it means also as we wait we are to pray and to keep on praying and persevere in prayer. Jesus told many parables about this.
[33:15] Luke 18, Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and not give up and he tells this wonderful parable which is my favourite about the nagging widow and the judge.
[33:27] A judge who didn't care about man or God but this widow kept on saying give me justice and he says though I don't care about God or man I just to shut this old woman up that's my paraphrase I'm going to give her what she wants.
[33:41] But Jesus says this how much more how much more will God bring about justice for his chosen ones? God's not somebody to be nagged.
[33:54] When we're praying we're not nagging God. When we're praying we're exercising faith in God. We're saying Lord I trust you and I'm looking to you and I'm asking you keep on praying please don't give up that's exactly the wrong thing to do.
[34:10] Keep on asking keep on looking keep on pleading keep on praying. And then lastly dear friends finally we're to live trusting in God's grace to keep us to help us as we wait on him.
[34:28] The Apostle Paul was a man who knew great suffering and trials but the greatest trial he had he shares with us when he writes in 2 Corinthians in chapter 12 he says this three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
[34:44] He calls it a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what it is whether it was physical or emotional or spiritual or what it was but we know that three times he prayed and he doesn't just say I prayed I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
[34:57] But he said to me my grace is sufficient for you and my power is made perfect in weakness. Paul received grace to wait though he longed for he pleaded with God for he sought with God for this he knew God's sufficient grace to help him as he waited as he trusted as he prayed.
[35:24] This is the wonderful thing for us. It's not that God will always give us what we want because he knows what we need and he'll give us always that but it will be that God gives us grace to sustain us to help us as we wait on him.
[35:41] He isn't absent from us he isn't careless of us he knows the weakness he knows the pressure Jesus himself felt it as he walked in this earth that's why we're told we have this high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses and to whom we can come on his throne of grace for help in time of need.
[36:04] God's supernatural strength continues with us day by day by day. Now here is something which is unique not to the British but to the Christian that we are able to delight in weaknesses we are able to rest on God we are able to know his divine strength because it is our perfect supply in every situation.
[36:28] Let me ask you again these questions what are you waiting for? Do you really want it? Let's pray.
[36:39] our hearts are open before you our God and you know us completely though we may pretend to be somebody else to one another and even pretend to be somebody else to ourselves we can't hide from you and you know Lord those things that are heavy on our hearts those longings and desires that we have each is individual to each one of us and Lord we thank you that you are the God who hears us when we pray you are the God who has taken the initiative to provide for us all that we need and again our prayer and longing is this that you would hear us and answer us we particularly pray Lord for those who are not saved still in their sin perhaps we think that our greatest need is a physical matter or an emotional matter but actually our greatest need is to be restored and reconciled to you to be born again of your spirit oh Lord give us that longing that hungering that desire that yearning that aching so that we may turn to you because it is your good pleasure to relieve and to save for those of us who are struggling
[38:09] Lord and you alone know how difficult each day is even getting here this morning was very difficult for us for one reason or another we ask you to continue to give us grace for each day continue to give us hope for each day continue Lord to sustain us that we might prove you faithful and help us Lord to wait upon you yet Lord knowing that in your good and perfect time should it be your will you will bring us through so Lord we do ask these things that we may keep praying hoping receiving that we might be again those people who know the reality of Christ in our lives and that Lord through our lives you may get glory and praise for yourself Amen Lord amen of God and that Lord forget to understand God to understand the earth that wealer that we ease that we need
[39:09] Do notmek toえて it that we are in the where we will add on the Father how we know how we will add the Father ask that we and something will make over our food or in all